Grab Bag: Summer in the City(s)
"They've been asking where you've been...hey Summer, where you been?"
Greetings and Salutations, friends! It’s been a while, huh? How the heck are you?
Here in Los Angeles, and presumably in many other places, it’s Back To School season, so let’s say Negative Progression took a Summer break and that is why there’s been no new material for the last couple months. (Rather than laziness, inertia, a lack of good ideas, a general sense of ennui, etc etc.)
You could even say this edition, being a Grab Bag, is a cheat because its a smattering of vignettes and not a single topic deep-dive, but like I said, it’s Summer and like Billy Idol said it’s hot in the city tonight1 so we can leave the scuba gear behind, and just dangle our feet in the pool for a while.
As always, thanks for reading. Tell a friend to do the same?
Reader Feedback note: It was brought to my attention that the footnotes are not hyperlinked when reading in your email client. My apologies for this inconvenience, but this does appear to be a Substack/mail client issue and not anything I can control.
For an optimal footnote experience, you can click through to read on the web or via the app. Also, those of y’all who read the footnotes2 are the truest believers in what I am doing here, as it’s my favorite (read: the dumbest) use of the Substack editor features and I appreciate you very much.
Scene Report: Dirtnap Records 20th 22nd Anniversary Supershow
Speaking of Summer in the City, when I signed off the last edition of NP, I was about to head out to Madison, WI for the Dirtnap Anniversary Fest, two years later than originally planned. That was 9 weeks ago and it feels like both 9 days ago and also 2 years ago. Time is weird now.
Turns out, Madison is a really nice place to spend a long weekend in the Summer. The weather was basically perfect, plus everyone that lives there had that buzz which good summer weather brings out in a place where the rest of the years weather is garbage.
The University of Wisconsin was enjoying their summer break, so the city felt quiet in a good way. The downtown area on the isthmus there is super walkable. There are multiple good record stores. There’s plenty of good beer and their local delicacies are sausages and fried cheese. So yeah, maybe visit Madison in Summer if you ever get the chance.
I took what I’m calling The Little Friends of Printmaking Guided Tour of Madison and you should too. (Also consider buying a print3 from them.) The #1 hit song of that tour was Mickie’s Dairy Bar, btw.
Beyond than the location, the shows were also great. The High-Noon Saloon is a good venue. People were basically well behaved and very polite (even if they were unmasked.) The bands were good-to-great. The highlights were mostly as expected: The Marked Men killed, all of their members other bands were very good, Steve Adamyk was great, everyone that played seemed happy to be doing so and played good sets. As far as I heard, no one caught covid. An unmitigated success, overall.
The unexpected gems for me were two fold:
Something Fierce, who I later described as the most under-rated band on a label filled with under-rated bands, played for the first time in 4+ years and seemed like they had more fun than anyone else. Here’s hoping they finish that new album they’ve been working on for six years.
Low Culture, who I somehow never gave really proper attention to before June 2022. Walking around Madison on the Friday, I listened to both their albums on repeat, wondering how I’d owned them for so long and overlooked them for so long. On the plus side, it’s kinda like having two new records at once from your new favorite band. My over-riding memory of Madison will be walking around enjoying the weather and listening to Low Culture.
In summation: I had a blast, hung with some old friends, made some new friends and successfully completed my Wisconsin bingo card4. Here's hoping Dirtnap has another 20 years of great records!
Oh wait, I buried the lede. A nice couple got married at the show. It felt very much like they pulled off a hyper-specific wedding of their dreams. Which is rad. Congrats to them!
HYPE TRAIN 1: Chicago Youth Rock
CHOO CHOO, the Hype Train is now pulling into your station. All Aboard.
Firstly, shout out to Brother Patrick for getting me hipped to the fantastic things Gen-Z is making happen in Chicago. I strongly recommend reading this fantastic piece that Leor Galil wrote for the Chicago Reader to really get the inside track. It’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt genuinely hopeful that indie rock has a foothold into the future.
The tip of the proverbial hype spear - and the main focus of that piece - is Horsegirl and for good reason: their debut album Versions of Modern Performance is one of the best records of this century5. And when was the last time that a record destined for the all-time pantheon was made by people who are college students? (For real: I have no idea...)
If I understand the point of this bizarre review of the record from Bandcamp Daily, as an oldish white man I’m not supposed to talk about why this record is good (ironically, neither did the writer/6)
In which case, I’ll leave it to you to listen and assess for yourself, whether that’s via the killer guitar tones and overlapping vocals of Anti-glory or via the glorious riffage of Option 8.
But here’s the rub. As good as Horsegirl already is, there’s another, younger band in that scene that may just have the potential to become even better: Lifeguard.
Lifeguard aren’t even old enough to vote, but already made a killer album - 2020’s Dive, which is equal parts post-punk, math-rock, and the earlier era of SubPop-style sludge rock. Here’s a live cut of Fishnet, the standout track from Dive. Honestly though, check out that whole Audiotree set it is so fucking good. I’m not 100% sure I knew how to tie my shoelaces7 at that age and there they are shredding better than people three times their age.
And they have been continuing to evolve their sound, following up Dive with two killer singles and their brand new EP Crowd Can Talk, which leans away from the Television/Parquet Courts elements of Dive and more into the noise and math-rock elements, as perhaps evidenced best on New Age.
I am very excited to see what is next for Horsegirl, for Lifeguard, for the Chicago Teen Rock Scene and for Gen-Z indie rock. Hope for the future of rocknroll (and really everything) seems fleeting these days, so this is something to hold onto.
PEAK OF THEIR POWERS: Ben Folds Five – The Complete Sessions at West 54th
Peak Of Their Powers, which was first covered in Issue 1 of the Negative Progression ‘zine, and later republished in the digital version here, is an ongoing YouTube playlist I curate of those moments in time when a band is firing on all cylinders. Like I said in the original piece: I can’t define precisely the mix of elements involved, but like pornography, you know it when you see it.
In all of the weirdo indie rock acts of the 1990s, I’m not sure anyone stuck out like a sore thumb more than Ben Folds Five did. But, they did that while carving out a somewhat successful niche - and maybe this is just with people I know - and seemed to cross over across the record collections of way more people with different types of musical teste than I ever expected. In the end, I think they carved out quite the unexpected legacy, built as much on the back of their live show as the records8. (Question: Did Ben Folds ever get cancelled? I would be unsurprised to hear that he did.)
Anyway, West 54th St is basically a masterclass in professional musicianship. If it wasn’t for whatever was happening in the 90s with indie bands getting signed, you can picture these dudes spending their lives as very successful session guys. (Unrelated: also only in the 90s could be successful enough to be getting this performance filmed, while wearing these dork-ass awful outfits. I say this as someone with a long history of having worn some dork-ass awful outfits.)
The full spectrum of the Ben Folds Five arts and alchemy are on display in this set:
The killer rhythm section
The gorgeous three part harmonies
Folds making use of every part of his piano to expand the soundscape (we’re well beyond the basics of simply pushing the keys here)
Busting out instruments that would be gimmicks elsewhere (a double bass, a melodica) but work perfectly here.
A nicely balanced set-list for the era (deep-cut Emaline is a real treat, but if Where’s Summer B..?9 had made the list, that would have been the only improvement.)
Enjoy! This link should contain the full playlist I made, recreating the correct track order from the DVD that I definitely used to own and no longer own. Not sure what happened to it but, such things happen when you move overseas.
BOOK NOOK: Space, The Universe and Everything
I don’t know about you, but with the current state of things, [gestures broadly], escapism is more real than ever and I mean in the ‘leave the planet’ sense of escapism.
Which is to say, I have finished twelve books so far this year and ten of them take place outside of “Old Terra” (as they called it in the Dune prequels). I know from brief check ins with some pals that I’m not alone in leaving the planet via literature.
The first book I read this year was the instant classic Providence by Max Barry (who also got a shout out in the last Grab Bag.) That book RULES. I really hope someone makes a movie from it. If you’re looking for a tight and taut thriller with incredible sci-fi vibes then my man Maximum Barry has the book you need.
Most of the rest of the books I’ve read in 2022 are The Expanse series, which I am now eight ninths (8/9ths) of the way through and which is both very enjoyable and possibly not reaching its potential at the same time. To clarify, I would have quit if they weren’t good and I’ve never seen the TV show adaptation, so I went in cold. These books are good, it just feels like there’s another level that could have been possible. Maybe the last book will get it there.
I think, as friends and mentees of George RR Martin, that the authors were going for Game of Thrones but in space, which is a good concept but it doesn’t have the epic complexity George infused into A Song of Ice and Fire. Likely because they released 9 books in 10 years, and I don’t think that schedule allows for you to pore over the finest details of every sentence like George does. (Then again, they actually finished their series, so who’s to say they are wrong? PLEASE FINISH THE BOOKS, George.)
The main thing they share with ASOIAF is using genre to tell deeply human stories. There’s no aliens in these books. Just one bunch of humans continuing to fuck up things the way we always do or making difficult choices while trying to do the right thing. If they can stick the landing, it’ll have been a very worthwhile ride.
THE BONEYARD: Two Kinds of Drummers?
The Boneyard is the a place where all my failed writing ideas go to die, which is to say when I have a random thought I assumed I could write about, but it turns out not to have any meat on the bone when I pull it apart. Usually these ideas have just enough meat to be too long for a tweet, however. (Also, I stopped going on Twitter more than like once a week and that’s really for the best for a lot of reasons)
This thought one came to me after I heard about the death of Taylor Hawkins, the long time Foo Fighters drummer. I always felt like being Dave Grohl’s drummer was the hardest gig in drumming and he did it for two decades, which tells you something.
Anyway, the stray thought I had was this: within the confines of “rock and roll drumming”, I feel like there are two types of drummers.
Steamrollers: if these people were a melee weapon they are a warhammer, dealing massive amounts of damage to their target. They are power and bludgeon. Their sticks are more likely to be held parallel to their arms.
Two Examples: Dave Grohl and Mario Rubalcaba.
Fencers: if these people were a melee weapon they are a sabre, every bit as deadly as that warhammer but all finesse. They are speed and dexterity. Their sticks are more likely to be held at and angle from their arms.
Two examples: Jon Wurster and Darren Jesse.
This is not to say that a steamroller isn’t precise or a fencer doesn’t play with power. There’s always gonna be hybrids. But I felt like maybe Taylor was the most in-the-sweet-spot of both types, truly both sides of this theoretical coin.
Who else would be on that list? Russel Simins, perhaps? If you spend as much time thinking about drums, drum sounds and drumming as I do, let me know in the comments how you feel about this highly niche and pointless thought experiment.
Anyway, here’s a Drummer’s Masterclass that Taylor Hawkins did for the BBC a few years ago. The view count on this went through the roof after he passed, so hopefully he inspired a lot of people to pick up some sticks.
HYPE TRAIN 2: Martha
There was a lot of nice reception to my Martha piece back in June (thankyou!) and since then they’ve put out two new singles and announced that their fourth album is coming out on October 28th. So choo fucking choo, get hyped and get on the train. Based on the singles (and the new album’s press copy) this could well be their their best album yet.
Please Don’t Take Me Back may be the most anthemic Martha song yet
Beat Perpetual has been stuck in my head every day since I heard it, and its been 33 days at the time of writing.
Here’s hoping for a US tour in 2023. You can pre-order the new album here:
Thanks for reading! Catch ya down the road…
Billy Idol is a guilty pleasure, but here’s a a punk rock reference to cancel out that Billy Idol reference, from the White Wires: “it’s hot in the city in the summertime”. The White Wires were missed at Dirtnap Fest.
For the purposes of total commitment to the bit (I just learned this is also known as an Escalation of Commitment) I just HAD to put a footnote on the word footnote. Nothing to say here otherwise.
Tell them I sent you and ask if they can get you a riso instead of a screenprint…
Drank some Spotted Cow beer, ate some Fried Cheese Curds, ate some Frozen Yogurt, ate a Bratwurst. <Burp>
This is not intended to be hyperbolic. That record is a fucking achievement and deserves all the awards.
To be fair to the writer: yes I get it, 100%.
Not a joke. My brain and my hands have been at war my entire life. I may be the least dexterous person I know. Guitar was a total non-starter for me.
Hot Take Alert: Ben Folds Five album power rankings: 1. Ben Folds Five 2. The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner 3. Whatever & Ever, Amen. (I never listened to the one they did as a reunion a few years ago, so ignore that one.)
To stretch a little: I always took Where’s Summer B to be a song that takes place in a college town (Chapel Hill) in the summer and also I was just in Madison, another college town, during the summer. And I write this from the endless summer of Los Angeles, not really a college town, but also a city with more colleges than some countries.
Good read for bag grabbage. Lifeguard, holy shit... As far as the drummer thing, I am inclined to agree.
one great thing about getting older is allowing guilty pleasures to just be pleasures
were ben folds five really that young they seemed so old at the time i listened. i had the big CD at the time it was big and really loved it. still puzzled that 'brick' could be a radio hit, bless the '90s. a friend always went on and on about the messner album and i never listened until Army came on 94/9 in San Diego shortly after I moved here and I was obsessed for a quick minute.
glad you had fun in the mad city. in a previous life i would have went to that show. sounds like you hit madison at a great time, i used to go up there by myself to go cd shopping when i was bored and off work. rip exclusive company.
thanks for the reminder on horsegirl, i think they came up on spottyfy recently and i need to keep listening to them.
i hear you about the books, i've been crushing books since The Lockdown and loving it.
i think there are more kinds of drummers but definitely hear your point, keep going on that one. like some of charlie watts jazz grip snare shots are infinitely more powerful than dave lombardo.
hope you and nic are well, take good care.