Said the Gramophone

NEUTRAL MILK SAY YEAH

Sean — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:58:07 -0500

Both these songs have unnecessary intros. The Crown Vandals - "Guenevere".You want to go back to the 14th century, to wait in a grove by the walled city. You want to hide your drum-kit beneath under a leafy oak, conceal your guitars in a mulberry bush; cheap amps, cheap mics, cheap booze nestling among beech-roots. You want to wait there, for courtiers and commoners who steal away from the walled city - weirdos & thieves & lovers & lonelyhearts. They come loping to the grove, in tunics and bucklers, coins in coin-pouches; they turn their problems and thrills around in their heads. They hum sorrow as a lute-strum, sing lust as a minuet. They have no idea. They have never heard an amp blow out, a cymbal crack, an electric guitar-string snap. They have never heard a sound this loud. You wait in the shadow green, to teach them. [The Crown Vandals are from Montreal // they play New York and DC next month // MySpace] Taken by Trees - "Anna". Some things just simply mostly work, like traffic. They are based on physical laws, like batteries. They ignore whims, like clouds. They are reliable, like good clocks. // But these "things" I talk about are not all boring. // Some of the "things", the ones that work and are reliable, that ignore whims and are based on physical laws // are friendship, rhythm, and sunset. // And some of the things you think are like traffic, batteries, clouds and clocks; // they're not. [MySpace / buy] --- Witchies, Mixylodian and Silly Kissers, three of Montreal's best bands, all of whom we've written lustily about in the past, are playing together (yes, together) this Friday. Le Milieu, 6545 Durocher #200, $7/$10. MP3s, courtesy of Mr Mixy: Mixylodian - "Bad Girls (Mase Cover)" /// Witchies - "Hater" /// Silly Kissers - "Easy Fantasy". End-of-Year Plea! As usual, I will be preparing a list of the best songs of 2009. And as always, I ask for your help. Heard a wonderful song, this year? One that we haven't written about? Please email it to me. Major-label or local obscurity; indie rock, folk, hardcore, especially r&b, pop and chart hip-hop - you name it, I'll listen. But do remember: I care about the song, not the artist, not the album. Please don't send me more than one track by any given act. (photo by Simon Roberts / source)

Lady of Legend, Leisure

Dan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:25:58 -0500

Frozen Bears - "Tape Eater" In every society, even one as small and fluid as a city bus, there is an alpha creature. A being who, given a drastic change in circumstances, would rule. If this bus were to take off into space or suddenly bury miles underground, and we all had to live the rest of our lives together, one person would be, at least at first, in control. Sometimes it's not obvious, if the bus is filled with people who normally look furtive for a leader to follow, but sometimes it's deadly obvious. He stood at the back of the bus, in a slick canvas duster, hair down to his heart, with hands like heavy talons. Standing his bike made of body parts on its heel, he was dripping wet from a rain that no one else seemed to have experienced. As if his entire being were wearing sunglasses, he had turned himself into a reflective spirit. To look at him was to see yourself, weak and shaking and submissive by comparison. So struck by his aura, his stark, commanding presence, I turned to the woman next to me, pointed and said, "He'd be in charge for sure." She took out the white earphone on my side, <<'scuse-moi?>> [Buy] -- Parethetical Girls - "Doughnut In My Hand" (go to "news", scroll down to stream "Doughnut In My Hand") "In order to cull a sense of satisfaction from having lived, then there must at some point be a list of requirements needed in order to garner that satisfaction. In this sense life becomes a sort of 'preparing to die'. But the very idea that one could prepare mentally for the totally physical act of dying is absurd (you can't mentally put on a seatbelt or make your consciousness duck-and-cover). And subsequently, any kind of physical preparation, besides loading the gun or tying the noose, will not make death any easier or more appropriate. So the satisfaction brought about by a doughnut is perfectly serene, cynical, hilarious. I raise my glass and let it fall to all the wondrous poets who explain life through example where I cannot." [Previously on StG][Parenthetical Girls guest post][Buy this new EP][Buy the extremely underrated Entanglements] --

LOSING THINGS

Sean — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:49:30 -0500

Flaming Lips - "Watching the Planets". Sometimes you reach for that crystal bottle because you want it to shatter. You want to grab it with your pink pretty hand and pour a dollop of wine and then when you take a sip - for all the monster in you to sour and redden, for your tendons to burst your gown and your eyes to glow like furnaces. You've taken a little drinky-drink, late at night, alone; and you know what that means, you know what that's supposed to mean. Stand up raging; shatter glass, bottle, cabinet and lamp; wreck everything; wreck yourself. That sip of ruby port and now you will find him, blow the sleep from his eyes. You'll roar in his face and tell him everything you've hidden. [Pitchfork did its thing today, and well; this is mine. / buy the startling and wonderful Embryonic] Red House Painters - "Cruiser". My confession: I don't follow Mark Kozelek's story, here. I never do. I am not a story-song man. I can't trace lyrics, sung. I get lost in lilt and longing. I sink too deep into feel. And so no, I don't follow Mark Kozelek's story, here. Something about driving with a girl from Tokyo, listening to songs. I want Mark to know I feel sorry about this. I feel guilty. I have done him a dis-service, I think. But what I also want Mark to know is that even the people like me, way out here in Canada, listening to his songs without hearing the stories - we're listening real hard. We're listening and breathing, slow. We've put on records by Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon on so many late nights, slipped into chairs, streetlights hazy through the window. We've taken these songs with us on journeys. We've treasured them. I would not give away this song, give it up, for $20. Not for $50. Would I accept $200 to never hear this song again? I do not think I would. This song whose story I never follow. It's a song I do not understand but that murmurs to me, no matter what, you do. [buy] (photo source - thanks andrew, see you in december)

Novice

Dan — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:25:10 -0500

Wale - "90210" A backwards A's cap, on a kitten, who's licking a baby mouse, who's sitting on a handwritten letter, written on ESL stationery, soaked in butter, on a plate of dainty grandmother china, all on top of a burger, which is on the hood of a cooper mini, which is being carried by a cruise ship, across a mirror-still ocean, leaving a pink wake of perfume and 100-calorie Caramilk Thins, all in a snowglobe, which sits dusty on a dresser, next to a framed production still from Scarface, a Taz-playing-darts statue, a copy of Tribute magazine, a few coins, a toast plate, a fingerless glove, an A's cap, some toe rings. [Pre-Order] Von LMO - "Be Yourself" Dennis rolls up in a stolen broken blue camaro, gets out with a pair of shades and a denim jacket. Dennis kicks the dust off the ground and walks up to the door of an open garage. An old relic is inside on cinder blocks, the sun is hard like hot metal, and Dennis looks around. The air is yellow and dry, the thin tin of a "work rock" station is coming from a small radio on the tool counter in the garage. Dennis steps back, looks past the garage to the house behind, still no one, quiet and dry and yellow air. Dennis waits. Dennis stands there, looking straight ahead at the garage, hands in his pockets, a battery in one, the bent and mangled keys to that hot camaro in the other. A voice comes from behind him, "You live here?" Dennis turns around, ready to run, but it's just the mailman. Dennis says nothing and takes the letters, the mailman, a rakish blue geezer, gets on his bike and rides dusty to the next house miles down the road. Creditors, debtors, haranguers, complainers. But one letter, in a beige, sparse envelope, with a neat print and a dime taped to the corner. "God dammit," Dennis looks over his shades. And up at the house, quiet and yellow and dry and dusty, as he rips open the beige envelope. I'll be home in two weeks. I'm in trouble. I need your help. Be ready for me. I love you and I'm sorry. -Dennis [My(OUTER!!)Space] -- Jumbling Towers release a single on Half Machine Records today. With incredible cover art.

LOFTY GHOULS

Sean — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:24:09 -0500

Chad Vangaalen - "Corvette". This is a song of metaphors. Most of them are obvious. Lyrics about a he and a she, manifested as corvette and jumbo jet. Lines about millions of miles, wheels going around. But it has quieter metaphors too. Two drums represent time. An electric guitar stands in for the grim truth of life's indeterminacy. A soft clang for accident and miracle. I'm still figuring out the harmonica. [free download of Chad's Soft Airplane b-sides // buy Soft Airplane] Manson Family Picnic - "Sounds Drifting On". He gives her gifts: a funny best friend; a yearning companion; a box of chocolates, handmade; a banjo with strings in silver, lead & gold; a bare tree, leaves stuck back with tape; a pineapple; a hot-air balloon ride; a kiss in a bottle; a photograph of a man saying, So? [buy/MySpace] (photo is of the 1964 Indy 500 crash)

Speaking of Organs

Dan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:19:08 -0500

DuneBuggy - "W Thing" Imagine you're me. It's two days before Hallowe'en, and you're in the dollar store. There's a CD there of "Hallowe'en Scary Sounds". It's got a shitty graphic on it that looks like it was designed by someone who had only ever read about H ween; like "cats, witches, orange and black, now get to work". It's a dollar, and it's a whole CD worth of stuff. You buy it, right? Of course you do. But then you get home, you had a long day so you forget it's in your bag until you pull it out, you put it on, and it's even lamer than you expected. It's a crappy weak organ and some intermittent moaning, some chain rattling, something that sounds like a plate smashing into mud, which I guess is scary. It's one 48-minute track, so you leave it on and giggle every so often while you carve a deformed pumpkin. But then. THEN. Buried in there, at about the 39-minute mark, is this pulpy gorgeous gem. Played by what sounds like a band that would call themselves Frankie Stein and the Halloweeners, with the vocals sounding like they're coming from behind the bathroom door, and the organ all naked and fat and too confident. It's a beautiful party costume Kingsmen dress-up travesty, it's just my thing today. [Buy] Hollows - "Watch Out Sally" Imagine you're me. You're a girl, 15, with catholic overbearing parents. It's 1961, you're wearing secret make-up, and it's bowling night for all the coolest. You're not allowed out, because tomorrow is Sunday and you need to be ready for church in the morning. You pour your nightly tea down the bathroom sink, run the shower and slip out the second-story window. These are the moments. You scrape your wrist climbing down the tree, and you practically ruin your shoes from running across the field to the road. Socks dark with wet and sweating and heart racing, exploding, you meet Tim (big Tim, such a nice guy, just a friend though, he has a beard) and he drives you to bowling. You meet up with all these people who are just on the edge of being your friend and the feeling like anything could happen is the only thing you can see, it's all around you. Matt is there, he looks so handsome, he's on Tim's team, and they win the game, but you laugh and share looks. So what do you do? Remember, you're me. Well, if you're me, you stop Matt on the way to the soda counter, you touch lightly his fingers as you spin to face him, and say with all the devil in your eyes but all the saints in your voice, "I don't want to go home tonight." And you think, suddenly a scared and desperate animal, truly afraid of what will inevitably unfold from leaving the shower running and breaking the tea cup, if you don't take me, maybe Tim will. [site] (image source)

SLUNGBLADE

Sean — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:45:03 -0500

Land of Talk - "Sixteen Asterisk". "Who tore the paper?" asks Lara Wright, standing at the front of the class. They watch her and say nothing. "Didn't you hear me? Which one of you tore my paper?" She lifts it from her desk, bedraggled, crumpled and ripped in two places. "It didn't just tear itself," she says, mouth crooked. There's a funny glassiness to her eyes, something the class hadn't ever seen before. There are spots of flush in her cheek. "Nobody in all of 4-2 saw who tore this paper while I was outside with Mr Mackie?" It's just an attendance sheet, they think to themselves. "Let me ask again," Ms Wright says. Her voice cracks -cracks like dry savannah, like wood under an axe, like cold steel strings. "Who tore this?" Everyone knows Brad Farczik did it. Mr Mackie knocked on the door, waved weirdly in the tall rectangular window, Mrs Wright stopped in mid chalk-like, swallowed, said "Just a sec, guys." She slipped outside and closed the door behind her. Then Heather Luft said, "Ms Wright likes Mr Mackie," and everyone said ooooh, and Mo Singh tossed a pencil at Adam F, and Adam P tossed a pencil at Adam F, and Lulu, Stacy and Merecedes started fiercely passing notes. And then Brad Farczik, speeded by the thrill of it, rushed to the front of the class, climbed onto Ms Wright's chair. Everyone gaped, Brad posed, girls laughed. Everyone waited to see what Brad would do next. He hesitated. Through the door he could see Ms Wright's back, and one hand raised toward Mr Mackie. It was 11:22 am. Brad Farczik picked up the attendance sheet, tore it up, crumpled it in his hands, held it above his head. The class cheered. Then he dropped it to the desk, jumped from the chair, ran back to his seat. // Now Ms Wright asked "Who tore this?" and everyone was silent. And something inside Ms Wright tore in two places. "WHICH ONE OF YOU DID IT?" she shouted. "Fuck, please- please, just who." // Brad Farczik put up his hand. [buy] GOBBLE GOBBLE - "o Sacred Dandruff". In the land of slides, everyone takes slides everywhere. You slide from your bed to the breakfast table; from your kitchen to your workplace; from your workplace to the fancy restaurant with the glass of Syrah. It's fun. The world slips by, your friends and family slide in parallel paths, with different accelerations. Sometimes you see dogs on the slides, or cats, or birds in full feather. Other times it's enemies and long-lost lovers. It's easier than driving, than cycling, than airplanes; in the land of slides, everyone takes slides. But then sometimes you don't want to take the slide. Sometimes you want to walk. You want to be able to stop, to clasp hands, to kiss a chance encounter on both of its cheeks. Sometimes you have a heart-attack on a slide, or a sneezing fit, or a bout of homesickness. You want to stop, you want to stop, you want to stop. You want to stop. Sometimes the slides just feel like you're falling down. [buy/MySpace] --- Marcello Carlin writes about the Beatles' White Album. (photo source unknown)

Highly Compressed

Dan — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:02:17 -0500

Jim O'Rourke - "Happy Days" (16 kbps, 47:33) "It's like a spy story," she whispered, as they made love for the first time in six weeks. "We're here, gettin' off on each other--" he snickered through his teeth "--don't laugh, that's what it is, isn't it? We're here, and the whole rest of the bus is just sittin' there, they have no idea this is going on, you know? We could do anything, you could kill me, strangle me to death, or I could kill you I guess. Or I could have a baby in here. I guess someone would notice if I had a baby, I'd probably be hollerin' like a wounded dog, that's what I imagine anyway. But I guess what I'm sayin' is I like this. I feel lifted up, in a sorta way. Like lifted above the bus and floating above it, like nothing could hurt me, and I feel like I used to feel when I was kid I'd imagine floatin' in a space capsule only big enough to lie down in. Totally glass, just floatin' in space in a little glass tank, like a glass coffin I suppose, just floatin'. Well now I guess I'd like to be there with you, and there should be enough room so we can sit up and talk and make love I guess." He snickered again. "What's so funny? I'm tryin' to tell you something that's important to me and you're laughin' like it doesn't mean anything." He hugged her close and the moonlight came through a frosted skylight. "You talk too much." [Buy] (image source)

SLIPPERY SAND

Sean — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 10:53:47 -0500

Matias Aguayo - "Rollerskate". Cat made of grated ginger; chase her across town. Flit over fences, dive under gates, climb up ivy, slip into open windows. Steal silver necklaces, little diamonds, whole satchels full of catnip. We give lovers tiny kisses as they lay in their beds, breath rising & falling, then me and my cat of grated ginger leap onto widowsill and out, skimming the clothesline, gleaming in the white sun. Slide down eaves onto an Almost skateboard with Bones Swiss bearings, Venture trucks, four Ricta All-Stars. And oh, me and the kitty-cat glide. [buy] Men Diamler - "Black as a Cat in the Morning". My dog is made of hematite. Hematite is a mineral, a heavy form of iron (III) oxide. Max is steel-gray and reflective. He is a labradoodle. He has a hardness of 6.1 (Mohs scale). Max is heavy, heavier than I can lift; he moves when he wishes to move, and he does not move when he does not wish to move. Normally he is copacetic. But this morning - oh jeez. I woke up late, had just ten minutes to walk him before catching the bus to work. We walked, as usual, past the Gamba coffee-shop and Fairmount Bagel. We walked past the Académie Plateau and the triplex with the glowing cube. And yet just as we turned the corner back onto Parc avenue, outside one of the shops that sells baby clothes for Hasid families, Max stopped. He smelled something. It was a spot that just looked like asphalt, normal pavement, but Max smelled something. He halted totally, lowered his twitching nose to the concrete. He sniffed, sniffed, sniffed. I let him be for a while. But then we needed to go. We really needed to go. And Max wouldn't move. My hematite dog would not budge. He was still sniffing the asphalt, where some quartz schnauzer had wee'd or something. "Come on, Max," I said. "We gotta go, Max!" After a while I raised my voice: "MAX!" I tugged at his leash, put my whole weight into it. He didn't seem to feel it. He was blinking and sniffing, very cutely. "Max, PLEASE!" I said. I nudged him with the toe of my boot, then the tip of my finger. "MAX WE GOT TO FUCKING GO COME ON," I said. I shoved him. His hematite exterior reflected me, greasily. "MAX JESUS CHRIST." People were staring at me. The owner of the baby clothes store had arrived and was unlocking her door. "Max," I hissed, "come on please please come on I'll bring you back here later want a treat i have treats at home please max." Max gazed at me for a second, then lay down. I just about lost it. I looked at the time. I looked at the white sun arcing over my head. I squatted down beside him. "Max, I'm gonna lose my job if you don't come along." My hematite dog sneezed. [MySpace / thanks, Milo] (photo source unknown)

Intent, In Tenths

Dan — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 18:42:52 -0500

Luc - "HI" Appointed the position of outer palace guard at age 17. Three interior "rings" of guards follow his station, if he is killed, the royalty, the visiting dignitaries, the higher-up servant staff, the priceless art and collections, the as-yet-unannounced and unborn prince, will all still be protected by three sets of guardian warriors. To be the outer ring, to be the first line of defense, is to be deemed the strongest, he thought. He looked into his gray lunch case and took out an apple. A kind of madness sets in being an outer guard, the tension is constant and inescapable. The view of the valley is vast, and any black dot on the horizon could be a threat. There are peddling salesmen and hungry peasants and sick villagers and lost noblemen, and all of them deserve to be treated as the souls before God that they are. None deserve to be killed from 300 paces or screamed at with such force as to drive them mad with primal fear. None deserve that, and yet that would be so much the easier solution. A kind of madness sets in and makes itself at home, indeed, he thought. As it does with everyone eventually, he supposes, but particularly in this profession. Particularly when a nuisance lingers just beyond the far row of bushes, skulking and stalking and staring and waiting. He knows ultimately that it's a troubled village boy with no parents and no tongue and missing half his brain, swaying and moaning like the walking dead yet meaning not an ounce of harm, even laughing on occasion, but sometimes he can't turn away from the idea that he is performing an act, playing the sick and stricken spirit to weaken his guardly resolve and then once upon a dreary gloaming ram a sharpened stick through the side of his neck when he's turned to grab a fallen cherry from the ground. Yes, a certain madness sets in where going home will not wash it clean, where sleep will provide no solace, love no escape, faith no hope. No, instead, the tension slowly seizes from a spot in his back, constricts him into a board, an expressionless and emotionless board, standing guard outside the palace. The king, out for a walk amidst the spring flowers, sees this guard and says, "This. This is what I want a guard to look like." Luc - "Backbone Nuance Give Millions Hope" The sounds and plans and numbers of a soft sweater, a fire, a carpet and a kiss, reverse-engineered. [Buy Peaofthesea] (image source) --

RULES-BASED

Sean — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:39:16 -0500

El Perro Del Mar - "Change of Heart (J Rintamaki remix)". A remix of one of my favourite songs of this year. And it is one of those rare remixes. You may have noticed we do not post them very often, remixes I mean, even though they are very popular. It's because this is a blog about "wonderful songs", not "other versions of songs". However this remix, it is one of the rare ones. It is itself a wonderful song. It takes "Change of Heart" and it changes the contrast. It changes the hue & saturation. It makes it darker in places, and brighter in others, and in places the differences are too faint to see. No longer is "Change of Heart" a glossed and despairing kind of Fleetwood Mac; now it is a doomed dive, a rain-soaked soft-rock Knife. It is terrifying, persistent, hurt. It is awful and rare. The first time I wrote about "Change of Heart", I told the story of a dead relationship. But J Rintamaki's version tells the story of a relationship that is petrified; that has been haunted by ghosts for ten thousand terrible & unending years. No one has yet found an axe. [buy] School of Seven Bells - "Half Asleep (alternate version)". Yes & yes, yes it's another, a different mix of my #6 "best song of 2008". And it's great, it's wonderful, this starry ballad written over with filigree. You see the chime of an electric guitar does a special thing to kids raised on the music i was raised on, who heard pearl jam and radiohead at a particular age, who closed their eyes and wished for teenage love even as coldplay were preparing their first hit... We, jaded now, knowing better, "traded our guitars for synths", but we still feel a special prickling thrill at the sound of pick on strings; and well here it is, golden; that prickling thrill; and all the song's treasures still shine like christmas ornaments. [buy the deluxe reissue of Alpinisms] (drawing by Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch)

Alsatian Relations

Dan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:23:44 -0500

Au - "Ida Walked Away" The Cloud King. His horrible reign of eons upon the skies. He shed the blood of millions of his own people to feed the mouths of the earthlings below. It was much told amongst the clouds that he hated his own people, that he was weak, and that he loved the petty earthlings below much more than even his fellow clouds. In a sense it was true, The Cloud King did feel a tenderness towards the people of Earth, though it was true he could live without them. The King in fact felt a duty to the plants, somewhere in his cloud heart he knew he needed the plants, and they needed him. So he would slay his cloud subjects, mostly the fattest and darkest, quietly and always from behind. He would come up behind, while they were gorging themselves on steam, smile in their ear, and slide his blade deep into their belly. He would sometimes hold them in his arms as their life emptied out below. He told himself he took no pleasure in this. Eventually The Cloud King could not escape his own reputation. Tired of killing, he wanted to stop, but knew he couldn't. He instead chose a young cloud, a beautiful young cirrus, long legs and long eyes, and fell deeply and glacially in love. He silently swore protection on her, and felt comforted knowing somewhere in world there would always be one cloud that would never rain. However, no matter how much he told her of his love, she did not seem moved. He was The Cloud King, slayer of millions, and he had chosen her, and yet she only smiled with one side of her mouth and looked down at the ocean. He was embarrassed, humiliated, and looked around at his subjects. They all, as usual, cowered in fear. Ah, fear, yes. And the King threw his blade in the South Pacific, you can still find it in there if you try, and opened his arms for his love to come to him, a changed man, a man of peace, of love. But instead, she floated away, slowly, patiently, with ease and with grace. For what else could a cloud really do? [Buy the jaw-dropping Versions or Verbs] (image source)

DREAM OF 10,000 HORSE HEADS

Sean — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:34:41 -0500

Black Feelings - "Golden Children". King runs. Faster than you, faster than death. He catches eagles, panthers, thieves, wives. He glows white at night and black at day. Coughs rubies, spits diamond, shits topaz. Breaks walls, kills sin. He splits beings right open, twists spines into crowns, uses stones for eyes. Sees everything. [Black Feelings, Montreal's new fierceness, is available now from the label that brought you the Unicorns -- buy (preferably on LP).] --- During filmmaker Vincent Moon's talk at Pop Montreal, he played a clip from his Take-Away Show with Kazuki Tomokawa. None of us knew who Tomokawa was. Vincent confessed he didn't know who Tomokawa was before he went to Japan. But oh my gosh, the film, the musician. We were dumbstruck. Strange, terrifying, tarry with feeling. An old man yelling. Blogotheque has now posted the first video from these sessions. It's not the video we watched in Montreal, but I assume that's forthcoming. I can't think of a better way to follow up Black Feelings. Finally, I am writing a tribute to the band Sister Suvi (RIP). Please email me (ASAP) if you would like to share any memories or thoughts.

Bad at Reading

Dan — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:25:07 -0500

New Science Project - "Poison Culture" I took a tablespoon of cinnamon and headed out into the woods. My skin was burning and my head felt like a ball compass, my brain spinning in my skull. I had sweaty shivers, my clothes felt cold and sticky and my spine like a bamboo reed, stiff but bendy. Muscles hurt from disuse, my entire body filing a detailed complaint. I can't remember if I saw it or my eyes made it up, but I passed a tree that had scrawled on it "feeling sick is feeling good." [Buy 7"] (image source)

DIBS ON FIBS

Sean — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:57:12 -0500

Carl Spidla - "See See". This song is a recollection I do not have. I never had these chances; I never made these choices. I never met See See - I only imagined her. I never took the pistol in my hand, steel & mother of pearl. And I never shot her, your honour, I swear. [MySpace] Herman Dune - "Baby Baby You're My Baby". Since André left the band, Herman Dune have lost much of their cigarette smoke; their bittersweet songs have become mostly sweet. And yet if they are slipping toward novelty music it is a reassurance that many of these novelty songs are so damn good. Yes, "Baby Baby You're My Baby" is a goofy old-timey love-song with quirky rhymes, references to rabbis & Portland, OR; yes, the chorus is like a Brill Building out-take; yes, it's got bongos and is dredged in sugar; yes, we've heard this before; but oh golly I still want to give it to my sweetheart with a handwritten note, one that says, succinctly, FOR YOU. [Herman Dune's new Don't Lie About Me EP is out Oct 27 // the band plays Montreal on Sunday October 24, with miss Julie Doiron - more tourdates here]