July 1st, 2011 / 6:25 pm
Snippets
Snippets
Andrew Weatherhead—
Jordan Castro and his band, The Ohioans, have released their debut studio album, also called The Ohioans. Bros are really good, I’m impressed.
thank you
They’re great! Thank you for this. The singer sounds a good deal like Okkervil River’s Will Sheff at times.
this wasn’t bad at all. was actually quite good.
love the saddle creek sound (i’m thinking it’s OK to mention this since the songs were tagged with saddle creek bands). i thought “jawbreaker” might be a cover from cassadega (til i heard the lyrics). i wouldn’t have questioned the inclusion of any of these songs on the saddle creek sampler, they sound that good.
some of the lyrics made me cringe, but since i don’t have to read these, i can just listen to them, i didn’t mind so much. also, sometimes phrases that i’d hate in writing don’t bother me in songs, and i can even like them (like “i wanna live but not exist”), so this album has that going for it, too. plus, as much as i love conor oberst for his lyrics, i like a lot of songs that have really shitty lyrics, too–as long as they sound good–and these lyrics aren’t even shitty exactly, just sort of more on the nose/simplistic (“i feel awesome and i don’t care” “everything is equally arbitrary” “it’s so hard to admit that i was wrong”) than i’d prefer.
but like i said, lyrics don’t matter that much as long as the rest of the song sounds good, and here the tracks in the background are as good as any music i’d otherwise listen to. when i don’t focus on the words so much, this all sounds pretty fantastic, actually (sort of listening to the album as i write this). the guy’s voice is the kind that i have to be in a certain mood to listen to, but again, that can be said of almost all “indie” music, so that’s not really a fair negative.
i think “autotroph” is my favorite overall, but the beginning of “jawbreaker” really did sound kickass. liked the sound of “inorganic carbohydrates” as well. and “63” too, fuck.
hm. yeah. overall i ended up liking this a lot, more than when i started the review, even. it’s been playing in the background and i didn’t want to turn it off and bobbed my head a little. or as you guys would say, i guess, “sounded sweet, listened with moderate levels of interest throughout.” (i think the sound of this proves that y’all have the potential to far surpass that clique whenever you’re ready…. and maybe you will on the next album?) i was looking forward to hating this, but instead i have some new songs to listen to. i think you guys could charge $6 for this easily (picking that price because a studio album is $10 and you’re just starting out). but i’ll take it for free, don’t get me wrong. thanks for posting. hope there’s a next album.
sound: 8.5 (along with the guitar being so good, i was astonished how well these were mixed), vocals: 7.5, lyrics: 5, overall: 7.5 (easily an 8.5 with a few lyrical revisions)
ugh
This made me think about the idea of judging writers by the kind of music they would make. Also: I’m all for literary references in music but just taking the title of a James Purdy and BEE book and making it a song title?
i dunno man, i’d so much rather listen to these songs than ever read “thoughts on muumuu” again. i think people can be better in some mediums than others. like i love david lynch’s films and even his art is OK (although if I judged his films by his art I think I’d be judging them wrong) but judging INLAND EMPIRE by david lynch’s coffee, for instance? nahhh
re: the titles, doesn’t bother me personally, since track titles seem so irrelevant usually. i mean most of the time they’re just a phrase from the song. album titles i pay more attention to, but still, kinda weird to judge a song by the title alone, like judging a painting by the label underneath. (i get the importance of titles a little more when it comes to writing, since it’s writing labeling writing, and not a word label for a non-word medium the way song/painting titles are)
I originally meant that its funny to think about the kind of band a certain author would make if they were to make a band. Like, Haruki Murakami would probably be in a shitty rockabilly band. Or uhhh I dunno, William Burroughs forming a Dead C cover band or something. Pretty weird idea/joke!
you can’t make a joke when I WANT TO ARGUE
no but seriously, that would be funny, somebody should do a day on that.
jonathan franzen – postal service.
Favorite lyricists?
Yoni Wolf of Why?
John K Samson from The Weakerthans
The Ohioans are GOOD.
Yes to both. And:
Matt Berninger of The National
John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats
that coldplay guy…
(just kidding)
conor oberst of My Wet Dreams
i think my favorite lyricists are john k. samson, john darnielle, jenny lewis on certain rilo kiley albums, jake bellows on certain neva dinova albums and maybe ‘pat the bunny’ of johnny hobo and the freight trains and wingnut dishwasher’s union or [other ‘punk’ bands that i like]
i like lil wayne a lot. i also like gucci mane and waka flocka flame and other, ‘lesser known,’ i think, ‘bricksquad’ rappers.
thanks scott
i like yo style (unless you don’t read my review) mwhaahahah i hate holidays
thas wassup. listening to this now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qp8T2UTg9Qo
i don’t think you understand teh depths of my drunken insecurity, like if you don’t reply to my review i’ll prolly just erase it and delete the mp3s i dwnloaded and drink oh no oh now whoooops already drinking. fuck 4th of july.
only once the drugs are done, i feel like dying, i feel like dying…. i can play basketball with the moon i got the whole world at my feet playing touch football on marijuana streets … i’m at the top of the top but still i climb, and if i should ever fall, the ground would then turn to wine (pop)i cut my thumb oopppsss (someone love me) it’s bleeding ooooops (someone)
i’m sorry re drunken insecurity…i think i haven’t responded to your review yet because i don’t know what i want to say. ‘it isn’t bad,’ if that’s what you’re worried about. i didn’t view your review as bad, i think, it seemed interesting to me.
i like that song. i think that was the first lil wayne song i ever heard.
well, rest assured i just wana be in the club and aren’t so i drink, so you can just read the review (do read it thought!) isn’t from bad as much as jealously, like well hey maybe i could have written a few of these lines slightly better andt hen we’d be a BAND man and i’d have friends and be happy again and in the VH1 interiviews abotu hwo this album originated I could be like “well the music already sounded fantastic, I just tweaked a few words, then it became a total hit, like 15 gold platinum ultra grammys, they just stopped giving awards to anyone else.”
well, rest assured i just wana be in the club and aren’t so i drink, so you can just read the review (do read it thought!) isn’t from bad as much as jealously, like well hey maybe i could have written a few of these lines slightly better andt hen we’d be a BAND man and i’d have friends and be happy again and in the VH1 interiviews abotu hwo this album originated I could be like “well the music already sounded fantastic, I just tweaked a few words, then it became a total hit, like 15 gold platinum ultra grammys, they just stopped giving awards to anyone else.”
just read it mannnnnnnn
lol…i don’t feel like i’m in a club…it is 2:07AM and i’m alone in my bedroom laying in bed, looking at twitter, etc.
15 gold platinum ultra grammys, sweet
i read it bro…
well this is the part in the theatre my addled mind created in which i’d blow you etc and i haven’t figirued out what the “online” equivalent” is of that, but as long as you read my review and you “get it” and you’re a hot guy in a band then yeah this is the inevitable next stump for we drunk townies. oops. move to texas or i’ll have to suck off a spacebar
i don’t know what the online equivalent of a blowjob is, thank you for the offer though.
i’m going to try to go to sleep, goodnight.
bro
do we all have bands and just not talk about them?
maybe…seems interesting to think about…
one of the ohioans’ dogs emits a horrible smell everytime it hears fireworks which is also a weird thing to think about…
i don’t know…
just thinking about that really i guess…
I think it is weird we automatically equate writers and their musical ability with being “in a band” — the classical sense of band, or maybe American sense of band. And we don’t think of them as being rap artists. Almost as if it is an impossibility for one to be a great/good writer and a great rap artist.
I’d be way more interested if a writer I liked was also a rapper, it just seems a lot less likely that someone would have a secret rap career, because rappers fuckin promote their shit. There’s a shame in self-promotion in rock music that isn’t there in rap. In rock it’s considered a sell-out move. In rap it’s considered getting your stuff heard.
Buy my album: patternhungryrecords.com/phr25.html
is this zach…
i have recorded ~50 rap songs i think…that only like…certain friends have heard…or something…
zach…is that you…
bro…