Triple Seven
I had been reading a lot of buzz around the Indianapolis band, Wishy, and their seamless blend of shoegaze and indie pop lately. Their debut album Triple Seven was stashed in my queue for later listening. Thursday morning, I browsed through the bands playing in clubs downtown for the free Day Parties, a staple of the annual Hopscotch Music Festival. The schedule app revealed Wishy was playing at a fairly small venue later in the afternoon. I quickly cranked up the streaming and fast-tracked listening to Triple Seven with just enough time to garner an appreciation for the recording before my trek downtown to see them play.
Wishy stays true to their description: “Wishy was born as a kaleidoscope of alternative music’s semi-recent history, with traces of shoegaze, grunge and power-pop swirling together.” When I shared this assessment with my son, he remarked that was how most indie bands today could be described. I’m wondering when my 18-yr.-old became so wizened and cynical, but I’m also not sure he’s wrong. For my part, the description reminded me of a band like Hotline TNT. Indeed, at the Wishy show, I spotted someone wearing a Hotline TNT shirt.
I’m eager to check out the Devo Tiny Desk Concert, which draws me in the same way the Cypress Hill one did. There is some incongruity there, and though it’s difficult to picture, it could turn out to be interesting (like Cypress Hill).
The new anti-toxicity feature on Bluesky that allows a user to detach their original post from a quote post is ingenious. I can’t believe no one has shipped anything like this until now. In hindsight, it seems obvious.
I loved the “Pack Lunch, Drop Kids Off, Skate,Work” short photo essay from the NYT (gift article). The women who were either returning to skateboarding or picking it up afresh in their 40s were inspiring. Having a mini ramp in my my house was always a secret dream of mine (and one that will never come to fruition).
While I think the journaling addition to HEY calendar looks very inviting, the idea of storing something as important as a journal in a proprietary format that will be inaccessible if you cancel your account, the company drops the feature or goes out of business, seems like a very bad idea.
Back To Worship
I missed Divine Liturgy last week because I had to bid goodbye to my wife’s aunt, who just moved up North. Maybe it was the longing for worship I had missed that made this piece by Zac Settle about discovering Orthodoxy so appealing to me, but there was a lot that resonated.
The chanters might be intoning away during Orthros while the priest is hearing confessions while the altar staff are replacing candles or tidying up while the greeters are setting baked goods in the hands and laps of visitors, setting chairs aright in an imperceptibly off-kilter row, or setting candles in front of the iconostasis, the row of icon panels between the altar and the sanctuary. The choir is upstairs rehearsing, an elderly parishioner wheels in or a child in a chair is wheeled in, and a half-dozen candle-bearers trickle down for the half-hour or so before Divine Liturgy begins. There’s whispering in confession, lines read at the altar, chanting to the right, chattering among those in the nave, and greetings among the worshippers who are standing about. Somewhere, someone has lighted that incense. A father brings his young children to kiss the icons and tell them their stories. Nobody seems to be on their phone, but that can’t be true.
The sense of awe that this is something truly different upon discovering an Orthodox service brought back some nostalgic feelings for me. It’s all there, though, still, week after week. It doesn’t change. When the world feels like it’s going a million miles an hour, and everything is hailed as being “unprecedented,” something that feels like rhythm is welcome.
The bumper sticker that Settle imagines, “Honk 40 times if you’re Orthodox,” tickles the funny bone because, as they say, “if you know, you know.”
Noble Oak - Eveningstar
Recently, a friend on Mastodon asked followers about their first cassette purchase. I had no trouble recollecting getting Starship’s Knee Deep In The Hoopla when I was in the fourth grade as my introduction to the world of music on tape. I wore that tape out playing the all-too radio friendly songs like “We Built This City” (some might say the song was pandering — the shoutout to all the cities hasn’t aged well). Following that popular anthem in the track sequencing was “Sara,” a ballad at a time when that was almost a separate genre within a genre. Rock bands used to touring arenas had their slower, more romantic songs interspersed with the more upbeat anthemic fare on their records.
The rocker vs. the ballad dynamic was perhaps never more obvious than on hair metal albums. The rockers were dangerous, lecherous and debauched while the ballads were tender and romantic. The ballads were always fewer in number, but reminded fans — especially those of the female variety — that even the baddest boys (the ones with most Aqua Net and makeup) had a softer side.
Noble Oak’s “Eveningstar” is a balled in the rock tradition. Like Starship’s “Sara,” the song has an sophisticated urban sheen with its immaculate mix of keyboards and guitars. The lyrics flirt with unabashedly straightforward metaphors around love and loss. Lines like “the memory of you becomes a shining light, when you were in my life,” would have sounded perfect in the earnest and overdramatic eighties.
Noble Oak - Eveningstar (YouTube)
One Actress And A Melon
The creative forces behind Ginger Root have a concept for a show featuring one actress (it’s all they had the budget for). Their Japanese protagonist changes looks and activities often to keep people of the world glued to their sets. In the end, it seems, what suits her best is rockin' out.
The song “There Was A Time” itself has a breezy 70s feel, with a healthy dose of tropicalia in the mix and a smidgen of psychedelia. There is a warped cassette haze on the whole track that wouldn’t sound out of place in the heyday of chillwave a little over a decade ago (this could be due to the Toro Y Moi influence). Ginger Root’s mastermind, Cameron Lew, describes the project as “aggressive elevator soul.” “There Was A Time” is a fun listen and matches the rest of the currently available tracks from the upcoming Shinbangumi in style.
Ginger Root - “There Was A Time” (YouTube)
Shinbangumi by Ginger Root will be released on 9/13/2024 by Ghostly International. The cloud vinyl version includes a pop-out paper building!
Your Analyst Was A Placekicker For The Falcons
I woke up at 4 AM a few days ago, hungry from fasting. I decided to check out what the internet had in store for me and ended up perusing through videos on YouTube. My early morning restlessness led me to a very strange video from singer Caroline Polachek and I followed that rabbit trail to an interview with her.
As with other times I’ve seen her interviewed, Polachek is lively, engaging and articulate. One part that struck me, though, is when she talks about the magic of crowds at her shows singing in unison. She understands the positive power that a group of people singing together brings. However, when she tries to come up with an instance of people coming together to sing in a way that expresses transcendence, the best analogy a creative and intelligent woman like Polachek can come up with is… a sporting event!
Music Media Mayhem
I go back and forth about how I like to listen to music and on what media. I've been doing this for 30 years, so I probably won't be settled anytime soon. Wes Davis writes for The Verge about vinyl outselling CDs for the second year in a row.
But it’s not hard to see why record sales are trouncing optical discs. CD players aren’t nearly as ubiquitous as they used to be. New cars mostly don’t ship with them anymore, and neither do computers. Plus, it’s impossible to impress anyone with your collection of jewel cases. But invite either your cool audiophile friend over or their nostalgic parent, and either is probably equally likely to pore over the tattered spines of your collection of garage sale scores, special-edition records, and concert trophies — and engage with you when you say things like, “Vinyl is cool, but it’s not actually better than a CD.”
Hey, I've got my CDs (most of which don't come in jewel cases anymore) in some pretty cool storage bins in my Ikea Kallax shelves. It makes for a nice-looking display. Although, I won't be hanging those things on my wall like my vinyl.