Hypocrite Listener

That Sounds Like... issue 1

2011-11-06T08:59:00.000-08:00

Is it possible that some melodies are so infectious--so right on the zeitgeist--that they aren't written, but rather, captured?
Today in "That Sounds Like," the "TSL" team submits that Bowie's Rebel Rebel Sounds Like Pharoah Sanders's The Gathering . These songs were written an ocean apart, and in different musical solar systems in the early 1970s. In spite of their relative popularity, it strikes me as much more likely that Bowie would be listening to Sanders than vice versa. Bowie notoriously casts a wide net of listening and he plays the saxophone; even so, I don't think I've ever heard about Bowie rolling into all the downtown free jazz clubs.

Synchronicity? Plagiarism? Coincidence?
You be the judge:

Don't be too distracted by the eyepatch. Note the earring as well. This was released in 1974, but was potentially written back in 1973. For a number of reasons it's unlikely that Bowie had ever heard Sanders's The Gathering.

This was released in 1973 on Impulse! Records. If Bowie had written Rebel Rebel in 1973, but didn't release it until 1974, it seems unlikely that this free jazz piece borrows anything from the Thin White Duke. But right around that 10 minute mark...

So we leave it to you loyal listener. One melody that rose up in different places in the early '70s, just like calculus in the 17th Century.

Melodica Watch May 2011

2011-05-31T17:51:00.000-07:00

Annoying, unfairly discounted (man, instrument, respectively)

During my brief period of melodica-ownership, I noticed most people reacted to it as kind of a joke. Fair enough, I suppose; it’s got these silly little keys, and sounds kind of honky and funny. And given the way I played the melodica, it kind of was a joke.
   But the melodica in the right hands is a wonderful, dynamic little instrument. Sure you can’t tune it, but to banish it to “quirky for the sake of quirky” along with instruments like the moonshine jug or the timpani is only doing yourself a great disservice. I’m going to stop short of saying that a mutual love of the melodica brought reggae musicans and post-punk musicians together, resulting in the white-hot dubstep of today-- but that’s probably true if you’re willing to overlook things like chronology.

Four songs I’ve been listening to lately that prominently feature the melodica:

1.   New Order—Love Vigilantes. from Low-Life
2.   Bob Marley- Sun Is Shining. from African Herbsman.
3.   Television Personalities—A Day in Heaven. from Mummy You’re Not Watching Me
4.   Gang of Four- 5.45. from Entertainment!

NOTE: GANG OF FOUR WAS CAUGHT BY SOUNDCLOUD AS COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL. AS SUCH IT DOES NOT APPEAR ON THIS MIX. MY BAD. SORRY, GANG OF FOUR
Melodica Watch 5/31 by benj

Love at 33 1/3 RPM: A 25 year old’s love letter to an archaic medium

2011-05-03T11:51:00.000-07:00

At the risk of confirming everyone’s suspicions that millennial are all waxing nostalgic for a time we didn’t know—we’re getting used to baby boomers projecting all of their self-loathing on us—I’d like to explain why we millennials pretty much only pay for music when it comes on vinyl—a format that arguably was surpassed before we were born.

For those who don’t know, the LP is still marching along, the musical format that refuses to die. In 2010, vinyl sales were up 26 percent. Contrast that to CDs, which fell 21 percent, and the music industry saving-digital download sales that crept up just 2.1 percent. Records are becoming so mainstream that the counter-culture has revived cassettes.
Some of this can probably be attributed to retro-pastiche. Vintage turntables and dusty LPs, like books on a shelf, have looked natural and attractive in the American home since the ‘40s.

But surely there’s more to it than that. People are fanatics about their records. There’s an entire “Record Store Day,” that—in Chicago anyway—saw droves of young dudes (of every age and gender) flipping through crates. Stores with names like “The Dusty Groove” were packed. People were squeezing through aisles, even as outside the freezing rain made a compelling case for downloading. Why?

There’s an obvious and less-obvious appeal. Let’s start with the obvious: Records just sound better than mp3s.

For all the popping and crackling, records can be cleaned. The mp3’s damage is inherent in the design. I’ll admit there’s a really complex way of explaining how an mp3 is made, and then there’s this one. It’s reductive and without nuance, but as you’ll see, this is how mp3s are made. It’s appropriate to the format.

The mp3 caught on because unlike older digital music formats (.wav’s for example), the mp3 takes up very little hard drive space. The nature of creating an mp3, or AAC or any other “lossy” format causes certain sound frequencies to be eliminated. The AAC, Apple’s default format, is especially sharp at eliminating frequencies that are outside of the hearable spectrum, or being covered by another instrument like a heavy bass, anyway. In theory, everything you would hear should be there. It’s not as wide of a spectrum of sound, but if you’re listening to music via earbuds on the subway, the difference is probably negligible.

Additionally, as the audio is encoded, a decision has to be made as to how detailed the digital representation of the audio wave will be; this is where “kbps” is introduced. Think of it visually if it helps: How many pictures of this horse running do you want to take per second, to recreate the visual experience of seeing it run? Think of the choppiness of not having enough frames per second. If you’re a really visual person, draw a sound wave rising and falling (go ahead, I’ll wait). Now draw a staircase going up (and down) the wave. This is the digital version of the sound wave. Note the corners. Note how right angles are just so much less.... organic. To be fair, good mp3s should have around 320 bits per second (contrasted with the typical Hollywood which has only 24 frames per second). It’s a clever way to get a lot of music on a small hard drive. So what are we missing?

To test just what differences these compressions and eliminations might make, I devoted an entire afternoon to comparing the sound quality of an album. I opted for Blood Sweat & Tears’s 1968 debut album Child Is Father to the Man because I thought its diverse musical styling—orchestral overtures, ‘60s pop, folk, R&B, jazz—would provide a broader scope for comparing formats. Also I had found a cheap copy at the record store, and hadn’t really had a chance to sit down and listen to it.

The experiment, which took place on a cold drizzling Sunday, was so indulgent and enjoyable that I’d recommend everyone buy a turntable just for conducting it. I sat down and listened to each track twice through the same stereo—once off my laptop at 256 kbps, and once off my turntable—alternating which format played first.
From a sound standpoint the difference is definitely noticeable. The organ especially, here played by Al Kooper of “Like a Rolling Stone” fame, has a full, thick, angelic quality on vinyl. On the computer the same organ parts are present but sound much smaller and airier. Via LP, the bass parts are much more textured, almost purring on the record. The cymbal splashes from the drum kit sound light, never shrill. Overall everything sounded much more realistic. Instruments were easier to distinguish on vinyl: I could hear the long decay of hits on the vibraphone, which on the digital recording I thought was a Rhodes piano; for the first time in my life I thought “What a fine lute part this song has!” Your ear may not hear the frequencies that are present, but they still make a difference in how everything sounds.
In a direct comparison, the mp3 sounds fine but not as good. Audiophiles will argue that I stacked the deck by using a “lossy” format. Yeah, I could’ve found some FLAC files, which preserve CD quality, but are thus immense. And perhaps in technology’s forward march, they will figure out how to preserve the highest quality recording but find a manageable way for you to listen to it portably and conveniently. It seems for the time being, “cloud streaming” is two steps back, but if consumers decide they want higher quality, I’m sure someone will figure out how to sell it to them.
Apart from my slight audiophile tendencies (okay, full-blown epidemic audiophilia) there’s something else about vinyl records. The less-than-obvious advantage.

Child Is Father to the Man has some of the most amazing production I’ve ever heard—really exciting horn parts, big apocalyptic choirs, lead vocals oscillating through a spinning Leslie speaker, just a whole album of interesting and cool choices. I don’t usually evaluate albums based off of these merits, and this brings me to perhaps vinyl’s most enduring strength.

I sat listening with my notebook in hand and the record jacket next to me. In between notes (usually on the second consecutive listen of a song) I read the back of the jacket. The cover of Child Is Father to the Man is silly and kind of disturbing (each band member is next to a child with said band member’s head imposed on the little shoulders. Each one is creepy in a unique way). At one point in the fourth track, “My Days Are Numbered,” a big Revolver-style backwards guitar solo just rips in. It’s a great moment, which the jacket credits it to Ztak Evets. Immediately I wanted to figure out what else this Dutch guitar master had done, but my computer was of course in use, so I contented myself with noting to look it up later.
In the past that moment—that whoa—would’ve been the jumping off point, and I wouldn’t have finished the album. I would’ve been off on a wild Google, YouTube, iTunes hunt, trying to consume another musician or style I didn’t know, rather than actually listening to music at all. In this case I probably would’ve gone back to Blood Sweat & Tears after realizing that Ztak Evets doesn’t exist, it’s just the BS&T guitarist Steve Katz, spelled and played backwards. Nevertheless, an mp3 is easily turned on, and easily turned off.
The limitations of vinyl—its lack of portability, its dependence on the user to flip it every 25 minutes or so, the fact that record players can’t go online—all serve to create a space for music.

The mp3 player and the computerized music library allow you to have music going all the time; this is their strength. You can come home with your earbuds in, slam the iPod onto the iPod dock and hear only the slightest interruption. Everything we do can be soundtracked, and that’s cool! Rather than walking up the street to the sound of cars and traffic, I can walk up the street listening to The Cars and Traffic. With the slightest movement of my fingertips I can get more, put more on, play it in any order I want, even repeat one song infinitely (That “Play One Song Forever” button has been on every version of iTunes since the beginning, and I can’t for the life of me imagine why).

But vinyl won’t go for a walk. It sits in my living room, in a specific place, sort of set apart. When shopping for records, I can curate to a specific room. There’s a whole ritual of taking the jacket out of the dust cover, the sleeve out of the jacket, and the LP—carefully!—from the sleeve, lining up the hole, and moving the needle in place. Calling these actions holy or liturgical in some way is overstating it, but it is an act of reverence. It takes away the everydayness (or every-momentness?) of now-ubiquitous recorded music and reminds you that it’s a privilege, a treat. Creating a space for music, giving it attention. It is (a lesser form of) the difference between a poster of a Van Goghon your wall—novel at first, and eventually peripheral—and going to see “The Old Guitarist” in a museum. You prepare yourself to let the art in. It sounds over the top, and yeah, it kind of is.

Think of it like the slow-food movement: vinyl lovers are enjoying music’s ritual, and quality—all served up on a platter. All of this is possible with digital music, sure. Of course, airplanes could just be driven around on the highway. Just as the merits of paintings, aside from being just “a permanent record,” became clear with the birth of photography, the merits of vinyl in an mp3 world are only now coming in clear. Warm, punchy, and clear.

Record Store Day 2011

2011-04-23T18:22:00.000-07:00

NB: Nigel's notes will begin with N: and Ben's will begin with B:
N: It was a miserably rainy day in Chicago this Record Store Day, the kind of day I would have liked to spend inside sipping tea and listening to records, not walking in rainy headwinds to spend all of my money in a manic frenzy. But there we were, a gang of dourly dressed men trudging down Milwaukee Avenue acting like teenagers on the first day of summer break, stopping only for more beer or to accost the random unsuspecting stranger. Here are some highlights from the days finds:

Faust, IV
N: Not the only record I picked up that I was more than familiar with, I was more or less guilted into buying this because, alas, I don’t actually own this on any format. Lucky I did, Faust IV is an undisputed classic.
B: Sounds like the Sgt. Pepper from beyond the Berlin Wall (though they’re from the West). I imagine many interesting production choices had to be made; making the vinyl well-worth the price of admission.

Panda Bear, Tomboy
B: In the spirit of Record Store Day, Tomboy is very much a two-sided record. Side A is reminiscent of MPP’s quick pacing, and almost-maybe-even choruses. Indeed a live show, included with the download, features a few MPP tracks sounding perfectly at home--relaxed even--in a Panda Bear set. Side B’s tracks are less focused, wander a bit more. Maybe it’s because we have a well-loved predecessor in Person Pitch, but the sonic environment on Tomboy generally feels less interesting, and more like a vehicle for the (undeniably beautiful) melodies. Nevertheless, the whole thing is a stunner, perhaps never more than on the amazing track “Afterburner” which would sound at home in the wistful wabi-sabi discotheque right along side....
N: “Slow Motion” still knocks me flat. It’s also worth mentioning that the B side has a looping runoff groove, meaning the record will continue to play and never end until you lift the needle, which is as cool as it is sort of annoying.

Arthur Russell, Calling Out of Context
B: Russell is so cool as to be a little on the nose: New York, Retro-Dance, Avant-garde composer. Even if you feel “over” the elements, the result is both undeniably cool, and pretty fun and welcoming. Very minimal environments--drum machine, couple synth lines, supplemental percussion and usually Russell’s cello--permeated with a voice that meanders between Bill Callahan and Aaron Neville. Like an animated corpse of disco music stalking the streets of Daydream Nation’s New York.

Box Tops I See Only Sunshine b/w Sweet Cream Ladies
N: One of a couple Box Tops singles I found at the Numero pop-up store, this one features the Alex Chilton original, I See Only Sunshine. The track features Chilton’s amazing knack for melody, you can almost hear him trying to shrug off the gruff soul singer affectation and just open up on this one.

Big Star, 3rd
N: I had to round out the Chilton collection with Big Star’s 3rd. Living up to its reputation, the album is incredibly sad, even desperate at times, filled with beautiful string arrangements and some of Chilton’s best vocal takes. His voice sounds alternately tender and ragged. This is an incredibly ambitious album, even when held next to #1 and Radio City. I wonder if that ambition comes from the desperation of being at the end of the rope as a band, or if Alex Chilton was just ready to move far away from the sound he’d already perfected over the last two releases. This might be my favorite Chilton record I’ve heard so far.
B: A power-pop apple, far from the tree. On par with Lou Reed’s Berlin for overall bleakness. Nevertheless, has some real gems both on the happily sad and the extremely forlorn ends of the spectrum.

Signals, Calls and Marches:
N: One of my favorite EPs of all time, this is by far my favorite Mission of Burma release, especially for the fist-pumping Academy Fight Song.

Eccentric Breaks and Beats
N: The only Numero release I picked up at their pop-up shop, the story behind this 12” is that the label discovered a bootleg 12” floating around filled with samples pulled from their releases. Instead of issuing a cease and desist, Numero decided to distribute it themselves. What starts off as a fairly engaging mix ends up being pretty brilliant by side 2. This isn’t really a party starter, unless the party is a small BBQ, but it is a fantastic headphones album. Also, another album with a looping runoff groove on the B side, for whatever reason. Ugly cover though.

Strangest Impulse Buy Award:
V/A- Holy Fuzz Christian Psychedelic Music (1967-1975)

Curiosity got the better of my judgement, and now I own this. Oddly enough this early artifact of “Christian Rock” is dogged by the very same things that dog the Christian Rock of Today. The songwriting is written in a self-assured second person, one who has all the answers knows exactly what you should do. The songwriting generally lacks specificity, which as we’re told in Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style is crucial to good writing. “If those who have studied the art of writing are in accord on any one point it is this: the surest way to arouse and keep the reader’s interest is by being specific, definite and concrete,” states S&W, going on to cite the book of Ecclesiastes as an example of strong writing. Contrast this with Holy Fuzz’s ninth track “Dry Ground” by the Exkursions: “Don’t lie to yourself. Take things as they are. That’s the first step in becoming a much better person by far.” Bush league stuff, Exkursions.

But then psychedelic music—Christian or otherwise—isn’t known for its lyrical acumen. You want to know how the jams am, how the grooves do, how face-melters smelter. They’re... fine, I guess. Within the psychedelic music world I’ll admit I like a bit more subtly and nuance (okay, melodious and fey) over early/harsh/heavy. This compilation is the latter for sure. I guess I was hoping for some sort of psychedelic spirituality; it’s odd that something so concerned for your soul would seem so soulless.

Music for watching snow fall in March

2011-03-05T16:48:00.000-08:00

Soon and very soon.

Happy VD

2011-02-14T13:44:00.001-08:00

I Only Have Eyes for You by nigelharsch

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T10:52:00.000-08:00

Was putting together an uber depressing xmas mix, but thought better of it. So instead, here's this:

God bless us, everyone.

Hypocrite Listener 2010 Music Honors

2010-11-28T19:12:00.000-08:00

Carlos D. Memorial Award for Sickest Bass Playing on a Rock Album: Tame Impala, Innerspeaker

Runner Up: Ariel Pink, Before Today

Sickest Bass Playing on a Non Rock Album: Cosmogramma

The Steven Ellison Genius Grant for Releasing Not One but Two Mindblowing Next Level Releases in One Year Because He’s Just Like That: Flying Lotus

Ice Cold

Award for Good Album Intractably Marred by Questionable Vocal Affectations: Baths, Cerulean

Post-Dilla Postal Service
Runner up: Salem, King Knight

Most Rewarding Questionable Vocal Affectation: Sam Herring, Future Islands

Ryan Adams Award for Free Download That Is Somehow Still a Waste of Money and Space: Girl Talk, All Day

This Asshole...

Best Apotheosis of Self Via Disjointed Paranoid Confessional Ramblings From an Artist Emerging from Self-Imposed Exile After a Previous Full Length’s Lukewarm Critical Reception and Amidst Talk of Said Artist Becoming a Parody of Himself: Destroyer, Archer on the Beach

A cosmonaut in a breadline, etc.

Runner Up: Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Best Jump to Relative Hifi: Beach House, Teen Dream

Deep blue pools of sexy melancholy

Worst Jump Back to Relative Lofi: Spoon, Transference

The less said the better

Best Production on a Lofi Release: Tie, Women, Public Strain and Ariel Pink, Before Today

The Wayne Coyne “If I was going to do shrooms, I’d want to do it with this guy” Award: Dustin Wong

Best Chillwave Album Not Classified As or Affiliated With Chillwave: Javelin, No Mas

Slept on

Stephen Malkmus Award for Best Song Imbued With a Humble Tossed-Off Perfection That’s Almost Infuriating Because You’re Pretty Sure It Was Written on the Spot: Kurt Vile, I Got Religion

Best Moment to Be Justin Vernon, Or It Would Be if This Was All Recorded at Once: Monster

Nobody knew I was a muthafuckn monstah, nobody but Ye

Late Fall Mix

2010-11-18T20:17:00.000-08:00

This cold weather and early evenings have gotten the best of me and I fear that cabin fever setting in way too soon. Here's a technicolor mix for these grayscale days. Sorry for the sloppy mixing.

Hypocrite Listener Fall Mix by nigelharsch

Women (Again)

2010-11-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to write anything better than this on Public Strain:

"Post-indie rock indie rock is copies of copies of collages of copies; in the hands of Women, however, it’s not that cut ‘n dry. They work the degradation of the process, blow-up the resulting scuzz to canvas their gallery walls, splay melodies into abstractions into new melodies as they zoom in more and more. These aren’t Brooklyn hipsters dancing, it’s their dancing pixels. The subversion of staid indie rock becomes the subversion of a hundred different things, a hundred different roles, and Public Strain envelops all that, highlights all the contrasts and contradictions that are built into indie rock’s origins but have been lost over time through the genre’s maturation into a broad and often dull establishment, into Death Cab and shirt dresses and well-made music calledThe Suburbs. With gumption Public Strain breaks through the static of a moving yet flat image in order to bare the quaking microcosmos beneath. Its tracklist is a unified yet eclectic collection; “Bells” is dark ambient and “China Steps” is motorik with Sonic Youth guitars and “Venice Lockjaw” is aching balladry and “Eyesore” is perfection fucking chaos on top the whole indie canon and much of the rest is, at once, Nuggets (1972) and not Nuggets. Women have no use for indie rock as a market, a lifestyle, or even as a genre—it is merely the substance they break apart and unfurl into a letting of noise, of unseemly chords, of momentary transcendence, of their own identity." more

Bejar on Bejar

2010-11-09T16:30:00.000-08:00

The impossible weight of his mythos is imploding on top of him. I am so fucking excited.

Late thoughts on The Suburbs

2010-10-12T16:07:00.000-07:00

AF's new Jonathan Franzen Novel

My pal Win Butler. I’ll hand it to him, he likes to raise the stakes on himself. He bemoans our fragmented modern condition in big, bold rock-star gestures so convincingly that it almost serves as a perfunctory answer to the perennial boomer question “what happened to music that meant something?” And he’s mostly successful at it. Whereas Neon Bible had some cringe worthy over the top pontifications, The Suburbs is just balanced enough not be an embarrassment, and it certainly had every possibility to be. This is a capital A Album, it is about us, the kids, the suburbs, downtown. This is about getting old and shedding off the optimism of youth in a terrifying world. This is an album about punching the clock by one of the few indie bands that doesn’t have to.

The songwriting is much more mature and nuanced, but like on Neon Bible, Win is still always onstage. Even his more intimate offerings are still backed up by mile long reverb trails and a full string section. And he’s never really talking to anyone specific, he’s witnessing to the masses, shouting to the mountaintops, standing self aware in a specific moment of history. I don’t think the Arcade Fire are ever gonna get away from that, that is what they do after all. It’s just that Funeral sounded like a shout to the sky, The Suburbs sounds like a polemic.

According to their website, “each of the 16 tracks is mastered to a 12 inch lacquer and then transferred back to digital format so that the CD and digital version of the record sound just like the vinyl.” Like I said, it’s an “Album” motherfuckers, one that has all the hallmarks of an album of the year if not an album for a generation (or at least a sequel to one depending how you feel). But those hallmarks may be exactly what hinders it from being either. At 16 tracks, you’re not really left wanting more. As bleak as Win’s outlook gets, his lack of brevity steals all the punch of his warnings. What’s put forth as a grand statement ends up being 16 variations on a single theme, sequenced as if they add up to a coherent narrative. It doesn’t really come together. The trick would be to cut redundant exercises like “Month of May” or “City With No Children,” because they really just kill time and add heft to what could be a surprisingly elegant and restrained album with a little editing.

Counterpoint- Women- Public Strain

2010-10-08T14:59:00.001-07:00

Nigel's totally right about this. Plus, if you don't have the Bonus 7 inch, I will personally bring it over and we'll listen to it. Because it's pretty fun too.

Women: Public Strain

2010-09-30T16:10:00.000-07:00

Like they knew this would dominate my winter

Public Strain is brilliant. Really really brilliant. Don't believe me?

Buy it. But a turntable and buy it again. Tell everyone you know about it. Send nasty hate mail to Pitchfork for not BNM'ing that shit to 10.

Hot New Trax from Steve Reich

2010-09-13T15:04:00.000-07:00

Not too long a ago I got really into Steve Reich. I listened to all ten discs of the NPU library's copy of Works while working in the basement in the media department. I have the Deutsche Gramophone 3LP set of Drumming, I briefly had a portrait of the man as my profile pic, etc. He was, for a short time in my life, the grand master of all things sonic, a position previously held by The Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, Brian Eno, and more recently, J Dilla.

Reich's got a new piece out "Double Sextet/2x5" and it's streaming right here.

Check out the 2x5 tracks, especially the first one. It's absolutely amazing, which is no particular surprise considering the man is a bona fide genius. Nor is the "rock instrumentation" surprising, Reich has done this before. The biggest surprise was the sound of mix, especially the drums. Those dry, tight drums that cut left and right, the decay of each note seeming to die down unnaturally, almost like they're sampled and triggered. This doesn't sound like rock instrumentation, it sounds like experimental hip hop. What's incredible about this is that the Steve Reich is one of the pioneers of sample based music, his innovations are part of the DNA of so much of the music we listen to. Madlib even gave him a nod. 2x5 sounds like Reich remixed, like Reich chopped and screwed, like a much younger artist. Good to hear.

Self Truth on the Play Count

2010-08-31T14:08:00.000-07:00

Ben's Favorite Beatles Songs Based on iPod Play Count

1. Here Comes the Sun (George)
2. Across the Universe (John)
3. Carry That Weight (Paul)
4. Sun King (John?)
5. Why Don't We Do it in the Road (Paul)

Why: My iPod is full and I was trying to decide what I could live without so I could get this Serge Gainsbourg psychedelic anthology on there. But also, I never know what my favorite anything is. Here's a way of finding my favorites over 3 or 4 years or however long I've had this iPod.
Method: Organizing songs based off play count, and typing in various artists, or just scrolling and seeing which albums are all up in 20s, which artists I don't think of myself as liking that much but go to pretty frequently (I guess I like Simon and Garfunkel), which are only on there for sentimental but not listening reasons (Radiohead, especially Hail to the Thief to the present.), etc.
Critique of Method: Obviously a million different factors play into what songs you play on your iPod (I own the White Album on vinyl, but not Abbey Road or Let it Be, making my affection for Why Don't We.. all the more puzzling and suspicious), but it's an interesting test of which songs you're drawn to, even unconsciously, as you listen to music around town. My affection for Paul, while often difficult to defend, comes through pretty earnestly in a scan of the top 10. The highest Ringo song is "Don't Pass Me By" at 16th most played.

Pavement - Things Get Old

2010-07-20T14:28:00.000-07:00

  I love Pavement, I grew up with their records, I idolized them. My friend once said it best, “What I like about Pavement is that they seem to know me better than I know myself.” As silly as that seems given SM’s obtuse lyrics, that ambiguous Pavement energy, a mixture of cocksmanship, pranksterism, nostalgia, and even a bit of darkness, seemed to resonate with my youth more than most of the bands out at the time. Whereas the Strokes and the White Stripes served straight up retro revival for us too young to remember their forebearers, Pavement was smarter, more nuanced. I felt like they were actually like us, full of anarchic energy as well as a smart-ass knowing. They were too cool to be cool, too smart to be hip, but in the margins they could be incredibly affecting.
  I first heard heard Slanted and Enchanted around 2001, only months after they’d broken up. They were my first introduction to the concept of indie rock and remain my ideal of the form, so much so that I internalized their failures as successes. I even had the notion that me and my smart-ass rock friends could make it just by being our smart ass selves, even while living in the middle of nowhere Indiana, hanging on the idea that someone out there (possibly Thurston Moore) would inexplicably find us and launch us into semi-stardom. A decade of fandom later I’ve become older and wiser. I’ve read Perfect Sound forever, watched the Slow Century, watched my contemporaries rise and fall, played in bands of my own and been thoroughly demystified of the glamour of independent music, or hell, the glamour of music in general. No love lost really, in fact in the place of my youthful idealism is a real love (I hope) for the music that sountracked my maturation and a more nuanced perspective on how bands and the music industry in general work. And after all these year, I still love SM, Spiral Stairs, Nast, Ibold, Westy and Young. But at the ripe old age of 24, and even though I never saw them the first time around, I am getting my first dose of reunion tour blues.
  Malkmus has been openly ambivalent about this reunion. First there was the GQ piece with Chuck Klosterman who, like Malkmus, cares more about sports than music these days and is about just as uninterested in Pavement. Then there was a more exploitative piece in Mojo featuring the whole band, another non plussed SM, and some sad moments when Kannenberg lets on how much more the band means to him than Malkmus. Put together with Perfect Sound Foerever and you can pretty much get the picture: Malkmus is kinda a dick and kinda aware of that, the rest of the band are kinda not dicks but maybe kinda not as talented and no one in the band really wants to talk about it. So my expectations for this Pitchfork performance were kinda secretly not so high, despite my really wanting them to be.
  I only went to one day of the festival this year, for money reasons and due to my work schedule. So many of my old pitchfork pals didn’t go at all, having either moved away, moved on, or completely lost interest. Whereas in the past the fest had always seemed like a sort of like a homecoming or gathering of a disparate community, this year everyone looked unfamiliar. I tried to summon the spirit, but it was hot, the sound was often shitty, there was no 312, and everyone looked if not young than childish, as if some shift into real adulthood had occurred unnoticed in my life this past year and I was just now realizing it. I wasn’t hating on anyone, my worst criticism of the day was launched Washed Out, saying they were a little boring. Beach House put on a great set, Major Lazer made me dance, Big Boi sounded good while I waited for Pavement in the setting sun. I was having a reasonably good time. And then the sun went down and Pavement sauntered on.
  And the set was, well actually quite good. The sound was awful for half the songs (the lighter half), the guys were so completely unenthused to be there it hurt, there were about 5 false starts, and the crowd was exhausted as fuck and pretty sick of standing face to armpit in the hot sun waiting for them to play. And yet, somehow, it was worth it. When the band was on, they delivered. There were several moments were I thought they’d fall apart but they’d swing back into cohesion, making the high points matter so much more. They played the songs faithfully but changed them up enough to make them sound if not new, then at least like living songs. It wasn’t slike the Slint show, where they played note for note but with no energy or spontaneity. It was by all metrics a real Pavement show. Compared to the footage from their last show before their breakup, maybe even a really good Pavement show. And since this will probably be the only Pavement show I ever see, I’m glad for that much.
  Perhaps it was disappointing for some. To be honest, I didn’t walk away in a blissful haze, and I don’t think Pitchfork fest has ever had such an anticlimactic end: no encore, no announcement, everyone just slowly walked out a little puzzled. And maybe I am so prematurely old, so jaded, expectations so low and so willing to forgive that I couldn't actually be disappointed. But Silence Kit killed, and it killed in that sad longing way it did when I first heard it. And when Malkmus replaced “shitty-life” for city-life the second time, instead of feeling sapped or slighted I kinda felt on the same page with him. It was unexpected and cathartic, and it revealed something I love about Pavement that no one talks about that much, that they’re a kinda dark, depressing little act when you get down to it. So many of their best songs are colored with loneliness, misanthropy, loss, anger, bitterness. It’s by far not what this band is about, but it’s all there. There were definitely more uplifting highlights of the show: Conduit for Sale, Trigger Cut, Frontwards, Spiral Stairs’ songs actually sounding really good to me for the first time maybe ever. But for all their attempts and all their thank-yous and all their practice (really, they sounded pretty tight), they couldn’t put on a convincing face of gratitude, they couldn't fool any of us into thinking that they were at all as excited to be there as we were to see them. Whatever wasn’t working for them before is still not working. But they were themselves, they played well together, and there were enough moments where they looked like they might actually be really enjoying the music they were playing, if not the people they were playing it with.
  And I think it was all very fitting. The era that birthed Pavement is clearly over, Pavement as a living entity is clearly over. They sounded out of context, out of place, and out of style at the fest. They aren’t some returning heroes getting their long lost due from a generation that finally “get’s them.” Although, I would have loved for them to say “hey kids, you Pavement fans are alright, I’m glad you still exist” But they did their job and they tried hard for us, for the kids who weren’t there the first time around, or maybe it was for our money. Who cares? I got to see Pavement, the real deal, in all their hapless glory. They gave me an unrepeatable performance, they surprised me, and I still feel like those songs I’d heard a million times meant as much to me now as they did ten years ago.

An Album Like This:

2010-05-28T18:53:00.000-07:00

I was initially confused and borderline disappointed with Cosmogramma when I first put it on. After pouring into his back catalog and remixes I came to expect a certain feeling from Flylo tracks, something dark and simmering with a sinister sense of humor, music made by the dude grinning ear to ear in his promo shots ala Richard D James or the Joker. His earlier more hip hop inflected work lumbered along in a narco haze, an already textured and gritty sound that would end up going into hyperspeed and endless grooves on Los Angeles. With Los Angeles, there are beats on top of beats fighting other beats through thick smoky static, like so many bass bombed cadillacs passing each other on L.A.'s smoggy highway night.
On Cosmogramma, Flying Lotus is equally comfortable delivering what listeners have come to expect from him (sick beats, tactile textures, an ADD predilection for 8 bit blips and beeps) and blowing those expectations wide open. You hear it right away on Clockcatcher, first unleashing an unholy manic onslaught of space invaders artillery that has you thinking "too much too soon" right before it spins out in all directions leaving behind a field of sonic debris. Much of the album's first half has an equally disorienting soundscape. Sounds and melodies collide and fracture only to coalesce moments later into a cohesive groove. It's disorienting but more than worth it. This is how you know an album is going to be a grower, when you get halfway in and you already want to back track to get a closer listen. It delivers the goods, but in such idiosyncratic and surprising ways that you're not sure how to take it at first. You let in unravel and open up and discover a new way of listening until your more or less hooked. Like, I really wasn't down with all the bit crunched bass solos at first, now I can't imagine the songs with out them.

Although this wasn't the album I was expecting, it's actually the kind of album I've been waiting for all year. Don't get me wrong, Teen Dream still makes my heart do swan dives into a sea of dark blue melancholy, but there's only so much of that I can take in my life. Teen Dream is something to be careful with, to dole out with care or save for a rainy day. Cosmogramma is an album to get lost in, to dwell upon and discover as well as (at times) something to play at a BBQ or a midsummer's dance party. It's daring and inventive as well as warm and inviting, much like the man himself was when I saw him rocking a packed Double Door crowd, the wizard himself tearing it apart and grinning for days in sheer enthusiasm.

Skip All the Lou's: Part II, The Mask of Blue

2010-05-26T01:48:00.000-07:00

Which is what brought me to The Blue Mask- often regarded as one of Lou Reed’s best solo albums, what he should have made in 1972, instead of Transformer (which isn’t terrible). It seems like taking Lou Reed solo albums as whole entities is a disappointing and embarrassing endeavor, so let’s go song by song and see if we can find more Lou Reed Greatness.

The Blue Mask: A quest for Greatness
1. My House-
a. Arrangement: Bass is a little cheesy, but the build at the end is cool.
b. Worst Lyric: “I've really got a lucky life
my writing, my motorcycle and my wife
And to top it all off a spirit of pure poetry
is living in this stone and wood house with me” Ugh. Wow. That first part of the verse sounds like someone’s overly earnest dad, which would be bad, but becomes unforgivable with his spirit of pure poetry shit.
c. Overall: Well, the build and repetition of “Our house is very beautiful at night” is pretty good. Can it overlook Lou Reed getting out the ouiji board and letting a spirit soar across the room? Maybe. And maybe this album isn’t so bad...

2. Women
a. Arrangement: These guitars are dripping in some lame effect, but their minimalism and chiming conversation is nice. The bass moans like it belongs in the background of the Little Mermaid’s Kiss the Girl though.
b. Worst Lyric: “A woman's love can lift you up,
and women can inspire
I feel like buying flowers and
hiring a celestial choir”
c. Overall: That worst lyric only won by a hair. The whole thing is embarrassing and terrible. A stanza about how Lou Reed used to look at women in magazines when he was in his teens. Maybe the worst Lou Reed song. Maybe the world’s worst song. My opitimisim takes a hit.

3. Under the Bottle
a. Arrangement: Kind of a bar band-lite. Does he need to borrow a distortion pedal?
b. Worst Lyric: Ooh woo weee son of a b.
c. Overall: Something about the concise quality of this song (and being next to the black hole of “Women”) make it seem okay. It’s forgettable, like bad radio rock. And it’s neatly composed if a little lazy. Not about to join “Heroin” in the substance abuse pantheon of rock and roll.

4. The Gun
a. Arrangement: Cool. The guitars are reminiscent of Galaxie 500, the bass is out of the way. Good groove all the way through.
b. Worst Lyric: This one’s got some of Lou’s good economical writing. I won’t pick out a lyric. I love when he says “I wouldn’t want you to miss a second.”
c. Overall: Yeah, alright. It doesn’t really go anywhere, but hey, neither do debates about the right to bear arms. Let’s keep going, with hope.

5. The Blue Mask
a. Arrangement: Sweet! It’s a little cheesy, but there’s a whole minute and a half of guitars squealing and stuff at beginning.
b. Worst Lyric: I’m not going to nit-pick. The delivery of muscle-rock isn’t the cool I go to Lou for, but this song is sweet and at this point I’m not complaining.
c. Overall: Yes! Yes! This has a sick ending. I’m on board, taking from the Station to Station playbook never paid off so well.

6. Average Guy
a. Arrangement: The distortion pedals are glowing, and even though this progression is nothing new (most of Coney Island Baby comes to mind), it’s still got a Bowie sheen that keeps it from veering into forgetablitly.
b. Worst Lyric: Um. So the whole thing is a little... inconsequential. Let’s go with “I worry about my health and bowels”
c. Overall: Things are taking a turn. This is about on par with Under the Bottle, in that it’s traditional grounding keeps it from being too hateful or likeable.

7. The Heroine
a. Arrangement: Just a great sounding electric guitar and vocals.
b. Interpretation: Um, so the love of a good woman will keep you together?
c. Overall: Another in the catalog of forgettable attempts at love songs I think. Something about the plaintive melody gets undercut by the repetition and overt self-seriousness.

8. Waves of Fear
a. Arrangement: Awesome. The ending is sweet. Two stallions trading leads and rhythm. Thundering along. Well done everyone. The bass is given something constructive to do as opposed to just ruining everything like it did for the first half of the album.
b. Best Lyric: “I curse at my tremors I jump at my own step!” The mic is maxing out and stuff. The whole part is awesome. And bizarre. Also “What’s that on the floor?”
c. Overall: This song is the most triumphant tribute to freaking out I’ve ever heard. I love it, and it makes no sense. Why is this song about being afraid of everything around you? Drugs, I would assume. Anyway, for what it is, with a skidding shuddering left channel guitar making the case, it’s more than passable. It’s funny though.

9. The Day John Kennedy Died
a. Arrangement: Ugh, the world’s most annoying bass sound is back to rule the middle of your mind. And who’s the lady back-up singer in here. Like these little cymbals clipping along though.
b. Baby Boomer Unbearablitiy: Big Time. I understand this was a monumental event, but this song is more insult than homage.
c. Overall: If we’re to believe this moment meant that much to LR, then we’re allowed to wonder if there’s a better way to phrase it than “I dreamed that I could somehow comprehend that someone
shot him in the face.”

10. Heavenly Arms
a. Arrangement: Big and broad. Great melody. Perhaps the only Lou Reed song that could use more instrumentation.
b. Does the delivery live up to its ambition: Well, he says “Heavenly Arms” a lot. But the melody holds up where the writing’s weak. It’s a really pretty song.
c. Overall: A fitting send off to an album of songs with narrow and specific concepts, that, if broadened, could’ve been a lot better.

So, it’s not Loaded Part II, but it was unfair to expect that. Safe to say Mr. Reed doesn’t really know what he does best, and at this point thought furrow-brow seriousness and earnesty was the way to go. And for... like 3, maybe 4 songs the instruments do what his writing does erratically at best, and we’re with him. For the rest, it kind of feels like someone’s cleaned up former biker-dad bashing it out on a Friday in Rockford. And I guess that has a place.

Skip All the Lou's: A Quest for a Decent Solo Album pt. 1

2010-05-25T08:13:00.000-07:00

It’s difficult to overstate the importance of Lou Reed to our musical landscape, and larger culture. Those Velvet Underground albums are the bedrock upon which the ideals of avant-garde rock were lovingly placed, and it would be hard to think of a worthwhile band (from, say, 1970 onward) that isn’t largely indebted to them. Just as Jonathan Richman predicted in 1970, in a way the Velvets have become as important as The Beatles. I have a simple test to prove this to be true: Name a year both bands released an album: Go ahead. 1967? Okay The Beatles- Sgt. Pepper’s. Whoa, hard to top right? Bam! Velvet Underground and Nico! How do you like them bananas? To even argue their importance seems redundant. Let’s move on.

The only real problem is that there are only those 4 VU albums (let’s disregard the Lou-Reedless and unavailable fifth album, as I haven’t heard it, and this is mostly about Lou Reed). Where does one go after she or he has shredded with the Black Angel, eagerly waited with Waldo in the box, closed the door, and watched that train go ‘round the bend? I, myself, will still have periods where I’ll listen to one of these albums, and even though I’ve heard it many times, I’m still impressed, I still enjoy it. But there’s less than 40 songs.

Here is the interesting thing about both the VU and The Beatles. After you’ve really listened to their canons, and really made them something you know, you should probably switch to listening to Bowie. He’ll safely get you through to the 80’s and then it’s time for American Indie to come and save your bloated soul. I know there are solo albums from all of these songwriters (hell, both Moe Tucker and Ringo Starr have albums. God help us all), but I’m increasingly convinced that try as you may, the solo albums merely tarnish the image of the songwriter, especially the further you get from their seminal band.

And for no one is this more true than Lou Reed (well maybe George, certainly Paul, and of course John...well Lou Reed for now). Listening to his solo work turns him from brilliant writer, to likely idiot savant, who merely was around an era we now think is awesome, and happened to write shit down, probably on accident. The arrangements, which seemed so sweet as dark and shrill, all turn into Las Vegas schmaltz with such a swiftness and consistency you can’t help but wonder if maybe Sterling Morrison doesn’t get enough credit (this suspicion is confirmed if you ever hear John Cale’s Paris 1919).

But there are still green shoots. One gives up on Lou Reed only to hear “Walk on the Wild Side,” “Street Hassle” and “Berlin” and wonder if maybe there’s still more Reed-brilliance out there. And you want to believe! You want your mind blown again! You want a brilliant beat-poet-avant-garde-leather-rock-hero! Of course you do! We all do!

Coming Soon! A track by track break down of The Blue Mask, an album that is known as the heir to the Velvet's sound!

Hello Internet, long time...

2010-04-08T10:40:00.001-07:00

Jobs right? Either you can't get one, you hate the one you have and can't get anything else, or maybe you like your job but it isn't paying you shit. Or maybe it's just a control thing, the work's not that bad, they pay is more than enough but damn, will I ever have a say in how shit get's done around here?
So, I have several 'jobs.' I have my day job at the MCA. It's great, really can't complain. I love the museum, I really like my coworkers, the day to day responsibilities aren't very taxing, and I usually feel pretty good about life at work. The rub: it's three days a week and I make let's just call it not-a-whole-lot an hour. Then there's a paid gig with my alma matter doing sound design work for theatrical shows. Again, wow, what a great gig. I can work mostly off my laptop using some of my more technical and creative skills, I get paid, get to help put together a piece of collaborative art every semester. The rub: it's emotionally draining, and I don't know why. I get throw-shit-against-a-wall temperamental during the last two weeks of rehearsal no matter the show (usually not at rehearsal, although I'm afraid that one day I will just snap). And a career in sound design would probably mean a career in theatre, which is for better or worse, a world that still feels foreign to me. Long story.
Then there are two internships, one with Gallery 400 and one with Thrill Jockey. Again, wow, what the fuck right? Both are fantastic. At the Gallery, I'm learning and developing a skill set, I'm meeting so many incredibly talented people, I get to be intellectually engaged with work. Fucking fantastic, not getting paid. And Thrill Jockey, let's put it this way, if I was independently wealthy and never had to work again I would still come in on Monday to put records together at the office. The rub: neither pays, and at this point anything resembling a personal life has been obliterated. This has lead to some awkward over sharing, TMI, and just dicking around at my jobs because, well, I barely have any personal time.
Now, don't get me wrong, the last six months of my life have been incredible. I took on more than I could handle and I've handled it. Maybe not A+ handled it, but much better than my usual average. I feel much more capable than before, much more aware of myself and my limitations. But my schizophrenic schedule has left me with the same question, what do I actually want to do with my life. And my answer is still, well, everything.
Or be a musician. That's always the real answer, be a musician. I'm not going to get into the bloody details of why I am one but don't really consider myself one although I've always kinda been one no matter how hard I try to be one or not. It's really like saying to myself, I want to be a Christian. I am one, but I'm not really one you know, don't go to church enough, am too critical of the church at large, feel uneasy with how it makes others feel, etc. But like, I am one, sorta kinda. I just really don't feel good about calling myself one and then having to take on all the responsibilities of being one. With music, it's more like, I don't thing I'll ever be able to pull it off, like I'm staring down a series of failures and panic attacks and puzzled looks and yeah, not a whole lotta bread.
You know that slow moaning thing some people can do with their voice where it almost sounds like they're purring. Like a square wave slowed down so much that all you hear is clicks. I've caught myself making that sound a lot without realizing how long I've been at it. It's like the sound of an old hard drive when it was processing too fast. But I'm processing nothing, just making sound to soothe my own brain. I've started dancing and head bobbing a little too emphatically when listening to music in public lately. I'm doing that half assed literary speak thing where I pick up little idioms and poetic expressions that don't fit me at all and carelessly toss them around until they lose their intended effect. I wonder how far off I am from catching myself singing "Turtle Island" in a broken falsetto at work while staring blankly off into space. It's then when I think, man, I'm never gonna make it. Adults with responsibilities don't do that shit. Who am I trying to fool?

Songs:
Beach House-Gila

Gives me the shivers, that little two note guitar line just kills me. My Beach House obsession is not waning.

Round and Round-Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

So, I never was really into Ariel Pink. I saw a disastrous set at U of C years ago where we dubbed his band Tears for Suck. But hey, he's still going isn't he, and apparently improving. I guess it's a sin to diss his earlier material now that his aesthetic has taken off in certain circles, but fuck that aesthetic. I like the self assured production values Arthur Russel cribbing way more.

Flying Lotus-Robo Tussin/A Milli Remix

This has been around for a while, but I felt like posting after seeing Flylo at the Double Door, which was absolutely amazing. He's a consumate performer who knows how to get a crowd moving with sheer enthusiasm. He dropped this one and everyone went crazy.

Sorry for the mixed up embed formats, the internet is being a pain in my ass, and I'm too lazy to find a solution.

Your Sound Design Questions Answered

2010-03-26T14:17:00.000-07:00

    I haven't been writing much lately as I've been busy with sound design, band, day jobs, etc. However, I did write a little something during some rehearsal downtime. It started out as something like "letters to a young sound designer" but I thought it might be interesting to those who don't really know what I mean when I say sound designer.
   A sound designer finds, creates, or otherwise wrangles sound effects and music together for a performance, and makes sure those sounds are played at the right time for the right length of time and at the right volume. Beyond that, the definition get's sticky. In a larger theater you might have a music director, a composer, a sound designer, a sound technician, and a sound board operator. In smaller "store front" theaters, a sound designer might (frequently) have to do all the above jobs. Sound Design doesn't require a standardized technical knowledge, just enough proficiency to justify getting paid for it. The vague job requirements and varying job description will lead to a lot of ass busting to learn to do something you have no previous experience doing or (more likely) lead to a lot of embarrassing moments where you have to tell a director that either his expectations are unreasonable or totally reasonable but he hired the wrong guy, so, sorry about that.
    What the job always requires is the ability to think and learn quickly, to be articulate and specific about a very abstract and temporal phenomenon in more or less plain language, and of course, the ability to be creative in a collaborative setting, all of which require trial and error.
    If I could offer some on the job advice to anyone starting out in Sound Design, it would go something like this:

Equipment matters more than you ever want it to. This pretty much runs against every bit of punk ethos left in me but it's unavoidable. The purpose of a sound design is to help transport the audience into the world of the play, either the physical (diegetic) world or the emotional/psychological (non-diegetic) world, and to do that, you don't want a shitty lofi system coloring and distorting that sound unless the play is in a shitty lofi world. Those plays sadly don't exist. Learn what equipment is meant to do, what it can do, and what it will never do.

Yes you can do it, but do you have time? The quicker you learn this lesson, the better. It's always tempting to say yes to complex and time consuming design choices during the beginning stages of a production when you have weeks to get everything done. But when you run out of time and fall short of your grand promises, you're going to look like a lazy flake. On that note, be organized, save everything twice and create more than one draft for each big moment.

You can say no to the director, and you definitely should learn when and how, which is never in front of actors and extremely delicately. Also, never use the word "no."

Music is universal, musical tastes aren't. This is without a doubt the most frustrating aspect of the job.

Listen to hip hop. Reason 1, hip hop producers largely use the same tools as you. Reason 2, hip hop producers (and sample based musicians in general) tend to think of what a sound as a mutable material, they listen for what it can be rather than what it is. Being able to make completely new music out of say, two or three records requires a clever ear and deft technical proficiency, both of which are paramount to sound design. Reason 3, nothing sounds better after being stuck inside a theater all fucking day.

Be a geek, or at least be comfortable being called a geek. You're working in theater after all.
If you think you're too cool for the job, you're right, so don't do it.

Have a personal creative outlet, realize that this job is not that. Remember that scene in Charlie Brown Christmas where Lucy asks Schroeder to play Jingle Bells over and over again until he frustrated plunks it out note by note? It's gonna be like that sometimes.

Think about how the sound feels. If the design is good, no one will be paying attention to it but they'll be subtly affected by it. One director said it best, "With gunshots, it's not about how real they sound, it's about the emotional impact of the shot."

Unlike other design elements (staging, scenic, lighting), when you make a mistake it will be big and obvious and it will piss people off. Don't take it personally.

Always shroud your techniques in secrecy. So you spent a whole week figuring out how to power a remote speaker in the back of the house so that marching band effect can sound like it's slowly coming closer and filling the space? No one fucking cares. Not to say it wasn't a good choice, but no one is going to pat you on the back for an effect that could have been adequately accomplished by clever fading and panning. But when a director wants something to sound like it's underwater and all you do is put a tremolo and reverb on it (which takes 15 seconds) and she looks at you like your a wizard, just let her be mystified.

Have a huge collection of music, listen to it all the time. Always good to have jazz, classical, and ambient on hand (anything "moody" or textural and or rhythmic, without words).

Have the cast send you their favorite party jams and play them during preshow warmups. You will be their hero forever.

Pitch in to help someone else when you have some downtime. Again, everyone will love you.

Avoid Tom Waits, run, fly, flee. Delete it from your hard drive. When directors mention his name (trust me, this happens with staggering frequency) feign ignorance and change the subject.

At the end of the day, realize that you're working behind the scenes and there's not a lot of credit or awards being handed out. Sometimes the only way to tell you've done a good job is when no one complains and you get asked to do it again.

White/Light @ MCA=Totally Sick

2010-03-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Everywhere that I work is cooler than everywhere that you work. Don't believe me?
Do you wanna see John McEntire, Steve Shelley or Lucky Dragons play at the MCA? Of course you do. I could not be more chuffed.

Take off those clothes, you're one of them.

2010-03-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to see that the Nitsuh Abebe has his own column over at p4k. I've been following his excellent and always thoughtful blog, A Grammar for a couple weeks now so I'm excited to see his missives in a more well trafficked site. (Although, are p4k columns really read that often?) On his first outing he compares Lady Gaga and Joanna Newsome while taking on the neurotic self conscious politics of cool in the indiesphere. Definitely worth a read if you even remotely care about any of the above topics. I'm still very interested in this debate about the politics of who we find clever or innovative and who we find trite or escapist, but it's personally losing it's relevancy in my day to day life. Maybe my circles have changed but it's not often I find myself in a place where I'm actually embarassed to admit my fondness for something because of hip politics. Interning at Thrill Jockey certainly presents those moments, but the mocking tone there is more like dudes at a bar talking about basketball players than some deleted scene from High Fidelity.

   It's hard to really spot a time or place in my life where I ever really felt threatened by other people's tastes. High School had it's moments, but the cool-indie-rock-kid crowd was small and pretty self consciously not very hip and most of them were my friends and bandmates. I felt the war for what's cool was always being fought online or in New York or some other place where I had no voice. Even if I really cared (and I did) about the micro trends of New York, it was so beyond my control or influence, a world that only meant something because I decided it did. And in small ways it still does, but the ground level arguments about what's hot and what's not never seemed to be as crucial or as mean spirited as they did online. Actually watching people get riled up and pissy with each other over personal tastes is not usually all that fun or productive. As much as I like a good spirited debate, once someone get's smug or self important or just plain condescending, I'm usually out. And living in a place as fractured and contentious as Chicago, I feel like it's more beneficial to be open minded and curious than to have an entrenched viewpoint. If there's something dilettantish about that, I don't see why that's a particular problem, what's a scene without enough people who are willing or naive enough to try to walk in as many circles as they can? As long as your interest is genuine, what do you have to worry about?
    I'm not saying this just because I want everyone to be friendly and pat each other on the back. No, if anything we need to expect more from performers than to just pick a sound and stick to it. If bands want to narrow their focus and dig deep into a sound (The Walkmen) that's totally credible, enjoyable and rewarding. But bands who tap into more material, who are taking more risks and seeking out different ways of making music are essential to "the fringe" or whatever you want to call it. This is why very good bands who make very enjoyable and impressive albums (Surfer Blood, Real Estate, Smith Westerns) can ultimately be a letdown when compared to their influences. They don't seem to mean much? I'm on the fence here. Not every band should straddle themselves with the expectations of recreating music or being utter visionaries and I'm willing to look for originality and fresh ideas from bands who don't tout themselves as THE NEXT THING. But I agree with Abebe, if you're going to wear your tastes as a merit badge of adventurousness, then I don't see the point in mocking bands for their misadventures.
   If that makes a lick of sense. There's also a refreshing Liars interview up and it's good to hear these guys in in top form once again. A HL review is in the pipeline.

Perfecting Sound Forever

2010-03-04T14:12:00.000-08:00

So I just finished reading a fantastic little piece of nonfiction called Perfecting Sound Forever and I highly recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in recorded sound. Greg Milner follows the history of recorded sound and the contentious debates that continue to surround it. On the way he touches on critical theory, psychoacoustics, war profiteering, music criticism, media theory, a little bit of Adorno, and some old fashioned fanboy gushing (Pavement get's mentioned a couple times). I think this book is actually every one of my geeky interests rolled up into one single serving. Milner is not so secretly an analog enthusiast but he's quick to point out the wild eyed doomsdaying and magical thinking endemic to certain analog purists.

One of the most important things I've taken away from the book is the idea that the trajectory of musical technology was not preordained. There has always been a push towards high fidelity, having the purest representation of a sonic event, as well as a push for innovation, for creating new sounds with new technology. It's a classic example of a tool built for observation having irrevocable effects on what it observes. It's also always been a contentious subject, every new technology having it's utopian boosters and dystopian naysayers. This ongoing battle hit a fever pitch with the advent of CDs. What's most depressing about the CD chapter of the book isn't that so many people thought digital audio sounded terrible (a lot of people still feel this way) but that it was spurred by an industry desire for a format change. Neither artists/producers nor consumers were clamoring for a better format, and many of them thought it was a useless ploy. I always assumed that analog purism was something that came later, an old guy nostalgia but also a punk rock fuck you to a once very expensive medium. I didn't realize that digital audio was a contentious subject from day one. Also, the technical standards of CDs (bit depth, sampling rate) were sort of rushed into use. That is, CDs could have been more hi-def given a couple more months in development. And of course the greatest irony of all, that digitizing music would eventually be the industry's undoing.

This got me thinking about the current Tape/Vinyl revivalism. I'll admit that the most annoying trait about format fetishism is the built in nostalgia. You kinda wanna shake these people and scream "Get with it, things change, stop trying to escape into the past. The future is..." you get the point. But, there's actually a foward looking element in all this nostalgia. Becuase you don't have to listen to records and you don't have to put them out, doing either is a conscious act, a rebellion against the norm. It can seem like a pointless rebellion but it's not just empty posturing. It's also not an anti-social behavior. It creates spaces of cultural exchange where there are alternatives to the convenient and disposable (or just fickle) nature of pop culture. Although it smacks of a fad, I think it really stems from a desire for community, the very same same desire that fuels webforums and blogs.

The debate for me isn't just about sound quality. Yes, I think records sound more musical and therefore better. But it's also about having the artifact, the fetish object. Yes, it's conspicuous consumption, no it's not very "green," it's more expensive/not free (This debate could go in circles though. How much energy does it take to make an Ipod? How much did that Ipod cost? Who get's that money?). But I buy a record, the band makes some money, the label that put out their album makes some money, the record store makes some money, I get something permanent and usually desirable in exchange. It seems so quaint doesn't it? Consumerism that doesn't feel like consumerism.

Far be it from me to say this is the only way to listen or to be actively engaged with music. But it is effective and actually quite rewarding. And it's thriving, which is something the industry as a whole is certainly not doing. Polemics aside, it's a continually interesting phenomenon, especially as it consistently confounds so many people who try to shrug it off.

New/Old Flylo tracks

2010-02-23T12:31:00.000-08:00

Check them out.

Required Quarterly Destroyer Love

2010-02-18T09:09:00.000-08:00

"Even on bad days, you know you can’t feel that much worse than Dan Bejar typically does. Sometimes his guitar solos sound exactly like your soul crying out: full of pathos, longing, frustration, and a touch of mania, they whine and flail, but eventually relent back into the fold of the melody, momentarily satiated.”

--Anna P (Daftpop)

Don’t mean to over-quote this site’s internet BFF but this is exactly what’s so endearing about Bejar’s work. Some critics are quick to point out that Dan’s serpentine lyrics and reoccurring characters don’t yield much insight over repeated listens. Some people think he’s full of shit and maybe every once in a while he is. But the man is a self proclaimed maximalist and he’s more of a performer than he’s given credit for. His ability to inject real emotion into his baroque styling is by far his greatest talent. They call it “moments of unexpected sweetness” in the Destroyer Drinking Game, and although it’s not his most reoccurring trope, it’s the one I’ll drink most heartily to. Example:

Cause when a breeze is blowing,
it’s just Crystal Country showing us
that everything must break to be beautiful
and, honey, that’s what I meant when I called and said -
“This is fucked”…

If you’ve heard the man deliver this line, you know what I’m talking about. This is why I stand by This Night so firmly, it’s his most overtly romantic album and while possibly being his most guarded and cryptic work. And even if This Night isn’t your favorite, you’re still not really a true Destroyer fan unless you can name a moment where you were unexpectedly hit right in the gut by one of his songs. It’s why his fans will listen to the 12 minutes of “ambient disco” and the intentionally clunky opening passages of Bay of Pigs. It’s because you know there’s gonna be a payoff at some point. For me, it’s when the handclaps come in and “You were on the side of good” and suddenly you go from doing the awkward shoulders only dance to full on getting down in your living room. Alone.

And you say something like “Fuck you Dan Bejar, fuck you indeed.” And some how, I think that’s exactly what you wants me to say.

reblogged from http://hypocritelistener.tumblr.com/

A New Home (Possibly)

2010-02-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

Hey peeps,
I'm testing out a move from blogger to tumblr. Tumblr has a lot of things going for it including a more flexible interface and most importantly, the ability to upload tracks without using a 3rd party site. My hope is that I can get more music and other non-rant posts out more quickly and open this thing up a bit.
I've had no probs with blogger and I'm going to keep the blogspot running for now. Maybe we can have an open relationship. Let's hope. Here's the new girl:

hypocritelistener.tumblr.com

Right now it's just the old posts but soon there will be more content than you ever hoped for or even wanted. Stay tuned.
-Nigel

Valentine's Day Mix

2010-02-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

First, some more Spoon rumination via Cokemachineglow:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5118/spoon-transferenceCP-2010

I really love that CMG does counterpoint articles, especially when it's about an artist I really love like Destroyer or Spoon. Alan and Calum make some good points here, but I still think Spoon have their heads up their asses. But for sure, I'm glad the album is something different (even though that difference highlights what is still unfortunately very much the same). And also, I don't know Britt (I did meet him once after a show, he was a perfect gentleman) so I'll back off a bit with the personal for now. Also, sorry for the John Mayer rant, it won't happen again.

Oh, and a mix!

I got Chicago's finest sons The Clams here with an AMAZING new song, some Beach House, my favorite Sea and Cake track and some other songs for a lonely Valentine's Day. Or maybe even a romantic Valentine's Day, or maybe just for killing time while you're on the internet. Much luv...

Hypocrite Valentine by nigelharsch

Closer to the Clams-The Clams
Silver Soul-Beach House
Parasol-The Sea and Cake
We Could Walk Together-The Clientele
The Letter-The Box Tops
Sun Was High (So Was I)-Best Coast
Oh How I Miss You-Broadcast
Type Slowly-Pavement
September Gurls-Big Star
Little Dreamer-Future Islands

A Quick Thought on John Mayer's Dumb Ass

2010-02-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard yet, Mr. "Your Body is a Wonderland" Mayer recently drank a little too much scotch and got "raw" in a recent Playboy interview. He said some pretty inane shit like "my dick is kind of a white supremacist," claimed he had something called a "hood pass," referred to Jessica Simpson's body as both a drug and then later called her "sexual napalm" which makes me wonder whether or not Mayer knows that napalm isn't a drug. Anyway, I could go on but you've probably heard enough and if you haven't just google it, "John Mayer is a huge douche" is still one of the hottest search terms.
Um, so yeah. John Mayer is maybe a racist, almost definitely a misogynist, and for sure is a fucking moron. But that doesn't really surprise me. The man has a Stevie Ray Vaughan tattoo and makes sincere adult contemporary songs about just wanting to get stoned. This guy obviously lives in a postmodern nightmare where things signify nothing and fessing up to your insecurities while cavalierly admitting your own self absorption is what passes for authentic (thanks Kanye!). But for me, what's most interesting is a small moment when he talked about Jennifer Aniston disagreeing with him about his Twitter use. Mayer wrote her off as being stuck in the past, not willing to realize that the rules of the fame game have changed. And for once in my life, I actually felt bad for Aniston. After enduring an all too messy and public divorce she has this douchebag telling her she doesn't share her personal life enough with the public. I can hear him now, "Sorry babe, you gotta get with the program. You got fight for their hearts and minds you know, gotta keep people interested. Hey, how bout I tell them about how I like fucking airheads and getting stoned, and you can pout about your divorce. They'll eat that shit up." Hell, I might even be more sympathetic if that was the case, but I honestly think there isn't really a divide between Mayer's public and private life.
Well, you live by the sword, you die by the sword. I know, douchebags are going to think he's gutsy for being so "real" and I'm sure there are enough female fans out there who secretly believe they could change him. But at least we have some hard and fast evidence that this guy really is a total ass.

Effusive Praise for Beach House

2010-02-02T16:01:00.000-08:00

"I'm going to warn everyone right now, I'm not going to shut up about this band"
    If there is one reason that music is always near the top of my list of priorities, it's because of the specific intangible feeling I get when I first fall in love with an album. I say album here because as much as falling for a song is worthwhile and even at times transcendent, there is nothing on this earth like falling hard for a set of songs and listening to them ad nauseam just to extract (strangle) every bit of excitement out of it. It's comparable to every rotten cliche about falling in love I know, and though it falls short of the excitement of a new relationship, falling in love with an album is rarely a regrettable decision.
    Let it be said that I have unequivocally fallen like, deeply in love with Teen Dream. From the first morning I listened to it on a blustery train ride to work to just the other night when Victoria Legrand sang me to a deep and satisfying sleep, it's been hard to tear myself away from these songs. This isn't like falling for the cute girl in the sweater sitting alone at the cafe, this is like meeting someone you feel like you've always known and feeling a little scared about how comfortable you feel around them. This is talking about the meaning of life at 4am while trying to fight back sleep so you can watch the sun come up. This is looking back at the loves in your life and still not having all of the answers, still not being able to draw simple conclusions from them. Why am I telling you this? Because I have a hunch that if you're not into falling in love, you're probably not gonna be too into this album. And that's kind of a damned shame.
    Let me make this clear before I continue to blush, Teen Dream is coherent, it's chalk full of surprising melodies as well as deft and tasteful instrumentation. It builds off the strengths of their previous work while striking out into new territory. The critics agree, this is a good album. It isn't a reinvention of the form, it isn't going to contain too many sounds you've never heard, and I really don't think anyone's going to laud the complexity or virtuosity of the band (with exception to Legrand's golden set of pipes). CMG even went so far as to call the instrumentation "staggeringly uninventive" in an otherwise positive review. And there's nothing much resembling an extra-textual/conceptual/meta gesture anywhere on the album, so let's agree that it's sincere, that what you're hearing can be judged prima facie. Now, I think this is interesting. A band who's work is not just more interesting than the halo of discussion surrounding it, but a band that is almost devoid of the kind of baggage that initiates the rite of instant backlash. I can't imagine being embarrassed about my love for this record in say three weeks when they have a meltdown in Spain. The band has proven it's worth quietly for years now. Sure, there's always the chance for hipster hatred, though Baltimorons don't seem to suffer the same ire as their Brooklyn counterparts. And there will be those who dismiss anything this pretty as trite, but they're not really worth arguing with. So what we have here is a rare record that stands to be judged without the noise of hip politics or the tiresome cockfights of who's more avant-garde. Hopefully.
    So for me, the only question left for to ask is this: are you or aren't you in love with this album? If not, whatever, we'll talk later. I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you. This isn't like my love for Women or The Dirty Projectors where I feel like I'm defending my favorite sports team, always discussing the finer details of what makes them unarguably great. This time I just feel bad if you can't get with this.
    And for now, why not leave it there? You can be sure this band is going to pop up on this site in the future and be forewarned not to mention this album around me if you don't have some serious free time on your hands. But please, give this a serious listen. I don't think you'll regret it.

Spoon get's iffy, Nigel get's pissed.

2010-01-26T17:53:00.001-08:00

I wanted to avoid saying it, but this new Spoon album kinda sucks. And by kinda, I mean that at best, this record is half empty. We could focus on the half that's full, but the highlights on this record are not that surprising and often only serve to remind us the band still has a pulse. Fortunately, my feelings on the album have been articulated elsewhere by a better writer. Here's a gem from that review:

Alan wants to call this “the agony of Britt” and I see entering the field of discussion how many points we should give the record for being a break-up album, as if the world doesn’t have enough of those. For one, it’s difficult to avoid letting rumors of Britt’s mackscapades taint one’s perception of the theme here (CMG’s got friends you never called back, Britt [or just creeped out]) but move away from slander and Transference becomes even less interesting and/or affecting. Here the break-up aftermath leaves Britt full of uncertainty in the most obvious and uncompelling way possible: track titles/themes that are questions and songs that consist of series of negating or circular statements. “Written in Reverse” is half Cobainisms, for crying out loud.

The rest of the review focuses more clearly on the technical/musical shortcomings, but the above passage hit a special nerve. I admit, I'm more aware of the gossip surrounding Britt's personal life than normal fandom should allow. I'm not going to defend this, but I will point out I'm not the only Spoon fan who's heard some disappointing shit about Mr. Daniels and his ways with young female fans. And let's be fair, he's written pretty openly about his personal life since getting dropped by Elektra. Hardcore Spoon fans have stuck with this band for over a decade, from critic's darlings to indie stars to just plain rockstars, kept on board by a faith in their talents. And so, unfair as it may be, when I hear those stories (and there are plenty) about Britt's sleazy dbag antics, I become increasingly unforgiving of their misteps, especially when those misteps involve chinzy romance and well worn real emotional trash ("Goodnight Laura"). It makes me wonder about all those dudebros and jail-baiting indie-teen girls that make up a Spoon show these days, and whether or not I still want to be carrying a torch for these guys.

If Spoon fans have one go-to defense for their less than perfect frontman, it's that Britt is A) incredibly talented and B) has always been kind of a rock star in his own mind. Let there be no doubt that Britt is still very talented. Proof of this fact can be found on "Who Makes Your Money." As far as lyrics go, they're obtuse bordering on totally hollow but actually used to great effect, which is to say it's vintage Spoon. It's what I wish more of the album was, obtuse, vague, and above all, little self deprecating. Instead, we get empty promises, "hang ups and pain," vocal strangulations and posturing. The cold hard truth is that this album is full of underdeveloped and/or overcooked efforts dressed up as "experimental Spoon" songs that mostly just remind me of how much better Spoon used to be. And to top it off, we have some of Britt'smost egregious lyrics since the band's debut. And what are all these songs about? Britt's love problems.

On that note, I do think the album is brilliantly titled. It's a perfect forewarning for the unwanted and half stated emotions that litter the album. Conceptually, it does work and if you're into examining albums as art objects more than enjoying them, this may be your favorite Spoon album by far. If wikipedia is right, and transference is the psychological phenomena of projecting emotions from past relationships unto someone else (commonly the psychotherapist), then Britt is more self aware than I give him credit. The ghost of Spoon's past lingers heavily on this record, and no, not often in a good way. There are too many reasons Spoon shouldn't renege it's past. They already sound so much like themselves in everything they do as it is and they've already released strong material that's taken stock of their previous successes. But the biggest reason Britt shouldn't rehash his old songs or his old loves is that he's already released to many goddamned breakup albums as it is, and at this point he's run out of anything worthwhile to say. In fact, I wonder if Britt's hasn't regressed emotionally since Love Ways and Girls Can Tell.

Am I being fair? As a critic, probably not. But as a fan, I gotta be concerned as to where this guy's at these days. The man showed so much promise for so many years that I get kinda sick thinking about Britt settling for rockstar cliches or love-is-a-battlefield sentiment. I still expect great things from this guy, but I think he needs to push himself further both musically and emotionally in order to articulate anything past his own malaise. Granted, in the past his malaise has served his career well. But songs like "Small Stakes," "Anything You Want," or "The Way We Get By" were resonant because they expressed the longing and self doubt of your everyman, the Underdog. These days the dude's making love in backseats of cars with a stream of available groupies and I'm still supposed to care?

There are other some nit-picky complaints as well, like where the hell is Jim Eno on this? I know, he's behind the mixing board and yeah, his strengths as a producer still shine. But Jim has fallen asleep on two of his sacred duties: coming up with good drum parts and keeping Britt in check. Major douchebag Eric Harvey is still in the band (no, I've met him, he's a douche), the production is often lo-fi when it should be crystal clear and vice-versa, and the soundscape is way too cluttered. I should pat these guys on the back for stretching themselves and not just phoning an album in (actually, some parts do literally sound like they were recorded via cell phone, so maybe the boys are being really self aware here) but I expect more next time. My advice, ditch your keyboard player, go some place where people don't think you're the shit and if you find the time, grow the fuck up man.

ADDENDUM:

I would feel bad if I never admitted there are some pretty strong points on this album. I got to thinking whether or not the band actually had a decent EP/Maxi Single marred by the filler surrounding it. Now, as much as I'm willing to be hard on Spoon (because I really love so much of their work that's not Transference), I hesitate to cavalierly chop up someone else's artistic statement. But if you want to be perfectly honest, the Great New Spoon EP That Never Was is turning out to be much more rewarding. So here's the tracklist I settled on:
1 Is Love Forever
2 The Mystery Zone
3 Got Nuffin
4 Who Makes Your Money
Still not a bulletproof release, but with some minor touches I think it would sit well with Soft Effects and Love Ways. So there, I'm still a Spoon enthusiast.

Some random thoughts to unceremoniously kick off another year of Hypocrite Listener

2010-01-22T13:06:00.001-08:00

I haven't posted anything in a while, and not for lack of trying. In the past month, I've started out on several Big Idea writing projects for the site which never really took hold. Of those failed efforts there was:

A misguided attempt to defend Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeroes as harmless hippie nostalgia. That one fell apart pretty quickly. I still enjoy three of their songs immensely. "40 Days," "Carries On" and "Home" are serviceable, enjoyable, and in some moments even impressive. However, I'm not sure I want to put myself in the icky position of defending them with anything resembling criticality. And what's more, I don't think the band needs any critical support. It's a Get On The Bus kind of thing, either you want to hang with the dirty hippies or your disgusted by it. Me, I don't mind their cotton candy spirituality, these songs are fun to sing along to.

A massive top 20 albums of the aughts list which was growing into a sprawling directionless mess of my own mixture of personal history and half baked cultural criticism. Even though reading it was becoming more and more painful, it took me way too long to finally just abandon ship and come back to reality. I almost deleted my blogger account twice, that's how fed up with my own writing I'd become. Chalk it up to a chemically altered cabin fever and just generally having too much time on my hands, most of which is spent behind a keyboard. However, I did put Girls Can Tell at number two and felt better about myself for some reason.

A review of the new Spoon album, Transference. This might actually happen, I'm still listening to the album. The guys still can't seem to make a truly mediocre album, and even though some of these songs are the band's most underdeveloped, at least their studio trickery keeps it interesting. It's also good to see Britt trying to push himself further, even if the results are mixed. "Who Makes Your Money" is the required A+ track that seals the band's credibility and thwart's any accusations of laurel resting or half-assing. I'll wait to see how well it stands up over the year.

I've also been wondering how to feel about this Surfer Blood album. I like it, it's solid and serviceable. It has held up to a couple of listens and is pretty close to the music my band makes, or I could see being lumped in with them if we were ever lucky to be in that position. But I'm not sure how I feel them in the context of Japanadroids or Cymbal's Eat Guitars. I'm not sure how good I feel about the return of the straight up indie-rock record.

And there's the noble project of trying to develop a more coherent way of approaching music. This comes from my embarrassingly late-blooming intellectual curiosity in music. As much as I've tended to like critically acclaimed and/or "challenging" music, I've actually never wanted too put much thought into it. So I've got a lot of unconnected dots of interest and conjecture when it comes to how I feel about music. I like Daft Pop's project of articulating subjective thoughts on music, I also like No Trivia's more analytic "I'm gonna break this down for you" style of writing, and even the Wire's wry seriousness. And as much as I could just keep doing the whole personal anecdote thing, I'm pretty bored with my own personal cosmology. Need to find something difficult to do and do it right.

Also wondering why so (it seems to me, in my personal context) many people are really pretty bored with new music right now. I chalk it up to getting older. But how fucking depressing is that? At 23 I'm already getting to old to give a fuck about new bands? Is it me, or is the music industry so lazy that it can only focus it's attentions on the fickle tastes of the desperately hip, the ravenous star worship of the young or the staid tastes and nostalgia of the old and boring? Was it just always like this? Are the 20's inherently a darker and more pessimistic time, or is this a product of living in an era of diminishing returns and low hopes. It's ridiculous saying this after 09 gave me not one but three fantastic favorite new albums and plenty of big events to get excited about. It could be another symptom of the New Year slump, something I seemed to skip last year because of Merriweather and the inauguration. Also, I'd like to take a moment to say Fuck You to all those selfish, hypocritical Massachusetts voters who thought it was more important to elect a Senator who drives a truck, watches sports, and "get's them" than to elect someone who would vote to make Ted Kennedy's dream a reality. Yes, the bill sucks, the Dems wasted time, Martha Coakley is a terrible candidate, I know. But don't you see what you've given the GOP? If state healthcare insurance is good enough for you, why isn't it good enough for the rest of us? I digress...

Overly ambitious content is on it's way. Thanks for reading.

Two late year oddities

2009-12-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

A) A bizarre and growing obsession with Australian Rules Football

B) This Song
04 Carries On-Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros by nigelharsch

A Hypocrite Winter Mix

2009-12-20T17:22:00.000-08:00

A quick mix for the after the holidays winter sucks blues...
Hypocrite Winter Playlist by nigelharsch

Kurt Vile-The Hunchback
Kanye West-Love Lockdown
Dismemberment Plan-Spider in the Snow
Belle and Sebastian-Seeing Other People
Flying Lotus-Robo Tussin
Atlas Sound-Shelia
Spoon- I Summon You
The Walkmen-Red Moon
The Chills-Pink Frost
Tortoise-Charteroak Foundation
Wire-Outdoor Miner
Destroyer-Goddess of Drought
Animal Collective-Winters Love

A Quick Top Ten of 2009

2009-12-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

Was 2009 an off year for music? Well, I have to admit that I struggled a little bit to actually fill all ten slots without dipping into less than stellar material. You could say there was a stagnation, or a dry spell for much of the year. But, you could just as easily point to what are, for me, the big three: Merriweather Post Pavilion, Veckatimest, and Bitte Orca. Say what you will about the rest of this year's output, these albums are massive leaps forward. Merriweather may not be the single best album AC has put out, but it solidifies them as masters. Veckatimest is long and often spare, but lush and heartbreaking. And Bitte Orca is a nonstop revelation of joy.
There's also a lot of records I haven't given an honest chance. I would love to write brilliant take downs of say, XX or Fever Ray, but I felt more ambivalence than anything. Even my least favorite band this year, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart weren't even much to hate. And there are just as many albums I thought were good or even great, but haven't yet fell in love with, like The Woods' Songs of Shame, Doom's Born Like This, Atlas Sound's Logos, No Age's Losing Feeling, Neon Indians Psychic Chasm, and of course number eleven on my list, Embryonic. And like any good year, I spent some time getting into older shit, like Dilla's Donuts, FlyLo's Los Angeles, T-Rex's The Slider, Extra Golden, Station to Station. But for the hell of it, here we go, my top 10 favorites of 2009:

Diamond District-In The Ruff
No one I've actually met knows anything about this album, which is quite sad. With all the questions of Hip Hop's life or death this year, there were certainly some major milestones including Raekwon's return, Doom's return, Dilla's eternal presence over both hip hop and avant music, online mixtapes looking to eclipse albums in importance, Kanye Going robo-soul, Jay trying to kill robo-soul on one song while cashing in on it in others on the same album. But my favorite hip hop album I've heard this year seems blithely removed from the fray. Sure, there's Dilla's influence, Oddisee mixing shimmering hazed beauty with 90's boom-bap, and it is kinda like a mixtape, really more just a standard album released for free. Otherwise, this albums is in a world of it's own. It's a deft examination of the unshocking and unglamorous world we spend most of our time in. There's Bush era paranoia and distress mixed with Obama era optimism and anxiety, elegant but unshowy MC'ing over some fantastic beats, and a deep love for the genre. It may just be my rockist tendencies, but I couldn't help but fall hard for this one.

Wavves-Wavvves
You have to go back before this summer, before Nathan William's 'meltdown,' before the bloodshed to understand why this sounded so exciting when it came out. Better than the lofi-for-lofi-sake artists and their summery nostalgia, this album actually nails the bitter nihilism of idle youth. It sounds like something taking form, which is to say, not perfect. It's frequently antisocial and solipsistic, doesn't offer much in the way of good vibes. As bizarre as his trajectory has been this year, Nathan Williams has remained the real snot nosed nothing-to-lose punk this year. And despite all the setbacks, he's now in better position than ever touring with a tight backing band than can actually do his work the fierce live performance it deserves. I still have high hopes for this guy.

The Clientele-Bonfires on the Heath
I know I'm getting old and boring, but these gents are masters.

Tortoise-Beacons of Ancestorship
You know what can be a bummer? Having an album you love by one of your favorite hometown artists get a total pass of a review. You know what's the best revenge? Having said album sell all of its copies in one week. The dumbass who said this album is hermetically sealed is mistaking the bands demeanor for it's musical output. Aside from the one obligatory Doug McCombs helmed Ennio Morricone tribute, the album is the band's most focused and unrelenting release, and one that is quite aware of what's going on right now. Let's talk about those synth sounds, how unlike the icy and alienating synth wash presets everyone else's keyboards are stuck on this year, these are slice your brain open, pound you into submission, loud as fuck. And the beats. Herndon and McEntire push pull and stretch them, internalizing the chopped up sampler style into live playing and then, you know, fucking with them some more. So yeah, what I'm saying is, unless your not really into music, you probably don't want to miss this one.

Destroyer-Bay of Pigs EP
I wasn't sure I liked this when I first heard it. I wondered if Dan had really gone off the deep end this time, and whether or not I was really down with that. But it won me over in the end, and it may be one of my favorite things he's ever done. There's something free and easy in his delivery here, like he's actually having a good time out there at the pier or at the park. And goddamn if 10 minutes of Ambient Disco didn't just make me want even more out of him.

Kurt Vile-Childish Prodigy
Really, this pick stands in for several records the man has released in the last several months. From Constant Hitmaker's bedroom pop, to The Hunchback EP and it's swampy bombast, to this stellar muscular classic. I could easily pick apart his mix of am rock and Neil Young worship if the man wasn't so clever, so charming, and so dedicated to what he does. Seeing him live was a highlight of my year.

The Clams-Mindbanging
I'm not just being nice to my friends. This isn't even technically a 2009 release, I don't care. The Clams dominate.

Grizzly Bear-Veckatimest
Beautiful.

Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavillion
Beautiful and you can dance to it. I actually haven't listened to this as much as I thought I would, because it feels so much like a special event. When it came out last winter, I felt essential, like I needed this album to exist to get through to May, and I may have just overplayed it. I may be returning to it for sanity sake pretty soon here. We can quibble where this album ranks in their discography, but choosing one of their albums over another other would be pretty pointless. But this year, there's only one other album that I've let slip under my skin as much as this one.

The Dirty Projectors-Bitte Orca
Oh my fucking god. It's over. When that guitar comes down on "Another Chamber" and shit hits the fan and every sound goes into spasmodic fits, it's one of those pure essential musical moments for me. This is where I check out from objective debate, or even from subjective analysis. The feeling this album gives me is something I wish I could telepathically transmit to everyone I know. I don't care if there's basically a Nico cover song on it, I don't care if the last track is a buzzkill ending. More albums should be made at this level of creativity and musicianship, more albums should work as hard and risk failing and turn out sounding as bat shit insane as this one. Fuck the haters, I believe in this band.

All in all, not the worst year for music. Despite having a kind of eneven year, I still feel like we're living in the middle of a solid period for music making. That may not feel as exciting as being at the beginning of a new era, but it's not as depressing as feeling your at the logical end of something. And as far as the aughties, it may not have been the best decade, but it was nothing of not interesting.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Hypocrite Listener vs Daftpop Mix Showdown part II-I'm turning this into a summmit

2009-12-14T20:17:00.001-08:00

First, since Anna made such a fantastic list with a far superior defense attached to it, I'll give it a track by track response. My unfocused rant will follow. So let's dive in...

Beyonce-Single Ladies
This song never really did it for me, but I'll admit to the power of this song. I actually like the verse's melody more than the chorus. I've seen people just lose their shit dancing to this, so I'll back down from criticism.

Big Boi and Gucci-Shine Blockas
I love this song so much. Oh man yes, yes yes.... It reminds me of the first time I heard Hey Yeah or Ghettomusick, like getting my mind kicked in. I just feel like Big Boi tries a little harder than most to deliver, like he doesn't phone it in. This year's Int'l Players Anthem.

Fabolous and The Dream-Throw It In The Bag
Not feeling this one. Seems like paint by numbers to me.

Ghostface-Do Over
Fantastic. Maybe it's unfair to give props to straight up samples over synth beats that sound like samples, but the production gives the song a life blood, a warm throbbing thing to ground it. Maybe I'm too much a product of the 90's. I will never fuck with Wu Tang anything.

Beyonce-Halo
I've never appreciated this song until now. Beyonce is a great performer, her timing and delivery are perfect here. This is something I don't think Rihanna (I'm sorry) could pull off. One qualm, the production is pretty schlocky. Like, they could have had some real strings here, it would done her voice justice. Maybe it would have broken the aesthetic of the album as a whole, but it would have elevated the song. And if the Dirty Projectors can afford real strings, than Ryan Tedder can put down his fucking synths for one second.

Pet Shop Boys-All Around The World
Ok, I like this song. There are a number of indie acts working within these tropes, but none I've heard do them justice like this. I don't like his voice but fuck it. Maybe I just got spoiled by Beyonce on the last track.

Basement Jaxx-Scars
This is sweet, great dubstep vibe. This got me out of my seat on first listen to dance around alone in my apartment. Ace pick.

Elektrik Red-Freaky Freaky
Not doin' it for me. When “My Love” came out it seemed revelatory, like the future of music. But those synth stabs now just take me right back to 2006. Although this is a decent track, it's using some well worn tricks.

MSTRKRFT-Heartbreaker
This is close to cheating Anna, dude was in DFA1979. I do really like this track though. Some straight up dance material, but done exceedingly well. Love those oh's.

Kanye West-Knock You Down
This sounds like Kanye phoning it in. I feel like I've heard this song before.

Raekwon-Cold Outside
YES. Right here, I like that the bass is kinda low in the mix, and that sample is tinny and a bit harsh. It allows the tension to build up to a desperate fever pitch. And those chorus vocals are the best argument against the current trend of robo-pop singing I've heard this year (close second is DOA). This is so fucking good, nothing I picked even touches this Anna. Again, Wu Tang=probs gonna love it.

Lady Gaga-Bad Romance
This right here is Rococo. So, Lady Gaga is channeling some interesting source material, and she has an impressively wide range of vocal stylings. Her lyrics sway between cheesy and clever, and there's something liberating and weird and subversive about her. She is still suffering from some of that robo-future shock that's all over the radio right now. Granted, she was a progenitor of that sound. Still sounds expensive and hollow, so perfect for clubbing.

The Dream and Kanye West-Walking on The Moon
The Dream wins me over on this one. It's hard to say why exactly. Seems a little more restrained, more relaxed than the other tracks he's done. This get's close that 80's late era Motown hit sound.

Cam'ron-My Job
Thank you for introducing me to this song. We need more mundane-shit songs like this. Did you ever listen to that Diamond District album? It's not as funny as this, but has the same M.O. I guess the lesson here for me is that I do love Hip Hop after all.

Clipse-Kinda a Big Deal
This has a good Madlib/Dilla style stutter beat to it. I actually like this better on the second listen. Still think the rhymes are a little flat here, some retread Kanye shit.

Basement Jaxx-Raindrops
Another winner. I don't listen to enough dance music. Don't have a single criticism, just love.

Oh my god Anna, you've written quite a response to my mix. I've missed a lot of these songs, which is admittedly pretty sad. So we'll wait until later to say which mix is better (if that's necessary or even possible) but you certainly have won in the war of words/blog posts. Your post actually had me excited to hear these songs, which is something that countless Slate articles and NY times pieces could not do. So I'll concede defeat as far as that goes. Beers are on me.
Also, I've realized something that has been staring me in the face for a while but didn't want to admit. I've turned my head away from top 40 music for so long, I don't even think of it as a choice. Like, I stopped listening or caring at around 13 (a nadir for radio if you remember) so now I'm actually just lost anytime I think about pop music actually being, you know "popular." I can't read the signposts anymore. Whereas the very popular but still secondary world of "indie" or just sorta-pop, or critically acclaimed pop (or whatever) is a territory I feel more comfortable in. And when things happen there, in that world of music obsessives and innovators/trendspotters, they matter to me more than what ever happens in the top strata of cultural exchange. I mean really, pop radio could fucking burn to the ground for all I care. And yeah, that's a pretty childish thing to say. I'm know not everyone feels that way, nor should they, but I guess I should own up as to where I'm at.
But, allow some last bitter defenses for the independent world:
   As much my auto-tune beef sounds geriatric, I still stand by my assessment that pop music suffers from a serious case of dumbed down production values. Now maybe the production contains some quality compositional merits or even stylistic innovation, but as far as sound design/engineering (sense of space, dynamics, harmonic richness, timbre), it sounds depressingly flat and similar. I think this is one of the overlooked aspects of say Dilla or FlyLo, that the music actually takes up physical space in a very different way. Some of that has to do with source material and composition, but a lot of it is production values, straight up.
   This is a complaint of someone who loves records as discreet art objects, who doesn't mind turning up the volume for a quiet section of a song, that will actually sit in front of a stereo and do nothing but listen to a record. So, yes, it's unfair to criticize pop music for being super compressed (within an inch of it's dynamic life) when that is a technical concern for radio play and ipod listening (shit needs to be loud to be heard on the train, in the club, or let's be honest, as your ringtone). BUT, I think it's plenty fair to say there's more than one way to skin a cat, and that record producers have been shy when it comes to fucking with anyone's expectations as far as what a top 40 record should sound like. If you've ever heard the early leaked versions of 808's and Heartbreaks, you'll see what I'm saying. The leaked version of “Robocop” is far superior. Sounds jumping out at you, the vocals even a little low in the mix, the over all effect actually less robotic sounding than the overcooked album version. And what about the independent world? Well, recording aesthetics abound, lofi, midfi, glowfi, expansive and spare (Grizzly Bear), expansive and dense (Animal Collective), intentionally shitty (Wavves), and many that will mix it all up (Bon Iver's haunting and genius use of autotune). This seems like a small bone to pick, except that this shit is literally in my head for hours a day, so I like timbral variety. This rant could go on forever, this is obviously a Nigel centric issue.
    Here's a more hasty defense: Independent music, as codified as it is, is actually more of a free for all. You'll have to allow in the definition of “independent music” to include bands and albums not on Pitchfork's Best New Music List, or even on p4k at large. Independent labels release more records by more bands. Maybe majors move more units, but the indie world has a larger roster. And it may seem like small stakes to some people, but there's a lot of squabbling and debate between the different camps of bands who often have to share the same stage on the same night. As much as Jay Z listening to Grizzly Bear is undeniably cool, it's also just the biggest name of one world giving props to one of the biggest names of another. There are weirder and wilder bands informing each other, playing the same festival, and sometimes those conversations can get interesting. Hipsters may look the same, but there are battles going between these kids (over some stupid shit at times. Ok, maybe most of the time). That is to say, no one totally dominates and it's hard to win everyone over (even for AC). Now, who's actually gonna take potshots at Jay Z?
But, I will admit there are some real virtuosos and innovators on your list. And, I do like a lot of it at first listen. In fact, overall, it's made me a bit more poptimistic. So thanks for the mix. I didn't expect this to turn into a summit (yes I did), but I'm glad to have done this. Means a lot to me, Anna.

Stay critical or die,

Nigel

Snap Judgements

2009-12-12T08:42:00.000-08:00

So I took a sick day and decided to vegetate around the house while the -10 windchill made everyone else miserable. To pass the time I decided to listen to some of the Pfork Best New Music picks I haven't yet heard and write some initial thoughts. The rule was one or two sentences a song. Here's what I found:

Real Estate-S/T
1. Like this a lot, not too overdone
2. A little plodding by second track
3. So the first track is uptempo for this band. Still like the tone and aesthetic, 'cept for the drums. This is somewhere between slow Pavement and early Shins.
4. But still pretty winning. Damn guys.
5. Oh, I get it, they don't have a drummer. I Like Springsteen's Atlantic City better.
6. Oooh. They do wrangle maximum emotion out of minimal technical skill. Not a slight.
7. Meh.
8. This has a cool blossoming Jim O'rourke style beginning. Yeah, this one's good. Little long though.
9. Ok guys, where's your jam switch? It's time to find it and turn it off. Also, this does not sound like a beach being rocked.
10. Like the song, still hate that drum sound though, and the voice is getting to me. Feel a little underwhelmed.

Alright, the album does have a cohesive sound, and is pretty well sequenced. And there is something romantic about coming back to your hometown and making an album with your old friends. Creating romance for a place you once thought was miserable, I can get behind that. But there's a way better album that does the same thing, and it's Spoon's Girls Can Tell. And as far as hazy pop albums, do we really need another one this year?

Bear in Heaven-Beast Rest Fourth Mouth
1. Bongos, why did it have to be bongos? Dude's voice has that thing that makes it sound thin with reverb, like the guy from Band of Horses or Getty Lee.
2. Pheonix + Isaac Brock's guitar. You didn't work for that chorus. Who mixed this?
3. This could be a lot better.
4. Wait, is this Rush?
5. Ok, so it's like Wire without the tension or restraint. Truly bored.
6. Favorite song so far, much simpler and economical. Ok, you earned that crescendo.
7. Bored.
8. Ok, so this album has an admittedly impressive sound. Good sound design that is, meticulous textures, and a dedication to being weird.
9. But even that awesome drum track is falling flat. Not enough room to breath. Sounds like a dull headache, in space.
10. This album makes me itchy.

Ok, so amazing chops, very adventurous band. But man that sound is dense, too much future shock. Maybe exactly the opposite of Real Estate. I prefer Real Estate.

Skipping the Hyperdum comp cuz reviewing comps aint fun. Ah yes...

Fuck Buttons-Tarot Sport
1. Sweet.
2. Sweet.
3. Awesome. Oh yeah.
4. Still really awesome.
5. These guys can do whatever they want with sound. My only complaint about Fuck Buttons is that normal life doesn't allow nearly enough proper contexts for their music. It takes a lot out of you.
6. Little too close to My Girls in the intro. My ears are a little fatigued.
7. The Fuck Buttons make me wish I was at a rave.

More dense than the first album, which I might actually like a bit more. More holy-shit moments on this one though. Listening casually while writing sentence length reviews is not how you should listen to this album.

Skipping Atlas Sound becuase I've already heard it and like it. Skipping Mountain Goats because I truly dislike them. Oh what's this, a new Beck single? Oh chillwave, this is gonna be quick...

Neon Indian-Psychic Chasms
1. Alright, cool intro
2. Ok, I'm on board.
3. Quirkier and more fun than the other so called "chillwave" or whatever, stuff like Memory Tapes or Washed Out.
4. Tape phasing, glad hipsters decided to save you.
5. Ah, this is the low budget Daft Punk part.
6. Thumbs up. High fives all around.
7. This is a great long lost GBV song title, I'm sure. Oh yeah, nice. Good job dude.
8. An arpeggiater and drum machine on tape, some vocals.
9. RIYL: Listening to Chromeo without the icky feeling of actually listening to Chromeo
10. Still on your side man.
11. But will I buy your album?

A surprise. Very fun listen, not sure of the staying power. It does have a good sense of humor and fun while not diving headlong into novelty, it remains both warm and wry. I might actually buy this.

Hypocrite Listener vs Daftpop Mix Showdown

2009-12-07T15:46:00.000-08:00

Ok so Anna, I think I may have overreacted a little bit. Maybe it's my increasing boredom and annoyance with blanket hipster hatred. This has a lot to do with working downtown with people who live on the north side who always bitch about these "stupid hipsters" who live in Logan Square and Pilsen and well, you fill in the blank. I know, it's easy to hate them/us/the other ones that aren't us/people who live in Brooklyn/the dude from Wavves and I've had more than my share of grievances aired on this here internet. But at the same time, this is sorta my generation, and as far as vaguely defined cultural aggregates go, I fall into that camp whether I like it or not. And even if I don't aspire to the shifting ideals of indieness (cuz I'm already living it motherfuckas), I still love the a lot of the music these laughably dressed rich kids make. So here it is, a brief smattering of my favorite white guys (some white girls too) with guitars (ooh, and samplers sometimes) from year 2009.

Cannibal Resource-Dirty Projectors

As far as annoying hipster baggage goes, these guys have it all. East Coast, Ivy League, classically trained, quirky vocal strangulations, afropop guitar, Brooklyn. But as much as the DP's are omnivorous and scattered in their influences, they're obsessively coherent in their sound. You want your auteur, I've got him right here. Dave Longstreth is crazy obsessed with his music, clocking in twelve hour rehearsals and touring like crazy. It pays off, nothing they've done sounds lazy or phoned in. Like it or not, you have to respect what they've pulled off.

Skin and Bones-Flashy Python

This is Alec Ounsworth of Clap Your Hands Say Yeah fame, playing here with some dudes from Man Man and the Walkmen in a one-- off balls to the wall rock album. Even amongst all the "lofi/shitgaze" albums this year, nothing has sounded as raw and loose as this album. If you thought CYHSY was too twee, here's an antidote.

Laura-Girls

Oh Girls, it's so hard to love you. This is pretty straight up nostalgia right here, but done incredibly well. It's the bassline that finally won me over. Also, I like this dude's voice, hiccups and all.

Walkabout-Atlas Sound feat Noah Lennox

Bradford Cox of Deerhunter + Panda Bear = Indiebro love in awesomeness. Also, this song could just be that one sample and I'd still love it. Did you ever listen to Deerhunter? Cryptograms is one of my favorite albums of the decade, as is Person Pitch by Mr. Lenox. Both of those albums restored my faith in music when they came out. Both of these guys are pretty fascinating people as well. I would probably most like to be friends with these guys.

Amplifier-Kurt Vile

My hero for the year, and by far my favorite new artist. KV is refreshingly free of shtick or pretense. He can hang with the lofi acts, but is too subtle to really be tagged as a one of those faux punx. He played a fantastic set at the Empty Bottle, and I think he played every request, and there we quite a few, dude has three albums and an ep out, just in the last 18 months or so.

Useful Chamber-Dirty Projectors

Oh my god I love this song. This is what I wanted the Fiery Furnaces to sound like when I heard about them, and hyperactive mixture of musical heroics except in this case, with a trajectory. Favorite nonsensical refrain of the year, every time it comes on my body goes into spams of unadulterated joy.

While You Wait for the Others-Grizzly Bear

The other great pop hit from Veckatemist. Like the last track, not afraid to lean heavily on the vocalese for a great build up. Admittedly some of the album is on the boring side. But it's neither lazy nor unoriginal. I guess this is my argument for most of these bands, that they're hard working people who make engaging and interesting work. And that still stands in contrast to the bulk of pop radio these days (as exciting as it can be, especially compared to say, the late 90s), specifically the set-it-and-forget-it trend of auto-tuned to death vocals over recycled beats and increasingly boring sampled material. On a side note, "Two Weeks" features Victoria LeGrand as well (she's ooing in the background) so maybe your love of Beach House is the real culprit here.

Imagine, Pt. 3-Smith Westerns

These guys are like 19 years old or something, and they're from Chicago. It's like Girls without all the melodrama and like any halfway decent Chicago band, I'd like them to blow the fuck up and get all the attention. We'll see.

Silver Trembling Hands-The Flaming Lips

Ok, so as far as indie as fuck goes, this is a stretch. But the rock press is all a tizzy about The Flaming Lips not sucking. And, this song makes a strong point for that.

Brother Sport-Animal Collective

It's a fucking party! No seriously. If you take nothing else away from this, I hope you appreciate the sheer and total joy of this song. Play it on the loudest sound system you can find.

Alright Piontek, I tried my best, it's your move.

No Respect: Flashy Python

2009-12-06T14:10:00.000-08:00

Flashy Python-Skin and Bones

    Ok, this is a new one, so it remains to be seen if this album picks up any steam. But as of right now, one of the best releases of the year has garnered almost no real praise from anyone outside my apartment (or so it seems). Perhaps because Clap Your Hands Say Yeah got too much attention and backlash for Ounsworth's side project to be considered as new act worthy of new fans. I suspect that this fuzzy in your face album further distances Mr. Ounsworth from reclaiming his once large appeal, and I also suspect he could give a fuck. And that is exactly why this album sounds to fresh to my ears.
    As underrated as Some Loud Thunder was, it still is largely a bridge burning, intentionally notching up the weirdness and sacrificing the hooks. It's easy to respect but at times hard to actually enjoy. Skin and Bones basically puts the hooks back into the equation, and thanks to his new bandmates (including members of the Walkmen and Man Man), he's also added some, er um, balls to his sound. It reminds me a lot of Destroyer's Rubies in the way Ounsworth seems free and easy to fly his freak flag. Though not as sprawling or epic as Rubies, it's thrilling to hear someone so brash and confident and totally unconcerned with current trends while still being concerned with making a fantastic album on his own terms.
    The production is at times gratingly distorted, but it at least maintains a dynamic range if only because of the performers. And, unlike the generic lofi sound being abused right now (often by bands who really don't need it) it actually suits the music incredibly well. Unfortunately, the production plus Ounsworth's unhinged vocals render his lyrics all but unintelligible. Overall, I'd describe the sound as drunk and sweaty, and if that sounds disgusting to you, I guarantee this isn't for you. But for me, this sounds like a show I'd really like to go to.
    Without a doubt, this is Ounsworth working at his best, and as albums go, it may be my favorite of his so far. It may not be as anthemic as his original band's debut, but it's much less self-conscious, much more off the cuff. And through the whole album, he sounds completely ON. I'm not completely sure why so many of his former fans have completely jumped ship. Perhaps it's the singer not the song, and well, it could just be plain ol' fickle trendspotting. And to be fair, Alec should maybe sober up spend more than 30 seconds before naming his next band. But I hope that the albums creators don't feel as ambivalent about it as most of their reviewers do, because they're certainly off to a great start.

Hypocrite Listener vs Daftpop mix challenge

2009-12-06T11:23:00.000-08:00

Ok so, I got a little hot headed and said some things and now I have to throw down tomorrow against my good friend Anna P in a battle of musical tastes and mix-making. Backstory here.

I'm making a mix of songs that I love that Anna may or may not have ignored in her indie malaise. I am not so much trying to beat her, as win her over, but not in the romantic sense, making this a tricky mix indeed. In the spirit of friendly competition, loser buys drinks. Probably we'll both buy drinks and then buy some more because we haven't hung out in a while and drinking is a thing I like to do with people.

Um so, dear readers, any suggestions? Any white hot 2009 hits from the indiesphere that I shouldn't leave off? Also, if you find yourself on the other side of the fence in this debate, send your submissions or moral support to Daftpop.

Ok, tomorrow I'll be ready with a mediafire link and a lot of explaining.

Music As Cultural Artifact vs Music As the Thing Itself

2009-11-21T11:26:00.001-08:00

   I had the pleasure of getting my hands on the latest (or almost the latest) copy of WIRE. This is always a good thing. I remember tooling around high school in Borders or B&N with some friends (where else are precocious and culturally hungry young people in South Bend s'posed to go?) and browsing through music mags trying to absorb as much news and information as possible. I tried to get a mental snapshot of the music world at the time, who were the big names in England, up and comers in New York, cool labels, cool festivals, cool hitherto unknown albums from the past and present. Copies of WIRE always loomed conspicuously, and I would poke my nose into for 30 seconds before lifting my head up totally confused. There was always an interview with someone I'd heard of, but most of it covered artists and genres I'd never even tangentially heard of. It was as if there was no clear entry point for me, a young man from the plains who just wanted to stay culturally relevant. Fast forward three years, I'm working at Borders on the north side during my Junior year. I work in the cafe which is gracefully located all of fifteen feet from the magazine racks. I could take home the unsold copies, their covers ripped off but so what, and again stay as current as anyone I knew. I ventured into reading WIRE as a conscious challenge to my laziness. And besides, I was already wading into an interest in experimental compositions, sound art, improv and noise. Every once in a while, I'd even read the damn thing cover to cover, reading in depth interviews with artists I'd never heard of. It's mostly incredibly intelligent writing on intelligent and serious artists.
    While reading the most recent copy, I felt like I could finally tell what really set the magazine apart, that WIRE considers music as a thing unto itself. Not that each work is hermetically sealed, every piece they review was taken within the context of the history and current climate of music, and more broadly, within the context of the Art. It's that in WIRE, music and sound art are always judged by the appropriate standards, that is primarily against the goals of the work itself. When praising say, Disintegration Loops by William Bansky, I can't imagine the review would pull an aside and say, "Well, it's not party music." Because of course it's fucking not. What an inane thing to say about a massive experimental loop based work about the impermanence of material record and in intractable nature of time. Their reveiws don't trade heavily in irony. I imagine that if they set out to review a dense and difficult work, that most writers there would take it as their duty to give that piece their utmost attention and thorough examination before weighing in on its merits.
    This is not how music criticism works in my world. For me, music criticism exists along an continuum between two schools of though: consumer reviews vs criticism as discrete artistic exercise. Most of the magazines that I used to compile my cultural snapshots featured reviews that were poorly masked consumer guides. This is the British school of music rags: they exist to give their readers a who's who, what's hot-or-not guide to the mercurial youth culture zeitgeist. On the other side was criticism in the vein of early Rolling Stone, Creem, and in some ways early Pitchfork. Long form reviews that were frequently entertaining and thought provoking reads, that may only tangentially relate to the piece of music or artist at hand. Frequently, reviewing an album is just a springboard for broader cultural critique, if not just a technical exercise of the author's talents as a writer. This is very obviously the school of thought that has influenced me most. Not only has it influenced the way I talk and write about music, but also how I listen to music, find music, weigh the importance of music in my life, even at times affecting my worldview. And so here's a review in WIRE, stoically, carefully examining a piece of music, making insights, providing useful comparisons, and never being lazy enough to confuse personal anecdote with profound insight.
    Now, let's be clear. WIRE is not for everyone, and it is at times, a little dry, maybe almost boring, or actually just boring. It's an expensive and content filled missive for people who take music seriously and who are probably very type B and maybe even a little cantankerous. That is, WIRE is written for Jim O'Rourke, and as much as I like Jimmy O, I'm not sure I'd want to grab a beer with him. But I have to wonder, are they right? Am I wrong? Not wrong because I actually do love Kid A even if it is derivative, or that I do care (begrudgingly) about Brooklyn's finest poor little rich boys, [fill in your guess here]. I wonder if the way I talk about music, the shifting standards by which I try to judge everything, are just completely off target. Under further examination, is it that all my pretensions of intellect, taste, and cultural fluency, I'm just talking up my own ass most of the time? Aren't most of us?
    This feeling is compounded by the culture shock I've experienced while working at Thrill Jockey. If your not familiar with the label, TJ trades in mostly serious, often unflashy, experimental artists such as Tortoise, The Sea and Cake, High Places, and Pit er Pat, music WIRE would write about. Although I love Tortoise and The Sea and Cake, I can't say that Thrill Jockey's catalog is really up my alley. It's growing on me for sure, but the looming lack of CULTURAL RELEVANCE (imagine this phrase hangs in big block letters like a judgmental specter over everything I say or do) just puts a little sour note on my enjoyment. Two examples come to mind. First was Pitchfork's mild review of Tortoises new album, Beacons of Ancestorship, an amazing album by any metric and a huge step for the band. The review admitted that the album was solid, exciting, made my masterful musicians. But the album lost points for being too "hermetically sealed" which in this instance I'm almost certain means "not referencing or reacting to or hanging out with any hot new bands." Then just the other night the Sea and Cake came on on someone's stereo, and I let out one of those auto-exhalations like "I looove this band" to a small chorus of eye rolls. As if I'd professed a love for Garden State in a film studies program. I know that these bands aren't for everyone, but I gotta wonder how much these two reactions have to do with those floating block letters that seem to hang over everything if you let them.
    Obvs, this is touching on a larger topic, and I'd appreciate the irony of writing a free form rumination on identity and personal taste in what started as praise for simple and direct music criticism. Maybe later. For now I'm happy to read a copy of WIRE, even if it's a little stodgy. It's like reading the New Yorker after only having read the Red Eye for weeks straight. It may not be as fun or frustrating, but it restores your faith in the world.

New Wavves Lineup Surprisingly Awesome

2009-11-18T20:38:00.001-08:00

Chicago Hipsters Vote No on Girls

2009-11-18T14:13:00.000-08:00

According to Chicagoist, the Empty Bottle shows were a sorta bust. See here:
http://chicagoist.com/2009/11/18/give_girls_a_chance.php

Also, the New York Times was not impressed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/arts/music/09girls.html

2009: Year of the instant Best New Music Curse. Also, if I'm not mistaken, the band is touring with brand new members, and no one seems to mention that in their middling live reviews. Hm.

The Sad and Beautiful World of The Clientele

2009-11-12T18:29:00.000-08:00

The Clientele - Bonfires on the Heath

   I should start by admitting that I am of those in the camp that adores The Clientele's music. I'm not what you would call a dedicated fan. Before this record came out I'd only listened to Strange Geometry and some scattered tracks. I don't know that much about the band's history or personality. I know that they're English, very English, which is to say sad, ironic, dry and pessimistic, but with a soft spot for romanticism and the occasional sunny day. What I do know is that their music affects my soul in a powerful and mysterious way. I've never put on a Clientele song that didn't alter my perception of the world around me. Like the hero in "Losing Haringey," everything around me becomes so imbued with memory and personal meaning, that a small ray of sun pouring into your kitchen is enough to make you misty. It took a while to get into Strange Geometry, but I kept coming back to those sad, beautiful, perfect songs. I'm not really into examining or exclaiming my love for them. I'm perfectly happy having a quiet and unrequited love for this little band that could.
   That was until Alasdair MacLean started his talk about packing it in for good if this album didn't make them big. Apparently the Clientele is not enough of a money making enterprise to keep four adults afloat, so if their luck doesn't change after this album, they'll have to cut their losses. This shocks me, not because the band isn't making much money (sad, but believable) but because their music, although delicate, sounded so self assured and honed. Despite MacLean's dark and often hopeless lyrics, the band's sound is an unwavering constant, like the unconditional love of a man for his art. Which is to say, money or no money, chicks or no chicks, dude's always hot his guitar right? Apparently this little love affair isn't stern enough stuff for a whole life. And I'm now much more engaged in the real world of the Clientele, and it's made their music even more heartbreaking. That warm and deeply satisfying feeling their music gives me, the one I took for granted, now seems threatened by this cold and unforgiving world, like the Nothing that slowly devours Fantastica in The Never Ending Story. Fitting then that Bonfires on the Heath is both a concerted effort to expand their sound while simultaneously being a fitting swan song. This may not be THE definitive document of the band, but I would not hesitate to recommend this album to anyone even vaguely interested in the band. And I argue, it's just as easy to fall in love with as Strange Geometry.
   The first track, "I Wonder Who We Are" bursts out of the gate with horns, jangly riffs, and stacatto 'bah be dahs' that make me wonder if the Clientele could actually have a shot at the pop charts, or at least a spot on the next hit romcom soundtrack. I mean no slight, the song is perfect pop with just a little hint of MacLean's dour style while he sings about his "littered face in the street." But this party is quickly crashed by the aching hallucinatory nostalgia of the title track. This song was apparently written after taking acid in the woods with some friends, who I'm almost sure must have included young Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, considering it's similarity to "Letdown." Again, no slight. This is not your typical acid song, there are no freak outs or psychedelic imagery, just an elliptical riff and a nervy sense of impending dread. "Harvest Time" slips right into place, continuing to lilt you to sleep or your death, a feeling that is equally comforting and disquieting. And as you feel the record is descending in to Autumnal darkness and despair, "Never Anyone but You" and "Sketch" breathe a summery breath of life and romance into the record, the former being a song that equally captures the feelings of new love and love remembered.
   I know, I'm on my way to an album narrative, something I've avoided since trying to write Kid A: The Movie. I attribute this to the strength of this album, the willingness to focus solely on the music of a band you initially felt was a little boring, for thirty odd minutes in a row. But damnit, it's a satisfying listen if I've ever heard one. Even if somber anglocentric music isn't your bag, you have to appreciate a band at the peak of their abilities.
   If this is the end of the line for The Clientele, I will be a sad man. I still have several Clientele albums to search out, and if this is the last album they release, I look forward to digging into their back catalog as slowly as I can, pretending the band is still releasing work. All that being said, I hope Alasdair and his crew will either become wildly successful, or at least have a Jay Z length retirement.

The Thing About Girls

2009-11-11T21:29:00.000-08:00

Girls - Album

   First, you will inevitably have to get past the fact the haven't fucking heard of them, even though you think so (you're thinking of either Women or the Vivian Girls though). It's usually not the worst thing in the world to be blindsided by a new critical darling whose debut just dropped like a V2 rocket into your unsuspecting life. It happened with the Arcade Fire, it seems to happen so regularly these days. But there's something excruciating about it this time and you can't say why. Maybe it's that the big names act as if they've seen these guys coming for months now. Maybe they have, that is their job and all, but you can't help but feel cheated, that despite your best efforts, you're hopelessly out of touch and getting more out of touch each second.
   This will be compounded by the the second obstacle: no one you know likes this album, or really wants to give it a fair shot. In fact, in some cases they don't even want to listen to it. You'll go to the record store and hold a copy of it in your hand and ask the clerk in all earnestness (not something you do often), "Should I buy this?" And you'll watch him struggle to be equivocal while you can tell what he wants to say is no fucking way man. This will influence your initial reaction to hearing the first ten seconds of the first four songs on your laptop speakers as you declare this to be the lamest thing you've heard this year.
   Then comes obstacle number three: both Cokemachineglow and Pitchfork love the record. Each site alone is not to be trusted, Pitchfork for its breathless sense of importance, the Glow for breathless dedication to being contrary. Yet in the rare moments when they agree, they've been safe bets (Meriweather, Veckatimest, Embryonic). Intrigued, you watch their live video on Pitchfork (which was so obviously filmed months before their hit record dropped, is this some fucking conspiracy?) and despite yourself you think, these guys are pretty good.
   You watch their music videos (pre the XXX nonsense) and read the interviews, and although there's enough to roll your eyes at, there's not enough to outright hate about them either. You are inevitably charmed by this secret insomnia fueled obsession with the band you declared unwavering hatred for just 36 hours ago. You will torrent Album and listen to it on your way to work for a week straight. It takes all of those days until you finally drunkenly declare that you love Girls, you pound the table spilling your beer and point your finger right in the face of a close friend and shout "Goddamnit, I want to be zeitgeisty!"
   After this, you'll recoil in shame. You won't listen to Album for weeks. You will again feel cheated, feel that your love for this record was ill begotten and lame, more revealing of your own desperate desire to be relevant than your musical tastes. You come just as close to pounding another bar table at another bar and drunkenly declare yourself a sham, but decide against.
   But then, the song "Summertime" will come on random on a freak warm November day, and you'll be lovestruck again. But for whatever reason, you won't listen to the rest of the album.

   I've been meaning to write something on Girls for a long time now. And only now that enough html has been spilled on the subject do I finally feel like putting my two cents in. For what it's worth, Album contains some of the most likable and affecting songs this year. It also contains just as many charming but forgettable numbers. The record does sustain a mood of sunkissed (sunsoaked, sundrenched, sunbaked, sundried, take your goddamn pick) heartbreak, and yes, has a hazy, dare I say narcotic sound to it. But, about that, hm, ah, meh. Christopher Owen's talent for writing pop songs is strong but not nearly perfect. The band's strengths aren't in the woozy nightime songs, like "God Damned" and "Headache" or nor in the tongue-in-cheek brattiness of "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker". Girls is at their best when letting it all out, on "Lust for Life," "Laura," "Hellhole Ratrace," "Summertime," and "Morning Light."
   When they're on, it's a great listen. And the hit or miss quality of Album is endearing, although a little disheartening. Disheartening because I worry about Owens being pegged as some sort of fucked up rock and roll savant. Not many reviews ever say anything about technique or musical ability, just about this broken soul and his triumph over pain. And although that makes good copy, it ignores a glaring fact that these guys are actually really talented and (for the most part) tasteful musicians. Ignoring their chops would be a shame because Girls absolutely nail a wide range of styles, all without losing coherence as an album. And, I'll admit begrudgingly, that Owen's vocal talent is unmistakable, especially during a year of mostly forgettable new voices (Longstreth and Vile aside).
   It will be interesting to give this another spin next year and see how it holds up. It's unfortunate that instead of just being excited about these guys, I have to dole out my appreciation in measured amounts. But if it's good now, it will be good later, no?

No Respect: Evergreen

2009-11-08T11:50:00.000-08:00

Evergreen - S/T

It could be a stretch to say this album doesn't get any respect. Most people who've listened to it have been impressed, and it'd be a fruitless search to find a bad review of this album. Evergreen wasn't missing appreciation, but wide attention. Call it a case of right place, wrong time. Evergreen was formed in the fruitful Louisville scene of the 90's, a scene that produced both Slint and Will Oldham's many guises. But the album was released in the mid 90's by a small Chicago label during a time when arty post rock was reaching full steam. Also during a time when Chicago noise rock and Wicker Park as the new Seattle weren't punch lines. Although Evergreen played garage rock not too distant from the sound of grimy Chicago at the time (Shellac, Urge Overkill, Jesus Lizard, etc.) and featured Slint's Brit Walford on drums (while the music world was beginning to appreciate Spiderland) Evergreen didn't last past one album. I wasn't around at the time, so I can't begin to speak to how or why. But when I listen to this album in the context of the rest of the 90's midwest underground (a diverse scene and arguably an apex, at least in Chicago) this album doesn't sit well with its peers, even though it bears enough similarities.

It's also worth mentioning that this album was recorded by James Murphy and Nicolas Vernhes at the Rare Book Room. James Murphy's career need no introduction after the early aughts and Nicholas Vernes has since produced masterpieces with the Silver Jews, Animal Collective, and Deerhunter and his studio is arguably one of the most revered in independent music.

I mention Murphy because he's arguably why this album was re-released a couple of years ago. Either that or Slint's newfound cultural significance at the time. This is how I heard of Evergreen, through a promotional MP3 of "Plastic Bag," which I should mention, is not a particularly strong track. I knew nothing about this band at the time, just a weird song that creeped along with a bizarre Fall style chorus. It was hard to find more of their stuff on the illegal internet, but I eventually tracked down "New York City" and "Whip Cream Bottle" which were stronger and even stranger. I couldn't place what it was that had me hooked, but once I found out that Walford was the drummer, it was enough track down a physical copy.

I want to say it was near summer when I finally got the CD. I'd also like think the first time I listened to it the whole way through was driving back to South Bend alone, but this seems implausible. I can say that it's perfect driving music, especially if your driving through a place that's not entirely beautiful. The music is dark, muscular, muddy, and inebriated, some of my favorite qualities in music by far. It's also a bit obtuse and diffused, which is a strange thing to say about a garage band. Some of this is thanks to Murphy and Vernhes production, which here owes a lot to Steve Albini, maybe turned down a little. Every sound lives in physical space, nothing is in the red or right in your face, a risky proposition for such a powerful band. It works, especially when turned up really loud and the band sounds like it's actually in your room, or your car is a small music venue.

The band has some simple goals here, get drunk, get loud, get weird, rock out. By all accounts they succeed. In the process they also created an album that could be mistaken for the debut of a much greater band. Despite the fuck-all attitude and disinterest in saying anything coherent, Evergreen made a well paced album that has more than enough golden moments, the kind of moments that push a pretty good album into the realm of great albums. It's a stretch to call this a lost great album let alone a forgotten masterpiece. Yet, there are enough signs that this band took it's music seriously, and it's those moments that keep me coming back to this record. One of these moments falls right after the breakdown in "Klark Kent." After a pound your door down beginning, the band falls into tight mid-tempo stomp, guitars wobbling around like they're out of breath and then Sean McLoughlin slurs "We were suckled in the swamplands... Raised on revolution..." This moment of accidental brilliance is like dancing your ass off at a party then bullshitting with your friends until three in the morning, and right as the conversation is winding down, as everyone reaches the end of their raucous laughter, your buddy suddenly says something cryptic and strangely poignant. Half of your friends look at each other like WTF while you wonder drunkenly whether or not you just heard some strange confession or prophecy. It's not elegant or even very poetic, but within the context it's a beautiful moment, a moment where words and music push you back into your messy unconscious where everything is profound and strange.

From the what-the-fuck-is-that cover art to the plodding synth lines of the instrumental "New York City" Evergreen is perfectly at home confounding any expectation, even to a fault. I suppose they wouldn't have any of this mystique had I been around Kentucky in 1995. But then again, maybe I would have been proud to have such a singular rock act hail from my hometown. Either way, I'm happy to let this album make me believe I'm there: drunk in someones basement deep in the hilly woods of suburban Louisville, listening to the best band no one's ever heard of.

See if it works for you here

An Open Letter:

2009-11-08T00:11:00.001-08:00

Dear Yeasayer,

   I think I want to love you. Your sound is so globalized, post-history, whatever up-to-the-second virtue/expectation we modern folk would like to ascribe to young Americans making music. Your cultural appropriation is so well curated, and the sounds you assimilate are scattered so microscopically throughout your music, it's hard to nail you for actually robbing any one thing from any one place. You have a dense sound but also an airy sound. You're ultra modern yet organic and tribal. Your musical ability and tastes are airtight, and you're obviously a hard working unit.
   And I am sitting here, listening to your new single (apparently you at your most accessible) and I am on the verge of a yawn. It's the kind of quiet and muffled yawn I would let out when I listen to people pass the thirty minute mark in a discussion about Madmen. I'm a little ashamed of this desire to yawn, because I didn't actually want to express my boredom. I'm not trying to force my cynicism onto an adored cultural artifact that is much larger than myself or my opinions. But there it is, my body involuntarily trying to let the world know that as far as I'm concerned, it's nap time now.
   I should let you know, this disconnection between mind and body, my body's inability to submit to my own will is something I don't suffer very often. Throughout the years my body has taken the abuse of my superego like a champ, rarely complaining and usually warning me ahead of time when it's reaching a breaking point. I've also suffered some boring people and events in my life all while keeping a glossy eyed appearance of rapt interest. So this desire to yawn is taking me off guard. The only warning I had was the twitch in my eyes (so desperately wanting to roll, me not letting them) right before the little unsatisfied expulsion of air came rushing to my mouth, threatening to totally embarrass me and make the point all too clear, that this music is boring me on a very basic physical level.
   But why, when there are all these beats? They sure are beating alright, beating like some UN charter on the fundamental right of all humanity to hit objects (any object) rhythmically as an expression of self and culture. Your beats are the Esperanto of beats. And yet, there isn't a single moment where any of these rhythms even comes close to compelling any part of my body to move, except for said eyes, mouth and lungs.
   Ah, but listen guys, don't worry, I hear the echoes of genius! There's David Byrne, Brian Eno, IDM, XTC, Afropop, Sampledelia, um, Whitney Houston.

And hey, this song's got hooks too. Well, I'd say that it has something that reminds me of a hook. Melodic, familiar, delivered with passion, it repeats itself. Sure, gotta be a hook. Forget that it doesn't hook anything, least of all my sustained interest, attention, surprise, or desire to enjoy a piece of music. But all the parts are there, so this must be catchy and accessible. It's got a saxophone and R&B style falsettos. Wasn't I drooling over the Dirty Projectors for similar reasons? Why do I find this boring? Yeasayer, why aren't you delivering when you did everything right? What's wrong with me?
As I listen to this track for the fifth time straight, trying to free my mind and by extension my ass, I realize I'm totally incapable of being a music critic. I cannot for the life of me find your misstep. I can't articulate why this song is flying right through my skull without stirring so much as a grin. Time for me to pack it in and accept myself as a total fraud, a philistine with a hard heart and a half baked intellect. Good job Yeasayer, I cannot muster any real ire towards you and I wish you well. Don't worry, the New York Times is gonna love it! But if you could excuse me just a second...

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN

Friends' Bands

2009-11-04T13:59:00.000-08:00

Some great stuff from young people I've had the pleasure to meet around town

Pool Holograph [Full Download]
http://www.mediafire.com/?d1mnydo2mky

Thin Hymns
http://www.myspace.com/thinhymns

The Clams
http://www.myspace.com/theclamsjam

Check it out

New Favorite Song

2009-11-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

Love it.

Some poeple can't get No Respect: One Time Bells

2009-10-30T12:38:00.000-07:00

Introducing the No Respect series, a new project dedicated to praising the unappreciated or overlooked. Well see how long this lasts, but I hope this will pull me away from the pointless ranting (raving) that I've become fond of. Today, I start with early aughts post punk revival also-rans and current d-listers, the French Kick's first album, One Time Bells.

French Kicks - One Time Bells

   First, a little history (skip down a couple paragraphs for the real review if this bores you to tears). I found out about this album while searching amazon.com for similar artists to the Strokes while in Newspaper class. Just sorta killing time while I pissed away the first two class periods of the day. On Amazon there was an ad banner for "Hot New York bands" which advertised both the Walkmen's debut album and this little forgotten gem. Interesting that the ad was not much more than the above words and pictures of said albums. Also interesting that this was all it took to convince me that I desperately needed both albums immediately, a distant time of nievete for both the internet and myself. Also, who knew the tiny Startime label had such a marketing budget? The hunt had begun. I listened closely to 30 second clips of all the songs and thought, oh boy, this is like the Strokes but a bit more distant and cold, more rough around the edges, more believably a real underground band. I had to have it.
   A few weeks later I was in Chicago for a youth group midwinter formal. Like prom for frustrated christian kids set in Chicago featuring shopping at Watertower, a night at the Holiday Inn, dinner at fuck if I can remember, and classical music brought to you by the Moody Bible Institute's symphony orchestra. Honestly not the worst evening I've ever spent in Chicago. I snuck off to the poolroom that night to stare at the skyline and dream of urban fantasies. The next day while shopping, I made my way to Borders on Michigan determined to buy this album to soundtrack said fantasies. I asked the clerk for the album and she said she'd hadn't heard of it (YES!! I WIN!) but was able to track it down. $14 dollars later I cradled the digipak in my hands and basked in the glow of a perfect find. I was at this point, surely the coolest kid in my youth group, and not too secretly breaking away from the pack.
   I didn't get to listen to the album until I got home due to a draconian no headphones rule in the church van. At this point, I think I was about to kill someone as I watched the skyline disappear as we made our way back to the permagrey of northwestern Indiana.
   When I finally got home, CD on deck, headphones in and pushed play, I can't say I was blown to pieces. But my ears were perked. Something about the angular warbly guitars, the never totally on key singing, and the incredibly dry production almost put me off. But the songs were good, and most had one or two oh-shit moments. It wasn't much like anything else I'd heard. Eventually those quirks would be what made this album so unlike some of my other favorites at that time. I can tell now that the rough aesthetic is a choice, but it isn't put overtop the music, it worked within the dynamics of the songs. It gives the album a hungry almost amateur quality. The use of space in the production is disjointed and boxy, some sounds sounding stuffed in a corner, some right in your face, usually in the reverse order you expect. It all could just be amateur recording techniques, but it works very well for the album.
   And the songs. Again, they're not gonna change your life (although, at a certain age, they could), but they are solid and original. Built from a little hardcore, some garage rock, some modish power pop, and a little falsetto, the tracks sounded familiar enough to be uncanny, and they just barely seem to work. Honestly, there are moments that grate (the falsetto on Close to Modern) that risk making the rest of the work feel tenuous. But the Kicks keep it up and deliver assuredly. So much so that they pull off some tricks that in the hands of a lesser band would sound like total shit. The vocals for instance are lazy and a little sardonic, the tender spots almost bordering on parody. Add the fact that none of their voices are instantly memorable, I start to wonder how they even pulled this off. And yet, there's something unassuming about the album that stands in stark relief to everything that came out of New York at this time (since for that matter). Funny that the understated quality is what I find so comforting and lasting about this album, when it's not really what I was looking for at the time, and that this trait has arguably been a hindrance for the band. Much like the Walkmen, the songs make me pine for a time that never existed.* That really is an interesting emotion and rare quality, one that has to be hard to pull off.
   Unfortunately, the Kicks' career has been short of illustrious. Every once in a (great) while I'll read an apologetic review of a new French Kicks release, the long and short of which are always "these guys are alright, I feel bad for them though." As much as I love their debut, their proceeding albums have tended toward slick pop and are (from what I've heard) kinda boring. Which is something you could say about One Time Bells, but you'd be missing on the perfect pop gems like "When you heard you" or "1985" and a propulsive if obtuse line up of songs that have amazingly only gotten better with age.

*This I have to credit to Andy X

Reasons why I love Kurt Vile

2009-10-08T16:40:00.000-07:00

Let's start with some lyrics:

"I've got a hunchback, big as a humpback whale"

Bedroom pop that is humble and scuzzy yet expansive, panoramic. Like Robert Pollard, Vile takes ordinary images and explodes them into epic, fantastical proportions. It's simple and a little whimsical, but not the fey whimsy endemic to thin-wristed singer songwriters. It's psychedelic without constantly referring back to the Nuggets fakebook. And yeah, you could compare it to Tom Petty or Springsteen, except minus the Dylan worship or overreaching grandeur. As silly as the above lyric is, it's not just a toss off. It reflects the lumbering and menacing tone of the song, while also being a handy metaphor for being ostracized. Looking at the covers of the Hunchback EP, Constant Hitmaker, or excellent new album Childish Prodigy, you get the sense of booth cool detachment and a hint of loneliness. But not the loneliness of a twee popper always pining away for his femme fetale. More of a precocious loner who always looks cool and a little menacing at your parties, but is actually quite funny with a couple of beers in him.

"I've got a trumpet, I know where to dump it"

Vile knows when to stick with a nonsensical lyric when it fits so perfectly with the rhythm of the song. He's having fun for sure, and wants you to laugh a little bit. Not unlike Malkmus with his nonsequitors, it adds levity and charm to what is ostensibly, another song about being alone. You think it's all head in the clouds until later in the song he sings:

"There was a kid in the trees among the birds and the bees

between beehives and bird's nests and I think you know the rest

he wanted to be free with them, but they weren't believing

pecking and stinging him till he wasn't breathing."

Which is just one of many sly turns and unexpected surprises of his records. I could go on, but I don't want to spoil them. Suffice to say I haven't heard a voice or songwriting style like Vile's in a while. And in the context of the lo-fi resurgence (or what-have-you) he stands apart from the crowd.

And what about the music? Well, at times he's a slow burner. He's not afraid to kick out a long scuzzy jamout, but he's usually more comfortable singing over bluesy acoustic guitar, accompanied by tape hiss and whatever is lying around. The music takes it's time, laying down a perfect backdrop for Vile to get into his groove. Because of this, his voice and music always sound perfectly in sync.

Now I just feel like an idiot

2009-09-27T17:31:00.000-07:00

http://pitchfork.com/news/36620-wavves-vs-black-lips-fite

Well, there it is folks.

Anomie, hyperlinks, parantheticals, commas...

2009-09-26T00:30:00.001-07:00

While trying to flame Amazon.com reviews which I disagreed with (a new manifestation of my misanthropic web identity), I casually tossed around the word anomie in a rebuttal to a poor review of Don Delillo's Underworld. I had to double check my sociology terms via Wikipedia to make sure I wasn't making a total ass of myself. While rereading some snippets of Durkheim, I realized how much his theories still ring true for me. Here's a lil bit:

When solidarity is organic, anomie is “impossible whenever solidary organs are sufficiently in contact or sufficiently prolonged. In effect, being contiguous, they are quickly warned, in each circumstance, of the need they have of one another, and, consequently, they have a lively and continuous sentiment of their mutual dependence. For the same reason that exchanges take place among them easily, they take place frequently, and in time the work of consolidation is achieved.”^[4] Their sensitivity to mutual needs promotes the evolution in the division of labor “because the smallest reaction can be felt from one part to another. ... they foresee and fix, in detail, the conditions of equilibrium." ^[4]"Producers, being near consumers, can easily reckon the extent of the needs to be satisfied. Equilibrium is established without any trouble and production regulates itself.”^[5]

Durkheim contrasted the condition of anomie as being the result of mechanical solidarity: "But on the contrary, if some opaque environment is interposed, then only stimuli of certain intensity can be communicated from one organ to another. Relations being rare, are not repeated enough to be determined; each time there ensues new groping. The lines of passage taken by the streams of movement cannot deepen because the streams themselves are too intermittent.”^[6] “Contact is no longer sufficient. The producer can no longer embrace the market at a glance, nor even in thought. He can no longer see its limits, since it is, so to speak limitless. Accordingly, production becomes unbridled and unregulated.”^[7]

linked from ANOMIE

   For a little bit of background, Emile Durkheim is a superstar founder of modern sociological thought. In the midst of the industrial revolution, he wrote about divisions of labor, and the above passage explains the difference between two systems: organic solidarity (think of small towns, farms, preindustrial world, or your local modern day commune) and mechanical solidarity (obvs: industrial labor, scientific management, bureaucracy, probably your first job).
   This passage is stuck in my head for a couple of reasons. To start, I was thinking that for all the possibilities and new horizons the internet presents to us, it's still completely dependent on interpersonal engagement, not just interaction but active engagement, to be at all 'organic' in it's growth. For all the brouhaha over web 2.0 (or whatever we're on now), the web is not a shining example of a self regulating structure. As the powers that be get wise, there's no reason to believe that the interwebs won't become the opaque environment Durkheim warns of.
   I'm not saying things will get all Upton Sinclair suddenly. I just know that this unwieldy and seemingly anarchic nexus of human communication is being methodically figured out by those who stand to make tons of cash or wield expansive power and influence. Which means that for all our interfacing, for all our online love-ins and congratulating, I still doubt how much more interdependent we've become. Sure, we get the feeling that our actions effect others, that the world is getting smaller. But has the balance of control shifted dramatically?
   Even forgetting the powers that be and my dire forecasts, what about the way we view each other? I think the most important point Durkheim makes, if I'm not misinterpreting him, is that mechanical solidarity doesn't just mean no fun at work. It changes the way we interact with each other on a larger scale. This system of labor encourages you to think of people as a means to an end, as a quantifiable value (known quantity to borrow disgusting business parlance). That person my be a threat or an ally or totally worthless to you given circumstances that are apt to change at any moment. And the web is full of ugly examples of this, and I don't mean gossip. At least gossip can be (and has been read) as a community maintaining exercise. I mean the constant posturing and reevaluating that something like say, oh, Pitchfork engenders. You could say that the site is a healthy and vital organ for the independent music community. But, it's not really a community driven entity. It reports and analyzes, but it doesn't open itself up to response, and deals with outside criticism in a roundabout way. It operates like old school media in that way, not always reflecting the democratic, collaborative element of the web. Hell, as Chaz pointed out, they don't even have a letter to the editor/mailbag/comment board. (and yes Chaz, this is me finally admitting you had a good point, a year late). But then again, they put on a sweet festival, and I can't really speak to the inter-workings of the site. Am I the only one who's still mystified as to how they operate? Oh, and I realize how brazenly guilty of this I am. It's one thing to talk about an art object, but to talk about people as art objects, even in praise, is actually despicable now that I think about it for more than a second.

Ok, my mistake. Fuck it, moving on.

   There's much more to the concept of anomie and to Durkheim's work that's worth knowing. It's a good counterpoint to classic Marxism (both Soviet Communism and Industrial Capitalism killed organic solidarity at every opportunity). That is to say, just because we have the means of cultural production in our hands, doesn't necessarily mean we're not all going to evil capitalists anyway. It also doesn't suddenly make us all interdependent.
   On a personal note, it's good to keep this in mind in the real world. For example, I just played a handful of shows with Abbott Smile. They seem like a blur to me now, and I'm incredibly happy and incredibly thankful for the experiences. But, if you're not careful, you can start to treat people like shit and not always realize it. Or, you start to think of this idea of an audience, like, how can we find an sympathetic audience? You can start to think of the venues, the people running them, your friends who came to see you, other bands, all as means to an end. I've tried to keep that at bay, because it does violence to just about all of my sensibilities. But there is that element to being in a band, or being in any creative endeavor, which leads to the desire for attention or recognition. Part of it is just conceit and selfishness, but part of it is that yearning for the other half of creation, the reaction, the response. And I realized the reason I envy Brooklyn bands, more popular bands, etc, is not the fame or attention. It's that they aren't working in a vacuum. What they do is responded to, debated, critiqued, sometimes appreciated, sometimes imitated. They're part of the larger cultural exchange. And, I guess that's what I want for us, and not just the band, but all of our friends who feel similarly about this. I hope that we can feel like we're in an ongoing conversation with each other.

Nigel Overreacts Again

2009-09-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

   First, Pavement is reuniting next year. Oh shit. I don't know what to say. For some reason I want to hide even though I'm inexplicably happy and shocked and yet not shocked and then a little underwhelmed when I think of the reality of it. But what if they went into the studio? Oh shit oh shit oh shit. What the fuck am I going to do when I live in a world where Pavement is back together?

   Ok, second, anyone who hasn't read this or this, should if you're into that sort of thing. Nitsuh Adebe's passing glance at 'indie culture' is spot-on for the most part and Anna's addendum takes the debate out of the aesthetic ether and brings it into the real personal-political realm in which we live, and where most of these questions of good vs bad, twee vs hardcore, inde-cred vs indie-tastic are banged out. I had the privilege of knowing Anna during her indie years, making this an even more interesting topic. Because it's both a story about zeitgeist and personal histories.
   Everyone agrees that things have changed since those oh so distant pre 9/11 days where independent and mainstream music sat confortably on either side of the aisle. The change has been pretty massive, but it's happened rather subtle. Or maybe rather, in a herky-jerky and uneven fashion, leaving a pretty fractured music world in it's wake. Fractured, but also indelibly connected and intertextual, if I want to get all faux-academic, which I definitely do for god knows why. This is where I break from Nitsuh's argurment: that there are two warring factions. I know it's a streamlined thesis, a simple way of looking at a complex thing for a certain ease of discussion and summation. And suprisingly, he's on point. He's got a good point about indie having been a pretty uncomplicated term in England for a while. He also nails the early aughts desperate desire for propulsive and snappy guitar rock. It's easy to forget what life was like before the Strokes and the White Stripes. Which leads me to another pet project of mine: Although we think all indie roads lead back to Pavement, most roads probably lead back to the Strokes. More on that in some other post. But yes, a bunch of stylish rich kids on a major label living an impossible New York fantasy life kicked open the doors to a lot of minds. Lame but true, and also not totally lame.
   Which brings me to another much larger pastime of mine: bitching about New York. I think my major objection to Nitsuh's article is that he never mentions New York, let alone does he bitch about it. And bitching about New York or defending it has been a major topic of discussion this decade, so let's talk about it. New York has an unimpeachable music history, by far a towering meccah of cultural importance. But as many have pointed out so elequontly, New York doesn't exist anymore. That is, it is not a real place. Follow me here, CBGB's is a fashion outlet. The Village, Chelsea, SoHo, the Bowery, all impossibly priced and razed beyond recognition. Surely, history has not been totally scrubbed from the streets, but the narrative that starts there is dead, killed by gentrification or co-option or what have you. Totally inarguably dead. Brooklyn is maybe a place, but I have my doubts. Becuase I don't understand how it works. Does everyone's parent's pay their rent? Is there a 1:1 ratio of practice spaces to apartments? Does anyone have a real job? I ask these questions because from everything I see or hear, from the New York times to Pfork, Marnie Stern, to the lyrical content of Brooklyn bands themselves paints Brooklyn as fantasy world where everything and everyone is creative, vibrant, well dressed, in a band, an artist, a cloumnist, a dj, between 18 and 30. Whatever Brooklyn does is lapped up, documented, dissected, worried about, and praised. Like, this is where America's precocious navel gazing children go for life camp, and the media are their collective overbearing and exuberant parent's who force us to weigh in on every accomplishment and mishap. And the Times piece on the hipster paunch must be the watershed moment that forces a mea culpa on behalf of the media. Shit has to stop. Right? Homework assignment, someone tally up the Best New Music picks from the last two years, and see what percentage of the Americans are from New York. I took a passing glance, and it looks devastating.
   I'm not saying that New Yorker's aren't talented. Not at all, and the fact that Brooklyn's hegemony is so pervasive, just means bands will flock there, widening the pool of good music. But, there remains a serious lack of real life coming from Brooklyn. That is, most of these bands are deficient in speaking to any of the experiences of most of their fans. Either too vague and cryptic, or too ironic and overly clever.
   But enough about New York. Back to real life.
Let's talk about how we come into contact with new music these days. The Internet is the short answer, a longer answer would probably include our friends tastes, pitchfork, the New York Times, NPR, CW shows, Ipod commercials, blogs, etc. We can talk about the death of print music criticism, the dying music industry, obsolete physical medium, leaks and piracy. But what about the subtle personal shifts?
   When I was in high school, I had what is called an opinion leader, and his name was Andrew. By opinion leader, I don't mean that he made the opinions for his peer group, but he was the central source of information about music for a handful of his friends. Not only because he had good taste and intelligence, but also because he had a high speed internet connection, access to a credit card for online puchases, and a CD burner, all things I did not. I was what is called a low end technology user. A funny thing happened after I got my own computer and credit card and went to college, the balance of information and debate shifted. I had my own concurrent stream of new music and information, and began to stake out my own cultural individuality.
   I mention this because I think it's a nice little microcosm of the shift in the influence of music in social exchange. Andrew was like a record store clerk. He heard everything before you did, had access to albums you didn't, and his own opinions about what was good and bad. But like any record store owner, he was also curator to his friends and spread the gospel of good music, new and old. This was the story for a lot of kids interacting with music. There was a record store, an older brother, a cool friend, that girl you were interested in, etc. These people still exist for sure, and there will always be the guy or girl who just cares a little bit more than you, who will be more up to date. But access is more or less equal to all. This matters because it helps to obliterate time and place and the cognitive space of music culture. As Andrew deftly pointed out when talking about local music scenes, it's just as easy to have a scuzzy Philly noise rocker that actually lives in Minnesota as it is to have the Philly scene. Ok, Andrew I butchered your quote, sorry. But it's a good point.
   This is how Brooklyn exists in the minds of millions who have never been but dream about it. It is possibly even more real online and in our (my) fantasies than in physical space. Which makes the development of a local scene easier in one way, the fact that you can connect quickly and easily, and harder because why stick around your shitty town when urban escape fantasies abound. I know that people have always flocked to New York to make it. The difference now is that fantasy world is so reinforced by ubiquitous media, so much of it uncritical of the indie lifestyle, that anything outside of it irrelevant. There are exceptionms, but have you noticed how much these other scenes look identical to each other? What does this mean for independent music as a whole? Will kids chase the fantasy of bohemia and make the music of their heroes, or will they dig their heels in and say, this is where I am, this is who I am, enough with the bullshit?
   Nitsuh brings up another good point: what's at stake in taking a critical stance on an album or band. This has always been a part of the hipper than thou indie culture. But now, it's not just about taste, it's personal, it's political. You like Pains at Being Pure at Heart, fuck you, you're ruining music! You like the Black Lips, no you don't, not really, you don't actually listen to their records, fuck you, no one does. On one hand, as I get older I have the firm sense that I can listen to whatever the fuck I want more or less unapologetically.    And under the weird big tent-The Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Dan Deacon, No Age tent-this sentiment is the norm. You can like whatever, that's cool. As long as we're all cool about it, and politics of fame or influence aren't involved. But the problem is, those politics are omnipresent on the web, and to some extent, in real life.
   Consider Nathan Williams and his crimes. His biggest crime wasn't being an ass onstage, his biggest crime was being anointed by the hype-machine and not being genuflect about it. I don't mean to drag this episode out again, but I think it was one of the most interesting events this year. The scuzzy noisy rock guys (Psychedelic Horseshit, Black Lips) attacked him because he's a little spoilt bitch who can't handle his drugs. I also imagine a lot of those nice polite indie fans hated him for being such a rude little punk. And of all people, he would be the ideal mixture of the two camps Nitsuh talks about. Scuzzy, gruff, loud, noisy, on an honest to god inependent label(s), but also pop-accessible, popular, young and sorta attractive, sorta awkward. But instead, he was a mixture of the things both sides hated (so it seems), the unearned popularity, the self entitlement, the hipper than thou stance, the lack of technical proficiency, the hot chicks dancing absentmindedly at his show. And this is where I posit that the Nathan Williams Daytripping episode and subsequent breakdown (they are inseparable in my mind) act a cogent characterization of the indie world at that moment. Everything's there: the shit hot label showcase at SXSW, the hype, the token weird band from Philly with token unkempt hair that you're supposed to like, the burgeoning alcoholism, overly earnest MTV interviews, the vampirical bloggers, the insidious consumerism no one really seems to mind anymore, the awkward hip-hop fandom (and let's be honest, cool as it is, it's fucking awkward as all get out, just look at Jay-Z swaying to Grizzly Bear, awesome and awkward, which is I guess, what indie rock always kinda was).
   I watch this all and I think, this is real, this is what's really happening! The Smell, Todd P, Brooklyn, Baltimore, 'Loft Pop' are all real yes, but only for those who are actually there. For the rest of us in flyover country, they remain a distant fantasy. And yet something about the Kafkaesque spectacle of Nathan Williams failing to graciously navigate the unreal world of indie-rock hype strikes me as the unseen unheard underbelly to all this. He's was at the center of the disgusting circus, and just his ability to make people feel weird is admirable. That is, the argument about what's wrong with Wavves inevitably leads back to the argument about what's wrong with the music world that spawned him, and that's why I keep coming back to it. Also, god it's fun to talk about at parties.
   I think it's interesting that Anna has been pushed away from indie and towards Hip-Hop. Interesting because I've had my own initiation into Hip-Hop love and fascination. Interesting because lyrically speaking, Diamond District's In the Ruff has been the most relevant album I've heard (well, at least a tie with Merriweather Post Pavillion, which doesn't count cuz it's big and universal and stuff). And it hit's me that it's no longer hip-hop tourism anymore, and I feel oddly a participant. Oddly, because I know I'm outside the world of hip-hop fans and even further from street life. Then again, maybe not. I dunno. Maybe it's just a bit closer to my life than the aesthetic aloofness, niceness, and/or genre exercises of indie music.

It’s still ok to have reservations about Michael Jackson

2009-07-12T10:30:00.001-07:00

   Look, this isn’t about me. I don’t get any sort of pleasure from being on the outside of collective human suffering. I understand that a very talented man died, and a lot of people are upset.
But I still don’t get it. I understand the enormity of his talent and fame. I understand his unreal celebrity status and his too-ridiculous-to-be-true personal biography. I know about the seductive and hallucinogenic quality of celebrity disaster. But the reaction to MJ’s death just doesn’t add up. Wasn’t he already dead? I don’t mean to be crass here. I mean, didn’t the MJ that America fell in love disappear somewhere during the 90s? Didn’t we watch the man slowly disintegrate before our eyes as the truth of his abusive past and the allegations of pedantry surfaced. I know there was a big trial not too long ago, but didn’t that already prove that the Michael Jackson of the 80’s had finally been eclipsed by Wacko Jacko.
   And this is why I sighed a little at the news of his death. Not a sigh of boredom, but a sigh of relief. Not of personal relief, but relief on behalf of the man himself. Relief that the whole horror show of celebrity decay was over, and that the man can finally leave a world that really didn’t suite him. I had a vain and ultimately vanquished hope that after his death we could finally see him as a human being and put the whole tragedy in perspective.
   Silly me, I should have known that his death would stir the same voyeuristic panting fandom that has plagued him during his life. And I can’t help from being more than disgusted by it.
   When I was too young to fathom why or how, Kurt Cobain committed suicide. He was a huge celebrity to me, even though I was too young to identify fully with what he stood for. In time, he would become a mythical figure in my mind, the misunderstood musical rebel plagued by fame and his own personal pain. In even more time, I would have to come to terms with my (our) problematic mythology of the man. And now, I see the symbolic importance of his death: the end of the tragic rock and roll hero. It wasn’t a final, total end. Nor was he the last musician to die by his own hand. But I see his death as the end of the rockstar era, and for so many reasons that is an unequivocal good.
   Nirvana famously knocked MJ off the top 40 charts he’d dominated for so long. It’s tempting to think this has some historical significance, a changing of the guard, a rock and roll coup, the end of an era. Rockists see it as a victory for gritty and authentic music over slick and sterile pop. I’m sure there’s another camp that saw this as a big downer, and a sign of the boring decade to come. (On a side note, I doubt Kurt had it in for Michael as much as he had it in for hair metal and G&R. And we should thank grunge for killing that genre). The issue for me isn’t who was the better star (MJ, no question), the better artist (debatable, probably MJ), or who was more fucked up (even split). The issue I have is our desire to turn people into spectacles. Kurt Cobain as alterna rock savior and Michael Jackson as pop deity are more than silly titles, they’re destructive expectations.
   And so, yes, I feel really off about celebrating the musical career of a man who was coerced into the entertainment business by the threat of domestic violence. I see a great problem with wanting to gloss over his fall from grace to celebrate his years of greatness, because few are willing to admit that crazy MJ has anything to do/is the same man as the king of pop. He was brilliant, yes, incredibly brilliant. But I don’t want to hear the words god given talent. Why? Because his talent and the fame it brought him was no blessing. That talent was fostered and exploited by a maniacal father and a sanguinary entertainment industry. That fame allowed him to disappear into himself in a multimillion dollar fantasy world funded by you and I.
   Well, ok, maybe that’s unfair. I’ll stop shorting of hanging all the blame on his fans. They really do adore him, and most want only to see the best in their idol. But that same impulse also pushes back all the dirty pain stuff, and I wonder if that’s why Michael himself never seemed to come to grips with reality. No one wanted him to be real.
   I bring Kurt Cobain up for this reason. Kurt was plagued the opposite curse, the pain and suffering only curse. The same unfortunate situation Ian Curtis found himself in. When you make your name and reputation being the perpetual downer, you’re already painted into a corner. You’re not allowed to make fun music. And your fans only want to see and know the pain and suffering, they only want the martyr. Well, I’d rather have a living Kurt Cobain that faded away. That ultimately was his choice to make, but I think that was the stupidest decision he ever made. And you know what, I’d rather have had a human Michael Jackson, a man who could eventually look hard into his past and at least try to come to terms with it. From what I can tell, he did try. But eventually, it was just easier to disappear into a world where he couldn’t be touched.
   And I’m back where I started. Listening to Barry Gordy mourn Michael Jackson and feeling sick to my stomach about it. Hearing the hitmaker wax elegiac about the greatness of a star, completely ignoring his humanity. And I’m hoping that the popstar era is dying with him, dying with the music industry as we know it, and hoping there isn’t a new generation of Joe Jacksons and Barry Gordys waiting and ready to exploit the talent of tomorrow.
   I know it’s not true as I remind myself of the Disney channel celebrity making machine and the fucked up (but successful) kids it chews up and spits out. But maybe one of those kids is watching the coverage of Michael Jackson’s death and thinking long and hard about the price of a life lived in the spotlight. One can only hope.

New Music in Brief

2009-07-10T00:19:00.000-07:00

Between a new job and being in a band that is coalescing into more of a reality than a fantasy, I haven't had as much time to listen to new music. Summer is also a culprit. Albums are a good way to keep my sanity during the dark and cold seasons, but during the summer a nice bike ride or a walk is all I need to escape whatever stresses come my way. Also, my mp3 player is busted. Yet, some things have popped up on my radar worth mentioning.

The Diamond District-In The Ruff

I've been listening to this since the first couple days of spring warmth, and I can't say enough about how this is a perfect summer afternoon album. I'm at a loss as to how to push this album on my friends. Usually I can point to several awesome 'oh shit' moments on an album to lure someone in. This album doesn't run high on those moments, which is no slight. The charm and strength is in its sustained level of quality, and it's warm lived-in yet confident production. Neither the beats nor the rhymes ever steal the show, but work together letting it all go down easy. And yet, during that time these guys paint a refreshingly honest and clear eyed view of American life in the Obama era, despite the occasional dated Bush reference. And the beats are so good. Just straight up flawless musicianship. Like that organ part on “I Mean Business” that could have been hackneyed, chopped up, or overdone. Instead, it hangs there haunting, Oddisee having the foresight to let it ride through a long progression, allowing it to play perfectly with that little rhodes part when it comes in. And when it fades into “Get In Line,” it's like, yess. That's what this album trades in, those yess moments that make it look so easy. The title track is just one long yess moment, especially when it hits it's stumbling outro. Put this on when you're doing dishes or something, watch your quality of life improve.

Five O'clock Shadow Boxers-The Slow Twilight

A dark, brooding album not afraid to sample Radiohead or Velvet Underground for maximum effect. I have to say, I was surprised how well they used such recognizable source material. Sometimes when people have the balls (gall) to sample something like Venus In Furs, it feels like a celebrity cameo. Charming and sometimes exciting, but ultimately a distraction. The grimy production pulls these samples into its own sense of paranoia and violence, not unlike the way Scorcesse can get away with using Rolling Stones hits (well, before that was a punchline). Zilla himself is so so as an MC. I mean, he's not lacking in ambition or tenacity, but he's not engaging enough to live up to his dramatic backdrop. It's like you're expecting Travis Bickle to come out with his gun in hand, and instead you get some guy talking about being a weird kid in high school, his grandma's tuna sandwiches, and how he took enough martial arts that he doesn't need a gun to fuck you up.

Sunset Rubdown-Dragonslayer

Spencer Krug has taken some cues from Dan Bejar and has learned how to wield his maniacal yelping into self referential epics. Not that his previous work was anything less than epic, but Dragonslayer is less aural onslaught and more lyrical, and fuck it, way more musical than Random Spirit Lover. Whereas RSL was so much catharsis and exclamation points, Dragonslayer is more nimble, more dynamic, and more rewarding for it. Sure, RSL is some document of impenetrable genius. But Dragonslayer makes good on some promises made by Krug's earlier work. It's occasionally just downright beautiful. Like the refrain “Anna Anna Anna oh, why'd you change your name?”

A Review of Reviews of Bitte Orca, and Kind of A Review Too.

2009-06-20T20:52:00.000-07:00

By now the merits of Bitte Orca have been expounded at length: Dave Longstreth is really brilliant, and this album is so sweet.
Of course it’s shortcomings are also flushed out and rationally articulated: That guy’s voice sucks.
I would like to first point out that neither of these opinions have anything to do with my own opinion on the Dirty Projectors, but rather what I have culled from reading the Pitchfork review, the Stereogum review, and the comments after the Stereogum article titled “Wait is Bitte Orca the Best Album of 2009?” (My personal response was “Wait, Is that The Worst Headline of 2009?”)
Then I would like to note that the praise of this album as previously stated still begs the question of why he is brilliant. The answer seems to be that he makes concept albums. No, no, not like Tommy, like, art-rock concept records. Dude’s got one about Don Henely. Wild right? Like how I just said “Dude”? Not an article to be seen. Street.
The detractors actually engage the music a little more, but kind of also miss the mark. Dave Longstreth has a really good voice by indie rock standards, he just seems either incapable, or more likely just uninterested in writing an actual melody (In my worse moments I think, Christ does he even plan? Has he ever sang a song the same way twice?). But his voice is fine, the best description is that he’s not Bjork, and someone needs to remind him. His guitar lines are also given to this proclivity. He’s a completely atonal shredder. Is this any more or less impressive than someone who creates more linear lines? For the moment let’s allow it.
Here’s where the real divide comes: if it’s art rock, all sins of atonality are forgiven. If it’s held to any other standard, Dave Longstreth probably needs fewer people to say that he’s brilliant, because what he actually is is unfocused. And yeah, the unfocused occasionally produce a DaVinci, but more often they give us golden retrievers. Here is where I propose that all music is art, and to call something “Art rock” tells us nothing about a music other than “You’re not going to like it the first [couple] times you hear it,” and this album is praised as being the DP’s most immediately likeable album, so you know, the statement’s kind of vacuous. As long as you accept that good music takes attention, and music should give back what you put in, the title “Art rock” should be written off as an insult, saying that the album in question is deficient in the category of “First Impressions.” It’s a shallow category, one that has more to do with someone’s mood, and even more to do with what they’re used to.
Music criticism most often seems to follow the formula of “back story, then comparison,” (except in the golden age of Pitchfork when it was more like “Personal anecdote + virtuosic string of contemptuous statements”), and to a degree I’ve gotten used to that, and can interpret fairly well what’s going on from this formula. But the reviews of the Dirty Projector’s new album were especially deficient. Can I for a moment try my own hand at reviewing?

Good effort, but the lack of [a linear] melody, in both the vocals and guitar lines amount to even the cathartic moments still being kind of tense. I think ideas here drag on a little too long, and that the instrumentation is only surprising in how little it surprises. So if you want a fun record, it’s occasionally kind of fun, and if you want to challenge your assumptions of rock music, this is about on par with the Red Eye’s crossword.

I'm rooting for them though. B minus. I know you can do better.

Eddie Vedder's got some (if you need it)

2009-06-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

So this is indisputably lame but, I think I love this song

I know it's just Devo's "Gut Feeling" re-rawked by your dad's favorite alt rock band, but I fucking love it. I love that McCready dances around like Billy Joe Armstrong (windmilling on a P-90 Les Paul Jr no less, although a yellow double cut away is way cooler than Billy Joe's white one). I had to watch it completely sober the next day just to make sure I wasn't losing it.

Actually, the feeling I got was the same feeling that this video elicited:

Oh man, I wanna BMX now. I halfway expect James Murphy to show up at some point, I can't explain why. Also, on the topic of old people, I just read the 33 1/3 book on Pink Flag, and I'm finishing the Daydream Nation one. It's been great to revisit both albums, but it's also been good to see that both Wire and Sonic Youth have lasted long enough to produce even more great work. It makes me wonder who's going to survive our current crop of young turks.

It doesn't look good.

Back Off

2009-06-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

So Nathan Williams is pulling out of Europe with his tail between his legs (one assumes) and the the future of WAVVES and of angry bloggers worldwide is cast back into the unknown.

I've been trying to write a response to this for days, but can't keep up with the unfolding events. I was going to (did) write a rambling defense of Mr. Williams against the deluge of shit talking and Schadenfreude that has been coming his way since Pitchfork founder Ryan Schrieber threw him under a bus and turned a Best New Music act into a whipping boy overnight. And since I have no idea what will happen in the next couple of hours, I'll try to do this while I have the chance...

If you haven't heard of Williams or his noisemaking project, WAVVES, then you probably don't read online music criticism because the internetz has been all a tizzy over him since his album got the blessing/curse of Best New Music. Wavves is the latest in a new crop of Pitchfork lauded “lo-fi” acts that have been polarizing fans and critics and stirring up all form of undeserved praise and ire with only a passing listen. For many, this 'meltdown' wasn't the first questionable move young Nathan has made in his months old career. There's a hilarious daytripping episode where he gets piss drunk and pretty much deflates the gaudy spectacle of SXSW. Some saw it as a portrait of a self important prick. I like to see it as the only reasonable response a young man could have to endless free beer, gushing praise, vampirical bloggers, and nonstop performances. And, if you have even a cursory understanding of his music, it should be no fucking surprise.

You see, Wavves makes noisy melodic punk rock, a kind of bastard throw everything on the wall and see what sticks music that takes up every bit of sonic space in a swirling mess that is (admittedly) hit or miss. I mostly like it. It's indulgent, it's at times annoying, and it never hints at any amount of technical ability. But it is made with urgency and and a certain kind of honesty. Not the bullshit honesty of someone who hunts for days on ebay for a cassette four track so he can sound like Robert Pollard. He doesn't push the boundaries of music, nor does he faithfully pay tribute to any one tradition. It's a mix of Williams' musical interests, a mix that isn't revolutionary, but isn't tasteless. And it isn't a bit pretentious either, which is where he get's himself into trouble.

Something has happened in the last couple of years in the independent music world. Something has developed amongst Pitchfork's cultural ascendancy, web 2.0, American Apparel, Stereogum, and the countless cultural signposts that have sprung up since say 2003. The independent music world, and 'indie-culture' has grown into a half defined, half praised, half maligned, sorta movement, sorta thing. That is, there is a HUGE amount of cultural baggage that wasn't there before. Back in the good old days, hipster culture could be pretty well explained by High Fidelity, or maybe a Yo La Tengo album. Now, the lines have been blurred. The sense of otherness and alienation in response to mainstream culture has disintegrated because, where is mainstream culture anyway? Hipsters are sitting on a good portion of it now, and it's made a lot of people feel uncomfortable to say the least.

And this is all a completely silly thing to talk about, isn't it? But, consider Nathan Williams. What king of hipster is he? Is he the well dressed American Apparel cultural tourist? Is he the laid back west coast vegan alterna-kid Believer? Is he the more-obscure-than-thou contrarian? A member of the Brooklyn trust fund elite? These questions are never asked straight out, but almost everyone weighing in on the situation has an answer. And I think, this is where a lot of the hatred and the instant backlash come from. New artists who debut with a Best New Music approval have to submit to this ritual, this is nothing new. His breakdown only provides living proof to his instant detractors that he's not up to the task.

Here's the rub: he didn't ask for this. I'm sure he was probably glad to have the press, the hype, the festival invitations, the good reviews. But only up to a point. He seemed pretty weary already when his Daytripping episode was filmed, and I can see why. Not one person seemed to care all that much about him or his music, but rather the aura of fleeting fame buzzing around him. Everyone seemed incredibly disappointed when the guy who made scuzzy stoner punk rock, was actually a scuzzy stoner punk.

People are disappointed in his shows because he's unprofessional. Well where the fuck did you get the idea that he was a professional? He has almost no touring experience. He's just a dude who recorded some sweet songs at home alone. He has had almost no time to gather a band to do justice to his recordings, so he paired down to what he could manage. It still sounds fun. And maybe he doesn't deserve the praise or the attention, but he's not exactly reveling in it. He's not demanding it either.

I'm sorry that he doesn't come fully packaged with a fully formed sound and look, ala Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, or the Pains of Being a Laboriously Long and Stupid Band Name. I'm sorry he's not posturing well enough. What, did the sunglasses, skate shoes, and vaguely hip hop baseball hat throw you? Here's a clue, he's from California, he skates, and he fucking loves hip hop.

Maybe people just don't want to hear about him anymore. Maybe he is just too pedestrian, too amateur, too much just a fucked up kid. But that's what I like about him. No, I don't want him to stay a fucked up kid, and I'm glad he issued that apology. I hope he gets his shit together and pulls throw this mess. I hope he develops as an artist, continues following his interests, and develops as a live act. But I hope he doesn't feel the need to submit to the wills of critics or anyone else who doesn't give a shit about him or his music.

I know I'm throwing a bunch of shit into this that may not belong. I know I'm defending someone who on the surface probably resembles Asher Roth more than I'm willing to admit. I know, I know, I know...

Just cut the kid some fucking slack, he's not the problem with music today, not by a long shot.

Thanks no No Trivia for this.

While on the subject of videos featuring text-printed t-shirts

2009-05-24T21:41:00.000-07:00

Just a fantastic song. Thanks, David Drake.

Diamond District

2009-04-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

Not much of a post, but I wanted everyone to check this out.

The whole album is being freely distributed via torrent sites. I don't know if they have plans to press this up, but they should. Download it here

FAIL

2009-04-17T15:58:00.000-07:00

There is a man named Asher Roth, and I lived in a much happier world before I knew of his existence.

Exhibit A

Ok, so you say, it’s all in good fun. Too easy to hate on. Too much a whorish and tacky affair to take seriously. And, there’s a sense of humor here. But, exhibit B:

Not the best thing to be said over “A Milli,” not the most intelligent or even clever critique, but it is scathing. It is rewarding in some way.

I’m not going headlong into the delicate subjects of race, privilege, fame, and success in Hip Hop. Just because I’ve been catching up on Dilla, Madlib, and DOOM doesn’t mean I can throw my weight around like I’ve been invested in the genre long enough. But a piece of shit is a piece of shit. That’s all fine as long as a piece of shit doesn’t become this year’s frat rock party jam, and the panting and desperate record industry descends upon us with it in their talons.

Ash could have made anything out of himself. He is an internet phenom, riding on the success of marginally impressive mixtapes. He could have picked used his minor wave of hype and step up and refine the humor and critique of his A Milli freestyle. The fixation on minutiae, conversational delivery, reminds me of Mike Skinner, at least for a couple seconds. But now he’s hip-hop’s response to Tucker Max.
The educated, aware, marginally talented young privileged white kid who squanders his talent and makes a clown of himself. He’s someone who realizes how fucked up his situation is, but takes the money and fucking dances. His only solace is that his success proves how vapid his fans and critics are to give him the success and attention. Or more depressingly, the former doesn’t even apply. He has never questioned his actions.

Royksopp - Junior

2009-04-13T21:02:00.001-07:00

Bourgeois comfort from Norway. Coming from a particularly abyssmal second album "the (mis)understanding" (which was so saturated with the sweatstains of Ibiza it could barely warrent a second listen) Royksopp come up with an entirely different strategy: to make music for those of us who never stopped listening to early Air albums and think the Avalanches are still cool. And you know what? It works like a charm. Good electronic music that is not meant to be danced to has been few and far between. Sure theres been a few since the turn of the millenium who fulfill a similar role, such as Ratatat or J Dilla, but its just not same. Sure this kind of music could easily be heard in car commercials or pretentious chic restaurants, but just because the ad agencies and boutique entrepeneurs of this world are poaching this music left and right doesn't mean that these modest sweedish lads are actually angling for it (the way moby does, although he'd be the first to deny it). And even if they were, the temporary thrill of putting on some imaginary white leather ankle boots and being a european fashionista for just 40 minutes at home is far better than actually being one. Well worth the price of momentary bourgeois comprimise.

Women (Bottom Lounge 3/17/09)

2009-03-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

The hitherto mysterious group of Canadians who turned in one of my surprise favorite albums of last year dropped by last night to deliver a show that ranks as one of the best I've seen in a long time. These guys ("four obvious douchebags") tore through their set, delivering their washed out blurry sound with well honed precision and intensity. I expected their carefully crafted aesthetic to suffer in a live setting, but it only benefited. This band is a tight unit. Despite their affable shyness and jokes about being unprofessional, they play like they've been touring their whole lives. "Black Rice" was light and airy, prompting members of the audience to sing along with their eyes closed. "Shaking Hand" was every bit the thrill ride it was on the record, and when the barnstorming breakdown hit, I heard a small chorus of 'wow' and 'yesss' and at least one 'don't stop.'

That breakdown is without a doubt one of the most undeniably awesome moments in music history. But what impresses me about it is not that the band pulled it off (and pulls it off live no sweat), it's that it's only one great moment in a record of many great moments. In their set, Women hit on Sonic Youth style dissonant noise fury, blissful MBV feedback crescendos, intricate rhythmic workouts ala Fugazi, and fragile C86 bedroom pop. And never once did it feel disjointed or scattered. And the new songs sound fucking sweet.

Chicago band Thin Hymns was another sweet surprise. I'm at a moment's loss for words to describe them. Really good? Does that work? Some soaring guitar sounds, some fucking incredible drumming, good harmonies. They played a refreshingly varied set, avoiding the common pitfall of opening acts: all your songs sound the same. Thin Hymns played at a level I did not expect, and they should have had a higher slot on the billing. I'll have to see them again.

Why Does Bradford Cox now sound like Julian Casablancas?

2009-03-10T19:29:00.001-07:00

Don't Believe Me?

Deerhunter - New Music - More Music Videos

and

The fuck happened to P4k?

2009-03-08T21:54:00.001-07:00

Really?

This isn't a music crit website, this is an ipod ad.

15 albums

2009-02-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

For no good reason other than that it's February, and I'll do anything to stay stimulated, here's 15 albums that affected me personally, changed my life, or otherwise will never be forgotten by me. In chronological order...

Unplugged in New York, Nirvana
My dad came over to my mom's house and flipped on MTV and waited until the video for Smells Like Teen Spirit came on. "I love these guys." He would have their albums on tape in constant rotation in his truck. I was sucked in. Only a couple years later, my dad would call me late at night and explain what had happened to Kurt Cobain. This was the first CD I ever owned, and with out a doubt, it is their best. It proved that they were more than just a Pixies rip-off who fell ass backwards into stardom. This is the way I remember Nirvana, and the way I remember Kurt.

Rubber Soul, The Beatles
This is an album of a good band coming into their own. The Beatles where already mega-stars that could have settled on doing Motown and Chuck Berry retreads. Here, they’re getting into Dylan, into English folk, and retooling their hit making capabilities to encompass better, smarter writing and more intricate melodies. But the album is also great for its simplicity, the kind of unbeatably succinct songs like “You Won’t See Me” or “In My Life.” It has a youthful energy that isn’t wild or sullen, but something breezy like later Beach Boys. This album will always remind me of Toronto in the summer.

Is This It, The Strokes
Early in high school, all I listened to was music from the 60's and (embarrassingly) jam bands. But I didn't fit into the neo-hippie culture of the Phish-heads. When I heard the Strokes, a light went on, and I knew I'd found my music. As much as we've all moved past them by now, I realize that the Strokes were the perfect band for a disillusioned young man. They could express the nebulous teen angst and aggression that define those years, but also be really fucking cool, and like way fucking cooler than anything else on my radar other than maybe Beck. But most importantly, they pointed me to much better bands—an alternate history of pop music. I still wish I could sing like Julian Casablancas.

The Velvet Underground, The Velvet Underground
Album #3, the quiet one. After hearing both of my parents casually dismiss the Strokes as a Velvet's retread, my mom pulled out a tape of this album to prove her point. "What Goes On" certainly showed me what they were talking about. But the album as a whole has so much more, and I think it gets no respect. Lou's voice sounds better here than anywhere else, and the songs are just perfect. This album also sealed the deal, and like the saying goes, I went out and joined a bad.

Slanted and Enchanted, Pavement
I own this album in two formats, yet it will never sound better than the first time I heard it blaring from Andrew Scanlan's ghetto blaster in the Mazda-that-will-never-die-323 on our way to buy a PA system for the band. Oh my god, Pavement. My life would be nothing like it is now without this record. I've never gone very long without listening to it, and I probably won’t, because there are so many memories attached to it. Andrew, Anna, Nell, Ben, sing with me now, “Ice baby, I shot your girlfriend…”

KID A/Amnesiac, Radiohead
The two are inseparable in my mind, and for a while, I actually thought Amnesiac was a better album. I can say very little about either of them that won’t be total babble. I’ve clocked maybe 11,000 hours or something listening to them. They are both better than Ok Computer, no fucking contest. Ok Computer was genius and groundbreaking and what not. But it wore its organic/synthetic beautiful/ugly pop music/art music seams in typical 90’s postmodern fashion, and sounds dated. Hear, the lines aren’t blurred, they’re completely gone. I even like the weird “KID A=first human clone” urban myth because it seems about right. But none of that matters. What matter is that every time I hear the horns come screeching in on National Anthem, I completely lose it.

Echoes, The Rapture
And to follow the greatest records of my life with the most easily forgotten…
Ok, so maybe it’s the Strokes part two in my life, my false introduction to a scene that maybe only existed for four months, maybe completely run by trust fund hipsters, maybe only in the minds of rock critics. Except that it freaks out in a way that is so subversive, so dirty, so sexy, so cool, and yet so stupid… I don’t know. It’s still the soundtrack for a perfect party in my book. It’s sad to realize that the real coked up quasi urbane kids aren’t even close to being this fun.

You Forgot it in People, Broken Social Scene
One of the most authentically romantic records you will ever hear. There are many elements to the band that can totally sidetrack them, like having a rotating lineup that incorporates dozens of musicians, a totally unchecked earnest delivery, heavy handed production, and the post rock breeding frequently leads them past the six minute mark. But when it works, it works extraordinarily well. I could fall in love with anyone within eyeshot when I listen to this.

Girls Can Tell, Spoon
One of the many breakup albums in both Spoon’s career, and in my lists of favorite albums. It’s a simple story about a guy who falls in love with a girl, moves to Chicago, leaves because he’s pursuing a rock career, gets dropped by a major label, and must now confront his failures while being surrounded memories of his youth. It’s also about men’s fashion. It’s also about two over educated, under stimulated kids from some shit hole town and the artistic/romantic obsessions they sometimes shared, sometimes fought endlessly over. It’s about their unkind imaginations. It’s about when you were 19 and still in school waiting on a light on the corner by Sound Exchange.

Daydream Nation, Sonic Youth
I thought about putting Murray Street or even Washing Machine because I thought almost everyone who likes Sonic Youth is going to name this as their favorite. But neither one is as life changing as Daydream Nation. It’s an album that deserves intellectual examination, while also defying it by sheer volume and aggression. If the album was just Teenage Riot on repeat for 45 minutes, it would still be their best.

Spiderland, Slint.
If you’ve really listened to this album the whole way through, and it didn’t in some way stick with you, if you weren’t in some small way compelled to listen to it again sometime soon—but not too soon--because it hasn’t sunk in yet, if you weren't compelled to patiently follow the insistent but subdued guitars to the very bitter but (triumphant? Fucking awesome?) end, then I don’t know what to say to you. For some people its David Lynch movies, for me, it’s this album.

This Night, Destroyer
His darkest, longest, most personal, most romantic album without a doubt. Not his best, but it’s got to be my favorite. Dan Bejar has a knack for pushing real emotion through even the most obtuse lyrics, but the ones here are actually pretty simple, and the imagery is pretty consistent. This album pulled me through a rough period of longing and self loathing. It feels like a breakup album, but one without all the bitterness, spite, and self pity. Sometimes it sounds like a love-letter, so I can’t really say what it’s supposed to be emoting. It is what it is, and it seems to be an artistic statement about that very emotion.

Early Works, Steve Reich
Steve Reich has the incredible ability to make music that is an all encompassing experience, a form of meditation that quiets your thoughts and opens your mind. And he does it without any trappings, without any tricks. His trick is transparent: set something in motion and let it play out to its end. Unlike Cage’s indeterminacy, Reich is purposeful. He’s not only concerned with the processes he puts into action (phasing, canons) but more importantly, the starting points. The nuanced chord he picks for Four Organs, the rhythms he chooses for his phase pieces, and the source of his tape works. This is what makes “Come Out” and “It’s Gonna Rain” more than just an experiment. Listen hard to the disintegration of the fiery sermon in “It’s Gonna Rain part II” and you understand that Reich has a deeply spiritual investment his work. Even though Reich has been an entry point for me into Art Music and experimental composers, I still think of him right alongside Brian Eno, Miles Davis, Sonic Youth, NEU!, Animal Collective, or J Dilla.

Cryptograms/Flourescent Grey, Deerhunter
I feel like I’m always defending this album, always explaining that the long ambient washes are just as important as the ‘songs.’ So many people will never be able to listen to this record without injecting their feelings about Bradford Cox into it. And as lauded and successful as the album and the band are, I still think this album is underrated. But the thing is, it’s a grower. If you don’t let it get under your skin, you’ll never really appreciate it. God knows where, there is a suncooked worn out tape of these records (the two come printed together as a double LP) that I listened to on repeat in a delivery van two summers ago. The hazy afternoons with the sun bleaching everything, a warm breeze coming and going, the skeletons of buildings hanging in the skyline, parking by the lakeshore just to take a break… this album was perfect.

Person Pitch, Panda Bear
I had been against the Animal Collective for a long time. I hated the ‘freak folk’ scene, I was starting to hate New York, and I hated that Animal Collective was being seen as the only ones actually pushing forward into new musical territory, I hated that this was the album of the year. And mostly, I hated good vibes. So the speed at which this album totally turned me around is amazing. The warmth and generosity, the familiarity, the timeless quality, all from an album made by some dude with a sampler. And the dude with the sampler, the guy who had music critics and other musicians frothing at the mouth with adoration, is actually a really nice guy. And the fact that I came way late to the Animal Collective party should be some sort of terrible shame on me forever in the world of music lovers. But no one gives a shit, including me, because this music trumps the fickle internet-bred sycophancy on which most bands live or die.

WTF

2009-02-18T18:18:00.001-08:00

It's not that I hate an independent musician for getting driven around New York while chugging Starbucks, picking up her $1000+ guitar, claiming Williamsburg is the best place in the world, impulsively buying recording equipment on credit, being aggressively boring, all to end the day in a prolonged photo shoot at her gorgeous Manhattan apartment with her pack of poodles in an inch of gawdy make-up.
It's that I get the impression that I'm not supposed to hate it.

Young Chicagoans are more than aware of the tired trixie/chad/Northside vs art school brat/scuzzy hipster/Westside dichotomy. But alas, New York has surpassed us uniting the above into an unstoppable late capitalist nightmare. Give me a tie and a blackberry and point me to my middle management job because I'm packing it in. Anyone want to buy some guitars?

feeling gay

2009-02-12T00:29:00.000-08:00

Below are four reasons I wouldn't mind making music that people thought was gay.

Two Weeks by Grizzly Bear

I love how tight Grizzly Bear are. I didn't like Yellow House all that much, but I love the Department of Eagles album and the Friend EP. I hope the rest of their new album will be as heartbreaking as this. Ed's voice has really developed.

A Song For Ellie Greenwich

I want my voice to do that, although I think it would hurt, and not really have the desired effect.

Hazel St

I miss dress wearing Bradford, and a little pissed that I missed this performance because I was having brunch. I don't think I've had brunch since.

Strange Powers

I think I might actually like pre 69 Love Songs Stephen Merritt more. Even though it's not as whimsical, I actually think it's less self serious.

I guess Moz should be on the list but Moz wouldn't be gay if he found a female version of himself. And he never really counts anyway. Also, something that doesn't count:

I loved this song, but would always have to turn it off around the family, although I regret not playing it audibly just to see what would happen. But shit, this video is awful. I'm consistently amazed at Broken Social Scene's unflappably earnest stance. When I found out Kevin Drew wasn't gay, I was kind of offended, although I couldn't imagine why or how. This video finally validates that response.

Modding guitar pedals and otherwise fixing things that aren't broken

2009-02-01T00:45:00.000-08:00

I just finished modifying two guitar pedals in my possession, giving them both new life and better functionality. And, without trying to pat myself on the back (although I am quite impressed with them), I realized how gratifying it is to take something apart and make it better.

Not only have I learned basic electronics, but also sharpened my ability to research, to learn new systems and develop new skills with almost no instruction. It's not like I just fucked around until I got lucky (a lil maybe). I feel like this is another merit badge for my list of Skills For Surviving a Post Apocalyptic Future.

Andrew and I had brainstormed about this very issue. He's seen a biker with a weedwacker sized engine attached to his bike frame. As he buzzed down the road, Andrew declared that the Apocalypse has befallen us, but news hadn't spread yet. This guy must have gotten the memo though, and was already on top of it. Mind you, this is before the financial meltdown. So like William Gibson says, the future is here, it's just not widely distributed yet.

I'm hoping that what I'm learning now fucking around with second hand distortion pedals, could some day help me build wind turbines to power my own pirate radio station of the apocalypse. Or at least power a sweet soundsystem for those end of the world dance parties. Or maybe, I should just be buying lotsa guns.

All of this seems much more feasible than me EVER using ANY of the "SKILLS" learned in dramatic writing. Besides, in an oral culture (and you can bet that's what we'll be for the most part), narrative will be a more important art anyway. Or maybe, there will be post-civilization "happenings" or new forms of performance. But let me tell how fucking useless the dramatic form will be in a world where food is scarce and there is no government to protect you. That will be almost as useless as the degree I'm spending 3000 extra dollars just to get.

Of course, all debts will vanish. So, maybe I don't have an excuse not to show up on Tuesday.

Pitchfork.tv makes me wanna smoke crack

2009-01-23T08:54:00.000-08:00

All in all, I find Pitchfork's venture into internet video pretty entertaining. I like that it's commercial free, I usually enjoy the content, and even its flaws usually aren't glaring or obnoxious. One small bone I have to pick with the site is the usually breathless fanboy interviews (see Justice, Liz Phair, Animal Collective). Not that I feel like these artists need the third degree, but the wide eyed puppy dog interviewers tend to deflate the interview pretty quickly. And then there's this...

From the completely shrugged off show of fraternal physical affection, to his ability to be completely disoriented by a single word answer, Cosmo Lee steals this interview with his black hole of a personality. To Jesse's credit, his comic timing is unflappable. But it's as if his one liners and aphorisms just register a "DOES NOT COMPUTE" in the CPU of Cosmo's humorless android brain. Give this man an original series, or maybe just drop him into Tim Harrington's waste of server space, Beardo.

Bros

2009-01-15T12:13:00.001-08:00

A response to Leigh's eloquent post about her girlfriends...

During Christmas, my roommates and I had sent a series of emails checking in and wishing each other well. Each one of us had admitted (sometimes begrudgingly) that we were all important to each other, and that we were all thankful for such good friends. Now, you can blame Christmas cheer or cabin fever for this, but it was kind of a big deal for me.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows us well. We’ve lived with each other or known each other for years now. We’re the official Lost Boys, the Princes of Pilsen, those assholes, or whatever you want to call us. Jokes aside, I have to admit that I wouldn’t know what to do if I didn’t have these guys.

I’ve had so many close friends in my life, and I’ve tried to tell most of these friends how important they are to me. But looking back, I haven’t had a group of guys were I felt so much a part of. I played sports, I had a band, I’ve had plenty of good male friends. But I haven’t known many guys who I consider my bros. My brother and my dad, sure, we were tight. We were the boys, and I have healthy relationships with them both. But as far as friends, I’ve rarely felt that I could let my guard down amongst other guys. In high school, my friends were petty and competitive. There was a lot of drama, a lot of bitching and cruel backstabbing. The guy I probably had the most healthy relationship with was my bandmate Andrew, but I talked shit about him behind his back out of pure jealousy.

I don’t know if people always realize how cruel men can be to each other. There’s this idea that guys are always out-front with each other, that they get into fist fights and beat each other to a pulp, but afterwards are cool with each other. And yes, that does actually happen. But there are just as many guys who can pull some real mean girl style bullshit and appear totally masculine uncomplicated when they do it.

So when I finally fell in with these guys, I felt a huge sense of relief. We can be masculine and stupid with each other. We can get drunk and disorderly and make cruel fun of each other. But I feel like we all have each other’s backs. And we can be disarmingly honest with each other. That’s the defense I have against the Lost Boys tag. We’re not just dicking around and avoiding responsibility. We’re all very concerned with growing up, becoming good men, good people. And no one is more critical of us than each other.

I know I’m lucky, and I know this won’t last forever. We will all grow up, move out, possibly marry, have families of our own. But I hope we never grow too distant. I would love for our children to be friends, to feel like cousins. That may seem like a pipe dream, but it’s not totally unrealistic. Working with MPAACT, I see old college friends working together, in community with each other, their children playing together like cousins.

I hope we haven’t alienated ourselves from our other friends. This winter has been isolating, and I know, this is what we get for moving so far away. But I hope our friends feel like our doors are open to them anytime. I also hope that the 'boys only club' feeling isn't too strong, that we haven't alienated our female friends. I know that we have, and I'm sorry. It's a pity that it often took breakups or frustration with girls to bring us together. But it's not what holds us together. Besides, as Weezy says, "[we've] been hated by the seasons, so fuck y'all whos hate'n fo no reason"

ahhh

Stay critical or die,

Nigel

End of Year List

2008-12-25T22:17:00.001-08:00

Atlas Sound Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel
Atlas Sound is Deerhunter ingénue Bradford Cox’s solo moniker he’s previously used for releasing vinyl-only tape collages on scattered small labels. (Yes, I bought all of them I could find). Here, Cox turns to tighter song structures and a clearer lyrical narrative. These songs are alternately delicate and fucked up, many times both at once. That is to say, perfect for winter. Cox also used my favorite recording program, Ableton Live (see below), which makes me believe we should be best friends in real life. Also, Cox is a really nice guy. I met him before his show at the Empty Bottle, and he offered me a copy of his album for free before his tour manager told him he shouldn’t.

No Age Nouns
I was casually interested in No Age until I saw them open for Liars. They blew me and everyone else away. I lost my shit and ended up doing several embarrassing fifteen year old things like pogo-ing, screaming “I love you” and “play it fucking loud,” and playing air-guitar, then Randall’s guitar as it was passed around the audience. In my defense, this is the only accurate response to a No Age show. I mean, I wonder what they said to each other after recording Brain Burner? Did they say, “Oh that was nice, let’s take a break,” or did they high five each other mid-air while jumping of Randall’s amp and screaming “FUCK YESSS!!!!” Totally rad album, totally rad guys (and I thank them for reintroducing rad to my lexicon). Also really nice guys. I got to see them after Pitchfork at somebody’s basement. Indescribable.

Jay Reatard Blood Visions, Singles 06-07, Singles 08
Like No Age’s dark counterpoint, Jay Reatard writes abrasive, tight, loud, poppy, and deceptively simple songs at a rate of about two per hour. He’s also known for punching wayward stage climbing fans with no remorse, and sticking a flower up his ass in an impromptu set with King khan. I shouldn’t like this guy. Maybe it’s because he’s of the few people who actually deserve comparisons to early Wire records. Maybe because he’s lead to my discovery of Kiwi-pop (also, below)? Or maybe because getting punched by this guy might actually feel as good as getting pummeled by his live set? Who knows? Who cares? "Puppet Man, lets go!”

King Khan and the Shrines The Supreme Genius of King Khan and the Shrines
A total surprise to me. I’d heard about King Khan, but was generally disinterested. I didn’t think I’d have time for some kind of garage-funk hybrid at this point in my life. His live show at P-fest won me over. I think it won everyone over, as he got us all to burn and rip up dollar bills (creating a ripple effect still being felt in the money markets, I’m sure) like cult members. King Khan is what’s been missing from independent—no, all pop music for along time. He’s a consummate performer, excellent band leader, bat-shit insane guru, and all around charmer. Also, Welfare Bread is a great anthem for the Great Depression part II.

Deerhunter Weird Era Cont.
I’m not just being a dick by listing the bonus CD from Microcastle, I just though Microcastle was underwhelming. A few great songs, some boring ones, a couple of medium ones, over. I can’t complain because Bradford Cox is a prolific man, and I’ve rarely been let down. Weird Era makes up for every weakpoint on Microcastle with amazing songs that should have been part of the album proper (its version of Calgary Scars should have been on the album). Best one is Vox Celeste, in which Deerhunter finally nails My Bloody Valentine, and does it one better.

Women Women
Recommended to me by the always reliable Liz and Lance from Permanent Records. This album is exactly what I wish I could make. A lo-fi album that is messy, tight, tuneful, abrasive, succinct and sprawling. It’s a remix of my favorite elements from No Age, and possibly better. I’m still diving headlong into this album, but unlike most of the albums listed, I’ve gotten everyone else in the apartment onboard. Listen to Shaking Hand and then buy the album.

The Chills, The Verlaines, Flying Nun Records
Apparently, early 1980’s New Zealand was the best place to find melodic pop bands. Flying Nun records documented what came to be known as the Dunedin Sound, a collection of talented bands hovering around Dunedin including The Chills, The Verlaines, and the Clean. I became briefly obsessed with the Chills after listening to Pink Frost. And the Verlaines wrote my new favorite pop chorus in Death and the Maiden. So good I played an unrehearsed and ill advised cover of the song just because I wanted to sing it.

Of Montreal Skeletal Lamping
Completely underrated. At first, this album seems less confessional than Hissing Fauna, and a lot of people are put off by Kevin Barnes’ black transvestite alter ego. It’s indulgent, but it’s also frequently brilliant. Very gutsy, and rewarding after repeated listening. An Eluardian Instance is a heartbreaking coded love letter to his wife, which is especially rewarding to fans who followed his story thus far.

Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weil Threepenny Opera
I had the pleasure of working on the Hypocrites production of 3penny at the Steppenwolf. During which Joe and I finally got “really into” Kurt Weil and the nonstop hits in this show. Just perfect, and way more influential than I ever realized. Most Fav, Jealousy Duet.

New Pornographers Execution Day
“ON THIS DAAAAYYYY….”

Ableton Live, PSP Vintage Warmer, Abby Road 14213
Ableton Live is the best recording software ever made, primarily because it’s made to make music, not just record it. Once you learn the program, it stay’s out of your way and has a massive arsenal of easy to use plug-ins. But to really get it right, I needed PSP Vintage Warmer and Abby road 14213 plug-ins. These are modeled after famous solid state vintage gear, the second modeled specifically after the compressors found in the EMI desks at Abby Road and used on the later Beatles albums. Also, giving these plugins nicknames will make you feel less lonely after completely imploding into total geekdom. But seriously, these are golden and indispensable.

Music Ben Listens To
Despite my ravenous internet seeking, name dropping, and talking about that No Age show where I almost met Avey Tare, Ben will always find away to one up me. This year, he introduced me to some of the best psychedelia ever recorded, made me respect post Modern Lovers Jonathon Richmond, and left my Dylan love in the dust as he plunged into the near unlistenable Self Portrait with Ethan.

Music Ben has Recorded
Well actually, I recorded some of it and played bass on some of it, so…
Seriously though, there is going to be a songwriting arms race as our gear buying arms race has grinded to a halt. And Ben is winning so far.

Ethan Heil
For buying the sickest amp, for being the most rock and roll, for his smart ass opinions, and for putting up with me for two years in a row.

Ben and Ethan getting into Spoon
HA!

Jazz at the Skylark, Open Mic Nights at Bernice's tavern
Just two reasons why where I live is cooler than where you live.

p-fest rebuttle

2008-07-20T12:21:00.000-07:00

Any mixed feelings I may have had about Pitchfork or Chicago have been totally wiped away after Saturday. Atlas Sound, No Age, Animal Collective, all excellent sets. And to the band who hosted the No Age after party show, who's name unfortunately slipped my inebriated and heat-stroked brain, thank you.

I have some shaky cell phone pictures to post later. For now, some festival inspired pieces made with ableton. Or dedicated to the festival, as they were made a while ago. The first one makes a nice ringtone.

6-6

Festival

My apologies for long winded criticisms of Chicago.