Thank you Georgia, Marsden, Fiona, Holly and Rachael!
It’s so nice to have a thing that is obviously your thing, so that your internet friends can send you that thing as a gag every once in a while. I have two things, really: bad music (particularly MGK and Mod Sun) and bean tea a.k.a.havin’ java a.k.a. anti-murdery juicy juice a.k.a. the drug. I’ve been sent plenty of MGK bullshit from this crew before, but I was delighted to return from traveling to have MGK’s Blonde Don roast awaiting me at home. As you might expect, this tastes like one of those carafes of coffee that they have in a Chevron, but it also has the mouthfeel suggesting that some post-Christian baristas spent months perfecting the flavour to get it there. It’s wretched and I love it.
Here’s some stuff we’re thinking about this week.
Jhariah “RISK, RISK, RISK!”
Sam: This song takes some BIG SWINGS and they do NOT all work for me but I RESPECT them. There are troubling hints of G*g*l B*rd*ll* but once the System of a Down stuff kicks in I felt like I understood the journey I was on? By the time the vibe completely changes in the final thirty seconds I felt like I had also changed somehow. Can’t wait to hear what Josiah thinks!
Jos: Musically this song sounds exactly like how it felt to be a kid when old heads were like “oh you like Green Day and MxPx? Check out the Clash, it’s the same music.” And then it’s just this. But then they seem to have added elements of music-store braided goatee jamming, Christian ska, and Panic! At the Disco yelping. I’m gonna be honest, this is some of the worst shit I’ve heard in a few years. And I’m a guy who actively seeks out the worst shit to hear.
Last Word “Shed Your Blood”
Sam: Lost Cities were some of Toronto’s best screamos and if they had only waited a decade-plus they could have been part of a whole-ass moment that might have appreciated them more! Alas, they were too late and also too early. Last Word is not an attempt to claim the skramz throne, but Kalan from Lost Cities has channeled that heaviness into something much slower, more melodic, and crushing in the way that life becomes as we all age, people die, paths close to us and your life becomes a predetermined march towards death!
Jos: There’s no way Lost Cities is the name of a skramz band, it’s gotta be a grant rock band. Lost Cities on tour with Library Voices and Young Galaxy, playing every Canadian college bar that’s called The Scoop for all of these people you’ve never seen before that somehow have Most Serene Republic shirts. Anyway, this almost sounded like Bush X when it first kicked in, which is kinda sick. Just need the vocals to have a little more nasty mouthfeel and then they’d really be on to something.
BlakkBoyz (Lil Yachty & JID) “Half Doin’ Dope”/“Van Gogh”
Jos: I’m doing four songs again this week, sorry. If I’m gonna destroy my browser by opening spammy, once-reliable music blogs, I’m gonna make the most of it and check out some tunes. I think one of my first major mid-life crisis moments, at least that I was aware of, was when I nearly pre-ordered Lil Yachty’s major-label debut because I wanted a shirt and had loved Lil Boat so much. I feel like from a distance, JID also seems to be a rapper that middle-aged men who used to bump DatPiff rep on shirts. So yeah, my old ass is loving their new collaboration BlakkBoyz. I love listening to Lil Yachty’s lazy sing-song rapping way more than his fake Tame Impala shit. This seems like it’d be great music to listen to while dropping your kids off to start Grade 11 like so many of my peers did this week. Also whoever made the video for a song called “Van Gogh” and made it all bad pop art references is awesome.
Sam: During my career as a label stooge, one of the proudest moments for the company was putting Lil Yachty on a boat in Toronto. It was all we heard about for weeks, maybe years. Photos shared daily. They loved this genius idea. This is all Canadian record label subsidiaries do. They collect royalties and put artists on boats. Josiah is right the “Van Gogh” video is really good and funny.
Evian Christ “On Embers”
Jos: Obviously I was also a Yeezus head, and I remember being particularly excited about the production at the time. But it wasn’t until today that I even remembered Tri Angle Records existed. I loved that crap, all the post-witch house, post-cloud rap scary beats that weren’t quite gothy but still had a black nail polish vibe. I checked and the label officially shut down in 2020. It would have either been that or they would’ve put out a King Gizzard album for some reason, those are the two choices for any old label. Anyway, it’s funny to hear stuff like this now because what once was scary and unique and boundary pushing now sounds exactly like an immersive dance experience that the government would fully fund and you’d see at the Phi Centre. I can picture the animated flowers growing before exploding in an abstract faux-laser show, and the general message of society that it shows. It still sounds sick as hell though.
Sam: My most cherished summer of Yeezus memory is having too many people jammed into a car driving back from a cottage country bar while the sober, evil friend who was driving banged “I Am a God” sooooo loud no one could even think. It was the scariest drive of my life! This evokes the feeling that I would die in that car (not from drinking and driving, just from vibes).
Peter Gabriel “Love Can Heal”
Jos: I’ve been hanging with my dad more than usual this year, and it’s been really fun. He’s always been a massive Peter Gabriel head, and I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot despite not fully getting into it, but these new tracks are hitting hard. “Love Can Heal” has rich, deep production, but stays tastefully subtle throughout, and our boy PG still has the perfect voice, world-weary with a slight bit of phlegm in the back. It sounds so good. Love can heal.
Sam: I only ever want to hear So but this makes me want to consider hearing other Gabriel tunes. He’s really got the stuff that dad’s crave!
MERCH CUT DISCOURSE
Jos: It’s been an incredibly fun week for specifically me on Twitter, because all of Sam’s besties have been fighting on Twitter about something called “merch cuts.” In case you didn’t know, certain venues will take a cut of a band’s merch while they’re on tour. Sam’s bestie Jeff Rosenstock started it by sharing a breakdown of which venues take how much off of merch sales, then Sam’s (imaginary) bestie (I assume) Steve Albini weighed in, saying you can easily get rid of them if you try. That started a whole fight before Sam’s other besties Propagandhi dropped by to subtweet Jeff, and then they made up or something. Anyway it’s been hilarious to watch, especially knowing that Sam is hating every second of it. Oh how I wish I could punish him on mic about it. But I did manage to make a whole bunch of people mad, as usual. The best was this guy who said “is this bait” while also revealing he’s been caught up in a pay-to-play scheme:
Now I’ll let Sam weigh in on the whole merch cut discourse:
Sam: Considered coming down with something and being unable to complete the newsletter this week. Explaining that this lasted three whole days to Ashley was the dumbest I’ve felt about how I spend my time since we ended the pod. By the time I saw someone using the google result for Jeff’s net worth (my own is currently listed on idolnetworth.com as $75 million FYI) in the context of a heated tangential argument about unions, I knew I was as far into hell as Josiah was on his way towards personal nirvana. But my profound discomfort truly stemmed from so many people I know and like personally engaging in such weird and bad faith ways, all of which I knew was elevating Josiah’s fiendish joy. Normies love to say the last year/s “broke everyone’s brains” when people start acting strange online, but I have never felt it more than this week when I saw a guy I know post the Wesley Snipes in New Jack City meme about Propagandhi for being… too glib? Everyone needs to log off. Let me rest. I hate it here.