Ways in Which Listening to Tokyo Police Club is Like Dating a Girl You Won't Commit To

After 2 EPs and around 30 minutes worth of music, Tokyo Police Club put out their full length record, Elephant Shell on Saddle Creek Records this week.

Truth be told, I would have probably ignored TPC's debut album if my bike ride to work wasn't soundtracked by "Nature of the Experiment," one of their herk'em, jerk'em songs from last summer. As I pedaled up the Brooklyn Bridge I couldn't help but acknowledge TPC's appeal. They pumped me up, they kept things simple and were economical as hell. I'd heard some pretty good things about Elephant Shell and I even liked the songs I sampled from the new record. Yet, I felt no urge to seek out the album in any form.

Why can't I find it in my heart to welcome Tokyo Police Club to the Thom Siblog roster of artists? I think it's because listening to Tokyo Police Club is like continuously dating a girl who you know you will never settle down with. And I just don't have it in me after last summer's fling with the Black Kids. So I did what any white middle class male would do. I made a list comparing dating to music consumption!

Ways in which listening to TPC is like continuously dating a girl who you know you will never settle down with.

1) You know it won't last: Isn't that how it always starts? With a romantic trip up the Brooklyn Bridge in the morning? But much like the girl I met at trivia night who told me she came to trivia to learn, this band is lacking that something that would make it a long term contender and it's painfully obvious. Both the girl and the song were attractive enough: both were short and to the point. But the bottom line is that at 27 I've seen enough girls and heard enough songs to need more than a fuzzed out guitar tone or a really nice bottom. I'll rock you tonight, tomorrow and even on the NJ turnpike but ultimately my affections in this case are fleeting. I know me and trivia girl won't be going skiing this winter just as I know that TPC won't be on my Christmas time mix cd.

2) Convenience: Doesn't everyone have that one friend who seems to lack the shame gland that prohibits most guys from walking up to pretty girls and saying ridiculous things? Everyone wants to be the cool, brooding guy in the corner who sips his Glenlivet smoothly until a fiesty young lady approaches him. This system occasionally works but it yields uneven results. In my experience, girls who make themselves so easily available usually fall below the Jamie Mendoza diagonal on the hot/crazy scale. Yet, there is an allure that comes with ease.

In the same light, don't we all have a friend who runs around the internet scavenging for new bands/rare tracks and unreleased albums? But then we have that other friend who loves the music you put on his iPod for him because he read all about those bands on Stereogum (sorry guys). Tokyo Police Club is a band of convenience. No one has to seek these guys out or go through lots of trouble to discover them. Furthermore, much like the girl who bought your bullshit brooding at the bar, this band is easy. These guys know the game and they're going to play it. You won't have to think about your ex during TPC's peppy bursts of pop punk in the same way you won't be writing poetry for the graphic designer who slipped you her number after you told her you were busy later, but that is the appeal.

3) Shame: Lately I've noticed that when my other family members aren't looking or aren't within an earshot my grandfather pulls me over and says, "How are things with the ladies?" with a wink and a nod. Sometimes he even grabs my arm and startles me. This always makes me mildly uncomfortable and I'm not really sure what to say. Is the correct answer, "I really gave it to her. I even had her call me grandpa"? Or something more truthful like, "Grandpa I've got no time for that. Between rewatching episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and leaving people movie notes on Netflix I don't have much time for dating. Also why do you ask me when no one else is looking?"

Needless to say, Grandpa has never heard about the 6 foot Haitian woman at my office that makes me squirm everytime she passes my desk nor has he heard about the time I made out with an adorable girl from Trinidad in a dank sauna outside of Toronto. If she isn't going to be partaking in one of the Siblo's gluttoneous feasts, there really isn't a need to shade the pictures for Gramps, I'd prefer broad strokes.


Now, as a music nerd who hangs out with other music nerds, I frequently get asked the broad question, "Whatchu been listening to?" as to open up the floodgates of conversation. I rarely admit that I've been listening to old New Found Glory singles (although most of my boys couldn't deny the sheer awesomeness of "Dressed to Kill") and frequently opt for a more obscure (and better) answer that would enlighten the potential listener (perhaps the Marked Men?). Tokyo Police Club are not a band I'd ever lump into the latter category. Hell, I wouldn't even lump them in with NFG since TPC didn't soundtrack my sophomore year of college shenanigans. If they were to ever be brought up it would be in the context of "you know who isn't that bad... Tokyo Police Club." No David Fricke-esque hyperbole, no youthful enthusiasm. Shameful silence. Which brings us to...

4) Guilt: Jack Donaghy, Vice-President of Television and Microwave Oven Programming at GE once described being Catholic as having "a crushing guilt" at all times. It would follow that as a recovering Catholic and former Altar Boy, I carry this guilt with me at all times. And thus when some girl tells me how she is "best friends with Ben Gibbard...ya know, from Postal Service" and I tell her how much I love them just so we can make out, I feel a little bad. I feel less bad when she tells me she holds supreme knowledge of the northwestern music scene and doesn't have any idea who Calvin Johnson is. And yet, there is still this guilt.

Do you have any idea how bad I'd feel pretending to commit to Tokyo Police Club? Everytime one of their painfully consistent B+ hooks hit my ears and I hum along I'd feel terrible knowing that they'd be the Oxford Collapse of this summer. I just can't lead them on like I did with Architecure in Helsinki or the girl I met from Pratt with the Andy Warhol tote bag.

5) Limited Happiness: Now, say you've been seeing the girl you will never settle down with for awhile. Eventually, what will start to happen is you will begin justify the relationship in your head. Sure, she wears Crocs but she is damn cute. Except when she puts her hair back. But she is always there for you. Yet she seems too available. But then as you are laying in bed, enjoying some post coital Galaxie 500, you think to yourself: "Hey why can't this girl be a contender. No one is perfect, especially not me. Let's give this a go." Elated at the discovery of your feelings for this girl you decide to go grab that kick ass Dogfish Head IPA from the bodega. As you wait in line you notice you most adorable blue eyed art student who tells you she loves your Modern Lovers t-shirt.

And all of a sudden you don't want to go home. You remember the road trip you took last weekend with the girl lying in your bed. You remember the disappointment of kicking off the trip's mix cd with the kick ass road trippin' quinessential opening track, "Roadrunner" and getting a blank look from the girl. And you realize that girl in your bed can only get so good, so why settle?

And this isn't to say that the girl in bodega is perfect by any stretch. This has nothing to do with the typical male affliction of always needing something "new" (a metaphor that works with music as well). But when something works, romantically or musically, the flaws are irrevelent and overlooked. One of my all time favourite bands is Screeching Weasel, nuff' said.

So when Rocket From the Crypt's "Waste It" comes on right after "Nature of the Experiment," I realize that my joy for that angular guitar line can only make me so happy and that TPC will never crush my brain daily with chaotic breakdowns and infectious hornlines, no matter how much I'd like them to.

Hopefully TPC and I can still see each other platonically or on a liberally assembled playlist soon.