Tullycraft
Beat, Surf, Fun
Magic Marker
An open letter to my dear friend and Ink 19 cohort, Andrew Chadwick:
Dear Andrew,
I’m sorry. I know you really wanted the review copy we received of Tullycraft’s new album, Beat, Surf, Fun. And I realize you know more about the band’s roots than I do, and all, having been a big fan of singer/bassist/keyboardist Sean Tollefson and drummer/guitarist/bassist Jeff Fell’s previous band, Crayon, and Sean’s Six Cents and Natalie project. But it’s really your own fault. If you hadn’t have played “Pop Songs Your New Boyfriend’s Too Stupid To Know About” so incessantly in the old Ink 19 offices, until it was permanently ingrained in my skull (OK, given how catchy that song was, it took all of two or three listens for that to happen, but I digress…), I wouldn’t even have been curious about what their new stuff sounded like.
And once I put Beat, Surf, Fun on – just to satisfy that curiosity, you understand – I knew that there was no way I could let this record go. I mean, go a day without the vibrantly catchy and willfully obscurist indie pop anthem “Twee,” with lyrics like “You can keep your punk rock, ska, rap beats, and house, fuck me, I’m twee”? Let 24 hours pass without hearing the charming and pretty “Glitter & Twang”? Without hearing the ‘Craft viciously dis fellow indie popster “Orange Cake Mix”? Without howling along to the garagey “Knockout”? Live life without the rave-up “Wild Bikini,” the rollerskating shimmy of “Christine, ND,” the raucous “Cowgirls On Parade,” or the jumpy “Radio Theme”? Give up an indie pop masterpiece that’s easily one of the best records to come out this year? Nope. Sorry. Not gonna happen.
So again, Andrew, I’m really sorry that I didn’t give you the record I know you wanted. But frankly, you’d have to pry my copy out of my cold, dead fingers to get me to give it up. It’s that good.
Magic Marker Records: http://www.magicmarkerrecords.com • Tullycraft: http://www.tullycraft.com
