Why Are There So Many Records In My Life?

Best of 2011: Top 40 Monster Jams

2012-01-05T13:45:00.003-06:00

40. Blackout Beach – “Torchlights Banned” from Fuck Death

39. Seapony – “Blue Star” from Go With Me

I do miss the idiosyncrasies of Transmittens, but Jen and Danny are still killing it.

38. Wild Flag – “Romance” from Wild Flag

"Portlandia" is actually really funny. Go figure.

37. La Sera – “Never Come Around” from La Sera

36. James Blake – “Wilhelms Scream” from James Blake

35. Liturgy – “Generation” from Aesthethica

I am notoriously not a fan of metal because I don't know anything about metal and it seems daunting. But I really liked this record. Which probably makes me the bane of every metal fan because metal fans hated this record I read. I'm interested though, maybe this is a gateway to the genre? I saw Bad Religion open for Blink 182 when I was younger and that got me into punk rock so there?

34. Dum Dum Girls – “Wrong Feels Right” from He Gets Me High

33. Beirut – “East Harlem” from The Rip Tide

32. The War on Drugs – “Best Night” from Slave Ambient

I really wanted to spend more time with this album but just never did. I listened to this song a lot though.

31. Tim Kasher – “Opening Night” from Bigamy

30. East River Pipe – “The Flames Are Coming Back” from We Live in Rented Rooms

A very tough call. So many great tracks on this record.

29. The Decemberists – “Don’t Carry it All” from The King is Dead

28. Kurt Vile – “Puppet to the Man” from Smoke Ring For My Halo

27. David Bazan – “Wolves at the Door” from Strange Negotiations

26. The Get Up Kids – “Rememorable” from There Are Rules

25. M83 – “Midnight City” from Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming

24. Zola Jesus – “Lick the Palm of the Burning Handshake” from Conatus

23. Girls – “Honey Bunny” from Father, Son, Holy Ghost

“Vomit” would be the jam here if it were maybe two and a half minutes shorter.

22. Hospital Ships – “Galaxies” from Lonely Twin

Video of the year. But I'm biased because I live in this town and this video made me feel OK about still living here.

21. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – “Belong” from Belong

Loved this song for months, had such high hopes for this album until I heard it and realized they’d just tried to remake Siamese Dream.

20. Crooked Fingers – “She Tows the Line” from Breaks in the Armor

A tough call, since this is such an Album. I always look forward to this one the most though.

19. Andrew Jackson Jihad – “This is Why I’m Hot” from Andrew Jackson Jihad/O Pioneers!!! Split

Andrew Jackson Jihad – “Hate, Rain on Me” from Knife Man

This is my sneaky way of including an artist twice on a list. Two releases warrant two tracks and eat up only one spot. Perfect. “This is Why I’m Hot” was on this list before I even knew Knife Man was coming out. And there are some great, great tracks on that record but “Hate, Rain on Me” is the most thesis statement-y of the bunch. “I wanna put on my sweatpants/ But don’t you know I’m trying to quit/ I wanna give a shit again.” Perfect.

18. Smith Westerns – “Dye the World” from Dye it Blonde

Chicago Young’uns make good on their promise with unpretentious pop mastery. There are a lot of first and last songs from records on this list. This was a great year for closing tracks, I think. Songs that sum up an album with one last hurrah. These guys still seem a bit immature, but it doesn’t get in the way of the music, so let’s say that’s a good thing.

17. In Good Company – “Harmony’s Double” from David’s Town
http://www.mp3fiesta.com/in_good_company_harmonys_double_track4107777/
A track from Fucked Up’s fake compilation tie-in to their fantastic David Comes to Life. Who knew the songs would be so good? And who knew this jam, which features lead vocals from the New Pornographers’ AC Newman would be one of the best songs of the year. Sneaky sneaky.

16. Richard Buckner – “Confession” from Our Blood

The most sad and gorgeous tune from an album of nothing but sad and gorgeous tunes. Makes me remember why I was obsessed with Alt-Country for a solid year.

15. Cass McCombs – “County Line” from Wit’s End

Wit’s End is a gorgeous record. A gorgeous record that I could only get about halfway through. I listened to it before bed a lot. It lulls. One of these days I’ll just put on the back half and see what I’m missing out on. But this song, oh man. Just pure heart-stopping beauty.

14. St. Vincent – “Cruel” from Strange Mercy

Reinventing the indie guitar record. Also one of the best music videos of the year!

13. Bon Iver – “Beth/Rest” from Bon Iver, Bon Iver

Speaking of amazing closing songs that perfectly sum up a record, “Beth/Rest” gets it done. All of the forward momentum of this record barrels toward this awesome, lite-rock infused jam and yeah, it was “divisive” or whatever, I wrote a whole thing about what the fuck does “divisive” mean anyway a few months back and realized that I didn’t really care if people thought this song was cheesy. Because it’s gorgeous. It’s ballsy, and it shows you that Justin Vernon knows exactly what he is doing. “Holocene” got nominated for a Grammy, and is the track that has been singled out, but man, it’s a tough call. What track do you pick on an album so clearly the sum of its parts. “Holocene” was the track on this list all year, but it makes more sense that this final part of the equation be the one that sums this album up just right (even if it sounds totally different from every other song on the record).

12. Wye Oak – “Civilian” from Civilian

I’m pry gonna go change my Top 25 albums list, because I forgot about this record when I was making it. That seems kind of wrong, if I forgot about it then why should I just go plug it in? But man oh man, what a good record. From a band that’s just grown so much since the first time I saw them at SXSW and fell asleep in the back of the room. And now they’re just captivating. And I’ve seen them like four times in the last year and a half, opening for bands that I love love love. And this is one of Jenny’s favorite albums of the year, so I listened to it a lot. And this song oh man this song, is just gorgeous and intense and fierce as shit.

11. The Mountain Goats – “For Charles Bronson” from All Eternals Deck

The Mountain Goats – “Catherine Antrim’s Kid” from All Survivors Pack

Another sneaky entry! The inclusion of “Catherine Antrim’s Kid”—the best song ever written about Billy the Kid—is a nod to the fact that John Darnielle is so good, amazing tracks get left off his records. No one does B-sides like that guy. There’s another track on that demos disc, “Rotten Stinking Mouthpiece,” that’s just as good. It’s nuts. “For Charles Bronson” makes the cut because it was the first song I heard form All Eternals Deck. He played it live at the Bottleneck last time the Mountain Goats were in town, and it lit my little fuse of excitement for a new Mountain Goats record. It’s a song about a survivor on an album about surviving and survivors. “Never Quite Free” is a close, close second.

10. Yuck – “Shook Down” from Yuck

Man what a tough call. This was my favorite album of the year because ALL of the songs are just so fucking great. “Get Away,” “Georgia,” “Suck,” “Suicide Policeman,” and “Operation” could all fill this spot, but again, it comes down to (as it always does), the song that hooked me. More importantly, the part of the song that hooked me. Two minutes and forty seconds in where you can hear that distortion turn up and the song just triumphantly marches into timeless oblivion to the refrain of “You could be my destiny/You could mean that much to me” and a five note guitar solo. This is my kind of music.

9. Bright Eyes – “Triple Spiral” from The People’s Key

The most jubilant track from what’s mostly a pensive, personal record. It has this epiphany-esque quality to it. A moment of clarity where the universe exposes itself before closing in on itself again. I got really into pagan icons after this (read: spent an hour or two on Wikipedia) and this was the key that unlocked the album. I saw where he was coming from, and it was from a place that felt familiar to me. And I liked that. And it’s a catchy as hell too.

8. The Antlers – “Putting the Dog to Sleep” from Burst Apart

Another perfect closing track that made a whole album make sense to me. I’ve become a dog person over the last three years since Jenny and I started dating and I think that was one of the things that really changed my life in a great way. It made me a different person. It made me someone who was capable of having a relationship without losing sight of myself or the person I was with. The dog anchored me. And having a dog around the house has just made my life enormously better. I feel healthier, more at peace, right with the world etc. I’m still an asshole, but less so I’d say than I was before I met Jenny and Panda. And yeah, this song is a metaphor and full of metaphors but the way I feel when I hear this song through the prism of the last three years and all the issues of trust, dependence, and the whole concept of moving on.

7. Okkervil River – “White Shadow Waltz” from I Am Very Far

This is the song that made me understand why Will Sheff decided to produce this album himself. This is the one where he throws the filing cabinet across the studio. And god it works. All of this works. The strings just building all that tension in the most dramatic way ever. This is a spooky song and it sounds like a spooky song. It’s another high water mark from a songwriter I didn’t think could get any better than he’d already gotten. Which is the best kind of songwriter, I suppose. One that keeps surprising you record after record.

6. Arctic Monkeys – “Suck it and See” from Suck it and See

I so wanted to put this album on the list, but only because I listened to it more than any other record this year (other than maybe Yuck, Los Campesinos!, Destroyer, and Bright Eyes). But I only did that because I WANTED to love it and sadly, half the songs just weren’t very good. But this song holy shit. I wish all mainstream rock n roll was this catchy and this lyrically intelligent. Alex Turner was a big fixture in my year.

5. EMA – “California” from Past Life Martyred Saints

Fuck yes. That’s really all I have for this song. It’s cool, it’s emotionally devastating, it’s one of the best-written songs of the year. Just so fucking good. And it’s not surprising that the whole of EMA’s debut is just as good as this song. I don’t even have anything to say about it.

4. Alex Turner – “Stuck on a Puzzle” from Submarine OST

This soundtrack is what made me give Mr. Turner and his Arctic Monkeys a chance because, goddamn, I never knew he was a great songwriter. I never even suspected. I thought he was all accents and Pete Doherty antics BUT I WAS WRONG (OK, the accents thing is still true and I can’t speak for Mr. Turner’s partying habits) and he knows exactly what he’s doing. The five songs on this soundtrack are all outstanding, and this is the crown jewel. The song from the movie that would get nominated for an Oscar. It’s his “Miss Misery” but less sad.

3. Fucked Up – “The Other Shoe” from David Comes to Life

This might have been the song of the summer. I remember the windows down (because the AC didn’t work) and trying to get Jenny to like this. “LOOK, IT’S LIKE GROWLING HARDCORE PUNK BUT IN POP SONG FORM! LISTEN TO THESE MELODIES!” She marginally enjoyed it, I like to think, but the screaming vocals just aren’t her thing (go figure). I never got sick of it though. I thought the way Fucked Up rolled out a few tracks before the album’s release was genius and only made me want the album more. And I couldn’t wait to see how this track fit in, it was just so good. So COOL. So inventive, so unique and fun and just rock and roll as all hell. The one two punch of this and “Turn the Season” is one of my favorite musical moments of 2011. Hell, the first act of David Comes to Life is one of my favorite musical moments of 2011.

2. Los Campesinos! – “By Your Hand” from Hello Sadness

It’s a beautiful thing to see one of your favorite bands improving on things you didn’t even think they needed to improve on. In four years LC! Have grown from the twee-pop revival with more wit and more edge of “You Throw Parties, We Throw Knives” to the end of that era in Hold On Now, Youngster… and an almost total reinvention of form and purpose on We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed, which established Gareth Campesinos as the modern poet laureate of heartbreak. Heartbreak with a sense of humor, though, that’s what’s important. Romance is Boring was even better, and Hello Sadness is the best album the band has made to date. Recorded hot on the heels of his latest breakup, Gareth sounds more raw than ever without ever coming off as morose or pathetic. The band itself sounds the best they ever had, which is maybe surprising since this is the first record following the departure of Aleksandra, Ollie, and Harriet Campesinos. It all feels right, and good, and “By Your Hand” is a masterpiece of a song. The best song the band has ever written, hands down, no arguing. And that’s saying a lot since I’ve probably said that about ten or twelve of the band’s previous tracks. This is the one. The one that brings everything that Los Camp does well into perfect harmony. The structure of the song excites me. There are just so many moving parts. The verses blend into pre-choruses (or whatever), there are perfectly executed handclaps, shifts into bridges (or whatever that thing about the fistfight is) and where I’m all about the 3 minute pop song, Los Camp pull it off in four because it’s just so different. It is different; I don’t think I’m being biased. I think this song reminds me why I adore this band. Everything is right, even the little bit where Sparky Deathcap Campesinos comes on to sing a couple lines. It’s excellent. And a teasing bit of jubilant brightness leading off what is one of the most emotionally devastating albums of the year (tying with EMA).

1. Destroyer – “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker” from Kaputt

By a mile. This is the song that made me excited about music again in 2011. And it has jazz flute on it. I never even THOUGHT I’d seriously listen to a song with jazz flute on it. Never. But there it is. And that’s not all! Oh dear. I’m losing track of myself. Let’s just say that Kaputt was poised to take Album of the Year in my book until about October when I had to refocus. However, since the list I made was just personal preference, had I made one of actual BESTs, Kaputt woulda taken all the glory. It’s that good. Thrilling, artistically pure, inspiring, all that stuff. And while everyone freaked out at Bon Iver’s use of light rock influences on “Beth/Rest,” folks neglected to notice that Destroyer did that FOR A WHOLE ALBUM and no one made a stink about it because it was a perfect record. It is a perfect record. Destroyer’s best since…well, all Destroyer albums are great. Better than Trouble in Dreams I suppose, and everything up to Streethawk. Better than Streethawk, hell, better than Your Blues and This Night and Destroyer’s Rubies ok, this is maybe his best record. Now that I think about it. And this song has a lot to do with it.

I had no idea who Kara Walker was until Jenny noticed the track and was like “Oh, this Kara Walker?” and brought me some fancy art book she got in Italy by the lady herself. It was fucking cool. Awesome silhouettes about slavery and amazing sketchbook drawings. The cover is just text that reads “Dear you hypocritical fucking Twerp…” and it’s easily the coolest art book in our house. So, Kara Walker, totally bitchin’ artist. What does she have to do with this song? Oh, she cowrote it with Dan Bejar? THAT RULES. How did that work? Oh, there’s this bit from an interview that explains it, and it involves Walker sending Bejar flash cards with words written on them and Bejar subsequently writing a song about the 400 years of history of African-American women in America despite neither being African-American nor a woman nor American. Awesome. Bejar seemed to downplay the lyrics of Kaputt in interviews, but holy shit this one just kills it. Images just pile up. It’s a reminder (as if we needed one) that Dan Bejar is the fucking man. And never so much so as when he’s writing about African-American women, apparently.

Best of 2011: My 25 Favorite Albums

2011-12-22T10:47:00.008-06:00

When I joined KJHK's music staff in 2007 (my second year at the station), I learned that the best way my brain knows how to communicate with music is to write about it. When I started freelancing for the Pitch in 2009, it totally changed the way I had to write about music. It had to be more formal, less like the stream-of-thought-via-three-or-four-listens pseudo-rants I was writing for 4-8 CDs a week at KJ. This blog has always been a place to escape the formal (read: coherent) writing of print and to better understand the stuff I love/own. I love lists. All sorts of lists. But ordered year end lists really get me hot and bothered, so I've been making them for my favorite records and movies since 2003 when I had a Xanga and like 10 followers (the lists came between bad poetry and trying to be a "photography," naturally, since I was 17 and all). It's the competitive nature inside me, and somehow tied to the fact that I became obsessed with Fantasy Football this fall. WHO WILL WIN THE ULTIMATE BATTLE?!?! There's something kind of sick about pitting albums I love against one another, but I can't help it. I feel bad for the #2 album because it would be the #1 album any other year BUT, etc. This isn't a best of, just my personal favorites. The ones that didn't stop playing. The ones that didn't leave the car stereo for weeks or that I had to keep re-burning because they started skipping because my car's CD player is old. 2011 was one of my favorite years for music in a long time (since 2007!!!) and I feel guilty for not listening to more albums. Feel sorry I couldn't put albums I'm sure I'll love in 2012 on this list. But the list is never accurate. It's just a document of where I was when, and I keep these lists for myself as much as anybody. Apologies for my woeful grammar. Despite years of

25.) Girls – Father, Son, Holy Ghost

This is the ultimate of last minute additions. I’m giving this one the benefit of the doubt, because after months of being EH about this, the follow-up to one of my favorite records of 2009, it’s starting to make sense. And that’s enough to put this on the list. Because I’ll regret it. Because I let these lists get to me and I stress out over not hearing enough albums in any given year. They’re never totally accurate, only accurate for the end of the year. But what does it for me, is that part at the end of “Vomit.” You know the part I’m talking about. I remember hearing this when they put this song out before the album came out and I was like “Well it’s long and slow and that part at the end is nice” but holy FUCK is it a grower. And I’m applying that to the rest of the album because it’s already growing on me.

24.) The Get Up Kids – There Are Rules

Reunion records have a tendency to suck. This one doesn’t. Of course I’m biased, what with being raised in the Greater Kansas City Metropolitan Area (both Jenny and I had teachers at our respective high and junior high schools related to guitarist Jim Suptic) it was all we had. They were our local band, and given my mother’s paranoia I was never allowed to travel to KC to see them. Sadly, the first time I saw them was at the fucking Voodoo Lounge at fucking Harrah’s when they were on their Something to Write Home About reunion tour, and that was pretty sad. But then I saw them at the Bottleneck this year in support of this record and it was a blast. Like all the high school rock show stuff I never got when I was in actual high school. It helped that There Are Rules is really good. It’s a better record than the oh so spotty Guilt Showand assuming they don’t make another record, a perfectly fitting end. They’re grown-ups now. THE GET UP MEN. Doesn’t sound as good, does it. But there’s maturity here, of course, but that’s what everyone says. Basically, what it means is that they don’t sound like they’re trying to be 18 and that’s reassuring.

23.) Richard Buckner – Our Blood

A few years back I got really into alt-country. For a straight year, it was my thing. If the sun of that solar system was Wilco, the, oh, Mars would have been Richard Buckner. He was the one that made me realize that those “I like everything but country music” responses to “what kind of music do you like?” were the most absolute of all bullshit. Buckner’s voice adds an extra sense of aching to his woe-induced tunes. Our Blood is Buckner’s most cohesive and unified record since, god, forever ago’s Devotion + Doubt, and some of the songs here are some of my favorites in his extensive discography. “Witness,” “Confession,” “Traitor,” and “Thief” are punch-in-the-gut jams that live up to their simple titles (every title on this record is one simple—or maybe not so simple—word). The melody in “Confession” notably makes my brain turn to butter and melt. Buckner’s always written sad songs, but holy shit, the elegance with which he does it defies any genre you’d like to chuck him into.

22.) The Decemberists – The King is Dead

Though I love me a good concept album as much as the next music geek, the Decemberists Hazards of Love rubbed me in precisely the wrong way. It seemed to subvert everything that Colin Meloy did will simply because he was too ambitious. It felt forced and clumsy like an overworked story where you end up scratching your best ideas in some misguided effort to perfect what was a pure and good thing to begin with. So the scaled back, rootsy, back-to-basics attitude of The King is Dead was ever so welcome. It’s a great transition album. One that finds the band between their quirky, archaic selves of old and this new, more realistic bunch of vagabonds and ragamuffins who are, well, real people and not characters out of a Dickens novel or some picaresque adventure. It’s an album that sounds like going home.

21.) Beirut – The Rip Tide

This is probably my favorite Beirut album. It’s weird, Beirut. I thoroughly enjoyedh is first two records, and that double EP thing he released a couple years back, but this one has a set of songs I thoroughly enjoy beginning to end. Maybe it’s because Zach Condon’s not trying to be Balkins folk music or mid century French pop, and just sounds like an amalgamation of everything he’s done and ultimately, sounds like a band with its own identity. He’s a great songcraftsman of the Elephant 6 ilk and though The Rip Tide is a brief album (clocking in at just over 30 minutes with 9 songs). And I realize why I like this album so much because of this quote I just read from Wikipedia via The Observer: “The vagabond thing – that was a teenage fantasy that I lived out in a big way. Music, to me, was escapism. And now I'm doing everything that is the opposite [of that] in my life. I'm married. I've got a house. I've got a dog. So it felt ridiculous, the narrative of what my career was supposed to be, compared to what I was actually trying to attempt in my life.” That explains why it’s the most personal album he’s created, and the married/house/dog equation makes me endeared to it even more because it’s such an interesting place to be. This is an under the radar success. Something that will certainly be lauded years down the line when looking at Beirut’s back catalog. Though thought to be a minor album, it actually indicated _______.” I can’t write the rest because it hasn’t happened yet, and I’m excited to see how this little gem fits into the rest of Condon’s sure to be terrific complete discography.

20.) Alex Turner – Submarine OST

I did not give a single fuck about Arctic Monkeys before watching Richard Ayoade’s excellent film Submarine. Actually, that’s a total lie, because the reason I rented Submarine was because I’d read about it in an article about Arctic Monkeys video for “Suck it and See,” which mentioned that frontman Alex Turner did the soundtrack for the film and I remembered that I’d wanted to see it when I saw the trailer because of my fierce love for Ayoade (and his work on “The IT Crowd,” “The Mighty Boosh,” just generally being a hilarious dude). Anyway, I watched the “Suck it and See” video which was OK but the song was fantastic, so I got excited to hear frontman Alex Turner’s score. Since it’s only a brief five songs long, I feel weird about putting it any higher up on the list, but holy shit these five songs are so good it hurts. They’re reminiscent of Cat Stevens’ soundtrack for Harold & Maude, and the original songs really help set the film apart from the Wes Anderson comparisons (which are many and valid, as the whole film is very Rushmore-esque yet finds ways to make itself rather unique) and the montage sequences which they lay on top of are beautiful in all regards. Submarine was my favorite film of the year and the soundtrack was one of the things that really pushed it over the top. “Stuck on a Puzzle” is going to end up very, very close to the top of my 2011 songs list if only because I had to have played it more than any other song from 2011. (Note: Upon checking this fact on Last.fm, this was not true. Top listened tracks were Fucked Up’s “The Other Shoe,” Los Campesinos! “Songs About Your Girlfriend,” and Turner tied with Yuck’s “Get Away,” however those facts are the definition of skewed).

19.) Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring For My Halo

Kurt Vile can hang with the best because I’m pretty sure he just plain doesn’t give a fuck. That’s what his songwriting sounds like. Fuck-all songwriting. And that is a sincere compliment. That’s what makes him special. That’s what made me listen to Childish Prodigy obsessively every autumn since it came out because it is one of the most perfect fall records I’ve ever heard. It just fits. Rainy, cloudy, gloomy, chilly days wrapped up in a hooded sweatshirt driving to and from work. It works. Smoke Ring For My Halo is more cohesive, and Vile making a truly proper record for Matador. I guess. Doesn’t matter. Not really. It’s got ageless punch-in-the-teeth jams like “Puppet to the Man” and “Society is My Friend” paired up with pensive numbers like “Baby’s Arms” and the excellent mid-tempo single “In My Time.” “Peeping Tomboy” reminds me of my favorite moments of Childish Prodigy, “Jesus Fever” feels like a brilliant pop song because there’s a hook in there that just gets me every time. The six-minute closer “Ghost Town” is a meditative (read: stoned), depressive masterpiece and an excellent look into the mind of a new crooked master.

18.) East River Pipe – We Live in Rented Rooms

Everyone loves to talk about how Bon Iver recorded an album in a cabin, but man, no one wants to talk about Fred Cornog works at a fucking Home Depot and puts out a damn good record every few years. I think I’m getting old because “every few years” is actually FIVE years, and I remember when I started at KJHK in 2006 and What Are You On was in rotation and I played either “What Does T.S. Eliot Know About You” or “Druglife” every week and it was one of my first great discoveries that I had expected to amass whilst working at a renowned college radio station. I don’t tend to listen to his albums all the way through, but there are a handful of tracks from each of them that I think are some of the best songs ever written. “Make a Deal With the City,” “Here We Go,” “Helmet On,” “Shiny, Shiny Pimpmobile,” “Where Does All The Money Go?,” and on and on. We Live in Rented Rooms is another more than worthy addition to Cornog’s catalog, and one I only really discovered via chucking it on my iPod and having random songs come on while I was at the gym or at work after closing (this happened with a lot of my favorite records this year). “The Flames Are Coming Back,” “Backroom Deals,” “Conman,” I remember all of these coming on shuffle and just going “Goddamn, this is fucking great is this East River Pipe?” Not to knock Bon Iver at all (as you’ll see, he shows up a little later), but Fred Cornog has a more authentic mythology. One laced with drugs, homelessness, and with the ultimate redemption found in a woman who leads to a family and a simple life where he gets to make music for pleasure but ultimately just be a normal guy. You’d never know the dude selling you a power drill was a fantastic songwriter, and there’s something beautiful about that. Obtaining artistic greatness without having to go through all the hassle of celebrity. Fred Cornog is a genius.

17.) Hospital Ships – Lonely Twin

Another excellent release from local lad Jordan Geiger. Lonely Twin finds a cohesion that Hospital Ships’ debut Oh, Ramona lacked (that was still a fine record, though) and makes me not so intolerant of the town I live in. Well, the video for “Galaxies” did anyway. It’s comforting to know you live in a town with excellent songwriters (See also: Rooftop Vigilantes) and though I’m totally out of touch with the local music scene, it’s nice to have Hospital Ships as a constant.

16.) The Antlers – Burst Apart

A surprisingly good album! I don’t know why. I loved Hospice so much. I loved it so much that it became the identity for this band. Like they should never record another album (more on this later in the list), that kind of good. But thank goodness they did because Burst Apart is pretty wonderful. My favorite thing about it is that the last song is the best song. It’s a lost art, sending your album out in an appropriate fashion. So often the lesser songs just get tacked on the back but man, “Putting the Dog to Sleep” fucking kills me. And it’s nice because it’s the best song Peter Silberman has ever written. Well, from my little prism at least. It’s my favorite, better than anything on Hospice, which I thought was surprising. “My trust in you/ Is a dog with a broken leg/ Tendons too torn to beg/ For you to let me back in.” Oof. Maybe I just love dogs and he’s playing to my sweet spot (that is true, I do love dogs) but whatever, it’s masterful. And it’s just an added bonus that the rest of the album is really fucking good, too.

15.) Andrew Jackson Jihad – Knife Man

I’m new to Andrew Jackson Jihad. I somehow stumbled upon Can’t Maintain at the tail end of 2009 and really loved the lead-off track “Heartilation” but never really listened to the album all the way through. Then, this year for some odd reason, I picked up that album and it spent a solid couple of months in the car stereo. I love it. It’s a masterpiece. Just so violently good and personal and the kind of music that makes me love music again. And then out of nowhere, AJJ put out a new album this year! And while it’s not as great as Can’t Maintain (because all the b-sides got left on the album proper, it seems) it’s still better than most of the albums I heard this year. Well, maybe not better, but I listened to it more and I liked it more. It lacks the coherence of Can’t Maintain and jumps from social issues to personal issue back to social issue. BUT STILL, it made the list because it’s good and “Hate, Rain on Me,” “Fucc the Devil,” “Sorry Bro,” “Gift of the Magi 2: Return of the Magi,” “Big Bird,” and especially the mega creepy murder ballad “Back Pack” reminded me that Sean Bonnette writes with a triumphant sense of vitality. WOW THAT WAS MUSIC WRITERY! HE WRITES WITH A SENSE OF URGENCY ABSENT FROM THIS MODERN GENERATION! But really, he’s just a great songwriter who is tragically overlooked by the music writery elite. Although he did write the ultimate fuck you song to music critics, “We Didn’t Come Here To Rock,” so it’s not really a big deal.

14.) David Bazan – Strange Negotiations

This is one of those records from early in the year I’ve only recently revisited despite listening to on repeat for weeks and weeks. I think David Bazan is as fucking good as he’s ever been. It picks up where Curse Your Branches left off, tackling much of the same subject matter (religion, politics, trying to be a decent human being, etc, etc) and it’s good, good, good. I don’t know why there are so many haters. It feels like everyone hates David Bazan. I’m sure a lot of them hate him because of the Christianity thing, but it feels like there’s another set that hate him because they think his songwriting is like, I don’t know. Too direct? I don’t know. Personally, I always thought Bazan was at his best when he was grappling with his religious beliefs. Maybe it’s cuz he made fun of Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber on that one song from Fewer Moving Parts and there’s like, a haters union that has to strike against Bazan. I DO NOT KNOW. I think he’s pretty great. He puts on a great live show that I still try to go to when I’m not broke, and he puts out records that always hit me in a personal place (the heart, not something lascivious). The paranoia-induced “Wolves at the Door” gets the religion and the politics all in one fell swoop, “Future Past” delivers one of those Bazan-esque melodies he’s been crafting for years and years. The kind of melody that I can’t explain, but you’d hear it and you’d think of Control. Maybe people hate Bazan because sometimes he doesn’t write in thinly veiled metaphors and it’s perhaps unwriterly to take on the recent financial crisis in plain English on the title track. “You kick and scream to get your way again/ But the writing is on the wall/ Any minute you’ll go onto your reward/ Someone else is gonna make the call,” he sings to Wall Street and “I feel like a stranger in my hometown” to everyone else. I don’t understand the hate Bazan tends to receive (on the flip side of this, he has a legion of adoring fans, which is awesome) because he just seems like a normal dude, making him music, doing his thing, not stepping on anyone’s toes unless they’re a shithead music critic and you know, it’s pretty great to see a musician strike back. He has an excellent method of conveying his worldview, which is as hard a thing to craft as a perfect song.

13.) Real Estate – Days

This new buttoned-up-Oxford prim and proper indie rock leaves me with mixed feelings, and I really never understood why everyone gave so much of a fuck about Real Estate. And then I put on Days one early autumn afternoon and something clicked. I haven’t gone back and re-listened to their first album or whatever it was they were putting out a couple years ago, but man, this album is so good. SO GOOD. It’s accomplished as shit. I watched leaves float by the window, felt the cool breeze coming under the door, it was nice. And this CD spent a lot of time in the car, where it really opened up on my back and forth drives to work. Though “It’s Real” is the monster jam that seems to be getting all the attention (and the more subdued but equally excellent “Green Aisles”), mid-album track “Municipality” is the one that really did it for me. It expresses a sweetness that matches the lilt of the guitars and the perfectly lovely subtle love song lyrics. Days is one of the more consistent records I heard this year and while I STILL don’t get what Real Estate is all about, I sure enjoyed listening to this album on repeat.

12.) Crooked Fingers – Breaks in the Armor

I’m the kind of failure who hosted KJHK’s Alternative Flashback for two semesters without ever listening to Archers of Loaf. That’s embarrassing and damning. But I made up for that after the fact…well, sort of. I developed an unhealthy obsession with “Web in Front” last summer without ever listening to Icky Mettle all the way through. It’s weird. Eric Bachman’s post-Loaf group Crooked Fingers have been on the fringes of my musical intake for years, too. It’s weird. I remember listening to Dignity and Shame and latching on to the horribly sad “Sleep All Summer” a few years back in a rough spot. And then this album just sort of fell into my lap and I just started listening and I just sort of loved it. I started running recently, and I’ve been listening to this on the treadmill for some reason. I don’t know why. I think it has something to do with the way this album has been opening up to me. Wait, I DO know why. This album was on my iPod and songs kept popping up on shuffle so I just started listening to the album because the songs that came up were just so good. “She Tows the Line,” “Our New Favorite,” “The Counterfeiter,” they’re all arresting.

11.) Smith Westerns – Dye it Blonde

These kids seem like chodes. They just do. When I saw them open for Los Campesinos and Girls a couple years ago, they just seemed young and kind of chodey. But that is precisely why Dye it Blonde is great. Instead of getting lumped in with all these other lo-fi teenage jackoffs, they somehow managed to make an album that was above all that band-of-the-moment shit. Or at least that’s what Dye it Blonde sounds like for me. I’m jealous of their youth. Their fuck-all attitude is what makes this record great. It’s borrowing riffs that sound straight out of 30 years ago and just churning out some of the catchiest pop songs of the year. It’s like they’re so desperately trying to make these great stadium anthems in a basement. Alex Chilton looks down from above and smiles at power pop still thriving like bacteria in a petri dish. JUST LISTEN TO THAT GUITAR LINE on “Dye the World.” I do that wahhh-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah bit when I’m listening to it in the car!

10.) EMA – Past Life Martyred Saints

This one fell into my lap organically. It was kind of fun that way. I didn’t read about it or see a video on youtube. My boss was listening to it one morning in the back office and I was like “WHO IS THIS THIS IS REALLY COOL” and he told me. And then I got this album. And then I sat in a dark room listening, and being all “Goddamnit this is haunting and real and gorgeous and so so sad and it’s scratching down at my soul.” The whole album is just a masterpiece, just a totally pure and unfuckedwith vision straight from Erika Anderson’s head, but “California” and “Marked” are these two cornerstone songs that kept me off balance. “California” is kind of the clear stand out, and the one where you just stare at the songwriting in awe because no one is really writing like this (read: honestly) delivered with this soulful intensity and conviction that seems rare. Maybe it’s not. Maybe there are plenty of artists coming from this place, they just haven’t broken out like EMA has this year. “Marked,” on the other hand, holy shit. That’s really all I have for that song. “Holy shit.”

9.) Fucked Up – David Comes to Life

This album is insane. Just fucking insane. Who would even have an idea to do a punk rock concept album about a dude who works at a lightbulb factory and gets swept up in his girlfriend’s mysterious death? I STILL don’t even know what the hell is going on in the middle to back half of this album, but I love it. I love that this exists. That punk rock is being explored in new ways long after punk was supposed to be dead, buried, exhumed, and buried again. It’s an exhausting album to listen to. Sort of the RPG video game of the music world. One that takes a considerable amount of hours to catch everything, but even the cursory listens are good so this one’s a winner. On top of that, the band released a fake compilation (well, it has real music so it is a real compilation, but) of bands set in the fake city where this story takes place. And you know what? THAT COMPILATION IS AWESOME. So yes, when popular underground music is designed to have a shelf life less than organic greek yogurt, Fucked Up have created a monolith. A punk rock monolith, no less, that people can stare at and go “goddamn, this is pretty brilliant.”

8.) St. Vincent – Strange Mercy

It’s baffling how good Annie Clark is at making music. There’s no particular reason why it’s baffling, it’s just that I don’t ever expect any human being to make no mistakes when making a record. Three album’s in and Clark has upped the stakes every time. 2009’s Actor was my second favorite album of that year. It was. That happened. And I thought that was a high watermark and I don’t know why I always do that with talented people that I admire. I’m not really a pessimist, I just play one on TV, and I’m genuinely thrilled when my pessimistic tendencies to think artists won’t ever create anything better than what they’ve just created are overthrown. It’s just my way of coping with great music. Sometimes I just can’t deal. Sometimes violently shaking my head from side to side and saying “Fuck this music, fuck this music” (I did this at least once whilst listening to all of the albums in the top 10, it’s a good sign) isn’t enough. Strange Mercy is a cool album. Just fucking cool. The way she manipulates a guitar is experimental without every trying too hard which you kind of might expect when you hear an artist talking about how she wants to reincorporate the guitar back into her music. Or did I ever think that about St. Vincent? I can’t remember. It’s artsy as shit but it’s only artsy by default. Non-pretentious and genuinely affecting (See: “Surgeon,” which throws like ten punches into my gut every time) and real and sexy. Goddamn this is a sexy album. In every regard, and not just because St. Vincent is a woman. Like Serge Gainsbourg or something. Seductive.

7.) Okkervil River – I Am Very Far

I don’t know how I put off listening to I Am Very Far for so long. I adore Okkervil River, and Will Sheff is one of my favorite songwriters. Actually, thinking about that, most of my favorite songwriters put out albums this year which is why I’m so gaga about 2011’s musical output. But anyway, I don’t know why I waited so long because this is another amazing album from a band that keeps getting better. I only put it on when I got offered a chance to interview Sheff and after forcing myself to say yes, yes of course I want to interview one of today’s smartest songwriters, I set to listening on repeat. I came up with a bunch of questions, and then the got pushed back, and then the scheduling just didn’t work because of course and ended up having to send the questions off via e-mail which felt like a failure, but it ended up being OK. I’m sad I didn’t get to talk to him though. I was pumped up, ready to face my fears. But it’s ok, because I got this album out of it. Sheff self-produced the album, emboldened by producing Roky Erikson’s latest record (that Okkervil River played backing band for), and Sheff’s getting to produce the thing himself is what makes this so exciting. It’s like he’s rediscovering music, has the energy of someone making their first and last record or something like that. Urgency. “White Shadow Waltz” gives me chills every time I hear it, and I think I understand how production works because there’s such a specific sound to that song. I mean, of course there’s the throwing-a-filing-cabinet-across-the-room-at-a-wall sound effect, but good god that just makes it that much more epic, what with the cacophonic clatter disrupting those glorious strings. It’s a scary song, a spooky song, haunting more than anything. Usually, when people tell you about their dreams, you’re disinterested because other people’s dreams are usually so specific it’s impossible for us to comprehend why they are significant. But the dream imagery here is wonderful, again HAUNTING, lots of haunting on this one. It helps that the songs are pushed to their absolute limits with orchestrations upon orchestrations and Sheff going all out with the vocals, which is always the best part of Okkervil River records. There’s so much excitement and conviction in the way he sings. It helps that this line-up has really morphed into the finest incarnation of this band, even following the departure of the great Jonathan Meiburg. It’s wonderful watching bands adapt, and Okkervil River have done a sensational job.

6.) The Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck

I think I read somewhere that John Darnielle said if The Sunset Tree was about living through abuse, All Eternals Deck is about surviving. Or being a survivor. And it never sounds more like that than on the penultimate track “Never Quite Free” which effectively serves as a sort of coda to Darnielle’s masterpiece, the aforementioned Sunset Tree. The song is blatantly hopeful, in the best way. Wonderful, powerful, and evidence that Darnielle is one of the great treasures of the musical world. Not even the modern musical world, just music in general. All music is made better by having him working in the medium. All Eternals Deck is another great album, but really, what do you expect from the Mountain Goats? Have they ever put out a bad album? I can’t think of a single one I don’t love. Highlights include “For Charles Bronson,” which is a sad but also hopeful (lots of hope running through the veins of this album) portrait of the tough as nails film legend who brought himself up from nothing. I remember them playing that song last time they played the Bottleneck and going “yes, this album is going to fucking rule.” “Estate Sale Sign” is a sibling of “See America Right” and “Psalms 40:2.” All three are these dark, destructive road trip sort of songs. Or they all take place in cars, or involve travelling (even if it’s just travelling the two miles to the bus stop with a case of vodka under one’s arm or driving to the Precious Moments chapel). “Estate Sale Sign” just fucking kills it though. Scratches right down into your soul. This whole album does that. Gets under your skin, works its way in. The Mountain Goats make me feel really fortune to be coming of age in the age I’m coming of age in. I’m so lucky I heard “Going to Georgia” on some weird internet radio site when I was 17 and immediately launched into the heavy research, stumbled onto The Coroner’s Gambit and All Hail West Texas and just became a maniac. John Darnielle wrote from a place that I didn’t necessarily want to go to, but I wanted to look in the windows. It wasn’t particularly familiar to the place where I was coming from, but his songs made me want to write my own songs. Write stories. Make films. Create. And that shaped so much of where I directed my life over the last 8 years. The Mountain Goats are my perpetual soundtrack, my favorite band, and of course All Eternals Deck gets a high spot on my year end list. Mountain Goats records usually do (with the exception of The Life of the World To Come which I only really warmed up to and fell in love with the year after it came out). I don’t want to be John Darnielle, but I want to have his attitude. His interface with the world, at least the way he comes off at live shows and in interviews, is magnificent, and that’s why his music is so great. The Mountain Goats are a national treasure. Appreciate.

5.) Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Is it passé to reference how passé it is to hate on Bon Iver because he’s famous now? It probably is, leading us all down a rabbit hole of disingenuous spite, and really probably worth avoiding. But I CAN’T avoid it. It just sucks that such a great album would get overshadowed by so many people thinking it was overrated because that’s the cool thing to do. It’s Arcade Fire all over again, where it’s straight-up uncool to like something. Like you have to feel guilty for liking something like it’s a guilty pleasure. Anyway, off topic. Not important, it really isn’t. I just can’t help myself because I think this is an incredible Album with a capital A. And that’s why the Grammy nominations are so funny, because two of them are for “Holocene” and I don’t know how you look at this album and pick out one song that’s better than all the rest. That’s exemplary, because they all are, because they all work to make the most cohesive album of the year. From “Perth” to the apparently divisive “Beth/Rest” there’s an evolution at work and watching that play out is the album’s greatest triumph. Well, I suppose that is basically just it being a triumphant album, but you get it. It’s such a goddamn confident sophomore album, and not what I expected, which is so exciting. After “Blood Bank,” which emphasized a much more straightforward songwriting approach (which I really liked), the writing here is even more abstract than For Emma, Forever Ago (which really, wasn’t really even abstract at all). I remember reading the lyrics when Jagjaguar put them up a couple weeks before the album dropped. It was like “Goddamn what the fuck is he talking about but it’s beautiful.” It’s a beautiful record. Just beautiful. Gorgeous. Peerless, really, too. I can’t think of anyone else doing the things Justin Vernon is doing and that’s pretty cool I guess. It’s rootsy and familiar but otherworldy. I’ve spent a lot of time with this record though, so I’m pretty defensive. There was a three month span where Jenny and I would listen to it before bed, sometimes multiple times. We did that a lot when we started dating, staying up for hours in bed, listening to For Emma, Forever Ago or Neutral Milk Hotel just talking and staring at each other all googly eyed and I think I tie this album to that too. Still, every time we get to “Beth/Rest” I say something like “Goddamn, this song is so fucking brilliant. It ties the whole album together.” I wrote a big long piece about how I thought it was bullshit that “Beth/Rest” was so polarizing and I stand by that. I don’t get how you’d listen to this album and single out that song because A.) Everything that happens before it leads up to that beautiful, lite-rock tinged monster ballad and B.) DESTROYER DID THE SAME GODDAMN THING FOR A WHOLE FUCKING ALBUM. To those who say Bon Iver is boring, OK, sure, but don’t confuse boring with subtlety. Maybe that’s just me being a boring music apologist, but I don’t think this album is boring. I think every time I listen to it there’s something new there and all the best albums are like that (someone could probably argue that too, but whatever). Justin Vernon is so confident here it hurts. Hurts so good, that is. Of all people he deserves it. An indie rock lifer, finally getting his due and staying humble, it’s a great story. Bon Iver, Bon Iver doesn’t have the mythology of its predecessor and lord knows it doesn’t need it. He’s beyond the cabin now, onto something totally different, past one trick pony fears and into maybe being one of the defining artists of his generation. Blah, blah, blah. He’s awesome.

4.) Bright Eyes – The People’s Key

I don’t know why everyone hates Bright Eyes, but I have a theory. My theory is that all of these young, modern music critics had their high school career’s soundtracked by Conor Oberst and Fevers and Mirrors gets filed away under “music I liked in high school before I knew what good music was.” Or at least that’s the impression I always get when I read someone slagging on Bright Eyes. I’m not saying that all his albums are like, great masterpieces or anything, but I do think they’re honest and yeah, melodramatic but still honest. Anyway, a new Bright Eyes album comes out and I listen to it. And yeah, it was big in high school, but Oberst was still pretty young then too and the evolution of his career has been a really interesting one. I think he probably had the opportunity to go off the rails. To be the actress dating, drug fueled sellout, but neglected to do so. His discography is littered with various tastes and influences from the alt-country of I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning paired simultaneously with the murky electro-pop fueled Digital Ash in a Digital Urn. Then there’s that amazing self-titled solo album from 2008 that boasted Oberst’s best songwriting to date and made up for the mystical and misguided Cassadaga which wasn’t really bad by any means, just overwrought to the point of eh. The People’s Key feels free of all of that stuff from the past. There’s no definitive genre play at work. It just sounds like a mix of all the toys Oberst has played with over his long career and excellently put out on display. It’s Bright Eyes’ best album, and if this is the stopping point as I think it is meant to be, then this is as good a place to stop as you’re gonna get. There’s a little of Cassadaga’s mysticism here, but it feels so much more personal here. Oberst’s frequent references to Rastafari don’t come across as being phony, but as a vehicle to relate to the world and see how others relate to it. “Triple Spiral,” the surefire pop hit of this album tackles life through the prism of an ancient pagan religious symbol. And yeah, the song is catchy as hell, but reading up on triple spiral symbol was enlightening and I really loved what he did with this song and how it feels like a really great attempt to deal with the universe and fate and faith and metaphysical quandries and secret societies maybe. The whole album is like that, really. Sure, the interspliced talking bits that are a Bright Eyes staple are a distracting adornment, but they’re so weird I can see why he put them in. And they fit really well with the theme. But really the theme is Conor Oberst. This sounds like every Bright Eyes album blended together but totally accomplished and new and there’s a great sense of peace I get from it despite the aforementioned conflict in the songwriting. Everything here feels just right, and this album really helped me connect with music a little more. It let me set aside critical judgment for just experiencing something, someone’s ideas put out in songs, and that’s why I love this album. It’s a look at someone’s worldview, a complicated complex one, and that’s what makes this really interesting. And the music is good, too. That helps. Even that double bass drum stuff on “Jejune Stars” (which is actually totally awesome)! And though Bright Eyes is probably done, well, it’s just a name really and the reason I keep hanging onto that original vinyl copy of Letting Off the Happiness is because I have this gut feeling that Oberst is going to stay relevant. I thought I shoulda sold it off when Cassadaga came out because after that he’d be washed up or something, I don’t know why, those were the KJHK years where I wanted to destroy all music, but now I think he’s going to have a fascinating, Dylanesque career. And maybe this album closes a chapter and opens another one. I can’t tell, it doesn’t really matter. What matters was learning to relate to music on a human level again, which I spent the whole summer doing with this album.

3.) Destroyer – Kaputt

This was the #1 contender for months and months. Ultimately, it was usurped because I had some revelation about how the music I really truly love is all about heart and that while I greatly appreciate stylistic mastery, in a tiebreaker gritty heartbreak indie rock wins. The trouble with this argument that bothered me after I wrote about 1000 words on it for the original introduction to this list was that it was just a bunch of bullshit full of non-arguments and weird opinions. The two aren’t mutually exclusive, style vs. emotion, and Destroyer was ultimately what sank that whole argument for me. Dan Bejar is one of those songwriters that transcends the “best songwriter of this age” remarks and I think he’s going to be one of those songwriters people look at fifty, a hundred years from now and go “goddamn what a fucking genius.” He’s up there with John Darnielle and David Berman. Just a master wordsmith and tunesmith. And naturally, Destroyer is one of my favorite bands. Top 5. And Kaput might be his best album. Who knows, it’s impossible to make hard and fast judgments on things like that, especially when it comes to Destroyer albums because all of them are amazing and I don’t really even have a favorite because it changes so often. Like Your Blues (which was almost entirely composed on MIDI and features some of Bejar’s greatest songs), Kaput is an experiment in form. Like the “Bay of Pigs” single that preceded this album by a year, Kaput plays with weird eurodisco whatever. I can’t remember what they called “Bay of Pigs,” but it’s that. And it’s more. It’s got a soft rock vibe that should be obnoxious but that saxophone stuff is awesome and though the lyrics aren’t as bizarre and masterful as Destroyer’s Rubies or Trouble in Dreams or This Night or any of them, they’re still far and away better than most. Especially his collaboration with artist Kara Walker (the aptly titled “Suicide Demo for Kara Walker”) which is probably the best song anyone wrote this year. This is a list of favorites, I get bored trying to make a qualitative judgment on music which is just so subjective, but if there was a “best album of 2011” it would probably be this one (or maybe St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy) just because of the artfulness of it all. All the goddamned artfulness, the playing with form, the literary quality of the songwriting, the thoughtfulness, the genius clearly at work effortlessly tossing off another batch of “European Blues” with great ease. Bejar is a master. That’s why a few years back when I went to SXSW for the first time I tried to see every set Destroyer played because he never comes to Lawrence. I think I saw them three times, and all three times they played the same set and all three times it was totally worth it. This is one of those records that reminds me that I shouldn’t give up faith in music, that certain players will always surpass any expectations I have, turn around and give them the finger, and then race away into some territory I can’t even begin to imagine.

2.) Los Campesinos! – Hello Sadness

I didn’t even know this was happening. It was announced in like, September and came out two months later, throwing a wrench into my plans. So many 2011 albums to absorb, so little time, and here’s one of my absolute, top 3 favorite bands dropping a brand new LP barely a year after their last one. Needless to say, I jumped on this one like a grenade in a war movie. And oh what a beautiful grenade it was, because I gotta say this band just doesn’t know how to stop getting better. Every album is an improvement, or at least evidence that the band is constantly evolving and staying fresh and wonderful. Gareth Campesinos is probably the grand master of break-up songs in this flock of young bands that have risen from the ether of the last five years, and oh boy, oh boy, here it is, he’s given us an honest to God, end of the world, masterful and destructive break-up album. Sure, the lead-off track and first single “By Your Hand” is a brilliant jaunty pop song, maybe the best they’ve ever written, but goddamn you can see that thing are not going to go well once this album progresses. What with the appearance of Fate, the cruel mistress girl (the prettiest in the world) and this sense of dread that they somehow manage to convey without bringing the song down into sadsackville (remedy sadsackville tendencies with this recipe: 7 parts vocal harmony, hand claps, horns). The songs just get sadder, earning the album’s title. And though most of it is delievered with Gareth’s traditional self-deprecating humor (“Not headstone, but headboard, is where I wanna be mourned,” he sings in “Baby I Got the Death Rattle” after prying his necktie off of the bedpost where he and ex-lover used to get saucy) and with typical manic cleverness. Every song on this album is great, and I had to step back and really appreciate the full band that makes these albums happen because it’s so easy to just focus on Gareth and his fantastic songwriting and forget the rest. Assuming Tom Campesinos still writes the music, the compositions here are his most accomplished yet. But I suspect it’s probably a more full-band thing by now. Hopefully this line-up sticks, because as saddened as I was to see co-vocalist/keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist Aleks Campesinos leave, her replacement—Gareth’s sister, Kim Campesinos—just totally kills it despite being used sparingly. But when she’s used, man oh man, does it just push everything over the top (see: the chorus of the epic centerpiece “The Black Bird, The Dark Slope” and lead back-ups on “By Your Hands”). This is also the first album for Rob “Sparky Deathcap” Campesinos who’s an excellent singer/songwriter in his own right and I want more because the little bit where he comes in at the end of “By Your Hand” kind of adds that last little bit that makes that my favorite song of the year. But holy shit, this album knows how to kill you. I know the band is kind of taken lightly because well, they themselves pretty lightly, but this is serious shit when you get down to it. I’m listening to “You Throw Parties, You Throw Knives,” the giddy twee jam that made me fall in love with this band years back and I never thought they’d make an album like THIS. It’s not that I didn’t love them or think they were one of my favorite new bands, but you just can’t ever predict these things, and it’s so so so exciting when you realize that something you love is becoming something you love even more. I never expected “To Tundra.” Just listen to it. It’s crushing, and it’s the heart of this album from which the rest is rooted in. That pure, bottled misery and sadness and heartbreak that Los Campesinos! capture so well. They always have, and I dare say they always will.

1.) Yuck – Yuck

This wasn’t even a dark horse. This wasn’t even at the fucking stable when I was gearing up for year-end 2011 in oh, March. Plotting through all the upcoming releases from some of my favorite bands: Fucked Up, The Mountain Goats, St. Vincent, Okkervil River, Bon Iver, etc, and somehow this blipped onto my radar. I don’t remember how or when exactly (sometime in March during the “creating a MS Word document for the Best of 2011”) but it happened. And it was a huge hit. For Jenny, at least. She immediately latched onto this record and as a result it stayed in my car stereo for a solid month and a half and became the soundtrack to making dinner for even longer. I like to use Jenny as a gauge for what real people think about music. Real people being the people unlike myself: the snobbish, head-up-ass critic who can’t just appreciate something for being pleasurable and has to dissect every last goddamn thing. But the thing is, with Yuck, I listen to this album and yeah, I can dissect every reference to every 90s alternative rock band they pay homage to and unlike other bands who sound a whole hell of a lot like 90s bands (read: the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and their overblown attempt to become the Smashing Pumpkins on this year’s Belong), Yuck never felt anything other than honest. It helps that the songwriting is personal and has a tendency to punch you right in the middle of the guts when its wants to (“Suck,” “Suicide Policeman”) but also has fun in celebrating simplicity (“The Wall”) and surprising you with these transcendent moments where you think all music is going to cave in and collapse because no song will ever be this good (“Operation”). Transcendent. That’s the word of the day for Yuck. Despite sounding like a mash-up of Yo La Tengo, Sebadoh, Guided by Voices, they only end up sounding like Yuck. There’s no pretense, no posturing, just four English kids jamming away the best way they know how (read: heartstoppingly excellent riffs, severe pop majesty (“Georgia”) and heartfelt/heart-on-sleeve/kid-has-a-lot-of-heart songwriting). I kept trying to play this album out and I just never got tired of it. It hits all my pleasure centers and it gives me hope. Hope that the young bands still love good old fashioned indie rock and know how to push it forward in a way that’s familiar and exciting at the same time. Really, the thing that pushed Yuck over Los Campesinos! was one moment on one song. "Shook Down," the song that hooked me the first time I listened to the record, plays like a tender little ballad and then two-minutes-and-forty-seconds in the distortion kicks in and it becomes a goddamn POWER ballad. It's little moments like this that make Yuck's debut album so special. They do what feels natural, they follow their hearts, they are pure and good and they write hooks like nobody's business and that's why I listened to this album more than any album of 2011 and that's why it's my favorite. So there.

Best of 2011: Rooftop Vigilantes - Real Pony Glue

2011-12-14T01:34:00.003-06:00

Since I first heard and fell in love with Rooftop Vigilantes second album, Real Pony Glue, like two years ago, I couldn't fit it into the list I'm making of my favorite albums of 2011. But it certainly belongs there, since it got left out of last year's and the year's before and since there's a funny story where I called dibs to review it for the Pitch way back when (and when a new editor had just started) and it took so long for this album to actually come out that a NEW new editor was in place and that didn't end up happening. But this is the sort of album not meant for this sort of "Best of 2011" list which is just a general catalog of music of the year that blah blah blah. This is the salvation of local music. To me, at least, and that's probably stilted maybe but not to me I guess. I don't actually own the album (save for the one-track MP3 mentioned in the review here) and have been listening to it track by track on the band's bandcamp page wishing I wasn't poor and wishing they didn't release it on goddamn cassette tape and hoping that once haters realize how good they are, this gets a vinyl release someday.

Rooftop Vigilantes – Real Pony Glue

Oh the woes of the local music scene. I first heard (and subsequently fell in love with) Rooftop Vigilantes troubled sophomore LP roughly two years ago (only judging from the “REALLY ALMOST PONY GLUE MIX” MP3 in my iTunes which is just one 40 minute track dated 1/15/10). The record was recorded by indie rock legend (and Jawbox frontman, indie rock legend first though) J. Robbins and never saw the light of day until the band released it on their own (and on goddamn cassette tape, which I know it’s organic and tangible and all but it gahhhhhh) this year. It’s a tragic thing, because I think Rooftop Vigilantes is the best band from Lawrence, and the best band that’s come out of Lawrence in a long time. I could talk your ear off about the fucking local music scene, but it’s just too long a conversation and one that makes me look like a horrible asshole. So I’ll leave it at “I love Rooftop Vigilantes.” Or I’ll amend that, “I love Rooftop Vigilantes and it’s not just because I know these people and I played in a band for a minute with the drummer and I think they’re generally very on it folks, I legitimately think this is a great record and even if they were all assholes I would STILL think this was a great record but fortunately they are not so that’s cool.” So where was I? Oh yeah, the tragedy of Real Pony Glue having to toil away in obscurity where it will have to become some sort of local legend like an artist who’s work isn’t appreciated til after he’s long dead and can’t reap any of the awards (like free coffee and favors, you know, the usual). This seemed to be true when I thought the band had broken up and I applied Guided by Voices references to them (See: “Bright Paper Werewolves” – “They want to get out of here/ But they can’t find the exit/ They cling to the cinema/ And they can’t find security/ Then they finally got recognized/ So they left in obscurity and misery.”) which was probably welcome but still pretty sad. But they’re NOT really broken up which is great, but they’re also not playing a show every couple of weeks, which is not great because that was the greatest when that was happening and a winter or so ago I had the most embarrassing moment of my life when I very drunkenly attempted to do vocals on their THIRD run through of Big Star’s “September Gurls” on the day of Alex Chilton’s death and proceeded to trudge the three blocks home in an intense snow storm where I stumbled on the sidewalk and ripped a hole in my jeans and thought about how people by jeans with holes torn in them and in my case I was just fucking annoyed cuz I’d just bought them a couple weeks ago and would have to go by a brand new pair but it was worth it even though oh god the horrific embarrassment still haunts me to this day. Rooftop Vigilantes taught me that it’s really wonderful having an open dialogue with a band you honestly love. You get to see all the minutiae, warts and all, and how that not only builds your appreciation for the band but for how music is made in general (read: like sausage, ugly but supremely tasty). The point is, I wish Rooftop Vigilantes was the house band at the Replay Lounge if only because this album’s title is an anagram of said bar. And it’s a perfect title because paying homage to that bar is pretty much paying homage to that part of Lawrence that this album stemmed from. I know it, people I know know it, and people who don’t know it can still sort of experience it by listening to this. It’s a fucking college town in the middle of nowhere (well, not really but I say Kansas, you say “The Middle of Nowhere”) and we’re just like you in INSERT CITY HERE. I love this record because today it seems like to be a band you have to be from Brooklyn and really, you can be from anywhere (read: Minneapolis in the 80s, a time period Roofie Vig no doubt adore with their ever present show-closing cover of the Replacements “Can’t Hardly Wait”) and I think we’ve sort of lost that. For the longest time, all the decent bands seemed like they were trying to get better so they could move to Brooklyn and Rooftop Vigilantes seemed like they were OK being in Lawrence and just did what they did because that’s what they did and there was no bullshit. There STILL isn’t any bullshit, and this record is a testament to that. And this reads like a love letter to Rooftop Vigilantes, which it is. I’m excited they’re making music again, and I’m sorry this had to have an obligatory spot on the list when it should have been higher but lists don’t matter and fuck everyone should listen to this album because:

Top 5 Reasons why Real Pony Glue is tragic because no one will give it the time of day:

5.) The Back Half of this album is just insane – Really, the back half of an album is usually reserved for filler. At least the back middle part, and then the last two are usually pretty OK, but all of these songs are real damn good. The front half is pretty rad too, but that’s expected, but burying “Seth No Jump,” which was the song fucking SPIN MAGAZINE wrote about, in the middle of the fucking album is bold, ballsy, and not even intending to be because that’s just where it fit and the craftsmen/craftswomen in this band know better than to put the single at track 3.

4.) The lead off track is dedicated to the hold policy of Lawrence’s finest record store – THIS IS LOCAL MUSIC. This is what I think of when I think of Lawrence. This band, this album, this song. There’s just SOMETHING I can’t even explain that I always wanted a local band to have and this band has it and I get really excited and every time they play a show I wanna rush out and go to it (although they played at fucking Love Garden like a couple weeks ago and I fucking forgot about it and I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO WORK THE NEXT DAY but I’m not too hard on myself because I thought this band was broken up for like, a year SO THERE). I can’t tell if my judgment is skewed. I mean, I KNOW it is, but I just don’t know how skewed it is because everyone loves the bands from their hometown. Although I usually tend to treat local bands with the same criticism I’d treat any band (which is only fair, you should be able to handle criticism and I remember some instances on music staff where a local record would be denied entrance to the coveted KJHK rotation and words would be had with the music director at the time where he would just say “OK we’ll give it another shot because it’s local” and it would be voted down again because goddamnit, you can’t have affirmative action for local music. You can grade it at a curve, sure OK but if it’s shitty it’s shitty and you can’t deny it just because they’re from your town they deserve to know and to learn from that because no one is ever gonna get better if you tell them that their shit music is sunshine and roses GODDAMNIT ok there was that long conversation about local music but moving on…) and if this band was from Boisie, Idaho or Augusta, Maine, I think I’d think they were awesome and I’d praise their clear love of the Replacements and GBV while not totally ripping them off and sounding like a real goddamn band.

3.) “Cartoon Crush” – This is the song that should open every set. This is the song you play to make all the people content to talk in the back and sip their PBR go “Whoa, this is actually pretty good.” And it has one of the best transcendent moments on the album at 1:10 when (I’ll probably use this again) when the whole motherfucker tips over and rushes off to the end of its short existence. Did I mention I love the fact that their songs are short, GBV style, which is kind of like getting to eat at Golden Corral everyday without getting fat (which is, basically, the greatest dream any man can have).

2.) “Fists of Gary” – Rooftop Vigilantes’ catchiest songs usually come from Oscar while Zach’s songs are the glue that kind of holds their albums together. But “Fists of Gary” is just so fucking good it makes me want to fucking scream. It’s written in vein that every Guided By Voices fan understands, and the transcendent quality to this song is ultimately what makes me so, so sad that labels didn’t flip their shit and sign this band immediately. This is the song that makes me want to have a trust fund just so I can start a record label and sign this band. LISTEN TO THAT GIRL GROUP DRUM DROP IN THE BREAK! GODDAMNIT!

1.) That part at the end of “Desperately Seeking High School On Ramp” (see: 1:20) – Zach and Oscar’s interplay as songwriters is the rocketfuel of this band (not to slight Seth (who is my favorite drummer in this town, and not just because I’ve played with him, but I jumped at the opportunity to play with him because he’s my favorite drummer in this town) nor Hannah (who’s farfisa skills add that extra something that separates RV from everyone else) and it’s so fun to have a band with dual songwriters who are probably constantly challenging each other to get better. But this song is Oscar’s best on the record because of that moment at 1:20 where it just all tips over and spills out. Fucking god. This is the part I think about when I think about this album when I think about this album.

Naturally, this review is heavily biased because this is a hometown band and touting this record would be like me praying for the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Superbowl. It's hometown pride, but it's more than that because my whole identity is tied to where I'm from despite trying to pretend that's not true. But then there's the aforementioned hate of local music and how Rooftop Vigilantes make me want to go to all of their shows because they're so goddamn good beyond anything I ever expected. They're a goddamn Kansas City Chiefs Superbowl, Royals World Series, and Jayhawks National Championship all rolled up into one little bundle that I can carry over my shoulder like a hobo wherever I go. Hell, they're better than that because they actually EXIST (with the exception of 2008, which I think RV understand based on Carrot Atlas' "Charley want Mario Chalmers"). More bands need to be this awesome, no matter where the fuck they're from.

Thrill of Discovery: Arctic Monkeys - Part 3

2011-12-01T12:04:00.003-06:00

Day 6: November 20, 2011

Humbug

Favourite Worst Nightmare left a pretty bad taste in my mouth, so much that I abandoned Arctic Monkeys for a month and a half. Actually, that’s not true. I’ve been listening to Humbug and Suck it and See regularly. Or both are on the iPod and certain songs come up on shuffle and I’m like “Oh this is good.” Humbug is pretty damn fucking good, I’d say. It’s a big step up in maturity (see: no more dance punk bass lines, etc) and Alex Turner’s songwriting evolves into bipedal adult from knuckle dragging club kid.

“My Propeller”

Not a blow you a way lead off track but solid through and through, which is comforting after the amazingly hit or miss Favourite Worst Nightmare(see: “Flourescent Adolescent” being the only hit, the rest, well…).

“Crying Lightning”

Lots of interesting stuff going on here in the gloomy guitar work and Turner’s vocal line. They’re straying away from the big, over the top hooks and it suits them so well. Don’t get me wrong, Arctic Monkey can pull off the massive hooks with ease in the right environment, but Favourite Worst Nightmare seemed so eager to please everyone whereas Humbug is much more internalized, giving less of a fuck, and ultimately sounding like this band making a big step forward.

“Cornerstone”

My favorite video after "Fluorescent Adolescent."

This is a masterpiece of a song. This is everything Arctic Monkeys do well, executed flawlessly and going above and beyond anything I ever expected. A brilliant pop tune carried on the back of Alex Turner’s songwriting prowess. It’s hopelessly sad, a young gentleman so hung up on a young lass he keeps either finding girls who look like her (or do they?) and attempting to woo them and ultimately, pleading to call them the other girl’s name. It’s obsessive and insane and if you’ve been there, it’s pretty accurate. The lyrics manage to be off the cuff and playful(“She was close, close enough to be your ghost/ But my chances turned to toast/ When I asked her if I could call her your name”) while cementing this tragic and pathetic character roaming the bars looking for a replacement. He smells her on a seatbelt and takes the long way home, and ultimately sees this young lass’ sister, picks her up, and she agrees to let him call her his ex-girlfriend’s name. It’s fucking WEIRD. Bizarre and bad-dream like and just gets everything right. If Every song Arctic Monkeys wrote was this good, they could be bigger than the Beatles. Well, maybe…

“Pretty Visitors”

“What came first, the chicken or the dickhead.” Turner’s lyrics are always playful, fun, and appropriate (for the song, not for primary school, church, or ice cream socials, natch). I really like that this band is slipping further and further from their Franz Ferdinand aping/dance-punk roots and this is a weird sort of song, waffling between gothic horror movie music cut with typical, short burst rapid fire bits. Just realized that I used the word “Playful” again, which I guess is what I can’t help describing Arctic Monkeys’ music as because you can’t just say it’s fun over and over again. That and I wrote that bit about “Cornerstone” like a week and a half ago and I realize how lazy I am and how I gotta get this done.

“The Jeweller’s Hands”

ANOTHER dark, weird jam. This one has been coming up a lot when the iPod’s on shuffle and we’re cooking dinner or whatever. And yet, I never turn it to something else. I do really love how they’re branching out into murkier territory. These last few songs make it sound like the band is ready to move on. They’ve gestated long enough in a specific style with specific media ramifications that they can do whatever the fuck they want now because they’re famous.

Book Club: The Magicians by Lev Grossman

2011-10-20T15:50:00.004-05:00

Lev Grossman’s The Magicians is pretty much universally tagged as “Harry Potter for Grown Ups.” It’s not, really. For one, it’s not really that much like Harry Potter other than the fact that it’s largely set at a school of magic and in a world where magic is real, but the magic is grittier, more arcane and mysterious and dangerous than the simplified magic world of Harry Potter. Not to knock HP, I love me some Harry Potter, but my big fear going into this book was that it would be too Harry Potter-esque and I was relieved to find that it wasn’t. The Chronicles of Narnia is also a huge touchstone, and there’s more of that influence in The Magicians than anything. At least what I know about Narnia, which isn’t a lot but even then, he makes references to Narnia and Harry Potter in the book so as to set it all apart. Anyway, Grossman’s book was engrossing. Ha! And it was really, really good and sad and a wonderful coming of age story featuring a protagonist who is a fuck up just like everyone else. It’s rare to find a genuine fuck up in books, I think. There’s that platonic ideal of a fuck up and then there’s Quentin Coldwater who rings much more like you or I (or probably just I in this case, I identified with him a bit, although I don’t know if I’m as big of a bitch as he is but I probably am) than of the classic fuck ups. He makes mistakes, often big ones that have huge consequences, but they’re mistakes anyone could make under the right emotional circumstances. The Magicians treats magic like some dangerous, unstable substance humans just accidentally stumbled upon and it really grounds this novel in reality, which is primarily why it’s so great. That and Grossman’s prose is just terrific to read and laugh out loud funny sometimes and then just horrifying and brutal other times.

It’s been a while since I’ve wanted to do one of these Book Club features for a book, but I’ve figured out that certain books just go better with music and it’s not right to force it. As usual, most of these songs are culled from whatever’s been in the CD player or playing on repeat on iTunes, or some new thing I stumbled upon that seemed to fit in one way or another.

Parry Gripp – “I Wanna Be a Magician”

Lev Grossman curated this theme song for The Magicians. How fucking cool is that? And you know what, it’s a goddamned great track. Like Grossman, I share a sort of undying love for Nerf Herder based on years of listening between the ages 14 and 18 and well, I still listen to Nerf Herder now and again because it’s just good. Good hooks and such. This is just such a perfect fucking song for this book/series/whatever it is. It conveys that sense of excitement that kind of runs through the book. That’s really the only consistent emotion, really. Even when it’s subdued due to danger and heartbreak, there’s always that thrill of the quest. It’s what this book is all about: finding out that magic is real and then seeing how far the rabbit hole goes.

Los Campesinos! – “By Your Hand”

One of the best things about The Magicians is that it deals with teen angst in a more realistic way than Harry Potter. That’s one of the things that really sets it apart and somewhat removes the “Harry Potter for Grown Ups” stigma. It’s not really Harry Potter for grown ups because it’s not really that much like Harry Potter. And it’s not really for grown ups. It’s more young adult with a hefty dose of post-college lit.

I can’t wait for this album to come out. I forgot it was so close. This is the first single, and I found this video about a month after it premiered, took a break from reading, freaked out a little, and then freaked out a little more because it’s so good. It’s good because it’s catchy and sad like all the best LC! Songs but it also definitely feels like this band is maturing in the best way. The way where they aren’t sacrificing any of the inherent stuff that makes them great and that only makes their music better and better. Maybe this song fits so well because they’re British and Brakebills is described as being very Anglophilic. But it balances the fun and sad that comes with the early twenties/twentysomething characters. Anyway, I think I watched this video right when Quentin and Alice went to her parents weird house and it felt like something was going to go drastically wrong with their relationship sometime later in the novel, but at that point they still loved eachother. Not like they ever stop loving eachother, it just gets complicated because as I’ve said, Quentin is a stupid fuck up which only makes what happens at the end all that much more tragic and ultimately, what makes this book so fucking good. There are consequences, and those consequences are never pleasant, and will have to be dealt with by those who surivive. And that’s sad. But that’s life.

Los Campesinos! – “This is How You Spell..."

And yeah, maybe it’s the British thing. But Quentin and Alice’s relationship just feels like a fucking Los Campesinos! Song. Bittersweet. Emphasis on the sweet, emphasis on the bitter. Notably “I know, I am wrong, I am sorry.” Something about that sentiment.

Feist – “The Bad in Each Other”

Well, it’s pretty clear what I focused on the most in the book. I just love a well told relationship story. One that gets it right. That sort of thing seems to be the most important thing it is, or at least that’s how it seems. The way we interact with people, notably the ones we love. You know Alice and Quentin are gonna get together from the second you see them in the same room and he remarks at how weird and odd she is. And then there’s the whole fox-sex thing in Antarctica and the fact that they’re the only two crazy enough to participate in Mayakovsky’s optional final. Kindered spirits, those two. SO SPOILER ALERT QUIT READING IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THIS, it was pretty easy figure out that Quentin was going to cheat with her. What with all the drinking and drugging and partying and time away from Alice because she hated all that. This post-Brakebills world seemed almost out of character for Quentin, but mostly because I was just so annoyed because I knew what was going to happen. And then it did, and then I understood why it had to happen: So Penny could show up with the magic button that would take them to Fillory. Having that Quentin/Alice drama running through what should have been the most exciting thing ever was just perfectly placed to keep things grounded. To make sure the real world followed them into magic land. And then it looks like it’s going to work out, maybe and of course Alice sacrifices herself with some badass medieval magic to kill the Beast and I know that needs to happen because Quentin is the protagonist and he needs that to happen so he can learn and grow but man, but it still sucks. It illustrates the complexity of their relationship and that’s what makes Quentin who he becomes. I’m reading The Magician King now and he’s a little bit wiser. Still a fuck up, but he knows that there are consequences and he’s more mature this time around. Granted, not that much more mature, but he’s touched the stove and realized it’s hot so there.

Anyway, this song has pangs of a couple who’ve been together so long they know every last bit about each other and notably, how they’re capable of hurting each other.

M83 – “Midnight City”

I put M83’s new bloated-but-still-lovely LP Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming one night whilst reading and it was a nice fit. Anthony Gonzalez knows exactly how to play on nostalgia in such a way that it captures the absolute spirit of youth and preserves all of its faults and triumphs. It’s not so much of a lyrical thing, but the tone that the synthesizers have that just screams 20 year olds at magician school. Also, I didn't know this when I picked this song, but the video is basically a bunch of kids who can do magic. GO FIGURE.

The Free Design - Kites are Fun

2011-10-12T16:34:00.003-05:00

The Free Design – Kites Are Fun
Project 3, 1967
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010
Price: $8

This is some proto-twee shit. I bought this because I vaguely remember this band from my Nuggets/twee-pop-is-god phase and I don’t think I ever listened to it. That seems to be the only reason I can use to get myself to buy records since I don’t really need them anymore and I clearly don’t listen to them enough. So “Oh great! I haven’t heard this and I think this record is rare maybe” is as good an excuse as any. This is the only record in my collection that is musty (it’s simply not allowed, not ever, especially since I’ve started working at HPB in which handling collections that have been collecting mold and such for the last 20 years makes me throw musty records away on sight), a rare exception. No visible mold, but you can certainly smell the must. A small sacrifice, I suppose. The music is what you would expect from a band tagged with a label like “Sunshine Pop.” The siblings Dedrick certainly have a penchant for happy jams, that’s for sure. Laid back, groovy loungey tunes from the Summer of Love, etc. There are some long liner notes that I don’t have time to read, but the first line of the title track proclaims “This bright, gay song was, literally, the beginning of the Free Design.” (Note: Haha, Gay. Lol). The song-by-song notes look like they’ve been written by some PR exec desperate to make you think this music is interesting but instead ruins them with over-explanation with lines like “Chris adds a jaunty recorder solo to the group’s singing” and quotes from the band like “If it takes drugs to free your mind, you’re reaching out for nothing. Your own imagination is where it’s at.” God, what a bunch of SQUARES. On the whole, this is a really fucking lame record. Just painfully lame, which I suppose is why it reminds me of twee pop. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy aspects of it, but really, after reading some of these lame ass liner notes, I’m thinking about how much more interesting this might be if it wasn’t for stuff like “It’s important for the whole song to have an idea, like a novel or a poem, although it doesn’t have to be very profound. To start with you need a catchy phrase. But after that phrase, a lot of songs don’t go very far. I spend a lot of time on the lyrics trying to make them say something and, at the same time, to make sure that they’re not so deep that nobody understands them.” This over-explanation of concept is an interest-killer, for real. But I suppose pretending it doesn’t exist and just evaluating the record, it’s still just some boring folk-tinged easy listening pop. Sure, I can see the influence on twee a bit (singing about Kites, carefree things, etc) but Twee was cool because it incorporated punk rock. This is not-cool because it tries to be as vanilla as humanly possible in an effort to get more people to listen to it. At least that’s the impression I get. This might have sounded really fresh in ’67. Who knows, maybe I woulda ate this shit up but now it’s dated in a sad sort of way. Plus, the whole thing sounds like it was painstakingly packaged by out of touch record label execs trying to tap in to the “youth market” and it shows. Still, there are plenty of nice harmonies and well orchestrated bits of instrumentation and I guess it’s a nice album, but nice album’s don’t get asked to the prom.

Thrill of Discovery: Arctic Monkeys - Part 2

2011-10-11T19:23:00.003-05:00

Day 4: October 6, 2011

Favourite Worst Nightmare

“Fluorescent Adolescent”

What a great video! Seriously! Arctic Monkeys seem to shine when they prove that their simple music can be twisted and morphed into fucking brilliant pop songs if they want it to.

This is the first great track on this record. I’d even go as far as to say that it’s the first really good track on this record, and it’s five songs in. It feels like a departure from the first record in the best way: the way where Arctic Monkeys start to peel past the unavoidable comparisons and get a “That sounds like an Arctic Monkeys song.” Mind, it’s not there yet. Not quite at all, but I’ve been listening to their latest, Suck it and See, in the car on a loop for five days and it feels like more fun to track this young band’s progression up to that point. Puts it all in perspective, because it feels like they’re getting better and better, album after album. Or maybe not better and better. But figuring themselves out more. This one sounds better, nice production and all, but until “Florescent Adolescent” hits it all feels a bit rote. The prior songs on the album, that is. It’s a groovy jam through and through hitting that sweet spot that Arctic Monkeys seem to hit three or four times an album. Chris, just a fucking excellent song. A three minute pop song played to perfection. And an excellent music video directed by Richard Ayoade to boot!

“Only Ones You Know”

Man oh man, the quiet songs is where Alex Turner really gets to shine. The nice new beefed up production works in his favor here, too, in that it stays out of the way while letting all the nice and elegant pretty bits shine through before rushing back into the pretty OK rock music of the next song. But when the lights are dimmed, he can really twist a gorgeous melody around your guts and heartstrings and I don’t know, muscly things that gives you the heavy chest. I don’t feel like these guys are amazing musicians. They’re capable enough, I suppose, at least for what Alex Turner’s songs require, but on a whole the riffs and the basslines tend to err on the side of OK. When there’s less to get in the way of the actual songs, they tend to shine.

Day 5: October 11, 2011

The Rest of this Fucking Album
Remember that last paragraph where I said that Arctic Monkeys’ relied very, very heavily on the talent in Alex Turner’s songwriting? Well, well just yeah. The rest of this album is forgettable. I’ve listened to it three times through looking for a spark of something great and I get some amateurish guitar work and boring ol’ bass lines and all that brashness of the debut but muted because its filtered through some fancy studio boards or whatever. Maybe that’s why the three singles on this album are culled from the first five songs. It seems like Arctic Monkeys have this problem with consistency. Their sound is pretty consistent, I’ll give’em that, but consistently compelling is something they can do maybe 50% of the time. At least that’s what I’ve seen with Suck it and See, which I’m still compulsively listening to in the car despite the album being 50% excellent and 50% just plain boring with a dash of cock-rock. On Favourite Worst Nightmare they’re not quite there yet. Still a handful of British lads getting to play at being rock stars, which is awesome, but the back half of this album is mostly chaff. “The Bad Thing” isn’t so bad, it has some really fun vocal delivery that mixes it up enough to keep it going for its pretty short running time.

BUT!

Revisiting the First half of the record for shits and grins

“Brainstorm”
Ok, this song has something to it. It’s fun, and I think that’s something that for some reason I can’t bring to the table when I’m listening to Arctic Monkeys. Because I hate fun music. I mean, I don’t really hate it, I just generally hate fun. Or I’m indifferent to fun, at least when it comes to music. It doesn’t bother me when its there, but if the song lacks any meatier substance I can tend to overlook the fact that it might have been just good old fashioned fun. The bass line (What is it with the bass lines on this fucking album?) reeks of what Death From Above 1979 did for bass lines in the early 00s and now every bass line sounds crunchy when played with aggression and the distortion turned way up.

“Teddy Pickler”
The other aforementioned single from the first five songs. This one drowns under an amateurish bass line as well. I wish the music wasn’t so boring, because I really do think Alex Turner has some amazing talent. The sort that’s going to mature with the man. He’s clever. Very clever, good with words and teriffic with melodies. The music, man oh man, it’s just plain uninspiring.

“D is for Dangerous”
This is another one of those “fun songs.” Except in this case, “Fun” means “dance punk revival. At least the songs are very, very short on this record. Particularly in the case of this one, which stays afloat because it’s only a little over two minutes long.

Thrill of Discovery: Arctic Monkeys - Part 1

2011-09-29T19:17:00.004-05:00

Thrill of discovery is an ongoing feature where I dive headfirst into the discography of a band everyone loves or are popular for some reason that I've never been able to understand based on cursory listens. It is an effort to fill in the gaps of my musical knowledge, which there are very many, and the end result is designed to be "fewer." This go around, it's British post-post-punk popular darlings Arctic Monkeys. It's meant to be a bit of a break from the colossal undertaking that was the Ween discography and the even more massive discography of the next artist, REM, who handily just broke up and it's now the perfect time to figure out why people are all apeshit for them now that they're kaput. But anyway, Arctic Monkeys. I chose them because I always thought they were entirely boring despite only ever hearing chunks of their songs on alt-rock radio. I realized I'd never actually listened to one of their records and that I couldn't even name one of their songs. I recently watched Richard Ayoade's directorial debut, the absolutely wonderful coming-of-age story Submarine which boasts an absolutely appropriate and unreasonably gorgeous five-song soundtrack from Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner. Turn's out the guy is quite the songwriter. That coincided with the release of the music video of the title track from Arctic Monkeys latest LP, Suck it and See, and while I thought the video was a beautifully shot load of sexy rubbish, the song was really fucking great. Oh yeah, that's why I watched Submarine that night. Go figure.

Day 1: September 26, 2011
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not

“The View From the Afternoon”

Sounds like a mash-up of the best of blur and the lingering dance-punk influence that sadly dwelt in the middle of the 00s. BUT, this song plays off with enough swagger and British enunciation and general funness that makes it not only work, but makes me want to listen to more. It’s pulling the same card as the Strokes, almost the exact same one except barely more British. The guitars are crunchier, the structures more loose, and it works.

“I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor”

I can't tell if he's trying to be the Gallagher brothers or not (not really). We have the same guitar, though, so COOL.

What I like about this album (two songs in) is that none of it feels overthought which is really, I think, is one of the many Achilles’ Heels of modern music. Especially mainstream music. Especially mainstream modern rock, the kind of wannabe alternative trash they play on 96.5 the Buzz. Arctic Monkeys sound like Buzz stables. Like they could fit in right next to the Killers or Straylight Run or any of those other mass-produced sounding bands reliant on the Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Chorus-Chorus-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus song structure, and naturally they’d stick out as sounding a bit more with it since they don’t beat their songs to death. They know that a good pop song should be right around or just under the three minute mark. Good for them.

“Fake Tales of San Francisco”

This is better than the last song, which I think was the single. The first single. Big single? I don’t really know. Again, fucking dance punk drums that will date this as the years go on but Alex Turner is a good enough writer to carry this band, it seems. Great hooks, fun and clever lyrics, etc. I appreciate concept albums, too. Even if they’re just thematically conceptual like the club scene nature of the songs here, it gets a thumbs up and if it sucks an E for effort.

“Dancing Shoes”

Aaaaand now into the realm of way-too-obvious fan films.

Speaking of dancing, the British obsession with clubbing is so strange to me yet probably not much different from any of the commonplace mating rituals we have here in the States. What’s the equivalent? I mean, they have gigs and stuff there, and yeah we have rave clubs where teenagers do ecstasy and get all sweaty all over each other but it seems like it’s thee thing to do in England to stave off boredom and maybe get laid. Anyway, just realized that this band sounds a lot like a grimier version of Franz Ferdinand.

“Still Take You Home”

You know, at first I was like "Well, this is all just really simplistic and that's fine but still" but you know what, it makes me really happy to see that rock bands can still be popular. Or maybe that's a mainstream thing, but I think Arctic Monkeys have a bit more artfulness than most like the Strokes or something and though that trend is dead and buried, I'll take this over Chillwave any day.

This album already sounds a bit dated. The whole mid 00s is already set in amber and so much of this album is either taking from things that were happening in the earlier 00s or late 70s punk rock. Edgier Blur tones and a less full of themselves Strokes come to mind again, over and over. At least I don’t think they’re a bunch of rich kids. Or at least it doesn’t sound like they’re a bunch of rich kids. Rich kids can be deceptive because lord knows how they love to be perceived as poor because they think it makes them real despite the fact that the only reason their little band has any traction whatsoever is because of the connections they were born with. Back to the old argument of is it great art if it was born with money because poor people without connections are making great albums no one will ever hear or are the albums legit because the opportunity for everything was there forever. It’s a useless argument, totally. And what was I talking about? Oh yeah, “Still Take You Home” sounds like it should be a filler track, if that makes sense. Like the kind of track most bands use for late album padding, except it’s really good. A straight up jam, not super spectacular but good and a grower for certain. Something to latch on to.

Day 2: September 27, 2011

“Mardy Bum”

I think this is the song that works best on the album, but it also serves as a perfect example to what a song needs to be, which is that it needs to be able to be played on an acoustic guitar and a voice and still work. I guess that's not true. Probably a lie, actually. But I've always thought that that the best songs did. Like it needs to work at the very base to work at all or it's just going to collapse and bury whatever family is living inside of it.

God, this sounds like a fucking single, if only because it’s my favorite song on the album so far. But probably because I had to stop listening when this one was almost over and picked up writing by just replaying it. I’ve probably been over this before, but the reason I love short pop songs so much is that it illustrates a knowledge that it’s better to leave a listener wanting more than to run it into the ground by repeating the chorus 8,000,000 times. Oh, I already said that? It bears repeating because modern rock is fucked that way. “Mardy Bum” is just under 3 minutes long and I immediately want to listen to it again once it’s done. I appreciate the craft of it. Sure, it sounds extra-Blur-y, but they’re British and EVERYTHING sounds like Blur over there. Great hook, well written, solid jam.

“From the Ritz to the Rubble”

Shit, this one is really great too. Definitely Finn-y.

Alex Turner’s vocal delivery and songwriting is Arctic Monkeys’ greatest gift. Their music is a more punked up dance-punk meets the Strokes but Turner is onto something. I keep thinking of Craig Finn of the Hold Steady, who also writes songs about kids going to crazy parties, doing too many drugs, trying to get laid, and having massive highs and crushing lows. Turner also doesn’t seem to like to repeat his choruses, making them structural placeholders and expending his energy in telling these fancy clubbing stories in the verses. And that’s the kind of songwriting I love and it stands opposed to all the other goddamn songwriting in modern radio rock music right now. Lyrically, the song appears to be a rote account of not getting let into a club thanks to some Nazi bouncers then going off, getting drunk, having some maybe deep conversations with the girl you made out with and reflecting on that the next morning. Simple stuff making me thing Alex Turner is Craig Finn’s spiritual little brother. He’s not as gifted as Finn is with details and wordplay and well, all around songwriting prowess, but his heart is in the right place.

“A Certain Romance”

HA.

OK, I’ve already mentioned the whole three minute pop song rant like 8 times, and “A Certain Romance” is 1.) The first real deviation from that format on this record and 2.) Very obviously the favorite single from this record because 3.) It’s the most solid, certifiable jam. And it’s right at the very end, which I thought was either a ballsy move or wasn’t intended to be on the album but they tacked it on after people loved it so much (or they realized it was such a jam and could sell more records). It’s just a big motherfucking song and it works at its length. It’s not my favorite song on the record, but it’s a nice cap on a debut that I thought was gonna be garbage when it came out all those years ago.

Day 3: September 29, 2011

Who the Fuck Are Arcic Monkeys? EP

This is a glorified single for Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’s lead-off track “A View From the Afternoon.” And though it came out only a few months after the LP, it already feels like a departure. From the soulful haze of “Despair in the Departure Lounge” that really illustrates what this band is capable of if they drop the dance punk beats and the bratty faux-punk delivery. The song sounds like it was recorded in one take at three in the morning and the solo performance makes it all the more lonely. Actually, all of the tracks save the one “A View of From the Afternoon” take Arctic Monkeys in a much more enjoyable direction.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Conclusion

2011-09-25T00:54:00.002-05:00

Day 14: September 22^nd, 2011

It’s over. Well, it’s not really over, since Ween is going to be one of those bands I carry under my arm or around my neck or just generally on my ipod or burnt CD-R in my car forever. Ween proves that the experiment worked. If you just barrel into a band’s daunting discography you can come out the other side a fan. I didn’t expect to become a fan, just to understand why other people were. It was easy though. At first it was kind of like staring at that really awful car wreck on the highway that the helicopters are circling over, but by the end it was this fantastic voyage into the evolution of a band over a couple of decades. Watching Ween mature into actual, respectable adult music without really sacrificing any of their inherent Ween-ness was kind of spectacular. I didn’t know I’d find tunes that were you know, actually great and heartfelt and tender and sad. I thought it was gonna be all weird shit for the bros but then there’s stuff like “Stay Forever” and “She’s Your Baby” and “I Don’t Want It” that just bring the fucking house down. Then there’s the way the guitars come in on “Nan” that hit me in the sweet spot every time or the cautionary tale of “Sorry Charlie” that I only realized was about that one guy you know who can never seem to do anything right and you’ve gotta just let go in order to move on with your own life. Or how fucking catchy “Voodoo Lady” is and how that track alone kind of makes Chocolate and Cheese great. The Mollusk still feels like the masterpiece, a perfect album. White Pepper is the one that has my favorite songs. Quebec shattered my heart a little bit in a good way. And I’m relistening to GodWeenSatan: The Oneness, The Pod, and Pure Guava because I think only now am I ready to truly appreciate them without the rubbernecking and the standoffishness that I approached them with in the first place. And now they’re sounding really good. Some tracks are just too fucking weird but listening to “Tender Situation” after hearing some much better live versions, I see the murky beauty and weirdness in the recorded version and it’s fucking wonderful.

The project is done, but there are still pry a hundred b-sides, early recordings, live shows and demos to listen to over the years. That’s a pretty nice thing.

I'mma leave it with a video of these two as a couple of young spring chickens playing one of the most gripping songs in their discography. I can't explain why it's gripping, other than maybe some innuendo, and really, all I know is that this is fucking weird as fuck and genius as shit. And I can't explain that either. It just is.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Ten

2011-09-20T22:34:00.003-05:00

Day 13: September 9^th, 2011

La Cucaracha

8:27 PM

After a nearly two week break from the Ween project, I’ve decided that I have to face the music and listen to their last proper album and wrap this Thrill of Discovery up. It’s a sad thing. I’m reluctant to do it, and while I feel like I’ve just been fucking around, neglecting the blog, the project, etc, I’ve been listening to nothing but Ween lately. Lie. Flat out lie. Don’t know why I said it. I’ve been embroiled in a real, paying music writing assignment that ate up my last week and still isn’t 100% done but fuck it, Ween makes everything better. That’s not even a real excuse, because I’ve had time to do other shit, but it was that sort of assignment where everything went wrong and the only way to cure the anxiety and the stress was to drink and watch TV and, well, listen to the bitchin’ Ween mix I made while I was listening to all the albums. I’ve pared it down to 42 songs and have a ways to go before it fits on a CD, but it’s been easy cutting songs. I just pick the ones Jenny hates and put them on the special “Listen to when Jenny is not here” mix. It’s a graveyard for “Push th’ Little Daisies” and “Sketches of Winkle,” and the like. HOWEVER, despite her early disposition of “Fuck this music, fuck it forever in its stupid fucking face,” I’ve tricked Jenny into liking a few tracks. Pawned my own Stockholm Syndrome onto her, if you will (that sounds like and STD, and in the case of Ween, well, it might as well be). I’ve been very clever about it. She’ll be in the kitchen, I’ll put on the “Ween for Jenny” mix whilst dicking around and she’ll say “Oh what is this, I know this song” and I go, “THIS IS WEEN! The song is called ‘Even if You Don’t’” and she says “This is Ween?” Yep. This is one of the most challenging seductions I’ve ever undertaken. Winning her over and convincing her to marry me was peanuts compared to trying to make her understand why Ween fucking rules. “Stay Forever” and “She’s Your Baby” have been working like charms, but sequencing this mix for her will be the real bitch. Anyway, aside. It’s time to finish this. And really, this isn’t even the last post because I’ve gotta do one last one where I listen to all the live albums I have on the hard drive and all the weird B-sides floating around. There’s still work to be done, but the hard part is over. I became a convert. I came home from the gym, and I sat down and thought “What do I want for dinner? I have THREE different kinds of macaroni and cheese but WHICH ONE IS TONIGHT’S MACARONI AND CHEESE?” and I put on “Nan” to help me decide and I’m probably just having canned ravioli. Ween helps make decisions, or it helps make making decisions easier. Knowing that if I can dive headfirst into the discography of a band I’ve formerly sort of despised and love them on a level that I love my favorite bands, well, I can do anything. Anything but listen to the goddamned 30 minutes version of “LMLYP” I have floating around oh GOD please no.

“Friends”

Ahh, Ween’s foray into gay euro disco! I remember this. I remember when the EP for this track came out years back and I thought, “Maybe this is the time to get into Ween, I am in college after all and I have now smoked pot once so…” and well, I thought this was some colossal bullshit. It’s still not great, but I understand it now. Ween has built their ark on genre-hopping so well, why the hell not have a Ibiza club jam on this album?

“Object”

Ha, some bro pry thought this was SO COOL. Because bros like American Psycho, right? Great, funny song with an unfortunately stupid fan video.

Ahh, this is more like it. More in the vein of the progress made on Quebec yet still pushing forward into maturity while still staying brown. My favorite thing about listening to all of these albums back to back to back has been charting the personal growth, as people and as songwriters. GodWeenSatan: The Oneness SOUNDS so much like an album made by a couple of teenagers who wanted to fuck around and make a fucking record just cuz, singing about shit they thought was funny or awesome or weird. There are threads from that here, right here in this song and though the t-shirt continues to unravel, that’s not a bad thing, because um, it creates something new? You can make a ball of string out of it and give it to a cat? You can sew it into a new sweater? There was an analogy there and now I’m just thinking about Weezer who I oft confused with Ween before I listened to Weezer in like the 8^th grade but that’s beside the point. Anyway, this is the first legitimately great song on this album and I feel more comfortable proceeding.

“My Own Bare Hands”

Can't get over how fuckin' funny this song is. Best on the album I'd say. Love how Deaner's rock n' roll face looks like a takin' a dump face so so so so so much.

Fuck, is this Deaner rockin’ the vox? AND ROCKIN THE SICK SOLO! It must be, this sounds like a Deaner song. One embodying the essence of rock and roll and laced with lines like “She’s gonna be my cock professor/ Studyin’ my dick/ She’s gonna get her masters degree/ In fuckin’ me.” It’s funny. And the thing is, these dick jokes are so much more refined than the ones on the first couple records. There’s a grace to it, even in the brownest of brown lines (“Take a shit on a bitch shit fuck bubbajibba,” what does that even MEAN). I’m mostly kidding, but really, this sounds like classic Ween and I am now starting to warm up to this goddamn record.

“Sweetheart in the Summer”

The cutest song in Ween's catalog.

Awwww. A cute oldies sounding number with nothing disgusting about it! HOW FUCKING ODD!

“Woman and Man”

Nothin' but solos.

This song is long. Like really long, full of bitchin’ guitar solos and bongos and flutes and all sorts of shit. Which is to say if meanders, meanders all over the damn place for ten minutes. This is almost as bad as the 10 minutes of noise on Wilco’s “Less Than You Think” from A Ghost is Born. Tramping into jam band territory for sure on this one.

“Your Party”

TRI COLORED PASTAS!

Ahh, nothing like closing an album with a Yacht Rock send-up. Features mentions of tri-colored pastas and a fucking legit-sounding sax solo that I read was recorded by a dude who actually plays sax for this shitty stuff in real life! Sadly, it doesn’t feel up to Ween’s standards which usually involve turning a genre on its head and creating something kind of wonderful (or weird or both). Here it plays as straight parody. It’s funny, sure, and not at all unpleasant, but it feels a little phoned in.

In Which Okkervil River Ate Up Two Weeks of My Life

2011-09-20T13:00:00.002-05:00

And it was a good thing. I had to face fears and stuff because when the editor asks "Do you want to interview Okkervil River" you can't really say "No, I don't want to talk to one of my favorite bands because it would just create all of this anxiety and let's just not and say we did." It's bad, social anxiety. I've had it forever, or at least since I was a fat kid. I still have that fat kid mentality. That I'm already judged enough, I won't give them any more so I'll just not say anything sort of thing. But of course I had to take it, and got to a point where I had all my questions and was totally ready to talk to Will Sheff (who's songwriting style and stage persona I mimicked when I was playing in bands that played shows and only realized after seeing their excellent show at the Granada last night). And then the interview fell through. Then the rescheduling collided with my unmoving work schedule and since Id already written up the questions, just sent them off for an e-mail interview which was kind of sad but it turned out alright.

You can read that over here at the Pitch.

Last night they played at the Granada and I wrote about that for the Pitch too. It was a great show, although I'm always partial to gigs where the band is forced to play through technical difficulties. It's like breaking the fourth wall. Seeing the nuts and bolts and, most importantly, realizing that the band are just people which is something that, if a show goes smoothly, you forget. Which is a fine thing I suppose, but when things go wrong it makes it kind of special. Especially if a band is as endearing as Okkervil River. Especially when you get to see something akin to this:

So sad when a band has to tell people to stop talking. Almost had to garrote some drunk teenager who kept talking about the Killers. Fortunately, the Granada staff are awesome and prevented this.

In the end, the stress was worth if if only because I finally got around to listening to Okkervil River's latest, I Am Very Far, and it's secured at least a Top 10 end of the year spot (my end of the year lists are very predictable. 1.) Did your favorite band put out an album this year? 2.) Was it good by anyone else's standards but maybe just great by yours via your bias? 3.) Top 10). The stress is always worth it, and doing professional writing makes coming back to this quiet little corner where I don't have to think about sentence structure or professionalism that much sweeter.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween concludes today or tomorrow, followed by a one-off Thrill of Discovery involving Arctic Monkeys (frontman Alex Turner did songs for the soundtrack for the excellent Richard Ayoade bildungsroman Submarine and those songs were so fucking good I figured I should give his band a shot and then write about it because that's the only way I know how to connect to music anymore which is kind of sad) and then onto REM or some other band that people love and adore that I've just never been able to understand. It worked for Ween, it might as well work for anyone.

Best of 2011: Bon Iver - "Beth/Rest"

2011-09-20T12:40:00.002-05:00

Bon Iver's latest, self-titled (or is it double-self-titled, who knows!) album has been in the bedroom CD player for about a month and a half. It's sort of the perfect CD to have in your bedroom CD player. It's good for reading to, sleeping to, tender situations, you name it! It's a multi-purpose album, and one of my favorite albums of the year so far if only because I've listened to it like 100 times and I'm still not sick of it. So, a couple of weeks ago I read that the monster closing track "Beth/Rest" was "divisive" amongst critics. Divisive because it's got soft rock sounding keyboards, sax, and guitar solos. And I'm asking these critics who are trashing on this track this: Did you not listen to Destroyer's Kaputt? Homeboy made a whole album based around easy listening and cheesy sax solos and critics loved it and they loved it because it's one of the best albums of the year. So I don't see how "Beth/Rest" is divisive. I don't see how any critic worth his weight in free promo CDs and plus ones would actively single out the last track on an album that is clearly building up to that last track. I guess people didn't like the end of "Lost," so I can see potentially being let down, but only if this track was legitimately bad. Cheesy and corny? Well, sure, but that seems to be the point. To employ those elements and overcome the shittiness of that bygone genre to make something spectacular. It would make more sense to just straight up hate this record than to single out "Beth/Rest." Haters gonna hate, though, and Bon Iver's reached that level of popularity that creates a backlash amongst the snob elite that I really can't understand. It's ok if other people like this, and it's ok if those people are sorority girls or 15 year olds because really, that seems to be the point. Having music that is universally loved be actual good music is a novelty these days and hell, if Arcade Fire or Bon Iver are gonna get all beloved, then isn't that a good thing? Side quest rant aside, there are some mega-hits on Bon Iver, Bon Iver, Bon Iver and it's exactly the kind of departure Justin Vernon needed to make. He can't record albums in the woods forever, you know.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Nine

2011-09-02T19:22:00.003-05:00

Day 12 (cont’d): August 28^th, 2011

Shinola (Vol. 1)

2:25 PM
“Tastes Good on th’ Bun”

Another solid food-based jam!

For a band that prides itself on having forty or fifty songs per album recording session, this collection of outtakes is surprisingly light. Perhaps it means it’s nothing but the most quality jams. This track sounds like a throwback to simpler times, when Ween threw every vocal effect in the book into the pot and stirred in a bunch of guitar noodling with a big fat distortion and lo-fi haze spoon. This comes from the sessions for The Pod, which makes sense and it was probably too straight-forward a song for that album.

“Big Fat Fuck”

LOOK AT THESE FUCKING SKATERS! NONE OF THEM BIG FAT FUCKS!

“Big fat fuck/ Feelin’ like a big fat fuck.” MAN, I have TOTALLY been there. It’s a little light, but typically Ween-sounding. Like “Well, of COURSE this is a Ween” song naw mean?

“Gabrielle”

Seems like the sort of song that would thrive in a live setting the way bacteria thrives in a warm, unattended piece of raw meat. Fucking awesome Thin Lizzy aping to the max!

Oh man, a totally fucking groovy track! Like shit, a legitimately great tune! Snuck on this odds-and-sods collection! WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT. Perfect 70s rock vibe sounding like a Thin Lizzy song from hell. Love it.

“Did You See Me?”

Because nothing, fucking NOTHING goes better with Pink Floydy jams than nature in reverse!

Oh man, you can spoon up the Pink Floyd on this one and eat it like chocolate pudding its so thick. Sounds like some typical-ass cast-offs album shit here. A fun little genre exercise that sounds like it’s from The Mollusk sessions but who knows. They’ve always loved Floyd from what I can tell. All the songs on this album are too fucking long, it seems.

“Monique the Freak”

How did they get the guitars to sound that raunchy?!

What is this? A lost Prince track from the early 90s? BECAUSE IT SURE FUCKING SOUNDS LIKE ONE.

“Someday”

Song's practically perfect, buried here at the very end. Genius move.

An awesomely tender Gener jam tacked on right at the end. Usually odds and ends collections are longer than this, but in this case I think the brief (by Ween standards) track list really works. It runs the gamut of Ween’s career up to post-Quebec and there’s weird noisy fucked jams and tender Gener jams and weird Prince homages all that other weird shit in between. Now, if only instead of “Tuesday is pizza day” he said either “Monday is pizza day” or “Wednesday is pizza day” to honor the magnificent pizza deal days at Johnny’s and Rudy’s, respectively, then I’d be touting this as my pizza day jam. Of course, that’s a sort of local thing and I’m sure in Pennsylvania pizza places issue Tuesday pizza specials (or not, maybe it’s just common to consume pizza on Tuesdays because they’re fucked).

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Eight

2011-08-29T11:56:00.003-05:00

Day 10: August 23^rd, 2011

Quebec

11:13

“It’s Gonna Be a Long Night”

A stupidly great homage. Really, just fucking awesome.

This sounds like a fucking Motorhead song or something. Probably an insult to Motorhead, that one, but seeing as the band knows how to play “Ace of Spades” I refuse to rule it out. Just fun, sleazy over the top stadium metal or something. After a few days off from Ween and coming at this from the new perspective of someone who genuinely appreciates what Ween contributes to the world of music (took a couple albums but I got there, OK?), I’ve noticed it’s a place I needed to get to appreciate something like what I think Quebec is going to be like. Right off the bat it feels like a return to the weirdness that made’em famous. And I’m diggin’ on that. Also, I notice that Josh Freese played drums on this record which begs the question: Is Josh Freese from fucking Mars because what album HASN’T that guy played on?

“Transdermal Celebration”

An unfuckwithable jam, as we say in the biz. Well, I say that in the biz, or did when I was working at a college radio station. "Unfuckwithable Monster Jam" would have been more like it if I'd written this album up. Can you fuck with this one? No, not really. Practically tailor made for a goddamn greatest hits collection. Also, how did I work at a college radio station for 3.5 years and not get into Ween? It's embarassing, really. I just associated them with that awful jamband show. I FEEL BAD ABOUT THIS.

I just read a quote from Gener that says “All that jam band shit makes me want to puke.” PHEW! Another great straight-up Ween track that sounds like it belongs on a greatest hits collection. Maybe track 3. It’s kind of weird seeing Ween moving further and further away from their roots. This isn’t a bad thing at all, because it seems natural to move away from your roots, right? Like a tree or a plant or something? Certainly, it’s not always successful (ok, probably rarely successful in bands) but Ween pulls the whole maturity thing off. This is a thoroughly listenable song that feels just as valid as anything they’ve ever released.

Day 11: August 24, 2011

“Tried and True”

Old creepy Gene Ween returns to sing a song that has to probably be about his divorce (since, according to the web, a bunch of these songs are about that because good god divorce is like a record album goldmine ok?).

“Chocolate Town”

I love that this is like, Ween gracefully entering middle age. A soft-rock jam about buying drugs in the ghetto. STAY CLASSY WEEN!

Lots of weird stuff on this album, but Gener’s straight-laced emotional jams still keep hitting me in the guts. This album feels like a sleeper hit. Once Ween is dead and gone (if they ever die, who knows) and looking at their discography as a whole, this feels like it’ll be a stand-out. An incredibly worthy follow-up to White Pepper which, looking at that album right now, is laced with so many ear worms it’s a wonder I don’t have fucking tumors on my brain. “Chocolate Town” is almost a throwback to 12 Golden Country Greats grafted onto some soft rock vibes. It’s a breezy, and utterly nice song about buying drugs. Pretty sure it’s not about poop sex, which was my initial thought which is weird because it could just as well have been a song about Hershey, Pennsylvania seeing as the brothers Ween hail from the Keystone State.

“I Don’t Want It”

Fuck this one is so good. Shit shit shit. "I understand it/ But I don't want it." Been there, done that. Perfect compliment to that whole sort of thing. Again, WHO FUCKING KNEW these guys had something like this locked up inside? Or maybe I was supposed to have known all along. Maybe I should have listened to all their albums in reverse but then again, revisiting the early stuff is much more of a treat knowing the outcome.

Another fucking tender Gener jam to bring the stupid house down. I realize that every album can only have like, two or so of these and I accept that. An album of these would be too much. It would cheapen the tunes, which are usually strategically placed towards the latter half of the album to pull the rug out from under you, remind you that these guys are incredibly deft album-smiths and well, you start to see the hype and the living up to it. A divorce album staple.

Day 12: August 28, 2011

“If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All)”

I don't know why I thought Quebec would somehow be a lesser Ween album. Maturity suits them incredibly well, again again again WHO FUCKING KNEW?! Feeling like a failure.

Oh man, this IS a divorce record, isn’t it? A pretty triumphant, heart wrenching finale right here. It’s intense. It’s over the top and it NEEDS to be over the top. The imagery is depressing and sad, like you’d expect, and the melody follows suit but there’s that underpinning monster hook in the chorus that makes all the sad bastard pop songs in history sing-a-long toe-tappers. “The trash caught fire when the leaves turned brown/ The vultures were circling when the circus left town/ I left you a note but I wrote it in disappearing ink.” Depressing. Divorcey. Probably the most emotional highlight of Ween’s long, storied career. Looking at this sweeping, orchestral heartbreaker, it’s hard to even remember what GodWeenSatan: The Oneness sounds like, and I think that’s Ween’s greatest asset. A discography that has been ever-changing while remaining true to itself. And that’s why millions of people love Ween. And that’s why I love Ween. This is honest music, and even when it’s fucked up and weird, it’s fucking real.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Seven

2011-08-23T21:04:00.003-05:00

Day 9: August 19^th, 2011

White Pepper

10:14 PM
“Exactly Where I’m At”

Gener's guitar sounds like shit. Awesome. Pry blowing Letterman's fucking mind. NICE SHADES BRO.

Fuck, Ween keep and keep reminding me of a filthier version of GBV. “Exactly Where I’m At” calls up pangs of Bob Pollard, but also OH I GET THE TITLE (actually, I didn’t I was just like “haha a white pepper who gives a fuck” and then I read the Wikipedia article) it’s a play on The White Album and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band!!! It’s Ween playing straight pop after the resounding success (read: listenable music) of The Mollusk and all it’s glorious fucking theatrics. This is a pretty tasty jam. Super simple, a fucking brainworm melody, some funky synths. You know, that sort of bullshit. It’s a song I’ll use on the mix I plan on making Jenny when I’m done with this to say “SEE IT’S NOT ALL THAT UNDERPRODUCED FILTH YOU THOUGHT IT WAS JOKE’S ON YOU!”

“Even If You Don’t”

Ha! Directed by Trey Parker & Matt Stone! DUH. What a solid sunnytime pop jam goddamnit.

Fuck, another one going up top on the mix for Jenny. This is like Looney Tunes pop. Classic in every which way, with a little Ween-y twist. But barely. It’s just straight-up flat-out balls-down pop. And somehow they manage to wedge a bitchin’ guitar solo right there in the middle of it all.

“Bananas and Blow”

Recorded earlier this month! GOOD FUCKING CHRIST GENE'S HEAD LOOKS FUCKING INSANELY SUPER VILLAIN HUGE! They still got it tho!

Oh god, I remember this song. Another one with a chorus that’s been stuck in one of my brain lobes for the last 8 years. Is this a Jimmy Buffett parody or something? I don’t know enough about shitty music to understand the nods. It’s fucking funny either way, don’t get me wrong. Love the backing vocals, love the Spanish guitar. God, this has to be what Jimmy Buffett sounds like. I’ve seen the shitty cover of his book 8000 times with its fucking comic sans and I’ve priced enough of his shitty CDs at work to understand. I suppose it’s fitting with the White Album-ness of it all.

“The Grobe”

Deaner has the best fucking rock and roll face I've ever seen. Halfway between setting himself ablaze with the tastiest of jams and pinching off the nastiest of loafs.

Fuck, I don’t usually love sweet, jammy grooves but the crunchy nugget that runs through this tune is strangely appealing. That Jimi Hendrix obsession that all those bands have, I suppose. Something about the guitar tone here is just pretty fuckin’ gnarly. It also sounds kind of weird traditional Ween style and I can dig on that. Again with the Stockholm Syndrome. Again again again.

“Stay Forever”

Love the fuck out of this sensitive-ass jam. Such a wonderful counterpoint to "She Fucks Me," et al.

Fuck, I’m waiting for this one to go downhill. Some uncomfortable hand jobs maybe? Someone shits on someone’s chest? I don’t know. I can’t bear the tension but I will. And right now, this just sounds like a regular, super sweet love song fit for any mixtape. Let’s just hope the girl doesn’t know who Ween is. Or maybe she does, and understands that this is the sweetest song in Gener’s canon. Or maybe she just knows that they have songs called “Poop Ship Destroyer” and “Common Bitch” and you’re fucked. It’s simple, and uncommonly plain, but it’s these nice little moments that float by on a breezy melody and some heartstring tugging sap that make me really appreciate the range this band has an ultimately, make me a fan. I just wrote “make me fat” there. FAT WITH FANDOM.

“She’s Your Baby”

Backe by strings? Fuck that shit. It's too fucking perfect goddamnit. Think this is my favorite Ween track. Has to be.

Fuck, another goddamned excellent song where Ween plays conventional but kills it so hard it hurts. Right in the heartstrings and all that. I think this might be the most tender song in Ween’s catalog. At least so far. Just unspeakably lovely, which is in turn infinitely rewarding. The melody kills me. That about-to-fall-apart delivery. I just put the song on again (note: I’ve been writing all of this based on first impressions YES I HAVE) and it gets better. It’s amazing how fucking accessible this album is. It’s all a little surreal, which seems fitting given Ween’s penchant for surrealism. It’s almost just another gimmick record that succeeds in nearly every aspect. First country & western, then prog-rock, now pop itself. I’m gonna listen to this track a third time, and then I’m going to listen to it one more time before I move on. And this feels like the reward I wanted when I started this. I knew there was something there and now, after White Pepper confirmed it for me. Or maybe it’s just been slowly confirming itself. It being the fact that Ween isn’t a novelty act and, if you take them seriously and have a sense of humor you can see the little sparkles of genius that shine through the cracks.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Six

2011-08-19T23:14:00.002-05:00

Day 8: August 17^th, 2011 (cont’d)

The Mollusk

9:57 PM
“The Mollusk”

Hahahah this video is amazing. Wonderful and whimsical and kind of boring but legos! The spinny Sgt. Pepper band is great though.

Ween’s next genre exercise: prog rock. And fuck, fuck fuck fuck this is legitimately great. I remember this song from early college when I’d downloaded all the Ween albums off of someone in Hashinger Hall’s hard drive. That wonderful year, everyone had this program that let everyone else on the residence hall’s network download songs from everyone else’s iTunes library. It was amazing. And I had all the Ween and clearly never listened to it. Except for The Mollusk. I’m pretty sure I listened to this one because I remember this title track and “Ocean Man” and “Buckingham Green” being in some heavy rotation (but why not the album? WHY?!) The title track is great though. No dick jokes, no crude recording/crude humor. Just straight up whimsy. A song about a little boy and his mollusk. And some weird proggy stuff and THEN SOME FUCKING HORNS. This is just plain good. What happened, Ween?

“Mutilated Lips”

How did I neglect to mention the baller psychedelic elements of this jam? HOW GODDAMNIT HOW! A surprisingly competent and complementary fan video!

Oh there’s the trademark Ween-ness (is this called Brown-ness? Is this what the fans call it? I read that somewhere? The typical fuckedupness and weirdness that makes a Ween song a real motherfucking Ween song?), singin’ bout some lips that are all mutilated. Doesn’t make any sense really, the song that is, but that’s probably the point and it’s oddly catchy even with the weird high pitched counter-vocals. I remember this too from that one time I listened this album. Hmm.

“The Blarney Stone”

Fuck, how many times has Ween played this town? Also, you can always tell when it's a Deaner track (it's usually obvious but sometimes the vocal effects get in the way) but I was listening to this and I was totally like "This has Deaner's stains all over it." Nice. Shitty sound quality, but fun and goddamnit I wanna see this band live and I want to be very, very high. I think I might actually enjoy being high if I was at a Ween show compared to every other time I've been high and wanted to run home crying. Fuck, this looks like fun.

Oh man! Taking the piss out of an Irish drinking anthem this is great! “Got ooze in my pores my feet are all wet/ Got mold in my ears but I ain’t dead yet.” There’s something really funny about this in a way that seems to transcend the hardy har har novelty of a parody of a drinking song. It’s because it sounds legit. Like it could be a real thing. Like thousands of years from now this will be the only drinking song anyone will find and they will think they all sounded like this, even though it’s kind of a joke. (Note: Just read that each song has a “nautical theme.” Fun! Is this a sea shanty then?)

“It’s Gonna Be (Alright)”

Solo acoustic renditions of Gener's tender situations are the reason I keep listening to this stupid fucking band. So choice.

Aw shit, I love these. The ones where Gener puts on the wounded indie-rocker ballad face and fucking kills it (kills, in this case, means brings the house down on top of everyone’s broken hearts). This is probably his best one, well actually “Baby Bitch” is the best but this one is an immediate sensation. Or causes an immediate sensation. My “Aw shit bitch this my jam” sorta thing. But yeah, up there with “Birthday Boy” and “Don’t Laugh (I Love You)” and “Sarah.” It’s like every once in a while Gene and Ween realize that they need to just play it straight. Just for a second. Capitalize on the fact that they’re excellent, innovative musicians and that he’s an excellent songwriter and just play for the squares.

“The Golden Eel”

What a hilarious looking band. Gene looks like he has pink eye and/or hasn't slept in days and is practically the opposite of what a rock star looks like. And Dean looks like...well, he just looks like a dude covered by shadows. WAY MORE ROCK STAR BRO!

Fuck this album is epic sounding. Who knew they had it in’em? I mean, certainly the seeds for this album (which I’ve read is at least Deaner’s favorite) must have been there the whole time, but goddamn this is just really fun and it sounds great. Who would have ever thought Ween made an album with some top-notch production? Granted, the two previous albums sound pretty great but here, with all this wild fun stuff going on it sounds spectacular.

“Buckingham Green”

I would go see Ween and they would play this song and I would probably scream like a little girl and think about that time I saw GBV and how this was like that (not ever as great, natch) and I would realize why I now hate going to shows: Because they'll never be as great as the really, really great ones because the other bands just don't try hard enough. This has the insane fucking monumental moments you SHOULD expect from every show you go to goddamnit.

Fuck, I might as well put the whole goddamned album on this entry because every song is so fucking good. Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome. Maybe my music snobbery has backfired on me, and well, maybe that started at GodWeenSatan if I made it this far. I mean, it’s not that at all. I’m not my fiancé who will dismiss anything if she doesn’t like the first chord, but it has been a trial. A trial I wouldn’t have fucking undergone if I hadn’t thought it would payoff. And this is the goddamned payoff, right here. “Buckingham Green” is a towering behemoth ready to crush you with its greatness. Everything Ween was ever capable of doing encapsulated in this fucking monster jam. Everything after this is probably just leftover shit escaping the bowels of a dead body. Ok, probably not, but you know how good this song is? How? How! How if the band isn’t fundamentally great, then how can they put out a song this good? Fuck. I’m a sucker for this orchestral bullshit.

“Ocean Man”

Cute video. Was afraid I was gonna have to start posting those usually awful (occasionally awesome but mostly kind of why-did-you-feel-the-need-to-do-that? covers people like to post that I usually use when I can't find a proper video.

OH YEAH AND THEN THERE’S OCEAN MAN. A song that gets stuck in my head once a month. Just good old fashion fun about a man from the ocean! AN OCEAN MAN! What a just super solid jam on a just plain fucking outstanding record.

AND OF FUCK!!!:

Oh sweet fucking christ this is incredible. I'm now having a flashback to the one time I watched this abomination of a film which now seems like less of an abomination because Ween has the greatest shameless advertising cameo I've ever seen by anyone ever.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Five

2011-08-17T19:42:00.002-05:00

Day 7: August 16^th, 2011

12 Golden Country Greats

4:32 PM

“I’m Holding You”

What the fucking fuck? Is this Ween just saying “You know what, we’re gonna make an album of classic country songs to show you that we aren’t total children and actually understand how to make music?” There’s like, absolutely nothing weird about this other than the fact that this band’s last album had a utterly distasteful songs about HIV, Spinal Meningitis, and stinkin’ ass hos. Given they recruited a bunch of famous Nashville people, this sounds like the real deal. It’s good, yet the Weenness feels totally absent.

“Piss Up a Rope”

Oh wait, there’s the brown sound. “On your knees you big booty bitch, start suckin’/ you ride my ass like a horse in a saddle.” Nice! And then it only gets worse. Like genuine comedy worse. It’s kind of an inspired move. Lull the folks at home with a couple of standard sounding numbers up front and then piss in their mouths. Nice nice nice! A perfect country music parody. A shining moment for Deaner!

“I Don’t Wanna Leave You On the Farm”

And there’s the old standard Ween-y number that’s also got a sweet side to it. God, the singing is really good on this album. Amazing. Who knew!

“Powder Blue”

This album sounds like it was pretty fun to make. A fun little genre exercise that could have just been a one and done track but it’s way funnier as a whole album. Also, that Muhammed Ali sample is hilarious.

Day 8: August 17^th, 2011

5:36 PM

“Mister Richard Smoker”

The awful AllMusic.com review of this album (which spends the whole time decrying how Ween think they are “above” the country & western genre but good god, all they do is make fun of shit don’t you get that duh!) says that this song is “homophobic” but I mean, it’s obvious that if you’re going to do a tribute/send-up to country music you gotta have one song that’s addresses the homophobia most country music culture seems to embody these days. Also, referring to a homosexual as a “poopy poker” seems to basically be a way of saying “we’re just fucking around lighten up goddamn.”

“You Were the Fool”

This is really good. Like legitimately good country music. I really wonder what Ween fans thought of this album. Did they hate it? Were they the people that said “any music but country” when people asked what their favorite music was (that’s a lie, they’d probably say “FUCKING WEEN BRAH”)? Fortunately the album is a brisk 33 minutes, a good fifty shorter than their albums tend to be, and I don’t think 12 Golden Country Greats ever overstays its welcome. It’s a fun project that’s seems like a novelty in idea but a damn fine record in execution. It’s Ween illustrating that they can be serious musicians and goofball pranksters at the same damn time.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Four

2011-08-14T14:28:00.004-05:00

Day 6: August 13^th, 2011

Chocolate and Cheese

5:55 PM
“Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)”

FUCKING VIKING HELMET YES YES YES!

Fuck, it’s amazing what studio recording can do for a band. This sounds exactly like what any of the previous three records would have sounded like if they were recorded by a proper individual. Yet all that weird fucking shit is smeared all over this. LIKE THIS SONG. Good God, it’s weird. Chocolate and Cheese was the only Ween record I’d ever listened to all the way through at the start of this project, and that was years ago. Coming at it with a new appreciation I can already see the masterpiece status in the recording, the writing, etc and I’m only two songs in. Granted, I’ve spent some pretty consistent time with “Baby Bitch” over the years (which is probably why I was willing to listen to every Ween album ever, because that song is fucking great). But yeah, I don’t feel like I’m drowning anymore. I’m getting all the brown weirdness and Weenness and it sounds great and it’s sharp and funny and skilled. Good show.

“I Can’t Put My Finger On It”

Totally remember seeing this as a child, thinking this song was fucking weird and awful. Although I was wrong, they didn't rag on this track. Beavis liked it! Well, before Butthead reprimanded him.

OH FUCK THIS SONG. I remember seeing this on Beavis & Butthead when I was a kid and I distinctly remember them tearing it apart. Now I think that is really funny and probably some inspired Matt Judge move of having these two idiots talk shit on the one band in the world they should probably love. Genius. This song is weird and makes me feel dirty. Mostly just Gener’s vocals good god, something rapist-sounding about those. Something that makes my guts churn in the best way.

“Roses Are Free”

I skipped ahead a couple days ago when The Pod was getting particularly unbearable and I was like “Well fuck this song this is annoying” and now it’s playing and I’m like “Oh shit, this song’s the jam!” What happened? I don’t know, must be in the context of the record. I’m aware this is a hit, that’s why I listened to it in the first place. It’s a great little song though. Has all the things that made “Push th’ Little Daisies” a success, I suppose. It’s Ween playing it SORT of straight but still being total weird fuckers. This is a WEIRD sounding song. This sounds only like Ween, which I think is why this album is considered the masterpiece (I’m sure that’s arguable, but this is pry the one everyone starts with or something). Here instead of fucking around with genres and effects Ween sounds fucking on. Their spirit or whatever shines through and sure they still fuck around with genres (“Freedom of ’76, some more probably) but there’s this distinct Ween-quality that is on every song here that maybe the previous three albums didn’t have. Sure certain songs hit the mark but all of them do on this one. Oh, and this kind of sounds like a Prince song when Gene sings about throwing the pumpkin at the tree.

“Baby Bitch”

I can't even remember the first time I heard this or why I heard it. I want to know, because I feel like I've known this song forever. Still sounds like the best song in their catalog. A real classic-sounding jam.

Fuck. Goddamnit. This is the greatest song ever. Well, not really, but it’s probably up there. Listening to it in context for probably the first time it hits like a fucking brick in the face, the heart, the nuts. It hits. Like everyone, this is every awful breakup I’ve ever had. Every girl who fucked me over, etc. That line “It’s just too bad you’re beautiful, I guess” affected me so much I made some really awful photoshop art with the lyrics and the girl who’d crushed my heart (granted, not really I didn’t care to much she was just a bitch and I got over it in two seconds in very atypical Ian fashion) over a sunset with some weird effects. Hilarious. This song seems uncharacteristically straightforward but I think it’s where Ween becomes a real band to be loved by millions of people. This sounds like a fucking breakout, complete with self-referential nods to the past (“Wrote ‘Birthday Boy’ for you babe), totally disgusting vulgarity (“fuck you you stinkin’ ass ho”), and those wavery vocal effects but not enough to totally bury the perfectly righteous jam.

10:54 PM
“Drifter in the Dark”

Song feels like it should be way fucking weirder amirite?

Is this a precursor to 12 Golden Country Greats? Because it might as well be because it’s a great little country ditty, despite the fact that they’re tongue is firmly planted in their collective cheek. The weirdest thing about this song is that it’s not fucking weird at all. It’s just too fucking normal. TOO NORMAL BUT STILL FUCKING GOOD OK.

“Voodoo Lady”

Goddamn this is a catchy motherfucker ain't it?! A right tasty jam.

FUCK. “Voodoo Lady” was released as a 7” single on Flying Nun Records? It’s like my worlds are all fucking colliding! HOW FUCKING COOL! This is a fucking righteous jammy jam though. Again, I can see why this record is the classic. This is all the elements that Ween was capable of coming to a head and spilling over the glass, onto the table, and onto the floor causing some poor sap to slip and break his neck. It’s that kind of good. Ween are understanding how to transmit their idea of fun into songs that are also fun for the audience. This is a groovy track. It’s a fun song and an enjoyable song to listen to. All without Ween having to sacrifice any of their inherent brownness.

“What Deaner Was Talking About”

God these guys are funny looking. Also, God this song is so goddamn good.

And then there’s this gem. A fucking true gem. A real fucking goddamn late-album gem the likes of which you don’t really see much. A perfect melody, a great little song. This is why I love Ween. They are capable of this. They so precisely know what they are doing at all times that it’s OK to accept the fucking batshit stuff because you know every album is gonna at least have four or five songs that are just brain-melting pop tunes.

“Don’t Shit Where You Eat”

Another sneaky little brainworm. Unsuspecting and shit.

Man, the latter half of this album just kills it doesn’t it? And the first half of the album is pretty sensational too. It’s like all this investment and then the reward on the initial promise (the three or so songs on GodWeenSatan: The Oneness that were impossibly good for a couple of twenty year old stoners).

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Three

2011-08-13T16:58:00.004-05:00

Day Four: August 11^th, 2011 (cont’d)
Pure Guava

2:31 AM
“Little Birdy”

Approaching borderline jam band territory and stoner catnip qualities.

Oh another weird fucking vocal modulation stoner jam hooray, I guess. Apparently Pure Guava is the last album Ween did on a four-track until their latest album. GOOD. Just kidding, I love the four track recording method. Just not with Ween. KIDDING. I see the appeal. It works. Etc. I’m just fascinated by this fucking band and how they have such a talent with songs that you know, have melodies yet lace their albums the way Denzel laced Ethan Hawke’s blunt with PCP in Training Day. There’s some joyful bliss and then there’s some fucking weird freakout bizarro shit that makes you want to climb into a cave and stay there for a thousand years. But this is just the first part. It’s not even as weird as the other stuff before this. It’s actually conventional weirdo bullshit. GO FIGURE!

“Tender Situation”

Fuckin' obsessed with this track. Kept telling Jenny to "taste the waste" last night and then laughing. So awful. I will be an awful husband. I don't even know what "taste the waste" MEANS. WHAT WASTE? Like poop waste? Anyway, no matter still a lovely song even lovelier when the vocals come through.

“Taste the waste man, taste the waste.” Christ there’s something brilliant here that is just covered in fucking shit. Beautiful glorious shit. The problem is I just watched a live version of this shot in Lawrence and it’s fucking gorgeous. And that’s kind of what keeps Ween interesting. It’s hard to appreciate “Tender Situation” in its album form for a minute until you know how goddamn good it is. It’s easy to overlook, etc. What with all those hushed vocals and all. But there’s something really sad there, in all that hushedness after the grossness of tasting waste.

“Push th’ Little Daisies”

Fuck, the video makes the song better. Bizarre 90s alt-rock genius at work. Also, editing the song with a Prince squeal? Inspired. Truly inspired.

Oh shit this song! This is the hit, isn’t it? It’s like a perfect blend of the pop sensibility Ween has displayed before but with shit all over it. And maybe that’s exactly how Ween works. Great songs covered in shit. Oh, and the next song mentions getting shit on. GO FIGURE. Listened to this song like three times and I don’t see what all the fuss is about and it’s practically designed to grate. Gene’s helium vox are a little overboard but I suppose it’s got a decent hook buried in there. Oh well, I guess if you stand under the umbrella of deconstructionism it’s impossible for anyone’s shit to get on you. Shit or God’s tears.

Day 5: August 12^th, 2011

11:03 PM

“Sarah”

Christ, this one brings the motherfucking house down. Just so fucking great.

Fucking FINALLY, a normal sounding song. A lovely little sad song that sounds like it’s actually being sung by a human being and not the devil. A short little lovely ditty with the trusty flanger and dreamy delay and yeah, appealing to the GBV sensors that are helping me soldier through this discography. Just simple great little songs that hit the gut is all I require. After “Pumpin 4 the Man” and “I Play it Off Legit,” that was nice.

“Loving U Thru It All”

Holy fuck, “Mourning Glory” was a weird five minutes of fucking noise. I’m amazed that that any major label would ever put this out. But I suppose it was the 90s. Still, this is a fucking weird, difficult record and even keeping the openest of minds I can’t imagine listening to this in one go and truly enjoying it on any sort of level that you really expect when you listen to a record put out by a major label. Still trying to decide if it’s artistically rich or just pulled-out-of-ass bullshit (pry a bit of both) but goddamn. This was a nice little palate cleanser.

“Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)”

Fuck, another goddamned monster jam that I only realized was a monster jam after letting it sink in. It'll be fun to revisit this discography after burning through it.

See, in my head this is what the Ween songs I like sound like. No garbage distortion or effects to bog down the often inspired songwriting. They seem to have prog rock mimicry down to a fucking T. It’s solid stuff, probably the solidest song on this whole record…and then they follow up this jam with a song called…

Overlooked So Far:
“The Stallion pts. 1-3”

“The Stallion pt. 2” got stuck in my head today at work. I couldn’t get it to leave, so there it sat right next to “Tender Situation.” When I got home, listened to the jam and noticed how hilarious the lyrics are. In a legitimately hilarious way, not in a poop joke way or anything like that. The part that goes “1: I can drink/ 2: I get groomed/ 3: I go for a walk/ I am the stallion mang/ You know that I am the stallion” cracks my shit up. Can’t explain why. The Stallion Suite (at least 1-3, the only I’ve got to so far) is fascinating, and part 3 gets even fucking weirder, boasting bizarre advice like “don’t caress the weasel” and “don’t seek the blood from the panther” before making more boastful declarations that are part surreal and part gaga goo goo batshit. “I am screaming backward in the sand (hey, dude, he’s the stallion).”

AND:

This looks like it was the best fucking wedding EVER. A 9 year old singing "The Stallion Pt. 3" curses and all?! What a wonderful world.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part Two

2011-08-12T00:53:00.006-05:00

Day 2: August 9^th, 2011

The Pod

8:37PM
“Dr. Rock”

A sort of excellent homage-y jam. Reminds me of the time I saw GBV and almost died because I could have died right there because it was the greatest concert I would ever see, etc. Ween fans have that same idiotic geekery running through their veins. I understand. I do. Also, this song fucking slays.

Hmm, there’s something definitely unsettling about this album. Notably how this song is actually kind of catchy yet still full of gonzo guitar wankage and a spaced out (literally, in every goddamn atom of the sense of that fucking word) of what a coherent song should sound like. And then it ends. I’ve heard about this album, and how it’s supposed to be fucking weird and how the lore behind it may or may not be more interesting than the actual music. The crunchiness of these jams is hitting my spritual center. The aforementioned GBV effect, etc. That and the use of the Tascam four-track recorder, which I have a great affinity for. Mostly because there is a Tascam four-track recorder sitting about two feet away from my feet on the floor, covered in dog hair, because I MIGHT FEEL LIKE RECORDING SOMETHING LATER GOD.

“Sorry Charlie”

The live version here is so much better than the album version, though burying songs in shit is something I'm kind of fond of. If you've got a great catchy song why not bury it in garbage to see if the hooks shine through? Sure, a great little live version like this shows you that it's a well-written jam and a great little-ass song but you know, there's a time and a place and you're only in your very early 20s once and you might as well bury it in trash because you can always trot it out years later when you've got an adoring fanbase and you kind of have to give a shit (even if you don't).

Man, I wish I’d have thought to sing vocals through a fucking kazoo. I’d be a fucking millionaire, too.

Day 3: August 10^th, 2011

9:24 PM
“Mononucleosis”

Flange the shit out of that shit Gene Ween! I do think that any decent song ought to be able to be stripped down to a sparse acoustic get-up and still kick all ass. And well, this does it. Really interesting to hear people singing along to these wonderful fucked up lyrics. Thinking that maybe this album has much merit that I'm not seeing just now.

Man, this album totally sounds like it was recorded by some dudes with fucking mono. I remember when I had mono and this is probably the best ever artistic interpretation of that pretty much fake disease (note: only fake because you can’t do fucking shit about it other than just sit around feeling like shit). There’s a hazy, druggy vibe to the whole thing. Lines like “Now you’re on the couch, you can’t even move your fucking head,” and the bit about not being able to smoke or drink a beer or pet some horses is pretty spot on to. It’s maybe the second actual coherent track on this album so far.

“Oh My Dear (Falling in Love)”

Fuck, I just figured it out. The difference between Ween fans and Guided by Voices fans is that Ween fans are potheads and drug addicts and Guided by Voices fans are drunks. Certainly some crossover, but in this one I see Gene Ween as a Robert Pollard figure and wonder why the fuck they don't have a side project together seeing as Bob Pollard has like a billion fucking side projects! A BILLION AND ONE WOULDN'T HURT NO ONE!

FOLLOWED BY OH MY GOD A FUCKING CONVENTIONAL SONG THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT’S GOT A LITTLE COUNTRY TWANG INFLUENCIN’ IT! Love it. I feel like a drowning man finally breaking the surface of the lake if only for a second. Just simple, sweet little perfection on this one. But I’m a sucker.

“Sketches of Winkle”

This is basically Ween's "Kicker of Elves" DESPITE the fact that this came out before Bee Thousand...and more GBV parallels I have to wrap my goddamn head around.

Fuck! ANOTHER SONG NOT BURIED IN GOD KNOWS WHAT DISTORTION FUZZY MESS! Yes, it’s a spastic motherfucker but this is appealing to my Bob Pollard senses. A little more spaced out and such, but you know, same basic thing as GBV. I think that’s why Ween is so appealing to me despite the fact that their music drives me fucking crazy half the time. There’s something about a monolithic discography that just makes me want to crawl around inside of it like a dead tauntaun. And right now, if I can get a track that doesn’t sound like someone ordering something at a drive thru, I’ll take it.

“Pork Roll Egg and Cheese”

Peel Sessions make everything sound fucking legit as shit.

Again psychedelic helium vocals, but singing trippy drug jam about a sandwich late 60s style is fucking rad. Another worthy hook, solid melody, etc on and on. I really should be listening to these albums in one sitting but goddamnit, they’re long as fuck and emotionally upsetting you know the drill.

Day 4: August 11^th, 2011

12:somefuckingbuillshit AM

“The Stallion Pt. 2”

Just saying oh my god this song is fucking incredible with this video.

So much better than “The Stallion Pt.1.” God, it took me four days to finish this fucking album. Granted, small doses might have been the right thing to do at this point in time. I just re-watched Reservoir Dogs for the first time in a dog’s age (HAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH) and noticed how good a movie it is for totally different reasons than I did when I was 16 (like it’s not just cool because it’s got dudes in suits and sunglasses and guns smoking cigarettes etc etc etc). It will be interesting to listen to The Pod after blitzing through the rest of Ween’s discography. This song and its counterpart will probably be really stupid though. Yet I can’t help but kind of liking this one. I mean, really, what’s the point? Oh, you are the Stallion, great. Good for you Deaner! Is it Deaner? It SOUNDS like Deaner. Which is to say it sounds like a convicted demonic rapist and not some helium laced clown. BUT WHO KNOWS. I did have “Pork Roll Egg and Cheese” stuck in my head all day at work today so that’s something! MOTHERFUCKINGJAMSINYOURMOTHERFUCKINGFACEYESYESYESYESYES.

Thrill of Discovery: Ween - Part One

2011-08-09T20:35:00.011-05:00

Welcome to a new feature, in which I listen to a band's primary discography front to back in a sad attempt to fill in the gaps in my musical knowledge. Why the fuck have I never listened to Ween with any sincerity? Well, it's about time. Here goes.

Day 1: August 8^th, 2011

GodWeenSatan: The Oneness

5:08 PM – “You Fucked Up”

Christ this is like the ultimate piss-in-the-mouth to punk rock. Love it!

I’m about halfway through GodWeenSatan: The Oneness and I feel dirty. Not just normal dirty, but the sort of dirty you feel when a sex scene comes up when you’re watching a movie with your parents. Or when you say an uncouth joke that might be OK in some circles but the girl you’re on a first date with definitely does not approve of Anne Frank humor. I’m sure there’s something grand at work here, that much I can sense, but holy fucking god this is the sound of some high school kids on too many drugs (or maybe just ditch weed) turning probably bad ideas into a form of musical genius that may or may not be unlistenable. From the handful of jams I’ve heard here and there from later Ween records, I know they’re capable of pure pop majesty but right now this is the raw shit.

7:45 PM – “Common Bitch”

Yet still, despite punk rock having piss in its mouth, this is pretty fucking punk rock for 1992. I approve. I approve so fucking hard.

Took a break to go eat pizza. Jenny just walked in with “Common Bitch” playing to the tune of “What the fuck are you listening to?” I quickly hit the pause button and said “What? Nothing. Oh, just Ween. You know all those fucked up songs I randomly sing around the house, I feel like they’ve all been secretly based on Ween.”

8:44 PM – “Stacey”

I don't think this song was on the actual album when it was actually released, but what the fuck is it that makes this song great? "I know a girl named Stacey/ With a brain that's kind of spacey." Also, jam band enthusiasts watch Dean Ween's guitar heroics midsong OH I SEE IT NOW GODDAMNIT. Though, I'll let U know, I'm not about the solo. The solo can suck my dick for all intents and purposes, really. But still, it's pretty cool and mostly I just said that cuz I'm jealous that I can't jam out sick solos etc.

A couple of years ago when we lived at 21^st and Tennessee, there was a house in our wonderful old neighborhood that had some peculiar decorative lighting around Christmastime. Why yes, somewhere around 20-something and Kentucky there is a house that has the Boognish on their fucking roof! Jenny asked, “What the hell is that, some sort of demon?” I responded “Yes, it is some sort of motherfucking demon.” Still about halfway through GodWeenSatan: The Oneness and I’m finding that my favorite thing about this album is that it’s like a really filthy Guided by Voices record. All the songs are diverse enough to make this record really move and short enough (with the exception “Nicole” and (oh godddd) “LMLYP,” which I haven’t even listened to yet but I read that it’s the totes filthiest) to never have a chance to get stale. Sure, this still sounds like a couple of kids banging pots and pans but I can definitely feels some fucked up genius at work.

“Nan”

Hooks hooks MOTHERFUCKING HOOKS. Goddamnit. It's that little extra pinky finger on the D chord at the beginning of the verse/chorus or whatever that chord is. I don't really know.

Little moments of pop genius float around this 80 minute odyssey. There’s a really perfect guitar sound on “Nan” that rings 90s indie rock so perfect, despite the fact that the vocals are the drunkest sounding vocals I’ve ever heard. Shit, maybe I should be stoned. I can’t tell. Is that what Ween fans do? Get stoned and listen to Ween? Fuck, are they like a jam band because they have THAT sort of following? I CANNOT TELL. Anyway, pop majesty buried in verses and such. “Don’t Laugh (I Love You)” from half the album back is still sticking with me weird ass fucking vocals and all. The Ween songs I know (all five of them!) are all perfect little pop songs that I recall fondly despite not having listened to them in a long time, so maybe that’s why I’ve chosen to tackle Ween’s daunting discography.

11:54 PM – “L.M.L.Y.P.”

I don't know if I could deal with a 10+ minute version of this Prince track if I went to a Ween show. I love how most of their songs never broach the 3 minute mark but goddamnit this one is too fucking jammy. Too much jammy jammyness, you know. It's fun sure but GOD IT IS SO FUCKING BULLSHIT LONG. But you know, I guess people like this. And it's funny like a really funny dirty joke that's not really THAT funny but it is because OMG THIS IS JUST LIKE PRINCE HAHAHAHAHAHA.

It’s not that this album is particularly dense. I mean it is, in its own way. In that sort of exhausting way where you’ve faced 80 minutes of over-stimulation and you feel like your brain is like to start seeping out your ears if you don’t take a break. Halfway through the incredibly spot-on Prince homage “Let Me Lick Your Pussy” and things are getting a little bit jammy. And wonderfully disgusting. And overwhelmingly disgusting. The part about the massage is brilliant though. “I say, yeah baby, I give you a massage like, like thirteen kings, baby.”

“Birthday Boy”

I haven't always had the nicest things to say about Mary Lou Lord on this blog but goddamnit her voice is really goddamn lovely. And sometimes you needa cover song to validate the original. Well, the original validates itself but goddamn this one just hits the fucking core in the same goddamn place in a different way. Which is really yeah, what a great cover does. New light on an old favorite. Also, fucking Elliot Smith as the backing band? Colossal win.

Seriously, though. The rock-solid-est jam so far. This is a perfect fucking song.

Oh fuck I know this one, cuz they reference it in “Baby Bitch” (funny story about “Baby Bitch” when we cross that bridge). This song feels like breathing holy fucking shit. The word “Deconstruction” gets thrown around a lot when it comes to Ween, at least from every fucking single thing I’ve been reading on the internet, but oh my god it’s nothing but fuzzy mega-distorted chords pop mastery on this one. My brain feels relaxed after the goddamn hour of insanity that preceded this perfect little song. I think the real genius here that seems to be at work amidst the seeming shit is that though unadorned “Birthday Boy” touches on something so universal I can think “Oh yeah this song is a fucking jam” something like years and years after last hearing it. A sort of “well of COURSE it’s good.”

“Marble Tulip Juicy Tree”

Oh the classic marriage of songwriter and guitarist, each content to do their duty. Also, these live videos make me realize how weird these songs actually are. They also make me realize that these songs are actually fucking great once you get past the fucking recording sometimes. Although this song is actually one of the two or three tracks that are listenable on GodWeenSatan: The Oneness. Granted, with enough dope, you could listen to ALL the songs and still ask for an encore that's just a continuation of some "LMLYP" solos. Probably. Who the fuck knows.

Whose idea was it for Gene Ween to sing in that fucking helium voice? Was it his own or was it a joint effort? There’s a certain art to it, but it’s ever so prominent on this and “Don’t Laugh (I Love You),” two of the album’s most conventional tracks. It’s as if there needs to be an extra layer of weirdness. An added offputtingness to keep the listener a bit unsettled. To remind them that they are listening to Ween who sound like nobody and yet build their songs around parodies and homages and seemingly view it through whatever bizarre prism unites the fictional brother’s Ween to, if you will, an overarching oneness.

Why? - Elephant Eyelash

2011-07-09T18:49:00.003-05:00

Why? – Elephant Eyelash
Anticon, 2005
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2010
Price: $10

Why? was one of those discoveries that made me love music again. I probably already went on and on about this in previous write-ups of this album’s younger siblings, Alopecia and Eskimo Snow, but I’ll say it again for the sake of a brief background. I’d never heard of Why? when I went to see them at the Jackpot in the fall of 2008. I sat with Nick Dormer (who’d encouraged me to attend) at the bar and watched on the video screens because the place was too crowded. It was a pure enjoyment sort of thing. Letting Yoni Wolf’s words create these little somersaults in my head. He crafts that powerful sort of songwriting that you always want to find. He’s on the same pleasure barge as David Berman and John Darnielle and all of the other modern masters. It helps that these are all effectively pop songs under the guise of alt-hip-hop. Destructive tunes like “Gemini (Birthday Song)” and “Whispers Into the Other” establish this as one of the more punch-in-the-gut break-up records I can think of. “Gemini” especially. I even covered it when I was forced into a solo-acoustic show in the Taproom basement the night I asked Jenny out the first time. She didn’t see the set, but she loves this album even more than I do, which is nice because Why? is on in the house a good percentage of the time music is on. Why? still sounds like the freshest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time. Even after listening to this record and the two that follow it dozens and dozens of times, there’s a deeper appreciation for Yoni & co’s fucked up depressive genius pop music. It's an album that's maddening to actually try to talk about because the things I love about it are the sort of inexpressible joy I glean from the themes, the words, the instrumentation, etc. It's a cool record. Like legitimately cool in execution and form. One that should be listened to repeatedly by anyone who you know, likes albums that are good...like real real good. No lie.

Various Artists - Vive Le Ska

2011-07-09T18:47:00.002-05:00

Various Artists – Vive Le Ska
Unicorn Records, 1989
Acquired: Half Price Books, Lawrence, 2010
Price: $2.5

For some reason, this was an irresistible acquisition. Something about a French ska compilation that warranted at least one listen through, if only for novelty value. Aaaand, it’s pretty much what you’d expect: a bunch of mostly really bad or poorly mixed/recorded two tone delivered in broken English. Still, it’s kind of quaint and it is always kind of fun peeking into another culture’s take on another culture’s music. In this case it’s less Caribbean, more British, so you get layers of strange influence. Influence that prevents it from sounding really French or unique. It’s cute, but the wave of upstrokes, horn blasts, a hep heps gets old real, real fast.

The Dream Academy - "The Love Parade" 12-Inch

2011-07-09T13:13:00.003-05:00

The Dream Academy – “The Love Parade” 12-Inch
Blanco Y Negro, 1985
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $0.25

A couple years back I bought the Dream Academy’s self-titled LP to satisfy Jenny’s affinity for this band, notably their hit “Life in a Northern Town.” “The Love Parade” is a single from the same album, and much less lovely and whimsical than the previously mentioned “Northern Town.” It’s almost dark, if this sort of cheesy mid-80s dreamy synth-pop can be dark. It works, though. It’s repetitive as all hell, but uses it in a sort of hypnotic way that’s nice and mysterious and a bit lush. Sensual. Something like that, which makes sense since the song is about fucking and stuff. The B-side carries a 7-Inch version of “The Love Parade” that sounds pretty much exactly like the A-side version and “Girl in a Million (For Edie Sedgwick)” which is naturally, much better than the actual single. Naturally because that’s the way these slick sounding 80s bands were. Make the singles sound really sharp, studio-heavy jams etc and the B-sides are a bit of fun. It’s a pensive little ditty about you guessed it, Andy Warhol acolyte Edie Sedgwick and it’s sad because of the mournful woodwinds and the droney infinite sadness synths. Good stuff. The cover design is by the legendary Peter Saville, which is neat and probably the reason I picked this up despite not learning that little tidbit til just now. Nice design.

Electric Light Orchestra - Greatest Hits

2011-07-09T12:43:00.002-05:00

Electric Light Orchestra – Greatest Hits
Jet, 1979
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010
Price: $1.50

HOLY SHIT I did not know that ELO had so many certified HITS. Listening to this while making dinner, it’s like “Oh yeah THIS song!” Certainly all of these jams were present on 99.7 KY or 101 the FOX when I was growing up, which were the radio stations that dominated my father’s car stereo. I picked this up at work months and months ago for “Livin’ Thing” and “Mr. Blue Sky” and have basically just reaped a wealth of pop genius courtesy of Jeff Lynne. He’s soulful, but not in that embarrassing I’m-trying-to-sound-like-a-black-person-even-though-I’m-white-as-a-sheet. He knows how to construct these epic sounding numbers with orchestras and all sorts of shit that is ornate yet never gets in the way of the simple, pure-pop majesty of the songs. There’s that crunchy 70s classic rock vibe about but it’s always kind of an undercurrent that never really dates the music too bad (except maybe “Ma-Ma-Ma Belle”). These songs aren’t totally timeless, but that’s what makes them so fascinating. They’re a product of the 70s, a time and a place and that’s what precisely makes them special. They’re nostalgic in the best way. They’re a little cheesy, but back to timelessness. I hear all these songs and they’re all instantly familiar from some time or place in my childhood and I’m listening to them now as a mostly adult and through the lens of 10 years of music snobbery and they’re perfect songs in a different way. This album is everything a greatest hits album should be, which is to say that a greatest hits album should be nothing but hits. This isn’t some career retrospective. It’s eleven unfuckwithable jams that inspire that “Oh THIS song” reaction, usually accompanied with the urge to bop around and say “goddamnit, this is a great track.”

Built to Spill/Marine Research - Air Mail EP

2011-07-04T14:09:00.002-05:00

Built to Spill/Marine Research – Air Mail 7”
K, 1999
Acquired: K Records Mail Order, New, 2006
Price: $4

Oh man! One of my favorite 7”s in my possession. The concept is that Built to Spill in Idaho cover one of Amelia Fletcher’s songs (in this case, Heavenly’s “By the Way” and Amelia Fletcher in England covers one of Built to Spill’s tunes with her new band, Marine Research (in this case, “Sick and Wrong”). I only ever listened to “By the Way” because it’s so good and Built to Spill make it better than the original. However, Marine Research’s take on “Sick and Wrong” is really, really nice. Amelia Fletcher has one of my favorite voices in music, any kind of music, not just indie pop/twee, and whattya know! They manage to improve upon Built to Spill’s original! Best of both worlds! Pure pop bliss from America and England, putting the true meaning of the International Pop Underground out on display!

Sadly, I can't find either of these jams on youtube, but I DID find this video of this high school girl who is SO SO SO cool because she smokes and put "Carry the Zero" over her rant about getting her expensive camera taken away by her parents and getting grounded. It's like some amazing post-art thing. "I went to bed at 9:30 yesterday. And I woke up at 6:30." Incredible.

Budgie Jacket - World's Famous EP

2011-07-04T13:53:00.002-05:00

Budgie Jacket – World’s Famous EP
Parasol, 1993
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2008
Price: $1

Cute Japanese twee pop offa Parasol, one of those lovely little indie pop labels that put out a whole bunch of wonderful under the radar releases in the 90s. This one is pretty run of the mill twee. Extra high pitched girl vocals to account for the Japanese-ness and despite my general eh feeling about most things Japanese music (with the exception of Guitar Wolf, who are un-fucking-stoppably good), this is a really solid single. Also, I’m not sure if those are girly vocals because the inside of the sleeve has some shots of four young Japanese men in what can only be described as “promotional photographs.” There’s a little inscription on the back that reads “this is our second single named world’s famous ep put the soul in your rock ‘n’ roll aallrightt it’s ok it’s your right to choose who you listen to it’s rock you will find us in the middle of the road thank you.” It’s endearing, the idealization of what rock and roll is that seems to pop up in eastern culture. Like they get it MORE than we do, what it means over what it is. This 7” isn’t anything fancy, not great or earth shattering but it’s nice and it’s pleasant and the tunes have nice melodies and that’s nice.

Franklin Bruno - La Radia 7"

2011-07-04T13:35:00.002-05:00

Franklin Bruno – La Radia 7”
Little Teddy Recordings, 1997
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2009
Price: $1

Some really excellent tunes from the Nothing Painted Blue frontman. I’ve been more and more interested in Mr. Bruno’s jams since he’s been known to pal around with John Darnielle. Well, if “pal around” means playing on all the recent Mountain Goats records and putting out Undercard, the latest Extra Lens record, and one of my favorite albums of 2011. Bruno doesn’t get to sing a lot on the Extra Lens records, but his guitar work shines through. I would be cool with him singing more with the Extra Lens, because he’s pretty good at it in his own way. All four tracks on La Radia are real good. Good in a sort of Robert Pollard way. A handful of songs that just kind of happened and now exist and they’re great little tunes that no one will ever hear. Granted Pollard’s got way more exposure and releases way more records, but this little 7” feels like a quiet little corner of the world of indie rock where you can relax with some lovely little ditties.

Nobunny - Love Visions

2011-07-04T13:13:00.001-05:00

Nobunny – Love Visions
1234 Go! Records, 2008
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $4

So, a few years back I went and saw Nobunny at the Taproom when he was opening for Boo and Boo Too. It was just a dude in tighty whiteys with a crazy rabbit mask, gyrating with a microphone while his mega lo-fi garage rock backing tracks played on a portable CD player through the PA. It was pretty cool, but only because the songs were really catchy. When he played “I Am a Girlfriend,” I was hooked. That garage rock revival boom that happened a couple years ago was so oversaturated that finding the bands that were worth listening to was tricky. Subsequently, even the good bands sounded a bit watered down and samey but the really, really good ones knew how to actively kick you in the ass. Nobunny never really kicked you in the ass. Love Visions is a fun record, and “I Am a Girlfriend” is a super great track, but halfway through it all starts blurring together and sure, it’s good and it’s really really easy to love that lo-fi power pop shit but damnit, it’s just a blur of crunchy guitars. Fun, again fun fun fun, but maybe forgettable and maybe that was the whole point of that revival. To make records that were immediately satisfying that the artists actively knew would not stand the test of time. There’s some merit to that. Marble purple vinyl makes everything better though.

The Misfits - Legacy of Brutality

2011-07-04T12:47:00.003-05:00

The Misfits – Legacy of Brutality
Plan 9, 1985
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010
Price: $3

Happy Birthday America! To celebrate, I’m going to listen to one of your finest bands: The Misfits. Anyone who disagrees is wrong. OK, that’s not exactly true, but folks who like to dismiss the Misfits as mere novelty are sorely mistaken. The marriage of insanely catchy melodies and disgusting, brutal, and horrorshow lyrics could only have worked if the band followed through with their image and stage show, which was particularly ghoulish. The Misfits’ discography is really, really weird, and Legacy of Brutality is basically a bunch of songs from the Static Age sessions that had gone unreleased (on singles and such). Apparently, Glen Danzig overdubbed most of the album in an effort to avoid paying the other band members royalties, this being after the bands 1983 dissolution. Maybe that’s why these songs sound like alternate versions of some of my favorites. They still sound way good, though, although since most of these are on Static Age, which I already have, I can’t remember why the hell I thought I needed this. Oh yeah, my undying love for the Misfits. That’s why. It’s got the monster hits, it sure does. “Angelfuck,” “Hybrid Moments,” “Halloween,” “Where Eagles Dare,” “She,” “TV Casualty,” OH MAN! To be fair, if every record had a tune as good as “Hybrid Moments” on it, the world would be a better place because goddamn, goddamn, goddamn. Give me a list of my top ten favorite songs of all time and that one is firmly planted in the top five.

Neil Young - Comes a Time

2011-07-04T12:36:00.004-05:00

Neil Young – Comes a Time
Reprise, 1978
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010
Price: $1.50

I’ve never listened to Neil Young with any seriousness. Sure, I have a couple of his records, and without going back to read those write-ups, I’ll guess I probably said something along the lines of “You know, I never seriously listened to Neil Young.” But I have always kinda liked him! BUT, I’ve never ever heard Comes a Time. Never once, except for this time right now. Maybe now that I’m becoming an adult, getting married and all, maybe I’ll have my Neil Young renaissance sometime soon. Unfortunately, this record is kind of fucked. The PHYSICAL record, that is. It cracks and skips a bit at the beginning of each side despite not displaying any obvious flaws. It’s just old, and used, and I got it at the store for cheap. The actual album is really great. His melodies are some of my favorites. They’re simple but hit exactly where they’re supposed to, like that chorus on “Lotta Love.” The songs sound rough in the best way. Like they came to be at the spur of a moment around a campfire or wherever. On the spot. “Human Highway” is the track I probably bought this record for, as I’m a big fan of Nick Thorburn and Jim Guthrie’s project that’s named after the song. And that song is excellent. Another simple and subtle melody that creeps its way in. Can’t wait til five years from now when I’m probably obsessed with this record.

Hospital Ships - Lonely Twin

2011-07-04T11:38:00.004-05:00

Hospital Ships – Lonely Twin
Graveface, 2011
Acquired: Love Garden, New, 2011
Price: $10

Oh man, I love that I live in a town where I get to see Hospital Ships on a pretty much weekly basis. At least bi-monthly, and furthermore, monthly if I’m too broke to go to the Replay or the Jackpot and blow hard-earned on cheap beer. Lonely Twin is a grand step-up from their debut, Oh, Ramona, but only in that it’s more concise and has a definite flow that creates this intimate portrait of Jordan Geiger balancing vulnerability with a goddamned finely tuned sense of songcraftsmanship that makes him come off like a total badass (even through his warbly Daniel Johnston-esque falsetto). Lonely Twin feels like a product of Lawrence, despite being recorded at five different studios in the Bible Belt. The video for the monster jam “Galaxies” features a tour of winter Lawrence that would make even the most steadfast of “I’ll never be a goddamned townie” Lawrencians nostalgic for their own town (the part where he buys coffee from Adam Lott at LPT made me go “OH MAN YES I HAVE TOTALLY DONE THIS I IDENTIFY WITH THIS SO MUCH YES!” It was a good feeling. Good because lately Lawrence has been feeling a bit noose-esque and my desire to leave leave leave for greener, colder, not-Lawrence pastures has been growing and growing. But listening to this album, I feel pretty OK about Lawrence. I realize that despite the politics of Kansas (which, as you no doubt know or suspect, are totally, irreparably fucked and getting worse every day), it’s flawed to look at Lawrence through that lens all the time. Mostly because Lawrence has some really awesome shit that other places don’t. It’s got some excellent people too, and it has some really damn fine bands via the wonderfully incestuous music scene that’s been developing over the last four years or so. Anyway, I wrote a proper review for this over at the Pitch that’s about the music and stuff. Mostly though, there’s something about the sound of this record that sounds like where I want to live, or where I live right now, or wherever. And, my copy of the vinyl was strawberry lemonade colored, which makes me thirsty every time I look at it.

The Moutain Goats - "Catherine Antrim's Kid"

2011-06-26T10:25:00.003-05:00

I've been thinking about this song a lot lately. Ever since I heard a leak of the limited edition All Survivor's Pack tape that came with pre-orders of All Eternals Deck, I thought "Goddamn, this sounds exactly like a classic Mountain Goats jam but you can see how much John Darnielle's songwriting has matured and aged like fine wine it's so fucking spectacular." This is one of the two tracks that weren't featured on the album, and though I'm saddened that I don't get to hear studio versions of both this and "Rotten Stinking Mouthpiece," I'm pretty content because the acoustic boombox versions are haunting and beautiful and pretty much perfect as is.

"And the night wrapped me up/ In its long dark embrace/I had that same expression on, as that one picture of my face/Which was all anyone would ever know about me."

So, I've been thinking about "Catherine Antrim's Kid," a song about Billy the Kid, and this morning I saw that the only known photo of Billy the Kid sold at Auction for $2.3 Million. This was apparently totally unexpected. The photo was expected to rake in four grand. It says something about American culture, or how American culture is percieved, in that people universally love Billy the Kid. Hell, people love outlaws in general despite the fact that they murdered folks and gave sheriffs what fer. The irony though, is that the photo was purchased by William Koch, whom with his brother David, run Koch Industries. Considering that Koch Industries is trying its hardest to destroy America by funding clowns like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and backing the Tea Party Movement.

It's an incredibly American sort of thing. That is, American as the term American means now. Which means that it's wealthy people trying to convince the poor people that their being poor is their own damn fault and they should vote for candidates who will cut taxes for the rich so a real proper plutocracy can be put in to place. It's plain as day if you look at it, but I guess it's hard to see through the values veil if you're from the heartland or wherever the fuck these Tea Party people's RV's come from. These people certainly love Billy the Kid because they see themselves as outlaws in their own pathetic way. They refuse to address the historical figure of Billy the Kid, the murderer, the criminal, and only look at the romanticized version of the outlaw doing whatever he wanted and sadly gunned down by the mean old law. The Tea Party likes to do this with history: Pick out the nice bits that make you want to wave a flag and discard all the stuff that makes you want to move to another country.

"Catherine Antrim's Kid" is the sort of image of Billy the Kid I like. A microhistory of the famed outlaw that makes him a sympathetic character. Not a great hero, just a guy. Somebody's son. It's sad to think that maybe all of our historical artifacts will someday be owned by billionaires. What, if you throw out the government like they want, they could buy anything they wanted. The Smithsonian, what have you. They could lock all the artifacts up so no one ever had to think about historical value and the everyone would receive a patriotic re-education. There's a saying about people who don't learn from history, and I bet the Koch Brothers known damn well what it is. And I'm pretty sure they're hoping everyone else doesn't. Have fun inspiring a bunch of fools, Billy the Kid's photo. Here's to hoping they don't hold a rally on your grave.

The The - Soul Mining

2011-06-23T21:20:00.003-05:00

The The – Soul Mining
Epic, 1983
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $2.50

Once, when Jenny was working at the Merc, she said that one of the baker guys asked if I was wearing a “The The” shirt and he said that if I was, “That I was awesome, and that he totally approved.” I can’t remember what shirt it was. I think it was my green Hold Steady shirt with the praying hands. I felt embarrassed because I’d never listened to The The, but apparently they were cool. Great name, I have to admit. So a couple of The The records show up at work and I go “Snatch snatch snatch.” And it doesn’t sound early 80s cornball at all like it should. Instead, it sounds like really awesome post-punk at the base of the new wave. I really love “This is the Day” because it’s the song I know on this record. I was like “OH THIS IS THE THE I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW GO FIGURE!” Too bad I have to know the song from a car commercial or whatever but you have to admit, it sounds pretty car commercially. What with that accordion riff and that really great sounding chorus. It’s lighthearted like Austrialian alt-pop, or what I have as the platonic ideal of Australian alt-pop from the 80s. Not just that song, but this whole album. It’s a little more frenetic at times but mostly I’ve just been throwing this on when I need to put something on to cook dinner to or clean up the living room or whatever. It’s good background music that grows on you. Scratch that, background music sounds like a knock against this, and it’s not meant to be. It just goes well with any situation. Cool record. Approachable but still has a little weirdness. Side B sags a bit under the lengths of the songs (and suffers from some dated synths, but it's only really the last couple of tracks and even then the're still pretty good) but it’s still cool.

And, hilarious music video.

Ace Frehley - Ace Frehley

2011-06-17T23:03:00.001-05:00

Ace Frehley – Ace Frehley
Casablanca, 1978
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2010
Price: $1.50

You know what, I got this album seven months ago and I’m just now listening to it. Fucking weird considering that I searched high and low for this album for the better part of a year because it was the only one of the Kiss solo albums that I didn’t have. Then it showed up, I bought it, and never listened to it. So much for collector culture. But now I’m listening to it because “New York Groove” is in some commercial about people who do tattoos on HGTV or whatever channel it is that Jenny watches all the time. ANYWAY, that song is the jam. And this is most definitely the best of the Kiss solo albums. It’s just a straight forward, motherfuckin’rock’n’roll record. It’s brisk, the lyrics are fucking awful 70s cock rock, but goddamnit if those songs aren’t catchy without putting their cock rock all up in your face (see: Paul Stanley, which is weird since until hearing this one that was my favorite (but only because Gene’s and Peter’s were you know, pretty godawful)). Sure, the best song on this thing is a cover, but it’s a goddamned great cover. Anyway, the best thing about this album is that it’s a straight forward, no bullshit rock and roll record that wants to be nothing more than a rock and roll record. Sure, it’s technically awful if you want to think about it and analyze tasty lyrical nuggets like "But an hour along, comin’ on strong, I was gettin’ drunk/ The next thing I knew I looked at you, I was blind as a skunk” on the ode to getting way too drunk and still being able to bone some bimbo, “Wiped Out.” Actually, analyzing the lyrics all the way through, you find out that they run out of wine so they switch to rum, and then they rhyme word with bird, fun with rum, and the couple either burn with passion or the booze catches fire and the house they’re in burns down. I CAN’T TELL! These songs are so straightforward, I can’t imaging Frehley and his co-writers incorporating any metaphors. And yet, this is still wayyyy better than the other three. Sure, there’s a good dosage of cock rock, but there are some inspired moments like “New York Groove” and the instrumental finale “Fractured Mirror,” and Frehley’s vocals are actually really fucking good. They’re clearly not what you were supposed to sound like back then, but they’re passionate, if you can believe it. Well, as passionate as you can get when you’re singing some really poorly written tunes, but it’s cool nonetheless. Shitty cool, and obnoxious, and ok “Ozone” is godawful but I’d listen to this ten times before I ever listened to Peter’s again. Ok, maybe like two times. At least now I have a good conversation starter: “Have you ever heard Ace Frehley’s solo album?” Good thing I’m not single, otherwise chicks would never talk to me again. Unless I had a time machine. And took that time machine back to 1978 when this sort of thing was cool and I could wear leather pants and…

And because you need this:

Tom Waits - Blue Valentine

2011-06-17T22:23:00.000-05:00

Tom Waits – Blue Valentine
Asylum, 1978
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $4

The only Tom Waits record I own, and I bought it because it has “Christmas Card From a Hooker in Minneapolis” which always finds its way into heavy rotation around Christmastime despite being fucking sad as all hell. Listening to Blue Valentine, I’m listening to it through the filter of having seen the 2010 movie of the same name. A good movie that, like this album, is full of sadness and desperation yet lacking the grit of Mr. Waits who can clearly weather this storm unlike the film’s disintegrating couple who can’t deal ever. I should say, there are only a couple of songs that I tied back to that movie (the aforementioned “Christmas Card” in which the aforementioned hooker mentions a new man who’s gonna raise the baby in her belly that ain’t his (granted, this all turns out to be a big fat sad lie)). Jenny is listening to this right now and is clearly uncomfortable. “How do people like Tom Waits?” she asks during “Whistlin’ Past the Graveyard” and first I say “BECAUSE HE’S TOM FUCKING WAITS.” Then I say “BECAUSE HE’S FUCKING AWESOME.” And then, actually thinking about the question, I say “Because no one else in the world sounds like Tom Waits and it’s totally pure and unique and the rough-around-the-edges-ness of it all is one of the things that makes it so great.” Something like that, not so eloquent. “Kentucky Avenue” follows “Whistlin’” and I say “People love Tom Waits because of shit like this, these slow sad songs that sound like they’re coming from the belly of a dive bar in the seediest part of the seediest city in the world.” Something like that. The way the strings swell up in that song when the lyrics start really, really blowing you away is spectacular. “I’ll take the spokes from you wheelchair/ And a magpies wings/ And tie ‘em to your shoulders and your feet/ I’ll steal a hacksaw from my dad/ And cut the braces off your legs/ And we’ll bury them in the night in the cornfield.” It’s beautiful and heartswelling and elegant. One doesn’t typically associate elegance with Tom Waits, what with that gruff drawl that slinks across his back catalog, but on those sad slow piano songs he knows exactly how to break your heart. And THAT is why people like Tom Waits. Besides the fact that he’s a total badass, but that’s a given.

Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska

2011-06-16T19:09:00.002-05:00

Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
Columbia, 1982
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $1.50

Now stepping back five years from Tunnel of Love before synthesizers were invented (or, you know, at least not as much as a blatant ear-sore as they were in the 80s, the Boss’ usage aside) and the Boss recorded a best selling album in his bedroom like all the popular young bands do today. Thus, it’s raw and that’s what any good album should be on some level. It feels real, like a guy in a room with these unadorned songs that sell themselves because the Boss knows how to write a goddamned song. Like “Atlantic City.” The Hold Steady covered this song, and yeah it’s pretty good and kind of perfectly suited for the Hold Steady (and shows that with electric guitars and a full band, these songs could really scorch) and despite the fact that they’re my favorite band, the intimacy Springsteen brings to this song about a dude bout to join the mob and living it up for at least one night with his lady under the bright lights of the titular burg. The songs are all pretty sad, about death, about driving in cars, and working man’s blues. Pretty rad move to use your success to put out an album of songs recorded for the price of the portastudio.

Here's the Hold Steady's rippin' cover:

And then you know, the original:

Bruce Springsteen - Tunnel of Love

2011-06-16T13:52:00.003-05:00

Bruce Springsteen – Tunnel of Love
Capitol, 1987
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $2.50

Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love has been in heavy rotation for months. I know I said some pretty nasty things about the Boss in my write up of Born to Run, and I’ve been meaning to revisit that alleged classic because fuck, how could I harsh on the Boss? At least that’s what’s running through my head listening to “Tougher Than the Rest” which is one of my new favorite love songs of all time. It so excellently captures that willing to fight for somebody attitude without sounding corny or sentimental. Yet there’s a sense of dread to it with that ominous drum machine foreshadowing a bit of love gone wrong, but at the moment. This is a divorce album, pretty much, and I love me a good divorce album and I can’t believe I’d never heard that song before. It’s almost embarrassing. Fuck, I can’t believe I’d never heard this album before that one day at the end of winter when all the snow was melting on the roof of Half Price Books and dripping into the break room. The CD player was out of commission and we were playing records on the little all in one record player CD player at the register. I took it home that day and now we listen to it all the time. “Brilliant Disguise” was another hit I’d never heard before, and it really kinda sealed the deal on this record for me. Somehow, the Boss manages to circumvent all the cheesiness of 80s production on this one because his songs are just so damn good. The synths on “Tougher Than the Rest” are used as elegantly as if they were organic and those sort of “Fuck yes” fist to the heart lines like “The road is dark/ And it’s a thin thin line/ But I want you to know I’ll walk it for you any time” add a sort of timelessness that almost every well produced record from the 80s has a hard time achieving because everyone was obsessed with technology and horrible sax interludes (note: I’ve reconsidered my criticisms of the sax usage on Born to Run, because the Boss totally pulls it off). Tunnel of Love has shit kickers (“Spare Parts”), sensitive heartbreak ballads (“Cautious Man”) and OK, the title track has the corniest synths on the album but goddamn if that hook isn’t the jam. There’s an overall sense of sadness on this album that’s the kind of sadness a real man feels. A sort of hyper-masculinity that isn’t abhorrent but kind of satisfying because there’s also that thread of vulnerability that runs through the record. The Boss manages to lay out his bare emotions without looking like a sucker or a sap.

Here's a lovely cover of "Tougher Than the Rest" by Camera Obscura. Jenny says, "She sounds better here than she does on their records." Dunno about that, but I do love the Scottish inflection and how despite being cuter, that ballsy-ness is still there:

But, you know:

XTC - English Settlement

2011-04-29T12:58:00.001-05:00

XTC – English Settlement
Virgin/Epic, 1982
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $2.50

We’ve been listening to this album at work quite a bit lately. Some inspired soul keeps putting it in the CD player on the sunny days. Well, until someone decides to take it out because it freaks out the blue hairs. Personally, I think this is the sort of feel good record that hits all the little pleasure centers that pop music should hit while still remaining weird and cool and inventive and fun. The songs are like little road trips with friends. Full of side quests, pit stops, and diversions that only add to the overall journey of it all, “Jason and the Argonauts” in particular. “Senses Working Overtime” has become my defacto springtime jam and general thesis statement for the exhaustion of living. The soundtrack to having someone ask you “What are you up to these days?” and the only real response you have is “Working.” English Settlement has the same wonderful playfulness you find in Flying Nun bands and to an extent, the Australians. It’s fun, but not inconsequential. It’s just such a smart fucking record.

Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

2011-04-05T13:23:00.002-05:00

Bob Dylan – John Wesley Harding
Columbia, 1967
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $2

John Wesley Harding sounds like an exhalation after three solid, groundbreaking, and classic electric-Dylan albums. It almost seems slight, coming off of all that epic, legendary shit, but this record is loaded down with jams. It’s almost deceptive, how many stone cold killer tunes are on this album. “As I Went Out One Morning,” “I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine,” “All Along the Watchtower,” all run in a little row on the first side. John Wesley Harding seems to be touted as a return to roots of sorts, but Dylan sounds different here. More mature and wizened. Or something. Weird that he wrote a song about someone named Frankie Lee meeting the heavy metal band Judas Priest, weirder since the band didn’t even exist when the song was written! GO FIGURE! JUST KIDDING! Fun fact though, those heavy metal dudes got their name from “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest,” which makes them a bunch of country music loving wimps. Anyway, I’d never even listened to this album until now and it’s much better than I ever thought it would be despite all the five star ratings and such.

Bob Dylan - Nashville Skyline

2011-04-05T13:12:00.003-05:00

Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline
Columbia, 1969
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $2.50

I don’t think I ever listened to this album all the way through during my Bob Dylan phase a few years back. There was something really abherrent about the croon Dylan adopted for the record. Something like smooth jazz or something. Even “Lay Lady Lay,” the only real moster jam from this record, sounded like shit. And now, a couple years later, I’m changing my tune. It’s not great, but it’s fun and it’s cool to see Dylan’s shapeshifting to avoid being the mouthpiece of anyone’s generation produce listenable results. Well, then there’s Self-Portrait, but this is the last stop before the steam runs out and hey, it’s pretty good. And he got Johnny Cash to sing on a slowed down version of “Girl From the North Country” which is pretty cool! “I Threw it All Away” is an excellent track I would have overlooked had I not given Nashville Skyline a shot, so good for that.

Gut Feeling: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Belong

2011-03-22T02:01:00.004-05:00

I am a man who craves satisfaction. Scratch that, I am an overgrown boy unwilling to face manhood who likes music for wimps. And that is why I like the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Well, like is taking it a bit too far, considering that I have the same reaction to their music. You see, the thing is, they seem to evolve with my own music tastes. Their eponymous debut came out in 2009 when I was still very much an admirer of the whole twee pop/Sarah Records thing, but I couldn’t help but think that they were just blatantly ripping off a bunch of bands I loved without half the soul. It sounded amazing upon the first few listens, but then it all fell apart when I realized I could just listen to the Field Mice and ignore the Pains of Being Pure at Heart forever.

But it sounded good, and I saw them at SXSW that year and their show was pretty good, but really only served to cement my feelings that they were copping a mess of other bands’ style and that they were too be ignored. Come 2011, they’ve got a new album coming out with a couple of pretty excellent sounding initial singles. “Heart in Your Heartbreak” is a pretty solid by the numbers indie-pop jam where “Belong,” ventured into new territory. 90s alternative rock territory. Notably, Smashing Pumpkins turf. I got that feeling that I got the first time I saw the “Tonight, Tonight” video and recalled wearing that ZERO shirt with the star Billy Corgan on the playground in 6^th grade and understanding what I wanted to get out of music at a base level. My problem with Belong as an album is that it feels like that base level 6^th grader on a playground album. It’s a bunch of fucking around without showing anyone anything NEW. It’s a rehash of a bunch of bands you loved, and at first you will knee-jerk into digging on it because you like the bands being copped, but after three or so listens you will soon realize that you might as well listen to the fucking music this band has put into a blender.

This album’s influences aren’t so much worn on its sleeve as they are splattered on their whole fucking t-shirt. It’s as if they’ve just cracked open the skull of the Cure with an axe and freely let the blood flow over their cheap white poly-cotton blend Hanes tee. Not just the Cure though, despite the fact that Robert Smith has taken up residence inside this album and quietly wishes to be evicted. The Jesus and Mary Chain, New Order, live here, and so does Robert Wratten despite the fact that he spent plenty of time inside of the Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s debut and despite the fact that he probably got his fill on that. Or maybe he likes this band, I don’t know. I hear the Field Mice and I hear true and honest heartbreak and pleas for someone to be let back in and I hear the Pains of Being Pure at Heart and I feel like they’re faking it. And really, that’s what kills me here. It’s not the influences on the sleeves and splatters, it’s how it all sounds so rehearsed and faked through. I can wag my head from side to side to the melodies but three listens in I can tell there’s nothing there and five or six I’m wanting to write a diatribe about how this band needs to find their own fucking sound because Christ this is fucking boring.

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are always a band that I want to love. They appeal to my base urges to embrace indie-pop, but upon further listening I realize that their music is shallow in a disgusting sort of way. I don’t think they are bad people, or that they are committing some sort of crime, I don’t think there is anything wrong with them as people. I think they really love music, but I think the problem is that they may love music too much that they can’t disconnect themselves from the people they admire and that makes for some records that really need to be listening to. They are fine records once through, but I could just mash-up to Wish and Darklands and Loveless and Sittin’ Pretty and that jumbled mess would still sound more genuine. Despite the fact that they make it obvious that it is painful, being pure at heart and all, it’s hard to see the heart. Or the purity. Or the pain. And frankly, any one of those three would make this an album worth listening to.

P.S. For the sake of actual criticism despite the ideology of this album, I'll say this: Most of the songs commit the modern rock atrocity of having a decent first minute and repeating that first minute for two more superfluous minutes, play emotional by adding layers of reverb to the vocals that makes them only sound more insincere, and as probably already inferred, try so fucking hard to sound like other songs that its distracting...but mostly only after the whole "repeating the first minute for four minutes" shit. That chorus for "Even in Dreams" would kill me so perfectly if the thing was three goddamn minutes sorter. Goddamnit, I want to like this band so much every time they put out a new record and why the fuck does it have to sound so vacant?

Yes, the distortion and well, most of it for that matter, is cribbed from vintage Smashing Pumpkins songs but this is still the best track on the record. It's a bit overlong, but mixes it up enough to make it compelling in its message (and oft repeated chorus). But why do all the guitars sound like fey little children! There is some righteous distortion at work but the guitars still sound like they'd fall over and curl into a little ball if you breathed on them wrong! In short, where's that Calvin Johnson ethic of being a pussy but still having some balls? Stop giving so much of a fuck, dudes (and dudette)! Maybe some day you can be a band that isn't defined by a gazillion other bands!

Book Club: A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

2011-03-05T21:08:00.003-06:00

Exciting week! Not only did I finally finish the epic tome that is A Clash of Kings (only to lay into the even MORE epic tome that is A Storm of Swords, oof), but Martin announced that the long awaited fifth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series is coming out in July! So now if he croaks before the series is done, I'd only have to suffer through two hack jobs constructed from his epic notes. But since I've become a convert (see: Someone who initially hated Martin's prose to someone who kind of likes it a bit now), I wish the newly married Mr. Martin the best of luck in wrapping up this series without A.) Extending it to more books and B.) Writing books that are 2000 pages long. But anyway, here is my imaginary soundtrack for A Clash of Kings, which I think I might have liked more or as much as Game of Thrones because well, it's just so fucking awesome. Even the parts where I was like "Christ this is going on FOREVER," like Arya at Harrenhal, I was still like "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO AWESOME." So yeah, can't really complain. Taking a breather before really starting A Storm of Swords and all its 1200 pages. Oof.

Kurt Vile – “Puppet to the Man”
(for Theon Greyjoy)

When I started reading Clash of Kings, co-worker Jason kept nagging me about what I thought of Theon. I kept saying “I haven’t got there yet,” and when I got there, well, fuck. Theon is one of the most pitiful and pitiable characters I’ve ever read, as well as one of the most cowardly and pathetic. But still, I can’t hate him because I understand his motives. Taken away from his home at 10 to be a ward/hostage at Winterfell, he’s a 20 something without a home and oh so determined to win his father’s favor. The scene where he tries to get his sister into bed (though he doesn’t know it’s his much more favored by his father sister) is crushing, even given Theon’s unsavory talk to the woman. He deserves everything he reaps, despite the fact that the Greyjoy’s motto is WE DO NOT SOW. Watching him deal with the escape of Bran and Rickon from Winterfell was one of the most satisfying parts of the book, and the chapter Martin includes that is played out like he DID find them and plant their heads on pikes over the castle only to find out that he failed (like he always does because he sucks) was immensely satisfying. Well, that and spoiler alert.

Kurt Vile – “Hunchback”
(for Tyrion Lannister)

This is what I played on repeat when Tyrion was leading knights and shit into battle against Stannis and his soldiers at the river. Tyrion is my favorite character in a series FULL of amazingly built characters, and despite my disdain for the almost exclusively sinister House Lannister, Tyrion is the only voice of reason. Even when he’s doing shady shit, his actions are always make sense with his character. He’s learning that he enjoys the sweet taste of leadership but I still think his motives are as simple as he just wants things to return to normalcy. Where he can go about his little life, hide away with his beloved whore Shae and quietly enjoy his days with meat and mead. But well, shit’s fucked up and he does what he has to do to at least try to maintain a sense of order when his brother, sister, and nephew are trying their best to bring the kingdom to ruin. There’s a lot of poignancy in the refrain of “Halfman” that Tyrion so frequently receives, since he’s easily more of a man than any of the testosterone and blood hungry goons that surround him.

Radiohead – “Codex”

Something about this track illustrates Bran’s lonliness at Winterfell. Robb is gone, so he has to be in charge and play the prince when he, like Tyrion, would much rather be living a normal life, particularly one where his back isn’t broken and he can run with his wolf and climb the castle all he wants. There’s nothing particularly thematic about this song, I just remember spending a lot of mornings this past week or two waking up, putting on the just released The King of Limbs while eating oatmeal in an effort to absorb the aforementioned record. I never really did, it still feels kind of slight but this song stuck out and sort of got the mood right for the book so I kept playing it. It’s the sound of those somber moments right before people go into battle or someone important or tragic is killed.

Kanye West – “Power”

Because…well, just because. I still can’t see Kanye West as anything other than a guilty pleasure but there’s some truth in “No one man should have all that power” that I can oh so easily relate to A Clash of Kings. Maybe this is what Stannis Baratheon was listening to on his iPod before getting his ass handed to him at the Battle of Blackwater. Or maybe Robb Stark listens to this when he’s traipsing around the outskirts of Riverrun fucking shit up. Joffrey listens to it when he does something idiotic. Etc. They listen to it like “Born in the USA.” Getting pumped up on the jam, not the contradictory message. Wouldn’t be surprised if this showed up in a trailer for the Game of Thrones TV show. You know there’s an Austin Powers reference in this song? How was this the best album of 2010!

Destroyer – “Notorious Lightning”

Canadians know a thing or two of the North, and maybe that’s why they keep ruling my mental soundtrack for A Song of Ice and Fire. “Bay of Pigs” is still my favorite Destroyer song for the series, but this one is pretty apt too. The refrain of “And someone’s got to fall before someone goes free” is an easy touchstone, what with all the hostages and stuff. There’s just something regal about Destroyer. Even on Your Blues, the MIDI-tinged album from which this song is culled, it straight up sounds like music for kings.

The Broadways - Big City EP

2011-03-02T15:11:00.001-06:00

The Broadways – Big City EP
Asian Man Records, 1997
Acquired: Asian Man Records Mailorder Record Box, New, Ages Ago
Price: ~$.50

I’ve been listening to a lot of Lawrence Arms lately. Not sure why, but of all the punk bands I loved when I was 18, I love them as much as I did then, maybe more. I just like Chris MacCaughan’s songs more than Brendan Kelly’s this time around, but just a little more. I love their dynamic, etc. So, hence, I love the Broadways, and this was one of those EPs I played religiously when I got political. Effectively, the songs here say this: Why are people fucking destroying the world? It’s not political, so much as why do we need to pollute and cut down trees and destroy everything here. It’s secretly environmentalist, which is now a super political thing. A leftist political thing. Something that the right makes fun of the left for, for hugging trees and wanting to save whales and WHY WHY WHY I don’t get that. They love to complain about how the left is ruining America for their children and their children’s children, who won’t know true values or whatever but what difference is that going to make if you know, we destroy the planet. It’s stupid, and I think the songs here are still potent and vital, with that youthful look at issues that may not be as eloquent as say, a leading ecologist’s opinion but it’s fucking true. Anyway, that’s why I love the Lawrence Arms again. Because they’re smart and silly and they also sing about drinking too much and the simpler things. And they have hooks, good hooks, and this EP is reminding me that I oh so adored the Broadways for the same reasons. Way more primal, but hitting the same spot.

Brighter - Around the World in Eighty Days EP

2011-03-02T15:00:00.003-06:00

Brighter – Around the World in Eighty Days EP
Sarah Records, 1989
Acquired Love Garden, Used, 2010
Price: $12

The second I fell in love with indie-pop, I was obsessed with Sarah Records. I still am, so when this came into Love Garden I ogled it for weeks. Yet I couldn’t find an excuse to blow $12 on a 7”. It just wasn’t St. Christopher’s “You Deserve More Than a Maybe,” my favorite Sarah Records track, trumping even the Field Mice. If that one had been there, I’d have dropped way more than $12 (maybe $25!). Anyway, I went home and listened to these songs on my computer and was like “Fuck, this is really good I should buy it” so I did. And it was worth it, this is an excellent little record that I listen to quite frequently. There’s something about Sarah Records that hits my comfort zone. The sound sort of shared by bands like Brighter, St. Christopher, the Field Mice, the Sea Urchins, and Blueboy. That sad bastard rainy day English college kid sound. The tunes here are excellent. “Inside Out” is a mopester’s dream, fit for dreary everyday life and heartbreak. Brighter don’t quite have the melodic knack of say, any of Robert Wratten’s bands but it’s very good nonetheless, even after I get out of fanboy mode and my heart slows down. In my head, "Things Will Get Better" sounds like "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want" if the Smiths didn't have a budget and had to record in a broom closet. Love it. Fact: When Jenny went on a whirlwind tour of the great European cities with a bunch of high school kids, I sincerely begged her to go to Rough Trade records (or any record shops, for that matter) and find me some Sarah Records singles and included it in a chorus to the song I wrote in my sadness of her going to Europe and having to stay in Lawrence.

Bright Coloured Lights - "Open Your Eyes" 7"

2011-03-02T14:45:00.003-06:00

Bright Coloured Lights - “Open Your Eyes” 7”
Slumberland, 1992
Acquired: Love Garden Shotgun Room, Used, 2007
Price: $.25

Another crown jewel of my 7” collection. Bright Coloured Lights was one of Pam Berry's post-Black Tambourine bands and yeah, this single is pretty incredible. Well, the title track at least. The other two songs are great, but man, “Open Your Eyes” is one of THOSE songs. One of those perfect little pop nuggets that has existed for years and years but no one has ever, ever heard. There are bands now ripping off this sound that were born the year it was recorded. It sounds fresh, and yeah, I know I said no one had ever heard this so how COULD those bands rip this off? Well, uh, er, surely they're all familiar with Black Tambourine (see: The Vivian Girls and the Black Tambourine Revival) and this being an offshoot, led by the outstanding Ms. Berry (who might as well be America's Amelia Fletcher), this is pretty much what heaven sounds like in my brain. Vocals that almost sound fey, but cut through the distortion. There’s something perfect and amazing about that. Oh yeah, and the other songs are pretty rad too. It’s the early 90s underground in the face of grunge. It’s the indie pop Kurt Cobain so adored doing what its always done, soldiering on. Even now, when every other band is allegedly an indie-pop band, it’s a niche that has a nice handful of folks working in the underground to put out the good shit.

Gut Feeling: Yuck - Yuck

2011-02-21T23:07:00.004-06:00

Yuck – Yuck

My comfort zone is actually quite small. In reality, I hate most music. I appreciate almost all music, for all its merits and all that, but the music I actually willingly listen to in my free time is safe. It's music with guitars, almost exclusively of an indie rock/alternative rock variety. It's what I enjoy, so I don't deny that despite the guilt I feel for never listening to hip hop or dance music or electronica. There's music critic world and there's the world I live in, which is soundtracked by distortion and sweet guitar riffs and fuzzy vocals. And that's why I love Yuck's eponymous debut. It's a cluttered mess of hooks and chord progressions and vocal lines and guitar tones borrowed from my favorite bands, and on that alone I can't really fault Yuck for anything. Yo La Tengo is pretty prevalent, notably in the perfectly timed female vocal harmonies. Eric's Trip is present in the construction of this record, which mimics “Love Tara”'s FAST DISTORTION PUNKY HOOKY JAM followed by PENSIVE SLOW BURN GORGEOUS SAD TRACK repeat for 12 songs aesthetic. Guided by Voices shows up in a coupled of guitar lines and hooks, Sebadoh is everpresent in the recording style, and the Breeders, the Lemonheads, Dinosaur Jr, Sonic Youth (on every song, naturally), and on and on and on. And I love it because I love that music.

And then I think of newer bands that Yuck are influenced by. They kind of sound like what I wish Broken Social Scene sounded like. They have a lot of the same favorite chords, except while BSS always kind of sounds nice, but boring, Yuck has a vitality that I can't quite explain. I waffle between feeling like they shouldn't sound vital because their sound is mostly a cobbling together of a bunch of other bands' sounds, but I think their sound is vital because it's bringing to the forefront a sound that has been largely forgotten and dismissed. It sounds like the bands I love, so I love it. Basically, that's my MO. The slow burners though, that's what kills me. “Shook Down” is a minor masterpiece, with a riff that reminds me of a certain pensive GBV track I can't remember, but the chorus with its gorgeous harmonies and it's familiar hook lures me in, and then that perfectly placed distorted breakdown takes it over the top. It's all the simple, raw, and yes, vital energy that Yuck distills into an excellent LP.

And yet, it's still uneven, but in the best way. The way “Love Tara” is uneven. It's distracting but in the way that you're never quite complacent. I feel like Yuck are in the same game as Girls, where they're crafting these songs that sound so familiar but they're also carving out their own sound within that. The outro on “Shook Down” could easily come from Christopher Owens & co, but at the same time, it's a little too dirty. A little too crusty, less pop majesty. A little bit too...Sebadoh. And then another awesome upbeat track happens and “Suicide Policeman” hits me in the stomach like an Elliot Smith song and this is where the lyrics happen. Understated for sure, but the perfect kind of understated. Not self-important or overly literate (despite my adoration of both the aforementioned lyrical sytlings), but like the recording quality, raw and to the point. “If you conjure up a fear/ Make it loud so I can hear the tambourine” is one of my favorite lines in recent memory.

At some point, later on in the album, someone actually DROPS the goddamned tambourine midsong, and it feels like they SHOULD have re-recorded but didn't because that was the real thing that kept the song real. That's really my only gripe with the album. That point where someone drops the tambourine. I feel like that's what makes something real, that in-studio fuck up that is overshadowed by the greatness of a certain song. Like the sound of Jeff Mangum getting out of a chair at the end of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea or Kim Deal fucking up the lyrics in “Huffer.” But it IS charming, and that's what this album has that makes it potent. It would be easily written off as a tribute to 90s alt rock, but the band members are too determined to make the best songs they can with the time they have. And THAT is what makes this a great record. Despite all the influences, Yuck's spirit and attitude makes this a great record. A lovable record. A record worth listening to because it sounds real and the hooks are excellent even if they come from here and there. “Georgia” sounds like three or four songs I've heard, but it also sounds like a song by a band called Yuck. It's a terrible band name, because there's nothing disgusting or yucky about Yuck, they deserve an iconic, excellent band name, but I'm not one to be picky. The slow burn sad jams are the best slow burn sad jams I've heard in a long, long time. “Suck” destroys me in all ways, and I had to analyze that destruction. It sounds like a song I've heard before. It hits a spot that's been hit before by another song. But it's got a spirit to it that feels naked and RAW RAW RAW, god there needs to be another word for raw. From the heart? I don't know. I've been spending a lot of time detoxing from being a music critic and just appreciating the things I like because of the way they make me feel, and this album makes me feel equal parts awesome and miserable, and that's an awesome thing. It feels like a journey, a quest, a trip. It's good stuff, and though they don't have an immediately recognizable spark of originality, I think Yuck prove that the sum of your influences most often sounds totally awesome.

P.S. While looking for cover art for this album, I found out that Yuck are from FUCKING ENGLAND. And they do America Alternative Rock so perfectly, I'm kind of ashamed of my compatriots for not appreciating their rich history! Way to go Yuck, I know I hate your band name and think you should have a way classier band name but your hooks and chords and riffs > current American indie rock bands.

P.S.S. "Sunday" sounds Kiwi-esque in the best possible way, how do you do it Yuck? It's not the Clean, it's not the Chills, but you're like the new wave of Flying Nun that's not even from New Zealand goddamnit I just love your hooks you bastards.

Book Club: The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

2011-02-10T12:29:00.003-06:00

2011 was and is to be the year I read Tolkien. Last year my nose was spent buried in the annals of science fiction, but there were certain books who brought in an element of fantasy that I have to admit, I quite adored. Neil Gaiman’s American Gods is a good example, one that cracked open my mind and let flow in a genre I always scoffed at. Why? Because of the dragons. I thought dragons were so stupid. Dragons and orcs and trolls and all of that crap. Lame. But last year, I did a little turnaround. I started playing this computer game called the Battle For Wesnoth which is all about all that orc-y stuff I hated and got REALLY into it. Then Jenny and I watched the Lord of the Rings series together and though I thought it was OK the first time, I was totally into it this most recent time around. Earlier this year I read the first book in George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series and well, I think that was the perfect set-up for Tolkien.

Why? Because I think Tolkien will be a joy after reading Martin. At least based on my experience reading The Hobbit, which was quite a joyous experience. Unlike Martin, Tolkien injects passion into his prose. Don’t get me wrong, I think Martin is writing a great story full of great, complex characters but the prose has always been the part that makes me reticent to tackle the series 100%. Tolkien on the other hand, well, it’s just so damned spirited I can’t help but love it. The way he persistently breaks down the wall and lets you know that he’s telling you a story, I thought I’d get annoyed with that but I always thought it worked so perfectly with the lighthearted tone of the novel. And though the book was lighthearted, it never felt slight. There was so much adventure, so many harrowing escapes, and so many fierce battles. But still, the book never ceased to be a rollicking good time. I’m sure the Lord of the Rings novels take on a more serious tone, but even so, what I’ve got out of Tolkien so far is that they’re at least not going to be stiff.

Hence, the soundtrack I’ve concocted for The Hobbit is one of carefree, summertime larking about, and when I think of carefree summertime larking about I think of the Kinks, for whatever reason, notably “The Village Green Preservation Society.” Music that is light, but not slight in the least. I felt like the Kinks would produce a nice bonding moment between Bilbo and Gandalf and the Dwarves (note: I THOUGHT about putting a song by the band the Dwarves on the list, but there is nothing remotely sleazy about The Hobbit so I had to pass). It’s also very British, just like The Hobbit.

And then there’s some American music. Songs I pull out for road trips, songs that capture that sense of charted or uncharted adventure in some great push west (or north, or south, or east).

The Kinks “The Village Green Preservation Society”

As I mentioned before, in my head Bilbo and the Dwarves love the Kinks, and this was the sort of theme song I had running through my head as they tramped out of Hobbitton into the Misty Mountains. I know Led Zeppelin are known for their penchant for Tolkien, to the point where they wrote songs about Lord of the Rings, but yeah, I never got a lighthearted sense of adventure from Led Zeppelin ever.

The Kinks – “Strangers”

Wes Anderson used this song so perfectly in his film The Darjeeling Limited. In fact, I’d never listened to the Kinks’ Lola Versus the Powerman and the Money-go-round until I saw the trailer for that movie and realized that the Kinks were much more than their transvestite anthem “Lola.” “Strangers” is a perfect road song for people who are kind of disconnected from each other. It’s lovely and sad and the line “This love of life makes me weak at the knees” ties into the tone of this book like a neat little ribbon.

Beulah – “A Good Man is Easy to Kill”/ “Ballad of a Lonely Argonaut”

I imagine this is what the younger dwarves, Fili and Kili, would put on to piss off Thorin and Balin and all them. “It’s modern music, guys!” they might say. I listened to a lot of Beulah when I was working at CD Tradepost a year ago, until the day someone bought the Coast is Never Clear, which was a very sad day. It’s a perfect road trip album, full of all the energy you need to stave off being at your travelling companion’s throat. “Ballad of a Lonely Argonaut” is the same way, and one I used religiously on my trip to California in 2005. I remember finding this on the person we were staying with’s iPod, putting it on and running and jumping into a pool. It was a wonderful feeling.

Ted Leo & the Pharmacists – “Parallel or Together?”

Another great track from another great road trip album. Ted Leo’s The Tyranny of Distance is always the first CD I burn when I’m going on extended vacation. I don’t even know WHY. Maybe it’s the propulsive drums or something, something that illustrates travelling.

Silver Jews – “Random Rules”

Again, another classic American road trip album: American Water. At turns somber, at turns joyous, it’s a perfect mix of the feelings of taking a trip. “Random Rules” is weathered, which is when you think about it, a strange way to start off an album. It’s got that feeling of going 500 miles and just wanting to get to the hotel, but you just keep trucking on until you get there because well, there’s nothing you can do about that. There’s a lot of that in The Hobbit, except there are no rest stops, or McDonalds, just starvation and peril.

Book Club: Paper Towns by John Green

2011-01-29T17:48:00.002-06:00

In this feature I construct a fake soundtrack (or, I suppose, a real soundtrack) to a book I have recently read. I read very slowly. Songs chosen are either songs that felt like they were intertwined with the text or merely songs I was listening to at the time that I forced meaning into. But in this case, it's mostly the former.

I'll admit, the reason I'm a Nerdfighter is because I found out that one of the inscriptions in Paper Towns was one of my absolute favorite lines from my absolute favorite Mountain Goats albums. “People say friends don't destroy one another/ What do they know about friends?” For years I've carried that line from “Game Shows Touch Our Lives” around with me like a badge. A bad for bad relationships and dead friendships and the reasons therein. That line was my truth, and for it to pop up in a book was too coincidental to ignore. Wikipedia linked me to Amazon, Amazon led me to Google-searching John Green, which led to Vlogbrothers, which led to the only web-entity I strictly follow. Webcomics and blogs tend to get forgotten, but Vlogbrothers is this little light of good in the world that has helped me become less of an asshole and has set to restoring a power of positive thinking inside my cynical and burnt out brain.

I have been waiting for Paper Towns to show up at Half Price Books for a solid six months, maybe more. Ever since I read that it mentioned the Mountain Goats, one of my top 3 favorite bands (position varies, but always within the top 3). Looking For Alaska showed up first, and it wasn't even in the Young Adult section. I found it on a fluke, took it home, read it, and it opened my eyes to the wide and fascinating world of Young Adult Fiction. It wasn't a book I would have thought to read when I was actually of-age (see: 15-18) but I feel like I appreciate it more now that I'm a more grown-ass man/boy (see: 25). I liked it more than I like The Catcher in the Rye now, which for all intents and purposes was the book that taught me to read. My guts have this longing for a great bildungsroman, and Looking for Alaska was of the brutal variety. The hard growing up variety. The dealing with shit you shouldn't have to deal with when you're a teenager, and I loved how honest it was. And how, despite the fact that it's for teenagers I was able to take so much from it that moved me and continues to move me.

An Abundance of Katherines came next, snagged from the Westport store on a jaunt to Kansas City. I read half of it and stopped because of a number of reasons. Mostly it just wasn't as deep as Looking for Alaska. It was fun, there was a goofy best friend (who I mostly couldn't stand) and Colin just never grabbed me. And then I put the book down for three months. When I picked it up again and finished it, I learned to like it more. The last 30 pages I kind of loved it and it hit me in the same place as Alaska. I even learned to love Hassan and the stupid shit he would say that I thought a teenager would never say but then, as it wore on, realized that maybe kids DO talk like this. Who knows!

And then Paper Towns, which happened in the earlier part of this week. At first I thought it was An Abundance of Katherines Part II, since it has the same characters. Overly analytical protagonist boy with a goofy best friend and a crush on some painfully too cool girl that he'll never have a chance with. Well, sort of the same. I mostly just hated the way Ben talked and thought “No one calls girls honeybunnies, not even if they're 18.” But as soon as Margo drags Quentin along on her midnight revenge mission, I was hooked, and in the end I felt like Paper Towns was even more excellent than Looking for Alaska. Or they're equal, I can't decide, but the adventure of it from camping out in abandoned minimalls in subdivisions that were never built to all the Walt Whitman stuff and having characters who sing along to the Mountain Goats on their way to class with the windows down to show everyone what great taste they have. It was all so spot on. I'll never be a literary critic, because I don't know how to criticize books like this. Books that, when I'm finished, I clutch to my chest like I'm saying some emotional goodbye. “I'm sorry I cracked your spine,” I say. I don't know how to criticize that, other than the nitpicky stuff which was made up for by things like Radar's parents having the worlds largest collection of Black Santas or the way Green turns the stereotypical preppies from other books into real characters with their own problems and wants and wishes and fears and all that stuff they should have but never seem to get in books.

Anyway, long story short, I really liked this book. I was very moved by it and it made me want to write young adult fiction. I actually wrote a novel when I was 17 and 18, over the course of a summer, the best summer ever. I'd wake up every morning at 10 sharp, go to Einstein Brothers and read and write, then ride my bike around the trail on Indian Creek, then go to Pizza Street for two hours and write and eat pizza and then maybe go work at AMC or watch movies in my bedroom. It was a great summer, and the manuscript is terrible but I now feel like there's something worth salvaging. Songs kept popping up while I was reading this. Mostly Mountain Goats songs, since that was the sort of prepackaged soundtrack, but ones I didn't expect. And other songs that fit in with various turns of phrase or scenes or characters. It's easier, though, when a book provides a soundtrack for you. A really great one at that.

Guided by Voices - “Paper Girl”

There's a part towards the end of the book, when, spoiler alert, Quentin is talking to Margo in the field in the paper town and she talks about being this paper girl and it's the part in the book that made the book work for me and made me love it. It's when Margo becomes a real person rather than a mythical creature. I love this song because it works just as well from both Quentin's image of Margo and Margo's image of herself. It's such a perfect companion piece to Paper Towns. Now that I think of it, Guided by Voices were referenced in the text! Totally forgot about that. Margo has GBV in her record collection, so maybe she had a copy of Self Inflicted Aerial Nostaligia tucked away in the Gs, gathering dust and value.

The Mountain Goats – “Game Shows Touch Our Lives”

“People say friends don't destroy one another/ What do they know about friends?” as I mentioned, is my favorite line off of Tallahassee (favorites 2-5 are all probably from “No Children” or “International Small Arms Traffic Blues”). I think it captures what John Darnielle is best at, which is saying things plainly but giving them this amazing, insightful depth with the way he says them. I can see where John Green gets it. There's no point in explaining what that line means, because you KNOW what it means, and if you are a normal person who has interacted with other people, you probably have a specific example of what that line means to you.

The Mountain Goats - “See America Right”

For the third act. Five teenagers in a minivan blitzing north to New York from Orlando in 21 hours. It's insanity, and this is the song you listen to when you're burning a trail to some destination and don't even have time to stop. Something in Peter Hughes bass line that just drives you straight down into oblivion. Wait, that's a line from “Game Shows Touch Our Lives.” Shit. Also, holy shit is JD dressed as Batman in this video I THINK SO.

The Mountain Goats - “The Best Ever Death Metal Band Out of Denton”

The lead-off track from one of my ultimate road trip records: All Hail West Texas. This is the song I imagine Ben, Radar, and Q singing along to at that one part where they sing along to the mountain goats. It's THEE Mountain Goats song to sing along to. Well, that seems to be the general consensus, at least, from the times I've seen them play this at the end of sets and everyone screaming along with so much love for their fellow man, especially at the “HAIL SATAN!” part. It's just such a fun song to sing.

The Lemonheads - “Bit Part”

This is going on because I love the Lemonheads, and when thinking of songs that fit with the book I defaulted to the Lemonheads because they're the last band I really, truly fell in love with that I'd never known I would fall in love with. “Bit Part” is the sweetest song on “It's a Shame About Ray,” which is by turns funny and sad and moody and all the things that make it a masterpiece, but “Bit Part” always kind of made my heart a little fuzzy. It's not like the guy in the song pleading for a bit part in girl's life gets girl or anything like that, but it's the purity of his intent.

Billy Bragg & Wilco - “Walt Whitman's Niece”

Referenced in the book, where Q says Billy Bragg has a more pleasant voice than Woody Guthrie, whom he finds unlistenable. It's a sweet and honest admission. The song feels rowdier than most of the book feels, but it seems to fit really well in the adventure sequence in the beginning, and the line, “And it takes a night and a girl/ And a book of this kind/ A long long time to find its way back” is you know, just exactly it. Right there, in song form. A perfect fit to the soundtrack.

Book Club: Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

2011-01-28T00:09:00.002-06:00

In this feature I compile a soundtrack to a book I've just finished reading. The songs fit tone, characters, specific references, and any general things that may have popped up here or there. Or they might have just been playing in the background, who knows!

I hated this book at first. I was all "PFF, fantasy novels are for fucking nerds!" and then by page like, 600 two and a half weeks after starting the book, I was like "OH MY GOD THIS IS SO FUCKING AWESOME." At Yello Sub today, the woman who brought my sandwich asked what I was reading and showed her the cover and she said "Oh, a fantasy novel" and I was not ashamed. It was strange. Anyway, I don't think I'd recommend this to anyone. It's a time sink, a big one. Worth reading, but only for the awesome plot and the way more amazing than I would have expected characters. The prose makes me want to jump out of a window, a little bit, but it's a small price to pay for excellent swords and shit entertainment. The song stylings of Spencer Krug fit this book for me like a glove. Don't know why, they just do. Actually, I DO know why. It's because his last album as Sunset Rubdown was called Dragonslayer and there are references to dragons and dragonslaying in this book. THERE. Well, mostly it's because he sings with this sense of granduer that fits with the epic scope of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series, well, what I've read so far. So much tragedy and triumph, often overlapping. And then there's a couple of Destroyer songs at the end because, you know, Canada may as well be the northlands in my head.

Sunset Rubdown - “Dragon's Lair”

“Because to say the war is over is to say you are a widow/ You're not a widow yet.” Line after line of this song popped in and out of and through my head as I was reading A Game of Thrones. It captures all the grandeur, all the pomp and circumstance and shit that populates this book. “If you are sharpening your scissors, then I am sharpening my scissors/ And I'm sharpening my sword.” It just clicked. And then, you know, the references to dragons and dragonslayers, but that's not the given. The given is that this song is all about destruction. Destruction of people, destruction of ideas, destructions of mythologies. The kind of complex destructions that take place in this novel. And like the novel, in my head this song is about champions and saviors and heroes and villains and monsters and nasty men, and the two influence each other if only because they recall a similar gut feeling that gets tied to moral ambiguity. This is what was running through my head for the last few hundred pages and it really helped with the style of the prose, which I still felt was too “fantasyesque” for me to really get into (see: All the references to “glistening manhood,” “fingers in her sex,” etc). But really, most of my gripes with the prose are that for a story this good, it deserves the kind of writing that fucks you up. So I imagined it as this song as a coping mechanism and it seemed to work. Also, this music video fucking rules.

Sunset Rubdown - “Silver Moons”

Dragonslayer is a winter album. Though I only tend to listen to it in the winter, it's really the only time it feels right. It's bleak and beautiful, cold with this little fire in the center of it brought on by recording everything live in the studio. This song fit the first couple hundred pages of A Game of Thrones remarkably well for me. “Maybe these days are over, over now,” Spencer Krug sings. “Gone are the days bonfires make me think of you/ Looks like the prophecy came true.” It rings of myth and legend, the whole album does, from this the remarkable opener to the epic conclusion in “Dragon's Lair.” This is my song for the Starks, in their desolate but serene home at Winterfell before the shit hit the fan.

Sunset Rubdown - “The Mending of the Gown”

I always imagine this song as a stage play that goes horribly wrong and culminates with the curtain falling from the rafters and burying the cast alive. I see this song through the eyes of Jamie and Cersei Lannister, circa their little incestuous relationship being found out and the consequences that come with covering up, notably the whole taking over the throne and executing enemies to said throne bit.

Sunset Rubdown - “Up On Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days”

“You're the one who ran in the wild a virgin to a name;
You're the one who lived off a forsaken land.
I'm the one who sat at your capture
And let the snow fall on this whispering rapture
You're the one who's kissing your captor's hands.”

“Your highness is holding your chains.”

For Sansa.

Wolf Parade - “Kissing the Beehive”

“As if you didn't know that it would sting/ Kissing the beehive/ And fucking up your finger from pushing on the ring.”

Wolf Parade - “Dinner Bells”

“There will be no more winter/ There will be no more spring and/ There will be no more dinner bells
left for you to ring”

Destroyer - “Bay of Pigs”

“I was born in the North, but my father's from the South.
Love is a political beast with jaws for a mouth. I don't care!”

Mostly just that line, but I listened to Destroyer's latest LP Kaputt throughout my reading of A Game of Thrones so maybe I fit the subject matter around the song. Lots of cryptic lines that meshed really well with all the intrigue.

“You were on the side of good/ I was inside of the sea's guts/ A crumbling beauty trapped in a river of ice/ A crumbling beauty trapped in Paradise/ Oh yes, it was Paradise!”

It's a cold, northern song on an album of bizarre disco-tinged sex jams all laced with jazz flute and 80s sax and I love it.

Destroyer - "Shooting Rockets (From the Desk of Night's Ape)"

Because, you know, epic fancy-languaged drama works.