The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Part II

Almost 2 weeks ago, I finally saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart play a show. Before that though, they released their Higher Than The Stars EP. And if you follow any music blog, which actually I don't really, you'll see that they've been releasing stuff all over the place since their full-length album. Plus, even though I already wrote a pretty lengthy post about them, I figured it was worth it to write about this EP and their show.


Higher Than The Stars has four songs and a remix on it. I almost said "it's short and sweet" but that sounds stupid. Plus, like the Pains, it's not really as saccharine as a lot of the other stuff I listen to/write about. But I do really like the EP. The title track has such perfectly POBPAH lyrics and when Kip Berman sings "in the back of her mother's car" over and over I just wanna sing along. Both the title track and "Falling Over" are almost dreamy sounding tracks compared to other Pains stuff. I still really like them. But I really love the noisiness of "103" because I'm pretty sure the fuzzed out pop started my love for this band. "Twins" is sort of in between, noisier but maybe a little catchier. The Saint Etienne remix of "Higher Than The Stars" is a nice ending to the EP, but maybe that's just because I also love Saint Etienne. There's also another remix of this track which is not on this EP. That remix is done by Skanfrom (the guy from Television Set and Sleeparchive) and for a bit I thought I might like that better. I'm not really sure now.


Anyway, after listening to the Pains forever, and missing their shows all the time, I finally made it to one. I went with our friend Melissa, and we showed up way too early. Then we met up with our friend Maggie, who is actually in this Sociology class at Bryn Mawr about popular music. The show was, basically, uh, research, because Kip was going to her class the next day. The Depreciation Guild opened for the Pains, and I actually really like them, so it was nice. Then they finally came on and for a little I could only think of how precious Peggy Wang is. She seriously is, guys. Even moreso in person, when she's wearing my dream flower print 90s jumper dress. It was Kip's birthday and he was really precious about it. I liked their set, and even though one of the guys in front of me smelled like Smirnoff Ice, all was good. I love the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, and I was just really glad to finally go to a show. They are just so good and so adorable! At the end Kip almost fell and almost poured a his drink on me. But c'mon guys, he's so precious that I just sort of shook my head.

According to Maggie, Kip was super precious in class. And he mentioned a bunch of my favorite bands, which I had just shared with Maggie at Burger Friday. At the show, Maggie's professor had mentioned that Kip Berman's mom was also coming to their class, saying something like "I've had rockstars come to class, but I've never had the mothers of rockstars come to class..." Well, apparently, it just made everything extra cute.

On the way back to Bryn Mawr, Melissa and I took some really ridiculous pictures. I really hate pictures, but the show put me in a good mood. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart don't always put me in a good mood, but I really just love them.

Love, María