Waitin' for the band to return from the show

MX-80 Sound have been a favorite of mine since I first heard them at age 20. Out of the Tunnel remains a huge personal favorite, and I buy every absurd release down to Rich Stim's pre-MX-80 art project Chinaboise (CD reissue on Gulcher). Last year, they released their first CD since 1997 or something, called We're an American Band, and it turned up in my CD player this morning. With their usual blend of behemototic guitar playing and utterly absurd/absurdist lyrics, it's a cool, fascinating listen. Where in their early years, they both sounded like rock music and made rock music at the same time (the same could probably be said of Pavement circa "Cut Your Hair"), MX-80 now solely sound like rock music. Huge guitar riffs, verses and choruses, primitive drumming are all there. In the end, though, it somehow isn't rock music, just a deformed post-structuralist summation or an artist's rendering. Yes, it does include a rather poetic deconstruction of the Grand Funk Railroad hit from which the album derives its title.

Now listening, amiina, "Seoul".

I'll be traveling the next few days and probably not posting to this blog. I'll catch you on the other side. Neither rubber sharks nor Feargal Sharkey will be involved, I reckon.