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| Thanks for the detour, y'all! |
After a bit of a (creative/organizational) hangover from the last post/playlist, I struggled for a few (too many) days of getting this next playlist going. While spinning my wheels, a tweet from NME fed me to an article about “10 great-but-forgotten-indie-tracks” out of England in the 1990s, which, full disclosure, I pillaged for ideas, but didn’t read (and I still don’t know who Steve Lamacq is, but I hope to one day). The idea of building the playlist around that lasted only until a few of the artists celebrated in the article didn’t come up on Spotify (which, sadly, is too much like not finding them at all), and there went one concept.
The investigation wasn’t a total loss. I liked what I heard by Salad (and kept a pair of songs,“Cut and Cover” and “Poor Peach” – and I like both, but the second song better) and another mellower act called Drugstore; with them, I even took to the song Lamacq suggested (“Solitary Party Groover”) and lifted it onto the playlist. The actual story I’m telling started when I started looking for Daisy Chainsaw. First, and ironically, their song, “Love Your Money,” was the only one of the 10 that rang a bell. Second, I spotted the name “Daisy the Great” on my way in and, because there was something about that name, I listened to “Dips” and “Record Player Song.”
I went back to Daisy Chainsaw after that, listened to a couple more songs I forgot after listening to them…and then I went straight back to Daisy the Great, and that’s how they became the first featured artist of this May 2019, Week 1’s playlist.
Daisy the Great, Mamas, Papas, and Indie Pop
“We love harmony and storytelling, so we play with different layering and vibes until it fits the story of the song best.”
The investigation wasn’t a total loss. I liked what I heard by Salad (and kept a pair of songs,“Cut and Cover” and “Poor Peach” – and I like both, but the second song better) and another mellower act called Drugstore; with them, I even took to the song Lamacq suggested (“Solitary Party Groover”) and lifted it onto the playlist. The actual story I’m telling started when I started looking for Daisy Chainsaw. First, and ironically, their song, “Love Your Money,” was the only one of the 10 that rang a bell. Second, I spotted the name “Daisy the Great” on my way in and, because there was something about that name, I listened to “Dips” and “Record Player Song.”
I went back to Daisy Chainsaw after that, listened to a couple more songs I forgot after listening to them…and then I went straight back to Daisy the Great, and that’s how they became the first featured artist of this May 2019, Week 1’s playlist.
Daisy the Great, Mamas, Papas, and Indie Pop
“We love harmony and storytelling, so we play with different layering and vibes until it fits the story of the song best.”
If you did the reverse-recipe trick with Daisy the Great’s music, the odds feel pretty good that you’d arrive somewhere around that production process. If you listen to their brand-spanking new release, I’m Not Getting Any Taller, it becomes clear in just a song or two that Mina Walker and Kelley Nicole Dugan, the creative centers of the band, build their sound around, for lack of a better word, dead-pan harmonies (are those harmonies in a minor key? is that how it works?). That doesn’t, however, do justice to the music that rises from that foundation. It’s not stuff to rock the socks off, but, as they used to say over and over again on American Bandstand (apparently), “it’s got a good beat and I can dance to it.”
