“It’s bound and it’s willing to explode” [Modest Mouse, Electric Factory, Philadelphia, 3/14/09]

Dramamine (with Life Like Weeds interlude)
Dashboard
Black Cadillacs
Parting of the Sensory
Interstate 8
Doing the Cockroach
Bukowski
Float On
3rd Planet
The View
Fire It Up
Talking Shit About a Pretty Sunset
Here it Comes
Tiny Cities Made of Ashes
Baby Blue Sedan (after getting through the first verse of Custom Concern, stopping, and asking the band/audience “Can we do a different song?” and explaining that doing this one is boring)
Spitting Venom
[encore:]
Jesus Christ Was An Only Child
Paper Thin Walls
Night on the Sun
The Good Times Are Killing Me

A few thoughts:
–I’m thinking “Night on the Sun” is one of my favorite MM songs. I don’t listen to it much, because I’m still an album listener, and my copy of Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks is a record, so when I’m pulling out a MM album to take in the car, it’s not there. Perhaps this retains its glory, that I haven’t worn it out. Anyway, regardless of this, as good as the song is on record/cd/digital, it’s much better live. Putting that raw guitar sound onto it, loosening it up a bit, the words getting shouted more, really make it great. Especially as an encore, after the audience and band have been riled up for two hours.
–Mr. Brock’s words for the audience were so constantly timed to be during the applause/screaming/whooping after songs that I’m pretty sure he was doing it on purpose. Especially since the little I could catch was kind of nonsensical.
–The played for two hours; twenty songs.
–The new songs (from the last album) stood up really well. “Parting of the Sensory” was huge and awesome, as was “Spitting Venom.” In fact, after a brief look at the track listing of that album, these were exactly the songs I wanted to hear. As much of a “hit” as it is, I really love “Missed the Boat,” but I’m kind of glad we didn’t hear it sans-James Mercer (although it would’ve been interesting to see what happened).
–Pretty sure he said something about never having played “Jesus Christ Was An Only Child” live before. Something along those lines. [I actually made several incorrect predictions to e, first asking her opinion on odds of "Trailer Trash" happening (I put it at 60%), then guaranteeing "Wild Pack of Family Dogs" upon seeing an acoustic guitar and what I thought was a woodblock. As e said, that they can surprise me with set list choices is a good thing...]

Thanks to e for the birthday present. It couldn’t've been better.

[Also successful: eating the World's Largest Slice from Angelo's (I give it an A on monstrousness, and a C+ to B on taste--the first half was pretty thin and goopy, although this is understandable from trying to make a pizza this huge), and getting a double cheeseburger from a rest area Roy Rogers at 2:30 in the morning.]

It’s the end of the world as we know (and I feel fine)

SORRY FOR THE UNCREATIVE POST TITLING THERE–it’s a shameless hits-baiter.

I’ll simply say this:

Why was America denied a pop/rock music grudge feud between R.E.M. and Billy Joel upon the release of “We Didn’t Start the Fire”?

R.E.M. totally scooped him on the style and content (although a little wikipediaing reveals a 1974 song called “Life is a Rock [But the Radio Rolled Me]),  so I think there should’ve been at least a small war of words.

I used to know every word to both of the songs (although what used to come out of my mouth didn’t really count as “words” during the R.E.M. song). I’m going to officially decide that “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) is the better song, although I haven’t heard “We Didn’t Start the Fire” in years.

Bonus fact: Storm Front was the first album I ever bought.

Ravens update

I’M TRYING TO KEEP UP WITH THE RAVENS even in the offseason for the first time, if only so that during next season I know new the new names.

This Matt Birk business sounds pretty amazing. Good to know Flacco will have a veteran in front of him.

But losing Jim Leonhard? How did we let this happen? That guy is awesome. I can understand Bart Scott going to the Jets, he’s a big name, and Lewis thinking about it or trying or whatever he was doing, again, big(gest) name. And I’m not too sad. But Leonhard seems fresh (was gonna say “young,” but apparently he’s not too young) and really on the rise. He seemed to be almost Flacco’s mirror in the defense last year–the guy who surprised you, especially considering what you have to do to be noticed amidst the Ravens’ defense.
I was already thinking about it, and have been since learning the cheer from my Jersey friend QOWJenn, but I think I’m one notch closer to Jets Fan now.
Seriously, I’ll be surprised if Leonhard doesn’t turn out to be a great player.

quote of the day

OKAY, SO THIS PROBABLY OCCURRED yesterday, but this morning there was a story on Morning Edition Capital News Connection about the earmarks in the latest spending bill going through congress. Some people like it, some don’t, etc. I kind of got my fill of the earmarks arguments yesterday on the Kojo Nnabdi show, and I was zooming down I-95 so I kind of tuned out until they set it up:

Apparently John McCain is (somehwat understandably) unhappy about all the earmarks, tried to pass a resolution or a thingy or something saying no earmarks, didn’t work, so I guess he got up in front of the Senate (someday I’d love to learn exactly how the Senate works on a minute to minute basis, because the things people choose to talk about, you’d think there are like 357 hours in each day) and started listing, angrily, the earmarks. There was the one about the pig odor in Iowa, and some others, but then he got to, and here’s the quote:

“”We are going to spend $951,500 for a sustainable Las Vegas. What does that mean? What does sustainable Las Vegas mean?”

I would even add some exclamation points in there. He sounds so confused, and at the same time so petulant. Not “why are we wasting money on this crap,” not “how on earth is this enough money for a sustainable Las Vegas?” But seriously, like “I am so ANGRY! SOMEBODY EXPLAIN WHAT THIS MEANS TO ME!”
[Oh, it's been so long...WALNUTS!]

Here’s a couple of links, since the audio is ten times better than reading it. (It’s an honest to goodness literal LOL.)

http://www.cncnews.org/index.php?files=story.php&storyid=mMRpv5ew6UY7HsF6bDIB

http://www.cncnews.org/popup.php?stryid=mMRpv5ew6UY7HsF6bDIB&mp3name=EARMARKS_WYPR_030409.MP3

[PS--i just realized the tone he's using. It's almost exactly the same as "What the fuck is the internet?"]

An open letter to the person who left the “Space Hog” note under my windshield wiper

DEAR PERSON WHO LEFT THE “SPACE HOG” NOTE UNDER MY windshield wiper,

We don’t know each other, but now we have a special connection. You’ll forever be known to me as the person who, shall we say, “got my goat” for a few hours one chilly Wednesday morning. And to you, I’ll forever be that person who you thought took too much space with my car when you were trying to park yours. Remember this time. It will never be this magical again.

Let’s start off simply. First of all, it’s parallel parking. I hate to get all “dumbed down” with you, but alas your simple gesture as spoken volumes, and one of those lengthy, nearly-illegible books is dedicated to your confusion about how parallel parking works. Here goes: you drive down the street. You see a spot, you wonder, can I fit my car in this? If the answer is yes, you pull into it. If the answer is no, you keep driving. When you pull into the spot, you aim for several things: a) not hitting the cars in front of and behind you, b) parking close to the curb, and c) leaving enough room for the other cars to get out, even if you’re just doing so so that they don’t damage your car. Now, in the circumstance you thought you saw me in: if there is space for more than one car, you pull forward or back so that another, future, theoretical car can get in.

Here is how my (our? I can only assume you live near me, otherwise you would not have walked back to put a note on my car) street works: The same way. There is nothing special about our street, no special rules I broke. There is only one special circumstance, one that, if you are of the parking passion enough to get angry and put a note on my car, you are of the parking passion enough to notice: There is a car on our block that doesn’t move. Or rather, moves very infrequently. There may be more than one, but there is definitely one. It is blue, and it is noted by its Notre Dame plates. I personally don’t mind this car not moving. It gives the neighborhood character, not unlike the old Dodge Dart that has been for sale in the parking lot across the street for nine months, or the old man who used to site in a plastic chair in the same parking lot. It says, my neighbors live here. I only mention the blue car to explain that it is the source of the situation.
Here’s the thing about the blue car: A month or so ago, when it parked where it has currently not moved from in however long, it parked in an odd spot. My guess is, it did so in the middle of the day when there were very few cars parked on the street. So, it parked wherever it pleased. Later, when everyone came home, they parked, parked, parked, and uh oh! There was a little extra space. That extra space always ends up right in front of the blue car. Not always in front of the blue car and behind the next car, mind you. But always between the blue car and H[censored] Street.

Why? Because, from H street to where the back of my car was last night/this morning, give or take a foot or three, you can parallel park three cars. How do I know? Because every time I’m lucky enough to park in front of my house, I’m the third car back, and us three cars are in there snug. And the blue car is sagging back a little–a tempting, almost a spot goddammit why did someone leave that little. What the blue car needs to do is pull up those 5 or 7 or whatever feet, and the whole rest of the block, all the way down to 34th, or down to the fire hydrant that you can’t park in front of, at least, will realign and maybe by the end another car will be able to squeeze in.

In the meantime, I’m just going to keep parking in front of the blue car, and I’m going to keep leaving a gap between us–a gap dictated not just by me, but how big the two vehicles from me to H—- St. are: if it’s my girlfriend’s car and the other car just like my girlfriend’s from up the block, well, we’ll be having a siesta of extra space (maybe even enough for you to run your notes off at Kinko’s!); if it’s, say, my next door neighbor’s Tacoma and the pest-control Super-Duty F-350 I sometimes see on H—– St., well, there’ll be no extra space behind me and you’ll be happy.

A few extra tips, PWLTSHNUMWW–

1. I’m not a “Space Hog,” I’m a “Space Saver.” Why? Because my Civic is small. It can fit into small parking spaces. (It still fits tons of stuff–my entire life’s possessions; five CRT computer monitors; a nuclear density gauge, a concrete sampling kit, an air-pressure meter, a sampling pan, 16 concrete molds, my jump suit; I can take it pretty much anywhere, and I can get 39 mpg if I want–There are no disadvantages to having a small car.)
   So I’m just gonna keep making that space, and you know who’s gonna park there? The first person on the block to buy a SmartCar.
2. You’re an idiot. Not only are you a jerk, or an asshole, or (lest my sympathy wane) someone edging toward hypoglycemia enough to write and leave a note on my windshield, but you are idiotic enough to make a big noise, a grand gesture, to raise your hand in class violently so that the teacher calls on you, but not know the answer–not, in fact, to have studied the material at all. You, sir or madam, do not understant parking. If you did, you would know that these things happen, like life, like death, like mushrooms, like farts. Extra, “wasted” space between cars happens when you have people arriving home at different times. (For an example of the contrary, I suggest you study the block of Charles St. that contains The Brewer’s Art, specifically the east side of the street, on a Friday evening at 6pm, just as it opens to parking. There will be no wasted space.)

Lastly, let me say thank you. Before this morning, I though the band Spacehog referred to some sort of cosmonautical swine. I hadn’t dreamed of anything different.

Sincerely,
The Guy Under Whose Windshield Wiper You Left the “Space Hog” Note

this is why I do it

SEE? THIS IS WHY I DO THIS. Sometimes, when I’m in the third hour of ripping/burning/copying/writing the titles of some album that I’ve heard a million times ten years ago but now just want to have on CD/digital file so I can listen to once in the car and then put in a book for three more years until the formats all change again, I think, this is such a ridiculous hobby.

Then, at 12:30 on a Friday night, I get reminded. This time it was a song called “(Don’t Go Back to) Rockville.” Let’s put aside Rockville, MD, the only redeeming feature of which I know is Joe’s Record Paradise, which isn’t fucking around with its name, let’s put away the quarter-century old stories about which bandmate pined for which girl, and just put your headphones on. Put your headphones on like it seems like I’d never done before–I was going to write ‘I’d never done before,’ but there’s no way if I’ve owned this tape of Eponymous for what? 18 years and didn’t stop listening to Walkmen until 2002 that I haven’t heard this through headphones–and listen to this song like you’ve never heard any R.E.M. before.

There’s piano in this song! Holy shit. So here we go, a nice steady rhythm, it’s definitely countryfied, and now we hear Michael, young Michael, and he’s twangy, yessir is he twangy. But you know what? I understand what he’s saying. Yeah, yeah, we’ve all read the quote, it goes something along the lines of, you guys all know there weren’t lyrics per se in the early years…etc. I ate that up at the time because I realized I was making up words and sounds that weren’t even words when I was young and idolizing Mr. Stipe as a singer. But now? C’mon, man! “Looking at your watch a third time, waiting at the station for the bus”? “I don’t care if you’re not here with me/’Cause it’s so much easier to handle/All my problems if I’m too far out to sea”? Take some credit! Those lyrics define “making it look easy.” How many people have felt that way before but never been able to put it into words? And Stipe puts it so casually, so plainly–his vocals have this perfect measured balance to them: it’s not a tragedy, it’s just fact, and that’s tragic enough. The sorrow really comes through.

Okay. I’ll say it again: the length of time I’ve been hearing this song makes me feel old, and right now it’s like I’m hearing it for the second time.

Thanks, whiskey.
[note--apparently people are saying that this is a big Mike Mills song. Could be. I'd love to hear some solo work from that guy. It'd be worth it for more piano work like he did on "At My Most Beautiful.]

25 random things about a vacation in brooklyn

SINCE I HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO FINISH MY facebook “25 random things” list, and I (clearly) haven’t blogged in forever, I thought I’d hoist up my breetches and combo the two. After all, this blog was started in response to a blog that consists of lists.

This past weekend, e and I took the amtrak up to nyc for some friends’ weddings, designated here by the pseudonyms Buttons and Pants.

1. Our bed at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott was wider than either of us is long. Also, it was glorious. We had a top-five-all-time snooze session on Friday evening: we were on vacation, it was just short of warm enough in the room and the comforter was approximately 8 inches thick, the alarm clock had an iPod port so we listened to The Hawk is Howling by Mogwai for the first half, and most crucially, the snooze only lasted about 40 minutes, not too short, not too long.

2. Our cab driver, nay, our thank shwarma we finally found a cab driver did not know where Steiner Studios was. Thankfully, our collective memories of random possible addresses and general map area got us there. Also, the cab had a touch-screen teevee/pooter thingy that showed our progress. crazy.

3. Chicken pita sandwich and Falafel sandwich from Bedouin Tent are highly recommended. Watch your pitas being rolled and immediately thrown in the oven while you wait. (405 Atlantic Ave Brooklyn, NY 11217(718) 852-5555)

4. The servers/hosts/(owners?) of Downtown Bar and Grill on Court St. in Brooklyn were intimidating at first, nearly as much so as their beer list–which rivals and perhaps bests the two beeriest of beer joints I’ve been to: Max’s on Broadway in Baltimore and The Brickskeller in DC–but either our numbers and blind insistence on eating and drinking and taking up their couches won out, or they are in fact just seriously-faced gentlemen who were pleased to earn our chunk of cash.

5. Downtown Lager (20 oz), in the words of Two Swords, “tastes like it should be in a can with a white label with the word BEER in black letters on it.” Which is not a bad thing.
I, for one, had an Ithaca Nut Brown (which did not impress any New Yorkers, but was delightful for my MD tastebuds)–one more point for brown ales as new favorite beer.

6. The Brooklyn Heights promenade takes two tries to find when you don’t know what it is or have a 3D map of the area.

7. The Brooklyn Heights Promenade was worth two tries to find.

8. Buying headphones at a newstand in a train station may seem like a lifesaver, but it’s a waste of $13 if they hurt the shit out of your ears.

9. All of my meals on February 20th were on rolls:

The snackery at Penn Station makes a pretty good egg/cheese/bacon sandwich, not quite overpriced. It’s still hard for me to pay money for water, though.

10. The (apparently newish) vegetarian cafe Boneshakers in Portland Native and Two Swords’s neighborhood ended up defying my first impressions (hrmm, this is a lot of money for things I’m not sure I want…). I copied off of Portland Native at the last second and got a Rebel Cruiser (bbq seitan, coleslaw, I added mustard & lettuce), which blew my mind (and was also on a roll). A good place to check out if you’re into bikes, delicious vegetarian food, hawt vegetarian biker ladies (and gentlemen?), or eating to fugazi.

11. Downtown Bar and Grill has a very tasty burger. Could’ve used more fries, though.

12. Baby in the closet.
It hit me on one of the trains home the next day that the situations weddings create never happen again. Even if, say, one of Pants’s groomsmen or ladies was to marry one of Buttons’s bridesmaids or men, not exactly the same people would be in the same place at the same time. This dumbly obvious fact hit me because I was thinking about late (for me) the previous night, when I was in the married couple’s suite for the afterness, and stumbled upon a room full of Mainers.
“Buttons, are these the Mainers?” I asked in a pretend-sotto-voce, while staring at them.
“Yeah, those are the Mainers, you should talk to them.”
The joke only lasted for a second, and then I was shoved in the direction of the best man and his wife. They started asking about Super Prom. I had to admit that it had been years since I was a good salesman for Super Prom, but if they wanted to come, they could. They were great people, too (in fact, I’ll bet all of the people there were great people).
Then they showed me their baby in the closet.

13. Seriously, baby in the closet.

14. My friends have had some pretty spot-on, beautiful, rockin’, and funtastic music at their weddings, but I’m pretty sure Spoon’s “Paper Tiger” as a first dance song tops it all…”Yeah, I will be there with you when you turn out the light…” Takes the cake, you might say.

15.

16. Whoever brought the Johnnie Walker Green to the after party, ahthankyou.

17. Papa T! What a gracious man. Made it through two strolls down memory lane with me without looking annoyed, even when all I had to bring up was Ithaca and his newly-married daughter.

18. There was another diabetic at the wedding (at least one other, I should say.) He was the boyfriend of the maid of honor (Buttons’s sister). He somehow on Friday night, amidst the shuffling, drinking feet of at least 25 people packed into a Brooklyn apartment, found a used glucose meter strip that had fallen out of my tester pouch onto the floor. Recognizing that it wasn’t his, it was delivered back to me by the groom. Later, as he was about to leave the wedding after-party, we had a brief discussion: we exchanged lengths of diabeticism, and I asked him what he “called” the dessert at the reception. He said he just had a bite; I winced inwardly at my gluttony, even though it was the first serious dessert I’ve had since being diagnosed.

Also, I heard he got puked on earlier. Someone needs to tell me that story.

19. A thing about the groom, not worded as well as I’d like: I’ve held him in higher and higher esteem since our first drunken book-listing conversation on a crowded porch in Allston in the early 00s. But these conversations only get to happen once or twice a year. So it was surprising when he pulled me aside at the after-party, into the bedroom where all his Mainers had been grouped, saying, “I want to show you something.” I seem to recall thinking it was one of the gifts, and saying something about the sheets we got them. Or perhaps I made a joke about the Johnnie Walker. On the contrary, he took me to the window and turned out the lights (even yelling at someone who tried to turn them back on). There, from the 27th floor, was all of Brooklyn. Needless to say, it was gorgeous: if you live in a city, and you love your city, then there’s nothing better than seeing it at night, lit up brightly and solitarily, from a high, high place. I don’t remember what our words were as we looked out for the next few minutes, other than full of liquor and joy, and I’m glad. I was and still am very touched by the gesture.

20. LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver is an excellent soundtrack for the last leg of a train trip into NYC.

21. iPhones seem to very handy in NYC. And very prevalent.

22. MASS TRANSIT, muthafucka!: On foot down 36th st. to Falls Rd. to Union, Light Rail from the Woodberry Light Rail stop to the Cultural Center Stop, on foot to Penn Station, Amtrak from Penn Station (BAL) to Penn Station (NYC), subway A train to Hoyt-Schemerhorn, G train to Nassau, on foot to Henry st. Then, on foot to Hoyt-Schemerhorn, C train to Penn Station, Amtrak to Penn Station Baltimore, on foot to Mt. Royal, Light Rail to Woodberry, on foot back home.

23. The last thing I wanted to do after a wedding weekend, even one during which I do not get hungover, is walk up Union street, then carry the world’s heaviest sofa-bed off the porch, down the street, down the other street, and into the alley behind the house. But it was the last thing I did after a wedding weekend, and it was immensely satisfying.

24. The Safety Dance was more enjoyable than ever. Perhaps it was something to do with being on a dance floor and carpeting in good shoes, as opposed to in bare feet on rough poolside concrete? I totally cut in line so I could be closer to my friends. On the other hand, I learned that Jo Banana does not approve of “Sweet Caroline,” possibly the most mainstream thing in this world that I take part in. I expressed my shock, telling her, “I though that if anyone in this world loved ‘Sweet Caroline,’ it would be you!” After finishing the song, our discussion continued, and she seemed to soften some when I pointed out that while I fully support “Bah! Bah! Bah!”, I do not approve of “So good! So good! So good!” So ask yourself, “Sweet Caroline” haters: what is it you really hate about it? Is it really hate? Or just love in disguise?
Also: to the middle-aged couple that approached Dr. B and me during our Diamond chorusing to say, “Yay! More Red Sox fans!”: we were at a wedding, and as such it was, to use a phrase, all good, so I refrained from snidely saying, “Red Sox fans. They think they invented everything.”
[ed. note: in another example of my complete ignorance, I have just learned that The Safety Dance, which so beguiled me for so long--is it a dance? look at your what?--is about masturbation. ergo, safe sex.]

25. Somehow I could not get it out of my head that when Jo Banana told me over the phone “Just look for the big neon sign that says BAR & GRILL” that it was not Downtown Bar and Grill, even though it was on the same block. I had to know it all, didn’t I? I love the fact that she just chose that place, and like five of us walked there expecting the after-party and found two Jo’s and a Kenny. Seriously, it was a great little pocket of time we had there, though. They had already ordered a theoretical beer for me when we arrived, there was serious talk in a warm and jokey way, I insisted that Kenny was making up the existence of a “Z” train…

Thanks to the Buttons and Pants families for giving me a reason for this list, and e for accompanying me, and all of our fellow wedding-goers. If only there’d been time for the sauna…ohman also Norwegians! Damn, those guys deserve at least two numbers to themselves. Too many people! Even though I actively thought, gotta hang with norwegians, gotta spend time with norwegians, where are they?, I still didn’t do it enough…

all of my favorite songs are long.

As an excuse to keep things rolling on this blog, and so that it doesn’t fall into oblivion, I’ve been thinking of writing fairly harmless and not-deeply-thought-out things like what music I’ve been listening to, books I’ve been reading. Sometimes I’m just going to give the bare bones. Anyway, here’s a mix I made called “all of my favorite songs are long.”

 

it is apparently dated 8/06.

1. built to spill – going against your mind.
This song pretty much blew my mind when it came out. I remember my friend bringing his iPod to my birthday shindig a few years ago (the same night he and his wife gave me tickets to Magnolia Electric Co.) with this song on it. We played it towards the end of the night, blasted it, really, and I remember bopping around incessantly for the entire 8-plus minutes. BtS definitely played it live a couple of times that I saw them before You in Reverse came out, so I was familiar with the demands-a-fist-punch-in-the-air guitar crunch attack that happens right before each chorus. Once I got to know the track, I think my favorite part became the deep, unearthly groan-howls of guitar that come in around 6:15, after the tension has built for a few minutes. They make me realize that Built to Spill really makes some sounds on the guitar that I’ve never heard before.

2. my morning jacket — phone went west.
I got At Dawn towards the end of living in LA, and while I didn’t fully get to know the album until moving back to Baltimore, it often puts me back in my hardwood-floored, almost-totally-empty bedroom on Barry Ave in Sawtelle. (It was a weird thing, that bedroom; I never really furnished it other than a secondhand futon to sleep on and a free wicker shelf unit [missing a shelf] for a dresser. The room had a big closet, maybe most of my life was in there. I kept my record player on the floor, and my guitar hung out at the end of the bed, but other than that there wasn’t much there…I don’t know why.) But mostly this song puts me [speaking of which, I'm trying to compile a blog post of Time Travel Songs, and this one would go on it] in the (also) empty Arizona or New Mexico night, when e and I were driving from LA to Baltimore. We were on day at least 3 of actual hardcore driving, and My Morning Jacket is always appropriate for desert night driving. I think I put the album on either before or after e put on The Mars Volta, which, though I don’t know their stuff much, is also awesome for desert night driving. The best quote of this song of course is the chorus: “Tell me I’m wrong/Tell I’m right/Tell me there’s nobody else in the world.”

3. kathleen edwards — somewhere else.
This is a song by Jim Bryson, who played in her band when she toured with My Morning Jacket, and who opened for The Weakerthans at a show that started earlier than I thought, so I missed him. I should see if his other stuff is as good as this, because this, I love. Saw Edwards open for MMJ, recognized the single “In State” from WTMD, thought she rocked the stage pretty fucking hard, came out opening with “Independent Thief,” stomping from side to side like Neil Young, shouting/warbling kinda like him too. Burned Back to Me from the library (sorry, Kathleen), and thought the whole album was great. I picked up Failer, her first one, at GBMC’s Nearly New sale, though I haven’t digested that one as much. Definitely would catch her show again. She works with her husband, Colin Cripps, who, if I remember correctly, provides some really solid guitar. This is actually the song that spurred me to make this mix, despite being the only one that’s not long. It just feels huge, like a photo that’s 3/4 sky with just a sliver of land at the bottom. “Life can be cruel/Life can be sweet if I want it to be.”

4. bedhead — the present.
The last song on bedhead’s last album (Transaction de Novo, the first album of theirs that I heard). I could have picked probably any number of bedhead songs for this mix, especially “The Rest of the Day” from Beheaded. But I just had this one in my head at that time, and it may have been the second piece of the mix. This one has a great, patient build to it. It’s gotta be at least 4 or 5 minutes before the vocals come in. I just like every riff and sound that’s in the song. I think before it was straight in my head, I used to like both the opening riff and the end part of the song, so when I realized they were the same song, it was great. The bowed sound under the vocals is lovely.

5. g(23) — luge.
Not sure how I came to choose a g(23) track instead of a g(25) one. [Clearly if you are awesome and making yourself this mix from home, you're going to have to contact me or El Jefe or King Kevin or someone else from Ithaca to get this song. Or the g(boys) themselves, although I think we've discussed their disappearance from the nets.] I think I’d just had this in mind for a mix for someone else that never got made, and the production of the g(23) Winter Games EP is just better than that of Feels From A Van. So, this song? Awesome layers of sound, great riffs.  This song, in a non-specific sense, contains why I loved the g(groups)–for a slim category of music, I like this song as much as anything on Discovery.
Oh, plus they made an EP called fucking Winter Games  and named the tracks after events. You should hear “Pairs Figure Skating.”

6. modest mouse — ohio.
Also could’ve picked a bunch of MM songs, but I think “Ohio” was really breaking through for me at the time. I’d put it on a mix for my friend melanie’s LA-to-NYC drive, and at that point it kind of started gaining some more points with me. Obviously it’s a fun song, and the verses open with “took a bus straight to baltimore.” But it wins me over with the middle of the song, pretty much pick any line…”truly lonely, this place is flatter than it seems”

7. yo la tengo — green arrow.
See my “Best in Shows” post. I would’ve written here about the Utica show even if I hadn’t just been thinking about it a few weeks ago. It’s a great mood. It’s really about the drums, when they start to rise up, that’s when the song takes you somewhere. (From I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One)

8. rilo kiley — pictures of success.
This song breaks my heart in a small way, but I’m never sure why. I just know that when I hear that low-note guitar pattern that starts it out, I feel a way that I don’t at any other time in life. It might have something to do with the rocket-ramp line, “they say california is a recipe for a black hole/and I say, I’ve got my best shoes on/I’m ready to go,” or it may have to do with the way I can hit all of Blake Sennet’s (I assume it’s him singing backup) notes in the succeeding “ready to go”s. Like a lot of songs on this mix, I really like the way the song takes its time, even just in Jenny Lewis’ careful pronunciation. It wasn’t until I moved back to Baltimore that I realized that this song is almost seven minutes long.

9. sufjan stevens — the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us!
2006 was the year of sufjan for me, I think. Might’ve been 2005. I probably did this mix while on my 3rd or 4th favorite-song-of-the-moment from Illinois. That’s why this one got chosen. Not that it’s not awesome, but I think in 20 years (yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this album is one of two I am sure will be looked upon in 20 years as one of the best ever; the other is In the Aeroplane Over the Sea) it may be “Come On! Feel The Illinoise!” or “Casimir Pulaski Day” that I  would pick for this mix. But then again, listening to it now for the first time in months if not a year, yeah, this song is beautiful. Don’t know the words at all, but when the chorus (of people, not of the song) comes in, and the strings, whew.

10. neutral milk hotel — oh comely.
Hey, look at that! I didn’t even know this song was on here when I wrote the last one. Well. This song is a shade more dark and dangerous than others on the album. But back in the day when I could still sing, and I still took out my guitar more than at summertimes, this one was a great one to sing, straight throughallthewaythrough (take a breath! keep going!) Some of the best lyrics on the album: the verse starting with “Your father made fetuses with flesh-licking ladies…” is so dense and gorgeous, there’s really nothing like it anywhere. And the heart of the whole album is buried five minutes in:

“I know they buried her body with others
her sister and mother and five hundred families
and will she remember me, 50 years later?
I wish I could save her in some sort of time machine”

And even ending, after all that just Jeff Mangum and guitar, with the overlaid horns, it really pulls in the “Neutral Milk Hotel” elements, making it a full band effort. (I could pull out the 33 1/3 book on the album that e so thoughtfully got me right now to get into specifics, but I’m lazy.) [Also, new knowledge--the horns reminded me of a connection that I apparently got wrong. I remember reading that the guy from Beirut (the recording project/band, not city) was helped by someone from Neutral Milk Hotel, and hearing the album (which I like more and more), I assumed it was Scott Spillane, since the horns are so Neutral Milk Hotel-y, but apparently I'm wrong, it's Jeremy Barnes, who, while listed as playing drums in NMH on the wikipedia site, I'm sure had more than just a drumming say in the band, as did all of them...]

11. neil young — powderfinger.
One of the first With Crazy Horse songs I latched onto. Then I forgot about it for a few years. This is from Live Rust, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the album track. It’s a classic. Makes me want to watch the Rust Never Sleeps DVD someone awesome (brother? no, maybe Dave) got me. When I first heard it, I wasn’t clued in to the whole story in the lyrics, and I took “Well I just turned 22/I was wondering what to do/And the closer they got/The more those feelings grew” quite to heart. I had just turned 22, and was graduating from college and facing life for the first time (though not very eagerly, I would count almost two more years before I really faced life), so I just figured “they” meant “those feelings,” not the people coming down the river to kill him. I’m not a Neil Young fanatic, but to me, “Shelter me from the powder and the finger/Cover me with the thought that pulled the trigger” is the quintessential moment of Crazy Horse’s careeer.

12. songs: ohia/magnolia electric co. — hold on magnolia.
I probably haven’t heard this song as many times that I’ve heard the rest on this mix, but it definitely belongs on here. (Although I’m sure there are other Jason Molina ones that would, as well–although I came close to convincing myself that “Just Be Simple” almost feels long enough to put on, since I love that song) The last track on the last Songs: ohia album, or the first, self-titled album by Magnolia Electric Co, it closes the album on a sparer, quiter note. This song always makes me think of the moment at a Magnolia Electric Co show at the Black Cat in DC when, after at least half a set of blistering, crunching, rolling rock, Jason Molina said, All right, we’re gonna play a slow song. And the crowd basically collectively flounced and sighed and shouted “no!” for a few seconds until he said, “This is called ‘Hold On Magnolia.’” at which point the place erupted in cheers. Just turned on a dime. I’ve never witnessed anything like it. That’s how good this song is.

That’s it. Go forth to iTunes and compile. If you’re lucky, I won’t get distracted by that DVD of “How I Met Your Mother” or, you know, actually trying to get some real writing done, and I might take a stab at some best-of mixes.

Just a warning.

I DOUBT THE STARS WILL EVER ALIGN to make this possible, but:

Just so you know, if the opportunity ever arises, I will kill ”Rhythm and Soul” by Spoon at kareoke.
Kill it.

Like every great thing in this world, Spoon’s Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, if you put it away for a while then take it back out again, it will achieve at least one more level of greatness.

“Square couches/Short legs and/Square shoulders…”
(this is where you see me in the driver’s seat, going north home to Baltimore on I-95, squirming my torso to the groove, drooling the lyrics outta my mouth.)

Best in Shows

http://linearregression.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/my-favorite-shows-ever/

THIS QUESTION CAME UP in the avclub q&a in the past few months, so luckily my brain has been kick-started already. Otherwise, c-train would have me lollygagging on this one. I’m going to take a stab with no prep-work. In no order:

• All Tomorrow’s Parties, 2004, Long Beach, California. My indispensible for many reasons friend El Jefe called me up one Saturday afternoon, asked, “Do you want to go see Modest Mouse and Lou Reed tonight?” He said this with no more excitement than he had when asking if I wanted to join him (he’s a music critic) to see N.E.R.D. with the Black Eyed Peas. I said something like holyfuckingshitofcourseunlessI’mdreamingrightnowinwhichcaseI’mgoingtokickyourassinreallifetomorrow. Anyway, Modest Mouse and Lou Reed was amazing, especially since Reed did a kind of retrospective, so I recognized a lot of songs, and Modest Mouse I hadn’t seen in four years. The best, though, was El Jefe saying, well, since you already got the wristband, why don’t you come tomorrow, too? (all this was essentially free thru Jefe). The next day was: The Walkmen (only caught the end, was pre-disposed to not be interested, actually, they may have been the night before) Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks, The Shins, Love as Laughter, Built to Spill, The Flaming Lips, and The Cramps. So yeah. Possibly the best BtS show I’ve seen, because they played almost entirely new stuff and it was all amazing. And certainly that’s the most glorious Flaming Lips show I’ve seen.
• Built to Spill, House of Blues, Los Angeles, fall of 2001. First time I saw them. My roommate Jimmy Bighead was working for the House of Blues at the time, so I still have a CD of the show. His voice is horrific (from a cold) at times, there are stops and starts, but they cover “Police and Thieves” and “White Man in Hammersmith Palais,” Doug does a solo, reverbed and looped-out “Straight to Hell,” some yet-unrealeased solo stuff (including the incredible “good enough”), and THEY FUCKING CLOSED WITH “FREEBIRD AND IT SOUNDED LIKE GODDAMN SHEA STADIUM IN THERE. What more do you want?
• Ted Leo + The Pharmacists, The Ottobar, Baltimore, 8/06. We had just missed going their Ottobar show the last time, thank god, because we might not’ve wanted to go to this one. They played most of what I know now is a typical thundering, all-out, sweaty, bloody, ramped-up TL/P show, in the middle of one of the hottest, muggiest weeks of the year, when the power went out. Temperature must’ve hit 120 in there. Ted Leo starts leading sing-a-longs of “Since U Been Gone,” “Don’t Stop Believing,” and so on. Eventually he gets an acoustic guitar and keeps on covering and playing originals. Finally, the Ottobar says, sorry, it’s not coming back on. So Ted Leo takes the guitar, walks off the stage (right where you always think there are stairs, but there aren’t), falls into a trash can, gets up, keeps playing, and hits the sidewalk, where he plays for a good 15 more minutes, surrounded by a crowd that spilled most of the way into Howard St. We saw him play solo a couple of weeks ago, which was also amazing (“Dancing in the Dark” was stuck in e’s head for two weeks), and he referred to “the blackout show” as being a career highlight.
• g(25) “end of limit” final show, Ithaca, NY, 12/2000. I’ve still got a tape of Feels From a Van, as well as a copied CD, and an unwrapped commercial copy that I will crack only when the others are destroyed. For a guy who loves his nostalgia, that g(25) disc is like holding college in a bottle. They were a five-piece organic electronic band, who sometimes played with Star Wars masks on (okay, that was g(23)) or inserted the a capella break from “Sloop John B” into the middle of a song. For a semester, I worshipped them, and at the end, I managed to gain some noteriety by dancing my ass off in a sparkly blue motorcycle helmet (with a Nader sticker on it, go 2000!) at their final show. Somewhere out there, you can still buy a t-shirt (take note, my birthday is March 10. ed.: nevermind, the g25productions site is apparently gone, waah!)
• Two Gallants/The Good Life weekend, Sonar, Baltimore and 1st Unitarian Church, Philadelphia, Oct., 2007. I can’t separate these two, because they were back to back and they were both great. First we went to Philly for the Good Life, who e had seen but I hadn’t, and they were touring for Help Wanted Nights which is fantastic, and, well, so is the rest of their stuff. Two Gallants had almost no crowd in the “club room” at Sonar, e drove so i got perfectly tipsy. Their probably hour-plus set felt like 25 minutes to me. Totally enthralling.
• City of Robots final show/Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, spring 2002. Another Ithaca band, this one a trio influenced by…well, Jonah the guitarist was the real rock critic, not me, all I know is they had a few riffs that sounded Modest Mousey to me, and in Ithaca (which is jam-band/white-jah kid central), that was a revelation. I saw as many shows as I could, the last of which included a set of originals followed by a set backed by another band in which they did a note-perfect Ziggy Stardust in full glam regalia.
• Yo La Tengo, Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute, Utica, NY, 2001? This show! This show…was like a dream wafting through a fog. Goddamn. It was a rumor, somehow someone heard a rumor, definitely my film friend Eli heard it, ’cause he was (is?) the biggest Yo La Tengo fan I’d ever met. And my music friends (aka my friends) El Jefe and the other Palace boys knew, so I got the fifth (or sixth?) seat in the Volvo, and we drove out, knowing only that “Yo La Tengo is playing at an art school in Utica tonight.” We got to the town, asked around, somehow someone told us where the art school was, we somehow found a parking lot, somehow followed the sound, and somehow, there under a little supply-shed type roof, Yo La Tengo was playing, for free! for no more than 40 people, 20 of whom were wandering around looking at art installations. They played a fucking insane (especially being able to stand two feet from the guitar) “I Heard You Looking,” they played requests (“Green Arrow” in the drizzle for fifteen people…just. i just don’t have words for it.), they had El Jefe play the bongos on “You Sexy Thing.” I don’t know how or why that night happened, or why no one knew about it (I do know that they were playing Syracuse with Sonic Youth the next night), but I know it happened, and I was there. And that Eli got there after the show, but the band still played some songs for them and gave him a wammy bar!

More!?! Later?!?