I don’t know how I missed this, Spoon’s new video for “Don’t You Evah” references the viral video of the keep on dancing yellow squishy guy. Except this time he goes on an adventure through (I’m Assuming) Tokyo. Look closely for cameos from Jim Eno and Brit Daniel. If there were justice in the world, kids everywhere would get a keep on dancing yellow squishy and a copy of Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga. You know what they say, “Be the change you want to see in the world”…
So I have a show that is broadcast from WNYO every Monday from 11-noon. I know that many people are in class or at work and cannot listen. However I am in the process of developing techniques and schedules so that everyone can listen to my show. If you can you should definitely listen next week because I have a special guest co-host. Anyway one of my plans is to post all the tracks I’ve played the same day.
I realize that it is Wednesday morning and that I am posting Monday’s show. So, I’ll just get to it.
This is going to be a bit of a random update, I started school this week at yet another fine institution and things are going pretty well thus far. Classes are going to be actual classes now, like “Hey, read the book, write a paper, take a test, get a grade!” kind of classes versus connecting sticks together in a meaningful pattern or taking bad photographs of dogs or fat girls stripping. I’ll actually be taking real classes and learning things that I did not know previously, like Renaissance Europe, Modern Japan, Historiography, Western Theater, so I’m pretty psyched to be relevant again and not an impotent hippie. It’s going to be a bright future, with regards to expanding my resume. Although being the new guy again is kind of rough, but I’ll manage.
Anyway, back to music, I received 4 albums in the mail the other day and none of them are duds, which is rare and makes me happy. So in the meantime I’ll put up a couple songs having to do with school. Oh yeah, and I’ll have a radio show again. So I’ll try and capture that and post it as a podcast. I declare good times are in the pipeline.
So my copy of Spoon’s latest “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” arrived in my mailbox today, and hearing the flow of the songs from the real CD makes all of the songs somehow fresh and exhilarating again. Plus there’s this neat bonus disk called “Get Nice” that came with it with a bunch of lo-fi rockers and atmospheric soundtrack type numbers. I’m starting to think that if Spoon were limited to some obscure combination of objects they could still make a compelling track, like if they were to use only a flute and a trash can lid I bet they could somehow churn out a hit pop song. Such is the power of Spoon. Buy “Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga” (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)
Let me put this out there straight away. Spoon is one of my favorite bands and I enjoy nearly everything that they’ve put out.Ever since I saw Spoon on Austin City Limits in 2002, I’ve been hooked on their rock & soul minimalist sound. They are one of the primary reasons that I got into indie music towards the end of my high school tenure, and “Girls Can Tell” has remained one of my favorite albums of all time since I heard it. “Kill the Moonlight” took some time for me to get used to, but I love how they combined an experimental sound with so few elements on each song yet it still retained that blue collar accessibility. I enjoyed the expanding sound and grooves of “Gimme Fiction” immediately, while it still allowed for more subtle songs to grow into favorites.
If I were to compare the latest albums to different varieties of foods, I would say that “Girls Can Tell” would be the original recipe, “Kill the Moonlight” would be the low calorie alternative that is surprisingly filling, “Gimme Fiction” would be the 5-star restaurant interpretation into a 3 course meal, and the newest offering would be the spicy mélange of all three. “GaGaGaGa Ga” offers up tasty bites of home grown guitar pop that are instantly savory and easily digestible. The production this time around features more studio wizardry, but the songs would work just as well without the panning accents and quote song breaks. In fact the effects call to mind the spontaneity of their earlier work, where they would start and stop between the 2 minute mark and feature vocals processed backwards through the outro. I find that these little accents make the record feel even more intimate, like sitting in your room listening to your favorite albums with a few friends over rather than in a huge stadium listening to something that gets overplayed on commercial radio.
As for songs, all the tracks are solid. There’s not a misstep to be heard. Brit Daniel’s vocals are as good as ever, Jim Eno’s drumming is, as per usual, hyper rhythmic, and all the grooves and melodies are as funky or as tough as they want to be. Opener, “Don’t Make Me a Target” (1), starts off with that familiar heavy “rough day at work” sound, bu then the beat changes, the piano becomes more menacing and the song glides on thoughts of what you would do to your incompetent boss if you could get away with it, before it comes calmly to an end. “The Ghost of You Lingers” (2) is a song composed of urgent piano hammering and panning vocals, which is probably the biggest departure from their traditional sound. The effects and atmosphere add an ominous edge that makes this track the most dramatic on the album. The two tracks I seem to always come back to are the sashaying thump of “Don’t You Evah” (4) and the triumphant melodies of “Finer Feelings” (9). To suggest that these songs would be better out of context to the remainder of the album would be a mistake as the feeling and presence of each song is enhanced by the track before and after it. So, a word of advice, you could listen to some tracks now, but for the full effect you need to hear the whole thing from beginning to end. Trust me on this, I am even a guy who enjoys singles immensely, but this album needs to be heard in its entirety. It’s just that good.
I’ve been planning on making a music project with a few other people this summer. It’s going to be a combination of raw punky sounds with some electronics and beats. Honestly, I can’t wait to see what kind of stuff we can come up with. As a first step I compiled this play list of punky guitar based rock, because it’s important to have a raw thrashy element to your lo fi electronica.
Wesley is one suave automaton. Here are some songs that I’ve been enjoying lately.
