BRMC - Album Rank Thread

I am constantly coming back to HOWL now in recent days. Really sucks only way to listen to this is on YouTube with fucking ads. I heard it's not on any streaming platform. Not sure what is up with that?

Howl Sessions EP has some great songs on it as well.

I am feeling nostalgic again.

BTW,

Howl is finally back on Spotify.

I will be rocking out to this again today.

Threw spectre at the feast and wrong creatures on my phone the other week, since i couldn't remember them. listening to spectre at the feast now...it's not *bad*, but it's not great either. Entirely forgot there was a song on there that completely ripped off the riff from 'listen up'. And several that are basically beady eye knockoffs. What a weird album. "Let the day begin" is great, though.

And I remember when i saw them live on this tour, their encore was the last two songs from this album to close the show. Was legit worried I was going to fall asleep on the drive home. Blurgh.

I am listening to the debut for what might be the thousand time and I just fucking love it.

White Palms - TUNE

Nothing whatsoever to do with brmc but a new travis record appeared on my WhatsApp music and I dunno why but I flicked through and it had some pretty good stuff on there. 16 songs though, I mean has anyone, let alone travis at this stage of their career got 16 great new songs? Could have cut 6 easy and went for the absolute bangers. That said it it was decent, more Glammy that the man who era

The biggest question here is what the hell is WhatsApp Music?

Of course I discovered BRMC through the Oasis connection. When the first record came out in 2001, it blew me out of the water. I was 18 and I didn't know anything about the Jesus and Mary Chain and stuff like that, so that sound was radically new to me. I used to play bass in bands at the time, and I had never heard anybody play bass like Robert did - like a riff-generating electric guitar. I thought he was the coolest bass player in the universe, and the fact that he also sang made him a legitimate rock'n'roll hero in my eyes.

I remember me and my mates had a conversation about what was the best song on the album while driving to our first Oasis gig, and I think we agreed on Love Burns being the best tune.
They played a set in Rome on 9 July 2002 - I had just had my secondary school examination that morning. I took a picture with Robert at the mixing desk and got my ticket signed by the whole band. Life was good.

When Take Them On, On Your Own came out, they were possibly my second favourite band on the planet. I was a lot more involved with music at this time - I would buy (dreadfully expensive) import copies of the NME, read every interview I could find and trade their bootlegs in a shady CDR-swapping-ring. When I read that they "...had spent half their record budget on mixing Six Barrell Shotgun", that they were "...still learning how to play In Like the Rose live" or that they felt they "...captured the spirit of the Jimi Hendrix Experience on Shade of Blue", I could not have been more excited. I got the album on release day and I thought it was magnificent. I loved every single second of it.

Oddly enough, by the time Howl was released, I had gone so backwards in my music taste that it didn't grab me at all. Funny because I was heavily into Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, 1940s American Folk Music... the stuff Howl was based on!! To me BRMC were always this punk band with the monstrous fuzzed-up bass, and I could not find any of that in Howl.

I meant youtube music. Leave me, I'm getting old

Great story. Have real fond memories of them from first seeing them at Finsbury Park up through to the howl tour. Still saw them do some great gigs after that + there's some absolute bangers on the few records that followed but my interest died a little after about 2009 as I'd pretty much spent a few years listening to bands that exclusively sound somewhere between J&MC & the Velvet Underground & got burnt out on it all. The Brian Jonestown Massacre have a lot to answer for.
What I love(d) about BRMC was just how much they care about the fans. Most bands like to make a point at letting people know this fact constantly where as BRMC spoke with actions. They did a late night gig for XFM at Brixton Academy which everyone buying a ticket knew the score.. the main band was probably going to do 45 mins tops. Nobody told BRMC and they were angry that they felt they'd let the fans down (tickets were about £10) so they came back from the states a few months later where I think they just played the Astoria where they played their entire back catalogue up to that point (minus I think we're all in love.. I forget why they hate that song so much?). I'm sure Johnny could probably correct me on some of these facts.

Also the time some smog cloud came over the UK and delayed everyone's flights when they played Electric Ballroom. None of the equipment came on time and they had to cut the support band so they could load in and get set up. Robert came out into the street and apologised for keeping everyone waiting and performed an acoustic set for everybody. Unfortunately I was in the pub and missed this.

Then small things like they used to email a song out at Christmas, at the time I can't remember too many artists doing shit like that. Top boys!

The most violent gig I've been to is BRMC at the kentish town forum on the 2nd album tour. I don't mean as in fighting, but fucking hell the crowd was just mental that night. Came out bruised and battered, took my t-shirt off and ringed the sweat out onto the floor then bought a £5 knockoff BRMC t-shirt.

I got relatively late into them, when Howl was coming out I remember songs leaking one by one on some other Oasis forum. Being a young asshole my first reaction was being a bit suspicious of them but of course slowly changed my mind and at the end totally fell for them. So even if the debut and Howl are their best, my peak love came with the 2007-2010 era which is also when I saw them live more times. For some reason went to Bologna with a friend to catch them and lost flights back due to the volcano shit from Iceland. It resulted on a horrible multiple stop 24h bus to Milano/France/Barcelona/Valencia but that is one of my favourite shows ever, ending a 2 hours gig with a-capella Open Invitation I'll never forget. Together with the extended version of Mercy and the electric Sympathetic Noose might be 3 of my favourite live reworkings of songs by any artist.

Tagged as too "rock" for some and too "indie slaze" (not that the term was used back then, but you know what I mean) for some others, always felt they never got the recognition they deserved. They haven't released anything worthwile in 10 years but I'll always check whatever they release and wish the best for them.

Thank you for sharing your memories Barny. Volcano shit from Iceland will be the name of the next jesus abyss record.

I first got into them through a CD from one of the music mags that had a bunch of ‘new’ acts on it (the hives, cooper temple clause etc) that had US government on it before their 2nd album came out, maybe a bit before they supported oasis at the RAH in 2002. Got big into the debut album and then found out they were playing a club in Ottawa, so I went down early and ended up sitting on the stool next to the soundboard before the show. The girl I was with walked over to the people at the soundboard and talked to them for a few minutes and eventually came back and said the guy beside me who was DJing (by feeding CDs into a disc man) was the bass player. I blanked and said “what bass player?” BRMC’s. I’d been sat next to Robert the whole time. So I turned around and said “how’d you guys get the gig opening for oasis?” Turns out apparently Noel had wanted to sign them to sour mash before they went with Virgin. We talked Dylan for a few minutes, since he’d just played Maggie’s farm. They then got up, walked to stage and played an amazing show. Pretty much the whole first album, stop and us government. Was a fan for life after that.

Saw them do an acoustic instore show in Toronto on the howl tour as well before their full show later that same night, where they shot the video for ‘weight of the world’ (which they played twice that night.)

Same as mahoney, I’ll still go see them whenever they’re around, but they haven’t made a consistently good album in 18 years.

How are we rating Baby81? I think I played it way too much when it first came out and it's really hard for me to play it again. I am gonna give it a go now and see how far I can make it.

I always wondered how they ended up opening for Oasis on some of those gigs in 2002. THANK YOU

I think sonically there my favourite band....I used to play in a band around 2003 ish and they were the band we dreamt of being and sounding like

Agree with Karl, one of the best thing about BRMC was/is that they always go the extra mile for their audience. I think they were grateful that we Europeans got them so quickly while they struggled in the US.

I saw them a few times between 2002 and 2004. They were ALWAYS available for a chat. They would wander through the audience before the show, talking to random people, or be outside after the gig smoking cigarettes with the fans. Even when TTO,OYO was released and they were playing for relatively big audiences, they would always show up somewhere where you could ask an autograph. And after the shows they would go to the local pub and play darts. Lovely, humble people they are.

I still think they were one of the best live bands of our generation. They were three but sounded like 11. When they closed their sets with Heart + Soul, they would literally tear down the fucking place. When later they moved from a bass-based sound to guitars they lost a lot of that impact I think.

Still think like this, I rate Baby 81 quite highly. Even if it's maybe their least consistent it's also their poppiest one, and if they ever were close to having a crossover hit (even if moderate) was with that record. It's a bit stretched out but the first half is amazing.

The first three songs are massive but after that, it’s not much.