HEY ALIBI, LET ME SHOUT OUT YOUR NAME

OK, before I get to anything else - wtf is going on with emo bands? I mean, first Panic decided they're the Beatles - I guess they finally got weed delivered in Vegas (which may also explain my boy B. Flow's new turn as Aladdin Sane). But oh how it's spreading! I turned on Fuse in the wee hours last night to see if Matthias was on SURS (yeah, our lil jewmie is all growed up now, hosting on TV box. Leave em alone for five minutes - or in this case, six months - and look what happens). I caught a bit of a Motion City Soundtrack video. Didn't that singer used to have some crazy Sonic the Hedgehog thing going on? He's like, a total fucking hippie now. Either that, or from Silverlake. Maybe he's bummed that Tokio Hotel stole his hair thunder. I dunno. Oh well.

So I've been doing all this chicken-and-egg thinking. Have bands/the scene gotten more boring and thus we've tuned out? Or have we (meaning both my buddies and the bands we know) just gotten older and moved on to other interests like, say, happy hour? I mean, the last time I was in the UK, I met up with Mikey and Jasper from Art Brut for drinks... at 6 pm. We were toast by 10. I got home around 2 am and still slept through my alarm the next day. Two years ago, our nights didn't even BEGIN til 11. And then there was the We Are Scientists gig this past Saturday night. Trader Joes vino served as pre-gig appetizer and what was left of their rider served as mid-gig entree, and by the time they finished playing at midnight, I was teetering on my heels. The plan was to go out in Brooklyn after, but I had to beg my exit. I found Keith and Chris for the requisite goodbyes and Keith looked at me - appalled. "Where are you GOING," he wanted to know. Home, I said. "You know, you used to be my doctor's worst nightmare," he replied, "Now you're - you're - you're Deepak Chopra!"

Yeah. Dunno about that. But I'm certainly not the nightmare I used to be. The thing is, my idle behavior is most likely a product of career change as well as aging (slightly). Now that I'm not a publicist, I no longer have the obligatory band babysitting gigs. I mean, fuck me - in the two years that passed since I stopped blogging I was in total Horrors land, both literally and figuratively. I love those boys to death, but wow, they gave Art Brut a run for their money in terms of night terrors. When you work with British bands - young ones in particular - you often become their first port of call when they hit the States. They have no other friends to start with. And thus it becomes your responsibility to entertain. Don't get me wrong, it rules. It just takes discipline and stamina. And I wonder if I still have it in me. I gotta find some bands that make me WANT to have it (in me).

If history is any indicator though, it'll happen. Sure bands like Vampire Weekend and Chairlift and blah and blah are getting the hype now, but really, no ones gonna care in a year. Just look at Clap Your Hands and ummmmm, whoever else you can't remember. I was watching this documentary the other night on the history of protest songs in popular music, and some guy was attributing the impact of Hendrix and his Woodstock brethren to the fact that in the late 60s, young people - creative ones at that - were frustrated by lack of change. There had been such promise with the inauguration of Kennedy and yet when all was said and done, by '68, shit was pear shaped all over again. So it begs the question - what's gonna happen to us now in the age of Obama? How many years of slow-burning policy before bands start speaking up and making interesting statements again? Let's hope it's not too many.

In the meantime, let's give thanks for established bands who kick butt and reinvent themselves and come up with ways to buck the existing trend of stagnant artistry.

www.idlewildmusic.com

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And since it's a holiday weekend (in the US at least) you'll have the downtime to read Roddy's amazing track-by-track breakdown of their debut LP, Hope is Important, over at DrownedinSound - CHECK IT.

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