NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS #43A
Matters musical and occasionally cultural
Howdy-do, dear Paid Subscribers. I hope lovely Autumn weather has you in its full embrace.
I have three great songs for you today, including one that may be in the running for best thing I’ve heard in 2023 (even though it came out in 2021). ENTICED??? Yes, you are enticed. I know an enticement when I see one.
Here’s what we’re looking at:
Late night atmospherics
An ironic chud anthem
Pure genius, distilled
An object lesson in multitasking
A dance routine for you to learn at home
All good things must come to a start.
NEWS TO ME…
In last week’s NMFO, I went on at length about the copious amounts of time I spend/waste watching reaction videos. I left one “react-er” off of my list of go-to’s because Justin Hawkins Rides Again is not quite a proper reaction channel (NOTE: if my use of the term “proper reaction channel” inspires you to cancel your subscription, I can accept that.)
Justin Hawkins fronts retro glam band The Darkness. You know, the “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” guys? That’s a damn good song, but I wouldn’t call myself a big fan overall. The Darkness has always been a bit of a “neither/nor”—not silly enough to be a proper novelty act, too self-consciously anachronistic to be taken seriously. Still, it’s clear that Hawkins is a student and practitioner of rock songcraft and he’s garnered a notable YouTube following commenting on matters musical and occasionally cultural.
I avoid Hawkins’ non-musical commentary—I clicked one such vid and, upon hearing him refer to Jordan Peterson as “Dr. Peterson”, closed the window with Usain Bolt-like speed. But sometimes those worlds overlap a bit and from what I can tell, Hawkins is not in danger of descending into a Russell Brand-like thought gutter any time soon. He actually seems perfectly levelheaded about these things, but intuits that his audience may contain a few chugs, which…whatever.
As you might imagine from hearing The Darkness, Hawkins’ musical taste runs a bit further towards L.A. butt-rock than mine does, but I’ve discovered a few great artists while skimming his videos the past few months. Here are three!
NOTE: Instead of the uniformly hilarious photo captions I usually post under each song, I’ll insert The Justin Hawkins video that initially drew my attention.
NOTE #2: Hawkins has a slightly annoying habit of interrupting the song every 10-15 seconds. It’s kind of his schtick.
Paris Monster, “Andalusia”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Lamplight (2019)
Nutshell: Indie electronica
Voltage: 4
Thoughts: This two-man band achieves a rich sound that’s difficult to categorize, combining elements of rock and electronica, darkwave and trip hop. Touchstones might include Roxy Music, Jeff Buckley and, yes, Radiohead (drink!). The tipsy allure of “Andalusia” feels equally suited to both romance and heartbreak—it’s definitely an “in your feelings” kind of vibe. Hawkins does a better job of describing the tune in musical terms. I just known the the song provides a lush and lovely headspace in which to spend three minutes and nineteen seconds.
Pairing Suggestion: Wandering empty city streets at 3am
SOFT PLAY, “Punk’s Dead”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Punk’s Dead (2023 single)
Nutshell: That which is dead
Voltage: 8
Thoughts: This one is only a few months old and could probably be included in the regular newsletter, but a theme’s a theme, dammit! As Hawkins explains in his reaction, SOFT PLAY are a British punk duo who used to record under the name Slaves. Last year they re-christened themselves SOFT PLAY and released this thoughtful and self-aware statement about the name change. Anyone drawing breath in 2023 can imagine what the response has been from the angry online boys of social media. “Punk’s Dead” is the band’s response, sung from the perspective of an outraged “fan”. In addition to being catchy and ferocious, it’s full of great lines. My current favorite is “Johnny Rotten is turning in his bed / I was gonna say grave but the fucker ain’t dead”.
Pairing Suggestion: Leaving Twitter.
Note: Ignore the bait-y video title. It barely comes up.
Louis Cole, “I’m Tight”
Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music
Album: Quality Over Opinion (2021)
Nutshell: Jazz-influenced funk pop
Voltage: 6
Thoughts: Genius can be depressing. You encounter someone with superhuman artistic ability and it feels like a cruel joke that you were gifted with any talent whatsoever. It’s like, don’t bother giving me one potato chip if you’re gonna hand that guy the whole bag—I’d rather not know how delicious they are! But in my less sour moments, the existence of artistic genius is as close to proof of The Divine as our world is capable of producing. Such is the case with multi-instrumentalist Louis Cole, who has worked with savants like Thundercat and Scary Pockets. To be clear, I’m basing my “genius” assessment based solely on this, the first and only Louis Cole song I’ve heard. I want to spend more time luxuriating in the greatness of “I’m Tight” before moving on to anything else. Try not to marvel at its inventiveness and the technical prowess on display. Trust me, this will be the quickest seven minutes of your life.
Pairing Suggestion: Stuffing your blown mind back into your earholes.
You have thoughts? I thought you might.
CLIPPAGE
Just a couple of clips today, inspired by this week’s selections:
I don’t think you need to see Paris Monster pull it off live to appreciate “Andalusia”, but once you see them just farting around, you’ll be impressed that two people can create so much atmosphere.
Has anyone done more to bring punk rock into the comedy realm than Fred Armisen? his is not a laugh-out-loud kind of thing, but the accents are fun and the period detail is “spot on”, as a Brit might say. I actually wish they’d saved this premise for “Documentary Now”. I’d love a full half hour of this and you can tell that the SNL audience doesn’t know quite what to make of a sketch centering on the economic policies of Margaret Thatcher. I don’t know, maybe I just love the weird way Armisen draws out the word “decent” (2:03).
Louis Cole made a very entertaining video for “I’m Tight”, which you see a good bit of in that Justin Hawkins. I recommend checking it out! But more importantly, it brought to mind one of my favorite videos of all time. I could spend a lot of time setting this up, but why not just click play? You shan’t regret it.
By the way, Joe Kwaczala is co-hosts the very entertaining “Who Cares About the Rock Hall?” podcast. He also just released a full musical comedy album…that I have not yet gotten around to listening to. But no need to wait on my account
That’s all for today. Last chance to tell me what you thought of today’s newsletter (or how much you love me, in general).
See you next week. As always, I thank you for your support.