Review: The Strokes - Under Cover of Darkness

With the recent release of The Strokes new single "Under Cover of Darkness", I thought I'd return to what loop pedal. was originally intended to do. Here's my review of the brand new tune.

The song begins with a cheerful, start and stop chord backing with a fuzzy lead riff. Immediately, the song jumps out with a happy feeling, slight upstrokes hiding behind the layers of vintage Strokes clutter. The song builds though a pre-chorus that sounds like something right off of "Is This It?", before heading into what you think is the climax. The song immediately grows into what is sure to be one of the biggest choruses of the year, a true scream-along melody before recapitulating the intro.

Rinse, wash and repeat in classic familiarity before launching into a triumphant solo, a bit of dissonance added for good measure. The song repeats the chorus once again, with Casablancas screaming "I'm tired of all your friends knocking down your door" in jubilant fashion, before the intro comes back, stopping way too short. The song clocks in at a quick 4 minutes, which causes the repeated use of the replay button. The song leaves you wanting more of the same, much like the Strokes themselves. Welcome back boys, you have been missed.

Cartoons I Used to Love Part 1: Jetix

Like many other teens of this generation, cartoons were a huge role during my developmental ages. Being born in 1995, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Disney Channel played a large part in my early 2000's childhood. Although I really started paying attention at the tail end of some of the 'true classics' such as Rugrats, Hey Arnold and most of those Disney classics (Ducktales, Darkwing Duck and others), from about 2000 to 2005, I grew up upon some of what I feel were very fine cartoons. Today, I rant a little bit about some of my favorite cartoons growing up. I'm going to split this up into some of the big programming blocks I used to watch. Today? Jetix.

Every morning from about 4th to 6th grade (which is 2004-2006), I'd wake up at about 7 o' clock, eat breakfast and plop down in front of the TV for an hour before I had to leave for school. And every morning, I was sent off to school with the same shows.

While the block showed some classics like Spider-Man, and some pretty cool anime like Shinzo, the block really revolved around two shows that I'm sure impacted the lives of other kids my age as well; Digimon and Power Rangers.

While the original Digimon aired on FoxKids, as did the second season, it was the third season and fourth seasons that really hit me. Digimon Frontiers was one of the first cartoons that made me cry. I don't remember the scene exactly or exactly why it made me cry, but I'll try and recreate the emotional attachment.

Digimon Frontier revolved around five kids who went into the 'digital world' and could turn into Digimon themselves. Takuya was the leader and became a fire Digimon, Koji was the silent, tough guy of the group, turning into a light powered wolf. Zoe was the girl of the group, who had the power of the air Digimon, while JP was the fat comedic relief who had the power of the thunder beetle. Tommy was the small kid who used ice. It was a stale 'kids have to save the world from an evil monster' plot, but with a video game esque twist. The kids had to defeat five 'bosses' essentially. One was a goblin kinda guy, while the second was a Karakuri puppet. The third was a mermaid girl (who, by the way, was a complete bitch. Not gonna lie), and the final was this real scary guy made out of mirrors.

At this point in the season, you've grown attached to the characters as they try and find the fifth major bad guy. Koji, the dark and brooding wolf Digimon fighter, was a particular fan favorite. Upon meeting the fifth and final villain, Koji finds out that it's really his twin brother he never knew about, Koichi. Koji's parents had gotten divorced while the two boys were young, and the two boys had been split as well. The scene in particular that made me cry was a flashback, where Koichi was told by his dying grandmother that he had a brother. Koichi, in shock, ran out of his grandmother's hospital room and, as he's running, trips down a flight of stairs.

The show went into slow motion and played a heart breaking song as you watched Koichi fall and lie motionless at the bottom of the stairs. Apparently he went into a coma, which, at the moment, I'm finally realizing is completely irrational (if I recall, it was a pretty short set of stairs. How the hell do you fall into a coma from falling down a diminutive set of stairs?!?!). However, at the age of about 10, this hit me pretty hard and writing this about five years later made me try and find this scene online. This was all I could find, but it did a pretty good job of reminding me of a lot of aspects of the show I had forgotten about. Looking back, it was one hell of a set of stairs, which again makes no fucking sense. Why, in a hospital, would you have stairs that looked like 20 feet?!?!

Meanwhile, Power Rangers was a huge impact on my life as well. Anyone familiar with Power Rangers knows the show, while being around for nearly 20 years, has never really been connected from year to year. Outside of the first three or four seasons, every year started fresh with a new team of Power Rangers, often completely unrelated to prior season's. The mastermind behind the show was Saban Entertainment, who sold the rights to the show right before Power Rangers: Wild Force, which not coincidentally, was one of my least favorite seasons.

However, the next three are up there with the original three for me. Ninja Storm was filmed in Australia, and featured an attack of two rival ninja academies. When three students (Shane the Red Ranger, Tori the Blue Ranger, and Dustin the Yellow Ranger) are left, they get the power of the Rangers and have to fight off the attacks. The season featured a lot of slapstick comedy, a sensei turned into a guinea pig, two evil rangers turned good (Hunter and Blake, the Crimson and Navy Rangers, who were both completely badass), and the sensei's son, Green Ranger Cam, who was probably the best Ranger. He served as the technological leader throughout most of the season, but he had to go back in time and meet his deceased mother and receive an old necklace from her that allowed him to morph. Nothing really emotionally telling here, just mindless action and slapstick comedy for a young, drooling ten year old.

Power Rangers Dino Thunder came next. This could potentially be my favorite of the three seasons I experienced during my pre-5th grade days. The season featured three pretty likable characters, including a totally smoking Yellow Ranger, who, now that I think about it, totally looks like this chick I've been infatuated with lately. That explains it. However, the thing that really made this season great was the fact that Tommy Oliver was in it. Tommy is the greatest character in the Power Rangers canon by far. In the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, he was the badass, evil Green Ranger, who eventually turned into the noble White Ranger. In the forgotten "Zeo" season, he became the Red Zeo Ranger and the bonafide leader, and maintained the role in 1997's Power Rangers Turbo. From there on out, Tommy, a longtime standard of the series, was gone. However, he comes back as the mentor and eventual Black Ranger in Power Rangers Dino Thunder. Throughout the season, he at one point get's stuck in the Power Rangers suit for about ten episodes

Power Rangers S.P.D. could be the beginning of the end for me. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed the darker season, but I just started to lose interest towards the middle of the season before really picking up steam in the end. The season took place in a futuristic world, where aliens and humans live peacefully. There are plenty of Power Rangers, known as "Space Patrol Delta", and separated into teams. The A-Squad, who ended up being evil, were the top team and went on all the major missions. The bumbling B-Squad were our heroes; Sky Tate, the no-nonsense Blue Ranger (who's father was revealed to be Time Force Red Ranger Wes Collins), goofy but loving Green Ranger Bridge Carson, bad-ass female Z Delgado, the Yellow Ranger, and pretty girl Pink Ranger Sydney Drew. To complete the team, street rat and smart guy Jack Landors became the leader and Red Ranger. The team was commissioned by a dog-man Anubis Cruger. Throughout the season, the team expanded to plenty of new team members; Anubis became the badass Shadow Ranger, while his love interest Kat Manx (who appropriately was part cat), became the Kat Ranger (clever naming). The Omega Ranger turns out to come from the future. His real identity was Sam, who in the present of the series was a young boy that was being bullied whom Z defended and befriended. From Sam's time also comes the Nova Ranger, a faceless, rather forgettable character who comes in extremely late in the series.

The show eventually moved to Toon Disney along with the entire Jetix block, and without a digital cable package in our household, I stopped watching the shows I grew up watching. However, with Nickelodeon announcing that they will be broadcasting the next season (Power Rangers Samurai, made by Saban Entertainment, who created the first seasons that were genuine classics), I'll have to give it a shot again. Maybe I'll get that shot of nostalgia that I so dearly miss.

Next Up: Cartoons I Used To Love Part 2: Miguzi

Update.

I have a bit of a confession to make; I have a total of about 6 albums that I'm ready to sit down and listen to (including Cake, The Decemberists, James Blake and others), but I'm just not having the time. I feel a bit of a loss of motivation to write about solely music. So in that turn of events, I'm going to turn this into a complete blog about whatever's on my mind. I like the name 'loop pedal.", so I'm going to keep it, but this is turning into a new blog about anything that fills my 16 year old mind.