January 2016 – The Ear Regular

Go back and submit to Dom

The year was 2010, lofi surf rock had been inescapable in the indie rock soundscape, and a year earlier MGMT managed to be omnipresent thanks to a handful of huge singles off of debut album Oracular Spectacular (an album that is still stupid fun, and I think maybe a little better for being a tongue-in-cheek project by art students), and Chillwave, the genre that never really was, somehow managed to become a buzzword.

Somehow, some slackers from Massachusetts led by a man, who refused to divulge his name, managed to embody the best aspects of each genre du jour. Dom put out a ridiculously fun EP, Sun Bronzed Greek Gods that was scuzzy, catchy and included songs about a semi-feral house cat, making out with Jesus and a ragingly jingoistic would-be anthem.

Obviously, sweet pop music with just enough edge about intentionally bizarre topics was irresistible to me, and I loved this band’s music, but equally importantly, I really enjoyed the weirdo persona the group cultivated.

A lot of bands can create some DIY grooves and give a great interview, but not everyone starts a party line or posts ads to Craigslist looking for a platonic matronly figure.

The next year, still riding a wave of goodwill, Dom released Family of Love an awesome five-song EP that covered extremely similar terrain to their first release–parties, apathy, fake electro anthems. But the second EP showed some recording quality growth and included a few style experiments (using a touch tone phone as an instrument and bringing in a guest speaker were particularly successful) that suggested Dom was actually building toward something.

Then, nothing. Dom is still making music as a solo artist and under a different name.I can’t say I’ve really enjoyed his newer stuff as much as I enjoyed those first two releases. I’ve seen plenty of bands I love fizzle out, go on extended hiatus or fail to deliver on the promise of early EP’s, but it’s always really bummed me out I never got to hear what the major studio version of Dom’s brand of anarchic pop would sound like.

The 11 songs across two EP’s seem to be the totality of the group’s work, and I fully recommend obtaining all of them and creating on full-album length playlist of weird, electronic-tinged indie pop.

Checking back in with Hospitality

I forgot how much I love Hospitality’s eponymous album from 2012, probably because it’s a super solid, vaguely quirky indie rock release, and I’ve listened to way too many of those.

Luckily, because of arbitrary self-imposed writing restraints, I was tasked with endorsing bands that started with the letter H, and I remembered really digging it at the time.

The whole album definitely stands up, but I found them most interesting when they dialed the energy up a bit. “Friends of Friends”, the lead single, got a bit more buzz and did some interesting with horns, but I definitely prefer “The Right Profession”.

For me, this is decidedly the standout track from the album, it’s delightfully bouncy and detours into a sort of angular art-rock terrain, which is way more prevalent on other songs on this album. It’s also got by far, Hospitality‘s strongest hook, so of course I’ve listened to it about a dozen times this week.

Somehow, I think it may have been almost three entire posts since I posted a short, punchy female fronted, jangly guitar pop.

My favorite Bowie song

I was raised to revere the music of David Bowie, and I’ve always been a fan, but even more than his hallowed studio albums that are indisputably part of the rock canon, the bonus discs released with a reissue of Station to Station–recordings of a powerhouse performance at the Nassau Coliseum in ’76 has always been my favorite Bowie album.

It encompasses most of the essential tracks that would appear on any reputable Bowie greatest hits collection, but this absolute jam of a Velvet Underground cover might be my favorite track on the collection.

This is in part, because, well, listen to the song and try not to smile. It’s amazing,

It’s also partly because Bowie’s career was defined in a pretty major way by his relationship to other artists.Mott the Hoople can pretty much attribute the royalty checks that come in the mail to the benevolence of Bowie, and as an arbiter of cool, his influence shed light on varied, artistically interesting sounds and bands.

Plus he was friends (or in some cases rumored to be more) with Paul McCartney, Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, Mick Jagger and Lou Reed.

Knowing he’s covering one of his friends songs, hamming it up and injecting some pseudo-inspirational spoken word makes that total romp of a song even more enjoyable.