Talk:Big Blood

Big Blood has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: January 25, 2022. (Reviewed version).

This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.

If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page.

Biography: Musicians

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by WikiProject Musicians (assessed as Low-importance).

Alternative music Low‑importance

	Rock music portal This article is part of WikiProject Alternative music, a group of Wikipedians interested in improving the encyclopedic coverage of articles relating to alternative rock. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project's talk page.Alternative musicWikipedia:WikiProject Alternative musicTemplate:WikiProject Alternative musicAlternative music articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Maine Low‑importance

	Maine portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Maine, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Maine on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MaineWikipedia:WikiProject MaineTemplate:WikiProject MaineMaine articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Roots music Low‑importance

	Music portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Roots music, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of articles relating to roots, folk and traditional folk music on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Roots musicWikipedia:WikiProject Roots musicTemplate:WikiProject Roots musicRoots music articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Women in Music Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women in Music, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women in music on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women in MusicWikipedia:WikiProject Women in MusicTemplate:WikiProject Women in MusicWomen in music articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

United States: Music Low‑importance

	United States portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject United States, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of topics relating to the United States of America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the ongoing discussions. Template Usage Articles Requested! Become a Member Project Talk Alerts United StatesWikipedia:WikiProject United StatesTemplate:WikiProject United StatesUnited States articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.
	Music portal This article is supported by WikiProject American music (assessed as Low-importance).

To anyone interested...

Given Big Blood's relative obscurity to a general listener, plus their ridiculously expansive musical output, I'm providing my own "beginner's guide" to the band's music. I offer this primarily to assist a prospective Good Article reviewer, but also to anyone interested in sampling their music.

If you're considering reviewing this article as a GA reviewer, please know I have no expectation that you listen to even a second of their music if you aren't interested. The article should stand on its own merits regardless of your personal familiarity or enjoyment. Nonetheless, I hope this helps make the subject matter more approachable and comprehensible to whoever might come along. And hey, I do hope you enjoy the discovery—if Big Blood is new to you and happens to be to your taste, great!

The 20-song selection below is a balance between some of my own personal favorites, plus songs that that (I think) help present a reasonably balanced overview of the band's career and sound. I've made three groupings spanning the same blocks of time as the major subsections in the article. I haven't heard everything the band ever recorded, so take this with a grain of salt. It's a product of my own blindspots (deafspots?), subjective biases, and arbitrary curatorial choices.

Big Blood's Greatest Hits! Vol. I by blz 2049

Early period (2006–2009)

"Oh Country (Skin & Bones)" – 5:21 – from Big Blood & the Bleedin' Hearts (2008)
"Full of Smoke" – 3:39 – from Strange Maine 11.04.06 (2006)
"Don't Trust the Ruin" – 7:14 – from Space Gallery Jan. 27, 2007 / Sahara Club Jan. 28, 2007 (2007)
"Vitamin C" – 5:39 – from Sew Your Wild Days Tour Vol. I (2007) – cover of Can's "Vitamin C"
"The Fall of Quinnisa Rose" – 5:21 – from Strange Maine 1.20.07 (2007)
"Graceless Lady" – 8:48 – from Big Blood & the Bleedin' Hearts (2008)
"The Grove Is Hotter Than an Ocean's Oven" – 6:02 – from The Grove (2007) – bonus: see this an excellent 2018 cover version (3:31) by the Ukrainian group Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Choir

Middle period (2010–2016)

"Moo-Hoo" – 1:27 – from Dark Country Magic (2010)
"Lay Your Head on the Rails II" – 4:14 – from Dead Songs (2010)
"Run" – 4:14 – from Big Blood & The Wicked Hex (2011)
"The Seer Returns" by Swans – 6:17 – from The Seer (2012) – a Swans track featuring Big Blood's core duo playing a variety of instruments
"Everything Is Improving" – 3:18 – from Radio Valkyrie 1905–1917 (2013)
"Sick With Information" – 4:57 – from Fight for Your Dinner Vol. I (2014)
"... Is All We Have" – 5:01 – from Dark Country Magic (2010)

Current period (2017–present)

"Sweet Talker" (with 0:09 intro track "Skeleton Dream") – 5:39 – from Do You Wanna Have a Skeleton Dream? (2020)
"Baby Eyes" – 5:36 – from Deep Maine (2019)
"Our Love Will Still Be There" – 3:19 – from The Daughters Union (2017) – cover of The Troggs' "Our Love Will Still Be There"
"Olamina (for Octavia Butler)" – 9:14 – from Operate Spaceship Earth Properly (2018)
"A Message Sent" – 5:36 – from Deep Maine (2019)
"Insecure Kids" – 5:11 – from Do You Wanna Have a Skeleton Dream? (2020)

P.S.: To my ears, Space Gallery (2007) is my personal favorite Big Blod album, so if you'd prefer a single album over a mix, try that one. If you're pressed for time, the first track above—"Oh Country (Skin & Bones)"—is about as beautiful and accessible as they get. Thanks! —blz 2049 ➠ ❏ 03:47, 23 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Big Blood/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Jens Lallensack (talk · contribs) 18:29, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

A band I never heard from. Reviewing now. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 18:29, 21 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Kinsella said they had been motivated to provide highly personalized material at little expense to either themselves or the purchaser – I don't understand this: Why would they provide this to themselves, and why would that be relevant?

I reworded it for clarity: "Kinsella said they wanted to provide packaging artwork that was personalized, yet inexpensive to produce or purchase." To be totally clear about the underlying meaning: ordinarily, it might be assumed that a personalized, unique "limited edition" of a DIY musical release .

According to The Brooklyn Rail's Christopher Nelson, Space Gallery "must be considered one of Big Blood's high points" – You never mention what Space Gallery is. Maybe introduce this album first, or at least say "the album Space Gallery"?

Good catch; I fixed that.

In the mid-2000s, Kinsella and Mulkerin lived in a house near oil tanks in South Portland, Maine, – Any particular reason why the surroundings of their house are interesting here? Did this influence their music in some way?

I've never visited Portland, Maine, and I imagine it's an unfamiliar place to most readers, whether they've ever lived in the US or not. The detail about residing near oil tanks in South Portland provides context about the band's locale and socioeconomic circumstances at the time of its formation. It also provides richer local context for those who do live in Maine.

Why is the image "Michael Gira performing with Swans in 2012" relevant? Seems somehow without connection to the text. Him performing with Swans is not even mentioned in the text.

Mentioning Gira by individual name is not strictly necessary or directly relevant, and the caption could just say "Swans in 2012, the same year Big Blood featured on the Swans' album The Seer". More broadly, the relevance is that The Seer is the most prominent album by the most prominent artist Big Blood ever worked with, a connection worth highlighting for the general reader with a visual. In that photo, Swans were touring to promote the same album Big Blood participated in recording, so historically speaking the photo is contemporaneous with the Big Blood collaboration and is more relevant/apropos/illustrative on those grounds.

The infobox says: Past members Shon Mahoney. The text doesn't say he was a "member", just that he joint in for two records as drummer. That doesn't make him a member necessarily. Can you provide a source for this?

Fundamentally, there is no formal answer to "who has been a 'member' of the band Big Blood", as there is no "official" list out there. I used ordinary heuristics to determine the band's membership. I included Shon Mahoney on the list of past members because, whenever he recorded or performed with Big Blood, the release was attributed to simply "Big Blood"—never "Big Blood with Shon Mahoney" or another alternate name. By contrast, when Tom Kovacevic, Micah Blue Smaldone, and Kelly Nesbitt joined Big Blood to record in 2008, both the album title and the artist credit were "Big Blood & the Bleedin' Hearts", as in "Big Blood featuring a Backing Band". The same thing happened with the 2012 record Micah Blue Smaldone / Big Blood: a musician joined, and the credit changed to distinguish the project from "Big Blood". By that reasoning, anyone credited on a Big Blood record qualifies as a Big Blood "member", which is a pretty normal standard for determining a band's membership (unless contradicted by more detailed information from sources). Mahoney has also performed as a member of Big Blood during Big Blood live shows, including their tour in Europe; by comparison, Pat Smear—who was only ever a touring member of Nirvana—is uncontroversially regarded as "a member of Nirvana".

The text contains quite some information on the associated acts, which is not strictly pertinent to this article. However, I can see the point for including them as this gives a bit more context, so that is ok I think.

I'm glad you feel this way, and I understand your initial impulse. Normally, a lot of the info I included in the article would be found in smaller articles about an individual album, but few if any individual Big Blood albums are noteworthy enough to stand as their own separate article. At the same time, I wanted to provide as comprehensive of an overview of the band's history as possible, given the available source material.

That's everything I found, nice work! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 17:44, 22 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

@Jens Lallensack: Thank you for your review! Let me know if you have any additional comments. —blz 2049 ➠ ❏ 11:20, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, looks all good, promoting now! --Jens Lallensack (talk) 19:15, 25 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Spoken article?

Is anyone considering recording a reading of this article? DerekSquared (talk) 00:39, 31 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]