Hearts from hell collide on fire's highway tonight.

Japandroids (again), Pinhead Gunpowder, Father John Misty.

Dan Ozzi

Oct 20, 2024

∙ Paid

Here’s a weird thing I realized about myself this week: I like when songs shout out various highways.

“Doing 180 on the Don Valley Parkway.”

“Like doing 55 on the 5 at 5.”

“There’ll be no more counting cars on the Garden State Parkway.”

etc.

Even if I’ve never driven on the particular highway in question, hearing speed limits and road signs romanticized in song form? That’s a big hell yeah from me, dawg.

In case it’s not clear, I am currently listening to the new Japandroids album, which kicks off with this line: “Wind whipping down Dundas, ain’t no room on the 505.”

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Last month, I lamented that the early singles I’d heard from their new/final album, Fate & Alcohol, weren’t particularly exciting. Now that I’ve heard the full album I think I was a bit harsh. (Which is why I tend to avoid listening in piecemeal but no one sent me a damn promo copy on this one so hey you get what you get.)

Writing the album you know you’re going out on must come with a tremendous amount of pressure, and I think the band did about as well as they could, given the circumstances. The circumstances being that that their hearts haven’t seemed to be fully in it for a while.

I’ve always associated Japandroids with fireworks. Probably because the crackle of bottle rockets run throughout their 2012 album Celebration Rock. As my fellow pyros surely know, there are three stages of lighting a bottle rocket off.

The first stage is the anticipation of watching a lit fuse slowly burn closer and closer to the rocket. To me, this is Japandroids’ early work—not yet explosive but exciting in its joyous expectancy that something cool will soon happen.
The second stage is the whiz of the takeoff followed quickly by the explosion. Hell yeah. This is what we trekked to this sketchy parking lot for—the thrill you get when shit blows up. This was Celebration Rock, an album that caught the band at the exact moment they burned bright enough to light up the sky.
And lastly: that post-explosion firework haze. This is when your ears are ringing as you walk through traces of smoke where something exciting just happened. Smiling as the thrill gradually burns off. This has been Japandroids in the years post-Celebration Rock. A comedown from a truly magnificent moment. Not thinking much about what it all meant, just knowing you had a good time doing it. The next day you catch a whiff of smoke coming off your jean jacket and it reminds you of a good but fleeting time. That’s what Fate & Alcohol sounds like to me.

Pinhead Gunpowder - Unt

I’ve also been getting a good amount of play out of the new Pinhead Gunpowder record, Unt. This is what I wish Green Day sounded like today. Whereas Green Day has tried to expand their production and push their songwriting to its limits over the last couple of decades, Pinhead Gunpowder remains… exactly the same. Those crunchy guitars through that hollowed out Lookout Records-era sound. That’s what I love about Pinhead Gunpowder, man. I get older, they stay the same age. Yes they do. Yes they do.

Father John Misty - Live at Pappy + Harriet’s

And the final item atop my listening pile this week: This recording of Father John Misty’s set at Pappy and Harriet’s last month. If you’ve never caught a show at Pappy and Harriet’s, I really recommend making a pilgrimage if you’re anywhere near the desert outside Los Angeles. It’s a bar and restaurant in an old Western pioneertown that hosts some really intimate shows. A band that can fill a 1,200-cap room in L.A. might play at Pappy’s for 250 people. It’s the venue where I convinced Murder by Death to risk their standing as a highly respected band by going along with the silliest idea humanly possible: covering the “Bones Are Their Money” song from I Think You Should Leave. (Which they nailed, by the way.)

I like the place so much I even own one of their shirts. A few weeks ago I wore it on a flight out of Detroit. There was a guy around my age at the window seat, I was on the aisle. The middle seat was empty and we kept giving each other that look as the boarding line thinned out. The look that says, “Oh shit is this gonna happen? Are we gonna have Empty Middle Seat? Please, TSA gods, we beg of you.” When they closed the door to the plane, I looked at him and said, “Hell yeah, brother. We really did it.” And he knew exactly what I meant and pounded my fist.

Then he pointed at my shirt and said he loves that venue. We went back and forth exchanging our favorite shows we’ve caught there over the years. (His was Afghan Whigs.) This is a time-honored tradition among male music fans of a certain age. Just remembering random shows we’ve gone to and bands we’ve seen back and forth until we run out.

I spent the flight watching a very stupid movie (Sweet Dreams starring Johnny Knoxville), thinking about what I should say to my seatmate to try to keep our budding friendship going. I didn’t think of anything good though so as we were deplaning I told him it was nice meeting him and maybe I’d run into him sometime in [the redacted neighborhood he told me he lived in]. I think about that guy a lot. I feel like we had a connection and I blew it.

Dear Cameron in 32A from DTW → LAX, if you’re reading this, get in touch. Maybe we can catch a show and get a burrito afterwards or something.

Also, Does Anyone Know the Sound Guy at the Greek Theater?

I see that my old nemesis Zach Braff is celebrating the 20th anniversary of his movie Garden State by getting the bands from the soundtrack to play the Greek Theater in Los Angeles.

If the sound guy at the Greek is reading this: Please can you pass me the aux cord for just one minute, we have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever.

Buy, Buy, Buy, My Darling

Hey if you bought a People Standing in Front of Danzig’s House photo book this month, thank you! I’ve been shipping them out as fast as I can. I actually ran out of copies and am waiting on a second shipment. The last of the orders will ship out by the end of this week. Thanks for the patience.

Here are a few photos and outtakes I posted yesterday: