I quite like the Drums record. Are they fashionable? His Morrissey affectation only arrives when they play live. Strange.

Update: The chaps and chums on I Love Music are conflicted about the Drums. Not really, mostly they despise the Drums. That place, ILM, is an odd place, formerly it was filled with pudgy, soulless types who looked like they should be in Elbow who would post pseudo-academic treatises on Timbaland and now it is filled with bearded, twenty-somethings in thrall to their perpetual teenage angst and unpopularity except for their prodigious list of escapades across OKCupid.com where everything is a rebellion against their older brother who got the chicks and listened to 311 and couldn't even finish an Euler integral. They are frozen in that state of obnoxious teenagerdom where they hate everything or at least profess indifference with different degrees of passion. Extreme ironing. I am the bridge between the two periods, I don't know anyone on that site, I don't really speak to anyone on that site but I have been there since the beginning, since the days when they envied Nanette Wargo, pre-Jeopardy millions, and to the days know when obnoxious kids rule the roost. I am the clock on the wall. But anyhow now they don't quite love anything or everything, including the things they secretly only hate because they think Brent Sirota will respect them for their indifference. Musioc is to be respected, kept at a distance, certainly not to be loved. The Drums record is rather good. It is also, umm...twee. There are few insults that are irrecoverable from and well twee is one of the more powerful denigrations in the English language. Not really. Am I twee? Not really. I am a dreadful human being without any friends. Is that twee? Possibly, but it is more of a literary affectation really, truth is "they love me around here, I'm a swell guy". But I like twee music. I like the Drums. I like them rather a lot. Are they twee? Possibly. Really I picture as something out of time, the missing link between the Rave-Ups and Aztec Camera. Possibly? It is very dated, very 1980s, very John Hughes soundtrack material. First track is Best Friend, maybe my least favorite on the album. It's about the irresistible momentum of the guitar and the cloying harmony vocals and it's only pretty ok. The keyboard wash comes in and it's like Will Sergeant is happening all over again. They are also, ssshhh....somewhat earnest. Dreaded earnestness will be your doom. But then it isn't an earnest that has them adopting the pose that what they are doing is important. What they are doing is not important. They realize this. And so it's a refreshingly simple and charming record. No lyrics on grammar or architecture, just catholic inanity. Things improve on track two, the echoed(gated?) drum rhythms, the Strokes vocals, actually it is very much the Strokes but these guys sound more rural Pennsylvania than urban foragers. The Strokes are clearly a big influence, I imagine these Drums fellas were teenagers when Last Night was all over the Mtv and it seems to have influenced them a bit. More synthesizer and more 80s guitar. If they are not, in fact, hip enough to be the Strokes, who knows how many of them went to Swiss finishing school, then really we should be comparing them to the Frank and Walters. They don't sound like the Frank and Walters but this sort of hyper earnest vocals remind of the Frank and Walters frankly. Now to the single, the surfer song, Let's Go Surfing. Can you surf in New York? How is it that all of these bands coalesce around one sound? Are they on a listserve mailing list where they discuss the surf music revival? Unlike say Best Coast or Trailer Trash Traceys they don't sound anything like the Jesus and Mary Chain but they have a surfing song. Is it just because surf music was identified by Newsweek as being urgent and meaningful for 2010? I rather like it. There is a utilitarian spartan quality to the album even as there is loads going on in the song, the production keeps everything separate in the mix so there is annoying whistling, spindly guitar, washed out guitar effects, machine head backing vocals and they all seem to coexist happily. Next track. I've watched a few videos of them while doing my preparation for this entry(ha) and it seems that they do not favor the gingham checkered shirt look that is so beloved of bands who are meant to be the next big thing. Why are seemingly all of these next big bands from New York? Are the Drums from New York? Or do they just live there? He has a Morrissey affectation when they play live so possibly they are immigrants only recently processed through Ellis Island and temporarily settled in Hell's Kitchen where they pay Ed Harris protection so that Gary Oldman doesn't tag their rehearsal space with "Hothouse Flowers are the Sh*t!". This song is a bit like the others. They don't do variety. But the earnestness is always on display and when you compare them to Vampire Weekend, which I don't think anyone does, well they compare because the singers seem invested and concerned about delivering a performance on record and they favor those goofy backing vocals they picked up by listening to Meat is Murder Next track. They totally could have been on Sarah Records. They could have been Sarah 97, Aberdeen were crap, let's face it. Possibly we could retroactively remove Aberdeen and insert The Drums or at lest Very Truly Yours if The Drums offend the sensitive Sarah Records snugglies. Vampire Weekend of course is not Sarah Records fodder, they are now allegedly massive enough to play Red Rocks. Beach House is playing with them. I am not sure how anyone in Denver can afford to attend shows at Red Rocks. Lowly Vampire Weekend is charging upwards of 90 dollars per ticket, Rush goes all the way up to $1858 and our hero John Mayer well he's a relative bargain, his top line is only $616 and if you are reasonably "hot" he'll probably sex you up for that. I am not sure if Vampire Weekend will sleep with me for $93. I've seen Beach House in a tiny venue, I am having a hard time seeing in my mind's eye that they can play Red Rocks and not look silly in their funereal get-ups and tender monotones. We'll see, well we won't see, perhaps some of you will see, the "richsome". Next song on the album has started, more of the swirly rollerskating keyboards. They would have been perfect for the skating rink when I was a kid. My local skating rink was SkateWorld, clever enough, and well while we didn't have many bright young people in our midst it was passable entertainment. One would skate in circles, it helped if you were an ice hockey player, for a few hours, drink peach schnapps in the restroom, furiously deny to young girls that you posessed a scrotum and then wait for your mother to pick you up at 11. Imagine if we had Elizabeth Ponsonby or Brian Howard in attendance instead and the scene is altered and well we would have had decadent roman costume balls on skates, we could have all smoked til we collapsed and we would have drunk gin and had loads on uninhibited gay sex in the center of the roller rink. Evelyn Waugh would have chronicled it, he would have called me Chump Jackson. I wonder if anyone from my school has become a successful writer. I don't mean as a journalist, I know that isn't possible, when was the last time you read a quality piece of journalism? What is the idea behind a journalism degree? Learn from someone who themselves possesses a parchment with a water seal journalism degree but hasn't ever left the leafy greens of campus and so they teach their ideals rather than reality. I suppose that is all any university course is. People in universities now live this cloistered existence the same as the monks at Cluny and their Hughs and Peter the Venerable's insulate them from the agonies of the market. It must be a lovely state. I could have been a university professor. I am a very good educator but having to deal with really stupid people in a place where there is meant to be really smart people would be all too depressing. I mentioned the casinos in the mountain towns here as the most depressing places on earth because of the preponderance of ancient aged types pulling slot machine levers with oxygen tanks in tow and an endorsed SSI check in their wallet but University lecture halls must be a close second with the lecturers having dreamt of the lyceum and instead arriving at romper room. Surely everyone has the moment of awakening when you realize your high school teachers were actually a fair bit more open minded and intelligent than your college professors. Anyhow, I have doubts that the Drums ever experienced such a revelation as this is most definitely not smarty pants stuff, it's emotional pleas, it's ritalin fueled anonymity but I rather love it, especially now when it is all The Cure-like with the ghostly atmosphere and his tense vocals. You know "it will all end in tears", he's probably right, perhaps I underestimated his erudition. When they make their second record they will probably have Dave Fridmann produce and the ILM kids will jump on board and say "hey man this is the best record since the last Grandaddy record". Next track is still a bit on the Cure tip but only if Frank and Walters Singer was singing for the Cure. That would be a marvelous thing to see, Paul Linehan in his paunch ornamented orange overalls and his bowl haircut singing Charlotte Sometimes. Perhaps this is not for the Cure but for the Cµre, this is my imaginary version of the Cure that Lol Tolhurst will tour around seedy venues all across the American Midwest and Lol would play bass and Lol would play eight bass solos each and every night. Maybe the Drums singer would audition for the Cµre and be turned down. No matter, the Drums will probably be playing Red Rocks in a year or so, teenage girls should find this smashing. I Need Fun in my Life is playing now and it is a pleasant little pop song, with the Joy Division wannabe guitar and his soft voice. Poignant lyrics "I need fun, fun, fun, fun fun fun, fun in my li-hi-i-i-i-fe and I need li-hi-i-i-i-fe in my fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun". Killer guitar solo at the moment, not really, but this is totally Sarah Records, it could be a Field Mice side project. I ridicule it and offer faintly derisive praise but I really enjoy this album. They'd totally be in line for "Cute Band Alert" in Sassy if such a thing still existed. Second to last song, very dramatic opening, "I wish your mind was more like your hand". What does that even mean? It is something to do with swords. Why am I concerned about lyrics? Possibly because he is really attempting to sell it. The funny thing is that the Drums could be Anthony Powell while there are dozens of more talented bands from wherever they are from but they are the Brian Howards of their generation with all of their classic albums that they haven't yet written. At least the Drums have made a wonderful record, Anthony Powell never wrote a classic book(although other make claim otherwise) but at least he has Afternoon Men which I still think is best no matter what anyone else says. Last track now, more melodramatic singing over pedestrian pulses of music. The music is so understated and linear and so is is singing, they won't ever surprise you, occasionally a keyboard flourish arrives to make matters a touch more glamourous but this is an earnest, workman like effort that I can't stop listening to.