preventabledeath

[preventabledeath]

Self Defense Family

If you’re like me and you like stuff that rules, then it’s never the worst idea to wonder just what Self Defense Family (formerly End Of A Year) has been up to lately...

Well:

Colicky by Self Defense Family

Superior by Self Defense Family

#self defense family #post punk #music #bandcamp

[preventabledeath]

The Week - Look here, junior!

The kiss of death/the embrace of life! This week I’m keeping it fairly new.

Charly Bliss - Guppy

Whenever I read the name Tom Breihan I worry about the integrity of windshields nation-wide -- he just loves kicking and punching so much -- and don’t read on. However, in a rare Stereogum browse, I did peruse his review of Charly Bliss’ Guppy. And hey, I like hooks and power pop and 90s revivalists (kind of)! 

This is power pop in the modern sense: big and loud and catchy to the death. Some of the cadences remind me of a one-time acquaintance and now (still?) musician Laura Samsel’s contribution to my personal canon, “The Morning After Disease.” But where that laid a clean shambling country beat and guitar strums under sardonic, wavering vocals that were world-weary but cleaner still, Charly’s chunky guitars and clean, popcorn drumming deliver a boisterous propellant for the rhythmic, nasal melodies bursting out of singer/bassist(?) Eva (?) Hendricks (?). This is an album with few emotional anchors to offer the bar-going crowd, which makes it low-stakes fun; there’s always something to be said for low-stakes fun.

Don’t worry about catching every little lyric (if you worry about that kind of thing)...the believably resentful flourishes and stand-out-oddities deliriously peel out of the cloud just long enough for staying power -- “I jumped so high I peed the trampoline”; “She never has to be alone”; “You’re a joker, I’m just mean/I can’t cum and I can’t lie”; “I laughed when your dog died.” (All [sic]s assumed as I am sans liner notes...)

You get the idea...and it’s not a new one: hide the ugly thoughts in a whirlwind so thick with asides that they’re not really asides anymore. The devil may be in the details but when the details are all you get, where does that leave her?

Anyway, it’s loaded with hooks, doesn’t drag and Charly Bliss seems like the kind of band who feels so-much-joy-in-what-they’re-doing-up-there -- the unassailable quality Craig Finn convinced me I demand in every rock band. I truly hope to never hear any deeper narrative details/see their Twitter/know anything about them beyond their music. As it should be.

Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy - Best Troubadour

How do you approach Will Oldham? If you’re Robert Christgau: with pretty hilarious pejoratives blasting from the hip. If you’re me (pretty hilarious pejoratives acknowledged): with ears and arms flung wide.

His latest contains Merle Haggard covers. It’s extremely pleasant. I recommend it.

#charly bliss #guppy #power pop #bonnie prince billy #best troubadour #merle haggard #country #covers album

[preventabledeath]

Some Large Animal

I’m fairly sure there’s a large animal just on the other side of my bedroom window. Wedged it between the grapevine and the glass -- it must be pretty lithe for its size. It thumps around like boot steps on undergrowth, vocalizes in muted growls -- just loud enough to be aggressive, but not so much that anyone further away would notice. Except maybe my cat -- which I’m fairly convinced it killed. Due to the aforementioned muted nature of this neighborhood disturbance -- something between a wolf, an intelligent bear, and a halfway rabid dog -- basically a really big, inexplicably vengeful dog), I can’t be absolutely sure what a murder scene would sound like -- even from just a double pane away.

I’ll be investigating further circa 8am -- assuming, of course, that I pass out in the next couple of hours. I’m having a beer to calm my nerves. Those have been piling up these days. Why? It’s impossible to say, but without a little numbing every few days, I’m dissolving into nostalgic anxiety -- second-guessing decisions I made 3 years ago and agonized over enough at the time to almost entirely justify them.

I just heard it again, shifting around in the dirt. There’ll be traces tomorrow, if not a body. I thought about going up on the porch and going after it with the hose and a Maglite, but, it being 2am and because it occurred to me that there could just as easily be wings and/or climbing capabilities involved here I settled on sitting up in bed, Alex Rodriguez Signature Louisville Slugger at hand -- safe and listening for more sounds inside.

If, in the next half an hour, this thing doesn’t smash through my window and make it a pure guts fight to the death maybe I’ll get to sleep. Maybe it’s not a coincidence that I can’t sleep, am potentially hearing things, and feel intensely paranoid about pseudo-supernatural entities descending on my house, because I did watch The Aviator earlier tonight, am about halfway through Glamorama, and am listening to early, never-really-absorbed Mountain Goats.