Dear Yancey,
I realise that despite the physical distance between us, you, I and the rest of the 17 Dots crew communicate pretty well. Indeed we’ve learned a lot from one another - I now know the difference between a dude and a bro, whereas you guys based in New York are picking up British slang very quickly (just the other day Joe used ‘knackered’ correctly in a sentence!) However, in one regard we’ve been talking at cross purposes. The 1900s and 1990s are two different bands.
Yes, The 1900s are the pop-psychedelics from Chicago, and 1990s are the indie-pop lot from Glasgow. It explains so much. Like the look of polite confusion on your face when I first came to New York in July 2006 and solemnly informed you that two members of The 1900s used to be in the Yummy Fur and were friends with Alex Kapranos.
“Well, Franz Ferdinand have been touring over here,” you said, and I thought you were changing the subject.
It also explains the non-committal-I-don’t-want-to-disagree-with-you noise I made when you described 1990s as “sort-of 60s-ish California pop.”
Oh dear.
I blame the bands myself. If they will name themselves after eras instead of giving themselves proper, sensible band names like, oh, Pig Destroyer or Ping Pong Bitches or Gay For Johnny Depp, then what do they expect?
Some bands, I ask you,
Yours in new clarity,
Anna.
You might also like to know: Grizzly Bear and Giant Bear are not the same.
Not even close, really.
But, Bjork IS the same as the sound of children dying in a genocide.
Gay for Johny Depp…seriously could you not find at least a half decent group with a proper name? Like TV on the Radio or Elysian Fields, or anything?
Sara - I’d just picked the bands with particularly colourful names there.
It’s okay, it only made my ears bleed a little. I forget that some people do enjoy hard screaming death metal.
Minus Story and Minus The Bear are not the same either. Took me a few months to figure that one out.