what influential band would YOU erase?
recently, while we were in soCal for a visit, our good friend ruth schultz posed a question that was to suck up a few hours of my life. “what influential band would you erase from history, knowing that not only was that band gone, but any bands that would spawn from their influence?” genius. too many times have we played the “what are your top 5 bands of all time” game, this was much more diabolical. from this, i’ve seen friend turn on friend. yesterday, this same question was brought back up via twitter and a few friends got involved. what resulted was an interesting twitter thread that i’ve recreated for you. i had to reverse each and every post from bottom to top to make it readable (as twitter has the newest posts at the top, like an email) which took a while, but was worth it.
a few things to know:
if you’ve never twittered before 1) start and 2) you’ll see posts that include @stevelucky or @notBrit. the symbol @ followed by a username denotes that that post is directed toward that user.
you’ll see a few links in the posts. unfortunately, i’m unable to make them active links. if you really want to check them out, you’ll have to type them yourself.
since a twitter post is limited to 140 characters, you’ll find a few abbreviations (mostly band names). those abbreviations are as follows:
SY = Sonic Youth
RHCP = Red Hot Chili Peppers
NY Dolls = New York Dolls
GBV = Guided by Voices
YHF = Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (a Wilco album)
VW = Vampire Weekend
DMB = Dave Matthews Band
BSP = British Sea Power
PJ = Pearl Jam
The people involved in the conversation (in order of appearance):
@stevelucky = steven heller
@notBrit = ethan smith
@jaydmcferson = jayd mcferson
@JaredCovington = jared covington
@NathanUsher = nathan usher
with all that being said, click the link below to read the entire conversation. it’s a 640k .png that’s a little over 9000 pixels high. have fun.
and while you’re at it, sound off below as to the influential band that you’d erase from history. the more inflammatory, the better!
Not a big deal, but my name is linked to Jayd’s Twitter page.
And for the record (since I had left work by the time it really got going). I’d leave Wilco even though they suck. It’s one of the few cases I can think of where bands who came after were better than the originator in almost every case.
@Ethan
Fixed.
Re: Wilco – I can’t, in good conscience, agree with you on that one. There were enough bands that would have influenced those other bands, that I don’t think removing Wilco would have a ny real effect. That butterfly just doesn’t have wings.
geeks-but I have love for all of you.
@Kim Dee
man, i would love to argue you with you on that one, but i’m pretty sure i would lose.
Blues Traveler. Vomit.
@Natalie Jane
while i can’t disagree with your desire to wipe blues traveler from history, i’m not sure if they technically fit the criteria of the argument. i wouldn’t consider blues traveler an influential band simply as i haven’t seen any other harmonica soft rock bands descend from them.
but we can still wipe them out.
They are influential here in Tennessee. Again. Vomit.
I had a dream about you last week. You were the head of some huge “green” company. All about making your employees feel good about themselves and making your company grow with environmentally correct principles. Nate Usher was your vice president. He was planning your immediate demise.
So watch out.
Whole heartedly 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc Red Hot Chili Peppers.
How did no one mention the Rolling Stones? F em.
@dave w
Weren’t you a part of New Rubber Funk? I would say that the NRF borrowed heavily from the Chili Peppers. You’re essentially wiping out yourself. I vote to keep the Chili Peppers. They’re definitely a little weird, but it’s not so annoying as to make it unlistenable.
As for the Rolling Stones, I have to COMPLETELY disagree with you on that one. You might as well just wipe out the guitar from music history. It would have almost as big as an impact. While I’m not the biggest stones fan, I definitely recognize the influence that they had on music. If you remove the Stones, you wipe out a LOT of good stuff. Be careful with that one…
New Rubber Funk borrowed from no one. We were just plain crappy all on our own. Of course, I didn’t take part in much of the music creation discussions, so maybe we were influenced by RHCP. Though I know for a fact no one in the band liked them. SInce no one had really ever played the instrument they played in the band, it’s hard to say we had musical influences. Or, more specifically, it’s hard to say we were able to tap into musical influences. Ultimately we just wanted to come up with music Colin could play. And if that’s what we came up with, and it bears any resemblance to RHCP, wouldn’t the world be a better place without them. I’d gladly wipe NRF out in the process. Been trying to do that for a while anyway.
While eliminating the stones COULD eliminate a lot of good stuff, it certainly WOULD eliminate a lot of bad stuff. Most importantly, it would eliminate the stones. I think this goes along the same lines as the Led Zeppelin elimination. It’s worth it.
@dave w
i don’t think we should be wiping out both the stones and led zeppelin. one or the other but not both. personally, i could live without zeppelin, but the stones had some really good songs. plus, if we wipe the stones out, we lose the sunday’s version of wild horses and that song is INCREDIBLE.
i would get rid of zeppelin over the stones as well if it’s an either/or proposition.