I bought this with a giftcard from Jonny D. A wedding present. This and GBV’s Alien Lanes. Two records I couldn’t live
without. The Weakerthans especially, though. With the impending move, I’d been
playing “Sun in an Empty Room” a lot, hell, this album a lot because the
Weakerthans are one of my favorite self-medications. One of those power of
music things where I can be calmed, centered by just hearing a perfectly
written song sung with such genuine feeling. Reunion Tour took a long time to win me over, though. I’d patiently
waited the requisite three-year wait between Weakerthans albums, and this one
just didn’t click. Maybe because the retooled version of the album’s closing
track, “Utilities” had won me over so hard with its spare solo-electric radio
session version that’d been floating around the net for a year and a half. And
then one day I had some emotional crisis, something about wanting to
desperately do something useful and here I was in the running for a job as a
music blogger and how useless was that? Anyway, I got over that one fast when,
even though I didn’t get the job, I still freelanced and had steady work and
yeah, take what you can get especially if you know, writing about music is
something you do on your own for hours a week. Anyway, there was a crisis and
this album was playing and I deciphered it. I realized that I not only loved
it, but it might have been John K Samson & Co’s strongest album yet. Each
song is a character study of some Winnipeger. Fictional and non-fictional. And
they’re all lonely. The bus driver who’s route takes him past an ex-lover’s
house forcing him to breakdown and deal with the regret every single day the
women’s curling champion out getting drunk with the team and trying to
reconcile constantly being away from her partner, an elegy for a goalie, the
tragic David Reimer, and though not a Winnipegger, Edward Hopper haunts “Sun in
an Empty Room” and “Night Windows” which are painted in the same colors as
Hopper’s paintings of the same names. “Utilities,” however, is front-and-center
about Samson.
Someone who’s songwriting has involved some of my absolute favorite
storytelling delivers a first person narrative of hope and a yearning to be
useful. The album version grew on me too. It has been five years since Reunion Tour and though Samson’s solo
album Provincial (which came out earlier
this year) is tiding me over, man oh man I want a new Weakerthans record bad.
Bright Eyes – Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
Saddle Creek, 2005
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012
Price: $3
Though I paid absolutely no mind to this record when it was released (primarily
because it was released in tandem with the far superior, twang-infected I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning), sitting
here with the detached synthesized wash of “Time Code” and reading the lyric
sheet, I can see now so clearly the point of this record. Of course the people
flocked to I’m Wide Awake. It’s warm
and inviting and full of incredibly relatable emotions (and of course “First
Day of My Life” is like, every teenage girl’s fantasy song they want their
fantasy boyfriend to write for them, or if not, at least put on a mixtape for
them). I’ve been over the whole “I Fucking Love Bright Eyes” thing before here,
and maybe it’s my acceptance of that that is making Digital Ash sound really, really great right now. Like really
fresh, but mostly because I don’t know if I ever listened to it all the way
through. I loved “Take it Easy (Love Nothing)” but the rest was just so icy and
sterile. At the time, at least. That was also during my first relationship and
my alt-country phase was just kicking off so I can see it now why I was so
giddy happy with I’m Wide Awake and
how writing off this bleak album was so easy.
But bleakness is my game now! I’m totally into that! Totally into references to
Don DeLillo, “The sorrowful midwest,” vanishing, personal hypocrisy, and
“refrigerators full of blood.” Love that shit.
The teriffic “I Believe in Symmetry” somehow eluded me all these years but
stands amongst the better songs Conor Oberst has written. A surefire hit as
good as “Take it Easy.” “Ship in a Bottle” is like the twin sister of the
Postal Service’s “Brand New Colony,” which may or may not be a coincidence
since Postal Serviceman Jimmy Tambarello does a little knob-twiddling on this record.
I’m still amazed at how good this record is when I spent years like, slagging
the shit out of it. Being all “Oh yeah, that record was, like, so totally
forgettable” when I’d only listened to it the (maybe) once and let’s just say
it’s not a masterpiece but it’s definitely a solid release. Funny thing is,
despite being all poo poo about Digital
Ash, I had the t-shirt. The one with the dude throwing up numbers into a
toilet, purchased when I saw Bright Eyes in Omaha kicking off the I’m Wide Awake portion of the supporting
tour for the albums because the I’m Wide
Awake shirt was “too girly.” The Digital
Ash shirt looked too girly when I started putting on weight but still wore
medium tees in like, sophomore year. Talkin’ bout man boobs. Not attractive. I think
the shirt is gone, but at least I have this record. It’s a nice one to pull out
once every six months or so and be like “Oh yeah, this is a really good
record!”
Last thing. I think I have such a fondness for Conor Oberst and his music
because he so totally captures that depressed plains state mentality that you
get when you’re living in the depressed plains states and everyone thinks
you’re a hick and your town and region is kind of desperate for some culture.
In Omaha they made their own, the lucky bastards, but at least it didn’t kill
their depressiveness (see also: Cursive, the Good Life, and Tim Kasher, three
separate identities for the same dude who is MUCH more depressive than Oberst
but just as good a songwriter if not better edgewise). But I get that. I ID
hard, and like all high schoolers Fevers
and Mirrors was the perfect medication for all the angst and fortunately
Conor Oberst didn’t exploit that. It has been fun to grow along with Oberst’s
records (despite the fact that he is five years my senior) and while Bright
Eyes may or may not be kaput, Oberst will the neo-Dylan til the day he dies.
John Porcellino ranks right up at the top when I breakdown my favorite
comix artists. He was one of those artists I’d read and realized that despite
having little artistic talent, if I just was like “Fuck it, I’mma draw some
comics” I could draw comics. Not to say that Porcellino has little artistic
talent, because he’s an artistic genius. The way he can say so much with his
sparse drawings is inspiring. His King
Cat comics (broken down into King Cat
Classix, Map of My Heart, Perfect Example, and The Diary of a Mosquito Abatement Man
and as many single issues as I could get my hands on at comics shops, record
stores, and conventions) is one of the most heartfelt and powerful bodies of
work I’ve ever soaked in. And of course, he’s in bands. Why wouldn’t he be? And
of course he had/has a record label, Spit-and-a-Half Records, and of course I
stumbled across a CD on that imprint at Half Price Books. And of course I let
it sit on my hold shelf (though it was only a buck) for a year and a half
before I actually bought it when I transferred out of the Lawrence store. So
that last week of work and that week before moving to Minneapolis, I had this
Felt Pilotes CD in the car and it was so, so good. Just like some forgotten
mid-90s alt rock band that no one had ever heard of but had some really
terrific songs. It reminded me of the time I raided the 45s in the Love Garden
Shotgun Room and found a whole bunch of 90s alt rock stuff and just proceeded
to have my mind blown and, to make listening to them a little game, started
this blog.
Funny thing, Felt Pilotes features John P. on vocals and guitar. And that blew
my mind because I didn’t even think to look at the liner notes until like three
songs in when I was like “This is really great, I wonder if it’s…it is! It
totally is!” Funnier still is that I own an LP by another of Porcellino’s
bands, Smile, that I sheepishly had him sign for me when he spoke at Wonder
Fair a couple years ago. And now this CD, making this dude who greatly inspires
me even more inspiring. Cooler STILL, you can listen to (and if so inclined,
purchase) this whole CD and Felt Pilotes entire discography on bandcamp. I
haven’t made it past Wonderful Summer
but I’m sure it’s all the same great, ramshackle indie rock with that “anyone
can be in a band” attitude that made all of those great unheard of bands so
much fun to listen to.
Oh, and since Porcellino was living in Denver at the time guess who produced
it? Robert fucking Schneider. ROBERT FUCKING SCHNEIDER PRODUCED JOHN
PORCELLINO’S BAND’S RECORD! That’s like big news because it’s too convenient.
Of COURSE Robert Schneider produced this, because he produced Neutral Milk
Hotel’s records and In the Aeroplane Over
the Sea is my favorite album of all time and John P. is one of my favorite
writers (and Schneider’s own group the Apples in Stereo were a mainstay on
pretty much every radio show I hosted on KJHK, especially the Pop Rocks years).
So that makes sense. Anyway, this album was a lot of fun! Definitely want to
check out Felt Pilotes back catalog
Bruce Springsteen – Darkness on the Edge of Town
Columbia, 1978
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2011
Price: $.25
I gave Born to Run a hard time when I
reviewed it for this blog like, years ago. I still haven’t been won over, but I
have found the Bruce albums that I really, really love. Tunnel of Love especially. That and a better appreciation for the
sax solo (I know I like JUST faulted the Psychedelic Furs in the last post for
their persistent use of cheesy sax, but again, THEY ARE NOT THE BOSS AND THEY
IN NO WAY WROTE ANTHEMS DESERVING OF A FUCKIN’ BITCHIN’ SAX SOLO OK?!).
“Badlands” rules, and the sax solo is brief and perfect and functions like a
sort of modern harmonica interlude. “Adam Raised a Cain” sounds like the
inspiration for Kurt Vile’s 80,000 renditions of his excellent jam “Hunchback”
and that just has to be the case because both songs have that same sort of
like, punch-in-the-gut badassery to them that just makes you wanna put on some
sunglasses and cruise. Not doin’ anything illegal, just cruisin’ and lookin’
like a badass. I listened to “Hunchback” on the way to getting fired from a
shitty property management company in Lawrence a few years ago, and it made me
totally justified and totally ready to throw my keys on the table and walk out
of that office like a badass. The Boss would have more than sufficed, too. I
think I dig Darkness so much because
it sounds like the panting after the marathon that was Born to Run. A step back and a shift, if that makes sense. The sort
of record that needs to be made after a major hit for an artist to keep himself
from going insane. A “minor work” that will only be revered as a classic years
down the line. Like the Arcade Fire’s Neon
Bible. Can’t help but keep bringing in the modern music! Don’t know what’s
up with that, other than using modern music to illustrate the fact that these
types of albums and songs keep existing to this day and that the Boss is the
Boss for a reason and while I don’t like all of his albums or hits or all that,
I hold the opinion that he is a badass dude who does what he wants and my
opinion is meaningless in that argument.
I read that Springsteen bookended each side with an anthem and an emotional
slow-burner, which I think is awesome without having any real reason to cite
(note: Wikipedia reminds me that he did this with all his early albums, called
it the “four corners” approach which is, like, kind of awesome. I think I think
it’s awesome because I’m looking at Bruce in this white tee on the back of the
sleeve and he’s just.so.ruggedly…cool I can’t help but not want to be like, his
friend). It makes the record feel really balanced, I suppose, but not in a
like, cookie-cutter way. There’s an organic flow at work, and the songs
in-between the bookends all feel like a mix of that anthem/slowburn
sandwiching. “Prove it All Night” is upbeat, and there’s a totally awesome sick
guitar solo in the break, but the Boss’s vocals on the chorus have this like,
longing to them that keeps the song from being a triumphant fist-pumper. The
whole album is like that. Somber, really. But still like, full of ass kicking.
It’s a weird marriage and I dig it way more than the straight-up balls to the
wall of Born to Run (with the
exception of “Thunder Road,” which is a forever jam). Just scanning the
Wikipedia entry for this album the words “legal troubles” and “contractual
obligations” and “three years of forced hiatus” stick out. And I think that
explains it. The sort of brooding fuck you of it all. Great record.
Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Matador, 1994
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012
Price: $5
A supreme masterpiece from a band I for some bizarre fucking reason just can’t
fall in love with. I mean, it’s like, “I love you, but I’m not in love with you
Pavement.” That sort of capital L Love I reserve for the bands that reside in
my bloodstream. But I love Pavement, that’s for sure. I spent the better part
of the spring getting acquainted with the group’s final LP, Terror Twilight, and that has really
opened up their earlier discography. Like the pot of tasty jams at the end of
the rainbow where you can look back and see the arc from Slanted & Enchanted and all the development in between.
I feel like the falling in love could happen when I decide to wade through all
those b-sides on those fantastic CD reissues of all the albums. It’s not like I
don’t try to fall in love with Pavement, there’s just something that doesn’t
hit me on the right emotional wavelength. They’re blindingly important, that is
for certain, and I understand that, and their pretend slacker technical
proficiency is awe inspiring, but what’s missing? I don’t know. I don’t care
too much, either, and I still listen to Pavement constantly like comfort food.
I love talking about how I can’t fall in love with Pavement for some reason. I
don’t know why. It’s like “Yeah, they’re that friend that I love because
they’ll always be just a friend.” And I think I talk about it because I just
can’t figure out why the fuck I don’t Love love Pavement. Why I’m not obsessed
with them despite trying my hardest to be obsessed. They have songs that make
me feel, like down at the core. “Frontwards,” “Here,” and “Fillmore Jive” kind
of kill me. Speaking of “Fillmore Jive,” It’s on this record and I always
overlooked it because this record also has “Silence Ki[d/t],” “Range Life,”
“Gold Soundz,” and “Cut Your Hair” which are probably like 4 of the Top 25
indie rock songs of the 90s. No lie. Crooked
Rain, Crooked Lane is also a capital A album, which is MORE reason for me
to love it.
But all Love aside, look at this fucking record. Something about playing this
in the summertime feels optimal. Perhaps recreating the L.A. that birthed it. What’s
most important about Crooked Rain,
Crooked Rain for me is that the band was totally willing to be weird as
hell in between writing some of the most tuneful anthems of the time. The album
closes with “Hit the Plane Down” and “Fillmore Jive” which are TOTALLY fucking
weird, although “Fillmore Jive” is, as I said, one of my favorite Pavement
songs from their catalog and not really
weird but it’s on a sort of different level from the rest of the album yet is
still the only way I can see this album ending. The guitar work on that song is
just breathtaking. The palpable exhaustion in Malkmus’ vocals that echo the
refrain of “I need to sleep.” “Goodnight to the rock n’ roll era,” he sings as
if ushering in the death of the rock gods and the arrival of these normal bros
making this sublime music and making it OK to create masterpieces in one’s bedroom/garage/makeshift
recording studio, whatever. There’s something immensely satisfying about
sitting down and listening to this album. All the little intricacies that are
intentional or accidental (doesn’t matter) that reward listen after listen and
it becomes obvious why so many people can be obsessed with this band. I want to
join you, brethren, and soon I hope.
Finally, video proof of Panda totally killing it at being a dog. He does this all the time. In filming the dog though, I thought why not make a little movie every week, a little music video! A little music video set to mundane everyday things! So more to come. It's also a sad way to try to justify studying film at the University of Kansas.
Two weeks ago the wife and I moved up north to the Twin Cities. There was a pros/cons list involved, and the only real con with leaving Kansas/Kansas City was pretty much limited to Family and that smell you get out in the country. But basically most of our closest friends had moved, Jenny had just finished grad school, I was growing increasingly depressed at my job and Sam Brownback was absolutely trying to beat Kansas into submission with a cross and the Koch Brothers and there was no fucking way I was going to move to Kansas City. Gigwork with the Pitch kind of ended once they got sold away from the Village Voice and I'm sorry but in the 8 years I spent in Lawrence/KC the only band I thought was amazing was Rooftop Vigilantes and that was the only band. Something about Kansas City not being capable of sustaining a vibrant arts and music scene. That's just a personal assessment, I may be out of the loop, but it felt deathly there. The thought of moving to Kansas City was cringeworthy and while I love Kansas with all my heart the politics there are so disgusting that I just can't imagine staying there. Maybe a sea change will occur and Kansas will revert to its badass roots but I just don't see that happening.
So here we are in Minneapolis, which may be in the same boat as Kansas City on the arts/culture/music front (I really have no idea, I've only been here two weeks) but at least I know it was at one time absolutely capable of sustaining a vibrant music scene (from Husker Du and the Replacements through Lifter Puller and Dillinger Four and, of course, the Purple One) and has arts funding written into its constitution unlike another place I have lived. Basically it's just different and when I vote it has a chance of mattering and anyway Minnesota has a lot going for it that is seriously boosting my quality of life. It's fun, I guess. That's the big thing. Adventurous. Like going to college again without the debt or the classes and just getting to explore all the excellent things these cities have to offer. Granted, the Royals just totally scored a comeback win against the Brewers and I went "YES YES YES!" and jumped up and down and scared the dog and probably the neighbors so there's a part of me still tied to KC, and there was a part of me that moving was absolutely necessary at this point in time. SO, I made a list of my favorite songs about moving or songs that I've always associated with moving or songs I discovered as I was moving this time around and yeah.
Jeffrey Lewis - "Moving"
The Weakerthans - "Sun in an Empty Room"
that dog. - "Minneapolis"
It's really bizarre thinking about how much I love this song, and how I've loved it over the years starting sometime during the KJHK days and I never, ever thought I'd move here.
Pavement - "Box Elder"
Teenage Fanclub - "Everything Flows"
This song came on my iPod EVERY SINGLE TIME I went running in the two weeks leading up to leaving. A sign, I suppose.
The Weakerthans - "Left and Leaving"
Although maybe this song is about the people sticking around.
Tullycraft - "Our Days in Kansas"
I lived in Lawrence for 8 years and went to the University or 5 and no, I never learned the KU fight song.
Gentleman Jesse - "Eat Me Alive"
Leaving Atlanta hasn't entirely grown on me, but this jam was a mainstay in the whole moving process. Mostly with lines like "This city's trying to eat me alive."
I hosted a show called “Alternative Flashback” on KJHK and I never even gave a
fuck about Archers of Loaf. How did that happen? Gabe Holcomb and Justin Brown
would be sad. And Andy Green, who hosted the show after I graduated. All three
of those bros for sure had devoured Icky
Mettle. I’m sure I had my merits, but I didn’t know enough. Mostly because all I ever knew about college rock came from
listening to Gabe and Justin’s “Alternative Flashback” shows the couple years
before I got it. And I don’t know where the hell Archers of Loaf ever were in
my upbringing. I remember there was this mystical CD-R that played in my weird
clock radio when I was a Junior/Senior in high school and it was full of MP3’s
I’d snagged from Audiogalaxy and this was the one CD-R that played in the
aforementioned weird clock radio and it had “Don’t Stop Now” by Guided by
Voices and “Cut Your Hair” by Pavement and “Getchoo” by Weezer and some Archers
of Loaf song I can’t even remember but there was a time and a place and somehow
Archers of Loaf got left out.
But they seeped in, in little ways. Like the Crooked Fingers song “Sleep All
Summer,” which was a mainstay during a nasty breakup. And then Alkaline Trio
covered “Web in Front” on one of the very first episodes of the AV Club’s
“Undercover” covers series and I was hooked. Not just because Dan Adriano was
the perfect person to cover that song, and that it meshed with a skill-set I
was familiar with, but because I realized I’d already kinda loved Erich
Bachmann to begin with. Icky Mettle
was acquired, but more importantly, Crooked Fingers’ latest LP Breaks in the Armor became a stalwart in
the car on the iPod at the gym. And then Icky
Mettle ended up in the iPod at the gym and about half that album was about
just perfect for running.
The way the guitars on "Might" just fucking kill you, that's what I'm talking about. Like right before the chorus, do you know what I'm saying? All that goddamn dissonance! And the song is only two minutes long! Just so much angst embedded in that riffage and chordage! Beautiful to the max god it makes me wanna explode yes!
It’s a weird record. So all over the place despite sounding like a unified
whole. Up and down and up and down and up and down. In the car, it’s a fucking
perfect drive-to-work record. The concept of the drive-to-work record has
always excited me, ever since I was like 16 listened to Black Flag’s Nervous Breakdown EP on cassette on my
way to work at AMC Studio 30. That music you listen to before you go make money
is extremely important. It’s like getting pumped up before the Olympics or the
Super Bowl or some shit. Gotta get your head in the right place. Sometimes NPR
just isn’t doing it. Know what I mean?
So Archers of Loaf. So Icky Mettle.
So this album is a weird schizophrenic baby, but schizophrenic in the I-am-basically-talking-about-multiple-personalties.
It’s up and down forever. Hit then weird jam then hit again. “Web in Front,”
“Wrong,” “Might” and “Plumb Line” are some of the purest indie-rock slash pop
jams of the era, I’d say. And not just about one goddamn thing! Which is
exciting! “Web in Front” plays like one of those amazing 90s era break-up jams
and though “Wrong” sorta sound like on eat first it becomes a companion piece
to Superchunk’s “Slack Motherfucker” due to the Chapel Hill connection and the
general speak about certain co-workers not, shall we say, working as hard as
they should. A universal feeling, I’d say.
Oh yeah it was Aaron Dessner from the Nation and Annie Clark of St. Vincent that did the cover of "Sleep All Summer." Ung. Fuck this song. "I can change for you but babe that doesn't mean I'm gonna be a better man." Who writes like that? Seriously, Eric Bachmann, you win. I quit.
The album’s charm lies in how all-over-the-place it is. It tries to do
everything at once and it still sounds like a muddy (I mean that as a
compliment), angsty, mid-90s indie rock record. Eric Bachmann’s songwriting has
grown and grown over the years to sadly not enough damn acclaim but the hits on
this record really hit. “Web in Front,” despite all its mysteries (read:
bizarre lyrics) still captures some very precise emotions that I don’t think
have been better captured since (see: “And there’s a chance that things will
get weird/ Yeah that’s a possibility/ Although I didn’t do anything/ No I
didn’t do anything/ All I ever wanted was to be your spine”). Ironically, in
another AV Club series (“One Track Mind”) Bachmann played this song and talked
about how weird and nonsensical the lyrics were, but he still played it and
recognized that it was important. And that’s my favorite kinda songwriting. The
kind that doesn’t set out to be profound but stuns the masses regardless.
And back to the beginning. The blurb refers to Alk 3 as "pop-punk kingpins" which seems like a way of softening the blow of the pop-punk tag which isn't really all that bad or shit, even bad at all, when you get down to it. I've gotta funny story about meeting Matt Skiba at the Replay Lounge, so maybe I'm biased. But this cover kills, and I will always rally for Dan Adriano because dammit I think the man's under-appreciated. No one else sings like that. No one!
“Who is this? Is this the Psychedelic Furs?” Jenny asks.
“Yep.”
“Is ‘Pretty in Pink’ on this one?” she asks.
“Nope.”
“It’s still good. What year is this?”
“I don’t know?” I say, turning my brain on. There’s this game Joe and I play at
work where we look at a really awful, cheesy, corny book (this game is almost
exclusively played with business books) and whoever is queried has to guess
what year the things was published (usually late 80s/early 90s but sometimes
something came out in 2001 and it looks mega old and it’s extra funny/sad thus
making the game extra fun). So, I rolled the dice.
“1984.”
“Really?” she asks.
“Um, I dunno let me check.” I scan the worn back cover. “YES! 1984! VICTORY!”
“Good job honey.”
“I KNOW! I AM A FUCKING WIZARD!” I don’t really say that, but I do think it. I
think “Goddamn, what a fucking wizard I am!” Because sometimes you can just
tell, you know? Like, the timbre of the sax line that runs through the
seemingly infinite “Heartbeat” just screams mid-1980s (and screams a bit more
subtly through like, all the other songs on the record because this is the 80s
after all before the advent of the crunchy-guitar-solo-on-some-beat-up-fender
era). There’s a weird association with mid-80s music and me because I was born
in 1985 and it’s just plain weird thinking about music that came out when I was
born. Like looking at one of those kitschy pamphlets you get at fancy rest
stops in the middle west, each one dedicated to a different year and each one
laced with ads and newspaper stories to make you go “well I’ll be darned! What
a year!” It’s like a time capsule to my birth/infancy/toddlerhood. Even when I
was like, 7 or 8 or 9 or 10 and was in a position to remember music from the
mid-90s, all I would listen to was the radio, and then only when I was in the
car with my parents. So Oldies 95, 101.1 The Fox and 99.7 KY pretty much
exclusively until I “discovered” Smashmouth with my best friend when we were in
6th grade (with the bizarrely cool exception of a cassette single of
They Might Be Giants’ “Istanbul” that I got at a garage sale three houses down
and pretty much tried my hardest to wear out on my little boom box when I was
like 11 and, for whatever reason, didn’t really
understand the genius of TMBG until I was 24 and working at CD Tradepost and
put on their two-disc best of whenever I thought the CEO dude wouldn’t show up
and I could spend the morning listening to all that wonderful, weird goodness
and every time “Istanbul” came on it warmed my little heart and simultaneously
made me wonder how I could have listened to such a goddamn annoying song over
and over and over again at such a young age and wondered if it maybe tampered
with my tolerance levels because I’m not nearly critical enough to be a music
critic, not really. I talk a lot of shit but mostly I’m ok with most stuff
that’s even remotely OK). But this is from my pre-infancy. When I was like, a
little nubbin of a person in my mama’s belly (HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MA!)
Actually, since I’m still qualifying as a Kansan* for another couple of weeks, I
was TECHNICALLY a person like, 4000 years ago when God created the garden and
all that shit because really, WHERE DO YOU DRAW THE LINE WITH PERSONHOOD. But
that is beside the point, and only getting in the way of my deft analysis of
The Psychedelic Furs’ Mirror Moves,
which I’m avoiding critiquing because it’s a normal, run of the mill, mid-80s
new wave record that lacks any really spectacular hits. Sure, “Heaven” is
pretty OK, and it’s a clear-cut single, but it’s kind of a hum-drum single if
you ask me. A sort of trying-too-hard-to-sound-deep-and-emotional thing. The
rest of the album kind of gets lost in a bunch of new technology. Myriad
synths, drum machines, and FUCKING SAXOPHONES EVERYWHERE GOOD LORD THIS THING
IS LOUSY WITH SAXOPHONES! Or maybe I’m being overly harsh because the cover of
this thing is just so obnoxious. This like check-pattern portrait of Richard
Butler looking like “You wanna look up my nostrils and measure the parabola of
my indifferent frown? Five bucks” is really bothering me. It’s just like,
sitting right here while I’m writing and I’m looking like, RIGHT up his
nostrils and I remember when I bought this, I bought this the same day I bought
Bruce Springsteen’s Darkness on the Edge
of Town and put the two albums up side by side and pretended to stage a
faux-showdown between the Boss and this effete British dude in a big blue suit.
Guess who won that fight? I’ll give you a hint. It wasn’t the guy NOT-singing
“Pretty in Pink” on this album. That’s probably because “Pretty in Pink” is on Talk Talk Talk which I’ve never listened
to but maybe should because It’s probably better than this one, where the band
feels comfortable with the success they’ve built having a movie named after one
of their songs and they’re content to just try to get on MTV with the blandest
new-wave imaginable. Well, maybe not the blandest,
but you know, pretty forgettable and well, maybe I just can’t fucking stand it
when bands that have actual band names put the fucking singer on the front
looking like some pretentious cock and the poor less-fortunate-looking bros get
shuffled to the back (and one of the bros is wearing SUNGLASSES, I mean, come
ON Richard Butler! COME ON! He could be your brother! I know one of those guys
is!). Seriously, the saxophone NEVER FUCKING ENDS.
*The Wife and I are moving to Minneapolis in a couple of weeks, although I don't think you can take the Kansan out of anyone. There's like, way too much shame involved to let that shit go. And let's just say that most of that shame is built around the fact that Kansas could be so so so so SO cool and has such a fucking rad history and yet chooses to bow to these horrific goons like the Koch Bros funded Sam Brownback. Oof. And sure Minnesota has Michelle Bachmann who is just as crazy, but at least she has Al Franken and a Democrat governor to balance that crazy out.
Drive Time is a weekly
feature in which I absorb an album through my #1 means of music consumption:
driving to and from work. The requiremints ATM are that albums be indie rock
classics or debatable indie rock classics that I have overlooked despite hosting
Alternative Flashback on KJHK. So not
really being familiar with these albums should be sort of embarrassing, at
least in the early going until I make terms with the fact that I couldn’t
listen to every album ever before I turned 23. This is making up for that.
Pavement – Terror
Twilight For me, Pavement is like that dude you really respect and are on a like,
we-nod-at-each-other-when-we-see-each-other-on-the-street-but-you’ll-never-be-best-buds-basis.
It’s not like you can really divide lovers of mid-90s indie rock into different
camps, but I’m openly a Guided by Voices fanatic, and there’s something
intangible about GBV that I’m drawn to that I don’t really get from Pavement.
It just has to do with the person, not whether or not the music is better or whatever.
That doesn’t really exist on this level of criticism and appreciation. I know
plenty of people who are just as gaga for Pavement as I am for GBV and we
respect each other’s band du jour but our favorites are our favorites.
That said, I think Pavement are fantastic, and while I’ve never been 100% on
their discography (see: Wowee Zowee
with the exception of “Grounded”), I have a great affinity for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and Brighten the Corners. Something about
listening to “Fillmore Jive” a couple summers ago and being like “oh my fucking
god” really set me straight on Pavement. Those re-issues with all the b-sides,
I gotta get into those down the line. I couldn’t get past the first five tracks
on Slanted & Enchanted because
they were just so fucking great. That EP with “Shoot the Singer” and
“Frontwards,” holy fuck. BUT Terror
Twilight, the album which this post is about,I’d never ever listened to that album not once in my life until
last week. Every Pavement album but this one has been working through my
rotation for like 8 years and I’d only ever heard “Spit on a Stranger” and
“Carrot Rope.” After spending a week with this bad boy in the car, I think it’s
an absolute perfect cap to Pavement. Why not? I mean, “Spit on a Stranger” got
covered by that neo-bluegrass (do they call it New-Grass? Is that what it’s
called now?) band Nickel Creek and I know that because that album gets played
at work sometimes and I’m like “Man this is a fucking great song, is this a
Pavement song? This sounds like a Malkmus vocal line.” All the dirty fury and
angst is gone by this point, and you just get these gorgeous little numbers
like “Major Leagues” and “Ann Don’t Cry” and Stephen Malkmus just being so
fucking weird with his songwriting. But even though it’s nonsense, it has
feeling you know? Malkmus is a genius at spitting out bullshit and making it
sound like sage advice. And I love him for that. And god “Major Leagues” is so
good. The more I listen to it the more beautiful it gets. And “Carrot Rope,”
goddamn. This sounds like an album made by a band that’s done it all and is
content to sail off into the sunset with a rock-fucking-solid discography and a
legacy under their belt. There’s no need for them to tarnish it by reforming
(reunion shows are OK). I mean, look at “Billie.” The verse to that song sounds
like the build up to this amazing perfect pop song and the chorus is just so
fucking totally straight out of a totally different song. It kind of ruins it
as first, but good god the verse is so fucking perfect perfect perfect. “You’re
a hungry matron/ and you are just
what I need/ I was tired of the best years of my life” CHORUS THAT SOUNDS LIKE
ITS FROM SOME OTHER SONG BECAUSE I AM TOTALLY EXPECTING A CHORUS THAT SUPERSEDES A VERSE BUT THIS IS LIKE THE OPPOSITE WHAT THE FUCK. But you know
what? I like that about that song. It’s nice to really love a verse once in a
while. Who the fuck loves verses anymore? NO ONE DOES. Choruses get all the
attention.
I dig this album. I dig it because it’s concise and it’s a band OK with being
done without going out in a total ball of flames. It’s probably the tightest
album in Pavement’s whole damn discography, and while it’s maybe not as
compelling as Slanted & Enchanted
or Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, “Spit on a Stranger,” “You are a Light,” “Major
Leagues,” “Carrot Rope,” and “Ann Don’t Cry” could easily find their way onto a
Pavement best of and those songs are almost half the album. And the other
more-than-half the album is mega-listenable and I’m gonna hope the CDR doesn’t
get too scratched up to not-play in my CD player because it’s a great change of
pace album. Nice to have on deck. Good for cookouts too, I suppose. It’s
amazing that Pavement only released five studio albums when it feels like they
have 500 songs.
