My Teenage Stride –
Creep Academy b/w Cast Your Own Shadow
(Flea Circus)

More bloody indie rock for you. I know you love it really.

Blind-buying a record with an awesome/WTF cover such as this one, photocopied on folded green paper by a tiny, untested label (Flea Circus – “itching to please you” says their logo!) is clearly a gamble. I mean, I laughed and threw it in the 'buy pile' as soon as I saw it. Wouldn’t you? But at the same time, I realise there’s maybe a one in four chance this’ll be the best band I’ve heard in my life; otherwise, chances are I’m treading into “let us never speak of it again” territory. A “Drink Up Buttercup situation”, as we like to call it round here… or at least we would if I ever talked out loud to anyone about this crap.

Upon further examination, I was disappointed to learn that “My Teenage Stride” is the band, and “Creep Academy” is the song. That’s not the way round I would have done it.

But do I win? Well… it’s a close call, but I’m gonna go with YES. Not that this is thee best new band I’ve heard, like, today or whatever, but that’s ok - I don’t think they’re trying to be. Not a mindblower, but My Teenage Stride (god, that name) do jaunty, agreeable sorta business that people with even the slightest investment in nerdy, white-boy American guitar music would be hard-pressed to hate.

“Creep Academy” is the livelier, more insistent number here, and, oddly, the one I don’t really get on with. ‘S ok, but indistinguishable form any number of sloppy, college town home recordists circa ’94-’96 really. Nice but undistinguished. If there’s a shiny hook in there somewhere, they’re careful not to tread on it.

“Cast Your Own Shadow” is the real doozy - a sweet, unforced hug of a song that resets the clock on all my jaded, cultural context-bound griping. Sounding like a bit more of a one-man effort, a ‘Son of a Gun’ thump and shimmery ascending keyboard riff help frame a lovably hesitant vocal that does it’s best to hit all the right notes in an I-hope-nobody’s-listening sort of way. The title’s allusion to Beat Happening seems entirely appropriate, more emotionally-speaking than musically, as My Teenage Stride evoke memories of a long gone golden age of wistful, big-hearted lo-fi self expression – kinda like Grant’s songs, or like Tommy Jay, or Julie Doiron, or probably an endless amount of secret stuff we’ve not heard, sitting quietly in cupboards or on harddrives, because it’s makers never felt the need to shout or make a fuss about it.

Actually though, music-wise, this sounds more like The Pains OBPAH than anything - uncannily so in fact, although I’m sure it’s not deliberate. Song construction, keyboard tone, rhythm, general feeling – these bands are drinking of the same well. Like, imagine if you suddenly discovered the Pains had home-recorded rough demos of all their tunes with a whole lot of heart and quirk, and you subsequently never felt the need to play their studio output again..? This song sounds kinda like that. It’s a GREAT song. My faith in men with glasses singing to themselves in sheds and hoping nobody can hear is hereby renewed.

http://www.myspace.com/myteenagestride
http://myspace.com/fleacircusrecords

Labels: My Teenage Stride, singles reviews