Song Review: "Don't Steal Our Sun" - The Thrills

By Old Man

If you've been checking the celebrity wires, or even simply the LA Times, you might have caught some of the tensions coming to a climax in a couple of the surfspots I frequent in Malibu. Not just once, but twice. There is too much comedy, irony, and tragedy in these showdowns between surfers and paparazzi (which I am dubbing Godzilla vs. Mothra I and II) not to point out at least one area of interest in this farce.

Beach ownership. We have a group of twenty white guys (and a girl), beers in hand, go up to the usurper paparazzi crew, looking for some pics of a surfing Matthew McConaughey. They tell them to get off the beach, their beach, and draw a line in the sand. Let's step back: The name of the beach they are on is not in fact Paradise Cove, it is "Dume" - and the city is not LA but Malibu. These are not British names, not Swedish, these are names inherited by the Chumash Tribe, the Native Americans who originally lived there (but probably had different ideas of "private land ownership" than the surfers). Not to mention the Spanish settlers who came next. Never mind that under United States law no one owns the beachfront of which they are speaking - it didn't stop them from basing their claim against the paparazzi on these ideas of ownership. As fellow critic Platypus said to me, "Amazing how the irrational pursuit of a perceived commodity can bring people down to the lowest common denominator."

Which brings me, at long last, to this week's gem, The Thrills "Don't Steal Our Sun" (are you getting the connection?) off of their major label debut So Much For The City. This song, and this album for that matter, are right up my alleyway. The lyrics are solid, covering the posturing and platitudes on which Hollywood rests, and the sugary bubble-gum pop is perfect California surf-pop fare. I would go so far as to say this is the finest So-Cal powerpop single in the last ten years, except for one small matter: The Thrills are from Dublin, Ireland. Now, I am used to having State-side bands use fake British accents for effect, but this is the first I have heard the reverse happening. Part of me bristles, and wants to look down at my sunburned so-cal surfer nose at these guys, but they are SO DAMN GOOD at what they do.

I first heard this song while grabbing some ice cream in Santa Monica with my wife and I couldn't stop listening to it, and went right home and searched for it on I-Tunes and bought the whole album and their next, Teenager , as well.

This is proof that my life is filled with as much irony as anyone else - I love the The Thrills for making So Cal powerpop better than the locals do, and I will lower my pen to the paper and take ownership of land that isn't technically "mine" - and love the feeling of doing both.