Ai dont you just want to fall in love with Leslie Feist? sure she may be exactly ten years older but still. She just has so much spunk and life I just cant help it. Anyway, the video's a lesson in simplicity but challenging technicalities.
Here's hoping that I come back in one piece. See you!
keep the punk rock ska beats house / fuck me im twee!
I suppose you know how from time to time moments of pure zaniness ( ooh spellcheck actually passed that word) threatens to overtake your mind, and you just drop whatever you have in your hands and do something completely *fresh*.
So that's this post, typed out in less than 15 minutes while I was struggling through a very different sort of post I had in mind which was already a day late. I suppose I still work best in spontaneity.
Towards the end of my military term ( and it's over now!), there was an interesting change I noticed in the kind of music that started to turn up high on my itunes playlist.
Sheer indiepop! all in the sense of the word twee! and that word means just what it sounds! and you kind of get what it means too by the multiple exclamation marks! which I always try to keep to a minimum!
Hah but seriously the word twee is often used for music that is alluring, charming, but tending to be also terribly saccharine. Depends a lot on your mood though. It could be the most expressively fresh and boldest thing that brings a shine to your eyes and a skip in your heartbeat; or if blue thunderclouds are more your cup of tea that day it could be so sickeningly *sweet* that you instinctively recoil from the utter insensitivity of it.
Bleh I do not care.
Got a theory. There are certain kinds of music you just *cant* listen to while in the military, no matter where you are. I cannot for the life of myself imagine putting on the song posted here while running around random jungles and getting stuff done in the army way. I mean, there's also a reputation to consider. Watched Stardust already yes? Reputation in the sense of Captain Shakespeare yarrr piratey sense. A sergeant is *just not* given to listening to such jaunty music no matter what one says alright? Look there is just no way I can pull my earphones off while a song like this is on and shout " oi you bunch of monkeys the boats arent going to move themselves" with maybe some chinese dialect emphasis somewhere and maintain a straight no nonsense sneering sergeant face.
So perhaps a song like this is a reaction to the past two years. In essence, the military is just about doing the stuff in front of you not because you might *like* it but because it is *in front of you* and it *has to be done*. The best thing it taught me, and the most dangerous too. One becomes terribly focused, and things get done, but it is all very isolated, things outside are not thought of, or even more importantly you do not think with the *perspective* of the outside, which might explain the disjointed absurdity one sees from time to time everywhere in the military world.
What better way to answer to such honed and at the same time deadened senses than a colourful explosion of life and expressiveness?
Tullycraft has been around since the mid 90s at least, crafting amiable underground indie gems that were probably counter cultural to the counter culture of the times. Imagine such a goodnatured song like ' Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid To Hear About' that just screams fun! in the times of Nirvina/ Oasis/ Blur and the like. Kind of puts things in perspective about musical boldness yes?
But the magic in Tullycraft's music isnt all just in the plain exuberance that threatens to burst out into fluffy rabbits anytime, it's the self referential wry tone that underlines each lyric and every beat. Just take a listen to' If You Take Away the Make-Up (Then The Vampires They Will Die)' and tell me if you do not feel a slight smile creeping up the edges of your lips.
As if to say look I know you may not agree with what we are doing here but to hell with that! Sure what we are doing may not exactly be very promising and safely predictable but we dont care! And we choose to carry on with a laugh and jaunt, whatever may come.
In other words, the self same kind of attitude that I find myself in as I start a new phase in life ( ooh that sounds big and so bloggish sheesh), the same self same sense of a refusal to give in and lower you head, and to *carry on*, for incongruity is no reason not to jaunt along with a swagger and laugh even when things seem like they have been shot up to hell and back.
Tullycraft - Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend's Too Stupid to Know About Their earliest gem. Supposedly now considered an indiepop classic. It is very raw and rough if you wish to compare it to their later material, but the lyrics are an absolute blast and if you dont know what magic is, magic = 1.10 and 2.20 of the song.
Chris Munford's vocals might just put you off though, it you arent prepared for it. Be warned!
Tullycraft - Twee oh you know how some things just shimmer? well this *shimmers*
Tullycraft - The Punks Are Writing Love Songs guaranteed to leave you humming.or your bandwidth back.
Tullycraft - If You Take Away the Make-Up (Then The Vampires They Will Die) you arent human if you do not remotely in any way like this song.
Tullycraft - Neutron exactly what the hell is a neutron dance? there never was any such thing but just the title of an insanely catchy song only an insanely catchy song in the 80s can be! dont believe what the line dancing Victorian sheep tell you.
oh but it had been a long while since a song like tullycraft's ' Neutron' came along and made me jump to the side and shake out crazily to the song beside the computer. Yes. Zhanhui admitted to that freely. Just do not go overboard in making fun about that of him and he'll try to not regret deleting that line before he clicked ' publish post'. Hell.
Tullycraft - Georgette Plays A Goth a waitress for a posh restaurant decides to dress up goth.
WRITING ABOUT THE STUFF THAT MAKES LIFE GOOD. "I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part...." -Nick Hornby, Songbook -
