rhinosplode

What I'm Listening To

Welcome to the first of what (assuming I keep this up for more than tonight) will be a regular peek at what I'm obsessing over, music-wise. I'm one of those irritating people who need to have music all the time--in the car, while doing work, while doing the dishes, while making doo doo--so I listen to a lot of stuff. I also have entirely given up on commercial radio, except on those special occasions when only the local Classic Rock station will do (the subject of a future column, when I'm desperate), and I'm both a geek and a packrat. Result: I have a fairly large and totally eclectic collection, which I am constantly revisiting, reorganizing, and adding to.

Let's get the party started with my favorite songs of this past weekend.

Peter Gabriel, "Here Comes the Flood": An old favorite. I first heard this when I bought Gabriel's Shaking the Tree compilation from my sister's middle school magazine drive sometime in the early 90s. I listened to the first couple of songs on the CD over and over, fascinated by "Solsbury Hill" and "Sledgehammer," until one day I decided to let the thing play through. To my amazement, I fell in love with a song that consisted only of piano and voice.

Now, you have to understand that at the time, I was all about Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, the Dead Kennedys, and anything else that was loud and sounded like construction. "Here Comes the Flood" was, with the exception of the trite and completely heartbreaking "Something I Can Never Have," the only quiet song I liked. And I loved it. I wanted to know what the flood was, why the starfish were stranded, and why the dreamers should drink up. The lyrics were mysterious and seemed deep, and none of my friends would admit to liking it. But I suspect they did.

Anyway, my copy of Shaking the Tree got pretty badly scratched in college, and although I've been buying Gabriel CDs, I still haven't convinced myself that I need his first one--with the exception of "Flood," the songs I've heard off of it are overblown prog-rockery, and I have Rush for that. I found a copy of Shaking the Tree on Spun.com for $4 and ordered it just so I could have this song and a couple more again.

The Postal Service, "Sleeping In": My sister Sara played this for me this past Saturday, when we were driving to the beach for some Rosh Hashana walkery. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like the Postal Service--I'm fairly indifferent toward Ben Gibbard's other band, Death Cab for Cutie, and I usually hate those tinny Casiotone beats. But Gibbard's lyrics about JFK and the joys of fatigue really hit me, for some reason--an unconscious connection to Peter Gabriel's "Family Snapshot"? I don't know. At any rate, this song, so far, is autumn.

Stellastarr s/t

There's nothing I hate more than bands with influences. Okay, I guess I'd rather hang out with that kind of band than with Hitler, but still. And I think you know what I mean when I talk about bands with influences. I'm talking about the kind of band that supposedly sounds like one or two other (and usually) better bands, like how Kings of Leon supposedly sound like Skynyrd. I'd take "Freebird" any day.

stellastarr* is one of those bands, but except for the way they have their name in lowercase and with the asterisk at the end, I actually like them. They're supposedly influenced by New Wave, but since I never really liked 80s music (and by God, I hate that it's okay to use a decade as a genre, but I can't help it) I don't hear any of those influences. The singer/guitarist, a fellow named Shawn Christensen, sounds kind of like he spent his childhood switching between impersonations of David Byrne and Fred Schneider and his voice froze like that, but in a good way. The band also has a bassist named Amanda Tannen, another guitarist named Michael Jurin, and a drummer named Arthur Kremer. They also have ridiculously catchy songs and a self-titled debut album on RCA.

The best songs on the album, "My Coco," "No Weather," and "Somewhere Across Forever" are catchier than Ebola and way more fun in the car. These are songs with rolling verses and the kind of choruses that make you forget everything else going on at the moment. "Somewhere Across Forever," which is my number-one jam of the waning summer, features this weird building back-up thing under Christensen's kvetching about some girl with "blue eyes, blue hair" in a bar somewhere. And I don't know if it's my hearing or if this crew is doing something really clever, but there's this one line that can either be "I've been livin' here without you" or "I've been limited without you," and the ambiguity is just awesome.

Oh, and there's rocking here, too. In fact, these songs rock like something between Chuck Berry, the Pixies (and not just because of Tannen's little-girl backing vocals, reminiscent of the queen of all bass-playing hotties, Kim Deal), and the Strokes. This music makes me want to flail around and play air instruments, which is kind of dangerous because this is also a great CD for the car.

There's already a lot of hype about stellastarr*, which should make you wary. However, this is a band that deserves at least some of it. I don't think stellastarr* are going to save rock, or even the New York scene. They have, however, crafted and enjoyable hour of music that you'll want to break out on a nice sunny day when you've got nothing else to do but drive around and breathe some fresh air through your open windows. And isn't that kind of the point?