#laura ballance

[spilladabalia]

Superchunk - Precision Auto

[girlzguitarz]

[danicalithegirl]

I think you'd like this story: "Echoes in the Sanctuary" by DaniCaliTheGirl on Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/story/375291284?utm_source=android&utm_medium=sms&utm_content=story_info&wp_page=story_details_button&wp_uname=DaniCaliTheGirl

[diceriadelluntore]

Storia Di Musica #263 - Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, 1998

Tra le storie che ho raccolto sul tema dei dischi ispirati a libri, questa è sicuramente la più particolare, anche per il titolo che ispirò un geniale musicista della Louisiana a cimentarsi in una cosa del genere. Siamo a fine anni ‘80, il grunge è pronto ad esplodere e esaurirà la sua potenza in pochi anni con la tragica uscita di scena di Kurt Cobain. A Ruston, una cittadina di 22 mila abitanti, un gruppo di ragazzi fonda una comune artistica con annessa etichetta discografica, la Elephant 6 seguendo tutt’altra linea ideale: sono Robert Schneider, Will Cullen Hart, Bill Doss e Jeff Mangum. Condividono l'attenzione per le registrazioni “casalinghe”, soprattutto le registrazioni su cassette, che portarono pochi anni prima alla nascita del lo-fi, la musica colta, la psichedelia degli anni ‘60. Provano a suonare insieme, il punk (come Maggot), il pop (come Cranberry Lifecycle e Synthetic Flying Machine) e decidono di spostarsi a Athens, in Georgia, città famosa nel rock per essere la città natale degli R.E.M. Il gruppo si divide: Hart e Doss continuano come Olivia Tremor Control, Schneider va a Denver, Mangum parte per una sorta di tour spirituale degli Stati Uniti con la chitarra e un registratore a 4 piste. Ripesca alcune canzone scritte verso la fine degli anni ‘80, quando era ancora alle superiori, che aveva intitolato Milk, e le sviluppa nel suo nuovo progetto, Neutral Milk Hotel, nome su cui ha sempre glissato dal dare spiegazioni. Si inizia con Everything Is, singolo del 1993, poi Mangum suona il basso per la band che Schneider fondò a Denver, Apples in Stereo. A questo punto succede una cosa particolare: gli Apples in Stereo volevano firmare con la SpinART Records e incontrarono il loro rappresentante legale, Brian McPherson, a Los Angeles: Mangum quel giorno indossava una maglietta della Shrimper Records, una giovanissima casa discografica che si stava specializzando sul nuovo cantautorato americano. McPherson venne a conoscenza che aveva scritto Everything Is, una canzone che aveva molto apprezzato, e finì per chiedere rappresentanza sia agli Apples In Stereo sia di Neutral Milk Hotel. Alcune copie di Everything Is e un'altra canzone Ruby-Bulbs vengono spedite ai fondatori della Merge Records Laura Ballance e Mac McCaughan, che subito proposero a Mangum un disco. On Avery Island esce nel Marzo del 1996, prodotto a Denver con Schneider che aveva costruito un piccolo studio di registrazione, i Pet Sound Studios. Caratterizzato dal suono grezzo e lo-fi, dai suoi testi immaginifici, criptici e sognanti, il disco viene ben accolto dalle riviste specializzate ma vende pochissimo, qualche migliaio di copie. Il contratto con la Merge prevede un secondo disco, e Mangum inizia a leggere moltissimo per trovare ispirazione. Si imbatte, per caso, ne Il Diario Di Anna Frank, e ne rimane scioccato: piange per tre giorni consecutivi, in preda a incubi su cosa la giovane ragazza avesse passato. Ne viene fuori la volontà di scriverne, e nel marzo del 1998 viene pubblicato In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, un disco che partendo da quella storia parla del disagio delle paure, dell’impossibilità di scappare (argomento che si rivelerà di lì a poco molto personale per lui). Sempre con Schneider a Denver, inizia a scrivere e provare: insieme a lui ci sono Jeremy Barnes alla batteria, Scott Spillane ai fiati e al dirigere una sezione archi e Julian Koster che, per precisa decisione di Mangum, suona strumenti stranissimi. Infatti verranno utilizzati, anche in modo del tutto originale, la sega musicale (una normale sega trapezoidale da falegname in acciaio che si suona con l’archetto del contrabbasso), le cornamuse irlandesi, lo zanzithophone (che è uno strumento digitale della Casio dalla forma a sassofono, che usava la tecnologia del Midi sound). A ciò, Mangum aggiunge una creatività originale, mischiando rock al folk, a mini cavalcate hard rock, a elementi elettronici con l’uso del “white noise processing”, in tutto con un’aria triste si, ma felicemente anarcoide. Si inizia con The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt. One e The King of Carrot Flowers, Pts. Two & Three, che sono due canzoni divise in tre parti, senza soluzioni di continuità, che si sviluppano l’una nell’altra a ritmi circolari, un primo gioiellino. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea ci sono questi versi: Anna's ghost all around\Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me\Soft and sweet\How the notes all bend and reach above the trees. Two Headed Boy, che sembra una storia di Freaks, ha due parti, la seconda come chiusura del disco; il disco è composto anche da due stupendi strumentali, il doloroso andare di The Fool, con gli archi arrangiati da Scott Spillane a cui fa contrasto la verve da giga irlandese di (untitled), con la cornamusa in primissimo piano. Holland, 1945 che ascoltandola si capisce bene quante band ha ispirato, sempre ispirata al Diaro di Anna Franck, dice: And here's where your mother sleeps\And here is the room where your brothers were born\Indentions in the sheets\Where their bodies once moved but don't move anymore\And it's so sad to see the world agree\That they'd rather see their faces filled with flies\All when I'd want to keep white roses in their eyes, ed è quasi straniante il contrasto tra il testo e la musica con echi di festa mariachi soprattutto nei fiati e nel ritmo baldanzoso e power pop. Communist Daughter è una delicata ballata, che riflette sulla sessualità umana e sui confini morali che la società ha posto, metaforizzando su fascismo e comunismo, e poi altri due gioielli: Oh Comely, dolorosissima, dal testo misterioso che probabilmente parla di un incesto, per poi arrivare a Ghost, tratta dalla sua fobia che la sua casa fosse abitata da un fantasma, che immagina essere quello di una ragazza, “she was born in a bottle-rocket in 1929\With wings that ringed around a socket right between her spine\All drenched in milk and holy water pouring from the sky\I know that she will live forever, she won't ever die” altro chiaro riferimento a Anna Frank. La copertina dell'album è stata realizzata da Mangum in collaborazione con Chris Bilheimer, già staff designer dei R.E.M. ed è ricavata da un ritaglio di una vecchia cartolina proveniente dall'Europa con l'immagine di alcune persone che fanno il bagno in un resort, il viso principale viene sostituito con quello di un tamburello. Per promuovere il disco, che inizia a vendere pochissimo come il precedente nonostante anche stavolta le critiche siano molto positive, la band va in Tour. Tra concerti strampalati, cover di brani jazz che non vengono mai bene, un caos regnante in ogni esibizione, girano parte gli Stati Uniti e anche l’Europa. Nonostante tutto, la fama del gruppo cresce con il passaparola, e vengono sempre più sottolineate le caratteristiche uniche della musica di Mangum. Il quale però reagisce in maniera del tutto inaspettata: stanco di scialbe interviste e di spiegare i suoi testi (parole sue) si ritira in isolamento. Leggenda vuole che faccia scorta di riso per il baco del millennio Y2K, ma contrariamente alle sue intenzioni il suo intento non fa altro che aumentare ancora di più il piccolo culto per lui e per la band, che si scioglie nel frattempo per l’impossibilità di rintracciare il suo leader. Mentre intanto il disco inizia a vendere, viene recensito nuovamente a distanza di anni e in pratica finisce in tutte le classifiche come uno dei dischi più geniali del decennio. È il seme da cui nasceranno gli Arcade Fire e tutti i loro fratellini, che non hanno mai nascosto ammirazione per l’album, e rimane uno dei culti più privati della storia della musica, come disse un altro fan di Mangum, Kevin Barnes, che entrò dopo poco negli Elephant 6: adoro il modo in cui è diventato un album di culto per antonomasia, ampiamente amato e anche ampiamente sconosciuto, perchè rende facile credere che ci sia qualcosa di speciale tra te e il disco, che sia solo tuo, non importa quante persone lo amino.

[lastchancevillagegreen]

Thursday, 1 February 2024:

Misfits & Mistakes: Singles, B-Sides & Strays 2007-2023 Superchunk (Merge) (Released 27 October 2023)

Superchunk's fourth compilation of their singles, B-Sides and tracks off tribute albums or other albums not found on a Superchunk album was released last year. It's funny because their first singles compilation, Tossing Seeds (Singles 89-91) came out in 1992 and was a single LP. Their second singles comp, Incidental Music 1991-95 came out in 1995 and was a double LP. When their third singles comp, Cup of Sand came out on vinyl in 2017 it was a triple LP (it had originally been released as a double CD set in 2003). And now their newest singles comp is a four LP set! (Someone how I own all of these compilations on LP except for the very first album, which I only own on CD.

Above you see the album cover and the back of the album. The next two photos following that are of either spine. I'll be looking at that top spine for the remainder of my days! (I ended up with this because of the big box store we all tend to hate yet still order from on occasion was selling it for a mere $40. It actually retails for twice that amount!)

Since this is a quadruple album, it is packaged as two double albums inside a slipcase. The first thing you will see in the photos below is the album cover of album #1 (with bassist Laura Ballance on the cover), followed by the gatefold, then you will see the back of the album (with guitarist Jim Wilbur on the back).

The next four pictures reveal all four sides of the record labels.

Each album contains a poster. The photo below shows you what the first poster looks like.

Next up is the second album: the cover (featuring guitarist Mac McCaughan), the gatefold and then the back of the album (featuring drummer Jon Wurster).

The next four photos show you all four sides of the record labels.

The next photo is the second poster found in this second album.

The final photo is a close up of the hype sticker on the album cover.

[captainmdhridoyhossain-blog]

[ad_1] When I used to be fifteen, in 1994, I fell exhausting for the band Superchunk—or I used to be falling anyway they usually stuck me. That used to be the yr their fourth album, “Silly,” got here out, and the yr my mother died. “Silly” is a breakup album—if truth be told, it’s concerning the breakup of 2 of the contributors of Superchunk—and that yr I used to be feeling as damaged up as I’d ever be. The twelve songs on “Silly” aren’t simply unhappy or mad or responsible or regretful—they’re wondering, versus answering; issues aren’t resolved through the music’s finish. Mac McCaughan, Superchunk’s entrance guy and songwriter, shall we the questions on what came about and why grasp within the air. I used to be finding out that grief doesn’t stop; it takes up place of dwelling. It's important to get used to it, make one thing of it—or so I started to intuit whilst taking note of “Silly.”I lately became forty-two, an age way past the outermost limitations of teenybopper. My two youngsters are fourteen and ten, coming near the age when the primary inexperienced shoots of grownup awareness started, for me, to sprout. But I’m faced every day through an perception as obtrusive as it's withering: in my head, I’m just a little older than my kids, with a delta of imaginable lives fanning out prior to me, promising to mend my teen-age ache and deprivation. In fact, the sector feels increasingly more damaged, and there isn’t some delusion long run wherein to fix it. I’ve been getting actually into Superchunk once more, pulling out my vinyl copies in their albums and ordering reissues of those that I by no means purchased. Is that this excavation of my file assortment anything else greater than a pandemic-addled starvation for protection? If I haven’t outgrown this band, must I've?Superchunk developed out of the fertile indie scene in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, within the past due nineteen-eighties. Their lineup hasn’t modified a lot. McCaughan sings and performs guitar, Jim Wilbur additionally performs guitar, and Laura Ballance performs bass. The band’s first drummer used to be Chuck Garrison—Bite, the band’s unique title, used to be a misspelling of his title within the native telephone e book. He used to be kicked out after two information; Jon Wurster joined up and nonetheless mans the equipment. McCaughan and Ballance additionally co-founded Merge Data, in 1989, to unencumber seven-inch singles through Superchunk and different Chapel Hill bands. Merge is now easiest referred to as the label that broke Arcade Fire. McCaughan and Ballance had been a pair all over the band’s early years. As recounted within the e book “Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records,” an oral historical past of the label and its artists, Mac taught Laura to play bass necessarily as a ploy to this point her. “Silly” is set their breakup—and but they each play at the album; the band didn’t get a divorce. As an alternative, they made their easiest file and stored going through doing one thing un-rock and roll: rising up.Indie rock is anti-epic through necessity and through design. It’s native, blooming out of small scenes in minor American towns akin to Chapel Hill and Olympia, Washington, and suburbs like the only I lived in, the place, at 16, I performed drums in a band referred to as Gargamel at venues like my again backyard. All of us regarded as much as the fellows in our scene’s two “large” bands, Pumpernickel and Zoepy, whose contributors had been all of 2 years older however had performed in New York Town, reaching one of those world-conquering stature. Indie rock focusses at the small main points, the stuff proper right here—“just a little area on the window,” as McCaughan sings—quite than stairways to Heaven.Like maximum nice punk singers, McCaughan has a less than excellent voice. His trademark falsetto can sound strained; his midrange is grainy, and once in a while quite out of music, particularly at the reside albums. I really like McCaughan’s

making a song—his voice is top, unusual, a little bit frightened quite than forceful, ideally suited for this tune about ignored connections, flawed turns known looking back, and social techniques that couldn’t give a shit about you. McCaughan could be me—he could be any one—making a song on a human scale. Superchunk helped invent one of those indie-punk-pop fusion. All of the pleasures of punk are provide: riding rhythms that you need to faucet out with a pencil on a table, imply guitars, and shrieks and yells every time the songs succeed in a climax, which occurs continuously. However all of this is inflected thru some other sensibility, one who used to be rising, or reëmerging, within the mid-nineties: a nearly folky softness; bouncing, hummable melodies; uncooked good looks for its personal sake.Up to now, Superchunk has launched twelve full-length albums, together with, maximum just lately, “Wild Loneliness,” and 3 collections of singles and rarities. That’s an enormous discography for any indie band. Their 1990 self-titled début is loud and punky, presaging the upward push of grunge over the following couple of years. It’s now not in contrast to Inexperienced Day’s contemporaneous early tune—catchy however stuffed with sharp edges, particularly at the music “Slack Motherfucker,” an difficult to understand Gen X anthem. This file, in addition to the next yr’s follow-up, “No Pocky for Kitty” and “At the Mouth,” had been all launched through the fledgling Matador Data, which might pass directly to be the usual bearer of nineties indie tune. When Nirvana’s “Nevermind” got here out, primary labels swarmed round Superchunk and its friends, determined to signal anything else that would possibly grasp the eye of Nirvana’s MTV-inspired fanatics.Then got here McCaughan and Ballance’s get a divorce, which led to “Silly”—Superchunk’s breakout, their “Nevermind,” even though on a way smaller scale. Superchunk fended off the most important labels and determined to depart Matador when the label signed a distribution settlement with Atlantic, opting to unencumber their fourth album on their very own label, Merge, preserving regulate in their artwork and serving to to release Merge towards its wonderful long run. No promoting out for Superchunk. In line with the lining notes for the 2011 reissue, “Silly” changed into one in all Merge’s greatest dealers, and it introduced Superchunk to the eye of youngsters like me, who had been most effective simply tuning in to underground sounds.The Superchunk albums from the remainder of the nineties had been in a moderately equivalent vein: poppy, distorted, however increasingly more and self-consciously gorgeous. This arc crested with “Come Pick out Me Up,” from 1999, produced through Jim O’Rourke. It’s cleaner and clearer and extra polished than the whole lot that got here prior to—some other nice Superchunk album. In 2001, the band launched “Right here’s to Shutting Up,” which, in accordance with the identify, left fanatics to wonder if Superchunk used to be finished, excluding, once more, they didn’t get a divorce. In interviews, they stated they had been simply on hiatus whilst McCaughan and Ballance focussed on Merge, which used to be exploding following the discharge of the primary Arcade Hearth album. The band settled right into a slower tempo as its contributors raised households and performed in different bands. Although I don’t know a lot about their ongoing dating, McCaughan and Ballance have obviously stayed shut, paired for many years in paintings and artwork. Donald Trump’s election and the start of his Presidency spawned “What a Time to Be Alive,” launched in 2018, a file that used to be aghast at what The united states had simply published about itself. It used to be no small comfort to look that one in all my outdated favourite bands used to be as frustrated, perplexed, and scared as I used to be. [ad_2] #Rising #Superchunk #Yorker

[tmgimageaday]

John Darnielle and Superchunk, the Cat's Cradle, 2010

[powerofsongs-powerofgirls]

“I kind of think women are killing it. I think we’re making the best music now.” - Katie Crutchfield

I do too, Katie!

[mergerecords]

Thirty years ago somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the great American west, two twenty-somethings decided it would be fun to start a record label. The duo, Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance, noted a desert road sign on their cross-country trip back to North Carolina and decided to name the label after it: Merge. It was 1989, and the mission of Merge was simple: to release music made by them and their friends.

[spilladabalia]

Superchunk - 100,000 Fireflies [The Magnetic Fields cover]

[grungebook]

Mudhoney & Superchunk at the end of the European tour, May 1992 (photo via Jon Wurster)

[jminter]

6 Local Charities Team-up for 'Fighting Covid Together' Auction

6 Local Charities Team-up for ‘Fighting Covid Together’ Auction

As a result of the COVID-19 era restrictions, non-profits are in for a very tough year of fundraising. As most events and galas are cancelled for the season the organizations are being force to come up with creative and innovated ways to raise funds to continue their good works. 

Six of British Columbia’s most well-respected philanthropic organizations have come together to raise funds as a…

[thebowerypresents]

Swearin’ Close Out Reunion Tour and Reveal a New Beginning

Swearin’ – Music Hall of Williamsburg – October 20, 2018

When Swearin’ called it a day a few years ago, they left behind a nearly flawless discography. Two full-lengths and an EP of pitch-perfect Breeders-meets–Built to Spill–inspired hook-filled tunes that mastered the subtle art of loud-quiet-loud that was unparalleled by the rest of their peers. The reasons behind them breaking up in the first place have been the focal point of most of the their recent press, so we won’t get into that here. But the band’s absence was a cause for concern for Superchunk’s Mac McCaughn and Laura Ballance as they had taken Swearin’ on tour last spring and signed them to an album deal with their label, Merge, for their highly anticipated new release, Fall into the Sun.

In reviews for other acts that have gone through this kind of break, journalists always use the phrase “they picked up right where they left off” as a good sign. But, Swearin’ are writing a newfound wisdom that only strengthens their attack. They finished their tour on Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. When the band took the stage a little after 10 p.m., it seemed like the crowd needed a little bit of a jolt. But as soon as singer Allison Crutchfield began playing the opening chords to the new song “Big Change,” you could sense a change in the room. From then on, Swearin’ were in complete control. The audience was transfixed as the five-piece switched back and forth from Crutchfield’s powerful, honey-coated vocals to lead guitarist and cosinger Kyle Gilbride’s piercing drawl.

As songwriters, Crutchfield and Gilbride tend to write from a place of hindsight and hard-won knowledge. And while they rarely tend to trade off lyrics in songs, you can tell that their collective energy is what makes Swearin’ such a special act among the sea of bands mining the sounds of early alternative rock. While they dusted off some of their best songs from their original run, like “Here to Hear” and “Dust in the Gold Sack,” the standout on Saturday was the Gilbride-led new song “Future Hell.” The track takes listeners on a hallucinatory journey through a world coming apart at the seams and ends with a blazing, fuzzed-out solo. The group closed their main set with the achingly beautiful “Movie Star,” off their 2012 self-titled album, which drew a swell of cheers from a roomful of people who had realized what they’d been missing during the years Swearin’ had been gone. For the encore, Crutchfield reappeared onstage solo to play the Fall into the Sun ballad “Anyway” before the rest of the band walked down the steel stairs from backstage to close out the performance with the new pulsating rocker “Grow into a Ghost.” While the band is in fighting shape, you could tell that this is a new beginning for one of indie rock’s underappreciated creative forces. Long live Swearin’. —Pat King | @MrPatKing

[complexdistractions]

Superchunk : What a Time to Be Alive

Superchunk : What a Time to Be Alive

Superchunk have been a constant in the indie rock music scene since the early 90s. They helped to define a sound, regionally in the Chapel Hill music scene, and nationally that defined what it meant to be “college rock”. There’s also the whole DIY ethos surrounding the band, with members Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan forming indie music record label Merge Records. First they started a label as…

[sinceileftyoublog]

Superchunk Album Review: What a Time to Be Alive

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Power pop indie stalwarts happen to title an album with the same name as a popular Drake and Future mixtape. They recruit the who’s who of indie rock, many of whom call home the very label they helped found, to sing on the album. They write and frame the album in the wake of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Are the results as expected? Well, kind of, but that’s not a bad thing! For Chapel Hill’s Superchunk, success comes with the combination of anger and vitriol with sweet, inclusive melodies. Their 11th studio full-length What a Time to Be Alive contains many songs that abide by this tried-and-true formula. 

The title track of the album immediately establishes the tone: “To see the rot in no disguise / Oh what a time to be alive / The scum, the shame, the fucking lies / Oh what a time to be alive,” Mac McCaughan sings, exasperated rather than celebratory. On “Break The Glass”, he sings what we all feel, the simultaneous thoughts of “this is not normal” and “but this has always been happening”: “Nothing looks familiar out there / But everything’s the same / It’s just the center leaking out / While all the trees go up in flames.” There’s welcome rage, too, in songs like “I Got Cut”; perhaps aware of probable demographic shifts in America’s future, McCaughan sings what we all think but are afraid to say: “All these old men won't die too soon.”

But as much as the title of Superchunk’s latest record suggests being overwhelmed and consumed by the world around you, the band make it clear they won’t go down easy. “I don’t like to get hit, but fight me!” McCaughan demands on “All For You”. “Reagan Youth”, meanwhile, effectively contrasts those benefiting and suffering from Ronald Reagan’s presidency, previewing the eventual battle that still hasn’t come. The chorus of “Break The Glass” goes, “Break the glass / Don’t use the door / This is what / The hammer’s for.” A feminist mantra, communist imagery--it really doesn’t matter because it’s the type of shout-along anthem Superchunk specializes in, Jim Wilbur’s siren guitars and Jon Wurster’s meat-and-potatoes drumming guiding you along. 

In general, on What a Time to Be Alive, the instrumentation is up to par. Laura Ballance’s bass line charges on “Bad Choices”, Wilbur and Wurster’s riff/drum beat stopping, starting, and juking you on “Lost My Brain”. The fast-paced, distorted hardcore of “Cloud of Hate”, the heaviest moment on the album, is followed two songs later by “Black Thread”, which starts with an acoustic guitar line before distorted power chords come in, McCaughan’s vocals more upfront over a slower-paced melody. The chorus, the repetition of the sentence “cut the black thread,” is sky high in melody and tone. Again, whatever the black thread is or represents, what really matters is that McCaughan and the band are chanting it. More than ever with Superchunk, you want to join in.

7.2/10

[the-picked-last-club]

SUPERCHUNK/”HYPER ENOUGH”