If You Had It Comin'
It's comically hot in Los Angeles right now. The kind of heat you can smell, and when opening a door is like opening a blast furnace. By someone's standards I guess that you could consider today a summery day. And that's fine. It's where I live and we all deal with it. And how do we deal with it? By putting on the new Albert Hammond Jr. record.
There are reasons behind this.
First, it's the type of thing of record that takes your attention off other things. It's just impassioned and interesting enough, with just the right amount of soloing and fills and bass to be a good record without having to be capitol G Great. Sometime I don't have time for Great records. I'm not looking for a life change, I'm just trying to get through my day. Albert Hammond fits this mold perfectly, and for that I thank him. I know this sounds like a back-handed compliment, but it's the truth (and I can't think of a better way to say it right now).
Secondly, it's totally fun. It's actually a little less poppy than his first solo record (has he really released two solo records since the last Strokes record?), but it's still got plenty of zest. Yes, zest. Clearly Albert is restless and wants to keep exercising his musical muscles. I'm not mad at this. Why not, right?
The moral of this story is that you're going to put on this record and remember that we made it through the heat of last year's summer and we're going to make it through again. Much like the opening of water parks, the donning of short-skirts, and the last days of school, a new Albert Hammond Jr. record heralds the coming of summer. Let's ride this thing out.
The record comes out the first week of July on the newly minted Black Seal Records. Definitely recommended.
I'm not sure when tickets go on sale, but he'll be playing Spaceland here in LA on July 11th.
In related news, last night I saw Strokes drummer Fab Moretti back up Devendra and
Greg from Priestbird at the first ever Megapuss show. I know what you're saying, and the answer is that I was covering it for The Fader. It was actually pretty fun.