Songs That Sound Similar And Are Awesome, vol. 1

I would like to introduce the first in what I hope will be a semi-regular post here: Songs That Sound Similar And Are Awesome, or STSSAAA. In each of these posts, I will highlight a pair of songs that have something audibly in common – a copped refrain, the same four chords, a Lil John “yeah” or “hey,” etc. Ideally, each song will be objectively “awesome,” as well. I will not begin each sentence with the letter, “I,” try as I might.

There are plenty of artists today who are confident enough in their whistling skills to anchor their songs with the ol’ bilabial. Andrew Bird is a champion of the whistle, and Peter, Bjorn & John’s “Young Folks” proved that whistling is catchy and relevant to folks young and old, record label execs and Joe (Whistle)Blow. But the two artists doing the most to keep the whistle hip? Juelz Santana and The Drums.

Juelz Santana’s “There It Go (The Whistle Song)” brings the wolf-call back in style:

Damn shorty look good and I’m thinkin bout gettin at her

Time to whistle at her

As Dr. Dre says in that commercial he’s in, everything is better slow – “trust [him], [he's] a doctor.” Uncle JuJu is no doctor, but his spare beat and, uh, “spare” lyrics put all the attention on that whistle. Hence the subtitle, “The Whistle Song.” The whistle is draped all over the chorus and much of the verses; though it’s technically (/sexually?) aggressive, it just feels slow, lazy, whatever. It is hard to say exactly what makes this whistle particularly awesome, but this kind of je ne sais quoi marks the most awesome of things. Awesome.

(On a side note, that thing Juelz does when he bounces his fists while clenching various pieces of expensive jewelry and causes lens flares is the video’s visual equivalent of the whistle.)

Recognize that whistle? Remember when your high school English teacher kept talking about motifs, and you didn’t understand what the big deal was with water in A Tale of Two Cities or the fish in Central Park in The Catcher in the Rye? Well, this is how a motif works in the Real World, boys and girls. Think of “Let’s Go Surfing” as a spiritual sequel to “There It Go.” You (The Drums?) have managed to attract a desirable woman with your enviable whistling abilities. You can’t simply talk about whistles all the time without sounding like an uncultured buffoon. You must come up with something, anything, to talk about – favorite foods, the latest CNN-generated meme (Balloon Boy, Lou Dobbs), etc. Show her that you’re deep and stuff, that it’s worth her time to stick around. Also, that you’re fun: Pick up the pace a little bit, add some snare hits, some bass. But throw in that whistle as much as humanly possible, to remind her what got her there in the first place.

E-Board Election Results

Ladies and Germs, your new WAMH Executive Board:

General Manager: Ashley Hogan
Business Manager: Geoff Millener
Programming Director: Chris Spaide
Primary Music Directors: Wesley Stratton, Leah Fine
Secondary Music Directors: Spencer Adams, Anthony Wu, Kimberly Kim
Sports Director: Justin Baker-Rhett
Chief Engineer: Dan Correia
Publicity/Promotions: Katie Jablin
Community Service Director: Greg Leslie
Webmaster: Ricardo Bilton
Blog Manager: Matt McClellan

Still open: Chief Announcer (!), Live Show Director, Production Studio Director. Inquire within.

It’s been a long and winding road as GM this past semester, I have utter confidence in the new e-board, etc, etc. You’re not quite rid of me, thanks to the wonders of the Internet; though I’ll be overseas, I’ll be “managing” this fair blog. If you’re a longtime reader/first-time caller, or whatever, and want to write for this blog, shoot me an email.

In case any of you out there have been tuning in to 89.3 FM and/or our webcast and wondering why we aren’t broadcasting…we’re on winter break. Normal programming will resume shortly after spring semester begins. Sporadic shows might pop up during Interterm, and we’ll try to remember to give those shows some love here and on the fancy schedule page.

Executive Board Elections – The Final Countdown!

This week, we will be taking nominations for WAMH e-board positions for the calendar year starting in January. If you would like to run for a position, please email us at WAMH@amherst.edu. Don’t be shy! Below is the email announcement we sent to everyone on the WAMH mailing list:

Hey all! As the semester winds down, we would like you (and anyone else you know that might be interested) to consider running for WAMH Executive Board for next semester. We’re aiming to make WAMH a more collaborative effort in the coming years and not have it run by an elite, overwhelmed group of faceless hipsters. We want everybody to contribute their ideas and suggestions, whether they’re on the E-Board or not, in hopes of ultimately gaining a larger, more significant presence on campus and in the community. Anybody can run, including students (from any of the 5 colleges), faculty, community members, etc.

Below is the list of 15 available spots on E-Board. If you would like to put in a bid for a position, e-mail us a statement of intent by Friday, Dec 11. The current E-board will be voting on Sunday, Dec 13. We will base our decisions on your statements, so put some thought into them. If you have any questions, please e-mail us or stop by our office hours Mon or Thurs 4-6! And if you know anybody who isn’t in WAMH but might be interested in a position, please forward this to them. Thanks everybody!
Love,
WAMH

Positions:

General Manager (15 hrs/wk, on call 24 hours): The GM is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the station, overseas long-term projects, acts as WAMH’s liaison to the outside world and serves as the Chairman of the Executive Board.

Program Director (8 hrs/wk, on call 24 hours): In charge of all programming issues, including determining the schedule, evaluating on-air technique, and enforcing FCC regulations.

Primary Format Music Directors (2) (10 hrs/wk): The two MDs are in charge of processing all indie rock incoming albums and maintaining relations with record companies. They also actively seek out new music for the station and are in charge of the re-cataloging and digitizing projects.

Secondary Format Music Directors (2) (6 hrs/wk): The two MDs are in charge of maintaining and building our catalog of secondary genres (mainly hip-hop at this point, but also jazz, world, blues, electronic, etc). They are also in charge of the cataloging project of the secondary format libraries. They will appoint and supervise genre curators and oversee all aspects of secondary format programming.

Chief Announcer (5 hrs/wk): Recruits and trains new DJs, hosts pre-J show, updates the DJ Manual, administers the licensing test and maintains FCC logs.

Business Manager (3 hrs/wk): Manages the station’s budget, pays bills, and communicates with Budgetary Committee and Discretionary Funding.

Publicity and Promotions Director (5 hrs/wk): Promotes WAMH throughout the Pioneer Valley, publicizes artists/concerts through ticket/album giveaways, designs programming guides, and plans events/parties.

Blog Manager (3 hrs/wk): Regular maintenance of the WAMHblog- approving and editing submitted posts, writing weekly Top 10 posts and submitting them to The Student, interacting with students and DJs to get blog contributions.

Community Service Director: (3 hrs/wk): Prepares Public Service Announcements on index cards, serves as contact for service groups on and off campus. Responsible for organizing at least 1 community outreach event (i.e.: fundraiser) during the semester.

Sports Director: (8 hrs/wk): Responsible for assembling a team of sports announcers to broadcast sports events live on air. Football in the Fall, Basketball and Hockey in the Winter, Baseball in the Spring.

Web Master (2 hrs/wk): Responsible for maintaining and updating WAMH’s website.

Production Director (3 hrs/wk): Responsible for training DJs to use the Production Studio, ordering new production equipment and recording X-Plugs and PSAs onto CDs. Must also mix and record the weekly Live Show (* Even if you’re not technically proficient, we can have our Chief Engineer, Dan Correia, train you!).

Live Show Director (4 hrs/wk): Books bands for and hosts Live Show (frequency uncertain- either weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly a possibility).

The New York Times asks, Who said vinyl is dead?

To be perfectly honest with our listeners, it’s been quite a while since the record was popular at WAMH. DJs do some spinning every once in a while, sure, but the radio DJ nowadays is not too dissimilar from the average iTunes aficionado: We create playlists and go.

And, you want to know the truth? We secretly hate it. With every click of a mouse and dragging of a track, our insides climb slowly upwards, threatening to abdicate from the lowly bodies that house them. Most of us would deny it, but we really wish we were cooler, less lazy, more willing to stretch out our musical tendrils into music’s history and drag back, willing or unwillingly, some remnant of music’s more pure past. But it rarely happens. See, music nowadays is MP3s, bits and bytes encoded and decoded, appearing in the form of a medium which, by its very nature, necessitates a loss of quality. It’s unavoidable.

So when we see a record, a pure, physical medium with intact substance, there is a certain sense of overwhelming possibility, a whole world of rotating capacity that, as those raised on the MP3, has been lost to us.

We want to change. We really do.

And stories like this one from The New York Times fill us with the hope to try. Patrick McGeehan of the Times writes on an unusual trend cropping up in electronic stores: Led by the interests of a few brave audacious outliers, vinyl, and in turn, the turntable, are making a resurgence.

In the article, Rachelle Friedman, the co-owner of J&R in New York City, encapsulates the new-found fascination with a medium that was supposed to be killed by the casette, 8-Track, and CD. It’s about sound quality. And album art. And liner notes. These are the things lost to us as we intently absorb music via our iPods and computers. Increasing sales numbers for vinyl records is evidence of a recognition of this, an earnest desire to wrest control over the listening experience and enhance it.

This is not a symptom of that typical hipster drive to employ obsolete relics of the past. Instead, it’s a heartfelt desire to delve deeper into the music we listen to, to understand it, to see it as a whole product and not a piecemeal production consumed in two-minute bursts.

If there is any time to keep this in mind, it’s now, as 2009 draws to a close. We may smirk at music elitists as they wring their hands over the failures of the modern music industry, but there is a certain dignity to wringing our hands with them. Our experience with music is only as deep as we make it, and we are feeling pretty shallow right about now

Dan Deacon: Government Plant

What do you say we gather 600 sickly, sleep-derived college kids in a dank basement on the cusp of winter and make them hold hands and hug each other?

Sounds suspicious to you too, right? Nevertheless, I’m willing to catch the Swine if it means participating in a Dan Deacon concert. Yes, participating, not just seeing. A Dan Deacon concert is an experience like no other: your muscles will ache, you’ll find bruises in strange places, you’ll hug complete strangers- you’ll be wholly encompassed by the music, not just act as a passive listener.

On Nov. 10 at Pearl Street Club in Northampton, MA, Dan Deacon revealed his true self: government plant sent to kill off indie kids all across this great nation of ours. I mean- have you seen this guy? Him, really? No way that dude can make music this awesome. Shouldn’t he be French and cloaked in an air of potentially-really-hot ambiguity? Maybe not look like that Beans guy from lookatthisfuckinghipster.com ?

Agent of death or not- he puts on a fantastic show. He of course unleashed his arsenal of audience participation games- forcing us to blindly form a human tent out of the club, around the block, and into the back entrance. His persuasive abilities are outstanding- I held hands with a complete stranger for 10 minutes. In the real world, that kind of commitment warrants at least 3 months of awkward liberal-arts-college dating.

The highlight of the show came during “Snookered,” when Dan Deacon imparted one of his many spiels of wisdom. “Everybody move to the center. Drape your hands over the person in front of you, resting your head on their shoulders.” Without a blink we all begin embracing sweaty strangers. “Think of your best friend,” he cooes, over precious chimes and soft droning. “Think about how their face, how they make you feel when you’re with them, all the wonderful things you’ve shared.” The sweet lull of security. The song begins to pick up; cue looped drum beat. “Now think of the time in your life when you were most ashamed.” Droning becomes louder, faster, more invasive. “Think about all the repercussions of your actions, how they changed your life and the lives of others for the worse.”

The voice of our Big Brother becomes mechanized, vulnerably professing that he’s “been ’round this road so many times.” The scant, emotional lyrics over the complex web of buzzes and beeps, paired with the the intimacy fostered between unusually socially responsive individuals, creates a feeling of euphoric lightness. This may be the bottle of Jäger I just pounded in the bathroom talking, or the acid I dropped a few hours ago, but, man, I love you.

WILLIAMS BEAT!

The Biggest Little Game in America

Today, November 14, 2009, marks the 124th gridiron meeting of Amherst and Williams College. The 6-1 Ephs play host to the 7-0 Lord Jeffs in a matchup if not for The Ages, at least for All The Marbles of the 2009 season: The winner of today’s game wins an outright Little Three title, Amherst is playing for an undefeated record and sole possession of the NESCAC crown, and Williams is looking to sully the Jeffs’ perfect record and take a share of the conference title. Amherst and Williams are ranked 1-2 in DIII New England, the best NESCAC defense takes on the best offense, the top liberal arts college according to U.S. News & World Report takes on the second-ranked liberal arts college according to U.S. News & World Report, etc.

WAMH Sports will be there, doing it live! If you’re in the Pioneer Valley, tune in at 89.3 FM. Everyone can listen to our webcast, which you can access by clicking “listen” at the top of this very website! Sadly, we will not have a JeffCast video simulcast, partly because our IT liaison can’t make it (thanks for the help, Marcus) and partly because we’re not sure if the extreme northwestern corner of Massachusetts is equipped to handle that kind of technology quite yet. Anyway, NESN will be covering the game for the television-watching crowd – but who needs the tube when you have WAMH Sports? Just mute the TV and listen in.

Kickoff at noon, coverage to start 10 minutes before the game.

Go Jeffs!

The King Khan and BBQ Show arrested for Drug Posession, few surprised

On drugs? Likely.

It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say drugs and The King Khan and BBQ Show are about as divisible as the lateral halves of conjoined twins: Sure, dividing them is possible – hell, even preferable – but its a process dogged by blood and pain, and certainly in the case of the rock duo, a damn sorry sight to see.

So color me and as well as those with similar minds completely unfazed by the recent news of The King Khan and BBQ’s show’s recent arrest.

Pitchfork, via The Kansas City Pitch and The Riverfront Times, reports that the duo and their tour manager were arrested for drug possession in  Hopkinsville, Kentucky (though some reports say it was Oak Point; point considered moot) canceling multiple shows and upsetting at least three dozen drunken fans.

While the drugs in question were simply refereed to by police as “controlled substances” it wouldn’t take too much imagination to figure what the band’s stash consisted of: Certainly cocaine, maybe some mushrooms, and knowing the band’s music, some variation of ground unicorn horn.

Khan and Sultan are currently out on bail, but their tour manager continues her stay in Hotel Yardbird, repentant about her suspended license and poorly-hidden narcotics.

The King Khan and BBQ Show’s recent album, Invisible Girl, is available via In the Red Records.

Artist Spotlight: Jeffrey Lewis

Jeffrey Lewis, anti-folk (this is still an illusive phrase to me- the musical equivalent of “existential” or “tailgaiting”) extraordinaire, is a musician/comic book artist from New York. He specializes in writing two varieties of music: endearingly self-conscious “tragi-comic folk narratives” and defiant, anthemic lo-fi jaunts.

“The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song”  is a great combination of simple, child-like instrumentation and artful story-telling. This7 minute narrative tells of meeting a girl on 23rd Street and discussing  Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel.” After walking away from this cute girl, he realizes his missed opportunity, knowing to next time follow Leonard’s cue and “first get the oral sex and then write the song after.”

2007’s 12 Crass Songs is well..12 covers of Crass songs. Crass was an English anarcho-punk (there’s actually a wiki article on this genre- no joke) band active in the late 1970s that advocated fighting the MAN, man. Jeffrey Lewis also fights the man, albeit not so militantly- I doubt he gets in many peoples’ faces about the systematic death of our souls due to gender inequality and commercialism. He removes the hateful, anarchistic sting of Crass’ songs and replaces it with nerd rage (even more frightening, in my personal opinion).

Oh but the wondrous talents of Jeffrey Lewis do not stop there. He also has his own comic book series, Guff, which are a steal at only $3 a pop on his website (www.thejeffreylewissite.com). His art embodies the same ideals as his music and reassures you you’re not alone in your near-debilitating self-conscious awareness of the tragic comedy of life.

Cover Mania

When friends find my extensive collection of Miley Cyrus and Britney Spears songs on my Ipod, I often give the excuse “Oh, dude, you know my sisters put that on..brah..” But now instead of going on long moonlit walks to fulfill my pre-teen guilty listening pleasure, I just have to go to the Altpress’ Fall Ball tour, where The Secret Handshake has been opening there act with Miley Cyrus’ “There’s a Party in The USA,” a favorite of 9-year-old girls, multi-collared frat boys, and now sleeved up, 00-plug-wearing scenesters. After this accomplishment, Secret Handshake says their next goal is world peace.

Which made me think of my other favorite covers that make me scream like a girl
and immediately A Day to Remember’s super heavy “Since You Been Gone” (Kelly Clarkson) came to mind

and then Static Lullaby “Toxic”, with a double pleasure Britney-look-alike doll

And All Time Low, who have so many covers they could probably do an entire album (but still, check out their new upcoming, original, album on Myspace), put forth a rendition of Umbrella. I’ve heard this song so many times on Saturday nights I’m still kinda annoyed with ATL’s version.

Boys Like Girls best impression of Fergie

and of course Four Year Strong’s “Love Song” (Sara Bareilles), telling us there not gonna write us a love song. No promises I won’t write one though.

Happy times for pop-punk fans. If you want more of this stuff make sure to check out Punk Goes Pop Vol.2. and remember what Dora the Explorer always says, “Swiper no swiping, support your bands you Limewire-using-assholes.”