I was going to open with a quick rundown of this week’s Travis Barker controversy, but didn’t have much to say other than he went from The Sound of Freedom to Sound and Fury. Weighing in on it any further is Finn McKenty behavior. Instead, look at this tweet! Twitter is dying but I keep going semivi or even full-on viral with the dumbest bullshit. Anime avatars love to quote-tweet stuff like this and say “you did what?!?” It’s actually way too easy to irk people with this kind of crap now, but until I find a new hobby I’m just stuck on autopilot, reposting Facebook images with slightly baity captions and getting hundreds of thousands of people to yell at me.
Here’s some stuff we’re thinking about this week.
Fugitive “Blast Furnace”
Sam: It was telling to me that when I searched for this on YouTube the first autofill was “fugitive blast furnace reaction” because damn this makes me want to react. When it drops into half time, ooh baby I’m reacting. When the solo comes in? Vile reactions, faces no one should ever see. But imagine my disappointment when I discovered there was only ONE react video??? But THEN imagine my JOY when it turned out it was this video, where Stage Dive Yoda listens to a track for the first time and decides if it makes them want to mosh. Spoiler alert: moshing does occur.
Jos: I think it’s because of the aforementioned Sound and Fury commentariat, but I have a strong aversion to internet hxc guys at this point in my life. Most of the guys posting about hardcore on Twitter seem like a special class of “live in their mom’s basement,” where their mom has like fully renovated the basement to be as comfortable as possible. “No, there’s a separate entrance,” they might utter, pure cope. We know your mom is leaving you sandwiches with chips and a drink at the bottom of the stairs whenever you want it. Anyway, this Fugitive song and video is fantastic. I love the sound, I love the VHS vibes, and Sam was right that the breakdown solo is nasty as hell. I would love to see his reaction face, but I’m not clicking on something called Stage Dive Yoda. That’s one step too far.
Paris Texas “Full English feat. Teezo Touchdown”
Sam: Look it was obviously “DnD” and it’s “acoustic Deftones but with rap” that made me check this album out but my goodness I’m glad I did because I forgot about Teezo Touchdown who I think of as the “Social Cues” guy but is clearly very famous now. Because I have now very famously been to London, I understand this song. And it sounds like Big Audio Dynamite but with a cute snapping bridge that Mick Jones could NEVER pull off with aplomb.
Jos: I’ve never pressed play on these tracks because it makes me mad there’s a band called “Paris Texas” that doesn’t even include the comma. I wonder if Sam has seen Paris, Texas? It’s both entry level enough that it’s hard to imagine someone having not seen it, but perhaps arthouse enough that he would have a strong aversion to it. I love it so much, I always get tempted to buy the like £500 photo book when Idea Books has them in stock (right now the CTA is to email them about the book, that means it’s probably even more expensive). Anyway, this song was on in the background when I was typing all of this and it was really annoying. Wim Wenders deserves better.
Aphex Twin “Blackbox Life Recorder 21f”
Jos: There have been a lot of bullshit music signifiers over the years, but none have really stuck in their wonder, beauty, pretension and all-around greatness quite like “intelligent dance music.” Every time I think about IDM, I do a lil internal giggle. Intelligent dance music. Because I was first exposed to this stuff when I was but a boy, I’ve since come to realize that it’s really not as complicated or mathematical as I once thought. In fact, it kind of sounds quaint now compared to today’s newfangled tunes. But I love it. Aphex Twin is back with more walking around music. Put it on when you go to the store and pretend you’re in an early Darren Aronofsky movie.
Sam: Liking Aphen Twin and Squarepusher in high school was such a flex. I, however, flexed my head in the more traditional mode — Minor Threat and Dashboard Confessional. But I have decided that I’m in my “electronic music” years and been enjoying some of the vibe-based walks Josiah just described so I’ll try this out and see how it alters my signature swagger. Where’s the spooky face, though? I want to see the spooky guy again.
Sheer Mag “All Lined Up”
Jos: When Sheer Mag first came out, every punk-adjacent record collecting dweeb engaged in the most bizarre collective hype psychosis, claiming the 7-inches were “must grip” “all-timer” blah blah blah. And they were just kinda forgettable rock songs that all felt 2 minutes too long. I truly didn’t understand, and when I don’t understand something I get irrationally angry (that’s healthy). But one thing I do love is the Third Man Records store in Nashville. No amount of cynicism can stop you from loving that wacky vinyls funhouse with all of its treats and doodads. So now that Sheer Mag has signed to Third Man, am I ready to love them? Well, this song has plenty more bells and whistles (the musical version of treats and doodads). But I’ll never put it on again.
Sam: Sheer Mag is Sheepdogs for people who used to have a problem with cocaine that is mostly under control now. Infinitely boring music! I’d rather listen to Arkells. Pretty mad that Josiah made me listen to this, honestly. He just wanted to say doodads didn’t he. Was it worth, Josiah? Are you satisfied?
mod sun “strangers” (josiah’s y2mate embarrassment bone)
Jos: I can’t shut up about Mod Sun, even if I wanted to, and I really loved his Avril breakup song “Strangers” so much that I wanted to expand on the beat a little bit. Trouble is, I’ve never been able to figure out Ableton (after trying approximately 1.5 times over the years). I am very good at ripping audio from YouTube and assembling things in Garageband, though. Using my skills, as well as the tricks I learned on the spot during the “Why Do I Have Blue Eyes” episode of Globe Hell Warning (specifically, figuring out the key of a song and then searching for other videos in the same key and layering them), I assembled this silly lil Mod Sun remix in Garageband. Other than this guitar remix I down-pitched in the intro, the rest of it is entirely YouTube rips, all layered on top of each other and manually beat-matched in Garageband. There are a handful of 170 bpm DnB drum compilation videos that I piled on top of one another, plus a cello drone in B-flat, something called “1 Hour Pad in Key of Bb Bethel Hillsong Elevation Worship Ambient Shimmer Pad,” and something called “Hammer Drill Sound Effect, Drill noise, with video.” It was really fun to make, and maybe I’ll do more one day.
Sam: I’m not mad at Josiah anymore. This is so good. Get this up on streaming! I want it on my running playlist. Josiah maybe this is what you do with all your pod time? Part of my exploration of “electronic music” has included listening to a lot of “mixes” on Apple from DJ Seinfeld and Logic1000 and Luude (pretty sure at least one of those is NOT cool) and I would really love a one hour “Beats in Space” sesh from DJ Jos. Dude you should do this! I’m not kidding! Going to take this to gchat.
This isn’t an ad, more of a shout out to the homies who are reissuing 5 classics on vinyl!