American Alternative music reviews

This album is just, nice. And down to earth. Very simplistic, at best.

Berman's poetic lyrics outshine Malkmus and his wails.

This is the ultimate in laid back folk rock. The guitars are powerful but relaxed, the lyrics actually mean something, and the vocals are hollow and bold. "Now you know my two middle names are wrong and right" is to this day my favorite song lyric. And there is plenty more included. Listening to this album is like eating a warm turkey sandwich at five in the morning on a winter day. It is filling, wildly impressive, and truly one of the best albums I own. Plus, you really can't beat a name like Silver Jews. Who wouldn't want to add a band name like that to their album collection?

David Berman is an amazing artist that maintains a really low profile. He's never really been in any spot light, but yet for a 7 year stretch he put out some really amazing stuff. All three of the first Silver Jews albums are worth owning along with his book. Anyway, this album finds David Berman teaming up with college friend and Pavement member Steve Malkmus again. This album is very loose and breazy with a sort of Pavement meets Bob Dylan feel. This album definitely ranks up there with either of the albums Pavement put out after Wowee Zowee, and is far better than 90% of the indie rock I hear coming out anymore. I also think that Steve Malkmus played some incredible guitar on this album, and if you hear it you'll see that he has a more restrained approach on this album. I wish these two would work together more often because the results are often amazing.

personally, i think this show is awesome,reaally tight on every jam, the first set seems a bit basic, its good but its not great, alot of classic songs like cavern, down with disease, stash, and golgi apparatus, all played well, but no real long epic jams.
once the seccond set is on, it is ONNN, probably the best run like an antelope ive ever herd since Las Vegas 2.15.03 (off of livephish.com) the whole band seems really into it and is just a really intense vibe goin on, you can hear fishman yelling and screaming alot which is awesome, this jam really goes places, then into a very different catipult, very funky and spacey. Next is a reeealy sweet Harupa in which trey tells the story of Harupa which is pretty long, but its entertaining enough and fits in with the song well, which segues into a beautiful 2001, short, but totally sick and soon enough they jam back into harupa, finishing off the story and soon enough busting out into a great Ac Dc Bag and into an acceptionably good scent of a mule, the last three songs of the set are really on as well, Harry Hood always a crowd favorite has got everyone feelin good about hood, a nice mike heavy contact, nice grooves on this track and a particularly good Chalkdust Torture, very different than most, they jam a decent ammount before the lyrics kick in and its pretty sick, and then they end out the show with an AWESOME Suzie Greenburg. i would highly reccomend this show especially for the seccond set, if i ever lost it i would replace it, its great, definatly one of the highlight shows of the 94' collection.

On a beautiful warm summer evening phish set up stage at the base of one of the slopes at SugarBush ski resort. We fans gathered up the slopes, all gen admission, and enjoyed what may have been one of the best Phish shows I'd ever had the pleasure of seeing. This CD captures the priceless show perfectly as a great historical record of their evolution.

yeah... i was there, loved it then, still love listening to it now.

Whether an old or new phish fan, this show is a solid choice for anyone interested in obtaining a great quality recording of one of their live performances.

BEST HOOD EVER, MELTS MY FACE OFF EVERY TIME I HEAR IT. Probably my favorite jam out of the whole series starts at 7 min and peaks until your face melts off, then peaks some more. Best complete show - Volume 06 with the wipeout fest.

much love, love music, love life, music is life

The guiding theme of Modern Dance (Blank, 1978) is that of alienation and anxiety in the industrial society. Mutatis mutandis, Pere Ubu take the fear of the nuclear holocaust and transplant it into a different scenario, in which death is not physical but spiritual, not due to bombardment but to economic and social mechanisms.
Their sound starts out from the spirit of old-style garage-rock,but distorts it with harmonic and rhythmic grotesquery. The surreal lyrics and the student humour attenuate the dramatic force of the performance, but at the same time increase the feeling of collective madness, of resigned fatalism, of ineluctable slavery. It is, mutatis mutandis, the same rational fear that seized the young of the post-war era, when the atomic threat held everybody in suspense: now, however, the situation is more real, because industrialisation has already reaped its holocaust, and more grotesquely, because it has been able to do it with the complicity of its own victims.
Their "modern dance" is composed of free-form phases (woodwinds, cacophony of the keyboards, rattling guitars, psychotic thrills) alternating with sudden powerful rhythmic flarings, veritable flashes of hallucinatory violence in the calm of the urban neurosis, in which Thomas gives vent to his raging vehemence. The schizophrenia of the singing is the schizophrenia of the sound as a whole.
The work opens with the piercing hiss of Non Alignment Pact, which plunges into a furious, deafening bacchanal of cryptic slogans, ungainly vocals, discordant strumming, electronic distortions and primordial pulsations, in a grotesque dance of bodies possessed by the restless, exhausting rhythm of a tribal ceremony. The sound of the Modern Dance is a devolved funk, primitive and technological, which reproduces the ambience of the office, the cyclic movement of the throng, the smoke of the factory chimneys and the inorganic bawling of the mob, and cadences the working day like a real mechanism, while the singing vibrates in despair to the hammering rhythm of the dance. It is a dramatic, perturbing fresco of the condition of working life, although unfolding to an almost jovial rhythm. The use of "concrete" sequences and electronic sounds, as a means of emphasising the climate of tragedy, makes it the archetype of the "sound collage" for the entire new wave. The third great rock and roll song of the disc is Street Waves, swept by an ominous wind (which evokes the miasmic gust after an atomic explosion) and driven at supersonic speed by a stop-start rhythm. The braying of Thomas and Herman's machine-gun fire ride the infernal pandemonium, giving it the stamp of a prophetic vision of the apocalypse.
The forebodings of the larger trilogy also inform the android litany of Real World (syncopated rhythm, buzzing interference, metallic, discordant guitar), the slow spirit-dance of Over My Head, pregnant with agonised suspense, and the clownish, desperate disco music of Humour Me and Life Stinks, which throw Thomas's incoherent cry and bubbling synth into the general uproar. The ferocity and the icy obscurity of these emotionless ballads place them at the antipodes of the original spirit of rock and roll.
The eclecticism of their sound is demonstrated by Laughing, which opens with a mini-jam of free jazz for winds, guitar and drums, and suddenly explodes into another mad and brutal boogie fanfare. Even more disarticulated and chaotic is the harmonic tissue of Chinese Radiation, with wandering guitar chords, Thomas's unrestrained raving and his epileptic fit in front of an exulting audience and then piano notes amid general silence. Sentimental Journey, chamber music for breaking crockery, disconnected phrases of synth and a somnambulant lament, is nothing other than a random mass of dissonance in the proudest traditions of psychedelia (once the experiments with gestural musique concr�te are taken into account), but it is also a manifesto of Dadaist music, of music akin to screeching and hubbub. A singular hybrid of emphatic agit-prop (but without militant intent), of deformation by overdose (but without indulging in the emotions of the trip) and of aleatory music ... la Cage (but without his academism), Ubu's Dadaist piece is a product of the industrial civilisation, its perversions and its anxieties. And Thomas, who dissertates imperturbably in the most absolute chaos and in the end remains alone raving amid the fragments of crockery, coins a new type of absurdist lied which might be the analogue of folk in the industrial era.
An extreme synthesis of the anarchic and the rational, a troubled projection of obsessive libidos and negative emotions, the body music of Pere Ubu pivots on the expressive crudeness of the singing, on the ungrammatical syntax of the electronics and on the ludic impetus of the rhythmics. It gives voice to the expressionist howl, to the informal chaos of abstractionism, to the commercialism of pop art. Cultured and primitive, refined and naif, Ubu march under the banner of contradiction, perhaps thus pursuing the ultimate end of pataphysics, the science of laws that regulate exceptions. Altogether their sound is very innovative: the singing of Thomas is uncouth in the worst "Beefheartesque" tradition, the rhythm section grinds out a paradoxical rhythm, a rough and elemental danceability, to the twisted accompaniment of Herman's primitive, strange and hypnotic guitar playing, and Ravenstine injects crude and anti-aesthetic effects, using electronics in a way antithetical to that of flash-rock or of disco music (anti-melodic and anti-rhythmic, earthy and disarticulated), as an ironic counterpoint to the maniacal anxiety of the band.
Thus unbalanced, the music is ambitious enough to function as the soundtrack of the industrial landscape of Cleveland, and, by extrapolation, as that of the holocaust, of the "final solution". Theirs is a philosophy of auto-destruction. The references to Jarry's pataphysics are not accidental; they allude to the sense of deformity, of the absurd, of the grotesque (which is never burlesque), of the brutal cynicism which informs the relations beween the inhabitants of the ruins of technology.
The modern dance of Pere Ubu is a funeral rite for humanity after the catastrophe: there is the anguish of an inescapable fate, there is the agony and the delirium, the slow decay into the shapelessness, the immaterial chaos of the soul. They are visions of the Apocalypse sung by survivors, gangs of hooligans roaming the debris, faces ravaged by the explosion which and surges and vanishes in miasmic gusts, barbarians advancing in a jungle of tangled piping and electric wire. They are dark and indecent ballads, with a neurotic rhythm of hisses and clangorous crockery. The voice of desperation and madness, of disgust and violence, rises, impetuous and scornful, above the hubbub of the Universal Judgement.
The musical references are innumerable: the most down-at-heel garage psychedelia, an urbanised version of Beefheart's vandalic blues, the most spectral and chaotic free jazz, the tribalism of primitive peoples, musique concr�te modernised and fused with an abundance of electronic contortions and vocal acrobatics in a harmonic babble laced with blasphemies and laments.
Modern Dance is a pagan representation of the end.

The Modern Dance by Pere Ubu is still as refreshing and breathtaking as 25 years ago when I first heard the lp. I think this cd is very important if someone wants to understand comtemporary pop music. It could be that you should be in for this kind of music, but once you're familiar with it, everything is ok

1978 the stage is set for an album to emerge out of the crumbling decay that is the city of Cleveland. Just like their other fellow Ohion's DEVO, the guys in PERE UBU obviously saw the world in a slightly different way.I have owned this recording in various formats since 1980 and I have never grown tired of this album. I find this album to have an almost timless quality in that even though it was recorded over 25 years ago, if the original band itself tried to go back into the studio and re-record it, it just would'nt happen. There is just a certain magic that they captured in 1978, as to the music itself I tend to break - up this album into 2 distinct parts. Side One being the more accessible "drunken" side with more garage style sounds almost punk rock in its leanings guitar wise, but a little too intelligent, just listen to the lyrics.Side 2 is definately the "drug" side like a bad acid trip vocalist David Thomas takes you on a journey thru the seedy back streets of Cleveland(I have never heard smashing bottles sound so creepy or atmospheric) and the rest of the band help to re-inforce this craziness by going off in a million different directions.I could give you a track by track anylisis of this record but suffice to say that music is somethig you should anylize, experience and consume at your own leisure, and then form your own opion of what each of the songs on this album mean to you. So if you loved things like Throbbing Gristle's song Hamburger Lady then u will surely love Pere Ubu's album the Mordern Dance.As another reviewer mentioned before Black Francis of The Pixies fame must have almost certainly listened to these guys.I also hear there influences in recent bands such as Portishead and Queens of the Stone Age just to name a few.So if you enjoy bold experimental music that is still as fresh sounding as it was in 1978 then give your ears a chance to have a listen to this album, even if you have to beg,steal or borrow it.

The collection is good nonetheless, spans a number of good tunes and time. However, this band was popular during the remix phase of dance music...and I've heard some of the remixes (especially 'burning down the house') and have to say that they do deserve a spot on this 2 disc collection. Other than that it is well worth the money.

I love this band...they just might be my favorite band of all time! And this is a freaking great compilation. My only complaint...and its not a huge deal, I just wish that a few songs would have been on it for example 1. Uh Oh (love has come to town), 2. What a Day that Was and 3. Found a Job. Its okay though because I have those songs on other cds...just a minor complaint. If you want to get way into the Heads this would be a great place to start. What a great band.

What can I say they are my favorite band. They hooked me at the Saturday Night Live show. I still have a teeshirt from the remain in light tour. David is in my opinion up there with Mozart, McCartney and other great music writers. I love all there work and have finished getting all my records replaced to CDs. This greatest hits combo. is so far the best. If you want an opening to the Heads music than buy this one, it cant be beat. If you want more in depth listening than buy some of the full length CDs/Albums. I love Sugar on my tongue, gimmie gimmie some. And of course Love-building on fire. When I used to play there music in 1980 people would look at me like I was crazy, same for the Clash. Now they think I was way a head of my time as these are classics. Thank You Talking Heads for making my life so enjoyable!!!! Thanks David Byrne, Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, Jerry Harrison. (Tom Tom club rocks!)

Before the Tragically Hip began expanding their style with efforts like "Trouble at the Henhouse" (1996) and "Music @ Work" (2000), they essentially perfected their hard-edged, distinctly Canadian flavor of rock with "Day for Night," their fifth album of new material. This is a solid, workmanlike effort, consisting mainly of midtempo, grooving rockers like "Grace, Too," "Greasy Jungle," and "Thugs." Standout tracks include "Daredevil," a dynamic, uptempo rocker; "Scared," a mellow change of pace; and the dramatic "Nautical Disaster," one of many songs vocalist/lyricist Gordon Downie would write about tragedies at sea.

One minor complaint of mine relates to the record's production values. "Day for Night" has a trebly gloss to it that prevents the songs from achieving their full dynamic range and sonic potential. Compare the engineering to the Hip's subsequent CD's, which exhibit a more full-bodied sound. The production values, while pedestrian, are consistent, and the record flows well from one song to the next.

"Day for Night" may not quite be the Hip's best outing, but it captures the essence of the band's style perhaps better than any other release, with the possible exception of "Phantom Power" (1998). As such, it's an excellent starting point for newcomers to the Tragically Hip.

The Hip have done it again, one more great set of songs.

I will keep this short as there are lots of reviews for this one. Why? Because this record grabs you like no other they have done! Thoughtful, intense, intellegent and provoking. This is the second CD I got from this band. Try Road Apples if you want something more commercial that is really good, but this one takes the cake! Gordon should have stuck with the band! Great spin!!!

Before the Tragically Hip began expanding their style with efforts like "Trouble at the Henhouse" (1996) and "Music @ Work" (2000), they essentially perfected their hard-edged, distinctly Canadian flavor of rock with "Day for Night," their fifth album of new material. This is a solid, workmanlike effort, consisting mainly of midtempo, grooving rockers like "Grace, Too," "Greasy Jungle," and "Thugs." Standout tracks include "Daredevil," a dynamic, uptempo rocker; "Scared," a mellow change of pace; and the dramatic "Nautical Disaster," one of many songs vocalist/lyricist Gordon Downie would write about tragedies at sea.

One minor complaint of mine relates to the record's production values. "Day for Night" has a trebly gloss to it that prevents the songs from achieving their full dynamic range and sonic potential. Compare the engineering to the Hip's subsequent CD's, which exhibit a more full-bodied sound. The production values, while pedestrian, are consistent, and the record flows well from one song to the next.

"Day for Night" may not quite be the Hip's best outing, but it captures the essence of the band's style perhaps better than any other release, with the possible exception of "Phantom Power" (1998). As such, it's an excellent starting point for newcomers to the Tragically Hip.

The Hip have done it again, one more great set of songs.

I will keep this short as there are lots of reviews for this one. Why? Because this record grabs you like no other they have done! Thoughtful, intense, intellegent and provoking. This is the second CD I got from this band. Try Road Apples if you want something more commercial that is really good, but this one takes the cake! Gordon should have stuck with the band! Great spin!!!

Clearly I'm far too closed minded for this album. If I wanted to listen to people screaming and crashing and banging completely out of sync I'd open my window at 5am while the neighbors are screaming at each other again and the early-bird construction crew is cutting concrete outside my apartment while the garbage truck is slamming the dumpster onto the pavement repeatedly. Absolutely no musicality, no message, NO TALENT.

If I wanted to hear this I could go down to the local foundary yard and listen to them cutting steel.. FOR FREE.

I could go into a blow-by-blow for each track on why it's musical murder but that would be a grand waste of my time. Horrible.

This is one band that the indie snobs made it "uncool" to dislike, so everyone looks around like "wow this is flippin genious" while in their heads they can't believe that everyone else likes them and they don't. GET OVER IT. You want arty music, go listen to Sigur Ros or Godspeed you Black Emperor.

"Dirty" was Sonic Youth's most commercial album. I am not sure if this was done on purpose, but it makes 'Dirty' SY's most open album. Open for the lovers of alternative/progressive rock with an almost jazzlike way of listening to music.

Musically it may not be as interesting as their 'Daydream Nation' or masterpiece 'Sister' but there are great songs on here. Without a doubt this is their best collection of songs.

'100%' was an MTV hit and could rival with 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', the track following that 'Swimsuit Issue' (Gordon) with strained and coarse vocals has a great break and suddenly slows down.

A dreamer side of SY can mostly be found in the songs sung by Kim Gordon like 'PR' or the thumping, metallike 'Drunken Butterfly'. 'Shoot' is carried by Kim's voice and a rolling bassline.

Best song on the album is the brilliant 'Sugar Kane' with some great moments of pure musical genious, clarity, chord changes. I could go and on. Similar songs like 'Chapel Hill' and 'Purr' come close too.

Even know almost 15 years later there is so much you can still discover in the album, it surely shows that Sonic Youth are the godfathers of all the indie/underground bands that followed. Husker Du and Dinosaur came close, but in importance to alternative music only the Beatles, Neil Young and the Velvet Underground are above Sonic Youth.

Their approach to music is almost jazzlike, and like many jazzartists, after a while they started making fully rounded songs but of a scary quality.

If you are interested in buying a Sonic Youth album but never heard anything before get this one.

A very good sonic youth effort, I must say. Admittedly, there are a lot of songs on here I actually just don't listen to for one reason or another. But the songs I do listen to make up for it.
100% - GREAT. rocks. 'nuff said.
SWIMSUIT ISSUE - really like the lyrics of this kim number. "don't touch my breast / i'm just working at the desk"
THERESA'S SOUND-WORLD - good vocal by thurston here, but the title really does it justice. it's a sound-world of waxing guitars.
DRUNKEN BUTTERFLY - this song even sounds like its title, and is one of my favorites on the album. kim sings ' i love you i love you i love you whats your name?' quite appropriately. grating riff.
SHOOT - another good Kim song, about domestic violence in some way, it seems. but maybe that's my over-literal interpretation. "you only hit me when you wanna be pleased".. kind of a sad, but in the end, vengeful song. i like it a lot.
WISH FULFILLMENT - another favorite on here. like the lyrics a lot, and good vocals by lee. check out the rehearsal recording from the remasters as well, for an interesting take.
SUGAR KANE - really great song, rocks hard. brings back a lot of good memories of someone i used to have feelings for, probably because they liked this song so much.
ORANGE ROLLS, ANGEL'S SPIT - don't listen to this one. just too obnoxious for me.
YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM - i really want to like this song, but..
NIC FIT - no. this reminds me of being a 16-year-old at a TRUCK GRIND YOUR FACE show, not wanting to have people spill beer on me anymore.
ON THE STRIP - another great kim song. dark feeling, reminds me of SHOOT.
CHAPEL HILL - one of the songs i liked a lot when i first got this album because it was immediately accessible, and it still is pretty rocking.
JC - a high point of this album, definitely. something about this song is hypnotic and captivating, like you don't want to leave its presence. great lyrical work here and sonically it's just so fresh.
PURR - good song, but not -that- good.
CREME BRULEE - eh. like i said.

Clearly I'm far too closed minded for this album. If I wanted to listen to people screaming and crashing and banging completely out of sync I'd open my window at 5am while the neighbors are screaming at each other again and the early-bird construction crew is cutting concrete outside my apartment while the garbage truck is slamming the dumpster onto the pavement repeatedly. Absolutely no musicality, no message, NO TALENT.

If I wanted to hear this I could go down to the local foundary yard and listen to them cutting steel.. FOR FREE.

I could go into a blow-by-blow for each track on why it's musical murder but that would be a grand waste of my time. Horrible.

This is one band that the indie snobs made it "uncool" to dislike, so everyone looks around like "wow this is flippin genious" while in their heads they can't believe that everyone else likes them and they don't. GET OVER IT. You want arty music, go listen to Sigur Ros or Godspeed you Black Emperor.

"Dirty" was Sonic Youth's most commercial album. I am not sure if this was done on purpose, but it makes 'Dirty' SY's most open album. Open for the lovers of alternative/progressive rock with an almost jazzlike way of listening to music.

Musically it may not be as interesting as their 'Daydream Nation' or masterpiece 'Sister' but there are great songs on here. Without a doubt this is their best collection of songs.

'100%' was an MTV hit and could rival with 'Smells Like Teen Spirit', the track following that 'Swimsuit Issue' (Gordon) with strained and coarse vocals has a great break and suddenly slows down.

A dreamer side of SY can mostly be found in the songs sung by Kim Gordon like 'PR' or the thumping, metallike 'Drunken Butterfly'. 'Shoot' is carried by Kim's voice and a rolling bassline.

Best song on the album is the brilliant 'Sugar Kane' with some great moments of pure musical genious, clarity, chord changes. I could go and on. Similar songs like 'Chapel Hill' and 'Purr' come close too.

Even know almost 15 years later there is so much you can still discover in the album, it surely shows that Sonic Youth are the godfathers of all the indie/underground bands that followed. Husker Du and Dinosaur came close, but in importance to alternative music only the Beatles, Neil Young and the Velvet Underground are above Sonic Youth.

Their approach to music is almost jazzlike, and like many jazzartists, after a while they started making fully rounded songs but of a scary quality.

If you are interested in buying a Sonic Youth album but never heard anything before get this one.

A very good sonic youth effort, I must say. Admittedly, there are a lot of songs on here I actually just don't listen to for one reason or another. But the songs I do listen to make up for it.
100% - GREAT. rocks. 'nuff said.
SWIMSUIT ISSUE - really like the lyrics of this kim number. "don't touch my breast / i'm just working at the desk"
THERESA'S SOUND-WORLD - good vocal by thurston here, but the title really does it justice. it's a sound-world of waxing guitars.
DRUNKEN BUTTERFLY - this song even sounds like its title, and is one of my favorites on the album. kim sings ' i love you i love you i love you whats your name?' quite appropriately. grating riff.
SHOOT - another good Kim song, about domestic violence in some way, it seems. but maybe that's my over-literal interpretation. "you only hit me when you wanna be pleased".. kind of a sad, but in the end, vengeful song. i like it a lot.
WISH FULFILLMENT - another favorite on here. like the lyrics a lot, and good vocals by lee. check out the rehearsal recording from the remasters as well, for an interesting take.
SUGAR KANE - really great song, rocks hard. brings back a lot of good memories of someone i used to have feelings for, probably because they liked this song so much.
ORANGE ROLLS, ANGEL'S SPIT - don't listen to this one. just too obnoxious for me.
YOUTH AGAINST FASCISM - i really want to like this song, but..
NIC FIT - no. this reminds me of being a 16-year-old at a TRUCK GRIND YOUR FACE show, not wanting to have people spill beer on me anymore.
ON THE STRIP - another great kim song. dark feeling, reminds me of SHOOT.
CHAPEL HILL - one of the songs i liked a lot when i first got this album because it was immediately accessible, and it still is pretty rocking.
JC - a high point of this album, definitely. something about this song is hypnotic and captivating, like you don't want to leave its presence. great lyrical work here and sonically it's just so fresh.
PURR - good song, but not -that- good.
CREME BRULEE - eh. like i said.

The track listing shown here is incorrect. There are only 6 tracks on the second CD (somehow, the tracks get listed listed).

This is a collection of live tracks from 1999. There is close to two and a half hours of music. The sound quality is very good. There is a third disc you can buy on Moe's website.

There are some amazing moments on this album, and some great stretches of over 10 minutes each of high energy guitar jamming.

So, why do I give this only 3 stars? First, there are two really bad songs on this album, Can't Seem to Find and Captain America. These songs are in the LA, country-rock style of groups like the Eagles. But, they are far worse than the worst of the Eagles. Fortunately, they are only about 4 minutes each.

The second reason I only give this 3 stars is that the high quality of the guitar solos do not hold out through the whole album. Some of the guitar solos are a little stale and cliched, resorting to cheap guitar riffs. I was just listening to some live material by the Allman Brothers, and that gives a bench mark of what 5 star material should be like.

This CD probably rates 4 stars. The last two tracks, Timmy Tucker and Recreational Chemistry are 40 minutes of continuous, high energy guitar madness.

I will admit this is the first thing that I have heard by Moe. They are a little like a higher energy Phish, and even sound a bit like Phish on some of the songs. St. Augustine sounds like it would come from Rusted Root or Poi Dog Pondering.

As far as current jam bands go, I prefer String Cheese Incident. I was a big fan of Widespread Panic for a period time. If you like the churning guitar jams, two bands to check out would be Quicksilver (Happy Trails) or Man (Back to the Future, Live at the Rainbow or 1999 Tour Party).

Moe are undeoubtedly a great band but for some reason they don't inspire me the way other Jam bands do. While other bands in the same genre (the Grateful Dead, Phish etc) make me eager to hear more I find my Moe starts and ends with this disc (and the accompanying 3.1, which is well worth picking up). Any other Moe shows I've heard haven't turned me into an avid Moe collector and I keep coming back to these three CD's. If you're a fan of a good jam then it's definitely worth trying out these guys who can rip up a stage and write a good jam tune.

This essential two disc set of live moe. music captures the feel of this band better than any of their attempts at a studio album. Their music is best suited to being played on the stage, and with this album, the band displays their superb abilities to extend any one of their songs to remarkable length, and with extraordinary levels of power and force. This is not jamband music for the weak. When I see this band perform live, my ears ring for days after; the decibel level is enormous, and the sound effects utilized can be unexpectedly piercing. But somehow the effect of the music on my future hearing is of little consequence to me during the show, since the music is being played so well, and at such an intensity, that I am fully focused on hearing everything that is being sent to me through the amplification devices.
This album captures that live intensity very well, and packages it in a very listenable manner. The song selections are very well representative of the type of music that moe. is capable of producing, making this the quintessential moe. album. For anyone that hasn't heard moe. yet, this would be the album to buy; even though I have a substantial collection of moe. to listen to, it is this album that gets played most frequently.

Breaking away from a mob mentality and becoming a true free thinker is always a great thing. In the mid `80's, several hardcore bands were able to evolve out of the basic hardcore blueprint into something special. The doom punk of Black Flag, the noise rock of Big Black, and the goth punk of Samhain were excellent examples of the evolution of hardcore. Husker Du's attempt at evolving from hardcore wasn't very impressive to say the least.

"New Day Rising" is the true dividing point in the Husker Du catalog with half of the songs representing their old sound and the other half representing their new direction. If you liked "I Apologize," "Celebrated Summer," "If I Told You," and "Books About UFOs" then you are sure to like "Flip Your Wig." If you liked "New Day Rising," "Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill," "Folk Lore," and "I Don't Know What You're Talking About" then you will probably hate "Flip Your Wig."
From the vocals to the guitar to the tempos, "Flip Your Wig" is cleansed of all hardcore elements. There were no more passionate shouts or screams coming from Bob Mould or Grant Hart. There may be a bit of fuzz in the guitars, but barely enough to be noticed. The songs pretty much stay at the average pop rock pace. To sum it up, these are cheesy '60's style pop songs that are very annoying.

When this album was released in 1985, Reagan had just been reelected and the Christian "moral majority" were at the peak of their power with the FCC and major media outlets censoring anything that may be even slightly rebellious. It was the worst point in time for Husker Du to begin recording soft rock songs devoid of anger.

This album has bugged me for years, being the only Husker Du album I feel just plain outright sucks. For a long time I was under the impression that the problem with this album was its horrendous production (other reviewers have pointed out the specific flaws; this must be the worst production I've ever heard on a rock album, absolutely sucks the life out of the music). I've concluded however that the production flaw doesn't cover the whole range of this album's suck-age. Rather - and I'm being balasphemous here - the songwriting flat-out sucks as well. To my ears, this is the band's nadir, tremedously disappointing coming on the heals of such masterworks as "Everything Falls Apart", "Zen Arcade" and "New Day Rising". The bank's subsequent albums, "Candy Apple Grey" and "Warehouse", were marred by Mould & Hart's sub-par production as well (though better in comparison to this album), but at least the songwriting on those albums was much improved over this flaccid one. All in all, this is the only Husker Du album I wouldn't recommend.

Flip Your Wig was Husker Du's last album for SST before they ventured to Warner Bros. At this point, it was already clear they were moving in a more mainstream direction than their post-punk roots. This album has a more open, accessible sound than the raw, rough-around-the-edges New Day Rising which was also released in 1985. At his point in their career, Grant Hart was really emerging as an amazing singer/songwriter and I wish more of his stuff was on this album (well, not "The Baby Song"). His tracks on their next album, Candy Apple Grey, are awesome.
"Flip Your Wig" (Mould) 2:33: The title track was the opening for many of their stage shows. It is a fun, little song with Bob Mould and Grant Hart both providing lead vocals. I like the lyrics: "Sunday section gave us a mention/ Grandma's freaking out over the attention/ Now my friends abound They're coming back around./ Long distance on the other end says I need them for a friend/ No matter what I choose I'm the one they want to use." Still, I'm not all that crazy about this song. I think it is because I do not like the saying "flip your wig."
"Every Everything" (Hart) 1:56: Storming rocker by Grant Hart. The tempo really kicks at the chorus. A hard rockin' two minutes!
"Makes No Sense at All" (Mould) 2:43: One of the Huskers most recognizable songs. It was released as a single backed with the Minneapolis-based Mary Tyler Moore Show theme "Love Is All Around" complete with music video. A Husker Du standard.
"Hate Paper Doll"(Mould) 1:52: I don't care for this song. It is very recognizable. As soon as it pops on I think, "Ugh! That paper doll song!" It just seems a bit hokey for me (for lack of a better term).
"Green Eyes" (Hart) 2:58: One of Grant Hart's best! A love song without sounding like one. Not sappy, but sweet with a cool guitar riff provided by Mould that drives the track.
"Divide & Conquer" (Mould) 3:42: A noisy rocker by Bob Mould. Not one of my all-time Husker favorites, but it's good once in a while.
"Games" (Mould) 4:06: This song is just OK. It is not near as hokey as "Hate Paper Doll," but "It's a game that anyone can play" line, musically, seems a bit contrived.

"Find Me" (Mould) 4:05: A strong hard rocker by Mould. The intensity stays with this one while the other heavy Mould track "Divide & Conquer" rocks out at the end. This song drags a little. Excellent, emotional vocals by Mould.
"The Baby Song" (Hart) 0:46: Well, at least it's only 46 seconds, but it is a complete waste of 46 seconds. It is Grant Hart playing around on a slide whistle.
"Flexible Flyer" (Hart) 3:01: Hart makes up for the bad filler track with this one. This is a fun, accessible song about enjoying life using a popular sled as an example. "If your heart is a flame burning brightly/ You'll have light and you'll never be cold/ And, soon you will know that you just grow/ You're not growing old." Great track! One of my all-time Husker Du favorites! I only wish Hart's vocals were louder and clearer. His voice seems so quiet on some of these tracks.
"Private Plane" (Mould) 3:17: Nice, straight-forward rocker. Airlines seems to be a recurring theme with Husker Du ("Find Me", "Dead Set on Destruction").
"Keep Hanging On" (Hart) 3:15: A Grant Hart classic! From the opening bass line on, this song just kicks! Hart's vocals are excellent here, too.
"The Wit and the Wisdom" (Mould) 3:41: Dark, foreboding instrumental.
"Don't Know Yet: (Mould) 1:56: Interesting instrumental. It has a cool vibrating guitar sound. It is OK as an album ending, I guess.

Flip Your Wig is not as solid as Candy Apple Grey and doesn't have as many amazing tracks as New Day Rising, but the best tracks on here (most of which are Grant Hart's) make this album definitely worth, well, maybe not flipping your wig over, but at least shaking it around a bit.