Oh, Young Lions

OYL has moved!

2010-11-30T14:19:00.002-05:00

Hello, friends, colleagues, lions. OYL is back -- and at a new home! We've relocated to Tumblr. Our hope is that, with more of a microblogging bent, we'll be able to update at a quicker and more regular pace. Update your bookmarks, tell the world!

Oh, Young Lions.

Rabbit Light Movies Episode #11 (summer 2010): Zachary Schomburg's "Because it Comes Right at You Does Not Mean it Comes to Save You"

2010-07-16T09:00:00.000-04:00

Zachary Schomburg from joshuamarie on Vimeo.

Rabbit Light Movies, brainchild of Joshua Marie Wilkinson, has been compiling and putting out issues of "poemfilms" since 2007. The poemfilms tend to be videos of poets reading their poems, but may also feature some other poetic footage with the poet's disembodied voice coming from off camera. Poemfilms are not only a smart publishing move in internet land, but they offer a great resource! RLM has published 115 movies to date, and if I was lucky enough to have a computer in my classroom, I could bounce back between their total visual archive and PennSound, exposing my students to lots of great contemporary poets whose books I did not force them to buy.

Well, yes, I could do that with online text-only journals, too. But I am one of those people who believes that poetry is very much about the pleasure of sound, about that slippage that happens between the text and the voiced language, and that poems need to be read. And that they need to be read well. Yeah, there are exceptions; there is conceptual poetry these days that is not really intended to be read at all, never mind read aloud. But it is unbelievable how many amazing writers are completely awful at reading their own, well crafted, completely enjoyable poems. I mean, you wrote those sounds because you could hear them bounce against one another, you crafted that syntax because you could feel the rhythm of your sentence, timed the beats because you anticipated the humorous response, broke the lines because of your sense of breath or meter or interruption or contradiction or time-dispersed meaning. Why are you reading these words as if they are haphazard, unrelated pieces of trash you are retrieving one by one from a grassy median on I-95?

Okay, rant over. What I want to say is that Zachary Schomburg is a great reader! If you haven't read his new book Scary, No Scary yet, seriously, go do it. How did you avoid it? Isn't he literally driving around the country offering rides to bums and handing out copies? But also, do it because it's a pretty good book. He is a fan of the completely underrated book apparatus known as the index. (See me avoid using the totally awkward plural form "indices" there? And I don't even have to read this blog aloud!) I think I love the index so much because it underscores, even privileges, one of the most satisfying feelings I have when reading a book of poems: that the writer, as Jack Spicer would say, has been tricked into this entangled web of language. That he's following a thread of language through this kind of chaotic cloud, and all the related and repeating motifs are folding in on one another. Or, as Robin Blaser might say (via Spicer), "that it's as if you go into a room, a dark room, the light is turned on for a minute, then it's turned off again, and then you go into a different room where a light is turned on and off." For Schomburg, the book is the navigation through this dark house, and the index is the retrospective of all the odd and glorious encounters along the way.

But really, I want to talk about the video. If you must see the text version, you are lucky that it was published in this spring's issue of Jellyfish Magazine. "Because it Comes Right at You Does Not Mean it Comes to Save You," as a title, benefits from being read aloud, since it's tone is so intriguing--proverb-like, practical yet ominous, coolly predicting disaster--and since it's fairly iambic. Also, it's a bit of advice that someone should have offered to the Lost raft crew back in season one when these guys were coming right at them.

You can tell Schomburg is a strong reader within the first 30 seconds of this video, when he thrusts his tongue into your ear with the word "boat," lest we miss the resonance with "Ocean," and then slips into a kind of light Anglo-Saxon beat in its wake with "tearing toward" and us/crust. His reading does justice to the repetitive "o" sounds throughout (boat, shoulder, cold, closer, hold, slow, go, etc. etc.) I love when writers aren't too proud to roll around in the pleasure of simple sounds and rhymes. He takes advantage of the performative edge that his tendency toward (reliance on?) uncanny narrative lends him, giving life to the dramatic impulse and dialogue of the poem. His voice always seems to be pushing forward, not picking up the words one by one, but pulling on a rope, hand over hand, that is leading him anxiously through the poem.

We all have our "poetry voice," which sounds like some dead baby zombie version of ourselves, but Schomburg's is not affected in an unbearably pompous, offensive way. Also, check out that little awkward smirk as he comes up out of the poem. That's why poemfilms are so cool!

--Megan

The Mynabirds' "Let the Record Go" and "Numbers Don't Lie"

2010-07-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

The Mynabirds - Let The Record Go from Saddle Creek on Vimeo.

The Mynabirds - Numbers Don't Lie from Saddle Creek on Vimeo.

You may or may not have heard yourself some Georgie James, a group whose sound I enjoyed most when Laura Burhenn's voice was showcased on tracks like "Cake Parade" and "Long Week." I was thinking the other day about how much I like those songs and got to wondering what Burhenn's been up to. Guess what? She has a new band! With an album that was released in April, What We Lose in the Fire We Gain in the Flood.

What We Lose in the Fire, a collaboration with Richard Swift, is a little less indie pop than Georgie James and a lot more soul, complete with motownesque back-up vocals in songs like "Numbers Don't Lie." To be fair, I've cherry-picked the more lively tracks on the album here. Songs like "Give it Time" and "What We Gain in the Fire" involve a little less hip-shaking than "Let the Record Go," a little more bluesy swaying, a few less beat-stopping ohs and a little more emotional crooning. But I am a sucker for those beat-stopping ohs in "Let the Record Go," and for Burhenn's heartfelt "I gave it all of mine." This song is catchy; the chorus achieves that heady-claustrophobic feeling of being caught in a round of a high-pitched, high-speed "This is the song that never ends," but in both these songs Burhenn knows just how to slow us down and pick us back up again. The videos are striking, too, the bright colors popping against washed out background neutrals, the playful narratives indulging in a bit of the irony that the music itself completely avoids. The soul bent here is sultry and not imitative, so the visuals, particularly in "Numbers Don't Lie," hit me as a surprising pairing for Burhenn's thick voice, but really are charming. The Mynabirds album feels like Burhenn laying out her cards, confident all along in her surprise hand.

Okay, I don't play poker, and we all know Corey is the music guru around these parts. Maybe Spencer Krug and Laura Burhenn should get together for some kind of amazing "wuh-oh-oh" collaboration. Yes please?

--Megan

Paris Couture Week: Dior, Adeline André, and Alexis Mabille

2010-07-12T10:00:00.005-04:00

Hey guys. Corey has had me tied up in the basement. He was inspired by the thriller Hide and Seek. Don’t worry. I escaped while Corey was distracted by Lebron James. JUST IN TIME FOR PARIS COUTURE WEEK—THANKS LEBRON! The fashion muses are lookin’ out for us, OYL family.

A lot of the talk surrounding haute couture these days sounds a lot like the talk surrounding poetry every day. Is the art of couture fashion dying? It’s just not relevant to the masses. Who can afford/understand/wear/enjoy/access THIS STUFF? In this flailing economy, who is excluded from this art? How uncomfortable do we feel being the people who create/indulge in it? What can we/should we do about it? Well, from a young, uncelebrated poet to the large, famed, lucrative, creative, innovative genre that is fashion, courtiers recognized by the Chambre syndicale de la haute couture, no less, have no fear. The alarmists have been predicting the death of poetry for ages. You’re not going anywhere. I know, I’m so comforting. There, there, Christian Lacroix.

I’m going to look at three of the Paris shows for now: Dior, because, while John Galliano certainly doesn’t need my praise, this show was breathtaking, and two designers a tad less lauded, Alexis Mabille and Adeline André. I will NOT be talking about this:

WHO THE HELL CARES ABOUT CHANEL’S GODDAMN GIANT LION? WHO KNEW KARL LAGERFELD WAS SUCH A BIG OYL FAN? Inspired, visually surprising, an elegant show, sure, but people are just salivating for the overstated in an atmosphere where everyone feels we've been herded into quiet little cages called "understated" and "sensible." Nonsense. (Hey there, Karl, I know an egomaniac in Miami who might be willing to pay a few million dollars to take that second-hand, lightly-worn lion off your hands & use it as a lawn ornament in his new backyard. Conversely, if you're looking to make a charitable donation, I know a little blog looking for a mascot.)

John Galliano’s Dior show took one of those huge romantic risks that beautiful art almost always flirts with. He turned women’s bodies into startling human bouquets. A theme that, in my opinion, failed miserably for Louise Gluck, turned out to be a masterfully executed home run for Dior.

Galliano’s genius, pretty well established, is on full display in the Fall/Winter couture collection. I imagine he had some Dr. Seuss and Lewis Carroll on his mood board, and all that animated boldness, the tangibility of the textures and shapes and colors of the collection, is what makes it work. This is one contemporary, larger-than life Garden of Eden, and none of these flowers are wisping away in the wind. The romantic tradition is implicit: watch the first dress shed a petal at 0:38, and you’ll start to see how seriously Galliano took his project, how dedicated he must have been to honoring the relationship between the floral and the female form in a fresh and palpable presentation. The belted waists serve not as some fetishized center of cheap sex, but as an actual life-source from which the colors and volume bloom outward. The dresses are consistently full, full, full, above and below the waist, yet there are so many playful shapes and textures here. You can see the artist reveling in his constraint. Check out, again in the first dress, right as the model turns at the end of the runway, the flash of orange that matches the gloves peek out from under the dress. All the details are nailed, and yet the flowers are growing, living, the colors of natural compliment ripening in front of our eyes. This man knows how to interact with his medium and tradition. Blunt scallops or boldly angled, tattered edges to everything, like the gray and orange separates at 2:15. Then, the next piece, when we thought we were resigned to a set of bold and bleeding solids, breaks out what looks like a silk printed skirt and a boxy printed coat. We see that silk print splashed in several times, always a welcome variation. The necklines are mostly over-the-top, face framing cowls and collars (see the soft jacket at 3:17) or wide, off the shoulder or strapless extreme v-shapes, full and framing, like at 3:30 or 7:30, or lower and sharper, like the more formal dress at 5:45. Either way, they’re accentuating the center of the body by unfolding out toward the shoulders and then creating a flattering, dramatic opening for the face. The hemlines are mostly knee-length, with the volume sometimes taking on a life of its own and weightily bouncing below.

My absolute favorite piece in this part of the show is the strapless white and blue dip-dyed style dress with the green floral belt at 5:10. I cannot say enough good things about the clothes, the colors, and the execution of the show. This is why couture is not at the mercy of the market. I’m gushing, so I’ll move on.

If we want to say (okay, I want to say) that Dior's show was a spectacular theme and image driven performance, Adeline André's show falls more on the conceptual, Vanessa Place side of things. Famous and respected among the in-crowd of the industry, André is less of a household name than Dior. I can't say why, though; her Fall 2010 show demonstrates artfulness, playfulness, and awareness of the female shape while offering a smart, stripped down exposure of performance. Layers and color are showcased here, like at Dior, but the silhouette is long and slim. Bows tied at the shoulders and left hanging long marry a simply-arrived-at sense of style with an unmasked, unabashed fulfillment of function, that function being some interplay between covering up and stripping down, the interaction got at much more acutely through a performance like this than any articulated theory I could offer. Like a good collage poem, this Adeline André collection jumbles up all the pieces of the picture we thought were familiar, deconstructing the color block garment into something new that makes us question context and meaning, and yet arrives at a visually pleasing, cohesive whole. Ten out of ten to André and Galliano for creativity, innovation, and beauty.

Alexis Mabille is a younger designer, but it's worth pointing out that both he and Adeline André worked for Dior before opening their own labels. Mabille shunned performance this year for a focus on decadence, showcasing detailed separates on models and mannequins--an opening reminiscent of couture's early days.

Mabille's fall couture collection captures some of the trends we've been hearing about already, but in a truly extravagant and lavish way. The hems are mostly ankle length here, with volume above or below the waist, not both. That slim black pant is Audrey-like, for sure. The tops, though, add glamor that is almost Victorian. If you weren't quite sold on bows, here they are again, the volume or shapes, again, always drawing out toward the shoulders to create volume matching the hips and underlying the face. The pieces above entertain the sheer trend, and the bodice underneath that masterpiece of a coat fits into the exposed-lingerie trend, both recently chronicled by Garance Doré, and played out over at Jean Paul in a more overt, sometimes less sophisticated manner. You'll notice that Mabille's collection is darker than the others. If Dior is displaying the bright poppies, Mabille's sitting on the edge of opium-den sensuality, luring me further in.

With love & consumer envy,

Megan

P.S. In case you missed the onslaught of gray paired with purples, rich in a decidedly Russian way, in fabrics a few years ago, Dior’s show confirms that it’s back in beauty this year. Off to get myself some gray lipstick and dye my hair.

Wolf Parade's "Little Golden Age" and "What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)"

2010-07-05T10:00:00.000-04:00

You don't need me to tell you about Wolf Parade. They've become one of the biggest bands on the planet (in the relative sense, meaning "one of the biggest bands on the planet amongst people with taste like mine, which is such good taste!!") based largely on the success of their 2005 debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary. Have you heard that album? It is better than most albums.

2008's At Mount Zoomer, while possessing mega-jam "Language City" and a few other gems, seemed to most something of a letdown. In my book, the blame for that failure (the album is not a failure, and really, what album wouldn't be considered a failure when held up next to Apologies?) was thrust largely at the boatshoed feet of Spencer Krug, whose tendencies toward prog rock seemed to swallow him whole on tracks like "California Dreamer" and who I suspected of saving his best songs for Sunset Rubdown's then-upcoming third full length. That, by the way, turned out to be completely true -- Dragonslayer was my pick for album of the year in 2009. That declaration, of course, leads us into the boilerplate critical observation of a Wolf Parade review: they have two singers! Those singers also have other successful bands!

See? You turned to OYL for expert analysis, and good for you! Krug's Sunset Rubdown and Dan Boeckner's Handsome Furs are both wonderful bands, in their own right. In fact, most of my well-documented Krug worship devotes itself to the Rubdown. Handsome Furs are almost critically underrated, with last year's outstanding Face Control receiving little, if any, end-of-year attention here in Blogworld. So, with its co-leaders releasing such brainbursting material on their own, where does that leave Wolf Parade? Is that band, in fact, now the side project?

I'll give you a minute to pick your jaw up from the floor. Take a sip of water to remoisten your newly reattached tongue. You will need it to sing these new Wolf Parade songs, both of which are great and both of which are from the so-hot-it-just-dropped EXPO 86. "Little Golden Age" is Boeckner at his strutting New Order by way of Springsteen best, and "What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)" has Krug embracing the combo of menace and disco shine that made his early Wolf Parade compositions so wonderful. What's more, both songs are perfect examples of how Boeckner and Krug can reach stratospheric levels when they combine their talents in just the right ways.

"Little Golden Age" wouldn't be the same without Krug's patented "wuh-oh-oh's" carrying it out of the gate, along with his insistent, emotive synth line providing the perfect backbone for Boeckner's twitchy guitar hook. Boeckner's on his game here, writing the kind of character sketches about worn out, lovelorn, tragically heroic outcasts that he (and, yes, The Boss) do so well: "And someone sang about a golden age, / in some rundown park, / drinking in the dark -- / this place was the machine that put the iron in your heart." His voice's uncanny way of shifting instantly from growl to falsetto stuffs the song with enough tension to give it the fuel it needs to become an all out anthem when that tension finally breaks. Fists in the air, heads banging, sweat rolling. Sign me up.

"What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way)" is another success story that proves the two songwriters can share. That guitar riff is vintage Boeckner, scuzzy and seductive in all the right places. Arlen Thompson's tireless hi-hat gives the song the proper amount of bounce, and Krug sets his keyboard to "space-age" to provide a perfect halftime counterpoint to all of that energy. His imagistic lyrics are on point, too, nothing like Boeckner's but equally indelible: "I've got a sandcastle heart, / made out of fine black sand; / sometimes it turns into glass / when shit gets hot. / I wonder if all the beaches / in all your holiday towns / will turn to giant shining earrings against / the cheek of the sea, when / finally this supernova goes down." (Notably, his dream journaling is still in effect, as he reminds his listener, "I don't think I should be sorry / for things I do in dreams".) It's his strongest offering on EXPO 86, and it seems like more of a full-band effort than anything on At Mount Zoomer.

The rest of the album holds up well, more or less. True to the pattern the band's been setting in the last few years, Boeckner's songs are stronger as a whole. "Ghost Pressure" snakes insidiously between Krug's synths, and "Pobody's Nerfect" (yes) has an honest-to-God guitar solo that sends me into fits every time. That's not to say that Krug's a slouch. "Cloud Shadow on the Mountain" opens the record with satisfying bombast, and "In the Direction of the Moon" gives us that rare and beautiful creature, not seen since "Dinner Bells": a Wolf Parade ballad. On the other hand, if there's a hook in "Oh You, Old Thing," please find it and mail it to me. I'm loathe to commit any of this Krug hesitance to print, as I still think he's likely the best songwriter around right now (though I do have one more candidate, if you haven't noticed). Whatever the case, I'm happy to have Wolf Parade with us once again. Keep it coming, guys.

--Corey

Future Islands's "An Apology"

2010-06-25T15:20:00.005-04:00

I have a theory about listening to New Order: it is really good for you! If you came to me and said, "Corey, 98% of the good music made in the last thirty years is a direct result of people listening to New Order," I would say, "You're probably right." (I would also say, "HEY, WHO'S WRITING THE BLOG HERE, PROFESSOR STATISTICS??") Baltimore's Future Islands know what you're talking about, too, and thank the maker for that.

I've been thinking for a while on which song to write about when holding up to you the band's latest effort, In Evening Air, as the most exciting record I've heard in 2010. Should it be "Swept Inside," the track that best crystallizes the band's update of New Order, built upon a Peter Hook-style is-that-a-bass-or-guitar hook and an absolutely transcendent outro (and which begs for a 12" extended cut, so that the simple melody can go on forever and ever)? Or should it be "Long Flight," which sees synths interlocking with that bass again, all tension and all building to vocalist Samuel T. Herring's flooring outburst in the song's final seconds? Maybe "Inch of Dust," replete with the absolutely huge beat that drives its themes of loss and reconnection right through your heart via your hips?

I suppose, though, that it has to be "An Apology". (Although, really I suppose that I put a couple of extra tracks at the bottom of this post, because who cares let's get crazy!). Like most of the tracks on the record, it's a song based on a slow build, simple drum programming letting the instruments breathe and create a sense of insistency and burning urgency. That's one of the reasons it's so difficult to pinpoint one song to highlight from In Evening Air -- the album works so well as a whole, each song relying heavily on mood and tone to tunnel its way into your brain, where it will make camp and become your new landlord.

"An Apology" lets Herring get his Tom Waits on, if Tom Waits had immersed himself in the Factory Records scene of the 1980s, instead of New Orleans roots music. Herring's vocals here have what you might call "texture". His lungs are crawling out of his throat. When he hits the refrain -- "so far away / so far away" -- I feel like my trachea's about to rip itself to shreds by proximity. In other words, he's got a knack for a convincing delivery. There's heartbreak, here. His voice inflates those simple lyrics to a place that makes them the most important, the most critical sentiment he could utter, and we believe the authenticity coming through the microphone. It's as real as it gets for us, too.

Crucially, Herring doesn't always sing this way. In Evening Air shows him in perfect control, understated when the mood suits him and confident enough in his melodies not to feel the need to max out the levels on every track. He lets the band guide him to where he needs to be. Listen to that distorted squall that caps out "An Apology," and you hear a group of musicians perfectly attuned to one another, each member of the band contributing to a deceptively complex blanket of sound that evokes their desired mood utterly and entirely. I'm on board for the duration.

--Corey

How to Dress Well's "Suicide Dream 2"

2010-06-15T10:00:00.000-04:00

Of course I would love music made by someone called How to Dress Well. Other bands I would like: How to Cook with Various Gravies; How to Talk About Literature At Least as Often as You Talk About Television; How to Shut Up Your Child on the Metro Train and Just Please Get Off Before the Zoo So You Stop Breathing On Me With Your Mouth Just Please. These are all important things to learn to do!

How To Dress Well is actually just a dude named Tom Krell, who lives in a suburb of New Jersey called "Brooklyn". He also apparently sometimes lives in Cologne, Germany, where he translates post-Kantian philosophy (this is not an oblique joke regarding hipsters in Brooklyn; he actually sometimes lives in Cologne, Germany, where he translates post-Kantian philosophy). I assume he does not wear pleated pants.

What he does do is create the kind of bedroom-electro-R&B that tricks my brain into thinking I've just swallowed twenty ounces of codeine. The track above, "Suicide Dream 2," is from a free EP recently posted to his blog -- you can download 7 of these EPs there, in fact, though he also includes a convenient "pay" option (take that, conscience!). "Suicide Dream 2" is the kind of soulful, aching song that hooks you slowly, pulling you into its swirling folds with a force subtle enough that you almost don't notice that you're up at 2 AM, still listening to it on repeat. I'm doing that now, by the way, as I write this. How could I not?

I felt the same way when I first heard Bon Iver in 2007, and Tom Krell's music has more in common with Justin Vernon's than you might think. The former locked himself up -- infamously, now -- in a Wisconsin cabin to record For Emma, Forever Ago, and Krell's going it alone, too. The two men share a falsetto almost shameful in its decadent beauty (though both can hit those low notes when the occasion calls, as it does in the latter half of this track). Both, too, have much of the impact of their music rooted in a lo-fi appeal, the tinny chimes of Vernon's resonator guitar in "Skinny Love" and the way Krell's loops go into the red in "Suicide Dream 2," the final notes of each keyboard swell fraying and spinning away into distortion. It's music intimate and haunting, the kind of thing you feel you should listen to through a cracked door or with your ear to the wall of the next room, hoping that whoever's making these sounds will keep going, unaware.

--Corey

rag & bone, Spring/Summer 2010

2010-06-09T10:00:00.000-04:00

When OYL hero Matt Berninger employs his listener to "cover me in rag and bone" in a recent song, I can't confirm that he's talking about the increasingly popular design company. Probably he's not, and probably he's just hinting at a little self-destructive impulse, asking someone to just please slather him with trash and compost (the song's called "Sorrow," after all). Still, you never know -- dude's a well-dressed man.

rag & bone (caps lock must be turned off for the name, lest we slip into HEDONISTIC EXCESS) has been around for almost a decade now, racking up attention and awards. They're based out of, who knew, New York, though they started in the distant borough of Kentucky (bridge-and-tunnel-and-systemic-economic-disenfranchisement crowd). What they do, more or less, is the kind of disarmingly simple, vaguely militaristic, old London-inspired clothing that's the tip of everyone's bowler at the moment.

Check the rolled trousers, perfect for sidestepping the human waste of the lower classes on High Street (can a bloke just get to the bloody haberdashery, please?!). I love most of the pieces in their newest collection, though I'm not quite sure they fit the company's manifesto of making clothing for the day-to-day needs of the masses. Don't be fooled by the Holmesian (Sherlock, not Oliver Wendall) affectations, here. After all, these are Southern boys at heart, with no "formal fashion training" who made a start-up company and saw wild success, in a finely American pull-up-your-preposterously-expensive-bootstraps tradition. That being said, I'd feel a little ostentatious in some of these garments, which is to say they're erring on the side of high fashion rather than friendly consumption (navy tailcoat, anyone?) -- but then again, runway shows have their own goals and designs (sorry), while storefront operations have theirs.

What I do like are the shirts. I would wear these shirts. Unfortunately, they are for ladies. You might not know it at first, since rag & bone's military or blue collar bent shows up in its women's line, as well. Still, the designs -- simple, classic Americana -- are enviable, even for a hypermasculine, testosterone-drenched, football-leather-chewing man like myself:

That first shirt is made of chambray (or cambric), a tough but soft classic workshirt fabric that I'm happy to see coming back around to collections from the runways to rag & bone to J. Crew and Gap. Steve McQueen would be proud of rag & bone here, if Steve McQueen was into ambiguously crossdressing. Were he alive today, he just might have been, folks, he just might have been.

Ugly Casanova's "Lay Me Down"

2010-06-07T10:00:00.001-04:00

Isaac Brock is busy. Modest Mouse, a popular indie rock band who have sold some records, are headlining just about every festival this summer (unless their ARCHENEMIES PAVEMENT are headlining them, instead*). He devotes a large amount of time to sitting for portraits with wild boars, so that the mayor of Portland, America's largest combination Bike Rack Whole Foods, can have some art to hang in his office. When he has any time left over from all of this exertion, he spends it talking to his team of Superlawyers, who he keeps in constant employ in order to properly restrain me from contacting him directly in pursuit of a full-body latex cast to serve as the new centerpiece for the shrine I keep for him in my closet.

*note: I am completely willing to take Isaac Brock and Stephen Malkmus out to dinner in order to help them lay to rest this legendary and not at all completely fabricated archrivalry.

Apparently, Brock has time to write songs, too. When I heard the news that Ugly Casanova, Brock's long-dormant side project, would contribute 8 new songs to the soundtrack of a film, I was so excited that I tweeted about it in all caps. (ALL RIGHT, IT'S HARD TO PROPERLY SHOW ENTHUSIASM IN THE MODERN INTERNET AGE, OK?!!?! TRUST ME I WAS PUMPED.) The film in question is 180 South, a documentary about surfing and x-treme nature sports in Patagonia, all common themes to Modest Mouse's music (because, what?). Still, Brock could do the soundtrack for Sex in the City 3: Carrie Saves Kabul and I'd still buy three copies on compact disc.

"Lay Me Down," the first officially released track from the upcoming album, shows Brock comfortably settling back into Sharpen Your Teeth territory -- back porch banjo, ramshackle percussion, some trumpet here and there. This is Brock living his toothless woodsman dream, something from which he usually restrains himself in Modest Mouse, at least slightly ("Devil's Workday" and "So Much Beauty in Dirt" come to mind as the strongest breaches in the dam). Of course, the most effective instrument here is Brock's voice, which becomes increasingly unhinged as the song goes on. "Blisters on my feet" become "blisters on my heart," and soon the words become unintelligible altogether, Brock getting blisters on his throat from barking Ugly Casanova back into existence. Excuse me while I go light some incense for the shrine.

--Corey

Kele's "Rise" and "Walk Tall"

2010-05-19T15:07:00.000-04:00

When Bloc Party's debut LP, Silent Alarm, stormed US shores in 2005, I greeted our new British overlords with open arms. In fact, I greeted them with arms open, pupils dilated, jaws agape, stomach stirring, and some other anatomical reactions not suitable for sharing with you cheapskates who haven't signed up for OYL's Adults Only club (http://ohyoungbutnotyoungerthan21lions.blogspot.com). Matt Tong's opening drum salvo in "Like Eating Glass" is still one of my favorite musical moments of the decade, and I may have pounded out its rhythm on my steering wheel more often than any other track in the 2000's (always to the adoration of nubile women staring into my passenger window from their open-air Jeep, their hands moving quickly to their hearts as I meet their gaze for a fleeting moment, winking knowingly before gunning the engine of my 1998 Buick Century Custom and taking off at a crisp 12 mph to get to California Pizza Kitchen in time enough to pick up my Black Bean Tostito Taquito Pizza Ball -- yeah, I was that guy you saw). Catching the band on tour -- their first in the US -- for that album solidified my love, a bonding of nations not seen since Tony Blair's sleepovers with George W (S'mores in the Lincoln Bedroom, thanks Laura!).

This was not an uncommon reaction. People like that album! What's strange is that I may have liked its follow-up, 2007's A Weekend in the City, even more. People did not like that album! Too enamored of itself, the music too sweeping, Kele Okereke's lyrics too sentimental and his voice too thin to sound them convincingly, the guitars too Edge, man. I, on the other hand, am a sucker for the grand gesture. Weekend sounded to me like the work of a band suddenly faced with popularity beyond any level it had previously considered attainable, and a band who, seeing the heights they'd reached, was no longer satisfied to plumb the pleasant-but-shallow depths of "dancepunk" or Gang of Four-revivalism. Rather, Kele and co. made a Big Album, one trying for political commentary, for reflections on life in the 21st century urbis, all alienation and xenophobia and ennui. True, when you're looking to do anything with a word like urbis, lyrics like, "There was a sense of disappointment / when we left the mall" probably won't engender you much support among, you know, smart discerning people. Still, the urgency of the music, the band's ineffable sense of dynamism and melody managed to convince me that they had something to say. Yeah, wait a minute guys, the mall sucks!!

What's more, so do your racist neighbors and the easiness of drug-induced happiness vs. life-induced happiness and the difficulty of having to figure out your sexuality ever earlier in life just to keep pace. Bloc Party touches on all of those themes in Weekend, and when they do it with expertly timed snare hits and guitar solos and four-part harmonies, I'm in -- minimalist they are not, but sometimes you need some feelings painted out for you in broad, dripping strokes.

A lot of people just thought it was shitty, though.

2008's rush-released Intimacy fared even worse with the critics, almost universally dismissed as a blebby of ill-advised electro-experimentation. I'm mostly with them on that (save for killer b -sides [b-sides?!] "Your Visits Are Getting Shorter" and "Letter to My Son"). Much of the blame for that failure was laid at the feet of head-yelper Kele Okereke, whose heart-on-sleeve ambition and sentimentalism seemed to finally swallow him whole. Seeing the band on tour behind Intimacy (I'm nothing if not dedicated) was a sad show, Okereke posing on the monitors in rock star glory rather than jumping around unselfconsciously or grinning meekly behind his microphone. I left feeling sweaty and cheap, just like after that party your boyfriend threw last Friday in the Phi Kappa house to celebrate finishing his eleventh semester (the one where they played all those awesome songs from Silent Alarm, actually). Why, Kele! Why!

Hey, now he's putting out a solo album! It's called The Boxer, it's coming out June 22nd on Glassnote Records, it does not feature his last name, and it probably doesn't have any cameos from Matt Berninger. Also, it is terrible.

The tracks Kele's released on his blog are, anyway. You may have heard lead single, "Tenderoni" (also a favorite flavor of mine at CPK), at the gym. Here we have two more tracks, "Rise" and "Walk Tall". Both show the influence of producer XXXChange (something to do with Spank Rock), which is to say that both show the influence of someone who didn't tell Kele to curb the block rockin' beats and dust off his guitar.

I'm fine with Kele trying to sing (Weekend!) but without Tong's floor-tom or the rest of his band's angular (duh) guitars in the way, there's nothing to detract from the plain fact that he's not a crooner. That also means that Kele's lyrics are taking center stage and, well, shucks. I defy you to listen to the opening of "Rise," with its breathy inhalations and invocations to "come into the light... / raise those arms that once were broken," and not feel yourself blush and look around to make sure no one else heard that. I won't even get into the Katy Perry sound-a-like who crops up around the two-and-a-half minute mark. "Walk Tall" kicks off with some Bloc Party call-and-response vocalplay, before quickly deteriorating into Jock Jams-keyboard sludge.

It is, in short, a shame.

There's nothing to be done for lyrics like, "you are stronger / than you think." The reason why similarly rote lyrics worked on Weekend -- "let's drive to Brighton / on the weekend" -- was due to the band's earnestness and energy. The music raised the stakes into the stratosphere, so Kele's voice and words didn't have to. Here, without his band, the singer seems embarrassingly naked (though you might not think that's such a bad thing, judging from those press photos), gaudily off-key in nearly every sense of the word. Here's to hoping he's gotten it all of out his system.

--Corey

Frog Eyes's "A Flower in a Glove"

2010-05-17T14:18:00.000-04:00

A lot of bands don't get the appreciation they deserve -- when was the last time you read a write-up about up-and-comers like LCD Soundsystem or The National? Who will pay attention to those guys, if not literally every blog and also this one! All right, a lot of times the blogosphere (barfosphere, sorry for the jargon) becomes something of an echo chamber. You may have noticed I never wrote about Bonobos pants until Pitchfork gave them a 9.7 and Best New Twill Fabric. Even global tastemakers like us here at OYL (hi, our reader in Iran the other week!) have trouble coming up with Totally Original Topics to Cover.

Still, when the hype machine gets a little sloppy and needs a cog greased (yuck, NSFW) or belt tightened (its belts are made of Panda Bear's old hackeysacks, braided together), I will be here to throw myself under the wheel. Let's all take a moment to appreciate that industrial metaphor, because it is working as efficiently as Henry Ford's first assembly line. All right? All right, back to business.

Frog Eyes have been one of the most consistent -- and consistently thrilling -- bands of the decade. They have all the ingredients for megasuperjam indie success. Canadian? Check. Idiosyncratic vocalist? Check. Singer married to a member of the band, so totally cute? Check. Spencer Krug connection? Big check. And yet, my conversations about Frog Eyes usually circle back to their famous friends, like Krug or Dan Bejar. My experiences with Frog Eyes the live juggernaut, destroyer of guitar strings and eardrums alike, have all involved seeing the band play to half-capacity crowds. What's the problem, here?

The answer is: I don't know, I don't have that problem! I love this band! Take this song, "A Flower in a Glove," the opening track from new album (and Dead Oceans debut), Paul's Tomb: A Triumph. The first thing any Frog Eyes devotee will notice is the length -- we've got a 9-minute epic here, reaffirming that Frog captain Carey Mercer is continuing to develop his (Krug-esque, yes) interest in long, multi-suite compositions. If you've not heard the band's last flagship song in this vein, 2007's "Bushels," please stop reading my moron blog post, put some pants on (or, actually, take some pants off -- the song's that good), and listen to a piece of music that over and over again reaffirms my belief in the power of, yes, rock 'n' roll.

Every article or review or blurb or Post-it about Frog Eyes spends roughly 90% of its space reporting on Carey Mercer's voice, and rightly so. It's an instrument unparalleled in its slice of the musical world -- the only comparison that comes to mind, a voice able to go seamlessly from guttural rumblings to razorthroated shouts to ethereal falsetto all in one song, is Isaac Brock. Even Brock, however, seems languorous, downright drenched in codeine (which, to be fair, he probably is) when compared to Mercer's manic, syllable-shredding, a-man-possessed utterances.

"A Flower in a Glove" wastes no time putting that voice to work. "You were always unnoticed!," Mercer howls over guitars drenched in reverb and stoned scuzz (we'll get to these soon), "you were always the flame that dies." His voice whoops and hisses, spitting out an introduction to a "bastard with a flat-top / singing, 'There's a flame that never, n-n-n-never dies!". Melanie Campbell, Mercer's wife, pounds away on her drumkit in her militaristic, downbeat-central fashion, consistently pummeling--

Hold on. I'm concerned that this is reading as a review of a metal band. I'm using a lot of Dio (R.I.P) endorsed adjectives. Frog Eyes is many things, but a metal band -- no. Yes, Mercer's lyrics often revolve around the fantastic, his fixation on all things mythological (another Paul's Tomb highlight features the refrain, "You don't need Cassandra / to gaze over the edge") in full force, here, as well. The music, though, is sweeping and melodic. Check out the 1:15-mark:

"You were always / a saint, / a flower in a glove, / a night made for the raising of your glass." Sure, you get the sense that Mercer's head is populated by men in chainmail, women with hair long enough to dangle out of castle keeps. But if all of this seems less than realistic, less than contemporary, thickly cinematic -- yes, it is. And the music is, too. Mercer sings that last line (and he's singing now, checking his volume) as Campbell slows the tempo and the guitars swirl behind him, reaching higher and higher on their necks in a stop-start, head-nodding groove. Frog Eyes has a sense of cinema, and their songs heave with drama. References to a modern-day King Lear later on in the album, anyone? They're there for the taking.

Paul's Tomb, anchored by "A Flower in a Glove," seems to me the most accessible path yet Mercer's given us into his nightmarish imagination, frightening but always swooning with a seasick sort of beauty. When he and his band bring things back up to a boil at 4:45 -- "the river is bad, / the river is cold" -- I'm ready to suit up and follow him on horseback to battle the Visigoths or the Normans or even just the kids on campus with bad haircuts who playfight with foam swords on the quad (please let us battle them). "How was the king?," Mercer asks amidst all this turmoil, "Was he sad, / was he cold?" I'd be more than happy to swear allegiance to him on any number of fog-swept heaths. "Put your hand on my face, / row away from the grief stricken man," he intones as the song fades into a wall of beautiful, chiming guitars (they are a guitar band now, more than ever), "put your trust in my fate." Yes, sir.

--Corey

Delorean's "Real Love"

2010-05-12T12:55:00.000-04:00

I really wanted to write something about Delorean without mentioning the beach, especially because here's my swimsuit. I can spend roughly 7 1/2 minutes in direct sunlight without bursting into flames. Still, here's this YouTube track of Delorean's "Real Love," replete with beautiful beach scene. Rest assured, though, you don't have to listen to this track -- or any of Delorean's other summer soaked jams -- exclusively on white sand in your board shorts (you're still wearing those?!). In fact, I often listen to "Real Love" in my bed or while driving in my automobile. That's sort of the beauty of the music -- it can transport you to sunshine land without the dubious benefits of Vitamin D or melanoma.

I've been on board with Delorean (their name is a car, I am Professor Metaphor!) since they dropped the consistently banging Ayrton Senna EP last year. That oh-so-brief record was comprised of 4 (5 if you bought it on iTunes) concise, clean, almost saccharine electro-pop wonders (the exception being John Talabot's extended remix of megajam "Seasun," which many people pumped through their iPod docks more often than the original, but which I found too ambling, too sprawling to keep up with the song's super-tight build-and-release). Suffice to say, I was waiting for Delorean's newest full-length LP to drop like I've been waiting to get into the club (I've never been allowed into the club, but their record, Subiza, came out a few weeks ago and I was allowed to purchase it).

Subiza is a dream of an album, but it's less concerned with the conventional pop structures of Ayrton Senna. Rather, we get to bliss out to gorgeous melodies without quite the emphasis on shaking our hips. That might sound like a knock, but it's not. Subiza's still an eminently danceable record, but it's more layered, more complex than the songs that first hooked me on the band.

Case in point: "Real Love". Opening with some typically ethereal loops and hazy samples, mixed with pitch-shifted vocals (cherubim, anyone?), the song takes its time getting going. Delorean's letting you soak up the atmosphere, like (errr) rays of -- yeah, you get it. When Ekhi Lopetegi's vocals finally hit (and, you know, his range isn't quite that far from those pitch-shifted "ah-oh's" that started us off) and the beat picks up, my brain gets seriously saturated with dopamine. I'm talking bliss like when I was a kid and the sno-cone guy pulled up outside of my house. Serious shit, folks. The chorus's question, "Will we ever meet again, / will we ever?" injects just the right dosage of nostalgia and longing into the mix. After all, I haven't seen that sno-cone guy in over a decade, and summers for me now are more about avoiding the heat, wishing I could drive away from work and straight to the ocean and my pastel-colored beach house with all of my friends from the last fifteen years. At least I can put on this record, roll the windows down, and feel like I'm a little closer to hitting the road.

--Corey

Dagoberto Gilb's "Uncle Rock"

2010-05-07T10:04:00.000-04:00

The New Yorker still publishes fiction, but they don't include a monocle to help you read it anymore (they had to stop including monocles in 1943 when President Roosevelt ordered them rationed and sent as gifts to a grateful England to get their minds off of the nightly blitzkrieg raids, two years after he ordered all The New Yorker's free top-hats sent over there, too -- read your history book, everyone!). They publish fiction weekly from up-and-comers like E.L. Doctorow and Joyce Carol Oates, and they also posthumously publish everything Roberto Bolaño ever wrote while sitting on the toilet or passing notes in third grade arithmetic class (look for next week's issue, featuring a real post-modern gem of a story, copies of Bolaño's receipts for his favorite diner in Barcelona, including signature and tips -- 15%, usually!).

This week, though, they're running Dagoberto Gilb's short story, "Uncle Rock". I love Dagoberto Gilb. Sometimes I sit on my bed and look plaintively through the window at the trees outside -- cherry blossoms, all, and all with their flowers now bloomed and dropped and blown away into dust by the wind -- and wonder why Dagoberto Gilb isn't the most famous writer in America right now. I had never heard of him until I had the fortune of attending the wonderful Squaw Valley Writers Workshop in the summer of 2009, where he sat on panels and read some of his work. I, like most of his audience, was blown away and spent much of the remainder of the conference bothering him and running into him at the Reno airport on the way home to make sure he knew to get the restraining order filled out on the plane to save time. This semester, I taught some stories from his phenomenal Woodcuts of Women, and I'd like to think I've converted a sizable percentage of Washington, DC metro-area youth into burgeoning Gilbians.

"Uncle Rock" seems to me vintage Gilb -- an exploration of the cultural tensions felt by a young Chicano, told in conversational and diamond-sharp prose. Check him out describing the procession of men who flirt with our protagonist's, Erick, mother:

"Friendly, he’d put his thick hands on the table as if he were touching water, and squat low, so that he was at sitting level, as though he were being so polite, and he’d smile, with coffee-and-tobacco-stained teeth. He might wear a bolo tie and speak in a drawl. Or he might have a tan uniform on, a company logo on the back, an oval name patch on the front. Or he’d be in a nothing-special work shirt, white or striped, with a couple of pens clipped onto the left side pocket, tucked into a pair of jeans or chinos that were morning-clean still, with a pair of scuffed work boots that laced up higher than regular shoes."

As if he were touching water! Dagoberto Gilb should write all the stories. Gilb's able to hit the voice of an eleven year-old boy with perfect pitch; Erick, upset at this parade of strange men, "drove a fork into a goopy American egg yolk and bled it into his American potatoes." Here, in a disarmingly simple sentence, Gilb does so much: gives us a crystalline image of the yolk breaking; describes its "goop" just like Erick would to his friend Albert; and subtly interjects a dose of the racial and cultural tension that drips through the story -- American egg yolk, American potatoes. Later, we see Erick -- with his Anglo name -- shrug off attempts from his mother's suitors to speak to him in English, assuming (incorrectly) that his reticence comes from a language divide. Gilb never reaches too far with these instances of underlining Erick's unarticulated confusion about where he fits in between his Mexican mother and her Hispanic comers-on. Rather, he gives us a lonely, sweethearted kid, one we understand and believe in, whether we've even ever seen a man in a bolo tie or not. By the story's (surprising, to me) end, Gilb's made for us a convincing and full-blooded human in three short pages.

In any case, it's a welcome departure from New Yorker stories about post-Ivy Leaguers flitting around at parties and looking at each others' necklines. Now, since the magazine's taken a break from running stories like that, they can look over my story about post-Ivy Leaguers flitting around at parties and looking at each others' necklines, which has been at their desks for eight months. Fingers crossed!

--Corey

Bonobos Pants, with Not Even One Monkey Joke

2010-05-03T17:28:00.000-04:00

Hey, do you guys ever get busy living an actual analog life and neglect your burgeoning internet presence? It turns out that finishing a semester and grading papers takes up a lot of time (time reflected in my docking each of my students one letter grade for taking me away from you, the readers! C's for everyone!) OYL took the week off, but we are BACK! I promise you, literal dozen of readers, that this blogger (and that other blogger here) won't abandon you to the catacombs of the internet for such a length ever again. Wayne keeps up with his blog, and he's in prison!

Prison! Free Wayne, by the way.

But enough ballyhooing (although can you ever really get enough?). Let's talk about what you came here to talk about. Men's fashion! Do you male OYL readers ever tire of Megan blogging about beautiful floral necklaces? Do you feel left out, wishing that I would contribute some hypermasculine, beefy, McQueen (Steve, not Alexander)-style counterparts? Something smelling of football leather and Worcestershire?

Too bad! Pastels, suckers!

I say "suckers" not only to insult my readership (because I am a doctor of BUSINESS), but also to denote the material of this beautiful pant. This, of course, is seersucker. You could buy these (for yourself or for me -- first OYL fan to send me pants in the mail [preferably not used, this time] gets a shout-out on the blog, maybe!) at Bonobos, erudite producers of the garment. As Megan pointed out in her earlier Band of Outsiders post, people ("hipsters" is what I mean by "people," right? or is that the opposite?) are slathering on layers and layers of preppy style this year. Bonobos is at the crest of that trend, making -- as they put it -- men's pants that Gatsby himself could be seen in, whether languidly golfing or covering up a murder!

A southern man myself, I have a deep affinity for seersucker. The pastel colors Bonobos are running right now delight me in deep, unspeakable places -- the blue above is my favorite, but you can also score green, pink, or, for the less adventurous, browns. Slide on some Sperrys, knot yourself a Band of Outsiders skinny tie, and you're ready to begin the summer mating ritual in the city, or to get savagely mugged! If you're not quite ready to be borne back ceaselessly into the past (of the 1920s below the Mason-Dixon), Bonobos also makes khakis and dress pants in blues that pop or in grays more suitable for your quietly deadening office job.

I will say that the legs here aren't tapered quite enough to my liking, nor are the pants priced at what I'd comfortably call "affordable." The latter, at least, is due to Bonobos using old school, New York City sewed-and-pressed factory labor. I'm willing to trade fair wages for higher prices. What I really like about the company, though, is that they're doing the 2010s prep with tongues planted firmly in gin-soaked cheeks. They get it. It's fun to dress in pastels and in white Sperrys, but it's also just a little obnoxious. That's why I like it, anyway. They're not as self-important as Brooks Brothers, but not as Big Brand impersonal as J. Crew. Here's to highballs in the summer, I declay-uh.

--Corey

Great Minds Think Alike

2010-04-27T14:16:00.000-04:00

OYL and Wolf Parade have a similar aesthetic, so says the album art from the Krug-assisted forthcoming LP!

--Corey

Aaron Burch's HOW TO TAKE YOURSELF APART HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF ANEW

2010-04-22T13:01:00.000-04:00

I've been sifting through the various treasures I plundered (purchased with money) at AWP in the last couple of weeks, which run the spectrum from REALLY HIGH (Michael Chabon's personal phone number and measurements) to SO LOW (James Franco's personal phone number and measurements). Somewhere right up there near the tip-top, quite far indeed from Mr. Franco's very own original signed Green Goblin cape (Scribner bought that too and I'm not jealous, probably!), is Aaron Burch's new little book, HOW TO TAKE YOURSELF APART HOW TO MAKE YOURSELF ANEW. It straddles the line between genres, and also it is fun to read!

Burch runs HOBART (the CAPS, this guy!), the wonderful literary journal and blog. This collection, published by the similarly fabulous and Grade-A Nice Folks at PANK, shows Burch putting his feet into the worlds of prose poetry, flash fiction, and short shorts (the literary kind, not the garment -- Burch was not available for comment regarding hotpants by press time). That's three worlds he's in with just two feet, how does he do it! You be the judge, Justice Metaphor, we're not reviewing my book, here. HOW TO TAKE YOURSELF APART spreads itself out comfortably across three sections. Let's look at them together.

The first, "How to Take Yourself Apart: Instructions" seems to me a group of prose poems on the same titular theme. The book's subtitle, notes and instructions from/for a father, comes into play with the greatest force in this section, as each poem focuses on the idea of a conscious reconstruction of one's identity, a sort of emotional molting, an opening up on the speaker's behalf. We the readers are implicated here, too, as the poems are told in the imperative. The "How to" instructions work well for cohesion's sake -- I'm a sucker for the second-person, anyway (Lorrie Moore, hero!). Take an example of the kind of visceral imagery Burch is working with, here, from the first of the series:

"Gut yourself. Slice first from wrist to elbow fold -- slow and smooth, the sharper the blade the better. Remember the filet knife you gave your dad for Father's Day when you were ten." So, the speaker's taken that knife back from his father in order to transform himself, in a manner of speaking. He's become the father, now. I really love Burch's earnestness here -- throughout all of these poems. He's bursting with emotion (prick the skin and let it out!) at the idea of fatherhood, recognizing that he must become a new version of himself to take on the responsibility, to disassemble and reassemble himself to be better, his joints smoother, his flesh thicker, his heart bigger. It's moving stuff, even for a guy who can't handle the responsibility of paying alimony so his ex-girlfriend can take care of his old Beta fish now that she's left him (how could you take Bubbles, Christine!), let alone think of himself as one day having human children. Yikes!

The next section, "How to Fold Paper Cranes: tales" goes all narrative on you. Flash fiction is something I approach with trepidation, mostly because it's alien to me as a writer (in other words, it's not in my skill set, okay?). I like Burch's stories here, though not as strongly as I liked the sections sandwiching this one. I'm particularly pulled toward "Molting" and "There There," two of the more imagistic, less plot-driven shorts in the collection. In the first, a young girl wants to change her hands into wings, enlisting her friend to help to horrifying effect in the final lines. In the latter, Burch conveys the feeling of palpable longing for a lost love (tell me about it, am I right, internet?) by having his narrator physically ingest the woman he loves: "Or, I fold her as many times as I can, counting. I put her, folded in my mouth and swallow, pushing her down my throat with my index finger, inviting her to stay forever." I'm taking notes!

The final section of the book, "How to Make Yourself Anew: a bestiary," is my favorite by a few leaps and several bounds. More prose poems, each dedicated to a different animal, with Burch instructing the reader how to become the creature at hand. "Caladrius" picks up the earlier themes ingesting others' qualities -- here, taking someone's pain and making it your own, another selfless gesture that evinces Burch's fatherly thoughts -- and would have its readers confront those around us to take "their suffering, their sorrow and grief, heartache and sadness, take it all into your mouth, your beak, and hold tight but careful like a stork carrying a baby." The final image of the poem, touching on the Icarus myth but twisting it anew, got me all choked up (don't look, turn away!). Burch's prose, the contagion of his earnestness, so pure and guileless in its intent, hits with a quiet force. It's something to carry with you. I think his kids will be all right.

--Corey

LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yrself Clean"

2010-04-19T12:40:00.000-04:00

My noble colleague Megan is wrapping up her thesis this week, so I'm afraid you, global audience, are stuck with just me for a little while. That means that OYL will quickly become ohyoungoverreportedindiemusic.blogspot.com. Yikes! Ms. Ronan will soon be back to bring a touch of class and diversity in subject matter, but for now -- hey, a song!

LCD Soundsystem's This is Happening will be released -- dropped, this is a dance record -- on May 17th (on DFA, which is now synonymous with Murphy's name) to universal acclaim and less hip-shaking than you might expect (but a lot of head-nodding and thoughts of hip-shaking, like "Hey, if I was going to shake my hips, I'd probably go left to right to achieve maximum velocity, and -- wait, where's my Pabst?"). The first track, "Dance Yrself Clean," went global last week, and now you can stream the whole album at LCD's naturally minimalist website.

"Dance Yrself Clean" is what we in the industry (the industry of blogging, in which OYL is something like Detroit) call a "jam." It is also, like "Get Innocuous," the first track on 2007's Sound of Silver, an exercise in how to turn slow-building head-bobbing into full-throttle, obscene movements of the waist. LCD head-honcho James Murphy lays down a minimal beat, replete with fuzzes of bass and a touch of cowbell, and his understated but newly confident vocals take the listener through what the listener wants James Murphy to take the listener through -- i.e., a day in the social life of Mr. Murphy himself. We get images of people "walking up to me expecting / walking up to me expecting words, / happens all the time."Could that be a reference to us, adoring fans that we are, bothering James at a club when he's just trying to wring that spot of Jay-Z's limited edition Diamond Filtered vodka out of his black skinny tie? (That vodka sounds delicious!) Or is he just talking about Aziz again?

The track also reminds us that James Murphy's still the funniest guy in indie music (send your apologies to Eddie Argos in Art Brut -- just kidding, no one remembers who that is!). As the song builds, Murphy reflects on a friend "talking like a jerk / except you are an actual jerk, / and living proof / that sometimes friends are mean." I know that guy! The moment's an instance of one of the stronger tools in Murphy's arsenal -- using humor and irony to make a song about the slight, sad isolation of life in your late 20s-early 30s ring true without a hint of sentimentality. At the three minute mark, he turns up the volume and the bass, and the track's title becomes a mantra of how to forget, for eight minutes or so, the self-indulgence of that post-grad ennui.

It's a moving (in regards to both heart and hips) piece of music, and I'm even willing to ignore the Kerouac-ian omission of the "ou" in the title (I'll believe it's Sonic Youth-ian, instead, and not a nod to the guy who ruined American prose, whoops!). It is not, of course, another "All My Friends." It couldn't be. The album stream reveals that no other track on This Is Happening quite reaches those heights. That's fine -- I'll let Murphy play these tracks back to back live, and then I'll nod my head with the rest of the crowd, saying, yeah, this is a guy worth following wherever he'll take us.

--Corey

RE: LCD Soundsystem's "Dance Yrself Clean"

2010-04-19T12:35:00.000-04:00

I recently had the pleasure of hanging out in Corey’s living room with a couch-surfing Frenchman and a visitor from Boston. The Frenchman eventually wants to end up in CA, so if you’re driving west and know a little French, let us know! Real conversation:

Megan: I am provincial.

Corey: We global.

And what, oh what, served as our background music on this surreal yet gritty provincial-global night? Why, This is Happening, of course. And it served the occasion well. I felt cool and not so terribly embarrassed to be a provincial American. All this is to say that This is Happening does fit nicely into the post-grad scene of 25 year-olds hanging out on mismatched couches in yellowish overhead lighting. You know how you imagined your 20-something self when you were nine? I’m so cool and I can do whatever I want so I’m going to sit on this couch with my friends and laugh like in that beer commercial. Yes, This is Happening makes me feel like I’ve achieved that. And makes me not so terribly depressed about it.

The lyrics to Dance Yrself Clean riff on sound and pun in a really relaxed, fun, and sonically satisfying way. Think Haryette Mullen really stoned and silly, maybe. This is the kind of playful, sensual, yet sincere attitude I find in my favorite writers. Good night, good music. Thanks LCD Soundsystem!

--Megan

The National's "Terrible Love" and Foals's "Spanish Sahara"

2010-04-11T19:48:00.000-04:00

Hey, AWP was fun! Denver seems like a nice place, and I'm sure I could find something complimentary to say about each and every one of you 9,000 attendees! (Look for ohyoung9000AWPcompliments.blogspot.com tomorrow!) If you got a bookmark from me or Megan, leave us a comment or send an email -- we'd love to hear from you. Watch for an AWP retrospective post, coming soon.

In the meantime, hey, music is happening! The National, who live in Brooklyn (just like you!) and who have justly become One of The Biggest Bands in the World (on an indie, not-very-big scale!), have a new album, High Violet, coming out on May 11 on 4AD. The band's been responsible for Boxer, my favorite album of 2007, the mega-jam Alligator in 2005, and two other you-know-really-not-too-bad albums before those. They've gotten better with each release, so High Violet gives me goosebumps in anticipation at night (because I am alone, so so very alone). They premiered "Terrible Love," track number uno from the record, live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (for the record -- number of shows Jimmy Fallon has: 1; number of shows Conan O'Brien has: 0, so don't forget to write your senator!) in March.

Jimmy Fallon's hair asks, "You ready for some good music?"

Yes, Jimmy Fallon's hair, yes I am.

And lo, it is delivered. All reviews of anything The National does must have a line that references vocalist Matt Berninger's ________ baritone, and I'm going to go with "sultry," here. Vocalist Matt Berninger's sultry baritone scratches just the right spot in my inner ear, and it's nice to have it back. Berninger's on the record as a big John Ashbery fan, and I suppose that's at least somewhat on display here, especially in the opening lines: "It's a terrible love / and I'm walking with spiders /-- it's quite a company." Slightly absurd, a little funny, a touch of foreboding. I think Ashbery could get into that. In any case, the lines work with the slow build of the song's first two minutes, before The National does what they do best, bringing in an aching and pulse-pounding crescendo of a bridge. Bryan Devendorf's consistently mind-blowing drumming -- simple but inventive, creating hooks in its own right -- starts to ratchet up the stakes, but the band pulls back. Berninger uses the space to intone, "It takes an ocean not to break [drift? drift would be better, I'll tell him in workshop]," which becomes the song's refrain, gaining Importance and Meaning of Incredible, Galactic Weight as these things tend to do when repeated over and over while an awesome band plays their instruments awesomely.

When the band lets loose at the 3 minute mark, finally allowing all that energy to come coursing out, it's well worth the wait, an example in expert-level pacing and release. This album will be huge. Good work in advance, guys!

The National's hype machine is in full effect, and that's all well and good. They're one of the best bands of the decade, so word from the mouths of blogs and that girl with the keffiyeh makes perfect sense, and it's nice to see a band getting the respect and attention they deserve. Some bands don't have such a churning chorus of voices behind them, though. The UK's Foals also have a new album dropping in May -- Sub Pop will release Total Life Forever, the follow-up to 2008's Antidotes, on the 10th of that month.

Antidotes came out on the tail-end of the Bloc Party-inspired dancepunk craze (music blogging!). I think it was a big hit in the UK, though I'm still waiting for Wellingborough Rufflefeather, OYL's London correspondent, to file a report on that. Still, it didn't make big waves in the States. "Spanish Sahara," the lead single/video from the new record, signals that Foals may have read that as a sign to experiment with a new sound. No breakbeats here, no yelping vocals, no guitars that a music blogger might (just might) describe as "angular". Rather, we have Yannis Phillipakis leading his band through a field of electronic blips and falsetto musings, imploring his listener to "leave the horror here / forget the horror here". It's atmospheric, in a word, and quite successfully so. Lest you think Foals is going all "Treefingers" on you, the band comes to life at 4:07 and gives you a summer jam for your trouble.

The video, by the way, is well worth your time, featuring gorgeous cinematography courtesy of David Ma. Frozen ice swells, glacial mountainscapes, burning carcasses of some sort, and a single tear moment from Yannis Phillipakis! God save the Queen!

--Corey

RE: The National's "Terrible Love" and Foals's "Spanish Sahara"/Megan's Triumphant Return

2010-04-11T19:40:00.000-04:00

OH MY GOD I’M ALIVE

So, AWP kicked my ass. I got back and had to catch up/thesisize my thesis, read at a So to Speak event, and then leave again for a wedding in New Jersey. I left my new copy of Sandra Doller’s Chora on the Vamoose bus. So, expect to wait a little longer before I review it.

Dear Corey,

I am sorry for neglecting you/your blog posts. But I have returned. Forgive me. And rejoice—your faithful readers all wrote to their senators and now Conan O’Brien has been granted a late night show on TBS. Wait, TBS? I thought they only aired teen-themed movie marathons. Do they have time for Conan between Clueless, Can’t Hardly Wait, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She’s All That?

So, music? Music.

A) I love Jimmy Fallon & want to write sexy poems about him.

B) The National album High Violet comes out on May 11th, which is my mom’s birthday! Hi Mom! Just misses mother’s day, though, on May 9th, for all of you hoping to buy this album for your indie-moms.

C) I have to agree with Corey about the mounting tension of this song—so slow, so suspenseful, so inevitable, so satisfying. I’m seduced by the song by the time the guitar sound picks up around 1:50; from there on out it’s that thick, heady, lost in steady, building head-banging feeling. The indie jumping up and down dance ensues.

D) Now, I hate to correct Corey, and chances are that he has better sources than I do, but I searched the lyrics and found, “It’s a terrible love / and I’m walking with spiders / it’s quiet company / it’s quiet company.” This feels tragic yet comforting to me.

E) They gave an AWESOME performance. I like to see me some rock stars up on stage—I’d love to view them in concert.

Hey, guess what? The National is playing AT The National in Richmond on Thursday, April 22 . . . AND there are still tickets available.

Foals? Foals.

A) I usually HATE when websites make sound at me. It is jarring, unexpected, intrusive, unbearable. But sometimes I make exceptions. The flash images/music on the Foals webpage is not designed to brainwash you. It is pleasing. It doesn’t make me lunge toward my laptop going “ahh!” and fumbling to make it stop. What a crazy design ploy for the internet.

B) Doing my blog research (thanks, Wikipedia), I learned that Jack Bevan and Yannis Philippakis were once in a band called The Edmund Fitzgerald, classified as “math rock.” THERE IS SUCH A THING AS MATH ROCK? Sounds like a cool term/metaphor to me. So, continuing my research, it seems to me that Foals are kind of math-rock-lite, and that math-rock predecessors include some artists I actually know about—Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd. I would like everyone in the world to have more ELP in their life. So, not knowing earlier music from the Foals, but having done my research, it DOES seem like this smooth, somber sound is a departure from their roots. Yes, Corey? But I sense electronic play and the “the lunatic is on the grass” eeriness.

C) The video is crisp and beautiful. The bright, stark imagery reminds me of Insomnia (the 1997 Norwegian version by Erik Skjoldbjærg), and the slow close ups remind me a little of these beautiful video portraits by Ryan Poe (Hi old Fredericksburg friends!):

Video Portraits from Timothy Ryan Poe on Vimeo.

I leave you with your daily dose of ELP.

Love,

Megan

Finch Accessories & AWP

2010-04-09T12:35:00.000-04:00

Hey everybody! Fast post from the bagel shop where I get internet in Denver. So, I got two new necklaces by Finch Accessories. They make these simple felt necklaces that they call "blooming bibs," and matching hair ties and hair bands. They are clean and almost preppy in their simplicity and color schemes, but channel flower-child hippie-ness. I love. I don't wear a lot of necklaces, and I've been looking for some statement/lay flat on my collar bone necklaces to make an outfit out of plain t-shirts/scoop necks.

I will be wearing this around AWP this week! Come see us. Get a bookmark.

Megan

RE: Finch Accessories & AWP

2010-04-09T12:33:00.000-04:00

I'm enjoying Megan's new necklaces. You, too, could have Spring bursting forth from your very throat. Plus, they look great when paired with an OYL bookmark! Grab one here at AWP! More to come soon.

--Corey

OYL at AWP 2010

2010-04-07T14:22:00.000-04:00

Oh, Young Lions is Denver-bound for the 2010 AWP Conference! Come visit Megan at the So to Speak table in the bookfair or see if you can spot Corey's garish and brazenly large, orange head! Say hi. We'll give you a bookmark.

Elisa Gabbert's The French Exit

2010-04-04T21:47:00.001-04:00

So, the blog world has been telling me about this new press, Birds LLC, and this new book, The French Exit by Elisa Gabbert. And I’ve been thinking, I should buy this book. And then I walk into my office, and what is sitting on my desk? Review copy! This was very exciting for me. I am not usually important enough to get review copies of anything. And to be fair, I think it was actually in Phoebe’s mail. Fortunately the poetry editor over at Phoebe is my roommate and friend, Moriah Purdy. She will probably forgive me for swiping it.

Gabbert has done some pretty fun stuff as a guest over at HTMLGiant, like this amazing list of “moves” in contemporary poetry and a recent bar graph of personal clichés in reviews, blogs and books, and I’ve seen parts of her collaborative work with Kathleen Rooney before, so I was really interested to read the book. And the title is sexy. “Exit” is such a cool word.

So, I had to look up what the phrase “French exit” actually means, and it refers to when someone leaves a place stealthily, without saying goodbye. It seems to be used in the context of social events/parties. . . when someone sneaks away and is gone when you turn around to look for them. What’s satisfying about this is that so much of Gabbert’s book deals with dream-like experiences and fears. This is what dreams so often do, sneak away before you’re done with them, leaving you feeling powerless, afraid of your own impotence. There are a few moments in the book where she really nabs my most common, terrifying dream experience—feeling in some way paralyzed. In the first poem, “Commissioned,” she writes:

You find a notebook, the first several pages
filled in with your own writing, red pen.

You must know what it says.
But in the dream you can’t read it.

In dreams there’s no quality to the weather.

But an orange sky, hanging. Something it means.

Your own writing in red! Urgent and intimate but you can’t access it! I have recurring dreams where I’m being attacked up against the fence in the front yard of the home I lived in growing up, and people are very close by who could save me, but I CAN’T SCREAM. I HAVE NO VOICE. TERRIFYING.

She ends “Decoherence,” “I keep thinking about a woman I met. / One day, approaching an intersection, / she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to stop walking.” This reminds me of a common dream I have where I’m walking down a busy road w/o sidewalks. There’s plenty of room on the shoulder of the road for me to walk, BUT I CAN’T WALK STRAIGHT. I keep veering into traffic. I can’t stay out of the road. I have no control over my body. I know I’m going to get hit by a car. Please email with psychoanalysis.

Anyway, so much of desire (our dreams) is also fear, and Gabbert complicates desire and anxiety. This was a refreshing take on human want. And yet the language comes off as poet-casual. She makes the meta-poetic conversational (throughout the book, but the second section, in particular, is comprised completely of “Blogpoems” she wrote for a project on Chris Tonelli’s blog), isn’t afraid of puns, and has some really playful conceits (“Where do holes go / to die? Their cemetery / sure would seem a waste / of space—all those graves / of graves. . . “).

So, there are a million off-site events I want to see at AWP, and Gabbert is reading at one of them. It’s Thursday night at Mercury Café, and it’s hosted by six small presses, including Birds, LLC. There are a bunch of other readers, too, so if you’re interested, check it out on the AWP site.

-Megan

RE: Elisa Gabbert's The French Exit

2010-04-04T16:48:00.000-04:00

First of all, my dreams consist almost exclusively of me successfully lifting heavy objects or dolphin-skiing around glistening Lake Beasley (the proper technique of dolphin-skiing: step 1, put one foot on one dolphin, step 2, repeat, step 3, ski) while people on the shore applaud and feed me grapes. This is all to say that I'm worried about my colleague Megan, and encourage her to go seek out a dream doctor who will help her with her dreams (because those exist and I learned about them in dream medical school, duh). In any case, despite the fact that my psyche is extremely healthy and has excellent muscle definition*, I really enjoyed Elisa Gabbert's poems in The French Exit, particularly those that deal with the dreamlike imagery that Megan discussed.

*the opposite of that

I particularly love the lines in "Decoherence" quoted by my esteemed co-blogger, though I like them more when taken as swinging toward realism rather than the surrealistic: "I keep thinking about a woman I met. / One day, approaching an intersection, / she was afraid she wouldn't be able to stop walking." I've had moments where that kind of self-destructive impulse seems to raise itself over the horizon in a way that seems to draw me to it, unalterably. It reminds me of that opening passage in Moby-Dick (I promise I've read other books) where Ishmael's confessing his vaguely suicidal impulses: "...it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off." Both Ishmael and the speaker in "Decoherence" want to avoid these self-destructive encounters, but both feel as if doing so is almost impossible, out of their control. It hits me as being pretty real, the kind of crystalline sentiment I'd feel uneasy revealing in my own work but would reward in someone else's texts with exclamation points in the margins.

The Blogpoem section of the book is probably my favorite, and Gabbert gives us more of those sharply captured moments of anxiety. "Lousy Day Blogpoem" goes, "Was the end of a lousy day. Drank too much / and everyone agreed my emotions were implausible." What's up with everyone doing that all the time?! My emotions always seem plausible to me, and even if most everyone seems to be in the other camp too frequently for my comfort, Gabbert gets it. Thanks for that!

--Corey

Moshe Safdie's Building for Peace

2010-04-03T12:12:00.000-04:00

You know how New York gets all those exciting architecturally innovative new buildings? I guess they get them in metropolises like Philadelphia and Miami and -- yes!! -- Oh, Young Lions' lesser-known sister city, Stuttgart, also. BUT, did you know that Washington, D.C., the nation's capital, is also occasionally thought of as a Major U.S. City with People Living In It? Sometimes, architects even take a break from hobnobbing in Stuttgart to build stuff here, too!

If you've been on Constitution Avenue lately to protest abortion rights, lack of abortion rights, wars in the Middle East, lack of wars in the Middle East, or Jay Leno taking over The Tonight Show (again!), you've likely noticed the construction at the corner of 23rd St NW. This spot marks the border of the National Mall, which means it would be an excellent spot for the new National California Tortilla. However, something called The United States Institute for Peace snapped up the real estate first.

The USIP is building their new Headquarters and Global Peacebuilding Center there, slated to open in 2011. As they put it, the Center will "house a Public Education Center, a research library and archives, classrooms, and a world-class conference center. It will be a powerful and lasting affirmation of the American people’s commitment to peace." It will also, as luck would have it, look great!

The institute tapped Moshe Safdie to design the building -- he's also behind the preposterously luxurious Marina Bay Sands Resort in Singapore, the awesome and boxy Habitat 67 complex in Montreal, and the admittedly EPCOT-y ATF Headquarters in DC. Safdie's fixation on the interaction between natural light and his buildings often makes them, you know, nice to look at; what's more, his love of playing with the separation between public and private space would seem to make him the perfect architect for a pseudo-governmental building in Washington, where serious business will be balanced against an open invitation to the public to come hang out and take in some exhibits and lectures. Even better, Safdie's Palestinian-born, and holds citizenship in the US, Canada, and Israel. It's almost like he's a walking Institute for Peace, himself! Look at the way the light interacts with the public/private space of his impressive mustache:

The USIP posits that Safdie's design "will consist of three distinct sections linked together by atriums covered by large-span undulating roofs. The building’s roofs form a dramatic series of wing-like elements constructed of steel frames and white translucent glass." I like the roof construction, and I think it gets at the feeling of flight without -- take some notes for your next building, loyal reader Moshe Safdie -- going too heavy on the Our Roof Looks Like a Floating White Dove idea. It's clean, impressively dramatic, and eye-catching without seeming overly ostentatious in the comparably simplistic Constitution Ave (and, yeah, DC) aesthetic. All that white and open space makes the building fit unintrusively with its neighbor, the Lincoln Memorial, while its heavy emphasis on clear glass gives it a contemporary edge sorely lacking in DC's public image as a Greco-Roman city on the hill.

Though the facade's coming together nicely, as you can see from the street as you drive by, we can't go inside yet. We'll have to wait to get a taste of how the atrium hits the eye from the inside, as well as what the various exhibition and conference halls end up looking like. Still, it's exciting to have DC back on the architectural map, even slightly. I look forward to helping Safdie clean off the egg from Teabagger protests. Here, here!

--Corey

Saturday, April 3, 2010

RE: Moshe Safdie's Building for Peace

As soon as I saw Corey’s post I thought, “DC is getting an Epcot?” So I was doubly disappointed when I found out that a) I was wrong and b) Corey already used that joke. It is cool looking, but seriously, doesn’t all that white get dirty in a city? Don’t Apple products have the same problem? Can’t we come up with a more interesting and care-friendly color to make us feel powerful and progressive? Can I use a bleach stick on it? It kind of looks like a space colony. All our science fiction of advanced, human-like aliens from the future is really a projection of how we want the aliens to think of us when we meet. Dear DC: The Institute for Peace comes in peace. And we’re cool and moral and high-tech.

While Corey has already revealed his hipster-envy of the sexy “ménage-a-everyone” city life, I’d rather crawl into a ball under my bed. I have a fetish for glamour, yes, but cities are loud and I get lost easily. They make me want to cover my ears and quiver my lip like a child in an amusement park. I think the last time I trekked the few miles from Fairfax to DC was in the fall. John Taggart was doing an American Hybrid Reading at Bridge Street Books. Not many things entice me the way John Taggart's poetry does.

Highjinx and my antisocial tendencies aside, I do like that the building is so airy. Open yet constructed space is so lovely and, yes, peaceful. It looks like I’d feel held within some safe, pleasant bounds but not in an institutional way. (But maybe an enjoying-the-high-of-the-blue-pill kind of way?) Because, doesn’t there seem to be something ironic about our need for an Institute for Peace? It is a noble endeavor, and I like the public/private dynamic that Corey discussed; I’m just a poet thinking poetically here. I think I should write a poem called “Institute for Peace.” I think you should, too.

Peace(?),

Megan

Boy / Band of Outsiders

2010-04-02T09:16:00.000-04:00

It is very spring-like this week in sunny Fairfax, VA. I love warm weather, and I love spring clothes even more. In the past few weeks we've been introduced to the new Fall 2010 lines, but really, let's dwell for a minute in the here-and-now. You know, the reality of designer clothes I can't afford on my MFA stipend.

Boy & Band of Outsiders, at least, do present lines that are wearable. I'm not criticizing the fashion world. Clothes are art. I appreciate the creativity of people like Alexander McQueen, whose designs advanced fashion and whose death is sure to set it back. And I would wear those clothes if, say, I lived in NY or just didn't live most of my life around 18 year olds in George Mason University sweat pants. Boy & Band of Outsiders, though, make clothes that, were I able to afford them, might be appropriate for my mundane, grad school in Northern Virginia lifestyle. And these people are fun! The clothes and the presentations are self-aware and energetic. The style plays with New England prep and polish and American Apparel rawness and ironic grit.

The printed shirtdress in the picture above, for instance, pulls off feminine and pretty, but is still serious about design. And I cannot tell you how much I want that color block shift above. The shape, the neckline, the sleeve, the below-the-knee hem--this is real glamor without the sex, sex, sex. The website also has pictures of several of those striped mohair sweaters, which look soft and slinky. I want those, too. The one big mistake I think Boy makes is those lace up stilettos by Manolo Blahnik. They are really just ugly, and I think lace-up anything is hard to pull off. Design quirkiness still has to be flattering, right?

So, I have failed to really talk about Band of Outsiders, the men's collection, at all. They do great men's clothing, which is hard to find these days. If it were up to me I'd dress Corey in all Band of Outsiders this spring. Actually, never mind, if it were up to me, Corey & I would both be in a Jean-Luc Godard movie. I did just find out that Bande à part is based on a novel. Reading project.

-Megan

Friday, April 2, 2010

RE: Boy / Band of Outsiders

Band of Outsiders' most recent photoshoot for the men's line has a few chiseled (but not TOO chiseled, maybe something like granite instead of marble) dudes hanging out on a boat with a lovely blonde woman, whom I assume is a willing participant in a kind of futuristic, Huxley-style consensual menage-a-everyone -- in other words, the lifestyle that comes with living in Brooklyn and going to parties with James Murphy and Kanye West (because, duh, everyone in Brooklyn has to mark their calendars for nights with celebrities in advance, like Tuesdays with Kanye and Thursdays with Jonathan Safran Foer & Spencer Pratt who have to share a day because they've both sort of fallen in public esteem lately, sorry guys!). I'd like to point out that I've been rocking the vaguely nautical for years now -- I knew the name Sperry Topsiders before I knew the name Ezra Koenig, thanks all! -- which I attribute somewhat to the influence of Herman Melville, love of my life and light of my seersucker shorts-clad loins. He would've loved pique polo shirts!

I share Megan's financial envy, here, as I think Band of Outsiders hits right at the perfect sweet spot between Trust Fund and Bushwick (whoops, sort of the same thing, but you get the idea). Teaching's given me an excuse to Dress Up My Life lately, and I'm more comfortable now wearing a tie around Fairfax's stripmalls than not (impressed yet, lady at Smoothie King?). The menswear here, especially Outsiders' ties oh man, is contemporary without being flashy. Nice! And, by the way, Aziz Ansari -- star of the funniest show on network TV and also the most well-dressed young man on NBC (your tie's too skinny even for me, Joel McHale) -- reps for the label, which means you can't go wrong. He, after all, actually DOES hang out with James Murphy and Kanye, and they tweet about it SO GOOD! Check him out in Band of Outsiders on the cover of his new comedy LP:

Even more well-dressed than the polar bear, mother nature's Guy Who Wears a White Tuxedo to Your Senior Prom. Good work, everyone!

--Corey

Constantines -- "Young Lions"

2010-03-29T14:25:00.001-04:00

For the inaugural post here at Oh, Young Lions, I thought I'd begin by discussing one of our namesakes (posts forthcoming about the novel, film, and baby animal). This post will also prove Oh, Young Lions is on the CUTTING EDGE (of 2003) in discussing music and other media. Good luck finding another blog that does that, grandpa!

So, here we have a track from 2003's Shine a Light by Canadian laryngitis-enthusiasts Constantines. Bryan Webb croaks his way through the song on top of the band's typically belligerent percussion and thick, meaty guitars. The effect is something of the Springsteen-with-one-fist-in-the-air enthusiasm trademarked by Canucks of the mid-2000s (Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, Broken Social Scene, and all those other bands your dad makes you listen to on NPR every afternoon, come on dad!). Webb's message, hoarse and cracking in all the right places, is one of a call to arms for youth and possibility -- "loosen the collar," he implores his listeners, "shake off the wire, / run like a river, / burn like a beacon fire." This kind of brazen sentimentalism and -- let's call it what it is -- love (yikes!) of life and one's ability to seize control of it shows the emotionalism that bands like Constantines brought back to an indie scene saturated with Casablancas-themed detachment and shiny leather. I like The Strokes as much as the next guy/waif, but if that band is about precision and meticulousness, Constantines do something totally different.

"Young Lions" barrels through its four minutes with purpose, the emphasis on the lower-end totally alien to anything on Is This It? or, for that matter, much straightforward indie rock of the 2000s. I don't know when bands decided to stop sounding like Fugazi, but that was a mistake. Constantines bring back a ramshackle heaviness to this brand of rock music, and it's a welcome change -- the bass flub at 2:05 preserved on the recording, as if the band didn't have the patience to pause the tape and try to recreate the genuine energy of the song. I don't mean to suggest that Constantines (or, Jesus Christ, Fugazi) aren't perfectionists or master craftsmen. Rather, the precision here isn't in engineering the perfect guitar sound, but in catching the right feeling. Forgive the italics there, but "Young Lions" and Shine a Light operate entirely in italics, with every word and note resonating with force and intent. "Oh, young lions: / this is your kingdom," indeed.

--Corey

Monday, March 29, 2010

RE: Constantines' "Young Lions"

Something you should know about me and Corey: Corey knows a lot about music. I do not. It's something I've felt guilty about most of my life. Recurring scene: Megan slinks into shadow as potential indie boyfriend judges iTunes collection. I like music, of course. I just grew up with my dad's classic rock albums and never really expanded my knowledge. What that paternal influence did cultivate, however, was a fetish for rock-and-roll culture and a desire to board a tour bus like Penny Lane in Almost Famous, embrace my youth, and never turn back. So I appreciate the "embrace your youth" message in "Young Lions." This blog is my kingdom. I prefer the term, "lioness."

But I have to say that the "thick, meaty" guitar sound Corey points out becomes monotonous for me, and so seems incongrous with the kind of enthusiasm he alluded to. There is a fine line between being raw and being dull, and I think the video does a better job of embracing a rawness of emotion than the song does.

The collage style of the video reminded me of this exhibit currently at the Met: "Playing with Pictures: The Art of Victorian Photocollage." I haven't seen it yet, but you can see a bunch of images on the website. They are incredibly cool and incredibly modern-looking. The collages are all by women, and so have interesting implications for reconsidering the lineage of the modern avant-garde. Hopefully I will view it in person and be able to write a full post about it in the future. But for now, I think these collages capture the seriousness and texture of play and pleasure, which, for me, "Young Lions" only captures in the video. I like the song. But it's not going on my getting-dressed playlist.

Also, if the cover of Cate Marvin's World's Tallest Disaster was a music video, this would be it. Which is cool. And maybe will make me reread that book.

Dear Corey,

Your musical vocabulary intimidates me.

Love,

Megan