Husker Du-Chartered Trips/Big Black-Tiny, King of the Jews

Spring Break's over, and I'm mad!!!! Actually, I'm not, but it seemed like a good way to start a blog post about heavy bands. I don't really listen to a lot of loud wall of sound guitar music, but there's something about these songs that set them apart from various other loud wall of sound guitar music. Melody! Melody can do a lot. Melody can turn cacophony into euphony, and dissonance into... uh, what do I put here? Larry Nance. He was a smoooooooooooth dunker.

Cat Power-Nude as the News

People seem to have something against crazy. A little crazy can come in handy sometimes. Take Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, for instance. She's a bit of an indie queen, but she also has a rep for being a couple fries short of a Happy Meal. If you buy a ticket for one of her shows, you could get a great show, or you could see her singing from behind a pee-stained mattress (maybe?), gnawing on an audience member's arm (maaaaaaaaybe??), or randomly running off the stage at sporadic intervals throughout the show (slightly more likely).

While some of Marshall's kookiness used to be attributable to drug and alcohol issues, there's no doubt that she's strung a bit tightly to begin with. And while this might make the day-to-day a bit trickier to navigate for her, I think it also adds a certain depth to her music. Her voice sometimes sounds like she's losing it, and her lyrics are pretty raw and intense.

Nude as the News is definitely my favorite song of hers, and has some of her best lyrics:

And I know in the cold light
There's a very big man
Leading us into
Temptation

Jackson, Jesse, I've got a son in me
Jackson, Jesse, I've got a son in me

And he's related to you
He's related to you
He is waiting to meet you

He's related to you
He's related to you
He is dying to meet you

A little angst goes a long way!

Amy Grant-Baby, Baby/Cyndi Lauper-All Through the Night/Howard Jones-Things Can Only Get Better

There is perhaps no more quintessentially suburban experience than the orthodontist's office. Almost every middle to upper class kid living in the burbs spends a significant amount of time reclined in an orthodontist's chair, staring helplessly into the inverted face of his friendly neighborhood orthodontist. Since my teeth were more jacked up than Joan Rivers' face, I spent perhaps even more time than the average kid laid up in an orthodontist's office.

The tone of the visit was immediately dictated by the assistant I happened to get that day. I always hoped to score a cute one, but more times than not I ended up with the one whose mouth looked like she had played hot potato with a hand grenade. Cruel? Maybe. But I had to look up at this lady's grill over an approximately six year period, so I consider this reparations.

While the assistant worked on my teeth, she would inevitably ask me assorted mindless questions about school, sports, and the like. After the preliminaries drew to a close, the big man would come over. I wonder if orthodontists and dentists ever needlessly stall before they come in. They always come in almost exactly twenty minutes after the assistant starts, even if the prelim work has been finished for ten minutes. It's like he's a headlining band, and he says to the concert promoter, "I do NOT go on before midnight!"

I saw Dr. Lecompte's inverted face talking to me so many damn times, I started to see it as a cartoon character of sorts. Dr. Lecompte was not a real person, he was a bald duck with no eyes and mouth who could somehow still carry on an intelligent conversation. Seriously, look at someone's face upside down while they're talking. It's like Howard the Duck the Orthodontist!

Orthodontist's office inevitably tune into the local easy listening station. It makes sense, I guess. Now, I've never been a huge fan of the easy listening genre in general, but there are a few tunes that make choking on a bubble-gum molar impression easier to swallow. First off, of course, is the queen of the orthodontist's chair, Amy Grant. Her concert tours should be sponsored by a floss company. When you leave the office, your orthodontist should hand you a case of floss, an extra firm tooth brush, and an Amy Grant CD.

All kidding aside, I've always liked this song. Why? I don't know. It's catchy. It's happy! Really happy. Usually happy songs like this make me retch a bit, but this one is SO happy, it's like a Prozac laser beam to the skull. Sorry about the ad, but Amy Grant told me that advertising was ok, and I just couldn't resist her cutie-patootie smile.

Cyndi Lauper is just a champ. Always has been, always will be. It's a good day at the orthodontist's office when this song comes on. That bizzare bag-pipe-sounding synthesizer kinda comes out of nowhere at 2:09, though. It's a bit disconcerting. Could cause a routine cleaning to get a bit out of hand.

Sometimes a little party breaks out in the orthodontist's office. Metal-mouth teens rip off their little drool-catching bibs, assistants throw down their plaque-scrapers, and Dr. Lecompte throws on a little Howard Jones! "WOAH WOAH WOAH, WOAH WOAH WOAH." Good times.

Toro Y Moi - Go With You/Stereolab - Miss Modular

I think I was getting the winter blues for a bit there. Well, San Francisco's version of the winter blues, at least. It seemed like it was raining for about six weeks straight. But now, in a nice bit of synchronicity, Spring Break arrives just as the sun seems to finally be arriving for an extended visit.

So it's time for some chill music. When I first heard Toro Y Moi, he reminded me a bit of Stereolab, which is maybe the ultimate chill music. Apparently some people call Toro Y Moi chillwave, but those people are tools. What the hell is chillwave, anyway? Sounds like a Capri Sun flavor.

Go With You is a sweet song. 3:27 makes me particularly happy. I'm throwing in a Stereolab track cause they put the ill in chill. Actually, they don't do that at all, and I really regret writing the last sentence, but I'm not deleting it because it's part of what makes me the person I am this sentence.

Steely Dan-Pretzel Logic

I thought these guys were so lame when I was a kid. One of them looked like an accountant, and the other looked like an angry fish. They just seemed so adult contemporary and clinical, the opposite of everything I thought was cool about rock. I could see Robert Plant or James Hetfield breaking a bottle over their heads in a barfight, but I couldn't see myself ever listening to their music.

Now that I've MATURED, I realize that Steely Dan rule. It's not really fire-you-up music, it's more chill music. The world-weary lyrics go perfectly with their amazing grooves. At 1:56 it gets so good. Smooooooooooooth.

MIA-Internet Connection (Stanton Warriors remix)

I see all these commercials on ESPN for Bassmasters, which apparently is some big deal fishing tournament. I went fishing once, and I didn't catch anything! In fact, my friend's little brother barfed in his hat, and then later in the day my friend put the hat on my head! Sure, it had been cleaned out, but it still completely freaked me out. I swear I heard a phantom squish.

If we're dealing with heteronyms, I have to say that I fall squarely on the side of the "long A" bass, as opposed to the "short A" bass. I'm not one of those kids that joined the high school low-rider/bass club, put four twelves in the back of my car, and got a sticker on the back of my car that said, "My Bass Hertz So Good," but I do enjoy beats and bass. Not so much bass that you get whiplash sitting in the car, but enough so that you can feel the music. My Honda stock system is enough, if it's a high-quality recording.

The Stanton Warriors are great because even though they often play in "rave" clubs, much of their influence comes from booty and bass records. This MIA remix is bad. Pissed off carburetor sound at :29 + bass drop at :44 = win.

Stevie Wonder-As

You know those scenes in movies where the crazed, belligerent worker holds a bunch of people hostage in the top story of a high-rise, and the police desperately try to talk him out of offing all his co-workers? There's always that point where the guy yells, "Don't mess with me! I'm not screwing around here!" Well, at that point the negotiators need to try a different ploy, because at least one person always eats it so the cops know just how serious Mr. Going Postal is. Instead of offering the guy $50,000 and immunity from the law (nudge, nudge, wink, wink), they just need to blare the song "As" by Stevie Wonder over the speakers.

There's so much love wrapped up in this song, I'm fully convinced that Mr. Postal would immediately put down his shotgun, break down in tears, and awkwardly hug all his hostages. He might even, just for fun, take a jump onto that trampoline thing the police set up. The only danger is that the cops might also throw their guns down and start hugging each other, leaving deaf criminals in the vicinity with the opportunity to cause mischief.

This song is just so amazing. The lyrics are beautiful, Stevie's vocals are perfect, and the background vocals that come in might be the best I've ever heard. I prefer Innervisions a bit as an album, but this is definitely my favorite Stevie Wonder song.

Microphones-Map

Some musicians are performers, and some are meant to sit in a basement, tinker around with sound and occasionally create magic. I once went and saw Phil Elverum, aka The Microphones, aka Mt. Eerie, aka Slightlyupmyownass, at Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco. I was very into his album The Glow Part 2, and was excited to hear some of the songs live. Now I'm not sure if Mr. Elverum was on really intense pain medication, but it was honestly one of the most boring shows I've ever seen. I left before it even ended.

I don't think "experimental" music has to be synonymous with soul-crushingly tedious and lifeless performances. Tortoise is a band that makes experimental music, and they were one of the best shows I've ever seen in my life. I'm going to see the anti-establishment, nine-person post-rock group Godspeed You Black Emperor! later this month, and I fully expect to be entertained! They're pretentious enough to move the exclamation mark to after the You in their name, but I've heard that they still put on a good show!

Needless to say, I'm not running out to see any more Phil Elverum shows. However, "Map" has consistently blown my mind since the first time I heard it about ten years ago. There are some great guitar-based songs on the album, but the sounds he creates in this song just kill me.

0:25: The sky is torn off. This sound is so beautiful to me. Reminds me of "The Big Ship" by Brian Eno.

1:28: Beautiful vocals with the ascending drums.

2:21: Glocks! Break yourself!

2:56: Swirly! Can you feel the swirlllllllllllllllllllllllllll...

3:51: Love the drums! Pounding one piano note again and again, with what sounds like an accordion in the background, all caught up in the swirl. Amazing climax.

I would like to live inside this song for a while.

Talking Heads-Making Flippy Floppy/Life During Wartime/Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On); Tom Tom Club-Genius of Love

Jonathan Demme directed two of the greatest movies ever. One of them is Stop Making Sense, a concert film starring the Talking Heads. The other is The Silence of the Lambs, a psychological thriller starring Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Two very different movies, to be sure, but I think some of the classic scenes in Silence of the Lambs could easily be combined with Stop Making Sense to create a gripping psychological thriller musical.

As background, here is my surface understanding (I have neither the time nor the inclination to fact-check!) of the history of The Talking Heads. They went to the Rhode Island School of Art and Design, started an awesome band, and made some classic albums. Inevitably, divisions in the band came up, as David Byrne collaborated with Brian Eno and got into more "artsy" stuff, while Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz collaborated on Tom Tom Club and at some point shacked up. I don't even know what drummer Jerry Harrison was doing at that point. Poor guy, he was probably working at a Big Boy's in his spare time.

If I were to recast Silence of The Lambs with the members of this band, David Byrne would be Hannibal Lecter, Tina Weymouth would be Clarice Starling, Brian Eno would obviously be Buffalo Bill, and Chris Frantz would be that dude from the Right Stuff who plays Starling's boss and seems to want to do a bit more than simply teach her how to pull moths out of corpses' mouths. On to a sneak preview!

This scene is based on the one when Starling realizes that Buffalo Bill is making himself a suit out of actual skin. In the Talking Heads' kooky world, it would go more like this:

Weymouth, becoming increasingly frustrated with Byrne's vague allusions to "working with that Eno guy," surreptitiously goes through the demos of Remain in Light. "Side project, my ass," she grumbles under her breath. Finally, she opens a drawer that reveals a repulsive stash of electronic gizmos and random power tools that Eno is using to bastardize her work. She then finds a tape entitled "Remain in the Dark, Intellectually Inferior Bandmates." She slams the drawer shut, slips the tape in the deck, and is horrified at what she hears. She frantically calls Frantz. "HE'S INSERTING MALFUNCTIONING KEYBOARD SOLOS, HIRING OUTSIDE BACKUP SINGERS, AND TOTALLY MOVING OUR INSTRUMENTS DOWN IN THE MIX." Frantz drops the phone and bolts off screen. Fade to black.

Despite the drama that almost inevitably comes with a band that has the talent (and usually, as an unfortunate byproduct, the requisite egos) to release several classic albums, the Talking Heads were, generally speaking, a band that spread joy, funk and general awesomeness. Below are two of my favorite clips from Stop Making Sense, the studio version of "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" from Remain in Light, and "Genius of Love," a great song from Weymouth and Frantz's group, the Tom Tom Club. The two live clips show how incredible their live shows were, "Born Under Punches" has that brilliant malfunctioning keyboard solo at 2:43, and "Genius of Love" is joy on wax.

Roxy Music-Do The Strand & Amazona/T. Rex-Bang A Gong(Get It On)/Lou Reed-Andy's Chest

I actually wanted to watch The Golden Globes last night, because there have been a bunch of good movies this year, and I was interested in seeing if my favorites (which are obviously also unquestionably the best films) would win. I had plans, however, and the thought of turning down socialization with real people so I could instead gawk at celebrities for three hours and inevitably be frustrated at the award winners made me reconsider. So I went out, had a good time, and wasn't frustrated about the winners until later that night. And supposedly Angelina Jolie was absolutely stunning in her Gucci ensemble.

So tonight I give you the Golden Globs, which appear to be real gold statues, but are instead constructed out of the crystallized mucas gathered from all the Kleenex tissues that have been blown into during flu season. Hey, the country is going through tough economic times! We gotta make every hacked lung count! GLOB NOTE: I haven't seen many of the best films, because I'm a really important person with many people making demands on my time. So if you're Colin Firth, James Franco, or Christian Bale, it' snot your year!

The Golden Glob Nominees for Film of the Year are: First of all, screw the comedy or musical demarcation-what does a musical have to do with a comedy? Aren't there sad musicals? Anyways, on to the nominees (Winners are in italics):

True Grit-The 14-year-old girl nails the delivery of her lines, and Jeff Bridges is typically awesome. There's also some beautiful shots by the Cohen Brothers.

Social Network-Really entertaining. Jealousy, greed, betrayal, dorky losers who take over the world. The guy who plays Zuckerberg nails it.

Black Swan-There are a lot of freaky, feel-like-a-wuss-for-turning-away-from-the-camera moments, but I think the best thing about this film is how it nails the insane pressure of being an upper-echelon dancer. The "split" seems to arise pretty organically from both her specific role in Swan Lake, and the person she has to morph into in order to succeed in such a "cut-throat," intense industry.

Winter's Bone-I already said way too much about this movie in the Slint post a few months back. It is such a powerful movie. AND IT ISN'T DEPRESSING. The addiction, violence and desperation surrounding the girl only serves to highlight her determination and unwavering devotion to her little brother and sister. It reminds me of The Road (the amazing book, not the crappy film version) in that way.

Hmmm... I just realized something. I don't want to do this anymore. Writing about movies makes my head hurt right now, and I'm just gonna glob more praise on Jennifer Lawrence if I keep going. And that might get annoying, and if there's anything I'm not all of the time, it's definitely not annoying. I tried to go for a record there. I think that was a quadruple negative.

So! Music! Great acting in films makes me think of great acting in music, and glam rock certainly contained some of the best examples of that. I've already blogged about how great an actress I think Kate Bush is, and her music isn't glam rock, so I will obviously leave her out. David Bowie and Brian Eno are simply gods, and I've blogged multiple times about them, so I'll leave them out as well. But the following songs are the Golden Glob nominees for Best Acting in a Glam Rock Song (Comedy or Music):

Oops, looks like I'm still gonna talk about Eno. He was a member of Roxy Music for the first two albums. They were still pretty great after he left, but he brought a certain je ne wear weird outfits and add cool tweaked out noises by twiddling knobs in the background sais pas to the band. Roxy Music has better songs than "Do the Strand," but there aren't many live performances that highlight their awesomeness more effectively than this one. Unfortunately, one of the best parts of this song, the chunky, rapid bassline, isn't quite as prominent in this performance as it is in the studio version. But the lyrics are funny, the song rocks, Bryan Ferry's overdone enunciation is perfect, and Brian Eno is really shiny.

I also posted the youtube to Amazona by Roxy Music. The song is somewhat pedestrian for the first 2:05, but then listen to that freaking guitar solo. I'm not big on wanky guitar solos, but sweet Mary Joseph this one kicks *ss. There is some effect that makes it sound like it's a piranha speeding through the Amazon River with a Lamborghini engine and its tail on fire. Then, at 3:28, the guitar slowly emerges from the muck, each note sounding like it's being electrocuted as it comes out of the amplifier. That might be the most ridiculous garbage I've ever written, but it's alright because that solo makes me freak out a lot-tle bit.

I'm not a huge T. Rex guy, but Electric Warrior is a really good album. And "Get It On (Bang a Gong)" is, of course, a classic track. I love the chugging rhythm, and the almost arrogant vibe. Shame that Bolan crashed and burned so fantastically. Bowie has a great song, "Lady Stardust," that he wrote about Bolan. Oops, I talked about Bowie, too.

Transformer (think Crying Game, not Optimus Prime) by Lou Reed is such a great album. "Walk on the Wild Side" is definitely a better song than "Andy's Chest," but it's not really glam rock-ish, so I'm posting this instead. I love how loose the song feels musically, with the background singers going "Ba ba ba ba ba!" in the background. "Are all the mountains bolder after you?" is one of my favorite slightly obtuse, perhaps containing a double meaning lines. Some people don't dig on Reed's voice, but it doesn't really matter. He's acting. It's about how he delivers the line in so many of his songs. He rules, and people who criticize him don't! End of story.

Black Keys-Tighten Up

I get a little giddy teaching certain novels. I like practically every book I teach, but there are a few I get kind of kooky for. The ones I get most excited about at this point are Brave New World, Macbeth, Of Mice and Men, The Great Gatsby, Romeo & Juliet, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Things They Carried. I haven't taught all of the classes at my school, but of the ones I have, those are the books that really fire me up.

I usually fall head over heels for teaching a book if it's either incredibly well written, or it's "packed with meaning." BNW and GG fall into the first category. This passage from Gatsby, for instance, just destroys me:

Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and, walking through her husband as if he were a ghost, shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips, and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice:
“Get some chairs, why don’t you, so somebody can sit down.”

Fitzgerald imbues this supposedly unattractive woman with so much life, and so much power: she basically crushes her husband in an instant. One of my favorite sculptures my father had was The Glorification of Beauty by Alexander Archipenko, and whenever i read that passage I think of it.









The Things They Carried is amazingly written and really affecting. There's too many great passages to choose from, but here's one I love:

A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil. Listen to Rat Kiley. Cooze, he says. He does not say bitch. He certainly does not say woman, or girl. He says cooze. Then he spits and stares. He's nineteen years old-it's too much for him-so he looks at you with those big sad gentle killer eyes and says cooze, because his friend is dead, and because it's so incredibly sad and true: she never wrote back. You can tell a true war story if it embarrasses you. If you don't care for obscenity, you don't care for the truth; if you don't care for the truth, watch how you vote. Send guys to war, they come home talking dirty. Listen to Rat: "Jesus Christ, man, I write this beautiful f*$@+n' letter, I slave over it, and what happens? The dumb cooze never writes back."

So sad, and such an incredible book.

I have no transition into the Black Keys. Truth be told, I'm not even that big a Black Keys fan. Half of their stuff that I've heard I like, and half is sort of redundant and plodding for my taste. I saw them live, though, and they kicked a fair amount of *ss. "Tighten Up" is definitely a great song. There's more tempo shifts than most of the other Black Keys songs I've heard, and that's what really sets it apart. The drums are also Bonham-esque, which pleases both me and Jason Segel in Freaks and Geeks.

Larry Tee - Hipster Girl (Evol Intent Mix)

I was at a Bjork concert a few years ago, and her producer Mark Bell was creating the sounds live by strategically shifting objects on this big circular device. I, too, wanted to shift objects around a big circle and create bad*ass noises for an Icelandic goddess to sing over. I'm not sure if it was a visual gimmick or not, but boy did it look cool!

When I first heard "Hipster Girl," it reminded me a bit of that live performance. The wobble is that noise in dubstep that sounds like the bass is being filtered through spinning plates. It sounds like the remixer of this track is scratching the wobble. The effect sounds really great on headphones or a car stereo.

I mentioned a few posts back that sometimes listening to too much frenetic drum n' bass, breaks, and dubstep can make my brain feel a bit like scrambled eggs inside a giant pinball machine. Fortunately, a few weeks back my friend introduced me to a Dustin Hulton mix that's for the most part pretty chilled out. It's a bit more vocal-heavy than the stuff I usually listen to, but it's really good. This track comes in about twenty-five minutes into the mix.

Deerhunter-Revival/Memory Boy

During my recent trip to Florida, I went to an Orlando Magic-New York Knicks game at the Magic's brand new arena. My friend had a hook up for suite seats, so we had an amazing view. I had gone to many games in the old arena with my father (including the first one ever), so it had added meaning beyond being a really great match-up of my two favorite NBA teams. Two favorite, you say. Sounds like a conflict of interest! Well, sports allegiances can be a tricky thing. Thankfully, my friends and I have figured out an extremely intricate tier system to clear up any ambiguities that might arise. The system goes as follows:

Tier 1 Teams: Teams you have absolute allegiance to. They include teams that a) you have rooted for your entire "sport fan" life, b) you are an alumni of the school, c) you have a very close personal connection to, or d) represent the city you have lived in for the majority of your life. My tier one teams include:

NY Mets: I rooted for the team since I lived in New York in the 80s, which happened to be both the beginning and end of their rather abbreviated dynasty-that-never-was-because-the-majority-of-the-best-players-were-hopped-up-on-drugs. My dad, who, being completely immersed in the arts since a young age, knew NOTHING about sports, made an admirable effort to learn about the Mets. His favorite player was the rather dorky and completely unglamorous singles hitter Dave Magadan, whom he took to calling "the thinking man's hitter." Magadan is now the offensive juggernaut Boston Red Sox's hitting coach. Guess Dad knew what he was talking about with that moniker.

Florida Gators: I went there (chomp chomp).

Orlando Magic: I lived forty-five minutes from Orlando when they were awarded a franchise, and went to many of their games with my father.

Miami Dolphins: I didn't really get into football until I moved down to Florida. Dan Marino was the Dolphin's quarterback, so of course I rooted for them and not the perennially horrific and "I'm a loser orange"-clad Tampa Bay Bucs.

Tier 2 Teams: Teams you have followed closely for an extended period of time, but don't have absolute allegiance to for one reason or another. You can root for them unless there is a conflict of interest with a tier 1 team, such as competition for a playoff spot or, of course, a direct matchup. My tier two team is:

New York Knicks: They were my tier 1 basketball team when I lived in New York, and when I lived in Florida before the Magic franchise came into being. It is fairly unprecedented for a tier 1 team to be usurped, but going to many Magic games in the first year, following the franchise very closely since inception, and living forty-five minutes from Orlando brought me over. I still got love for the Knicks though! (unless they're playing the Magic)

Tier 3 Teams: Teams you root for, but while you want them to win, it doesn't really pain you on any visceral level if they lose. Fandom is oftentimes brought about by geographical relocation. My tier three teams include:

Golden State Warriors: They're a fun team to watch, I get tons of exposure to them living in the Bay Area, and there's barely any conflict of interest with tier one or two teams due to Western Conference placement.

San Francisco Giants: Same as the Warriors, except NL West Division instead of Western Conference, which brings about slightly more frequent conflicts of interest.

Tier 4 Teams: Similar to Tier 3, but with slightly less appealing teams. My tier four teams include:

San Francisco Forty-Niners: When they're on and not playing the Dolphins I want them to win, but let's face it, this ain't the 80s. They're a fairly consistent snoozefest the past few years.

Tier 5 Teamss: Similar to Tier 4, but with even less appealing teams. It's almost a pity tier. My tier five teams include:

Oakland Raiders: When Al Davis kicks the bucket, maybe I'll bump 'em to four. The working man's Bay Area team, and it would be nice to see a classic bad*ss franchise return to at least a(n) (Art) shell of their former self.

Oakland A's. They used to be four, but watching baseball games in the Coliseum lately is like that scene in 28 Days Later where the guy walks around post-apocalyptic London. DEPRESSING.

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By the time I got to the Magic game, I had driven about six or seven hours around Florida. That might sound bad, but it's actually pretty mild for me. One of the records from my year-end downloading frenzy that I enjoyed the most was Halcyon Digest by Deerhunter. I've listened to Deerhunter in the past, and while I liked them, the album I heard (Cryptograms) just didn't have a ton of staying power. This one will hopefully have more replay value.

I'm still digesting the album, so I'm not sure which songs will ultimately stand out to me. Right now I'm really digging "Revival" and "Memory Boy." "Revival" has a fun, bouncy feel to it, with fuzzy guitars and cool harmonies. "Memory Boy" sounds like they're channeling Olivia Tremor Control channeling summery 60s pop. I'm digging it. There's a few interesting down-tempo songs on the album, too, but I need a little more time with them. Yay for good new music!

Kanye West: Monster/Cannibal Ox: A B-Boys Alpha

If you're anywhere from the age of about twenty-eight to thirty-five (I only deal in multiples of seven), you've probably heard the term hipster thrown around. If you like a certain type of music, you might be labeled a hipster. If you like going to movie festivals, you might be labeled a hipster. If you dress in skinny jeans, spend two hours in front of a mirror making sure you look like you've spent no time in front of a mirror, you might be labeled a hipster. Maybe I check off some of the boxes on the "you might be a hipster if" list, but I'm too old and too uncool to truly deserve the moniker. In the end, hipster is just another word. In the sixties the hipster equivalent was probably a mod. In the seventies, the hipster equivalent was probably members of the punk scene.

Fast forward to 2010, and as a culture everything is about being frighteningly self-aware and incessantly self-referential. Blogging, tweeting, facebooking, creating mean spirited social commentary sites like Look at this Fucking Hipster.com, TMZ, Awkward Family Photos, The Smoking Gun, etc. Half of our time is spent living; the other half is spent analyzing either our lives, or more often, other peoples' more interesting lives. It's all so exhausting-I might have to bump down the living part to about 30% in the new year.

For the longest time, I've stayed away from mainstream rap. I convinced myself that mainstream rap stopped being good in the nineties, and there was nothing popular that I was going to hear that could stand up. So for the last decade or so, almost all the rap I've listened to has been either a further exploration of old rap (Main Source, Ultramagnetic MCs, the Last Poets, etc.), or "underground rap" from the last ten or so years (Madvillain, Dr. Octagon, The Coup, etc.). I probably missed out on some great music by buying into the "all popular rap sucks" stereotype, but then again I also did this with practically every other genre. Oops.

There's a video that was recently released of Kanye West talking at the Rolling Stone office, and at first he comes off sounding like his usual megalomaniacal self. He at one point compares himself to Rafael, and I don't think he meant the ninja turtle. But he said something towards the end that perked my ears. At the end of the speech, he said, "It's not cool for no one to hear anything anymore. That's the hipster justification of failure." The "hipster justification of failure" is an intriguing turn of phrase. Sometimes it does seem like folded into the hipster ethos is this being "too cool to try," or "too cool to sell out" ethos. I think he might have been trying to say that he is trying to make mainstream rap that has all the "artistic integrity" that the underground hip hop scene is supposed to have exclusive rights to. Maybe the real question is: does it even matter if he does that, or will the fact that the album is put out on a major label, and is listened to by a large audience, put off the people who claim that their sole aversion to mainstream rap is an inferior product?

One of my approximately ten to fifteen New Years' Resolutions is not to write off mainstream music simply because it's mainstream. Sometimes I catch myself talking about certain artists, and I just sound like such a cliche music snob curmudgeon. One of the byproducts of teaching kids is you get a window into how clearly they sometimes see the world. If they hear a song on the radio, and it sounds good, they like it. They don't write it off fifteen seconds in because the artist is signed to a major label, or because the artist was a child star, or for any other reason that is ultimately rooted in being a cynical bastard. They just listen to stuff cause it sounds good. Here's to stuff that sounds good.

So I'm enjoying Kanye's new album so far. I really haven't ever heard anything of his past music other than "Through the Wire" (yes, I live in a cave constructed out of "Mojo" and "Wire" magazine covers), but I fully plan on working myself backwards through his catalogue. His public persona might be annoying at times, but at least he's interesting. The production in "Monster" rules, and Kanye's delivery is tight. The song is packed with star cameos, some being more effective than others. It's a great song, though, and a few listens through the whole album seems solid.

So the flip side of the popularity coin is Cannibal Ox. The Cold Vein is a brilliant underground rap album, with amazing production by El-P. This whole album is ridiculously good, with dark, futuristic-sounding production, grimy beats, and great rhymes. It's easy to lose faith in mainstream rap when albums like this are simmering beneath the surface. In 2011, I'm gonna at least try to have an open mind. Rap and R & B in general were so great when I was in middle school and high school, and who's to say they can't get back to that point? Big Boi, Janelle Monae, Erykah Badu and Kanye West all put out great albums in 2010, so hopefully there's more where that came from in the new year.

Keith Sweat-Twisted/112 (featuring Biggie & Mase)-Only You/Dru Hill-In My Bed (So So Def remix)

I was in a cafe grading papers the other day (it's scary how many anecdotes begin with those ten words these days), and "Twisted" by Keith Sweat came on. I almost lost it. I hadn't heard it in so long! Totally classic slow jam. I didn't listen to tons of male R & B singers back in the 90s: I was more into rap and female R & B. The following songs, however, were three of my favorites.

I'm not so sure how I feel about the fact that two of these three songs are Bad Boy and So So Def remixes. Puff Daddy (I mean Puffy [I mean P Diddy] {I mean Diddy} ((I mean Tweetle-Dee Cocoa Puff Breath))) is annoying in a multitude of ways. On Ready to Die, his mumbling in the background serves no purpose other than to ever-so-subtly keep himself in the public's mind. Maybe that's some PT Barnum-style self-promotion tactic, but being on the listening end of it is kind of exasperating. Anyway, he's gotta be doing something right, cause "Only You" is a great track. The beat isn't very creative, but it's a serviceable vehicle for 112's vocals. I must say, though, I'm glad that Mase left rap to join the ministry, cause he looks seriously uncomfortable in this video. When Prodigy of Mobb Deep raps, "They never around when the beef cooks in my part of town," it sounds real. When Mase raps, "And when the beef come you nowhere to be found," I'm thinking THE ONLY BEEF YOU KNOW ABOUT IS YOUR MOM'S BEEF WELLINGTON.

Jermaine Dupris of So So Def also suffers from what Suge Knight would call "producers all up in the video" syndrome. It's ok, though, cause "In My Bed" is a great song. It has a similar garden-variety beat, but it works with Dru Hill's vocals, which I really love. I'm not quite sure why this video cuts off before the end, but i kinda like it cause it cuts off Jermaine Dupris. Haha. Less you, and more Dru Hill and Da Brat, please. It kinda felt weird typing Da Brat just now. She's gonna have to change her name if she ever records an album of jazz standards. "The All Grown Up! Artist Formerly Known as Da Brat" has a nice ring to it.

Leonard Cohen - Sisters of Mercy/Bob Dylan - Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

A tennis friend asked me today if I go to church. That question always sounds like a one-way ticket to Judgeville, but he's not like that. I just didn't grow up with religion. Faith, as far as I can tell, usually has to be cultivated at a young age. Whenever I sit in churches, I usually end up gawking at the architecture, or analyzing the preacher's effectiveness as a public speaker. My old apartment was next door to a church, and when I took showers on Sunday mornings I could hear the choir/band through the wall. That was nice. I could certainly see myself getting into the musical aspect of it, or taking a Bible as Literature class.

There's a great line in Don Delillo's book White Noise where the main character, Jack, is in a shelter with his family. He says, "Watching children sleep makes me feel devout, part of a spiritual system. It is the closest I can come to God…standing in a great spired cathedral with marble pillars and streams of mystical light slanting through two-tier Gothic windows…" It's a beautiful excerpt, and I'm going to leave it there so I don't have to explicitly connect it to the horribly cheesy cliche "MUSIC IS MY RELIGION, MAN!"

Sometimes music helps me speed up, and sometimes music helps me slow down. Things have been moving pretty fast lately. Lots of work, lots of coffee to facilitate the completion of said work, etc. I saw Bassnectar last night, and he was great, but I feel like I need to step back from the electronic music for a second and breathe. Not yoga breathe, but Leonard and Bob breathe.

It seems almost sacrilegious (you see what I did there?) to not give either of these songs their own post, but I need a double shot of chill right now. Leonard Cohen is a master lyricist. My favorite line in "Sisters of Mercy" is: "If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn," but it's worth reading them all below the youtube clip. They are absolutely brilliant, and combined with the music and his vocals, it's a very comforting song.

One of my absolute favorite songs ever is "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" by Bob Dylan. There's something really reassuring about some of Dylan's songs, and this one has put its arm around my shoulder many times. The last verse is perfect. The lyrics are actually about Dylan, at the height of his fame, being completely burnt out, but the way he delivers the lines just saves me, every time.

I started out on burgundy
But soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me
When the game got rough
But the joke was on me
There was nobody even there to bluff
I'm going back to New York City
I do believe I've had enough.

*sigh* :)



WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! There's no youtube of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues"! SERENITY LOST!

Radiohead - OK Computer (oops, it's an album!)

Yesterday, a student burst into my third period class and asked me what my favorite band was. Normally I would have told her to come back and ask me sometime when there wasn't thirty-five kids discussing Brave New World in my classroom, but I couldn't help myself. She's a really awesome kid, and it's a kryptonite kind of question for me.

So now I actually had to attempt to answer the question, and preferably within twenty seconds. Because... you know... I was... TEACHING A CLASS. So I thought. Brian Eno? Minutemen? Guided by Voices? I quickly cycled through all the possibilities, but within my twenty second allotment of time I quickly came to the realization that I was completely kidding myself if I said anything other than Radiohead. So through gritted teeth I told her. A student asked me why I hesitated to say Radiohead. I said in so many words that my obsession with Radiohead was so intense during one period of time, that it feels very rooted in that place and time. Even though I still love Radiohead, in some ways it feels like I've "moved on." I think trying to explain "phases one grows out of in different stages of life" to fifteen-year-olds is akin to Rocky Dennis trying to explain colors to the blind girl in Mask. So instead we just jumped back into analyzing the philosophical smackdown between Mustapha Mond and John the Savage at the end of Brave New World.

I don't listen to Radiohead much these days, but being put on the spot like that reminded me of just how much of a complete and utter psycho fan I was for quite a while. Now I can't lay claim to having been a huge Radiohead fan since the very beginning, having seen them on their first tour, and (some people actually say this) having known that Radiohead was going to be brilliant based on their largely mediocre debut record. I, like the majority of the free world, heard "Creep" on MTV, dug it, bought the single, and eventually moved on to the next hot song by Cracker, Smashing Pumpkins, or someone else. Then college came and I became really uninterested in rock music.

Post-college, pre-career-job is when it happened for me. I was working in a music store for a bit, and that was like Violet Beauregarde working in a Bubbalicious factory. When Kid A came out I bought it, The Bends, and OK Computer. I became so irrationally obsessed with Radiohead, it was scary. I bought every magazine I could get my hands on that had Radiohead-related articles. I bought multiple books about them. I joined online message boards and tracked down all the b-sides I possibly could. I went to a concert, then maniacally searched for the bootleg recording of the show.

I instantly loved The Bends and Kid A, but OK Computer just took over my universe. To me OK Computer's greatness can be measured in the number of "H*LY SH*T!" moments on it. Almost every song on the entire album has a moment that is just knock-you-on-your-ass incredible.


Airbag: 2:23 - I'll never understand how Johnny Greenwood makes those sounds come out of a guitar. I used to just roll up all the windows in my car, turn the volume up to the maximum, and let this section wash over me. Mind-blowing.

Paranoid Android: The entire song, basically. The ridiculous bass playing at 2:08, the transition from guitar freak-out to acoustic transcendence at 3:27, the explosion at 5:35 back into another freak-out (this time with guitars filtered through some twisted electronic effects pedal). The entire song is perfect.

Subterranean Homesick Alien: 1:49, when coming out of the first chorus the entire song is permeated by that beautiful synth.

Exit Music: This song. 2:47 is just.. I don't know. Too much. I did the window-rolling-up thing with this song, too.

Let Down: The transition out of the morbidity of "We hope that you choke" in Exit Music, into the beauty of this song is just the greatest. Of course the lyrics are totally cynical, but what are you gonna do.

Karma Police: 2:27. "For a minute there, I lost myself."

Lucky: 1:39. I LOVE how the second verse adds the drums and the wind/voice/something in the background. And his vocals when he sings, "It's gonna be a glooooooooooooooorious day. I feel my luck could change."

The Tourist: The first line: "It barks at no one else but me." Game. Set. Match.


No matter what albums I fall in love with in the future, or what bands or artists seem more closely aligned with my current state of mind or musical proclivities, the Real-O-Meter will always remind me that, in the end, OK Computer is it. I can't even pick a favorite song. I have two. "Airbag" is the song that absolutely blows my mind, and defines why Radiohead was at one time better than any band making music. "Lucky," meanwhile, is the song that I have the urge to listen to the most. So yeah, here they are.

Dubstep And Drum & Bass Records With Reeeeeeally Long Artist, Remixer, And Title Lengths

Normally I put the artist and title of all the songs I'm going to discuss in the titles of my posts, but in this case they're almost all remixes, so it would take about 150 characters to get them all in there. It got me to thinking, what if authors remixed other authors' books?

For instance, in the Stephen King remix of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Myrtle Wilson would get hit by an eighteen-wheeler, like the baby in Pet Cemetery, instead of by Gatsby's yellow car. A deranged George Wilson would then bury Myrtle in the pet cemetery, and she would come back all zombied out and slice Gatsby's Achille's heel like that little tweaker in the movie does to Herman Munster. Meanwhile, Daisy Buchanan, Pammy, and the help somehow escape after finding a humongous stack of papers that all read, "All polo and no football makes Tom a dull boy."

Or how about the William Shakespeare remix of J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye? When Holden says he starts "giving the three witches at the next table the eye again," he doesn't realize that they're actually the three witches from Macbeth. So just to screw with him, they prophesize that his destiny is to be the king of the lagoon in Central Park. He stumbles down to the lagoon in a drunken stupor, and starts brutally murdering ducks because he's paranoid that they're after his crown. Phoebe, wracked with guilt, goes crazy and offs herself after writing PHOEBE WEATHERFIELD CAULFIELD: GOOD DETECTIVE, BAD SISTER 763 times in her little notebook.

Some combinations might work better than others, I suppose. On to the music. The first record is the Flux Pavillion remix of DJ Fresh's "Gold Dust." This song's got a little funk to it, which is nice. The noise during the main drop is a bit intense, but that's not the part I really look forward to. The part at 1:45 is baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. From the initial bass drop, with the drawn out whuuuuuuuuuuuur in the background, to the attitude-drenched vocals that come back in. So good. And even though this is the video for the original version of this record, it's pretty awesome. Makes me miss New York even more than I usually do.

The next youtube is the only non-remix. It's a record by Pendulum called "Set Me On Fire." The first "blow up" sounds like some crazy Transformers firefight, but my favorite part is when the vocals come in at 1:36.

The next record is the Baron remix of Stanton Warriors' "Still Here." This is more drum and bass than the other three other songs I'm posting. The beat that first kicks in at 1:05 is massive, and the vocals are understated and work well with the overall production.

Ok, this one is really a mouthful. (Deep breath) Finally we have the Dodge & Fuski remix of FunkyStepz featuring Lily McKenzie's "For U." Really? I've written short stories that weren't that long. Anyway, this is the cleanest, most mainstream-sounding record of the four. Some hardcore dubsteppers in the comments section are saying this record is a sellout, but that section at :54, when it sounds like she's kicking up little bass-pebbles in the background, is enough for me to really dig this record.

NOTE: If you want to hear a great mix that has three of these records on it, download Sir Kutz's mix here.

Notorious B. I. G. - Everyday Struggle/Public Enemy - Bring the Noise/Gang Starr (featuring Jeru the Damaja & Lil' Dap) - Speak Ya Clout

I've been getting a little carried away with puns lately. They're fun, and sometimes very funny, but at some point the law of diminishing returns probably starts to kick in. I'm a bit worried that that might happen much earlier for others than it does for me. Maybe if I try to get a bunch of puns out of my system here, I'll be in better shape for the rest of the week. It'll be a sort of pun catharsis, or putharsis.

Ok, so this week I want to talk about my favorite rap lines delivery-wise. The artists I'm going to discuss are Biggie, Public Enemy, and Gangstarr (featuring Jeru the Damaja and Lil' Dap). Putharsis, putharsis, putharsis. Hmmmm...

Jeru the Damaja got fired from Fed Ex because his delivery was terrible. There's two puns in there, and they're both lame. Maybe this isn't such a good idea. :(

ANYWAYS. On to the music. All of Biggie's album Ready to Die
is amazing, but he just goes off in "Everyday Struggle." My favorite section is:

I'm seeing body after body and our mayor Giuliani
Ain't trying to see no black man turn into John Gotti

The flow and rhymes are just perfect. Biggie's lyrics were so brutally honest, and he could rap circles around pretty much anyone. The verse about Maryland is also ridiculous.

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In "Bring The Noise," this section is the perfect combination of a disgusting beat and a great MC spitting daggers for lyrics. No one has a voice like Chuck D.

Never badder than bad 'cause the brother is madder than mad
At the fact that's corrupt as a senator
Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope
'Cause the beats in the lines are so dope

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"Speak Ya Clout" by Gangstarr has three sections, and DJ Premier's beats are filthy in all three. Jeru the Damaja raps in the first verse, and he kills it as usual. I can't even cut it down past this:

I've paid my dues to this game word to mother
Peace New York hops it gets no rougher
Baby brother been puffing buddha and blunts since eighty-five
Before the fake motherf*ckers started perpetrating live, i've
Achieved mad props though niggaz roll around in jeeps
I ride the a-train and get mad beeps
So when we bang bang boogie out jumps my boot knocks
Chicks come in flocks when d.r.s. rocks glocks

Love it.

New Order - Age of Consent

I cannot stop listening to this song. I'm helpless. It just feels so perfect. I'm having a rather unmusical couple of weeks, and yet I can't stop listening to this song over and over again. His vocals are amazing throughout, but at 2:56 they're just so right:

Do you find this happens all the time/Crucial point one day becomes a crime/And I'm not the kind that likes to tell you/Just what I want to do/I'm not the kind that needs to tell you/I've lost you

There's nothing to do but give myself over to this song. NEW ORDER, I SURRENDER TO THEE.