Single Of The Week: Red Pens – Next Summer (self-released)
By Mike Turner
The best part of doing these singles of the week reviews is that sometimes I find myself really surprised. This Red Pens single caught me off guard. It was one of those singles I ordered in at the store probably ’cause I thought maybe it was a collaboration by the Pens and Red Monkey and if it wasn’t then they had a lot to live up to. Female vocals and tough guy-or-girl guitars and this pissy ass snark so fuzzed I can only make out something about “today..blah blah blah next summer”. It doesn’t matter what it really says, it’s just too scrunched face squint eyed flared nostril tongue out “yeah I left the milk out over night, what ya gonna do about” snotty pomp punk parading as pop perfection pressed into plastic or whatever the hell vinyl is made of these days (ask some collector or nerd, I’m sure it’s really interesting, really). The B-side well you can just take a nail to it cause there ain’t no topping the A-side, but it’s solid too. What’s it sound like, who cares you didn’t read that sick run-on sentence above about the first song? But if you do, the dude takes over vocals on this side yawn I’m boring myself already …
Anyway I put it on cause the artwork told me great let’s see what some college brats think the 90s sound like, and it sounds like the 90s, but that’s alright, they get it right. So right I start acting like I’m Scott Creney and have to go do some research. Turns out Red Pens are a couple old 90s twee ass holdovers (Busy Signals and Bennett) that must have gotten pissed in their old age. Maybe their dot.com they worked at went under, or maybe they just find this to be the only way to escape the hell it probably is to live in Minneapolis, the same town as U2 jumping Bono Christ on a pogo-stick Wally Wylie. Again, who cares it works for them. Looks like I’ll be ordering some Red Pens catalog shortly. If you don’t do the same, then well I’m sure Everett will shut the whole fucking thing down for the third time.
Check them out here.
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