Bon Iver-Calgary; Beth/Rest; Peter Cetera-Glory of Love

Usually I post about songs and albums that I am very familiar and obsessed with, but this new Bon Iver album is THE HOT THING right now, so I felt like I would be remiss in not checking it out. I also made a concerted effort to listen to the entire thing from front to back, which is quite a feat for me. I was in the laundromat, and I read A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley (which you should all read because it's amazing) during the wash cycle, and threw on Bon Iver while the dryer was doing its business.

It generally takes me at least a few listens through an album to really figure out what I feel about it, but on first listen Bon Iver was very nice. Though the songs didn't all sound the same, there was a very definite mood running throughout them. I had the feeling of sitting peacefully in a thatched hut with four to six faceless but benevolent souls. And then the last song came on. All of a sudden Peter Cetera, doing a flying ninja kick, crashed through the roof of the hut and sh*t "Glory of Love" on all of our heads. We were jolted out of our reverie, with flashbacks of law of diminishing return Karate Kid sequels splattering the fragile walls of our collective psyche. I don't even know if I'll end up liking this song, but the clash with the rest of the album on first listen was startling.

I've posted "Calgary," which, while halfway through becomes the most uptempo track, feels very similar in mood to the rest of the album, as well as "Peter Cetera" 2011 and Peter Cetera 1986. To be clear, I'm not hating on Peter Cetera, but let's also be clear that there is only one Peter Cetera, and nowhere in his vast real estate collection are there any thatched huts to be found.

Flying Lotus-Do the Astral Plane/DJ Shadow-The Number Song

Summer is a time for experimentation. And no, I don't mean chugging a bottle of Drano while wearing a coat made entirely of live ferrets. I mean writing a book, taking a trip, or growing a beard! Yes, for the first time in my suddenly not that short life, I am growing a beard. And it's fun! It's like I'm building an entirely new face. And there are surprises along the way. Oh yes. I figured the beard would simply grow in brown, like my hair. But no. Oh no. The base color is a reddish-brown (Crayola term), and there are quite a few gray hairs joining the party.

One would think that these gray hairs would immediately send me into a panic, gazing into the mirror to see my own mortality staring back at me in the form of twelve to seventeen wispy strands of existential angst. Nah. I think they look cool! I feel like this look will lend my bad puns a certain gravitas they've been previously lacking. And the possibilities of beard art are seemingly endless. Perhaps I will rotate dying the beard different colors, like Michael Cera's girlfriend does with her hair in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Perhaps I will turn the mustache into a Rollie Fingers style handlebar, or a Fu Manchu.

Will I probably end up doing any of these things? No. But has my face been transformed from a static, lifeless cardboard facade to a dynamic palate ready to be embellished in any way I see fit? No, not really that either. But yeah, I got a beard!

Speaking of experimentation, DJ Shadow and Flying Lotus are two of the best experimental "dj/producer/IDM/EDM/people who create sound" artists of recent memory. DJ Shadow's a bit past his prime, but Endtroducing still stands up as an amazing album. "The Number Song" mixes a sample of the Metallica instrumental "Orion" with crazy drum samples. "Do the Astral Plane" by Flying Lotus has everything but a sample of the kitchen sink. Groooooooan. See that bad pun goes over better with the beard. Really.

Joni Mitchell-Carey/This Flight Tonight/People's Parties

There have only been a few times in my life when I've thought to myself, "Have I ever been this happy before?" One of those times was at Iguazu Falls in Argentina. My friend and I walked the trails for a few hours, and everywhere we went there was a spectacular new perspective. Looking from the edge of the rail and watching the water plunge downward, or craning our necks to see the water crash down towards us. The sound of the falls was both powerful and peaceful, like a thousand hummingbirds on steroids. Rainbows might seem a bit cliche in conversation, but when they spread across a clear blue sky speckled with the foam from countless waterfalls, it's an amazing sight. And this place had more rainbows than a Lucky Charms commercial.

Maybe the best part was when we took a little speedboat into the actual falls. The driver took us right by one of the biggest ones and said, "Are you ready to go in?!" We all yelled affirmations like schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift concert, and he gunned it straight into the fall. The fall seemed to get exponentially taller as we approached it, and my friend and I clutched each other to brace for impact. Our giddy yelps were blotted out by the crashing water, and when we re-emerged into the daylight we all screamed at the driver to go again. He obliged, and we did another circle. Between the beauty of the scenery, the peaceful grandeur of the waterfalls, and the excitement and comradery our group felt in experiencing this together, it immediately jumped into the top five on my list of "Top 10 Best Days Ever." It's currently sandwiched somewhere between the time my first record went platinum and the time I knocked out Apollo Creed.

When I can't travel for one reason or another, I like to listen to a little Joni Mitchell. Most of her songs deal with love, some exotic, exciting place, or a combination of both. The way her love songs rise above generic is that she really bears her soul. Reading her lyrics is like dissecting a frog in fifth grade science class. It's all there to see, and sometimes it ain't pretty. Thankfully, she can write, so her lyrics don't come across awkwardly emo so much as exposed, vulnerable, and honest. The lighter songs often deal with exciting places, and in transporting me to Paris, Africa, or wherever, it's both a vicarious journey and an inspiration to go there myself.

My two favorite Joni records are Blue and Court and Spark. "Carey" is a really light-hearted, fun song on a pretty intense album. "This Flight Tonight" is magical. It sounds like she's playing the acoustic right next to the speaker, and her vocals sound so good. I also love the acoustic sound on "People's Parties," and the lyrics are incredible. Here's a couple of stanzas:


All the people at this party
They've got a lot of style
They've got stamps of many countries
They've got passport smiles
Some are friendly
Some are cutting
Some are watching it from the wings
Some are standing in the centre
Giving to get something

Photo Beauty gets attention
Then her eye paint's running down
She's got a rose in her teeth
And a lampshade crown
One minute she's so happy
Then she's crying on someone's knee
Saying laughing and crying
You know it's the same release

The transition from "People's Parties" into "Same Situation" is perfect, but I can't replicate it through youtube, and three youtubes is enough, dammit!

Gang of Four-Damaged Goods/At Home He's a Tourist (live)/Natural's Not In It/Randy "Macho Man" Savage and "Mean" Gene Okerlund being awesome

I have jury duty tomorrow. San Francisco never fails to send a jury duty summons on a yearly basis. I always postpone it to the summer, and so here I am. Doing my duty as a citizen of the United States of America. It won't be that bad if I'm chosen, as long as it's not some boring trial about zoning restrictions or a fender bender. If I'm gonna get chosen for a trial, I want it to be for something juicy, like a dog mauling case involving a rabid chihuahua, or a billionaire heiress accused of shoplifting two hundred boxes of Fruit Roll Ups.

It would be interesting to observe the entire process of a jury trial, though I'm sure it wouldn't conform to all the cliches that movies and TV shows have hammered into my head through the years. There will probably be no star witness called to the stand, and no cross-examination showdown culminating in the witness lunging at the defense attorney screaming, "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT JUSTICE! MY BROTHER DIED FOR HIS SINS, AND YOU'LL DIE FOR YOURS!!!!!!!"

The thing that appeals to me about trials is the intellectual showdown aspect. It's like that Gladiatior movie, but instead of Russell Crowe and some random villain with undefined muscular tone and a creepy steel mask, it's two brains staring each other down in the center of the ring. It's like the Wrestlemania of the mind. Actually, it'd be pretty sweet if each attorney had a finishing move. At the end of his closing argument, if he knows the trial is really in the bag, he can get the other lawyer in a figure four leglock, finish him off with a suplex, or do a body slam from the turnbuckle.

I definitely had a wrestling phase when I was a kid. Some of my favorites were The Iron Sheik, Andre the Giant, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, and of course Randy "Macho Man" Savage. Obviously wrestling is fake, and obviously it's totally corny, but the man was freaking hilarious. "Macho Man" passed away recently, and beneath the songs I'm posting a classic clip of him with Mean Gene Okerlund, who was an amazing straight man for all the weirdo wrestlers. The end of the clip is gold. "Can I ask a question, Macho Man?" "NO MORE QUESTIONS!" "I'm sorry about that." :D

To get me in an ideological lather before the possible trial, I've been listening to some Gang of Four lately. They have great lyrics and killer buzzsaw guitars, but above all else the rhythm section in this band is incredible. "Damaged Goods" is perhaps their "hookiest" song, "At Home He's a Tourist" shows how great they are live, and their kickass rhythm section owns "Natural's Not In It." I had no idea that "Natural's Not In It" was used in the Marie Antoinette soundtrack. Whatever. JUST FUELING MY IDEOLOGICAL FIRE.

Metallica-For Whom The Bell Tolls/One/Disposable Heroes

I'm a hyper person. This manifests itself in a few ways. I'll be driving to school early in the morning, and instead of slowly easing into the morning with some NPR or a laid back Miles Davis record, I'll choose to taser my cranium with glitched out Aphex Twin tracks, or pummel my eardrums with a really heavy Sonic Youth record. Every once in a while I'll have to consciously stop myself and put on something a little more chilled out. This idea may or may not occur to me, depending on my mood.

Sometimes tending towards the hyper side can come in useful. I bat leadoff for my softball team, and it's not because I'm the best hitter. I generally hit singles, but I hit them pretty regularly, and once I'm on my base my spastic energy usually works to my advantage. When I'm in the outfield, I might back up the left fielder while playing right center, just because I'm bored and feel like running. This doesn't always help anybody, but it's fun!

There is, of course, a down side to being hyper, even on the softball field. I lost my spikes a couple months ago, and I've been playing Russian Roulette and going without since then. Last night I hit a single to an outfield playing unnecessarily deep (apparently their team is deficient in the scouting department). I ran to second, and then thought that the mediocre throw might allow me to make it to third. It didn't, and I had to throw on the brakes and quickly get back to second. Well, I busted @#*. For some reason I also like wearing basketball shorts while playing softball, so my exposed legs ended up looking like the filling for strawberry rhubarb pie. Being the indomitable warrior that I am, I toughed it out and scored, but my legs are still looking pretty rugged today.

It reminded me of the last time I skinned up my legs this badly. I was at summer "gifted camp" (nerd alert!), and I was running back to my Western Carolina University dorm as fast as I could. I was about to execute a trade of some old Batman comic book for a copy of Metallica's Ride The Lightning, and boy was I pumped. I was running faster than lightning, if you catch my drift. I ran around the corner, and while I excitedly saw the dorm coming into view, I completely failed to notice that the sidewalk suddenly ended. It was only about a two foot drop, but when I landed on the concrete my legs suddenly knew pain like they had never known before. After nervously glancing around to ensure that no one had witnessed this Wiley Coyote-falling-off-the-cliff moment, I proceeded to drag my tattered carcass the rest of the way to the dorm. The only thing that kept me going was the promise of rubbing alcohol and speed metal. In the end, however, perhaps my ordeal allowed me to relate more easily to James Hetfield's tortured cries and Kurt Hammett's furious shredding.

Metallica has become the poster band of lame in the last decade or so, with Lars Ulrich's Napster whining, their bloated symphonic versions of old songs, and that silly documentary filled with band bickering and art buying. Back in the day, however, they were pretty awesome. I worshipped Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice For All, and the following songs were my favorites from each album. Master of Puppets was the album I loved most, but the video for "One" immediately caught my attention. A KID GETS EVERYTHING BLOWN OFF IN WAR AND IS FORCED TO CONTINUE LIVING?!?! THAT'S SO MESSED UP, AND SOOOO... METAL.

Black Star-Respiration/Mobb Deep-Shook Ones, Part 2/Tyler, the Creator (featuring Hodgy Beats)-Sandwitches

When I heard about the Rock the Bells lineup this summer, I almost lost it. Gza performing Liquid Swords, Raekwon & Ghostface performing Only Built for Cuban Linx, Nas performing Illmatic, Black Star performing their self-titled album, Mobb Deep performing The Infamous, Lauryn Hill performing The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, etc. So many absolutely classic, legendary albums from the 90s performed front to back!

But it also frustrated me that there aren't many new hip hop acts that I'm really excited about. Granted, I don't exactly listen to (new) rap quite as much as I used to, but it's still pretty obvious that the overall quality has gone down. Recently, however, the group Odd Future has been making an impression. They're really just a bunch of kids (one of them, Earl the Sweatshirt, is actually supposedly in juvie right now), and they're very polarizing. Their production is often great, with dark synths and grimy beats. They can all flow, and Tyler's gravelly voice fits the production really well, especially when juxtaposed with Earl's more youthful-sounding voice. But there's just one problem, and it might be the problem that keeps them from blowing up.

They're offensive. Like not just throw a curse word in here or there offensive, but almost every ________ophobic type of offensive you could think of. I don't know, I've long since stopped writing off music because I disagree with the things people say in it. Do I listen to this music to learn moral lessons, or because I want to model myself after the artist, or because I'm voting for them for some kind of office? I think you could extend this type of thinking to almost any sort of art. If you read Lolita, does that make you a paedophile? If you watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre, does that make you a serial killer? If you listen to Mobb Deep, does that make you a gang banger?

Tyler actually says, "It's f*cking fiction," in one of his songs, and that's how I look at it. Some of the artists that people lionize were actually total jerks, such as John Lennon (deadbeat father to son Julian), Bob Dylan (wielded his intelligence like a machete), the Rolling Stones (misogynists who obliterated Marianne Faithful, among others), etc. I'd rather completely separate the artist from the art, and take from the music only what I want to. And I do see glimmers of meaning poking through the uber-aggressive lyrics, when he raps about the rejection he feels from being abandoned by his father, or being a confused, hyper nineteen year old with the world suddenly watching and judging his every move.

The most compelling thing I've ever seen by this group is the video for "Yonkers" (which I'm not gonna post, cause this is a family site!), and while there's some pretty disturbing images in it, I watched it with my jaw on the ground for the entire time. Isn't that what "art" is supposed to do? Now, I'm not putting these guys in a post with these legends to compare them with Mobb Deep or Black Star. About half their stuff is good, and half of it is meh. But at least they're doing something different! I look forward to seeing where they go from here. I'm posting Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats on Jimmy Fallon. Great performance (listen to the beat kick back in as Hodgy Beats starts the second verse), and there's Mos Def at the end of the video. IF HE LIKES IT, IT MUST BE GOOD.