Barney Cortez – Happy
Genre: Indie Folk, Folk rock, Indie Rock
Similar artists: Rayland Baxter, Caamp, Jamestown Revival, Glom
They say that youth is likely to be the best time of your life, but don’t fall for it, or you might just end up making your muse angry with you and wishing to desert you. Young people’s distress, for better or worse, makes for good copy or good music very often.
In truth, there is probably never a better time to be angry with the world. You’ll never be more courageous about being said or about seeing existence in the way it really is. Won’t you be bulletproof? But, your energy and innocence will undoubtedly go a long way to saving from some of the woes that an older person will experience if engaging with the same things.
Barney Cortez calls himself Happy on this latest indie-folk single, but don’t a poet at their word. This could just as well be a soundtrack for a documentary about the death of the Hippie Dream. If this is happiness, then Zoloft must be making people positively giddy. Instead, it’s a song about gaining experience, grit, and withstanding whatever is being thrown your way. Maybe just as good.
Tsunami Tsurprise – Frankenhooker
Genre: Punk, Surf Rock
Similar artists: B-52s, Mannequin Pussy, Bikini Kill, Man or Astro-man?
Congratulations to us all! We’ve finally reached a time in the evolution of modern culture where what is deemed by most to be trash is, usually far more interesting than the kinds of things for which giant companies pay millions of dollars. Modern entertainment is so upsetting for some people that they’d rather have lo-fi recordings, B-movies, and poetry written on the side of urinals.
The people that prefer this aren’t even to be deemed eccentrics anymore. There are plenty of them. So many, in fact, that they have meetings share their own uniforms and could recognize one another in a crowded subway train. New, dangerous clubs are being set up, and you’re probably not invited.
Tsunami Tsurprise’s Frankenhooker aims to capture all that is rich and exciting about trashy, underground art. From the surf rock time capsule of the music to the trashy B-movie imagery, it is a treasure trove for those who can still muster the energy to reject mainstream commercialism. And, perhaps most importantly, hearing and learning to enjoy them is not a chore.
