SILVERSUN PICKUPS "Carnavas"
FLOP "Whenever You're Ready"

Oh man. I guess the one big problem I have with the majority (really, there's some good ones out there) of music blogs is the fact that young reviewers (starting to sound like old lame guy here) go instantly apeshit for anything they perceive as new and readers often put a ton of stock into it. Most of us who have been alive long enough to know that music didn't start with the first Death Cab For Cutie single, know that new is fairly arbitrary. That new is pretty much old dressed up in a ringer t-shirt or a Neighborhoodie. So, along with our themes at Little Elpees of "Great Compilations" and "Local Heroes", today, we add "You Stole My Sound, Fucker".

The first installment of YSMSF features two bands seperated by about 13 years, but they share the same distortion pedals. Silversun Pickups are blog gold right now. See if you can't find a blog that doesn't mention them. They've recently played some shows with Voxtrot and I saw them this past year at SXSW with Dirty On Purpose. Pretty solid really, I didn't have any complaints. And pretty. I downloaded "Dream At Tempo" a few weeks back and it's been in heavy over here, but I couldn't help to think it sounded, um, EXACTLY like someone else.

I made the match when "Woolworth" by Seattle's (?) Flop came on random, I love the 28,000+ songs on shuffle, man. Flop were a band that probably I only liked. Seriously, no one liked them ever. OK, that's not true. I booked a club in Chicago in 1994 and played Flop's "Whenever You're Ready" before bands came on. People always asked what it was, however, no one actually ran out to buy it. It's probably the best cutout bin purchase you can make, if you see it.

Some of these bands are hardly aware of this stuff, it's not their fault, really. But like most great pop songs have been written, we're starting to see, that, unless someone reinvents the guitar, we're doomed to hear the same sound every few years. Tell me if "Dream At Tempo" and "Woolworth" don't sound similar (you have to get past the woo-woo intro on the Silversun track). The vocals, the guitar sounds, the whole bit. Yes, I know, the songs are different. Thank god. Next time, I'll have to find a new band that sounds like "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea". Yeah, that'll be hard.

Silversun Pickups DREAM AT TEMPO
Flop WOOLWORTH