Like three years ago when I was in college I took this class called “New York City Punk 1975-1980″ and I got to write a 12 paged paper on Suicide. It came out pretty well but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t a total bitch, dude. There were literally NO books about them so I got to do all this crazy independent research and came up on ancient copies of the Village Voice. I also bought countless, weird documentaries just to watch 30 seconds of an interview with or about Alan Vega or Martin Rev, and most of them didn’t even end up being useful. Now there’s plenty of information out there on the band, including a documentary on the way. Why couldn’t they have finished this like six years ago? Whatever. The paper was good. Maybe I’ll send it to you if you ask real nice. The following videos are trailers from two of the documentaries I bought/watched/didn’t use to write this paper/totally kept anyway.
There’s an interview with Thurston Moore about the time he drove from Connecticut to NYC just to go to CBGB’s and he ended up getting there 4 hours early, but he got to see Suicide live. Apparently Alan Vega would smash people’s drinks and whip a chain around his head, and by the end of the set he had (what was left of) the audience hiding behind tables that they’d turned on their sides in fear. The interview is buried deep within the 9 or so hours of the Thrill Jockey Anniversary DVD, Looking For A Thrill: An Anthology of Inspiration. Trailer:
This documentary, Modulations, ended up being ten thousand times cooler than I’d anticipated, and it didn’t even have the footage that I was promised. It’s cool though, I kept it anyway. (Try to ignore the kids with pacifiers in their mouths):
Hell yes. Wolf Parade’s follow up to 2005’s Apologies To The Queen Mary has arrived early. Only days after officially changing the title of the album from Kissing The Beehive to the supercool-sounding, At Mount Zoomer, the wait has ended.
AND LET ME TELL YOU. It was worth the wait.
Every song on here is an instant catch. The guys follow roughly the same structure as Apologies, with Spencer and Dan alternating about every other track on vocals. With both of their side projects fully established now, you get the sense that these guys have something to prove to each other. The album feels sorta like an intense competition for best song, and man, does it make for one great album There’s no spacey, drawn out “Same Ghost Every Night” or “Dinner Bells” here. Every song is concise and fully realized. Imagine if you will a 9-track album of songs like “Shine A Light” and “I’ll Believe In Anything.” The song writing is more polished and everyone sounds a lot more confident. Though Isaac Brock is absent from production this time around, the signature clash of whizzing keyboards and strong guitars is still there. I can’t say enough about this album. It literally took me an hour to decide which tracks to post here because every single one is amazing.
(MP3) Wolf Parade- Soldier’s Grin (MP3) Wolf Parade- Language City (MP3) Wolf Parade- California Dreamer (MP3) Wolf Parade- Fine Young Cannibals Pre-order “At Mount Zoomer” here.
