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Tinted Windows Keep It Simple

Courtesy of TintedWindowsMusic.com When Tinted Windows, the new “power-pop supergroup” comprised of Adam Schlesinger, James Iha, Bun E. Carlos, and Taylor Hanson, officially “leaked” their song “Kind of a Girl” to the internet in February, the response was polarizing. Naturally, power-pop aficionados (such as myself) got it right away. After all, what’s not to love? Schlesinger hails from Ivy and the Fountains of Wayne, Iha wailed in Smashing Pumpkins, and Carlos has provided the thunderous Midwestern backbeat for Cheap Trick’s entire career. On the other hand, it appeared that, among the rock snob crowd, the main sticking point was Mr. Hanson, whom many only remembered as the longhaired, pretty boy singing lead on “MMMbop” on MTV over 12 years ago. Judging by some of the snarky comments posted on the Rolling Stone website, there were plenty of haters out there.

Speaking over the phone shortly after the band’s live debut at Austin’s SXSW, however, Schlesinger is frankly baffled by the thought of any enmity toward the talented Mr. Hanson.

“I guess people that haven’t heard him for a long time are gonna be surprised,” says Schlesinger, “but most people I talk to automatically assume he’s awesome. I don’t think anybody ever really questioned that he was talented. Even when he was younger, it was kind of obvious to everyone that he was an incredibly gifted singer and a great musician. Conceptually, maybe for some people, it may seem strange to have somebody from the Pumpkins and somebody from Hanson playing together because, in the mid-’90s, that just seemed like two different universes. In reality, it’s not. Now, it’s just a bunch of guys that have some overlapping tastes in music that wanted to do something together.”

by: Paul Myers

published: June 25, 2009 in column: Introducing

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This Just In: Old People Hate New Music

by: James Greene Jr.

Illustration by Tony Ochre “I used to be with it, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it,’ and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary to me. It’ll happen to you…”

- Abe Simpson, “Homerpalooza”

Truer words have never been spoken by a yellow, saucer-eyed, FOX-owned cartoon character. I think of the above quote every time I see one of those “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is Dead” articles in the mainstream press. You know the kind I’m talking about—wherein some legendary geezer takes up too many inches harrumphing about the lack of quality tunes floating around out there in the ether. One of these very articles popped up last week, matter a-fact, on CNN.com, under the panic-stricken headline: “What Will Save Rock ‘n’ Roll?” Apparently rock ‘n’ roll fell down a well and the Green Lantern is out of town.

In this seemingly unnecessary story, E Street Band guitarist “Little” Steven Van Zandt plays the Homer Simpson role, literally citing the sucktitude of today’s rock ‘n’ roll as the reason the record industry is sinking faster than the Lusitania (“Who are we kidding here? Nobody’s buying records? Because they suck!”). Modern rock’s suckiness, the apparently computer-illiterate Van Zandt claims, can be traced to the fact that this generation’s musicians are eschewing the time-honored tradition of playing cover songs in bars (so’s they can focus on original material, the bastards!) and ignoring the importance of ripping off the popular rockers who came before them. Seriously. Quoteth Steve:

by: James Greene Jr.

published: June 1, 2009 in column: Over a Beer

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A Brief History of So Many Dynamos

by: Ryan Wasoba

LivintheDreamLarge I met Norm first, when he was 14 and joined the drumline. I was a year ahead of him and kind of a hotshot in the competitive marching band scene of the St. Louis suburbs. One day, he pulled out an invisible tape recorder and made a “note to self” in the vein of Norm MacDonald. It was the job of the drumline elders to name the freshmen, so I started calling him “Norm.” Ever since then, few people have called him Clayton, his real name, and nine years later, the nickname still sticks. He should probably despise me for this reason.

I met Aaron and Ryan a year later, when the high school ska band that Norm and I were in (hereby referred to as HSSB) made friends with their “geek rock” band. They covered “Undone—The Sweater Song” and had an original tune called “Nerd of Your Dreams”, during which Aaron and Ryan would perform a synchronized dance that ended with the throwing of Halloween-sized boxes of Nerds candy to the crowd. They got the singer of Mu330, the best ska band in St. Louis, to do guest vocals on their record. I thought they were very cool. HSSB and Aaron and Ryan’s geek rock band (hereby referred to as AARGRB) played together at nearly every opportunity.

Griffin was the last one I met. Norm and I went to a Weezer show in St. Louis. He was the lanky kid with a bowl haircut in an oversized Modest Mouse t-shirt in front of us, and we were both eager to discuss any band that made us feel smart. I had made the listening transition from ska to pop punk to emo to indie rock. This is a common progression amongst early 2000s Midwestern teenagers fueled by mail-order compilations and primitive file-sharing programs like Audiogalaxy and Kazaa. I would run into Griffin twice in the next few months, once at an outdoor festival that HSSB played and once at an oversold Dismemberment Plan and Death Cab for Cutie show at the Creepy Crawl. I learned that Griffin was in a HSSB of his own in Springfield, IL (he played trombone), and that we were planning on attending the same college. Once school began, Griffin and I lived in the dorms and hung out nightly and drank coffee and started a fake record label. We released three local band EPs and made one mail-order compilation.

by: Ryan Wasoba

published: May 7, 2008 in column: Livin the Dream

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