What to listen to this weekend to feel like it's fall or to feel 22 again or both

everything dies baby that's a fact

I don’t care if everyone you follow is still sipping bright red spritzes in Italy, summer is spiritually (and frankly, technically almost) over and I am desperately trying to summon fall by making soup and ordering sweaters online. I accidentally spent $53 on 3.3 lbs of grass fed beef neck at the Farmer’s Market (LA stays LA-ing) so I cooked it all along with some bone marrow and onions, carrots, leeks, garlic, salt and peppercorns, plus a bunch of fresh herbs, for like 22 hours and I now have the world’s most decadent cup or two of bone broth (it’s more like a bone jelly?) and a week’s worth of incredibly tender beef. Oh you thought I could only vocal fry and nostalgia-bait? I have range honey. My favorite podcast is called The Ancestral Kitchen (it’s so soothing; I’ve listened to the episode about baking with ancient grains like three times already even though I do not bake because they only update twice a month, good for them) and I have in fact (more than once!) made sauerkraut from scratch (it’s not hard, just sort of tedious).

Albums that feel like fall off the top of my head: Counting Crows’ Recovering The Satellites (August and Everything After is firmly a late summer album do not be fooled), Mazzy Star’s She Hangs Brightly, Taylor Swift’s folklore (obviously) but also Fearless, R.E.M.’s Murmur, The Microphones The Glow, Pt 2, Buffalo Tom’s Big Red Letter Day, first Blondshell album, Gaslight Anthem’s The ‘59 Sound, fucking Nebraska of course, Harvest of course, Evan Dando’s Baby I’m Bored, there are so many! List yours in the comments, I need a 90 day long playlist.

Re: sweaters, the J.Crew marketing is working and I will be ordering one or two of those roll necks even though it remains aggressively, violently in the 80s here. This isn’t a shopping Substack (should I become a late stage middle-aged fashion influencer?) but in the spirit of transparency I’ll mention that I did recently purchase a 1994 Primal Scream shirt, for $500 (I was on residual xanax from a transatlantic flight, you know how that goes, that old chestnut etc). In case you missed it, I recently interviewed several vintage band shirt resellers about trends in the market, pricing, and their tips for spotting fakes.

Also I placed an order on SSENSE the other day? Watch this space…

Here’s some music:

• The new Wednesday album Bleeds is out. There’s a lot going on here and guess what all of it (country-gaze, feral shrieking, Karly’s modern day Southern gothic lyrics, often all at once!) is fabulous. I personally feel very seen by the line about smoking weed out of a Pepsi can (for me it was Coca-Cola, tomato tomato).

• Chris Ryan put me onto this band Real Lies and all of their songs (especially this song and also this song and this one too and sorry this one as well for sure) make me violently wish I was 22 again. Or 27. I would even accept 30 (when I went back off the deep end for a few years; I called it my third-life crisis). Hua Hsu says they are our Pet Shop Boys and I do not disagree. Please read their perfect artist bio: “Jackpot eyes at the edge of dawn. Joyrides. Rainfall. Arcades. Ecstasy. Late night city music. All the Best Ones Sound Like Longing™️.” Of course they are from London. Of course!

• I’ve been listening to the Boyish album Gun a lot since it came out last week. I’m kind of surprised I’m not hearing more about it. It’s a little schizo: song to song there are some 90s guitars and some Soccer Mommy type moments and a lot of atmospheric layering and also some light synth pop? But I find myself really enjoying it all. India Shore’s voice is really cool and the music is interesting without being challenging. I especially like “Funeral Synths” which sounds like 2012, and “You and I” and “Wendy II” which feel in step with the Cameron Winter album (and you already know how I feel about that).

Chelsea Hodson’s album art by Daniel Shea

• In a very “what can’t she do” move, the author Chelsea Hodson (and my former writing teacher!) has put out her first single and much like everything else she does, it is very good. The song is called “Belong To Nobody” and it’s sort of White Chalk era PJ Harvey meets Cat Power, but less stark and more (I’m sorry for using this word but) sensual? I would call it autumnal but really it’s more wintry. I love it. Also I’m sorry for using the word “autumnal” (this is not Chelsea’s fault, she was a wonderful writing teacher). Her full album is due out next year and a little bird told me it features quite a bit of bass guitar by former Red Hot Chili Pepper and Bicycle Thief Josh Klinghoffer.

• This little 1:11 song by Birdfeeder (Tom from Most Things) came out in February but I only just heard it and I like it quite a lot (not just because of the way he says “banana”). I asked Tom about it and apparently it’s six years old and there are many more where this came from. Put them out!!!

• If you’re in San Diego (9/24), Phoenix (9/26), San Francisco (9/28), or Salt Lake City (9/30) you are lucky because you can go see Ioanna Gika open for Air, who will be playing Moon Safari in full.

• I have some thoughts about the Coachella line up but I think I’ll save them for a stream of consciousness type audio post? TBD.

• Mother Love Bone’s “Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns” in in the third episode of the HBO show Task. Well done music supervisor Jason LaRocca. This episode of Bandsplain is also very fall?

  Until next time xx

As always all the songs mentioned in this post live in the Fast & Loose playlist HERE