Weezer (The White Album)
Weezer
Release Date: April 1, 2016
Atlantic Records
Length: 34:05
The academic excuse for why I was in LA last week is the Association of Writing & Writing Programs conference; but honestly, I had to just look up what AWP stands for in order to write this. The conference is in a different city each year. It’s mostly for writers to geek-out and feel normal. It’s become…a bit of a social event; and, when it’s in a city like LA, it’s a pretty good excuse to just take a vacation. I haven’t attended for the past 5 years, but LA? C’mon. I spent most of my time last week in Venice and Santa Monica. I ran to Muscle Beach. I took lazy bike rides along the boardwalk. I ate tacos and drank beer. I listened to the new Weezer album. Rivers Cuomo (Weezer’s front man) spent a lot of time in Venice and Santa Monica while he was writing the album. He even joined Tinder in order to meet people for song ideas. This is Weezer’s fourth eponymous album, and like the rest of them, it’s assigned a color: this time white, like the beach.
This album is reminiscent of The Blue Album, which, if you were in high school in the 1990’s, you likely played on repeat and thought “Undone—The Sweater Song” was hilarious and perfect. Cuomo also admits that The Beach Boys were an influence here. If you have a hard time understanding how a 45-year-old man from Connecticut can still write songs like “California Kids,” and “Thank God for Girls,” and “Do You Wanna Get High?” then you should definitely get to Venice. Time stops; or even, goes in reverse. Everyone is fit and happy and ready to teach you how to surf. When you’re walking back from the beach, stop in at The Brig and order a Sazarac. They know how to pour a cocktail, and how to relax. The windows will all be open, and people will throw on sweatshirts when the sun goes down and cools things off to a nice 57-degrees. And if you’re out of Skymiles, make the cocktail anyway, and turn Weezer on: you’re almost there.
Sazarac:
1 sugar cube
2.5 ounces of rye whiskey
2 dashes of bitters
absinthe rinse
lemon peel
