I can't forget these forgettable 90s alt rock bands

Let's talk Aguachile Alley

Postby Eyeball Kid » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:03 pm

Here's another one I really liked at the time, and listening to it now it's going down well. Kind of a poppier Melvins?



The album's on Spotify, too, and I'm cringing being reminded it has a song called "Rock Anthem for the Retarded Teenage Hipster Population". Doubly cringing because I'm listening to the song as I type this and it shreds.
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Postby doublethink0 » Mon Jul 15, 2019 6:34 pm

Hal Jordan wrote:

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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:16 pm

Eyeball Kid wrote:Please do!


https://www.mediafire.com/file/6n3kxoy8ndj99yi/l-mewbanh.zip/fileToggle Spoiler
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Postby winj » Mon Jul 15, 2019 7:56 pm

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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:00 pm

Too many people remember Spacehog
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Postby my piano » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:05 pm

Eyeball Kid wrote:
This band had a Suicidal Tendencies/Infectious Grooves connection


something about this screencap/title combo has me rolling
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Postby Milk » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:12 pm



GF did this at karaoke once and while i'm rather certain nobody in the crowd knew the song (this charted like number 5 in the UK but barely cracked the top 200 in NA, i had onyl a very slight memory of the song before i knew her) it got the best reaction of the night.
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Postby Eyeball Kid » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:13 pm

That My Head song is really catchy!
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Postby pissydan » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:25 pm

Grumby wrote:i know some other boarders rep possum dixon though. not alone

the s/t is one of the best albums of 1993 and im not even fucking around. star maps is ok but that s/t is the shizz.
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Postby Eyeball Kid » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:34 pm

neuartillery wrote:Too many people remember Spacehog

Yeah, absolutely against the spirit of this thread
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Postby saranclaps ultra mode 9000 » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:43 pm

i'm not really sure the veldt belong here because they were the only black us shoegaze band and one of the only black alternative bands. also they never were remotely popular? production is pretty dated though.
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Postby winj » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:44 pm

Eyeball Kid wrote:
neuartillery wrote:Too many people remember Spacehog

Yeah, absolutely against the spirit of this thread


Alright alright, I apologize. I was weirdly obsessed with that album when it came out in junior high, even bought their follow up. Used one of their tracks for a song analysis presentation in English class & never met another person who cared about them. I was surprised by the number of plays on that YouTube video & I guess it must have survived through classic radio & Spotify playlists. I’ll show myself out!!
Last edited by winj on Mon Jul 15, 2019 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:45 pm

I read Jon Fine's (guitarist for Bitch Magnet /Vineland) book Your Band Sucks and one of the tidbits that stuck with me was that Hardvark's Memory Barge, an album I absolutely owned on CD courtesy of a dollar or less bin, sold an almost record-low amount of copies for a major label band. I don't know if they even made a video.

They were OK. Their early singles came out on the Champaign label Mud which is how I found out about them. Drummer Bob Rising was on the best Seam record (The Problem with Me) and maybe the best Poster Children record (Daisychain Reaction).

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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 8:57 pm

More sub-120 Minutes stuff, it's kind of amazing that major labels released stuff that got less traction than Lifter.

Menthol was another Champaign-Urbana band (later Chicago), originally named Mother until legal action. Singer/guitarist Balthazar De Ley was the bass player in Hum for a few years. He was generally a pretty interesting lyricist. They were on Capitol, put out one record, spent a ton of money (six figures at least) recording a follow-up which got shelved. They then re-recorded that album and put it out on a Mud/Parasol side label a few years later, at which point they weren't an active band. There are a couple of the original songs recordings floating around and yeah they sound way fucking better than the re-recorded stuff. I often think about that process and how defeating it must have felt.

Apparently this one was more popular than the rest of the S/T record, who knew.

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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:07 pm

Here's another rung below Hardvark / Menthol, but a band/album I like a lot more.

Love Cup was also from Champaign. They did a 7" and a CD on the Poster Children's label 12 Inch Records (same label that put out the first two Hum records and some other stuff probably only I care about). The CD was highly, highly recommended in the Parasol Mail Order catalog, so I ordered it. I think it fits here because it scans more alt-rock than indie rock -- some of the same heavy/spacey guitar tones that Hum used. Supposedly 1. they were negotiating a major label deal when they broke up 2. Hum guitarist Tim Lash auditioned to join them at some point. I remember cranking this album on my discman so loud that my ears hurt, good times.



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Postby WeirdJungle » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:18 pm

wow I have not thought about Parasol records in a long time

I lived in Champaign for a few years as a teenager and some friends of friends did a record with Parasol that was very much in the forgettable 90s alt-shoegaze genre, so much so that I will probably never remember what it was called despite the fact that it is majorly bugging me now

I think there was maybe a track called "shields"? that's all I've got
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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:28 pm

Absinthe Blind?

I worked at the campus ice arena with the female singer of that band.
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Postby WeirdJungle » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:31 pm

yeah I think that must be it, I guess they weren't on Parasol after all

Posting this just triggered a repressed memory of working at the college radio station in Oberlin, OH several years later and finding Absinthe Blind's CD in the DJ library with a handwritten review from one of the former DJs describing in great detail how much the band sucked and how said former DJ had heckled and thrown ice at them when they played at Oberlin

Oberlin kinda sucks
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Postby WeirdJungle » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:34 pm


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Postby Hal Jordan » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:34 pm



311 adjacent band doin some ska punk rap so not really the spirit but whtvr
A lamp with a white shade was knocked over and broken. Someone was smoking pot. “This is the pot room!” a young man said.
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Postby hadlex » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:38 pm



My friend's dad reviewed CDs in the mid-90's and there were always a lot of Z-grade alt band albums lying around. This was one I always kinda dug.
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Postby antoine » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:43 pm

Oh yeah poe. Sister of beloved novelist Mark Z. Danielewski
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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:44 pm

WeirdJungle wrote:yeah I think that must be it, I guess they weren't on Parasol after all

Posting this just triggered a repressed memory of working at the college radio station in Oberlin, OH several years later and finding Absinthe Blind's CD in the DJ library with a handwritten review from one of the former DJs describing in great detail how much the band sucked and how said former DJ had heckled and thrown ice at them when they played at Oberlin

Oberlin kinda sucks


Their last two records were on Mud, which was a Parasol label. I don’t think I’d listened to them prior to realizing that my coworker was in the band (which came up because she said she wouldn’t be at the rink the next week and I asked why and she said she was going to CMJ). The CU scene lifers I knew did not like that band at all whereas college kids actually came out to see them, so they had a weird place in the scene. I saw them a couple of times and I know I heard their two albums on Mud. They were halfway between some watered-down U2 arena rock and shoegaze stuff, and I know the singer did a lot of holding his guitar as a prop while he sang, which bugged me. After they broke up a few of them went onto Orphans (later Headlights), which I initially liked more.

I jokingly heckled them, did not throw any ice.
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Postby antoine » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:46 pm

The name Absinthe Blind sounds so familiar but I don't think I've heard that band. That's like the perfect forgettable 90s alt shoegaze band name.
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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:47 pm

“Cannon” made more sense as a guitar-rock 90s song but “So Low” has more traction on 120 Minutes. It’s a pretty well made video for that era, a little surprised it didn’t take off.
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Postby neuartillery » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:49 pm

antoine wrote:The name Absinthe Blind sounds so familiar but I don't think I've heard that band. That's like the perfect forgettable 90s alt shoegaze band name.


It was a legitimately terrible name. I’m trying to remember the mock name one of my friends called them.

The singer later did a record with Jeff Dimpsey of Hum under the name Gazelle.
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Postby Hal Jordan » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:49 pm

maybe too well remembered...? and it has mark hammill in the video!!!

A lamp with a white shade was knocked over and broken. Someone was smoking pot. “This is the pot room!” a young man said.
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Postby Hal Jordan » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:50 pm

was about to post refreshments - banditos but that bad boy has WELL OVER 1 million views.
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Postby WeirdJungle » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:50 pm

During the same era described on the previous page I habitually stole promo CDs from issues of Melody Maker at the UIUC music library, which were mostly full of awful flavor-of-the-week UK alt bands. this is one that really embedded itself in my mind for some reason:

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Postby doublethink0 » Mon Jul 15, 2019 9:51 pm

came to wreck wrote: for this thread like spacehog and our lady peace but idk if many ppl knew of this song, felt like it could have been a local radio hit as well?


been trying to find a vintage poe shirt for awhile now but so far nothin


probably for the trip hop threads but who cares
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