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Wandering the streets at this hour with your kid and a bass guitar
In 2004, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lesser_celery pointed me toward a band with the appropriate name of My Favorite. I was going through a period of ferocious music acquisition, actively following the Dresden Dolls (discovered at the Ig Nobels in 2002) and about to fall heart over heels into PJ Harvey (my eventual advisor played "To Bring You My Love" at a party and I sat on the floor in front of the stereo for the rest of the evening). The band's website had an mp3 from each album available for download and all of their lyrics in fully punctuated prose and I listened to "Burning Hearts" and "Working Class Jacket" and was hooked. Between the writing of Michael Grace, Jr. and the singing of Andrea Vaughn, My Favorite's songs were catchy and literate, like character sketches or short movies. Their footprint was small but evocative. They had released two albums and an assortment of singles and splits since their genesis on Long Island in the early '90's; they drew inspiration from new wave, post-punk, '80's teen movies, Joan of Arc, Alain Resnais, classical Greek hero cults, and with the unerring timing of irony they broke up in 2005. I never saw them live. I watched the videos for "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Burning Hearts" and bought a T-shirt quoting a line from "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" (your darkness is brighter than all the lights in the disco tonight) which I still wear despite severe cracks in the silkscreen. The closest I ever got in person was the April 2004 interview with Michael Grace, Jr. published by John Benson in Not One of Us #31.
In the years after the breakup, Michael was easy to follow. Minus Andrea, the band shifted shape for an EP and two albums into The Secret History, now with more glam rock and Catholic mythology; later, a further subset reformed as the "Second Empire" of My Favorite, releasing a remastered special edition of Love at Absolute Zero (1999) and a new single. Andrea was harder to track, though I was able to find her contributing vocals to Bell Hollow and Bagatelle. And then there were rumors and then there was a Facebook page and now there is The Chandler Estate:
We are a band rising out of the ruins of other bands (My Favorite, The Secret History, Mad Planets, Boycrazy) named after an abandoned property on Long Island, NY that became a commune for artists and outsiders. Our debut e.p. explores the idea of infrastructure literally and metaphorically: songs of NYC and San Francisco crumbling around their inhabitants, in the midst of both collapse and gentrification; the tenuous bonds of old friends and lovers over the course of several decades; those things or people that become visible only when they fail or fall apart. But there's also love, and hope, and dancing.
Andrea Vaughn, Darren Amadio, Todd "Todbot" Karasik, Bryce Edwards, and Tara Emelye Needham. Their debut EP Infrastructure came out in January. I found out this afternoon and bought it on the spot. It's really good. They sound like the bands whose ruins they rebuilt themselves from (three of them, anyway; I am unfamiliar with Boycrazy, although throwing Edwards' name into Google got me this magnificent interview with The Isotoners) and they also remind me a little of Consonant, Clint Conley's in-between-Mission-of-Burma band with Holly Anderson. They sound like themselves. Their lyrics are snapshot and poetic: I tried to sleep in the common heat, windows propped open with books I never read. He had an 8-track stereo, an overgrown patio, a view of the Golden Gate. Dandelion, sand, and seaglass edge the island where she stood last. On the sidewalk, in fading chalk, we left our mark. I like the way they mesh layers of guitar. I have missed Andrea's voice.
There should be more records after this one. In the meantime, check this one out.
lesser_celery pointed me toward a band with the appropriate name of My Favorite. I was going through a period of ferocious music acquisition, actively following the Dresden Dolls (discovered at the Ig Nobels in 2002) and about to fall heart over heels into PJ Harvey (my eventual advisor played "To Bring You My Love" at a party and I sat on the floor in front of the stereo for the rest of the evening). The band's website had an mp3 from each album available for download and all of their lyrics in fully punctuated prose and I listened to "Burning Hearts" and "Working Class Jacket" and was hooked. Between the writing of Michael Grace, Jr. and the singing of Andrea Vaughn, My Favorite's songs were catchy and literate, like character sketches or short movies. Their footprint was small but evocative. They had released two albums and an assortment of singles and splits since their genesis on Long Island in the early '90's; they drew inspiration from new wave, post-punk, '80's teen movies, Joan of Arc, Alain Resnais, classical Greek hero cults, and with the unerring timing of irony they broke up in 2005. I never saw them live. I watched the videos for "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Burning Hearts" and bought a T-shirt quoting a line from "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" (your darkness is brighter than all the lights in the disco tonight) which I still wear despite severe cracks in the silkscreen. The closest I ever got in person was the April 2004 interview with Michael Grace, Jr. published by John Benson in Not One of Us #31.In the years after the breakup, Michael was easy to follow. Minus Andrea, the band shifted shape for an EP and two albums into The Secret History, now with more glam rock and Catholic mythology; later, a further subset reformed as the "Second Empire" of My Favorite, releasing a remastered special edition of Love at Absolute Zero (1999) and a new single. Andrea was harder to track, though I was able to find her contributing vocals to Bell Hollow and Bagatelle. And then there were rumors and then there was a Facebook page and now there is The Chandler Estate:
We are a band rising out of the ruins of other bands (My Favorite, The Secret History, Mad Planets, Boycrazy) named after an abandoned property on Long Island, NY that became a commune for artists and outsiders. Our debut e.p. explores the idea of infrastructure literally and metaphorically: songs of NYC and San Francisco crumbling around their inhabitants, in the midst of both collapse and gentrification; the tenuous bonds of old friends and lovers over the course of several decades; those things or people that become visible only when they fail or fall apart. But there's also love, and hope, and dancing.
Andrea Vaughn, Darren Amadio, Todd "Todbot" Karasik, Bryce Edwards, and Tara Emelye Needham. Their debut EP Infrastructure came out in January. I found out this afternoon and bought it on the spot. It's really good. They sound like the bands whose ruins they rebuilt themselves from (three of them, anyway; I am unfamiliar with Boycrazy, although throwing Edwards' name into Google got me this magnificent interview with The Isotoners) and they also remind me a little of Consonant, Clint Conley's in-between-Mission-of-Burma band with Holly Anderson. They sound like themselves. Their lyrics are snapshot and poetic: I tried to sleep in the common heat, windows propped open with books I never read. He had an 8-track stereo, an overgrown patio, a view of the Golden Gate. Dandelion, sand, and seaglass edge the island where she stood last. On the sidewalk, in fading chalk, we left our mark. I like the way they mesh layers of guitar. I have missed Andrea's voice.
There should be more records after this one. In the meantime, check this one out.
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Enjoy! If you end up liking The Chandler Estate enough to want to track back, I can recommend Mad Planets; all of their recorded work was eventually collected under the title Music Makes Me Think of You (2000). I am more ambivalent about The Secret History than I am about My Favorite, but Desolation Town (2008) is a very strong EP and I do like most of their first album, The World That Never Was (2010). (There are about two tracks on Americans Singing in the Dark (2013) that I really care about; the rest tends to come on accidentally when playing through iTunes.) I've been trying to find information about Boycrazy and at the moment it looks as though buying CDs will need to be involved. [edit] And, of course, the original My Favorite. Their two albums were Love at Absolute Zero (1999) and The Happiest Days of Our Lives (2003); the second was always my favorite, but a lot of the first grew on me with time. Some of their best songs were uncollected, and at least one was released after the breakup in 2005.
Oh, hell. Please enjoy this wholly personal selection of favorites from throughout the career of My Favorite, original flavor.
"Go Kid Go" (The Last New Wave Record, 1994)
Hey, kid, it's secret history
Hey, kid, you can roll your jeans
And you can shave your head
And you can wear your boxing gloves to bed
"Working Class Jacket" (7" split w/Mad Planets, 1997)
Alone at school she sits and dreams
Of Johnny Marr and Morrissey
Tonight she'll wear his working class jacket over her prom dress
"17 Berlin" (Love at Absolute Zero, 1999)
Some kids have plans to rule the world
Some kids have plans to run away
"Modulate" (Love at Absolute Zero, 1999)
Electricity
It's in me
Electricity and trash
"You Belong with Us" (Love at Absolute Zero, 1999)
Dancing at all-night raves
Or ice-cold in shallow graves
Or sleeping on speeding trains
With our mouths full of novocaine
"Cult Hero, Come Home" (Double Agent 2000, 2000)
Nobody talks to you, there's shouting in the schoolyard
The ghost of Sid Vicious appears in your room
"The Happiest Days of My Life" (The Happiest Days of Our Lives, 2003)
Black anoraks, synthesized strings
Two tarnished tin wedding rings
Nostalgia for meaningful things
Is all I've ever known
"Badge (Grace Under Pressure)" (The Happiest Days of Our Lives, 2003)
I wear her dreams like a badge
Pinned upon the wrong uniform
"Le Monster" (The Happiest Days of Our Lives, 2003)
The streets were crawling with vampires
'Cause after your shelf life expires
You're not a kid, you’re a monster, monster, monster
"The Radiation" (The Happiest Days of Our Lives, 2003)
Seems a crime to burn for a sin left undone
"Rescue Us" (The Happiest Days of Our Lives, 2003)
When I was a girl, I murdered my parents
I thought that I could sing my way to Paris
I thought that I could
Rescue us
"My Life with the Living Dead" (Kanine Records presents NY: The Next Wave, 2003)
The Substitute Cult Heroes Union
Is still without a contract
"How I Saved My Life" (Intercontinental Pop Exchange No. 7, 2005)
She shook a black tambourine in my shipwrecked dreams
A heart like an anchor that sank her down to me
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You're welcome! I hope you like it!
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You should be able to play the whole thing through at Bandcamp.
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Yes; I believe I was introduced to her by
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Thank you for finding that interview. Karl and I had been looking for it ever since the old website died. I never thought to look for something from my own former website on some sort of Wayback Machine. I've copied the interview into Word, and maybe now I can post it on the new Not One of Us website.
I saw My Favorite twice in 2004. Those were (among) the happiest days of my life. Andrea Vaughn got me into the second one for free, and we hung out together while the opening band, Saint Face, was playing. I interviewed Michael Grace, Jr. a few weeks after the first concert.
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You're welcome. You should definitely repost it at the new website, at which time I'll change this link.
Andrea Vaughn got me into the second one for free, and we hung out together while the opening band, Saint Face, was playing. I interviewed Michael Grace, Jr. a few weeks after the first concert.
I think I envied you those concerts even then. "Saint Face" is still a great name for an opening act.
(I can't remember the last time I saw a band live. I hate how my life has narrowed. It is going to have to change.)
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I can remember seeing you link to songs by My Favorite from the very start of our acquaintance. At first I did indeed think you were calling the band your favorite.
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You can play through the entire EP at Bandcamp. I really like "Spies (No More)" and "Flash," but "Past Tenses" is the one that's unexpectedly haunting me at the moment.
I can remember seeing you link to songs by My Favorite from the very start of our acquaintance. At first I did indeed think you were calling the band your favorite.
To be fair, I did like them a lot. They were one of the first contemporary bands I cared about, which is why it's so bittersweet that I never had the chance to follow them like the Dresden Dolls or the Mountain Goats or PJ Harvey or Tom Waits; I discovered them and they disappeared. I am currently nurturing a cautious hope of seeing The Chandler Estate in person.
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There is, and it has marked some very good points in my life. Thank you for telling me!