The Presidents Of The United States Of America

RobDavies

This came up on my YouTube feed today.  

I quite liked them back in the day…had their debut album and then forgot about them.  

This is great though.   They look like they’re really enjoying themselves and are tighter than a nats chuff.  All the while with two strings on the bass, and three on the guitar.  Great fun.  

https://youtu.be/wku2cic9Uro?si=bLL0YKsDzN0I23zy 

strumjoughlamps

I got to see them a couple of times, awesome they were and show what can be achieved with ‘minimum requirements’.

DiscoStu

We've been doing Lump in our set and it's great fun.

LPManic

Peaches and Dune Buggy (....in the saaaaaaand!) were two of my favourites back in 96 or 97.

Winny_Pooh

Such a fun band! It's like taking the band Morphine and you flip the coin to the light side.

roberty

Funnily enough they popped up on mine too the other day and I was struck by the musicianship, something which passed me by at the time

roberty

They have marching bands in American schools and I reckon that's why so many of their drummers have such insane chops on the snare drum

UnclePsychosis

I honestly can't tell you how much joy this video has brought me.

I would quite genuinely and unironically name their first album as one of the musical highlights of my life. I actually know very little about the band but for one short record at least they absolutely bottled lightning.

The energy, joy, and musicality in this footage is just fabulous. Thank you so much, genuinely 

Revolutions

Likewise, I’ve not listened to them at all since selling their debut at some point a few years after it came out. The singles were incredible, and I remember them being super tight live so this video is a little treat.

Mark Lanegan was pretty scathing about the drummer in his autobiography. Although that had nothing to do with his drumming, merely that he thought him a hanger-on in early 90s Seattle.

Sporky

Winny_Pooh said:

Such a fun band! It's like taking the band Morphine and you flip the coin to the light side.

I've always thought of them as Primus-lite. 

Which is no bad thing. 

UnclePsychosis

Sporky said:

Winny_Pooh said:

Such a fun band! It's like taking the band Morphine and you flip the coin to the light side.

I've always thought of them as Primus-lite. 

Which is no bad thing. 

So aaccording to Wikipedia, Chris Bellew (the singer from POTUSA) played in a band for a short while with Mark Sandman (from Morphine) and that's where they both developed the guitbass / bassitar sound.

So there you go. 

Jfingers

I'd never really listened to them before, except in passing such as on the radio or in a pub or some such.

I will watch the whole thing at some point, it was fun and indeed very tight.

@Winny_Pooh above mentioned Morphine. Probably due to Mark Sandman RIP who I first became aware of in the Treat Her Right era whose music I love.

I'd like to play alongside the drummer, properly good for my kind of thing. He reminded me of Victor DeLorenzo of The Violent Femmes and also John Convertino when plays with Howe Gelb. Properly intuitive.

Philly_Q

I'd completely forgotten them until now.  My brother had their first couple of albums, I think.

I have to say listening to it now, it doesn't do much for me.  I can see the Primus-lite thing (I don't know Morphine at all) but I would rather listen to Primus.

I always get that song "Lump" confused with this...

pintspiller

A band I was in at the time considered covering a tune or two, but never did in the end.

english_bob

Such a fun band. I could never decide whether their song lyrics were meant to be as naive and childlike as they appeared, or whether there was some deep meaning that I wasn't getting.

The first one. It's the first one, isn't it?

monquixote

english_bob said:

Such a fun band. I could never decide whether their song lyrics were meant to be as naive and childlike as they appeared, or whether there was some deep meaning that I wasn't getting.

The first one. It's the first one, isn't it?

Yeah I think it's the first one. 

My friend was a massive fan and got their second album which took it to another level of just piss about not really making any sense lyrics and generally wasn't very good.

DuploLicks

Philly_Q said:

I always get that song "Lump" confused with this...

I have my children singing ‘log’, I think it should be every parent’s duty

I recall Presidents generally getting slated (in the UK) back in the day but I wasn’t sure why, catchy, fun & interesting tunes. In saying that I never progressed past their first album

english_bob

DuploLicks said:

I recall Presidents generally getting slated (in the UK) back in the day but I wasn’t sure why, catchy, fun & interesting tunes. In saying that I never progressed past their first album

I can well imagine earnest young male music fans turning their noses up at the general air of silliness and lack of grunge gravitas or britpop artsiness. No attempt whatsoever to be cool, or meaningful, or political.

Philly_Q

english_bob said:

DuploLicks said:

I recall Presidents generally getting slated (in the UK) back in the day but I wasn’t sure why, catchy, fun & interesting tunes. In saying that I never progressed past their first album

I can well imagine earnest young male music fans turning their noses up at the general air of silliness and lack of grunge gravitas or britpop artsiness. No attempt whatsoever to be cool, or meaningful, or political.

I think Kerrang! liked them well enough and featured them several times... but then as I write that I realise that Kerrang! was never cool, meaningful or political.  No idea what the NME made of them.

Johnnyseven

I was never into them but my band covered Peaches for a while.

monquixote

english_bob said:

DuploLicks said:

I recall Presidents generally getting slated (in the UK) back in the day but I wasn’t sure why, catchy, fun & interesting tunes. In saying that I never progressed past their first album

I can well imagine earnest young male music fans turning their noses up at the general air of silliness and lack of grunge gravitas or britpop artsiness. No attempt whatsoever to be cool, or meaningful, or political.

I think the problem was that all of their songs were quite similar sounding with nonsensical lyrics.

Lump and Peaches were super catchy, but the others were all like less good rewrites of those two.