#i think my brain has found a new earworm

[silverfoxstole]

Well, that was good! Not so keen on Slow Beasts but loved the other two stories!

Did anyone else listen to Birdsong and get that tune of Helen’s stuck in their head?

#round and round it goes #i think my brain has found a new earworm #big finish #eighth doctor #echoes #how ashamed am i to admit that it took two episodes for me to realise that paul was doing the ‘we love stories’ bit at the start?

[audiofuzz]

HEAR: Electro-Pop | Able Machines - “Evidence”

  We are really excited about this duo. We had a listen today and the electro-pop perfection is magnificent. The music is catchy and fun. Take a listen to “Evidence” above and read more about them below: Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo Able Machines announces their futuristic self-produced sophomore album Digital Precision due out September 29 and available for pre-order now. Alongside the announcement, the pair share the first taste of the project with "Evidence" out now and its accompanying cinematic, self-directed video. With its Swedish pop influence, the latest track defiantly chooses self-love over a toxic relationship. To celebrate the LP release, able machines will perform live at their official album release show in Los Angeles at Gold Diggers on September 6. Tickets are available now here. Digital Precision, the forthcoming self-produced second album by able machines, moves into uncharted emotional and musical territory for the pair. “I think for both of us, writing this album was a cathartic purging of emotions,” says vocalist Tay Côlieé. “Each song is a little glimpse into the inner workings of our brains and how we navigate the tangled dynamics of angsty love.” Over a varied set of 12 tracks, the project allows the duo to strikingly expand their sonic universe using punchy, futuristic production and timely, thoughtful lyricism–written and produced entirely by the two artists in Los Angeles. With their second album, the pair is able to expand on the work they've made and experiment with their influences. Côlieé says, “Stylistically, this second album gave us an opportunity to dive deeper into developing our sound. We had fun pulling elements from our background in different musical genres — like my love of Fiona Apple and Elliot Smith, Linus’ punk/metal upbringing and then melding all that into the electropop sphere.” The majority of Digital Precision was mixed by SethEarnest (Tessa Violet) and mastered by Paul Logus (Anthrax, Notorious B.I.G.). "Evidence," out today, is an empowering, Swedish pop-influenced earworm with an irresistible baseline and dreamy vocals. Côlieé says, "We wrote this as sort of a response to breaking out of toxic relationship patterns and realizing your own worth." The album was already written when the track made its way into their lives, but they saw something special in it and dropped everything to record it.Côlieé adds, "Musically, it’s our tribute to our favorite Scandinavian artists." The track's accompanying self-directed video is a cinematic CSI-style take on the song as the duo step into character as detectives, doing research and collecting evidence investigating a toxic ex. Dotson says, "It was the perfect opportunity to put our 3 “band chihuahuas” in the video as the K-9 Unit. We found an old audio parts manufacturing lab in East LA and it was the perfect location for our crime lab." The plot-based video posed new challenges, like having to recruit multiple characters other than themselves for the first time. Côlieé adds, "The production had so many moving parts, rather than just Linus and I winging it, we had so many opportunities to plan and add little Easter eggs in every scene — like hiding our song lyrics in the love letters and having our logo appear in subtle places.” Watch: "Evidence" (Official Music Video) Rising duo able machines is made up of Tay Côlieé and Linus Dotson who met when Côlieé was perusing Craigslist in search of musical gear and stumbled upon a “wanted” ad posted by producer Dotson. Dotson, professionally known as Linus Of Hollywood, has made a name as a diverse songwriter and producer, working with a range of artists including The Charlatans UK, Bowling For Soup, Diddy, Cheap Trick and Smashing Pumpkins. He’s also a member of Santa Barbara pop/punk legends Nerf Herder, who are best known for writing the theme song for popular television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Côlieé first began acting as a teenager and later moved into music as a ghostwriter for Capitol Records, co-writing hits for major pop titans including Ariana Grande and Camila Cabello. The group's first single, “Secrets and Lies” was written on the afternoon they met, and fueled by a matched passion and palpable artistic chemistry, able machines was born. Of their boundary-pushing sound and remarkable self-sufficiency, The HYPE Magazine wrote, "The duo tauntingly toys with the normal boundaries of pop music, often coupling their catchy melodic music with dark lyrical imagery while self-producing their own visual content, music videos included." Today, coming off of a successful Japanese mini tour, able machines is ready to re-introduce themselves with their second body of work that spans a vast musical soundscape and sees the two plunge into emotional depths like never before. The bouncy, Swedish pop-inspired "Evidence," is out everywhere now. The sophomore LP by able machines, Digital Precision, is due out September 29 and available to pre-order now. Celebrate the LP at the official album release show with able machines live in Los Angeles on September 6. Tickets are on sale now here and merch is available here. Connect with able machines on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok and stay tuned for more from the rising duo. Read the full article

[chrisryanspeaks]

HEAR: Electro-Pop | Able Machines - “Evidence”

  We are really excited about this duo. We had a listen today and the electro-pop perfection is magnificent. The music is catchy and fun. Take a listen to “Evidence” above and read more about them below: Los Angeles-based electro-pop duo Able Machines announces their futuristic self-produced sophomore album Digital Precision due out September 29 and available for pre-order now. Alongside the announcement, the pair share the first taste of the project with "Evidence" out now and its accompanying cinematic, self-directed video. With its Swedish pop influence, the latest track defiantly chooses self-love over a toxic relationship. To celebrate the LP release, able machines will perform live at their official album release show in Los Angeles at Gold Diggers on September 6. Tickets are available now here. Digital Precision, the forthcoming self-produced second album by able machines, moves into uncharted emotional and musical territory for the pair. “I think for both of us, writing this album was a cathartic purging of emotions,” says vocalist Tay Côlieé. “Each song is a little glimpse into the inner workings of our brains and how we navigate the tangled dynamics of angsty love.” Over a varied set of 12 tracks, the project allows the duo to strikingly expand their sonic universe using punchy, futuristic production and timely, thoughtful lyricism–written and produced entirely by the two artists in Los Angeles. With their second album, the pair is able to expand on the work they've made and experiment with their influences. Côlieé says, “Stylistically, this second album gave us an opportunity to dive deeper into developing our sound. We had fun pulling elements from our background in different musical genres — like my love of Fiona Apple and Elliot Smith, Linus’ punk/metal upbringing and then melding all that into the electropop sphere.” The majority of Digital Precision was mixed by SethEarnest (Tessa Violet) and mastered by Paul Logus (Anthrax, Notorious B.I.G.). "Evidence," out today, is an empowering, Swedish pop-influenced earworm with an irresistible baseline and dreamy vocals. Côlieé says, "We wrote this as sort of a response to breaking out of toxic relationship patterns and realizing your own worth." The album was already written when the track made its way into their lives, but they saw something special in it and dropped everything to record it.Côlieé adds, "Musically, it’s our tribute to our favorite Scandinavian artists." The track's accompanying self-directed video is a cinematic CSI-style take on the song as the duo step into character as detectives, doing research and collecting evidence investigating a toxic ex. Dotson says, "It was the perfect opportunity to put our 3 “band chihuahuas” in the video as the K-9 Unit. We found an old audio parts manufacturing lab in East LA and it was the perfect location for our crime lab." The plot-based video posed new challenges, like having to recruit multiple characters other than themselves for the first time. Côlieé adds, "The production had so many moving parts, rather than just Linus and I winging it, we had so many opportunities to plan and add little Easter eggs in every scene — like hiding our song lyrics in the love letters and having our logo appear in subtle places.” Watch: "Evidence" (Official Music Video) Rising duo able machines is made up of Tay Côlieé and Linus Dotson who met when Côlieé was perusing Craigslist in search of musical gear and stumbled upon a “wanted” ad posted by producer Dotson. Dotson, professionally known as Linus Of Hollywood, has made a name as a diverse songwriter and producer, working with a range of artists including The Charlatans UK, Bowling For Soup, Diddy, Cheap Trick and Smashing Pumpkins. He’s also a member of Santa Barbara pop/punk legends Nerf Herder, who are best known for writing the theme song for popular television show, Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Côlieé first began acting as a teenager and later moved into music as a ghostwriter for Capitol Records, co-writing hits for major pop titans including Ariana Grande and Camila Cabello. The group's first single, “Secrets and Lies” was written on the afternoon they met, and fueled by a matched passion and palpable artistic chemistry, able machines was born. Of their boundary-pushing sound and remarkable self-sufficiency, The HYPE Magazine wrote, "The duo tauntingly toys with the normal boundaries of pop music, often coupling their catchy melodic music with dark lyrical imagery while self-producing their own visual content, music videos included." Today, coming off of a successful Japanese mini tour, able machines is ready to re-introduce themselves with their second body of work that spans a vast musical soundscape and sees the two plunge into emotional depths like never before. The bouncy, Swedish pop-inspired "Evidence," is out everywhere now. The sophomore LP by able machines, Digital Precision, is due out September 29 and available to pre-order now. Celebrate the LP at the official album release show with able machines live in Los Angeles on September 6. Tickets are on sale now here and merch is available here. Connect with able machines on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok and stay tuned for more from the rising duo. Read the full article

[bigalspowerfulblog]

A short drive, up a hill I know very well. The first thing I see is her coat, still hanging on a peg in the hall. 

There’s a new washing machine coming tomorrow. Dad’s annoyed she never got to see it. The NHS app is still sending through her test results. “I should probably delete it,” he says. 

-------------------------

The comfort blanket of bureaucracy envelops us. There will be meetings with the registrar, the funeral director, then there will be the contacting of relatives and the finding of a venue. 

The business of death runs more smoothly than most, it seems. The sales pitches assail us with somber dignity.  

Would we like the essential funeral –  the ‘simple, lower-cost option’? The glossy brochure makes it very clear that it wouldn’t mean we cared less. The more you read, the more outlandish the options. Her ashes don’t need to go into an urn. My mother could become a pair of cufflinks, or earrings, or a paperweight. It feels wrong to chuckle at these options, knowing the comfort they have brought to someone, somewhere, but I do.

----------------------------

She’d kept my old schoolbooks. It’s with a tender little shock I learn I’d worked a little harder, and done a little better, than I’d thought. At 14 I’m asked to answer “How do I know I’m not asleep in Tokyo and not dreaming all this?” A thousand words – indeed several decades – later, it’s not entirely clear. 

She loved that I wrote. “It’s so beautiful,” she’d always say. It’s not supposed to be beautiful; I’m just trying to make sense of the world, I’d stutter in reply.

------------------------------

The man comes to remove the stairlift, which she never got to use. “It’s never good news when I come round,” he says quietly.

--------------------------------

She kept letters between her mother and father. They were written in 1937. Her mother, for reasons I can’t work out, is in hospital. Her father seems to be sending them from miles away. He talks about all the jobs he needs to do before he can see her. He’s talking weeks. 

We used to write letters.

In amongst all this, of course I end up checking my phone. Over on Twitter someone has found an article I wrote 10 years ago and quoted it to illustrate the awful prejudice of “these people”. I’m not even sure I’m the person I was two days ago. 

I go back to the letters.

---------------------------------------

So here we are in this house, trying to make sense of the random detritus left behind – a clay sculpture of a shoe that I made when I was 11, her books about Iran, the pictures of her dog. What is a life?

Books these days tell us not to do this. Your experience is what matters; ignore the remembering mind and ignore the stories that you tell yourself, because there’s no grand narrative that pulls those threads together; you are just a capsule battered by events. 

We escape to Lympstone Harbour and walk the estuary. What I thought was sand gives way, to a foul smelling black sludge beneath it. For a time I think I might be stuck, but I manage to escape, with both my foot and flip-flop in one piece. My dad is in hysterics as I hose myself down, under the setting sun.

------------------------------------

She was given three months to live. Month one: did everything she could to make the house nicer for Dad. Chose curtains, paint colours, chairs for rooms they hadn’t completed. Tidied drawers. Threw out things he wouldn’t need. Instructions for tidying the garage. “Get on with it,” she wrote. Month two: she planned her funeral – the guest list, the music, the readings. Then in month three, she gradually faded away.

---------------------------

I’m sitting in the living room talking to my dad, when lines from “Wait For It” from Hamilton somehow inveigle their way into my brain.

Death doesn't discriminate

Between the sinners and the saints

It takes and it takes and it takes

I do what I always do with earworms – try to work out the notes, and shift it from an oral feeling to a visual one.

Aminor, Cadd9. A minor, Cadd9.

Death doesn’t discriminate. Death doesn’t discriminate.

--------------------------------

Beneath a black sky in a crematorium on the outskirts of town, mortality feels too big to comprehend. 

We’d requested the curtains close on her coffin at the end of the service. I wish we hadn’t. I didn’t cry. I could feel the congregation behind me, all of them staring at the back of my head, wondering what my reaction would be. I shivered a little.

I once had a panic attack by a roundabout in Honiton shortly after reading To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, because of the part where you learn of a main character’s death by way of a pair of brackets tossed in the middle of paragraph.

I believe I was 15 years old, had recently had sex for the first time, and had somehow convinced myself I might have AIDS as a result, and was dying. In fact, I had glandular fever.

This time the panic subsides.

So to a hotel, sandwiches, beers, ciders, an old woman apologising for telling me off for playing cricket and football too noisily outside her house when I was young, a kid I’d gone drinking with in Torquay who now runs a web design business, neighbours, relatives, all of them looking at me, more beers, more ciders, and finally home to try and sleep, which finally happens after hours of thinking about distractions – chord progressions, card tricks, the flight of a cricket ball.

--------------------------

Sleep deprived, my dad and I head out into the sun. We pull up deckchairs and watch cricket at Sidmouth and walk along the beach. I talk about work, the chatter of politics (it’s all nonsense, stop getting so worked up, I tried to keep telling her). Back to the train station. I eat an awful pasty and wait for the chapter to close. It all went fine. It all went ok, I tell myself, as the fields around Castle Cary recede, and the red bricks of Taunton whisk into view.

[pokekill-myself]

Pokemon anime openings and marketing energy through the years.

Indigo league- The energy was Pokemania. All about Gotta catch em all. the Gen 1 anime was all about shilling gen 2

Pokemon theme song: an absolute Earworm that used the catch phrase of the series that DEFINED A WHOLE GENERATION: "Gotta catch em all" wrapped in a high energy banger.

Pokemon World: Huge 90's party song energy with a hook that sits dormant in your brain until it plays.

Johto- The energy of begging the flame not to die out.

Pokemon Johto: Sells out the series by being the best opening. A pop rock banger singing about the general vibe of gen 2. It's a whole new world but ya still gotta catch em all and be the best that you can be.

Born to be a winner: the energy of the first opening trying to recapture the earworm energy.

Believe in me: This contributed to the generation long desire for fans to see Ash win. He loses to a Blaziken and Kecleon this gen.

Hoenn- The flame has died but it doesn't matter. Pokemon will keep moving

I wanna be a hero: A protagonist being the protagonist song

This dream: the dream is being good enough to beat the gyms and league

Unbeatable: to be fair Ash was pretty good this gen, not unbeatable but pretty good. The themes are just Pokemon mood energy at this point.

Battle Frontier: Maybe the real treasure was the Pokemon the series Ruby and Sapphire Battle Frontier we found along the way.

Pokerap GS Chronicles theme: They reuse the Gen 2 Pokerap they never used

Sinnoh- Vague themes about various shit then they say the title of the season.

Diamond and Pearl: The rock music stops here. Now all the themes are Dadrock or soft rock acoustic guitar. The opening no longer matters beyond the 30 seconds you hear it before an episode.

We will be heroes: Soft rock. Destiny, changing the world and friendship.

Battle Cry (STAND UP!): Dadrock. Paths, heart, friendship and unity

We will carry on!: dadrock. IT'S ABOUT SELLING YOU ON GENERATION FOUR DIAMOND AND PEARL SINNOH LEAUGE VICTORS POKEMON!

Unova- much like the games the anime also pretends this is a blank slate IP

Black and White: softrock. The songs may matter again but man is this a downgrade to the japan opening to Pokemon: Best Wishes where the visuals would update episode to episode. Like holy fuck that was cool.

Rival Destines: softrock. Friendly rival the song. Hau, Hop, Bianca, May, Barry, Trace, Marnie. All of them are symbolized in this song.

It's always you and me: softrock. holy shit I regret thinking of this idea now. FUCK THESE OPENINGS OH MY GOD!

Kalos- A sort of return to form with a massive build up. Ash had the best team to date.

Pokemon theme: A shitty version of the original opening. Trying to recapture lightning. Hell In japan Kalos had some banger openings, at least it's not some light song about friendship, destiny and paths.

Be a hero: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Mega Volt: So anyway they do a remix of the first opening of XY, a Mega version if you will. It just encapsulates the energy of gen 6 and how much of a banger this season is. Hmmm what? We're moving on to XYZ? You know I'm still mad how Zygarde got fucked over. Kalos was a pretty good region.

Pokemon XYZ by Rica Matsumoto: This song has anime opening that plays during hero moment energy and I love it.... what do you mean that's the Japanese opening? Stand tall? Sounds like a shitty imagine dragons? Dude I don't know what you're talking about. So anyway THEN THEY MAKE A VERSION FOR THE OST WITHOUT LYRICS FOR GRENINJA'S BATTLE BOND FORM CHANGE IT'S SO COOL!

Alola- these openings all have "i want to sound Hawaiian but don't really care" energy.

Journeys- I hate how close this season is to everything I want out of a Pokemon anime. Slice of life, avoids the core story like a deathly virus in 2020 and a character based on the core tenant of Pokemon "Gotta catch em all". All we're missing is getting rid of Ash and having him be a battle at the league.

The Journey starts today: modern Pokemon commercial trailer energy. you know what i mean.

#Tumblr has a character limit? #pokeani #pokemon anime #bulbasaur #anime #pokemon day week

[peppersjam]

My Top 10 Albums of 2020

Ok, it's nearly February. Let's do this.

Revisiting the 2019 list, I'm struck by how my taste hasn't really changed. All of those albums are still in my regular rotation. This might be the first time that's been true year over year. The only one that has sorta fallen off is My Finest Work Yet but that's just because it's up against Andrew Bird's entire oeuvre.

Runners up: - Fleet Foxes - "Shore" (I got into Fleet Foxes pretty heavily in the Fall when this came out, but I found myself gravitating to their older albums. It's hard to disentangle that) - Caribou - "Suddenly" (It's good) - The Avalanches - "We Will Always Love You" (Also good) - Four Tet - "Sixteen Oceans" (Yes, good)

The pre-2020 albums that should've ranked:

Sharon Van Etten - "Tramp" (2012)

Sharon Van Etten - "Are We There" (2014)

Sharon Van Etten - "Remind Me Tomorrow" (2019)

🙃

10. Fiona Apple – Fetch The Bolt Cutters

I didn't listen to Fetch The Bolt Cutters many times, but it was one of my most memorable listens of the year: I took a day off of work for the first time since COVID protocols began, and I went on a long walk around Pittsburgh with FTBC in my ears. It's hard for anything to live up to a Pitchfork 10/10, but for one afternoon, at least, I agreed.

9. Sylvan Esso – WITH

A live album? But Sylvan Esso dropped a new new album this year. And wait, I've never even had any Sylvan Esson on my year-end lists before!

I miss live music so much. I didn't know that I would, though. Lately I've found myself (like many 30-somethings, probably) having a little bit less fun at concerts than I used to. They're too loud and you have to stand still for too long if you want to have a good view of the stage, and people don't dance as much as you wish they did, etc. etc. The last show I went to was Big Thief at The Fillmore in late November 2019. I stood up front like I used to (sore legs and all), but thank god I did.

WITH is not just a live album but a concert film. They formed a band of their musical friends and performed as a large group rather than as a duo, and the result is, surprisingly, my favorite Sylvan Esso album.

Ugh, and the crowd singing on "Coffee," "my baby does the hanky panky... my baby doessss..."

8. Perfume Genius – Set My Heart On Fire Immediately

This is yet another spectacular entry into the Pefume Genius catalog. Shrug emoji.

7. Taylor Swift – folklore / evermore

CHEATER ALERT! Two albums for the price of one! If I had to pick one of these to keep on a desert island, I'd probably pick evermore. It might be recency bias, but Taylor sounds like she's having more fun on that one. Regardless, Taylor delivered on (a) making TikTok go absolutely bananas trying to decipher hidden messages and (b) giving us the ultramainstream National(Dessner)-produced pop we didn't know we needed.

6. Charli XCX – how i'm feeling now

This album was a perfect palate cleanser to 2019's underwhelming-to-me Charli. She managed to capture the essence of being in COVID lockdown without losing sight of what makes her Charli XCX (i.e., all caps EARWORMS).

5. Adrianne Lenker – songs / instrumentals

CHEATER ALERT PT. 2! I talked a lot about Big Thief on my list last year because of their double whammy of U.F.O.F. and Two Hands (for which I did not, mind you, cheat). Adrianne's 2020 albums were released on the same day, so they're basically one album (right?). Adrianne spent some time with a binaural mic in a cabin in Western Massachusetts and recorded - complete with diagetic birds and windchimes - the most intimate indie rock/folk album I can recall. That entire sentence is Steve catnip.

4. Waxahatchee – Saint Cloud

I had a big Waxahatchee phase in 2018, so I was looking forward to 2020's Saint Cloud, especially after seeing glowing reviews. But I bounced off of it hard after a couple listens.

Sheep that I am, I decided to give it another shot when it started showing up at the top of end-of-year lists. And of course, I loved it.

3. Andy Schauf – The Neon Skyline

This is the only album on this list that I listened to pre-COVID. So there's something special here, for sure. It hooked me with its storytelling, which is smaller in scale than a lot of "story" music. But the smallness is key because it makes everything plausible. There are a bunch of "sad" albums on this list, but none of them wrecked me quite like this one.

2. HAIM – Women in Music Pt. III

Pt. III improves on the HAIM formula in every way. The choruses are catchier and the experimental bits are weirder. I think HAIM may have blown up this year if it weren't for gestures broadly. Not saying they aren't successful as is - but this is an album full of should-be festival hits.

1. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher

Phoebe's Punisher arrived at the perfect time. Me and everyone on TikTok (at least the TikTok that I was algorithmed into) needed a sad album to lose ourselves in. A lot of these people didn't know Phoebe before this album. I'm jealous of their getting to discover this and Stranger In The Alps and boygenius (and BOCC, I guess) at the same time.

When I saw boygenius in 2018 (HOW was it that long ago?) I came away stunned by Lucy's performance and Julien's raw emotion (mirroring my thoughts from her captivating Outside Lands set in 2016(?!)). But I didn't know exactly what I thought about Phoebe.

I figured it out though! It was very obvious and I am very dumb for not realizing it until Punisher. Phoebe is a brilliant writer. She captures everything with a specificity that that simultaneously draws you into her brain and ejects you out into space.

So it wasn't just that we collectively wanted (needed) a good cry, it's that we were asking (begging) to be ejected from Earth completely, to return when everything was some facsimile of normal again. Phoebe delivered - not just with her patented ballads but with the hilariously uptempo "Kyoto" that asks us to dance alone in our apartments to I wanted to see the world / through your eyes until it happened / then I changed my mind. Yep, this was the perfect year for the equal parts earnest, funny, and sad 2nd Phoebe album.

#Phoebe Bridgers #haim #andy schauf #waxahatchee #adrianne lenker #Charli XcX #taylor swift #Perfume Genius #sylvan esso #Fiona Apple #Sharon Van Etten

[d-criss-news]

Quibi might seem like the Wild West to creators. When it comes to new media, the creators who step to the front to make untested content have to build the rule book themselves. That is just what Darren Criss did with his new Quibi show, Royalties, as a creator, songwriter, and actor. Criss, known for The Assassination of Gianni Versace, Glee, Elsie Fest and several Broadway roles, debuted the ten-episode first season earlier this month.

The show follows two songwriters as they try to churn out a new hit song every week under hilarious parameters. Criss stars alongside Kether Donahue while the supporting cast boasts all-star talent including John Stamos, Georgia King, and Tony Revolori and guest stars Mark Hamill, Julianne Hough, Jennifer Coolidge, Lil Rel Howery, Rufus Wainwright, Jackie Tohn, Jordan Fisher, Bonnie McKee, and Sabrina Carpenter. The series is directed by veteran comedy director, Amy Heckerling. Each episode release is accompanied by a full music video for the comedy song contained in the episode. These include surprising earworms such as ‘Mighty as Kong,’ where Hamill sings about King Kong’s private parts.

Royalties started out as a proof of concept. Criss and his friends and co-collaborators, Matt and Nick Lang, who founded StarKid Productions with Criss, started with a ten-minute episode which would later become the basis for Episode Seven of the series. Criss was flexible about how to make the concept into a project and Quibi was interested. “We were given an opportunity to make something. It’s the way that I've always preferred to operate, especially with my collaborators from StarKid,” Criss explains. “We’ve always done it first and asked questions later. We just like making things as opposed to pitching what it could be, just make it and see if people like it and then go from there.”

Criss had wanted to make Royalties for a long time. While the show is a zany comedy, many moments feel personal, stemming from Criss’s own work as a songwriter. “My life is divided between a pretty involved career as a musician and songwriting and producing music,” Criss says. “And then the acting side, which sometimes gets connected, but it's often put in a separate box. It has way more exposure just by the nature of what it is. While the [music] side, which has equal involvement in my life, is more behind the scenes.”

Quibi has received a lot of press in the last few months. The streaming app is dedicated to short-form content. Most episodes of Quibi shows fall between seven and ten minutes and feature two different aspect ratios, vertical and horizontal. For showrunners and directors, many of the constraints of the platform are brand new. That didn’t scare Criss. “For guys like me, and I guess artists in general, my brain is kind of all over the place,” Criss says. “Time constraints and other necessities truly are the mother of invention.”

For him, working in the short format wasn’t a hindrance. “I really liked the idea of the short form thing. I think our show is strong enough to be able to exist in whatever medium we were sort of assigned to do,” he says. “You only have seven-ish minutes to tell a story. So you really start to eliminate anything that is not in service of a story or a joke. It's a good exercise. It's that classic thing about killing your darlings. You have to really make sure to focus in on what matters.”

Long time fans of StarKid will immediately see its influence on Royalties. “StarKid is a huge bedrock of my background as a creative,” Criss says. The Langs are a big part of that. “I mean, this whole thing [Royalties] was created and built and bred by me and my two buddies. We've been making stuff for years together,” he says of the Lang brothers. “I was never going to make this show without the Lang brothers; they were always going to be who I wanted. And for StarKid fans that really know our company, the whole show is littered with a lot of StarKid performers. That was always going to happen.”

As a creator, Criss felt like Quibi made sense as a platform. “They are a creator-based company that really just want to support their creatives,” he explains. “They're not a studio, they are an acquisition company, they're a platform. So their business model was appealing.”  

While the show was a labor of love, its production tested the ever-busy Criss. “I pride myself on multitasking,” he says. “I was definitely the most tested I'd ever been as a multitasker; I always say I'm crazy, but I'm not insane.” Part of the issue was the production of Royalties overlapped with Criss’s work on the Netflix Original Hollywood in which he is an actor and executive producer. Production got crazy for Criss with days that included mornings on the set of Hollywood then rushing over to the Valley to shoot music videos and changing facial hair back and forth for costumes. “There was a point where I was in post-production for Royalties editing music videos in a sprinter van that was on set of where I was shooting Hollywood,” he recalls. “I would be shooting a scene on Hollywood, and then I would go into the van and edit for however many minutes and then go back to shooting a scene.”  

Even with all the crazy scheduling, he admits, “It was, a pretty insane old time. I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it.” For Royalties, time was always against the team. “I want to say we had less than 10 days to prep a show that we had to shoot within just a few weeks, a show that we hadn't even gotten fully cast yet, a show that I had to write 10 songs in 10 days to get those produced.” On top of that, they were learning a new platform. “You can look at it as it's very scary because you have no sort of guiding North Star,” he says. “but on the other hand, it's cool because anything goes. We said ‘let's do our best and do what we like and then figure it out later which is my consistent ethos with creating things.”

Despite the stress of production, the final result doesn’t show it. The show is nothing if not endearing. “I think there's no faster way to people's hearts, then the sort of party trick of music and song,” Criss explains. “You can really get into people's hearts and minds through music in a way that just you can't do any other way. I think the close second to that is humor. So when you can combine the two I think you just have kind of like a super cocktail of endearment ability… Music and comedy are inextricably linked.”

For both longtime fans of Criss’s work and early adopters to Quibi, Royalties serves as an example of what a dedicated and close-knit team can create.

#darren criss #forbes #royalties #royalties press #press #june 2020

[cassolotl]

Autistic Christmas

Or, My Complex Feelings About Christmas as a Non-Christian Anticapitalist in Overlapping Atypical Neurotypes.

~

Wednesday 25th December 2019

~

Various things interact in my brain at Christmas.

I’m extremely not Christian. I was raised in a Christian society, had to sing hymns in assemblies in school, had Easter services in a church with my classmates, was given a Bible at a particular academic milestone... and always felt very uncomfortable with all of that Christian stuff. I wasn’t asked if I wanted to join in or if I believed, it was just assumed that I would come around to it. The idea that it might be unethical to raise children in a religion, or just that the child might not benefit from it, never crossed anyone’s mind. The various teachings were sometimes nice but mostly felt to me like inconsistent and untrue stories and attempts to manipulate me, though clearly it was unintentional. I bet Jesus was awesome and I’d probably have liked him if I met him at a bus stop, but I don’t want this whole... religion thing about him.

Anti-capitalist. My first memory of buying clothes as a small child and being given a choice about what was bought for me, I remember rejecting all the choices available and asking for something without brand names or logos on it! I’m just anti-capitalist to my core, I think. And I would estimate that I attribute about 90% of the feeling of Christmas being imposed on me to capitalism, which has a selfish interest in sustaining a social structure of Christmas as a time for consumption, and then embedding that structure in as many people as possible until it feels like a tradition that emotionally sustains itself. So in addition to Christmas not really happening to me internally, I have to deal with Christmas happening to me a lot externally, whether I like it or not, and I usually do not.

My brain is bad with music. I like a lot of music, but I’ve learned slowly over time that if I listen to it I’m just giving my brain things to loop. I am very prone to earworms and find them very uncomfortable. I worked in WH Smith over Christmas one time and could happily never listen to another Christmas song ever again in my life. Sometimes Christmas music comes on and I start to feel inexplicably trapped with a sensation of dread. I recognise that it’s mostly good, pleasant, catchy, upbeat music with good message! I just can’t deal with it on a visceral level sometimes.

My situation growing up was not ideal. Christmas day meant my mum’s partner was home all day and probably drinking. I would have to buy him presents, even. We were told that Christmas is a time for giving to and spending time with people you love, so I didn’t understand why I had to do that with him.

I struggle a lot with things. Folks following me for a long time know that I go through phases of minimalism and decluttering, and because of environmental whatnot I can’t just throw out a perfectly good thing so I frequently sell stuff I don’t want. Christmas presents, especially from my family (we’re not that close), tend to be things I neither need nor want, but I feel guilty about getting rid of them immediately. It doesn’t matter how much I ask for zero presents and fail to buy presents back! I get gifts and I just don’t know what to do with them. Unless I trust that someone knows how to give me gifts, and to be fair that’s quite a lot of people, I generally find it stressful opening gifts in front of people.

I struggle with waste. I love that people bring living green trees into their homes during a time when the earth is sleeping, but then those trees die. I like that people have found artificial alternatives, but they’re plastic and planned to be obsolete and they are frequently thrown away. Christmas decorations are flimsy and disposable and bad for the environment to manufacture and discard. Many (not all) people buy gifts because they feel like they ought to, and then folks are stuck with stuff that they won’t use or want to keep. I’ll bet a lot of people end up throwing out food because they made too much. If all of these things make people feel happy and good then I’m definitely never going to argue that they’re bad or try to stop people from doing them, but I just... wish that these things could be more sustainable for the same amount of effort and cost.

I don’t deal well with time, and the social consequences of that are painful. I’m learning that this is probably an ADHD thing. In particular, the experience of events that fall on specific dates and times. That includes dentist appointments, anniversaries, weddings... and birthdays, and Christmas. The latter two are particularly difficult for me, because I know that a lot of other people don’t just like them and find them important, they specifically want to involve the people they love, and it comes with a sense of obligatory participation. If I forget someone’s birthday it is often hurtful to them, and the more we love each other the more it will hurt them. If someone can support me to participate then it’s easier, but it is still very difficult.

I am disabled and poor. I have enough money to get by with the occasional high luxury purchase (e.g. use savings to buy new laptop because old one is broken), but buying gifts for people is hella expensive and making gifts for people requires less fatigue and more executive function than I have.

What this means is, when people ask me how I feel about Christmas or what I’m doing at Christmas I generally feel quite uncomfortable. I just tell people that I like to spend Christmas on my own and I won’t be with my family and I like having the day to myself, but if it feels comfortable I will go into more detail and say some of the above, and then I feel like I am being a big grouch who hates Christmas, and I don’t hate Christmas, I just hate that it’s compulsory and I feel uncomfortable when my going against the grain is so visible and can be interpreted to mean that I am a grumpy bastard.

Having said that, there are things that I like about Christmas.

Apocalypse vibe. There are no cars on the road, there are no shops open, everyone is in a warm cosy house with their loved ones opening presents... You can go for a little walk and meet hardly anyone and just walk right down the middle of a road for several minutes without being hit by a car! It’s the only day of the year when I feel peaceful when the sun is up.

No one is going to ask me to do anything. No emails from social workers, no bills, no reminders to make appointments, no PAs coming to help me do life things, no letters to send... and it’s understood that everyone has plans and everyone has a right to do whatever they want because it’s a special day, like everyone having a state-mandated birthday on the same day. Although, if someone needed their cat feeding over Christmas I would totally do it! I like the idea of enabling someone else to have a nicer special time.

Sharing light. It’s the dark time of year, and I like that a lot of faiths have a tradition of bringing light. That makes sense to me. On the solstice I often light a candle in the window at sundown and leave it lit until I go to bed, and that feels good. I usually do it on Christmas eve and Christmas day too, and any other days I’m in the mood.

Feasting. Winter is generally a less productive time of year in terms of food production, so a lot of faiths also include some tasty food, and that makes sense to me too!

So, since Christmas here in the UK is compulsory, my reclaiming of it for myself looks something like this, in approximately this order...

A minimal morning routine. Only the essentials and things that make me feel comfortable.

A little bit of tidying and admin. I always feel better when I do that, but I rarely remember, unless I’m having a day that’s 100% alone and about me. Getting some admin and clutter out of the way feels like an investment and a gift to my future self.

Opening presents. I have a little rainbow tinsel tree, and I put any presents I get around it, and sometime usually a bit before lunch I get a feeling that is a bit like, “oh, yes, I’m ready for presents now.”

Feast. I often manage to prep ingredients the day before, and it usually involves these essential components that I mostly ignore the rest of the year: nut roast, roast potatoes, roast Brussels sprouts, vegetarian pigs in blankets, peas, gravy.

Plants. I guess this is my equivalent to the tree phenomenon. I tend to all my houseplants and outdoor plants, repot anything that needs it, prune anything that needs it. Winter is less green, so I might also get the urge to invest some energy in adding to the overall future green in the world by sowing something. This autumn I successfully rooted and potted up some willow stems, so I feel quite satisfied with my planty achievements.

A candle in the evening at sundown. It’s important to share light in dark times. This often goes with a cosy winding down routine.

Some kind of gentle movie/TV. For a while the Doctor Who Christmas special was perfect, and now I don’t have a TV licence and Doctor Who doesn’t do Christmas specials any more, so maybe something like that but on Netflix?

A lot of my difficulties with Christmas come down to being autistic, with a smattering of ADHD and a troublesome upbringing. If I were with others I would feel drawn to help out with food, open gifts in front of people... and I’d either have to do those things, or explain why I’m not doing those things. Whichever I choose is differently exhausting.

I think in the right (for want of a better word) environment I could probably become a person who would rather be surrounded by loving family than be alone, and I'm open to it, but there are some complex and somewhat painful feelings tangled up in Christmas for me so it's going to take time.

To me, spending Christmas day alone feels very indulgent and luxurious. I can ignore everyone else in the world and initiate only if I completely want to, without judgement.

The Maori word for autism is 'takiwatanga', which translates as '[their] own time and space', and Christmas day is the one day of the year that I can fully and joyfully embody that.

#original posts #my words #actually autistic #actually ADHD #christmas

[that-shamrock-vibe]

Disney+ What To Watch: My Top 10 Favourite Modern Day Disney Classics

#8. Moana

Once again I experienced this movie later than it's original release but i had heard a lot of good things about it leading up to when i finally got to watch it.

I have to say the fact they went with a Polynisian princess and even went so far A I believe to cast regionally appropriate just shows how "with the times" Disney Animation is trying to be as it rides it's new wave of Disney greats.

But aside from the regional appropriateness of the cast and characters, the main thing that takes my breath away in this movie is the scenery. The island that Moana and her tribe live on is stunning, the ocean is beautiful. Every either abandoned or desolate island we see looks either creepy or like a shipwrecked island. This is 3D animation ramped up from Tangled.

The animation on the characters also warms my heart as they can't be considered originally caucasian characters that Disney changed the ethnicity of to appeal to a new audience, Moana, Maui and the tribe are clearly of Samoan/Polynesian ethnicities and it's really great to see.

As I said, even the actors regionally appropriate, Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Nicole Scherzinger, everyone, including Jemaine Clement who voiced Tamatoa have at least heritage from the Samoan/Polynesian region.

I also really enjoyed the continuation in trend of the almost self-meta references to how the Disney Princess formula has worked for decades. We saw it first in Frozen which looks at the romantic angle but here you have Maui pointing out how every Disney Princess has a cute animal sidekick.

It was, I believe, a mislead in the continuous promotion of Pua the Pig because while he is cute and clearly Moana's pet, however it is Heihei the apparent retarded chicken that becomes her sidekick for the movie.

On that note. I do not approve of the very tasteless trope of retardiness being used as comic relief. Now yes, Heihei is funny and there were moments that got me in hysterics but I still find it unfair to not only make a chicken brain dead but then constantly make him the comedic foil of the movie.

That being said, Mosna and Maui's buddy comedy schtick was very funny in places and I found characters to be not only original for Disney but they both taught and learned from each other

That's what makes great buddy movies, both have flaws to start out with but through a series of events and working or travelling together they both become better people by learning from the other and almost adopting traits of theirs. Think the Jump Street movies or even Detective Pikachu, there's something about the great buddy movies that bring out the best in both/all main characters.

But Moana isn't just a buddy movie, or even your run of the mill Disney Princess movie, it's adventure, it's action, it's fantasy and it's coming-of-age. Disney has not had a great coming-of-age story since Tarzan almost ten years prior.

I also enjoy the development with Moana. She starts of the movie as a "princess" being the daughter of the tribe chieftain. However, unlike every other Disney princess, Moana has a tribal working girl physique, the teenager has muscles and she has a notable muscular frame.

I really also enjoy the tornness in her soul of debating whether or not she does what the tribe expect of her and become chieftain, or do what her heart wants her to do and be a sailor and explorer.

On a side note, I do appreciate how non chalant this movie is in the prospect of having a female chieftain. She's never discouraged or beaten down because she's female, she beats herself up because to begin with it's not what she wants.

The conclusion she comes to in being the chieftain and deciding to take her tribe back to their origins of being sailors is truly the best of both worlds and, I feel, a very earned conclusion.

Maui being a demigod is very obnoxious and believes he is literally God's gift. However, he isn't and fortunately for the movie Moana is the type of girl to call him out on it.

I'm also very appreciative that this is simply a buddy comedy rather than a romcom. Moana never has any hero worship or fan girl moments for Maui but instead decides to call Maui's bluff on everything that he promises and is ready to scold him when he can't.

It's also an original take on a superpower of such, the fact he's a demigod with I'm sure some enhanced physical attributes but needs a hook to shape shift...it's also followed through when it's damaged and we learn it's Maui's crutch for his bravado.

As for the villains, it's clear that the main villain in this movie was Te Kā who was the demon of earth and fire and effectively a living volcano. But, because of the twist revealed that she is in fact Te Fiti the goddess of life but turned into Te Kā when Maui stole the Heart of Te Fiti, it's somewhat arguable that the real main antagonist of the movie should have been Tamatoa who, for me, made a much bigger impact than Te Kā.

The reason I do say this is as awesome as Te Kā is and the twist was surprising, when you connect the dots, Te Kā's villainous motivation is that of a scorned woman rather than Tamatoa's simple greed. Greed is a very effective motivator than whatever the reasoning for Te Fiti becoming Te Kā was because it's never actually explained, did she become a fire demon because she had no heart because if so that is a better Jekyll/Hyde situation than Bruce Banner/Hulk.

Musically, this is a nice soundtrack. This was my introduction to Lin Minuel Miranda's body of work and, I have to say it, he's a better composer than he is an actor because "How Far I'll Go" and "Shiny" are instant classics, as is "You're Welcome" but that is way too much of an earworm.

So yes, I do believe Moana to be a solid Disney movie with some great leaps forward for diversity, animation and storytelling. My chieftain complaint is the villain situation but to be honest seeing Te Fiti at the end not being "reborn" but also just simply lying down and becoming an island's foliage was worth it.

So what do you guys think? Post your comments and check out more Disney+ What to Watch Top 10s as well as more Top 10 Lists and other posts.

#disney+ #disney plus #disney #moana 2016 #moana #maui #te fiti #te ka #lin manuel miranda #dwayne johnson #nicole scherzinger #auli'i cravalho #disney+ what to watch #disney+ what to watch top 10s #my top 10 favourite modern day disney animated movies

[mccoys-killer-queen]

This Week’s Playlist (2/14)

Not sure how I got hooked on this idea- but this week I’ll be focusing entirely on 70s songs (and next week I’ll do 80s). Disclaimer: I’m not saying these are my favorite songs of the 70s (believe me that would be WAYYY too hard to narrow down), I’m just filling this week’s list strictly with songs released in the 70s.

I’ve also created a spotify playlist made up of all the songs I’ve used on playlists! I’ll update it every week (before I even post the playlist, so if you check at the right time the songs will be there!)

1.) London Calling- The Clash (1979) I like to define this song as the song that started my descent into classic rock. When I was in 7th grade I had this music teacher who would always play pop music of the late 20th century for class. This song was one of the first songs she showed us, and it became a trademark of the class. We used to get this song played at dances and stuff- so there’s a lot of middle school memory there. Guess we all wanted to be punks- and this is a great boppy song just for that.

2.) All Right Now- Free (1970) Am I being typical for picking this song...? Perhaps (because honestly, at least where I’m from, this is the only Free song anyone knows... yikes. It’s overused in media sometimes imo). But that doesn’t meant it’s not great! It’s got everything! An epic guitar riff that frames the lyrics, a sick beat, funny rhymes, a killer musical interlude with bangin piano and a guitar solo- all while being undeniably CHILL. This one of those chill summer songs to me; the kind you listen to on a hot, quiet, and sunny car ride through the country with the windows down while wearing sunglasses. That’s just the aesthetic I’ve always associated with this song.

3.) Rock’n Me- Steve Miller Band (1976) Just try not to bop. I dare you. This is a real dance-a-little-in-your-seat song with a GREAT, smooth flow to it. Killer rhymes and a fast, subtle beat you can’t avoid even if you try. Steve Miller Band is one of my favorite groups of the 70s and I wish they got more appreciation in general. I could’ve picked so many of their songs already for these playlists, but this one stood out to me this week because I feel like it’s very recognizable (I always heard this song as a kid and I feel like maybe some people on here did too). It’s so damn catchy that it’ll just stick with you, so listen and get ready for an earworm. Also a great road trip song.

4.) Once Bitten, Twice Shy- Ian Hunter (1975) No, this isn’t Great White!! This is the song we all know and love but this one’s the original! I feel like I need to educate anyone who’ll listen about this! *scoff* god, now I can see why Joe Elliott’s always shoving Ian Hunter in everyone’s faces- because he’s worth it! Maybe I’m a little biased, but I personally prefer this version over Great White’s for a bunch of different reasons. For one thing, I think this version focuses more on telling the story rather than trying to make the music over the top. The instrumentals of this one ROCK, but the way it’s constructed with the lyrics makes the story more understandable- essentially, it’s just more raw, and I like the raw sound to it, but that’s just me. You all probably know how the song goes at this point, but after listening to this version you’ll see just how much of it Great White changed. You take it upon yourself to decipher the meaning of the lyrics ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) I think we all know what “rock and roll” means at this point...

5.) Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’- Journey (1979) I don’t like to acknowledge Valentine’s Day, nor was I going to mention it in any way on this playlist- but let me tell you a story: last year on VD, I was driving home from school, and this song came on the radio. Then it hit me- I had completely forgotten about ANTI-Valentine’s Day songs! This is a PERFECT example of one. It tells of an unfaithful someone who gets bitten in the ass by someone else’s unfaithfulness. Talk about a SICK burn! This has gotta be my favorite Journey song as well. It’s like a flash-fiction song; telling a huge story while barely saying anything at all. My favorite part of this song by far is how each instrument has a crystal clear part, and you can very easily pick out each one. The intro of this song is just excellent. You can clearly hear the bass, drums, guitars, and piano all introduced in different ways. It’s just a gorgeous song through and through, and those 189 “na”s at the end just tie it all together (and yes, I counted). You’ll have all the words down before you know it.

6.) You’re All I’ve Got Tonight- The Cars (1978) Like I said last week, The Cars are one of the perfect combos of rock and pop. If you think about it, this one can be another anti-Valentine’s Day song. The lyrics have a sloppy and desperate feel to them- kinda like the speaker is drunk and throwing themselves at someone because they’re that desperate. “I don’t care if you hurt me some more, I don’t care if you even the score”- like oof man, you just sound desperate. This song is a banger in every way and let’s face it- the keyboard at the chorus is just the absolute best part. Strong points for these guys are always keyboards and guitars. It’s got this rock hard chill 80s vibe to it (despite it being a 70s song- new wave, you know), you’ll feel that you need to be doing something cool while listening to it.

7.) Rock and Roll- Led Zeppelin (1971) It’s so cliche of me to use this I know I know I KNOW- but can you blame me? On Sunday in a record booth at the market I found an original Zeppelin IV and I feel like this song has been following me all week because of it. This is unarguably one the most recognizable and famous rock songs of all time- because it was so expertly crafted in every way imaginable- just like everything else Zeppelin’s ever done. It’s ALWAYS the drums that do it for me in this song. l That filler at the end is- without question- the best part of the whole song. Bonzo just KILLS it. Overall, it’s a short-ish song that uses its time extremely well; it’s like all four of them went “let’s maximize every single element that goes into a bop, and make a song like that”. In some ways, this song is objectively perfect. If you want pure rock and roll in all its glory- what better song to choose than Rock and Roll itself?

8.) Keep Yourself Alive- Queen (1973) Another objectively perfect rock and roll song with a killer drum solo. I’m super biased towards Queen- but I cannot believe I never heard of this song until I was prepping my brain to see Bohemian Rhapsody! Honestly, who thinks it’s okay to keep this hidden? It’s the leading song off of their very first album- so this is almost like the song that INVENTED Queen fans! It’s a Brian May baby- and hell yeah does it show. I think everyone needs to know this song for artistic and historical reasons. It’s pure, power rock Queen through and through- despite being one of the earliest of their songs.

9.) Cum On Feel the Noize- Slade (1973) NO, it’s not Quiet Riot!! This is the song we all know and love but this one’s the original!! Again, I feel like I need to educate anyone who’ll listen about this! I get so angry sometimes that Quiet Riot gets all the credit for songs like this one and Mama Weer All Crazee now. Slade was super popular in England in the 70s- ahead of their time for sure but definitely one with the glam rock movement- but not as big in America. I never knew these guys existed until about five years ago and damn I felt like I had to be blind before learning that. Just listen to this song and then I think the sound of it’ll make a lot more sense, like “oh yeah- Quiet Riot’s version kinda DOES sound like it could be a glam rock song from the early 70s!” Just goes to show what geniuses these guys were, because their songs can be both glam rock AND heavy metal and work either way. Once you hear this version, though, I believe there’s no going back.

10.) Roll With the Changes- REO Speedwagon (1978) This was my favorite song for a few months when I was 16- it’s absolutely EPIC. The speaker is bursting at the seams with accepting a new found moral understanding of how they feel about trying to please or win over an apparent lover. They come to the conclusion that the other person just needs to keep on “rolling with the changes” and that they’ll be there for them whenever they decide to accept that perspective. The KEYBOARD is to D I E  F O R GUYS. Neal Doughty is a motherfucking SAINT- and SO IS GARY RICHRATH. This song sounds like it’s the finale of a musical or something! Possibly the biggest bop REO has ever created. It’s a groovy, extremely poetic, fast, theatrical, very slightly operatic rock and roll song and I’d highly recommend this to any person on the planet I love it that much. It’s lovable in every possible way.

#the clash #free #steve miller band #ian hunter #journey #the cars #led zeppelin #queen #slade #reo speedwagon #weekly playlists #raydio gaga

[hermitologist]

My 20 Favorite Records of 2019

Lists! Everyone loves them. Here’s another one.

These are the records I liked the most this year. That doesn’t mean they’re the *best*, that means I liked them. You might not. That’s fine! You might be livid that Porpoise Corpse’s neo-classical folk prog double LP isn’t on my list because it’s an easy top 5 record for you, but maybe electric mandolin solos, blast beats, and harpsichord runs aren’t my thing. That’s fine too! It’s infinitely cooler and far more productive to let people enjoy the art they enjoy rather than wasting precious minutes of your life trying to convince the entire internet to have the exact same taste in music.

That said ... 

This years list is chock full of the usual, if you’re familiar with my taste at all -- tons of super heavy bummer jams, a handful of Radiohead-adjacent mid-tempo rock of the indie or emo variety, some hearty post-rock, some tried-and-true vets doing the thing they do very well ... again, and a few outliers. The honorable mentions list gets considerably more eclectic if you’re looking for stuff that sounds less like a soundtrack to various stages of the apocalypse.

As always, I welcome your suggestions for records and podcasts I might’ve missed the boat on. There’s way too much good stuff out there to keep up with, so PLEASE help me out.

Also: When I am not being a lazy pile of crap, I try to haul my dadbod around town for a run a few days a week and will listen to/briefly review a record in the process. Almost every record on this list has been a part of one of those posts, so if you’re interested in such a thing, please check out my Instagram.

BONUS: I put together a playlist on Spotify of my favorite song from each of my top 20 records, and a separate one for the 51 other records I liked this year, so if you’re overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, just needle drop a little and see if anything grabs you. And if anyone’s feeling productive and has time to do an Apple Music playlist, I’ll link and credit you.

Top 20 Spotify Playlist

Top 20 Apple Music Playlist -- Thanks, Austin!

Other Faves Spotify Playlist

But before we get to the Top 20, a couple of records that deserve a nod ... 

Record I Listened To The Most In 2019 Whether I Wanted To Or Not

Angel Du$t - Pretty Buff

This is my four-year-old son’s favorite record, and while I’m trying to round out his musical palate by throwing on all sorts of different bands while we’re hanging out, he insists on either “no music” or “The Basketball Song” (which is “Big Ass Love”). I have no idea how or why his little amazingly weird brain equates the song with basketball (a sport he doesn’t really play or watch or think about ever, to my knowledge), but it does. He LOVES IT. I’ve got to admit, I didn't care for the song all that much when I first heard it, but it’s an earworm, and some 3000 plays later, I love it, and I love the record. Funny how that works out.

Record That Came out in 2009, But I Didn’t Discover Until 2019

Self-Evident - Endings

Endings was neck-and-neck with my favorite record of 2019 for spins this year. Coincidentally, the it was recommended by someone from the band who made my #1 record, and it has moments where it sounds a whole hell of a lot like my #1 record. Blows my mind that a band that was/is so incredibly in my wheelhouse sonically, that has released nine LPs over an 18 year career, and operates in circles incredibly close to a ton of bands I love and respect and nerd out about music with somehow managed to elude me for the better part of two decades. At any rate I’m incredibly stoked to have finally found them, absolutely love them, and honestly might’ve listened to this LP 20 times in a matter of a few days when I got my first taste. It’s that good. 

And now for the list ... 

20) Remote Viewing - It’s Better This Way

Super nasty, dark, sludgy, well-crafted noise rock out of London that fits somewhere in between KEN Mode and early-Kowloon Walled City sonically. You’d think it was pretty crazy to have a band be so locked in and fully formed as early as LP2, but then you find out they’re ex-members of Palehorse, Million Dead, and I Want You Dead and it all kinda makes sense. Unfortunately, the song on the playlist is from a previous LP (because the new one is inexplicably not on Spotify), but you can and should get the new record on Bandcamp.

19) From Indian Lakes - Dimly Lit

I’ve been a big fan of FIL for years, but have always been at a bit of a loss when it comes time to describe them. It’s hazy and dreamy, but not quite shoegazey ... it’s insanely infectious and pleasing to the ear, but not really poppy ... it’s forward-thinking and experimental, but not quite art-rock or groggy at all. It’s just excellent. Full stop. If you dig anything from Tycho, to Radiohead, to The Cure, to Slowdive you’ll enjoy this.

18) Stray From The Path - Internal Atomics

Furious, mathy, riff-heavy hardcore from Long Island that sounds like a reformed Rage Against The Machine had spent the past two decades doing steroids, mainlining Red Bull, and studying the finer points of Moshology. The breakdowns are massive, the drumming absolutely mental, and the vocals pissed as hell. At my advanced age, it’s rare that a record makes me want to pit and/or try to deadlift cars, but this one’s got that magic.

17) Glassing - Spotted Horse

Mostly spazzy, occasionally dreamy, black-metal sprinkled post-hardcore that fits in very well with bands like Portrayal Of Guilt and Respire in the rebirth of traditional screamo. It’s fits and starts of chaos and beauty, and it all sounds and feels like it could completely go off the rails at any time which is what made bands like Orchid and Majority Rule and Saetia so great back in the day. 

16) La Dispute - Panorama

It’s no secret that I’m a big La Dispute fan (Thrice has toured the US with them twice in the past decade), and I love all of their records, but I’m pretty sure I can say with full confidence that this is the best record they’ve ever made. Everything is firing at peak performance, and the way the record is arranged and sequenced makes it feel more like a film score than a collection of songs. It’s a complete work -- meant to be listened to as such, which is a daunting artistic task, but they pulled it off in grand fashion.

15) Russian Circles - Blood Year

This band has been in the upper echelon of post-rock bands for as long as I can remember, and Blood Year is another incredible addition to their already stellar discography. These guys are all absolute monsters at their given instruments, and one of the best live rock bands on the planet, so getting to hear them do their thing on a record that manages to actually capture that live energy and ambience really does the trick for me. 

14) Greet Death - New Hell

This one kinda came outta nowhere for me, as I (ashamedly) was not familiar with them prior to giving New Hell a spin. It blew me away. I’m a total sucker for bummer jams, and this record is full of top-quality sludgy, sad, shoegazey goodness. If you dig Cloakroom, O’ Brother, or Pianos Become The Teeth this is gonna be right up your alley.  

13) Sleep Token - Sundowning

Another record that came out of nowhere to knock me on my ass. I downloaded it before a transatlantic flight on a whim (after hearing about 30 seconds of the opening track), hoping that it would be a nice, mellow companion to ease my in-flight anxiety. And it was, but whoa was it so much more than that. It kinda sounds like a collab between Active Child and Deftones -- poppy, melancholic piano ballads, brought to crushing crescendos via super heavy drop-tuned sludge -- which sounds like a mess, but it works so well. It’s a killer record and probably would’ve landed higher on this year’s list if it hadn’t come out so late in the year.

12) Big Thief - UFOF

This one’s a bit of an outlier, and a damn good one at that. I came across UFOF via a friend’s recommendation before the hype train had left the station, and honestly didn’t know what to expect. Said recommendation simply said that it was good and infectious and probably a few other things that I can’t recall, but didn’t mention the folk thing (which is great because I probably would have passed). The friend was right. It’s good (maybe even great), incredibly infectious, and gave me a nice reprieve from the heavy stuff I tend to listen to on the regular.

11) Cave In - Final Transmission

I’m beyond thankful we got any new music from Cave In after Caleb passed. They owed us nothing, and had every right to walk away, but managed to rally to release a killer record that is heavy both sonically and conceptually, and still manages to give me chills despite being live demos recorded in a rehearsal room. There are few bands on the planet who’ve inspired me like Cave In have, and seeing them pull together to grieve and forge ahead to continue to build their legacy is even more inspiring. What a band.

10) Pedro The Lion - Phoenix

My favorite singer/songwriter of my generation decided to revive the project that made me a fan of his in the first place. That project put out a record for the first time in 15 years, and I had unreasonably high expectations for it. Phoenix delivered and then some. I remember sitting at my kitchen table, weeping into my cup of coffee the first time I heard Phoenix, the same way Control used to make it seem like the inside of the Thrice van was getting a little dusty during cross-country drives back in the early 00s. It blows my mind that David Bazan can be such a prolific artist, write such insanely powerful music, and seem incapable of writing a dud song. 

9) Coilguns - Watchwinders

This Swiss noise-rock band kicks unbelievable amounts of ass. Their Millenials LP made my favorites list last year, and when I heard they had a follow up coming out a little over a year later, my gut reaction was to worry they’d blow it with a new record that was either rushed and/or half-assed, or lose the plot and take a hard left turn and make something markedly un-Coilguns. They did neither. The made an absolute monster of an album, that was apparently written in the studio, and is full of live energy in rawness that is pretty tough to capture in a sterile atmosphere like a studio. Watchwinders dropped in late October, and if I’d had a bit more time with it, I could see it moving up to my Top 5. It’s that good. I find myself going back to it constantly.

8) Blessed - Salt

This record kinda defies description, but it reminds me of everything from Pile to Menomena to Interpol to La Dispute to Devo at times. As scatterbrained and incongruent as that might sound, I assure you it rules. It was in verrrry heavy rotation this year -- mostly for the utterly filthy drum groove on the final track. If you like your music catchy, but slathered in weird, this is definitely gonna do the thing for you. It’s an incredible record.

7) Herod - Sombre Dessein

I hadn’t heard of this band before they popped up on a Spotify playlist early this year, and when “Reckoning” hit, it absolutely flattened me. You know that nuclear apocalypse scene from Terminator 2? That’s what “Reckoning” did to me. It was undoubtedly my favorite ultra-heavy track of the year, and while it’s my favorite song on the record by a pretty large margin, the rest of Sombre Dessein kicks ass too. It’s 42 minutes of crushing heaviness that kinda sounds like a blend of Cult Of Luna, Meshuggah, and Gojira. Heavy. Pissed. Unrelenting. And Outstanding.

6) Pile - Green & Grey

Every time I try to describe Pile to someone I fail. On Wikipedia they’re described as “indie rock”, which ... sure, I suppose? There’s a little post-punk in there, a little post-rock, a little noise-rock, nods to classic rock (maybe?), a little of that southern magic that made Colour Revolt so great (but Pile’s from Boston so hmm ... ), some country even? Do you like weird guitars? Freakish musicians? Melancholic crooning? I dunno. It’s all over the place, but in the best ways possible. They’re a singular band, and so damn good. Green & Grey is stellar addition to a discography that is already full of incredible music ... even if the album cover gives makes me want to fold those blankets and put them away.

5) PUP - Morbid Stuff

Was this the year that PUP broke? Definitely seems like it, and rightfully so. Morbid Stuff is my favorite thing they’ve ever done, but I’ve absolutely loved everything they’ve ever put out, so that’s saying a lot. Per usual, it’s insanely infectious and anthemic without being traditionally poppy or relying on tropes to burrow into your skull and take up residence there. It’s uplifting musically, but kinda depressing lyrically, which does this weird push/pull thing in my brain that makes it impossible to stop listening to. The musicianship is fantastic, the guitar parts especially -- like the guitar line in “Scorpion Hill” wow. I really needed a record to fill the gaping void between the metal/sludge/noise and the ambient/downtempo electronica I listened to this year, and Morbid Stuff fit the bill perfectly.

4) Cult Of Luna - A Dawn To Fear

These guys belong on the Mount Rushmore of Post-Rock/Metal with Neurosis and Isis. Nobody has done it better than them over the past two decades, and A Dawn To Fear is arguably their best work to date. It, like any Cult Of Luna requires a great deal of patience, but man if they don’t make the wait worth it. They’re the masters of the slow build to an absolutely crushing climax, the dynamic shifts that leave you feeling like you got hit by a freight train, the nuanced instrumentation that tells a different story each time you listen to a certain section of a song. They’re absolute masters at their craft, and this record is them at their peak. 

3) Big|Brave - A Gaze Among Them

Another record that came out of nowhere to completely floor me. I hadn’t heard a single note from this band until a friend recommended I check out the opening track, “Muted Shifting Of Space”. I did ... and that plodding drum and bass pulse with dark, swirling, ethereal guitar swells/feedback and soaring vocals building into a huge release of sludgy, drop-tuned goodness checked off all the boxes for me. I was hooked. The atmosphere and dynamics Big|Brave have built their sound around give every song a cinematic feel -- if you close your eyes, can you see drone footage of landscapes too? . If you dig post-rock/metal that is experimental around the edges, moody, absurdly heavy, and has both feet firmly planted in sludge, this is a must-have record. 

2) Cloudkicker - Unending

If you’ve been following me on social media or reading these year-end lists for a while you’re probably pretty familiar with Cloudkicker by now because any time we get new music I can’t shut up about it and the record invariably ends up on this list. This instance is no different. Unending is the first LP we’ve gotten from Ben Sharp in four years, and it’s worth the wait and then some. He’s managed to pull from every era of CK and turn it into a masterpiece mash-up of styles without it ever feeling rehashed or uninspired. I’d go far as to say this tops Beacons and Fade for me, and comes awfully close to challenging Subsume for my favorite Cloudkicker record of all time and space. There’s soooo much progressive and djenty masturbatory metal garbage floating in the ether right now. Hearing the one of the kings do the damn thing properly is incredibly refreshing.

1) Town Portal - Of Violence

No surprise here. I’ve been crapping my pants about this band ever since my good friend Scott Evans shared their music with me a couple years ago. I’ve been unhealthily obsessed ever since. The magical progressive rock/metal these three guys are capable melts and massages my brain in a way few bands ever have. Of Violence is incredibly mathy without ever feeling awkward, it’s melodic without being conventional, it’s discordant without being abrasive, it’s heavy as shit without being overloaded with distortion, it’s progressive as hell without ever coming remotely close to devolving into a wankfest, and it’s damn near perfect in every way. Songwriting? Great. Tones? Phenomenal. Musicianship? Otherworldly. Execution? Flawless. Mix? Perfect. Replayability? (Not a word, but ... ) PUT THIS RECORD ON A GODDAMN LOOP AND NEVER TURN IT OFF. Can you tell I like it? You might too, so give it a listen. And if by chance you do not like it, please see a doctor. You’re broken.

OTHER STUFF I REALLY ENJOYED THIS YEAR

HEAVY JAMS

METZ - Automat

Buildings - Negative Sound

Helms Alee - Noctiluca

Minors - Abject Bodies

Periphery - Periphery 4: HAIL STAN

Employed To Serve - Eternal Forward Motion

Elizabeth Colour Wheel - Nocero

Defeater - S/T

Pelican - Nighttime Stories

Spotlights - Love And Decay

Great Falls - A Sense of Rest

Baroness - Gold & Grey

The End of the Ocean - -aire

Vous Autres - Champ du Sang

Brutus - Nest

Torche - Admission

Glose - The Second Best of Glose

Throes - In The Hands of an Angry God

Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind

meth. - Mother of Red Light

SECT - Blood of the Beasts

Kublai Khan TX - Absolute

Seizures - Reverie of the Revolving Diamond

Dead Kiwis - Systematic Home Run

Norma Jean - All Hail

Refused - War Music

Chamber - Ripping / Pulling / Tearing

MIDRANGE JAMS

Jimmy Eat World - Surviving

Elbow - Giants of All Sizes

Raketkanon - RKTKN #3

Bad Religion - Age of Unreason

The Appleseed Cast - The Fleeting Light of Impermanence

DIIV - Deceiver

Idiot Pilot - Blue Blood

Microwave - Death Is A Warm Blanket

Low Dose - S/T

SWMRS - Berkeley’s On Fire

Self-Evident - Lost Inside The Machinery

B. Hamilton - Nothing and Nowhere

MELLOW JAMS

Trade Wind - Certain Freedoms

Square Peg Round Hole - Branches

Great Grandpa - Four of Arrows

Local Natives - Violet Street

Rhone - Leaving State

Shlohmo - The End 

Tycho - Weather

Bon Iver - i,i

Drowse - Light Mirror

Bonniesongs - Energetic Mind

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough

GoGo Penguin - Ocean In A Drop

Bent Knee - You Know What They Mean

THE PODCAST QUEUE

The Deadcast (RIP) - sports, culture

Chapo Trap House - politics

The Rich Roll Podcast - health, wellness, endurance sports

Hang Up & Listen - sports

Effectively Wild - baseball

The Gist - current events

The Downbeat - drums, humor

To Live & Die In LA - true crime

FilmDrunk Frotcast - movies, culture, humor

The Modern Drummer Podcast with Mike & Mike - drums (duh)

The Trap Set - also drums

Song Exploder - songwriting

#music #AOTY #endoftheyearlist #topalbums

[pivitor]

My Top 10 Albums of 2019

2019 will go down, for me, as the year my beloved iPod died, and I finally bit the bullet and signed up for Spotify Premium. Thus, I listened to more new music in 2019 than I ever have before, and realized how much of it I found disposable. Bands I grew up loving put out mediocre efforts, new darlings grew in directions I wasn’t interested in following, but thank god, thank god there are still plenty of terrific musicians putting out work that resonates deep within my soul. Music is subjective, so I wouldn’t dare call this a “best of” list, but below are the ten new releases of 2019 that I listened to the most, vibed with the most, that just plain ol’ meant the most to me this year.

(PS: Don’t think too much about the exact order and ranking here. It changed multiple times even as I was writing this. What really matters is that all ten of these records rule)

10. Radar State -- Strays

Radar State are the Avengers of the early 2000s mid-west emo scene -- a band combining The Get Up Kids’ Matt Pryor and Jim Suptic, The Anniversary’s Josh Berwanger, and The Architects’ Adam Phillips into a single supergroup. Pryor has described the project as “just having fun with [his] friends,” and that dynamic shines through loud and clear in Strays. It’s like each member is pushing the next to just create the catchiest song they possibly can, and the competition leads to great results; Pryor favors fast and sloppy punk and Berwanger moody earworms that fuse themselves into your brain through sheer repetition, but it’s Suptic who fulfills that edict best with his shiny, addictive pop love songs. Radar State never quite hits the emotional highs of its members’ main projects, but that was never the point in the first place; Strays is just fun from front to back, and it’s an album I’ve returned to consistently throughout the entirety of 2019.

Highlights: Making Me Feel, Self-Hurt Guru, Artificial Love

9. The Early November -- Lilac

Lilac is an album about learning from your mistakes and making a conscious choice to be better, and it’s a theme, an ethos that truly defines this release on every level. The Early November originally planned to release Lilac back in 2018, but ended up scrapping the original recording and going back to the drawing board, knowing that they could do better, and funneling that ambition, all their lessons learned, into their most ambitious release outside of The Mother, The Maker, and the Path (“but less self-indulgent,” I say with love). Horns, piano, and a wide variety of tempos spice up the proceedings, and the lyrics are more raw and honest than ever, but Lilac’s greatest weapon is the vocals, which Ace Enders wields with virtuoso skill. He plays with different cadences and deliveries, giving every song a unique feel, moving from soft and pleasant (“Perfect Sphere [Bubble]”) to menacing (“My Weakness”), from the joy of “Ave Maria” to the cathartic, powerhouse vocal explosion of “Hit By A Car (Euphoria)” to the pure, crackling, barely contained emotional breakdown threatening to burst right out of the chorus of “Our Choice.” There’s no other vocalist out there quite like Ace Enders -- and no other record quite like Lilac.

Highlights: Hit By A Car (In Euphoria), Ave Maria, Comatose

8. Magazine Beach -- Sick Day (EP)

Most year-end lists probably overlooked this record, a debut four-song EP from a small DIY band released in mid-December, and man oh man are those critics missing out. Sick Day isn’t just the biggest and best musical surprise I received all year, but quite possibly the most fun I had listening to music in 2019. Seriously, I played this on loop probably two dozen times the day I discovered it, and spent that evening forcing friends to listen to it too. Magazine Beach’s tongue-in-cheek lyrics, gonzo riffs, and stunning background harmonies are combined with vocals whose flatter, sardonic tone initially masks, but soon reveals their perfect cadence and quick crackles of emotion; they’re as close to a perfect pop-punk package as I heard all year, with their quirky, relatable songs about flaky friends, overstuffed social calendars, and other mid-twenties challenges filling that gaping Modern-Baseball-You’re-Gonna-Miss-It-All-shaped hole in my heart. If this had released earlier in the year, and I’d had more time to see how long it truly stuck with me, it might have placed far, far higher on this list, but either way I look forward to carrying this album forward with me into 2020, and I look forward to following Magazine Beach’s future career closely. I think they could go places.

Highlight: Living Room

7. Masked Intruder -- III

It’s easy to look at Masked Intruder and think that they’re more of an act than a band, just because they’re so good at playing hardened-yet-harmless criminals on stage, at enchanting an audience with their antics and banter alone. Thankfully, they’re equally skilled as musicians as they are performers; III isn’t just quick content for their live shows, but an entertaining, addictive, artfully made pop-punk record in its own right. Okay, maybe pop-punk is a bit too restrictive a descripter -- between the doo-wop, call-and-response harmonies and the raging riffs and solos, III sometimes sounds like a modern spin on sixties rock and roll, which is something I did not know I needed but absolutely needed. The lyrics never break kayfabe, but there’s some real clever stuff going on beneath the surface of these silly crime-themed love songs; contrasting the creepiness of Blue’s romantic pursuits with the shenanigans of a typical radio love song shows how few differences there actually are between the two, how creepy the entire genre is when you stop to give it any thought. It’s thoughtful and subversive without ever being preachy, just one more spinning plate kept perfectly balanced in the act that is III.

Highlights: Not Fair, Maybe Even, I’m Free (At Last)

6. Martha -- Love Keeps Kicking

Martha’s secret weapon is the empathy and compassion their songs cultivate for their subjects. Love Keeps Kicking is an album largely about the way love can kick you when you’re down, yet throughout the album Martha never villainizes even the bad actors in relationships. “Into This” finds the narrator jerked around by a potential partner who just won’t clarify what they are to each other, but the song isn’t out to attack the partner, simply to get a solid answer. Likewise, “Love Keeps Kicking” lays out a myriad of detailed complaints about romance and relationships, not to insult, but simply to find a way to endure them. “Orange Juice” rues the way the narrator diluted their partner just by being with them, showing impressive (and heartbreaking) levels of self-awareness. That kind of emotional maturity and complexity makes the true love songs (“Sight For Sore Eyes,” “Wrestlemania VIII”) all the more joyous, and makes their social commentary (“Mini Was A Preteen Arsonist”) that much more effective. Martha are a wonderfully catchy, fun band filled with great harmonies and British twang, but it’s their earnest, compassionate storytelling that truly made me fall in love with them, and with Love Keeps Kicking.

Highlights: Wrestlemania VIII, Love Keeps Kicking, Orange Juice

5. Aaron West and the Roaring Twenties -- Routine Maintenance

Hot take (?) incoming: Dan Campbell is the best songwriter of our generation. I already sang his praises pretty thoroughly last year when discussing my favorite album of 2018, but Routine Maintenance is just further proof of this truth, almost Campbell flexing. The previous Aaron West record was a character study of the worst year of a man’s life, but Routine Maintenance expands Aaron’s world in terms of scope, characters, and themes, all to the project’s (and character’s) benefit. The record is a tale of redemption, taking Aaron from rock bottom to a new place of security, all through the power of friendship and community, the power of music, and the power of family, of fulfilling your responsibilities to them, of finding your role and your home wherever you are, with the people who care about you, with people you can make proud. They’re themes Campbell has been exploring throughout his entire career, but brought down to a more personal level, and somehow that makes them hit harder than ever, perhaps because it makes the way they can fit into any listener’s life that much clearer. I’ve cried listening to this album. I’ve cried hearing these songs live. There’s true, true catharsis on Routine Maintenance, and it’s because Campbell’s taken Aaron West on a real journey, and it’s one I feel blessed to have been able to follow.

Highlights: Runnin’ Toward the Light, Rosa & Reseda, Winter Coats

4. Pkew Pkew Pkew -- Optimal Lifestyles

Pkew Pkew Pkew’s 2016 self-titled debut was an album told solely in the present tense, not worried about the future, but simply about the drinks, pizza, skateboarding, and parties to be had right here, right now. It was a blisteringly fun, gang-vocals filled powerhouse of a record that solidified Pkew Pkew Pkew as one of my new favorite bands. Optimal Lifestyles, though, is an album that has started to look back, if only to question the present. Are they still content to be these same fun-loving, hard-drinking party guys? Ultimately, as proven by lyrics such as “Shred until you’re dead, or until you break your wrist again” and “We lead thirsty little lives, and all we want’s another,” the answer they come to is a resounding “yes,” but the journey they take to find that answer not only makes it feel earned, but opens Pkew Pkew Pkew to some exciting new songwriting avenues, be it the touching introspection of “Drinkin’ Days” or the surprisingly beautiful nostalgia of “Everything’s the Same” (or even the more raucous nostalgia of “Mt. Alb,” for that matter). Don’t let words like “introspection” and “beautiful” scare you, though -- The Boys still rock as hard as ever, as the wailing, chugging guitars and even a totally rockin’ saxophone solo fully attest to (though I do miss all the gang vocals). And I’d be remiss to not mention “I Wanna See A Wolf,” an absolute songwriting clinic. In only a minute and nineteen seconds, Pkew Pkew Pkew takes a simple statement -- “I wanna see a wolf” -- and unravels it until it reveals a song about longing for freedom from the careers that cage our lives, even when they’re our dream. I don’t know if Pkew Pkew Pkew could have written this song three years ago. Talk about growth.

Highlights: I Wanna See A Wolf, Point Break, Adult Party

3. The Get Up Kids -- Problems

After their most popular record -- 1999’s Something To Write Home About -- the Get Up Kids’ next three albums all went on to be incredibly divisive among their fans. While all three records showed significant creative growth, none really sounded like what came before (personally, I very much enjoyed two of those records -- sorry, There Are Rules -- but I guess I’m not most fans). Problems, though, sounds like the natural evolution of Something To Write Home About without ever feeling derivative of it -- it sounds more like “the Get Up Kids” than anything the Get Up Kids have released in over a decade, which is an incredibly exciting thing let me tell you. Yet, Problems still benefits from everything the band has learned in that time: there’s new introspection (“The Problem Is Me”), a wider storytelling scope (“Lou Barlow”), and a shift from wallowing in their own pain to examining the pain of others (“Satellite,” which Matt Pryor has said is based on one of his sons). Problems also manages to pack in absolute bangers like “Fairweather Friends,” sensitive, tender ballads like “The Advocate,” and mid-tempo jams like “Salina,” a guaranteed future Emo classic that threatens to dethrone the Kids’ own “Central Standard Time” as The Quintessential Emo Song. Problems is the synthesis of just about everything that has ever made the Get Up Kids special, and it not only makes for one of the year’s best albums, but one of the Get Up Kids’ best as well.

Highlights: Fairweather Friends, Lou Barlow, Salina

2. PUP -- Morbid Stuff

The A-Side of Morbid Stuff is perfect -- a legitimately flawless five song stretch of punk rock that continues to blow my mind almost ten months after its release. The unmistakable opening notes of “Morbid Stuff”; that irresistible background riff from the bridge returning in “Kids’” second chorus, combined with some of the most nihilisticly romantic lyrics I’ve ever heard; the raucous sing-along that is “Free At Last”; the purest, most undiluted diss-track of the year in “See You At Your Funeral”; and, finally, the best song of the year bar none, “Scorpion Hill,” a sonic journey through multiple musical genres, telling a story of uniquely American misery that legitimately moves me to tears. The B-Side doesn’t quite live up to these first five tracks -- there’s a couple stand-outs (“Bare Hands” needs to make it into a live set pronto), a couple songs more interesting in concept than execution (sorry, “Full Blown Meltdown”), and a few more perfectly fine, standard PUP tunes (and I swear I don’t mean that as an insult!) -- but, well, how could it ever really have anyway? All together, it still makes for an outrageously enjoyable album that reaches the upper echelons of what 2019’s new music had to offer. That PUP was not only such a terrific band right out of the gate, but has remained so this far into their career, makes me so, so happy.

Highlights: Scorpion Hill, Kids, Free At Last

1. The Menzingers -- Hello Exile

It took me a few listens -- and, truthfully, seeing it played live -- to truly crack this album. At first it was a bit too slow, the vocals a bit too filtered, but once it clicked, I lived and breathed Hello Exile and nothing else for months. The slightly slower pace gives the Menzingers a chance to play around with some new musical tricks, be it the back-and-forth opening or the fun background guitar melodies of “Strangers Forever” or the almost hypnotic vocal melodies in the choruses of “Portland” or “Hello Exile,” and they pay off with great effect. Lyrically the Menzingers are at the top of their game; tracks like “High School Friend” and “Strain Your Memory” are more adept than ever at painting stories that make you nostalgic for a life you never even lived, but absolutely feel like you have, and lines like “it only hurts til’ it doesn’t” hit your heart with sniper-like precision. “Anna” may be the quintessential Menzingers song, a tale of longing, love, and location that drove the entire scene into a frenzy that still hasn’t subsided. “Farewell Youth” is the best closing track the Menzingers have ever released, a song about grief in multiple forms that manages to find poignant takes on each and every one of them. I’m not yet sure whether Hello Exile is the beginning or the end of a chapter for the Menzingers, but either way, it’s clearly an essential and unmissable part of their story, and one I feel privileged to be able to experience.

Highlights: Anna, Strangers Forever, Farewell Youth

#pivitor #the menzingers #pup the band #the get up kids #aaron west and the early twenties #pkew pkew pkew #martha #masked intruder #magazine beach #the early november #radar state

[anarchist-caravan]

(My) TOP Discovered Albums of the year 2019 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Here again, for the fourth year in a row! Ready to go through the list of discovered music that I have found this year. It has been quite a long year. The thing that is different from the other years is that I have felt a little bit more stressed about the list. I don’ t know why. Just is. And that is a good judgement of what my year has been about. Stress. Angst. Hardships. Fatigue. And Surprises.

I always think I won’t be able to find any new music each year. But I am always mistaken. Thousands of albums down the road. And ain’t that the best thing. Amidst the times. 

And thus, a lot of the music I found this year, that has been put on this list is of the more chill side. Not anything too harsh. Just.... a stream of consciousness.

As Usual, Albums I have encountered throughout the year are listed below -with only the last five in a true top order:

40.

Mad Doctor X - Picnic with the Greys (1997)

A picnic we should all attend, -don’t forget the Oui’d!

39.

Tomb Mold ‎– Planetary Clairvoyance (2019)

Dang, that’s death metal done well.

38.

Moor Mother - Analog Fluids Of Sonic Black Holes (2019)

Self-explanatory. 

37.

Darzamat - In the Opium of Black Veil (1999)

Good AF black metal. 

36.

karl sanders - saurian meditation (2004)

Darker than you think. Hypnosis.

35.

The Dolphin Brothers - Catch the Fall (1987)

Richard Barbieri and Steve Jansen plays wonderous synth-pop akin to something... I cannot remember right now. But they are good nonetheless. 

34.

Reiko Kudo - Rice Field Silently Riping In The Night (2019) 

(Dis)harmonious multi-instrumental live-recording’easque music with singing and (soft) noise. 

33.

Michael Stearns - M'Ocean

Michael Stearns makes the most chill music in the universe. Except for maybe that one U.F.O. trip album that can be chill in the scary cold sense. 

32.

Henryk Górecki - Kleines Requiem-Lerchenmusik

Classical album of the year. Górecki always delivers. 

31.

VOIGHT KAMPFF - MORE HUMAN THAN HUMAN (2012)

Fast techno-trash metal band. 

30.

Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows - Death And Flamingos (2019)

Sopor Aeternus & The Ensemble Of Shadows is a band that will always have a special space in my heart. Their music got me through the most part of high school. The dark ambivalent songs. Yet, never forgetting the ironic twinkle in the eye. 

29.

Earl Slick - Zig Zag (2003)

That edge of the seat feel of rock; next stage to come, just: SLICK.

28.

Kooba Tercu - Kharrub (2019)

You will be grateful I rec’d this jammin’ piece of fast jumping action of absurdity and happiness. :)

27. 

Red Snapper - Making Bones (1998) 

Trip Hop Album of The year. Seeing to what trip-hop releases there were around the time of this album’s release, I am so fucking surprised I had never heard of these before. They are just as brilliant as the all too famous Portishead, if not with an upper edge in a lot of cases. 

26.

Supercar - Three Out Changes!! (1998)

Shoegaze of the year. Lovely. CHILL. Summer evening breathe’

25.

Anna Domino - East & West (1984)

Timeless synth-pop with rich textures of dreamy lyrics that ensnares you into a downtempo that.... goes up.

24.

Troy Gregory - XAVIERA (2018) 

Monumental Prog.

23.

shit & shine - bad vibes (2018)

It is What it Says. Yeah I am on Acid’

22.

Datarock ‎- Face The Brutality (2018) 

Norwegian indie masters. I love Datarock very, very much. I’ve listened to them since the 2007 release Red and I don’t know a band with as much coercive pop in each track. This album was a surprise find, since I was convinced they were out of the loop.

21.

HIZAKI grace project  - Curse Of Virgo (2008)   

Symphonic Metal. Hizaki is a master of the guitar. Such Riffs. If you need to drain your brain to metal and feel energized but still mesmerized, this is it. 

20.

Institut Für Feinmotorik ‎- Abgegriffen (2011)

Coolest Experimental Band of the year. Go check them out on youtube. The making of the music here is truly an Experience.

19.

Deafkids ‎- Metaprogramação (2019)

D-beat, Raw Punk, Downtempo ... band from Volta Redonda, Rio De Janeiro - Brazil. NOISE.

18.

 WipEout Omega Collection OST (2017)

The wipeout games are and will forever be my favorite way of anti-gravity racing. The music to Wipeout Omega Collection is as stellar as ever, a great list of electro and techno musicians. 

17.

Hammer Bros. - Police Story (1997) 

Imagine being at an underground hardcore noise rave party in 1997. Imagine the beat blasts. The speed. The energy. Just the grinding shouts, the beat, and you. Ready to dive. BURN. WATER. REPEAT.

16.

AFCGT ‎– Square Microphone Tapes 

Noise rock galore. Glory. Wonderful. Gnarly. Intelligent. Different. Moody.

15.

Future Of The Left ‎– Human Death (2013)

Great leftist lyrics. Another one of RIk’s rec’s. Just Awesome. Good Music. Hate on capitalism and its endless bringer of deaths. 

14.

Molchat Doma* ‎– Etazhi (2018)

Youtube rec of the year. Darkwave energies en masse!

13.

3.2 - The Rules Have Changed  (2018)

The follow up to the infamous To The Power Of Three album from 1986 by Emerson, Lake and Berry. The first record was hated on by many, but I love it. And this very late follow up is a huge accomplishment and honoring to the late people involved. A record my dad would have liked. I just love prog music. Sigh. 

12.

Saori Kobayashi - Terra Magica (2016)

Ethereal Game Music is not easy to make. Yet somehow, Saori manages it. No wonder really. She was behind Panzer Dragoon. Masterpiece album for what a tribute it is.

“Terra Magica is a love letter from Saori Kobayashi to her fans. Featuring the same rich, melodic tones that defined the iconic soundtracks of Panzer Dragoon Saga and Panzer Dragoon Orta, Kobayashi invites listeners to enter the world she has created, while encouraging them to create their very own story to match the progression of the music.“

11.

ENTROPY CREATED CONSCIOUSNESS - Impressions of the Morning Star (2018)

Symphonic Doom Metal of the year

10.

Sleaford Mods - Divide and Exit (2014)

Rec of the year by @planetsedge​ - Rik has served several discs on this list this year.

9.

Mobile Suit Z Gundam BGM Collection (Vol.1 - Vol.3)  (1985)

The title track to this animé, sung by Mami Ayukawa, and its subsequent soundtrack is probably one of the best I have heard. 80′s animé has the best soundtracks, mostly. 

8.

K2 - Iron Kulture 7' (1996)

Noise artist of the year.

7.

Klaus Dinger + Japandorf (2013)

Surprise find of the year in the sense of knowing the artist in other bands (NEU! and Kraftwerk) but totally missing this somehow. Late late find. Total love. Electronic mists will seep into your ears listening to this. 

6.

Beak - >>>

Pop-like krautrock. Laid back, but with thought behind it. Allé Sauvage is my fave track. Just the perfect amount of mystery and rhythm and synths. First list find of the year. 

5.

The Muffs - Alert Today Alive Tomorrow

20 years ago The Muffs released this album, and I wish... the years had been kinder. This album helped me a lot though when I found it. A lot of nostalgia will arise listening to this. 

Damned if you feel alright ~

4.

BIG STICK - LP (2019)

EARWORM OF THE YEAR!!! Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co Butter Calamari Co Co ButterCalamari Co Co Butttttttttttttttteeeeerrrrr. 

In the bodega. 

3.

Jesca Hoop - Stonechild (2019)

Indie folk niceties. Chill, interesting blend of rock and singing elements. Not mystical, but still with mysteries. Got third place because I kept remembering it so much. It penetrated my skull. 

2. 

Doji Morita - A Boy (1977) 

This album was an early find and should be my album of the year. Morita’s voice is amongst the softest and kindest I have ever heard. And she has all the wonderful aesthetics to boot! Acoustics with accompanying strings and pianos in most of the tracks. It isn’t, because the N’1 is such an explosion of a surprise. 

The third track, ふるえているネ (One who is trembling) is my favorite. I do tremble at the very thoughts expressed in this track. The bird wings at the end... yeah. Every track on this album is a masterpiece. 

Music as pulling one’ s strings of the heart. That is what this album is about. 

I will keep it at that with the words. No more has to be said. Just listen, you will understand. 

1.

Kagami - Star Arts (2002)

Explosive, Happy, Creative, Constantly Changing Originality.

 Techno. Disco. TeSco.

Toshiyasu Kagami was a genius in his genre. I’ve heard a lot of techno mixes and textures in my life, but not anything like this before. 

Each track slaps you in the head and forces you to the rhythm, only for you to go.... HMMMMMMMMmmmMmmMmMMmmMMM MMMMMMMMMMMMM when the flow enters its synergies of musical delight. What else is there to say when your ears are filled with such pleasant sounds. Just when you think it won’t change up, it will change up. Impossible to predict. Dancefloor killer. Intelligent Mixes. 

No philosophical analysis, only my body moving to the most energetic beat EVER.

Concrete Masterpiece. My album of the year in 2019. 

#Moi #Music #Top #Top Albums #Discovered #Albums #Personal

[hsmtmtsnet]

“Do you see why we love the theatre, people?” an over-serious drama teacher once exclaimed. (Her name was Ms. Darbus and she is an icon for High School Musical lovers.) Well, Disney+ has given us a new reason to love the theatre: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series.

The Disney+ series, created by Broadway scribe Tim Federle, takes place at “the real” East High—where the original High School Musical was filmed. The students there have never put on a production of High School Musical: The Musical, but the new drama teacher, played by Broadway’s Kate Reinders, rectifies that toot suite. Filmed mockumentary style, the show features confessionals with the teens in the cast and teachers in the halls about the drama onstage and off.

Joshua Bassett and Olivia Rodrigo, play Ricky and Nini—the most shippable couple since Cory and Topanga. When HSMTMTS kicks off, the students are just back from summer break and Ricky and Nini are back from their own break. You see, Nini told Ricky she loved him (in the earworm of a love ballad “I Think I Kinda Ya Know”) but Ricky, reeling from his parents’ separation, couldn’t say it back and instead said they should take a pause. Nini went off to drama camp and found a new leading man; but now Ricky wants her back. When Nini sets out to audition for Gabriella in East High’s High School Musical, Ricky decides to win her back by auditioning for Troy.

The new series, which wrapped filming in Salt Lake City in August, has transcended the original—and its musical stage adaptation—with its purity of heart and musical theatre excellence. The cast, including Bassett (now 19) and Rodrigo (now 16), often sing live and give new meaning to no marking full out in showstopping dance routines. Over the course of nine episodes thus far, HSMTMTS has proven ridiculously relatable and sharply witty.

Before the Season 1 finale hits the streaming service January 10, Playbill spoke to Rodrigo and Bassett about life on set, creating fresh characters, writing original music for the series, and what to expect in Season 2.

Did you grow up with High School Musical or was it something that you were actually too young for? Olivia Rodrigo: I totally grew up watching this film. I had High School Musical lunchboxes, and I had Troy and Gabriella Barbie Dolls and the whole shebang. I went back and re-watched all the movies once I booked the role with fresh eyes and a new mature perspective. It’s really amazing. I was just always such a musical kid and so watching Troy and Gabriella burst out into song on my TV was just such a magical experience. Joshua Bassett: I was so young when I first saw it that I do not remember. I honestly started seeing it before I was capable of making memories. Josh, were you always drawn to musicals as a kid, or more drawn to music? Bassett: Definitely both. The music was my favorite part of the musicals, but I did everything from obviously High School Musical [as J.V. Jock #2]. I did Peter Pan, I was Peter Pan, but I also was Chip in Beauty in the Beast. I was the White Rabbit in Alice and Wonderland. I was a random tree in The Wizard of Oz. My dad is a musician, so that’s pretty much in my blood. My sister started doing musical theatre before I could even remember. When I was old enough to do it, there was no question. It was like, “Well, of course I’m going to do it.”

In the beginning of the series, Ricky’s friend Big Red says to Ricky, who is clearly a musician—carrying around his guitar—”I thought you hated musicals.” You are the kid who scoffs at musicals, but loves music. Do you think about the gap in people’s minds between music and musicals and how this series might ingratiate them towards musical theatre? Bassett: I love that question because I think there’s a stigma in general about musical theatre, but specifically for guys. A lot of guys probably think, “Oh, musical? That’s lame.” But musicals are pretty awesome. One of my favorite things [was when] two eight and nine-year-old boys ran up to me and they were like, “Oh my gosh. I love your show. I sing all the songs all the time.” I just thought that was the sweetest, most awesome thing—to be inspiring younger boys to do it and not be afraid. What’s really cool is how people can see Troy Bolton, who plays basketball, who’s also in musical theatre, and now Ricky Bowen, who’s a skater and “Oh, he’s too cool for musical theatre,” but he does it for love and then finds out he loves musical theatre just as much.

Was your audition like a musical theatre audition? Bassett: Well, the walls [were] paper thin. There’s like 10 people before me. You can hear them all belting out these insane showtunes. I was just like, “Oh, boy. Everyone’s going to have to hear me sing when I go in there.” [On my final audition] I actually sang three songs in that one: a Bruno Mars song [“Count on Me”] and then I sang a song that I wrote, and then I actually sang a another song that I had written for this girl to ask her to homecoming, on the ukulele. Rodrigo: I went in and did the sides, and sang “Price Tag” by Jessie J, and they had me sing a song with Joshua, to test our chemistry, and we just love each other so much. So it was electric from that first audition. Bassett: “Count on Me” ended up being the song that—once I got the role—they had Olivia and a bunch of girls come in and sing and read for the role of Nini. I was like, “Do you know this song?” She said, “Sure.” We literally stepped inside an office and I stole a guitar from a girl in the waiting room and we just worked out a quick rendition of “Count On Me” by Bruno Mars. She just figured out the harmony in literally one minute in a random executive’s office. Olivia knocked it out of the park and I think that’s when everyone knew it was the right fit. Rodrigo: We really got to know each other after we auditioned, we spent six months in Utah together and that’s really great. He’s my best friend. To be able to work with him every day and sing songs with him, and write with him, and act with him, is just amazing. And he inspires me as a performer as well as just a person. I wouldn’t rather do it with anybody else. Bassett: I don’t want to say it was fate, but honestly, part of me feels like there was something that just got us in the same place at the same time. We just instantly connected on multiple different levels. There was just magic in there. Rodrigo: Funny story. I knew Joshua before, but he claimed that he didn’t remember meeting me, which he did many times, and I still give him crap for it.

What was it like to discover and form these new characters over the course of the season? Bassett: The description of Ricky is basically me. I read it and I was like, “What? Who’s following me around and writing about my life?” The way he operates things and how he has problems with saying he loves people and all that stuff. I definitely can relate to that in my life. Rodrigo: Nini was a character that was so similar to me already. It’s written very authentically. I actually think that the writers though, have taken some bits of my life and put it into Nini’s. If not, then they’re just like psychics and they are just good at writing and doing their job. I was on the phone with my best friend talking about how unconfident I had been feeling and she was talking to me and she said, “Oh, Olivia, you’ve never felt this way before you started dating guys.” Next week, Courtney goes [to Nini], “Oh, you wouldn’t have been this unconfident if you didn’t let guys have such a monopoly over your brain.” And now, Tim was asking me about some experiences that I had with growing up in creativity and he said that he was going to have Nini experience that in Season 2.

Josh, what do you most commune with in Ricky? And, Olivia, for you with Nini? Bassett: He comes up with this outlandish plan to win [Nini] back and to last-minute go and audition for the musical and everything. Obviously, that can tie back to the homecoming thing. This girl that I wanted to ask to homecoming, she rejected three guys who asked her prior. I was like, “Okay. I’ve really got to go big or go home here.” So that night, I stayed up all night and I wrote the song. Then I bought her flowers. Me and my friends drove over to her house. I knocked on her door and sang the song. I just went for it. That mentality is what I definitely connected to with Ricky. Rodrigo: Nini is very confused throughout most of the first season and I was definitely very confused filming the first season, as well. Growing up is just hard. And being a girl in the 21st century, not knowing what boys are good for you, and how to communicate your feelings, and if you’re good enough to have received all these opportunities that you have been given… I think that me and Nini are just sharing these experiences in real time, so it was really an honor to play that.

We grew up with princess movies and women who needed the man to rescue them and then we swung so far the other way with “I don’t need anyone,” so to see Nini negotiating relationships was refreshing. Rodrigo: It’s definitely more realistic. It’s like, “Oh, I don’t need a man.” But it’s like, “Are you really going to do that?” Or is it, “I’m confident with myself and a man”? Is just like to be able to augment my amazingness? What have you learned from inhabiting Nini? Rodrigo: Nini handles tough situations with a lot of grace, and I think that I want to try to be more like her in that regard. She’s always kind to people and always knows what she wants and not afraid to say it. That’s a great thing to be confident in yourself that whatever life throws at you, you can handle it with love and respect.

As a musical series, you guys have experts in Tim Federle and Kate Reinders. What have you learned from working with them? Bassett: Fun fact. Me and my siblings went to New York in I want to say 2016, maybe even 2015. We saw Something Rotten!. My sister saved the Playbill—they save all the Playbills. It turns out we saw Kate Reinders in Something Rotten! on Broadway years and years ago. Didn’t find that out until about halfway through the filming process. Rodrigo: All of my cast members are teaching me about musical theatre. We did a press tour in New York and we all went to Dear Evan Hansen together and Jagged Little Pill. It was Matt Cornett’s—who plays E.J.—his first Broadway show and so all of us kind of got to teach him this is what happens. He was just so in awe. Bassett: One of the really unique things about this show is it feels like we’re in a musical in the sense that we have the same kind of spirit, we’re this team effort. I think that mirrors the theatre community that you don’t often see in Hollywood. I always say Kate Reinders is the mother of the show. She is the emotional backbone for all of us because she has so much spirit in that world. [HSMTMTS] has the heart of musical theatre with the scale of a TV show.

And you guys often sing live! Was that nerve-wracking? Liberating? Bassett: That was a thousand times more liberating. It’s funny. I booked the job and then my first session, I talked to the head of music at Disney and was like, “Are we going to sing live on the show? Because they did that for La La Land. They did a lot of live scenes and stuff, and I just think that it’d be really cool.” I was already pitching the idea. Tim is actually our biggest champion in that.

The chemistry crackles when you guys sing live—just like it did in Episode 8 during that emotional scene where we learn the origin of Nini’s name. What was it like shooting such an intimate moment? Rodrigo: I actually have always been curious about the origin of Nini’s name and Tim had always been coy about like where it came from, but it’s one of his friend’s sister’s names, I think. This bond that Ricky and Nini have is just so sweet and loving and they’re with each other as friends forever. You know they’re friends first and they are there for each other.

What was your favorite scene to shoot in Season 1? Bassett: My favorite scene to shoot in the show so far was in Episode 10. It was one of the best moments I’ve ever had in my acting career. It was liberating and exciting. Tim actually gave me the freedom to improvise. They kept the tape that I improvised on, so I’m expecting a writer credit. No, I’m just kidding. That scene was very special to me. I think people are going to love it. Rodrigo: I love doing group scenes cause I get to hang out with everybody and we’re all just such a big family. There’s so much laughter and love. Filming “Born to be Brave” was amazing and all the other cast members came to watch and it was like 11 o’clock at night but they came on their day off to come watch us film this number and my best friend was in from L.A. She flew in for this number and afterwards it was 1AM and we all went to IHOP. It was one of the most magical days of filming.

What this teaches me is that it is a universal truth that after you do a musical you go to a diner. Rodrigo: They actually make a joke about that as the last episode.

You both wrote songs for Season 1. Olivia, I came across that song that you wrote when you were six and I’m like, “She was writing songs when she was six?” Was it always second nature to you both? Rodrigo: I have old notebooks, just chock-full lyrics that I’ve written when I was super young and you could barely read and write. I love singing and expression and emotion. It’s really cool that I get to write for the show on such a large scale. I can’t believe they let a teenager do that. Bassett: I was constantly creating ... Most of them were just jokes and me and my sisters being goofs, but I was constantly at the piano, coming up with these dumb short snippets of things. Just allowing myself to do whatever I wanted. It didn’t matter. No one was going to hear them. I did not know what I was doing. I could fake it enough, although I still don’t know what I’m doing, by the way.

Olivia, you wrote “All I Want” on your own. Were you given the context of that song before writing it? Rodrigo: We filmed that song as a reshoot, so we filmed all 10 episodes and then Tim came up to me and said, “I think Nini might need a song in Episode 4.” They let me do it because nobody is going Nini like I know Nini.

Do you start from lyrics? Do you start from music? Rodrigo: It changes from song to song. Usually for me they come at the same time. I’ll find the chords that I like and then put lyrics to them and maybe a thought. You wrote “Just for a Moment” for Episode 9 together, but I know you wrote it early on in the season before you knew where the song or the story would go. How was that, writing blind? Rodrigo: We were just shooting in the dark a little bit and it was a strange experience. That was the first time either of us had co-written a song. I would kick out stuff on the piano and send a voice memo to Josh, and he would do the same. We finally decided on a melody that we liked, and then came together and camped out in my apartment for a day and wrote all the lyrics. He wrote his character’s lyrics, and I wrote Nini’s lyrics. We were a little bit stubborn and it was hard to work with each other sometimes. It was such a great learning experience. I’m so inspired by Josh and I learned a lot from him and I hope that he learned something from me.

What skills have you been honing in the songwriting process now, working in a professional environment? Rodrigo: It’s definitely a whole different ballgame, writing for Disney and I’m writing knowing that the song that I write is going to be consumed by people. Writing something with that knowledge is a little bit daunting, at first, and it’s kind of hard to be vulnerable when you know that people are going to listen to it. Bassett: I think the important thing is to just not take it too seriously. I think people put this expectation on themselves. “I need to write a hit. I need to be honest.” Just be honest and be yourself. Don’t put any expectations on the product. Everything will work out.

Looking back at season one as a whole, what is most important for you to carry in to Season 2? Rodrigo: We filmed Season 1 in such isolation and we didn’t really know what was going to happen to the show. We knew that we felt super passionate about it. After seeing the response, I love seeing people really resonate with the themes that I find really important, like LGBTQ representation, truthful teenager stories, with people that might not look like she’s the average movie star but actually look like a real teenager that one would see at their high school. Bassett: I think what’s really neat about this cast is that you would not believe the hidden talents that everyone in this cast has. It is mind-blowing. Every single day on set, we’ll find something out about someone. Like, “Wait. You do this, too?” So I think as Tim and the writers found that out more, I think they’re going to write more things that cater to us as actors that we can incorporate into our characters. I’m really excited to help shine the spotlight on everyone else.

As the next chapter of the High School Musical anthology and canon, what does that feeling and what do you hope the impact of it is on other kids now or other audiences in general? Rodrigo: High School Musical and musical theatre, in general, has always been a safe haven for people who have felt like outcasts or felt weird or different. This show acts as just yet another place for people to feel they belong and for people to feel represented. I think that’s a really lovely thing and I’m really happy that we get to portray that.

#joshua bassett #olivia rodrigo #articles #hsmtmts promo #long post

[thesinglesjukebox]

SELENA GOMEZ - LOOK AT HER NOW

[5.82]

The single at least one of you requested...

Ian Mathers: I say, I am beginning to get an inkling that this song intends us to think that it is subtextually referring to one Justin Bieber! [3]

Michael Hong: Proof that a breakup track doesn't have to be forced and predictable to demonstrate confidence. Chopped background vocals, a chorus that creates euphoria through its blurred loop, and Selena Gomez twirling the production around her voice like a loose strand of hair -- it's an amalgamation of Gomez's excellent 2017 singles, and an absolute earworm. [7]

Joshua Lu: Selena Gomez's comeback singles are like a display of Julia Michaels's range as a songwriter, a dichotomy that brings to mind Revival's "Perfect" and "Hands to Myself" -- or Nervous System's "Worst In Me" and "Pink." Julia's entire mainstream career beginning in the interim does affect the song's present-day freshness. But "Look At Her Now" paves new ground as much as it retreads old styles. Flattening synths push those "Issues"-esque string plucks into the backdrop, and Selena's stutters are more rapid and more nonsensical, and thus more captivating. It's quirky, catchy, and when those background vocals come in during the second chorus, surprisingly transcendent. Sure, Julia and Selena work an awful lot together, but can you fault them when their output is still this good? [7]

Thomas Inskeep: Sleek minimalist synth-pop fits Gomez better than more traditional top 40 pop/EDM; this sounds like the next logical step after her Talking Heads-sampling critical triumph/commercial flop from a couple years ago. Then you realize that Ian Kirkpatrick produced both this and "Bad Liar," along with Dua Lipa's superb new single, and it makes more sense. Now, how do we keep Gomez in this lane and away from losers like Kygo? [7]

William John: There's an explosive song hiding in here, and you can glimpse it occasionally -- in the flash of spidery synth during the first chorus, or at the very end where it all suddenly coalesces, as if a river has turned a bend and unexpectedly encountered the ocean. But it's shielded by muffles and hums, the curse of the anti-chorus, and the kind of frustrating restraint that, for me at least, plagued "Bad Liar". [5]

Katherine St Asaph: Selena Gomez's musical style, primarily Julia Michaels-written wallflowercore, hasn't much resembled a brash, confident kiss-off since "Come and Get It," let alone a song about a relationship between two people "a little too wild for each other." So how does she pull off one of those songs when her recent tabloid narrative breakup calls for it? By removing herself as much as possible. Most obviously, "Look At Her Now" is in third person, creating the same distancing effect as "This Is What You Came For": a song less about getting over someone than gazing, awed, at a girl who has. (So make of that what you will.) Michaels' lyric skims over the drama and past the infidelities -- the second verse, in its "an incident happened, neither good nor bad"-ness, sounds kind of like carefully phrased PR from a politician caught in an affair. Gomez's vocal does the same, emoting only intermittently and swallowing lines you might expect not to be swallowed, like "oh God, when she found out!" (To be fair, the cause may be the vocal comping being... noticeable.) The confidence is delivered by other voices, literally: samples of a child's bratty taunts, some chopped, wordless (and uncredited, obviously) toasting. Gomez is trying to have it both ways: writing a confessional, singer-songwriterly track that's still EDM- and R&B-adjacent, even if it means smothering a conversational vocal in so much processing and embellishment it no longer sounds conversational, or turning over the whole chorus to anonymous somebodies-else. Still, if dreary piano ballads have a low ceiling, wistful pop songs have a high floor. [6]

Oliver Maier: The third-person narration and Gomez's hushed, reverential delivery on the verses imply some kind of profundity that the mindless, irritating anti-chorus seems hell-bent on rebuffing. Maybe that's the point, by some galaxy-brain rationale. [3]

Natasha Genet Avery: I've always staunchly defended Selena Gomez, insisting that what she lacks in talent, she makes up for with excellent taste. After hearing these "mm-mms," I guess I'll see myself out. [3]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: God bless Selena Gomez for taking words thrown together in a blender and singing them with such bluster and joy that you don't have time to think about how ridiculous they are: "Once again, I'm yours in fractions," "You and me bleed the same light," "I'm slipping down a chain reaction,""Just like the Battle of Troy, there's nothing subtle here," "I've been running through the jungle, I've been running with the wolves," "Syncopate my skin to your heart beating," "Metaphorical gin and juice," "Bowery/Whiskey neat," "You are the thunder and I am the lightning," "Your lies are bullets, your mouth's a gun," "Let the chemicals do its stuff til the energy is too much," "Taki taki," pretty much every word of "Fetish." When Selena released a new dance track, I had my fingers crossed that I might get a shiny new toy, and boy, oh boy, did she not disappoint. "MM-MM-MM-MM-MM-MM-MM-MM...WOW" is everything I could have wanted it to be and more. She's gone post-verbal, folks! [9]

Alex Clifton: I thought the "mm-mm-mm" chorus was a cop-out the first time I heard it, but it fulfills the same function as the "ba-de-yas" of "September" -- words aren't necessary when you've got a song like this. It's deservedly smug and dismissive, perfect for deflecting any shards of bad memories from the past from her current happiness. If "Lose You to Love Me" was Selena at her most vulnerable, then "Look At Her Now" builds her back up into being the dance-queen badass that I always knew she was, but with the confidence to match. [7]

Jackie Powell: Ian Kirkpatrick's Jackson Pollock-style overdubbing of Gomez's and Michaels' vocalizations during the chorus places the listener dancing in the club rather than crying, and the heavy bass synth loop on the bridge adds color that complements the vocal brightness of "she knows she'll find love." The subject matter is a blatant follow-up to the introspective "Lose You to Love Me," but the wise writing from Julia Michaels and Tranter adds substance. This is the next stage of grief. Is it acceptance? I'm not sure. But the emotional snapshot is realistic and relatable. The couplet I'm drawn to the most is in verse two, when Gomez chants "What a thing to be human/Made her more of a woman" with the utmost conviction. The way she talk-sings the word "woman" is alluring but also so sanguine. In the Sophie Muller-directed visual, it's almost as if Gomez is channeling her inner Diana Prince in the1984 Wonder Woman poster; a blast of color coupled with a metallic outfit screams Amazonian energy. Apparently this is a track for her "ride-or-dies," which I assume would include Michaels. I mean, who wouldn't want to see them as Amazon goddesses? You must be related to Ares if you don't. [7]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#Selena Gomez #pop #music #music review #writing

[doomedandstoned]

What Weird Tales We Weave!

During a particularly long and vicious Pacific Northwest winter, I developed a strange affinity for a band called WEIRD TALES. The doom trio of Dima (guitars, vox), Kriss (bass, vox), and Kava (drums) emerged three or four years ago from a part of the world that gets cold, miserable weather ten times as worse as mine. I was never quite sure what to make of the Warsaw band's warped, sloggy sound, made all the more odd with its imposing Gothic vocals and pernicious earworms. All I knew was that Weird Tales had some bad, bad medicine to offer during a time in life when I'd grown pretty jaded and disillusioned. It was, as the well-worn saying goes, just what the doctor ordered.

Before us is the latest and most ambitious effort to date from Weird Tales and I must say it's showing me a brave new side to the band. As 'Hell Services Cost A Lot' (2019) opens, we hear an orchestral crescendo of screeching feedback. Dogs are barking in the background, perhaps to warn lurkers of dangers just beyond the shadows. The band responds with a vicious beating of guitar, bass, and drums. It's an attack we're not used to hearing on doom records and I find it refreshing to break away from the gloom for a chance to vent some good old fashioned aggression. This instrumental preamble eventually gives way to the first words of "Madness" and the record is off to take care of its mischief.

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

I don’t know just who I am I don’t know who is that man He looks on me from the fucking mirror Stares at me and laughs, waiting for you

Voices in my skull come louder and louder Push me to that edge, there's no return Where I put them bones on bloody altar Drinking wine, dancing, waiting for the end

Hey Get out from my brain I don’t need you there Get out from my brain I don’t need you there, I don’t want you there

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

"Crawling Pain" is next and I can't get over just how much the band's style has shaken off that hazy, bummed-out strangeness. Seriously, their first two EPs (both dropped in 2017) are like tripping out on cough syrup. I wanted to review them (really I did), but I struggled with what to even say. You don't talk about the Golden Age of Weird Tales; you live it, man. With Hell Services, it's like the boys woke up after an all-night bender, seized by a sudden rush of early morning adrenaline, grabbed the carpe diem of the day and exclaimed, "You lazy, no good son of a bitch, give me my goddamn money!" I swear, I almost thought I was listening to a different band, like there’d been some big personnel change or something, so different was the state of things. Put another way, if Weird Tales and Shiny Void were a dextromethorphan-soaked dream, Hell Services is like a PCP-fueled nightmare.

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

Here's another thing I didn't expect to hear on a Weird Tales record: the harmonica. I mean it works, but WTF. "LIE" shakes me loose from my comfort zone. I've heard enough doom metal to pretty much know the tricks, the tropes, the whole shebang. I trust Weird Tales have, too, so I'm pretty sure they're pissed off by the whole thing, so they upset the stage coach just enough to keep us guessing (and hanging on for dear life) for the duration of the record. Whether it's for our benefit or theirs, anything's better than boredom, right?

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

By far, my favorite song of the album is "Nightmare." It is indeed a frightening song (my chest seized up a little when I listened to it in complete darkness -- yes, sometimes I do these crazy things just because). I smirked when I read the lyrics sometime later, realizing the band's sardonic humor has not disappeared.

Nasty hands inside the walls They will get you when you are alone Mom and dad can erase your fear Anyway they will not hear your scream

A heavy blanket covers your eyes Every time you see something wrong The world you made seems so pure Seems so pure that you can’t even breathe

Living the nightmare Live in the nightmare

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

Maniacal laughter transitions us from the rabid savagery of "Bitchcrusher" into "Warnings" where Weird Tales really get their "Slomatics" on. I do believe this is the loudest and the largest I've heard them. If I heard this echoing out of my window in the dead of night, I would swear that the pit of hell had been open and Satan's demons were being loosed to troll the hell out of mankind.

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

It’s not until the record’s wild ride comes to a head that we pick up hints of the Weird Tales of old. “Dead Man” is this final number. No wonder. It’s the perfect vehicle to bring a return to sluggish form, though not for long because madness never takes a vacation. Hell Services concludes on a high note with the same bang-up, rip-torn, kick-ass note it started on.

Hell services cost a Lot by Weird Tales

A colleague of mine who deals in more new doom than even I do remarked some weeks back that Hell Services is the best album of the year so far. I'd given it a cursory listen at the time, but hadn't revisited it for months. I swear, my thinking was so cluttered from the traffic jam of new releases from big names and heavy hitters in 2018 that I didn't give as many lesser known bands a fair, focused listen. Good music does not depend on the PR cycle, and thank Christ for that.

All that to say this: the full-length debut from Weird Tales is indeed a good album. No, more than that, it is a great one -- especially when you know how distinguished the Poland scene is with the likes of Dopelord, Major Kong, sunnata, Spaceslug, 71TONMAN, Weedpecker, and BelzebonG. Weird Tales have risen to the occasion with the obstinacy of a punk crew driving a tricked-out Sherman tank.

Hell Services Cost A Lot is an acid-seeped wonder to join the likes of Satori Junk's Golden Dwarf, Three Eyes Left's The Cult of Ashtoreth, Shepherds Crook's Evil Magician, Magmakammer's Mindtripper and other far-out fever dreams.

☠

A Walk on the Weird Side with    Mad Men Dima, Kriss, and Kava

Photographs by Beata Wiśniowska  

Alright, let's do start with a little round of Who's Who?

DIMA:

Okay, there's Kava, our drummer. He had played in Luna Negra, one of the first Polish stoner bands, since 2008. You can find their records on YouTube. A couple tracks still have more viewers than Weird Tales. (laughs)

Next is Kriss, the bassist, who also provides backing vocals. Kriss played in the stoner band Sun Frenzy previously. You should check them out on Bandcamp.

I, of course, am Dima. I’d never played stoner music before -- and thank the gods for that.

How did you guys get together to begin with?

DIMA:

One day, I lost my job for drinking beer on a break and sniffing drugs on my office table -- in official documents they mentioned only liquor. (laughs) So my first thought, besides getting more cheap beers, was to start a doom band. The only right choice, isn't it? The same day, I came to a jam session in order to meet some people to play doom with and in the next couple days met Kava at our first rehearsal. I already had some ideas and riffs, just didn’t have desire to work on it and make structured tracks. I needed like-minded people to share ideas and work on it with others. You know, like in every art. When you're alone, it’s like jerking off. Definitely enjoyable while doing it, but without any sense. With Kava, we smoked couple of bowls while listening Ufomammut and agreed about the direction we should go as a band.

Kriss came later. Actually, he’s our fourth bassist. He is a crazy motherfucker! And he was our biggest fan in a town. (laughs) Visited all our gigs. When his band broke up, we were looking for a new bassist, so offered him a tryout. After a couple of rehearsals, we knew that he was exactly what we were looking for. It’s really easy to play with a guy who likes your music and knows what it's all about. So we found a common language really quick. He's got a really cool groove. Have I mentioned yet that he’s a crazy motherfucker? We rehearsed a couple of old and new songs, then headed right out on tour.

Kriss and Kava, what got the two of you into this kind of music?

KRISS:

It has to be Satan, I guess, but I don't believe in Satan -- and that’s weird.

KAVA:

The Devil, alcohol, drugs, good fun, girls.

Fair enough. What it's like to live and grow up in your neck of the woods?

KRISS:

I grew up like a long time ago and it was nothing like “growing up today.” Back in the day, we had stationary phones and not so much surveillance cameras. So you can guess it was easier to get away with some stupid ideas, as they were executed. I don't envy all that stuff kids have now. They have to cope with a lot more control. And about growing up in Poland as a country? Hmm, I guess it's like growing up every elsewhere. Every country have it pros and cons. The important thing is “who you are, not where you grew up.”

KAVA:

I live in small town near Warsaw. Nothing to do. You need to support yourself or work in fabric -- or you can just drink and smoke. One day, I met some crazy guys and tried to do the band. Of course, it was more alcohol and fun in the beginning.

I'm curious about some of the things that have shaped you both as musicians and humans.

KRISS:

I guess we don't have time for like a biography here, so I'll make it simple. Life and music are all tied up in each other for me, in the little things that drive a person into doing it over and over again. You just try to stay busy with a lot of different things so that you don’t get caught up in boredom. I guess it’s the best way of sizing up both my life and my music.

KAVA:

I pay some heavy shit for the devil and, of course, some old girlfriends, old movies, Black Sabbath albums, and shitty albums, too.

What's the significance of your name, Weird Tales?

DIMA:

Come on, man. That would be too easy! Often people ask us, "Is it from H.P. Lovecraft?" No. Actually, I don’t know where it came from! I always write down some ideas and phrases that I like on a paper. I got a lot of notes strewn all over my apartment. I can’t find anything I need in this chaos, but sometimes find something better than I was looking for. So one of the phrases I happened upon in this mess was "Weird Tales" and it fit the best.

The other most frequent question we get: "Did you take your name from the Electric Wizard song called 'Weird Tales'?" To which I say: I don’t know and fuck you for those stupid questions. It doesn’t matter. I just found it on a little piece of paper in my house and was never interested in where it came from.

We had some songs ready and they were about surreal stuff when you can't distinguish real life from a bad trip. Those songs have an interesting structure, unusual riffs changes. Each one was different and the name Weird Tales was good from every point of view. Lyrically and musically, we like when a song has a plot, and in the future we will continue writing songs that tell strange stories about strange shit happening. Thus, Weird Tales. Ironically, our English is pretty sucky and we can’t even properly pronounce "Weird Tales." (laughs)

Not to ramble, but I'm curious about the difference stylistically between your first two EP's and the LP. The early stuff seems quite blithe and depressive, makes me feel like I do when I have "medicine head." The new stuff is another beast entirely, like someone who has just snapped out of a weeklong bender on rubies.

KRISS:

And that I guess is my fault -- not all, of course, but I like to think that I had some serious influence, especially on this one. Those first two EPs were recorded with another bassist. I was invited to a band just before they planned to record their first album. I've seen these guys perform like a lot times before and I saw something “special” about their music, something -- as I was constantly repeating when I met them after their gigs -- “that no one wants to do in their bands, but so interesting that it’s not supposed to be lost at any point.” So when we finally got together, I tried not to change “their way,” but to “commemorate” it and add as much power and passion into it as only I was able to do. And, of course, Dima is the first one who supposed to answer this question, because he is mostly responsible for those sick-minded sounds. (laughs) Nobody knows what he's got on his mind next, when comes to writing music.

DIMA:

You know, when you write music you don't think much about the kind of style you're going write, except you do not assume from the beginning that you want to write another stoner-doom album about witches. You don't want to be another one to vomit on the music map, just to show that you are represented in a theme. So I just write and play what I want now, which feels like a more natural process. I want to play these kind of sounds now, because it has its place to be here and now in that shape. Of course, it’s coming from life experience, as a way to share your emotions and feelings which have internal roots and act in response to external factors. I'm trying to share that shit in a metaphorical and allegorical way.

Weird Tales (EP) by Weird Tales

I fucking like your interpretation of our EPs and this stylistic difference between them and the LP. You got the point of the message. I like to read the opinions of people who have really found something in our music. Then I compare it to what's been sitting in my head -- stuff I couldn't wrap into words, so I made music to say it. (laughs) It's like reverse feedback to me. I can better understand myself, as a result.

I interpret the changes between our EPs and this album similarly to how you articulated it. It's like you are on acid and have a bad trip. When the bad trip is at its peak, your ego dies and you have this apathetic feeling -- the Weird Tales EP -- and when your bad trip starts to calm down, you have so much energy and feel so good that this shit is over. You understand that this experience will stay with you 'till you die, but for now you have returned to a planet that did you not hope for. So you starting having fun, drinking vodka, and sniffing speed 'till that psychedelic vibe smoothly slides away from you skin and is replaced with a pleasant fire. That is the feeling associated with Hell Services Cost A Lot for me. Sad songs played with a lot of fun.

And your second EP, 'Shiny Void'?

DIMA:

Oh, it’s similar to first one, but this time the bad trip is not coming unexpected. You involve it with full understanding of what will happen now, in order to dive into this madness, hoping to find something there.

Shiny Void (EP) by Weird Tales

What is the background of the new album and how does it fit with your overall evolution as a band?

DIMA:

Nothing special. Some old stories about doing drugs that leaves a trail on your mind, as every honorable man has done a time or two. Also, other mental issues that we probably should tell to psychiatrists, instead of a music journalist.

From musical composition side of things, it was really fun. After we finished our second EP, we already had drafts of a couple songs. The songwriting process was quick as ever. I brought riffs and ideas to a rehearsal and we jammed and quickly agreed with the way a track should go. Even uncommon ideas were quickly accepted by everyone.

We changed bassists while writing this album. Surprisingly, it didn’t slow down the process, because Kriss is a really good fit for Weird Tales. Also we tried to play with a second guitar, because we heard richer arrangements. We even did a tour together with an additional guitarist. But anyway, now we are a trio again. You can hear those second guitar arrangements on Hell Services Cost a Lot -- most of them I now playing alone. It complicates the process a little, but not critically. The most important thing that we three feel great together and have a lot of fun while playing loud and heavy. We share that energy while on stage with audience.

Walk us through each of the songs on the new album and please share anything you can about their meaning.

DIMA:

It’s simple. We've got six tracks about Satan and one about the sea. (laughs) Seriously, though, I’m glad you ask, because it’s a concept album. You absolutely can receive it as you like, it’s cool. But directly or indirectly, the album tells the story of one poor fool. And this guy is a crazy fuck! He definitely needs help, 'cause his mind is drooling without stopping. He has visions and hallucinations, bipolar all the way. And this guy feels that pain all the time. That kills him from deep inside, and the thing is that he doesn’t know is this pain real or not. But it doesn’t matter at all, 'cause he feels it burns him like fire. Of course, this guy has some problems with drugs.

"Nightmare" shows us that his troubles are deeper than it maybe seems. He is still being persecuted by the shit from childhood. He tries to escape from it and makes his own safe reality that certainly will collapse. So that crazy fuck is a poor fool who certainly needs help, though most of his troubles actually come from his own decisions. No...no. Actually, he crossed the line a long time ago. This fuck slays women behind the garbage bins. And in parks, too. Crushes those bitches all the time. Then he fucks their cold bodies -- or not? If you want, he could. So he does all those disgusting kills and slays for the Gods of Death. Making altars from the limbs and trying to find a blessing and freedom from his pain.

The surrealistic pressure in the album grows the most in "Warnings”. He doesn’t understand entirely what is going on. He's tunneled right through to the other side, seeking to fall even further.

On the last track, “Dead Man,” he's killed himself. Only good decisions for such scum like him. He drowned himself in water. And remember that it’s just six tracks about Satan and one about the sea.

No classic Milton or Dante references in your doom, I take it?

DIMA:

There are none. We think film and literature references just suck. And we actually have one track on our 2nd EP that has its lyrics based on a movie, so we suck. (laughs) But again, if seriously, it’s okay if you got some idea from a movie and interpret it in your own way. It’s applicable in art, but it sucks when you straight retell the plot of a movie or book.

Every song on Hell Services Cost a Lot could be taken in a few different ways. Everyone is god. You could receive every track separately or like a part of complex story. There are a couple of true stories about self-issues and shit from real life, mixed up with some fictional stories and told in a way that contain some thoughts, deep or not really. (laughs) We like when there is something more besides straight storytelling -- something that fucking voice in your head tells you to desire.

What's the strangest or darkly funny thing that you've witnessed while gigging?

KRISS:

There are a lot of things that happen at concerts and events. I don't even know where to start, so I’d rather tell you about what are, in my opinion, some of the funniest misconceptions about playing music live. Everybody that I know, who doesn't really have an idea about what it looks like to play concerts or to go touring, thinks it's like something out of a movie. You know, doing cocaine from groupies' asses in a big tour bus, chugging on a bottle of JD or vodka from morning 'till evermore. They don't know that it's like all waiting. You’re on your way to a place and you’re waiting in an overstuffed car. When you finally get there, you’re waiting for the sound engineer, waiting for your time to soundcheck, then waiting for the event to start, waiting for your turn to take the stage, etcetera, etcetera.

Concert Footage by Viktor Chaikovskyi

You can, of course, fill those time gaps with some buzz or other “stuff,” but not too much or it will ruin your show. And when you finish your gig, it's time to pack your stuff back up and more waiting ahead as you get on the road again. Maybe “bigger bands” would have more things to do, but at this point for me it's all waiting. (laughs) And as like-to-be-busy man like me, boring is the most dangerous thing 'cause a lot of stupid ideas come to my mind -- especially under influence.

KAVA:

Our merch table is very funny. You can get some fresh fish or vegetables! We have some new ideas for the shows, but it's secret and too crazy for now. (laughs)

You all seem to have a pretty irreverent attitude and dark sense humor.

KRISS:

Oh shit, you got me! (laughs) But take a look around. If anybody takes this world seriously, I really start to feel pity for him. If he's taking life dead seriously, it begins to even get scary. If you look from a good distance at all the stuff that happens around us, it looks ridiculous and doesn't seem to matter at all. A bunch of pretty primitive creatures jumping around, fighting for better resources to get more mating opportunities.

It's as basic as it's always been, but people seem to turn that basic lifestyle into an “all-meaningful soap opera.” As they try to cover their animal-based foundation, it getting funnier and funnier. It's not like I want to see people walking around like caveman-style dudes, but developing serious issues from “not getting enough attention on internet” or taking a loan to buy the newest version of a mobile phone? Man, that's sick. And I'm I don't even know where to begin with religion: just leave it. At some point in our lives, everybody dies and the point to it is supposed to be hanging the bar higher for those that come after us. With that said, let's not get caught up into it too seriously, I guess.

KAVA:

Yeah, people sometimes don't get it, especially when you talk about somebody's mother-sister wet dreams

Finally, what do you like to do for work and hobbies when you're not involved in Weird Tales?

KRISS:

I do a lot of stuff. I have to be busy all the time. Like all the time, man. Otherwise, I freefall into a black hole of nothingness and self-hatred for wasting “time given me on this earth.” So I draw, paint, cook, do handmade-DIY-style-stuff, and music above all of that. And somewhere on the bottom of the list, there is “work” to pay for all of those hobbies. I would like music to pay my bills eventually, but we're not living in a dream world. (laughs) Maybe someday.

KAVA:

All day I try to figure out rhythms for Dima’s new riffs and cook some fresh meat.

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