ON REPEAT: Marci, Paris Texas, Voyeur, Memorials, SZA, Jackie Mendoza, Fischerspooner
It's the desperation to hold onto, something that can't be held onto
Very frustrated these days! Thought I was going to get a surgery that I now can’t get anytime soon due to insurance bureaucracy and insane hospital fees. Hope you’re reading this from anywhere that isn’t America!
Here’s where I keep all these.
Voyeur “Ugly”
I found out about them on John’s Music Blog in an interview where I discovered Andrew WK was a backup dancer for Fischerspooner—which seems like a fact I should already know. They don’t have an EP out but they’ve got the vibe of a band I would have been really into in like, 2003. They seem to lean into the New York City rock n’ roll thing but it works for them and for me.
This video currently has 81 views! Come on squad, let’s bump it up to 91.
Memorials “Boudicaaa”
Memorials is Verity Susman of Electrelane (who were great) and Matthew Simms, who plays in the current incarnation of Wire (which is still really good). Their music ranges from psychedelic drones to free jazz freakouts to live tape looping. But they can also write a tight, intense rock song.
Paris Texas “tenTHIRTYseven”
Louie Pastel and Felix literally met in community college French class and spent the better part of a decade finessing their sound only to re-emerge as a “new act” with a bit of polish to it and they’ve been blowing up throughout the year. The group is all over the map, they do DnB about DnD, and nervous, jittery post-punk better than most traditional post-punk bands. Everyone is overstimulated and on edge right now, best to lean into it! Their music features guest spots from the likes of JPEGMAFIA and MacDemarco and it sounds like it. And yes the name is a reference to the Harry Dean Stanton movie.
Marci “KITY”
Somehow I overlooked a new single from Marci, who is one of my favorites. This is her disco-leaning solo stuff, you might also know her band TOPS.
She’s great, but I wanna talk about this video. Or more specifically, architecture.
This was filmed at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA, built in 1974. After hearing some interesting things I visited this place with some friends over the summer while trying to escape the heat for a bit. Trying to enter this building on foot was like a puzzle, and once you were inside the modern brutalist structure it felt like you were in the TVA or an MC Escher painting. Elevators are labeled with colors,
We’re all familiar with 1989’s Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory by Edward Soja, right? Good. Well let me remind you of a passage he wrote about this place that sums it up:
Everything imaginable appears to be available in this micro-urb but real places are difficult to find, its spaces confuse an effective cognitive mapping, its pastiche of superficial reflections bewilder co-ordination and encourage submission instead. Entry by land is forbidding to those who carelessly walk but entrance is nevertheless encouraged at many different levels. Once inside, however, it becomes daunting to get out again without bureaucratic assistance.
To add to the strangeness of the experience, there was a gigantic rave con happening at the CRYPTO.COM arena, so everywhere we walked, there were people dressed like cyberpunk strippers with neon highlighter colors, bikinis, and fluorescent plastic jewelry. And also guys in t-shirts.
It’s also where Arnold rode a horse in True Lies:
And Marci is not the first to use it for a music video. It appears in videos by Survivor, Kylie Minogue, Lionel Richie and it’s where Usher partied in “U Don’t Have To Call”:
Ok back to music:
Jackie Mendoza “Natural”
Another great song by Jackie Mendoza that sounds like it comes from the future. Here are the translated lyrics:
There is no use in controlling what comes natural to you, can't get too far if you let fear get to you, I close my eyes and hear your advice, It sounds so far away, The programming in my mind from years ago, How is it that I still doubt in myself, I guess that's your game, to manipulate, Maybe it’s time to move on and revitalize, There is no use in controlling what comes natural to you, Can't get too far if you let fear get to you.
SZA “Kill Bill”
The end-of-year reflection on songs usually cements what my favorite pop song of the year, and this SZA song is my most listened to. And one of the best things about a really popular song is more accessible behind-the-scenes info:
“One day, Rob came over and played me a chord progression he recorded on his synth at home — it was blissfully hypnotic and I was instantly inspired. He left me with it, and I initially went with a 16th note hi-hat feel, bouncey kicks and tight 808 snares, but it needed a fresher approach. I started importing some of my favorite sounds from vintage drum machines — the new pattern had a slightly more swing feel, and I started shifting the entire rhythm. I cued up the drum kit and put down a complimenting rhythm, then came an electric bass, then guitar tones. Then I found a section to pitch the music down an octave, and made the drums twice as slow.”
“She asked me to pull that beat back up, and she was just sitting there quietly on her phone in the back of the studio. I didn’t really know if she was writing or just scrolling through Instagram. But after 10 minutes of silence, she was like, ‘OK, I got this idea for this song. It might be a little too crazy, but let me know what you think.’ And then she sang, ‘I just killed my ex’ and the whole hook from that point on. Her lyric and melody was written from top to bottom in no more than an hour, right there on the spot. And the finished record is pretty much the vocals from the one or two takes we did that night. It just kind of fell out of the sky, and I remember driving home that night thinking, ‘Wow, this is without a doubt the best song I’ve ever been a part of,’ and I was listening to it on repeat the whole next day.”
THE GOLD STANDARD
Fischerspooner “Never Win”
Sure, why not. I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately that reminds me of this era. A time post-Daft Punk, pre-bloghouse where DFA Records was more well known than LCD Soundsystem. They began doing makeshift performance art shows at the Astor Place Starbucks (which sounds like hell) with Andrew WK, I guess. They had a big debut album in 2001 with a Wire cover, a song called “Fucker,” truly horrible cover art, and a lot of interest from major labels looking to sign the hottest stars of this new electroclash thing.
This song has an annoyingly edited and kinda lame music video that looks like it cost a lot of money. They signed to Capital Records after a big debut album and wanted to embrace and deconstruct the cliches of being a major label act. They changed their sound to be more synthpop than electroclash. They opened their “FS offices” to the public, inviting anybody to check out the creation of a hit record. They brought on David Byrne and Linda Perry and Susan Sontag(?) to flesh out their sound and several songs from the album appeared in the Happy Madison movie Grandma's Boy. The whole thing felt like a performance art group pretending to make their big label debut and songs like “Never Win” seem to reflect the idea that they know this is their fifteen minutes and be intentionally indulgent.
But at some point, naturally, they got wrapped up in it. They planned a huge, elaborate tour and despite a relatively successful album, they still didn’t have the funds to do more than a handful of shows. They were dropped from the label two years after. Frustrated by the whole process, they seemed on the verge of a breakup.
I always think about this band’s appearance on New York Noise, that seemed like an obligation they had to do, since they argued through the whole thing. Just two close collaborators eating ice cream, tired of one another. They were bemoaning how scenes build up and fall apart and go on to do different things or disappear. I remember clocking this as a bright-eyed teen. You don’t often see a band speaking frankly about being on the decline. And while I haven’t seen the interview in years, I have revisited my memory of it when watching various “scenes” fall apart or wither.
Somehow they didn’t break up until 2019, so it couldn’t have been all that bad.