Daily Jam - Atmosphere

In 1995, some good folks put together a Joy Division tribute record called "A Means to an End" that featured a slew of different alt-rock artists at the time like Low, Tortoise, and more.  And they got the great slowcore band Codeine to cover "Atmosphere."  A perfect pairing of artist and song if you ask me.  Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Acts of Man

There is something timeless in the songs of Texas band Midlake, elements of old folk that make the songs sound so much older than they actually are.  Here's "Acts of Man" from 2010's "The Courage of Others" as some proof in the pudding.  Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Teenage Dream

It's happened before, but i feel another one incoming...a T. Rex phase.  Honestly anytime i listen to Marc Bolan and crew, within in five minutes it's the only thing i want to listen to.  So here they are with "Teenage Dream," our Daily Jam.

Karen O & Danger Mouse

Way way back in 2019, a damn lifetime ago, Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O made a wonderful record with producer extraordinaire Danger Mouse with the sublime "Lux Prima."  It was one of my favorite records that year, and now it's getting a reissue with extra 7" featuring new song "Super Breath."  Check that song out below and pre-order the reissue here.

Daily Jam - Baby It's You

In just a few hours i have to hit the road for a work trip that will keep me away from home for most of the week.  I hate being away from my family like this, but i guess it is what it is.  So here's '60s/'70s band Smith covering The Shirelles to maybe make me feel better for a couple minutes.  Listen to "Baby It's You" below, our Daily Jam.

Maya Ongaku

My mind is all over the place today.  It was like that yesterday too.  Just completely brain fried.  And it's gonna get a whole lot worse over the next few weeks as my work schedule is going to be pretty tough.  A lot of travel.  A lot of really early mornings.  A lot of 12+ hour days.  Bring on the brain goo.  Anyway, as i try to center myself a little and maybe soothe the nerves before another work trip tomorrow, here's some new music from Japanese psych folk outfit Maya Ongaku.  Check out the mellow and trippy "Iyo no Hito" below and pre-order the band's upcoming "Electronic Phantoms" LP here from Guruguru Brain.

Daily Jam - Dog on Wheels

There is something kind of comforting about those first few Belle & Sebastian EP's and LP's to me.  Something warm.  Here's "Dog on Wheels" from the band's EP of the same name.  Listen below, our Daily Jam.

Sven Wunder & Drumetrics

Here's a wonderful and worldly new track from Swedish wunderkind Sven Wunder (see what i did there), this time around featuring an assist from Drumetrics.  Check out the Eastern flashes of "Free Time" below and download it here from Piano Piano Records (the 7" is already sold out).

Nightshift

Glasgow band Nightshift just dropped their latest album, "Homosapien," today on Trouble In Mind Records.  Check out the swaying, hummable "Phone" below and grab the album here.

Friday Horror Trailer - Inferno

Daily Jam - Light of Love

I've probably mentioned 100 times on here about how cool it is when you discover an old song that served as a sample for something newer.  Such is the case with Canadian folk singer Bonnie Dobson's "Light of Love," the intro of which was sampled by Lovage on "Stroker Ace."  Check the original track out below, our Daily Jam. 

Tess Parks

London-based singer/songwriter Tess Parks is set to release new album "Pomegranate" in October.  Listen to the airy, daydreamy "Koalas" below and pre-order the LP here from Fuzz Club and Hand Drawn Dracula.

Daily Jam - E.Z.L.A.

If the last two days are the indicator, i should be getting a ton of overtime over the next three or four weeks.  And that's good because i had to buy a new car a couple weeks ago and have to get used to having a car payment again.  What does any of that have to do with Folk Implosion?  Absolutely nothing, but we're going to listen to them today anyway.  Here's "E.Z.L.A." from 1999's "One Part Lullaby."  Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Dangerous

It's my most busy time of the year for work, which means this pre-written Daily Jam is coming at you from somewhere in the state of Texas as i work my proverbial butt off.  Listen to Depeche Mode B-side "Dangerous" below, our Daily Jam.

Boy Harsher

Massachusetts darkwave duo Boy Harsher just dropped new EP "Machina," a collection featuring five different mixes of the song, featuring LA synth pop artist Ms. BOAN.  Check out the dark mix of "Machina" below and download the EP here from Nude Club Records.

Daily Jam - I-Night

Let's begin our Tuesday with some coffee and some early synth punk from San Francisco new wave band Units.  Check out "I-Night" below, the glorious B-side from their "Warm Moving Bodies" 7," and our Daily Jam.

A Place to Bury Strangers

I'm pretty busy today with a lot of work going on after taking a 4-day weekend last week, but at least i can listen to some new music from New York noisemakers A Place to Bury Strangers.  New album "Synthesizer" is out in October.  Check out new tune "Disgust" below and pre-order the record here from Dedstrange.

Daily Jam - Strange

I've been on a real Galaxie 500 bender lately, both the band's seminal output from the late '80s/early '90s and the offshoots and solo projects (Luna, Damon & Naomi, etc).  Here's a track from 1989's "On Fire."  Listen to "Strange" below, our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - The Way You Look Tonight

It's Sunday, so here are some Sunday sounds from French duo Air.  And here's hoping i get to catch them live in Austin in October.  In the meantime, let's listen to "The Way You Look Tonight," our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - Across 110th Street

Ever since the pandemic began (and never ended), i've been watching more movies than you can shake a stick at, both new and old, but especially old.  I've been checking things off that i meant to watch years ago and also diving head first into old genre fare that i've never heard of.  And it's really cool when aside from finding a film a really dig, i get an excellent soundtrack or score to go along with it.  And so we have Bobby Womack's theme for the Blacksploitation classic "Across 110th Street."  Cool soul grooves for miles and miles and miles.  Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

Friday Horror Trailer - Witchboard

Daily Jam - Be My Baby

I sure do love that '60s girl group sound, and maybe no one more so than the divine Ronnie Spector.  Here's The Ronettes with "Be My Baby," probably one of the greatest pop songs of all time, and our Daily Jam.

Daily Jam - American Dream

This column was originally published in 2019 and concluded my time writing at the now defunct Joup.

And just like that, I’m 40 years old.

Now, I’m not one of those people that’s terrified of getting older, panicking as the sand grains fall faster and faster through the hourglass. I don’t feel a midlife crisis coming on. There are no convertible sportscars or barely legal mistresses or fad drug addictions in my immediate future. But there is still something almost mythically daunting about that number. And I don’t really know why.

Aging is like this weird thing that you can see and you can certainly feel, but that somehow still doesn’t quite seem real. I look in the mirror and I see so many gray and white hairs on the sides of my head and in my beard. There’s less hair where there used to be and more hair where there used to not be. Lines deepening, callouses hardening, and a veritable parade of new aches and pains greet me every morning. My knees crack. My ankles snap. And everything’s sore. All of the time. I’m getting older. I can feel it in my bones, even as my heart tries to deny it. And I’ll notice it tenfold next week when I’m wandering around Austin for SXSW.

Yes, there’s nothing to make you feel your age quite like a music festival, or pop culture in general really.

Still, I enjoy discovering new things to listen to, be it old and forgotten relics of the past or new and youthful upstarts at the dawn of something exciting. And so I’ll check out some band of 18-year olds I’ve never heard of, standing slightly aback from the crowd of kids, the elder statesman of sorts sipping a craft beer, nodding his head in approval, and hoping desperately that I don’t come off as some sad or creepy old person.

It’s a constant struggle.

And I think in some way, that sentiment lends itself to my adoration of the discography of James Murphy and LCD Soundsystem. Because what is Murphy if not a self-deprecating, aging hipster following the teenage dream and making beats for the kids to dance to? He’s the old guy. He feels like the old guy. And he writes songs from the point of view of said old guy. I can relate.

For over a decade I’ve been a fan, but it wasn’t until “American Dream," the title track from the band’s 2017 “comeback” album, that aside from the hits, grooves, and earworms, I felt something viscerally deep and emotional from them. “American Dream” hit me hard, and like no other song has in a long, long time. It’s just full of self-doubt, revelation, and aching, draining regret all set to a swirling and melancholy synthesizer.

What am I doing?

How did I get here?

Where did everything go?

What have I done?

Which brings me back to 40, and why it seems like such a thing or event. It’s the regret. It’s all of the doubts and fears and misses swarming your brain and your heart like a plague of gnats you’re just too tired to swat away. And it’s inescapable. All those fleeting dreams and goals that morph and change over time, as dreams and goals often do, are maybe forever out of reach or left behind. It’s hard, and it’s sad, and it’s bleak, and there’s an inherent fallibility to all of it, much like the very notion of the American dream itself.

It’s all so scary to think about.

There’s only so much time to catch up. And this is where the crises come in, the panicked attempts to start something, or finish something, or address that regret before your time runs out.

And so, I’m 40 now, and there are many things I want or need to start or finish or address, but I’m not going to panic. There is so very much I thought I might have done by now that remains undone, which means I need to get to work on all of those old dreams and goals, or maybe I need to reevaluate what’s really important to me now. These things change you know. I have my wife, and my two beautiful sons, my friends and family, my dog, a roof over my head, my guitar, a pen and notebook, and a pretty bitchin’ record collection.

I think I’ll just start from there.

-----

There you have it. 200 songs and some random thoughts to go along with them. This has been a fun, sometimes challenging column to write over the last four years, and I encourage every one of you to go back and listen to all 200 of them again, like I’m about to. Starting…NOW!

Cold Cave

LA darkwave duo Cold Cave have been releasing a string of singles this year, and it looks like they've been leading up to the upcoming new album "Passion Depression," dropping in October on Heartworm Press.  Check out "Blackberries" below and pre-order the LP here.

Mark McGuire

I have been so tired of late, and i'm not really sure why.  But i need to shake that shit off real quick because my chaotic and busy period for work is going to shift into gear next week and not let up until October, and i need to be both mentally and physically prepared.  So let's cool our proverbial jets with some ambient, and possibly meditative new music from electronic musician Mark McGuire.  The former Emeralds member has been making solo music for over a decade now, and his latest is the sprawling and transcendent "Soaring."  Listen below and download it here.

Daily Jam - Staying Alive

I have started and stopped and started and stopped writing this article about a dozen times now, mind blank and an unending stream of words erased parading in front of my eyeballs. I start from one angle, then abandon it and begin again from another only to abandon it as well. I change my song choice. Start over. Come back at it again. Start over. Change the song again. Start over. Come back to the original song. Blank. Blank. Blank.

I start to write about my kids, get halfway down the page, and realize the whole thing’s a rambling mess of goo.

I start over again.

I debate writing a long list of songs I could have chosen, realize how stupid that sounds and stare blankly at the computer some more.

This is going nowhere.

I guess there’s a reason I’m bringing this column to a close. I’m repeating myself or losing my train of thought, and after 198 entries, I suppose that makes some kind of sense. I’m tired, and that may have been the angle I was coming from when I started writing about my boys. But then erased.

Writing is hard.

And what does this have to do with “Staying Alive,” the closing track on Cursive’s 2003 album The Ugly Organ? Nothing. Nothing at all. I really could have picked anything to play for this penultimate edition of Endless Loop, but the dramatic swell and then sustained pause of the song just felt right, and felt more at home and in place than the songs by Genesis or The Deftones or Spiritualized or The Flaming Lips or so many more that I could have used instead.

So let’s just let this quasi-emo track play us into next week’s finale.

I’ll be better then.

“Doo do doo do doo do doo do, the worst is over…”

The Mystery Lights

It's been a spell since we last heard from the psych and garage rock-tinged Brooklyn band The Mystery Lights, with their last effort coming out all the way back in 2019.  That feels like a whole lifetime ago.  Anyway, new album "Purgatory" is out in September.  Pre-order it here from Daptone and listen to the title track below.

The Soundcarriers

It looks like we're getting some new psych pop sounds from UK band The Soundcarriers this fall.  Check out the groovy vibes of "Already Over" below and pre-order the "Through Other Reflections" LP here from the band.

Chat Pile

Here's some blistering new music from Oklahoma City's Chat Pile.  Check out "I Am a Dog Now" below and pre-order the upcoming "Cool World" LP here from The Flenser.  Weirdly enough, i'm pretty sure i've totally driven by that exact spot on the cover art.

Daily Jam - Freedom! '90

This column was originally published in 2019...when i was still in my 30's.

I think for a lot of folks my age (nearing 40), George Michael played a significant, or at least a partial roll in our collective sexual awakening, be it the young girls who thought he was hot, the young, gay boys who felt the same way, along with a kinship they may or may not have only subconsciously been aware of, and the kids like me who liked to ogle the supermodels the artist frequently had star in his music videos (Cindy Crawford in a bath tub? Oh my). It didn’t matter who or what you were, straight, gay, or bisexual, male or female, black or white; George Michael was here with the sex, and our prepubescent and adolescent minds absorbed it like a handkerchief daubing the sweat from our excited brows.

Is it getting hot in here?

Now, I’m not going to get gross here, or be overly personal in a way that would make far too many of us uncomfortable, but growing up, I was a fan of the man’s music videos, along with a slew of other hot, bothered, and relatively steamy videos that would air in the nighttime hours before my parents would send me to bed. I didn’t care so much for Michael’s music, as it never really existed in my wheelhouse, but the videos certainly held my…attention. But then we got “Freedom! ’90,” the absolutely glorious single from 1990’s Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, and here we had a video (directed by David Fincher) that featured a bunch of beautiful, sexy models, explosions, and a song that actually kicked ass.

Maybe it’s about coming out. Or maybe it’s about breaking up. Or maybe it’s about saying “fuck you” to a record label, or discarding a manufactured image and past for something that’s more real. It doesn’t really matter. The song kills, whatever it may be about, and my ears and body perk up every single time I hear that opening beat.

“I won’t let you down…”

Witchboard

I'm kind of all over the place this morning.  I guess there's just a lot on my mind.  At any rate, it's making for an interesting mix of music to listen to as i'm beginning my work day.  Here's some new electronic music from Witchboard, the project of Irish filmmaker Glenn McQuaid ("I Sell the Dead," "V/H/S") that's equal parts industrial club music, goth moods, and cinematic scope.  Listen to "There's Only Now" below and get the "Incidental Goth Club Music for Television and Film" LP here from Library of the Occult.

Hypnodrone Ensemble

Here's some sprawling, droning experimental music from Hypnodrone Ensemble.  The group consists of a number of different experimental musicians, including Aidan Baker of Nadja, and pairs great with existential dread whilst gazing at the cosmos.  Check out "Transit" below and get new album "The Problem Is in the Sender - Do Not Tamper with the Receiver" here from WV Sorcerer Productions.

Daily Jam - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

This column was originally published during Christmas of 2015. And while I do realize it's the middle of July now, I guess let's just let this one be for any of those crazy Christmas-In-July type people.

Full Disclosure: I am an atheist…and I LOVE Christmas.

I love the lights and the decorations. I love the cooler temperatures, the TV specials, the gaudy, inflatable, light-up crap people put up in their front yards (not in my yard though), the ugly sweaters, the food and gifts and family, and all the parties and festivities. Hell, I even like Christmas shopping. Finding something to give to a loved one makes me feel good. There’s just something about the whole season that gets under my skin and makes me happy, allows me to look past and ignore the commodification and consumerism and exploitation that come along with the holiday. I don’t care about all that. Nor do I care about any of the religious stuff surrounding the whole affair. Sure, it’s important stuff, especially with it actually being a religious holiday and all, but I’m more about the feelings of love and brotherhood and goodwill that are supposed to accompany it. I’m more about the good vibes and good tidings we’re all supposed to be putting out there. Give me that Christmas spirit. And give me Christmas music. I really love Christmas music. And maybe that makes me weird, but I don’t care.

(Gets off soapbox.)

If you’re looking for nostalgia in your music, it all starts with Christmas tunes. Listening to them, you’re either tapping into your own youthful memories with the songs of yore, or going even deeper into your parents’ nostalgia, jamming to the songs of your childhood as well as your parents’ childhood. It’s a kind of nostalgia for nostalgia, but not in a bad or culture-less way. Rather, it’s a line to connect generations with one another. That’s why most of the prevailing Christmas songs are so old, just modern acts of the time doing their own cover versions of decades old classics, a veritable succession of carols on repeat. But every generation seems to get to throw one new song into the Christmas cauldron, a song to stand the test of time. For better or worse, my generation’s contribution is either Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” (a non-guilty pleasure) or Elmo and Patsy’s “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” (a sonic abomination). So let’s do this Christmas (in July) edition of Endless Loop on a song from parents’ generation instead. Let’s do my favorite Christmas song. Let’s do Darlene Love’s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” from 1963’s A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records, or from Phil Spector, depending on which edition of the record you have.

I first heard the song in Joe Dante’s Gremlins, a kind of mean-spirited little anti-Christmas movie that anyone around in the 80’s (or even beyond that) probably has fond memories of. Nothing like a bunch of little monsters attacking a small town to bring out the Yuletide spirit. Ever since, the song has been knocking around in my brain, bubbling to the surface every December. Harnessing Phil Spector’s trademark Wall Of Sound and 1960’s girl group aesthetic, “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is a pop song first and foremost, and a Christmas song second. Love’s vocals are filled to the very brim with affection and yearning, and paired with Spector’s glorious production, psychotic weirdo though he may be, make the song an instant classic. It belongs on every Christmas mixtape, every playlist, every record player whilst drinking coffee and opening presents, or driving around the city looking at all the lights, or sitting in front of a fireplace just letting the day and night pass.

Check it out below, our Daily Jam.

STOMP TALK MODSTONE

Here's some new fuzzy music from Japanese shoegaze band STOMP TALK MODSTONE, and their first full-length effort in a couple of years.  Check out the dreamy, noisy echo of "Hello, New World" below and download the new "Pure Purple Pool" album here from the band.

Daily Jam - Midnight Cowboy

This column was originally published in February of 2019.

This week’s tune for my soon to be concluding column is “Midnight Cowboy,” John Barry’s theme song from John Schlesinger’s 1969 film. The following story has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Weddings and funerals. We only see each other at weddings and funerals. And we tell each other the same old stories we’ve relived a thousand times together, warm and familiar blankets to wrap ourselves up in, memories and comforting thoughts. We’ve done this all before. It’s something that keeps us close. And sometimes we don’t even realize a whole new story to tell is unfolding right before us in real time, so close it could practically break a glass over your head.

A little over a week ago, a good friend of mine got married, an event I served as an usher for. Whilst assisting old ladies and old friends down the aisles and through the pews to their seats, the growing high school reunion vibe was unshakable. And it was real. The groomsmen, the ushers, the attendees, and so on, a whole collection of folks I’ve known for over three decades descended upon a Catholic church in Houston, Texas, some of whom I hadn’t seen in years. It was nice. We talked. We laughed. We embraced. We reminisced. We narrowly avoided getting into a bar fight with a drunk kid the night before.

Following the rehearsal dinner, Friday night moved as these reunion nights usually do, drinks and the aforementioned old stories finding their way to and from our mouths, laughter, blurred vision, and fuzzy thoughts filling up the dive bar like the cigarette smoke that used to hang in the air before the city ordinance went into effect. We sat at a table in this small bar, did a round of shots (ugh!), and enjoyed drinks and each other’s company. Meanwhile, trouble brewed.

This whole thing is so stupid.

Unbeknownst to my wife and me, some drunk, prep-school looking kid apparently stood behind us and made like he was going to hit my wife in the head with his wineglass. We didn’t see this, but one of my friends did, and he got up to have a word.

“Do you need help man? Do you need us to call someone for you? Those are my friends. Don’t do that again or we’re going to have a problem. Let me know if we can help you.”

He sat back down, and the rest of us only vaguely knew what was going on, but that drunk kid, I guess feeling a little emasculated, glared at us for the next few minutes. His friends tried to get him to leave. He wouldn’t budge. He kept on leering. And we kept him in our periphery.

Then he broke his glass. I turned and saw him standing to the back of us, broken glass on the ground and a jagged stem in his hand. Very stabby. Embarrassed by the antics, his friends left him and went outside. He then pulled up a chair and sat between my friend and me, all glassy eyes and stupid, sneering smirk, makeshift shiv in hand.

“Why are you guys scared?”

Eyes roll.

Again, “Why are you guys scared?”

“Not scared man. More concerned. You look pretty fucked up. Do you need help? Are you sure we can’t call someone for you? You should probably go home.”

He slurred something and then set the broken piece of glass on our table. I snatched it and passed it along to another friend on the other side of the table to keep it out of reach. At this point, one of the girls from his group finally got him to stand and move away from us. She apologized, and seemed to be getting him to the door, when he pulled free from her and came barreling back towards us shouting indecipherably. We stood.

To my wife’s chagrin, I shouted, “Get out of here! Go home you stupid asshole! Listen to your friends! Get the fuck out of here!”

He stood there. We stood there. The groom-to-be laughed about something entirely off subject. And the kid charged.

At this point, the large man sitting at the table next to ours decided he had had enough. He stood, grabbed the kid, and pushed him out the front door. A bartender went outside to make sure he left and then came over to apologize. We thanked the large gentleman for stepping in, as none of us needed to get into a fight the night before a wedding, nor did we want to incur the bride’s wrath due to visible wounds, cuts, or bruises. We sat back down and had another drink, and then our large benefactor told us he would have done something sooner, but that he thought drunk, prep-school guy was one of our kids.

Fuck.

Anyway, we’ve got a new story to tell the next time we’re all together. And while I have no recollection of any song playing in the bar to accompany this stupid tale, let’s just say it was “Midnight Cowboy.” Does that work for everyone?

Here are three versions. John Barry’s original…

Martin Denny’s Moog-infused version…

And Faith No More’s cover from the Angel Dust LP, admittedly the first version of the song I ever heard.

May our next meeting include fewer drunk, prep-school kids...or being mistaken for their parents.

Sleepwalk

I had to bid farewell to my car of the last 12 years this morning, my wonderful little Kia Soul.  I also had to buy a new one this morning as well, and now i'm stuck with a car note again.  Le sigh.  Anyhoo, here's some great throwback music from Chicago band Sleepwalk.  The new "Out of Focus" EP has got a little bit of grunge, a little bit of shoegaze, and some hints of emo.  Check out "Lucky to Be" below and snag the cassette here from the band.

Daily Jam - Four Hearts in a Can

Do you have that part of you that just wants to get lost? To get in your car, to go out for milk or cigarettes, and to never return? To pull off of the freeway and turn onto a lonely road that leads to…somewhere? Or nowhere. There’s this little piece of me that wants to drive into the desert, a beautiful, serene sunset to one side of me and an ominous, terrifying stormfront to the other. Nothing in front of me but road. And nothing behind me but dust and more road. I’m not running from anything, I just need some quiet. I just need to breathe. Alone in my thoughts. Alone in my head. Alone in my car.

Pinks and oranges and blues and yellows. The universe turns into an array of colors before me, the result of light and particles and different wavelengths. And I drive onward, windows open, wind and the remaining sun on my face, the hum of the engine and tire tread on pavement, until I’m reset. Until I’m restored. Until…

…I’m back.

Cue up “Four Hearts in a Can” from Smog’s 1996 album The Doctor Came at Dawn, and start the engine. Check the gauges, and the fluids, and the gas. Then go.

Mica Levi

Here's a pretty and sprawling new track from composer and musician Mica Levi.  "Slob Air" is cinematic and wistful, and also feels like some 12" extended version of a college pop radio single from 35 years ago.  Check it out below and get it here from Hyperdub.

Galaxie 500

It sure would be cool if old school Boston indie band Galaxie 500 were to reunite and give me a chance to see them live.  At the moment, there's nothing like that in sight, but at least we're getting a sweet new collection of B-sides and rarities with the upcoming "Uncollected Noise New York '88-'90."  Check out the previously unreleased "I Wanna Live" below and pre-order the LP here from Silver Current Records.

Friday Horror Trailer - Ghoulies II

Daily Jam - To the End

My wife and I got married almost 16 years ago in an outdoor service cheekily dubbed the “Lakeside Inferno” by one of my groomsmen, a party held on a 90+ degree day in September by a lakeside vista to cap off about 9 years of dating, which is a kind of surreal thing for me to think about. So much has happened since then. But you should have seen us. Younger. Skinnier. Me with a stupid haircut. We had it all. And now we’re fast approaching a quarter century of being together, and if there’s been any kind of constant in all of that time, it’s been my attempt to get her to listen to and enjoy all of the music I love.

Before the wedding, we spent weeks trying to agree on a song for our first dance. And I enjoyed every second of that long and winding discussion, as we spent many a warm evening drinking beer, wine, or cocktails while I played track after track on the stereo at home. I forget how many tunes we considered as serious contenders, but there were certainly a few. Stevie Wonder’s “I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)” was a frontrunner for a while, but eventually fell to The Flamingos’ “I Only Have Eyes for You,” the song we both agreed felt right. That being said, I pushed hard for one of my favorite Blur songs, the wonderfully slinky “To the End” from 1994’s Parklife.

Recorded with additional uncredited vocals from Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier (another favorite), the song plays like a melancholy slow dance between two longtime lovers (here played by Sadier and Blur front man Damon Albarn) who have been through it all together, seen everything, and have maybe grown a little distant from each other as the years have passed them by. But they’re still together. And they’re still in love. It’s almost like a last dance.

Ultimately, we went another direction as we were in the market for a first dance, but you can bet I'll be playing “To the End” when it’s comes time for our last.

“You and I collapsed in love. And it looks like we might have made it. Yes, it looks like we’ve made it to the end.”

Flesh of Morning

It's always a bit surprising to me that we have a little darkwave synth pop scene here in Austin.  Probably because it's so fucking hot, and the genre is an icy one.  Anyway, local darkwave act Flesh of Morning just dropped a new track for our listening pleasure.  Check out "The Devil in Me" below and get it here from A La Carte Records.

Kelly Lee Owens

UK electronic artist Kelly Lee Owens has a new album heading our way in October.  Check out the danceable new track "Love You Got" below and pre-order the "Dreamstate" LP here from dh2.

Daily Jam - Atomic

Like a whole lot of folks I know, I used to be in a band. I think we were pretty good too, not world shattering by any means, but we were definitely getting better before things went south and we imploded. We played some shows, recorded an album, and filled our rehearsal space with so much cigarette smoke, it makes my lungs wheeze just thinking about it. But one of the things we never did, and I'm regretful for it to this day, was become part of a larger scene. We neglected to join a likeminded group of peers, freaks, and musicians with which to spread our sound and our art. And that sucks. Who knows what kind of mythmaking we could have enabled and been a part of? Maybe after disbanding, the stories and rumors would have remained, local pop culture lore spread by word of mouth and hazy memory.

But we didn’t.

All of this is probably my fault, as I can fall into my own idiosyncratic antisocial quirks every now and then, or maybe there just wasn’t a scene to fit into. We can’t all be the New York punk rock scene of the 1970's I guess.

Man, to have been around then and there to hang out at CBGB’s or Max’s Kansas City and see early performances by The Ramones or Talking Heads or Television or Richard Hell or Suicide or The Heartbreakers. To watch the scene unfold. To exist in the peripheries of punk rock Americana and experience the mythology firsthand. Each band as legendary as the last, sometimes before even taking the stage, and the stories, stories, stories, collections of truths, half-truths, and bullshit that somehow just all made sense. Patti Smith’s sexuality or Dee Dee turning tricks or Debbie Harry having narrowly avoided being murdered by notorious serial killer Ted Bundy, the mythmaking was alive and pulsing, along with bass lines and amplifiers and heartbeats rattled by too much cocaine.

Where was all this shit in Austin 20 years ago? We should have been playing shows with a host of other weirdos, writing songs together, popping pills, drinking whiskey and cheap beer, and writing our own histories, mythic art rock deities to be remembered forever by other weirdos.

But we didn’t...

...which brings me to Blondie, the hippest punk/new wave/disco hybrid act to have ever graced the stage and our home stereos, and their disco pop banger “Atomic.”

I don’t really have any more to add here, so let’s just listen to the song and remember how fucking cool Debbie Harry and the band were.

Still are.

Magdalena Bay

We've got some new pop coming or way at the end of the summer from LA duo Magdalena Bay, so get those bodies ready to dance.  Check out new tune "Image" below and pre-order the upcoming "Imaginal Disk" LP here from the band.

Daily Jam - Something Happened to Me Yesterday

My dad passed away a little over 15 years ago. That’s a really odd thing to consider, as it feels so long ago, but also like this ever-present thing, an event I’d rather not have define my life, yet one that holds a permanent position within my psyche nonetheless. It’s like it’s always just on the periphery. And there are a million different things that can make me think of him every single day.

That’s a good thing though. I love to remember my dad, and I treasure each and every memory I have of the man, but I'm also cognizant of the fact that in the immediate aftermath of his death from lung cancer, I was way more wrecked than I ever let on. And in so many ways it stunted me, left me overly numb, unable to feel, running in place for all time.

That was something that took me a while to shake myself of too, and not a mood I have any desire to return to. Coincidentally enough, writing about it over the years was one of the things that helped me move forward, my dad, and death, and grief surfacing in many of the first articles I wrote for the now defunct online magazine Joup (the site in which this column originally appeared). It turns out, there was a lot of solace to be found in listening to and writing about music.

Oh, having a couple of kids of my own helped too.

I don’t broach the subject of my dad’s passing much anymore, but if I'm going to write about The Rolling Stones’ “Something Happened to Me Yesterday,” it’s unavoidable. It’s a song that will forever remind me of him, and kind of a quirky oddity too, both in and of itself and as part of my dad’s repertoire of pop songs.

My dad’s musical tastes were predominantly folk, bluegrass, and Dixieland jazz. He’d occasionally make forays into rock n’ roll, country and western, or pop, and he’d generally take a liking to a showtune here or there, but he rarely wavered from those big three. And man, that bummed me out when I was a teenager. At 15 or 16 years old, I began to go through the old man’s records, hoping to stumble upon some veritable trophy case of cool old music, and while I admittedly can dig on some of it now, as a snot-nosed kid, I was appalled at the paltry selection that laid before me. Other friends were able to sift through their parents’ collections of ‘50s rock and doo-wop, ‘60s soul and psychedelic pop, or even some ‘70s rock like Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin if their folks were a little younger, and there I was with The Chad Mitchell Trio, The Dukes of Dixieland, and the Osborne Brothers’ plucky rendition of “Rocky Top.” The latter was even played at the funeral, and while there are dozens of memories and emotions attached to it now, I still can’t stand that damn song.

But then, out of nowhere, my vinyl perusal turned up Between the Buttons, the 1967 album from The Rolling Stones, and I thought to myself, “Thank God, a real album.” I pulled the record and turned the cover to check the track listing to discover that I knew exactly one song on the thing, the hit single “Ruby Tuesday.”

On his records, my dad used to mark little stars next to the tracks he was particularly fond of. There was no mark next to “Ruby Tuesday.” There was however, one next to the album closing song, and so I gave it a listen. Now, here I am writing about it.

Listening to “Something Happened to Me Yesterday,” it was immediately evident as to why this particular Stones song was up my dad’s alley. Beginning with a short trumpet ditty, the song bobs and bounces along on a steady beat, Mick Jagger singing a bunch of nonsense, while piano, whistling, and a horn section all chime in before the song morphs full on into ragtime jazz. It’s basically The Rolling Stones playing a New Orleans jazz tune. And it’s wonderful.

Further investigation into my dad’s record collection would turn up other gems over time (Melanie’s “Look What They’ve Done to my Song Ma,” The Mike Curb Congregation’s “Burning Bridges,” and so on), but that Stones song was the first to really make me appreciate some different genre tropes and how they could be applied to pop music. And really, I was also just stoked that there was a cool record in the mix.

“So, if you’re out tonight, don’t forget, if you’re on your bike, wear white...”

TR/ST

We've been hearing a lot more noise from LA by way of Canada darkwave synth pop artist TR/ST than we usually do over the last few months, it was making me wonder if a new album might imminent.  And it is!  New album "Performance" is due in September.  Pre-order it here from Dais Records and listen to new single "All at Once" below.

Daily Jam - Video Games

This column was originally published in 2019.

Nostalgia. I write about it in some form or another a lot here. It’s this ever-present thing, a constant hum in our pop culture that surfaces in the music we listen to, the TV and movies we watch, and the books we read. It’s in our advertising, our fashion, our cuisine, forever coloring our senses and perceptions in that rose-tinted fuzz of fond memories. For better or worse, nostalgia is everywhere.

I don’t think it was always that way, or at least if it was, it was more subtly so. But for the last 50 years, American culture has just been awash in the stuff. Beginning in the 1970's when the Baby Boomers started to come of age, entertainment and popular culture shifted their focus to that generation’s viewpoint and experience (for white people at least), a trend that would continue into the next decade with a veritable explosion of ‘50s-tinged art. The Boomers’ love of that decade brought us wave after wave of nostalgic entertainment, be it television (Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley), film (Back to the Future, Peggy Sue Got Married), music (Sha Na Na, George Thorogood), literature (Stephen King’s It and The Body), and more. Eventually the ‘50s buzz gave way to the ‘60s buzz, giving us bell bottoms again and a revival of psychedelic pop with the Paisley Underground in California. And as the Boomers continued to age, so too did the nostalgia, gradually shifting the focus again to Gen X and the Millennials, which in turn brought us pop culture steeped in the vibes of the ‘70s and then the ‘80s. Meanwhile, the 90’s continues to threaten its imminent comeback (it's already here).

What I'm getting at is that at least for the last five decades, our insatiable taste for that nostalgic high, that constant drip of warm fuzzies, the result of our fleeting feelings and memories of childhood innocence and wonder, has been THE dominant cultural force in our media consumption. I’m guilty of it just as you probably are, getting sucked into the recent movements of ‘80s-inspired pop paraphernalia, be it the homages to the old Amblin movies I watched as a kid or the recent revival of synth horror scores. I guess it’s kind of cathartic. An escape from our present. A screen to hide away our reality for a little while. For our parents, it was Vietnam, Watergate, the recession, gas shortages, and so on that ran through multiple bursting bubbles, drug wars, AIDS epidemics, corruption, and the disintegration of the middle class. And now, it’s housing crises, endless war, climate change, authoritarian government, and that motherfucker Trump. (And now Covid, genocide, and world leaders with dementia.)

We need our escapism, but it’s kind of like we’re stuck in a cycle, the bad shit hidden by good memories over and over and over again. Whether or not that’s benign or ultimately harmful or stunting, I have no idea.

Somehow, this all brings me to Lana Del Rey.

In 2011 while sifting through some music blogs, I came across what appeared to be a homemade video compiled of a bunch of random pieces of pop ephemera: old super 8 footage, clips of old movies, cartoons, celebrities, and skaters, and soft lit shots of a chanteuse, looking aloof and feeling seemingly out of time. The melancholy melody playing alongside these images, and the soft and yearning vocals singing themes of undying, obsessive love; the grainy camera shots, the aesthetic that felt like five decades colliding all at once, and the pouty, botoxed lips...it was all too much. “Video Games” hit my psyche like an atom bomb. I wasn’t alone.

Upon the viral success of the “Video Games” video, Lana Del Rey (nee Lizzy Grant) went through an epic cycle of fascination, hype, praise, more hype, backlash, criticism, and aplomb with greater speed than probably any artist ever before her. She was adored. She was despised. She was accused of inauthenticity, of being a corporate creation. And she was everywhere, be it appearing in another vintagy video for a new song or bombing spectacularly on Saturday Night Live. But what really got lost in all this hype and backlash and blogger drama, was that the song is really damn good. It swims in nostalgia, every aspect of sound and vision feeling like an homage to something, anything, everything. It invokes memories you didn’t even know you had. And it makes me wonder if some people got turned off by it because maybe they felt like it was manipulative.

Who knows? Her career certainly didn’t suffer from any of it. And over a decade later, as her sound expands, her whole aesthetic has remained pretty much intact since that video arrived in 2011.

As for the rest of us, we’re going to ride this nostalgia train into the sunset, the cycles of homage and remake and revival turning again and again until our kids and our kids’ kids are all nostalgic for different versions of the same thing, an endless desire to grab hold of something lost or forgotten, something pure. That is if the planet survives.

(Cue the warm and fuzzy childhood memory here.)