to crest the top was thrilling

Pepper Rabbit getting their clarinet loop on last night at Spanish Moon.

Richard Youngs, Beyond the Valley of the Superhits
Pepper Rabbit, Clicks and Shakes
Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz
Belle & Sebastian, Write About Love

I caught my new favorite band Cotton Jones in the wee hours at the local last night and lo, they were epic in their landscapes for what I stayed of them


More Pepper Rabbit.

but the real treat of the evening was opener Pepper Rabbit. Fronted by a very New Music kid who played clarinet, ukulele, piano and guitar and sang through a well appointed orchestra of pedals and loops. They had me by the collar the whole time.


Cotton Jones, AKA Crosby, Stills, Nash & Yardbirds

So what if their tunes seemed mostly to consist of structural setups from within which the our haircutted genius may lovingly frame himself? It worked. I love these music student types that form bands now. Please, put in a clarinet loop part and two types of ukuleles because it is what your soul commands to be present at that point in the song.



Then, once you get your experiment side worked over you can become Kid Arron Copland like Sufjan Stevens or better yet a relaxed fuck-all-ateer like Richard Youngs, whose new(ish) album putters around the roots of the tree of pop without ever climbing. I dunno, maybe you, dear reader, hate all this precious music because you were reared different, but I was nurtured on Depeche Mode so an earnest croon over a patter of synthesis feels like home to me.



We've been watching Son of Rambow in spurts during dinner lately and the scene of the teen club (1:20 mark in the trailer) made me swoon a little. In my hometown, I would have given anything to stumble on unknown gaggle of goth girls licking temporary tattoos on our arms while an expressionless French kid led us in dance moves to "Just Can't Get Enough." We did find a gay nightclub that would play New Order and the Smiths for us, but that went downhill quickly when one of my friends got duly propositioned after being bought four or more screwdrivers and we never went back.



I thought about all this with all that bubbling in my ears when I walked over the Perkins Road overpass at lunch. I'm writing an article about grocery store lunch plates and needed a walk after devouring one, and standing in the shade on the other side of the bridge, watching for my bus to crest the top was thrilling in a kid-meets-life way. It might have been the turkey dope from lunch talking, or perhaps my old man bones being tired from staying out until 12-goddamn-30 on a work night or that one Belle & Sebastian song on the new album where he goes "Make me dance/I want to surrender" over and over and I want to slug him for singing so stupid a line that totally has me hooked because it exposes a maudlin side of myself I'd rather keep dormant, or even the way my daughter is a kid that's not a kid anymore or whatever, but it was all a little breathtaking.


Photos from the deli and the overpass.