Pre-Summer Double Shot
Two Shirts and Two Albums for Summer Estivation
I. Lost in the Grocery Store with ‘El Rattlero’
On Tuesday morning in Los Angeles, the radio station KXLU 88.9FM (broadcasting the eclectic mix of shows and music you’d expect from any decent college radio station, with this one coming from my alma mater, Loyola Marymount), has a long running show called the Zoo Croo.
The show plays a bevy of alternative music, but the hardcore and punk rock tracks selected and played by co-hosts “crate-diggin’ RYAN & your homeboy the three-wheelin’, free-wheelin’ Margarita-Meister EL RATTLERO” in particular sound like they were recorded underwater in 1992 and mastered on a potato.
In the age of MomTok (and the barrages of GLP-1 ads that justify its continued existence), I admire the unpolished sound of early punk rock more than ever. Not that this stuff is fun to listen to, but it feels like eating your vegetables; taking the time to listen to sincere, urgent (to the artists that made it) music that has a technical quality of “this is the best we could do, what do want from us? we recorded this in a garage on a tape deck.” Just get something out there and figure out the rest later (if one looks at typos, it’s nearly Sublime Prosaic’s mantra).
The Zoo Croo show bio also implores listeners: “DON’T FORGET to call in to demand the world famous HARDCORE DOUBLESHOT!” And people don’t forget. Random people from all over Los Angeles will start calling into the show live on Tuesday mornings to demand their hardcore double shot, the “hardcore punk that drives LA commuters crazy.” The “double shot” itself is just two (or more) very loud, scream-y songs played back-to-back—a ‘block of rock’ as it might be called on other radio stations, which has even less relevance on a station like KXLU that has zero commercial interruptions. And the callers get increasingly weird, agitated and unhinged as they demand their double shot.
This double shot has been happening as long as I can remember and I love it (I used to catch it more often pre-2020 when I would be driving to an office during the 8-9AM hour). I want to do what I can to make sure some record of it exists somewhere. Can something be ‘an institution’ if few people have heard of it? Here’s the single (!) YouTube video that exists showcasing the general energy of the show (end of the clip even has people beginning to call in for the double shot).
The morning I’m writing this section, Rattler (whose radio personality kind of sounds like Gilbert Gottfried) is expressing dismay that he heard some of his “deep cut” track selections being played on the sound system in the Marina del Rey Home Depot. As a result, he has decided to play grocery store music, and is proceeding with a “lost in the grocery store” theme. There’s no substitute for this kind of oddball, individual curation. Spotify wishes.
And it’s with this hardcore double shot framework in mind that we now turn to a kind of menswear and dance music double shot (two polo shirts and two albums I’m enjoying). Here is your not-at-all-hardcore double shot.
II. Polo Duo
First up, and the least punk rock thing possible, a discussion of polo shirts.
My uniform for the last few years has been a polo shirt and some 5 pocket pants, with some kind of layering piece (a teba, safari jacket, chore coat, sport coat, etc.). Recently, my weekly rotation of Lacoste Paris polos gave up the ghost at the same time (they performed valiantly for four years, but have succumbed to entropy, developing small holes in a few places).
And so I was in need of replacing these. I ended up consolidating these four shirts into two from Sunspel (an indigo/overdyed one, and then a natural/undyed one).
I won’t investigate how I got “influenced” to buy these, but menswear people definitely talk about these Sunspel polos from time to time and I’ve been meaning to give them a try.
The undyed polo is interesting to me—undyed garments showcasing the natural color of cotton have been popping up on more collections, so it’s a bit of an experiment for me—hopefully coordinating with a wide swath of whites, creams and khakis. The color on the indigo polo is a very rich blue that’s great in real life. It reminds me, in the best way, of the Namiki blue ink cartridges I use for my Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen.
To the extent materials might make a difference in longevity, Sunspel uses a "fine, “extra-long staple” Supima cotton sourced from a “single, family-owned farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley. Founded in 1920, the farm is unique because it controls the entire process, from growing the crop through to ginning and quality control.” All of this is nice marketing copy, but it also means the cotton should hold up better over time than Lacoste’s basic pique (Lacoste’s cotton details were somewhat murky, according to this in-depth review from 2021).
We’ll see how they hold up over time—I wouldn’t necessarily expect to get four years out of them like I did the Lacoste polos, but it would be a nice surprise if I did.
III. Pan Caliente
Here are two albums I’m enjoying to finish out this double shot. I also won’t link the albums here or explain too much about the artists—we’re all adults and you can just go find this stuff if you’re so inclined.
First up is Polo & Pan’s 22:22. This house duo is back with a new album delivering more of their summer-y, global sound.
The stand out from the album for me is Petite Etoile. If the feeling of “the sun is going down, how long have I been at this pool party?” was a song, it would be this.
And then there’s Butter from Sofi Tukker. An acoustic, Bossa-y rework of the songs from last year’s certified banger of an album, Bread.
If one was inclined, the original album and its softer set of cover versions can now essentially be played in sequence as a day-to-night combo (the softer Samba versions up first, transitioning later into the global dance versions).
Hosts also now have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever and mix the acoustic version of “Throw Some Ass” in to their normal tropical playlists (where this can sit completely unnoticed next to the normal standards by João Gilberto, Natalie Lafourcade, Arthur Verocai, etc.).
May these albums bring you ambience.
Internet Bycatch
Once again trawling the internet’s watery reaches for the useful, interesting and edible.
Nice to see an opinion in the New Yorker saying the same thing I did about The White Lotus, only better.
Alfred Hitchcock on the Kuleshov Effect.
I’ve been watching some Sesame Street (for reasons that should be obvious), and my favorite muppet by a country mile would have to be Mr. Johnson—a mustachioed, power-crowned, paunchy businessman. He shows up infrequently, but he stand out to me for how stressed out and downtrodden he seems—this muppet has a real job somewhere and he does not have time for whatever Grover is trying to do. His character is also built on the “Fat Blue Anything Muppet” template, which is information I was compelled to share.
I want superwood beams. A new wood material that is stronger than steel, and has the warm lustre of endangered tropical hardwoods.
John Wilson is one of the more interesting filmmakers of our time.
Became aware of this and had to share it with the world. “Who do you think you are? I am!”