Them Apples

originally published September 26, 2001

ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE & CHRIS FORSYTH
Wires And Wooden Boxes
Evolving Ear

I·m bunked in a Nevada motel. There·s a pocket radio under my pillow, tuned to what must be the loneliest radio station on the globe.

The couple next door are tired of fighting. Now they wordlessly eat from plastic dishes with metal forks. They got the metal forks from the stoner kid downstairs, who likes to stick them in his guitar strings. They got the cheap-ass wind chimes from a friend who·d be pissed if they gave ’em away.

I·m absolutely positive the piano is coming from the radio. No one would have any reason to move a piano out here.

I can·t stop thinking, but I can·t finish a sentence. I·m not pissed, not hopeless. I·m elegant: sad but undefeated. I prefer confusion. I·ll admit I·m a little bit lonesome. I think this music is at least partly responsible.

There·s sandy sediment in my bedspread. I·ll sleep in my clothes. The DJ at the world·s loneliest radio station accidentally leaves his mic up during the music. He rattles pennies around in his pocket. It ain·t me, but someone around here has a headache. I might join in if I weren·t so exhausted. If I realize later that I enjoyed this in some odd way (which is certainly possible), I·ll let you know. (326 St. John·s Pl. No. D1, Brooklyn, NY 11238)
SUPER XX MAN

Volume V
Post-Parlo

I love you because you don·t need to consciously rephrase things in the active voice - it happens automatically. I love you because you recoil at the idea of strictly being "entertained" through osmosis; in all you do, you·re defiantly participatory. I love you because you·re brave; you·re uninhibited. I love you because you sing along. And that·s the only reason this sad-sack bag o· love songs deserves your precious attention. Because you can sing better than this guy. So can most of your friends. So turn it down. And sing along.

The lyrics shouldn·t be much trouble. (Start with: "It·s a lonely old night/ I need you/ It·s a lonely old night/ I need you" or "I don·t want to go to bed mad/ And I don·t want to see the world mad/ It·s up up up up up up to the world.") If you prefer to improvise your words, I·m sure you could plug in embellishments a la "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." ("Reindeer... like a light bulb... saw it... like a light bulb.") Super XX Man will politely reverse-sniffle his lines through the very tip of his nose, oblivious to your joyously loopy freestyling. There·s nothing else he can do. You·ve got him on tape.

A few (after a few drinks, I might even say several) melodies are solid, and some of the lyrics are witty (as indie pop lyrics go: "Playing Our Song," "I Miss You So Sincerely" and particularly "House, Haunted" at least make respectable use of their obvious Morrissey influence). That·s why you can sing along. The vocals are an auditory suckhole of clammy diffidence. That·s why you·ve gotta sing along.

So sing along. And enjoy yourself. For someone of your charisma and resources, there·s fun to be had anywhere. (P.M.B. 49121, Austin, TX 78765)
THE COMAS

A Def Needle In Tomorrow
Yep Rock

When this record was originally released in fall ·01, I enjoyed it, although it didn·t, how you say, stick. The only song I could have sung you at that point was the slippery, subliminally melancholic, funk-in-a-funk ditty "Sweet Sweet 69." I liked the whole shebang, it just didn·t particularly grab me. The production was too thin and sinewy, and singer Andrew Herod·s delivery too standoffish to let the songs provide the inst-grad release of say, good Superdrag.

Now that they·re re-releasing it ("re-release:" serendipitous reprieve from the shitter of history, perhaps), I realize what that production job is. A time-release coating is what that production job is. What a smorgasbord of guitar-pop gems this record turns out to be when you give it, oh, a year to bang around in your skull. The pompous "Rancor," the noisy Pixieism "Wicked Elm," the self-descriptive "Tired:" I·ve had most of these tunes on the brain without the faintest clue as to their identity. Discovering them in one place is like finding a best-of anthology of my own forgotten barroom conversations from the last fall.

A Def Needle In Tomorrow lacks immediacy. But like that one Elf Power song you like, these songs·ll pay off given time. (P.O. Box 4821, Chapel Hill, NC 27514)
NOONDAY UNDERGROUND

Self-Assembly
Bar None

Of all the thoughtfully hedonistic mod/soul throwbacks the marketplace has to offer our aching, swing-starved asses, few are as resolute as London·s Noonday Underground. A+ student DJ Simon Dine bottles up all of the head-clearing punch and mildly disorienting echo that makes, for example, Lesley Gore·s "She·s A Fool" or pretty much anything by The Zombies stand out like holograms from the rest of oldies radio and punctuates it with electronic stutter that intrudes playfully, not impolitely.

The best tunes are those on which his collaborator Daisy Martley belts like Dusty Springfield released. She lets her freak flag flutter in the cool breeze. "London" and "When You Leave" are particularly irresistible.

When she·s resting, the instrumental tropical wallpaper and theremin samples take over, and things get more predictably novel (if only slightly less refreshing). Even then, Self-Assembly sparkles under the streetlights and keeps its substantial bosom above the waves of smug kitsch that soak most of its retro lite-psych contemporaries. For that, Dine deserves your most spirited soul shake next time you cross his lime green path. (P.O. Box 1704, Hoboken, NJ 07030)