The Song

The Chain Gang of 1974 • Undercover

Happy new year, Reader! We hope you, like us, are super-psyched for this year of excitingly inevitable armageddon. I mean, think about it, all those things that usually stress you out—Am I making enough money? Should I leave New York, work at a car dealership, and buy a house, so I'm successful like all those high school friends from Facebook? Did I feed the cat today?—TOTALLY don't matter.

Okay, that last one matters. We'd get an earful when we got home if Mr. McVittes missed a meal. But point being, MANY things we usually worry about day-to-day will certainly not worry us this year because, according to Nostradamus, countless calendar-making Mayans, and our friend Justin's kinda nutso hippy aunts, it won't matter much if we pass gas during pilates class come year-end. Assuming we get to year-end. And no, we've never passed gas during pilates class. What do you think we are, MONSTERS‽

All that in mind, why not start the year of with some feel-good electro dance tunes? We first heard LA by way of Denver by way of Hawaii by way of San Jose band, The Chain Gang of 1974 (AKA, songwriter Kamtin Mohager) over the summer of cataclysm-less 2011 and quickly filed them/him away in the Notable Not Phenomenal file in our ears' filing cabinet. Really good stuff, but it didn't stand out much for us. This week's Song of the Week, though, "Undercover," has essentially been on constant repeat in our office/home/rental cars over the past couple months. There's definitely some significant 80's influence there with the vocals and synths, but it's inventive and substantial enough to make it far from redundant. Not sure if it'll play us out to the end of days, but it's holdin' up pretty well so far! Check it out. And give more of his latest album, Wayward Fire, a listen over at the band's site, where you can also join up on their mailing list fro another free single.