author: Marten
date: 28/09/2011
tags:
It used to have some attitude. Nowadays, when you think of indie rock, you think of some weak shit, like Vampire Weekend, or any of the dozens of bands ripping off Phoenix and their falsetto-dance sound. It's like disco never died.
Lemme tell you something extremely embarrassing. I owe a good handful of my music taste to someone else: my girlfriend when I was 16.
She had dyed hair and she was artsy. Okay?!
If it weren't for her, I wouldn't know about MOGWAI, one of my favorite bands of all time. Guess what, metalheads! Post-rock can be heavy as shit. Here's every Mogwai song in a nutshell:
Hope you like huge blasts of NOISE.
Also, how wonderful is the band AT THE DRIVE-IN? They're so good, that sometimes I'll pretend like THE MARS VOLTA is an acceptable band to listen to. Hell, I even own some SPARTA CDs. But let's face it - they all stopped making good music after Relationship of Command. One of the best albums of the decade, IMO. But even so, you're much cooler if you like their old stuff. This girl, she liked their oldest stuff, like "Communication Drive-In" and "Skips on the Record". Me? Well, "Picket Fence Cartel" was really fun...
At the Drive-In - Picket Fence Cartel (1997)
But I thought 1998's In Casino Out was when they really figured their shit out.
At The Drive-In - Napoleon Solo (1998)"
This is forever. Imagine yourself at 16. When you thought about forever, did you have any idea it would bring you here? Where you are today? Do you still know that person you were back then? I like to pretend I'm a completely new person. Disconnect yourself from your past.
She had a lot of screen names. I think she had one from an At The Drive-In lyric, but all I can remember is her screen name "syntax lies", an obscure song from The Faint. At 16, I was like, WHO?? At 26, I'm like, c'mon. Besides its AIM-value - it's obscurity, it's cuteness, it's less-than-16-characters-ness - this track from the same album is way better:
The Faint - There's Something Not as Valid When the Scenery Is a Postcard (1998)