idlewild
captain, hope is important and 100 broken windows are all absolutely amazing. i've listened to all of them in the last few days. what the hell happened after that then?
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Idlewild
Remote Part is a really fucking good album
Sure, 100 Broken Windows is better, but they only really went off the boil with Warnings/Promises (i.e. when Roddy stopped drinking).
it's always when they stop drinking.
i was a little bit shocked by how good 'when i argue i see shapes' was when i heard it this weekend. it's like, i thought it would just be a nostalgia thing, but it's incredible
LAST NIGHT I MISSED ALL THE FIREWORKS!
Well in fairness to Idlewild, it was a few albums later when they got really bad. Although not really bad as such, just a shell of their former selves.
That band was all about Bob. Lost without him.
based on the years that albums came out, that makes sense
Single handedly bought the rock to them.
ya
he was the keystone in the bridge of 'wild
Don't think anything happened did it?
They just stopped being as noisy.
I might sound like an Idlewild apologist, but there's a lot of bands who would kill to make something as good as one of Idlewild's supposed 'bad' albums.
those bands should be aiming higher then.
or just shouldn't be bands at all
W/Pwas mellow
but Make Another World was pretty 'noisy' and 'rocking'. Post Electric Blues had uptempto tunes too but a lot of it sounded like Idlewild playing more to Roddy's solo folk style.
Basically, Warnings/Promises is their weakest.
Post Electric Blues is one of their best efforts post 100 Broken Windows. But yeah, I utterly adore everything they have ever done. I grew up on them, with them, and because of them.
W/P is alright
PEB is boring.
agreed, except for Readers & Writers on PEB
If they'd released that after Remote Part when they were at their most popular it would have been huge, I'm sure of it. It's gawjusly catchy
Readers & Writers and All Over The Town are really good
Not so sure about the rest.
City Hall and Younger Than America
i love these threads about ash or idlewild we get from time to time
reminds of good days
I love 'em both
Even if they have a few missteps there's still good stuff on every album (yes, even on Warnings/Promises) even if the don't quite fulfill either bands true potential. Plus Ash were great fun live, never got around to seeing Idlewild and alas it seems unlikely to happen in the near future with their hiatus.
I DON'T CARE IF I DON'T HAVE AN IDEA TRACK
On the surface, The Remote Part is a good album,
but doesn't have anywhere near the depth or heart of those first three releases. The gap between 100BW and Remote Part has always seemed much bigger to me than that between RP and W/P, just not necessarily in the way they sound.
Also, 'All I Never Wanted' was the WORST. I'd rather have had a whole album of Mince Showercaps.
Haha that song used to get so much stick on the old Idlewild forum
Mince Showercap 1 was great!
Sub-thread: Make a 14 track compilation (no b sides allowed)
1. Little Discourage
2. Film for the Future
3. When I Argue I See Shapes
4. Rosability
5. Idea Track
6. You Held The World
7. Chandelier (actually was this a b side?)
8. Safe and Sound
9. Mistake Pageant
10 Tell Me Ten Words
11. Let Me Sleep (Next To The Mirror)
12. A Modern Way of Letting Go
13. Actually Its Darkness
14. Finished It Remains
http://spoti.fi/WDNpUH
Chandelier was a 7"
So you can have that :)
Bloody love Mistake Pageant - it was the last song on 100BW to click for me. Dammit, I just love that album so much.
I own said 7"
*Proud face*
where is Captain?
I think they started taking themselves too seriously
e.g. Roddy deciding he was an PROPER POET. Ironically, his lyrics got much more cliched and clunkily literal after that. Rod was doing excruciating rockstar foot-on-the-moniter poses last time I saw them. I met them once after reading all this "nicest guys in rock" stuff in the press and they were just awful, rude people. Roddy had a vintage camera round his neck. Rod was swigging red wine from a bottle with some floozy on his arm. The only nice one was Bob. He left the band shortly afterwards. After that it all went very wrong indeed.
they played a gig in picc records in manc once and before and after it we invented a game where we had to be in their way as much as possible while they were trying to look at records
they weren't nice about that
Nice game
I met Roddy last year and he seemed like a really nice guy, but then he's quite possibly mellowed a bit now.
yeah I've met them too
and they were thoroughly lovely.
Roddy's first solo folk album is really great by the way.
I'm sure I say this everytime an Idlewild thread pops up.
I don't think he's stop drinking, he just got older and calmer. I've met him quiet a few times and he's never struck me as being rude.
About half of it is really good, mostly the stuff co-written with Rod
As is the album with Drever and McCusker
and Rod Jones stuff as part of the Fruit Tree Foundation is also good (though not the standout songs of that album).
Haven't heard Roddy's other solo work yet.
The Remote Part is definitely a lot better than Hope Is Important
Tell Me Ten Words from TRP is possibly my favourite song of all time.
Amazing band
I never really liked the change in production when they released Remote Part
and when I heard the bass had left that was the final nail in the coffin for me...
Never gotten the post Remote part hate
Warnings/Promises certainly has some flaws but it has some great moments too. Little disappointing that nearly their entire fan base turned on them because they made a more mature, adult-folk tinged album. Post Electric Blues and Make another world are good too.
i remember when w/p came out
and roddy said something like of 'well you can't have a career by just rolling around on the floor all the time, we had to start writing songs sometime'
hate that. make your new album sound good by trashing your old material kinda thing. poor form.
its not like their old stuff was avant-metal thrashing
they're almost all songs written in a standard pop format!
Worth noting that Love Steals Us From Loneliness is still amazing.
i would beg to differ
too clever, and too mediocre by far. grating lyrics
if I wanted a debate I'd go to the Symposium as it is I'm just dropping truth bombs.
quiet crown is my favourite. good b-sides band too
100 Broken Windows
is absolutely one of my favourite albums in existence but The Remote Part leaves me a bit cold. I guess I should check out all the pre 100BW stuff. Never heard anything else.
i'm enjoying Hope is Important
Remote Part was probably the first album I really LOVED
As opposed to just listened to a lot. I liked Warnings/Promises, still think a lot of songs from that album are decent, same with Make Another World, although Post Electric Blues was dull to me.
100 Broken Windows is just perfect though, not a wasted note.
14 tracks (in sort of order I'd like them in a setlist)
1. Little Discourage
2. In Competition For The Worst Time
3. Modern Way of Letting Go
4. Actually It's Darkness
5. I'm A Message
6. I Don't Have The Map
7. Make Another World
8. Welcome Home
9. Let Me Sleep Next To The Mirror
10. Out Of Routine
11. When I Argue I See Shapes
12. Quiet Crown
13. You Held The World In Your Arms
14. Remote Part/Scottish Fiction
Love them.
Brilliant band - sadly missed.
I was at their final show in Glasgow. The wife wept openly when they played Remote Part/Scottish Fiction for the last time.
The Remote Part is a brilliant album but it's only when you delve into the b'sides from that time do you realise what an absolute classic it could have been. How the hell "A Distant History" never made it on there is a mystery.
You can actually make an awesome album out of the just b'sides from that era.
Let's call it "The Remoter Parts"....
1. All This Information
2. These Are Just Years
3. The Nothing I Know
4. I Was Made To Think It
5. Poor Thing
6. Great times Wasted
7. No Generation
8. A Distant History
9. Everything Flows (the TFC cover)
As boydungud already alluded to, most bands would kill for an album that strong.
Big part of my life back then and still listen to them at least once a week.
wait, they've broken up!?!?
I don't think it's permanent
or at least not officially.
I asked Roddy after a solo gig last year
And he said Idlewild are definitely over
:'( right in the heart
A Distant History
is fucking glorious. I lost most of the b-sides when my laptop died. If anyone wants to be a saint and send them my way then please, please pretty please DM me. okthanksbye.
No love for 1903-70?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9It2ccuTr2Q
Love how this contrasts with the shoutier moments from Hope is Important
I vaguely remember reading an interview at the time which said 1903-70 was supposed to be 'plugged in'
but there was an equipment fault when they came to record it, so they were forced to use a grand piano. A happy accident, as it turns out.
W/P is pretty amazing in parts
Welcome Home, I Understand It, As If I Hadn't Slept, El Capitan, Disconnected and especially Too Long Awake - easily one of my favourite songs of theirs, that riff just fucking squeals
Too Long Awake would be their best song
If it was a verse and a chorus longer and didn't cut out so stupidly.
The ending is great
I mostly agree, but it is just a bit *too* abrupt
Tidal Wave of Young Blood by CYHSY does it better, quick cut-off but it actually sounds deliberate and not like someone broke the recording equipment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2yaGVz_QnY
I always liked The Space Between All Things
Haven't listened to it in aaaages.
The problem with The Remote Part
is that the record before it was near on flawless and impossible to follow.
For my money, it's better than Hope Is Important which gets by on naive rawness and the 4 songs on it that are excellent.
All I remember about Warnings / Promises was that the first single off of it was poor and scared me away.
Another band I got into thanks to FIFA
And the 40 second version of You Held the World it had on it.
For some reason, I don't listen to them as much as I should. Their knack for hooks and melodies is insanely good, like it's actually far too good. Structurally interesting and pop-tactically good-nun-string.
So it's worth getting the 'A Distant History' rarities album?
seems like its download only judging from an amazon search.
It's on Spotify if you have that
Hidden between all the weird folk albums that another band named Idlewild have on there because Spotify are stupid.
yep, found it, cheers
just listened to Hope is Important on there and loved it. Ordered the CD for a whopping £1.28.
They need to bring that out on LP
along with Captain and W/P, and reissues of 100 broken windows and Hope is important.
Fuck it just give us a vinyl box set.
I keep meaning to get 100 Broken Windows on vinyl
you can get it for about 20 quid on amazon/discogs.
My turntable is fucked so i'll wait till me birthday or sommat.
Aye
Great b-sides band, the run of tracks on the back of singles from their first to Roseability was incredible, to me as good as what made it to the albums. Also glad I got to see them early on as they were a revelation back then, just a mess of flailing limbs and hair!
It was such a shame they didn't do a whole album with Bob Weston, only a couple of tracks made it to 100BW and a couple of b-sides but I thought it's some of their best.
Yeah it's really good
though there's a few great B-sides missing from it.
HEY I GOT 50 REPLIES IN THE MUSIC FORUM
fuck off, cunts
This might be of interest:
http://gigbook.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Idlewild
Some guy's blog on gigs he's seen - including 11 Idlewild shows.
The blog has some really good stuff on it (particularly if you went to lots of gigs in the 90s like me)
really enjoying this
my 14 track thingy
1. A Modern Way Of Letting Go
2. Paint Nothing
3. These Wooden Ideas
4. Tell Me Ten Words
5. Satan Polaroid
6. Little Discourage
7. You Don't Have The Heart
8. Too Long Awake
9. Annihilate Now!
10. Welcome Home
11. Roseability
12. Out Of Routine
13. I'm Happy To Be Here Tonight
14. In Remote Part/Scottish Fiction
While we're on this
come and see Roddy Woomble next Thursday at the splendid Leaf in Liverpool.