Throughout my weeks and months I collect songs by relatively unknown bands that are deserving of hype. I try to post a collection of these songs every week but some times life gets crazy and I don’t get around to it for a couple weeks. The common theme of this week’s Hype Device is that Pitchfork has stolen my thunder on 4 out of 5 of these songs. I made this Hype Device a couple of weeks ago and in the interim, P4K reviewed 4 of these songs. Damn them to hell, I say.

Oh well, at least they have good taste.

On with the show…

[mp3] Frat Dad – “Brosef” [MySpace]

I found this song about a month ago on the (completely awesome) Underwater People’s Summertime Showcase compilation. Upon first listen, Brosef by the New Jersey two-piece Frat Dad immediately stood out as being completely brilliant. In a year when no-fi seems to be all the rage (see: Wavves, Mazes, Pens, Vivian Girls, Times New Viking) and yet so frequently is unsatisfying (see, yet again: Wavves, Mazes, Pens, Vivian Girls, Times New Viking), it’s great to see a band step up to the plate and deliver the sort of lo-fi masterpiece Guided By Voices used to deliver yearly or that a hundred forgotten Nuggets or Pebbles bands cranked out weekly. Brosef is a perfectly fuzzed out garage rock nugget that sounds like laying on your back in a warm ocean somewhere, slowly dying. Not to compare everything to Neutral Milk Hotel but if NMH had existed in the 1960’s as a melancholic garage band, this is perhaps what they would have sounded like. God, I love this song.

So I was pretty excited that I’d both found this song that was completely brilliant and that nobody else had written about it yet. I search of Hype Machine turned up zero results for Frat Dad or Brosef. I was going to post this song last week and expose the world to it’s glories. I would become the famous blogger who first posted about Brosef! It would be I who was featured in the BBC documentary 20 years on down the road, right after an aged Bono explains that Frat Dad was U2’s primary influence through the years. That would be me!

But I was tired. So I went to bed with this piece half written and then proceeded to procrastinate for the next week or so and then…..THIS.

FUCKERS!!

That was MINE!!! WHY couldn’t you have let me just have just this one! You’re Pitchfork! You get to break EVERYTHING. ME, I’m some bored kid with a laptop posting in his boxers in my Crown Heights apartment with the rent lower than many bar tabs.

It’s okay, I’m over it. So long as the world gets to hear this totally kick ass song.

Assholes.

[mp3] The Color Wheels – “Green Means Go”

I feel live I’ve had this song on my iPod for years. Maybe I have. Honestly, I cannot remember. It’s not a song that you can date to a specific time or place, like so much other indie music (“oh, that is so post-clap your hands say yeah but pre-wolf parade”). I do know why I had the song – The Color Wheels are from Poughkeepsie, as am I, and being as fiercely nationalistic about my hometown as I am (never mind that I moved away as soon as I could….), I was eager to listen to the one area band that did not list The Used as a influence on MySpace. That was a run-on sentence. I apologize to my English teachers of past.

No, The Color Wheels are a power pop band, thank you very much. And you know what? They’re pretty damn good at it. Maybe even really good. Possibly even really fucking good. Best moment in this song is when lead singer Jon sings “Andrew DUBYOU Kay” and he just nails it with authentic enthusiasm, much like Lou Reed’s laugh in “Heroin”. If you, like I, grew up on Weezer in the ’90’s, then you basically need to put this song on your iPod post-haste.

[mp3] Circulatory System – “Overjoyed”

I fucking love the first Olivia Tremor Control album. I love the second Olivia Tremor Control album. I like the first Circulatory System (OTC’s successor) album. The long awaiting second Circulatory System album? Um…..was not impressed at all first listen. Or second. Or third, for that matter. It seemed like an unfocused mess. But then I focused on this song alone and then I realized, this song is pretty good. Does it rank with OTC’s best? No. Well, maybe. It’s hard to describe, but there is this intangible to Overjoyed that makes it sound like nothing else being released today. Maybe that’s worth something. Put on your good headphones (this is OTC/CS after all!) and listen for yourself.

[mp3] The Clean – “In The Dreamlife You Need A Rubber Soul”
Fuck.

Sorry, I’ve dropped the f-bomb in every other song review this post so I figure I should keep up my streak. Somewhere my parents weep.

But you know what? This song deserves strong language. The Clean are a legendary and influential band out of New Zealand. They’re primarily known for their work in the 1980’s. I personally love their song “Point That Thing Somewhere Else”. They just reunited recently and are now on Merge. That’s about all you need you need to know. Pitchfork, those thunder stealing bastards, only gave this song a 7. I think it’s a 9. How can you get any better than this? This is as good as anything The Clean have ever released. Not only that, but here they sound vaguely mid-1960’s Rolling Stones-ish. You can’t lose with The Clean.

[mp3] Dinosaur Jr – “Over It”

Everything that can be said about this song is better said by the video. Bonus points if you can figure you which indie rock legend makes a cameo.

Last 5 posts by Tom Williams

• Foburg Festival - March 15th, 2010
• Sound Through Sight: The Departure - March 9th, 2010
• NEW NATIONAL ALBUM!!! - March 5th, 2010
• The Most Amazing Thing I've Ever Seen In My Life Is.... - March 3rd, 2010
• Whoa! Holy new Stereogum, Batman!! Stereogum redesigned! - February 23rd, 2010