This Is Exciting For Me, You Guys

Coin-Op “Ex Models” – Though he’s clearly indebted to the likes of Mark E Smith and Andy Falkous, the singer from Coin-Op is not nearly as venomous and antagonistic, and so his songs end up seeming more playful and silly in their punky petulance. It’s a charming mixture — one part bile, three parts syrup — that lends itself nicely to their perky rhythms and understated, keyboard-centric noise. Most of “Ex Models” is based around an insistent keyboard riff, but the piece really hits its peak when it transitions into a clanging mechanical racket on the chorus. (Click here for the Coin-Op MySpace page.)

Michael Ian Black “Satanic Messages” – Even though Michael Ian Black is a somewhat foppish metrosexual type, it’s still somewhat surprising to notice how effeminate he seems when you can only hear his voice. He amplifies and distorts this quality throughout his first stand-up album, and later comments directly on the fact that many of his fans suspect that he’s gay. Black’s routines mainly play on his strengths, i.e., his slick, suave delivery, and a persona that blends smug vapidity with self-aware erudition to the point that the two become weirdly, uncomfortably indistinguishable. “Satanic Messages” begins with a fairly shopworn premise, but the bit goes off on a tangent about PR that somehow concludes with a frighteningly accurate impression of the B52s’ Fred Schneider singing about the Nazi party. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)

Elsewhere: Jancee Dunn revisits the horrors of the 1975 JC Penney catalog.

Also: “I mean, it was basically, with the Markers writing songs, ‘Let’s let a couple of defectives reinvent the wheel and see if we can make the car go on four squares,'” Ambrogio explains. “It can go, but it takes a lot more power and destroys more.” Plus, she adds, “It was also written out of straight frustration. When you look at most of the vapid, soulless douches currently writing songs and making records, do you not think with even the slightest effort you could do better?”