Fast and blasting ladypunk from my beloved Twin Cities! Featuring actual roller girls on backing vocals! That’s
really all I got for this one. It's fun stuff that's no doubt much more compelling at a live show than it is on record.
I know the Like Young best from a terrific little EP they
released in the mid-00s called Six at
Midnight. They covered doo wop and soul songs from the 50s and 60s and by
golly if it wasn’t fantastic! Especially then, during my deep twee years. I
don’t remember if I ever heard any of their original music, but my affinity for
that covers EP was enough to take a flier on this 7”. It’s some wonderful,
synth-assisted indie pop with dual boy/girl vocals with a sound reminiscent of
the pure, unapologetic pop of Ozma or Wolfie. AND DAMNIT IF THE LIKE YOUNG ISN’T COMPRISED OF FORMER
MEMBERS OF WOLFIE!! I think I knew that, somewhere deep in the swamp of my
music knowledge. Wolfie was one of my favorite indie pop bands back in the day
and I loved them for the fierceness they brought to a genre often bogged down
by overbearing preciousness. The Like Young harness that same fiery energy and
while their music is sweet and a little adorable, there’s also a little edge.
Not a lot of edge, but a little to offset the tweeness. Like many married
couple bands, the Like Young dissolved along with Amanda and Joe Ziemba’s
marriage, which is a bummer because man they made some sweet, sweet music
together.
Take a band I already love and adore (The Mountain Goats)
and have them cover a band I’ve heard of, but never given a chance because the
recordings I heard sounded like garbage (Silver Jews’ The Arizona Record) and you basically have indie rock alchemy. “Pet
Politics” makes you stop whatever you’re doing and listen to David Berman’s
poetry. Even through the conduit of John Darnielle, the apocalyptic essence of
this song remains intact. I immediately got TheNatural Bridge and its follow-up, AmericanWater, but it was the latter that blew my mind. Just broke it wide open and
showed me the beautiful mind of America’s best contemporary songwriter. Ever
since I could appreciate music, I’ve been chasing the feeling that comes with
discovering a band that you’re going to carry with you the rest of your life.
This cover is good, but there’s a weight that Berman brings to the original
that just can’t be replaced by anyone.
This was purchased in a great era of 7” buying. Between
2008-2011 I bought almost exclusively 7”s. LPs had just become too rich for my
blood. I had to start paying back my student loans, I’d quit my job at the
public library, and there just wasn’t an extra $40 to blow on records every
couple weeks. What was I supposed to do? The solution: Buy records that looked
moderately cool for bargain basement prices. So I ended up with a lot of
records like this P.A. 7”: Records that looked like they might be gems but
ended up being wholly average. This 7” is enjoyable but recalls the post-Franz
Ferdinand/Arcade Fire indie rock boom of the mid-00s before guitars were wholly
overtaken by computers and skinny jeans. Could be worse, but it basically
sounds like the white noise machine we use to get Rosie to sleep. P.A. is not
an easily searchable band name, but I was able to glean that the band was from
Detroit.
I think the greatest compliment I can pay to the New
Pornographers is to say that they produce great
b-sides. The best b-sides, really. I can’t think of another band who has
released more single-quality tracks on castaway promotional singles,
compilations, and iTunes exclusive downloads. “Graceland,” “Speed of Luxury,”
Toronto cover “Your Daddy Don’t Know,” and “High Art, Local News” are absolute
monster jams worthy of mass radio airplay. Granted, it’s not that surprising or
special considering that the New Pornographers make albums that are loaded
front to back with monster jams. Still, I got this one-sided 7” for free with
my purchase of Twin Cinema and it
straight up kicks ass. The New Porns’ grip on modern power-pop may have slipped
over their last couple of albums, but Twin
Cinema was one of the catchiest, most rockin’, most fundamentally enjoyable
records of the mid-00s and this b-side so craves to be on the album’s tracklist
proper. There just wasn’t room, I suppose, and that’s fine because there’s a
certain thrill that comes with discovering that some castaway b-side is
actually something mammoth. Actually, it’s like digging up a wooly mammoth
while doing some routine gardening. “Wow, I was enjoying this but HOLY SHIT A
MAMMOTH!” Thrilling. Scintillating. And now I’m going to have this rollicking
song lodged in my head all day.
Christmas songs! HOW CONVENIENT! Considering that it is the
Xmas season, I decided to go ahead and not refile this under Q since the
Devandra Banhart led group claim the A side on this one. The Devandra-y ness of
this 7” is a nice surprise, since I bought this for Lavender Diamond, who are
one of those bands that inspires supreme delight. The Queens of Sheeba song is so
pleasant! A laid back, pop-folk romp that just basically just repeats the same
thing over and over for three minutes, or until holiday cheer is achieved. The
Lavender Diamond track is about as pretty as you’d expect. Becky Stark’s lovely
vocals skip over subdued instrumentation that sounds like it’s coming from the
distant past. It doesn’t tie to the Christmas theme of the A-side, but it would
obviously win the day if these two gorgeous folksy tunes entered the octagon.
Naturally, neither of these songs have a web presence and I for some reason don't have a USB turntable, so here is Lavender Diamond's latest single, "I Don't Recall."
I’ve got a special place in my heart for Death Cab For Cutie’s
major label debut. Though Plans was
nowhere near as cohesive as Transatlanticism,
which is now proving to be the bands high watermark, Plans had a lot more joy in it. And a way better lead single (does
everyone hate “The Sound of Settling” as much as me or is that just me?). “Soul
Meets Body” isn’t a great song either, it’s just that much better than the
goddamn “Sound of Settling.” I feel like there was a big inside joke amongst my
small group of friends where we would just launch into that Bah BAH bit from
the chorus and all cringe. “Soul Meets Body” is only way better by comparison. “Crooked
Teeth” and “Marching Bands of Manhattan” are both little masterieces and “I
Will Follow You into the Dark,” despite all its sentimentalism and present and
future relegation to high school mixtapes (What do the kids do now when they
like each other? Spotify playlists?), is still a totally fucking beautiful
song. “Soul Meets Body” is safe. It is the easiest distillation of the bands
talents into one, massively appealing and bland nugget for the buying public.
There’s nothing really nothing about it other than the fact that it’s wholly inoffensive
and perfectly boring. The b-side, “Jealousy Rides With Me,” is another snoozy
track that ambles through it’s nice melody and arrangement with absolutely no
stakes. It’s bizarre to realize that Death Cab For Cutie has been Popular for
ten years, and that Plans is eight
years old. It’s also bizarre to realize how little my opinion has changed about
this band, this album and this song.
7”s seems sort of obsolete these days. What’s the point of
paying $4 for two tracks when you can just buy the whole album for $15 (unless
the songs on the 7” are exclusive, but even then it seems fiscally no thanks).
But fifty cents or a dollar? Sign me up. When you can dig through the bargain
bin at Love Garden and pick out four or five singles for four or five bucks (or
less) based on a cool cover design or great band names, it restores some of the
fun back to being a music consumer. The Internet helps to make most of your
decisions for you and supplies you with ample information and MP3s of a band so
you can pretty much eliminate any sense of risk. Instead of hearing the single
and buying the album, you hear the single and buy the MP3 on iTunes for a buck
fifty. I actually really like that model, but then again, I bought so many
shitty CDs in the 90s because they had one song I liked. Thanks to the
Internet, I never have to drop $15 on an album that may or may not let me down.
Albums I buy (unless they’re $3 at work and it’s like why not) are thoroughly
vetted before being added to my collection. And cheap 7”s is how I keep my
music nerd flame lit. Despite having picked up this 7” five years ago, this is
the first time I have actually listened to it. 2007-2009 was a great period for
acquiring myriad pieces of cheap vinyl, and this whole blog exists to rectify
the fact that I had hardly listened to any of the stuff on which I was dropping
small amounts of dough. Both bands sound like that bread and butter “art rock”
Polyvinyl was churning out at an alarming clip in the mid 00s. Icy Demons
synthesized keyboards sound straight outta Deerhoof and even though the band is
from Chicago, for some reason the singer sounds like he is singing in Japanese.
It’s your usual spastic art pop with guitars that jut out and interesting drum
patterns. It’s actually a nostalgic sound for me, something that takes me back
to my early college years when bands like this played at the Jackpot Saloon all
the damn time. Pit Er Pat also have a lot of that Deerhoof-y art rock thing
going on. Mostly it's the way the synthesizers are tuned (tuned? That can't be right). Really, it wasn't just Deerhoof. This whole sound got pretty generic in the fallout of dance punk in the mid to late 00s, but at least it was weird and experimented with weird arrangements. Seems like these days you just pluck four random 20 year olds off the street in Brooklyn, give'em tight pants and drug problems and you've got a breakout hit on your hands. That was me doing my best Abe Simpson, expressing my outright fear and disappointment with the future I've aged into.
“Sixteen Military Wives” is the high water mark of the
Decemberists fun factor. They were always fun, with Colin Meloy’s yarns about
chimbley sweeps and their penchant for sea shanties and the more morbid aspects
of the grimy past, but “Sixteen Military Wives” is just a hoot. And a holler!
It’s jaunty and clever and a distillation of everything the Decemberists did
best in their prime before Meloy got obsessed with making grandiose concept
albums. Where The Crane Wife seems to
be considered their masterpiece (is it?), the songs were never as good as they
were on Picaresque. It’s not as
interconnected as any of their albums, but it works out for the best. The
B-side delivers a demo of “From My Own True Love” which along with “Eli, the
Barrow Boy” shored up the gloomy sad side of that album and helped tracks like
“Sixteen Military Wives” and “The Sporting Life” really pop by contrast. The
Decemberists’ most recent LP—The King is Dead—found the group returning to a more song-oriented approach, which was
great, but the whimsy had clearly dried up. Which is fine. Bands get older and
get tired of doing the same shit album in and album out and while The King is Dead is a fine record, it
really pales in comparison to Picaresque.
Plus, that video for “Sixteen Military Wives” was just fantastic, wasn’t
it?
Years back I reviewed Field Music’s sophomore LP Tones of Town and despite thinking it
was just “pretty good” for some reason I very clearly remember listening to it
a dozen times and writing the review. Even though I can’t remember what the
album sounds like. Not at all. I do the same thing with Broken Social Scene: a
band I like when I’m listening to but can’t think of a single defining trait
that makes their music memorable. For a long time I used to vilify this sort of
music. “Full of sound and fury. Signifying nothing.” (I think that’s seriously
the second time I’ve used that Macbeth quote
this week what the fuck?). I’ve never reviled Field Music, though, despite not
being able to hum a melody from any of their songs. I think it’s because I
remember their songs being immaculately crafted. British brothers David and
Peter Brewis gave me the impression that they know exactly what the fuck they
are doing.
“If Only the Moon Were Up” was the third single from their
eponymous first album and it’s good enough to give me the impression that that
album is really good. There were two
songs more single worthy than this one? Fantastic. Right up front it’s got that
angular guitar sound that sort of ruled Britain’s guitar rock from the mid 00s
(Think Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand), but then it blossoms into this
beautiful piece of tuneful throwback British pop that is rather Kinks-y with an
XTC patch sewn on its shoulder. The B-Side, “I’m Tired,” is a quiet little tune
anchored by acoustic strums and a tastefully synthesized drum beat (that really, might just have some effects on it because Peter Brewis is a very good drummer). Some
strings are subtly filtered in for the chorus and every time I listen to the
song I have to remind myself that this is
a b-side. This is a brilliant little melancholy pop song that didn’t make
the cut. Craftsmanship, goddamnit. Field Music have it in spades.
Note: I never got around to Field Music’s latest, Plumb, but my music nerd brother-in-arms Cameron Hawk over at
Record Geek Heaven went gaga for it last year and the strength of this single
is making me think I need to get around to that one.
Erin Tobey – Erin Tobey
Bakery Outlet Records, 2005
Acquired: Show at Solidarity, New, 2008
Price: $10
Despite playing in the total fun punk band Pink Razors (and also Abe Froman!), Erin Tobey is at her best when she's attempting to one-up Rose Melberg & the Softies for the throne of dreamy indie-pop played by girls with sweet and wounded voices and reverbed electric guitars. It's an Annie record, one she was obsessed with that seeped into my collection and I bought it at a show we attended during our nebulous break-up period. It was one of the sweeter moments of that period, actually. I got really excited that they had this on vinyl, because I'd really fallen in love with it over the previous months. It's just as I've described it above, but I will elaborate by saying it's like the Softies but less sad. “Come Pick Me Up” is the best song on the record, or the one I'd play for someone to get them to love Erin Tobey. Actually, shit, the whole first half of the record is amazing. And the whole second half is really great too. Like, the guitar work on “Wedding March” isn't as sophisticated as Kaki King or anything like that but it's so perfectly good, played with so much heart that I feel this tugging inside my chest. And once she starts singing! Ok, this song is pretty sad. Maybe it's just that the sound is brighter than the Softies. GOD! That melody on “Wedding March!” How could I have forgotten! That's the trick though, if you've got a decent voice (i.e. a voice that sounds real to me) and can write a beautiful melody and pen lyrics that are not lame, then I will love you. Oh, and did I mention that this motherfucker is on PURPLE VINYL! Indeed, it is. Somehow things just sound better, sweeter even, on purple vinyl.
