They Won’t Be Coming Back…

When the weather gets too hot to do much of anything, I turn to the music of Midwestern postpunk dudes the Embarrassment. Not sure why — I guess songs like “Don Juan,” “Art Party,” “Drive Me To The Park,” and “Sex Drive” are just perfect little songs that remind me of suburban air conditioned living? I grew up in Miami, FL and humid heat just makes me want to crank the A/C, watch cable, and consume Pringles and Diet Coke. That’s just what my people do — we’re not proud of it, but it is tradition…

I recently found this series of excellent, high quality videos on YouTube of the Embarrassment (who have one of the maybe top twenty best band names ever) playing in the corner of some party-bar in Wichita, KS in 1981. It’s so rad how unapologetically nerdy and stiff they look yet how totally they kick ass at the same time. This really was one of the great things about the New Wave/ punk era — the extent to which it was cool to look entirely uncomfortable onstage. So if you like nerds and ass-kicking, this might be your next favorite (old) band. This song here, “D-Rings,” about the Space Shuttle disaster, can most easily be found on a collection called Heyday.

—DJ Yeti