Jesus and Mary Chain feedback....
 

how do they get the wild static noise segments?? I dont see how you could get that out of a guitar....

1)By being The Jesus and Mary Chain
2)By being incapable of playing their instruments conventionally
3)By being permanently on booze and drugs
4)By not asking any questions.

All of the above are correct answers.

What I really like about the J&MC is that, unlike so many, they realise that distortion flattens out a lot of the more interesting sounds. So they don't use it, or use it very sparingly. I think they use old amps with pins in, guitars with shattered pickups and lots of surf-style effects (trem/ ring mod). But ultimately it doesn't matter.

Their sound was so nonchalantly spontaneous it puts most bands trying hard for something similar to shame.It was almost like they were kidnapped by their subcounscious and it did all the work for them.They had to sound that way and they did.Big time.

Take a band like the Velvets.A million bands tried to copy/emulate that sort of sound but the reality is that it is virtually impossible to do it with the same grotesque charm such as theirs.The harder you try,the less you'll get it right.

You guys sound like your on VH1 or something....

NHS?

Has anyone heard their sister's band, Sister Vanilla? I have her CD. It's really good and has the members of JAMC on it as well as a guy from the Pastels.

anyways, this question was more about the science of a specific noise in their songs rather than a philosophy, I was referencing the sound that can be found on sowing seeds about 25 seconds into the song. It sounds like when your antennae is broken on your tv, im just not sure if its a crazily overdriven guitar contoured into a ball of noise via studio or if its something completely different...

Yes i have.Wait,i have something for you guys on the non-sonic sounds section.

They probably don't know how they did it, or what they did yesterday, or how many drinks they had today.

There was nothing scientific about their sound.Period.

they use alot of distortion, alot of distortion, alot of distortion

I think your just thinking darklands, but there real sound (psychocandy) is very noisy....

You wont give up,will you?

i think your interpreting all of my questions the wrong way. Its great that your putting TJMC on such a pedestal with all your claims of blah blah. I mean I love the band too but to be completely ignorant of how they actually produced their sounds and just regarding it as some divine act of art is silly...

I'm pretty sure Jim played a straight fuzz rhythm and william did most of the crazy stuff.

Fucking geeks!

Erm....it was!You either have or you don't.That simple.

thank you, finally something that stimulates my brain....

Im sure thats what they said when they heard the velvet underground too...

Hmm. I'm not thinking darklands, but whatever. It sounds too punchy and bright to be distortion. I could be wrong.

As it happens,the gonzoid qualities of the Velvets were unquestionably something that the Mary Chain were drawn to.

As it happens i'm totally not of the idea that crunchy distortion(wich is indeed present in parts of 'Psychocandy') is not the same thing as feedback.

well I do get what your saying, on some songs they apply a sharp clean reverberated guitar that sounds squeaky clean. And most of their guitars are so overly overdriven that you might not even catch it actually being a guitar...

yes of course that is correct. There is alot more feedback that is responsible for their sound than distortion (and by distortion I mean overdrive) than one would usually perceive...

gonzoid???

gon·zo (gŏn'zō)
adj. Slang.

1. Using an exaggerated, highly subjective style, especially in journalism: “a hyperkinetic, gonzo version of Graham Greene” (New Yorker).
2. Bizarre; unconventional.

[Perhaps Italian, simpleton (perhaps short for Borgonzone, Burgundian) or Spanish ganso, dullard, goose (of Germanic origin).]

var tcdacmd="cc=edu;dt";

 

gonzoid is certainly not a form of the word though....

But it does exist and it is used in music journalism from time to time.That is not to say that i am a music journalist but this term does apply to (some of)the music of the Velvets appropriately.I'm not too sure if you could use it discussing the Jesus and Mary Chain though.

I certainly have never encountered "gonzoid". Webster hasnt either it seems...

That'll be the end of me then.

Click here:
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en...zo+rock+&meta=

Happy now?

no, where is "gonzoid"??

I thought I read somewhere that there was a either a sampler or a tape loop invloved.

im thinking that their albums owe much to studio work involving their feedback. And your probably right with the use of samplers. I mean its obviously layered, im wondering if it is layered guitar noise or something else....

i would love to here a live recording of them in their early days.....

check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZlDBARD2R8&search=the%20jesus%20and%20mar y%20chain

oh yeah...

I have some live video footage of them from the very early days.
They sound exactly like you would expect.
Fuzzed out, raucous cacophony. Audience violence and venue destruction.
Awesome arrogance in interviews.
I don't think there was much studio trickery in Psychocandy at all.
They barely had any gear at all.

Clearly getting on in years (in rock band terms), there is nothing here that has ... nothing on this album that has the gonzoid genius of "Suds and Soda". ...
www.amazon.co

"Why are you guys getting so much attention?"

"Because we're so good. Because we're so much better than everybody else. Because everybody else is complete rubbish. We put out a record, people bought it; we put out another and they bought that as well. See, I'm not just some little crank from Scotland sayin' we're so bloody good; I'm talkin' the truth!"

Awesome interview action.