Patreon Letter: 1st December 2020
Added 2020-12-01 05:13:47 +0000 UTCHey folks,
I was going to do a big sad introspective letter about new consoles and new years, about constantly falling short and feeling exhausted, etc etc, but yknow I feel like you could write that letter with your eyes closed right now and Em covered all the salient points re: our lack of year in review content this year. So I'm not going to do that. Instead here are some songs I really like. Do not under any circumstances roast my music taste. I fucking know.
Alright it's December everybody here's some bangers. If they don't expand then blame the new patreon CMS.
Earlier this week I was watching a video on hero of the people Skatune Network's youtube channel, where they listed 10 ska bands that are modern and under the radar to address the fact that ska enjoyers tend to listen to the same seven albums from the 90s over and over. And you know, they're right about that. One thing they are not right about is that they listed Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra in that video, who are maybe the last currently active ska band you could describe as modern and under the radar. Skapara are simply extremely famous and extremely good. Anyway they were speaking to the non-weebs among their audience I suppose, and imploring them to listen, so I checked out some of their more recent albums, and found this song.
Skapara do not have a permanent vocalist, and so for their vocal singles often collaborate with anyone and everyone in Japan. See probably their best song ever Pride of Lions (ft Fumio Ita) and Wake Up, a collab with Asian Kung Fu Generation. I like it because modern ska is an extremely samey genre and this way the songs bear a recognisable stamp from another band or singer, so it keeps the singles fresh and exciting. And the song I chose to highlight is a collab with Mongol800, one of my absolute favourite bands.
I am into a few Japanese bands these days but mostly out of the inertia that comes from Anime OPs being one of my few reliable sources of new music. It is more of an admission of laziness than it is one of a particular affinity. Mongol800 is not one of those bands. They're just a band I happened to stumble across, and I listened to one of their albums (eight-hundreds, check it out if you're interested) while taking a walk around the estate (god, remember!) and just found them to be completely fantastic. They are pure Jackson bait, that is to say, a punk rock band that started out rough and mellowed out to be slower and sadder as they got older. I love Kiyosaku's voice. Putting actual soft singing over power chords is a cheat code for making good music, and I assume the reasons more bands don't do it is that they can't sing. This is why I didn't do it when I was a frontman. Fantastic band.
Which is all to say I was incredibly surprised and excited when I found this song. It's a combination of two things I really like, and also a nice surprise as Mongol800 haven't released any music since 2016 and one of their three members has left so it's looking shaky. I think it's an excellent showing for both Skapara and Mongol800 and what makes them good, and I'm sorry I accidentally spent four fucking paragraphs of build up on "damn it's nice to find a new song from a band you like" but look it was a hard month alright.
Okay next song. Saves the Day are a band that I mostly enjoy but was never super into. Stay What You Are is a great album but that's as far as I really went. This held true until I heard their 2013 self-titled and I think it's a fantastic album, easily their best. I get the sense it's mostly well liked but it didn't like make a splash or anything, as after all it is a Saves The Day album released in 2013. The Tide of the Times has pretty corny lyrics but i absolutely adore the drumming on this track, and the production on the whole album. The snappy, stacatto drumlines are mixed perfectly with the swimmy, often open-strum guitars and it's just a great vibe. Good song. Please enjoy.
Masked Intruder were a band I found last year because I think someone posted them in the discord? I really enjoy them though they're kind of a hilarious have cake and eat it band. Their gimmick is that they are criminals, which manifests in a few songs about fuck the cops but mostly in light parodies of pop punk love songs, that is to say, songs about stalking. They're doing the thing that the rest of the genre does, but they know it's creepy and weird.
I understandably have somewhat mixed feelings on this. On the one hand it's often genuinely funny, songs like Mine all Mine are clever enough to walk the line well, on the other hand there's no vibe more off than the guy who constantly posts about "simping" but ironically, because he's not like that, but that's the joke, yknow. Then again, I have a podcast about Coheed and Cambria, the standard of political and sexual awareness in the music I listen to is cratered through the floor, as compared to the other media I engage with. Sometimes you just come for the riffs. And the riff in Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt is fucking incredible.
Again at this juncture I must remind you, do not make fun of my music taste, I know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4no3M3YxZI
Hey this is my favourite Fountains of Wayne song. I got really into listening to them a whole bunch like right before COVID hit and Adam died? So that's weird and sad, just a strange way things worked out. But this song rips. One of the best verse melodies. Good time.
Anyway there's some songs I like? I hope you enjoyed them?? I feel like a child writing it out because I am not a music critic nor am I particularly interested in writing music criticism, I don't think it suits my skills well. It's just me saying hey here's this it sounds good lmao. If you are looking for that I implore you to check out Hot Singles. Also my tastes aren't "good" in the way that I think about my tastes for games and movies, they are simply a white suburban teen in the mid 00s and forever I shall remain. But I made this list because I feel like my musical side is entirely disconnected from the rest of me and I never talk about it? There's The Amory Score but that's us reading a chapter of a terrible book every three months. When I was in school, I thought I was going to be a musician. I was going to be in a band or become a session drummer, and instead I occasionally play my electric kit that feels bad because it's an eletric kit, and haven't written a single song in eight years.
I miss it, but it's something I don't know how to flex at home. I'd get a guitar and start recording songs but I can't sing for shit, I could get lessons and become passable but I'll never be great. I could download some software, make some beats I suppose, but it's never been my interest set. I am simply born to sit behind a drum kit and play while my friends stand in front of me and yell into microphones. It is something I have missed for years, and it is surreal now because the whole world misses it too. This is just the reality of living so isolated from all your friends, who are mostly in other countries.
Anyway I guess I did get introspective and sad at the end. Simply cannot help myself. Jackson too strong. I'm going to sleep and I'll see you all in a month!
-Jackson
