Webmasters listen to music too…

PHOTO Kurt Simonson

A few years back when I was going to CSULB I had the great fortune of meeting a young man named A. Wesley Chung, a nice, quiet guy with too much plaid in his closet. Wesley is one of those guys that you might know for months, thinking that he was quiet, unassuming and bland. Eventually, however, you might catch a glimpse of the man behind the plaid.

I was ‘peer-mentoring’ a class that he was in when he asked me if I’d like to come see his band, Boris Smile. “This kid has a band?” I thought. Indoor-kid that I am, my schedule was free—so I drove down to the Lab and caught half of Boris Smile’s set and a song that sounded a lot like it was about playing Gameboy, complete with an “I’M BEATING THE BOSS!” bridge. It took me the rest of that song and the beginning of the next to realize that Wesley is a weird guy—genius weird.

I still find myself listening to the 2004 demo he gave me every now and again. It’s a little rough, but I guess I’m just a sucker for folky music about being bad at math and the birds & bees talk with your parents. It’s personal but not in an I’m-so-lonely-I-could-die type of way—more of an I-really-preferred-being-eight sort of personal. And it just sounds really pretty.

Earlier this year Boris Smile, which now includes Wesley and around six others (and sixteen more musicians that are listed in the liner notes) released their first album, Chapter 1. It’s everything you could want: fun, irreverent, beautifully orchestrated (did I hear a clarinet? a tuba? a glockenspiel?), local, and it might even make you dance a bit. I’d say they kind of sound like Broken Social Scene, Flight of the Conchords, and Simon & Garfunkel, but I’d rather just tell you to listen to the song below (Adventures With Rockets), and then check out their Myspace. You can thank me later.

Boris Smile - Adventures With Rockets

P.S.: If you’re wondering about the name, this video is both informative and entertaining.

Tags: boris smile, Long Beach, mp3, Music, webmaster, webmaster musicmaster