Jo Jo and the Scooters

So, i have big personal news for all you Swordsers: i finally have a working laptop capable of letting me produce intense, gigantic audio recordings. I am very excited. Ive been talking to Metaghost about how liberating and exciting it is to have a high-class machine ready for me to use its audio functions to their potential, and i have a lot of ideas that have been laying dormant since about six months ago, when my previous computer stopped working properly.

One of these ideas was borne from a fake band name my father referenced a while back; i was home, listening to some random music when my dad peeped his head in to ask what i was listening to: "who is this? Jo Jo and the Scooters?". He makes up names like this all the time; his standby fake band name is Mickey and the Finns, but he often gets creative with it. Jo Jo and the Scooters stuck with me for some reason; i was listening to a lot of Mister Metaphor (for the first time), and had also rediscovered my love for Olivia Tremor Control. At the same time, i was deeply involved in electro-pop, listening to loads of Hot Chip, Starfucker and Miike Snow; expanding my technical production ideas by absorbing myself in electronic-heavy dance/pop outfits.

Anyways, this mostly goes out to Acey and Franklin (as metaghost already is in on this): Here we go gentlemen. When my father first uttered the words Jo Jo and the Scooters, i thought of classic do-wop pop music, only updated to modern standards. I expanded this initial idea to becoming a mix of Olivia Tremor Controls vocal stylings, Mister Metaphors polyrhythmic math/pop skills, and added electronica as bonus points. Im ready to go. Things to come. This is a warning.

Miike Snow

In doing some listening a few minutes ago for the Starfucker post, i was quickly reminded of Miike Snow in how a bunch of their tracks share great sounding rhythms throughout their separate bands. I found them while i was doing some youtube surfing on some Passion Pit, and a video came up where i remembered the band name, again, from reading a positive review of their album in the AV Club. Black and Blue was the first song or video of theirs that i found. Its a great sounding track; the production is amazing. Miike Snow is a three piece band, two of which are a production team called Bloodshy and Avant. They are a heavy duty production duo, working on lots of big mainstream bands, but in 2004 they met their singer Andrew Wyatt and started work as Miike Snow, using original tunes sculpted the way they saw fit. Black and Blue is a showpiece:



It starts nice and simple, with great piano and drums sparsely dotting around the vocal melody. Then that bass comes in in the chorus and they start the crescendo of electronica they provide through the rest of the track. The bass takes centerpiece for a majority of the rest of the verse and choruses, until the instrumental section breaks and a wider electronic arrangement comes in. And its needless to say how awesome the vocals are throughout. Great video too, i love that mannequin and machine made band the old dude has constructed in his apartment, and the revelation of it is a really great moment.

The album has a few duds, but for the most part it is very enjoyable. At this point, i do skip forward to a choice 4-5 tracks when i listen, but i am constantly reminded of other tracks when i decide to see what is next. It is easy to want to just press play and let the album go after they offer such a strong opening track in Animal.
Mike Snow - Animal by downtownmusic

miike snow