What? Joie De Vivre, Into it. Over it. The Please and Thank Yous, Droughts

When? April 6, 2012

Where? Subterranean in Chicago

Didn’t that band break up recently? Yes

Joie De Vivre were an emo band from Rockford, IL that existed from 2007 until 2011. The band meant a great deal to a small number of people and nothing to a great many more. I fell closer towards the positive end of that spectrum (as evidenced by the two hundred times I wrote about them). I liked listening to Joie De Vivre’s music a lot but I wasn’t so bummed out that I cried at their last show (Geoff Schott). I felt saddened by the break up because I wanted to listen to the group create more music (an incredibly basic portrayal of break up melancholy) and also because breaking up is stupid.  Johnny Ramone stole Joey Ramone’s girlfriend and they continued being a band for a good 15 years after that. My thinking at the time was, “Why would anyone stop making awesome music instead of doing the opposite?” I’m kind of an unreasonable person. Either way, that last show in May of 2011 was a great outpouring of affection for the group and the bands that it had made friends with over the years. It was like an Irish wake except not as fun (You can’t have booze at an all ages show). It allowed for closure. Breaking up is stupid but at least everyone had some catharsis about it.

Rockford, IL has a really shitty education system and it kind of shows because the members of Joie De Vivre apparently didn’t know what the phrase, “broken up,” meant. They kept working on a new album. Then, about 6 months later, some guy was like, “Hey would y’all like to go on tour in Europe?” and they said yes. That is a very conflicting set of events to hear about. I’m not sure if my reaction to the announcement was emblematic of anyone else’s but it went something like this, “I knew you dummies weren’t broken up.  Thanks a lot for making everyone sad, assholes.” Then my reasoning kicked in and I thought, “Who cares? How many times does a band you know get the chance to fly halfway across the world to play music?” The answer is zero. Zero times ever. It’s a fucking awesome opportunity.

Here’s the end game: Joie De Vivre are playing shows again and they have a new album coming out in the next 4-12 months. They’re going to spend most of June and July playing shows in several European countries and one of them will probably get the clap from some Dutch hooker. Sure they accidentally pulled a bait and switch on their fans, but people make mistakes. Would you prefer that they not play any shows or record new music? That would be stupid.

This is not a fair review of Droughts. I only saw one song by Droughts but it was fairly solid,  shouty post punk.  There are lots of bands that sound like Droughts (and vice versa) but it wasn’t bad. I’m really tired of reviewing shouty, Chicago post punk. Brandon Lutmer said they were fantastic. He has a well informed opinion of the matter.

The Please & Thank Yous are a punk rock band from Chicago. I’ve said some funny things about them in the past . They play pop punk like they’re on a mission to rewrite the past and take the minor success of Pennywise for themselves. Fresh off a 6 or 8 month break from playing shows, TPATY had a revamped lineup (new boys on guitar and bass to join the Sonic & Knuckles core of singer/guitarist Geoff Schott and drummer Marcus Nuccio) and it showed. Shit was tight and punchy. By, “shit,” I mean the musical performance. TPATY performed lots of new songs off of their (probably) upcoming 2nd album.  Shit was tight n quick.

Taking pictures in the dark is hard

Into it. Over it. is the music of a guy called Evan Weiss. He lives in Chicago and plays everywhere, and quite often. It’s the sort of music that I like to call, “Earnest Guy With an Acoustic Guitar,” music. Take a few seconds to imagine that and you’ll get the full picture. He had a song about Humboldt Park that did not have the chorus, “I live here because I can’t afford Logan Square.” I like to make up fake criteria and then judge people based on that. To his credit, he was a very adept guitarist with really strong tone. That really improved the overall experience.

Joie De Vivre doesn't actually like basketball

What has changed about Joie De Vivre? Well they have different haircuts and two new members. Since the initial break up, Horn guy Paul Karnatz and organist Zach Staas both moved thousands of miles away from the rest of the band (I can’t blame them). In their place, a couple of fellows called Mark have stepped in to play. Does it make a difference? Kind of. Mark Jaeschke of Chicago’s The Island of Misfit Toys is playing basically the same trumpet parts that were recorded by Karnatz. The big audible difference is that where Zach Staas’s approach to the organ was often, “Hey Danger, here is $20. When I point at you I want you to put a beer on my organ,” Mark Gustofsan was more like, “I’m going to play notes.” It often showed.  Much credit to all of the band. Despite protests of, “We didn’t really practice. I’m sorry,” the performances were much more muscular that one is often accustomed to.  Set opener, “You Ruined Everything That Was Ever Good,” felt like a nice hearty shove to the torso. It’s entirely possible that this band will enter its second life with some fists in addition to the twinkles. Worse things have happened.

Some guy kept yelling, “Sellout!” and, “Judas!” during JDV’s set. That guy must be a pretty clever person who knows a lot about music and sticking it to women of the fine-ass persuasion.

Sock Monkey Sound

What is this? A quick review of a store brand soda

Why? Because I’m bored and I thought it would taste like Dr. Pepper. Also this

Your name is, “Fuck you,”? I thought it was Alex. Not really. I’m just being combative.

I was walking through the refrigerated section of my local Whole Foods the other afternoon with my ladyfriend (she’s from two towns over. You probably don’t know her) because WF is the only place I know that sells the right sized coffee filters for the device I use and also because that place is delicious. She was getting curried beets or grilled tofu or something so I was casually browsing various liquids.  One can on the soda shelf jumped out at me.

That has, “Dr,” in the name. It must be a Dr. Pepper knock off.”

Quick sidenote: Dr. Pepper is my favorite of all sodas (especially among dark colored sodas).  I get a little silly about it.

I picked up the can of Dr. Snap and started reading the label.  Several signifiers drew my attention. It had a 365 label which is the Whole Foods organic store brand (and known to usually have delicious products). That was a good sign. So was, “Sweetened with 100% Cane Sugar.” That excited me even more. There are two reasons for my excitement.

1. I have had very good experiences with organic root beer that is sweetened with cane sugar.  Yes I sometimes buy small batch root beer. I am a fucking lunatic.

2. You can’t get cane sugar Dr. Pepper anywhere outside of West Texas. There is one bottling plant in some nowhere town in West Texas that refused to follow the corporate mandated switch over to corn syrup in the 1970s. Grocery stores within about a 100 mile radius of that plant sell cane sugar Dr. Pepper but otherwise it is always made with corn syrup.

My head was flooded with possibilities. What if this was a Dr. Pepper knockoff that is made with cane sugar? They obviously couldn’t get all of the 23 flavors but they might get to 20 or 21 flavors like Mr. Pibb. Cane sugar Mr. Pibb sounded very good and it was only 65 cents. I can afford to potentially waste 65 cents every now and then.

I bought the soda.

When I got home I sat down in the chair, opened the can, and started drinking.

A dream died that afternoon.  Not like a major dream death that might cause me to spin into depression, or even a moderate dream death that would ruin my day.  It was a small dream and it certainly ruined the 5 o’clock hour of Wednesday.

It did not taste anything like Dr. Pepper.  As I continued my way through the can, I pondered the flavor profile in my head.  “There’s too much cherry. It’s not very bubbly. It’s somewhat bubbly but less than Coca Cola. I don’t think this has caffeine. It does have a bit of a dark, cola flavor. Not much though.”

Dr. Snap tastes like what might happen if one poured a glass that was half RC Cola, and half Stewart’s Black Cherry Soda. I enjoy both of those sodas a little bit. It’s not actually all that bad and it tastes much better than most other 65 cent cans of soda. On the other hand, it has, “Dr.” in the name and that gave me false hopes and now I’m sad.  Soda shouldn’t make you sad.

Final Verdict: Disappointment.

 Here is a video of my experience

Sock Monkey Sound

The Eastwood House likes bikes

What: Warren Franklin, Coping, Direct Effect, You Blew It, and Dowsing

Where: The Clint Eastwood House, Uptown, Chicago

When: A week and 3 days ago

Were you excited to go to a show in Uptown? Very!

I need to get this part out of the way at the top: If you went to this show you probably already heard about how excited I was to attend a house show in Uptown. You probably heard it twice. I was very excited, you guys.  As I have mentioned before, I live in Uptown so some of the excitement was just due to the fact that there was a basement show that was only a 10 minute walk away from my home. Most of the time when I go to house shows in Chicago they’re on the west side in Logan Square or Humboldt Park and I have to spend an hour on a train to get there. This is due to a few socioeconomic factors of each neighborhood.  Uptown has a kind of blighted history. It never fully recovered from the Great Depression which lead to the gangy stuff that most super poor neighborhoods develop. One of the key differences between the growth away from dirt poor violence on the west side and dirt poor violence on the east (as it relates to DIY venues and independent/artistically minded people in general) is that the past 25 years of Uptown growth was mostly stymied by an alderman who didn’t seem to understand the logic behind the idea that it is good for a neighborhood to have some public housing but it should not have all of the public housing (I’m oversimplifying things). This has led to a incredibly prolonged timeline in which there just wasn’t an internal economy in Uptown. Combine that with the architectural trend of having high rises along the lakefront. The net effect was that while Logan Square has long had lots of poor families who live in houses (with basements), Uptown has largely been poor families who lived in apartments, poor single people who lived in apartments, and a shit ton of people in public mid/high rises. On a logistics level It’s a lot easier to rent a house with 4 friends and have secret basement shows than it is to figure out a way to find space for DIY shows in a much less home oriented area.  This has been changing though.  The 46th and 48th wards have new aldermen who have been making a very public show of at least seeming anti-crime, and Mayor Emanuel won’t shut up about the Uptown entertainment district (He even talked President Obama into throwing a party at the Aragon. They drove by my building. It was kind of awesome). This has led to a pretty strong increase in public visibility and a growing trend that finally seems to have tipped as the last two years have seen an increasingly visible stream of young people with jobs who finally realized that there was a place near the lake with decidedly cheaper rent. This is a very long winded way of saying that Uptown finally has the population for DIY shows and I hope more people are able to find the space and desire to engage in such things.

Warren Franklin setting up

This is the last time I’m going to write about Warren Franklin for a while. I’m running out of things to say.  The kid plays everywhere and often.  On this night he was joined by members of The Island of Misfit Toys, Dowsing, and Jesse Carmona (former drummer of The Braves and Crankupmadonna) to play one of his increasingly frequent (and increasingly fun) electric sets. The band was super loose (I think this was a symptom of how muddy the room sound was. All of the bands erred on the sloppy side that night) but it was in a fun way that tended more towards the rambunctious than the unlistenable. The full band version of Franklin’s  ballad, “You Get Weary,” proved to be especially enjoyable, giving some real power and gravitas to a song that was already pretty great.  God damn there were a lot of links in that paragraph.

Basement lighting makes in focus photos difficult

Coping are are post punk/emo band from Chicago, IL. I once compared their pulsing wave of circular note patters to the early 70s fusion work of Miles Davis because I was in an especially goofy mood. They don’t really sound like that but, at their best, Coping acts as a visceral rhythmic force of atonal catharsis.  Unfortunately the super muddy basement got the best of several songs that felt disjointed and slightly off. I would imagine it to be a fairly difficult environment for a band that seems to listen more than it counts.  They also might have been tired. I was tired.

Direct Effect

Direct Effect are a Punk band from Orlando, Florida. They sounded like the past which is my favorite way for music to sound. They swim in the waters of straight up, hardcore punk. No hybrids, no fillers, just the sort of simple, angry punk music that you would find from 80s East Coast Hardcore groups like Agnostic Front and The Abused. It was a set’s worth of brute force that I kind of love. Guitar, drums, bass, some guy shouting. Arrrgggh! If a song was longer than 2 minutes I have since forgotten it. Direct Effect covered Nirvana’s, “Territorial Pissing.” Covering Nirvana can be dangerous for most non high school bands because of obvious reasons.  That was not the case because the song fit in perfectly with Direct Effect’s aesthetic and it turned into a good time shout along.

You Blew It

You Blew It are also from Orlando, FL and were on tour with Direct Effect.  I’ve gotta be honest, by that point in the night I was growing tired of the Sunny Day Real Estate/insert your favorite late 90s Emo influenced music that I used all of my good adjectives to describe back in the Coping section. I’m getting kind of tired of writing about it too. I’m probably going to start seeing a bunch of shows by  garagey, reverb drenched Jesus and Mary Chain clones again.  I wasn’t really feeling You Blew It’s music. I do appreciate the general aesthetic and they executed it somewhat well, but there was just something about their performance that fell flat for me. The big dynamic shifts (be it in tempo or volume) never felt as drastic as was necessary. I felt kind of bored and took some photos of the back of Chris French’s head.

Dowsing makes shit wet

Dowsing is about to receive the same much needed break much needed break that I will be giving Warren Franklin but this show was somewhat significant for me because it was my first chance at seeing them play with their newest member. Chris French (of Joie De Vivre fame) joined the band as lead guitarist a couple of months ago and I was very interested to find out how much of an effect he would have on the band’s sound.  The answer, is, “a little bit.” The guitars were generally more muscular and he added some very nice twinkly lines to my favorite Dowsing song, “Amateur Cartography.”  I consider that to be a worthwhile addition. Dowsing proved, once again, to be a fun blast of energy and an enjoyable way to end a Tuesday evening.

Check out all of the various bands’ Facebook and Tumblr pages for information on upcoming gigs and releases and all of those delightful things.

Visit Uptown if you are in Chicago and would like to buy me a Banh Mi sandwich.

Sock Monkey Sound

Let’s get this part out of the way: Dowsing and Parker are two bands that I have given pretty hearty praise to in the recent past.  That trend will continue in this review because I think the EP is very good. If you don’t care to read me praising the same people, I would stop here (it’s cool. That’s a totally valid viewpoint).

Dowsing and Parker are both rock and roll bands from Northern Illinois (the former from Chicago and the latter from Rockford). Their relationship prior to collaboration of this EP is the sort that one always kind of hopes will lead rock and roll bands to releasing a split EP.  They have played a few DIY gigs together and I assumed shared a couple of late night dinners at pancake restaurants.  Both bands recorded their side with Chris French who now plays electric guitar in Dowsing (but did not appear on the EP) and in the band Joie De Vivre with Parker bassist/singer Brandon Lutmer. Dowsing and Parker would probably describe their comradery as being, “not really best friends. We’re just good friends.” The sort of rock and roll friends that you might release a Split EP with instead of a collaborative album.

This EP is being released by Count Your Lucky Stars Records which pretty much guarantees a couple of things for prospective listeners. First that it will probably sound like the (late) 1990s and, secondly, that it will be emo as shit. That assumption is validated in full.  All four songs are sung to former members of relationships (romantic or friendly) who pulled the trigger on ending said relationship. They’re sung from the perspective of someone who is using control of their own attitude to gain agency after having been rejected.  The seemingly personal details and differing musical approaches of each band are able to make the songs unique listening experiences within the shared themes.

Dowsing’s musical foundation is built upon propulsion and the drive of its rhythm section keeps a healthy sense of motion in these new songs which allows the guitar and vocals to spread out a little. It leaves more room for Delia Hornik’s keyboards to add color and melodic lines in a more active manner than in the songs on Dowsing’s debut EP.  On top of it all, singer Erik Czaja lets loose catchy invectives to an unnamed selfish person. “I’ve got these songs to remind me, that I’m not coming home to you…I hope you’ll choose what’s best for you.” “I think you’ve got more problems than most of the people I talk to.” In credit to Czaja’s performance, it all has enough humor that such lines don’t contain any of the melodrama that one might assume from reading the lyrics. In the manner of life’s best emo songs, the negative spew  works as both a healthy release and a catchy punchline.  Dowsing’s side (which is side A, I assume because of alphabetizing) is a fun little blast (both songs only add up to about 5 minutes) of interpersonal goals and memories of the summer spent drinking, running through sprinklers, and making mistakes that one won’t realize until October when things cool off enough for some introspection. Being 22 is hard, you guys. Let’s shout a bit.

Parker’s side takes a slightly more mature approach to dissatisfaction. They’re more than a season removed from the most memorable drives through the cemetery and beers in the parking lot, and a new summer doesn’t wash away the dispiriting passage of time when you’re always searching.  On, “Make it Home Safely,” Brandon Lutmer sings, “It’s hard to ignore this feeling of quarter life that I’ve had since 19.” as the band churns out the sort of mid tempo palm mutes and jagged octave chords that one alludes to when using a Smoking Popes comparison as a compliment.  The chorus is a catchy shout of someone who is finally recognizing that they can only live up to their own expectations, “You always told me that you like my hair better short. You always told me that you liked me better before. It doesn’t stop me swinging and I can’t stand another summer away from all of this.” The song really hinges on very well executed dynamic musical shifts.  The run of the mill complaints of people getting older are (once again) turned anthemic.

I previously praised the line, “Like your favorite quote from Eleanor Roosevelt/I have to do the thing I could not do,” on the Warren Franklin sung, “Eleanor Roosevelt,” but really the whole song is pretty great.  The opening line, “I’m sorry I didn’t turn out to be the man you thought I was,” sets the tone of a regretful (seemingly very personal) ballad for someone who has left the singer behind.  I use ballad in the sense of a melancholy indie rock crooner. It’s still noisy and scruffy. “Every Rose Has Its Thorn,” this song is not.  I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or criticism.  Either way, the harmonized repetitions of, “Good night brown eyes,” and the ways in which guitarist Brian Jaworowski strings little arpeggiated flourishes as the song builds to a strong, plaintive wail over its final third are most impressive.  “Eleanor Roosevelt,” is honestly one of my favorite songs of 2012 (so far at least).

The Dowsing/Parker Split collects the usual themes of Midwestern Emo (loneliness, hurt feelings, singing words that one could never speak, autumnal shit, collectivism, driving with no particular destination) and doles them out in a manner that beckons the listener to share in universal themes of youth and sing along songs.  It’s one of my favorite forms of catharsis.  I heartily recommend that everyone accepts the invitation.

The Dowsing/Parker Split is now available for order from the Count Your Lucky Stars Records web store

You can listen to the EP being streamed at Alter The Press

Sock Monkey Sound

Lo-fi pop can be a tricky balancing act.  In the past it was exclusively employed by those who had no access to more sophisticated means of production.  Since the full takeover of digital recording, any asshole with a Macbook and a couple hundred dollars worth of microphones can make fairly polished music.  When a contemporary artists comes out with a unsophisticated, static filled sound, it almost always happens as a result of a decision to impart a murky, abstruse quality to the music. Maybe they’ve spent a great deal of time listening to lo-fi artists of the past or maybe they’re just not completely confident in the songs.  It often remains and intentional choice. Because of that intentionality, most lo-fi acts have to toe a pretty strict line of producing numerous pop hooks that are only slightly obscured by the murk of their style.  If they’re able to get that ratio right, it’s delightful.  If they fail, it becomes less so.

Here’s the fun part of this review:  Pinebocks is the music project of a former (I think) Illinois and now Texas resident named Corey Clifford.  I grabbed it out of a pretty big file of music submissions that Sock Monkey Sound writers share on Google Docs.  Pages and pages of people that were like, “Hi. Wanna review my music?” and then were (usually) met with a blanket of crushing silence because many of the staff members sometimes forgot that it exists or started watching Sherlock and didn’t for a while.   I guess I’m only speaking for myself with that last part.

Anyway!

I went digging through it a while back and found the following note:

Hi, my name is Cory Clifford and I have a musical project entitled Pinebocks. To describe my music, I’d say it’s a combination of Orange Juice and The Clean, and it could easily fit into NME’s C86 compilation.

I like all of those signifiers so I decided to have a listen.

Let’s first examine the claims made in Clifford’s self designation.  C86 this is definitely not.  The music is far to sparse and haunting to be confused for the relatively full and sunny sounds of early Pastels or Primal Scream.   This is much more rough shod music. The guitar sounds like Clifford found it in an abandoned basement and decided to record there instead of taking it home. There is a constant hiss and digital reverb makes it all bouncy and tinny. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing because it fits the actual songwriting and performances to a tee.  The Orange Juice comparison does hold up well as there is an obvious Edwyn Collins influence on Clifford’s demented croon.  It’s a cartoonishly sinister vocal style that is adds a sense of ironic comedy. That is very helpful because these songs are fucking dark.  “Flee,” finds a man having abandoned his roots and absconded south, all the while regretting his choices. He sings,

“I’ve never felt so bad about myself as I do now. I’m chronically cursed with a furl in my brow.”

and there is a real fun sense of hyperbolic jokiness.

I hope.

The sinister tone returns in the second song, “My Unfunny Valentine,” a dirgey ode to a dysfunctional romantic connection. Clifford goes at it like a Lynchian lounge act. The song ends with the repeated figure, “My unfunny valentine, you make life so asinine.”  Then I start laughing because I’m kind of fucked up.

Pinebocks are the dark side of Twee.  If you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll probably enjoy Flee/My Unfunny Valentine. Make sure to check out the Bandcamp page for other singles and EPs, or like them on Facebook if that is more your style.

Sock Monkey Sound

When: Sunday, January 22, 2012

Where: Subterranean in Chicago, IL

Will this review be filled with familiar faces? Yes it will.

Here’s the deal with the Sunday evening shows that occasionally happen at small bars and clubs.  I’m tired, yo.  I’ve usually spent the previous two days burning candles in every direction with chain free, V.I.P. type bottle service celebrations of life and other peoples’ bodies.  I am a familiar face in various high end hotel lobbies.

What I’m trying to say is that I would usually prefer to spend Sunday on a couch, drinking tea from a mug that has my picture on it, and watching pretentious television or old PBS documentaries.

Sock Monkey Sound

Jeff Goldsmith is a singer-songwriter currently playing and recording in Naperville, Illinois.  We’ll get to that part in a moment.  First we need to turn back time a bit.  Long before his current residence and musical project, Goldsmith spent years and years playing in psychedelically tinged rock bands in my hometown (that’s Byron, IL for those of you playing the home edition of the Sock Monkey Sound Trivia Game); bands that I watched play at least a hundred gigs for reasons that now seem much less legitimate than they once did.  It was also because I liked loud things and guitar solos. Those reasons are completely legitimate.  What I’m trying to get at is the idea that the Man at Helm EP is filled with stylistic choices that seem very natural and familiar to me. This causes some difficulty in finding the proper distance in assessing the artwork.

Have I acquitted myself properly? I think so. Let’s move on.

Built on guitars, keyboards, and vocals (with production and percussion help from Chris Hessian), Goldsmith’s songs often seek to find the space between atmospheric parity and lushness.  Goldsmith floats haunting vocal harmonies against swarms/clouds of guitars and synthesized strings and organs.  This is all a very pretentious way of saying there are lots of overdubs woven together with the hope of creating a sonic wash of melody.  This approach works to varying degree throughout Man at Helm‘s four song arc.  “The Drive,” is a nervous bastard of a song; swirled around a repeating acoustic guitar arpeggio. It’s a slow climb that suitably employs the sort of creepy close harmonies that all of those early 00 post grunge bands forgot to take when they ripped off Alice in Chains, and is capped by an appropriately ugly guitar solo.  “Stalemate,” finds an intriguing piano melody and unfortunately does very little with it.  It feels like the introduction to a song that was never completed. If the intention was for it to come across as little more than a sketch, the song succeeds.  “Please, Please,” begins in the midst of a transition between sweet relief and highly agitated and slightly off-kilter tones, but it stumbles with lyrics that attempt doom via the same sort of free associative nouns that one might ignore in a Mars Volta song and do not succeed.  It recovers in the last half when Goldsmith ditches the labored word play for non-lingual coos (na na na na) and a simple plea that plays straight into the heart of the tune.  “The Gamble,” is a simple love song to some person lost in the past and it suits Goldsmith quite well.  More oohs and ohhhs and ahhhs.  These are good decisions that propel the song into its excellent coda.  The instruments shift into a slow, steady, and very beautiful chord progression that hits its peak as Goldsmith gives a falsetto’d cry of, “Waving goodbye.”  It leaves the song and EP on a positive note that is very well received.

You can currently listen to the Man at Helm EP on Goldsmith’s Reverb Nation page

or see him play at the Hipster House in Rockford, IL on December 16

Watch out for Goldsmith’s debut full length sometime next year.

Sock Monkey Sound

What: Dowsing, Like Bats, Coping, and Castevet

Where: Subterranean in Chicago, IL

How many people were there on a Monday night? A surprisingly large amount

I have reviewed lots of shows at Subterranean for this website.  It’s pretty cool when I’m able to see bands I’m used to experiencing in a basement play at the same venue as Yo La Tengo. Granted this show wasn’t sold out like that claustrophobic YLT show back in June but there was impressive number of people in attendance.  Good Job Dowsing and Coping (I’ve never seen Like Bats or Castevet in a basement so I don’t need to congratulate them).

Dowsing

Dowsing are an emo band who like to hang out with lots of the other bands frequently covered on this website. They’re good kids who like video games, television references, Tony Kukoc jokes, and anthemic punk rock. Their songs are quick, jaunty, and they make you want to sing along to that one song about maps.  Okay that last part might only apply to me and the song is called, “Amateur Cartography.”

Dowsing

I’ll make no bones about it, I like Dowsing a lot.  I have a thing for cute little ragamuffins blasting loud songs about being 19.  Their sound is sometimes lacking in diversity but the songs are over quickly enough that it’s all in good fun.  Their set on Monday largely consisted of songs from their debut EP All I Could Find Was You. It was good to finally hear those songs played on a real PA instead of the bare bones set up at DIY venues.

Like Bats

Here’s one thing about Like Bats: Their name is difficult to say in conversation. I prefer to think of them as Akin to Bats.

Here are some other things about them: Akin to Bats are from Lansing, Illinois and they play punk rock. They play the sort of hardcore influenced pop punk that was so well tread by early Screeching Weasel and The Lawrence Arms. This is not a criticism as the band pulls off that sound very well. The rhythm section was super tight while still allowing the overall sound to be sloppy in the way such things should be. It’s a head bopping good time. Anyone who can comprehend punk lyrics in a live setting has the ears of a god and is not me.  I’m pretty sure all of those shouts and yelps were about hurt feelings. Either way they were suitably cathartic and fit in well with the theme of the evening.

 Coping

Coping are a band from Chicago who hang out in the same corner of 90′s emo revival that I seem to often find myself covering.  There is a pronounced Sunny Day Real Estate/Jade Tree Records influence at work in their sound. Many songs have the all important emo rhythmic phrasings like, “dunn dunn ba ba ba pa ba ba bah,” and, “duna duna gah. Duna duna gah.” Say those out loud.

Coping. Aren't you glad I had my phone camera on hand?

The derivative aspects of their sound are mostly covered up by their near mastery of the form.  It seems antithetical but their playing somehow manages to be both virtuosic and sloppy. There are a lot of circular note patterns and complex rhythms being thrown out all over the place and they sometimes get lost in the deluge. They’re able to do it with a surprising amount of groove so the whole flood of noise adds up to an ass grabbing pulse.  This is a really weird comparison but it’s not super different from the early 70s Miles Davis records when his band was 12 people playing rhythms.  Seriously, go listen to On The Corner. They’re not that different (except, you know, more shouting and less trumpet).

Castevets

Castevets is another band name that causes me difficulty. I can’t fucking remember it and it always makes me think of the actor/director John Cassavetes.  Anyway, here’s the problem I had with John Cassavetes.  Their first few songs were the sort of Post-Hardcore that I gave up on enjoying 5 years ago when I stopped listening to The Felix Culpa and Wax on Radio. It was ethereal but without any discernible beauty. The musicians certainly accomplish the goals they set out for, but I don’t like those goals and can’t find any point for visceral connection so the effect is lost on me.  There were certainly many sonic qualities that John Cassavetes shared with the other bands but with very little of the direct catharsis that is so important and appealing to the music.

I went home after the 3rd song.

For more information on these bands, check out their various websites and Facebook pages.

Sock Monkey Sound

Last week I entered a contest sponsored by the Onion AV Club’s local Chicago chapter. The basic premise was that Patton Oswalt would come to the winner’s house with a bunch of pies and film a reading of his book Zombie Spaceship Wasteland for the internets.  There are a lot of links in this opening paragraph.

Back to the contest. I grew excited for several reasons. First, because I have long been a fan of Oswalt’s comedy. I read his book over the summer and enjoyed it quite a bit. I also love pie and appearing in random webseries and online publications. I scoured the rules to see what I needed to do in order to enter.  This is the part where my excitement grew even larger:

Readers (you beautiful people) simply send us a 100-150 word essay succinctly describing why Patton should visit your home for a private reading from his excellent book…

Schwat?!  That was perfect. I am beautiful (thanks for noticing, Josh Modell), and essay contests are my favorite variety of contest.  Writing prose about how awesome I am is a very large portion of my limited skill set!   I once got a college to accept my application with an essay titled, “I Don’t Know Any Professors Who Would Recommend Me, But Here’s an Essay About How Awesome I Am.” That’s an almost accurate representation of what actually happened.

Filled with excitement and the bowl of pasta I had eaten before reading the contest prompt, I opened a word processor and blasted out as short and honest of a treatise as I could muster.

This is the first Google image result for the phrase, "Meta as fuck," that doesn't involve tits

That was 300 words long.  I’m not very good at brevity. Anyone who has read one of my album reviews and thought, “That was about 800 words too long,” would agree (by the way, that person is an asshole. The review was only 820 words long). The 2nd draft managed to shave off a hundred words. I sat and thought for a few minutes and had a stroke of genius. “Let’s go high concept,” I thought.  High concept is my solution for about 70% of life’s dilemas. I’m meta as fuck. It’s really obnoxious.

After a reformatting, this was my sure to win entry into the contest.  150 words after the introduction:

Hello AV Club,
I would like to enter the contest to have Patton Oswalt appear in my home for a private reading of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland on the 22nd of this month. I’m too stuck in verbose scholastic writing mode to be able to keep it to 150 words of prose.  Additionally, in terms of succinctness, no style of writing can beat bullet points.  Lists are brief as hell. That said, here is my essay by way of list of reasons why Mr Oswalt should visit my home:

• I live in Uptown which is known for its gritty urban atmosphere and Art Deco architecture. That will make for solid B-roll.  
• My living room is large enough to easily fit a video crew.
• My apartment is well decorated. I have two paintings of matadors as well as a portrait of a pirate grandma.  
• I have a nice stereo with a slightly impressive record collection.  In his book, Mr Oswalt spoke of his love for R.E.M. and Fugazi. This is a passion that we share. We could listen the hell out of Steady Diet of Nothing.
• I fucking love pie.  It’s my favorite dessert. I frequently request birthday pie instead of cake.
• My friends are very well read.  One is studying literary theory. Another is studying philosophy and has an almost compelling argument in favor of nihilism. Mr. Oswalt could yell at them about Jacques Derrida if he so desired.
  

Sincerely,
Alex D Stewart

I sent off the email and gave myself a one person high five.  I was feeling confident about this.  How could it lose? It covered multiple aspects of why my apartment and I would  be very well suited victors.  It showed a legitimate knowledge of Oswalt’s work. It was also kind of funny and formatted in Georgia font which is widely considered to be a beautiful font.  There’s no way I wouldn’t be victorious.

Fast forward a week.

I didn’t win.

The winning entry was supposed to be announced on October 17th or 18th.  My clock clicked over to 12:00AM on the 19th and my heart sank deep into the nether regions of my torso. Dark feelings filled my soul as years of rejection flooded my thoughts.

No, I’m exaggerating.  But I was still pretty steamed. How is that not an winning entry?  It establishes my rock solid pie loving credentials.  In terms of matador related art collection, I’ve got bona fides out the wazoo! How is that not impressive enough to win? And it was my B-day! I was going to wear a suit.

So tomorrow night, for whatever the reasons, Patton Oswalt and a small camera crew from the AV Club will fill their arms with pies and go to the home of some other Chicago resident to spend an evening reading and laughing. Oh how they’ll laugh and laugh and become best friends who email each other random jokes and observations and Christmas cards. I’ll be sitting here alone on my couch, eating birthday pie and feeling badly about myself.

Well you all have a good time with your pie and laughter.  I hope you choke.

I don’t actually hope you choke.  Swallow and then laugh.  I’m just really disappointed because it seemed like a fun contest that I had a shot at because of the relative comfort of my couch.  Not cool, AV Club. You’re on my list.

The paperback edition of Zombie Spaceship Wasteland will be available on November 8th at any place that one might buy a book.

Visit the AV Club for all of your general entertainment news and criticism.

Sock Monkey Sound

What: Dum Dum Girls, Crocodiles, and Colleen Green

Where: The Empty Bottle in West Town, Chicago, IL

When: Friday, October, 14, 2011

Did you write an open letter to the venue?

Here is an open letter to the Empty Bottle before I get into the meat of the review.

Dear Empty Bottle,

Why you gotta be so far from my home?  I live in a perfectly reasonable place and it takes an hour’s ride on two bus, or a train and a bus to get to you.  Why don’t I have a car? Because I’m writing this review for free. All I’m saying is that, even though you existed in your current location for 17 years before I moved into mine, it’s pretty rude for you to pair the booking of really good music with such an arduous journey.  I’m a nice guy.  You’re kind of mean.

With that taken care of, let’s get to the review (in increasing order of importance)

Colleen Green

Colleen Green is a singer/guitarist from Los Angeles.  Her performance consisted of one lady (herself), fuzz, some appealing vocal melodies, and a glorified metronome acting as a drum machine. That’s really it.  Green sang familiar sounding songs and accompanies herself on a Fender Mustang (points for that) with a very fuzzy (though also familiar) guitar tone. The percussion was carried by a drum machine beat that only saw variation in pattern when she bent down between songs to change the tempo.  This bare bones approach works slightly better (albeit in very small doses) on her record, but when performed live it really came across as the bedroom recordings of a high school girl who just bought Psychocandy and Road to Ruin. The only highlight was a joyless cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s, “Burnin’ For You.”

My overriding thought throughout the entire set was, “If this is what the stripped down take on JAMC sounds like, it needs to put a few clothes on.”

Crocodiles

Crocodiles are also from Los Angeles.  I kind of suspect that this tour was cooked up as a way for Dee Dee Dum Dum and Crocodiles frontman Brandon Welchez to hang out on the road together.  Call it, “The Married Years Tour.” Don’t really call it that. It’s not a good title.  Anyway, Crocodiles specialize in muddy, ethereal bubble gum. That description seems contradictory but one thing that is immediately clear when seeing Crocodiles perform live is that there are lots and lots of sweet melodies getting sucked up by the swirling murk. This is probably entirely intentional on the part of the band.  The asshole trying to impress a girl next to me said it was, “…sort of a California Mamas and the Papas meets punk rock.” Yeah…

Actually he wasn’t far off. With Welchez’s caterwauling and the lead bass playing on many songs, it was more like the Archies meets Public Image Limited. I don’t mean to say it was unpleasant.  The melodies were quite good but I can’t help but think there is a more direct and fulfilling route Crocodiles could be taking with their music.

Dum Dum Girls

My prediction before the show read as such, “As is the given with any garage influenced band, this set will differentiate itself from the recordings by being more muscular in tone and looser with the melodies.”  Congratulations to me! It proved to be almost entirely true.  The tempos were boosted and the drums and bass hit with real force and power. The hooks were a bit more submerged.  Even in spite of the super reverb on front woman Dee Dee’s voice during the early songs, massive choruses like the ones in, “Bedroom Eyes,” or, “He Gets Me High,” could not be kept down.

Right before Doug dropped his beer

That was my conclusion for much of the set. That is, until the final song.  The sound guy must have been listening to my thoughts (fun fact, some sound guys are telepathic) because the digital treatment on Dee Dee’s voice was dialed back and she took full reign of the lighter ready ballad, “Coming Down,” for a full tilt heart render that made a nearby 35 year old fellow (his name was probably Doug or Dave) drop his expensive beer (Leffe Blonde was $5 a bottle) with excitement.

I felt similarly but I kept my reaction slightly less overt.

Here’s the set list:

1. Always Looking
2. Bhang Bhang, I’m A Burnout
3. Catholicked
4. I Will Be
5. Rest of Our Lives
6. Bedroom Eyes
7. He Gets Me High
8. Hold Your Hand
9. Wasted Away
10. Jail La La
11. In My Head
12. Teardrops on My Pillow
13. It Only Takes One Night
14. Heartbeat
15. There is a Light That Never Goes Out (Smiths cover)
16. Coming Down

Final Conclusion: Some of the songs blend together more than they should but Dum Dum Girls proved to be fiery live performers.

Sock Monkey Sound

Roll The Tanks are a rock and roll group from Los Angeles, California. Their music is kind of punky. That is all I know about them.  My good friend Patrick (we’re not really good friends. Just okay friends) emailed me last week and asked if I would like to review their recent single.  I agreed to do as much.  I don’t understand why I’m explaining the process of review assignments.

According to their press release.

 The single’s title track, Goodnight Jimmy Lee is a reckless, ball busting ode to fallen rocker Jay Reatard that sounds like it could have been written by Paul Westerberg…

This statement seems half true.  I have every reason to believe that the song was written as a tribute to Mr. Reatard (real name Jimmy Lee Lindsey Jr).  I don’t buy the Westerberg comparison. The song is not nearly anthemic or melancholy enough by half. Maybe the reference seemed right because the lyricist wrote in an especially emotionally transparent manner.  The lyrics speak clearly from the heart of someone who viewed themselves as both a contemporary and an ardent fan of Reatard’s music.

First time heard you felt like I heard me. My Mom called said im in the magazines. Thinking how the hell did he beat me? Now he’s gone and I’m no Jimmy Lee…Met you twice you kind of seemed mean. But I’d punch dudes who mess with my machines. I love fucked up chords and melodies. Phoned in drumming helps my self esteem. Hope they’re rioting in Tennessee. Set this sweaty bloody Reatard free.

The specificity of references and emotion impart a real sense of the loss that Roll The Tanks must have felt when news of Jay Reatard’s overdose broke wide. Beyond those, Reatard has an incredibly evident overriding influence on the sound.  After some new wave bass riffing, the verses kick in with clear hallmarks of the Jay Reatard song.  Ramones style chainsaw guitars stack up on top of robotic drums and a frenetic synthesizer buzz.  Frontman Danny Carney affects his best impression of Reatard’s nasal sneer and it all adds up to a pretty convincing imitation of the sound on Jay Reatard’s Matador releases. There are some pretty big risks inherent to such a clear imitation but the naked admiration in the lyrics allow the song to feel more like a fun, fitting tribute than any kind of co-option.

“Goodnight Jimmy Lee,” is a short, rambunctious, loving ode to a dearly loved musician.  I approve.

Side 2 of the single holds, “Pistolero,” which is much more accurately described in the band’s press release which claims, “…the b-side, Pistolero, is a Lemonheads-y uptemo acoustic-tinged jam that recalls the heyday of 90’s indie rock.”  Yes it is.  “Pistolero,” is a fun, snotty country jam that sounds so very much like The Flying Burrito Brothers by way of Evan Dando (really. So much so that I’m hard pressed to say much more).  It’s a near delirious kiss off to a domineering friend or romantic connection that find great fun in its western metaphor.

“Guess who got his nuts back? Hope you like the soundtrack. Pistol on your brain and I can’t really stand this change, I’m stopping. Watch me empty out your chamber, I won’t stand for this behavior.  Taking all your bullets away, and I’m off with a fist full.”

What have we learned from this single? Well, we learned that Roll The Tanks loved Jay Reatard and are fairly skilled at uptempo genre pastiche.  The two songs have a very different sound and tone. So much so that I’m not sure that I can recommend listening to other releases. I have no clue of what they might sound like.

The Goodnight Jimmy Lee 7″ is available now

Here’s a fun paean for a different Jimmy Lee courtesy of your favorite 80′s shuffle

Sock Monkey Sound

What: Girls in store performance at the Reckless Records on Broadway

Where: 3126 North Broadway Street, Chicago, IL.

When: Thursday September 29, 2011

Do you shop at that store?  I do. I once bought a copy of the Dump (James McNew of Yo La Tengo) album I Can Hear Music for my little brother’s birthday.

In Stores* can be a odd phenomenon. They are certainly not the natural habitat of a touring band, and performances can be affected as such.  That said, there is some real charm to the idea.  Here’s a list of pros and cons.

1. Con: It probably won’t sound fantastic.  There’s something fairly inhibiting about a band being squished into an empty corner between DVD racks and trying to play well while bathed in the glow of antiseptic fluorescent lighting.
2. Sub Con: It will also not sound great because the space, with all of that glass and oddly placed ceilings, is not designed with performance in mind. It turns out that the ideal shape of a room meant for selling things is different than one meant for playing music. Adding to that, the sound system is going to be whatever mixer and PA speakers that the hosting store has in the back room.
3. Pro: It’s a much closer look at a band you enjoy. At any level of performance above D.I.Y. and the smallest bar spaces, there is a divide created between the performer and the audience.  The continued use of a stage and the proscenium arch exists solely to ensure this. It’s true. Chicago’s Cabaret Metro was founded primarily as a punk venue and it still has a proscenium arch.  The effect is very deliberate. It causes a framing of the performance as a performance.  It raises those on the stage above the level of the audience (quite literary) in order to direct the attention of a crowd to a single area of the room.  An In Store allows those performers to be drawn back down to the D.I.Y. level of an almost even stature between them and the audience.  The sound is muddy and the equipment bare bones, but you’re standing two feet away from people who may have written one of your favorite albums of the year.

Here’s a secret trick about In Stores that one needs to be prepared for.  Because of the standing room only situation that happens at many performances, someone who wants a good spot is going to have to get there at least 45 minutes before the scheduled start time.  That means you’ll be standing around with nothing to do for at least 45 minutes.  In a room filled with music.  The obviously choice of distraction is to start browsing. And browsing.  Be forewarned: if you show up early for an In Store, you will buy something.  That is unless you have the self control of   a monk. I do not.

You bastards tricked me

Girls came into the store looking disheveled and uncomfortable.  Frontman Chris Owens, sallow skin and all, looked like he had just woken and

Every In Store has a guy in a loud shirt blocking your view

wasn’t too happy about it.  Bass player Chet White kept his coat on throughout the entire performance.  I’m not faulting them for it.  The weather was grey and rainy and I was feeling similarly sleepy eyed.  Thursday mornings and afternoons are rough.

After some early technical issues that left the band with only one mic channel for vocals, they kicked into a short set of highlights from their recent Father, Son, Holy Ghost ( “My Ma,” “Magic,” “Vomit,” “Love Like a River” ) and a few choice favorites from their debut Album (“Lust for Life,” “Laura”).  Even in such a comparably intimate setting (and it was intimate. There were barely a hundred people in attendance. That is drammatically smaller than their show a few hours later at the 500 person capacity Lincoln Hall) Owens was a characteristically enigmatic presence. He spent much of the set looking down, dirty hair obscuring his face, and only mumbled nervously to his bandmates between songs.  It projected a decidedly inward force.  That guy must get mad tail from women who need someone to mother.  So much tail…

What was I saying? Oh yes.

Chet White playing bass in his overcoat

I was slightly curious of how the band would pull off the somewhat epically scaled songs on Father, Son, Holy Ghost (filled with string orchestrations, gospel vocals, and wall of sound guitars) with a comparably smaller five person lineup.  There were some notable holes but I was pleasantly surprised by how much of that space was filled up with organ/piano, and even more by the expert bass playing of Chet White.  With a full, meaty tone, White played in the Paul McCartney/John Paul Jones style of playing lots of notes that are almost all perfectly placed.  Darting all around the strummed guitar chords, he brought weight to a sound that might otherwise sound a little thin. Furthermore, the restricted arrangements revealed that the melodies at the center of all that lush orchestration were more than sufficiently compelling.  Owens writes great songs, and that was completely evident.

Final Verdict:It was fun, free, and a decidedly memorable

Oh and there was pizza. That was pretty cool too.

* for our purposes we’re going to define that as, “a free performance in a music store that a recording artist will play in advance of a more traditional gig that evening,” and treat it as a proper noun*

Sock Monkey Sound

Dum Dum Girls are nothing if not prolific. Since the release of their debut EP in late 2009, Dee Dee and the gang have hardly gone six months without an album, singles compilation, or EP release.  Sticking to that rule, DDG are now following up the excellent spring EP release He Gets Me High with their 2^nd full length album, Only in Dreams.

Follow up albums have proven to be especially tricky for the recent crop of lo-fi acts.  Those who double down on the appealing skuzz of their debut and crank out another 12 songs in the same vein run the risk of diminished returns by wearing out the welcome on their formula (Vivian Girls’ 2^nd album). Of course, the alternate risk of expanding one’s sonic palette and leaving behind some of the staticy production crutches can either bring about a new level of expressive quality (the recent Male Bonding album) or reveal the band to be kind of boring (Vivian Girls’ 3^rd album).  I tried really hard to squeeze an insult towards Nathan Williams (Wavves) into that rundown but it wouldn’t work.  Let it be known, that guy sucks.

The pressure to circumvent those troubled waters has been somewhat lessened for Dum Dum Girls’ second album.  With He Gets Me High, the group already showed a great leap forward in both production and composing.  The drums were suddenly fully audible and much of the obfuscating clang of the reverb was dialed back for a more natural tone that revealed front woman Dee Dee to have an even more powerful and animated voice than many had assumed.  Even more importantly, the songs on He Gets Me High lost none of their fuzzy throwback charm or earworm quality.  If anything, Only in Dreams feels like an elongated version of the progress made on that EP.  That assessment bears repeating.

If anything, Only In Dreams feels like an elongated version of the progress made on that EP

Therein lies both an explanation of its greatest attributes and weaknesses.  A song like He Gets Me High is indicative of everything right with the sound of Dum Dum Girls. There’s great harmonies, surfy lead guitar and churning strummed chords; and scary women who wear sunglasses at night and sing about their broken hearts.  Most of all it has an incredible hook.  The Girls repeat that action throughout Only in Dreams.  One will probably be able sing along to every song after two listens. The problem is that, with some songs, that memorization feels a little rote. 10 songs and 36 minutes is not a lot of music but at least two or three of the songs feel inessential.  This is my main complaint:

I kind of wish they hadn’t released He Gets Me High and held on to the best songs for placement on Only in Dreams.

“Wrong Feels Right,” and, “He Gets Me High,” are fucking amazing songs.  If they were put on Only in Dreams instead of redundant feeling songs

like, “In My Head,” and, “Wasted Away,” or, “Bedroom Eyes,” the album would honestly make a really notable jump in quality.

All of that said, there are a lot of things to love about this record.  The harmonies are better than they have ever been and fierce attitude abounds.  “Just a Creep,” is among the more fun and gleeful kiss off/”step away, I know your tricks,” songs (of the non Beyonce category) that you’ll hear this year. “Teardrops On My Pillow,” really makes me want to build a mixtape of songs with them theme of, “I cry at night so I won’t wreck my makeup.”  These songs call for an in the car sing along. Beyond that, the album is marked by the very unfortunate recent death of Dee Dee’s mother.  In channeling her grief into songs like, “Coming Down,” and, “Hold Your Hand,” Dee Dee has written songs about death and longing that still manage to end up sounding like they’re about being hurt by a boy.  I find that incredibly interesting.  “Coming Down,” is particularly noteworthy as a singular item in their catalog.  At 6 ½ minutes it is as long as 3 or 4 songs on I Will Be and is filled with, as yet, uncharted textures.  Halfway through the song she belts out, “I think I’m coming down. Here I gooooooooooo,” and is followed by the group’s first truly satisfying guitar solo.  It is a rewarding expression of gravitas that is unexpected from a band that is largely concerned with bubblegum and poison.

Final Verdict: Only in Dreams is a very fun record but one can’t shake the feeling that it could have been better.

Only in Dreams is available now on Sub Pop Records

Sock Monkey Sound

What: Wild Flag

Where: Wicker Park Fest North Stage

Double Where?  North Milwaukee Ave, Wicker Park, Chicago, IL

Wicker Park Fest is an annual neighborhood street festival with 3 music stages and is held on a stretch of Milwaukee Ave that can only comfortably accommodate two.  It was as much of a clustersmurf as that description would suggest.  Of course, no one goes to a street festival looking to comfortably watch a band play. The expectation is to tolerate being crowded in by drunken revelers who are probably there because they live sort of nearby and, hey, it only costs $5 (or less if you’re tricky and/or rude).

I was not able to see Wild Flag’s performance at Subterranean on the previous evening because it sold out 3-4 weeks ago and, as a person, I am not on the ball enough to have anticipated needing room in my secret concert funds account that far in advance.

Basically I missed out because I suck.  

Settling for the next best thing, I went to Wicker Park Fest with tempered expectations for the experience and very high expectations for the music.

Why were they so high?

Let’s just say Wild Flag has attributes that often make older indie rock aficionados (or aficionados of older indie rock) pee their pants a little.

Wild Flag on Milwaukee Ave

Dubbed an indie rock supergroup by lazy music critics, Wild Flag is comprised of former members of Sleater-Kinney (Janet Weiss and Carrie Brownstein), Helium (Mary Timony), and The Minders (Rebecca Cole).  Anyone who owns a Matador or Kill Rock Star release from 1997 is very excited.

I’ve been an ardent fan  of Sleater-Kinney for quite a while and hold fond feelings for Helium’s second album.  Accordingly, I have been peeing my pants a little bit over every new single and live video that has come out since the band was announced last fall.

Here is the short version of the review: My expectations were met and slightly surpassed.

Here is the longer version: My expectations were met and slightly surpassed.  There are no two ways about it, the members of Wild Flag know what they’re doing live.  It’s one thing to have a record full of jittery guitar pop (as the lead single, “Romance,” suggests WF’s upcoming debut will be) but it’s quite another to perform those songs in a way that is consistently muscular and infectiously energetic. I really can’t imagine Wild Flag having any disastrous or decidedly lackluster sets.  They play with the verve of veterans who have something to prove and a pretty firm grasp of the means for doing so.

Wait.
Is that something veterans are ever known for?  Let me try again.

Wild Flag is the sound of 4 musicians who have played music professionally for 15-20 years and haven’t lost the desire to make a big, fun racket.  The group’s collective history may be the greatest asset within their arsenal.  It allows them to take disparate influences and mix them up like bumper cars- angular DC post punk crashing against twee girl harmonies; Nuggest era garage/psych spinning around in the corner because the electronics went faulty; The redneck ride operator calling out for a Stones cover – for ecstatic music nerds.  That’s the best kind of bumper car.  If you’re lucky you can make the guy in the Sloan shirt break his glasses.

Whether it’s the snaky bite of, “Glass Tambourine,” or the unhinged boogie of, “Electric Band,” and, “Short Version,” Wild Flag’s music is a subliminal directive to move one’s body (ass, foot, inadvertent Costello pigeon walking, I’ve got all the moves) in ways that would make even the sorriest son of a bitch want to pogo.  I can’t wait for them to come back in October.

Like Wild Flag on Facebook

Listen to the lead single for Wild Flag’s eponymous debut which comes out on September 13 via Merge Records.

Wild Flag – Romance by MergeRecords

Sock Monkey Sound

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Sunday Part 1

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Sunday Part 2

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Sunday Part 3

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Sunday Part 4

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Sunday Part 5

Sock Monkey Sound

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Saturday Part 1

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Saturday Part 2

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Saturday Part 3

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Saturday Part 4

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Saturday Part 5

Look closely, you might see a hipster

Sock Monkey Sound

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Friday Part 1

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Friday Part 2

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Friday Part 3

Danger @ Pitchfork Music Festival: Friday Part 4

Photos by Danger

Sock Monkey Sound

Like last year, our intrepid music adventurer and writer Alex Danger Stewart is calling in and live Tweeting from the Pitchfork Music Festival 2011 all weekend long! Check back here for updates from Danger of watch the Live Stream here.

Danger’s voicemail updates Pitchfork 2011: Friday

Stream Schedule

Friday, July 15

8:30 Animal Collective (Green)
7:20 Neko Case (Red)
6:25 Guided By Voices (Green)
5:30 Thurston Moore (Red)
4:35 Battles (Green)
3:30 EMA (Red)

Saturday, July 16 (gates at 12 p.m.):

8:30 Fleet Foxes (Green)
7:25 DJ Shadow (Red)
6:15 The Dismemberment Plan (Green)
5:15 Destroyer (Red)
4:15 Gang Gang Dance (Green)
3:20 No Age (Red)
2:30 Cold Cave (Green)
1:45 Woods (Red)
1:00 Julianna Barwick (Green)

Sunday, July 17 (gates at 12 p.m.):

7:25 Cut Copy (Red)
6:15 Deerhunter (Green)
5:15 Superchunk (Red)
4:15 Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti (Green)
3:20 OFWGKTA (Red)
2:30 Kurt Vile & the Violators (Green)
1:45 Yuck (Red)
1:00 The Fresh & Onlys (Green)

Sock Monkey Sound

The movie Zookeeper opened this past weekend.  In it the titular zookeeper played by comedy terrorist Kevin James is dumped by a pretty blond lady because she has issues with his chosen career.  After being pressured by his brother and (now ex) girlfriend to quit his job at the zoo and take a sales position with his brother’s fancy car dealership, Mr. Zookeeper decides to walk away from his passion in order to win back the heart of the pretty blond lady.  That is until the animals that he cares for reveal that they can talk and shit.  Wowee what a shock!  In addition to having very well developed English diction, the zoo animals are also apparently experts in playing the dating field.  Under their tutelage, Zookeeper man learns to love himself and develop the confidence that he needs to win back the pretty blond lady and live happily ever after.  Good times, right?

Fuck

That

Noise

Don’t do it, Mr Zookeeper. That plan is clearly incredibly flawed and you will not be happy.

Very poor social skills

First of all, this shouldn’t even have to be said but, don’t take romantic advice from animals.  Do you think a bear and a wolf know how to attract a long term girlfriend?.  Being loud and acting like you’re interested in another lady is how you get someone to sleep with you 2 or 3 times. Zookeeper is clearly looking to get with the pretty blond lady for the long haul (as evidenced by the part where he proposed to her).  He wants to be with her until he dies.  None of the animals giving him advice are of the variety that mate for life.  Plus, having lived in a zoo for what must have been a very long time, their entire perspective on mating rituals is based on the skewed experience of dating within a captive population.  There are only so many of one’s type in the limited population so it doesn’t pay to be picky.  It’s the same reason that people living in small towns are more likely to get married at a younger age than those in large cities.  That lion wouldn’t know shit about macking on a lioness in the African savanna.  They totally lack the experience required to give good advice.

Zookeeper needs to think long and hard about why he wants to be with the pretty blond lady.  I suspect that the answer is, “Durrr she looks really nice,” which is a terrible fucking reason for dating someone; let alone marrying them.  Zookeeper man needs to seriously reconsider whether he wants to be with someone as callow and materialistic as Pretty Blond Lady.  She thinks his job is on par with being a janitor. Repeat that. She thinks his job that he earned a degree in Zoology in order to hold and is clearly very skilled at performing (the bear said so) is equivalent to being some stockroom worker at Walmart.  She thinks his chosen profession is deserving of derision and pity because he doesn’t make enough money to buy her massages and Louis Vuitton bags, or Louboutin pumps and fancy dinners.  Why would he want to be with someone who doesn’t respect him?

From the options put forth in the trailer, Zookeeper Fellow’s pursuit of the pretty blond lady can go one of three ways:

1. He fails.  We’re back at the beginning.

2. He takes that sales job at his brother’s expensive car dealership.  He does fairly well (because the skills required for zoo-keeping and selling cars totally crossover).  The increased paycheck impresses Pretty Blond Lady and she agrees to take him back.  Let’s say they even get married. He spends the rest of their relationship feeling resentful because she made him give up his dream job in order to be with her.  He is unhappy at his new job and no amount of sexy body touching can take away the feeling that he is paying for their marital sex.  She walks all over him because she knows she was able to get him to give up his dream and will do anything she asks. His resentment begins pushing her away and their marriage ends cold and unfulfilled.

3. He uses the animalistic tactics of roaring, intimidating any supposed competition, and peeing on things to win her renewed affection.  She is attracted to his new personality and is able to overlook his career.  They marry.  He reverts back to his normal earnest, happy go lucky, magnanimous personality.  She becomes disenchanted because he is not the man she was attracted to when they wed.  Sex becomes a chore and, soon enough, so does normal every day interaction. She loses interest and divorces him or begins a secret affair with someone who is more her type. OR he maintains the fierce, alpha male persona but grows to feel that he can never be himself around her.  The forced confidence and menace curdle into insecurity and jealousy.  He begins accusing her of cheating on him with every male she encounters.  Tired of the accusations she either divorces him or (feeling as though she is being punished for a crime she didn’t commit) resigns to cheating on him with someone who is more her type.

The fact remains that the pretty blond lady does not respect or even understand Zookeeper’s passion for keeping zoo.  Even if he is able to win her over temporarily, this will not change.  A zebra does not change its stripes.  He should ask the zebras. They’ll tell him as much.

Very Attractive

Mr. Zookeeper should view his failed relationship with Pretty Blond Lady for what it was, a lesson in identifying the kind of women that he does/will not do well with.  He should continue looking until he finds a woman who not only doesn’t have to ignore his job in order to find him appealing, but actually does so because of it (There’s a chance that the film positions Rosario Dawson as such a woman but that’s a bad idea. Rosario Dawson is super hot.She would never be attracted to his squishy, oblong head and beady little eyes.  Never ever ever).

The Zookeeper needs to hold out until he encounters a woman who shares his passion for wildlife and is attracted to his amiable personality and offbeat looks.  There is totally a future Mrs Zookeeper out there. Probably on the internets.

Don’t see The Zookeeper.  Ever.

Sock Monkey Sound

“Can’t you see baby I’m just crazy for you.  Love wheel spinin’

round, round, round, round”

Wheel O' Dooooooooom

What: Yo La Tengo Spinning Wheel Tour

Where: Subterranean in Wicker Park, Chicago, IL, America

2^nd Title: In Which We Discover that Moby Octopad is Someone’s Name

Charlie O’Donnell was the announcer of Wheel of Fortune for 26 years (1975-1980, 1989-2010). He was the guy who said, “From the Sony Pictures Studios, it’s America’s Game,” and then the crowd would yell, “WHEEL OF FORTUNE!” You probably didn’t know his name.  I didn’t know it.  Knowing the name of the voice at the beginning of The $100,000 Pyramid and The American Music Awards is an obscure bit of information even for a jerk like me who takes pride in knowing obscure bits of information.  The name of the beloved Wheel of Fortune announcer was an obscure bit of information that the members of Yo La Tengo knew all too well.  This is not the least bit surprising because the members of Yo La Tengo are obscure people.  I don’t think they even try to be obscure but it just exudes out of them like an odd New York Mets anecdote or the  bridge to an old Kinks b-side.  That their music is often so stylistically diverse is not an over thought determination.  It feels organic. They like noisy songs and they like soft songs; they like punk music and jazz music; why not play songs that sound like all of those things?  Of course Yo La Tengo would be game show enthusiasts.  I can totally imagine them making sure that they finish band practice before Wheel of Fortune starts (in my town it’s on at 6:30pm).  In my nonexistent script for a Yo La Tengo Saturday morning cartoon, the alarm clock in their practice space goes off and they throw down their instruments and rush over to the couch by the television.  Georgia and James squabble over who gets to hold the pretzel bowl while Ira searches for the remote to turn up the volume.

We’re getting off track.

Yo La Tengo was/is familiar with the voice work of one Charlie O’Donnell and when he passed away in November of last year, they created what has proven to be one of the more lasting tributes that most people forgot/never realized was a tribute.  Starting in January, The Spinning Wheel Tour traveled across the country playing a circus-like game of chance.  At the beginning of each show a gigantic wheel was brought out on stage and an audience member called upon to determine the evening’s fate.  It might land on Songs Starting with S, Condo Fucks, or The Freewheeling Yo La Tengo.  I attended a concert in February at Chicago’s Cabaret Metro that found the wheel landing on, “Sitcom Theater,” and had the band acting out an episode of Seinfeld. The tour proved popular enough be extended through the spring and brought Yo La Tengo back to Chicago.  That’s the reality that I found myself in on the evening of June 26.  You’re all caught up.

 To put things inelegantly, Subterranean was packed to the nuts with people.  There weren’t any chairs on the main floor which is good because things were very clearly standing room only.  If someone had farted 300 people would have smelled it at the exact same time.  What I’m trying to say is the club was full.  The packed status makes sense. YLT had sold out the comparably larger Metro in February and the Green Music street festival (at which the band headlined on the previous evening) had been going on around the corner on Damen Ave all weekend which gave the event maximum street traffic advertising and put a larger number of the sort of people who would like to see a Yo La Tengo concert relatively close by.

On to the performance!

The all important wheel was brought out with some fanfare and a young woman called Jessica was selected to spin it.  She gave the infernal contraption a good solid spin that befitting to the significance of the….I really can’t write floridly about this.  She spun a wooden wheel and it landed on, “The Name Game,” thus determining that the band’s first set would consist of songs with a name in the title (of which it has many).

Ira, Georgia, and James Tengo

It’s a clever conceit that allowed for a fairly diverse set of songs from across the band’s very long career (did you know they’ve been playing for 27 years? That’s crazy!).  Opening with the hymn like coo of Electr-O-Pura’s “Paul is Dead,” they ran through a set of songs that had as little in common sonically as they did similarity in title.  The 2^nd half of the set saw some very interesting news for those who were dorky enough to notice.  Following the fantastic “Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House,” (from 2000’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out) and, “Barnaby, Hardly Working,” (1990’s Fakebook) we discovered that Moby Octopad is the name of a person! For real.  I always thought that it was the name of some old Japanese synthesizer, but according to laws of the Yo La Tengo universe there is a tax form that reads, “Octopad, Moby.” I find that hilarious.

Unfortunately I don’t have a great deal to say about the performances themselves.  Yo La Tengo is a notoriously consistent live band. Even more importantly, that level of consistency is set somewhere around or above, “Very good.”  I suspect that the subjective qualities of their performances are largely based on how well the set list aligns with the group of songs that one has an emotional connection to.  The group must have been in a mid 90s sort of mood because a surprisingly large number of songs came from Painful and Electtr-O-Pura. There was even a song from New Way Hot Dogs (that was 1987)! I think this was largely because they saved their more recent and best known songs for the larger and less familiar outdoor crowd the night before.  The sound at Subterranean has a reputation for being pretty muddy but YLT’s long time sound man did a good job of dealing with the long, narrow room and keep things clear and powerful.  So powerful that when the band got into their fuzzier songs the floor would often shake and remind me of this classic Onion article

For the encore the band took the stage with Chicago musicians Mark Greenburg (The Coctails) and Rick Rizzo (Eleventh Day Dream and the newly minted Candy Golde) to unearth the rarely played, “My Heart’s Reflection,” (off of Electr-O-Pura) and an endurance testing cover of Velvet Underground’s “Sister Ray.” I don’t think it is uncomplimentary to say that “Sister Ray,” was difficult to make it through because their rendition of it was every bit as painful and trying as the original recording.  It takes a lot of guts to play a 17 minute song so faithfully after nearly 3 hours of performance so I commend them for hurting my knees and ears.

Here’s one issue I have. What is up with people talking incessantly at concerts?  I understand when it happens at bars and neighborhood festivals where people do often primarily go to socialize.  Not at concerts.  This show sold out at least 12 hours before it started.  That means there were no tickets sold at the door.  Not a single person in that room had been walking around outside, noticed the sign, and thought, “Oh okay, I guess I’ll go to that.”  It was completely filled with people who knew about it beforehand, decided they would like to see Yo La Tengo play, and ordered tickets.  I don’t understand it.  Do people really pay $25+ to stand around and socialize with their friends instead of paying attention to the band?  Is that how it works?  I mean, apart from the rudeness that just strikes me as a terribly inefficient use of money.  If they only want appealing background music, 4 people could get a case of beer and put a record on in their living room for about a fifth of the cost.  Plus they could hear each other without shouting.

Luckily the crowd was pretty good at hushing those chatty assholes during the quiet songs but it was a job that required constant policing.  Why do people have such an issue with being quiet and listening for more than 20 seconds? I don’t mean this to read as sexist because I know men were probably talking too and the frequencies of higher pitched voices tend to cut through the environmental noise more thoroughly, but young women need to shut the fuck up. Seriously.  Stop talking.  Talk between songs if you have to but otherwise shut your fucking mouth and appreciate what you’re there to experience.  I have no explanation for the preponderance of conversation.  Maybe there were a lot of girlfriends who had been dragged along by their YLT loving boyfriends.  If that was the case, I have to ask two questions to those guys.  Why would you make your girlfriend go to something that she clearly doesn’t enjoy?  For that matter, why don’t you have a girlfriend who likes Yo La Tengo?  Seriously.  It’s awesome. You should try it. No matter what the explanation, there was a chatty bitch in a hippy headband who I came very close to stabbing in the neck with my keys.  Not cool, headband lady. You’re on my list.

Set List

The Spinning Wheel Set: The Name Game

1. Paul is Dead
2. Decora
3. Avalon or Someone Very Similar
4. Song for Mahila
5. Let’s Save Tony Orlando’s House
6. Barnaby, Hardly Working
7. Moby Octopad
8. Tom Courtenay
9. Alyda

The Normal Set

1. Cherry Chapstick
2. Little Eyes
3. Periodically Double or Triple
4. The Weakest Part
5. I’m on My Way
6. From a Motel 6
7. The Story of Jazz
8. Double Dare
9. Blue Line Swinger

Encore

1. My Heart’s Reflection
2. Sister Ray (VU cover)

Check out a video of the band’s Sister Ray performance at SubT

Or visit their website to get all kinds of YLT information

Sock Monkey Sound

Byron via Chicago’s Boys Like Jason

Stewart writes, plays, and records 99% of the material with appreciation for rock’s archaeological history.  The Velvet Underground’s musical spirit threads the majority of these home recordings together with unconventional, childlike results. Every song’s loaded with creative, lo-fi musical details and crafty innocent lyrics ranging from puppy love to the tribute of a band or two.

“Listen To Yo La Tengo” manically channels Lou Reed & The Jesus & Mary Chain.  ”Cindy Sanders” taps into stoner metal riffing and 80s punk ramblings; “Portland Babies” mock glam; “Characterization Through the Motif of the Clock” touching piano before a countdown change; and “Pretty Berty”s acoustic nod to “Unsatisfied” by The Replacements on the intro is just sneaky enough to fool the ear.

When Danger yells countdowns and chorus callouts, “1,2,3,4″ (“…Motif of The Clock”) and “Let’s Go!” (I’m Not Sorry”), it fuels ‘Never Stops Raining’s’ inner-child spirit with listening enjoyment other bed room recordings (Moldy Peaches) can’t pull off.  Every song is off-rhythm or falling off the tracks; even a song like “50 has Feelings” with its steady, programmed electro-drum beats and buried vocals can’t keep BLJ on the rails.  It’s charming, quick, and over before  it becomes too much.

“I Hope It Never Stops Raining” manages to turn an abuse of rhythm into an art form. What BLJ lacks in production techniques and performance proficiency, are made up for by an undeniable love of underground pop music–written and performed with child-like wonder.

AW

Sock Monkey Sound

By Alex Danger Stewart

Who: Cashmere Cartel

What: Valerie

Scwha? That was my reaction too.

Let me clear up a matter of slight conjecture.  Listening to the song, “Valerie,” is not similar to having one of those small frame hanging nails hammered into your ear canal.  It’s also not like having a Botfly bite you and then lay a larvae that burrows several layers deep into the flesh on the back of your neck.  It’s not like that, you guys.  We need to stop spreading rumors.

Not like this

No.  Listening to, “Valerie,” is like trying to eat an ice cream sandwich that has been sitting on the dashboard of a car for 20 minutes on a hot day.  It’s drippy, not incredibly fun, and you have to wipe off your face afterwards but, hey, at least there was sweet chocolate involved.

“Valerie,” is just this clumsy collage, and this video squished together.

Its ultimate goal is to be played in the car by a group of 17 year old girls on their way to one friend’s house so they can take group pictures before prom.  If things go perfectly, one of those girls will have a 13 year old sister named Valerie.  Valerie will have a big crush on her older sister’s prom date and will pretend that he’s the one singing when she listens to this song and frantically scribbles in her diary, or tumblr page, or whatever the fuck junior high girls use to record their insipid thoughts these days.

Yeah. That would be pop song Valhalla.

From the opening bars of the cheap Fruity Loops level beats and the entrance of the singer’s nasaly, sub Prince croon, it becomes entirely clear that I have no business reviewing or passing judgment on this sort of music. I sometimes listen to this song to pump myself up before going out.  They’re not trying to appeal to my ears or tastes in the slightest.  With that in mind, I have no idea if, “Valerie,” is something that the target audience will like or not.  It sounds shiny but it’s not on You Tube so I don’t know how they would hear it.

What I do know

Let me address the dozens of teen girls who read my writing (I assume that I’m read by dozens of every demographic):

Teen girls,

I want to tell you that it’s not okay for you to like this song because it’s lazy and shallower than a Dixie cup. I want to tell you that you don’t need to stoop this low to find whiny singers in tight pants trying to find a girl to love them because you’re more than old enough to be listening to the Smiths.  I won’t tell you that because it isn’t any of my damn business and I’m not going to patronize you. Do whatever you want. If you like this song, listen to it.  Plus The Smiths are for boring girls who actually do their homework.  Just keep something in mind:  You might guess that Cashmere Cartel is filled with crush worthy guys who have swooping haircuts and twinkly eyes, but it’s not.  Cashmere Cartel is just some guy from Georgia named Bill and another guy named James.  They have $8 haircuts and dress like two guys who live at a state school.  Tread lightly.

Final Grade: Merino Mafia

For more info on Bill Jabr and the production team behind Cashmere Cartel visit: http://www.musiclifeproductions.com/

The Cashmere Cartel – Valerie

Sock Monkey Sound

“I made a list of the reasons I will never call you again.”

Who: Warren Franklin

What: Mr. F’s 2^nd long play release Your Heart Belongs to the Midwest

Does it come out soon? It does! This bad boy drops on June 11^th

Warren Franklin’s first album, Stray, came out in November of 2009.  I remember this because it was the first album I reviewed for Sock Monkey Sound.  Prior to that review I had stuck to event reviews (and with good reason).  Event/Concert reviews are entirely different animals than their LP/EP counterparts.  For all of the musical assessment and meditations on the aura of the venue, etc, etc, the thesis of a concert review mainly boils down to deciding whether or not I had fun.  A quality album review has to discuss a piece of art as a thematic whole, as a grouping of fragments, sometimes evoking the idea of synecdoche, lyricism, music theory, homage, and that’s before you even decide whether the songs are any good.

Both Franklin and my first outings were a bit scraggly and uneven.  His spent too many songs on furiously strummed and shouted rants of indiscriminant origin and down tempo plodders that were largely lacking a melodic hook.  Mine wasted half of the word count with a barely connected discourse on the nature of reviewing recorded music (some things will not change).  This is worth thinking about because, as I said, Warren Franklin’s first album came out in November of 2009. In the 18 months since then, Franklin has toured like a motherfucker* (My reviewing frequency has fallen slightly short of the level of motherfuckery but it is noticeable enough).  He’s probably touring right now.  This is exceedingly obvious when one listens to Your Heart Belongs to the Midwest.

No one would ever accuse Warren Franklin of being halfhearted.  His first middle name is, “Earnest,” and his second middle name is, “Adjective: Resulting from or showing intense conviction.”  One of the things that set apart the better songs on Stray and basically all of the songs on Your Heart Belongs to the Midwest is the seeming transparency of the source of that earnestness.  With some of the lesser Stray songs Franklin was obviously worked up enough to shout himself hoarse but one was never sure why.  There is no mystery on the new cuts.

Tour Mode

Franklin is worked up over girls.  That’s awesome because there are few better ways for music to go right than with a sentimental boy laying it down over his lady troubles.  That’s why no one but nerds liked Yes before, “Owner of a Lonely Heart.”  All of their songs were about post-classical arrangements and traffic patterns.  Your Heart Belongs to the Midwest does not have any songs about the replacement of 4-way stop signs with roundabouts and, armed with 10 songs about girls and friendship, virtually every aspect of Warren Franklin’s craft has improved.

Even if I hadn’t heard sweaty boys chant along to the lead single, “Bro Downs Know No Bounds,” about a hundred times live before hearing the record, I would dub it anthemic.  All of that time spent crooning in basements across the nation has lent Franklin’s voice a new found strength and melodic edge.  Where he once bellowed or let loose an off key caterwaul, he now employs poppy yelps and caterwauls that are in tune.   He has used the new strength to craft a hundred foot wide chant-along hook for codependents everywhere. “I found their voices so calming/out by the highway we sing.  I swear it’s gonna get better for you.”

Excluding the instrumental track, the songs on Your Heart Belongs to the Midwest are lean and quick.  They have been honed down to just the key elements required to get ears open and fists raised. I’m not sure whether it is due to a larger budget, wider network of friends, or just an increase in ambition of ability but the production has made as notable of a leap forward as the songwriting and performance.  Like its predecessor, this album is largely built on acoustic guitar and voice but the little additions and flourishes (whether they’re the jaunty trumpet and tambourine on Bro Downs or the organ on the title track) succeed in adding both musical and emotional nuance to already successful songs.  For an album with one person’s name on the cover, “You Get Weary,” is a notably collaborative track.  Essentially presented as a duet between Franklin and Anthony Sanders from Chicago’s The Island of Misfit Toys (who added background and harmony vocals across the entire album), it adds piano, banjo, and mandolin for a genuinely affecting performance.  There are some real winners on this thing.

Highlight Tracks: (You’ve Never Heard) My Aim is True, Please Return (The Thrill of the Hunt), Bro Downs Know No Bounds, You Get Weary

Final Verdict: I like it.

Visit his Facebook page for more info

Watch for the release of Your Heart Belongs to the Midwest on June 11th via Count Your Lucky Stars Records

*Motherfuckers are known to do a very large amount of touring

Sock Monkey Sound

Danger reviews Callers “Life of Love”.

Callers are a trio from Brooklyn, NY by way of Providence and New Orleans.  Their songs largely consist of voice, guitar, and drums.  This much we know of them.

We also know that Callers’ music is largely defined by two factors.  Sara Lucas’s rich voice and Ryan Seaton’s spry guitar playing that often alternates between jingling and jagged (and a few other silly terms that start with J) passages as he moves through circular groupings of ringing notes.

On top of all of that, we know that Callers released an album in 2010 called Life of Love and that someone connected to the group recently asked Sock Monkey Sound to review the album.  Then I forgot about it for a month while I wrote 33 pages worth of term papers.  This past week I found a Word document in my Sock Monkey Sound folder that was titled, “Shit to review (urgent!),”* and Life of Love was at the top of the list.

This concludes the empirical portion of the review.  On to the less verifiable:

But never call them late to dinner

The album’s first two tracks do much to define the parameters of the compositions thereafter.  On one end with, “You Are an Arc,” the guitar and drums drone and clatter, building a cacophonous rumble with Lucas’s  vocals soaring overhead.  Following that, “Glow,” skews moody.  Seaton’s guitar builds atmospheric swells in between rhythmic drum accents.  The instrumentation does well to stay out of the way of the vocals and the listener is rewarded as Lucas’s voice covers our ears in a velvety hug.  The rest of the album largely fills in the space between those two poles.

Because my perspective is forever stuck in the mid 90s, the most direct and thorough comparison that springs to mind is to the early work of PJ Harvey.  This is a compliment.  Listening to the cover of Wire’s, “Heartbeat,” I’m very drawn to compare it to a song like Harvey’s, “Rid of Me,” in the way that it builds bit by angular bit.  There’s an icy danger lurking just beneath the surface of each song.  Of course the two differ in one notable way.  Where Ms. Harvey tended towards the growl of the blues, Callers take a step towards the jazzy.  Even among the more prickly stabs of guitar, there is a definite airiness to the whole affair.

The title track plays up their seductive elements whole-hog.  With a light steady groove and chiming guitars, “Life of Love,” unfolds like a Blue Note era Grizzly Bear.  That’s a weird fucking description but the signifiers hold up.  The song is legitimately sexy in ways that are very insidious (if one finds the incitement of slow, involuntary motions in the hip and pelvis area to be insidious).  Do me a favor and try this: turn on the song, ignore the despairing lyrics (if you must), grab someone pretty, and put your mouth on theirs.  It’s a good idea.

Highlight tracks: Heartbeat, Life of Love, Young People

For more on Callers, visit their facespace pages

http://www.myspace.com/callers

http://www.facebook.com/pages/callers/40296165589

*I’m very eloquent.  I also enjoy mashing together as many punctuation marks as possible.  It’s a little known pleasure of mine.

Sock Monkey Sound

File Photo: Filmmaker Extraordinaire

Every few weeks or so I’ll advise the burgeoning indie filmmaker on using music in your films that will trick your art school peers into thinking you have

• artistic courage
• depth
• unique perspective
• or all of the above

You’ll be the hit of Manifest 2012 and probably get a B on your final project!

Class #1:  David Bowie’s Queen Bitch

Use this song to score a montage depicting the acquisition of heroin (ending with the song fading out as the character shoots up and slumps back in his chair), or the unexpected coupling of two young characters after a rowdy night out with their social circle (extra points if the last note coincides with one of the characters waking up the next morning and realizing their mistake).

Having the character float up to the ceiling is optional if you have a crane budget.

The are a couple of things about Queen Bitch that make it perfect for montages.  First, it’s a very well known song but not so universally well known among people whose introduction to indie music was Arcade Fire (i.e. your intended audience).  First, The beat is quick and propulsive but not overly complicated. This will impart a frenetic energy if you set many of the cuts to it.  It will make people think of dancing. Secondly, Queen Bitch sounds dirty.  There’s something in Bowie’s voice and the tone of Mick Ronson’s guitar that just makes people think of glitter stuck to sweaty body parts.  Drug deals and bar hookups tend towards the sleazy side of things and Glam Rock will depict this in a way that is seemingly more thoughtful than hip hop.

Alternately, if you are making a film about the creative process, use it to score the opening credit montage of the protagonist waking up and going through his pre-writing rituals.  End with the protagonist sitting down at his desk and staring at the blank computer screen, unable to write.   This use hinges on the inherent dichotomy of tone.  The sleaze and boogie will sit in sharp contrast with the boring goings on of a character getting dressed and making coffee.  The audience will expect danger or swagger and the division between that expectation and the reality will be notable.  After that, the hearty boom of the ending of the song will seem antithetical against the inaction of the character.  That’s two forms of dichotomy. You genius!!

Existential Crisis

Using Queen Bitch in this way will impress your friends but you’ll know the secret. You learned it from the internets!!

Sock Monkey Sound

Last Friday, staff globetrotter Alex Danger Stewart commented on the internets recent “obsession” with the bad pop masterpiece sung by teenager Rebecca Black in an editorial comparing the awful song to equally bad pop music performed by groups like The Black Eyed Peas & Justin Beiber.

It’s only fitting then that we report on the takeover of Funny or Die by Rebecca Black herself. That’s right: it’s BLACK FRIDAY!

Whoever came up with the idea for this is A) a marketing genius or B) retarded. Either way, Black (or her manager) should be commended for taking the opportunity to roll with the punches. It takes quite a bit of moxie to get the joke and be in on it the same time, so props to her. One thing is for certain though: this girl is now ingrained in pop culture and it seems won’t be disappearing anytime soon. If you’re looking for a way to waste quality time at work today you should check Funny or Die out.

Sock Monkey Sound

Apparently the current face of evil

I finally broke down and listened to that Rebecca Black song. I had been boycotting it because, “Who cares about some girl’s dumb song?”  Then I realized that by actively avoiding it I was actually giving it more thought and abstract value than such trifle deserves.

So I listened to it.

What is everyone’s problem?  Yes, it is a really shitty song.  There is no denying that. But it is by no means dramatically worse than any other similar pop song.  It sounds exactly like one would expect a little sister pastiche of Beiber’s Baby and Ke$ha’s We R Who We R to sound like.  The two songs I just name checked are very, very, bad.  So is this song.  What’s the issue? The vast majority of pop music is shit.  It is intentionally created to be disposable and the listening populace acts accordingly.

One can’t even bemoan the pop music universe that has sunk low enough to let Friday be popular. The song isn’t exceedingly successful.  So far it has peaked at #57 on the Billboard Digital Songs chart and #72 on the Hot 100 (where it sits between songs by Glee and Kenny Chesney).

Oh, no! This shoddy song is mildly successful. What has the world come to?! Grrrrrr!

That was my impression of people who have had anything resembling an impassioned reaction to the song.  I wrote you people a letter.

Dear Internets,

Get over yourself.  Find something more important to worry about.  Here, I’ll help you by suggesting a topic that doesn’t even require you to direct your anger towards something other than shitty music: Did y’all realize that the current #1 song by Lady Gaga is kind of racist? Have fun.

Yours Truly,

Alex Danger Stewart

Sock Monkey Sound

Dear Beloved Readers,

I recently wrote this for a Critical Art Review assignment in my Art in Chicago Now class.  Enjoy.

"Wee Jim's Black Eye"(1986) and "Hee-Man" (1979)

On January 29th of this year, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago opened two large scale exhibitions related to the work of the American artist Jim Nutt.  The first, Coming into Character is a showcase of Nutt’s artistic evolution over the course of 40 years and focuses largely on Nutt’s female portraiture. The latter is a fairly extensive companion exhibition that shows works that both influenced Nutt and were influenced by him. Seeing Is a Kind of Thinking: A Jim Nutt Companion aims to place Nutt in a specific historical context by present the broader cultural universe which informed Nutt’s aesthetic and artistic philosophy.

Jim Nutt came to prominence in the mid 1960s as a part of Chicago Imagist movement (a term that has been applied retroactively) within the group who dubbed themselves, “The Hairy Who.”  A very important consideration one must make when viewing or thinking about works from the Chicago Imagist movement is its position as one of the very first visual arts movements in which artistic innovation was centered in and influenced by the city of Chicago.  Along with this very ethnic, working class, metropolitan

Miss P Willow, 1968

aura, it is important to note the way in which the Imagists (and especially those within The Hairy Who) incorporated a very comical, irreverent processing of low culture and pulpy art mediums through a synthesis of Art Brut and Surrealism.  As somewhat of a reaction to the New York Pop Art scene, The Hairy Who took the idea of repositioning a mass culture visual cue and personalized it; using personal signifiers such as the graphic, cartoony style of pinball machines at a local amusement park (or the tattoos of labor class immigrants) to give their work a more heartfelt edge.  In recognizing this innovation, one can see a similar design style in the animating of the cartoon Beavis and Butthead or the illustrations of Magnus Carlsson and recognize the wide reaching influence of an artist like Jim Nutt’s early work.

My visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art took place on a day that was brutally cold. I mention this because it can be a little trying to put oneself in an appreciatory mindset when one’s body is trying to navigate the transition from bracing winds and ear-numbing freeze to the highly regulated, temperate setting of a museum.  I’m not necessarily saying that environmental forces made me a bit grumpy which may have caused a harsher reaction than I might have had during a mild spring visit.  On the other hand, the environmental forces made me a bit grumpy and judgmental.

Though it includes work spanning his entire career, Coming into Character gives far more focus on Nutt’s series of, “imaginary portraits,” which have been his primary means of expression since the mid to late 1980s.  I think this repetitious setting actually did some disservice to the portraits.  Through a couple dozen paintings and drawings presented on various formats (the assorted media included canvas, linen, fiberboard, cardboard, and metals) Nutt’s work shows the minute exploration of an expressionistic female head and shoulders.  Common forms are repeated in the nose, brow, and posture of each portrait while color, hair, and expression vary wildly from one figure to the next. My pretentious assessment of the reoccurring forms is that Nutt may have been using the fictional females to express an embodiment of changing characterizations within some unnamed person’s psyche (perhaps the author himself?).  There is no indication of this theme anywhere in the literature, which suggests that I’m probably far off the mark.

Trim, 2010

One particular painting within this series that caught my eye in a strong way was a recent work called Trim. Finished in 2010, Trim is acrylic paint on linen and a fiberboard frame.  It is a smaller portrait that is nearly square in shape (25 3/8” X 24 3/8”).  The actual pictorial aspect of the piece is even smaller, resting several inches from the border of the frame. This has the effect of drawing the eye inward and requiring the viewer to approach the piece in order to view from a very close vantage point.  The portrait is filled with cool greens and blues and the ¾ profile depiction of a pale woman painted with mostly rigid, graphic inspired lines.  She wears a shirt that is covered by an elliptical dot print.  Her prominent, angular nose is covered with a similar print and has great, dark drips running from the bridge to the tip.  The woman’s eyes stare straight out at the viewer, their different colored retinas holding a slightly, “Hi there,” gleam while the blasé position of her mouth and a slightly tilted eyebrows suggest that she’s a bit too cool to be caught worrying about some sort of nasal deformity. “Oh this,” she mutters, “This is just a fashion statement.”

Something that I enjoyed about Trim (and that made it stand out from the pack) is this seeming harmony in theme.  I obviously can’t speak to whether or not the piece was created with any intended thematic elements.  Unlike some of Nutt’s early work like the painting Hee-Man (in which he poked fun at notions of masculinity by pushing then to vulgar extremes) any symbolism that exists within the, “imaginary portraits,” does so on a more subtle level.  Certainly the most obvious thought to have while viewing such a work is, “What is she thinking?”  Then the brain begins to spitfire, “She’s bored and wants to get back to applying the thick makeup that makes the lower half of her face so pale.”

“She actually does seem pretty cool. I like her choppy haircut.”

“Maybe she’s shy and that furrow of the brow is discomfort.”

“I wonder if a puppy is involved in this.”

Though the options of personal interpretation are clearly almost limitless, an overriding element of reserved, detached feeling runs through almost all options.  Even on such a broad theme, Nutt may not have left the cultural references of his early career entirely behind.  With such a combination of color and expression, I don’t feel remiss in drawing slight lines of influence to mid era Henri Matisse and his use of restrained blues, greens and greys. It’s not a great leap from Trim to a work like Matisse’s Woman in Green.

A fault I did find within the Exhibit was what I found to be an over repetition of the aforementioned imaginary portraits.  I would venture to guess that having so many similar pieces placed next to each other causes a blurring of the mind, with thoughts of each piece squishing into the next one until they all end up a big pile of, “hmm, that’s pretty good.”  Were I to encounter Trim on its own or near one or two other similar works, I do believe its beauty would have been far more striking.

Coming into Character will continue to run at The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago until May 29 of this year.

For more information on the  Jim Nutt Exhibition or other exhibits, visit mcachicago.org

Sock Monkey Sound

What: OMD @ the Park West, Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL

When: Saturday, March 12, 2011

Did you go to this Show? Almost

Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark

OMD stands for Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark (Get it? They mean fucking).  When one hears mention of the group, their reaction is, “OMD? You mean that group who did How Bizarre?” Met with the realization that they are, in fact, thinking of OMC, one’s next thought is, “I don’t know who OMD is.”  Then one is told that OMD was the group who did the song If You Leave from the Pretty In Pink soundtrack.

“Oh shit!” one thinks, “I love that song.” Because everyone loves that song.  Not all the time, mind you, but everyone has found themselves, at one point, dancing to it and luxuriating in the icy sadness. They were probably drunk, or one of those people who spent a lot of their teen years reading alone in their room.  This is the purpose of British Synth Pop from the 80s.

Did OMD have many other songs that were created years before (and during the many years since) Pretty in Pink? Probably.  Do some people care? Also probably.

These are the thoughts I had met with a couple of weeks ago when my colleague, Patrick, sent me a text message asking if I’d like to review OMD and Oh Land at the Park West.  I replied to the tune of, “Sure.  +1?” because this is what I always reply unless I have prior plans or a school thing.  Mr. Patrick responded, “Yep,” because there is always a +1 when I’m put on a press list. Always (this is foreshadowing).

That is how I found myself walking East on Armitage Ave with my girlfriend (she’s from two towns over, you probably don’t know her) on Saturday evening.  I invited her to go with me because I could, free dates are a good idea, and she’s fun to be with which is a good antidote for what would probably be a boring concert.  She accepted the invitation because, “Hey, free concert.”

We approached the information box and I said, “I should be on the press list.” The friendly woman behind the window asked for my ID to verify my identity in relation to the name on the list. This is how the process works.  She returned my ID with a single ticket.  “It should be a plus one situation,” assuming she had made a mistake. “No,” she replied, “this says just the one ticket,”

I paused, “Hmm, okay,” and said, “Nevermind. Have a nice night,” as I walked away.

Why did I do this?

My night job

Cause I’m a pimp.

You see, there are some rituals and rules within the culture/relationship between live music and live music criticism.  Assuming the scholar Margaret Mead’s definition of culture as, “the learned behavior of a society or subgroup,” a breaking of these rules can be viewed as disregarding some very basic ethical rules/mores within the live music culture.  It’s like not signaling when you change lanes in a car or failing to hold the elevator door for a neighbor in your apartment building. You probably won’t be ticketed or punished, but you’re still kind of a dick.

Back to my pimpery: One of the most basic ritual rules within this Live Music/Music Criticism relationship is the +1 on the guest list.  It is very common for promo/PR people contact publications and request a review of an upcoming event.  It’s a way of rustling up coverage for events that would otherwise not get very much.  They offer free admission for the writer and a guest (if they so choose).  This is done for two reasons:

1. It’s an incentive to get writers to take time out of their schedule to sit through and then take the time to review a group of puffy, 50 year old British fellows who look like a slightly more gargoylic Jonathon Ross.  The idea is that a writer can take a friend with them so they have someone to talk with.  Some people aren’t too found of attending concerts by themselves, especially concerts by groups that one might not otherwise have an interest in.

'ello

2. As a bit of a joke on writers.  It’s a profession that has a reputation for being filled with people who aren’t exactly bursting at the seems with social skills.  As a whole, writers tend to be less likely to have lots of friends,or people of romantic intentions, who can be invited to such things.  This joke is very funny.  Good one, PR folks.

I’m hardly an old hat at this game, but having reviewed five or six shows for Sock Monkey Sound (and declined to review 3 or 4 more) at the request of a promo contact, I’m pretty well versed in the ritual of the process.  A PR person contacts someone at the website. They ask me to review some show that I didn’t know was occurring. I say yes because it will be good exposure for my words and seems like a professional thing to day. I ask if I’ll have a  plus one, they say yes, and then I invite a friend or my ladyfriend to said show. I write a review. Everyone wins! That’s how it works every time.  If I’m told that I don’t have to make a solo outing to a concert that I wouldn’t otherwise care about, I plans accordingly.  I have like 10 friends, you guys. I use that +1.

That is, unless someone drops the ball and just reserves one admission for me.  If I were really serious about this job, I probably would have turned to my girlfriend and said, “Well, I guess I lied about the two tickets thing.  I’m gonna go review this concert by a band with one recognizable song instead of finding another fun activity that we can do together.  You should call your friends and find someone who is free to hang out at 9pm on a Saturday night. Have fun!”  Yes, anonymous PR guy, that is exactly what I would do if I were very serious about this job.

Guess what?  I’m not even close to serious!

Look, here’s a photo of a yawning puppy

So yeah: I’m sure Orchestral Manoeuvres in The Dark sound very professional and synth poppy.  I’m sure they played If You Leave and everyone who was enthusiastic about paying money to hear that song had a very fun time. Oh Land is a singer from Denmark and New York City and she sounds like a Danish Robyn.  I’m sure her live show followed suit.

Your guess is as good as mine.

P.S.- That picture at the top is from Google. They were supposed to email me photos too.

Sock Monkey Sound

No it’s not!

Anyway, on to the bands:

Swell Suburbia played classic sounding power pop.  Imagine all of the early Who and Cheap Trick influences that statement suggests.  Add a bit of Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers and you’d have a pretty strong idea of their sound.  A couple of songs also struck me slightly of the pop songs on Loose Fur’s 2nd album.  The rhythm section was notably tight and their playing elevated several songs to greater heights than their writing might otherwise accomplish.  Singer/guitarist Ben Abney was an entirely competent frontman/player but he was nowhere near an engaging enough of a performer (or handsome enough of a face) to warrant the total eye fellation he was receiving from the group of girls standing in front of stage left.  That was hilarious, then uncomfortable, and then I wanted to buy some eye drops because I grew increasingly concerned that they would have some adverse medical effects from not blinking for half an hour.

Prussia

Reviewing Prussia has caused me some notable problems.  At first I just wanted to put a link to this video and let it speak for itself.  Then I decided that was probably totally unprofessional.  I like to strive for at least half professionalism.  It might honestly be my fault. When they started setting up I expected them to be a trip hop band.  Why? Don’t ask why.
Here’s why: Prussia is from Detroit and they look like they might be related to the members of a fantastic trip hop band from Milwaukee called Fable & the World Flat. That’s enough to build expectations of a band’s sound on, right?  It is possible that the lingering disappointment of having my dreams crushed would have influenced me to judge Prussia negatively.  I think I might be right in this case.  To quote from my notes, “I was hoping for trip hop. I got Girls playing Vampire Weekend covers “  Even if I knew about such an aesthetic being in store for me that night, does it really seem like the sort of thing one might describe as a good idea?  The most personally depressing aspect was that their handling of this chosen aesthetic was notably adroit.  I suppose that calls forth questions of intention vs result.  Is it reasonable for me to fault them in accomplishing what they set out to do if what they set out to do is kind of disgusting? I don’t know.  Outside of this entire conflict, their song “Girl Cops” is fantastic. So yeah, Prussia!

Elephant Gun has a hundred members.  They would fit it really well at Bonaroo.  Especially the part of Bonaroo that isn’t The XX or Kanye West yelling about the sun ruining his light show.  The part with dirty, sunburned college freshman wearing silly headbands.  Despite having consistently energetic playing and occasionally awesome horn arrangements, Elephant Gun often sounds like the result of influences drawn from the uninspiring aspects of Gogol Bordello, jam band studio albums, and the Fleet Foxes side of indie music. They are very enthusiastic, though.

I didn’t hear This Piano Plays Itself or Community College so I’m not going to review their performances. That would be unprofessional.

[hr]

January 28, 2011: The Personal Image @ Gallery 400, UIC Campus, Chicago, IL

The Personal Image was a photography exhibition showcasing the works of University of Illinois at Chicago photography students (contributing artists included: Stephanie Anderson, Jason Culver, Nick Stephens, Alexa Viscius, Jessica Viscius, and Derek Weber).  Stepping away from the usual academic perspective, the group strove to show personal snapshots in a primary, physical way that is altogether rare in our contemporary digital world.  According to the provided literature, “…the snapshot aesthetic has become widely accepted and it has reflected back on how we picture our daily experiences, opening up our practices to a higher degree of self-consciousness…We are examining the notion of the personal image and its current place within the gallery space.”  The gallery space itself was a blank slate in which to hang mostly small scale photographs that portrayed common themes among young adults.  One viewed photographs of parties, the morning aftermath, boyfriends, pets, road trips, and sunny afternoon respites and were reminded of their own personal memories. The only difference being that the photographers have approached these universal themes with an eye and hand for finding balance of light, form, and framing that allows them to find beauty in occasionally surprising sources and settings. In elevating the usual snapshot subject matter to the level of art, they are engaging in a dialogue with perceived notions of the aesthetic.

Or as the artists put it, “You might say these pictures are cliche. We know. Duh.”

[hr]

January 29, 2011: Tapes ‘n Tapes, Oberhofer, The Kickback, and @ Lincoln Hall, Lincoln Park, Chicago, IL

Much like the public reaction to their 2nd and 3rd albums, the process of reviewing a Tapes ‘n Tapes show is mostly lukewarm.  The kind of offer that is most suitably replied to with, “Hmmm. Yeah I suppose that would be entertaining.”  This reviewer, at least, has never experienced anyone holding an impassioned view of the group.  Then again, I’m probably just being a dick.  The show at Lincoln Hall was completely sold out (ie if someone showed up around 11pm and tried to buy a ticket at the door they would have been turned away). So clearly quite a few people felt more than, “Oh yeah, I guess they do sound pretty cool.”

But those people don’t have a platform from which to review such things (much to the chagrin of the reading populace).  In short, Tapes ‘n Tapes do sound pretty cool.  Pretty cool. More on that later.

The Kickback by Alanna Bagladi

The Kickback are from Chicago.  They like the treble knob on their amp and they like the Zombies (aka the current indie conception of 1960s pop music).  Their Myspace page makes a tongue in cheek claim that they sound like “A band trying to use chord changes from Muppet movies in innovative and gratifying ways,” but I suspect that this might actually be true. The Kickback are adept at constructing and executing melodies that I (and others) enjoy.  They may strike one as being somewhat inconsequential. That is mostly true but there’s always a place in the middle for earnest young men singing fun, enjoyable songs.  The Kickback are alright with me.

Oberhoffer were not really my cup of tea.  My cup of tea is called Earl Grey (My favorite brand is Twinning’s but I like others). They were actually a very good opening act for Tapes ‘n Tapes.  I didn’t dislike Oberhoffer and I found myself thoroughly enjoying at least a couple of their songs.  The problem is that their sound is a bit redundant an inessential when bands like Bishop Allen and Peter, Bjorn, and John still exist. Actually Oberhoffer would do really well as the opener for Bishop Allen.  It would be a great case of a band coming out and saying, “Hey, have you ever wondered what the headliner’s b-sides might sound like? Here’s my guess.”  At one point the lead guitarist broke a string and the rest of the band played a cover of the Beach Boy’s, “Be True to Your School.” That was awesome.

Remember what I just said about Oberhoffer only being mostly enjoyable?  Apply the same analysis to Tapes ‘n Tapes’ set.  Some distinct songs were apparent but they largely blended together into an extended riff on the spiky bursts of the last two Pixies album.  This is a super played out assessment to make of a band (by my count it’s probably 5 years past its expiration date) but it is unfortunately one that a listener can’t seem to shake.  Each new song built itself on simple, frenetic drums, and aciculate guitars.  I mean, I really like the song, “Alec Eiffel,” too but I don’t want to hear it for an hour.  When there were very distinctly noticeable changes they came in the form of afro-cuban redux beats similar to those of early Vampire Weekend and Abe Vigoda, or more dance friendly guitar and bass a la Franz Ferdinand (I don’t even mean a la the post punk that Ferdinand was influenced by. I mean the sort of antithetically happy post punk that they made a living off of).  I can’t accuse Tapes ‘n Tapes of trend whoring because those aren’t even trends any more.  It was fun but just came off as far too one dimensional.

Sock Monkey Sound