looking forward to the nostalgia parade

The Toms "(I Wanna Be A) Teen Again" - Though there's gray in my hair / Red in my eye / Green in my pocket / Help me get by.... So one of the reasons I missed a week with this thing was the fact that last week I had a bit of a blowout birthday party for my 36th year. In lieu of spending the weekend dilligently digging up tracks and writing about them, I instead enjoyed the company of good friends, drank some fine wine and spirits, and ate my Molls' excellent homecooked food. And at some point during the afternoon of the day we had the party, while I was helping to get our place in shape for visitors, I put this really excellent comp Yellow Pills: Prefill on the stereo, and took a shufflestep backwards in time, not to my teen years exactly, but my preteen years, because that's where I was between 1978 and 1982, when all of the lost power pop "shoulda-coulda-woulda-been" hits on Prefill came out (with a few exceptions).

This track, "(I Wanna Be A) Teen Again," struck me as especially wonderful, not because my ever-advancing age has me looking back nostagically on my mostly maleficient high school years, but because it projects the listener back into a seductive sort of never-was late-seventies teen dreamtime. It's summer twilight cruises down perfectly manicured suburban main drags, the cool breeze blowng through your feathered-back hair as the #1 songs keep coming on your favorite FM radio station. It's candy-colored Saturday nights at the dance with vocal harmonies and perfect guitar solos that light up the school audiorium like a mirrorball. It's roller-rink love affairs, driving your brother's cherry red Trans Am to the keg party in the woods, getting numbers from cute guys at the new mall on the edge of town. Plug this comp into your ears and You Are There, like a freaky virtual reality ride. It's as simple as that. [Join the party and buy Yellow Pills--along with the other great reissues lovingly curated and packaged by The Numero Group--at The Numero Group's online store. You can also find it at all the cleverer, on point record shops.]

Why? "Miss Ohio's Nameless" - Here's Oakland's own Why? in a track from their upcoming EP Sandollars (which is itself a teaser for Elephant Eyelash, their forthcoming September LP). Old-timey indie hip-hop fans may recall that Why? was originally the quirky alteridentity of Yoni Wolf, one of the founding members of the groundbreaking Anticon indie-rap project cLOUDDEAD, along with Doseone and Odd Nodsam. Since then, Why? has undergone a curious transformation: the singular indie rapper is now a full-fledged indie rock band that describes itself as a "folk pop, indie-hop, sometimes mustachioed psych-rock quartet." That's still Wolf on lead vox, crooning in a nasal voice that provokes instant comparison to folks like John Linnell of They Might Be Giants and Mike Doughty. Back when Wolf was strictly a rapper, I found that voice to be more than a bit grating, but in the context of Why's current incarnation, it charms.

Sanddollars is an engagingly odd little showcase, stuffed full of tracks that often sound like weirdly chopped and screwed twee pop compositions. Its substantial moments include a couple of quirky, funny songs ("Sandollars," "Miss Ohio's Nameless") and another track or two that verge on the edge of greatness for want of an extra verse ("Pantone Cyan"). And then there are a number of short, stunted bits wedged in around the edges like packing pellets that seem to suggest that Wolf and crew don't always know when to let go of failed experiments. I can't say Sanddollars blew my mind or anything, but it did at least proffer a few mild epiphanies that have me looking forward with interest to September. [Why? is currently touring North America with bands like Fog, Deerhoof, and Of Montreal; dates here. Sanddollars will be released in early May (I think).]

He 6 "Theme 1 - Introduction Muisc" - In recent years we've seen reissues of nearly forgotten Cambodian R&B and Thai garage rock classics. Apparently, it's now time for South Korea to get in on the action with the release of Go Go Sound 71', which collects two albums by the He 6, a masterful psychedelic rock outfit that was very nearly lost in the bongwaters of time. Fronted by guitarist Kim Hong-Tak, the He 6 created mesmerizing instrumental compositions that were part rock 'n' roll jam, part jazz improvisation, and part psychedelic freakout. The fact that they endeavored to do this during a time of anti-Western dictatorial repression in South Korea goes a long way to explain why this music remained unknown even to contemporary Korean music fanatics until this reissue. The various tracks on Go Go Sound '71 cover a wide range of tempo and expression, and even include an incredible, note-perfect cover of "Inna Gadda Da Vida" that nearly outstrips the original in terms of pure bombast. If it weren't 17 minutes long, I would've included that cover here; instead I offer the album's first track, appropriatedly labeled "Introduction Music." It presents a lovely, hypnotically building progression that reaches its apex with a cathartic drum solo before winding back down.* Duuuude. [Buy Go Go Sound '71 through Forced Exposure!]

*Aside from the music, one of my favorite things about the Go Go Sound '71 reissue is the oddly translated (but highly informative) booklet that accompanies it. Here's what it has to say about "Introduction Music": "We can't sense any smell of 'complex' that a group from a 'third-world peripheric country' then might have at that time. Tough and sensual performance, floating sense of psychedelic on this album are much more than enough to feel the free and vivid energy which is unfortunately lacked on most albums of the Japanese contemporary rock groups by too 'sharpened' and too 'smart' performances and recordings."

((((^_^))))
So thanks for sticking with this blog, despite the fact that I was laid low for awhile with a cold, the usual insane-making work deadlines, and birthday celebrations. I always return!

Here's a fun quote courtesy of the mad theocrat types who are apparently running loose in our nation's government these days...it turned up on Andrew Sullivan's blog last Thursday:

In this regard, the consumerism and relativism of the West can be just as dangerous as the totalitarianism of the East: It's just as easy to forget about God while dancing to an iPod as while marching in a Hitler Youth rally. There's a difference, to be sure, but hardly anyone would contest the observation that in elite Western society, as in totalitarian Germany, the moral vocabulary has been purged of the idea of sin. And if there's no sense of sin, then there's no need for a Redeemer, or for the Church.

So there you have it, folks: All us iPod users are either sinful, godless moral relatavists or budding Nazis. This is what it's coming down to, apparently. Stay tuned for the day when all mp3 players sold in the US can play only Dominion Christian approved hymns, gospel tunes, and anti-judiciary hate screeds, I guess....