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Music Features

On the racks: July 12, 2006

MAKING IT COUNT: Some Girls

In contrast to Yorke’s venture, Some Girls are sort of a virtual band who manage to sound like the real thing whenever they hook up in the studio together. That’s not easy: singer-songwriter Juliana Hatfield lives in Boston; drummer Freda Love, who started Blake Babies with Juliana way back when, has spent the past decade in Indiana; and bassist Heidi Gluck is a Canadian girl. It’s been over a year since the trio hooked up in Indianapolis to record their second disc Crushing Love (Koch). So they made it count: the album features 14 tracks and comes with a bonus DVD of live footage from their first and only tour to date, and other behind-the-scenes goodies.

Speaking of Canada. . . trashy electro-pop temptress Peaches – one of Thom Yorke’s new labelmates – is up to her usual dirty tricks on the amusingly titled Impeach My Bush (XL). Song titles include “Tent In Your Pants,” “Two Guys (For Every Girl),” and “Slippery Dick.” ’Nuff said. . . except Joan Jett, Feist, and Queens of the Stone Age mastermind Josh Homme all guest on the disc, lending a certain credibility to an album that opens with a track called “Fuck or Kill.”

After over two and a half decades fronting Bad Religion with his brain-meets-brawn approach to fast and tuneful SoCal punk, Greg Graffin has finally taken his own solo sojourn, ditching the big wall of guitars he’s always had behind him for some acoustic strumming and rootsy backing from the Weakerthans. When you think about it, this was bound to happen eventually. After all, he’s practically a political folk singer already, so Cold As the Clay (Anti-/Epitaph) really isn’t all that big a departure for him. Anti- labelmate Jolie Holland also makes a cameo.

And, apparently, following Diplo’s Bonde do Role lead, Sub Pop took a look at Brazil and came up with their latest signing. CSS are a post-punkish but not quite neo-new-wavey Sao Paulo coed sextet with a singer by the name of Lovefoxxx and some truly brilliant song titles on their US debut, Cansei De Ser Sexy (“Tired of Being Sexy”). I mean, you just have to admire their creative use of the English language on tracks like “Must Is My Hot Hot Sex” and “Fuckoff Is Not the Only Thing You Have To Show.” And “Meeting Paris Hilton” is an underground novelty hit in waiting.