When I Was 12: Is America Ready to Embrace Their Precocious Inner-Teen?

*cough* Hi… well, um, Twee is back, sorta.  You know?

Depending on which circles you hang around in, Twee is either hailed as “punker-than-punk“, or maligned as “music for bedwetters.”  Nevertheless, the most misunderstood pop genre continues to tout cuteness over coolness and has the market cornered on Growing Up Awkward.

Twee has always been the most unapologetically emasculate sect of “Indie”, but it always seems to hover, smirking, just on the outskirts of popular music.  It’s too catchy to ever be marginalized, but it’s just too fey for the trampy-or-macho American taste.  Pitchfork’s excellent essay of all things Indie Pop, “Twee as Fuck” said it well:

…”indie” and “alternative” became popular in precisely the hard-rocking, masculine, centralized form that indie pop usually shied away from. The mainstream honed in on the underground’s hard-rock side, and, acts like Superchunk and Modest Mouse would go on to become Important Bands; acts like Tiger Trap and Heavenly would, for good reasons and bad, fade into history. And there on the television, ironically, was the K-tattooed Cobain, still wearing his cardigans and covering songs by the Vaselines.

So there twee sits, like the kid not picked at recess, rewarding anyone willing to seek it out.

Maybe it’s because of the excellent Juno soundtrack, but twee artists seem to be on the rise again.  The playfull Architecture in Helsinki, sallow Vivian Girls, the spider-fearing Boy Least Likely To, and the self-referential spunk of Los Campesinos!, have all attracted the blogosphere masses in the past few years (and, oddly, a large number of television commercials to boot). Fast on their heels are artists like New Jersey’s When I Was 12 – producing the sonic equivalent of a painfully joyous (or joyously painful?) prolonged adolescence.

I ran across WIW12 searching a now-defunct music site and really enjoyed their aesthetic.  The endearing strum-hook-and-harmony style burrows deep into your head and doesn’t go away — like a library volunteer into Franny & Zooey.

Earlier this year their principle songwriter, Adrianne, was nice enough to swap a few Q&A emails with me before their first non-basement gig of her young career:

Brian B (BemBang): First things first… Who’s in the band, or is it a “swinging door” type thing where there’s a core and people come and add vocals and accompaniment etc?

Adrianne Gold (When I Was 12): First things first… When I Was 12 consists of two main members: Adrianne Gold and Camille Bayas. Then some other beautiful revolving members; our friend Brianne Evans did some harmonies on “Dear Eskimo” with her angelic voice, and my guitar teacher, Mike Yelle assisted with lead guitar. When we play live friends Jenn Diaz plays bass, and Will Samtur on drums. We are so lucky to know so many wonderful people.[ ...] It’s been a little hectic we’ve been getting offered shows and things lately!.

BB: Good to hear you’re busy… I hope things are going well. Is there some sort of tour in the works? When I hear the name “When I Was 12″, I immediately think of both the charming and awkward aspects of that transitional age… was that the aim?

AG: We still have two more months of high school so we’re not exactly planning a tour but we’ve been getting offered a lot of shows lately! I suppose so about the name, I mean we definitely try to be charming and I definitely am a bit awkward!

BB: Ha. Since there’s not much info about you guys online I couldn’t tell if you were in high school, or if you were just channeling your inner-highscooler to write the songs.

Your music, lyrics, production, etc seem very attuned to what I would consider classic indie-pop/twee. That is to say; sweet, clever, and fixated on youthful experiences… even when the person singing may be 30+ years old.

Ha. You’re the real deal, apparently.
What inspiration do you draw from … musically or otherwise?

AG: We are the real deal! We write about things on a high school level because it’s what we know! It’s what we are familiar with. But like I said only until June! We are so excited for summer and then of course for college! We are inspired by so many things.

Camille really likes bands such as: Los Campesinos! Beirut, The Submarines, and Seabear. I on the other hand am insanely inspired by Bright Eyes (of course, who isn’t!) Tilly and the Wall, Mates of State, and Saturday Looks Good to Me. We were actually just featured on an online mix CD, “Birdsongs, Beesongs - Eardrums Spring Compilation 2009″ and so was Saturday Looks Good to Me! So that was exciting to see!

Inspiration otherwise would of course include every boy i’ve ever known, even if only for five minutes. The boys who’s hearts I’ve broken, the boys who have broken my heart, and the boys who have yet to break my heart. Boys in bookstores, coffee shops, New Brunswick basements, and any other place you can imagine. However! I did write about my grandmother, “You Me & Symmetry” is about my grandmother, I love her. We still do arts and crafts together.

CHECK OUT THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW HERE

BemChat: Sinatra, the City, Matt, Kim, and Fame.

Brian: Lille…. a/s/l?

Lilledeshan: oh no [...]  i’m the 3rd wheel

Brian: Lille & I need to do our “city” music pics. A– Sinatra is an excellent NY pick, I just don’t like Sinatra

Araceli: you guys are lagging on the other assignment. there you go again, brian. i think lille has horrid taste in music but i dont tell her

Lilledeshan: Oh

Brian: ouch

Lilledeshan: excuse me, ms. “I hate stereolab and MIA until Pitchfork says its ok”

Brian: BOOYAH!

Lilledeshan: hahaha. oh and um, “I love the Editors”

Araceli: i am speechless..how dare you

Lilledeshan: “Matt and Kim”

Araceli: yeah so i like based on looks…SO WHAT?

Matt & Kim (photo from Get Weird Turn Pro)

Lilledeshan: HAHAHAHAH

Brian: Matt & Kim are an attractive band. they jump around a lot and strip

Araceli: matt is

Lilledeshan: they’re fun to watch

Araceli: kim looks like a lezbot

Brian: delish lezbot\

Lilledeshan: they’re on top of the list in the realm of underachiever indie rock

Araceli: i dont give a fuck…i like music when a cute boy tells me its worth checking out. i dont have time to research myself

Brian: M&K have the trailer music for NBC’s community

Lilledeshan: we should have our photos beside our posts. that way brian can hook readers like araceli into raising our profile

Araceli: no way. oh you wanna be like perez?

Lilledeshan: perez hilton, musical tastemaker

Araceli: i dont want people to know what i look like…my biggest fear is being a recognizable celeb

Brian: ha. you’re fist [sic] problem is BEING a celeb

Lilledeshan: why are you guys still at work? i’m going to do my city post
after i give away this free lou barlow song

Araceli: brian, you think i cant be a celeb?

Brian: oh, you can. But you can worry about being recognized later

Araceli: damn this biy [sic] is out of contorl [sic]. look i cant even spell! thats how angry i am. haha…whateves… lille is the one that wants to be famous

Lilledeshan: ya. i keep getting pre-empted. right before i get REALLY big. some stupid shit happens

Araceli: i gots to go

Lilledeshan: ok bye guys. me too

Brian: alright. laters

Lilledeshan: adios

Pitchfork Music Festival 2009: An Obscured View

Looking over the crowd on a splendidly cool Sunday night at the 2009 Pitchfork Music Festival I’m both exhilarated and conflicted. Here, in a park in the middle of the midwest, are musicians from all over the globe performing to an equally diverse(ish) audience.  We gush over each other in a glorious cycle of  mutual admiration.

It’s a festival that’s curated for the particular, not the universal. It’s a fest for THIS weekend THIS year, and never to be carbon-copied and rebranded, C3-style, in as many DMA markets as possible this summer. It’s a great experience. Now… what to take a picture of?

Ahhh, music in the age of blogging — when everyone’s a journalist whether they have credentials or not, and when a festivalgoer’s camera is just as likely to point towards the crowd (or towards themselves) as it is to the band on stage. When it seems fans must decide what’s most important: being there, or showing others that you were there. Or further still… how close were you? Did you have an all-access lanyard? How much better was the food in the press tent than in the the park? What celebs were there? What secret show did you make it to and how little did you have to pay?

All these things are secondary to the actual festival, but as we’ve seen since the rise of “indie movies” in the 90s with the Sundance Film Festival (and now increasingly so at SXSW and Cochella music fests), the frills are what make the fest… the frosting is what makes the cake.  The cake was good this year. The frosting? Well, it looked good from where I was standing, but you’ll have to ask someone else.

Brian’s recap of Saturday here .

Brian’s recap of Sunday, Part 1 here.

Geronimo Jackson: LOST Rock Found

The Fictional Geronimo Jackson -- they look like Sawyer's people

Except for a few times in Season 1, when the lovable Hurley would put on his Discman to listen to some god-awful Grey’s Anatomy reject songs while observing life on The Island in slo-mo, the two things I tend to obsess over — LOST and pop music — rarely come together.

But lo and behold, hipster culture dictator Pitchfork Media broke a VERY interesting development a few weeks ago: The story of a fictional classic rock band Geronimo Jackson / real San Diego throwback rockers The Donkeys. The Phork reports:

On a recent episode, the character Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) is heard listening to a Geronimo Jackson song called “Dharma Lady”, and last week, the song appeared as a free download on iTunes. Over on the “Lost” message board Dark UFO, someone noticed that “Dharma Lady” is almost the exact same song as “Excelsior Lady” by the Donkeys …

The non-fictional Donkeys

Well played Dark UFO dude! Pitchfork, thorough journalists as they are, took it straight to The Donkeys’ label, Dead Oceans, to pose the question, “Are the Donkeys Geronimo Jackson?”. The reply was revealing, also, hilarious:

“It seems as though it’s possible that the Donkeys also existed as Geronimo Jackson in 1977. It might be possible that they were part of a Dharma Initiative experiment on time travel … Geronimo Jackson is likely to appear on extras of the season five ‘Lost’ DVD, where they will feature the band recording ‘Dharma Lady’.”

Hahahah. It seems they did indeed. Alrighty then. A simple “yes” would have sufficed.

Anyway, Geronimo Jackson seems to be a recurring reference in the show — on T-shirts, on posters, but most prominently in the scene below. Hurley and Charlie (who could easily pass for clerks at Championship Vinyl) sift through the Dharma record collection and come across the GerJack LP Magna Carta…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFb3Qji9ffk]

Innnnnnnteresting Charlie. Hmmm. You say you’re an “expert of all things musical,” but you’ve never heard of them, eh? Hmmmm. Maybe that’s because YOU’RE IN THE BAND in the past (future episodes)!?!?! Wha? Sounds ridiculous, but why not?

I personally like to think that Charlie is bound to show up again. First of all, one of the lesbians hiding in the Looking Glass told Charlie that the stations’ passcode was the song “Good Vibrations” and that it was originally programmed “by a musician”. That’s a weird tidbit of information to throw out there as your dying words, isn’t it Bonnie?

Also Charlie gets the code on the first crack before he drowns. Is it too crazy to assume that Charlie himself wrote that passcode? I don’t think so. Meaning, Charlie didn’t die at that point, and is sure to have lived and done other things, like, ummmmm, jumping through time and forming a band in the 70s. It’s possible. After all, we’ve seen people we thought were dead come back to life in the show before. Isn’t it possible that Charlie is in the band Geronimo Jackson? Could be.

Also, is it at all possible that Geronimo is actually the name of Jack’s son? Doubtful.

You can down the Donkey’s on music blog Gramotunes.com: The Donkeys - “Excelsior Lady”