Veronica Bianqui – If Love’s A Gun, I’m Better Off Dead
Similar artists: The Blank Tapes, Julez and the Rollerz, SUO
Genre: Indie Rock, Indie Pop, Garage Rock
Regardless of your knowledge of music or popular culture, you would never be able to confuse 50s rock n’ roll for something modern. It’s in the sound, it’s in the clothes and haircuts, and, most importantly it’s in the lyrics. The words that the pop stars of the time had to sing were either pleasantly innocent, or like a Jerry Lee Lewis song, carefully disguised their true meaning.
But the 50s pop stars had the right idea. Their music still stands up, especially if it is being performed by modern bands. And taking a queue from the 50s groups is nothing new. From Ramones and The Misfits until the present day, there have been a myriad of bands who have looked to drag some excitement in their music by mining the potential of retro hits.
Veronica Bianqui’s “If Love’s A Gun, I’m Better Off Dead” is a song created in the great tradition of garage rock. It has enough energy about it to make even the tamest of audiences want to flip out. The lyrics are cheeky, a kind of sex comedy that would be unheard of back in the 50s. Like hits belonging to that decade, it has hooks that would make anyone requesting it on the jukebox have an easy time humming it for the rest of the day.
Safeword – Mr. Meagre
Similar artists: Shoulder Season, Fugazi, Superchunk, Pretenders
Genre: Skate Punk, Garage Rock
There are feelings that regular people don’t know what to do. They might have never encountered them, and they may be afraid of being judged by other members of society. So, they live with those feelings, and each time they pop up, they do their best to fight them back under the surface. But nobody can do that forever. One day, they’ll boil over.
Once that happens, true to form, folks will do their very best to forget they ever felt this way. That may be part of the art of survival, sure. It’s also a real waste. Anger that pure ought to be used for something creative. Anger like that feels like it could power a megacity. Why couldn’t it do the same for a book, a script, or a song?
Few modern musical artists manage to capture all of the anger and hatred that they felt at a random moment and integrate it within one single piece of art as Safeword do on the tune “Mr. Meagre.” Musically, this is excellent garage rock, built equally from the love of 80s pop songwriting hooks and a natural tendency to move to make a grand old guitar-based racket.
