Clockwise Cat Strikes Back

Best Coast: California Nights
The first time I saw Best Coast, I was at Metallica's Orion Fest in New Jersey. The
incongruous juxtaposition of a band playing uptempo, surfy tunes with other bands
spewing sludgy mud-metal was thrilling to behold, at least for me. The audience, for the
most part, was not amused. It's true that Orion fest was rather diverse in its offerings -
garage-band pioneers The 13th Floor Elevators, country crooner Eric Church, and indie
darlings Arctic Monkeys were among some of the other bands playing - but Best Coast
added a refreshing injection of sunny California sprightliness to the roster. Again, though,
not everyone got it, and most hardcore Metallica fans were actually hostile toward the
band's presence. I bask in wild genre dissimilarity, however, and cherished the freaky
pairing of nihilistic rock and roll and breezy, buoyant surf-punk. And it's a testament to
Metallica that they were willing to risk pesky fan displeasure to transgress the metalfestival
ethos of playing it safe.
The second time I saw Best Coast was in more mundane circumstances: It was at a
festival that, like me, basked in wildly dissimilar genres. I also enjoyed her set less than I
did at the Metallica fest, because, let's face it: "California Nights" is no "Crazy For You."
"Crazy for You" featured a more lo-fi, less self-conscious, less fleshed-out approach. It
sounded like a stoner's bedroom-production affair with, yes, some spit-polish, but not
saturated with overproduction. "California Nights," though easily digestible, and
relentlessly catchy, is too rote, too obvious. It models itself on 80s and 90s post-punk and
indie paradigms, and has a melancholy mood swimming through its sun-drenched tunes.
But it doesn't really draw you in the way "Crazy for You" did with its California-slacker's
idiosyncratic musings. Which is ironic, really, given its title. "California Nights" has no
lynchpin songs like "I Wish You Were My Boyfriend" to induce juvenile giggles and
adolescent nostalgia, but instead is a complacent collection of solid indie-tunes that
invoke little reflection, if any.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOhLbA-B-bE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqphb_WM1rM&list=RDUqphb_WM1rM