Sinister: new bad things

[Ian Connelly]

At 12:57 PM -0800 1/25/99, promqueen at anti-social.com wrote:
>on the subject of vic chesnutt, Has anyone ever heard the New Bad Things
>song off the Hefner EP (that is, Hefner covering the NBT) called "Goethe's
>Letter to Vic Chesnutt"...
>does any one know anything else from The New Bad Things?  "They are from
>>Portland, Oregon and do indeed ride bicycles and drink coffee" is all
>i've got >on 'em.

the new bad things are an incredible and under-appreciated band.
in my inimitably awful way i'll suggest that they sound sort of
like early sebadoh (folk-y, confessional, playful lyrics with an
acoustic guitar) playing with an enthusiastic jazz combo (sax, two drums,
some other wind/brass instruments); there are six people in the band,
many of whom have undertaken aliases or pseudonyms ("luke hollywood"),
and all of whom seem to write the songs.

it's really hard to get a sense of how great their songs are from just
posting the lyrics since they're so amelodic and oddly delivered;i'll do it
anyway, though, but rest assured they're humorous, acerbic, pensive (all
three in the lyrics promqueen quoted) and twee (one song goes: 'i went
downtown today/trying to find your bicycle/i left some flowers with a note
and my
number/going home now/hoping you'll call'). like a lot of bands, the new
bad things will not break through to you on the first listen unless you're
the most incredibly cool and thoughtful person in the world. (hinthint:
i'm sure some of you are...)

they've released a ton of records on a bunch of labels (candy ass, popsecret,
lissy's, red beans and rice) - but all of them have been, in my opinion,
poorly recorded. if they'd ever put out a good recording of the abovementioned
'goethe' song or maybe 'concrete,' they'd be loved and known the world over.

they rarely tour (i think because they're so broke, but who knows?),
but when i saw them in olympia in 1994. they were all wearing coveralls,
like devo or ub40 or something --- and made ample fun of themselves for
wearing such warm clothes in 90+ degree weather...but when i saw them
in the grocery store an hour later buying beer, they were still wearing
'em! oh, and they have this song called 'i suck' - and at the same show
when someone called out for it, one of the NBTs said 'i wouldn't brag
about that if i were you, pal...but i might talk to you after the show!'

totally great, and sort of an acquired taste  - i'd recommend trying to
find their LP _freewheel_ to start with....

back to lurking,
ian



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