The Vaselines tonight

[A.M. Thomas]

Still as glorious and underappreciated as always.  I am in love with Frances McKee and I wish I had tickets to see them in Brooklyn too.

[Gilly]

It's really surprising how unknown they are considering how Nirvana plugged the crap out of them. Nirvana was influential enough to spawn 1000 crappy bands but I guess not enough to make the Vaselines a household name.

[jed]

How did I miss this? (the post and thus the show?) My wife would have loved to go.

[<<<<<]

Did Nirvana ever truly spawn a bunch of wannabe bands though?  If they did, I didn't notice.  I saw a lot of their contemporaries and fore-runners get some attention though.

I can't say I've ever seen a band that was directly and specifically heavily influenced by Nirvana though.  Not in the same way you can point at some bands and pin them as influenced by the Pixies or Joy Division.  Don't really think Nirvana was distinct enough to be one of those bands.

[Gilly]

Did Nirvana ever truly spawn a bunch of wannabe bands though?  If they did, I didn't notice.  I saw a lot of their contemporaries and fore-runners get some attention though.

I can't say I've ever seen a band that was directly and specifically heavily influenced by Nirvana though.  Not in the same way you can point at some bands and pin them as influenced by the Pixies or Joy Division.  Don't really think Nirvana was distinct enough to be one of those bands.

Take a listen to a hard rock radio station. They've been playing bad Nirvana knock-offs for about 6-7 years now. I think Seether is the latest one.

[<<<<<]

I'm not sure I'd hang that stuff on Nirvana specifically.  Some of it is rooted in "grunge", sure.  But grunge was a lazy tag.  A lot of those bands owe more to Helmet than they do Nirvana.  Nirvana was really just a continuation of what Flipper had been, but you don't hear that at all in current hard rock.

[Gilly]

I would bet a lot of those bands couldn't name more than one Helmet song and I would guess 75 percent of them would say Nirvana is their biggest influence.

[<<<<<]

I would think Soundgarden or Alice in Chains instead.  Nirvana was noisy and sloppy as hell 90% of the time.  If even more naive listeners managed to take anything other than that away from them, then they kind of missed something fairly obvious about the band.

Of new bands in the spirit of Nirvana, I'd probably pick Pissed Jeans. 

[<<<<<]

Hang on, I just listened to "Rape Me", maybe you're right.  It does sound a bit like nu metal now.    

[A.M. Thomas]

The Vaselines: Now with pictures and set list!







Son of a gun
Monster Pussy
The Day I Was a Horse
Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam
Oliver Twisted
Molly's Lips
Slushy
Let's Get Ugly
No Hope
Sex Sux (Amen)
Rory Rides Me Raw
Dying for It

Encore:
You Think You're a Man
Dum Dum