Superchunk Song Review Project 11: "Seed Toss"

This song has a great chill out, get your legs back under you, sway a little, close your eyes and JUST BE instrumental bridge. Complete with little tappy cymbal flourishes! This sort of thing entirely commonplace in macho melodic hardcore, like in songs by Hot Water Music or something, but no one has every done it quite as well as it is done here. Because the JUST BE instrumental break needs to come after some serious rocking out rock, and that's what this song offers!

"Seed Toss" has so many great riffs in it. At the beginning its that plinky "plink plink plink plink" played over a slightly sad sounding (but totally rocking!) riff. And the chorus has the same power chord based chunky pop clunk that the verses of "Cast Iron" have (and shows up a lot on "No Pocky for Kitty" as a rule). DUNK DUNKA DUNK DUNKA DUNK DUNKA DUNK DUNKA DAAAH DA DA DA DAAAH! The move from the moody verse to the really really popped out chorus is a great bit of tension building and release, which you know is, like, cool. Also: totally awesome drums on the chorus here.

Lets talk about the plinky plinky for a second: the notes of the plinky plinky are a kind of inverted version of the Superchunk chord featured in "Cool" and "Slack". That chord's made by dropping the root note of a power chord by a fret. The plinky plinky is basically the same power chord but with the HIGH octave dropped a fret. It's got the same sort of marginally dissonant feel as the Superchunk chord, but is more up front here. SLIGHTLY SCREWY CHORDS are one of Superchunk's big songwriting techniques and I like to make note of them when I can!

Generally I don't really like analyzing lyrics to these songs in detail, because I feel like that's done a lot ("Laughter Guns!"). But this song is sort of an exception! The lyrics in this song are (largely) comprehensible and aggressive in an hilariously lame way! It starts with a threat! And such a threat it is! "I'll put a stick in your spokes!" So great: he's pissed, but he's a wimp, but he'll show you AND your bike! Its all "you better" this and "you better" that. He's really telling someone off. That's the verse, right? And then in the chorus the target of his animosity gets pissed and their mood ring registers disapproval or something and some seeds get thrown! What!?!? Who knows? I particularly love how the second verse begins with "You better memorize this face!" which is like the third line in the first verse...like he's picking up where he left off. He says "this coffee's a little too strong" and overall that's what the lyrics make me think of, a highly caffeinated nerd spouting off at someone but without any real ability to show anger. Like, he starts off the second verse still with the "you betters" stuff and gets off track talking about all sorts of other stuff...which he openly admits! He guesses he's running! Also: I do like how the line "here you come on your broom" tells you that he really thinks the target is a witch! Spooky! This is one of my favorite songs ever and I've listened to it like 10000000 times and I still don't know what the line immediately before "the picture's already drawn!" is!

Okay, let me also point out another two AMAZING things in this song that really elevate it. The first occurs in the second verse: the guitar solo over the lyrics, in addition to the rhythm part and the plinky plink. The narrator of the song is getter more and more agitated in the lyrics and this little buzzing bee of a guitar line start floating around in the background and the whole gestalt gives a pretty wound up frustrated feel. Such a detail! Likewise, after the chill out and JUST BE bridge, in the third chorus there's another guitar or two thrown in, one playing a busy bee guitar part like in the verse and the other playing really fast rising octave thingys. You know, like the JUST BE part didn't really help get the band chilled out and they come back at you even harder than before! Strangely, both extra guitars in the last verse drop out halfway through! Why? Who knows!

Song structure: ABABCBD

(D is the "tag" at the end of the chorus" played kind of over and over!)

Superchunk Song Review Project 10: "Cast Iron"

"The man in the airplane is looking for you!" What does it MEAN? I love how ambiguous these lyrics are...they sound so cool and they're super fun to yell along with in the car. And I think part of their awesometude is that they free you from having to really think about what they're about. Like, when you're blowing down the highway in your car screaming along to, say, "Pervert" by the Descendents you might think "this song rocks!" But you might also think "this song is kind of creepy!" (I skew towards the first interpretation but, you know, maybe you got your sweetie in the car with you when you're belting it out! Of course, maybe your sweetie loves the Descendents so all is well! But maybe not! In that case, here's the answer: get a new sweetie!)

Holy digression! "Cast Iron" is another one of my all time faves. Its got a good slightly above mid-tempo head-nodding beat going on, its got the loud/QUIET/loud dynamic, its got really chunky riffs that are really catchy in their own right, its got some sweet-ass harmonized guitar parts, its got the word "uppity" featured prominently. I mean, it's basically perfect.

But here I want to focus on the key twist in this song, one they wound up using a lot later on in songs and (I think) first shows up here: THE MISSING BEAT. Superchunk mosdef aren't a math rock band, though they dabble in weird time signatures from time to time. And the easiest way to have a weird time signature is to drop a beat out of a riff. And there you have the pre-pre-chorus of "Cast Iron"!!!

DAH DAH DAH, DAH DAH DAH, DAAH DAAH DAAH DAAH;

DAH DAH DAH, DAH DAH DAH, DAAH DAAH DAH!

You can see right there the dropped beat!!! LOOK! Okay, maybe that doesn't make it that clear, but the pre-pre-chorus is basically the verse riff but with the last beat dropped out every other time so it winds up being 15 beats total instead of 16. Odd times like this are great because they give a loopy feel and when you're dancing along and you know it's coming you can throw in a cool hitchy hip swing or high kick or hand jive or whatever and those others listening along are all caught flat-footed! Take that others listening!!!

Another feature this song shares with plenty of other Superchunk songs is that a big chunk of the song is basically the same riff over and over, but with little twists here and there that make it seem like there're lots of different parts. Like this song starts with a pretty classic "octaves solo" intro (Which doubles as the chorus later on, but no singing at the start!) then goes into the aforementioned guitar harmonies thing. Then it goes from that into the singing, but the singing is over what is essentially the same riff as with the guitarmonies, but replaces those self-same guitarmonies. The song starts out pretty loud and rocking, and slowly anti-ratchets down to this singing part, another great lesson from Professors Superchunk in how subtractive parts are super freaking great. After the singing is over its into the loud MISSING BEAT pre-pre-chorus I obviously love so much. I mean, the effect is just great. The guitarmonies, verse and pre-chorus all share the "DAH DAH DAH" thing, but each is a little different so that you never get sick of what you're hearing. You're rocking in the beginning, they metaphorically bring the lights down, get all sensitive with it, then the blast you with the totally bad ass pre-pre-chorus! So much dynamism with just a few chords!!!!

So anyway, I keep talking about the pre-pre-chorus so its probably worth talking about the pre-chorus which is like maybe 4 seconds long. Well really, its not its own part, it's just the octaves solo from the beginning but played just on one guitar and drums. And anyway, its only half of the total riff anyway and I'll give you a guess as to what happens with the second half. What, you don't know? All you have to do is ask and I'll tell you: PICK SLIDES AND DRUM ROLLS! Hello old friends!!!!

They did this same thing in "Cool", basically, and maybe also "My Noise." It basically always works! The chorus is a great anthemic sort of thing, complete with discussion of his "special friends." What the hell?!?!? The whole song basically repeats verse/chorus two times goes into the bridge, which is once again (as was the case in "Breadman") a sort of rising guitar riff to contrast with the descending riffs that dominate the rest of the song. SO TRIUMPHY!

The end is the chorus over and over, but with the lyrics from the bridge going and a thin sounding guitar solo. You know, rocking out!

Song structure:

BABABCBAjr

(leaving out all the little twists and stuff)

Superchunk Song Review Project 9: "Breadman"

When I first heard this song I was convinced it was "the best Superchunk song." After 18 years I no longer think this is the case, but I can tell you exactly why it hit me so powerfully then: the total pop-punk harmonization in the chorus. ``YOU ARE THE BREAAAADDDMAAANNNN!" Who knows/cares what the hell that means, but it sounds great! The warbly high pitched off key harmonies are just so perfect, it kills me still.

The song over all is a pretty good example of them putting the sort of grungy/hard corey type stuff they were doing behind them and going in the pop direction which ultimately wound up defining them. The whole thing is super catchy. The verse is basically just two chords with the guitars coming in and out over top...of course when they're "out" they're feeding back! I think there's an acoustic guitar in the mix there too, another trick they used later on on a bunch of recordings. A cool thing in this song is that I don't think the (electric) guitars ever play chords during the verse and chorus, but instead play some punchy/noodly riffs over top of everything.

After the second chorus they just stop and the tempo sort of changes while one guitar plays a riff, then a drum roll, some more instruments come in, PICK SLIDES (seriously, every Superchunk song in this era had pick slides!!!) and then after like five seconds of this we've got a classic ANTHEMIC SUPERCHUNK BRIDGE situation on our hands. Some incomprehensible but melodic stuff is getting belted out and its power chord city. I have no idea what the lyrics but I bet I'd feel uplifted if I knew!!! After that its back to the verse and another chorus. Really classic Superchunk song structure up to this point...and the coup de grace: the two chord outro. DUG DUG...DUUUUUU, DUG DUG...DUUUUUU and so on. Why is this there?!?!?! It gets faded out super fast! But its so cool! I think they just wanted some grindy grunge to keep things real.

Song structure: ABABCABx2D

PS The verse is two chords, the chorus is a descending riff and the bridge is an ascending riff, and so basically each switch changes up the "feel" of the song quite a bit, particularly at the chorus. The rising power chords (as opposed to the noodly stuff) are why it feels so dang triumphant.

PPS At 0:53 Chuck the drummer misses a beat, I think. I love songs with errors.

Superchunk Song Review Project 8: "Cool"

Another one that makes heavy use of the "Superchunk chord" which (I think!) first appeared in "Slack". This is a great freaking song, totally in the Pantheon. It's a d/Q song, mid-tempo, and is way more "indie" rock than most of their earlier songs.

The verse basically is the same three chords played over and over, but they play it in three different ways. They get A LOT of mileage out of these three chords! First there's the part which kicks off the song in which there're two guitars playing two separate non-power chordy bits over top each other, giving it a real laid back feel. The bulk of the singing goes over this part and then it gets loud and they play the same stuff but in power chord form while Mac yells out the song's title a few times. After that it backs WAY off and its just one of the guitars playing the line from the beginning and the drums. GREAT bit of subtraction there, T/l parts being as awesome in their own way as d/Q parts. Then the band kicks in and holds an 8 count before the SUPER POPPY INDIE ROCK CHORUS. This is probably the first of these to appear in a Superchunk song.

Then the song repeats all of this with different words...and the words are totally awesome the second time. "I know its LAME, and it breaks my heart. IT BREAKS MY, IT BREAKS MY HEART!!!" Mac's self-harmonizing on this song is a total masterpiece, its kind of hard to decide which of the vocal lines is the melody and which the counterpoint. So cool. I also think there are REALLY REALLY buried third vocal lines throughout. I feel like I can hear them sometimes, like right at the beginning before the main vox start, and at the end of the second chorus? Am I imagining this? (This song is about having no new ideas when writing songs, which is hilarious given how good Superchunk is at coming up with great new twists in their songwriting!!!)

So, anyway, after the second chorus the song really gets to the part that makes it amazing, the bridge. The bridge is just a great stupid four chord rising riff with one guitar just holding on one note...since it goes up makes it sound really anthemic, hopeful, majestic and the single note lead thing gives it great tension. And the melody! "Its nothing new, its nothing NEW, everything's borrowed, everything's USED!" The song seems neat and fun and good up to the bridge and then this bit just knocks you on your butt. So good. They round the song out with a final stab at the chorus, because, you know, why not?

Song structure: ABABCB.

"WE'RE COOLER THAN YOU!!!! AND YOU KNOW ITS TRUE!!!!"

Superchunk Song Review Project 7: "Fishing"

This is almost certainly the angriest Superchunk song. The main riff is nearly Danzig-esque in its simple minor "E-chord" evil-ness. Superchunk frequently make use of the "I'm striding briskly towards my destination and I'm pretty agitated" drumbeat, and I think this is the earliest instance of it. The whole verse part is just so solidly mean sounding, its hard not to respond to it. Its the sort of song that makes you want to put on an angry face and jump in the mosh pit!

There're a lot of overdubbed feeding back guitars on this recording. I particularly like the one that lasts most of the way through the first verse and chorus. It surrounds you and makes you feel like the song is inescapable! LOVE IT. This song also has a dueling guitar solo. In this case its that sort of solo where its not particularly fast or melodic, but you can tell the players are just strangling the neck of the guitar, trying to to kill the damn thing! Also: pick slides! Also also: they count off "1-2-3-4" before going into the final chorus. This song is so punk.

Like a lot of their other early songs, the vox are done in a really great faux-punk rock sneer and in this case the effect is particularly good. The nerd rage comes across as being really legit. Not tough but pissed, you know? What the hell he's singing about escapes me even though I've heard this song about 1000 times.

Song structure: ABABAB

A=verse, B=chorus.

If you haven't seen the video, I strongly recommend taking a look, as it's totally preposterous: it involves the band drinking milk during a very intense looking hayride.

Superchunk Song Review Project 6: "Garlic"

My wife has an aversion to songs about food, or which have food related titles. So I guess she'd be averse to this song. And judging from what I can decipher of the lyrics of this song combined with its title, this one's about eating too much garlic and consequently having some serious body odor and halitosis. Which, honestly, isn't the most compelling subject matter. In fact it's downright grody.

This song, like "What Do I?", is kind of grungy. Its slow, repetitive and there're seemingly 100 tracks of grubby grubby guitars. I really like the overall sound. I don't think the verse and chorus are any great shakes, but the instrumental/yelling/solo part is a great example of Superchunk's ability to put together compelling breaks in their songs. Basically this part is just the verse with tons of noisy guitar solos, but it comes out very chaotic and messy. Hence grunge. You can bet when they played this song live there were some serious rocking guitar faces being made during this part! Its pretty jammy!

I also like the beginning of this song quite a bit: it starts with a guitar playing some boring chord and then the bass and other guitar come in playing a sort of minor chord instead of playing in unison. Start it out dissonant! Which is reasonable, I guess, for a song about bad breath.

Another cool thing in the song is that the instrumental parts of the verse are consistent all the way through each time, but he switches up the singing about halfway through each time ("and you sweat it out!") so it gives the illusion that there's more going on. There's some great backing vox in here too. Quiet but screaming!

Song structure: IntroABABBAIntroA'BB

A=verse, B=chorus, A'=soloey verse.

Superchunk Song Review Project 5: "Night Creatures"

Why Superchunk covered this song is kind of mysterious to me. I mean, I don't think the original is particularly good, though maybe there's something about the Flys I'm missing. And Superchunk's version is pretty true to the original. More or less I always hate these syncopated pop beats, and this is one of the few Superchunk songs to feature it. I think the solo is pretty great, and it seems to me its a dueling guitar solo which is one of my favorite things ever. And the vocals are great, really belted out. Like when he sings "Follow you AROWOUND" right at the beginning, its that same sort of faux-tough guy voice Mac uses all over the place in the early recordings. LOVE IT. But overall, I feel this is a kind of weak song.

Superchunk Song Review Project 4: "Slack Motherfucker"

This is probably THE Superchunk song. The Zeus in their Pantheon. Their "Stairway." Their "Wrath of Khan." Their "The Stand." Their "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective."

And there a few reasons for this. Obviously a song where someone shouts "I'm not working for you! Slack Motherfucker!" in the middle of it is pretty bad ass. But the song title and anthemic chorus are the cherry on the top of this amazing song. The real innovation in songwriting here, the thing that really makes you take notice, occurs within the first second of the song. This song is is all built around the "SUPERCHUNK CHORD": a conventional power chord where you drop yr index finger a fret to get that cool dissonant sound. I'm sure someone else in the history of music played this sort of chord sometime before this song, but no one had ever really showed off its TOTAL AWESOMENESS. This chord is all over lates 90s/early 00s emo, and its all because of this song.

Here's a list of other great things in this song: the bass/snare hit to start things off; the ringing out E chord during the verses combined with the COMPLETELY UNINTELLIGIBLE LYRICS; the droney notes in the "I'm working part" and the way the song goes from being loud to QUIET without ever slowing down or losing its intensity; the guitar solo, I think, switches between the two guitar players with one of them playing the first part (which is TERRIBLE and really SKRONKY and totally great) and the other one taking over for the second part (which sounds more like a typical Superchunk solo to me)---in fact, the chord progression REVERSES itself halfway through the solo when the switch (maybe) takes place. I dunno if there's a switch or not, really, but I kind like the pretend there is because it makes me think of Slayer; the pickslide going into the final chorus!

Song structure: ABACDABACDEFCDCD

(A=Intro, B=Verse, C="I'm workin...", D="Slack Motherfucker!",E=Solo1,F=Solo2)

It seems really complicated for a three minute punk song!

Superchunk Song Review Project 3: "Train from Kansas City"

Superchunk is a band that covers a lot of songs and this is one of the first. They do a great job of turning their covers into Superchunk songs, if you know what I mean. It's not like Michael Morales' cover of ``What I Like About You."

It's not really worthwhile to talk about the song writing, since they didn't write the song! But we can talk about the Superchunk sound, which is totally on display. Grubby guitar sounds, feedback, doubled Mac vocals sung off key, the whole package. It sounds exactly like the Shangri-Las version, except, you know, totally loud and chaotic. The thing I always loved about this cover was that Mac sings the lyrics exactly as they were in the original, he doesn't change the gender of the lyrics. (Not like Celine Dion's incredibly lame AC/DC cover.) When I first heard this song, like in 1993, I was like "woah! this band is totally gay!" It turns out I was wrong about that, but the 18 year old me felt challenged by it. I mean, it was 1993! People were way more openly homophobic back then than now. It seemed so subversive and punk rock to me, way more "in your face" somehow, than other popular punk rock/heavy music of the time period (stuff like Nirvana or Bad Religion, both of whom I loved). It seemed like it was made by weirdos, nerds, freaks. But, at the same time, by weirdos who were kind of funny and seemed nice! And at that time I felt like a pretty big freak!

I also love that the playing on this song is SO bad. There are so many flubbed notes, clearly missed guitar parts and stuff. And the feedback swells during the bridge are just killer!!!! Superchunk were just so freaking punk back then!!!

Superchunk Song Review Project 2: "My Noise"

This is a great one. Undoubtedly a song in the pantheon of Superchunk hits. Its a simple song, really, just a few chords not played very fast. The guitar lead is cute at the outset: catchy, easy to get into, hypnotic. But what makes the song great is when the singing starts, at about (0:15), because all the loudness drops away leaving just the bare sketch of the lead guitar part from the beginning, some tappy tap on the drums and HOWLING on the vocals. And the lyrics are totally moving, even if I don't know exactly what they are. He spits out the last few lines and its awesome: punk rock without the sort of affected toughness of "What Do I?" Its chilling, somehow, this thin frustrated voice yelling out "IT IS STUPID, IT IS..." and then back into the rocking guitar parts. Its a good d/Q part for sure. Then it returns into the singing, basically the same as before but with some little changes: more feedback squeals in the guitar, some more cracks in Mac's voice as he sings, and the bass is in there the second time around too. These additional little things are subtle, but they definitely increase the intensity in a kind of invisible way.

Then its back to the intro part, with some more singing and then the BIG FINISH. The BIG FINISH is one of the principal components of Superchunk songwriting. In this case its a different guitar riff, a VOCAL solo, a GUITAR solo and general rocking out. GREAT ENDING. The guitar solo also deserves some props because its all over the place and then settles into the these great staccato stabs during the fadeout...this song has a fadeout! How funny is that!

Song structure is: ABABAC. This is a great example of a song that covers a lot of ground in a short amount of time without doing anything that seems really crazy. One of my faves!

BTW, this is about the Tossing Seeds version of the song!

Superchunk Song Review Project 1: "What Do I?"

"What Do I?" is probably one of the first songs Superchunk ever wrote and its kind of more grungy than what they really get good at later on. Its got lots of palm muted guitars and bendy note lead riffs thrown in here and there. The singing (which is nearly inaudible and put through a low grade distortion) is pretty seriously punk rock, complete with affected snottiness in the verse. "I preTEND I don't KNOW about the comPLICation!" I imagine Mac was making some screwed up bad-ass Henry Rollins type fierce-face as he recorded the vocals.

The chorus gets choppy and insistent and ends on the dirgy "YOOOOOOOOU" descending note thing, which is what gives it that grunge feeling. Then its back to the start of the song and now he's singing about breaking his back! That's so tough!!! He may have even said something about drugs! (or not!?!)

The song structure is really elementary. It goes:

AB(no singing)B(singing)CAB(no singing)B(singing)CA.

So, yeah, thats ABBCABBCA.

The song has some of the hallmarks of later Superchunk songs: squealy feedbacky guitar solos, Mac harmonizing with himself in the recording, pick slides and (most importantly) NERD RAGE.

Superchunk Song Review Project.

File the following under "REALLY TERRIBLE IDEAS": writing a review of every single Superchunk song. That's a terrible idea! Can I do it? It looks to me like there are well over 100 songs. But for some reason this appeals to me. Wish me luck. First up, "What do I?"

Rockpourri

Some things that're going on.

1. Saw the Superchunk show here in Philly. Amazing show. Raged all the way through, so much pogoing. Even their sissy songs sound like intense monster rock in the live setting. Mac's like a weird little doll flying through the air as if blown by hurrican force winds. Best I've seen them since a show at PSU in 1994. LOVED. IT. Versus, the opener on the other hand, were lame. They are old too, and it seems like they thought rock music was forever for them and then decided that maybe rock music was merely temporary. It seemed to me like they thought their reunion was a bad idea...

2. As mentioned before, I am in two bands. Animals and Insects, the band in which I play bass, did some recording. We did it mostly live at my buddy Sam's (his band here!) house. As it turns out (and none of us knew this), this band is basically a hard rock band! It sounds pretty freaking good!!!

3. I got a new guitar. Its an MIJ Fender Telecaster Custom, 1986 (or maybe '85). Its black and its really cool.

Return of the Kings: Superchunk!

I was/am obsessed with Superchunk. Obsessed is maybe too strong a word, but it'll do. I saw them in (I think) November 1992 at Trax in Charlottesville, VA. I hadn't really heard them at the time, but I'd heard they were a great punk band. They were really really funny looking. I think Laura was wearing a grubby dress and a feather boa. The rest of them looked like they just came up out of the sewers. They were SO LOUD and they flew around the stage like maniacs. I stage dove into a crowd that was far too thin to warrant such acrobatics. I bashed up my elbow pretty bad. But you know, I thought then that that was what you did at punk shows.

And you know, Superchunk was definitely a punk band then. Not an indie band, or an indie/punk band, but an outright PUNK punk band. Fast loud nerd rage. I bought the VHS concert video "Take the Tube" and must have watched it 100 times. In it, they describe themselves as the "Kings of Punk" and I kind of think they mean it ironically and seriously at the same time. Anyway, they were a punk band then and I think they stayed one until ``Foolish" came out. I love that album and the ones after it, but there was a move from punk to indie and I always missed the punk.

No one in their right mind would call their new album punk rock, but on it you can hear them getting back to their roots a bit. And so, yeah, I'm happy of that.

The greatest song of all time, RIGHT NOW...

is ``Younger Us" by Japandroids. It is frakking insane how much I love this song. There are like maybe five songs in history that I have been as obsessive over as I am over this song. (They are "Pink Chimneys" (but not the album version!), "Strangelove", "True Faith", "You Got It", and "Foolish".) Everything about this song is amazing. The chorus on the guitar (which is a hallmark of this band) is just great! I think that all those early 90s Dischord bands put everyone in punk/indie rock off of chorus since they used it so much, but dammit it sounds so frakking good here and really fresh and unusual. The vocals are just great too, delivered with a real voice-cracking intensity. And there's this weird pre-chorus where it gets kind of even more intense as he delivers a line which probably has a few too many words to fit into the part, but he does anyway because you know its just so dang important to say all of what he's got to say and anyway they kind fuss with the natural evolution of the part in any case to get it all in (I mean where he starts "Remember that night you were already bed instead of (something somthing) drink with me instead"; it starts the first time in the song at 0:56?)! I love parts in songs like that, where you can tell they had to be just a little bit innovative to do what they want to do...

And this song is about being old, even though this band isn't old at all. I mean, I remember thinking that being 25 was old but I was totally wrong about that. Now I think being 35 means I am old. I'm looking forward to being 45 and thinking how wrong I was when I was a little pipsqueak 35 yr old. Also: this song makes me think about how much I love my wife.

Tales of rock professionalism

On Saturday night HOWLING FANTODS played a show out in Roxborough. Here's the short version: it was and we were awesome.

The longer version: another night of husband-core was to be had! First up was Matt Kelley's other band, LATE NIGHT TELEVISION. Matt grew a mustache for the show and he looked creepy. Or at least creepy up close. From a distance you couldn't really tell he had one. They played great---it was actually the first time I'd ever seen them, since they don't play too much these days.

I joined them for their last song, a cover of "Throwing Things". Immediately after that Fantods played. Kelley not only doing double duty but back to back double duty. I think he was pretty wiped out at the end of it all! But we really pulled it off...I did do the P&W but I didn't unplug anything. Not even one time! I know the fans like to see the Disconnection Notice, but at this show I was happy to disappoint them. (Seriously, how low are my expectations for myself that *not* disconnecting my guitar is cause for joy?!?!?)

We had no set list this time, but it was actually pretty cool not having one. There are like 3-4 people in the world who know our songs and I think they were all there. So they picked out songs and we'd play them. How neat! At the end we played LOVE Song and Happy Whaler and for some reason in Love Song I screwed up all the words. Nice job old man! There's video here. You know, I really thought I was singing well that night, but this video gives the lie to that!

After us were the mighty METROPLEX. They were fabulous---loud, shouty, catchy, energetic. And also old. And after that were our pals GHOSTS IN THE VALLEY. They too were loud, shouty, catchy and energetic! And old! LOVE IT! They did a cover of "Wicked Game" which was totally totally weird and rad.

One thing I should point out about the show was that all the bands were loud, but the only band that got complaints from the neighbors was the Fantods. I guess not everyone appreciates my low-quality "Sonic Youth if Sonic Youth weren't any good" squealy feedback guitar parts! WHY NOT!?!?!?!

And then on Monday my other band, ANIMALS AND INSECTS played at the Tritone. It was a sort of weird show in that we played after these two older gents played the blues. (Rock music is forever, but the blues are eternal!) And that was it. The blues dudes and us. And we were told to not play too loudly. Which is fine, but A+I is a rock band so it seemed a little weird to not be super loud. I play bass in this band, which is fun and way less pressure than singing/guitaring. There are also fewer things to unplug. We did a Weezer cover! Yay!

Disabusal via Grooveshark Mad-Lib

Sometimes you're sitting at your desk thinking, "I'd love to be listening to [1. band name], I haven't heard them in [2. amount of time] and so you go over to [3. website with music] and see if they have [4. album/song by above] by them. You are all psyched because you used to really dig them because [5. reason for love of band]." So that's exactly what you do. And then you find out that really they're pretty boring because [6. reason they are boring].

My answers for today:

1. HUM

2. Grooveshark

3. like ten years?

4. ``You'd prefer an Astronaut"

5. they were heavy and had a cool loud/QUIET/loud thing going on.

6. they have way too much chorus on their guitars and the songs are pretty much snoresville except for the "d/Q" parts of the song!!!

* "d/Q " parts are where it goes from QUIET to loud.

The greatest song of all time, RIGHT NOW...

is "Foolish" by Superchunk and I mean "Foolish" and not "Like a Fool".

In all honesty, this is quite possibly my favorite song ever and I mean like every second of every day since the day I heard it the first time I have wished that world was as promised in this song but am sort of glad that it isn't because if it were I'd probably be crying all the time with some combination of heartbreak and nerd passion. It is hypnotic: one drum beat the whole song, basically one riff and the guitars just wailing with feedback and that huge huge huge distorted Superchunk bass. There are probably like 20 guitar tracks on this song. And they bury the vocals. The singer is just lost is this total maelstrom. Like his id is in chaos, and there's this little tiny ego in there trying to get out! I mean, this isn't a crazy idea. The line at the outset is "it would be nice to leave sometimes," I think. The claustrophobic music makes you really feel trapped. And there's an even more buried background vocal line, I have no idea what its saying...I guess that its the superego! (Pop psychology! How lame am I!?!?!?!)

But here's the point: the the beat is so nerd sexy that maybe you don't want to leave. Here he is complaining about getting out of this situation, here he is talking about how stupid he is and, yeah, the music is loud and in your face, but the drum beat and repeating riff WILL NOT LET YOU GO. It locks you in, ties you down. It is (to quote the song directly) a "couch sucking me in." And you know, he doesn't sing the lines too passionately for most of the song. But in the last iteration of the lines, when he gets to the couch line, he nails it. And he belts a little about his foolishness at the end.

This song is perfect.

Tales of rock professionalism

HOWLING FANTODS had a show a week ago. At Tritone on South Street. We played last. The other bands were also comprised of middle aged dudes playing some variety of punk rock, a type of music my wife has taken to calling "husband-core". The first band was the Prisoners, also from Philadelphia. Surprisingly they seemed to be very patriotic, considering the band name. They had American flags on their pants, hats, shoes, shirts, amps, guitars, undies, friends, cars, pets and so on. Its always hard to tell what bands are singing about, but I presume the lyrics to their Supersuckers-esque style rock were about patriotic things like: God, country, Mr. Rushmore, Millard Fillmore, the Great Lakes, various amendments to the constitution, apple pie, 19th century men's facial hair and/or tracing one's family tree back to the Mayflower. Or more likely, their songs were about relationships or hating your job or something like that. Second band was the Accelerators from NJ. THEY WERE GREAT. They played some seriously cool Ramones type stuff, sounded really good, were nice dudes with awesome NYC area accents. They had a song called "I Wanna Be Like Dee Dee Ramone" or some such sentiment. Loved it. Evidently they know Bobby Steele.

We played and within the first 20 seconds of our first song (Plight Attendant) I had already unplugged my amp from the wall (see the Disconnection Notice post below!) and Matt Kelley had jumped in the air, landed badly and fallen to the ground in pain. IT WAS AWESOME. Classic Fantods! Honestly, despite the rough start, we settled in well and did good. Matt Kelly spent about 30% of the time in the air, jumping at key moments. Since I do the bulk of the singing, I don't get to jump as much. I was feeling a bit like a loser, tethered as I was to the mic stand whilst Kelley soared above me like some modern day Tom "Maverick" Cruise. So when I had a chance where I wasn't singing I'd do some jumping too. But my timing was always always off. So like I'd be jumping in the quiet part like 10 seconds before the rock happens. Or I'd jump while I was tuning in between songs.

JUMPING WHILE ROCKING is awesome. Its a great thing to see, and when you do it and its well timed, you feel pretty darn rock starry. Amongst my other favorite rock moves is THE POINT AND WAVE, which has been my main move (with the Disconnection Notice) in the Fantods. When you're stuck to the mic, you can't fly, you can't rock back and forth too much, and the P&W solves this. All you gotta do is NOT play the guitar and instead, while singing, point and wave! Preferably like some sort of crazy homeless person who wants you to believe the world is ending shortly. And if your band is on a tear, maybe you can get the audience to think for a second that the world really is ending!

The last thing I should mention is that Lance Crow played his set with a broken wrist and a (possibly) broken rib. He was in major pain when we were done. But he never stopped rocking, even when he was feeling like dying and that's the way of the Fantod.

The greatest song of all time, RIGHT NOW...

is probably "Lightning Bulb" by Dinosaur Jr and let me tell you why. The most notable things about this song are that (a) its a newish song and (b) its a Lou Barlow song. It basically answers the question that many wondered: what would Dinosaur Jr have sounded like if they actually let Lou write songs! And, you know what, this song sounds exactly like what you'd have thought. The bass is distorted and melodic, the guitar's fuzzy and echoey and LB's singing is deep and has that weird uptight feeling it always does.

But the thing that makes this song really work is the beginning. First of all, like a lot of Dinosaur songs, all the instruments and singing start in at the same time...its one of the things that give this band's songs that heavy suffocating feeling people love so much (see also "In a Jar", "Budge" or "They Always Come"). And the drums! So so so many toms, which is my favorite thing. I always love drumming that makes me think the cannibals are coming to get me. And there's the short instrumental break where the bass moves up and basically takes over the melody while simultaneously the drums go the cymbals. Basically, I could listen to song that go like this all day long. Toms on the verse, cymbals on the chorus!!!

The guitar solos are a bit uninspired, I think. Not up to Dinosaur standards really. But it serves very well one of the primary reasons songs have solos: to give your ears a break so that you can hear the verse/chorus again without getting bored. Its not my favorite reason for having a solo, but its got its place...and it lets me hear that cannibal beat one more time!

The greatest song of all time, RIGHT NOW...

...is "Clap and Cough" by Discount and there can be little or no debate. An awesome picked out drop-D clean channel guitar at the outset, breaking into something that's perilously close to pop punk and then right back to the quieter part but this time with rim-shots and some pretty kick ass 90s emo style lyrics. "We wave sometimes to pretend that nothing is changing, but you gone on and I've gone off to get lost and devastated..." I guess this part is the chorus, and its a winning combo!!! ITS TEN SECONDS LONG. It happens three times in the song (four if you count the intro which is vocal-free). Normally I'm opposed to repeating choruses lots of times, but the part is so damn short that its hard to get sick of it. And the last time it happens starts out drums free and ends rocking. Basically this song is a clinic in how to write a pop song. It goes intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/verse/MOSH IT UP BRIDGE/chorus and is over in 1:05. The huge guitars don't hurt, either, nor do the superfluous pick slides before each verse.

Tales of rock professionalism

I am in a band called HOWLING FANTODS and on July 14, 2010 we played a show. At JRs in South Philadelphia. We played with the Liarbirds. I have certain "moves" which I execute whilst rocking. My pal JOE and I game-planned before showtime, deciding that I should use the the LES CLAYPOOL STOMP PIVOT. (Skip ahead to 0:48.) I was warned not to get tangled up in my cables while doing this move. However, I did not use the LCSP even one time! Instead I used my signature move: THE DISCONNECTION NOTICE. Here's how it works. Jump and flail around like a maniac whilst playing. Make sure to get your feet involved with karate kicks! Jog in place if need be! Make sure to do this close to your "effects pedals", if you have any. Sufficient flailing will result in the disconnection of your patch chord from your pedals/amplifier/whatever. Having a too short coax will also help you achieve this AWESOME effect. What happens is that suddenly you are not making music, just crazy gestures. The move is finished by scrambling down on your knees to try and plug the d-mn thing back in. Looks *very* cool, and definitely gives the impression that you are totally FESH. People will think "that guy's so freaking rock that its not about the music-its about the seizure!!!" I flawlessly executed THE DISCONNECTION NOTICE about 12 times in our 11 song set. Afterward, the dude from Liarbirds told me that he could tell we were all "very talented." Ugh.

Show was kind of weird overall, despite my awesome moves. Two bands didn't show. It was MATT KELLEY'S birthday. He plays the bass in Fantods. He refused a shot offered by the show-runner, Steve. That is not fesh. That said, the Liarbirds were real good and did a bunch of covers, including something by Weird Al and a Ramones song. Their drummer hit like a ton of bricks. Yay!

Check, check...Is this thing on?

Hiya! I am this guy:
I've been a rock music nobody for almost 20 years now. I'm 35, have a serious job, a house, a wife and kid on the way. I have two firmly held beliefs. The first is that being in a band in your 30s is ridiculous. The second is that rock music is forever. So there.