Song Reviews One

Do I love Chicks on Speed because I long to be part of some international cabal of partying free thinkers? So, what if I do- somehow they make you think you’re decadent and intelligentsia simultaneously. They seem so determined and ridiculous- I think ‘For All the Boys in the World’ contains a phone number-it could be a message to a foreign diplomat.

The band Can set the mood of my world for several months. I remember this because a friend came to visit me a couple of times several months apart and the second visit they said, ” 19th Century Man’…you’re still listening to this?!” How could I not?! It’s cool, rocking, iconoclastic, sonic, silly, psychedelic, poignant and screaming. It never gets old.

Devo’s ‘Gut Feeling’ would be a great soundtrack for a travel film: It opens spaces, sets you free on a plane of action but has a sense of anger and emotion that makes you think that maybe you’re thinking too much on this voyage and need to relax or maybe just stay uptight and find some weird meaning in your journey.

I guess a pathetic description of The Go Team would be postmodern mashup/collage music or something. But they work beyond this and attain the creation of a sound that sounds like a High School project mentored by James Brown and the Library of Congress. And it would appear that that’s what they’re after: a pep rally that makes you piss your pants in a fit of musical excitement.

One of the criteria I use for assessing a band is imagining them playing in a basement. Would that be an awesome experience- these people performing in a basement in front of seven people? The Beakers smacking drums, funky bass, sporadic guitar and playful lyrics create an impression of carefree rebellion-what more could anyone want really? I cannot express an erudite explanation of their canon but I do know I have listened to ‘Four Steps Toward a Cultural Revolution’ sixty times in the last few months and it never gets old. These people would be great in a basement.

The bootleg of Smog’s ‘I Break Horses’ from Sweden in 2003 is a beautiful piece of theater. The band were masters at creating aural atmospheres. It keeps my imagination peaked in some easy going western town where all the simple things people say connect with something cosmic.