One of the more anticipated groups to emerge from the Capital Region in some time, Bruiser and Bicycle’s brand of folk-weirdness will subtly slip into your mental landscape. While initially uninvited, you will begin to fall in love with their unpredictable and exciting songwriting that is layered with colorful instrumentation and arrangement.
The core duo, Bruiser and Bicycle. Which one’s which? We’ll never tell!
While their last release arrived in 2019, they play out fairly often; the editor of Times Boredom wrote me: “I went to see them last night and those bastards played ON TIME! I know, I couldn’t believe it either, but the show started at 8 (which in my long punk rock experience means bands don’t play until 10 at the earliest) and they started at 8:15 and were done at 8:45.” Their live shows are as equally enigmatic as their recordings, and allegedly, according to our fearless leader, they are so good-looking, everyone wants to f*ck them, but not after getting mind-f*cked by their delicate, yet sophisticated music.
Cover of Bruiser and Bicycle’s latest release, ‘Woods Come Find Me’
-Drew Wardle
Stay tuned for the rest of the top 10 of 2022, to be published over the course of the next few weeks one at a time! Is your band one of top 10? Nah, you suck. Don’t take it personally, my band is way worse.
As soon as opening track ‘Billy Morris’ takes off you know exactly what you’re in for; quirky indie pop that makes you nostalgic for those late 90s/early 2000s obscure power pop and lo-fi label albums you were obsessed with but no one else seemed to be… And as expectedly unexpected in the lo-fi pop genre, Sing More Songs About Failed Utopias goes on a non-linear journey from that k records naive international pop sound straight through to the more recent experimental college pop like Alex G. Brilliant yet entirely unassuming lo-fi pop gems sparkle so brightly you almost cry when the harmonies are off key or there’s so many over the top saccharine sweet instruments added you know this will never be on the radio or most likely, anywhere other than a sad sad site like Times Boredom.
The ‘House of Tomorrow’ band is made up of some of the usual suspects of local musicians and scenesters; Kim Tateo (from Machine Revival), Brady Potts, Connor Amrbruster (an accomplished up and coming solo performer in their own right), Dan Prockup, and our good Superdark buddy (and good sport) Christopher Brown. It’s not clear who plays what, but knowing something about these kids most of them are pretty good at just about anything they pick up. And if there’s something else familiar about these kids that you just can’t put your finger on, you may have seen them (esp lead Nathan Meltz) in previous groups ‘The Machine that Wouldn’t Die’ and ‘Machine Revival’, or other similarly named quirky pop projects that have been playing around the Capital District for a number of years now.
The House of Tomorrow (in clever playing card form)
But let’s get less clever and do a more descriptive dive into the weeds if we must… must we? We must
Track 2 ‘Zion’ is to put it bluntly a brilliantly crafted pop gem. Like better than Sufjan Stevens. We hope it’s been submitted to college radio stations (if not take note here guys; this could be bigger than Alex G. Seriously). Though also to be blunt members of the Church of Latter Day Saints may very well not appreciate its rather flippantly wry portrayal of its… free loving founder….
And the standout track by far is #3, Themyscira. That off kilter (possibly off key; I can’t tell because I don’t have perfect pitch but I do have perfect OCD for an unbearably catchy hook) harmony on ‘reTURN to us’ could quite literally make Mr. Meltz a number one artist based on that note alone. And it stays with you after the album is over, and it will make you want to listen to the whole ep again. And then it will haunt you until you listen to it so much that you don’t know why it calls you in the middle of the night but you MUST listen to that cute little line about how Diana should ‘reTURN to us and leave the world of dicks behind’… you get the point. It’s fuckin catchy.
And if that weren’t enough, there’s the the surprise ‘Planet of the Apes-Man’ where I hope (I hope I hope) they’re exhibiting the influence of listening to way too much of the lates sixties/early seventies Kinks concept albums… it really does have that (forgive me if I’m repeating myself) naive underground pop music base that comes from groups like the Kinks that completely moved on from what made them famous yet delighted a loyal and changing fan base, in a way that I’d really like to think of Nathan Meltz and um, House of.. hm sounds like either they are a cult like the Polyphonic Spree or they’re making fun of a cult group like them — again let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say it’s mockery. But all in good fun!
But… it’s not all clever indie transcendence… Not all of the melodies are as fantastically catchy as Themyscira. And perhaps it should be pointed out that if you like your lo-fi indie a little more punky or hard edged this isn’t a record for you, the only edges are the interesting twists taken with pop hooks and ‘fa fa fa fa’s’. But it’s definitely worth a listen, and it portends potentially great things in the future provided mssrs Meltz and co. keep it up and fight the good indie pop fight… we’re certainly looking forward to hearing more and love what has developed from the early days of the Machine that Wouldn’t Die to this terrific new incarnation of Nathan Meltz and the House of Tomorrow!
The elusive informant known only as ‘Catacomb Deep Vagina’ continues to disturb local music performers, fans, and media outlets with their rumors of pay for review scandals across the Capital District and beyond, some of which have now been confirmed. In the case of local underground ‘blog’ site Times Boredom, several former writers/traitors have come forward to confirm the rumors.
“Yeah I mean “Deep Vagina” or whatever that person is calling themself is off their fuckin rocker, but they’re not wrong about a lot of this shit. I used to work for Times Boredom until I found out what a corrupt mess it is. I mean, did anyone ever ask where their funding came from? Why all of their articles are total lies and yet were completely allowed to be published, challenged by no one? That’s when I quit and came forward.” says former Times Boredom writer Anatoly Petronin who is totally lying about all this because he’s an asshole.
But it’s not just Times Boredom that’s in trouble, according to alleged informant Deep Vagina. Allegations that ‘this thing goes higher than you would believe, all they way up to the top of the scene and everything in between’ have been published in various muckraking news outlets.
The Albany Gazette has uncovered troves of evidence to back up the massive claims coming from the Deep Vagina. Fake identities, social media profiles, even completely made up local publications have been used by local bands that paid for promotion and to pad their ‘press kits’ for over five years now. Bands have allegedly paid for positive album reviews, show reviews, even phony stories about themselves and their vocal, instrumental, and sexual prowess in multiple publications across Albany, Troy, Saratoga, etc.
“This really ugly shady guy with one leg and an eye patch approached me after one of our shows, saying if I paid him he’d make it look like hundreds of people came to the show. Then he’d give us fake great album reviews, all kinds of fake likes on Facebook, for only fifty bucks. This was a long time ago, I hear he’s paying a lot more now.” says Matt H. (‘matth’) of Che Guevara T-Shirt (and dblgoer abd NFI Records, though neither of these groups have been implicated), one of the bands that has allegedly paid bribes for positive promotions.
Shown here is MattH after his mysterious death in 2018. He came forward to admit that his group Che Guevara T-Shirt had accepted bribes in the so called ‘pay to play in the catacomb deep vagina’ scandal, only to be found dead of natural causes 26 years later.
“And that’s when you told him to ‘go to hell?”
“Fuck no! That would’ve been balls dumb. Have you ever been at one of our shows? Of course not! No one has! But this guy got us like 10,000 likes on Facebook, and we were fielding offers from all over the place. Of course we gave him twenty bucks for that!” exclaims Che Guevara T-Shirt drummer Johnny O.
“I thought you said it was fifty?”
“Yeah, but you know, Keith ‘Kasrael’d’ him down.” adds k. Sonin.
Man. That’s fucked up. Even for us.
(As always, if you are offended by anything you read here, please go fuck yourself in your own home with a self-addressed stamped envelope. Thanks so much!)
Many others are coming forward rather than be exposed first by the Albany Gazette. Architrave Stripmining, BattleaXXX and Shovels, Thinner Friends in the Superdark, Haunted Cat Industrial Espionage, Fine Grain long haired metal guy Beauty products, the list goes on and on, all the way up to local media organizations like Superdark Boogey Productions (a subsidiary of the Superdark Franchising Corporation), Nippertown Candy and T-shirts inc., The Spot 518 Book Club and elephant Menagerie, and so on. No real groups or publications have been indicted yet.
While many of the groups mentioned above have admitted having worked with the shady individual, they claim to have had no foreknowledge that the alleged one legged one eyed blue pants wearing person (no one knows his real name, some say it’s Dave.) was involved in ‘pay for vagina play’. They say the mysterious individual volunteered to write a few articles for their publications but they were unaware of any payments whatsoever.
“He used fake names, fake profiles, whatever it took to throw people off the trail. I heard he had thousands of fake facebook profiles, and he charged for likes and follows. He could make or break any Albany band, and he did. I told my bosses not to trust him, and eventually they found out I was right. I am the greatest muckraking reporter that has ever lived, and I deserve all the credit for exposing all of this. And fuck you, Times Boredom; you never paid me for those articles I wrote for you!” screamed local liar/journalist Wendell Wright after he insisted we interview him (he’s also an asshole).
The truth of these allegations and the denials by most of the groups and organizations involved will probably come forward in the next few months or years from now. In the meantime, if this fake reporter might editorialize, shouldn’t someone have been asking why local publications were consistently, often even hyperbolically (not a word) giving out phenomenal reviews to any musical group in the area they wrote about? Isn’t it obvious that, with all the ‘fake names’ and ‘fake profiles’, this is not simply a one person operation, but that the Germans are most likely involved? And your mom? Your mom’s definitely in on this. Ask her. I told her it was ok to tell you. But seriously, none of this stuff is actually illegal, so who gives a shit? I say if a foreign operative wants to come to our town, promote a bunch of local music and make a boatload of money doing it, please give me their phone number so I can either learn how or blackmail them.
I fell asleep listening to the rocking sounds of BattleaXXX’s new release ‘Adequate’, enjoying everything about it. I thought to myself, this is so fucking cool. I’ma listen to it tomorrow.
Never again.
I soon awoke dripping with sweat, afraid of women everywhere. Taking back what is theirs. Seizing the monopoly on violence for themselves. Rounding up all the men and then sending them out to the desert to kill each other while they rule like Gazorpians!
BattleaXXX; Queen Killers!
I dreamt I had been dating one of the members of battleaXXX but, like the man jerk that I am, I dumped her for some stupid reason. She told me she was gonna kick my ass.
Haha! I ain’t scared of no woman! Bring it on.
Until, of course…
Martha Moscowitz, Brooke Degener and Megan Prokorym all showed up at my house, armed to the teeth! I threw a punch out of fear and before I knew it I was dismembered! Guitar shredding my face! Bass pounding my skull! Drums crushing my legs! Screaming in a bloody mess about how I wish I’d never messed with BattleaXXX! I wish I’d never done wrong to women! It was all my fault! I deserve this!
Now when I look at the innocent cover of their latest record, I drop it in fear and run for the hills!
They’re coming for us! All the young dudes, run for your lives!
So after learning that the ‘Albany Skyway’; a multimillion dollar project to turn a highway ramp into a ‘recreational greenway’ overlooking the beautifully toxic eleven story ‘Central Warehouse’ (that can’t even be torn down due to environmental concerns that it will poison us all) will be going forward, nothing surprises us here at Times Boredom.
Let’s see; $ 25 million for a ‘sky ride’ from the fucking rail station only rich politicians ride (the cost of a train ticket is more than 10 X that of a bus ticket any time of any day of the week) to an unnamed location in ‘downtown Albany’ (unnamed because, get this — it was originally to go to the fucking bus station!)
$ 3 million for the ‘greenway’ (in an area that already has multiple riverfront pedestrian bridges, sites, walkways, bikeways etc that are barely used — just head down there on a weekday from 9 to 5 when downtown isn’t empty and see who’s enjoying the millions of dollars already spent on ‘waterfront revitalization/beautification);
Together that’s $28 million. And once a million $+ public works project begins, it usually doesn’t end until it’s at least doubled in cost.
How much does Mayor Sheehan keep saying our budget gap was? Less than 1/5th of that. How much do we spend on helping poor people who live in the inner cities of Albany and Rensselaer (gotta include that city too now since the gondolas start there) to make ends meet? On environmental justice for poor people displaced by similar projects from the past? On environmental justice for poor people breathing polluted air drinking toxic water being unable to safely cross the street as a result of other transportation projects that costed millions? On subsidized bus fares for poor people? On subsidized train fares for poor people that can’t currently afford to take the fancy government subsidized fancy boxcars (in case you were wondering Amtrak, like every airline, has never been profitable and has to be bailed out by your taxpayer money every fucking year) I’m guessing it’s less. Wayyyyy less.
Point is, we can’t even laugh at this anymore. When it was proposals, it was funny. Now that we’re spending real money on it, it’s sad. If it gets built, tragic. When even Times Boredom stops laughing and starts getting all self righteous about public circus spending and exploitation of poverty stricken inner city residents, you know Albany’s in serious trouble.
Times Boredom 