Some times a small thing can really brighten your day. Like when you’re on your way to work and a train pulls into the station just as you come down the stairs. You don’t have to wait at all and you get a seat next to somebody who isn’t wearing too much cologne or talking loudly into a Bluetooth device. Or when you put on a pair of pants that you haven’t worn for a week or so and you find a five dollar bill in the pocket. When this happens, it’s kind of like an anonymous stranger is buying you a cup of coffee and a donut.
Of course, waking up in a pile of naked supermodels would be better. Heck, that would probably brighten your whole week. But occasionally you have to thank god for the small favors. It is in that spirit that I would like to offer up a little prayer of thanks for Community Gun from upstate New York. This scrappy band will shamble their way onto your stereo and win you over with an unexpected dash of style. I had already written them off when I saw the publicity photo of them playing next to their van in what looks like the parking lot of a local junior high. But I listened to a few tracks anyway and was surprised to find a band that sounds like a looser version of The Wallflowers, with a singer who sounds like Tom Waits before he started smoking.
Well, that was a nice surprise. Just like the five dollar bill I didn’t even know was there. Nice work guys. Now just let me know when you’ve got those supermodels ready for me.
I came to music at a very early age. I got my first Michael Jackson album when I was 5 years old, and my first guitar a few years later. Between elementary school and highschool graduation I played, at one time or another, clarinet, trumpet, saxophone, drums, and piano. Which is not to say I’m some sort of prodigy. On the contrary, I lacked the attention span necessary to really master any of those instruments. I mostly just wanted to play drums in a rock band. Clarinet, trumpet, and saxophone were forced on me by the crotchety, old, and disgruntled music teachers from the Oakland Public School District (translation: no way were they about to set a fourth-grader loose behind a drumset.)
Sometime around the sixth grade, my friends and I started having “jams” at my house after school. We had recently found a working tape recorder in the back of the garage, and my friend Nate had been given an electric guitar with five working strings. I had a pair of drumsticks and some heavy-duty cardboard boxes that made a drum-like sound. A couple of my friends thought they could sing. As the weeks wore on, we moved from open-ended noise jams to fully composed songs, complete with lyrics about fire, cars, and the girls in our class who had started to go through puberty. Naturally we decided that our incipient musical genius needed to be committed to tape.
After my friends went home, I would spend hours listening to those tapes on my boombox. I was totally impressed that we had had managed to make a noise which kind of sounded like music which sounded a little bit like a song which, I thought, meant we were destined for rock stardom. I was all, “Screw you middle school! We’re going on tour!” I played the tapes for anybody who would listen (read: my little sister and our babysitter). The babysitter was kind enough not say anything disparaging. Of course, she was getting paid. My sister, on the other hand, was brutally honest. “That sounds like Nate playing a broken guitar, you hitting some cardboard boxes, and a lot of screaming about explosions. Wait, did somebody just say ‘boobies?’ I’m telling Mom!”
I was reminded of those tapes when I first heard Significant Figures. Apparently the band was born of a similar experience - a Realistic two-track recorder found in a basement somewhere in New Jersey. According to the band’s promo material “its motors could not maintain a consistent speed throughout the length of any of the early epic rock anthems” and the first recordings from the group were scrapped. Since that time, the boys in the band have upgraded their technology and learned how to use it. Despite the fact that the band’s various members are spread across the eastern seaboard, they still manage to record at a prolific rate. With the help of a couple laptops, some vintage microphones, and the power of the internet, Significant Figures have built a large catalogue of lo-fi pop songs.
Imagine The Pixies and Paul Simon recording two minute pop songs in a basement apartment in a rainy little town outside of a big city. Imagine that they woodshed for a couple days, individually writing a bunch of new songs. Then they get together on Thursday night and record all of them. Then they go watch a movie, hang out with their girlfriends, and come back the next week and do it again. If you can actually imagine what that sounds like, then you’ve got a very impressive imagination. Sadly, that’s probably not at all how it happens. But that’s what I hear. Of course, I used to play the cardboard box in an after school jam band. Hey, do you wanna hear the tape?
Update: You can now stream/download the whole album here.
Despite the universally acknowledged differences between city dwellers and country folk, there is a movement brewing that might just help to bridge that gap. It is a movement that seems to be coming in from two different sides toward a mutually recognized center. Whether that meeting proves to be harmonious or cacophonous remains to be seen. In order to make any kind of educated guess though, we need to take a closer look at both factions.
On the one side we have rural youth becoming increasingly fascinated with urban culture. This has actually been going on for a while, and we mostly have MTV to thank for it. Countless rap videos and witless reality shows have brought images of black and brown people streaming into the living rooms of kids who would otherwise have lived a lily white existence. Now whether or not you think Lil’ Jon or Flavor Of Love are suitable ambassadors of African-American culture is an argument for another day. The fact remains that millions of goofy little cracker children are being entertained by and, as a result looking up to, people of color. In a country where some still fly the confederate flag and others can’t fathom electing a black president, this is a huge step forward. It would appear that a little bit of urban culture is doing more for backwoods race relations than any amount of schooling ever could.
On the other side we have all these hipster kids in Brooklyn. It’s hard to say what their motive is, but for whatever reason many of them are getting into country and bluegrass music. Is it an attempt to colonize a scene that hasn’t yet been blown open by a hipster bomb? Or is it just that flannel clothing is often the cheapest, most abundant stuff at the thrift store? Dunno. Maybe we should ask O’Death or Langhorne Slim.
Better yet, let’s ask Salt & Samovar. They’ve crafted a swampy indie country sound that is perhaps better than any other. This can largely be attributed to the equal parts hipster sensibility and low country twang they put into their music. It’s country, but not too country. It’s hip, but not so hip that it hurts. Their record “Old Joy, New Joy” would be equally at home on the back porch in the Ozarks or a rooftop in DUMBO.
Sooner or later this whole thing will come full circle, sides will meet and the melting pot stew will finally be ready to serve. Until then, let’s think of funny names for this newish musical movement. How about Cosmo Country? Or Brooklyn Bluegrass? Blogger Blues? Yeah…I got nothin.
This is either the new hotness or old news, depending on where your head is at. White Flight is actually the work of one Justin Roelofs, who used to be in The Anniversary. His album came out a while ago and has already been reviewed by Pitchfork (”an overstuffed assortment of hip-hop beats, hippie poetry, and indie pop instrumentation.”). White Flight was even featured on NPR at some point this year and he/they have a page on Wikipedia. Oh well. We can’t always be the first to the feeding frenzy.
Anyhoo…apparently Justin swore off living in the United States and went down to South America to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs. Eventually the drugs wore off and he made his way back to Lawrence, KS (whattup Kansas!) where he recorded this album. That was last winter. Now, here we are at the onset of winter again and Roelofs has put out some bangin ‘ ass remixes of the White Flight album tracks. The original flavor is also good, so we included one of each for you. Settle in with some hot cocoa and your peace pipe and take a listen.
The coolest thing about Texas is the city of Austin, and one of the coolest things coming out of Austin right now is the band Brazos. Ironically, the first track here was created in less than cool circumstances. According to our friend Larry at Future Sounds, “Mrs. Virginia” was crafted in a tiny bedroom with no air conditioning. In the dead of summer. In Texas. That’s crazy because Texas is the hottest state in the union. Seriously, it’s probably 100 degrees in Texas right now. If we lived in Texas we’d probably need air conditioning in our underwear and sweet iced tea on an IV drip just to get out of bed in the morning. We certainly wouldn’t be recording sultry, mysterious rock songs that evoke thoughts of haunted bar rooms and adventures on the open road. But Brazos did, so I guess they’re a lot cooler than we are.
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