The Clean or The Chills

Well. Both inarguably? great bands but who is your most favourite or played these days? I guess The Clean have been more consistently sporadic with their touring and albums, especially within USA, and their reputation and 'influence' has only apparently grown, whereas The Chills fell completely off the radar after a busier 80's and it kind of feels like to me they are less remembered and regarded than Kilgour, Kilgour and Scott. Also as great as The Clean are, personally I have probably played them too much so now I listen to The Chills more these days. They have a new record coming out too and it sounds very fine. So. Who is your favourite, who has aged the best? If someone put a gun to your head etc, etc....choose your own stupid pointless scenario and discuss this battle of the ageless grace.

If someone put a gun to your head etc, etc

point that thing somewhere else

Look for the good in others and they'll see the good in you. I figured The Clean would be most people's picks.

Pick.

chills

The Bats over both!

Chills

Chills

clean

I don't play music these days, but Chills

i dunno. but "pink frost" might hit me harder than any single song by the clean

I'd go Chills (but also Bats above both, even if Chills highs are higher).

There are a host of Flying Nun pop bands whose appeal never quite hit me, like the Verlaines, Straightjacket Fits, etc. I've heard them, but don't quite get them.

Soft spot for the noisy stuff, though, like Gordons/Bailter Space and 3Ds.

Dead C rule all

Eh, different animal, really, isn't it?

I'm not sure what you mean by noisy stuff then

they released records on flying nun. they're from new zealand. they wrote lots of songs. their drummer played with the verlaines. but yes, an entirely different animal.

Oh, sure, I would definitely put them in the noisy pantheon of those bands I mentioned as an aside. I just meant different animal from the popier stuff the thread addresses.

right i forgot you were the only person allowed to introduce the topic of noisy stuff from new zealand like Gordons/Bailter Space and 3Ds on a thread that is otherwise about the popier stuff the thread addresses

I'm sorry you're taking this very personally. Ward Fowler rules all.

I mean, dude, we're only posting on a thread about bands we all or many of us like. I like the Dead C., I like the Bats. I wasn't trying to shut down discussion or your tastes.

Did not realize the Dead C's had released records on Flying Nun or that their drummer had played with the Verlaines.

Chills. I love everything on Kaleidoscope World, Brave Words and Submarine Bells.

Bailter Space also isn't so completely far removed from the pop side like Dead C, which could be why Josh reacted that way initially.

didn't we already have this conversation on the sandbox a few years ago?!

there are no new waves there is only the ocean

i dunno. but "pink frost" might hit me harder than any single song by the clean

See I love both, but I'm the same way in the other direction, "Odditty" towers over the rest of both bands' output, so the Clean it is.

I do love "Brave Words" to death though.

All those other bands are undeniably great - I was hoping for once the discussion might mainly stick to these two bands in particular - they do share similar qualities and places in the ' conversation'. I mean does every single discussion about an individual band or bands on Flying Nun have to devolve into a into some kind of comparative study of the whole roster? I don't suppose it is that much of a problem, but if I was in any of these bands I could imagine getting tired of always having to talk about Flying Nun in general like it was some big homogeneous blob, ignoring the colour and identity of each band.

Sorry, silly rant.

Chills every day and twice on Sunday.

"Sketch book" over "Oddities".

Chills for me, too. Though I thought they were disappointing live recently.

Surprised that most are choosing The Chills. What makes them more compelling than the Clean? For me The Cleans best songs are all on Compilation - a record which for some reason makes me think about The Buzzcocks Going Steady comp. In that it is uniformly great and could stand as a single document representing the whole. Not to say Vehicle et al are not fine but that for me, by then they had lost the element of surprise. Live though of course The Clean is whole different beast. Whereas The Chills I think spread out there goodness and have so many great songs up to and including Submarinr Bells - before they were swallowed up by ' acid house and grunge'. I have had a listen to Soft Bomb recently and was surprised to discover I liked a lot of this too. So to sum up: Chills by a nose because they have more hummable,songs which I still play now. If it were a comparison as a live animal though I would find it hard to vote against The Clean who on a good night feel so elemental and locked in to some great mysterious primal pulse that they seem like the only band worth bothering with.

clean. chills never did it for me, 'pink frost' aside.

Surprised that most are choosing The Chills.

Cosign; in NZ the Clean loom a lot larger both by seeming earlier/more protean (they're the Velvet Underground of NZ indie tbh, leading to the Xpressway or Pumice-y end of things as much as landfill Flying Nun stuff), + having quietly kept on rather than the various implosions of Martin Phillips. The Terminals vs 3Ds thread sort've underlined how wildly different the stature/positioning of these bands in NZ vs overseas is, though.

sometimes boodle boodle boodle is the greatest thing i can ever imagine happening in my lifetime.

that last post is poorly worded. i meant to say ' the clean '

I think one reason I veer Chills is because in many ways it's the evolution of one man's musical vision, with lots of great beauty every step of the way. The Clean have that, too, but not only is shambling a part of its appeal, it's almost more of a sum of its parts thing. NZ VU OTM, basically. And that should be enough. But ultimately I think I like a lot of Chills stuff more.

does every single discussion about an individual band or bands on Flying Nun have to devolve into a into some kind of comparative study of the whole roster?

As much my fault as anyone's, but I think the Clean and Chills and Bats and Tall Dwarves/Chris Knox et al. are so tied together, it's hard to talk about one without the other. So many shared members. I mean, Peter Gutteridge was in the Clean, and also co-founded the Chills, but also played with Shayne Carter (right?). Then you get Chris Knox, who produced "Tally Ho!" (on which Martin Phillipps played the organ part), did his own thing, Tall Dwarves, etc.

This is a hard question to answer. There was a time in my life when I valued Kaleidescape World and Brave Words more than just about everything. But that was a long time ago. Now I'm more likely to listen to Compilation or Vehicle.

Boodle, Boodle, Boodle is untouchable

Was just listening to "Soft Bomb" again, and man, "Song for Randy Newman, Etc." is such a sad, weird tragic song, the only song about overlooked cult artists sung by an overlooked cult artist. Saw some blurb online that accurately described it as "so full of humility and yet so arrogant and so certain of what it knows and resigned to it that it transcends and leaves behind the downer vibe it carries like a cross."

Coupla nice/perceptive Christgau blurbs on the Slash records, too:

Submarine Bells [Slash/Warner Bros., 1990]
I might never have known without the printed lyrics, but there's no evidence here that Martin Phillipps is in love with death. He just sees too much of it. So don't dismiss the printed Greenpeace propaganda as gratuitous--for the Chills it's an antidote. What distinguishes them from so many politically well-meaning popsters is that neither cheery music nor dour message is one-dimensional or pro forma--they generate plenty of punk gall and a surprising complement of bliss. Maybe "Heavenly Pop Hit" is about waking up as an angel, but I say Phillipps believes there can be a heaven before he's dead, and if his vision of transcendence is a bit nature-bound for my tastes, it's the thought that counts. Anyway, his true theme song is "Singing in My Sleep," about all the other theme songs--"a word from the wise for the mindless," "a stinging reproach against violence," etc.--that he can't remember in the morning. A

Soft Bomb [Slash/Reprise, 1992]
As with so many formal coups, one of the pleasures of Submarine Bells was how incorrigibly it challenged unwritten rules (about brightness, concreteness, pretension, keyboards) while adhering to the ones you really can't break (about tunefulness, concision, savvy, guitars). This is just the opposite: adventurous on a surface that accommodates depressive codas and Van Dyke Parks strings, but produced with Martin Phillipps's newly acquired phalanx of L.A. sidemen in mind. Though most garage-pop improves when the beat gets solider, the hooks get clearer, the singer moves up in the mix, and Peter Holsapple adds a guitar, these devices are misconceived for the evanescent Chills. Even when they're all 20 seconds too long, however, Phillipps's tunes stay with you. Reordered to close on "Song for Randy Newman Etc.," a living metaphor for the difficulty of his craft, and to surround the personal songs with the social context Phillipps captures so much more vividly than he thinks he does, this would be a worthy follow-up. I suggest a tape that goes 1-2-3-11-8-6-12-10-13-14-4-9. Skip the fragments, and the long dead metaphor for the shallowness of his craft that implicates a defenseless cab driver. Continue to foreground "Male Monster From the Id," a Greenpeace supporter's bleeding-heart analysis of the sexual power play. A-

Sorry for the bad form of posting one's own piece, but thought Chills fans would like to see my interview with Martin Phillipps.

cool!
been digging the bbc sessions chills release lately.

Nice

Wow, did not know of all his health issues...

That is a great interview, thank you for sharing. Very sad to hear about all of his health issues. Hep C is really tragic. Is there any chance The Chills will ever make it back stateside? Would be a dream...

this clip is fun because at about 1:25 in you can see the guy from the chills dancing in moderation on the side

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X46Pw5zQgc

if you asked me at a concert standing by The Clean, I'd have said I'm okay and this is what I mean