unpiano: music

Thanks to Three’s Company, I thought my first apartment would be a huge three bedroom that was clean and well lit with a rad bar two-doors down. It would be cheap, wouldn’t smell like a dump that four skaters lived in, wouldn’t come with a bathtub full of human hair, wouldn’t have dirty syringes under the refrigerator, and I’d have to pretend I was gay so my concerned landlord and his horny wife wouldn’t think I was fucking my two hot roommates. None of these things ever happened and I’m still pretty bent about it.

DC’s The Ropers were named after those wacky landlords and epitomized the 60’s meets early 90’s indiepop scene of the time. Fuzzy, well crafted pop-is-the-new-punk with a tinge of late-60’s vibe (more Love or United States Of America, not that shit your parents still talk about). They released a handful of singles two great albums, All The Time on Slumberland Records and The World Is Fire on Teenbeat before disbanding in the mid-90’s. Since its impossible to find photos of the band, here’s a blurry picture of some other dude holding up one of their 7″s.

The Ropers - Revolver (7″ version)
The Ropers - Sweet Lord I Know
The Ropers - Transparent Day
The Ropers - Drive (Version)

The Airing Of Grievences appeals to me in the same way that everything that Hickey or the Replacements did appeals to me. It’s a mix of a lot of things I like in one place at full volume. Well crafted pop-songs sung by a lunatic punk band full of alcoholics who were going to art school (or hanging out with a bunch of rich kids going to art school) and made sure it sounded fucked. Really, who else names their band after a Shakespeare tragedy or calls their first single “Camus” after an existential philosopher? That’s right, wasted art-fags from New Jersey. How’d you know?

Titus Andronicus - Fear And Loathing In Mahawah, NJ
Titus Andronicus - Joset Of Nazareth’s Blues
Titus Andronicus - My Time Outside The Womb

//photo by Jason Fischer

Hey guess who’s on tour right now? Guess who also put out one of the best records of 2008 (that’s an empirical fact not up for discussion btw)? San Francisco’s Thee Ohsees that’s who. From little home-taped solo project of SF enigma John Dwyer (of the Coachwhips, Pink & Brown, Zeigenbock Kopf, Swords And Sandles, etc.) to full blown rock band of the year, The Masters Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In is a killer fucking record and “Block Of Ice” shreds (neither of these pure, empirical facts are up for discussion either). Look them up on MySpace for tour dates with the Sic Alps.

Thee Ohsees - Block Of Ice
Thee Ohsees - Ghost In The Trees

Bonus:
Thee Ohsees - Block Of Ice (live @ Cake Shop, NYC)

I know very little about this band other than it hails from Richmond VA and is the brainchild of one Jason Boyer, whose warped sense of pop is one of my big finds for 2008. Noise, reverby Psychocandy era Jesus And Mary Chain sentiments mix with the destitute jangle of Americana. So far all that’s available are a handful of very limited cassette releases, from which these tracks were lifted, with their debut 7″ on the way.

Nerve City - The Creek
Nerve City - Junkyard
Nerve City - Living Wage

Wow, the 90’s indie-rock revival is seriously spreading, which means I AM FUCKING OLD. Check out NYC’s Vivian Girls who’s sweet, reverby lo-fi pop could make them second-cousins to Tiger Trap or a lot of the female-fronted Slumberland Records catalog from that time (especially anything involving Amy Linton or Pam Berry). Enough Shop Assistants-like room noise and jangle to connect them to all things C-86 as well. These records were pressed in small quantities and were out of print pretty quick, but their next will be readily available on In The Red this coming year.

Vivian Girls - All The Time
Vivian Girls - I Believe In Nothing
Vivian Girls - Wild Eyes

Portland Oregon’s Eat Skull has been killing it lately. With a string of quickly out of print singles and their debut LP Sick To Death (Siltbreeze) already landing on lots of “Best of 2008″ lists, their deranged lo-fi pop has hit it big in the small time. Landing somewhere between ear-splitting 80’s hardcore and those wonderfully wasted GBV records, here’s a few favorites off their two long-gone 7 inches and an even longer-gone split cassette.

Eat Skull - Dead Families
Eat Skull - Seeing Things
Eat Skull - Survivable Spaces

It’s still nice and warm out, so here’s some more Ariel Pink to play in the park..

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Interesting Results
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Shaven
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - Ghost Town
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti - My Molly

I remember sleeping on Ariel Pink when I first heard some of his songs. Then recently I heard this song in a Krooked video and I was hooked. I have a thing for lo-fi sounding songs and while it makes me sad that I probably couldn’t play it out when I play records, I like that it’s not produced well. It makes me think that he was concentrating more on the way the song feels than how it sounds. And the song feels awesome. So nostalgic.. it makes me think of warm summer night and smiling all the time. Can’t wait for it to get warmer.

Ariel Pink - For Kate I Wait

Bonus:
Krooked Skateboards Naughty trailer