Let me licorice!

Hello. I’m Thom. Apparently, I will be recommending things to you. How exciting.

I feel like this should be more of an introductory post on my part, but unfortunately for you (or maybe it is, in fact, fortunate), I do not do introductions well. Therefore, we shall dive headfirst directly in with my first recommendation.

Today, I formally recommend Aaron Moyer, aka 87Hizzetfield, of Maple Heights, Ohio.

I first became aware of Aaron through a link I came across somewhere, proclaiming to be the worst Neutral Milk Hotel cover of all time.  Being a voracious fan of covers, embarrassingly intrigued by internet detritus, and notoriously masochistic (that’s what she said), I naturally clicked on it. This, ladies and gentlemen, was my reward, which I promptly watched three times in a row.

After the third viewing, as well as reading over the comments, I got to feeling that this was not a terrible cover at all, but some sort of commentary on the anyone-can-do-this-at-home philosophy and aesthetic of the lo-fi scene.  The fact that he got approximately 67% of the lyrics wrong seemed like less of a flaw to me and more a play on the rather impenetrable impressionism of a lot of NMH’s lyrics, not to mention the lyrics of a lot of other indie sacred cows. (Let’s be honest here, you know it’s true.) Furthermore, what was with the random Sunn O))) reference at the beginning, and the assertion that they had made/gave him the amp onto which he had so obviously (and rather obnoxiously) attached the Sunn O))) name? This was looking more and more to me like a brilliant piece of performance art. It may have been unintentional, but in a way, wouldn’t that make it all the more brilliant?

Of course, by this point, my attention span had been exceeded and I did not investigate any further. Last night, however, I found myself revisiting the video, and this time I clicked on 87Hizzetfield’s channel to investigate further. I don’t think I quite have the words to describe to you the bounteous treasure trove I found there, and so I will let two of the results speak for themselves.

Regardless of what you think of his, erm, performance style, you’ve got to admit that the dude knows his shit. He’s dropping Sunn O))) and Dillinger Escape Plan references and prank calling The Best Show on WFMU. Maybe he’s just making these videos on a lark, and I’m reading way too much into them. But ultimately, isn’t the end result and worth of art dependent wholly on its context and audience reaction, and not the authorial intention (with a nod to Wimsatt and Beardsley)? It doesn’t matter if he does not necessarily understand the implications of what he is saying when he says, “You don’t need to know how to play an alternative rock solo, you just play a note;” what does matter is that he said it, and in the context of what he is doing with these videos, it just seems perfect to me. And for the record, I believe that he does understand those implications and that we are laughing along with him, and that we are laughing partially at ourselves.

Sorry this got a little tl;dr. I do that.

Anyway, you can visit Aaron’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/87Hizzetfield. Please do peruse, as there are some other gems that I withheld. I can’t give away all the good stuff that easily, after all.

Aaron has a MySpace music page here: http://www.myspace.com/moy3r. The best song he has up there is obviously “Masturbate in Space.”

Dude also has a Twitter account, but it does not seem to be as relentlessly entertaining as his videos and music. Sadly, The Anal Blisters do not appear to be on tour.