The Margaret Hooligans – Red Rider
Genre: Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: The White Stripes, L7, The Juliana Hatfield Three
Underground musicians are more tied to a life of traveling and pleading than Bible salesmen. The only difference, for the most part, at least, is that the traveling salesmen are only doing it for the money. It’s the musicians that hear a calling that traps them into a life where their goal is to pursue their muse relentlessly and then go and tell everyone about it.
However, just like agriculture is regularly the backbone of an economy, it’s underground music that keeps the music business retaining any semblance of normality. It’s the one thing that lets people know that the game isn’t entirely rigged. At the end o the day, it comes down to the music being played in smokie clubs by people with a record collection more impressive than their bank accounts that keep the music world alive.
The Margaret Hooligans’ Red River sounds like music made by people that have graduated from the school of underground music. This is not the kind of institute from which you graduate with a ceremony. Rather it’s the kind from which you barely make it out with your life and your sanity intact. What’s the payoff? If you are fortunate, the payoff is expressed in powerful, undeniable songs like the one that we have right here. It’s the ultimate form of romance in the 21st Century.
Gunman and The Holy Ghost – Girl Called K
Genre: Shoegaze, Psychedelic Rock, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: The Third Sound, Brian Jonestown Massacre
For many people, what modern music has to offer them is simply not enough. It is used to be with pop music that not knowing what was popular at any given time would make you out to be a weirdo, a square, a pariah for all the circles that accepted cool people. Nowadays, you just have to wonder about the people that are glued to the latest single by the belle du jour pop star.
However, those that are complaining about the decreasing standards also have something to which to compare it. Silly pop music has always existed, sure. But, there was also a time, not that long ago, when rock didn’t only seem to mean more, but when it took serious seriously enough to see just where it could go. The psychedelic 60s shouldn’t only be remembered for tye-dyes and silly hippies. It was a time when musicians were, first of all, looking to change themselves with their music.
It’s only a few people that can instantly transport themselves into the atmosphere of the fabled 1960s, and Gunman and The Holy Ghost’s Girl Called K is music made by those sorts of people. Created under the divine inspiration of the era of kaleidoscopic pop, and backed by retro-pop-groundbreakers, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, this is music designed to soundtrack the imaginary films that you have bubbling over in your mind.
