Song of the day: “In the New Year,” by the Walkmen.
By david ~ June 3rd, 2009. Filed under: Music, Uncategorized, live music.
Hi, true believers-ish. I’ve decided to try to post a one-every-few-days kinda music track thing, bringing out the business that I’ve been enjoying listening to. So here it is, the inaugural music blog Boneless Children Foundation. Even though I’ve posted a bunch about music before. But that’s enough lip outta you, junior!
And so here we are.
For those of you who don’t know, The Walkmen are a delightful band from New York City, the home of Statues of Liberty, Rudy Giulianis and my friend Rudy Delson.
The Walkmen are a stripped down kinda… hmm… vintage instrument playing indie rock band in a sort of Velvet-Underground-meets-The-Cowboy-Junkies-but-really-isn’t-described-by-that-at-all kind of way. Maybe it’s more like a rockabilly band not at all playing rockabilly and in fact playing indie rock but with a twangy almost Wilco-esque kind of tone, but not country, and actually just really rock, in fact. Indie rock, even. And “indie rock” because, well, they’re not a pop band. Genres aren’t so useful in these heady days of 2009, are they? No, apparently not.
Anyhow, the members come from a variety of fairly celebrated bands (Jonathan Fire*Eater, The Recoys) with whom I’m not all that intimately familiar. But The Walkmen and their most recent album, “You & Me,” makes me mad. It makes me mad because it’s too good. It’s music that makes you want to be the singer in that band, because it must be so god damn fun to sing those songs. And so on.
I mean, yeah - it’s kind of smacked out. But you say that like it’s a bad thing.
It’s good business, this “Walkmen” music. Kind of can’t recommend it enough.
This particular song is a fun listen. It’s bombastic, it gets quiet, it gets exciting, it has yelling in it, it’d make you break a sweat if you’re singing along to it, it’s ostensibly very glorious and positive but has a strong, sad note running through it… it’s bittersweet, like so many sour worms. Ok, those are more like sweet & sour, but still.
And so, without further ado, here it is: ‘In The New Year,’ by the Walkmen.
Thanks for the reading!
-David
P.S. BCF! This Saturday, 6/6, at Flux 53 in Oakland, CA! 5300-5312 Foothill Boulevard, tickets $8 pre-sale & $10 at the door. Playing with Shovelman (8 pm) and Colossal Inertia (9 pm). Mm hmm.
