Half a decade since their last LP, Portlandian gang Chromatics are back with a big bulging knapsack of dark new wave tunes. I’m yet to get through them all but at this point I’d declare my state as entranced. Football games excluded, what better way to spend 90 minutes this weekend? Full album below via Soundcloud.
If you happen to have a spare 10 minutes, a working set of ears/hearing aid and an index finger to click the mouse/tap the smartphone then please continue right this way. San Diego’s TV Girl, are criminally under-rated even for a band yet to pop out a full length release and that is all going to change about 21 seconds into Benny and the Jetts (Elton’s version had one ‘t’) when a backbeat swell the equivalent of The Giant Drop at Dreamworld kickstarts an infatuation with them.
SoCal bros Trung Ngo and Brad Petering make delicious retro-tinged pop out of the odds and ends of yesteryears forgotten gems. The seamless integration of old and new often brings about confusion as to which is which, but let’s face it in the spirit of some of the best uses of sampling this side of Since I Left You, who really gives a rats? When the results are this gorgeously sunny I sure as hell don’t.
The real kicker for me is an element that initially got drowned in the sound; the super smart lyrics. A line like “It is what it is and that’s all it’ll be” is brilliantly simple and stays with you, while the self-referential “One cos you’re beautiful/one for your soul/one for the memories /and the melodies I stole” hints at the smartarse nature of it’s authors.
According to their Twitter – @tvgirlz – we’ll be getting an album/mixtape outta these fellas in the next couple of weeks. Consider this your entree.
Last Monday I popped down to the Corner to catch Real Estate punching out a Golden Plains sideshow, a performance that made all the warm fuzzy feelings I got from last years Days LP all the fuzzier and warmer hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth. There’s just something about those meandering guitars that hypnotise me into a state of all-encompassing content. What I hadn’t banked on however was being nearly as smitten with the locals who preceded them, Melbourne’s very own Twerps. Having caught the odd bit of buzz that’s been floating around about them in the last few months, most notably and randomly that Jessica Alba is a fan, I was curious for a look-see. By the end of their set it’s safe to say I’d sworn myself in as a fully fledged believer. Theirs is a sound that not unlike Real Estate oozes a comforting familiarity, yet this time seems to somehow hit even closer to home. The no fuss lo-fi nature of the recordings gives them that yesteryear feel, like they’ve come from a simpler time and maybe it’s just me but that guitar twang in Dreamin has something just so so Australian about it. Can’t wait to hear more from them.
Last week I was woken by a buzzing iPhone which I sleepily answered to the bombshell news that Radiohead had announced an Australian tour and tickets were already selling. Fucking hell, how could all this have happened since I’d closed my eyes the night before? In my state of not yet full consciousness and confusion I hastily arranged for my on-the-ball saviour to snap up a ticket as quickly as possible. I knew the scale of situation meant these babies were worth their weight in gold (or pounds sterling in this case) and then some. A few days later the comments section of the Chugg Entertainment Facebook page re-affirmed how lucky I’d been to get one. The demand had rendered the chance of nabbing a seat akin to winning the lottery but given the scar-tissue still being sported from their previous tour, I probably thought I was entitled to a slice of luck on this front. In truth there must be thousands who missed out that night in Melbourne 8 years ago who have been left crushed yet again. Sadly, their desperation will in many cases lead them to fork out on ebay for tickets priced to make your credit card audibly sigh. A big issue yes, but as one of the few happy punters still grinning like an idiot, I won’t go there now.
What’s all this fuss about then? What makes these guys so dam special? As somewhat “alternative” artists why are so many of us so desperate to catch a glimpse? Obviously I can only answer these questions with an opinion but here goes my interpretation of our fascination. They’re really just that good. Radiohead are this generations go-to guys in an argument with mum and dad about music’s credibility today, even if they most likely don’t quite “get it”. You’d be hard pressed to convince me that there is any other current act more widely respected for their artistic merit, longevity and perhaps most notably, their ability to consistently re-imagine their own sound with such awe-inspiring results. I’m forever at a loss for the words to accurately convey what their music means to me so I won’t try to find them, but I suspect there are a lot of fans who know the feeling.
They’re a band who have permeated the consciousness of a very substantial audience (thanks largely to Creep) yet in relative terms they have never been very accessible. There has always been a perception of mystery about Radiohead, an otherworldly quality, like they’re aliens re-creating human emotions and experiences back to us with a beauty we earthlings are unable to express. They seem detached from us and the trivial bullshit of our world, periodically dropping on us something so blindingly enlightened that we’re left speechless by it, light years behind discovering the means to form a response. Even when we do think we’ve managed to wrap our puney brains around what we’ve heard by meanfully comprehending OK Computer they’ll go ahead and turn the whole game on its head again with Kid A. This combination of maniacal drive to push themselves and their audience out of their comfort zones with the chops to continually pull it off in such jaw-dropping fashion has rarely been seen before. It has made for a riveting career journey, one that if you like most of us have had to persevere a little to come to terms with it’s genius, feels earned and inherently satisfying. All of my favourite pieces of music took multiple listens before I came to truly appreciate the brilliance of them, these guys taught me what that’s worth. The more you invest in them, the greater the reward. Having said that, their gushing river of creative juices don’t all flow into the ocean of music. They’ve built a reputation for compelling videos, they dared to let the fans to decide what In Rainbows was worth, they reminded us of the artful beauty in record packaging with The King of Limbs. There has always been more to them than what filters through the headphones.
Undoubtedly the infrequency of their touring has added another element to their legend. A Radiohead tour is a news-worthy event because of this seeming reluctance to hit the road with anything resembling regularity. We’ve heard the excuse before, the earth-conscious front man wanting to minimise his carbon footprint by avoiding air travel. The ratio of truth in that story eludes me but the irony is that this admirable stance has probably just meant more of us have flown half way around the world to pay homage when they do play. There’s no way this would be such a hyped and anticipated event if they came and visited us every once in a while rather than once in a blue moon. But the question is, deep down is this a small part of their appeal? If I’m being honest, of course it is. It makes them more special, more of a treat. It’s like saving your favourite record for special occasions because you want it to sound as much like the first time you heard it for as long as possible. It’s something to be savoured.
Radiohead live is very much like your football team winning the premiership, you can’t die happy until you’ve witnessed it at least once.
I’d like to think the rarity of their performances simply serves to intensify all the typical emotions that are a part of a live music experience. The anticipation on the morning of the show, the adrenaline rush as the crowd roars when the band finally hit the stage, the private joy when the intro to your favourite song begins and you imagine it’s being played just for you, a heart-melting chord change, the anxiety before they return for an encore despite how cool you’re playing it. These are the reasons why we love music. Would I be as understanding with the number of shows they play if I’d missed out on a ticket? Past experience says not bloody likely.
The last time the ginger genius and his cohorts toured this country Facebook was exclusive to Harvard students, Tweeting was exclusive to birds and common sense was exclusive to the minority as George W. Bush buffooned his way to White House re-election. It was Tuesday April 27th 2004 and I had just arrived at the train station to make my way to Melbourne Park when one of my friends who was also attending called. “So we’re not gonna bother going are we?” he said, me immediately thinking it was a rather unfunny attempt at a joke. Devastatingly it wasn’t. Thom’s voice had packed it in and the show, which was to be the last of the tour, had been cancelled. I still have the ticket on my pin board, stubb in tact, as a painful reminder that I’ve yet to experience this supposedly mind-bending live act in the flesh. That’s all going to change though in November barring another heart-breaking set of circumstances and my musical bucket list will be all the lighter for it. I’m betting it will have been well worth the wait.
Do you realise a decade has passed since the release of Do You Realize?? Life sure goes fast, not that we weren’t warned. The Flaming Lips have always been one of those glass half full kinda bands, exuding a quirky playfulness that perhaps epitomises the old Hubbard quote “Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive”. If you’ve ever experienced the childish-grin-inducing joy of a Lips live show, you’ll be well aware that they practice what they preach.
Delivered via a series of questions so simple yet so often left unmuttered, DYR?? is like a beautiful kick in the arse. It’s 3 minutes and 33 seconds of matter-of-fact honesty that’s enough to make you cry (with happiness) when you do realise that Wayne and the gang have been right all along.
The instrumental elements in it’s DNA already seem iconic, that irresistibly lush acoustic guitar strum, the atmospheric synth that has us “floating in space”, that epic drum roll and crash. All of these ingredients combined with a message so basic in essence yet grand in scope allows DYR?? to sit alongside the likes of “What a Wonderful World” and “Imagine” as anthems of the human race. Heck Oklahoma have already gone and made it their Official Rock Song.
Every now and then someone will ask us to stop and look at the bigger picture, but it’s far easier to appreciate the picture when it’s been painted by the Flaming Lips.
According to my calculations (rough impressions) Canada is the world’s richest source of indie music talent and here’s another example of just that from Torontonians Memoryhouse. Epitomising the post-grunge Sub Pop sound, their melodic guitar pop has perhaps been lazily compared to label mates Beach House (uncannily they both have brunette female vocalists and the word ‘house’ in their name). Although I’m yet to buy/piratebay (guilt ridden, if that helps) their recently released debut LP The Slideshow Effect this song alone is enough for me to mark these guys down as a band to keep an ear on.
jimmyfandangle 