NEW PRESS PHOTO via Chris Zak
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“One of the biggest resounding themes that echo through all these songs is the very thin line between persistency and giving up. We’re all programmed to think persistency is good and noble. Giving up – that idea is quitting and you should never do that. The reality is that there is nobility in both of those things. I’ve made my worst mistakes by being persistent. I made some of my best decisions by quitting.” — An old interview I did with Mute Math’s Paul Meany.
I went to the Friends show at the Union Transfer last night, where they opened for Neon Indian. After the show, I was hanging around the band at their merch, and just couldn’t help but observe this group of girls who were so in love with Sam Urbani. They loved her hair, her jewelry, her stories, wanted their picture taken with her, their tickets signed…it was amazing to see such overblown appreciation from these 15 year-olds. It inspired everyone involved.
When their conversation paused, I just told them, “You know, you guys probably don’t even realize it, but you’re really important.”
Sam backed me up, “Ya, you guys totally are.”
I kept going. “You know, the funny thing is, you think she’s really cool, but she thinks you’re really cool too.”
Sam signed the next ticket saying “You are important!” before one of their dads came into the venue and stepped behind one of the girls. “Comon, we gotta go.” She was embarrassed in a way that only a parent at a show could make a 15 year-old feel. “You said we could talk to them!!” Her body language was as if someone poured hot soup on her. The girls hugged everyone on their way out, and one of them came to me for a hug. Maybe she thought I was in the band, or with the band, or appreciated what I had said, but it was their moment. And people need moments. There was only one girl left, holding hands with Sam in front of each other’s face. It was her last goodbye before she would have to run off to the van. “I really thought tonight was special, and you are so so amazing.” It was like a confession of love that she had been hoping to reveal for some time.
15 year-old girls, your attitude is totally important in this jaded world of cool bands.
Friends (Brooklyn)
Archie: Lots of UK bands were explicit influences on Black Tambourine. The working title for ‘Throw Aggi Off the Bridge’ was “the Wedding Present Song”
About a year ago, I made the connection that the drums in “Throw Aggi” sounded like the drums in “What Did Your Last Servant Die Of?” by The Wedding Present. It was just an off-the-wall idea, because I love early Wedding Present, and anything that sounds remotely like it from that era.
AND THEN ARCHIE MOORE SAYS THAT. mind blown. it’s too late in the night to tell certain people “I told you so” but yeah, tumblr, i told you so.
Aggi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_pQYGs0ysU
Servant: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGBvzyNifiw
“Brian: It makes me feel somewhat bad that the bands we were ripping off twenty years ago aren’t getting more of the credit. Go listen to the Shop Assistants, Psychocandy, and early Primitives singles everybody!” — http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4139484-revisiting-the-past—dis-meets-black-tambourine
“I’ve said goodbye a thousand times and every time you changed my mind”
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