Who do you call when you're in need of advice? If you're lucky, you've got a mother you can always turn to for long-distance counsel. Chris Streng apparently does, or just wishes it so, because he wrote an 8-minute song about it for his band the Stratford 4.
The Stratford 4 are a band from San Francisco I stumbled onto while attending college there. A perpetually stoned dorm roommate recommended them to me, and I picked up their Love & Distortion CD on one of many trips to Amoeba Records on Haight street. Their name had me expecting something vaguely Shakespearean. Instead, I heard dense, sleepy psychedelia, with droning guitars and Streng's dispassionate vocals. The album's sometimes lugibrious pace took some getting used to, but from out of the fuzz and echo, some songs started to stick with me. "Telephone" is one of the best.
It's certainly the funniest. In it, Streng asks his mom just what the hell went wrong with his life. "When I was 22/I was a lot like you," she replies. After Chris rattles off the gloomy indie bands he's been indulging in, Mom has one last bit of sage counsel: "Don't forget Bob Dylan, and don't forget the Stones/And don't spend Saturday night all alone." Whether this is an accurate portrayal of Streng's mother or just a rock geek's fantasy is a matter of conjecture, but I can tell you that's some damn good advice.
TODAY'S RECOMMENDATION: "Telephone" by the Stratford 4
AVAILABLE ON: Love & Distortion
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