The Mars Volta is the best noise band ever
 

Because even the most seasoned noise fan upon hearing them will say "What the fuck is this shit? This isn't music."

comedic drum roll



There is something odd to me about that band, and other bands like them. They seem to be a part of a separate group of alternative music.

I always seem to hear them, At the Drive In, Minus the Bear, The Get Up Kids, Q and Not U, Sparta, Cursive, Tabula Rasa, The Anniversary, etc. grouped together.

I never really got into any of those bands, but a lot of people I know seem to specifically like that group of bands, and when categorizing these bands, they usually attach core onto the end, and if they don't it will often be a recycled name once thrown out to categorize another category of music. Also, they act as if that X band from that group of bands is the defining band of that genre. I've gone to shows where bands influenced by this group have played, and upon seeing the billing and asking "what kind of music do they do?" I am usually met with terms I recognize, like math, post-hardcore, or indie.

Math = screamo with a good drummer and a guitarist who taps a lot and uses a DL-4 for some reason, despite me never noticing it in the music and there being no really dynamics or intricacy to the music.
post-hardcore = screamo where everyone plays power chords, nobody is really talented
indie = see math

In general, whenever I hear someone say that a band is an indie band, I brace myself, because I know they're going to either sound like some Screamo or like Coldplay.

I think it has to do with the emo culture or something.

I was telling my friend about my other friend's band and I used the term post-rock, it isn't a term I like to use to describe bands, but I figured he'd knew what it means. He didn't. So I explained it to him. He said, "well I wouldn't call that post-rock, I'd call that post-Anniversary."

I described Arab on Radar once to him and he said "oh, well you're describing spaz-core."

Why is everything core with these people? Mathcore, metalcore, spazcore, tweecore, emotional hardcore, grindcore.

You're the only person to have ever asked this.

What exactly does tweecore mean? Surely its something you made up yourself to show how ridiculous these names can get.

Mars Volta is poop. I remember about 5 years back, a classmate and I used to try to talk about music. We would occasionally trade CDs to sample one another's tastes. I had never heard of Mars Volta and he had never heard of Fleetwood Mac (disturbing, I know). He was convinced Mars Volta was the most inspiring and beautiful music to ever grace this earth.

He let me borrow the Mars Volta album with the person in the car on the front cover and I let him borrow TUSK by FM. Long story short, he hated TUSK because it sounded "almost country" and wasn't "heavy" enough, and I hated Mars Volta because it was pure shit.

He tried to explain to me that I just didn't "understand" MV's music. :)

He didn't much care for Sonic Youth either, and got annoyed when I asked him if SY were "too country."

At The Drive-In fucking kicks the shit out of any post-hardcore band of the last 15-20 years.

(3 of the bands you mentioned share members, so a bit of similarity is natural)

*to person above^: the one he let you borrow (Frances the Mute) is the wrong start for the Volta. You've got to either get Tremulant/De-loused first or you'll hate the rest. Those really laid the foundation for what they do.

i never heard of the term tweecore. actually only morons describe stuff like you just mentioned. even though i am guilty of describing mid to late 90's chugga chugga hardcore as metalcore.

all the bands you mentioned hit their prime (if they even had one) between 1999 and 2001. i used to love the get up kids four minute mile record. the anniversary's record i dug for awhile. cursive's domestica was a decent indie record. at the drive in were good, but i probably wouldn't listen to them anymore unless someone else puts them on. q and not u are good. sparta suck(ed) asssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss sssssssss.

I bought Amputechure (sp?) on a recommendation but I just can't get past the guys voice. Not my fav vocal form.

I don't mind ATDI, not really into them, but best post-hardcore band of the past 20 years?

I'd argue that Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu are better

Those would be my #2/#3. I'd rate the early ATDI EPs above anything that either of those bands put out. Call me crazy if you must.

That's how I feel about a lot of bands in this group.

Oh, add to the list of bands in this group: Senses Fail, Thrice

you're crazy

In their prime ATDI were the most energetic bunch of heroin-addled youngsters I've ever listened to. Ian never had 1/10 of the energy. It's all about energy.

Rocking a bowling alley for Gort's sake.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sg1POqAvegg

You're argument is that they're more energetic?

You've been outed as a hardcore kid.


I don't need a super energetic band to move me. When it comes to post-hardcore, nothing really beats this for me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apuLs_ayKRM

Funny thing is, in there comment section there is a ATDI/Fugazi argument starting.

spazzcore? ive alwauys considered spazzcore wierd noisey post hardcore, liked drive like jehu, or some of nation of ulysses's jazzier stuff.

I like Fugazi, don't get me wrong. I know they're completely different, but if I want to listen to Ian, I'll go with Minor Threat. I listen to WAY more Minor Threat than Fugazi and probably always will.

shrug I don't know what any of these hardcore kids talk about

except you Batreleaser, you make sense to me. We've got similar taste I think.

See I'd rather listen to Fugazi any day.

I think two of the reasons I fail to communicate musically with me is because I'm not metal and I'm not hardcore, and not even punk really. I mean, I like Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Minor Threat, and a shitload of punk. . . but if a punk, metal, or hardcore band came into town, I flat out wouldn't give a shit.

I think I lost the obsession for masculine music some time ago.

the reason lots of noiseheads/people into experimental music hate atdi with such fervour is because they resent a bunch of popstars getting in on their thing. it devalues what they do. atdi are pretty shit, one armed scissor is a goodish rock song that i never need to hear again.

you can see it like this -
atdi are just popstars using a cheapened form of what is supposedly experimental but is actually generic and makin money massaging their boring egos by selling it to teenagers who think they are so semi mystic man.

or this -
atdi are pretty interesting for a standard rock band.

personally i dont give a fuck and dont want to listen to this band or waste time thinkin about them.

People like to think they are cool with their ability to genreise everything. it makes them sound like they know more. musical idiots who think ATDI are actually interesting are the type to do this. they like to keep their tastes simple by using massive chunks of genre to sort things into an easy yes and no pile.

the fucktards in my town called me "emo" for years. to these people i actually am emo because they havent heard of the bands i listen to. to them you arent cool if dont fit into their narrow definition of what "alternative" music actually is.

genre tribalism is the sign of the idiot. ultimately people use it to dismiss things and keep their tastes small and navigatable. they can listen to a band, then say - "oh thats jazz, i hate jazz!" and enjoy slagging off the band more than listen to it. its a way to get fun out of music without even hearing it and find people as limited as you are.

nowadays we DONT NEED GENRE CLASSIFCATIONS because you know, you can just myspace the fucking band and hear them about 2 seconds after you've first heard they exist.

words like punk indie noise whatever are just annoying things on the screen i dont wanna see cos they tell me nothing. genre is all about preconceptions, in a time before the internet it had its use but now it doesnt.

why is everything core with these people?
its a new hip teenage thing to make everything into a core. "this weekends gonna be pure skatecore/drunkcore/burgercore."

core doesnt just mean music anymore.

nowadays new genre names wont actually form like they used to due to the increased interconnectivity of the music scene via the internet and huge abundance of media. they will form and quickly die like shitgaze has, none of the shitgaze bands even use this term. there was the whole novelty "oh we have caused a genre to be named" but already they all realise how restrictive this actually is. to a whole generation of kids, genre is only some funny list of things youve never heard of on myspace. im sure they'll prob get annoyed by the finite variations it has and start comin up with their own ones. but because of the way things are connected on the internet, i doubt these will last for 40 years like punk has.

i find it funny in an annoying lame way how people on here STILL feel the need to argue/discuss what band a genre is or what genre a band is or whatever. its a pretty pointless and boring thing to be all like
"oh look at how much i know and my power to generalise by telling you which album really was the first punk album!" if you think this is what punk is then yr missing the point.

genre actually is different depending on who you talk to. its pretty common for groupings of music fans to come up with their own set of genres. so pretty much all the genres mean something different to everybody. for example, i was a Nirvana obsessive fromthe age of about 13 onwards. about 2 years ago i saw people in a punk documentary call nirvana a punk band and that was a true novelty to me since id never thought of them as such or heard them called this despite so many years of obsessive fandom. it all depends of what avenue of music youve came from. there are people out there who would argue vehemently against nirvana being punk and would probably argue vehemently against half the bands we all like being whatever genre we say they are.

blahblahblah

thats all i will ever say about the subject forever.

i feel the same, except replace "post-hardcore" with "rock".
all the other bands that have been mentioned, i don't really like.

Fugazi > Drive like Jehu > ATDI > Britney Spears > Jonas Brothers > The Mars Volta

I'm sorry, what is this thread even about?

I just don't understand who cares about any of this and what point you're trying to make... who cares what certain people think a genre should be called and what bands fit with what other bands... this is just crazy.. oh well, I'll try to answer...

"post-hardcore = screamo where everyone plays power chords, nobody is really talented" is probably the dumbest thing I've ever read on this board and... is that what you really think? Or, are you describing it from someone else's viewpoint? If so, I apologize, and really that's brilliant if you're describing music from the point of view of someone who doesn't understand music.

"Math" isn't a genre, and if you're actually talking about "math rock", not every "math" group has tapping... actually, the whole part of that post where you described genres was pretty boneheaded. Do we still live in a day and age where if a band is tagged as a certain genre, we still have specific expectations on how that band should sound? Uh.. anyway.. Also, "indie" isn't a genre. Again, if you're talking about math ROCK and indie ROCK, none of the bands in those genres sound anything alike. So, what's the point here, again? Why did you write for "indie" ... "See math"?

"Emo culture" means absolutely nothing and your including of it in your, uh, "point", didn't seem to fit at all. I'm wondering if you actually know what emo is. I know there is a difference between emo and what is currently called the emo CULTURE, but just throwing that term in there doesn't really seem to make me understand your point any better.

"In general, whenever I hear someone say that a band is an indie band, I brace myself, because I know they're going to either sound like some Screamo or like Coldplay. ..... I think I get what you're saying, that describing something as "indie" doesn't really let you know what kind of sound they're going to have... sure. Though I don't personally know anyone who describes music as just "indie".

Also, "screamo", man I haven't heard that genre name since Orchid and Cobra Kai and all those awesome bands from like 7 years ago. I'm going to have to dig out some of that shit!

"Why is everything core with these people? Mathcore, metalcore, spazcore, tweecore, emotional hardcore, grindcore." Is that what this post is about? I dunno, all those genres sound pretty distinctly different to me. Unless the word "core" bothers you. If it does, sorry about that. Also, "Spazzcore" is stuff like cutting pink with knives, I think, if it's even a "genre". Arab on Radar is quite clearly just noise rock. Also, "tweecore"... I'd love to hear some of that, I bet tweecore has some awesome bands! Or is that even a genre?

.......Also, the continued mention of DLJ... Drive Like Jehu sounds nothing like any of the other bands mentioned in this thread and it's insulting to group them in with Minus the Bear and the Get Up Kids and Sparta and some of the other shitty bands mentioned in this thread.. and again, DLJ were just noise rock, I don't know what that has to do with any of the "core" bands being mentioned in this thread...

At the Drive-In were a pretty cool band. The Mars Volta are the worst band to have ever existed. They represent everything bad in music. The end.

...

This thread is one of the most pointless posts ever. Sorry. Not trying to be a dick at all... It's just a stupid thread. It just seems to suggest you have a severe lack of knowledge or you've never bothered to research or explore music beyond anything that dumb people you personally know tell you. I'm not being condescending here and I'm not pretending to know more than I do; your post just doesn't make an ounce of sense to me, so maybe you should enlighten me.. I just don't understand what point(s) you're even trying to make. No offense intended at all.

agree, dumb thread.

Paul Newman were a cool band.
at the drive in seems to me to merge the bombast and dynamics of the CULT with the slashing frenetic guitar of Drive Like Jehu/Jesus Lizard. good stuff.

BTW, if you do not hear subtlety and dynamic range in math rock music, yr listening to the wrong stuff.

i'll just listen to some heroin and forget about this thread.

'suicide invoice' is one of the best records of the decade still. ive actually grown to like it even more than 'yank crime', and that is saying a lot.

I agree with this.

mars volta makes music. thats for sure. but its shitty music

I think you put that pretty well. In conversation, I'm not always near a computer to give musical examples, but more and more I'll say "well my friend's band does stuff in the vein of Godspeed and American Don era Don Cab." But then I still hit the loophole of people not having heard of either of those bands

listen to talk talk's 'laughing stock' and 'spirit of eden', those two records were the band experimenting with music and sound whillst under the influence of heroin. they are both truly great records. this was a band who was known for making (pretty damn good) synth pop singles and making lots of money. Then they (mark hollis and friese-greene) went into the studio and decided it was a good idea to shoot tons of heroin, gather together 16 musicians, and jam out for hours on instrumental improvisation. They then did more dope and used digital equipment to edit and arrange all the improv they did. The result is a beautiful arrangement of ambient music, jazz, classical instrumentation, and pop/rock. They then did this same thing and perfected it even more on "Laughing Stock". I love these albums mucho, and then even sold millions of records too, pretty nuts.

I guess no one's going to explain the point of this thread to me. Maybe because it's pointless.

So... about Orchid..

I think you missed the point of my post. . .
I think you skimmed it in fact. . .

A lot of my favorite bands are classified as being post-hardcore and math rock.

But there seems to be a group of people that like that group of bands who use a bunch of different genre names to differentiate a group of different hardcore bands who really aren't all that different. I'll go to a show and I'll ask someone what kind of music a band their plays, and they'll say "math." So I expect to hear some complex rhythms, maybe some intricate guitar work, and a good drummer. But then it's a hardcore band with no sense of rhythm a drummer who's spastic but incredibly untalented a bassist who cranks his super huge cab so much that it sounds like bantha poodoo, one guitarist just playing power chords, and the other guitarist inaudibly tapping and stepping on a DL4 once in awhile but it doesn't matter because you can't hear him anyways.

I didn't group DLJ with those other bands. I brought them up as being a better post-hardcore band than ATDI. Not that I think ATDI are bad, just not better than FUGAZI or Drive Like Jehu like someone argued.

alright... TOPIC CHANGE
from now on this thread is about screamo/"hardcore emo" bands.

AWESOME IDEA

i know a bunch of their members went into a band called "bucket full of teeth" after they broke up, i'm wondering if they're any good...

i saw them live and they weren't. not as bad as the panther or whatever band the singer started after orchid. i saw him at a bar the other night.

one of the best bands to come out of that scene.

I really really hate The Mars Volta. For years, people have been telling me to listen to them since I'm really big into Floyd, Rush, etc. and that I should love 'em. I kinda put it in the back of my head until this past summer. My best friend, who is a huge MV fan, told me to download De-Loused. I figured, "Oh, what the fuck? Might as well." My GOD, it was the most pointless, convoluted, wanky shit ever! (well, other than Dream Theater or that Dragonforce band, I guess.) I made the mistake of downloading the rest of their albums to see if I could find anything likable about them, only to find them even more progressively wanky. It didn't help that the vocalist is absofuckinglutely grating either.

I remember when ATDI had One-Armed Scissor on the radio. It was pretty good from what I can remember. Not sure if I'd want to spend time on one of their albums, though.

definitely.

check out NEIL PERRY...
"FADING AWAY LIKE THE REST OF THEM" is one of my favorite songs ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFcDeR7fgSI

no question, mars volta is the worst band going right now. there's worst sounding music obviously, like i duno, fat joe. but fat joe doesnt take himself as ridiuclously serious as cedric and omar, thats thier major fault right there.

heroin is a rad band though. antioch arrow is cool too.

I just can't stand all that core shit. I quote you on all subjects.
Bravo.

I didn't say you did.

I said they shouldn't be mentioned in the same thread as some of the other bullshit bands that were mentioned because they're so awesome haha.