So there’s this band called This Is My Suitcase, right? They’re from Ohio and they play homemade pop music with lots of acoustic guitar, piano, and references to cats. They’re a young band, but they’ve already put out an album (2006’s “Missent to Thailand”), a handful of EPs (“The C EP” and “The C.R.E. EP” from ’06 and ’07 respectively), and an album of assorted covers (If you do check out their myspace, most of the songs in the player are covers right now). I’ve decided rather than pick one thing in particular to review, I’ll just rave about it all. I don’t have the covers album, but I do have a couple of assorted songs from their myspace that they enabled downloading of, and the total adds up to about an hour anyway.
So okay. Joe Camerlengo (“boy vocals, acoustic guitar” as he credits himself on their myspace) has kind of a strange, effeminate singing voice (“He pretends he knows how to sing, but he knows he knows how to pretend to moonwalk.”) that might turn off listeners who prefer their frontmen manly (I’m pretty sure he’s studying to be a nurse), but it really is quite good and fits the songs perfectly. And these songs are just absurdly cute, witty, and uplifting.
I first heard their album “Missent To Thailand” in 2006, and at first I just didn’t know what to make of it. I kept thinking that it sounded so sloppy, but I couldn’t stop listening to it. It felt like a guilty pleasure, but then I just succumbed. Particularly to the song “L-O-V-E” which is so adorable and catchy and sort of inspiring. This is one of the 3 songs that was re-recorded in a studio by a professional producer Mike Green for free. The new version loses some of the DIY charm, but is probably more palatable to most. In any case, “Missent To Thailand” is a wonderful way to pass a half hour with pop songs that sound so warm that it’s a wonder so much other music of its ilk comes off sterile and crunchy (whoa, I just used the word “ilk.” What the hell?). Ultimately though, it was recorded with a “cheap computer mic” and now and then it does get a little in the way. But not often. Of it, they write, “it sounds different than we do now.”
And I am okay with that, because since then they’ve released a bunch of wonderful songs marked with higher production values, more diverse and accomplished instrumentation, and I haven’t thought of them as a guilty pleasure once since. In fact, I really appreciate those things most of all now which originally I wasn’t sure about. The band is kind of a great role model on the whole equality front, with two of the band members being girls, the frontman being uninhibitedly and unabashedly girly (one song is called “Obviously, doctor, you’ve never been a 13 year old girl”, another “Cute boys are for kissing.” Another has the lyrics “What’s a girl like me doing in a place like this? What’s a pretty girl like me doing in a place like this? I don’t know. I’ll have what he’s having.”) and making great, really positive music.
And when the song “L-O-V-E” builds to this moment, it’s kind of impossible to be a cynic or pessimist about life and love. You might need to hear it to believe it, and it’s not on their myspace or purevolume but there is a rendition of it on youtube, so check it out at the end of the post. This is kind of a weird review, but I’m not sure what else to say except maybe I’ll do a more proper one when “Keys to Cat Heaven” comes out.
I’m seeing stars
And cartoon birds circling my head
Like an anvil wrinkled me
So this is loveAll I’ve got up my sleeve is love
And I know it’s good enough for you (for you for you)
For us
-Max Jacobson
I Ate My DVD Collection 