THE SKYLINE 50: PART THREE

Part Three of our all-week series sharing our 50 favorite tracks to come out of the city this year.

Hearts Break – Hearts of Animals
Lemming Baby
We’re not entirely convinced that Mlee Marie didn’t just get dropped off by some well meaning spirit in the sky, complete with a back-story, back-catalog and pointy auburn guitar. A year ago, we didn’t know her from Eve, today, we can’t turn around without stumbling upon some new project she’s involved with. But this was the song that got it started for us – simple, sweet, coy; freight trains and hearts you really believe are broken. Yes, it's true, we made a Doctor and the Medics reference.


Hello Boss!!! – Fatal Flying Guilloteens
Quantum ****ing
Remember when you were a kid and there were still tapes and it always seemed like the first thing you did when you tore one out of its shrink-plastic was fast-forward it to the first song on the second side – like it was the FCC mandated position for the most bangin’ radio single of all times of that week. OH SNAP! MOTOWN PHILLY BACK AGAIN! Now somewhat older, possessed of more wisdom perhaps but less likely to act on it, we tend to listen to our records straight through. That’s why we love a break you off somethin’ lead off like this one. (Excluding the intro, of course. By the way, what ever happened to that original French Kiss name-checking intro that had the back bacon references?) A total next-level departure from previous Guilloteen full lengths is stuffed in the ballot box from the get go, and isn’t it great to hear McManus in action one last time?


Honesty – Papermoons
Papermoons 7”
Sitting on a grassy little embankement watching a girl you’ll never get teach the neighborhood kids how to play kickball is not how one should spend their Sunday afternoons. You should be at home with your mates planning a tour where you take a day off to catch the Superdrag reunion show and coaxing worthwhile sounds out of an accordion you bought for a dollar off the wall of a bootmaker’s shed at a flea market. Pinhole cameras, pinwheels on beachbikes and songs like this are antidote to the too much of anything we are all sometimes seduced into feeling. Grab your kite.


I Drempt of a Terrible Adieu – Listen Listen
Listen Listen
The Listen Listen ep is made of wood. The packaging anyways. Sometimes we wonder if perhaps this is because, once the recording was complete, they chopped their instruments up with axes so as to exile the demons that had no doubt taken residence inside during the creation of such a melancholy opus. Prolly the saddest song on our countdown (oh and bonus – suicide lyrical content), only a master along the lines of Kacey Kasem could ever segue between this banjo plucking dirge and, say, an Arthur Yoria song that happened to have the same instrument in the background.


I Told You Not To Write Again – Arthur Yoria
Handshake Smiles
Here’s a tip on how to get into this countdown every year. Be Arthur Yoria. Write a song about some impossibly common aspect of the human condition that had somehow not occurred to anyone was an impossibly common aspect of the human condition. Add some egg shakers. Play a banjo in the background. Arthur: please record another record soon, we need more insight into our own lives. kthanx


In Piles/Files – Bring Back the Guns
Dry Futures
ATTN T-PAIN: We got your next remix ring-tone right here. Piles/Files is a rock club shredertainer that is to the 2007 live show what apple is to strudel and unfortunate berry combinations is to Kosher wine. If this jam was cattle, it would be an entire cow made of whips pre-seasoned center-cut fillet (is that even possible?) served on a solid 28” platinum plate to Kanye West in his V inspired mothership hovering above the Source Awards. PARTY CALL ME.


James Ralph Brown Part II – Riff Tiffs
Afflictinnitus
Judging by the reaction of their fans to our review of their full length, there is an entire legion of the Riff Tiff Army that does not think it is a compliment to have your music designated as the eternal soundtrack to Puff Daddy’s voyages through the ocean depths should he ever be transformed into a Dolphin. Whatever. Those people have no idea what they’re even talking about. If they can think of a better song to glide along to should you ever awaken to discover you’ve been metamophesized into a marine mammal named Franz, we’re all flippers to hear what it is.


Legion of Serpents – Fatal Flying Guilloteens
Quantum ****ing
We heard this uncharacteristically long and tempoed song was the first ever Roy Mata Guilloteens composition. This is no doubt why we are so GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT. (rewind) GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT GET INTO IT (rewind). (Realize we have drive all the way to Juarez with this song on repeat when our intent was only to goto La Tapatia.)


Lonely Goodbye – Paris Falls
Lonely Goodbye (single)
It says something when a local band goes to the trouble of self-releasing a two-song single when they’ve just dropped one pretty aces full length and have a second all wrapped up and in shop-around mode. It’s a special song to them, to be sure - one they had to get out there in the intra-release interim for whatever reason (if we were a thoughtful site, it might have occurred to us to ask them before this moment what that reason might be). It’s a tender and warm lullaby; a blanket of leaves in a rural yard beyond the times. It’s why more musicians should get married and till death do they record.


Lucky – Paris Falls
Vol. I
Paris Falls has their own lighting rig, complete with the ability to trigger it for choreography with what they’re playing at the moment. If you have such a setup, you’ve got to bring the minerals to the water, or else you’re just going to be that group of wankers who thought they were too good for the illumination options the rest of the bands were ok with. But here’s the key – PF aren’t just great musicians and songwriters, they’re great showmen too. Not in the spandex pants kick and splits jump vein, mind you, but in the fact that they see a gig as more than just a thing – as something more akin to the original meaning of the word ‘show’. The whole thing tells the tale of a quartet who take things a bit further than just showing up. The same care went into their Vol I, and this song especially.

ON THE RADIO: RIFF TIFFS

Late breaking word that the Riff Tiffs, a band we really dug when we saw them at the Westheimer Block Party way back when, is going to be on KTRU tonight from 8-10 PM (91.7FM or you can stream it online). Catch them if you can, as they've all graduated and sadly may be parting ways soon - and they are an ACES act, far better than our pathetic review of their Saturday chill-time album implies. DO IT!

REVIEW: RIFF TIFFS - AFFLICTINNITUS

So. Here's something Diddy ain't done yet. He hasn't become a ghost dolphin. Which is a shame, cause we have a perfect record for him should he find himself bottle-nosed and sleek, gliding effortlessly through the breaking surf in slow motion as an impossibly large moon crests over the Pacific horizon. Sure, there would be some details to work out, such as whether his tasteful but blingy earring would need to be relocated to the dorsal fin or flippers. And what of his signature mustache and gautee combination; do dolphins even grow hair? But it matters not, these minor details as to the shape of things to swim, once magically transformed (something achievable by so powerful a god as only Neptune himself) the eternal soundtrack to his days of exploration in the cool deep blue could only be Afflictinnitus by the Riff Tiffs.

We recommend this record because, as Dolphditty would no doubt realize given his afore-demonstrated ability to spot talent, his iPod is rocking the sounds of the submerged. Generally, the metaphor employed to ramble on and on about a band whose sound and songwriting invokes large, open spaces is outer-space (or, if you’re Edmund Burke, vast untouched landscapes. Damn, we’re starting to wonder if it might not have been better to make this review about Burke rather than a rapping dolphin). There’s something far more fluid to the Riff Tiffs, however. Rather than vacuum, there are the reverberations of shear waves; the radiating death of solar winds are replaced by the massive undersea conveyors, the current system. Space will freeze you as it violently sucks your gut out; the sea will drown you with a comforting cool. Unless you’re Puff Porpoise – then a chill life of smooth sailing is what you have in store.

This album, the Riff Tiff’s first, is an impressive frigate of sound, with pressure-treated wood so bright not a barnacle one could set-up shop on her hull. It is an ACES escort for casual chilling with the school and introspective dives into the deep alone. We’ve been rocking it out for a week and, like Flipper Daddy will do so until we say So Long, and thanks for all the fish. Recommended.

The Riff Tiff’s CD Release Party is tonight at Bohemos with sweet jams provided by Helicopter Jones. Apologies to the Riff Tiffs for writing sodumb/bad a review of a record we really enjoy.

DUMB QUESTIONS/SMART ANSWERS: THE RIFF TIFFS

Every now and then (Thursdays), we subject someone in a band that reps the real to some pretty dumb questions and post their responses. This week, we sent off our set of music journalism 101 prompts to Sean Harts, drummer for the Riff Tiffs.

What's your favorite record lately?
Closer, Joy Division's second and final album from 1980. I just picked up the vinyl version and re-discovered it in a way, their songs never get old to me and no band has really come close to duplicating their sound. As for the band we all love, the new Explosions in the Sky record All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. Their best yet? Not sure yet but we love it.

Is there a Houston band who you've been digging lately?
The Rudyments (also known as The Skandals , ex King Louie and the Swinging Monkeys members) play a really fun set with the possibly the most catchy ska songs I have ever heard from a Houston ska band. It seems like they’re playing classic ska covers they are so well thought out, but no, they are all originals. Someone needs to get them into a real studio, because they are gunna make a badass record when they do.

What is your day job?
I work in a law office, filing and taking phone calls. We are all full time students though.

What websites do you frequent?
Because my occupation (see above question) requires me to sit in front of a computer all day, alluc.org is great. I also like to read about random shit on Wikipedia.

What's your secret Houston place?
Tofu Sandwich shop (don’t know the name) in some weird Asian minimall on Milam. 2 dollar sandwiches are delicious! ask for no pepper, unless you’re crazy.

Who is skipping Houston on an upcoming tour that kinda has you bummed?
I havent seen Mars Volta in 18 months, and that is a problem! The Colour Revolt came to Houston last week and I didn’t know about it until after it happened. I am officially bummed.

What do the Riff Tiffs have in the works right now?
We are preparing to release our second album that triples in length from the first. It’s alot of new progressive music we have been working on since last summer. It will be out in April.

You can catch the Riff Tiffs not once but TWICE on Saturday during the Westheimer Block Party(slackers!). Your appointed viewing options are 5PM on the Numbers Inside Stage or 6:20 on the Mango’s Outside Stage.