INT. TEENAGE BEDROOM - MORNING
Dirty clothes hang from the corners of bedposts, pizza crust sits abandoned on an empty plate, the tangled cords of video game controllers lie everywhere, posters of iconic rock bands adorn the walls. The clock flashes 12:00 over and over — the power must have gone out overnight (ruh-roh!). A phone rings, and a boy sleepily swats his hand in the direction of the phone, finally hitting its target.
“Nick, where are you man? School starts in five minutes! And you know what Principal Bonerad said — if you’re late one more time, that means…”
*Nick jerks his head up off the pillow*
“Detention!”
In the background, the opening notes of WOOF.’s “My Device” begin to play. Thus begins a 4:12 montage which sees our protagonist quickly get dressed, grab a waffle in mid-air just as it pops out of a toaster, pour some dog food in a bowl (WOOF. WOOF.!), brush his teeth, throw on a baseball cap (backwards), and dart out the door. Today, like every day in this part of California, is a sunny one, and Nick hops on a skateboard and skates to school while “My Device” by WOOF. plays the whole time in the background, possibly on repeat. Along the way he waves to the butcher (Hi, Nick!), the baker (Nick, mon ami!), the candlestick maker (‘eya, Nicky boy!), and easily evades the fat traffic cop eating a donut who tries to flag him down for running a red light.
So what’s up with the song? New Jersey’s Kelan Bonislawski (a.k.a. WOOF.) acts as vocalist, guitarist, drummer, and everything else. WOOF. wears its 90s nostalgia on its sleeve, a fact evident not only from the pop-punk style whose heyday was squarely in that decade, nor just the Home Alone quote, which likely gave this band its moniker, but also the lyrics, which harken back to simpler, pre-smartphone times. The lyrics, in a nutshell, tell the tale of a modern man who spends too much time staring at his smartphone, but thinks that, then again, he can do a lot of cool stuff with it. Crazy, right? Especially when you consider that it’s all coming from the casually distorted voice of Julian Casablancas’ long lost brother.
Two guitars interlock nicely, weaving scales together and keeping the energy high, beefed up by a chugging bass. Bonislawski appears to get a bit antsy playing the 4/4 drum beats the genre requires, so just for fun he includes a staggering amount of fills and surplus beats not seen since the likes of Tre Cool or Travis Barker. Hints of New Found Glory mesh with The Foo Fighters, SR-71, and that one 90s song your friend’s boyfriend did at karaoke last week to create a whole that’ll get your head nodding, but won’t get your arms uncrossed.
In short, this track is so completely and totally stuck in the Y2K era that one almost feels compelled to warn its creator about 9/11. That being said, this track is also pitch-perfect for this opening montage, which concludes with Nick rolling up to school, just in the “Nick of Time” (also film’s title). Detention averted! For now…
• WOOF.: https://soundcloud.com/iamwoof
More about: WOOF.
