Austin Sound

So this is what happens when you mix Free Drugs and Hippies? Yikes, this is some slummin’ Harlem afterparty action here, and apparently the local trio takes the line “Someday soon you’ll be on fire, And you’ll ask me for a glass of water. I’ll say ‘no, You can just let that shit burn’” quite seriously. These firecracker shenanigans should get everyone in the mood for the 4th of July, but remember it’s all fun and games until Coomers takes a bottle rocket to the crotch. “Someday Soon” is of course off of Harlem’s recently released debut for Matador, Hippies. Unlike the previous video for “Gay Human Bones,” this one is a little more, um, grainy? It was “directed” by Aaron Brown and Ben Chappell, and we put that in quotation marks, because really, how much direction was there on this? We love imagining one of these guys sitting in a director’s chair yelling, “Cut Cut Cut!!! This is all wrong - I’m just not feeling the level of hipster jackass-ery that we’re going for here!” Harlem is currently on the road touring all across the states, and also have a slew of dates lined up with the Dead Weather in July. Not a bad gig, boys. Try not to kill yourselves. Video below:

In our review of Harlem’s kickass sophomore album, Hippies, we said that “Gay Human Bones” was “nearly indecipherable in its vocals and meaning.” Well, this video certainly clears things up, if by “clears things up” we mean just confuses the hell out of us even more. We’re pretty sure the lyrics to the chorus are “My basketball team’s name is gay human bones, we win most of the games we play at my home?” What? Seriously, somebody help us out here. The video is pretty awesome, we guess, if you like John Waters and all. We feel like how Michael Coomers and Curtis O’Mara’s parents must feel about their band: We just nod and tell them it’s good and we support them while pretending to know what the hell they’re talking about. We’re very proud. But we also just tell our neighbors that the boys are off fighting in the war. Or in prison. Things are just easier that way. Anyway, Harlem had their release show for Hippies last Thursday, and the album is officially out tomorrow on Matador. Ole!

Harlem is a band that almost dares you to take them seriously. Their live shows are riddled with a stoned and unruly disaffection, hilarious insults leveraged at the audience and themselves, and an at times chaotic ravaging of the stage. And while their music is rock solid, loaded with infectious hooks and an impressive retro garage-pop bounce, it’s as if the Austin trio wants to draw you in only to frustrate any of those expectations. It may be a well-crafted and calculated approach, designed to loosen the audience from hipster stoicism and revel in their abandon. Yet no matter how great Harlem’s songs are (and Hippies is indeed packed with fantastic songs), the band seems determined to undermine any essential timelessness of their sound. Harlem is incredibly talented, tight, and smart, but damned if they’re going to let you think that they care about any of those things.

So last week Matador gave the world a taste of what they’ve been cooking up with Harlem, releasing an mp3 into the wild from their new album, Hippies. It’s good, but you knew this already. Our question is, exactly what is Harlem trying to say with this title? First there was Free Drugs, which we’re pretty sure just about anyone can get behind. But now their new album is called Hippies? That’s ironic, right? They put the title in quotation marks, so that means they’re not serious, according to our meta dictionary. But supposedly even Free Drugs wasn’t “about drugs drugs” (What?). Between the winking emoticons and quotation marks, Harlem (not from Harlem!) has more misdirection than Snoop’s GPS. Also, another song about Casper. Because that’s what the world needed. “Hippies” hits on April 6, so plenty of time to stock up on patulli. Harlem will also be playing the Mohawk this Thursday, Dec. 17, with Crystal Antlers. Hopefully nobody gets punched.