GET THE FEELING RIGHT
Being out in the sunshine for the first time in maybe 2 weeks was incredible. Hard to underestimate how important fresh air and sunshine is to feeling like a person. Hope you are all staying safe and enjoying the long weekend—even if they are all long weekends at this point.
The Wonder Years - Passing Through a Screen Door
The Rolling Stones - Doom and Gloom
Foxing - Lich Prince
Julia Jacklin - Someday
blink-182 - What’s My Age Again?
Beast Jesus - Eros Obfuscate
The Killers - All These Things That I’ve Done
Aphex Twin - Avril 14th
Hum - Desert Rambler
Alkaline Trio - Warbrain
I’m 33 now but “Passing Through a Screen Door” still hits like a runaway freight train. I think a lot people show up for The Wonder Years’ over-caffeinated approach to pop-punk but they stay for Dan Campbell’s heart-on-the-sleeve confessionals, especially this one:
Jesus Christ. I’m 26.
All the people I graduated with
All have kids
All have wives
All have people who care if they come home at night.
Well, Jesus Christ, did I fuck up?
The need to compare ourselves to other people is inescapable in the Instagram age. Everyone is hoping they are making the right choices and we need benchmarks to do that. But we’re slowly awakening to the notion that the old modalities of capitalism are useless measuring sticks. Frustratingly, the urge to do right for ourselves lingers and life has no roadmap. “Passing Through a Screen Door” might focus on post-graduate malaise but yearning for security when we should really be focused on our relationships is true at any age. After all, our relationships are all that we have in this lifetime.
My dad and I don’t always see eye-to-eye on things but the one thing we can agree on is The Rolling Stones. We were lucky enough to catch them on the 50 & Counting Tour, right around the time they dropped “Doom and Gloom” on whatever greatest hits package they were promoting. I’m not going to pretend “Doom and Gloom” is my favorite Rolling Stones song (that honor goes to “Miss You”) but I think about this song in particular because it’s surprisingly punky coming from a group of 70 year olds and because it’s a reminder of how music can bridge certain generational divides. Mick Jagger is wailing about zombies and fracking, set to a pulsing 4/4 beat and sleazy axe work from Keith Richards. It may not have the political heft of “Gimme Shelter,” but there’s real danger here. I doubt my dad cared when they busted this out at Oracle Arena because he was there for the hits he grew up on. However, there was something sublime about being able to experience a new Stones song together while Jagger contorted across a gigantic tongue for 3 hours.
“Lich Prince” is nightmare music, a lurching, bass-heavy dirge about playing D&D (possibly on ecstasy). It’s positively medieval. The guitars climb up the walls in that Radiohead horror show kind of way before erupting in a strangled, demonic solo. We can laugh about the sum of the parts here, but there’s something very real about becoming lost in a world of our own making, and being woefully unprepared for the fallout when the illusion is shattered. Singer Conor Murphy noted that “Lich Prince” was inspired by someone in his D&D group really flipping out over their character’s death. I know attachment breeds suffering but I never would have thought D&D would be an extended metaphor for that philosophical point.
I’m less familiar with Julia Jacklin but my friend turned me on to this drifting Strokes cover she dropped last year. It’s the perfect song for lounging around the apartment on a hot day, thinking. She takes the cynicism out of Julian Casablancas lyrics makes the song feel optimistic—about a dream, rather than a series of failings to get to the future.
A divisive argument gripped our apartment this week, centering on whether Mark Hoppus is singing “I wore cologne” or “I walk alone.” In the end, Hoppus brought the receipts back in 2011, saving us from all but certain annihilation. If you ever need a smile on your face, spin this classic and let the chunky chorus overtake you.
Manila’s Beast Jesus are here to take you on absolute journey. There’s very little this song doesn’t have: windswept strings, gentle piano-laden post-rock, punky shoegaze, and crushing mathcore. That’s a lot for any band to make coherent. Nevertheless, the real connective tissue is the band’s love of noise and tension. “Eros Obfuscate” could have very easily felt like the work of 5 different and competing bands but Beast Jesus are so skilled at building arrangements that it feels like one massive epic across time and space.
I think this is my favorite Killers song because it’s about frailty in the face of the impossible. When we are met with challenges, conditioning leads us to tighten, to forget our softness. Here, Brandon Flowers is begging for help, he’s pleading for community. The glam meets gospel build up reaches fever pitch on the karaoke ready line, “I got soul / But I’m not a solider.” Leave it to the most outrageous song on Hot Fuss to remind us that we are all connected in the face of struggle—that asking for help is essential to our survival.
It’s really hard for me to listen to this song and not think about “YEEZY TAUGHT ME.” Now it’s hard for you as well. Richard James became even more iconic, in the most unexpected way.
Nobody expected Inlet to drop this year, or that the over 20-year delay for the next Hum project would even be worth it. I guess 2020 strikes again with the unexpected. “Desert Rambler” is gargantuan and expansive, full of monolith-sized low end and gleaming guitars. Jeff Dimpsey’s bass work churns and grinds through this orbital arrangement, which takes on an almost meditative quality with Matt Talbott’s monastic vocals. The best Hum songs are make us feel like we’re communing with the divine. On “Desert Rambler” it’s the sounds of galaxies and histories colliding in slow motion, rippling across the night’s sky.
I thought we should close with this underrated Alkaline Trio cut from Rock Against Bush - Volume 1 (also featured on the Remains compilation). You can hear the seeds of other ‘Trio songs here, like “The American Scream” but what really makes “Warbrain” stand out is the sense of impending doom—from the Craig Fairbaugh spoken-word intro to the slicing guitar leads. There’s real desperation in this one, with Matt Skiba’s soaring vocals and the rest of the band spiraling towards unavoidable conflict. It’s obvious things haven’t changed much since 2004. I’m not sure if protest anthems help but they certainly can’t hurt.
Originally published September 6, 2020 as part of Hella Vibes.