The Frarful Report

Hurricane Kyle brought a lot of warm rain to mark the end of the Maine summer this year.  I always feel that the end of summer is the most melancholy time in New England.  The trees are giving out their vibrant outbursts before the die, my breath is showing in the air and the dry sunlight lets me know that those hot, humid summer days are done for a long time. 

It’s beautiful and sad, and so I thought I’d review some new music I’ve recently put on my iPod to combat these mopey Autumn days.  I’m going to try to introduce you to the artist the way that I met him.  This is my first time giving a music review, and though I’m not much of a musician myself I do have love for strange, innovative and creative music.  So here goes:

Alan Wilkis

    A few evenings ago I was stumbling through the internet and I came upon this gem of a video profiling the VP picks Joe Biden and Scary Palin from Good magazine.  It seems like most of my stumbles these days have to do with those two, but this little video also featured a song that instantly grabbed at my heart.  I paused the video during the credits and scribbled the name of the artist, Alan Wilkis, into my iTunes.  After listening to the yummy samples of his other songs on his scrumptious album “Babies Dream Big”,  I bought the whole thing even though I had to dig into my Peru savings to do so.

    What has followed are days of Autumn Biking Bliss.  The whole album is upbeat and hoppy, which is the ideal power music to get my bike up and down the hills between my house and my work.  

    On Alan’s myspace page I found out most of the tracks were recorded in his own bedroom in Brooklyn.  This is what gives his voice, and his sound in general the endearing amateurish sound it has.  Usually I wouldn’t use this as a selling point, but something about the muffled way Alan’s voice comes across on the loudspeaker makes it feel like he’s singing directly to me, or about me, or for me.

   Alan’s background music is a strange blend of electronica, automated drums and an ever changing sound catelog of anything from banjos to trumpets to video game sounds.  I think he may have somehow gotten a hold of the small electornic key board I had in seventh grade, and found a way to make the demo button spew out delightful music.  It sounds at once hyper-modern and 80’s, 60’s and 70’s retro. 

   My favorite part of “Babies Dream Big”, however, are Alan’s silly lyrics.  They are lighthearted, a good respite from the Economic collapse, the fall of Summer, and the otherwise heavyhanded lyrics of many of the other artists on my iPod (Rilo Kiley I’m looking at you). 

    “It’s been great talking to you…about me,” Alan says over and over in the second track on his album.  Later he sings a lilting lovesong for all of the girls on bicycles he sees around his city, and even contemplates some crazy ideas to get closer to them (like putting a video camera in their apartments, or maybe even learning to ride a bike himself.)  All the while an electronic voice chants “GIRLS ON BIKES!  GIRLS ON BIKES!” 

    In short, everything in the newspaper is sucking me dry.  Barack Obama has let me down, and it feels like John McCain is actually reaching into my chest and pulling my heart out, then eating it while waterboarding me.  But Alan Wilkis has found a way to keep me dancing, and also has made me laugh when I find myself standing in the breadline singing “I can do what I want to do, cause I’m famous.  I’m famous.”