Murphy's Earbuds

Yesterday's trip to Jersey:

Post-Punk Madness...
Gang of Four, Entertainment
Joy Division, Closer

Ah, NJTransit. Off the family barbecue. What better way to pass the time than to listen to some mind-numbinly disaffected and repetitive music.

**** Ok, now it's July 6th and I have mysteriously lost three or four posts I was in the middle of, so I guess I will recap some stuff.****

As per the beginning of this post: I have since listened to not only a lot of the aforementioned British Post-Punk acts, but they're biggest fans as well. I must admit that this new dance/rock thing is startting to excite me. As much as it kills me to here Franz Ferdinand on K-Rock (that concert rules, btw. I literally sweat of 5 lbs. of water weight and danced so hard I was ready to pass out/throw up), it makes me glad to see that bands like !!! and The Killers (both of which I just purchased from the iTunes store) are showing up not only in The A.V. Club, but on the pages of Rolling Stone as well. While I doubt I will spend much time listening to !!! (pronounced "chk chk chk", btw) for the sake of listening, they, along with these other new groups, have inspired me to think about DJ'ing for the first time in my life. Their album is choc full o' profanity and politcal rant, but it never detracts from the indie-cum-new wave-cum-electronica-cum-post-punk-cum-club music of it all. The Killers, on the other hand, are lighter, and, in many ways, more interesting fare. I guess Duran Duran with the slightest hint of pop-punk melodrama is how I would best describe these guys. I almost got in a car wreck laughing at how retro some of it sounded. The thing that sets it apart from the !!!'s, Franz Ferdinands, and Raptures of the world, however, is that amongst the big synth lines and 80's grooves, these guys are still all about songs. Y'know: verses, choruses, harmony... that sorta thing. I am a sucker for a great song, so I am guessing I will be spending a good deal of time with these guys. That my girlfriend really seems to like it only provides more opportunity for me to play this disc to death.

in other news...

NEW OBSESSION ALERT: Neil Young... more on that later.

This Past Week:

First off, allow me to apologize to my five readers. It's not that I haven't been listening at all, just not listening intently. See, I have been spending time playing shows and rehearsing, and not much time paying attention to the music I am hearing. I have also spent a large portion of my train/couch time reading. It's a habit I attend to in sprees; and I certainly feel one coming on. Based on the interest I showed in the upcoming Will Smith flicker, I, Robot (based on a novel by Isaac Asimov), my girlfriend reccomended that I read said author's most well known book(s), the Foundation trilogy. Go ahead, hardcore readers, laugh it up. I know I should have read this shit years ago, but I am finally getting to it now, and I LOVE IT! anyhoo... I finally paid attention to the earbuds this morning and it goes a li'l somethin like this - HIT IT!

Morning Commute:

Franz Ferdinand, Franz Ferdinand

It's taken some time to work up to this post, as I have been completely taken by and smitten with this album. Despite the fact that I was attracted to the cover art and the reviews I had heard, I refused its purchase at first, writing it off as nothing more than hipster fodder. The fact that one person described it as "The Strokes meet Disco" sealed the deal and I avoided it for a solid month. It wasn't until my bass player mentioned that getting people to dance was one of his motives for playing the music we do that I decided the idea of a dance band with real instruments was worth giving a spin - literally. Upon my next trip to the Prex, I was pleased to find it on vinyl and scooped it up having scarcely more than forty five seconds worth of previews at the iTunes store. I took it home and fell in love. Not only was i confronted with a band that were great players, but they were great songwriters AND made me want to dance. And dance I did. When I say the only time the record was removed from my turntable was to flip sides for more than a week, I am not exaggerating. I listened to it time and time and time again until the grooved were lodged into and impenetrable part of my brain. Withing two days of imapteience and unwillingness to deal with the Vinyl to MP3 process, I purchased it again, this time from the iTunes store. It seems that jagged, angular, dueling guitar work has become one of the staples of the new post-punk movement. I have found this return to a better aesthetic sense about the use of the guitar in rock music to be one of the redeeming values and saving graces of this otherise "smarter than thou" scene. The mere fact that said instrumental intelligence is one of the strongsuits of this record should sell me enough, but backed with a disco groove (yes, I said disco), the art for art's sake-ness of this popular effect is completely removed. It's just plain fun. The lazy vocals and slightly lo-fi recoding quality could be misconstrued as Strokes-influenced, but it only makes this dance record sound more organic. If you read about this band's roots (esentially throwing their own dance parties in what seems to be Scotland's answer to Williamsburg), this straight-forward approach to studio sound makes all the more sense. The lyrics border on the ridiculous at times, but most times the stock lyrics ("this fire is out of control, gonna burn this city) only serve to add to the fun of the album. "Dark of the Matinee" certainly stands out as my fave, and has been chosen as their third single. If you buy one record before you finish reading this blog, let it be Franz Ferdinand.

On to the bad stuff. My worst fears are coming true. For some godforsaken reason, the mainstream has caught on to this band. How they are getting airplay on K Rock is beyond me, but it's happening nonetheless. I have been planning on going to see their upcoming show in Brooklyn for a month and a half now. For weeks, the venue's ticket site has been saying "day of show only", and yet: they tickets are now "sold out" and going for as much as $120 a pair on cragislist. *sigh* but wait! the same said bassist who, in the first paragraph, inspired me to buy this record went to see them at Virgin Megastore *blech* last night and SCORED ME A TICKET!!!! now i just need to hope and pray it's not counterfeit. My only real fear is the Williamsburg hipsters in their striped sweaters and trucker hats nodding their approval in the front row, whilst they SHOULD be getting their groove on. I know I will be (getting my groove on that is).

Driving to/from JFK:

D12, "My Band"

So my roommate and I were driving out to the airport to pick up his girlfriend. We were doing our best impersonations of the children we teach, so we inevitably turned to Hot 97 on the radio and began bopping. We were smack dab in the middle of "My Band". I must admit, I found this song catchy from the start; and after I read the Rolling Stone article about them from a few weeks ago, I realized that it was a neccesity to learn more about this group. I was very excited to find out that aside from being the best rapper alive, Eminem is also a good friend. For those of you not in the know, D12 existed years before Mr. Mathers's fame and fortune and it was gernerally agreed during that time that the first member of the group to "make it" would bring the others up with him. Well, with three incredible and eleventeen-platinum albums under his belt (and a budding flim career to boot), he has done just that: helping to record and release his old "band"'s debut (?) album. Anyhoo, we were rocking out to this song and suddenly became obsessed with finding it on the radio. We flipped from station to station, hoping that at least ONE would be playing - but to no avail. We sang the chorus of "My Band" to all the other songs on the radio, but it just wasn't as satisying. Long story short: I got home and downloaded it immediately. I am sure I will buy the album by week's end. I will let you know if I ever stop singing along.

Morning Commute:

Bad Astronaut, Acrophobe
Big in Japan, Destroy the New Rock

I am insanely jealous of teenage suburban punks. They all have a Britannica-like knowledge of local and up-and-coming punk, emo, and hardcore acts, and they all have managed to see no less than three of these bands in the last week at no less than three VFW's in their or other local municipalities. That must be the life: mom drops you off at the local hall show and you drop $3 to see 11 bands in the span of four hours. All your friends are there, hell, half of your friends are in the bands you are there to see, and somehow every single one is signed to some label that not only you have heard of, but has managed to make a name for itself with other teenage suburban punk scene three states away. So grass roots. While that part of it appeals to me on a "gee, I wish I was still a teenager level", the part that appeals to me most as an adult is the access to a seemingly limitless number of new bands to call your own.

I guess it's not all bad, though. There are still some bands/labels etc. that are at the forefront of the "next big thing" while keeping a relatively low profile. If you cite MTV or your local Clear Channel radio regime as your main source of new music, today's post may fly under your radar, but if you are at least a curious music consumer or perspective muso, you will recognize at least one of the following parties in the following sentence: Honest Don's is a sub-label of Fat Wreck Chords, the indepenedent "So-Cal" label started and run by Fat Mike of NOFX. Aside from releasing the albums to be discussed in the next few paragraphs, "Fat Wreck" also just put out "Rock Against Bush!": a great album for a great cause.

I was introduced to the Honest Don's label(s) through my old drummer. When the band we were in first got started, we all spent a few evenings playing CD's for each other in order to figure out where we each were coming from and where our sound would eventually go. In retrospect, this mostly helped us ot breed early and mutual contempt, but one of the nicer side effects was my realizing (like I stated in the paragraph above) that there was another musical scene or universe that I was yet to tap. All three of the guy I was starting the band with were in some way linked up with the rock journalism world, so they, of course, knew of and had already cast judgement upon eleventeen bands that had yet to release their first LP. While some of the guys were harsher than others, I always respected their opinions, even when they stated them so harshly that it seemed they were actually trying to belittle me as a listener. I'M NOT BITTER OR ANYTHING!!! Honestly: they did mess up my tastes pretty bad and to this day I am not sure whether I like and don't like what I do and don't because of what I believe or what I was expected to believe before I was in that band. While I am pleased that they reminded me not to let go of the passionate, loud-as-hell, rock that I adored in my youth, I am dissapointed that after six months removed from those guys I still can't approach "lighter" music I used to adore (Moxy Fruvous, early Barenaked Ladies, Ben Folds) without thinking it's "gay". All anger aside, my old drummer always had something new for me to listen to - and I was ususally the second kid on the block to know about it.

Both my drummer and I were always excited that despite how incredible, and sometimes downright concept-y and epic, this disc was, Bad Astronaut considered this an EP and more of an overture to their upcoming full length. Anyone that does know their 2002 debut LP, Houston, We have a Drinking Problem, know that their sneak preview EP, Acrophobe served them well. I have always loved the sound of this disc. The guitars manage to roar yet maintain the clarity of every note on every string. The vocal: present (though not too far forward in the mix) and overwrought, but never to the pointing of bordering on pop-punk. I guess in its purest sense, this is a pop-punk record. In the wake of the watered-down sound alike MTV2 scene we have been left with in the wake of the success of Blink 182, pop-punk has become a dirty word, so I would like to think that Bad Astronaut leans more the the pop side of things. They don't come of as bratty - they even come off as educated in the realm of popular music. Does a "punk" band covering an Eliott Smith tune (the title of this post) not say it all. The drums sound live, the bass is audible (rare for a powerpoppunkwhatever record these days), and the little piano and synth bits not only add a touch of class, but broaden the texture and emotional palette used by the band. There's only one shitty bit on this record, really. While the album's opener is raucous and grand, letting you know what you're in for, the last track falters by adding five minutes of answering machine babble. Hardly enough to deter me from this disc, I usually just skip this track.

Now: Imagine the original pop-punk sneer Buzzcocks meets The Who's Live at Leeds,Who's Next-era bombast. You get Big in Japan. Bass in your face, ridiculous drumming, a great twin guitar attack and a record choc full o' anthems and singalongs. I could write another huge diatribe about this record, but I think opening track of side two (the title track, "Destroy the New Rock") says it all. "Let's wage war in stereo in the name of the old scenario! Show contempt in analog in the name of the brand new underdog!"

I hope that my glowing comments have inspired you to go out and pick this should-be-on-pop-radio disc, but that's really not why we're here, now is it? I have this memory: I am driving up around where Rts. 287 and 80 meet in Jersey. I might be on my way to rehearsal, maybe coming home. Either way, the band is on my mind. I have a great apartment, lots of money to spend, a great girlfriend in Brooklyn, and a whole life in front of me. Most importantly, I am rocking out to Bad Astronaut and/or Big in Japan. It was a really simple and hopefully expectant time in my life. I felt almost as free as a teenage suburban punk. While a lot of those things have gotten even better (living in Brooklyn myself, WITH said great girl), the band, the money, and the idea that someday the two of those will be intertwined is gone. I don't live in sadness, but I've yet to find what I am chasing after now. I hope I've made the right decisions. I haven't gotten pre-release wind of any new albums in the Honest Don's catalogue. I haven't come any closer to rock stardom - though I am starting to come to terms with that one. Damn music and its nostalgic properties. And to think: these albums are side projects from other bands...

Morning Commute:

Rolling Stones, Exile on Main St.
Ted Leo/Pharmacists, Hearts of Oak