Homesick Elephant, “Margaret Thatcher Appleby” (EP for Ruby, 2006)
I am most recently returned from the nuptials of my dear friends Kevin Kelly and Sara Fitzsimmons, a.k.a. Homesick Elephant. Kevin and Sara have been partners in life and music for as long as I’ve known them, and it’s hard to think of two other people who make such an alarming amount of sense together. So listen to their music and wish them a wonderful life—I’d do it myself, but I’m too busy sobbing.
Tags: homesick elephant
If you haven’t yet read Trent Reznor’s open letter to rising artists, it’s worth a look. In advance of an ostensible farewell tour for Nine Inch Nails, the Prince of Pain imparted the young hopefuls treading his footsteps with some advice on what to do now that music is totally freaking free. And while we all know the music industry can barely be so called anymore, it’s heartening to hear it from somebody who is at—or near—the top, and believes in leaving the old business model for dead. It’s not an exhaustive guide, and the theories really aren’t all that radical. It’s just a suggestion to take a good, hard look at the writing on the wall, from a dude who’s been around the block. [UPDATE: Yeah, I'll mix metaphors all I want. Wanna fight about it? -- ed.]
Amongst Trent’s bullet points were a pair of websites I hadn’t heard of: Bandcamp and Soundcloud, each of which proposes a new and improved way of getting your music to the people, without the help of the mighty MySpace. Here are their intro videos—I warn you that the Bandcamp one sports some Apple-ad smarminess, and the voice-over on the Soundcloud one gets a little grating. But such trifles aside, both of these stand to be powerful tools for uncertain times.
BANDCAMP
SOUNDCLOUD
Tags: bandcamp, nine inch nails, soundcloud, trent reznor
Agent Ribbons, “Birds and Bees” (On Time Travel and Romance, 2006)
It didn’t take much for Agent Ribbons to work their way into my heart. Natalie Gordon and Lauren Hess are so stylish and exuberant you could watch them with the sound off and be entertained—though of course, you’d be doing yourself a disservice. “Birds and Bees” is a case in point of what makes the pair so thoroughly listenable—Natalie’s guitar tone is as warm as a winter blanket, Lauren’s drumming simple but deceptively clever. And of course, there are the lyrics, whose lovey-doveyness is undercut by a devilish streak that finds Natalie objectifying her beloved the way countless male songwriters have done to their female muses.
Peggy Sue, “Lover Gone” (Lover Gone EP, 2009)
Though technically a trio now, rounded out by drummer Ollie Joyce, Peggy Sue was founded on the artistic partnership of Brighton lasses Katy Young and Rosa Slade (who go by the sobriquets Katy Klaw and Rosa Rex, though they really don’t need to). Perhaps the most striking part of this, the title track from their new EP, is its brevity—less than two minutes to recount a four-year relationship whose ending must have hurt but good. And yet, their delivery is alarmingly confident, even matter-of-fact; “Lover Gone” is sad and sobering for sure, but forgoes tearful confession for clear-eyed acceptance.
Tags: agent ribbons, lover gone, on time travel and romance, peggy sue
Michael Jackson, “Billie Jean” — 1981 Home Demo Version
(Thriller: Special Edition, 2001)
Today’s post was supposed to be a personal history in music: 25 formative songs in honor of my 25th birthday, which I celebrated last week. As it happened, though, my birthday was scooped by another, more sensational news item. I think you can guess where this is going.
I’m avoiding the Michael Jackson media blitz as best I can. I’m not watching TV and I’m not reading the news and I’m certainly not listening to the radio—I already got spooked bad enough on Thursday afternoon, when I hadn’t yet learned he’d died and couldn’t figure out why every store I walked into was blasting “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” I’ve got a sensitive constitution for this stuff. For what it’s worth, I do believe that celebrity worship in this country is a destructive force, one that sidelines real news and turns fallen stars into gleaming idols, scrubbed clean of whatever unsavory details might mar their legacies. I recognize that it’s wrong to whitewash history like this. But it’s exactly what I intend to do.
The thing is, it isn’t MJ’s death that’s really upsetting me, it’s his life. Not all of it, of course—not that exuberant child singing his heart out on The Ed Sullivan Show, and definitely not the confident young man who took the stage at Motown’s 25th anniversary concert and produced a shriek from the crowd by sliding backwards on his toes for all of two seconds. What’s got me down is the other Michael—the middle-aged man-child with the bleached skin, the sloped nose, the cleft chin he wasn’t born with, and all the attendant scandal and scorn. To witness, via a rapid-fire succession of press clips, his transformation into this state is more than I can stand to watch right now.
As a performer, Michael was astonishingly calculated and precise, and yet in his private life, he seemed ever more unbalanced and confused. His videos rendered him an enchanted sylph, whose powers of invisibility and shapeshifting could get him out of any scrape; in reality, he saw his public image reduced to a crude punchline he could never shake. He spent the latter half of his career in a curious dual existence as both undisputed king and villainous jester, at once a source of inspiration and ridicule.
Michael was 25 when I was born. Now I’m 25 and he’s dead. And as irresponsible as it may be, I prefer to memorialize him as I first saw him: on the cover of the tattered copy of Thriller that I discovered at the Roosevelt Island Thrift Store, and ran on stubby five-year-old legs to ask my mother if she’d buy it for me. That’s the Michael who changed my life, and that’s the Michael I want to remember: halfway through life, at the peak of his career, his beautiful face still mostly intact, still just a kid figuring his life out.
Tags: michael jackson, thriller
The Beach Boys, “Sloop John B” (Pet Sounds, 1966)
The Smiths, “London” (Louder Than Bombs, 1987)
“London” is far from my favorite Smiths song, but I readily admit it’s probably the rockingest thing they ever recorded—brash, distorted, uncharacteristically driving, and about as long as your average Ramones song. More insolent than any of those aspects, however, is the very first note: a high C that rings just long enough for the listener to recognize it, then turns shrill and strident without warning. I’ve never heard anything to confirm that Morrissey and company were deliberately aping the beginning of the Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B,” but every time I listen to it, coincidence seems a less and less plausible explanation. They wanted their first and only punk song to make an impression, and it did so by opening with a false promise of tranquility and familiarity, making the rest of it feel that much harsher by comparison.
Tags: louder than bombs, morrissey, pet sounds, the beach boys, the smiths
I spent last weekend in Baltimore, and at the Floristree warehouse performance space I had the good fortune to be introduced to two amazing bands. The show was a release party for More, the new album by Double Daggers, and the trio blew the doors off my reality with a fist-pumping, crowd-surfing set. They are singer Nolen Strals, drummer Denny Bowen, and bassist Bruce Willen, whose amazingly propulsive riffs are the real star of the show (no disrespect to Nolen of course; dude’s got a real Ian MacKaye thing going on). To hear all the shouting and see all the moshing, you’d think you were witnessing a hardcore revival at first, and yet it only takes a few seconds of intent listening before the more melodic, accessible elements begin to emerge. It was the first time I’d been to a show where banging your head or just nodding it politely were both valid displays of appreciation. Opening the night were Videohippos, an act comprising guitarist Jim Triplett, drummer Kevin O’Meara, and a big white sheet used to project found footage and acid-nightmare animation. The vocals are muffled and muddy, the guitar is dense and droning, and the videos look like what Sid and Marty Krofft see in their heads as they’re falling asleep—yet it all stops short of weird for weirdness’s sake, and makes for an absorbing spectacle that even the most straitlaced, buttoned-down indie popster can enjoy.
Double Dagger, “The Lie / The Truth” (More, 2009)
Videohippos, “Lazer Jet” (Unbeast the Leash, 2007)
Tags: baltimore, double dagger, floristree, more, unbeast the leash, videohippos
Hey readers—I’ve been sick in bed most of the week, hence the lack of updates. Things will be back to normal soon, and there’s even a new This Blog / That Blog on the way. In the meantime, I dare you to stop humming this MGMT song about getting rich and famous overnight, marrying models, buying shit you don’t need, having kids you don’t see, and shooting so much heroin you die in your bed; or indeed this Roots song about impregnating women as a hobby. Enjoy!
MGMT, “Time to Pretend”
(Oracular Spectacular, 2008)
The Roots featuring Cody ChestnuTT, “The Seed (2.0)”
(Phrenology, 2002)
Tags: cody chestnutt, mgmt, the roots
The New Pornographers, “Testament to Youth in Verse”
(The Electric Version, 2003)
Drink Up Buttercup, “Gods and Gentlemen”
(Mr. Pie Eyes, 2008)
The New Pornographers pulled out a lot of tricks on their sophomore album The Electric Version, the most striking of which came courtesy of reedy-voiced secret member Daniel Bejar, who proved he could stun listeners with more than just his infamously cryptic lyrics. Two minutes into “Testament to Youth in Verse,” Bejar abandons the existing song structure and proceeds to lead the band in an a capella carol of the bells; tolling away in rhythm like a human carillon, they repeat the word no until it no longer sounds like a word: “The bells ring no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no.” What they’re negating is unclear, but it becomes more and more ironic as the music starts to swell again, and downright absurd when the drums kick back in.
Philadelphia’s Drink Up Buttercup play trash-can pop that owes a debt to the Pornographers’ saturated sound, but adds a touch of anarchic glee. Their anthemic “Gods and Gentlemen” follows a tack similar to “Testament,” and though the word they are riffing on is actually know, it morphs into no in the listener’s mind through the sheer force of repetition.
Tags: drink up buttercup, mr. pie eyes, the electric version, the new pornographers
