EasyTV's First Show!

Hi everyone, and welcome to EasyTV!

As Lou Reed would put it, this is the "beginning of a new adventure". I'll use blogs as a new medium for sharing my love of semi-obscure rock music. Who am I, and what qualifies me to do this? Well, I used to have a radio show on an independent radio station, then I made the transition to online radio (the now defunct Invisible Radio). Now I'm mostly just happy to browse YouTube in search of lost nuggets, and to send the nice finds to friends or to post them on thescoreboards.com, my favorite sports forum hangout (shoutouts to SteeleRed and Stampman!). But then I thought: "hey, why not combine the blog format with YouTube videos to make it a nice little sort of online tv show specialized in rock music from all decades?" This way, if you don't care about my commentary you can go straight to the videos, but if you want some context you can read whatever I may have to say. You're basically in control, isn't this better than being subjected to a podcast? So here you have it. Hope you'll like it. I'll keep it going for as long as I get encouraging comments!

Let's start it with a short one to see how it goes. In the mid 90's, a little American label called Elephant 6 started releasing albums from nice little psychedelic bands, some of which reached cult status on indie rock stations. Here's a little selection:

- Olivia Tremor Control was probably my favorite band from that label. I can definitely hear some Beatles influences amid the psychedelia. I would have loved to post a video of "Define a Transparent Dream", but couldn't find it. So here's another great song from "Dusk at the Cubist Castle":



- In an even more "garage" vein, here's Apple in Stereo. The frontman, Robert Schneider, was also a co-founder of the Elephant Six Collective. I was lucky to see them once in concert, but boy were they LOUD! Here's another heavily Beatles-influenced song (Oasis would agree!) from their "Her Wallpaper Reverie" album released in 1999:



- Last but not least, perhaps the most original band of the lot, Neutral Milk Hotel. They were quite a sensation on college radio stations and Pitchfork. In terms of influence, I'm reminded of Syd Barrett's solo efforts. There's indeed a bit of a crazy edge to this modern troubadour. The eponymous song from the album "In The Aeroplane Over the Sea" is pure genius.



Let me know what you want next. I'm thinking of some crazy German stuff from the early 80's, but stop me if you have a better idea!