Nave (traditionally pronounced “Na-vay”) loves The Velvet Teen. He reps them so hard that not everyone gets it, or so I tell him. The Teen’s new album—full-of and about sexual innuendo—is called Cum Laude and it’s Nave’s favorite album of the year. It’s one of my favorites, too. But Nave declared that it would be his favorite album after hearing the three-song GyzmKid promo offering. The whole proclamation was done in a stately manner, as though he were a courtier unfurling scrolled parchment in the presence of the king: “I hereby declare that Cum Laude shall be my favorite album in the entirety of the sixth year of the second millennium.” Or something like that—it was loud and we were at The Teen’s first ever performance in Reno, NV. That was in March. Cum Laude came out a few months later, which is when Nave started confusing people. It’s not really a big deal because he’s right: the record is amazing. But when Nave finds new ears he undeniably showcases the two most complicated songs on the album. The Teen is a complicated band, but they’ve never sounded like this.
Here’s a history lesson: The Velvet Teen is from Santa Rosa, CA, about an hour north of San Francisco. The band started out writing teenage pop-rock gems. If you first heard the song “Naked Girl” or “Counting Backwards,” you would have melted before the bands white-hot teenage heat. They stormed the national scene with Out Of The Fierce Parade, a record produced by Chris Walla, whose band Death Cab For Cutie, took The Teen across the nation. If you first heard Judah Nagler’s awesome falsetto on “Caspian Can Wait”—Nave’s favorite song ever, I think—you would have been floored by the touching lyrics and unusual organ sounds. These were songs that MTV noticed, but also songs that Indie Rock’s honor roll (Cursive, Death Cab, Minus The Bear) earmarked and respected. On Fierce Parade you can still hear a level of honesty that still doesn’t really apply to most commercial genres.
The Teen is three dudes who make the sounds they imagine, and inside that careful transaction they leave no room for compromise. When it came time to record a follow-up to Fierce Parade, the band chose reinvention because it must have been the only noise they’d come up with. That album was the self-recorded Elysium, an album of ballads, which is also like a single ballad, in a way. I can’t imagine anything seeming more daring at the time—slowing down is an uncommon compromise for any band capable of rocking as thoroughly as The Teen. But leader Judah Nagler traded guitar for all assortments of keyboards, organs, and grand pianos. The consistency trademarked by Fierce Parade remained intact and improved upon. The Teen sounded like the same band in a different lifetime. There was no clear, ready-for-breakthrough single. But my favorite tracks—“We Were Bound (To Bend The Rules)” or “Forsaken”—were still captivating to new listeners. In all these ways it was dramatic to even anticipate Elysium’s successor.
When we got a hold of them, GyzmKid’s three brief songs sounded astonishing. The Teen’s amniotic melodies didn’t negotiate the same control they had on previous releases, and yet that didn’t matter. The three songs on the EP felt frenetic in a real way. It’s so easy to expect then discuss a crazy band’s craziness; the challenge arrives when a beautiful band distorts itself, leaving music that is still beautiful, but has a look in it’s eye, as it were. That look remains rabid, even after consuming Cum Laude (GyzmKid’s corresponding full length) over and over. The songs arrange explosive applications of some of music’s densest genre’s, namely glitch techno and jazz. This is ballsy, considering The Teen’s pop credentials. But no trio is more ballsy, or understands its capacities better than Nagler, drummer Casey Dietz, and bassist/backing vocalist Josh Staples. The band—namely Mr. Dietz—shreds these songs to bits, finding more notes per frame than most bands find in a career. Then there’s the anomaly of the vocals, which are swathed in digital distortions that turn words into static notes. Two weeks ago, performing live at Bimbos in San Francisco, Mr. Nagler emphasized pre choruses and transitions with a bullhorn, replicating the loud, fuzzy distance perceived on the record. There are so few bands willing to rearrange themselves like this. Why is that?
The two tracks Nave reps are “Tokyoto” and “Building A Whale” (which he calls “the asskicker”). These tracks involve more thirty-second notes than the average listener could possibly be expected to identify with. Mr. Dietz would bring his history-shaking abilities to any band’s table (as he does with his spectacular other project, the math rock duo that is The Americas). Mr. Dietz is the finest drummer I have the opportunity to talk on even a semi-regular basis: he is precise, inventive, and has the coolest paint-speckled drum kit ever. Hopefully the posted vids and (brilliant) MP3’s will sponsor my opinion better than this.
Speaking of which, I’m definitely posting an MP3 of my favorite track, the pretty song “Noi Boi.” I found that two MP3 bloggers posted this track. That’s cool, in fact The Teen have a better presence on blogs than I thought. But I think this song is one of the best songs of the year: it’s catchy and easy to understand without forsaking any of the sputtery genius that makes Cum Laude super-duper. And the drumbeat in the chorus is straight tech. For the sake of the historical record, I was hoping this song would be one of those viral everyone-hears-it-then-tells-six-other-attractive-people sort of things. Maybe there’s still hope.
Please get Cum Laude. I’ve five-starred every track on iTunes. In addition to “Noi Boi,” my other favorite song (of the moment) is probably the Echo And The Bunnymen-ish “False Profits,” but I’m also going to post the ass-kicking “Building A Whale,” just so you know what the hell I’ve been talking about this whole time. Also, here are three other songs each from different, earlier albums. Tim Kasher, the accomplished, original songwriter for the Omaha band Cursive (who also released a great album this year), explained in a recent interview why he likes The Teen so much. (I know I’m dropping the hyperlink ball here in a major way, but neither Nave nor I can remember the publication or website, so find it and leave the link in a comment—we think it was in AP.) Kasher likes The Teen because they reinvent themselves on every record, and that is what makes them seem fearless. I think that makes The Velvet Teen the most punk band in pop.
Video for “Tokyoto” from the album Cum Laude.
Great video of “Noi Boi” live at Bimbos in San Francisco, where I was on November 10, 2006. Also from the album Cum Laude.
Right click and save to download ”Noi Boi” from the album Cum Laude by The Velvet Teen. Right click and save to download ”Building A Whale” from the album Cum Laude by The Velvet Teen. Right click and save to download ”Counting Backwards” from the album The Great Beast February by The Velvet Teen. Right click and save to download ”Caspian Can Wait” from the album Out Of The Fierce Parade by The Velvet Teen. Right click and save to download ”We Were Bound (To Bend The Rules)” from the album Elysium by The Velvet Teen.
The Velvet Teen’s WEBSITE. The Velvet Teen on MYSPACE. The Velvet Teen on PUREVOLUME. The Velvet Teen on LAST.FM. The Velvet Teen on WIKIPEDIA. The Velvet Teen on HYPEMACHINE. The Velvet Teen on AMAZON. Bassist Josh Staples’ rad side project is THE NEW TRUST. Drummer Casey Dietz’s other band detonates expectations and is called THE AMERICAS. Support The Velvet Teen’s Portland, OR-based LABEL.
It was a warm night in Tucson, AZ. I’d spent the day getting to Tucson and, knowing me, considering the spelling and pronunciation of “Tucson.” It was March and sweat dripped from every pore I owned. The local band that played before us featured a high school kid who obviously knew how to correctly pronounce YngwieMalmsteen. We set up and performed. Then another touring band began setting up. They seemed to have eight or nine members. There were horns, keyboards, and a herd of unusual percussion devices—namely a 50” bass drum—strewn across the stage. The “stage” was just part of the floor in the back of a room that was about 40’ long and 20’ wide. The venue was a hole-in-the-wall teen center with a religious affiliation that remained comfortably in the background. For us it was a confirmed date on a self-booked tour—that’s all that mattered. It’s essential to understand that the most key to a successful self-booked tour is actually doing it, not crapping out the week before because shows are falling through or because your friend that used to know Vertical Horizon couldn’t hookup that sweet Hollywood show he’d been promising ever since he found out you were buying guitar strings. Of course it’s nice to book good shows way in advance, play the best venues with the biggest local bands, and get famous like Tamagochi’s. But when the Tucson sun goes down at the end of a long, over-deodorized day all you can hope for is a show—anywhere, with any bands.
The thing you could never possibly hope for is one of the bands happening to be Anathallo—or even any crude approximation of Anathallo. If you were to hope for this, you would become disenchanted faster than my checking account at any one of American Apparel’s 120+ retail locations. Because Anathallo is on another level, a level so rarely encountered in music that it demands measurement on a yearly basis. The experience of this band retaliates against all convention. Anathallo rules.
Anathallo makes orchestrated, narrative pop music. The band’s most recent album (of the year), Floating World, tells the beautiful, positive tale of the death and regeneration of a dog. Musically, Pet Sounds kind of works as a reference point, but “pop-music-in-the-post-Pet Sounds-epoch” works better. With every idea Anathallo allows for harmony. The first (full) track on Floating World provides all the perfect examples: two (or more) tracks of bells, two acoustic guitars, two languages, piano above keyboards, the awesome lyric “I want to skip like a stone from a stronger arm” backed by the coolest harmony of carolers your block has ever seen, a choral key change three minutes through, the introduction of one electric chord, strange percussion, Phil Collins drum sounds—it’s all there. Each track is all over the place, there’s no linearity, but the consummate musicianship and barrier-destroying songwriting make every moment accessible and penetrative. A lot of the tracks remind me of that scene in Home Alone where Macaulay Culkin is in the church talking to the scary guy with the shovel about how bad they miss some people they love, then Culkin realizes what time it is and rushes home to make sure all his traps work, and while he’s running there is that epic choir music in the background. Anathallo sound like that: serious but fun. Then Daniel Stern gets hit in the face with a paint can, Culkin’s older brother has a flat top and yells “KEVIN!”, and the shovel guy makes good with his estranged daughter. Anathallo are also like that. Somehow.
Now that I’ve elucidated my revelry for Anathallo’s music, let’s move on to another aspect of the band that is, frankly, just as inspiring. One of the most encouraging things about Anathallo appears on the business end. The band is a part of this management agency/label cooperative called The Nettwerk that appears to be attempting to alter the erratic course of the music business. They are the Canadian mega-company responsible for Sarah McLachlan, Dido, and The Barenaked Ladies new album, and (seemingly) the marriage of Avril Lavigne, to Sum 41 (Nettwerk represents both artists). According to CEO Terry McBride, The Nettwerk plan on having every artist they represent to run their own label—and to break away from their respective major labels—within six years. I don’t have the inside tip on whether or not McBride has a sleazy agenda, but he sounds good: a Google search links to an article on how he is defending a teenager accused and sued by the RIAA of “stealing.” McBride seems legit, especially considering the artists his label is developing: The Format, The Pipettes (who I like), and Anathallo. Nave (and this amazing article) calls Nettwerk a “next-gen music company” with the “intent of inventing a new way to represent artists in the digital age.” To the best of my knowledge they have individual agreements with their artists. McBride says he’s concerned with earning “his 20%,” and that’s for management, distribution, organizing touring, and massive, inventive publicity. The band gets much of the rest, namely $5 or $6 per album sold. Most bands, depending on how well they’re being screwed, get $.60-$1.20 per album, and that’s after recouping and not counting management percentage, booking percentage, and publicity percentage. A reliable source told me that if The Format sell 80,000 units they pocket a half million dollars. They sold 11,000 albums in the first couple weeks of release. That was in support of a headlining tour and no radio support. They’re on tour with All American Rejects in the fall and Fall Out Boy in the winter.
The Format is a provocative pop band (much like The Cardigans, another recent Nettwerk acquisition). But Anathallo roar in a different language: even for a true auteur like McBride, Anathallo represent a new wilderness. Like many of my favorite sounds, Floating World is unanimously tough to articulate. The best experience one can have is to see the band live. These sets (I’ve had the honor of seeing Anathallo three times since March) include toyshop magic: percussionists keeping time by shuffling a deck of cards; the band blowing up balloons and letting them go in unison; the band collapsing on stage and coming back to life. The live show realizes the album’s endless caverns of sound and ideas.
That night in Tucson actually evolved the way I thought about the possibility of the experience of music. We discussed Anathallo for the rest of the tour. It was a rare treat for a hot day. Doubtlessly, I will someday stumble upon an Anathall-a (as it were), a band that again revamps my perception of possibility. Don’t get me wrong: I can’t wait. But I know not to look too hard, that this kind of audio magic tends to find you, but can rarely be found.
Here are two videos and two downloadable songs. The first video has great sound. The second video is the intro to the song “Dokkoise House (with face covered),” where the band counts to four, at which point everyone in the crowd yells their best friends name at the same time. The first downloadable track is from Floating World, one of the best songs to watch live. A mind-blistering drumbeat dissolves into the most beautiful (and possibly only) oboe-xylophone-vocals collaboration I’ve heard. The other track is available on the band’s Myspace, but I need to repost it here. It’s an old track, but amazing nonetheless. Wait for that guitar riff at minute 1:10. So worth it!
I can remember seeing 24 bands in October. Not bad for a month of personal financial collapse, general political melee, and my garbage disposal deciding to quit. Here’s a ten metric tons of videos, information, and free MP3s of the bands I saw last month. There are also some tirades about the bands that made me feel tirade-ish. Oh, and there's a convenient list of free MP3s at the bottom of the post in case you miss one in the fray. Oh! And because I'm figuring this out I have some good, if dumb, news. You should be able to right-click and save all the MP3s posted from now on. You shouldn't even have to be a Yousendit member. Huzzah!
1. TERA MELOS is basically from the regions to the north of Sacramento, CA. Specifically Auburn, CA, Roseville, CA, and Grass Valley, CA.
Below is footage of the band at The Hangar last weekend. They recorded a brand new three song EP.
This band is playing December 22 at BOTTOM OF THE HILL in San Francisco, so I’ll rant harder then. But this month’s show in San Rafael, CA—the last show of their U.S.A.-in-three-weeks tour—destroyed all my old opinions of this band, even the good ones. Those opinions were replaced with much, much better uber-opinions, opinions effected by the radioactive spider-bite of glee. Two weeks later my face still hurts from smiling so hard for so long. Here’s some of the video Nave (pronounced "Na-vay") took from the show in San Rafael, the band’s (excellent) music video for the (excellent) track “Cutting My Hair,” and a clip of the band killing it in Tokyo. In that order:
Facing New York on MYSPACE. Facing New York on PUREVOLUME. Facing New York on LAST.FM. Facing New York on AMAZON. Support Facing New York’s LABEL.
Oh! What potion of frustration and delight is this, this duo of pre-SAT, reverse-psychology, Sleater-Kinney-in-White-Stripes rawk machine? It’s Two Seconds, who, when I saw them perform last month, committed every nameable on-stage foul, yet still managed to charm the ignorance out of me. I’m sure most of this band is Jewish, but if not they were running away with the Yiddish-stereotype award. The band kvetched about everything: first they were sick, then they hadn’t practiced, then they didn’t have a set list, then they were sicker... oy vey! I shut my mind down when they weren’t playing songs, songs that are sassy, punky, and well performed. I think it’s wrong to ever identify a bad drummer as someone who “hits like a girl,” because there will never be anything wrong with a girl drummer that is good, which Two Seconds’ Lily Faden most certainly is. Singer/guitarist Sierra Frost already has the name, the voice, and the attitude to scare every other girl-fronted Bay Area band I’ve seen back to Algebra One. The improvements I’d request from this band will all be unwrinkled by time, that invisible purveyor of confidence and wisdom. Two Seconds have cool songs. I just want to see them act like they know it.
The Secret Stolen on MYSPACE. The Secret Stolen on PUREVOLUME. The Secret Stolen on LAST.FM. The Secret Stolen on AMAZON. Support The Secret Stolen’s LABEL.
Cinemechanica was the first band I’ve seen pull off the “new song that doesn’t have vocals yet.” Usually, a band says something nauseating like “we wrote this song on the way to the show so there aren't really any vocals yet” and then the guy that said that gets really into the song for ten seconds, screws up, realizes everyone else is also screwing up, then looks pissed off the whole time. That guy (let’s call him the “songwriter,” but let’s do it really cynically) will shake his head at his least favorite other band member, like the third guitarist or something. It’s worth mentioning that this is the same third-guitarist that will be the first guy to leave the band, quit playing music altogether (except to impress girls), graduate with a double major in computer engineering and middle eastern studies, travel the world in a month, live in Beirut for a year, then start making $85K out of the gates back home while hanging out in the Marina district with gold digging whores who claim to be the offspring of tech boom success stories or moderate-left senators. Meanwhile, three years and seven band members later, the “songwriter” realizes how important practicing is. He’ll never even admit to ever having a song that he “wrote on the way to the show.” But he’ll feel it a little when some asshole with a blog reminds him that most things that seem effortless actually involve a lot of effort. Fortunately, Cinemechanica seemed acutely aware of all this when they came through Club Pow a couple weeks back. Cinemechanica is a band with two crazy-good guitarists, two crazy-good drummers, and a rock solid bassist. These people make incredibly raucous, detailed songs. More importantly, they perform these songs flawlessly—including their brand new material. Their album The Martial Arts is one of the years best, a winning assimilation of post-punk and math-rock. Desireable side note: these guys have a side project where a friend beats the video game Megaman II on a big screen while they play the soundtrack flawlessly.
Cinemechanica on MYSPACE. Cinemechanica on PUREVOLUME. Cinemechanica on LAST.FM. Cinemechanica on AMAZON. Support the LABEL that Bryant from Cinemechanica controls. Awesome stuff, Bryant!
…And were awesome at UC Davis! But then I saw them in Davis for free. I missed The Like and then Muse, which is 50% unfortunate because of how awesome Muse were at the MTV Europe Awards (no Youtube?). The singer had a chaos pad in his guitar that he didn’t even use. He’s like too cool for the school he designed himself! Not the point, though. I saw The Strokes this summer at Live105’s BFD Festival at the Shoreline Amphitheater and they were, for lack of a better word, sauced. They played every sing they had in reverse chronological order, which would have been fun had Casablancas realized it wasn’t, in fact, still “Last Nite.” They redeemed themselves in Davis. The new songs sounded great, the light show was so good it was probably Muse’s, and the crowd acted like Aerosmith were playing Day On The Green. I still want to see this band live up to their constant idol-worship of Lou Reed and The Velvets and actually direct their songwriting that-a-way. But I’ll continue to enjoy the wait. Here’s a Lou Reed cover the pretty boys did in Davis.
As I’ve been vaguely explaining, October seemed like a 31-day anti-gravity rollercoaster. Ups, downs, and undiscovered, trackless turns across the entire boundary of the grim and exciting. All of my issues seemed reflected in my concert going experiences, which included shows with 20 person audiences, shows with 2,000 person audiences, and Roger Waters, where a immodest, frenzied 25,000 people gathered to celebrate one of the greatest bands of all time, Pink Floyd. What a show. My dad declared it the best concert he’s been to. Waters killed it for two and a half hours straight, there was nary a dead moment. He played every one of your favorite Floyd tracks (well, except any of the 17 minutes of “Dogs”) as well as a sprinkling of his solo material that, not surprisingly, also rocked. The experience began with a screen at the back of the stage projecting a cigarette, an empty glass and a bottle of whiskey. After like ten minutes of nothing happening a hand reached for the cigarette, picks it up, puts it down. Everyone goes so crazy that for a minute you can’t hear any of Neil Young’s greatest hits playing on the sound system. Another large group of minutes goes by and the hand comes back and fills the cup, takes a sip, and puts the glass back. Everyone goes crazy. This goes on for, like, a half-hour. And then, all of a sudden, you’re watching Roger Waters actually perform the first song from The Wall. It was a holy moment, man. Here are clips of the pig and “Have A Cigar,” which really cooked.
The first time I saw this band they embarrassed each of the other four bands they played with so hard that those bands all short circuited and start bleeding white liquid like Winona Rider in that Alien movie. It was a mess. I’ve seen them twice since then, twice in the last month. I wasn’t awed either time; the newer songs seemed more hardcore-y, which the band doesn’t do as well as unhinged, self-sampled, finger-tapped screamo-pop, which they do very, very well. Still, The Fall Of Troy are a blistering three piece and inventive enough for me to rep them this hard. Check out the MP3 below from their last album, Doppleganger, which I think gives serious meaning to a genre controlled by scary morons.
(Like my sweet self, they are also obsessed with this great book. The song in this video is named “You Got A Death Wish, Johnny Truant?” after a character in said novel.)
The Fall Of Troy on MYSPACE. The Fall Of Troy on PUREVOLUME. The Fall Of Troy on LAST.FM. The Fall Of Troy on WIKIPEDIA. The Fall Of Troy on HYPEMACHINE. The Fall Of Troy on AMAZON. Support The Fall Of Troy’s dynastic LABEL.
The more I think about these guys, the more I think about unexpected hugs. Like unexpected hugs, Pattern Is Movement is exciting and weirdly goofy. You’re not sure how you feel while it’s happening, but afterwards you realize it made your day. I wish someone would Youtube these guys, because live they don’t stray from their indie-math-pop-rock stylings, they evolve them into a theater of indie-math-pop-rock stylings. This band comes off like Dismemberment Plan at the opera. Another wonderful trio, I can’t say enough about their music. So I’ll let someone else do it: here’s Pitchfork with a well-said review.
Pattern Is Movement on MYSPACE. Pattern Is Movement on PUREVOLUME. Pattern Is Movement on LAST.FM. Pattern Is Movement on WIKIPEDIA. Pattern Is Movement on HYPEMACHINE. Pattern Is Movement on AMAZON. Support Pattern Is Movement’s LABEL.
These guys remind me of my college days. Partially because we all went to school together, but mainly because they sound exactly like every good house party I ever went to. They are like the Tipper Gore-approved version of my favorite Davis house party band ever. Check out these songs and go see them at one of their shows. These guys make dance music for 7"'s, goofball synth singles for the Republic of Devo. The lyrics on this song “Inventory” are currently making everyone I know laugh out loud. They are all about being more organized.
Oh, another cool story is that I met Boss’s front-man-who-sits-in-the-back, Teddy Briggs (the original drummer for Rooney), when I was 11 years old at summer camp. Seven years later we made eye contact at our first college party. We were both freshmen at UC Davis. Teddy Briggs, I said. Brilliant MP3’s, he said. It was like we’d never left camp or gone through puberty or anything.
Word on the street is that Boss’s next show is at the Fools Foundation in Sacramento with the band Numbers (it’s December 14). More amazing is that anyone still cares about the band Numbers. Numbers were so great for like three years, then so awful the last two times I saw them that I’m going to need, like, two Aqua songs, a birth control pill, and some mouthwash before I’ll be able to think again.
Click to download ”Inventory” by Boss The Big Bit.
Boss The Big Bit on MYSPACE. Boss The Big Bit on LAST.FM.
Apparently, this band has a singer who missed a flight and couldn’t make it to the show. Should I feel like a lame-ass to wonder who takes a Monday night show in Sacramento when they know they were flying that day? I mean, I’d do it, but I would just hope the show was this sweet:
Did you catch that pan to Verne Troyer rocking the f*** out? How about Durst trampling a lucky bunch of fans who were probably dehydrated and malnourished to begin with? How did the Grammy committee miss this?
And A Few To Break’s Sacramento show looked a lot like that, only without any similarities at all (except for the celebs, of course). But damn did they kick ass! Without a singer they sound like From Monument To Masses, only less Ivy League-y and more school of Dischord-y. All the guys with guitars play crazy, tangled riffs, scream in unison (they were all microphone shy), then apologize for the singing. I’m eager to see them again. For the mean time:
And A Few To Break on MYSPACE. And A Few To Break on LAST.FM. Support And A Few To Break’s LABEL.
Pitchfork just asserted that these guys sound like Cap’n’Jazz. I think the comparison is mostly visual: the singer looks like KINSELLA to the max! I’m not a fan of the comparison, but I definitely like this band. They write smart punk songs with good riffs and better hooks. They have vintage looking gear and funny shirts. They are from New York and have a lot of albums; their most recent is on Sub Pop. I’m not crazy about the single, or even the video for the single, but the rest of the songs they rocked when we played with them in Rohnert Park, CA had just the right mix emotion and invention to make me want to hear more. Minus bonus points for trading me one of their old albums for my new album. Maybe I should take a hint and quit music forever. I’ve always wanted to be a stewardess.
Here’s a song I just got from their new album. I haven't listened to it yet. You know what that means: adventure.
Oxford Collapse on MYSPACE. Oxford Collapse on PUREVOLUME. Oxford Collapse on LAST.FM. Oxford Collapse on HYPEMACHINE. Oxford Collapse on AMAZON. Support Oxford Collapse’s very nice LABEL.
Monsters Are Waiting on MYSPACE. Monsters Are Waiting on PUREVOLUME. Monsters Are Waiting on LAST.FM. Monsters Are Waiting on HYPEMACHINE. Monsters Are Waiting on AMAZON.
Click to download ”New Love” by The Evening Episode.
The Evening Episode on MYSPACE. The Evening Episode on PUREVOLUME. The Evening Episode on LAST.FM. The Evening Episode on AMAZON. Support The Evening Episode’s great LABEL.
The Greater Mekong... is also home to striped rabbits, bright pink millipedes laced with cyanide and a rat that was believed to have become extinct 11 million years ago.
