Jarred Gastreich

Partway through her set at the Firebird last night, Best Coast‘s Bethany Cosentino thanked the crowd for making “our first official St. Louis show” a sell-out.

Best Coast played at the Gargoyle on September 14, 2010, but no matter. Back then they were just a small fuzzed-out Los Angeles band with lots of people assuming “Best Coast” was Cosentino’s stage name.

With last night’s return visit at the Firebird, the packed crowd not only knew Cosentino’s name — it was often screamed in confessions of love from male admirers between songs — but the rest of the country’s becoming familiar with the band, thanks to its new album “The Only Place” getting exposure everywhere and anywhere.

Scheduled openers JEFF the Brotherhood cancelled all their Best Coast opening dates earlier that day after Jake Orrall broke his hand. Locals Sleepy Kitty and Bruiser Queen filled the opening slot.

Best Coast opened with the title track of its new album, a fast-paced romp with lo-fi hollows akin to the style of their 2010 debut. The style doesn’t change much when they move into “Last Year.” It’s full of heavy beats under a ’60s pop melody, grunge-inspired trudging guitars and the modern barrenness of Cosentino’s vocals, which dip into ghostly near-echos, even on upbeat songs.

Third song “Summer Mood” sounded a lot like the first two songs, which isn’t necessarily bad. Best Coast create a very specific mood in a specific place. Longing — for love, sun, home — permeates most of the tracks, and the band rarely veers from this formula. In “Goodbye,” again, a rumbling and deep rhythm section provides a dark foundation for a dulcet guitar riff and a bright lilt in the hollow of Cosentino’s voice.

“When the Sun Doesn’t Shine” continued the longing, which is more pervasive than the surf themes it’s easy to slap on the band upon early listens. As the show progressed, Cosentino’s vocals warmed and grew rawer, more emotive by “No One Like You” and a depressingly upbeat “When I Cry.”

The band peaked with “Let’s Go Home” when it broke out of sleepy surf mode with Bobb Bruno’s pumped-up wah-wah guitar and solid punk-pop drums, simple and hard, without sacrificing the ethereal vocals. The song grew into an extended riff — heavy opening to “Our Deal” that showcased Bruno’s considerable talent.

New songs, like “Do You Love Me Like You Used To” expand the band’s sound without moving too far from the surf roots, incorporating a catchy stop-and-go melody in contrast to the increasing vocal rawness. Thematically, it all remains the same, with the lovelorn longing continuing into “Up All Night.” These slower songs seem to lose the audience, but they were drawn back by a beautifully crooned ending cushioned by rich guitar.

The set clocked in at under an hour before a encore that started strong with “I Want You,” featuring more delicate and sparse guitar followed by hard beats and chiming guitar, ending in a rumble of feedback that morphed into a revved up, rocking finale to break the sleepy spell.

Bruno’s guitar work continued to shine through crowd favorite “Sun Was High (So Was I),” but Cosentino’s vocals were the star in the band’s cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Storms.” The song fits her both stylistically and thematically, perhaps giving a glimpse into the more evolved Best Coast sound of the future, if the band can move beyond their niche and into more emotionally rocky terrain.

The night ended with their two most-loved songs: “When I’m With You” connected to “Boyfriend” with an interlude of low guitar and a chiming hook. A perfect pop pair, the songs are hallmarks of youthful want. Even though they come off as a bit perfunctory, they’re still a warm hug for lonely girls, seaside and landlocked.

Best Coast Set List:

The Only Place
Last Year
Summer Mood
Goodbye
Crazy for You
When the Sun Don’t Shine
No One Like You
How They Want Me to Be
Why I Cry
This is Real
Dreaming My Life Away
Let’s Go Home
Our Deal
Do You Love Me Like You Used To?
Up All Night

Encore:
I Want You
Sun Was High (So Was I)
Storms (Fleetwood Mac cover)
When I’m With You
Boyfriend

facebook.com/ween

Doc Watson has died at the age of 89. KDHX music writer Glen Herbert shares his thoughts and some excellent, deep cuts from Doc’s amazing career.

Rolling Stone is streaming “Americana,” the new album by Neil Young and Crazy Horse.

David Lowery of Cracker gives a hell of a speech to the SF Music Tech Summit.

The Austin Chronicle catches up with legendary New Zealand surf-fuzz band the Clean.

The latest live sessions from the KDHX studios feature Best Coast, Monophonics, the Skekses and Deer Tick.

Bloc Party will be releasing their fourth album and first in four years. You guessed it: It’s called “Four.”

What is the IUMA? It’s the Internet Underground Music Archive — and it’s back online.

Gillian Welch has opened up her own archives.

John Lydon dishes on the new album by Public Image, Ltd.

The new video from Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros pretty much rules the dance floor (and street and playground and grass and…). Just watch it.

88.1 KDHX presents Twangfest 16 June 6-9 in St. Louis. Get the lowdown via some KDHX interviews with performing artists Pokey LaFarge, Langhorne Slim, Humming House and Wussy.

Bruce gives the bankers a piece of his mind in Berlin.

Addicted to Mad Men? This Spotify playlist is for you.

Paste would have you believe that these really are the best 60 albums of the ’60s.

Adios, Ween. It was weird while it lasted.

Comedian Gazan Hani Almadhoun gives his take on what’s hot and what’s not in Arab pop.

Sir Paul McCartney talks to Drowned in Sound about songwriting and the new reissue of “RAM.”

NPR is streaming new releases from Japandroids, Liars and Twangfest-performing artist Kelly Hogan.

Watch Laurie Anderson’s commencement address to the School of Visual Arts in New York.

What if 8-bit were the standard when Radiohead released “Kid A”? Warning: Not safe for headphones.

The Walkmen
“Heaven”
Fat Possum

The Walkmen have transcended steadily into their sound on “Heaven,” with propulsive drum beats and harmonized vocals not unlike those of the Everly Brothers.

“Heaven,” the band’s seventh studio album, is a cohesive collection punctuated by vocal consonance, rhythmically-coercive drums and guitar and bass that are as cordial as they are not overbearing. Walkmen fans and listeners that are familiar with the band’s previous work might notice a happier, lighter mood on “Heaven.”

The album starts out slow on “We Can’t Be Beat,” which showcases close vocal harmonies. Hamilton Leithauser croons “Golden dreams are losing glow/I don’t need perfection, I love the hope,” backed by acoustic guitar and subtle background vocals, allowing for a switch to electric guitar and gentle drum stomping mid-song. Leithauser’s voice keeps any attention from straying from what he’s singing, or more appropriately, reminiscing about, when he says “It’s been so long/but I made it through.”

The album’s title track is a prime four-minute showcase of drums and guitars as heard on other tracks, but the vocals are more robust in expression. Coupled with a more prominent backing of bass, guitar and directing drums, “Heaven” jars the listener out of a pleasantly lethargic part of the album and rouses one into the remainder, where more traditional elements of rock ‘n’ roll move forward.

With a chorus consisting of “Remember, remember what we fight for,” the title track is undoubtedly nostalgic, especially when Leithauser pleads and courts listeners, opening with “Our children will always hear romantic tales of distant years/Our gilded age may come and go/our crooked dreams will always glow.” For a band that’s been admired by fans for their endearing instability, the Walkmen haven’t dulled, though the band’s work on “Heaven” certainly stands on its own.

In “The Love You Love,” Leithauser half-sings and half-shouts “Where we are and where we should be” and “Baby it’s the love you love, not me” signaling a sound similar to albums past. “The Love You Love” signifies an ideal split between sides on a vinyl album. The tempo’s faster, Leithauser’s voice is less like Don or Phil Everly, and simply carries as Leithauser’s own sound — the kind heard on earlier songs, such as “Little House of Savages” — but that’s not to say that Leithauser’s vocals haven’t refined on “Heaven.”

The songs on “Heaven” share simplified lyrics and precise arrangements that sometimes echo ’50s rock ‘n’ roll. The lyrical content overlaps nostalgia and reminiscence, and while there’s no teeth-clenching guitar riffs and whines that may have been considered a staple of the band a decade ago, the album more than holds up based on its sound and its own terms.

“Heaven” will be released on June 5 on Fat Possum Records. 88.1 KDHX welcomes the Walkmen to St. Louis for a show at Plush on June 28.

Kate McDaniel

Langhorne Slim has friends with crooked tails, guitars for sale on eBay and a burning desire for music and traveling.

On a rainy Brooklyn afternoon, Langhorne Slim stepped into a nearby shop to receive a perfectly-timed phone call from here in St. Louis. I was the phone call; he was the affable musician. We spoke about his raw rock ‘n’ roll and folk sounds, his new album “The Way We Move” and the comfort he feels on the road. Langhorne will venture to St. Louis to play Twangfest 16 at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room on Friday, June 8.

Joe Roberts: How are you? How’s it going?

Langhorne Slim: I’m good, man. I just came into this little shop here to get out of the rain. Hopefully you can hear me all right. But, I’m doing really well.

You’re on the road right now, is that right?

We got a house show tonight in Brooklyn. And then we leave for Boston tomorrow, which is the official start of our tour.

It seems like you’re on the road a lot. Do you ever catch a break?

Yeah! In fact, I’m just coming off of one right now that is way too long, about a month and a half of a break. Yeah, we tour all the time because I think it’s the way to get music out there, and also it’s just, I feel a lot more at home on the road, and inspired and free when I’m traveling and playing. So it’s a huge part of the lifestyle that I really enjoy.

When you do get a break, what do you do during that time?

Write music. See friends. I had a girlfriend for five years, so I’d spend time with her. I don’t have her anymore, so I don’t spend time with her. But, I’ve been traveling and I’m working on new songs. Just getting ready for the album to finally come out, you know.

It’s a crazy process. You just spend a bunch of time writing new songs and you record them to a record and then you got to wait five to six months for the actual record to come out. So I’m just really, really excited for this thing to finally get out there and to get back out on the road.

How do you think all of the touring has changed you as a person and as a musician?

I don’t know! I’m 31, I’ve been doing it for ten years. So, it’s pretty much most of my entire adult life. It’s just a natural thing for me to do. It was never a conscious thought. I never sat down and thought, “This is what I’m gonna do.” It was just a burning desire to write and perform and to travel with it.

I guess I never even realized that all bands didn’t travel as much. It’s only occurred to me when other people say, “You guys particularly travel a lot.” I’m sure it’s changed me as a person, I just wouldn’t know how. I think I’m just a person that is suited for that kind of lifestyle.

So, it’s just kind of who you are. It hasn’t really changed you, it’s just what you do.

I don’t feel that way. I just feel like I was born for it. Like somehow it’s in my bones or my blood.

You seem like the kind of guy who has a bunch of instruments lying around the house, and recently I saw…

Well, I did! I don’t have a house anymore! [Laughs] So I have a lot of instruments lying around in storage and at my mom’s house.

Oh, nice! Well, I saw recently that you had a guitar for sale on eBay. What’s the story behind that?

Basically, I just acquired or bought that guitar in California about, shoot, three or four years ago. And, to be honest I was trying to figure out what kind of guitar guy I was. And I’ve since realized that I’m really a Martin guy. So, I’ve got three Martins now. And I’ve kind of retired that guitar.

And just in moving on with different things in my life, I decided it was time to get rid of some things. So, I gave away some things, sold some things, and thought it would be fun to put that up there to see what might happen with it.

Kind of like a spring cleaning of sorts.

Exactly! Sometimes it’s important to do that, you know?

Oh, yeah! Now, it sounds like you’ve had a lot of guitars. What is your favorite one? Do you have one that would be an extension of you and your music?

Yeah! It’s a small body 1957 Martin with mahogany wood. It’s probably the coolest guitar I’ve ever played. So, um, that’d be the one, man. I feel like I finally found “the one”!

How exactly do you get the different guitar sounds on all your tracks? For example, on “The Way We Move” you have a very percussive sound, is that a particular guitar, a strumming technique you use? Or is that just your style?

I suppose, man. I’m not a trained guitar player. I learned to play guitar from my cousin, who I grew up sort of idolizing. And he taught me a few Nirvana songs and then I kind of developed my style or started writing songs by becoming obsessed with those few Nirvana songs, playing them over and over again. And then I got into, like, all different styles of music. But, I think just through my different — just being comfortable with my self and then just blending all this other music maybe lends itself to having a hopefully unique or distinct style. Yeah, just what comes out.

I know some artists are protective of their lyrics, music or songs, and all of that. How do you feel about discussing your songs or lyrics, and their meanings? Or do you prefer to leave that up to the listener to come to their own conclusions?

Yeah, I’d much rather leave it to the listener to come to their own conclusion. I like to talk about it and hear the other stories that other people come up with. I find that pretty fascinating. But I mean it depends on what the questions were. But, yeah, sometimes I shy away from it, I guess — I’m not the first one to say it, for sure, but the beauty of these things, I think, is that people connect with it, if they do connect with it at all, people connect with a particular artist or song or painter or whatever through the eyes they’re looking at it with. So, it’d almost be restrictive, I think, to say, “This is exactly what this thing means. So what whatever you’re taking away from it, if it isn’t exactly this, you’re wrong.” I think the coolest thing is that it can mean a lot of different things, it doesn’t have to mean exactly what it meant to me when I wrote it.

How do you write the lyrics? Are they primarily your personal experiences, are you telling stories, or are you reflecting on life? Or is it all kinds of different things going on in your lyrics?

No, on this record ["The Way We Move"] 99.9 percent [of the lyrics] are a reflection of my personal experience. And it’s pretty personal! [Laughs]

What’s the process?

The process is, I don’t know, I hear a melody or songs in my head all the time. Some are worth navigating around and getting into and making songs, and others kind of float by and I’m not there to grab them. But, the process — I don’t wake up every day at nine and get the guitar out. I’ve never had that kind of a regimen. In fact, I think that’s why I do what I do, because I’m terrible at doing that sort of work and being that organized. But for me it’s just an inspiration, when I’m fortunate enough to have whatever that magical thing is, I don’t know how to put it into words, just to be present and to capture it and try to turn it into something.

So it’s pretty much you exclusively doing the writing and the music, and then you present it to the band? Or do they contribute in that process, too?

That’s right, but they contribute a great deal. Basically I will write the song on my own. At this point a lot of us are in New York, but in the last so many years we lived in different places. The last two years I lived in Portland, Oregon and I would write the songs, or the vast majority of the songs and then when you go out on tour I’ll bring a song to the guys and play it for them at sound check or before the show or something like that. And we just get into it and see where the song goes.

I sense a bit of a punk-rock vibe to your music. Was there, or is there, much punk rock in your life, or was that just how it turned out?

[Long pause] Wow! That’s great! That you say that and hear that. Yeah! That’s what I want. To be in a soul-punk-folk band. That kind of music is all the same. Early blues and folk music, early soul and R&B — all that raw and rootsy music is very punk rock. It’s very stripped down and real and dirty and raw. That’s my favorite stuff to listen to and that’s the music I’m most inspired by.

Yeah. I’m sure you were playing in a series of bands growing up and before you…

I was not!

You were not! Okay!

Strangely. I was not.

How did it come about? How did you know you were going to do music and how did it become your sole project?

It just feels like it came along with me as a little dude. I dreamt and fantasized about playing in bands growing up, but I never really found people in the small town I grew up in to do it with. I don’t know why, I was just always really drawn to music. I tried doing acting and plays when I was really young. Sure, I was pretty good at it, maybe, but I wasn’t great taking direction from a director. So I thought, after I learned to play a little guitar, if I could write my own songs and had my own shows, it would essentially be a play that I was writing.

But I was just doing like open mics and living rooms and coffee shops. Anywhere anyone would listen to me. That’s when I was still living in Pennsylvania, and then moved to New York when I was 18 and thankfully I got a lot of support from my family and my friends. I was living in the city in East Village and playing these little open mics and people were really cool and supportive …. I always felt that I’d either be a poor, unknown musician or a musician that was known and makes some money. But there was never really a backup plan. It was like, this is what I got and so this is what I’m gonna do.

Let’s hear about your involvement with the PBS show “Sun Studio Sessions.”

That was a while ago. I think it still airs. It’s a really cool thing. I’d love to do it again, I feel we could do it better than we did. I think we did that like, shit, three years ago. What they do is they have bands that go into Sun Studio and a record in a very basic, stripped down way. It’s just a very cool project.

You’ve toured with plenty of other artists and bands. Are there any crazy stories?

There are probably crazy stories, but anytime anyone asks that I forget. There’s so much monotony and there’s probably so much crazy shit that happens that it all just blends together. But we’ve been fortunate, man, from the beginning we’ve toured with amazing bands. Lucero was one of the first bands that took us out on the road, and they were incredible to us. We did a few shows with the Violent Femmes, which were one of my favorite bands growing up. And that was amazing. There’s a long list of heavy hitters that we’ve been able to go out with. Yeah, it’s cool. It’s important on the road to have that kind of camaraderie with the folks you’re touring with. It’s a beautiful thing when you’re all together musically and creatively, but also to have that brotherhood.

What song of yours do you feel sum up what you and your band are all about?

I would say this entire new record. That’s the best thing we’ve done so far. If I were to pick some songs, I would say to give the whole record a shot.

We spoke earlier about discussing the meanings of songs and such and I understand you’re in the process of moving and you’re often on the road touring. What is your take on the song “How We Move” and what was the inspiration?

That song’s more about the lifestyle you live, maybe the way you strut. Maybe, about being kind of a freak, but a beautiful freak. An outsider, but with other outsiders, so therefore, you are in a family. I guess, if you’re an outsider in a family of outsiders, you’re an insider. It’s just a song about, you know “all my friends got crooked tails, that’s the way I like it, that’s just what I need.” That’s what it means to me, just having a group of beautiful freaks. Making art and kicking ass.

Langhorne Slim and the Law perform at Twangfest 16 on Friday, June 8.

Nate Burrell

From roaming the country to touring the world, Pokey LaFarge never forgets his roots. They run deep.

His penchant for the early 20th century transcends fedoras and suspenders; it inspires original music and frames his sense of self. LaFarge doesn’t claim to be a revivalist, but instead a preservationist — his mission is to continue a tradition of distinctly American culture.

Along with his group, the South City Three, LaFarge has met recent success including a European tour, a working relationship with Jack White and an in-progress album collaboration with Ketch Secor of Old Crow Medicine Show. His current release, “Middle of Everywhere,” is an upbeat ride down a dusty road that showcases LaFarge and the South City Three in all of their old-time glory. The group joins the Twangfest lineup (presented by 88.1 KDHX) for the first time, appearing at the Schlafly Tap Room on June 6.

The following excerpt is from a phone interview that took place as LaFarge waited for a plane to New York City. He reflects on the importance of travel, personal identity and good beer.

Francisco Fisher: Travel has been a theme in your music. What was it like to travel around as a busker and a hitchhiker, and what is it like now?

Pokey LaFarge: Traveling around hitchhiking was certainly not a preferred means of travel. I had to do it because I was forced to, because I didn’t have any other way to get around at one time. But it started out growing up, not necessarily romanticizing the idea, but reading a lot of mid-20th century literature like the Beat writers, specifically Kerouac, and reading Steinbeck from an early time. It was really wanting to be ensconced in a different side of American culture that was never really popularized.

It’s a romantic side of the American culture, specifically train-hopping and the hitchhiking. The riverboat culture and the train culture — nobody else has that. That’s a pure Americana thing. I think that along with the music I was listening to at a very young age, I was like, man, I’ve got to get out there and get to the core of this country and, in the mean time, search what’s at the heart of me, to go out there and take a journey. And that’s what hitchhiking was.

That was early on. And then of course the beginning of my traveling solo about five years ago, I was driving around in a car and sleeping in my car. And then with the boys, that’s been about three and a half years in a van, and we were sleeping in the van for about the first year and a half. I’m proud to say that we’re making a good living now, and we don’t have to sleep in the van anymore.

But traveling has always been something that’s come along with the territory. If you want to go out to see the world, or if you want to spread your music out there around the world, you have to travel to do it. It’s something you learn to embrace, and it becomes what you know. It becomes an art form, traveling, in it’s own right. But a lot of my songs are about traveling, because you write about what you know.

The way I travel now, flying and driving, just allows me to make a living and get more rest, to attempt to be more healthy and to spend more time at home. I have family all over the world, but the core of my family has and always will be Illinois and the Midwest, the middle of the heart of it all.

The name of the new album is “Middle of Everywhere.” What does that title mean to you?

Going back to the Midwest thing, we’re right here in the middle of the country. But at the same time, we’re always traveling, so I’m always in between one place and another, always in the middle of some place, always in between somewhere.

Both geographically and culturally?

Certainly. We’re definitely spokesmen for our country, for our culture, for our region, for our town, for the region of our town, South City St. Louis. So there’s a lot of things that people don’t know about and there’s a lot of misconceptions that people have. There’s a lot of negativity purported from the rest of the world towards America. Sometimes it’s grounded, and I think other times, it’s complete hogwash. So, it comes back to the reason that culture is important. I always take to the people who are proud of where they come from because it shows distinction and it shows character. That way, we can learn to embrace our differences.

Has there been an experience recently where you’ve found yourself defending Americans?

We just got back from a two-month tour in Europe, and it’s incredible the misconceptions people have about America and Americans. It’s crazy. It’s one thing at a time, really. You can’t change everything at once. Let’s just get down to beer. People in Europe think that America has terrible beer. They literally think that all we have is Budweiser and Coors Light. And it’s like, no, man, St. Louis has 10 to 15 breweries and growing — just St. Louis… So there’s the beer thing. Because I think good beer reflects a good culture. So we love beer and take great offense to people saying we have bad beer. But they don’t know, because Budweiser has ruined it. McDonalds has ruined it. Major corporations have watered down the culture.

So would you say your music and style looks to the past, before many of the negative stereotypes that shape the way we’re seen around the world?

Nothing’s black and white, but there was a time when the American identity was so strong, it was distinguished as unmistakably American. I think people should embrace these things about our country. These days, with globalization, I think culture is world wide and every single culture is being watered down. The old accents are gone. That old St. Louis accent? Nobody in our generation speaks like that; it’s our parents and grandparents. All the accents are getting watered down.

I know that I tend to romanticize these things, but I do that with everything. I’m overdramatic. I’m a romantic. I’m an artist, for crying out loud, that’s what we do. Beyond that, it’s just trying to preserve things that are real. It’s just more interesting. I think most people would agree that it was a classier time. There was better quality in the photography, perhaps, the music, the food, the clothing. The quality was there. And these are things I was raised on a little bit, but you have to take to it, and I did.

My overall goal, with the music specifically, is not about living in the past. I don’t want to go back in the past. I’m here now and I like the way things are now for the most part. And it’s making the best of both worlds. You can’t go back. You have to embrace the now, and I’m living in the now. So what I’m saying is that this isn’t a new art form, but this is a current and long-lasting art form — American music. The things we invented, rock ‘n’ roll, country, country swing, western swing, jazz, blues, these things that were invented in America have been around 100 years, and the roots go back way longer than that. So it’s not like going back in the past. It’s just like classical music; that shit’s been played for hundreds of years. You don’t see somebody playing Vivaldi on the violin as retro.

Jazz is the new classical music. And jazz is not just the jazz we think about from Miles Davis — jazz died in the ’30s. All those guys who backed up George Jones and Merle Haggard, all those shit-hot players out of Nashville and Texas — they’re jazzers. They can’t play no solos without knowing jazz.

So, it’s important not to make things black and white and put walls up on genres. It’s important for me to continue the tradition. And it’s like, I dress a certain way, when I play music I talk funny or sing funny, or whatever people want to say. But people are taking to it, and it’s important for people to realize why they’re taking to it. They ask me the questions — “Why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?” — but I accept that. Because they are trying to get down to the bottom of why they actually like it themselves.

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three perform at Twangfest 16 at the Schlafly Tap Room on June 6.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=MveLErNJvJE

Best Coast
“The Only Place”
Mexican Summer

On Best Coast’s second album “The Only Place,” singer-songwriter Bethany Cosentino’s ultra-polished voice gives the power to L.A.-based power pop duo Best Coast, and, stripped of the fuzzy lo-fi quality of their last album, sometimes sounds a little too perfect for a band with a retro California/slacker reputation.

As on 2010′s debut full-length album “Crazy For You,” uncomplicated lyrics about the sun, doing what you want and relationships are delivered with multi-instrumentalist Bobb Bruno’s surf guitars to create a “fuck it, guys, let’s just hang out” attitude. Best Coast are unabashed lovers of the laid-back lifestyle that West Coast living is advertised to provide, although on this year’s “The Only Place,” there is evidence of a little more time, a little more care, and slicker production value from producer Jon Brion as well as an upgraded recording venue, Capitol Records’ Studio B.

Half of “The Only Place” is filled with ’60s-inspired melodies, while the other half is a combination of this and ’90s disaffected girl group rock. The title track is a mid-summer festival party tune and fan letter to the band’s home state, all rapid-fire simple rhymes and beachy layered guitars. It begins the album on a supremely easygoing note, segueing into “Why I Cry” and “My Life,” similarly upbeat expressions of detached girly angst.

The retro fandom begins later, as “How They Want Me To Be” is exemplary of Best Coast’s fondness for doo-wop harmonies, and the chord progressions of “Better Girl” are nostalgic for the first country-and-western crossovers of the ’70s. Cosentino and Bruno seem to approach the sounds they reference with a casual enjoyment rather than a dedicated scholarship, preferring to stick to short syllables and easy warmth that can be coupled with almost any structure.

While “The Only Place” is more technically precise than “Crazy For You,” unfortunately, it doesn’t have the magic of the debut album’s standouts, namely the wistful “Boyfriend” and the rough-but-dreamy “When I’m With You.” At best, “Crazy For You” and fewer parts of “The Only Place” affect a sweet frivolousness; at worst, this style on the new album has been re-branded as puerile laziness, using recycled fills and songwriting that’s gone beyond train of thought into stoners trying to rhyme something with “orange.” These cases include tracks “No One Like You” and “Dreaming My Life Away,” both dully repetitive, as well as the derivative quality of some songs to repeat earlier tracks on the album, albeit at mildly different tempos and with a few subbed lyrics.

The smoothed edges and Cosentino’s edge-of-chanteuse voice sound nice, but “The Only Place” doesn’t come close to getting an A for effort. Best Coast is going to have to try a lot harder than this if they actually want to grow up someday. I realize that this may be the antithesis of their whole deal, but if they’re willing to go this far with their California worship, they would do well to remember that the patron saints of California rock ‘n’ roll got serious about songwriting eventually, and it was this buckling down that still lets them get away with “Kokomo.”

facebook.com/wussymusic / Jay Brown

Cincinnati-based band Wussy will be playing Twangfest 16 at the Blueberry Hill Duck Room on Thursday, June 7. Formed in the early 2000s by Chuck Cleaver (formerly of Ass Ponys) and Lisa Walker, the band plays witty and catchy indie rock, most recently demonstrated on the albums “Strawberry” and “Funeral Dress II.”

Cleaver and Walker gave KDHX a few minutes of their time to talk about what they’re listening to, how Lana del Ray makes them cry and the thick soup that is midwestern summer.

Joe Duepner: How are you guys doing?

Chuck Cleaver: We’re doing well. Well I can only speak for myself.

Lisa Walker: I’m doing fine [laughs].

What are you guys doing right now?

LW: This time of the week we cut out to do band stuff like answer emails or phone calls and things like that.

CC: Yesterday we ordered T-shirts.

LW: Today we order stickers.

CC: But if you didn’t mean what are we doing immediately and meant what is the band doing, we’re gearing up to go on a tour. We play your place first. Your town, not your house. Then we’re going to head west and go down the California coast across the desert.

Do you find touring in the summer is easier than touring in the winter?

CC: Generally, yeah, just because of the weather. Heat is a pain in the ass though.

Do you think more people come out to shows in the summer?

CC: It really depends. Any town that is a college town no, but it really depends where. Places like Chicago where they are really used to shitty weather people will come out anytime. Places that aren’t used to bad weather though, you don’t get anybody at the gig. Some people won’t come out just because of rain.

LW: Like here [in Cincinnati].

CC: I’ve had people say “I can’t come out because it’s supposed to thunderstorm.” I say, “Really?”

Cincinnati’s not much different from St. Louis in that aspect. I think a lot of bands are a product of their environment, say Joy Division and Manchester or Galactic and New Orleans. I’ve never been to Cincinnati, but do you guys think you embody the feeling of Cincy?

CC: That’s a good question. I think as songwriters we embody more where we’re from.

LW: Do you think we’re products of our environment, Chuck?

CC: We are products of our environment.

LW: I would say so. Cincinnati and St. Louis are very similar. Humid river towns that are pretty, but where there’s a lot of weird underlying tensions you can’t put your finger on. I like St. Louis a lot, I think the cities remind me of each other.

CC: The miserable summer of soupy humidity.

LW: My dad would always take me to the zoo during July for some reason. It would be like walking through soup. Walking through a cat house in soup, it’s not good.

CC: The ape house is worse than the cat house.

LW: Really?

CC: Yes. They throw shit at you.

LW: [laughing] Anyway, both towns have great zoos. And they’re both good beer towns partially founded by Germans. It’s a beer and pork town. There’s a lot of bellies here.

CC: But to answer the question. She and I are both from rural areas and grew up kind of by ourselves. So yeah our writing is very much affected by where we’re from. [Something inaudible.]

I’m sorry?

LW: Oh he was just making fun of himself.

Self-deprecation is a very midwestern thing.

LW: It is.

CC: Very much so, my dad used to call me “old bumble” as a term of endearment. I think “motherfucker” snuck its way in there too.

CC and LW: Thanks dad!

Are you working on any new songs?

CC: A few.

LW: It’s all Chuck’s stuff, so it’s not very good. I’m just kidding. It is all Chuck’s stuff though. I will probably write more on the road. I’m just in the gathering phase right now and listening to a bunch of stuff. We tend to write in waves, each of us separately.

CC: It’s really nice to have two writers because…

LW: You can take a break.

CC: Yeah and you can only do that with someone you trust. You trust them not to write anything too stupid. Every once in a while I’ll give birth to a turd and she has tell me it’s not very good.

LW: Or I’ll fix it.

So what are you listening to right now?

LW: Well I’m in a Rolling Stones phase. I go through those several times a year. I listen to a lot of classic rock. I like some of the quiet new stuff like Bon Iver.

CC: Gah.

LW: Hey, you liked them when you saw them live.

CC: Aww, horseshit.

LW: I like Beach House. It’s not the music I want to make but…

CC: Journey are better than that crap.

LW: I really like this band called Pentagram right now.

CC: Oh, Pentagram are awesome.

LW: They kind of sound like Sleep but they were around way before them.

CC: They’ve been making records forever, like since the ’70s.

LW: They were very ahead of their time in a metal way.

CC: I just got a working turntable for the first time in a while so I’ve been listening to mostly ’70s and ’80s stuff. I drug out a bunch of 78s and I’ve been listening to those. So we’re all over the place. I don’t listen to a lot of the new stuff for no reason other than I’m ill-informed I guess.

LW: The computer will tell me what I’ve been listening to.

CC: The computer will tell you what to listen to.

LW: Rolling Stones, Beatles, Sonic Youth and the Kinks.

CC: And after that it’s all a bunch of bleep and blip shit.

LW: I know.

CC: That’s terrible. I’m very opinionated. Most of the new stuff I can’t stand. We’re in that phase right now of semi-popular music where we’re in an Air Supply phase of…

LW: We’re going to sit on the couch in our perms and play “All Out of Love” over infomercials late at night.

CC: A lot of it is like the musical equivalent of a wet dish rag. So dull. A lot of the stuff they play on Saturday Night Live is miserable. The YouTube sensations that make me wonder if people even like that kind of crap.

LW: That one girl…

CC: Lana del Ray.

LW: Yeah, that was hilarious.

CC: It was so terrible. It was like a bad high-school talent show. It was like your older sister when she was a sophomore in a gown and wailing about something. I almost started crying. I don’t care if I don’t get played on that show, it’s shit.

I can’t argue with you there.

LW: You know what I’ve been doing musically lately: Chuck will come over and we’ll put this on in the background sometimes. Netflix has this classic rock music documentary series by VH1. We like to watch those and geek out.

CC: There’s a Ronnie Lane one that’s really good.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. we look forward to seeing you at Twangfest.

Chuck and LW: Thanks and we hope to see all of you there.

Wussy performs Thursday, June 7 at Twangfest 16.

Horse Feathers at the Firebird. Photo by Abby Gillardi.

Portland, Ore.’s Horse Feathers, helmed by frontman and singer/guitarist Justin Ringle, is not to be missed. Once a collaboration with Peter Broderick, Horse Feathers has grown into an artful orchestra complemented by fine singing and poetic lyrics.

Matt Bauer opened the show at the Firebird and gave an excellent performance. He stood alone playing his mostly banjo-led tunes that consisted of heartbreak and dark observations that recall Robert Frost. The songs that really struck me, “Rose and Vine” and “Don’t Let Me Out,” were all from Bauer’s 2008 release, “The Island Moved in the Storm.”

After Bauer finished and Horse Feathers was setting up, I walked over to the merch table to shake Bauer’s hand and inform him that I had learned about his music and Horse Feathers’ at approximately the same time in 2008. I found it both extraordinary and fascinating the two were double billed, on this night, four years later.

A rotating cast of musicians appeared on stage and Ringle stood starkly before the microphone with his scuffed-up Gibson acoustic. Besides the band leader, the only other semi-permanent member of Horse Feathers is first violinist Nathan Crockett, who appeared with Horse Feathers last year at Off Broadway. This time the performers included Dustin Dybvig providing a heavier and more exciting form of drumming, Lauren Vidal on cello and Angie Kuzma on the second violin.

The first song, “Last Waltz” from the 2012′s “Cynic’s New Year,” opened with long violin draws from Crockett and Kuzma. Ringle’s voice broke above the orchestral bed with a near falsetto clarity. Weaving through the venue, the sound caused the jaws of beer-sipping fans to drop in awe.

In “Belly of June,” from 2010′s “Thistled Spring,” drummer Dybvig rocked the tune to new heights with liberal use of the bass pedal and mallets on the snare drum. This raw sound, beautiful with the ornate cello, Ringle’s voice and the two violins, was a nice juxtaposition.

“Better Company” rose from a cacophony of strings and concerned itself with images of two lovers at Puget Sound. The song built toward a heady chorus and ebbed back to nothing like vapor trails following a jet.

Dybvig took to the piano for “Where I’ll Be,” also from “Cynic’s New Year,” as Ringle closed his eyes and leaned into the melody of the fan favorite. The violinists pulled their bows across their strings to create a lonely country-vibe. “Bird On a Leash” was warm and catchy with more studied drum accents, while oldie “Finch on Saturday,” from 2006′s “Words Are Dead,” featured, from Ringle, fatalistic lyrics like poet James Wright’s: “Remember we are born to die, she was born to cry, cry, cry, herself to sleep.”

“Thistled Spring” cashed in on its fan-forged success with perfectly-timed keyboard and violin polish that melded into Ringle’s voice and verse, “A blossom that’s bloomed, in a house that’s a tomb, trapped in the rhododendron fumes, bit by the spring.” “So Long,” about Ringle’s hard-working blue-collar family, spun into a poppy, full-band sing-along, perhaps the most satisfying, if a touch too accessible moment of the evening.

“Cascades” featured more welcome heavy bass from Dybvig’s drums, which, with deft precision, he layered under the pre-chorus and chorus. “The Drought,” though enjoyable, suffered a tad with its tempo sped up, as compared with the album version. For “Fit Against the Country,” Ringle invited Bauer (and his banjo) to join Horse Feathers on stage, and they all rocked the song to the rafters. With its working poor theme, wandering banjo and Neil Young-style rhythm, “Fit Against the Country” reminded me why its among the band’s best songs.

Horse Feathers left the stage and returned with “Curs in the Weeds,” from 2008′s “House With No Home,” for a one-song encore. Flight-of-the-Bumblebee violins phased into Ringle’s contemplative verse and honeyed timbre. All too soon, accompanied by a pained moan from the audience, Horse Feathers humbly quit the stage to greet their fans and wind down for the evening.