The indie rock duo High Places made a fantastically strange video for their song “Sonora”. I liked the song, but enjoyed it a lot more after I saw the video. It is a revenge filled, live action Popeye story with a gender-bending twist. The video opens with the heroine waking up along a roadside. She has a massive head wound and looks awfully pissed upon catching sight of the assault weapon, a broken golf club. With the help of a can of spinach (and a very trusting motorist) she goes on a bloody rampage to save her “man in distress”. I especially enjoyed the face stomping she gives the 1st henchman. Check out the full video below.
Sleigh Bells was set to release their much anticipated sophomore effort Reign of Terror on February 14th. The album was supposed to set the pace for all other indie releases in 2012. Less than a month ago, they unveiled the 1st track “Born to Lose” to mixed reviews here at Music or Space Shuttle?.
If you were set on giving your sweetheart a copy as a Valentines Day gift, think again. The release has been pushed back. By a whole week! Now this can only mean one thing…It’s a complete turd. Well maybe not a complete turd, but it seems that whenever an uber-hyped album gets delayed, the product is equivalent to some form of crap. Example, Guns N’ Roses Chinese Democracy. It took something like a decade to be released and the final product was a massive load of feces.
Will Reign of Terror be the next over-hyped indie flop? Can hipsters wait 7 additional days for the album release? Will it be released at all? Stayed tuned to Music or Space Shuttle? for future updates. In the meantime check out “Born to Lose” below.
Few things can trigger a long-lost memory like music. It can happen anywhere. Standing in line for coffee you can hear some old song and instantly get transported back to another time and place. What is great about this experience is that there can be endless different reactions to same tune. A U2 song might remind you of a junior high school dance, but could remind your next door neighbor of the time he/she was carjacked. So, I thought that I would share a few stories and the songs that are linked to them.
First up: Snap!, “The Power”
That song reminds me of when I was a freshman in high school. I was in morning gym class turning lap after suicidal lap. My lush full head of brown hair was bouncing lazily back and forth as I ran. I caught sight of my reflection and it was as if my hair was waving to me. Calling out to me. Reassuring me. “I will always be with you, Todd”…I digress.
I looked up and saw the assistant principal enter the gym. Now at my school, the AP was “The Enforcer.” This meant that if he interrupted a class to get you, you were fucked. He briefly confers with the gym coach and then they both scan the gym until they find the poor sap in trouble. Me.
Normally, I wouldn’t freak out too bad, but the whole scenario reminded me of a scene in the C. Thomas Howell movie Tank. Young C. Thomas’ school principal and gym coach drag him out of practice and take him to the locker room. A corrupt police officer then pulls a gigantic bag of weed out of his locker. He is immediately thrown into prison and horrible prisony things happen to him. That is until his father breaks him out with the help of a Sherman tank and a spunky prostitute with a heart of gold.
(How have I not seen this movie? —Chris)
So now you understand my distress when the gym coach motions for me to come toward them. I had no idea what I could possibly have done wrong. Thinking of nothing obvious, I ran through the top 3 transgressions that 15-year-olds get busted for.
Fighting- Nope. I’m a lover, not a fighter.
Unexplained Absence- Nope. My attendance record was beyond reproach.
Possession of Tobacco Products- The gig is up! There was a fairly large assortment of smoking and chewing tobaccos in my locker at the start of business that morning.
I walked toward them planning what I would do during my certain 2-day suspension from school. Imagine my relief when instead of accusations of wrong doing I was greeted with a note. Apparently, I have a doctor’s appointment and my brother is in the front office waiting to take me.
This was odd considering that my older brother had recently moved out of the house. I rarely saw him, and he definitely wouldn’t be the one to pick me up for some forgotten appointment. I didn’t question it though and quickly hauled ass to the office. There he was, BS’ing with the school secretary. I don’t remember what was said between us before we left, but I do remember thinking that everyone in that office (including the AP) knew that this was no ordinary trip to the doctor. No, this was a jailbreak.
Much like Andy Dufresne escaping a lifetime of cruelty at Shawshank, I was elated to be free of a morning filled with calisthenics and calculus. We hopped into my brother’s gigantic and obnoxiously loud truck (he had recently bought some early ’70s red behemoth that was two steps down from a monster truck). As we pulled away from the school, he slipped a cassette into the tape deck. Snap!’s “The Power” blasted over the speakers. The cassette was a single with no B side so when the song was over it just flipped sides and played again and again.
With no real destination in mind, we drove around town wasting the day with Snap! as our soundtrack. He dropped me off at school just in time to hop on the bus and go home. All I heard in my head the whole way home was…
Every now and again, my family would leave Waukon (the county seat of Allamakee County) and visit my mom’s sister’s family. My cousin Josh was the coolest kid I knew. Being two years my senior, he had infinite wisdom when it came to cool music, and he lived in Burlington, which seemed truly metropolitan compared with the ‘Kon, which meant actual record stores or at least a better selection of department stores.
Anyway, one trip in 1987 had a tremendous impact. He busted out some old Memorex tapes, and gave me the following albums:
Beastie Boys, Licensed to Ill
Metallica, Ride the Lightning
Metallica, Garage Days Re-revisited
Descendents, Liveage!
Slayer, Reign in Blood
The Cure, Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
And from that moment, the era preceding this gift became known as BMCJMMC (Before My Cousin Josh Made Me Cooler). During that era, most of my music purchases fell into three categories:
Respected (Prince and the Revolution, Madonna)
Unfairly maligned (Duran Duran—I will fight this fight until the day I die)
Um, well, I was in grade school (Paul Young! Billy Ocean! “We Are the World”! Big Bam Boom-era Hall & Oates! “Sussudio”! And pretty much everything else I bought…)
So I thought it might be fun to look back at the stuff I liked before Josh high-speed dubbed me into a reasonable realm of coolness, to see if there was anything redeemable about the stuff I listened to. And why not start with Wham!? My friends from St. Patrick’s Grade School might remember them from the folder I had for social studies class.
Yeah, so my favorite song by Wham! was “Everything She Wants,” perhaps because vocalist George Michael uses the word “hell” in the first verse. Or perhaps because it wasn’t as bubblegum as “Wake Me Up (Before You Go-Go)” or as saxy as “Careless Whisper.”
Or maybe it was the video?
Or maybe not. Let’s break down this cinematic masterpiece.
0:33 mark: the frozen extreme close-ups of our two heroes. George looks constipated; Andrew looks dumb.
0:55: George is glowing.
[there’s a lot going on in the next few seconds]
1:33: Andrew Ridgeley extreme close-up. Awkward! But it did showcase his most important contributions to the band, other than spinning around with a guitar that obviously wasn’t plugged in to the sound system (he wasn’t getting tangled up in a cord as he twirled around): “ah ha ah, ah ha ah, oh oh oh, oh oh oh, ah hah ah, ah hah ah, do-do-do da da da da-da!”
1:36: someone on stage does the Crane Kick move (a la Ralph Macchio). Did Mr. Miyagi give these guys the tutelage, much less permission, to execute such a maneuver? Bad form, Wham!
1:38: Andrew is giving an awful lot of hip action to his guitar playing. And with George a little too close for comfort, I might add.
2:03: George and Andrew’s synchronized spinning routine. Who choreographed that move? And I’m embarrassed for the audience, which is acting like the fucking Beatles are on stage or something at that moment. They’re screaming like schoolgirls because a couple of mulleted Brits are spinning?
2:22: Andrew extreme close-up totally breaks the mood that George has worked to create. It’s going to take some serious sass from George to get back the vibe.
3:02: see commentary at 1:33.
3:17: a woman’s hand emerges from behind the blanketed George. Oh, the irony. His disinterest, however, is foreshadowing at its finest.
4:05: see commentary at 1:33.
4:19: the launch of Andrew Ridgeley (or some other brunette-mullet dude) into the air as the background singers gaze upward in awe; a flip is executed, with a delayed copycat flip soon to follow; and then the guy sticks the landing, doing a pose reminiscent of Daniel-san’s aforementioned Crane Kick move. The 1980s asked us to just love goofy shit without asking questions, but this sequence cannot go unchecked.
4:47: a running-in-place routine. I guess the spinning was too much for the lads.
5:25: I stand corrected—more spinning!
5:35: see commentary at 1:33.
5:50: another flip! I get it, this is obviously the extended remix of the song, but didn’t they have any other b-roll footage to intersperse, rather than going back to the well on the gymnastics?
5:52: one of those “3 Men and a Baby” ghost deals. Look at the lower right corner as the flipping guy starts his descent. There’s a face! Who is he? Why is he ogling the flipping guy? Is he alive or an apparition? This is intriguing…and/or evidence of poor production values.
Here at Music or Space Shuttle? we feel like we should be asking the tough, hard-hitting questions. This week starts a series of polls where we force you, the thoughtful reader, to choose between two random artists. You may not always like either selection but you have to pick one. (None of that “I’d sooner punch myself in the privates until I perish” third option crap.)
First up, you must make the musical “Sophie’s Choice” between Coldplay or Bette Midler. Would you choose to spend eternity with “Clocks” and “Speed of Sound” as your personal soundtrack? Or would you rather sing along to “The Rose” and “Wind Beneath my Wings” for the rest of your days? Feel free to justify your selection in the comments section.
At first listen, this may seem like just good background music. After subsequent listens, songs like “Before” and “You and I” start to stand out and become the soundtrack to your day.
Chris: The Weeknd, House of Balloons
This album redefines cool and groovy (different from how Ken defines it in Toy Story 3, to be sure). Sampling Siouxsie and Beach House, creating a hazy vibe, and inspiring sexy videos such as the one for “What You Need.”
I was a bit put off by the first single from the album, “Vomit.” Grudgingly, I listened to the rest of the album and found a great rock record. I guess you can still make a good record with guitars, drums, and distortion. The song “Die” is a great example.
Chris: Cut Copy, Zonoscope
This album was the early pacesetter for 2011. I eventually favored other releases, but I still enjoy going back to songs like “Take Me Over” for the 458th time.
My most anticipated release this year. Tracks began filtering out in June. “Keep You” was my “Song of the Summer” and kept me appeased until the October release.
Chris: Neon Indian, Era Extraña
If only the experience of this sophisticated album would have translated during his recent Iowa City show (it was at the Union Bar, and Kreayshawn [!] opened).
Synth-pop at its best. At times sounds like it could be some long-lost 1980s new wave record. The song “Where I’m Going” also received my award for “Best use of Oohs and Yeahs in a Song or Soundtrack.”
Chris: Class Actress, Rapprocher
This album is much like my #3 album: strong songs released well in advance of album, and then album drops and I’m pleasantly surprised with overall quality. Singles are great, but I’m sampling Track 2, “Love Me Like You Used To,” a great “headphones” song.
The Odd Future member’s first solo effort. Got me listening to some hip hop for the first time in years. Here is “Swim Good” the song that made me stop and listen.
Chris: Burial, Street Halo
Yeah, it’s an EP, but when the three songs are worthy of inclusion in one’s top 20 songs of the year, it’s hard to deny it. Love the title track, but “NYC” is fast becoming my fave of the bunch. More music coming in 2012…
The indie rock duo High Places made a fantastically strange video for their song “Sonora”. I liked the song, but enjoyed it a lot more after I saw the video. It is a revenge filled, live action Popeye story with a gender-bending twist. The video opens with the heroine waking up along a roadside. She has a massive head wound and looks awfully pissed upon catching sight of the assault weapon, a broken golf club. With the help of a can of spinach (and a very trusting motorist) she goes on a bloody rampage to save her “man in distress”. I especially enjoyed the face stomping she gives the 1st henchman. Check out the full video below.
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