Got yourself several hours of audio and video to spare? Listen to it while you’re gift wrapping, baking cookies, or moaning about those cha cha heels! Wait until Christmas morning–your present will be shiny and brand new! Remember Mother’s Day? I gave you the motherload of appreciation for the female figure of the house! Now I give you: perverted Santas! Creepy elves! a Yo La Tengo Hannukah! Secularize it up a bit with Female Trouble! The disgruntled American family portrait of Church once a year! What else could you ask for?

Just two weeks ago, I dressed up like an elf and volunteered at the Roxie Theater’s “A John Waters Christmas Show” I got a lot of ideas, and was inspired to make a mix for the season, even if the season is only days away from being over. Oh well, it’s reusable! I was going to hand produce a mixtape and make cut out collages of cool vintage pictures, such as the one’s I’ve selected for this display. I’d hand write personalized notes with customized collages, and I’d slip in a twenty five song mix of my own Christmas jams. But I’m too lazy, and too late so I’m doing it all digitally. If I didn’t send you something, consider this your present. If I don’t know you, consider this blog post your bible. Christmas has always had it’s dedicated place in the wall of genres, and here it is revived, sparkled, and personalized! I love Christmas, and I hate it, too. John Waters said, “I love Christmas so fucking much, I could shit!” Me too, although, sometimes the shit is stronger than the Christmas spirit. Sometimes you just don’t get those cha cha heels, and the shopping goes to Amazon finders, gift cards, and Walgreen’s plethora of cheap, impersonal rubbish. Whether you like it or not, the Christmas feeling is a unique feeling of its own, one that comes around only once a year. And in this blog post, I’ll be dissecting aspects of Christmas culture in the form of different Christmas songs, from singer-songwriter originals to traditional songs made famous by oldies and youngsters alike.

Warning: Be prepared to be attacked by John Waters ephemera

A Stack of Christmas Vinyl and CD’s: Gabe’s Favorite X-Mas Compilations

Shannon and the Clams Ruin Christmas 7”-Shannon and the Clams

I’ve mentioned Shannon and the Clams before on this blog, not always in a positive light. I   dubbed them as queercore, and when I met guitarist Cody Blanchard at the Rickshaw Stop here in San Francisco he said, “well, I don’t really know how that applies to us because none of us are gay.” I felt a real burn there. Can I trust my blogger instincts? I don’t want to be the juicy and band hated Hipster Runoff or Brooklyn Vegan. I love Shannon and the Clams, but if they were referring to that blog post, hell, I’m embarrassed. As queer-loving as they are, and in their context, if any queer dub is applicable it would be queer-fi, Shannon and the Clams are not gay. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t celebratory or spirited, nonetheless, flamboyant! Punk manifests itself in kitschy, fuzzy, tacky vintage forms also. Take this limited edition 7”. The Clams love their holidays, complete with Grandma’s knitted Christmas sweaters and hand painted pawn shop ornaments. Not to mention Phil Spector’s umpteenth amount of Christmas records. Oakland’s 1-2-3-4 Go! Records is offering this four song EP for just 5 bucks, and it’s Red Vinyl too. It’s logical for the Clams to love the holidays, what other spunky slice of American pie is there to honor more in the age of infatuation with the uncool and the cheesy becoming cool? It’s the vintage craze’s next big thing! Features a Hawaiian Christmas song from Christmas Vacation, the original technicolor VHS production that a hip-revivalist would love! And, not to underscore the John Waters Christmas opener hit “Fat Daddy.” (This isn’t the only time Mr. Waters and his holiday posse will be mentioned in this blog post) Shannon, according to SF weekly, was raised Mormon, so it’s very fitting if you pick this up at a Bay Area record store you’ll also cop out all the one dollar Mormon Tabernacle Christmas compilations on vinyl. Get ‘em, while you can!

If out of town, order here: http://www.1234gorecords.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=65&products_id=904

“Phil Spector Christmas Album”-Various Artists

Aside from writing one of my favorite pop songs, “I Love How You Love Me”, which is covered beautifully by Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum, the one thing that Spector never fails to do is deliver a solid collection of Christmas hits, new ones, spiced up renditions, classic Motown flare and traditional laments. Not just one, god, have I lost count? There’s a Christmas Gift For You and Christmas: The Phil Spector Way are some to mention. but for this list, I’ll go ahead with Phil Spector’s Christmas Album. Released before he bid farewell to us and hello to the warden, here he looks as if Santa’s an undercover mall cop, or he happened to be on a speed round of child hugs and wish lists  from his risque prison break. In disguise as Santa, who could catch him? (hint: the pervert glare) I happened to find this for just ten dollars on one of my vinyl binges/hunts, and boy it is a keeper! Take the cover, but then the collection that he’s mastered. It’s got a timeless feel to it…featuring The Crystals, The Ronettes, Darlene Love and Bob B. Soxx and the Blue Jeans doing what fits them best. It’s got airy and light tinged hooks with sleigh bells and hi-fi melodies, yet focuses in brilliantly on the swoons and aches of the premiere voices.  The Ronettes and The Crystals act as Santa’s helpers with the pop-romps of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” and “Sleigh Ride” while Darlene Love uses her tough yet sweet fire in the sophisticated “White Christmas” and her signature hit “Christmas Baby (Please Come Home).” And in the end, Spector finishes it off with his talk singing thank you to all the artists with a backdrop of doo wop harmonies from “Silent Night.”It’s hilarious and heartwarming. Now who does one of those musical thank you’s on a record anymore? That’s vintage for you right there!

“Mr. Hankey’s Christmas Classics”-South Park

A church music director and organist gave me a burnt copy of this album. Filthy? Weird? Not you’re average Sunday morning carols? Ding ding ding! I’d expect maybe the masses to sing angelic Sufjan Stevens tracks before we’d step near the offensive and vile South Park X-Mas compilation! Not to mention the awful choice of having Bono curate your Church’s roster of songbooks (u2charist? gag me!). Nope, this guy didn’t actually lock a bunch of kids in his room to sing “Merry Fucking Christmas.” That would be torture. Instead, I was given this CD, and I have to say, it’s a sickening, wicked guilty pleasure. Full of offensive, euphemism and stereotype driven lullabies that tell Muslims, Hindus and Shintoists to get off their asses and have some Christmas spirit (don’t quote me wrongly on this). It doesn’t have quite the redeeming social commentary and American political value that John Waters has with his films, however, it’s almost nearly as fun. And for those who might not like the offensives uttered, they could skip around and find Isaac Hayes’ wonderfully smooth and bold rendition of “What The Hell Child Is This (Greensleeves)” RIP Chef! Or what about Stan’s sister Shelly’s lisp used as torment on “I Saw Three Ships”, or Kyle’s balladeering on “The Lonely Jew On Christmas”, which features a very special Jewish superstar (shhh) Don’t play Dreidel Dreidel with Kyle, because as Cartman says, “Dreidel’s fuckin’ gay!” Ditto for the album. Make your sleigh ride dirty, which, of course, is all the more American.

“Christmas in the Heart”-Bob Dylan

Laugh at me all you want. What? This is a great album. Thirty minutes of fun, fun, fun! Just    look at the cover. I can already identify one on the surface irony: the Hallmark looking drawing. Where is that from? Antique’s Road Show? Mysterious ex-Suburban housewife painter lady make it after some classes at the backwoods community college? Sure, Dylan’s a born again Christian, but that doesn’t mean he still can’t sing like a blatant misanthrope, straight from Scrooge and Grinch-esque anti-the-real-meaning-of-Christmas rhetoric. Or maybe Dylan’s just fucking with our heads. Posing with a Santa hat? Covering “Little Drummer Boy”, the sappiest Christmas ballad of them all? Testing our willpower to take him seriously, I presume. If neither of those are a joke, then I don’t know what to believe. The real Dylan doesn’t exist? He’s undergone more metamorphosis? Born again-again? Whatever it is, it’s a hilarious album. Whether the intent is serious or not, don’t hesitate to chuckle when Dylan gargles his phlegm halfway through a high note on one of those ballads. Or when he tries to act cute for the little ones and the spirited carolers. You can’t help but picture reclusive and war scarred Grandpa in a figurative straightjacket because he’s forced to sing those goddamn carols. Christians still have humor, and sure, they’re bad and sinful, Dylan tells us, so why not name the album “Goddamnit, Here’s Me Pretending to Enjoy Christmas!” Just come clean already. In the meantime, laugh, gargle, spit, and choke on your Christmas feast. Dylan’s here to be your class act Santa clown. Just don’t convince him to become a mime.

“A John Waters Christmas”-Various Artists as Chosen by Mr. Waters

I remember the day I met John Waters. For the first of four times, that is. It was early December 2004 and I was a tasteless little kid. I went to Amoeba Music with my dad to stand in line to meet John, buy his Christmas album, and for my dad to have his original Polyester Odorama card signed. That same day at Amoeba, I remember getting Lindsay Lohan’s debut album. I was nine, and like I said before, tasteless. But that day opened me up to something, and someone, I can’t live without this day: John Waters films, his humor, his entourage, him. This album is my favorite Christmas album, and sure, my endless mention of him prior, and wait, there’s more to come, may feel like overkill, and you might have inferred. But what other figure loves Christmas so much to make us want to love it because he loves it? The reason why he’s the first thing I think of when I think of Christmas is because of his dedication to the holiday, the craft, the hopsitality, and the customs surrounding it (not to mention his added niche!). A John Waters Christmas is a well rounded mix of classic holiday cheer, quirky and obscure singles, combining both the perverted and the sane to balance it out. But, knowing John Waters, how thin is the line between the two? The album opens with “Fat Daddy”, an under two minute song that is nothing but a brooding, sultry male voice backed by reindeer bells, and segues into “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” done eloquently and tastefully by Tiny Tim (how else did David Byrne and David Longstreth acquire the falsetto?), the barbershop quartet sound of “Christmas Time is Here” to the soft spoken storytime tall tales of “Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child’s Prayer)”, which is illuminated by the nasal voice of a child, and “Little Mary Christmas”, one of those cheesy hallmark metaphors for the poor orphans, if illustrated would look like a gleaming Norman Rockwell advent calendar. There is also Alvin and the Chipmunk’s “Sleigh Ride” and Little Eva and Big Dee Irwin’s pulsing candid funk hit “I Wish You A Merry Christmas” to spark familiarity. The centerpiece is the vulgar redneck anthem “Here Comes Fatty Claus”, and the final track is an equally funny child-sung and gospel backed “Santa Claus is a Black Man”, and before it we have the funniest of all nasal child voices on “Sleigh Bells, Reindeer, and Snow.” John Waters gives us a sleigh ride full of treats, from both familiar and underrepresented faces, channeling and chronicling the merrily essential aspects of Christmas into one handpicked CD. Who could we trust more?

I put this in reluctantly, mostly for the fun of it…look at me as a child. I was destined to love John all along.

Here’s a more updated one, taken after the Roxie show (12-11-10).

Super Selection of Christmas Audio and Video Spam:

Your best Christmas Mix, featuring selected tracks from the aforementioned albums, as well as others…

Sufjan Stevens’ new Christmas mini album, featuring Arcade Fire and The National members:

Sonic Youth-”Santa Doesn’t Cop Out on Dope”

For more Christmas fun, consult this list of fresh and hip seasonal songs:

http://pitchfork.com/news/40787-holiday-music-roundup/

There’s stuff from Candy Claws, Crystal Stilts, Tracey Thorn, Paul Simon, Best Coast and more!

and lastly, you MUST NOT open this little gift until Christmas Day, after you open the rest of your gifts. Let’s hope yours is a twisted, spoiled, tree-falls-on-mom holiday! OH NO, NOT ON CHRISTMAS!

From left: Hayley McKee, Amy Franz

A profile of Super Wild Horses, the new leading band of the underground Australian lo-fi sector, who have reached acclaim amongst critical and musical circles in the US and elsewhere, signed to Chicago’s HoZac Records, and have the potential to win the hearts of any garage rock fan out there.

What about Australia? Sweden keeps churning out Dylan-esque ambient folk singers (The Tallest Man on Earth, Jose Gonzalez) and London has an aggressive district of their own sub-genre: hyperdub. But what about Australia? As black and white as you think an answer would be, it’s actually a pretty complex question. From a historical perspective, we find Australia to be an assimilation of British tradition; that aside from Steve Irwin and Australian Cattle Dogs that there isn’t much of a unique exhibition of culture in Australia. Sure, Britain isn’t below the equator, so natural conditions are distinct, and obviously there is a lot in aboriginal studies, however, when do we study Australian history? What significantly does Australia have to offer?

For Super Wild Horses, a two-piece Melbourne garage band, it’s a sprawling yet interconnected community of beach-bum type surf rock musicians. From the chill, psychedelic atmospherics of 70′s revival sounding Eddy Current Suppression Ring (hence: “Rush to Relax”) to post punk veterans The Scientists, there’s always been a music scene in Australia, however it seems unnoticed and subconsciously recognized elsewhere. However, just as California and other states are spurting with a recreated vision to the decades old aesthetics of artists such as Phil Spector and The Clean, Australia seems to be following along on their own parallel path to this wave, with bands pressing split 7”s, co-headlining tiny bars or hotel rooms, and maybe playing drums or doing some vocals for each other’s side projects. Australia have never been behind the curve, neither have they been sly, skillful and timely at copying the modern methods and practices of indie rock. “There’s a really tight knit group of people playing and those same people are going to watch gigs. The states seem to have that same sense of community”, says Amy Franz, one half of Super Wild Horses. “People in Australia (and seems to be the case here [US] too) are genuinely interested in the bands and projects that spring up, and most of us are recording pretty simply and quickly, there are always new releases coming out which keeps the community vibrant.”

I was convinced before my conversation with Super Wild Horses that the musical worlds between the US + Europe and Australia are isolated. I asked whether or not the band was exposed to exports during their musical growth and adolescence that may have influenced their voice. Could Australia’s musical offerings completely fuel the development of their sound? Franz says on her behalf “There are so many great and influential bands from Australia – The Stems, The Church, The Scientists, Radio Birdman, X, The Go Betweens, the list could go on and on. More recently bands like Eddy Current, The Twerps, Panel of Judges, The Straight Arrows, Deaf Wish have been putting out great stuff – I think there is definitely an Australian sound – not something you can put your finger on, more of a feeling perhaps.” This feeling that Franz conveys, as simplistic as it gets, regardless of nationality or origin, is terribly hard to define in concise and in depth terms. We retreat to shortcuts such as “lo-fi” that soon become no-no’s in a critic’s notebook. Even proprietors of the garage scene have a hard time putting their finger on what this paradox is that they are in. “It wasn’t until my early teens I properly discovered Australian music. Bands like ACDC, The Easybeats, Bad Seeds and The Scientists have historically led the way for Aussie music”, says Hayley McKee, the other half of the band. “The 90s were an ace time for Aussie bands too. Groups like You Am I, Tumbleweed, Smudge and Jebediah were some of my favourites and it felt good to have music heroes coming from your own backyard. The past few years have generated another wave of exciting new bands. Each state in Australia has a sligtly different scene and sound, but on a whole there are so many great rock and roll bands to dig into at the moment.”

The members of Super Wild Horses, Amy Franz and Hayley McKee, who share band roles as guitarists, drummers, and vocalists, met during high school in Perth, Australia (they are now based in Melbourne) at the age of Fifteen (a fitting suspicion for the naming of their debut album Fifteen) and have been making music since not long after getting together. Franz recalls, ”[We] got up to lots of mischief together in the hills of Perth (Western Australia). There wasn’t a whole lot to do there so we’d make our own fun. A lot of our good buddies ended up in music or the arts. It was a really creative place to grow up, and while we didn’t start the band till much much later, I think the seeds were sewn back then.” McKee adds, “We’ve been pals for ages and would always act like asses around each other. My car doesn’t have a radio so this was one place we would always end up singing stupid rhymes to each other. I think we both secretly wanted to start a band at some point in our lives, and neither of us were getting any younger so we just did it for our own enjoyment.”

That enjoyment expanded into a full-time project that has been regularly active since 2008. Their eponymous six song EP was released that year, and featured the single “Super Wild Horses” which they had written before the EP’s release, and before they had an official name. “It was the first song we wrote on our dodgy Multivox keyboard and it’s off our debut 7”. Amy’s partner booked our first show and knew we’d try to get out of it so he gave us a really short lead time to prepare”, says McKee. “We had to desperately think up a band name for the show…which we later realised stunk (we called ourselves Sexretary). So we reverted to Super Wild Horses after that.”

And Super Wild Horses they stuck with. I find it personally to be a metaphor for Australia’s openness physically and in terms of their limited and collectively shared media. Any Australian garage band, as connected as they may seem in their home, is wild in a fresh and unknown sense to us. Now based in Melbourne, Super Wild Horses are signed to Aarght Records (a premiere record label for the garage sound in Aus.) and in the US, to a similarly influential garage-distributer, Chicago’s own HoZac Records, which is one of my favorite labels out there currently, and the reason for how I discovered Super Wild Horses in the first place. In their current city, Super Wild Horses have been playing shows for a while now, along with releasing singles with friends such as UV Race and the Straight Arrows, and promoting the release of Fifteen, which has finally hit shelves in both LP, CD, and digital formats in the US and through HoZac’s online store. Extending the subject on their surroundings, McKee speaks about Melbourne specifically, “From what I can gather the Melbourne garage scene has similarities to the US DIY scene in the sense that we’re all just a bunch of bands who are friends with each other and have no real band ambitions other than playing music for kicks! We were lucky to find like minded bands in our town. Everyone is really supportive of each other and there’s a bunch of side-project bands (like Boomgates, Lower Plenty) that have come about because of this genuine enthusiasm for wanting to make music with each other.”

Super Wild Horses I was told about when I was attending this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival on my summer visit to Chicago. I stopped by the HoZac Records booth, and was greeted by a very friendly label associate there. I told him that I was from San Francisco and he mentioned that HoZac band Super Wild Horses would be playing a show at the Hemlock Tavern (he obviously thought I was over 21). He described them in a way that made me very curious. It was several weeks after I went to Pitchfork before I checked out the band. With desire to find hidden gems that were unbeknownst to Pitchfork Media’s spell, I looked up Super Wild Horses. After hearing “Golden Town” I was converted. A simple, 2:36 minute song, “Golden Town” is the first single from Fifteen. It’s a clattering and rushing mess of cymbals and scuzzy guitars, it’s climactic and aural power easily could win over cliched hard rock staples at a battle of the bands. It’s a heavier but still raw and gritty sounding side of the lo-fi music that I’ve heard recently. I hear mostly poppier songs that have a lot of sun and doo-wop in them, however, “Golden Town” could go grey, cloudy, dark, or even gleamingly bright. It’s pop in it’s structure, but it’s delivery is a ferocious howl. The vocals are muttered under a cacophony of percussion, guitar, bass and reverb. A slam dunk of repetition and understated ferocity, “Golden Town” is a short introduction to the musical brevity of Super Wild Horses, but it only covers one side. “Lock and Key” and “Love” are more minimalist, with the vocals focused and centered instead of being caked and layered under the stereophonics of scuzzy recording gear, along with a lot of instrumental passion. The alternating voices of both members of Super Wild Horses aren’t necessarily harmonic in ways other girl groups that employ similar styles are, however, their voices are fierce yet refined instruments. Each of them have a lilt in their voice that is sharp, growly and full in songs such as the dark and powerful “Fifteen” and the sloppily fun and chaotic anthem “Mess Around”, however, both of their voices can act as background material, in songs such as “Adrian” and “I Want You” which are less focused on the vocal shifts or tricks and more on the song’s progression and melody. They are also more evocative of British Invasion punk stylings, as well as the sharpness and spunk of early American rock and roll. McKee says, “My family and I were born in England so I grew up on my dad’s favourite British records like The Kinks, The Turtles, Beatles and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown. My mum was a massive Motown fan and when she was a kid she would save her money up to buy US imports from The Temptations, The Supremes and Smoky Robinson.”

When asked about the recent outbreak of borrowed nostalgia syndrome for smoky soul, Ronettes’ pop, 70’s punk, and sun baked rock, both Hayley McKee and Amy Franz argue that these sounds, conveyed intentionally or not, have never officially died. “I think people will always reference their musical influences in their music to some degree. Not only the songs, but the recorded sound and sentiment as well. There are all kinds of music being referenced and ‘revived” – seems that the media are just paying a bit more attention to the garage and DIY scene at the moment.” says Franz. Super Wild Horses seemed to be accustomed to hearing this labeling trend, especially amongst their rock and roll peers, both in Australia and in the United States (they played at GonerFest in Memphis this September). Franz adds, “It’s probably interesting for people who’ve been part of the CD and download generations to see a movement happening that digs vinyl, doesn’t bother too much with over-production and embraces that sound. There was a certain immediacy in the music of those bands that feels honest and heartfelt. I think we feel the pull towards that sound for sure.” She reminds us that not only have breakthrough bands encouraged the use of more vintage sounding equipment (some of this is deliberate and some isn’t), but have also lead a more vintage centered lifestyle. McKee also comments, “I think this appreciation for a 60s aesthetic has always been around in music and isn’t necessarily a newly discovered sound that bands are turning on to. If anything, the music press have just picked up on the lo-fi tag and are running with it…which inherently pushes this style of music to the forefront for better or worse. We never set out to produce a particular sound. We certainly had clear ideas in terms of recording with old analogue equipment to try and relive the golden tones of the 60′s; but in terms of songwriting there isn’t any strategy. Like everyone else our songs just evolve intuitively. We both grew up listening to a wide range of music from a very early age so I’m sure our parent’s record collection have subliminally left a mark on us.”

The key difference now between vintage and contemporary mediums is that bands use the mechanism of the internet to share their work, whether they are dirt poor and purist by physicality standards. Through releasing vinyl, playing shows in warehouses, and producing written word and art through zine form, they form a case that music world seems to be encountering another revolution. The previous musical generations formed revolutionary ideas, one of them was indie rock. But now so many of these movements have repeated themselves, causing their statement to become less and less invigorated or fresh and bought in to a marketing niche that seems more and more conformist each day.  One could argue that the lo fi and 60’s stylings of garage bands could be a conforming trend that has been bought out by popularity standards, however, it hasn’t expanded into a mass marketed or sold product that has contradicted it’s existence in ways that other forms of independent music have.

Aside from their standpoint on the media-based theory of the garage pop outpour,  I also asked Super Wild Horses about how they view the music media directly, particularly independent juggernauts such as Pitchfork. Franz says, “The press is strange! We never expected that people would talk about the band or pay much attention to it. As Hayley mentioned earlier, we started the band for ourselves, with no plan and not sure how long we’d get away with it for! We’ve been really lucky and just feel quite humbled that people have picked up on our music.” Pitchfork and Stereogum seem to have a way of getting to underground sources, almost depicting independent music and lifestyle that is bigger and more generalized than it actually is. There are a lot of bands and smaller movements they can miss out on, however, they seem to have a knack for revealing an eclectic and encompassing list of indie music’s broad offerings. No band that I have talked to has ever glorified the press, as most musicians seem to have a neutral outlook on the existence of Pitchfork and other sites. They do a lot of promotion for their bands’ audiences, however they have a lot of power and influence in what less deeply rooted indie-leaning listeners tend to think about certain bands. McKee shares her opinion, “We thank our lucky stars in the liner notes on our album because we’ve received such awesome support and amazing opportunities. It feels great to hear people like the record because it’s such a personal little creation. The songs are about our lives and we learnt all the instruments on the go so we never imagined we’d even be listened to! Releasing through HoZac is a total buzz. I have stacks of their releases and have had a long term geeky love for the label. We were stoked they dug the record. A major high for us.” Super Wild Horses seem to have a more positive outlook on the influence of the press, however, their press has been limited and captioned.  They have been mentioned on Pitchfork before, but Pitchfork can be choosy in who they tend to follow, and who gets the staying power amongst their avid readers. There’s an old saying (well, not really) that an 8.0 with a “best new music” tag can have a lot more advantage than just a solid, plain old 8.0. In the world of sophisticated and advanced music journalism with it’s contradictions and flaws—Super Wild Horses are just happy to be noticed with contributions by their friends, their label, and a purer, friendlier array of music media presses.

Reverting to the topic of the formation of Super Wild Horses unique and wholly sound, Franz talks about regular influences on her behalf, “I think our sound is a bit of a mash of all the things we’ve listened to and also what we’ve been able to express on our instruments (as we’ve been learning as we go). I listened to a lot of Ray Charles, Etta James, R&B and jazz growing up. Plus bands like the Lemonheads, Love, The Modern Lovers, The Stooges, Magnetic Fields, Guided By Voices, a bit of everything! There was a great all ages scene when we were growing up, so every weekend we’d be seeing local bands and soaking it all up.”

Aside from “Golden Town” my other favorite song on the album Fifteen is “Degrassi”, which I claimed in my question to the band to be the emotional center of the album. There’s something about the mood in the song that channels the feeling of nostalgia in my head. I once heard this phenomenon uttered so eloquently, that it’s “the type of nostalgia that you feel when you’re too young to feel nostalgia.” It has this emotional opaqueness that almost feels like a reflection or memory, and lyrically it’s this graceful and raw as well as in it’s instrumental tinges. I probably find this sentiment in it when I interpret the song because of it’s adolescent feel (hence the Canadian TV show also titled “Degrassi”) and because of the adolescent concept I mentioned earlier. “Breathing, without any feeling”, is the standout line, as the duo’s voices are used in a more breathy and mellow form. “Degrassi” has something in it that I find beautiful that not your everyday person would find significant or polished enough to be beautiful. It’s beauty in it’s freest form, it’s something that I can gravely connect to, a simple pop song that stirs me into a separate mindset each time I listen to it. Fifteen lyrically is very simple in a poetic sense, but that lyrical simplicity comes with an added layer of meaning and depth, with a lot of sincerity and universality. Their delivery shares every line with a different emotional octave, whether it’s putting the extra emphasis on “I’ve got a message for you, it goes ooh ooh ooh” in “Mess Around” or the “We don’t care” verse repeated in “We Don’t Believe It.” The songs contain a lot about love and betrayal, about standing up to authority and some subtextual political messages (“You and your pocket full of gold, you and your world turned to smoke”), as well as being trapped in an environment that doesn’t understand you. Super Wild Horses’s album is a study of young modern lovers and their emotions—about home, not feeling at home, wanting to break free, feeling weighed down by authority, feeling weighed down by love, break up, etc. The simplest lyrics in their songs seem to carry the most power, the verses can seem haunting almost; they have this much grit and effect in them.

When I asked the band about the emotional component or feelings that influenced the development of Fifteen they described it as a really direct and straightforward example of catharsis, and that through it’s musical tones and implied content it addresses solely the many sensations in life, abstractly as a whole. Franz notes, “The songs on the record are pretty honest and simple expressions of feelings and incidents happening in our lives, including our teenage years. We’ve never tried to push songwriting; to construct a story or theme, so the songs are reflections on real thoughts and feelings.” McKee also summarizes that the emotional territory of the album dates from their beginnings as a band, and looking back on their teenage years, “The songs on this record were the first songs we’ve ever written so it’s really hard to pin point exactly what has inspired us…it only seems natural that there are a range of expressions. In a way it’s a subconscious homage to the back catalogue of all our music loves… every great band we’ve seen live and any record we’ve adored have all contributed in some sense. The songs are all inspired by our day to day catastrophes or triumphs. The more “emotionally haunting” songs come from an honest and earnest place which we don’t know how to hide in recording.”

On the subject of future plans, Super Wild Horses seem very relaxed and noncommittal about anything grand. They just finished up a U.S. tour that brought them to New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Memphis, Austin, San Francisco, and elsewhere, and the awe-inspiring wonders of Fifteen are still being discovered and reviewed by blogs and music sites on a day to day basis. McKee says, “We’re hanging out to write some new songs. We have a bunch of half written tunes we’d like to finish work on and we’re laying low until early next year in terms of local shows. Working on another SWH 7″, a split live tape with Woollen Kits and perhaps a split release with The Twerps is coming up too.” But there isn’t any worry that Super Wild Horses aren’t here to stay. McKee speaks of the band’s sustainability to continue to make music in the future, recalling what sparked their musical partnership in the beginning. “We know each other inside and out so there’s no fear of fucking up in rehearsal or singing a lame tune to each other. We’ve already seen each other at our best and worst so we’re on safe turf.”

“Fifteen” is out now on HoZac/Aarght, available especially at your local record store. This is a highly recommended buy—it’s an exhibition of the talent of one of my favorite and most proudly discovered bands of 2010.

I’ve pestered my local readers and friends about going to this show. I’ve come up with reasons for why “it’s going to be amazing”, but I can never express the subject of Grass Widow without adding what sounds like illiterate strings of “so good” with lots and lots of emphasis. It’s because they are, and there really isn’t any other way to describe it. Ok, besides a 750 word album review (see post). What I call “conquering” or “tackling” the sound that Grass Widow are able to make seems almost impossible, so, instead, I just walk around bellowing that they are “so good” (with about ten hundred other o’s), as my shield for any further verbal explanation. If someone asks the genre, I might say “you know, like, straight up indie rock” or my common last (and first) resort of lo-fi, which I feel tremendous guilt for saying soon afterwards. Come on kids, think of some new vocabulary that music writers can use to define your distinctive shared aesthetics. It can’t be lo-fi anymore, because lo-fi just becomes redundant. My mind blanks every time I’m assigned to write a profile of a band that writes two minute, simple structured (Grass Widow are multi-structured for such a simple band) pop songs with a lot of glitter, tape hiss, feedback, or all of the above. It’s unfamiliar for me, I find it much more comfortable when I’m writing about something more experimental (needless to say that nothing we have here is an experiment) with a little bit more obvious substances. But with lo-fi music, I have to dig deeper into my vocabulary and feelings, which I have a terrible time articulating. There is a distinct feeling I have when I listen to a garage rock song, and it’s always countered and proved with something new. I’m going to shut up now, and carry on with Grass Widow, but expect this topic to be a recurring theme until I finally have the guts to sit down, assemble an essay, and write the goddamn thing.

I will note, none of the people I mentioned went to this show, except for my friend Canada, whom by my recommendation was admitted into the all-female backing choir (you’ll hear more about this later).

I arrived around 8:45 at the Cyclone Warehouse, which is in one of the most barren and obscured regions of San Francisco. I can’t really define it as Mission Bay, since it’s past the ball park, the Outer Mission, since it’s across a freeway, Potrero Hill, because it’s flat, or Bayview, because it’s too north. What I can describe is that it’s in a location I never really go to, and neither do most San Franciscans, unless they need paint supplies, contracting, or work in a warehouse.

Located on 23rd street and Marin Street, the Cyclone Warehouse is a communal space. It’s all ages, serves no alcohol, although the people are welcome to bring their own. It’s the coolest, most liberating way of doing a show. You pay a donation between 5 to 10 dollars (your call), your hand is stamped, this time not to distinguish 21 from under 21, but to just say you payed for the show (isn’t that how it should be?). There is no liquor license, so I’m sure if you’re on the brink of 21 as an eager college undergraduate, I’m sure you could sneak a few drinks down your stomach, that is, unless the ABC arrive (in which they are famous to do so).

The Cyclone Warehouse, however, doesn’t have a lot going on usually. People who attended mentioned to me that they hadn’t been to a show here in a long time. The people that own it, also live here. In fact, directly above the balcony there is a rickety flight of stairs that leads to a loft, and a white sheet that looks like a resident’s sleeping area. Not recommended for one who’s afraid of heights, I’m guessing. The Cyclone throughout the venue, has a very home-y feel. It doesn’t have the presence or feeling of a grand venue, neither a dinky and 150 capacity strictly 21 bar. It has it’s unique feeling. Behind the black curtain of the stage, there is a kitchen, with stacks of unwashed dishes and a myriad of food both in the refrigerator and sitting around on the counters. The stage is a triangle tucked to the side of the venue, and above it dangles several lightbulbs. Adjacent to it is a wall for which Grass Widow used as screen projections and to premiere several of their music videos before the music began.

However, the Cyclone, if you’re looking for a state of the art experience, is not welcome to the best footage in photography or  videography, needless to say, sound. Several times during Grass Widow’s set, there were a few glitches with the sound, and the audience had the job of pointing them out, with commands such as “more vocals” and “more guitar.” The acoustics may not be the best for performances, however, their live sound was certainly aesthetic fitting: unfocused, gritty, intermittent and raw. As described above, the Cyclone has a lot of kitsch and atmosphere to make up for shitty photographs, dim lighting, and lack of professional sound ware.

Before Oakland queercore band Shannon and the Clams took the stage, the room was full of chatter, with the liveliest of the bunch compacted towards the front of the stage. Couples were dancing erotically and ecstatically to the hipster cred worthy playlist, which included soul revivalist, old time-y, chill wave, and just about any other sub genre that worked as a perfect mix of unknown and known gems. I spotted several people I knew at the show, Grace Cooper from the Sandwitches was there, along with Justin Carder from the now defunct Strip Mall Seizures. I tell you, these people are just too connected that it’s hard not to run into them for something like this. I spotted Shannon from Shannon and the Clams, with a gold dress and heavy makeup, talking with her bandmates and friends. I turned around, and heard her shout something along the lines of “you’re fired!” in a pitch perfectly flamboyant manner. I knew it was her.

Shannon and the Clams came on around 9:30, later than scheduled, for a great 35 minute set displaying the bounty of their work. From the cracked, smoky girl-group revival soul of songs like “Paddy’s Birthday” to the edgy and frantic repetitive shrieks on “Hunk Hunt”, Shannon and the Clams played an energetic set, one that erupted strong sensual feelings in the crowd, nonetheless the best of all hair swaying, shaking leg, but overall stature and confined hipster dancing (there’s a difference). Shannon and one of her male bandmates dueted on slower tracks, but sped up in loud, wailing contests on heavier ones. Her guitarist was excellent; for he seemed to be hitting the chords with synchronized calibration, but managed to reveal showmanship of energetic, frenetic and sloppily badass technique. Shannon’s voice is a powerful one; it’s meant for a loud and somewhat joyously uncomfortable effect, but is also interchangeable for a generic crooning vibe, one that doesn’t require her special effects of ferocity in some songs, and can just stand on it’s own as one of many elements that make their music worthwhile.

After Shannon and the Clams ended their set, there was a fifteen minute break before drumcore duo STLS (also signed to Kill Rock Stars with Grass Widow) took the stage, or better yet the floor, pretty much in the center where I and others were standing for Shannon and the Clams. I didn’t catch a lot of STLS’s set, and instead used this time to inspect the venue and take in the vibes, this meant snacking on the myriad of food in the kitchen and talking with members of Grass Widow’s backing choir. But what I heard of STLS’s set was nothing less than impeccable. Drumcore, as foreign as it sounds in a music world that seems to be encompassing of so many weird sub-genres, is not common, nor is it easy to master. STLS were a shuffle of adrenaline, pounding, banging, and handing out rhythms like clockwork. They were visually interesting to the eye, watching their hands grasp their instruments and drumsticks, however, just as good behind several sound walls, such as the kitchen, which was behind only a curtain.

And now, for the moment of the night. Grass Widow took the stage around 11. They were tucked into the far left corner of the triangular stage, where their gear was placed for the whole night. Guitarist Raven Mahon stood on the left, with drummer Lillian Maring in the back and bassist Hannah Lew to the right. Hannah was probably the closest to the audience, as my videos have a hard time getting a good image of either Raven or Lillian. I had seen Grass Widow once before, at probably their biggest gig yet, an opening slot for Thao and the Get Down Stay Down at The Great American Music Hall. When I saw them there, they opened with “To Where” and pretty much sailed right through their self titled album with little breaks and a lot of pacing. At this show, they opened with a slower, but equally exciting opener, also from their self titled album called “Out of Body Experience.” They then segued into “To Where”, picking up the pace, delving right into one of their most beloved songs. “To Where”, the first Grass Widow song I heard (I first heard it rendered live) and probably the most remembered one up until Past Time‘s release, is a simple listening song. At two minutes and thirty seconds, it’s complex and beautifully and perfectly off kilter (an acceptable oxymoron). Starting with a drum shuffle, it cascades into the melody that the song sticks with for the remainder. It’s great for that offbeat effect, something Grass Widow are champions at illustrating.

Grass Widow’s set consisted of dancing, taking videos, and lots of sound commands (as mentioned earlier) and cheers. “Tattoo” from their EP garnered a lot of audience praise, as did “Celebrate the Mundane” which elicited some drunken college cheers and murmurs from a group of girls behind me. From Past Time, Grass Widow played “Landscape” along with the final track on the album “Tuesday”, which I mentioned in my review, sums up the instrumental and technical terrain on the album, as well as my personal favorite, “Fried Egg”, which sounded loose, jangly, and ever so exact in harmonic precision. Grass Widow are great at illusions, they can possess this aura of sounding messy, but deep inside their composition and live skill, they seek absolute precision with their voices and chord work. My friend, a musician, pointed out to me that their chords are so strange and unknown, so unique and creative that one has a hard time identifying at what time what fingers go on what fret. Surprisingly, Grass Widow don’t seem to use a lot of effects in a visual sense. There weren’t many pedals or capos or other engineering shortcuts yet aesthetic mechanisms lying around.

After Fried Egg, Grass Widow played “Lulu’s Lips”, a charming lullaby like upbeat lament (which was dedicated to Hannah’s niece at the Amoeba show) and “Rattled Call”, a storm of almost anthemic like progression with an incredible a capella vocal break arrangement, before the moment of glory happened. The band helped welcome their all female backing choir, along with the great use of a sliding pole from the balcony, for which members of the choir slid down on accompanied by audience cheers. Among them was a friend of mine, who I mentioned earlier, that I had contacted when Grass Widow sent an email to me asking if I had any female friends who wanted a spot on the choir. The choir was one of the most diverse projects I’ve ever seen implemented in the independent music realm–more so in the live performance realm. The choir featured an elderly lady in a bright gold dress, an Indian lady dressed in a bright yellow sari in a wheelchair, several middle aged women with the mom-rock look (the jeans, the short hair), along with several five foot tall brace-face middle schoolers, and a few young, skinny, and glamorous lofty, thrifty freelance hip girls with their cat eye glasses, nose rings, and tattoos, and my friend Canada–who is neither a middle schooler nor a twenty-something (but has the physique and essence of the latter), and I can’t create a group for high school kids, since she’s the only one. But, Grass Widow seem to be advocating for an ideal communist identity as a band, not only through their independency of technique and style, methods of distribution, their compassion and integrity, but their integration of backgrounds. Their politics may not be blunt or articulated on the surface, but they seem to be rooted in their minds and hearts.

While the choir took their place, I cheered with excitement, because I knew that something awesome was just in it’s stages of developing. The choir fidgeted for a few minutes, talked to each other, and made eye contact with their audience friends while they were applauded and while Grass Widow were working on tuning their guitars in their unique tuning habit. Along with the choir, Grass Widow’s string trio also prepared for the four songs for which they would accompany the band on. In the center of the stage to the right of the little corner where the band was positioned stood a cellist, and to the left of the band in the dimmest of all lighting stood two other string instrumentalists, one of them who was definitely playing a violin. They were shadowed by the screen projections above them, and tucked into the narrow plank on the edge of the stage which made it hard to video record them, nevertheless notice them from your own eye. The choir and string trio began their rehearsed parts as Grass Widow began their short, swampy and surf-rock song “Give Me Shapes.” This is one of several songs on Past Time where the band broadened in their instrumental and sound range, straddling away from just bass, guitar, kick-drums, cymbals, and snares (which is a steady diet of simplicity in the lo-fi field—however, there are probably is another bunch if you count recording qualities as well). It sounded brisk with it’s fast tempo, displaying Grass Widow’s ability of harmonic restraint (this song contains little bellowing or full on cohesion) and ability to sing and play their instruments with delicacy and clockwork; it’s a very sprawling track.

Then came “Shadow” which was when the choir really kicked in, belting out the chorus with unison–it really did start to sound like a bunch of people of all vocal ranges and ages with different backgrounds getting together to make music. Their imperfect sense of tune and key really did have an impact on how united it felt—while it may not have been the best vocally arranged suite ever performed–it’s unpolished sense of coordination really gave it it’s character and grit. “Shadow”, which is one of my favorite songs from the past year, was delivered live with the equal weight of greatness, probably even more so than the studio, although I find the recorded version to be a near-perfect pop song itself. The choir swayed back and forth in a cute way, all of them nearly falling on each other, many of them smiling. I was making eye signals with my friend, we were both laughing, I was laughing about how cute the choir looked with their body language and little gestures, she may have been laughing for a different reason, either way, “Shadow” elicited a great crowd response. It capped the night, however, there was still time for the final two moments of amazingness to steal the show.

“11 of Diamonds,” the third track on Past Time was invigorated live, and I appreciate the song even more after having heard it. Notecards depicting pencil drawn apartment buildings we’re scattered using a fan of some sort up from the balcony. They flew into the audience, some landed on the stage, a lot into the hands of quizzical looking show attendees and a lot on the floor. The choir used not only their voices this time (which were used mostly for harmonic purposes and not for chorus or melody) but their hands. During the guitar build up in “11 of Diamonds”, each choir member would raise their hands higher after each chord was played until they finally broke loose with their “aahhs” and wiggled their hands in the air, way above their heads. Grass Widow then went on to play “Uncertain Memory”–which was one of the best ending to a live show that I’ve ever seen. After a minute long string laden build up, the band, a long with their strong energetic choir belted loose with the first verse, shouting “Memory….” and so on. The elderly lady in the front had her hands to her side, and raised them a tweak before she began singing, her mouth wide open, chin upright, and eyes gleaming into the audience, as if it was Broadway and we were doing singing directions and stage choreography. The strings on the album that were also used live brought the songs to life–”Uncertain Memory” wouldn’t have been the same without the violin(s) and the cello exhibiting their power in the song. It’s a very dark exploration, kind of like a miniature cacophony that illustrates a more complex, both lyrically and structurally, Grass Widow. That darkness and raw power was definitely translated in an accessible and beautiful mean live, with emphasis on the grit of the vocalists in the choir, and the humility and pure transcendent passion of the band themselves.

Video shot by me (Gabe Connor)

Brief Note: I saw Grass Widow the following day at Amoeba Music on Haight Street, and in a different light, or time of day, or space, and they delivered with sheer incredible live skill, flattering the crowd with the appearance of the choir, their unique chord structures and overall headbanging-friendly live orchestration of their songs. It was as equally good as the previous night, being the same set in terms of songs played and choir parts, and in some aspects, I enjoyed it more. I was able to loosen up, let my hair run wild, stumble onto the railings of the walkways in the store, and just dance around, reaching and associating with the spirit of the band on stage, which is the definition of enlightenment and awe-inspiring presence, and a model for how live performances should always be.

Shannon and the Clams

Grass Widow–Amoeba

Grass Widow–Cyclone Warehouse

Last 4 songs of setlist were performed with string trio and choir.

NOTE: Shannon and the Clams play the Rickshaw Stop on Sunday, October 10th. Most folks have the next day off as a holiday, so it’s a fun and rare late Sunday night occasion. Also on the bill are fellow local queercore trio Hunx and His Punx (opposite lineup of gender from The Clams–two girls and a frontman), and prolific King Khan and BBQ member Mark Sultan (who, is at least associated with those of risque behavior, touring and playing with King Khan, as well as infamous homo-erotic closet cases The Black Lips). $10, 8pm, All Ages.

Grouper–”Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping”

This is a really beautiful song, and the string arrangements and muddy depths of the recordings remind me of compositions by the Microphones. This is an ambient track by incredible solo musician Liz Harris from Portland, who’s last album Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill was praised by critics and music fanatics alike as one of the best ambient-drone or electronica works of the 2000′s. Grouper experiments with treading the thin lines of noise as pain or pleasure, and the noise’s presence in her songs is often muffled and unfocused, sparse and shaded. Her music can be very dark, orchestral, acoustic, but sometimes electronic, using instruments such as looping pedals and keyboards. It always embodies a realm of lifelike qualities, reminiscent of natural sounds and phenomenons, while emotionally covering vast territories of the human condition. San Francisco people, Grouper play for free at Aquarius Records this Sunday, September 5th. 2pm, FREE AND ALL AGES (as we wish every show would be).

Hunx and His Punx–”Gimme Gimme Your Love”

Talk about original and spicy, following in the tradition of Weird Al Yankovic, San Francisco presents to the youtube-iverse their own brand of Charlie the Unicorn, Chocolate Rain, or even the cat massage lady: Hunx and His Punx! My new favorite music video sensations.  And guess what, they happen to also be a real queercore local garage band! Double kudos! Yes, I’ve known their music being in on what’s new with San Francisco. Just didn’t know they were capable of making flat out awesome music videos. And for the record, this isn’t a parody. Hunx and his Punx want to be taken seriously. We aren’t really living in Amish Paradise.

Kanye West, Rick Ross, Bon Iver, and Nicki Minaj–”Monster”; Kanye West, Raekwon, and Justin Bieber–”Runaway Love”

Kanye is back in habit. No, he isn’t “reborn” (false terminology) like Lil Wayne, or “recovered” (double air-quotes for that) like Eminem. Kanye is revamped and rejuvenated, getting back to using his ingenious production and recording skills, following the work ethics and creative persistence of those of dear departed Jay Reatard, or dear-when-will-you-be-released Lil Wayne (even though, I insist, neither of them are “Reborn”). Aside from Kanye being a superior entrepreneur, beat maker, public figure (not so much? well, we’re using this great new single to compensate), collaborator, lyricist, and just over all artistic and hip-hop leader, he’s now putting some added baggage on his heavy and ambitious agenda: to break the ever so compacted walls of the genres in our culturally segregated music industry. On “Monster”, we hear Justin Vernon of indie-folk outfit Bon Iver crooning while Rick Ross is aggressively jabbering, and on “Runaway Love” he’s weaving excellent juxtaposition and flow of the androgynous flavors of Justin Bieber directly segueing to Raekwon’s visceral and sharp gangster rap delivery and composition. Looks like Kayne is becoming closer and closer to becoming a professor. Cultural and genre-bending case studies, what’s next, Dr. West?

Nite Jewel–”What Did He Say”

Me and chillwave these days? I don’t know what’s up. Lo-fi girl bands (Grass Widow), ambient-drone (Grouper), Sufjan Stevens and chillwave (Washed Out) is pretty much my musical diet as of this past month. I discovered Nite Jewel when I heard she would be opening for Panda Bear at the Fox Theater this Monday, September 6th. I was hoping for their to be some knockout opener, maybe Pantha du Prince (hence the collaboration), Atlas Sound (hence the collaboration), Deakin (two Animal Collective members in one night), or all three? Instead we have Nite Jewel as the only opener. Nite Jewel is the moniker for solo musician Ramona Gonzalez of Los Angeles (chillwave central?). Unlike other bands in the chillwave circuit, Nite Jewel focuses more on dark 80′s synth gems, more similar to the vision of Neon Indian than Small Black. She is also more of a rarity, she hasn’t been rabidly caught by Pitchfork’s chillwave syndrome. But she has by mine. “What Did He Say” is definitely a synth gem of a song, only it’s not the 80′s. It’s hers, and it’s flavorful, soulful, groovy, and everything you could want in a slow and zoned out “chillwave” (word count for this word in this paragraph?) track. In this video, Nite Jewel collaborates with someone, who, in fact, lays on the floor, fiddling and fucking around with pedals I believe?

And, a surprise…

The She’s–”You’re Gone” (NEW)

I have another exclusive Subconscious only She’s treat for you guys: yes, another video. Only, it’s recorded live. This was my first time hearing the She’s perform electric (I heard about twenty five minutes of their hour long acoustic set at the Noe Valley Farmer’s Market in April) and their set countered just about every production quarrel I had with the new singles! The She’s are great live performers, have really really beautiful equipment, and they know their instruments. They know how to move a crowd, whether it’s little kids, moms or grannies (which was their only audience here, unfortunately). I was really blown away with their live presence, and I wish it’s sound and energy could be translated in the studio in a more raw and loose form. They even extended “Surfer Boys” with a two minute jam, and on one of their earlier songs (“No Can Do”) guitarist Eva Treadway had a mini-guitar spasm, with manual calibration and technique physically similar to that of Annie Clark. This song right here is a new song, which they literally finished writing the night before. I think it’s their best song to date, live or recorded (it hasn’t been yet). It’s got harmonies that remind me of Grass Widow, it’s got melodies that are sweet and sunny, but aren’t over-comforting. It’s everything you’d want in a She’s song, a perfect balance of grit and sunshine, and along with it’s familiarities, it shows growth and new territory.

UPDATE: 9.2.10

This is all you need to know. Go.

From Left: Lillian Maring, Raven Mahon, Hannah Lew (Grass Widow), Sami Perez, Eva Treadway, Hannah Valente, Sinclair Riley (The She’s)

This week, two prominent Bay Area female garage groups are slated to release new work. Grass Widow, an adult garage band, often referred to as “riot grrl” will release Past Time their second full length album and “major” label debut on Kill Rock Stars this Tuesday, August 24th. Grass Widow are embarking on an extensive national and international tour this fall, and will swing by their home city San Francisco several times. The single “Shadow” has been Stereogum’d and Forkcast’d and PitchforkTV’d along with getting pre-release accolades from blogs and review sites such as cokemachineglow and Fader. The second band, The She’s, a teenage garage-pop (or less garage-y in this case, you’ll hear later) have finished a week in the studio working on three new singles, under the main title “510″ or “510″ b/w “Wonder Band” and “Surfer Boys”, or the EP’s name, whose working title is “/\/\ /\ Y /\.” We don’t have a release date for The She’s work yet, although they mentioned that there is still mixing and mastering to complete. It will be up via internet sometime in the next few weeks (and hopefully, I’m prodding them so, to release it on vinyl at a later date, along with their debut full length Carnawhore-that’s not really the title of it, but it’s my suggestion).

I both have special relationships with Grass Widow and The She’s—both personally and musically. I was introduced to Grass Widow by a friend and creative mentor Justin Carder, the drummer for the now temporarily defunct Strip Mall Seizures, on the eve of February 5th, 2010. I felt so happy to discover them, that I had been broken of my Pitchfork Best New Music only listening habits, and could find myself immersed in another world of music that was unknown to Pitchfork’s aggressive love, hate, and fan boosting abilities. Grass Widow have started my knack for discovering what is around my neck of the woods, and I feel as much despair for missing a local show because it’s 21+ than I’d miss a larger show by an out of town band that I missed due to lack of money. I’ve been opened to a world of record label owners, music writers, musicians, promoters, and figures in the Bay Area’s music and underground social scene. And it wasn’t until recently did Pitchfork move up to speed with me, giving blurbs about San Francisco in their news section, passively referring to it in ways such as “yet another band from San Francisco…”

Several months after I heard Grass Widow’s music for the first time at the Great American Music Hall, and had bought a vinyl of their EP and a cassette of their full length, I had been professing love for other Bay Area garage groups such as Sonny & The Sunsets, Ty Segall, The Sandwitches, Trainwreck Riders, The Fresh & Onlys and whatever was featured on the compilation In A Cloud: New Sounds From San Francisco. In early April, I experienced one of the most epiphanic weekends ever, one that I spent surrounded by cigarette smoke, art galleries, North Oakland, and the wonderful sounds of the lovely Sandwitches. Experiencing that inside weekend I was struck with how I much I knew of the scene, and the advantage I had to document it and help it grow.

It was around that time that I had just found who had become to be my most musically and analytically alike collaborator Daniel Bromfield. And why do I love The She’s? Well, aside from them being some of the sweetest, smartest, and coolest people ever, they mentioned that Daniel was also a music writer. I ended up meeting him in person, which added another whole level of musical partnership and exploration of the Bay Area sound, introducing to each other the stylings of twentysomething bedroom DIY artists to aspiring teenage rock n’ roll.

Both the She’s and Grass Widow have paved the way for me to be surrounded by opportunity with the Bay Area music crowd. I have discovered more bands, organizations, and reasons to write about my city and the music within it. I have cultivated a whole new circle of friends and acquaintances with stepping inside the scene, and I want to help broaden and influence it by contributing my writing and interest to draw attention to my friends, whose music can be hidden away by the hierarchical music industry, and even the hierarchical paradox of “independent” music.

This is why I am writing a dual review of their albums, so I can share and also compare two sides of San Francisco’s music, and possibly introduce one to the other. Also, I haven’t blogged in a while and want to start with something more definitive and broad than just a plain old review, which is why I added the anecdote.

Grass Widow, Past Time

Grass Widow have endured a big year. They accepted a deal with influential record label Kill Rock Stars, opened for Sonic Youth at their annual show at Prospect Park in New York, and debuted a music video for their phenomenal single “Shadow” on Pitchfork tv. They have gone from releasing CD-R’s and playing in old studios and warehouses (well, they still do that) to releasing vinyl on Captured Tracks to headlining shows at larger scale Bay Area venues. Aside from the year being big attention wise, Grass Widow have also changed personally and musically. Singer and bassist Hannah Lew lost her father this year, which the band altogether mourned. The loss was an inspiration for sound and tone on the new  record, and is also a recurring lyrical and sonic theme. Aside from the loss and it’s impact on their lyrics and tone, Grass Widow have changed by developing their sound, polishing tracks by eliminating throwaway scuzz and refining their songwriting skills—with more precise harmonies, meter, and hooks yet still retain their unique personality and edge.

Past Time opens with “Uncertain Memory,” which unveils a developed and evolved Grass Widow, with a song structure and instrumental embellishment more diverse than they’ve ever created. It’s darker, wider, and more polished, with much more central focus on particular sections and instruments, such as the string laden violin bridge towards the end. Yes, the song still contains the walk on the beach boardwalk riff that is delivered one way or another in most of their songs, but it’s definitely spookier, more minor key, with the drum shuffles being sparser and more intensely played at certain intervals. Their vocals are also cleaner cut, with a higher register uttered. Their signature three part harmonies are replaced with chants of unison for the verses, with less lyrics and more vocal restraint. The emotional center of “Uncertain Memory” is it’s climatic intertwining of the violin, clattering cymbals and snares, and the weary, stark chords of the baritone guitar.

And, ironically enough, the fading of “Uncertain Memory” is brought by an abrupt start of “Shadow”–with warmer, sunnier chords opening the song, which causes a direct shift in mood, and an interesting juxtaposition for the album. “Shadow” feels like the beginning of the record, and that “Uncertain Memory” was a slow and introductory teaser for an album of more upbeat and faster tempo songs. I discovered Shadow when it was leaked onto Stereogum in late June, and I listened to it more than twenty times. It’s a catchy garage pop song with plenty of overlapping harmonies and melodic transitions, which makes it a complex work of guitar and songwriting, yet a straightforward and listener friendly tune. All of the instrumental forays in “Shadow” are met with excellent precision of tying together in the end. It’s a work of spaciousness, complexity, but is also grounded, cohesive, and restrained. I love the vibe I receive every time I listen to “Shadow”—I find it to be their best song to date, a single that is timeless and that deserves more recognition. It’s existence amongst plenty of other self-proffessed catchy garage songs stands out. It’s distinctive harmonic and melodic patterns give my ears the illusion that it’s a completely whole new territory for garage music, yet I find hints of familiarity with each listen. It’s both a new revelation for garage rock, and also a clear staple of it’s representation in the 21st century.

Past Time deepens and moves around, with tempos, tones, and moods changing with each song unveiled throughout the course of the album. Random interludes of down-home and twangy string arrangements are revealed in tracks such as “Give Me Shapes” and “Old Disguise” plays out another match made in heaven cacophony of trio harmonies, that borrow from songwriting and stylistic conventions of more retro sounding girl group music. Along with “Shadow” and “Uncertain Memory”, “Fried Egg”, the sixth track on the record, is all over the map structure wise, being 3:32 (above average for their song lengths) and including moments of well recorded vocal solos to the powerhouse trio of overdubbed vocals featured in the chorus, backed by rollicking and heavy guitar work. The chorus is an excellent juxtaposition of their soft sounding and restrained voices to the power of the instrumental background. “Fried Egg” is scattered in the garage sense, it’s not scattered or opaque in the Owen Pallett opus sense, but it has more depth than the average surf-guitar 2 minute repetitive sunny garage track.

Past Time in it’s second half introduces more instrumental and songwriting boundaries that I haven’t heard Grass Widow explore before. “Submarine” delves into what looks like experimental territory in the first 15 seconds. The opening of the song is the drone of what sounds like an organ overdubbed to a more synthetic sound, and it’s repetition sets the stage for what could be an Animal Collective looping-pedal freakout or downtempo chillwave collage. But the organ eventually fades out, leaving it’s echos implanted in your ears as the surf guitars and cowbell clatter of the sharp percussion begin. “Submarine” is ear candy, and has the essence of Galaxie 500 shimmer in it’s early stages. It becomes darker with the latter of the chorus, but turns around again with shimmering guitar and bass strums and glistening harmonies. The bridge features the more wooly and expansive sound of the Grass Widow trio, it can sound nasal, but also very full and hearty. Then, we hear the organ kicking in after we hear the last of the Galaxie 500 shimmer pattern (that I love, obviously) as it fades out with perfect precision to how it begun.

The final 2 songs on the record are “Strangers Come” and “Tuesday.” “Strangers Come” builds the tempo back up a bit and the lyric and voices are more sharply and quickly enunciated. To be honest, I have trouble hearing the details within Grass Widow member’s voices, but can often build a framework of what they are conveying, such as the idea of the shadow in “Shadow” and “11 of Diamonds.” The idea of the subconscious is also prominent in their existential lyrics (why else do you think a blog called the Subconscious would be reviewing them?). In previous recordings, their voices almost feel like vocal warm ups and syllable stretching exercises, since they are buried under several layers of noise, but whether you can hear every strain of every note or not, the members of Grass Widow have expanded their voices to the fullest and freest. There are some songs with such instrumental power that can affect me more emotionally than the lyrics do, even the tone of a voice can affect me more than what the vocalist is actually singing. To me, a beautiful and heart rendering harmony or tone expressed in a song usually has the staying power, and grabs me more instantly than the lyrics. And when I get around to reading or making out the lyrics, they don’t often fit with the tone of the musical component that the song is trying to create, which I find acceptable. Anything that is anthemic in a lush and subtle sense can raise hairs on my neck.

The final song “Tuesday” is a great way to end an album that is brief yet expansive and satisfying. We hear most of what they’ve played stylistically and structurally over the course of the record, the wooly and featured harmonies and overdubs, the slurred and fast tempo chants and the higher register croons. We also hear the string sections weaving together beautifully yet chaotically. It may sound sloppy and sparse to some ears, but it’s lackluster and sometimes off-kilter melodic progression fits perfectly and naturally into the ears of others.

Grass Widow have created yet another great work of simple yet complex music, breaking a dimension that is known to garage rock of being way too simplistic, way too all the same. Grass Widow have matured their sound, replacing scuzzy and analog sounds with cleaner yet still gritty and analog sounds. Past Time is a testimony to their uniqueness and integrity as individuals and as a band. People often consider Grass Widow under the misconstrued category of “riot grrl” or “fem-punk” or whatever category made to separate an individual’s musical vision because of their gender. Grass Wiow are just people, with the same ambitions that male rock and roll bands have. They don’t have overly feminist or knockout political agendas, they aren’t drawing attention to their gender as much as who they are themselves. They may be breaking stereotypes and causing the media to think differently about women in music, but they are doing so subconsciously, which is ultimately the smartest and most mature way to deliver a political message. They are here to make their music, and their act of doing so is a bold and beautiful statement itself.

Grass Widow’s music video for “Shadow” which hit Pitchfork.tv this July.

If I had to review the album upon a numerical scale, I would give it an 8.5 out of ten.

Grass Widow perform at the Cyclone Warehouse in Potrero Hill, San Francisco on September 10th with STLS and with Shannon and the Clams. The show is in celebration of the record release, and will feature an all female backing choir. All ages.

JUST ADDED: Grass Widow will also perform an instore at Amoeba Records in San Francisco at 2pm on Saturday, September 11th. For those of you who cannot make the September 10th Cyclone Warehouse show, this set is STRONGLY ENCOURAGED. You Bay Area people better attend! Or, if you can, go to both!

The She’s: “510″ single aka /\/\ /\ Y /\

I have been corresponding with The She’s over the past two weeks, aside from my regular chat with them as friends, about their expected release of a new single. I keep asking when their full length will be out, have they contacted labels, when will they release vinyl. The most recent thing that has happened with The She’s aside from their normal slew of well booked gigs is the recording of their singles “510″, “Wonder Band”, and “Surfer Jam” the now titled “Surfer Boys” which have been performed live and developed over the last few months and we’re finally recorded, produced, and refined this August.

I was talking to lead guitarist Eva Treadway on Facebook, and asked her if I could hear an advanced preview. She emailed the three singles to me. She told me she was interested in reading my review. I have an ongoing joke about the rating scale, so I told her it would probably get a 2.7 (even though I don’t use any scale but words in my reviews) as a joke (even though I hadn’t even heard the album yet) and she said that she only approves star ratings (we have an ongoing joke about me being an, um, Pitchfork whore?) and I said, “what are you, M.I.A?” since M.I.A. loves to decide for the critics how to think of her (at least she tries to). And then I began writing the styling of M A Y A for fun, and and then asked Eva what was the name of the EP. I then couldn’t resist doing the /\/\ /\ Y /\ again, and when she finally answered, she said that that is the name of the EP. So there you have it folks, The She’s have joined the list of people desperately wanting to piss of M.I.A.

The She’s have always been a power pop band, from what I’ve recalled from other people’s sayings, even when I find them so much more than that. What are they the female Weezer? Eww, I have no desire to think of that. But even if they aren’t power pop, they aren’t nitty gritty dirtbag garage rock, especially on their most recent single. The She’s have stopped recording in their bedrooms or with cheap equipment, and have settled into the luxury of temporary studios, with certain sections and aspects of songs emphasized with volume and delivery. The She’s definitely seem like they feel more confident as musicians on their tracks, and the rich sounds penetrated by the recording quality aren’t creating the illusion. Similar to Grass Widow, the She’s have tried a variety of instruments on these three singles, from mandolin to what I believe is glockenspiel to keyboards, creating another paradox to their sound. It’s more complicated than you think, and they add more layers and more unraveling subtleties on these songs. Some of the instruments can sound so clean that they could have been mastered and thrown in by GarageBand, but it’s evident otherwise that The She’s have grown stylistically and in their own songwriting and regular performance skills.

The song “510″ is met with the conventions of the girl group sound, it’s Best Coast without the weed, Vivian Girls without the 4-track. Ooh-wa-ooh-ooh-wa is the repetitive chant on “510″ and it’s the warmest, sunniest, and feel good vibe delivered on the track. “510″s lyrics are clearer, more expansive, with similar girl group emotional territory covered as Best Coast, with really down to basics love songs that use certain four letter vocabulary ten million times in one sentence. Yet, with their lyrics still being simplistic, the delivery of them is more hard hitting, while still being light and playful songs, the way the lyrics are uttered and their own literary phrasing is better, more coherent, and more relatable. Obviously, they’ve listened to a lot of Best Coast. Again, without the weed.

The only thing lacking in “510″ is it’s bridge—the repetition seems to be going so smoothly it could almost fade out like a motown song, yet the song still turns around and adds another whole dimension, one that is good on it’s own, but seems disruptive to the song ending naturally. Yet, the She’s turn it around when they play the bridge a second time, and the song ends on a positive note.

The other two songs, “Wonder Band” and “Surfer Boys” are even more musically developed. The implications of Wonder Band, as straightforward as the lyrics are, have direct connotations to larger ideas about the role of bands in independent music, that is, if I had to use wonder band in a five paragraph analytical essay, I could draw that much out of it, even if there aren’t many words spoken much longer than say 10 letters. Aside from “Wonder Band”‘s cheeky lyrics about stardom and the roles of gender (almost the opposite of Grass Widow’s rhetoric about feminism), the tone of it is very fluffy, light, and more acoustic, it’s almost too filling, too rich and too confined to be as real and honest as the lyrics. Singer Sami Perez utters the lyrics excellently, putting emphasis on the emotions, but the rest of the song can blend in like a lull, almost monotone. I can picture “Wonder Band” with more amps, more tempo, more distortion and I can picture a great headbanger. But right now I don’t see the great lyrics matching up with the background music.

“Surfer Boys” steps up from the somewhat let down of “Wonder Band” as a fun, rollicking romp through the simplistic mind of a teenager, about wanting to surf, and obviously, about wanting to find surfer boys. And yeah, it’s funny, lighthearted, and very amusing, and when Valente utters the “I want to surf but I don’t know how”, it feels very raw and honest. Then we hear common euphemisms about Malibu. I’m telling you, The She’s lyrics could support a cultural case study. It’s definitely got some surfer jangles, with the opening chords similar to those of Beach Fossils, but then it’s a beachy, retro groove, something that still sounds fresh after it’s been borrowed more than one can count and never given back to the originals.

The She’s songs are witty, and very well written, with the instrumental sections great, and with excellent calibration of volume and focus. Yet they all suffer the same problem, a little too much production and clarity. The songs don’t always seem natural, and sometimes forced by their warm and comforting aura. It’s wonderful to hear how rich and focused they are, but aside from that there isn’t as much intuitively soulful attitude here, not as much grit or punk logic that they’ve had in the past. If they had roughed up the sound a bit, these tracks might have felt more real. The songs were all produced by Nat Keefe, a member of Hot Buttered Rum, a Marin based Americana group known for playing those deadhead inspired Sierra Mountain festivals (which often make me want to puke), which could explain the diverge from straight up lo-fi and the added instrumentals. Listening to Hot Buttered Rum I can’t but help thinking if either the lead singer is singing or whether he’s a genius at morphing together The Wiggles and Jack Johnson vocal parts. Hot Buttered Rum write nice, elegant songs with charming and polished instrumental solos, but their sound quality is very confined and dull, almost as if it was recorded in a factory. When I first listened to them, I saw similarities between the two, like almost exactness in sound quality and probably recording equipment. What Hot Buttered Rum don’t have to save them that The She’s do is their kitschy knack for songwriting, and their lo-fi styling. Yes, even if The She’s aren’t lo-fi quality wise, they can still crank out a great riff.

The She’s will not allow me to stream their new tracks because they are still being mastered (you guys, any more production and it will get worse, the songs are great but they are an inch away from sounding overproduced, so in any way possible with mastering them, my advice is to loosen up the sound a bit). But I do have a video clip of “510″ performed by two of the four members (Hannah Valente, Vocals and Eva Treadway, Acoustic Guitar. The other members are Sami Perez on bass and backing vocals and Sinclair Riley on drums.) live at Hippie Hill at Golden Gate Park. Watch this video before the final cut of “510″ becomes available so you can compare the two versions, from it’s simple melodic backbone as a 1 and 1/2 minute mind exercise to when it hit the studio.

Video filmed by Daniel Bromfield (who on that day was the victim of brutal threat by an LSD dealer)

If I had to review the tracks with numbers, I’d give “510″ an 8, “Wonder Band” a 6, and “Surfer Jam” a 7

The She’s perform at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco September 5th, opening for Memphis based doo-wop revival group Magic Kids and “what the fuck” conceptual art rock band Candy Claws. Show is 21+, which prohibits decent teenage bloggers like I from enjoying and attending a good show. They will also open for one of the Bay’s biggest indie rock exports Girls at the legendary Fillmore on October 15th (which is a lifetime achievement, and these guys are only 16). That show is teenage-blogger-friendly.

Also, Shannon and The Clams: I just discovered you from all the posters for your Hemlock show around the city, I don’t know how to categorize you without being possibly offensive, but I’d straddle your work on the line of too-young-to-be-a-tired-old-fag-hag-queercore-PhilSpector-pop (I’m bisexual, I’m not trying to be homophobic here). Am I right? I think you guys are bodacious, bold, flamboyant, and badass, and your video for “Hunk Hunt” is pure awesomeness. I’m sorry if my dub of you guys is offensive, I’m only trying to make sense of who you are, because you really do deserve it. And just like Grass Widow, just your existence without explanations is delivering a great message.

Daniel talks and promotes himself as if he were an established adult musician, depicting the description of his solo project UE as “The solo project of the Rehab Crew’s Daniel Bromfield, active since 2006.”  But one honest question: who the fuck are Rehab Crew? It’s not like we have here AC Newman emerging from the New Pornographers and impacting us all. It may be of a similar background, but we’re on a much smaller scale.

What Daniel does well is market, or promote his music. His skills with technology and news delivery are consistent and informative, and have seemed to be beneficial to his recognition. While the descriptions of his projects may seem a little grand and pretentious for the scale of his project and his reputation as an artist, the work is a sincere effort. The work in two parts: the project itself and how the project is displayed. Daniel is familiar with a variety of mediums—video, written journalism, music, and visual art. He’s able to create multiple projects, some that even combine more than one of these areas. But his music project is the most significant. Here we have journalism, business, video, audio, and visuals conjoined into a solo effort, one that exceeds at remarkable working standards.

However, UE’s music isn’t as impressive, unique, or transforming as it’s method of delivery is or how it is advertised. Take the first song off of UE’s debut EP Honey Grenade. The song “Intro” seems bland and overly produced, and it’s allure as an instrumental song isn’t great. If some vocals or faster rhythm were added, it might have better sound appeal to the listener. Instead, it sounds like ambient jazz and futuristic, spacey keyboards. The blues attempt at keyboards sounds borrowed and tunes the listener out. It’s as familiar as a ring tone, or elevator music. The song could be drastically improved without the keyboard. The back beat shuffle has a lot of potential, but is not greatly represented or enhanced by the dominant keyboard. It feels as if they don’t work together, and if one would go, it’d be the keyboard, and the song wouldn’t lose anything. If replaced with a stronger featured beat, the song would gain a lot.

The rest of the tracks on the EP, however, are experimental. They loosen up far beyond the uninteresting “elevator music” vibes of “Intro” with some gritty, dirty lo-fi. The aesthetic is more emotional, less restrained, and more abstract. We can’t make out a lot of the words that Daniel utters on “Honey Grenade” but we know his voice is there—a baritone that is still gaining it’s depth, texture, and soul. In contrast to “Intro”, the soulful keyboards are effective here, and sway along perfectly with the shaking background. Yes, it’s a homemade recording, but it has the appeal of a catchy song, something pulled out of Yo La Tengo’s piano-jazz-soul-funk songbook or Ariel Pink’s soul catalog (without the endearing nostalgia).

The final two songs are the most experimental, and are the best. Both clocking at under two minutes, they are absent minded sketches with faint echoes of a structural melody. But the melody is buried under the scuzzy, dirt bag, and growling Jack White-esque sound quality and glitch industrial feedback (on “Success”), with Daniel instead using a keyboard instead of a guitar. Yes, no guitars on this record. Could they be needed, or does the technologically convienent sound feature on the keyboard exhibit enough garage quality? The last song is the most absent minded and loopy of them all. But what else could you predict from a track with the name of “Pet Stoner?” It certainly can’t be nothing less than nasal-y experimental doodles. On this track, the keyboard is intermittent, and the vocals are buried under layers, and are dubbed, duplicated, and harmonized. It sounds like one of those 50′s lo-fi sitcoms being canceled and interrupted by one of those “Please Stand By” notices, only you can hear the sounds of the what the network is covering up weaving in and out of the fuzz and distortion.

Honey Grenade is really just a randomly assorted collection of four different two to three minute tracks. There is no conceptual thread that a listener can easily notice, and no sound pattern that works consistently. The concept of this record is about as blurry, fragmented and lacking of bone or centrality as the music itself. But Daniel doesn’t have high ambitions with Honey Grenade. He’s just asking for it his ideas and his styles heard, and that’s not such a bad idea. I’m sure this EP earns its place among the dying voices of music these days, hoping to stand out. And it will. As for the creator, we’re hoping for him to grow, record more, and be up to par with the ever so evolving yet fading image of DIY.

UE’s “Honey Grenade” is available for free download on bandcamp.com. It’s a recommend download, and it’s free. Whether you like it or not, it’s worth your time.

http://normalue.bandcamp.com/album/honey-grenade-ep

Auto tune is so 2008. Purity in vocals died already, and indie artists have worked with the times and used the vocoder as a creative mechanism rather than a business one. But what the hell is with drum machines these days? Did rock and roll just lose one of it’s essential powers and positions: the use of a physical drumset, with snares, pedals, cymbals, and all? Is it because too many of the drummers are tired of being under-appreciated and don’t like telling all their friends that they are the “drummer“? Have we got a serious drum shortage problem here in the music industry? Is all of our recklessness and sloppiness of trash rock n roll now devoted to bouncy and loopy “thrash n’ roll?” Let’s face it: if a band is breaking up, the drummer is the first to go or the one to pitch a fight (Lita Ford in The Runaways). The one that is tired of just doing back up vocals and drums, the one that doesn’t express thought in interviews, the one that is constantly changing in a band with some “real” history? Name one single band that has lived a long period of time and retained it’s drummer. Drums are replaceable, but fuck people these days if you’re tired of them quitting on you. Use a drum machine. Do it yourself. Punch in some beats into the drum machine, loop it, and then strum on your guitar. Or mix it on your laptop. But if you’ve got a physical “drum machine” player, chances are you’re gonna lose this person in the same amount of time you lose the reckless kid that shatters the noise out of everything with his classically sealed drum set, like the girl that thought touring with The xx was exhaustion. It might be exhaustion of you were touring with The xx and suddenly this girl decided to become Alice Glass. The stature and landlocked position of a drum machine noisemaker has a hard time passing the excuse of tiredness to ditch the band.

808 Drum Machine–the most overused drum machine in modern hip hop, and has common use in indie artists mimicking tangy soul flavored hip hop. Thanks, Kanye.

Rock n’ roll and drum machines are hardly intertwined in all of the grand, enigmatic and superstar fueled rock n’ roll, but the importance and recognition of drums in music have been very low key. In fact, scratch that. The importance and recognition of “music” in musical endeavors have been second to marketing. But, we’re staying with the drums. I have a counterexample to the potential death of drums right here in my pocket: Justin Carder. Justin plays the drums in the conceptually dense and audibly ear damaging post-punk outfit Strip Mall Seizures. You may not have heard of them. You should. The name goes hand in hand with the sound. Imagine a crew four rowdy teenage like thirty year-old hip North Oakland clientele that play one level shows in warehouse art spaces and have a singer that ends up tangling both herself and her microphone in the center of a play fight. That’s just one raw, gritty attribute of the musically provocative and live-engaging Strip Mall Seizures. Let’s talk about Justin. He’s normal and calm (more or less) at his daily job running the pirate supply store at 826 Valencia in the Mission, aside from laughing at every other phrase uttered by a random encounter with someone from a far away country other than San Francisco, or when he’s “mopping” a curious customer who dangerously dared to spy at the book counter without knowing there was a wooden bin of broken apart rope above their head, waiting to be spilled and to scream. Justin’s as down to earth as one human being could possibly be, and I’ve always wanted to see whether he’s so relaxed at one of his gigs. But nope, he’s the madman. He’s the breaking point of a tense build up of pure organic thrash with the drums, and he’s reinvigorating the use of the drum set, one that has been beat up to the point of no more finite texture, with cymbals missing their roundness on the edge, and a little fixer upper tape to cover the snare’s holes just before an informal gig at 21 Grand warehouse in Oakland. But Justin can beat the shit out of the drums, and while he’s expressed the use of drum machines and more modern and bedroom technology in his band’s music, his raw and visceral live drumming is something you drummers out there should take advantage of. The climax of Strip Mall Seizures thirty minute fast paced and sweaty opening set was the ending number, “Free Money”, when the singer and the bassist drop their instruments, and use some sticks to start banging on one gourd. The bassist then takes the remaining clatter, a cymbal left on the ground and throws it out of his way, while Justin, looking like he’s about to flip over his drum set and start destroying it with all the muscles in his bare hands, stands up to kneel over and crash his drum sticks on the last round of sharp, echoing and nailing notes. The song right now has no more melody, it’s just a bunch of off kilter free-form mayhem, and it’s all about the drums. At this time, everyone is a percussionist, and no one is not letting loose and caving into the dimensions of the drum.

The sound may suck, but this is what I mean by “climax.” Taken by me (Gabe Connor)

Justin being himself—this photo has no relevance here, I just feel obliged to put it, though. (Photo Credit: Gabe Connor, all other photos in this entry taken by others)

Not all drumming is meant to be so loose and free of restraint. In African influences, it may be (as I’ve learned about through history classes as an example of Mestizaje–or cultural blend), but regardless of the drum machine, how bland can R&R get with a kit? A song is generally dependent on the drums, but we aren’t close to thinking that the drums are the power in the song, they may be the fuel and the under the radar skeletal necessity, but in a straight up rock n’ roll song, whether indie or mainstream–when are drums ever featured or stretched out of their repetitive, headache sensitive pattern of clean cut and already played rhythms? Are drums not meant to be just a rhythm that is constantly borrowed off of—are they supposed to be an element that’s just as interchangeable and newly created as a harmony? I’ve noticed that a common rock song does no good without the use of any percussive elements. It’s ironic how we depend so much on a backbeat and yet the backbeat is hardly ever acknowledged. In LCD Soundsystem’s “All My Friends”, the song couldn’t sustain more that comedic performance art if it didn’t have the consistent keyboard, which was all the support it had of conveying a melody. Drums are meant to be more than just a stand in device—but they can be used well even if they’re using a simple and repetitive pattern, such as on “All My Friends”, which is sort of a middle line between what percussion should be–it shouldn’t be background, but we might not take it the right way if it’s not returning to any familiarity or structure or if it’s just wandering. Even the most psychotic drummers have a way of returning to form. When I heard Yo La Tengo perform “Blue Line Swinger” live, it felt like a bunch of fractured and scattered pieces, it seemed like a collage, before it embraced full throttle. The keyboard was spare and spontaneously touched, and the drums looped in and out of the minimalist drones of the guitar. Georgia Hubley (who has the essence of the great image of a drummer, one who plays a variety of percussion and does lead vocals on a fair amount of YLT songs) would tap the drums, but when the time was right, she’d use them in their original pattern. The song would have it’s turns; I didn’t know how to take it at first. It might have been the most evocative moment of that night, because it had such a long introduction before climbing into one of the bubbliest and familiar garage rock riffs I’ve ever heard. It repeated itself, then twisted into distortion, and resolved like the pitch perfect echo of a pop song it was, yet throughout all of it’s wildness, the glimpses of sheer pop were hardly there, being brought into focus and then being pushed from out of your reach. Which is what the drums should act as. They should bring pop songs into focus and into form, and out of focus and form. Not only did the drum work in making “Blue Line Swinger” such a rarely intuitive and eye opening experience, but they did caress it, and like the rest of the songs I’ve explained, it might have not worked without them.

The analogue drum machine (oxymoron check?)

This doesn’t mean every song should contain a drum, or a rhythm. In fact, an artist should find a clever way to break the rhythmic dependency of a song. We are ever so dependent on back beats, and when broken of it there’s a slight withdrawal, it’s an unsettling and bare feeling, a song may be awakening you but you aren’t satisfied, and something may be missing. It’s experimental and can be uncomfortable when you take a song that is built to be grander than how you perform it, stripping the song of any familiar retreat of drum and spine.

On the subject of drum machines: the way we write and listen to the sound of a rhythm or a beat is changing. Drum machines have soul. Let’s clarify this for R&R purists. There’s nothing more or less soulful than “The xx”, which is another example of the interesting affect of loss of rhythmic dependency and the power of grandiosity. The xx are eerie, minimalist, and toned down—but even when you expect a song to shake into a constant line of progression before it reaches the ultimate breaking point of a chill sending climax—it’s still soulful, it comes to terms with it’s ferocity that is mellowed out under the baritone and soprano talk-whispers of the vocalists and the sharp echoes of a variety of drum machines. You may want it to release a sense of freedom, but buried under it’s restraint, The xx’s songs are not locked into any sort of monotone pattern–they are free in emotion and in aesthetic. Drum machines can work evocatively in the spirit of a curious and genuine bunch of musicians–but if they’re just another overplayed marketing niche like the auto tune–you may lose recognition of their artistic power. Independent artists know how to work with changing technology and not wallow in their cynicism of it. It may become a hipster device, but nevertheless, it’s bringing irony and artistic merit to something so unbearable on top 40 charts.

In the mainstream world, songs feels so artificial and fake, a song may be grandiose and it may have twists and turns and blasts of snares, but it’s fucking fake. There’s no soul in it, it’s grandiosity feels artificial because it doesn’t have the personality that so many other jangling songs do. Even the guitars, the melody, the artist’s voice just sound like their trapped and forced to make something sound soulful, catchy, and exuberant. Drums are a relevant and changing part of this realm: they don’t have much soul themselves anymore. We’ve whacked timbre and bone out of drums in projects such as Sonic Youth and we’ve taped them back together with the most monotone and bland patterns of 21st century alternative rock. But by taping them back together, we’ve only done a fix up job–we have yet to repair a damaged drum with an actual dosage of soul and freedom.

Sleigh Bells

In relevance to the idea of drums and drum machines, there is one band that uses the drum machines to an equivalent extent of a bonafide soul song. The xx’s use of drum machines is dense and quiet, but Sleigh Bells’s use is an antidote to the reputation that The xx give to drum machines (the New Order nostalgia syndrome). A drum machine can have raw power too, take the example of Sleigh Bells’ “Crown On the Ground.” It is the catchiest earbug that drives me to hear more, but on the other hand, reaches to the maximum volume in it’s ear splitting siren opening and distorted glitch based hook. I have to keep the volume down low when listening to it in comparison to the normal volume on my iTunes library, it is much louder than usual. But that hook, full of mashed together synths and shattering drum machines that sounds off kilter and at the same time pitch perfect melodically, is what draws me back. It has a sort of free willing spirit, it is a frolic romp of pomp and swagger, bouncing like a hip-hop track but with the grittiness of a punk song, and the flat out joy of soul. Along with “Stillness Is The Move” it might be the best Indie foray into the borrowed craving for the smokiness of soul and hip-hop. The lead singer Alexis Krauss channels a breathy, minimal, and layered chant that finds itself in several harmonic loops twisted inside the exuberance of the feedback vibrating chorus, her chirping frailty is a great contrast to the heaviness of the track; it has the pulse of an 80′s song. And all of this mayhem is a wonder to behold.

Sleigh Bells’ energy may be a counterexample to my earlier declaration that you can’t get exhausted playing a drum machine live. The xx don’t play drum machines like Sleigh Bells or industrial glitch pioneers Fuck Buttons do, they don’t sweat and shake it off–and it’s hard to blame them–their sound does enough and they don’t want to disrupt their aesthetic with any unnecessary touches.

Fuck Buttons and their table of synths that they play so recklessly and engagingly.

Sleigh Bells use the drum machine to their blissful live advantage. The sound of their music is already meant to be loud and headbanger gathering live, and it already is on the record if you have a quiet space where no one can see you thrash dance embarrassingly in a place that isn’t a dingy one level club (which is quite embarrassing). The drum machine is not used live, it’s a laptop that mixes the beats, and the guy in the band plays guitar in the most distorted, screeching, and industrial manor, it’s treble so harsh and erupting with a blast of sonic madness. But the drum machines are buried under layers of fuzz and lo-fi recording, and you can tell, like on the track “A/B Machines” (hello, it’s named for the drum machines themselves!) that they work as the spine for the song, they’re bells and whistles but they also give the song it’s cheerleader spirit and kicking rhythm.

Sleigh Bells’ debut album Treats was released digitally May 11th. I’ve listened to the album multiple times, and certain songs and sections grow on me with each listen. From their 2009 file sharing hit EP 2Hellwu Sleigh Bells take original versions of “Crown On The Ground”, “Infinity Guitars” and “A/B Machines”, yet rename and reconstruct the EP’s “Ring Ring” to “Rill Rill” and create an even more drastic twist in arrangements from the EP’s “Beach Girls” being renamed “Kids.” I recognized the song as a leftover from the EP so passionately, but I had no idea it was “Beach Girls” until a friend told me. “Beach Girls” has sirens that are full of hip hop swagger and pompousness, yet “Kids” is polished with more riffs, more distortion, and more lo-fi beats. With the help of performance artist and remarkable musician MIA, Sleigh Bells released ‘Treats’ on her N.E.E.T imprint, which brings the works of other underground artists such as Rye Rye to recognition. Sleigh Bells are obviously a band M.I.A is built to love; their songs are full of dance hall fun with a blast of attitude and sass that M.I.A stresses on in the bulk of her work. But the best way to describe Sleigh Bells’ catchy yet headache inducing songs, aside from the excellent and funny made up subgenre of “Dream Crunk” is a pop song gone sour. It’s a spoiled prom dance or cheerleading match, it’s revenge on your best friend, it’s full of nostalgic high school anthems that have so much to give in the moment yet when you hear them their is a sense of reflection and nostalgia—and it can be much more emotionally deep than the screechy, savvy beats of producer and guitarist Derek Miller and the soft chanteuse sparks of vocalist Alexis Krauss, who provides an excellent contrast to the noisiness and abrasiveness surrounding. She can stand the distortion of her perfect pop song gone sour, she’s in her element, keeping the low profile of glossy and feminine vocal inputs, but she’s ever so ferocious as she withstands the chaos. If Alexis Krauss can be herself amongst a cauldron of inaudible and intense beats, then we all can.

But there is a point in why Sleigh Bells’ music is unbearable for someone so used to listening to well mastered and produced music, a kind that evokes controversy in the subtlest and most sensitive form. But Sleigh Bells, without the cynicism of other media and audience tricking musicians (for example MGMT), are playing with their audience’s levels of emotional capacity and territory–without the same depth as similar noisemakers Crystal Castles (who cannot really convey anywhere close to pop music)–but with similar angst, their taking music to unexplored levels of comfort zones, and ultimately challenging the listener’s sense of humor and seriousness and perception of what constitutes “art” or “music.” Sleigh Bells have a message to deliver here, it may be borrowed by millions of Andy Warhol aesthetic similarities (let’s face it, Lady Gaga may be shocking, but she’s average pop), but it’s supported by the sounds of their music. You may think it is cynicism and self absorption, but it’s actually inclusion to an array of musical terrain, a juggernaut that is positive, empowering, and creative, and less of a negative or self obsessed statement to a world of less and less originality.

Of all the songs on this album, the best I can name aside my first love, “Crown On The Ground” is the featured single, titled “Tell ‘Em.” It’s the perfect bound of everything Sleigh Bells, such as the gang bang sirens, the instant loudness and firmness of the beats that then dissolve and settle into their roughest qualities of killer super lo-fied riffs. Krauss’ vocals step right into the mixture, as the constant beats pull through and Miller contributes a spot on blast of distorted garage rock riffs, which may be the most honest rock n’ roll riffs on the entire album, but they still keep the song and it’s tempo in the name of electronic music. Their sound is not able to categorize, whether it has the grit and flavor of crunk and hip hop, the drum machines that kick in to act as electronic music, or better put “techno”, or even Miller’s abrasive riffs to dub the name of “industrial rock.” Or is it just Krauss’ voice that discerns it all–it’s just pop music? If it’s pop music, then it’s pop music gone physically sour, but if this is the future of pop itself, we’ve gotten rid of all the spoiled and overused niches themselves. In that regard, Sleigh Bells are fresh.

I have just received word today about two separate interviews revealing cynicism in the words of doe-eyed, playfully witty and the mother of all things arcane, Joanna Newsom. Newsom has done so much for me over the past few months emotionally, so I cannot blame her or feel like she made any sort of mistake in the feisty tone she used, in fact it reminds me of why I fell in love with her music in the first place. She’s bold, bad ass, and people should start giving her credit for her grit. It’s a sign that her visceral flesh and ferocity in her music is making her step out of the precocious and humble cache that journalists tend to group her in, becoming translated into words that aren’t lyrics and are strong n0n-musical statements. I don’t care—ragging on Madonna, Lady Gaga, or journalists. Just no Sarah Palin comparisons about her vocal stance on media and celebrities, please. Joanna is tired of being undermined by music listeners and critics alike, and it’s about time her gut transcends the so called “timidity”, restraint, and raw power of her music into a blunt form that shows her integrity in a way critics are not dumb enough to see (they don’t see that she’s not timid in her voice and her sound because they aren’t paying attention to subtlety, you know who you are, Rolling Stone). Maybe if she had used the words in a more dignified way she might have elicited a more positive media response, but she’s certainly entitled to fire back at those who don’t feel any fire.

“Dumb Ass” is not an arcane phrase, although if out of context “Arty Spice” might be.

Quote about blogs:

Via Stereogum from Under The Radar:

Ever since the release of The Milk-Eyed Mender, Newsom has been aware of how she and her work are scrutinized. The heaps of critical praise that her debut received coincided with the mounting influence of music blogs, and while much of the attention on Newsom was incited by genuine admiration, discussion about her singing and look often overshadowed appreciation for her musicianship. Because of her distinctive voice, her fondness for vintage dresses, and the fanciful imagery of songs with titles such as “Bridges And Balloons” and “Peach, Plum, Pear,” she was tagged with terms like “elfin princess” and “wood nymph.” However, Newsom was more concerned about how her music was being perceived.
…
Newsom admits to being “vulnerable to the call of the Internet” and knew that fans were ascribing titles to the unrecorded songs that would appear on Have One On Me. “When I was playing new songs, people would refer to then by these titles that I hadn’t referred to them by, and they would do it real authoritatively, like super know-it-all,” she says. “It really annoyed me.” But in September 2009, Newsom called it quits and stopped reading about herself, recognizing it as destructive and dangerous. “I’m a girl, and I’m human, and so probably the things that get to me the most are just when someone’s like, ‘that girl’s ugly,’ or ’stupid,’ or really playground shit,” she confesses. “Everything kind of affects me somehow if I read it, but that’s the stuff that drains your energy the most. Anything that engages the work is something that you somehow can step away from. I’ve read horrible, scathing reviews, and some of them are kind of good, kind of well-written, and occasionally they’re even funny. I remember with Ys, there were a few things that I read that made me laugh a lot, that were tearing it apart but making really good points. And somehow that doesn’t hurt my feelings as much. But there’s a class of insult that you can’t engage with at all, and you can’t defend yourself against in any way, and it just resonates with a very primal part of you. No one wants anyone to think they’re ugly and stupid, so somehow that’s the stuff that gets me.”
…
“I might just be talking about it and someone would point out, ‘What the hell are you doing spending one second of your time caring about what some dumbo in some far-off state has to anonymously say about you on a blog that five people read? It’s just a waste of energy. Regardless of what it was that made me realize once and for all that I needed to not read that stuff, it was one little episode that was representative of a whole larger truth, which is that no matter what I read on the Internet, whether it’s ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ it still makes me feel weird. It’s counterproductive. Even something that is a glowing review still leaves a weird taste in my mouth.”

Well said. I know what you’re thinking, but I’m not intending any sarcasm by saying “well said.” It’s a great point she brings up about the attachment between an artist and how others perceive your work (I saw it last year in Nick Hornby’s novel Juliet, Naked). I just hope no matter how much I praise and worship almighty Joanna Newsom that she will not be predetermined to hate my blog, too. When I write that 50 page zine, it’ll show devotion. I just hope there’s no weird taste, please let there be no weird taste if I write something glowing about you Joanna.

Quote About Lady Gaga and Madonna via Pitchfork:

In a recent article in The Guardian, the indie singer-songwriter-harpist had some choice words for the world’s most fashion-forward pop star: “I’m mystified by the laziness of people looking at how she presents herself, and somehow assuming that implies there’s a high level of intelligence in the songwriting. Her approach to image is really interesting, but you listen to the music, and you just hear glow sticks. Smart outlets for musical journalism give her all this credit, like she’s the new Madonna [...] Although I’m coming from a perspective of also thinking Madonna is not great at all. I’m like, fair enough: she is the new Madonna, but Madonna’s a dumb-ass!”

Rebuttal defending her thoughts

“I may have contradicted myself. My problem isn’t actually with Lady Gaga. But there’s not much in her music to distinguish it from other glossy, formulaic pop. She just happens to wear slightly weirder outfits than Britney Spears. But they’re not that weird– they’re mostly just skimpy. She’s fully marketing her body/sexuality; she’s just doing it while wearing, like, a ‘fierce’ telephone hair-hat. Her sexuality has no scuzziness, no frank raunchiness, in the way that, say, Peaches, or even Grace Jones, have– she’s Arty Spice! And, meanwhile, she seems to take herself so oddly seriously, the way she talks about her music in the third person, like she’s Brecht or something. She just makes me miss Cyndi Lauper. [...] I shouldn’t have called Madonna a dumb-ass. Her music and she have just gotten so boring to me, this last decade. I think maybe she doesn’t hold her money very gracefully, the way some people can’t hold their drink. But one thing she is surely not is dumb.”

As you can see, her voice goes far from the croons of her album that seem ever so shy and refined on a surface listen, although for those that have seen the gut and power in her spine all along, it’s not much of a surprise that she’s using her voice out of the natural element. She’s got some valid points if you take away the use of “Dumb Ass” or “Arty Spice”, but it wouldn’t have been such a good laugh if they weren’t in there. But if Joanna says so, then Madonna is indeed a “dumb ass.” (Just to show how much of a fundamentalist I am here)

(In an interview I read a while ago she said she felt that she could not translate or articulate feeling outside of a song very well, and that she struggles with sharing honesty and real emotion. Maybe this Lady Gaga comment is proof, although in my opinion, she’s stepping up to the game and just becomin’ a little better [I say this because I love her too much].)

And the same day these knock out loud laughing comments are leaked via web and newspaper, I get a quick response from Dan from Drag City about my persistent request to have her speak at 826 Valencia (mainly for my swooning purposes). It’s “I’ll see who you should contact.” I’m getting closer and closer to her each day.

Can I spam you guys with pretty pictures now? K, thanks.

See what I mean! How could you not forgive such a face?

Yeah, I was gonna do something more original like write a poem. But how could I write a tribute poem, nevertheless an honest, sucking-up self explanatory manifesto without it overflowing with sentiment (actually that’s a good idea if I had the brains, maybe she’d let me get away with things for a few days). A Mother’s Day Playlist is the idea that worked better for me. It’s twelve songs, a mixture of songs with the word “mother” and songs about feminism, that are quite bad ass, if you ask me. It ranges from folk songs about motherhood to antsy feminist grooves and hardcore female empowerment and rage (most common in soul). NPR Music had the idea, and while a few of the songs I chose overlapped with NPR’s catalog, it’s still an original effort. It’s not about the song having the words “mother” and “woman” always. It’s also about giving your mother a preview of how feminism and motherhood are integrated in your musical tastes. Maybe she won’t be a cynic about modern music? Maybe she won’t roll her eyes and smirk when you have a desperate look on your face to play a song she may or may not like? If it’s Mother’s Day, she’ll like it all, nevertheless, pretend to. At least in your eyes she’ll like it, but chances are she’ll stir it in amongst the gossip she has with her other motherly friends about how awful her children have been treating her.

In the meantime, give back to your mother’s generosity by torturing her with hedonistic thrash and glitch computer music, Bjork’s warbles, or in my case, an Antony Hegarty sung lament about trans sexuality before she smacks you on the forehead.

1. “Crash and Burn Girl”–Robyn

If your mother is over 50, like mine, this might invigorate some young out of her, or she may applaud at how “retro” or “funky” this sounds, and will change her mind about the time she yelled to you that music was ultimately pronounced dead.

2.”Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth”–Neko Case

Your mother will like this woolly, jangly, and sunny folk song by Patsy Cline reminiscent alternative country vocalist Neko Case, and musically there are 99.9% chances that she won’t complain about the arrangements in this song. But she may be astonished by the lyrics, and if she doesn’t think you are an introspective child, she’ll lecture you about the message of this song and see if you can connect the dots between morale and your naughty behavior.

3. “Mama You’ve Been On My Mind”–Bob Dylan

The bootlegged version of this song is rare and involves too much work for a child to donate to their mother, so you instead find a cover of it by Jack Johnson, whom you normally can’t stand but your mother likes to seat dance to in an obnoxious way. She is amused by this gesture, although she already raves about it’s place on the diverse I’m Not There soundtrack, one of her favorite albums in recent years. Your mother likes all the artists on this album, although if you played a song by them in their own element chances are she’ll just nod a begrudging “fine.” You can tolerate this song, but if she asks why you didn’t put “Banana Pancakes” on the list you’ll desperately refrain from telling her to STFU.

4. “Good Woman”–Cat Power

You’ve only convinced your mother to wholeheartedly like one artist of your finding: Cat Power. She’s teared up on her cover of “Amazing Grace” and nudges you every five seconds when you went together last summer to hear Cat Power open for the Pretenders (don’t forget the first time you saw Cat Power: she asked why you didn’t answer your phone the whole time). She likes Cat Power now, even more so that it’s almost all she wants to hear of your choosing. This only slightly erodes your love for the artist, but whatever makes your mother happy.

5. “Master Teacher”-Erykah Badu

Your mother is a teacher. A professor, excuse me. Even if she wasn’t by credential, every mother is a teacher, and yes, they are running out of pupils to give hard headed advice to (hence the subject of this song). If your mother wasn’t an expert in African American culture and sometimes has her quote on quote “black” moments, she may not appreciate the “what if there were no niggas only Master Teachers.” If she knows the colloquialisms and hip-hop/soul aesthetics by heart she will definitely not hate this song, although she may be slightly confused why you added it. She might want to use it when she writes her next academia book on racial transgression, thereby dubbing the listen as a “chore.”

6. “She’s Lost Control”–Joy Division

Your mother and you watched “Control”, a biopic about edgy post punk Joy Division front man Ian Curtis, a film that your mother liked but gasped at during certain scenes. Your mother surprisingly likes Joy Division, and doesn’t mind Curtis’s robot monotone voice, or his rowdy stage antics (one of the few times your mother likes something affiliated with “punk superficiality”, or that she takes seriously). Your mother is crazy, and she admits it, so it’s no harm to say the subject of losing control is the very thing your mother does every single day.

7. “Absolutely Cuckoo”–Magnetic Fields

You love your mother, although you like to make perverted and suggestive jokes in a mocking and satirical voice that she’ll roll her eyes at (which is probably the best signal of approval your mother ever gives you) or she’ll think it’s excess and won’t think it’s funny. She doesn’t ever get tired of the 69 jokes, and the 69 jokes transcend “sex”, they are more about pointing out “69″ as a number and not as a position (ex: “look, there’s a club called club 69!). When you try to find 69 in popular media, you joke and tell your mother that your favorite album ever is 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. By title and concept it is, and music wise, it’s definitely one of your favorites. You put this song on the playlist as more of a contextual gesture when you explain to your mother about where it comes from, but you also add it to go along with the “crazy” theme that your mother jokes about almost every hour. You’ll recommend this album to your mother, thinking that it’s sarcasm and wry humor throughout will make her laugh. It’s subtle and it’s playful, and the least bit annoying.

8 & 9. “See Line Woman”-Nina Simone/”Sea Lion”-Feist

Your mother loves Feist. She calls Cat Power “the power” and Feist “the little Feist” because of her songbird voice. Feist is not a simple songbird on “Sea Lion”, whose chorus she borrows from Nina Simone’s beloved foot stomping anthem “See Line Woman.” Both contrast and juxtapose two things she loves: African American soul and jazz music and Feist. “See Line Woman” is an epitomizing introduction to the eccentric character of Nina Simone, it channels her outspoken feminist message and musical presence, a rare find in a world of female jazz and soul vocalists who shared the same underlying rhetorical question of “when the fuck is this guy gonna marry me?” Your mother will surely like these two songs, they’re safe bets. And she may even give you clever points about how you put these two songs together, if you’re fishing for compliments.

10. “Here Before” by Vashti Bunyan

A week ago in the car we are playing an album that you bought that your mother again likes, full of indie juggernauts performing old spooky songs, in and out of their element. Your mother likes this compilation (Dark Was The Night) and remarks at how pretty the melody and composition of the song “Train Song”, performed on the album by Ben Gibbard and Feist. You mention to your mother that this is an old Vashti Bunyan song. She doesn’t know who Vashti Bunyan is, even if she’s twelve years older than your mother. You explain that Vashti Bunyan had a short lived career playing guitar and singing soprano in Britain in the seventies, before embarking on a thirty year hiatus before being revived by the likes of freak folk musicians Devendra Banhart (your mother thinks he’s weird–how could you play Laurel Canyon-esque folk music and date Lindsay Lohan?) and Animal Collective (your mother likes the name, and that’s it). This song is from Vashti Bunyan’s latest effort Lookaftering, her first record in thirty years. This song has motherhood in the subject, and is a very lighthearted, pretty, and aurally comforting with a rich pallette of folk texture. It’s the type of simple song your mother will like, and she will again notice that you are thinking of her when you put this song on the playlist (you may have to freshen her memory about who Vashti Bunyan is, just say the key words Feist and that AIDS compilation). Your mother may or may not connect with your saying that Vashti Bunyan was way ahead of her time, making freak folk when the term didn’t even exist (Don’t tell her it’s freak folk until the song is over).

11. “Queen Bitch”–David Bowie

Your mother is not a bitch, although your trans gender dog is, so she may deflect the “Queen Bitch” song to be a tribute to our dog Deirdre and not her. “Bitch” in David Bowie’s usage of the word is bad ass rock n’ roll, and it may up your mother’s status and feelings about herself, as she has said in the past “I like being a bitch” (this will only work if you haven’t ever called your mother a bitch). Either way, there is one familiar face on the playlist, and that is David Bowie. She may or may not feel neutral about David Bowie being on her playlist.

12. “Travelling Woman”–Bat For Lashes

When you were going through your tumblr phase your showed your mother a picture of Natasha Khan (AKA Bat For Lashes) dressed in faux tribal and hippie chic attire holding two bells, her face looking down. Your mother thought she was beautiful, so did you. You know that Natasha Khan writes through her alter ego, that she is an example of feminine integrity and beauty (also in “What’s A Girl to Do”). “Travelling Woman” is another song that honor’s your mothers virtues. Let’s hope she doesn’t recognize the deliberate added “l” in traveling, the grammar Nazi.

13. “Confessions of a MILF”-Viv Albertine

What’s even more of a “STFU” moment about a certain annoyance that your mother has a tendency of doing is when she suggests that you admit that she’s a MILF. “I’m a MILF” or “everybody thinks I’m a MILF” or “I’m a MILF, right? That’s why your friends like you.” When your mother says this so bluntly and obnoxiously you really want to tell her to STFU. But it’s her day, so let her say to you whatever she likes. Let her abuse you in return. But if you are tired, just turn on this song and you’ll silence her out. You choose this song as a recommendation from the lovely Carrie Brownstein, the bad ass herself. Viv Albertine, member of the Slits, talks about motherhood dread, and it’s a black comedy, but it’s also painstakingly sincere and intense, so your mother may not want this song to interfere with her happy day. She doesn’t want to think that baking a pie is considered “self-destruction” in her case, but she’ll appreciate the song title, that is, if she says ever so self aware of it’s implications that people think she’s a MILF. Viv Albertine’s fusion of feminism and homage to mothers is exactly how this playlist should end, tying together the two main threads and giving your mother something to meditate on. Chances are she’ll run away and become a gypsy. In my mother’s case, she’ll want to be a black panther.

Note: Your mother does not like it when you jump from song to song. Listen to the playlist in entirety or she’ll complain and tell you that you ruined it for her by choosing which song you are excited to show off. Let the compliments, the hugs, and the kisses come naturally. Or not.

After hearing this playlist your mother may become ferocious and angry and try to break the CD with her bare hands. She succeeds and throws it at you and calls you a “little piece of shit” for the umpteenth time.

When you are typing this entry about what to play your mother, your mother arrives from a half-hour drive pick you up, to find that you are not ready to leave and still in your pajamas. She yells “unfuckingbelievable! this is how you celebrate mother’s day!” You know your mother loves you.

P.S:She’s happy because you got her this handpicked complilation, which she knows she will like if the playlist ends up sucking.