alt-pop Archives - Vinyl From The Vault

The Beta Band “The Beta Band”

sfilzen — Wed, 05 Feb 2025 18:51:43 +0000

The Beta Band “The Beta Band” 1999. The debut LP from Scottish experimental alt-poppers. The album came on the heels of a couple of very successful EP’s and “was at least partly recorded in a small hut belonging to [John] Maclean’s grandfather in a remote northwest part of Scotland [so they could record sound of the ocean], where the group found themselves with no room to sleep as they filled the hut with an excessive amount of musical equipment and homemade instruments.” The rest was recorded at a few other locations, intentionally lending a haphazard vibe to the record. While it did go to #18 in the UK, the band (specifically vocalist Steve Mason) called it “fucking awful…half-written songs with jams in the middle.” It’s been described by critics as a “brashly schizophrenic freak-out” that ignores conventional songwriting completely in favor of chaos. Lots of sampling, fun-house sounding toy instruments (specifically on “Round the Bend” which has a xylophone, spoons, bird whistle and I think a cuckoo clock), some ill-advised rapping (“The Beta Band Rap“) and some funky disco (with slightly better rapping) on what I think is the best track “Dance O’er the Border.” That song is also the least-representative – it is an alt-dance song that reminds of Yard Act. There’s a fair amount of ambient Floyd-scapes, too – I do like “Brokenupadingdong” which gives me Meddle and Animals feels, at least until the steel drums kick in. Also of note is “The Hard One” which almost landed the band in legal trouble as it is sort of a (uncredited) cover of Bonnie Tyler’s 1983 hit “Total Eclipse of the Heart” – rearranging the chorus’ lyrics and sampling the piano riff from the original, though I’m hard-pressed to hear much overlap between the two songs.

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Dramatic Lovers “Make Believe”

sfilzen — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 18:48:38 +0000

Dramatic Lovers “Make Believe” 2017. Foreign Leisure Records. The debut single by Milwaukee’s own alt-pop shoegazers. Backed with “Made It My Own.” This past Tuesday we caught Dramatic Lovers last performance (well, for at least a year or so) at WMSE’s Local/Live event at Anodyne in Walker’s Point.

MC’d by WMSE’s Sid McCain and Milwaukee Record‘s Matt Wild, the band played tracks from their 2019 LP You Talk Loud plus some sneak peeks from their forthcoming EP, tentatively titled the Hiatus EP, set for a Fall 2023 release.

The Local/Live event is one of my favorite Milwaukee live music series: it’s early (6:00 pm!), only an hour long (done by 7:00 pm!) and free (FREE!). But more importantly it’s a chance to hear some of the band’s favorite songs to play live and also to learn a bit more about the band members and hear some entertaining stories. Now, because I know a couple of the Dramatic Lovers pretty well, I had previous insider info about the reason for the hiatus (BJ Seidel is heading off for a year-long travel adventure with his family) and also am well-versed in the band’s background and name (made up of members of past Milwaukee groups like Promise Ring, Decibully, Maritime and Camden and named after the WW1-era anarchist group that met at the Cactus Club), which were both discussed in the interview portion of the live radio program. But it was really fun hearing the story behind one of the tracks performed, “Blaze Orange” (to appear on the Hiatus EP): BJ went for a run in the woods of Door County during deer season and realized as he was hearing gun shots in the distance that he was missing the potentially life-saving blaze orange colors needed during a Wisconsin autumn. (A legit fear I know well, having grown up in rural Wisconsin, my parents basically forbade me from even going for a walk outside on our country roads during deer season.) Also fun was watching my good friend Anna hit the stage during the first song of the evening, “Throwing Halos,” to sing backup. (Anna is a fellow yoga teacher and we joked just before the show that she should do a handstand vault up onto the stage, like some crazed acrobatic fan since no one in the audience knew she’d be doing some singing. She did not end up doing that which was probably the best choice.)

Another highlight was the discussion of their April 2020 single release “Buried” b/w “Slow Down” that went Milwaukee-viral in the earliest days of the pandemic: they shot the video for “Slow Down” separately in their own homes in lockdown (BJ had nothing else to do but play guitar in his stairwell and Andy found his laundry room to be “super-inspiring”) and made it into what now feels like an historical marker about how it felt during those first few weeks

You can watch the Local/Live performance in its entirety to hear the sparkling indie-pop that is Dramatic Lovers here:

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Riding the Low “Riding the Low Are Here to Help the Neighborhood”

sfilzen — Thu, 06 Jan 2022 20:03:49 +0000

Riding the Low “Riding the Low Are Here to Help the Neighborhood” 2016. Jackpot Records, limited edition blue vinyl. UK alt-pop and a little bit jangly, Riding the Low Are Here to Help the Neighborhood is the band’s second LP and the first to be released in the US. Riding the Low is fronted by actor Paddy Considine who has been in a ton of movies (the ones I’ve seen: 24 Hour Party People and Hot Fuzz but it could be more, I have a horrible memory for films I’ve seen) and he is currently filming for House of the Dragon, a Game of Thrones prequel. Until this moment, I was completely unaware of Riding the Low’s existence – a student of mine gifted me this record for Christmas knowing my affinity for most things alt-Brit and, of course, vinyl records. The record is enjoyable, though a tad bland for my tastes; one reviewer describes it as “fill[ing] the under-catered to middle-aged market,” though to be fair that writer does not necessarily mean it as a total slam against the band or the record. Riding the Low seems to have a self-awareness about their demographic, too: in the song “The Sentiment Now” Considine sings “Are we too old for their sentiment now…I’m getting old and I wanna sit down.” While I begrudgingly admit to falling neatly into that target market, I still really prefer to rock out. Fortunately there are a fair number of rocking moments, like on the tracks “Battle of the Unnatural Law,” “Sally Street Team,” the heavy “The Greatest Blast” and my favorite song on the LP, the all-out banger “Heed.” There’s also some good tension in the excellently-named “Bleeding Eyes at Breakfast” and I quite like the titles “The Piss Parade” and “Beer Tears” which is fairly quiet, acoustic-ish and sad; they did a Zoom-performance of it in 2020 during the lockdown.

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Sugar “File Under: Easy Listening”

sfilzen — Tue, 08 Dec 2015 20:30:44 +0000

Sugar “File Under: Easy Listening” 1994. Sugar’s second and final full-length release. It may be considered heretical, but I’ve always preferred Bob Mould’s solo work and his recordings with Sugar to his work with Hüsker Dü. This album is not quite as great as Sugar’s first release, Copper Blue, but File Under: Easy Listening has some wonderful fuzzed-guitared melodic alt-pop tracks. “Your Favorite Thing” is hook-driven and soaringly beautiful. “Gee Angel” is super-upbeat and danceable tinged with hard-edges and humor. “Panama City Motel” is as sad as a, well, Panama City motel.

I’m pretty sure we saw Sugar when they were on tour for this album, so probably late ‘94 or early ‘95, at the Rave in Milwaukee. I stood far too close to the speakers just at the side of the stage and the buzz in my head that lingered for days matches the buzzy quality of many of the record’s songs.

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