Now, I know that in the spirit of choosing a band I like for each Band of the Month feature, I generally end up recommending the band at the end. I guess this time it’s a bit different. I want to invest all my energies into recommending the Pink Spiders right now, before I type anything else. Seriously. Here’s their MySpace page, go there and listen to “Easy Way Out” and tell me you didn’t get up and start air guitaring like the world was going to end. But yeah. Now go out and buy Teenage Graffiti because it’s like the single best album ever… released in 2006. It’s amazing though.
The first time the Spiders and I came in contact was on a regular ol’ day. It was like a week before (the now totally lame) Pandora started denying their service to Canadians. I was just listening to it in the background, and suddenly “Easy Way Out” came on and I practically jumped on the computer desk wailing on my air guitar and singing along even though I had no idea what the words were.
I may be exaggerating a bit, but that’s of little importance.
The thing to note is that right then and there I knew I had to listen to more of The Pink Spiders, and wasn’t I pleasantly surprised to find that they were good for more than one balls-to-the-wall rockout song. Their eponymous first album was easy enough to get my hands on, and I wasn’t going to complain about it, because it’s a pretty slick package. Plenty of great songs, mostly powerpop with some great rock ‘n’ roll influence, and most of them are good driving songs too. Their second album, Teenage Graffiti was a lot harder to secure, and when I did notice it, I was hesitant to pay the asking price because a third of the disc is recycled from the first album. Big mistake. All the retreads are cleaned up and rerecorded, and sound even better than ever. The fresh songs are completely kickass too. Most notable are “Adalae” which I want to describe as vaudevillian, even though I’m not sure if it’s the right word to use, and “Hey Jane” which is right near the top of my list of greatest ballads ever.
But seriously. I cannot see how anyone couldn’t like this band. The songs are just so damn catchy, and practically demand that you sing along. You’ve gotta be pretty closed off to not be able to enjoy what is pure ecstacy condensed into musical form. Again with the exaggerating, but I really want to sell this band, man! If even one presons starts listening to the Pink Spiders because I told them to, then the world will be a better place.