dancing on my own by cassandra baim Somebody said you got a new friend/Does she love you better than I can? I invite you to this party, not thinking you’d actually show up. As I stand on the stairs, keeping one eye on the band and the other on the front door, I’m shocked to see you walk in. I find you in the kitchen, and I’ve had too much wine to handle you talking to me about NPR, but I some how keep my cool as we talk about Tiny Desk Concerts and how listening to The xx defined our college experience. I catch myself before I ask you about your new girlfriend. If you don’t talk about her, I can pretend she doesn’t exist. Yeah, I know it’s stupid/I just gotta see it for myself
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Someone in the living room commandeers the iPod. I hear this song reverberating through the house. My heart stops. My best friend slides up to us, and grabs your hand as we scream incoherently about that one episode of Girls; you know the one I’m talking about. I follow you to the dance floor as it becomes profoundly clear that I’m about to lose. Stilettos on broken bottles/I’m spinning around in circles Like any good war general, I know when to retreat. I doubt you notice as I grab a female friend and try to distract myself from what I know will happen right in front of me, and knowing that I’m powerless to stop it. I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her/I’m right over here, why can’t you see me? I’ve already admitted defeat, and I want to leave but I’m trapped by my own masochism. I know this feeling so well, I could teach a class on it. I’m giving it my all, but I’m not the girl you’re taking home I see you lead her upstairs, and I can all but guess what’s about to happen next. I want to follow you up there, I want to scream “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE,” I want to shove her down the stairs and rip out all of her hair but I can’t because you’ve locked the bedroom door and though I’m a sip of Riesling shy of blacking out somehow I know better. Somebody please change the song. I can’t do this anymore. I’m just gonna dance all night/I’m so messed up, I’m so out of line I tell myself it’s not worth ending a friendship over this, but in that moment, the pros outweigh the cons. What she considers drunken romp I see as treachery. And I definitely can’t look you in the eye anymore. I’m already dealing with other daily reminders of how often I lose. When you come back downstairs and walk out the door without a word to anyone, and she corners me commanding that I can’t hate her forever, I know what’s done is done. So I pour myself another glass and hope I don’t cry in the shower tomorrow morning. I keep dancing on my own 3
this issue is brought to you by a giant icicle.
Single of the
Week This week, we’ve had “Go Away” on repeat. The single comes from The Coathangers’ latest fulllength record, Larceny & Old Lace. It’s pretty punk, it’s pretty pretty. Check it out on the band’s bandcamp: http://thecoathangers. bandcamp.com/
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WHAT EVERYBODY REALLY WANTS by quinn donnell
25 years ago, Syracuse University launched its student-run radio station, WERW. Since then, the station has had its ups and downs, but on Thursday, a highlight in WERW’s history took place in the Jabberwocky Café. Celebrating a quarter century of real college radio, The Bird Calls, a solo project created by SU’s own singer-songwriter Sam Sodomsky, opened for folk-pop artist Anna Vogelzang. Joined by friends, WERW veterans, and current DJs, Sam and Anna played an intimate, acoustic show, exemplifying the essence of college radio. A live performance by The Bird Calls is a rare occasion. Sam, himself, confirmed this anomaly by opening his set with the statement, “This is going to be much more exciting for you guys than it is for me.” Although intended as sarcasm, the statement turned out to be completely true. Drawing influence from an eclectic range of musicians, The Bird Calls came as an exciting discovery for fans who hadn’t had the opportunity to experience his music in the past, and a pleasant reminder of his talent to those who were already familiar. In a voice that was both shaky and controlled, reminding the audience of Conor Oberst’s ability to introduce a song with the utmost sincerity, Sam delivered ballads not unlike those written by Bruce Springsteen, ballads sung on top of guitar picking similar to Bob Dylan’s quick, calculated riffs that could convince an unaware listener that two instruments were being played at once. Perhaps the most underappreciated aspect of the set, however, was Sam’s mid-song banter. Between references to Shoshanna and Ray’s relationship on HBO’s Girls, and descriptions of dreams involving deleted Facebooks due to manslaughter, Sam provided the audience with well-delivered comical relief while tuning his guitar. Closing his set with Cyndi Lauper’s “Money Changes Everything,” which Sam convincingly described as his favorite song of all-time, audience members made sure to appreciate what may have been the last chance to see The Bird Calls for quite some time. The entire evening was made possible, however, by Anna Vogelzang’s ability to battle the effects of feeling under the weather and put on a performance reminiscent of Michael Jordan’s outstanding “flu game” during the 1997 NBA Finals. Not only was Anna an absolute trooper, but she also played a set of beautiful, self-described “downers.” Due to misfortunate health conditions, Anna’s decision to stick with the “downers” was influenced by an inability to involve the boot stompin’ characteristics normally associated with her live act. Although many of her songs’ themes touched on personal experiences of past adversity, Anna’s presence lifted the spirits of everyone in attendance. At one point in the set, Anna’s relationship with the crowd became even more personal as she answered a phone call from a friend while on stage. Holding her phone to the mic, the Jabberwocky’s occupants received a few words of wisdom from the invisible speaker. As Anna continued her set, she varied her instrumentation to provide an aspect of uniqueness to each song. After playing the ukulele and the banjo, Anna introduced the audience to her kalimba, a thumb piano similar to the African mbira, which she paired with her original song, “Undertow.” By the end of her set, Anna returned to the uke and won the battle against poor health, providing an evening of great tunes and great times to the people of Syracuse. Anna’s performance, along with Sam’s opening act and the coming together of WERW members both past and present, perfectly represented 25 years of something totally special. WERW’s success is entirely influenced by the passion and the effort put forth by the university’s students, and on Thursday, this was more clear than ever, as a successful night was enjoyed by all, and college radio provided exactly what everybody really wants.
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Tea Time With Tori
& Garrettsucks an interview by miss tori cote
Garrettsucks comes to us from Bloomington, Indiana. Coming out of the punk community in Bloomington, Garrettsucks talks inspiration, DIY scenes, and being honest in music. Tori: Tell us a little about yourself, how did Garretsucks come to be?? How did you start and how did you come up with your name? Garrettsucks: I played my first show in Bloomington after I sent my friend Mitch some pretty bad songs and he asked me to play my first show at his house and then he went on my first tour with me (months later). So, I owe everything to Mitchell Duncan and I should probably sort out what I owe him in royalties??? I was playing with a violinist/friend Kara Dexter for a good while and we tried really hard to come up with a cool band name. GarrettSucks was my blog name and I thought it would be dumb-funny to use it as a band name, but I never came up with anything I liked better. That’s OK though, people make a lot of jokes about it and I think they’re funny. Tori: What are some of your inspirations? Garrettsucks: I’m super inspired by a lot of the really great punks that I know in Bloomington. They’re the reason that I feel like I can tour, put together shows, and play shows. They make me feel so fearless! As far as bands go, Against Me!, Brandi Carlile and Ghost Mice are probably the biggest influences on what I sound like. Maybe? I didn’t list any pop punk though? I donno! I’m probably a dork playing folk-punk music because of Ghost Mice. I’ve been listening to a lot of spoken word for the last few months. Ivan Coyote and Andrea Gibson are huge inspirations to me! But, if we get real about it, my waffle maker and wild sea cows are my biggest inspirations! Tori: It looks like you are very involved in the Bloomington, Indiana scene! Want to tell Tea Time Boys and Girls what it’s like to be involved in a kick ass music community in the Midwest?? (Sorry I read a lot of your tumblr I learned somethings) Garrettsucks: Oh man! I really love this scene. I moved here from Decatur, IN a year and a half ago to be part of this scene because of Plan-It-X and all the great bands who tour through. I try really hard to be involved, but I’m sure I could do more/better! I think just going to shows is one of the most important things anyone can do to be involved in their D.I.Y. scene!
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It makes me feel really good and really happy to be here with these people. Going to shows was hard at first, it’s always hard to make friends in a new place. But after awhile you see the same faces over and over again and you start talking to people. A lot of my friends are smart, encouraging people with good attitudes, so I feel supported in my efforts to be involved. And when I leave town and I tell people I’m a Bloomington punk, they always have nice things to say about bands from Bloomington that they know and that always gets me excited! ALL punk scenes have their issues, but Bloomington is a GREAT place to go to shows, play shows, and go bowling! Tori: What’s your favorite condiment/ do you like condiments/ if you were a condiment what would you be? Garrettsucks: I really like BBQ sauce right now. I wouldn’t be a condiment, I’d be a plate. Like, a nice plate with lots of pretty elegant blue flowers around the edge. Tori: Do you like the Internet? Like seriously, I’ve been talking to a lot of people who are ~so over~ the Internet lately. Do you use it to promote yourself/ reach out to people?? Garrettsucks: I’m pretty into the internet. I tried to pretend I didn’t like Facebook for awhile, but I totally do. I’m really into my blog, for whatever reason. I try to make myself pretty easy to find online, but I don’t actively promote myself like I should. I’m probably way better at promoting my photography than my tunes. But there’s a good chance I’m awful at promoting both. Tori: If I gave you plane ticket and told you that you could go anywhere in the world, what would you pick AND what would you do while you’re there? Garrettsucks: Anywhere? Well, since it would be silly to say someplace in the U.S., Canada or Mexico, I’m gonna go with Ireland. I went there when I was pretty young, and took some really bad pictures, so I’d like to go back and take nice pictures. AND it’s just a boat ride away from the U.K.! Tori: Your songs are super raw and full of a lot of emotion, very cool! Do you write about things that happen to you, thoughts, feelings, made up stories, etc.?? Garrettsucks: Thanks for saying that! I’ve made up a story one time for one song. I’m sure I’ll do that more in the future. Most of the time it’s about specific personal stories, or people I know. I try really hard to be sincere and talk about feelings or thoughts that I might normally be too self-conscious to talk about. But now that I’m reading that last part on paper it sounds like an awful idea! Maybe I should just call my sister about that stuff instead?? Tori: What can we see in Garrettsucks future? Garrettsucks: At the end of April I’m going on a three week tour with one of the best people, Mitch the Champ! I’m pretty excited about that. I’m gonna get some really nice recordings thanks to a friend and between that friend and Mitch and Kara I’m trying to start a full band! Maybe we’ll have a better name!!
Listen to Garrettsucks @ garrettsucks.bandcamp.com! 7
the
coathangers an interview by the miscreant
The Coathangers are a punk band from Atlanta. I saw them at a show this summer when they toured with OFF!, and was totally smitten. Each member plays multiple roles in the band, rotating instruments and vocals for multiple songs. They’re not just a band, they’re a team. They’re equal parts salty and sweet. They exude that raw spirit in their music that resonates so deeply in a miscreant. They’ve been hard at work, playing shows with their most recent full length. The group has been keeping a steady schedule of tours, as they are constantly hitting the road. Next, they are off to Texas and then they are heading to Europe for a tour with Trail of the Dead. Here is an interview with frontwoman Julia Kugel (aka crook kid coathanger). She talks about the band’s beginnings, plans for SXSW, growing as a band, and what the band has coming up in the future. Listen to the Coathangers here: http://thecoathangers.bandcamp.com/ http://thecoathangers.tumblr.com/ 8
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The Miscreant: When did you guys start playing music together? How did you all meet? Julia Kugel: we have been friends for years. a few of us were living together... so we put a drum set in the living room and got practice amps and started playing together after margarita mondays. this was in 2006. we started writing songs and the rest kinda snowballed out of control. and here we are... The Miscreant: You all are started out in Atlanta. How did that shape how your music sounds? Julia: atlanta is kinda a rough town. that’s where our rougher, more aggressive sound came from. but this city has a lot of diverse music scenes, from garage to dance and hip hop, so all of those sounds and attitudes helped shape us. The Miscreant: Do you consider yourself a part of the Atlanta scene? How do you fit in with other bands from the area? Julia: yup, we are part of the scene but it’s ever changing and shifting. bands are constantly forming and breaking up. i dunno how we fit into it, except that we are friends with most of the other bands. The Miscreant: Who would you all say are your personal musical influences? Julia: our musical influences are pretty vast since we all pretty much like completely different styles of music. i will list a few that we can all agree on: Gang of Four, Detroit Cobras, various hardcore bands, CSS and Destiny’s Child . The Miscreant: Do you often find you’re touring 9
to promote songs or writing new songs in order to tour? On that note, any plans to head back to the studio soon? Julia: not really. we love to tour and explore and have adventures. we have done many tours over the past 5 years where we had nothing new to promote except ourselves. it is good to have new material, but that’s where record labels and publicists come in. that’s business. and yes, we have one more 7 inch to record for our Suicide Squeeze split 7” series. The latest one with Nu Sensae (double dots over the u..dunno how to type that ha) comes out next month. Then in the spring after we return from europe will be recording the next full length. big plans! The Miscreant: How do you all collaborate when songwriting? Julia: everything is free-form when it comes to songwriting. we usually all have ideas about where the song should go musically and lyrically. it’s a free for all. we all have to like a song in order to accept it as a coathanger baby The Miscreant: Your third album, Larceny and Old Lace, was released last year, and the songs were quite different in fidelity and song structure than your previous records. What inspired these changes? Julia: we grew up, got better, wanted to play and sound better on recordings. got more confidence as well. it was a tumultuous year, people dying and life changing. we decided to take it a bit more seriously. like everything meant something. The Miscreant: When you’re playing live shows, you like to mix it up and each play different instruments on different songs. Is this something you have been doing since the beginning or did 10
you start experimenting with this technique over time? Julia: we have always done that. it’s part of our writing process really. we each have a different interpretation of what a particular instrumentcan do, like drums for example. it gets boring and stagnant sometimes when you don’t mix shit up a bit. it gives everyone an opportunity to expand and grow and learn, in most cases, to better songwriting. The Miscreant: What do you find is the most cathartic part of performing punk? Julia: releasing energy. being free to scream and thrash about and it being ok. all the sudden, you’re not a crazy emotional woman, you are a performer. ha The Miscreant: SXSW is coming up and I know you’ll have some shows in Texas this week, including GALAX Z FAIR, with a bunch of cool bands. Anyone you’re especially excited to play with? Julia: Audacity, Nu Sesae and Shannon and the Clams. We discover a bunch of new bands every year so i’m sure there will be more to list. all the shows are still kinda getting worked out so to be honest i’m not even quite sure who we will be playing with... The Miscreant: What else is coming up for the Coathangers? Julia: We will be heading to europe with .... Trail of the Dead in April and we are extremely stoked on that. then we record, then probably a summer tour and a fall tour and lots of adventures!
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Thoughts on the 50th Anniversary of Please Please Me by saptarshi lahiri Last week on the Facepage, Graham Coxon’s (of Blur) feed alerted me to a cover he did on a BBC session celebrating the 50th anniversary of the recording of the Beatles’ official debut LP Please Please Me. It was a cover of a song the Beatles themselves covered called “Baby, It’s You” (original by girl group legends the Shirelles). Perhaps it’s redundant to reiterate the Beatles’ storied rise to the top and their relationship to an equally storied and fabled decade whose myths confoundingly and amazingly persist to this day. However, to skip the intro to the bigger than jesus rock group of all time, I would like to focus more on the actual record. Please Please Me is a pretty oddball album. The sessions, legendary and a big part of the Beatles’ creation myth, were a marathon 12 hour stint at the legendary (!) Abbey Road Studios. Hyperbolic Rutles-like adjectives tiresomely belie how unlikely and quirky the success of a motley bunch of songs from a then unknown band from Northern England. Onetime P4k Poptimist columnist Tom Ewing memorably critiqued the discourse around the inevitability of the Beatles success. In his review of the LP, Ewing argues: “It makes their achievements and development feel somehow predestined, an inevitable consequence of their astonishing talent. Of course, this isn’t the case: Every record they made was born out of a new set of challenges and built around tough decisions.” Indeed, the record was a landmark establishing the rockist modality of the “self contained” band doing all the songwriting, singing and performing, which became the de facto and unchallenged way for young rock bands to establish cred and keep it, well, real.
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Yet, telling about the Beatles’ singularity was their choice in covers. Two were by The Shirelles. One by minor girl group called the Cookies. Lenny Welch. The Isley Brothers. From today’s vantage point, the girl group/ motown covers seem very astute and hip (cf. Dum Dum Girls, the Husbands, a plethora of riot femme bands who profess slavish devotion at the foot of the great girl group pantheon of the 60s). But adult-contempo Lenny Welch? Cult balladeer Arthur Alexander? Were the Beatles’ cultist curators of the obscure themselves? A great anonymous Youtube comment that’s a favorite of mine on a clip from Smashing Time (a satire of Swinging London) goes: “The ‘swinging’ sixties seem an odd mish-mash of the modish and the commonplace. Glamorous on the surface; tho’ I suspect just as tedious and competitive as today if one was ‘in it’”. The early sixties were teeming with mundane rock and roll bands on every block not unlike now. An early Warner Bros press release for the Kinks went: “The Kinks became another of those legendary groups, such as The Beatles and The Dave Clark Five”. Which gives one pause about how significant the Beatles’ achievement in the ten intervening years really was that genuinely put them head and shoulders above the competition. A case where overstatement is actually not misplaced. Please Please Me in the light of all that historical guff, is generally overlooked as a record. In a pre-album as art era, it’s undeniably a great set of songs. The quirky covers, and the inchoate originals were perhaps indicative of what was to come, in an era such as the early 1960s before rock-as-phenomenon was codified as pop culture museum piece to be taught in venerable institutions like NYU (cf. Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music). How does the surprisingly not so venerable BBC4 (est. 2004) curate this excellent material? Not very well, I’m afraid. To be fair, covering the history and mythos laden corpus left behind by the Beatles is daunting and every year I’m freshly horrified by who gets a shot at this. It is almost always underwhelming, from the I Am Sam soundtrack to hardcore I-am-the-walruses by bands like Gray Matter. Browsing through the tribute performances on the BBC Channel 4 website, I was struck by the dominance of blue eyed soul performers whom the BBC seems to inordinately valorize. Two were by white soul has beens Mick Withnall (aka Simply Red) who covered “Anna (Go to him),” and Joss Stone who covered the already syrupy “A Taste of Honey,” while 80s soul-pap never was from Squeeze, Paul Carrack covered Misery. Indie folk chanteuse Gabrielle Aplin contributed a wispy version of the originally raucous There’s A Place. In a boringly meta move, the writer of Baby It’s You Burt Bacharach was roped in to cover it. Britpop zeroes Stereophonics who never made it Stateside insipidly covered the iconic yet somewhat subpar “I Saw Her Standing There.” Some other Squeeze (why BBC?!) fellas did the title track, quite forgettably. As for the good ones, Blur guitarist Graham Coxon did an endearingly shaky Shirelles on “Baby, It’s You,” but I’m a fan. His tastes generally fall on the Amerindie spectrum of things, so perhaps the girl group fetishization is in keeping with this. A combination of the skiffle Merseybeats and Beatles contemporaries-turned-tribute group Fourmost and oldies favorite Dominoes did an excellent run through another Shirelles, channeling the callow Ringo Starr singing a weirdly postfeminist genderfuck Boys unawares. Lightning Seeds founder Ian Broudie did a pretentious woah-less “Do You Want to Know a Secret,” but successfully brought his postpunk chops to the table in doing so. Finally, Beverley Knight turned in the only honest to goodness bravura performance of the session, paying apt tribute to Lennon’s raw single vocal take on “Twist and Shout.” Where charlatans of every stripe in a post American Idol era unwisely and foolishly invoke Aretha, Knight showed ersatz Aretha aspirants like Joss Stone what it takes to actually do it, and not just because she’s black. BBC, try harder next year with the 50 year anniversary of It’s A Hard Day’s Night. A Cass Elliott maybe hard to get a hold of, but surely Rufus Wainwright isn’t too busy?
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I Wish I Was A Saber Toothed Tiger by caitlin lytle
This Valentines Day I got a Valentine from The Vanderbuilts— okay well not actually, I wish, but I did get an email free download of their latest track “I Wish I Was a Saber Toothed Tiger.” The song is the first single off of their upcoming album What We Forgot, which is due out March 1st and is their sophomore LP. While often I wish I were a giraffe or dog and not a saber toothed tiger, I just have yet to find any complaints about the new single and the classic indie rock outfit the band continues to fit. The video for the new single is four minutes stop and go Claymation art that follows the journey as the tiger never fully becomes the saber toothed tiger—complete with props from the band’s own private taxidermy collection. The album’s title, What We Forgot, is an appropriate title to kick off spring as most of us lost our energy and passion over the dreariness of the Syracuse winter and need a reminder of that vibrancy. The group claims to have drawn inspiration from Werner Herzog’s 2012 film Cave of Forgotten Dreams, and with this new music, they channel ancient sounds, images, and themes, and this single never strays far from those ideas of what is to come. The Vanderbuilts are unlike other Syracuse-based groups, a music quintet based off of friendship, with a music taste that grows around those interpersonal relationships that come through in their sound and give it such comforting appeal. At the end of the day the Vanderbuilts know the only thing that matters is that you got your music and your friends, and that becoming that saber toothed tiger would just be an added bonus. For a limited time download their single “I Wish I Was a Saber Toothed Tiger” for free on their website: thevanderbuilts.com.
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AN EyE FOR AN ICON by miss julie kosin
This playlist was originally supposed to consist of fashion-related songs I listen to whilst attiring myself for the day, but as of late that’s been the entire Stars discography on shuffle which, while wonderful, is a bit boring for a playlis. So, instead, I present you with a collection of music that reminds me of the people I’d like to be (or at least dress like). “Tiny Dancer,” Elton John When I listen to this, I close my eyes and sing as loud as possible, imagining I’m on the Stillwater tour bus in Almost Famous. Okay, I also put on a fur coat and pretend I’m Penny Lane. “These Days,” Nico Again, the fur coat and singing at the top of my lungs, but now I’m Margot Tenenbaum. “Mrs. Robinson,” Simon & Garfunkel Yet another fur coat (leopard, if we’re getting specific), this time paired with a lacy black bra. Enough said. “Love is Blindness,” Jack White Jack White is a pretty worthy icon on his own—it takes dedication to dress in nothing but red, black and white for 10+ years—but this tune, recently featured in the trailer for Baz Lurhman’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby, makes me want to cut off all my hair and wear fringe forever. “Bad Romance,” Lady Gaga I can hear you cringing at this choice, but calm your tits and watch the music video. The Alexander McQueen armadillo shoes? Dead. “Drumming Song,” Florence + the Machine If I could raid anyone’s closet, it would be Florence Welch’s. Bitch is flawless, especially in the video for this song. I wish I could pull off a black bejeweled leather body suit with sheer batwing sleeves, but I guess dying my hair flaming red will have to suffice for now. “I Want to Break Free,” Queen I like to pretend that I’m Freddie Mercury incarnated, but since I can’t carry a tune to save my life, I’ll just attire myself in sequin jumpsuits and sing (scream) “Bohemian Rhapsody” from the privacy of my own home. Or, in the case of the video for “I Want to Break Free,” in pink lipstick and a leather miniskirt. “Immigrant Song,” Karen O, Trent Reznor, Atticus Ross I realize that it’s blasphemy to say that any Led Zepplin cover is better than the original, but I need to recognize this version, recorded for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Lisbeth Salander is greatest anti-fashion icon in existence, and the amount of leather in my closet tripled after I viewed this film. Also, Rooney Mara deserved the Oscar. “Happy Alone,” Kings of Leon Before they got fat, had kids, and made Come Around Sundown (shudder), the members of Kings of Leon rocked skinny jeans and cowboy boots and somehow managed to look good while doing so. Obviously, after I saw them on the cover of Rolling Stone wearing these items, I had to purchase a pair of each for myself. I didn’t look nearly as good though.
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the Honor roll
The Top 5 Fall Out Boy Songs by matt boswell
Whether or not you are excited, apathetic, or disgusted, Fall Out Boy is reuniting. Personally, this band has been extremely important for me, as it was one of the bands I really started to go out of my way to “get into” back in 2002/2003 as opposed to just listening to what my parents did. For those of you who never really gave Fall Out Boy a chance, or if you’re just trying to get all kinds of junior high nostalgic, here are five of my favorite Fall Out Boy songs. 16
1. “Honorable Mention” off of Fall Out Boy’s Evening With Your Girlfriend This is not only my favorite Fall Out Boy song, but also the first track on the first album. Everything in this song is so shitty and so unpolished, but that might be what I like about it. Maybe it’s just my love for movies that I can relate with the end of the chorus where vocalist Patrick Stump just states “I can be your John Cusack.” Regardless, this is that cut for me. 2. “My Heart Is The Worst Kind of Weapon” off of My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue When it comes to this b-side album, it’s incredibly hit or miss. Most of the tracks are acoustic and either sound incredibly bland and mediocre, forced, or just perfect. This track is definitely the latter, as it captures all the teen angst that I had dripping from every acne ridden pore on my body. Just ignore the Joy Division cover on this album, that’d be in everyone’s best interest. 3. “Chicago Is So Two Years Ago” off of Take This To Your Grave I grew up in Illinois before moving to St. Louis. I was born in Chicago. To this day I will claim and defend the fact that Illinois has consistently put out the best music over the past 25 years. Just hearing a then no-name band from Chicago sing about Chicago was so cool to me when I was 12 years old. Not to mention the interlude in this song made me start playing bass guitar. 4. “Nobody Puts Baby In The Corner” off of From Under The Cork Tree From this album, most all the attention goes to “Dance, Dance” and “Sugar We’re Going Down”. However, “Baby” is far and away the best song on this album. Stump’s vocals really begin to show off the soul influence that he now loves to show off, and this is the best track to sing loudly with all your friends while driving around in a car. And how about that bridge, “So wear me like a locket around your throat // I’ll weigh you down // I’ll watch you choke // You look so good in blue.” There it is. 5. “What A Catch, Donnie” off of Folie a Deux This album was the last before the hiatus, and it’s the furthest from their original sound. Many people cast off this album and never really gave it a chance. However, me being the kid who was as just into pop music as punk rock or hardcore, I was still very much interested in it. This track instantly caught my attention as it was a piano-driven ballad that really showed off Stump’s vocal ability unlike anything they’ve done in the past. It’s a really, really soulful and cool song that not a lot of bands nowadays are attempting. Additionally, the ending of this song was incredibly emotional for me, as vocalists from a handful of different bands begin singing different parts of different Fall Out Boy songs in the background throughout the last minute and a half or so. It’s so cool still to listen to. Dang. I love Fall Out Boy. Whatever.
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MEET Wild Adriatic by ben houck
Wild Adriatic again rocked the Bayou in Albany into a crowded dancing frenzy. While this is to be expected, the four sharp dressed rockers had a lot more to say on their homecoming from a fall tour down the east coast. They debuted new songs, added noticeable polish on last years EP and brought a sense of attitude that comes with the seasoning of the road. Their soulful rock sound on stage continues to draw from classics like James Brown and Zeppelin and added modern influences from Vintage Trouble and Jack White. Vocalist and guitar player Travis Gray’s voice is more effortlessly soulful than ever. Shane Gilman brought new flawlessly tight rock soul guitar licks. Rich Derbyshire’s massive smiling, bass playing afro and Mateo Vosganian’s powerful drum thumping beard had noticeably improved the groovy backbone of the band. Each song Wild Adriatic plays revolved around an infectious riff. They add to it, cut from it and polish it until it is truly found on stage as a pristine rock tune. “Wild Adriatic is not a throwback band.” Drummer Mateo Vosganian explained after the show.”We take our vintage influences and make them work for us with a more updated take on pop hooks. We constantly discuss and listen to our own sound. This work is consistently evolving and refining our sound.” Blasting into 2013, The four sharp dressed rockers plan on recording and releasing a live show as well as writing new music to prepare for an album to be laid down next winter. Embracing industry trends, they will be recording themselves in a self built studio. In the meantime, they will be playing over 100 shows in 2013 that includes some festivals and traveling south by south west. “We gained a lot of connections on tour and certainly grew as a band and as people. There was definitely a lesson learned from an incident with a ton of fireworks, a paper mâché pig, and not nearly enough buckets of water.” W.A. was joined on stage in Albany by long time friends, Mirk, and new friends from Philly, Cheers Elephant. Mirk’s soulful new single “My City” struck a tone for the night and paid tribute to the Albany scene. This sentiment was reinforced during the literally show stopping encore of “With a Little Help From My Friends” where all the musicians of the night packed the stage in chorus. After the show Mateo concluded, “We love Upstate New York. We’re so grateful for the continued support. We’re proud to call Albany home. As far as the rest of the world, World we see you. We’ll make sure you see us soon.”
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on music and men by katie young
I react to music the way that others may react to any other sensory stimuli- sure, there are a few smells or sights that bring forth memories, and sometimes a certain touch will pull me backwards in time. But nothing compares to the way a song completely triggers me. And as a woman who has been “boy crazy” from preschool forward, you can only imagine how songs have been applied and attached to every kind of boy, dude, guy and man I’ve fallen for (and usually recovered from.) These vignettes are my sometimes (ok, most times) teary-eyed, visceral and sincere attempts to translate those truly heart wrenching/doofus grin inducing moments into words. I can’t say why I am this way- be it an already emotional mind, or too many viewings of Almost Famous, but I am who I am, and here they are: my most current thoughts On Music and Men.
PART 4 OF 4 “These guys went to Kent State,” I murmured after minutes of no conversation, Devo playing through the speakers, my feet on the dashboard and my eyes fixed on the New York skyline. You were driving me home as you’d done plenty of times before, but probably wouldn’t again. We had started the way back to my tiny corner of Brooklyn/Queens listening to The Avett Brothers. “Well this isn’t the best choice,” you joked, trying weakly to break the tension while I wiped away stray tears. But I had to laugh- you had been good at making me do so, at least in the beginning. It felt so strange, the two of us, half-smiling, softly singing along to “Whip It” and drumming on our knees when only a short time ago you were pulling on your clothes and shuffling around the room, while I laid silently, nearly naked in your bed. It had been that kind of quiet between us before, on our third date- the one when you made me dinner. It was, again, music that broke it. You foolishly gave me control of choosing a record, so I crouched in front of your collection, trying to make the perfect decision. For a few excruciating minutes the only noise came from your knife hitting the cutting board, water reaching a boil or the occasional throat clearing cough. During the relatively short course of our courtship I tried convincing myself that these silences were ones that indicated a level of comfort. Words didn’t need to be forced and we simply enjoyed being around one another. Though it’s barely been months since we took steps back to become mere acquaintances, I can already see that we were just too different in a few important ways. I picked the Magnetic Fields “69 Love Songs” that summer afternoon, and when I turned the player on and placed the needle down, we discovered the record was warped. It was hot in your apartment, and you were flustered from cooking and I assume, having me around. “Just pick something else,” you said, turning your back to me and wiping your brow. “I can’t deal with that right now.” Though it’s maybe melodramatic to say, that was the attitude we both took as our relationship became more strained. We were out of synch and knew, but refused to discuss it. I wanted it to work so badly and constantly looked for ways we were connected, especially through music. “Ok, favorite Bruce Springsteen song, GO,” I demanded over Gchat. We disagreed, so I tried again. “Ugh, you’re the worst...ok, favorite Cars song, GO.” Again, different, and you chided me for thinking so. All summer we cruised along, you enduring what I’m sure you perceived to be my irritating naivety, and I accepting your rough teasing that eventually wore me down. Now it’s almost winter, and I listen to certain songs, hoping they’ll somehow cause the universe to bring us back together. I’ll slip a Prince song on a playlist and smile to myself, remembering the night Sober You put “Purple Rain” in your room for Drunk Us to discover upon returning home. I even seek out Ted Leo on my old iPod, and can almost feel your hand in my back pocket, pulling me close even though it was a million degrees as we stood at South Street Seaport, craining our necks to catch the aging rocker in action. It’s not likely, I know, but maybe one rainy night I’ll find myself in your passenger seat again, this time Devo filling a more comfortable silence.
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Valentine’s Day: From the Eyes of a Perennial Wallflower by wes wren
“Will you be my, Valentine? If I’m a world away?” That was my Valentine’s day. Listening to early 2000’s Emo, and wondering why the hell I felt so lonely, on a fairly average Thursday afternoon? Then I just succumbed to the sad idea that I actually liked the idea of Valentine’s Day, and I was feeling so cliché and sad because I was alone. Without diving into any personal anecdote that doesn’t help move this story along, I decided that I had to do something about this feeling. Listening to Something to Write Home About for the millionth time wasn’t going to help me get over my loneliness, and neither was thinking about any longing or heartbreak. So what did I do? I thought about Phil Spector. Forgiving the fairly recent prison conviction for murder and his history of doing insane things to his lovers and recording artists, Phil Spector could write and produce some of the most beautiful pop songs. Such hits like “Be My Baby” or “Baby, I love you” by the Ronettes, or “Stumble and Fall” by Darlene Love, have cemented Spector in the continuum of Pop Music for eternity. Now how does my fascination of a crazed writer and music producer help my Valentine’s day mood? Well, I just listened to the beauty and the sadness in these silly love songs from an era passed. The innocence lifted me from the pitfalls of this commercial holiday, and made me laugh at loneliness. If I can do the unthinkable, and actually have a REAL Valentine next year to celebrate such a sad day, I’ll make sure to tuck in a mix of these Spector hits. And if any of you miscreants out there want to act like its 1966, and you’re trying to swoon that girl (or boy) that you’ve been eying, you might pass along this playlist to them. It’s a lot more fun than sitting around and listening to Emo and dreaming about a girl. 1. “Then He Kissed Me” the Crystals 2. “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” the Righteous Brothers 3. “He’s a Rebel” the Crystals 4. “(The Best Part of) Breakin’ Up,” the Ronettes 5. “Baby, I Love You” the Ronettes 6. “So Young” Veronica 7. “Hold Me Tight” The Treasures 8. “Stumble and Fall” Darlene Love 9. “Woman in Love” The Ronettes 10. “Be My Baby” The Ronettes
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9 DAYS 8 SHOWS
Garrettsucks tours with Mitch the Champ http://mitchthechamp.bandcamp.com http://garrettsucks.bandcamp.com http://www.l-garrett.com/ photos by l. garrett 23
WANT MORE MISCREANT? Dear Miscreants, Hope this issue finds all of you well! It’s been a wild ride here in Syracuse these past few weeks. There have been quite a few shows -- we just celebrated the WERW’s 25th birthday this week with The Bird Calls and Anna Vogelzang. It was quite the treat! Not to mention all the neat stuff happening around town, in Ithaca, at Bard, and down in Purchase. I’ve been all over the place, and got to see some really awesome bands and meet some great folks. No doubt the coming months hold more of the same. I’d like to thank all of the wonderful writers who contributed to this issue! With every familiar face, comes a new one -- so excited to be introduced to the new contributors. Please keep writing! We’re always on the look out for submissions. Also, a special thanks to The Coathangers for being a part of this issue. It’s an honor to have such kick ass women on the cover of this zine. I’m so excited to catch them in Austin during SXSW. And speaking of SXSW, be sure to update the Miscreant on shows and such that those of you going down will be at. A very special PORTALS event will be happening that I hope to see you all at; stay tuned for details. I’ll also be kicking it at the Fader Fort quite a bit. I’m all up for whatever though! Can’t wait to see you guys down there! Now, it’s time to start on issue 36! Submissions are due on March 5. Send in your top five bands from The OC soundtrack, your work out playlists, your critical analysis of Mariah Carey’s love of Christmas, anything to do with music. Email your work or any questions you might have to themiscreant@miscreantrecords.com. Look to miscreantrecords.com and the Miscreant Facebook for more info on the music you read about here and more! All my love, The Miscreant