SecondEdition wrote:It's the singer who's the worst.

Incorrect. In my opinion, he was the only one who even had the remotest idea of what he was doing. He was mesmerising you with that Texas Hoodoo.

The rest sound like they've been acquainted with their instruments since last weekend, and they don't know that instruments must be tuned. Also, they should all have the same set list, even if they can't hear each other.

Wow. I just spent 5 minutes laughing out loud to this. AFTER it had finished.

madmanmunt wrote:This band sounds a bit like early Royal Trux.

When I posted a clip from this band on another thread I said Hampton Grease Band. I'm sticking with that. Hampton Grease Band.

rocker654 wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:It's the singer who's the worst.

Incorrect. In my opinion, he was the only one who even had the remotest idea of what he was doing. He was mesmerising you with that Texas Hoodoo.

On the contrary, the guitarist is the only one doing anything barely recognizable as music. If you heard his "riffs" independently you'd be like, "yeah, that sucks ass but whatever." He's no worse than any other novice who's just learned power chords and thinks he wrote a song when he's really only playing "Misty Mountain Hop" backwards. The drummer is just bashing things randomly like a child who's playing pretend drums with mom's cookware, and the bassist isn't even accidentally in the vicinity of whatever key that shit's supposed to be in.

If the singer doesn't seem as bad as the others, it's because singers aren't supposed to know anything; that's why they're singers.

Not that I'm letting the guitarist off the hook. It's unfathomable that any one of them, let alone all four of them, can't recognize that none of their shit is sticking to the wall, and that they are actually under the delusion that people would enjoy it.

And they recorded a CD? Look, I know that they're entitled to the studio time they paid for, but if I was the engineer there, I'd've been like, "Here's your money back, get the fuck out of here."

what they are doing is abstract (whether they realize it or not). if it wasn't as "bad", it would be worse because it'd be boring and not notable. i can pretty much only listen to the first two minutes of their 7-minute songs, but i enjoy those 2 minutes. think of the fact that art-jerks in new york do stuff like this on purpose and get acclaimed for it (dna) and then later generations of more accessible art jerks name themselves after their songs (blonde redhead). as we speak, art jerks are putting out an album called "hoogie boogie land". in fact, the band is called the art jerks. i'm in the band

lemur68 wrote:And they recorded a CD? Look, I know that they're entitled to the studio time they paid for, but if I was the engineer there, I'd've been like, "Here's your money back, get the fuck out of here."

Indeed. In fact, if I was the engineer, I probably would have said that they were wasting their time and money after the first run through, and sent them packing.

Spot on description of the drumming and bass playing.

The Arkansas Hellhammer ain't just the name of a monster truck anymore.

lemur68 wrote:On the contrary, the guitarist is the only one doing anything barely recognizable as music.

I was trying to communicate something like that to my friends who have watched this clip with me... the hardest part about listening to it (I think) is that the guitarist seems to be leading the band. That is to say he is dictating the rhythm and the drummer is playing behind him, trying to follow his lead. Well, that to me seems to be the most painful part - I don't know if I've communicated it clearly though... like instead of knowing his part, the drummer is watching the guitarist and thinking "Oh - we must be on this part now!" and then his cymbal flourishes are off by even more fractions of a second than normal.

And only "BOB" or Allah knows what the F that bass player is doing.

I absolutely love this band.

I don't think it matters even a little bit if they understand into what context their music might fit.

1. They know what they are doing. What they are doing is DETERMINEDLY weird. It is NOT an accident. You cannot do that shit accidently. You don't write songs that brutally stripped down by accident.

You don't play two-note bass parts that are bent that out of tune for five minutes w/o knowing you are doing it. You don't play drums like that for five minutes etc.

2. Listening to them talk about what they do, they know they're doing something unusual. That they don't realize it's completely fucking otherworldly is no crime.

3. The fact that they have probably never heard Beefheart or the Shaggs or Royal Trux or whatever is irrelevant. In fact, it makes their music _better_. There is ZERO ironic distance between what Complete is doing and what they intend to do. They probably don't even know what irony is. They're not winking at anyone or trying to taunt anyone or frustrate people's expectations of what a rock band is or any of that bullshit. They're channeling their shit into this totally fucked-up, crazy music.

4. No one I know could play music like that. They could try for months and not do it. US Maple is the closest thing I could think of, but they could never unhinge to this degree. They sound schooled next to these guys.

Of course, all this can be true and still result in bad music.

I think this shit is smashing. I have watched each of these songs many times since being hipped to them. I have probably watched "Beautiful Sunrises," i dunno, a dozen times? it's phenomenal.

The dipshit who made that documentary making fun of them is a douchebag dipshit. I understand not liking it, thinking it's stupid, no problem. I get it. But to waste so much of one's time running down completely obscure music is the hallmark of a serious loser if there ever was one.

This is the kind of band that I would love to play live with, but even if they still existed, I wouldn't know how to explain to them why I wanted them on the show.

The only band I have ever seen who was anything like this in totally straightfaced, unironic, isolated weirdness was the August Sons, from Mississippi. Those guys were truly and utterly weird. And great. And more typically competent than Complete by a long shot, so maybe some of you might wanna chk out August Sons, if you sorta like the idea of Complete but cannot get with "dunnnn-durrrr-darrrrrn-durrrrr" bass parts for five or six min at a shot.

tmidgett wrote:1. They know what they are doing. What they are doing is DETERMINEDLY weird. It is NOT an accident. You cannot do that shit accidently. You don't write songs that brutally stripped down by accident.

You don't play two-note bass parts that are bent that out of tune for five minutes w/o knowing you are doing it. You don't play drums like that for five minutes etc.

I agree that this band is great, but I don't think they know what they're doing. I certainly remember a time, the first few months I picked up a guitar, where it took me 3 hours to get my hand to make the shape of a chord and play it without buzzing, dragging a pick across all the right strings. Look at how focused they are on the playing. They can't play anything different. And for me, that's the great part.

Sure they know they're weird because only the most absolute pariah's and weirdo's of the club stick around to watch.