The Thing About Girls

Girls - Album

   First, you will inevitably have to get past the fact the haven't fucking heard of them, even though you think so (you're thinking of either Women or the Vivian Girls though). It's usually not the worst thing in the world to be blindsided by a new critical darling whose debut just dropped like a V2 rocket into your unsuspecting life. It happened with the Arcade Fire, it seems to happen so regularly these days. But there's something excruciating about it this time and you can't say why. Maybe it's that the big names act as if they've seen these guys coming for months now. Maybe they have, that is their job and all, but you can't help but feel cheated, that despite your best efforts, you're hopelessly out of touch and getting more out of touch each second.
   This will be compounded by the the second obstacle: no one you know likes this album, or really wants to give it a fair shot. In fact, in some cases they don't even want to listen to it. You'll go to the record store and hold a copy of it in your hand and ask the clerk in all earnestness (not something you do often), "Should I buy this?" And you'll watch him struggle to be equivocal while you can tell what he wants to say is no fucking way man. This will influence your initial reaction to hearing the first ten seconds of the first four songs on your laptop speakers as you declare this to be the lamest thing you've heard this year.
   Then comes obstacle number three: both Cokemachineglow and Pitchfork love the record. Each site alone is not to be trusted, Pitchfork for its breathless sense of importance, the Glow for breathless dedication to being contrary. Yet in the rare moments when they agree, they've been safe bets (Meriweather, Veckatimest, Embryonic). Intrigued, you watch their live video on Pitchfork (which was so obviously filmed months before their hit record dropped, is this some fucking conspiracy?) and despite yourself you think, these guys are pretty good.
   You watch their music videos (pre the XXX nonsense) and read the interviews, and although there's enough to roll your eyes at, there's not enough to outright hate about them either. You are inevitably charmed by this secret insomnia fueled obsession with the band you declared unwavering hatred for just 36 hours ago. You will torrent Album and listen to it on your way to work for a week straight. It takes all of those days until you finally drunkenly declare that you love Girls, you pound the table spilling your beer and point your finger right in the face of a close friend and shout "Goddamnit, I want to be zeitgeisty!"
   After this, you'll recoil in shame. You won't listen to Album for weeks. You will again feel cheated, feel that your love for this record was ill begotten and lame, more revealing of your own desperate desire to be relevant than your musical tastes. You come just as close to pounding another bar table at another bar and drunkenly declare yourself a sham, but decide against.
   But then, the song "Summertime" will come on random on a freak warm November day, and you'll be lovestruck again. But for whatever reason, you won't listen to the rest of the album.

   I've been meaning to write something on Girls for a long time now. And only now that enough html has been spilled on the subject do I finally feel like putting my two cents in. For what it's worth, Album contains some of the most likable and affecting songs this year. It also contains just as many charming but forgettable numbers. The record does sustain a mood of sunkissed (sunsoaked, sundrenched, sunbaked, sundried, take your goddamn pick) heartbreak, and yes, has a hazy, dare I say narcotic sound to it. But, about that, hm, ah, meh. Christopher Owen's talent for writing pop songs is strong but not nearly perfect. The band's strengths aren't in the woozy nightime songs, like "God Damned" and "Headache" or nor in the tongue-in-cheek brattiness of "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker". Girls is at their best when letting it all out, on "Lust for Life," "Laura," "Hellhole Ratrace," "Summertime," and "Morning Light."
   When they're on, it's a great listen. And the hit or miss quality of Album is endearing, although a little disheartening. Disheartening because I worry about Owens being pegged as some sort of fucked up rock and roll savant. Not many reviews ever say anything about technique or musical ability, just about this broken soul and his triumph over pain. And although that makes good copy, it ignores a glaring fact that these guys are actually really talented and (for the most part) tasteful musicians. Ignoring their chops would be a shame because Girls absolutely nail a wide range of styles, all without losing coherence as an album. And, I'll admit begrudgingly, that Owen's vocal talent is unmistakable, especially during a year of mostly forgettable new voices (Longstreth and Vile aside).
   It will be interesting to give this another spin next year and see how it holds up. It's unfortunate that instead of just being excited about these guys, I have to dole out my appreciation in measured amounts. But if it's good now, it will be good later, no?

No Respect: Evergreen

Evergreen - S/T

   It could be a stretch to say this album doesn't get any respect. Most people who've listened to it have been impressed, and it'd be a fruitless search to find a bad review of this album. Evergreen wasn't missing appreciation, but wide attention. Call it a case of right place, wrong time. Evergreen was formed in the fruitful Louisville scene of the 90's, a scene that produced both Slint and Will Oldham's many guises. But the album was released in the mid 90's by a small Chicago label during a time when arty post rock was reaching full steam. Also during a time when Chicago noise rock and Wicker Park as the new Seattle weren't punch lines. Although Evergreen played garage rock not too distant from the sound of grimy Chicago at the time (Shellac, Urge Overkill, Jesus Lizard, etc.) and featured Slint's Brit Walford on drums (while the music world was beginning to appreciate Spiderland) Evergreen didn't last past one album. I wasn't around at the time, so I can't begin to speak to how or why. But when I listen to this album in the context of the rest of the 90's midwest underground (a diverse scene and arguably an apex, at least in Chicago) this album doesn't sit well with its peers, even though it bears enough similarities.

   It's also worth mentioning that this album was recorded by James Murphy and Nicolas Vernhes at the Rare Book Room. James Murphy's career need no introduction after the early aughts and Nicholas Vernes has since produced masterpieces with the Silver Jews, Animal Collective, and Deerhunter and his studio is arguably one of the most revered in independent music.

   I mention Murphy because he's arguably why this album was re-released a couple of years ago. Either that or Slint's newfound cultural significance at the time. This is how I heard of Evergreen, through a promotional MP3 of "Plastic Bag," which I should mention, is not a particularly strong track. I knew nothing about this band at the time, just a weird song that creeped along with a bizarre Fall style chorus. It was hard to find more of their stuff on the illegal internet, but I eventually tracked down "New York City" and "Whip Cream Bottle" which were stronger and even stranger. I couldn't place what it was that had me hooked, but once I found out that Walford was the drummer, it was enough track down a physical copy.

   I want to say it was near summer when I finally got the CD. I'd also like think the first time I listened to it the whole way through was driving back to South Bend alone, but this seems implausible. I can say that it's perfect driving music, especially if your driving through a place that's not entirely beautiful. The music is dark, muscular, muddy, and inebriated, some of my favorite qualities in music by far. It's also a bit obtuse and diffused, which is a strange thing to say about a garage band. Some of this is thanks to Murphy and Vernhes production, which here owes a lot to Steve Albini, maybe turned down a little. Every sound lives in physical space, nothing is in the red or right in your face, a risky proposition for such a powerful band. It works, especially when turned up really loud and the band sounds like it's actually in your room, or your car is a small music venue.

   The band has some simple goals here, get drunk, get loud, get weird, rock out. By all accounts they succeed. In the process they also created an album that could be mistaken for the debut of a much greater band. Despite the fuck-all attitude and disinterest in saying anything coherent, Evergreen made a well paced album that has more than enough golden moments, the kind of moments that push a pretty good album into the realm of great albums. It's a stretch to call this a lost great album let alone a forgotten masterpiece. Yet, there are enough signs that this band took it's music seriously, and it's those moments that keep me coming back to this record. One of these moments falls right after the breakdown in "Klark Kent." After a pound your door down beginning, the band falls into tight mid-tempo stomp, guitars wobbling around like they're out of breath and then Sean McLoughlin slurs "We were suckled in the swamplands... Raised on revolution..." This moment of accidental brilliance is like dancing your ass off at a party then bullshitting with your friends until three in the morning, and right as the conversation is winding down, as everyone reaches the end of their raucous laughter, your buddy suddenly says something cryptic and strangely poignant. Half of your friends look at each other like WTF while you wonder drunkenly whether or not you just heard some strange confession or prophecy. It's not elegant or even very poetic, but within the context it's a beautiful moment, a moment where words and music push you back into your messy unconscious where everything is profound and strange.

   From the what-the-fuck-is-that cover art to the plodding synth lines of the instrumental "New York City" Evergreen is perfectly at home confounding any expectation, even to a fault. I suppose they wouldn't have any of this mystique had I been around Kentucky in 1995. But then again, maybe I would have been proud to have such a singular rock act hail from my hometown. Either way, I'm happy to let this album make me believe I'm there: drunk in someones basement deep in the hilly woods of suburban Louisville, listening to the best band no one's ever heard of.

See if it works for you here

An Open Letter:

Dear Yeasayer,

   I think I want to love you. Your sound is so globalized, post-history, whatever up-to-the-second virtue/expectation we modern folk would like to ascribe to young Americans making music. Your cultural appropriation is so well curated, and the sounds you assimilate are scattered so microscopically throughout your music, it's hard to nail you for actually robbing any one thing from any one place. You have a dense sound but also an airy sound. You're ultra modern yet organic and tribal. Your musical ability and tastes are airtight, and you're obviously a hard working unit.
   And I am sitting here, listening to your new single (apparently you at your most accessible) and I am on the verge of a yawn. It's the kind of quiet and muffled yawn I would let out when I listen to people pass the thirty minute mark in a discussion about Madmen. I'm a little ashamed of this desire to yawn, because I didn't actually want to express my boredom. I'm not trying to force my cynicism onto an adored cultural artifact that is much larger than myself or my opinions. But there it is, my body involuntarily trying to let the world know that as far as I'm concerned, it's nap time now.
   I should let you know, this disconnection between mind and body, my body's inability to submit to my own will is something I don't suffer very often. Throughout the years my body has taken the abuse of my superego like a champ, rarely complaining and usually warning me ahead of time when it's reaching a breaking point. I've also suffered some boring people and events in my life all while keeping a glossy eyed appearance of rapt interest. So this desire to yawn is taking me off guard. The only warning I had was the twitch in my eyes (so desperately wanting to roll, me not letting them) right before the little unsatisfied expulsion of air came rushing to my mouth, threatening to totally embarrass me and make the point all too clear, that this music is boring me on a very basic physical level.
   But why, when there are all these beats? They sure are beating alright, beating like some UN charter on the fundamental right of all humanity to hit objects (any object) rhythmically as an expression of self and culture. Your beats are the Esperanto of beats. And yet, there isn't a single moment where any of these rhythms even comes close to compelling any part of my body to move, except for said eyes, mouth and lungs.
   Ah, but listen guys, don't worry, I hear the echoes of genius! There's David Byrne, Brian Eno, IDM, XTC, Afropop, Sampledelia, um, Whitney Houston.

   And hey, this song's got hooks too. Well, I'd say that it has something that reminds me of a hook. Melodic, familiar, delivered with passion, it repeats itself. Sure, gotta be a hook. Forget that it doesn't hook anything, least of all my sustained interest, attention, surprise, or desire to enjoy a piece of music. But all the parts are there, so this must be catchy and accessible. It's got a saxophone and R&B style falsettos. Wasn't I drooling over the Dirty Projectors for similar reasons? Why do I find this boring? Yeasayer, why aren't you delivering when you did everything right? What's wrong with me?
   As I listen to this track for the fifth time straight, trying to free my mind and by extension my ass, I realize I'm totally incapable of being a music critic. I cannot for the life of me find your misstep. I can't articulate why this song is flying right through my skull without stirring so much as a grin. Time for me to pack it in and accept myself as a total fraud, a philistine with a hard heart and a half baked intellect. Good job Yeasayer, I cannot muster any real ire towards you and I wish you well. Don't worry, the New York Times is gonna love it! But if you could excuse me just a second...

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN

Friends' Bands

Some great stuff from young people I've had the pleasure to meet around town

Pool Holograph [Full Download]
http://www.mediafire.com/?d1mnydo2mky

Thin Hymns
http://www.myspace.com/thinhymns

The Clams
http://www.myspace.com/theclamsjam

Check it out

New Favorite Song

Love it.

Some poeple can't get No Respect: One Time Bells

Introducing the No Respect series, a new project dedicated to praising the unappreciated or overlooked. Well see how long this lasts, but I hope this will pull me away from the pointless ranting (raving) that I've become fond of. Today, I start with early aughts post punk revival also-rans and current d-listers, the French Kick's first album, One Time Bells.

French Kicks - One Time Bells

   First, a little history (skip down a couple paragraphs for the real review if this bores you to tears). I found out about this album while searching amazon.com for similar artists to the Strokes while in Newspaper class. Just sorta killing time while I pissed away the first two class periods of the day. On Amazon there was an ad banner for "Hot New York bands" which advertised both the Walkmen's debut album and this little forgotten gem. Interesting that the ad was not much more than the above words and pictures of said albums. Also interesting that this was all it took to convince me that I desperately needed both albums immediately, a distant time of nievete for both the internet and myself. Also, who knew the tiny Startime label had such a marketing budget? The hunt had begun. I listened closely to 30 second clips of all the songs and thought, oh boy, this is like the Strokes but a bit more distant and cold, more rough around the edges, more believably a real underground band. I had to have it.
   A few weeks later I was in Chicago for a youth group midwinter formal. Like prom for frustrated christian kids set in Chicago featuring shopping at Watertower, a night at the Holiday Inn, dinner at fuck if I can remember, and classical music brought to you by the Moody Bible Institute's symphony orchestra. Honestly not the worst evening I've ever spent in Chicago. I snuck off to the poolroom that night to stare at the skyline and dream of urban fantasies. The next day while shopping, I made my way to Borders on Michigan determined to buy this album to soundtrack said fantasies. I asked the clerk for the album and she said she'd hadn't heard of it (YES!! I WIN!) but was able to track it down. $14 dollars later I cradled the digipak in my hands and basked in the glow of a perfect find. I was at this point, surely the coolest kid in my youth group, and not too secretly breaking away from the pack.
   I didn't get to listen to the album until I got home due to a draconian no headphones rule in the church van. At this point, I think I was about to kill someone as I watched the skyline disappear as we made our way back to the permagrey of northwestern Indiana.
   When I finally got home, CD on deck, headphones in and pushed play, I can't say I was blown to pieces. But my ears were perked. Something about the angular warbly guitars, the never totally on key singing, and the incredibly dry production almost put me off. But the songs were good, and most had one or two oh-shit moments. It wasn't much like anything else I'd heard. Eventually those quirks would be what made this album so unlike some of my other favorites at that time. I can tell now that the rough aesthetic is a choice, but it isn't put overtop the music, it worked within the dynamics of the songs. It gives the album a hungry almost amateur quality. The use of space in the production is disjointed and boxy, some sounds sounding stuffed in a corner, some right in your face, usually in the reverse order you expect. It all could just be amateur recording techniques, but it works very well for the album.
   And the songs. Again, they're not gonna change your life (although, at a certain age, they could), but they are solid and original. Built from a little hardcore, some garage rock, some modish power pop, and a little falsetto, the tracks sounded familiar enough to be uncanny, and they just barely seem to work. Honestly, there are moments that grate (the falsetto on Close to Modern) that risk making the rest of the work feel tenuous. But the Kicks keep it up and deliver assuredly. So much so that they pull off some tricks that in the hands of a lesser band would sound like total shit. The vocals for instance are lazy and a little sardonic, the tender spots almost bordering on parody. Add the fact that none of their voices are instantly memorable, I start to wonder how they even pulled this off. And yet, there's something unassuming about the album that stands in stark relief to everything that came out of New York at this time (since for that matter). Funny that the understated quality is what I find so comforting and lasting about this album, when it's not really what I was looking for at the time, and that this trait has arguably been a hindrance for the band. Much like the Walkmen, the songs make me pine for a time that never existed.* That really is an interesting emotion and rare quality, one that has to be hard to pull off.
   Unfortunately, the Kicks' career has been short of illustrious. Every once in a (great) while I'll read an apologetic review of a new French Kicks release, the long and short of which are always "these guys are alright, I feel bad for them though." As much as I love their debut, their proceeding albums have tended toward slick pop and are (from what I've heard) kinda boring. Which is something you could say about One Time Bells, but you'd be missing on the perfect pop gems like "When you heard you" or "1985" and a propulsive if obtuse line up of songs that have amazingly only gotten better with age.

*This I have to credit to Andy X

Reasons why I love Kurt Vile

Let's start with some lyrics:

"I've got a hunchback, big as a humpback whale"

   Bedroom pop that is humble and scuzzy yet expansive, panoramic. Like Robert Pollard, Vile takes ordinary images and explodes them into epic, fantastical proportions. It's simple and a little whimsical, but not the fey whimsy endemic to thin-wristed singer songwriters. It's psychedelic without constantly referring back to the Nuggets fakebook. And yeah, you could compare it to Tom Petty or Springsteen, except minus the Dylan worship or overreaching grandeur. As silly as the above lyric is, it's not just a toss off. It reflects the lumbering and menacing tone of the song, while also being a handy metaphor for being ostracized. Looking at the covers of the Hunchback EP, Constant Hitmaker, or excellent new album Childish Prodigy, you get the sense of booth cool detachment and a hint of loneliness. But not the loneliness of a twee popper always pining away for his femme fetale. More of a precocious loner who always looks cool and a little menacing at your parties, but is actually quite funny with a couple of beers in him.

"I've got a trumpet, I know where to dump it"

   Vile knows when to stick with a nonsensical lyric when it fits so perfectly with the rhythm of the song. He's having fun for sure, and wants you to laugh a little bit. Not unlike Malkmus with his nonsequitors, it adds levity and charm to what is ostensibly, another song about being alone. You think it's all head in the clouds until later in the song he sings:

"There was a kid in the trees among the birds and the bees

 between beehives and bird's nests and I think you know the rest

he wanted to be free with them, but they weren't believing

pecking and stinging him till he wasn't breathing."

  Which is just one of many sly turns and unexpected surprises of his records. I could go on, but I don't want to spoil them. Suffice to say I haven't heard a voice or songwriting style like Vile's in a while. And in the context of the lo-fi resurgence (or what-have-you) he stands apart from the crowd.

   And what about the music? Well, at times he's a slow burner. He's not afraid to kick out a long scuzzy jamout, but he's usually more comfortable singing over bluesy acoustic guitar, accompanied by tape hiss and whatever is lying around. The music takes it's time, laying down a perfect backdrop for Vile to get into his groove. Because of this, his voice and music always sound perfectly in sync.