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Pile of Eggs and The Mad are the only good egg bands
A Case for Hatching: My Eulogy for Egg Punk Explained by Martin Meyer
Edith Massey was the original egg punk in Pink Flamingos and with Edie & The Eggs
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Do we finally have the answer to the age old question of which came first?
Is this proto-eggpunk
Psycho Chicken
God, I'm so invested in this thread. Geza X could be considered ground zero if DEVO is out of the equation.
The glory days when eggs were cheap and disposable
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I think this article is kind of interesting if you read it as a psychological portrait. The main thing driving it seems to be the author's insecurity about his image and fear that his current musical project doesn't speak for itself or live up to the lofty ideals he's putting forward. (It does sort of gesture in the direction of maturity, but since it's a pretty shallow indistinct take on TV Personalities etc., it really depends on the listener appreciating that he's doing something more adult than what they might associate him with, put-on aesthetic naivete and all.) "I listen to the Red Krayola now" seems interchangeable with "I don't watch baby stuff like Power Rangers anymore." I also like that it starts with him scolding Snooper, "who should know better," and then ends with, "My friend from Snooper said something really profound, which is that things are real real bad nowadays and art has the responsibility to be important."
I like the internet again
if most of the self branded "egg punk" bands tried to flesh out there songs more they'd probably be even worse
In my very humble and correct opinion, egg punk has jumped the shark, and it's good that people are talking about it. Coneheads rule and will always rule school. Did we expect this sound to be inexhaustible?
A few more key points:
It’s cool and good that people are talking about what makes art good. Not everybody can be right about it, but having any sort of critical lens is the first step to breaking out of our little genre prisons. Hating on dorks can feel good, but in order to do that, you have to hate things, and that’s a waste of attention (mind juice) and creative energy (sex juice).
It’s not just egg punk that’s in the genre prison. We can and should live creative lives without painting by numbers. Inspiration requires a spirit.
Lumpy’s songwriting prescription is besides the point. Good things come from improv and accidents and the release of pure animal id. Blind contour drawing is great for this reason. Glossolalia is True LiberationTM. Working hard on songs can be good too, but the Great Egg/Chain Debate is about product, not process. Lumpy is showing his ass a bit, but whatever ¯_(ツ)_/¯. Let the kids show their asses, I say!
So much of the egg punk over-saturation coincided with our Age of Over-Saturation. There’s too much of everything. Maybe it seems worse with egg punk because it’s fairly one-dimensional.
Hm, I dunno, these are just thoughts I had while avoiding my job. I’m gonna go listen to some egg punk now and staple my balls to a box of Twinkies.
the ultimate snackrifice Yes! Things \emph{are} fucked. Makes sense that art should strive to be important. At the same time art is not particularly good at conveying complex analytic information. So if people focus instead on making art about emotions and other more human things that is still worthy of an honorable mention at least! We cant all be strawman army. Some of us just gotta noodle a bit too.
11th hour stubble They're a fun live band. I've seen them at Mosswood Meltdown, Gonerfest and in a club. They're playing Mosswood again this year. I'd say I enjoy them live more than on wax but they're def. not the only current band I feel that way about.
Edith says, “GIVE ME SOME EGGS!”
Nathan Loud So much of the egg punk over-saturation coincided with our Age of Over-Saturation. There’s too much of everything. Maybe it seems worse with egg punk because it’s fairly one-dimensional.
100%... i think that's what worked people up so much, the illusion that everything sounds like this-one-thing, when in a pre-2016 world you'd never even hear half the bands that sound alike, or they wouldn't exist because their influences would be broader and less funnelled through the hot labels/bands social media channels or whatever... it's funny too in that hardcore/chain punk whatever, has the exact same problem: how many d-beat photocopies are out there, but because it's steeped in a long-lasting tradition, you don't get that same visceral recoil.
it's actually really interesting how similar this whole thing is to what happened with dolewave over the years in australia. those early bands and recordings were really refreshing and cool to listen too, and sick to have this kind of gentle pop band playing next to a punk band, etc... but over-saturation really sank that ship.
but i think you're totally rightL these newly appearing micro-genres get to a point of over-saturation now, and that's when the industry starts to latch on and repackage them, creates the spotify playlist, plucks 'one new band' out of the mix and offers them a big touring deal, etcccc
Uptown ruler 666 420 I thought “egg” and “chain” were just memes. Very embarrassing for all parties involved
You're not the only one, I'm so naïve to all of this that I thought "egg vs. chain" was just a pre-pandemic meme as well!
Nathan Loud So much of the egg punk over-saturation coincided with our Age of Over-Saturation. There’s too much of everything. Maybe it seems worse with egg punk because it’s fairly one-dimensional.
This is exactly why I don't like egg punk.
Being one-dimensional and over-saturated in this day and age seems to be the criteria to get astronomical. This goes hand-in-hand with having a big Instagram following, cultivating a Spotify presence, et cetera. Egg punk is disseminated through these avenues. A lot of egg punk followers are quite young - people who have grown up on 'modern' social media platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, etc.). This includes me.
That being said - punching down by calling egg punk artists 'clueless' in [current year] is so silly - especially under the guise of 'protest, feeling, and expression in our community.' Despite it all, how the egg punkers are getting their music across is also a good frame of reference to get 'protest, feeling, and expression' across in the landscape we are currently in!
We can talk about how DIY is not what it was due to the music industry catching on, and subsequently fucking us over by way of middleman services, however that is a debate for another time...
re: oversaturation, i do think it's sort of interesting how excessively online music/people can result in genre acceleration. obv "the egg sound" predated the pandemic. and i'm not sure where i read this (some review -- sorry state or something?) but seems like a lot of eggy bands like prison affair grew out of 2020 pandemic bedroom recording and digital idea swapping. so you get these bands all riffing on the same idea in germany spain australia usa. i wonder if the feeling that it's all unmoored is in part that overly-digital element.
and yes, all of this is further facilitated role that spotify plays in scraping forums (probably this one!) for genre ideas, compiling them into playlists, and then feeding them back to listeners. in the liz pelly book she talks about this wrt the "lo-fi beats" scene which feels really similar to egg insofar as there was a creative origin that quickly got ground down into its most derivative elements. as mentioned above, there is nothing particularly new here in the history of music. but the speed and scale with which it happens does seem to leave something to be desired.
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Reading this thread I realize that I don't know who "Snooper" is and I feel pretty happy about it. Getting older isn't so bad after all!
Also, interesting take above, "kai". I guess another thing is how "insular"/ "self-sufficient" (not sure these are the right words) micro-scenes can get nowadays. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if there are kids out there who only, or almost only, listen to "egg punk". And who consider Coneheads as the prehistory of music or something.