Earl Boykins | Heartbreaking Bravery

Watch This: Vol. 70

Another week gone by, five more incredible live clips to feature. Now that the series is back in its normally-paced swing, it’s been easier to keep tabs on the incoming flux of footage but it makes it more difficult to narrow down the selections. With 2015 already bursting at the seams with great studio material it seems only appropriate that the live videos should be following suit. With strong videos coming from the likes of Close Up, Littlefoot, Gay, Darlingside (ft. Tall Heights), and Ultimate Painting, it would have been easy to double up on the series. Fortunately, to lessen the sting of limiting it to just one, the five clips included in this 70th installment are all among the year’s best. Only two of the band’s included in today’s collection have ever had their names published on this site (incidentally, both bands share a member in Noah Bowman), leaving the majority to new acts. Running the gamut from fiery high-energy punk subsets to devastating low-key folk outings, there’s a lot to appreciate. So, as always, lean in, adjust the screen contrast and lightness to your preferred settings, crank the volume, and Watch This.

1. Panther Ray – Get To You (The Current)

One nice things about emergent trends in DIY music as of late has been an acute focus (and subsequent celebration) of shoegaze inflections in bands with strong basement pop sensibilities. Panther Ray are one of those bands and their turn-in of “Get To You” for The Current is a particularly inspired piece of work from the band. Mixing shades of twee and post-punk into the mix, “Get To You” becomes as irresistible as the performance.

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2. Earl Boykins – Judy Carrot (bandwidth.fm)

Scrappy basement pop gets featured more on this site than any other genre of music so it’s unsurprising that Earl Boykins‘ name has appeared here a few times throughout the site’s existence. While it may have taken 70 installments for them to wind up in Watch This but they’re finally here. The band recently swung through the bandwidth.fm studios to tear their way through “Judy Carrot” and it’s clear from the outset that they’re having fun- something that translates over in an extraordinarily satisfying clip.

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3. July Talk – Paper Girl (Audiotree)

Shot in crisp black-and-white for the consistently strong Audiotree at their SXSW showcase, July Talk quickly sets about making a statement. Combining the fire-and-brimstone approach of Lucero at their most impassioned and the spiky irreverence of Be Your Own PET is a compelling combination even on paper but the band somehow finds a way to make it exhilarating in execution. Dual vocals, contrasting styles, and through-and-through showmanship make July Talk one of the most exciting live prospects possibly imaginable. “Paper Girl” is one of the group’s best songs and here the band lays it to absolute waste. Simply put, this is unmissable.

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4. Footings (Jenn Harrington)

For all the glossy, high-quality footage that makes its way into this series, this is still Heartbreaking Bravery, which means that when a lo-fi video from an artist with little name recognition surfaces, it will be featured. Especially when it’s as stunning as the clip Jenn Harrington captured of Footings playing a gorgeous new song to a spellbound audience. Recalling the emotional devastation of Eels at their most confessional, it’s lent a subtle emphasis through the faded visual representation. Click play and fall in love.

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5. Diet Cig – Harvard (bandwidth.fm)

Oh, Diet Cig, what words are left? All it took was one brilliant five-song collection to catapult them into “site favorites” status and ever since then, the band’s done nothing but reinforce those levels of adoration. One of the year’s most refreshingly warm music videos (which will undoubtedly come back up in conversation when December rolls around) and now, this: an extremely impassioned performance of Overeasy highlight “Harvard”. There are few bands out there right now that provide as clear of a reminder that one music’s most exhilarating aspects is the sheer fun of it all. There’s an uninhibited grin that creeps onto guitarist/vocalist’s Alex Luciano’s face multiple times throughout this performance that is the perfect symbolic image for what made me fall in love with this band, this genre, and this community (and the people who remain so actively inspired and involved). So, you know, watch it. And then go ride a goddamn log flume.

Diet Cig – Over Easy (EP Review, Stream)

Tonight Diet Cig are playing an absolutely stacked release show to celebrate the arrival of their debut, which arrives in the form of the irresistible Over Easy EP. It’s already generated a great deal of buzz around the band- and for good reason. Guitarist/vocalist Alex Luciano’s as gifted as anyone with melody, creating an army of utterly charming moments over the EP’s five tracks. Even the title of the opening track, “Breathless”, hints towards some of the band’s more winsome pop sensibilities, evoking the spirit of Jean-Luc Godard. On the musical spectrum, Diet Cig deal in an intriguing cross-section between DIY punk and bedroom pop (which isn’t too far removed from what Quarterbacks have been up to lately), opening up an endless line of possibilities for tantalizing bills (they’d be as at home on a bill with All Dogs as they would Bellows).

What’s helping Diet Cig get comfortably situated at the front of an increasingly exciting DIY basement pop movement is their coherence. Not a single track on Over Easy outshines the other- each one’s a standout that renders the whole affair an early front-runner for EP of the Year (it certainly would have made last year’s extraordinarily strong list had it come out a few months earlier). “Harvard” is as dynamic- and as humorously scathing- as “Scene Sick”, just as “Pool Boyz” and “Cardboard” can go toe-to-toe in terms of scrappy lo-fi momentum and sly deprecation. Surf, twee, and vintage pop influences abound throughout the EP’s 10 exhilarating minutes. More than anything, Over Easy is a sugar-coated onslaught of raw feeling, clever construction, and extraordinary musical interplay between Luciano and drummer Noah Bowman (also of the fantastic Earl Boykins).

At some point, Over Easy becomes an understated showcase for the duo’s natural, easygoing chemistry. Bowman and Luciano expertly create a subtle sense of tension, exploiting their music’s underlying sense of urgency at nearly every turn without ever getting overly serious. Sure, the lyrics may come off as alternately biting and winking but that it’s all presented in a fashion that’s so joyful on the surface may be slightly betraying the band’s enormous potential (as was the case with much of Radiator Hospital‘s earlier work). Diet Cig are a band that are already fully aware- and playing directly to- their enviable strengths, making them a band worth vigilantly following. With a start as absurdly strong as Over Easy, they’re already well on their way to what looks to be an extremely promising career. For now, let’s all just enjoy one of the most delightful pieces of music to emerge over the past several months.

Listen to the hyper-charged log flume ride that is Over Easy below and order the EP from the inimitable Father/Daughter Records here.

Heartbreaking Bravery

Tag: Earl Boykins

May 3, 2015

Watch This: Vol. 70

February 23, 2015

Diet Cig – Over Easy (EP Review, Stream)