Two guys sit in a bar, beers in hand, discussing their next musical move:
“I’ve got it, I know what we need to do. This whole dream pop/shoegaze movement is huge right now, but it needs a twist to make it fresh. So what we’ll do is play songs with fuzzy, distorted guitars, but instead of mimicking My Bloody Valentine, we’ll sound like Del Shannon.”
“Del Shannon? The guy who wrote “Runaway”? Combined with 1980s shoegaze? That sounds incredibly lame.”
“No, no it’s not lame, it can be done. I’ve been listening to this Vancouver band called Shimmering Stars — it has this new album called Violent Hearts — and it takes these Phil Spector sounds and turns them into low-fi classics.”
“There’s nothing new about that, there’s tons of bands doing that now.”
“Yeah, name one?”
“Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls, Seapony, The Black Tambourines. Hell, the Raveonettes have being doing that for a decade now.”
“Not like this. Listen here, you’ll see this is different.”
[Plays “I’m Gonna Try” on his iPod]
“See what I mean?”
“No, I don’t see what you mean. It’s two minutes of 1950s pop music I’ve heard a thousand times before. Did I hear the lyric ‘because I know that love is the only thing that’s going to save me’? That lyric sucked in 1956.”
“OK, you don’t quite get my point. Here, try this one”
[Plays “Into the Sea”]
“And? Look, I appreciate the band’s love for the Everly Brothers, as this song clearly proves. But why wouldn’t I just put on an Everly Brothers’ record instead? And besides, with the echo employed here, it sounds like the band recorded it in an empty bus station bathroom. Shimmering Stars? More like Grungy White Tiles. Is there any song that at least tries to be somewhat original?”
[Plays “East Van Girls” and “Dancing to Music I Hate”]
“Is this one song, or two? Cause I can’t tell the difference. At least the lyrics to the second song, if this is indeed two songs, is somewhat clever. I guess I’m not understanding what is so distinct about this collection of songs — to me it’s 14 golden oldies played through a hollow tin can. Sounds perfect for American Bandstand.”
“American Bandstand? What’s that?”
“I rest my case. I think I need another beer — and musical partner.”
