Bottomless Pit

So we've got Hammer of the Gods from 2007, and the Congress EP released the following year. Only good things were said about these records in the Silkworm thread, because they're both amazing sounding, very fulfilling rock records.

We're a few months from the release of Blood Under the Bridge in August, so I figured their own dedicated thread is probably overdue by now. Comedy Minus One is hosting an MP3 of "38 Souls," and there's three other songs available among the usual social networking suspects. They're all great. "38 Souls" in particular features maybe the best Andy Cohen wailage I've ever heard, which is saying something. No shortage of beautiful tones from that baritone guitar, too. I will also go on record saying that Tim Midgett has my favorite singing voice, and he sounds better than ever here.

I have to say, "Pitch" on the Congress EP is on par with the best of Silkworm in my opinon. Excited for the new album.

"opinion," fuck

Yeah "Pitch" and "Red Pen" are my two favorite songs by them, and I've loved all of it so far. Its the kind of melodic 90s rock sound I've been loving lately. Musically, the compositions seem more mature than anything they did as Silkworm. Love both bands.

Yeah, that EP is perfect. It's funny though, "Pitch" might be my least-favorite song on it. "Angry Swan" takes top honors for me, with that rave-up ending. So good.

As far as I know, Silkworm never stepped on a pedal that wasn't merely distortion, which is what sets them apart from The Pit (I'm gonna go ahead and call them that for short). There's some really tasteful use of delay that adds tremendous depth to a lot of the guitar parts - "Red Pen" and "Possession" in particular come to mind - and it suits the somber mood. Silkworm seemed a lot more garagey in contrast, way more balls out.

Never got the chance to see Silkworm live, so I'm pretty excited to see them in Chicago next week. Haven't anticipated a show like this in a good long while.

It's weird how similar and how different they are from Silkworm. Obviously the singing's pretty similar, though Midgett seems to be taking a softer tone on a lot of the songs he sings. Cohen's guitar-playing is pretty similar (this is a good thing). But the songwriting is so different, the songs are longer and looser but also more controlled?

also the two-guitar interplay adds a lot obviously

the new cd is pretty cool looking (for a cd)

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs657.snc3/32452_423145014065_28511889065_5351981_3115143_n.jpg
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs617.snc3/32452_423145144065_28511889065_5351982_3997102_n.jpg

but what does it sound like?

no vinyl?????

found a song on the label's site!!1

http://www.comedyminusone.com/sounds/38souls.mp3

oh, there'll be vinyl i'm sure, that just happened to be a picture of the cd that i found

but what does it sound like?

― cutty, Thursday, June 3, 2010 6:36 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWh4VE8omTI

iiiijjjj — May 13, 2010

yeah so

just acknowledging it's from ilx user iiiijjjj, who started this thread

i didn't really need a response from you

oh, ok. i'm sorry. do you like the track?

i do!

dig that new track. I love all of their stuff.

amazing soloing on the new song

cohen is one of my fav lyricists

oh yeah

listening to the new one now

first track is straight-up spectacular

oh man. so excited.

2nd track, "Rhinelander," has a guitar solo that's like Jerry Garcia vs. Stephen Malkmus without any drums - airy heavenly twinkling sound

3rd track starts off like something from the Blueblood sessions

daaaaamn

gonna restrain myself to the one track on mp3 on comedy minus one for now

oh damn this is awesome.

i love cohen's unjoking downer songs

cf "ritz dance"

I got this because the people working it sent me a promo btw so if you have a blog write to them

lol it's highly likely i am going to be cranky 90s-indie guy telling everyone bottomless pit made the best record of 2010

I liked the first bottomless pit but this is a huge step up to my ears. very very strong writing & performances, really good recording - wonder if they did this in A or B

did you ever listen to the ep? cause it's a huge step up from the first record too.

yeah I did, it's a quantum leap. listening to it now actually, that first song and its huge sweep, the real depth of emotion that to me was missing from Italian Platinum & It'll Be Cool.

hey guys nice spending the day listening to the new bottomless pit with y'all

listening for the 3x

:)

"so many fuckers in this world..."

where is del griffith

"kiss them all" is fucking unbelievable

got mine in the mail on thursday. haven't heard it all yet. but damn i was getting chills in the car today because the drums on 38 souls sound EXACTLY like dahlquist's playing

such a terrific, haunting song--it won't leave my head.

cant remember ever hearing about this band before i clicked on this thread -- listening to "winterwind" on their myspace right now. not too bad

have you ever listened to silkworm

dont think so yo

oh they're only one of the best three indie rock bands ever by any imaginable yardstick

stop what you are doing and listen to silkworm

the guitar tone on this tune is pretty dope & the productions great

which silkworm record do you recommend

any of them, but i will say side 1 of developer

markers, I think I speak on behalf of call all destroyer & myself when I request permission to go completely ham on you for not knowing silkworm

developer & lifestyle are my recs

but don't miss some of "blueblood," "empty elevator shaft" is all-time

Loving this record. Going to see them next month in Mad City.

are they a 3 piece now?

They're doing a free in-store and a real show here in Chicago, gonna try and hit both.

Man my pre-order got delivered really early, huh.

are they a 3 piece now?

― lorde willin' (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 23 October 2013 17:37 (1 hour ago) Permalink

No same four piece line-up

Saw them play the new album (and a Jason Molina song as an encore) yesterday at an in-store. It's crazy to me how well they make the baritone guitar and the bass guitar work together. They never really seem to step on each others' toes. I want a baritone guitar.

Tim & Andy where busy yesterday
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm2HoYpHJ6Q

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYMBM79CYAAK5le.png

You can play "Where's NA?" in this picture of the in-store.

I'm still planning on driving to Madison this Saturday to see BP, even though it is supposed to goddamn snow this week. Milwaukee folks should be aware they are playing this Friday at Frank's with Light Coma (Brian O from BP's band, who are just fucking awesome) & the excellent Wereworm

From my vantage point:

http://i42.tinypic.com/550xzm.jpg

is that NA cut off at the extreme right?

Ha yep

Does anyone know what the pedals are that Tim uses? the ones that look like the bass pedals from a piano/organ? I couldn't tell if he was using them to trigger an effect pedal or if they are tied to his crazy custom baritone guitar.

Good show last in Madison, though the sound was spotty in parts, cuz it was literally a clothing store, but still worthwhile They played "Red Pen" and "Rhinelander" which was nice treat. A fun and Wisconsin-strange night.

this record kicks so much ass

i love how cohesive it is and also how each song is like its own expanding universe

I liked it to being with, but the more I listen to it the more I enjoy it. Really great.

on the new one, they seem mixed way down and i can't make a lot of them out--result is this seems a lot more oblique than any bp stuff to date.

this is one of my favorite things about this record - it feels really muted and understated, but then every so often a killer line comes out of nowhere and just knocks me out cold. "i have limits to my personality/i'll be anyone as long as you want me." jesus christ.

yeah this is great so far

love the rhythm section on this, so groove oriented, just repetitive loops played so great

chris was saying best thing since Italian Platinum and i'm starting to agree

Still think the Congress EP is the best thing they've done myself.

yeah that's great too, but this is getting right up there for me.
"sacred trench" rules

"Felt A Little Left" knocked me down first time I listened through.

http://vishkhanna.com/2013/11/14/ep-52-tim-midyett-of-bottomless-pit/

I haven't listened to this yet, and the one other episode of this podcast I tried (Jon Wurster) was not very good.

This threat is almost convincing me to give SKWM/BP another shot

I listened to the interview last night it is pretty good, I'm glad Tim is doing interviews again. He stumps for "Lulu"! Also, he was wearing the Metallica t-shirt mentions in the interview when I saw them the other day, it's a cool shirt.

i did not know there were two versions of tim's last name??

I was confused by that too.

I mentioned this on the Chicago thread but I have an extra free ticket to the show at Township on Saturday if anyone wants to go.

his personal site and linkedin seem to use "midyett," which is news to me.

is this a representative bottomless pit song?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dil3f7nwDYk

yup

always good to hear tim talk but my god that guy is the worst host/interviewer. albini was really having trouble being patient with him.

his personal site and linkedin seem to use "midyett," which is news to me.

http://www.nuvo.net/MusicBlog/archives/2013/11/12/bottomless-pits-tim-midyett-on-shade-perennial-and-jason-molina

NUVO: Totally different topic, but interesting to me: you changed your name, recently, correct? The spelling of your last name? Pronunciation as well as spelling?

Midyett: Yeah. It was straight-up "midget" before. And now, it's "midd-yett," which is the modern pronunciation of that spelling, Midgett. In French, it's "mid-e-ett." They came over to the Carolinas, mid-1700s there was a split, and people were like, "I'm tired of not knowing how to pronounce my name," so they just wrote "Midgett."

Then, like a 100 years after that, P.T. Barnum started calling dwarves "midgets" in the circus. And, for a while - this is more than you wanted to know probably.

NUVO: I could not be more interested. (Editor's note: This was said very sincerely. She really could not have been more interested in this etymological side note.)

Midyett: - for a while, after Barnum started using it in the circus, midget was the preferred term (for little people). Midget sort of implied that you were proportionally "normal," whereas dwarves had dwarfism - long torsos, shorter legs, etc. Couple things: one, the outward signs of dwarfism are almost gone, because they've figured out how to avoid those, with prenatal care. There are much fewer people who exhibit the typical proportions of dwarfism. Second, little people realized that "midget" was a circus term, and they were like, "Well, what the hell? I don't want to be called a midget anymore. That's terrible." And so it became a pejorative, in my lifetime, in the last 20 years. And it only happened about five or six years ago that I noticed that people didn't want to say it - they didn't want to say my name. And then I did some research and realized, "Aw, crap. This is not cool." It's like having any other kind of slur as a last name.

So I changed it. And my whole family still has the same name. But, I partly changed it because of that, for myself. But mostly because I have a kid. And it's not like it's going to change back (from being a pejorative). It's not like it's going to be cool to call people that again. So I thought, "I'm just going to make her life easier, and swap that." Plus, it's not the original name, anyway.

NUVO: It's fascinating how language changes. For someone who does not care about sports at all, it's been fascinating keeping up with the http://images.chron.com/blogs/askacat/hatcat.JPG debate happening in sports writing right now. If someone is telling you, "I'm offended when you use that word," then, change it!

Midyett: Yeah! Who cares! I finally realized, I have nothing invested ... anyone who wants to find me, can find me. There's no reason for me to keep my name. And if it makes anyone uncomfortable, or me (uncomfortable) or it's going to make my kid's life 1 percent weirder, just forget it.

NUVO: I kept going back and forth before I realized that you officially changed it wondering if I was spelling it wrong. And now, mystery answered!

lol

that interview is from this week but he changed it at least a couple of years ago afaik

oh wow, that's pretty interesting. good for him.

finally getting to the new one, not having read reviews of it except to glance at them. much less immediate record to me than the others, which is kind of welcome - I love the last one especially but this one mixes it up a little, which I attribute to Andy being a little more dominant than on the other ones - I think they divide the songs more or less equally, I haven't counted? but the other ones, it's the Tim-melodic stuff that resonates for me, whereas on this one I feel like the grittier/rockier side is clearer

really fleshes out the picture, although my favorite stuff is always gonna be the super-wistful things like "kiss 'em all" but this feels like it could do the thing Developer did where I just keep coming back to it to dig & dig & dig - like it'll repay living with it for a while

"Horse Trading"'s melody is pretty reminiscent of Dido's "Thank You" (the one that got sampled for that Eminem song) which throws me some in a good way

Ha I've been thinking the same thing, glad I'm not totally insane.

I saw them again on Saturday and it was better than the in-store I went to a couple of weeks ago. Part of it was that they were playing old stuff too instead of just the new album, but the energy was better in general as well.

Oh damn that's what that is!

xp

Shade Perennial is slowly getting better and better each time I listen to it. I had been missing the space of the older songs, the long instrumental parts, but today the new one is hitting the spot.

On a side note, has anyone heard the new Joel RL Phelps yet? Not sure if it's out yet. I was never a huge fan of his solo stuff but maybe I'll give the new one a shot.

On indefinite hiatus per FB last night

Hi everyone—I would like you to know that Bottomless Pit is on indefinite hiatus. I wasn’t going to make a big thing of announcing it, but I do get inquiries as to our availability, and I finally decided it was best to make it official. We are all still good friends and pleased with what we have done. I’m making music now under the name Mint Mile, with Andy’s involvement. Likely Andy will get his own thing together at some point. I'll post any updates on that front here. Can’t tell you how much we appreciate your interest. See you around. Very best, Tim

Wish they would have made it to New York for a show first! Oh well.

Well that sucks. Glad I got to see them a few times.

Lucky

aw :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA0rolG0-24

http://www.comedyminusone.com/029.php

the mint mile ep is very good

I still listen to Bottomless Pit almost every day.

Other artists that never leave my rotation: The Clientele, Glenn Jones (guitarist), Lilys, pre-2013 Mark Kozelek projects, Cass McCombs, Polvo, various Flying Nun bands (at least one at all times)