Album Review: Shimokita is Dead? - Tennis Pro

Normally, when someone gets an advance copy of an album with the intent to review it, they write and post that review before the album comes out. That's not what we do here, though! Despite getting the new Tennis Pro album Shimokita is Dead? a few weeks ago, I'm just now posting this review - days after the album dropped.


This album, based heavily on the time the band recently spent in Japan, is 15 tracks long and much more musically diverse than their previous offerings. Not all the tracks are considered by the band to be full songs, but they're all worth a listen. Here are a few of the album's highlights:


Track 1: "Dance Hit Number One" - A good, very eighties-influenced song residing far outside the band's power pop wheelhouse. Though its style isn't repeated on the album, its strangeness serves as a good introduction to the rest of the tracks' divergent styles.


Track 2: "Satomi Bicycle" - Immediately, the album shifts back to power pop. The narrative style that characterizes some of their best songs is evident here. One of the album's top three new songs.


Track 6: "Rock Over Tokyo" - See the review of Happy Is The New Sad, but like some of the other repeated tracks, this one is a new and slightly different version.


Track 10: "Clothing Optional Christian Barbecue" - Based on a melody written for a beer commercial and the creepy vibe of a middle-aged nudist, there is no way this song wasn't going to be fantastic. Its origin gives it a slightly different vibe, instrumentation-wise, from a lot of the other stuff on the album, but paired with the vocals it's the perfect weirdo party song.


Many of the other tracks would merit a description as well, but let me simply summarize by saying that the album's experiment with guitar-driven post-grunge make for an interesting - if not always completely effective - contrast. I fully recommend the album, but if the price tag seems a little much I would at least recommend downloading these four songs.

WLI Radio: Episode 1

The podcast is available here.

It's finally up! The first episode of our new podcast, WLI Radio! This first episode is a mixtape, twelve songs that Hannah and I put together, for you! Normally the episodes will have a lot more talking, but every so often we're going to put out one of these.

Here's the tracklist:

1. "Never Had Nobody Like You" - M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel
2. "Come On Mona" - Mona Reels
3. "Auctioneer" - The Broken West
4. "Seaside" - The Kooks
5. "Northwestern Girls" - Say Hi
6. "The Capitol" - Visqueen
7. "Chips Ahoy (Acoustic)" - The Hold Steady
8. "Shelly Gets High" - Tennis Pro
9. "Forever" - Walter Meego
10. "In the Sun" - She & Him
11. "Pure Imagination" - The Smoking Popes
12. "It Started With A Mixx" - Los Campesinos

We're still trying to get the feed going so that you can get it like a normal podcast, maybe even through iTunes. Right now though it's just a download.

WLI Radio Premiere - Ep. 0

The podcast is available here.


Well, pilot more than premiere - Episode Zero of WLI Radio is finished! It clocks in at a pretty hefty length, but we think it's worth listening through to the end. Here's what you have to look forward to:

1. Artist profile: The Lonely Forest
2. "Be Glad You Don't Live In Brooklyn, Part 1"
3. Album profile: 69 Love Songs, by The Magnetic Fields
4. Movie review: Sucker Punch
5. Album profile: Happy is the New Sad, by Tennis Pro
6. Artist profile: LCD Soundsystem

Album Review: Happy Is the New Sad - Tennis Pro

I finally broke down and - as one of the first parts of a totally inadvisable but completely worth-it spending spree - bought my first Tennis Pro album.


I picked Happy Is the New Sad because it had one particular song that I loved, which I believe I've mentioned before: "Rock Over Tokyo". That song alone is good enough to merit a ten dollar purchase, but the rest of the album isn't slacking.


Most of the songs are pretty straightforward rock numbers, since the band is a pretty straightforward outfit: guitar, bass, drums. They swing back and forth between totally rocking and very melodic, but this album generally staying in the first category.


Out of thirteen songs, seven of them are currently rated as five stars on my computer. The rest? Four stars. The only thing keeping that average as low as it is is the lack of a 4.5 rating.


Top tracks: "Rock Over Tokyo", "Fireball", & "Why Break Curfew (If You're Only Going to Break My Heart)"

Tennis Pro

On one of the podcasts I listen to every week, they recently (well, a few months ago, give me a break) had David Drury - singer of a band called Tennis Pro - on the air. They had previously played a few of their songs, but I hadn't looked up what they were. It turns out, this Seattle band recently made a movie called Big in Japan (watch the trailer), about the band's tour through Japan and the general feeling towards American rock and roll there (hint: they effing love it).


So, Tennis Pro is fantastic. They have one song up on their MySpace page and a few MP3s available at their website. Also, because they're still trying to recoup their tour, you can get all sorts of goodies in exchange for a donation - up to and including a private concert. I recommend "Shelly Gets High" and "Kimberly", but my favorite of their songs is the one backing the trailer that I linked earlier.


Definitely going to need to get more of their music. The actual sound is very standard guitar-bass-drums indie rock/power-pop, done extremely well. Go listen.