The Firehose #6

Welcome to The Firehose, where a guy who listens to too much music recommends the best stuff he's heard recently. You can follow me on Bluesky or RateYourMusic if you haven't already done so. Let's get to it.

We're currently in the middle of a heat-wave in the Northeast US, and my brain feels like it's suspended in molasses. This newsletter (along with a special non-Firehose thing that I've been working on since April) hasn't been coming easy because I haven't really been consuming anything challenging. There's probably an interesting blog somewhere in "All I listened to was Minutemen for a month, and it was great," but I'm too hot to write it. I also still intend to listen to that Cindy Lee record (even though the discourse has moved on. I think I'll get to Brat sometime around September), but holy moly 2 hours is a long runtime.

Nevertheless, below are a few things that moved me. What moved you?

The Most Important Thing

BIG SPECIAL - POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES

Get this, I found out about England's BIG SPECIAL in a music magazine of all places. What year is it? I subscribed to New Noise a few months ago because they had Paint it Black on the cover and included a limited 7" flexi. Not exactly a tough sell for me, and the cost of a subscription was only a few bucks more than a single issue. Show me what you got, New Noise.

I had a few minutes between tasks at the "real job" and started going through the front matter, checking out all the bands that were blurbed by streaming a few tracks on Spotify. Basically, the same thing I did in the early aughties with copies of Alternative Press and Spin, except now I can do it from the comfort of my home office and not have to wait until I visit my dad's place to leech off his high-speed internet.

Anyway. Back to BIG SPECIAL. This record is so all over the place that it's overwhelmingly charming. They'll sound like Sleaford Mods at one moment before segueing into something that sounds like the most annoying parts of The Gaslight Anthem, and then another breakneck left turn into Interpol. By all accounts, I should find this annoying, but it works and has wormed its way into constant rotation.

Recommendations

vega - trust me, i'm trying

Found via Josh Terry's No Expectations, this record by vega has been perfect for these days nearing 100°. trust me, i'm trying sounds like when you put a record on at half speed and it still sounds charming, it meanders in a really fun, fulfilling way that doesn't inundate or bore you. Even when "too late" (my favorite track on the record) rocks toward the end, it doesn't feel harsh or heavy, and honestly, that's kinda nice.

Winged Wheel - Big Hotel

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the parking lot of my local pizza joint, waiting for them to finish my takeout order. My ritual for getting pizza is turning on Princeton's WPRB 103.3 because it's bound to be a strange and interesting listen instead of a boring one, even for a 10-minute drive.

I tune in in the middle of Winged Wheel's "Sleeptraining," a dark, bass-heavy krautrock-inspired dirge that rules. I didn't know any of that then, and Shazam was useless in sourcing the material (which, to be honest, is one of the reasons I like WPRB). I ended up taking a photo of the clock on my car dash to browse through the radio's playlist to find this goddamn song.

All of that was completely worth it. The record has a dark Yo La Tengo vibe that frequently sees Winged Wheel expand an idea over several minutes, adding things to it all along. "Smudged Textile" has a borderline religious vibe, with the vocals taking place as another instrument in the jam rather than a conveyor of lyrics. "Soft Hands" wouldn't feel out of place on a YLT record either.

Justin Townes Earle - Dreams

ALL IN: Unreleased & Rarities hasn't come out yet, but I wanted to share the Fleetwood Mac cover while it was fresh in my mind. Justin Townes Earle was one of the first country guys I got into when I let myself enjoy the genre years ago. He bridged my dad's era of country with modern stuff that was more palatable to my ears.

I know posthumous releases can get dicey; the artist's family can get angry that the label is releasing something, the artist never meant these songs to be heard, etc. I have no idea if that's the case here. Nevertheless, I'm glad I at least got to hear it.

Ted Leo + the Pharmacists - Hearts of Oak

I sat with Hearts of Oak for the first time in earnest the other day. The album had been in my orbit for a long time, but I'm not sure I've ever done a full listen. If you're reading this, you probably don't need me to hip you to Ted Leo. He's released what feels like 20 records and has been making good music for multiple decades. Instead, I will tell you about my relationship as a listener of Ted Leo.

The first time I would have heard the name was around '06-'07. I had a roommate obsessed with Ted Leo + the Pharmacists, they were one of the 3-4 artists she would have in constant rotation on her iPod/speaker dock thing that was ubiquitous in the college apartment around that time. I didn't see the appeal; I was concerned with what was PUNK, and the songs I heard from TL/Rx were a little too soulful for me. My interest in power pop as a genre was still on the distant horizon and I was still an emerging punk who had not heard of Chisel, Citizens Arrest, or really anything about Leo's bona fides. Safe to say I had my head up my ass as 20-year-olds often do, and Ted Leo had more punk credibility than half the stuff I liked. We're all a little ridiculous as we're finding out who we are.

Fast forward a few years. After a breakup and some growing up, I have a new group of friends who are punks who listen to music like reasonable people. There's a healthy amount of Bouncing Souls in rotation, but my ears opened up enough to appreciate TV on the Radio, Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age, or whatever else was popping off around 2010. I have a different roommate who loves Ted Leo, and I'm finally starting to get it. Not totally, but I'm getting there. We'll put his records on when playing Halo: Reach on Xbox 360, and I'm enjoying it for the first time. I had been obsessed with the Philly hardcore band Paint it Black for a few years at this point (an obsession still with me), and sometime around then, members of Paint it Black and Atom & His Package put together a Misfits cover set for Halloween with Ted Leo taking up the role of Glenn Danzig. The project's called TV Casualty and is happening at the Philly bar Kung-Fu Necktie. I attend with my roommates, and it rules. I'm not sure I can do a concert review going off 15 years of memory, but they run through all the better Misfits tracks and close with Danzig's "Mother." Ted Leo's Danzig impression is 10x better than you'd think it would be (even if you think it's great). Now I'm really warming up to the guy.

I saw them with the same friends at the legendary First Unitarian Church a few months later. It was a night pretty similar to the ones we're having in 2024, nearing 100 degrees with sky-high humidity. The show was cool in the way a good show from an artist you're not super familiar with is, but the remarkable thing was a Ted Leo + the Pharmacists show featured a pretty rough fight in the crowd. Two guys just brawl in the middle of one of the songs, and Ted stops the show to scold the guys in a "come on, what the hell are you doing, here?" way. I remember him then suggesting, like they were 5-year-olds, that if they hate each other that much, they stay on different sides of the room. I've been to many dumb hardcore shows in my day featuring bands that are more open-minded about violence, and this fight somehow topped anything I had seen in those crowds. Kudos to Leo for handling it reasonably. Unfortunately, this is my lasting memory from that night.

So here we are, with about 18 years of history from an artist I've meant to dig into more but never have. I did not go to the Shake the Sheets 20th Anniversary tour, but I should have. Hearts of Oak rules, but you probably already know that. If you don't and like rock music without a bunch of dumb macho sensibilities, give it a shot. Also, listen to your friends when they like something; it might save you a couple of decades.

CRX - Interiors

I had a mini-Strokes phase after reading Meet Me in the Bathroom in 2017. I liked them enough in the early oos when they were at their cultural peak, but that interest dissipated not long after 2006's First Impressions of Earth. The Venn diagram of the people who never lost the fire for The Strokes and the people who wax philosophically on the future of Rock™ is a circle I'm firmly outside of. I don't dislike the band by any means; I will sink my nostalgia into Warped Tour parking lots and not NYC dive bars.

In coming back to The Strokes, I poked around at their various side projects. Albert Hammond Jr's solo stuff was solid, but I'd still rather listen to his dad. I liked Little Joy and put a song or two on my wedding playlist, but they've been inactive since 2008. Nickel Eye was cool in an Adam Green kind of way, but similar to Little Joy, it wasn't really a long-term project. I hated Julian Casablancas + The Voidz Tyranny and never popped back into their later records (I should change that).

Unlike the other projects, Nick Valensi's CRX grabbed my attention between 2016's New Skin and 2019's PEEK. With a relatively steady output, the band feels less like a member of the Strokes going on Rumspringa before getting back into the garage and more like a group that wants to make something interesting and sustainable.

The EP has a "Jack White is in the Talking Heads" vibe. "Mean To Be Cold" is the most Strokes-y song on the album; it would feel right at home on one of the band's later releases. It's also the weakest song on the record for me, but I'm guessing I'm in the deep minority there. I assume most people want the guys in The Strokes to sound like The Strokes.

"Fate" and "Walk With Me" are the reasons the record is on The Firehose in the first place. "Fate" opens with this tribal beat that has Berlin School synths sneak up from behind you before the song really kicks in. Then it's right into something that feels right at home on Stop Making Sense. "Walk With Me" sounds more like something Iggy Pop would do in the 2020s, an angular dance song that goes well on the backend of "Fate."

The last two songs, "Let Me Go" and "Inside Dope," are solid but don't resonate with me as much as the prior two. "Let Me Go is a synth-heavy track that wraps your brain in cotton candy. "Inside Dope is another track that invokes Talking Heads, except this beat is a little too slow to dance to. It has a very "house party at 3 a.m. and everyone's out of steam" energy to it that works well as a closer.

It's a good little EP, but the band doesn't seem to be doing much behind it. No tour dates have been announced, and their website has been PEEK-branded from 2019. I wonder if these were just extra tracks from the PEEK sessions finally put to tape, but that doesn't matter. I'm glad they exist in the first place.

Articles and such

The Joy of Reading Books You Don't Entirely Understand (Molly Templeton/Reactor)

When reading this, my mind immediately jumped to my relationship with music which I don't really get. I'm not a trained musician, every time I tried to take lessons in my life it was a debacle. The gap between my brain and my hands feels like an ocean when holding a guitar. I'm lucky enough to have a ton of friends who play music either professionally or as their most passionate hobby, and whenever they ask me what I think of their demos, my feedback is always, "I want the kick-drum to sound like it's caving in my head" or "make the bass fartier." Beyond that, I often feel like a dog watching TV when I listen to jazz or classical music. I'm catching something, but a lot still goes over my head.

THAT'S ALL FINE. The only bad art is un-enjoyed art, and if I can pull anything out of a jazz record without understanding music theory or music history or anything then that's worth it.

James Chance, 1953–2024 (Lucy Sante/The Baffler)

I had a very brief Contortions phase a few years back, during which Buy was the best thing I could have heard at that moment. It's sad that Chance passed, but these articles have been a good survey of the parts of his career that I was less aware of.

Master Planners: Interpretations of Pharoah Sanders’s Magnum Opus (Brent Sirota/Aquarium Drunkard)

"The Creator Has a Master Plan" is one of my favorite jazz experiences; I think I even related something to it in an earlier Firehose. The way it goes from order into chaos back into order blew me away the first time I listened. I have occasionally wished for an only-sorta-serious head injury so I can do another first-time listen. I did not know it has such a legacy of covers and interpretations until reading this, but I had a blast going through each of them. That Bardo Pond one had me going right to Discogs.

I Live Sweat But I Dream Light Years: Minutemen’s Double Nickels On The Dime at 40 (Stewart Smith/The Quietus)

Years ago, when I was attending Temple University in Philly, my roommate and I would drive ~45 minutes to Rowan University occasionally. My roommate would visit his girlfriend, and I would tag along. A few times when we'd make the trip back, definitely worse for wear and brutally hungover, we'd put on Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime and sit silently as the record played. Anytime I've listened since the record has invoked those hungover drives through South Jersey. None of the above is about the article, which you should read.

Here's a running Spotify playlist of everything I ever feature here.

Be kind to each other.