Lisa Whiteman keeps a blog. I discovered it on May 12, 2003, and I have enjoyed it everyday since. How many days is that?
Lisa is certainly one of my favorite writers of all time—perhaps my very favorite—right up there with Walt Whitman, Ernest Hemingway, and Art Dudley.
In a recent e-mail, Lisa asked if I’d heard the band
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah.
"I’ve been trying not to," I responded, "but it’s getting kind of hard."
I have something against bands with long, action verb names. There’s a thing going around, it seems, these days. And when I catch onto something that seems like a trend—especially in music—I tend to run away. I miss out on a lot of things, but I imagine I also save a lot of time, energy, and money. Like with fashion, I want to know that whatever I’m buying into will last me through the next season, at least. There are way too many pairs of ugly jeans out there. I gather the same holds true for audio components. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but it seems there are also trends in high-end audio that shouldn't simply be
blindly followed.
But Lisa told me not to be scared away by the name. She said I should give them a chance. And so, I’ve been listening to them this morning.
Well, I liked it. Immediately. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah isn’t like an old pair of Levi’s that you’ve worn for years, that have gone with you on trips across the street and trips across the ocean, that have changed with you over time. But maybe they’re like a pair of
Club Monacos that are already perfectly broken-in, with a great new vintage wash.
This metaphor sucks. And so does their name. But the music is good. Will I be listening to them next season? I don’t know. Probably not. But they were good for this morning.
Thanks.
Their website is
really nice, too, by the way.
