end every day/ that’s a shitty way to smoke it.
Sorry it’s been a month!/Sorry, it’s been a month!
One of the things I love about X is the feeling that everything will not be OK that you get from their songs. There’s a tension, not just in the push and pull of John Doe and Exene Cervenka’s vocals, but in the way melodies never stay happy for long in X songs. There’s a dire wind that elevates the band’s songs, and that makes them more compelling and latent than the breakneck tempos, shouted choruses and slammed out drum parts would suggest.
The other day I was listening to the wonderful new Wye Oak EP, My Neighbor/My Creator, and once it’s all-too-brief- tracklisting had finished, I put on X. They’re close by on my Ipod, and the EP had gotten me revved up. Weirdly and unexpectedly enough, Wye Oak get at that same feeling X does. It’s in the bassline of “My Neighbor,” the way that same note just comes back again and again, and bores in next to the guitar. It does the same thing that John and Exene’s voices do. Both bands rub your nose in their dismay, and won’t let you just observe it, either. Both bands are composed of married couples [edit: i don’t know where i got that from. wye oak are, like, 25. not married] – maybe there’s something there.
“Motel Room in My Bed” is from the X album Under The Big Black Sun.
“My Neighbor” is from the Wye Oak EP My Neighbor/My Creator.
And, sorry, Mr. Snaith, on days as blue and blustery as these are in Brooklyn, I can’t bring myself to download your new album Swim, when you’ve already made such a surging, this-weather-ready album and released it 7 or so years back, and called it “Up in Flames.” These are for waterfalls, power-sanders, glass blowers, barefoot marathon runners.
“I’ve Lived On a Dirt Road All My Life” and “Bijoux” are from Caribou’s album Up in Flames.
and, one more, for Lindsay. You, too.
“Joi” is from Kaki King’s album Everybody Loves You.
Songs Save Lives 