A two-foot blanket of bright white snow is probably one of the best things that can happen to this here Big Apple, especially when it takes us New Yorkers by surprise. Whether we are gainfully employed or freelancing on food stamps, we all get a good excuse to step away from the computer for a minute, frolic in the snow, and relive the wide-eyed rapture of our first remembered “snow day.” (Editors note: If you weren’t here to experience the big whopper that hit the Tri-State this week, listening to Real Estate’s “Snow Days” will probably do the trick). Something I’ve noticed about Brooklynites in particular is that rather than retreat into their private bunkers during inclement weather, they tend to descend upon the cafés, eager to wile away the entire afternoon gripping aromatic brews and catching up with the folks in the neighborhood. Maybe it’s just the herd instinct kicking in, but I really think that unusual natural phenomena have a way of making us crave real-time interaction with real human beings. Avatars just aren’t enough.
Flash forward to the day after the storm, however, and you get a whole different story: the plows have cleared out the streets, the snow that remains is already black with soot, and when you return to the café all you see is a couple regulars with laptops. That fellow music blogger that you spy from time to time sits down at the table next to you without a word, but you notice his status update before you notice him. Business as usual; a good slogan for Cho’s Variety, another regular tells me, would probably be “Where Every Day is Like Yesterday.”
And then it hits you: not your second caffeine rush of the day, but the kind of pick-me-up you can only experience when somebody tells you exactly what you’ve been needing to hear. “Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World,” the first two “episodes” of which I am reposting below, is much more than a promotional video for Pill Wonder’s new Jungle/Surf l.p.; it is an inspirational promotional video, and is probably the only “commercial” that I can honestly say has touched me since MasterCard’s “Priceless” campaign made me shed my first adult tear. If you’re like me, it will probably lead you to believe that Underwater Peoples Records, the market entity that dropped it in my inbox this week, is much more than just a record label, and that Jungle/Surf is much more than an l.p. Either way, all three are definitely bringing back that loving feeling I lost when the snowstorm ended:
“Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World”: Episode One
“Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World”: Episode Two
Words: Emilie Friedlander
Pill Wonder’s William Murdoch recorded Jungle/Surf using an old Dell desktop computer, illegally downloaded Adobe Audition software, mac n’ cheese boxes, a toy drum set, a Fender guitar, a 3rd grader’s recorder, “some sort of cheap keyboard,” and a Shure SM 57 microphone. The record drops tomorrow (February 28th) and can be purchased from the Underwater Peoples Store. Sawyer Carter Jacobs, the label’s “Head of Friendship,” made “Portraits of the Inspired – Pill Wonder Lights the World” out of memories from his extended sojourn in China last year.
Tags: Pill Wonder, Sawyer Carter Jacobs, Underwater Peoples, William Murdoch