Pre-order My Heart

Our album, Rejoicer, which comes out October 20th, is now available for pre-order here, from the good people at Insound.

I Can Hear Voices in the Water

Scrupulosity is a form of OCD that focuses on guilt and guilty feelings, on a consuming sense of not being good enough and needing to do increasingly ridiculous things to right yourself, and an equally increasing and equally consuming sense that you will never be able to right yourself. It informs the lyrics of 72% of our songs.

For some reason, Cat Power's albums, from Dear Sir through The Covers Record (but not really anything after that) provide the perfect musical backdrop for going through this and hopefully coming out of it, or at least learning to deal with it.

And fall is now a reality. Goosebumps. An amazing album for fall - Illumination by The Pastels. Autumnal standouts: "Cycle" and "Viaduct".

Shivering

It seems they're now playing "Dreamsucker" on WOXY. There will be a video for that one very soon.

Had a dream last night that Low were playing live, and they had songs that were nothing like their actual songs, and the members of the band were very different looking, and there were like 12 of them for some reason. In a way, I now feel like I've seen them live.

Tour dates for November will be up super soon. We already have a bunch planned for October...

Some songs:

Low - "In Metal" / "July"

Mogwai - "Mogwai Fear Satan"

Let's Hear It for the Boys

It seems like a commitment to feminist ideals and goals, at least some of them, used to be a very big component of the underground rock ethos, and that now it's not.

Maybe it never was? Maybe it was just something that was paid lip service by people in the 80s and 90s for some kind of cred. I hope that's not the case, but either way, it was an important thing for young kids to hear as they were just discovering music that they could really care about. It pointed important arrows in important directions. It was a good reminder to reexamine values and behaviors that we mindlessly carry on with.

That all seems so barely there now. Not to say that underground music has to be inherently political or socially volatile in any way. Not that the underground was even ever easily defined. But things don't always have to be a party. And there will probably always be things to undercut. Let's keep busy.

Songs to listen to:

Smog - "All Your Women Things"

Belle & Sebastian - "Women's Realm"

Grooms/Brides

Going to go out on a limb here, a very sturdy, well attached limb. The one VALUE central to Christianity is loving people as they are.

How the fuck churchgoers all o'er ignore this, or allow their brains to warp in on themselves until they somehow think standing up against legalizing gay marriage is some sort of moral showcase is beyond me.

This is, of course, well-trodden territory, but whatever. This bullshit has yet to die, and I guess until it does, we'll have to keep saying some of the same things over and over again.

Some songs:

Joan of Arc - As Black Pants Make Cat Hairs Appear / Knife Fights Every Night

Leonard Cohen - Joan of Arc

Wicked Game Available

http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/the-gum-drop-cvi-hear-new-grooms-win-10-limitededition-rock-tees_090231.html

Maybe try listening to the original and our cover at the same time?

Wicked Face, Game Book.

About a month ago, we recorded a cover. This is the first cover we've ever recorded. It's a cover of "Wicked Game" by the one and only Chris Isaak.

You can watch the sextacular video for the original here, if you've never seen it somehow.

So, if you want to hear that cover that we did, sign up on the Stereogum mailing list. In a few days, you'll get an email regarding it and you can be in a super special club of people that heard it first.

Also, you can now be our (Grooms') friend on Facebook. Facebook is the new AOL.

Last thought: forgot to mention that when 19, skipped a math test to drive to Dallas and see Fuck live with my mom and friend Chris. My mom thought they were great and they were super nice fellows. Handsome as could be too.

Literally the best song of all time: The Beatles - "Long Long Long".

Fuck

Fuck is a great band. In the mid-90s they met in a holding cell in an Oakland prison and started writing some gorgeous songs with names like "My Bestest Friend," "Wrongy Wrong," "Drinking Artist". They could straddle (they have a song called "Straddle" too) the line between heavy guitar fuzz and soft sad quietness in ways that are quite literally impossible, but they could also be total goofballs ("Twist Off"). All four members sing, and they all sing completely uniquely while also managing to sound somewhat like each other. They always seem to do whatever they want and always do it well.

You can go here to listen to some of their songs, but they're really all worth hearing. My ears would be poorer ears had they not heard the Fuck catalogue.

Here are some pictures from our show under train tracks on Saturday.

We Talk to People

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/blogs/music/2009-09-04/the-grooms-interview/

Semi-lengthy interview w/ Interview.

Some musical suggestions for while you're reading:

Cranberries: Linger

Cynthia Dall: Holland

Rejoicing in the Pictures

So the pictures that are up are some of the art for our album that's out 10-20, Rejoicer. It features, among other things, a boy's face covered in blackberries, mashed with love and into love. It makes good paint.

In many ways, fall is the only season that matters. Fall is for rejoicing.

Songs:

Cat Power - "King Rides By"

Beasts of Bourbon - "Psycho"

To Be Held Just Like a Kitchen Knife

Sometimes you can't read things that are good, because you're not in the right place. Sometimes Kierkegaard, one of my favorites, showcases a severity that beats on my Pure-O OCD in just the wrong way, and my mind starts wandering down back alleys.

We played a show the other night under train tracks in Chelsea. New frontiers, warm feelings.

Some songs:
"Somethings I Just Don't Want to Know" - Dirty Three
"Open the Light" - Boards of Canada
"Brother" - Beck

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