BARB, “Not a Bird”

This band was briefly called Having a Baby, and now might be called BARB. The name is apparently also the nickname of Connan Hosford, one of the band members, though why it’s in all caps, I couldn’t say. BARB is a supergroup of five, and possibly six or seven, young and talented New Zealand musicians: Liam Finn, E.J. Barnes, Lawrence Arabia, and Hosford and Seamus Ebbs of the band Connan Mockasin. (I’ve posted about Lawrence Arabia and Liam and E.J. before.) The group has recorded an album, and made this goofy homemade video where they dance and run around. I’m not sure, but I think the interior dancing might have been filmed at the place where the album was made—Roundhead Studios, the amazing recording studio, furnished with vintage analog equipment, owned by Liam’s dad, Neil Finn. BARB’s album is supposed to come out some time in the middle of this year. An interview with them is here, back when they were using the earlier name. I love this song’s sunny, shambling vibe. It sounds like a bunch of good friends having fun making a record, which shouldn’t be such a rare sound, but is.

Lawrence Arabia, “Apple Pie Bed”

I swear that I didn’t intend to write about two videos with so much bare flesh back to back. This one is practically NSFW, no less. But “Apple Pie Bed” is a true earworm, the kind of song that plays in my head when I’m falling asleep, and then when I wake up at three in the morning is still playing in my head, which leads me to wonder, was it playing all those hours in between? Was it scoring my dreams? Now it’s the afternoon, and it’s still there. The lyrics are self-deprecating and hangdog in a wry way—my favorite line is “All I could hear since the dawn of man was the ocean in a cola can”—but the music is the cheeriest thing I’ve heard in an age, and it’s put a spring in my step all day. Lawrence Arabia—whose real name is James Milne—is from Christchurch, New Zealand, a city whose name I love even though I’m not religious.