I have no sense of who does, and who doesn't know these bands. if you were a modest mouse nut in the late 90s then you were a fan cause jeremiah green was the drummer. or, you were a fan of k records (though up released the first album) and everything they put out. or i don't know. judging by the number of cds i used to come across in the dollar bins i'm guessing most are unaware of what they missed, or are continuing to miss, cause most of these albums are pretty easy to find used.
matthew steinke was was the genius behind all three. and if you think i might be exaggerating with the use of "genius" you can poke around his website matthewsteinke.com and be corrected (make sure click on "archives", real tiny button at the top of the page, and then click on "instruments". the one time i saw him live was with satisfact, and he'd built this light sensitive theramin guitar pedal that made the most amazing, but controllable, noise/feedback. i missed ever seeing octant but apparently the drums were robots (you can see examples of such robots on his site).
here's a track from the first satisfact album ("the unwanted sounds of satisfact") recorded by steve wold, who also recorded the first modest mouse album:
"50 MG once daily"
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and one from their second album "satisfact", recorded by calvin johnson, who also recorded the second modest mouse album (actually now i'm half doubting this, but i'm at work and the cd is at home so...).
"demonstration"
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and from their third album "the third meeting at the third counter", which i didn't like, but it did include two really good tracks. I don't know who recorded it.
"i'm in a bad way"
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now on to octant. the band with the robot drummers. and not just on stage, but in studio. though it seems drummers are aplenty so it may have been more worth the effort had he built robots to play bass.
"the move" (from the album "shock-no-par")
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"laquita laquita" (from the album "car alarms and crickets". i was really disappointed when this album came out. it's mostly instrumental. this song is however great).
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i should have started with mocket as it seems to have been his most high profile project, but i'm nowhere near as into mocket as i am in his other two bands. i only have their first album so i can't represent the other two with tracks.
"spark plug" (from the album "bionic parts")
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1 comment:
I'm a big fan of all 3 bands, I worked in a record store with a really riotgrrl kinda lesbian and she turned me on to all sorts of bands from K records and KillRockStars and the whole Olympia WA scene of that time. This was late 90's indie rock type stuff. I definitely noticed Matt Steinke's talent right away as a guitarist. I wish I could have seen Satisfact perform live in concert because they were my favorite too. That keyboard player with the Roland Juno-D made the craziest sounds on those records. Mocket was okay but I definitely prefer Satisfact and Octant because Matt Steinke is, like you wrote here, totally a genius. A genius indie-rock mad scientist. Cheers, fellow Satisfact fan!!! Good article, nice read. I'm trying to figure out what Steinke has been up to lately, seems like he moved to Austin TX now. It's 2020. I'm replying to your blog post far too late lol.
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