Why Can’t We Be Friends?

From a conversation about the politics of Facebook, overheard last night in a Bloor Street pub: “It’s not just dumb, it’s mean. It’s intentionally hurtful. It’s like, Oh, I didn’t request you, I requested [X]. Even though [X] and I are really good friends.”

• Camera Obscura, “I Need All the Friends I Can Get” (buy here)

Camera Obscura’s a bit twee for my moods these days, though I saw them live early this year and liked it well enough. Of the stuff of theirs I’ve heard, this song’s the clear standout for me, thanks to the busy percussion and the boost in the vocal melody midway through each verse. At the live show, the opening band (the Essex Green) came out to lend handclap support, which was very charming.

Speaking of live shows, Deerhunter last night was great beyond my hopes. Lots of theatricality – the lead singer playing up his freak image, accosting the other bandmembers all playful like, addressing the crowd, climbing onto the drumkit, changing from gown to skirt – and really powerful sonics, more defined than on record, harder, moving from echoey ambient tones to dense columns of sound that could drill right through the bedrock the club was sitting on. It was also short & sweet – barely an hour, if that – and hey, I’m old, so that works for me.

• Deerhunter, “Cryptograms” (buy here)

And back to Facebook. I’ve only been on for a week or two, and like most people I found it compulsively fascinating for the first few days with a steep dropoff after that. But overall I like it – it’s a well-designed interface, cool & fun, it’s great to connect (however briefly & virtually) with people I haven’t seen for 10+ years, and I like the stream of tidbits & factoids, the goofy little updates.

I guess I just like a little background noise. Like being asleep with the window open on a summer night and as I roll around & dip into unconsciousness and come back out again I can hear people talking on the street while they walk by my house – their voices low, indistinct, but warm – and I like the fact that there are people out there.

• Beat Happening, “Noise” (buy here, and oh man, how I love this record)

Five Years Gone

The Entwistle death anniversary was actually June 27. But better late then never.

From Before I Get Old: The Story of the Who by Dave Marsh:

In Ealing, John Entwistle was talking with a group of Irish journalists when he was summoned to the telephone. Pete gave him the news, which greatly shook John, the most reserved of the band but also the one who was in many ways closest to Keith, playing with him in the intimate way that bassists and drummers must share, his roommate in the beginning. Pete was understanding but asked that John avoid telling the interviewers, if possible. Keith’s mother had not yet been informed. (His father had died only a few weeks before.) Kim and Mandy Moon also hadn’t been told.

John went back to the interviewers and sat down, resuming the conversation as calmly as he could. But when one of them asked him about the Who’s future plans, he couldn’t hold back any longer. Entwistle, the stolid ox, burst into tears, confessing that the Who could not know their future because Keith Moon was dead.

From “Won’t Get Fooled Again” (in Love and Hydrogen) by Jim Shepard:

One thing no one ever seemed to understand: When Pete smashed his guitar, it was because he was pissed off. When Keith threw his snare out into the front row, same thing. And why did I never move? Why did I stand there in the midst of all this mayhem, like a bloody statue? It was my way of making my mark and erasing my mark, simultaneously. There’s nothing like it for exaltation and nothing like it for rank, flat-out failure. You’re working as hard as you can to get one fucking song across – to get some livable part of you across – and it’s never really perfect, it’s never really acceptable, it’s never even really right, is it?

• John Entwistle, “The Real Me” (live) (buy here)

Separated at Birth

Peaches & Marc Bolan. Wear a tall hat, like a druid in the old days!

(Thanks to S.)

Feels So Natural

So I’m digging this NYC band Vampire Weekend, who I gather have an EP to their credit (details on their website), plus there are some demos floating around in the Interair. Apparently they’re coming up Toronto way on August 25.

I guess they’re best described as low-key but tuneful indie pop distinguished by Afrobeat-style guitar work – which is pretty much made to order for the me-liking-it category. The highlife sounds add some swing & energy & personality to their stuff, but they don’t overplay it or come off like they’re playacting. And it comes together to sound like, well, one sound, not a blend of different sounds. Here’s a particularly exhilarating example.

• Vampire Weekend, “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa” (buy here)

And speaking of Afrobeat meets indie, I also recently came across (via a publicity e-mail, to give credit where it’s due) this Extra Golden project, which is a couple people from the D.C. band Golden paired up with a couple Kenyan musicians. They have one album out and apparently another coming out in the fall. I muchly prefer their stuff to the Golden songs I’ve heard. They can do sprightly highlife all right, but they can also do sad & languid & comtemplative, like this.

• Extra Golden, “It’s Not Easy” (buy here)

The way the gentle thump of the rhythm section and the meandering guitar lines tug and hold each other is what does it for me, and I like the falsetto, too. This one may flirt too closely with Dave Matthews Band mellow-stonerisms for some, but for me it pulls up short of that particular cliff.

For some reason the song makes me think of two good friends sitting around doing nothing – not reading, not talking, just sitting together listening to the music, once in a while their eyes flickering over each other accidentally, some unacknowleged melancholy in the air between them. (For what it’s worth, I don’t usually turn music I like into soundtracks by concocting little scenarios like that one.)

Stuck Inside Obviously Five Believers with the Book of Love Blues Again

From Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom by Nik Cohn:

In my own life, the Monotones have meant more in one line of “Book of Love” than Dylan did in the whole of Blonde on Blonde – what hope could there be for me?

• The Monotones, “Book of Love” (buy here)