June 27, 2007

The Quiet Tragedies

There's something amazing and inspiring—for me, at least—about a writer who can take an event whose scale towers far above what we would consider normal, and find the small, personal stories within it. In fact, I believe some of my favorite stories are about small events, small moments, small personal stories that take place within a broader, affecting context. It's perhaps no wonder, then, that I have so enjoyed Jonathan Safran Foer's two novels.

I first wrote about Foer toward the beginning of the year, when I labeled his second novel, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, one of the best books I read in 2006. Well, I just finished his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, and found myself nearly as impressed.

everythingisilluminated.jpg Extremely Loud takes place post-9/11 and uses that event as a backdrop for the story of Oscar, a nine year old who lost his father in the attacks. I wrote at the time that the novel was "a brutal, emotional, exhausting book." Meanwhile, Everything Is Illuminated uses the Holocaust as its backdrop, interweaving three narratives which slowly tie together throughout the book, with the atrocities of genocide asserting themselves as the reader moves deeper into the novel.

In other words, Foer's two novels have used two of history's most well-known events as their backgrounds, which is pretty damn ambitious, to say the least. What's particularly impressive about this, though, is that Foer manages to use both of these events to exquisite effect, wringing small and personal stories out of them that help to illustrate why these two historical events were so horrifying. He manages to boil them down so they no longer loom over us, imposing, casting their too-long shadows, and instead become stories about humans—small, fragile, individuals whose lives have been irrevocably altered by these massive events. He takes these historical happenings—which, for those of us (like myself) who were not directly affected by the events, often become so massive, so terrible, so legendary that the true horror of what happened is lost, or becomes nothing more than a numb, almost surrealistic memory—and he distills them down into brutal, haunting stories that encapsulate the broader narrative. His two novels have taken these incredible events and shrunk them from murals on the sides of buildings to Polaroids that we can hold in our hands, that we can see in one long, lingering glance, whose detail we can study.

For the Holocaust, no longer are we talking about millions of Jews murdered, but we are talking about one man witnessing the cruel, efficient killing of his family and his choice to instigate his own murder rather than continue to bear that pain. Rather than trying to wrap our minds around 3,000 people murdered in the collapsing World Trade Center towers, we instead witness one nine year old frantically scouring New York City in an attempt to better understand his murdered father, and we watch as his family crumbles and as he suffocates under the hidden knowledge of his father's last words, his last messages to his family as he faced death.

extremelyloud.jpg In the end, I think this is the only true way to understand these events. The scale is too immense. It's too much pain, too much horror, to truly understand and absorb, to calculate and to file, to make sense of, to categorize and then continue on with life. You have to discard the sheer size of it and then, to really understand, take out that one Polaroid, that small snapshot that discards 99% of the image but ultimately allows you to focus on the 1% that contains all the important details—all the truths and pains and devastations—and stare at it, study and learn it, memorize it and slowly, slowly, begin to comprehend. Begin to absorb. Begin to grasp, through that small scale representation, the true size of what happened—the true horror, the true incomprehensibility.

I don't think we're made to truly understand large scale events and concepts. We need them small, manageable. In this, art can give so much. Art can create those small pictures, it can take impossibly complex emotions and boil them down to their most elemental truth, allowing them to be grasped and studied. Ultimately, all these large-scale horrors are nothing more than a collection of small-scale tragedies, of personal horrors, of small, individual, heartbreaking stories. By understanding one, we can understand them all—perhaps with many of the details lost or obscured, but with the emotional truth stark and bright, bared. With his two novels, this is what Jonathan Safran Foer has done, and they are monumental achievements. They're something to be read, experienced, absorbed.

His two books are two Polaroids—there, waiting, ready to be picked up and examined if you want to know, if you really want to see the picture.
They're not pretty or beautiful, they're certainly not comforting, but from where I stand, they're crucial.


Sounds better than another book about Woodstock.


Lo-Fi Archives

April 5, 2007

Valencia

What I find wonderful about art is the brevity and expansiveness of it. Over the course of a good two hour movie, an artist can comment brilliantly on incredibly complicated and sweeping elements of life. A twelve page short story can speak a numbing truth about love. A three minute song can rip your heart out or just make you laugh. Or a single, beautiful photograph can leave you breathless, lost in thought yet unable to get your mind around all the thoughts it inspires.

These things happen in life, of course, because life is exactly what the art is reflecting. But life is messy, complicated, drawn out, boring—pretty much everything but sharp and neat and immediate. A great artist may be able to distill a human experience into a single inspiring frame, but that same experience in real life is rarely so compact and direct.

Saturday, I visited the Portland Art Museum and found myself browsing an exhibition of Elliott Erwitt photography. Black and white shots, Erwitt's pictures focused mostly on humans, sometimes in absurd situations or with absurd expressions. A significant minority featured dogs and their owners, with the dogs typically being more strange than normal. Most were beautiful, some were fascinating, a few of them were sad and others acted as societal observations.

val2.jpgWhile I enjoyed all the photographs, laughed at a few, and was left thinking by others, one of them just blew me away. It's pictured at left—a couple in Spain dancing in their tiny kitchen. I'm not sure what it is about this picture. Certainly, the framing of it is intriguing, with Erwitt taking the picture through the kitchen's entryway. The photograph's effect on me, though, really has nothing to do with the framing. It's what the picture shows of this couple. It's the quiet intimacy in their touch, in their kiss. It's how small and worn, yet inviting, the kitchen appears. It's the writing on the wall: "papas R.I.P."

I don't know if the pose was captured or if it was staged, but it looks real. It seems spontaneous and based on love and affection, rather than any desire to pose for Erwitt. Everything about the photograph feels real to me, a capturing of one of those beautiful, contented moments of life.

I love everything that this picture says about this couple's relationship. It's quiet, simple yet expansive, mutual. It's incredibly compelling and hopeful. Yet, perhaps more impressive is just how much the picture seems to encompass. It's not just about the relationship between these two people, which is captured in the pose, but it's also about their life. And their life is in the kitchen, it's in the writing on the wall, it's in the dirt and grime, it's in the bowl on the counter, the pattern on the wall, the bare light bulb. Every detail is there. The picture is filled with small elements of theirval1.jpg life that is normal and every day for them, but that can speak volumes to strangers, if looked at in the right way. And while these small objects may slip into the background for this couple as they go about living their lives, the objects are imbued with details of how they live, memories of what they have done, traditions and habits and beliefs. All of that is in the frame.

I literally just stopped short when I saw this picture. It hit me instantly. I stared, and I stared, then I slowly took myself away from it and looked at a few other pictures. Then, a few moments later, I was back, staring at this one mesmerizing capture. Eventually I was able to get away from it and appreciate the rest of the exhibit, then move on to other sections of the museum. But I returned to look at this photograph twice before I finally left the building. I just wanted to see it again and again, to experience the emotions it brought. I wanted to continue to look upon this couple and believe in every promise it held, every moment of happiness it suggested.

There were other great photographs in the exhibit, of course. The picture of the boy on the 3rd Avenue El, looking out its back window at the train tracks and city skyline. The funny and fascinating shot of an art class in which the artists are naked and the model is clothed. The snapshot of a tiny, sweater-clad, rat-like dog, wide eyed at the feet of its owner, New York fuzzy in the background. The ridiculous bouncing dog. A haunting shot from the Kennedy funeral. Or simply an amusing expression and interesting situation.

Yet, while I love all those photographs, none hit me the way that simple picture of a couple from Valencia, Spain dancing in their kitchen does. It's just a perfect example of how art can often be so much more succinct at summarizing life than life itself is. It's an example of how a great artist can take so many elements of life—so much of the expansive human experience—and show it to us, simple and condensed, shocking and beautiful, in a way that we simply can't and don't see when we're actually living it.

Joel is naming his next band The Ridiculous Bouncing Dogs

Lo-Fi Archives

March 29, 2007

To Suffer

I like my art to be sad. That's not to say that I deplore happiness or satisfaction, that I hate a good happy ending or anything like that. It's just that I have no problem with the sad endings, the tragic ones, with the stories that dwell on misery and suffering and all the pain inherent in living on this planet. It seems to me that existence is brutal, to varying degrees for various people, but universally painful on certain levels.

Now, life is worth it, I believe. For the pain and misery and suffering that seems always around the next corner, there is also joy and happiness and great elation. Life is pretty damn cool, when you get right down to it. That's my thought. Therefore, I don't want this to be taken as some sort of downcast condemnation of existence, as a hopeless screed.

hatemyself.jpg But the suffering is there and I don't believe it will ever go away. I do think the human race is capable of great gains and achievements, of righting wrongs and carrying out justice. I believe that we can make lives better and that we can improve the world. I do believe in progress. But I also believe that pain is a constant, that it will always exist and that the only difference is in how it manifests. Pain changes and morphs and puts on new faces, but it never disappears. It simply takes a different form, the same as energy.

So I like my art to deal with that. I like my art to dwell on it, to tackle it head on, to exhibit and try to make sense of all the pain in the world. However, I don't want my art to try to provide me answers for the pain. I don't want to be told the details about why we suffer and I don't want people to tell me how to make it end. I don't want a lecture or a grave explanation of just how humanity has gone wrong and how it can correct itself. Give me a break—we don't have the answers. No one has the answers. If they existed, we would be a hell of a lot better off. We've tried, oh how we've tried to make the world right and perfect. We try governments and economies and religion, we proclaim the Golden Rule and talk to our neighbors, we put ourselves into therapy and make friends and find lovers and it never goes away. The pain doesn't disappear. The best we get is a retreat—temporary—and then the return of pain in a different form. Or, hell, half the time it comes back in the same damn form. We thought we beat it; we didn't.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't defeatism or misery, this isn't even a dark night of heavy thoughts. I've been in a good mood today. I just like to face up to the reality of pain in this world and I always have. I think it's one of the key reasons I consider Buffy the Vampire Slayer to be one of the greatest shows of all time. It dealt with pain forthright, head on, without ever hesitating or pulling back to give the viewer a breather. The show—specifically, Joss Whedon—had no trouble dumping tragedy upon tragedy on the viewer, inundating them with pain and misery and heartbreak, great loss. Whedon said multiple times that his goal was to pile on the pain until the audience felt they couldn't take any more—and then hit them with something else. He always wanted to see how far he could take it because he wanted to be honest about life, about what happens in this world. Because the pain is always there, it's ever-present. You don't get a breather, no one decides that your life needs to be made happier so as not to alienate the audience. If there's any audience to this existence, then it's an audience with endless tolerance.

buffysmomdead1.jpg Give me the misery. Give me the horror, the tragedies, the injustices. I want all of it, because that's what this life is. Give me the pain, let me feel it. Rip my fucking heart out; this is what I want. I can take it. I'll have to take it, because how can I manage real life pain if I can't take the pain that artists feed me? How do you survive your own very real life if you can't even handle the imagined lives?

Yes, I know, for many people art is about entertainment. They want the movies that make them feel good, that distract them from the pain of their lives. But I've never been that way. I'll take the entertainment, mind you, and I'll enjoy it and won't have a problem with letting my mind wander for a couple hours. When you get right down to it, though, I could live without the mindless entertainment—I can create that on my own—but I would have a much harder time getting by without the vicarious pain and misery. It's that kind of art that leaves me thoughtful and contemplative, that leaves me feeling just a bit closer to making sense of the world. I don't think I can ever have a true understanding of the scope of this life, of its purpose or meaning or why people suffer the way they do, but I do believe I can gain a better grasp of it. I think that I can come to terms with it and I believe that examining pain and suffering through art is a crucial component of coming to accept life, to dealing with the intricacies of our existence. I think art can make the pain more bearable, but only if you're willing to experience the painful art. It just makes it easier when the real pain comes around and you realize that, yes, this all happens to you, too. It's not just something you read or watch—it's how the world is. And it's how the world will always be. So if art can confront it and help you to handle it when it raises its head for real, then all the better. Then suddenly art is not just entertainment and escape, it's a crucial element of life. It becomes an integral part of existence, which makes it richer and fuller, much more visceral and emotional.

It enhances life, and that is something special.
(From The Between.)


Joel knows what he likes. Or doesn't like.


Lo-Fi Archives

March 22, 2007

Missed Movies

Maysml.jpg There are too many damn movies coming out each year. Worse yet, most of the good ones are the ones you don't see. Still worse yet, because people don't see them, they assume they don't exist. But that's not the case. There are plenty of great movies that come out each year, they just don't always get wide releases or a lot of publicity. And I'm not just talking about foreign flicks and wacky art house films filled with odd people who don't quite know how to interact with the world (though I love those movies). I'm talking about all kinds of different genres--dramas, thrillers, comedies, crazy horror movies, and so on.

To help you out, then, I'm going to talk about three solid movies from the last few years that never were huge and you might have missed. Or you might have seen them. If you did, keep your mouth shut. (Actually, don't. Offer your opinion in the comments instead.)


Winged Migration
Okay, it's a documentary about birds. If you haven't seen it and haven't heard about it, you may be tempted to click off this page right now. But don't, because birds are pretty damn cool. And this documentary, despite the very little narration, is pretty damn compelling. The visuals are incredible and almost all real. The filmmakers managed to fly with birds, keeping steady, close shots on migrating flocks of birds. It's fascinating to view and makes your head hurt figuring out how they pulled it off. Meanwhile, they delve into all kinds of different birds, their habits, their migratory patterns, what drives them, and on and on. Depending on your point of view, it may sound boring, but it's incredibly interesting and will likely hold your attention throughout.

No, really, it will.

Birds are cool. Just deal with it.


May
This is a fucked up movie. Seriously fucked up. Majorly. And great. It's a horror movie from about five years ago, about a girl who has trouble connecting with people. Due to this trouble, she does some incredibly fucked up things in her increasingly desperate efforts to connect with other human beings.

This set up makes for one of those great horror movies that deal with real psychological issues, but in a bizarre and disturbing manner that leaves you wondering what the hell you just saw. Lucky McKee, who wrote and directed, hits all the right notes with this one, creating emotionally compelling characters who avoid devolving into mawkish clichés yet never failing to remember that he's making a horror movie and never failing to deliver the obligatory creepy fucking scenes.

Oh, and the ending is fantastic. That's always nice and often rare for a horror movie.


Pieces of April
POAsm.JPG This is a nice, short, simple film dealing basically with a relationship and crazy family issues. It stars Katie Holmes, back when if you knew her, it was because of Dawson's Creek, not because Tom Cruise was slowly destroying her soul. She turns in a strong, subtle, convincing acting job in this movie and I really feel it's a model for the kind of acting she should be doing. Small character pieces seem to suit her well.

The basic plot is that her shitty family is coming to have Thanksgiving with her and her boyfriend in her shitty apartment. She's a bit of an outcast, they're all uptight and ridiculous, and it's clear they have issues with her life. Wacky hijinks ensue with the family as they make their way from their dysfunctional suburban home to April's run down city apartment. It's kind of along the lines of the family scenes in Little Miss Sunshine, though maybe not as entertaining. Frankly, it's been awhile since I watched the movie and I can't remember it well enough to directly judge it against Little Miss Sunshine.

It's good, it's amusing, it's a little depressing, and it's only about an hour and fifteen minutes. It's worth your time. Really.

And that's it. What are some of your little-known movie gems from the last few years?


Joel has a much longer list of movies he wishes he'd missed.


Lo-Fi Archives

March 15, 2007

Good Hike, Good Views, Good Friends, Good Beer

The original plan for Sunday was to go snowshoeing up in the Mount Hood area. Six friends and myself--all slated for some good times in the snow. It fell apart though, on account of the weather. Suddenly it was getting all Spring-like on us and snowshoeing in rain and sixty degree weather didn't seem to be the best option.

It changed to a hike in the Columbia River gorge and people were dropping fast. Two people were out and two more were question marks. The decision on where to hike was made at the last moment and the final configuration looked like this: a seven mile loop hike on Dog Mountain with three of the original attendees and one new one. A bit of a different group, to be sure, but still a fine one.

lofimount.jpg I'd never been to Dog Mountain. The hike was in one of my hiking books and apparently it's a great place for wildflowers, but that wasn't a deciding factor. The wildflowers won't be out in full force until May. We went simply because it was a gorge hike, it seemed a good distance, it promised some great views, and it was one we hadn't tried before.

It was a brutal hike. Sure, it had been rated difficult, but this was much worse than I expected it to be. I don't know if it was the best hike to start the season with. I thought I was in better shape, what with the very large amounts of walking I've been doing every day since moving to Portland. But I suppose it was foolish to think that walking around town on mostly flat ground would properly prepare me for an extended hike up a very steep hill. Sure, it's better than if I had been spending the last few weeks sitting around eating Cheetos and watching TV, but it was not proper training for the hike, either.

It was worth it, though. We all powered through and the views that the hike afforded were amazing. The gorge stretched out on either side of us, the Columbia River wide and winding, the I-84 traffic far off and tiny, the clouds and mist littering the landscape in a lazy, drifting patchwork. The wind was furious and cold, but the day itself was strangely warm, an incongruous March sensation. Or perhaps it only seemed so strange because of the deep cold that has been so much more common the last few months.

The hike down was much better. It was longer but gentler, much less steep, surely easier on the knees and beset by many stretches of open, calming forest. Once back at the bottom, we loaded ourselves into my car and set out for the very small town of Stevenson and the fine, fantastic Walking Man Brewery which resides there. I have known of the place for years and realized awhile back that it was well-known for brewing quality beer, but had somehow never been there, despite my frequent trips to the area. This was the day, however, and we soon were crowded into a booth, ordering beers and greasy pub fare.

walkingmanbeer.jpgIt was a fine way to cap the hike. Sadly, the porter that I ordered was less than fantastic--refreshing yet lacking in taste, in need of smoke, or coffee, or chocolate, or some fine combination of said flavors. However, the barley wine and Scotch ales ordered by others were truly magnificent. The barley wine was sweet, but not sickeningly so, and beautifully robust. The Scotch ale was thick and dark and heavy--immensely satisfying. I regretted that I could not follow my lackluster porter with either due to their high alcohol content and my designation as driver, but I am happy to have had the tastes I did have, and further pleased to know that I--oh yes--will be back to experience those drinks in full.

There was a moment there in the booth--drinking beer, eating food, exhausted yet satisfied, enjoying the company and conversation of friends--during which a moment of clarity fell upon me. This was the beauty of life. The moment was so immensely satisfying, I don't think I ever could properly explain it. Everything seemed perfect, content, intoxicating. Yet the intoxication was not the beer, not at all, but the company and circumstances. Perhaps it was the equivalent of a religious experience. It seemed as such.

It happened again a short while later, standing around a fire with the same friends a few minutes before getting back on the road. There was conversation and warmth, shifting smoke, a nice day, a beautiful area, a small but significant bonding, and interesting talk. It was lovely.

It was life.

It was a great day.


Joel says he does not work for the department of tourism.


Lo-Fi Archives

March 8, 2007

Random Ten

I'm going to take the easy way out with this week's column and used the tried and true trick of queueing up the "Five Stars" playlist on my iPod, putting it on random, and seeing what happens. I'll give the first ten songs that come on and do a write up on each one. The only stipulation is that I'll skip any that I wrote about the last time I did this.

"Jet Black New Year" by Thursday - How fucking dark is this song? I love it. It was a new song put onto an EP between the brilliant album Full Collapse and the good-but-not-as-brilliant album War All the Time. I thought the song spoke of a good direction for the band heading into the follow up album to one of my all time favorite discs, but I really don't think War All the Time came close to living up to the brilliance of this song. It's filled with good, dark imagery, has lots of compelling screaming, and is melodramatic as all hell. That makes for good times.

lo1asm.jpg"Let Go" by Frou Frou - Okay, this one is vaguely embarrassing. Not really, though. Basically, I don't think this is a song I would normally like if not for the fact that it was the song used in the trailer for Garden State. And I love Garden State. I have a deep, strange, probably unhealthy love for Garden State. And Natalie Portman. And Natalie Portman's character. Not Zach Braff, though. I mean, I have a gee-that-guy's-funny-and-a-good-writer-and-actor love for him, but not so much a God-I-want-to-violate-him-but-in-a-consensual-way love. You know what I mean?

I think what this boils down to is that I love Garden State and this song reminds me of the movie, so I have love for the song. And, really, it's not that bad a song. But what little other stuff I've heard from the band has struck me as relatively uninteresting.

"Cemetery Drive" by My Chemical Romance - I've said it before and I'll say it again: Fuck you if you think you can give me shit about loving My Chemical Romance. I know they're all over the top and dress silly and wear lots of makeup, but you can say that about most any entertainer. And at least these guys are actually entertaining. They make great music, they rock, and they're slick as shit, but in a good way. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is utter brilliance and the follow up album wasn't half bad either. If you can't get beyond the look of them or the adoration they get from 12 year olds . . . well, your loss.

This, by the way, was one of the best songs off a ridiculously fantastic album that was filled with pretty much nothing but great songs.

"New Drink For the Old Drunk" by Crooked Fingers - I don't know if there's any legitimacy to this thought, but I always feel like this is the song I would hear if I was kicked back in a nice little Irish pub and there was a great, kick ass band on stage. That's what this song feels like to me, and that's a damn good feeling. Eric Bachmann, the lead singer, is one of my favorite artists going right now. I'm going to go ahead and call him a genius. I've seen him in concert twice and he's blown me away both times--they've been two of my best live music experiences. If Crooked Fingers or Eric Bachmann comes to town, go see the show. Seriously. Don't even bother downloading some songs first to see if you like him. Just go. You'll be happy.

This song also appeals to the inner alcoholic in me.

"Not Home Anymore" by Whiskeytown - Whiskeytown is Ryan Adams' first band. At least, I think it's his first. It's a little hard to keep up when a guy has about fifty different bands and releases ten albums a year. But I'm pretty sure this is his first and while I prefer his solo stuff and his stuff with The Cardinals more than this, there are still some damn decent songs in the Whiskeytown catalog. This is one of them. I'm not really sure why I find this compelling, but I do. Decent lyrics, I suppose, a nice beat. I really couldn't say. It's not as country as some of the other Whiskeytown songs, which is generally good. The band can get a little too country for me at times.

Ryan Adams is great, by the way, and you should listen to him. Also, he wrote, recorded and released two albums in the time it took me to write this blurb. Prolific little fuck, isn't he?

"Blowin' in the Wind" by Bob Dylan - Bob! Shit yes, this is a great song. I don't even really know what I need to write about this. I think most everyone knows the song and probably has an opinion one way or another. I only discovered Dylan last year and I'm quite glad I finally did. It's not that I didn't know of him or had never heard any of his music, but I didn't own any of his albums or really listen to him until last year. Thanks goes to Jess for finally getting me on the bandwagon.

lo2asm.jpg "Helena" by My Chemical Romance - Have I mentioned these guys are great and you'd be a damn fool to dismiss them because of their theatrics and 12 year old fan base? Okay, good. This is another great song off an album that's full of ridiculously great songs. I don't know how they managed to put together Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. It has no right being so good from start to finish. It's one of those albums I've listened to hundreds of times and could listen to hundreds of times more without ever growing bored with it. That's rare, and that's an album to be treasured.

"Two Little Girls" by Ani DiFranco - Don't say a word. I know you all are dying to give me shit about this, but . . . well, okay, go ahead. It's not like you give a damn if I give you permission anyway. What can I say though, I dig Ani DiFranco and I'm not embarrassed by it. I think she's a damn good artist, I'm into her singing style, she's a magnificent lyricist. It's good stuff. This particular song is a favorite off of a great album and it includes the excellent line, "Here comes little naked me, padding up to the bathroom. To find little naked you, slumped on the bathroom floor."

DiFranco's last few albums haven't been nearly as compelling to me as her earlier stuff. That's not to say they're not good, though. Just not as good.

That's all I have for Ani. Go ahead and use that comment form below to start talking shit.

"Mexico" by Incubus - A lot of people started hating Incubus right around the time Morning View came out, though I think just as many people started loving them. I don't fall into either category. I loved their previous album, Make Yourself, which was pretty much their breakthrough. I also loved Morning View. It was after that I thought they started to fall apart. But I also didn't much care for S.C.I.E.N.C.E., though I didn't think it was horrible. So I fall into some weird middle ground on which I'm not sure many other Incubus fans reside.

Anyway, "Mexico" is my favorite song off Morning View. It's just one of those quiet, melancholy songs that I really get into. I've listened to this one hundreds of times and it still totally grabs my attention whenever I hear it. That's the mark of a great song.

lo3a.jpg"Willing to Fight" by Ani DiFranco - Jesus Christ, it wasn't bad enough that one of her songs had to come on, but two? This is ridiculous. But hey, not embarrassed, right? This is another great song from her. And this, actually, is the live version off her double disc live album, Living in Clip. I remember buying this album, actually. For some reason, I just got a bug up my ass late at night about owning it. I ran to Fred Meyer, found they had it in stock, and bought it outright. I don't even remember why I needed it so badly at that moment, but I did.

Luckily, it's an amazing live album. The woman certainly knows how to put on one hell of a concert and, out of all her live albums, this one may be the best capture of actually seeing her live in concert. Of course, I have no way of knowing that for sure since I've never actually seen her live. But I imagine it's true.

And that's it. Ten random songs. Feel free to give thoughts, opinions, protestations, ridicule, or your own random ten list.


Joel would prefer your random ten list to your ridicule.


Archives

March 1, 2007

The Encore

I've been to a lot of concerts over the last six months or so. It's been fantastic. I've seen some amazing shows and have consistently enjoyed myself. I saw my most recent show, Josh Ritter, on Saturday. It was a hell of a performance and I strongly recommend his music and, in particular, his concerts.

I thought about something during that concert, though, and it's something that's been (sparingly) on my mind for the last few months. Frankly, it's not that original or fascinating. Basically, I just want to know what's up with the encores. I get that there's a tradition to this. The artist or band finishes up the set, walks off stage, everyone stands up and applauds and whistles and hollers for a few minutes, and then the artist is back for a couple more songs. It's a fine tradition, really, but at every concert I've attended it's been . . . mandatory. It's been expected. It's just what happens, and it has nothing to do with what it's supposed to be about.cell-lighter.jpg

Theoretically, the encore isn't a given. It's an indication that the artist appreciates the audience's enthusiasm, and that enthusiasm is then rewarded with a couple additional songs. But the reality here is that the encore is planned. It's happening no matter what, and everyone knows this. It's total bullshit at this point.

Hell, it's to the point that Josh Ritter acknowledged the coming encore halfway through the concert. Of course he's going to finish the set, walk off stage, and then come back on a couple minutes later to do a few encore songs. But at that point, it's not an encore—it's just the songs after a short break. It's obligatory. He didn't finish the set. He's making the audience clap before he finishes the set.

I don't blame him and I don't really blame any artist who does this. At this point, I think everyone who goes to a concert expects the encore. It's kind of ridiculous, though. Every person in the audience knows what's happening. Nobody makes any move for the exit after the artist goes off stage because everyone knows the concert isn't over—it's just in a short but required lull. We all stand there and clap and think to ourselves, "Come on, come on, get back on stage and finish the set."

Here's what's bullshit about all this. If the artist just did his full set, including the two or three encore songs, without ever leaving the stage, most of the people in the audience would be pissed. They would feel cheated because he didn't come out and do an encore, despite all the clapping and yelling and cheering. It wouldn't be that the artist just did the set and called it a night, choosing not to go through the charade of the encore. No, because this encore is so set in stone at this point, the main set has to end a few songs early just so nobody feels cheated out of their money.

It's not that I find any of this particularly annoying or troublesome, I just think it's interesting. And I think it's fairly silly. It's all a charade, planned and silently agreed upon, and we all go through the motions to bring it to reality. Further, we're all so conditioned to expect it that if some aspect of the process changed—if the artist didn't do the obligatory stage exit and re-entrance—many people would probably be upset about it. Frankly, that's a bit ridiculous.

It's also a bit sad, too. I don't know if this was ever really the case, but I imagine that there was a time when the encore was a nice surprise, or it was a reward for the hardcore fans. You stayed and clapped and whistled and screamed and forced the band back out onto the stage to fully satisfy you.josh_ritter.jpg And maybe it actually took effort and wasn't a foregone conclusion. Maybe the less hardcore fans left, because they weren't willing to wait around to see if the band would come back on stage. Maybe when the band did suddenly reappear, there was a thrilling element to it, a surge of happiness, and uplift to the spirit. Rather than it being an obligation being fulfilled, expected and unsurprising and utterly incapable of inspiring strong emotion because it's the only possible outcome—maybe at some point in the past it was actually cool and exciting when the band reappeared simply because there wasn't a guarantee it would happen. Maybe there was once a point when the crowd had to earn it.

I think it would be much more satisfying that way.

But that's not how it is. It's an expectation, a definite, an unquestioned outcome. While that's not horrible, it's not too inspiring, either.

So what do you think? Do you like the encore or do you find it to be nothing more than empty tradition? Would you feel cheated if an artist skipped the encore, but instead just folded the extra songs into the full set? Or would you appreciate the rejection of an unnecessary but expected action? Should encores be earned or are they simply a part of what you're paying for?


Don't ask him what they were charging for beer


Archives

February 22, 2007

Winter Thoughts - Part Two

(Note: Due to time constraints, this week's Imbibe and Lo-Fi are being replaced by a two-part entry from my old blog, The Between. Part One ran Wednesday.)

oldman.jpgI wasn't prepared to hike in the snow. I didn't expect to encounter snow. It was the middle of June and I was on the first leg of my road trip, staying a few days in Glacier National Park in Montana. Since it was the middle of June, in fact, the title of this post isn't quite appropriate. But ultimately, this is about the snow, which equals winter to me. So onward I'll write.

My plan was to hike the full 17 mile loop at Two Medicine that would take me through Pitamakan Pass and Dawson Pass, as well as over the Continental Divide twice. Everything about the plan sounded great and I even managed to drag myself out of bed early on the day of the hike so I could make the hour and a half drive to the trail and still have time to squeak in the full loop before sunset. Of course, I was still pressing my luck timewise, but I was determined to make the full loop. I knew it would be amazing.

Everything started out well enough and, let me tell you, the trail was indeed amazing. In fact, there is no way I could ever fully explain the pure joy that I experienced hiking that day. The trail initially crept its way up some hills overlooking the lake that the campgrounds were placed around. The view was nice, but nothing spectacular. I was basically hiking on the side of a mountain—one of many mountains around there. As I made my way around the mountain, though, I eventually broke out into a valley that the trail traversed. A river ran through the valley, far down on my left. This valley was absolutely incredible and hiking through it turned out to be the second best highlight of my entire roadtrip.

If you look closely on the right of that picture—lofi333.jpg you can just make out the trail I was hiking. Look still more closely and you'll see that it stretches throughout that entire valley. Hiking along that, with the view of the mountains in front of me the entire time and the meadow stretching out all around me, trees dotting the landscape and the roar of the river below me, was something I still can't properly describe. A bald eagle literally flew in circles above me and ground squirrels were everywhere in the meadow. They would run off as I came too close but often times they would stand up not far from where I was, looking around in that same ridiculously cute way as prairie dogs do. There were birds and butterflies and at one point—on the way back along that same trail, actually—I was able to watch a herd of mountain goats make their way up the mountain farther up in front of me.

To say the view was impressive would be a magnificent understatement. As I walked through that valley, I felt amazing and completely filled with life. I hiked in awe, astounded that such a place even existed and that I could just walk into it with such ease. I stopped countless time to take pictures and soon was pressing my time advantage even more if I wanted to hike the full seventeen mile loop. Yet I continued on, sure that I could pick up the pace and make it.

The turn off trail for Old Man Lake was about six miles into the main trail. You can see it on the map. It's about a quarter mile from the turn off to Old Man Lake itself. Shortly before I came to the turn off, I started to hit small patches of snow. The first patch I came across on the side of an incline—a small drift that had not yet melted and still covered the trail. I was getting pretty high up in elevation and the temperature had definitely started to drop to the point that it was getting chilly. I think it was probably in the high forties. That first snow I just walked through—the drift wasn't all that big—and continued on my way. I begin to see more patches shortly after that, though they mostly were off the trail itself and resided in shadow.

When I hit the fork, I could see some snow on the trail leading to Old Man Lake, but it didn't look too bad. lofi334.jpgI knew that I was pushing my time constraints, but I really wanted to hike in and see the lake. So I decided to go, but figured I would make it fast. I started down the trail, keeping a quick pace, and it wasn't long before the snow increased dramatically. Within a couple minute, I was regularly walking through snow to stay on the path. Not long after that, I was almost walking through snow the entire time.

This is the point I became really stupid. For whatever reason, I decided to start running. Why I did this, I still can't tell you, except that I knew I was short on time and I was not ready to give up on the trail and go back. I began to run in snow—in ever-increasing, wet snow drifts. The temperature was still above freezing, so the snow was actually melting and sometimes a wrong step would send my foot sinking deep into the snow. So as I ran, I basically was attempting to break an ankle. Out in the middle of nowhere. Alone. In a place populated with and frequented by bears.

Sometimes I'm kind of stupid.

I knew as I ran that it was stupid. I knew that at any moment I might break an ankle. Usually I respond to such logical thoughts, but this time I just kept running. It was fun—it felt great.

Amazingly, I didn't break an ankle or even twist it. I ran most of the rest of the way to Old Man Lake and by the time I was there, the ground was completely covered in snow. Multiple feet of snow, at that. This wasn't a dusting or a couple inches—this was heavy snow that was in the process of melting in the middle of June, but that was still very much hanging on for life and probably would continue to do so for a couple more weeks—if not longer. Yet I managed not to injure myself or to become lost, which was no small feat considering there were times it was hard to tell where the trail was.

Oh, but when I arrived, it was all worth it. My shoes and socks were soaked, I was tired and I was definitely behind schedule, but the view was absolutely incredible. Take a look at that picture up top again. That is Old Man Lake. It basically is nestled amongst a multitude of glaciers. The lake is a good size, but it's by no means huge. I took that picture while standing on top of a snowdrift that must have been somewhere between three and five feet deep, standing near the edge of the cliff in the trees, snow covering everything around me and this lake—this beautiful lake—sitting in front of me with the water completely still, a stretch of it still covered in ice and snow. I was completely enveloped in overwhelming silence. There was nothing, no one, anywhere near me. Thankfully, no bears were there at the time, though the lake is a popular watering hole for them. No other animals could be seen. There wasn't a single person there, either, and no indication that there recently had been anyone. No jets flew overhead. There wasn't the roar of far off traffic. There wasn't even any nearby rushing water. Everything was perfectly silent and the lake lay in front of me like perfection.

It would be a cliché to say it was a spiritual experience, but it was something akin to that. I felt lifted, exhilirated. I drank every breath, could feel the blood in my veins. The air was perfectly still, yet I could feel it touching my skin. I was immensely happy in that moment.

I stood there and ate some of my packed food. I took pictures of the lake and for a long time I simply stared at it, experienced it. I visually scoured the far banks of the lake trying to see any bears that had come down for a drink, but I saw none. I looked for elk or other life, but there was nothing. It was just the lake and me and this perfect, meditative silence. I could believe that such a place existed as this, but it seemed incredible that I could hike into it. It struck me as insane that the access had been so easy. Surely something this breathtakingly beautiful would be better hidden, harder to find, much more a struggle to gain access to. Yet no, I had only to walk.

Eventually I left. I went back to the main trail and I continued on my 17 mile loop, now thinking that I probably didn't have time to do the full loop. I decided I would hike to Pitamakan Pass and then backtrack. I would have time for that. I never made it that far, however, because shortly up the main trail from the turn off to Old Man Lake, the snow became as thick and heavy as it had been at the lake. I didn't have the willpower, the equipment or the skill to continue through that for another mile, so I turned back. And as much as I wanted to hike that full loop, it hardly mattered to me because I had seen something so incredibly beautiful, so heartening and inspiring, that I would be satisfied no matter what. I would be satisfied for some time to come.

Archives

February 15, 2007

Scratch the Itch

I'm addicted to music. I admit this. But to break that statement down further, I'm also addicted to new music. Sure, there are multiple albums and musicians whom I find myself listening to again and again, month after month. However, if I start going weeks without a new album to listen to, I get a bit anxious. It's not that the old music isn't satisfying me, it's just that I constantly need something new, something unrecognizable, something that I can fall in love with. I need a different experience than the one I've had tens or hundreds of times before. The auditory senses in my brain need to be stimulated in some new and exciting way.

When those new and exciting ways aren't present, I start to feel an overwhelming need to find them. Of course, the way to find them is with a new CD, a new band, new download—just new music in some form or another. Unfortunately, while there are constantly new albums being released and many decades worth of musical back catalog that could not possibly ever be fully experienced, it can still be hard to find a new album that really grabs me. It's not that the albums aren't out there, of course, it's just a matter of finding them.

Thankfully, the magnificence of the internet has helped with this task in fantastic ways. There's a multitude of musical recommendation sites, whether it be Amazon or last.fm or Pandora. Then there are awesome pay services like Emusic, which I find brilliant on levels I can't even explain. Often times, when used properly, these places can even give you good recommendations that you actually will come to appreciate, rather than just wondering how the hell a suggestion could go so very wrong.

To a large degree, those services work together to help me avoid bad music purchases, but that was not always the case. itch.jpg Even just a few years ago, there were many, many times that I found myself being seduced by a slick CD case, fueled by my unquenchable desire to own new music. It was at its worst when I worked in the electronics department of Fred Meyer, a general retailer here in the Northwest. The CDs resided in that department and there were many slow nights when I would find myself browsing through them, thinking about how great it would be to get off work and pop a new CD in my stereo as I drove home, great new music dominating my world.

Oh, if only it worked that way.

It would be ten at night, an hour from the store closing, and I would find myself flipping through the miscellaneous letter sections. This was where all the CDs that we didn't have specific artist cards for lived. So in the "A - Miscellaneous" section one night, I found Aiden. It was an obvious emo disc and a big sticker plastered across the front of the CD case proclaimed the band to be for fans of My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday. Well shit, I was a fan of both!

Sadly, that sticker turned out to be for the undiscerning fan of My Chemical Romance and Taking Back Sunday. (Yes, I see the obvious joke there.) Whereas I enjoy both of those bands because they have a solid base of talent that has allowed them to compose compelling and entertaining fusions of pop and emo, Aiden seemed more for the fan who loved them for their over-the-top brooding lyrics and wasn't as concerned about the actual quality of the songs. It's not that the CD turned out to be bad so much as it turned out to be mediocre—a solid but completely forgettable effort.

Now this is where theaiden.jpg urge for new music becomes quite dangerous. If I indulge that urge and purchase a new CD, I'm essentially scratching an itch. If the new CD turns out to be a stellar purchase—top notch, ridiculously entertaining or emotionally compelling or both—then I've successfully neutralized the itch. But if my new CD turns out to be okay at best, that scratch has only served to flare up the itch. Now I really need a new CD, and I need one that's going to blow me away.

It was a vicious circle, made worse by my easy access to all these unknown CDs. It was also made worse by the fact that, during that time, I gravitated toward all the emo albums. Granted, that's much of what I was listening to at the time, but there were plenty of other kinds of music I was listening to, as well. I think the problem was that the emo CDs are so easy to pick out. So I could be browsing through all these bands I'd never heard of before and usually I could quickly grab two or three discs that obviously were of the emo persuasion. Their covers screamed it. Then I could listen to them on the listening stations to see if they were any good.

I was only digging my hole deeper, though. For you see, the CDs that are easily pinpointed as emo are the ones that have slick packaging and marketing—and those are often the ones that suck, or slip away into the ether the moment you're done listening to them. They come in a pretty package, but the packaged goods aren't so pretty. It's an old story—one I'm sure you're finding heartbreaking.

Worse yet, these CDs almost always sound good on the listening station. I would hear some good, solid riffs, some overwrought lyrics, a bit of screaming, and I would think I was on to something. So I'd check out the second and third tracks, as well, and those seemed decent. Then I'd buy the damn thing and pretty soon realize that the first three tracks are pretty good, if nothing amazing, and the rest of the CD largely sucks. Of course, there was usually the obligatory slow and melodic track, and those I sometimes found compelling. But ultimately, I would end up truly enjoying maybe two tracks at best, yet I'd be out ten bucks.

Bad trade.

This pattern repeated itself again and again until I finally left Fred Meyer. Now, it's not so bad. My very low AmeriCorps stipend keeps me from experimenting on new CD purchases and my Emusic account lets me download a lot of new music every month, to help keep me constantly experiencing new sounds. Best of all, if I download an album off that service that I'm not too impressed with, I'm only out two or three dollars rather than ten. That's much more manageable.

Still, there are times I get that itch. When I do, it's hard not to find the nearest music store and start buying. It's hard not to scratch.

Joel is in need of a good backscratcher.

Archives

February 8, 2007

The Perfect Line

There's something I'm not great at when it comes to music. While many of my friends actually listen to and digest the lyrics of the songs they listen to, I typically do not do that. I don't mean to say that I pay no attention to the lyrics, but I'm definitely one of those people who pays attention to a song's overall sound more than the lyrics specifically. I don't follow them line by line and, often times, I don't grasp the story the lyrics typically tell. There are exceptions to this, of course, and I often do start paying more attention to the lyrics of songs that I listen to again and again, but the majority of songs exist in a land in which I'm not really sure what the lyrics are about.

Understand, that's fine with me. whiskeytown.jpgBut to some people, they find that a very strange way to listen to music. I don't know what the split is of people who listen to music the same way I do and how many pay close attention to the lyrics right off the bat, but I seem to know a lot of people who fall into the latter category.

However, while I may not always listen to every line of a song's lyrics, I do often catch certain phrases that resonate with me, burrowing deep into my brain and creating strange chemical and emotional reactions. This is when lyrics hit me hardest and, often, these small phrases completely overtake me, leading to an almost obsession with a certain song.

One of my most played songs is "Desperate Ain't Lonely" by Whiskeytown, which is a defunct band that was fronted by Ryan Adams. The particular line in this song that really resonates with me is fairly simple and straightforward: "I try not to drink / 'cause if I sit and think / I'll go crazy." It's such a basic line, yet somehow I find it incredibly compelling, as it perfectly creates a picture of a person lost in their misery, wanting to drown it in alcohol but not wanting to dwell on the sadness, as they surely would with the alcohol. It's a simple image, but one I was obsessed enough with to continually play the song over and over for a few weeks straight.

gacy158.jpgAnother song that I listen to again and again and never grow tired of is "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." by Sufjan Stevens. It actually has a couple lines that really hit me hard. One is "The neighbors, they adored him / for his humor and his conversation." Another line referring to Gacy's alcoholic father comes in the song's final stanza: "And in my best behavior / I am really just like him." They're affecting lines in a quiet and devastating song that somehow, someway, brings the listener to the brink of empathy for a serial murderer and child molester. In that sense, they're compelling and fascinating.

In "Land Locked Blues" by Bright Eyes, lead singer Conor Oberst sings, "We made love on the living room floor / with the noise in the background from a televised war." This line always catches my attention not so much because of its emotional resonance (though that is an element of it)landlocked blues.jpgas it does due to the simple visual nature of the words. It's a stark and compelling image, made more interesting by the inherent social commentary but not needing that commentary to catch the listener's attention.

Of course, one of my favorite lines of all times, and one that I've mentioned on this site before, comes from Taking Back Sunday's song "You're So Last Summer." The line is "You could slit my throat / and with my one last gasping breath / I'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt." It's really just a brilliant, entertaining and funny line that beautifully describes passive aggressive behavior. It's such an outrageous and ridiculous image, it's almost impossible not to notice the line, at the very least on the second or third time you listen to the song. Similarly, it's almost impossible not to at least smile at it. It's a great line and one that instantly makes the song stand out from the rest of the album for me.

There are plenty more lines of lyrics I love, but I want to throw this into your court now. What particular lines of lyrics do you love? I'm not necessarily looking for a song with great lyrics throughout (though that's perfectly acceptable) but just what specific bit of lyrics really grab you and have helped elevate the status of a song for you. I'm sure you've got some good ones, so let's hear it.

Joel is adored by his neighbors

Archives

February 1, 2007

Randomosity

Today's Lo-Fi column is brought to you by unforeseen circumstances and extreme fatigue.  As such, this is a Lo-Fi that is going to be lacking in the musical content, but will hopefully make up for it with slightly amusing, recycled and repurposed content that you have almost certainly never before enjoyed.  It's like eating left overs from a meal you weren't invited to!

Yes, you.  Not that other guy.  That guy was totally invited.

And yes, I made up the word "randomosity."  But you like it, so stop complaining.

The First

First up for this big bucket of random stuff is a little flash animation that I found about a year and a half ago and, to this day,loonatics.jpg really do enjoy.  It's a spoof of Loonatics, which is a new, hip version of Looney Tunes that debuted on TV back in September 2005, to much fanfare and ridicule and horror, depending on your point of view.  Also, indifference.  That was actually probably the main emotion.

So this flash animation shows just how fucking extreme the new Loonatics are, in quite a filthy and hilarious manner.  I recommend you view, enjoy, and possibly pass around to all your friends.  If you watch it at work, however, you may want to pull out the headphones.  And probably just not watch it at work at all, considering there's also some words that flash on the screen that could prove mighty offensive to some.

The Second

For my second bit of sheer randomness, I offer to you a short transcript of a conversation I had with a customer back when I worked in the electronics department of Fred Meyer.  This occurred in February 2005.

CUSTOMER: Hey, do you happen to have the second season of Chapelle's Show in the back somewhere?

ME: No, that doesn't actually come out until May. I'm not sure what day exactly, but I know it's May.chappelles.jpg [I've since learned May 24 is the specific date.]

CUSTOMER (Looking at me strangely): Oh, really?

ME: Yeah. It was originally scheduled for February, but they pushed the date back.

CUSTOMER (In a kind of haughty, "You're a jackass" tone): Well, that's strange, because I've seen it everywhere else. Everybody else has it, Best Buy, Target . . .

ME: Huh. Really? Weird, because I'm pretty sure it doesn't come out until May. [I know it doesn't come out until May, but for some reason I'm not yet actively trying to get myself fired.]

CUSTOMER: Yeah.

ME: You should probably go buy it there then, because we don't have it.

CUSTOMER (Looks at me strangely, again, and hesitates): Okay.

Here's what I should have added, but didn't:

ME: I'll tell you what. You go buy it at one of those other stores, then bring it back here and show it to me, along with the receipt proving you purchased it. If you do that, I'll give you ten bucks, right there, free for any pleasurable activity you should choose.

CUSTOMER: Really?

ME: Sure thing. Because you know what? It's not at those other stores. You're an idiot. The show doesn't come out until May and there is no other store anywhere that currently has it available for purchase. So you go ahead and do that and I'll throw you ten bucks, no questions asked. But the offer only stands for tonight and if you don't show up—and, I assure you, you won't—then I'm going to go ahead and assume you're a jackass and a moron. Oh, and a liar. Okay? Great. Get the fuck out of my store.

The Third

Okay, I lied.  I only have two bits of randomosistorytellingness.  Next week, however, I'll make a valiant effort to actually write about music.  I'm pretty sure I can pull it off.

Ah, what the hell.  That lie was a lie.  Here's a third.  I bought the new Shins album and I love the shit out of it.  It's good.  It's The Shins.  If you like them, you'll probably like the album.  If you don't, well, probably not.  It is a different sound than their first two, but it's not drastically different.  shins.jpgThe final song, which is actually a more similar sound to previous works, absolutely kicks my ass.  Get it, enjoy it, or don't.  Whatever.  I've got to get to bed.

The Fourth

Ha!  After claiming I didn't even have a third, and then having one, now I hit you with the fourth.  Bet you didn't see that coming.  I totally blew your fucking mind, didn't I?  It's okay, it's what I do.

It's 70s week here at Faster Than The World, so my fourth and final bit of whatever randomosity is this handy dandy link to a 70s music trivia site.  Go, enjoy, answer the questions.  Come back here and post your own bit of randomness, or 70s music story, or trivia, or bitch about the Loonatics, or tell me wonderful retail horror stories, or just give a three sentence review of whatever album you're listening to.  Or not.  Seriously, whatever, I need to get to bed.

Joel knows places where you can get pleasured for ten bucks.

Archives

January 25, 2007

Burden of Proof - Moonstruck Album Review

burdenofproof.jpgThis week brings a slight change of pace for Lo-Fi. I'm reviewing the new album, Moonstruck, from Burden of Proof, an indie rock band from Los Angeles. I haven't done a real, dedicated album review yet here on Faster Than The World, so this should be exciting. Or it should be a review, which I suppose isn't always the most exciting of articles to read. But I promise if you read it all the way through, you'll feel like a rock star. Seriously.

I had not heard of Burden of Proof before being sent this CD. My guidance on the band was pretty much what you read above—they're an indie rock band from LA. Armed with this formidable knowledge, I dived into the album, giving it a couple listens so I could begin to form an opinion, which is often how I approach CDs. First there's the listening, then there's the deciding. I'm thinking of patenting the process.

The album opens well with a catchy track. There's a solid backing guitar riff and the voice of Neil Gall, the lead singer, comes through nicely over the instrumentation. Right off the bat, Gall's voice is enjoyable, with a hoarse and scratchy quality that I'm familiar with from certain emo acts. However, I don't want to place these guys into the emo category. Well there may be some influence, they really exist in a more general alternative rock world.

The first half of the album, unfortunately, is not as strong as the first track, which really is catchy. The next couple songs exist in a strange place in which they weren't quite able to truly grab my attention and left me, instead, vaguely entertained but not truly impressed. I definitely like Gall's voice, and the backing instrumentals are certainly serviceable, but aside from the first track, the first half of the album is relatively common and forgettable.

It starts to pick up during the second half, though. Starting with "Into the Sun," it seems like the band begins to play more to their strengths. Considering the scratchy, emotive quality of Gall's voice, the album works better with songs that bring out those strengths. "Into the Sun" does this by incorporating slower elements while building the song into something more complicated and faster. moonstruck.jpgThis technique, however, doesn't fully pay off until the next track, "These Days." The song starts out slow, dwelling on themes of pain and addiction. Then, at about the three minute mark, the song kicks up the sound level and Gall seems to lose himself in the lyrics, his voice strained and raw, pushing forward through an affected, satisfying conclusion.

The band then switches up the sound of the CD with a transition into a song with much more upbeat instrumentation and an altered singing style. It's an interesting change that, ultimately, didn't work well for me, though the short song did start to grow on me by the time it wound to a close. The next track, though, moves the band right back into the musical frame they were in previously, with strong results. "Shut Up" starts off slow, depressing, pained and builds into anger, frustration, a certain seething, underlying emotion. This is perhaps the album's strongest track, making perfect use of Gall's voice, backing it up with solid, complimentary and varied instrumentation and showcasing some compelling lyrics.

The last two tracks are a mixed bag. The second to last is a decent song, again with a slow opening that builds. The song is decent, but nothing outstanding. It does become more compelling with about a minute and a half left, when it transitions into a finale that involves a nice backing of acoustic guitar and Gall's torn voice. After that, though, comes the final track, which is largely a waste. It's a twelve minute track that consists of about eight minutes of distorted sounds overlaid with quiet, random bits of dialogue, as well as a couple minutes of silence and then the big finish of about a minute of quiet singing. It's nonsense filler, basically. This kind of thing may work for some people, but it pretty much just pisses me off whenever I hear it—and I hear it way too often, on all kinds of albums, and often from artists I otherwise greatly respect. Personally, I find it a poor way to end the album and I think it weakens it.

As a recap then, I think Moonstruck is a decent, if at times less-than-compelling album. The first half is not particularly strong, aside from the very enjoyable first song. The second half of the album finds the band really starting to settle into their sound and comes off much better, with the exception of the mostly worthless final track. While I wouldn't tell you to rush out and buy the CD, I would say they're worth at least checking out on MySpace and seeing if you like their sound.
__________

Burden of Proof's new album, Moonstruck, will be available in February. The band is currently touring Northern California with Slow Car Crash and will be playing Luna's Cafe in Sacramento on Friday, January 26th with Reggie Ginn. For information on other tour dates or to listen to select songs, visit their MySpace site.

Archives

January 17, 2007

To Define Art

I remember myself in junior high–eighth or ninth grade–sitting in Journalism/Newspaper class. All of us were lounging around the classroom, supposedly working on articles and other such writing assignments, but in reality listening to tapes we had brought in. Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill was playing, and I was liking it. I liked her at the time. Most of the kids were enjoying it, but there was one girl who decided to chime in with condemnation. "I used to like her until she got so popular. Now I don't even like her anymore."

chiquita.jpgIt pissed me off. I went off on a rant and demanded to know what the hell difference it made if she had become popular. She attempted to back pedal, I believe making the case that she just had gotten tired of hearing her on the radio, but I was still annoyed.

Now, I love obscure music. The majority of what I listen to comes from smaller artists and independents. While there are major label, highly popular artists whom I like, the majority of the top selling artists bore me. Most mainstream pop doesn't work for me–I find it repetitive and largely uninteresting. Yet, there have been plenty of popular artists I like. What I've never understood are the people who stop liking an artist simply because they've become popular.

I can understand hearing them too much on the radio and getting sick of a certain song, but do you not like the other songs? And are you now willing to say flat out that you don't like the artist–not just that you're sick of certain popular songs they have, but that you've ceased to like the artist completely? How can more people listening to a specific artist actually cause a person to stop liking their music? It makes no sense and seems to simply be a matter of posturing, rather than a matter of genuine like or dislike.

This can be a huge component of musical likes and dislikes in general, though. Last week, I wrote about embarrassing music I listened to as a kid. I made judgements about Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men and other artists. But who am I really to proclaim them as bad? I have my reasons behind feeling that way, but at least part of those reasons do boil down to popular sentiment. backstreetarthur.gif They're not perceived as great artists, in general, so I buy into that perception and integrate it into my own musical beliefs. Of course, that's not to say I don't engage in personal evaluation of music, but it would be a lie to say that the overriding perceptions of people I otherwise agree with or whose views I'm sympathetic with don't influence my own.

Often times, I think these mass assessments are fair. I'm not going to disagree, say, that Radiohead is a much more accomplished and artistic band than the Backstreet Boys. What is this based on, though? To some people, the strange instrumentation backing Radiohead may seem like little more than ridiculous noise, while the more classic (in a pop sense) backing music to the Backstreet Boys or Mariah Carey may be pleasing to the ear. Therefore, who really has the authority to proclaim one better than the other? Similarly, in reverse, the backing music of the Backstreet Boys is boring as fuck to me, but the strange synthetics of Radiohead's Kid A and the fuzzy, distorted vocals are fascinating. Is my opinion more legitimate?

Well, I think it is. But I can't really say why. I can make the argument above, saying that Radiohead's musical experimentation is interesting and compelling, bringing new sounds to the musical landscape, while the Backstreet Boys are simply rehashing sounds that have been a mainstay in pop music for years. britneyart.jpg Yet, just because something is new doesn't make it better. More unique, perhaps, but that does not automatically translate to a greater quality.

Are the weird lyrics and lo-fi sound of Neutral Milk Hotel more artistic or higher quality music than the clichéd lyrics and sound of Kelly Clarkson? Which is more artistic: repetitive clichés or nonsensical imagery? Are the actual words being sung any real indication of quality, or is it the emotional response that those words create? And if so, is the forty year old soccer mom or twelve year old girl who responds viscerally to Kelly Clarkson's latest song about betrayed love having any less an emotional reaction to that music than the twenty-something hipster who responds viscerally to Neutral Milk Hotel's more uniquely-worded song about betrayed love?

Or am I just over thinking all this?

Maybe it's biological. Does the unique instrumentation of Radiohead create more neurological response within the brain than the latest sappy love ballad topping the charts? I don't know the answer to that, but even if it does, does neurological response denote art? Or is it just base stimulation?

Even if you delve into the subjects of songs and proclaim that this indie rock band confronts complex sociological, psychological and spiritual questions while this mainstream pop artist over here wrote ten shallow songs about love–half of them happy and half of them sad–well, what the hell does that prove? I would hate to live in a world devoid of complex questioning of human reality, absent of scientific inquiry and pursuit, with no great collective drive to discover the mysteries of the universe. At the same time, I would hate to live in a world devoid of the messiness of love, both fulfilled and unfulfilled, or lacking in strong emotional reactions, or without entangling, complicated human relationships. Which is more important to have? Neither. I want them both. So how can I judge one song that tackles the complexities of racism or prejudice as inherently better or more worthy than another that deals with how much it sucks to be dumped?

radiohead tv.jpgI can't.

Which, I suppose brings me to the simple notion that your taste in music is simply your taste in music. People like what creates more enjoyment within them. So while I may find it deplorable that someone could abandon an artist simply because they've become too popular, who am I to condemn that? If a person no longer likes an artist, I can't step in and tell them that's not true. Similarly, if a person thinks the musical styling of Kelly Clarkson or Mariah Carey put to shame the work of Radiohead or Neutral Milk Hotel or Spoon or The Shins, I can't necessarily prove that person wrong. All I can do is argue for my opinion while she argues for her own.

The simple reality is I can't even give a coherent explanation as to what makes art and what doesn't. Worse yet, I can't come up with any kind of universal guidelines as to how you determine what is and is not art. Which kind of sucks.

Luckily, being human, and being filled with weird and conflicting emotions, and often being overtaken with a complete lack of logic, I'm just going to keep considering certain kinds of music as more artistically worthy than other kinds. It may not make sense in the end, but it's much more fun being able to make judgements and definitive statements.

Joel has been filled with weird and conflicting emotions ever since Janet Jackson's nipple slip.

Archives

January 11, 2007

The Music of My Youth

Okay, it's a new year. No doubt, 2007 will see plenty of fantastic music, much of which I just might have an urge to write about. However, I've yet to hear any of it. At the moment, it's all the same stuff I was listening to in 2006. Come January 23rd, maybe I'll want to write about the new Shins album, but for now, I think I should buck the trend of looking to the future and instead go to the past.

The deep, dark past.

The past that is filled with terrible, embarrassing music.

It started in elementary school. I remember a crappy old tape player/radio that sat on the floor next to my bed. With this device, my habit of listening to music while falling asleep was born. Specifically, the song it was born with was "Like a Prayer" by Madonna. I listened to it time and time again, over and over, completely obsessed. I can't tell you why--I have no idea. But I loved it. No doubt it was a bad omen, and my following musical preferences bore that bad omen out.

When I wasn't listening to that song, I would often tune into my then-favorite radio station, Z100. It was the local crappy Pop station and played all kinds of top 40 type hits--mainstream Pop and R&B, basically. (By the way, do all cities have a horrid goddamn radio station called Z100? With the Morning Zoo, of course? Where is this rule, who made it, and how can I kill him?)

I expanded my love of shitty music listening to that station. mariahcarey.jpg Over time, my two favorite artists became . . . Mariah Carey and Boyz II Men. Yes, these two dominated my musical tastes. Her self-titled debut CD? Sheer brilliance, as far as I was concerned. Emotions? Fantastic. I listened to her albums over and over, completely losing myself in that terrible, terrible music.

Then there was Boyz II Men. Cooleyhighharmony? Sign me the hell up. Of course, their true masterpiece was II. "On Bended Knee," "Thank You," "Water Runs Dry" and, song of all songs, "I'll Make Love To You." How many times did I crank up that song when I was home alone and sing along to it, engulfed in the emotional significance and sophistication of that artistic masterpiece? I can't even say. I played that song and the album time and time again, though, and loved it every time.

At this point I'm in junior high and, yes, still listening to very shitty music. I would listen to Keith Sweat and TLC and LL Cool J, Janet Jackson and Seal, Gloria Estefan and, yes, I would still break out Madonna. Things didn't improve, either, as my taste evolved (which is really an inappropriate term). Do I need to even get into my phase with Sarah McLachlan and Jewel? It would probably be better to not talk about it.

Of course, at the time, many of my peers were listening to the same crap. There's something to be said about claiming the ignorance of youth. My brother would listen to the local alternative station and I always thought it was terrible, to the point of calling it "waste of hearing" music. If only I realized at the time what I would later think of my own listening habits. The alternative station didn't have a flawless line up, by any means, but it was about a thousand times better than the ridiculous crap I was listening to--and watching, with my high enjoyment of MTV, that bastion of nonsense.

I think it's fairly common for there to be that phase of listening to bad or mediocre music as a kid. You have to learn what is good and what isn't. boyz2men.jpg You have to be subjected to all the tame, mainstream bullshit that often passes for music until you eventually start to realize that there's a much larger musical world out there--one that doesn't involve superstars and media whores so much as struggling artists who simply dream of superstardom and media whoredom. Hell, even a few struggling artists who dream simply of making a decent living, putting some food on the table, and getting the chance to be screwed over by the music industry. You need to run any sense of musical decency into the ground and then, dejected and destroyed, give up on the entire music industry until that one, bright, shining day that you discover actual music--niches and small genres and independent artists and good major label artists and all the wheat that's sitting there, just wishing that the dominating, suffocating chaff would hurry up and fucking rot.

Of course, I didn't really start discovering the wheat until the joys of Napster, which I suspect managed to breathe new life into a stagnated music industry and foster the thriving independent scene that exists today. That's another column, though.

So it's confession time. What crappy, embarrassing music did you listen to in your youth? Or hell, yesterday? Let's hear it.

Joel still gets his groove on to Kurtis Blow

Archives

January 4, 2007

The Royal Tenenbaums

You may be reading this on January 4th, but I'm writing it on January 1st.  As such, Happy New Year!  I managed to get very trashed on New Year's Eve and, frankly, I'm not going to be able to write anything significant today.  Therefore, this week's Lo-Fi comes from my old blog, The Between.  I wrote it back in March 2005.  It's a review of The Royal Tenenbaums.

Yes, I realize that has basically nothing to do with music.

Also, there are spoilers, so if you haven't seen the movie for some reason and still plan to, you might want to leave now.
_______________


rten1.jpgThe Royal Tenenbaums, perhaps more than any other film, is what made me realize that trying to recommend movies to strangers is consistently a terrible, horrible, disastrous mistake. I tend to like very peculiar, odd, off-beat movies that other people are not always so inclined to like. I can certainly find people who share my taste in movies, but when a stranger comes into the store, let's say, and asks me what a good movie is, any recommendation I make will almost certainly be impressively inappropriate for that person. It would be as if a mother of three small children came in asking me what I would suggest she pick up to keep her kids busy for the night and I, thoughtfully stroking my chin, told her with complete confidence that Jenna Jameson's newest movie would be just right. Therefore, whenever a customer comes in asking for advice on what DVD to buy for a night of entertainment, I generally glare at them and stalk away, grumbling about Paul Thomas Anderson and Mark Wahlberg's prosthetic penis, or some other such nonsense.

There was a time, though, that I still attempted to make these suggestions. Once a fellow employee—though from a different department—came in with his girlfriend and asked for a suggestion on what movie to pick up. I thought a moment and said, with unshakable confidence, "The Royal Tenenbaums." I handed him a copy of it. He looked at the box dubiously, looked at me dubiously, and said—some might say a bit dubiously—"Really?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "It's a great movie."

"Is it funny?"

"Hilarious," I assured him. "Trust me, you'll love it."

"Okay," he said, but he still looked less than certain. He purchased the DVD and went on his way, with me feeling satisfied that I had made a fine suggestion. After all, how could you not love The Royal Tenenbaums? The movie is wonderful, delicious, ridiculous and quirky, funny and heartbreaking and thoughtful, terribly insightful.

He came back the next evening, looked at me with the sort of expression that causes me to cover sensitive areas of my body and look for weapons with which to defend myself and said, "What the hell was that?"

"What? You didn't like it?" I asked with genuine confusion.

"No! You said it was funny."

"It is."

"What are you talking about? rten2.jpgIt wasn't funny at all!"

I stopped and thought for a moment, running the movie through my head the best I could remember. I didn't agree with him that it wasn't funny, but suddenly I began to realize my mistake. Sure, it was funny to me, but it was a very peculiar and dry sort of funny—the kind of humor that you either love or hate. Also, it's quite melancholic and depressing, as well, and the characters are by no means bundles of joy. The film is filled with amusing quirkiness, absolutely, but the wrong person could easily find it unfunny, depressing, frustrating and very possibly pretentious. I thought, shit. Then I thought, and said, "Well, I guess there is that attempted suicide" and the look that he gave me suggested that there might soon be an attempted homicide.

I apologized. And I stopped recommending movies to people I didn't know. In fact, I've stopped recommending movies to many people I do know. Unless they've expressed love for some of the stranger and more weird films that I love, then I generally avoid trying to steer people toward the type of movies I like because, frankly, they probably won't appreciate them in the same way I do. The movies I truly love are usually not mainstream flicks that do big business—they're oddities that many people cherish, but that the vast, vast majority of the country would sigh dramatically about just before launching into a rant about the different ways in which they would kill the filmmaker if only they could get their hands on him.

I suspect The Royal Tenenbaums—and pretty much all of Wes Anderson's films—fall into this category. But damn if I don't love this movie. It is so wonderfully eccentric, filled with character and life, pain and misery and joy and bits of wonder mixed in it all for good measure. It's silly and funny, ridiculous at times, meandering and heartfelt and cruel and painful, but then heartening at the same time. I love that every one of these characters is hurting and yet still goes on to live their lives, to struggle through and try to make sense of their existence. I love the relationship between Luke Wilson's Ritchie and Gwyneth Paltrow's Margot, no matter how strange, inappropriate and lacking in boundaries it may be. I love the tent in the living room and the headband and sunglasses, the stealthy smoking, the utter ridiculousness that is on display every time Owen Wilson's character, Eli, comes on screen. I love—God, how I love—the attempted suicide. It is so shocking and sudden, so harsh and brutal, coming out of nowhere and just crawling under my skin, digging right into my gut and seizing me, refusing to let go. I love how it is preceded with the shaving and the look of pure desperation in his eyes as he rids himself of hair. It is one of the most haunting scenes I have ever seen in film and it affects me, greatly, every time I see it.  I still think about it any time I hear "Needle in the Hay" by Elliott Smith.

The movie is inspired by Salinger's writing, without a doubt, and specifically by the Glass family. I love that. This surely must be the closest Salinger's writing has ever come to being captured on screen. Hell, I'm not sure if there are even other attempts, but I can't imagine that any that do exist would do as good a job as rten3.jpgThe Royal Tenenbaums does. Like in a Salinger story, these characters are too smart for their own good, over-thinking everything, often to the point of inaction. I do that all the damn time, so I love seeing it up on screen. I love the complete dysfunction and the bizarre family dynamics. I love how all of these people are essentially good people who can't help but screw up their lives and the lives of those around them.

The performances are wonderful, every one of them. Owen Wilson is ridiculous, Luke Wilson is fascinating and heartbreaking. Gwyneth Paltrow is beautiful and overwhelmingly depressing. Gene Hackman is silly and his character can be absolutely terrible, yet you can't help but care for him and wish him the best. Bill Murray makes great use of his small role, as does Danny Glover, and Anjelica Huston floats gracefully through the movie, a calming force.

The writing is beautiful. Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson are one of the best writing teams working and The Royal Tenenbaums is their most accomplished work (though Rushmore is funnier.)

This is easily one of my all-time favorite movies. Every frame of it is pure quality. It's dark and incredibly haunting, yet has so many moments of great, dry humor and plenty of other silly and ridiculous scenes. Pagoda sticking a shiv in Royal's belly, Eli being chased down by Chas after crashing into the house, Eli slipping out the window during his intervention, the stacks of porn and the ridiculous television interview with Eli, Dudley pointing out the flaws of a Gypsy Cab—all of these are wonderful, funny moments. I adore them.

Yet, it's the movie's sorrow that most gets to me. It's the attempted suicide, the way Ritchie shaves off his beard and most of his hair, his eyes showing him to be lost and desolate. It's the entire relationship between Ritchie and Margot. It's Margot saying, "I think we're just gonna to have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that, Ritchie." All of these moments wear me down, leave me scraped and raw.

I was wrong, I was. The Royal Tenenbaums is a funny movie, but it's not a comedy. It is a heartbreak that ends on bittersweet hope and it's a film that I absolutely love.

_________
Needle In The Hay - Elliott Smith (MP3)

Joel is neither royal nor a Tenenbaum

Archives

December 28, 2006

The Brilliance of 2006 - Part Two


Just in time to wrap up 2006, I bring you part two of my favorite albums of 2006.  (You can check out part one right here.)  Just to reiterate, these are all albums that I discovered in 2006, irregardless of their date of release.  And thus, without further delay, here is the second part of my list.

illinoise.jpgIllinoise and Michigan - Sufjan Stevens
Okay, I'm kind of cheating and putting two albums in here together, but this works.  Trust me.  See, Sufjan Stevens has this project going on in which he's creating an album for every state in America.  So far, these are the two that he's finished.  Of course, there's a damn good chance that he'll never finish this project and he himself has made comments casting doubt on his willingness to actually follow through on all fifty states.  I'm hopeful he will, though, because his first two stabs at it are fantastic.

Anyway, Michigan was his first album in the project and it's a great introduction.  Stevens does a fair amount of research for these state albums and it shows in the content of the songs, as he often delves into significant events in the state's history.  He also typically writes songs about major cities, as well.  However, he generally takes these places and events and uses them as a starting point to then delve into personal themes and issues, ending up creating albums that may use a specific state as a backdrop, but that ultimately cycle back to introspection and self-appraisal.  This was probably particularly easy with Michigan given that Stevens was born in Detroit and raised in the Michigan city Petoskey.

Illinoise garnered more attention and critical acclaim than Michigan.  It's served as his breakthrough album, pushing Stevens into the upper tier of the indie rock scene.  The attention is deserved, as well, as this album is just as good, and possibly better, than the magnificent Michigan.  Stevens has a unique sound, firmly in the realm of folk and incorporating strings and trumpets.  His songs fluctuate from quiet, sparse and intimate to more ambitious and upbeat productions.  However, the consistency and quality exhibited throughout his albums is rare, hard to find in the music scene, and should therefore be embraced.  I really recommend giving Stevens a try if you have yet to hear him.

__________
From Michigan:
All Good Naysayers, Speak Up! Or Forever Hold Your Peace! (MP3)
Holland (MP3)
For The Widows In Paradise, For The Fatherless In Ypisilanti (MP3)

From Illinoise:
Chicago (MP3)
Casimir Pulaski Day (MP3)
The Man Of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts (MP3)


langhorne slim engine.jpeg
Engine EP
, Electric Love Letter, and When The Sun's Gone Down - Langhorne Slim

I know, I know, now I'm just getting lazy and ridiculous.  Yes, after including two albums as one selection, I'm now dumping three into one selection.  But I just can't point at any one of these albums and say that it's my favorite by Langhorne Slim, so I'm putting all of them in here, whether you like it or not.

So let's talk Langhorne Slim.  If you read part one of this column, then you read my write up on Two Gallants.  Well, my exposure to this group first came when they opened for Two Gallants at a concert I went to last year.  Usually, opening acts are passable at best, and sometimes they just kind of suck.  That's been my experience, at least.  However, these guys blew me away.  The lead singer brought so much energy, excitement and enthusiasm to the stage, it sucked the whole place in.  Whereas much of the crowd is typically indifferent to opening acts, everyone was completely caught up in this performance.  They put on an amazing show and, frankly, upstaged Two Gallants.

I'm not quite sure how to explain their music.  They claim it's bluegrass and I guess you could call it that, though that doesn't seem exactly right to me.  Basically, you have the lead singer, with a slightly high-pitched, yet compelling voice, working over guitar and bass.  It's great, catchy, toe-tapping music and—did I mention these guys put on one hell of a great show?  It was just drenched in fun.  And while you don't get that full experience from their CDs, they're not one of those bands that don't translate to CD, either.  It's still good.

The lyrics are fun and clever.  Wikipedia says he's a folk singer.  I don't fucking know.  Just listen to these guys and enjoy—and if you see them in town for a concert, go.

__________
From When The Sun's Gone Down:
In The Midnight (MP3)


The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - Brand New
Oh yes.  I wrote a Lo-Fi column a few weeks back about falling in love with an album and then what happens when it's time for the follow up to that album—the anticipation, the brutal wait, the fear as the album approaches.  That column was completely based on this album.  I originally was going to write about this album specifically, but decided it would be more fun to do a general column about what the process of anticipating a follow up is like without mentioning any specific album.  I like how it turned out, but now it's time to actually write about this album.

It's good.  No, it's great.  Their previous album, Deja Entendu, dominated me.  I've listened to it again and again and again, sober and drunk, in all kinds of moods.  It's one of my favorite albums, period.  Thus, the wait for this album was brutal.  It was worrying, too, once it came time to actually listen to the full album, because what if it wasn't as good as Deja Entendu?  What if it wasn't even close?  What if it was a huge disappointment?  I wanted so badly for it to be another great album from them that it was horrible to think that it might not end up being that at all.  That, in fact, it might end up being one of those albums you listen to a few times, realize it's not growing on you, and then just discard it.  That was the last thing I wanted.

Luckily, it turned out to be great.  I have a hard time measuring it up against Deja Entendu, because I don't think it's as purely enjoyable as that album.  On the other hand, I think this is better music, and that is important.  It doesn't much matter, though, because there's no question that I love this CD, and that I can listen to it again and again.  It's dark, it's introspective, the sound of it moves back and forth between loud and insistent to quiet and thoughtful.  It's emo, I suppose, but it's good emo.  It's rock emo.  It's strong, emphatic and mature emo.

It's pretty much exactly what I wanted from a follow up.

Which is pretty amazing.

__________
"Jesus Christ", "Degausser", and "Sowing Season" are all streaming at Brand New's MySpace page


nmh.jpgIn the Aeroplane Over the Sea - Neutral Milk Hotel
This album sat on my computer and iPod for months before I finally gave it a try.  I had listened to a song from it once and found it strange and less than interesting, so I didn't listen again until a few months ago.  I don't know why it didn't grab me the first time I gave the album a try, but with just one listen this year, I was hooked.  This band was making music back in 1998 that sounds like some of the trendiest indie rock of today.  This is an incredible album, filled to the brim with weird and bizarre lyrics, eclectic instrumentals, and surrealistic imagery.  These guys are right at home on Merge Records, it's just strange that this album is 1998, because this sounds very much like what's happening today in some of the popular indie rock.

There are snippets of lyrics scattered throughout this album that I love.  They just take over my mind for those short, few moments they're being sung.

As we would lay and learn what each other's bodies were for

Now how I remember you
How I would push my fingers through
Your mouth to make those muscles move
That made your voice so smooth and sweet

Made for his lover who's floating and choking with her hands across her face
And in the dark we will take off our clothes
And they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine
And when all is breaking everything that you could keep inside
Now your eyes ain't moving now
They just lay there in their calm

Your father made fetuses
With flesh licking ladies
While you and your mother
Were asleep in the trailer park

It's a weird, strange, fascinating album, and one of my absolute favorites, from this or any year.

__________
Holland, 1945 (MP3)
"The King of Carrot Flowers Part 1" and "Two Headed Boy" are both streaming at Neutral Milk Hotel's MySpace page


Avalanche - matthew good avalanche.jpgMatthew Good
I've been listening to Matthew Good since something like 2000, so he's not a new artist for me.  He's a pretty big artist in Canada, but he never made the full jump over into the United States.  One album of his, Beautiful Midnight, was released in America in 1999 (which is the first Matthew Good album I heard) but the label did not continue to bring other albums of his over to the states, leaving him to Canada alone.  It made it hard for me to eventually acquire all of his albums, simple because of cost prohibitions.  But I managed to find them pretty cheap through a Canadian site and slowly purchased them all.

Anyway, while I had heard Avalanche before, I didn't buy it and really listen to it all the way through until this year.  Good's music is alternative rock, if you want to slap the most generic label possible on it, but he really doesn't sound like any other artist.  Not that he creates shocking new music or anything—his sound mostly is unique because of his voice, which tends to slip into this wavering, trembling quality that is . . . great and catchy, as far as I'm concerned.  The sound of the songs themselves are a mix between big rock melodies and quiet, intimate acoustic songs that damn near quiver at times, Good seemingly completely lost within himself.

It's a great style, overall, and I don't own a single Matthew Good or Matthew Good Band album that I don't like considerably.  Avalanche is definitely one of his best, though, and I recommend it without hesitation.

Particularly if you're near the Canadian border.

__________
I couldn't even find a crappy stream for this.  Lame.


Almosts
There were a few other albums I really loved this year, but that I didn't quite get on this list.

American Myth - Jackie Green:  Really good, bluesy rock type music that is just very enjoyable.  It feels modern, yet a throwback at the same time.

The Animal Years
and Girl in the War - Josh Ritter:  Great, great, acoustic songs with sparse arrangements and strong, personal lyrics.  I can't wait to see this guy live in late February.

Acoustic
- Bayside:  Bayside is an emo band and they've never struck me as a particularly impressive one (though I'm sure competent).  In fact, I haven't heard any of their regular albums.  This acoustic album, however, was recorded after the death of one of the band members and I thought it was really great.  I lived by this album for a week or two in late November.

Blood on the Tracks
- Bob Dylan:  I finally started listening to Bob Dylan this year, and of the albums of his I bought, this was my favorite.  Great stuff.  I'll leave it at that.

Thus ends the list of my favorite music from 2006.  If you want to know still more of what I listened to this year, for some reason, then you can check out my last.fm profile.  I pretty much tracked everything I listened to from June on, so it gives a good idea of my musical tastes.  Try not to mock me too much.

What were your favorite albums of 2006?


Joel knows the difference between good emo and bad emo is all in the singer's outfit


Archives

December 21, 2006

The Brilliance of 2006 - Part One

I discovered a lot of great music in 2006. In particular, the second half of the year treated me very well, which is always exciting. Just a year or two ago, I often went through long stretches during which I could find little new music I really liked. I would purchase CDs that looked promising, but they would often be mediocre at best and would garner no more than a couple listens. This year, though, I've really gotten into the new forms of folk and delved deeper into the plethora of great indie rock that exists, all while supplementing it with some more traditional tastes of mine, such as the occasional decent emo album and main stream alternative release. Using that strategy has made for a fantastic year of music.


Now, since it's the end of the year and everyone's doing their lists and talking about the best albums of the year, I'm going to join the party. If there's one thing I am, after all, it's a follower. So this column is the first part of my best of 2006 list. Before I delve into it, though, let me clarify exactly what this list is. It is not my favorite albums released in 2006, though many of the following albums are from this year. Instead, the list consists of my favorite discovered albums in 2006. All of these are albums that I really started to listen to and love this year. Typically, that means I both acquired them and first listened to them in 2006, but for a few of these, it means that I acquired them before this year and perhaps even listened to them once or twice pre-2006, but that I didn't really discover them until this year.


Also, I did not limit the list to a specific number. I included all of my favorite albums from this past year. There were other albums I liked, granted—including others I really liked—but these are the best-loved. The elite, as it were. This column, Part One, will have seven random favorites from the year. Part Two—which should run next Thursday, December 28—will have the rest of my 2006 favorites, as well as a few near-favorites and perhaps a couple other random musings.


Again, there's no order to this list. There's no way I could actually rank these albums.


Cursive - Happy Hollow (2006)

I've been listening to Cursive for a few years now and they've become one of my favorite bands.cursive.jpg They perform some excellent, crazy indie rock. I see them classified as emo at times, but I think that's a stretch. I don't actually know how you would describe their sound. Discordant, cacophonous melody? It's a crazy mishmash of guitars and a wide array of other instruments—a horn section, piano, accordion, god knows what else—and it all roils together into an off-kilter but compelling package that serves to underscore the lead singer's crazed, tortured voice. However you want to describe their sound, it's great.


This is their newest album, released this year, and at first I didn't like it nearly so much as their other discs—particularly the brilliant The Ugly Organ and the even-more-brilliant Domestica. The album ended up winning me over as I listened to it while spending hours partaking in futile-seeming weed whacking. I was able to completely concentrate on the music during this time and I started to really listen to the lyrics. I realized the whole damn album was about this one small town rife with problems and dysfunctions, misery and heartache, and I fell in love with the album. It all clicked into place and my entire opinion of the CD was transformed for the better. (And yes, I can be a little slow on the uptake when it comes to paying attention to the lyrics in music. It's something I'm working on.)


I still wouldn't put this album up there with their previously-mentioned releases, but it's a strong, cohesive, and compelling album that tells a relatively complicated and complete story. It's an accomplished and ambitious album, creating and describing an entire small town, all with the trademark Cursive sound. I can't help but love it.


Dorothy At Forty (MP3)

Bad Sects (MP3)


The Decemberists - Picaresque (2004)

decemberists.jpgEvery time I listen to this album, I will be left thinking about my orientation in the AmeriCorps program at the beginning of 2006. I was listening to this album non-stop in my car at that point, having finally discovered it after knowing about it for at least a year. I kept seeing it, hearing about it, having it recommended to me, but the one time I tried to listen to it, whatever song I had on just didn't grab me. So it faded to the background and I paid it no more heed—until the first couple weeks of 2006 when, for whatever reason, I decided to give it another shot. The damn thing grabbed me and wouldn't let go. I must have listened to it for a couple weeks straight, becoming particularly obsessed with the nine minute, accordion-backed, sea shanty story-song, "The Mariner's Revenge Song.”


Trust me, you would be obsessed with it too, if only you knew it.


The whole album is fantastic, though, and the sound is quite unique. The lead singer's voice is strange and their lyrics are complex and literary, often with a focus on maritime themes, and usually with a historical bent. The songs typically tell a fairly straight forward story, as well, rather than dwelling primarily in ethereal emotion. It's really something you need to hear for yourself, and Picaresque is a fine starting point, if you're interested. It's well worth a listen if you're unfamiliar with them.


The Mariner's Revenge Song (Link to website with MP3)

The Engine Driver (MP3)


The Clash - London Calling (1979)

Yeah, yeah, I know, I'm behind the times. But it's never too late to discover a brilliant album. Of course, this album may be straining my guidelines for this list, because I knew many of the songs on it before I actually, finally bought the damn thing this year. I was introduced to The Clash long ago by my roommate—who's kind of obsessed with Joe Strummer—and I have heard many of the songs off London Calling multiple times in her presence. londonc.gifYet, this is the year that I actually bought the album and I feel compelled to include it in this list simply because it's so fucking good. Here's the simple reality: there were multiple songs off the album I already loved, but this thing has 19 goddamn tracks on it and almost every single one is great. What do you do with an album like that, other than just worship it?


Before I actually bought the album, I didn't know about "Jimmy Jazz," I wasn't too familiar with "Brand New Cadillac," I had no great knowledge of "Clampdown." "Spanish Bombs?" Jesus! And so on and so on. This is just a purely great album, start to finish, and it has to be one of the most justified, hugely popular albums I've ever had the pleasure of listening to. So sure, I knew all about "London Calling" and "Train in Vain" but I didn't really know. Thus, while I may be about 27 years late, I'm happy I finally made it to the party.


twogallantsalbum.jpgTwo Gallants - What The Toll Tells (2006)

I think I discovered these guys simply while browsing around the Saddle Creek website. I listened to "Las Cruces Jail" and was knocked on my ass. The song was some kind of crazy Old West punk. That's always how I think of them. Every time I listen to them, I'm left picturing deserts and cactus, sagebrush, old and dusty ghost towns and squat, concrete prisons, thirst and dehydration and desperation. You can't go wrong with that. I've never heard another band that sounds quite like them.


"Las Cruces Jail," which is the album's first song, opens with the sound of wind whistling over a barren desert landscape, setting the mood perfectly for what's to follow. Much as The Decemberists trade in historical and maritime themes, Two Gallants deals in themes of the Old West—murder, revenge, individualism, the harsh realities of an unforgiving landscape. The instrumentation is essentially just guitar and drums, but they bring folk and blues influences that play perfectly into their unique, story-driven lyrics. I don't know what else to say about these guys. Just give them a try. You might find yourself fascinated.


Las Cruces Jail (MP3)

Waves of Grain (MP3)


Sufjan Stevens - Songs For Christmas (2006)

sufjan.jpgI used to love Christmas music. I was a sucker for all kinds of sappy, traditional songs. I loved Jewel's and Mariah Carey's Christmas albums, amongst others. But for years now, the Christmas music just hasn't worked as much for me. I can still listen to it without wanting to kill myself, but I avoid it for the most part. Of course, that's impossible this time of year, but I at least don't specifically put on Christmas music when I'm outside of, you know, any and all public places, where you have to listen to it whether you want to or not.


The last two weeks, however, have returned to me the joys of Christmas music, thanks to this album. More specifically, it's five albums (albeit, short ones). Since 2001—excepting 2004—Sufjan Stevens has recorded a Christmas EP each year, distributing it to friends and family. For 2006, his record label gathered them all together, along with this year's recording, and released this box set a month ago. The result is utterly fantastic. There are 42 tracks in all, 17 of which are original.


Stevens has an indie folk rock thing going on that's worked brilliantly on his regular albums and works just as brilliantly when applied to traditional Christmas songs—as well as original Christmas songs. He creates unique and beautiful takes on old classics while crafting new songs that have the signature sound of his other work, but which still properly incorporate Christmas and religious themes. I really can't say how much listening to this album has rejuvenated my interest in Christmas music—or, this Christmas music, specifically. While I've always felt many traditional Christmas songs beautiful, they often are not done justice. Stevens does them justice and, at the same time, makes them new and unique, applying his own sound to them to great effect. His voice and musical style is perfectly suited to Christmas songs.


If you like Christmas music at all, get this set. Unfortunately, it seems to be hard to find. (You can, however, listen to a stream of it right here.) I got it through eMusic, and if you're willing to sign up with them at least temporarily and shell out about ten bucks, you can get it, as well, in the form of legal, high quality MP3s without any ridiculous copy protection schemes.


(I swear, I wasn't paid to write that last paragraph. I just love eMusic and don't hesitate to sing its praises.)


Songs For Christmas (Stream of entire box set)


Spoon - Gimme Fiction (2005)

Why the hell did it take me so long to start listening to these guys? spoon_gimme_fiction.jpgThis is another band I kept hearing about back in 2005, but I never got around to actually listening to Gimme Fiction, even though it had been recommended to me multiple times. I think I may have listened to a couple songs once, but they didn't really pull me in. Then I gave the album another try, listening to it all the way through a few times, and pretty quickly I fell in love with it. There were quite a few days when I loaded up the iPod, turned on this album, and went for a long walk along a nearby hiking trail, content and in musical bliss. "I Summon You" is a particular favorite off this album and is a song that's never really grown old for me. Strangely enough, while I had been listening to the album and enjoying the hell out of it, it wasn't until I read an article by Stephen King proclaiming the genius of "I Summon You" that I really gave the song a couple of close listens and realized that he was right—it truly was an amazing song. I went from liking it to loving it and it's stayed my favorite track from this album.


As I said, I'm nothing if not a follower.


I Summon You (Stripped Down Demo – MP3)

I Turn My Camera On (MP3)


Eric Bachmann - To The Races (2006)

Eric-Bachman_totheraces_mai.jpgI have a long love affair with Eric Bachmann. He's the lead singer of Crooked Fingers, which is one of my favorite bands. This year he released a solo CD through Saddle Creek (a label which pretty much dominates my music soul) and it's a great album. Interestingly, though, I didn't come to fully love it until the last few weeks, after I saw him live. I liked the CD leading up to that, definitely, but listening to the songs live just altered them for me, shifted them in my mind, and left me in love with much of the music. The concert was mesmerizing—both for the amazing performance by Bachmann as well as for the general fascination I had with Miranda Brown, who is also in Crooked Fingers and performed back up vocals as well as various instrumental work during the concert. She was incredible and I couldn't take my eyes off her for much of the concert.


But don't think this is just an infatuation with a woman. This really is a great album and very much in the same vein as Crooked Fingers, yet more sparse and stripped down. Bachmann can do some nice picking on his guitar and his music has a definite folk tinge to it, but goes beyond that. Outside of the excellent guitar work, you'll find some harmonica and violin and possibly other instrumentals I'm forgetting.


The first song, "Man O' War" is incredible. That's all I really need to say about it. If you're curious about this album at all, listen to "Man O' War." You'll know if you want to keep listening.


Carrboro Woman (MP3)

Lonesome Warrior (MP3)


That's it for Part One. Come back in a week for the rest of my 2006 picks.

Joel claims that despite all appearances, he is not a hippie

Archives

December 14, 2006

An Invasive Art

man-listening-to-music-in-car.gifI listen to music in many different places. One of my favorites is in the car, which is perhaps where I can best concentrate on the music. It's a great place to listen to a new album and form an opinion on it. I'll listen to music when on the internet or writing, as well, but it tends to slip more into the background as my mind focuses on whatever task is at hand. I also listen to music when falling asleep, which is a habit I picked up during childhood. Yet, unless I'm drunk, the music I go to sleep to is really more background noise than something I'm actively listening to.

There is one exception to that, though, which is when I listen to loud music while napping or resting. Now, sleep is a bit of an odd thing for me. If I'm going to go to sleep for the night, I need to go through a routine to comfortably pass out. I need to brush my teeth, take off my clothes, have darkness. These are all necessary things. If I instead pass out in my clothes, lights on, then I'm going to sleep shallow and wake up intermittently until I finally drag my ass out of bed and go do all the sleep prerequisites. Similarly, if I lay down on the couch and pass out, I'm going to keep waking up from my light sleep until I finally give up the ghost, stumble upstairs and collapse, broken and weary, into my quite comfortable bed.

There are, however, times when I simply want to nap without falling too deep into sleep. It's during these times when music becomes a new experience, crucial and transcendent, able to create a specific state of mind. What happens is that I put on some music I really enjoy—usually something a little loud and with a decent beat, but sometimes an acoustic-type artist I love—and I turn it up loud. This can work both in my room, with me laying on the bed, as well as in my living room while laying on the couch. Then I simply close my eyes. I generally leave a light on (if it's not the middle of the day) so that my body doesn't think I'm really going to sleep for the night. Then, with the loud music enveloping me, I start to drift off to sleep.

The crucial aspect of this scenario, though, is that I don't really fall to sleep. Instead, I slip into that half-sleep state, drifting off with dream fragments invading my mind, yet still with a vague sense of the surrounding world and my life, my day, whatever is important to me at the moment. Everything becomes odd and distorted—a magnified and twisted reality in which typically one thought or concern comes to dominate. Meanwhile, it's all being interwoven with loud, sometimes pounding music that overwhelms and engulfs me, completely flooding my mind and mingling with whatever random thoughts have managed to dominate within this half-awake, half-asleep realm.

It really can be an incredible sensation. The music turns into a deep and satisfying experience. At times it can turn borderline tactile, the music twisting and morphing in my mind until it becomes something solid and concrete, rather than just noise. During these moments, loudmusicsleep.jpgthe music somehow integrates into my life and thoughts and begins to invade the mundane realities of my day, taking simple events and turning them into strange and altered versions of themselves.

Other times, the music comes to dominate everything. Rather than integrating into my thoughts, it pushes out my mind's preoccupations and I'm left in something that is little more than a trance, slipping halfway into sleep mode and blocking out the physical world, living only within the music. This is a strange sensation and one that, frankly, I can't put well into words. It's as if the music becomes the world and I exist within it, but without building a world out of the music. The music is taken at face value and even though there is no physical reality to it—or a mental representation of a physical reality—it somehow contains my mind, my thoughts, essentially who I am. When that happens, the music takes on an almost spiritual quality, as though it is life itself, or the universe, or the underlying force behind everything. Of course, it's actually just an MP3, an iPod, and a mind teetering between the physical realities of the conscious world and the mental expansion of the unconscious world, but brought together and merged, these aspects entwine themselves and become something much more transcendent.

This is simply one more great aspect of music. Unlike a book or—to a large degree—a movie, music can invade the mind even when its unconscious. While a book or movie can influence dreams or the thought process during sleep, you can't experience them in real time while sleeping. You can't read a book. You can't watch a movie. Sure, you could be listening to a movie, but that's not the same as actually being struck by the visual representation of it while simultaneously asleep. Music is pervasive and deliverable even on an unconscious level. In a way, it's an essential art, capable of becoming as integrated into your reality as the oxygen you breathe. Even when not conscious, it can still affect you, which is a pretty incredible concept.

While the art form I most love is the written word, music is unique and exciting, offering up some amazing capabilities and flexibilities to work with. It's one of the reasons I love it so much and am so fascinated and compelled by strong, absorbing songs. They have a unique power that neither words nor visuals can quite match and the ability to influence your emotions and thought processes that other art forms aren't quite able to duplicate. There's an intimacy to music that exists in a slightly different realm than words or visuals and perhaps the way that music can invade even a person's sleep is one of the best examples of that.

And hell, if nothing else, it makes for a pretty cool nap.

Joel once slept through the entire Iron Maiden collection

Archives

December 7, 2006

Anatomy of a Follow Up

It starts with a new CD, purchased innocently enough, and the hope that you’ll enjoy it. It follows with the initial few listens, in which you realize you do enjoy it. After that, you listen again and again, multiple times, until you start to love the CD, becoming ever more lost in the songs.The album impresses you.So many tracks are good, enjoyable, great even.It’s not the usual album in which you really like a couple tracks and kind of like a few more and could take or leave the rest. No, this is a full fledged album, pleasurable songs layered upon each other, the album interweaving and building, becoming better and better until it crashes to a close and you’re left dazed, pleased, aching to listen again.

You love this album. You love this band.After many, many listens, you eventually tear yourself away and allow a new album into your life. Yet you find yourself returning to this album, the one you love, again and again.Of course, because you love this album so much, and now love this band so much, the follow up isn’t going to come out for two or three years, maybe longer, for that’s just the way life works. You’re left with this one album that has taken over your mind, fueled your obsession, and you continue to listen to it, maybe every couple weeks or maybe every day, but again and again.Soon you know every song, every lyric, every beat, every tempo change. You put the album on in your car and you sing the first words, straight through to the last.You begin to pick out your favorite tracks and you play those incessantly, the songs finding their way onto play lists and custom CDs.You attach emotions to the songs and relate small, quiet moments in your life to specific lines. Months after you first bought this CD, you begin to play those songs to elicit specific emotions, to accentuate or alter your mood. This album is brilliant.This album is perfect. It’s integrated into your life and it’s now one of Those Albums—the ones you don’t think you could live without.One of the Desert Island albums.That’s what it has become.

buyingrecords.jpg A year or more passes and one day you realize that the band still exists.More importantly, you realize it’s about time for a follow up to this album that you adore, that you never grow tired of. So you research, check the band’s website, and there’s nothing. You go back to listening to The Album, waiting.A few more months pass, then maybe a few more, and eventually you one day think to check the band’s website again and there it is, the news, that small paragraph of text that tells you, yes, the band is in the studio. They’re recording.They are making new songs.

You try to hold back your excitement but fail miserably. You start playing the album for the hundredth time and you think you can’t wait the six months until the album comes out. You listen to The Album and you imagine it new, that first experience, your virgin ears being caressed by sounds that will eventually dominate you. You wait for that new album that will create entirely new emotional and musical complexities, wrapping itself into the very memories of your life, offering an integral new addition to the soundtrack against which you live.

You must have this new album.

A month or two before the album is slated for release, the first taste of new music appears.It’s on the band’s website, accompanied by text that is too subdued, the size too small, asking what you think, hoping you enjoy it.For a moment you hesitate, the excitement almost too much, and you allow a small moment of wonder at the fact that this new song—a simple new song—might actually create a physical reaction in you. How can music be this way? It is mental, not physical, and yet.It’s all the same.

You click play.

There is that split moment—between pressing play and hearing the first note, the first instrument, first strum, first word—and that moment is a small lifetime, holding all your optimism and uncertainty. Then the song begins and you listen to it almost in a daze, uncertain, wanting far more than you could ever get from a song, no matter how incredible that song might be. listeninin.jpgYou want every pleasurable moment you spent listening to The Album over the last two years to be encapsulated in that one song, in that first listen, and you want an unbreakable guarantee that the full album will offer just as much brilliance as the last one did.

The first listen is so crucial and as the song fades to nothing, you feel hope.You feel a stirring.This is often the case with the first single, because the record company knows who they are targeting, and it is you. And they know what you want. You want the last album, but new.You want the same, but different. You want all the familiarities of The Album, but in a bright and new package, with artistic evolution, sure, but not so much evolution that you can’t recognize this album as The Follow Up To The Album You Love.So, often, that is exactly what you get.

But that may not be the new album.

What you do, then, is listen to the new single again and again, growing ever more agitated, coming to love the song more with each listen and, if you don’t naturally love it, convincing yourself you do. Yes, it is a good song.Yes, it bodes well for the new album. Yes, this will be the follow up you want, you need, you deserve.

Another month passes and now the new album is almost here. You’ve listened to the new single, you’ve listened to the old album, you’ve read the band’s website and you know that they’re really excited about the new album, that they think it’s a real step forward for them, that they’re eager for everyone to hear it and they really hope you love it. Then there is the moment when the album is there, within reach, waiting for you. It happens one of two ways. Either it’s a Tuesday and the CD is actually in stores, or it’s some random day a few weeks before the album officially comes out and it’s been leaked online, just waiting for you to fire up bittorrent. Either way, you have it, purchased or downloaded, and you’re ready to listen. Now is that moment in which the fear really sets in. It’s ridiculous to fear a new album, especially from a band you love, but you do fear it. You fear that it will not be the previous album. You fear that it will not be a step forward, but a giant step back. You fear that you will never again feel what you felt with their last album, when you realized you did not just like it, but loved it. You fear that this band only has one great album to offer you, not two, not three, not dozens.

The single may have left you hopeful or may have left you leery.It doesn’t matter. No matter what you thought of that one song, you are afraid.You’re afraid that the band you love, that you have developed unending love for, is about to disappoint you. And you can’t bear that thought, that they will let you down after two years of doing nothing but lifting you up.

But there’s no option here. You have to listen.You have to find out.

You put the CD in your car stereo .Or you queue it up on your computer .Or you hit play on your MP3 player .Or you slide the CD into your DVD player and wait for your surround sound speakers to kick into life.

You hold your breath. The music starts.

That first listen, it happens so fast. The music comes and goes and by the time it’s over, you don’t know.Jesus, you just don’t know. Was it great? Was it mediocre? Was it terrible? You can’t tell. There were too many hopes and expectations and fears for you to really listen. What happened? There were songs you liked, there were other songs you weren’t sure about. There was one moment in the CD you thought was brilliant and there were two that filled you with dread. You barely even give yourself a chance to think before you start it again, the second listen, and this time you try to concentrate. You have to concentrate and you have to know, is this another Desert Island album?

It’s a terrible situation, you see, because all you want is for this to be a new version of that first album, but it can never be that. Remember the first time you listened to that album? It was just a CD you bought, hoping you would enjoy it. There was nothing riding on it. There were little to no expectations. All you really wanted was to not regret spending your money on the damn thing. You didn’t need it to change your life. But it did, and now you want nothing less out of the follow up.Now, your first listen is with the expectation, the hope, that it will be something grand and epic, something that will impact your life. You want it to affect your mood and alter your perceptions, but it’s just another album.It’s nothing more than that first one you listened to two years ago. You just expect more and that, of course, makes it all the harder to judge it fairly.

You don’t really know where you stand with the new album until maybe your seventh or eighth listen. By that time, you have a pretty good handle on it and know if it’s a huge disappointment or if it’s acceptable—or, with incredible luck, if it’s a case of lightning striking twice. If you listen to the album a twentieth time, then chances are you love it, because if you don’t love the thing then you have to step away from it sometime between the fifth and fifteenth listen. You have to move back and digest your disappointment, alter your expectations and then, maybe, return to the album in a few weeks with the hope that you can salvage it and make it one of those albums you like, that you play occasionally, but that doesn’t change your life. At best, there are perhaps one or two songs that really hit you and that you can throw into a play list, that you can use for certain moods, but the complete album will never be one of Those Albums.

The worst part of the follow up album is that whether or not it’s a good album is often beside the point. Too often, because of impossible expectations, the follow up is a disappointment to you. There are times, though, when the follow up works brilliantly.There are times when the new album reminds you of the last album, but also gives you a new sound, an evolved sound, that is not so new and evolved that you don’t see the influences of the last album within it. bittorrent.jpgThere are times when you listen to the new album five times, then ten, then fifteen, then twenty and you realize that, yes, this is another album you love.I t’s not the exact same as the last album, of course, but it’s great in its own way—brilliant in an entirely new way—and when you realize that, there is a giddiness and excitement that actually makes the world around you brighter. It dawns on you that you actually can relive history, but that it’s even better than you hoped because it’s the same base excitement and satisfaction wrapped in a new package, with new twists and elements, with new pleasure points.

The lightning is striking twice and it feels just as good as the first time, but in all new areas.
When a follow up works, that’s the real revelation.Not only has the artist evolved while still managing to evoke your love and appreciation, but you’ve evolved as well. You’ve found new depths of musical appreciation. You’ve discovered new pleasure points, new moods, and new emotions. Yet it’s all wrapped up in the joy you received from the previous album.It’s new and exciting, with an underlying familiarity, and you’re left with one last moment of realization:you have two years to love and adore this album, to integrate it into your life. You have two years to revel in a new Desert Island album.

Then, of course, it will be time for the follow up.

Joel gets emotionally involved with his album collection

Archives

November 30, 2006

A Tale of Revenge on the High Seas

Music played while writing: Two Gallants and The Decemberists

In the interest of making this column a bit more fun and lighthearted, I'm going to continue to move it more toward a conversational tone. Which means that soon I'm going to be showing up, saying hi, grabbing a beer out of the fridge and kicking my feet up on the coffee table. Staring at you. Maybe I'll ask what's up.This will go on for about ten minutes, at which point I'll realize, shit, I'm supposed to be the author here and I need to actually write something—preferably interesting or entertaining or both—and I need to do it fast, because you're about three seconds from leaving and checking out Late Night Typing. For the second time. Then I'll probably babble on about whatever I listened to on the drive over in the hopes you won't realize I'm making it up as I go, which you'll of course realize is exactly what I’m doing

giantwhale.jpgIt's gonna be fun.

So anyway, this week I'm going to tell you about one of my favorite story songs. Now, granted, most every song involves a story of some kind. But there are some songs, some artists, that like to quite literally tell a story with their songs, much as if you were sitting around a campfire with them and they were giving you a classic tale with a beginning, a middle, and an end. We're talking about the whole narrative package here: a protagonist and antagonist, a setting, motive, plot and theme, conflict and climax and resolution. Most songs deal in more ethereal themes or less-than-concrete proclamations of love or misery. I'm casting aside those songs for this week. Instead, I'm talking about a good, old-fashioned story set to music.

Very old-fashioned.

The song in question is by a band called The Decemberists, who just happen to be excellent with these types of songs. If you don't know them, they're a Portland, Oregon band who've been a bit hot on the indie scene the last couple years. They write very literary songs with an almost historical or classical wording. They have an odd style and a lead singer with a strange voice and, frankly, it works. Granted, they're a very specific taste, but if it takes for you, you're probably really going to like them.

One of my favorite songs of theirs is "The Mariner's Revenge Song" off of their album Picaresque. It's a great story song—a sea shanty, in fact—running just shy of nine minutes and backed with a jaunty accordion. Now, if you can't get behind an accordion-dominated, nine minute sea shanty, then I'm just not sure what's wrong with you. It probably has something to do with you being a normal person and not slightly crazy like me. Either way, if you have the time, I recommend you give it a listen by checking out this site, which just happens to have a handy, downloadable mp3 of it. There is much about this song that's great.picaresque.jpg The accordion is one, of course, but primarily it's the lyrics. It’s not just that they tell a story, but it's that they tell a story out of history, of a not-so-forgotten time in which men sailed the seas in wooden ships and, uh . . . whales ate people. I think it was the 1920s. Further adding to the song's charm is the lyrics, which integrate such words as "roustabout" and "magistrate". Between the Old World style lyrics, the lead singer's odd, nasally voice, the funky backing instrumentals and the storytelling aspects of it, this song seems like something that simply doesn't belong in today's music scene. It's fantastic.

The song starts with a promise of a tale:


We are two mariners
Our ships' sole survivors
In this belly of a whale

Its ribs our ceiling beams
Its guts our carpeting
I guess we have some time to kill

You may not remember me
I was a child of three
And you, a lad of eighteen
But I remember you
And I will relate to you
How our histories interweave

From there, we get a straightforward and entertaining telling of a simple story in which the antagonist seduces the protagonist's poor mother, fresh off the death of her husband, bankrupts her and, ultimately, causes her death, leaving the main character homeless, parentless, and obsessed with eventually gaining revenge on the bastard roustabout.

Despite the jaunty accordion, this is a fairly dark story. The antagonist's behavior is devastating for the family, resulting in poverty and death, and the main character is obsessed with a brutal and final revenge. The protagonist does not simply occasionally think about getting his hands on the guy, either, but obsessively dwells on it, to the point of it overtaking his life at least, once he's recovered from his mother's death enough to do something other than grieve.

What's great about The Decemberists, though, is that while the subject matter of their songs can be dark, they typically are laced with humor, as well even if it can be black humor. "The Mariner's Revenge Song" is no exception. Still, as the title states, this is most definitely a song of revenge:


It took me fifteen years
To swallow all my tears
Among the urchins in the street

Until a priory
Took pity and hired me
To keep their vestry nice and neat

But never once in the employ
Of these holy men
Did I ever once turn my mind
From the thought of revenge

whale.jpgMeanwhile, what kind of revenge is he looking to take? Well, that’s where the darkness of the song really comes in. As his mother dies, she tells her son exactly what she wants him to do with the man who took advantage of her and put her on her deathbed, revealing that she's not a woman you should mess with:

Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave

Now that's the sort of vengeful dying wish I can appreciate. If you're going to take revenge on a person, you might as well make it cruel and memorable. Add in the fact that the main character spends years dwelling on his revenge, seeking out this guy, never forgetting his mother's dying words and waiting, years and years, until the perfect opportunity to carve his vengeance out of this guy's hide and suddenly, if you're the antagonist, this is not the person you want to end up stuck in the belly of a whale with. Which is, of course, exactly where the antagonist ends up.

As you might expect, the story does not end well for the antagonist. Much of the fun of the song, though, is the journey into the belly of the whale. It's a fun ride, but one that I'm not going to reveal to you here. You'll just have to go listen to the song, or else google the lyrics for yourself, if you want to know all the details. I recommend listening to the song though. Sure, it's nine minutes of accordion, but there's also people being devoured by a whale and a dark and tragic tale culminating with a harsh and satisfying revenge. It's a top notch story song, and we need more of those in the world.

Joel is currently recording an album called Accordion Songs for Whales To Make Love To

Archives

November 23, 2006

Holiday Music

Music played while writing: "Uncle Fucka," Murder City Devils, The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower and Blood Brothers

It's Thanksgiving, that ridiculous but delicious holiday.  It's a day of eating, of course, and . . . well, I guess there's supposed to be the thanks and such, but it's really all about the food, which there's no shame in.  Enjoying enormous amounts of delicious food is never something to look down upon, so engorge yourself.  I officially give you my blessing, my thanks, my fork.  Whatever you need.
vicodin.jpg
Aside from the food, Thanksgiving is also often about family.  It's that time of year when you typically see them, whether you want to or not.  Now, perhaps you love your family, love spending time around them and live for this time of year.  Or perhaps this is the time of year you break out the Vicodin, or the whiskey, or bottles upon bottles of beer, or the Xanax, or the gun.  Whatever your coping mechanism, embrace it and use it wisely, and remember that you shouldn't close off your Christmas options.  That's coming up soon.

Now as for myself, I'm unobligated enough that I can pick and choose which gatherings I want to attend.  I can choose to visit the people I like (and who can cook) and generally avoid those who I don't like (can't cook).  It's true for the most part, anyway.  That doesn't mean, though, that I never see people whom I dislike.  They sneak in, and while I can usually avoid them for the most part, there still is at least a bit of obligatory chatting.

If you find yourself having to interact with the family members who make you crazy, or the friends you can no longer stand, or the acquaintances you want to put a hit out on, then try relieving yourself this Thanksgiving with some music.

Don't scoff.  Music is good for the soul, as I'm sure someone once said.  Better yet, it's good for passive aggressive voicing of complaints and hatreds.  Let me give you an example.

crazy-kids.jpgSay the house is filled with children you hate (they could be your own or someone else's).  Now let's say that these children are running around, flailing about their arms, screaming and probably breaking your shit.  If there are people flailing around, screaming and breaking shit in your house, it should be because, as Henry Rollins says, you never quite outgrew the "fuck on the floor and break shit" phase.  It shouldn't be because you're being forced into playing daycare for every random family member you only see once a year.  If, however, that is why your couch just collapsed, then relax by putting in some music.  I suggest the South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut soundtrack. Queue up that second track, "Uncle Fucka" and blast the shit out of it.


Shut your fucking face, uncle fucker
You're a cock sucking, ass licking uncle fucker
You're an uncle fucker, yes it's true
Nobody fucks uncles quite like you


Now, either the kids are going to shut up out of shock, or (more likely, as the kids have probably already heard the song) their parents are going to. Either way, the yelling that occurs after you put on the song is going to be much more enjoyable for you, because at least now someone else is pissed off. Furthermore, you've hopefully at least paused the children long enough to save your coffee table and you were able to passive aggressively tell them to shut the fuck up.

(If you're someone who doesn't deal in that passive aggressive bullshit, then god bless you. Just tell the kids to shut the fuck up straight out, and tell their parents, and then kick out anyone who's pissing you off.)

Of course, maybe "Uncle Fucka" isn't your cup of tea. If not, then perhaps you want to go for the noise option. If people are annoying you with their screaming and yelling, or just that special kind of inane chatter that only family members can manufacture, you might want to drown them out. I recommend some Nine Inch Nails. Something off of Pretty Hate Machine should do the trick. Pop the CD into your surround sound system and crank it up as high as it goes. Even if the people in your house don't hate the music, you won't be able to hear them anymore. A couple other good options would be some Rage Against the Machine or maybe early Metallica. Better yet, break out the angry Germans and put in Rammstein ("Rosenrot" MP3). Blast that and people may just shut up. If they don't, too-loud.jpgscream along to the music. You won't have any idea what's going on and nobody will dare touch or approach you when you're standing in the middle of the living room, eyes closed, fists clenched, perhaps a small trickle of blood coming out the side of your spittle-flecked mouth, screaming German as loud as you can.

Better yet, do what I would do and go obscure. Put on The Blood Brothers ("Love Rhymes With Hideous Car Wreck" MP3) or The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower. Trust me. No one will know what's going on and they'll all be so confused and horrified, they won't be able to gather their wits enough to resume annoying you. Try out these lyrics from the Blood Brothers song "Peacock Skeleton With Crooked Feathers" (MP3):


Tuxedos slither off corpses
and copulate wild on wedding cake
and the priest starts snapping photos?
And, there's a peacock on your shoulder
pole dancing around your neck
while reciting the Book of Revelation

It's even better when you actually hear the song. It's insane. Unless your guests are familiar with this type of music, the sheer craziness of it should shut them up for a few minutes, at the very least.

If not, then there's always the Vicodin and booze.

Your turn. What's your music of choice when you need to escape or annoy?


Joel knows what music makes the crowd move.

Archives

November 16, 2006

Rainy Day Songs

It's been a busy, rainy week. I'm here in the Northwest and over nine inches of rain has fallen since the beginning of November. Much of it came in the first couple days of last week. It's the sort of weather that invites a person to stay inside with a warm mug of hot chocolate or tea, perhaps a book, and some comforting music playing. Not a new album that you have yet to really get into, but the tried and true songs you know and love, that you can listen to again and again and which satisfy you on an immediate, emotional level.


With that thought in mind, I'm going to do something simple and common this week. I'm taking my iPod, putting it on random, tuning to my Five Stars playlist and hitting play. Then I'm going to listen to ten songs and write about them as they play, imparting to you whatever comes into my mind. Here we go.


"Autumn Leaves Revisited" by Thursday - A City By The Light Divided — How appropriate, as there are dead and rotting leaves everywhere. The leaves can be annoying and somewhat disgusting as they decompose, mounds of them on the side of the road and clogging drains and gutters. This is especially problematic when rain is pouring down every day for hours on end. There's nothing more fun than driving through lakes. On the other hand, those rotting leaves were, just a day or two ago, quite colorful and nice, blowing about and being crucial to the image of Autumn. Since autumn and winter are my favorite seasons, I'll deal with the dead leaves.


As for the actual song, it's off Thursday's newest album, which is a solid effort. If you read my emo column last week, you know I have much love for the band's second album, Full Collapse. It's by far their best effort and this album doesn't live up to it. Neither of the band's follow up albums, for that matter, come close to matching the brilliance of Full Collapse, but they've both been worth my time. This song, in particular, lasts almost seven minutes and builds to a crescendo about four and a half minutes in. The music is downright soaring at times, with vocals that teeter on the verge of haunting.


There must be somewhere that cigarettes burn through the night

And the leaves don't abandon their trees to the light

The sky's always clear

And the summer never ends


"A Million Ways" by OK Go - Oh No This is inconsequential pop, but damn if it isn't fun music. They're best known for two videosone of them for this songthat have became huge on YouTube. Both videos are popular and notable because of their wacky and well-choreographed dance routines, including one routine that makes fantastic use of treadmills. These guys have two albums and both are fun, easy listens that work great as upbeat background music. "A Million Ways" has a good beat and slightly distorted vocals. It's catchy, as is most of their music. It won't change your world, but it could definitely pass the time.


"John Wayne Gacy, Jr." by Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise Stevens is a big indie rock guy at the moment. He's a hell of a talent, whether or not you like his music.rainyday.gif I happen to like it, for the most part. This song is one of my favorites, period. It falls very much into the category of slow, quiet, often stripped down songs that I like to listen to when I'm in more of a contemplative mood. In fact, it works perfectly for a quiet and rainy day. There's definitely a haunting quality to the songa term that I will probably use far too much throughout this column. Stevens does a great job of building the song as it goes on, reaching an emotional pitch with about a minute to go and then bringing the song back down for the finish.


If you haven't heard, this album is the second of a planned fiftyone for each state. I think it's an awesome idea and a project that will almost certainly never be finished. I would love to be proven wrong, though, not to mention live long enough to hear all fifty albums.


In my best behavior

I am really just like him

Look beneath the floorboards

For the secrets I have hid


"Landlocked Blues" by Bright Eyes - I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning This is another major song in my "Quiet, Contemplative Mood" playlist. It's one of my top played songs and my favorite off an album that I like quite a lot. It's subdued musically, with the emphasis without question on the lyrics of both Conor Oberst, the lead singer and main component of Bright Eyes, and Emmy Lou Harris, who provides an assist on the song and whose voice melds very nicely with Oberst's. It's a song about war and most definitely applies to the situation in Iraq. Whether or not it's specifically about that war, I wouldn't want to say. I'm never the best at figuring out lyrics perfectly. I think mostly, though, it's a song that works on a personal level. War is a backdrop, but it's not the only theme.


The lyrics really are fantastic. Oberst is the sort of writer who makes you realize that half the songs you think have great lyrics are really just coasting on the emotion of the music. Here, the emotion of the music lifts what is some fantastic writing.


We made love on the living room floor

With the noise in the background from a televised war

And in that deafening pleasure

I thought I heard someone say

If we walk away, they'll walk away


"What I Got" by Sublime - Sublime Oh Brad Nowell, why did you have to go and kill yourself with heroin? While the last two songs have been perfect compliments to the rainy and cold night in which I'm writing this column, this song is completely incongrous with the weather. This is summer music and anyone who says differently is a liar. This is the music that you blast from your car as you're driving down the road a little too fast, all your windows open, the day hot and the sun shining far too brightyou're hungover, of courseyour stereo turned as loud as it will go because otherwise you just can't hear the music over the wind. This is carefree music. This is fun and engrossing and, seriously, if you're not hot and sweaty when you're listening to it, it's just not right. Sure, you can listen to this song, this album, any time of year, but it's never going to feel quite right outside of summer.


"Rock the Casbah" by The Clash - Combat Rock Oh Joe Strummer, why did your heart have to go and explode? You were still making great music with the Mescaleros. I know it was fated to happen, what with your less-than-healthy lifestyle, but fuck it all. Other people have lived as bad or worse and survived longer than you. It's not fair. It's not fair at all.


Here's my dirty secret, though. I resisted The Clash for a long time, if only because I resisted pretty much all 80s music. I thought the decade sucked for music, but it was for the same reason that people today say that the music of today sucks: they just don't look deep enough. This was particularly inexcusable considering you don't really have to look deep to find The Clash. The stupidity of youth, of which I still have much to experience.

I love them now, though. But goddamn it, Joe, why did you have to go and die?


December 22nd is the anniversary of Joe's death. Observe appropriately. (I recommend booze of some kind.)


"Lopsided" by At The Drive-In - In-Casino-Out I don't know exactly how you would classify At The Drive-In, other than classifying it as fucking fantastic. I guess it's hardcore, or something like that. It's great music. That's really what it comes down to. Granted, many people are not going to be able to get behind this band, but those who can are people I have to respect. This is great stuff, filled with melodic screaming, but not really able to be classified as emo, which is often what you call melodic screaming. These guys fucking rock, period, and this song is a great song off a great album. Their last album was The Relationship of Command, which was a fantastic album that started to gain them some real popularity, including a single that garnered radio play. Then they broke up. Fuck!


Two members did, however, go on to form The Mars Volta. The other two formed Sparta. Mars Volta is by far the better offshoot from ATDI, and has made a couple of great albums, though the most recent is so bogged down in rambling prog rock territory that while it's still good and technically accomplished, I just haven't been able to truly get into it. Either way, while I love Mars Volta, I would rather have new albums from At The Drive-In.


Oh well. At least no one OD'd or had their heart explode.


"This Fffire" by Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand This band falls into the same category as OK Go does above. They make fun, upbeat, catchy pop that, personally, I'm not ashamed to listen to, but that I recognize as largely inconsequential, at least if you're looking at music from an artistic angle. But who cares? Entertaining music is nothing to sneeze at, especially since so much pop is ridiculous nonsense that thinks it's entertaining but is really just formulaic and redundant, to the point of crushing boredom. This is a remix of one of thier big hits, "This Fire," and is on the bonus disc for their self-titled, first album. Oddly enough, I can barely tell the difference between this version and the original version. Hello, pointlessness.


"Brain Stew" by Green Day - Insomniac I still can't decide what I think of American Idiot, which every teenage girl in the nation seems to own. The title song is solid, "Holiday" is good, but overall I'm not the biggest fan of their pop makeover. I'm hoping their next album returns to the enjoyable pop-punk that is so damn entertaining on their earlier albums. These guys do modern day pop-punk how it should be do, putting to shame the bullshit of Sum 41 and Blink-182 and every other fucking numbered band that was so goddamn big a few years back. Good Charlotte? Fuck off. I mean, I can deal with the music if necessary, but just give me Green Day instead, or a completely different genre. I don't need more mediocrity.


"Lost In The Supermarket" by The Clash - London Calling Joe and Mick make one last appearance before the close of this column. How ridiculously great is London Calling? There is not a bad song on this album, which is a clichéd statement that's very true in this case. You listen to it, and it's great, and it continues to be great, and it's still great and then it ends and you think to yourself, "Where were the dead spots?" And I think to myself, "Why the hell did I resist these guys for so long?" Next time, I will not doubt my roommate or my friend Scott, both of whom are much wiser than me.


Fucking exploding hearts. How great would it be to see The Clash live? Those of you who have, please comment and tell me about it so I can live vicariously through you. I'd appreciate it.

Joel likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain

Archives

November 7, 2006

"When The World Is Crashing Down..."

Music played while writing:  A mix of the bands below and Fiona Apple's Extraordinary Machine

headphones.jpg
Admit it.  You love emo.  You may be proud of the fact or it may be your dirty little secret, but you have a deep and insatiable thirst for overwrought, melodramatic lead singers wearing too much makeup and too much hair gel, writhing and flailing about onstage, screaming into their microphones, the weight of the world crushing their very soul.  You love the screaming, the wailing, the way that, in emo, every element of life seems designed to destroy you.  The world is wracked with pain and misery, death and destruction loom large above everything and the breaks don't exist.  They're not there.  Everyone's out to get you and the only thing you can do about it is sing--sing your fragile little heart out.

Okay, so maybe that's just me.  I don't know if you like emo or not, but I sure as hell do.  And while I'm proud of a lot of the emo I listen to, I own more than my fair share of embarrassing, dirty-secret emo.  Dashboard Confessional?  On my iPod.  Something Corporate and Jack's Mannequin?  I'm not going to deny it.  Mediocre, second or third tier bands like Alexisonfire and Aiden and Anberlin and Armor For Sleep?  It's there, though in my defense they were all passing listens.  Straylight Run?  It had two of the original members of Taking Back Sunday.  Of course I have it and, damn it, I like it.

But I don't apologize for any of it.  Emo is music for anybody who loves to revel in their pain.  Emo is for those who like to scream to their music while driving down the road.  Emo is for those who don't want background music so much as burning, consuming songs that you can let sweep you away into a place as dark as the world around you sometimes seems, even if you know it's only because you're indulging whatever emotions are currently kicking your ass.  And that's me.  Sure, it can be self-indulgent and silly, but that doesn't hurt anyone else, so I don't sweat it.

Besides, I think there's a lot of emo out there that also qualifies as great music.  Here are a few bands of that nature.

Thursday.JPGThursday - If I remember right, this band was my first real taste of emo.  My uncle, of all people, told me about this band.  Not because he listened to them, but because the band was recommended to him by a friend.  I picked up their album Full Collapse and was hooked.  It was the first time I had really been able to get behind screaming in music, whereas before I had considered it nothing more than annoying.  But this was different.  The lead singer, Geoff Rickly, has a voice vaguely reminiscent of Robert Smith that's somehow able to turn screaming into something compelling and melodic--not just a base and guttural revelation of pain, but honest-to-god music, backed up by raging guitars and pounding drums.  The songs are compelling, with strong themes and the album never lets down.  The band never eases back and lets you catch your breath.

Full Collapse for me was driving down the road, lost in the music, screaming like a fucking maniac, pounding the steering wheel and ignoring the people giving me strange looks as they drove past, fast and certain, eager to put as much distance as possible between their car and mine.  Queue up "Paris in Flames" or "Understanding in a Car Crash" or "How Long is the Night" or the brilliance of "Jet Black New Year," off their follow up EP, and tell me that's not worth your unbridled attention.  Rickly does screaming right, which is much of the music's allure.  It's loud and emotional, his voice always on the verge of breaking.  It's perfect.  It's emo as it should be.

Sample lyrics:

I shut my eyes / When you're around / I hold my breath / To kill the sound / I'm falling down / I'm falling down / And you're not here / To catch my fall

Recommended listening:  "Understanding In A Car Crash" and "War All The Time" at Purevolume

takingbacksunday.jpgTaking Back Sunday - Thursday paved the way for Taking Back Sunday, whose first album, Tell
All Your Friends
, was on the same Victory Records as Thursday's Full Collapse.  Taking Back Sunday was more mainstream emo, with the screaming toned down and offset by layered vocals.  In fact, the vocals onTell All Your Friends alternate between ragged singing that is close to but just short of screaming and that more traditional emo wail, peppered throughout, sometimes dominating and sometimes not.  The dual vocalists, though, lend a great complexity and originality to the sound of the album.  And understand, this album kicks ass.  It's strong throughout, catchy and upbeat, even though the lyrics are anything but happy.  The songs move fast and have a consistent sound, yet still manage to distinguish themselves, something that doesn't always happen on your run-of-the-mill emo album.  It's way, way too easy to lose yourself in this album and way, way too easy to sing along, just as emphatic and devastated as the actual singers.

Sample lyrics:

The truth is you could slit my throat / And with my one last gasping breath I'd / apologize for bleeding on your shirt

Recommended listening:  "Timberwolves At New Jersey"
MP3
"There's No 'I' In Team"
MP3

MyChemicalRomanceFigures.jpgMy Chemical Romance - I realize this is practically the official band of MySpace.  I realize that they are somewhat ridiculous, with the large amounts of makeup, the ridiculous outfits, the overwrought obsession with death.  Yes, they have an image that's cultivated to perfection, designed to appeal to every angst-ridden, death-obsessed teen and pre-teen out there.  Perhaps I'm supposed to be crying and cutting myself while listening to MCR, but you know what?  Fuck all that.  These guys rock, plain and simple. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge is an amazing album, from start to finish, and it's one of those albums that I can listen to over and over and never grow tired of it.  This is damn good music.  The lyrics are fun and properly melodramatic, the mood dark and oppressive, and the sound is unique throughout.  Even the names of the songs are great.  If you can't get behind a song titled "It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Deathwish," then you're just not having fun.

If you've listened to the band and don't like the music, fair enough.  If you've dismissed them out of hand because of their appearance or audience, then think again.  Give Three Cheers a listen.  It's damn compelling, I'd argue, and you may just find yourself agreeing.

Fun bit of emo trivia:  the lead singer of Thursday, Geoff Rickly, produced My Chemical Romance's first album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.

Sample lyrics:

And we'll all dance alone to the tune of your death / We'll love again, we'll laugh again / And it's better off this way

Recommended listening:  "Helena," "Welcome To The Black Parade," and "Thank You For The Venom" at
MySpace

Brand_New.jpgBrand New - This is utterly respectable emo.  This band doesn't quite fit in with the above artists, but they do share similarities.  The vocals are much more low key, kicking up into a heavily affected sound at the emotional heights of the songs, rather than maintaining the heavy emotion throughout.  The songs build better and the underlying music is much more original than most other emo.  Furthermore, there's a stronger maturity and emotional complexity within the lyrics, particularly in their album Deja Entendu, than you generally find in a lot of other emo music.

Like Three Cheers, this is another one of those albums I can listen to again and again, for months and years, and I never get sick of it.  The music is somehow deeply satisfying, on a base and emotional level, to the point that I can't even explain it.  In fact, this is one of my favorite albums to fall asleep to when I'm drunk.  When drunk, this album satisfies me completely on an emotional and mental level, letting me fall unconscious with such a deep satisfaction that it's almost tempting to get drunk just so I can pass out to this album playing loud, dominating my mind.  I don't why this is the case, but it is, and I consider it a high
compliment.  There isn't a lot of music out there that can satisfy me on such a base, subconscious level.


Sample lyrics:

I've never felt so hollow / I'm an old abandoned church / With broken pews and empty aisles

Recommended listening:  "Okay I Believe You, But My Tommygun Don't"
MP3
"Play Crack The Sky"
MP3

Joel is burning like a bridge for your body.
Archives

October 31, 2006

Taken By the Spirit

Click here for a fun/fact-filled Introduction to Joel, the newest writer to join the Faster Than The World Cabal. Joel will be doing a weekly music column, as well as Imbibe, a bi-monthly column about beer, wine and whiskey.


Music playing during writing: At The Drive-In and Blood or Whiskey


Music. It's powerful. It's transformative, both in good and bad ways. There are times that it can transcend simple auditory experience and become something more--a force that is almost spiritual. I've experienced it during emotional times. This Saturday, I saw it.

And it frightened me.

I was standing in line at the Aladdin Theater, waiting to enter the venue for a Jackie Greene concert. It was concert season for me--six concerts over the previous few months--and this was likely the last one until the end of the year.

jgreene-sweetH.jpgAs I waited in line with two friends, I began peering at our line companions. I realized that this was not the same sort of crowd as my other concerts. Those were dominated by people in their twenties and younger. This was a line dominated by people in their forties and fifties, with a small minority being in their twenties and thirties. This was not my home crowd.

It made sense. Jackie Greene's different than the music I typically listen to. While he's young, in his mid-twenties, his style of music is that which could be embraced by older people with less adventurous taste--a mix of blues and rock with an old school sound. It's good, well-played, strong music that's easy to listen to and could be enjoyed by multiple generations, as evidenced by the composition of the audience. There were stiff sixty-year-olds next to middle aged receptionists next to thirty-year-old hipsters next to kids in their early twenties, in jeans and black hoodies, laid back and ready for music. It was strange, but not at first worrisome.

After a short wait, we filed in to the theater. My friends and I grabbed seats three rows back, just to the side. All around us, people claimed their seats and headed for the concessions stand, for the beer. Alcohol was purchased and consumed by the crowd while we waited for the opening act. Up front, a few people milled about near the stage, drinking and talking. I watched them. There were three middle aged women who looked like the women who used to sit in the administration office at my high school, or the receptionists at my dentist's office, or the soccer moms I used to wait on when I worked retail. They were talking with men, drinking, laughing loud and oddly jarring laughs.

These people would be me in a few decades. I thought about this as I watched them. Except then I began to doubt that assertion. Perhaps I was being too optimistic, but these people did not seem to be the same as I would be in the future. They seemed . . . tight, wound, and a little too eager to drink and relax and let themselves go. This was not just a concert--something simple and entertaining--but a rare night out and away from responsibilities, the perfect opportunity for them to lose their inhibitions. They clung to their alcohol as if it was a lifeline. They laughed in desperate tones, as if the fun they had tonight would be the last for weeks, perhaps even months. It had to last. It had to be memorable.

Yet, it still was only vaguely interesting. It was something to look at and think about while I waited for the music to start.

It soon did. Time passed and the opening act, Leroy Bell, came on stage. leroybell.JPG Young, competent, confident, he and his band launched into a set of soft rock, soul-tinged love songs that bordered on easy listening. And the crowd loved it. At this point, there were approximately ten to twelve people hovering up by the stage. I watched the band as they started their first song, but then my eyes were drawn down to the base of the stage and two of the middle-aged women who had been standing up front.

They were dancing. But I don't mean simple, standard dancing. No, these women were dancing as if they had listened to every bad stand up routine about how white people can't dance and had internalized it, worshipped it, buried it deep into their very souls and then sworn to themselves that they would travel the world, entering concerts and dancing so very badly that everyone who saw them would be forced to believe in those ridiculous stand up bits, fully and without question. They danced as if they were actors on a hidden camera show, desperate to create a situation so absurd that it was unbelievable. They danced in a way that would put Carlton from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air to shame. They were clichés, so large and dominating that you could not look away, as if you had inadvertently stared into the face of Medusa and been turned to stone.

That would have been a relief, though, to be rendered inanimate and unable to comprehend the horror on display. No, this had to be digested and internalized, to be understood and integrated into your understanding of the world. I stared at them in disbelief, quickly trying to determine if it could be a joke, only a joke. Except it was not. These two women--one in a red blouse, one in an ugly black and pink sweater--danced as ridiculously as anyone has danced before. The one in red had this method in which she made fists with her hands and sort of twisted her torso to the side and down, so it was almost parallel with the ground, and then pumped her arms back and forth, back and forth while she sort of did a two step, forward and backward, twisting and turning and dipping in such an exaggerated, tortured way that one could only wait for her to pull a muscle and stop, bestowing upon the audience a merciful relief. The one in the bad sweater was somehow even worse, holding her arms out in a pose reminiscent of the standard flexing for the camera and then violently dipping her torso back and forth, up and down, to the point that you thought she must be on the verge of passing out from the blood rushing in and out of her brain.

And understand, these women were not laughing. They were not smiling. They were not stealing glances at their companions to see if they were amused by their ridiculous shenanigans. No, they were completely serious, engulfed by the music, abandoning themselves to a rhythm only they could feel, that even the Devil himself would deny.

The singer soon closed his eyes. I admired his ability to control himself. The drummer had a smirk the entire set and appeared ready to burst into laughter at any moment. He kept staring at the ground, unable to stare directly at the dancing women. I looked multiple times behind me into the audience and a large portion of them were laughing at any one moment. Some people were literally throwing themselves to the side, over adjacent seats, nearly falling to the floor, eyes closed and faces twisted with disbelief and hysteria.

It was insanity. Bedlam.

And it became worse. Emboldened by the two women already possessed by the spirit, others joined them. An older man who was with the woman in red stood next to her and began to bob and convulse as if having a seizure.elaindance.jpg A hipster in his thirties rushed onto the dance floor, grabbed his temples and started swinging his head back and forth, as though the sheer brilliance of the music was tearing apart his mind, shredding his very sanity. Another woman with a mullet started swinging her arms back and forth, snapping her fingers, dipping and twisting in a manner that could snap bones.

A religious revival had nothing on this concert.

One young, attractive woman started to dance somewhat normally, in an apparent effort to mitigate the disaster. But even she had trouble moving her arms in an organic way, leaving them at times to appear loose and broken.

More and more people spilled onto the floor until it all blended into wild, nonspecific gyrations. The opening band finished their set and for a short while there was a calming period.

However, the crowd used this time to drink more. After an infusion of alcohol for a crowd in need of an infusion of sobriety, Jackie Greene took the stage. The crowd erupted in enthusiastic cheers. Luckily, though, as the music began, the floor became so packed that no one was able to dance wild and uncoordinated, as they had with the opening band. Constrained by the crowd, they instead decided to revel in their drunkenness.

A gray-haired man in a Pogues shirt started bellowing his love for Jackie Greene, swaying back and forth and grasping wildly at nearby members of the crowd. At any moment, I expected him to let out a final scream, vomit into the crowd and collapse on the floor. Near this man, two men pounded and beat on the seats in front of them, so overtaken by the music that they could only express themselves through random violence, as if reduced to primates, and inarticulate ones at that. They grappled at each other, hugged and punched each other, and I kept waiting for them to give into their urges and start making out, tear off their clothes, fuck right there on the floor as the music washed over them. It never happened, though, which was disappointing. I was sure the guy in the Pogues shirt would join in if only they would get the ball rolling. He had been drunkenly hugging guys from the moment Jackie Greene came on stage.

We eventually moved to the balcony, both so we could see and also so we didn't take an inadvertent punch to the face or find ourselves in the midst of a shower of vomit. Even from the balcony, we could hear the guy in the Pogues shirt screaming wildly and see him thrashing about down on the floor.

After the annoyingly obligatory encore, the concert drew to a close. The crowd below us began to relax. The spirit left them and the dementia dissipated, leaving a crowd of happy, drunk, slightly confused people filing out of the theater into the cold Autumn night, blinking and entering a world they barely recognized. As they shuffled down the street, you could see the realities of their existence returning to them, weighing them down. Their night of release was over, their wild abandon done.

For a few brief hours, the music had taken them. Taken them to a dark, incomprehensible place, yes, but also taken them from lives that were too boring, too normal, too quiet and controlled. For that one night, they were different. They were a new person.

A person unburdened by responsibilities.

Who couldn't fucking dance.


Joel plants trees in stranger's back yards while on five day benders fueled by Jameson and stout.

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