November 2025 - People Like Us
This month sees the release of “People Like Us” from The Things of Youth. 6 songs including the new electronic indie pop single “Pixel Face”. Jon Fee and friends and family gets at it again with a lot of genre surfing on this EP.
1.) Wabi Sabi
2.) Get Down
3.) Pixel Face
4.) Whitney Notes
5.) Ultracrepidarians
6.) Go Be Young
Said best by Paul Silver at Jersey Beat zine:
”The force behind The Things of Youth, Jon Fee, has been active in the San Francisco Bay Area indie music scene for over twenty years, playing bass and fronting The Rum Diary and Shuteye Unison. Over the past decade, he’s also put his energy into The Things of Youth, a project that defies categorization. He’s collaborated with a plethora of musicians over that time, and on this latest EP, he has his 15-year-old son Charlie join the fun on drums. The Things of Youth features plenty of electronics, but this isn’t electronic music or EDM. It is, but it’s also indie, hip-hop, and pop, all with a DIY ethic. The EP’s six songs are all over the place, creating a wide variety of sounds, yet the EP never feels disjointed. It starts with “Wabi Sabi,” with ominous sounding electronics and someone ranting at kids who were fighting, telling them they aren’t so tough because he saw them eating ice cream cones. “Get Down” has a cool breezy indie pop feel, with rapid-fire drumming and synths, but dreamy breathy vocals. The bass line at points sounds like something sampled from a Fugazi song, so the song veers between post-emo and dream pop, in a very cool way. “Pixel Face” is a quiet electronic-focused piece that was inspired by urbex rooftoppers, people who illegally access the rooftops of buildings and take videos. They pixelate their own faces in these videos to avoid getting caught, thus “Pixel Face.” The song sometimes has a bright electronica feel, sometimes a minimalist Kraut-rock sound that reminds me of Stereolab. I love the folksy feel of “Whitney Notes,” with acoustic guitar and fluttering electronics, and the way the song grows in intensity, the drums joining in with a martial rhythm and the synths swelling with the sounds of strings soaring. The song with the most cryptic title has to be “Ultracrepidarians,” a word which represents a person who expresses opinion on matters outside the scope of their knowledge or expertise. In other words, it’s about nearly everyone in the United States today and the culture in which people feel their uninformed opinions about something are as valid as facts from subject matter experts. The EP closes with a song I take exception with. “Go Be Young” is a dreamy indie song with synths and drums, but the lyrics try to tell us that “money is wasted on the old, youth is wasted on you.” Us “old” people don’t think so! Bands that defy genre pigeonholing and create new sounds that others aren’t making always get kudos from me, and The Things of Youth certainly are that. Well done.”
Recorded between ‘23 - ‘25 at Tiny Telephone, Hand Me Down Recording, and at home
Players
Jon Fee (bass, guitar, synths, percussion), Charlie Fee (drums), and Adam Myatt (guitar, synths, percussion)
Singers
Jon Fee, Adam Myatt, Patricia Kavanaugh, Sue Pierce, Sarah Wolf, and Jake Krohn
Engineering, Mixing, Mastering
Danielle Goldsmith (Tiny Telephone), Adam Myatt (Hand Me Down Recording), Shawn Hatfield (Audible Oddities) and Jon Fee
All songs written by Charlie Fee and Jon Fee.
As with all of our releases, a portion of every sale will be donated to park-supporting organizations like the National Park Foundation and the National Parks Conservation Association. These groups work tirelessly to protect and advocate for our treasured public lands. Now more than ever, our national parks need our support.