Why?

are my new favorite band. Maybe i should've said, "is my new favorite band." People actually debate this on the internet. But since there are three contributing musicians, i went with 'are.'

Anyway, hailing from Oakland, they're now officially a 3 piece who tours as a 4 piece. The guy on the left is Jonathan 'Yoni' Wolf (originally from Berkeley), who is the songwriter and lead singer of the group. His brother, Josiah Wolf, is on the right, and he plays drums and various other instruments. Sometimes he plays the xylophone and the drums at the same time. Wowzers. Stop it Inspector Gadget, this is my blog. Anyway, Yoni's lyrics can be very introspective and personal, and are almost always open for interpretation. Their music, complete with glockenspiels, vibes, pianos, organs and guitars, is a perfectly layered match for his lyrical quirkiness. Their genre placement would most easily fall somewhere between indie and hip hop. I suppose then, that its also worth noting that they're on the experimental hip-hop record label, Anticon. The band's newest album, Alopecia, came out earlier this year, and i'd be hard pressed to recommend anything better.

Here's a video of them performing an as of yet unreleased new song, Eskimo Snow:



All of my words for sadness
Like eskimo snow on unmanned crosses all
Planted in threes in a field for living trees
are hummed as prayers in secret
then sung through speakers in rooms for people to hear it
Even when I'm wasted and numb
With the words for good wine on a philistine's tongue

And I'm under something black
and thicker than a sheet for ghosts
in the first beat of snow
That old cloud's you
On the crosses on the chests of dead soldiers in a field
and I'm still here
Bearing my watery fruits if fruits at all
And I'm still here
Barely understanding what truth that rarely calls

www.myspace.com/whyanticon

Oh, and here i am with them, at their Solar Culture show.

Yoni's tongue looks like its approaching my beard. I'm clutching a paper sack enclosing an oil can of Fosters. Classy. Josiah is workin it with that sweet, sweet Jewfro. Also classy.