Saturday, November 06, 2004

The Secret is Out

A few weeks before Labor Day I fielded an enthusiastic e-mail from Shawn (this was back when Shawn could afford internet access). He referred to a "groin-grabbingly good" album from The Secret Machines - "Now Here is Nowhere"

I was a bit apprehensive, seeing as how their guitarist gave this quote to Spin when asked about the band's move from Dallas to New York:

"We were our own best friends, just sitting on our beds, out of our minds on mushrooms together."

On the other hand, there was this exchange among Spin staff in the same issue, regarding performances at the 2004 South by Southwest Music Conference & Festival:

Caryn Ganz (asst. editor): I will plug The Secret Machines. They played Thursday night at some warehouse and they had this massive sound that seemed to hand in the air. It was really visceral.

Charles Aaron (music editor): I was standing in line to get into that show when Chuck comes up, saying, "Oh, my God, they're like Pink Floyd with Alex Van Halen on drums!"

Chuck Klosterman (senior writer): What I said was, "These guys are what would happen if Pink Floyd merged with Queens of the Stone Age, assuming they also added Alex Van Halen on drums." And I stand behind that statement. They're fucking awesome."

Aaron: I was like, "I don't know whether I should push my way in or run screaming in the other direction." But then I got in there, and they were pretty awesome.

As you know, you can't knock it until you rock it, so I bought the debut album. It rocked me.

And that brings us up to early last week, as I chewed a bowl of Cracklin' Oat Bran and cursed The Today Show, I clicked over to MTV. MTV had inexplicably ceased airing bullshit in exchange for The Secret Machine's first video.

So, long story short, it's time to go pick up that album. Get your TSM stock before it splits, before every asshole has it, early enough that you can claim superiority over the bastards that will buy it much later.

(Sorry - no free mp3s this time, but there is streaming audio at TSM's website and at Amazon.)

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