[narlus]

one of my favorite songs of '04 which really didn't make it over to our shores until '05, after the lawyers got done scrubbing it. The Go! Team is basically one guy, in a room w/ a stack of records and a headful of ideas, but it's not yr typical obvious-sample heavy hip-hop record. in fact, it's not hip-hop at all, but a strange amalgam of rock, ultra upbeat soul, playground chanting, and ambiguous soundtrack music.

vaguely reminiscent of the Hawaii 5-0 theme w/ a gale blowing over the top, the clincher is the out-of-nowhere harmonica melody that cinches it tight. a stunner.

the funny thing is that after the groundswell of support grew large enough to have labels sniff around, the inevitable question of how to support the record via touring forced founder Ian Parton to assemble an actual team which fit the stuff he stitched together.

i was lame and didn't see their 2nd boston appearance last tuesday, but hope to get out to catch them at one point.

Panther Dash

 

[urbaindk]

They look very happy.


Edit: Cool assortment of noises. I think I could get into a whole record but one song wasn't enough to properly set the mood.

 

[binary visions]

A little too abstract for me. Past few songs have been great - this one, not so much. I don't go for the aimless background noise.

We'll try again tomorrow

 

[narlus]

abstract? really? if you want sheets of noise or endless single-note drones, i've got those out the ying-yang.

maybe the lack of vocals played a part?

 

[urbaindk]

A little too abstract for me. Past few songs have been great - this one, not so much. I don't go for the aimless background noise.

We'll try again tomorrow

I guess that's kind of what I was saying. You kind of have to ease into it and start letting all the little sounds sneak in and tickle your ears. Probably sounds better on the record mixed in with other songs. Otherwise it just sounds out of place. Listen to it again you might find you like it more and more as you start to tune in and pick out new sounds from the background.

 

[narlus]

the recording is a bit murky, i will definitely grant you that.

the funny thing about the samples is that a lot weren't cleared and had to be deleted from the US version, but i couldn't really hear any difference between the two (not that i did an exhaustive a/b comparison, but still if a popular hip-hop song got re-released w/ uncleared samples removed, i'd bet it would be pretty obvious on 1st listen what got axed).

as a special FRIDAY BONUS, i will up another, different-sounding song from the record...i really dig the crap out of this release.

 

[binary visions]

abstract? really? if you want sheets of noise or endless single-note drones, i've got those out the ying-yang.

I didn't say too complex. I love complex musical passages. Maybe abstract was the wrong word, I just didn't groove with it.

maybe the lack of vocals played a part?

Maybe, but I don't discount songs without vocals. I have a lot of music with no vocals. I'll give it another listen when I get home, but I just didn't find anything interesting to listen to.

 

[narlus]

tough crowd...

here's Bottle Rocket

plus, you gotta love a band who chooses artwork for their singles like this:

 

[urbaindk]

the funny thing about the samples is that a lot weren't cleared and had to be deleted from the US version, but i couldn't really hear any difference between the two (not that i did an exhaustive a/b comparison, but still if a popular hip-hop song got re-released w/ uncleared samples removed, i'd bet it would be pretty obvious on 1st listen what got axed).

as a special FRIDAY BONUS, i will up another, different-sounding song from the record...i really dig the crap out of this release.

Can you list some of the samples used? I'm curious. Only one listen but I didn't pick out anything I recognized.

As for the extra. Cool. More is good!

 

[urbaindk]

tough crowd...

here's Bottle Rocket

plus, you gotta love a band who chooses artwork for their singles like this:

Is the horn first sample in this one the from Johnny Cash "ring of fire"?



This one is really cool.

 

[narlus]

you know, the only sample i ever picked up on was the Sonic Youth gtr sample in the beginning of "junior kickstart".

here's the Bitchfork review:

Human hearing is a pretty incredible thing. After millions of years of predator-avoidance natural selection, we've evolved the ability to discriminate very slight differences in frequency and to recall entire sequences of tones from memory. [NOTE: statement not applicable in Kansas and Harrisburg, Pa.] In modern times, we've harnessed this fantastic skill for truly awe-inspiring tasks, such as perfectly beat-matching LCD Soundsystem into New Order, or scowling derisively when a band's rhythm guitarist is a half-step out of tune.

These wondrous abilities are what had me dreading the American reissue of the Go! Team's excellent debut Thunder, Lightning, Strike. If you haven't heard the backstory, this lawyer-stuffed country made it difficult for the Go! Team to clear the original album's samples for domestic release, forcing the band to slightly tweak the material in order to purge the recordings of legal pitfalls. In addition, the record was reportedly given a gift certificate to the remastering day spa, a process with the potential to thoughtlessly drain some of the group's messy, homemade charm in the name of fidelity. With an album that's been widely available for over a year, even the smallest changes could prove annoyingly distracting to those who've been with the Go! Team from their blog-hype birth.

Fortunately, 1) Thunder, Lightning, Strike is no Paul's Boutique, and 2) Cheerleaders have crappy legal representation. To these obsessive ears, it seems that roughly 95% of the original music is intact, and the differences, where they arise, are minimally distracting. The fanfare horns that kick off "Junior Kickstart" might be slightly tweaked, "Bottle Rocket" might have a new rap from new frontwoman Ninja, they may have swapped one schmaltzy trumpet solo for another on "Everyone's a VIP to Someone", but rarely do the alterations change the character of the song. Even the EPCOT ride through girl-group history "Ladyflash", which I had most feared would go under the knife, is left unspoiled by copyright considerations, praise the courts.

Equally non-intrusive is the remastering, which does a nice job of housekeeping the extraneous hisses while maintaining the band's collage and needle-in-the-red sensibilities. In fact, the remix doesn't so much clean up the songs' pools of bleedover sound so much as merely stir them up, bringing to the surface some new elements that might not have been so readily apparent on the first release. "Panther Dash", for example, seems to contain a lot more power-tool noise-guitar parts than I remembered, reinforcing my impression from their live show that Sonic Youth is just as big an influence as cop themes and Avalanches.

With these factors decidedly non-intrusive, the most significant change to Thunder, Lightning, Strike is the promotion of "We Just Won't Be Defeated" and "Hold Yr Terror Close", formerly both B-sides, to the major league roster. Even this switch isn't all that disorienting, as "Defeated" adds a fresh cheerleader track to break up the mostly instrumental middle, and "Terror" offers a glimpse of the band's Children's Workshop twee side amidst the swirl of drum breaks and marching band blasts.

So the main point of this comparative review is that, well, there really is no comparison to be made. The Go! Team, rather skillfully, navigated the treacherous waters of sample clearance and remastering to prepare a domestic version of Thunder, Lightning, Strike no better or worse than the charming original. As such, it's only fitting to affix the same score upon it.

-Rob Mitchum, October 7, 2005

 

[spincrazy]

dig em both. thanks stonerdude

 

[DRB]

bottle rock has a Sugar Hill Gang old School feel.

panther dash is harmonica meet surf music meet free form jazz. I like it but I'm not sure why.

 

[urbaindk]

Bump for good music.

I just found this Go!Team cover of Sonic Youth's "Bull in the Heather" on a site called Music For Robots. Kicks much ass. Much good stuff on this site.

 

[narlus]

cool! thanks for the find. good choice of covers for the go! team. i've missed out on seeing them at least twice, if not 3 times. mostly because i was lame. will not make the same mistake next time.