Little Kings

The Joggers "Little KIngs"

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McCULLOUGH's MP3 OF THE WEEK 010: 05.01.2006

Title: "Little Kings"
Artist: The Joggers
Album: Solid Guild
Year: 2003

Another band I was introduced to at SXSW; I've been waiting for a band like the Joggers for a long time. Let me explain. Throughout high school and college, I was always really into guitary (can i use that as an adjective? better check my Mad Libs manual) indie rock bands like Sonic Youth, Pavement, Polvo, etc. Indie rock has certainly changed over the years. I'm not entirely against it, but there are a lot more bands that seem to have the taken the "style over substance" route. In essence, looking cool and hanging out with cool people had taken precedence over simply writing good songs with interesting subject matter.

The state of indie rock has also gotten to the point where the members of yr band basically have to look like teen heartthrobs. If you don't have said heartthrobs in yr band, then you at least have to have a beard. I don't know when these rules were written or who wrote them (ahem, Conor Oberst i'm glaring in yr direction) but I disagree with them. The thing I always loved more than anything about this kind of music was that the people who wrote and performed it were just like me. Average schlubs with no superhuman abilities other than genuine love of rock n roll. Look I'm not discounting every band that considers itself "indie" out there, but that form of rock n roll has become a corporate commodity just hip hop did. That fucking band the Killers even wrote a song about how they "Love Indie Rock N Roll" or some such. Flim flam i tell you!

The Joggers have no heartthrob in their band. When I saw them, two of 'em DID have beards though. But it's not important. This band is VERY guitary in the vein of Polvo, and do a lot of up tempo type stuff as well. I've noticed the disco drum beat has become very popular in rock as of late. Bands like Franz Ferdinand and Bloc Party have embraced it, and other artists have followed suit. "Little Kings" employs the disco beat, fusing it with very Pavement like songwriting. Alot of musicians probably liken their lyrics to "poetry" (ahem, Conor Oberst i'm grimacing in yr direction!). Well I would considers the Joggers' lyrics to be a little more like "literature". Another Pavement comparison there.

When I saw this band they also covered a Yes song, which immediately intrigued me. Any band playing a big record industry type showcase who covers (what i think was) "Roundabout" has balls. And they had the chops to pull it off and make it sound semi-cool. Anyway, So I've been waiting for a band like this. An original sounding rock band who clearly grew up listening to the same stuff i did. Indie rock has always been my favorite niche, no matter how pretentious it becomes. I'm not a scenester, so none of that stuff affects me. But i love me some guitariness!

Andy for the record, Conor Oberst's flower power is no match for my GLOWER power.

thejoggers.com