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May 04, 2009
Beets, "Beetles," etc.
So, the most fun thing I did this weekend was catch The Beets play at Red Star Bar in Greenpoint on Friday night, on a show put together jointly by the Music Slut and Brooklyn Ski Club in celebration of both the utility of free malt liquor in times of recession, and the birthday of Beets member Jose. I've been charmed enough by The Beets to book them for shows twice in 2008 and continually post their high-larious show fliers, but I've never seen them with as few hiccups as this past May Day. Without the kinda ingratiating, yet momentum-killing stops and starts, they seemed like a shoe-in to be the next fuzzy darlings of New York's club scene. Which is why they rightfully made The L's 8 NYC Bands You Need to Hear list just a few days prior. They turned up the squealing distortion slightly, for that au courant queasy edge, but it's easy, gang-shouted harmony that defines their sound.
Maybe my favorite shout-along on their debut 12" is "The Devil" which tackles the old standby rock anti-hero in as crude and funny a manner as Ol' Scratch deserves.
"I'm gonna dye my hair black/ I'm gonna buy myself a shirt that is black/ I'm gonna buy sneakers that are black/ and think about the devil."
Some cohorts compared them to Wavves after the show, which raised my hackles slightly, as that band really bugs me. The difference, I think, is that I'm convinced that The Beets have a bit of sly, self-awareness when they write lines like that. They are being clever and parodic towards teen vapidity. To put it mildly, Wavves, uh, aren't. A fine line, I guess, but one that makes all the difference to me.
--
In the same subterranean spirit of the Beets, I stop briefly to note the release of The World's Lousy With Ideas, vol. 8, a vinyl compilation from Almost Ready Records. All previous additions of the DIY rock series have sold out, and the relatively bigger names involved in this one mean that it's probably gone from select shelves as I'm typing this (though you can make an attempt here). New tracks by Vivian Girls, Sic Alps, Times New Viking, Blank Dogs, Thee Oh Sees, etc., in this hiss-crazed moment in rock culture, pretty much guarantees a vinyl consumption frenzy. The obvious joke occurs to me--If the world is lousy with ideas, why is the only one represented here "turn up the distortion on minimal indie rock/pop songs,"--but I'll sneak it in quickly in the context of a longer sentence as if I didn't mean it.
This menacing rock song could nearly be tagged "industrial" due to a truly nauseous low-end rumble. On top of that churning cesspit of poor fidelity, it's strident, snotty pop. Most of the time with early 60s rockers, the actual Beatles for example, it seems silly that parents could have ever been threatened by such an innocuously dapper bunch. This version of decades gone pop-chart rock would have justified a few dozen chastity belts at least. The force with which "Let's make a baby on the 4th of July" is spat could knock-up a teenager solely via headphones.
Times New Viking - "A Lot of Paintings"
For my money, there's still no one who does this sort of thing better than TNV. There's plenty of movement in this song, with obvious thought given to its structure and color. It's not so much that they bury their melodies in noise, as they've figured out how to blow out their melodies to the point that they actually become noise. You turn the knob up to try to make out the words, and realize that they are just as blurred and blistered as before. But bits you can hear make you want to know what they're hollering, still. "She's got a lot of parties, she's got a lot of paintings," they shout, putting both on the same tier of socialite worth. It's a line that's both appreciative and casually dismissive in an evocative way. And as always, they find a way to let their nagging guitars cut through the murk.
Posted by Jeff Klingman at May 4, 2009 01:15 PM
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