Ty Segall

Showing 64 posts tagged Ty Segall

Track

Don't Talk To Me

Artist

Ty Segall

Album

Daytrotter

Ty Segall - “Don’t Talk To Me” (GG Allin)

And here’s where I’ll end this week, which has been really fun for me. This blog was a good venue to get out all of my love for Ty Segall, which apparently, there’s a lot of that. But this man has done so much in about five years, and all of it is pretty great. This year has seen his most refined work to date in Goodbye Bread, and just before 2011 started, he did his most aggressive song to date.

His cover of “Don’t Talk To Me” is a searing, biting rendition of one of Allin’s tamer songs. He screams, and you can hear his hoarse rasp. He quiets down to give the big finish that extra kick. And if you’re listening to it on anything short of the highest volume, you’re cheating yourself.

The song was recorded during a Daytrotter session. When asked about it in an interview, Segall sort of brushed it off. He’d heard of Daytrotter when he heard Thee Oh Sees’ session, so he decided to go in and record one. He walked in, he did a handful of songs, and he dropped “Don’t Talk To Me” in the middle of it. That’s that.

And it’s a perfect punk song.

Thank you guys for reading, and if you haven’t already, in the very least, start listening to his albums.

I want to do a total glam Stooges-meets-Hawkwind or Sabbath, something like that. I think that would be super fun. I want to throw people off. I want to make a really heavy record: evil, evil space rock. Put a little Satan in space and you got the sound. Hawkwind’s ‘Silver Machine’ meets Sabbath’s ‘N.I.B.’ meets Hawkwind’s ‘Master of the Universe.’

Ty Segall to Exclaim on what he might do for his next album.
Track

Fist Heart Mighty Dawn Dart

Artist

Ty Segall

Album

Ty Rex

During this year’s Record Store Day, the pickings were kind of slim. Sure, it would be nice to own James Blake’s self-titled on vinyl, and there were a handful of other things that looked good, but the only thing that was decidedly sold out at my local record stores and hugely essential from this year’s Record Store Day was Ty Rex, a six-song EP of T. Rex covers by Ty Segall.

There’s a long, great interview with Segall about the EP on Fracture Compound, where he talks about the process of recording it. But he said something that sort of applies to a lot of his covers:

Marc Bolan and T. Rex are just so great. They made perfect records, so, you know, you’re not supposed to touch that stuff. For some reason, I’m really interested in people’s reactions when you cover songs you’re not supposed to cover necessarily.

He’s right. You’re obviously not supposed to cover the Beatles, but Bolan, Bowie, and Beefheart are also hallowed ground. So how does he get away with it? Why is it that he “injects new life” into these songs, as I asserted earlier this week, while awful cover bands at awful bars across the world can ruin these songs within seconds?

Maybe it’s because I know that Segall can actually write songs. He can deliver both aggressive sneers and lines like “Why must the people cry?” with an effective sincerity. I think I can take it back to why I like Segall at all. He’s exciting— he screams without abandon, he bashes out power chords, he’s an excellent drummer, and he’s just good.

T. Rex songs are a natural fit for Segall. He’s got something that’s similar to that Bolan vibratto, and Bolan was clearly a huge influence on Segall (you can sort of hear Bolan’s voice in “Caesar”).

And there is something exciting about Segall’s T. Rex covers. Despite that songs from The Slider are beautiful, sacred pieces of music to me, Ty Rex is still on constant rotation. They’re wonderful and can co-exist nicely with the originals.

Ty Segall - “Dropout Boogie” (Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band)

Lemons, according to Segall, was thrown together, and one of the additions was this Beefheart cover. Here’s what he said to Reax about the choice:

It’s just one of my favorite songs. I don’t know, it’s great, it just works, it kind of fit with some of the stuff on that. There’s no way any of my stuff can ever match his, I just thought it was a cool finisher. Bottom line I just love that song.

He’s totally right—it does flow well with the rest of the album. Maybe it’s partially due to the production quality, and maybe it’s how he arranged it, but as I’ve said before, the entire album is completely cohesive.

Obviously, in Segall’s version, he speeds things up and doesn’t try to affect Beefheart’s weird deep voice. And Safe As MIlk era Beefheart seems like an obvious influence on Segall—to boil it down, it’s a song that’s weird and really fun. It’s only natural that Segall would be hesitant to compare himself to Beefheart, but his version is perfect for Lemons and definitely entertaining.

Track

2 + 2 = ?

Artist

Ty Segall

Album

Trouble In Mind Record Store Day Split

Ty Segall - “2 + 2 = ?” (Bob Seger System)

When I talked to Segall for Paste in 2010, I was deeply curious about why he decided to cover a Bob Seger song, of all things, for his single on the Trouble In Mind Record Store Day four-way split. He told me that while he was hanging out with Bill & Lisa Roe, Trouble In Mind’s founders and co-heads of CoCoComa, they introduced him to the song and he loved it. (Unrelated: Jack White also cited it as his favorite Bob Seger song to Stephen Colbert earlier this year.) It’s a story that resonated with me—Bill & Lisa once ordered me to buy the Saints’ (I’m) Stranded when I ran into them at Reckless.

But thank God Bill & Lisa are such excellent curators, because obviously introducing Ty to early Bob Seger didn’t necessarily mean he would cover it, but it’s such a good fit. There’s so much menace in the song that ultimately gets lost when you read the name “Bob Seger.” It’s easy to forget that behind the beard and cheesy gusto, the guy could write a song.

Ty Segall - “You Should Never Have Opened That Door” (Ramones)

I’d like to finish this week by talking about a handful of Ty Segall’s covers. In nearly every interview he’s ever given, he’s talked about the influence a variety of bands have had on him. It’s also blatant in his music, whether it’s in the songwriting nuances of Neil Young or in the raw aggression of the Mummies. First, we’ll start with the “raw aggression” side of things with his cover of “You Never Should Have Opened That Door” from the Ramones’ Leave Home, which is one of the Ramones’ signature horror movie songs.

The way the Ramones handled creepy material was to sound completely peppy and jovial about it. (“Chain Saw” is a pretty great example of that.) In Segall’s version, there’s urgency and fear in his voice, where Joey just sounded like Joey. And when he sings “You don’t know what I can do with this axe, / Chop off your head, so you better relax,” he doesn’t sound largely stoic—he screams it like a maniac.

And Segall’s version is shorter. Than the Ramones’ version. He uses his one man band stomp and chops it down by 30 seconds. I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise, since the Ramones never did play as fast in the studio as they did on stage, but still—30 seconds is a lot.

The Ramones’ influence on Segall isn’t exactly subtle when you consider Segall’s power chord driven bashers from that self-titled record and Horn The Unicorn. And both Segall and the Ramones were students of early rock’n’roll, so it’s a natural fit to have Segall interpret the punk legends. And this 1.5 minute nugget is a nice little indication of the inspiration Ty got from Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, & Tommy.

Me and Ty are planning on doing some more records and are starting to write new material. … We’re working on that stuff now. I love that guy. Any time I get to play music with him is a good time.

Mikal Cronin to San Francisco Weekly about his plans to collaborate more with Ty Segall.