Radio from my heart/mind/soul, for the best music found. Music is the Highest Common Denominator. Writing about music is like Dancing To Architecture. Free-Dance your exceptional, expectation-defying stories. Listening to: Rock Soul Punk Pop Blues Folk Reggae R+B Jazz Latin Americana Psychedelia Outmusic New: ~Jersey ~York ~Orleans ~Wave ~Music Lovers Players Adventurers Singers Songwriters Queers To Inspire Discover Appreciate Engage Contact Bill via gmail at bearealman
Please start watching the video -- experience the music -- before reading any further.
Now that I'm writing a music blog, I've entered the fray of music promotion. Which is usually equivalent to hype and heightened egotistical opinions. I intend over time to make a case for good music based in more than that, in music that appeals to better aspects by which to appreciate music than trends and sheep-like behavior and based, yes, even in facts.
I'm short on facts this time. I just discovered WU LYF within the last 24 hours. I'll report what I learn as I learn it. But...
Meanwhile...
DAMN. If I hadn't lived through several decades of posing reality-checks against my gut-check instincts that this song, that this band will be huge, this space would just be filled with over-the-top raves.
Here's one: WU LYF could be the biggest thing since N....
Here's another: Whatever WU LYF releases this year could be the greatest collection of Rock and Roll since S....
You're following where I'm going here?
I try to check my instincts to rave against my desire to let you, my friends, discover music on your own. Unless I've lost my moorings, I prefer not to praise as much as I'd like, and let the music surprise and delight you on its own merits.
With "Dirt", I could discuss politics, I could describe the video, I could pull musical precedents out of my ass and display them so you could give me coolness-points for pointing out how these present things sound something sorta like previous things we loved. And feel free to consider all those things I could talk and talk and talk about ON YOUR OWN. But I love "Dirt", so --
Nah. Let "Dirt" speak for itself.
Listen to the sound of the next wave crashing on shore.
The most recent Imperial Teen album is The Hair The TV The Baby & The Band
"Imperial Teen is back! With sly style and knowing sass, Will, Roddy, Jone and Lynn return with their trademark infectious hooks and impeccable pop sensibilities. Let the party begin! The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band is the first Imperial Teen record in over 5 years, but it never misses a beat. It’s a career defining album for sure. On first listen you can just feel how much fun these guys and gals are having making music together. From the upbeat shimmy of “Shim Sham” and “Sweet Potato”, to the more reflective cool of “Room With A View” and “What You Do”; from the full on romp of “Everything” and “One Two”, to the seductive vamp of “Fallen Idol” -- every song seems pitch perfect. You can sense that this is a band that is comfortable in its own skin. Recorded with longtime collaborators Steve McDonald (Redd Kross) and Anna Waronker (That Dog), The Hair… captures the raw spontaneity and chemistry that make Imperial Teen such a unique group of friends and musicians. The members of Imperial Teen have kept themselves busy since last we heard from them, as the title of this album references. But there is no denying that when these four come together, they are more than the sum of their parts. They are a family, and the joy that they share in making music is infectious. So put on your best party shoes and come along for the ride. It’s guaranteed to be fun. Give this record a listen. We think you will be impressed." [--provided by artist reps]
According to Swinger himself, "Gravity [was] inspired [by] driving on Route One from Houlton, Maine to Presque Isle, following the large scale model of the solar system. And a difficult phone call... My sweetie and I worked it out and are still together celebrating 25 years!"
It's as beautiful a song as you're bound to hear this year.
I'll have plenty more to say about M O O N in the days ahead, but for now enjoy "Gravity" with the knowledge that, in my not so humble opinion, it's not even one of the three best songs on the album. That honor goes to the three songs that conclude M O O N -- "Wooden Boy", "Betty Boop & Buddha" and "Music In The Rafters". Together those are the three strongest songs at the home stretch of any album I've heard in more than a few years.
Martin Swinger's website features the story behind the song "Wooden Boy" and much more. MartinSwinger.com
This review is from: A Life in Letters (MP3 Download)
The best way I can describe how much I like this album is to admit I really should be writing other reviews. Deadlines loom, I need to contact musicians and promoters, my editor is encouraging but nervous. Yet I'm here writing about The Fire Apes, a band I'd never heard of until today, but whose newest album A Life in Letters has compelled me to listen a fourth time through while I finish up this review. At this moment of discovery, I can't keep them to myself. But allow me the concession of forgoing being literary to just describe the album track by track.
1. It's Over = Weirdly, the song at track 1 makes less impact on me than I think was intended because it seems directed at the vast post-Emo audience of My Chemical Romance or the retro-pop followers of Cheap Trick at their most overwrought. Patience.
2. Killing Me From the Inside = The Fire Apes here remind me of Oasis (in full, imitation 1967 mode) here. If that works for you, you'll like it. (But my love of 60s sounds and Oasis' version of them don't get along.) Then, things get much more interesting.
3. Hey Kate! *** = Hey Kate! leads with pop-song mastery where other bands wish they could follow. For instance, it would fit comfortably as a prime track on any Fountains of Wayne or Jimmy Eats World album. Don't dismiss it because it uses the hook every pop-punk band in the 90s & 00s, and don't underestimate the ska-beat turnaround preceding every chorus. It just works.
4. Cause You Don't *** = Convincingly makes its case to stand alongside similar White Stripes, Vines, and Hives tunes with a blues-y structure and a heavier bottom. But theirs comes complete with harmony vocals reaching crescendoes via a building suspended chord, just like George Martin taught the Fab Four.
5. If Things Don't Look So Good Today = With it's cha-cha middle-8, it's a bit cocktail-lounge. But the Rickenbacker jangle of electric guitar strings cuts through the synthetic strings.
6. Only You Could Make Me Happy *** = Believe it, man: This is it. A prime example of delirious, hyper-committed power-pop, the kind most recently epitomized by Bouncing Souls. But you could hear echoes in it of a long line of bands mining the genre, leading with the best of Cheap Trick and including The Romantics, The Records, The Kings, etc etc.
7. Don't Break My Heart *** = A big change of pace from the rest of the album, built around that McCartney-esque British dance hall two-step. With rinky-tink piano out of almost every 70s record trying to evoke a feel of early-20th-century nostalgia. Plus "bah-bup-ahs"'s right out of The Turtles' playbook. And a horns chart that sneaks up on you until it practically takes over.
8. 3 O'Clock (So Long) *** = A Roger Daltrey-like vocal-dominated intro leads to riffs which could be an alternate arrangement for "I Can See For Miles". Altogether early Who throughout.
9. I *** = Their vocals out-sing The Turtles, but for an over-reaching middle-8. "I" is a half-Zombies, half-Turtles pop obsession.
10. Lori *** = Begins with a fanfare. Mines that familiar One-Look-and,WOW!,-I'm-In-Love theme, but keeps up the melodic inventiveness, skirting the 80s' obsession with the Nah-nah-nuh-NAH-nah minor third melody only during the middle section, but they're forgiven after it's followed with a great guitar solo. It leads to the album title's appearance in the lyric. Ends the album (and I'd guess likely their concerts as well) in glory.
Over the decades I've become familiar with too many bands that have hit success with far less going for them in the grooves (he said, showing his age). And I've seen too many bands with piles of good songs (The Brains, and the aforementioned Kings and Records) not get very far. The Fire Apes' songs have broken in to the area of my brain packed with catchy songs. The Fire Apes deserve a break, and you can provide it. Give them a break, the chance to rattle around playfully in your personal area stuffed with catchy rock songs: Break out your wallets.
[forgive me for not knowing why amazon's graphic (the code below) doesn't load to the blog, as best as I can tell. For at least a day, I'm leaving the code in the entry, until I'm certain it's not visible. Anyone who can clue me in to what I should do to get it visible - your help is appreciated. Thanks!]
Architecture In Helsinki: Their perpetual subtle and explicit moments when what-went-before is not the same as what's-happening-now lend a delectable taste of invention to most of their recordings.
"Contact High" continues their tradition of inventiveness, but with an air of sophistication that is inspired.
Previously, AIH were tribal wildlings, barely honing magically coincidental moments of order out of a chaos that seemed derived from whatever was hanging around and useful. Then, as I understand it, band leader Cameron Bird moved to Brooklyn, and here now they have this unique, savvy, contemporary dance-floor compatible sound that floors me as I want to find a piece of rug to cut.
What, I wonder, happened in Brooklyn?
Soapbox time: If anyone still believes (the reason for this Soapbox will become clear shortly) that Gay folks love Disco, Club music and Broadway (and to a slightly lesser extent the European Classical traditions) because of some innate genetic predisposition or cultural imperative -- GET OVER IT. Gay folks generally still find themselves attracted to those styles because the momentum continues almost as strong as ever, following decades when those were the musical styles most open to Gay folks either being Out or being most able to push their digits out of the closets. Rock and Roll, by comparison, has had its Glam Rock, and The Kinks' "Lola" and the androgynous aspects of The Beatles and The 'Stones, plus a few threads of gentler music and artsier types that wove around, but even today few people acknowledge Gay and Bisexual people behind every kind of mainstream rock from Little Richard to the Four Seasons to Judas Priest to Pink. Whether the credited front-of-the-stage, album cover artist or someone essential behind the scenes, Gay people are everywhere as creators of Rock and Roll -- But we're more often pushed into a closet there or self-repressed and recriminated there throughout its history than we are within Club music or Broadway. And that extends to Now.
Which (and here we go) leads to the incessant, continuous, ongoing guessing game of dealing with musicians whose art and image causes one to wonder "So are they Gay?"
As much as anyone, I wish this was a nearly-boring question, on the par of "So are they married?" I don't ask out of prurient interest. (Though I'll admit I'm only human, and musicians who are Gay and who I find are attractive men capture an extra helping of my attention.)
I ask because it should be more common-knowledge information.
(And here we really are getting to the point(s)):
The video for "Contact High" is a treasure trove of gaydar-inducing images.
The lead character is androgynous. Short sideburns and some facial hair is not much to go on to establish male gender. But that's all we get.
Sure, it's a men's suit. But a woman with a similar appearance and not-large breasts could fit those clothes.
The hands have painted fingernails. But by being disembodied, they put extraordinary weight on fingernail polish as a secondary indicator of gender. One could perhaps be being deceived -- playfully, as part of the pleasures of confusion.
Confusion itself - the sense that something is not quite right - is part of the video's underpinnings. It's a confusion that heightens desire. It leads to giving in to a kind of mysterious pleasure.
And yes, alright, I'm behaving highly analytical about a fun, beautiful video, one I have no desire to ruin. But, to me, it sometimes would be satisfying to learn whether an artist or musician is merely using Queer images, imagery that (in the language of the academic) is not hetero-normative, or whether a person, especially the musicians, especially the musician with the lead vision for the music, is simply telling us something about their sexuality.
If there was no video, the song "Contact High" comes with a vague bit of business possibly not intended as but conceivably a clue too: the several tiny moments when the falsetto male lead vocal sings "boy / you". Set in a song-style both similar to the spirit of AIH's past but with much more clean, "artistic" appeal, one can determine that the vocal is treated at those words to make the word "boy" both a little clipped to cause it to almost sneak by, and to make it pop.
I have never heard anything stating that anyone in Architecture In Helsinki is Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual or Trans or Queer or what - or Hetero for that matter (though I may vaguely recall I may have read about a band member's wife or girlfriend).
But I have to wonder -- aloud, in this instance -- whether Cameron is writing about a same-sex experience, something more or less new to him, in "Contact High".
Or perhaps it's just an interpretation with which I would like to enjoy it. Anyone with insight (or other comments) are welcome to respond.
Still, finally it remains, well, weird and bizarre are the only words for it, that in the vastness of what is broadly termed Indie Rock -- all the hundreds, no, thousands of bands and musicians percolating at levels that tend to barely dent the pop charts if they appear there at all, all these amazing creative folks, outside of a handful who identify as LesBiGayTr (and usually cultivate part of their fanbases among Queer folks), and another handful of Out Queer musicians who have done the right thing and mentioned the truth about their sexuality (whether they market themselves as such or not) -- there are not vast lines of Out Gay musicians stretching as far as the eye or the iPod can see.
Come Out, Come Out, wherever you are. Please.
Meanwhile: Architecture In Helsinki are about to go on the United States & Canada leg of their tour. Dates below (the second digit : the ".06." : is the month, June) are taken directly from their website.
01.06.11
Henry Fonda Theater• Los Angeles, CA
02.06.11
Great American Music Hall• San Francisco, CA
03.06.11
Slim's• San Francisco, CA
04.06.11
Wonder Ballroom• Portland, OR
05.06.11
Venue• Vancouver, BC
06.06.11
Neumo's• Seattle, WA
09.06.11
Varsity Theatre• Minneapolis, MN
10.06.11
Lincoln Hall• Chicago, IL
11.06.11
The Mod Club• Toronto, ON
12.06.11
La Tulipe• Montreal, QC
13.06.11
Paradise • Boston, MA
16.06.11
Webster Hall• New York, NY
17.06.11
Black Cat• Washington DC
18.06.11
World Cafe• Philadelphia, PA
Anyone who could score this poor-boy (financially) tickets to their New York or Philadelphia gigs, please contact me! (See up top, at the end of this blog site's header.)
Galactic: An amazing, underrated band with guest vocal by Irma Thomas, an amazing, underrated, veteran R&B master.
"Heart of Steel": My theme song for the day, one of them for the year -- the newest addition to my list of life songs. [Remind me to share that list some day.]
√ Check the groove. √ Check the multi-tracked vocals. √ Check the lyric.
¿ Wonder how something this brilliant didn't rise to the top of charts around the world.
