86 Hope
Dyin In the WIndow
self-released
There’s so much music, so many sunflowers in a field all blooming together, mainly at the same time. How do we pick a few and keep them as our favourites? We can’t, it’s impossible. Mainly it’s down to geography and luck. The closer you are to home the better chance the listener has to know about you. Word of mouth, social media and hell even the odd gig is a way of chasing down new music. Spotify can throw up random songs but in reality do you remember the name of the last song when you move on? Some radio shows like Little Plastic Tapes, Snap Crackle and Pop, Threads and Pulsebeat certainly help.
I guess I’m old school. I still buy fanzines and magazines and connect with new music that way. I’m lucky I guess as I have the patience to read an interview or a review and stop to check the band out. It’s a lot easier than going to the record store and asking the kind worker to play the latest album on Dischord or Merge but still hard to absorb the info because there’s so much of it.
And so reading Razorcake I came across a nicely worded review of 86 Hope. The reviewer praised the band for writing a note with their cd for review. That won me over. I still despair when i send away for something and don’t receive a small note of thanks. That is our connection, not a print out of an order as if the outcome is a commodity purely for your entertainment. For me music is community, a chance to share feelings and emotions. Songs can drag you in, songs you can relate to written by people you feel some sort of kin with.
86 hope are a three piece band from St Augustine in Florida. A long way from Dublin. They have a lo-fi production in a country punk vein. They will never be playing stadiums, will never have thousands of people singing along with one voice but there is something about this band and songs that resonates. Maybe it is the line “Our regrets, they linger like bad tattoos under turtle necks”. Don’t have regrets, own them and listen to bands like 86 school.
niallhope
