Research Rock

*Research Rock I guess is the new Record Collection Rock. A continuation if you like. This time time though it's not based so much on music weeklies, magazines, fanzines, fusty second hand shops, eighth generation tapes, word of mouth, cool record collections and knowing taste makers but on your ability to connect threads from blogs, Web magazines, music history books/magazines (these aren't totally necessary as all research can be done online) and knowing the coolest virtual places to go for your info. Then collecting the correct files through your expertise of cool web navigation. Later you pick and choose from your downloads/files in your virtual record collection. Now you can do it overnight instead of years of gathering tid bits of esoterica to build the perfect record collection which your band can cut & paste into an amalgam of seemingly new soundz etc. (er...still thinking this through. I'll expand this another day when my brain is functioning in a less tired manner)

**This is a work/thought in progress.

Beaches - She Beats

When I write about an artist I usually try to evoke the sounds, ideas and feelings through words and not list influences. This is getting harder by the second particularly as we are now very late in the (rock) epoch.  I'm only a couple of listens in but I'm really diggin' She Beats. It's a guitar record. It's not really breaking any new ground but who is? My ears just love hearing those guitars and the melodies. They've definitely done stellar research*. Beaches belong the lineage of The Velvets/Stooges/Kraut/Hawkwind axis, the Paisley Underground, 80s Sydney Rock (The Church, Died Pretty) 80s into early 90s Flying Nun, Proto-Shoegaze (ie. Loop et al.) Shoegaze, 90s Kranky and  instrumental groups from the USA like Pell Mell & Cul-De-Sac and the more recent Yawning Man/Ten East. I have to say though with Beaches It feels more organic than that. This musical melting pot  has been brewing in their DNA for some time and can't help but ooze out of them when they plug in and play. As opposed to a group like Savages who seem to be mixing and matching influences like trying on clothes. IE. 'Does my Wire match my Siouxsie? Does my Banshee look big in this?'

Beaches still haven't captured the immensity of their live sound on tape and one wonders if they ever will. Someone should give them hundreds of thousands of dollars so they can create their very own Tusk or Starfish. They must be special if I'm willing to let a track like Granite Snake get past me as I swore a couple of years ago that if I heard another band being influenced by Neu (Neu are one of my all time favourite bands but does that mean every 2nd band should rip em off) I would smash the radio in. But Granite Snake blows my fucking mind, it's incredible  Who'd have thought we'd be listening to a band in 2013 that reminded us of Opal, The Pale Saints or the 3Ds? Possibly the best record of its ilk since Yawning Man's excellent Vista Point from 2007 (yeah yeah I know Vista Point is a compilation of records made in 2005, whatever).