The Idiot Kids – Wilted Bloom
Similar artists: Against Me!, Nirvana, Elliott Smith, Ramones, The Hives
Genre: Garage Rock, Alternative Rock
The whole rock n’ roll business of selling autographs and meet-and-greets to dedicated or just slightly confused fans is having a terrible and slightly unexpected effect on our music world. It’s making us and the artists think that rock musicians ought to be the people you could have a beer with and talk about the problems of the world in friendly, hushed tones.
No, the only people who need to pretend to be that way are your politicians and parents. Everyone else is a jerk. And when rockstars are allowed to be the jerks that their profession has turned them into, they produce their best work. John Peel never actually talked to Mark E. Smith, although he loved The Fall. Why? My theory is that he would’ve been tempted to punch out his music idol.
The Idiot Kids do not sound or look like people paid to be civil to their audiences. This means that songs like “Wilted Bloom” are untainted by the expectation that they ought to play nice. “Wilted Bloom” is a song about obsession, degeneracy and chemical addition. It’s something that the band’s heroes, Against Me! Or Nirvana, have tackled themselves. It made those bands very successful, and The Idiot Kids could follow. When they do get their time out in the limelight, just don’t ask them to sign your niece’s high school photo, please.
Irish Basement – Black Cat
Similar artists: Soft Kill, Joy Division, The Cure, High Vis
Genre: Post-Punk, Alternative Rock
The career officer looks at you and asks if you are generally happy with your life and your academic studies. You answer, with a smile beaming on your face, that you couldn’t imagine yourself being happier than you are today but, in fact, have even greater hopes for the future. The career officer shuts his book and tells you that, unfortunately, they do not see a way in which you’ll become a great artist as you desire.
No, no, let’s not go down that old rabbit hole. Depression does not create great artists. Not all tremendous writers end up being drunks who could provide guided tours to all the bars in town. And sadness is not the default emotion of the artist. But, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, violence and insanity have not always hurt the art either.
Irish Basement’s “Black Cat” is a gloomy post-punk sound that seems created by people who love their local music scene and hate the world as a whole. This misanthropy is really neatly accompanied by these kinds of ghostly sounds. Irish Basement provide a fair deal of grit to this familiar goth-inspired sonic vistas. And, while there’s always a chance that they’ll cheer up in the future, we’re hoping, for the sake of the music, that they don’t rush into things.
