Crash-Course, No. 5: Gaytheism & PDX Pop Now! 2019

Fine. Mid-40s probably.

[Ed. - Full disclosure: I don't own any Gaytheist albums, so this kind of violates protocol, but I wanted to look into them, they just played PDX Pop Now! and I wanted to learn about them...I regret nothing.]

It’s sometimes easy to forget that there are more or less purely local bands. Whether it’s a question of what they play or…let’s call it personal aesthetic, some bands will never grow much beyond its immediate market. When you’re a three-piece playing under the name “Gaytheist” and you’re (guessing here) pushing 50, your shot at the big time probably passed a while back.

I assume Gaytheist is pushing 50 based on the names its front-man, Jason Rivera, dropped as the bands he saw growing up in the Pacific Northwest – e.g., ““Nirvana, Mudhoney, Yankee Wuss, Hazel, Tad, The Accused, Whermacht, Hitting Birth, Sissyface, The Need, Sicko.” (Fun story: I’ve knew the latter from their time in Pullman, WA; and I’ve fucked up their guest list at least once by being over-polite.) That said, I suspect it’s what and how they play more than their age that will always keep them at the local level. To borrow the phrasing that lingered on the tip of my tongue as I listened to them last week:

“It's not quite metal, but it is heavy.”

While they have “metal” passages across multiple songs – e.g., “Let’s Get Astrophysical” is solid sludge metal, also see the boiling riffs in the middle of “The Glory of Love, Part 2” – but, regardless of what they do on the guitar sound, their rhythm components sound more punk than metal to my ear. Once you add Rivera’s fairly eclectic, and specific lyrical choices – i.e., what drew me to them in the first place on “Post-Apocalyptic Lawsuit” and “Into the Trap” – you have a band built for a certain audience, and it ain’t a huge one.

Tim Hoff (bass) and Nick Parks (drums) round out Gaytheist, and they’ve had the same lineup since they started. Of all the things I learned about this week, none of them gave a sense of who they are quite like Rivera flat-out stating in a 2013 interview with Performer Mag that he writes with Parks in mind. And, as I’ve found across multiple (scarce) interviews/reviews, Gaytheist is a band built on co-writing (this is Rivera):

Crash-Course, No. 4: Celebrating PDX Pop Now!

Eh, they do pretty well sometimes.

With PDX Pop Now! 2019 happening over the weekend, I threw together this wee tribute to Portland, Oregon’s DIY, highly-affordable (it’s free) outdoor music festival. It’s been going on since 2004, it’s always been all-ages, and some of the bigger local names have given songs to the compilations that fund the festival each year.

I have far from a perfect record of attendance – think I’ve been to just three of ‘em, most recently in 2016 – but it’s usually fun. The current location isn’t the best - the organizers center it under the Hawthorne Bridge, with North and South stages on each side – and, unless they’ve got tarps this year, it’s largely uncovered. The crowds have been sparse during the day every time I’ve gone, which hurts the atmospherics a bit (it has looked downright desolate here and there), but the crowd fills in nicely when the sun goes down; it feels like a solid, regular music festival starting right after dinner.

The first year I went – this would have been 2006(?) – they held it at least partially at an indoor venue (think it was Loveland the year I went) and, if I could have one wish, they’d go back to that, but I get it at the same time.

Anyway, the coolest thing about PDX Pop Now! is the range of artists you can hear. An entire day spent there almost guarantees exposing yourself to something you normally wouldn’t listen to and that’s the festival’s strength. You get that on the compilations too – something that comes through in the 50 songs selected down below (and included on the Spotify playlist I’m posting with this). Last, but definitely not least, here’s information on where to find and, crucially, where to buy the compilations – and that gets you access to all of them. That helps with the funding for what is a goddamn cool event, however you take it in.

Some of your bigger local artists have contributed songs to past compilations and some of them (but not many) show up on the playlist I compiled. One thing I noticed as I was getting them onto the Spotify, a lot of the songs submitted for the compilations aren't the best-known works by many of these artists. In many cases, that happened because I'm pulling from older compilations (as old as 2005), and they've put out more, sometimes better work since that time. Best case, people can use the list and links below as a first step for exploring the local music scene. That's the goal here, and god knows I'll be doing that going forward. Just this post gives you/me about 47-48 bands/artists to work with, so have it.

Crash-Course, No. 3, ft. Yeah Yeah Yeahs: A Thing for B-Sides

Aw. L'il scamps. (Like circa 2000.)

“Karen is great because I just believe her when she sings, which is very, very important.”
- Brian (“Danger Mouse”) Burton

Given how much just about anyone to whom I’ve mentioned Yeah Yeah Yeahs refracts the band through the person of Karen O (aka, Karen Lee Orzolek), I’m equal parts surprised and happy that they never wound up as Karen O & Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The marketing arm can’t win ‘em all.

While I had the same personal entry into Yeah Yeah Yeahs as everyone else – e.g., “Maps” (purposely excluded from the playlist) – how many of those same people would have missed that song entirely unless they bought Rock Band 2 (spending all that time in the 2000s being a dad meant not getting out much)? When it comes to band like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, that apparently meant missing one hell of a live set. An interview that came out around the time Karen O was touring to support Crush Songs (2014) – something she referred to as a collection of demos – contrasted that person with the Karen O most fans know:

“…not what I was expecting after three years of watching her screech across stages in wrecked Chuck Taylors and tattered mini-skirts, pumping sweat and posturing with a devilish grin of smeared lipstick, her glittery eye shadow smudged and on the move across her face.”

A later Q&A with The Guardian makes that sound like what happened after she slowed down (fwiw, that’s the best source/history I found for Karen O or Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

Yeah Yeah Yeahs (“YYY”) have as many members as words in their name, and the other two are Nick Zinner (guitar/keys, and an impressive history with collaboration) and Brian Chase (drums, but also (possibly) the biggest musical chops of the bunch). The band formed in New York in 2000, by way of Oberlin and Bard Colleges. Zinner and Karen O found Chase after their original drummer backed out, and after they “decided to ‘shake things up a bit’ by forming a ‘trashy, punky, grimy’ band modeled after the art student, avant-punk bands Karen O was exposed to at Oberlin.”

Crash Course, No. 2: ft. Yo La Tengo, A Subtly Addicting Band (+ 5 Others!)

This one....

After several weeks of concocting plans and schedules (and scrapping them the next hour), a new five-year plan and this playlist came together. It’s built mostly around songs from the 2000s-era music-philic teen drama, The O.C. and a couple bands I found through Matador Records compilation that came out in ’97. I doubt that’s the first place I heard this week’s featured artist, but it’s possible.

Yo La Tengo, A Subtly Addicting Band
“In the context of Yo La Tengo, ‘just right’ means the noise ended up being soothing instead of grating, beautiful instead of ugly.”

The author of SPIN’s review of Yo La Tengo’s 2018 release, There’s a Riot Going On, executed a tidy two-fer with that sentence, summing up both the band and the album. He (assuming “Andy” is a he) fleshes that out a little more poetically in the next sentence: “Yo La Tengo have found tenderness and soul in the sound of humming speakers and overloaded amps.”

Hoboken, New Jersey’s Yo La Tengo has out-lasted scores of their contemporaries while never achieving anything approaching mainstream success; their “peak” came when their aptly-named 2009 album, Popular Songs, clawed its way to No. 58 on Billboard’s charts. And yet the band’s two founding members, Ira Kaplan and Georgia Georgia Hubley, persevered through 14 bassists (a detail that always comes up) before bassist James McNew backed into the band and, by general agreement, completed them as an act. McNew’s arrival coincided with the band signing with its long-time label, Matador Records, and creates a very clean B.C./A.D.-style split in its career/catalog. If you’re gazing over Yo La Tengo’s catalog, Painful (1993) is the first album of the band’s long “A.D.” era. Even with Kaplan and Hubley being married almost as long as Yo La Tengo has been around (1984 versus 1987), the band is an entirely collaborative effort. They’ve given “Yo La Tengo” writing credit since 1995’s Electro-Pura and, based on McNew’s description of how they compose, that’s fitting:

“But I had never been in a band where it was like, ‘The next section of the song begins when we decide, when we’re ready.’ It was always, ‘Count to 16 and then change.’ That’s just who Ira and Georgia were, and it’s who I became. It’s a huge part of the way we play music: a real open approach.”

Crash-Course, No. 1: The Only Youth Group I'd Ever Join

No one really knows where they're gonna end up....

The anatomy of their career makes Australia’s Youth Group a snug fit just for this site’s One Hit No More feature (see the sidebar). They plugged away as an indie-rock recording and performing outfit for eight years before a series of lucky(?) steps drew opportunity to its door. Opportunity came in the form of recording a cover of Alphaville’s “Forever Young” for the American teen-‘n’-life drama, The O.C. (aka, Commissioner Jim Gordon’s first gig). The contrast between Alphaville’s original video and what Youth Group’s label, Ivy League Records, chose to show over Youth Group’s version seems instructive; Youth Group never stopped being that recording and performing indie rock outfit, a moment captured by an article in The Age back in 2006. All the same:

“It has been a bit frustrating recently. A lot of people know us for that song but, while it is a good indication of our sound, I don’t think it’s a good indication of our background.”

That’s Youth Group’s frontman Toby Martin, who, along with Danny Lee Allen, acts as the band’s anchor. The song made Youth Group famous – and the album it appeared on, Casino Twilight Dogs, went platinum in Australia –but it didn’t make them a different band. That article from The Age reveals hints of anxiety, not just about the band blowing up, but about how the public will like the rest of their music and about learning how to play for bigger crowds. I stumbled onto a link of Youth Group performing "Forever Young" on an Australian (probably) morning news show, and…that is what they had to level up to the main stage (I love the aplomb with which the anchor name-drops Alphaville; but also, the audio on that performance is way better than Ivy League’s official video).

Youth Group took a winding path to becoming the go-to opening act for major artists touring Australia (e.g., Coldplay and Kings of Leon). They played their first shows in the suburbs of Sydney with an original line-up of Martin on guitars and vocals, Allen on drums, Andy Cassell on bass, and Paul Murphy on lead guitar. Cassell left the band in 2003 to devote more time to launching Ivy League Records (a decision Martin described as generous), and was replaced by Patrick Matthews, who needed an life raft to escape the turmoil of his first band, The Vines (want to hear that story). Cameron Emerson-Elliott replaced Murphy and rounded out the line-up for Youth Group’s glory day or two.

One Hit No More, No. 13: The Standells, "Dirty Water" From a Different Town

That looks pretty goddamn must-see to me.

I think I can sum up the proto-garage/proto-punk Los-Angeles-based band, The Standells, in two quotes and one long-form fact.

“The Standells’ band name was created by Larry Tamblyn, derived from standing around booking agents' offices trying to get work.” (source)

“I got this big slab of meat and like any kid I wanted to have catchup on it. I'll never forget Jagger said: ‘You bloody Yankee...’ (Laughs). He didn't use the word bloody. He used a four letter word there.” (source)

The Standells are best-known for the song, “Dirty Water,” lately adopted as a Boston, Mass anthem. Even with all the guys who passed in and out of the line-up before and during their days on the main stage, not even one of them had stepped foot in Boston, never mind hailed from there. The song was written by Ed Cobb, their producer when they landed at Capitol Records, and finally found a good fit. The inspiration for the song came from Cobb getting mugged while crossing over the Charles River. It’s a good song, or at least I like it. I wouldn’t put it on a playlist, but it’s the first song on the list of one-hit wonders I’m mining for this One-Hit No More project that actually sounds like the kind of music I’ve gravitated toward for most of my adult life.

Authenticity, or something close enough to it, has been a big touch-stone in the music I like, so that's a healthy lesson for me. That’s where the quotes come in: based on my limited research, The Standells come off as a nice bunch of kids who wanted to get famous playing rock ‘n’ roll. As much as Tamblyn, who played keyboards and took over vocals when Dick Dodd wasn’t around, sticks up for their contributions, nothing suggests The Standells as the project of a musical visionary. They had enough material to play long-running residencies at places called P.J.’s and the Peppermint Lounge (wait…am I crossing up that name?), which means they paid their dues and earned as working musicians. They could play instruments and, per Tamblyn, rearrange Cobb’s original composition to their liking, but they had more taste and awareness than artistic ambition.

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.