Julie Joyce's Commentary on Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

Lest anyone think that having two toddlers under four makes you insanely unhip, I would like to take this opportunity to say that you're right, for the most part. However, I've had long bangs and punk rock t-shirts since I was 10 so I think that I have been hip long enough that I should be allowed to have a few years of hibernation.

I have horrible memories of passing up chances to see The The and of being in Dublin right BEFORE The Pogues showed up. When my friend Gene begged (ok he asked but he isn't writing this is he?) me to go see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on their second gig in Carrboro, I felt like someone who had almost been run off the road by a great big truck, only to have her life spared as the driver gained control of his rig. I knew it was something I had to do, since they are truly the only band that I have heard in years that has gotten me out of the house after 7 pm.

OK well there were two instances where I saw my friend Kit Dean's band Scarlet Harlot but that was only about 100 yards from my house so it doesn't really count even though he did once serenade me with Squeeze selections while I was throwing up in his one and only bathroom during his college graduation party.

I actually had to be DRIVEN from Greensboro to Carrboro for the Clap Your Hands show. Please note that I would have actually driven myself if necessary. Gene has the closest musical taste to mine of anyone that I have ever even dreamed about so when he told me that I had to hear Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, I took it seriously. After giving me that gift, he could light a pile of dog poop and ring my doorbell and I wouldn't care (note to Gene: this is not something that I really think you should do.)

Since I have commented on the show already this whole semi-boring piece is about the album and what I think of it. I don't want to give the impression that I'm a musical snob, even though I routinely get called that plus other ugly things that a good Southern lady (please no laughing) like myself can't repeat while her mother is still breathing without aid of a machine.

There have been exactly two new bands that I have liked since 2000...Sparklehorse, a band that is so mind-blowingly brilliant that if I had the chance to see them in public I would most likely cry like one of those women they always pan to in a Duran Duran reunion show (note to these women: if you're going to see Duran Duran, put on some waterproof mascara or just skip it altogether), and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.

There are other lesser bands that are good, but no one has gotten to me the way Clap Your Hands Say Yeah has. My son loves hearing the opening track of the album in the minivan as we're driving to daycare, right before he requests The Ramones. Take note band members...even toddlers think you guys are amazing. Sure Mason is only three but he has fairly discriminating taste and he already has a good punk rock guitar stance. My husband says he's the Spider Stacy of daycare (Pogues reference here--Spider is always good for the shouting in a rowdy song.)

If you have not heard this album, get on the ball. Or let the ball get on top of you. However you can, you have to hear this album. It always kind of irritates me to read comparisons about bands and who they sound like, so I won't do that here. I don't think I could actually...when my neighbor asked me what they sounded like I had no words to describe them.

I can only say that when I first heard this album (and I listened to it all the way through, ignoring coworkers who came by asking about deadlines, and maybe even offering me chocolate, and I still do this every day except I have tried to be better about taking offered chocolate, especially when it's organic) I had that feeling that I had when Scout realized that Boo Radley had been the one to save her. I wanted others to hear them and I didn't want anyone else to know about them.

I do hope that everyone realizes what they've done with their music, however. Hopefully tonight I will have a lovely dream where Sparklehorse opens for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, or vice versa. In said dream I will be drinking a vanilla latte (or wearing a beer hat with two vanilla lattes in it) and dancing like the complete spazz that I am while my best friends Melinda (the stomper) and Gene (the chauffeur and dog poop lighter) aren't glaring at me and pulling out lengths of rope and rolls of duct tape. Since it's a dream and it's mine, I am then pulled onstage to either sing or play an instrument, neither of which I do well at all, and my vanilla lattes are refilled with caramel mocha ones.

Since I may have (MAY HAVE) mentioned in my other piece that this is a band full of cutie-pies, I will of course be blushing modestly but not stammering like a moron like I would in reality if they crossed my path. Well actually when the lead singer crossed my path at the show I didn't even stammer, I just kind of gaped open-mouthed like someone in a bad high school yearbook photo (you know, the one who is always "looking on"). Before Gene calls me to say "and you pointed!" I will say that yes, I may have in fact pointed, or gestured towards him in some way.

Before I end and before you fall into a stupor (that is, if you've gotten this far and if you have, then thanks and let me give a big shout out to a college professor who said I went on and on at length when I wrote), I need to add that Melinda (of the aforementioned stomping) noted that the lead singer has the cutest backside of any man she has ever seen. Not being one prone to noticing physical characteristics of anyone I will take her word for it. OK yes he does actually, but I take him very, very seriously in spite of this and I find it just distasteful that people demean him in this way. Melinda, really.

-- Posted 12 March 2006 (Julie Joyce)