Directed by Hannah Welever. Single out now on Joyful Noise.
For people who only know “Love Shack” or “Roam” it might be hard to imagine that the B-52s were ever anything other than a gimmick in a beehive. But they were always cooler than that, and Ohmme knows it.
John Lennon knew it too. He was inspired to start making music again after he heard “Rock Lobster.” “It sounds just like Ono’s music,” he told Rolling Stone, “so I said to meself, ‘It’s time to get out the old axe and wake the wife up!'” And they made Double Fantasy, which doesn’t sound anything like the B-52s, but hey. Inspiration is a mysterious thing.
Chain smoking cigarettes on the airplane
You were waiting right there at my gate
We had to pull of the highway
Just to find a payphone
When that line was busy though
You know we just had to wait
If you remember any of these things, well then you’re old like me and Todd Snider. “It’s a list of things that are gone, disguised as a story song,” says Snider.
The video was filmed at Cash Cabin Studio where Snider recorded his new album. That’s Johnny Cash’s cabin, by the way, which has been converted into a state of the art recording studio operated by John Carter Cash.
It’s been almost 25 years since Todd Snider stumbled into public consciousness with “Talkin’ Seattle Grunge Rock Blues,” a hidden track on his debut album Songs for the Daily Planet. I can’t remember how I heard that song but I downloaded it from Napster back in the day and I’ve still got the 128kbps file on my computer. That’s how we did things back in my day, sonny boy.
But I’ve still never figured out how to use call waiting. And at this point, I don’t think I’ll ever need to.
Directed by Jed Davis. From Weird out now on American Laundromat.
Right now in Michigan it’s unseasonably cold so it’s comforting to hearing Juliana Hatfield singing about a heat wave.
She told Consequence of Sound, “I have a small, weak air-conditioner in my bedroom that I use on the soupiest, most miserable nights, when my New England stoicism falters and I just can’t take it any more. The ‘minimum, medium, maximum cool’ hook in the choruses is referring to the controls on the little window unit and also on the standing fan in the kitchen and the window fan in the living room.”
Directed by Shawn Brackbill. From American Football, due March 22 on Polyvinyl.
I just recently moved to Michigan from Oregon, where I lived for almost ten years. It’s still my favorite place in the world. It’s a place of incredible natural beauty and Oregonians love to get out in it. Subsequently, people are always getting lost in this beauty. Literally. I can’t tell you how many people get lost in the woods just surrounding the metro-Portland area. It’s a lot.
I don’t know where the video for American Football’s “Silhouettes” was shot, but maybe it was Oregon. It starts with what appears to be our hero asleep in the woods. Time-lapse photography tells me he’s been there a while and when he wakes up, he seems to wander a bit before finding his girl, who maybe is also lost in the woods. I’m glad they found each other, but it makes me wonder how they ended up there in the first place.
In some other shots they don’t seem to be the outdoors-type. They primarily spend their days hanging out in their apartment and then riding elevators and looking pensively from balconies or couches in business parks. Maybe the boredom of their temp jobs drives them to the woods? I can understand that.
At least they have some pleasant soundtrack music to their lives. A bit like Death Cab for Cutie, which also reminds me of the Pacific Northwest. So…win?
Directed by Gilbert Trejo. Single out now on Rough Trade.
A new non-album single produced by Ryan Adams sounds a lot more polished than their earlier stuff. Is that a good thing? Or is their producer’s outspoken love of Creed rubbing off on them? A little of both perhaps.
Arrow de Wilde says, “This song to me shows a loss of innocence and the dramatic yet sometimes bitter ‘Hollywood ending’ to a first love. Everyone has to go through different Hollywood endings in their own lives, whether they’re good or bad. Sometimes it’s The Wizard Of Oz and you wake up from a crazy nightmare dream and you’re fine, or sometimes it’s Carnival of Souls where you’ve been dead all along.”
That’s some heavy wisdom from a 19 year old.
Director Gilbert Trejo says of the video: “Arrow and I almost started sowing the seeds for this video when we first met…one of the first things we bonded over was our shared love for old Hollywood… not ‘old Hollywood’ like Golden age 1940’s Cary Grant and movie stars Hollywood, but old Hollywood like, our parents’ generations and Weetzie Bat’s version… washed out hotels, and restaurants like TOI on sunset. We bonded over freeways and 1920’s apartments covered in Christmas lights. The Hollywood we both got dragged around felt magical at a young age. Freaks like my aunt Vicky, and Arrow’s uncle Jimmy (who stars as the spirit of Hollywood in the video)… John Doe and Exene’s Hollywood meets Tommy Lee and Bobby Brown’s. When we got the go ahead to make the Hollywood Ending video, we knew exactly what type of imagery we wanted to convey. We got to bring our own favorite disappearing neighborhood back to life.”
The real star of the video, though, is guitarist Henri Cash’s Nudie suits.
Directed by Savanah Leaf. From This Land, due March 1 on Warner Bros.
They say turbulent times create great art, and Gary Clark Jr. has had enough of this shit. Filmed in Clark’s hometown of Austin, Texas, the video is just as striking and powerful as the chorus to this song that takes steady aim at Trump’s America. This one pulls no punches, either. There aren’t any subtle digs at the Scammer in Chief. No, this is a frontal assault on Trump and the ugliness his presidency has surfaced.
Directed by Jess Calleiro. From Stuffed & Ready, out February 1 on Secretly Canadian.
More witchy music, this time from Secretly Canadian. This is my JAM. Some melodic noise rock in the vein of Jesus and Mary Chain and Lush, Cherry Glazerr brings the guitars and the fuzz. Fronted by Clementine Creevy, this L.A. band has cut its teeth on the festival circuit and attracted lots of attention from the indie rags.
Potentially NSFW, depending on where you work, there are some shots of boobies and bloody skulls.
I’m hoping the rest of the album is cut from the same sacramental cloth.
The air is thick and the static’s crackling. Coded messages and tapped lines, there is danger in the jungle. The choir voice of The Peoples weaves in between the trees, through the hanging vines and into the radio waves. They like baseball and they have lots of friends, but they wish you could be there. You’ll be thankful you weren’t.
How do you save your Soul Stripper?
There was a positive message, so how has it gone all so wrong? Are they sleeping? No. They won’t wake up. Unfolding enveloping missiles of soul recall senses sadly. Sound the alarms but it’s too late. They won’t wake up.
Episode 4 of The Midnight Caller has come through. Turn the knobs just right and you can get the whole broadcast.
Directed by Madeline Kenney. From Placeholder, out March 1 on Saddle Creek.
When I was a teenager my parents had a sailboat we kept on Lake Macatawa in Holland, Michigan. It wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds and the experience is more accurately reflected in this video from Meg Duffy, guitarist in Kevin Morby’s band. Her project is called Hand Habits and the video could be me around 17. A kid wandering the marina with a great haircut but bored senseless playing with (but not kissing–gross!) fish heads and making shadow puppets. Maybe staring at a bit of trash floating in the harbor. It wasn’t a bad way to spend your teens.
A new album called placeholder is out March 1 via Saddle Creek. In a press release, Duffy writes, “The songs on placeholder are about accountability and forgiveness. These are real stories. I don’t fictionalize much.”
