October 1, 2021

speakers, plosivs, and susanna hoffs on sunday

Thanks for opening another email from me. I appreciate it! This newsletter is brought to you by my Saturday night music-mix series, which you should check out if you haven't.

In My Room

Where do you listen to music? Not like "Fine Line" or "on Spotify" but what's your setup?

I remember feeling pretty unmoored in my first apartment until I bought computer speakers that let me listen to music at my desk. My roommate also wired up the front porch with something weatherproof so we could listen out there - I recall listening to the first Fantomas record, which must have freaked out the good people of Selby Avenue.

I have upgraded pretty much every speaker setup in my house since the pandemic started - I've had some entertainment budget left over, but it's also felt like an investment to make sure that lockdown doesn't feel like lockup. My favorite pickup is the SONOS Roam - a portable speaker that's surprisingly loud and bassy, but accurate. It goes to the backyard or the shower over Bluetooth or wifi, which helps a ton if you're trying to work in the garage and walking in and out of Bluetooth range. (The whole SONOS system is nice - I haven't found a problem with their mobile app, and I find problems with everything.)

Office headphones used to be a pretty major deal for me - but having worked from home for the past 18 months, I'm really only using my wireless earbuds on walks.

San Diego Supergroup Plosivs

I'll be mentioning serial band-starter and Swami label owner John Reis later on (I bought a record that he spray-painted) but just listen to this:

Plosivs is Reis and Rob Crow, who you might know from Pinback and Optiganally Yours. Only one song so far. I want more.

What Came In the Mail?

I've had a couple of records show up in the mail recently:

• Night Marchers – Live At Bar Pink - I was surprised when I opened this, because they didn't bother with a record cover / sleeve - it's just a recycled old sleeve, defaced with some spray paint. A one-of-a-kind!
• Andrew W.K. ‎– God Is Partying - no, I don't think Andrew W.K. wants to talk about Jesus - I think he's dead or something. This just came today so I'll let you know.
• Mayer Hawthorne – Impressions - 10 years ago, Hawthorne put together a goofy set of covers, including a version of "Work to Do" and a "Mr. Blue Sky" (everybody loves a Mr. Blue Sky).
• The End Of Music - Turnaround / Oh, Me - an oddball RFTC tribute included these guys, and when I tracked them down on Bandcamp, they had only one single available - an edition of 27.
• Cloud Nothings - The Black Hole Understands - it seems like every Cloud Nothings record keeps showing new facets of the melodic pop rock band.
• Obits - Die At The Zoo - Obits are Rick Froberg's bluesy rock band, and I thought they'd probably sound pretty good live. They do! And the record is a nice gross yellow.

Another Bad Calendar

I messed up last month's calendar pretty bad - I told you I might check out Bonnaroo, and they'd already cancelled it, plus I forgot Riot Fest in Chicago, Gn'R at Xcel, the Basilica Block Party, a Bob Mould show I almost went to, Jenny Lewis opened up for Harry Styles, Thurston Moore was at Turf Club (!?), there were all those state fair shows, and you could have seen Future Islands and Durand Jones (both of whom I saw in quarantine livestreams).

But this month I only have tickets to one thing - a virtual album release party for Parquet Courts October 20. Rather than do a show, they got a bunch of animators to make videos for each of the songs. I'm looking forward to it - their "On Time" program was kind of brilliant, with its mix of performance footage plus some documentary footage plus a bunch of little unrelated videos from wherever.

Other Links

I thought this story about the Wrens was hilarious and heartbreaking - it sounds like we're going to get some of the songs from the long-promised "final Wrens album" in about the worst way possible.

This breakdown of Spotify play counts and accounting is detailed and fascinating, describing what can only be rampant fraud. It can only be that.

And Stereogum's music theory column broke down Nirvana's "In Bloom", which is way weirder harmonically than you might think. (If you think about that kind of thing. Maybe you don't.)