There is a show on Friday + music thoughts

So there is a show at our house friday, if you somehow stumble on this blog without knowing that from other channels. It is an "8 bit showcase" so we will see how that evening turns out.

Ok. Music thoughts. This is sort of a retro bit of music thoughts. The first Interpol album is awesome. Even if its a rip-off (specifically of Joy Division...an assertion which their later albums would prove correct beyond reasonable doubt) Joy Division never wrote those songs on the first album. The only giveaway is the lyrics which can be interpreted (probably correctly) in their shittier moments and also general feel (macabre?) as pretty phony. But its honestly easy enough to leave that to the side. There are things that Joy Division never did about that first Interpol record. Not that I've listened to that much Joy Division. Drum changes mostly, but also I think the melodies stick with me better from Interpol (again, I haven't listened to Joy Division in a long while). Still, not making a direct comparison its amazing to compare Interpol to how music sounds right now even. Turn on the Bright Lights was only 6 years ago, but nobody tremolo picks like that right now. I think the whole post-punk delineation between parts is coming back, but certainly not in a 2 guitars, bass, drums, and vocals format. I think you see it in like these second-wave 90s rock bands (Pavement---->Why?) where the differentiation is still there, but now you get 2 percussionists, or varying keyboards instead of guitars. I saw Why? recently and they were great, although I will say after the first half of their set I was not as into it. Eventually the xylophone stuff wore on me. I really liked how they used it percussively, to be sure, but I don't think at the time (during the first part of the set) I realized it would be used throughout the set as a mainstay and not an accoutrement. Their drummer was great though. Some hip-hop in him, as with most drummers these days it seems. Really solid and inventive use of double-bass hits. The rapping as alternative vocal texture was cool, but I'm not sure if I internalized everything the dude was saying I would be like "oh yeah, that was ace," necessarily.

Also I played guitar at my cousins wedding in San Fran this weekend. That was cool in the sense that it was "a great honor" (and it was) but I wouldn't mind having my weekend back. Its been hard for me to get back in the swing of things since tour. I could use it. A more permanent routine or something, I don't know.