Follow Down The Path Of Least Resistance

My new Hit Refresh column is up on the ASAP site. This week: David Bazan, Poni Hoax, and a song from Yo Gabba Gabba.

A Sunny Day In Glasgow “C’mon” – People in the NYC area hungry for a LCD Soundsystem “I was there!” moment ought to consider going to the world’s first A Sunny Day In Glasgow show this Sunday at Cakeshop. However, if you do go, please keep your expectations modest. Band leader Ben Daniels explains:

Now, you should know, there is no way this show will not be a total disaster for the following reasons:

– This show was kind of a last minute thing and there was no time to put together a “real” band. SO, my ipod will be playing drums. When I last saw the Flaming Lips play, they didn’t have a live drummer and it was awesome, but we don’t have their equipment.

– My sisters (who do the singing) have never ever performed in front of an audience before. They will also be playing bass parts on keyboards. To my knowledge, they’ve never sang and played an instrument simultaneously. Also, one of them has a knee injury and i’m not sure that she will be standing for the show.

– We’ve only had 2 practices and at yesterday’s practice my ipod crashed.

There is more, but I can’t go on. Bands should play shows, and really, no matter how bad this is we have no doubt history will be good to us and all that anyone will remember was that they saw the first Sunny Day in Glasgow show EVER!!! So, we’d love it if you would come out and say hi. I have no idea when this might happen again.

(Click here for the A Sunny Day In Glasgow MySpace page.)

My DJ sets @ Insound Pre-Siren Fest Party, Supreme Trading

Set 1: Erase Errata “Rider” / Clinic “The Second Line” / Elastica “Hold Me Now” / Can “I Want More” / Loose Joints “Tell You (Today)” / Girls Aloud “Biology” / Relaxed Muscle “Sexualized” / Missy Elliott “Can’t Stop”

Set 2: M.I.A. “Bingo” / Ce’cile “Hot Like We” / LCD Soundsystem “Give It Up” / The Rolling Stones “Let’s Spend The Night Together” / The Beatles “Drive My Car” / The Supremes “You Can’t Hurry Love” / Stevie Wonder “Sir Duke” / Jagged Edge “Stunnas” / Prince “Head”

Set 3: The Silures “21 Ghosts” / The Knife “We Share Our Mothers’ Health” / Edu K “Bundalele Baile Jean” / Lady Sovereign “Love Me Or Hate Me” / CSS “Let’s Make Love and Listen to Death From Above” / Christina Milian “So Amazing” / Vanessinha & Alessandra “Gira” / Christina Aguilera “Ain’t No Other Man” / Spektrum “May Day” / Basement Jaxx & Dizzee Rascal “Lucky Star”

Elastica “Hold Me Now (BBC Session)” – I just sort of made it up as I went along this time, with mostly pleasant results. It was especially fun to drop in an Elastica song, which I’ve been wanting to do for a long time but just never went through with it. I find it a little perverse that I chose to break out the big crowd pleasing hits when virtually no one was paying attention, but eh, whatever. It was nice to get away from a lot of songs that I play very frequently, anyway. If you haven’t heard “Stunnas” yet, you really really really should. I wrote that one up for MTV. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

I only managed to catch the last 30 seconds of the Professor Murder set, so I have no opinion on that at all. The Big Sleep were heavier than I had been led to believe, and I was kinda into what I saw of their set, though they would be wise to draft some kind of charismatic singer into their band. I saw about 20 minutes of Oh No! Oh My! and they were okay too, but in more of a “local band” sort of way. They definitely have some spark of talent, but it’d be nice if they developed more of a unique voice before they get super hyped. I’m not sure if it’s the best thing for a young band to get popular entirely on the strength of sounding a little like a bunch of other bands who are moderately popular on the indie circuit. It is sort of weird to me that out of all the bands of the mid-to-late-90s, Modest Mouse ended up being the one every little indie band decided to emulate. If you told me that in 1998, I would’ve thought that you were insane.