Tag Archives: Slowdive
Ignored 78: Big breaks
Ignored 49: The year(z) in music 2014
A “2014 – the year in music” chat with my pal Adam that has very little to do with “2014 – the year in music”.
Cam: I have a web chat I want to do with you for a blog post: a “2014 – the year in music” post for two guys who aren’t really in tune with the latest/greatest music-wise. Vague concept but the subtext is that certain bands remind you of certain times in your life, irrespective of when the music is actually from. For example, when I first graduated from university and had my first job, I was really only listening to the first five R.E.M. albums, for some reason. I still don’t know why this happened.
Adam: 2014 musically for me: he year I became a more regular iTunes purchaser. Easier, cross platforms, no ripping. My Wilco fandom continued to rise and I really, really enjoyed Tweedy’s solo album. Saw it live at TURF this summer and liked every song I heard the first time. Then, I had to wait until the album finally came out in September. Concerts before the album seems more rare. I downloaded and listened to a lot from the spring 1990 Grateful Dead box set with the Omni show in Atlanta becoming one of my favorite newly-discovered shows. Wonderful second set of “Foolish Heart”, “Looks Like Rain” and “He’s Gone”. The beauty of wonderful song transitions. This was the year I realized I may not be seeing the Dead much more as Bobby cancelled the whole tour and Phil is doing long stands at terrapin and the capital theatre. Perhaps that led to my dialling up the Wilco knob towards 11. Added Wilco at Red Rocks to my bucket list. What else. Oh! The discovery of 106.5 Voices radio late in the work season was a special experience. “Ghost radio”, as we call it. Random inexplicable and novelty on a new scale. I’ll think of more once I can scan through my iTunes to see what else is new.
C: Awesome recap! I like how listening to music from the past is always the real measure of a “year in music” recap for most hardcore music fans. It’s why year-end issues of Rolling Stone or whatever never held much interest because truthfully, twelve months of music fandom can’t be limited to music that comes out in that calendar year. I saw some good shows this year: Slowdive, Beach House, Mogwai, Stephen Malkmus. All nostalgia largely but considering I probably listened to more of the Brian Jonestown Massacre this year than any other band, it seems fitting. I re-discovered checking out legit “new bands” early in the year too via Wavelength and Long Winter show. It reminded me of how fun it can be to check out really young bands, even if I have no intention of checking them out beyond those shows. I saw Alvvays and Pup at a library, which was also cool and atypical. So do you basically feel tapped on Dead/Dead-related stuff at this point? Does it make you sad on some level? I’d liken it to reading a really good book and that feeling of semi-dread knowing that there’s only 50 pages left and that void that’s on the horizon. There’s also that morbid silver lining when an artist passes that people tend to revisit their work with a slightly difference perspective. Albeit, very skewed in the immediate. Your Dead is my Pavement. That band was so important to me, as a music fan and to me, personally. They influenced my sense of humour, how I interact with people, the ways I’ve managed my career. Big picture stuff! I don’t know. I think some bands/music brings a point of view that extends far beyond the songs coming out of the speakers. I could probably bring myself to tears just looking at the cover art for Wowee Zowee and yet I’m sure somebody could listen to that album for the first time in 2014 and find it, at top dollar best, “slightly boring indie rock with 2-3 country songs uncomfortably mixed in”.
A: Yes, I am sad about [the Dead going away]. I also am not really willing to do a trip to see Phil at the capital outside New York, mainly because of the driving time and money and needing to coordinate someone else to do that with. Road tripping is a funny business if you’re finicky as I can sometimes be. It’s far. Fuck that. I always drive to western New York shows religiously and still would. Saw Bob Dylan play there in February and drove down alone. Met up with some friends. Found a miracle ticket outside the show that was sold out. Second set: “Iko Iko” was the highlight. I’ve seen Bobby or Phil About 25 times over the years. It’s my favorite music and I’m an unabashed dancer at shows. That’s where you get to do it in the midst of the thousands, also basking in that. All while singing along to your very favorite songs you know by heart. I wished I liked Phish more than I did, as they’re fun like that and I’ve gone to two shows in the last two years. Their live show is a completely different beast compared to their albums. Not a Dead show other than the crossover on the Venn diagram, the spirit and influence that spawned it. It’s still called “Shakedown Street” outside in the lot for a reason. Same crowd. Much more frenetic pace and faster dancing to be sure. Music that people on MDMA would love. Dead music was for pot and LSD. I’ll say that whereas I’d be up on the lawn for a Dead show, for phish, you want to be in the pit or lower bowl. Where the energy builds. The pit in Toronto last summer was amazing. Getting the energy from the crowd pour down on you was a trip. So there’s hope. Wilco gives me that for sure. Nels is fantastic at helping you lose your shit. Check out the Ashes of American Flags (actually just watch the whole thing) versions of “Impossible Germany”, “Side with the Seeds” or “Handshake Drugs” to see what I’m talking about. That’s my fucking jam, that is. I dance to the static at the end. It’s the funniest. I just like 4/4 time, I do. Also, I’m a total sucker for 3/4 time. “Norwegian Wood”, “Ashes and Fire” by Ryan Adams, “You’ve Ruined Me Now” by Norah Jones. That’s another episode.
Cam: I don’t think I’ve ever asked: are you a vinyl guy? CDs seem to have the least amount of resonance as collectibles as music fans. One theory: the glut of shitty AOL “one month free” CD-ROMs in the mid-1990s rendered the format pretty much disposable, even when you were paying $18-20 for a new release. It seems like music being analog-ish in any respect just seems more tangible. Also, I think the ability to skip tracks on demand totally changed the way people listen to albums. Now, we see that x1,000,0000 with MP3s/iPods.
Adam: Fuck vinyl. I couldn’t like it less. It’s absurd to me how horrifically inconvenient it is, overriding the audiophile thing. CDs got a shitty rap up front because all those original CDs were AAD (remember that?). Once they started remastering stuff, I never cared to look back. I also don’t get mono. The Beatles in Mono? Fuck that! Didn’t they hear the stereo versions? Had the Pet Sounds that came with mono and stereo? Deleted all mono tracks. I simply don’t get it. Unless the sound of shitty audio is nostalgic. I grew up on vinyl. I still hear a skip in “American Pie” because the the scratched LP my parents had. Yes, CDs became disposable but I loved my Discman and my Walkman before that. I remember once seeing this portable record player thing at Woolco at Towne and Countrye Square.
C: I’m OK with vinyl but I kind of see vinyl like I see pets: it’s a good experience at somebody else’s house or in public but I have no desire to have one in my own home. I don’t buy this “vinyl sounds warmer” argument that a lot of vinyl dorks will throw out, esp. when they’re listening to it through shitty dime-store speakers they lifted from grandma’s basement or a flea market. Maybe the sound is slightly different and there’s a bit of crackle but to me, vinyl in 2014 is more a statement by the owner than it is a statement about the music. It’s a brand: “I’m the type of person who buys vinyl because it says something about me”. I do like vinyl purely from a collectible standpoint. Perhaps because it subconsciously reminds me of collecting baseball cards. I miss album art and liner notes. A lot. 1989 Topps was the first complete baseball card set I managed to complete. I guess Grateful Dead collectors would be the closest equivalent? The only other bands offhand I can think that inspire that “collector mentally” (based on sheer volume of product) would be the Beatles, Frank Zappa, Guided by Voices and the Fall. At least with Zappa and GBV, I think the completists try to grab everything because it “exists” rather than because its necessarily “good”.
C: Did you see Dylan this fall?
A: Nope. Have seen him a dozen times but the experience has fallen off sharply the last 3-4 years. Larry Campbell left his band and there’s less and less I enjoy about it. Saw him close Americanarama last summer after My Morning Jacket and Wilco. A major drag. Id be going to get one, maybe two sweet harp solos. You can’t go I. With expectations and he can surprise you but the values not there for a shoe you hope to try and enjoy by force of will. Have been listening to a ton of time out of mind though.
C: You know what’s sad? Certain concerts where the ticket buying decision is measures on the “This show will probably suck but this guy might be dead soon” scale. Felt this way about the last local shows for Neil and Leonard Cohen.
A: The band he had for the Never Ending Tour with Larry Campbell leading it was fantastic. it carried the shows. I still like Bob’s albums and I don’t want to be a complainer about live Bob, because you’ve got to know what to expect going in. but at Americanarama, it was the most lackluster “Desolation Row” I can ever recall. It broke for me. especially after Wilco and My Morning Jacket. Actually, it broke for me when Bob played the ACC with Foo Fighters opening. The first sub-par Dylan show post-Larry. Then, I went to see a show up at Rama, which ranks as the worst concert I’ve ever seen in the worst venue. That broke it good. Then, went to see him in Oshawa maybe three years ago, which was pretty decent. Passed on Lewiston last year and here we are now. it’s a weird strange thing when you don’t want to see the people you love anymore.
C: Yeah, the fact Bob played Casino Rama, Oshawa, Air Canada Centre, now Sony Centre… I dunno… this is fuckin’ Bob Dylan and he’s kinda just getting trotted out to whatever room will have him. Did the Rama experience taint him for you? It just sounds really, really sad. Like when you see old ballplayers all broken down and sitting at some folding table at a memorabilia show, signing crap for $25 a pop.
A: Have you watched Festival Express?
C: No. Always have meant to check that out. Do you consider the Band a 1960s band? On paper they should be since their most prominent work and Woodstock happened that decade. But they somehow, they don’t seem of that era. They’re a really unique band to me: if a lot of their shit came out today, it’d still seem contemporary and yet they recorded it 40 years ago and even then, I think they were trying to seem old timey. I’d love to read a oral history-type article of the Band in the 1980s and early 1990s. When they were releasing all those albums people didn’t like or didn’t care about (like the one with big pig face) and yet they continued to plow ahead.
A: Levon’s This Wheel’s on Fire is that book. Couldn’t bring myself to read it. Didn’t want to hate Robby.
C: That’s sad. The 1980s were a real awkward stage for a lot of artists when music switched to become a more visual medium. Id put Robbie, Lou Reed, George Harrison, the Stones all in this category. Their videos esp. from this era tend to be pretty cringe worthy. Misguided attempts to get on MTV.
A: … but 1988 was a turning point!
C: Yeah but you also got the “it’s the 1990s so time to get real and grow a goatee” approach adopted by people like Bruce and Jack McDowell. You know what was really terrible? Mid/late 1980s Robert Plant. “Tall Cool One” et all. Just really weak and poorly thought out.
A: We aren’t going to talk about goatee’d Bruce. It’s dangerous territory. “In the Mood” by Plant is good.
C: Yes. Once they grow a goatee and engage in photo-shoots featuring B&W pics of them not smiling, the tide has clearly turned. Another trope of bad 1980s: bringing in sassy female back-up singers in inexplicable places. Such as…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7btcksg7z8
A: Hold on, you’re going after Petty? He has a short bad album window. He was hitting his early stride in the early 1980s, then toured with Dylan, Roger McGuin and the Dead. Royalty. Then, the accident and Full Moon Fever, the Wilburys. Artist of the decade. Shit. But go watch the Stones’ Steel Wheels video (At the Max is fantastic) for the classic back-up ensemble.
C: I dunno. I’m feeling all feisty after not having thought about Plant’s “Tall Cool One” for 10-15 years and forgetting about how shitty a lot of 1980s production was: this tendency to slot in back-up singers, keyboards, etc. where they didn’t necessarily belong. You know “Tall Cool One” sampled a bunch of Zep tunes (according to the music website Wikipedia)? Just total garbage and very indistinguishable from the equally weak Robert Palmer tune “Simply Irresistible” from around the same era. Truth: I thought Robert Plant and Robert Palmer were the same guy for a long, long while before I knew anything about music. I mean…. they were both named Robert!!!
A: PS:. Loving the new tweedy album. Though I’ve deleted the first and fourth songs Mixed guilt about taking out the songs I don’t like. Weird huh?
C: At least you make an effort to appreciate albums in any form still. That’s rare.
A: I’ve been enjoying buying things from iTunes. I still download movies, but actually bought both the iTunes movie and the soundtrack from Chef. Bought a soundtrack! When’s the last time I did that? Just decided not to buy the deluxe Fully Completely on CD and instead iTunes downloaded. Otherwise, I’m just ripping it into my Mac anyways. And no tax. Strange feeling about it.
C: I’d recommend you check out this. Weird renditions. Weirder audience. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUmMkD1fdIo
A: That was kinda awful. The signing cheerleaders was an interesting touch.
C: Yeah, that Neil rendition of “USA” is really, really strange. I assume he’s trying to be provocative… or maybe not? He used to be really cheeky and self-aware when he wanted to be but I hate to say: I think he’s kinda just old or scattered at this point. No idea what the deal with the cheerleaders is. Did you like that song “This Note’s For You”? I still hear it from time-to-time on Q107. I’m not sure it’s even a good song but I like listening to it, if that makes sense. Unrelated, not sure if you listen to the Marc Maron podcast but he had a really good one recently with Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders. I’ve always liked the music w/o being a big, big fan but I kinda love her after this. She’s mid-60s and been around for more than 30 years but still sounds so enthused about music in a really basic, pure way. I love that she came out of the teenage Bowie/Lou Reed/punk sphere and then formed this band that was a straight-up rock and roll/power pop band, akin to a female fronted Heartbreakers. I forgot she was married to Ray Davies AND that annoying dude from Simple Minds:
Ignored 38: Same songs, new price
UK shoegaze outfit Slowdive play Toronto this fall. They last played our city 20 years ago and tickets this time around have increased in price by 168 per cent ($11 in 1994, $29.50 in 2014).
That’s perfectly fine and expected. Because in pure economic terms, nostalgia comes at a high price.
Whether your vice is music, sports memorabilia, out-of-print literature or visiting Europe (or whatever “the old country” means to you), people will pay a significant premium to purchase something NOW that makes them feel a tinge of something from THEN.
Still, some jerks music fans like to get all uppity when a band like Slowdive reunites and their ticket prices skyrocket. The thing is, when you think of it in terms of simple supply and demand, why wouldn’t these prices spike?!? In 1994, the audience for Slowdive was mop-haired guys and girls who didn’t talk much plus assorted wannabe Anglophiles. In 2014, the audience is two additional decades worth of that type of music fan…. plus the entire original audience itself (except for those who died or moved to Courtice in the years since).
Demand goes up. Supply stays, more or less, the same. Do the math!
For more information and to learn more theories, go here. It’s a great place.
Getting back to Slowdive, a lot of notable bands have reunited in the last decade. However, even when compared to many of their contemporaries, returning after a 20 year absence is pretty rare. It begs the question: does staying away longer help pad your bottom line in terms of ticket prices?
(pause)
To help answer this question, I took a cross section of 18 of these notable bands who have returned to Toronto in the last decade after some sort of hiatus. I compared ticket prices for the “farewell” and “hello again” gigs and in an attempt to keep this apples-to-apples, I only included headline shows. This latter piece gets kinda dicey when we speak in terms of demand (i.e. the Constantines’ headline “reunion” show in Toronto this fall will technically be the third time they’ve played in the city since reuniting) but more on that later…
Also, none of the prices reflect services charges, venue fees or anything of that nature. Because people tend to hate taking about services charges, venue fees or anything of that nature.
Here is a list of the 18 bands in question, sorted by the year they returned to Toronto and also showing their last Toronto show before they disappeared for a while:
Now, the first graph below shows who had the longest gap between Toronto headline shows. The second graph shows who had the largest spike in ticket prices, expressed in terms of price percentage increase.
If there was a decent correlation between length of absence and increase in ticket price, these graphs should look somewhat similar shape-wise.
They don’t. At all.
Therefore, based on this (admittedly small) sample size, there is no real correlation between how long you’ve been away and how much you can jack up your prices.
Since the length of the hiatus, in and of itself, isn’t significant in boosting ticket prices across the board, here are a few less scientific factors that are:
– Taste: I mean, this is 90 per cent of the equation with any art, right? A few of these bands (especially My Bloody Valentine, the Pixies and Neutral Milk Hotel) became almost mythical during the 2000s due to the proliferations of blogs and YouTube and MP3s. Thus, when they started popping up on the touring circuit again, their fan bases has swollen to kind of insane proportions. Well, maybe not INSANE since MBV was originally booked to play the Ricoh Coliseum in 2008 (which would’ve been “whack”) before being downsized to the Kool Haus. But still. NOTE: the Ricoh Coliseum website is still erroneously listing the concert. They so crazy!
– Venue: When Jesse Keeler posted this note on a Death From Above 1979 forum back in 2006 in order to napalm his band, it meant that the duo’s last headline show in Toronto was a series of insanely loud gigs at the cozy Horseshoe Tavern the summer prior. Based on their popularity at the time, it easily could’ve been a room 5x as big. But in the end, it was happenstance. Either way, $15 for a DFA1979 gig in 2005 was a “bargoon“.
– Non-Headline Gigs: The Constantines played their first 2014 reunion show in nearby Guelph, rocked at Broken Social Scene’s Field Trip festival shortly thereafter and will be opening for the Arcade Fire at the Molson Amphitheatre around Labour Day. Their first “proper” Toronto headline show isn’t until October but given their “around-ness” prior, did THAT affect ticket price for their Danforth Music Hall gig? Who cares… it’s just good to have ’em back!
– Opening Acts: I’ve always had a soft spot for the macho riffing and self-aware posturing of Urge Overkill. However, their 1995 “bye bye” gig at The Phoenix also featured the Toronto debut (I think) of the equally-awesome Guided by Voices and the pre-Sweet Homewrecker hijinks of Thrush Hermit. A stacked triple bill and considering GBV were getting a ton of buzz at that time, I bet much of the audience were paying to see Robert Pollard and friends stumble around. Unfortunately, Bob got beat up.
– Willingness to Tour… Ever: Most people just assumed that Jeff Mangum would never tour Neutral Milk Hotel so the fact that their ticket prices dominate the second graph is a bit of an outlier. Even by 1998 standards, $7 for any show is massively low. Also worth noting: fact Mangum did a pair of solo acoustic sets in Toronto in 2011, which may have eased demand a touch.
A few other comments:
– Everybody kinda rags on the Pixies for their never-ending reunion tour and the fact that it took them a decade to release anything new (and that was only after they gave Kim Deal the boot). However, considering how unlikely that reunion was (see “the fax story”) you think they could’ve charged more than $35 for their first Toronto show back in 2004. In many ways, they ushered in the initial wave of reunions fuelled by 1990s nostalgia (and cash… lots of it). If they had decided to suck it in 2008 instead of the hinterlands of 2004, I betcha tickets would’ve easily run $60 or more. Even at the brutal Arrow Hall, which mercifully is no longer with us as a concert venue.
– The Jesus and Mary Chain were a good band. Not amazing but solid enough. But seriously, $60+ for their 2012 show? Unlikely My Bloody Valentine, Neutral Milk Hotel or Daft Punk, the Jesus and Mary Chain had played Toronto plenty in the past so it’s not like their originally fan base didn’t have ample opportunity to see ’em in the first time around. Heck, they brought along Curve, Spiritualized and (uh) Pure to play the (friggin’) SkyDome in 1992, which is was kind of a WTF at the time and is now a massive WTF in hindsight. That concert was $12.45 BTW. Good deal!!
– Speculative: if Morrissey decides to drop the seal hunt thing and play in Canada again, would tickets START at more than $100 a piece? I think so.
– My picks for the next wave of bands that we MIGHT see playing shows again within the next five years: Oasis, the Deadly Snakes (this show notwithstanding), Galaxie 500, Gene (would we care?!?), the Kinks (would they care?!?), Eric’s Trip (again), Siouxsie and the Banshees (again), Catherine Wheel (are they even broken up?!?), Local Rabbits, Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Supergrass, the White Stripes
Ignored 12: 1,200+ words about SIANspheric
Bold statement: SIANspheric is/was awesome, need a larger web presence and everything else.
SIANspheric is one of those bands that continues to have a small but severe reverence close to 20 years in. Which is amazing considering the band was, at its peak, ‘obscure’ at best. If you are aware of SIANspheric, chances are you like or love SIANspheric. It’s a high percentage proposition to be certain.
Born of the sleepy bedroom community (terrible expression BTW) of Burlington, Ontario, the outfit arrived slightly late to the first wave ‘shoegaze’ thing but ultimately, kinda slayed 90 per cent plus of the outfits in that scene. They specialized in a moody nuance that was both bleak and beautiful and while their cues were obvious given the era, they were one of the few North American shoegaze bands to break. Relatively speaking in terms of style and stature.
SIANspheric sits in a bit of black hole digitally in so far as they emerged just before the Internet became “The Internet!!” As a result, there isn’t a ton of content about SIANspheric online in spite of the fact they toured Canada multiple times, had CDs that were popular in certain circles and were a pseudo-flagship band of one of Canada’s top indie labels of the 1990s, Sonic Unyon.
Case in point: you Google them in 2013 and early on, you’re directly to such binary afterthoughts as their order page at Indigo.com. Related: lame shipping terms!
The first two SIANspheric albums (1995’s Sominum and 1997’s There’s Always Someplace You’d Rather Be) are (really) fantastic and everything else in their discography is good to very good/great. The music is nice and watery, and seemingly effortless. While the band ultimately got a bit more dubby in later releases, part of the charm of Sominum especially is breaks in tunes like “Watch Me Fall”. The band kinda sorta abandons the shoegaze/space rock/dream pop thing for a stretch and more or less, reverts to a relatable suburban indie band. In the process, they momentarily sound like any outfit on the Squirtgun Records roster. Then, they fog over on the next track and go back to doing it better than Slowdive et all.
For a handful of 30-somethings in the GTA, the effect is powerfully carnal. It’s a weird balance of sounding completely familiar and comfortable on the one hand and totally austere and distant on the other. And this was a band you could catch with some regularly on small stages. A complete anomaly of the era.
There isn’t a strong narrative to this feature since it’s largely an exercise in giving SIANspheric a bit of an SEO jolt. Accordingly, here is a collection of three additional observations about SIANspheric.
Feel free to read out-of-order as it won’t matter to the non-existent arc.
1. I ‘m going to suggest than Tristan Psionic and SIANspheric were the two Canadian indie bands of the 1990s most often mistaken for each other, purely based on their name, pedigree and geography. As awesome as they were/are, SIANspheric’s branding was a bit troubling. Sianspheric, SIANspheric, SIAN spheric, Tristan Psionic… through no fault of their own (aside from the fact they named the band), the name seemed to throw some people in terms of the correct spelling and proper capitalization. That being said, there were other Canadian bands of the era (namely, Treble charger/treble charger and Rusty/rusty) who seemed to inspire like-minded confusion vis a vis capitalization and whatnot. In summary, I guarantee I’m the only living person in 2013 who is still giving these matters any thought whatsoever.
2. In hindsight, it is notable that there really weren’t any truuuuuuuue North American-born “superstars” of the original shoegaze movement. That’s to say, no North American bands achieved the widespread notoriety of My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Curve, Catherine Wheel et all. One could argue that outfits like Galaxie 500 and the Smashing Pumpkins took major cues from these fellas and gals. But seriously, it’s not the same thing at all. DC-based weirdos Lilys were probably the highest tally on the North American/popular/shoegaze-y Venn diagram, especially whilst in the throws of their foggy 1994’s “mind eff” Eccsame the Photon Band. Even still, the band quickly packed up the phaser and went on a heavy 1960s power pop riff as the late decade fizzled out.
3. The shows SIANspheric did with Mystery Machine about a year ago are potentially on my Top 10 concert misses list. Twin underappreciated greatness.
For more information on SIANspheric, visit their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SIANspheric
Aside: Getting back to this “North Americans don’t/can’t shoegaze” notion, could this be 80 per cent a cultural thing and 20 per cent a marketing thing? Here is the breakdown…
80 per cent cultural – To be a shoegaze band by perception, you need to be withdrawn in a way that is specific to the UK: A cornerstone of the shoegaze persona is shyness. And we’re not talking about your standard, garden-variety shyness here. This is next level. Clinical. Dudes like Kevin Shields and the younger version of Neil Halstead seemed completely withdrawn in a way that was entirely foreign to these eyes: vastly destroyed emotionally but also sarcastically hilarious with great hair and cool pants/shoes. It’s more perception than anything as there appeared to be something inherently European (and by European, I mean British or Irish in these instances) in the way these people stood on stage, spoke in interviews and composed their music. Their personalities were entirely oblique (and essentially, glossed over) and their music was awesome in the way in seemed four, five or six degrees removed from anything that resembled “presentation” in the traditional sense. I suppose that was the appeal. Stateside, Sonic Youth could loop their effects pedals ad naseum, pierce ear drums and through it all, there’d still be a carnal sense of familiarity within the chaos since you knew Thurston Moore grew up in Connecticut and chances are, his cultural touchstones were probably not disimmilar to yours. This goes ten-fold for SIANspheric (for me, anyway) since they were literally a short drive away and yet were creating this powerful, impactful music that certainly didn’t sound like the Burlington I knew (not that I knew it at all beyond signs off the QEW and a single visit to Martin Streek‘s club night on Plains Road East). Again, to reiterate my early statement, SIANspheric are probably the one band I have ever listened to that (A) sounded completely familiar and comfortable on the one hand and (B) totally austere and distant on the other. They broke through the exoticism that is essentially required to “shoegaze” proper and ended up on an island (a noisy, ponderous island) in the process. Good job!
20 per cent marketing – All shoegaze album artwork and liner notes must be abstract and hard to interpret/read: A shoegaze album requires blurry artwork. No exceptions! The 4AD label was the touchstone for this approach as everything they ever put out appeared 25 per cent more “arty” than it was because of their dramatic cover art aesthetic. Case in point: I’d argue that the Breeders would be remembered completely differently if the album art on Pod and Last Splash was more (ahem) provincial to where the ladies and that drummer came from (yes, Wiggs was British.. shut up). Kim Deal is beyond awesome but at the end of the day, she is effectively a gregarious “salt of the earth” type from Dayton who just happens to have a compellingly strange sense of rhythm. Yeah, bit of a cheapshot at Dayton but essentially true. Also, it’s a fine line between “arty”/cool and “arty”/garbage when it comes to album art. Ergo, while the artwork on Sominum is not bad per se given the era, it kinda of looks like software packaging moreso than music in retrospect.
Completely Ignored 
