Alex chimed in with some nice examples of swimming upstream.
I was talking to him about the band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. He seemed to think that my interest in them was waning. I should make it clear that I think these guys are terrific. They aren’t the second coming of the Neutral Milk Hotel, but such spottings are all so much chimera.
Anyhow, I was listing to “Gimmee some Salt” with my mom yesterday
Song: GimmeGimmeGimmeGimme some salt
Mom: He should ask for pepper too
Me: He said something about cooking up a shark
Song: preparing witty remarks…witty witty witty witty remarks
Mom: It sounds like he is having company over
Ok, it was real cute in the car. Sorry. Hey, at least I'm not talking about my nieces! (But that's just cause I waiting for pictures)
The Decembrists, who came on after, are another band that gets likened to Neutral Milk. The similarities are incidental, but are no more apparent than in their song “Red Right Ankle”.
This is the story of your red right ankle
And how it came to meet your leg
And how the muscle, bone, and sinews tangled
And how the skin was softly shed
And how it whispered “Oh, adhere to me
For we are bound by symmetry
And whatever differences our lives have been
We together make a limb.”
This is the story of your red right ankle.
All this fleshy imagery is ‘notches-in-your-spine’ Neutral Milk-ish.
Damn, I can’t stay on topic. Ever. Um, oh yeah, The Decembrists have a very good Anti-war song, and video. I have found that if you can’t tolerate these kinds of things, and I sympathize with you, you can just ignore the pith and sarcasm and just take everything literally.
Like, for instance, when Bright Eyes yells “We’re going to make them goddamn certain how it’s going to end!” I just sing along with Jingoistic pride.
Such studied obstuseness is rarely worth the effort, but that Bright Eyes album is otherwise brilliant, and that Decembrists video is great fun.
By the way, Bolton’s appointment to the U.N., which the video lampoons, has been an unmitigated success. So says the impartial Jay Nordlinger, who also drew my attention to this brilliant Mark Steyn quote:
If I were a Palestinian, I'd occasionally wonder what I had to do to get a bad press."
