Oh no! It sounds like Deanna Belos is considering ditching her hometown.
Baby, in this city I’ve been feeling so alone.
Lately I’ve been thinking ’bout leaving Chicago.
Do what you like, of course, but…don’t do it! Don’t move to Los Angeles!
Like most Sincere Engineer songs, “California King” has sad lyrics and fun music that makes you want to jump up and down and shake your corndog. I’m still bummed I didn’t get the opportunity to do just that at Riot Fest last year because my home was infected with covid. Hoping I get the chance to see them live soon because they’re the best.
It’s funny that Deanna Belos doesn’t try to keep a straight face while singing about how she “wouldn’t even help if you were stuck in some guy’s basement and he was getting ready to chop you up.” And why should she? It’s hilarious.
Belos says, “I took some lyrical risks with this one but I’m super stoked on it and think it’s really catchy. To me, it’s like the ‘Corn Dog Sonnet No. 7‘ of this record!” Which suggests this isn’t just a standalone single, but the first preview of an upcoming album. Can’t wait!
This is the sixth single released ahead of Bless My Psyche‘s September 10 release. That’s out of eleven songs on the album! Can we expect a video for every song? I hope so!
“Coming In Last” uses shitty Chicago traffic as a metaphor for feeling like you’re not getting anywhere in life.
Will I ever get there?
How the hell did I make it this far?
I never know where I’m going
but I got a million miles on my car.
Sincere Engineer is going out on tour with a bunch of bands I don’t care about, but hopefully they’ll do a headlining club tour soon and hit up some tertiary markets. I’d love to see them at the Pyramid Scheme.
I tend to hate animated videos. Just seems like the musicians couldn’t be bothered to show up and participate. I know that’s not always the case. Sincere Engineer’s Deanna Belos made this one herself.
“This was one of the music video ideas that I thought of during the year of the pandemic that I could execute by myself. I played The Sims a bunch as a kid. I had to stop when I got older and felt a weird sadness about it–spending my real life playing a game that is a computer simulation of my life. It’s still fun, though. I let myself play it guilt-free to make this video, because I could call it work, ha ha!”
It features a Sims-y Deanna Belos hanging out in her Sims-y apartment being sad, meeting up with her Sims-y band, and then going out and dancing the Macarena at a Sims-y club. What more could you want in a music video? Not much.
To this taxi driver I’m more honest
Than I ever was to my therapist.
I told him I’m in love with you,
One year, three months before you knew.
Belos says the song is “about struggling to make life in those few hours after work—motivation fleeting like the sunlight. It’s sort of a reminder to myself to push through the exhaustion and get up and go out. I’m only cheating myself out of precious life time if I don’t.”
Which, of course, is probably something we can all relate to.
Sincere Engineer and Hopeless Records have released another single along with the album announcement for Bless My Psyche, which will be coming out in September. They’ve also scheduled a release party at the Cobra Lounge in Chicago and it sold out immediately. Good for them, but who dares to plan anything that far out anymore?
The new video assembles a bunch of tour footage from back when bands could tour, including some silly offstage hijinks. I recognize two shows I attended but am thankful to see that my drunkenly bobbing head is decidedly off-camera.
In November the band is hitting the road with Hot Mulligan, which is a bummer because they’re third-billing and will be playing bigger venues. I mean, not that much bigger (St. Andrew’s in Detroit, Bottom Lounge in Chicago, etc.), but I was hoping they’d come to the Pyramid Scheme in Grand Rapids. I’m not willing to drive three hours to see a half-hour set. Maybe they’ll do a headlining tour in 2022 and play some tertiary markets. Fingers crossed!
Directed by Brandon Hoeg. Single out now on Hopeless Records.
Another new song but still no album announcement. Come on! What’s the hold up?
Deanna Belos told Under the Radar she “wrote this song when Chicago was in the middle of a ~polar vortex~. It was particularly influenced by the time I got up at 4 AM, went to grab a drive-thru coffee, only to realize my window wouldn’t roll back up because the mechanism was frozen. It was -60 degrees and I drove 45 miles to work with a blanket closed in my car door.”
The video, Belos says, displays “the struggle between cold isolation and FOMO, while being constantly bombarded by screens and relentless media.”
Sitting out on the back porch.
We talked for hours, you don’t smoke no more.
And then I never felt closer to anyone before.
Now I know, I know, I know that was many years ago.
We were so young then; now we’re old.
It’s a typical old man thing to do to scoff at young people who claim to feel old. It’s easy to dismiss it as melodrama. But I remember that feeling clearly back when I was what I now consider young. It was as real then as it is now.
Directed by Nolan J. Downs. Single out now on Hopeless.
How great is this band?
It’s winter again and there’s cracks in my skin.
Nothing stops the bleeding.
I recommend Kiehl’s ultimate strength hand salve. It works great. At least for the literal cracks in your skin. There’s probably not a product you can purchase at the Nordstrom building on Michigan Avenue that will help with the metaphorical cracks in your skin.
I can’t wait until all this pandemic bullshit is over so I can go see Sincere Engineer play live again. In the meantime, I’ll be listening to this song on repeat.
Directed by Deanna Belos. Single out now on Hopeless.
Watch Deanna Belos recklessly ride her bike no-handed around suburban streets while mowing down some Hot-N-Ready from Little Caesars. Safety third, kids!
This is the band’s first single for Hopeless Records. Presumably an album will follow but no announcements have been made to date. Sincere Engineer’s previous album, 2017’s Rhombithian, was great and seeing them open up for the Hold Steady in Chicago was a highlight of 2019 for me.
Super excited to hear more! But listening to the lyrics makes me wonder, how can someone so young sing words so sad?
I wanna go outside. I wanna ride my bike, but I feel dead on the inside.
I put too much trust in future me. She can’t be trusted.
I get it. But I’m a jaded old grump, beaten down by life and a mean, uncaring world. It feels weird to identify with a young girl with such mad no-handed-bike-riding skillz.
Deanna take a bow. Boot the grime of this world in the crotch, dear.
Big music festivals might not be the ideal way to experience music you’ve never heard before, but from a quantity perspective it’s hard to beat. I figure I saw 30 bands at Riot Fest this year, and of those, I had previously never listened to 13 of them. And that’s what makes a fest so compelling for music fans: there’s the potential to stumble across your new favorite band on the way to the taco truck.
Of course, the odds of that happening depend a great deal on the fest(s) you attend. Glorious Noise covered Lollapalooza from the time it settled in Chicago in 2005 all the way through 2016, when it expanded to four days and gave up any semblance of quality control. We’ve been going to Riot Fest since then. What makes this fest unique is in a world where everybody listens to everything on shuffle and even the fluffiest of mainstream pop is given critical acclaim, Riot Fest has stuck with its original idea of showcasing punk rock bands.
Their definition of punk has expanded its umbrella beyond old school hardcore to make room for some hip-hop, reggae, and jangly indie pop as well as founding fathers of rock and roll like Jerry Lee Lewis and, yes, even the Village People. But the focus has always been consistent and if you still prefer guitar bands, there’s really no other fest that compares. I don’t think we’re going to have to worry about Riot Fest booking Ariana Grande anytime soon. Better find a focus or you’re out of the picture…
From Red Scare Industries: 15 Years of Tears and Beers.
I saw these guys open up for the Hold Steady in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. I only knew a few of their songs beforehand but I was excited to see them live. They put on such a great set that I bought their record afterwards and even asked frontwoman Deanna Belos to sign it!
And now they’ve got a new song out ahead of them playing Riot Fest this weekend. I can’t wait to see them again.
Deanna Belos told Riot Fest, “This song is half about not letting the successes of others demotivate you, and half about recognizing that sometimes you need to help your friends and sometimes they need to help you.” When asked about the music video, Belos said she “wanted to beat the haters to calling us a garbage band.”
Sincere Engineer is playing Riot Fest on Sunday at 3:40 PM on the Rebel Stage.
