In Praise of Second Chances

We had this series at Sty­lus Mag­a­zine called “On Sec­ond Thought” and I’m por­ing over the archives tonight. Wish I could right­ly say how many bands I dis­missed sim­ply because Pitch­fork hyped them to the moon. Have you real­ly ever lis­tened to that band called Black Kids? You have?! Wild…

When that col­umn was­n’t ded­i­cat­ed to some mad­ness, like ele­vat­ing some sec­ond rate album to cult sta­tus, it was real­ly good. Right now I’m draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from that spir­it of re-dis­cov­ery and lis­ten­ing to Ted Leo with fresh ears. I only ever saw him play once and that was at teen­sy tiny Brown­ies on the LES. It was so loud I could­n’t prop­er­ly hear for a good three days. Went with friends who were wild for him. I was­n’t feel­ing it. Bought Tyran­ny of Dis­tance, lis­tened to it a few times and felt like it was too poppy.

It’s fun­ny how will­ing you are to lis­ten to stuff like Wolf Eyes and Burzum before you have a kid who’s bounc­ing off the walls and your atten­tion span flies out the win­dow. Now I crave thought­ful pop like nev­er before. Ted Leo’s sud­den­ly right in my wheel­house. Does­n’t hurt that the guy is one of the most good-natured indie rock guys out there, hav­ing fun with his brand of celebri­ty in videos like the one he did for “Bot­tled in Cork” above.