I was watching a documentary on punk music the other day — you know, the ones VH1 Classic shows on Sunday afternoons – and a musician from the early age of punk said he never thought he’d be in a band because he didn’t know how to play an instrument. “But when I heard the Ramones, I realized I didn’t have to know too much about how to play music to be in a band,” he said.
And while it’s true the Ramones were never the most musically skilled, the band hit upon a meaningful formula which changed the landscape. It’s a pattern that repeats and repeats decade after decade, and is only problematic when the formula is so worn it becomes cliche.
The start of the 2000-teens has seen an uptick of dreamy-pop bands which, much like those early punk bands, works on a well-framed recipe. Mix three-chord jangly, surf guitar (make sure the reverb is on), ethereal lyrics about the environment, dreams or being in love, and a female singer (this is KEY). Best Coast and Dum Dum Girls are two bands which hit this trend with some success, and now entering the fray is Seattle’s Seapony with its debut Go With Me.
Paced by Jen Weidl (female singer, check), guitarist Danny Rowland and bassist Ian Brewer, Go With Me’s dozen songs zoom by in an economic 35 minutes. The opening track “Dreaming” (check) sets the tone, as the two-minute tune is simple and catchy, all jangle (check) and drum machine. And while I’d like to think when Weidl sings “I don’t really feel like everybody else” she does so with a knowing wink and nod, it’s readily apparent Seapony doesn’t know (or doesn’t care) about its tacit lack of originality.
Here’s a thought: Don’t name a song “Into the Sea” (environment, check) if it sounds a lot like “Killing An Arab” (lyrics: Staring at the sea/ Staring at the sand) unless you want people to stop and say “doesn’t this sound like ‘Killing An Arab’?” The churning guitar lick in “Go Away” doesn’t, as it returns in the next track “Always” with the same tonal charge as if to say “Yeah, we steal from ourselves, too.” The drum track from “Always” appears four songs later in “Where We Go,” which if phrased as a question could be answered “Back from where we were.”
Don’t get me wrong, Go With Me is not a poor piece of music – it’s listenable in a way background music is at a hip party of 20-somethings. But this territory is well trodden and Seapony’s effort, if I can be so banal, is a rip off the old rock.
