REPRISAL: 90s LO-FI, SLACKER ROCK, COLLEGE ROCK, ALT ROCK...

So I've been immersing myself in the current alt rock/pop scene in America recently... particularly the bands gaining a lot of attention in blogs and from the likes of Pitchfork. I'm thinking the likes of Deerhunter, No Age, Women, Sufjan Stevens, Fang Island, Harlem, Beach House, Surfer Blood, Local Natives, Gayngs, Best Coast, Abe Vigoda, Sunset Rubdown, Male Bonding, Braids, etc... There are some great bands in the mix here, however, there are two scenes in particular which these bands keep reminding me of, namely, 60s psych and 90s lo-fi college rock... so I thought it time to check out a few bands from these scenes to see how they compare...



There were so many great bands during this period who created the scene which provided the principle inspiration for the likes of well known industry media/ promoters; drowned in sound, atp and pitchfork to name the largest/ most influential/ most obvious!!!

My first video is from a British group Cable who are one of the least well known bands from around that period, and indeed were best known for one of their songs being used on a Sprite advert, however, it would be criminal to overlook them as their album, "When Animals Attack" was a classic from start to finish.

There were many great British bands in this period, most of whom it is near impossible to find anything about now- a fact which is so alien in our modern times post internet, where everyone has and documents nearly everything. Bands I particularly remember liking in this period from Britain are; Bivouac, the Heads, Eska, Urusei Yatsura, Backwater, Umbrella, the Beatnik Filmstars, etc...



Next up from this period are Superchunk, like so many of the American bands, their story is in stark contrast to their British counterparts. They are a well known band and I suspect their story is well documented. However, this is possibly more to do with the fact that had the get up and go to set up their own label, Merge Records, which of course is a huge success story and has since released Arcade Fire among others...





The two videos above are from two personal favourites; Built to Spill and Archers of Loaf. The former is a song taken from their album; "Perfect From Now On", which is a stand out classic which really needs to be listened to from start to finish. Archer's of Loaf were probably my personal fave of all the lo-fi bands, their EP "Vrs the Greatest of All Time" is still one of my favourite ever records and was produced by Bob Weston of Shellac.

Other bands of note in this period I'd like to mention are; Sebadoh, Guided By Voices, Yo La Tengo... there are soooo many and people who are interested in the contemporary bands who I mentioned at the start of this post should definitely check these bands out if they have a spare moment! Finally I leave with a Pavement track- not an original choice, but still another of my favourites and perhaps the band who might through their undiminished popularity lead people to investigate some of the other bands from this period...