"Goon" was a perfectly good word with a whole bunch of meanings long before zoomers decided to use it as a euphemism for jerking off, so it does my heart good to see that LA indie rockers Goon are keeping their name intact. This summer, Goon will release their new LP Dream 3, and we were really into the early singles "Death Spells" and "Closer To." Today, there's another new Goon song, and this one is good, too.
"Patsy's Twin," the latest Goon song, is a fascinating piece of work that combines a bunch of different indie rock modes into one track. It starts out dreamy and tingly before getting progressively heavier and more abrasive, finally moving into metallic screamo territory by the end. I didn't put this together, but the title is a Sopranos reference. Here's what bandleader Kenny Becker says about the song:
I was excited by the idea of writing a song that felt like it was two or three different songs cut and pasted together with essentially no transitional elements to smooth the edges. Essentially, the same mentality I brought into painting the album cover.
The first half of the song was born out of the pain of heartbreak and a meditation on just hanging out, outside, with friends.
Though I live in LA, I grew up in San Diego and am a devoted fan of the San Diego Padres. The mythic and legendary legacy of Tony Gwynn was always something I thought would be fun to reference in a song, and I ended up doing that side-by-side with another beloved Tony, Tony Soprano. The other verse in that section is about my own struggle to write, and in that case, referring to the song itself.
Our good friend Braden Lawrence played drums on this song but Andy Polito (who drums on most of the record) came up with the name, a reference to the Sopranos character Patsy, whose twin was killed by Tony.
Check out "Patsy's Twin" below.
Dream 3 is out 7/11 on Born Losers.
