Yesterday's post was music-related but it wasn't an actual music post as such. Or that's my story. I was always planning to do a music post, either yesterday or today, and that wasn't it. This is.
I mean, what would the alternative be, anyway? Another post about what I'm doing in Scars of Destruction? (Closing in on the end of the Adventure Signature Quest.) Some head-scratching about what's going on with Stars Reach? (Confusing emails inviting me to tests I thought I was already in.) Another passive-aggressive mini-rant about some trivial annoyance that's barely worth a mention?
Yeah, no-one wants any of that. Better to have some nice music. And I think most of it will be quite nice for once. Not like last time. All those shouty blokes. Only so much of that we can take, right?
Not that any musician in the world wants to hear their work described as "quite nice" but you know what I mean. Not an overweight, middle-aged man in a skin-tight gimp-suit, jumping up and down and swearing. Nice like that. Probably.
So, to take the name of this feature literally for once, what have I been listening to lately? I can answer that in two words: Sunday (1994). If that is two words.
Is it, though? It might be four. I don't know how numbers tally. Hang on, I'll run it through a word-counter and see what comes out...
Yep! It's two. Good thing we got that sorted out or none of us would have got much sleep tonight.
So, getting back to the point, Sunday (1994) is a band. I'd say it was a duo but there's a drummer who prefers to remain anonymous and the same, uncredited bassist in all the live performances so who knows? The two with names are Paige Turner and Lee Newell and rather than rehashing their biography here I'll refer you to an interview they did with Rolling Stone, which is where I got my information from, mostly.
Paige Turner is a great name. I wonder if it's real? Her government name, as the kids say now. If it's a stage name it might already be taken because there's a fairly well-known drag queen using it, whose Wikipedia page says she's gone by it since 1996, when I'd guess Sunday (1994)'s Paige would have been in elementary school. If even that.
Lee Newell looks like he might be a bit older. He was in a band called Viva Brother who were around for a brief while in the 2010s. They had some minor success. They were on Letterman, where they suffered that peculiar and embarrassing problem of having to change their name for the new territory, like the Beat did to become the English Beat in America. Presumably because there was already a band with the same name in the States, although it stretches credulity to imagine two bands thinking Viva Brother was ever a good name.
They went for Brother UK, which is awful, but not as awful as if they'd added the name of the town they come from. That would have made them Brother Slough, which sounds more like a minor Batman villain from the Denny O'Neil years than a rock group.
Whatever they called themselves, they were not to my taste, and that's being polite. Sunday (1994) very much are. It just goes to show you can't just write people off because they were in bands you didn't care for, even if they also gave that band more than one really bad name.
Sunday (1994) is a great name. It's evocative and strange and immediately conjures all kinds of mental images. They have the same kind of wistful, yearning vibe going for them as one of my favorite 21st Century bands, the Papertiger Sound, another excellent name, not that it ever did them much good. Not at all co-incidentally I feel, they too were a transatlantic boy-girl duo, albeit from Norfolk and Nova Scotia rather than Slough and Los Angeles and without the mysterious drummer. I miss the Papertiger Sound.
But now I have Sunday (1994) and they look like they know what they're doing in a way the Papertiger Sound never did. They might have more success and thereby last a little longer. I bloody well hope so.
The ball is rolling already. The Rolling Stone piece says something about them becoming "a viral success on TikTok" and there they are - in Rolling Stone! Sure, it's not the deal it would once have been, but it's not nothing still.
Then again, their most-viewed videos on YouTube have fewer
than 150k views, which again is not nothing but also not that many. Probably more for just one song than the Papertiger Sound notched up in their entire career, though. I miss the Papertiger Sound.
Well, that was a long introduction. You can probably tell I was thinking of doing a whole post just about this one band. I thought better of it but clearly not a lot better because here we are, 850 words in (Still got that Word Counter app open...) and I haven't talked about anyone else.
Or, for that matter, let you hear any of their songs! Oops! Better do something about that right away.
Tired Boy - Sunday (1994)
Given how much I like them, you might have thought I'd have bought their "EP", which is really what I'd call an album since it has nine tracks. I would have but there are a few problems with that plan. Firstly, it's not out until the end of February. Secondly, it's on vinyl and I loathe vinyl.
Thirdly and most importantly, they make superb videos for every song and the videos are so very well-crafted that without them it feels like something important is missing. They're not narratives but they complement the mood so perfectly it's a gestalt. I'll buy the audio on download though or on CD. Just not on vinyl.
Blonde - Sunday (1994)
This was the first Sunday (1994) song I found and it's still probably my favorite although I keep wavering on that. I love the tone and feel of it and the way the rhythm rolls. I also love the lyrics, which they're always kind enough to include in the description.
I think Paige is the lyricist. She's really good. I think she also might be a little confessional. Some of the detail feels very specific:
"You've been sticking it in to some girl
That lives in Chatsworth
That
place is a shithole"
I was really confused by that at first. Chatsworth is a famous stately home in Derbyshire. The Duke of Devonshire lives there. No-one ever called it a shithole unless it was Class War. It seemed unlikely the putative stickee was one of the Cavendish family, to whom Chatsworth has belonged sing the 16th century. A serving wench, mayhap?
No, it turns out Chatsworth is also a suburb of Los Angeles. That makes a lot more sense. It pays to do your research with these things.
TV Car Chase - Sunday (1994)
This one was inspired by Paige going onto anti-depressants, apparently. I guess the coda where she goes
"Well if you can't find me then
My head is in the oven (oh my head,
oh my head, oh my head)
My head is in the oven (oh my head, oh my
head, oh my head)
My head is in the oven (oh my head, oh my head, oh
my head)
My head is in the oven (oh my head, oh my head, oh my
head)"
kinda gives it away.
Remind me to post some of my lyrics about Sylvia Plath someday. Or maybe don't.
Well, I could just carry on and post all their songs and some of the live
performances too but there other people waiting for a turn. Another time, then. (Oh,
you can count on it...)
Cannonball - Dora Jar
As names go, Paige Turner is one thing but Dora Jar is something else altogether. Once again, it's a drag queen name, isn't it? Who else would want it? I mean, it could hardly be anyone's actual name, now could it?
Guess what? Ah, you're ahead of me. Well, it is, or at least it's a cut-down version of the name she was born with - Dora Jarkowski. You have to wonder about the parents, don't you?
I'd vaguely heard of her before but honestly that name had put me off going any further. I like a pun as much as the next English graduate but there are limits. Then this whole thing blew up about the Gracie Abrams tour and how some Gracie fans (I imagine they have a cute name for themselves but I don't know what it is.) wanted Dora off the support slot and it made me wonder what it was about her that was riling them up so much so I clicked through and...
I have no idea. Dora Jar makes charming bedroom pop. She's toured with The Neighborhood and Billie Eilish. She seems like a perfect fit. I still don't know what the fuss was about but she's on the tour and staying there. Gracie says so.
And thanks to the strange fans, who thought Dora was not famous enough to be a support act for a singer who was a support act for Billie Eilish, just like Dora was, a ton of people, me included, now know who she is, which as the more rational Abrams' fans point out is one of the key factors involved in booking support acts - to introduce them to a wider audience. Funny how things don't always turn out the way you planned, isn't it?
Bones - Telenova
As well as Sunday (1994) on hard repeat, I've been listening to quite a bit of Telenova. I liked the name so I clicked through when it came up as a suggestion and the opening verse sounded so much like Lana I'd have believed you if you'd told me it was one of her zillion unreleased gems.
On a closer listen, it's only when Angeline Armstrong sings in her
softer, lower register that she really sounds like Lana. The rest of the time
she sounds like what she is, a very polished, professional pop singer. Also an award-winning film-maker and published author, although you can't actually hear that in her voice. That's what Wikipedia is for.
Telenova is another trio. Maybe that's a trend. It'll make a change from the endless duos. They're Australian, which surprised me. Someone out of Death Cab For Cutie was involved at the start, somehow, but they're not in the band now. I thought for some reason they'd be Scandinavian or Eastern European. Perhaps it's the coldness of their sound. There's something bleak about it. Let's have another so you can hear what I mean.
Why Do I Keep You? - Telenova
I don't know. Maybe it's me but that's verging on darkwave, isn't it? Slow it down a little, bring the synths up...
Cowboy, Gangster, Politician - Goldie Boutlier
Speaking of Lana, which I almost always am, comment after comment in the YT thread for this one references Stevie Nicks and I get it but you can guess who I hear in the breathy bits.
It's just me now, isn't it?
Windows - girlpuppy
girlpuppy is a person not a band. Not sure about the capitalization. Like a lot of names these days it's inconsistent. I like all lowercase though so I'm going with that.
It's only just occurred to me that everyone in this post is blonde. Or wearing a blonde wig. I think Blondshell might have turned me.
Shall we have a change of pace? Well, hair color at least.
Plateau - Gal Musette
I thought smoking wasn't cool any more. You'd never know it from watching music videos. I tell you what, though. This has been a cracking set for images, hasn't it? Even if you don't much like the music, it's been a great watch.
If you like videos that look like film students' final-year projects from thirty or forty years ago, that is. Which, obviously, we all do.
I wonder if that's enough young women looking disheveled and singing plaintively for one post? Or dressing like movie stars from a lifetime ago. One or the other. Sometimes the two at once. Maybe I ought to up the pace for the final stretch. Let me see what I've got...
Bul Bul Bul - Kit Sebastian
That's more like it! Franco-Turkish jazz-pop from London in a video that looks like the musical interlude in some 1970s French talk show. Give the kids what they want, I say. Although I read that Gen-Z is really into jazz so maybe lose that ironic tone? It's so nineties, anyway. Irony, I mean. Not jazz. But then, aren't the kids all into the '90s these days too?
Oh, I'm so confused. It was so much simpler when I was a teenager in the 1970s
and half the pop stars dressed and acted like it was the 1950s...
Two more for a round dozen and we're done.
The Prize - Prima Queen
That bloody Glastonbury Emerging Talent thing has started up again. I sighed when I saw the press release because I suppose I'll at least have to skim the long-list for a post. It was great the first time, when it turned up people like Prima Queen but it gets harder and harder to dig anything interesting out of it. At least they're taking a fallow year in 2026, so there's that to look forward to.
Okay, what to end with? Majestic Japanese shoegaze over neon-drenched street scenes of Tokyo at night or an Australian duo with a Japanese-sounding name singing abut how great dogs are over a video of dogs being great?
Sod it. I can't choose. Let's have both!
Attic Ocean - Lilies and Sea
I Forget About Time - Salarymen
Not much to say about either of those. Or rather I could but I'm not going to
because we've all been here long enough. Until next time. That's all.
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