Jeff Tweedy Likes Animal Bands (And Battles)

“I’m probably the only person that wanted to be a rock critic and failed at it and started a band" is the crux of Jeff Tweedy's shot at a music crit column in yesterday's New York Times. Pretty sure Jeff's isn't an unprecedented maneuver, but it's a nice slice of trivia. And knowing that, it's probably safe to say Mr. Tweedy reads most Wilco reviews (we already know he balked at EW's Sky Blue/Eagles comparisons). Anyway, yesterday he had the chance to misconstrue and improperly cross-reference other bands' music with his very own pen, and based on the records he's into these days, we've decided Jeff Tweedy would most definitely enjoy Stereogum. His picks and accompanying quotage:

DR DOG: Almost everything about Dr. Dog and the way they sound draws on my favorite stuff on earth. They’ve got elements of the Band, the Beatles, the Beach Boys — all the bands that begin with B ... They sound like real singers, people that really love to sing, as opposed to people that you kind of wonder why they’re singing. Maybe I fall into that category sometimes.

After the jump, Jeff talks Bears, Hawks, and Battles. Oh My.

GRIZZLY BEAR: I read a lot about this band but resisted based on the snide expression on a couple of their faces in a magazine. I can’t get past those first impressions easily. There’s so much music to listen to, so you narrow it down any way you can. I’ve missed out on a lot of stuff (probably based on arbitrary facial displeasure). They make really beautiful, evocative music that has a gauzy fuzziness to it; you can’t accurately pinpoint their place in time. Their music is like a painting by Monet; there’s something soft about it ... I like records that have their own internal logic, their own universe. This feels like a fully formed world, a real place that I’m not a part of but I get to visit.

BATTLES: If I’m going to listen to math rock, I want it to have a pedigree. I don’t put much stock in classifications, but all these guys have been in math-rock bands so it’s a math-rock supergroup. “Mirrored” (Warp) is music that sounds like you have to be really smart to remember how to play it ... I recommend the video of the song “Atlas.” It’s really smart dance music. I don’t tend to dance, so I enjoy listening to the technical side of what they’re doing. A lot of music classified as math rock is maybe cold and technical. But this record has a sense of excitement and whimsy that contrasts in an intriguing way with how regimented the rhythm has to be.

A HAWK AND A HACKSAW: I followed this band because Jeremy Barnes used to be in a band called Neutral Milk Hotel, and I loved their records ... [A Hawk And A Hacksaw] has a cymbalon, which is like a piano played like a hammered dulcimer ... I don’t know the background of everyone in this group, but the music has a freshness to it. Just love that cymbalon, can’t get enough of it.

PANDA BEAR: I did see Animal Collective once a few years ago and was pretty astonished at how great they were and how powerfully lost they would get in everything they were doing. It was inspiring, one of the more memorable shows I’ve seen in the last five years. Panda Bear (I still have trouble saying the name seriously) has made a beautiful record. There’s some sort of internal logic to “Person Pitch” (Paw Tracks) that you only experience by listening to it. The easy critical shorthand to describe it is a Brian Wilson-Phil Spector-influenced wall of sound, but it’s much more trance inducing than those polished pop nuggets. It’s more like girl-group music or Beach Boys music as meditative, droning mantras. It’s a fantastic record.

Good taste, eh? Jon Pareles likely ain't losing any sleep over the column, but this only makes us want to peek at Jeff's iPod even more. After mentioning Jeff's love for Grizz, Panda, and Battles to a girlfriend at McCarren Pool yesterday and describing the 'I Have Battles In My Life' bag purchased at P4K last weekend, we added "but whatever, everybody loves Battles." And said friend retorted, "No, only dudes like Battles." Wha? Is that true? Are Battles a bro-band? And while we're throwing around untenable and overly simplistic descriptors: Are Battles the 'dude rock' to Wilco's 'dad rock'? And most importantly, for Jeff Tweedy: Future in rock writing post-Wilco? Or 'don't quit your day job?'

[Pic from Wilco @ Bonnaroo '07]

Posted at 9:15 AM
Tags: Animal Collective | Battles | Dr. Dog | Grizzly Bear | Jon Pareles | Panda Bear | Wilco