we had some good machines, but they don't work no more

[rm]

Rediscovered Shriekback today at work, and I mean aside from the one song everyone knows (Nemesis). I love this band so much. And I always forget. Listening to The Dancing Years. Am struck by the number of songs they have involving sharks. Hammerheads!

Anyway, I'm trying to think of how to describe it, and I can't really other than to say, to me, it's like songs for the fall of Rome as written by William Gibson. Which suits my mood today, and has a lot more relevance now than when I was listening to this and The Screaming Blue Messiahs at the end of high school and feeling like I was living in this weird isolation driven entirely by the fact no one had heard of anything I was into musically at the time.

Anyway the live version of both Hammerheads and Faded Flowers (which is the source of the subject line) are really spectacular.

Comments

[fremen-dancer.livejournal.com]

I was just listening to "Faded Flowers" this morning on the way to work. Please knock before you enter my brain next time. ;)

[rm.livejournal.com]

How funny and weird

[marzipan-pig.livejournal.com]

lover come back to me
you don't have to knock on my door no
kick it right down kick it right down

just the thing to have an ex put on some mix tape

[baldanders.livejournal.com]

I thought "All Lined Up" was the song everyone knew!

Even from Oil and Gold, the one that really sticks in my head is "Everything That Rises Must Converge."

Some days I really like Shriekback, some days they make me roll my eyes. I always maintained they were the postpunk equivalent of the Moody Blues.

Hey, I should make you a Magazine mix. You would love them, I think.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Well they are very campy without being clear that they know it, so I can see how they would irritate you. Also, good musical connections, bad time and place.

Strange band.

And I guess I should say that Nemsis is the one all the goths know.

And honestly, Faded Flowers was once used in an episode of Miami Vice of some such. So really, how underground is that?

[targetmp.livejournal.com]

The only songs I know are "This Big Hush" and "Coelocanth" because they are from Micheal Mann's Manhunter. Which is, in many ways, better than Red Dragon.

They are camp-tastic, but it suits certain moods, especially "This Big Hush."

Manhunter is actually a pretty good soundtrack in general, too.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Very much so. It seems Mann uses Shriekback a lot. Faded Flowers was in an episode of Miami Vice at one point.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Manhunter is how I discovered Shriekback. I think that the "This Big Hush" sequence of the film is one of the best music videos ever made, and I say that with no pejoration at all.

And baldander's analogy to The Moody Blues strikes me as precisely right.

[delchi.livejournal.com]

Also, that was the first CD / song that a person gave me as a suggestion when I started out DJing.

" Here, take this. you HAVE to play it. Just trust me. PLay it. " - You