Pick the Cat's Eyes Out

In college, everyone has a friend named "Jim." Mine had unruly hair, perpetually failed French, and confessed to being the lead singer in a garage rock band named Eat! He also played the Dead Milkmen's Beelzebubba on a loop during newspaper deadline nights.

Jim's place frequently sourced the kind of house party din ensnared on the opening to Dead Milkmen's "Bad Party": chats about required texts, beer on the carpet, standard college bullshit self-loathing manifesting itself in the form of lots of eye makeup and drunken hook-ups. Bad parties were a required part of your everyday 18-to-21 existence.

When I hear the house party din on "Metronomes" from Cassettes Won't Listen's new EP (Small-Time Machine), I can't deduct if it's one of the bad variety or otherwise; I merely believe Jason Drake is saying something about those "bedroom" artists who partake in a sort of pop solitaire, handling all the writing, instrumentation, recording, releasing, etc., related to their work. It's not really much of a statement, but the gist is that human interaction can be pretty swell, despite how detestable we generally are at stop signs and in line at banks and in crowded grocery stores. Not so much for the in-direct/direct effect on the creative process, but more for the way it can wash away that accumulating hermit's stink. Or how it can bring that unchecked ego of yours to its knees.

At Jim's bad parties, you could walk from one end of the place to the other upon the greasy heads of hipsters and never once touch the floor. I don't know if they would dig "Metronomes," however.