Encounterculture

Hey Kids, Let’s Play That Real-Time Game Againe

Ah, Los Angeles. What the hell I’m doing in a city where coolness is so pronounced that you can pinpoint the exact location where a street goes from Ghetto As Fuck to Hey, Rich People Live Here down to a matter of houses is beyond me, but ours not to reason why. As a non-cool (read: poor/cheap) citizen, of course, my typical recourse is to make bitter fun of the cool motherfuckers, and seeing as how I already did that to the British half a year ago, I figure that the interest of fairness demands me to spit venom at my adopted city. Hence: Indy 103’s playlist.

Indy 103, for those of you who don’t read Rolling Stone, is apparently “the coolest radio station in America”, although in keeping true with the bell curve of coolness I want to make it absolutely clear that it came to my attention as a radio station back when it was playing the absolute worst dance music on the earth. But now of course they’re REBELS! who don’t cotton to that Clurr Chan’l boolsheeit, and everyone out here fucking loves them, giving them credit for pushing KROQ to play new stuff and breaking new artists left and right and such.

Upfront, of course, I want to say that my grapes will probably seem more sour than they actually are; it’s not a bad station or anything, just one that, by virtue of my working inside a windowless concrete box that doesn’t require a long drive in the mornings, I don’t get to participate in fully. Really, I’m just curious; given that this station really is getting a lot of credit among my friends who don’t devote every second of every day to tracking down new stuff for work-listening, I’d just like to know how adventurous their format really is. Which, of course, means: REAL TIME.

Those of you unfamiliar with the rules can check them out here; the only real change is that since there are like 50 songs on the current 103.1 playlist, I’m going to break this up into more manageable 10-song stretches. Consider this a work in progress.

OK GO.

5:38: [Go Betty Go, “C’mon”] Awwww…
5:38: Stupid Blondie being my frame of reference for all poppy Girl-punk groups. This sounds NOTHING like Blondie but that’s all I can think of.
5:39: Fuck, who does this sound like?
5:39: And yes, I am overwhelmingly confident that this will devolve into a contest to figure out who these bands all sound like. Ah, Los Angeles Hipster Radio
5:39: Please keep in mind that this isn’t bad in a Slightly More Rocking Letters To Cleo sort of way. But now I have the Distillers and not a whole lot of time for this.
5:40: There is a great essay waiting to be written in which the SoCal poppy punk sound is compared extensively to Motown. God knows they’ve both got a useful formula.
5:41: Yeah, this would have been my favorite song back in like eighth grade. Not that I would have told anyone, mind you. I’d have been all “NAW, FUCK THAT SHIT! Now where’d I put my Hum albums…”
5:41: PHONE
5:43: [Bumblebeez 81, “Pony Ride”] I don’t think I’m going to be able to avoid loving this song. FUCK
5:43: Yes it will pass very quickly but seriously. There’s not much to argue with – so classically Hipster in that “We Are Doing Everything The Opposite Of How It Sounds On The Radio” way
5:44: Maybe I just like this because of how much it sounds like LCD Soundsystem’s “Give It Up”. Which is odd since that’s the one [Velvet Revolver, “Slither”] LCD song that I don’t really care about.
5:45: Man, if it weren’t for Slash, this song would be just credible enough for a Jerry Bruckheimer end-credit sequence.
5:46: I’m wondering if this song is a hit solely for that one high guitar note hit during the chorus. Call it the Soft Cell effect. God knows stuff like that MAKES that Silures song, which is not on this playlist mind you.
5:47: Yes, I have already forgotten how the Bumblebeez song goes.
5:47: I actually want to talk more shit about this song than I can, to be perfectly honest. It’s not bad or anything and Lord knows I used to be the alpha-G’N’R fan so I want to talk shit about their side projects with the burning urgency, but this doesn’t even make the needle twitch.
5:49: Bands I would rather listen to than this: ELO.
5:49: [The Streets, “Fit But You Know It”] Whoa, what the hell is this beat? Am I about to hear “Parklife” all Just Blazed up?
5:50: I should probably mention that I don’t really like the Streets. I can’t shake my impression of them as the rap group that people who talk shit about Eminem like to prove that Yes They Like The Hip-Hop.
5:51: Quite a chorus, though.
5:52: And I think I read somewhere that this is a concept album, which makes me want to proceed rapidly in the opposite direction.
5:52: It also occurs to me that I might be less bored by this if I wasn’t Real-Timing it, as you can’t really pay attention to the lyrics. But such is life.
5:53: Mostly I just think I need to go download [The Sounds, “Living In America”] the damn Pretty Toney album already.
5:54: Man, last time I heard the Sounds was when they opened for the Strokes and I thought for furkin’ SURE that their lead singer was going to be the drunkest person there. Yes, I forgot who the lead singer of the Strokes was.
5:54: And this song fucking ROCKS in a shitty disposable way. Seriously. I fully admit that it’s just the Blondie fan in me (as well as that they really aren’t doing the Blondie thing at all, sans their image), but hell, hook-driven breathy-girl-sung rock music with an eye turned towards history gets my engine going. Who cares how overblown it is? I own a damn Journey album so fuck you.
5:56: AND THEY KNOW HOW TO DO A STADIUM ROCK BUILDUP YOW
5:56: Yes, this song was invented for me to howl along with it in my car.
5:56: Keep in mind that I heard this song for the first time on KROQ, and a year ago no less. Bleeding edge my ruby [Ozomatli, “Saturday Night”] starfruit.
5:57: OH WIN
5:57: Yeah, fuck all y’all, I still like the Jurassic Five sound too. I have no shame in liking my generation’s Whodini.
5:58: Keep in mind that I mean the above only insofar as that I have no idea who the guys rapping are. Multicultural Party Rap Beats 4 Lyfe, though.
5:59: It should, however, be pointed out that this is deeply, deeply music for privileged white people. I can probably count the number of Ozomatli shirts not accompanied by a soulpatch on one hand with fingers left over.
6:00: Okay, the rideout is reminding me to tell you all to go see Badassssssssss.
6:01: [The Stills, “Still In Love Song”] Again, this is hardly news.
6:01: And in a James Cobo Breaks With Nate Patrin Shocker, I also have to admit that I like this song. Considering how piss-poorly it does on the forest of mix CDs that I’ve burned for my car, I’m as confused as you are, but it really is quite a chours.
6:02: That being said, I am not at all convinced that my generation was crying out for an Echo and the Bunnymen to call their very own.
6:03: Man, a DFA remix of this song would be fucking funny and awesome and funny all at once.
6:03: Gotta love how they have like eight handclaps in the entire song (and all buried way in the back to boot). If you’re going to commit to rhythm, fucking DO IT.
6:04: Urgh, and here comes the Cure-ness.
6:04: It is a mystery to me as to why that song hasn’t been played on [Snow Patrol, “Spitting Games”] KROQ before.
6:05: FUCK ALL Y’ALL SNOW PATROL FUCKING RULES. I really do love this album and I give not a fuck who knows it. But this is like the fourth or fifth best song on the album at best.
6:05: And I don’t really get how they’ve gotten the Wussy Rock tag. I’d much rather see them painted with the Album Your Parents Find In Your CD Player When They Discover Your Dangling Corpse brush than that, since it actually makes sense like that.
6:06: Yeah, go listen to “Run” instead. Best Appease the Pre-Goth Middle-School Kids At A Dance song ever.
6:07: And I don’t need to point out how many factors of ten this is better than the Stills at their best. I like Ryan Adams but he needs to learn when truth is being told.
6:08: Oh, right, I am not a fan of this bathroom recording outro.
6:08: [Ben Kweller, “The Rules”] NO.
6:09: Okay, maybe not NO, but at least No.
6:09: It’s like everything I dislike about the Modern Lovers titrated down into one poontangly song.
6:10: Boy howdy this song didn’t need a “Whoo!”
6:10: Or a guitar solo. Ben Kweller, thou art not Molly Hatchet.
6:10: And last time I remember running across this guy, I seem to remember him being in full-on Why Aren’t I Ben Folds mode. But I do smoke a lot of pot, so I could be [The Cure, “The End Of The World”] wrong.
6:11: Good god, I hate everything.
6:11: It might be unfair that this is some shitty live recording but I am never in a mood to be fair to the Cure.
6:11: Okay, so far I haven’t been surprised by anything as Indy 103.1 is coming off like the Baskin Robbins of emo, a soft nurturing shoulder for the Sensitive Truckerhatter to lean upon if you weeeull. But it’s not like KROQ was that far off that description anyway.
6:13: This would be a lot better if it was a lot faster.
6:13: I’m not even going to try to reconcile the fact that I *hate* Robert Smith’s voice and like Luke Jenner’s now.
6:14: And I am taking stock of the fact that this showed up in the same 10-song block as Velvet Revolver. I am going to leave the task of tracing the connections between Rockin Rockers from Last Decade up to you.

And we’re done. Part 2 when I get around to it, as I still have every intention of writing about Fahrenheit 9/11 before the election that it won’t really influence rolls around.