Blog post 01

A new era for the stack. Also, save the date: October 18th at Le Bain

Charlie here. Up until now this Substack has just been used to announce DJ gigs. But there’s been lots of interesting music-related stuff happening recently, and I’ve decided to start writing about it here, because it’s cooler to share it with you >700 fine people instead of just keeping a journal or whatever. Hopefully this gives you a window into some of NYC’s sonic goings-on, and I’ll also have a section where I talk about songs I recently found that you might like (or hate). If you don’t care and you only wanted gig spam, feel free to unsubscribe. Okay, here goes…

I attended two screenings of music videos at the Roxy Cinema recently, thanks to +1s from Emilio and Mattie (thanks dudes). Up until now, my primary mode of music video consumption has been 1-4 AM YouTube binges. It’s a super different experience seeing stuff on a (somewhat) big screen. Awesome that the Roxy has started doing this.

The first screening was for Porches. As people walked in and sat down, previous Porches flicks played on a loop. A lot of these were vids I’ve watched many times during those aforementioned late-night YouTube binges. I like the one where singer Aaron + choreographer Sharleen dance in a high school gym and then get a bunch of basketballs thrown at them dodgeball-style. Special to see these old vids in an elevated setting. Once the event started properly, they showed all the videos from the new album. Guitarist Dan was sitting right in front of me and it was funny to watch him watch himself. There was a talkback with video director Nick Harwood, and Aaron played some songs on acoustic guitar. All in all a great evening. I like the new album a lot, I’ve been listening to it while I move Citi Bikes for Bike Angel points.

The second screening was for Sunflower Bean. It was a 5-part thing: 5 songs, 5 videos, all cut together to play seamlessly in one ~15-minute short film experience. Really cool idea and well executed. The concept was the 4 elements — maybe the 5th video was like the Avatar state? My favorite was the one that was air-themed. I’ve been a fan of the Bean since 2016’s Human Ceremony. The opening sequence of that album still rules. From tasty psych-rock then to head-banging heavy riffage now. I saw them open for The Strokes at a Bernie Sanders rally in New Hampshire in February 2020, right before the pandemic. So yeah it’s been a while. The guy next to me told me he had taken the train down from Connecticut because he’s such a big longtime fan. Talkback afterward with the band and director Isaac Roberts who was down from Canada, then a screening of Dario Argento’s Deep Red (1976). Most of the audience seemingly had no interest in the movie and left after the Sunflower Bean portion of the evening, including the dude who had Metro North’d from CT. Goes to show: the Bean’s fans are hardcore. I stayed for the movie though, and was glad I did. One of the Italian guys with his ‘70s collar was clearly the design inspiration for the main dude in Cowboy Bebop. The soundtrack was awesome, especially the bass tones; Mattie and I were bopping our heads along every time music was playing. I got out of the theater, found out our corrupt mayor got indicted, and started dancing in the street.

Another cool thing recently: seeing Dan English and May Rio do a show in a community garden in Alphabet City. Really brought me back to September 2022, when Dan did his “Acoustic Guitar Orchestra” show with dozens of people (including me) playing his songs in unison in the yard of the Cactus Store (RIP). There’s something special about seeing music outside when it’s not too hot, not too cold. Dan’s got a really great melodic sensibility; I missed these songs after two long years. Do more shows, Dan (and bring back the guitar orchestra, that shit ruled). May was very good as usual, this time accompanied only by Logan, and playing new material. Always a treat to hear her stuff in advance at small shows.

One last update about recent goings-on: on Sunday night, Allyson and I DJ’d the release party for the first issue of ANTICS, a new music magazine that’s print-only (!). It was at this art studio/gallery space in Bushwick called Kaleidoscope. Get your hands on a copy of the mag if you can. The cover star is This Is Lorelei, and inside there are pieces on lots of cool bands including DIIV and Hinds. It’s a nice magazine, and the people behind it are nice, too.

CRATE-DIGGING
When you DJ a lot, you gotta keep looking for new stuff constantly or you get bored. So lately I’ve been spending a bunch of time seeking out music I’ve never heard before. Even if you’re not a DJ, this is probably good for your brain’s synapses or something, idk I’m not a doctor. Recently I’ve started crate-digging on TikTok, which has been an often weird but sometimes rewarding experience, with some duds that are at least worth a laugh, and some real gems that have been instant USB-adds that I never would have found otherwise. So here’s the debut of a track roundup section called: DUDS + GEMS. I suggest you click the link for each song and listen as you read; that way you’ll know what the hell I’m talking about and I won’t just be dancing about architecture. Let’s start with DUDS, where I promise not to be too negative. If I really hate something I’ll probably just not say anything about it unless there’s a good reason :)

DUDS:
“A Night in Hollywood” - Seb Torgus
I’m probably a significant portion of this song’s streams because of how often I’ve been showing it to people with a wicked grin on my face. It’s so funny to me that it’s almost actually good? Maybe. The yelped delivery of “She had like over a million FOLLOWERS!” in the first few seconds is a sonic jump-scare. Is he imitating LCD? Imitating The Dare? Both? Gallons of ink have been spilled on Harrison’s love of James Murphy (come on, we all love James Murphy!), and I think a lot of it misses the point. To me, there’s a crucial distinction to be drawn: between artistic inspiration vs. cringe mimicry. This track falls way on the wrong side of that line. The TikTok clips being used to promote it are visual mimicry of another artist entirely, with the singer dressed up in a Stop Making Sense giant grey suit. Confusing, but sure. LCD are the Talking Heads of the 21st century, so I guess that sort of makes sense. But unlike the lyrics of either of those great artists, these lyrics aren’t clever at all — and don’t seem to contain a single rhyme! Yet there’s still something weirdly compelling about this song. Like some sort of audio uncanny valley, I’m horrified but can’t turn away. Maybe because the vocal-delivery ripoff is so blatant you almost have to respect it, and the giant-suit visuals double confirm that the parrot routine is clearly self-aware. Or maybe it’s merely that the appeal to familiarity tricks the brain just long enough to release some serotonin — oh, I’ve heard this before, this is something I like. I showed the track to Mattie; he thought the yelping was hilarious and said he showed it to people at DFA. Now I’m imagining them playing it in the office, having a laugh and seeing who can do the best impression of an impression. Re: inspiration vs. mimicry, Mattie told me that when LCD first started, people said James was copying the voice of Mark E. Smith from The Fall. 20 years later, it’s other people copying James. Some are definitely doing it better than others. The wheel rolls on and on.

Alright, enough measured negativity, it’s time for…

GEMS:
“First Date” - Deep Thrills
Something is clearly in the water and causing an unnatural increase in talk-sung songs about going on a date. I found this one on TikTok as well, but it turns out that Matan is an IRL person in LA who already knew Allyson and the Hyderdaze dudes. I’m a sucker for guy/gal duets. This track’s got a catchy chorus and this nonchalant sexiness in the traded verses. I’m working on a remix of it, and when Deep Thrills is visiting NYC, he’s gonna do a guest DJ set at the We Take Manhattan party at Le Bain on October 18th. Save the date. You may have already heard his stuff without realizing it — the Deep Thrills remix of “Von Dutch” has been posted by Charli herself multiple times.

“365” - Joey Valence & Brae
Speaking of Ms. XCX… sometimes I end up on this weird side of TikTok where every new track I find is a complete ripoff. Even though it’s clearly made by humans, they’re humans who aren’t doing anything original. So a lot of this stuff can almost feel like this bizarro world where AI is way more advanced than it currently is. Like someone could just feed a super powerful AI a prompt, e.g. “what would it sound like if this old artist covered this new artist?”, and it would be rendered fully produced, mixed, and mastered, and we’d all get to listen to it and be delighted at the impressive trick or disgusted at what horrors hath been wrought. This track, for example, is a cover of Charli’s “365” done in the style of the Beastie Boys. It happens to sound great, but it’s also just the Beastie Boys. When one of the two guys yells “French manicure, wipe the residue!!” the Beastie influence isn’t just worn on the sleeve — it’s the whole damn shirt. You may wonder why this track escapes the DUDS category and lands in GEMS. The reason is simple: it goes hard. The growl of the bass synth is fucking delicious. I spun it on the roof of Honey’s for Kareem Rahma + Tiny Gun’s afterparty (yes, the Subway Takes guy makes good music if you haven’t listened already!), and people went nuts. It may be another entry in the audio uncanny valley folder, but at least it’s a fun way to satisfy Charli fans without having to play the great-but-by-now-overplayed OG cuts.

“black0ut” - Reysha Rami
When the algorithm gods favor me, TikTok has the capacity to deliver me true ear candy. I can’t stop singing the glitchy hook: “Black out the room, make the bass go boom.” This is another one I tried out the other day, earning it certified club banger status. Definitely keeping an eye on this artist, because she’s posted clips of some unreleased stuff that I want to spin as soon as possible. One of the demos, “Nu Americana,” has a distinctly M.I.A.-esque flow, making me want to listen on repeat immediately. A couple days after Reysha Rami first popped up on my phone screen, I was in the audience of my friend’s play, a very funny trans twist on superhero tropes. During intermission, “black0ut” started blasting over the theater’s speakers. She’s clearly already found some fans. Now let’s hear those unreleased tracks! (I’m one to talk…)

“The Leak” - Hard Court
Leaving you with this one because it’s got a really cool story. Get in while this still has <1000 plays on Spotify. Bragging rights in case it gets many more soon. So here’s the deal: this guy on TikTok claims he made this track in 2006 and released it on Myspace and self-burned CDs. He says that, luckily, he still had his old hard drive, and he put the song on streaming this week because, due to the whole indie sleaze revival thing or whatever you want to call it, there’d probably be a new audience for the song in 2024. I happen to believe the story, but it would be pretty funny if it were just a cynical marketing tactic. Either way, it’s a great track. There are plenty of current artists mining the 2000s for influence. Much discussed. But what about an artist from the 2000s mining his own work from that era that had been lost to time? It’s an interesting alternate history. People in the comments are comparing it to Daft Punk, Calvin Harris, and glitch sleaze descendants like The Hellp. To me it also sounds a lot like Chromeo, especially the disco rhythm guitar, and the falsetto vocals are very Justin Timberlake. It could have been in an iPod commercial or soundtracking a Gossip Girl montage. But instead, it was lost to time… until now. How cool is that? I think the lyrics are about a plumber being lusted after by his client, but I’m not sure. It could be about something else entirely, or maybe it’s about nothing. Regardless, the assonance and internal rhyming in the hook make it catchy as hell: “I’m going knee-deep inside the leak / Every day, another week / And all you want’s a chance to dance with me.” I fucking love it.

Until next time,
Charlie