Golden Animals

Chuck Klosterman, in his heavy metal treatise Fargo Rock City, deconstructs the notion of the hippie. He deftly articulates the frustration we (and by ‘we’, I mean everyone born late enough to be at least a generation removed from the fucking “Summer of Love”) have with this group of babies.

“We changed the world,” they say. “We protested” they brag. “We single-handedly ended racism, the war in Vietnam, sexism, had mutiple-partner Love the One You’re With free sex, dropped LSD, smoked reefer, felt up strangers, gave anonymous blowjobs in the name of World Peace, all in the interest of making the World a better place. I wish YOU kids could do this, but well, I guess you are just to self –centered to do something for the greater good of people-kind, like we did when we were non-self-absorbed and totally fucking awesome. Only a dash of soymilk in my free trade coffee, please, Ms. Politically apathetic slacker. Oh, and a cheese strudel.”

All this to say that “hippie” is not a dirty word here on the West Coast, except perhaps in L.A. I’m still a stranger to all of this- I’m a born and bred Midwesterner, raised on corn and sausages and bitter winters, and I can’t get over how much California is exactly like you think it is. It is paradise, weather-wise. People are mellow and groovy, just like you would expect them to be. There is much skateboarding and surfing, the Op beachwear company – so complicit in defining coolness amongst 1980’s tweenagers who lived exactly 2,178 miles from the nearest ocean – still exists, and men wearing only shorts, roller skates, and an amplified electric guitar still do roll down the boardwalk on Venice Beach.

All this to say, I pegged Golden Animals as California hippies from the start, even though they don’t mention as such on the album. Still they really don’t need to – the beads, southwest chic and the hair-dos say it all.

For the uninitiated, Golden Animals are a boy/girl duo, like The White Stripes, only psychedelic. And they are clearly enamored with psychedelic ethic. The lead vocalist has that open-mouthed warbly baritone made popular by both Van and Jim Morrison, and the pseudo steel guitar licks further bolster this impression. Their approach to songwriting is certainly geared toward an overall aesthetic rather than technical prowess. It’s major blues progressions; howling, simple rock ‘n’ roll.

It’s a bit much, frankly. It certainly isn’t bad- if I saw them in a club, I’d probably enjoy myself, although the music would be more of a backdrop to drinking beers than anything else. Still, the problem with doing ‘period’ music is that you have to be really good at it if you want at all to sound as if you aren’t just nostalgic for your parents’ youth. All music is derivative, ever since the first caveman plucked a wooly mammoth tendon and liked the sound of it, but derivative is different than believing that the Summer of Love is a permanent condition. I do appreciate them for their balls forward approach to performance, but I want more substance. To be SSv self-referential, another review – and I have no idea which one, as there seem to be thousands – said something to the tune of having a friend criticize your favorite band by saying “all the songs sound the same”; such is the case with Golden Animals.

You need not take my word for it. I’m not typically apologetic when I dish out these reviews, as I’ve been playing music for, well, for long enough, never you mind how old I am, and I feel I’ve earned the right to be sort of self-satisfied and perhaps a touch smug in my critique. Still, as noted, the music isn’t awful by any stretch of the imagination. The ethereal “Follow Me Down” is moody and textured enough to garner interest. All in all, though, it’s time we recognized the ’60s are almost half a century removed, and I think it’s about time we moved on, don’t ya think?

Highlight Track: “Follow Me Down”

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