Page 27 - the NOISE APril 2013

a Chesnutt song.
At over sixty minutes, one can’t help but
wonder if the two birds should have stream- lined a little, but there’s no weak tracks, just perhaps one too many feedback solos.
little Wings
Last
Marriage records
jjjjj
Does Little Wings sound like Lambchop or does Lambchop sound like Little Wings? It’s impossible to say. Little Wings does have a welcome goofy Michael Hurley vibe, but that doesn’t become evident until the song about the worms. From there on, it just gets awfully off-kilter. Some of the tracks sound like the band’s first run-through, if it’s not Kyle Fields. Worms come back. Things get weirder. Decomposing and death seem to be a major theme. The nearly seven minute,
“Neptune is Next,” sounds like it was written by Outkast.
And so you’re asking yourself: So all I have to do to get a five chili review is sound drunk on my recording, sing about weird shit and make sure the band doesn’t know the songs very well?
The answer is, yes. Yes, that’s all there is to it, kids.
tuBthuMPing
What if you had this little pop band ...
What if you and your friends were dedicat- ed revolutionaries; not the bomb-throwing kind, but realistic, setting up a collective and helping the poor and powerless of England, your home, and working from within the sys- tem. Not to destroy it completely, but to give it those subtle and not-so-subtle nudges to- wards improvement that are only recogniz- able in hindsight ...
And what if you had this little pop band on the side functioning as a soapbox pulpit to get your radical ideas heard; but for fun too, to yell and sing and clap and stomp, a healthy outlet for life’s everyday aggressions. Not too abrasive like the almighty Crass who couldn’t even keep their trip together for a lousy ten years (thanks, guys). No, something
hawk and Dove; Little Wings
sweeter: a candy coating for the harsh real- ity inside, but catchy and danceable, music people would find themselves singing along without knowing the meaning of the words. Give it a silly name, something nonsensical like baby babbling ...
And what if you were able to make this lit- tle pop band work for 10, 15 years on YOUR terms, signing with independent labels with no corporate ties to the war pigs and actu- ally being able to get your message heard. One day you wake up and realize that you have FANS, just like a real band. And hell, you actually make some pretty darn good music along the way, songs your mum would enjoy (well, most of them) ...
And what if the major labels started com- ing around, smelling money and desperately hunting for the next youth trend and poking at the cracks in your facade: “Gosh, your little collective is barely hanging on there, bet a cash infusion would do some good. You all still have day jobs? Don’t you want to just play music?”
And the great delight in telling them all to piss off: We’re dedicated to these ideals, we won’t be corporate puppets. How can we do what we do and get paid by a company like EMI which is part-owned by Thorne, a big weapons dealer? We’d be hypocrites, no one would take us seriously, all our rhetoric would be hollow...
And what if somewhere along the way the germ of an idea began growing: well, the collective does need money, but it can’t be covered in blood. It would be nice to make a living off the band, and the indie label we’re signed to is just as profit-driven as the rest, only on a smaller scale. We DID always say work within the system ...
Blimey, did they just offer us FIVE MILLION pounds? Think of the exposure, especially in America. We could go on talk shows and encourage people to steal our CDs, but only from Wal-Mart or Virgin. Wouldn’t that be hysterical? You know, EMI has severed their ties with Thorne. They said we could make any album we wanted, as long as it wasn’t pure noise and there’s an obvious single...
And what if you decided screw it, let’s go for it. That money is going to do nothing but good, and why shouldn’t they be giving it to us instead of Phil bleedin’ Collins. The hard-
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