New Imperial Teen - "Shim Sham" (And The Hair The TV The Baby & The Band Album Art)
Imperial Teen are a just a couple weeks away from their fourth album The Hair The TV The Baby & The Band. It's their first album since 2002's On -- yup, more than half a decade is quite a pause (you can get a degree faster … maybe). The four Californians are further from the wonder years, but the playful first single "Shim Sham" doesn't suggest any cobwebs or rust. Still, there is an awareness of time's passage: Google and some biographical facts make it clear the album title references work (Jone Stebbins owns a hairstyling joint, while the excellently named Roddy Bottum's does scores for TV), life (Lynn Perko Truell's a mom) and Will Schwartz's side project willpower, but more deeply, the comma-free list also connotes watching TV and the babies and feeling your hair fall out.
There've been plent of other bands, too … Imperial Teens have variously played in Faith No More, Sister Double Happiness, the Dicks, the Wrecks, etc. So yeah, "Shim Sham" is a nostalgic summer fete, as Lynn intones, "at the Shim Sham Club" with the Rock*A*Teens. The fuzzy guitar, popping drums, and crystalline Breeders-style male/female harmonies shout celebration (the B-52's with more kick), but it also feels historical, a first-person story recalled beneath "suburban lights." The narrative involves a life in punk rock (chilling in "dirty places," making lifelong friends); "Then and now seems like a different scene / We live to live whatever's meant to be…" It's fitting that the percussion shuffles like Steve Shelley in that first measure: Imperial Teen have accrued the same sort of wise distance and scope that Sonic Youth have taken on in their more silver years.
Imperial Teen - "Shim Sham" (MP3)
Of course, a new record usually means a new tour -- so we've got yer dates right here, along with the LP art and tracklist.
09/21 - Seattle, WA @ Crocodile Cafe
09/22 - Portland, OR @ Lola's Room
09/28 - Los Angeles, CA @ Spaceland
09/29 - San Francisco, CA @ Bottom Of The Hill
09/30 - San Francisco, CA @ The Folsom Street Fair
10/04 - Chicago, IL @ The Abbey Pub
10/05 - Minneapolis, MN @ 1st Ave.
10/19 - Philadelphia, PA @ North Star Bar
10/20 - Boston, MA @ T.T. The Bears
TRACKLIST
01 "Everything" - 3:19
02 "Do It Better" - 3:30
03 "Shim Sham" - 2:56
04 "Baby and the Band" - 3:12
05 "One Two" - 2:28
06 "Room with a View" - 4:08
07 "It's Now" - 2:47
08 "Fallen Idol" - 3:35
09 "Sweet Potato" - 2:27
10 "Everyone Wants to Know" - 3:17
11 "21st Century" - 2:50
12 "What You Do" - 3:20
The Hair The TV The Baby & The Band is out 8/21 on Merge.
Posted at 12:56 PM in Album Art, MP3, Tour Dates
Tags: Imperial Teen
I'm so ridiculously excited about this album.
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shim sham is the best song of 2007 and maybe ever!
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I think you're right about how the Imperial Teen album title came about, but - Roddy's adorable English bulldog is called "BABY"...I think he even wrote that song "Baby" on the last album for the pooch too? So it's either the human or the canine getting the props in 2007 :)
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