Cobbler Union’s most liked Instagram photo, with a Peter caption
What is this? These are two Instagram posts for the Atlanta-based shoe company, Cobbler Union. One is currently the most liked photo on their account, and the other also relatively popular for their page.
What did you do? I was tapped to write two Instagram captions for Cobbler Union that emphasized our collaborations with shoeshine extraordinaire Preston Soto of The Elegant Oxford and world-leading shoe care provider, Saphir.
Why did you do it? I was asked by the marketing team to provide captions since I’ve developed a professional relationship with the photographer through our community building initiatives, and they leaned on my expertise with Saphir shoe care products as a product expert. Cobbler Union was hoping to receive reposts and extra marketing support through these collaborative posts, and wanted to put their best foot forward in both presentation and care knowledge.
THE POSTS
These are Instagram posts, not novels, so I’ll keep this entry within scope and run through things quickly. First, the posts!
Cobbler Union’s Robert balmoral oxford in Museum Cognac Calf leather, shined by Preston Soto
Above is the most liked photo in Cobbler Union’s Instagram history. The featured photos were taken by Preston Soto. For men’s shoe enthusiasts, he’s one of the most well-known names in the business. An accomplished shoe restorer and shiner (it’s a tougher skill than most think!), he has a large presence on both YouTube, Instagram, and through his own website. He nearly exclusively uses products from the French shoe care company, Saphir. They are an industry leading company that people depend on to make the highest quality products on the market.
Since I was in personal contact with Soto to make the collaboration happen and act as the company’s authority on shoe care and maintenance, specifically with Saphir products, they reached out to me to provide a caption to promote the images. They wanted the post to make an impact through shouting out our collaborators, promoting Saphir products that they carry, and showing a knowledge and appreciation for the men’s shoe industry.
In microcopy like this, it’s important to make every sentence count. I went with a simple two sentence formula that described the model in detail, promoted our collaborators, and provided information on what to use to achieve the same results.
Full Caption
I also provided a caption for Cobbler Union’s everyday cap-toe boot, the George.
This photo completely changed the way I look at this boot: it’s stunning!
For the George boot, I gave some extra details on what sets it apart by describing some of the understated, unique features such as the texture on the welt and hand-dyed finish on the grain leather. This is a boot that doesn’t initially standout, but when you start to see the smaller details, the craftsmanship really shines through.
The details really are everything.
RESULTS
There’s more to building relationships than single posts on Instagram, but this was a big step for the company to strengthen their bond with two of the most influential voices in shoemaking. Since the post, the company has received more regular attention through Saphir posting about Cobbler Union on their own account (Cobbler Union is one of the few carriers of the hard-to-find shoe care products in the USA). They’ve also continued to collaborate with Soto’s brand, The Elegant Oxford, through cross-promotion and specialized discount codes.
LINKS TO THE POSTS
Take a look at the posts for yourself. See the Robert and the George at their best, and click around the rest of Cobbler Union’s Instagram page if you have a minute. The photography has only gotten better and better!
And if you’re curious about Preston Soto’s work, I’d definitely recommend giving his YouTube page a visit and see the rest of his finished work on his Instagram page. You can see everything Saphir has to offer on their website as well.
What is this? These are product descriptions for a series of leather goods sold by my current employer, Cobbler Union. They are a direct-to-consumer men’s shoe brand based in Atlanta, GA.
What did you do? I wrote the product descriptions for 5 leather goods, using samples and photographs of the items as inspiration.
Why did you do it? Cobbler Union creates beautiful things: shoes, belts, wallets, and more. Since we produce most of products in Europe, the majority of the team is based there. This makes production easier, but means English is a second language to the entirety of the marketing team. My primary role is as a Sales & Community Manager, but I volunteered to help give a stronger voice to our product descriptions when we launch something new. As soon as the first samples of the wallets, passport holders, and keychains arrived in the mail, I got the Slack message asking for my help.
Leather Glasses Cover: I’ve never thought one was necessary, but after holding one I’m dying to throw a pair in there
Process
ResearchContemporaries When given a task like product descriptions, I usually start by researching how contemporaries are handling their writing. The goals are to see what descriptors have a bit of “stickiness” to me (what do the say that stands out beyond basic physical properties?) and to see what I can add to make our own unique.
A brand I respect for their ability to add a personal voice to basics is Sid Mashburn. They’re a menswear brand based in Atlanta that delivers high-quality tailoring and ready-to-wear clothing, but are able to make dressing up seem relevant to an increasingly relaxed and low-key clientele. Think Ralph Lauren presented with a lemonade-sipping southern attitude. They’re able to present $200 blue jeans with a casual coolness that other brands can’t pull off with their authenticity.
Check out their wallet description. There’s a reason why almost every guy on the planet owns a billfold — it’s a no-brainer, and it’s elegant as all get-out — whether you’re carrying bills, baseball cards, or a black card. Ours is handmade with love in Italy, from the most beautiful full-grain leather that’ll develop a great patina over time. (So don’t be afraid to use it.)
I love the examples of what you might have stuffed in there, especially the baseball card which gives the description a story-telling element. The made-in-Italy drop is intended to vouch for their quality without stressing too much on the details. I’ll say that Sid fans are Sid fans and they know that, so they can lean into their branding doing more of the heavy lifting.
Another contemporary I researched was Carmina, probably the best-known shoe company that produces their products in Spain (like Cobbler Union). Their description wasn’t nearly as expressive as Sid Mashburn’s. They possibly don’t have English as a first language writers on their staff, but they also don’t market themselves as strongly on a unique voice.
Compare Sid Mashburn’s product description with Carmina’s below. Small men’s wallet in brown museum. Our billfolds have been meticulously manufactured in Spain using the same quality leathers we use for our shoes. All our wallets include our signature Whiskey calf lining.
They deliver simply the basics: it’s made in Spain, the leathers are the same as the shoes, they use this specific lining. If you love Carmina, that info might be enough, but it lacks the story-telling.
Reference Cobbler Union’s Own Voice Cobbler Union used to carry wallets, but hadn’t made one available for over a year now. Fortunately, I was still able to access the description they had used in the past. Take a look at the previous version below.
With eight slots for credit cards, two internal pouches, a fully-lined cash section with a divider and a removable ID and card holder, this billfold wallet is all about style and function.
Each billfold wallet is expertly handcrafted in soft full-grain calfskin in the storied town of Ubrique, Spain, where artisans have been perfecting their craft since the 16th century.
It’s really similar to Carmina: it’s a wallet, here’s what it has, here’s what it’s made out of. I felt like it lacked a voice and didn’t particularly make me want to pick one up.
In most of Cobbler Union’s copy, they rely on the power of repetitive descriptors to convince their audience. The words elegant and versatile are thrown around without mercy. Although the words aren’t strong as product-sellers, they at least give me an idea of how the company wants to present itself. They want to be known as makers that elevate a man’s daily style and can make simple choices empowering through personal expression and style. So let’s write something that does that without simply saying it’s elegant.
Final Product Description
The final product page using the updated writing I provided
I wanted to talk to the customer more than we have before, and use “you” more than I believe the customer ever had. It’s important to communicate the idea that one’s little choices during the day can carry a sense of empowerment: what shoes will you put on? What wallet will you carry? How will they make you feel? You’re going to carry a wallet with you every day of your life. You should invest in something that makes pocketing it everyday feel good.
The start felt strong by using the checklist mantra people frequently use on their way out the door: phone, keys, wallet. You have three things you cannot leave without, and we’re going to bring you the best of one of those. Cobbler Union doesn’t lean into humor, but I like the playfulness of the telecommunications comment since it gives a human feeling compared the stoniness of Carmina’s (and our own previous) descriptions. I also leaned into the company goal of self-expression having power by explicitly stating how this wallet choice elevates oneself.
Excellent photography, accompanied by a description the storied factory in Ubrique, Spain
Some people are swayed by voice alone, but credentials of how and where the products are made are also important to make the sell. Cobbler Union chose a factory in Ubrique, Spain to makes their leather goods, and it’s a wasted opportunity to give a little information why that’s important. I relied on their history and reputation to convey that point. There’s some story-telling by referencing they began by building leather saddles for Spanish soldiers, and refined their craft to stay relevant during peace time. I also played into the Union aspect of the Cobbler Union name by showing how we collaborate and bring these artisan crafts to a greater audience.
Conclusion
The final draft gives a stronger voice to Cobbler Union than I believe they’ve ever had through their product descriptions. Their mission is to show the power of self-expression and style, and the descriptions accomplish this task without simply saying they’re elegant or carefully made.
Check out the rest of the product descriptions, like the Passport Holder or Key Holder. Maybe you’d even like to pick one up for yourself! I’ll wrap up by saying I get excited every single time I take my own wallet out.
I was gifted an early sample…but I would’ve bought one myself, they’re so beautiful!
What is this? “Open The Door” is a text adventure game where you explore the bottom floor of a hellacious searching for a key that leads to your escape.
Towards the end of 2021, I had a healthy habit of spending a bit of time each night learning to code Python. I’ve jumped in and out of coding for a few years now, and one of the biggest learning humps was always creating and implementing classes. The book I was using had an exercise where it used a text adventure to show how classes could represent different rooms. The assignment at the end of the chapter was the create your own game with a few rooms and a few interactive features. I didn’t open the book again for over a month while I got carried away typing out way more than I originally intended, but finished something I’m actually proud of.
What did you do? I programmed the game using Python in the IDE Visual Studio Code. I used the book Learn Python the Hard Way by Zed Shaw as a basic reference for my coding structure.
I also made “box art” for the game in 30 minutes using Microsoft Paint. (I hope the art builds a little excitement for what’s blocks and blocks of text and gets your imagination flowing. I was inspired by Akira Toriyama’s boxart from Dragon Quest games on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The games are basically text adventures with primitive visuals on screen, but the box art always make me feel like I’m living out a larger medieval Dragon Ball Z epic even though I’m tapping a button on FIGHT with next to no active animation.)
Why did you make it? I wanted to improve my Python coding skills by doing something different from number exercises or building rudimentary POS systems.
I’ve been an admirer of text adventure games for a long time, even though I’ve (sigh) never played one all the way through. The king / queen of the genre is 1977’s Zork. My partner had a grad school assignment in fall 2020 where she was asked to toy around with Zork for a half hour or so. I typed through a portion with her and was surprised at how it stood the test of time. I was laughing and loved the communal feeling of working through the early stages together. You can imagine how the game spread through the MIT campus (the creators were students) and required several players to put their heads together to overcome opaque challenges. Open The Door is me putting myself into that lineage in a way. The program file was always “Zorklike.py” in my directory.
PLAY THE GAME
To play the game, click THIS LINK, then click the green RUN button on the top of your screen. Use the console on the right side of the screen to type and play through. The instructions for how to interact are shown on the first screen, but you can always type “?” to see them again.
Let’s get started!
TIPS FOR A BETTER EXPERIENCE
-When you open the game through the link, click and drag to resize the playing window to cover the majority of your screen. The left side is my code, and you don’t want to have anything spoiled for you! Having the dark screen larger will also prevent awkward to read text wrapping.
-If you forget what the commands are, type “?” to see them again for a refresher.
-Interactive elements are always IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Any object IN CAPITAL LETTERS can be interacted with, either by using the TAKE or TALK TO commands. USE is only for items in your INVENTORY.
-To reorient yourself in a room, use the LOOK command. This will repeat the room introductions, and let you see what’s around you to interact with.
-THINK can be useful for getting hints about next steps in each room.
-I recommend using the GO command in every direction in each room, whether there’s a door or not. Even if you bump against a wall, there’s always something unique that you’ll learn about the rooms and their characters.
Planning Documents I started by drawing out a simple map. The goal was to establish a limited scope, create a checklist of what rooms needed to be designed, and then flesh out the rooms to have their own challenges and interactions between each other.
Basic game map and compass
I wanted at least one character and several interactive elements in each room. I leaned into basic tropes (ghost, wizard, monster), but tried to give them unique personalities through their writing.
After deciding on the rooms, I wrote out a list of verbs the player could use to interact with the world. There needed to be enough interactivity to explore their surroundings, not get stuck, and to keep things interesting, but not so much that they get overwhelmed. There also couldn’t be too much or I’d be typing out dialogue for months!
First list of verbs and main task checklist
I decided on a small navigation checklist, along with the abilities to TAKE, TALK, USE, and check INVENTORY. I later added THINK as a way to get inside the character’s head, both for building sympathy and giving little hints. I’d later add on the “?” command which would display the commands again unless the player forgot what was available to them.
Only a few of the more complicated actions required some off-screen planning. There’s a dialogue tree with the Wizard that I had to at least write out the options before deciding where each would go, and one of the main puzzles is about choosing the correct outfit to woo a ghost. I’ll go ahead and include the document for posterity.
featuring the Ducci tortoise neck tank top
Humor I feel like it’s a tough task to ask for anybody’s time. There’s so much you could be doing at any moment, so why would you spend time reading through this silent, amateur game? I’ll say I spent a lot of effort trying to put a joke in every line. Probably half the development time was thinking of something (I thought) funny every time the character tried to move towards a wall instead of another room through a door. I spent forever trying to make clever responses to “go east”! It’s embarrassing to say I was laughing my ass off at my own jokes at 1am, but it is what it is. One of my favorite “jokes” is that there’s a designed clothing brand called “Ducci” instead of Gucci. It’s sad how much I love that, but again, it is what it is. I hope somebody plays through a few rooms and laughs at least a little.
There’s a possibly apocryphal story that Kafka’s neighbors would hear him laughing hysterically at himself while he wrote his stories. I always heard it was ironic, since what was published were often horrific nightmares of painful existence. I heard this story before actually reading Kafka, but then later on when I started getting through a few of his books I was also dying laughing, so it makes sense he was doing the same. Next time (or during your first time) you read The Trial, just imagine the main character is Homer Simpson and I think you’ll really enjoy yourself.
Story Inspiration Just to give credit where it’s due, the biggest influence was the epic poem Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. This is an English major flex, I know. One of the major way the poem subverts the typical knighthood tale is by leaving most of the “action” in the background. During Gawain’s trip to meet the Green Knight, most of his typical heroics occur in the background. He confronts thieves, fends for himself with sword and shield, and traverses untamed ground for days, but the actions that show his courage and loyalty to kingdom come from within or tough decision making. I’ve frequently thought about that subversion to what’s expected out of a knight’s journey since reading the poem, and always kind of wanted to steal that premise.
In Open The Door, the intro explains that all the explicit violence occurred long before you open the game. The player comes in at the end of the journey, and what’s left is a staggered denouement to what was supposed to be a victory lap for the main character. The challenge is overcoming the banal inconvenience of a locked door after already conquering any fears they might’ve had.
Conclusion In the end, it’s an interactive text box where you solve a few puzzles, have a few laughs, and maybe feel a touch accomplished. I hope somebody else plays through it and tells me they were satisfied to check off one of those boxes.
What is this? “Bodi World” is an interactive adventure game. It’s an overhead environmental puzzle game. It’s a computer game where you poop on the ground as a dog.
In the summer of 2020 I watched a tutorial on how to use C++ to make a rudimentary Pong clone. Putting the code together to make a rectangle move up and down on the screen was exhilarating. Making the rectangle look like my face or a can of Sprite was even more exhilarating. I showed it to my girlfriend and she said we should make a game about our daily walk with our corgi, Bodi, so over the next 6 weeks we did.
My partner helped with conceptual design and painted / scanned all visual aspects of the game (which, to me, are perfect (awwww)).
Why did you make it? I took a introduction to programming course that focused on C++. During a break from formal learning, I wanted to find a way to keep practicing and apply what I’d learned so far. After a dozen of exercises learning how to append numbers to a list and pull out odd numbers, etc., I chose a game as something more involved to push my skills and see what was possible.
Title Screen: Press Space to Start!
Scope was always important when starting the project. It was our first game! Even though I knew it would be simple, I still wanted there to be something to achieve and a few abilities that would allow for some problem solving. When we were planning, I wrote down a list of things I knew we could do (make a player object move, include other static objects, import a separate background image) and a list of things that were desirable to add that might or might not be possible with our skillset (a scrolling background image, a HUD (head-up display, basically a score overlay that tracks progress), music and sound effects, transitions between title screens and gameplay, a dynamically changing dog image depending on direction, and so on).
The initial Master Document. Later pages would add new tasks, divvy them into extra lists, or ditch features completely.
It’s surprisingly how much of the project took place on paper: planning documents, pseudocode, checklists of objects to get implemented, and a little diary of working myself through programming obstacles.
Every day I worked on it was usually set to solving one programming challenge at a time and implementing it. Sometimes, I’d discover that a challenge was beyond my current ability, time we were able to put into the project, or limits of the library. However, most of the time with a little research and practice, we were able to get most features into the game.
Bodi will never eat off your plate, but loves chomping grass, flowers, branches and drinking from dirty puddles.
One element that I was extremely pleased with was scripting the interactive elements to move on their own on cycles or act drastically when interacted with. There’s a flock of ducks that shoot off screen at an accelerating pace when sniffed with an audio clip that becomes quieter as they go further off screen. I still get so excited when they shoot away with the audio’s distancing effect.
I probably spent three days refining the “pee” mechanic. Figuring out how to trail the player was tough enough, but eventually I found a solution with a key-press triggered shape creator.
All about dog pee. “Check is a for loop test that is always checking the piss position and adding to the piss counter.” I hope somebody else thinks it’s funny like I do.
I always loved simple games that leaned on their writing to make the most of simple mechanics. I’m a huge fan of narrative games like the Ace Attorney series and independent games that lean into humor instead of flashy graphics, best represented by the constantly hilarious West of Loathing.
With Bodi World, I wanted to capture the nonchalant, unknowing prankster attitude that the real Bodi exuded. Instructions and the inner monologue texts are matter-of-fact shrugs that the casual chaos he causes aren’t anything special. This is his world. Big dogs hate him, people think he’s cute until he takes a plain-faced crap on the sidewalk, and he’s going to do what he wants because “why not?”.
I feel like an artist when I say that the Dorito mermaid statue is an homage to “The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening” mermaid statue.
My girlfriend (and now fiancée, thank you, thank you), Michelle, and I had a short history before this project of not collaborating well. We tried to write a song together once before making this game and two hours later we were in the kitchen apologizing for who knows what. It’s funny now at least!
That a few months later we put together this full collaborative project is something I’m sincerely proud of. Collaboration on something fun and silly with somebody you love can even be challenging. The difference on this project is that we put time into planning, separating tasks, and giving / receiving feedback readily. Support was easy. The art she made was amazing, and I felt wonderful when she danced along when I played the Bodi World Theme Song for her.
Final Design Document: Screen transitions between a title screen to a game to an ending page was essential to make it feel like a “real game” and also took some of the most playing around to get to work well.
After publishing the game on itch.io the responses from friends was immensely satisfying. I just wanted maybe a couple of friends to take the trouble to download it on their computer, but we had over 50 downloads by the end of the week. And people were actually finishing it!
The most shocking part of the release was that within three days of putting the game online a video was posted of a full Let’s Play from a stranger. I have no idea who the player was, but going through their YouTube channel it looks like they regularly play free independent games off itch.io to record and share their experiences. We were lucky enough that our cover photo got them interested, and it gave friends a way to experience the game if they didn’t or couldn’t play through the game on their own. I linked the video at the top of the page to check out.
Setting the goal that for…let’s say 6 weeks at least…I’ll create a tiny playlist of 7 songs that HIT ME during the week.
It’s week 6 of 6. We made it, everybody. Over 15,000 words in 6 weeks. The first result on DuckDuckGo says that’s like 45 pages in a real book. It feels good knowing that I could have a horrible little 45 page book about every thought I had about 42 songs over a 6 week period.
I’m glad I was able to work on my writing muscles by putting something together for myself outside of work every week. If I did a similar thing I’d work out my schedule to have a little more review time. Even one day of rest and one more pass would help make the thoughts much clearer. The posts would probably be half as long, which would really only be a good thing. To any potential employers, I promise to edit more next time!
It’s going to be wonderful taking a break from gathering 7 different songs worth talking about a week. I do not know why I thought that would be the easiest part. I must overestimate the amount of music I listen to, as well as the amount of worthwhile thoughts.
I love talking about this sixth post like I’m accepting an award for music criticism, lol. I think it’s a good collection of songs, and I was happy to share pieces of myself using music I enjoyed. Objectivism is nearly impossible with music. Our tastes come nearly completely within ourselves, and if your goal is to have an emotional reaction, then the more you can put yourself into a piece of art, the more you’ll get out of it. You can connect with the Beatles, you can connect with your friend’s music, you can connect with the waiting music over the phone you can connect with a song you’ve always hated, you can connect with the songs your friends and lovers like, you can connect with the songs that play at work, you can connect with the music you make yourself in your room. Just be curious and try to listen for yourself in the voices of others.
Rudresh Mahanthappa, an alto-saxophonist based out of New York City, was my most listened to artist of the week. I listened to him for the first time last week after seeing a write-up about a short EP he made on Downbeat that opened with a jazz rendition of the Animal Crossing: New Horizons main theme. I was a little wary, since video game music jazz covers seems like it might be tapping into cringe territory, but didn’t need any extra convincing after the first 10 seconds. It is 100% jazz first, with a musician pedigree that is way, way beyond proving anything to a dope writing on a personal blog like myself. I played through the 4 song EP several times, before jumping over to this album: Bird Calls.
Jazz musicians seem to have an obsession with the vocal, improvisational melodies of bird calls. It’s impossible not to think about Eric Dolphy transcribing the calls of birds in New York City when any aviary language is thrown around in a song title, but it’s also an obvious direction to go when referencing one of Jazz’s most influential artists, Charlie “Bird” Parker. I’ll now note that the album is an outright reference to Parker more than nature’s chirping, and that it was released to coincide with Parker’s 95th birthday (long deceased at the time of release, by the way).
These two songs begin with a duet between Mahanthappa’s saxophone and 20 year old (!) trumpeter, Adam O’Farrill. They flutter around each other, barely taking a breath, taking turns before conversing excitedly in descending arpeggios. The one minute track is a stage-setter before the eight minutes that follow on “Chillin’”. It’s a modern take on Parker’s active voicing that’s instantly melodic while staying adventurous. Mahanthappa is going to become a workplace staple for a while.
I love hearing modern Jazz that I feel is accessible to new listeners to the genre. I’m always making a note of people to recommend that aren’t the typical 60s recommendations like Davis and Coltrane. I also love the feeling of thinking I found something people might not have heard of before and then reading about how they’ve already been voted “best saxophonist of the year” multiple times over since the year 2001. It’s like recommending the Rolling Stones to somebody and acting like you found something special. Oh well. I didn’t know the name until a week ago. Everything is new to a person at some point.
I think I had heard of Turnstile before, but I was motivated to listen to them after reading through the replies on a tweet about how there should be a critical reevaluation of Faith No More (a band I have no relationship to…I think I was just clicking through looking for hot takes) and seeing their name dropped. I jumped over to Spotify to check out their most recent album, GLOW ON, and seconds into the opening track my monkey brain took over and turned the volume up to tinnitus-inducing levels. Monkey brain demanded volume.
Speaking of monkey brain, the Pitchfork review by Ian Cohen for this album has the hilarious and accurate take on their instrumentation, “As with older songs like “Real Thing,” “Gravity,” or “Fazed Out,” Glow On’s best riffs initially sound sourced straight from the lizard brain—the sort of thing a teen might play when they get their first distortion pedal.” There’s an obvious quality to where some of the songs go, but having your anticipation rewarded with just the crushing melody and battering you’re expecting gives a constant dopamine rush. There’s so much immediate payoff to every track.
Shut Up and Dance – WALK THE MOON – TALKING IS HARD (2014)
At some point in college I imagined a writing career making fun of things and building an audience on taking down any deserving targets I could find. I think I wrote just one satirical news report on a Facebook video a collegiate enemy posted before realizing that taking time to commit to writing mean things about people just gives you your own unfunny physical evidence that proves you’re an asshole. That being said: I think this song is very stupid and I’d like to take just a little bit of time to talk about that. I want to say that I can at least acknowledge that not liking somebody else’s art is just as much about me as the person that creates it, and it’s likely more worthwhile to consider what I can find out about my own tastes than trash somebody else.
It’s strange. I feel like there are at least some ingredients of something I should like here. I really don’t mind something being lyrically vapid. For example, I’m an enormous Metro Station fan and I think that Trace Cyrus is one of the worst lyricists of all-time. Mason Musso, his partner song writer, maybe isn’t too much better, but I think they have some monkey-brain instinct that lets them know when to sell-out on the lyrical content for crafting a pop-message that provides instant dance-pop-rock catharsis. My favorite example of this has always been from the Metro Station chorus to “Now That We’re Done”: “Now that we’re done, I’m so sorry / Why did I lie?, I’m so sorry / I know I hurt you / Well, I know I hurt you / Whoa, everybody get down”. I think that chorus is…absolutely hilarious. He’s sorry, he messed up, he did you wrong, oh by the way, “everybody get down”. Now who cares, it’s a song again. Let’s not forget the audience here.
“Shut Up and Dance” is in the same vein of a dance song about dancing, but it takes itself very seriously the entire time. The willingness to dance is its own full poetic metaphor for letting go and allowing for an unself-conscious release. This completely serious take and inflation of the personal moment just makes no connection with me. It’s straight repellent! I wish they would just commit to the silliness of the lyrics and the situation. I’m writing an extremely unfunny hater account on how this song takes itself too seriously. I do see how it’s ironic.
I need to stop already. I’m three paragraphs in and I don’t want to spend too much time hating. I just don’t like the song haha. I think the band is manufactured and that a team of brand builders worked hard to push the group onto the radio and constantly into our lives nearly 8 years after its release. I wouldn’t have even though of it if I didn’t turn the radio on while driving my mom’s car on a visit to Texas. Ok but last thing from the Wiki since I think it’s funny: “The song is based on an experience lead singer Nicholas Petricca had at a Los Angeles nightclub. His girlfriend invited him to dance, inspiring the title.” What a story.
Mary Brennan’s / The Reeling, The Reeling – Brìghde Chaimbeul – The Reeling (2019)
This has got to be one of the most surprising genre crossover “hits” I’ve seen in the last few years. Chaimbeul is a Scottish bagpipe player in her early 20s who leverages her traditional Gaelic culture and influences to create poetic, layered hymns of drones and melody. I remember finding her album on a best-of list from The Quietus, an online, British publication that typically focuses on experimental music. Although most of the artists come from similar schools as guitar-based or electronic / ambient artists, Chaimbeul is hardly out of place among them. The pipes are able to produce multi-layered melodies around their constant drone that fluctuates somberly behind the improvisations.
I say these things, but without researching further, what do I really know about how those pipes work? It sounds like 5 people playing over one another to peek out over ocean waves. It sounds like improvisations over light melodic themes explored until the air has fully seeped from the bag. It sounds like a gaelic take on the canon ambient idiom. But it could easily be none of those things. Maybe it’s all her, performed more-or-less live. Or perhaps they’re from the Gaelic songbook, or referential to it while Chaimbeul lets her own voice take them somewhere new. There’s so much mystery to where the songs come from, but the appeal and ability to connect with them feel obvious.
I could’ve chosen any song off The Reeling to post here. Most of them carry the same air and it’s difficult to pick one over the others. This one feels like a highlight with the yearning mood that turns triumphant as her voice lightly picks up, twittering Gaelic and weaving between the pipe melodies. As a final note: this is music that I love but can hardly imagine a time where I would play it for others and not have them say “…what the hell are you playing?”.
LJC is a Chinese producer who released this split single backed with a track by Dirty K last week. I found this one by scrolling through the most recent releases tab on Bandcamp and clicking on anything that looked promising. I’ve been very happy with the results of clicking on something with no particular personalized algorithm trying to give me more of what I’ve already listened to before.
Listening to this is so funny to me, I can fully imagine the alternate universe where I went 100% into Japanese club music and never touched an American independent rock record in my life. I wear fingerless gloves, I spend 3 years with the JET program, come home and sell GameStop stocks for cash. I’ll stop being a bully, sorry. I only say it through love. American club music I’ve listened to, barring disco, always felt wary of becoming too saturated in hooks and cornball melodies. Instead, we got stoic house beats and minimalist techno. Across either ocean you could find some of the world’s cornball kings bringing the absolutely most brain buzzing hooks during the Eurobeat peak or completely unforgiving, sugary energy in Japanese Club music. Looking back, it feels like we were fed scraps, and all that trickled through in a lasting way seems to be Eiffel 65 and Dance Dance Revolution.
LJC and Dirty K have a mission to revive the Japanese club scene, and this is just a single release on the path to realize that goal. Honestly, the bandcamp description is so good that it’s hard to write more without plagiarizing the whole thing. The gist is that they’re aware that Japan had a unique sound brought up to that specific place because of the conditions of excess and club culture that hit after quick economic growth during the technology boom based out of the country. This fervent period also marks that last refuge from a homogenous culture proliferated worldwide through the internet. Japan had something special going and they decided to go with what everybody else had going instead. LJC and Dirty K are looking to bring back that sound and contribute to the growth that was cut short. Is it an ugly American thing to say it makes me think of DDR still? 😦
Whatever It Takes (Degrassi: The Next Generation Theme) – Lisa Dalbello (2001)
Michelle and I have been rewatching a little Degrassi, hahaha. I’m going to do everything I can not to make this a full Degrassi essay. I have so much to say, and none of it would sound good in a quick one-go writing session like what I use to write these lists. I also don’t want to start on just talking about Degrassi because I would write myself into exhaustion and not be able to do anything else tonight. So. Let me just talk about one or two things in this song and I’ll be done. Ok?
I always feel incredibly touched by this song, and it never stops being shocking that it gets me so much. It’s no doubt tied to the feelings I have watching the children on the show face insane challenges that truly run the entire gamut of any nightmare a teen might have about high school life, but there’s no shame in having a series make a song better for you. I hate, truly hate, that the lyrics are what get a reaction out of me. When I hear that kid’s choir say “If I hold out, I know I can make it through”, I think that’s like that saddest thing a middle / high schooler can have to feel and I want to tear up. I think about Sean having to live with his older brother and feeling shame when having friends over, Marco getting assaulted in a park for presenting as gay before he even came out to his friends, Paige’s sexual assault barely into high school…it’s all so awful! They have so much adversity in every year of their lives! They just want to have a few friends and finish school and there’s so much in the world out to get them! “If I hold out”, hopefully, dear lord, hopefully things will get better for me. How are they going to make a group of children sing that before a show where somebody is paralyzed by a school shooter?
Degrassi always seemed incredibly childlike and innocent when you see the cast, branding, cast, but then just wildly the opposite of any of that anytime you watch an episode. Maybe that’s the hook of the whole series. You can be childlike and innocent, and things can happen to you that you aren’t ready for. People can die, strangers can hurt you, friends can leave or change. You just do your best, hold on, and things will move forward. Oh my god, thinking about it makes me like the show more.
The Best Ever Boom Box Cassette Tape From Durham – Fishboy – Single (2022)
Fishboy has gotten increasingly self-referential with every release (but I suppose it’s never been against singer-songwriter / folk etiquette to speak explicitly about oneself). With this single, Fishboy finally addresses all the questions and comments that have been directed to him over a career of touring about the iconic track “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton” from The Mountain Goats.
As an artist who has named albums after the town (Little D), staged album finales in recognizable Denton locales (“Final Frontman” from Art Guards), and placed the town square on the center of his latest full-length (Waitsgiving), Fishboy has made himself the quintessential Denton artist. Since he has also touched on the same 4-track, lofi songwriter genre in past releases as The Mountain Goats, it’s not difficult to see how there could be plenty of crossover fans wondering if the bard of Denton is aware of or enjoys the most well-known reference to his hometown in independent music history.
Fishboy has specialized in turning the frustrating, banal, or occasionally unfair parts of life-long artistry into fuel for some of his absolute best work lately. Art Guards nearly brought me to tears during its pizza parlor food fight finale when the artist stays committed to creating for himself, Waitsgiving’s themes of eternally waiting for the perfect idea with the expectation of freedom and perfection despite all the powers fighting to thwart you move me deeply, and the irritation of trying to become something greater to represent your hometown than a person who wrote a song about it who isn’t even from there hits the same chord with me (oversimplifications of the these songs and messages…I only note that in case Fishboy sees this for any reason). In the end, the eventual resolution to the boom box cassette from Durham feels right: despite the slight annoyance, there’s still so much fortune in having the chance to perform and connect with people over any kind of art. It’s better to be part of the conversation than to be bothered you’re not saying something the same way as somebody else.
A good piece of Peter / Fishboy / Mountain Goats trivia is that I first heard the song “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton” over the loudspeaker at Rubber Gloves Recording Studio in Denton, Texas while waiting for Fishboy to perform. I really don’t know who wins in that situation. Most likely it’s me.
Setting the goal that for…let’s say 6 weeks at least…I’ll create a tiny playlist of 7 songs that HIT ME during the week.
It is a real pleasure to be on week 5 of 6. I get so happy when I listen to anything interesting and I can fill out the 7 songs for the week. I only have one writing deadline a week and it can drive me crazy! If I wrote one sentence for each song it would be fine. I think if I was a reader I would find that even more preferable even. I love something short.
Every week has been more and more nostalgic. I don’t know how to be a music fan at 30 and not have at least half your listening come from nostalgia. It’s important to stay open to new sounds. I’m more open to older music all the time, and I can also feel myself maybe being a little more closed off to newer songs. Staying in touch with new music is a big momentum game. If you take a year off, yeesh, you have so much catching up to do. And what’s even the goal? If you want something to bring up at parties you just have to follow what’s…on Spotify playlists I guess? I’m not sure any review sites have any swing anymore. Ok I’m bored of thinking of this already. Songs!
Music for a Summer Evening Suite – George Crumb – Black Angels (1970)
I listened to Crumb for the first time this week after reading that he had passed away at the age of 92. Crumb was an influential classical composer who was regularly trying to break away from and rethink traditional approaches to instrumentation and composition. I’m sorry for that sentence. I’m basically plagiarizing the wiki over here.
I don’t know squat about classical music. I have a Chopin record somewhere I think and I took a music appreciation course at a time when I was too dense to even reliably tell the difference between an oboe and clarinet (the oboe is the pretty, warm sounding one; the clarinet is the Squidward one). I do think someday I’ll work my way over there and really try to educate myself. For a genre so dusty and layered in bourgeois sentiment, I’ve heard so many pieces already that also suggest it has way less structural limits than anything resembling popular music. Listen to anything from Crumb and it’s easy to get that feeling very, very quickly. At one point in Crumb’s life he described music as “a system of proportions in the service of spiritual impulse”. Through his lens, the Vietnam War isn’t a tragedy of senseless human loss, but a battle of the fallen impulses of humanity represented between God and Devil for the power of meaning in all lives. The pieces I listened to all came from his anti-war LP Black Angles, an album David Bowie said “scared the bejabbers” out of him and sounded like “the devil’s own work”. I remember listening to albums in high school and truly being scared to revisit them. How much of a chicken shit coward one has to be to be scared to revisit a piece of music? I felt that way pretty wholeheartedly over the last decade, but listening to this album, the feeling of fear and dread to play a song back has come back to me.
Lung – Dinosaur Jr. – You’re Living All Over Me (1987)
Dinosaur Jr. is a band that I’ve had a pretty casual relationship with since 2008. This album in particular is one that I’ve revisited for at least one listen probably once a year since then, and it’s the one you’re most likely to see as their greatest work. Even from the first squall of guitar on track 1, it feels like it’s destined to always have a place on “100 Greatest Indie Rock Albums of All-Time” lists. Getting older, I’ve finally realized that these lists are all from boomers trying to make sure people remember that the music they loved wasn’t just good, that it’s actually very important and until the Smithsonian agrees, they need to make sure it makes a little appearance on internet lists ad nauseum. It’s ok. It’s a good album, they can keep putting it on lists. All fine by me.
Do high schoolers getting into music still seek out lists like this? I was a “Greatest _____ of All-Time” fiend in high school. It felt like essential learning to me and I treated each list as scripture. Part of me, the darkest parts, honestly have those thoughts that are like “nobody cares about the classics anymore!”. I guess I’m just an idiot in that way. At least I try not to say that kind of stuff out loud.
I feel like I connect to the group more every time I revisit. I appreciate the less melodic, noisier aspects more and more and have finally converted to total J Mascis (guitar) worship. The first 90 seconds of The Lung goes through maybe 5 different guitar riffs and I feel like I’m listening to a compilation of every best indie rock intro the genre has to offer in one go. I talk about the variety of sound and rushing between melody so much (and feel it so sincerely!), but I’ve just realized that the song literally repeats two lines over and over for the whole song and that’s it. I’ve never been much of a lyrics person, but yeesh. That’s credit at least to the band for making the most out of the instrumentation.
Maybe this is the year of Latin music for me. I’m a super casual listener to anything south of the states, mainly sticking with Brazilian bossa nova and MPB artists, but it’s time to truly be samba-pilled and I’ve been starting with Eddie Palmieri.
Reading descriptions of his ensemble, it’s funny to read that his main innovation was having two trombonists instead of…trumpets? I mean he still has one trumpet too, but bringing in two trombones as your rhythmic core seems too daring for even the most adventurous modern songwriters. As a stranger to the genre (and with a horrible ear for instrumentation) I’m just blown allow by the endless layers of polyrhythms weaving their way between each other in every song. Congas, bongos, and claves storm around each other in intense raptures around his pleading singing. It’s acoustic near-psychedelia when you hear it.
Apparently the album is a strongly political piece. Palmieri is a New York City born Puerto Rican producing work during the especially politically fervent 60s – 70s and the lyrics are supposed to reflect the zeitgeist of the time. You know, maybe it’s not quite the zeitgeist; maybe it’s more regionally or personally focused politics. I barely speak a word of Spanish, so the meanings are all lost on me and I was a lazy writer who didn’t translate any songs before writing this. I’m sorry. I’ll plan better next time and do my research. I still think there’s fire and energy to each track on the album and let’s hope this is a gateway to more similar sounds.
Just Let Me Cry – Lesley Gore – I’ll Cry If I Want To (1963)
Lesley Gore released I’ll Cry If I Want To when she was 17 years old in 1963. The album is Quincy Jones produced pop bliss, and absolutely obsessed with being a heartbroken highschool girl who never stops crying. It kicks off with her most famous song, It’s My Party, where she describes her boyfriend, Johnny, leaving her for another girl, Judy. From there, we enter what I can only assume to be an undefeated record streak of songs with the word “cry” in the title: Cry Me A River, Cry, Just Let Me Cry, Cry And You Cry Alone, No More Tears (can I count that still?), and Judy’s Turn To Cry. Unbelievable. I honestly love it. It’s so absurd, so funny, a little in-your-face in a way which reads as undeniably punk to me.
I don’t know how deep I can really get into it or suitably explain, but there’s something to being so outwardly emotional and eager to shed a tear that comes across so rebellious. Maybe it’s because of the unashamed presentation of total vulnerability. It’s so not worried about seeming hip and angry, that it contrasts and outflanks traditional punk machismo and angst. This album instantly came to mind while watching the 1990 John Waters movie Cry-Baby. The movie is centered around two star-crossed lovers from two different social groups in a 50s highschool: the preppy, traditional squares and the irreverent, leather-jacket-wearing rebels the drapes. The drapes are led by Johnny Depp as the intensely hot stud Cry-Baby. His go-to cool guy flourish is to stare into the camera and let a single, thick as glue teardrop roll down his cheek. He is as punk as you get. He goes to prison and unflinchingly receives a teardrop stick-and-poke tattoo under his left eye. It is very badass.
I’m just laying out the facts here. Not a lot of analysis to give, sorry, it’s 1am. I just think John Waters gets it and made a movie about the feeling I’m trying to get at with mopey 60s pop. These guys don’t give a shit. They will cry all over you and you will feel like a square for not being hip with doing the same. Lesley Gore presents as the quintessential square, but turned out to be an iconic lesbian composer and songwriter whose most famous songs are about crying after a party. Think about it. Just think about it!
Mapped Out – Meet Me @ The Altar – Model Citizen (2021)
Have you ever heard anybody label an album easycore? Lol. I guess it’s like…pop-punk hardcore? I don’t know. I just mention it since this band is attached to the label even though it seems pretty straight pop-punk. Even if the title is meaningless, I love the sound of it and I’m always liking this band more and more every time I put them on.
It’s always such a relief to love a pop-punk band again after taking a few months off. It’s as if I get the feeling “ahhh, I still have that little pop-punk buggy in me :-)”, like I really haven’t changed much at all. All those hours selling luxury men’s shoes cannot and will not break me! And Meet Me @ The Altar is a power trio, truly the greatest combo one can be in.
The guitar is unreal on the whole EP. Téa Campbell literally never stops riffing, leading, chopping and licking. The energy she gives every song has so much twitchy crunch, it’s like endless candy. Ada Juarez matches and emphasizes every note on the drums and you just get beat down by the pummeling on the bass drum. Writing this paragraph is killing me in the cliches, but I can’t stop. I feel obligated to say Edith Johnson on vocals is a killer on her own too, but it should be a given based on all the other gushing. All these artists are like 19 – 21 too!
I just picked one song off the EP, but it could’ve been any of them. I’d just listen to it all, it’s less than 20 minutes and it flies by.
I Loves You, Porgy – Miles Davis – Porgy & Bess (1959)
Porgy & Bess was an album I first listened to when trying to branch out into other works from Miles Davis beyond Kind of Blue. It’s one you’ll see many people recommend, and came from the same period of Davis’s life (Kind of Blue, what many consider his most essential work, would be recorded and released in 1959 as well). I remember listening to it the first time and really not getting it. The songs were so slow, occasionally dissonant, grooveless and were all layered with an orchestral backing that I was not interested in hearing when the desire to further explore jazz came to mind. There seemed to be a level of difficulty in the compositions that didn’t ever fit the mood I was trying to explore at the time.
The strangeness of the experience would occasionally bring me back to it though, and I always find there’s so much to explore within the album. It is definitely unique in Davis’s career, and it finally makes more sense as I read more. I had no idea that Porgy & Bess was an opera / book / play…but it is. It’s from 1935 and was notable as featuring an all-black chorus, which was critically received rather poorly at the time. It feels like Miles came back to the piece with a vengeance to restore the material to something even greater, maybe what it originally deserved. I’m not sure if it elevated the opera into something greater or not over time, but there’s a story inherent in every song. Hearing Davis improvise at his ballad best over humming strings and reeds along the cryptic but all-telling title “I Loves You, Porgy”, you feel the heartbreak that was meant for the stage. There’s so much to see in the hour it takes to listen through the entire album, and I feel like I’ll be revisiting over and over and over again to hear and feel more.
Prester John – Animal Collective – Time Skiffs (2022)
At least once a year, I’m in a social situation with my friend Alo and we momentarily split off from the main discussion and get into a riff about how important Animal Collective was to us in the back half of the 2000s and what it felt like to view them as indie music giants. It is one of my favorite conversations in the world to have.
I’ll admit to falling a bit off Animal Collective over the last few years. I cooled on Panda Bear after Tomboy, never really listened to Avey Tare’s solo albums (nothing more than his 2007 collaboration with then-wife Kría Brekkan, which they decided to release completely in reverse after recording a completely normal folk album, which is absolutely LMAO to me to think about now), and more of less skipped the last two main releases (Tangerine Reef (2018) and Painting With (2016)). I came back to this one pretty by chance, clicking around Spotify, which only recommends artists you’ve listened to at least 200 times in the past. And it’s good!I can’t really say that it’s better than previous releases. I don’t even know why I took a break from the band. I guess I was ready for different things for a bit.
But for the first time I feel like I’m reconnecting to the same sounds and textures they’ve been making for over a decade now. When it’s not completely cathartic, there’s always an exploratory sense to every song they make. I feel like I’m opening my eyes to a bright light over and over again through the chord changes, or turning a new corner over and over again in a deep cave. It’s funny listening to it now and being a bit older (30 vs 20 lol). I used to feel like the music was extraordinarily youthful. Like the exploration came from experiencing something for the first time and putting that sensation of birth into every sound. Now I listen to the same textures after a long work day and it’s different. The exploration is inward and comforting and they face another day and try to discover and create the mystical meaning of the everyday.
Obviously it’s massive projecting on my part, but that’s what keeps following an artist over a long period of time worthwhile. I can basically only say after a tough day at work, I listened to Prester John in my car and found the echoing reverberations and quick chord resolutions massively comforting and sentimental.
Setting the goal that for…let’s say 6 weeks at least…I’ll create a tiny playlist of 7 songs that HIT ME during the week.
It’s week 4 of 6 for the Seven Song series. As I was telling my girlfriend about the series out loud for the first time, I was struck for the first time that doing a seven song series for six weeks doesn’t make nearly as much sense as doing it for seven weeks. Big sighs over here. Of course I could just do another week of seven songs, edit every post before to say it was meant for seven weeks instead of six, add some continuity, but it’s likely that I do not do that. A goal in doing a limited series was bringing in a simple structure that would help eliminate over thinking and holding up doing the real act of writing and posting something. Six weeks feels like forever when it’s Tuesday again, the post needs to go up Thursday, and I haven’t made note of any songs I could possibly want to write about. If you see a week 7 go up, it’ll only be because I didn’t meet my own deadline to come up with something else beforehand.
The theme of today’s writing is brevity. I’m hoping to speed this one along more than the previous weeks, for both myself as the writer and anybody else who is taking a look as a reader. I’m hoping I can finish the writing for each song in a single listen. You know, I’ve had more fun than expected transitioning these blogs from being knowing recommendations for music fans to personal feelings and thoughts throughout the week contextualized through a few songs I listened to. It feels more honest. Less horrible. I feel like less of a fraud and more like myself. All good things.
When I turned 16, I was blessed with extreme leniency from my parents. As long as I wasn’t getting in trouble, I could stay out late, drive the car around, spend time with friends and my girlfriend, listen and watch more or less whatever. Perhaps the greatest boon was the ability to take the car 45 minutes out of town as a highschooler on weeknights to see local bands with whoever else had less controlling parents. I’ll gladly go into cliche to say that those experiences created some of my most treasured life moments as a music fan and were crucial to my ideas of independent art and DIY culture.
I lived in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas at the time, which is a little more than a half hour south of the small college town, Denton. What’s apparent now, is that at the time Denton seemed to be going through an especially fervent time for indie pop music. Fishboy, Tha Bracelets, Eat Avery’s Bones, Cavedweller, The Record Hop, etc. etc. etc., but the band that seemed the most worthy of blowing up beyond the north Texan metroplex was the Voot Cha Index. They had all the calling cards of late 2000s indie, with nasally anthemic choruses, a love of eclectic instrumentation (xylophones and percussive flourishes galore), and a clear worship of the Elephant 6 sound, but they executed it with so much color and youthful energy I couldn’t believe they weren’t already touring the country with the Olivia Tremor Control.
I only caught two shows from the band, and the second was listed as their farewell. The members of the band were parting ways as they graduated high school and entered college (I would later find the singer’s new band, Talking Tiger Mountain, on MySpace music with the location listed as “Baltimore”). Fortunately, I picked up their only physical release, which was a 7” single for The Talking House backed with Cradle. This was one of the first couple 7” records I owned. I listened it into the ground, but my favorite song from them was always Everyday, an mp3 I must’ve downloaded off their MySpace when it was shortly available. You can search all day online, and I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to find this song. Sometimes I feel like my lone mp3, ripped from my ancient ipod to computer, is the last existing recording of the song. It often feels like a treasured possession. If I didn’t have the song, I’m not sure anybody would. It would disappear off the earth and never hit ears (my ears) again, and the song is too special, too good to have that ending.
So, taking on the duty of official Denton pop music archivist, it’s an honor to upload this song to Soundcloud and share it with everybody (anybody). Give it a listen, and think that you’re one of a handful to ever have the pleasure of hearing one of my favorite songs of all time.
This continues a theme of listening to whatever the Sunday Pitchfork retrospective album review is. Little Brother is a rap group I remember hearing about before. They’re one of those groups that never seem to get much intense coverage, but are constantly referenced by fans as essentials (similar to MF Doom, Aesop Rock, Busdriver). The Pitchfork review makes sense of this by noting that they got their start through track proliferation on forums and file-sharing websites before they received a label release.
I feel an instant connection with any group that comes out of an unexpected part of the map (anywhere but New York / California), and I had my attention piqued hearing they were out of Durham, North Carolina, just a few hours north of myself in Atlanta. This track, For You, came out of a mic check on a recently purchased set of microphones. Rappers Big Pooh and Phonte pulled out what verses they had already had and laid down a quick sample to check out the new microphone qualities, and at the end of the test they had fully recorded the third song on their breakout full-length. Maybe it’s apocryphal, and maybe there’s much more polish that went into that original recording, but the feeling of spontaneity and willingness to explore and play in the studio comes through with every track in the hour-long release.
The group seems like the logical step after A Tribe Called Quest, down to the one-to-one two rappers and a producer line-up and love for a similar downbeat texture. As a huge fake-rap fan, really looking forward to giving this several more listens.
Isn’t She Lovely – Stevie Wonder – Songs In The Key Of Life (1975)
I chose this song because it comes on while I’m at work all the time, and I think the song is horrible.
I want to say that the radio station that we play at work (when I’m not playing something myself) is called Radio Suisse, and they play a non-offensive line-up of Jazz standards and covers. The playlist often repeats itself throughout the week, and surprisingly they’ll often play 2-3 different takes of the same song for periods at a time. Isn’t She Lovely has at least 3 versions that frequently show up, and the worst one is an acoustic guitar based cover with no vocals. The vocal performed on an acoustic guitar is so soulless, tinny, and exceptionally lame.
It’s sad to admit that just about an hour ago I found out that it was a Stevie Wonder song from one of his most celebrated albums, Songs In The Key Of Life. So, I’m sorry. I know Stevie is a legend and this album is supposed to be an all-time Motown classic that should be essential listening to anybody who cares about popular American Music, but I still think this song is so hoaky and miserable. I just cannot imagine somebody wanting to throw this song on again, or be thinking about it at work all day and dying to get the chance to throw it on again back at home. It feels like it was made for Hallmark Christmas movies to signify the couple who has been on the verge of divorce all movie have finally decided to bury the hatchet and make it work.
So I do not like this song, but I love that I’ve had to pleasure to be tortured by it. I promise to listen to Songs In The Key Of Life and see if I can find a context to love it sometime in the future.
Writing about Voot Cha Index I was reminded of another short-lived local band that wanted to hear a song from. Early Beat were a rock band from Norman, Oklahoma that seemed especially active for maybe a two-year period while I attended the University of Oklahoma (maybe 2010 – 2012). I saw the band several times, either opening for other bands or as the main attraction at a smaller venue.
I can admit to never having a particular obsession with the group. A friend dated the bass player at one point. He had a large gap between his two front teeth and seemed synonymous with PBR and overalls anytime he showed up, off or on-stage. That was typically the aspect of the group that stood out most to me. They didn’t record too often, but they did have one song I really liked and frequently threw on mixes for others. It had a looping vocal melody sampled throughout the intro and the chorus and took on much more sparse instrumentation than their remaining garage rock laden tracks.
The gag here is that, unlike Voot Cha Index’s Everyday, I didn’t hold on to this song and I literally cannot find it anywhere. Am I cheating by making one of my seven songs a song that can’t be found anywhere and that I haven’t heard in ten years? I don’t know. Well actually, I get to make the rules since it’s my blog and I’m not cheating. I’m making a point that music is ephemeral and at some point the songs disappear. I would rely on fans more than the artists themselves to hold onto these songs. I hope it’s still on my ipod somewhere, and maybe I’ll take the time to search it out next time I dust it off and plug it back in looking for specific memories.
So there you go: one of the songs of the week is one that we’ll never get to hear again. Apologies. I’ll at least include a link to the album they did keep live on their bandcamp. UPDATE: It’s on their Spotify hahaha. Goddamn, all that eulogizing for nothing. Yeah, I love this song. The soft muted tone on anything, all the pieces flowing together and mappable, just off center enough to be endlessly interesting. Everybody is in a very anti-Spotify mood right now, you have to have mercy on my inclination to look there last. Music LIVES!
Freaky Farley (He’s Coming For You) – Moe’s Haven – Single (2006-ish)
I’ve been writing about Matt Farley’s creative projects on nearly all of my internet profiles this year: I’ve talked about his book on Goodreads, his movies on Letterboxd, and now his music on peteraoneal.wordpress.com. He’s an unstoppable creative force that has made at least one movie a year since the 2000s, over 23,000 songs, had a yearly festival for his work in his homebase in New Hampshire, and recently wrote and self-published a book on his personal creative process. It feels nearly impossible to bring up Farley without laying out these stats. In fact, you can always tell when a piece was written about him by the amount of songs the author attributes to him. Sometimes it’s 10,000, sometimes it’s “nearing 20,000”, and the current number to mention is “over 23,000”.
This song plays over the credits of his 2007 B-movie pastiche / tribute Freaky Farley. It’s the third movie I’ve seen of his, along with Local Legends and Don’t Let The Riverbeast Get You, and the earliest of the trio. The films are undeniably independent and low-budget, more so than anything you would’ve possibly seen unless a group of your friends found the time to put together an hour long feature yourselves (and even then, it’s a maybe). However, watching the movie I was thinking about how I’m enjoying it just as much, and often much more, as any other “real movie” I’ve seen in my life. You start to question what makes something real art, what makes some people real professionals, and what boundaries exist to stop more of these types of creations from being seen or experienced.
Weatherday. This is an album I’ve seen around several times since it was released, but finally gave the album a couple full listens this week. I’m pretty in love! It’s a lo-fi noisy mess, and I read that it was recorded from a hands-free mic, like the one a work-from-home customer service agent would use to take calls from their bed. The recording gives the high-register guitar melodies extra bite while the bass rumbles away in a murky shoegaze wave.
So much of the songs feels so close to being typical: the guitar – bass – drum setup, the leaning into emo songwriting tropes, even the lofi-ness isn’t especially novel, but then I always feel like there are enough surprises. There are frequent vocal samples, the guitar melodies create an almost new wave – emo combination, and the album is surprisingly cohesive to the end when there’s a reprise of the highlight guitar solo off the beginning track with extra intensity.
On my second listen I took a stab at where the artist must be based out of and I went with the Pacific Northwest. It felt very cloudy, cold and chaotic. There were what felt like nods to whatever inspired the PNW juggernaut The Microphones / Mount Eerie, and they also felt reminiscent of one of my old favorites Kickball (a band who almost always got couples with the same kind of descriptors as Weatherday, “off-kilter” and “angular”). Doing some research later that day I found out they were actually from Sweden. Wow, who would’ve guessed? Thank god for file-sharing and being able to listen to anything from anywhere.
Cloaked – Rolo Tomassi – Where Myth Becomes Memory (2021)
Every once in a while I like to listen to a metal band and imagine my life as a metal guy. Look at me, sitting over there, vibing off to double kick drums and scratchy vocals with the gain ripped all the way up. I like smiling, wearing pastels, and listening to heavy music. It makes me feel very “I contain multitudes”.
Rolo Tomassi is a British band from Sheffield that seems to get mathcore and progressive metal thrown around with them. The labels don’t seem particularly useful, but I suppose they let you know that the band is slightly more technical than just pure power. From what I’ve listened to from their album coming out later this month, they do have a dreamy streak about them like the emotion-raining post-rock navel-gazers of the late 2000s. I wanted to make this year more focused on heavier music and metal, which is a genre I kind of touched on very occasionally but never fully dove in on. Metal has never seemed to fit the environment or mood around me. I work in a shoe store, I have a loving girlfriend, the cats are sleeping in the next room, when am I supposed to throw on the heavy music? Before a tennis match?
I’ll find a time, I’m sure. Anyway, I’ll make this release one of the earlier full-length listens even though it leans into a post-rock emotional expression more than brute force. I think that’ll be a good transition sound to work me on without scaring my little sensitive self away 🙂
Setting the goal that for…let’s say 6 weeks at least…I’ll create a tiny playlist of 7 songs that HIT ME during the week.
Week three of six of the Seven Song Series. Everybody has been speculating what’s going to make an appearance this week! Superfans have been incessantly refreshing my last.fm to see what’s been getting repeat listens.
If you’re one of those fans, you would’ve seen that I didn’t listen to anything new this week. I still listened to plenty of music, but almost exclusively revisiting artists and songs I’ve been listening to for a decade at this point. I can still think of seven songs that stood out again, but this entry will be even more about the reaction to listening to something again instead of listening to something for the first time and connecting with it.
Music is a unique media in that repeat visits seem to be mandatory to prove authentic fandom. Maybe that’s an internalized assumption that isn’t as universal as I think, so let me know if I’m wrong. I feel like one can watch a movie once and then you’re free to give an opinion on where it ranks among your world of cinema, or reading through a book once is fine and then you can leave it on the shelf forever as a canonized piece of your most loved literature. I’ve also never been one to ever replay a videogame once the credits rolled for the first time. But with music, it always felt like one listen could never be enough. If you really love an album, you’ll have played it at least ten times through. You’ll have an idea of where it sits compared to any previous albums from the artist, you’ll have an idea of what changed or influenced them over the years, you’ll be able to describe your favorite sections and transitions in each song.
Of course the length of a song is nothing compared to the time needed to reread a book or rewatch a movie. And also of course plenty of people rewatch movies and reread books all the time (just not me). I’ll also say I had the freeing revelation sometime in the last few years that repeated listens aren’t always necessary and not every piece of music is intended to be listened to over and over again, especially as you work your way outside of music that intends to be non-stop hook brain-bliss. Although I feel a bit freed by the realization, I still see a lot of value in revisiting art that’s important to you. Something changes every time because obviously you’re a different person yourself. I’m always in a bit of disbelief when I still find myself wanting to come back around to a certain song over and over again after 15 years. It seems impossible it could still do something for me, but often it’s doing something completely different. If I said songs were like longtime friends where the relationship changes with time, would you cringe?
Alright, here we go.
Semi-Charmed Life – Third Eye Blind – Third Eye Blind (1997)
Anytime I drove a car this week I listened to this song over and over again nearly exclusively 😦
I was motivated to listen to this album (mainly only this song) after reading a superb retroactive review from Arielle Gordon on Pitchfork.
I’ve gone through periods of repeat listens to this song before. I don’t know if I’ve ever made it through the full album. I listen to the first two songs, and then Semi-Charmed life three times, get 15 seconds into Jumper, go back to Semi-Charmed Life, play it 3 times, then I move on. I tweeted about this experience 5 years ago. There’s something deep in my core that knows that this band is lame. My subconscious monkey brain knows that party-pop falsetto hitting 90’s pseudo rapping guitar music is achingly lame, but a competing aspect of my monkey brain is also at heaven’s gates everytime the song plays again.
The Pitchfork review has so many interesting pieces of the Third Eye Blind journey. When frontman Stephen Jenkins and songwriting partner / guitarist Herman Anthony Chunn parted ways before they had even wrote enough songs as a band to shop themselves around to labels, Chunn already had the guitar riff down for what would eventually become Semi-Charmed Life and Jenkins bought it from him for $10,000. He had such a deep belief in himself and somebody else’s guitar riff that he put down that money before the song was even fully written. I barely ever considered the guitar progression to be a highlight of the song, but I suppose it’s always been the bones. The wristy chords have a new shine to them now as I’m constantly thinking “somebody paid $10,000 for this version of G – D – C.”
Something that’s covered very well in the Pitchfork piece as well is how Jenkins and the rest of the band are insufferable egoist assholes. I remember being a bit heartbroken when I first found that out a few years ago. I worried it would ruin the song a bit for me to know that, but I still can’t get away from listening. I just won’t see them live if I can avoid it. Expect an update in 5 years when I talk about seeing Third Eye Blind live.
Sunny Sundae Smile – My Bloody Valentine – Sunny Sunday Smile EP (1987)
I’ve listened to a lot of My Bloody Valentine again this week, which is only notable since I discovered all these early EPs before 1988 that I didn’t even know existed. Big fake fan energy!
Anyway. These new-to-me old songs are amazing and 100% noisy twee pop. I remember listening to the You Made Me Realize EP for the first time and finally putting the pieces together that before they were the quintessential shoegaze band, they were jangly guitar pop fans with a Jesus and Mary Chain obsession. It was the missing link between more typical rock music and the washed out reverb and layers in shoegaze. This EP doesn’t just hint at that connection like You Made Me Realize. The entire collection is classic fuzzed out indie pop. I could see how it would disappoint some fans who wanted more Loveless, but as a huge fan of the British twee genre (Heavenly, Black Tambourine, The Pastels, Talulah Gosh, The Hit Parade, Henry’s Dress) I feel vindicated for some reason.
Hat And Beard – Eric Dolphy – Out To Lunch (1964)
The most well-known Eric Dolphy song from the most well-celebrated Eric Dolphy album. I will say nothing unique about the song except for my personal experience.
For some reason, I always wanted to love Dolphy, even before listening. Something about him as a character and musician always made me feel curious and sentimental. He played bass clarinet and flute on top of the more typical saxophone, he transcribed voices and bird calls into musical passages, he had a deep connection to the “freedom” aspect of free jazz. Every fact I learned primed him as a slightly left of center canonized legend that I knew I could fall in love with.
And then I finally listened to Out To Lunch expecting the romanticism and passion for the living world to blow me away and found the intro track rather ugly and grooveless. Why did I have so many expectations going into it? And how could I be so wrong? I guess I already laid it out. I built a legend in my mind and assumed the music would fit the comfortable feeling of familiarity I already felt for the artist.
My first listen was about 4 years ago, and although I never felt the perfect connection I thought I’d have, I do find myself going back over and over. Now it’s because I have some craving for that unexpected aspect that got to me the first time. The album always takes me by surprise. The playing is never what you’d expect out of any artist. The meshing of every member of the quartet despite never knowing where I motif will take you as a listener constantly staggering. I feel like now that I’ve let go of the expectation for what Dolphy and his group would sound like, I can finally appreciate the compositions. I finally hear the birds and the singing through his voicing.
Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down And Out) – John Lennon – Walls & Bridges (1974)
I’ve been listening to John Lennon solo material again for the first time in a while, especially the albums I never really gave a chance before, which is everything except for the first Plastic Ono Band album.
I know “Who is your favorite Beatle?” is a scrubby thing to ask other fans, but I’ve constantly been revising my answer for the last 15 years. John used to be my clear favorite. He seemed to be the most edgy one, anti-war and radical with the coolest lack of interest in pleasing others. Also, his songs were better than the others. I don’t even want to bother naming examples, I’ll be here all night. In most of my 20s I found myself leaning into George more. His solo songs seemed more free from the 50s style rock songs Paul and John obsesses over constantly, and he was fortunate to have the quiet, introspective feeling about him. He was underappreciated, and I was ready to be the guy to give him that appreciation. John started to seem a bit embarrassing. I read a tweet once about how Imagine seemed like a song Hank Hill would hear somebody play at a coffee shop open mic and say was the worst song he’s ever heard. I feel that. The message does nothing for me. Most recently, I think I’m finally coming around to being a Paul guy. I like the hamming he does, the appreciation for the craft of songwriting and saying what feels right instead of communicating a didactic message. He seems intuitive and his workmanship style appeals to me since he contradicts musical genius in favor of craft dedication and built talent. And Ringo. You know, I think when I wasn’t a real Beatles fan I liked him the most. He has the best name.
But back to it. I’m enjoying listening to John again. There are so many songs he wrote within 5 years of leaving the Beatles that I still haven’t heard, and it seems wrong to have that on my record, so I’m getting to it.
I’ll Get By (As Long As I Have You) – Billie Holiday (1928)
Billie Holiday sings some of the saddest songs in the saddest voice because she had the saddest life. If you want to be depressed at work, listen to an album of hers once and then read her wikipedia page and then listen to the album one more time. I don’t even know where to start with her story as an artist, and I feel like making footnotes of any singular aspect in a blog diminishes the pain of her life.
Somehow there’s a cliche of the generationally talented artist that passes away in horribly sad conditions: penniless and alone. When you listen to Holiday’s voice and her immense presence, knowing how she struggled everyday of her life to pass away handcuffed to a hospital bed with barely a recording in print makes you just want to tap out of ever reading about an artist again.
Clock Town Theme (Day 1) – Koji Kondo / Toru Minegishi (2000)
I’ll have to blame my lack of new music most on playing The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask remake on the 3DS. I know, I know. It’s not very sexy.
I’ve played the majority of Zelda games all the way through, but for some reason I never finished this one. I’ve tried at least twice before, most likely more than that. I owned it on the N64 the year it came out, and then bought the 3DS remake right away to make up for never finishing it the first time through as a kid, but now it’s 22 year after the release date and I’m trying to play all the way through it for real this time.
I think the thing that always stopped me was the stress of the experience. The game is based on a three day cycle where the moon crashes down and destroys the town (world?) if you can’t stop an emotionally distrurbed forest dweller named the Skull Kid who came across a menacing mask instilled with dark, overbearing power. Although you’re subjected to the time pressure constantly, you’re able to play a song at any time that lets you begin the three day cycle again, albeit with all your actions canceled and the world returned to its original state.
The constant doom always turned me away from jumping back in as a kid, but the dark themes and hopelessness have also been the most fascinating part of the journey as well. The game was made in one year after the massively successful Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time was released on the same system. A year of development is absolutely nothing, and much of the Groundhog Day style story is a result of that limitation of time. Many of the assets and character models were reused for this adventure, which makes every interaction a weird twilight zone interaction with somebody who is the same but different.
Zelda games are enigmas of Nintendo magic. When I step away from my own infatuation, it’s strange to see them as I figure most people who don’t play games see them, which is a sword action game for kids where Peter Pan saves a princess from evil. The parts that are hard to realize just from seeing screenshots or watching somebody run through a dungeon is the always strange sense of intrigue and mystery that runs through the worlds. The games have never been deep regarding plot or lore, but as a player there’s always a sense that something deeper is going on with everybody, or that there’s a whole history that exists beyond anything you’re told in the game. Characters are hardly lovable. Many of them are threatening just in their strangeness. When I read that Twin Peaks was an influence on the people you interact with, the bizarre connection made instant sense. Zelda creator and producer, Shigeru Miyamoto, provided instructions to the script writer to “spend less effort on the story and plot, and more on making sure the characters themselves are enticing. In my opinion, the most interesting thing in Zelda is seeing all the different characters appear in the story, so I told him to focus on them and give them interesting things to do.” Somehow the focus to leave plot alone and just focus on a character with their own impulses outside of whatever larger conflicts at hand makes the entire world feel larger.
Anyway. This is the song that plays every time you start the three day cycle over. As each day passes, the melody is played with different instruments and varying harmonies play over them that create a more dreadful mood. Obviously, I like the first day the best since it’s the least dreadful. Hopefully next week I’m done and back to sitting on my ass at my desk working on other things and listening to new music.
Russian Lullaby – John Coltrane – Coltrane 58’: The Prestige Recordings (1958)
And a song I really have nothing to say about. I love John Coltrane. I love Picasso. I love Shakespeare. What can you do? Everybody says he’s the greatest and I believe them. I listened to 30 songs straight off the Coltrane 58: The Prestige Recordings and this one stood out while I was at work checking stock of creased shoes. I like when everybody backs off and gives the man space to be the GOAT for the last minute. I almost always listen to the more traditional John Coltrane compositions these days (instead of the more experimental free jazz sessions of the later years) since they play best while I’m DJing at work while still remaining incredibly interesting. John Coltrane ladies and gentleman. Some song by John Coltrane.
Setting the goal that for…let’s say 6 weeks at least…I’ll create a tiny playlist of 7 songs that HIT ME during the week.
It’s week 2 of 6 for the Seven Song Series and I’m already hitting a wall for filling out the list! It’s no wonder websites hire a full staff (or contract freelancers) in order to put out a single Track of the Week along with all their other content.
I didn’t find myself listening to as much music that intently this week. I didn’t even bother that much with DJing at work, one day playing the newest Jeff Parker album non-stop until it was time to lock up and another letting a playlist of 60s female Jazz vocalists go without even checking who was singing. It was also a more social week. Can’t be too bothered about that.
Still, here are seven songs that popped out this week for some reason or another. Here we go…!
Gallo Lester – Friki – Mambo Metal La 2da Venida (2018)
Mambo Metal, it sounds like a surefire winner. I hate opening by saying that I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t more drastically metal or more drastically mambo. The instrumentals are mainly latin influenced guitar-based rock songs. The vocal performance stands out the most, a deep growling rhythmic murmur backed by sharp anthemic female choruses.
Singing is performed exclusively in character, which is finally getting to the lead I’ve been burying: Gallo Lester is the mambo metal character of Dominican actor / voice actor and model Raymond Jáquez, who performs as a dapper revolutionary rooster. I bury it because it’s kind of stupid. But…also very interesting! Maybe the right word is campy? Campy with sincerity. The character affects the singing style. You can imagine it’s a character Jáquez had in mind as an acting performer before giving him a career as a singer. Whatever pushes people to explore new ground creatively is worth the experiment at least.
“Friki” is the song I went with, which translates to some version of “geek” in Spanish. The song is about being bullied for one’s interests and retreating further into them to escape that pain further. Although, thank god, I don’t personally have these experiences, I don’t feel too far from things like gaming / anime communities where I feel like I can’t relate (Quick aside: it’s funny to listen to the song 10 times and finally realize he says “Zelda” and “Dragon Ball” in the first two lines). I’ll note that I had no idea what the lyrics meant the first several listens, and the feeling of retribution still shined in the contrast between the brooding croon leading into the redemptive chorus. I love a big anthem chorus, and I love a glitched out anthem chorus climax.
Apparently, Jáquez has retired this character for now to pursue other projects. His personal website advertises his voice acting skills more than anything else. Gallo Lester is in a footnote bar as a previous project to add onto the resume. Nothing against that, I wish I had a rooster head metal persona as a side-story to my life. I hope if voice acting doesn’t work out, Lester comes back.
Will I ever have anything to really say about House music? Maybe not, but that’s ok. I’m a huge genre tourist, and I don’t need to have something unique to say about every song / genre. I don’t have too many unique things to say about the songs / genres I hold most dearly either!
Kincaid is a London-based DJ who released albums on Inside Out Records. One website described him as prolific, but I can find 6 songs from him on the internet. Maybe he’s a remix kind, maybe he doesn’t put everything on bandcamp, maybe he’s a prolific performer and not a recorder. The third might be likely since Pipe Up, the three song album this song was featured on, was described as an isolated covid-19 quarantine creation.
I love the sound choices Kincaid makes. Many seem sampled or inspired by world music, and any attempt from me to name what those instruments are and where they come from would seem ignorant, but I will try. Isolate has some plucked strings from, uh, China? Thirds has fluttering, um, tablas from, uhhh, India? Somebody fact check please. No matter the names. The sounds feel at home in the electronic music idiom, and the frantic cabin-fever of Thirds is exhilarating. The frustration of making dance music for empty dance floors, it must be a killer.
Wadada Leo Smith / Henry Kaiser / Alex Varty- From Pacifica Coral Reef – From Pacifica Coral Reef (2022)
I think my most listened to album of 2018 was Lebroba, the collaboration between Jazz legends Andrew Cyrille, Bill Frisell, and Wadada Leo Smith. Since then, I’ve listened to Cyrille and Frisell endlessly, but somehow have slept a bit on getting to Smith. I really can’t say why: his performance is just as stunning as anybody else’s on the album.
As soon as this song begins it’s instant Wadada-energy. I only say that since he hits a very similar note in Lebroba that made my girlfriend say “oh my god, he’s so dramatic” in a kind of mocking way. He is! He sings with heartache through the saxophone! And in this song you hear it even more strongly. He calls for help, strains and whimpers. He does it all, anything that the voice can do to dramatize, he does. It’s gorgeous. So dramatic.
Umru / Petal Supply / Rebecca Black – heart2 – Single (2022)
I know I’m a tryhard since when the 100 Gecs remix album dropped with two Ringtone remixes, I preferred the horribly distorted Umru remix over the perfected pop of the Kero Kero Bonito / Charli XCX / Rico Nasty version. I honestly feel a little guilty even typing it out! How about I held them in completely equal regard.
Whenever friends started getting Mac laptops with GarageBand, I was always most obsessed with the “bit crusher” filter. You could make your voice fall apart into glitchy remnants of the original recording. You could instantly sound like a horrible NES soundtrack sample, it was amazing. Umru is who I wish I could’ve been if I had the chance to stick with the bit crusher setting for 15 years.
This is his latest single. He worked with Petal Supply, who I guess became his girlfriend while they made the song, and Rebecca Black, who seems to keep showing up in PC Music and PC Music adjacent projects. Umru can make such a mess out of a pop song, it’s unbelievable. I have no clue how somebody composes with production like this. Every note carries a Jackson Pollock tone, a little explosion of noise leaving tracers everywhere. And then others found a hook over it! These songs are really hard for me not to revisit over and over.
I’ve only listened to this song twice, and the only reason it’s being included is because for some reason I had to hear about this song first from an Ellen Show clip. What the hell?
I’ve been following Andrew Savage’s music career for 14 years now through the Teenage Cool Kids playing on the floor at dingy Denton venues, to constantly playing terribly underrated Fergus & Geronimo records at my kitchen jobs, to pre-ordering the earliest Parquet Courts album as soon as it came out. I would follow Andrew Savage’s personal blog where he would practice drawing fruits and talk about his favorite Pavement b-sides. I added the lyrics from all the Teenage Cool Kids albums to my iTunes library so I could look them up whenever I wanted. I’m not showing off. It’s embarrassing to be this obsessed about another person.
But! Then it’s just as weird to see them find success that typically never reaches the people you think it should. I definitely think Andrew Savage is deserving of everything he’s received in the last 10 years. He was always an incredible musician, an extremely thoughtful lyricist and poet, a too-talented painter and visual artist. And what’s the reward for being all of those things? Ellen DeGeneres brings you onto her show to sing a song after she interviews John Cena about his new TV show, “The Peacemaker”. I honestly have no input into what that means, sorry.
I cannot believe pop-punk has come back to hard. I remember sitting in with my college roommates in college while they played Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco and one would exclaim “This used to be the biggest song in the country, think about it,” and then I would think about it and it seemed like something that could never happen again. It felt like that even after being told over and over that trends repeat all the time. But…here we are. Pop-punk is back again and everybody wants a piece!
Fish narc could be described in any number of fake sounding pop-punk subgenres: digicore, emo rap, cloud punk. Glitchy drums backing punk guitars and sneery rap-singing, it’s like a more underground punk-era Machine Gun Kelly. This track stands out most because of the inclusion of the guest vocalist, 8485. She’s the Canadian Hayley Williams incarnate with a Grime-like interest in building an alien lore for herself. All good things!
My girlfriend has had this one on repeat over the last two days, and it’s very difficult not to put it on repeat myself. Very teenage, but at least it feels authentic compared to MGK jumping over from hip-hop, Willow Smith jumping over from pop music, or Olivia Rodrigo jumping over from Nickelodeon.
Akifumi Tada – Blue Resort – Bomberman 64 OST (1997)
I listened to this while I packaged 17 Nintendo 64 games that I sold on Ebay. I didn’t feel too emotional letting go of the games. I don’t even own a system anymore nor do I plan on buying one, so I didn’t hold onto anything for the purpose of playing later. But…it was a little affecting remembering the time I spent with many of the games. Especially ones like this or Snowboard Kids 2, games that weren’t nearly as popular as the Zeldas or Marios and I never shared with anybody else.
Bomberman games always had such strange choices with characters and environments. Sometimes he looked like a real space marine soldier, and then other times he rode a furry kangaroo-like mammal through the forest. Sometimes he was a fat little potato with squat stubs for legs, and other times he was in Indiana Jones cosplay and whipping bombs over holes in the ground. Every game committed to some insane idea that would never stick around. This game had what I remember to be the most interesting anime lore with 4 or 5 different robot looking chibi samurai warrior enemies that pushed the story forward. Did Bomberman have a full anime-style rival in this game? He had to.
The characters all feel like they were made to be little toys, and I would’ve killed for there to be little plastic figurines of them in my room at the time. Maybe in Japan, where Bomberman had a touch larger presence, these kinds of things existed. I could barely find 1 other person who was more interested in playing Bomberman than the deluge of Mario based multiplayer games that pulled everybody in.
That’s the only thing that made letting go of a few games hard: some games I was able to make some sort of personal alignment towards that I never knew anybody else to have. I don’t know anybody who played this at the time. I might as well have made the whole thing up! The feeling of having nobody else play it is even more significant than if it was something we all shared.
I guess I should be happy to give the game away to somebody who might actually play it. Hopefully they still find the characters to be just as interesting and unique. Hopefully they leave the game running while they answer emails or clean cat litter and find themselves wanting to listen to the music more when they’re not playing. Maybe they’ll draw Bomberman on their next Valentine’s Card. That’s what I’d do!
Setting the goal that for…let’s say 6 weeks at least…I’ll create a tiny playlist of 7 songs that HIT ME during the week. I’ll try to keep things fresh.
This week I listened to Gram Parsons for the first time. I would just alternate between the albums GP (1972) and the posthumous Grievous Angel (1973) for a full day or two while at work. I’m the manager of a high-end men’s shoe store and although I could DJ whatever I please, it makes my ears hot not to play something that matches the environment. I went the first 10 months exclusively on jazz, but I’ve been branching out to, uh…classic rock and country. Sometimes I push the mope factor to the limit, but nothing that would stop a 50 year old man from buying a pair of boots. Fitting the shoe store environment is what led me to dig into Parsons for the first time. Apparently he’s enormous. I mean, Johnny Knoxville even starred in a movie all about him nearly 20 years ago. I must not have been paying attention.
This song is and has been enormously popular since the 60s, and covered by dozens of artists in several extremely high profile releases. Here’s a short list of all the movies I’ve seen that feature this song by some artist: Wayne’s World, Josie and the Pussycats, This is Spinal Tap, Dude Where’s My Car?, High Fidelity, Napoleon Dynamite, Idiocracy, Halloween, and Toy Story 3. I truly thought the song was a lucky find, how embarrassing.
In actuality, I thought the song was a jazz original by guitarist Julian Lage. It’s on his 2019 album, which he even named Love Hurts. That seems pretty dubious, to name your album after a cover you do. You should feel sheepish enough performing it along with your originals, but then naming your album after the cover too really crosses the line. OK but I can say it’s a loser move, but then Cher did the same thing for a 1991 album when she decided to record the song for a second time! Shameless!
But I kind of understand still. This is a song Hank Hill would love. There’s some line from King of the Hill where he tells Bobby music is supposed to be 4 minute long songs and love or something like that. I was trying to find the exact quote off an internet search but could only find an episode named after the song that features it (oof). There’s definitely a generic-ness to the melody and lyrics that could be owned by anybody’s heartbreak. It makes sense that Cher, Julian Lage, and 500 other artists connected strongly enough to name their yearly artistic statement after the song. I still feel like I connect with the song and I’ve been in the best relationship of my life for 5 years straight.
Last thing. When work was a jazz-only scene, I’d play some Julian Lage albums since it’s pretty easy listening for modern jazz. Love Hurts came on and I told my coworker, “Hey, I love this song”. He responded, “Oh yeah, this one’s a classic” and I had the thought “what in the hell are you talking about ‘classic’? This song came out 2 years ago!” I am so, so happy I didn’t say anything out loud.
(Final note for real: apparently everybody knows this story, so I’m providing nothing new, but Gram Parsons’s body was stolen from the airport before he was shipped to Louisiana to be buried by two friends. They got stinking drunk and borrowed a friend’s hearse to steal his casket and light it on fire in Joshua Tree national park. Machine Gun Kelly wishes somebody would do the same for him. I’m scared boomers are right that the 60s / 70s were truly a special time.)
St. Thomas – Sonny Rollins – Saxophone Colossus (1956)
This is the first track on the 1956 Sonny Rollings album Saxophone Colossus. This is an album you’ll often see on “Best albums for getting into Jazz” or “Greatest Jazz albums of All-Time” lists. I’ve listened to it at least 5 times passively and was never dying to revisit beyond work music until this week when something finally clicked and it became something greater. Of course, the song that really grabbed me was this one.
What struck me most was the rhythm: a calypso inspired beat that’s instantly warm and inviting. The toms and high hats are steady and constantly modulating into a subtle flow to match the energy and transition to and from every lead, solo, and chorus. I thought maybe they had doubled percussion duty on this one or brought in a latin drummer to provide an authentic backbone to the song. It turns out to just be Max Roach (definitely not latin or two guys) who always seems to be the drummer lately when I find myself thinking “geeeeez who is playing drums in this song???”. I could never teach a jazz appreciation course or anything, but I do love trying to get people to at least see the appeal of the genre. Some of the easiest advice is to give a song repeated listens and just pick out one performer to follow through the whole track: maybe it’s the drummer, or you just see how the bass player or trombonist moves the song. Just follow Max Roach and see where he adds a rim hit or three quick tats to end a measure. The guy is unreal, not flashy but adds so much flavor to every song he touches.
Also want to point out that the thing that always pulled me back to the album even if the songs weren’t initially clicking is I just think the album art and name are both sooooo cool. Saxophone Colossus. Yes. Yes! COLOSSUS! YES!!! His silhouette looking 8 feet tall on a dark blue background. He’s ripping on the saxophone and the house is shaking on its foundation. I tried to search for Sonny’s height: was he really as big as he seems? No info out there, really sad. We’ll just speculate he’s a monster.
Conduit – Nylon Smile – Waiting For Oblivion (2021)
It brings me great pleasure to announce I listened to music that came out within the last 6 months. Thank you, everybody!
Found this song going through every artist one night on Citrus City records after reading a feature on Bandcamp. It’s like if Elliott Smith put out a shoegaze album: doubled vocals with a bouncy and moody Beatles vocal melody over reverberating guitar stabs and ethereal keys. It’s the kind of thing I always feel like I no longer need in my music life but then it’s always irresistible.
Menthol Box – They Are Gutting A Body Of Water – EPCOT (2021)
Another one off the Citrus City binge. I love when a guitar sounds as messy as possible, and these ones are complete noise non-stop. When the melody bleeds in as another layer it’s 100% My Bloody Valentine worship, might as well be a sample (and I’ll feel like a dope if it is, but if not then the execution is pretty incredible).
If it was just noisy guitar maybe I wouldn’t have thrown it in here, but it’s a lock with the insane choice for this genre to put some intensely loud and frantic electro-breakbeat as the rhythm for the whole song. I don’t even know if “breakbeat” is the word for it. Somebody more educated than me, please tell me what you call the processed barrage of sampled kicks and snare hits. Listening to this driving home from work I was laughing out loud to myself. What a choice! It’s insane sounding. I imagine playing it for others and them saying “What is this shit?”. I was thinking it myself and partially convinced it was completely stupid. But that reaction is the knee-jerk for something novel and compelling. It is a strange choice and that’s the best part of the song. My Bloody Valentine with constant electro breakdown. I’m not going to say it’s “genius”, but it’s something I’ve never heard before and so bizarre in a way where I keep wanting to go back.
The choice to borrow and combine elements from all kinds of disparate influences seems to be a theme with a lot of modern artists, best symbolized by 100 gecs and the PC Music cohort. Some are suspicious of turning art into an ironic joke, but it’s very easy to believe that these newer artists are completely unironically unashamed of representing all their musical tastes sincerely into single tracks. Breakbeats are silly, but they’re assaulting and powerful. Why wouldn’t you add it to a shoegaze burner?
I Love You More – The Softies – It’s Love (1995)
I’ve been a huge fan of The Sofies for ten years at least and recently revisited the album It’s Love (1995). I remember frequently wanting to put songs from them on mixes for friends. It was always so hard for me to decide which song to include: they’re all so good, sad and comforting. Playing this album over the speakers in the lamplit living room at 1am while my girlfriend sleepily watched me try to hang some curtain rods, I feel like I finally cracked the puzzle and found out that this song was the one I should’ve always added.
The first verse is so painful and perfect.
“There’s no competing with him
I can’t keep you warm like that
I can’t love you the way he does
I can only love you more”
Writing it and reading it, it’s almost embarrassing for me, haha. It’s not poetry on the page, but it’s perfect for a song, which is clearly a different kind of writing. I can’t love you the way he does, I can only love you more, my god, I love it!
The gag is that I went off on how much the line affected me to my girlfriend who was very pissed at the time since after work I went to play Smash Brothers with a friend we both only met once and she did not care to hear it, haha. We’re good again now. I’ll explain the line again tomorrow maybe.
Are You Here For The Festival? – Michael Hurley – The Time of the Foxgloves (2021)
I discovered Michael Hurley a few months ago and have listened to Have Moicy! (1976) over and over again. It’s so varied, endlessly fun country / folk ditties. Hurley plays along with The Unholy Modal Rounders and Jeffrey Frederick & the Clamtones, taking turns on different songs and I have no idea if they’re collaborators or if that was a compilation album or what. The wiki basically says it’s hard to tell who does what since they don’t say in the credits, and I haven’t bothered trying to parse it out myself. I just talk about it like the whole album is Michael Hurley, which is disingenuous, but eyyyy what can you do?
I’ve seen him pop up frequently since then; he must be a legend already to some group of people (me too now!). The song listed is from a new album he just put out this year. There was a shocker, he is not dead. He’s prospering! He’s 80 years old and still putting out incredible songs! That’s really one of the best parts when his vocal comes in: you can tell you’re listening to an 80 year old artist who will create and create until he can’t. The song is self-referential, nostalgic, and completely affecting. It’s the kind of song that always kills me now, an artist in reflection as they push along forward.
When We Do (We Don’t Like It) – kruNk MP – An Outline of KruNk Musicism (2022)
The return of one of my favorite artists: forever best bud Patrick Krukowski is finally BACK as KruNk MP, and he’s as good as ever!
Patrick is a Fruity Loops king. As far as I know, he has always operated off long, late nights with 2 cans of Nos Energy and a FL Studio trial version where you’re unable to save any project to work on at a later date. You either have to finish everything in one go or astutely decide to never turn off your computer until your project is finished. He’s also never utilized a midi controller and works completely off the piano roll and the default FL Studio sound pack. I think it’s honestly a great creative choice to work with the self-enforced time and tool limitation. It saves you from treating anything too preciously, forcing you to make decisions and arrive at a final project when morning comes.
Freshman year of college, Patrick moved to an apartment in Austin, TX to begin school at the University of Texas and I went north to the University of Oklahoma. This is where many KruNk MP albums came out, staying up all night away from home for the first time and working through the fresh expectations of collegiate life. I always loved Patrick’s choices for sounds and transitions in songs. Always strange and kind of homespun. I don’t know if unpolished is the word, but songs will take strange melodic turns and he always includes layerings and changes you truly won’t find anywhere else. Some people can listen to a song and kind of tell whether the song was originally composed on a guitar or piano because of the choices made. Patrick is at the forefront of pushing what the mouse on the FL Studio piano roll meta is all about. It’s a unique voice because it’s a unique composition method from somebody who creates for himself first.
This song is the first one I’ve heard from him that so strongly uses an extended sample from another piece of media. An Alan Watts speech is cut and rearranged (I believe) around the composition into “When we do what we will, we don’t like it”. I’ve always felt that to be a constant pain of *ahem* the human condition *ahem*. We are constantly in control of what we do with our lives, and despite having goals and an ideal version of ourselves we often seem to miss these marks. We want something, we know what that is, and we fail to achieve. It’s boggling. We want something attainable, and it feels like we can’t achieve it. Or we achieve it, and we don’t know why we wanted something like that at all in the first place. Poetry!
Anyway. It’s 2021 and kruNk MP is back, my friends. The FL Studio King is back.
Peter O. 
