How good are The Spectral Presence?
 

SpectralJulianIsNotDead has a band called "The Spectral Presence". You can hear their music at:

http://www.myspace.com/jsdunnmusic

According to the bio, "people say" they sound like: My Bloody Valentine P.I.L. Pixies Joy Division WIRE Jesus and Mary Chain.

The Spectral Presence say: "we sound something like Big Black, Jesus and Mary Chain, Pixies, Happy Go Licky, Wire, and Joy Division.

What do you think?

They suck. They sound like Big Black in a trash compacter on the death start having their guts squeezed out.

Their demo recordings are terrible. It sounds like they used a sony microphone, dollar store tapes, and this piece of shit.

Then they probably used some shitty-ass program like Audacity to import it and then use that same program to make it into a low bitrate mp3. They can't even spend any money on a decent recording!

Also, their guitars are really fuzzy, dissonant, and reverby, I hate that shit. What is with the completely in sync drumming too? Who drums in sync at a steady BPM?

And the vocals. I mean, listen to how deep that loser sings! Who the fuck does he think he is? Peter Murphy or something?

Yeah, they do sound like Big Black, JaMC, Pixies, Happy Go Licky, Wire, and Joy Division. Take Big Black's headache causing drum parts, JAMC's squeeling annoying guitars, The Pixies creepy child molester feeling, Happy Go Licky's holier than though Vegan DC hardcore attitude, WIRE's godawful guitar playing, and Joy Division's lame bassy vocals and minimalist song titles. Then you have that band. The worst of every pseudo-alternative post-punk post-hardcore bands all in one band!

They sound as close to Big Black or Jesus and Mary Chain as Beyonce.

Sounds really creepy, dissonant and raw. Vocals are interesting. So is the guitar work, but IMHO I think the drums should be more Gang Of Four. :) That's it.

I voted just as pretentious as the name.

OK, serious Julian time:
I'm 20, I graduated from high school 2 years ago.

The "sounds like" part is referring what my band sounds like live- which is pretty different than those outdated recordings.

I'm pretty sure a hot-topic goth wouldn't go within 100 yards near a ring modulator.

EDITOR'S NOTE* Make that "dated" 9th grade Hot Topic Goth.


I know you want to attract certain crowds, but...

:)

Hugo Burnham is a much better drummer than I am a drum machine programmer. So I keep most of the drum patterns pretty minimalistic and moody.

Not really, I don't really have anything to sell. I enjoy playing infront of my friends, who all have pretty strong punk roots. Although when some outsider comes to a show and asks me if I've ever heard of MBV and JAMC it tickles me a bit. I don't know why my friend told me I sounded like P.I.L. I really don't hear it.

If I wanted to get the Hot Topic crowd, I'd say I was hardcore, and then proceed to play really loud emo with no dynamics.

I was a "gothic" girl's date as a favor to her friends once. I didn't find her all that interesting. It seems to me that everyone who calls themselves "goth" like manson, cure, doors, depeche mode, ministry, NIN, and KMFDM put on some eyeliner and slutty clothes and cut themselves across the highway.

I like and I am influenced by music that is referred to as gothic- Bauhaus, Joy Division, Tones on Tail, Birthday Party, but I'm not going to prance around in stupid outfits and try to kill myself constantly.

This reminds me I have to change the genre title from alternative/goth/shoegaze to ambient/post-punk/noise-rock or something like that. I chose the genres before any of the songs were fully arranged, and they seemed to be taking a different direction until they were complete.

I guess the rawness is 4-track recorder-induced? I mean, it wouldn't be as raw if you had the resources right? Obviously.

Well, the 4-track adds a certain tape rawness to it, but I think it is rawer live. I used the line out on my guitar amp to record, so some of the ambience of my guitar tone was lost, although I love the way the overdrive sounds on the post-verse change in Gunslinger. The vocals are much less relaxed live. The 4-track I used only allows you to do one track at a time, which means I had to sing a long to the songs over the headphones. I personally like the live sound better where I vocally actually have to compete with the guitar for dominance.

The main thing I don't like about the 4-track is how separated everything sounds, like every track is being performed in a different room. It doesn't sound like that live.

I'm not exactly sure when KHChris decided to hate me, when I told him to stop fucking spamming the same thread on the old board, or when I included him in the who do you hate poll.

I will count this thread as 1 vote for the SJIND hater's club in my poll.

Well, it just seems all preconceived, the listing of band that don't sound alike just to gain attraction from that audience, effects here and there, etc.

The great thing about the 4-track is not the aesthetic sound quality. The great thing about a 4-track recorder is the simplistic and on-the-spot recording you can do and how to maximize 4 simple tracks.

If you got a 4-track recorder just for the "sound", I feel sorry for you dude.

It's because you probably don't know how to use a 4-track very well.

If you want to maximize your sound, why not get a 10-12 channel mixing board, plug everything into that, and line out to your 4-track???

I guess you'll learn this with time. Just a suggestion.

Great sounds anyway... I know it's probably cliched by now, but you know what would add a great element to your music? Sampling The Conet Project. :) Just a suggestion.

I got the 4-track because it was my friends and I wanted to do a demo without spending any money.

The "sounds like" isn't just for those 4 tracks you realize. And "sounds like" doesn't mean that they sound exactly alike. Maybe I put Big Black because a lot of the songs are very agressive, dark, and abrasive. And maybe I put JAMC because the guitars parts are very noisey and wall of sound like and the drum parts are simple.

Gunslinger and German Dogs are two very atypical songs for me. (out of the ones I have wrote)

I like the chord changes in Gunslinger. Very misfits-y :)

Ha, yeah, this DJ I know named Steve was talking about that awhile back. Eventually I want to try ring modulating my guitar to a radio signal, but I don't have the equipment right now :(.

I currently don't incorporate samples live, but I do the Clint Eastwood quotes when I perform Gunslinger. I added the samples in to see if I liked them, and I do, but I don't know if I want to include them in live stuff. Another footswitch for me to press :P. I was thinking about burning them all onto a CD and kicking someone to press play.

Haha... :) I like gunslinger, definitely a grower. Good stuff.

I think the stuff is quite neat live and there is an energy within the music, it just hasn't been properly channeled yet. I don't like the samples, takes me out of the songs.

Wow, look at all the votes!!! No need to be a dick khchris. Come on man.

Funny story. I wrote Gunslinger last summer (all the other songs are much newer.) At the same time, I started jamming with a punk cover band, and then we watched a bunch of B-movies and MST3K episodes, wrote some songs about Ed Wood and Torr Johnson and stopped playing punk covers. I changed the lyrics to fit along with the movie The Beast of Yucca Flats.

Sidenote: my little brother was the original guitarist in that band, but he ended up leaving because I wouldn't play at a lower volume then him and we wrote some songs while he was at home.

Man, I just love punk music. Long live rock and roll.

Maybe you put Big Black and JAMC because you want to attract fans that may like those bands?

KHChris, what does your music sound like anyways? You don't really seem to advocate effects. Do you just use a guitar straight into an undistorted amp and play stuff? If you told us that your music sounded like Sonic Youth, and we listened to it, and it didn't sound just like Sonic Youth, could we call your pretentious for naming a band in sounds like that you don't sound all that much like?

Wait, doesn't Lee Ranaldo use effects too? I'm pretty sure he uses a ring modulator, overdrive, and delay. Isn't that really preconceived? Why would you support with your hard earned money such a pretentious band? They call themselves post-bratcore, you just know what kind of crowd they are trying to attract with a genre label like that.

I don't know if you know this, but when musicians try to describe what they sound like, they usually name bands that are vaguely similar and are decently known to the listener. Just to give an idea of what they sound like, not to tell the listener exactly what to expect. When I was a radio DJ, when getting debut CDs from bands I've never heard of, it would say RIYL on the CDs, and name bands with similar qualities. Not exact copies.

I don't make money off of my music in anyway. What would the point of attracting fans be?

Nobody said you did make any money off your music. If you weren't interested in attracting "fans", then why would you put a link of your myspace band page on your SY Board profile?

Better question: why would you say your band sounds like bands that don't sound alike? Answer: to attract fans of those bands.

Well, if someone is at my page, they can already access the music and video. The "sounds like" text is superfluous anyways.

If I wanted to attract Big Black and JAMC fans, wouldn't I put that in the signature to get people to click on it?

How can you really say what I do or don't sound like? You've only heard 4 of my tracks that I recorded nearly 3 months ago.

Anyways. I'm done arguing with someone who is half troll half australopithecus.


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KHChris

You don't have to explain or justify your music, SpJ.

I believe the current question is:
"KHChris, what does your music sound like anyways?"
(Preferably answered with some mp3s)

I like The Spectral Presence. Not perfect. But not many bands are. Throughout the history of recorded music, there have been very few bands that can even be considered perfect.

There's nothing wrong with efx as long as you have a reason/meaning to use them. Using them just to "fill in sound" means that you've ran out of ideas. SY have done an excellent job of knowing when to use efx and what efx to use. They don't just use efx just to "layer" sounds arbitrarily.

Do I play undistorted guitar? Sure. Do I play distorted guitar? Sure. I don't limit myself to using "just" distorted guitar. Maybe you do, good luck with that. As far as my music, well I really don't know what my guitar style sounds like. If I don't have an accurate description of what my guitar sounds like, that's much better than lying about what my music sounds like. I'd rather not lie to people. I've only associated SY as being really 1 label and it's a label that majority labeled them when I first discovered them for myself: post-punk. Pretty broad, but pretty accurate. What is "post brat-core" anyways? Never heard of it.

I don't know if you know this, but anyone who honestly goes around labeling themselves as a "musician" unless they are really working as a trade as a musician and making a career out of it, it's usually a term dropped by people who want to try to impress naive people who don't know any better. I know people in many bands from Pinback, Three Mile Pilot, The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, Mae-shi, and many other bands and not once have I ever heard any of them label themselves as "musician". Rob is just a guy who writes songs and loves to make songs that happens to be in Pinback. You would never in a million years hear him say, "my name is Rob and I'm a musician".

From my experiences, the best bands do not need to "lead" people on to believe that they "sound like My Bloody Valentine". They really don't use other bands to describe their music at all. They leave that for the fans to discuss. The difference between you being a DJ and informing listeners of bands that may be close comparisons and you making those "close comparisons" is that as a DJ, you are the "listener" and fan.

Good reference point in regards to Big Black, there definitely is a Big Black vibe in your music. Whether this is intentional or just 'part of the inherent energy' is of course up to you to figure out. How do you believe that Gang Of Four is an influence on your music? Which aspect of your music is informed by Gang Of Four's musical style?
EDIT: I guess when you come down to it, you guys sound like yourselves; and that's always a good thing. :)

Have you heard Big Black? Hmmm...could you tell me an album that The Spectral Presence sounds like by Big Black? Or are you just here for moral support?

If you guys don't actually sound like Big Black in the academic sense, I'm sure the spirit of Kasimir S Pulaski Day lives on somewhere in your raw, screeching guitars. :)
"What are you trying to prove now, Benny?
What are you trying to call me, Benny?"

I think I wrote the influences when I was writing some really choppy sounding songs. Some of the songs you haven't heard make use of natural harmonics, start/stop dynamics, and more angular guitars.

KHChris is obviously on crack. With the exception of overdrive, every effect other than that is on for the whole song to color the tone of the guitar for the song. Either KHChris can't read or he doesn't know what overdrive is, because I mentioned that I turn it on and off, but he insists that I might only play with distorted guitars.

Maybe I'm trying to lead the punk kids who come to my shows and don't really know anything about post-punk, post-hardcore, shoegaze, and gothic rock into some good bands. Personally when I first get into a band, I look them up on allmusic or wikipedia. If it isn't immediately apparent to me where everything came from, and I can see what other bands have influenced them. Smalltime bands with myspace profiles don't really have wikipedia entries and allmusic entries. So I took a step back and thought about what bands it sort of sounded like, based off of all the 20+ spectral presence songs I have written and asked myself which influences were coming through and how. Also, people will ask me what my band sounds like. I got sort of tired of explaining to my friends what it sounds like, because a lot of people just don't get what I'm talking about.

You must thing Gang of Four is a terrible band then:

"I don't think they were particularly an influence. We were aware of all of that when we starting writing stuff. That first Television album was great and so was the first Talking Heads record. There's a shared interest in avoiding the rock-guitar cliché for sure. If you think of the first crop of punk stuff, it was all just tedious guitars cranked up through Marshalls. In the wake of the Damned and the Sex Pistols, it was heavy metal but faster and not as well played. Certainly Gang of Four, Television and Talking Heads weren't interested in going down that road at all. So there was a kind of sparseness about the guitar stuff, it was more staccato with space around it." - Andy Gill


My god, they compared themselves to Television and the Talking Heads! And they don't sound anything like those 2 bands! Liars!

Spectral, don't let khchris bring u down, man. it's always the same thing with that guy. his war on perceived pretentiousness and what is popular/hip in culture. he belittles ad naseum. and why?, b/c 4-track lo-fi ideas that young "musicians" create are trying too hard to be cool..?? if u want to put layers on arbitrarily, u fucking do it. whatever. what an ass.

i do think the influence thing is a tad cheezy. the rhythm influcences, the drum influences, that stuff has to go. : )

I have found that young musicians are forced to make lo-fi music because hi-fi equipment is too expensive. To me, it is either 4-track or an expensive studio. Everything inbetween that is going to cost you money for something that isn't that much better than a 4-track.

The profile is long overdue for a rehaul though. Whether it is a personal or a band profile, people always think my profiles are cheesy. My older sister got mad because I changed one such profile, and she said she enjoyed reading some of the weird stuff I wrote.

To me, it is just a fucking myspace profile, you know? I use it mainly to find out about shows, say "yes, I'll play" and then make a bulletin about it.

Do you really use wikipedia and allmusic to determine your choice in bands??? That sounds like something my parents would do to find music. If your band sounds like the Pixies, then why don't you put the songs that sound like The Pixies. Same goes for Big Black. I've been a huge Big Black fan for decades now, almost before you were even born, and I'm sorry, but your band does not sound ANYTHING like Big Black, so stop pretending or lying to people that you do sound like Big Black or even remotely close.

There's a difference between being "influenced" by a band and "sounding like" a band. Gang of Four maybe "influenced" by those bands, but they certainly don't say that they "sound" like those bands. Take an English class, dude. Also, I never said I didn't like Gang of Four. I think they're great and a huge influence on many bands today, even to !!!

Statccato with space around it. I like that phrase, class.

If you can afford all those efx, then obviously you're not too poor, which throws out the "I bought a 4-track because I'm poor" excuse. Today, almost every person that owns their own instrument has a computer, and digital recording has become probably cheaper than recording on a 4-track: you don't need tapes(which in bulk are more expensive). If you think there is no middle ground between a 4-track recorder and a professional studio, then I'm sorry but that is just plain stupid. That's like saying, "I'm either going to ride a bicycle or fly a plane".

I don't know, I just get the feeling that you put those bands down just to associate your band's sound to those bands you listed just to try to get people interested in your band.

You do not sound anything like Big Black, Pixies, or even Joy Division.

And if your songs that sound like those bands aren't on the myspace page, why aren't they?

Frequency Analyzer- 18th Birthday present
Johnson Chorus- gift from a friend
Blue Driver- $60, bought 4 years ago

pedals bought this year:
Dano Tuna Melt- $15
Dano Chili Dog- $13
Arion SAD-3- $25
Danelectro PB+J- $35

Yeah, I am just blowing a shitload of money on pedals.

Borrowed Tascam to make a demo- 0$
It sounds a lot better than plugging a mic into my onboard soundcard and using audacity to record each track individually too.

Cost of 3 tapes at the dollar store- 1$

Price of a sound card with 1 or 2 ins/outs: $15.
Price of 100 cds: $5-$10

Posing as a band and pretending to sound like bands just to gain interest from certain crowds: PRICELESS!