A Goddamned Guide to All These Goddamned Whale Bands (Part One, A - N)

(LEGO art by Bjarne P. Tvseskov)

We have a little emergency.

After years of living under siege by bands calling themselves Wolves and Bears and Hands and Tapes/Cassettes and Crystal This and That, "Whale" is the new Who Gives a Shit.  Records by Noah and the Whale, Said the Whale, Black Whales, and Or, The Whale all have dropped/will drop over the space of a month.  It's like when there was that one volcano movie with Pierce Brosnan and that other volcano movie with Tommy Lee Jones.  Jinx!

Over these two entries -- to both strain the krill from the bilgewater and further confuse the issue -- I'll consider 36 current or recent Whale bands, great and small.  And I'll mention an additional 25.  Way more than you've heard of, way more than you need to know.  Some of the best ones fall near the end.  You won't be able to care by then.  Frustrating, I know!

Whale!

Presented in dipshit listicle form, because everyone loves a dipshit listicle.

 

Beluga Whale (myspace)

Who?  Acoustic trio from Portland, Oregon, produced okay-enough singer-songwriter stuff for the RPM Challenge.  Creaky casual effort, nothing more.

Choice Lyric:  "You make your wishes, I don't expect they'd match mine."

Choice Bio Quote:  " The people who played on this album are Jon K., another person named Jon K., and a person named Ned."

Works:  Under Glass (Navy Bean, 2007)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  We have a long way to go.  Pace yourself.

 

Berlin Whale (myspace)

Berlin Whale - Igloos (mp3)(buy)

Berlin Whale - Husbands and Wives (mp3)(buy)

Who?  St. Louis band that slapped together an enjoyable formula for basement rock:  Dancey post-punk, cheap synths, emo vocals and group chants/claps.  Their record has some nice unexpected left turns without feeling proggy.  And live?

They put in their two-and-a-half years, moved on.  Their main songwriter went to Exercise, which is mathier, AnCo-ier.

Choice Lyric:  "Let's lay down in the middle of the road and keep the cars from driving over us... Keep your head down keep your eyes closed keep your eyes keep your head down."

Choice Interview Quote:  "I'm not trying to be Simple Plan.  Not too much, anyway."

Works:  Berlin Whale (Factorize/Divide, 2008)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  I have a feeling someone does.  Someone remembers this band hard.

Black Whales (myspace)

Black Whales - Young Blood (mp3)(buy)

Who?  Affable Seattle indie rock quintet with an affinity for 60s pop.  Like Interpol and Made Out of Babies and Ola Podrida, they have been to a Natural History Museum.  Their PR rep e-mailed me their info just as I started working on this thing as if to belabor the point.  Alphabetically, they land near the top!  Sometimes life isn't fair.

Choice Lyric:  "I am not the war you're looking for."

Choice Bio Quote:  "There's so much darkness in their pop, and there's so much brightness in their shade. Black Whales are far from being one-dimensional; they've done what, if one is honest with oneself, only happens rarely: they've found perfect matches and musical foils with each other. They've found an incredibly textural, experimentally off-center, perfectly heart-hitting way of bringing their amazing songs to fruition."

Works produced:  Origins EP (Mt. Fuji, 2009)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  They're just a baby band, fresh out the inbox.  Make them make you remember them.

 

Blue Whales (myspace)

Who?  Capable anachronistic Costa Mesa classic rockers locked on the local track.  You'd think they were something dug out of a crate if they didn't have a song called "Emo Haircut."  The OC Weekly ran this photo...

...with this caption:  "The Blue Whales fend off their fanbase."  Ouch!

Choice Lyric:  "You look so uptight, it's psychological make-up" (from their song "Emo Haircut")

Choice Article Quote:  'Brown used to dream of making it, and not in the '70s-movie-about-a-pimply-boy-who-never-gets-any variety. "As time went on, I realized that the reality of the music business is nothing like the delusional concept that [I] and so many musicians fall for...'

Choice Bio Quote:  "Their incandescent sonic grandeur points toward a psychedelic, star gazing, future; where shoes will actually be worth staring at."

Choice Song Title:  "Emo Haircut."

Works:  Tracks for sale on their myspace.

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  Does anybody remember laughter?

 

British Whale (myspace)

Who?:  A post-Darkness project from Justin Hawkins, seems to have been abandoned in favor of Hot Leg.

Works produced:  Two singles.  One of the A-sides was a cover.

Choice Lyric:  "Girl, I love America.  It's got countryside and towns, sky up in the sky, ground

down on the ground."

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  Might have forgotten themselves.

 

The Devil Whale (myspace)

The Devil Whale - Butter for Burns (mp3)(buy)

Who?  Gentle Utah group (formerly one of several bands called Palomino) with an earnest lead who turned from horsies to Moby Dick after having a polyp removed from his vocal chords (pdf).  A bit like Damien Rice.  But you know how you get the feeling that Damien Rice is trying to feel you up every time he coos?  Without that.  MOR territory in which I wouldn't normally want to find myself -- but something made me stop here.  I like how "Butter" melts at the end, and they seem to get moderately excited on stage:

Could be that extended exposure will reveal them to be cloying and dull.  I'll find out.  What's streaming at their myspace got me to buy the record.

Choice Lyrics:  "Everyone I love doesn't try enough."  "I'm a crash and a burn away from being in love, I'm a midnight kiss away from trusting someone."

Choice Bio Quote:  " Brinton Jones reveals himself in a beautiful blend of delayed guitars and poetic lyrics that will quite possibly change your life."

Works:  Like Paraders (Northplatte, 2008)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  Check with me in a couple weeks.

 

Echoes of the Whales (myspace)

Who?  Ambient tinkering from Italians Pierpaolo Leo and Populous.

Choice Bio Quote:  " If whales were able to make music how would it sound?"

Whole Goddamned Myspace Text:  "It's all about being alive. Being nothing and everything at the same time. Being a part of a greater whole. It's all about having the strength to be fragile. Being broken into thousands of pieces each with their own unique emotion. It's all about being transparent, joyfully clear. A biological mapping of feelings, all exposed and revealed. It's all about beauty. It's all about being a part of the beauty. Being a fragment of the gorgeous blue thing we all live on. Earth. A world of art in its clearest natural representation. It's about gazing at the world and just being a poet, a painter, a musician. Being an artist as a result of being alive. Our mere existence as an artistic act. It's but a simple question. Why waste the beauty if you are the beauty? It's all about love. It's about feeling beautiful for life's most minute details. It's being aware, perfectly and clearly, of every moment that passes. It's all about a spark. The first spark lighting up when all started to be. A spark being us and we still being that spark. It's all about the future. The future being love. If we are love, we are the future. Love. Light up. Follow. Follow your own whale.

Works:  Echoes of the Whales (Disasters by Choice, 2007)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  Follow your own whale.

 

Freelance Whales (myspace)

Freelance Whales - Generator ^ Second Floor (mp3)(buy)

Who?  Queens, represent!  Wait:  Castrato vocals, glockenspiel, überdeliberate banjo... This sounds nothing like The Ramones.  Band's got a marching bass drum with a flower on it.  Lyrics about the songwriting process ("we can argue where the cymbal hits should be").  A quilted album cover with a button for the sun.  Their myspace page refers to their instruments as "musical gadgets," they're as proud as Carrot Top of their trinket box.  (A Waterphone!  Which is that thing Tom Waits was fucking around with in Mystery Men, God knows everyone loved Mystery Men.)  It's like sulfuric acid on my sensibilities, like a band staffed by Hummel figurines.

I almost hate to say that there's some really good stuff here.

There are qualities that will cause quick checks to the Postal Service and Arcade Fire -- intimate bloopery and communal hum -- along with every folk-instrumented indie outfit out there (so many of those, so many), but more than anything else this new band's first record reminds me of Anathallo's Floating World.  Which was a lovely piece of work.  Inquisitive, expansive, assured.

The problem's balancing the preciousness with precociousness, talent, and confidence so folks don't gag.  Make sure amusement doesn't become harmlessness.  A quick-fed line like "Hannah takes the stairs and I usually take the elevator, every now and then she offers me a lemon Now n' Later, please don't play the match maker please don't be a player hater, if you dig her recent work then you should go congratulate her," has about five things right with it, two things wrong.  Math's in their favor but it's not decisive.  Maybe, live, they serve a shutout.

On record, Freelance Whales' songs about ghosts and death and stuff couldn't scare a fly.  More than that.  They'd hold its hand, help it move, do its taxes.

Choice Lyrics:  "And oh! you caught me sleeping in the power sockets, you caught me mildewing the tiles of the bathroom."  "We compare our hearts to things that fly but cannot land."

Myspace Quote:  "Sounds Like:  Somebody wired their heart to a synthesizer."

Works:  Weathervanes (self-released, 2009 - available on eMusic and iTunes)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  You should.  Some people are going to love this, and if the band defies its more delicate urges they could be something.

But for fuck's sake cut back on the glockenspiel.  It's like you've hung wind chimes from your Prince Albert and are doing jumping jacks.

 

Fudgie the Whale (myspace) - Not a band at all!  A frozen treat and/or this guy I knew in prison.

 

Jonah and the Whale (myspace)

Who?  Fresno singer-songwriter.  Quiet, ok stuff.

Choice Lyric:  "The problem with people is we are quite feeble."

Choice Myspace Quote:  Sounds Like: A man walking alone on a dessolate dirt road in the woods while its snowing.

Works:  So far, streaming tracks.

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  [SPOILER] This "Jonah" stretch is particularly forgettable. [/SPOILER]

 

Jonah and the Whales (myspace)

Who?  Minneapolis cover band.

Choice Lyric:  "I kissed a girl and I liked it."

Choice Bio Quote:  "Yes, they even do weddings!"

Works:  Others'.

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  Are you lining up talent for a street fair?

 

Jonah... Like the Whale (myspace)

Who?  Emo-influenced Thousand Oaks, California singer-songwriter.  Has a song called "Harry Potter and the Imposter."

Choice Lyric:  "You try to hide your lipstick and heavy make-up and put aside the cross on your chest so that you can have sex and not feel like a whore, and not feel like a whore."

Choice Myspace Blog Quote:  "Pretty soon we are going to be selling Jonah...Like the Whale T-shirts. In all sizes. They will be awesome, and yes they will have a whale on them!"

Works:  A Midwest Winter (2006)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  ...Like, no.

 

Jonah the Whale (can't find his myspace, though his record is streaming on the service)

Jonah the Whale - Passing Breathe (Featuring Creed Chameleon)(mp3)(buy)

Who?  Hawaii-based hip hop artist.  Samples The Little Mermaid soundtrack.

Choice Lyric:  "Why can't you look me in the eyes when you criticize me down to minimum size?"

Choice Bio Quote:  " His hypnotic wardrum-like sound represents the streets and hunger of the Hawaiian Islands. Jonah is conscious of the struggle that many young Hawaiians face in finding their identities being raised on the 50th State, Hawaii."

Works:  Friend or Foe (Siq, 2008)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  He's a rapper!  From Hawaii!

 

Litany for the Whale (myspace)

Who?  Pounding metal sextet from Santa Rosa, California.  Possibly named for a John Cage composition.

Choice Lyric:  Good luck with that.

Choice Bio Quote:  "History will absolve us, something better will follow."

Works:  Dolores EP (Teenage Disco Bloodbath, 2009)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  Their myspace is littered with posmens from parties whose ears are more attuned to this stuff than mine.  Heck, the band scored a mention on the influential "Rock Ass Dick" blog.

 

Many Against Blue Whale (myspace)

Who?  Chicago lo-fi dicking-aroundness.

Choice Lyric:  "We toiled in the soil and we panned in the sand and still all our cash we can count on one hand."

Choice Bio Quote:  " Think about three prongs and then make it four; Four lacy currents of vibration, thick from the Mega Protean Crush of decades past whip and snap to form sinewy columns, heaving and rolling in rhythms."

Works:  I'ma Cutchu (2008), a couple singles

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  They stopped calling themselves MABW this summer, now instead call themselves Far Things.  So stop not remembering them here, and start not remembering them there.

 

Sidebar:  NARWHAL. 

A number of bands call themselves "Narwhal:"  London's Narwhal (myspace) get screamo over Slint lines; Florida's Narwhal (myspace) likes their Sigur Ros; Narwhal (myspace), split their act between Austin and Osaka, do a loungey soft synth bounce.  (Richmond, Virginia's ambient Mother Sea (myspace) used to call themselves Narwhal, thought better of it.)  Just plain Narwhal (myspace) is a California band who plays just plain modern radio rock.

Bride of the Narwhal (myspace) was is a Charlottesville, Virginia punk band that has played plays songs like "Turtle Power" at shows called "Pre-New Year's Eve Bro-Fests."  Eric Narwhal and the Manatees (myspace) add a touch of the ominous to the standard thin kitsch of retro-rock.  San Francisco's Narwhal Brigade (myspace) does yikesish soft rock.  Narwhal Decimation (myspace) makes Cookie Monster stuff.  The Narwhal Invasion (myspace) is/was Matthew Long, an ellipses-loving Texan who layers with his laptop.  Narwhal Soup (myspace) is a hushed solo project out of Illinois.  Narwhal Tusk (myspace) does hilarious, schmaltzy Russian metal.

According to their myspace, Narwhal Party hails from "Rancho Cowabunga, California" and sounds like "CATS IN A MEAT GRINDER."  Song titles include "Ice Cream, Pillow Fights, Sleep-Over," "Planet Swelbow," "Anal Retentive Pterodactyl," "Revenge of Kelly Clarkson," and "Kill Your Family with Folding Chairs/Larry Chair Decapitation."  Your new favorite band until you can't stand them anymore.

Portland, Oregon's Narwhal vs. Narwhal (myspace) has a saxophone!  Any polish simultaneously makes their indie rock bearable and robs it of its charm.  British Columbia's Narwhal vs. The Unicorn (myspace) " is the search between real and fake, fiction and non fiction, mythical and material, awake and dreaming," is "influenced by" Bright Eyes and Gandhi.  Michigan's Narwhals Collide (myspace) and Wisconsin's Scream of the Narwhal (myspace) were designed to make you worry about the Upper Midwest.   Wisconsin's Teasing the Narwhal (myspace), has a song called "I Want to Get Laid;" the song will not help them any.  OMFGNarwhal's myspace page lacks both tracks and an exclamation point.

You do not have to remember any band with "Narwhal" in its name.

 

Noah and the Whale (myspace)

Noah and the Whale - The First Days of Spring (mp3)(buy)

Who?:  UK indie folk group that rubbed elbows with Emmy the Great, other things with Laura Marling.  Extracted its name from Noah Baumbach's The Squid and The Whale.  A quick side-by-side with the insipid, Tenenbaums-inspired Margot & the Nuclear So and So's proves that having better taste in movies than doesn't make you a better band.

NotW's first record never seemed more than duly delivered.  The new one starts - dishwater lyrics aside - promisingly.  There's the track above, sad hope stirred by Irish-sounding fiddlework.  That's followed by an acceptable bit of naked I-wish-I-were-Linkous-ness; that by a simple, tuneful plea; and that by disaster.  It gets so bad so quickly!  Any quality moments are lost among tiny turns of uselessness and thuddish, calculated overreach.  Here's hoping "Love of an Orchestra" winds up the worst post-Sufjan glee club gangbang the world will ever have to endure.

Choice Lyric:  "I have nothing, I have no one, I've been so quickly set free."

Choice Quote:  "'The First Days of Spring' is the first and title track from our new album, making it the obvious choice as the introduction to the new material.  In entirety and in the smallest detail it is Noah and the Whale.  If not instantly then resolutely."

Works produced:  The First Days of Spring (2009), Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down (2008)

Should You Bother Remembering Them?  They've gotten some acclaim and a car ad.  Remember their name so you can roll your eyes when one of your less-discerning indie friends recommends them to you.

 

 

(CONTINUE TO PART TWO)  

 

tags: whale  freelance whales  dipshit listicles  

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