RIFF MARKET

Riff Market Presents:
Status Ain't Hood: Quarterly Report: Riffs
October 2006



Thanks, you know who.

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Sunset Rubdown
Bowery Ballroom
September 24, 2006

Not too too many people showed up to this because the SR record came out earlier in the year, which means most people have already forgotten about them. As far as I'm concerned, very few bands have written as many good-to-great songs about or involving snakes, so obviously I was there. This is the best record about snakes this year.

Anyway the band does the uningratiating, "interesting" vocal deliveries and obtuse lyrics as praised by your Stosuys and as derided for ill-defined nihilism by your Ott (though I'll forever take issue with the Deerhoof jab, I happen to think that woman's quack is pretty damn mellifluous), which struck me, at this concert, and critically not at the Merc show a day after the Pitchfork review ran (I'm assuming, from the photos), as sort of telling: Are there bands that have uningratiating, "interesting" vocal deliveries and obtuse lyrics that people actually care about after bloggers have run out of MP3s from their album to post? The answer, at least here, was yes, there is still a small cohort of people, including myself, who think Spencer Krug is pretty compelling, notwithstanding what it means for this small cohort of people to think it means for them to think Spencer Krug is compelling. There was a guy who started pumping his fist in maybe the only part of any song on Sunset's album not worth pumping one's first to, which seemed to corroborate my theory. I'm thinking we might be able to extend this to all bands in general. So here is a list, off the top of my head, of bands people actually like and care about vs. bands that people don't actually like but care about people thinking they care about them:

Bands People Actually Like And Care About
Beatles
Deerhoof
Joni Mitchell
Sunset Rubdown
Lenny Kravitz
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Tower of Power

Bands People Don't Actually Like But Care About People Thinking They Care About Them
Rolling Stones
Hold Steady
Lily Allen
Deerhoof
Stevie Wonder (except "I Wish" and "Sir Duke")
Dave Brubeck

If you have any suggestions let me know, but I think this is pretty much it. 68 RIFFS

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snake's got a leg

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Download: Peter Paul & Bjorn: "Young Folks" 82 RIFFS

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Grizzly Bear
Bowery Ballroom
September 26

Harvard Glee Club friends will be amused to know that lead Grizzly Ed Droste's grandpa is Doctor Elliot Forbes, the guy Bernie always talked about. As far as I'm concerned, any four schlubs can come together and start singing different notes at the same time and make it sound like something called indie rock. There's a whole Futureheads album as proof of this, and some of the shittier Beach Boys songs and some of the early Of Montreal albums, to say nothing of all of SMiLE. But what I noticed in this show was how Grizzly Bear actually pays attention to the shapes of their vowels when they ooh and ahh, all the "aah"s well-blended and none of the goat-bleat bullshit in the tenor parts, and the way the vocals led in their coos with light consonants, as opposed to just vomiting out the note and letting it crackle before it settled into tone. I'm wondering if these guys sang pop songs in a capella groups. I'm also wondering which guy had to make all the fart noises into the microphone. Gotta wonder about that guy. Four years of fart noises. Maybe, at the end of his senior year or something, they'll give him a headset. Criz, this doesn't apply to you because you actually have a great voice. I'm talking about the other fart guys. 72 RIFFS

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Speaking of Bears

I don't even want to get started on this since I want to leave myself stuff to write about in the end of the week, but scroll down to the part about how people are supposed to act at a fucking rock concert and you have to wonder what's worse, what the guy's complaining about or the guy himself. I mean come the fuck on, you're still complaining about the guy who yells "Freebird"? Are you serious? That guy can't even buy a fucking ticket anymore to his favorite band Tapes N Tapes because of assholes like you. If he wants to get sloppy drunk at the Tapes N Tapes show, make out with five girls, talk during the opener, take off his clothes and yell "Freebird" seven times in a row, call up his bros about the uptight douchebag in front of him scribbling notes for his fucking concert etiquette post, then throw you at the band (this would be heckle), I'm all for it. 30 RIFFS

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Mondo Kim's: Not So Mondo

These guys get enough shit from people besides me, and I happen to like Brad-- I think he's a pretty cool-looking dude who actually looks pretty good with long hair and a nice button-down. But if you make a big deal about how your DVDs are 25% off, you should actually sell your DVDs for 25% off. Instead, what Mondo Kim's does is give you 10% off then this line about how "Mondo Kim's prices are already 15% off the suggested retail prices"-- which means that they are about 20% more expensive than Best Buy. Additionally, Mondo Kim's have now hired this guy up on the second floor who just walks around the vinyl humming really loudly, something halfway between gospel-spiritual and the sound weedwackers make in thick brush, like he's his own anti-theft device, or the sonic equivalent of one of those "silent but deadly" farts. Nobody can steal anything.24 RIFFS

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Assman, Crazy Carl, Jake the Snake

These guys have a new website that I'm really hoping actually takes off. The most current post takes an understandable swipe at me because I didn't run it five weeks ago like I said was going to. All of these guys have logged serious time in the Jazzmobile. 85 RIFFS

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Day Jobs

New respect for day jobs. The way they work, you show up, people pay you to do something, you do it, and then you have money for sneakers and dinners that aren't falafel. Pretty awesome. You can take girls out on dates and buy your bros some brewskis. I just bought a new pair of sneakers. Pretty great stuff. 77 RIFFS

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Much Love For: Blogs

And in general, the two-blogger/one-blog system. It's win-win. Blogger #1 can include something highly invasive about Person #X in a blog post, something told to her in confidence, something that has absolutely zero to do with otherwise legitimate beef she has with Person #X. Then Person #X can see Blogger #1 at a party, Blogger #1 can tell everybody at the party that it was totally Blogger #2 who wrote the post, that she even protested, that she actually likes Person #X. Then Person #X can pretend that yeah, of course this is how it went down. No, Blogger #1, let me buy you a drink. 45 RIFFS

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See you tomorrow?