Sorry loyal readers, but I’ve been busy today. I worked 9-5 and five minutes after I got home Shawn called me. We worked on vocals. The station wagon got a flat, so I have to go in to Les Scwab before work and get the damn thing fixed. Oh, boy! I get to be stressed out while the fix my tire, fearing it’ll make me late! So please excuse me, but I need to write a poem for the KidsFirst Poetry Slam before bed. Current listening: REM, “Nightswimming”: “Nightswimming deserves a quiet night. / The photograph on the dashboard, taken years ago, / turned around backwards so the windshield shows. / Every streetlight reveals the picture in reverse.” Peace.
Archive for the ‘Music’ Category
Update
Monday, June 23rd, 2003Update
Sunday, June 22nd, 2003
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There’s no better idicator of the health of free enterprise than a business hiring the homeless to advertise for it: Pizza Company Hires Homeless to Advertise. By the way, be doing this weird thing, they also get free coverage from major news sources like CNN and crummy online diaries like this one! What a bunch of friggin’ geniuses.
Last night I watched Big Trouble, the movie based on the novel by the funniest man in America, former Iraqui information minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. No, sorry, I mean Dave Barry (who also has a blog). It was quite funny. One of those fast-paced, cram-as-many-jokes-into-an-hour-and-a-half movies. And the hallucinagenic-squirting toad (a great name for a rock band, zing! Dave Barryism) was classic.
I would like to point out the new feature on the blog for Sundays, the icon “Hot and Not.” Every week, I’ll pick something I find so freakin’ awesome that it blows my mind, and something so freakin’ lame it’ll make the Backstreet Boys look cool in comparison. I drew the icons myself, aren’t they pretty?
Well, today I did some work. Paid work. I had a hell of a time finding the place, though. It seems that Mapquest (I am not linking to protest) told me to turn onto Main Street in Hamilton, then left on Ricketts. For those of you familiar with Hamiltonian geography, Ricketts obviously does not go past Main Street; it stops at the graveyard. So I drove around up by Schneeb’s house for close to a friggin’ hour trying to find the damn place. I finally stopped at this bed and breakfast thingie and called the guy. Maybe I should have chosen Mapquest for my “Not” pick of the week.
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Remember the mouse? The dead on that scared my sister half to death? This guy’s daughter, who is about Maggie’s age, found some live mice in their animal food bucket thingie. A mommy mouse and a baby mouse. Maybe the mummified one my sister found was their daddy, huh? Zing!
I have written three songs for the record NWI is supposed to be recording. We might learn one. They are: “I Really Do Have a Girlfriend”, one of those joke songs about a guy who makes up his girlfriend, “Someday”, a song about living in a boring, tiny, dead town, and “United We Stand”, a song about Americans standing together in ignorance. The highlight of that tune is the a capella break that describes the flag as John Ashcroft’s “stained shit rag.” It’s harmonized! I bought a special T-shirt for our next show; it’s so awesome! It’s an American flag, and below it are the words “UNITED WE STAND” in block letters. And it was only $5.99! Imagine that; patriotism can be bought so cheaply. With that digression over, I’d like to finsih by saying that I’ve also written a couple of songs that have lyrics that are too emotional or aren’t fast enough to be punk, so those go on the next solo record, which I will probably record before the end of the summer.
Review: R.E.M – Up
Saturday, June 21st, 2003
Record Review: R.E.M. : Up
This is one of those records that took me a while to appreciate. I got it back when it came out, during my freshman year of high school. Back then I was a huge Nirvana fan, and I read somewhere that REM was an influence on their sound. So I blindly picked up the most recent REM disc. Needless to say, I hated it. It was so mellow, so acoustic, and above all so weak. Or so I thought.
This record was released after REM’s longtime drummer Bill Berry left the band, and it shows. Yes, there are some live (sounding) drums, but drum machines pepper the record. Not that this is a bad thing; they really add to some tracks, like the halcyon “Airportman”, a track drive more by Michael Stipe’s tranquil lyrics and by looped windchimes than by drums.
My only real quibble with this album is that the guitar is kind of buried. It’s still there — the striking lead on “Lotus” proves that. But it could have been louder. Maybe that’s just my latent headbanger emerging from his slumber. Standing
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in for the guitar on most of this record are innumerable keyboards: from epic synths on the uplifting closer “Falls to Climb” to organ on several songs to piano on the Beach Boys-influenced “At My Most Beautiful.”
The standout track on the album is the blissfully concise “Why Not Smile.” This one has harpsichord among other things, but it works. Beautifully. Stipe’s melody resolves to the tonic on each line, reinforcing the track’s otherwise staid “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” theme.
There are one or two sleeper tracks that have not, and perhaps will not, grow on me. The song “Diminished”, no standout itself, segues into a sparse acoustic number, “I’m Not Over You.” This vignette doesn’t work. The guitar is a little too sparse, sounding like it was recorded on a boom box. The song sounds incomplete and unfinished — an isolated island in a sea of creativity — almost as if it were an afterthought. The only other song that doesn’t really do it for me is “You’re in the Air”, a trip into falsetto that is best left to Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.
But these are merely good tracks on what is a fantastic album. Staunch headbangers like my fourteen year-old self will be disappointed, but grown music aficionados will find it strangely appealing. This record is the perfect one to fall asleep to. Not because it’s boring, but because it’s soothing. A wonderful melody and a drum loop can be strangely soporific.
Top Ten Albums of 2002: No Use For a Name – Hard Rock Bottom
Friday, June 13th, 2003The Top Ten Albums of 2002
#9 No Use For A Name – Hard Rock Bottom
Hard Rock Bottom is a poppy CD with a fresh aftertaste, kind of like Colgate compared to Western Family brand toothpaste. Sure, the Western Family cleans your teeth, but it also makes your mouth feel like you’ve been sucking on an eighty-year old mint from grandma’s candy dish. NUFAN does the pop-punk thing, but they do it right.
I have their last album, Making Friends, but I wasn’t really too impressed with it. The drumming was monotonous (it was waaaay too fast; the bass drum sounded like the ticking of a hyperactive clock) and none of the songs really stuck in my head, except for the Celtic ballad “Fields of Athenry.” I pretty much gave up on NUFAN until I heard their song on Fat Music 5, “Let Me Down.” That song was awesome: the hooks, the harmonies, everything. Seeing them live at the Warped Tour this year convinced me to give NUFAN another go.
So when I heard about their new disc I decided to give it a whirl. Pleasantly, Hard Rock Bottom more than made up for the shortcomings of Making Friends. Yes, there are still some songs that have super-fast kick drum parts, but they share time with slower, more thoughtful songs, like the opening track, ‘Feels Like Home,’ which lacks percussio althogether. That first track is bare minimalism: just frontman Tony Sly’s voice and a clean electric guitar. It seagues into ‘International You Day,’ a somewhat cheesy song with poppy lyrics: “Without you my life is incomplete / My thoughs are absolutely gray.” Right, Tony Sly.
And therin lies my only real complaint about the album: the lyrics. Usually, NUFAN has some awesome lyrical lines behind their music, but there were some real stinkers on this album. For example, in ‘International You Day:’ “Nothing that I’ve tried is as simple as this line.” C’mon, a meta-reference in a love song? Another example, in “Pre-Medicated Murder”: “More times than five, I’ve been right here by your side.” Yuck. What does the number five have to do with anything? I have no extreme problem with the poppy songs, which dominate on this release, but some of those lines make me want to bang my head against a wall, and not in that ‘fuck society’ type of way.
But, aside from that minor quibble, this album rocks. The band was even brave enough to include an orchestra on the introduction to the aforementioned ‘Pre-Medicated Murder’, and an organ on the intro to ‘Any Number Can Play.’ That song seems to be a thinly-veiled attack on Top Forty Radio, which I’m all for. I could seriously see No Use next to Sum-41 or Blink 182, and I mean nothing bad by that. These guys have talent. They’d have to add a number to their name, though (maybe “No Use For A 412?”).
The standout track is definately the duet ‘This is a Rebel Song”, which is a cover of a Sinead O’Connor tune. Why didn’t Tony have the guts to sing this himself, though? Too shy to croon ‘I love you my hard Englishman,’ Mr. Sly? I’m being facetious, though. It’s a lovely number, replete with awesome harmonies.
Then there is ‘Insecurity Alert,’ one of those songs that reeks of post-9/11 sympathy. Those songs suck; I think America needs to get over what happened to those planes, instead of wallowing in musical sympathy. I actually like this song, though. It’s not whiny, nor is it filled with accusations of conspiracy. It asks us to question what happened — in a good way — and to question America’s reaction, especially toward the Islamic: “Set up the guillotine and televise the execution, we have to ask ourselves, ‘Can we feel safe?'”. That song is the only overtly political tune on the disc, and I’m glad for it. If I want a number of political songs, I’ll put in my copy of Underground Network.
This disc could definately become one of my favorites. Sure, some of the lyrics could have been written in a high-school creative-writing class, but others are purely brilliant (“And all the happy pills make her look like a cardboard cutout of someone I used to learn from”). The musicianship, although at times a little too fast, is interesting and a nice alternative to the all-too-happy sounding pop-punk camp. The harmones rival those of Bad Religion or Reel Big Fish, and the CD is exactly the right length: a little over half an hour. Just enough time to ride my bike around the neighborhood and harmonize with all the songs, to the bewilderment of passersby. And to me that’s the ultimate test of a band: do their songs make me want to sing along?
Review: Tracy Chapman – s/t
Thursday, June 12th, 2003
Classic Albums Revisited:Tracy Chapman: s/t
I remember that I hated this music back in sixth grade. My Social Studies teacher, Mrs. Lewis, had one of those Scholastic Kids News magazines, and she was featured for her political stance. I didn’t care about politics back then; hell, I didn’t even care about girls. All I cared about was playing with dinosaur toys in the mud. Needless to say, I pretty much ignored that day’s lessons. Oh, how I’ve regretted that. It’s taken me six years to re-descover Tracy Chapman’s music.
I was familiar with it, even then. My dad bought this record (it was his first purchase on Compact Disc) because it was a fully digital recording. You know that tiny box on the back of a CD that usually says “AAD”? It means that the album was recorded on analog equpiment, mastered on analog equipment, and released digitally. This record was DDD. I can’t say if its sound quality is ‘better’ than other discs (because I tend to like the sound of vinyl), but it sounds fine to me. I honestly can’t tell the difference between anything digital: 128 kbps MP3’s and CD’s sound the same to me.
But enough of these history and technology lessons. What about the actual record? It is one of the best folk/Americana CDs I’ve heard. Most of this album is Ms. Chapman and acoustic guitar, occasionally joined by a backup band. The songwriting is strong. It’s not only political, it’s personal. There are plenty of political songs, from the opener, “Talkin’ ’bout a Revolution”, to the world music tinged-“Mountains ‘o Things.” But there are also some deeply personal songs, too: “Fast Car” and the closer, “For You”, are deeply touching, if not somewhat melancholy, tunes. Chapman manages to forge politics and matters of the heart, and accompany it with brilliant melodies and simple, but effective, acostic guitar.
Perhaps the song that best forges personal and political themes is the chilling a capella “Behind the Wall.” This song is crushing and terrifying. It’s about hearing domestic abuse through the wall of your apartment. The refrain “It won’t do no good to call the police / they always come late / if they come at all” is a sadly true indictment of slow police response times, especially to less affluent neighborhooods. If you can listen to this song and not feel tears welling in your eyes (or at least a deep sadness in your heart) then you’re probably an Evil Assault Android and not a human being.
The standout track is the short, bluesy number called “Why?”. “Why do the babies starve when there’s enough food to feed the world?” It opens. The song is almost a confrontation to world leaders who would rather count money and wage war than help people. The song switches modes (minor to major) in its interludes to convey the Orwellian theme: “Love is hate, war is peace, wrong is yes, we’re all free,” a very effective way to point out the ignorant bliss of most Americans. The song is quite a downer, really, but it gets the blood hot and makes me say, “Yeah! Why?”
But these tracks are really the only downers on an otherwise uplifting record. Despite a palpable sense of helplessness conveyed in her lyrics, there is also a sense of hope, as the opener makes clear. Yes we live in a shitty world, but it can, and will, improve. This record is punk without the sneering and the volume: political, heartfelt, and so honest it can, as with “Behind the Wall”, almost hurt.
2002 Top 10 Albums #10: Ben Weasel – Fidatevi
Wednesday, June 11th, 2003The Top Ten Albums of 2002
#10Ben Weasel – Fidatevi
Ben Weasel has always been known for being, well, a dick. He has a certain way with words in his lyrics that really pushes the snot out. His exploits on his own message board, deriding his fans, are legendary. So when I picked up this record, I expected a lot of snot. Instead what I found was a lot of heart.
It’s hard to imagine, but Ben has always been at least a little grown up. Screeching Weasel’s second-to-last album, Emo was filled with introspection. Some people say it’s their best record (I disagree, I think the more-upbeat Anthem For A New Tomorrow deserves that honor). Think of Fidatevi as its sequel, and this is one of the few rare instances when the sequel is better than the original. “Fidatevi” is apparently (I’m guessing here) Italian, it means “trust in yourself” and “trust in others.” Very uplifting words, but does this record manage to live up to its message?
This record has a confessional feel. The first words out of Ben’s mouth are, “I’ve got six guitars I can barely play and a questionable singing voice as well.” If anything were emo, this album would be it. Ben really has grown a lot since writing songs about Jeannie’s uterus. Perhaps unrestricted by having bandmates to satisfy, he delivers an honesty that you can feel. I get the impression that he’s put on airs in his previous records (sample: Television City Dream‘s “Count to Three”: “I’ve been styling since you wore short pants / Now I’m taking names and kicking ass”). All that is gone: there is no tough-guy posing, real or implied.
The music itself is at the same time punky and laid-back,. Perhaps the standout track, musically, is an acoustic guitar and piano cover of the Kinks’ “Strangers.” The guitars sound more clean than anything else bearing the Weasel brand. Matt from the Teen Idols supplies drums, and Danny Vapid plays guitar and bass and even sings a little bit of lead (“Indecision”). It’s kind of a family affair, but Ben’s touch can be felt all over the record.
Above all, this record is peaceful. It’s nice to know that agorophobic Ben Weasel, not afraid to spew hate at anybody who deserves it, can find a little peace. That means there’s hope for the rest of us. Emo is usually though of as staid, whiny music. Although Fidatevi occasionally approaches whining, it never quite gets there. It is an emo record, then, for those of us who can’t stand it: calm, honest, and emotional without being sappy or whiny. Fidatevi? Absolutely.
Update
Monday, May 12th, 2003I haven’t updated in a while. Oh, well. 
It’s finals week. On Friday my first year of college ends. I have to find a job. Kind of hard in Hamilton, MT, unless you enjoy working in food service. 😛
We’ve got a show on Saturday, along with UDA and Horseshoes.
Update
Tuesday, April 29th, 2003Wow, my band has a show this Saturday. I don’t know how it happened. It’s a battle of the bands; I doubt we’ll win. I mean, we’re good, but we’re out of practice and I just don’t have self-confidence! But at least we’ll play.
I finally signed up for some Psych research experiments. Two weeks left in the semester and I sign up for them now. I have to look into getting a dorm room next year and I have to sign up for my classes. I can’t believe we have a show…. WOW.
Oh… and THIS is comforting. Apparently, statistically I’m a woman. Big surprise, huh?
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http://www.thespark.com
Update
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2003Quote of the Update:
“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.”
— Sydney Smith
All is well. My tummy kind of hurts. My new solo record is almost complete; I just have a few more tracks to lay down.
Peace.
Update
Friday, April 11th, 2003Super-Long Special Small Font Movie Quote of the Update:
Frodo: I can’t do this Sam!
Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back — only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo: What are we holding on to Sam?
Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo and it’s worth fighting for.
— The Two Towers (Indirectly J.R.R. Tolkien)
Throughout the war, Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf has been keeping me in stitches with his announcement about the advance of American troops (go to Something Awful to see what I mean). But this levity got me to thinking. Now, obviously, our government wouldn’t lie to us; and there’s no way that the media isn’t getting at some of the truth. But how do we know that what they’re telling us is the truth? After all, they’re still clinging to the pretense of ‘weapons of mass destruction.’ Anyway, something serious.
I got mega-drums done, including (finally) drums for “Knockout.” That song has some bar of 6/4 time! Wow! I should actually have some demos for the band by the end of the weekend.
I wrote a poem comparing somebody establishing in his or her niche to a Hobbit. It’s long, but not too long. I think Mom will like it; she’s a big Tolkien buff. I’m thinking of creating a ‘band’ to showcase my Poppier music (‘poppier’ is so close, keyboard-wise, to ‘poopier’):
- Eye Candy
- Knockout
- Old People Scare Me
- Not My World
- Laura
- Am I Immature?
- Mama Said Knock You Out
- Scene
And I could write more. I dunno. I’m still toying with the idea. Ideally, NWI would learn almost all of them.
Man, it’s damn nice here, weather-wise. Warm, light later. The Oval is, as someone on my floor said, like a resort. I’ve been out to play my guitar several times. I hope it lasts and we don’t get a friggin’ snowstorm.
OK. It’s bedtime. I’ve been oversleeping and missing waaay too many early-morning classes lately.
Peace.
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