The Bicycats
posted in Reviews |Really, I Love You For Your Mind
The Bicycats first release, i love you for your mind, is a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing. Keep in mind, however, that the wolf is clever and jaded, and the sheep is a campy lighthearted hipster. Zachary Bernstein is The Bicycats. He wrote, performed, and produced each song. Initially, his simple, bouncy melodies disguise themselves as harmless. These melodies are like a new best friend, who is relentlessly trying to get you up off your heartbroken, melancholy ass, and go out for drinks, on a night when you’re hell bent on sulking. His “aw c’mon man I SWEAR we won’t even think about her” tactics eventually win, and you submit. The next thing you know, you’re at the bar with this offbeat guy, and the painful subjects you were purposefully avoiding have come up. Thing is, you’re not mad. This guy is damn funny. It turns out; the searing pain of heartbreak IS kind of absurd in this lighting, and man you needed to get out of that stale old house anyway. Such is the case with ‘i love you for your mind.’ The Bicycats trick you into meeting up during recess, and then serve up intelligent, weighty subjects using form and lyrics that are just silly and random enough to not leave you full of regret for having tackled such lofty tomfoolery. Bernstein gets away with it because clever fun is contagious. Don’t fight it.
Directly tied into this cleverness, is a mischievous, almost stylish self -deprecation that appears in songs like “Every Time We Say Goodbye (Not A Cole Porter Song).” Lines like “Every Time we say goodbye, my heart sinks to the pavement…we seem to be developing a thing here, where we say everything we wanna say, then one of us decides that we are tired, and the other person sadly walks away” are tongue-in-cheek followed by the afterthought, ” I think we all know who that guy is.” In the context of the song’s infectious nursery school-esque keyboards, this admission is half precocious- nerdy -adolescent; half friend-of-a-cousin you’re completely relieved shows up at Thanksgiving. Oh thank god, an unexpected and welcome goof, just when The Fear was beginning to set up house. And this goof just might be gay. But you don’t think so. But you’re not sure. And this makes them intriguing. There are perfect, odd, even flirty songs like the remarkably short “Very Subtle Moustache,” or the delightfully hostile “Dance The Night Away” will certainly find themselves on carefully thought out mixed CD’s, for those of us who make such things for those ‘people who matter.’ The not so subtle queerness of these songs, as opposed to the aforementioned moustache, is refreshingly surprising, and again just further celebrates The Bicycats’ richly textured “Otherness”. Even though you swore you didn’t feel like celebrating, dammit. Well then. Bernstein’s hooks stick to you like red mud on your corduroys after the kickball game at recess. With effort it will go away, but for now there is proof that you like to play, even if it gets messy.
–Beth F. (the kid)
S/R (307 Knox Records)