Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.
I was somewhere in the woods of southwest Washington, hiking a well-worn trail on a cool spring day. My iPod sat in my back pocket, headphones nestled into my ears, pumping the sweet sound of Foxygen to my brain. It was somewhere during their acclaimed single “Shuggie,” in the middle of one of the song’s sudden breakaway bridges, that the feeling overcame me. I was in love, I realized–in love with Spotify.
I hadn’t known the app long. I was in the midst of its two-day trial, a coy courtship meant to lead to a monthly subscription of their premium service. With the trial I got all the perks a premium user gets: instant streaming of almost any album ever made, ability to craft custom playlists, and the oh-so-important offline feature.
I took a break on a log, turned on alt-J’s “An Awesome Wave,” and sighed.
Back in high school, after MP3s swiftly subjugated the reign of CDs, I used to tell my friends “Just wait, something will come by someday and make MP3s obsolete.” They would scoff and say “Sure, but what could possibly be better than a digital music file?” nearly a decade later we have the answer: limitless streaming.
It’s pretty amazing when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We can now, at the touch of a screen, listen to almost any album ever made. The original iPods, which required the external purchase of music, are now nothing more than mausoleums for our dated goods. Who needs to acquire music when we can just have access to it all?
Spotify isn’t inventing the wheel here, it’s simply taking advantage of the inevitable change in technology and marketing it better than anyone else. And, oh, does it market it well.
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] Spotify, You Beautiful Wench →
Jamie normally writes a very straightforward music column about very straightforward music things, but for the next few installments he will be exploring a childhood mixtape, recently found in a box in his closet. This is part two.
I stand in my kitchen at two in the morning, furiously cramming two AA batteries into my old walkman. For some reason they don’t want to fit. This shoddy machine is the only thing standing between me and my recently-rediscovered childhood mixtape. A tiny misshapen piece of plastic is ruining my beautiful moment. I stop, take a breath, and carefully fit them in.
I flip the tape to side B. I throw it in, I hit fast forward, and I wait. And I wait. And I wait. After 30 seconds I tell myself I appreciate the delayed gratification. A minute passes and the optimism gives way to rage. I start to remember why everybody was so eager to switch to CDs.
The tape finally stops. I pull it out, flip it over, and slide it back in. I press play.
The sound crackles warmly in my ears. Tiny, barely audible wisps of noise pop in and fade out–little pulses of electricity running across the weary tape. Then, suddenly, as if from behind a bush, Steve Harwell’s iconic voice jumps out and starts yelling.
“Walking out of the door I’m on my way can you tell me just where I’m going /Â Occupational skills would you give me a clue what to do ’cause my mind’s in motion!”
A huge smile spreads across my face. Oh, Smash Mouth. I remember them so well. They were one of the first bands I ever truly loved. Running down the track list, I see the love was not forgotten on Jamie’s Mix 1999. It includes not one, not two, but six songs by the short-lived pop/rock legends. But each song is a gem, in some way, to my strange 11-year-old self.
The whole track list, handwritten on the insert in pencil, looks like this:
Side A
Come On Come On
All Star
Can’t Get Enough of You
Walkin’ on the Sun
The Fonz
Padrino
One Week
Never is Enough
Who Needs Sleep
Come Out and Play
Pretty Fly
Jump Jive an’ Wail
Zoot Suit Riot
Side B
Semi-Charmed Life
Save Tonight
The Way
Whip It
Satisfaction (Devo)
Satisfaction (R.S.)
Working in the Coal Mine
Jocko Homo
Tubthumper
As the tape winds on the memories start flooding back. They sweep me up and carry me away, leaving me a helpless bystander to the past:
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] The Mixtape, Part 2: The Weird Kid From Portland →
Jamie normally writes a very straightforward music column about very straightforward music things, but for the next few installments he will be exploring a childhood mixtape, recently found in a box in his closet. This is part one.Â
My hands rummage through an old orange shoebox from the top shelf of my closet. I’m looking for last year’s tax return–a document that always seems to stay lost. Wrist-deep in the box, I dig through an odd assortment of artifacts: pens, guitar picks, two pocket knifes, an old watch, cocktail recipes scribbled furiously on scraps of cardboard. Buried in the rubble, sandwiched between old check books, is a single cassette.
I pull it out and turn it over in my hands. It’s a mixtape, one of those old Maxell 90-minute cassettes I used to buy in packs of 20 at Circuit City. I find the title on the spine: “Jamie’s Mix, 1999.” I’m floored. This isn’t any ordinary mixtape–it’s the first mixtape I ever made.
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] The Mixtape, Part 1: Unearthing a Relic →
Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.
Hey guys, Jamie Hale here. You know, when I’m not penning hot blog posts about the indie music industry, I like to sit back and relax with a cool drink, a big pair of headphones, and an album from my favorite 1960s artistic movement, Tropicália
You may know Tropicália as that genre that you heard about once, from where you’re not sure, but gosh it sounds so familiar. But do you know the true story behind Tropicália? Come along, won’t you? Today we explore the fascinating melodies behind the radical music that redefined Brazilian culture.
The story of Tropicália starts not in the ’60s, but all the way back in the 1920s. After World War I, Brazilians were tired of being defined by foreign cultural influences, so tired in fact that they decided to band together to redefine their entire national identity, not through politics, but through music. The modernismo movement, as it was called, ardently embraced traditional native folk, rejecting any outside influences that weren’t distinctively, and historically, “Brazilian.”
While the movement fell apart in the ’30s, it created a generation of Brazilians who fought, rather forcefully, against any music that wasn’t traditional. Bossa Nova fluorished in the ’50s, combining the traditional samba with cool jazz, but found an abundance of critics who despised its North American influence.
Those critics were in for an even ruder awakening in the ’60s, when rock ‘n’ roll came to town. Like young people everywhere else in the world, young people in Brazil hungrily absorbed rock ‘n’ roll records from America and Britain, emulating the style in a genre known as iĂŞ-iĂŞ-iĂŞ or yeah yeah yeah.
Their blatant disregard for traditionalism ignited a culture war in the country. The battle waged against the backdrop of the Brazilian military’s 1964 coup d’Ă©tat over the national government. The coup subjected Brazil to a harsh military regime that actively promoted traditional music over anything that sounded remotely foreign.
But it wasn’t just the military who had an axe to grind. In 1966, critics of iĂŞ-iĂŞ-iĂŞÂ gathered en masse in a protest known as “the march against electric guitars.” This new style was everything the modernismo movement was supposed to be against. There was no room for both the modern and the traditional, they said, when it came to Brazilian music.
Enter: Tropicália.
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] Tropicália: How Brazil Created the Greatest Genre Ever →
It’s probably easy for a director to come up with a video for a song like Daphne Lee Martin’s “Belly.” Put the band in, I don’t know, some period clothing? Have them walk slow motion through, what, a saloon? Maybe cut in some shots of them in a field of wildflowers, Daphne picking one […]
Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.
I’ve been struggling to explain how I feel about the modern-day indie scene and why I feel the way I do. I’ve stumbled between descriptions like “uninspired” and “endlessly dull,” but I just can’t seem to put it into the right words.
I see modern indie as something of a dismal affair. In my mind, trying to keep up with the latest “blogged about” bands is like living out an episode of The Twilight Zone. It’s all black-and-white and melodramatic. Maybe we open on a man behind the wheel of a car. A wave of sweat rolls down his haggard face. A thick droplet pools in a dark bag beneath his eye. He wipes it away and sighs.
The car speeds down an empty desert highway. On either side of the road is an endless swath of brown. Heat pulses off the asphalt in the late afternoon sun.
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] The Dull and Pointless Sound →
Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.
One day, out of the blue, I got a Facebook friend request from somebody named Daphne Lee Martin. “God dammit,” I grumbled. “Who the hell is this?” I clicked through to Daphne’s profile, wondering why some woman in New England would friend some dude a thousand miles away. I found my answer nestled in Martin’s “About” section: “Songwriter.”
“It’s a trap!” I screamed to myself. “She doesn’t want to be my friend, she just wants publicity!” Theres a lot of shameless self-promotion I’ll put up with in this world, but dubious friend requests just don’t cut it. “Not today, sister,” I muttered, the cursor hovering over the blue “ignore” button. I wanted to click it, I really did, but something stopped me.
The girl was bold enough to friend a stranger, shouldn’t I give her a chance? What if her gesture was some olive branch between artist and critic? What kind of person would I be to reject it? Also, I mean, what if she’s really good?
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] How to Coax a Critic →
Seven musicians crowd onto the stage at Mississippi Studios in north Portland–they’re dressed in cowboy hats and bolo ties, a hipster take on the wild west. The frontman, a guy with light brown hair that swoops across his face, all the way down to his chin, steps up to the mic. He looks to the ground, purses his lips, raises his slanted eyes to the crowd and unleashes a long, lonely whistle. A tragic trumpet sings. A snare drum crackles. And the band begins to play.
This is Federale, Portland’s premier spaghetti western ensemble.
The house is packed tonight. Some don corduroy vests and flat top cowboy hats; flannel shirts under beige vests with tight jeans and black leather shoes. The crowd is made up of excitable young kids and worn-out 30-somethings in groups of four–double dates or friends on the town, all here for a singular purpose: to see a good show.
And of all the shows in Portland on this particular Saturday night, this show promises to be the best. Promoted by the media powerhouse trio of The Portland Mercury, Willamette Week and The Oregonian, it’s easy to get carried away in the cyclone of hype that surrounds Federale. But who are they? Who are these weirdos playing dark, lonely cowboy songs in the 21st century Pacific Northwest?
Continue reading Federale: Spaghetti Western and Beyond →
In a sudden twist of fate, my New Year’s plans were cemented. I’ve been staying in St. Johns, in northwest Portland–a funky little neighborhood with all the weird charms you come to expect in PDX. As it happens, Otis Heat, a band I wrote about back in 2009, is playing a four-band show down the road. My friend and recent transplant, Jayson, drives up from Salem and we dive into the night.
The show is at a place called Red Sea Church. It’s a beautiful place. The walls bow in, steeply up until they nervously meet–like a great wooden arc, cut lengthwise and reassembled backwards. All the pews are cleared away. The alter is moved aside for drum kits and amps. The relics are stripped away, but a sense of awe–the kind that fills your soul with timid reverence–lingers.
Two guys amble onstage. Dude in a newsboy cap picks up a guitar. His counterpart, a sleek-looking guy with jet-black hair, sits at the drums. They take a deep breath, and they let loose a tsunami of sound. They blast the timidity into a fine sand. I look around to see if anybody else is drowning in this terrific sea; the stoney looks tell me they’re drifting somewhere in the undertow.
I look to the merchendise table for some clue of who these sirens are–it tells me they’re called Irie Idea. I don’t know what it means, but if you translate the music, you get something of a funky blues-based jam. Their songs move from a crunching grunge–appropriate for the cruel Portland winter–and upbeat jams that start to thaw the crowd’s frigid feet.
They’re a two-piece outfit, but Irie Idea manage to fill the sound almost completely. They play tight and they play furiously. It’s an intimate, manic jam session between friends, and we’re standing witness to the beautiful storm.
Continue reading Otis Heat Burns Up On a Frigid Portland New Years Eve →
Hype Hype Hooray is a biweekly “critique” of the music scene and the blogosphere that feeds it, told through the lens of Jamie Hale, a journalist who likes music about as much as he likes scotch and a firm leather chair. Please enjoy with a grain of salt.
Not long ago, I drove into Portland, Oregon–my car full of every precious thing I own, my heart full of hope for this Pacific Northwest wonderland. The sun shone brightly that day, a near cloudless winter sky greeting me to a new land and a new life. Then everything changed.
I now sit here in a chilly house in northwest Portland, wrapped in blankets, my red fingers numbly typing away at my laptop. I glance out the window, wet with freshly fallen rain, and I sigh. Why does it have to be this way? What happened to the sun?
I think I’m developing a vitamin D deficiency. I need to stock up on cod liver oil.
I scroll through my iPod, looking for something to fit the mood. Phoenix did it for me when I lived in vibrant D.C., and Toro Y Moi worked for the mystical deserts of New Mexico. When I hiked the hills of Idaho I dug Avi Buffalo, while Deer Tick took me through the farmlands of Iowa.
What do I listen to here? What fits this gloomy world?
I scroll by Arcade Fire, which doesn’t feel right, and past Radiohead, which seems too pathetic. Finally I happen upon a band I haven’t listened to in a while, Soundgarden. I press play, and oh does it sound so nice.
Continue reading [Hype Hype Hooray] My Winter of Discontent or Why I Finally Get Grunge →
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