PWR BTTM

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Hype
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PWR BTTM

#1 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:23 am

Because I've been tempted to post their videos in other threads, and because we're all old people now, complaining about the sorry state of new music (as it seems to us), I figure I should just post a whole set of youtube videos for this band that is really kickng my ass right now -- thanks to Artemis I'm going to see them play a pretty small venue in Toronto in May, so I'm pretty stoked -- their audiences are WEIRD (read: queer) people who seem to be having a lot of fun.

Here's one of Rolling Stone's top 10 songs of 2016:


They like to use puns/plays on words:


This ear-worm novelty-style song reminds me of a bunch of stuff (Weezer, in particular, but also some late-90s, early 2000s stuff):


Here's a slightly different style track (more melancholy and atmospheric, a bit like early Arcade Fire):


I posted these two elsewhere, but they're probably my two favourite songs:

A nod to Kurt Cobain and Grunge roots (Thom Yorke, among others) nostalgia tripping:


Here's my favourite guitar riff of the past 15 years -- clearly a reference to Wild Thing!


There are more. But you should be hooked by now. Or not. Maybe you're too old.

MYXYLPLYX
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Re: PWR BTTM

#2 Post by MYXYLPLYX » Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:32 am

Well, with a name like "Power Bottom" it's no wonder they draw a queer crowd...



:lol:

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Hype
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Re: PWR BTTM

#3 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 9:54 am

MYXYLPLYX wrote:Well, with a name like "Power Bottom" it's no wonder they draw a queer crowd...



:lol:
They have joked that they spell the name without vowels because if you google the phrase 'power bottom' you don't find the band, you just find a lot of gay porn.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#4 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:25 am

Their Tiny Desk Concert is awesome too. Reminds me of Sonic Youth, JA, RHCP, White Stripes...


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kv
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Re: PWR BTTM

#5 Post by kv » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:27 am

In the internet age finding one of my fav bands X anywhere is all but impossible


Btw that cherry song guitar is reminding me of something I can't place...Pissing me of...I think it's a punk song...just which of the 40 billion :banghead: I am lucky that I can usually place something familiar pretty quickly...........................


Wait it's a blink song I think

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Hype
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Re: PWR BTTM

#6 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:31 am

kv wrote:In the internet age finding one of my fav bands X anywhere is all but impossible
I've tried with "X Band" but even that doesn't work half the time. I think you can game it by searching "X band <album/track title>", but yeah... Remember "The Music"? Same problem. Also "The Band".

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Re: PWR BTTM

#7 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:33 am

kv wrote:Btw that cherry song guitar is reminding me of something I can't place...Pissing me of...I think it's a punk song...just which of the 40 billion :banghead: I am lucky that I can usually place something familiar pretty quickly...........................
Yeah. Please post if you think of it because I had the same feeling when I first heard it and have been trying to figure it out since. I feel like it might be something stupid from the late 90s/early 2000s pop punk scene, like Blink 182. But it could also be 80s skater-punk.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#8 Post by kv » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:37 am

There is a band I don't like called chvches...Because they were internet savy

I have a little side project where we make single day fast track demos where we came up with the stupidest band name of all time I'm pretty proud of: Dinah Shore Jr. :hehe: have to be a certain age group to get both meanings...ie we dated ourselves

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Re: PWR BTTM

#9 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:39 am

kv wrote:There is a band I don't like called chvches...Because they were internet savy

I have a little side project where we make single day fast track demos where we came up with the stupidest band name of all time I'm pretty proud of: Dinah Shore Jr. :hehe:
:lol: That's great. Btw, J's relatively recent solo stuff is also among my favourite new music: Several Shades of Why and Tied To A Star are fucking incredible. Especially:

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Re: PWR BTTM

#10 Post by kv » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:47 am

Here's a link...Sounds nothing like either...New genre, old men vs garage
https://soundcloud.com/user-448700448/currents

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Re: PWR BTTM

#11 Post by kv » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:58 am

I edited above but you missed it...Def agree that riff is blink inspired

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Hype
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Re: PWR BTTM

#12 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 12:25 pm

I like the old men in the garage track -- reminds me of something too, but couldn't place it.

One thing I'm enjoying about PWR BTTM is that despite their surface glam/pop stuff, the lyrics are really something -- a lot of wordplay, references, and some pretty skilled rhythm. Current favourite lines:
Maybe something I said before just wasn't right. Or maybe your heart's on silent mode tonight. Silent mode tonight.
That combined with the obvious down-stroke pop-punk riffs makes this line really, really funny... It's treacly teenage boy-girl shit rewritten for savvy internet genderqueers. Which leads to:
But then you left again and I just felt confused and dirty / My teenage angst will be with me well into my thirties.
This isn't your parents' sappy pathetic unaware teeny-bopper shlock. This is SELF-AWARE teeny-bopper schlock, with sick guitar riffs and Bowie-esque visuals! :lol:

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Re: PWR BTTM

#13 Post by SR » Tue Mar 28, 2017 12:46 pm

Hype wrote:Their Tiny Desk Concert is awesome too. Reminds me of Sonic Youth, JA, RHCP, White Stripes...

That riff is Wild Thing to me.

I get a White Sripes, and Neon Trees vibe.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#14 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 12:48 pm

SR wrote:
Hype wrote:Their Tiny Desk Concert is awesome too. Reminds me of Sonic Youth, JA, RHCP, White Stripes...

That riff is Wild Thing to me.

I get a White Sripes, and Neon Trees vibe.
Also Flaming Lips.

Oh, the other thing I find really cool about them is that they're a White Stripes if Meg White sang more and played guitar and Jack played drums more. They switch places constantly (a living metaphor for gender-fluidity!)

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Re: PWR BTTM

#15 Post by Pandemonium » Tue Mar 28, 2017 1:54 pm

SR wrote:
Hype wrote:Their Tiny Desk Concert is awesome too. Reminds me of Sonic Youth, JA, RHCP, White Stripes...

That riff is Wild Thing to me.

I get a White Sripes, and Neon Trees vibe.
Some of the songs I get a Ray Davies/Kinks via Kings of Leon vibe.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#16 Post by Hype » Tue Mar 28, 2017 3:06 pm

Oh, yeah, totally cabaret Kinks shit, but no KoL... these guys are way better. :flip:

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Re: PWR BTTM

#17 Post by JOEinPHX » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:26 pm

I want to love this band just because I want to tell everyone I am listening to Power Bottom, but their songs are fucking terrible.

Like I imagine this is what Jack White's songs sounded like before he got good at playing guitar.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#18 Post by JOEinPHX » Tue Mar 28, 2017 10:28 pm

To be fair, I usually don't like lo-fi stuff anyway.

But still, I feel like if it was a little less sloppy it might be something I'd enjoy.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#19 Post by Hype » Wed Mar 29, 2017 3:23 am

:lol: I dunno, I think Jack White's stuff is pretty damned sloppy a lot of the time, too, and that's what's interesting about it. Otherwise everyone's just playing computer-sounding I-IV-V... and at that point you might as well just listen to U2 and Incubus.

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Re: PWR BTTM

#20 Post by kv » Wed Mar 29, 2017 5:25 am

Ya the Lowfi HiFi divide is very real thing...I had a long Convo with one of my friends about it two weeks ago...I'd made a song were we recorded a extra guitar track with speakers up to add noise...My buddy was confused by the noise...And when I told him it was on purpose he was so fucking annoyed as to why we'd intentionally muddyed it up...."it sounded too clean had to be done" just complete confusion....made me laugh

It's just tastes again :noclue: I listened to too much Lowfi as a youth, it's ingrained in me

Of course my buddy is all about protooling stuff until it's sterile to me..Cut and pasteing, making everything perfect... :jasper: fuck metronomes record shit live till you get it right or close enough :lolol:

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Re: PWR BTTM

#21 Post by Hype » Wed Mar 29, 2017 6:03 am

kv wrote:Ya the Lowfi HiFi divide is very real thing...I had a long Convo with one of my friends about it two weeks ago...I'd made a song were we recorded a extra guitar track with speakers up to add noise...My buddy was confused by the noise...And when I told him it was on purpose he was so fucking annoyed as to why we'd intentionally muddyed it up...."it sounded too clean had to be done" just complete confusion....made me laugh

It's just tastes again :noclue: I listened to too much Lowfi as a youth, it's ingrained in me

Of course my buddy is all about protooling stuff until it's sterile to me..Cut and pasteing, making everything perfect... :jasper: fuck metronomes record shit live till you get it right or close enough :lolol:
I have a bunch of friends like this too. I call them "technician musicians" -- as opposed to artists. They're really incredible technically -- perfect knowledge of music theory, multi-instrumentalists, protools, etc. But sitting through their tracks is painful... they craft these perfect soundscapes without creating something I would call a song. :confused: They're like: "Yeah, but can't you hear how nice that sound is?!" and I'm like: "Yeah, but... like... I don't always like nice sounds. I also like things I don't expect, and interesting shit."

I think it probably tracks the lo-fi hi-fi divide, but then I was thinking about Frank Zappa v. Captain Beefheart. Frank was obsessive about musicianship (timing, composition, etc); Beefheart, not so much. But Frank made a lot of songs that didn't SOUND like they were beaten into perfection, and Beefheart often sounded like he crafted that shit. :hs:

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Re: PWR BTTM

#22 Post by kv » Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:34 am

It's a age related/tech divide too..25 years ago most everyone was on 4 or 8 tracks...Now most kids have their laptops and software plus a free range of effects

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Re: PWR BTTM

#23 Post by Hype » Wed Mar 29, 2017 9:00 am

Yeah. I have one of these:
Image

It's pretty cool for looping/beats. Plus then I can plug a guitar/keyboard in and play a couple of notes/riffs and put them all together into a thing I could never play live. :lol:

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Re: PWR BTTM

#24 Post by Xizen47 » Wed Mar 29, 2017 11:30 am

Hype wrote:Yeah. I have one of these:

It's pretty cool for looping/beats. Plus then I can plug a guitar/keyboard in and play a couple of notes/riffs and put them all together into a thing I could never play live. :lol:
I do the same thing :nod: Love the Kaossilator, not bad for something under $100

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Re: PWR BTTM

#25 Post by Hype » Wed Mar 29, 2017 1:02 pm

Xizen47 wrote:
Hype wrote:Yeah. I have one of these:

It's pretty cool for looping/beats. Plus then I can plug a guitar/keyboard in and play a couple of notes/riffs and put them all together into a thing I could never play live. :lol:
I do the same thing :nod: Love the Kaossilator, not bad for something under $100
When I first got it, I used a post-it note and a ruler to mark off every single different "note" on the pad, and then used a stylus to hit them more accurately. That way you can also "write" a beat down in a reusable notation so you can play it again if you need to. I guess now they have software synths that you can either play virtually or program. :noclue:

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