Read on for the bullshit:
Hey there!
I wasn’t at the last Panic Pocket show, but I was told they led a chant of “Fuck January!” That is sort of the vibe I’m going for here. January 2024 - bad month!
That sort of explains the delay in this edition, as I stared a blank screen in the face trying to go long on the demise of Pitchfork, a platform that simultaneously made it seem like there was a new school of music writing out there, but there was no chance of passing the entrance exam. As much as I love writing this, I don’t want newsletters to be the future of music journalism; a masthead just feels so much more alluring.
But then again, it’s also where the best post-Pitchfork writing has been, particularly this recent essay by guy-rememberer in chief Ian Cohen. I can’t imagine writing over 900 reviews for the same publication, but you have to respect the folks who are willing to take the assignments to dole out the 6.2's. I dunno if I have that in me - try as I might, I can’t help but do this out of enthusiasm rather than duty. Which probably makes me a decent craftsman, but a hopeless journeyman, despite how long I’ve been chipping away in the game. And that’s saying nothing of my dogged refusal to pivot to video, even as a consumer of music criticism.
Maybe something new and good will come out of this, once we sift through the debris and process the juiciest (and saddest) stories from the P4K fallout. Until then, all we can do is keep waiting…and writing.
Alex
The songs:
Yo La Tengo - Esportes Casual (There's a Riot Going On, 2018)I probably owe them money for this by now, right?
The Velvet Underground - Foggy Notion (original mix) (1969, 2017)Last week, I finished reading Will Hermes’ long-awaited Lou Reed biography, King of New York. I wasn’t hugely taken with it (and have, for my sins, never read his lauded Love Goes to Building on Fire), but it did frame Reed’s career in a way I hadn’t considered - man creates character, character overtakes and almost destroys man, man spends remaining time on earth trying to escape character’s shadow. Unfortunately both man and character go by the name of Lou.
“Foggy Notion” complicates that narrative a little. The material on 1969 - chirpy, loose, decided unlikely to split one’s mind open - was recorded just after the Velvets hit peak speedfreak velocity with White Light/White Heat. It wasn’t released until the mid eighties, just in time for the shambling indiepopsters of the day to crown the songs as their Velvets, which might explain why I gravitate towards them. Or maybe I just enjoy hearing Lou Reed smirking as he sings, replacing his stern odes to smack with a joyously tossed-off lyric that dares rhyme the song’s title with “calamine lotion”.
The Horrors - Scarlet Fields (Primary Colours, 2009)It probably says more about where my fandom sits in space and time that any time a band drastically shakes up their sound between albums, I will forever refer to it as “doing a Horrors.” There were better pop songs than this on Primary Colours, better genre experiments, and even better droning vibe pieces…but those when those nauseating guitar washes give way to that almost chintzy keyboard hook? That is truly where I find my heaven.
Big Star - Life Is White (Radio City, 1974)When I need a factory reset, I tend to fall back on old favourites to see me through, and there are few bands as important to me as Big Star, not least because by this point in their career, they were already barely a band. I spent a lot of January reconnecting with Radio City (and being reminded how fractured that album could sound) before finding out it turned 50 that month, which felt fated.
The Breeders - Little Fury (Title TK, 2002)The sonic equivalent of Gorilla Gluing a smashed Ming vase back together. One of the most fundamentally broken-sounding indie rock songs ever recorded.
Maustetytöt - Syntynyt suruun ja puettu pettymyksin (Eivät enkelitkään ilman siipiä lennä, 2020)A bunch of Aki Kaurismäki movies hit Mubi last month in advance of his latest film, so I decided to try and catch up. The Man Without a Past was my easy favourite, and maybe it was all a little too deadpan for where my head was at. But there’s a bit in the middle of Fallen Leaves when Maustetytöt (literally Finnish for “Spice Girls”) show up at a bar to play this song and soundtrack the goings ons of our main characters, and it felt like the Twin Peaks Roadhouse being recast in a working men’s club.
Sid Selvidge - Walkin' Down Beale Street (Memphis Development Foundation Presents: Beale Street Saturday Night, 1979)Omnivore Records’ determination to track down only the finest arcana from the American rock hinterlands is something to be commended. Their choice to reissue a limited promotional LP - a sound collage assembled by legendary Memphis producer Jim Dickinson as a recreation of, well, Beale Street on a Saturday night - may be the wildest and most rewarding.
The Verlaines - Joed Out (Juvenilia, 1984)The Flying Nun band most prone to Doing A Horrors (hence the title of this early singles comp, I suppose), but all rococo production in the world will never match up to a ballad as hushed and defeated as this, the best song The Go-Betweens never came up with. “It's hard living your life on a knife edge / You either cut your feet / And die where you bleed / Or fall off the edge.”
Syd Straw - Future 40's (String of Pearls) (Surprise, 1989)Syd Straw came to my attention through no fault of her own, on two separate occasions - first as a math teacher in deathlessly cool Nickelodeon show The Adventures of Pete & Pete, then as quoted by Michael Stipe onstage. The slippery source material for that captivating live moment could almost pass for an R.E.M. song in its own right, and once again shows that Stipe had excellent taste in people to sing backups for. I should really give Surprise a proper front-to-back listen.
Melenas - Bang (Ahora, 2023)God bless WFMU for hipping me to this Spanish quartet, and more power to them for pledging to write a janglepop album on synths, then actually pulling it off.
Quelle Chris - Alive Ain't Always Living (Deathfame, 2022)A figure I’m mostly familiar with from his work with Open Mike Eagle (backpackers gonna backpack), which might explain why I tend to prefer his softer, sleepier stuff. This track is top of my personal pile, an almost aspirational jam about giving yourself a damn break, whether you’re pushing yourself to the limits, or desperate to give it all up. “You can keep the feast and wine, I just want my peace of mind.”
The Beta Band - Round the Bend (The Beta Band, 1999)Of course, some days, you get neither. There are a lot of songs about dealing with depression badly. This dementedly jaunty romp, capped with Steve Mason's train of thought slurring along the track at a mile-a-minute, might be the one that makes me feel the most seen, and I will not be taking questions at this time.
Lee Moses - California Dreaming (Time & Place, 1971)One of those great one-and-done soul artists, Lee Moses put out a few singles and one great album, then disappeared. Of course, nothing can stay lost for long in this century, and the reissue industrial complex did the world a solid by putting his catalogue back into circulation, and this cover sounds like the work of a man who has just thrown all four Mamas and Papas into the La Brea Tarpits, and doesn’t feel a shred of guilt about it.
Silver Jews - Advice to the Graduate (Starlite Walker, 1994)David Berman’s wry, Gen X update on R.E.M.’s politely Southern “Good Advices”, albeit one which suggests filling your shoes with ash instead of money, and climaxes with counsel for the ages - “on the last day of your life, don’t forget to die.”
Rainy Day - I'll Keep It With Mine (Rainy Day, 1984)There’s a convincing case to be made for this being the single best Dylan cover. At the very least, I’ll say that this is the song that Susanna Hoffs was put on this earth to sing, then drop the mic and walk away.
Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band - Learn 2 Re-Luv (Dancing on the Edge, 2023)The sort of sprawling Americana that seems to make itself known to me just in time for my final year-end trawl. It’s a glorious, slide-laden, post-Berman ramble that distracts you with lines about “playing got-yer-nose with the face of Death” so effectively, you barely notice how wet your face got when Davis was singing downhome relationship truths. “Could you learn to re-feel, with the part of your heart that has long been numb?” Oof. Just…oof.
Ryley Walker - Shiva With Dustpan (Course in Fable, 2021)My favourite record of 2021 is still holding up magnificently, thanks for asking. Course in Fable was the first time the darker niches of Walker’s taste and personality matched up with his impish personality and social media presence. The loping gallop in the drums every time he sings the word “housekeeping”? Let’s just say it’s the little things.
Eno Hyde - Lilac (High Life, 2014)The complete lyrics to “Lilac” are 13 words long; vague, noncommittal prose that borders on, uh, the purple. But as stacked tracks of Eno’s untreated voice give way to Karl Hyde's clipped Afrobeat-inspired guitars, things start to get glitched and mangled. Then something magical happens that turns the track from a percolating vibe piece into something - they begin to audibly glisten, to sparkle and refract. Almost as if they were made of something like light. But not.