Fluxblog Weekly #92: Japandroids, Gabriel Garzón-Montano, Ty Segall, Thundercat, Priests
January 23rd, 2017
Their Paltry Pint Of Blood
Japandroids “Arc of Bar”
“Arc of Bar” is a skyscraper of a song, building upwards towards the heavens with each verse as if the band was on a solemn mission to go get a beer with God Himself. A lot of beers. This is the most epic drinking song I have ever heard, and maybe the only one I’ve encountered that makes drinking booze seem like some kind of defiant, heroic duty. Brian King’s verses are wordy and deliberately grandiose, but the chorus is exactly the sort of cathartic, mindless bombast Japandroids does best: “Yeah yeaaaah! / YEAH YEAH!!!” This is seven minutes of theatrical rock music designed to make people go wild at a concert, and is such a convincing advertisement for inebriation that it’s a huge boon to the bartenders at every venue this band plays for the rest of the career. But as much as this song sets up a good time, it’s lost and confused and tortured at its core. It’s constantly grasping upwards at something – grace, glory, redemption? – but never getting a hold of anything. So it just keeps going higher and higher until it inevitably falls down.
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January 24th, 2017
A Very Funky Tragedy
Gabriel Garzón-Montano “Sour Mango”
Gabriel Garzón-Montano’s melodies are bold and immediately charming, but rendered in layers of muted pastel tones that keep a relatively busy song like “Sour Mango” from feeling too rich and heavy. There’s a nice feeling of weightlessness in this song, with the vocal and instrumental harmonies hovering around a crisp beat that keeps a steady groove but feels more like scaffolding for melody. Garzón-Montano’s voice is soulful but not showy – it’s the most vibrant aspect of the song, but doesn’t overwhelm the low-key, relaxed feeling of the overall track. I’m particularly fond of the vaguely siren-like keyboard part that carries through the piece as a crucial part of the harmony and serves as a nearly subliminal hook that sticks around in my head after the song’s over.
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January 25th, 2017
I’ll Be At The Bar
Ty Segall “Break A Guitar”
There has been no shortage of dudes drawing on Black Sabbath riffs over the past – oh, hmm, 40 years or so? – but a lot of the time, it’s just aimless sludgy riffage without much charm. Ty Segall does it right by keeping that sort of heaviness and bombast connected to the more delicate and tuneful aspects of psychedelia. In his hands, the riffs don’t just sound like the lumbering thuds of a giant, but are nimble like a musclebound football player who moves with an unexpected speed and grace. Segall is never breaking any new ground, but he’s always refining approaches to things other musicians do quite lazily, and he makes rock that some might write off as retro feel fresh though sheer force of will and vitality.
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January 26th, 2017
Might Not Know Why
Thundercat featuring Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins “Show You the Way”
When I learned about this song I was like “wow, Thundercat got Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins on a song?!?” And then I heard it, and you can hear Thundercat expressing the same thing in the song itself. What luck, right? This is how you know you’ve made it. This is how you find out that you are exceptionally smooth. This is one of your slickest bass lines going to Yacht Rock Heaven. So I’m of two minds about the kitschy announcements of each singer throughout the song: The joke is funny the first time, but not so much on repeat listens, and the schtick gets in the way of the vibe and sentiment of the music. But it comes from a place of very genuine joy and admiration and surprise and wonder, and who can blame this guy for being so hype about landing either of these dudes, let alone both of them? Certainly not I.
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January 27th, 2017
What A Stupid Concept
Priests “JJ”
Katie Alice Greer sounds thoroughly appalled throughout “JJ,” starting first with herself for having “such awful taste” in men while looking back on some regrettable ex. Then she shifts that over to the ex, whose “bad attitude” pose extended to thinking she was disgusting. And then she pulls back a bit further to shaking her head at a society that conspires to make her or anyone else feel like they “deserve” to be treated like shit. It doesn’t take the blame off anyone for insensitive behavior, but it does put everything in context. Would we undermine ourselves and be attracted to things we know on some level will hurt us if we didn’t have toxic messages in our lives? Is this nature or nurture? Anyway, fun things to think about in a danceable punk song song!
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