On Rilo Kiley... Deconstructing One of The Most Deplorable/Beautiful Bands of All Time (Part 1)

One of the most fun things about meeting someone new is that you get to introduce them to all the things that make you tick. In my case, a huge majority of those things are related to music. Of all the music-related things from the last five years or so, one band that must be detailed thoroughly is a little 4-piece out of Los Angeles called Rilo Kiley.

My relationship with Rilo Kiley is about as bumpy as it gets when you're talking about the top 1% of my (never documented, constantly revised) all-time favorites list. And while I truly LOVE this band, I also love to HATE them. Much like their gut wrenchingly-pretty music about the most supremely heartbreaking of life's big moments, my opinion of Rilo Kiley's music flails so wildly across the map that I've resorted to dividing their catalog into three distinct mental blocks. It's my way of keeping this amazing band's sordid legacy at once untouchable and easily disparaged by the little rock geek inside my brain.

Why am I telling you all this? Well because it's complicated, and what are blogs for but to post rambing, self-indulgent ruminations on subjects we think we know a lot about, am I right or am I right?

Now, then:

Part 1 - The Pre-Everything Years - 1999-2001



The first Rilo Kiley epoch is essentially a preamble, in that it spans the length of time between the forming of the band and the release of their first official recording. It is Rilo Kiley in their infancy, drooling on guitars, spitting up all manner of musical sludge. Devoid of publicity and enshrouded in a you-had-to-be-there haze, these pre-everything days produced exactly one album's worth of material, which the band released on its own and then re-issued, twice.

Together the three pressings of the "Initial Friends" EP (it's an LP, in my book) are what Rilo Kiley sounds like in a vacuum. Despite its hiccups (powerpop?) and mis-steps (turntable scratching? really?), it is unmistakably Rilo Kiley, and considering that it was created free from external influence and before anyone knew when the fuck* they were, it's safe to say it's Rilo Kiley at their most sincere.

And I love just about every second of it. A lot.

Stay tuned for parts 2 and 3 to see what happens when the promise of worldwide fame, fortune and lifelong careers in music enter the picture.

*"Initial Friends" features a liberal use of curse words (sample lyric: "Would you fuck me? 'Cause I'd fuck me."), a Rilo Kiley lyrical standard.