Real Life Rock Top 10: May 6, 2024
Salman Rushdie looks death in the face, Koko the Clown and the End of the World, and the Invention of the Blues in 2008 (or 2009)
1. Antietam, “Pitch & Yaw” 4 for 40 EP (Motorific Sounds / Bandcamp). Guitarist Tara Key, not saying what people usually say: “If you had asked me on Derby Day, 1984, the day Tim, Wolf, Mike and I entered a Jersey City basement for the first time as a platoon, if I thought we would be celebrating this event, I would have probably been puzzled. Why wouldn’t I be?” On the title song, with Key, not a singer, singing as if unspoken thoughts always have a tune behind them, you can hear all those forty years passing, nothing resolved. “You were on my mind,” it begins. “Flush with borrowed time.” With the last verse, you wish Key was telling you more: “Head for 1965 . . . Tune in WAKY.” When We Five’s “You Were on My Mind” would have been the first thing you’d hear.
