[Texas Trill]

[Stanshant]

I actually laughed.

[Om_Thanks_666]

:deakweep:

[LadsFromOsaka]

We should just replace the entire forum with that post.

[taptherockies]

Diomedes wrote:

ntb is amazing/epic but mght be the biggest stinker on here for me paradoxically at the same time. noahs lyrics/melody in that one seem pretty damn uninspired, but i do like them in the way that they accompany the band rlly rocking out/jamming well i guess.

lke the song itself without the flourishes and the sweet break in the middle sounds like the sweetly stupid step-child of the tomboy songs... much love tho sorry for the negative vibes

I can see where you're coming from, the lyrics are pretty basic... I love his melodies though. This is probably my favorite song of Hz. That weird harp sound just slays IMO. Funny you should mention it sounds like a Tomboy step-child, I seem to remember reading somewhere (no clue where) that it was actually written with the other Tomboy stuff but never recorded for that project. I can't imagine what it would sound like in that style.

[joby]

I got really into this album right before CHz and in a weird way it set a really great precedent for it (am I totally out of my depth here? anyone else feeling that?) just the manic, all over the place, corny but soulful, operatic/stadium-rocky vibes and weird melodies/transitions.

CHeerZ~

[LadsFromOsaka]

ermagerd I'm out the door.

[LadsFromOsaka]

I got back a couple of hours ago. I have not captured the Taum. I have, however, seen him. And that's a step in a useful direction. I have also not captured any new abiding love or appreciation of Centipede Hz. I have, however, heard it. And, again, that's a step in a quite useful direction.

I had to take a shower and eat some breakfast and get my thoughts together, and now that's done.

I only made it as far in as Mendez. I know Mendez just a little bit, though times are changing there and new cartel money has moved in to replace a dwindling agriculture industry. Ironically, the farms were ruined by runoff from drug manufacture. It's like being inside a liminal living room as designed and curated by Roberto Bolano.

In my errant youth, I liked Mendez mostly because it was somehow immune from the farmacia border-town crackdown. So I could go down there with my brother and snag a bunch of substances that were much too controlled in the US for our collective taste. I don't do drugs anymore. I like to make that point clear. I just burned out on them. But boy did we ever make good use of the backup fuel tank in his massive old 80's GMC gadget. No matter that our carisoprodols and alprazolams, our hycodans and our codeine tablets smelled and tasted not-so-faintly of diesel. It was "Mexican dope," and it made us proud to be.

But not this time. This time, Mendez was my home base, sort of.

I have not captured the Taum, but I have taken nude dabs with a German tourist and his wife in back of their motel room, and I'm pretty sure she was giving him a handy under the table.

I have not captured the Taum, but I have eaten the second-best plate of food in my life, a sort of garden salad thing with amazingly-fresh produce and plentiful low-alcohol and freezing-cold Mexican beer, with ants crawling across my toes on a dirt floor half mixed with richly-scented sawdust.

And I have not learned to appreciate Centipede Hz, but I have fallen asleep to it with the windows open and the bugs all alive. I have not learned to appreciate Centipede Hz, but I have turned it up to extra loud while my car was being cursorily-inspected at the checkpoint.

I think I failed. I think it was perfect.

[roopn]

What a journey

[bansheebeaten]

that was artful

[LadsFromOsaka]

We should organize an expedition of Aminals down Mexico way to film the Taum.

I can't promise you'll get much sleep.

I apparently also can't promise a photo of an actual bird.

But I can promise that you'll have at least one really great story.

Also, you need a passport.

Also, you need to be able to sit very still for up to four hours at a stretch.

[The Cerebral Spouse]

Next up, trying it on acid. Worked for me two nights agoooooooooooo.

[LadsFromOsaka]

Ahhh, acid.

Gone are the days when Norman, Oklahoma was awash in the stuff. A couple of big busts happened, and, well, here in Texas, our easy access to the stuff dried up. Trouble is, a lot of people selling "acid" down here in Houston are selling trumped-up research chemicals and crap like that.

Just not willing to make that particular mistake.

No we do get a fantastic crop of cow 'shrooms every spring. I mean, technically I could shake the hoof of the cow who made it. Know what I mean?

[The Cerebral Spouse]

Would you say that acid zooms through any piece of music, but leaving utterly vivid moments in the temporal debris, but shrooms hums music in more clearly, like clouds generating? that would be my take.

Cause two nights ago Centipede Hz fuckin ZOOOOOOOOMED

[themilkman]

You don't have to [s]go to collage[/s] like CHZ.

[The Cerebral Spouse]

Man my BIG THEORY now is that the members of Animal Collective met back in Baltimore in 2011-2012 and took acid to inspire themselves in writing Centipede Hz. The reason I think this are many: it was most definitely the band's acid trips that inspired their whole music aspirations in the first place (or rather expanded them), and so meeting again in Baltimore it makes perfect sense that they would take acid to channel back the same vibes that started them in the first place; Avey Tare's lyricism is VASTLY impressive on Centipede Hz, and so it makes sense to me that the entire band took acid before writing it (because if there's one thing I know it's that taking acid makes you a better writer); and lastly, a lot of the themes on the album, (FATHER TIME IN PARTICULAR) seem to be channeled out of an acid trip. My two sense on THAT particular curiosity...

[The Cerebral Spouse]

Does anybody have an article in which the boys state that acid was explicitly NOT a part of the recording process for the album? Or where they say how they've still apparently have not done acid since having recorded Feels???

[roopn]

evey single point you just made is just you wanting it to be acid.

wanting to make music when you're young? =acid
weird sound? =acid
reconnecting with your past? =acid
good lyrics?! =acid
father time is abstract? =acid

I mean I know I'm exaggerating but come on...

[dio]

seems pretty damn likely they use acid at least some of the time when writing/jamming on new stuff. just a hunch tho... is there actually an interview where they say they havent since feels?

[roopn]

I remember somewhere saying they stopped smoking weed in the studio after feels, tho pb said he did that with the greaper

not sure about acid

[sky crawler]

Tips to enjoy CHz? Easy, just go into iTunes or whatever and rename all the song from Smash Mouth's truly excellent Astro Lounge to the Centipede Hz tracks. Do the same with the artist and album information. For composer, it's your call. I changed it to Fred Durst, but that's just me. Chacun à son goût
For example I changed "All Star" to "Father Time" and now I fucking love it.

[The Cerebral Spouse]

MAN Right on! ^^^

But yeah, I know my theory doesn't have much logic to it, but all I can say is after you've done acid people who have also done acid start making a WHOLE LOT MORE SENSE, ESPECIALLY Animal Collective. And song lyrics like Father Time start making a lot more sense after you've done acid. Weeeew lad!

[The Cerebral Spouse]

I doubt they recorded Centipede Hz on acid, but I think they had acid trips once they were reunited in Baltimore, and those trips inspired the album,

"Cause we RAN it all out and then we RAN IT ALL OUT and then we RAN IT OUT, WE RAN IT OUT!"

"Sometimes it WON'T COME SO EAAASSSY, well sometimes you gotta go get MAAAYAAAYAYAAAYAAD, MAAAAAAYYYAAAAAYAYAYAAAD, COME ON LET LET LET LET LET LET LET LET GO!"

"I'D RATHER NOT SAIIIIID NO!"

"I EAT A MANGO AND THEN I'M FEELING LIKE A LITTLE HONEY CAN ROLL"

"WIDE EYED I GET WIDE EYED I GET WIDE EYED I GET WIDE BE OKAY! BE OKAY!"

"LUUUUUUUUCK IT'S NOT REEEEEAAAAAAL MAYBEEEE IT'S OOONLY REAAAAL WHEN LIGHTNING LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANDS AND HITS YOU RIIIIIIIIGHT WHERE YOU WERE STANDING!" "IMAGINATION IS THAT WHICH SHOWS YOU WHAT ONLY TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME'S SUPPOSED TO TELL YOU"

"LIFT, THIS, WEIGHT!!! WEIGHT!!!!"

"AMAKEA MONKEY WRETCH! AY! AY! AY!" "I DON'T I WANT TO KNOCK YOU DOWN! I DON'T I WANT TO KNOW YOU DOWN!" "SO WHY AM I STILL LOOKING FOR THE GOLDEN PLAAAEEEEAACE?"

"YOU GOTTA SLIDE IT OFF LIKE MERRRCURY! CAN IT ALWAYS BEEEE LIIKE MERRRRCURRRYYYYY?"

"TREEEEES! SAID! THEIR! SMARTS! AREN'T! IN! THE! BOOOKS THEY WROOOOOTE WOOODEN NOTES, ON PULLEYS.........."

"WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO GO INTO THE FOREST UNTIL I CAN'T REMEMBER MY NAAAAEEEAAAEEEAEEEEME IM GONNA COME BACK AND THINGS'LL BE DIFFEREEEEENT IM GONNA BRING BACK SOME STOOOOORIES AND GAAAAEAEAEAEAEAEAAAMES"

[The Cerebral Spouse]

Or, having taken acid at a young age (I think Dave at least was 16) and then for them to be Animal Collective brought them to such James Joyce-genius tiers of vision to produce such an album. Panting With weeew lad.

[Pan]

a bunch of those lyrics you wrote there are incorrect and I don't know how a few of them can be correlated to acid

also quite sure avey tare has said in an interview that he stopped experimenting with acid in the early 00s, and the rest of the band have never mentioned it from what I can recall

anyway the whole "damn this albums is really weird/creative, drugs must be responsible/the main inspiration!" response,to not just animal collective's music but any other non-conventional music is really tiresome

[Texas Trill]

I doubt they dropped acid anytime recently to help write new songs. Weed and alcohol seem to be their current drugs of choice. Also, as people grow older, I imagine taking acid becomes more and more of a drag, especially with thinking about your kids or spouse or other responsibilities. In the wrong mindset, it can be like playing with fire. That being said, taking acid earlier in their lives has had some influence on the music, but so has traveling the world, or growing up, or having friends die, or returning back to home, etc etc. The point is that you can draw inspiration from pretty much anything and it doesn't require a hallucinogenic drug to construct a psychedelic song out of those ideas

[jetski]

Pan wrote:

anyway the whole "damn this albums is really weird/creative, drugs must be responsible/the main inspiration!" response,to not just animal collective's music but any other non-conventional music is really tiresome

yeah it's so annoying. these dudes have recorded a crazy amount of music in a ton of different styles and have been performing live for 15 years, they've obviously talented and capable of writing music. But the music is "weird" so clearly it must be drugs that are doing all the real work

Here's a great excerpt from an interview where they asked Deakin about this stuff

wrote:

Spoiler: show

How do you feel about the fact that people associate your music with drugs?

You know, I feel like a lot of people that you hear that from are people that are mid-teens or whatever, and for me, I didn’t really start doing a lot of that stuff until a little later. And I always thought it was kind of special, an extension of experiences, of mental capacity, or mental perspective that I feel like I had with the world, but I feel like I’d already developed that to some degree when I was younger. So to me, I feel like all the things about my music that people talk about as druggy, to me are not actually druggy. I feel like they’re all things that I, and maybe it’s just a matter of having grown up listening to my dad’s record collection which had a lot somewhat psychedelic elements to it, but I wasn’t getting high, so I was used to experiencing music in that way without it being associated with drugs, so maybe that’s part of what it is.

But I think, and Noah [Lennox; “Panda Bear” in Animal Collective] feels this way strongly too, but it’s kind of a bummer to be labeled as a drug band. That side of it feels like kind of a bummer. Cause it’s like, I think we feel like we put a lot of work into making music that we think is really exciting and it’s like, when there’s this way that it can be labeled as drug music, it’s easy for a lot of people to dismiss it, like, “Yeah, it’s just a bunch of weirdos getting high.” And when it comes down to it, that’s not the reality, it’s like the music we make or how we make it. That being said, I’ve spent a lot of time in my life doing exactly that, getting high and making music [laughs], and I love it, so on the other hand, it’s totally awesome to me.

I think back to when we did Conan back in 2006, I think, or 2007. And we sort of pulled a bit of a coup, I think, and we pissed a lot of people off. They wanted us to play something off the record, like “Reverend Green” or “Chores” or something that felt like a single, but we at that time were unwilling to edit songs down from their original length, so all the songs they wanted us to play were all too long for the format on Conan, so we just pushed to play the only song that actually fit into it, which was “Number 1,” which is for sure one of the weirdest songs on the record. So we ended up getting to do it, and I think that we pissed off some of the people at Conan who felt like we’d screwed them over. But we got really psyched about it, though, cause we felt like, man, this is what we want to do on a TV show, something where there’s going to be some 17 year old kid stoned on the couch watching Conan who’s going to suddenly see this, and it’ll hopefully expand his world. So, there’s really two sides to it. Part of me, of course, I completely relate. At the same time, I don’t think any of us really like being considered or labeled as like a drug band, because in terms of how the music is made and where it comes from, it goes far beyond that. I feel like it’s an unfair reduction for people think that’s what our music is.

http://austinist.com/2012/08/28/you_don ... r_this.php

[Texas Trill]

Great excerpt Victor! I dont remember reading that interview before.

It's funny because I was really into Conan when I was 15, was just starting to smoke pot and only knew a couple AC songs at the time. But when I watched that performance on air, my mind was blown and soon after, I started delving deeper into their discography waiting until the chance I got to see them in concert. And whrn I finally did, I was hooked for life

[Tesla]

Well, they have repeatedly said that they have never made a record on drugs despite it having a huge influence on them as artists. However, as a new member to this forum, I am learning that there are a lot of things they have said here (and elsewhere) which indicate their usage of drugs during live shows--which they've also said they never did.

As for liking Centipede Hz: don't get hung up on it. I don't like it very much, and maybe people are worried that this is the beginning of the end for AnCo or something like that, but they have a long and varied history so I don't think a whole lot about it anymore. I don't care for that album a lot, and if you don't either then don't push yourself into liking it just because a band you love made it. They have a full discography full of great, magical shit.

[Texas Trill]

Grimes wrote:

As for liking Centipede Hz: don't get hung up on it. I don't like it very much, and maybe people are worried that this is the beginning of the end for AnCo or something like that, but they have a long and varied history so I don't think a whole lot about it anymore. I don't care for that album a lot, and if you don't either then don't push yourself into liking it just because a band you love made it. They have a full discography full of great, magical shit.

Sums it up very nicely

[time4sumranch]

http://www.dummymag.com/features/panda- ... rview-2015 panda says here that he likes to be high while he works, I can't remember where else but I swear I heard / read an interview that panda said he likes to be high as it makes himself less self critical of his work. additionally, kria brekken here talks about them being stoned in the studio during feels http://www.westword.com/music/kra-brekk ... um-5702433 she does go on to say that was the last record they were in the studio high, but I'm not really sure about that

[jetski]

I know I've read that the Peebz like to smoke when mixing, so yeah while he's working but not necessarily during the writing or recording phase

[Tesla]

I am sort of interested in learning more about the drugs aspect of them as people--not just musicians. I assumed that drugs weren't at all a part of the production process because I had listened to/watched interviews where they explicitly denied that drugs were used during recording, but mixing is another thing entirely. Hadn't considered that angle before.

[Sad Cuck]

I can't imagine there being any benefit to mixing or recording music while you are balls deep in an acid or mushroom trip.

[LadsFromOsaka]

There's no benefit to having a head full of acid or an arm full of opiates when stalking the near-mythical Taumalipas Crow, either. It's kinda why I quit.

I mean, I second what this guy said.

[Tropic]

I imagine hallucinogens would act as jumping off points for ideas during the very early stages, and nothing more beyond that,

[Fovrodi]

wrote:

On the 2007 Animal Collective album Strawberry Jam song “Chores” you sing; “I want to get so stoned.” Do you still feel that way?


At this point [pot] is something I’ll do almost exclusively in private when I’m working. Especially when I’m mixing, it’s my favorite time to do it a lot; it gives me a perspective that is advantageous. For me it’s more of a mental and hearing tool, it gives me the kind of focus I really like when mixing. It’s not like I do it every time, but with the last two records it was definitely part of the process, for sure.


Playing live I feel I don’t do that well when I’m stoned. Maybe if I was more of a consistent smoker. When I get blasted and I haven’t done it in a while, it’s more debilitating, whereas if it’s a more consistent daily thing, I feel I have a better grasp physically on what I’m doing.

http://www.hightimes.com/read/interview ... panda-bear

More:

Spoiler: show

wrote:

People always describe your sound as being psychedelic. Are drugs a part of your music?

AVEY TARE: We record sober, mostly. It's important for us to get things to sound exactly the way we want and recording comes down to really concentrating on what we're doing.
GEOLOGIST: It's work.

http://www.freewilliamsburg.com/archive ... _coll.html

[Tesla]

So that settles that. Record sober and mix while wasted. Good rule to have.

[Fovrodi]

Wouldn't say that's exactly fair

But w/e?

[Tesla]

I was taking the piss.