Monster Children Gift Guide: Shopping For Music Nerds
The algorithm tells me that you like music.
Thousands if not millions of clicks and data points are raked in by algorithms and condensed into palatable little charts and graphs the vast majority of which tell me that if you are on this website and follow our channels and read our bullshit, you or someone very close to you is a music nerd.
Unfortunately for you, they are fickle and needy and precise about their passion, which makes them a difficult person to shop for this holiday season (as well as birthdays and Valentines Days and a plethora of other bullshit gift-giving cultural events. Why do we feel the necessity to assign specific dates and times to award each other? Why must we pencil in loving gestures? Are we that inhuman? Has capitalism truly destroyed our ability to feel genuine generosity? You wouldn’t schedule sex, would you? You would? That’s sad.)
For the inept audio nerd like me, I offer a map to our musical pleasures both big and small.
Fender ‘65 Twin Reverb Amp
This gorgeous piece of work is expensive as shit but it is the end-all-be-all for the guitar nerd; an extremely necessary and fun and extensive piece of kit, particularly if they like knobs and pedals and making sounds that you don’t think sounds like music but to them sounds as perfectly sludgy as the stuff he heard Kevin Shields pushing out back in ‘89.
Audio-Technica AT-SB727 Sound Burger Portable Bluetooth Turntable
A bit of a novelty, but then, isn’t all of this? Isn’t this entire holiday gift giving season a bit of a charade? A grasping at straws of sincerity with a target on cheap laughs and quick hits of dopamine? Sorry, I mean, the Sound Burger is back after nearly forty years and it’s fun and cute. If you know vinyl, you know that weight and stability plays a big part in sound quality and fidelity, so any portable player is a bit of a head scratcher, but that doesn’t make this any less adorable and it’s something just niche enough to say to your special person, ‘I know you well enough to know your hobbies, just not quite well enough to know how they work, but I care nonetheless,’ and that’s the true meaning of Christmas or whatever.
Skullcandy Hesh Evo Overhead Wireless Headphones
Up to thirty six hours of battery life, these headphones last about six times longer than AirPods and are hardly as humiliating to wear in public. Even better, these headphones are lightweight, reliable, sturdy, and pack an impressive level of quality and sonic depth. For price-to-quality, these are an all around solid set of headwear. Buy one for your friend and then one for you, too.
Cokemachineglow: Writing Around Music 2005-2015
If you have been a music fan for a long time but are not talented enough to have ever played any (me), then you have probably spent a lot of time reading and writing about it instead (yep), which means that you are very likely an admirer of the now-defunct non-profit music criticism website/blog/shit talking virtual warehouse lovingly entitled Cokemachineglow. The website is gone and there are no new posts, but the publishers have compiled the very best of music writing into an impressive, insightful, and deeply entertaining book. It’s equal parts this-album-was-genius-because-of-this and i-went-to-see-a-band-but-did-drugs-instead. Genuine, hilarious, and impactful, we here often look to Cokemachineglow as the standard.
Gatsby Ice-Type Menthol Wipes
If they’re a music nerd, they are technically a nerd, and are therefore very sweaty. Especially when they go to shows, which I would assume is every weekend if not four times a week. Depending on their age, you will find them in the mosh pit at the very front, or just behind the mosh pit scoffing at the audacity of the youth in the mosh pit. Either way, it’s quite warm in the crowd and very sweaty - ‘the swamp’, as many in our industry call it. To remedy this, take a tip from the Japanese, and utilize the elegant and aromatic cleansing of a Gatsby wipe. The Gatsby wipe is more than a wet wipe, it is a shower in a pouch. The Ice Type is designed with soap and perfume to provide freshness, as well as menthol, so that the slightest movement of air feels like an open refrigerator on the skin. Instant cool down. Also applicable for skaters.
QFX RETRO39 Shoebox Tape Player/Recorder
A newly-manufactured shoebox tape player/recorder with usb and bluetooth capabilities, all for around forty bucks. That’s a winner. Why would the music fan want this? Because not only will they be able to play the cassette collection that they are so immensely proud of, they will also be able to record their shitty demos onto analog and feel like Daniel Johston. If they are particularly, deliciously nerdy, they will also see the synthesizing and sampling potential in such a device by way of scratching and unwinding cassette tape and plugging it through to various samplers (before buying based on this potential, ask if they’ve ever heard of Teenage Engineering. If they say no, don’t buy this. If they say yes, buy this immediately.)
