“Annie Hardly Listens Now” - AWEK
(Words/music: AWEK, available on AWEK EP, New Amsterdam 2002)
More than other pieces of popular art, songs serve as useful personal relics; hearing the right song will make us snap right back to a specific time and place and often conjure memories of people and events we haven’t thought about for years. AWEK’s self-titled EP brings me back to college and to a time where I felt more exposed to new music on a regular basis. Several factors contributed to this feeling – the endless records streaming into our college radio station, friends who were plugged in to things I liked yet hadn’t heard, and lots of free time to give things a try. I’d argue that we have more access to music right now – both in the amount of music available and the speed we can acquire it. However, the overflow of music often feels like drinking out of a fire hose. I often have the thought that I don’t listen enough to the things I already love, let alone devote time to taking a chance on something new. This isn’t always true, as I still listen to a lot of new things based on recommendations or things I read, but I’m far less likely to pick up something completely blind the way I might have in college.
The AWEK EP represents the kind of bands that I might find and enjoy on these quests. “Annie Hardly Listens Now” represents the ideal situation where I’d listen to an album, enjoy it, and end up loving one of the songs. It’s an effortlessly catchy guitar pop song the way that Guided By Voices built them around the same time – lots of guitar, lots of melody, a little odd, and barely two minutes. Where dozens of records by bands I’ve long forgotten passed through my discman in college, the AWEK EP (and “Annie Hardly Listens Now”) stuck with me through college, through different hard drives, and through a couple moves. Even if I write about all of the things that make this song wonderful, I know that deep down the reason I like it so much was that it came out of nowhere. I remember my friend Dan dropping it into my mailbox before they played a show for my college’s radio station, and even years later (and well after the band dissolved), these songs remind me of time spent digging through boxes of bland CDs looking for a goldmine. It’s frustrating to think about all of the songs like “Annie Hardly Listens Now” that I miss out on, but it’s also exciting to know that something similar could be in the next blog post in my Google Reader.More on AWEK: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm
I got to book AWEK many years ago on a bill with DC’s Metropolitan. Such a fun show.
