The return of Everett True | 68. Das Band
I don’t know much about music but I know what I like.
I rarely think about associations. Either it connects or it doesn’t. It’s entirely variable on mood. My preference is for messy, unless it isn’t. Some form of elastic, loose beat that always comes back together. Unless it doesn’t. And unless it isn’t. I don’t give a crap if I can’t understand the words, in fact I often view it as a plus: the clichéd banality of most ‘indie’ music (as opposed to pop music) often winds me up possibly far more than it should. There again, it’s never JUST pop music. It’s never JUST indie. Unless it is. My roots, like my head, often show. (Do I need to keep adding in qualifiers? It becomes boring.) I like rock that rocks. Unless… ah jeez. You see where this takes us? I’m frequently warned by more august colleagues (i.e. the ones who are paid for this) never to make sweeping assumptive judgements about the reasons for other people’s taste, but if you don’t where’s the joy in it? Is fair use of cliché permitted? And why is it OK to make sweeping judgemental statements about your own taste? I used to enjoy walking through cities with graffiti on their walls, makes you feel more connected somehow. A little piano, perhaps? (I’m just filling in space between imaginary advertisements by this point, you understand.) Das Band please me, not least because whenever I type in their name a mild dyslexia always changes it into ‘Sad Band’ and they’re really not. And their album is called Also Gut, which seems a reasonable enough summation and also damning indictment of the plethora of choices awaiting us every time we slip our headphones off. (Yesterday, I thought. Why not search for children’s TV programmes from Ghana on YouTube instead of the usual? Why do we feel this need for limitations? Or are limitations all we have?)
This song is great. It goes on for just the right amount of time. How many songs can you say that about?
Jovial, like July.
If this was Australian it would sound like Flying Nun. It isn’t so it doesn’t.
If I made the next 200 songs in this series the exact same song by Kim Deal, do you think even one person – Lee, aside – would notice? If a critic writes and there’s no one to read them, is it still criticism?
