Vertigo

Here's where I apologize for the scattershot post. It's all over the place. I'm feeling pretty sick. So. See if you can make any sense out of it. I'm sure it does. It's just... This preamble is pretty useless anyways... I'm going to bed.

So, I'm listening to the new El-P album right now, thank you very much Amanda for getting that for me. A nice little present for doing nothing, quite nice indeed. I love getting presents for nothing. Maybe I did do something, and I just don't know what that might be. I do plenty of good deeds throughout my everyday life. That's a little egotistical isn't it? Scratch that. Rewind and forget that I just wrote that. Oh, Amanda's had some great blog activity lately, I highly suggest that you go over there and read something much better than where I'm going with this. Anyway, the point of the post... Oh. Yeah. I'm feeling pretty crappy. I think I might have an ear infection, or something. Something with the ear. It's hurting. But what's worse, is this diziness. Earlier today, I blew my nose, and I got dizzy for a minute and half. Like full blown, spinning around in circles like a five year old, dizzy. But it wouldn't stop. Now I'm just off balance, hours and hours later. So, this El-P album is really disorienting. It'd make me dizzy if I wasn't dizzy already. But damn, it's so good. El just comes around every five years or whatever, and turns hip-hop on it's ear (damn pun, couldn't avoid it) and then completely decimates every rapper/producer/b-boy/white person who enjoys the chorus of a Snoop Dogg song. (That's probably not a pun).

So, yeah. Dizzy. We had a great time in Michigan. We saw Bill Clinton speak at the big comencment for all of the Michigan students. Chris and Angelita were graduating from grad school, so they weren't involved in that one. So that made three graduation ceremonies in two days. It was a good vacation. No real down time, no sitting around watching tv. Which is something that I really don't like on vacations. The exception to that rule is when Amanda and I go down to the beach by ourselves. While not at the beach or a restaurant, we're in the beach house watching DVDs. It's good times. But vacations where we're visiting people, or with other people, watching tv is boring. A distraction. I'm getting off track. Steven couldn't come. Which was dissapointing, Steven makes everything much more fun. Not that we didn't have fun, mind you, but it would have been extra fun with Steven there. So, Chris and Ang are moving back down here. Which is really exciting and great. They've been up in Michigan pretty much since a couple of months since Amanda and I first started going out. Now we'll really get to know eachother, and it'll be great.


Once again, I'm going to apologize for the fractured nature of this post. I'm having a problem with focusing. I'm just doing this until the Nyquil puts me to sleep.

Goin' To Michigan.

what i'm listening to right now: Catch A Bad One by Del Tha Funky Homosapien

i'll be with these two, that large building in the back won't be there, though.

Tomorrow morning at 6, we're on our way to Ann Arbor, Michigan. We'll be seeing Amanda's brother and his wife graduate from the University of Michigan. A nice little escape from town. So, obviously, no posts until at least Monday.

Oak City Music Festival

what i'm listening to right now: Only Shallow by My Bloody Valentine

Okay, so I got this great idea. This is an idea and pretty much nothing else, since I don't have the resources to execute the idea. But, I thought I'd put it out there and maybe one day someone could pick up that idea and do something with it. Here in Raleigh, we'll be losing our public mental institution, Dorthea Dix, soon. The state will be closing it down in favor of privatized mental health care. This is an awful idea. Due to the phasing out of the hospital, the mental health of the city's homeless has been taking a serious hit. The homeless not being able to pay for consistent care from private mental hospitals. Which we don't even have in the capital city, the second largest city in the state.

So, being the types that turn bad governing into lemonade, the people of Raleigh are trying to make the Dix campus into a giant public park. Something we don't have here and would honestly be great. This brings me to the point of this post. Dix Park, if approved, would make a fantastic spot for a music festival. The park is a half mile from downtown, easy access to the hotels that the city is spending so much money subsidizing. A related event could even be held at the future convention center, that again, the city is spending so much fucking money on. This could bring attention to the area's indie music scene. Not just on a national scale, but on a local scale. Outside of the same people that you see whenever you go to a concert, there's a general feeling that most people in the city have no idea about the great music that's being made in their backyard.

Merge Records is right down the road in Durham, and they could use some of their significant pull to attract not only their bands (Arcade Fire, Spoon, Rosebuds, Superchunk/Portastatic, etc.), but other indie bands. If Merge could get Arcade Fire down here for a festival, I think plenty of other bands would jump at the chance to play with them. Indie festivals seem to be popping up all over the place, and indie music is even overtaking jam band festivals. Look at the lineup for recent Bonaroo festivals and see how much they've been leaning towards bands of the indie persuasion.

Holding the festival at Dix Park would generate revenue for the city. More so than holding it at say, Walnut Creek. Where there would be all sorts of user fees and other headaches that would just take money out of everyone's pockets.

Of course, this is all contingent upon whether the city council listens to the will of the majority of the citizens, or to their friends, the developers. The developers want to turn Dix into a condo/upscale shopping/office park. How much more upscale shopping and condos can we have in Raleigh. Where are the people working in the upscale stores and cleaning the condos gonna live? That's another post.

Then, someone has to take this ball and run with it. I have no experience or expertise with anything like this. I think there are enough people in this city that could pull this off, though. So talk to your friends about this idea. Maybe one of those friends will talk to one of their friends, and maybe, someone who knows what they're doing will get wind of it. And maybe, just maybe, it'll happen. I'll have some little sense of satisfaction if it does.

This Should Lift Everyone's Spirits

How can it not?

Damn.

I just found out that a great and frequent customer of mine just died. I am extremely sad. Richard Miller had Parkinson's. Yet, he was always coming in, drinking wine, eating sashimi tuna and fish or pork. By the time I met Mr. Miller, he'd already had Parkinsons, which had taken it's toll on him. He was 68 but looked 15 years older than that. He could barely talk. And wore a neck brace toward the end. The worst part of the night would be running his credit card with his picture on it, taken before the disease ravaged him. A handsome man with blond hair.
Damn.

The Return Of The Shuffle Game

So, I was going through Marco's blog, and found that he had created some more questions for "The Shuffle Game", which I played along with a couple of months ago. As I'm feeling like posting stuff more than I have recently, I'm gonna go with it while the fecundity is still here.

1)What was your greatest accomplishment?Shuffle Says: "Attitude" by Bad Brains. Being punk as fuck? Well, at least I'm cool. This song ended before I wrote this.
2)What would you say to Jesus if you met him?Shuffle Says: "Beeswax" by Nirvana. I got my diddly straaaaang! That's all I could say. He'd probably see into my heart or something like that. I might as well say "I got my diddly string".
3)What is your favorite thing to wear?Shuffle Says: "Ankh" by Sun Ra. from wikipedia- The precise origin of the symbol remains a mystery to Egyptologists, and no single hypothesis has been widely accepted. Scholars such as Howard Carter speculate that it is derived from a primitive representation of human genitalia (with the upper circle representing the vulva and lower 'T' shape representing the penis and testicles), and variations on this theme are common. Similar assertions are that the symbol is a representation of the pharaoh's penis sheath or that it is a stylized pubic triangle. So, birthday suit, I reckon.
4)How does your financial future look?Shuffle Says: "Boyscout'n" by Menomena. Whistling. Baritone Sax. Somewhere between those two things, is where my money's gonna be. In other words, I'm gonna hit that scratch off jackpot, son! Double Doubler!
5)What is your ideal vacation?Shuffle Says: "Part Time Lover" by Stevie Wonder. A sexcation. In the eighties.
6)What does an apology from you involve?Shuffle Says: "Her Majesty" by The Beatles. It takes the Queen herself to get me to admit I'm wrong.
7)What kind of food are you in the mood to eat?Shuffle Says: "Little Red Corvette" by Prince. Damn, shuffle, this is the second time I've played this game, and this song has showed up both times. In a very suggestive question. Damn, Prince, you are beating that horse/condom/sexual partner metaphor to death in this song.
8)What is your worst habit?Shuffle Says: "Margarete vs. Pauline" by Neko Case. I'll admit, I'm pretty bad about pitting girls against eachother. Damn. This song takes my breath away. Neko Case takes my breath away, really.
9)If you were a boxer, what music would they play as you entered the ring?Shuffle Says: "Love To Fight" by Sebadoh. Seriously. Not shitting you. I didn't rig this. I clicked "skip", and the perfect song for this question came up.
10)What is your most prized possession?Shuffle Says: "Vietnamese Baby" by New York Dolls. I bought this baby, cash!
11)Describe your creative side.Shuffle Says: "Search And Destroy" by The Stooges. I am, in fact, a streetwalkin' cheetah with a heart full of napalm.
12)What advice would you give a younger version of yourself?Shuffle Says: "Jackson Cannery" by Ben Folds Five. Enough's enough, I'm leaving this factory. Jeff, leave the factory. cuz all you need, yeah, it's free, cuz you're a factory. wait, that doesn't make any sense.
13)What is one thing you would change about yourself if you could?Shuffle Says: "Bullet The Blue Sky" by U2. 100, 200! Damn. Sometimes, you forget how awesome U2 are/were. So, I guess I'd change... well, this song really doesn't apply to me.
14)What song will play over the credits in the movie about your life?Shuffle Says: "Don't Mess With Cupid" by Otis Redding. Yeah, sure. That works. This song is pretty awesome. I guess the movie could focus on my secret life as a vengeful match maker.
15)What will cause your downfall?Shuffle Says: "That's Not Me" by The Beach Boys. Moving out of my parents house will cause my downfall. Geez. I'm fucked. There's a whole long life after that, right? Right?!?
16)Where did you leave your keys when you lost them?Shuffle Says: "Somebody To Love" by Queen. Oh. That's where I left them? Ugh. I can wait till they come out on their own.
17)How do you feel about the Bush Administration?Shuffle Says: "Full Disclosure" by Fugazi. If it were opposite day? Yes.
18)What's you best pickup line?Shuffle Says: "Don't Believe The Hype" by Public Enemy. Yeah, girl, don't believe the hype! I don't got no diseases! Don't believe the hype! I'm not homeless, and I ain't gonna steal your prescriptions when I ask to use your bafroom!
19)What was your biggest mistake?Shuffle Says: "Pattern Against User" by At The Drive-In. "Hypodermic people pokin' fun at the livin'." Yeah, I was a real asshole for doing that. Sorry. I apologize for myself and all of my hypodermic people.
20)What superpower do you want?Shuffle Says: "The Narrator" by Apples In Stereo. I am the omniscient narrator of the world. Or at the very least, an Apples In Stereo record.

On Jamming

what i'm listening to right now: Instant Pleasures by Simply Saucer

This post started out as a response to Michael in the comments to his post about Phish vs. The Grateful Dead. I ended up getting a little long winded for just a comment. Then I started talking about how Neil Young makes me feel like a loser. So I moved it over here.

By the way, this is my 50th post on this blog. A milestone has turned, or something like that.

So, jam bands. Or jamming to be more specific. There's nothing wrong with that. Michael's right, it gets a bad name, when it can be very adventurous musically. It can really change your perception of the music. (Most) every musician that I respect does it. It's kinda like masturbation. You don't talk about it with your friends that much, unless that's all your friends talk about (hippies). Shit, The Velvet Underground did it. Ever listen to any of the live albums? "Sister Ray" is a kinda-jam.

Just like any genre, or more specifically, just like any musical apparatus, jamming has it's transcendent moments, and it's large pool of pretenders. Unlike Mike, can I call him Mike? I'm sure I can. Unlike Mike, I would put Phish in that pretender pool. Phish, while technically proficient, has that one string that they pull. The jam, and that's it. The jam has to have some root in a song. A jam is a device in a toolbox, not the box itself.

The Grateful Dead on the other hand, and Mike argued this same point, so I'm just reiterating here, always had a song to return to. If they went off for thirty minutes, they always had the choice to return to a great melody and for the most part, some fairly great lyrics.

My personal favorite jamming, though is the jamming of Jimi Hendrix. In the last decade a shit ton of posthumous live albums have come out. Some better than others, but the one theme that runs through all of them is "holy shit, I'm listening to the greatest musician ever". The same kind of feeling when you listen to John Coltrane completely freak out on his saxophone. Jimi's jamming is more like Coltrane than Garcia. It's much more about unconscious musical ability. There's more emotion than there is "this would sound cool if I did this..." The difference between these two musicians and the rest of the world is their need to do this, in an instinctual sense. Like you can't imagine anyone else taking the triteness of "My Favorite Things" and turning it into a towering monster that scrapes the bottom of heaven. Like you can't imagine anyone else making their guitar sound like a machine gun for twelve minutes, and actually, sincerely mean it.

I might throw Neil Young into this group. Less graceful than either two, but there is real emotion behind his ragged playing. Neil Young really makes me feel like the underachiever that I am. By the time he was 24, he had been in a band with Rick James, Buffalo Springfield, made Everybody Knows This is Nowhere, After The Goldrush, AND Harvest. Damn. I can't really compare with that. How great is "Down By The River"? It's one riff, and like eight words.

While I was looking for a picture of Neil Young & Crazy Horse, I happened upon the picture above. I always forget about the Crazy Horse on a mountainside thing, and everytime I stumble upon it again, I'm once again blown away.

Greetings From Ys-burry Park.

Ooh Ooh Ooh! The other day we got the new Joanna Newsom ep. A couple of weeks before it comes out. Oh the benefits of having a girlfriend who's a music editor for a local magazine.

So, it's fantastic. Having been lucky enough to see Newsom live on her recent tour, I was floored by her full band arrangements of songs from Ys. At the time of the concert, I hadn't bought the album yet. So, the show kinda colored how I approached the album after I got it. (Directly after the show). As amazing as Ys is, the full band arrangements were something else entirely. The Ys Street Band, as she refers to them, make the songs sound even more Renaissance Fair-y, but that doesn't really faze me. I could see how this could disarm someone not willing to go along with the whole Sword In The Stone vibe of this ep. The thing that gets me is Newsom herself. She's amazing. Her lyrics are labyrinths that are very easy to get lost in, beautiful labyrinths, with all the amenities of home. A labyrinth that I don't mind settling down in, making a pot of coffee, letting the exit come to me.

I miss that show, there are certain bands whose shows reach this level that you don't ever want them to end. You want to live at these shows, you want to become familiar with the corners and hallways of the shows. Using the settling in metaphor again, I guess. It's where you want to be. Not like a Dead or Phish concert thing, where you just go, get fucked up, and appreciate the music much more while you're tripping and making grilled cheese sandwiches in the parking lot. No, more like following Joanna Newsom to watch this house that she's building get windows, a roof. Later on, couches, cats, and microwaves.

And that brings me to how much I already miss Kings. It was a place where you could watch a band do that. We were really lucky to have a couple of beyond fantastic bands that built a house in Kings. The Rosebuds were starting to put pictures of children (The Bowerbirds) on the walls of their house. Amanda and I were talking the other day, and we realized that we've seen the Rosebuds more than we've seen any band in our life. Probably a half dozen drummers, a stand up bass player once, now a full band. We've all been lucky in this town, able to watch this little band grow up into this big thing that they are now. I don't know how many people get to do that. Watch a good band become great, in front of you, three or four miles down the road.

Purple Monkey Dishwasher, Pass It On.

A number of blogs of people I know, or Amanda knows have been doing a list of their top ten high school albums. It's spread from Marco to Jenny (whom I also stole the "Shuffle" post from, which she took from Marco), to Michael. Now I'm doing it. The three of them are a few years older than I am, so my list should be significantly different. Here it is.



10. Jimi Hendrix- Band of Gypsys. Of course, this didn't come out while I was in high school. A good percentage of what I'll write about didn't. I was into older stuff in high school. I listened to this album incessantly. It's amazing. It's heavy jazz/funk. Not rock at all. My brother, Dan spent a year learning every second of this album on his guitar. We bought a bootleg video of the concert, a CD of a guy telling you which nobs to turn to get the guitar tone. It was an obsession.
9. Pixies- Surfer Rosa. Holy shit. I'd never heard anything so unhinged before. I bought it, only to take it home and find the disc was broken inside the case. It took another week for it to come into the store again, and when it did. This was one of the albums that I spent a lot of time listening to pushing carts in the Target parking lot. Ah, Walkmans. How inconvenient was that huge circle that I carried around.

8. The White Album- In middle school, I dabbled with the idea of enjoying heavy metal. I tried, oh, how I tried to enjoy a Marilyn Manson album, or a Sepultura album. I really tried. Of course, I couldn't stand the shit. During this time, I got in a little trouble at school. You draw one pentagram on your algebra notebook... So, my teacher feverishly calls my dad, tells him I'm on the path to hell. He forces me to cut my long hair, takes all my tapes and CDs and goes through the lyrics to each one. Anything objectionable, gone. Metallica, Nine Inch Nails, Pearl Jam, Nirvana (for not having lyrics, so they must be doing something subliminal). I talk him into letting me sell them to the record store. I get enough credit for two CDs, The White Album and something I don't remember. I don't think I've listened to any album as much as I have The White Album. It's perfect. If I had to choose one album to keep out of the thousand plus we own, that'd be the one.
7. The Velvet Underground & Nico. The fondest memory I have of this album is driving down 401 in my dad's truck, the windows down, the volume all the way up. "The Black Angel Death Song" is blowing my mind, and then what I thought for a moment was a second drum part, turned out to be my tire going flat. Also, playing this on the CD player in second period art class. Jessica Davis was loving "Sunday Morning", and then she joined everyone else in hating the Velvet Underground and me.
6.Ben Folds Five- s/t. Another carryover from middle school. I listened to the tape of this so much that it eventually broke the tape player in my mom's Ford Contour (which I would later crash.)
5.Blind Melon- Soup. Probably the least cool album on this list. I have a soft spot for this band, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I bought it in a huge record store in Akron when we were visiting there one year. I remember playing it a lot in my grandma's basement while Dan and I were avoiding my uncle Wayne.
4.Fugazi- Repeater. I've written about this before, so I'll keep it short. I listened to this pushing carts at Target. A lot. It made me a mini communist and I quit my job. Before I could quit my job, I was driving that Ford Contour and crashed it while a Fugazi song was on 88.1. I should clarify that I didn't crash the car through my negligence, someone hit me over on Martin Street by Moore Square.
3.Modest Mouse- This Is A Long Drive For Someone With Nothing To Think About. I listened to a burned copy of this over and over for pretty much all of high school. I can't attribute any specific memories to it, though. Probably a couple of long drives, though.
2.Aesop Rock- Labor Days. We listened to this a lot senior year. My friend Derrick would take us to eat at Bojangles at lunch, and then do something crazy with his truck. Usually, he'd drive it into this field that is now a Target. He had 4 wheel drive, and just didn't give a fuck. The grass was really high in that field, and there were a lot of big holes in it. I'm not sure how we didn't get injured while he was doing that. He did wreck it shortly afterwards, along with at least one more car before we graduated. Might have been more than one, actually. Derrick's since joined the Marines. A completely unbelievable thing.
1.The Cherry Valence- s/t. The first time I went to Kings was to see Nebula and The Cherry Valence. Nebula was neither here nor there. They didn't leave an impression on me because they went on after the best band in town. I saw Cherry Valence every time they played in town. They routinely blew my mind. It was like if James Brown replaced whatshisname in AC/DC.


honorable mentions.
Ghostface Killah- Supreme Clientele. Listened to this plenty of times playing video games over at Lamont's.
The Doors- Morrison Hotel. I really liked the Doors in high school. A little too much.
Coldplay- Parachutes. Are Coldplay pussies? Yes. Am I? Probably best to leave that unanswered.

TV On The Radio- It's All Fart Jokes From Here On

I've tried, and I just can't write much about this show. It was just amazing. TV on The Radio were earth shattering. They were The Colossus of Rhodes, standing astride all of indie rock, looking down at all the little bands in their little boats. They played a frenzied set that didn't relent. What passes for a ballad for them was a tent revival where the Bad Brains were the house band. Where jazz was the teacher, and funk was the preacher. Where I run out of metaphors and just give up on trying to explain this show.

I can explain that I wasn't fond of the opening band, The Noisettes. I was hoping from the sound of their band name that they'd sound like the Sonic Youth album that Phil Spector never got to produce. If they did sound like that, I'd probably like them more than Sonic Youth. That wasn't the case. They sounded like a punky version of Thin Lizzy without the charm and hooks of Thin Lizzy. Nothing impressive.

Holler To My Little Brother

Crazy things have been going on over North Raleigh way the past couple of days. My little brother, Tyler found a neighbor dead in his (the neighbor's) front lawn. He's really shaken up. I can't imagine how fucking traumatic that is.

Tyler's a good kid, and I just wanted to write about that. I made a whole lots of bunches of mistakes when I was living with my family before I moved out. I was probably an asshole, and I'm really sorry about that. Thankfully, Tyler didn't follow my bad example and has turned into a really good kid. Add to that, he's into much better music than most 17 year olds around. That would be a good example he picked up from me (and Dan, my other younger brother, who of course, wouldn't of known anything outside of Janet Jackson's "Design Of A Decade" if it weren't for me. But I digress.)

So, I'll see Tyler tomorrow, and see how he's doing.

You're Gonna Miss Me

what i'm listening to right now: My My by Menomena

So I really want to see this movie. Just wanted to share the trailer with y'all. I'll post more later today. Sorry for the poor writing in the previous post. I wrote it at 5 in the morning, I haven't been sleeping well.

Kings' Last Night

birds of avalon

black taj

birds of avalon

dynamite brothers

So, overall, a pretty crazy night at Kings. Lots of drinking from everybody, and it showed at the end of the night. Some roustabouts in the men's room started kicking the wall between their room and the dance floor out. No sooner than I wipe the drywall dust off my pants than some drunk girl starts throwing her top at the Birds Of Avalon. Lead singer, Craig Tilley kept giving her shirt back, which she'd put back on. Only to throw back off moments later. Wouldn't be the end of Kings without some drunken action someone was gonna regret later.

Oh yeah, a bunch of bands played that night, too.

I walked in at the end of Dynamite Brothers' set. I've been a fan of theirs since a Halloween show where they dressed as Billy Gibbons and Phil Collins, probably five years ago or more. Since then they've become the tightest band on the scene, yet they've been relegated to the early slot every time I've seen them. They were especially on fire this night, ending the set with a bruising, spot on version of "Young Man's Blues".

They were followed by The Greatest Hits, who introduced themselves as "the Duke football program of Raleigh bands". This is a pretty fair assessment. Their greatest moment, in probably ever, happened when they were joined by Scott from Goner and performed a fantastic cover of "This Heart's On Fire" by Wolf Parade.

The Loners played next. They only have one song, with different variations. They played these variations, and I drank beer and talked shit about EMI raising the price of their digital downloads to $1.35.

Black Taj were up next and they proceeded do as they always do, and crush heads. Left and right. I definitely don't get to see this band enough, and I'm guessing I'll get to see them less now that Kings is closed. I'd write more, but I can't find the words. They were just really good, like all the good things about Guided By Voices stretched out over the low end of a Polvo album.

Birds of Avalon ended the night. Confetti, streamers, breasts, rockin'... BOA took up where Cherry Valence left off. Minus those drummers, those fantastic, thrilling drummers. That is definitely what's missing here. I held out hope for a mini CV reunion, that didn't happen. BOA has definitely improved over the past year or two since they started up, though. They've become much tighter and sound less like a derivation of their former band.

Here's the point where I apologize for the fractured nature of this post. I woke up at 5:10 in the AM, and couldn't fall back asleep. I decided I'd finally get around to writing this, and I think when I read it when I wake back up in a couple of hours, I'll be chagrined or something. So, sorry, I could come back and edit this, but that kinda goes against the spirit of a blog. Doesn't it? Maybe not. I'm sleepy again. I did correct a few glaring grammar errors, the next day, though.

Dick Van Dyke One Man Band Machine: Johnathon Richman

I was originally going to write a post about Simply Saucer and Johnathon Richman and The Modern Lovers. In the end, I was more interested in writing about the song that was the main focus of the comparison between the Velvet Underground obsessed bands, "Velvet Underground" by Richman. So, in turn, I decided to add another semi-regular feature to the blog, Dick Van Dyke One Man Band Machine, (basically, song reviews with a pop culture reference title that has nothing to do with anything).

Johnathon Richman was a teenager obsessed with The Velvet Underground. While they were still together. There's that tired adage, only 100 people heard The Velvet Underground, but they started 100 bands. Richman is the personification of this saying. And what a band he made. The Modern Lovers' lone album is all jangled nerves and teenage worrying set to a VU shuffle. Years later, Johnathon Richman recorded a song dedicated to Velvet Underground. A song that should be the theme for every VU fan that's not actually into sadomasochism, heroin, speed, lonesome cowboys, and "suckin' on a ding-dong". It's all wide-eyed reverence and evangelizing your favorite band. Equating the Velvet Underground with "America at it's best".

Towards the end of the song, the friendly standard Richman shuffle shifts into a cover of "Sister Ray". I really can't think of another song that heaps such praise on it's subject, except maybe "Heroin".

so, the impetus for this post was Simply Saucer who are currently blowing me away. they're a Canadian band that officially released only a single while they were together. A posthumous album was cobbled together from sessions, demos, etc. they're going back into the studio now almost 30 years after they broke up. a Pitchfork news item about this reunion is how I found out about them. I'm going to be working a post about their album Cyborgs Revisited for The Red Skull, a feature on this blog about overlooked or stumbled upon albums (previously covered in Red Skull, The Kinks and Kaleidoscope).

Modest Mouse Are Not TVs.

what i'm listening to right now: Parting Of The Sensory by Modest Mouse

I've been listening to the new Modest Mouse album quite a lot. It seems that I shouldn't like it. It's slicker, more poppy, and has three guest spots from the man who's annoying and disappointing me most in indie rock right now, James Mercer. How awful is that new Shins album? Damn, disappointment of the century. A bit of hyperbole, I admit. I think what annoys me more about the Shins right now are the reviews and general press about the band. If I read another mention of Garden State and "changing your life" in reference to the Shins again, one of my eyeballs will explode. Among my myriad complaints about this reference: The soundtrack's not even that good, outside of the Shins song. It's a bunch of milquetoast post-indie rock. It's an easy space filler for music writers trying to fill up space in their review/profile. It's a tired cliche at that. Everyone else has already written each possible variation on this cliche. Did Lester Bangs parrot the same intro to his review of some shitty Jackson Browne record? Don't you want to do something besides trying to get into Pitchfork with overly verbose word stuffed reviews? Or maybe into Rolling Stone with a quick, succinct little pop culture based review that doesn't tell you anything about how the record sounds? Or maybe you just want to blather on about how everyone else is doin' shit wrong. Like me...

God, I can't even go over this post now, I can't check for spelling or grammar errors because, if I do, I'll have an eyeball explosion on my hands. Kinda like that Grover book, "There's A Monster At The End Of This Book". Good god, Jeff, just don't read this blog post after you write it, there's a monster at the beginning of this post.

So, I was talking about the new Modest Mouse. It's slick, it sounds more compressed, more modern rock than anything they've ever done. By my standards, I should be hatin' on this. I should be talking about it's greasy greasy gran-ma. Yet, I fucking love it. Slick and mainstream for Modest Mouse is still pretty fucking weird by most people's standards. The album starts off with "March Into The Sea" which is Isaac Brock leading a demented marching band, well, into the sea. It's unhinged, and it's classic Modest Mouse stomp. The single, "Dashboard" is a slick little nugget, just like "Float On", though I don't know if it'll get the American Idol and Kidz Bop treatment.

Then, there's "Parting of The Sensory", another giant stomper grows out of a "Bankrupt On Selling"esque acoustic ballad. Any hint from "Good News..." that Brock was becoming relatively happy and sane have been dashed by this song and his recent self mutilation on stage. Not sure why I'm cheering for him remaining crazy, that's not a good thing. It's good for his music. Yet, he's still a person. Maybe it's posturing. Maybe he's playing at crazy. Maybe it's none of my business.

Amanda told me that when she saw them years ago, they waited an hour to come out on stage, came out drunk/high/tripping, and then stumbled through singing "we're not tvs/don't look at us", then they left the stage, pissing just about everyone off. She refuses to see them now. So, maybe his craziness is none of my business, but it's his business, and he's airing it out for everyone. He's making it his business. The business that I buy into. He's not a tv, not in the literal sense.

Lament For A King(s)

what i'm listening to right now: Gemini Cusp by Polvo

Saturday night is the last night for Kings. The only rock club worth a damn in Raleigh. Some of the greatest shows I've ever seen have been there. Two of the best bands that have graced this town's scene have almost literally lived there over the past 8 years. The Cherry Valence and The Rosebuds owned that spot. I can't remember specifically if they played together on the same night or not, but that would have been a hell of a show. The Rosebuds played their last show there last month, and what's left of the Cherry Valence, a bastardized version of the band, Birds Of Avalon will close it out on it's last night this Saturday.

I've had bottles thrown at me by a Hasil Adkins cover band, seen a band from Tel Aviv set themselves on fire, and even fell in love (momentarily) with Three Dog Night.

It'll be a sad night, we've got The Jackpot, and that's it. Everything else has a shiny bar, well, Slim's doesn't, but that place is sketch as all hell sometimes. Though you can't resist the cheapness of the place. But neither of those places are going to fill the hole that Kings will leave. Sure, we'll drive to the 506 and the other venues in Chapel Hill, but that's in Chapel Hill, that's not Raleigh. Here's to Kings finding a new spot, even if it's no longer called Kings, just a place where some band isn't trying to either be Candlebox or Phish or both.

Daniel Was In Town

what i'm listening to right now: This Ain't No Picnic by the Minutemen

This past week our friend, Daniel was in town from NYC. I took my camera along with us one night to document the fun. Amanda and I drank more than we have in the span of a week in a quite a while. Thursday night Daniel went all night with us, peaking with the following...

After this, Amanda went to sleep and we wrapped up the night with bourbon and The White Album. Damn, The White Album is good.

also, there are some pictures added to the post about the Tokyo Police Club show the other night, scroll down to see them.

The Night Of The Furies

this is an outline for a review I'm attempting to write for the
Hatchet. I'm going to write and edit as the week progresses, as it stands
it's nowhere near what I want it to be. there's plenty of thoughts trailing
off and little notes to myself. feel free to comment on it, give me your
feedback etc.

Things happen and change the way you view a song or a band. Your friends change, and maybe you can't hang with them anymore. That friend who got all patriotic and started voting Republican. Steve who started doing more drugs than you were doing, and you know, opium dens were never really your scene. Maybe that's what's happening with The Rosebuds now. At least with me. The Rosebuds are in that opium den of layered 80's new wave. I never really got into Depeche Mode. And that's who The Rosebuds are reminding me of on their new album, Night Of The Furies.

Now, I can't say that I dislike this album. Ivan Howard's voice is as amazing as it always has been. It seems to have moved out of the forefront this time, though. Being surrounded by the synthesizers and bass that seem to overtake their once spare arrangements.

I've always imagined The Rosebuds as a modern day Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. Ivan's simple, optimistic songs about growing up, being in love, going out at night, umm The Lost Colony...

(this album could be like those new wave songs that Tom Petty did, like "don't come around here" and what was that one with the arcade games in the desert?)

in the end I think this album is where the future of the Rosebuds will be decided. go forward with this new wave thing, or continue to experiment. will they regress to the power pop of Make Out? will they try different instruments in their arrangements? will they go country? will they turn the band into an Arcade Fire-like symphony? they'll probably just go ahead with the new wave thing. maybe they'll fine tune it. I'm just not sold on this album. I've had the promo copy for about a month now, and just can't figure out how to like it as much as Make Out Or Birds Make Good Neighbors. and maybe that's just it. I don't like it as much as their previous work, it's good, they're just that friend that turned out to be a opium smoking republican.

The Official Thumbs Down On The Cold War Kids.

Last night I went to Chapel Hill to see a concert. The main reason I went was to see Tokyo Police Club. Who were just as good as I'd expected them to be. They are a fantastic, energetic band, with good songs and great hooks. It was just really good. Amanda was contemplating trying to get a few questions out of the band, but realized there wasn't much she could ask. The band is just good, and we could only think to ask them if they think they're as good as we think they are. It's just really good rock, and there's not much else I can say or think about it.

They were opening for The Cold War Kids. As Pitchfork said, please, bloggers, place your hyperbolic praise on something worth it. Like an earthy, conservative Pearl Jam, Cold War Kids is an easy pick. Easy as in lazy. It sounds like the good moments from bands that you liked years before, just not as good, and nowhere near as interesting. Add to that, Cold War Kids are conservatives.

At the end of hidden track "Sermons vs. the Gospel", which dismisses The
New York Times, psychoanalysis, and European vacations before somehow
absolving "stealing from the poor," Willett yowls, "Lord, have mercy on me/
I believe the words can change the heart" from pitchfork

So, I can't hang with Gingrichian rock. Milquetoast Gingrichian rock at that.

The surprise of the night was openers The Delta Spirit. Taking Rhett Miller's egomania out of The Old 97s and inserting harmonies straight outta "Music From Big Pink", Delta Spirit sound like they should be from New Orleans. Maybe they are, their website says California, though. Maybe they got moved by Katrina? I'm going to go with myth, and assume they're from La. and not L.A. As if I was listening to Creedence in the 60's, I'd be completely fooled by the feeling of location I get from this band. They were more in the mold of Cold War Kids than Tokyo Police Club, so the transitions between sets were fairly weird, alt-country/indie-punk/alt. rock. Delta Spirit played with conviction and swerve that seemed genuine. (Cold War Kids' conviction and swerve seemed rehearsed, playing up close to each other, pained facial expressions with every word.) Delta Spirit's songs aren't as interesting on CD, as I found from listening to their ep "I Think I've Found It!". That bristling energy and belief in song that were so apparent on stage get watered down on disc. At the very least, they're a band to watch. I'd go see them again without hesitation.

Sad News.

I was very saddened by the news that Elizabeth Edwards' cancer has returned. Though I am an Obama man, I have been a supporter of theirs for a long time. I still have the response letters that John Edwards wrote me when he was in the Senate. I was probably ranting about the war or some other thing that Bush was doing terribly wrong. Probably the 2000 election as well. Anyway, it's just awful news. Her cancer can be treated, but never cured. I hope she's able to live a long comfortable life.

Conservapedia Returns. Strikes Back. Go To White Castle.

what i'm listening to right now: white light/white heat by the Velvet Underground

My good friends at Conservapedia continue to outdo themselves. You might remember last month I wrote about Conservapedia's fact/faith based article on Unicorns. Now, I've stumbled upon their article for George Washington and they lay this doozy on us...

Washington is perhaps the only person other than Jesus who declined enormous
worldly power, in Washington's case by first refusing to become a military
dictator or king and then by voluntarily stepping aside as the leader of a
prosperous nation. His precedent was voluntarily followed for 140 years.

Let me tell you, I've been declining enormous worldly power for at the most 23 years. It's amazing what these people will say. They go on to talk about how G. Wash was a Christian. Then continue to pound that nail into the wooden teeth for a couple more paragraphs. Now, let's look at the Wikipedia entry for ol' Washy... aside from being much longer, it sees fit to cover details of his life that are... interesting. And not in that wink wink interesting way, just interesting, like...

After retiring from the presidency in March 1797, Washington returned to Mount
Vernon with a profound sense of relief. He devoted much time to farming and, in
that year, constructed a 2,250 square foot (75-by-30 feet, 200 m²)
distillery, which was one of the largest in the new republic, housing five
copper stills, a boiler and 50 mash tubs, at the site of one of his unprofitable
farms. At its peak, two years later, the distillery produced 11,000 gallons of
corn and rye whiskey worth $7,500, and fruit brandy.[18][19]
George Washington's distillery is a part of the American Whiskey
Trail.

That's interesting, but Conservapedia has an agenda, whereas, Wikipedia doesn't. Even though the people at Conservapdedia will tell you Wikipedia is a bastion of liberal censorship of conservative values. Wikipedia's educational, Conservapedia's a propoghanda tool. They're not taking into mind that Wikipedia is used by the entire world, and the American conservative movement is a tiny blip to the rest of the world. What douchebags. I'm done ranting about them... for now.

damn, this makes two posts that I used something I found on The Hater, who pointed out the George Washington article.

The Joy Of Local News

For every mind numbingly boring moment of your local news, there's one rare moment of whacked out bliss that breaks out of the monotony. Here are a few examples...

Texas, El Paso! I lost my leg in VIETnam!

"you sposta be up makin breakfast for someone. it's like an alarm clock, woo woo!"


it'll only make me sick.

I found the Tracy Morgan clip through my new favorite blog, The Hater.

Grand Canyon

what i'm listening to right now: Bicycle, Bicycle, You Are My Bicycle by Be Your Own Pet

This is a shot from a new walkway that hangs out over the Grand Canyon. It's from Reuters (click the link to see a slide show). I don't have much to say about this, aside from that I really really want to go to this. The idea of the Grand Canyon never really interested me until this moment. How odd.

The Red Skull Pt. Two (Coal Shoveller's Pub)

this is a continuation of my post from earlier in the day. i'll give you an overview of what i'm doing here. basically we get a ton of CDs every week. if they're not promos, they're things we get from my girlfriend, Amanda's store (Ed McKay's Used Books & More), or stuff we actually spend money on. It's all more than we can actually listen to in one sitting, so some fall through the cracks, get shelved and we forget about them. Maybe I find something under the passenger seat in the car, anyway, you get the picture. In the first part of this ongoing irregular feature, I talked about Kaleidoscope, a gypsy/psychedelic/blues/mid-eastern/jugband group from the late sixties L.A. Now, I'm going to focus on one of the weirdest Kinks albums ever, The Kinks Present A Soap Opera...

So, by this point, The Kinks are about to be reborn in a sort of phoenix like situation into a giant rock spectacle. Adding big eighties crunch to their workman pop music. They're about to go back to the arenas, momentarily lose their critical cache, and make big money. They're gonna start sounding more like the Van Halen cover than the original. Before this, at the moment of Soap Opera, though, Ray Davies was reportedly batshit crazy. Staging musicals, putting British actors squabbling with each other into his songs. And that kinda describes Soap Opera. It's a kinda crazy musical with actors talking over the songs in certain points. Definitely ambitious. And the songs are very good. The idea of a musical gives Davies licence to use horns and other colors to his palette. Davies pretty much takes control of this album. It's got his populist flavor and his giant ego.
Ray Davies has always wished that he was not a rich person. Constantly writing odes to the working class that he never was. By the time they were international sensations, The Kinks were teenagers. Maybe Ray saw his dad at the pub with some other coal shoveller, but he never shoveled coal himself. Guilt over not being mediocre shaped the majority of The Kinks output. Soap Opera takes this guilt, and makes it well, operatic.
There are some very good songs on here, these songs would be on your Kinks greatest hits if it weren't for the actors talking over the songs. "Ordinary People" would be right up there with "Victoria" and "Picture Book", "You Make It All Worthwhile" would be sitting next to "Oklahoma, U.S.A." as one of their greatest ballads, but damn. Damn those voice overs.
These voice overs make me think I'm listening to the soundtrack to Little Shop Of Horrors. Songs like "Rush Hour Blues" sound like Rock Horror Picture Show if it took place in a suburban English home instead of transsexual transylvania.
As I continue to write about this album, I begin to become more and more conflicted about it. I'm not sure if I like it now, after listening to it three times than I did the first time I listened to it. Then, I hear a line like "answering phones, and dictating letters, making decisions that affect no one" from "9 to 5" and I'm back on the other side of the fence. Then, damn, "When Work Is Over" comes in after that short ballad, and I'm sitting checking out my watch at a high school musical. I can at least hold to my first position that this is the weirdest Kinks album I've heard. One of the weirdest albums that any of the British Invasion Big Three put out.

The Red Skull Pt. One (Bacon From Mars)

This is the start of an irregular feature, The Red Skull. We take in more CDs than we can possibly listen to when we first get them at our house. The goal of this feature is to go through some of these things we've picked up. The ones we got because they looked interesting, then there's the myriad questionable promos Amanda receives. I'll write about the ones that really stand out. Or write about the ones that are straight up awfulness. Today's albums are a collection of songs by Kaleidoscope called Egyptian Candy, and The Kinks Present A Soap Opera.

A large scale dumping of garage rock collections fell upon Amanda's store last month, it's taken awhile to wade through everything. It's range from the sublime (the object of this piece, Kaleidoscope, The Blue Magoos, Mouse & The Traps) to the so-so (We The People) to the embarrassing (The Peanut Butter Conspiracy). Kaleidoscope was the last of the bunch that I listened to. As I had become accustomed to the hyperbole infected liner notes of these CDs, I didn't bat much of a lash at the grand claim that "despite releasing excellent albums, made the Velvet Underground look famous in comparison". Now, taken as a statement of fact, this is true. The Velvet Underground probably sold more records while they were together. But we can all tell by this statement that Scott Isler is trying to tell us that Kaleidoscope is more obscure and yet on the same level of greatness as Velvet Underground. I really couldn't believe the balls of this guy writing the liner notes.
Then I listened to the CD. It's no White Light/White Heat, but it is very, very good. I was weary of the band because of the obvious psychedelic signs that were all over the case of the CD. The name of the band, the swirly lines on the cover, titles like "Pulsating Dream" and "Keep Your Mind Open". I was getting ready for insipid rhymes and being told that opening my mind would lift the Pentagon etc. I was wrong in all of my assumptions.
Some of the melodies have that similarity to your general summer of love hippy-dippy bullshit. The band takes your mind off that very quickly. They twist "world music" into the Arthur Lee blueprint for acceptable psychedelic rock. Goddamn, I hate that term world music. Generally dismissing thousands of genres into one. Putting Fela Kuti next to Micheal Flatley. I understand that it's hard to organize shelves in a record store into "Afrobeat" "Celtic" "Reggae" "Klezmer" etc. would be near impossible, but "world music" is just godawfully dismissive. Anyway, completely got off subject there. I was talking about Kaleidoscope.
Kaleidoscope started out as a bluegrass band. You can hear that in melodies and songs like "Baldheaded End Of A Broom" and "Cuckoo". They mix all that in with instruments that I've never heard of before, like the oud, the doumbeg, and the saz. These foreign instruments rub elbows with distorted guitar drones and banjos and mandolins. This all creates a genuinely unique sound. David Feldthouse and David Lindley the guys who play all these instruments and were the main guys behind Kaleidoscope aren't squatters in other cultures either. They are actually proficient at these instruments, unlike the swarms of sitar players that popped up after Sgt. Pepper's came out.
This band is also up on that whole gypsy thing that is getting so popular in the indie rock circles now. They just happened to do it forty years earlier than Beirut or Devotchka. (Not to deride either of these bands, because I'm totally into this shit too, guys.)
They even get all Flying Burrito Brothers on us on "Life Will Pass You By" third singer Chris Darrow sounds like the doppelganger of Gram Parsons here. It sounds fantastic. It's jaunty with high plains lonesome three part harmonies.
On "You Don't Love Me" they get their guitars at a dirty Junior Kimbrough/Black Keys tone and get impossibly bluesy. As with most of the songs on this collection, there isn't a precedent for this sound on earlier tracks.
They reach their peak on "Beacon From Mars" with it's drone and melody that totally rips off "You Are My Sunshine" (in a good way). The song was originally titled "Bacon From Mars" which would have made it one of the greatest song titles ever. The blues element of this band surfaces again during this song. It's a dark 12 minutes, not a boring dark like the 18 minutes of Love's "Revelation" at the end of Da Capo.
Any of these songs could have served as a blueprint for a passable late sixties garage band that could be lamented and called the forefathers of punk/gypsy rock/space rock/alt country/the as yet not created cross between indie rock and jugband music... instead Kaleidoscope got all of these down. Achieving an eclectic nature that few bands were truly able to achieve.
So, Scott Isler, liner note author, you came the closest out of the fantastical post-Nuggets hype men have to the truth in your hyperbole. While none of the members of Kaleidoscope were as good as lyricists that Lou Reed used to be. They did hop genres as The Velvet Underground did, just on a different side of the street.


I ended up writing much more about Kaleidoscope than I thought I would, so I will return either later today, or tomorrow with my thoughts on The Kinks Present a Soap Opera.

Garlic Non.

what i'm listening to right now: White House by The American Analog Set

My girlfriend, Amanda started her blog last night. It's called "The Obscure Object Of Desire" (shouting out to Jeffrey Ugenides and Bunel at the same time!). Amanda is the music editor of The Raleigh Hatchet, which has a new issue out.

Also just wanted to tell anyone interested that my picks for the big tournament are Texas vs. Oregon in the Finals, with Texas winning.

Damn, Son.

what i'm listening to right now: Some Beginner's Mind by Ted Leo & The Pharmacists

from Pitchfork

The Arcade Fire's second album, Neon Bible, claimed the No. 2 spot on the U.S. Billboard 200 charts this week, stomping all over new LPs from Daughtry, Relient K and Robin Thicke. According to Billboard, the album sold 92,000 copies this week; only Notorious B.I.G.'s Greatest Hits sold more.
That album, which was released ten years after the rapper's death, sold
99,000 copies. This position is miles ahead of Funeral's chart ranking,
which peaked at #131. The album also topped the Independent and Rock Album
charts. Neon Bible also took #2 in the UK, coming in second to the Kaiser
Chiefs' Yours Truly, Angry Mob.

That's some serious shit, man. It's huge. It's huge for Merge, it's huge for indie rock, and it's definitely huge for Arcade Fire. It's an amazing album. It's not watered down, it's no more easily accessable or poppy than Funeral, their previous album. It's fantastic, it's a giant of an album that is going to be the best album of the year barring a Neutral Milk Hotel reunion.

This shows the power of the internet. If the internet can make a band from Canada with a bad name second only to Biggie, then it can pick the next President, it can cook your clothes and wash your food. It's big time.

On an unrelated note, I'm listening to a promo copy of the new Ted Leo album. It's really good, very political, very well written. But, it's tracks are divided into 45 second parts to discourage people burning the album onto their ipods. That's some ol' bullshit. Thumbs down, Touch And Go. Thumbs down.

"My Pet Goat"

what i'm listening to right now: gold lion by Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Yesterday I was listening to NPR in the shower and heard a story about Mrs. World. In a contest that seems vaguely Republican to me, married women do the whole beauty contest thing. This year's contest was held in Chechnya. You might know it for it's wars, terrorism, and being oppressed by Russia. There's something just so hilarious about a horde of beautiful women descending upon a war torn country side for a contest like this. What makes it more hilarious is that the president of the country actually offered one of the contestants, Mrs. Kenya, a goat and some chickens to lure her away from her husband.

This most definitely the first entrant into my "Best Stories Of 2007". I'll compile all of them at the end of the year. It's certainly not the best written story, just the best story story. I think someone should make a movie about this, ala Drop Dead Gorgeous. Which, by the way, is a totally underrated, very funny movie.