A Lit Cigarette is Making a Design

The Inevitable Breakups - Stephanie (mp3)(iTunes)

Once our Chinese overlords and ASCAP join forces to shut this horrible Internet Thing down, after the giant machines steam our vinyl and stomp our iPods, we'll have to go back to remembering things the old way:  Spottily, gaps filled by handjob aftergloop.  All those bands, all their songs, it's hard enough to shelter them from The New Boredom, the tsunami of easy product built to bankrupt our attention economy.

We will wind up like those folks wandering the woods in Fahrenheit 451, an army of then-scenesters and ex-gfs ordered by exiled basement archivists to mouth lost lyrics and hum tunes to themselves.  Wagging the very tip of the long tail.  Every band, every song, in the future you only get one final devoted fan.

Who'll be there for "Stephanie?"

The Inevitable Breakups (myspace) bounced around the Lower East Side for a few years -- God, remember 2005? -- before realizing their moniker.  They recorded an album with Television's Richard Lloyd, filled a couple slots at that International Pop Overthrow series that annually draws no one I know.  The band's site is still up, its stuff is still streaming there.  (You might find mp3s on iTunes, but even secondhand CDs are hidden from searches on Amazon.)

It's sturdy sweet spot power pop.  Simple pleasures, simple questions with simple answers.  Do you wanna rock?  Darling, so do I!  Like every other thing you are listening to right now it was never going to change The World.  For the band and its loved ones, for someone at a show -- for one or several girls named Stephanie -- maybe it nudged lives, a little.  After the end, someone will skip through a forest as long as they're able, bopping their head and waving their arms, nothing but this on their mind.

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