What About American Shoegaze
 

Whenever shoegaze is discussed it's always about the british bands. Granted it was a bigger phenomenon over there but lets be serious some of those UK gazers weren't that good.

I'm going to be doing an article on american shoegazers and I need more background info. I can't find many on this continent. I only know the Swirlies and Medicine. I just discovered Medicine and think they're one of the best for the whole genre.I need more band names, but let me make it clear that the band has to be full on sheogaze not like Yo La Tengo with elements of it in the music.

If you have never heard Medicine watch the videos below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96qQ6y_QpIc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73_bm...eature=related

thankyou for introducing me to this.

medicine, i mean

yes, the swirlies, my local shoegaze band. boston is such a strange place for shoegaze though. they were incredibly inconsistent though, at times brilliant, and at times awful.

shoegaze was undoubtedly a british music, i feel mainly because the english have a grand tradition of pop music with experimental tendencies that started with the beatles, syd barret, etc.. up untill very recently there were never a whole lot of full on noise bands in england. i think im talking a load of shite here.

lovesliescrushing
Astrobrite
Asobi Seksu

Go listen now, you can thank me later.

you are

loveliescrushing is great, astrobite is good, i havnt listened much to asobi seksu but what i heard i thought was pretty average. good recomendations anyways.

yeah i just sounded like a fool, nihilist spasm band was british. the world first true noise band.

man im off my game today, nihilist was from london ontario, not england. fuckkckc.

Give Asobi another chance. Did you listen to their first album or the second one? The second one is WAY better. I think, anyway.

I was disappointed by the last lovesliescrushing, Chorus. It was far too sparse for my liking. What have you heard by Asobi Seksu? Citrus is much better than the self-titled.

anyways, loveliescrushing recently moved here to tucson. seen em play a couple times, i really like thier shit. they utilize noise and melodies in ways that are pretty unique within the genre.

never heard full ablums, just downloaded a lot of tracks after i read an interview with them in vice, the headline read, "spiritual xanax for the soul" and i knew i had to check them out.

If you're just doing that, get the track "Red Sea"

i got that one, its real fuckin good.

Whitehouse are from England.
Ramleh, Controlled Bleeding ("Body Samples" is a noise record if I've ever heard one, no matter what came later), I could go on and on. The UK has been steeped in noise from the word Go.

I saw Medicine once. It was pretty meh, but it was loud.
Total MBV live show copy action, right down to the whole "holocaust" deal.

dude, i know, i made a stupid remark. even so though, japan and u.s. still have a higher volume of noise and avant garde bands/artists.

Well, all I was saying is that the whole "up until very recently" thing was what I perceived as highly inaccurate. I was trying to illustrate that it was more the reverse by using examples from the late 1970s and early 1980s, when the UK and Europe in general were kicking the USA's ass in the extreme sounds department. The only ones from the USA doing comparable work at that time were maybe Non and Monte Cazazza.

Damn, I just read that post again and I sounded snooty as fuck.
Sorry about that.

no big deal.

I don't see the point of another 'shoegaze' band existing ever again, let alone an American one in this time and age.

talking "around now" or olde ? drop nineteens were olde but goodee

The are 3 good tracks on ''Delaware''. the rest is so-so. I like ''Wynona'' a lot.

Borbetomagus
Glenn Branca
Tony Conrad
Doodooettes
Le Forte Four
Men/Eject
Neef
Lee Rockey
Smegma
La Monte Young
Zorn
Zurich 1916

etc....

Virtually every kinda music that has ever been associated with a specific place also existed at its early beginnings elsewhere on the globe, and perhaps even in many different places.

absolutely, but i'm working on the "isn't anything" principle of shoegaze that states that one or two stone cold classics (wynona) in amongst an otherwise mediocre album work as a counterweight to the so-so stuff and can elevate the album as a whole to legendary status regardless of the overall consistancy of the record.

There were a lot of shoegaze/noisy pop bands on Trance Syndicate ( Furry Things , 16 deluxe ).
And Belly.

i dunno if these have been mentioned but medecine, swirlies, velocity girl (the copacetic album, the rest is shite), unrest, drop nineteens (delaware is a fantastic record), maserati (i think they are american).

what about scarling?
wouldn't they fall into the 'gaze category?

''Isn'Anything'' is an infinitely superior album and has a higher number of good songs than ''Delaware''. Drop Nineteens were an ok band but by the time they made ''Panic On'' it was apparent that they weren't going to stay around for long. I love the sleeve of ''Delaware'' with that girl holding the gun.

I give up.

ceremony
a place to bury strangers
airiel
asobi seksu
skywave (must)
autolux
drop ninetnees

Are we thinking of the same scarling? The one with the chick from Jack Off Jill? I don't remember them being gaze at all. But I don't remember them well either.

don't know if they are shoegazer or not, but they do share some sonic similarities:

GALAXIE 500

yeah i forgot galaxie was american, good call

fuck yeah. galaxie 500. amazing band.... how we all forgot them!

smegma is such an underrated, underaoppreciated, and fucking amazing band! they formed in fuckin 73! they were light years ahead of their time, which was unfortunate for them. i admit it if i was alive back then i woulda found them too nutso as well, white light white head and fun house woulda been as extreme as i woulda gona. their record "pigs for lepers" sounds just as extreme as anything wolf eyes and yellows swans are doing today. theyre still making good music today too, which is needless to say, fuckin awesome.