7 thoughts on “Beck is lame”

  1. i know Karate.
    hailing from Boston, the band’s sound has evolved a lot since it turned into a three pc (from 4) around 98 and especially on the last two albums (along with Geoff Farina’s solo album) has become more and more free Jazz inspired then their earlier more solid emo work. Singer songwriter Geoff Farina has been likened to a modern day “beat poet” for slickly spinning his stream-of-consciousness lyrics over jazz guitar and backed by a light but impeccably tight rhythm section blending genres effortlessly yet still maintaining their indie-rock roots sensibilities.
    i have not heard the new CD, but their “in place of real insight” CD is like a good friend to me on a dark cold rainy afternoon.
    they played on last friday, but i was busying bowling so i missed it. but i have seen them play live many other times in which they also played a bunch of jazz covers – Coltrane, Tyner, and some others. regardless, i’ve always enjoyed seeing them. that said, i have a love/hate relationship with Pavement. i’ve seen them play so many sh*tty shows compared to the few inspired ones (one being the Drag City invitational@Lounge Ax 93), but a double CD for a listed 14 bucks that includes “Slanted and Enchanted” and the “Watery Domestic” EP, how could you go wrong!
    Bryan, your right – ALBUM OF THE YEAR, exactly 10 years ago.
    Don’t get me started on Beck.
    ok. i am a geek.

  2. I really like the new Beck album a lot! His show with the Flaming Lips last week was pretty epic as well. Beck performed alone and with the Flaming Lips as his backing band. They sounded like they’d been playing together for years. And no, Beck doesn’t sound anything like the Eagles or Sting to my ears. He will be on Conan O’Brien on Tuesday, October 29th, check it out for yourself to make your own judgement!

  3. I haven’t enjoyed anything Beck has done since
    Odelay. “Mellow Gold” was his peak.

    But I still sell more of his newer stuff, though.
    Prob’ly due to marketing and the fact that it’s
    ‘newer’. Anyway, thanks Beeb; I was starting to
    wonder if I was losing it. (Someone tell me what
    that means..)

    Don’t forget there’s also a new Pavement DVD out
    on the same day as the ‘Slanted’ reish. (Like that
    record store slang, doncha?!)

  4. bb – any thoughts on the new karate cd? they play here on thursday, and i wondering if it was worth going. did they play in chi-town already? did you go?

  5. E*rock, I liked Mutations a lot, and that’s what this keeps being compared to, but it’s not the same at all, Mutations was fresh when it came out, and it was sort of a parody of a mellow 70s album, Sea Change sounds totally mainstream now, indistinguishable from Pete Yorn or Jack Johnson or any of the other major-label mellow guys, and there’s absolutely nothing groundbreaking about it. Beck is at the stage in his career where he’s become what he was originally parodying, and that has coincided with the exact point where critics assume anything he does is Album of the Year material. Same deal with “Storytelling” by Belle and Sebastian. It was only a matter of time between “Indie rock’s answer to Ferrante and Teicher” and sounding indistingushable from Ferrante and Triecher. That said, Beck’s playing with the Flaming Lips as a backing band, and that has to be good.
    Drew, I know absolutely nothing about Karate. I’m not as hip as I’d like you to think.

  6. So big a Pavement fan was I that I named the dingy bog in my dingy basement in dingy New Jersey the “Terror Toilet.” (Sh*t on a Stranger, said Mrs Jim-Bob) I will donate two pints of plasma to work up the scratch to purchase a package that I already own on vinyl and cd. They were that good.

  7. I can’t believe I missed a chance to make a “i don’t know Karate, but I know Kuh-rayzee!” reference. Dang.

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