Tunesday: Cheap Girls

Cheap Girls are from Lansing, Michigan.  I've never been there, but it seems like a place where they make good music since Cheap Girls make good music.  How do you like that for logic?  Actually that's not good logic at all.

Cheap Girls have come up on my radar a few different times.  I had seen them once live at the Redwood in downtown L.A. when they opened for Drag the River and Mike Watt.  Trippy lineup, right?  I remember being impressed with the way they played live, clean and powerful.

I think I had seen their name a few times again after that and maybe a few tunes appeared on some of the podcasts I listen to.  The the blessed Spotify came down from the heavens and I was able to listen to all the albums from the bands I had been meaning to look into.  I played through the Cheap Girls discography quite a few times and then I sprung for it and bought all their records.  A purchase I was quite pleased with.

Recently Cheap Girls played the Satellite in Silverlake and they did not disappoint.  Alison dug them and I had their tunes echoing in my mind.  Since then Alison requests Cheap Girls albums when we are sitting on the porch enjoying the view and a brew.

It's hard to put a finger on what Cheap Girls sound like, but I would guess it's somewhere mixed in with Dinosaur Jr. and Gin Blossoms.  Don't quote me on that because it's always so subjective when trying to compare bands to each other in order to show some form of relative sound.  They have a driving drum and bass section with pretty varied and technical guitar melodies.  The whole while the vocals stay back and refrain from overpowering.  That's probably the most you'll get out of me on listening notes.

Here's a few videos from the boys in Cheap Girls, take a gander then listen over and over because their tunes will get stuck in your head.

Tunesday: The Replacements

Every once in a while I'll come across a band and become obsessed.  The kind of obsessed where I have to purchase all the band's records, learn all I can about their history, watch every live performance on YouTube, that kind of thing.

All that recently happened to me when I started digging into the Replacements.  I had always heard of them and had one of their records, but never really paid much attention.  Then I got my hands on their discography and threw a bunch of their songs on my iPod that I would use at the gym or when I went running.  The more I listened, the more I started enjoying their songwriting, Paul Westerberg's vocals, Bob Stinson's guitar playing ... all the layers started becoming apparent to me.  I guess that's the breaking point as to when I became infected with the bug.

I was clearly obsessed.  I had to tell my friends about them, read books on their history, have them on the stereo when drinking at the apartment on a Friday or Saturday night.  I would imagine it started to drive people nuts, Alison included.  I think I had her on board, but it was probably more because every time a certain song would come on I would talk over the whole song and go into detail about what I liked about the lyrics and the delivery and the desperation in the sound of the song and the message and how you can't say goodnight to an answering machine ... who even leaves messages on an answering machine anymore?

I then realized that The Replacements were one of those bands that someone has to experience for themselves and find their own reasons for enjoying them.  Almost the way in which people end up loving Minutemen or Hüsker Dü or Dinosaur Jr..  Especially for people who weren't of age when those bands existed.  Although when you dig in to them, you are able to hear the timelessness to those bands and their personality.  I guess it's one of those things that is an isolated discovery, unlike hearing something that is broadly accepted as good by the masses.  Not to say that one has an elite ear or understanding of good taste to like the aforementioned bands, but that when you do fall into it like the rest of the people that are into it, you are head over heels.

Enough posturing and waxing poetic for me.  Check out some videos!