I.R.S., 1986
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2010
Price: $6
From the belly of Athens, GA, this is the answer to “What does college rock
sound like?” That, and I guess every
early R.E.M. record, but this one is more tuneful and enjoyable than early
R.E.M. records (I still for the life of me can’t make R.E.M. sound compelling
to my brain. At least not yet. Still waiting for some like, revelation moment.
Not ruling it out.) Or maybe I just wanna give R.E.M.’s producer some love, I
dunno. Either way, I usually enjoy it when producers make music in addition to
producing, and Mitch Easter’s jangle pop is no exception. While the album is
mostly just “pretty good stuff,” the tracks “Fell” and “Writing the Book of
Last Pages” were like, really excellent. I love these 80s bands because there
were so many and all of them had at least one or two great songs.
The Mortal Micronotz – The Mortal Micronotz
Fresh Sounds, Inc, 1982
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2012
Price: $1.50
Because of course life isn’t ever simple, I’ve been experiencing a little
homesickness for Lawrence. Particularly the Lawrence of the summertime when all
the douchers (well, most of ‘em) go back to Johnson County and all that is
required of you is to work, go to the lake, drink beer, and go to kickball
games and generally just hang the fuck out. Here with the Mortal Micronotz we
have sounds of Lawrence past. The front cover of this very warped album has
KJHK scrawled on it. Oh yeah, and so does the back. And the whole thing is held
together with ancient tape. The music is caught somewhere between early 80s SST
punk and post-punk and it’s fucking marvelous. Like, “Goddamnit why doesn’t
Lawrence have bands like this anymore! Bands that so clearly don’t give a fuck
and just wanna make some jams! WHAT HAPPENED?!?” There are a couple bands like
that kicking around Lawrence still, but only a couple. I wanted like ten. I
played in one that was inadvertently trying to be like one of these bands like
the Micronotz or the Embarassement. Just doing it for fun and free beer and
like $50 split between three people for guitar strings and stuff. Cooler still,
the track “Old Lady Sloan” was written by William S Burroughs FOR the
Micronotz. The Burroughs thing should usurp the Wizard of Oz thing when you
tell someone you’re from Lawrence. Instead, more often than not you end up
explaining that Lawrence is the one sane place in Kansas and I promise we’re
not all backwater hicks (well, not all of
us, lord knows Lawrence has its fair share of derpers but hey, what burg
doesn’t?). Anyway, this record is a lot of fun and you know, it wasn’t going to
change the world, but hey it was never trying to and it’s like a little time
capsule when kids were seemingly more interested in making music than trying to
be cool.
P.S. I know I rail on Lawrence and Kansas a lot, but I should mention that my ideal place of residence is North Lawrence (a few miles after you cross the bridge, turn left at the airport, keep going a little way and there) but in an alternate universe where Sam Brownback isn't Der Fuhrer and trying to destroy what could be such a great place.
The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree
4AD, 2004
Acquired: Christmas present, New, 2011
Price: $0
Here’s another album that took me a long time to warm up to and subsequently
became one of my favorite albums in an artist’s discography. Tallahassee sometimes has a slight edge
over The Sunset Tree, but most days
they’re dead even. Beautiful and tragic in different ways. Tallahassee for the tragic in the fictional tale of a dead romance
symbolized by a house falling apart. The
Sunset Tree, the John Darnielle’s second try at straight-up autobiography. There’s
teenage bliss found in first love and there’s the terror of confronting one’s
abusive stepfather in his car on the driveway and the scene ending in a
standoff. There’s the introduction of drugs in the menacing strings of
“Dilaudid” and then there’s “Love Love Love.” And there’s just some of the most
amazing words Darnielle has ever written.
The Sunset Tree snuck up on me a
couple years ago. I’d really liked it when it came out, but got lost in a sea
of all the other music coming at the time. I’d just started college, and just
started working at KJHK, and there was just way too much going on to really pay
attention to any music with the attention that most of it deserves. It was all
about consumption. And once that all settled down, I listened to this all the
way through for weeks at a time until it all clicked. Until I could say “yes,
this is a perfect album.” There’s something so thrilling about listening to an
album you’ve heard dozens of times and noticing that your favorite songs are
changing. Where “Broom People” was the track that immediately hooked me and
today I think “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod” is the crux that this whole
album balances on. One of the most powerful songs I can even think of. The
thesis statement and then some. It’s so absolutely heartbreaking the whole
thing would absolutely fall apart if you didn’t have absolute faith in the
singer. Listening to The Sunset Tree
over and over again retaught me how to love music. That sure you wanna hear
everything coming out and be as well versed in the scene as you can, but good
lord if you can’t take time out to give the great albums the time t your
favorite records than maybe something is wrong. Or maybe it depends on the
person. Although I’ve always been the type of person to have favorites. To hate
that response of “Well I like a lot of different music.” Maybe that’s what made
me an asshole of a music director. That if prospective staff members couldn’t
name like, five of their favorite bands or albums then I assumed they didn’t
love any music passionately enough to be on a staff of people who were all
psychotically obsessive enough to be critical. Again, maybe that was the wrong
way of going about it, but it made sense at the time. Anyway, The Sunset Tree is one of those albums I
could talk to you about forever. Jenny and I fell in love to this record. It
was one of the albums I’d put on and we’d lie in bed and listen to over and
over again. I can’t believe this album is eight years old. It makes me feel
old. I’ve been living with it for so long and it still sounds so timeless. If I
meet someone who says they don’t like the Mountain Goats because it’s too lo-fi
or the guy’s voice is weird, I burn them a copy of this album and say, “Try
again.” I’m pretty passionately evangelical about John Darnielle. I feel like
his songs are my scriptures. I get out of them what Christians get out of
sermons or the Bible. His songs make me feel comforted, like I know there’s
something more and that something more is just trying to be the best person you
can be and to be good to people. The
Sunset Tree reminds me that it’s OK for albums to be perfect. That trying
to judge everything by the same arbitrary scale of numbers is often folly and
that the merits of any given album are often way too abstract to put into some
sort of cohesive sliding scale. This is a straight-up masterwork.
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."
