INTERVIEW: The Heyday (CO)

The Heyday 2008.08.26

Americana-style pop/rock from Colorado

read the interview // visit their web site

The first time I saw The Heyday live was not even six months into their career, and I still felt like the only person in the room who didn't know all the words to their songs. And yet on the other hand, I felt (and still feel) that there's something within those songs I've always known. That's the first you need to know about The Heyday, just the fact that they're in some ways so ordinary, so down-to-earth, so accessible, it's actually captivating.

--//--

The timing of this interview seemed kind of random, if not impulsive. I guess they're going out on tour, but they've been in and out of tours for months. I've been listening to The Heyday for, I don't know, at least a year and a half or something, and I've been going to their shows and following their updates throughout.

I'm guessing my sudden compulsion to ask them for an interview now has a lot to do with personal resonance. They're a band born of transitions, started the summer after graduation. Their MySpace aptly describes their sound as "The drive home with all your friends on the last night of summer." They are what happens when different goals disagree and dreamers keep on moving.

And that's exactly where I am now.

I fly out to Seattle in a few weeks for college, the most extended period of time I'll be away from the Rocky Mountains, the Mile High pride, the Queen City of the Plains, the cowboy clichés. It's the most extended period of time I'll be away from the people I've spent my life loving. And it's the richest time to feel new home and new relationships.

This dynamic of transitions is something that puts The Heyday at a constant volta. If change is the only real constant, then The Heyday has found a formula for timeless. Perhaps that's what makes this band so accessible, the fact that they are the product of something we all experience.

REVIEW: The Hungarian Suicide Songbook by Man Plus (WA)

The Hungarian Suicide Songbook by Man Plus
new wave is back
read the review // buy the album on the band's site (also available on cdbaby)

El Nova Hustle by P.I.C
hip-hop fused with swing, soul, jazz, Latin, etc.
read the review // buy the album on cdbaby (also available on itunes, amazon, rhapsody, napster, etc.)

El Nova Hustle by P.I.C and The Hungarian Suicide Songbook by Man Plus are like mirror images of each other. Or maybe they're more like siblings, one of whom was abducted in the family cornfield by aliens and returned in a zombielike, mutated state, the other of whom spends his time watching the Food Network, but they still gather to play a nice game of Monopoly on the weekends.

Um.

What I mean is, I can't decide whether these albums are total opposites or actually brothers from another mother (or the same one, per the previous analogy). While their sounds are definitely different, both of them them have some irresistibly catchy songwriting that strangely mask darker themes. The lyrics of Man Plus deal with internal pain, the anguish of taking the wrong road out of emptiness. The lyrics of P.I.C sometimes deal with frustration with society's conformity and stereotypes. And yet while Man Plus' lyrics usually leave you with a portrait of the man mid-misery, P.I.C insists on ending with a charge, an insistence on change.

I think I wrote another blog like this on Band Marino and Matt and Isom's albums and how everything was reminding me of Radiohead. The truth is, I think everything's connected. If you look at ska (which most people don't), ska started in Jamaica melding calypso and traditional beats with what was coming in from American radio at the time--soul, jazz, rhythm and blues. That went on to influence punk, and that went on to sprout reggae, which in some ways went on to influence everything from jam bands to funk to certain styles of electronic music. You look at boogaloo (which most people don't--yeah, it's real), which started off fusing R&B and soul with Latin styles and rock and roll and inevitably went on to leave its mark in every one of those genres. My point is, I believe in being a music nomad. I can't call a single section of the record store home, because where do the borders of a sound lie? I love looking for the connections and similarities between the CDs I listen to, because I think they always exist.