Sketched Stations

Yes, you read that wrong.

When Best Buy Sold CDs

Back in 2006, I was working at Juice It Up! pushing wheat grass and weird smoothies to the local gym, bagel shop, and Best Buy crowds. When I didn’t have my iPod to plug into the system, we listened to Fred and Ethel Radio on Sirius. At the time, a lot of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Silversun Pickups, The Walkmen, and Peter Björn & John. They had released their third album, Writer’s Block, that January and “that whistle song” was making the rounds everywhere you went.

Working a place like that offered a lot of downtime. I always had my copies of Spin and Filter, both of which covered Writer’s Block. That whistle song, “Young Folks”, was a serious earworm by the time their other singles hit the radio. “Amsterdam”, “Let’s Call It Off”, “The Chills”; all bangers to this day.

After some early morning shift making smoothies, I ran over to Best Buy to grab a copy. This is back when they competed with the great Rhino, Virgin, and the remaining holdouts nearly off the grid. Pictured below is just the one – millennial sleaze at its best. It helped define our era, whether people continued listening beyond this album or not.

New City, Same Taste

I got to cover them at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington, D.C. on their 2016 tour for Breakin’ Point. It was my second show there and first one covering a seated room. Felt weird. Instead of navigating flexible crowds, the task became not standing in the way of a seated audience too long. Fortunately they weren’t seated for long, but I was still that jackass getting in the way. The fans there were just as enthusiastic. Our millennial asses dancing erratically to match Peter Morén’s movements. I even got in his way when he jumped down into an aisle to take his guitar for a little tour. Whoops!

Before that show, I spoke with Peter for about an hour over the phone. We talked music, history of fandom, the old records, and of course the latest. I’m currently at a loss to find those old photos and recording. They’re somewhere on an old hard drive with a broken head, waiting at the bottom of a drawer to be reborn. Some of my best work, mind you! I’ll have to get back to you. From there, however, came the early seedlings of Sketched Sounds. These long form interviews were refreshing to those artists being interviewed.

New Venue In LA with Similar Ties

Now it’s been 20 years since Writer’s Block and the commemorative shows are abound. One newer venue, Pacific Electric in LA, is run by one of the Mumford & Sons guys, and was more than happy to host. The 750-cap venue sold out, and there wasn’t a single silent voice in the audience. And you can see why they waited till the end to whistle. Those last three I mentioned? They were out by the first half of this 90min set. Everyone knew the words, everyone soaked it in.

These reunion/anniversary/commemorative shows so often bring the crowds who now have kids old enough to join but are too young to remember these days. Something about this show left the next generation out. Maybe 2-3 Zoomers in the building, and lucky them. They witnessed what their parents reminisced about. Music they may have been conceived to. Ugh. A phrase I used to hear when I was their age wearing Led Zeppelin and Smiths shirts. Here we are.