My Back Pages: 7/18/26
The Rolling Stones, Leonard Cohen, wool trousers
Welcome back to My Back Pages, a weekly digest recapping everything of note from the last seven days—pods, bylines, appearances, plus a few odds and ends.
Let’s get to it.
Pods of the Week
Main attraction this week: a very chill hang with Noah Lennox and Pete Kember—AKA Panda Bear and Sonic Boom—who just dropped their splendid new joint A ? OF WHEN. I tried to tamp down my inner AnCo nerd during the conversation (especially with a subject as laconic as Noah), but it still got the best of me when I brought up the 7” version of “Tomboy” and the buzzing hornet synth that Pete added to the album cut. If 16 year-old me knew that 34 year-old me would be rapping with these guys on a podcast, he would flip out.
I wrote a little bit about “Graveyard,” one of the best tracks on the record, last week—now hear from the dudes who made it.
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Over on Never Ending Stories, Steven Hyden and I ran down Foreign Tongues, the latest effort from the British bad boys themselves. It’s a refreshing change of pace for an octogenarian rock record: neither precious, nor nostalgic, nor fatalistic. Instead, Mick and co. clock into the rock songs factory and churn out another hour-plus of (relatively) Good Music.
Is it up to the level of Rough & Rowdy Ways? Not necessarily—but it isn’t trying to be, either. The Stones are doing it for the love of the game, plain and simple. Something admirable in that.
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Finally, we’re closing in on the conclusion of our Death Grips series on Jokermen. This week, we hit some odds and ends towards the back end of their discography: Fashion Week, Interview, Steroids (Crouching Tiger Hidden Gabber), and Gmail & The Restraining Orders. I can’t say any of these are my absolute favorite DG releases, but together they add some fascinating texture to one of the strongest bodies of work by a 21st century artist.
Chune of the Week
Leonard Cohen: “Democracy”
In a career of sardonic songs that walk the fine line between cruelty and sincerity, perhaps the most sardonic song, walking the finest line between cruelty and sincerity.
Implicit in the structure of the refrain—“Democracy is coming to the USA”—is the fact that the United States is not, at present, a democracy. That may be good thing, in this universe at least: “democracy,” whatever it means to Leonard Cohen circa 1992, seems as much a threat as a balm, coming as it does through a hole in the air, from the ashes of the gay, and on a visionary flood of alcohol. At the same time, there’s a minor note of hope here, as democracy also manages to seep in through a crack in the wall (that’s how the light gets in, remember). A study in contrasts. Black and white, good and evil, yin and yang—that kind of shit.
Also a major jam, one realized with all the finesse of an well-appointed recording studio at the end of history. The song is shellacked with a certain uncanny quality that could come off as corny if it weren’t so utterly guileless. In that way, “Democracy” (along with all the rest of The Future) slots in neatly alongside many other early Nineties favs, from Under The Red Sky to 11 Tracks of Whack to Mutineer. Unlike those records, however, The Future finds its author at the absolute peak of his powers. It doesn’t take any extra legwork to find your way in. It’s just plain-and-simple Good Music.
Will have much more to say about Mr. Cohen in the future (har-har). Stay tuned…
Fit of the Week
I wore this on Friday, July 10th to see my pal James Austin Johnson at Cobb’s in North Beach.
I spent most of last week hanging in basics, so I was looking forward to a chance to put on some damn clothes. Up top, I’m wearing a white OCBD beneath a James Coward Site Jacket in black gabardine. A favorite recent cop, the jacket has quickly become an integral component of my daily routine. It’s cut exactly the way a jacket should be: cropped body, drop shoulders, nice wide collar. Drapes beautifully thanks to the wool, which is just right for breezy San Francisco evenings. Works in just about any context too, whether I’m out running errands in jeans and a t-shirt or I’m getting done up to paint the town.
Here, I paired it with a pair of charcoal trousers (vintage Ralph from eBay, natch) inspired by a recent viewing of Single White Female, which features an absolutely delicious array of garments, including voluminous double-pleats like these. The key is the fabric—in this case, more wool. I already had a pair of Andrew chinos in the back of my armoire, but the thick cotton tends to be stiff, and it crease up throughout the day. No such issues with wool, which swishes with my gait in a clean, dramatic fashion.
Frankly, they could still be larger—both longer and wider in the leg. If there’s such as pants that are too large, I still haven’t found them. Still, they get the job done.