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““Hailing from Springfield, Missouri” frequently precedes SSLYBY’s introduction in write-ups and reviews, that association of band and place meant to locate the name in a homey, small-town sound. But the thing is, the band isn´t really from anywhere — I mean to say, yes, they have a hometown, and of course they go to bed at night somewhere, but the need to preclude description with location (oh, they´re from that specific town) is entirely at odds with what they write and sing about. Way back on “Oregon Girl” from Broom, Will announces to his stately sweetie that “Oregon Girl / I´ve been around the world / and I´ve never seen another / Oregon girl.” The band´s been all over, and if anything, it´s the geographic that fails to connect, that aboriginal “Oregon Girl” who will never appear again and yet who remains a fixture in the specificity of the song´s mountain-moving desire (see also Cora, Ellie, Rachel Lara, Anna Lee, Gwyneth, and now Everlyn). Even Pershing, with its Springfield-isms (have you ever sat on top of the HEERS building?) was largely conceived, according to the band´s own travelogue, in Moscow. For a band that is reintroduced time after time by that pinpointing Springfield, MO placemat, it would seem that the songs seek to distance them from name and place altogether.
Everyone knows how much this band means to me (a little too much, maybe), so it´s a pleasure for me to find that their latest Let It Sway will be released on August 17th via Polyvinyl. In line with talking about travel, this record took the guys across the US to record with Chris Walla and to find several other ladies to write songs about. I just received my digital copy a few days ago, and I’m loving every second of it — they’ve found a way to synthesize virtually every influence on this one, and it serves for some moments of eerie promnesia (tell me you don’t hear Pinkerton on “Phantomwise,” or Nothing Feels Good in the closing bars of “Stuart Gets Lost”) and, better still, new insta-classics that’ll soon become inextricably bond to memories of my late summer months.
You can check out more from SSLYBY at their page on Polyvinyl. I also recommend heading over to iamwarmandpowerful.com for alternate takes, live performances, demos and other miscellany. As a former Tape Club member myself (Phil sent me the last SSLYBY pin!), I’m very, very pleased to find all these nice things available in one place.
And as you can tell, we’re on a summer hiatus here at Girlpants. I hope you’re well, and that you’re doing something somewhere that means just that.
Newsflash: Unless you live in Portland or some other possibly mythical “cool” and “rainy” place, right now it’s hot and summer. So let’s listen to music and also read about it instead of going to Coney Island and staring at weirdoes (or busting open a fire hydrant and dousing our body parts in it/making our children run through it/giving our gypsy cabs a free carwash with it, as denizens of Bushwick, Brooklyn are wont to do. Believe me, I’ve called 311 more than once already to come shut down abandoned, gushing hydrants. Old Man Niina isn’t a water waster). (That’s not me in the picture, either.)
We Kill Computers is The Pack a.d.‘s latest album, released last month and now available through 
Mas y Mas were introduced to me by a certain ex-waitress-at-a-strip-club on a recent jaunt down to Richmond. Let me set the scene: walking to the gas station for cigarettes you might see a dude sitting on his porch blowing on his digeridoo (thusly named Digeridude), too many cute girls riding bikes to count, and if you’re lucky, girlpants’ good friend Will in a dress, trying in vain to score a Craigslist Missed Connection.
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