ON REPEAT: Kibi James, Backxwash, Mavis Fan, YG, Buddy & The Gang, Joe Tossini, Kilo Kish, The Femcels, Lip Critic, The Marias

hi, how are you?

Hi, how are you? (comment below)

Before I get into some songs, here is a plug for The Best Show Retrospective. This show was a huge part of my life since I was a teenager and I work on it now! I get into all that and the 25-year history of the show in this conversation with host Tom Scharpling. If you’ve never heard of it, or have heard but have felt the show was a bit inpenetrable, here’s your entry point!

Kibi James “Hi, How Are You?”

Just some pleasant minimalist warbly post-punk built for the next heatwave.

The Femcels “He Needs Me”

Best Popeye cover you’ll hear all day. The Femcels are Rowan and Gabi, they started the band because of a "pink electric guitar and a sleepover," and that they "dated the same guys."

This is what it’s like to be a teenage girl, I’m guessing.

Lip Critic “Milky Max”

This video is what it’s like to be a teenage boy.

Lip Critic is a band from New York described as sounding like The B-52’s on ketamine. With two drummers, they seem like they would be a fun band to see live. I posted them last week but told a rambling Wawa story instead of talking about the song.

Joe Tossini “I’m in Love With an Angel”

Joe Tossini, a sicilian who moved to New Jersey, made this song in his 1989 “Atlantic City sessions” after a divorce and the loss of his mother. With no experience in music, he put his words to music with help from Peppino Lattanzi and CompuRhythm drums and recorded this weird lo-fi lounge song that I find really sweet. This kind of music is my absolute favorite stuff when it hits.

Mavis Fan “BARTENDER ANGEL”

I didn’t get to travel much in my childhood. My mom doesn’t like “fun” so we never did anything like that. But once a year, it was my day and by the time I was a tween, my idea of fun was going to New York City. Despite living less than an hour from the city in New Jersey, my visits were limited to obligations and field trips to the Bronx Zoo and places like that.

Growing up in New Jersey, you’re whole everything is in the shadow of the world’s greatest city. All the news, commercials, local programming is NYC-focused. (There was one New Jersey channel and it sucked ass.) So, the one day I had to do “my thing” I would insist would be in the big apple. And because I was a little boy, I didn’t know much beyond Times Square.

Oh, the places I went! Dinner at WWF New York, the pro wrestling theme restaurant! Or Planet Hollywood—look it’s Garth’s shirt! A real highlight was Mars 2112, another theme restaurant that was modeled to look like Mars and involved a motion simulator ride to get in. I also loved the giant Toys R Us with the ferris wheel. I took a tour of Rockefeller Center and saw the SNL set and did a greenscreen Conan O’Brien desk ride. It was incredible.

This was all in the early 2000’s, when this song came out. So when you watch that almost saccharine music video, just imagine little me in there posing with all the signs like she is.

YG (feat. Buddy & The Gang) - 2004

Speaking of the early 2000’s, big suits and songs that sound like this are back. The lyrics speak for themselves but I think from the previous passage this scenario did not happen to me at that age.

The Marias “Back To Me”

Another jam from The Marias.

Backxwash “9th Heaven”

Backxwash is a rapper from Montreal who has previously won the Polaris prize and while she’s always pushed the boundaries in her music, this feels like a big shift in style and sound. I saw the world “horrorcore” thrown around but that’s also ICP, and I won’t do that to her. (FYI, I know one ICP song by heart but it’s never available for karaoke.)

Kilo Kish “digital emotional”

This video kicks ass. Sandwiches are disgusting but I’m craving one after watching this.

Kilo Kish is a NYC artist who has done stuff with The Internet, Childish Gambino, Vince Staples and Gorillaz over the years and seems overdue to blow up proper.

THE GOLD STANDARD

Kilo Kish “NICE OUT”

This song was one of my “too literal pandemic faves” along with “Hunger For A Way Out” and soundtracked one of my many aimless walks around NYC. Yes, the boy who dreamt of seeing the M&M’s store in person got to move there, and then got so bored of his surroundings during forced unemployment that he’d just walk from Bed-Stuy to Flushing Meadows and back again.