Listening with an open mind. Writing about what I hear.
Do you have something interesting you'd like to share? Write Mick at thasoundblog@gmail.com.
Twitter @thasoundblog
Anytime you dare to pipe up about the hardships in your life, your struggles, the inherently cursed nature of the present state of things in any way, shape, or form online, you will inevitably be flooded with comments justifying your misery. Can't afford a house? Can't afford rent? Groceries? Healthcare? Should have gone to college; then you'd have better job prospects, get paid more, and be able to afford to live a decent life. Oh, you went to college and still can't afford those things? Should have majored in something useful! Oh, you have a degree in engineering and/or computer science, but now you're in triple-figure debt and still can't afford the median standard of living? Should have gone into the trades! Oh, you're in the trades, and you're making squat, working terrible hours, it's wrrrrreeeeeeeccccccccking your body, you have no romantic prospects and have to rent a house in a crime-ridden exurb with a 2 hour commute to your job, living with five guys who are all addicted to sports betting, 85% refined over-the-counter THC supplements, and Wingstop? Should have gone to college! Circular logics like these abound in a tail-chasing charade strung up to obscure the realities of a collapsing society where individual choice and perception matter about as much in altering the trajectory of one's circumstances as a single tear spattering on a granite countertop has at punching through the stony facade like a bullet through a fiberboard disever. The duffers and sycophants who drag people for identifying the obvious impossibility of the current economy functioning in any harmonious manner are just like so many dull beasts- they enjoy being led around by the nose and only kick up a fuss when someone points out the omnipresent state of degradation we, they, everywhichway, live, breathe, and psychically suffocate under the weight of. If they had their way, the whole planet would be nothing but cattle, just like them. In fact, people like the ever-present, casually reductive casuists you encounter online give cattle a bad name. Cattle just want to chew cud and shit. While these cranks aren't much more sentient than their bovine counterparts, no cow will go out of its way to take a shit on your life like they will! And you know who else isn't going to go out of their way to spread sticky, nitrous-rich, chocolate frosting all over your proverbial windshield? Tokyo-based starchildren, Cattle. Now, the preamble to this here review is a specifically American web-based fable of woe, but, as I understand, Japan has its own cost of living crisis and its own economic difficulties, and I'm sure if you asked any averge ただの人 (after a long enough Duolingo streak) what kinds of chud-logic gets dumped on anyone in their country who blithely questions the status quo, you'd likely hear some real horror stories. But enough about the cattle in the comments sections, let's talk about the Cattle who matter- the ones who want to whisk you away on a sojourn of sound, rather than those who wish to drown you in the effluent of their brainrot. Cattle, self-determined and subtly fierce, are a shoegaze band that plays sugary, buzzsaw riffs, reverb-enhanced guitar-pop in the vein of Ringo Deathstarr, only more streamlined and with a better emphasis on hooks than atmosphere. Their 2019 LP Sweet Dream, Tender Light and Your Memory is their one and only full-length so far, and absolutely delivers on the jangly, joyous promise of their early EP, starting with 2015's Somehow Hears Songs through their split with Taiwan's Motorik released earlier the same year. Impressively, most of the lyrics are in English, painting wonderfully ambitious and softly relatable human portraits to accompany the beautifully fluttery texture of their delicately swollen and slightly bruised melodies, a gently persuasive and yet uncompromising direct orientation towards the more eloquent iterations of power-pop potentiality. The journey begins with the limber bow and balance of a My Blood Valentine-inspired slow-motion ricochet insulated in the confectious confessions parlayed by cotton-candy melodies and spiraling out in a gossamer blitz on "Shooting Star"; the fluid high-register guitar purr, cutting-clarion tones, and dreamy vibe of "Happy! Happy! Happy Valley!" plunges into a bath of pleasant recollections and playful enticements to seize the root of future fulfillment and ring it out over a waiting grail of ecstasy; later, the poshly textured, punk-tinted roller-rally "Boy Wanders" takes up restless grooves and coy grabs at spiny inflections in a natural, vigorous venture-lust, an undaunted excitement echoed on the reflective thunderstorm of fantasies that is "Sweet Dream"; finally, the group settles into a well-earned tranquil sendoff in the form of the patient, pining, and pillowey jangle-rock soundscapes of album closer "Wishing You All the Best for Today and the Days to Come." Life is seemingly defined by disappointment, fruitless struggle, and the callous disregard of others, but as long as you have music-music like Cattle's- you have a reason to greet each new day with a smile.
Footballhead started out as something of a hail mary on founder and vocalist Ryan's part, but has since steamrolled into one of the more dynamic, unique, and fun acts of the present huddle of DIY doers and shakers to snap, sack, and blitz their way out of the Midwest. Earlier this year, they crossed the end zone for the third time, releasing Weight of Truth, possibly the best-realized pitch for reviving the post-grunge sound of the early and mid '00s that I think I've heard since I lost sight of Breaking Benjamin sometime in 2009 (still around, by the way, as you'll learn below). Fresh off a tour with erudite and effortlessly-poppy emo-nerds Ben Quad, and currently scrimmaging their way across Europe, Footballhead is a band to watch, and more so to listen to, and you can hear Ryan describe much of the journey of the band as well as answer my many inane inquiries in the interview below:
Can I say something? Can I say something without everyone jumping in to praise me for my bravery and independence of thought? Right, here goes. I really hate the Spotify algorithm. Their suggestions are trash, and they have no idea how different styles of music and artists are actually connected. At this point, just playing something at random would be an improvement over their machine-generated guesses as to what would be appropriate in sequence. So here's the scene: I'm busy, I have music on, I'm listening to an A Giant Dog album (Pile, to be exact). The album ends, and it starts autoplaying just... whatever-Alvvays, Diet Cig, Lucy Dacus... and I kind of get it from a robot's perspective: distorted guitars, lo-fi-ish production, former "indie" rock stars retired to the big farm of major labeldom- Oh, and there is a female singer, so that means they all get to live in the pink aisle of the algorithm, only the aisle has A24 lighting so it's a little less patronizing, right? Wrong. None of these people have anything to do with each other, and they sound nothing alike. You can't just mash together Obama-era dream pop, tender punk, and random sad-girl indie-pop with early '10s garage punk and expect me not to take umbrage. I'm not one of those people who insists that everyone has to memorize the entire Wikipedia page for an artist or genre before they can appreciate music for what it is, but this is a pretty good example of how culture and context can be paved over and suffocated to death in this new digital era, and why actual music curation still matters. A Giant Dog came out in an extremely hairy, hazy, and homely era of underground rock that has almost entirely evaporated at this point, related to the same trends and aesthetic preferences that also spun up Hozac Records and at one point made Beerland an inescapable cultural pivot point within the Austin scene. This means that to put them in context, an A Giant Dog playlist would need to pair them with psyched-up power-poppers and rock revivalists in the treds of Shapes Have Fangs, Bad Sports, Big Eyes, Natural Child, and purely as a sonic concession, Dirty Fences- who I don't think ever played with A Giant Dog, but who I have to listen to in succession after an album like Pile, without fail. Dirty Fences were (and I guess still are) a tribe of greasy, goofball, gutter crawlers who came out of NYC swinging for the bleachers with every plate of wax they allowed their rough-and-rumpus sound to be carved into. Their last blitz of Schlitz-hammered power pop and sweat-lathered punk, as of this writing, is the 2017 LP Goodbye Love. The riffs and hooks spill out of these tracks like a froth of cataract sprawling into the street from a cracked fire hydrant knocked over in the course of a high-speed chase. These party-ready, jaunty blasts of rock 'n' roll revelry draw complementary comparisons to pogo-powered proto-pop-punks The Nerves, love-sick strummers The Undertones, and slick rock revivalists like The Knack, but had for their time a very contemptuous take on all these classic '80s peals, causing them to feel perpetually fresh and fecund enough to impregnate impressionable minds with dreams of fast times, free love, and the sensual splendor calling to them in the night and leading them astray from the starchy spiritual squalor of buttoned-up suburban living. Tap the keg, pop a tab, and turn up the toe-tapping, slapdash grooves of "Goodbye Love," the ribbed guitars, spiked melodies, and floor-stomping beat of "Teen Angel," and the windmill riffs and punchy tempo shifts of "Love for Higher," the volatily vulnerable, bed-sheet-knotting insistence of "Four Leaf Clover"- whose softly twisting chorus is so strangely reminiscent of a Sabrina Ellis and Andrew Cashen joint that I'd be willing to put any amount of money on the premise that it was penned on the beer-soaked cushions of an Austin green room with said dynamic duo, if not leering in person, then within earshot from the stage- and finally, the plucky, distortion-buoyed ballad "One More Step" featuring guest vocalist Christina Halladay of Sheer Mag, as if there wasn't enough degenerate dynasty already gracing these decks. At the time that Goodbye Love debuted, it seemed like just another addition to a deep catalog of great rock and roll that endlessly proliferated across the Rust Belt and central US, in celebration of the persistence of spirit imbued in the nation's castoffs as well as their torrid tendency towards outright depravity... but now it more resembles a love letter dropped in the carrier slot mere moments before it all fades to black. I miss this era of DIY, even more so because I don't think it's ever coming back. Goodbye Love- they really called it.
Cheem may be the best band in the world. There really isn't even a contest. Hardworking, original, and friendly af, they're the complete package for any DIY devotees/appreciators/aficionados who recall the intoxicating blend of rock, rap, rap-rock, Swedish-penned mega-pop-hits, and hardcore electronic beats that suffused the flavorful yet perplexingly complex and layered braise of popular music in the late '90s and early '00s- all the stuff that ended up getting exiled to the back of the freezer known as MTV2 and later completely off the table and onto compost heap of MySpace after 2005. Their sound harkens back to a time when there was greater permeability between the underground and what we could deem the mainstream, and in modernizing this sonic mesh of synecdoches and loose ends into a coherent vision that is recognizable and embraced by contemporary fans of underground music, they fill a niche in today's scene that nobody else can. Hopefully, the love they inspire will lift the group to the heights of fame and success that the inspiration and ambition of their sound prophesies as practically inevitable. And if you weren't there when Incubus, Linkin Park, Savage Garden, and the like were churning out singles and iconic, high-concept, top-tier videos, then Cheem can serve as the elder sibling you never had, introducing you to the sounds and styles of decades past and priming you to embrace the next big thing as it comes around the bend- which, in this case, just so happens to be Cheem themselves, and their latest LP, Power Move. Power Move is a follow-up to their breakout LP Guilty Pleasure, a tour de force covered positively on this very blog (and other publications of lesser cultural impact as well), whose momentum is retained and magnified on this latest release. From the vibrant, scratch-textured, and concussive internal tug-of-war of opener "Pivot," to the bust-out and build-up-the-break-down, skate-groove slap of "Gorrilla Glue," to the vaporwave-infused, Caribbean-spiced splash of "Quench," there is nary a dull moment or an inspired idea that goes unrealized on Power Move. Even though the band is currently on tour, vocalist/guitarist/scratch master Skye Holden still found time to parse some interrogatories that I slid his way, and you can read his responses below.
Let's set the
stage- what does the journey from Guilty Pleasure to Power Move look
like?
We were working on Power Move since before Guilty Pleasure even dropped, the
first full band recordings of songs like "Quench" and "Octane" were done in 2021
and a few elements from those sessions did end up making it into the final
album. Aside from that, we tried to stay
consistent while working on such a big project behind the scenes so we dropped
two EPs, Fast Fashion and Faster Fashion.
We were not expecting them to get so much traction but thanks to that we
ended up being in a really good spot to drop a record after a stint of social
media success in early 2025. We kinda
expedited the record release for that reason and went in on finishing it.
Why was Power Move selected as the title for your latest release?
The original record was 18 tracks, and that's the version that is being
released as Power Move: Victory Lap.
Dropping a statement like that is a power move, in our opinion. Especially with the range we were trying to
showcase across all the songs.
"Pivot" is such an amazing way to start out this album. What is the story behind
it?
"Pivot" was the last song written for the album, it almost didn't make it in time
but it was so good I pushed for it to make the tracklist. It's a song about a relationship becoming
one-sided, where one party is trying hard to be communicative and make things
work and the other seemingly can't be bothered and is either fine with the
dysfunction or just looking for an exit.
Tell me about the features on this Power Move? Why did you choose these
artists as creative partners? What is the story?
For the most part they were just artists we crossed paths with playing live who
we ended up becoming friends with, it was all very organic. The only one we haven't met in person is
Brazil-based MC Taya, we came across each other via a Twitter account called
"crazy ass moments in nu metal history." We just had a mutual appreciation for each
other's work and we knew after hearing her style that we wanted to get her on a
heavy song.
Pitchfork gave Guilty Pleasure a rating of 6.9. What rating would you give
Pitchfork?
4.20
Objectively, what rating would you give Power Move on a scale of 1-10 and why?
10, it's by far our best work and we're making exactly the kind of music we
want to hear. And if you're not gonna
ride for yourself then nobody is.
What is Power Move: Victory Lap and what can people expect from this
DLC pack?
Power Move: Victory Lap is the actual album we wanted to drop. It's the director's cut. People can expect even more sides of Cheem
that weren't showcased on the initial release and smoother transitions between
songs because of the adherence to the original track order.
Not that you were lacking it on earlier albums, but you do sound more
confident and comfortable in your skin on this record. Can you tell me how
being in a band for as long as you all have contributed to your sense of
self as performers and to the kind of music you can make?
The longer you do it the less you care about what other people think and more
about how satisfied you feel with the end product that you're working on. The music becomes less about what you think
will do well and more about a sound you wish existed and want to bring into the
world. We also think more about what's
gonna be more fun to play live since our live show is such a huge part of what
we do. I think this album has a good mix
of experimental studio-oriented tracks and live bangers. We think it's important to do both because we
want to explore every corner of the Cheem sound.
I'm loving how deep and rich a lot of the tracks on Power Move are sounding,
can you tell me a little about the production choices that went into this
release?
There was definitely a conscious decision to make the quieter sections more
atmospheric. There's all kinds of
samples and noises buried in the mix here and there that just add a little to
the overall feel. We also included a
couple of interlude-esque outros on songs to help bridge the gap between
tracks. I would say the biggest
influences in that regard would be trip hop and vaporwave.
Would you still consider yourself Nu-Pop? What are the parameters of this
genre? Are there any other bands you would consider Nu-Pop, or Nu-Pop
adjacent?
Absolutely, we are a nu pop band. It's
the genre blending of nu metal but with a more melodic and pop-oriented
approach, essentially just incorporating elements of hip-hop, electronic,
R&B, Latin, and Caribbean music to the more traditional rock band format
with loud guitars and live drums.
If I had to name some nu pop adjacent bands I would say South Arcade, Cherie
Amour, Medekine, Scro, Symposia, and Pink Pool.
At this point in your career, where do you see yourselves as fitting into the
larger spectrum of DIY/Emo/Punk music?
It's tough to say because even though we are pretty DIY (recording, production,
mixing, graphic design, etc.) we're at a point where we can't really play house
shows anymore. For us to faithfully put
on a show for all the people that want to see us we need a venue that can
comfortably and safely accommodate a decent amount of people and a nice loud
sound system. That said, we try to keep
the DIY ethos in mind and we do keep up with what's happening in that scene to
some extent. I think people have finally
stopped classifying us as emo though.
Say some nice things about John and the rest of the Lonely Ghost crew.
Lonely Ghost is a great label to be on for a DIY band because they do their
best to let you just do your own thing and accommodate that into their release
schedule. They never said no to our
ideas, and they really believe in the future of innovative and unique
music. Great people operating a pretty
busy label purely for the love of the game.
Is ska due for a comeback?
If you mean in the mainstream then yeah, I'd like to see a modern pop take on
ska. If Olivia Rodrigo or Pinkpantheress
dropped a ska-infused song I think that would be sick and probably wouldn't
sound like any ska we've heard before. I
think reimagining the production choices while maintaining the core identity of
the genre is the only chance it has to get a big break again.
What's the best thing someone has ever written about your band, and
why did you like it so much?
Angel Marcloid (aka Fire-Toolz aka Mindspring Memories) mastered our new record
and she sent us an email telling us how much she liked the album and why and
all the things she said really rang true with what we set out to do with this
album. We really enjoy and respect her
work so it meant a lot to hear.
What is the ideal piece of coverage that a music publication (not saying Nu
Metal Agenda, but not not saying them either) could do for your band that
would help your career right now? Put another way, what is the
value/role of music journalism from your perspective in this day and age?
Truth be told I don't know how many people are reading music publications
nowadays. I think it would have to be a
pretty huge publication to move the needle in any meaningful way. For us music interviews are just about
getting a chance to express ourselves and our intentions in detail for the
passionate fans that care enough to dig deep.
How is your current tour going? What dates/cities are you most excited
about?
Our past couple tours have been incredible, more sold out shows than not which
is a good sign. Our last Brooklyn show
and the festival Burn Bright (Editor's note: I was there!)were two particular highlights.
What are the best albums from the late '90s/early '00s ('97-'04), and what
about them inspires you?
You picked a great era so I'll keep it to 5 records.
Transistor by 311, it's 21 tracks of the band at their most experimental and
the production was mind-blowing to me the first time I listened to it.
Celebrity by NSYNC, it has really strong pop hooks and incorporates UK garage,
breakbeat, and hip-hop production. There
isn't even another song I can think of that sounds like "Do Your Thing" (the
closing track) which is a pretty cool achievement for a boy band.
Sol-Fa by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, this is how pop punk should have evolved in
the West but never did. This is an
example of what you can do when you're inspired by a genre but not tethered by
nostalgia. (Their 2008 album World World
World is an even better example of this.)
Get Rich or Die Tryin' by 50 Cent, this was one of the first hip-hop records I
fell in love with as a little kid. Track
for track it's so good. I always love
when a rapper has a great flow but also a sense of melody, like a lot of these
songs don't have a featured singer on the chorus but they still have hooks you
can sing along to.
Meteora by Linkin Park, I don't even need to get into this one.A lot of people probably prefer Hybrid Theory
but as someone who has probably listened to both records a thousand times this
is the one that comes out on top, if only by a little.
What is an influence on your group that has never come up
in an interview before, or that no one has been able to pinpoint
in a review of your music?
The Hives, I've listened to their first four albums so many times. I accidentally straight up stole a Hives
lyric in "Nano." (Editor's note: Good artists borrow, great artists steal!) And our song "Motorola
Razr" was originally a GarageBand file called "hives beat" because of
the drums and percussion in the chorus.
When are you starting an official fan club, and what can people expect as
far as exclusive merch and events from such an organization?
We kinda tried to do that with a program called CheemQuest but we've been
insanely busy and haven't been able to update it. We'll probably go back to doing that but also
maybe starting a more straightforward street team based out of our discord.
I've heard Cheem is a romantic sort of group and/or for lovers, describe to me
your perfect date.
Picking up good food to eat at home and watching a really good show or playing
a really good video game. If you want a
less introverted answer I would probably say a beach day but that's not really
on the table for the vast majority of the year where we're from.
What recommendations do you have for fans who want to take a date to a
Cheem show?
DM us on Instagram and tell us to pretend to know you so you can impress your
date.
What are your signature combos and/or finishing moves?
All of our combos involve complicated polyrhythms between buttons so no one has
actually ever executed one before. For
our finishing move we combine into a Voltron/Megazord like entity and
annihilate our foes with a beam sword called the Cheem sword.
What are your favorite game OSTs and how do they contribute to the
Cheem repertoire?
I think games like the first three Mario Bros, Wario Land 4, and Pokemon
Colosseum subconsciously influenced my melodic and rhythmic sensibilities
because I played them so much as a child.
A few highlights from soundtracks I got into later in life would be
Katamari Damacy, Danganronpa, Earthbound, and the Ape Escape games. Anytime I hear a cool production touch in a
video game song I always think about how I can incorporate it into Cheem. I think it also inspires me to utilize
unconventional instruments outside of the actual makeup of the band, stuff like
strings, woodwinds, extra percussion, etc.
What games are you playing now?
The only game I'm really playing right now is Doubutsu no Mori e+ (Japanese
exclusive Animal Crossing game) to help me work on learning Japanese. I did just finish the Xenoblade Chronicles
trilogy though.
If Cheem were an acronym, what would each letter stand for?
紅髮少年殺人事件* isn't a paint-by-numbers Girl homage, at least not anymore, but there is a faint echo of laudation that resonates with the veritable plucky Fukuoka prefecture progenitors of understated youth-rock refractory, lingering like a ghost in the band's sound. But what untangles 紅髮少年殺人事件 from any of their reasonably attributable influences is the extent that they are not overly persuaded by the examples of their senseis- that they're not shackled to precedence or encumbered by the weight of the past in the least- a bursting blossom with no stem whose petals spark at the lips, vents of an inborn flame. On their most recent release, Brutal Girl Delusion, the Guangzhou-based group seizes on every opportunity to sling-shot around your ears in intersecting, concentric orbits, treating the rhythmic interplay between the members like games of badminton played with live grenades, with the consequential booms of feedback landing like a rain of electrolytes to fuel the generation of their caustic creation. Alternative rock verve and indie-shock spikes of melodic perturbation get pulled and twisted until they're thin enough to fail before being folded over again into themselves, reinforcing their initial promise of tensile strength and fortifying a renewed pledge of potent fury- a moldable but sturdy platform which the band can kick out of shape and scuff back into new and thrilling forms at will. Spry and edgy, heartfelt and anxiously serene, Brutal Girl Delusion is a cry down the well of youth to see if there is any soul left lurking at the bottom who can answer back with any compelling force of reply.
*I'm not translating their name b/c every translator I use gives me a different response. From what I can gather it's something like "the murder case of a red-haired child," but what really matters is the music, not what they call themselves.
I never considered Summer Cannibals to be one of the essential acts of the late great garage rock boom of the early '10s, but they always had a certain spunky charm that made the group notable if nothing else. Their first LP had the title No Makeup slapped across its face, and from the moment that dog hit the track they never backed down from that no-second-chances, put-up-or-shut-up style of rock on a kaiser roll... But they DID eventually refine the hell out of it! 2019's Can't Tell Me No is the fourth album from Portland's Summer Cannibals. The era when this defiant bit of pop art dropped was afflicted with an unsightly rash of two-bit hucksters of all hackneyed strains, frankly scraping the barrel for whatever nostalgia they could sprinkle on top of their garbage to hide their stink with a dusting of legitimacy- the dead horse de jure being being Dinosaur Jr.- but Summer Cannibals escaped a trip to the glue factory by only ever aping the Pixies, and doing it in ways that were often as unexpected as a stray toenail glazed into the surface of an apple fritter... albeit far more tempting, as it were. Clearly, when they were bashing together Can't Tell Me No, there were going to be zero naysayers to dissuade the group from recasting and redefining their tried-and-true, no-frills brio- thankfully, such additions managed to clarify and sharpen their sound, rather than weigh it down with gaudy hubris. The album strikes the right note out of the gate with the buzz-guided killer ray of perception "False Anthem," that has this infectious yet measured bounce and enough wiggly elbow room to permit the cracking off of a few groovy and rewarding side tangents. Following that is the title track, "Can't Tell Me No," a feisty little stomper helmed by an angular, desaturated guitar groove reminiscent of Sleater-Kinney circa All Hands on the Bad One with some appropriately fizzy breakdowns thrown in for good measure. Later, "Behave" platforms big Veruca Salt-esque vocal hooks embedded in a tense, Pixies-inspired, riffy groan-huff. Things get a little more lonesome cowgirl-esque with the dizzy, nipping rebuke "Like I Used To," before dipping into the subdued ripple-pop splash of "Innocent Man," which doesn't flinch at the chance to litigate crimes that only take place in the dark, and then "Start Breaking" takes us on a sweetly retributive demolition exhibition. Lastly, I genuinely appreciate how this heater fades out with a shimmering, melt-on-touch adieu, "Into Gold"; it's a sweet and affirming send-off that the album had surely earned by the end. Can't Tell Me No really feels like the culmination of the band's career and intentions- if they were satisfied to kick up their feet and lean on this thing's laurels for now until the big one drops, I wouldn't blame them one bit.
Thrones are toppled, kingdoms laid to waste, histories are reduced to sand, and all roads lead to ruin... but not if you're Ikebe Shakedown. The seven-member instrumental funk band out of Brooklyn, New York, may seem like they've abdicated and gone incognito since their 2019 LP, but their legacy has yet to be turned to ash by the ravages of time. Their sound is horn-driven, highly cinematic, stylishly psychedelic, and inspired by the soulful charm of Curtis Mayfield, the weighty rhythmic pulse of Fela Kuti, and the epic scope of '70s spaghetti western soundtracks. Kings Left Behind (as previously alluded, released in 2019)is the band's fourth studio album (and most recent), recorded straight to reel-to-reel by the band's bassist, Vince Chiarito. The album unveils an oasis of melodious intrigue with "Not Another Drop," establishing the group's predilection for gonzo grooves, which is supercharged on the following smoky, hookah-haze-infused "Unqualified," and is fully realized with a vengeance on the mid-album stinger, the momentous, bongo-and-horn-driven spanner "Hammer Into Anvil." "The Witness" takes things in a more mischievous direction, with its quivering guitars and spit-and-pucker percussion, a track that would slot easily into the soundtrack of some lost supernatural western thriller, set in a traveling carnival where all the orphaned performers inexplicably have telekinetic powers and a predilection to deploy them in a zeal for vindication. The most retro-sounding tracks on the album come near the end, with the spy-thriller-esque "No Going Back" and the rose-tinted slow jam "Kings Left Behind," a worthy pair of companions to help mask the cry of a gunshot ringing out over shifting desert dunes. It's the kind of album Coalmine Records exists to put out into the world. They dig through the rough and excavate the gems, so you don't have to.
Feed your head popping poppies, chips of fractured pellucid fog, and scratchy heather to polish the crystal ball that hangs from the inmost concave of your dome. Dream Machine is a husband-and-wife duo, Matthew and Doris Melton, who miraculously arose from the once-still, tepid brew of Matthew's previous group, Warm Soda (which has been reformulated as of 2022). They combine the heavy, proto-metal grooves of bands like Iron Butterfly and Deep Purple with the murky psychedelia of the Doors and the larger-than-life hooks of Heart to create cascades of compelling psychedelic-garage pop. The Illusion (2017) is Dream Machine’s debut record, released on their good friend John Dwyer’s Castle Face Records, and later reacquired by Matthew's own Fuzz City. According to Matthew, the album is an antidote to the feelings of isolation and dislocation caused by social media and is meant to inspire people to share feelings and music face-to-face again, rather than through an ad-supported data mine. Unplug and unwind with the scaling, Deep Purple-esque guitars and huge, sonorous organs on “I Walk in the Fire,” the folding waves of organs and the relentless bass undertow on “Buried Alive,” the sparking jazz, adrenaline-pumping hooks, and ear-snaring chorus of “All for a Chance,” and the confident, toe-tapping, brick-house blues swagger of “Back to You.” Ironically, The Illusion is their most concrete and sincerely palatable work, having released two subsequent albums- Breaking the Circle and 2022's Living the Dream- both of which lack the punchy, raw panache of their debut and somehow fail to radiate the same potency of hypnotic magnetism as their initial pledge.Sic transit gloria mundi.
Anytime I'm in a new town, I engage in various habits that are against my preferences towards longevity- one of which is picking up half a dozen donuts from one or more proprietors of such insulin-shock-inducing confections. Something I've noticed at many of the dens of these hip, sweet-salt-dealing devils is the prevalence of pink-frosted rings adorned with sprinkles on offer... something which leads me to wonder about the enduring influence of the Odd Future Collective. Sure, you could assume that these peony-painted threats to my gut health are downstream from the prolonged curse of Millennial arrested development and their senile Simpsons-mania, and nothing else, but I think you'd be wrong to jump to such conclusions. Who made such an iconic pastry cool after all? Not Al Jean, that's for sure. The Simpsons essentially became roundly and deservedly reviled under his stewardship. No, being reminded of Homer's indiscriminate sugar intake and the flailing legacy of a once celebrated sitcom is more likely to spoil one's appetite as we reflect on our own failures than to compel a joyous purchase. No, it's rather the opposite. The irony of adopting something completely uncool and popularly derided as a floating symbol of antagonism that I think makes the pink donut ironically VERY cool when ornamentally assumed by Tyler & Co., and which keeps it in the forefront of the cultural purview- an anti-symbol symbol, if you will- something that can be anything but is always an assertion of the self, even when declared in the negative... as well as a totem of one's (read: MY) future struggles with diabetes. Where else might you find Odd Future's resonance intervening remarkably out of the blue? Well, to answer this, you need to look no further than the Swedish band Boko Yout, whose album Gusto dropped late last year. For lead singer and creative keystone, Paul Adamah, the deranged reflection of late '00s LA as the site of a persecutory cataclysm and an endless moshpit on the rim of the abyss- which Odd Future divined- had the effect of cracking the carapace of his incarcerated figuration, eventually leading to the summoning of Dr. Gusto, a lwa-like presence that rises through the cracks in sidewalks, scurries up light poles, and tumbles northward, scaling pantlegs like a hairy spider up a sweating downspout intending to ride a cheval worthy of his emphatic tutelage. You can hear the incantation of drums beckoning Dr. Gusto to take the reins on the track "Shift," before the full force of his charisma seizes you in the bracing, rubber-skulled bounce and scrape of epi-biological recall on the preceding track that bears his name. Now smoldering, Blue Velvet-crushed-and-coated hip-hop is likely not the first impression that one would take away from Boko Yout's sound, as the group's hook-heavy and expressively groovy rock pedigree more immediately invokes the icy and cutting, yet fresh-faced and energetic '00s-ish British garage and indie revivals, splashing in the same youthful fountains as Bromheads Jacket and Maxïmo Park without sacrificing either sincerity or inborn inclinations towards spectacle—a playful kind of seriousness that resolves through sober internal inquisition into the phenomenon of the self and the fosterage of one's heritage, straining through this focus as if through an aspheric lens to uncover a sonic arterial lane that conjoins chaotic funk with slippery post-punk, and diasporic disco with confidently anti-fashion folk, making the wraparound rollicking and catchy call-up "Ignored," the wiry, gold-bug-busting and crypto-clay-soled manic clap of "9-2-5," and the motorik rev and waterslide-like groove of the courageously catchy "Imagine" come alive in a form that is both scientifically anomalous and yet ordained as inevitable by some dark sorcery accessible only through an oily globe that rotates like a molten core deep in the center of Paul Adamah's skull. What doesn't kill you makes you odder, and only the odd survive, so long as they have the appetite to chew through the chains that hold them back.
In this episode of the I Thought I Heard A Sound Podcast, Terry of Mason City's Why Bother? explains to me over the phone why he and his band don't play live and why he doesn't care what you think of their music. Also, he talks a little about the Return of the Living Dead soundtrack, which is a rad film, and I was happy to hear him give it some love. I'm not going to try to sell you too hard on this one. It's either you get Why Bother?, or you don't. This conversation was recorded via my cellphone, so the audio quality isn't as good as I'd prefer it to be, but you can still hear Terry pretty clearly, and I kind of like all the muffled, scratchy sounds that come through over the receiver. It is what it is. Interview is below:
Why Bother?'s most recent album Case Studies is out on Feel It Records.
For a LONG minute there in the late '00s and early '10s, it seemed like every band wanted to be Dinosaur Jr. Now no one does. Ironically, at the start of the '90s nostalgia boom that crested in the early part of this decade, anyone worth their salt stopped wanting to sound like a band Michael Azerrad might have profiled in Our Band Could Be Your Life and moved on to greener pastures (or got an actual job, something). Maybe folks got the picture that he wasn't going to be writing an update/sequel and figured they might as well do something with the degree they spent the equivalent of a mortgage on a medium-sized family home. I learned about Amherst's California X at the tail end of the '80s-aping garage glut, because, well, that's when people were talking about them. Most critics at the time liked to treat California X as more derivative than they actually were, when in fact they were just very apt at capturing a classic sort of rock'n big hair vibe and didn't seem to put much currenty into cultivating clout in the shadows of their idols. They were a band that played, earnest to a fault, retro-sounding fuzz-imbued punk as if it had never occurred to anyone to crank your amps to 11 while spirit spear-fishing through Neil Young's back catalog before- And it worked!. As you might have guessed, the band had been dogged early on by comparisons to Dinosaur Jr., which the band often pushed back against as a superficial assessment of their sound. On their second album, Nights in the Dark (2015), California X made a conscious effort to shatter the impression that they were simply braiding chords from their indie rock forefathers' hair by adopting elements of progressive rock, Americana, and ballsy '70s arena anthems. That being said, that scuzzy SST-era, post-hardcore stomp that defined the best of J Mascis's early career can still be heard lumbering around in the background. Not surprisingly, seeing as the album was produced by Justin Pizzoferrato (who, yes, has produced records for Dino Jr., and Lou Barlow, as well as Speedy Ortiz, who were unfairly maligned at one point as the GIRL DINOSAUR JR.... critics were REALLY thoughtful and creative back in the day, I tell ya). If you're up to checking out this dusty old pick-me-up from my giddy garage rock phase, then I hope you get a kick out of the summer speedway anthem “Nights in the Dark,” with its Phil Lynott-worshipping leads, as well as the vigorous, charged and fluttery guitar sweeps of “Red Planet,” the bluesy, chops-busting guitars and naïve, indie rock charm of “Blackrazor (Pt. 2),” and the felty, distortion-wrapped, razor-toothed dirge “Summer Wall (Pt. 2).” Nights in the Dark might be California X's last album, but it was a real light at the end of the tunnel for me in the era in which it was released.
I do appreciate it when a shoegaze band gets it right. And when I say that they get it right, I mean that they actually inaugurate a sense of place and dimensional presence in their music. It's so easy, x ∞, to just lean into an effects pedal and let the distension of distortion that expands out from a struck chord do the set dressing for your music for you, but Denver's Ratstallion are not leaving such essential details to mechanical happenstance. Their debut EP Sisyphus Happy sounds like it's risen from the depths of Erebus, seeping up like steam through the cracks in the Earth, and greeting you like a mirage in the forest- a trick of the eye piercing the senses in the dusky shade of an evening's gloom. The six-song release teeters in a balancing act between bright apparitions and scorched floodplains that snare you in a gale of riveting corporal catharsis. Angelic vocals skim with fluid grace over the icy contours of palpably dense distortion, which maps the refined tissue of the chord progressions like a suit of armor around the corpus of a knight- these lithe vocals playfully preserving themselves against the imposing mass of an unfeeling exterior until the tension builds into a rapturous outburst of purgative convulsions, one where all sensitive follicles have hardened to quills and the nausea brought on by the dance of its existence has achingly roiled to its angsty pinnacle, like froth dripping over the brim of a boiling pot. Some specters you see, others you hear, still others creep through your bones, gripping your frame and persuasively conducting you to a realm of dark illumination, where you can discover happiness in release from the ambient torment of the quotidian.
Once bitten, twice shy they say... unless we're talkin' Philly's Armbite... apparently being bitten by the music-bug has only made them all the more ready to share their rawest and realist feelings with the world. And so we have, Dawg Rock Vol. 1., an album's worth of punky pop-jams about eating trash and nippin' at the mail-person's heels... locating and rolling around in dead fish... um, making logs on the neighbor's lawn... *checks notes* Wait, what is this album about? *fumbling noises* Somebody must have written about it somewhere. *frantic Googling noises* Ah, here we go... No, wait, this is just a Wikihow on what to do if you've been savaged by a foamy raccoon. *Sighs* Alright... I'm going straight to the source with this one. *opens window, takes deep breath* Hey Harrison! Care to explain what's going on here, bud?!?
And that's basically how all the interviews happen. I get some sorta notion and then direct unsolicited questions to people who have better things to do than provide details, at length, about things that are easily open to interpretation, and then spill whatever I've squeezed out of these poor souls onto the internet.
For your benefit and mine, Harrison Lennertz (vocals/guitar) of Armbite was willing to talk to me (on behalf of himself, Marin Duff (vocals/bass), and Matt Guardiola (drums)) about the band's origins, the literal underground odyssey involved in making their debut LP, Dawg Rock Vol. 1., and even broke down the songs off their album, track-by-track, with analysis and deep lore for those who are perverted enough to want that sorta thing (like moi).
While Armbite are pretty upfront about their influences and what they want to sound like (basically Glocca Mora with a hard, Sweet Pill coating), what first attracted me to the band was not the obvious, but rather the subtextual stock from which they spring. To me, they are a band with a very classic, indie-rock vibe, one that is effortlessly fun yet insightful, stone-solid and serendipitous, devotional while still slightly droll in their approach to songwriting, reminding one of groups that are as soft yet dependable, hard-edged yet easy to love, and comforting but not coddling as Lemuria, Mixtapes, and Spraynard. They're in good company as far as my head-canon is concerned, as they are in real life, being signed to We're Trying Records, a label with one of the more consistent discographies in the whole of contemporary DIY and emo-oriented underground.
Hopefully, Armbite will be welcomed into the shelter that separates your ears (and you won't want to leave them out in the doghouse) after you check out their interview below. Dive on in! They don't bite... ok, so maybe they do... but it's like in a nice way, like a cat after you give them some really good scritches, or a brisk autumnal breeze that coolly caresses the tip of your nose while you sip a hot, spiced cider... You know, the kind of bite that's more of a kiss than a snap, of the sort that makes you feel less alone in this world, that kind of bite.
The following interview was conducted via email from October 12th through 14th. It appears in its original form, annotated but not edited.
Where does the name Armbite come from?
When we started playing together we started a groupchat, of which we made that drawing of the guy biting his own arm our groupchat picture. Eventually the time came around where we had to come up with a band name because we were about to get ready for our first gig; we were throwing around a bunch of names left and right, then Matt said something like "wait, hear me out. armbite," like the picture from our groupchat. That name just like instantly clicked for us, and it was pretty set from then. The only quandary we had was whether we do one word or two words, but it's just one word. For the record.
...cute, yeah?
If you were to sum up the Armbite ethos in three words or fewer, what would it be?
Fun, energy, instinct.
[Editor's Note: I honestly thought he was going to say "gotta have fun." Really throwing a curveball here.]
How important is maintaining an element of chaos in your dynamics as a band?
I think that the "element of chaos" comes a bit more naturally to us when we write stuff we think is fun and energetic – like when I write for this band, I want to write stuff that makes you go "hell yeah. This is crazy." We can't just do that all the time though, we need some quiet parts to make those ones stick out; we're not even really doing that super intentionally, it just feels right. I'd say our element of chaos isn't so much that we have the most absurd riffs and polyrhythms and lack thereof or whatever, we just like to keep people on their toes.
Dawg Rock appears to be a bit of an overview of your career as a band so far. Is this a correct assessment? How do you frame it for yourselves?
I'd say so! A lot of the songs on the album stretch back to as early as our first show, with probably the most recent one being written and put together last summer. We thought pretty extensively about if we'd rather have our first release be something shorter like an EP, but all roads came back to us wanting to put our first foot forward with a project that felt more complete.
Tell me about the recording process for this Dawg Rock Vol. 1. It sounds like quite the odyssey.
I think if it felt like an odyssey for anyone, it would have been Bridget*, who we actually tasked with recording the album. Her studio flooded on Christmas 2024, which was awful, and harder on her than it was on any of us. In spite of having to deal with insurance and whatever troubles with that, she was really determined to get us started on the recording process, and had secured us a couple of days at Hidden Fortress near the beginning of January for Matt to track drums, and they managed to record the entire album's worth of drums in that two day timeframe. What then followed was a long tedious process of weekly recording sessions, working around work and school schedules, done in various locations; we did guitars at The Meadow (R.I.P., shoutout Pru for letting us use your guitar amp), my vocals in my basement, Marin did bass at Bridget's apartment, and Marin and Matt did some additional vocal and auxiliary percussion recording in Matt's old basement (R.I.P. The Underworld). I even got Bridget to drive us out to my old college so I could get into the concert hall and record piano. It ended up taking us five months to record the album, and pretty much every session we did independently of each other, but Bridget really stuck it out for us and did the most to actually make this album happen. I'm really glad she has since also managed to get a new studio together, so for the love of god, if you want to record your music, hire her.
* Bridget's not in the band, but she was the recording engineer for this project. She also recorded our first version of "catsitting" like two years ago, our very first show was the last show for Bridget's old band and she said "I want to record you guys and I'll do it for free" so we took her up on it. We've remained very close to her and were very enthused to work with her for this project.
How did Dawg Rock Vol. 1. end up being the title of this album?
We've leaned into the whole "dawg rock" thing since early on, at least since I made the band Instagram and put "philly dawg rock" in the bio. So when it came time to think about a name for the album, it just felt like the most natural choice.
Is there a Vol. 2 in the works?
One thing at a time, please. We do have some songs I've written that we need to actually work on though – next project might be a quick, more emo-driven EP. Then after that we want to do a heavy EP, call it "harmbite" or something.
Were you ever worried that there were too many obstacles in the way of finishing this album or that the recording process would run out of steam?
Personally, no. Did it take a lot longer to record than I expected? Yes, but that's on my own naivety. Everyone involved was really committed to seeing this album through, and if anyone had the right to run out of steam while working on it, it would have been Bridget. She put in more recording hours and stuck through it harder than any of us. Like I said, hire her.
How did you get connected with Jack Shirley, and how did his work on the album help it become the best version of itself?
I just sent him an email. I reached out, he responded, we talked about working on the album, and he agreed to do it. It then took us several months to actually get the songs recorded and sent to him, but he did it. We took a page out of Haunt Dog's (also a Bridget project) book and tried to get someone experienced involved on our project who really could grasp the sound we were going for – for Filbert, Haunt Dog got the guy who did Ghoul Intentions, and we really liked a lot of artists and albums Jack Shirley worked on (Jeff Rosenstock, awakebutstillinbed, the last Gouge Away record, Greatest Hits by Remo Drive, etc. etc.), so we figured it would be worth a shot. I initially just asked if he could just master the album; he said he'd only do mixing and mastering at minimum, but he agreed to work within our budget, and he really helped us make it happen. He was great to work with throughout the process, provided a lot of great advice and much needed reality checks, and he really made the album sound awesome – we told him what we were going for, and he responded accordingly and exceedingly. Incredibly grateful that we got to work with him, and incredibly grateful for what he put into this album.
Do you have any strong influences outside of emo and pop-punk? If not, why not? If so, who?
For sure! At least personally, I listen to predominantly guitar music, and lately I've been really trying to delve into realms outside of the emo-sphere (that isn't to say there isn't an incredible amount of diversity within that scene – fifth wave emo is a beautiful hodgepodge of influences spanning far beyond emo revival). I've been enjoying a lot of more angular genres like math rock, mathcore, brutal prog, art rock, art punk, sass, and no wave, but I also grew up on classic rock, have learned a lot from jazz, and still enjoy genres like indie rock and ska (of course). Some bands that I've gotten into over the past year and have really stuck with me include Yucky Duster, The Callous Daoboys, black midi and Geordie Greep, P.E.E., Tera Melos (and pretty much anything Nick Reinhart), Black Eyes, Grocer, Wince, Black Matter Device, Ruins, Dillinger Escape Plan, The Dismemberment Plan, Fugazi, The Blood Brothers, Sajjanu, Charly Bliss, BCNR, Desparecidos, Fashion Tips, Glenn Branca, Koenjihyakkei, The Gerogerigegege, John Zorn, Lahnah, Marnie Stern, Mclusky, me and him call it us, Palm, Ski Club, The Great Redneck Hope, God Is My Co-Pilot, The Wicked Farleys, Basil's Kite, Show Me The Body, and Zeta. Less so me, but I know other influences in the band come from less guitar-heavy places too, some prominent ones being Kesha and spellcasting.
(I know I just dropped an insane list, feel free to editorialize)
[Editor's Note: I wouldn't dare.]
Explain to me what Dog Math is. I only made it to geometry in high school.
Yeah, it's a damn shame more people don't know about it. The American education system is failing, so a lot of kids don't reach these higher level math courses. I'd say it falls close to the level of AP Calc BC, but leans a bit heavier even into the philosophical approach of conceptualizing how the world works when you have the brain and body of a dog. It's a niche subfield but it's really interesting stuff, I'd encourage you to look more into it.
Image by Ruby Goren, Instagram: @rubyjgphotography
Do you have any pets? What can you tell us about them?
I do! Back home I have a yellow lab named Stella and a siamese cat named Cleo (I don't think she's actually siamese, I think she's just a seal point domestic shorthair. She's got some subtle striping to her, and her head isn't weird enough for her to be a true siamese.)
Have any of you ever been bitten by an animal in a serious sort of way?
Yes actually! I work as a vet tech, but I've surprisingly only been really bitten once. It was when a client brought in what was essentially a feral kitten; I tried getting it out so I could weigh it and whatever, and the cat, being feral, rears around and bites me square on the finger, and its little canine goes deep. I'm like "okay, great. Hopefully this cat doesn't die in the next couple days." A couple days later, I get a text from my coworker telling me the cat died with neurologic signs. So now I'm thinking "great, that cat might have had rabies." I start freaking out a little, because rabies is lethal if it's not caught before symptoms appear, and it was taking an inordinate amount of time for my vet to get the cat sent out for rabies testing. I ended up being halfway through my post-exposure prophylaxis vaccination series when they tell me the test came back negative, so thankfully we were all good. I am now fully vaccinated against rabies, however.
What are the best DIY venues in Philly right now, and what makes them so great?
Philly Style Pizza has gotta be my favorite. I'm a bit biased, sure, because our drummer Matt runs Fortress, a booking group whose main operations occur at Philly Style, and I have helped out with, played, and attended many shows there (the first couple armbite shows were at Philly Style), but it's genuinely one of the best spaces. Mike is really generous to let us use the space as often as he does; he's no nonsense about it, but he really cares and wants to support the scene. Basement shows are definitely what Philly is known for, though, and I'd say my favorites right now are Greenhaus, Luigi's Mansion, and Dead Birds, because they're all run by people who honestly care about the scene, the bands, the space they create, and I actually enjoy going to shows there. If you asked me this question a couple months ago, though, I would have told you The Underworld, because I think that's like the platonic ideal of what a basement venue can be. It was Matt's old house, and whenever they had a show there, the planning was incredibly well thought out, there was always someone filming the set to document it in the DIY history books, and admission was typically ten bucks, always NOTAFLOF, and always a portion of proceeds going to a charity. It's not that these things are uncommon for DIY shows, but very rarely do you see a place that has all these features incorporated into a venue's operating model. Running a venue so selflessly isn't always feasible economically, I know, but I have a 2000s Jeff Rosenstock financial idealism towards music, and I think doing DIY isn't about making money, it's about making space for the music around you to thrive.
Where are your favorite local places to grab a bite in Philly?
Dear god here we go. My favorite cheesesteak is from Woodrow's, but if you don't like the truffle whiz, go down the street to Angelo's, which is also phenomenal. My halal guy is Rahim, who's at 37th and Spruce right now, but the Chicken Maroosh from Saad's Halal is incredible. The best fried chicken is at Doro Bet, for good hot chicken I go to Asad's or Hangry Joe's, and the Crown Chickens in North Philly are really good if you want a lot of food for cheap. My favorite breakfast spots are either Fresh Donuts or Texas Weiners. My go-to Ethiopian is Abyssinia, which also hosts DIY shows. My favorite Mexican place is Blue Corn, but Prima, South Philly Barbacoa, TacoTaco, and Cafe y Chocolate are also good picks. The best burger I've had in Philly is at Fountain Porter; it's not super big, but it's only six bucks, and you can get some great fries with it for four more bucks. I'm a fan of Famous 4th St Deli, but Herschel's in Reading Terminal has the only pastrami sandwich I could have characterized as "juicy" – whatever you do, I swear, do not go to Hymie's in Merion. My favorite Indian place is Indian Sizzler, but it is unfortunately closed right now. I’m a big fan of Vietnam Cafe in West for Vietnamese food. I frequently think about the katsudon from Yamazaki Ramen in Bryn Mawr and how the power went out there one time while my friend was in the bathroom. This place in Chestnut Hill called McNally’s has a sandwich called The Schmitter, which is awesome. My go-to Wawa order is the chicken parm with garlic aioli, tomatoes, and onions, and if you enjoy chocolate milk, I love the double dutch. I like the pizza from Bella Italia in Ardmore, and The Pizza Box in Ambler, but the best place to get pizza in Philly would have to be at Philly Style Pizza (obviously).
What's your favorite Always Sunny quote?
"I have contained my rage for as long as possible, but I shall unleash my fury upon you like the crashing of a thousand waves! Begone, vile man! Begone from me! A starter car? This car is a finisher car! A transporter of gods! The golden god! I am untethered, and my rage knows no bounds!" Either that, or Frank saying "I get it" after Mac's interpretive dance.
And if that wasn't enough, here is the track-by-track breakdown of the inspiration of each song off of Dawg Rock Vol. 1. that was teased earlier in the article. Check it out!
"gotta have fun"
Marin and their friends Nate, Eze, and Jack got wasted one NYE a few years back and decided to write an EP only using a cat keyboard and their phones. Nate, being used as a divine conduit for the word of god, played three notes on the keyboard and said “alright, I’m ready to record ‘oh, you gotta have fun’.” The song has existed as a psalm since then, this is just one of our renditions of it, and it happens to be what we play at the beginning of every single set. Please feel free to make your own versions.
"catsitting"
This was the first like “armbite” song I really wrote; I tuned my guitar to open D and said to myself “I want to write a song like Glocca Morra,” and didn’t quite do that, but this came out of it, which I think is pretty alright. It’s about being berated for leaving a relationship. Fun!
"big head"
This one’s about getting your ego deflated a little. In the little section with the breaks we typically do a thing where before the last one, Marin will ask someone in the crowd if we can play the rest of our song, and thankfully, a good amount of the time they say yes. The funniest thing that happened though was the one time my parents made it out to one of our shows, Marin asked my dad that question, but I guess he didn’t hear them well enough and thought that was an invitation to play bass on the song. There was like a small minute of confusion and I don’t think he ended up really getting it, so we just ended up awkwardly finishing out the song. Feels apt to the meaning of the song now that I think about it.
"green song"
This one is me trying to do some observational lyricism where I just kinda tried to take in the people around me, which particularly started off when I was feeling very down in Media, Pennsylvania. In that theme, it’s not the most positive, and details a lot of frustrations. Something you gotta realize about Pennsylvania, Philly included, believe it or not, is that it’s a really beautiful, green place. With that, I kind of encoded that visual atmosphere into my interpretation of the song, so it’s always felt green to me, hence the name.
"murray"
My dad used to drive this wine red Nissan Murano he called Murray. This song’s about that car and about not liking Los Angeles.
"marin has heelys"
One time in undergrad, I was on a date and we were walking around the campus, and who else but Marin rolls up behind us, wearing what else but their Heelys. It was pretty cool. This was one of the few times that the song title came before anything else, I just knew that had to be it. Besides that, the song is about finally learning to drive when you’re twenty years old.
"the bluffs"
If you couldn’t already tell by the incredibly gauche lyrics, this song was written when what was a very low point for me mentally; I was super anxious, was sleeping and eating a lot less, and just overall felt bad all the time. I was with my parents in LA during that time, and decided to go to these bluffs to do like a beach hike thing. I got down the bluffs via a really steep trail, and I walked along the rocky beach for like an hour or two before I decided I wanted to go back up. The next trail up, however, wasn’t for another roundabout or two. Not wanting to do that, I pretty much scaled up the side of the bluffs to get back to the street level. It was pretty cool because that distracted me for like a little bit, with the adrenaline hitting, but as soon as I got up there the feeling just sank right back in.
"(oh, you gotta have fun)"
The word of god manifests itself in many different ways. One night I decided to “reharmonize” gotta have fun to make it more jazzy and whatnot, made a voice memo and sent it to the band, and that became the first part of this song. The second part was me sitting at the piano in Hidden Fortress just telling Bridget to keep rolling and then playing some bullshit. Building off that bullshit, we turned it into a fun interlude track that basically gave us an excuse to record a bunch of little instruments. Matt even used a little box of nails for the percussion somewhere in there.
"lucky penny"
I wrote this song for my old band. It’s a bit more poppy, rips off Marietta a little, has a verse-chorus-verse-chorus thing going on; I uncovered it and sent it to the band, and they were like “we have to do this one,” and I was like “fuck.” I know it’s Matt’s favorite, but it’s definitely not mine, haha. That being said, the song kind of encapsulated the feeling I had one time when I was walking back to my apartment from the college library at like midnight in the winter, thinking “how awesome would it feel if I just fell in this snow and laid there for a while?” I didn’t do that, but I did write this song. The “lucky penny” part is because I saw a penny on the ground, but it was tails up, so instead of taking it, I just flipped it over for someone else to find.
"dog math"
Another attempt at observational lyricism on my end, but this time feeling more frustrated with myself because I was bogged down with my own shit. I was trying to distract myself by getting out into the city just to do something, but it didn’t really help me get past that mental block. A little bit of a callback to “the bluffs”, I guess. We were struggling to get a name for this one, then Matt suggested “dog math” because of the line about “psychoanalyzing my dog” and it stuck more than any other of the ideas we were having, so we ran with it.
"filbert hates you"
This one is more about just like a general frustration with people, in particular, stubborn people who are too dense to really look inwards and will die on their hills of idiocy. Some might say these lyrics could be turned right back around to apply to me, myself, but they would be wrong, because they don’t realize that I’m perfect and right all of the time. As for the song title, because it’s derived from a bit more of a nonspecific place, I had a harder time coming up with one, but then someone suggested “filbert hates you” and we were like “yeah. What if Filbert from Haunt Dog was evil?”
"delthorne park"
Once again, a song about not liking LA. It was about a point where I was just working part time and living with my parents, too tired to do anything after my work days, with not much to do even if I wasn’t. It kind of gave me one of those crises where I thought “christ, is this what the rest of my life could look like?” Thankfully I don’t live in the LA suburbs anymore, I live in Philly, where I can actually take public transit, walk places, and there’s way more cool music happening. Shoutouts to Collars and Jordan and all my friends out there, but I am so glad I’m not there anymore.
