Don't Forget to Boogie-Woogie
Bandcamp Friday Recommendations + Some Good Advice!
On the occasion of Bandcamp passing all revenue along to artists and labels affected by the pandemic today, I’ve put together a list of five artists/records I love that you might consider supporting if you plan on purchasing music. The only through-line to these recommendations is that they have all been meaningful to me in one way or another over the past few years. Perhaps they will speak to you, as well.
Wishing a very happy Bandcamp Friday to everyone, especially to all the musicians.
MT
Fort Pet, West Virginia
Shana Cleveland
I could write odes to the genius of Shana Cleveland. I’m 100% onboard with her weird artistic vision in whatever form it takes, whether it’s wringing stardust out of her electric guitar with her band La Luz—the greatest rock band in the world, this is a fact—or fingerpicking her way into eerie meditative dream states on her folky acoustic records. There’s a glow-in-the-dark quality to Cleveland’s music that feels comforting, even maternal, in its soft omniscience. Though I’ve often listened to her records while very sad, her songs have never taken me to dark places. Cleveland’s oeuvre has been a moon in my life, illuminating a path through an illusory world of night. I am grateful she makes music.
Shana Cleveland on Bandcamp
La Luz on Bandcamp
Ps. I’ve been fortunate enough to interview Shana both with La Luz and as a solo act for Bandcamp Daily, you can read those pieces here and here respectively.
Bong Wish
The perfect, pithy Bong Wish EP is the most-played record in my Bandcamp fan collection by far. A regal spirit suffuses Mariam Saleh’s medieval-ish psych pop project, which never sounds too incense-and-peppermint-y because, despite its majestic self-possession and goofy band name, there’s no real ego at work here. On the contrary, there’s a childlike spirit at play in the quotidian details of Saleh’s sketchbook lyrics. “My love sits on counter tops,” she sings on EP opener “My Luv,” a throwaway line that conjures up a youthful image of swinging legs and jumping rope in the rhythmic popping of its hard consonants. This is abundant music that delights in its own bloom. It makes me happy.
Clearance
People always make fun of me for liking Clearance’s uncool college boy sweater rock, but their 2018 release At Your Leisure was a constant companion during a stretch of years when I attempted to untangle myself from sad circumstance via near-constant travel. At Your Leisure is thematically concerned with suspended animation, so it was a sympathetic listen when I was similarly stranded between worlds—waiting for trains, sitting in airport terminals, riding an unfamiliar metro to another temporary landing place; quelling loneliness by making up conversations in my head and wishing for things that would never happen while the song blaring tinnily in my headphones so brightly reassured me, “You never know what your chances are.”
Vivienne Styg
Anonymous Houston group Vivienne Styg and their one-and-only release, the Rose of Texas EP, are close to my heart for being the best thing I ever found while clicking through the new arrivals tagged “post-punk” on Bandcamp. In some ways, this band—whose biography remains a mystery—represents to me thrill of discovery, the prickling sensation that comes from realizing that you’ve happened upon something really special and nobody knows about it but you. But this EP also gives me chills because it’s just great rock music. Easy to describe, easier to like. Post-punk, but make it Texas. That’s all she wrote.
The Garrys
The Garrys are a band of sisters from the Canadian prairies making simple, spooky surf pop.
Don’t Forget to Boogie-Woogie…!
I briefly fell into a Canned Heat rabbit hole the other day and happened upon this recording taken from the band’s 1970 Live in Europe LP. The song is pretty cool if you’re okay with white man blues, but there’s an objectively awesome part at the end when Bob Hite tells the audience, “Don’t forget to boogie-woogie!” I thought that was solid advice. Everything is terrible, but music is still good. Don’t forget to boogie-woogie :)
