Shuffle and Stories Episode 2
Shuffle and Stories is an attempt to get a more personal look on why we feel the way we do about music.
Shuffle and Stories is an attempt to get a more personal look on why we feel the way we do about music. Music is like art, subjective, and that means that everyone has a different way at looking at one album or band. Every week Ill pick from one of ten songs when my library is on shuffle and talk about the music but also talk about why I personally like it or tell any personal stories regarding the music.
Oh boy were todays pickings good, local punk band Bike Tuff are pretty radical and my library once again tries to bait me into talking about video games with the excellent soundtrack to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3: The Manhattan Project but one band shines a little brighter. The subject of todays talk will be the brilliant Post-Punk/Dance-Punk band Funeral Party. I was turned onto Funeral Party back in 2010 when someone linked me to their self-titled album claiming it to be their album of the year. This self-titled version seems somewhat not official since I dont really know much about it other than it was released in 2011 as the more formal The Golden Age Of Knowhere. I personally dont hear anything different in the two albums so Im pretty sure they are the same thing, especially since it looks like The Golden Age Of Knowhere was recorded back in 2008. How this self-titled release came to be is beyond me but lets move on to the music. Remember back when The Rapture put out House Of Jealous Lovers? I was quite young when my uncle gave me a copy of Echoes but good lord was that album fantastic. That is the brand of music Funeral Party makes, that very catchy hybrid between the echo and delayed tones of Post-Punk and the hi-hat emphasis and movement of Dance-Punk. There is the youthful energy to the music that is perfectly portrayed in the music video for the single Finale. Watching the kids meet up and throw a house party fits the anthemic latter half of the song and Chad Elliots intensified vocal delivery quite well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBz1qeVtvxE The best songs off the album are the ones that make you dance the hardest, tracks like Just Because and New York City Moves To The Sound of LA just have so much power behind them that they demand your attention. There are some less-energetic songs, especially towards the end of the album, but while they dont invoke the same sort of movement or dominance their inclusion is still enjoyable. It was fun for 2010 feeling like I had my own little secret but since I was still in my college radio days I wanted to share Funeral Party with the radio station. Funeral Party was completely radio-worthy music and I was ecstatic when our station was sent the Live At The BBC EP (which has an amazing remix by Kids of 88) and The Golden Age Of Knowhere, in no time I got to see Funeral Party hit regular rotation. I remember my future roommate and then co-worker at the station Vandy and I geeking out after finding that Omar Rodríguez-López (from At-The Drive In and The Mars Volta) did a super funky guitar solo on the track Car Wars. 
It will probably be another year or so before I can expect to see another release from the boys from California but Im fine with waiting. With a great starting point like their first album and having their music played on a commercial for Taco Bell the future looks bright for Funeral Party. Heres hoping Ill have more stories to tell about them in the next couple years, after all my relationship with this band is only just starting.