Ex-Unicorns Cut Their Hair, Form a New Band Casey Dorrell

Heeere's Johnny: All the Pitchfork kiddies have been here, downloaded this, and posted a whiney entry to their blog about it. For the rest of us, we can enjoy the comforts of new Unicorn-esque material away from the pretensions of Pitchfork and instead amid the pretensions of the domain, nay, institution that is Mocking Music. After months of speculation and disbelief, the world finally started mourning the passing of The Unicorns earlier this year. Back in the fall of 2003, the duo of Nicholas "Neil" Diamonds and Alden Ginger released "Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?" - a delightful indie pop album that largely eschewed traditional song structures (verses, choruses, bridges) in favour of tiny hook filled sections that seamlessly connected together to form extremely catchy, A.D.D. poster child pop songs. J'aime Tambour officially joined the duo during the recording to help fill out their sound. But after a gruelling tour that lasted most of 2004, the Unicorns announced they were breaking up just after Christmas. Even the then Pope John Paul II was stunned by the news, as he addressed the Vatican congregation with the words, "Domine, dirige nos exempli gratia eo nomine The Unicorns." Scholars were consequentially stunned by the Pope's deliberate and calculated use of really awful Latin. Doubting Thomases denounced the break-up as nothing more than a publicity stunt from a band notorious for their onstage antics (that included bloody fights between the members) and lying their way through interviews. They pointed towards the outrageous rap side project, Th' Corn Gangg, that the boys announced long before their break-up announcement that had never materialized. But by February, the world gave up hope and resigned themselves to the fact that the Unicorns were no more. Perhaps surprisingly, a Th' Corn Gangg show in Los Angeles was held in March featuring well known local LA emcees rapping over Unicorns songs. Any hopes of a Unicorns reunion were squashed by the notable absence of Alden from the group. Even C.S. Lewis's Unicorn Died Before the End However, it seems the life of bling bling and skanky hoes in LA could not satisfy the thirst of Neil and J'aime. Forming a new group called Islands, two tracks are now available from the pair for download. Featuring all the angular guitar lines, cheap synths, pretty melodies, and structureless song structures that define a classic Unicorns' song, some will wonder why they even bothered to change the name. But if the Unicorns can't offer a proper follow-up, Islands seems to be offering the next best thing. As the poet laureate Meatloaf once said, "Two out of three ain't bad." Download: Islands - Abominable Snow Islands - Flesh The Unicorns - Jellybones Video The Unicorns - (I Was Born) A Unicorn Video (Credit to The Simple Mission for the Islands downloads.) When Johnny's not attending poetry-reading-cum-mullet-fests, he can be found maintaining the former residence of the internet itself, Money City Maniac.