The Caribbean’s Michael Kentoff is man enough to admit Washington DC cliques like the Teen Beat, Dischord and Simple Machines crews intimidate him. Who wouldn’t be? Those three labels have fiercely defined, executed, and promoted the D.I.Y. aesthetic-ethic. You don’t get “cooler” than those folks. In the face of it all, risking potential hip-ness, Kentoff and his band mates, have consistently created smart, personal pop songs. Gentle, comfortable music you can cozy up to like you would with a “friend with benefits.” I get the same warm, fuzzy feeling from listening to The Caribbean as I do shuffling through discarded peanut shells and sitting down to a cheeseburger and bag o’ fries at Five Guys Burgers & Fries. I can’t hear about anything happening in DC without thinking about my favorite burger. The Caribbean may not fit in with the usual DC suspects, but they can take solace in their mutual vicinity to a tasty burger (I should never post while hungry…).
Pinback
Like just about everyone, I often think of bands in terms of the other bands of which they remind me. For Pinback, I picture them as a West Coast Sebadoh. Even though it’s meant in the most admiring way, such a classification is not fair because it may make it sound like they’re somehow aping the discordant yet melodic Bostonians who like their Splatter Technique lyrics with healthy doses of punk guitar and punker feedback. Plus, there’s the whole repetition thing that Pinback takes much further than Lou and the gang: chords, chorus, repeat. You can hear it all the way through Pinback’s discography and right up to their most recent, Autumn of the Seraphs. And contrary to every track sounding the same, each one finds a new way to make the same old thing sound totally original. No wonder Pinback’s following is so loyal. Check out a new track and some older ones, then check out Pinback guy Rob Crow, whose recent solo release kinda-sorta sounds like Pinback but kinda-sorta covers even more new territory.
ORIGINAL POST (9/17/04):
For those who consider “indie” a genre rather than just a classification, it’s probably such lo-fi, wounded-guy sounds as Sebadoh, Built to Spill, and Modest Mouse that come to mind when you hear the “I” word. But don’t forget about Pinback, who return to rock your world — well, that may be a bit overstated — with some loopy, melancholic, melodic pop. What’s new is “indie” again on the splendid single “Fortress.” The others are just for nostalgia’s sake.
Rob Crow
An indie monagamist he ain’t. Pinback’s Rob Crow has, like, a gazillion side projects so that he always has some kind of outlet for making music. (Even more reason for the Sebadoh/Lou Barlow parallels – see Pinback entry.) That’s OK though because Crow is what in the business they call “solid.†Pinback have quietly become one of the standard-bearers for indie/college rock, and when Crow steps out for a side/solo project, he’s hardly Roger Daltry or that Mike guy from Genesis. His latest album is called Living Well. The cover shows him in front of his house with a cup of coffee, some Halloween pumpkins and wearing a shirt with a Pentagram. If that isn’t living well, then I’m a monkey’s uncle. And “I Hate You, Rob Crow†is quite catchy for a, uh, kissoff? hatemail sendup? self-loathing anthem? Tell us, Rob.
Oakley Hall
Zingerman’s is an Ann Arbor original, a foodie university of its own providing in-depth instruction on eating well and fully savoring the experience. Last week, on their Eat American road tour, my friends Cheech and Lisette toured the ZingEmpire (I tagged along too), and found both incredible hostpitality and the kind of quality food products that their trip is all about finding and highlighting and protecting. As we were working our way through some of chef Alex Young’s transcendental BBQ at Zingerman’s Roadhouse restaurant, I was thinking that 3hive should have been providing the soundtrack to our dining experience. We tend to be pretty committed to things that are obscure and high quality — most importantly, things that we like — a philosophy that pairs well with Zingerman’s approach to food.
With this in mind, here’s Oakley Hall, offering straight-up boy-girl Americana folk rock from Brooklyn. Listening through the tracks below will gove you a good sense of the band’s various sounds. “No Dreams,” off the forthcoming album I’ll Follow You, rocks out in a way that seems from a totally different world than the restrained sounds of “Living in Sin in the USA.” This diversity shows of instrumentation, vocal style (and vocalist), tempo, volume, and just about every musical aspect you can think of gives a welcome sense of freshness to Oakley Hall. Too bad the closest they’re coming to Detroit is Chicago.
The Airborne Toxic Event
Any band using Don DeLillo references for their nom de plume are friends of mine. The Airborne Toxic Event is named after a chapter in DeLillo’s 1985 novel, White Noise. Their EP sounds as if it was recorded during that same era. The band has been wafting across Los Angeles airwaves and blogwaves with their upbeat yet dour songs, the tempo made for the dancefloor set, the lyrics for the brokenhearted. It’s still too early in their career to determine how things will pan out for The Airborne Toxic Event, they’ve only released four songs, but considering they’ve had a run of shows and a single release in the UK there’s a good chance they’ll be affecting a lot more people with their own White Noise.
Eugene Francis Jnr.
He’s an imaginative lad, this Eugene Francis Jnr. One need look no further than the video for his group’s first single “Poor Me” for proof — kinda like Gulliver’s Travels as told by Michel Gondry. It won’t surprise you that homeboy’s got some hippie roots. He’s the son of Eskimo and Apache Indian parents who lived in Wales, if you’re to believe his bio. They provided him with a diverse musical upbringing that ultimately led him to pursue music himself. He started out solo, but soon recruited a small army of fellow Welsh musicians to create a “harmonious, beatnik supergroup” (his words, not mine). This democratic approach makes for really nice, lush instrumentation to buoy his humble voice. Think ’90s XTC, Syd Barrett, or Lost in the Trees. Eugene was kind enough to provide us with this dreamy little number, the other A-side of the double A-side single “Poor Me”/”Kites” — available on iTunes (U.S. only for the moment).
LoveLikeFire
Can you really fall in love at first sight, or is it just infatuation? Romeo thought he was in love when he first saw Juliet: “Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! / For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.” I’m feeling a little loopy myself after hearing “S.O.S.” from San Francisco’s LoveLikeFire. The song blows open like a track from Bossanova, or Trompe Le Monde, then settles into a nice Cure-esque riff (“A Forest?”) and finally into a breathtaking chorus where singer Ann Yu sounds like a more forceful Siouxsie. I love LoveLikeFire like I love all of the above. No, I know it’s just infatuation. I don’t have a long relationship with LoveLikeFire. I haven’t put in hours and hours of intense listening. I haven’t dreamt or loved along with their music. It sure feels like love though. Call it what you will; I’m going to let myself wallow in the butterflies I get from LoveLikeFire.
Bat for Lashes
The UK’s Mercury Music Prize is basically the musical equivalent of the literary Man Booker Prize: Though neither necessarily goes so far out on a limb that they’re what revolutions are made of, you can be pretty well assured that the nominees are making the best music (or fiction, as it were) right now as opposed to (though not always mutually exclusive of) the most popular. But you already know that. You probably also know that Bat for Lashes, the breathtaking brainchild of singer, multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Natasha Khan, is a nominee for this year’s Mercury Prize, and she certainly deserves it. Fur and Gold is loose yet organized, expansive yet hummable, experimental yet familiar. Khan has a cinematic sense of arrangement and a sonic majesty that marks her as an absolute original on the pop landscape who nonetheless bears the best markings of recent forbears like PJ Harvey, Bjork, Chan Marshall, Sinead O’Connor, and Kate Bush. She weaves echoey piano harmonies with one-note-at-a-time basslines and harpsichord with marching drums, conjuring a cabaret-esque intimacy and drama. Yet unlike other recent entries into the post-punk chamber pop canon like Joanna Newsom and CocoRosie (great artists both of ’em, don’t get me wrong), Khan seems to make songs for more than just herself. Her “sounds like” description on MySpace includes “Halloween when you’re small” and “dark nighttime lovemaking,” which pretty much say it all. Fur and Gold is one of the most haunting and engrossing albums I’ve heard this year precisely because that’s the only way Khan could have made it.
Squalls
It’s been a whirlwind of a week; my wife and I took our 1.5 & 4 year olds to New York City, and you know how that is. We met up with 3hive’s Lisa at the Pink Tea Cup, rode the Staten Island Ferry, wandered the neighborhoods and Central Park, hung out at Coney Island with my friend Matt and his 4 year old, etc. (Speaking of Matt, his band Gift Shop has just relesed a new album. If I could figure out how to link to songs on MySpace, I’d be posting them today.) And once I got home, I found out my friend Cheech is coming to Michigan to visit Zingerman’s deli on his Eat American tour. In honor of all this… experience, I’m posting a band dear to my heart, Athens, GA’s long-defunct, early-80s, totally awesome (and please don’t wreck this aspect for me) Squalls. They had the opening track on the Athens, GA / Inside Out soundtrack, which was MY soundtrack and hairstyle guide for my senior year of high school. Anyway, in these low quality live tracks, you’ll find pleasant, Talking Heads inspired pop, but really, that’s not the point. This is the good stuff, no matter how it sounds, and I want you all to have a little taste.
Licorice Roots
Let me preface Licorice Roots by saying they’re an acquired taste. I admit I almost didn’t last twenty seconds into their record. Their wobbly, off-kilter sound knocked me off balance at first. At first. But I held strong and as soon as I ventured four tracks deep, their song “Hey There Little Love” saved the CD from certain eject-death. I learned to appreciate Licorice Roots for their peculiar low-fi-ness. It’s as if The Seeds were playing underwater, with a sprinkle of attitude courtesy of Ween. My swimming trunks are on and I’m in mid-cannonball, ready to take the Licorice Roots plunge! P.S. If the vocals are a bit much for you, check out the title track “Caves of the Sun.” It’d make a great soundtrack to a SpongeBob SquarePants Spaghetti Western.