I hear you hum an unfamiliar song, thought maybe you would come along.
So it’s been a while since I last wrote here. I partly blame WordPress for having a shitty password reset service that only works 50% of the time, apparently; partly myself for being lazy and forgetting what my password was. But anyway, it’s time for me to write about the Weakerthans. As I said at the end of the last post, we’re going to pick up with Anchorless. Fast-forward a couple of months to this February or so, to one of those nights where I was looking up lyrics for no specific reason, and one of the songs I examined was Anchorless. In the comments section, I noticed someone saying that they preferred the Weakerthans’ version, and my interest was piqued. Not quite enough that I went to seek them out immediately, but I made a mental note that there was a band out there who had done a version of Anchorless, and the name of this band was the Weakerthans.
Luckily, before I had a chance to forget, I befriended Matt of Names of Foreign Towns the Homemade Slides not-exactly-fame. I noticed two things fairly early on: he had near-impeccable musical taste, and he was also a fan of this ‘Weakerthans’ band. I decided to download their first album, Fallow. And that’s where all this began.
Straight from the streets of Leeds, from the underground
So sorry for the delay in updates, I was hoping to get some sort of huge SKA AND WHY IT IS WONDERFUL (or alternatively, TOMAS KALNOKY AND WHY HE IS WONDERFUL, both will probably turn up at some point) post up over the Easter holidays but was too consumed by Coursework Guilt (for those of you who are unfamiliar with this, it’s basically a feeling of “Why are you blogging for fun when there is school work that you must do and have failed to complete?”) to manage it.
I’m still not quite organised enough to manage either of these, so as a sort of “I aten’t dead” to you all, I present a shortish post about a fantastic Leeds-based band: the Dauntless Elite.
The Dauntless Elite are fairly obscure, so I’ll try and give you some background. Amongst other things, they are the first act signed to the wonderful label Plan-It X Records, home of Ghost Mice, Andrew Jackson Jihad, (once upon a time) Against Me! and Defiance, Ohio amongst many other good things. I realise that the list of artists I have just provided may seem slightly misleading, as all of the ones I mentioned fall under the glorious umbrella of folk punk, or “the best genre ever.” The Dauntless Elite may not be folk punk, but they are a damned fine band. They play fast exciting raw-edged punk with lots of palm-muting and energy seeping out of the seams of their songs, and I am quite determined to see them live someday.
The experience of listening to Graft was a multi-layered one. The first time, I heard fairly standard, loud punk music and nothing particularly special. Now, maybe it was the fact that I knew there had to be more to an album with song titles like “Gina U R a Bastard Liar,” “I am Ninja… My Life is Lonely and Difficult” and “I Can Move if Funk is Happening,” but I had come upon one of those albums, an album that you want to listen to again just to check that you didn’t miss anything – and hey, I had! Second time round I realised that they have a great ear for (collective ear? they have great ears for?) pop-punk riffs, which are something I have a great weakness for. Much in the same way that you work through the primer stages of a videogame towards the more challenging, fleshy main section, once you’re done realising how catchy and hummable their songs are, one can begin to appreciate the lyrics, more and more with each listen.
The lyrics are delivered in fascinatingly growly harmonies just rough enough to give the impression that these are exciting people who are here to take you to a new place, but close enough to singing that it doesn’t harm the ears. I would say it’s a vocal style I quite approve of, possibly because I’m compensating for not being able to manage a manly burr myself what with being female, or possibly just because when someone sings with passion and conviction, I can generally get into it. Being able to use the voice like that, regardless of how imperfect it sounds, is one of the most powerful things about music, and even more so when the voice is being used to deliver messages as worthwhile as the lyrics on this album. Probably my favourite line on the album is the one that bookends I am Ninja, My Life is Lonely and Difficult:
“We move in inward-facing circles, singing inbred worn-out songs/Til we lose all sign of context with our backs turned for so long.”
Look, try and argue with that one. There’s other moments of genius, too; the refrain of opener Running Battle “Time waits for no-one, you better keep on – ohhh, time is the enemy” is difficult to listen to while walking without breaking into a, uhm, run and pretending you’re in the opening credits of the indie movie of your life; Our Own Legends, Shilling and You’re a Funny Guy… I’ll Kill You Last! are other favourites.
Here. Check out their music. Now.
