We Need More Hipsters

Content

1. We Need More Hipsters

2. Tracks

3. Music Video Of The Week

WE NEED MORE HIPSTERS

Here is a really really really funny joke because you had a long day and need a laugh:

Q:  Why did the hipster burn their tongue???

(you ready...this is really funny)

(I mean really funny)

(here we go....)

A: Because they drank their coffee before it was cool!

You get it?  Hipsters like to brag about how they knew about music before it was cool.  Isn't that hilarious?  

Over the last decade "hipster" has become one of the dirtiest words to summarize really anything at this point.  Like a virus, the term has latched onto anything and everything to the point where I'm not sure the word has any meaning at all.  While hipsters have been criticized for being pretentious, having a sheepish mentality, being ironic for the sake of being ironic, the main cause of gentrification, and other catch alls...the bashing of all things "hipster" directly hurts something I care deeply about...the passion for musical discovery.

That not so funny joke above highlights one of the biggest problems in music today...people are afraid to be proud of their individual musical taste.  At this point I would rather be around someone who claims they saw Animal Collective in a fifteen person room (even if they are bragging) than a person who likes four mainstream bands because that's all they care to see.  The beginning of musical discovery comes from a want and passion to discover, to be an individual, to totally immerse themselves in an art that carries great emotional weight. If that means being a hipster, then from now on let's start using the word as a positive.

The original bashing of musical discovery before "it was cool" comes in the form of the automatic notion that one is bragging about their claim.  For a lot of people it sprouts from a basic declaration of truth and being proud of putting in the necessary work.  Let me use a personal story to highlight this miscommunication.  

I saw Sharon Van Etten this weekend play to a festival crowd of a few thousand at Forecastle Festival.  I remember a morning show at SXSW years ago where my friend and I stumbled into a small trailer, ate pancakes, and sat on the floor crossed legged while she strummed an acoustic guitar and sang for a dozen or so people.

There are so many hipster buzzwords above, one can't help but roll their eyes.  I highlight that when I saw Van Etten there were far less people, it was at a hipster (or once was) festival, it was way in the past, and for the love of hipster it was in a "small trailer!"  WOW.  What a hipster!  Now, let's push the hipster notion aside and really examine the actual process of events.  The show was very early for SXSW standards, around noon, and my buddy and I forced ourselves to make the long walk to take a chance on a singer/songwriter we had briefly heard before.  It was raining and out of the way.  If we wanted to see any of the bigger artists that night the lines were already forming.  We had no idea if this journey would be of any importance or quality, we were two people trying to discover new music...that is simply it.

In the end this singular show and the chance we took will always be one of the most important and memorable shows I've seen in my life.  I don't have a bigger claim to being a Van Etten fan than any person discovering her for the first time this weekend at the festival, but I can be personally proud that I blazed my own trail and was rewarded with a special musical moment.

Which leads me to what I want to scream at you:

BE PROUD TO FIND MUSIC ON YOUR OWN.

You don't have to brag about it, but I'm sure people will think you are bragging simply because of the false notions brought forth through the crazy word that is hipster.

BE PASSIONATE.

GO TO A SHOW BY YOURSELF WHERE NOBODY ELSE IS.

LOVE MUSIC FOR YOURSELF AND NOBODY ELSE.

When you do that...

BE PROUD THAT YOU ARE YOURSELF AND NO WORD CAN CHANGE THAT.

TRACKS

Courtship Ritual - "Yellow Spiders"

I've only had the full album stream from Courtship Ritual for a few days but the love is immediate. Thick layers of somehow pretty drone and hum set that backdrop for snappy vocals and guitars/bass that thump along with a personality all their own.  Leave it to the best new label of recent memory, GODMODE, to smash this Battleship Potemkin plate of perfectly placed sounds across our face over and over.



The album comes out July 22nd and if you're quick you can grab a limited to 100 cassette HERE.

The Unicorns - Rocketship (Daniel Johnston Cover)

The band that made me love music is back for a few reunion shows and hopefully, fingers-crossed, writing some new music.  There is not much more to say...The Unicorns are back, Daniel Johnston is amazing, The Unicorns covered Daniel Johnson.  I can't believe I just wrote that.  One more time because it felt so good: The Unicorns are back, Daniel Johnston is amazing, The Unicorns covered Daniel Johnson.



Pitchfork has the news of a vinyl reissue.  Here is the track title (drool over those bonus tracks) and catch them live.

Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?:

01 I Don’t Wanna Die
02 Tuff Ghost
03 Ghost Mountain
04 Sea Ghost
05 Jellybones
06 The Clap
07 Child Star
08 Let’s Get Known
09 I Was Born (A Unicorn)
10 Tuff Luff
11 Inoculate the Innocuous
12 Les Os
13 Ready to Die
14 Rocket Ship (Daniel Johnston cover) [Bonus] [unreleased]
15 Let Me Sleep [Bonus] [unreleased track from Who Will Cut Our Hair? sessions]
16 Evacuate the Vacuous [Bonus] [from the 2014 EP]
17 Haunted House (Live) [Bonus] [recorded March 29, 2004 at Crocodile Café in Seattle]

The Unicorns:

08-01 Inglewood, CA - The Forum *
08-02 Inglewood, CA - The Forum *
08-22 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center *
08-23 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center *
08-24 Brooklyn, NY - Barclays Center *
09-21 Montreal, Quebec - Pop Montreal

* with Arcade Fire, with Dan Deacon

MUSIC VIDEO OF THE WEEK

I was honored to catch a wonderful Louisville band this Friday called The Gallery Singers.  I've lived in deep absence of the Silver Jews for so long and for the first time in forever this song seemed to fill in a little of that gap.  The video is simple but there is a mystical quality to the static shot that begins to slightly move and snaps the listener out of the songs' trance.  The band is working on a new album that should be released later this year.