Josiah seemed pretty stressed about having to do the intro last week, but reading between the lines I think he was just bummed out there wasn’t a cool photo of Coopie running. I imagine all our regulars readers felt the same, so I bravely stepped up this week to fill the void in all of your hearts with this accidental work of art I created when trying to take a video by running but accidentally mashing the panorama button repeatedly. I think this is what Porter Robinson album covers look like?
Here’s some stuff we’re listening to this week.
Gulfer “Lights Out”
Sam: Bands NEVER do that “CRASH… ta-ding…. CRASH… ta-ding” thing anymore but back in the day you weren’t ALLOWED to be in a band without using that delightful flourish in AT LEAST two songs that never left your live set. I will forever be drawn to anyone doing the classic Br*nd N*w trick of having layered vocals where one is just an octave up and breaking because you’re just SO FUCKED UP about whatever it is, but THEN there’s the little break beat coda to remind you you’re in the future? Incredibly dope, I love it.
Jos: Damn you know Sam’s on one when he’s doing the random all caps words throughout his prose. This has me scared to click, for the level of Samminess that awaits me might be TOO OVERWHELMING. “Gulfer” is a funny band name. Hmm this sounds like Sam music and me music at the same time. Some cool chords, some mid-fi production, but some vocals that are a little more in-your-face. Maybe Sam and I should go see Gulfer together. He can stand in front of me and I can wrap my arms around him in the couple’s stance. I’d love to be the small spoon, but I’m too tall. Oh shit there’s a little jungle outro too haha.
Thotcrime feat. Bagel Rabbit “Garden Court”
Sam: Thotcrime releasing a straight up “remember 2014?” hyperpop song as the first single from their new album on Prosthetic Records was the ideal table setting for what is kind of a… pop-punk late-era Dillinger Escape Plan song? Perfectly strange and wholly original, you can only really call this “cybergrind” because it’s a habit. Cannot wait to hear this full album and see what else is going on in there. My favourite comment on this video is just: “cyber shit?”
Jos: Hmm Sam really is thriving eh? Just sharing things that are “pop-punk late-era Dillinger Escape Plan,” knowing that no one is there to bully him. Because there’s no indication that he even reads my replies to his blurbs. He can just live on in ignorant bliss, listening to NEET IT-guy metal and running around the woods with his dog. I was really enjoying this one before all the metal stuff started. Okay it’s back to the chorus. I still kinda like it in a similar to way that I liked the Underoath album The Changing of Times. I love that there’s this whole new world you are deeply steeped in and I’m just chillin’ waiting for it to end.
Envy “Beyond the Raindrops”
Jos: I’m too impatient to wait until tomorrow for the new Porter Robinson album, so I’m downloading the leak on Soulseek. Trouble is, it’s only available in FLAC and .opus. What the fuck is a .opus file??? I love Opus, the penguin who sincerely represents the very best of Gen X. humour sensibilities. Anyway, while I’m waiting for my FLACs I’ll dig into some old head music. I used to love the band Envy, but then took a lil break because I fell for society’s trick, which was to think epic and emotional music was cringe. But now we’re still stuck in a deluge of shitty fake nihilistic post-punk bands. Fuck that, gimme my emotional Japanese boys. Yup, I’m hearing staccato guitar leads, some spoken word, some singing, some cry-moshable rhythms, a little guitar hook that almost sounds like Christmas music. Listening to Envy kinda feels like you’re watching Love Actually but in a good way. There’s also no screaming, which actually makes it even better to my old ears. Envy. Thank you.
Sam: Back in 2010 I saw Envy play at Sneaky Dee’s and it was spectacular but what I remember about it most in retrospect is missing And So I Watch You from Afar because they played first and I was probably just drinking downstairs. Huge miss from a big idiot, and yet I learned nothing from the experience and like everyone my age started arriving later and later to shows until the point where I missed a huge chunk of Iggy Pop in 2016 when he was touring with Queens as a backing band and course corrected back to being stressed about showtimes again. This is wonderful. And Josiah I read all your little jibes and japes.
Starflyer 59 “909”
Jos: To be honest, I never got as into Starflyer 59 as some of my friends, but I’ve always held a soft spot for this guy and his mutton chop sideburns and wet ass guitar tone. It’s also sick that he can release a new song like this in 2024 that seriously sounds like it’s been rotting in a CD wallet for the last 30 years. All of these things are compliments by the way. This is how I compliment music. The chorus is great. This is just some sick rock music.
Sam: Oh wow he’s got one of those Crash Test Dummies voices eh? This is the epitome of a band I have heard of but never heard, and honestly this is good, I’m enjoying it, and I’ll probably never listen to them again. Wow they were a Christian band? Or were they just Christians, in a band? We need to bring this kind of lusty deep tones back to music, everyone’s screeching all the time now! Get out of your upper register and get low!
155xtracredit Pre Junior GrowNup Battles
Jos: Last week I put Sam on blast for reacting to a video that I had accidentally left from the week before, as if it were new. That’s the perfect kind of deflecting — I screwed up, but made it his fault. Anyway, he’s probably never going to hear sparkling Caleb’s cover of Pre Nup’s “The Grudge” now, but something special did happen: he got to hear a bunch of covers of his own music via a surprise compilation from 155xtracredit. Now, it’s not really worth getting into 155 podcast lore at this point. That will either happen never again, or in a book 20 years from now. But I do recall 155xtracredit popping up when we stopped doing covers on the show, perhaps as a way to claw back what I had taken from them by trying to switch it up on the show. But turns out maybe they’re not as mad at me as I thought, because they’ve done some wonderful covers of my songs too!
Sam: I’m going to start leaving my picks from last week in the newsletter and seeing if Josiah remembers them! “Here’s another EPIC chune from the SICKEST band currently RIPPING UP the cybersphere!!!” This coming in on the heels of my villainous collaborator’s attempt to slander me, plus some generally ANNOYING “life stuff,” was really magical. It’s just very cool. That photo of us makes me feel one thousand years old, though. The pandemic was hard.