Great Danes – Sydney
Writers have to either be the dumbest or the smartest people in the world. It all depends, of course, on which filter of logic you choose to view their life from. You could, of course, see that most of them die destitute, leave a hefty bar bill behind, and whenever a biography of them is published in the future, it includes a detailed map to their favourite bars and dealers.
At the same time, you can view them as the real, true owners of anything. Great Danes surely know this. There’s no deed or lawyers that have to give them approval. If they manage to pen a great story, a fantastic song, they’ve just opened up a world that was hidden before. And, if anyone wants to go visit it from time to time, they have to tip their hat to the writer. It goes without saying that the writers themselves have the master key.
“Sydney” by Great Danes is a song by a band called Halifax that, I am led to believe, is virtually the same band as the one playing here, but active in a previous era. Why revisit the past? Because it’s yours and it is one of the only things you have. To boot, “Sydney” happens to be a marvellously catchy, emotional, and poppy punk song. It sounds like the impression of someone dangling their mental health off a cliff. If you’d have written it, you’d be using your master key to go back in as well.
Gaijin Smash – Mountain
Once every few years, some big-name executive out in Los Angeles gets a book about punk rock for his birthday and decides that he’s going to single-handedly bring this style of music back on the charts. It doesn’t matter that punk-rock doesn’t need his help, or that many others like him have applied similar strategies for the same reasons.
Next, the producer will hold casting calls for his project. He’ll get modern bubblegum pop icons to try to sing a punk song. He’ll get kids who hang out at the mall to watch some videos, Good Charlotte, and ask them to impersonate them. And, worst of all, he’ll get old guys versed in singing the blues to try and punk things up. But, almost never, will he ever manage to get a band with the energy of Gaijin Smash.
Gaijin Smash’s “Mountain” is a really swell single, because it understands exactly what a single is supposed to do. The song is short, chaotic, and absolutely cartoonish. It feels like being sucked into some old Cartoon Network show for a few minutes. It’s almost annoyingly catchy. And, most importantly, it makes you want to play it back right away. The producers always look in the right places, but that’s, in part, because finding a band with Gaijin Smash’s qualities isn’t easy.
