If you loved them in 1993, will you love them now?

June 26, 2024 11:18 AM

The Breeders play a pared-back, acoustically-centered set of four songs from 1993's enduring and definitive grunge-pop masterpiece Last Splash LP. No Cannonballs allowed, though; this was recorded amongst the peaceful redwoods and rocks in California's Big Sur, about 100 yards away from a small audience of surprised hikers. It's Glorious.
posted by not_on_display (24 comments total)

I was going to share this! It's so lovely, and the animations are a cute touch. Love Josephine looking as incorrigible as ever, even in the woods. I miss Carrie Bradley on violin.
posted by mykescipark at 11:21 AM on June 26 [3 favorites]

This looks wonderful and I can't wait to crank it when I'm off work--thank you!
posted by indexy at 11:25 AM on June 26

Love the home depot bucket-drum.
posted by kaibutsu at 11:29 AM on June 26 [1 favorite]

Glorious.
posted by ivan ivanych samovar at 11:55 AM on June 26 [1 favorite]

I love all of this but especially when Jo's bass is the biggest thing in the mix.
posted by whuppy at 12:18 PM on June 26 [2 favorites]

. . . but I'm so in the tank I even love hearing the Deal sisters just talking.
posted by whuppy at 12:20 PM on June 26 [4 favorites]

I was convinced that this was going to suck ass, but I am here to tell you sisters, brothers, and all others of Metafilter, this did not suck ass in any way, shape, or fashion.
posted by NoMich at 12:32 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

After Dr. indexy told me she at first misheard the song as "Undefined Hammer" I will now always think of it that way :)
posted by indexy at 12:36 PM on June 26 [4 favorites]

So glad they wrapped up the set with Drivin on 9.
posted by St. Oops at 12:51 PM on June 26 [3 favorites]

For my money, Pod was the better album, but I am definitely in the minority on that one.
posted by Kitteh at 1:14 PM on June 26 [4 favorites]

I feel like I recently (this year?) watched a really comprehensive video on The Breeders, maybe centered around Cannonball... It may be something I ran into here. Anyway, I knew these songs from the radio growing up, and this is delightful!
posted by jpziller at 1:18 PM on June 26

God this is just so exactly up my alley. Cannonball and Pod are part of my internal soundtrack, I just sing those songs inside my head all the time, even if I haven't listened to the records themselves in ages.
posted by Lawn Beaver at 1:26 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

I saw them support foo fighters recently and they were having such a lovely time, it was delightful
posted by Sebmojo at 1:45 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

For my money, Pod was the better album, but I am definitely in the minority on that one.

I join you.

Saw them last year here in LA and they were great.
posted by kensington314 at 1:51 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

No one ever puts it this way but . . . Kim Deal has the best voice in US music right? I mean you have like Sam Cooke, George Jones, Aretha, Mariah, and . . . Kim Deal? These are the best voices in American song?
posted by kensington314 at 1:52 PM on June 26 [3 favorites]

There was this video by trash theory about cannonball which seems like it might have been on metafilter .
posted by The River Ivel at 1:56 PM on June 26 [3 favorites]

Josephine Wiggs is so fucking cool -- I can also highly recommend the sole eponymous album put out by Dusty Trails (Wiggs and Vivian Trimble), which doesn't follow the Breeders sound but is just a great easy listen.

I love Last Splash, but personally I've always been partial to Safari. I'm glad Donelly didn't stick with them -- she does some great guitar work but her lyrics have always been insipid -- but Safari suggests I might be wrong about that.
posted by Pedantzilla at 6:01 PM on June 26

> No one ever puts it this way but . . . Kim Deal has the best voice in US music right?

The ones you said, yeah, and there have been moments where Kim's phrasing has reminded me of others like Billie Holiday... but that's the great thing about music—any list of great music, like, "these are the best voices", is always incomplete. Let's say three more: Louie Armstrong, Janis Joplin, Nina Simone—and you're still taking a small sample of the stew.

But Kim is definitely up there because the timbre of her voice, the range of emotions packed in the delicate delivery, these are unique gifts, not just to indie rock but music in general, and she & the Breeders were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time to get that voice and the music out there. (Especially her voice to be heard over Charles Thompson's voice—no shade but hearing Pod was one of the happiest moments of my early travels in listening to stuff, it was all the stuff that I wanted the Pixies to have been, and I was ecstatic when Last Splash came out later and it hit big.)

I wore that cassette tape out.
posted by not_on_display at 11:24 PM on June 26 [3 favorites]

Safari also has one of the good covers too, that Who song, one of those covers that competes with any other good song decades after the novelty of its being has worn off.
posted by kensington314 at 11:43 PM on June 26 [1 favorite]

"Beautiful Moon"
posted by anazgnos at 5:58 AM on June 27

Josephine Wiggs is so fucking cool

I was going to Favorite, but I cannot abide the subsequent Tanya Donelly slander.
posted by whuppy at 8:13 AM on June 27

Speaking of the Breeders and Tanya, Chris O'Leary wrote a long retrospective on the Breeders (and another on Belly) for his 64 Quartets blog.
posted by pxe2000 at 8:16 AM on June 27 [3 favorites]

That retrospective is a great piece, thanks for posting.
posted by johngoren at 9:10 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]

Great retrospective. Absolutely loved this detail:

Kelley wanted to be on lead guitar, despite having never played before. The months before the first Breeders shows in summer 1992 found the band publicly wondering if she could achieve competence in time. “I asked her to play the drums, but she said no, she wants to be the fucking lead guitarist,” Kim said. “Josephine is like ‘isn’t it wonderful?…is she or is she not going to be able to do it?’ But it’s getting old, man. I just want her just to learn it and play.” (Wiggs in 2013: “I would say it took about twenty years, actually.”)

A decade later, Kim said she’d been lucky to have an anti-ace lead guitarist. “I would rather listen to a bad player than someone who plays stock blues riffs with flair,” she told the Guardian. “And Kelley is so musical. She creates new parts; most guitarists just repeat everything they’ve ever heard.” Kelley, recalling cutting the lap steel part for “No Aloha,” told Amanda Petrusich “do you know how patient they had to be? Any one of them could’ve done it so much faster than I was able to do it…[But] there’s something about somebody who doesn’t know. They don’t add any finesse, there’s no affectation to their playing.”

posted by kensington314 at 10:20 AM on June 27 [2 favorites]