Red Hot Chili Peppers (2022)

One Liner: One of the greatest rock bands ever (IMO), and boasts the prime time funk of Flea.

Wikipedia Genre: Funk rock, alternative rock, funk metal, rap rock
Home: Los Angeles, CA

Poster Position: 1
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  I freaking love the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  I've heard people griping because they were here a few years ago and they are old and blah blah blah.  They are one of the most exciting bands I can think of to fill my eardrums, and live they usually bring the house. I've seen them four times now, and although they rarely play anything older than Blood Sugar Sex Magic anymore, that doesn't mean that they won't dip deep into the catalog this time.  Please?  Maybe?  As I've done in the past with some of the major headliners, I'll go through the RHCP catalog and list them in order of badassery.

Before I get to it, I wanted to mention that if you dig the Chilis, you should definitely go read the autobiography that Anthony Kiedis put out a few years ago called Scar Tissue.  It is a crazy ass look into his personal history, from a wild childhood (including humping his Dad's girlfriend) to drug binges (including stuff that should have killed him repeatedly) to groupie love, as well as some cool insight into how and why he wrote some of the greatest songs the band has ever made.  It also helped to understand a little bit about the tortured history of the guitarist position in the band.  Short history:

• Hillel Slovak.  Founding member, with the band up to Uplift Mofo in 1987 (with a small break or three), died of heroin overdose.
• Jack Sherman.  Helped out in the early days when Slovak left the band to move forward with another band called What Is This?  Was pretty much just on the first album.
• John Frusciante.  The best of the group (for my money) who was on Mother's Milk, Blood Sugar, Californication, By the Way, and Stadium Arcadium.  Took a break in the mid-90's before leaving for good.  But then not actually being gone for good, because he is back now.
• Dave Navarro.  The Jane's Addiction guitarist who filled in for Frusciante in the mid-90's, but actually did a great job with the band on One Hot Minute.
• Josh Klinghoffer.  Most recent guy, who had been with a bunch of minor bands and then had been playing with the Peppers on their Stadium Arcadium tour as a backing guitarist, but when Frusciante quit again, he just stepped in.  I feel kinda bad for the dude now, because he just got kicked to the curb once Frusciante came back.

And since I've pimped for the Kiedis autobiography, I have to mention that I was not able to finish Acid for the Children, Flea's book.  I think Flea is freaking amazing, but the book is just so weird that I found it offputting.  Like, instead of telling stories in a normal narrative fashion, it is very freeform and off-the-wall.  Maybe I'll finish it someday.  Anyway, on to the albums.

1.  Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991).

A formative album for me.  My sister, Sharon, had put me on to the band with Mother's Milk, which I also love, but this one hit me right when it mattered most, right at the right time in my music formation, to find the coolest bass player in the world mixed with freaky, funky, weird lyrics.  I was weird in high school.  I guess I am still weird, being that I write a billion words about music that only like 8 people read, but back then I was in band and theatre and lacrosse and these dudes were a great complement to the more straight-forward rock of grunge but they were infinitely weirder, which was very appealing.  So, this album was a massive hit, and it very well might be everyone's favorite Chili's album, but even beyond the "Give it Away" and "Under the Bridge" hit tunes, I don't understand how the opening track ("Power of Equality") can't make you just want to jump up and freak.  Or the semi-scary sexual storytelling of "Apache Rose Peacock" and "Sir Psycho Sexy."  Or the feels of "Breaking the Girl."  Or the total abandon of "The Greeting Song."  Flea is the reason that this band is the best thing ever, and he is prominently featured and makes this whole album the best thing.  Like, what other band makes things like "Mellowship Slinky in B Major" with their bassist just weaving around like that?  Love it.  I've got the album art on the wall in my office right at this moment.

2.  Mother's Milk (1989). 

The interview snippets in the midst of that video above for "Good Time Boys" are fantastic. Easy call for the second best album for me, as if BSSM had never existed, this would have always been the best Chili's album ever.  This is where they finally honed the wild punk style of the first few albums into the right combination of punk and funk and rock and freak. Their cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground" is the best stuff, but "Subway to Venus" and "Knock Me Down" are both awesome.  The cover of "Fire," nonstop blast of flames that it is, also rocks out. "Pretty Little Ditty" was sampled by that shitty "Butterfly" song from that shitty band Crazy Town, which despite both that band and song being crap, was kind of cool (although the version of that song on the copy of Mother's Milk that you can stream on Spotify is wrong, it is not the same version as was included on my CD of this album from 30 years ago).  And even though I think the Lakers suck, I still can't hate on the fact that these guys made an awesome homage song for their team and released it like a regular track to the album.  No one does stuff like that anymore.  Most of this album just jams out and is fun as hell.  Do it.

3.  Californication (1999). 

Without looking, I would have bet that this was their most commercially successful album, with several legit hits.  From reviewing Wikipedia, it looks like that is questionable.  Blood Sugar sold the most U.S. copies at 7 million (Californication comes in right behind that at 6 million), and while this one charted well, it did not do as well as Stadium Arcadium which hit number 1 in every market tracked on Wikipedia, as did the new one Unlimited Love.  But, where this album won the race is in worldwide sales, as it apparently sold more than 16 million worldwide, versus 13.8 for BSSM or 7.6 million for Stadium.  But this one boasts more hits than the others, with "Scar Tissue," "Around the World," "Otherside," "Californication" and "Road Trippin'" all charting well.

From what I remember about last time they came to ACL, they leaned hard on this album and Stadium Arcadium, so I might expect to hear some of those hits again. The chorus of "Scar Tissue" is one of my favorites from them - the longing tone of voice and guitar going along under "with the birds I share this lonely view," it just works out perfectly for the feel of the song.  There are a ton of official videos for this album, so if you feel like going down that wormhole, you can get a bunch of them on YouTube.  I'll just give you the one above for the title track (although that video does not age well with those jenky video game graphics). And with this album, even beyond the hits, you've got great rockers like "Get On Top."  When trying to consider where to rank albums, my instinct was that this one should go lower, but its just too good.

4.  One Hot Minute (1995).

I'm already in a bind here, because honestly I could have put any of the next few into this slot.  But I gotta put them in order, so I'm giving this one the slight edge.  This is the one album with Dave Navarro, so from what I've heard they rarely (if ever) play any of the songs from this one live, so we never get to check out the genius of "Walkabout" or "Pea" in person.  I think it also helps that I listened to this album a million times during college when I had a lot of spare time to appreciate tunes, so this one has a happy memory space for me. Even the late tunes on the album like "Shallow Be Thy Game" jam out.  This is why I listen to the Chilis, to get my funk out and jam.

5.  The Uplift Mofo Party Plan (1987).

That video features quite a few boobs and a lot of Flea's bare butt, so fair warning here. The greatness of this album is the raw fury and my nostalgia for how I felt at age 15 (or whatever) yelling along to "Special Secret Song Inside" ("I want to party on your puuuuuuuusssssay") or "No Chump Love Sucker" ("How could I ever Have kissed that bitch, So what if she's GOT BIG TITS!!!"). For young Jack, those lines were highly fun to furtively boast, sotto voce, in my bedroom alone, or full voiced in my car.  This was also probably my first real exposure to a Dylan song with "Subterranean Homesick Blues."  This one just has the most frantic tracks, I think, with "Love Trilogy," and "Skinny Sweaty Man," and "Me and My Friends."  I have some good memories of this disc in high school, cruising around in my friend's Bronco II and jamming this thing.

6.  By the Way (2002)

This one was up at #4 for a while in early drafts of this post, but after listening to all the albums a few more times, I think I get sucked in to the two fantastic tunes on here and think the entire album is better than it is.  Namely, "Can't Stop" is one of the best tunes that the Chilis have ever put together (#3 currently on their popular songs listing on Spotify, with 775.4 million streams). "By the Way" is great, "Dosed" is really good too.  But the album has a lot of tunes that I'd call filler. On that weird ass video up above, I'm hearing hand claps in the chorus that I've never heard in listening to that song a million times.  That is strange.  I'm not saying this album is bad or anything, in fact it is really good, but it just can't beat out those ones up above.

7.  Unlimited Love (2022).

I'm unapologetic about loving the Chilis.  I know they have some unfortunate songs on their catalog (although I have to say that when "Party on Your P***y" came out I was like 11 and that shit was deeply funny to me) but overall their aesthetic of funk and groove and rock and goofiness ties deeply into what I want all of my music to be.  And also, they got their best guitarist back!  So I was pumped about this release.  And while the bass is funky and slappy, and the guitar solos are meandering and jagged (in all the right ways), and the drumming is as tight as ever, the lyrics are sooooooooo dumb.  Like, a song called "Aquatic Mouth Dance" is just not what I needed to try to defend this thing (but that bass solo in there is tight).  The lead single, "Black Summer," sounds great, but it makes zero sense (and that is even while setting aside the weird accent that Anthony uses).  The second track - "Here Ever After" - is one of those that seems like it is just free thought association.  "I don't know 'cause I got big temper,

Stick close to my rainbow side, Candy corn and that dancing leopard, That’s all, folks, that's all" or "I don't know, but it’s finally just one more mile, Peaches are sold and all givin' up on that Humpty style."  Mmmmmkay.  Maybe that means something to Anthony, but it just sounds like he's scatting random words over the otherwise good bump and tumble tune.  Other random lines pop up all throughout - "superstars don't do the dishes!" or "I just want to lick your face!" or "the smile of a knife is seldom befriending" or "platypus are a few."

BUT - I honestly don't care.  I like a lot of music where the lyrics are dumb as crap.  I've written before about Greta Van Fleet having dumb lyrics, or the Foo Fighters just shoving a bunch of trite sayings together and calling it good.  In the end, I love Flea's bass and I like Anthony's weird sing-rap meandering and I like Frusciante's spacy slashing and I even like Will Ferrell's no-nonsense drumming.  I'm here for the groove, man.  And you definitely get that groove in "Black Summer" or "The Great Apes" or "She's a Lover" or loads of other tunes on here.  "Poster Child" totally sounds like something that could have been on Blood Sugar.  The bass is funky and the guitar has that slinky, freaky, pedal-tweaked sound that makes this sound like I need to listen to it in a convertible while cruising a strip.  "The Heavy Wing" for sure sounds like a Chilis song that I had heard before this album came out.  It could have used a trim for sure - 17 songs for 73 minutes is pretty damn long - but I'm still digging the groove.  Y'all know me.  I'm in.

8.  The Getaway (2016).

Reviewed this one back in 2016, and its only grown on me since.  I keep hearing "Go Robot" on the radio and its such a cool track, funk bass flailing and then some disco-fied Duran Duran sounding synth breakdowns.  I think this album may crawl up the hierarchy of albums over time, but this is where it falls for me for now.   I love the opening of the album, with the title track, where I can see Flea making that hissing cymbal sound with his mouth while contorting his face around the mike with each hiss.  "Dark Necessities" is also a good tune, although I've tried to parse the lyrics out and have no clue what the hell is going on there.  I talked about "Dreams of a Samurai" before, with its Radiohead-leaning sound, and I still like that one too.

8.  Stadium Arcadium (2006).

(I'm sorry Noah!)

My big beef with this one is just with the filler stuff.  If they would have cut down the album into a single disc of the strongest songs, this one could be really great, like top four, but instead when you listen you get two hours and thirty-one freaking minutes of tunes.  It's just bloated.  That being said, "Snow (Hey Oh)" and "Tell Me Baby" especially that second one, are awesome. Give me more of the nonsense spewing lyrics over the funk roll. "chilichilibittysomething about nittygritty life can be a little shitty something Boston and Kansas City jibba jabba pennies!"   "Dani California" is good too, but overplayed enough to have less punch for me now.   And I like "Slow Cheetah" too.  Weird that this album is already 16 years old - seems newish to me.  Hell, even the silly ass "Hump de Bump" is pretty fun - "nothin' but a two beach comber!" - that nimble bass is freaking awesome.  So I gave you that one up above. AND, that video is top notch with some fly dancing, homeless trumpet guys, Chris Rock, Craig Robinson, and a terrible looking grill on Kiedis.  But on the first disc, after about "Torture Me," the majority of those songs just stop holding my interest and kind of fart away into the wind.  Same with most of the second disc, just unnecessary.

But, Spotify has a 30 minute long spoken commentary about the album that is kind of cool.  The character Dani California ends up being from both the songs "Californication" and "By the Way," which is a weird thing to decide, but such it is.  Frusciante apparently crafted his guitars based on the original Wu Tang album's vocal rhythms, which is also weird.  The interesting thing about their commentary is that the first half is only them talking about the best songs - "Snow," "Tell Me Baby," "Dani," and "Stadium," before they start to get into the lesser tunes.  Although Flea says that "Wet Sand" is a top five song for him.  And there is a part at about 19:20 when you can hear Kiedis getting all excited about Flea talking about how the guitar and bass made an organic thing like a tree. Anyway, "Tell Me Baby" is a jam.

9.  Freaky Styley (1985)

So, Freaky Styley is pretty low on my totem pole, I suppose, but it has some tunes on it that I remember with great nostalgia.  I went to youth camp with a bunch of girls from a Houston Catholic school (and had massive crushes on like 40 of them at any given time), so "Catholic School Girls Rule" was a favorite.  The best tune on here is the cover of "If You Want Me to Stay," which is still so freaking perfect.  It's chilled, but they do it perfectly.  And then "Yertle the Turtle" is a classic that I find myself singing to myself at random times.  "Yertle the Turtle oh marvelous me, for I am ruler of all that I see."  But this album is from the time when Kiedis is still doing a lot of the rap-style singing and the band is significantly more raw and unfinished sounding.

10.  I'm With You (2011).

Honestly, in just re-listening to this album, I think its better than I remember.  But the "hit" from it, "The Adventures of Ran Dance Maggie," is pretty weak, so mentally I think that the whole thing is weaker than it really is.  I say that, but then the stream counts on the album show that it really never got off the ground in comparison to other recent RHCP albums.  The Getaway's top song has over 354 million streams and the three tracks with the lowest streams are still averaging over 20 million streams. On the other hand, this album's top song only has 118 million streams and it has six songs with streams under 15 million.  And its been around for much longer.  But giving it another shot right now, its actually super funky and deserves more attention.  If I were to make a guess as to why it hasn't been more on my radar, I think it is the same malaise that has affected almost all albums that have come out in the past five years - if I didn't buy it and just streamed it, then I probably jammed it a few times and then moved on to the next new album.  Which sucks, but is kind of reality.  I'll keep working this one into my brain for a while here.

11.  Red Hot Chili Peppers (1984).

That video is amazing for several reasons.  First, Alan Thicke joking with these morons. Second, how freaking young are these dudes!  Third, Kiedis sounds like the worst lead singer ever in the history of the world.  Thank God he figured out how to sing (and rap with some semblance of tune).

This album definitely doesn't deserve to be the "worst" of the group, but if I'm being honest about it, most of this album is just not that great.  The best track, the reason that this whole thing worked out, is "Get Up and Jump."  I hear them trying to come up with the top-notch funky punk that comes out later, but most of this album has more in common with the terrible rap-nu-metal from the mid-90's than the best stuff the Chili's have to offer.  But you can hear cool bits and pieces that will come together later.  The guitar licks on "Buckle Down."  The frenetic bass flow on "Get Up and Jump." The silliness on half of the tunes. "Mommy Where's Daddy" always used to make me grin - "give daddy a kiss, girl, awwww Dad."  But, with all the good stuff these guys put out after this, no need (in my opinion) to go this far back into the catalog.

So there you have it.  No reviews of the EPs or singles ("Soul to Squeeze" from the Coneheads soundtrack or "Love Rollercoaster" from Beavis & Butthead), and no mention of how amazing their version of Hendrix songs are - "Castles Made of Sand" was always a good one.

There is also something out there I had never known about before, a group of B-Sides from I'm With You that was called I'm Beside You.  Spotify doesn't provide it as a full album, but as a series of singles with neato artsy covers.  "Hometown Gypsy" has a fun country-ness to it.  "Pink as Floyd" comes on slowly, but then sounds cool.  Glad I found those for some new action!

While this could change dramatically by the time October rolls around, a look at their current set-lists shows that we are likely to get another set that is light on the old school classics, with their most recent five European shows looking like this:

3-Jul	5-Jul	8-Jul	9-Jul	12-Jul
Intro Jam	Intro Jam	Intro Jam	Intro Jam	Intro Jam
Around the World	Can't Stop	Around the World	Can't Stop	Around the World
Dani California	Dani California	Dani California	Dani California	Dani California
Charlie	I Like Dirt	Universally Speaking	Scar Tissue	The Zephyr Song
The Zephyr Song	Scar Tissue	Charlie	These Are the Ways	Aquatic Mouth Dance
These Are the Ways	These Are the Ways	These Are the Ways	I Like Dirt	Snow ((Hey Oh))
Your Song (Elton John)	Snow ((Hey Oh))	Snow ((Hey Oh))	Snow ((Hey Oh))	These Are the Ways
Snow ((Hey Oh))	Nobody Weird Like Me	Aquatic Mouth Dance	Here Ever After	Throw Away Your Television
Aquatic Mouth Dance	Here Ever After	Suck My Kiss	Hard to Concentrate	Otherside
Wet Sand	Don't Forget Me	Hey	Tell Me Baby	Nobody Weird Like Me
She's a Lover	The Heavy Wing	Otherside	She's a Lover	Whatchu Thinkin'
Right on Time	Tell Me Baby	Whatchu Thinkin'	Right on Time	Black Summer
Black Summer	Black Summer	Pea	The Heavy Wing	Soul to Squeeze
Californication	Californication	Soul to Squeeze	Black Summer	The Heavy Wing
Give It Away	It's Only Natural	Black Summer	Californication	Californication
Under the Bridge	Give It Away	Californication	What Is Soul? (Funkadelic)	Give It Away
By the Way	I Could Have Lied	Give It Away	Give It Away	Sir Psycho Sexy
	By the Way	Under the Bridge	I Could Have Lied	They're Red Hot
		By the Way	By the Way	By the Way

So, the only old tunes are: Give It Away, Under the Bridge (only twice!), Nobody Weird Like Me (twice), I Could Have Lied (twice), Suck My Kiss (once), Sir Psycho Sexy (once).  Play Higher Ground, man!

I suspect that an ACL show will lean heavy on the hits and not dive out into the ether of the catalog, but here's to hoping that they go deep into Mother's and BSSM.

ZAI1K

One Liner: Auto-tuned rapping and singing with a viral hit on TikTok

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but rap and R&B

Home: Florida

Poster Position: 20
Weekend One Only.  Friday.

Thoughts:  Apparently this guy popped off on TikTok in January, with his spin on something called "WYD Now" by something called Sadie Jean.  This is when I feel really old.  An article I read states that: "The Viral moment occurred when Zai1k participated in Sadie Jean’s “WYD Now?” Open Verse Challenge. The Open Verse Challenge allows artists to recorded themselves performing their own verse next to Sadie Jean.  Zai1k currently has over 2.3 million likes on his Tiktok and with the iconic bar “Why you got that spoon in my face, back it up some,” it’s no surprise that he has everyone singing the catchy verse."  Really?  The spoon in my face line somehow caught the public's attention?

There honestly is not very much available online talking about the guy - no Wikipedia, no interviews with any big publications, and his Spotify bio is like 2 lines.  Grew up in Lauderhill, Florida, and started in music in 2020.  His bio literally says he delivers his lyrics with a melodic sound.  Ohhhh, really?  Amazing!  Why didn't anyone else in the history of music ever do that too? n I wish I could find out how to say his dumb-looking name.  ZAY-ONE-K?

All three of his most popular songs involve someone else, so it is hard to tell which voice is his, versus which one is KB Mike or Kakhar (but I can tell which one is Stacey Ryan on that one).  I'll give you the "WYD Now?" one just so you can hear the viral sensation.  3.6 million streams.

Oh man, hear that melodic sound?  And that "iconic bar" about the spoon?  WTF, man.  Nothing special there at all.  Here is his most streamed tune, with someone named Stacey Ryan, and I like the message in this one.  "Don't Text Me When You're Drunk."  11.7 million streams.

Pretty good, even though his verses are not the best part of the tune.  Although I definitely do not like watching that woman sing, either.

One day ago Rolling Loud festival posted his "full set," which starts in the middle of a track and lasts nine minutes?  The sound on the video is awful, but you can also see that there are like 300 people there.

No thanks!  Hope he has fun in Austin!

Isaac Dunbar

One Liner: Alternative pop tunes that I can barely remember even as he is still playing.

Wikipedia Genre: Alternative pop, pop
Home: Massachusetts (had no clue how to spell that state name!)

Poster Position: 17
Weekend One Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  His Wikipedia says that he started creating EDM music when he was nine.  How cool is that?  He watched YouTube tutorials and figured it out.  I wish my kids had learned how to make EDM at age nine and made me independently wealthy.  Or at least got it so that I would get a free pass to ACL every year.

He got started in 2017 and got some notoriety with tracks being shared by The Fader, Beats 1 radio show, Complex, and MTV.  But, of course, right when he was about to go headline his first big tour - COVID.  He's also a youngun.  18 years old now, meaning that he was making waves when he was still a teenager.  He is a big Lady Gaga stan - ARTPOP is why he started making music.  he learned production by re-producing the songs on this album and figuring out how that worked.

4 albums - 2019's balloons don't float here, 2020's isaac's insects, 2021's evil twin, and then 2022's Banish the Banshee (he found out about capital letters!).  Meanwhile, his top streamer isn't on any of those albums.  "onion boy" was a 2019 single, which now has 20.2 million streams.

Sounds like a Eilish track, and he definitely looks like he is 14 in that video.  "Brush your teeth you onion boy" is really something for a lyric.  Not sure I get the hype on that one.  I was kind of cruising along, not loving him and not hating it, until "Gummy" came on and made me deeply annoyed about this guy.  Bad song for sure.  The top song from the new album is "Bleach," let's try that one to see if it is any better.  2.2 million streams.

He's definitely gotten older - I like the new hairdo.  That track kinda makes me think of the new Harry Styles sound.  Strong voice and retro sounding tune.  Dude can hit some freaking high notes!  I want to be generic bank executive #7 in this video.  I was hoping that "Tainted Love" was going to be a cover, but no such luck.  "Sunburn" is a good dance track.

Yeah, my overall feeling here is ambivalence.  It isn't awful or anything, but much of it just kind of slides by as background music as I have been getting other things done.  "Sunburn" made me do an old man shoulder bop for a sec, but otherwise I don't notice anything very interesting.

Ibeyi

One Liner: Twins!  Kind of a world music R&B and rap thing.

Wikipedia Genre: Soul, R&B, downtempo, electronic, experimental, trip hop
Home: France

Poster Position: 17
Weekend One Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Wild stuff - not sure how to classify it at all.  The duo are fraternal twins who were born in Paris, but have lived in Cuba as well.  Their father was a Grammy winning musician, an apparently famous Cuban percussionist named Anga Diaz, who also played with the Buena Vista Social Club.  He passed when the girls were 11 years old, and they took up music and something called Yoruba folk music.  

Yoruba is a language spoken in West Africa, primarily a region in Nigeria.  Wikipedia says this: "Yoruba vocabulary is also used in the Afro-Brazilian religion known as Candomblé, in the Caribbean religion of Santería in the form of the liturgical Lucumí language and various Afro-American religions of North America.  Practitioners of these religions in the Americas no longer speak or understand the Yorùbá language, rather they use remnants of Yorùbá language for singing songs that for them are shrouded in mystery. Usage of a lexicon of Yorùbá words and short phrases during ritual is also common, but they have gone through changes due to the fact that Yorùbá is no longer a vernacular for them and fluency is not required."  Sweet, so when I listen to this I am practicing Santeria and am shrouded in mystery.

A 2014 EP has their most popular track (by a long ways!) called "River."  27.5 million streams.

That underwater shit gives me anxiety.  Like that "No Surprises" video for Radiohead.  Hate it.  Good voices - nice harmonies, and a tight groove to the simple backing song.  The breakdown at the end makes me think of Childish's "This is America."  The 2015 album also contains "River," but no other track on there cracks 6 million streams.

After that, they released 2017's Ash and then just recently 2022's Spell 31.  The top track from Ash is annoying, in that is is very AutoTune heavy, when they don't need that crap.  So I'll give you the top track from the new album instead.  "Lavender and Red Roses" has 1.3 million streams.

I feel like I have seen that video before.  I swear I recently saw a video of women crossing the desert and someone working in a well.  Also, weird that the last guy I just listened to had a new song about lavender.  Is that the new thing?

Random aside, they appeared in the short film for Beyonce's Lemonade as members of a farm utopia.  I should have watched the movie!

I have actually enjoyed this stuff - hard to pin them into a box, some of it is like R&B, some of it is rap, some of it is something I can't identify, but it is pretty the whole time.

Faye Webster (2022)

One Liner: Americana singing photographer leaning towards R&B sometimes.

Wikipedia Genre: Indie folk, alternative country, R&B
Home: Atlanta

Poster Position: 25
Weekend Two Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  Last here in 2019.  Really great Americana-type soft rock stuff on her older albums, including a lovely cover of Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark."  Her 2019 disc includes some different sounds that don't lean quite so heavy on the steel guitar and strummed acoustic and even veer into R&B.  

She's pretty damn impressive.  She self released her first album while still in high school, and then moved to Nashville for college.  She lasted less than one year before moving back to Atlanta.  She apparently went to middle school with Lil Yachty and is signed to a label that does a lot of rap, but her favorite band is Asleep at the Wheel.  She's also a legit photographer (that one of Killer Mike is super dope).  So, quite a pile of contradictions.

Here is an interesting quote about Nashville that I find delicious:

I played one show there as a resident. The reason I left wasn’t because of college, though. It was because of living in Nashville. As a native of a diverse city like Atlanta, going to a gentrified, competitive city like Nashville, where everyone’s the same, [was hard]. Everybody is a singer-songwriter there. Every restaurant, every coffee shop looks the same. It felt like some “Black Mirror” shit.

Yes.

Four albums, 2013's Run and Tell, 2017's Faye Webster, 2019's Atlanta Millionaire's Club, and 2021's I Know I'm Funny Haha.  That original disc is heavy on the pedal steel, and a longing tone to the vocals that make this sound like a love-lorn country album secretly released by the vocalist for a rock band.  No track from that album cracks the million stream level.

The 2017 album adds a little more gloss to the sound, but it still hews pretty close to the formula - beautiful vocals, pedal steel, and a little hint of funk added into an Americana sound.  Maybe a little southern soul stuff.  She started playing with a band out of Athens, GA, so maybe they are helping to influence her sound that direction.  Sadly, this is an album that appears to be uncool, even though I like it, because the first song has many more streams than the rest.  This is "She Won't Go Away."  4.5 million streams.

I feel like I'd hurt myself if I rode that weird ass bike.  Nice tune - simple, light, fluffy like a fat summer cloud.  "It's Not a Sad Thing" is a beaut as well - that Jenny Lewis sound comes back in there as well.  Webster does a good job of combining sadness and odd whimsy in her albums as well (although I'm not missing that the steel is the perfect shortcut to making something feel sad).

Her grandfather was a bluegrass guitarist in Texas, and her mom was a guitarists and fiddle player, so she has some music in her blood for sure.  "Better Distractions" was chosen by President Obama as a favorite song of 2020.

The 2019 album gets a little more southern indie feel to go with the continued use of the steel guitar.  Something like "Right Side of My Neck" has that feel, with the steel guitar still prominent, but also some smooth organ groove in there. Some things go a little torchy on here as well, like "Hurts Me Too."  "Kingston" is the top track from that album (and her whole catalog) with 54.2 million streams.

Kind of a soft-rock vibe, but with pedal steel.  Kind of a Jenny Lewis vibe in there as well, or maybe Neko Case.  But even with the pedal, you can tell that this has gone pretty far afield from those earlier albums and their Americana/country feel.  And then there is "Flowers," which is more of an R&B track, all falsetto vocals and drum machines and a rap piece by something called Father.  I hate it.

Then the newer album - great title - feels like it goes back to the original plan.  The top track is "In a Good Way," with 13.6 million streams.  Torchy, gentle vibe.

I dig the musicianship going on with the real-deal band playing in the background.  They aren't working too hard, but the warmth that they add under her voice is wonderful.  The whole album is kind of like that, a lovely, warm, jazzy little thing to glide through the workday with.  "Cheers" fires up just a touch more, but otherwise it stays pretty chill.

Overall, I really like her, this has been a good find.

Japanese Breakfast (2022)

One Liner: Great melodic indie rock to go with thoughts of sushi pancakes

Wikipedia Genre: Indie rock, indie pop, alternative pop, dream pop
Home:  Philadelphia (although Wikipedia lists Eugene, Oregon)

Poster Position: 6
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  She was last here in 2018, and I didn't see her, but I really wish I had.  Since then, I have really enjoyed some of her tunes.

Back in 2018, her top song was called "Road Head" and I'm all about it.  Although, I have to say, getting up to shenanigans like that while on the turnpike exit seems like a terrible idea.  If you are needing to maneuver in any way other than driving straight ahead at the same speed, then it is honestly a better time to just take a chill pill and hold on for a few minutes.  Oh God, I'm old.  If you've thought fully through something like this, then you are officially too big of a dork and stick in the mud for anyone to even want to tear the cover off the gear shift anyway.  Anyway, that is still her most streamed track, at 30.4 million streams.

Huh.  I guess if death is the one giving you road head, then no one in your car really cares if you are being unsafe in the throes of your O face.  Have at it then!  Also, ramen and cigarettes?  I can't even consider this as an option.  I'd literally rather die.  That video is disturbing on multiple levels.

"Boyish" is a cool, noirish, surfish love tune.  21.2 million streams.  Peep it, the first song in this Tiny Desk concert:

Lovely.  I need an invite to all Tiny Desk concerts for all time.  I wish she would have talked more about stuff, but very nice tunes.  Different from the recordings, which are much more electronically inclined instead of acoustic.

Overall, I really like this lady.  Her real name is Michelle Zauner.  She said that the band name comes from a "juxtaposition of Asian exoticism and American culture."  Which is, uh, OK.  She apparently isn't Japanese either.  But she said she "chose the name because she "grew up relating to Japanese culture quite a bit because it felt like the closest thing [she] had" to Korean popular culture in America."  OK, that is kind of cool, then.

They also do a good cover of "Dreams," the Cranberries tune.  But I think she missteps on the auto-tune fest "Machinist."  That is about the only tune on her early albums that I outright dislike.  

I'll give you one of her older tracks too.  She has two albums, 2017's Soft Sounds from Another Planet (which includes both "Road Head" and "Boyish") and 2016's Psychopomp, which includes "Everybody Wants to Love You, her fourth most listened to track at 15.7 million streams.

Like a yelping Bjork at times, and the song is much more upbeat than the newer album.  Yeah, I'm down for this stuff.  

Since then, she released the very good Jubilee in 2021.  This one has a little disco sparkle on top of an otherwise great indie rock sound.  "Be Sweet" is a sunshiny pop nugget of an aspirational love song.  The top track for sure with 25.9 million streams.

Kicks off kinda funky, and then the guitar and drums start to edge closer to disco, before the chorus kicks in and you are required to groove to the track and decide to honor synth-pop as cool.  It just bangs with bouncy happiness.  Jenky ass video too.  "Slide Tackle" also has that disco pop feeling.  Other tunes on here are less poppy and more indie, like the nice one that follows "Be Sweet," called "Kokomo, IN," which sounds like something you'd find on some indie budget movie's soundtrack.  "Savage Good Boy" is another standout track that makes me think of Neko Case.  This is good music.  You usually find me on this blog whining about how overly long albums are, but in this case I wish it was even longer!

I'd absolutely go give her a shot in the fall.  Might be a little too detailed and pretty for a Fest show, but I want to keep hearing these tunes.

Taipei Houston

One Liner: Sons of Metallica's Lars Ulrich, doing a Royal Blood-esque two man blast

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is rock and roll
Home: San Francisco

Poster Position: 20
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts: No artist on Spotify is named Tapei Houston.  There is one named Taipei and one named Tapei, but neither have Houston appended.  There is a playlist called Taipei Houston Drum Sound.  But I don't understand why because it just lists two Royal Blood tracks and two Queens of the Stone Age tracks.  Taipei is the capital of Taiwan.  Houston is the 4th biggest city in America.  And according to an article I just found, this is a band made up of the two sons of Metallica's drummer Lars Ulrich.  WTF?  Layne Ulrich on bass and vocals, and Myles Ulrich on drums.

Horrible band name.

Here is a live snippet from BottleRock back in May.  And while it is hard to really hear what is going on, this sounds terrible.

Like they are going for Royal Blood/cleopatrick sound, but just smear that all over the place.  Here is another attempt - a set for the local alternative rock radio station in Austin.  

The sound on that one is somehow even shittier than the first video shot with a cell phone in a crowd.  The vocals are three times as loud as they should be, and you can barely hear the bass at all, with the drums just being the snare and nothing else.  I get what they are trying to do, but man that sound guy screwed them over there.  Other videos have similarly terrible sound.  It is too bad, because I dig this sort of sound right now, but it is really hard to understand what this is going to do with how terrible it sounds.  Why don't they have anything on Spotify?

Oh wait, go see this Beatles cover.

Yeah buddy.  Blast those drums into the sky.  That is dirty and noisy and fun.  I'd go check this out for sure.

Jake Wesley Rogers

One Liner: Pretty piano pop from a dude with a major change in his look

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, singer-songwriter
Home: Nashville

Poster Position: 16
Both Weekends.  Sunday.

Thoughts: Very serious juxtaposition between the look he has on the cover of his top single - bookish, studious, cute, like a 15 year old about to read a book in the shade of a tree where he thinks a cute girl will walk by in an hour and a half - and his 2021 EP Pluto - David Bowie's bastard nephew.

I honestly figured this was going to be country, just because of the name.  But it is pop instead.  Rogers grew up in Missouri and was doing music and theater in elementary school.  He came out to his family in sixth grade, but felt like he needed to hide it from the wider world of the Ozarks at the time.  Moved to Nashville for college and has stayed there for the music.

His top single, by quite a bit, is a cover.  The Pretenders' "I'll Stand By You," with 6.6 million streams.

In that video he looks more like Anthony Michael Hall's character in Breakfast Club, if that kid wore a doily for a shirt.  Beautiful song though.  That was a 2016 single, so back when he was launching his career.  Since then he has released EPs in 2017, 2019, and 2021.   They're fine.  None of them have gotten massive traction, but his voice remains strong and his piano remains ready made for a Gray Anatomy tracking shot.  His newest single is called "Lavender Forever," and the cover of it makes him look like a special purple hobbit who is advertising his lavender farm from the Shire.  595k streams.

I have no clue what the lyrics of that song mean - "sticky sticky fingers for life" is kinda gross.  But the happy tune and sunshine-y lyrics are really nice.  The video is creepy though.

It is nice music, I don't really see a reason to go find it at the Fest, but it is solidly done and pretty.

Conan Gray

One Liner:  Male Olivia Rodrigo?  Great songwriter either way.

Wikipedia Genre:  Pop, indie pop, acoustic pop, bedroom pop
Home: L.A.

Poster Position: 5
Both Weekends.
Weekend 1 - Saturday. Weekend 2 - Friday.

Thoughts:   So, my youngest has requested that she get to see three things this year, if she can.  Kacey Musgraves (heck yeah), Sza (okay?), and this guy.  Who I have absolutely never heard of before.  And yet he has several songs with hundreds of millions of streams - one almost has a billion - so I guess I'm the one who is behind the musical curve here.  But my first instinct on the guy is a male Olivia Rodrigo.  That comparison doesn't always work, but it frequently does.

My man was born in California, to an Irish dude and a Japanese mother, which is a fun combo of cool heritages.  At one point he could speak Japanese fluently, but Wikipedia says no more.  He moved around a lot because of a military father, but ended up settling in Georgetown, Texas.  So I wish I could claim him as a local, but he apparently moved back out to L.A. in 2017 when he was accepted to UCLA.  he got his start with just YouTube videos - no music, more like cooking and vlogs about home or whatever.  After getting millions of views (why?) he was able to branch out to music and start this new career.

He self-released some singles back in 2017, and got millions of streams, until he finally released his first EP, Sunset Season, in late 2018.  Every song on it has more than 64 million streams, and one has 147.6 million.  This is "Crush Culture."

Lyrically, top notch.  Music-wise, don't need it.  But I like the anger towards crush culture and being sad/mad about young relationship issues.  But this song and the rest of the EP blew up, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Heatseekers Albums chart, which then led to opening slots for Girl in Red and Panic! at the Disco.  His first full-length album was Kid Krow, released in 2020.  The big track on there is his top streamer overall, with 918 million streams (!?!) called "Heather."  I was wishing for "Maniac" to be the top track, because I like that one better.  But this is the hit.

There's that Olivia Rodrigo sound right there, right?  Doesn't it sound like that sort of longing, smart, broken, thoughtful love song that she did on "Drivers License"?  This was a big TikTok hit as well.  Of course, though, right as he was on the cusp of massive stardom and appearances on TV and big tours and Grammy nominations and everything, COVID smacked him down.  "Wish You Were Sober" (on that album) is a bop - I really like the mood and lyrics on that one.  

Gray says that Taylor Swift is his biggest inspiration, which I guess I can hear as well.  But the guy is lucky enough to have had Swift praise Kid Krow and one of the songs on there, on social media.  He also shouts out Lorde as an inspiration, which I hear less of.

Now, in 2022, he released Superache.  Good album overall.  I'm honestly surprised at how much I have liked all of this - normally you tell me that a bedroom pop guy is the next artists and I'm going to be suspicious, but this guy is talented.  "People Watching" is the hit on here so far, with 139.1 million streams.

Creepy ass stalker ass observational guy.  Damn.  Just make the damn coffee and quit checking them out.  Just kidding - yet again, lyrically, this is a great song.  Smart poetry and legitimate emotional observations.  "Memories" sounds like a Harry Styles tune.  "Yours" sounds like Rodrigo again.

Yeah, I hope to get to see this guy with the youngest.  I'd check it out for sure.

Edit after I wrote the above - the world has crapped on the guy for his National Anthem performance at the 2022 Home Run Derby.  Not sure it was that awful - not Fergie awful by any means - but definitely a little pitchy at times.

Yungblud (2022)

One Liner: Dance rock slash Machine Gun Kelly thing with lyrics built to shock.

Wikipedia Genre: Alternative Rock, hip hop, pop punk
Home: Doncaster, England

Poster Position: 8
Weekend Two Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts: A friend had suggested this guy to me back in 2018 when I was in dire need of fresh tunes.  At the time, Yungblud only had a five song EP, and I loved it.  He's loose, raw, excitable, very clearly British, and a little ridiculous.  Not a great voice, purposefully raspy and raw, but the songs can be very fun.  Dominic Harrison is his real name.  Since that EP, he released his full-length debut, 2018's 21st Century Liability, which repeats three of the EPs songs but leaves off one of my favorites, "King Charles."

Groovy, political, rock and roll.  But, like I said, this one didn't make the cut for the album, so maybe I'm alone in digging it.  I dunno.  The track with the most streams was the top one from the EP as well, and is a little more reckless.  "I Love You, Will You Marry Me" has just over 33.9 million streams.

Much more of a pop rock feel, with that ska guitar bounce and a driving beat.  And a highly entertaining video.

So, after those two songs up above, you can understand why I'm enjoying the guy - fun, energetic, danceable, good times.  Then his album comes out and its sprinkled with songs that leave the fun behind for a message, and I'm disappointed. "Kill Somebody" repeatedly gripes about how someone made him feel bad, so now he just wants to kill somebody like you.  Which honestly isn't that funny or clever.  And the tune is super basic.  "Machine Gun (F**k the NRA)" is, not shockingly, a screed about depressed/psychotic people who get made famous by using their machine gun (or otherwise hurting themselves).  Again, not really presented in a way that provides useful commentary on the subject, just a mediocre beat and apparent excitement about showing off and machine guns.  "California" has a neat chorus capper - "swear that when I get old you'll blow my brains out."  "Die for the Hype" has a chorus asking to die for the hype, "crucified like Jesus Christ."  I'll give you the most streamed of the new tracks, another happy tune.  "Psychotic Kids," which has 26.1 million streams.

Oh, neat!  Crazy kids don't know what they want!  You dropped the hair dryer in your bath!  Your parents are stupid!  And the video gets just as disturbing.  Maybe he decided the Marilyn Manson shock-rock route was the best way to get fans?  Does that still work?  In this interview, he says that he just wants to sing about real subjects that other people tiptoe around, so I guess I get that (sort of?).  "And I want this album to be an outlet for people who feel like they can’t be themselves, or feel like they can’t say what they think. Because if you feel like your voice isn’t important, you’re wrong. It is. Everyone’s voice is important."  MMMkay, not sure how giving voice to assholes who want to kill someone is a good idea?  Maybe I'm missing some clever hidden meaning here, but that seems like a super shitty thing to do?

He also released a 2018 EP of four of his songs in an unplugged setting, which are tender and kind of arresting.  I talked about "Polygraph Eyes" back in my original review, very good tune, and sounds even cooler when stripped.

And after all of this, he came to ACL in 2018 and I went to the show.  Wow, welcome to f-bomb town, kids!  This show was actually damn fun, he was manic and wild and very hyped up, but if he used less that 50 "fucks" I'd be shocked.  And if he stuck his tongue out less than 300 times, I'd be shocked.  Although, I will also admit that my 10 year old daughter looked up at me at one point and asked if he was lip syncing.  And so I had to explain to her about backing tracks and what those are used for.  To which she replied that it seemed like cheating, and I have to agree.  If you're going to use a backing track, then you can't forget to sing along the whole time.  This was like Eminem a few years ago, where Yungblud would pull the mic down to strut or stick out his tongue, and yet we would still hear him "singing" the words.

Since then, he released more music, including the 2020 album weird! and some other singles and EPs.  He has definitely shifted into a pop punk phase with Machine Gun Kelly as his inspiration now.  His most popular track on Spotify is actually a MGK song.  But his second-most streamed tune is from that 2020 album, called "parents."  241.7 million streams.

Huh.  Speaking of Eminem, that is like a shitty Eminem facsimile about killing your dad and humping your best friend.  That is a terrible song.  I get he sentiment, that parents are wrong and it is okay to be homosexual, the actual product there is garbage.  Too bad, really, that he didn't stick with the pure fun of the early EP.  This new album isn't it.  "fleabag" makes me think of that Wheetus song "Teenage Dirtbag."  

I don't guess I would go see this one even if I was there on Sunday of weekend two.

Claire Rosinkranz

One Liner: More bedroom pop with a big TikTok tune.

Wikipedia Genre: Her Wikipedia doesn't list a genre, but I'd call this bedroom pop or bedroom indie.
Home: California

Poster Position: 19
Weekend One Only - Sunday.

Thoughts:  Another TikTok star, as Wikipedia says that she came to "wide recognition" when a song went viral on TikTok.  She's then released two EPs since then.  But, at least her story is a little different.  She had no idea that she had gone viral, which seems much nicer than the folks who are doing it in a deeply calculated way and trying to go viral every step of the way.  Her friends texted her that she was blowing up and when she checked it out she had over 300k videos using her song, and then had to let everyone know it was hers.  Now she's over 1.6 million.

Kind of generic bedroom pop with guitar, although most of these songs are catchy fun.  The big tune is "Backyard Boy," with 193.2 million streams.

Oh, wait.  Is she like 8 years old?  Her Wikipedia didn't list an age, but now that I see this video, she looks like she's in Middle School.  And that whole entire video feels like she's aiming for further TikTok dances to be attempted.  It's a cute little tune - nothing much to it - but catchy and cute.  

Her most recent tune I like just because it reminds me of a funny story.  Many years ago, one of my co-workers sent an e-mail to several of us at work that said it was too pretty [outside] to work today.  I misread it as her telling us that she was too pretty to do any work today, which has been a consistent inside joke for us ever since.  Good times.  So this girl put out her newest single called "i'm too pretty for this," and it reminds me of the same.

Seems like she shouldn't cuss when she's still in middle school.  But, I'll give her credit for another catchy little ditty.  As a dad, I really don't like her riding in that pickup bed with her back against the tailgate.  That sucker could pop open at any time and spill her out onto the highway.  I could see that tune being fun to rock out to at the Fest in a few months.  More than likely I would not go see this, but I would suggest it to my kid who will be there for weekend!

Siena Liggins

One Liner: Entirely forgettable pop R&B singing.

Wikipedia Genre: Pop, R&B
Home: Detroit

Poster Position: 30
Weekend Two Only - Sunday.

Thoughts:  Liggins was born in Detroit, but then moved around as the child of a military family.  But, her Wikipedia says that she had an uncle with a home studio in her grandmother's basement, and so she recorded her own tracks in middle school.  Pretty cool - I wish I had an uncle with a recording studio who could have hooked me up in middle school.  Maybe I'd now be on the 30th line of a major music festival right now!  Or more likely I'd have destroyed my life in pursuit of it and would be couch surfing right now trying to save up enough money to buy a whole pizza.  She started college and then dropped out to pursue music full-time.  Her music is "usually themed around her romantic or sexual relationships with women," including her top track, "Girlfriend."  She names her influences as TLC and Britney Spears.

Just one album, 2021's Ms. Out Tonight, which includes that one big single.  "Girlfriend" has 659k streams.

I wouldn't have considered Britney as a comp at first, but now that I've read that she considers Brit as an influence, this starts to sound more like a Spears track.  Nothing all that interesting in this one to me though.  It's fine, but relatively forgettable.  The other big single from the album is "Dirty Girl" with 609k streams.

She really likes that cash register sound.  Again, just a fine track - relatively uninteresting beat, a good but not great vocal, but not something that I will remember in the next twenty minutes.

Lucy Kalantari and the Jazz Cats

One Liner: Jazzy scat-a-rat gal for the Kiddies.

Wikipedia Genre: Children's music
Home: Brooklyn

Poster Position: 24
Both Weekends.

Weekend One - Saturday.  Weekend Two - Friday.

Thoughts:  Hey!  I guess this means that the Austin Kiddie Limits stage will be back!  The original poster for the Fest didn't have any of the kiddie stuff, but now that the by-day listing is out, this, the QBrothers, Alphabet Rockers, School of Rock, and the Barton Hills Choir are back on the table.  Even though my kids have outgrown that stuff, I'm super glad to see it back in effect!

While the lyrics are, of course, goofy as hell on these songs, the music and her voice are great!  Heavy on instruments like ukulele and clarinet, but jazzy and cute with a good bit of jazz-scatting as she goes along.  Wikipedia says that she was born to a Dominican mother and Puerto Rican father, and graduated from college in New York the same year that I did.  She has won a bunch of awards, including two Grammy Awards for Best Children's Album in 2018 and 2020.  She apparently teaches college and high school kids about music, although I'm not sure in what capacity.

The top song by a good bit is the very literal "Our Garden."  56k streams.

I want to grow some sweet basil!  But a really nice little cute and silly song.  Oddly, not all of the albums are available on Spotify.  So you can't hear the newest disc that won a Grammy.  But you definitely get the vibe here anyway.  She's great!

Me Nd Adam

One Liner: Trashwave from some local dudes

Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is all over the place.  One article calls it trashwave?  
Home: Austin

Poster Position: 22
Weekend Two Only.  Sunday.

Thoughts:  An Austin group!  He's wearing a Black's BBQ hat in his Spotify photo!  Oh God, their music style is called trashwave.  Oh no.  What am I about to be subjected to?  Here is how these two guys described it themselves: "Adam: Trashwave started as more of a lifestyle and developed into a sound. When we started writing together in New Orleans a few years back, there were many nights out at Ms Mae's, Banks St. Bar, and Brothers 3 Lounge. Most of the time we'd sleep in our friend's mouldy shed we were helping convert into a recording studio.

Vince: Yeah, if we could make it that far. I'd often sleep next to the trash cans in the driveway while Adam polished off the last of whatever supplies we had left from a long night out. Over time we started writing songs that were true to these experiences.

Adam: Those experiences and the blend of alternative, country, americana, rock, pop, and hints of trap are what make trashwave, trashwave."  

Shudder.  Certainly feels like more than a "hint" of trap after a few songs - every one has boomin' 808s and little hi-hat chicking.  Oh, then there are some more guitar-y things later, but still heavy on the drum machine/laptop sounds in most of this.

Two dudes - Vince Winik and Adam Walker - who count music heroes of Jason Isbell, Jimi Hendrix, Willie Nelson, Blink 182, and Future.  So you know you are talking about a really weird combination of influences here.  Their photos sure make it seem like they are intensely concentrated on looking as trashwave as they possible can.  Not many articles about them, but I guess the band name is just a misspelling of "me and adam?"

One album - 2020's American Drip Part 1 - and then something called Deadbeat Mixtape released just recently in 2022.  Not many streams for any of it just yet, but definitely a low number for that new mixtape.  Top track is from the 2020 album - "Heartbreak Kid," with 1.5 million streams.

Sorta reminds me of a laid back Kid Rock track, in his drum machine days.  Goofy ass lyrics - stuff like "paying rent sucks dick, but I do some dope shit."  I will give him points for having an awfully fluffy mullet to go with that molester mustache.  "Foolish Lover" is the second-most streamed, and the only other one with over a million streams, but it sounds pretty much the same.  Instead, I'll give you something from the new mixtape to try out, this is "909s and Hard Times," with 19k streams.  Oh.  No, I won't, in the end, because it has no presence on YouTube.  Looks like you get "The Good Times Got Me in a Decline."  7k streams.

Ahhh, there is that Blink 182 homage stuff.  WAY PRETTIER TRASHCORE THAN THEIR PRIOR TRASHCORE. Some good Austin stuff in that video though - Waterloo Records, House Park BBQ, skate park by House Park Stadium.  The jerkiness of that video is also very trashgore.

I don't much care for any of the music, but the goofy look and ridiculousness of it is actually endearing them to me.  Weekend two only though, so likely not seeing them.