"the old days are good cuz their gone, the bad days are bad cuz their present..."
"Baby Food" by LA based The Pretty Flowers is a gleefully hyper piece of punchy rock wit touchstones of 90's College Radio jangle pop, late 70's power pop and 80's indie / folk rock. I immediately thought of an amalgam of artists like Superchunk, R.E.M, and Dinosaur Jr (all in their respective halcyon days). Like those artists and other who deliver messages against their bright semi-hollow body guitars, Strats, booming bases and unfettered drum rolls, The Pretty Flowers, Noah Green (vocals/guitar), Jake Gideon (guitar/vocals), Sam Tiger (bass/vocals) and Sean Johnson (drums), do too and this refrain sticks with me days after I first heard this song:
"they spun the truth like a top / too much momentum to stop / they spoon fed the truth to you / you ate it up like baby food..."
Baby food is a nice word especially since a large portion of this country (over the last decade or so) seems to have swallowed conspiratorial theories (grounded in hate & too many 'isms' to mention) and while The Pretty Flowers social commentary focuses on more broad messaging we get from day one, from society, from the commercial fabric woven by corporations, by everything in our world, the result is as entertaining as it is thoughtful. It is the first single from their sophomore album ‘A Company Sleeve’, which will be released September 1, 2023 on Double Helix Records.
Noah (vocals/guitar): "Baby Food was in the first batch of songs we wrote for what turned into the A Company Sleeve album and it's been a staple of our live set since. Lyrically, it touches on feeling overwhelmed with everyday life and the anxiety that comes with thinking about our perceived control over it. It's asking the same questions that our parents and everyone who came before us also asked, but still not having any answers or assurances of anything. Musically, it could suggest the relentless speed of time and life's ebbs and flows."
The visually striking and weird Official Video finds the band speeding on 3 wheelers:
Sean (drums): "When Noah and I were drumming up video concepts, he offhandedly mentioned an animated video and a Christmas light in my head went off. I reached out to Nathan Sonenfeld who I've known for over 20 years and asked if it's something he'd be into. He too is a drummer and now a budding animator with his partner Se'Belle. They took to the idea and came up with a really great concept that matched Noah's lyrics. It's this great stew of textures and styles both old and new that I feel is really unique and special. We certainly have never done anything like this before and I think I speak for the whole band when I say we love it and we hope everyone else does."
The band will embark on a West Coast Tour starting in a few days. Dates down below.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM
https://soundcloud.com/theprettyflowers
https://twitter.com/PrettyFlowersLA
https://open.spotify.com/artist/7sGS3BzfNKOjZLM2rFrAbM
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh73VEkx9uOVg71pwMa5PJw
https://theprettyflowers.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/the_pretty_flowers/
The Pretty Flowers are a four-piece indie rock band from Los Angeles composed of Noah Green (vocals/guitar), Jake Gideon (guitar/vocals), Sam Tiger (bass/vocals) and Sean Johnson (drums). Their music has been described as hooky, heartfelt and literate. The band's influences span more than a few decades of loud guitar indie and college rock, including: Guided By Voices, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Teardrop Explodes, Superchunk, and Teenage Fanclub.
The Big Takeover magazine said of The Pretty Flowers debut album, Why Trains Crash, released on Portland’s Dirt Cult Records, “These Los Angeles hard power-poppers...play '90s style indie-rock that harkens back to later Replacements, early Weezer, a little Sloan, and quite a bit of Wilco. They have the chops to write great songs”. The blog I Buy Way Too Many Records lauded it as “a shoe-in for (2018) album of the year“, and punk zine Razorcake called it “lyrical, like a toned-down The Weakerthans…wistful, but not weak and catchy but not cute”.
2023 will find the band on a west coast tour of the US with The Roxies from Berlin, Germany and the release of their sophomore album, A Company Sleeve, on their new label, Double Helix Records. The album was produced by the band’s own Jake Gideon, engineered by Adam Lasus (Lily’s, Yo La Tengo, Madder Rose and Helium) at Studio Red and mastered by Matthew Barnhart (Superchunk, Bob Mould, METZ).
The tour schedule is as follows:
Thursday, March 23 -- Alex's Bar, Long Beach -- w/ Powder Pink & Sweet, Vessels
Friday, March 24 -- Golden Bull, Oakland -- w/ Cutlass Supreme, The 1981
Saturday, March 25 -- Black Water Bar, Portland -- w/ Divers, Los Repeaters
Sunday, March 26 -- Le Voyeur, Olympia -- w/ Shawna Pair (All Ages)
Monday, March 27 -- Belltown Yacht Club -- w/ The Drolls
Wednesday, March 29 -- The Knockout, SF -- KXSF Presents: w/ Kids on a Crime Spree, Minds Without a Face
Thursday, March 30 -- The Colony, Sacramento -- w/ Dog Party, Cutlass Supreme (All Ages)
Friday, March 31 -- The Crepe Place, Santa Cruz -- w/ The Tenderlies (All Ages)
Saturday, April 1 -- Permanent Records Roadhouse, LA -- w/ Sweet Nobody, Cutlass Supreme and comedy from Denver Smith
“Baby Food” is the first single from A Company Sleeve, releasing to radio and streaming serviceson March 17, 2023.
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