On this site I will rant incoherently about songs that have utterly consumed me for extended periods of time. There will be an embedded Youtube video at the bottom of each post where you can easily check out the song. This is not a review site, and I am not a musician, so let's set the bar really low, shall we? If you would like to weather the extended rationale for this wholly irrational site, it’s in the first post.
Why am I writing about Washed Out? They're really not that great. They're pretty good, but in the high stakes world of hopelessly nerdy music dorkdom, their derivative second tier chillwave just doesn't really cut it. But here I am, posting their song for the world (or my five to seven readers) to see. Why do this? Because they served a very specific function for me this summer. When I was walking around New York City during an especially brutal heat wave, I went out of my way to listen to music that made me feel a bit cooler. Not hipster cooler, but turn the thermostat from 104 to 93 cooler. Listening to hard rock or hardcore rap probably was not going to achieve that. I needed something dreamy, effervescent, fluffy, and generally light on the ears. It didn't really matter that the song was so light on the ears that it would more than likely eventually completely disappear from my reality, it was the fact that it was there for me in my time of need that mattered.
One group that has been at least some sort of inspiration for Washed Out are The Magnetic Fields. Their album Holiday will, and has stood the test of time. "The Trouble I've Been Looking For" is posted below. If certain new bands wear their influences on their sleeves, you can at least check the sleeve and find out some other good bands to listen to!
Rock the Bells was yesterday. It's the third time I've gone, and there were a few new treats this year. They started doing some full albums last year, and continuing that trend this year with more legendary albums was exciting. Here's a chronological run-down of the performances I watched:
Souls of Mischief performing '93 Till Infinity: We got to the show about halfway through the album, but fortunately the last three songs, '93 Till Infinity, Limitations, and Anything Can Happen are my three favorite songs on the album. Good stuff.
Common performing Be: Ok. I like Common. I recognize that he's talented. There are even songs of his that I love. But watching him for over an hour, especially when there are other acts I'm more excited to see, can be rough. His lyrics sometimes make me feel like I'm watching a Dr. Phil episode with beats. I'm not saying that I'm against rap with positive lyrics, but the production often mirrors the lyrics, and sometimes there's just not a lot of bite to it. I'm posting an old song of his I do love. Sadly he didn't play it.
Black Star (Mos Def and Talib Kweli) performing Black Star: Well this proves that I'm not biased against "positive rap," cause Black Star discuss similar themes, but the lyrics are better, the production is better, and Mos Def in particular just has a very distinctive voice and flow. "Respiration" is one of my favorite songs (I actually use it to open poetry units sometimes, cause the lyrics are so good), and it sounded great.
Cypress Hill performing Black Sunday: At first I was really bummed to hear that they weren't performing their first album, because that's a better album. Black Sunday is good, but their self-titled is great. Thankfully they opened with my three favorite songs from their first album! B-Real is another MC with a very distinctive voice (DJ Muggs does too, actually), and Cypress Hill's songs came off really good live. After two consecutive hours of positivity, it was good to get grimy again. I'm posting "Real Estate," a great song with a filthy sample from their first album.
Mobb Deep performing The Infamous: Speaking of grime, this might be the ultimate grime album. Prodigy and Havoc have always been two of the best MCs, and they haven't lost it. "Survival of the Fittest" and Shook Ones, Part II" sounded especially great.
Genius/Gza performing "Liquid Swords": I've been waiting to see this album performed live for a long time, and it was great. It's not the kind of album that is gonna get people jumping around; the beats are great, but they're slightly more down-tempo than the ones on 36 Chambers and Cuban Linx. They're more of a showcase for Gza's ridiculous lyrics and flow. The stage got really packed as people started filtering over from Nas (who we skipped cause we'd seen before), and everyone was loving it.
Lauryn Hill: Meh. Forty-five minutes late at the end of a long day. We'd seen her before, so we listened to a couple of songs then beat the crowd out. She was the queen of the world for a while, but unfortunately (mostly due to her own choices, it seems) she's not anymore. Please tone down the diva. Thanks!
Summer's over, and it was back to school this past week. As a high school English teacher, the year has a necessary rhythm and cycle of regeneration. By the time the end of May comes, my brain (and body, it seems) is beat up and in need of some rest (at least from teaching). Then, towards the end of summer, after the time off and ability to consume some of the things I've been putting off ten months, I'm recharged, excited and hungry to go back to school. This past summer was especially fruitful in terms of feeding myself the things that make me excited about language, art, and life in general. For the interest of time, I'm simply gonna list some of these things:
1) The play Jerusalem
I'm quite sure people are tired of hearing me talking about this, but it was seriously one of the most amazing nights of my life watching this play. We somehow lucked into third row seats, and it was mind-blowing. I had never seen Mark Rylance act before, but from this point on I'll watch anything he's in, even if it's the Broadway version of Police Academy Five. The play was hilarious, sad, twisted, and had an ending scene that could make a person or two in the audience pass out.
2) The book A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley: Granted, Exley does not seem like a nice guy, but can he ever write! Hysterical and beautifully written.
3) The book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides: One of those long, epic books that covers a century and multiple countries, but is so engaging and well-written that it never for a minute gets boring. Then I get sad at the end cause I can't read any more about the characters.
4) Outside Lands Music Festival: Friday night was a bit frustrating because we missed Big Boi and Erykah Badu, because Big Boi never came on and Badu's set had to be pushed back. Other than that, however, it was great fun and beautiful weather. Here's my ranking of favorite sets from the weekend. A list within a list!
1. Tune-Yards: I loved watching her sample and loop her vocals and drums at the beginning of songs to construct the foundation, and her voice and the beats sounded great as she sang over them. Also, she just looked like she was having so much fun, and was genuinely appreciative of the large crowd that gathered for her early set.
2. Toro Y Moi: He gets pigeonholed by that corny genre term "chillwave," but his songs are also influenced by funk and R & B. He was really fun live, and I can't wait to hear his next record.
3. The Arcade Fire: They're always great live, but even though their new record is pretty good, seeing them perform again just reinforces that they've never been able to replicate the greatness of their first album. That's no crime: Funeral is so good, it's practically impossible to follow. They'll always be a solid live band, though.
4. The Fresh and Onlys: This a local San Francisco band that has been blowing up a bit along with some other San Francisco bands. They had really solid, hooky rock songs, and I'm glad they played on a smaller stage. I'm definitely gonna check out their stuff.
5. The Black Keys: They are definitely a great band, but for me they are not built to play on a huge main stage at a festival. I saw them at The Warfield and they kicked ass. The Arcade Fire and U2 play songs that are made for large venues-The Black Keys need to pummel you in a small club.
6. Tamaryn: I wasn't sure if her shoegazey rock would work well in an outdoor venue, but I enjoyed her set. The vocals weren't drowned in the mix, and the hooks came through.
7. Ty Seagall: Another local San Francisco rock band, but heavier than The Fresh and Onlys. Solid set.
One of the best things about the festival is always just being in Golden Gate Park for the weekend, and being reminded of what a beautiful city we all live in. A perfect send off for the summer.
5) I bought my first piece of art!: My friend Max is an amazing artist ( http://maxehrman.carbonmade.com/ ), and I bought something from him for my apartment. Nothing huge or overly expensive, but I miss living with art, so a little piece here and there makes my apartment feel like home.
6) The book Just Kids by Patti Smith: I've loved her music for a long time now, but it was really inspiring to hear how completely dedicated she and Mapplethorpe were to art and each other. All the crazy stories about artists, musicians, and writers at The Chelsea Hotel ( :( http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028125/Hotel-Chelsea-New-York-closes-Where-Dylan-Thomas-drank-death.html ) and CBGB were also fascinating to read about. I almost lost it when I read about her hearing "Marquee Moon" by Television for the first time at CBGB.
Listen to her vocals! She is THE BEST. "AND THE NIGHTMARES! G-L-O-R-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-AYE-GLORIA! GLOOOOOOOOOOORIA!"
7) The Gertrude Stein Collection at SFMOMA, Kandinsky at the Bauhaus at The Guggenheim, and Lyonel Feininger at The Whitney. Had a Bauhaus day in New York City, then went and saw some amazing paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, etc. here in SF. It was also interesting to hear about the Steins' lives as collectors and patrons.
8) Writing: I got to do more of my own writing this summer, which always gets me more excited to teach once the year comes back around. It's hard to sustain a lengthy project, but the more determined i am in keeping at it, the more I find out about myself as a writer.
9) The Who's Harry Nilsson? And Why is Everybody Talkin' About Him? documentary: Harry Nilsson rules, and this documentary was a great window into his creative process, his sometimes self-destructive behavior, and just how much the greatest musicians on the planet love his music. One of the best parts is when he describes writing the song "One." He was listening to a phone's busy signal when he came up with the repeated piano note (and probably the theme of the song itself).
I have to add one of his songs that's sung by Shelley Duvall. He wrote it for Popeye, but Paul Thomas Anderson also used it to great effect in Punch Drunk Love. I love it so much.
The section at 1:25 is just so perfect.
No one ever asked before, before, because they never needed me
"But I do"
But he does!
Maybe it's because he's so alone
Maybe it's because he's never had a home
He needs me
NOTE: If you wanna get into Nilsson, you should probably start with the album Nilsson Schmillson. It's amazing.
I could go on, but this post is already way too long. All of the above things make me feel giddy and happy to be alive. And now that I'm rested and renewed, it's great to be back at school! So it goes...
The most succinct definition of hipster I found on urbandictionary.com reads as follows:
"One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool. (Note: it is no longer recommended that one use the term "cool"; a Hipster would instead say "deck.") The Hipster walks among the masses in daily life but is not a part of them and shuns or reduces to kitsch anything held dear by the mainstream. A Hipster ideally possesses no more than 2% body fat."
Uh, what the hell is "deck"? Oh well. I don't think I ever had a hipster card to lose in the first place. Anyway, I would add that oftentimes hipster culture involves incorporating certain trends that originated in the past, often in the 70s or 80s. There's even a funny site called Dads Are the Original Hipsters that takes hipsters to task for appropriating trends that their dads made cool.
Music of course is always a huge part of these scenes, and there are some bands whose music could easily end up on that site. I would argue, however, that you can tell when a band is simply aping the sound of the 70s and 80s for no real reason, as the song beneath the nostalgic facade is usually garbage. But when there's a solid foundation, and the production simply serves the song, then it can be successful.
"Chinatown" by Destroyer and "One Evening" by Feist both do a solid job of incorporating smooth 80s sounds into their song, but there's also a good song there, so it works. They also both have solid, diverse catalogues, so their albums transcend any 80s revival gimmicks. Both "Arthur's Theme" by Christopher Cross and "Self Control" by Laura Branigan are great 80s hits, and pay special attention to the amazing Branigan video. There's a man making love to a cello at 2:47, and the scene at 3:24 with the hands desperately grabbing at a terrified Branigan is a crushing metaphor for something, but I'm still trying to figure it out. Feel free to leave a comment if you can decipher it.
A while ago I read this great short essay called "Never Do That To A Book" by Anne Fadiman. It was part of a collection of writings that all dealt with the love of books. This one divided readers into two kinds: courtly and carnal. Courtly readers are very formal with their books-they use bookmarks, they never write in them or fold the top corners. Carnal readers, on the other hand, sort of lovingly manhandle their books. They fold them, write all over them, use them as doorstops, hold the place by splaying them upside down at the current page (!), etc. She made carnal readers sound so... I don't know, hot? Haha. I instinctively got almost defensive, because I'd always been a courtly reader. I loved the look and feel of new books, and never wanted to sully them with folds, scribbles, and warped covers. But there was something in the piece that made me reconsider my stance:
During the next thirty years I came to realize that just as there is more than one way to love a person, so is there more than one way to love a book. The chambermaid believed in courtly love. A book's physical self was sacrosanct to her, its form inseparable from its content; her duty as a lover was Platonic adoration, a noble but doomed attempt to conserve forever the state of perfect chastity in which it had left the bookseller. The Fadiman family believed in carnal love. To us, a book's words were holy, but the paper, cloth, cardboard, glue, thread and ink that contained them were a mere vessel, and it was no sacrilege to treat them as wantonly as desire and pragmatism dictated. Hard use was a sign not of disrespect but of intimacy.
Needless to say, she won me over to the carnal side. Since then I've been treating my books like Madonna treats Willem Defoe in Body of Evidence. Actually, no, not quite that, I just wanted to use Body of Evidence in a post. Remember how awful that movie was? Anyways, my most recent tryst has been with the book A Fan's Notes, and I've been folding it up more than an origamist with Tourette's Syndrome (wait, did I just write that? [and does it make any sense?]) So many excerpts just kill me. Here's one I love:
Now I see in that laughter a good deal of desperation and sadness. About to leave the haven of our separate universities and be thrown out onto the brutal free-spinning of the world, as we walked arm in arm through the snow, we carried with us, if only unconsciously, the knowledge that it would be our last holiday together; and we drank and laughed and sneered with the resolute sadness of men who knew that tomorrow we'd be trying to free our own mortgaged Buicks from our own snowlocked drives. That is what most of us ended up doing. I didn't; but I don't question that my friends were right and I wrong, that they were happy and I not, that theirs was the hard and mine the easy way. What always saddened me on confronting them was the surety that had I been foolish enough to bring up "old times," none would have allowed himself a memory of sticking his finger into the vaporous and flaky air and shouting, "Shovel, you f*cking dummies!" A self-destructively romantic man, I accepted our jeering defiance as a pact; forever.
One of the great things about music is sometimes profound emotions can be conveyed without the use of words, or at least words spoken in a language that can be understood. Ten years I ago I heard the album Agaetis Byrjun by Sigur Ros for the first time, and I loved it. It's almost audaciously beautiful, and makes me think in one instant, "What gave these guys the b*lls to think they could pull this record off?" and in the next instant think, "Well, cause they did." The lyrics are half in Icelandic, and half in some language they just made up, but it doesn't matter. When Jonsi sings, "Eee chee oooo oooo eeeeeeeeeh," I'm like, "YES! YES! EEE CHEEE OOOO OOOO EEEEEEEHHHH."
The song I posted is "Viorar Vel Til Loftarasa." When I saw Sigur Ros live and they played this song, my head almost exploded. Listen to the whole thing.
I loved Digable Planets when I was a kid. I'm posting "Rebirth of Slick" from their debut album because it was their big hit (and it's great), but there's practically no filler on the entire thing. One of my favorite verses is from the second track, "Pacifics":
Wake up, prayin' that the game's on Maybe it's the Runnin' Rebs, maybe it's the Knicks maybe it's a rerun of an old tv show like hawaii 5-0 or karate flicks maybe if the phone rings butterfly will take wings speakin on some cool things frontin like i cope born under flat ground now i'm chillin shaky ground reachin for pacific heights sunday is my rope - dig it Sunday's to relax, Sunday's to relax Some Sunday morning drama is callin up my mama The hot line is in I guess the ? knew the deal Vibin off the jams of the crews on Sugarhill Lay around and think ain't nothin to do Checkin out some frommes, some satre, camus Mingus's Ah Um, damn Roach can drum The DP's are life there they go here they come It's time to grab some loot put on the timber boots Checking out some dollies/dali's like tasha and kamali NY is a museum with its posters and graffiti If you're in the city on Sunday come check me, get with me
I was always kinda bummed that they fell out of sight after their second album, Blowout Comb, which was also really good. "9th Wonder (Blackitolism)" is probably my favorite track from that record. I was stunned when I heard that Shabbaz Palaces was Butterfly's (the main rapper from DP) new project. I'm really digging the new album Black Up so far. The first two youtubes below (with impossibly long titles) are from that album.
Usually I post about songs and albums that I am very familiar and obsessed with, but this new Bon Iver album is THE HOT THING right now, so I felt like I would be remiss in not checking it out. I also made a concerted effort to listen to the entire thing from front to back, which is quite a feat for me. I was in the laundromat, and I read A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley (which you should all read because it's amazing) during the wash cycle, and threw on Bon Iver while the dryer was doing its business.
It generally takes me at least a few listens through an album to really figure out what I feel about it, but on first listen Bon Iver was very nice. Though the songs didn't all sound the same, there was a very definite mood running throughout them. I had the feeling of sitting peacefully in a thatched hut with four to six faceless but benevolent souls. And then the last song came on. All of a sudden Peter Cetera, doing a flying ninja kick, crashed through the roof of the hut and sh*t "Glory of Love" on all of our heads. We were jolted out of our reverie, with flashbacks of law of diminishing return Karate Kid sequels splattering the fragile walls of our collective psyche. I don't even know if I'll end up liking this song, but the clash with the rest of the album on first listen was startling.
I've posted "Calgary," which, while halfway through becomes the most uptempo track, feels very similar in mood to the rest of the album, as well as "Peter Cetera" 2011 and Peter Cetera 1986. To be clear, I'm not hating on Peter Cetera, but let's also be clear that there is only one Peter Cetera, and nowhere in his vast real estate collection are there any thatched huts to be found.
Summer is a time for experimentation. And no, I don't mean chugging a bottle of Drano while wearing a coat made entirely of live ferrets. I mean writing a book, taking a trip, or growing a beard! Yes, for the first time in my suddenly not that short life, I am growing a beard. And it's fun! It's like I'm building an entirely new face. And there are surprises along the way. Oh yes. I figured the beard would simply grow in brown, like my hair. But no. Oh no. The base color is a reddish-brown (Crayola term), and there are quite a few gray hairs joining the party.
One would think that these gray hairs would immediately send me into a panic, gazing into the mirror to see my own mortality staring back at me in the form of twelve to seventeen wispy strands of existential angst. Nah. I think they look cool! I feel like this look will lend my bad puns a certain gravitas they've been previously lacking. And the possibilities of beard art are seemingly endless. Perhaps I will rotate dying the beard different colors, like Michael Cera's girlfriend does with her hair in Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Perhaps I will turn the mustache into a Rollie Fingers style handlebar, or a Fu Manchu.
Will I probably end up doing any of these things? No. But has my face been transformed from a static, lifeless cardboard facade to a dynamic palate ready to be embellished in any way I see fit? No, not really that either. But yeah, I got a beard!
Speaking of experimentation, DJ Shadow and Flying Lotus are two of the best experimental "dj/producer/IDM/EDM/people who create sound" artists of recent memory. DJ Shadow's a bit past his prime, but Endtroducing still stands up as an amazing album. "The Number Song" mixes a sample of the Metallica instrumental "Orion" with crazy drum samples. "Do the Astral Plane" by Flying Lotus has everything but a sample of the kitchen sink. Groooooooan. See that bad pun goes over better with the beard. Really.
There have only been a few times in my life when I've thought to myself, "Have I ever been this happy before?" One of those times was at Iguazu Falls in Argentina. My friend and I walked the trails for a few hours, and everywhere we went there was a spectacular new perspective. Looking from the edge of the rail and watching the water plunge downward, or craning our necks to see the water crash down towards us. The sound of the falls was both powerful and peaceful, like a thousand hummingbirds on steroids. Rainbows might seem a bit cliche in conversation, but when they spread across a clear blue sky speckled with the foam from countless waterfalls, it's an amazing sight. And this place had more rainbows than a Lucky Charms commercial.
Maybe the best part was when we took a little speedboat into the actual falls. The driver took us right by one of the biggest ones and said, "Are you ready to go in?!" We all yelled affirmations like schoolgirls at a Taylor Swift concert, and he gunned it straight into the fall. The fall seemed to get exponentially taller as we approached it, and my friend and I clutched each other to brace for impact. Our giddy yelps were blotted out by the crashing water, and when we re-emerged into the daylight we all screamed at the driver to go again. He obliged, and we did another circle. Between the beauty of the scenery, the peaceful grandeur of the waterfalls, and the excitement and comradery our group felt in experiencing this together, it immediately jumped into the top five on my list of "Top 10 Best Days Ever." It's currently sandwiched somewhere between the time my first record went platinum and the time I knocked out Apollo Creed.
When I can't travel for one reason or another, I like to listen to a little Joni Mitchell. Most of her songs deal with love, some exotic, exciting place, or a combination of both. The way her love songs rise above generic is that she really bears her soul. Reading her lyrics is like dissecting a frog in fifth grade science class. It's all there to see, and sometimes it ain't pretty. Thankfully, she can write, so her lyrics don't come across awkwardly emo so much as exposed, vulnerable, and honest. The lighter songs often deal with exciting places, and in transporting me to Paris, Africa, or wherever, it's both a vicarious journey and an inspiration to go there myself.
My two favorite Joni records are Blue and Court and Spark. "Carey" is a really light-hearted, fun song on a pretty intense album. "This Flight Tonight" is magical. It sounds like she's playing the acoustic right next to the speaker, and her vocals sound so good. I also love the acoustic sound on "People's Parties," and the lyrics are incredible. Here's a couple of stanzas:
All the people at this party They've got a lot of style They've got stamps of many countries They've got passport smiles Some are friendly Some are cutting Some are watching it from the wings Some are standing in the centre Giving to get something
Photo Beauty gets attention Then her eye paint's running down She's got a rose in her teeth And a lampshade crown One minute she's so happy Then she's crying on someone's knee Saying laughing and crying You know it's the same release
The transition from "People's Parties" into "Same Situation" is perfect, but I can't replicate it through youtube, and three youtubes is enough, dammit!
I have jury duty tomorrow. San Francisco never fails to send a jury duty summons on a yearly basis. I always postpone it to the summer, and so here I am. Doing my duty as a citizen of the United States of America. It won't be that bad if I'm chosen, as long as it's not some boring trial about zoning restrictions or a fender bender. If I'm gonna get chosen for a trial, I want it to be for something juicy, like a dog mauling case involving a rabid chihuahua, or a billionaire heiress accused of shoplifting two hundred boxes of Fruit Roll Ups.
It would be interesting to observe the entire process of a jury trial, though I'm sure it wouldn't conform to all the cliches that movies and TV shows have hammered into my head through the years. There will probably be no star witness called to the stand, and no cross-examination showdown culminating in the witness lunging at the defense attorney screaming, "YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT JUSTICE! MY BROTHER DIED FOR HIS SINS, AND YOU'LL DIE FOR YOURS!!!!!!!"
The thing that appeals to me about trials is the intellectual showdown aspect. It's like that Gladiatior movie, but instead of Russell Crowe and some random villain with undefined muscular tone and a creepy steel mask, it's two brains staring each other down in the center of the ring. It's like the Wrestlemania of the mind. Actually, it'd be pretty sweet if each attorney had a finishing move. At the end of his closing argument, if he knows the trial is really in the bag, he can get the other lawyer in a figure four leglock, finish him off with a suplex, or do a body slam from the turnbuckle.
I definitely had a wrestling phase when I was a kid. Some of my favorites were The Iron Sheik, Andre the Giant, Jake "The Snake" Roberts, Bret "The Hitman" Hart, and of course Randy "Macho Man" Savage. Obviously wrestling is fake, and obviously it's totally corny, but the man was freaking hilarious. "Macho Man" passed away recently, and beneath the songs I'm posting a classic clip of him with Mean Gene Okerlund, who was an amazing straight man for all the weirdo wrestlers. The end of the clip is gold. "Can I ask a question, Macho Man?" "NO MORE QUESTIONS!" "I'm sorry about that." :D
To get me in an ideological lather before the possible trial, I've been listening to some Gang of Four lately. They have great lyrics and killer buzzsaw guitars, but above all else the rhythm section in this band is incredible. "Damaged Goods" is perhaps their "hookiest" song, "At Home He's a Tourist" shows how great they are live, and their kickass rhythm section owns "Natural's Not In It." I had no idea that "Natural's Not In It" was used in the Marie Antoinette soundtrack. Whatever. JUST FUELING MY IDEOLOGICAL FIRE.
I'm a hyper person. This manifests itself in a few ways. I'll be driving to school early in the morning, and instead of slowly easing into the morning with some NPR or a laid back Miles Davis record, I'll choose to taser my cranium with glitched out Aphex Twin tracks, or pummel my eardrums with a really heavy Sonic Youth record. Every once in a while I'll have to consciously stop myself and put on something a little more chilled out. This idea may or may not occur to me, depending on my mood.
Sometimes tending towards the hyper side can come in useful. I bat leadoff for my softball team, and it's not because I'm the best hitter. I generally hit singles, but I hit them pretty regularly, and once I'm on my base my spastic energy usually works to my advantage. When I'm in the outfield, I might back up the left fielder while playing right center, just because I'm bored and feel like running. This doesn't always help anybody, but it's fun!
There is, of course, a down side to being hyper, even on the softball field. I lost my spikes a couple months ago, and I've been playing Russian Roulette and going without since then. Last night I hit a single to an outfield playing unnecessarily deep (apparently their team is deficient in the scouting department). I ran to second, and then thought that the mediocre throw might allow me to make it to third. It didn't, and I had to throw on the brakes and quickly get back to second. Well, I busted @#*. For some reason I also like wearing basketball shorts while playing softball, so my exposed legs ended up looking like the filling for strawberry rhubarb pie. Being the indomitable warrior that I am, I toughed it out and scored, but my legs are still looking pretty rugged today.
It reminded me of the last time I skinned up my legs this badly. I was at summer "gifted camp" (nerd alert!), and I was running back to my Western Carolina University dorm as fast as I could. I was about to execute a trade of some old Batman comic book for a copy of Metallica's Ride The Lightning, and boy was I pumped. I was running faster than lightning, if you catch my drift. I ran around the corner, and while I excitedly saw the dorm coming into view, I completely failed to notice that the sidewalk suddenly ended. It was only about a two foot drop, but when I landed on the concrete my legs suddenly knew pain like they had never known before. After nervously glancing around to ensure that no one had witnessed this Wiley Coyote-falling-off-the-cliff moment, I proceeded to drag my tattered carcass the rest of the way to the dorm. The only thing that kept me going was the promise of rubbing alcohol and speed metal. In the end, however, perhaps my ordeal allowed me to relate more easily to James Hetfield's tortured cries and Kurt Hammett's furious shredding.
Metallica has become the poster band of lame in the last decade or so, with Lars Ulrich's Napster whining, their bloated symphonic versions of old songs, and that silly documentary filled with band bickering and art buying. Back in the day, however, they were pretty awesome. I worshipped Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice For All, and the following songs were my favorites from each album. Master of Puppets was the album I loved most, but the video for "One" immediately caught my attention. A KID GETS EVERYTHING BLOWN OFF IN WAR AND IS FORCED TO CONTINUE LIVING?!?! THAT'S SO MESSED UP, AND SOOOO... METAL.
When I heard about the Rock the Bells lineup this summer, I almost lost it. Gza performing Liquid Swords, Raekwon & Ghostface performing Only Built for Cuban Linx, Nas performing Illmatic, Black Star performing their self-titled album, Mobb Deep performing The Infamous, Lauryn Hill performing The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, etc. So many absolutely classic, legendary albums from the 90s performed front to back!
But it also frustrated me that there aren't many new hip hop acts that I'm really excited about. Granted, I don't exactly listen to (new) rap quite as much as I used to, but it's still pretty obvious that the overall quality has gone down. Recently, however, the group Odd Future has been making an impression. They're really just a bunch of kids (one of them, Earl the Sweatshirt, is actually supposedly in juvie right now), and they're very polarizing. Their production is often great, with dark synths and grimy beats. They can all flow, and Tyler's gravelly voice fits the production really well, especially when juxtaposed with Earl's more youthful-sounding voice. But there's just one problem, and it might be the problem that keeps them from blowing up.
They're offensive. Like not just throw a curse word in here or there offensive, but almost every ________ophobic type of offensive you could think of. I don't know, I've long since stopped writing off music because I disagree with the things people say in it. Do I listen to this music to learn moral lessons, or because I want to model myself after the artist, or because I'm voting for them for some kind of office? I think you could extend this type of thinking to almost any sort of art. If you read Lolita, does that make you a paedophile? If you watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre, does that make you a serial killer? If you listen to Mobb Deep, does that make you a gang banger?
Tyler actually says, "It's f*cking fiction," in one of his songs, and that's how I look at it. Some of the artists that people lionize were actually total jerks, such as John Lennon (deadbeat father to son Julian), Bob Dylan (wielded his intelligence like a machete), the Rolling Stones (misogynists who obliterated Marianne Faithful, among others), etc. I'd rather completely separate the artist from the art, and take from the music only what I want to. And I do see glimmers of meaning poking through the uber-aggressive lyrics, when he raps about the rejection he feels from being abandoned by his father, or being a confused, hyper nineteen year old with the world suddenly watching and judging his every move.
The most compelling thing I've ever seen by this group is the video for "Yonkers" (which I'm not gonna post, cause this is a family site!), and while there's some pretty disturbing images in it, I watched it with my jaw on the ground for the entire time. Isn't that what "art" is supposed to do? Now, I'm not putting these guys in a post with these legends to compare them with Mobb Deep or Black Star. About half their stuff is good, and half of it is meh. But at least they're doing something different! I look forward to seeing where they go from here. I'm posting Tyler the Creator and Hodgy Beats on Jimmy Fallon. Great performance (listen to the beat kick back in as Hodgy Beats starts the second verse), and there's Mos Def at the end of the video. IF HE LIKES IT, IT MUST BE GOOD.
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!
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. :)
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Why am I writing about Washed Out? They're really not that great. They're pretty good, but in the high stakes world of hopelessly nerdy music dorkdom, their derivative second tier chillwave just doesn't really cut it. But here I am, posting their song for the world (or my five to seven readers) to see. Why do this? Because they served a very specific function for me this summer. When I was walking around New York City during an especially brutal heat wave, I went out of my way to listen to music that made me feel a bit cooler. Not hipster cooler, but turn the thermostat from 104 to 93 cooler. Listening to hard rock or hardcore rap probably was not going to achieve that. I needed something dreamy, effervescent, fluffy, and generally light on the ears. It didn't really matter that the song was so light on the ears that it would more than likely eventually completely disappear from my reality, it was the fact that it was there for me in my time of need that mattered.
