Frank Kogan On Garage Rock

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http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0329/kogan.php

I like some of his points, but it seems a bit hesitant...like he's either trying to convince himself that he does like them or that he doesn't...but then again maybe ambivalence is a more honest reaction than most you read about Garage Rock. But I would to have liked to see the contrasts with Pop articulated further...he just seems to say that the effortless glide of Justin and Britney automatically outweighs the galumph of Garage Rock without really saying why - it does seem like a good angle to contrast.

― mr. pibb, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm thrilled to see big time press coverage for FM Knives.

― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:24 (twenty-two years ago)

And I was accused of gushing over the Deadly Snakes...he says they compare favourably to Dylan. All I said was:

Ode to Joy
The Deadly Snakes
In The Red
5 stars

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the world’s greatest garage rock
band. Forget about Sweden, Detroit and New Zealand, the only
scuzzbucket rock & roll record you need to hear this (or any
other) year comes from within our own borders. On their third
full-length album, Toronto’s The Deadly Snakes have moved head
and shoulders above the slack-jawed rogues gallery that populates
the current garage rock scene.
Lyrically, Ode to Joy is a harrowing ride through the dark places
that you can only get to by giving to the most base human desires.
Musically, it’s a dizzyingly uplifting mix of soul, gospel and
rot-gut rock & roll.
Though songs like “Oh My Bride” (as swell a murder ballad as
ever you’ll hear), “I Want to Die” (an gloriously upbeat number
about feeling beat down) and “Trouble’s Gonna Stay Awhile” are
unhaltingly cynical, bitter and sometimes even cruel, the Deadly
Snakes somehow transcend all of the negativity. Ode to Joy is
just that, life-affirming, edifying, essential.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:32 (twenty-two years ago)

okay, so I gushed.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 14:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Weird, I didn't read that as a "gush" ad all. Kogan, I mean. You definitely gushed. I still need to hear that new Deadly Snakes record myself but what I've heard of them in the past wasn't very good.

― mr pibb, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:41 (twenty-two years ago)

I found it mostly unreadable, like much of thee VV, and I imagined him stopping each album after a few minutes to throw on some Britney and Justin Timberlake. That's how this shit read, at least.

― ham on rye (ham on rye), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 16:50 (twenty-two years ago)

And other than their being Swedish and playing an organ, and a Beatlesque chord here and there, [the Caesars] not particularly garage rock as I'd have used the term a couple of years ago. The harmonies ... are more '90s than '60s, more Gin Blossoms than Beatles.

Heh, the first time I heard this band -- when Minty Fresh put out something of theirs in 1998 -- I thought they sounded like Oasis and Smashmouth.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 17:31 (twenty-two years ago)

the FM Knives rule all. I'm pissed that I didn't see them when they played detroit, but they played at a place in detroit where shows don't start until about 9 hours before I have to be at work the next day, fuckers.

jesus--do NONE of these bar/club/promoter folk have dayjobs, or all they all students/trust-fund kids?

― Kingfish (Kingfish), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 18:45 (twenty-two years ago)

where the hell is kogan these days?

― James Blount (James Blount), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 18:46 (twenty-two years ago)

on the Kuhn thread of ILE. big time.

― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 20:01 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh and the Clone Defects are terrible/pricks.

― David Allen, Tuesday, 15 July 2003 20:03 (twenty-two years ago)

''on the Kuhn thread of ILE. big time.''

you can say that again! I'll have to push my printer to its limits soon.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 15 July 2003 20:09 (twenty-two years ago)

three weeks pass...

i can't tell if Kogan just doesn't get it or he's pretending to just not get it.

― Black Whitey, Monday, 11 August 2003 19:01 (twenty-two years ago)

what doesn't he get?

― nnnh oh oh nnnh nnnh oh (James Blount), Monday, 11 August 2003 19:23 (twenty-two years ago)

yes let's here more on getting it, Black Whitey.

― g--ff c-nn-n (gcannon), Monday, 11 August 2003 19:43 (twenty-two years ago)

He seems to be saying that there's no it yet to get. (Hence the hesitancy that Pibb noted.) And he could have mentioned that he wrote the same damn article two years ago (Gore Gore Girls, Fabulous Disaster, Mensen, Color Guard, etc.) at a time when no one was making any claims for an it, so he didn't have to deal with it.

Also, he never explains why Deadlies worse than Dylan despite better rhythm while Britney better than Deadly Clones because of better rhythm.

He does, however, imply (in a passage that no more than five people in the world were likely to get) that Clonies were doing what he was doing 22 years ago. (He meant this as a compliment.)

― Frank Kogan (Frank Kogan), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:52 (twenty-two years ago)

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