Michael Cesari, guitarist for the once explosively popular band The Shallow Divers and administrator/writer/editor for the infamous Medium Happiness, has tipped me off to yet another piece of evidence uprooting the long-held rumor concerning the death of rock and roll. I have just found out from the Brooklyn, NY band Cheeseburger that it is greatly exaggerated. (More below…)

I have a lot of respect for any band that trusts their songwriting enough to let it rest upon bare-bones instrumentation, and have it work. The Hives do it, The Hellacopters used to do it (and probably still do from time to time), and Arcade Fire does not. This music grabs me by the throat and completely commands my attention. The more I listen, the more I love it, and the more I love the minimalism of it all. It makes me want to go home and throw all my stupid Ikea furniture out of the window and sleep on some strange floor tonight without a pillow and wake up in the morning with a beer bottle in my back and a hangover like a dwarf turd in my mouth. Like vocalist Joe Bradley says in the no-holds-barred riff-fest Tiger, “Go outside and take a drink out of the gutter, well ain’t it fucking cute?” Indeed. Yes, it seems that good to me. No, I don’t like Arcade Fire. No, I’m not kidding.

At first listen, this music seems to rip along like a bull in a china shop (or shoppe, if you prefer), with little regard to structure or indeed musicianship. But, like the best punk bands, after the hook has dug itself deep into your nose and dragged you along the street for awhile, you notice a definite method to the madness—especially in the vocals; it’s been a long time since I’ve heard such well-intentioned menace all wrapped up in a nice, buzz-saw riff package (fuck you and the horse you road in on, My Chemical Romance). Soon enough you realize that these guys are a lot tighter than anything else you’ve heard in a long time, but were fooled by the effortlessness of it all. It’s what I hoped the Living Things were going to be, but they simply never stuck in my mind. Or my heart, sniff sniff.

If you’re like me, you’re looking for the record these guys must have put out somewhere. Well, you kind find it by visiting their record label, Kemado Records, or you can just CLICK HERE. I just ordered it myself, so I’ll tell you more about it soon.

Oh, hey, thanks for the tip, Michael, and sorry about what I said regarding Arcade Fire. Not that I don’t mean it, I just…well…I guess I’m sorry you like them.

PS—OMG, please don’t confuse these cats with The Cheeseburgers; salt, salt, salt!…cheese indeed.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 7th, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.