Hole-Violet/Breeders-Cannonball/Live-Mirror Song/Nine Inch Nails-Head Like a Hole/Nirvana-Drain You/Pearl Jam-Corduroy

I just finished my sixth year of teaching, and before yesterday I had never been to a graduation ceremony. I decided to go yesterday and check it out. It was a nice ceremony, and got me to thinking back to my high school days. I'm not sure what the senior class songs are these days (or if they even have them anymore), but when I was in school it seemed that every class was "assigned" either "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds, or "These Are Days" by 10,000 Maniacs. So, ummm... that Simple Minds song might be Molly Ringwald & Andrew McCarthy's song, but it ain't mine. And, let's just say that I wasn't exactly sold on Natalie Merchant.

When I was in high school, it was all about confusion. Not necessarily confusion like not being able to decide between a Butterfinger or Reese's Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard at Dairy Queen (Butterfinger nine times out of ten), but just not really being able to process things. High school is like those magnets people put up on the fridge with all the different facial expressions. joyful! WORRIED. jubilant! EXASPARATED. whimsical! DEPRESSED. anticipating! INDECISIVE. I was plagued by the inability to distinguish between the profound and trivial events in my life. The trivial was profound. The profound was trivial, or at times not even acknowledged. Up was down. Down was up. Sideways was... sideways going in the other direction.

Of course all of this goofiness was constantly filtered through the prism of music, and in my case it was filtered largely through the prism of 90s grunge/Buzz Clips/Yo MTV Raps!/120 Minutes/Headbanger's Ball/Beavis & Butthead/etc. That may or may not be a good thing, depending on your perspective. I'm gonna leave rap out of this post and focus on rock, because a lot of the 90s rap I was into I've already posted about, and I'm gonna need to post about it again soon, because I just saw a crazy rap festival lineup that I'm insanely pumped up about. But I digress... often.

So 90s people often seem to fall either into the Nirvana camp or the Pearl Jam camp. Obviously the Nirvana camp is a much hipper camp to be in, both because Nirvana holds up better musically, and because Kurt Cobain's suicide has absolved him of any responsibility to continue making quality music. Nirvana is a better band, and I liked them back then, but in terms of hours logged listening to during high school (HLLTDHS), I guess I was more of a Pearl Jam guy. So sue me. Call me a square. I know you are!

I think I will simply say that for all the sh*t Courtney Love gets (and deserves, at this point) for being a hot mess, the argument about whether Cobain wrote Live Through This is pointless. I don't really care if Cobain wrote it, played all four instruments, and somehow morphed into a strung out-looking blonde to sing it, there's some good songs on there.

All of these songs were musical fridge stickers for me, and it's nice to go back and listen to them again. High school was strange and confusing, but in retrospect it was also a lot of fun. Below are some of my favorite 90s rock songs, with the corresponding emotional itches scratched.

Hole-Violet: random aggression with no real target or focus


Breeders-Cannonball: The sun is out and the humidity is under 99%!


Live-Mirror Song: Feeling earnest about something. Perhaps I'm not quite sure what I'm feeling earnest about, but lyrics like "holy desert shield" (?) and "said unto this man" sound really important and deep.


Nine Inch Nails-Head Like a Hole: Aggression with a target, or I just kinda wanna drive fast.


Nirvana-Drain You: Rocking out like Beavis and Butthead.


Pearl Jam-Corduroy: I can't listen to Who's Next forever!

Tortoise-Djed/Seneca (Live & Studio versions)

I mentioned attention spans in the last post. I've actually felt mine eroding to a certain extent over the past ten or so years. In fact, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that great to begin with. But having easy access to computers, ipods, iphones, instant music, instant scrabble, instant coffee, and instant karma, I'd be lying if I said it hasn't had an effect on me. In a way that's sad, I guess, but if I'm cognizant of it, and I wield this microbe-sized attention span as a weapon with which to mercilessly ration out my ever-so-important time, then eventually I will be able to look back upon having lived the most efficient life in the history of man. Or something.

Take Tortoise, for instance. They have some long songs. One of them, Djed, is approximately twenty minutes long. Too much for someone with a short attention span, you ask while checking your other three tabs to check on airline tickets, an IM conversation you're barely paying attention to, and a game of angry birds? NO! See Djed is awesome, every section is distinct and beautiful, and the last half of the song pays the listener off with some of the most incredible music there has ever been (if you MUST only listen to one half of Djed, listen to the second half, but you're really missing out on the full experience).

People sometimes ask me what the best concert I've been to is. Well I'm certain of two things. One of the two best concerts I've ever seen was Prince, and the other was Tortoise. Prince is f*cking Prince, and he absolutely tore the roof off. But Tortoise was equally amazing, because even though they're almost scientifically precise with their playing, they also kick gobs and gobs of *ss. That's why I'm posting both the live and studio versions of Seneca. The song rocks so hard, and the groove they settle into rules. Yay Tortoise. :)

tUnE-yArDs-Bizness

The enjoyment I derive from watching Olympic track & field races is inversely related to the length of the race. If I gotta watch some dudes run in a circle seventy-five times, and wait a seemingly interminable amount of time just to see the wolfpack separate in the last lap, then count me out. I'm good for somewhere between sixty and four hundred meters, and after that I'd rather take my chances on a horse biffing into the water in equestrian. Does this mean I have the attention span of a horsefly? I don't know, but I gotta make my move on Words With Friends. Be right back.

Next week is the last week of the school year, and I feel like I'm at the end of one of those really long races. The part where I've been running for so long I can't even remember when the race began, and all of a sudden I'm like "Oh, ****! There's only one lap left!" So I break into an awkward sprint for the finish line, jostling for position and half breathing, half dry-heaving. I know I'll make it-I always do-but there's always that thought in the back of my head. What if I clip the last hurdle, face-planting into the hard surface while everyone whizzes by and I pound my loser fists onto the track? What if I tear my Achilles seven strides from the finish, and I have to hop across the finish line with everyone pity-clapping and secretly thinking, "Woah. Sucks to be him!"

One of the ways to push these negative thoughts out of my mind is to occasionally blare music into my cranium. And right now I am really enjoying blaring this particular song, and watching this great video. The kids in the beginning are freaking awesome, and I feel a certain kinship with all the adults making those crazy faces in the second section. I, too, feel the compulsion to make bizarre faces on occasion. I don't, on the other hand, decorate myself with white board markers and indulge in slow motion interpretive dance. But hey. Sweet video.

Amon Tobin-Four Ton Mantis/Get Your Snack On/Like Regular Chickens/Nightlife

For some reason, before this week I had never heard the song "Chicago" by Frank Sinatra. I found it a little strange, actually. I feel like, even if you're an untouchable like Sinatra, you should only write one anthem for a gigantic US city. He's from Jersey, so he shoulda just stuck with "New York, York." Or better yet, why not write a song for Newark, New Jersey?! People are gonna love NYC whether or not he sings a song about it. The Yankees are gonna have more money than God and make the playoffs every year, whether or not his song plays after Mariano Rivera saws the last hitter's bat in two in the top of the ninth inning. If I were an internationally adored crooner, I would write songs for lesser-known and more downtrodden US cities, cause those are the cities that need them!

So here are some chorus ideas I have for songs. AHEM...

Our 2012 was 1958,
Robocop came way too late,
Somebody saaaaave Detroooooooit!

The economy sucks, that jerk Lebron left us,
Looking for a meat cleaver in Cleeeeevelaaaaaaaand.

G-ville! Great college town! Party, rock out, and dance.
But drive ten minutes, it's the banjo player from Deliverance!


Ok, maybe I have to polish some of those. Anyways, Amon Tobin is incredible. Quick side note: I've pretty much given up on constructing posts with stories related to the songs I'm posting. Hence the complete lack of transition between the story and the music! Here are four great Amon Tobin tracks (I can't choose-he rules so hard). My favorite part in any of them might be 2:45 into "Like Regular Chickens," when the two guys from David Lynch's movie Eraserhead say "I just, uh, cut them up like regular chickens." "Oh, sure, just cut them up like regular chickens," then the drums absolutely freak out, with the slower drums eventually coming back in in the background. So good.

Robyn-In My Eyes

Pop stars seem to be getting younger and younger. I think I saw a girl with braces in a music video recently, though I'm not sure if that "Friday" song even counts. Regardless, it's gotta be tough for someone like Robyn, who is over thirty (!) and actually had a hit in the twentieth century.

This song kinda kicks ass, though. Good beats, and it's strangely uplifting. Makes me want to be all I can be. In honor of Mother's Day, here's to a pop star that's actually old enough to produce offspring!

Jefferson Airplane-White Rabbit/Echo and the Bunnymen-Killing Moon

Not having a laundry facility on-site was always a deal-breaker for me, but when I got my new place a few months ago, everything else was perfect, so I decided to go for it. Going to the laundromat hasn't been that big of a deal so far, but today was a bit out there. Maybe it's because I have today off, and the Monday day crowd isn't the same as the weekend crowd.

When I got there the place was packed, and slightly resembled a casting call for Night of the Living Dead. There was a lady with multiple sores on her face who seemed convinced that every other person in the laundromat was intent on stealing her clothes. She would stare down a person for about thirty to forty-five seconds, then turn around and mutter a few words to herself, a sly grin slowly spreading across her face. Her primary adversary was a man with stringy gray hair, approximately three teeth, Coke bottle glasses, and headphones blaring Led Zeppelin I loud enough for the whole place to hear. The strange thing was that despite the decibel level, he never once even bobbed his head, even at the most rocking parts of "Dazed and Confused" or "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You." He just calmly folded his clothes while Bonzo took two by fours to the inside of his skull.

In honor of my slightly strange trip to the laundromat and Easter, here's "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, and "Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen. There's a lot of "OMG DRUGZ" mythology to "White Rabbit," but this song is so great on its own terms. The build-up to the climax that starts at 1:22 is so amazing, and for a minute Grace Slick had a voice that could slay dragons.

I first heard "Killing Moon" in Zurich, and even though I was in this beautiful city with countless things to do, all I could do for approximately three hours was listen to this song on repeat. The intro and when the drums kick in especially blew me away. Great headphones song.

LCD Soundsystem - I Can Change

I've been running away from my past for far too long. I moved out to San Francisco ten years ago, thinking that I could just turn away from the last fifteen years of my existence. Just blot it out, like an unnecessarily snarky comment whited out on a student essay. People would ask me, "Where are you from," and I would say Paris, New York, and Florida, like they would be so bowled over by the first two that they wouldn't even be paying attention by the time they heard the last one. PARIS?!?!?! NEW YORK?!?!?! You must be so cultured?!?!? So sophisticated?!?! In this world, my birthday parties took place at The Guggenheim, and my weekends consisted of leisurely strolls down the Champs Elysees. Let them come to their own conclusions about how long I lived in each place. Never mind that the entirety of my formative years took place in Port Orange, Florida, a sleepy little suburb of Daytona Beach, whose version of the Tour De France consists not of superbly trained bicyclists from around the globe, but of beer-bellied bumpkin bikers from cities like Waldo, New Smyrna, and Longwood.

Sure, my house looked like a museum, but that wasn't really my reality. The sculptures were merely family members frozen in time, without the accompanying cocktail parties, gallery openings, or book signings. My reality was all Florida, all of the time. My reality was playing pick-up football at the park on Reed Canal Road, and hoping that the bigger kids that unfortunately sometimes showed up didn't shove me into the Reed Canal. My reality was a bizarre hybrid of tag and hide and seek outside the mall waiting for our parents to pick us up, the game inevitably devolving into my most hyper friend antagonizing everyone and subsequently getting threatened with his life. My reality was romantic dates at the local putt putt, transportation provided by parents with a mini-van and a little time on their hands.

Living in San Francisco has helped me come to grips with Florida. I love San Francisco, but it is a city filled with affectations. Everybody has a thing, be it organic food, wine, art, politics, non-profits, or general progressive-leaning social change. Most people are into their thing because they're into it, but some people seem to wear their causes like a Burberry scarf. This makes me appreciate Florida, which, for all it's "lack of culture" and general flatness (topographically, demographically, basically everything other than South Beach-chestedly), doesn't really put on airs for anyone.

LCD Soundsystem is an interesting little group. An interesting little group that just broke up. :( When they first came out they seemed a bit gimmicky, with goofy hipstery song titles like "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House Tonight." I kinda clumped them in with all the other ok but disposable dancey indie groups like The Rapture and Bloc Party. But upon closer inspection, James Murphy is a solid producer and a pretty good songwriter. A pretty good songwriter THAT TURNED DOWN A CHANCE TO WRITE FOR SEINFELD. Oops. Anyway, I regret never having seen them live. Seems like they put on a great show.

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!