Real Estate

Certain Songs #1840: Real Estate – “Talking Backwards”

June 12, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Atlas
Year: 2014

. . .

Honestly, I don’t have any real backstory for “Talking Backwards,” no great introduction or anything like that. I mean, it was obviously part of my life during that terrible period where we were living in the hotel while having our house rebuilt, but I already told that story yesterday.

So, there really isn’t much to say about “Talking Backwards” — the first single released from 2014’s Atlas — except for how it’s just a perfectly-executed jangly-guitar rock song, and by writing about it, some you might hear it where you otherwise wouldn’t have.

Certain Songs #1839: Real Estate – “Had to Hear”

June 11, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Atlas
Year: 2014

. . .

The spring of 2014 turned out to be one of the worst times of my life. On the last weekend of February, a series of torrential downpours that were seemingly centered over our house caused the back of the house to leak so much that it was basically misty by our back door. The final straw was when water started pouring through our ceiling fan onto our bed.

So for over three months, Rox and I lived a weird existence: sleeping in a Burbank hotel while supervising the teardown, mold removal and eventual reconstruction of the house we’d lived in for nearly five years, all the while fighting with our recalcitrant insurance company and a smooth-talking contractor who promised things it didn’t seem like his people were going to fulfill.

Certain Songs #1838: Real Estate – “It’s Real”

June 10, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Days
Year: 2011

. . .

In the first half of the last decade, the New Jersey indie-rock band Real Estate made a pair of jangly-guitar albums that definitely stand in the pantheon. While not as majestic as, say, the intertwinings of Marty Wilson-Piper & Peter Koppes of the Church or Glenn Mercer and Bill Million of The Feelies, the dual guitars of Martin Courtney and Matt Mondanile definitely invoked some of the same feeling, minus the psychedelic grandeur of the former or the rhythmic insistence of the latter.

In fact, that would be the one ding I would have on Days — or Real Estate in general — that it was perhaps, calmer, than I would like. Real Estate often made better “lie in a field music” than “zip down the highway” music.

Medialoper Bebop Episode 26: Washing Your Mouth Out With SOPA

December 20, 2011 by Jim Connelly

The week, Kirk, Jim & Tim take a look at the Stop Online Piracy Act, and how its destroy-the-net-to-save-it approach towards internet piracy (or “piracy,”) threatens pretty much the entire internet as we know it.

Thank the gods that the United States House of Representatives is on the case!! (05:19 – 13:29)

Meanwhile, Louis CK (whose name I inexplicably mispronounce) shows exactly how stupid the screams of “piracy is killing our business” are by releasing a DRM-free, consumer-friendly concert. (13:31 – 24:22)

Then, it’s my latest Barry Bonds theory: he’s the Gaius Baltar of MLB! (24:23 – 27:06)

Finally, what’s in my mix? Real Estate, Wild Flag and a great single by Yuck. (27:07 – 30:36)

All that, and pot-smoking raccoons!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 40:43 — 55.9MB)

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