Pants Yell! Songs for Siblings Asaurus Records In my world its socially acceptable to have an imaginary friend. And I mean everybody has one: me, you, Al Franken, even Santa Claus. What's yours named? Mine, I call them Pants Yell! I know, sounds like some bad ska band name. But no, believe you me, my (imaginary) friend, they're original--not ska at all but kind of indie, even got some pop in them. Did a ska band ever go to art school? Well, my imaginary friend did. And they have somewhat eclectic taste in music, you know? I mean other people's imaginary friends, they don't have the depth of my Pants Yell! They get stuck with shittier friends, like my buddy Josh. His friend Coheed and Cambria is totally lammmeeeeee. But Pants Yell! they got this taste for artsy lo-fi indie pop ballads, with lyrics that talk to you (really, they talk to you). We call our conversations Songs for Siblings. Oh does Pants Yell! have charm. The way they open a conversation with you about high school, describing what the big school rivalry game your senior year was like. We even made up a chant about it, "We don't believe in love / We don't believe in our parents / We've never trusted your songs / Give em up, give em up, give em up, give em up". They show such a quaint adolescent side sometimes. We call our chant "Go Big Blue". I remember the time he walked through a public garden, or rather, he cried while he walked through the public gardens? He saw his ex standing there staring at him and kissing her boyfriend. Pants Yell! is kind of emotional. They don't like to talk about the "Public Gardens". But they're cohesive, the way they slide in and out of these topics in our conversations and it all holds together. The one topic I love to hear them talk about is an ex-lover. We call this "My Boyfriend Writes Plays", and the way they talk just has a wonderful melody to it. I listen in delight to their slow sing-speaking, with the occassional harmony and the loose and jazzy yet amateurish beat. My imaginary friend does it all with just the bare essential elements, just an acoustic guitar, some drums, maybe some bass, and an cheap old Casio keyboard, complimented well by fuzzy analog production. It's Electric. Pants Yell! are very comparable to a few imaginary friends that my real friend have (yes, I have real friends): maybe the minimalism and childishness of my sister's Beat Happening, the poppy goodness of Austin's Belle and Sebastian without the grace or orchestral additions, or maybe even the quieter, simpler moment of Ryan's The Microphones. But Pants Yell! is better, because they are my imaginary friend. You can't beat that. But it is how cutesy they get that can become a bother: the childishness, and the dull tone of their voice can be very repetitive in some aspects, despite the melody in it. Sometimes they lose my attention being so very cohesive and they verge on annoying. Or sometimes a conversation just isn't very interesting, it just sounds too much like the last. A little more variety for Pants Yell! certainly wouldn't be a bad thing. But they maintain an innocent charm that I love and I still enjoy them. I couldn't choose a better imaginary friend ... but I wish perhaps for some more real friends every now and again to ease the eternal loneliness of existence. -tony 2/20/05