34th Street Neutral and the Bejazzlers

Time to get pretentious about music again.

Last night, Sean Kramar and I were discussing possible band names. He insisted the band have both thug appeal and a large indie following. I came up with The 34th Street Neutral because it has the word street in it, which gives it street cred, and the word Neutral which sounds disinterested and like Neutral Milk Hotel - both undeniably indie. Sean wanted bling for our torn-jean jacket pins, and I OK'd it as long as it wouldn't look like a Bedazzler project for a girl's jazz dance team. So Sean came up with the dance team name The Bejazzlers and so was born our back-up dance team/side-project. Just thought I'd share that.

I woke up this morning, or rather was repeatedly woken up, by a chain of mail delivery. Being gone 16 days and not putting a stop order on your mail means your mail backs up apparently, not least of all indicated by the fan of ads and bills my mailbox was throwing up when I got home yesterday. I got my Vday present from Hyunjoo - which was very sweet, thank you very much - and my Vday present from my mom. I then stayed in all day while the city was getting pounded with snow. I went out late tonight to check out downtown, and it was the most deserted I've ever seen it. And kids at school were building snowmen and snowforts.

The burgeoning Montreal indie scene has been heavy in my apartment the last 24 hours. The Unicorns broke up - which seems strange since they just got together. Two members strangely will be forming a hiphop outfit called Th' Cornn Gang - or so they claim. The Arcade Fire album 'Funeral' has basically been playing on repeat in my iPod - I think I've heard it about twelve times in the last day. I know - that album is old news. But it hasn't been released in Japan yet, and was released a month after I left the states. I had a few of the tracks floating in my iPod - all of the neighborhood tracks except Laika and the songs Crown of Love and Haiti - and I had been pretty much listening to Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) and Neighborhood #3 (The Powerout) in an endless loop of three songs that included "Sentimental Journey" by Japanese weirdo/popstar Yuki towards the end of my trip. The Arcade Fire originally sounded a bit like Broken Social Scene (also of that Canadian indie scene!) to me because of the ethereal, layered orchestration and reverb on the vocals, which made me suspicious, but I discovered this band is much, much better. The album, with all emo-charged teenage hyperbole intended, has saved my life and brain this week. With the passing of Micheline, ruminations on my family heavy on my mind, and the thick snow in Japan (including the 8-odd inches that fell on Sendai today), the album's themes and discussions of life/death/parenthood/childhood/snow/cities/towns/escape/return/etc. are exactly what is floating around in my head. I have been lucky in the last month to hear two of the best albums of the last 14 months in terms of listenability - this album and "I'm Wide Awake It's Morning" by Bright Eyes. Is it too late to add "Funeral" to best albums of last year?