Pete Frame's wonderful Rock Family Trees series is a treasure trove of information for music nerds and lovers of pop trivia. A collection of Frame's painstakingly hand drawn work is now being shown at the Barbican Library in London, with another lot to go on display next summer.
I wrote a preview piece on it for LeCool.com, which you can read here.
It's
often easy to label a band based on the company they keep. You assume
that if they tour with certain bands or sign to a certain label, then
of course they must be of a similar style. Whilst that's true of many
bands, there are always going to be a few exceptions. Colossal
fall into the latter category. To call them a punk band would be
far too easy. Punk is too simple a definition for exactly what their
music is. The truth is, there isn't really a easy definition for
Colossal. The band described themselves as a “rock, post-punk,
jazz, and pop, indie rock outfit” which
is about as good a description as any. There is even a hint of Math
Rock to their complex rhythms and stunning technical ability, though
they forgo the rigid structures of that particular niche genre for a
looser, jazzier feel. But their music is something more than the sum
of all those different elements. There is a melancholy soul to their album
“Welcome The Problems”. Perhaps its because the band come from
Elgin, illinois and my preconceptions about the place have coloured
my view, but to me this album is the perfect soundtrack for walking
through suburban streets in the winter.
My first
encounter with Seaweed came about during a period in my musical taste
that is by no means individual to me. Since Nirvana's Nevermind
became a touchstone of modern music in 1991, it seems almost every
teenager with a passing interest in rock, goes through a phase of
listening primarily to grunge. Nirvana's influence is so lasting that
kids that never even shared a planet with Kurt Cobain are still
wearing t-shirts with his face on. I for one made sure I had all
their albums and singles and any bootlegs I could get my hands on.
This, of course, failed to satisfy the record collector in me and as
I looked further into Nirvana's history I decided to pick up any
records I could find by other bands on the Sub Pop label (Nirvana's
first home). Amongst 7 inches by Gas Huffer and B-sides collections
by Mudhoney, I found Seaweed's single Bill.
