my friends used to have a term.. "Jar Rock" - kind of difficult to describe, but we all knew what it was when we heard it. Basically, a type of music that I pretty much always liked..
When the editor for a local paper called to tell me about the cd's he had for me to review, he would say "man, I got some Jar rock for you"
So what is "Jar Rock?"
If any of you have heard old old Swirlies.. classic Jar Rock.
Any music done by anyone involved with the bands Failure or Medicine.. Jar Rock.
The main ingredients are: Very Catchy Tunes and Lots of Noise.
Some shoegazer falls into the category of Jar Rock. Also, certain bands of the indie rock scene in the early 90's... Remember old Polvo? mmmm yea.. Jar Rock.
But it goes back to Husker Du. Catchy and Noisy. Jar Rock.
Dinosaur Jr? Totally.
Do they include some dub like the Boo Radleys did? Even better.
So, in a nutshell, the type of music that I consider *mine* would be best represented by bands like Hum, early Mercury Rev, Bailter Space, Medicine, Sebadoh, and stuff of similar. This kind of stuff really represents an era of my life, and as such I don't really seach out newer bands in this vein, though I have been getting into The Super Furry Animals recently. They seem to hit on that old Jar Rock nerve just fine.
That's of course not to say that I don't like other types. I have a great fondness for the whole trip-hop and ambient dub scenes of the mid-to-late 90's as well. And of course, there's the whole stoner rock movement.
I guess the over-arching constant would be a psychedelic aspect.. from REM's MURMUR all the way up to The Arcade Fire.
Then there's Steely Dan. They're for the Audiophile in me.
And I still appreciate the finer metal bands. I've been really fascinated with Opeth recently.
I love Mahler too. Don't know if my love of Mahler relates to my love of the other stuff, but I don't appear to be the only one around here that loves both Opeth and Mahler.
-jar
