the long blondes

[simon silverdollar]

The NME is now classed as a 'mens lifestyle' mag rather'n a music one in any business planning by it's publishers which is a pretty clear idea what is going on with it.

"But yeah, the long blondes do seem to be harking back to a much more recent time- the sound of the mid to late 90s for teenagers who weren't into jungle and weren't into Oasis (i was one of these teenagers, incidentally)."--I don't get this from their music at all, sure it involves a recombination of the past but so does the Nathan Fake mentioned above and no-one is on his case (I don't think.) I can hear pretty clear gestures towards to girl groups/Pulp/scratchy post-punk and 60s garage (and certainly that stuff is waht they DJed when I saw 'em do so.) I wish I wasn't their only defender.

as i said, my problem with the long blondes isn't that they are a recombination of the past, but rather that i just don't think they write good songs.

I don't hear girl-group or scratchy post-punk influences in their music- the absence of the latter (which is now such a blanket influence in indie) was what made them stand out to me and got me interested at first.

i've only heard 5 tracks by them, and haven't seen them live, so i'm quite willing to revise my opinions- and yr comparison in 2003 piece to ESG suggests to me that i might end up doing just that. but, at the moment, i'm really not impressed by them.

i haven't heard the nathan fake album but i do quite like his two big neo prog-house tracks of last year or the year before, 'dinamo' and 'the sky was pink'. i heard his album is much more home-listening focussed, rather than full-on rave action. is that right?

 

[Raw Patrick]

Nathan Fake LP is kinda like he's trying to get the same effect as those singles but using IDM sounds instead of trance sounds--definitely home listening. I like it but I haven't home-listened enough to really work out how much.

I think the Long Blondes singles downplay their earlier post punk thing bcz it is so prevalent now--it was more Delta 5 than The Cure or, er, whatever The Bravery reference though.

 

[dominic]

(Dominic--who do you prefer? I'm fishing for tips for things to listen to.)

prefer in general? or w/in the category of "retro-ish"?

and wasn't this question already addressed on "indie" rock thread???

if narrowed down to such characteristics as retro-ish, garage-y, sex-y, girl-y, glam and fun, then i like for same reasons as long blondes these groups =

pink grease
nancy rubias
doll and the kicks
the pipettes
tits of death
countess and cunt rock revolution
slack republic
theo and the skyscrapers
eagles of death metal
jungle junkies
the twenty twos
electrocute
boy from brazil
the human value
tenderhead
past mistress
discovery
shrag

i consider most of the above "guilty pleasures" -- i.e., i like it and won't deny liking it, but i also won't unequivocally endorse it

(unequivocal = ladytron, brazilian girls, lisa e. + nights of malta, and a few select others)

and in the retro synth-pop category, more guilty girl-y pleasures =

new young pony club
bangbang
the knife
client
uffie

 

[ambrose]

the thing about the long blondes is that they wrote a song about the problem of segregation (from a transport point of view). its about the M18 and the M1 i think, and trying to cross them or something. segregation in this sense is the problems faced by communities when they are physically seperated by infrastructure from services, other neighbourhoods etc.

they said that they were the most fashionable people in sheffield so they met cos it was easy to spot each other, or something like that.

as for their music, i dunno.

as for sheffield, i wish i knew why its in thrall to indie/glammy/trashy/electroey rock stuff. im just keeping my head down and waiting for the kids to get back to techno. its a bit sad from my point of view that somewhere i viewed as having techno/electronic music running through its veins is almost toally bereft of it now. leeds is much much stronger for techno generally. "techno" here means psy trance/acid techno stuff of the crusty variety.