We briefly caught up with SOTR darlings and eternal keyholder to my heart’s lock, Twin Sister. The group has been somewhat silent lately, but we’ve shed some light on their current activities, including fantastic new track “Meet the Frownies” for Shaking Through.

SOTR: You encourage other artists to remix your work. Do you have any favorite remixes of your tracks? Any people you’d like to have remix your stuff?

In August, indie legends !!! released another fantastic, vibrant stomp through dance rebellion: Strange Weather, Isn’t It?.  The album’s infinite ability to conjure the best of !!!’s earlier efforts has not gone unnoticed in the time since, but much question looms over Strange Weather; we talked with lead singer/funkmaster Nic Offer about the new release and the band’s other recent happenings.

SOTR: Your new album was released in August, but you haven’t released anything since 2007.  What have you been doing in the mean time?

With the abandonment of the vinyl record as a popular medium, many bands have cast aside the careful selection of beginning, middle, and end tracks. Wilco’s Being There, despite being released in a largely anti-vinyl era–or at least one less accepting than what is now present–boasts an impressive opener: “Misunderstood.”

Being There, like any other Wilco album, has moments of gripping emotion, but the most heart-wrenching spot is certainly when Tweedy croons the album’s first lines. Misunderstood? Certainly anyone finding solace in a Wilco album possesses this attitude.

To have been a somewhat successful and memorable alternative band operating in 1997, it appears you needed to have had simply three things: distorted guitars, a female bassist, and David Cross. Best known for his stint as Tobias Funke, analrapist and blue man, David Cross’s appeal to awkward alt kids in the late nineties isn’t shocking. His stand-up may have seen better days, but certainly none as entertaining as what is contained in the following two classic videos.

Bee Thousand is not the best Guided by Voices album.

There is an unspoken notion that dictates conversation between Guided by Voices fans.  Allegiances reside, strongly, on either side of the “best album” decision.  Many tote an obnoxious affinity for Bee Thousand, but few are brave enough to speak up against the injustice.  Everyone who doesn’t think Alien Lanes is the best GBV album is no longer my friend.

About three days ago, I acquired stomach flu. Vomiting has become laughably mundane, as buckets and various bowls litter my bedroom floor, making it easy to hurl the contents of my stomach into a wayward receptacle.

Why is this relevant? Well, for some reason, this illness has conjured a dire need to listen to Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. At first I thought the desire was ludicrous–Ludacris?–and I went back to my traditional obsessive downloading of psych compilations. Eventually, though, I realized that Dre was the only one who could make me feel better.

King of New Jersey and apple of my scruff-loving eye, Bruce Springsteen is called the Boss for a reason: you don’t mess with him. In my copious years of music listening, I have come to realize that there are some artists you just cannot cover. Bruce is one. Of course, there are some exceptions: Paul Baribeau, folk-punk beardo and magnum crooner, took on a host of Springsteen’s catalog to great success, while dad-rockers The Hold Steady cover the boss with a disturbing accuracy. These, though, are two positive cases in a sea of horribleness.

I hear you can shred….

Every couple of weeks, I dig myself into a nihilistic hole and find that the only solution is to O.D. on heavy riffs. I’m talkin’, like, mondo-shredding; riffin’ the shit out of shit all night long. Licks so hard that they are the only part of the song that matters. When an isolated five second sound clip of the groove is all you need of that track to get by. Those riffs.

Upon re-listening to Kate Bush’s discography (worst segway ever?), I discovered that the lyrical content of her fantastic song “Babooshka” reminded me incredibly of the premise of awful radio-cocaine track “Escape (The Pina Colada Song).” How so? Well, let’s just say that both employ a plotline consisting of “pseudonyms to fool [significant others].” Very few will actually listen to the lyrics of either track (and for good reason), but there’s something touching about rekindled love between two married people after one of them pretends to be someone else in a ploy that is neither creepy nor awkward. Happy endings abound!