The Whitest Boy Alive//Burning

Once, I played this song for Sean and Jon (the fraternal jazz-inclined rhythm section of my band) and asked them what they thought the name of the band was.
Sean thought for a second and then replied, "We're Really White."
"Close!" I said.

Racial stereotyping aside, Sean answered this way because The Whitest Boy Alive is really "white," in that they play things that could be funk in a really uptight staccato way. The band obviously understands this because they chose a particularly self-deprecating name.

The group started as a Berlin electronic outfit but has since become one comprised of all live instruments. There's also a familiar and much-loved face handling guitar and vox duties. That guy really keeps busy, huh?

This song is insanely catchy and good.

On another note, burning is also what I'm going to be if the bill in the NJ State Senate to legalize gay marriage fails. People think it will. Please direct your rage here.



Burning.mp3

So many people telling me one way.
So many people telling me to stay.
Never had time to have my mind made up,
Caught in a motion that I don't wanna stop.

The Monks//Shut Up

Ali gave me this as a birthday present this year. A few months later, she asked me if I had listened to it yet. I hadn’t. I have a lot to listen to. I forget sometimes.

Finally, I ended up picking it up and putting it on. I’m so happy I did. The Monks are SO delightfully weird.

The story: five American GIs stationed in Germany in the mid-sixties start a garage band. They get discharged from the military and keep playing music, calling themselves The Monks and dressing the part.

They didn’t sound like anything else around at the time—and many credit them with being the first to define a certain early lofi proto-punk sound (think Velvet Underground, but weirder), which strayed away from many of the elements found in a popular rock and roll at the time. Drawing from sensibilities that seem like they could only be routed in Dadaism, their lyrics are sometimes nonsensical, sometimes offensive and often hilarious.



Shut Up.mp3

World is so worried,
World is so worried.