Good For You live at Mac's Bar / those whacky Black Flag guys

On Sunday April 21st I ventured into the depths of Lansing's Mac's Bar to catch Good For You, a new band featuring Greg Ginn from Black Flag and skateboarder Mike Vallely. For my money, Black Flag is near-untouchable in terms of hardcore punk from their 1978 debut EP Nervous Breakdown to their 1981 album Damaged, with the record getting fairly spotty afterwards. There's a couple of choice cuts on the following albums (the song "My War," "Black Coffee," "Retired at 21"), and Ginn's guitar work does get very interesting, but there's some pretty terrible songs (and terrible lyrics - see "Slip It In" and "Rat's Eyes") and in general Black Flag just don't seem to be any fun after 1982. I've listened to Ginn's post-Flag band Gone a bit, but otherwise all I know about the guy is that he doesn't seem to retain any friends from the "old days" and that the great bands signed to his SST Records label (i.e. Sonic Youth, Husker Du, Meat Puppets, Minutemen, Dinosaur JR) complain that he hasn't paid out adequate royalties. For these reasons Ginn is a bit of a punk-rock supervillain to fans - smart, inventive, pioneering, but malicious, uncompromising, and self-serving. He's also essentially retired from doing press so he remains fairly mysterious. To continue with the back story, in 2003 Ginn staged a Black Flag reunion series of a couple shows in the LA area to benefit cat shelters, which is fairly unique in terms of band reunion sagas, with his lineup featuring a smattering of lesser-celebrated former Flaggers (3rd vocalist/ current Misfit Dez Cadena, Damaged-era drummer/ sometime Misfit Robo, and the guy that played bass on Black Flag's last tour C'el) and, well, not Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski, Bill Stevenson, or that Henry Rollins guy. Furthermore, Ginn opened these reunion shows with a full performance of the My War album featuring pre-recorded basslines, Gone drummer Gregory Moore, and Mike Vallely on lead vocals. As far as I know no footage of these shows, audio or visual, has ever surfaced but basically every review that you can find on this ol' internet is fairly scathing, particularly of the My War set. A fairly mysterious, controversial, and uncompromising epilogue to Black Flag, so it would seem.

The glorious Black Flag "bars."

However, in recent months the plot has thickened, with former members Keith Morris, Chuck Dukowski (both founding members of Black Flag along with Greg Ginn), Bill Stevenson, and Dez Cadena, joined by Descendents guitarist Steve Egerton, going on the road to play some festivals under the name FLAG to celebrate the music of Black Flag. At pretty much the exact same time SST Records announced that "Black Flag" was officially reforming with Greg Ginn and 2nd vocalist Ron Reyes, to be joined by Gone drummer Gregory Moore and a-to-be-announced bassist. Coinciding with this announcement was the forthcoming release of a new project called Good For You, featuring Ginn on guitar, Mike Vallely on lead vocals, and... Gone drummer Gregory Moore and a-to-be-announced bassist. Wait, what? Ginn does have a history of being active in multiple projects (Gone was the opening band on Black Flag's last tour) but, reading between the lines, it seems that he's formed 2 bands consisting of the same instrumentalists with different lead vocalists, one combination (Good For You) being the maligned My War reunion lineup. That Ginn is a tricky guy. About a month ago reports surfaced that the new bassist of Black Flag and Good For You was Dave Klein, then of the current lineup of Screeching Weasel, leading one to assume that there's a trade school for punk rock bassists with a specialty in dealing with asshole bandleaders. Recently, Vice writer Erick Lyle wrote a fascinating account of auditioning for the bassist position in the new Black Flag, confirming the Black Flag/ Good For You member crossover. Good For You is opening all of the dates for Black Flag's international tour, so this time it looks like Greg Ginn is really pushing for a grand musical plan, counter to the reports of the shambling, half-baked nature of the 2003 reunion. Then, FLAG played a secret warm up show at the site of the first Black Flag show ever in Redondo Beach, CA, and sounded awesome. Things are getting good.



I checked out a couple of the Good For You songs when they were first streamed on the internet, and I remember "Swinging Around" for how awkwardly bad the lyrics were, but in general it sounded like latter-day Black Flag, maybe a little less intense, but essentially the work of the same creative mind. Mike Vallely (whom I had briefly been "into" when trying to be a skater kid even more briefly about 12 years ago) has a good "Rollins" voice, so, at least the components are there for a decent formula. I wasn't too interested in this project until I realized it would be coming to my hometown punk rock dive of Mac's Bar - after realizing that this was essentially the new Black Flag's warmup tour, I was definitely in.

The show wasn't really promoted that well - the little blurb in the City Pulse barely mentioned the whole Black Flag connection, which on its own would have probably doubled the 50-some person crowd if, well, mentioned. It was also a Sunday and Good For You played a free show the night before an hour away in Grand Rapids, so that probably killed the potential for people traveling a ways to the show. Maybe all the Black Flag fans watched FLAG on youtube and decided to stay home. Anyway, the show was far from dead but I expected some more people to be there - watching Greg Ginn play guitar right in front of your face is at least worth one paid admission from me. When I got to Mac's I was somewhat surprised to see Ginn and Vallely just chilling in the main part of the bar, happily chatting with fans - granted, the rumors about the nasty state of the Mac's basement "green room" may have contributed to this, but they could have definitely hidden if they wanted to. Opening up the show were locals BerT and The Plurals, who both sounded really tight. I've seen both of these bands a bunch of times, but I thought they complemented the show well with BerT following the strand of later, drony, sludgy Black Flag and Plurals embracing the frantic chaos of early Black Flag, though both bands carry little resemblance to either. Maybe I was just overthinking. Mental blogging. I knew this would ruin my life. Anyway, I hung out on the perimeter of the bar for most of the show, content to observe things, and I noticed Ginn and Vallely both engaged with the opening bands and enjoying themselves. After each band was done I saw Ginn approach them and audibly introduce himself - "Hey, I'm Greg, thanks for playing tonight." I don't think a single member of either band could wipe the smiles from their faces. Was this guy really the controversial and difficult man that he's been portrayed to be?

Dad?

Good For You set up their own gear; they didn't have any crew and Mike V was selling T-Shirts when someone approached the table. This really was a bare bones affair and I had to keep reminding myself that these guys were basically 4/5 of the new incarnation of Black Flag (Mike V has been reported to be Black Flag's co-manager and band spokesman, despite not being a member) and not just some touring band playing Mac's on a Sunday night. The band did a soundcheck of sorts that turned into a jam that turned into their first song, with Vallely tossing around his strawberry blonde mane, getting into the seemingly semi-improvised groove laid down by the musicians. With no pretension or fanfare they kicked out about 45 minutes worth of music, Ginn shaking his head around with his eyes closed as he peeled off one atonal guitar lick after another. I was fairly mesmerized and the whole thing seemed very surreal; the completely-engaged crowd seemed to be on the same page. How much of this was just novelty at seeing Ginn up close I'm not sure, but the songs that sounded fairly unremarkable when recorded had a nice live energy and was engaging at the very least. The guys seemed to be having a great time playing and kept smiling at each other - again, not what I would have expected. There seemed to be a lot of open passages in these songs with the guys veering into messy jams and then quickly tightening back up into their hardcore riffs, with Klein and Moore being a particularly groovy rhythm section. The band played what I think was every song off of their album (of which they had sold out of copies earlier in the tour) and then ended things with a jam, Vallely going on a monologue about "getting fucked up" while the others noodled around noisily.

After their set the musicians all just walked offstage and hung out with everyone. Ginn was predictably kept busy with greeting the fans, but he seemed happy to be there. I briefly said hi to Mike V, who seemed down to chat (I heard him say to a guy at the merch table that he was surprised they sold any records, let alone sold out of records), but otherwise I stayed out of the way and mused over a beer about what I had just seen. While I initially felt that Ginn pursuing a new Black Flag with the least prolific Black Flag singer and some other dudes was pretty lame and that FLAG would be the way to go for a 2013 live experience of the music, after witnessing this show I'm pretty much down for either incarnation - Ginn's band will likely be more experimental and tense, while FLAG will be more of a tribute/ revival show. I don't know if Ginn has the songwriting inspiration for new music up to Black Flag's standards, but he has the chops to at least play the stuff, and Moore and Klein seem up for the job to back him up.

"Aw gee, happy to help Mr. Ginn!" photo :johnbenite

The bar continued to have a party vibe, and eventually Ginn sat down at a table to roll a joint, with shots being taken by the whole band. Clearly things were going to continue in this vein for awhile, and I was feeling the pull of my morning assignments so I decided to call it a night. As I settled up at the bar and prepared to make my way home, I caught a glimpse of the villainous side of Ginn. Moore and Klein were happily chatting with the people at the bar, Vallely seemed to be "in charge" of the band and alternated between merch duties, talking with bar staff, and getting the other members to start getting their gear around, and Ginn was on the prowl for any female that would provide him some company. I alternately saw young women come up to say hi to Ginn and Ginn do the approaching himself and then quickly start grabbing and rubbing rather ungracefully with those masterful guitar playing hands. I even saw him trying to, I don't know, frisk the female drummer of The Plurals, who quickly dodged the situation, before Ginn found a girl probably about half his age that was at least okay with occasionally kissing him. Vallely looked over a couple of times, perhaps preparing himself to step in and get Ginn to leave these women alone, but ultimately nothing seemed to happen and the situation blew over. I don't know what Ginn's personal life is like at all, maybe he's lonely and seeking some sort of companionship and not every night is like this. I do know that as I walked out the Mac's Bar door I thought, definitively, that there was no trace of irony in the moronic lyrics to "Slip It In" after all.

Record Store Day! Eight Ball Grifter! Indie Kids Suck!

Happy Record Store Day! Check out the official website of Record Store Day to find out what's happening near you! I'm about to run over to Flat Black and Circular to catch Racket Ghost play a free set and check out the store's goods.

So, I saw the reunion show of legendary rockabilly punks Eight Ball Grifter last night, which featured opening sets by other great Lansing locals Flatfoot and Cash O'Riley. Man, what a great night. Mac's Bar was packed with tattooed dudes shoulder to shoulder. I was definitely among the younger folks in the crowd - the only time I saw Eight Ball Grifter play during their original run was at the (dearly departed) Temple Club in 2005 or something, but their heyday was more than 10 years ago. It definitely feels cool to glimpse the bigger picture of what Lansing has been over the years, and the fact that the air seemed to be tinged with whiskey made it all the more enjoyable.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

So, instead of ranting about younger bands not rocking and ground I've covered before here, I'm going to re-post a blog written by Kitty Vincent called "Hey Kids, Grow A Pair: How Music Blogs Neutered Indie Rock." She hit a lot of the same points I have, and puts a lot of it better than I could as well. It can be read over at Your Music Is Awful, but here's the full text:

Hey Kids, Grow a Pair: How Music Blogs Neutered Indie Rock

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Kitty Vincent

For my birthday this past January, a friend bought me a book called Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm. It’s a collection of stories told through interviews with the folks involved in the creation of the Seattle scene all those years ago.  The stories come from band members, club owners, press members, booking agents, sound guys, and kids who just hung around the clubs.  Mostly anecdotal stuff, stories about rock shows and getting high in the parking lot before hand.

Having entered adolescence in the early 90’s, the music of Seattle and Olympia played a huge role in the development of my musical tastes, so the book felt like a great chance for a stroll down memory lane.  But as I got further into it, with its stories of how The U-Men once got shut down for setting fire to a lake in front of their stage at the Bumbershoot Festival or the time Mark Arm, singer of Green River, finished a set swinging from a fluorescent ceiling light over a crowd of sweaty kids, I began to get more and more pissed off.
I’ll explain.  Around the same time I got the book, I’d been trolling the blogs for the ubiquitous end-of-year top 10 albums, and time after time the lists I found would have made dry toast seem fucking electrifying.  Here’s an example from an actual blog that I won’t name to protect the utterly boring.

• 01: Of Monsters and Men – My Head is an Anima
• 02: The Lumineers – The Lumineers
• 03: John Samson – Provincial
• 04: Mumford and Sons – Babel
• 05: Sufjan Stevens – Silver and Gold
• 06: The Walkmen – Heaven
• 07: Beach House – Bloom
• 08: Matt & Kim – Lightning
• 09: fun. – Some Nights
• 10: Jack White – Blunderbuss

Seriously?  This is the best 2012 had to offer?  Beach House? Mumford and Sons?  fun.?  Number 5 on the list is a Christmas album for Christ’s sake.  And this is from a reputable indie blog. (And yes, I know The Lumineers are a beloved Denver band made good, so don’t write me letters about it).  But honestly, when did all the skinny jeaned, fedora clad 20 somethings of the world decide to get together and completely fucking neuter music?  It’s like a whole movement of eunuchs out there walking around with synths and tambourines.

I’m so exhausted by this generation of watered-down, vaguely 60’s or vaguely folk, mid-tempo, non-offensive, cutesy indie music.  When I was 16 or 22 I wanted to break shit.  I was pissed off at an unjust world, at the indignities of high school, at my parents, at that ever-present dude who grabbed my ass at rock shows (I’m still pissed off at that dude, by the way).  I don’t get it, these kids grew up in a post 911, Patriot Act world where they will likely never make as much money as their parents or pay off their student debt and yet all they want to do is grow a beard, play the banjo, and hold hands.  What the fuck?
This can be blamed, to some degree, on the rise of the music blog.  I realize the irony of writing that on a music blog, but it is the reality all the same.  The Internet has created a space in which every journalism-major with an ironic t-shirt and a laptop has the power to shape popular culture.  It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know who Brian Jones is or that he’s never listened to a T-Rex album all the way through.  It makes no difference that he can’t identify anything in the Talking Heads’ catalogue besides Burning Down the House.  You can’t see this person, you’ve never met him, and you have no idea if he has any credibility whatsoever, and yet, you’re letting him dictate your musical tastes to you. For all you know this kid spent his high school years listening to Linkin Park while trolling the web for date-rape porn.  He may have been a Juggalo until he was 18 when he discovered The Postal Service through some girl he had the hots for.  You don’t know.

Blogs have created a structure in which the handful of kids writing for the elite establishment like Pitchfork or Stereogum choose whatever unoriginal crap they like that week and all the little blogs fall in line.  They are all so busy jumping on each other’s bandwagons, nobody has bothered to notice their wagon train has been driving in a circle for roughly a decade now.

I say fuck the blogs.  Stop reading them (except for this one).  Lets go back to doing what we used to do.  Hanging out at record stores, going to shows, talking to actual people about what they’re listening to.  And stop buying singles from bands who put more energy into their hair cuts than they put into their songwriting, for fuck’s sake.  (I’m looking at you fun.)

There is a reason why bands like Nirvana took over the world in 1991 and why the new generation hasn’t been able to recreate that energy.  Nirvana came out of a small, tight-knit community of people who went to each other’s shows, played in each other’s bands and created a sound though collaboration and an authentic desire to make art that mattered to them.  They did this for no one but themselves, with no hope of achieving fame in a city that didn’t even exist as far as the industry was concerned.

In 1992, when Donita Sparks of L7 pulled out her tampon and threw it at the crowd at the Reading Festival, she didn’t do it to create a YouTube sensation or to make a Pitchfork top 10 list.  She did it in a moment of genuine defiance and frustration at a crowd flinging mud onstage.  She knew what was between her legs and she wasn’t afraid to use it.  And by that, I don’t mean a bloody tampon; I mean a serious pair of balls.  She had more balls than the members of Fleet Foxes can ever hope to have.  And that kids, is what rock and roll is all about.

A Joyful Noise

Last week I saw Welsh alt-rock (not to be confused with burgeoning DJ scene ctrl-rock) band The Joy Formidable at the Loft in Lansing. I generally stay away from the Loft because it's a fairly sterile environment, the sound is often muddy, and in general they book D-list touring bands with tight pants and/ or tribute shows, but some friends talked me into making my way with them to this downtown locale and I found myself walking by the thrillingly named Thomas M. Cooley Law School stadium (home of the excuse-to-drink-in-public Lansing Lugnuts baseball team) on a rainy April evening with glass half-empty expectations. I'd heard the Joy Formidable on the radio a bit and didn't mind them - in many ways they sounded as if Lush had dispelled with their dated early 90s production work and added some muscle to the proceedings - but wasn't overly familiar with their material. I was in for a pleasant surprise in the end.

And I wasn't the only one!

I showed up during the second support band, a "hey, we're from Los Angeles" band from Los Angeles called Kitten. They covered Prince and then played lots of songs that sounded like Prince while their impish punk princess singer flailed on and off the stage, but then closed their set with a high energy garagey thrasher, so, in short, I have no idea if I would like their record. Anyway, next. I knew TJM (as the kids like to abbreve it) had a following but I was surprised at the number of enthusiastic slightly-younger-than-me college aged kids there were at the show, and everyone seemed so happy. The band came out and immediately started rocking out - and they wailed. This band was good enough that I just used one of the most cliched sentences I possibly could to review them, but they had the whole "tight rock band thing" down, with a very full sound proving once again that the power trio is damn near unbeatable when pulled off. But the crowd made me even more excited - these were those damned aloof Millenials, and they were sweating, shouting, and dancing (with even a bit of crowd surfing) like it was 1991 to a certified rock band. In this light even the Loft seemed like a cool place to see a show.

And with this show coming up soon I don't think I have a choice.

I walked out of the humid room at the end of the night to Michigan Avenue where the rain had let up and a bunch of kids were lined up outside of the band's tour bus. Maybe this modern world isn't so bad after all.

It Takes A Village to Make Records

Sometimes you're just late to the game on things, but I don't let that bring me down - it just means there's lots to discover. It Takes A Village to Make Records is a label based out of Lansing that has a pretty cool post-modern approach to the "biz." Modeled after the old-school "singles clubs" of back in the day (most famously - in my mind - employed by Sub Pop in the 80s to build buzz for their new bands) ITAV releases a new 3 song split single by 3 different artists on a roughly monthly basis, available for download at a bandcamp page for $3 or for a one time only subscription fee of $30. Since they've already released 19 of these the subscription thing is actually a pretty good idea, and kudos to them for having the guts to present their work as something to pay for in this age where too many bands think they need to give everything away or no one will pay attention.

Pictured: the next Bon Iver

Not that I've subscribed yet - you can stream all of the tracks on the bandcamp site, which is nice. I'll get around to it - the site says that the money goes to a fund to help independent touring bands, which is pretty neat. Anyway, I just found out about this label, and I don't know why. Looking over the previously released artists there's a lot of people that I'm into, including some that I've posted about on here (People's Temple, the Jackpine Snag) and some that I've loved for a long time (Calliope, Flatfoot). Laziness? Confusion? It's nice to feel a little less jaded - a blogging no-no!

The site actually came on my radar because I was doing a little online research on local sound engineering services and found a fairly funny post from the other day by the main guy who runs the label (who also is, I believe, one of the curators for the East Lansing art gallery/ venue (SCENE) Metrospace) where he admits to getting a track mastered improperly and having to do damage control. The whole thing struck me as very humanizing, which is interesting in the internet age and for a label that largely exists as a digital medium. The meaning implied by the name "It Takes A Village" would, to my partially educated ass, be something to do with community building, something very important to a vibrant music scene and just in general. So, kudos to the folks over at ITAV. I've got some listening to catch up on.

BerT!!!!!!!!!

So I actually caught a glimpse of sunshine today and finally got a feeling that I had forgotten called "motivation." And this motivation has led me to briefly rave about one of my favorite Lansings bands, BerT.

Unassumingly named, confusingly punctuated, these dudes play super heavy music (but, thankfully, not "Super Heavy") that isn't remotely metal. Slow, droney, strangely melodic, powerful, nearly nauseating in its sonic wall. I just dig 'em. A couple of these guys were in a really fun band called Red Teeth awhile back, and they run a label called Madlantis Records. I've never really listened to their recordings, I think partially because I'm afraid I'll be disappointed at the lack of the visceral assault of the live show... but I should probably change that as there's a bunch at that website. They play often, and at the end of April they're playing at Mac's Bar with Black Flag founder Greg Ginn's probably mildly insane and likely mediocre new band Good For You (named by Mr. Ginn in a rare moment of clarity at what this project probably won't accomplish).

On the "national" scene, I've been trying, and failing to get into the new Strokes record, and I'm glad I wasn't at SXSW this year.

The People's Temple - "Never More / Miles Away"

Even though they're rarely satisfying, I'm always interested in live releases by bands. When they're pulled off well they can sometimes save songs that were rendered uninteresting by poor production - sometimes the live version dramatically improves the original by just plain being a better/ more refined arrangement (compare the studio and live versions of Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" and you'll know what I'm saying). Any band that's willing to release a true live document not mired in post-production overdubs (lookin' at you KISS) is always compelling to me. Check out Grand Funk Railroad's imaginatively titled Live Album for one of these. Yeah, I know, Grand Funk ain't the hippest band on the block, but seriously, check that record out. It's the sound of 3 dudes kickin' out the jams, live and raw, competent drumwork by Don Brewer and all.

Anyway, much like GFR this post's subject is a group of guys from mid-Michigan, specifically, you guessed it, Lansing. The People's Temple are two sets of brothers that started playing out in 2008. In these 5 short years they've gotten a decent amount of attention for playing psychedelic garage rock, oft-compared to bands of the 60s though they honestly sound more like an 80s or early 90s college radio band with the reverb cranked up to me. The entertainment writer at City Pulse (that'd be Lansing's free weekly) is really into them so it's hard to not know what People's Temple are up to when every time they do anything it's written about in the paper. Their records are pretty cool, but they've honestly bummed me out every time I've seen them live. Sometimes they've just been downright sloppy, or loud for the sake of loud with no real inspiration. They almost always have an off-putting stage demeanor where they seem to hate their audience and berate the staff at venues. They could be fine people off-stage, I've never spoken to any of them, but they just generally seem unapproachable and inconsistent. Some writers call this an "intense stage show"... I tend to think of it as something I don't want to pay to see.

Lansing's hottest indie band, or the "Surly Mod" gang from The Warriors?

Which is why I'm pumped about their new release, a live 7-inch featuring a song apiece from their two albums. This is the sound of a band rocking out as a tight live unit, and I have no reason to believe this is anything but a real document of a great show. Plus I don't have to look at them grimacing at the whole room and can just enjoy the sound. This "Never More / Miles Away" 7-inch came out at at the end of February on Jack White's Third Man Records (named after Mr. White's failed attempt to start a Burning Man-esque festival in the ruins of Detroit) and was recorded at the on-site venue for Third Man Records in Nashville. Maybe these guys try harder on the road... or Jack picked the two best songs of the set. Either way, this is a really solid listen and I'm also just plain proud that a band from my beloved overlooked hometown is working with such a great label. The People's Temple are currently on tour to SXSW so... maybe I'll check them out again when they're back in town. Order the 7-inch from Third Man - it's a good listen and this is a label that is more than worth supporting.

It's a fact, Jack.

Laptop rock retriever.

Once upon a time there was a band called Nirvana, and Nirvana did this funny thing where they took pop song structures but had loud and noisy choruses with quiet verses, "abstract" lyrics, and rather "heavy" instrumentation. They were not the first band to do this, and holy flying hell they were far from the last, but they did it with the greatest commercial success and are often credited for the less-appealing-in-retrospect "alternative rock" boom of the 1990s. Drummer Dave Grohl went on to even greater success with the more conventional, sometimes enjoyable but often bland Foo Fighters, as well as a potentially eclipsing 2nd career of being "nice rock guy that collaborates with lots of people but is still hella cool." He recently directed a movie called Sound City that is both a celebration of a now-defunct studio in Los Angeles where many influential records were recorded (including Nirvana's Nevermind) as well as a manifesto of sorts that the best and purest music is made by human beings with live instruments and imperfections as opposed to the modern trends of digital correction, sampled instrumentation, auto-tune, etc etc.

Some of those last two sentences might not mean a lot to some people reading this, but it is a certain fact that a lot of modern music is made with computers fixing mistakes and "fixing" recorded sounds to make "cool" new sounds (for example, sometimes auto-tune is used as an instrument of sorts to manipulate a voice into a different sound - for better or worse - and a lot of the time it's used to make a less-than-great singer sound too perfect in a studio environment. This person then has to live with the reputation of being a terrible live performer). Some people (including Dave Grohl) say that this trend makes modern music sterile and hard to listen to, and I don't disagree with them on most of this point. Other people say it's musical progress, and most people don't notice or care, they're just like "hell yeah, pass the Smirnoff". I blame many factors on this development, but it largely boils down to continued influence of "cutting-edge" records of 10 years ago (I'm thinking Flaming Lips Soft Bulletin and Radiohead's Kid A here) and the fact that record labels don't make much money these days and it's just easier to have producers digitally fix things for artists to get them out of the studio as fast as possible.

So... there won't be any blow and strippers in the studio tonight?

Every musical trend begats pale imitators, and while I enjoy the late 90s/early 00s work of Flaming Lips and, to a lesser degree, Radiohead, the last 10 years has been wrought with introverted people with mediocre levels of talent but patience with digital manipulation making blippy, whispy, "arty" music on their laptops and Pitchfork Media racing to blow themselves over which one them has achieved the highest level of dreariness. And lately this has gotten even more offensive with the success of this fucking asshole. But... I don't want to come across as a YouTube commenter on an Alice in Chains video and go on a diatribe about how nobody makes "real" music anymore and anything that's popular now is shitty, with an odd pre-occupation with Justin Bieber. There's still plenty of quality music out there, and, yes, I gravitate naturally towards more punk-influenced things and artists with more old-school approaches, but I think more and more people are figuring out how to use these tools in a way that doesn't result in immediate suckage. I also know that lots of my problems with modern "indie" music is in the fact that I despise clearly digital production in a "rock" context - for example, I recently saw a band cover MGMT's "Kids" with just guitar, drums, and horns and found it to be a rather kick-ass tune and almost regretted running down all those guys in scarves outside Espresso Royale with my car two summers ago.

Almost.

So, I've somehow been on a kick with the recently-released album Wondrous Bughouse by Youth Lagoon (named after the fact that not a single young person has a remote clue who Creeper Lagoon is). Youth Lagoon is everything I hate on paper - a solo project that is masked as a band made by an awkward dude in his parent's basement in Idaho or something - and the first record by the project (Year of Hibernation) went through my ears with barely a notice. But, call it the midwest winter, but Wondrous Bughouse takes these modern college-radio pretentions and puts it together in a way that nods to psychedlic artists of the past without wallowing in "my-Iphone-is-broken" weariness. "Raspberry Crane" is my jam of the moment, and the fact that it sounds like Steve Drozd could be on the drums is probably no coincidence for my enjoyment.

Does this excite me to go see Youth Lagoon live at some festival this summer? Probably not - I still feel that the domain of live music belongs to those who celebrate the imperfect "all-in" human instruments championed by Mr. Grohl in that there movie up to the top of the page, but, who knows, maybe (the rather awesomely named Youth Lagoon mastermind) Trevor Powers has the human urge to crank out a power chord on the ol' stage and I'll become some sort of Buddy Holly-glasses-wearing modern Dead Head. Now, in the meantime, I'll muse on that and check on my French press. Can't let it get cold and sterile.