Submitted by Adam on Mon, 2005-03-14 22:25.
This past Saturday I ventured out to the New Get Lucky to see Rebuilding the Rights of Statues. I try not to miss their shows; the band is consistenly good, and they seem to draw a slightly larger crowd each time. This show was a bit different from the norm. Instead of being placed with Ourself Beside Me or own of Beijing's punk bands, they shared the billing with Convenience Store, Midnight Flight, and a duo I had never heard before, 牛奶和咖啡 (Milk & Coffee).
A young woman sang pop music KTV-style, while a dour Robert Smith lookalike provided beats and keyboard lines. They only played three songs, and while the music didn't affect me greatly, I wanted to run up and tell the boy that he didn't need to be so sad. "Other people have been through this," I'd say, "take this Her Space Holiday CD."
One of the sidelines to the ascendancy of PC culture and the growth of indie rock and punk to emo and beyond is the proliferation of bedroom producers. Instead of weeping over their acoustic guitars and four tracks, they weep over their Powerbooks and Pro Tools instances. And just like the lo-fi rockers that came before, and despite all of the easy jokes, many of these solitary producer/musicians have made some incredible music.
And despite the loner pedigree, what many of them have made is pop music, in the most expansive meaning of the word. Marc Bianchi is one of the prime examples. Under the name Her Space Holiday he's produced some of the most accessibly melancholy music of the last few years. The production is layered with strings, synths, and electric guitars, while Bianchi's limited, yet appropriate voice tells stories of heartache and longing.
And few artists have had the success of Jimmy Tamborello, a.k.a. DNTEL, much less in the crossroads of American indie rock and electronica. But after the release of Life Is Full of Possibilities, featuring the absolutely incredible "The Dream of Evan and Chan." Tamborello also collaborated with Death Cab for Cutie's Ben Gibbard in The Postal Service, which is perhaps the most succesfully nerdy album ever in the history of nerds and music.
When I saw Milk & Coffee, I wanted to tell the keyboardist that there was more beyond what he'd heard; I wanted to tell him that there was something beyond pop music ready for him. But as I this this, I wonder how much is musical goodwill, and how much is a form of imperialism? What do I know of these kids or their fans? Perhaps they genuinely like what I deride as KTV pop. And after all, this guy has some talent, and is actually playing music while I just drink beer and write about it.
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