Cogwheel Dogs

It could be that the world is going to the dogs. But if those dogs were made of cogwheels, the expression would be decidedly optimistic. It’s great to hear that there are still young bands who care enough to write to people about what they do and who they are. And who record in an attic. It’s obviously not the most convenient and luxurious way to work but for someone like me it flips the imagination switch. Attic, garage, and cellar are where the great musical stories begin and, really, there could not be too many songs eulogizing those places. At some point I stopped going to concerts because it seemed like no one snuck out to their attics, garages, and cellars to do music anymore. Part of the problem was my own skepticism, part of it was that truly the numbers of idealistic and hard-working beginner bands decreased sharply. That’s the wrong kind of dogs. It takes some openness and, I think, some atti(c)tude that is largely missing today to do these personal mud-stained things. That’s the right kind of dogs.
I tend to like music that is somewhat ascetic but based on a concept that unfolds in time. There must be a story behind it that can’t be written down so that music indeed is the one medium through which it can come. Hence perhaps my inability to do justice in writing to sounds.

I most definitely lack talent to give you a verbal taste of what to expect when you click over here. I’m impressed by Rebecca’s blog, the band’s website–I’m a sucker for visual wit, I’m afraid. As for the sounds: I like where these songs are going. They are going places and can take you there, which is what songs, essentially, should do. That’s a great beginning and I’d love to see where the songs go from here. I hope there’s a song about the attic somewhere along the way…


[Written and originally posted elsewhere on July 5, 2008]