Stepdad - Ordinaire EP

This is pt. 7304857 in a series of posts entitled, "Patkins is a lazy fuck and El Langosta feels obligated to keep up appearances." (he's actually been out of town at some awesome music festival, so I really can't blame him. it's just really fun)

Stepdad are an awesome synthpop group from Michigan. Their lead singer is known only as "Ultramark." Their song "My Leather, My Fur, My Nails" has been stuck in my head for a month now, and my eyes are continually dazzled and delighted by the accompanying video, which you may watch below.



Today, I found that my craving for more Stepdad had boiled over, so I caved and dropped the $1 (!!!) necessary to procure their Ordinaire EP. And man, am I impressed. This was just what I wanted: a cornucopia of fun, catchy, and colorful pop tunes, with a few splashes of 8-bit and a healthy dose of the 80's. They've got a great sound and they do a lot with it. But Stepdad are no one-trick ponies: every song comes with its own feel and a unique set of sounds; sometimes I hear the spectre of Gobble Gobble's ecstatic dance-pop melodies, at other times I hear shades of fellow Michiganers Tally Hall in the vocal production...basically, this EP impresses the hell out of me.

My Leather, My Fur, My Nails - Stepdad

Grab this if nothing else. Maybe after a month you'll wind up doing the same thing I did and getting the EP out of sheer craving for more of this badassery.

They're working on an LP, Wildlife Pop, which is being produced by none other than Chris Zane. If that doesn't mean anything to you, let's just say that Patkins and I have an unhealthy obsession with Passion Pit, whose INCREDIBLE first album, Manners, was produced by Chris Zane. So you can imagine how excited this makes me.

So you should really go grab the EP. It's essentially 8 slices of epically good pop music, and you only have to pay $1 for it, though you're allowed to pay more. You will not regret it.

It's over at their Bandcamp.

Stay sparkly, folks.

Lobster out.

The Future Is Technicolor (Rich Aucoin, Terror Pigeon, Stepdad)

So this past weekend included what might be the pinnacle of all Fridays, ever (hence Rebecca^). Namely because my little, middle-of-nowhere Ohio college town was blessed by the presence of three giants: Rich Aucoin, The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt!, and Gobble Gobble. If you've ever seen even one of these bands live, you'll know that all three of them playing on the same night wasn't just cathartic, it was borderline orgasmic.

If you read this blog, you already should know who Gobble Gobble is, and if you don't then would you kindly go and get all of their music for free? Oh yeah. They put it all on mediafire JUST FOR YOU. They are, in fact, that awesome.

On to the other folks:


Rich Aucoin is an electro-pop artist from Canada, and he's got a hell of a live show. It's interactive, energetic, and millennial-friendly: almost every song starts with a remixed or otherwise chopped-and-screwed viral YouTube video (Bed Intruder, Goat Talks Like A Man, etc.). It doesn't hurt that the man utterly SHREDS on that microkorg (and the vocoder!!!). I'm always impressed by live electronica acts that manage to achieve that perfect balance between energetic stage presence, singing, and actual technical skill. Seriously. He can do this vocoder melody, LIVE, fucking PERFECTLY:

PUSH - Rich Aucoin


Next up was The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt!, who absolutely killed. If Aucoin's set was interactive, theirs was borderline communal: frontman Neil Fridd invited everyone to put on a costume, and the singalongs were beautifully effortless. I didn't see him step out of the crowd once, he was so perfectly engaged the whole time. Left me singing the chorus to this song over and over again for the next three days...

[ride friendship.] by theterrorpigeon

Grab their album on David Byrne's (!!!!) label, Luaka Bop. Costs money but meh. So does food. And you can't live without that shit.

Then Gobble Gobble played, and fucking murdered as usual. But (for the aforementioned reason of posting too much about them on this blog) in their place I'm going to introduce a group that actually played with them on this tour, though at another show:

Stepdad is, to follow the theme we've got going here, a colorful, talented, and EPIC synthpop group with a taste for epilepsy-inducing myspace pages (see Gbl's for comparison, or Terror Pigeon's). They have an EP out called Ordinaire, and it only costs $1, though you can pay more if you like! Their debut album, Wildlife Pop (due out this May), is being produced by Chris Zane (Passion Pit, Les Savy Fav), which gains them automatic awesome points in my book. This is a video for the single "My Leather, My Fur, My Nails:"



Not only is this an incredibly epic video, the song itself is infectiously catchy. Grab it for free, courtesy of the band:

My Leather, My Fur, My Nails - Stepdad

This shit will get stuck in your head. Go get their EP, $1 is fuckin nothing for 8 awesome songs!!

Again: if you get ANY chance to see just ONE of these bands live, DO IT. Most life-changing, incredible live shows I've ever been to (Stepdad excepted, since I've never seen them. but they're probably awesome!)

Lobster out.