Ivory Coast – Pure Bathing Culture
I know almost literally nothing about this band. They have a bandcamp site set up, with three songs on it. They appear to be from Portland. And they call to mind the very best of the old Sarah Records catalog. Listening to “Ivory Coast” is like stepping into a warm bath of ringing guitars and gentle melody. It’s a song that aches for summer love and wistful smiles. And it’s easily one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard this year.
King Of Diamonds – Motopony
I want to give up on this song, for its silly card-based metaphor, for its simplistic chord progressions, and effusion of bells. But something here is utterly irresistible, turning a bunch of composite parts that don’t strike me as particularly fruitful into a solid whole worthy of repeated listens. I think it’s the moebius-like underlying rhythm that ties it all together, giving the whole track a slightly unearthly feel.
The song is from their self-titled Motopony, which came out this spring.
Well, my ‘Tim Pawlenty is the best bet to win the Republican nomination’ prediction didn’t turn out so well did it? With that in mind, take the following statement with an enormous grain of salt:
I think Mitt Romney gets the nomination.
Here’s my reasoning: 1) Michele Bachmann is a certified lunatic. That she is being talked about as anything remotely like a serious candidate is just a sign of how miserable our democracy is right now. But even the loony fringe is not going to let Mrs. McCrazy actually try to run against Obama. 2) Rick Perry is experiencing his honeymoon phase, and is already stumbling quite a bit. He may appear to be the more ‘reasonable’ of the crazy candidates, but that is a thin veneer and I don’t think it will hold up. I’m also skeptical of his ability to run for president well, based in part on the fact that he waited so long to even get in the race. That strikes me as the act of someone who wants to win cheaply rather than someone who really understands what it takes. 3) everyone else in the race is a vanity candidate, at best. 4) the more the economy is terrible (and it doesn’t look like improving much in the next 14 months) the more the Republican establishment is going to see 2012 as a genuine opportunity to unseat Obama. Which means getting someone who isn’t going to self-destruct.
#4 is the big one. My premise that they wouldn’t accept Romney stemmed mostly from the belief that the crazy wing of the party was going to exert its dominance in the nominating process. But the more that Obama looks vulnerable the more that the (relatively) moderate side of the party is going to flex its muscles.
There’s a new record from The Strokes. It’s just about what you’d expect, from a modestly-good band attempting to re-create past glory while simultaneously insisting on their potential to become something new. Which is to say: it studiously refuses to sound like Is This It? while revealing that The Strokes are constitutionally incapable of actually sounding all that different from Is This It?
The mixture that results isn’t bad – though it isn’t all that great either. There are a lot of tracks that seem to be trying to do something interesting, while still adopting the form of a classic Strokes track. The problem, of course, is that the form of a classic Strokes track is incredibly simplistic. It provides an exceptionally dully background against which to work. The magic of the band was never any musical sophistication – it was the energy they could squeeze out of basic tropes.
Under Cover Of Darkness – The Strokes
There are some good songs, though. Most notably this one, which is lanky and joyful and unencumbered by the sort of pretension that ruins some other tracks.
Anyways, while we’re on the subject of bands working off the old Strokes blueprint, why not take a listen to Soft Pipes?
Stay Pretty – Soft Pipes
I heard this song at Knox Road, and my first impulse was to wish desperately that the new Strokes record sounded like this. The movement here is relentless, but measured, and with great purpose. Just like it’s supposed to be.
It’s a day for rebirths. The summer is ending, but that means I’m back home and ready for an exciting new year. The blog has been untouched for a couple months – as I’ve been pretty busy – but that means it’s ready for a resuscitation. And what better way to mark that principle then to post a NEW SONG from my favorite band in the world (all member still alive category). That’s right, after 7 years of silence, Carissa’s Wierd are back recording together.
No word yet on whether this is a one-off thing, or whether they’re planning on reuniting for good. But they’ve got a show scheduled in Seattle for late September, and promises of more to come. And they’re dropping a single on September 13. The A-side is called ‘Tucson’ – after their original hometown. And the B-side, called ‘Meredith and Iris,’ is available to hear now.
Carissa’s Wierd – Meredith & Iris by hardlyartrecords
You can hear the development of their style, for sure. This sounds a lot closer to the songs they recorded for the never-finished fourth record – with bigger, more swooping movements, and a bit of electric buzz. It also has a tinge of their post-breakup work. But, most importantly, it is utterly beautiful. And while I will always love the wispy early stuff from them the very most, there is something powerful about the harmonies that Mat Brooke and Jenn Ghetto are capable of these days. It gives me shivers to hear…
In all honesty, my excitement at hearing new music from this band could only really be matched by the re-incarnation of John and George – and the prospect of a new Beatles record.
High – Feeder
One of the least complicated songs you’re ever likely to hear. The message is pretty clear: “I’m going out for a while, so I can get high with my friends.” And there you go. Though I suppose there’s an undercurrent of nostalgia and the deep bonds of friendship.
This song has always struck me as being part of the cottage industry of Bends-knockoffs that sprung up just as Radiohead themselves were radically altering their sound. And while I’m slowly starting to come around on post-Bends Radiohead, I still can’t help but think that songs like this show just how much room still remained in this kind of grandiose soft/loud waves-of-guitar rock.
It was also featured in Can’t Hardly Wait, which was a veritable Who’s Who of 90’s alt-rock bands. I haven’t seen the film in over a decade—and I’m sure it doesn’t hold up all that well (as most John Hughes knock-offs from the 90’s don’t)—but I can still remember the music from it quite clearly.
Awful – Hole
Hole was, of course, Courtney Love’s band. They got a lot of snide comments about only being famous thanks to her marriage with Kurt Cobain. But for those who actually listened to their music, that case was pretty hard to make.
Their first batch of songs veered toward a sort of gritty, acoustic variant on grunge and punk. In fact, the famous Nirvana Unplugged show reminds me quite a bit of Hole’s music, suggesting that Cobain may have picked up as much from her as she ever did from him.
Then, in 1998 they came out with Celebrity Skin, and a whole new round of condemnation began. It had a pop sheen that seemed to make it more of a kind with, say, Matchbox 20 than with Nirvana. But again, the haters were wrong. Sure, the sound had changed. But times had changed, too. Grunge had already faded into the past, and Hole took the opportunity to turn out one of the better guitar-pop records of the late-90’s.
This song in particular seems to be a comment on the shift. It’s both self-critical (ironically describing the commercialization that turns punk rock into radio-friendly pop) and stridently committed to the principle that in spite of those problems, there’s something magical and transformative about such music. She’s totally honest about the brighter, shinier future and the horrors lurking underneath but takes a leap of faith regardless.
Molly – Sponge
My experience with this song could not possibly be replicated today. I saw maybe the final 45 seconds of its video on MTV and then didn’t hear it again for probably a month. But it had made such an impression that I searched through the singles rack the next time we went to the mall and finally found a copy of the single. On tape, no less.
I took it home, stuck it in the tape player, listened through, flipped it over and listened to the b-side (which was terrible), and then listened again. It was another year or two before I even heard another song from the band – but in that time I listened to “Molly” at least 100 times.
The thing that still kills me about this song is the guitar, which sounds like it’s been refracted through a crystal. And there’s the little cascading bit during the chorus, which long-time readers will know is a sure way into my heart.
Good – Better Than Ezra
Back in high school, one of my good friends was in a band. They had a few original songs and lots of covers. But there was one song they played far more than any other. It got to the point where it became a running joke, that they weren’t simply a Better Than Ezra cover band, but instead were simply a “Good” cover band. They’d noodle around with one of their own songs, get fed up, look at each other, shrug, and then break into the opening riff of this song.
It makes sense: this song is almost quintessential mid-90s pop-friendly alternative rock, marking almost the epitome of rock’s post-grunge return to its roots in the 60s. It’s big, fun, and not all that complicated.
Kevin Drum links to a Gallup poll about the moral acceptability of various behaviors or practices. He comments that there are only four things on the list he finds unacceptable. Is he just a relativist? Here’s the list and percentages:
The things I consider morally wrong are: fur, animal testing, the death penalty, and affairs. But that’s a bit of a strange way to think about it, actually. Because ‘morally wrong’ doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a strong interest in regulating them. Affairs are immoral, but millions of people have them and, of course, they shouldn’t be illegal. Animal testing is immoral, in my opinion, but there’s also obviously a strong moral argument FOR it. So even though I think it’s immoral, I think there are certainly cases where it’s justifiable. Fur is pretty indefensible in my mind (at least when it’s purely a matter of fashion), but again is not something that I expect the state to regulate anytime soon. The death penalty is really the only unequivocal ‘no’ on there.
For the yeses, there are plenty of things that I think deserve serious regulation. Which means ‘morally acceptable’ need not correspond all that closely to ‘socially advantageous.’ Things like gambling, porn, cloning, and polygamy all have issues. But they’re not immoral on face. They may be a serious problem in certain contexts but may be a social good in others. And then there’s abortion, where the act in a vacuum might be morally difficult, but having ACCESS to abortion is a clear moral necessity.
The lesson I draw from this is that ‘morality’ is a weird concept. It meshes somewhat with law, concepts of the social good, beliefs about a virtuous life, and squeamishness. Basically, trying to use the information from this poll to draw conclusions about culture and politics is a sketchy proposition at best. How people answer probably reveals more about their conception of the concept ‘morality’ than anything else.
