NEW MUSIC FOR OLDS #6

I know it's over, still I cling

Hello. Nice to see you again.

Me, seeing you again.

In today’s NMFO, I’ll be saying bon voyage to Stephen Patrick Morrissey. Also, a game!

But first, let’s hear some new music.

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GOOD STUFF

I can imagine hearing all three of today’s songs playing within the same hour 120 Minutes. I prefer to mix and mingle genres, but NMFO is primarily a document of what I’ve been listening to and, well…this is what I’ve been listening to!

As always, a Glossary of Terms.

Beach Bunny, “Oxygen”

Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music

• Album: Emotional Creature

• Nutshell: Peppy, concise power pop

• Voltage: 7

• Thoughts: I appreciate an uptempo song that bursts out of the gate, makes its point, then gets the fuck out in (roughly) three minutes. There’s zero fat here—no guitar noodling, only a couple of drum fills, no “woo-woo-oh-yeah-baby” stuff. I’m all for tastelessness and excess, but sometimes it’s nice to hear a song boiled down to it’s pure essence. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself humming this later.

• Pairing Suggestion: Spazzing out, but tastefully

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Folk Implosion, “Don’t Give it Away”

Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music

• Album: Feel It if You Feel It (E.P.)

• Nutshell: Slinky, off-kilter shamble rock

• Voltage: 5

• Thoughts: Folk Implosion (who you may remember) has recorded new music for the first time in 22 years¹ and this song nicely picks up where they left off. I’m not a superfan, but the Folk Implosion songs I dig all have a ramshackle groove that inspires all sorts of dorky neck and shoulder bopping. Basically, it’s dance music for people who can’t (and would never) dance. I could use another 10-15 tunes like this in my life. Get on it, fellas.

• Pairing Suggestion: This:

And we never even knew his name…

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Sharon Van Etten, “Mistakes”

Listen on Apple Music // Listen on Amazon Music

• Album: We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong

• Nutshell: Mid-tempo alt pop with a big sound

• Voltage: 6

• Thoughts: I have a love/meh relationship with Sharon Van Etten. If you’re unfamiliar, Van Etten has been a critically adored singer-songwriter for the last decade plus. I was onboard early, but drifted away for a while. Too many SVE songs fall into the same coffeehouse rut, in my humble opinion—lots of swoop-y warbling over acoustic guitar or piano. Over the last couple albums, her sound has become more varied (more drums and synths) and think it provides a sturdier scaffold for her songwriting. I’m sure some folks prefer the mopey, college-student-on-the-quad stuff, but not everything needs to be ‘stripped down’. I prefer my Sharon Van Etten fully accessorized.

• Pairing Suggestion: Strolling through downtown at night, pondering your mistakes mistakes mistakes.

NOTE: I was planning to write about the new Kendrick Lamar double album. I have a thoughts—too many for this already overstuffed newsletter. So I’m going to save that for NMFO #7. If you’re a Kendrick fan, there’s more than enough Discourse to tide you over. If you’re not, my Aging White Guy takes won’t seem any more or less relevant two weeks from now.

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FOR FANS OF… [Morrissey]

There is a light that eventually goes out.

I discovered the music of Morrissey in the traditional manner: from my suicidal arts school girlfriend. I’d mostly missed out on The Smiths—I was busy listening to metal (and Prince, oddly) at that point. But my Poet Warrior phase dovetailed perfectly with the start of Morrissey’s solo career. I dove into VIva Hate and Bonadrag with the zealotry of a late convert. I can’t locate my senior yearbook photo, but please believe that I had a pompadour and wore a black mock turtle. Was I gazing into the middle distance? Yer damn right I was.

But I was never an obsessive on the level of, say, Chris Gethard and Tom Lennon, which is maybe why I’m not finding it super difficult to say goodbye to Morrissey now.

Bye bish

It’s now a well-documented bummer that Morrissey is a reactionary, xenophobic dingus. His flirtations with race-based dipshittery have always hidden in plain sight (“National Front Disco”, anyone? “Bengali in Platforms”?), but they were opaque and poetic enough to provide you with some intellectual cover. It’s satire! He’s an equal opportunity offender! He’s actually expressing sympathy towards immigrants!” I’ve heard and partially bought them all.

But whether or not Morrissey was a racist in 1988, he’s done a pretty good job of convincing me he is one now. I can’t picture myself giving the guy any more of my money or attention. I still listen to the music now and then. Like, if “Suedehead” pops up on shuffle, I don’t frantically leap at my phone. He’s not the Babadook, after all. But the songs certainly yield less joy than they once did.

A perfect metaphor? Why yes, I happen to have one.

For a good chunk of the Nineties, I lived in NYC’s Alphabet City. The East Village was already gentrifying by the time I moved there, but it still bore the tangible hallmarks of an underserved community—shady landlords, lax garbage pickup and poorly maintained public spaces. But you knew that going in. Part of the appeal, right?

There was a pizza place down the street (let’s call it Rosario’s.² ) where I ate at least four times a week. It wasn’t an All Time Great slice, but it was idiosyncratic enough that I still remember the taste. The sauce had a sweet tang, the cheese was perfectly apportioned and you rarely had to pat it down with a napkin. Also, the purchase of two slices entitled you to a free fountain soda! For an open mic comedian with $25,000 of personal debt, that qualifies as a Michelin-level dining establishment.

This is my pizza place. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

One summer night, I was sitting in Rosario’s around closing time. Just me and the counter guy, who was reading a newspaper. Two bites into my slice, I spotted something out of the corner of my eye. It was moving. It was moving towards me. An extremely large mouse? No, not a mouse. It was a baby rat—live in NYC long enough and you just kinda know. The poor thing had clearly ingested poison. Instead of scurrying along the wall, it was slowly staggering straight across the brightly lit linoleum. As the wretched creature ambled towards me like a Walking Dead zombie, I remember feeling paralyzed. It’s not that I was scared—more like the Apple color wheel was spinning in my brain. Just how close was this fucker going to get?

Said fucker got within about three feet of my sneaker before…WHAM. The Rosario’s employee had stepped out from around the counter and slammed down his commercial dustpan. Hard, like an old-timey carnival game.

Sure, if you’re measuring success in dead baby rats.

Without so much as making eye contact, the counter guy kicked the baby rat carcass into the dustpan and disappeared into the back. Ten seconds later he emerged and was back reading the paper as if nothing had happened.

I want to tell you I didn’t finish my slice. I want to tell you that. But it’s suspicious that I don’t remember.

What I can tell you is, my days as a regular Rosario’s customer were over. It’s not as if that incident had rendered Rosario’s pizza sauce suddenly un-tangy. And it’s not like I was naive to the existence of rats in New York City. I used to wait tables—I’ve seen things. But I depend on a certain level of plausible deniability from the restaurants I patronize. Suffice to say, an employee going all Thor on Baby Ratatouille three feet away from where I’m trying to eat falls below that standard.

Mjolnir

And you know what? There’s other places to get a slice of pizza.

Morrissey’s problem is, he’s let his poisoned baby rats out onto the linoleum. We can all see them, plain as day. So as much as I love the songs…eww. Thanks but no thanks. Obviously, you’re welcome to do as you please. But if you continue eating at Morrissey’s, I can’t pretend I won’t judge you just a little bit.

But I’m not wholly unsympathetic. Being a fan of Morrissey has always been about more than music—especially if you discovered him in your wispy formative years. But there’s more than enough culture writing about that aspect of Smiths/Moz fandom, so I’ll stick to the music itself.

There’s nobody really like Morrissey, musically speaking. Everyone imitates his delivery and presentation, but I’ve always believe that the secret “tangy sauce” was his approach to melody. Rather than repeating vocal lines in the standard way, Morrissey’s voice dances around the verses, as if improvising. It’s odd to use “playful” to describe the guy who wrote “I wear black on the outside because that’s how I feel on the inside”. But that’s his vocal style. And the tension between that sense of play and his jaundiced hyper-literacy is what makes Morrissey a singular artist.

It sucks to cut bait on a singular artist. I get that.

Given that there is no other Morrissey (to my ear), perhaps it’s best to remember that there will always be other slices of pizza, each delicious in its own special way. To say nothing of other foodstuffs! If NMFO has one running theme, it’s that there’s always more music, just waiting to be enjoyed. It won’t be exactly the same, but maybe the same is overrated.

Ready for a wild leap? Here we go.

If you’re looking for a different singular artist with an improvisational approach to melody, I’d acquaint (or re-acquaint) myself with Neko Case. Three caveats:

1. I’m not trying to present Neko Case as “new” or under-appreciated. She’s been making music for 25 years and is as revered as any musician can be, short of being super duper famous.

2. Lyrically, they’re nothing alike. So if that’s the main thing you love about Morrissey, this comparison won’t track.

3. I’ve never before heard anyone compare Neko Case to Morrissey, so I may be out of my gourd. I mostly wanted to write about Morrissey this week and Case has been on my brain, given the ambitious career retrospective project she launched last week. But I followed my brain down this rabbit hole, so here we are.

I’d be curious to know if anyone hears what I hear. It’s not applicable across her entire catalogue (and definitely not when it comes to her work with New Pornographers), but I hear it in “This Tornado Loves You”, probably my favorite Neko song. Listen to the way the melody darts around, changing ever so slightly. If Morrissey was singing this, it would have a different vibe (more croon-y and dramatic), but I can still imagine it.

Tell me how wrong I am!

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SOME BULLSHIT

Of course, the real tragedy of Morrissey’s now-indisputable douchery is that it’s robbed me of one of my favorite hobbies: inventing fake Morrissey song titles.

Yesterday I stumbled across a quiz I’d put together for The World’s Second Best Taste in Music Trivia Contest, a little gameshow I used to host at QED Astoria. Points were allotted according to how closely players’ musical opinions adhered to my own.

One lucky winner

It was super fun, but eventually I got sucked into other projects. I doubt I’ll bring it back as a live event, but I wonder if something like that might work as a Zoom show. Would you be interested in something like that?

Anyway, in what will likely be my last overt act of Morrissey fandom, I present to you a quiz:

Real Morrissey Song Title or Fake Morrissey Song Title?

Pretty self-explanatory, right? Some of these are real, some fake. Which be which? Are you allowed to use google? Sure, if you’re a weenie.

Either way, leave your answers in the comments or email them to newmusicforolds@gmail.com. The first person to answer them all correctly will receive something random in the mail.

1. It’s Not Your Birthday Anymore

2. Munich air Disaster 1958

3. The Haberdasher’s Bastard

4. Why Must I be Quarantined?

5. I’ve Changed My Plea to Guilty

6. Dear Billy Blanks

7. Satan Rejected My Soul

8. Lifeguard Sleeping, Girl Drowning

9. I Will Never Be Your Merkin

10. Darling, I Hug a Pillow

11. Don’t Interrupt the Sorrow

12. Bea Arthur Will Pay With Her Life

13. You’re the One for Me, Fatty

14. Dialysister

15. Chlamydia is Not a Flower

16. Never Again Will I Be a Twin

17. Daddy Doesn’t Remember Mummy

18. Artie Chokes Three For a Dollar

19. I Have Forgiven Jesus

20. Pussy Punisher 5000 (feat. Dr. Throb and Lil Stanky)

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Okay, see you next time. Tell your friends and whatnot!

1. Lou Barlow did put a 2003 album under the name The New Folk Implosion, which I quite liked (unlike many)

2. Probably not the actual name