Tough Customer // Wire

The Knew

I don’t get a lot of opportunity to watch TV when it’s actually on TV. With the exception of live sports events, most of the stuff I watch is way after the fact. I have a DVR full of stand-up comedy specials and old Discovery Channel shows that I will probably never watch. If I’m lucky, I’ll catch an episode of Family Guy or The Daily Show online a week or two after it airs. Also, I will admit to being a complete nerd for Battlestar Galactica. I’ve got the second disc from season 4 siting on top of my TV right now, and I am totally going to watch the whole thing in one sitting this weekend.

It should come as no surprise then that I completely missed out on Breaking Bad when it first aired. People we’re all “this show is fucking bananas son!” and “Dude! He killed the drug dealer and then melted the body in his bathtub!” I have to admit, this last part intrigued me, but I still didn’t even bother to look to see if I got the AMC Channel or not until about a month ago. However, I did put the show on my Netflix queue. Then, because of a wait list issue for some other disc, the whole first season showed up in my mailbox at the same time.

OMFG! Have you seen this show? It is fucking bananas son! The dad from Malcom In The Middle kills a rival meth dealer and then his partner melts the body in the bathtub! I can honestly say it is one of the best things on TV, even if I didn’t start watching it until it had already been on for a year. The characters are insane and the writing is great. The basic underlying plot of the show is one of the most creative things I’ve seen on television since forever.

Perhaps best of all, the show’s music supervisors do a great job. I’ve heard them slip in tracks from Darondo, TVOTR, Holy Fuck and The Walkmen. Keeping with this stellar “track record” (zing!), a preview for the second season that I just found online uses a bang-up track by Denver band The Knew. This only goes to show that the music supes hear what I hear when they listen to The Knew: a dusty sounding rock band whose whiskey soaked songs sound like the The Strokes after they’ve been lost in the desert for a few days. Guitars growl and drums clang while singer Jason Hansen howls into the wind. Perfect for a show about a desperate man living in New Mexico and racing death to the bank.

Weird when you think about it: what should be the best stuff on the radio is actually part of the best stuff on TV. And I’m only just hearing about it now. I guess it just means that next time somebody starts talking about melting bodies in a bathtub I should listen – literally.

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MP3: 'Salvazar'

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MP3: 'Coldblack'