Videos

WHERE JOEL BEEN BRUH!??! Joel has been trodding through a horrible and crippling depression like a horse knee deep in mud for the last 5 weeks. Nothing sounds good. Nothing tastes good. Nothing works. I'm a fucking asshole with too many responsibilities and not enough income. I'm just like every other American at the moment: lost, bitter, confused, unable to make sense of reality, unsure of my future, scared for my children, upset with myself for not being more prepared financially, emotionally, physically. Then yesterday Tom sends the link to "Pure Comedy" from our favorite Father John Misty. I listened twice at work, but couldn't really concentrate because I was working, AND THE PHONE SYSTEM WENT DOWN, AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN AND THEN... And then I had a late meeting cancel...

I'm not familiar with SOHN's entire catalog, but I do know that I fell in love with their song 'The Wheel' a couple of years ago. That shit was trancy and glitchy at the same time, like I was seizing in a euphoric dream.  On Friday they released their new album Rennen.  'Hard Liquor' is the first track on said new album and while watching the video I'm wondering: what happened to the comfortable seizing I once loved? The shit is a bit harder than I was expected....like it has a touch of Shovels + Rope or a less douchey Imagine Dragon (but still with tramp stamps). Whatever it is, I fucking love it. And tramp stamps are so hawt on those who can pull them off.  SOHN is tramp stamp approved.  Now, I will listen to the rest of the album with erect ears. 

Part Tool, part Tim Burton, part Mr. Aegis, and part those mismatched tinkering toys under Sid’s bed, Otem Rellik possesses a particular brand of genius. I’m not sure what brand it is. I doubt he does either. But it is undeniable.  “Negative Space’s” video is a stop-motion animated tale of finding oneself, achievement, and aging as a big-armed clumsy but benevolently gentle creature grows old. Melancholy, but childlike chords, give way to a building anthemic grind and a monumental chorus. The whole thing manages to be inspiring and somehow sad.  Rappers be like: Fuck you, Otem Rellik, for stirring up all these complex and competing emotions. Dick! All I wanted was bitches and hoes, man. And now I’m over here leaking salty water out my face.  Otem Rellik inhabits this space, part emotive...

I went through a HUUUUUUUUUUUGE Matthew Sweet phase in the earlier half of my high school experience. It was all grunge, and ripped jeans at the knees, and ditch weed, and an unfounded obsession with the Marshall stack. Here I am twenty or something years removed and while I still love me some Matthew Sweet, but I find myself shaking my fucking head at why I felt the Marshall stack was the end all be all of guitar amplification. It's the tits, sure, but only on some applications. It doesn't work for some of the shit I was really into, no matter how I tried to soften the strike. Now, The Walking Tree, THIS BAND WAS MADE FOR THE STACKACKACKACKACK! The Walking Tree and their WORLD PREMIERERERERE video for "Here Again There Again" is the exact reason why the Marshall stack fucking...

It's -7F outside right now.  They say it feels like -17F, but I can't really tell bro. It's just fucking bone chilling. LOOK AT THESE ASSHOLES IN SHORT SLEEVES AND SUNDRESSES. I am fucking OFFENDED. Then again, I needed a steaming hot cup of Koresma with an Alaska Reid froth all up in my mitten hands FOR SERIOUS. I love how ambling and stoned this song makes me feel, but I also love how the flute reminds me to look up once in a while. Sure, it's a fucking tundra out me winder, but there's a sullen beauty in things not working because the earth said "NO, YOU SIT THERE AND SHIVVER YOU BITCH". So not only do I weirdly appreciate this warm weather music video, I am also now in the market for tree swings crafted from human bones.  ISN'T THAT WHAT YOU EXPECTED ME TO SAY BRO? Koresma, "Sun...

Dude. Right around the 3 minute mark you hear what could be a completely different song begin to take shape. This is my thing with Warpaint. I think like I'm already in Warpaint and I haven't even been axed to be in the band yet huh. I swear these ladies are so fucking creative that even four and a half minutes is too long to stay in the same frame. I fucking adore that. I've noticed that shit on so many of their songs that I'm apt to write a letter to their ADHD and thank it for existing alongside their incredibly catchy songwriting skills, ability to utilize modern technology in a way that isn't annoying or fucking kitschy, and their straight up smooth ass track record.  Warpaint is just fucking chill balls dangling from a bonsai tree on the windowsill of the coolest person you know who...

The beat on this track is the exact tempo of how I saunter when I walk with a hand on my chest. I take a huge step with my right leg, and then drag the left one up behind me. I'm on beat, I'm on point, I'm by myself and the fuckin' coolest goober in the room tomb, son.  Dillon & Paten Locke are two of my favorite people, and Willie Evans Jr. is my fucking spirit animal, if my spirit animal had a flow like Willie Evans Jr.. These guys make music that make me want to make music, or at the very least, tell people about the music they make when they make music.  "Previously" is fucking smooth balls over smooth balls and I fucking love it. 

I have no idea how a dude can drop a dance tune and make a grown man tear up like a drooling cooze, but again, Zavala does it. I've spent the last few years wondering why his music makes me feel so fulfilled, and while I still can't explain it, just reflecting on it has been emotional. It's like Zavala silently sits behind a two way mirror over my shoulder simply watching. He isn't there to protect me, he isn't there to watch out for me, he isn't there to judge me. He's just there. He's patiently sitting on the corner of "Roosevelt & Letting Go", near where I would be sitting if I hadn't gone and done all the shit that got me here, at the intersection of self doubt and blind confidence. Fuck Zavala. Ol' man behind the curtain lookin' ass.  I love you.

Ultimate Painting sound like Blur on ludes and I couldn't be happier with that visual and this audio. Holy fucking people watching comfortable. Not that I can really compare this to anything else they've done, but this is sort of how I was introduced to the band Astronauts in that I just clicked play and stared out the window for a spell. If something can make me look out the window and stop thinking about the shit I'm stressing out about, then it's worth me talking about damnit! The seasonal color and temperature and vibe of "Monday Morning, Somewhere Central" is fucking late November perfect, oh, and I also tend to walk like the one dude walks when I have to pee when I also don't want to get my jean cuffs wet. I hate wet jean cuffs bro.  I also hate the word trousers because it...

I don't know who this is, but I would like the members of Secret Company to know that I humbly accept their invitation to join their band and play my lap.  I fucking love this song.  "Lightning Parade" sort of sounds like all of the bands I hear snippets of on the radio when I get in my wife's car, but then with instrumentation akin to a coked up post rock band you'd hear in mine, and those poppy rock vocals I tells myself were sung just for me, and drums I'd like to have over for cake.  I really fucking want this band to turn out to be my favorite band of the year because it's fucking slick, there's fog in the video, there's fog outside my window, and after five repeated listens I still want to hear the rest of the album dropping December 23rd, 2016. SO WE STILL HAVE SOME TIME...