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Best tunes of 2020: #14 The Beths “I’m not getting excited”

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Just a few days ago I posted about a set I caught at last year’s Ottawa Bluesfest, a set that serves as just one example of what makes the festival so special: the strong possibility for musical discovery in the joy of live music. This next band on my Best tunes of 2020 list was another example of one whom I really fell hard for when I saw them at this very same festival.

The Beths were formed in Auckland, New Zealand in 2014 by four musicians who met at university while studying jazz. They released their debut long player “Future me hates me” in 2018 but I didn’t come across it until the following year, else I might have included it on my list of favourite albums that year. Luckily it didn’t escape other’s notices because all the critical acclaim meant multiple tours and one of these landed them on the 2019 Bluesfest lineup. I don’t remember now if I picked up on them before I saw their name on the website or afterwards, but I definitely earmarked them as a set I really wanted to catch after repeat listens of their power pop harmonies. And of course, I’ve mentioned a few times on these pages how the New Zealand quartet “blew the doors off” the stage and I afterwards stumbled over to the merch tent to pick up a copy of their record.

So for me, “Jump rope gazers” was a highly anticipated release in early 2020, after having played the hell out of the debut record for the rest of 2019. Unfortunately, the sophomore record wasn’t quite as immediately attention grabbing as I was expecting and instead was one that had to grow on me, working hard to earn its place on my end of the year list. Track one on the album was an exception to this, a real standout for this writer, right from the first spin.

“I’m not getting excited
‘Cause my fight and my flight are divided
And so I don’t enthuse
Keep my grip on joy loose
And I wait for the news
With my feet in my shoes”

At first glance, the music doesn’t match the song title. The revving guitars, insistent drum beat, and Elizabeth Stokes’ breathless delivery is all very exciting and feverish and energetic. However, when you consider its almost like an updated and more self aware take on Green Day’s “Basket case”, albeit with a different set of neuroses, the anxious tone reveals itself, as does the pervading take on The Jonah Complex. “I’m not getting excited” is so good and so relatable.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2020 list, click here.

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100 best covers: #41 The Lemonheads “Mrs. Robinson”

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By all accounts, the Lemonheads’ frontman and driving force, Evan Dando, hated the original version of the song “Mrs. Robinson”, almost as much as he disliked its author. You got the feeling he was heavily leaned on by the ‘powers that be’ to record the cover to go along with the 25th anniversary release of “The Graduate” on home video cassette. He must’ve really blown a gasket when it was tacked on to the end of the track listing on later rereleases of his band’s now classic 1992 album, “It’s a shame about Ray”.

So it’s amusing that this was likely many listeners gateway to the band. It certainly was mine. I distinctly remember recording the video during one of my Friday night CityLimits viewing sessions and falling for the update of a song I knew from my parents’ oldie radio station listening in the car. From there, I recorded the video for the aforementioned album’s title track based on name recognition and of course, I’ve already told the story on these pages on how showing these two videos to my aunt landed me a copy of the CD for Christmas. So yeah, I’ve got a history with the song.

I later developed an appreciation for NYC-based folk rock duo, Simon & Garfunkel who wrote and performed the original. Parts of it were written before the filming of “The graduate”, were shared with its filmmaker, and these appeared in the final film cut. Versions of these snippets appeared on the soundtrack but the actual full-fledged song wasn’t released until a year later as a single and appeared on the band’s fourth album, “Bookends”.

The Lemonheads’ cover has got raunchier guitars than the original acoustic finger picking and instead of the lilting harmonizing on the iconic do-de-do-do-do-do-do intro, it is Evan Dando’s solo, half hearted mimicry. Theirs is about twenty seconds shorter than the orginal but that’s probably more due to its sped up pacing. Indeed, the song is all there but the tone is very different. It rocks and rolls more and yet, it has been often criticized for being a lazy cover. And that may be so, but I couldn’t help myself but to fall hard for it, and that love hasn’t waned in the least in the 30+ years since its release.

(If you hadn’t guessed, I prefer the cover to the original here.)

Cover:

Original:

For the rest of the 100 best covers list, click here.

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Tunes

Best tunes of 2013: #21 Crocodiles “She splits me up”

<< #22    |    #20 >>

I’ve already told the story on these pages about how my friend Tim and I drove to Cambridge from Toronto one day over the Christmas break back in 2011. We headed there to meet up with one of Tim’s university friends Greg and his wife Wendy, and check out their books and records store, Millpond. We stayed for dinner before returning to Toronto in a snow storm but not before sharing laughs and memories and trading a few musical picks.

Greg’s contribution was Crocodiles, seconded by Wendy, and based on their raves and descriptions, I definitely took note to check them out when I returned home. Perhaps coincidentally, my own suggestion was Dum Dum Girls, whose sophomore record “Only in dreams” was hot on my repeat listen list and had placed on my favourite albums list that year. What’s funny is that Greg and Wendy hadn’t heard of Dum Dum Girls and I hadn’t heard of Crocodiles but at the time, the front persons and driving forces of each band, Brandon Welchez and Dee Dee Penny*, were married and had regularly contributed to each other’s musical projects.

I later learned that Crocodiles were formed in 2008** by Welchez and Charles Rowell in San Diego, California, after their previous, mostly punk-driven bands had broken up. Their psychedelic and retro noise pop sound was established right from the beginning and got them drawing buzz. I recognized and fell for it when I first listened to their sophomore album, “Sleep forever”, quickly making the connection with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Jesus and Mary Chain, and of course, with Dum Dum Girls. I’ve continued to follow the group through the multiple lineup changes but the sound hasn’t veered too far off course, nor has the songwriting quality diminished, right up to last year’s excellent “Upside down in heaven”, the group’s 8th full length album.

In 2013, though, they released their 4th album, the Sune Rose Wagner (The Raveonettes) produced “Crimes of passion”. The neon colours of its album foreshadowed the technicolour sounds and garish and glam tinged ethos. Ten searing and cool tracks for turning up and rocking out alongside, my favourite of which was track six, “She splits me up”. With guitars that wail at the high end, dance harpsichord-like arpeggios, and gnarl and snarl at the robust bass line. Meanwhile, Welchez bemoans and lauds a member of the opposite sex and the hold she has on him.

“She dazzles on the streets beneath me but her love is never real. And the world outside is fading fast, and she’s so detached. She splits me up”

Yessssss.

*Funnily enough, this is the first post to focus on Crocodiles but Welchez has been mentioned a couple of times already in posts about Dum Dum Girls.

**Same year as Dum Dum Girls.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2013 list, click here.