First April Download

The Teenagers: Reality Check

Listening to this record is like vacationing in a copy of the world's foremost scenester-pretentious publication.

Allow me to paint the picture:

Let's say I'm a modern-day, urban professional Macaulay Culkin starring in The Pagemaster '08.

One eerie night in Wicker Park, my moped breaks down and I get caught in an unrelenting torrential downpour...without an umbrella! Drenched, I seek out the closest storefront do duck into while the storm lets up; but to my dismay, every store seems be closed. My new $200 jeans! Fuck!

Just as I'm about to give up, I see a dim light emanating from an otherwise abandoned-looking building. A bare-bones, handwritten sign that says "Records" is the only item in the window.

I enter and speak with the elderly off-his-rocker owner. Let's call him Christopher Lloyd. As he goes on and on about his days of opening for Peter Cetera, I begin to sift through his magazine offerings. I pick up a copy of Reality Check and the latest Vice magazine when, ZAP! CRASH! A colossal lightning bolt strikes the store and sends me flying through the air. I hit my head on stack of poorly drawn zines and go put cold.

As I come to, I wake up INSIDE the pages of Vice! I go skiing on Cocaine Mountain with Werner Herzog, then buy American Apparel models Rockstar and vodkas all night long at Sonotechque.

Just as I'm about to get punched in the face by some lame graphic designer--whom I offended by calling him Colin Meloy's muse-- KABOOM! WA-ZAM!

I wake up in my bedroom tucked under the covers. It was all a dream! Or WAS it (I roll over to see Werner Herzog, shirtless and sleeping with his moth open. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!)?

Dun dun duuuuuuuuun...

Depending on your opinions of Vice, my little story may or may not have turned you off of The Teenagers. Looking at what I just wrote, I know I would be all "Ewww. No. I hate that type of crap."

But for one reason or another, I really, really like Reality Check. As much as the band members give off the typical "Gross, you read pitchfork?" attitude, their lyrics are just as funny as they are explicit (kudos on working Shannon Doerty and Jared Leto references into your tunes). This London band has a penchant for suburban teenage culture. Talking about anything from fucking a slutty american teen on vacation, to their love for Scarlett Johannson (whom they also want to fuck). The Serge Gainsbourg influence is ridiculously strong. Future dirty old men in the making.

The result is a a group of witty, self-aware yet self-important songs. I doubt I'd ever be friends with The Teenagers in real life. They're probably huge assholes. But I dig their stuff nonetheless.

Next time on Pagemaster Reference Theatre: Pat gets hit by lightning while listening to Boz Scaggs and reading Riding Lawnmower Maintenance For Dummies.