As I write, I am sitting at home on a Friday. I made a pot of post-work coffee, and then ate half of a pizza and fell asleep. I woke up with coffee that had been sitting in the coffee machine for about an hour. So now, I’m drinking coffee and listening to “This Week’s Winner” by the Roof Dogs.
I’m going to provide (a) three reasons to listen to the Roof Dogs along with (b) three reasons not to drink lukewarm coffee on Friday nights. Please take your seats.
This coffee appears to be hot. I would prefer to drink this coffee.
1a. the Roof Dogs are too cool.
I am a fan of the Roof Dogs and you should be too. They are too cool, and if you listen to them, you can be too cool too. They recorded this at Musicol with Keith Hanlon. Both of those two are too cool too. Their debut record is also too cool. It is named “Are Too Cool.” So, therefore, the Roof Dogs are too cool, and their debut record, “Are Too Cool” is too cool too.
If Bono danced to the Roof Dogs at his ballet recital and then wouldn’t shut about about how great he was, then U2 tooting their own horn in a tutu would be too cool too.
1b. If coffee is even the slightest bit cool, then it is too cool too.
Coffee tastes good and coffee smells good. Mostly though, it feels good to cup a mug in your hands as the warmth emanates through the ceramic and into your hands. I have a variety of mugs at home to fit a variety of hands.
If coffee is cool, then it is not warm. If coffee is cool at all, then it is also too cool, because you end up cupping and hugging a cold cup. And that cold cup makes your hands clam up. And no one can stand clammy hands.
At this point, I begin to resent the coffee mugs that I fell in love with in small-town antique stores on road trips
2a. Jesse and Andrew rhyme “Châteauneuf-du-Pape” with “traffic cop” and it’s not just a gimmick.
Cheshire/Marczak walk the line between wordplay and world creation with care. First song on the EP paints this picture:
I don’t really know anything about France - I just googled this shit and read a wikipedia page. This is a drawing someone made of the town in the late 1600s.
Châteauneuf-du-Pape is a small commune in southeastern France. Only a couple thousand people live there, and most of the land is used to grow wine that I probably can’t afford. But I don’t know much about wine, aside that it is probably a beverage that does not taste terrible at room temperature.
This isn’t the only time that young characters encounter police on the four-song EP.
Throughout the EP, Cheshire/Marczak paint these scenes of travelers, whether they’re traveling at the time or not. Characters go by plane and by road, or go nowhere, like narrator of “This Week’s Winner” staying in his tenement on 42nd while insisting that he could leave at any time. Characters are crossing borders and coming back with souvenirs, or just drinking wine in a better part of town.
2b. Cool wine is cooler than cool coffee because it makes you warmer.
I don’t like wine as much as I like coffee. However, if I had to compare room-temperature wine to room-temperature coffee, I would pick the wine. At least wine feels like it warms up your belly. Cold coffee just gives you the anxious shakes.
3a. This Week’s Winner is a total goddamn winner
’Scuse me while I freak out about how they somehow made the perfect hook from a simple vernacular aside, embellishing it with just a dash rhythm as they speak/sing it every time the chorus comes around, crescendoing into a yell over the song’s three minute build.
You see I ain’t no hero, man. Hell, I can leave any time I plan.
Put this song on repeat and just be there for a while. The Roof Dogs have an ear for the melody in everyday speech, and can straddle the line between song and scene without falling off either side. Please dear god join me in enjoying this rock and roll band that writes incredible opening lines like this.
3b. Cold coffee is better than cool coffee, but worse than hot coffee. Warmish coffee is only ok at local diners named after the person who started it.
Carry the one and show your work. You will see that this is correct.
Follow the Roof Dogs on Spotify and Facebook, and check out their website.
See them at a show in Central Ohio on 10/31 as the Velvet Underground or 12/4 at Ace of Cups.