return of the panda

Imagined Hungarians waltzing instrumental style.

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posted by sleepy pete (5 comments total)

Another step into 1998 from me. This time it's an instrumental and one of my favorite things that we did. The song was supposed to sound like a strange Hungarian waltz, possibly Bela Lugosi dancing with roses in his teeth, feeling weirdly triumphant. The introductory phrase comes from listening to a lot of Lee Perry's Kung Fu Meets the Dragon on the way to Chicago to record. The song was written by the entire band and my guitar is (mostly) panned to the right.
posted by sleepy pete at 5:59 PM on April 12, 2007

This is like punker Tchaikovsky to me. I love it! Have you heard of Saccharin Trust from the '80s? I guess they were supposed to be like jazz/punk. This has a similar feel but happy instead of angsty. Great song!
posted by snsranch at 8:00 PM on April 13, 2007

You know, many a time I've wondered why this kind of rock never made it out of the States. Bands like the early Built To Spill, or the Minutemen, that were reasonably famous in the U.S. are virtually unknown in Latin America, while other less interesting bands are well known. I only came to hear about them thru tapes that American friends brought with them. It's a shame, because it's a great branch of rock and it came at a time when many people considered rock to have nothing new to offer.

In any case, I like this kind of sound in general a lot, and I like the Teriyakis in particular. Thx for posting these songs.
posted by micayetoca at 9:41 AM on April 14, 2007

I'm not sure why the Minutemen didn't rule the entire world, micayetoca.

It's interesting that you brought up American bands being hard to find in Latin America, because around 97 or so was when I (along with the bandmates) started getting into Tropicalia, especially Os Mutantes. This was before David Byrne put out their greatest hits comp on his label, or the Tropicalia box set came out, so finding an album by them or Tom Ze or Gal Costa was like finding a bar of gold in the closet.
Please pretend that there are accent marks on some names, since I'm too lazy to look up the coding.
posted by sleepy pete at 11:56 AM on April 14, 2007

And thanks snsranch. "Punker Tchaikovsky" is a great term. I loved a lot of the SST stuff in the 80s, including Saccharine Trust. As a band, we were influenced by Thinking Fellers Union Local 282, Can, Captain Beefheart, so it all makes sense to me.
posted by sleepy pete at 12:01 PM on April 14, 2007