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March 15, 2008
Low-Watt Spotlight
With my current Times New Viking infatuation soaring to ear-threatening levels, I've been willfully subjecting myself to unhealthy levels of fuzz. We currently live in a paradoxical time where cheap software makes producing a fairly polished sounding recording exceedingly easy and good old 4-track recordings are also much easier to distribute to the world outside your basement. It's now just a question of aesthetics and intent. My tastes are bi-polar. Either give me meticulous DFA perfectionism or sublimely undercooked enthusiasm. From the latter column, here's a quick rundown of what's sounding good in the relatively recent world of willfully obscure pop.
In this inspired single Home Blitz's Daniel DiMaggio captures the seemingly instantaneous glee of golden amateur savants like Jonathan Richman or Dan Treacy. The song's premise is that Home Blitz the band is playing on the New Jersey street across from the house where the song was presumably recorded. The realities of chilly fall air and the negative impact of gloves on guitar playing are comically addressed. There's still room amid the stream-of-consciousness for premeditated sinister couplets like "Hey girl, I'm gonna cut your spine/ down a straight and narrow line." If you don't find the "screw it, let's just record a song" vibe charming, perhaps you should just click away now.
This UK band attracted the ear of the reputable German label Tomlab by sounding like a glorious fucking mess. "Wet Nightmare" is a b-side to a recent single and it sounds about as focused as I've heard them manage, which is actually not all that focused. It starts with epileptic beats and music box twinkles and then introduces a synth tone that sounds vaguely like a pan flute. A minute in to the song, it starts stabbing away at one maniac note while drum fills begin raining down from angry skies. Then it just turns totally awesome for thirty or forty more seconds.
No Paws (No Lions) - "I've Always Been Content"
No Paws (No Lions) are a Riverside, CA band that may have already broken up. The last word I'd gotten (via MySpace bulletin) was that they were already slapping down the creative differences card after maybe a half-dozen promising no frills keyboard songs. It's hard to even know what to say about such an immediately snuffed flame, but the off-kilter singing and adorably rich tones here suggest that any form they might have eventually morphed into would have just left me nostalgic for a minute and thirty second-long pop songs like this. Below is You Tubed proof that they were a fully functioning band for a split-second at least:
No Paws (No Lions) - "Kobe Bryant Jersey (No. 8)"
(live @ KSPR, Pomona College Radio)
Torn Curtains - "Paranoia Strikes Again"
To see that level of obscurity and raise it to an untrumpable level I give you Torn Curtains, the alias of one Byron Tennant with whom I went to high school. Hints of bias should be immediately squashed by a listen to the inspired, Lynchian small town America gone wrong lyrics. When the dread reaches a fevered climax around the 2:45 mark, projecting a sinister motive to "a crowd that gathers all around you," I have to doff a cap of appreciation every time. We also went to school with Jon "Napolean Dynamite" Heder. I rightly consider this the (certainly less lucrative but) more artistically worthy alumni achievement.
It seems that you almost need to come from Michigan to summon up this kind of frustrated garage angst. Songs about nighttime Satan visits just shouldn't be recorded with any more polish than this. Or anything less than manic pogo energy, for that matter.
caUSE co-MOTION! - "Who's Gonna Care?"
This track, from a new caUSE-co-MOTION! 7" EP sounds an awful lot like all the Brooklyn band's other singles. But if you're shopping for subtly harmonic stop-start nerdery that vaguely reminds you of early Feelies records, they're pretty much monopolizing that niche at the moment. These guys make college kids dance so spastically that you may be better off listening in the comfort of your own home.
the Invisible Hand - "Don't Sleep With Whores"
As I was putting this post together I received an e-mail from one Adam Smith, a compatriot of our recently beloved Neon Lights artist Titus Andronicus. Three cheers for kismet! If your name is Adam Smith, the market pretty much demands that you call your band the Invisible Hand. The double-tracked vocal melody, pleasantly waltzing guitar lines, sloppy countrified Meat Puppets breakdowns, and continual crunch should find a few willing consumers as well. "Client 9" cultural moment, I give you your anthem in waiting.
Sic Alps - "Strawberry Guillotine"
This instantly sold-out 7" a-side from late last year is the only on this list to approach the squealing in-the-red abrasiveness of the aforementioned TNV. But instead of a lovably sweet center, the San Francisco band gives us a throbbing slab of early Sonic Youth menace. There is plenty room in the heart and hard drive for both approaches.
the Capstan Shafts - "61 Sideburns"
And then there's Dean Wells, the home recording prodigy who calls himself the Capstan Shafts. It's not hyperbole at all to refer to him as the second coming of the early Guided by Voices' work ethic and creamy yet fucked with aesthetic. Dean's songs are a smidge less surreal, briefer in composition length, and somehow even more prolifically produced than Bob Pollard's. Such is the man's tireless output that the 2006 album I'm currently smitten with, Euridice Proudhorn, is already 8(!) releases old(!!). "61 Sideburns" is an amazingly catchy and minorly profound way to spend one minute of your life. "We lived in the last genuine time," he asserts, with a convicted wistfulness that really stays with you. It enjoys a moment in our blog sun now before becoming merely a footnote to Dylan in a Numerology column several months in the future.
Wells has only ever ventured out of his Vermont home to perform his songs live twice. Because this is the age we live in, you can watch a moment from the first (in a darkened rural church no less) below;
the Capstan Shafts - "Sleepcure Theory Advancer"
(Live @ Stannard Church, Stannard, VT, 10.06.07)
the Capstan Shafts - "Sleepcure Theory Advancer"
Posted by Jeff Klingman at March 15, 2008 04:50 PM
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Comments
great great music selection
Posted by: k at March 15, 2008 06:44 PM
Great stuff. I do a show Monday's 8-midnight on Pirate Cat Radio in SF. http://piratecatradio.com
I'll be using some of these track on my show, for sure. I'll certainly give props where they are due. Thanks again. If you're ever in SF give me a shout and I'll have you down to the studio.
Posted by: John Hell at March 24, 2008 02:28 AM
