Description
I heard secondhand that someone called this band “Odwalla 88 for boys.” This is a very funny idea but also a helpful one. There is a shared voraciousness of ideas, the possibility of talking about ANYTHING in a song, erasing public/private split, the generosity but ultimately opacity of putting a deep, mind-meld friendship in front of other people. “Sample what I wanna sample.” But the “for boys” qualifier is also critical here. Where Odwalla is furious, rash, redemptive, Think Differently has a freewheeling sound, a hang-out-and-cut-loose frivolity. The music is all ease—Smash Mouth not Skinned Teen, Sugar Ray not Su Tissue. Of course Callahan & Witscher’s lyrics have no ease whatsoever, just stress and exhaustion and self-examination. This tension is compelling to me. We are all difficult music people here I think? And it’s funny to me that we’re all probably used to stress and exhaustion and self-examination in a song, probably drawn to it. But we’re all equally put off by the groove and smarm of this music. Does that make this difficult music? I imagine there are more people in the world that like 311 but wouldn’t care for the lyrics on Think Differently than people who understand the references to Boiler Room or know who Mark Morgan is but hate this kind of post-grunge American hard rock. I’d even bet there are more people who don’t like 311 AND don’t want to hear a song about midwest noise shows than there are people who do like poolside party rock and care about the nuance of DIY virtue signaling. But maybe Think Differently reveals the horseshoe theory’s truth, at least in music.
Released 2025 by Post Present Medium
Black vinyl, edition of 500 copies, with poster insert
