monzyummylunch

ME Tries to Make a Monkey Out of the Monz!

Background: in college, the Music Editor worked as a dj on his campus radio station. This station split its airtime between rock and jazz, with the rock playlist leaning on the indie and British side. The only explicit rule, however, was that at least 50% of the songs played had to be from the new bin (released in the last two months). For years this provided Monz with gleeful mockery, that he would share some new music discovery with the ME except that it was more than 2 months old, and thus verbotten.

Recently the ME was reading about the "next big thing" out of England, the Arctic Monkeys. How's this for hype (from the NY Times no less!):

>>He is Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys, a scrappy and brilliant group from Yorkshire that is currently awash in hyperbolic praise. The debut Arctic Monkeys album, ''Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not'' (Domino), has been instantly -- and accurately -- hailed as a modern classic, even though it was only released a week ago. The British music magazine NME ranked it at No. 5 on a recent list of the greatest British albums ever. It sold over 360,000 copies in the last week, making it the fastest-selling debut album in British history....Domino Records eventually signed the band and released a single, ''I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,'' which topped the British charts. If only the music weren't so thrilling, there would probably be a serious backlash afoot. The Arctic Monkeys specialize in tidy but anthemic little postpunk songs, propelled by bursts of guitar chords and constant zigzags. In ''I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor,'' the band hurtles through three different riffs -- all utterly infectious -- in the 30 seconds before Mr. Turner lets loose his thin voice and thick accent. Then he does, and the song gets even better. Mr. Turner's lyrics are worth waiting for and often worth memorizing, too. He delivers pithy, unpretentious descriptions of a teenage world defined by daydreams and nightlife. And he has an uncanny way of evoking Northern English youth culture while neither romanticizing it nor sneering at it."

So the ME checks the tune out and while he didn't wear out his thumb pon de replay-ing, it twasn't bad: imagine a slightly punkier Franz Ferdinand on a good night. But upon re-reading the Times article, the ME saw this:

>>Back at the Carling Academy, the Arctic Monkeys stormed through their triumphant set, with fans singing along not just to the lyrics but to the guitar lines, too. After ''Fake Tales of San Francisco'' was finished, the crowd kept shouting the words, which take aim at the indie-rock industry. The acerbic chorus was reborn as an exuberant soccer chant: ''Get off the bandwagon/ And put down the handbook!/ Get off the bandwagon/And put down the handbook!'' <<

Monz, somebody has been stealing your notes for the next S.R.M.J.T. album! Let's hope that nobody steals the chicken pot pie at home that Monz hopes has his name on it.