This Is Your Song For....June 15, 2013: Empires Ending (B Sides) by Koko And The Sweetmeats

I...I got nuttin'....literally.

This week, kinda dreamy garage pop from Seattle...if you can call it garage.

I don’t have a lot on Koko And The Sweetmeats--I got Sacrifice, the album this cut is from off of their Bandcamp page, where it was offered for a brief time for free, and is now available for a dollar--and it seems like these guys like to experiment. Sacrifice is composed of six songs that are interpreted twice, an A side and a B side version.  This is obviously the B side version.

They’re a four piece (although most of the publicity photos only feature two members, and the most I’ve ever seen in any photo is three), and they have enough of a following in their hometown to be named ‘Best Garage Band of 2011‘ by Seattle Weekly.

It’s odd to me that this band is considered ‘garage.’  When I think of a garage band, I think of something much punkier than this.  Koko and The Sweetmeats seem to owe a bit more to the layered sounds of 4 A.D and the head-down-low esthetic of Lo-Fi than the DIY anarchy of garage rock judging from this song.  They seem positively laid back, with a slight blown-speaker fuzz giving the guitars a decay that adds some body to the melody itself.

To be honest, there’s not a lot I can find in listening to this that I can take away from it, or that I can remark upon...sometimes, unfortunately, that happens with a random exercise like this.  It’s decent music, and the price can’t be beat. I know I have some readers from the Seattle area; maybe you guys can write in and tell me more about them in the comments space?

Apparently, Koko And The Sweetmeats announced an ‘indefinite hiatus’ earlier this year.

Here's a live performance by the band.  It was the only Youtube-y video I could find.

This Is Your Song For...February 24th, 2013: Olivia by The Mainliners

They're looking Mick Jagger, but feeling Ray Davies...

This week...Swedish Garage Pop!

Yes, there is Garage Pop, and it is in Stockholm, Sweden.  The Mainliners wear their influences on their sleeves--there's some MC5 in here, some Kinks, some Rolling Stones--and it's not hard to envision them side by side with fellow countrymen The Hives as a double bill.  Of course, The Hives, as fun as they are, never had amazingly sweet piano breaks in their songs like this one had, nor did they layer in what seems to be a radio call in their song like they did with this one.

But here's the thing about this song, from their 2007 self-titled album...even though the garage rock sensibilities are very evident, they can't help but be popsters.  Even with the Mick Jaggerism that lead singer Robert Billing forces onto this song about love-through-hardship, even with the hardcore guitar riffs and the martial drum beat, The Mainliners can't help but generate a decidedly melodic piece of rock that, quite frankly, would not seem out of place in an arena rock band's set--and that's not meant as a slam in any way.  And they do it without losing the energy that makes The Hives so much fun; it's just that the energy becomes transformed, being just as propulsive but more nuanced.  The Mainliners' music is just as fun, but more contemplative and majestic.

I have to assume that The Mainliners have broken up, as their last album was in 2009.  If that's not the case, I hope someone corrects me, because I want to hear more.

Here's the song....

30 Songs, 30 Days (2010 Edition), Day Nineteen: Change by Young Veins

And up today...the Echo Park, California garage rock throwback The Young Veins, a band that features two former members of Panic! At The Disco and sound nothing like that band.

Now don't get me wrong--I rather liked Panic! At The Disco's rather dramatic emo-core pretentions, which had strange resonances with previous 30S30Ds subject Harvey Danger. But this newer band...I might actually like them better. For one thing, the vocalist has a better tone--poppier, nowhere near as dramatic and over the top as P!@TD. The song itself does seem to mine the same territory conceptually, as it's a portrait of the singer's romantic feelings--or is it just attraction--to a woman who used to trade on her looks and now has become a tragic figure, begging for change outside the grocery store. And the singer is regretful about how the relationship has shaken out...but in what way is left ambivalent.

More importantly, Young Veins have managed to capture that garage feel while also feeling modern. This band does not come off as play-acting like Panic! always did...they seem genuine in their recreation of that esthetic, and equally genuine in their desire to bring garage rock sound into the modern era. I look forward to seeing what else they might have up their sleeve.

Here is the video for the song which, not surprisingly, continues to carry on their desire to recreate the feel of a certain genre while also bringing it forward into the 00's....

　

30 Songs, 30 Days, Day Seventeen (2010 Edition): Well All Right! by The Hives

It's rather amusing that, not long after I discussed Joe Jackson, who frequently skipped across genres to amuse himself, I end up with this example of the Garage Revival of the early 00's...

And of the Garage Revival bands, I rather like these guys best of all because they don't seem to have the winking irony of some of their contemporaries like Franz Ferdinand. This is from The Black and White Album, their most recent album, and I rather like it because--well, it sounds more than a little bit like some long lost descendant of the kind of old school jive and blues Jackson was essaying for his album Jumping Jive (discussed briefly in this entry for this year's cycle. The drum line, the call-and-response chorus, even the momentary time change all seem to be designed to get you and your gal up and jitterbugging. And when Howlin' Pelle Almqvist....well, howls at roughly the two minute mark, it's just a great moment. This is the kind of song that, with some regression, could have been blared out on the dancefloor during the Roaring Twenties, which might be another reason I like it so much. All of their work is like this--thoroughly unpretentious and not trying to assure us it's all a big put-on.

Okay, so lyrically we're not talking much--it's at its most basic a celebration of the loser, of endeavoring to accept all the setbacks life throws at you with some semblance of cool. And thanks to the energy throughout (except for that minute-forty-five time change that ends in that two-minute mark howl I was talking about) and it's adherence to the three minute rule, it acts as an antidote to all the emo-sad-puppy stuff that clogs the airwaves. We're all losers in some way, Pelle assures us...so let's dance!

No video...but here's the track itself for you to enjoy...and enjoy you will.