Devo - "Uncontrollable Urge" 45

Devo – “Uncontrollable Urge”/ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”

Warner Bros, 1978
Acquired: Salvation Army, Used, 2000

Price: $1

This is the oldest record in my collection. I bought it at that old Salvation Army that used to be up on Lone Elm Road. I distinctly remember buying it. I got a single of Blondie’s “One Way Or Another” too. Until that point my experience with DEVO was limited to seeing the “Whip It” video being made fun of on Beavis & Butthead. So “Uncontrollable Urge” (it’s cut down to 2:15 on the single) was a huge, brain exploding thing. I was just starting to get into legitimate punk rock (after a year of Blink-182 and Fat Wreck Chords bands which in my head is the equivalent of the minor leagues of punk rock and once you’ve made sufficient progress you get promoted to Black Flag and Bad Brains and all that other good stuff) and this was a sort of curveball (so many baseball metaphors, so little time). It kicked ass and almost sounded like punk rock but it wasn’t. Their version of “Satisfaction” threw me for a loop. It was a fucking weird as hell and disjointed version of a song I had heard a million times but it was so cool. It basically opened the door for me to get into Television and the Velvet Underground and any number of proto-punk bands that would have escaped me had I clung to late 90s skater punk. I got to see DEVO live at one of those terrible summer concerts 96.5 the Buzz puts on at City market and they were great. I mean, as great as a bunch of old dudes cashing in can be, but they deserve that payday as far as I was concerned. When they played “Uncontrollable Urge” I turned to Jenny and told her this whole story about buying this 7” and it blowing my mind and I got VERY sentimental. And even though “Uncontrollable Urge” is one of the most slap-in-the-face kick-your-ass songs of the late 70s it still never fails to make me feel sappy.

Destroyer/Wye Oak - Record Store Day Split

Destroyer/Wye Oak – Record Store Day Split 7” 

Merge, 2008
Acquired: Kief’s Downtown, New, 2008
Price: $0

This was from the very first Record Store Day when so much stuff was free. Back before all the exclusive singles were like $7 a pop. The glory days, if you will. The Destroyer track “Madame Butterflies” is awesome. Everything a b-side should be. It’s very much Destroyer’s Rubies cast off but since that album is pretty much perfect and because I’ve listened to it a hundred times, I can see how this one might not fit. I don’t know, it would probably fit, but that is a long record and “Madam Butterflies” can stand on its own. It’s almost sounds like a better-recorded version of the mega lo-fi stuff he was doing on his first cassettes. It’s stripped, but it gets kind of wild towards the end. The guitars get wonky, and Dan Bejar sounds more and more like he’s singing in a submarine. The melody is pure, and by the end when his vocals devolve into dum-da-da-dum-da-da-dums it’s pure bliss. And then it’s over. And then I listen to the song like five more times every time because I don’t have an MP3 of this track. I never even listened to the Wye Oak track until today. At the time, I’d heard Wye Oak’s debut If Children and fallen asleep during their set at the Merge showcase at SXSW. Since then I’ve become a pretty big fan. There was a two-year stretch where they would open for some great band twice a year in Lawrence and their live shows were fucking fantastic. The duo have since taken advantage of pushing Jenn Wasner’s vocals and guitar into more epic territory, but the track on this split—“Prodigy”—is fucking simple and fucking gorgeous. I think I was just totally wrong about Wye Oak and that they were always good and my head was just up my ass. It was up my ass through most of 2008-2009 for a variety of reasons. I was tunnel-visioned to the things I liked fiercely and everything else kind of became boring. Working through Wye Oak’s discography is a real treat. It’s just so much fun to see a band grow and figure themselves out. Their latest LP Civilian is an absolutely towering piece of indie rock. But they started small, but even when they were small they were still obviously talented enough to blow the whole thing wide open. I still feel like I am atoning for the sins committed during my mega music snob years. The dismissals I handed out after a half a song. The opinions based on the idea that I didn’t like something. I’m on my fifth spin of “Prodigy” and I’m just thinking how great it is to experience real joy when listening to music.

Listen to "Madame Butterflies here. It also links to the Merge Records store where you can download the song for FREE. Absolutely worth the 3.5 megabytes or so it'll take up on your hard drive.

And here's a live acoustic version of "Prodigy." 

Desolation Wilderness - "Until Forever" 7"

Desolation Wilderness – “Until Forever” 7”

K Records, 2008
Acquired: KJHK Music Staff, New, 2008
Price: $0

 

My Desolation Wilderness 7”s were misfiled, however after writing up “No Tomorrow” it feels weird to try and pretend I’m reviewing “Until Forever” first. They are very different records, and the band’s evolution between the two singles is dramatic. “Until Forever” and its b-sides are pretty much sound collages with airy, distant vocals dumped into the mix. They are ambling, but not totally worthless. “Gloria” coaxes a ghostly quality out of its synthesizers and gains a haunting quality from the lo-fi production. It’s a brief little tone poem but intriguing. “4/4 Love Song” is the closest Desolation Wilderness comes to actually establishing a melody. There are no words, so the love song aspect has to be gleaned from the sweetness of the synths. It’s nice. It’s pleasant. But it has the feeling that there is something Zwart has yet to realize about his abilities. There is potential, but every song here feels half-done. Where I faulted “No Tomorrow” for being under the influence of Galaxie 500, I’m now impressed that in a year this band totally morphed into a band that could make a song-song.

Desolation Wilderness - "No Tomorrow" 7"

Desolation Wilderness – “No Tomorrow” 7”

K Records, 2009

Acquired: KJHK Music Staff, New, 2009
Price: $0

 

I think this came out right around the time K Records was sending us something new from Jeremy Jay like once a month. Jeremy Jay was so boring I got to the point where I lost some faith in my beloved K Records. Or at least quit getting around to whatever they sent to the KJHK music office. This 7” is good though! Desolation Wilderness has a sort of dreamy Galaxie 500 quality about them that I really enjoy. There’s more of a pop edge (of course), and “No Tomorrow” is a hazy and lovely little song. Of course, I namedrop Galaxie 500 and then notice that the little promotion sticker on the front sleeve lists Galaxie 500 as an RIYL. The more I listen, the more obvious that influence becomes and while it’s nice to be reminded of something (the ability to draw comparisons is one of the top-drawer skills of any music writer) if it’s too much it kind of gets to “Why don’t I just listen to Galaxie 500?” territory. B-side “Pacific Palisades” is less effective, and pairs the gauzy vocals buried in the mix with a shitload of reverb. I don’t know exactly what is being reverberated (I’m assuming guitars) and there are some synthesizers in there too but ultimately it’s a tone piece that stagnates. “No Tomorrow” is really nice, though.

Descendents - 'Merican EP

Descendents  - ‘Merican EP

Fat Wreck Chords, 2002

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013
Price: $.50

 

The Descendents are my favorite punk rock band. I don’t have to think about it, and I haven’t for ten years. Milo Goes to College is an unfuckwithable landmark in my musical history. Everything can be traced back to that album. It was poppy, it was clever, it had angst. The bass playing was technically proficient enough to seem crazy great but also fun enough that when I bought a bass guitar in high school I learned to play by printing out the tabs for all the songs on Milo Goes to College and jumping right in. I never really got the hang of the bass guitar, but I never stopped loving the Descendents. Their latest album—Cool to Be You, from which the first two songs on this EP are culled—came out the second semester of my senior year of high school just as I was branching out from punk after a deep incubation of a couple years. It was perfect timing because I revisited Milo Goes to College and all my favorite tracks from their discography. (Other than Milo Goes to College, I sort of played pick-and-choose from the rest of their albums and came up with about an albums worth of tiny masterpieces. “Get the Time,” “Silly Girl,” “Clean Sheets,” and “She Loves Me” pretty much cover the 35 years the band has been in off-and-on existence). Despite spreading six albums over 35 years the quality pretty much stays the same. There’s something ageless about these guys. Forever young, some shit like that. I also admired the fact that they were all just normal dudes and Milo really did go to college. The title track is probably the most political the Descendents ever got (the EP and album Cool to Be You dropped in early 2004, the year Bush was reelected) but it’s still good. Trademark style and all that. The first Descendents song I ever heard was “Wienerschnitzel,” which is about 16 seconds long and features the band placing an order at the titular restaurant at rapid-fire speed. These guys just sand about your usual shit and somehow managed to do it really well. They sang about fishing, biking, food, heartbreak, coffee, more heartbreak, and more coffee. They always sound like they really just don’t give a fuck but in that sweet way you want bands to not give a fuck. They’re not trying too hard because they don’t have to. And that’s what I always loved about them. And that’s why I love this EP. The other track on the A-Side—“Nothing With You”—is just a simple, totally fucking sweet love song (“I don’t wanna move/ I’ll just sit here in my living room/ See what’s on the tube/ While I’m hanging out with you”). “Here With Me” is more of a sad love song and “I Quit” is basically Milo’s reasons for quitting the band so frequently over the last three decades. The Descendents could put out an album next month and I feel like it would still be good, like all their albums. All and Enjoy are a little spotty, but All, Everything Sucks and Cool to Be You are solid and now that they’re reuniting again for festival shows, I’m holding out hope for another record because they very obviously know how to work their melodies and very obviously love playing together.

Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Neko Case – Middle Cyclone

Anti, 2009

Acquired: King’s Road Merch Mailorder, New, 2013
Price: $20

 

When I first heard Middle Cyclone, my first response was: “More like Middling Cyclone.” I thought this because after falling deeply in love with Neko Case’s previous album—Fox Confessor Brings the Flood—I had high expectations. And I was enough of a dipshit to realize that my expectations had been met. The thing with Middle Cyclone is that it’s a long record. Or at least feels like a long record (the last half hour of the thing is just crickets and night noises, so maybe that adds to my perception that this is a long player in every sense of the word). Since Neko Case is pretty much Jenny’s favorite artist hands down (we are seeing her in Lawrence in October and every couple days she alerts me to this fact), I bought her this and Furnace Room Lullaby on vinyl for our anniversary. We listen to this one a lot on trips back to Kansas and every time I hear it, the more I like it. Still, it took until I listened to it on vinyl (the album is split over two LPs) that it really clicked. By segmenting Middle Cyclone into bite-sized chunks songs I’d totally ignored really popped. “This Tornado Loves You” and “People Got A Lotta Nerve” were my early favorites because they are the most straightforward, catchy numbers, but the middle part of the album kind of blended into a haze until “I’m an Animal” blew me away. But “Fever,” “Polar Nettles,” and “Magpie in the Morning” are these gorgeous little tunes. It’s not like you even have to be patient to enjoy them; you just need to be able to shut down and enjoy. Jenny’s favorite song on the album is “The Pharaohs,” which is another track I had ignored until she played it a thousand times. It’s outstanding and has a similar tone to Fox Confessor standout (and my favorite song of 2006) “Star Witness.” It’s got a mythic feeling, with knock-out lines like “You kept me wanting, wanting, wanting like the wanting in the movies and the hymns/ I want the Pharaohs but there’s only men.” Speaking of the writing, it’s great. But what else did you expect? Neko Case has a gift for weaving her songs together with wit and a deep emotional understanding that I feel is somehow underrated given how goddamn cool she seems. The more I think about that blend of humor and sadness makes her cover of Harry Nilsson’s “Don’t Forget Me” make a whole lotta sense (“I miss you when I’m lonely/ I miss the alimony too”). Anyone else writing a song about a tornado in love with a girl, chasing her from county to county leaving a wake of destruction in its path might write something gimmicky but Case just leaves you with that heavy feeling in your chest. Sure it’s a metaphor, but it’s told so literally and the images are so vivid and violent that the whole thing is just devastatingly electric. The album is laced with a theme of Mother Nature’s Fury/purity (most notably on the Sparks cover “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth,” the aforementioned “This Tornado Loves You,” “People Got a Lot of Nerve” right down to the goddamn crickets at the very end). And tornados. So many tornados. It’s an outstanding piece of work.

The Delta '72 - "On the Rocks" 7"

The Delta ’72 – On the Rocks 7”

Kill Rock Stars/Dischord, 1994
Acquired: Love Garden, Used, 2008

Price: $1

The DC in Delta ‘72’s blood is undeniable. My first thought when putting the 7” on was “Is this on Dischord?” I checked. It’s on Kill Rock Stars but KRS would have been my second guess. TWIST. It’s a collaborative release between the two labels! Delta ’72 bring edgy post-grunge alt-rock to the (turn)table. “On the Rocks” is a murky mess of booming drums, screeching female vocals, and has a farfisa playing out some eerie organ tones to make the whole thing feel a little unsettling. The first track on the B-side—“Got a Train to Catch”—is a lot more palatable. Again, it’s pretty straightforward noisy mid-90s indie rock but that track (in addition to the farfisa which adds a unique texture to the band’s sound) has a harmonica that pops up halfway through and though John Popper ruined the harmonica for EVERYONE in the 90s, it’s kind of awesome here.

John Prine - German Afternoons

John Prine – German Afternoons
Oh Boy, 1986
Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013

Price: $3

The 80s still can’t kill John Prine! The telltale cornball flourishes are still smeared on bits and pieces of the recordings, but Prine still shines through like the golden boy he is. He sounds older here. Tired, maybe, I’m not quite sure. But it really perfectly suits “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness,” which basically proves my theory that no matter how middle of the road a John Prine album is there’s at least one song that is a certified all-star jam. The album sounds like a lazy afternoon put to wax. I am listening to it at 10 in the morning the day before the Fourth of July. I have nothing to do but sit here and think about how much I love John Prine. Once a week some middle-aged dude will come into Half Price Books and talk about John Prine. It’s weird how often it happens. Usually they see the two-CD set of Great Days that presides over the CD section, but sometimes someone comes in looking for his CDs (which we never get in) and I’ll immediately be like “I’ll help you!” and then they’ll tell me how they saw him in Chicago or Milwaukee or some other northern Midwestern burg and how, oh boy, he’s a hoot. Love it. “I Just Want to Dance With You,” “Linda Goes to Mars,” and a mega-bluegrass-ified version of “Paradise” (originally appearing on his eponymous debut) round out the hits. The rest of the songs are good in the way John Prine’s songs from the 80s are pretty good.

John Prine - Aimless Love

John Prine – Aimless LoveOh Boy, 1984

Acquired: Half Price Books, Used, 2013
Price: $1.50

Not even the 80s could kill John Prine. Well, his music at least. The production on Aimless Love is slicker than ever, with that distinct 80s gloss that shows up and makes the drums sound like drum machines and the pianos sound like synthesizers. The album isn’t great by any means (nor are any of his albums from the early 80s) but its good and I think you could argue that it’s better to make a few great albums and a million good ones than to make one masterpiece and a million shitters. Or I suppose they would even out, but considering that I champion consistency and see it as a highly valuable trait in all aspects of life (and Fantasy Baseball, of course). John Prine is nothing if not consistent. You know what you’re getting every single time and there are always a couple tracks on each record that are bound for some career retrospective years down the line (or the spectacular Great Days anthology, which I try to push onto co-workers whenever it shows up at the store). “Aimless Love” and “Unwed Fathers” are basically the same song. I don’t know how I didn’t notice this, considering that they’re within a track of each other on Great Days. “Unwed Fathers” is Aimless Love’s little masterpiece. There’s a syrupy quality to the title track and other tracks that made Great Days (“The Oldest Baby in the World” and “People Puttin’ People Down”) that “Unwed Fathers” subverts with its skewering of the male species. Lines like “But unwed fathers/ They can’t be bothered/ They run like water through a mountain stream” and “Your ddady never meant to hurt you ever/ He just don’t live here but you got his eyes” provide a nice counterpoint to the general sappiness of the rest of the album (but hey, at least the sappiness is enjoyable enough).

Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City

Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City

XL, 2013

I think I was probably too harsh with Contra. Or maybe I wasn’t, I haven’t listened to the album since I reviewed it in 2010. I referred to it as milquetoast and suburban and background music. I also wrote “I’m hoping it’s a sophomore slump because I want Vampire Weekend to make another record full of killer pop songs that are so good I don’t care that they’re copping African rhythms or whatever.” That was three-and-a-half years ago. I’ve mellowed out a bit. I’m still a bit of a wanker but I feel like I’ve gotten better at avoiding the hype machine after spending my entire tenure at KJHK living inside of it and, as music director, piloting the whole fucking thing (or at least that’s how I thought of it). I lived in trends, the next big thing, and that’s why when I graduated I listened to nothing but the Lemonheads for six-months straight.

Shortly after the release of their debut LP, I had a chance to interview the band with a friend of mine in the basement of Liberty Hall before a show. There is an audio file of that clumsy interview floating around on KJHK’s webserver (or better yet, it is gone forever. I never transcribed it). I was already a fan, but despite bassist Chris Baio’s bulldoggish attitude any time I said the word “hype” or “blogosphere,” Ezra Koenig was a total sweetheart and I came away understanding that they really weren’t faking. That though I didn’t have very much in common with these east coast boys who dressed like preppies, their hooks were pure, their songs were catchy, and their lyrics weren’t just a bunch of silly bullshit. They had a sense of humor but never got jokey. They were fresh.

Modern Vampires of the City feels like more of a successor to their eponymous debut than Contra (although I suppose the three fit together and illustrate an evolution that is important to judging the band’s work as a whole). It is a violently elegant pop record, and I’m not just saying that because of the harpsichord that pops up and really makes everything sound like a wonderful period piece. The melodies are both immediate and subtle. They are catchy enough to get stuck in your head with enough muscle to get better and better upon repeat listening. Which is why “Step” is the perfect first single. It almost sounds lazy. The song is so spare at times, with Koenig singing just through some light drums and a sleepy bass line. But then there’s the harpsichord, and the pitch-shifting that adds so much texture to the record. “Step” succeeds because it sounds both nostalgic and futuristic.

I pretend that I’m some kind of purist. A wonk bemoaning the fact that none of the music these days has guitars and it’s all a bunch of dipshits standing in front of laptops. And here Vampire Weekend have made one of the best indie rock records of the year and nothing is real. The live drums have been sequenced and programmed to death, the vocals are frequently manipulated, and the EQs have been clipped and manipulated to soften everything. But the songs come through so well. The melodies are what matter, and you can tell the band spent hours and hours trying to make them shine as best as they possibly could. Sometimes I feel like the great records are the ones that make me realize I’m wrong about something. The first time I listened to “Ya Hey” I fell back onto the futon halfway through the song and just listened. I stopped tinkering with my fantasy baseball team and just sat back and listened to the music. I never do that. I have a sort of amendment in my constitution of musical appreciation that says if a record can get me to put down everything and just listen, it has done something magical. It’s a sad relationship to have with music, but holy shit, when something cuts through the multi-tasking haze of my brain and really makes me stop and go “Goddamn, that is a fucking great,” that’s what I live for. The more I listen to Modern Vampires of the City, the more that keeps happening.