Download: TV Girl, ‘If You Want It’
Kevin Bronson on
4
It is with great trepidation, and perhaps one raised eyebrow, that I share the music of San Diego’s Trung Ngo and Brad Petering, a/k/a TV Girl – and not because chillwave and its assorted low-fi infections have become a pox on the land. On the duo’s first EP, they sample appropriate steal Todd Rundgren’s “Hello It’s Me,” and if you’re going to tread on that hallowed ground, you might want to try a little reverence, or at least more adroitness. The EP has a couple chugging numbers, “I Don’t Care” and the falsetto-smeared “On Land,” but the track that got them some attention (from Forkcast, naturally) just bums me out. Write your own song and call me in the morning.
||| Download: “If You Want It”
[audio:http://www.futuresounds.com/rumble/audio/0211/ifyouwantit.mp3]||| Live: TV Girl makes its L.A. debut on Thursday at the Rumble at the Echoplex, playing with Hands and Letting Up Despite Great Faults.
||| Also: More on Hands. More on Letting Up.
You’re soo out of touch with “true” indie rock.
guilty as charged.
I agree completely Kevin. Creative appropriation is one thing, and even stealing is fun when it results in new and possibly equally interesting work. I won’t tar all of “indie” with the same brush, but just say that this use of “Hello It’s Me” doesn’t add context to the sample and frankly seems like poseur lo-fi. I hate dissing anything that someone took time to “create” but maybe, as you say, they could have taken more of that time to create something original. Hot Chip and Neon Indian both took their Todd Rundgren samples to new places, it CAN be done.
Paul Myers
Author “A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren In The Studio” (out now from Jawbone Press)
It should be, “Hello, It’s NOT me.”