The Evens

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American reader/listeners! I don’t think I have any non-American reader/listeners! I barely have any American ones. Hmm, let’s do “dinner” for a special word. For those of you who haven’t seen me explain these before, when I do a special, I search for a word or phrase in the library and pick the random songs from that.

The Evens, “Dinner With The President”

The Evens (Amy Farina and Ian MacKaye) put out their second album, Get Evens, pretty quickly after the first one. And I think it’s a step forward, they seemed to be more comfortable with how to write songs to suit such a stripped down lineup. Is folk-punk a thing? I guess it is.

They Might Be Giants, “Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head”

While the first TMBG album certainly sounds primitive compared to where they’d end up, there are still plenty of their hallmarks present even with this early song. They were capable of writing catchy tunes from the beginning, they had the clever lyrics, and the charm was certianly present. The first album has too many incidents of wackiness, too many throwaways to be really great, but there are some fine tunes on it.

The Evens, “Dinner With The President”

After Fugazi went on hiatus (I refuse to say they’re broken up!), Ian MacKaye started a band with his wife, Amy Farina, on drums. They play as a duo, playing a stripped down indie rock that still has touches of Fugazi’s post-punk. It’s not as incendiary, but there are definitely pleasures to their records, so it’s worth checking out.

The Roots, “Stay Cool”

Flipping the same Al Hirt sample as De La Soul’s “Ego Trippin’”, this kind of call back to hip hop history is the sort of thing that the Roots did regularly, which was always a pleasure. And, of course, Black Thought kills it, providing one of the highlight tracks on The Tipping Point.

I didn’t quite make it all the way through May without missing a day. I didn’t put anything up for 5/7, and I kind of wish I’d managed to hit every day. Well, June is coming up, and maybe I can nail every day in that month! As always, there’s music around here.

MU330, “Around You”

At this point, third-wave ska band MU330 has to be the most obscure band that’s been on here three times. It’s pretty funny, I haven’t listened to most of this stuff for a long time, but it’s all come right back to me upon listening again. I can still whistle a fair number of the horn lines. And for that, I’m sorry for anybody near me.