Linda! Linda!

It’s a good possibility that tonight I’ll see “Linda Linda Linda” - a Japanese film about a group of high school girls who form a band in order to play the Blue Hearts’ single “Linda Linda” at a school competition. Japanese teenage girls singing the punk rock. Now what could be cuter than that?

Around 1990, I recall getting the sole Blue Hearts’ US release on Juggler Records. It’s not hard to sell me on a band that was being marketed a “The Japanese Beatles” (not to be confused with the band The Japanese Beetles, which featured members of Big Dipper and Shonen Knife). The 6 song ep was a hodgepodge of the band’s hits including “No, No, No”,"Kiss Shite Hoshii (I Wanna Kiss)" and "Be Nice" - chipper little numbers designed to get you pogoing on your tatami mat in no time. Every one of these tunes was a winner even if they weren’t sung in Japanese, but of course being not in English meant the band would never make it big in the US. It’s a sin how language keeps up apart isn’t it?

Inauthenticity is what's hot in 2007!

When I was out seeing a friends band last night, I was pleased to discover the band who was on just after them: Paper Thin Stages.

Sort of a Minutemen/Mission of Burma kind of thing, but with a bit more art school thrown in – all three members all wore glasses, sang minor chord harmonies and the bassist played bass as if he were playing a guitar (with chords). Songs were angled, striving, uncomfortable, and yearning - nothing not to like there. Dying to go home after a long day at work, I ended up pushing myself to stay for their whole set, which gave me the pleasant feeling that there is hope for music.

This same feeling was one I had nearly lost last week upon hearing the gutless sound of a new Fall Out Boy single played on NPR as they discussed “What is hot for 2007”. Isn’t it evident to anyone with the smallest bit of real hipness in their soul, that the moment one is able to articulate “What will be hot”, it immediately ceases to be hot? But of course hot or not Fall Out Boy (a band the NPR commentator pleasingly repeatedly called “The Fall Out Boys”) are just the kind of thing I loathe – a band who are entirely inauthentic, feigning to be deeply authentic. Does this mean that feigning authenticity will be what is hot in 2007? And if so, is there a reason that would make it different than any other year? I don't know how to break it to Paper Thin Stages they won't be hot this year. With any small amount of luck they'll never read this blog.