The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Every Tuesday, the Sounding Board is a space for a short-ish review of a recent-ish release and conversations about new-to-you music. We’ll get things started with a write-up about a newer, likely underheard album, and invite you to share your music musings in the comments.
While listening to Wine Lips’ entertaining new long-player, TV Dinner,1 I couldn’t help but think of Lisa Simpson.
Nearly every surface detail of the latest from the Toronto garage-punk veterans belies an overt connection to the brainiest member of Springfield’s first family, but they are nonetheless kindred spirits.
TV Dinner is a 13-song punk-rock wallop featuring bright, powerful guitar, sneering vocals and paced by pummeling drums. Its album art is an oddball, psychedelic tableau by Sammy Jones that’s heavy on bloodshot eyes and, in part, depicts a warped humanoid watching television. It’s a colorful and jagged scene that feels equal parts Ed Roth and James Rizzi. The album is outwardly simple, snotty, ostentatious, energetic and under the influence in a way that’s directly at odds with the 8-year-old would-be grammar rodeo participant – at least when she’s not crowning herself the Lizard Queen or instructing arcade onlookers to embrace nothingness.
However, like in the all-time great episode “Summer of 4 Ft. 2,” all the outward edge barely obscures a studious, well-intentioned core and reflects an indelible spirit. TV Dinner is a decades-spanning mélange of punk, garage and psych rock influences that could only be made by self-aware genre connoisseurs with a solid understanding of how to repurpose borrowed parts to make music that plays to the band’s strengths. It’s an approach that emulates legends and picks up redeeming qualities out of the gutter.
Glue-sniffing lyrics recall the Ramones while critiques of performative masculinity scan as indebted to “Very Ape.” Lead singer and guitarist Cam Hilborn’s petulant yowl brings the Hives’ Pelle Almqvist to mind – the point of reference switches to Bratmobile when drummer Aurora Evans takes over on mic. The hard-charging music evokes everything from respected contemporaries like Ty Segall (specifically, in Ty Segall Band form),2 John Dwyer, Tim Presley; to recent entertaining lightweights like Fidlar and Surfbort; to 1990s mall punk staples like Against the Grain-era Bad Religion and Smash-era the Offspring.3 It’s ticked-off, petulant and fast-paced.
It’s a simple-but-effective approach that shows Wine Lips understands who they are and cares about their craft. It makes TV Dinner a consistently invigorating, if unspectacular and broadly familiar, listen. A growled recitation during “Giant Man Baby” and moody curtain call, “Static On the Radio,” are basically the only moments Wine Lips ease up on the gas. Anyone with room in their heart and playlists for some fast-moving garage-punk is bound to be at least a little charmed.
That pedal-to-the-metal sound and spirit is fully in line with past Wine Lips releases. TV Dinner sounds a smidge sharper than 2021’s Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party and 2024’s Super Mega Ultra, but it is not a mid-career sea change in terms of approach or fidelity. Wine Lips might have a half-dozen reasonable comparators on any given song, but they are who they are.
It makes sense that Wine Lips would stay true to themselves. After all, they are Lisa Simpson.
About the writer
Ben Hohenstatt
Ben Hohenstatt is an Alaska-based dog owner who moonlights as a music writer and photographer.
For more information, consult your local library or with parental permission visit his website.
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The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
The Sounding Board
A weekly column where New Music Tuesdays live on. Conversation is encouraged in the comments.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
Superstore, Season Two, Episode Two, “Strike”
“Yeah! She’s a fart noise!”
I enjoy them having Dina do something sincerely unsympathetic (or possibly, I’m just that much of a leftist).
“Doesn’t matter what we call it.”
“Cool! Then we’ll call it a strike.”
“I’m Jeff Dutton, I’m district manager.”
“Can I see some ID?”
“How many do you want? Hundred? I could for sure do seven.”
“Your boos fuel me.”
“I want Cloud 9 to be closer to my home.”
“I’m not saying anything, I’m just doing this to intimidate him. Nod your head like you’re agreeing.”
“I’d sooner slit my throat and Jeff’s throat before I allow that.”
The pacing has already picked up for this season. Like Jonah suddenly wearing his stupid hat.
“As Dr Martin Luthor King once said–”
“Nope! Nope!”
“We don’t wanna trample on anybody’s rights.”
“Ooh, but that sounds good.”
“Well I’m having a good day. I’m having a very good day.”
“Why isn’t there a setting that hurts people?”
“I knew there had to be a catch. I just hoped it would be something I could live with, like she was real stupid or something.”
“Attention Cloud 9 shoppers, the spider infestation in the produce section has been eighty percent contained.”
“I don’t know about youse guys, but this broads making some good sense.”
“He just has an air of authority about him.”
“I’m the black guy in the wheelchair, I’ll decide who the bigot is.”
“I’ll have sex with her. Probably six times.”
Random note that I like how Garrett is in a wheelchair and there isn’t a very special episode about it; the impression is that he’d be a slacker even if he wasn’t disabled.
Kind of funny that what material people are going to make a Very Special Episode out of has changed. Most interesting element of Superstore is its taste in plots.
Live Music – Pulp in a big field in Manchester. It rained all day and then miraculously cleared up for the gig itself, amazing stuff. When I saw them last year they had no support and just played two long sets which was amazing – this time they had a couple of other acts on the bill and played a shorter headline set as a result, still great but I guess it didn’t have the magic of the last time, when it my first time seeing them in 20+ years. Still a very good time, and the support I did catch – Self-Esteem – was brilliant, I haven’t fully clicked with her albums but the live show is something else.
We Live By Night – I’m not sure I’ll ever fully get on with James Gray, a director who seems intent on doing “elevated”, less fun takes on genre stuff. But this has quite a bit going for it, including a great rainy car chase. The 80s nightclub vibes and themes reminded me of Scarface which made me wish this had leaned into more De Palma-esque sleaze rather than being so in thrall to The Godfather etc.
Phantom Thread – I wondered if this rewatch would elevate this to my favourite PTA movie but while I love it very much indeed, I think there’s just something magical about Punch-Drunk Love and Inherent Vice that I can’t resist. This is so good though, an absolutely fascinating character study with Lesley Manville absolutely on fire in support (she should absolutely have won an Oscar for this).
Bitter Christmas – the new Almodovar film has a lot in common with Pain and Glory, which I think is one of his best. But the self-examination here just never really grabbed me, the characters feel a little flat and the interesting structure never quite came together. Still gorgeous to look at, as usual, but a bit of a disappointment otherwise.
Seinfeld, Season 9 – speaking of interesting structures, “The Betrayal” does a story-told-in-reverse thing that is clever but not always THAT funny. I generally love it when sitcoms break the format for an episode but I didn’t think this one quite worked, even if it still has some great stuff in it. “The Apology” reverted to season 9 form of being pretty zany and everyone being awful, to mostly solid effect. Kramer’s plot about his shower routine was excellently insane and Elaine / Puddy continue to be a very funny pair.
Woo, live music and a band I’ve seen!
“Because it hurts my ears” and “Don’t pick a fight with me, dear, you won’t come out alive.” The casual, cheerful way Manville tosses this last one off is ownage personified.
“The Betrayal” was probably a bit funnier to audiences when it was parodying the Harold Pinter play and film, but I don’t remember it being a laugh riot. Too much concept maybe.
Woooooo live music!
Also, I think you’re conflating Gray’s We Own the Night with Ben Affleck’s Live by Night, or Nicholas Ray’s They Live by Night.
You’re absolutely right! Whoops
Elementary, “Folie a Deux” – The fifth season starts with the return of the “Bensonhurst Bomber,” only now he’s striking in Flushing. There are some interesting bits here, but the overall premise that someone was randomly planting bombs in Brooklyn in 2010 and that the full force of the NYPD and the Feds would not have caught him does not work. Nor does the lack of any motivation for the original bombings and the sudden presence of money as motivation in 2016 work. This is a rare instance of a show that usually understands how NYC works not appreciating just what sorts of scars 9/11 left when it comes to random acts of violence, even not related to political terrorism. Also, a key scene is filmed in Astoria and labelled as Flushing. Why not just have the plot take place in Astoria. Meanwhile, Joan realizes that she misses directly helping people, as opposed to just handing out punishment. I wonder where this is going to lead, if anywhere.
The Twilight Zone, “The Last Flight” – Our first of many forays into time travel, reasonably well done if not quite a profound as it wanted to be. The human elements are what save it. More to come.
Barney Miller, “Discovery” – The gay pursesnatch from season one returns with a friend to report that a detective is threatening to arrest gay men for morals charges if they don’t pay up. And a man is brought in after seeming to threaten to jump from Washington Square Arch, but he denies he was suicidal. Plus Fish discovers the payroll office thinks he’s dead (ironically foreshadowing the reports of Abe Vigoda’s death in the 90s). The handling of the gay characters is a bit wobbly – both are about as fey as possible, but their complaint is taken seriously, and the cop who catches the shakedown arrest is apparently gay as well but not at all fey, so maybe this is progress. How Barney handles the possibly suicidal man, however, is mature and gives the man dignity.
Utopia S1E3 – Jessica Hyde becomes more interesting and weird once she meets Grant, and the same with her foil Arby (played by the lead of Kill List who is even stranger here, to the extent that his cover identity in one scene seems totally implausible). The visuals and color grading are genuinely beautiful here much like Hannibal except influenced by Danny Boyle and Nicholas Roeg. House of Cards really fucked things up for TV here.
Curb Your Enthusiasm, “Jesus Mary and Joseph”. I am a WASP and come to Larry’s distaste for Christmas culture from the other side even if I’ve mellowed out.* If you’re Jewish, it must be really annoying to have a holiday “insist upon itself” this much. One of the show’s all-time best gags might be Larry eating the manger cookies. “I thought it was a zoo!”
*I mainly don’t wanna hear the music ever again.
What did we listen to?
It took the Blank Check crew about five minutes to tangent from “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” to the sitcom it inspired – a sitcom no one doing the talking has ever seen! – and another ten to spend way too much talking ahout Hootie and the Blowfish. The former i can at least justify. The latter was interminable. But I put up with it because I want to hear what they have to say about the movie. And 2 1/2 hours on this movie is a lot more appealing than 4 hours about Taxi Driver (a movie I have no desire to see regardless of how much of a classic it might be).
I noticed that they do include a time-stamp in the show notes now if you want to jump to the actual movie discussion.
1001 Albums, etc.
Red Hot Chilli Peppers – Blood Sugar Sex Magik: not a band I particularly care for, but (like Jane’s Addiction) they do occasionally throw in one song that I really like to confuse matters. In RHCP’s case it tends to be the mellower songs that win me over a bit, maybe because those ones are less likely to feature Anthony Kiedis rapping about his dick.
Ice-T – O.G. Original Gangster: kinda fun how this skips between a lot of short tracks for much of the running time, although the general vibe doesn’t appeal to me as much of some of the other early-90s hip-hop that has made up much of the recent list.
Mudhoney – Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge: I’m generally more into Mudhoney’s high-energy take on grunge than the mopiness of Pearl Jam etc. but they still don’t totally do it for me. Fuzz Gun ’91 is a fun track though.
Public Enemy – Apocalypse 91…The Enemy Strikes Black: this is pretty great on its own merits but another example of the book getting a bit hung up on certain artists, I don’t think this one really offers that much that the previous two didn’t (aside from an Anthrax collaboration, of course) and I’m sure there are other important hip-hop artists who aren’t represented at all.
A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory: a second appearance from these guys and again, solidly enjoyable but a bit samey.
Pearl Jam – Ten: as teased above, I think Pearl Jam are fucking awful. Wretched, miserable music with awful production and very little to redeem it. Glad this is their only appearance here.
Saint Etienne – Foxbase Alpha: I quite like some later stuff by Saint Etienne but this one feels a little cold somehow, maybe just the production or the era but I want a bit more dreaminess in their music.
—
Screen Drafts, Greek Mythology – some wild picks here, I’m gonna have to check out one of the Mihalis Kakogiannis films that they couldn’t stop raving about.
Blank Check, Taxi Driver – I still have two hours to go on this but I’m enjoying the discussion, Tracy Letts is the kind of guest who can get right onto their nerdy level – great in-depth Oscar chat early on – and the running gag about Rocky IV is making me laugh.
EEEEE-HENNNN FLO-HOOOOO
I’m not a big fan of Pearl Jam but I enjoy the hits and their general vibe overall. That said, as a hater in general I love what you’re doing here, top notch stuff. I will suggest that when you’re done with Seinfeld you can move onto Frasier, which might give you a better appreciation of PEARL JAM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl1vN-3jiT4
Blank Check, Taxi Driver was really fun.
Have been thinking about performing this song live/learning to sing it live, but one problem is I keep bursting into tears while listening. A lot of my thoughts are wrapped around climate anxiety and grief so I think the song’s questions, it’s need to take things into stock, are similar to my own: “Is it endless and empty and you wander on your own?/Slowly forget about the folks that you’ve known?/Or does risin’ bread fill up the air/From open kitchens everywhere?/Familiar faces far as you can see/Like a family?” This is the best performance I’ve heard Jeremy Jordan give as a singer, transcending the American Idol-isms and getting into deep, rich emotion.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5mb8vlaYlI&pp=ygUcamVyZW15IGpvcmRhbiBob3cgZ2xvcnkgZ29lcw%3D%3D
Year of the Month updates:
This September, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1937.
Sept. 4th: Gillian Nelson: Moose Hunters
Sept. 6th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Lenin in October
Sept. 18th: Gillian Nelson: Pluto’s Quin-pup-lets
Sept. 20th: Tristan J. Nankervis: The Hobbit
Sept. 22nd: Lauren James: Stage Door
Sept. 25th: Gillian Nelson: Donald’s Ostrich
Here’s how we’re wrapping up August:
Aug. 28th: Gillian Nelson: Walt Disney Treasures
And here’s all the movies, albums, books from 1998 you can sign up for this October!
*incoherent sputtering* Against The Grain, mall-punk?! It is So-Cal punk for sure, still very speedy but more melodic than hardcore but not as much as imitators like Pennywise would get, but mall punk to me is in production — far more polished and shiny than Brett Guerewitz was doing in 1990. You can make the case for The Offspring I think, those are some big hooks (Bad Religion flirts with it on Stranger Than Fiction perhaps), but it’s Blink-182 and followers that really build the sound and genre. In any case, Against The Grain kicks ass and is very much worth a revisit! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkWZ0JAPhas
I love the impassioned defense of Bad Religion. No slight intended.
I think they’re a clear cut above a bunch of the bands that you would paint with the Mall Punk brush, but I think they were very much icons of that scene and benefitted from that veneration.
Similarly, bands like Social Distortion and Bouncing Souls sold a lot of T-shirts during the pop-punk peak despite doing their own, respectable, and enjoyable things for a while before that wave was forming, let alone cresting.
If a band got a song on a Guitar Hero soundtrack, had T-shirts in Hot Topic, and played Warped Tour, I think they’re important to the Mall Punk scene, even if their music is different from or better than its surroundings.