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February 15, 2005
Losing My Edge & The Indie-Rock Crowd
The debut album from LCD Soundsystem finally hits American record stores tomorrow (er, make that "today"). I really like the first single "Movement" with its whole The-Fall-covers-"Ghost Rider" vibe...as well as the song's cool video. But I was a bit underwhelmed by some of the other tracks that my import-buying friend was playing for me over the holidays. Of course, such cursory listens aren't always so telling, and I'm eager to hear the whole thing in its entirety a couple of times before making any rash judgements. If nothing else, the CD comes with a bonus disc compiling all of the LCD Soundsystem singles and b-sides from the past few years - so necessary!
The January issue of The Wire had a pretty fascinating LCD Soundsystem cover story. If you're interested in the band but didn't get a chance to read the print article, you might as well do yourself one better and just read the full unedited interview that Peter Shapiro did with LCD Soundsystem frontman and DFA production guru James Murphy. It's pretty long and quite informative. I hadn't read any interviews with Murphy before, but I was a tad surprised to discover how completely earnest and genuinely forthcoming he was about his music, his life, and what he's trying to accomplish. Somehow I didn't quite expect that out of a person who has thrown so much sardonic wit and irony into his song lyrics, specifically those hilarious lines from the music-snob parody anthem "Losing My Edge". His honesty and straightforwardness aside, there are a couple places in The Wire interview where Murphy almost slips into the role of the "Losing My Edge" protagonist with some elitist-sounding comments. My personal favorite was his humorous if unfair dismissal of the Stone Roses ("I remember hearing 'Fool's Gold' and thinking it was really likeable and that a lot of college kids would like it, but it was like 'Vitamin C' to me without the weird, crazy Japanese guy.").
But enough with the personality analysis. The thing in the LCD Soundsystem story that surprised me the most was the fact that Murphy drummed for the early '90s indie-rock band Pony under the alias "Jimmy James". I hadn't thought about Pony in ages...and I dare say that I probably wouldn't remember them at all were it not for the fact that I actually reviewed their 1994 Homestead album for Stay Free! #9. The Stay Free! archives didn't have all of the contents of that particular issue online, so I dug up a print copy and uploaded a scan of my decade-old review here. (Note: This was one of the first-ever pieces that I specifically wrote for printed publication, so please cut me some slack for actually starting off a record review with the ludicrous declaration that "To have any chance of being able to rock in the nineties, a band must either have smarts or intensity.").
As I mentioned in my review, Cosmovalidator was recorded by none other than Bob Weston...and in the interview Murphy talks a bit about how he learned a just-the-basics approach to recording and miking instruments from Weston and Steve Albini. That seems to have certainly served him well as a "dance music" producer. No wonder so much of the DFA stuff sounds so interesting and organic, it seems that Murphy and his DFA production partner Tim Goldsworthy have taken a few pages out of Albini's no-frills "live band" soundbook and applied the lessons learned to the much more synthetic world of "dance music".
Murphy was Pony's drummer (that's him with the long hair in the middle of the Pony album cover), but he also wrote and sang the hilarious last song ("Gimme") on Cosmovalidator. In fact, this song comes up during The Wire interview because of its mockery of indie-rock crowds standing still and friends wanting to be on guest lists. Here are the full lyrics of "Gimme":
Hey Dallas, we're going to your show
I sure hope your band's good, if not we're gonna blow....early
It's three bucks a head, but I'm bringing seven friends
And well if the other bands suck, we'll leave before the end...comes
So put me on your guest list, 'cause I've known you for so long
I'll act like I enjoy it, might even sing along...with you
Just stick names on a paper and fatten up your crowd
Just promise me, promise me you'll play something hip and loud.
Stand around, stand around, stand around
Stand around, stand around, stand around
Do the indie-rock crowd
Fold your arms, fold your arms, fold your arms,
fold your arms, fold your arms now
Do the indie-rock crowd
After I went back and listened to this song, it all made total sense that this was the exact same guy who could sarcastically sing "I hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that I know" before rattling off an amazing laundry-list of music-geek faves ("This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars...") at the end of "Losing My Edge".
I'm not a regular MP3 blogger or anything, but given the buzz that LCD Soundsystem is getting right now and the fact that Cosmovalidator is out of print, I'm sure that there are some people out there that would be interested in hearing "Gimme", the first James Murphy-penned song to appear on a record. So here it is, a 1994 example of Murphy's acerbic wit and songwriting abilities:
Lest I be accused of falling into the role of the "Losing My Edge" hipster, posting rare mp3s from one of my oh-so-out-of-print CDs, let me just admit that while I do like the Pony CD, I seriously doubt that I would own it were it not for the fact that I happened to get a free review copy way back when...and I'm a bit of a packrat that rarely purges anything from my record collection. Besides, anyone who wants to get their own copy can currently get one used on Amazon for the not-so-premium price of $1.74.
Of course the LCD Soundsystem double disc will cost you a little bit more than $1.74. But, you know, I heard that all of the cool kids are gonna be buying it...
Posted by Tim at February 15, 2005 01:38 AM
Comments
My favorite music snob song is "Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid To Know About" by Tullycraft. There's an MP3 listed here:
http://www.tullycraftnation.com/disco.html
Sample lyric:
"Well he can keep the Lemonheads and Weezer he gave you
'Cause you and me got Heavenly and Nothing Painted Blue"
Posted by: robin at February 17, 2005 12:55 PM
Oh yeah, thanks, I'd completely forgotten about that song...I think I have it somewhere on a compilation CD. If I ever make a mix CD of "meta-music" (songs that mention at least 5 if not 15-20 other artists), that one will have to go on right after Sebadoh's "Gimme Indie Rock"!
Posted by: Tim at February 17, 2005 10:32 PM
Please add "On Tape" by Teenage Gang Debs, covering the Pooh Sticks.
c
Posted by: Toenes at February 21, 2005 12:59 PM