Marc Fagel's Blog: Jittery White Guy Music: The Blog, page 129

Big Red Machine: How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last? (2021)

Big Red Machine is a side project from Aaron Dessner of the National and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver. They've released a pair of full-lengthers to date, both firmly in the "freak folk" genre (if that's even a thing). If you're a fan of either of those bands (particularly Bon Iver), this one is pretty essential, one of my favorite releases from last year; but even if you're enmeshed in the scene, it's a gorgeous, pastoral album of soothing contemporary folk/Americana music that's hard not to enjoy....

The Bluetones: Expecting To Fly (1996)

As noted on prior occasions, I pretty much skipped out on the 90s Britpop scene. Aside from some obvious hits by the likes of Oasis, Blur, and Pulp, many of the acts associated with the genre didn't get a lot of attention here at the States; and after my early 90s flirtations with some Manchester and shoegaze bands, my attention was firmly on US indie acts like Pavement, Yo La Tengo, Luna, GbV, etc.

But a recent attempt to put together a definitive Britpop mix for myself led me to discover a lot ...

Passengers (U2 & Brian Eno): Original Soundtracks 1 (1995)

Though attributed solely to the fictitious band Passengers, 1995's Original Soundtracks 1 was a side project from U2 and Brian Eno, trying to break up the intensity of their mid-1990s recording sessions with some more laid back studio jams. Like Eno's own Music For Films, the album is comprised of atmospheric backing music for imaginary soundtracks (though a good chunk of Films ended up used in actual movies and tv shows). This one abets Eno's more ambient work with a fair amount of electronica ...

Game Theory: A Top 10 List

I picked out my Top 10 Game Theory songs for Toppermost. Sheer jangle-pop heaven from the 80s. Check it out!

The Feelies: Crazy Rhythms (1980)

It was only after being introduced to the Feelies by way of 1986's phenomenal, Peter Buck-produced, pastoral jangly classic The Good Earth that I discovered their 1980 debut. And while my heart still belongs to Earth, Crazy Rhythms was nonetheless a revelation on first listen. Of all records, it's the nervous, nerdy, caffeinated jitter of Crazy Rhythms that probably best captures the ethos of my taste that an old friend once characterized as Jittery White Guy Music, which I adopted for this blog...

The Velvet Underground: The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967)

It's been awhile, figured I'd cheat a bit and share another excerpt from my book, Jittery White Guy Music:

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Frankly, I was a little frightened of this album. The reviews I had read left me with the impression that the record was noisy, confrontational, and downright perverted.
I was taking a filmmaking class at the time, a high school elective where we got to make Super 8 movies, with the teacher selecting a few of his favorites for a showing during the school’s biennial arts festival. I made a...

The Sneetches: 1985-1991 (1991)

The Sneetches were a San Francisco-based indie pop band who released a half-dozen or so records in the '80s and '90s. Their sound, a little too gentle and jangly to slot comfortably into the power pop genre, is unabashedly nostalgic for pre-psychedelia British Invasion pop, plenty of chiming hooks that call to mind pre-Revolver Beatles and Zombies and Hollies. All their releases were top-notch, never receiving their due, and I particularly enjoy 1985-1991. Title aside, it's not exactly a retrosp...

The Minders: Psychedelic Blacktop (2022)

The Minders are one of the original 90s-era Elephant 6 indie pop bands; I've written previously about their early work, so I don't need to add much here. But I'm pleased that, after a decade-long sabbatical, their second wind is going strong, if at a leisurely pace. 2016's Into The River was a welcome return, and the new one, released just last week, is even better, one of the band's most consistent records since their 1998 full-length debut. The title is a bit deceptive; the Minders were always...

Mojave 3: Puzzles Like You (2006)

London's Mojave 3 released five albums of mellow, dreamy, Southern California-drenched light pop in the '90s and '00s. Incongruously enough, the founding trio were all former members of Slowdive, purveyors of gauzy shoegaze (albeit on the more dream-pop side of the noise spectrum). But for their new band, they stripped away the heavy atmospheric ambience and replaced it with some gentle Americana guitar jangle. Puzzles Like You, the band's final release, upped the pop quotient a bit, augmenting ...

Harold & Maude: The Re-Imagined Soundtrack

Back in college, I had some friends who swore by the 1971 film Harold And Maude. I dimly remember finally catching it during a late-night viewing, when the university ran weekly showings of cult and art-house films catering largely to students who'd gotten a little too high and needed a place to crash out for a couple hours. (Other movies I remember seeing during this period: Clockwork Orange. The Harder They Come. 2001. And so on.) And yeah, it's a great movie, definitely unique, something I fi...