Subterranean 2-27
Subterranean wasn’t on last week. I’m not sure why. I was concerned it had been cancelled because MTV2 has gone through an image shift and it’s not for the better. MTV2 now has a ridiculous 2-headed dog as a logo and it sits, not transparently, in the bottom right corner of every video. The old animated logo is gone but this dog thing is so bad that I almost wish it were back. The other change they made was with the band/song/label iformation. It’s not the white text that has intorduced every video for the last 25 years it’s now 3 solid bars of color that totally obscure the video image with the words in the bars. It’s obnoxious as hell. No me gusta.
This week I tried to link to the band sites and then to the video if I could find it. Let me know if you run across any dead links, or if you know of a better place that’s hosting a video from this week’s show.
The Music were the guests this week. Funny bit, Jim Shearer was asking them about recording their newest album, From the North, in Atlanta and whether they had gotten krunk (that’s the Wikipedia entry for kirunk, well worth a click) while they were there. They, apparently, had not.
LCD Soundsystem – “Daft Punk is Playing At My House” – (Of course, the horrible, horrible bars of color said that this was The Postal Service’s We Will Become Sillhouettes) There is a very clever graphic equalizer theme to the video. It’s pretty simple dance-beat with distorted synths. I like it fine. Ethan would not dig this, the dude keeps repeating the song title. A lot.
Phoenix – “Run, Run, Run” – I liked this one a few weeks ago. It still looks way better than that “Everything Is Everything” video. The band spinning around, only this time the effects are much better and more colorful. I still skipped the last bit of it.
The Doves – “Black and White Town” – Yikes! That’s not very nice at all. Pre-teen angst, complete with vandalism, fighting, and what appears to be 2 girls kissing. I’ve been listeneing to the new album, it’s good, and this song didn’t sound cheery anyway but with the video it sounds absolutely desperate. Hmmm.
Interpol – “Evil” – Oh man! Here it is again. Here’s a link to a place to see it (it’s not a very good copy, I’ll try to find a better host of it). The puppet in this thing is just unbelieveable. Seriously. And of course, this an excellent song. Interpol has really grown on me.
The Good Life – “Lovers need Lawyers” – Here’s a new one. This is a not a pretty dude that’s singing. It ends a lot better than it starts, with a nice repeated bit. I don’t think I’m going to sit through this again.
Pinback – “AFK” – This one took me a couple of passes before I would sit all the way through it. I haven’t listened to Pinback since their first album and even then it was only for a little while. This song definitely has a solid hook with enough changes in the arrangement to keep me interested. This is one I sit through every time.
The Music – “Breakin’” – A really sharp hook gets busted by the riffs they’re trying to shove in. It’s still damn catchy. This will probably be a big song here in the States this Summer. It’s got a strong “top down on the convertible speeding down the highway” vibe to it.
Tegan and Sara – “Speak Slow” – Too bad Michelle went to bed already, she would be into this one. Their Pat Banatar haircuts are a bit much but the beat is strong and the guitars keep it bouncing right a long. And it’s 1000-times better than that last weird-ass crap they tried to call a video. If they can give me one more good song I might be tempted to buy their album. That would be something.
Death From Above 1979 – “Romantic Rights” – Lite Brite!. It’s like Chromeo, excpet instead of being influenced by Minneapolis-circa 1983 the overriding influence is maybe Slayer? It’s just 2 guys, a bass player and a drummer. There are other sounds, but not from anything that might be described as a musical instrument.
