First time I heard Mikal Cronin, I had just had a couple of Ray’s Mistakes at the Tiki Ti for a friend’s birthday party and the bartenders had just wound up the tiny mechanical bull that walks the length of the bar. Pretty much everyone in that little shack started hooting and hollering and cheering the rough beast on it’s journey from one end the other.
Struck by an uncomfortable overwhelming dread, I hastily walked a friend out unto the sidewalk. As we spilled out unto the sidewalk, his brightly colored floral pattern shirt kept doing this weird melty light show (like you get on iTunes) beneath his pretty awesome Letterman jacket.
As we gathered ourselves, we spoke momentarily about Thee Oh Sees, Ty Segall, and the amazing garage-psych-power-pop stuff happening all up and down the California Coast, at which point he says, “Have you heard Mikal Cronin?”
“Nah dude.”
“Alright stand back,” he says as he whips out his phone. He pulled up a YouTube of Cronin’s “Apathy” and despite being a YouTube video, playing through the speakers on tiny computer some 3 and half inches long…the unbelievably tight, garage pop magically drowned out all ambient noise, the Rum punched wooze lifted, and technicolor light shirt toned down and all there was was the sinewy verse-chorus-verse…topped off with a skronky sax solo that made me forget anything else was happening anywhere in the world. As soon as it was over, we listened to it again, and the second time around I crossed my fingers in hopes that Brian’s shirt would start glowing again.
The formerly from the OC but now living in SF but spending plenty of time in LA Cronin is currently out and about playing music with Ty Segall and White Fence. So good. Sooo good.