Back in the early 2000s I met this guy Sean. Like my friend Erik, my high school friends Mike and Steve, or Henry Rollins, he was another curator. Each had or have their pocket, and with Sean it was the indie rock and pop that suddenly blasted off at the beginning of the millennium, stretching onward. He would send me huge .zip files of albums to check out, and it was through him that I was drawn into bands like Tegan and Sara, Deerhunter, Stars, and more. I would take everything and load it into a playlist I playfully titled Wallet Chains, after the accessory that was maddeningly popular at the time, and that Sean himself wore around the office with pride.
For some reason this week I looked back and fell back…hard. It triggered the realization that it had been years – in some cases over a decade since I engaged in a lot of music I love simply because I was obsessed with something else (prog, the Dead, you name it). So this is a quick look at what I turned and tuned my ears to over the past week in that vein.
- Stars – “Dead Hearts”
- The Fiery Furnaces – “Quay Cur”
- Beach House – “Dark Spring”
- of Montreal – “Gronlandic Edit”
- No Age – “Eraser”
- Cloud Nothings – “Fall In”
I came to Deerhunter via their 2005 album Cryptograms, but it was “Cover Me Slowly” that grabbed me with its similarity to Frank Zappa’s “Watermelon in Easter Hay”…Sean and I have seen Stars at least twice to my recollection, including once at Webster Hall where they did a gorgeous rendition of “Going, Going, Gone”. But The Five Ghosts has “Dead Hearts” which is one of my all-time favorite songs, and I’m so happy to have it here…
I’m not aware of other bands in the time period opening with nine-minute prog opuses clothed in indie pop, and with the new 2025 remaster of Blueberry Boat The Firey Furnaces may have kicked off my renewed fascination with this period of my musical life (I also just realized I put this song on last week’s playlist, but I’m already committed, so…)…Beach House is my current deep dive, having just grabbed Bloom, Depression Cherry and 7 on vinyl, with the latter’s opening track being a great example of what draws me to the duo’s music…No Age, of Montreal, and Cloud Nothings are all memories at this point, albums I downloaded years ago I’m looking forward to revisiting…
- Grizzly Bear – “Two Weeks”
- Animal Collective – “My Girls”
- Liars – “Sailing to Byzantium”
- Tame Impala – “Solitude is Bliss”
- My Bloody Valentine – “When You Sleep”
- Tegan and Sara – “Where Does The Good Go”
I barely remember anything about Grizzly Bear other than this song rocks, so like the records above I’m looking forward to revisiting the catalog to see what sticks…No such problems exist with Fleet Foxes and Animal Collective, as I’ve had both on CD forever and still occasionally take out when the need for indie folk/blues and psychedelic shoegaze pop is the order of the day…Liars is a band I barely remembered at all, but when I put on “Sailing to Byzantium” I remembered how the punk immediately grabbed me back in the day, so another one to add to the stack of things I need to listen to…
I know a lot of people love Tame Impala for the sumptuous turn to pop he took on Currents forward, but for me the only two albums that matter are Lonerism and Innerspeaker. Especially Innerspeaker, which is my favorite album to play in the summer…Finally, two songs I absolutely adore: I know My Bloody Valentine is way before any of this, but last night I went to listen to Loveless only to see it’s been taking off streaming services…good thing I own it on both CD and vinyl…And of course none of this would be complete without something from Tegan and Sara, a band I’ve seen as many times as I have Metallica. So Jealous was my gateway, and “Where Does The Good Go” is so lovely and catchy it needed to end this week’s playlist.
This one’s for you, Sean.
Be safe, be good to each other. See you next week.
Consuming the Tangible 