Week two of Gobruary, and just in time for Valentine’s Day we discuss the face-kicking excellence of “Ming Tran” — both the song and the lady! Yep, the new episode of 155 sees us discuss Gob’s Hook-Ups-inspired and the band’s own Tom Thacker explains the origin of the song. Also: we’re buying a pizza restaurant.
Listen to the new ‘sode of 155 here.
The covers section is also back, which means we’re dropping weekly Bandcamp compilations. Listen to 9 versions of Gob’s “You’re Too Cool” here.
If you want to cover next week’s Gob song, sign up for the Patreon and hop into the Discord.
Here’s some other stuff we’re into right now:
He Is Legend “CIRCUS CIRCUS”
Sam: There are two songs on He Is Legend’s I Am Hollywood that I think are the two sickest Every Time I Die songs ever written, and every few albums I find myself compelled to check in on my favourite Christians to see if they’ve captured that magic again. They did it again a few years ago with “White Bat,” and while I selfishly wish they’d just write that song over and over again to help me lift weights with conviction, I’m grateful for this deviation which includes the most sincere Rob Zombie impersonation I’ve ever heard outside of me doing “Dragula” at karaoke. The closest we’ll get to this tweet set to music.
Jos: Three seconds in, there’s some disgusting synths, some fake Jonathan Davis vocals that are mixed so low they sound like a didgeridoo, and some nasty “heavy” guitars. There’s so much cool Christian music that I’ve showed you over the years. Just listen to Dry-Rot, Strongarm and Half-Handed Cloud, not this. What the fuck is wrong with you, Sam? Good Lord above it’s getting worse as it goes on. Sara and I actually went to see Killswitch Engage in like 2007 because we wanted to see Dragonforce (and we happened to run into Herman Li outside, lol), and this band was supposed to open but had to cancel, and there were all these teenage girls crying at the merch table. But I still had to see Killswitch Engage, which was pretty tough.
Ruston Kelly “The Weakness”
Sam: Remember Band of Horses? They’re back, in Kelly Musgraves’ ex-husband form. Like if “The Funeral” was written by a guy obsessed with the Matt Pryor discography, and therefore much better. Makes you feel like you’re melodramatically driving around the suburb you live in letting every hypertrophic teenage emotion in your sad lil brain explode. I bet Josiah loves it.
Jos: I think I would like it if the video didn’t have this sopping wet DILF in black-and-white. The point of sensi boy music is to still provide some sensi without going full eye-contact, which is a tough line to tow. This sounds pretty decent, but it gets a little too Snow Patrol when it should go Built to Spill. Also this guy’s name is Ruston Kelly, which is a level of Calgary Folk Fest name that I will never be able to fuck with. That one Band of Horses song is so good though. It’s sick when an indie band is also a one-hit wonder.
Harrison “A View from the Sky”
Jos: This week, Sara and I went to the PHI Centre to enjoy one of those immersive room things where a French person got a grant to make a room full of flashing lights and techno that represents death somehow. It was a perfect chin-stroking spectacle, and an opportunity to think about the last time I was at the PHI — when the Red Bull Music Academy used to light a pile of CAD on fire by flying out up-and-coming producers for an immersive weekend of studio time, big-name lectures and live performances. Because I had XLR8R in the bio (my first writing job was pretending to understand the nuances of house music), I was flown out twice for the annual gathering, gorging on free drinks and food and hotel rooms in exchange for a few paragraphs about the event. But I met a lot of inspiring up-and-comers, and Harrison was one of them. If you follow him on socials, you know that Harrison has a timeless tickle on the ivories, and all of his skill sets are perfectly put on display with “A View from the Sky.” The song is like a reconstructed Madlib arrangement, a timeless crate-dug standard that hasn’t been chopped up and never needs to be. The accompanying visual adds to the tone poem, scratching the buried Sesame Street sense memories deep in the brains of any millennial that has ever owned a mustard sweat suit. But there’s no pandering on Harrison’s part. He’s truly making classics.
Sam: Harrison is so good. This is braggy the goofiest way but I did a thing with him for the JUNOs a few years ago and he’s the nicest dude but most importantly he was a big This Exists fan which made me feel so cool until he realized I was not quite obviously actually cool. Okay but MOST importantly he’s so strong now, just the biggest dude with the most delicate melodic sensibility. Like big enough that a mutual ran into him and expressly told me how yoked he looked. Harrison should be the most popular person in the world.
jonatan leandoer96 “Nightmare Amusement Park”
Jos: It’s important to have people in your life that you can trust with the big issues. When I want to know how to vote or what’s going on with Big Alcohol, I rely on James Wilt. And when I want to know what’s going on with Drain Gang or Sadboys, I lean on Premiles. Miles alerted me to Sugar World, the latest album from Yung Lean’s jonatan leandoer96 pseudonym, as soon as it dropped, and I have listened to it much more than I’ve listened to the new Mod Sun (which I’m too scared to put on — you can only hear it for the first time once). The opening song is a perfect entry — “Nightmare Amusement Park” has some faux butt-rock riffing, like bad fake Stones riffing, before building to a delightfully strummy Jens Lekman-esque pop chorus. It sounds like a hipster sharing a private karaoke with some hornt up cougars in the best possible way.
Sam: Hahaha this is so good. How come Josiah likes all the cool music. No one answer that. Scrolled down and the top comment is about how this sounds like the New York Dolls and holy shit that’s it. Whenever people try to return to those vibes they do it in the most literal and corny way possible, whereas this feels like a proper update without attempting to time travel. I bet David Johansen would love it which is also why David Johansen still rocks.
PinkPantheress & Ice Spice “Boy’s a liar Pt. 2”
Jos: I want to try to include an actual popular song in the newsletter each week due to, well, ahem, *gestures wildly at poptimism* and also because I don’t want us to just include the things we found from being on the Relapse Records mailing list or wherever Sam finds this crap. Ice Spice is cool for many reasons, not least of which is her Lil Orphan Annie hair (is Annie one of the most lowkey iconic brands? Ice Spice and the Alltimers logo suggest yes), and this new song is a nice lil plucky post-PC Music Nokia phone pop song. But I saw some plugged-nose millennial Twitter nerds roasting it for some reason. And they’re the same people meme-ing on the cool red Hypebeast cartoon boots. We don’t need anymore pop culture opinions from the same people who I assume read Dave Grohl’s memoir! We need more pop culture opinions from me. And, well, also Sam. But I added this song to the newsletter after he already maxed out on his 15 minutes of talking to me for the day and clocked out. So we’ll let Premiles comment on it instead:
Image via 155podmemes
blink-155s02e17
Sam couldn’t make it for blink-155 this week, so we used it as an opportunity to learn more about him. Who is Sam Sutherland? What, exactly, is he so busy with? And is this the worst episode of Blink-155 ever released?