from the coast / rip billy jones
the week's best from activity, turnstile, and emily allan
Hello from California, where my NYC born-and-raised toddler just found out what a pantry was, and he’s freaking out. Suburbs still got it!
Over the weekend, Baby’s All Right/Night Club 101/Elvis Guesthouse founder Billy Jones died. There are a number of moving tributes to Billy’s energy and contribution to the NYC music scene – I particularly loved Jake Lazovick’s post – so I don’t have much to add other than echoes of what was said elsewhere. When my band Tiny Gun decided to do our first show, there was no other choice than Baby’s All Right for where we wanted to debut. I’ve benefitted so much from Billy’s boundless enthusiasm in the spaces he booked and curated across so many of my bands and projects, and his legacy lives on in the stages he built and the artists he steadfastly believed in.
No links, just you know, spend some time with your friends. Tell your friends you appreciate them. Call your mom.
Straight to the best of the week. As always, you can follow along on our playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, which update (usually) every Tuesday along with the newsletter. Enjoy!
Activity – A Piece Of Mirror
Activity's songs are to rock songs what negatives are to finished photographs – the information is there, but the inversion renders the familiar alien. Travis Johnson’s previous band Grooms spent five records finding increasingly interesting slants on what a guitar band could be, and in Activity he found collaborators equally committed to finding ways to dissolve the sinews of their songs into something shadowy and new. Their new record A Thousand Years In Another Way has their strongest set of songs to date, but it's their commitment to disintegration that makes this album essential listening.
Turnstile – Dull
It’s honestly sort of thrilling how irritating I find Turnstile’s sonic references. Hearing a record with an entirely new framing for Hot Topic late 90s rock sonics – from Taproot to 311 – is a fun ride along, like hopping into a group chat where you don’t know the running jokes. Even if their new album NEVER ENOUGH occasionally sounds like Powerman 5000 in huge pants, there’s an audacious resetting of what “cool” sounds like that’s downright voyeuristic as an outiside listener. Having gone to high school in the heyday of nü-metal, I can’t take the record’s heaviest moments seriously, but I don’t think the band asks me to – which is why it’s still very easy to love.
Emily Allan – Steps to Destruction
"On the face of it, she is a rapper” says Emily Allan’s label – which is factually true across Allan’s debut record Clanging – but her logorrhea isn’t in the service of sick rhymes as much as rhymed sickness. “Steps to Destruction” is an enchantingly toxic ode to manipulation and bad romance, a “Losing My Edge” about crashing out instead of buying synthesizers. Allan is entrancing on the track, and even more compelling live, and the first time I heard this I couldn’t believe her mix of intensity, disgust, and silliness served over a sizzling decomposed house beat.
throwback
Prudence Liew – 玩玩
Taken from Liew’s 1990 album The Naked Feeling, “玩玩” is bubbling Spago electro-pop from Hong Kong. I need to do more digging, but I’d love to find a huge Hong Kong freestyle scene, as this track is bright, propulsive and addicting.