MAME May 2019 Playlist/Rabbit Hole: Willie J. Healey Reading The Symposium on Whyte Horses (Plus the Whole Damn Month)

Just picture her reading The Symposium.

Nearly caught up (and with nearly half of 2019 gone), but I’ve cut some weight, feel like I’ve found a plausible rhythm, etc. While this post will make the requisite sacrifices to get the schedule back in time – the entries will be shorter* (see all the way below) - it will have all the components of what I intend as The New Model for this site.

Because this post goes up as a companion piece to the final May 2019 MAME Playlist, it will only speak to a handful of the bands/artists on that playlist (eh, call it a couple handfuls, plus a couple fingers; just 13 songs of the 50 total). The rest came from three playlists posted earlier in the month of May. For the record, I delete playlists as I go (I hate clutter), but each of those three posts linked to every song that appeared on those playlists plus…oh, about 20 more each. And here are links to those posts, and the bands/artists I featured on each of them:

May 2019, Week 1 Playlist: Daisy the Great, Open Mike Eagle, and Rayland Baxter

May 2019, Week 2 Playlist: Doris Troy, Harlem, Pan Amsterdam, The Fratellis

May 2019, Week 3 Playlist: Har Mar Superstar, Hinds, and Music Band

Here, the word “featured” means I included short histories and some anecdotes about each of those bands – all of whom I believe are worth the time. While I have dreams of gussying up this site – updating the bio, making it easier to duck into the archives, maybe even embedding these weekly playlists into the sidebar – I plan on getting to those when the domestic soccer league goes quiet for a few weeks. Wish me luck…

The rest of this post will follow the same format as the earlier ones: I feature three bands down below – The Symposium, Willie J. Healey, and Whyte Horses – and will link to any other song that’s on this playlist that isn’t linked to in the earlier weekly posts. Yes, I need to stop explaining everything at length – maybe next month!(?) – but let’s meet this week’s featured artists. Oh, just to note it, all these artists (and 27 others) lingered on a 2016 playlist until I deleted it last week. Basically, I was somewhat familiar with all three, but, because I liked them as much as I do, I made an excuse to go back to them.

The Symposium, Strokes, Loops ‘n’ Beats

The Symposium grew up in the Chicago, IL music scene first in a neighborhood called Elmhurst, then later at DePaul University. Two members – Charlie Gammill (guitar/vocals) and Sam Clancy (guitar) – knew each other (and experimented with pyrotechnics) since elementary school, the other guy – Benny Goetz (bass) is a cousin – and those three drafted Jamie Seiwert (drums) after playing some shows at the DIY venue he runs (La Cubierta, if you’re ever in Chicago).

Between the name they chose (again, think about googling your band’s name before adopting one) and a fairly short resume, it is hard to find many reviews of or interviews with The Symposium, written or video. All the information in the paragraph above came from a 2016 article in the student newspaper for DePaul University, The DePaulia, when Goetz was on the cusp of graduation and/or availability for touring. While I can’t say how much of that they’ve done, I did find evidence that they do still tour, as of 2019. And I did find clips of them playing – both with Audiotree, same session – and…I think Gammill’s having trouble finding how loud he should sing on “Tony Stark.” That’s a great tune, by the way – and, incidentally, my introduction/gateway drug to the band – and he sounds better on “Red River.”

As for what they sound like, both of those songs give an accurate taste for most of The Symposium’s modest catalog (more, please); it’s just two albums so far, 2014’s Drugs and an eponymous album in 2017. It takes listening to Drugs to get why it’s noteworthy that “Tony Stark” and “Red River” sound so similar: the band took inspiration from The Strokes in its earliest days – which you’ll hear on “Poison,” “Exploda,” and there’s no way in hell you’ll miss it on “Cowboy.” (Their opinion has since…lowered: “Their music sucks now, in my opinion, compared to the first two albums.” And, before I forget, I did like "Billy Shakes" enough to put it on the playlist). They cited more recent influences back in 2016 and, if you know the artists, it’s an eye-catching list: “…Local H and Nirvana as well as artists whose music hasn’t faltered throughout their career like Ty Segall, Diane Coffee and Mac DeMarco.”

Overall, it’s a mellow stuff, the edges significantly sanded down for easier listening – the odd extremes include the bass/treble combo on “Creeper” and the (delightfully scuzzed-up) guitar riff on a long-time favorite, “ACL” As much as I struggled to find anything on these guys, I did find a review of The Symposium and, not to crap on anyone else’s work, nothing on this album “erupts.” It’s definitely alt-rock, and a fairly unique spin on it, but if it crosses over in any direction, it’s toward easy listening. This is very much “pleasant sounds” material.

The one thing that makes it unique – especially the 2017 album – is the way it plays and repeats musical motifs. The basic melody/rhythm components (even the lyrics) go back to “Tony Stark,” but that motif comes in and out of The Symposium, and I think to wonderful effect. That’s what inspired the “Loops ‘n’ Beats” part of the sub-title. It’s fun to hear someone do something that deliberate and every-so-slightly left-field. That’s enough to make me hope they do more work.

Willie J. Healey, A Lad Doing Good

“I grew up at the end of a runway in Oxfordshire, I’m based in Oxford, and I would describe my sound as, salty bedroom sauce.”

The single, “Pipedreams,” from Willie J. Healey’s 2017 release, People and Their Dogs, somehow made my…2016 playlist, and I think the rest of whatever innocence I had surrounding Spotify just fell away with that realization (turns out the algorithm is a subtle blend of your tastes, eye of newt, the blood of a virgin, and (related?) naked promotion). It possesses an out-of-nowhere sound that I often have to dig to find; it’s a clever video too – especially for a guy who says he doesn’t put much thought into his videos. (Both that detail and the quote above come from this Phaser interview.)

Healey had major label support for People and Their Dogs, but he’d worked with a subsidiary (per comments to Clash) to put out one EP (Hey Big Moon), and a pair of…semi-EPs (Saturday Night Feeling and Malibu HD). I bring up those earlier albums to introduce Healey’s latest work, 666Kill, and entirely because the latter sounds more like the former than the comparatively lively People and Their Dogs. (To take advantage of an opening, this is a fantastic goddamn sentence, from an NME article: “At his leisure, writing his 2017 debut album while gazing out of his window, Willie J Healey watched dog-walkers playing with their pets on the fields outside and named the record ‘People And Their Dogs’ in honour of the gentle bond between man and dumbass twig chaser.”) I’d call songs like “Hey Big Moon,” “Best Friend’s Sister” (both on Hey Big Moon) and “Saturday Night Feeling”) the start of the through-line to 666Kill. If you start there, and like the sound of those, you’ll probably like Healey’s latest at least musically.

The distance gets bigger once you move to themes. As announced by the title – and as undermined by pun-tastic titles like, “Consistent Missouri” and “Learn Toulouse" – 666Kill is darker on that level. Healey took a very specific course in creating the EP, and in a week’s time: “that was my concept really, to commit to ideas without overthinking them.” As it turns out, his first ideas involve visits from the Grim Reaper and Satan. I picked up on the ominous/twisted sensibility in fairly short order, but, when I read one specific comment from Healey, it resonated:

“I’ve been playing with that kind of contrast between the song at first glance and then the song when you really listen to it with this upcoming EP.”

Healey teased a new album in one or more of the interviews linked to above, but my main question is which way he goes musically on it. To make up a word, he “louded-up” nicely on People and Their Dogs, with tracks like “A Lazy Shade of Pink,” the title track, and a souped-up iteration of “Greys” (I put the original from Malibu HD on the playlist, but I can't find the damn thing). Healey has a flexible enough ear that he can nail a languid saxophone overlay on “Guitar Music” (a trick he pulled off easy with the sultry overlay on “Somewhere in Between”), but he has just as deft a sense of where to go in up-tempo numbers, and I just like those better, dammit. And that’s why I’m a little concerned (but not really) to hear him talk about collaborating with Sam Evian. I mean, God knows they’d nail it…but would I like it? I have needs, etc.

Whyte Horses, Taking Matters Into Their Own Hands (Dammit)

To lay all my cards on the table, I fell head over heels for this band about one minute into St. Barts Choir’s interpretation of “Elusive Mr Jimmy” (here’s the original). Reducing a pop song that far down to basics really shows its bones. Something I found in a 2018 article in The Guardian gets to its deeper essence: “Whyte Horses rerecorded their 2016 debut album, Pop or Not, with St Bart’s Children’s Choir, who reappear here to emphasise the naif innocence at the heart of Elusive Mr Jimmy.” Oh, and that fucker is deadly catchy. But this is the perfect description of the album it comes off of, Pop or Not:

“Pop or Not is a concept record in the sense that there’s a loose story running through it. Sonically I wanted to make a record that would be everything to me, perfect pop songs, instrumental passages, a kind of fantasy soundtrack to the uncertain time we’re in now. It had to take the listener into a place I’d like to spend 47 minutes of my time.”

Given the evocative song titles – “Elusive Mr Jimmy,” obviously, but also “Peach Tree Street,” “When I Was a Scout,” “She Owns the World” (went St. Barts again) and “The Snowfalls” – the “loose story” always felt present. That last sentence, however, gets to something significant about Dom Thomas, the mastermind behind Whyte Horses. In a 2016 audio interview with Brighton’s Finest (with under 50 listens; do your part!), Thomas notes what inspired him to start Whyte Horses and what keeps him going – most of it had to do with him not hearing the kind of music he wanted to, and taking active steps to change that - and he expands on that quite a bit in…an undated interview with The Malestrom (source for the quote above as well), and the it all ends fairly well for him: “Whyte Horses are my favorite band.” (And, just to note it, reading Thomas’ commentary feels like hearing my id whisper to me, e.g., “I think being a good musician is alright, being a great musician is probably a curse, especially when you get into playing fast or super technical.”)

The final thing to cover: what do Whyte Horses sound like? First, that changed a bit between Pop or Not and 2018’s Empty Words. Nothing on the latter really hit for me until “Best of It,” which, for the record, hits all of it. “Counting Down the Years” sounds reasonably representative of Empty Words until it reaches that point and, even if you like the sound, it’s too much of similar sounds – one bright melody after another, most based in guitars with bells as accents - and that’s what makes the way they mute the melodies on “Fake Protest Song” or how something simple as a violin part makes “Nightmares Aren’t Real” refreshing. (As an experiment, listen to “Counting Down the Years,” then “Fake Protest Song,” then “Empty Words”; if I’m wrong, tell me.)

If that doesn’t work for you, that article in The Guardian did a fairly good job of naming genre influences: “Thomas is creator and curator of Whyte Horses, a shifting musical collective who dream up exquisitely calibrated indie-psych, cosmic folk and, primarily, airy 60s French-style pop.” Something else to draw out is the layering: going back to that Brighton’s Finest interview, Whyte Horses gets enough layering into its music that it takes three vocalists and three guitarists, plus the rest of what it takes to make pop rock (I’ve read as low as 11, and as high as 15 members), to pull off their live shows. No matter how they do it, Thomas et. al. write and perform some damned fine throw-back psychedelia.

Well, all right, I do believe that’s everything (and then some) on this week’s featured artists. As I said before, I’ve got links to all the other songs on the playlist (and notes!) in the other three posts. I don’t use the phrase “rabbit hole” lightly in describing what I put up. In throwing together the final playlist, I added just three more songs to the final monthly playlist beyond what I added by all the artists listed above – which, to clarify, means I have 37 songs from those earlier playlists. Huh. Anyway, here’s the rest of the late additions.

Justin Townes Earle – “Flint City Shake”

He started in Nashville, and lived one hell of a lot between here and there – something that suggests, at a minimum, that he can relate to this very fine song he wrote.

Honeyblood – “The Third Degree”

Built around a Scottish artist named Stina Tweeddale, the project has continued in spite of shedding two collaborators for her. As for describing their sound (and I only know this one song), this (from here) is helpfully vivid: "The lead track, 'No Spare Key', sounds like Taylor Swift's 'We're Never Getting Back Together' performed by two Scottish goth-girls doing an impression of the Jesus and Mary Chain in a tomb, or an enervated, dejected Haim in need of a square meal."

Seratones – “Got to Get to Know You”

Shreveport, LA-based, and I call this a solid origin story: “The band consists of four members that met through attending different punk rock shows around the area.” If this wasn’t my favorite song of the past week, it was goddamn close.

And that’s a wrap.