The Soft Pack, “Answer To Yourself” MP3
- story Peter Macia
- photo Robert Yager (F58)
When we stopped by for some Studio Time with The Soft Pack in New York recently, they still had no title for their new album but seemed in pretty good spirits and sang a little of what’s to come. But today brings the official first listen to the fruits of their labor with producer Eli Janney in the form of new single “Answer To Yourself.” They apparently thought our interview was awkward, so we’ll be “Talking To Ourselves” for the rest of the day. 
Great song though, dudes.
Download: The Soft Pack, “Answer To Yourself” (via NME)
Dubious Decisions Department: The Muslims Change Their Name To The Soft Pack
- story THE FADER
In a confounding move that will go down in history forever (read: some blogs will talk about it briefly), The Muslims have changed their band name to The Soft Pack. Presumably, this is because suddenly a bunch of white dudes calling themselves The Muslims doesn’t seem like such a good idea, but we’re going to go ahead and say the change is the bad idea, especially since “soft pack” reminds us of shitty tasting cookies. We say change it back, and in tribute we are web-publishing our Gen F on THE MUSLIMS from FADER 58, on stands now.
Update: As has been pointed out to us by salty Nikkos, white dudes can be Muslims, too. Good point, but can San Diegans be Muslims?? Heh?
CMJ Elsewheres: The Muslims & The Browns at Cake Shop
- story THE FADER
We are, of course, throwing our own CMJ party known as The Levi’s®/FADER Fort NYC, but we also keep the fire lit long after we are done at our space. All week long we’ll be covering everything we manage to see via our intrepid edit staff.
Often, New York shows can be sober affairs with more head bobbing and light swaying than actual dancing. But at Cake Shop last night, the whole premise was flipped on its head. The Browns and The Muslims turned a small New York space into a dance party. The Browns kicked it off with Violent Femmes-like brattiness, and even though it was already a quarter after 1am, the crowd was packed, with just enough room to dance. By the time The Muslims hit the stage it was close to 2am, but the audience and band were on the same wavelength—the band was full of tight hooks and a willingness to end on a high note with a perfectly short set. I wasn’t too familiar with the Muslims before the show, but their songs felt ageless, like they were pop hits waiting to be DJed all over New York. In a sea of progressive, increasingly lo-fi CMJ Bands the crowd was more than happy to dance to a rhythm they could recognize.
Audio/Video: The Muslims Have A New Seven Inch
- story THE FADER
Is it weird to like something that reminds us of taking a shot full of cigarette butts and whiskey? Not that we’ve done that, but The Muslims‘ blurry, disaffected rock reminds us of New York rock when the The Strokes were the biggest band ever, and also Spacemen 3 minus the reverb and plus a bunch of dirt. Not coincidentally, there is also a cover of Spacemen 3’s “Walking With Jesus” on the flip side of their “Parasites”/”Walking with Jesus” 7-inch, out October 7th on I Hate Rock N’ Roll. Also, watch the video above if you are into watching bands that look really bored with being on stage, which is something we actually enjoy.
Stream: The Muslims, “Parasites”/”Walking with Jesus” 7-inch
Video: The Muslims, “Parasites” (Live in LA)
- story THE FADER
FADERblog reader and videographer Felipe Lima recently sent us this nice looking black and white clip of The Muslims live at the Echo in LA. In it they play a new song and the lead singer fella kind of reminds us of Jim Morrison before he got fat and grew a beard (the good years). Maybe some enterprising young filmmaker can get Val Kilmer to star in a Vimeo biopic of this dude. You know he once said when he was filming The Doors that he was more Jim Morrison than Jim Morrison was? That’s heroically preposterous, and we’d like to see him bring that spirit to three-minute viral videos.
NYC: Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, Wild Yaks, Suckers + The Muslims
- story THE FADER
We’re still debating whether it’s sad or really exciting that a concert has come along where we actually want to see every act on the bill. We saw Suckers open for Ladyhawk awhile back and only really knew about them because Quinn Walker, who is in the band, had a solo double album where the cover was a dude vomiting rainbows or at least looking like the type of guy who would vomit rainbows. Other than that, you know how we feel about Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson—we put him on the back cover of our Summer Music issue and have been playing his album pretty much every night since we almost overlooked it when it came through the mail chute. And Wild Yaks, what haven’t we said about Wild Yaks? Actually a lot. One of the dudes works at a shoe store and they aren’t annoying about having a saxophone, which should be a selling point on its own. Lucky for them (and us) they also create epic sing-alongs and sound great live. You can listen to some of their live recordings on their MySpace. Finally, The Muslims—who we have only posted about when making lists of all the bands performing at festivals—are also playing. Because they are also good but we haven’t given them much attention, listen to and download “Beside Myself” below. There’s a bunch more for the downloading at their MySpace. Hit up Union Pool tonight to catch all of these bands and check out the pretty ugly but kinda awesome flyer after the jump.
Download: The Muslims, “Beside Myself”
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posted on Jun 20, 2008 in MP3 / STREAMS tags freeload, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, rock, Suckers, The Muslims, Wild Yaks
