WWW.RIDESIDE.NET

Posted by ConorClockwise on 2007-08-05 22:04:27 +0000

Brilliant. Don't have then album... yet...

Posted by mahatma chani on 2007-08-06 05:08:18 +0000

PJ lives in the same town as the band we toured the UK with (the first tour). Some little hamlet called Bridport. They see here all the time at Sainsbury's.

Posted by G lib on 2007-08-06 05:58:38 +0000

You KNOW I love you, Epoisses.

Posted by MF DU on 2007-08-06 06:14:17 +0000

disappointed its not Anthrax. still ,I will try and learn something new.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2007-08-06 11:10:39 +0000

No sh*t? I didn't know she was a Dorset girl! That's my in-laws' stomping ground. Rock. Update: Apparently she's originally from Yeovil, and Huzb knows one of her old classmates there. He said PJ was rarely at school - too busy with her music.

Posted by Miriam on 2007-08-06 06:47:17 +0000

I got this in '97 when I was dating Zach, who hung what were referred to as the "Miriam Rape Paintings" in the Malbert for a few months before they were voted off the walls. He also left another good album with me, but I can't remember what it was at the moment. By the way, he didn't rape me. But the paintings were fairly graphic: an eggplant having sex with a woman, etc. The paintings were tame in comparison to the poems and love notes he used to pass me at Pearl.

Posted by Epoisses on 2007-08-06 08:52:34 +0000

This record is a hell of a debut -- doesn't hold a candle to the later stuff, but shows tons of promise.

Posted by tommy on 2007-08-06 10:38:57 +0000

I must say I'm intrigued. I never gave PJ Harvey much of a chance... This album did not do much for me in '92, and I didn't see what all the hype was about, so I never bothered listening to any of the later albums. I will give them all a fair shake this time, and see what I was missing.

Posted by Miriam on 2007-08-06 10:41:15 +0000

It's nice to make out to.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2007-08-06 10:47:36 +0000

I should totally try that. I can, however, vouch for it being nice to sit in your dorm room and feel quietly full of rage to!

Posted by mr. mister on 2007-08-06 11:01:58 +0000

cool, I think I stole (burned) all my pj harvey albums from Dina Varselone. Good stuff

Posted by tgl on 2007-08-06 16:20:46 +0000

Left field. Excellent. I'm downloading now, have no idea how I'll decompress on Mac OS X.

Posted by tommy on 2007-08-06 18:07:45 +0000

winace.com, despite the name, has decompressors for Mac.

Posted by tgl on 2007-08-06 18:21:19 +0000

Got it.

Posted by tgl on 2007-08-07 17:18:00 +0000

So, I listened to it once. I wasn't going to post until I listen to it again. I'll let you know when that is. BTW, a hijack: 25 free songs from emusic.com (gotta give a credit card, and cancel within two weeks) at: http://www.emusic.com/harpers http://www.emusic.com/something-something-2 (this one is for 30, but I can't remember the link) ...so yeah, I'm a chump paying $10 a month for 30 songs. I've picked up: Turing Machine - Zwei Turing Machine - A New Machine for Living Stereo Lab - Switched On DK3 - Neutrons The Dirtbombs - Ultraglide in Black (thanks for the reminder tommy) Rocket From The Crypt - Circe Now! +4 - Hippy Dippy Do

Posted by Epoisses on 2007-08-09 08:42:47 +0000

Theduane is listening to 'Victiory' out in the other room -- I thought he was listening to Shellac, "The Admiral" specifically. Funny.

Posted by tommy on 2007-08-10 03:46:33 +0000

L: I'm sorry, but I feel just about the same way today as I did when this came out. I wouldn't call it a bad record, but I also wouldn't call it a good one.

Posted by tgl on 2007-08-10 04:12:23 +0000

Now I remember: http://www.emusic.com/netflix2 35 free ones. Still haven't listened to it again.

Posted by MF DU on 2007-08-10 04:55:36 +0000

It comes as no surprise.

Posted by MF DU on 2007-08-10 04:57:42 +0000

Emusic has a lot of really good jazz and indie hip hop as well. Not recently, but I too have been known to frequent those guys.

Posted by MF DU on 2007-08-10 05:02:21 +0000

Posted by tgl on 2007-08-12 16:41:47 +0000

Who's the Chopper of PJ Harvey?

Posted by G lib on 2007-08-13 07:19:24 +0000

I'm no chopper, but The Stinkster shamed me into doing this on Friday. I graduated high school in 1992. My high school was small and back-wood and it wasn't until I had a couple of kids move into town that I was introduced to 'alternative music'. I suffered through a lot of static to tune in WFNX and that Brown college station, some of you know the one. For me, alternative meant that I wore out my 'smells like teen spirit' cassette single driving my family's Dodge Caravan back and forth to rehearsals for a production of "Scrooged" done by a local community theater production company. I listened to NWA and Ice-T on my boyfriend's twin's girlfriend's walkman in the back of the bus on our way back from a Hershey Park, PA music competition, where I'm sure we sang a medley of songs from Phantom of the Opera. I listened to the Violent Femmes after Field Hockey games. To seal the deal, I bought myself the suburban 'alternative flag,' a pair of Doc Martin 8 hole oxbloods at Berk's. I went to the Garment District a few times. I discovered coffee kingdom in Worcester. But what I listened to was the Indigo Girls. Mimarima's sister and I spent hours driving around in her car, harmonizing and shouting the angry parts. She and I sang "Hammer and a Nail" at our high school graduation. We speculated that they might be *whispers* 'lesbians'. Glossing over the next couple of years: went to college, met and hung out with some hippies and some punks, was diagnosed with an incurable chronic disease, got myself a controlling boyfriend who didn't allow me to have my own friends. When I broke up with him, I found myself virtually friendless, VERY VERY ANGRY, but somehow free in a way I'd never been before. Can you guess what follows? Feminism. And the Indigos, with their acoustic guitars, "help me live my life less seriously" and "closer I am to fine" just didn't cut it. Insert PJ Harvey "Dry." She sang a song about Sheela Na-Gig, the Celtic figure carved into church walls with her hands between her legs, brazenly showing the viewer her cunt, an kind of Anti-Madonna. The Character in the song displays her sexuality and her strength to man after man and is beaten back with words like "dirty pillows" and "exhibitionist," "put money in your idle hole!" In the end, she she "wash the man right out of her hair," "Heard it before, NO MORE" This made perfect fucking sense to my lonely, angry soul, trying to find my way in a life that just was not so innocent anymore. I didn't want to fit myself into the 'girl' box after the ex boyfriend, and alternated between feeling betrayed and feeling directionless about the rest of my life. I wanted to display my angry cunt (or maybe to be one), to be hard (which I never was), to be confident. In "Dress," She sang a song with the lyrics "Must be a way that i can dress to please him It's hard to walk in the dress, it's not easy I'm spilling over like a heavy loaded fruit tree" and how the dress ends up: "Filthy tight, the dress is filthy I'm falling flat and my arms are empty Clear the way better get it out of this room A falling woman in dancing costume" I don't think I have to spell any more analogies out here, people. To me, Polly Jean was my soundtrack to individuality, to feminism, for all of the early teen issues I was dealing with at the time. And the message was coming from a fucking awesome rock chick who screamed and wailed over a fuzzy bass and an awesome mix of cabaret and punk. that's all I can come up with now.

Posted by MF DU on 2007-08-13 07:43:02 +0000

'smells like teen spirit' cassette single driving my family's Dodge Caravan back and forth to rehearsals Yep. That pretty much sums it up for me too! (except it was a faux wood paneled Oldsmobile Station wagon that I promptly crashed into a parked ISUZU trooper at a Tae Kwan Do place in Nashua. Of course it was the first day of my license, and of course the Isuzu's owner was the sensei. My Dad, when phone called by me desparately, made me drive the car home to instill a sense of not giving up in me). Nevermind was pretty much in there all the time as me and Glumac and Mike Vercelli drove back and forth to Boy Scout / Explorer wind ensemble every wednesday night. (Along with Amerikkka's Most Wanted, Straight Outta Compton, the occasional Voivod, and the occasional Black Flag) How this ties into PJ Harvey I have no fucking clue, but the bad car memories and the static of WFNX from Manch Vegas conjured up some resonance...

Posted by tgl on 2007-08-13 08:06:27 +0000

Big lungs, fuzzed out guitar and a rumbly bass. Can't quote back one lyric to you.

Posted by Miriam on 2007-08-13 08:08:17 +0000

Wow. At least I was listening to The Dead Milkmen and The Violent Femmes and R.E.M. in middle school. Guess that's the influence of my older siblings and alterna-friends. If it were up to me back then, I would still be listening to operas and concertos all day and all night. My sibs wouldn't let me borrow their walkman unless I tuned it to the hard rock station. Guess that's why I knew all the words to all the Skynrd songs by age 9. Just goes to show what some of us will do to fit in.

Posted by deejayhubris on 2007-08-13 08:28:27 +0000

Can we call you, "Chipper"?

Posted by cdubrocker on 2007-08-14 05:20:32 +0000

It's an OK album. After one listen, I liked "Dress," and the trio "Hair," "Joe," and "Plants & Rags." I think the strings add a lot to the mix.

Posted by pamsterdam on 2007-08-14 07:45:16 +0000

I love how a discussion about PJ Harvey has led to the Rideside grrrls talking about how we got into music outside the Top 40. Still waiting on a few other ladies' contributions, but here's mine: Growing up, almost everything I listened to was by the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, or the Rolling Stones. My Dad listened exclusively to blues and old school r&b, Mum was into classical music, and my brother listened to anything Top 40, so I'm not sure what happened to me. Of course I dug Duran Duran because I had hormones, like everybody else, and I first got into Madonna, Elvis Costello, and the Clash because of my gapped front teeth. I also had some confusing feelings about Joan Jett, but that's another story. When I was 13 I met my first real friend (Big Gay Mark), who found me in desparate need of a musical education. He leant me Never Mind the Bollocks, and when I came into the school the next day, breathless with excitement, he looked at me completely seriously and said - "Now you're ready." He leant me The Top & Head on the Door that day, and the rest, as they say, is history. For the most part I have to admit that I do subscribe to Courtney Love's credo that "rock's gotta have cock" - bad feminists that we are - but certain women do rock my socks off, and PJ is one of them. My favorite song of hers is actually on the next album (Mansize - which curls my toes like nobody's business - "Good lord, I'm BIG!"), but I loved her from the start.