Billy Moon - Roads
Info: I've always felt like the weirdo in the room, there will always be a part of me that wants to raise a big middle finger to the rest of the world that says "fine, here I am, come and get me".
The music of Billy Moon is meant for the periods of your life when everything sucks except for your favourite record. I spent a good two years of my life after I left for university fully convinced that there was something wrong with me. I was surrounded and living with people who called themselves my friends but I still felt miles away from. The whole time I was convinced that I was too negative, that I wasn’t fun enough, that I needed to lighten up and that I had to fit in. Fuck, I felt like I was 7 years old again except this time I was going to do it right.
Billy Moon was the guy that remained a constant for me when I was going through my own ups and downs with meeting new kids and trying out new paths of self discovery. Billy Moon was a part of my identity, a name that I was not given, but that I took.
Billy Moon has been one I've been sitting on for far too long, the first time I watched the video for 'Roads' I was in love with his sound. It's 80's, kinda, but I don't really know how to describe it, I can't think of any references that come easily, it feels like they should be obvious, but there's nothing there, maybe a sliver of some weird and unholy alliance between Genesis, Dire Straits and The Cure, and step forward in time, Ryan Adams, what?
I cannot not love the guitar on 'Roads', and the lazy bass-line that is so laid-back it's almost not there. Humour can be a cloak, and the video contrasts with the song's lyrics in the chorus;
'I can see them all, standing in a different light, a story to be told, someone shouts I love you guys, I’m carrying load sometimes I just don’t know why, I’m standing in the road, waiting for a car to drive by.'
Opening track 'Boyfriend's Car (Butterfly)' has a psych Electric Prunes vocal overlay on top of a garage-rock medley, nonchalant doesn't even cover it, but it's chilled, fuzzed out, and some kind of rock n' roll wonderful. Whilst jest is integral to the Billy Moon story, there's a very sincere level of contemplation in his lyrics, on second track, 'Different Song (Same Girl)' there's the tragi-comic line; 'Oh I’m just a piece of flesh staring at your new dress, I’m just coming up with sentences trying to make sense, Oh would you be so kind as to tell me I’m fine, this whole meaningless existence has got me losing my mind.'
'Long Drawled Out Story That Goes Nowhere (Sam + Alex)', the E.P.'s third track, is where you can calmly drift off, it's lo-fi perfection, humming and lightly distorted guitar plodding in between Moon's vocals and percussion. The fourth track on the EP kind of sums up the mood and question of whether alter ego Billy Moon, or the real life protagonist, are dwelling in a greater place of uncertainty, it seems both are, and in a very real way, that makes this an extremely emotional and hard to take lightly set of songs. This confusion between what Robin Thicke once described as 'blurred lines', is what makes That Which You Can’t Throw Away such an interesting and special trip courtesy of the Ontario artist.
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