#the other day i made my very first tape (i recorded a local band’s cd onto a tape because i was gonna give the cd to my friend and the-

[killyertelevision]

ordered a portable cd player so i can stop using spotify and make cds to listen to instead 👍 u have converted me

HELL YEAH!!!! there’s also an added bonus to listening to those things in public which is immediately forming an unshakable bond with every person over the age of 40. i was listening to my discman (portable cd player) in class today and the substitute approached me and said “a walkman huh? totally old school.” and i just nodded but the mutual respect felt instantaneous

[eohl]

What You Haven’t Heard

There are so many things I take for granted, but I shouldn’t.

The list is long: running water in my house (100 years ago that would have been less common), something to eat in the refrigerator (even though five times I day I am opening my fridge to announce to no one that milk, applesauce, cheese slices, and salsa is “nothing to eat”), that I am healthy (and, truth be told, the older I get the closer this is to edging off the list). A modern life affords many comforts, even when life is busy, anxious, or frustrated. A modern life has electricity. A modern life has communication. A modern life has music.

And music is the thing that I really take for granted.

When I was a kid, like most, I listened to what my parents listened to. My mother spent many long road trips discipling me in the school of Queen and the Proclaimers (and David Allan Coe, for some reason). For Christmas in 1997, I received my first boom box, and on Christmas Day in 1997 I listened to the Village People’s Macho Man EP in it. A small CD collection started to grow on my shelf that started mostly with what I was borrowing from my parents’ existing CD collection, but which--in 2002 when I started high school--grew exponentially with slightly more updated flavors. 

One evening in 2002, I called in to a local radio station, which is a very old-fashioned sentence these days. The deejay on the line asked what I wanted to hear, and I requested the then-overplayed R&B hit “It Wasn’t Me,” by Shaggy (a song definitively about being caught cheating on a relationship and lying about it, which completely unfazed every other 13-year-old I knew at the time). There wasn’t, it seemed to me, any other way to hear a song I really wanted to hear unless I bought the full album or happened to catch it on the radio.

I soon learned I could borrow CD’s from the public library, and my computer’s hard drives quickly began to fill with ripped copies of borrowed albums. (Unless you are the FCC, in which case that is definitively not what happened.) Borrowing CDs from friends had the same result. The slow method of finding, ripping, and storing full albums was the long way to get around the expeditious method to really get to a song you wanted to hear: the pirated download.

I challenge you to find a teenager from 1999-2005 who did not once pirate a single song. Go on, I’ll wait.

Through the depths of the internet, I truly began my music education. It was a new era. Gone were the days of hearing only what my parents owned or only what radio deejays put on (and only when you tuned in). Gone were the days of seeking out the friend who owned a Linkin Park album to copy. Gone were the days of swapping mixed CDs (and their legendary predecessor: mixed tapes) to have individual copies of special songs. Those days were over. The sun now rose in the dawn of BitTorrent.

In 2007, I climbed into a car with friends to drive four hours across the state to visit another college. I brought with us what would be the last mixed CD I would ever burn.

In 2008, I tenderly accepted a burned copy of a Weepies album with “For Laura” written in sharpie on the front--the last burned album copy I would receive.

In 2009, I made a long playlist on my computer to celebrate my 21st birthday, but never actually transferred it off my computer, and instead allowed the melodic favorites to play out through my laptop in my apartment.

In 2010, while driving, I heard the radio deejay announce that, through the iHeartRadio network, you could text in song requests to the station directly, and I thought, “Who would request songs from a radio station? Don’t you know you can hear any song you want online?”

After I graduated college, but before I moved to New York, my nana came to visit us. I was living at home in a temporary few months, ambiently working a mindless temporary desk job, thoughtlessly daydreaming about men. My father was my nana’s youngest child, and she always bore this special affinity for my brother and me. Her cheerful warmth inspired my creativity as a kid, encouraged me to explore, and always had a hug ready. She was a wonder. I was so happy to have her visit.

One afternoon, she sat in my bedroom while I sat at my desk. She noticed my CD collection and asked, “Do you have any Frank Sinatra in there?”

Between the origins of Queen, the growth of Linkin Park, and the recent discovery of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, I was a little embarrassed to confess to her that I didn’t have a lot of jazz singers.

“’Ol Blue Eyes’ they called him,” nana explained. “But he was such a womanizer. So popular, but so selfish.”

I’d never heard Frank Sinatra described this way. “Really? Do you like Frank Sinatra’s music?” I asked.

“No,” she said simply, as if it was obvious.

“Whose music do you like?” I asked, surprised I had never thought to ask before.

“You know who I love?” she smiled mischievously. “Bobby Darin.”

“I’ve never heard of Bobby Darin,” I admitted.

“Oh he is wonderful!” she exclaimed. “He has one song, ‘Mack the Knife.’ It is a wonderful song.”

“You know, nana,” I said, turning toward my computer, “we could listen to that song right now.” I quickly started to type ‘Mack the Knife’ on my computer.

The look on my nana’s face cannot be explained. Her naturally cheerful and warm disposition held back the longing of her love for Bobby Darin, but even her controlled demeanor could not contain the curiosity and possible disappointment at the prospect. “But,” she said, “you don’t have any Bobby Darin records.”

‘Mack the Knife’ had returned some results. “Just you wait,” I said, and hit “play.”

A big band and a swing tap of the drum preceded the velvet voice of Bobby Darin in my computer speakers. I watched my nana close her eyes, smile coyly, and tap her toe. She was in her mid-eighties. Her thin, white hair piled on top of her head. She was filled with joy. Listening to Bobby Darin, she was no older than thirty. The song filled her and her smile made her young again.

For three minutes, nana had absorbed a piece of her past that had long been embedded in memory. She had listened attentively the entire time; there was no chatting over the music. The music wasn’t background. The music was the main event. It had held her full attention. After a grand brass ending, the song was over. She opened her eyes.

“I haven’t heard that song in forty years,” she said softly.

It had not occurred to me that a person could go so long without something they truly loved.

“Nana,” I said, “I’ve never heard that song before.” 

When I heard it with her, it wasn’t passively on the radio; it wasn’t in the background at someone’s house party; it wasn’t track #6 in a mixed CD from someone, sandwiched between other songs that were also clamoring for meaning and significance; it was an experience of hearing and truly listening. For all my investment in music, I had taken it for granted, and had taken for granted that I could access it at any time. Until that moment, I had just heard music, but from that moment on I was really listening. 

[levelstory]

Music Reflection II, Early 2000s' was a Trip

Well, it has been a hot minute since I wrote a music reflection post. Last time, I talked about various songs from my childhood from the likes of Britney Spears to Stevie Brock. Now I am back to tackle some more music from my most formative years that will make you question how my music taste ever escaped cringy pop music from the Top 40. Coincidentally, all of these tracks are from the early 2000s’ so no 90s’ music here today. Here we go…

Miracles Happen by Myra

This song is the anthem ofThe Princess Diaries. That movie was one of my most watched VHS tapes next to the first Harry Potter film. It is the movie that sparked my interest in film soundtracks, and one of the most recognizable and memorable songs from the album was easily Myra's Miracles Happen. 

It can be easy to forget how much work was once put into acquiring music in an age where most music is available instantaneously. As a kid, my ear was always turned toward the music in any given film and when I got to an age (around 9-10) when I realized these tracks were sold in one package known as the film soundtrack, I made a point to get my hands on a copy. The Princess Diaries is the first soundtrack I remember owning outside of soundtracks from Disney films. 

My most stark memories with this soundtrack are playing it in my bedroom at my old house. Toward the end of our time living there, my family painted my bedroom a light pink and I got a desk that had a CD rack built-in (this was a big feature at the time). My boombox sat on the large desktop against the wall and I can remember listening to The Princess Diaries soundtrack on repeat. There are a lot of great tracks on the album but Miracles Happen is the true star and the true representation of the movie. 

Before I talk about the track further, I just want to point out that this movie is great. We could talk about its problems, which it has many, but it remains funny, heartwarming, and a joy to watch from start to finish. This movie introduced me to Anne Hathaway and she just shines. Plus, Julie Andrews is in the movie and she steals the show! I know my opinion is partially influenced by nostalgia goggles but hey...just let me have this!

Back to Miracles Happen. What is easily the strongest aspect of the song is the chorus. It is so catchy and fun to listen to. The verses are enjoyable enough, but they feel a bit detached from what makes the song so good. The bridge is pretty lackluster. As discussed a bit in my first reflection, way too many songs struggle with their bridges. Look, I get it...but still. The only shining light is that the bridge at least transitions into a tune that sounds similar to the chorus which is pretty great. 

The lyrics are fairly generic which is par for the course. They say a bunch of random things like "we found the missing pieces" and "nothing should ever bring you down", lyrics that have little to no emotional attachment to anything beyond it is a thing people say in this context. But all things considered, it is still a really fun song to listen to.

It Happens Every Time by Dream Street

Dream Street is one of those boy bands that flew pretty far beneath the radar for most people. Their first album released in 2000 and I distinctly remember the marketing campaign on television playing over and over again so that they were drilled into our brains. I guess it worked because I really wanted this album as a ten-year-old.

My friends and I loved Dream Street. I had their poster hanging on my bedroom wall (their album booklet unfolded into the poster). We made up dance routines to their songs. We even blasted the music through my friend’s house and somehow her parents never became angry with us. My most shameful confession about Dream Street is that we used to try and find their phone numbers to call them. Unaware that phone books are limited to local numbers, we would call random numbers to see if Chris or Jesse were home to talk. They weren't, and people were annoyed by our calls. 

One thing people probably don't know is that Jesse McCartney's music career began with Dream Street. I'm proud to say that he was my favorite from the group at the time, and vocally he is the strongest of the group. His voice had not matured yet so it is always fun listening to his performance with his young voice!

It Happens Every Time was their big single and the song most used in TV adverts, accompanied by the music video. What got me thinking about the song and the group recently is due to some unfortunate events. I learned back in July that one of the members, Chris, died in June due to complications with COVID-19. He would have been 35 this year. Chris was often looked at as the Justin Timberlake of Dream Street. He had the fancy frost tipped hair and swagger to him that the other members couldn't compete with. After the group disbanded, he never found success in the same way he did with Dream Street. He died too young and too soon. After his death, I started relistening to Dream Street and it was this relisten that encouraged me to write another Music Reflection. 

As with Stevie Brock from the first installment of Music Reflections, Dream Street's songs mostly center on their lust for girls in a way that is pretty uncomfortable looking back. These boys range in age from 11-13 if I am not mistaken, and their songs deal with mature themes that predate their young years. Not to mention that society has young boys singing about these ideas that they can't help their actions when they lust for a girl or they can't control themselves because a girl has them wrapped around her finger. Our culture normalizes this idea that men are vulnerable to female woes and that they can't help themselves. It is always a bit gross hearing young boys sing about it, especially before they’ve even hit puberty (i.e. Justin Bieber).*

It Happens Every Time is a song about...a song. It follows a boy who hears a "silly little love song" every time he sees this girl or thinks of her. This plane of existence, a magic place where angels sing all around them, is known as Dream Street (name drop!). Admittedly, this song is probably the tamest when it comes to the themes I mentioned in the previous paragraph. 

Now I won't lie, this song is a bop. I'm still unsure if that is the nostalgia talking or not...I will have to dig deeper some other time. But damn I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy this song. It is so catchy. The boys sing really well for their age. I am a sucker for listening to little Jesse McCartney belt his heart out. Jesse is the highlight of this song, getting a nice solo line toward the end of the second chorus followed by the entire bridge and some overlapping vocals in the final chorus before ending the song. He just sounds so good and I will admit to feeling a small sense of pride listening to him. I was there before his solo career and entry into Radio Disney hits and commercials all over ABC Family. Sometimes it feels like Dream Street is still so unknown that I can keep my memories of them all to myself. Though their time was short-lived, they stayed with me and so has this song.

Ordinary Day by Vanessa Carlton

Earlier, I talked about how difficult it was to acquire music before the internet. In the case of a song in a movie, there was a good chance that the song you liked would be on the soundtrack, provided a soundtrack was even released. Songs on the radio were difficult because you had to buy an entire album when you just liked one song, or make sure you had a blank tape ready to record when the song came on. Then there were songs you heard while out and about with no context. Those were the worst because you had to try and memorize the song and hope you found it somewhere, someday. That was kind of what happened to me with Vanessa Carlton.

It was her song A Thousand Miles that really gripped me as a 12-year-old. I loved it so much and heard it everywhere I went but never knew who sang the song or where I could get a copy. Eventually, I heard the song on the radio and bought her album...and ended up only listening to the three tracks I liked. One of the tracks, and my favorite of those three, is Ordinary Day. 

If my memory is correct, this song was never as popular as A Thousand Miles on the radio, but it was super popular on the internet. This album came out around the time I first started using the internet and discovered movie montages. I don't mean montages used in movies but montages made by fans on Windows Movie Maker, cut together with a somewhat fitting song. If you were a teenager obsessing over Disney or Harry Potter or...something, you know the songs that people generally gravitated towards with these videos (the band Trading Yesterday were a staple of these montages). Ordinary Day was a movie montage song (every time I listen to this song it reminds me of an Aladdin montage it played over (which I sadly can't find)). 

I decided to watch the music video for this song as I was writing this and boy is it a product of the early 2000s. Can we all just agree that the early 2000s were equivalent to that awkward stage of everyone's lives that we try not to think about? This music video is so clumsy and confusing. There are so many close up shots on Carlton and strange shots of people making out. Who thought this was a good idea?

But back to the song. One thing I appreciate about this song is how it builds itself up. The beginning piano is very nice but then it builds up with orchestration and I love it. I'm sorry I can't talk about it more but I won't embarrass myself with lack of musical instrumental lingo and knowledge.

The lyrics of the song are...ehh? The song is basically about seeing more in the ordinary and how the narrator is shown from an "ordinary boy." It isn't terrible but like the music video, a product of the early 2000s. 

I unapologetically love this song. Yes it is corny and it isn't as musically sophisticated as I would like, but it always makes me smile when I listen to it. I can remember listening to the song on my headphones on long car rides and with friends. It is just a song that makes me feel happy and gives me no reason to feel otherwise. 

All I Can Do by Jump5

Well...I'm surprised it took me this long to arrive at Jump5. What is there to say about this Christian pop sensation? Quite a bit actually. I was only obsessed with them for a good chunk of my early teens. Reflecting on that time of my life is strange because in hindsight, it was such a short period but it always feels like it lasted much longer. 

Everyone has that one band that they really connect with as a teenager that basically shapes their entire life and...well, yeah, that band for me is Jump5. I'm not kidding, I could write an entire book about how this band shaped my entire life (and believe me, I am working on it!). As much as I'd like to talk about all of that, we only have a short amount of time so let's talk about this song. 

As with Ordinary Day, this song reeks of the early 2000s. However, unlike Ordinary Day, the music video is much more successful in its execution. I couldn't believe myself when rewatching it...it is actually pretty darn good as far as music videos tend to be. 

Choosing what Jump5 song to talk about was pretty difficult because there are so many in their arsenal that I can talk about for long periods of time and connect to life experiences. But All I Can Do seems to be a special one because I'm almost certain it was the first track I ever heard from the group. As with Dream Street, Jump5 had a big TV marketing campaign for their second album, All the Time in the World (in which All I Can Do is the first track). It was their TV advert that put them on the radar for me. I vividly remember seeing the commercial at Christmas time. It was the first Christmas spent at our new house and I can remember watching the TV with my gifts and snow falling outside. At this point, seeing pop bands advertised on TV was nothing new. There were always new groups trying to make it big as other pop acts had before them. But other than my memory of seeing this commercial, it otherwise didn't leave a big impact on me. I wouldn't start listening to Jump5 until a few months later after getting into Radio Disney. And even after I got into Jump5, All I Can Do was never one of their songs that I gravitated towards. 

I wanted to talk about this song because of how well it represents Jump5 as a group. All I Can Do is their quintessential track, packed with energy and fun lyrics. But the track is also a representation of the group's core aesthetic of disguising "Christian values" as a pop song about a crush. For anyone who grew up on a Christian media diet (as I did voluntarily as a teenager), this is nothing out of the ordinary for this type of entertainment. In fact, it is basically a meme at this point. All I Can Do may be the least overt example of this from Jump5's library, but it is still an example nonetheless.

“It's like I got nothing to do but think about you,” (you being God), "I've got all the time in the world," (implying that time does not matter because in God you have everlasting life), "if you look at my heart, you'll know from the start," (meaning God knows your true heart and He knows from the start). I could go on but I think you see my point. There isn't anything inherently bad about this example and it is fairly harmless, but this isn't always the case when it comes to Christian entertainment.

Another trend from the late 90s' and early 2000s' was a pop group being a mix of both guys and girls but the guys rarely sang (A*Teens is another example that might come to mind). This song is dominated by the girls who share most of the song equally. The guys are hardly ever heard at all except when Chris gets his time to shine echoing the song's title over and over. It is easy to forget about them but alas, they are there.

Jump5 were known for their dance routines that they performed alongside their songs. They would often do cartwheels, flips, and very technical dance routines that blew many other pop acts out of the water. They also performed these routines live on tour, not just in their music videos. This dance routine is a really memorable one, showing the group doing a train-like dance which I remember performing with a friend. It is a lot of fun and I won't let anyone tell me otherwise! It was a lot of fun revisiting this track.

Is It Saturday Yet? by Nick Carter

Well here we are, at the final song, and boy is this choice...let's go with interesting. Nick Carter, known for his Backstreet Boy fame, recorded his own solo album after the group disbanded. What we got was Now or Never which is only ever remembered by the song Help Me, and even that is pretty forgettable. All that said, I owned this album and listened to it quite a bit as a tween. My most specific memory with the album is listening to it on a long car ride to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Is It Saturday Yet? is the seventh track on the album and out of the five tracks I liked, this was probably at the bottom. 

So why talk about it if it was my least favorite track? Well friends, this track is so bizarre that I question its existence on a frequent basis. It is insane how often this song gets stuck in my head and won't leave. 

The song seems to be about a disengaged teenager being raised by Jerry Springer and video games (video games got a low blow for warping kids brains back in the day. They still get blamed today but it isn't to the same extent) who just can't wait for Saturday to come so he can be rid of his responsibilities. The lyrics are...dumb. They are clearly trying to make a point but the song is so ridiculous that it is white noise. And why is it that Nick and Aaron Carter always have to reference each other in their songs? It was cute at first when Aaron did it in his classic track Oh Aaron, but now it is just old. 

"Is it Saturday yet? Cause I wanna get up. Is it Saturday yet? It just feels like a Saturday. Maybe it's a Saturday." Those are the lyrics in the chorus. It is a song so devoid of meaning and so lazy to its very core. It contains lazy rhymes and brutal instrumentals. This song is the reason so many people describe pop music as empty trash. Like, don't get me wrong, a lot of music on the radio is pop trash and is clearly put together by big corporate higher-ups to make a quick buck on teenage stars locked in a contract. But some of that music is meaningful and deserves to be recognized. This song, however, deserves to die a painful death. It is just terrible. 

And yet, despite all of this, the song somehow still appeals to me. I still listen to it. I still find joy out of it even though it is just awful in every possible way. I think that speaks to the whole point of these reflections on the music I listened to when I was younger. 

Is It Saturday Yet? may be the worst of the bunch, but a lot of music cranked out back in the day was mindless entertainment. As much as it bothers me, I won't lie and say there is no place for music like this because there is. Sometimes when I am driving, I get so sick of the music I normally listen to ("good" music) and I just want music from my childhood that won't make me think but will just allow me to bake in nostalgic goodness. 

Revisiting these songs was fun, but I know there are more I want to talk about in the future! Stay tuned! What are some songs you listened to in the early 2000s’ that make you feel super nostalgic today? Let me know in the comments!

* It should also be noted that the band broke up because of a lawsuit in which the majority of the parents of the band alleged that the underage band members were "exposed to booze, women, and pornography."

[johannesviii]

Top 15 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2002

13 to 14 years old. Most of the year was pretty good. Summer was great. But in September I arrived in 2nd (local equivalent of 10th grade), so I was 14 in a class of mostly 15/16 years old students, and I looked so out of place that inevitably, bad shit started to happen very quickly.

Thankfully, it was a damn good year for hits. They say music never sounds better than when you are a teenager, as if that was a bad thing - but maybe they’re right? So yeah, nostalgia is in full force there. This year was so good for music, in fact, that this is a top 15 instead of 10. It was already super difficult to keep only 10 songs before I even looked at the French year-end list, and then I just gave up.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

This list originally had SIX horribly painful cuts so I decided to do some damage control and make it a top 15. There’s still a whole bunch of honorable mentions, though.

Heaven remix (DJ Sammy) - [Insert here rant about Johannes liking overproduced dance garbage full of colors and lights]

Move b█tch (Ludacris) - Just a ton of fun to sing along that chorus.

Whenever Wherever (Shakira) - I claim overplay, but that is still legendary.

How You Remind Me (Nickelback) - Nobody’s gonna disagree if I say they’re a terrible band, but you gotta admit, their first hit was pretty great.

The Middle (Jimmy Eat World) - In a year full of fantastic earworms, some had to stay out of the list.

Can’t Fight the Moonlight (LeAnn Rimes) - Just re-read the previous statement.

Get the Party Started (Pink) - More on that later.

Inch’Allah (MC Solaar) - Not his best song by a mile (obviously; I mean, the guy who wrote a song about making Satan explode into antimatter can’t really top that because nobody can) but still very nice.

Cleanin’ Out My Closet (Eminem) - Yeah, the rethread of The Real Slim Shady is on the list and not this. What can I say, I told you I had bad taste.

Just Like a Pill (Pink) - The last cut from the list. I just really, really liked Pink, can you tell?

This is when I started to listen to the radio A LOT in my room, because my access to the family computer was restricted and radio was basically the only media I still had 100% access to and full control of. Which might explain why I suddenly liked a ton of pop music. Or maybe that year was simply really good. I guess it’s a mix of both.

Also, I still didn’t have a key to the appartment, but I was a lot less supervised when I was outside, and I would sometimes sneak out to go the library or to the disc store.

So... here’s some of the first singles I ever bought, for the record, and also because I think it’s fun to see all of them together.

They’re all on this list, just to clarify.

15 - I’m Gonna Getcha Good (Shania Twain)

US: Not on the list / FR: #67

Well, that was quick. So yeah, I loved this song. The accent meant I couldn’t understand half of the lyrics, but it was still a ton of fun and a delight every time it was on the radio.

14 - Wherever You Will Go (The Calling)

US: #5 / FR: #53

I didn’t love this song that much at the time and only put it on one tape, but it really grew on my over the years. Yeah, it’s your standard 2000s pop-rock song, objectively, but I don’t know. It didn’t have to go that hard with its metaphors. I mean the guy is ready to follow that person into hell and turn back time if necessary. I really don’t know. It shouldn’t work so well but it does for me. Maybe it’s because I’m very literal-minded.

13 - Le Chemin (Kyo ft. Sita)

US: Not on the list / FR: #55

Basically: A Ma Place by Axel Bauer & Zazie from the previous honorable mentions of 2001, except with half the amount of Hetero Drama(tm) and a pop-rock flavour to make it more palatable.

The first hit of a band it would very quickly be super cool to hate in my country (and I do mean very quickly, like a year or so) because everyone (including me, mind you) thought their lyrics were a bit too cringy even for pop-rock songs.

Doesn’t mean I didn’t buy the album and listened the shit out of it for like two years, though. The saddest part is that my favorite single from it by far, Je Cours (”I Run”), isn’t elligible for any list. Dammit.

12 - Murder On The Dancefloor (Sophie Ellis-Bextor)

US: Not on the list / FR: #26

This was a huge hit in Europe and somehow I thought it had reached the US, but apparently it didn’t. That’s a shame.

Also, overplay didn’t manage to kill it for me and that’s impressive.

11 - Complicated (Avril Lavigne)

US: #11 / FR: #83

Loved it, bought the single, loved it even more, and then one of my uncles sent me the album for christmas, and all was nice and good in the world.

For the record, I thought Sk8er Boi was one of the worst songs on the album (my favorite was My World), and I still dislike this particular song to this day, so this is why it’s nowhere to be found here.

10 - Don’t Let Me Get Me (Pink)

US: #36 / FR: Not on the list

You already know that because of the honorable mentions, but yeah, I loved Pink. This was the second album I decided I had to save money for months to acquire instead of just a single and which my parents would probably find acceptable. And this song is the best and it kicks some serious ass, on top of being full of self-loathing and extremely relatable at the time ("everyday I fight a war against the mirror, can't take the person staring back at me"? "I wanna be somebody else"?? Big, big dysphoria mood right there).

No regrets, baby.

9 - Hands Clean (Alanis Morissette)

US: #95 / FR: Not on the list

In just about every list I’ve made so far, there’s one song which makes me think “if I had better taste, this would be much higher”. This is one of these songs. Still love it, still put it on a tape and burned it on a cd. I found the cd in question again yesterday while making this list and it contains, in that exact order: Visage, Evanescence, Kyo, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Talk Talk, Scatman John, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Shania Twain, INXS, Freur, Alizée, Linkin Park and this exact song by Alanis Morissette. It’s a great little time-capsule of my debatable tastes.

8 - Die Another Day (Madonna)

US: Not on the list / FR: #86

This has the same kind of weird, disjointed beat as Music, but it sounds much more aggressive and sinister. This dropped right when I started to have real problems at school, so it’s a bit difficult for me to listen to it nowadays without having unpleasant flashbacks at the same time, which is why it’s so low on the list even though I listened to it on a loop back in the day. It might be a subpar James Bond theme, and might have dumb lyrics (god the Sigmund Freud line sdfghjhgfdfg), but on its own? It’s great.

Also I loved the music video. My mother, obviously, hated it, which only made me like it more, because, I mean, obviously it did. That’s how it works when you’re 14.

Speaking of which.

7 - Without Me (Eminem)

US: #21 / FR: #11

By that point, it was becoming pretty clear that I would never be able to buy the music I wanted if my parents disapproved of it, so I had to be sneaky and buy every, uh “debatable” single with a second more acceptable single to hide the first one. The one I bought alongside this one was a cover of Désenchantée, sung by Kate Ryan.

Success.

It is, in fact, less good than The Real Slim Shady, and I could only understand about one third of the lyrics, but still. I listened to it a loooooot. Because I actually had that single and not the other one which it was basically referencing to the point of self-parody. And just like the other one, I obviously don’t endorse all the lyrics, and the beat is great.

6 - All the Things She Said (Tatu)

US: Not on the list / FR: #12

Just like Die Another Day this one is a bit difficult to listen to nowadays for me but it’s a monster of a hit nonetheless. Have to say, though: I listened to Not Gonna Get Us even more, which means THAT one is even more linked to bad memories, to the point of basically being unlistenable because it triggers a literal fight-or-flight response with me. Not kidding in the slightest. Still love it though.

5 - J’ai Demandé à la Lune (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #4

This is one of my least favorite hit songs from Indochine. It’s still #5 on a list where I had to keep 15 entries instead of 10. This is because almost no other song I really really like from them will ever be elligible for these lists and if I can’t put a single Indochine song somewhere, especially from the Paradize album, I will have to punch a wall, dammit.

So here. Have the one in which the guy asks the moon if his significant other still loves him and where the moon answers “dude it’s not my problem”.

I love them and Paradize is an absolute monster of an album which rightfully made them relevant again, from new wave sensations of the 80s to favorite mainstream band for every young French punk/goth kid ever in the 2000s. This is not a diss, by the way, considering I was very clearly in that core demographic. Especially if you look at the top three I made for that year (and for the next one but let’s not get ahead of ourselves).

4 - A Thousand Miles (Vanessa Carlton)

US: #6 / FR: #51

Yeah yeah, you knew this was coming when you saw that pic of the first singles I bought, and you can start laughing now. I know it’s basically a meme now (and a good one, mind you), but sometimes, songs are remembered for more than one reason, and you have to admit that one is still great on its own. I listened to it SO. MUCH. Especially before everything started to go wrong for me that year, so basically this is the sound of “how things should have been”, and it’s so pleasant and nice to listen to it even today. It’s no longer on my mp3 player, but, no joke, I think it stayed on it from the day I bought my first mp3 player to something like 2017. Is it an indicator of quality or yet another indicator of my debatable taste? Probably both.

In any other year, there would be a clear #1 either towering above the other songs or just slightly ahead of the rest. 2002 was so good I can’t, for the life of me, decide which of these next three songs is the best one, even subjectively, in a “hey I like this one a little bit more” kind of way.

So I’m ranking the top 3 according to the lengths I went to to listen to each of these songs at the time.

Let’s go.

3 - C’est Une Belle Journée (Mylène Farmer)

US: Not on the list / FR: #46

This is what I’d call the Last Great Mylène Farmer Song. Oh she was still making music, pretty great music, in fact, after that. She’s still making decent stuff nowadays, from time to time. But in my opinion, it’s all downhill from there.

Still. This kickstarted my obsession with her at the time, because someone (I still have no idea who that was) was foolish enough to buy me the cd for Christmas. This is also why it’s #3 and not higher; I didn’t have to work at all to listen to it.

So... This is a song about killing yourself, disguised as a bouncy energetic pop tune. And it works horribly well. It’s very vaguely sinister but if you don’t listen to it very closely, it’s nearly impossible to notice what it’s actually about (translation here), and it charted super high and for a super long time without any controversy in its wake.

As I said: all downhill from there, because... how do you even top this?

2 - Lose Yourself (Eminem)

US: #63 / FR: Not on the list

You probably guessed this was coming. I’m not sure what the consensus for the “best Eminem hit song” is nowadays, but that one has to be pretty high on the list. And it’s also kind of a meme because of the spaghetti line, I know, but still, quality, man. The most important thing about it in the context of this list is that it was juuuuust slow enough to allow me to understand most of the important parts with my still-limited English, and I loved the little story it told. I remember trying to put it on a tape for days and waiting for it to pop up on the radio and instantly pressing Record after the first note.

And of course I wanted to see 8 Mile and I couldn’t, but a few months later, the local book/dvd/music store, which had screens broadcasting scenes from new stuff they were selling, had a screen with a few battle rap scenes from 8 Mile on it, and once I noticed I stood in front of the screen for a long time in silent admiration. What can I say, I was an angry little thing, and seeing angry people fighting each other in ways where no-one gets hurt was very satisfying and cathartic.

1 - In the End (Linkin Park)

US: #7 / FR: Not on the list

The music video had hilariously bad cgi even at the time, just to clarify. But yeah, that sound right there had the perfect balance of color, energy, sadness and anger to be the hit of the year for me back then. And I could understand nearly all the lyrics! I. Loved it. The local library had Hybrid Theory and I listened to it so. MUCH (my favorite song on it was actually One Step Closer (singing CAUSE I’M ONE-STEP-CLOSER-TO-THE-EDGE, ANDI’MABOUTTOBREAK felt great) and I thought Crawling was a bit embarrassing). Thank god that library didn’t have fines if you returned your stuff after the due date because I had to wait until I was able to make a copy of it first. The “parents-proof” “”cryptic”” label I wrote on said copy wasn’t particularly cryptic, though, and I’m gonna share it with you right now because that’s kind of funny.

So what do you do when you’re 14, pretty sure you understood the whole song, are finally able to listen to the whole album, burn it on a cd, and listen to it way too often? You write down the lyrics, painstakingly, with a fountain pen, in a small notebook where you try to write down the lyrics of every single song you love & can understand entirely. That’s what you do. Of course.

When I stopped doing that in 2007, there were two notebooks like that. I lost one of them, apparently, but the one I was able to find already had 63 songs in it. I finally had my own internet access later that year and I could find all the lyrics I wanted whenever I wanted, and I stopped doing that once and for all.

But it helped me get a lot better with English, so in the end, it doesn’t even matter.

So yeah, In the End?

Loved it and loved that band. I still do.

Next up: wow, “all edge no point”, uh?

[goodbysunball]

Summer squalor: July rotations

Been a minute but the hits keep comin’. Three picks each on three different formats. No cure for the sweltering heat but these’ll sure take you elsewhere for a minute. Bon appétit.

75 Dollar Bill, I Was Real 2xLP (Thin Wrist/Black Editions)

NYC’s foremost crate-and-guitar duo continue to osmose into an ever-larger recording entity, though the results are hardly bloated. Like Joshua Abrams’ Natural Information Society, 75 Dollar Bill specializes in patient sprawl, as on “Every Last Coffee or Tea” or the title track, a sort of musical kudzu covering more area, absorbing genres and instruments. Some shorter upbeat tracks are on display here, like “Tetuzi Akiyama” and “There’s No Such Thing as a King Bee” (featuring Knoxville’s own Carey Balch), and on the whole I Was Real’s double helping of material should please any and all fans of Wood/Metal/Plastic/Pattern/Rhythm/Rock. They’re not rehashing, they’re honing in on what works, and the ecstatic closer “WZN#3” is the life-affirming proof.

Crazy Doberman, s/t LP (Mastermind)

Being only familiar with last year’s I Dischi Del Barone 7″ and some of the group’s personnel, I was expecting Crazy Doberman’s latest LP to be two sides packed to the brim with exhausting third eye jazz freakouts. Instead the group flexes restraint across this self-titled record’s two tracks, more of a creeping horror soundtrack than freedom music’s untethered brawn. Horns and woodwinds scrape and screech from cobwebbed corners, synths ooze up from cracks in the floor, and occasionally, as on the beginning of the B-side, the band coalesces into a dense, foggy shroud of noise. The electronic elements provide a very lush feel, though the heavily forested area you find yourself in suddenly obscures and distorts the way from which you came. The clarity and simultaneous panicked thoughts provided by being truly nowhere. One of my favorite records of the year. Not sure if there’s a North American source, but the Danish label can get it to ya - here.

Robert Turman, Flux 2xLP (Spectrum Spools)

Almost 40 years since Flux was first released on cassette, and 7 years since Spectrum Spools first brought it back to life on CD and vinyl. I preferred Way Down to anything else Turman did back when it was first reissued, but nowadays I’m inclined to agree with Low Company’s assessment of Flux as an “all-timer.” Single notes are strung together on piano or kalimba and delicately layered, every one given space to breathe and expire, the bass-heavy recording ever-so-slightly hinting at something melancholy, the pleasurable kind afforded by momentary and true isolation. The remaster sounds fantastic, loud enough to fill the room and spare enough to emphasize the negative space.

Constant Mongrel, “Experts In Skin” b/w “Shnuki” 7″ (Upset the Rhythm)

New 7″ from Constant Mongrel featuring two tracks that could’ve made the cut for Living In Excellence in style and spirit. “Experts In Skin” showcases the steadily building tension they mastered on the last LP, the chorus-heavy guitars swelling to include sax that puts an exclamation point on the track. “Shnuki” has Amy Hill taking a role as co-vocalist, a move that oughta be replicated again given the bouncy and comparatively poppy results, kinda like if Terry could manage a snarl. Well worth the import price of $1/minute. Clear vinyl, 400 copies only, no inner sleeve and a beautifully close-cropped picture of Amy’s face on the B-side label. Sorry State, Digital Regress, and Feel It all have it in stock in the US.

Long Hots, “Nickel & Dime” b/w “Give & Take” 7″ (Third Man)

Somewhat unexpected for Long Hots to be scooped by Third Man after last year’s self-released cassette, but the wider exposure is certainly deserved. The 7″ sports “Nickel & Dime” from the tape and adds on “Give & Take,” maybe my new favorite song by the Philly trio. A mean guitar lead sets the stage for the sneering vocal delivery, the dust kicked up by the guitar in between verses a clear warning to keep your distance. "Give & Take” could, and maybe should, be twice as long as the 7″ format allows. It’s not often enough that garage rock brandishes the glint of a pocket knife amidst all the bluster; Long Hots’ll give you the business. Order direct, or check your local shop for a taste.

Small Cruel Party, La Chrestomathie Du Désespoir 7" (I Dischi Del Barone)

Unidentifiable sounds pinging away at each other, sometimes forming into plasma globules but more often staying in place while the projected scenery flashes behind them. Trying to spot the source of the sounds in the two 5-minute pieces is an exercise in futility, as the listener is kept at arm’s length, separated by the heavy curtain made of the “inherently mysterious.” You already know where you stand with stuff this impenetrable (or maybe with Small Cruel Party), but anything I Dischi Del Barone puts out is worth rolling the dice for. The latest round of releases from IDDB/Fördämning Arkiv in July are especially enticing. Careful Catalog is where to go for this 7″ in the US.

Itchy Bugger, Double Bugger cassette (Little Winners)

New Itchy B, on a limited cassette that sold out in a flash, and it finds the main man in a more reflective mood than last year’s Done One. Needling guitar lines still stick in your craw for days - “Fooled by the Sun”/”Fooled by the Song” and “The Wanker From Mataranka” especially - but tracks like “Sometimes” and “Have You Seen John?” attempt to put words behind the yearning glossed over or cut short on the debut. Bittersweet pop in the Australian tradition, growing older, grappling with work/life balance (”Nothin’ Tougher Than Hard Yakka”) and trying to sell oneself on the idea that you’re not just treading water as the weeks slip away. Not sure that I rate it as highly as Done One just yet, but bits like the tangled, desperate outro of “I Gotta Is A” make it more memorable with every listen.

Jay & Yuta, Condemned Compilations cassette (Little Winners)

A collaboration between Yuta Matsumura from Orion and Low Life, and someone named Jay. Do you know Jay? Yuta’s vocals are immediately recognizable to anyone who’s heard the Orion LP, and the way he nails the sidewinding melody on opener “Unprecedented Nation” proves he’s only becoming more acrobatic. Musically the duo sample from several eras of electronic sub-genres, be it murmuring and irresistible pop reminiscent of Broadcast (”Be More Kind”), Brian Eno’s work with David Bowie (”Fruitbat Odori”) or industrial throb by way of New Order (”Mysterious Flaws In The House We Built Ourselves” and “Hahagana”). Condemned Compilations plays out like a mixtape, as Sorry State said, and though the lyrics occasionally belie the presumed low stakes of the recording sessions, it is pure, unabashed fun, summer’s readymade cruising soundtrack. Sold out from the source, but you can still grab the tape from Sorry State or Papertown Company.

Overt Hostility, s/t cassette (Loki Label)

Two 20+ minute versions of Jonathan Richman’s “She Cracked” from Philly’s finest feedback-conjuring troglodytes? Not since Cheater Slicks’ “Thinkin’ Some More” has a song been so savagely gutted, thick layers of mangled and distorted guitar covering the windows and the walls and suddenly you’re knee-deep in some warm primordial muck and you can’t get enough of it on you. Low fidelity captures the whole mess perfectly. Pure aural torture to my partner, and the only thing I want to listen to for hours once it’s on. I love this fuckin’ tape. 50 copies, long gone, sorry bub.

[therionsymphonicmetalmasters]

Vinyl Sunday

When I was about to write this text I thought of one thing: It's weird that such a huge portion of the hard rock/metal history of Sweden comes from the same spot. In this case Upplands Väsby, a suburb to Stockholm that back in the days had barely over 30.000 inhabitants (today it’s around 45.000). Besides Therion, you also have Europe, Candlemass and H.E.A.T. (very famous band in Sweden, not so big abroad). Yngwie Malmsteen also lived there for most of his life in Sweden (all of his time being musically active). Plus a number of smaller bands that got local fame (two of them, Universe and Excruciate, even released albums).

To put things in perspective, there are 85.000 inhabitants in Andorra and they have only one metal band that few people have heard of and Greenland has 56.000 inhabitants and no metal band at all. Africa has 1,2 billion inhabitants and just a hand full of hard rock/metal bands with record deals (none that made it big). Asia has almost 4,5 billion inhabitants and have only two hard rock/metal bands that made some international impact, Loudness (now sadly forgotten, they did some great stuff) and Baby Metal (which are really cool, but I don’t think they would have made it anywhere if it would have been grown up women) - both from Japan. Sigh (again; from Japan) has done pretty well, but only in the extreme metal scene.

Africa and Asia combined have 5,7 billion (81%) of the 7 billion population on planet Earth and the suburb Upplands Väsby with its (back then) barely over 30.000 people gave birth to more people that made it in this genre of music than areas covering 81% of the population of the planet. That’s pretty remarkable when you think of it, even given the fact that hard rock/metal is a western cultural phenomena, because in other fields of influence from the west, Asia has often managed to copy us very well and often even surpassed us in for example technical innovations (the last 35 years no one talks of ”cheap Japanese junk” technology anymore). And given the vast amount of black artists that made it in the blues, rock/hard rock scene, there should have been plenty of role models for Africans to pick up the guitar and be the Nigerian new Jimi Hendrix or Phil Lynott (Nigeria has a whopping 200 million people and have actually several artists that made huge success in pop music).

Having said that, I never liked Upplands Väsby it self too much and it felt good moving out of there 1992.

Back to vinyl!

In 1988 a friend asked me if I wanted to join for a concert with a band called Candlemass. Their debut album had been released 1986, but it was a big flop and not many people knew of the band even in Stockholm. But they had released Nightfall just some months earlier (nov '87) and now they had just started to gain some success with their new singer Messiah Marcolin. But to me they were still new and I went there much because of the support act Agony, which was a local thrash band with one really good song I had heard on the radio. There was also a female heavy/thrash metal band called Ice Age and I was curious about that too. At the concert I ended up enjoying the two bands I came to see. I even stage dived twice to Agony! But it would turn out that Candlemass with that that fat crazy singer with the huge hair, monk clothes and operatic voice from hell TOTALLY blew me away! You just gotta love YouTube when you can even find obscurities like that available today (I’m somewhere in the audience head banging):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7ansj_O7mQ

I didn’t have cash to buy the album, so I got my friend to tape it for me instead (as often was the case back then when you were young and broke and there was too much good music). Some years later we were signed to the same label (Active Records) and I managed to sweet talk myself into a free copy of the vinyl from their manager Dave Constable who also owned that label (as I was still broke investing all cash into music equipment).

There are few albums that have intros good enough that you want to listen to it more than first 3 times (when CD’s came people would start skipping them) and there are few albums I’d give 10/10, but this is one of them. It was recorded poorly at Thunderload studio (owned by the Heavy Load guys) and they had to escape with the master tapes to Stockholm Recording to save the album. Technically speaking, the sound is totally terrible (especially the drums), but it’s somehow like with Black Sabbath - their murky lo-fi sound becomes a charming content that gives the music unique personality (something that never happened again once studios turned digital).

UPDATE: X-Japan should of course be mentioned as a successful Asian metal band as well. They are massive in Japan but also made it big in USA. But they actually never made it big in Europe (the main market for metal music after the 80's), ask random people at metal festivals here and most people won't even know the name. Which is a shame, because it's indeed a great band.

Also to clearify; with "making it" I refer to bands that sold at least over a million albums. There are of course some fantastic bands that made it in the smaller scenes

[fullfrequencycollective]

What is the purpose of a small, independent record label in 2018?

That’s the question I’ve been turning over in my head these past few months. I think I have an answer, but it’s gonna take some explaining. Stick with me.

Why Bother Records, the record label I started with my best friend Christian back in 2015, slowed down considerably over the past two years. The last release I was substantially involved with the release of was the Halogens / Staten split at the end of 2016. After that, I used the name to help Justin Fernandez release Staten music in a much more hands-off manner. Things slowed down because I was a senior in college, preparing to full-time student teach the following spring, and thinking probably a bit too much about my “future” or whatever. It felt like just one more thing I had to deal with during a period when I had an exceptionally high number of things to deal with, so I put it on ice.

Now, in my second year of grad school, my fourth and final semester, nearing a career path in education that seems manageable if slightly creatively unfulfilling, I feel decidedly stable. A month or so ago, I caught the feeling that I should bring the label back. That’s when I started thinking about what a small independent record label looks like now, after the time I’ve spent away from one.

I guess it starts with what a record label like Why Bother does. When I was operating Why Bother a few years ago, after an artist agreed to work with us, I did a number of discrete things. I hand-produced cassettes that I was able to produce for cheap. I redesigned and laid out album artwork to fit the unique cassette layout, then took the art to the printer and cut inserts to fit by hand. I assembled the product. I did publicity for all of our releases.

So what was all of that for? What was the purpose? I think it falls into three categories.

1. I wanted to financially support artists.

I got the idea to make WBR a cassette label after reading this Pitchfork op-ed back in my very first week of college. A selection:

“Speaking of vinyl, which is an expensive gamble for a small label, I like that cassettes are inexpensive. I buy them in bulk from National Audio Company in Missouri for around 50 cents each, and jewel cases are about 22 cents each. Usually I end up doing my own artwork and labels. Runs of 50 or 100 are small by any standard, but if you want to do everything, they take more time than you might think. I don’t like the word “cheap” here, but I like the situation that not having to worry about money puts me in. It’s just a cassette. I don’t feel bad about giving them away to people. Most people I don’t expect them to even listen; I doubt they have cassette players. But I’m interested in those 10 or 15 people who end up trying. Those 10 or 15 people are more interesting to me than Soundcloud plays.”

Tapes are inexpensive. You can turn a profit from them much more easily than you can from CDs or vinyl. I think we usually broke even on a tape run after we sold 8 or so. Toward my desired goal of putting more money in the artists I liked’s pockets, I think the math works best with cassettes at this scale. So I liked that part of it as a broke college kid.

But there’s more to the story as well. That’s not the only reason. Another selection:

“Music released on cassettes doesn’t feel desperate or needy or Possibly Important. It tends not to be concerned about The Conversation. It resists other people’s meaning. That’s what I like about the cassette. It whittles down our interactions with music to something bare and essential: Two people, sometimes more, trying to feel slightly less alone.

…

I like the community of labels. It’s small, humble, not exactly well organized. You meet people in a stumbling, haphazard way, which is refreshing in the age of the targeted ad. Steve at Moon Glyph. Tom at Mirror Universe. Emily at Love Lion. Opal Tapes, Trilogy Tapes, Leaving Records. I usually have not heard of the artists, who usually do not have publicists “working” the record. I often buy five or six tapes at a time, whatever releases are available. Sometimes they come right away, other times they take three weeks and two of the cassettes don’t have music on them. I listen to cassettes on a small Sony boombox (with Mega Bass), usually when I do the dishes or get ready in the morning. The music feels like a secret between friends.”

That brings me to another important ideal:

2. I wanted to build a community.

Music communities changed my life. From those first Marlboro Rec Center Now or Never/Feverview shows, to hearing “Red Floral Dress” for the first time in a basement filled with my friends, to all of those weekends at the Asbury Lanes, to every friend I’ve made at grad school that started with some conversation about how Against Me! kick ass. All of those moments are what draw me to music. Music communities are the rope that tethers me to this world.

When WBR started, we had the Mayflower Collective. We had friends who were all into the same things. We had something. I wanted WBR to co-exist with that something. One of my most firmly-held beliefs is that there is power in numbers. We take what successes we’re blessed with and use them to lift the family around us. We take care of our own. To elaborate on that Springsteen reference:

“In art and love, one and one makes three. In music, if it makes two, you’ve failed, my friend.” — Bruce Springsteen

To make three:

3. I wanted to curate what I thought was the best of the best.

One of my more vivid memories from the NJ scene was On Your Marks’ album release show at the Lanes in 2013. Standing there, watching whatever band was playing, I looked around and noticed that the place was damn near sold out. That my friends who were just trying to play shows with their friends and write dope songs, had somehow convinced two-hundred or so locals to pay money to see them play. I tried to scale that in my head—how long until it’s the Stone Pony? Then Starland? Then the Arts Center? What was the ceiling?

That was the moment that I felt an obligation to show my friends off to the world. That was the moment that I decided that I wanted to write about music. I started my dinky little blog later that week to get some work done that summer.

I carried that mentality with me when I decided to start the label. “How can I show the world this awesome thing my friends did? What’s the best way of doing that?" I only ever reached out to artists who I genuinely believed in. The musicians making songs that I felt in my body. The people I knew were good people. I only worked with *music* and *people* that I had faith in. I can’t speak to how much money we would have made if we didn’t pass on a few opportunities, but it kept the drive going. It still does.

~

This is running long, so I’ll summarize here. I want to reboot the label with those three concepts in mind. I want to get to the base of them. I want to try something new. Full Frequency Collective is that something:

The new Why Bother Records will have two facets:

1. A traditional record label that will dub cassettes to financially support our artists

2. A podcast that serves to explain why I love the music we release so much

Because I don’t want to make money off of this, and instead focus my efforts on supporting artists and causes I believe in, Full Frequency Collective is primarily going to be subscription-based. I’ve launched a Patreon where subscribers can get in for $1 or $5 each month. They can get in or out whenever they choose, but I’m hoping some folks will stick around. I am aiming to release a tape from a Featured Artist every other month. The podcast is going to be weekly, with every other episode being subscriber-exclusive. After the manufacturing prices, hosting prices for the podcast (extremely low), and whatever unforeseen cost it takes to create this endeavor, all money from the Patreon will be split between the Featured Artist and a charity of their choice (pending my approval—we ain’t shipping money out to hateful causes and we ain’t getting scammed).

To elaborate a bit on what you’re getting for your money:

If you pay $1 each month, you’ll get access to the subscriber exclusive podcast episodes. The regular podcast will come out every 14 days and consist of interviews with the featured artist about the creative process, the making of their records, their artistic ideals, etc. I’ll also get guest on to talk about the world of music news, music we get down with, happenings in the arts communities. Kind of structured. The subscriber exclusive episodes would be something more like “Jake and I talk about Karl Marx and economics for an hour,” more freewheeling and off-off-topic. 

If you pay $5 each month, you’ll get every tape we put out, every subscriber-exclusive podcast episode, a shoutout in the podcast each week, a copy of every zine I make, and the satisfaction of knowing that you’re contributing to both the arts community and charity.

Here’s the thing—

I know this is weird. I know this is not a “traditional” record label business model. But I think it works better. I think it’s a way to put money in the hands of artists who make the work I feel passionate about. I think it’s a way to give back to the communities that need us. I think it’s a way to put your music in the inbox of people who may or may not have heard of you before. I think it’s a way to combine the parts of the creative process into a larger, more complete picture, like the channels in a full-frequency stereo sound system. I think it’s a way to build a new type of community.

Thanks. You can subscribe here. If you have any questions, reach out. Let’s make something.

[topweeklyupdate]

TØP Weekly Update #57: Thanks, Jay Z (8/9/2018)

Turns out last week was a pretty good one to take off. Very little of major note happened in the Twenty One Pilots sphere while I vacationed in the Canadian wilderness. This week, however... that’s a whole other story. 

New music. New music video. New track list. New merch. Let’s get into it. 

This Week’s TØPics:

“Levitate” and Trench Track List Leak, and Then...

“Levitate” Video and Trench Track List Released

“Jumpsuit” Drops Off the Hot 100 (But Still Gains At Radio...)

Mark Goes Off

AND MORE

Major News and Announcements:

On Tuesday, the streaming service Tidal briefly posted the third promotional track for Trench before realizing their mistake and taking it down. This still provided the Clique with plenty of time to record and post it in so many places across the Interwebs that Warner Music Group’s copyright bots couldn’t hope to catch up. The likelihood that Tyler and Josh leaked it themselves is honestly pretty low extremely high.

The track, entitled “Levitate”, is the most unmistakable hip-hop track in the band’s discography thus far. Running at a tight 2:20, Tyler delivers some truly impressive bars in what is essentially a single extended verse, constantly mixing up his flow against a slick trap drum beat and the eerie synth that was hinted at in the end of “Jumpsuit” (if the entire album flows from song to song like this... automatic 10/10). 

Lyrically, “Levitate” sees Tyler discussing the role of songwriting in his life, a form of expression that allows him to “fire-breathe” and “levitate” beyond his problems. The song is littered with gems (“we are not just graffiti on a passing train”) and jabs against the music industry for trying to rein him in or make him into something he’s not (“this culture is a poacher of overexposure, don’t feed me to the vultures”, “you’re the worst; your structure compensates, but compensation feels a lot like rising up to dominate”). The reference to Tyler getting back “what I once bought back in that slot, I won’t need to replace” is perfect, and I’m still emotional about it.

I do have a few minor quibbles with the song. I think the looped instrumental is a little too minimalistic to justify the length of the outro. “At least they all know what they hear comes from a place” and “you can levitate with just a little help” lack specificity and fall a little flat for me. And I’ve expressed before that I’m not overly interested in songs about the music industry that aren’t directly applicable to most people’s experience (sorry, "Fairly Local” and “Lane Boy”). 

All that said, the production and presentation is so slick. Plus, Tyler grounds the song in enough personal experience and relatable struggles that it succeeds in crossing over that gap of fame and success to actually hit home. Lines like “danger in the fabric of this thing I made,” “I thought I could depend on my weekends on the freezing ground,” and “don’t feed me to the vultures, I am a vulture who feeds on pain” show the same vulnerability and self-aware introspection that attracted me to the band in the first place.

“Levitate” wasn’t all we got from the leak. An updated version without the yellow duct tape over the track list was included as the background, revealing the names of the other eleven songs that we’ll hear sometime between now and October 5th. The track list is as follows:

Didn’t think that I’d struggle with a song title more than “Bandito”, but “Pet Cheetah” and “The Hype” are really gonna have to go the extra mile in ways that no other song from the band has before to justify those artistic choices. (That said, “Neon Gravestones” sounds rad as hell.) We’ll save picking apart the meaning for all of these titles for a later date; we’ve still got another two months before the album is out, and I don’t think we’ll be getting any new songs or videos until late September at the earliest, so we’ve got time.

ln the wake of the leak (much like with “Heathens” two years ago), the song and video for “Levitate” were pushed out the following day, two days earlier than originally planned if the date on Tidal is anything to go buy. The third installment in this Trench trilogy features Tyler and Josh performing the track at the Bandito camp while vultures fly around looking cool. At the video’s conclusion, Tyler is snatched away from a campfire by a bishop and dragged without a struggle back to Dema. One Bandito looks frightened by this, but another just ominously states “Welcome to Trench”.

I must confess that this music video didn’t fully do it for me. While the production value remains stellar, the “Car Radio” call-back with shaving Tyler’s head is great, and I love any opportunity to see the boys perform together, “Levitate” as a song is frankly too short and moves at a too breakneck pace to make a truly compelling video out of the song alone. I’m honestly shocked that there wasn’t a longer extended scene attached to the end of the video to provide a stronger narrative conclusion to the pieces laid in the last two videos, especially considering that “Jumpsuit” opened with such a scene. As it is, the video moves by so quickly and shares so many aesthetic qualities with its two predecessors that it didn’t leave much of an impression on me.

There is, however, one (potentially unintentional) aspect of the “Levitate” video that really resonated with me. Tyler enjoying himself while performing and being with people only to be yanked out of the group once the energy dies down a little is a perfect representation of anxiety and depression, which so often sets in without warning in circumstances where one would think are supposed to feel happy and safe. The fact that this story ends on such a down note reads as an honest reflection on the nature of mental illness, even if it is perhaps narratively unsatisfying. Besides, I highly doubt this will be our last exploration of the Trench universe; we’ll just have to see where else Tyler and Josh take us when the album drops.

With the initial wave of promo singles out of the way, the marketing team has moved ahead with the business of actually selling the album. Trench is now available for pre-order on iTunes. The Twenty One Pilots webstore is now full of various bundle packages for pre-order that include t-shirts, hoodies, a dope bandana, a 10′’ vinyl EP with the three promo tracks, CD and cassette versions of the full album and (if you order before the end of the month) a neat little patch, all at pretty reasonable prices.

Other News and Shenanigans:

There isn’t too awful much to report outside of the mountain of major developments (thank God). Andrew Donoho posted some dope behind the scenes pics starring Clifford the Vulture. Josh is still occasionally tweeting and posting pictures of hanging out with Debby, his brother, and other cool people. Tyler is still quiet as ever, and I’m not sure why that shocks people. It bears repeating that he was rarely on social media pre-hiatus, that this is probably going to be a regular thing, and that stepping back from social media is honestly one of the better decisions one can make for your mental health and overall leisure time.

The only really notable thing that I missed during my vacation was Mark clarifying on Twitter that the Trench music videos have all been in chronological order and that he’s been happy to be giving Andrew Donoho creative control over how the videos have developed. With how cryptic things have been surrounding this album’s release, it’s refreshing to have a voice of reason to tell it like it is. Thanks Mark.

Chart Performance:

While the new song has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind, its predecessors have still been putting in work... but perhaps not as much as might have been expected based on the last album cycle’s success.

In spite of the release of the new music video two weeks back, “Nico and the Niners” slipped off the Hot 100 after its first week and has declined in all metrics. This week, “Jumpsuit” also fell off the Hot 100 and has also been steadily sinking in sales and streaming. There are plenty of reasonable explanations for this: the too-heavy-for-Top-40 rock sound, the constant stream of other TØP content drawing focus away from any one song, the lack of promotional appearances from the band itself on TV and radio.

Many hopeful fans have pointed to the performance of “Stressed Out” as a hopeful sign that “Jumpsuit” may mount a future comeback, but I have my doubts about that comparison. 2015 was a very different time for the band- “Stressed Out”, like “Fairly Local” and “Tear In My Heart”, debuted on the Hot 100 because the Clique was as ravenous then as it is now, but the band still had next-to-no mainstream recognition. Those songs thus debuted low and fell off pretty quickly. It wasn’t until months later that the Clique’s grassroots support and the band’s rising esteem within the industry resulted in “Stressed Out” getting picked up at radio and being shared with new audiences, creating a snowball of promotion that launched Twenty One Pilots into the popular consciousness. When “Heathens” was released, the band’s profile was big enough to ensure it debuted at #14 and remained in the Top 40 for months. Compared to that performance, “Jumpsuit” is flopping commercially, no question.

However, there is still a glimmer of hope for the song’s future. While it is falling off pretty hard in most categories, it is still gaining spins at radio. It took #1 on the Rock Airplay chart for this last week. That means that more casual music listeners are hearing it than ever, which could make for another snowball where these listeners go back and search for the song themselves in the weeks to come. We will have to wait and see how the band and Fueled By Ramen decide to market the song and promote the album as it gets closer to its release date.

One thing is for sure: the band is not in any financial trouble. Even if “Jumpsuit” never returns to the Hot 100, even if “Levitate” is rejected by both lovers and haters of hip-hop and fails to chart, even if Trench somehow fails to match the Week 1 chart-topping sales of Blurryface even after the band picked up millions of new fans over the last three years, two things remain true: Blurryface made them more money than any individual will ever reasonably need, and they’ve already sold tens of thousands of tickets for their next tour. The days of worrying about this band are over for the foreseeable future; for now, we can just enjoy the music.

Power to the local dreamer.

|-/

[daggerzine]

Outrun the Sun……Kelly Haigh talks about how it all started and where it’s going.

It was random really….I had posted some cd covers of a 90’s/00’s Canadian indie rock/pop band Ashley Park and tagged author/musician Michael White who played drums on one of the records. From there a few comments came from a Kelly Haigh, a name I remembered as being in the band and she appeared on a few of the bands record covers, too. I then friended her on Facebook and asked if she had any records out under her own name, which she did. One cd (Country Western Star featuring Kelly and Frances the singing dog!) and a book filled with Kelly’s amazing, expressive art that includes a cd (Post Apocalyptic Valentines) both of which I quickly ordered.  The music leans heavily toward the country genre, which after hearing some Uncle Tupelo and Gram Parsons records in the early 90’s was a genre I dove into as well. Not having ever met Kelly in person she definitely seems like someone who dances to the beat of her own drum, a unique talent for sure. I then thought she’d be a person to find out more about as being part of Ashley Park and her own solo records that she’d have an interesting story, which she does so I sent her some questions that she graciously answered.  Read on dear readers and discover the magic that is Kelly Haigh!

  Where were did you grow up? Tell us a little about your childhood.

I grew up with my mom and two little brothers in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We spent summers on my Grandma's farm in Ontario, and so much of my inspiration and love of outdoors has come from those times. My dad was also a truck driver, so sometimes I got to ride with him in his big rig truck where we'd listen to all kinds of great old country music. When I was quite young, he once told me about one of his truck trips where he came upon quite a bad accident. He and his driving partner had gotten out of their truck to set up flares in the dark of night, and he tripped over a man's body. When there was enough light, he went back to check on that man's body, and he saw the man's head had been taken clean off! I asked if he also found the man's head, and my dad said no. On subsequent family road trips, I'd hound my dad to tell me where that accident had been, because I thought if I watched closely enough, I might find that man's head! I recently asked my dad if he thought that man's head had ever been found. He said, 'Don't be ridiculous, it probably smashed to pieces like a pumpkin.' I asked why he let me think I might find it by watching out the car window. He said because it kept me quiet for long enough he could have some peace and quiet. ha! But that was the start of my fascination with death and taxidermy. I couldn't bear to part with my first pet hamster when I was 11. The cold wintery ground prevented me from digging him a grave, so I skinned him. I still have his fuzzy little hide. I nearly became a taxidermist, my dad had an apprenticeship set up for me when I turned 19, but I decided instead to become a hairdresser. 

 Was your childhood musical? Did you parents/siblings/relatives play any instruments or were they big music fans?

Nobody I knew played any instruments, but we always had alot of records around. My parents were both big music fans. My mom loved Rolling Stones and Diana Ross and the Supremes, and my dad favoured classic country like George Jones, and Dolly Parton. I used to put a yellow tea towel over my head to pretend I had blonde hair, and I'd sing all Dolly's songs, hoping one day I could be a singer, only I was painfully shy. Whenever we were in the car with my mom, we'd all sing along to whatever music was on her car stereo!

 Do you remember the first record you bought with your own money?

If memory serves, the first record I bought with my own money was the soundtrack to Grease. I had been given a record player for Christmas, and it was SO exciting to have a turntable of my own! 

 At certain point did you ever get into the punk and/or  new wave scene?

No. That just wasn't for me!

 Prior to Ashley Park had you been in any bands?

No. I taught myself how to play guitar when I was a teenager. I'd sit in my bedroom with my dog and practice playing and singing for hours and hours. But I just never could bring myself to sing or play in front of anyone. I was just too shy. 

  Please tell us about how you met Terry Miles and became part of Ashley Park?

Terry was my significant other for nearly 15 years. When we first moved in together, he put that band together. I asked if I could be part of his band, and he said no. Then his keyboard player quit the band right before a trip to Austin Texas to play South by Southwest. He said if I could learn to play keyboards, I could be in the band. I had two weeks. He showed me what chords looked like on the keyboard, and told me what chords were in each song. I worked my butt off, and that was the start of my music career! We recorded at home, and I got to sing on some of the songs, and play some keyboards on a few tracks as well.    

        What was the best part about being in Ashley Park? Did you guys play out often?

The best part of being in Ashley Park was just getting to be part of something musical. I learned so much about recording and writing songs from Terry! Our drummer was Gregory. He's in a band called Sloan now. He was always very encouraging and supportive as well. We didn't play often, but we did get to play a few shows in our hometown of Vancouver, (including opening for the Soft Boys), and as well, we got to tour England! That was challenging, but exciting. We were also on a UK record label called Loose Records, and they sent us some music from some of their other artists including Neko Case. Of course I loved her, and her music led me to discovering and meeting her friend Carolyn Mark, who has become a dear friend of mine, and a huge inspiration to me. And that has led to a whole other life of music now, so many years later... 

  How did Ashley Park end?

Terry became disenchanted with music. He wanted to make movies, and direct films, which he has, with some good success. He also went on to make podcasts, which are very successful, (including Tanis, Rabbits, and the Black Tapes). He always said we'd record another record, but I knew it was something he likely wouldn't make time for. Ashley Park didn't so much end as just fade away... Though, Terry has the music available online, and he's started to record a bit of music on his own for his podcasts. 

  Tell us about your solo career. Was Country Western Star your first solo record? How did it come about?

Country Western Star was my first attempt at writing songs and recording. I got to put into action all that I learned from watching Ashley Park songs come into being! I had a rough patch in life, evolution can be painful! So I took my heartbreak and turned it into art! Little songs would come to me each night as I slept, I'd wake up and write them down and record them. I played every instrument on the album. It was huge challenge, but seeing Terry do it, I thought that was just how you created songs! The record was kind of meant to be like a play, little snippets of scenes that hopefully come together to tell a story. Also, it was a bit of a love letter to my dog Frances. My most loyal and loving companion of the past 13 years. 

 Who is the person(s) behind Darling Music? I’ve got some other fine records on that label.

Terry created and ran Darling Music... He did put out some fine records, including the Solarists, (songs by our friend Cam McLellan, who is SO talented, and a visual artist as well)!

 Please tell us about your book that came out a few years ago Post Apocalyptic Valentines (this also included a cd of more of Kelly’s music). How long have you been painting? Who/what are some of your biggest inspirations?

After recording my Country Western Star album, I wanted to record another album. This time, though, I wanted to have some friends who are FAR more talented, play some instruments, and sing with me. It was a really fun thing, and I had a ball making this book and album. I initially wanted to record a set amount of songs, and have a painting and short story to go with each. That was too ambitious, as it turned out, and the project evolved into just including many of my works, and some short stories I did write for this book, which connect to some of the songs. I knew I would have to make something that would stand out, in order to sell some copies. It was becoming clear fewer and fewer people wanted to buy another jewel case copy of a cd. 

I've been painting and drawing for pretty much my whole life. I have a pair of paintings I got back after my grandparents passed away. My grandmother had kept these little paintings, darkened skies, owls sitting waiting while their prey, dear little mice, sit unaware of their impending doom. Life is my inspiration. There is so much beauty around us, which sometimes comes packaged with the biggest heartbreaks and ugliness. I always try to paint lovely things with a touch of ugly, and ugly things with a hint of beauty. There is one artist in particular, Ray Caesar, who inspires me the most. His works are beyond incredible, but as a human, he is a kind, and generous man. Generosity of spirit and encouragement. He found me on MySpace (remember that?) hee hee, and sent me the nicest note that made me want to keep painting. 

Just one of Kelly’s fabulous pieces of art. 

 Name some bands/musicians from your neck of the woods who we need to hear?

My bestest pal, an incredible steel guitar/guitar player (and singer) Jimmy Roy, who plays music with me every Sunday night at a local music and dinner club called the Revel Room, also plays with a band called Petunia and the Vipers. Another band, Viper Central, every musician in those bands are so talented. Carolyn Mark is also one you must hear! My own sweetheart, Don Clark has a record up on Bandcamp that is pretty great! Two of most incredible guitar player friends, Paul Rigby and Paul Pigat have recorded together, Pigby... Kitty and the Rooster are pretty fantastic! As well as the Modelos! Also Geoff Berner I got to paint a couple of his album covers (A couple of Carolyn Mark’s as well, so I’m partial to their music as I listened to it so much as I worked on creating the album art) These are some I can think of off the top of my head. I'm sure I'll think of more later, and feel badly for forgetting... 

 How about a few of your current favorite bands/records (from anywhere)?

I have to be honest, I mostly listen to old time country music, and Elvis Presley. Stuff like that. I don't hear much current music, aside from friends who play locally! I do like to hear a little Camera Obscura sometimes! 

 What are your top 10 desert island discs?

Here's the funny thing about how music has changed... No longer going to buy copies of albums, but searching out music by artist, I don't know album titles really, for the music I listen to! I mean, a few I do, but the 10 artists' recordings I'd need to have would be as follows, 

1 Elvis Presley

2 Buck Owens and the Buckaroos

3 Melvin Endsley

4 Wynn Stewart

5 Dolly Parton with Porter Wagoner

6 Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty

7 Anita Carter

8 Patsy Cline

9 Marvin Rainwater

10 George Jones and Tammy Wynette 

 What’s next? Will there be another record soon? Another book, perhaps?

For sure I'd LOVE to get into a studio with Jimmy Roy, and our band, the Murderbirds! We have SO many amazing friends who could play on it with us! We have a lot of songs written, so hopefully soon we can get this going! I think it would have to come in another book for sure! I'm not sure yet what that might look like!

 Any closing comments? Final thoughts? Anything you wanted to mention that I forgot to ask?

Final thought... I think people should sing every day, even if it's just in the shower! Nothing brings as much joy, in my opinion, as music. It can bring people together in so many ways. It can build memories, help us feel connected to others, to ideas, to feelings, and to ourselves. <3 

 www.kellyhaigh.com

www.northern-electric.ca 

[futuresandpasts]

Futures & Pasts | MRR #421

As seen in Maximum Rocknroll #421 (June 2018): coming full circle from my very first column which also featured Melbourne’s foremost Fall freaks the Shifters, plus some crucial ‘80s post-punk reissues via Louisville + New Zealand & the new Northwest DIY crash-pop cassette wave. 

I wrote about the debut cassette from Melbourne’s the SHIFTERS in the very first column that I did for MRR three years ago, which gives me all sorts of complicated and confusing feelings about the passage of time. And as evidence that sometimes it takes awhile for historical wrongs to be righted, that criminally limited tape is now finally available in its entirety as an LP on the new French label Future Folklore, following the two songs that resurfaced on the Creggan Shops 7” courtesy of It Takes Two back in 2016. The SHIFTERS’ stark, repetitive minimalism and shambolic charms always owed more than a little bit to the FALL in their early years, and revisiting the material from the cassette now just a few months after Mark E. Smith’s passing only reinforces the psychic connection between the lackadaisical post-punk twang in “Captain Hindsight” and the cracked melodies of something like the FALL’s “Your Heart Out” from the Dragnet era. “Creggan Shops” is as close to a contemporary successor to those brilliant first two MEKONS singles as I’ve come across, from the tense interplay between the melodica and a creaky violin, to the scritch-scratch guitar, to the nonchalantly harmonized dual vocals, all sounding like they’re perpetually on the verge of coming undone. There’s way more at play here than blatant UK DIY worship, though—it’s not a huge jump from the homespun, pastoral pop of ‘80s Australian DIY legends like the PARTICLES and the CANNANES to the SHIFTERS’ raggedly melodic “Colour Me In,” and “The American Attitude to the Law” sprawls into a lengthy VELVET UNDERGROUND-addled haze, if only LOU REED had written songs referencing “drinking cough syrup to fall asleep” instead of heroin. One of the best releases of 2015 when it first came out on cassette, and this vinyl version is definitely going to be tough to top in 2018. (Future Folklore, futurefolklorerecords.bandcamp.com)

YOUR FOOD were an early ‘80s quartet from Louisville, Kentucky whose off-kilter, stripped-down art-punk mirrored the similarly self-styled approach of other DIY groups from that era who existed outside of major cities. Their only proper recorded output, 1983’s self-released Poke It With A Stick LP, was just reissued by Drag City at the behest of fellow Louisvillian David Grubbs (formerly of SQUIRREL BAIT and BASTRO, among others), and it’s pretty essential stuff for anyone interested in the chapter of American weirdo post-punk that took shape just before “college rock” became the dominant underground cultural force in the mid-to-late ‘80s. “Leave” and “New Pop” both layer simple, endlessly repeated basslines, obliquely narrated vocals, and trebly stabs of guitar into spartan drones that share the jaggedly danceable sensibility of what was happening a couple of hours to the south in Athens, Georgia with bands like the METHOD ACTORS or PYLON, even though YOUR FOOD were way more likely to switch up to a frantic, thrashy punk fit at a moment’s notice (see the last thirty or so seconds of the otherwise choppy and COME ON-esque “Cool/Cowtown”). There’s a sharp-cornered, chaotic shamble to “Here” that isn’t too far removed from RED KRAYOLA’s late ‘70s post-punk incarnation, and there’s even some touches of UK DIY-style naive jangle in “Corners” before it collapses into noisy abstract guitar squall mid-song. Totally freewheeling and ramshackle bent-punk bliss! I’ve seen a few references to the fact that MRR “refused” to review the LP when it originally came out, so hopefully I’m doing some small justice to Poke It With A Stick here 35 years later. (Drag City, dragcity.com)

I’m most certainly a card-carrying member of the Flying Nun fan club, but I’m also always really happy to see some renewed attention being given to some of the darker and more obscure corners of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s New Zealand underground, beyond the Flying Nun roster and the bands typically associated with the whole storied Dunedin sound. NOCTURNAL PROJECTIONS have often (and rather unfairly) been termed the Kiwi JOY DIVISION thanks to the combination of some deeply propulsive basslines and Peter Jefferies’ dramatically icy baritone vocals, but you could just as easily connect the dots between their take on bleak and razor-edged post-punk and what dozens of other UK-based bands like the SOUND or the CHAMELEONS were doing more or less concurrently. The two 12” EPs and one single that they released before splitting up in 1983 have been impossibly difficult to track down for quite a while (at non-collector scum prices, at least), and the consolation prize has been a selection of songs from those releases that made it onto a 1995 CD-only collection called Nerve Ends in Power Lines, plus a handful of roughly recorded 1981 demos that were excavated for 1998’s Worldview 7”. After all of the recent vinyl reissue campaigns focused on long out-of-print records by some of the most beloved New Zealand groups (who generally happened to be backed by Flying Nun in their day), NOCTURNAL PROJECTIONS have been long overdue for a similarly comprehensive treatment, so endless appreciation is due to Dais Records for stepping up to remedy that situation with the new Complete Studio Recordings anthology, collecting every song from the three original releases on one remastered LP. Even at their darkest and most desperate, like on the sinister, industrial-decay clang of “Another Year,” NOCTURNAL PROJECTIONS never slipped into the sort of over-the-top goth pretensions that were de rigueur in the age of 4AD’s ascendency, and vocal delivery aside, the slashing and anthemic “In Purgatory” honestly has more in common with MISSION OF BURMA or HÜSKER DÜ than, say, BAUHAUS. Highest possible recommendation, and an excellent counterpart to Superior Viaduct’s recent reissues of Peter and Graeme Jefferies’ more avant-garde/experimental post-NOCTURNAL PROJECTIONS project THIS KIND OF PUNISHMENT. (Dais Records, nocturnalprojections.bandcamp.com)

TRASH ROMEO are a very new duo from here in Portland featuring two people who have been in most of my favorite local bands over the last couple of years, including GOLDEN HOUR, the BEDROOMS, and CONDITIONER. Everything about their debut cassette Moving in the Summer brings to mind the pre-internet, early-to-mid ‘90s romance of mail-ordering singles from paper catalogs and building up imagined realities of geographically-centered scenes that you’d only ever read about. Alex and Danny both rotate between guitar, drums, and vocals, crafting sparse crash-pop with a hint of basement punk snarl that picks up a few loose threads from the parallel riot grrrl-adjacent musical universes of Olympia and Washington D.C. The haunting opener  “Cheryl Blossom” juxtaposes delicate-yet-tangled melodies with some darkly angular AUTOCLAVE/SLANT 6 flashes, and sugary sweet TIGER TRAP-style harmonies are at the center of “Night Terror,” while “Teen Vogue” recalls the raw, minimalist lo-fi punk of EXCUSE 17 or even KICKING GIANT at their most raucous. Simple, direct, and deeply personal anthems for loners and outcasts everywhere. TRASH ROMEO definitely make me feel a major nostalgia for some of the formative reference points in my young teenage musical upbringing in the 1990s, but it never seems like they’re simply reproducing specific cultural signifiers from the past in a modern context—in 2018, you could say it’s the difference between posting digital scans of pages from an 1992 issue of Sassy magazine on your blog, or choosing to make your own zine with only a typewriter, a glue stick and a photocopier at your disposal. Also worth mentioning: their first show was their tour kick-off show and they were the only band that played it, which just might be one of the most amazing and punkest moves I’ve encountered in a long time. (trashromeo.bandcamp.com)

[dablesretrospective]

2008 - Dables - Slacker Pop

This album should of never existed. I never planned for it to.   Towards the end of Closet Monster, in the Fall of 2008, I came home from work one day to my trailer that my cousin Kenny and I lived in off of White Horse Road in Greenville, and discovered that we had been robbed. They stole quite a lot of stuff from us.  They got pretty much every single piece of musical equipment I owned as well as lot of other stuff.  The only thing they left was my acoustic guitar (THANK GOD, because it was my first that was a gift from my Mom, and the one I learned how to play on), my drum machine, one effects pedal, and the cassette deck Tascam Portastudio which they didn’t steal because they thought it was just a tape player or something probably.  That was all that was left.  They got 3 guitars, my new Tascam 8 Track recorder, which had about 20 or so songs on it that are all gone now that I had only owned about 2 months, two amplifiers, my PS2, all the games, and tons of my roommate’s stuff. Not only were we robbed, but they TRASHED our place too. They took a tub of butter out of our fridge and spread it throughout the house for some reason.  The couches were smeared with butter. The walls, the floors, the carpet, my bed…Every single drawer was pulled out and its contents scattered. They tipped over our bookshelves and dvd cases and basically ran amuk throughout our house. We both worked third shift at the time, and we figured it was someone who lived nearby that noticed both our cars are gone 5 nights a week, from 11 PM-7AM, so we never recovered any of our stuff.

They didn’t get my laptop though because my room was so messy and it was buried under a pile of dirty clothes. THAT is the reason that Slacker Pop exists. Although I had been recording songs as Dables since 2005, I hadn’t “officially” released anything beyond a few random demos and mix cd’s that I gave out to friends, but nothing that I was comfortable with giving out to the general public just yet. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t recording and writing like a madman still, trying to make something worthwhile that people outside of my personal group of friends would enjoy.  I was working on what would’ve been the first official Dables release, “Pretending To Be Asleep” as well as “Powerglove Bitchslap”, and I had made considerable progress but wasn’t quite finished when I had been robbed, thus bringing any music production or playing shows to a halt.  I sulked for a while and even considered just letting Dables end because I had been at it for 3 years and had made pretty much no real progress as a solo artist, especially since I no longer had any musical instruments and I was too poor to afford new ones.

But then I figured, since I still have my laptop, I have a ton of songs on it (some not quite finished or just demos) already done, the songs that would’ve composed Pretending To Be Asleep as well as several other albums, and I thought, well I could just make a compilation of sorts and put that out as Dables first album! So that’s what Slacker Pop is.  It is the songs that survived before the robbery, and it was finished and put online as my first official Dables CD, released on Christmas Day and was the third official release on Slackerpop Records, which at the time was still named EES Records (Everything Else Sucks), but obviously this album became the inspiration for the name change of the label that wouldn’t come for another year or two.

The title came to me when I was browsing through a local band from Charleston, Ko’s myspace. The band is now called Company, but they had under their ‘sounds like’ section: “strummy, jangly pop rock by lazy slackers”. Personally I don’t think that describes Company’s sound all that well but it made me realize that my music was essentially pop music by a slacker and for fellow slackers, hence a new genre that I dubbed Slacker Pop. A quick Google search showed there was no band or anything using the term and since it fit my sound so well, I decided to use it.  The cover of the album is a double joke that most people don’t get. Not only was it a stick figure drawing of me at the time, but it was supposed to resemble a lollipop. A slacker guy that looks like a lollipop. A slacker lolliPOP that looks like me and also describes the genre of the album.  I also made the cover just black on white because it used less ink to print out, so it was a little cheaper to make copies which I made roughly 100 of entirely by myself. Printed it at home, cut out the cover art with scissors so it would fit in a jewel case, and burned and labeled the CD-Rs one at a time. It took forever but it gave me merch to give away (I rarely tried to sell my hand made copies, I preferred to just give them away at shows and record stores or wherever for promotion).

I started saving my money, and thankfully since it was the end of the year a big tax return helped me to eventually buy all new guitars and recording equipment, and Dables got right back on track within a handful of months and in a weird way the robbery gave me the motivation to continue to pursue my music.

While I’m at it, I may as well answer the most commonly two asked questions about Dables. First off, it is pronounced “Day-bulls”. If it was different it would have two b’s in it like the actual word dabbles! Secondly, it is a portmanteau of the words “David’s Bullshit”…DAvids BULLShit…Get it? No? Ok…well in early 2005, for the very first time ever, I tried to record a few songs by myself using Sound Recorder, Free Wav Editor, and the truly crappy built-in microphone on my computer monitor. I had about 6 terrible, horribly basic, nonsensical “songs” that I burned on a CD-R. Not knowing what to call it, I just wrote “David’s Bullshit” on the CD with a sharpee. Gave a copy to maybe 3 or 4 friends just for a laugh. It wasn’t until my birthday on Nov 8 later that year (turned 19) that my then-girlfriend bought me my first cassette deck 4-Track Tascam Portastudio. Took me about a year to learn how to use it and by early 2007 I made my first demo called “I Want to Vomit on You” and I needed a name for the project so I thought it would be funny and oh-so-clever to combine the two words I wrote on the last CD-R I made, David’s Bullshit into one and spell it Dables. I made it official by then changing all my online usernames to Dables too lol. I remember really liking that it was a one word band name, both because I thought it could double as a stage-name for me and that it was a single word band name like a lot of my all-time favorite bands such as Ween, Primus, Devo, Gwar, Clutch, Tool, Nirvana…I loved that aspect of it so it stuck. I recorded an absolutely absurd amount of songs on that cassette tape 4-track and made so many demo albums but it wasn’t until Slacker Pop at the end of 2008 that I considered my music good enough for an official release. All the best stuff (and just as much god awful stuff too) from those cassette tapes made between 2005-2008 were eventually released to the public in 2018 as a 4 volume series called The Early Days. I’ll do a write up blog for those albums too eventually.

Either way I consider Slacker Pop the first official David’s Bullshit album...Or you can just call it Dables for short.

-------------------------- Released on December 1, 2008

Slackerpop Records 2008

All music written, performed, and recorded by David Walker Track #2 written by Ween Tracks #10 and #22 Alex Murray plays guitar

1.Welcome To The Record 2.Love Will Conquer All 3.Paint The Town Brown 4.What You Think I’ve Become 5.I’m Sleepy 6.Stardust Memories 7.Celebrity 8.Nightmare City 9.Everyone Loves God 10.Brain Vice 11.In My Dreams 12.Brown Eyed Angel 13.Yeah Ok 14.Livin’ in A Dream 15.Nothing Should Ever Be A Big Deal 16.I Still Love You 17.Szandora 18.Half Off Jesus Face 19.You Must First Understand Pain 20.Nothin’ But The House Rent 21.Who Are You? 22.Vodka Jam

Download this album for free at:

https://dables.bandcamp.com/album/slacker-pop

[matthewwilliamcharles]

Had a very nice interview with Zo Magazine about my latest album,”Love What You Do”! You can follow the link to the article. 

I’m also just cutting and pasting the text below.  Interviews hang around for a while, but I’ve noticed some of my old interviews and write ups have been erased, websites disappear and that stuff is lost into the ether. 

There isn’t a Boomer who hasn’t uttered, “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life,” or some version of that but aside from Boomers screwing up the world for most, they’re right about that. Having a passion for what you do is key to wanting to wake up every day and making it through those days with a smile on your face. It’s a concept that’s easier said than done for many, but for Matthew William Charles, he’s doing his best to live that life…which is likely why his 2020 release is ‘Love What You Do.’ We talked about just that, the record at hand, and I even introduced him to the world of ‘Sex and the City’ in this back and forth between creatives.

Kendra: Noting the release date of ‘Love What You Do,’ it seems like a lifetime has passed. March 2020. Looking back, were you like many in thinking that the pandemic wasn’t going to last this long and that you’d be out playing by summer?

Matthew William Charles: Yes absolutely, I thought that I was going to be out and playing by summertime when the pandemic first hit. A good portion of my summer had already been planned out. I had a UK tour lined up for July, tickets purchased, and shows booked. I was planning a small music festival for August in Philadelphia, PA. I had planned the release of “Love What You Do” to coincide with a couple of tours that I had scheduled for March and April. It was a day by day realization. Every week there were more and more cancellations. I had held on to hope until the last minute in most cases, not wanting to deal with the airline and car rental cancellations, and ultimately the disappointment of not getting to do what I love most, which is traveling and playing music. It was going to be an awesome summer for live music, needless to say, I was bummed out, but I dealt with the situation the best that I could.

Kendra: One thing I have admired about artists this year is their ability to keep pushing forward and finding ways to make their presence known in new ways. How do you feel these adaptations made this year will affect musicians in the coming years? Do you feel like we could be in for some sort of major shift in the industry as a whole because of 2020?

Matthew William Charles: Yes, it is interesting how musicians are adapting to the current situation. What I’ve seen is that many of us are becoming great at putting together online content. Many musicians that I know personally started live streaming performances for the first time at the start of the pandemic and have now set up mini studios and have been putting together really good quality live content.

In the future, It would be great to see people combine live-streamed concerts with actual live shows with people in attendance. I think it would be great to have an option for people who want to attend a live show but can’t, but still could watch the live stream from their home. Maybe they wouldn’t have to pay as much as the live ticket but could pay a lesser amount or contribute to a virtual tip jar for the musicians. As far as the music industry as a whole it’s hard to say, it has already changed so much in the last several years as far as how people consume music. I still prefer purchasing records, CDs, and tapes from bands after a live performance. I don’t think that you will ever be able to replace that experience, but I think the shift to a more digital music world is inevitable.

Kendra: Speaking of admiration, ‘Love What You Do’ is a great title and life mantra to have. Was music what you’ve always done or were you in another career and finally realized, nah…not for me?

Matthew William Charles: I had wanted to be in a band since I was a little kid, and I finally got my first band together when I was 15-years-old. I started playing shows at the local youth center, and in a couple of years, I was booking my shows at local bars and venues. I’ve always had a passion for music and have found a way to fund and maintain my habit. In other words, I’ve always had a job. I’m a working-class musician; get off of work and go to band practice, or drive straight to the show, get home at 2 am and wake up in a couple of hours to go back to work. I’ve always found jobs that would be flexible and let me tour, and if they said I couldn’t go on tour I would quit and find another job when I got back.

These past several years I’ve started my own screen printing business here in Philadelphia, PA. I make band merch for a living, and I can take time off for music whenever I want. It’s a lot of hard work and dedication but it’s rewarding. I’ve always had a do it yourself mentality and one of my main goals in life was to be in a position where nobody was able to tell me what to do.

Kendra: There are a lot of styles going on on this record, but the base seems to have a punk spirit. Did you grow up with that punk mentality, going to the likes of Warped Tour?

Matthew William Charles: I discovered punk music when I was in my early teens and it changed the trajectory of my life. I grew up with a lot of different influences, but when I heard bands like Black Flag and The Descendents it changed my perception of what a song could be. I didn’t realize that you could write songs that could hit you like a blunt object, intimately describing whatever personal angst and general unhappiness that you might have. That influence has followed me every step of the way through my various musical progressions. Looking back, surprisingly I only made it to one Warped Tour back in 98’, but I was never a really big fan of festivals and preferred the more intimate setting of a local venue.

Kendra: Anyone in a creative career can attest to “Living in Debt.” Despite what Carrie Bradshaw was pimping, freelance doesn’t allot every writer to live in Manhattan. What do you feel aspiring musicians should know about the financial side of making music before they jump in?

Matthew William Charles: Full disclosure I just had to look up to see who Carrie Bradshaw was, and seeing that she was part of the HBO series ‘Sex And The City’ I can understand why I don’t. Also “Living In Debt” is specifically about the problems associated with college debt, but I can see how that can be applied to musicians.

Before I could give any financial advice, I would first ask yourself,” Why do you want to play music?” The answer for me and I can only imagine this is the answer for most people is that you love music, you enjoy the way it makes you feel, or that you enjoy performing for people and being on stage. You can’t forget the reasons why you started. Being a career musician is hard, and most musicians have jobs or some sort of side gig to make ends meet. The percentage of musicians who make a lot of money is really small, but those people are most likely working all the time and many become physically and mentally drained. Financially, you need to have realistic expectations. You need to make a plan, plot out goals and understand what you need to do to make those things happen. You need to live within your means, many times that means living uncomfortably so you have more time and money to invest in your music. When you start, if you make money, save it. Put it in a bank account or some lockbox that you will not touch even in an emergency. Only reinvest that money into your musical project. If you’re going that extra mile to become a career musician you have to think about your music as a business. That doesn’t work for a lot of people because it sanitizes the experience. Again you have to ask yourself those important questions to figure out what is going to work for you.

Kendra: With all that has transpired this year, how do you feel 2020 has shaped your creativity and drive moving forward?

Matthew William Charles: 2020 has been a huge reality check. It’s made me realize, even more so than ever that I can’t take anything for granted. My drive is the same, and I’m going to continue to be positive and write music and try and share my music with as many people as possible. The landscape has changed and I’m trying to adapt the best that I can. Nothing can replace live shows, interacting with people face to face, and making new friends and fans. The silver lining is that I can learn some new ways to share and promote my music, and hopefully, if things return to normal I can use those new techniques in tandem with traditional touring and live performances.

Kendra: Usually, this is where I ask people what they have planned in the coming months but with the world in a strange place right now, plans aren’t as concrete as they typically are. You can go ahead and let us know what you have tentatively planned but can you also share a song that never fails to get you through when the world around you feels like a mess?

Matthew William Charles: It has been a struggle to make plans and be productive. I’m currently working on some home recording projects and I plan to release some of those songs periodically over the next several months. I’m working on making some music videos and I have been making more use of my video streaming accounts like YouTube and LBRY. I’ve done some live streaming events and plan to do some more in the future, it’s honestly not my favorite thing but it helps fill the void.

A song that never fails to inspire me and gets me through tough times is “Superhuman Coliseum” by the band I Farm. It’s an obscure, thrashy punk rock track off their album, ‘Sincerely Robots.’ The main refrain is “Live again, and start all over ” which I think is a good piece of advice, if not a necessary action if our world continues on its current course.

[jazzviewswithcjshearn]

A deeper look at: The Brecker Brothers- Live and Unreleased (Piloo Records, 2020/rec. 1980)

Randy Brecker: trumpet & vocals; Michael Brecker: tenor sax; Mark Gray: keyboards; Barry Finnerty: guitar; Neil Jason: bass & vocals; Richie Morales: drums

At the dawn of the 80's  Randy and Michael Brecker had been one of the hottest commodities on the music scene.  They initially made a splash in 1970 as part of the horn section  on Dreams (Columbia) the self titled debut album from the studio driven band of the same name.  Dreams, the brainchild of vocalist/producer/composer Jeff Kent is significant because like Bitches Brew (Columbia, 1969, rel. 1970) and the Tony Williams Lifetime's pivotal Emergency (Polydor, 1969) it ushered in an amalgamation of jazz and rock that was completely fresh and something that would continue into the decade most notably with Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever, and the Latin driven sound of Caldera.  Dreams, featured luminaries like  Billy Cobham, guitarist John Abercrombie, bassist Doug Lubahn (who appeared on three of the  Doors' albums) and trombonist Barry Rogers, and with the vocal driven+ horns combination the group entered territory close to early Terry Kath era Chicago and Blood, Sweat and Tears.  The Brecker Brothers would then move on to join the Horace Silver Quintet-- Michael would only appear on In Pursuit Of the 27th Man (Blue Note, 1972) while the trumpeter would appear on three albums: You Gotta Take A Little Love (1968), The United States of  Mind Phase I , That Healin' Feelin (1970) and the aforementioned In Pursuit Of the 27th Man. As the seventies wore on, the brothers would log valuable time as members of Billy Cobham's group and individually as session musicians running the gamut from Parliament Funkadelic, Frank Zappa, James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, and Michael Franks among others.  

At this time, the Breckers' had found themselves in the midst of something incredibly creative.  As session musicians, there was a movement among several, including vibraphone innovator Mike Mainieri, the late pianist Don Grolnick, David Sanborn and Steve Gadd to fuse the harmonic and rhythmic complexities of jazz,  with funk and other popular music. As a result of the fruits of these musical inventions Mainieri formed Steps, better known as Steps Ahead with Michael Brecker, Grolnick, and Gadd  (later replaced by Peter Erskine) in tow plus bassist Eddie Gomez. The band would record the classic Smokin' In The Pit (Better Days/NYC Records, 1979) Step By Step (1979) and Paradox (1981).  All this music was recorded during the Brecker Brothers' peak, they also owned the storied Seventh Avenue South club, an incubator for like minded musicians who were interested in exploring this unique style.

The recently unearthed two CD Brecker Brothers: Live and Unreleased recorded at the famous club Onkel Po's in Germany on July 2, 1980 features the band in their absolute prime.  The set list consists uncompromising versions of  well known tracks that are mostly drawn from the then recent George Duke produced Detente (Arista, 1980) and their  other Arista recordings, including The Brecker Bros (1975), Don’t Stop The Music (1977) and extended, far superior versions  of  nearly all of the compositions that appeared on  Heavy Metal Bebop (1978).  The album is also the first chapter in a new phase of Michael Brecker's playing with this gig occurring just a month after taping Pat Metheny's 80/81 (ECM, 1980) and album that signaled a marked shift in the tenor man's facility and conception. As the sadly missed saxophone icon said in Metheny's podcast on the making of the album, “there was everything before 80/81 and everything AFTER 80/81”.  This is also the first “new” music heard from  him since the final album as a leader with Pilgrimage (Heads Up, 2007).

Live And Unreleased catches the group absolutely on fire.  The group includes Randy on trumpet and vocals, Michael on tenor, Barry Finnerty on guitar, Mark Gray on keyboards, Neil Jason on bass and vocals and drummer Richie Morales. Over the ten selections which form a nice cross section of their catalog, they take on this spunky, New York rawness that eschews the slick heavier production of the studio albums.  The tunes with their slick, and wry humored harmonic complexity and pounding funk are wonderful blowing vehicles for high octane solos.  The saxophonist's “Strap Hangin'” from the band's yet to be released final Arista recording the next year,  is a portrait in a nutshell  of what this music is all about: fun.  Often, within the problematic linear jazz narrative, upon it's release, outside of serious musician circles at Berklee and local levels where these tunes were oft played, jazz critics derided these albums as empty musical effluvia conforming staunchly to the decade's stylistic and production tropes.  While yes, some of the music on the studio recordings is very of it's time, there is some serious meat on the bone in these tunes.  The tongue in cheek intro conjuring images of the Queen's Guards at the British Royal Palace gives way to the composition's sinewy, tough street  wise melody. The bridge chords allow for both Breckers' to glide with hard swinging, behind the beat phrasing in their solos.  Randy showcases tremendous range and agility with a Freddie Hubbard like bravura, and Michael ravenously eats the changes, unfurling furious cascades that are now much beloved phrases that are much copied by his disciples. “Tee'd Off” is a sultry example of rhythmically driven funk, but the most significant piece on the album,  is the  18 minute plus version of “Funky Sea, Funky Dew”.  Each night, as Randy Brecker alludes to in the liners, the band would leave Michael on stage alone for a lengthy cadenza.  Here, the saxophonist engages in the best solo of the entire set, dipping into gravity defying acrobatics, funky, swinging asides (with Barry Finnerty behind him) and most important, a display of pre EWI electronic experimentation.  Many hallmarks of Michael's EWI approach are found here in this predecessor.  Disc 1 finishes with the explosive “I Don't Know Either”, where Richie Morales is in his deepest Steve Gadd groove mode.

A Doobie Brothers style shuffle is employed on “Inside Out” where everyone lets loose soloing on blues changes for the most part, albeit with a trickier more ornate prelude setting up the blues changes.  Mark Gray soars in particular with his Jan Hammer and George Duke flavored Moog solo, and Michael Brecker displays his affinity for Stanley Turrentine in spots.  “Baffled” features a lengthy drum solo from Morales investigates the Mozambique and bembe rhythms, and an exploratory, angular, Randy Brecker solo in Woody Shaw territory.  “Don't Get Funny With My Money” a Zappa-esque slice of absurd silliness closes the album with vocals from  Randy Brecker.

Sound:

Taken from masters from the NDR Radio vaults, Live and Unreleased is about as pristine as one could get.  Saxophone and trumpet timbres are particularly vivid, trumpet left center and saxophone right center.  The drums, as the recording is from 1980, have that familiar dead punch familiar to the era, Morales’ toms had black dot heads with no bottom head, again typical of the era. Dead, deep snare in the center channel with equally dead toms across the sound stage, and shimmery cymbals.  The sound stage though wide and nicely separated is quite close up. This is very amped up, electric music afterall!

Closing Thoughts

Live and Unreleased is a wonderful addition to the Brecker Brothers discography.  The raw, stripped down nature is a conduit for crackling solos, and lockstep group interplay, with absolutely unhinged Randy and Michael Brecker at their absolute best.  It's a reminder of how sorely missed the saxophonist is, and the towering influence he had on several generations of players that continues to the present.

Music rating: 9.5/10

Sound rating: 8/10

Equipment used:

HP Pavilion laptop

Yamaha RS 202 Stereo receiver

Focal Chorus 716 Floor Standing speakers

Schiit Modius DAC

Musicbee (for WAV file playback)

[mikascnfportfolio]

The Heart and Soul: Cubao Expo and Ali X

     As a child of strict parents, my options on venturing far are very limited. Any place outside Quezon City is a no-no so I thought to myself, “What now?” Luckily, Cubao is a few blocks from my house and off I went, along with Gabriel Gillego and Michael Parocha last January 4.

     If you are a fan of Bita and the Botflies, the indie band, they featured Cubao in one of their music videos, “Tagu-taguan.” The whole song illustrates the vibe the place has to offer, it is a place for the laid-back, the eccentric, and peculiar. Cubao is also the Stellan’s third home, with students frequenting the area after school hours. Even former Stellans still roam around the area.

     Cubao is alive in the hearts of the Quezon City people 24/7. While the sun is up, the neighboring malls give them several choices on where to shop. Famously known for the malls like Gateway, Farmer’s Plaza, Alimall, and SM Cubao. And if you want to go grocery shopping, there’s Puregold, Shopwise, and Isetan! Did you know that Shopwise stands at the former Fiesta Carnival? And what is Cubao without the Araneta Coliseum and the New Frontier Theatre? The former is known for hosting the much-awaited UAAP games while the latter hosts concerts from both local and international artists.

     With Cubao being jam-packed at day, it’s somewhat different at night when the lanterns of Manhattan lights up! In my opinion, that’s when its real beauty comes out, through the music and get-togethers on the areas of bars, restaurants, and many more.Now how would one go to Cubao? Well, if you’re a student from Stella Maris College, just cross the road from the Cambridge street, and you’re golden! But if you’re from another school, take the LRT and get off the Araneta-Cubao station. You can also take the MRT as well as jeepneys to arrive at the place. Since I live near the vicinity, I just walk. It’s my daily exercise.

     While the rest of the city sleeps, Cubao Expo comes to life.

     Formerly known as the Marikina Shoe Expo, Cubao Expo is a go-to for lovers of street and art culture as well as thrift shoppers. Once a place for Marikina made footwear in 1997, though some shoe stops still stand to this day, it saw a revival in the 2000s. The horseshoe-like complex houses shops meant to appeal to a variety of subcultures. There are unique and quirky stores meant to cater to artists, musicians, skaters, surfers, foodies, and party-goers.

     Cubao Expo is just a little walk from SM Savemore. At the first end, one is greeted with WCHA Fashion Haus, an ukay-ukay shop. Shops like these are abundant around Cubao, perfect for people who want to look fashionable without breaking the bank and the environment!

     I went inside to hopefully try on and find new clothes. And upon entering, I paused. Is it me or is it all ukay shops have that distinctive smell?  My nose caught a whiff of the smell of old clothes as if they carried the memories of the people that once worn them or the memories of the department store they came from. While it is true that clothes found here are hand-me-downs, some are new and discarded items. Now thrift shopping is one of my guilty pleasures, I once recalled I spent around 500 pesos at one sitting for clothes. Terrible, I know. The store was kept tidy, it was even air-conditioned! Price tags such as “100 pesos,” “75 pesos,” and “20 pesos” can be found on top of each rack indicating how much that piece of clothing is. There is also an area for “New Arrival” items, but those are too expensive so I avoided them like the plague.

     Ukay stores usually get a bad reputation because of how dirty the clothes are, and how these kinds of shops are for the financially-challenged. But I digress, since textile waste from fast fashion is usually a problem, and clothes usually take time to degrade. So why not give thrift shops a chance? Besides, it’s less likely someone has the same piece of clothing and it also encourages you to be creative with your outfits.

     After paying for the clothes, we walked down the curved street of the Expo.

     Remember Art in Island? How about Bellini’s Italian Restaurant? The Cubao Expo is their home. And as for their neighboring tenants, there were an assortment of shops that can be found. There were shops for shoes, ukeleles and other instruments, organic and eco-friendly products, skateboards, surfboards, streetwear, vinyl records and tapes, books, arts and craft supplies, and one can even get their haircut at a barbershop there!

     At the curved point, one can find the cafes and bars Cubao Expo is famously known for, examples are Tacio’s and Humidor. It was a perfect place for a drinking session with one's barkada, with the chill and cozy ambiance coupled with OPM playing in the background and with lights and lanterns above your head. But of course, we didn’t drink.

     We also went inside to look at the different antiques and a plethora of things can be found. There were old figurines, vintage telephones, old watches, toys, paintings, even newspaper clippings, and advertisements. At one point, I asked the owner if I can film inside her shop. The lady, with a smile, told me, “No.” I was honestly sad because imagine the IG- worthy shots one can take. But that’s the policy, and we have to abide since we did not want to be kicked out by the security guards roaming the area. After leaving the store, there was also a “No Smoking” sign plastered on the wall.

     Our last stop before going to Alimall was the shops offering old cassette tapes and vinyl records. Through the dim lights, I browsed the colorful but worn-out covers of the records. Music artists from across each decade, both local and international, can be found. Most notable were the vinyl records of Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and the Beach Boys. There was even a “The Sound of Music” vinyl!

     Aside from Cubao Expo, Ali X is another go-to place for thrift and antique shoppers.

    Opened last March 2019, the lantern filled lane of Alimall was inaugurated as ALI X and is said to be inspired by the grand bazaars of Europe. It aims to be a haven for casual goers and hobbyists alike. It houses novelty items, antiques, art, music, and memorabilia. “ALI” stands for Art, Lifestyle, and Interest.

    Unlike in Cubao Expo, one can freely film inside the stores. Just make sure you don’t break anything as that is the number one rule here. Once you do, be ready to pay for what you have broken.

     We first went inside GMB Collectibles and Hangout, and as expected, we were greeted with several unique and novelty items. Car plates, dusty bottles, old photographs, newspapers, and even old documents were on display. But what caught my eye was the sign “Paki-ayos lang pagkatapos guluhin!” That sign surely made me return the items that I browsed in perfect order. Also, while inspecting the different old documents, I made sure to delicately handle them since some were on their way to disintegrating. The next store we payed a visit was Jem’s Antiques and they had some old coins and old banknotes. And if you’re familiar with the “Mickey Mouse” money during the Japanese era, they also have those too! They also sell postage stamps at 5 pesos each and vintage postcards ranging from 100-200 pesos per card.

     A place for the different eras of music, the next stop was at Treskul Records. From the name itself, they sell vinyls, cassette tapes, CDs, and music players. While we were there, a customer handed the shop owner a record and he played it using the turntable. Funky music blasted within the store. The vinyl records were arranged into the genres and decades they belonged too. While we were there, I even saw a vinyl record of an album of The 1975, one of my favorite bands. But as much as I wanted it, I sadly could not afford it since it was too expensive. Another music store, but for instruments, was Happy Music. They offer ukuleles, guitars, kazoos, and kalimbas. Ali- X also has a dinner modeled after the 50’s era. Erin’s Artists’ Lounge and Café serves a variety of dishes from sandwiches, chicken, pork, pasta, and nachos. They also have a mini bulletin board where they feature submitted artworks!

    After going to Ali-X, my peers and I were starving. Since they accompanied me, I treated them to a meal at KFC. We were planning to go to COD, an amusement like park that opens during the “-ber” months of the year in Cubao. They have rides such as Vikings and the Ferris Wheel. The place also has a food bazaar perfect for foodies. But alas, my mother called me and told me to go home.

    Truly, places like these are special  for they keep the history and vibe of the city alive. Maybe next time, I can find more hidden and amazing places. Till then, Cubao Expo and Ali-X will remain the as the “Heart and Soul” of Cubao.

[buttonholedlife]

Exactly how Frankfurt's '80s Tape Scene Laid The Groundwork For The Urban area's Techno Revival-- Telekom Electronic Hammers

"Pass Away Puppe by Perish Type from France was actually a discovery to me because it was one of the 1st speculative albums that used the TR-808," mentions Weiss. "The absolute most magic instant of appointment Lars and Tobias was when I entered their place in Frankfurt and Tobias possessed an 808."

The renowned part of package came to be the central emphasis of Hypnobeat. In the years to come, as much as three would certainly be used on stage at one time along with a tangle of various other drum equipments as well as FX devices.

Roman Rütten was likewise fascinated with the opportunities of digital music. He had been raised as a classically trained pianist, however coming from the age of 14 he was actually swept up by the hooligan surge.

"I obtained all the documents from the Sex Guns until Sham 69, therefore I felt this symphonic music way is certainly not my style, I need to perform one thing of my personal," Rütten clarifies. "I started drumming on iron pubs with little bits of lumber. I acquired 4 strip recorders, and afterwards the 1st MS synth from Korg."

Rütten's project, Schaum Der Tage, started in 1982. He utilized a multi-track audio-cassette recorder to record noises and melodious passages from his synth as well as underpinned it along with simple drumming on a refuse newspaper container. The 1st Schaum Der Tage strip release failed to show up until 1986, however Rütten's musical instruction increased his lo-fi tips into distinct tune pieces.

Rütten additionally functioned with his old school pal Martin Schopf as Subrosa. Sometimes Schopf as well as Rütten bore down, albeit naively, to compose genuine tunes like "Thousand of Far Away", however they appeared most unforgettable spitting out the rude electro thug of "Zeitlos."

"Martin is just one of my earliest institution good friends," mentions Rütten. "It was a lot later on we determined to make songs together. I would not mention our experts made great popular music with each other, but our aim was merely enjoying yourself, making jokes during."

The price and also access of cassettes were actually intrinsic to DIY popular music culture in the 1980s. There were a handful of vital strip tags in Frankfurt that helped push this culture regionally and around the globe, via a combo of songs customer reviews, categorized adverts in magazines as well as handles on tape inlays. This below ground system relocated slowly-- it might take 3 months to obtain a reply to a deal of strips-- however it was actually vibrant.

Peter Weiss' Black and white Tapes was primarily a vessel for Hypnobeat recordings, but the Independent World compilations he and Steinfadt placed all together were a measure of the reach of tape culture. As local acts like Vo Ese, Hypnobeat as well as Stefan Freund, they were able to score monitors through Die Type, Pink Market, Tom Ellard (of Severed Moves), Steven Brown (of Tuxedomoon), Coming From Scratch and also much more.

"The compilations that Peter made were amazing," describes Müller. "He understood Severed People as well as people like that. So he would certainly acquire monitors through folks you wouldn't count on to help in a compilation that 'd sell possibly one hundred duplicates.'"

There was actually additionally a set of compilations on the MAM-Aufnahme, Ffm tag that assisted the local area setting alongside international acts, while No worry Tapes launched pair of thorough collections including ratings of overlooked, one-off jobs. Collectionism additionally stands out as a particularly achieved Frankfurt group coming from the era, while Niko Heyduck's collaboration with noted writer Thor Kunkel as Perish Synthetische Wohlfahrt provided a great self-released demo in 1984.

The abovementioned Klistier Records outlet was a core hub that offered the well-known industrial and experimental launches of the day. It's manner enhance could be found in Jinx, a shop put together in the Nordend neighborhood through Christa Kilbinger and Andreas Comtesse. It functioned as a bodily meeting factor for the tape scene.

"The fashion style in Jinx was actually influenced by musicians like Tuxedomoon, Paradise 17 as well as the clothes of ladies musicians," reveals Kilbinger. "Huge shoulder pads, large sports jackets. To minimize the expenditure, our team filled our personal self-made clothing as well. In the end of 1985, we began marketing strips. Our experts spoke to neighborhood bands and promoted the outlet in regional journals, where our experts talked to the cassette folks to obtain in call along with our company."

In 1986 Jinx coordinated the Frank Cassetten Festivity at Batschkapp, which included real-time performances through Hypnobeat, Cocks In Stained Silk as well as Collectionism. Before that, the place had held the rising ruffian motion as well as took place to take prominent industrial as well as new age acts like Tuxedomoon, Tool Channel as well as Chris & & Cosey to community.

"I played my 1st gig in Batschkapp opening for Pork Beat Policy," claims Uwe Schmidt. "The Batschkapp will bring much bigger international process, folks like Skinny Puppy and afterwards a nearby musician would open. I had no tip what to carry out when I participated in there certainly."

A substantial festival in Frankfurt's early digital record was actually Geminox. It was coordinated in 1984 by the late Walter E. Baumann, a neighborhood impresario from the area's abundant art scene that rushed the renowned fine art and also popular music magazine Schvantz! Geminox included speculative audiovisual performances through Z'EV, Nightclub Moral, as well as Mainz-based group Non Toxique Lost. It was also where Hypnobeat played its initial job.

"Peter as well as I were preparing the music for Geminox," discusses Müller, "and our company were actually unsure our company might play to such a big audience, merely both people. So our team talked to Tobias and also Pietro [ Insipido] if they will happen on stage along with our team and also take part. Peter and also I performed the drum programs, as well as they were managing the devices as well as using impacts systems."

When they were actually still pupils, a number of the musicians in this particular performance arranged their first online experiences by means of jobs at their colleges, albeit along with a reader that was actually arguably harder than the much more switched-on interrupt well-known sites.

"Tobias and I played our very first job at institution in '79 or perhaps '80," says Müller. "Our experts got some amps, took our personal devices, as well as we really didn't know exactly how people would respond. Individuals sometimes were quite vigorous, making an effort to take out wires. For ordinary individuals, participating in with drum makers evidently was a huge provocation."

"I was coordinating jobs along with buddies in university," points out Rütten, "one thing like a high school gathering. It was awful. Uwe Schmidt was aiding me to make the mix, yet a friend of mine made blow up puppets, which he burst along with fans that were actually louder than my music."

A few years much younger than the sort of Weiss, Freund and also Müller, Uwe Schmidt really did not start making music up until the mid 1980s. He initially pertained to the focus of the scene's protagonists at a makeshift school gig where he played along with his university close friends Olaf Finkbeiner and Torsten Kühne as Pornotanz.

"Martin stated to me, 'an old friend of mine is playing in a school, perform you intend to come?'" recollects Müller. "I assumed the band, Pornotanz, was actually awful, but the component Uwe carried out was actually outstanding, like a customized variation of Tavern Voltaire or Cutting Edge Convocation. I claimed to Martin, 'permits go as well as speak with him,' as well as coming from then on our experts blew up a friendly relationship."

It took a while before Schmidt presented his own recordings as Lassigue Bendthaus, caught on the lo-fi however deftly created 1988 document The Engineers Passion. It was actually released on NG Medien, a strip tag established by Rütten, Finkbeiner as well as Schmidt. The sonic development in between Pornotanz and Lassigue Bendthaus is actually subtle however obvious, and also it shows the greater changes that influenced the digital music setting both in Frankfurt as well as beyond.

"I was captivated due to the digital body music developments," points out Rütten. "I possessed connects with coming from the strip scene, to Costs Leeb coming from Skinny Pup. Our team accepted to release the 1st album by his brand new band Cutting edge Assembly in Germany on NG Medien."

Whereas the industrial culture of the very early 1980s had been undefined and also available, through the mid-to-late '80s specific new methods had formed. Key amongst these was actually EBM. Sequencers, samplers and also electronic technology triggered punchier dancing floor sounds. Sven Väth promoted EBM alongside various other digital dancing music at his nightclubs Vogue as well as Omen. Fabled, disco-era Frankfurt club Dorian Gray even compromised to this songs, largely with the work of local area promoter Andreas Tomalla (aka Talla 2XLC) and also his Technoclub celebrations.

Talla was also connected with Bigod twenty, an EBM team made up in Frankfurt in 1988 led through Markus Nikolai. Bigod 20 discovered better results in the very early '90s when they incorporated vocalist Thomas Franzmann (a.k.a. Zip Campisi) to their selection. Nikolai and Franzmann would certainly go on to develop the famous minimal property label Perlon eventually in the '90s.

Schmidt's own journey as Lassigue Bendthaus proceeded swiftly. Wrenching up hrs of workshop opportunity at the semi-professional Besser Tonstudio; after pair of years of meticulous job he arised along with Issue, his bold, compelling 2nd cd that bent greatly into the noise of EBM. Schmidt took place to document under credit ratings of aliases, a number of the best prominent being AtomTM as well as Señor Coconut.

Alongside EBM, the arrival people dancing popular music coming from Chicago and also Detroit additionally induced a seismic change in the digital songs garden. Artists were actually right now faced along with the possibility to take factors in an even more specialist, or perhaps commercial, direction.

"When Tobias and I started doing our stuff, Yellow Magic Orchestra released Technodelic," clarifies Müller. "Our company started phoning our songs 'techno'. Our experts utilized 'techno' for a long period of time, possibly until '87 or even '88, and afterwards once your house and acid scene started the tag techno quickly had a different meaning, and I didn't such as to utilize it any kind of a lot more."

Through 1987, the core companionship group of musicians as well as close friends in the Frankfurt tape scene included a rotary combination of cooperations and also experiments. Alejandra Carmona Cannobbio as well as Claudia Iglesias had entered the imaginative fold. Müller and Cannobbio had actually a task phoned Arquitectos De Ruidos, and also a loosely described group task developed phoned Area Industriel. They took a road journey to play a job in Barcelona, captured in wistful Super 8 through Freund and also readily available to check out on his Vimeo webpage.

It was actually around this time that the band Sieg Über Pass away Sonne likewise took condition. The initial file under the title, the Mr. Leben 7" in 1989, featured Freund, Schopf, Müller, Cannobbio, Iglesias and Heyduck. Adhering to the vacation to Barcelona, a clear crack arised in the group that left behind some of the core participants by the wayside. Roman Rütten, much more rapt along with the song-based structures of the post-punk and also gothic movements, was actually told he no more matched the team's cosmetic.

"At that time, around 1988, Martin told me I failed to suit the group anymore," states Rütten. "Him and Tobias and also all the various other individuals mentioned, 'our experts have to go our digital method, as well as Roman should go his post-punk way.'"

Rütten happened to several various other jobs throughout the '90s and also '00s, featuring Crux Ansata, Zerose and also Endraum. Meanwhile, Müller, Schopf, Cannobbio as well as Iglesias moved to Chile in 1989 and played their part in encouraging the growth of a digital songs scene in Santiago. On returning to Germany, Müller was informed he was actually zero longer a part of Sieg Über Die Sonne. Freund and also Schopf relocated to Berlin, proceeded the venture by themselves, and located considerable results with their wacky, crossover electro-pop noise.

"It's unfortunate for me," mentions Müller, "because many of individuals you are actually discussing were a group of good friends performing things all together, till around the late '80s when the entire performance started to break down and relationships were dropped. When I returned from Chile, I learnt in a very distressing way that Tobias and Martin were certainly not thinking about proceeding along with me."

This content was originally published here.

[fallenloverecords]

Interview: Pickle Darling

Hi lovers! Here at Fallen Love headquarters we periodically interview people that we adore in order to shine a spotlight on our wonderful pop planet. We post all those interviews right here for your education and enjoyment.

Pickle Darling is the bedroom pop of Lukas Mayo from Christchurch, New Zealand. Fallen Love head Harley interviewed Lukas through a 16-hour time zone warp on a Sunday/Monday. Fallen Love Records: Who is Lukas Mayo? How did Pickle Darling come to be? Lukas: Lukas Mayo is some insecure loser from Christchurch, New Zealand. Pickle Darling is me taking my innermost insecurities and making dumb redemptive pop songs out of them. It feels more "me" than Lukas Mayo does. I'd been in a few bands and collaborations growing up which were all fruitful but ultimately incredibly hard. I think I was way too self-indulgent at those times and I was terrible at compromise. I would rather have had something suck but be true to me than be "good" and not be a great representation of myself. Since then I've grown as a person and I think I'd be a much better collaborator now. FLR: This past April you released your first EP of original songs, Spring Onion Pancakes. How did the track listing come about? L: I've been writing songs for as long as I can remember and those were kind of just the six most recent! I was also in a five-year relationship which had just suddenly ended and the EP kept me out of wallowing in self-pity. It's upbeat and colourful because I wanted to make sure that all my songs were full of love and humour and kindness and friendship. It's still a sad EP to me but I'm super glad that people don't think of my music as sad music. Most of it was written when I was in class though which is probably why all the lyrics are basically "I suck and I'm a loser" 'cause that's how I generally felt at Polytech. lol FLR: What are spring onion pancakes like? My research says it's a traditional Chinese dish. L: Oh yeah, I've only actually had them once. The bus station in town has a place that makes them. I was with my friends Heather, Isaac, and Nico and we had just watched a movie and then got spring onion pancakes together. My hands were all greasy on the bus ride home, though. (Sorry, Christchurch Metro Bus services.) My EP is so hard to search for on Google 'cause you have to wade through three pages of recipes. FLR: Does anyone make spring onion pancakes with pickles? That would be a search engine nightmare. L: There's some weird stuff when you google Pickle Darling. There's another Facebook page which is just a cat called Pickle Darling. I'm hoping if I get a Pitchfork feature one day, they accidentally get in touch with whoever runs that page and they do an interview on my behalf. It would probably be more interesting than me, to be honest. FLR: I'm actually interviewing the other Pickle Darling tomorrow. It's part of a dueling interview series I'm doing. Like when I interviewed Kevin Shields and the director of the slasher movie My Bloody Valentine. L: lmao I avoided My Bloody Valentine for years thinking they were Bullet For My Valentine. FLR: On the topic of your hometown, what is the music scene like in Christchurch? I can't say I really hear any Dunedin sound in your music. L: I don't feel hugely involved in the Christchurch music scene. I haven't done many gigs and kinda bypassed it and went straight to the internet. That sounds kind of douchey of me. I have mad love for a lot of Christchurch artists. There are heaps of super talented people here who make amazing music and people have reached out to me and shown me so much kindness but I spend most nights by myself just going for walks around Opawa or watching films or reading. I'm not a super regular gig attendee. I go to maybe one a month and I'm always the least cool person there. It's cool, though, I enjoy it when I do go. And I'm slowly feeling more and more involved in the Christchurch music scene as people become a bit more aware of what I do. I feel like locals will see me on the internet and be like "Hey, that's that dweeb I see walking around town all the time. Weird." FLR: You only played live for the first time this year, right? How has that side of things been? L: I feel like such a fraud 'cause I've had such great opportunities handed to me right off the bat. My first gig was in a library for NZ Music Month and we were playing with my friend Luke's band EgoValve. That was fun and super low-key and about five people were there and they were all under the age of nine. Richard from Glass Vaults (great guy and great band) heard my Radio NZ interview and got in touch with me and our second gig was opening for Glass Vaults. My third gig was opening for Kane Strang, who I have so much love for. During sound check I was just like "Oh my god, are you Kane Strang? Is your real name actually Kane Strang? I love you, Kane Strang. Your album is great, Kane Strang. Oh my god, you are really Kane Strang. Hi, I'm Lukas. Oh my god, you are Kane Strang." Those two shows were sold out and I had my friends Isaac, Nico, Marcus, and Cameron in my band and they were just fun, positive nights. My fourth gig is going to be at Nostalgia Festival, which also has Connan Mockasin and The Chills. I'm so incredibly blessed with all this stuff.

FLR: For the EP you did a run of cassettes through Slovakian label Z Tapes and a limited run of lathe cut seven-inches on your own. Is having a physical product important to you? Some artists are content to just toss their songs online for streaming and downloading and call it a day. L: I want to be the most working class bedroom pop star out. I love the idea of just sitting in my room making stuff myself and packaging stuff myself and getting my fingerprints on everything and having a merch table with things I've made on it. I just want to make things. Z Tapes did all the tapes, though, which was such a relief and such an honour. Filip is really a hero of Bandcamp. He believed in me from the very start and now they're doing a second run of my EP on tape and it's great. The lathe cuts look cool. I'm super proud of them. My friends Heather Reid Van Gerwen and Noah Mead handled the art side of things, which is why they look so beautiful. I'm always going to want to make a physical thing. I mean all physical media is outdated now so if you're going to do physicals, do something fun and creative with it. Also I'm doing a Christmas tape with Heather and she's painting little pictures to go with them. FLR: What's the most exciting location you've received an order from so far? L: I get a lot of orders from Japan, which is so cool, as well as heaps from the States. It's exciting that the majority of the orders are from outside of New Zealand. It's not just my friends buying my stuff out of pity. There are actual people out there that are listening to my stuff and willing to spend money on it. I'm super grateful for them. I really want to be able to play in those places one day. FLR: I feel you. My label almost never gets any orders from within Canada but I've got a handful of regular customers in Germany and Spain. Each of those orders keeps me going and makes me feel like this is all worth it. L: Definitely! It makes it feel so real, right? FLR: Switching topics: what's your favorite film that hasn't had a Criterion DVD release but totally deserves one? L: Ooh I love this question. Hmm... Oddly enough one of my goals (actually my only goal 'cause I hate goals) is to be successful enough to get invited into the Criterion closet. But hmmm... These are probably pleb picks but I'd love: Happy Together (1997) or just more Wong Kar-Wai in general; Synecdoche, New York (2008); Quiet City (2007); Careful (1992); and Funny Ha Ha (2002) in the collection. Also some Barry Jenkins! These are probably pleb picks, though. Also, shout out to my friends Martin (who directed my video) and Julia who give me good film recommendations. Joe Swanberg is a big influence on my work ethic. He made, like, 30 films in seven years or something. If anyone reads this interview, please send me film recommendations on Twitter! FLR: My top rec is Marty (1955) starring Ernest Borgnine. He's a lonely 34 year-old butcher who lives with his mother and is afraid he'll never fall in love. It's basically the film equivalent of a bedroom pop song. L: Dude, I'm totally going to check that one out! I haven't heard of that one! I reckon my film equivalent of a bedroom pop song is Hannah Takes The Stairs. I sampled that on my EP. My friend Julia recommended that one to me actually. I put that movie on all the time just to listen to. I don't even watch it now. I just put it on while I'm doing housework to listen to Greta Gerwig's dialogue. I love how that film sounds. I love their voices. FLR: What's one question you've never been asked in an interview that you would love to be asked someday? L: An interview question I'd love to be asked is "Hi, I'm Evan from Pinegrove. Do you want to open for my band?" and the answer would be "Yes, Evan from Pinegrove." Actually I'd love to be asked what I'm listening to at the moment. FLR: And finally, what does 2018 look like for Pickle Darling? I hear your first album is nearly finished. L: 2018 will be big for me personally but small for my fans. What I mean by that is I'm going to be working on a lot of stuff but probably not releasing a huge amount until it's all done. I'm doing an album. It's ten tracks and it's going to be awesome. There's a song called "Nicolas Cage" and I think it's my best song. My friend Josiah has a feature on it. Matt Gunn is helping out with the production and I think he is a literal angel from heaven. I'm going to do a bunch of music videos too. I want to tour. I want to do bigger physicals like vinyl and CD's and stuff like that. I just want to make more stuff. Pickle Darling on Facebook Pickle Darling on Twitter