A Word With Jose Fritz

This week, another pick from Jose Fritz and his bin of obscurity finds him checking out The Airborne Toxic Event.

The Airborne Toxic Event has taken some crap in print because lead vocalist Mikel Jolet used to write for Filter Magazine. Heaven forbid someone who loves music and is literate start a band. The problem is when promoters start bands, not when writers start bands Jeez. I thought everyone knew that. Mikel also does a little time at the mic for NPR so you may recognize those Chris Connelly-like pipes. [RevCo not MTV]

They had a 7-inch out last year on Franz Ferdinand’s boutique label. If you forgot, “boutique label” is hipster code for things-we-like-but-expect-to-lose-money. I’d normally forget a random 7-inch after a year but this I remembered. I really liked the song “Papillion” and I picked it up because of the Steve McQueen movie of the same name.

This EP does not remind me of Steve McQueen. It reminds me of Michael Caine, small British cars and smaller British bands; in particular, Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. Even in Ned’s most blissful Britpop tunes, they sang about death, infidelity, loneliness and the dismemberment of family pets. A really polarized dichotomy like that is difficult to maintain without confronting absurdity or cuteness. Ned’s imploded. The Airborne Toxic Event appears to be courting cuteness.

But so did Modest Mouse and Franz Ferdinand as far as that goes and look where that got them. Start with the first single “Does This Mean You're Moving On” and go from there.

Video for "Does This Mean You're Moving On"


Buy: The Airborne Toxic Event EP [Here]