Internet Forever

I guess having a lo-fi aesthetic is a pretty easy way to sound authentic/earnest, just like being interested in photography/liking Wes Anderson movies is a cheap way to sound plausibly interesting, but goddamit, Internet Forever sounds real.

The singer, Laura, does so in an accent, which I normally hate, but the sound is pretty effective here. Also, I really like bands that have the word "forever" in their name. It signals to me that this is a band that makes the kind of music that I've been using to innoculate myself against maturity since my adolescence. It's just cute shit guys.

Internet Forever - Break Bones

Internet Forever - Pages of Books

Where is Kevin Sorbo?

I have a vague sense that Hercules and Love Affair's thematic preoccupation, so to speak, has something to do with gender identity, Greek mythology, and disco, but ever since I first read the name "Hercules and Love Affair" I've been thrown by how friggin' perfect of a band name that is. It is innocuous and melodramatic at the same time, and allows you to draw absolutely no conclusions whatsoever about the kind of music they make, which I think is what a good band name does. A horrible band name, on the other hand, is something like Broken Social Scene, which makes you sound like some kind of angsty punk band comprised of 16 year olds.


I think recently, the only act I've wanted to see more than Hercules and Love Affair is Glass Candy. If Glass Candy plays Chicago anytime in the near future it would take it as a sign from God that I am on the right path. There's just something so appealing about all of this nouveaudisco with its darkly stylish synth lines and careful production. Don't you feel it? The will to groove?




I like interviews with bands a lot, especially ones where they identify themselves as being "dorks." I think it makes me feel good about all those years I spent playing Magic The Gathering/watching Stargate SG-1.

I am easily effected emotionally

The other day I saw Broken Social Scene for the fourth time, and it was pretty awesome. They opened with Late Night Bedroom Rock for Missionaries, and Shampoo Suicide, which they never play, and Andrew Whiteman (Apostle of Hustle) was there, and he's gotta be one of the most entertaining guitarists to watch.

One of the best parts of the show was when Charles Spearin (Do Make Say Think) played this thing he's been working on called "The Happines Project," where he interviewed his neighbors on the subject of happiness, and tried to play the melody of their voices. The part we heard was from an older lady named Ms. Norris (notacat), and it was pretty delightful.

They played KC Accidental, and this really cute girl a couple of feet away from me started crying. You're right, that's like some horrible Lou Taylor Pucci, Zach Braff "vaguely outsiderish kid with relatively good taste in music comes of age" cliche, but whateva. It seemed genuine enough at the time, and if there was ever a Broken Social Scene song that would make me cry, it'd probably be that one.



Broken Social Scene - KC Accidental [Buy]

This year, I want a ring of power, a lightsaber, and an iPhone

No Pedo.

Cut Copy - Lights & Music (Boys Noize Happy Birthday Remix)

Though it's not me, that picture is oddly accurate: I am wearing a Winnie the Pooh party hat and drooling a little bit right now. Internets are a wonderful things.

I ganked that picture from a google image search. I hope that kid's parents don't find this post and accuse me of J-ing/O to their son, or something.

I think I will probably spend today walking around in the semi-autumnal weather singing a Neil Young song to myself. Cause fall makes me feel melodramatic, I am leaning towards "Only Love Can Break Your Heart." That's real fucking obvious, but you have to accept yourself or else you will end up living in Central Ohio addicted to heroin/banging truckers for a fix like those people on Oprah the other day.

As a birthday present to myself, I'm gonna post this Joanna Newsom bootleg of a song she hasn't recorded. Perhaps, it's not as wild and "Newsom-y" as her other stuff, but goddamn it if mah heart doesn't soar/sore everytime I hear it. If you don't want to jump in a pile of leaves/spin around in your room with the door locked when she sings, "I believe love will always surround you" then there's just nothing that can be done for you, joyless wretch.

The bootleg is pretty good quality, so you don't have to worry about that.

Joanna Newsom - Esme (Working Title)

This is bleak

Maybe it's got something to do with me standing on the cusp of manhood/being able to legally buy alcohol, but goddammit if the future doesn't seem a little uncertain. The economy is trying to eat its own chin, folks have been talking about Russia as if the cold war never ended, and the Swiss may or not be in the possession of a Black Hole Easy-Bake Oven. Shit is serious, and I'm ascared.

I don't even know what I would give to reside in some kind of  Felicityesque J.J. Abrams creation with a healthy market, quirky but affable co-eds, and real fuckin' cosmopolitan parties with cool music. But the optimism of the 90s has drained out of even J.J's cool glasses, and he too, has boarded the bleak train.

Pop culture has been doing its part, preparing me over the past several years for a future where the Earth has been ravaged by aliens/robots/disease/war/environmental disaster, and turned into a burned-out wasteland where gangs of insane, immoral dispossessed roam the streets, killing people for canned goods. I know from movies and shit that canned goods will be very valuable in the future. So will, water, paper, sugar, and something called "spice." Or maybe I'm getting confused. It is hard to keep focus in our scary, brave, new world.

So, I basically know what to expect, but am I emotionally prepared for the apocalypse? I won't be surprised when they land, but will I blink in the face of our future alien-cyborg-nuclear-environmentalist overlords? Will I be broken in the work camps/ficitional radioactive element mines? How can I harden myself for the long battle ahead?

If humanity has any hope for surviving in a gray, bombed-out, ash-covered, uncertain dystopia, we will need direction on how to feel every hour of every day. So that we don't break down weeping in the middle of our canned good/"spice" raids, the apocalypse's has to have a kickin' playlist.

Tell me how to feel!!!!!!!!!!

And we're gonna party like it's two thousand and twelve:

Gary Numan - Cars [Buy]

Guns N' Roses - Paradise City [Buy]

I'm sure this one seems like a joke, but it's not. There's too much shitty hair metal retro-futurism on this song for me to take it seriously. Axl is fucking with all of us. All of us!

PJ Harvey - The Sky Lit Up [Buy]

Bell - Videotape/Eraser

Louis Armstrong - St. James Infirmary Blues [Buy]

France Gall - Bebe Requin [Buy]

Perhaps another weird choice. I don't know, I just figure that in the lawless, dystopia to come, when you're bartering with the warlord who controls the major city that you're trying to gain access too/escape from, when you walk into his nightclub lair, the enchanting waif who sees you and thinks you might be her ticket out of being said warlord's concubine, will probably be singing this song. I don't know.

Cat Power - Bathysphere [Buy]

The Carpenters - Top of the World [Buy]

Humanity's grim struggle for survival will often require all of us to dig deep into our hearts to recover grim, obvious irony.

Chromatics - Healer [Buy]

Hank Williams - Long Gone Lonesome Blues [Buy]

Crystal Castles - Through the Hosiery [Buy]

I don't know how many people actually consider shit like this, but one of the reasons why I like Crystal Castles so much is because I feel so fucking apathetic when I listen to them. There's nothing more apocalyptic than a bunch of young people thrashing dispassionately in a dark, strobe-lit room filled with their faceless peers to distorted vocals about anesthetized fucking through underwear. It's pretty easy to imagine a bunch of futureless apocalypse-babies bopping around to this in an abandoned warehouse or something. 

Farah - Law of Life [Buy]

Portishead - Wandering Star [Buy]

Rio en Medio - Girls on the Run [Buy]

Royksopp - What Else Is There? [Buy]

 

Eleven Inches. Holly. Phoenix Feather. "Nice and Supple." Thirteen 1/2 Inches. Yew. Phoenix Feather. "Powerful."

I probably should've just written about Magic Wands in that last post, and included them in the group of bands who are biting the 80s, but executing said biting so well that it's hard to hate. Actually there's plenty room for The Magic Wands to still suck it up, as they only have like 4 tracks, but what's there is solid shit.

Most of the bands with recycled sounds that suck tried to recycle cock-rock in the most dickless way possible, like Jet or Wolfmother. Magic Wands feel so sincere though about their Blondie-esque style. Their lead singer's name is Dexy! That's dope! Who the fuck do you know named Dexy? I thought so.

They are always referred to as "Chris and Dexy Valentine." Does that mean that Chris doesn't have a last name, or they're married? Maybe it could be a White Stripes gimmicky thing. *Shrugs*

Magic Wands - Teenage Love

Magic Wands - Black Magic

Je m'appelle...

In the long running tradition of bands like Rilo Kiley, Jethro Tull, Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ Top, I bring you Azeda Booth. And yes, they are a band of bearded, racist flutists, with a foxy ginger lead singer.

Some hours have passed since I wrote the above joke. Now I have no desire for this post to be funny so I will be frank instead.

Have you ever been awake by yourself at 3 in the morning, not really doing anything? You are either reading, or watching something, or writing, or drawing, or spinning around in your living room with your eyes closed, listening to Yes, and then it comes. This hope that something is steadily moving towards you. This thing is flipping over cars and pushing up dust in its wake. If you could just get your hands on this thing, the apparent mystery of 3 in the morning existence would be revealed to you, and you wouldn't just be waiting for tomorrow, you'd be living in the gorgeous, shining, electric night.

No fucking clue what I'm talking about? Well, I'm not surprised. I'm an especially sensitive boy, and I will dream up all sorts of whacked out shit if left to my own devices at 3 in the morning, which is essentially every night.

Azeda Booth sounds like this feeling. Their songs are essentially composed of urgent, fantasy beats and vocals so processed that you will think that you are listening a girl made of spun sugar, not some dude from Canada. Their album, In Flesh Tones, is affected by all the same emotional urgency that watercolors staring across the room, trying not to stare across the room, then giving the fuck up and staring across the room again, cause looking's legal right?

Buy In Flesh Tones

Azeda Booth-Ran

Azeda Booth-Big Fists