Pueblo Waltz

Saturday Songs - March 3

2012-03-04T15:49:00.000-08:00

As has been recently de rigueur of this weekly post, I again put up my‘Saturday Songs’ on Sunday. This seeming lapse in focus is again the product ofScottish adventures (up in the Highlands as with last weekend). Fortunately, I canoffer at least one musical picking from my Highlands travels. In fact, this setof songs might be the most diverse inthe history of Pueblo Waltz! Scottish, Danish, Irish! Be excited…

1. “O Caledonia” – Dougie MacLean

I know it’s wrong, but I can’thelp but think about Dougie MacLean’s song “O Caledonia” as analogous to DonMacLean’s “American Pie,” one emblematically American and the otheremblematically Scottish. But while Don’s song is a clear product of the beatnikgeneration with its obtuse lyrics and somewhat extraordinary length (at overeight minutes, it’s still the longest single to sit atop the Billboard 100chart), Dougie’s song is a simple celebration of pride and love forCaledonia—the Roman name for Scotland.

Driven by some beautiful finger-picking—playedin an open C tuning—MacLean manages to toe the line between hokey-ness andwide-eyed wonder. Even as he sings openly of his love for Scotland, he reelsback the sheer patriotism by incorporating a string of personal admissions,having “lost the friends that I needed losing,” “kissed the ladies and leftthem crying” and “stolen dreams.” The song is not just a national celebration;it is an account of self-discovery and struggle.

Of course, MacLean was not yet 30years old when he wrote and recorded this song. But despite his youth, the songdistinctly sounds like it was written by an old soul. In that way, listening tothe more recent studio recording of the song above makes more sense; MacLean’swizened look and slightly grittier voice finally provides the appropriatenarratorial presence.

2. “The Balcony” – The RumourSaid Fire

Discovered by my friend Leah inthe course of her Danish adventures, The Rumour Said Fire are a pop quartetbased in Copenhagen, Denmark. The immediately apparent thing, of course, isthat despite their Danishness, they sing in English. Like other many otherbands and singers from non-English speaking countries, The Rumour Said Firemust have been quick to recognize the musical dead-end of their own languageand the open-door opportunity of English. There is something somewhat dark andhegemonic about the universality of the English language in the pop world. FromPhoenix to The Tallest Man On Earth, there is a strange sadness in the way thatEnglish is lingua franca in the music world. I can’t help but respect more andmore the staying power of Icelandic artist Sigur Rós, who mostly stick to theirnative language.

However, all that said aboutnative languages and English, The Rumour Said Fire remain as equally capable apop band as any indie-pop outfit Los Angeles could spit out onto the scene.“The Balcony” displays a warm vulnerability that recalls the Shins and strivesfor the easy, sunny harmonies of a pseudo-Americana group like Fleet Foxes.

3. “Velcro” – Bell X1

Described as Ireland’s biggestrock act right after U2, Bell X1 cannot be easily described. They are a curiousamalgam of sounds, but “Velcro” finds them mixing electro-pop with arena rock.Imagine LCD Soundsystem cross-pollinated with Snow Patrol. And then take awayGary Lightbody’s voice and replace it with a better one. Of course, Bell X1 hasnone of the charm of either act; the melody and lyrics sometimes seem a littletoo mechanical for their own good—all the pieces are there, but it’s as if someoneforgot to tell them they needed to play with a little spirit too.

4. “Why” – Josh Ritter

The single off Josh Ritter’srecent 6-song EP Bringing In The Darlings,“Why” is a sweet, acoustic tune that presses its addressee with variations onits eponymous question. Part of a collection that Ritter has termed his“lullabies,” “Why” and the other five songs on the EP are a result of a recentwriting session. You wonder that someone can be so productive; this EP comes somewhaton the heels of the 2011 release of Ritter’s novel Bright’s Passage, which also received rave reviews from not a few publications. What can the man not do?

5. “Highs And Lows” – Mindy Smith

The song that immediately jumpedto mind when I stumbled across this second track on Mindy Smith’s 2009 album Stupid Love was my Jill Andrew’s“Another Man”—one of my favorite tracks from last year. (I have a thing forquirky country rock with female vocals.) Smith doesn’t have quite the flairthat Andrews exhibits, but her voice is supported by fantastic production and ashipshape arrangement. In particular, the light percussion that rattles its waythrough the track—including the calm flicker of a conga drum—helps ease thesong in a positive direction.

Further Thoughts On My 'Addiction'

2012-02-28T17:51:00.001-08:00

Unfortunately, I’ve tabled‘Saturday Songs’ this week for two reasons: firstly, the ominous fact that it’sTuesday night and, secondly, because I didn’t listen to much music the pastweek…I’ve been traveling!

That said, I can offer somefurther thoughts on my (our?) addiction to entertainment. To be truthful, I wasnot entirely without ‘entertainment’ over the past week; that would be somekind of minor miracle. (I think I would need to go backpacking into thewilderness to actually escape the long reach of music, film, art, etc.) Thecrucial element of the past week was that I left my laptop at home. Recently,my laptop has begun to feel like an exploratory, experiential extension ofself; I find new music, new films, and new artistic ideas through my laptop.(Also, rather obviously, I blog with my laptop…)

So I was without an extension ofmy seeming artistic self for nearly a week.

The funny thing…art doesn’t justdisappear. It’s everywhere, even when I thought that I left it behind. Itcoasts through the background of our conversations, popping up at oddmoments—and that wasn’t just the case with my conversations, but with those ofmany of the people with whom I traveled—art was an inescapable force. It was aeasy to grasp structure. Of course, there are always concurrent interests; Ispoke briefly with an Italian woman about Latin American literature—she had, ofcourse, a major in North and South American literature.

But even then, Tim, our tourguide up in the Highlands, structured the stories he told with artisticreferences; he used film and music references to color his stories about theIsle of Sky. Sometimes stories were even structured through their interactions with artistic forms. For example, thestory about the road that Calum MacLeod built from his small crafting (farming)community of the island of Raasay (located off of the Isle of Skye) wasexplained partly through journalist Roger Hutchinson’s non-fiction book aboutMacLeod’s struggle and then also through the forthcoming filmic adaptation ofthe story.

Tim, of course, was none too keenon the upcoming ‘Hollywood’ rendition of the story, but his distaste (andprobably my distaste as well) for the story speaks to an interesting lens weapply to our experiences. We live and experience and, as we experience, wesimultaneously cast a screen—or apply a lens, however you’d like to word it—overthose experiences to view them in a ‘Hollywood’ way.

Maybe it’s not so much that we’re‘addicted’ to entertainment, as David Foster Wallace argued in Infinite Jest, as the fact that weactively structure our existence through our relationship with entertainment. Idon’t mean to say, “Oh, I’m going to watch a film at 4 p.m., listen to an albumat 6 p.m., etc.” but rather offer that as we go through our day, we track ourexperience alongside a different kind of experience—maybe the kind of life thatHollywood would have us live—or the kind of life a pop song might ensconce.

Further thoughts are likely tofollow…

Saturday Songs - Feb. 18

2012-02-18T07:16:00.000-08:00

1. “If I Needed You” – RobbyHecht

During her performance last yearat Hamilton College, Liz Longley and her accompanist Gus Berry played a coverof Townes Van Zandt’s best-known tune. Of course, I lost my mind, as I do wheneverTownes crops up in unexpected places. Longley was just about the lastsongwriter I would have expected to land on Van Zandt as an inspiration; moreindebted to the confessional singer-songwriter and bubblegum pop schools (and agraduate of Berklee School of Music), it seemed like an odd inclusion in herset.

Afterwards, when I spoke withBerry and Longley about the song, they confessed that they knew next to nothingabout the song. They had simply learned it from a friend and fallen in lovewith it. Of course, I didn’t have the foresight to ask them the name of thisfriend. The friend turned out to be another lower-level singer-songwriter RobbyHecht. (To be clear, I don’t use ‘lower-level’ as a critical description; it’sonly a description.)

Every once in a while, I drop aTownes song into Spotify or on Google and search for covers. Cover versions ofTownes songs can be incredibly rewarding; Van Zandt was not the best singer andcertainly had no flair for arrangement—you’d need only to listen to the awfulstring/orchestral accompaniments on his first two albums to know that—but thesongs can usually hold their own.

So it was with some excitementthat I found this warm, moving rendition of “If I Needed You.” But alongsideHecht’s voice, there was a female, harmonizing part. I listened carefullythrough the first two verses. Who else could it be other than Liz Longley?

2. “Right Into Love” – Johnsmith

You can’t get much more‘everyman’ than this guy. This is the kind of music you might find on aWednesday night in a bar somewhere in Heartland America. The downside to the‘everyman’ approach is that it quickly devolves into cliché. Very quickly. Ichallenge any one of you to listen to one of Johnsmith’s albums all the waythrough and remember back to three or four different songs. Immediately likableand unproblematic, they blend together from one song to the next.

However, this song is nicebecause of all the places it namedrops. I always find these ‘place-songs’irresistible. And it’s not just towns—Johnsmith makes an honest attempt tocapture all different elements of this road trip: shooting stars, sleepingbags, patched-up blue jeans, chestnut braided hair. There are alos some neatturns of phrase—“quintessential counterculture hippie pair” being one of them.

3. “How Can You Swallow So MuchSleep” – Bombay Bicycle Club

I feel a bit compelled to includethis song in light of the fact that an Edinburgh College of Art student spentsix months designing and filming the stop-motion animation music video for thissong. I’ll be honest: I’m a little terrified of the music video, in which aclay-looking man floats through a seeming dream world. It’s a little too muchfor me. However, the song is fantastic, building weird texture on top of weirdtexture until midway through the song when the drums explode onto the top ofmix and pull all the elements together. Coldplay could probably learn a thingor two from the rise and fall of tension that the band so effectively employsthroughout this song.

4. “Traitor” – Richard Buckner

AllMusic claims that Bucknerbelongs to the Texas singer-songwriter school alongside the likes of JimmieDale Gilmore, but I would offer that Buckner has a little more in common with thelate alt-country-rock maverick Chris Whitley, who also liked exploring weirdand different textures and dark moods. Buckner never travels quite as far asWhitley did (banjos and electronic ‘noises’ on the same song), but he certainlydelves into similar musical ideas. Listen to the interplay between the almostpunky, lo-fi guitars and the shimmery keyboards on this song. A lonely slideguitar dips in between those two elements, completing the texture.

5. Aim & Ignite – fun.

I’ve already raved about thisband before—led by Nate Ruess, formerly of The Format—but I’m going to take afew seconds to again put forth the endearing brilliance and, yes, the fun of this band. For what I’m going to assume is a very limitedtime, their debut album Aim & Ignite isup on Noisetrade for free download. In an earlier Saturday Songs post, Idescribed their song “All The Pretty Girls” as follows:

“Like a manic cross-polination ofElectric Light Orchestra and Queen, ‘All The Pretty Girls’ is chock-full of(almost) mechanically perfect harmonies and expertly timed percussion taps andtrills and hits à la Queen and once you add in the string parts and theclearly-processed backing vocals (see E.L.O.’s ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’), you’vegot a bizarrely fascinating song.”

You should probably download thisnow.

Are We Addicted To Entertainment?

2012-02-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

In David Foster Wallace’sbehemoth novel Infinite Jest, thereis a film that is so entertaining that once people see it, they cannot stopwatching it. All they want to do is keep watching the film: they don’t want toeat, sleep, go to the bathroom, have sex, or what-have-you. They just want towatch the film. Part of Wallace’s point here is that American society (perhaps Western society) has a serious addiction to entertainment; in a way,there’s a dangerous irony that people finish the 1,079 page novel…it sort ofproves Wallace’s point. (That said, manypeople never get around to finishing the damn thing.)

Here’s the thing. Today, Ifinished the third season of Breaking Bad.In a previous post, I talked a little about my admiration for the show. Indeed,it’s a great show and worth watching for those of you who are unfamiliar.However, there’s a weird, uncomfortable caveat about the fact that I’m alreadystarting to dig into the fourth season, which is that I started watching theshow only about three weeks ago.

In my post about John K. Samson’s‘petition song,’ this blog entered the unlikely world of math, so I figuredthat I might keep the numbers going. Let’s say, for ease of calculation, thateach episode of Breaking Bad isroughly 45 minutes long. There are seven episodes in the first season, 13 inthe second, and 13 in the third. That…wait a minute, I’ve got this…is 33 episodes.Broken down into hours, I’ve spent morethan a day of my life watching Breaking Bad.

In the long run, that might notsound so disturbing. An episode every week for a bunch of weeks in a row over afew years doesn’t exactly scream addiction. But an entire day out of the past21 days of my life? Could Breaking Bad reallyhave done that to me?

I wish that Spotify and iTuneshad a built-in log feature just so I could run a little experiment. If myindulgence in Walter White’s meth-centered life is somewhat disturbing, then Ifigure that the amount of music I listen to on a regular basis would reallyknock me out. How much time do I spend listening to music—even if there’smulti-tasking involved, i.e. I’m listening to M83’s album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming as I write this—over the course of a day?A week? A month? How much of my life is being filled in that way?

What about books? While readingisn’t exactly a pastime engaged in by most of the world—music and film seem tohave more and more of a monopoly on the entertainment front—that’s a terrifyingquestion for an English major. How much time do I spend?

Am I an addict?

[More on this subject later...]

John K. Samson's Brilliant 'Petition Song'

2012-02-15T04:48:00.000-08:00

Protest songs have been prettycommon fare in popular music over the past century. While I think it’s fair tonote that there are ‘levels’ of protest songs in terms of power—i.e. Bob Dylan’s “The Time TheyAre A-Changin’” doesn’t have quite the political oomph of Neil Young’s“Ohio”—they all have one feature in common: their functionality. Protest songsare designed to instigate change or at least call into question cultural andpolitical practices and norms. “Ohio” might be the best example of a protestsong; Young crafts a simple, striking rock song about the 1970 Kent Stateshootings of students by the Ohio National Guard.

Released only weeks after the May4 shootings, the song peaked at #14 on the Billboard 100—a peak that might beattributed to the ban on many AM radio stations due to the controversial usageof President Nixon’s name in the lyrics. The song became emblematic of thecounterculture movement that was still burgeoning in the early 1970s andYoung—along with Crosby, Stills, and Nash—all became defacto spokesmen for theanti-war movement.

However, I’m not reallyinterested in talking about protest songs; I’m more interested in the potentialof a song to set out and attain a certain goal. I think “Ohio” is certainly asong that had a large-scale social impact upon its release; young people aroundthe U.S. immediately identified with the rage and vitriol in the song. However,the goal of the song isn't exactly explicit within its exposition; it's somewhat vague. If the ‘goal’ of Young’s song was to expressanger about the shootings and have the listener do the same, then there is only aloose political implication.

However, that’s not so much adefinite goal as the goal espoused by John K. Samson through his song“Petition”—or, as the album titles it “www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle/.”That URL links to an actual online petition created by Samson in order to haveformer NHL player Reggie Leach, or “The Riverton Rifle,” voted into the Hockey Hall of Fame. In some sense, the tune might then be takenas a protest song; Leach has not yet been voted into the Hall, so it proteststhat unfairness.

However, the direct URL link andthe emphatic lyrics (“We, the undersigned, put forth his name / to the HockeyHall of Fame”) literally point to the fact that the goal of this song is notsemi-‘vague’ in the manner of the aforementioned CSNY hit. The song literallyfunctions as the petition itself; indeed, Samson has the song’s lyrics up onthe ipetition.com website. Has the song worked so far?

Since the inception of Samson’sweb-based petition on June 19, 2010, 1,024 people have signed it. (For reasonsI can’t explain—I’m not a hockey fan, but a Samson fan—I number among them.) Inthe 22 days since the release of Samson’s album Provincial (on January 24), the petition has been signed by 511people, as compared with the 513 who signed over the previous year and a half.The site was previously working around one person a day…so I think (obviously!)that there’s something to be said for the effect of the song on listeners.

But what does it mean for asong—I’m going to just put it out there: a ‘work of art’—to have a definitegoal like that? What if the goal is reached? Does the song becomes just…I don’tknow…a footnote in the annals of hockey history? “Ohio” has a broad historicalpremise that it works around; in the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,it still provides the modern listener with tremors of disquiet. But if Leachwere to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, the petition would be redundant. Thesong would be…at peace?

I haven’t yet acknowledged alarger problem: most people have no idea who Reggie Leach is. (I can say this because my hockey-playing girlfriend shrugged when I offered the name. "Brian Leetch?" she asked. "He played for the Rangers.") Even then, I think it’s safeto say that many people interested in the ‘indie’ music world (of which Samsonis a part) don’t know enough about hockey to recognize the subject of thiscurious ‘petition song.’

But what if the song doesn’tactually have that goal?

If the lyrics indeed form apetition, Samson has set up them up as a kind of puzzle. None of theverses—besides the clause dealing with Leach holding the Stanley Cup—haveanything to do with his accomplishments in the NHL. Instead, Samson provides aglancing portrait of a man who overcame racism as a child (verse 2), a man whosetalent could provoke a father into buying a new television and then enlistingthe youngest child to hold the antenna by the window so that he can watch ahockey game (verse 3), and a man whose photograph would adorn bedroom walls foryears (verse 4).

Samson makes little reference toactual career highlights and hard numbers. The only hockey statistic evenhinted at is the detail that “the Rifle fired his first 500 here [in Riverton],then slapped his way into the NHL” (verse 1), but that detail is a number that couldapply to oodles of hockey players out there. I would offer that the lack ofhard statistics is the point of the song. Samson isn’t simply offering apetition for the induction of Leach into a hall of fame; he’s offering a newmethod of appreciation. Why should the hall of fame matter if it caters to hardcareer facts and statistics? What matters to most people who watch sports isnot just the facts and figures, but the personalities at work out on theice/field/court/etc. (Hence Bennett Miller’s film Moneyball is so depressing…players are reduced to numbers onpaper.) While Samson doesn’t offer evidence and I can’t offer any either, Ithink it’s safe to say that Leach’s success out on the ice motivated a fewFirst Nations members to play hockey.

In that way, Samson’s song ‘petitionsong’ is maybe a more significant tribute to Leach’s memory than an inductionto the hall of fame could ever be. How many sports players have been validated througha great pop song? If you’ve got examples, leave them in the comments!

Saturday Songs – Feb. 11

2012-02-11T08:22:00.000-08:00

1. “Smart” – Girl In A Coma

I discovered this indiethree-piece band from San Antonio through NPR’s always eye-opening Tiny DeskConcert series. Although I suspected a lot of the charm of their performancecame out of the acoustic mode, it turns out that their recordings remain justas likable and are true to their namesake song (“Girl In A Coma” by theSmiths). “Smart” is quick, catchy and sounds like a lost gem from the1980s—like it could have been an outtake off The Queen Is Dead.

A few critics have even noted thestriking similarity between the voices of lead singer Nina Diaz and Morrissey. LikeMorrissey, Diaz is playful with her voice: listen to the way she bends the line“Do you ever start to wonder / what’s it like to be alone?” There are eventraces of an inspired British accent on “like!”

2. “Goodnight Irene” – Kelly JoePhelps

[Apologies for the above video - I could not find a slide guitar version of Phelps, but you can find the song on all major music sites...and Spotify!]

Of all the songs in the Americanfolk tradition, Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene” might be one of my favorites.Although everything about the song seems to come from such a dark, angry place,the song still bubbles with a beautiful warmth. Phelps—better than anyone elseI’ve heard—succeeds in drawing out the warm inner beauty of the song. Pullingout his slide guitar (Phelps is a virtuoso), he wraps the lonesome lyrics in a hazywebbing of tremulous slide notes.

Phelps’s warm baritone pressesthe tune even further to the status of a lullaby. In fact, I fell asleeplistening to this song last night. For a song that toys so openly with suicide,it’s a marvel that Phelps endows it with the comforting quality that it has.

3. “Always” – Andrea Grass

[A live version, unfortunately, so there's no piano.]

Another Spotify discovery, thereis nothing hugely original about Glass; she treads the familiar femalesinger-songwriter territory, singing about love and loss and heartbreak. Youknow the deal. However, this song strikes me for its encapsulating warmthdespite having such thin instrumentation. I’m always glad to hear a great songlike this one that hasn’t been drowned in studio affects: unnecessarypercussion, silly keyboard hums, and pitch-perfect, auto-Tuned voices. Thebacking piano provides the helpful countermelodies to Glass’s lyrics, but otherthan the piano and Glass’s guitar, the song has all the signs of a coffeehouseperformance…which it should!

4. “The Ransom” – Madison Violet

The pop-country duo MadisonViolet was far and away the band that I listened to most this past week. Notonly have I been exploring their recent 2012 release The Good In Goodbye, I’ve also been investigating their backcatalog, especially their 2009 album NoFool For Trying. While there are several tunes that I’ve had rattlingaround my head from that album, the one that has really stuck with me is “TheRansom.”

A forlorn tale of being musicianslow on the totem pole (“motor court hotels are going to confiscate my soul”),“The Ransom” is notable, like Glass’s song, for its quiet, carefulinstrumentation and the beautiful, haunting harmonies between BrenleyMacEachern and Lisa MacIsaac. You might also check out the second track“Lauralee” and the heart-rending tune “The Woodshop,” about a father who mustbuild his son’s coffin.

5. “A More Perfect Union” – TitusAndronicus

This song—and the entire album—almostresists description. From the excerpts of Civil War-era speeches to the complaintsabout growing up in suburban New Jersy to the quite nearly Conor Oberst-worthylyrics to the punky Celtic thrashing which reigns sonically through most of thetunes, Titus Andronicus have made some bizarre artistic choices. However, allthat said, this is a really great band with some truly rip-roaring riffs andcatchy head-banging fun.

Walter White's 'American Dream'

2012-02-09T14:41:00.000-08:00

I watched Twin Peaks 17 years after the second season finale. Lost addict that I was, I watched thefinal episode of Lost—the final one—nearly two months aftereveryone else had. I was avoiding Lost messageboards and Wikipedia pages like a madman. I started watching The Office regularly during the middleof the third season. In the world of television, I seem to always be laggingbehind everyone else.

So it isn’t much of a surprisethat I’m a season and three quarters behind in watching the AMC hit show Breaking Bad. I am lurking on thefringes of the third season—on the third episode; I am slowly (or rather,quickly) making my way through the intertwining stories of high schoolchemistry teacher-turned-meth cook Walter White and his partner in crime JessePinkman, a former student of Mr. White.

I realize, of course, that I amsomewhat behind the times in commenting on troubles of the mysterious Mr.White, but I had the thought recently—having recently been reading aboutsocietal techniques of repression for my anthropology of death class—thatWalter White is living what amounts to the actual ‘American Dream.’

What I mean to say is this: thetypical ‘American Dream’ is qualified as having a rewarding (both emotionallyand fiscally) job, a nice-looking house in a nice-looking neighborhood, and ahappy family. While the national literature—i.e. the Declaration ofIndependence—establishes nothing so specific as those three elements, it offersthat each person (or “man” in the exact reference) has the right to “life,liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” I should point out that I have no wishto comment on the political views of the founding fathers—only give a passingnod in their direction on my way to looking at Walter White’s peculiar versionof the ‘American Dream.’

It is peculiar because it isviolent and illegal. What is so fascinating with any person’s relationship withthe law is that you define yourself according to it…even if you choose to breakit. (I’m assuming the law is knowingly broken; I'm not dealing withpsychopaths.) Even though Walter has an argument with his DEA-employedbrother-in-law Hank about the legality of marijuana and other drugs, part ofthe appeal of these drugs in the first place is their illegality.

There is an undeniable thrill inbreaking the law. I will openly confess here that very real personal thrill.While there’s a thrill in underage drinking, there’s far more of a thrill insomething like trespassing. You are very physically crossing a boundary.

When Walter and his wife Skylerare having raucous sex in Walter’s small compact car in the school parking lot,Skyler (pantingly) asks Walter, “Why is this so good?”

“Because it’s illegal,” heanswers.

It’s almost as if a halo of joyand excitement surround the possibility of illegality in Breaking Bad. Every character in the show engages in some form ofillegality—from minor offense, such as that of Hank in watching Walter providehis underage son with alcohol, to the major offenses, such as Walter's methamphetamine production,drug sale, and murder.

The show creator Vince Gilligan hasgone on record to note that he wanted to write a television series that startedwith a protagonist who slowly shifted into an antagonist. The one issue for me is thatWalter—at least not yet—has not faded from being a protagonist. As far as I’m concerned,he has, so to speak, stripped away his superego and let his id run rampant. Allthe Freudian repressions of sexuality (to an extent, anyway, in the car-sex scene) and violence started to beenacted.

It’s no secret that sociologistsand anthropologists (not to mention psychoanalysts like Freud) theorize thatthere are dangerous impulses lingering just beneath our skins. It’s a dementedkind of pleasure to watch those impulses be acted out through the character ofWalter White...a kind of 'American Dream'?

Saturday Songs – Feb. 4

2012-02-04T08:40:00.000-08:00

1. “If I Had A Boat” - JamesVincent McMorrow

Not a sneaky cover of the famousLyle Lovett tune, as I initially suspected, McMorrow has crafted a cagey,ominous song with undertones not only of the lush, singer-songwriter territoryof Justin Vernon, but also the electronic touch of James Blake. But whatMcMorrow manages—despite the clear studio production of the tracks—is a raw,unnerving emotion. The final half-minute of the song more than adequatelydemonstrates McMorrow’s emoting chops.

2. “Some Things Never Change” -Robert Francis

Everyone rejoice! Robert Francishas a new album due for release on May 22! That might be far away, but Francishas been kind enough to lend us a taste of the album with a free download onhis website. The song—“Some Things Never Change”—is breezier than the fare onhis 2009 album Before Nightfall. Interms of production values, the song expands on the warm, haunting atmosphereof Francis’s reworking of “One By One” on BeforeNightfall (it was also on Francis’s debut album). It’s not quite as catchyas “Junebug”…but, then again, not many songs are.

3. “Old Pine” - Ben Howard

I love a folk artist who can playguitar. That’s not to say that I dislike anyone who can merely strum chords andwrite great tunes…just that some guitar chops is always a cherry on top. Howardleads off his debut album Every Kingdomwith this nigh-virtuoso acoustic guitar workout. The song would be fine withoutits epic outro, but the outro—along with the guitar playing in it—separatesHoward from the chaff of the folk singer-songwriter world.

4. “Sun in an Empty Room” – TheWeakerthans

It might, in some odd way, benegligent of me to omit this song from Saturday Songs for the fact that I’dlike to write about it in more length in another post…because I’ve listened tothis song at least 50 times in the past week. It wouldn’t fair to call thissong merely good. This song is great. It might be one of the greatestpop songs I’ve ever heard. While I haven’t listened hard (and long) enough toSamson’s work to fairly judge him as one of my favorite songwriters, I do thinkthat he’s one of the best pop songwriters working today. It’s simple: heunderstands the form. He knows what kind of details to put in this song to makeit work; the imagery and emotions do not require immense reflection to “get”the song. Samson’s words and the way he phrases them into a melody makeeverything crystal clear.

5. “You Must Go” – John Hiatt

While most people prefer earlyHiatt—the “Have A Little Faith In Me” years, as I like to think of them—Iprefer Hiatt’s 1995 album Walk On tomost other work in his discography. Sure, there are a bunch of weak songs onthat album…even some songs that aren’t worth listening to at all. However,there are several cuts that come across to me as so honest and real that Icannot ignore them. Sure, there are pleasures in “Thing Called Love,” but nothingabout that song measures up to the fatherly wisdom of a song like “You Must Go.”While “Thing Called Love” sounds like more of an exercise in musical expertise,“You Must Go” sounds more like a barnyard romp with a bunch of friends.

Beating Up On Jonathan Franzen

2012-02-01T03:27:00.000-08:00

In the scattershot literarylandscape that is the United States today, Jonathan Franzen has emerged—alongwith the late David Foster Wallace (see his much-circulated graduation speechgiven at Kenyon College in 2005)—as the preeminent spokesperson for thenon-academe intelligentsia. In the current cultural backlash (especially in apost-Occupy world), anyone who speaks out for the divide between ‘good’ cultureand ‘bad’ culture is bound to be branded as ‘elitist’ or, at very least,‘controversial.’

While Franzen hasn’t clarifiedthat divide in so many words, he has nevertheless appealed to that looseunderstanding. For example, see the kerfuffle he caused when he spoke outagainst his 2001 novel The Corrections beingincluded in Oprah Winfrey’s book club. Franzen labeled Oprah’s picks for thebook club as being “schmaltzy.” Now there are plenty of great novels in herbook club and I’m not here to address that decade-old feud, but I think—as abroad generalization—that it’s worth sometimes trying to draw lines in the sandwhen it comes to ‘popular’ art and more ‘serious’ art.

Franzen’s latest faux pasinvolves his relationship with e-books, particularly in that he accuses thosewho read on e-books as not being “serious readers” in the Telegraph two days ago. I think, ironically, that people aretaking his sentiments too seriously. Iwould argue—maybe without the blessing of Franzen, but what does that matter inthe long run? I’m pursuing my own argument now—that there is an importantphilosophical argument hiding underneath what might seem to be ‘technology-hating’rhetoric.

Franzen claims, “I think, forserious readers, a sense of permanence has always been part of the experience.Everything else in your life is fluid, but here is this text that doesn’tchange. […]

“Someone worked really hard tomake the language just right, just the way they wanted it. They were so sure ofit that they printed it in ink, on paper. A screen always feels like we coulddelete that, change that, move it around. So for a literature-crazed personlike me, it’s just not permanent enough.”

In Torie Bosch’s summary of thislatest Franzen feud on Slate.com, she helpfully points to an article in the Telegraph by Tom Chivers, who wonders: “Doeshe think that e-publishers will surreptitiously edit classic works? […] In allhonesty, I suspect that this is an example of a very clever man using hisconsiderable brainpower to dress up unconscious prejudice in what sounds likereasoned argument.”

In response to Bosch’s concerns,I think she overlooks Franzen’s more philosophical point. There are crucialdifferences in the ways that we approach paper and screens. I’ll emphasize oncemore that I’m merely following Franzen’s faded footsteps down this path of argument,but I would contest that there are deep psychological and cultural associationsthat we bring to any interaction with a screen. For more than half a century inhuman history, screens were the playground for film and, briefly, television,before they had anything to do with computers. (For a great, hard-to-read,difficult, and rewarding discussion, check out Gunt her Kress’s discussion of how the screen has replaced the page asthe major form of communication in his book Literacy in the New Media Age.)

We all have to remember that thewidespread use of the Internet and computers is a very recent development in our history. We still have troublecognitively understanding how to communicate through them. (See Ilana Gershon’sexcellent book The Breakup 2.0 aboutending relationships through Facebook and other technologies.) While ourexperience of the Internet has a remarkable number of dimensions, the primaryexperience is one of openness and change.For anyone who has ever used the unfortunately addictive StumbleUponapplication, you know that the Internet is unfathomably deep. There is no endto the Internet. There is also no tidiness to the Internet. There is no senseof neatness and cleanness. There are corners of the Internet, here and there,which are well-swept and kept up, but for every ‘complete’ experience on theInternet, there are hundreds of dead links and cluttered blog pages and random imagefiles.

I think this extreme randomnessthat is part of any Internet experience (indeed, perhaps part of the Internetideology) and the Internet’s implicit association with screens is what ledFranzen to say what he said. I’m equally uncomfortable associating my readingexperience, which should hopefully notbe cluttered, unless it be intentionally so (Naked Lunch?), with something so open-ended and changing.

So maybe the worst thing you cansay about Franzen is that he didn’t express himself all that well…assuming hewas trying to arrive at a similar screen/page argument. As for e-books? I don’tlike them. I don’t like Kindles and Nooks and iPads either. But you alreadyknew that, didn’t you?

Saturday Songs Jan. 28

2012-01-29T09:53:00.000-08:00

1. “Six O’Clock News” – KathleenEdwards

When I saw her name on a list ofrecent releases, I knew that I had seen it before, but I couldn’t quite placeit. However, the first review I read explained away my half-heartedacquaintance with Edwards; she is the girlfriend of Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon, afact that figured into several of the seemingly thousands of magazine featuresthat have been written about Vernon and his music. But Edwards, as it turnsout, should figure just as much as Vernon in a conversation about the changinglandscape of folk- and alt-country-derived pop music.

But as good as her latest album Voyageur is, I looked back this week toher 2003 debut album Failer. The leadtrack chronicles the death of a lowlife criminal with the same honesty andaccuracy that the Drive-By Truckers’ Patterson Hood puts into his tunes aboutthe white trash of the south. Unlike the current record, which finds Edwardsand Vernon (who produced the record) playing around more with the texture ofthe sound, this album is tried-and-true alt-country, the kind of fare you getfrom Ryan Adams in his brighter moments. Edwards’s voice is the real winner.While it sounds smooth enough, there is a suggestion of roughness around theedges. Unlike brighter-sounding country singers like Alison Krauss or EmmylouHarris, there is a hard-won believability to her voice.

2. “Desert Dream” – Larkin Poe

LISTEN HERE

Why I haven’t heard more aboutLarkin Poe in the musical press is a mystery to me. Sisters Rebecca and MeganLovell started off with third sister Jessica in the aptly titled ensemble TheLovell Sisters before Jessica moved on and her sisters reformed as Larkin Poe.Although the sisters are grounded in a thorough knowledge of country andbluegrass forms and are approaching the status of virtuosos on their respectiveinstruments (Rebecca on mandolin and Megan on dobro), over the course of theirfour EPs they are moving steadily closer to country-pop fare. While thesongwriting is spotty in places, they more than make up for it with theirsinging and their playing.

I pick “Desert Dream” more orless at random from their discography, but it does a good job of representingtheir work as a whole. While distinctly coming out of country—for instance, thedobro haunting the seams of the song—it is also clearly moving towards a hazy,dream pop. The production possesses a sparkle and polish that you wouldn’tnormally get from a bluegrass outfit and features several well-placedembellishments (triangle hits!).

3. “Wild Folk” – Jim Bryson andthe Weakerthans

Another Canadian songwriter whoemerged from the woodwork (meaning Spotify! …and Edwards is also Canadian), Brysonteamed up with the Weakerthans for his album The Falcon Lake Incident (which refers to a famous UFO encounter). Thepresence of a full band really helps to color Bryson’s tunes; his other work isjust as good, but it remains a little skeletal in comparison with The Falcon Lake Incident. “Wild Folk”might be the best example of how well this new arrangement works. The openingseconds feature only Bryson and his guitar—which is pleasant enough—but thesong truly opens up once the band comes in.

4. “Heart of the Continent” –John K. Samson

Can anyone sense my path ofexploration this week? It’s Canadian music, for those unfamiliar with Samson,who is of the aforementioned Weakerthans. Samson’s 2012 album Provincial is essentially an exercise inemotional geography that you should readthe lyrics to as you listen. I’m so excited by my forthcoming explorationof Samson’s lyrics (“And our demolitions punctuate / all we mean to say, thenleave too late. / So I'll make my shaky exclamation mark / with a hand full ofthe crumpled dark”) that I’m tempted to start on some analysis right here, butI’ll set that aside for a future post.

5. “Earthquakes” – Danger &The Steel Cut Oats

With a totally weird andunpromising band name, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this recommendation,which came from my friend Sarah. But the band proved themselves more thancapable of playing a fine mix of country and bluegrass with some equally finesongwriting. In that they straddle the line between traditional forms and popmusic, they’re not too far from Larkin Poe territory. And you can downloadtheir EP for free! I know that I’ve been slacking on the free music outputrecently, but hopefully I can appease everyone with this 6-track offering.

&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;a href="http://dangerandthesteelcutoats.bandcamp.com/album/the-birds-woke-us-early"&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;The Birds Woke Us Early by Danger &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp; The Steel Cut Oats&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/a&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;

My Spotify Salvation

2012-01-27T10:58:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took the plunge. All ittook was a burning desire to listen to the Gourds, a definite lack of the Gourdson my iTunes, a Visa debit card, and…oh, I don’t know…a dose of free spirit.Yes. As of 24 hours ago, I am officially a Spotify subscriber. (For the curious, Iam not a “Premium” subscriber, but onlyan “Unlimited” subscriber.) The monthly fee for the serves is $4.99, which isjust about $60 per annum to stream unlimited music…and more music than you can find on iTunes most of the time. There are stillsome great streaming services available for free online—a favorite of mine isGrooveshark—but none of them match up to the organization, audio quality, andsheer range of tunes provided by Spotify.

I should admit something: I didnot start paying for Spotify because I felt guilty or because I wanted to oreven because I thought all those independent musicians out there deserved a fewmore coins to jangle in their pockets. I started paying because I had to.According to the contract of those who download Spotify for free, not only doyou have to start coughing up the money after six months, but also you are onlygiven two weeks using Spotify forfree abroad. So now here I am. Paying for Spotify. And you know what? I feelpretty good about it.

In the past I’ve ranted about howthe “physicality” of books is the trump card that they can always play over theKindle and, while I haven’t posted anything on the blog about it, I’ve alwaysappreciated the reality of owning a CD (or a tape or a record) as a piece ofphysical property. A digital album download always felt like it was too easybecause of the lack of physical interaction. I click a few buttons, type in acredit card number, click a few more buttons, and voilà! the album is playingthrough your computer speakers. This “easiness” has always irked me in the backof my mind. I would always own a CD than a digital album (although preferablyalso have digital files and have the CD not in a plastic/jewel case but acardboard one…I’m picky). A digital file just doesn’t do it for me. A digitalfile which I do not actually own?Maybe that’s one step in the wrong direction…

But at the end of the day,Spotify is too good to be true. There are limits on how much money I can feasiblyspend on music—a problem that Spotify dashes on the rocks. Here’s a littlemath: let’s say that I bought every song in my iTunes…(which I haven’t…?).Assuming that I purchased all of them from the iTunes Store at 99¢ a pop, Iwould have spent a grand total of $12,375.More simple math? If we assume that I started listening to music (and buyingit) at age eight, then I would have spent $883.92 per year on music. (Math note: I realized after I did this super-dupercomplicated math that not only do I have around 100-150 songs that weredownloaded for free on my iTunes, but also that there are several hundred(thousand?!) songs on my hard-drive that are unaccounted for in above heady mathiness.)

Spotify? Like I said above, $4.99per month, roughly $60 per annum. Because I’m a math major (lie), let’s do alittle more math. At $60 per month, that same number of songs could have beenlistened to me (assuming, of course, that Spotify existed when I was eight) fora paltry total of $840…a little less than what I otherwise would have (shouldhave…) been spending per year.

Oh. And the ads are gone. That’sa definite plus.

On Joe Purdy And "Song-stories"

2012-01-25T02:58:00.000-08:00

As all of you are aware by now, Ihave a great deal of respect for songwriters who can tell stories in songs. Notfirst-person narration—that kind of song has difficulties of its own—butnothing is quite as difficult as the third-person song. Every single songwriterthat I’ve interviewed has agreed with that sentiment. Other songwriters, suchas Liz Longley, had never even thought about writing a third-person story intoa song.

“I ought to try that,” she mused.

Most songwriters don’t botherwith this kind of song. They can sound unwieldy and forced and they require thesinger to sever the prized personal connection to the audience. It’s no secretthat confessional-style songwriting, which had its heyday in the early 1970swith the heartbreaking lyrics of James Taylor and Joni Mitchell, can often work wonderson an audience. When James Taylor tells the audience, “Just yesterday morning,they let me know you were gone,” everyone swoons at the sadness of that line.

On the other hand, a songwritermight try their hand at a song that tells the story of a few down-on-their-luckcharacters and the audience could only manage to wince. There’s isn't as much personalenergy invested in the story. The songwriter invokes not a template of "sinner" or "culprit," but rather the less emotionally dynamic role of the "storyteller."

Steve Earle, in a class he oncetaught on the songwriting of Townes Van Zandt, which I did not actually havethe pleasure of attending (I read the transcript!), described Van Zandt’s songsas quintessentially philosophical. Van Zandt liked to dig deep into a personalthought and expand upon it. That’s how he ended up with striking lyrics such asthose of “To Live Is To Fly.” (“We’ve all got holes to fill / and them holesare all that’s real / some fall on you like a storm / sometimes you dig yourown.”)

Van Zandt, Earle is quick topoint out, also has a knack for “story-songs,” but he did tend more to thephilosophical. On the other hand, Van Zandt’s close friend Guy Clark is amaster of the story-song, with a far weaker grasp on the philosophical fare.Consider Clark’s tune about his relationship with his step-grandfather,“Desperadoes Waiting For A Train.”

I don’t know that I exactlyconcur with Earle’s somewhat curt division of the world of songs, but I thinkthat he provides a valuable template to look at. For one, it helped me movepast the greatly simplistic division of “third-person” / “first-person”—songs are not sosimple.

I should admit that this mentionof Earle, Van Zandt, and Clark is somewhat of a digression—loosely related tothe theme, but a digression nonetheless. The point of this post is to positthat Joe Purdy, with whom some of you may be familiar, is an excellentstory-song writer (story-songwriter?). Ever since I saw him perform, I hadthat knowledge tucked away in the back of my head—having experienced the story of“Outlaws." A careful piano number, the song starts off as a retelling ofBonnie and Clyde, a man picking up a woman in a “rose pink Cadillac,” before moving on to the firsthesitant robbery, then the string of bank robberies…and, despite being only Purdy’s voice andpiano, the song quietly surges with tension until you find out—oh…everythingends up fine. Purdy delivers that fact of their safety not as a revelation and entirelywithout irony; it all simply happenedthat way.

But my recent Purdyobsession came in the form of “Mary May & Bobby,” a love song about acouple that was always meant to be. The song sets its first verse in fifthgrade, as an infatuated Bobby walks an oblivious Mary May home from school. Purdy’snarrator is limited to Bobby, who “was listening to every word she said / likeit was the gospel of the prophecies” and “went home singing ‘Who Wrote the Bookof Love’ and ‘Try A Little Tenderness.’”

Bobby is all innocencehere—citing a nonexistent text (“the gospel of the prophecies”) perhaps becausehe doesn’t think that any actual textcan capture the emotion that he feels toward Mary May. Purdy’s voice even trails off at the end ofthe "gospel" line with syllables that suggest the words "or something." Additionally,Bobby walks home singing two largely innocent love songs, especially theMonotones’ “The Book of Love.” In the second verse, Purdy quotes Bobby assaying that he and Mary May could “live out by the sea / like they do on themovie screen,” again drawing out that innocence; Bobby doesn’t understand loveon his own terms, but he can reflect it outward through popular culture. (The “moviescreen” thought, however, sticks with him through high school to his nextproposal.)

The third verse introduces anactual high school romance between the couple, but a romance that is severed byMary May’s collegiate aspirations. The first part of the verse is largely inMary May’s voice and the second part is Bobby’s response, which follows intothe proposal chorus. That long snippet of dialogue is crucial because it temporarilyremoves the presence of the narrator from the story. When we return to thestory, we have left Bobby’s perspective and have now been limited to Mary May. Purdy’scharacter development of Mary in this verse is not original or particularlyinspired, but that is part of what makes the story work so well; he leaves so much for the audience to fill in.

The fact of the matter is thatthe moment Purdy enters into his description of an “independent businesswoman,”you already have a full stereotype drawn out in your head. But once you startto consider her character, you realize that Purdy has literally told us nothing about her emotional life. She islonely, yes, but that’s not much of a character trait when you consider italongside Bobby; you’d need only to glance at Bobby’s befuddled joy on walkingMary home in the first verse to have a sense that you’re dealing with a realcharacter. Mary May is far more one-dimensional than that.

The real shocker of this song,once you start thinking about the impact of its final verse, is that we never hear an answer from Bobby. Purdyonly provides us an echo of the first verse: “It was a fine day in the fifthgrade / when Mary May let Bobby walk her home from school.” Are we to takethose lines as a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ from Bobby to her marriage proposal? My gut reaction is to say that Purdy ismaking a stab for ambiguity, but it’s worth further investigating Mary’sreasoning in the previous verse.

Thanks to the limited omniscientpresence provided by Purdy’s narrator, we know that Mary is motivated to gofind by selfishness. She “is lonely beyond belief…[and goes] home looking forthe only love she’d ever known,” admitting that whether or not she loves Bobbyis besides the point; she doesn’t want to be lonely any longer. The idea thatBobby is still waiting for her after all this time is even admittedlyspeculation (on either the part of Mary or the narrator): “Guess he neverreally gave up hope.” So this entire situation might be a fantasy on the part of Mary; she "stopped writing years ago" and has no idea what Bobby's life is like. She fills in the gaps of his life...just as we, as listeners, fill in the gaps of her life. Purdy is clever because we never find out whether our suppositions hold any truth to them.

These details that hide justbeneath the surface of the song are exactly why Purdy proves himself such anexcellent songwriter. The temptation with story-songs is to assume that they offerup their story at face value. Other equally worthy songs, such as Sufjan Stevens’s“Casimir Pulaski Day,” (#2) have similar telling details that more fully reveal the storygoing on.

Saturday Songs – Jan. 21

2012-01-22T15:36:00.000-08:00

1. “Everything Has Changed” –William Fitzsimmons

I’ve featured Fitzsimmonspreviously on Saturday Songs and the more I listen to his work, the more Irespect the immense sensitivity that he pours into every lyric and every line.Take this song, off his 2006 album Goodnight,which openly deals with personal issues that arose out of his parents’ divorce.Like any decent emotionally turbulent album, Fitzsimmons is careful not toapply the schmaltz too thickly; he keeps it in reserve and then injects youwith it at the exact right moment.

This song pushes the envelope interms of schmaltz, but Fitzsimmons manages it partly because he turns the final minuteor so into a densely layered web of voices and delicate piano and guitar. For asong where there isn’t very much sonic input, the mix sounds monumentally largeand—put your earphones in—creates the impression of an aural cocoon untileverything fades out and Fitzsimmons leaves you with a final hauntingimage, echoing the beginning of the song, in which he comes across his fatherin the graveyard looking for his mother’s grave.

The last, breathy incantationis almost better not divided into separate lines, coming across instead as astream of images: “Last night I had a dream, I was in the graveyard, looking atmy father, buried in the ground, swear that I could hear him, tell me he wassorry, and everything has changed.”

2. “Red Travelin’ Socks” –Malcolm Middleton

Of all the Scotland-derived indiemusic I’ve so far explored, nothing has quite caught my fancy the way thisfirst track of Macolm Middleton’s album WaxingGibbous has. Starting off with a furious burst of guitar that could comestraight out of The Cure, Middleton and his band pull together one hell of apower pop jam. Scott Hutchinson of Frightened Rabbit remains my favorite Scottishsinger, but Middleton (a forerunner of the indie scene in Scotland with hisband Arab Strap) certainly has the critical edge. Boasting a clean, warm voice,Middleton, like Hutchinson, also sings with a noticeableScottish accent.

3. “The Prettiest Thing” – DavidChilders and the Modern Don Juans

One of the regular cover tunes canvassedby the Avett Brothers in their live shows, “The Prettiest Thing” is a simple,twangy country song at heart, especially in its original version. There’s not alot to offer about this song; it’s an unassuming tune that most of you won’thave a hard time warming up to. Maybe Childers’s gravelly accent will throwsome of you for a loop, but I think his presence helps us place the song assomething that might be played in a seaside bar with a special on PBR.

4. “Born With A Broken Heart” –David Wax Museum

Blending Mexican music traditionswith an American folk sensibility, David Wax et al craft hooky pop tunes withsome unusual instrumentation. How exactly an accordion, a horn section, andsome very-nearly-tribal-sounding drums all end up on the same track remainssomewhat of a mystery to me, but I can only offer that the group pulls it off. Themad shuffle of this song should grab you from the opening seconds.

5. “Voices” – Espers

Suggested to me by flatmateJosh—who hails from Kansas—Espers is an interesting find. Although severalwebsites called their style of music “psychedelic folk” (maybe approachingcertain aspects of Jefferson Airplane’s “Embryonic Journey” area?), I think thatit might be better to place them alongside British folk heroes FairportConvention. Although the styles of both bands have clear aesthetic differences,I think the attention paid to instrumental detail and the willingness to delvedeep into a melody are highlighted in the work of both bands.

A main difference lies in thechoice of Espers to investigate an almost more Baroque sound, incorporating aclassical sensibility in terms of how the songs move, weaving in and out ofseparate melodic thoughts and introducing new ones in almost a suite-likeformat. Of course that’s not idiosyncratic in terms of the history of popularmusic, but the modern folk scene hasn’t exactly warmed to…how to put it?…a morescholarly, "trained" approach to music. This song and others by Espers are clearly thework of a real songsmith; someone behind the scenes understands which stringsto pull to make these songs work the way that they do.

Rhoda's Cosmonaut Story In "Another Earth"

2012-01-15T16:44:00.000-08:00

Another Earth was merely an interesting film up until the moment inwhich Rhoda (Brit Marling) tells John (William Mapother) the story of theRussian cosmonaut. Rhoda—for those unfamiliar with the film—put Johninto a coma and killed his wife and son in a drunk driving accident when shewas 17. A minor when the accident occurred, her name waswithheld from court proceedings and John never found out who destroyed his family. Releasedfrom prison four years later, Rhoda seeks out John to apologize, but findsherself unable to tell him who she is while standing awkwardly on his front step—instead telling him that she is from a cleaning service offering him a trial run. Entering into a rich and symbolicrelationship, Rhoda begins cleaning John’s house. Romance, as you might have guessed, soon follows, along with the inevitable complication.

Rhoda tells John this story justbefore they fall for each other. Marling and the director Mike Cahill clearlywent to great pains to draw a subtle but vivid contrast between this moment andthe rest of the film that comes beforehand. Suddenly, Marling's character is animated, a somber veil lifted from her face—her eyes clear, her voice musical. In contrast to the somber grays and blues of the film's prior cinematography, the warmcolors in this scene emphasize the melting of Marling’s character and the dissolving,if you’ll forgive the pun, of the bitter chill she had exuded up to this point.

In fact, this scene is the mostwords that we hear from Rhoda the entire film. Largely, we view her while in silent contemplation. To witness her break the seal of her thoughts—not only soenthusiastically, but so brilliantly—is a cinematic revelation. Cahillheightens the emotional rhythm of the moment through his use of neat cameraworkand editing. For instance, rather than simply flick back and forth between the twoactors, Cahill chooses to focus on details, especially Rhoda tapping the knife and Johnmassaging his temples. This care is particularly evident during the moment whenboth characters have closed their eyes and “entered their imagination,” asRhoda would have put it, and Cahill paces the moment beautifully, zooming into Marling’s face as she opens her eyes.

The pleasure of the scene is therevelation of the story itself—how the Russian cosmonaut takes this tappingnoise, which has been driving him crazy for days, and fits music to the beatand “spent the remainder of his time sailing through space in total bliss.” Perhapsthe conclusion is trite—or even historically inaccurate, I’m not familiar withRussian space history—but the implications of that revelation are devastatingwhen seen in light of John and Rhoda’s relationship. “The only way to save hissanity,” Rhoda tells John, “is to fall in love with this sound.”

While I fall prey to the beautyof that sentiment every time I watch this scene, I cannot help but be remindedof a line from another film that I recently saw: “If you can’t fix it,you’ve got to stand it.” The romance between Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar in Brokeback Mountain is, given the societalacceptance of homosexuality, impossible. The pitfalls of their 20-yearrelationships steadily resound from scene to scene in the film, much like themaddening tapping for the Russian cosmonaut. So why should we be any happierabout this scene in Another Earth? Igrant, obviously, that we are dealing with two different plots, but Ithink that the “impossibility” of the relationship between Jack and Ennis iscertainly similar to the “impossibility” of that between John and Rhoda. Asdark of a reading as it may be, I think it’s worth noting that no matter howpretty the overlaid music may be, the underlying beat will never dissipate. Youwill always hear it pushing and pulling you through the music.

Listening To Sigur Rós In Scotland

2012-01-13T08:34:00.000-08:00

Having now listened to Sigur Rós’sMeð suð í eyrum við spilum endalaustseveral times in the past few days, I am struck by my aural “blindness” andcraze for lyrics. As some of you may know, I have a tendency to dismiss songswith terrible lyrics. Some of my dismissals aren’t entirely forgivable, but I’dbe more than happy to battle for a few of them. (“Are we human / or are wedancer?”—really, Brandon Flowers, what the f—k does that mean!?)

The first time I really struggledwith “letting go” of the lyrics was with Bon Iver. Justin Vernon has probablythe worst elocution of all time. In fact, for a long time, I thought the lyricwas “jagged fingers thick with ice”…not “vacance.”Vacance, by the way, isn’t even much of a real word. But the words, as it turnsout, are never terribly important when I listen to Bon Iver. They are merelycarriers for the power of the melodic message. Jonah Weiner, on Slate.com,explained it well when he said,

This is actually kind of the way that I hear, and appreciate, BonIver’s music—his words are painful on the page, but in Justin Vernon’s deliverythey’re far too gauzy to really register, much less annoy me and get in the wayof my enjoyment of, say, that insistent, plaintive riff on “Holocene,” whichonly gathers intensity as the song goes.

I find—no matter how muchattention I pay to the lyrics—that this is exactly how I connect with Vernon’smusic. I don’t connect with the lyrical content so much as the delivery of that lyrical content. As itturns out, because Sigur Rós’s lyrics are either gibberish or in Icelandic,there’s a whole lot of space for appreciating that delivery if you’re anEnglish speaker. Perhaps the experience is different as a native speaker ofIcelandic (or gibberish?), but all I know is that I have an experience ofcomplete melodic understanding.

And Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust hits hard on all kinds ofmelodic levels; although it maintains a steady exoticism (it is in Icelandicexcept for closer “All Alright”) and an extraordinarily clean production, thealbum hits a huge range of emotional notes. “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur”touches on a restrained exuberance; “Við spilum endalaust” maintains a solemn,celebratory bombast. But then “Festival”—which leads off with singer Jónsi’saching, almost fragile falsetto sailing over shimmery keyboards for the firstfour minutes—drops into that tremendous bass line and then takes off for outerspace. It’s a cautious, beautiful tune for the first half and then an arenarocker the rest of the nine minutes. The almost equally long “Ára bátur,”replete with choral voices, a string section, horns, and orchestra percussion,might pass as a movement from a symphony.

But I’d have to look back to “Festival”as my favorite track on the album—especially given that it was struck in myhead for some 48 hours while in the midst of traveling to and being orientedabout Edinburgh, Scotland. Perhaps the repetitive bass line sounds like a bitof a chore as something to have careening around your skull while racing throughHeathrow Airport, but the song was anything but dull. Once you have someadrenaline going, even the memory ofthe epic last half hits you like a freight train.

Anyways, part of the point ofthis entry is to explain my long and somewhat egregious absence from the blog—6days being (surprisingly!) the longest stretch yet without a post since theestablishment of the somewhat followed Pueblo Waltz. Anyways, I think you allhave something of a treat in store, because I will be spending quite a bit oftime this semester roaming the more musical of the Edinburgh pubs, searchingout fun music that I can pass along to you. Also…no Saturday Songs tomorrow. Ihaven’t had much time in the past week for listening to new music, but I dopromise an installment next week.Cheers!

Saturday Songs – Jan. 7

2012-01-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

I'm late! Whoops!

1. “Down In The Valley” – TheHead and the Heart

This song is my latest obsession.I heard the last 30 seconds of the song over XM radio (no one announcing thesong names!) and committed the lyrics to memory—“California / Oklahoma / andall the place that I’ve never been to / but down in the valley / whiskeyrivers…” One week later, I remembered the lines and typed them into Google and voilà! there was the song on YouTube!Turns out, with 250,000+ hits on one of the videos, that I’m somewhat behindthe curve on this folky band.

The latest folky incarnation comingout of the Seattle area, The Head and the Heart captured hearts throughouttheir hometown area in the past few years—and rightfully so. Their debut album nailsdown not only some topnotch songwriting, but also some crackerjack playing. Youcan hear the band channel all this on this best song off their self-titledalbum.

2. “Winter Cows” – John Gorka

A phenomenally subtle song fromNew Jersey songwriting extraordinaire Gorka, “Winter Cows” examines the lifeof…you’ve got it!…cows as they sit around in the snowed-in fields. Gorkaprojects all variety of thoughts onto the cows: “Some dream of India, wheretheir cousins are stars, / but they don't like the crowds, so they stay wherethey are.”

3. “Old Gin Road” – Ponderosa

Beginning with a heavy, crunchyguitar line, “Old Gin Road” is a simple slab of classic southern rock. Taking apage from the country-fried melodies of Little Feat and the energy of the BlackCrowes, Ponderosa might someday sit right alongside the Drive-By Truckers inthe canon of modern day southern rock. Then again, they’ll have to turn outseveral more albums as good as MoonlightRevival.

4. “Doubting Thomas” – NickelCreek

For some reason, I avoided NickelCreek for years. That was partly because I used to have an aversion tobluegrass and partly (read: ridiculously)avoided Nickel Creek because their band name sounded/looked like Nickelback,which is just a different band. Yes. I suppose we all have our bad reasons, butthat reason is probably worse than most. Anyways, I got over my insensible,irrational distaste a week ago and am now a convert.

Of course, Nickel Creek skewspretty close to mainstream country for my tastes, but, despite their winningcommercial ways, they are progressive bluegrass enthusiasts and consummatemusicians through and through, especially mandolin/songwriter/singer ChrisThile. While all three members have an important share in the band, Thileclearly emerges as the leader by the third album, Why Should the Fire Die?. His post-Nickel Creek career includes notonly the formation of the Punch Brothers, along with similar minded bluegrassmusicians, as well as a fantastic bluegrass album with Michael Davies and severalsolo albums.

My favorite tune off Why Should the Fire Die? is thereligious tumult of “Doubting Thomas.” As some of you might remember, I’m asucker for songs about struggling with belief (see #2) and I was immediately taken withThomas’s spiritual turmoil captured by Thile et al in this beautiful tune.

5. “Spit On A Stranger” – NickelCreek

Yes. I just discovered Nickel Creek. Given that, I can’t help but pick outtwo tunes from their three albums. Then again, I did choose one original (seeabove) and one cover song. One thing that is so fascinating about Nickel Creek(and Chris Thile) is their (his?) willingness to tackle non-traditionalbluegrass material. Thile’s band is known for taking on Radiohead tunes inconcert (including “Packt Like Sardines…” and “2+2=5”). So maybe taking on aPavement song isn’t exactly scary territory for Thile, but the factis that Nickel Creek does this song maybea little better than Stephen Malkmus and friends. (Hopefully my brother won’tbe too angry at me for that assertion.) Nickel Creek’s rendition of this songis crisp and poppy and to the point. I loveit.

Lyle Lovett's "L.A. County" Changes Lives

2012-01-04T19:51:00.000-08:00

Partly because Lyle Lovett playedthree Townes Van Zandt songs (alas, no “Pueblo Waltz”) during his set at BellyUp in Aspen, CO the past Sunday night, I feel compelled to drop a mention ofit. But not only that, Lovett also explained some part of his relationship withVan Zandt—and his ardent admiration of the late singer-songwriter. He described his first interaction with Van Zandt: after an afternoon set at asmall acoustic festival in Texas, Lovett descended the stage stairs only to comeface to face with Van Zandt, who stuck out his hand and needlessly introducedhimself. “I haven’t heard you play, but, according to the opinions of people Irespect, I hear that you’re okay," Van Zandt said, according to Lovett. Apparently Van Zandt's descriptor “okay”was enough to set him into thankful ecstasy.

But beyond Lovett’s excellentperformances (and stellar set-list), there was one other aspect of the concertthat grabbed me. As you may know, one of my favorite Lyle Lovett tunes is the bizarre,love/murder ballad “L.A. County” (featured on Saturday Songs – Dec. 10). It’s adelicate balance between straightforward romantic jealousy and insanity. Youfeel a smidgeon of compassion for this narrator, but still desperately want toset up an appointment with a psychiatrist for him.

So while the performance of thesong was riveting, what was even more riveting was thecouple beside me. This husband and wife were jumping up and down, beltingout the lyrics—the husband gave a few ill-placed whoops and yippee-ki-yays—and werebreathless and cheering by the end of the song. Somewhere in the middle of thesong, the husband had noticed my consternation at their enthusiasm (althoughit’s not as if I was staring them down for their indiscretion—I was singingalong hoarsely myself) and, at the end, he turned to me to explain.

We played that song at ourmarriage, he told me, pointing to his wife. “She walked down the aisle tothat song.” The husband related how they had met Lyle several years agobefore they were married and told him about their wedding plans. His response to thecouple who wanted to play this murder ballad that takes place at a wedding duringtheir own wedding? “That’s true love!” Lovett told them, according to the husband. I laughed along with him—not only because it was ridiculous and whimsical,but because it’s great to see people connect so deeply with something like acountry song on a level that you cannot. I love "L.A. County," but I will never connect with it quite the way that this couple does.

So those wedding bands on the hands of this whacko husband and wifeglinted all night in the stage lights during the Lovett show. I love enjoyingmusic all on my own…but it’s also nice to see other people enjoy it.

Saturday Songs – Dec. 31

2011-12-31T17:11:00.000-08:00

1. “Hotel Song” – Regina Spektor

Borrowing the famous melody linefrom Doris Troy’s “Just One Look,” Spektor’s song wrings out any of the lovelysentiment that may have traveled along with the appropriation. Unlike Troy's tune, Spektor’s song isa celebration of confusion and inscrutability. The only realisticinterpretation of the song is as a coked-up dream; otherwise, the lines about orcawhales and wading downstairs don’t make much sense. Either way, Spektor pursuesa brilliant melody—adding to Troy’s original line—but exercises brilliant vocal restraint.

2. “Tina Goodbye” – StephanieFinch

The lead track off Finch’s debutsolo album Cry Tomorrow, “TinaGoodbye” is a classic pop song in the tradition of the Velvet Underground. Grittyand angular, this song truly sounds like a relic of the late ’60s. If this is to your liking, then you ought to check out the rest of Finch's album.

3. “18 Wheels” – Fred Eaglesmith

When he was a teenager,Eaglesmith hopped a freight train out of his native Ontario and joined thetradition of roving singer-songwriters, writing and performing songs as heworked his way across Canada. Decades later and a dozen or so albums into hiscareer, Eaglesmith has become a force in the world of Canadian country music.He is recognized for his songwriting style, which oftenborrows elements of short-story writing.

“18 Wheels” paints the story of alovelorn trucker in short, precise details. There is a temptation to dismissthe lyrics as simplistic, but their brevity conveys the desperate existence ofthe long-haul trucker. Everything lies under the surface with this truckernarrator: “Lightning flashing / Standing in a phone booth / I called her number/ I got a machine.”

4. “If You Want (the buh bahsong)” – The Jinxes

Facebook Link

A sweet, sentimental song thathas “The Weepies” stamped on its forehead, “If You Want” centers around a “buhbah” section that has an affinity with Yo La Tengo’s excellent cover of “YouCan Have It All.” Buoyed by dreamy cello and exceptional melodies, The Jinxesstrike gold on this tune.

5. “American Nomad” – The ApacheRelay

I’ve had one song by The ApacheRelay sitting in my iTunes for monthsnow and left it unplayed save for a cursory listen after downloading. It turnedout that “State Trooper” deserved a closer listen than that which I had givenit…not to mention the rest of The Apache Relay’s debut album. “American Nomad,”the title track of the album, is included on the free sampler currently beingladled out via their website.

The energy of the performances onthis album separates them from other folk/rock acts out there right now. In mymind, the power of “American Nomad” and the aforementioned “State Trooper” setsthem right up alongside more popular acts like Mumford & Sons.

"Seminar" Review: Rickman et al Talk About Books

2011-12-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

If there was one thing I learnedfrom my first semi-official theater review (I refer to my review of theHamilton College Theatre Department production of Woyzeck, which you can find on the Hamilton College Spectator website here), it was that setdesign is a damned important part ofany production. Of course, Woyzeck wasnot my first theater experience in which the set played a huge role. I saw atraditionally barebones production of Wilder’s Our Town in high school and could not help but recognize the importance of the set.But not until Woyzeck did the open-ended possibilities of set design strike me.

So it was with great curiositythat I observed the set design of Seminar,the Broadway play written by Theresa Rebeck and directed by Sam Gold, which I saw last week. I shouldnote that the set doesn’t change for almost the entirety of the play; with theexception of the final scene, the entire play takes place in the living room ofthe Manhattan apartment of Kate (Lily Rabe), an aspiring young writer, who, alongwith fellow young writers Martin (Hamish Linklater), Douglas (Jerry O’Connell),and Izzy (Hettienne Park), decides to take part in a seminar with over-the-hill novelist and writer Leonard (Alan Rickman).

It goes without saying thatRickman is the star of the show. He is thoroughly unpleasant, constantlyirritable, and totally hilarious. The wicked barbs that Leonard tosses at theyoung writers might be funny enough coming from another actor, but Rickman's inhabitation of the character is perfect. Best knownas the wonderfully ambivalent Professor Snape in the Harry Potter filmfranchise, Rickman digs into the same tortured teacher psyche, but provides lessof a moral force and more of a lecherous, freewheeling sensibility in the character of Leonard.

But as much as the playcelebrates Rickman’s wicked humor, there are several understated aspects to theplay that might largely escape the notice of the audience. As aforementioned, I latchedon to set design as a personal interest in the play. The set of Kate’s livingroom, it turns out, would have been wholly unremarkable without the contrast ofthe second set—the living room of Leonard’s loft. Given the relevance ofliterature in the play, it shouldn’t be surprising that the central differencebetween the two sets is their treatment of books.

In Kate’s apartment, the booksare treated as ornamental objects; in one bookshelf, the books are arranged bythe color of their spines to loosely form a rainbow. The books become superficial—mereprops. On the other hand, the books in Leonard’s apartment are the opposite ofdecoration. They are scattered haphazardly across the entire room: piled onfurniture, stacked on the floor, overflowing Leonard’s desk.

This might seem merely an empty distinctionbut for the shifting attitude towards books that accompanies the change in set. Whilethe characters stomp and snarl through Kate’s apartment, they focus on theauthor rather than on the literature. The play largely consists (as one would expect) of author-relatedsquabbles—Martin doesn’t like Douglas; Kate is in love with Martin; Izzy is anymphomaniac—until the final scene. Well, I should admit that the squabbles continue, but the real climax of the play is Martin’s discovery of a novelmanuscript written by Leonard.

When Leonard protests Martin’sreading of the manuscript, Martin proclaims, “It doesn’t belong to you anymore!”Somewhat unclearly, he finishes, “It belongs to itself.” Suddenly, the novel isdisconnected from its author. What’s fascinating is that Martin does not offer that the novel belongs to everyone. The novel simply is itself. Butthe set design reinforces that sense of the novel’s independence; books areimportant in their own right in Leonard’s loft in a way that they were not in Kate’sliving room.

Christmas Eve Songs – Dec. 24

2011-12-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Kayla, I've thought over some of my Christmas listening habits and come up with a few holiday tunes to share with all of you for Saturday Songs this week. Hope you enjoy!

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I should explain that I'm not normally one forChristmas tunes—I find most of them hokey and uninspired and the rest ofthem—if sometimes brilliant compositions, “White Christmas,” for example—sooverplayed and over-covered that the heart has more or less been torn out. Ishould emphasize that I have no problem with these songs and think several ofthem beautiful: “Silent Night,” “The First Noël,” and “Good King Wenceslas.”

My feeling—and feel free todisagree with this—is that so much of the popular music released aboutChristmas tackles this vague idealized moment in our calendar; there is littlespecificity and any emotional impact is supposed to arrive through the fact of these songs being about Christmas. For instance,Coldplay’s semi-interesting Christmas single from last year—“ChristmasLights”—focuses on a romantic separation between the narrator and his loveinterest, paying particular attention to how “it doesn’t really feel likeChristmas at all.” But is that all there is to it?

It’s almost as if Christmas is aneasy target—plop Chris Martin’s sadcharacter down anywhere else on the calendar and he doesn’t quite have the sameoomph, if you know what I mean. Maybeyou think that I’m asking too much of Christmas music…and maybe that’s true.Maybe the simplicity of that connection—[sad Coldplay character + Christmas =extra sadness / hopefulness becauseof Christmas time]—isn’t so bad after all. I can only offer that it doesn’t interestme as much as the following songs about Christmas. The only “traditional/popular”song I include is from the Boss…for no other reason than that Springsteen canpretty much do whatever he wants in my book and still be the best.

1. “Suddenly It’s Christmas” –Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright III - Suddenly It's Christmas from Shutter the Thought Prods. on Vimeo.

There’s a long tradition ofChristmas novelty songs—from the light schmaltz of “Santa Baby” to the moreegregious “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”—but, at least to my knowledge,there aren’t many straight-up comedic eviscerations of this much-belovedholiday. Wainwright offers up some sizable laughs and is not afraid to offercaustic details, such as his description of the Santa at the North Pole:

Santa’s slaving at the North Pole

in his sweatshop full of elves.

2. “Grateful For Christmas” –Hayes Carll

Asked to sing a Christmas songfor a Christmas broadcast by his local television station, Carll realized thathe didn’t know any seasonal tunes save for “Jingle Bells.” He went back homeand composed this song, which is less about Christmas and more about theimportance of family. It’s a sad song, but one that’s worth checking outespecially this time of the season. Carll begins the song with a Christmas fullof relatives and subsequently explores two other Christmas gatherings at whichfamily members are absent.

I ought to note that the sadnessof this song strikes me particularly hard; several members of my extendedfamily will be missing come Christmas Day.

3. “Noelle, Noelle” – StephenKellogg and the Sixers

[Sorry, friends! I can't find a video / stream anywhere - if someone wants to send me one, then I'll post it]

Not a Christmas song proper, ofcourse, Kellogg’s ditty twists together a love note to his daughter and thetune of one of my favorite carols (“The First Noël”).

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4. “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town”– Bruce Springsteen

Simply put, Springsteen is agreat performer. He turns this holiday classic—which is such a slight tune whenyou think about it—into an ecstatic, compelling live track. You’d be crazy tonot want to be in the audience for this one…any season of the year.

5. “Listening to Otis Redding atHome During Christmas” – Okkervil River

This long, languid tune fromearly in Okkervil River’s discography might seem like a plodding march to some—butyou need to give it a chance. The repetitive guitar line eventually envelopsyou and pulls you into the song, a desperate narrative of a lost lover lookingto reclaim Christmases past.

Favorite Music Of 2011

2011-12-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

As we race towards the finaldays of 2011, I want to take a look back at some of my musical obsessions thatemerged over the past 12 months. Keep in mind—these are my favorites and I makeno pretensions towards a “best” or “greatest” list or really any sort ofcatchall kind of affair. In fact, Iencourage everyone out there to contribute his or her own selections offavorite music in the year 2011 in the comments below. If there are albums thatyou feel I overlooked and might have included had I known about them, then feelfree to let me know!

Favorite Albums of 2011

1. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing

The day I got this album in themail from Amazon, I sat down and listened to it three times in a row. Cleaner andsharper than their debut album Hometowns(a fact that some old fans were uncomfortable with), Departing came across to me like a firecracker while Hometowns was more like a slow-burning candle.Departing has a haunting immediacythat Hometowns, for all itssimilarity, simply lacked. Even the best tracks on their debut—“The Ballad ofthe RAA” and “Edmonton”—sound a little tired in comparison with fare like themuscular “Barnes’ Yard” or the jolting epic “Stamp.”

That said, the content remainsmuch the same: Nils Edenloff, Amy Cole, and Paul Banwatt are still exploringthe same dark, moody place that is the Canadian province of Alberta. (Hasanyone been there? Is it really so bad as the RAA make it sound?) For me, ithelps to stare long and hard at the minimalist cover art—a whiteout snowstormover a barren road somewhere out in nowhere with the headlights of a single carbarely cutting through the snow. It seems to be a deliberate reference to thestark Coen Brothers’ 1996 film Fargo,which includes several "snowy-road" shots exactly like the photograph on the cover.

Unlike the Coen Brothers’ savageportrait of a wintry wasteland (largely) without any hope, Departing might be filled with details that digress towardsdepression, but there are details that break through the murk and out into thelight. Those moments make the album more than bearable; they make ittranscendent. The sonic rest of “North Star” after the churning “MuscleRelaxants” is a reprieve in more ways than one. Edenloff chronicles thetroubles of separated lovers as his two band-mates slowly brew up a stormaround his voice and solo keyboard. The calm of the chorus speaks for itself:

Then the North Star

is guiding us home in your friend’s car.

Oh the North Star

is leading you back here to my heart.

In thinking about the lyrics,it’s worth pointing out how much of this album revolves around the notion of“holding on” to something or someone (mostly someone in this album). But what’s so startling is the variety of“holding” that happens in the album. In “North Star,” the narrator is“clutching on [his lover’s] hand tight”; in “Two Lovers,” the narrator boldlystates, “And if I ever hold you again / I will hold you tight enough to crushyour veins”; in “The Breakup,” Edenloff’s weary narrator offers, “I held youtight / we were waiting for the breakup / and all the cracks in the ice.”

As image-based motifs go, that of“holding” isn’t exactly a revelatory one. But Edenloff at al evoke itconstantly and push it in some many directions that we get the sense by the endthat this is what life is composed of for this collection of dejectedcharacters. Life is holding on hard to something—maybe anything—so long as oneholds on. In “Stamp,” the narrator asks his lover, “hold me close while you can/ try to remember the end of December, / holding onto the past. / It nevercomes back.” In exploring this imagery within the album, we are exposed to abarebones kind of sadness—ostensibly without that hopefulness I mentionedearlier.

In order to reclaim some hopefulness, it might help remembering thefinal lines of “Goodnight”—which bids farewell to the “Alberta advantage” andhints at getting out of Alberta and into the world. There is a suggestion thatthe narrator might someday return, but he’s making no promises. There's sadness there, but there's hope there, too.

The city’s love is cold and the city’s love is harsh.

It locks into our veins from the first September's frost.

January snap and the April winter thaw,

rough and tumble summers underneath the midnight sun,

rushing to the woods where we first felt God,

rippled through our veins from the moment when we touched.

Someday if you get back together in your heart

maybe we might get back together.

2. Drive-By Truckers – Go-GoBoots

As tempted as I was to award theTruckers with my favorite album of the year, I didn’t think this was their besteffort, so I felt compelled to drop them in at runner-up instead. However, althoughthey miss out on the #1 spot, that doesn’t mean that this album isn’t one oftheir career highlights—it certainly is. Ranging from “The Fireplace Poker,” PattersonHood’s nine-minute epic about a preacher who hired two thugs to kill his wifeand the grisly aftermath, to “Pulaski,” Mike Cooley’s loping acoustic tune abouta Southern girl with dark, historical undertones, the album covers a lot ofterritory and is all the stronger for it.

But for some listeners, thatbreadth of style might be intimidating—as might the duration. Similar to itspredecessors in the DBT oeuvre, Go-GoBoots is a long album. Despiteonly 14 tracks, the album still clocks in at a whopping 66 minutes. But forthose with the patience, this album is a real treat.

Maybe the only slow part of thealbum is the inclusion of two songs written by the late Eddie Hinton, awell-known session player at Muscle Shoals who worked with Hood’s father. TheHinton songs, simply put, are weaker than the fare offered by Hood and Cooley;they are fine enough on their own (and “Mercy Buckets” has tremendous energyand warmth performed live), but they suffer when set alongside songs like“Ray’s Automatic Weapon” and “The Thanksgiving Filter.” The only song penned bybassist Shonna Tucker, “Dancin’ Ricky,” is a fun character sketch, but alsolacks the lyrical flair exhibited by DBT’s two leading songsmiths.

Case in point is theaforementioned “Pulaski” by Cooley, who, although he contributes only a handfulof songs to each album compared with Hood’s steady mountain of tunes, is the moreconsummate songwriter. With “Pulaski,” Cooley tells the story of a college girlwho leaves small-town Tennessee for Los Angeles. He lays out her attempts tofit in and her realizations of homesickness in simple, broad strokes, beforehitting hard with two difficult final stanzas. Cooley is known for his abilityto neatly turn a phrase and he pulls a couple here, offering the wisdom, “Goodideas always start with a full glass.” The song turns somewhat inexplicablydark in the final stanza:

The storefronts all filled up with eyeballs

as the policemen clear out the street

for a line of cars with their headlights burning,

driving slow through Pulaski, Tennessee.

The image fits nowhere in thestory of the college graduate and therefore sets up a juxtaposition betweenthat story and…and what? What is thesecond image alluding to? One stab in the dark is the 2009 triple-murder of aboy, his brother, and his mother that occurred in Pulaski. The murderer was ahigh school classmate and romantic rival of the boy, who killed the entire familyin a fit of jealous rage over the boy’s girlfriend. The “line of cars withtheir headlights burning” might refer to the funeral cortege for the family. Butthe murders have only a tenuous connection with the girl’s story. In myopinion, the more likely explanation deals with the historical fact thatPulaski, TN was the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan.

While the song makes no overt referenceto racist activity, the funeral cortege connotes the attempt on the part of thetown of Pulaski to bury the darker aspects of their past. The college graduateat the center of the song makes the same attempt to bury the memory ofbackwards Pulaski, trying to escape her “Southern accent” and “Baptist ways” andbuilding an ideal vision of California. But despite her best attempts, shecannot help but turn back to the idea of Pulaski. Even though she knows they“leave a trail of blood and tears behind” them, she cannot help but long forthe men in her hometown over the men in California.

What makes the lyrics sodifficult is this turn of phrase: “Dreams here live and die just like a straydog / on a dirt road somewhere in Tennessee.” By “here,” Cooley refers toCalifornia. But the analogy carries itself outof California and back to Tennessee.The death of the girl’s dreams is a figurative death on the West Coast, but thedeath of the dog is a literal one in Tennessee. Ultimately, Cooley has crafteda brilliant, confrontational song that provides no easy answers. Theoverarching message of the Truckers’ music—and, I would argue, the beauty—isthat resolution is a myth. The big issues like government, gender, race, faith,war, and family provoke a helluva lot more questions than theyprovide answers.

3. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

Some of your probably knew thatthis one was coming. I was blown away by the quality and depth of this albumfrom Justin Vernon and company. Who knew that the folkie from the woods ofWisconsin had it in him? Everything is in the details: the cheesy, high-strungkeyboards in “Beth/Rest,” the throbbing guitar lines in opener “Perth,” and thetapestry of banjo in “Minnesota, WI,” among other wonderful, quirky details.

Vernon is reaching for the starswith this album and some critics found reason to disapprove. I called thekeyboards in “Beth/Rest” “cheesy” and I think that this is a fair estimation.However, it’s a kind of “cheesy” that works.“Hinnom, TX” is a little too shimmery and manufactured for my taste (along withdemonstrating an uncomfortable drop from Vernon’s trademark falsetto). Butthat overreaching quality of the album is also what makes it great. Thefloating keyboards and abrasive guitar licks in “Calgary” are brilliant anddaring. The sounds that Vernon piles onto the second half of “Towers,” whichwould be successful as merely a stripped-down folk song à la “re: Stacks,”provide it with the perfect amount of sonic clout.

For my earlier review of Bon Iver see here.

4. Noah and the Whale – LastNight On Earth

Fault me if you like, but I hadnot listened to Noah and the Whale prior to LastNight On Earth. Nevertheless, I was flabbergasted, having heard fromfriends that they were a sorry, sadsack bunch of English folkies second in linefor the throne inhabited by Mumford and Sons. The first ten seconds of openingtrack “Life Is Life,” with the processed drums and jangly keyboards, took me backto the ’80s not out to the Scottishhighlands.

Having gone back and listened2009’s The First Days of Spring and2008’s Peaceful, The World Lays Me Down,I can knowledgeably offer that “sorry, sadsack bunch of English folkies” mightnot have been so far off the mark. But this album fits nowhere within thatvision. According to press reports, the nigh-180^o in musicaldirection was a direct result of the romantic breakup between lead singer andsongwriter Charlie Fink and former Noah and the Whale band member LauraMarling.

Nowhere are the aftereffects ofthat relationship more evident than on “Life Is Life,” on which Fink openlystates:

Well, he used to be somebody

and now he’s somebody else,

took apart his old life

left it on the shelf,

sick of being someone

he did not admire,

took up all his old things

set ‘em all on fire.

Like another favorite album ofmine, Frightened Rabbit’s The Winter ofMixed Drinks, this album struggles with a lost love and moves past it. Simplyput, this is an infectious and wonderful album.

5. Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto

It would have been hard to getaway from this album in thinking about my favorites this past year. Coldplay isthe only band out there that successfully marries an inventive spirit with apop ideology. Not only that, this album sees Coldplay stepping further andfurther into their role as the preeminent arena rockers of our generation(overlooking U2—who seem to me of the last generation) with big, bold songslike “Princess of China” and “Paradise.” VivaLa Vida or Death and All His Friends started the trend, but with Mylo Xyloto Coldplay have officiallymade the move away from the lean, piano-rock of “The Scientist” and “Speed OfSound.”

For my earlier review of Mylo Xyloto see here.

6. Jill Andrews – The Mirror

If I were offering a “favoritesongs” instead of a “favorite albums” list, then Jill Andrews would easily havenabbed the top spot with the infectious “Another Man.” I have already writtenat length about my obsession with the song, so I’ll restrain myself…but forthose who have not yet been blessedwith a listen, you can hear it via YouTube right here. The rest of the album,however, does not pale in comparison to “Another Man.” Several other songs,including “Sound Of The Bells,” “A Little Less,” and “The Mirror” have the sameeasy charm and stun in their own way.

For my earlier review of The Mirror see here.

7. David Mead – Dudes

A relatively recent discovery,David Mead hits full stride with his seventh album. His other work isimpressive—especially his 2004 album Indiana,with its lush guitar work and vocals—but none of it quite stacks up against Dudes. Written in the wake of Mead’sdivorce, I expected the album to be another dreary road-trip through middleAmerica with Mead, but it turned out to be anything but that. I should admithere that I have a weak spot for break-up albums—Frightened Rabbit’s terrific Midnight Organ Fight and Noah and theWhale’s The First Days of Springamong them—so I was primed for…*sniff*…an emotional experience…

But this turned out to not be theDavid Mead that I had known. By turns, this is album is not only sad, it’s alsoecstatic and full of life and joyful and funny.I’ve known Mead to turn a clever line or two here and there, but nothing inhis past work comes close to the bizarre character sketches “Guy On Guy” and“Bocce Ball.”

8. Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers – GiftHorse

Although nothing on Kellogg andcompany’s sixth album is quite as catchy as “Shady Esperanto and the YoungHearts,” off their previous album TheBear, several of the cuts on GiftHorse make a case for themselves. The galloping “Gravity” and nostalgic“1993” are about as good as it gets. The twisting of Christmas carol “The First Noel” into“Noelle, Noelle” is lovely. The pseudo-epic “Charlie and Annie” succeeds inpulling the listener in despite Kellogg’s lackluster lyrics. In fact, the lyricsare the one flaw with these poppy cuts and verge on sentimentality and cliché throughout. However, the lyrics never really diminish the accomplishment of this album.

In addition to those eightalbums, there are a few songs and an EP that I want to pay some tribute to.

9. Jenny Owen Youngs – “Great Big Plans”

While maybe the GregLaswell-produced studio version takes a few too many liberties with Youngs’svoice—stretching it high and piling production value on it—it’s still afantastic cut. For those uncomfortable with the giant sound of the studioversion, there’s also a great acoustic version on YouTube here.

Featured on Saturday Songs - Aug. 6

10. Allie Moss – “Late Bloomer”

Better known as the guitarist forIngrid Michaelson, Moss has some tunes of her own. This one is worth checkingout—free download here.

Featured on Saturday Songs - July 16

11. Frightened Rabbit – A Frightened Rabbit EP

Buoyed by the furious stomp of“Scottish Winds” and “Fuck This Place,” a lovesick duet between Scott Hutchisonand Camera Obscura’s Tracyanne Campbell, this EP packs a real punch. Usually,EPs are more or less throwaway packages of tunes the artist couldn’t find agood place for. But it’s to imagine this trio being cast off of an album.

Featured on Saturday Songs - Nov. 5

12. River Whyless – “A Cedar Dream II”

River Whyless, an unknown bandfrom Boone, North Carolina, surprised me with this folky dreamscape. I’d saythat they’re a band to look out for—especially the alternating male/femalevocals between Ryan O’Keefe and Halli Anderson.

Featured on Saturday Songs - Oct. 15

Finally, I feel inclined tofurther offer six “honorable mentions” that I spent some time with over thepast year:

13. Steve Earle - I’ll Never Get Out Of This World Alive

14. Death Cab For Cutie - Codes & Keys

15. The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck

16. Josh Garrels - Love & War & The Sea In Between

17. Ryan Adams - Ashes and Fire

18. Iron & Wine - Kiss Each Other Clean

Auster Depresses With "Man In The Dark"

2011-12-20T20:56:00.000-08:00

Can anyone out there remember thelast time I wrote about a book? (I think it might be Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, but if we’regoing to be technical, then it’s probably Unbroken.)Anyways, I suppose that’s what college courses and student journalism do to aperson’s reading habits. Finished with the semester last Friday, I have startedmy reading regimen from last summer, so you can expect a few literary updatesin addition to musical and cinematic fare for at least the next few weeks.Unfortunately for me, I started off my reading schedule with Paul Auster’sshort novel Man In The Dark. I hateto be blunt—but, wow, I wish I had notpicked up that book.

It’s one of those “tough reads.”I mean that not in its language or its concept or its originality. I mean thatin the sense that this novel is brutally depressing. Like Richard Powers’s 2006 novel The Echo Maker,which sent me into a depressive, downward spiral for an entire month, thisnovel drops the reader into a cesspool of sorrow and then lets themwallow there. This novel is bleak.

What might save the work in theeyes of some is the lighthearted pieces that Auster has wisely sprinkledthroughout. For instance, the relationship between the depressed narrator andhis equally depressed granddaughter centers on their practice of watching filmstogether all day long. Auster, who, judging by this novel, must haveconnections to the antidepressant industry, reminds the reader constantly ofhow awful these days must be. At onepoint, the narrator himself notes, “I began to see this obsessive moviewatching as a form of self-medication, a homeopathic drug to anesthetizeherself against the need to think about her future” (Auster 15). But there isone fine, revealing conversation between the narrator and the granddaughterabout the emotional life of objects within a trio of films, focusing on Ozu’s Tokyo Story.

But the depressing moments inthis novel keep coming at you. The glimpses of hope and happiness do nothing toalleviate the weight of sorrow that presses down on everything. I cried at onepoint in this novel—here:

Betty died of abroken heart. Some people laugh when they hear that phrase, but that’s becausethey don’t know anything about the world. People die of broken hearts. It happensevery day, and it will go on happening to the end of time. (Auster 87)

If you’re wise, you’ll stay awayfrom this novel. Not because it’s badly written or the characters are wooden or you won't be invested in the story…stay away because it will sit on your chest in the middle of the night likea goddamn anvil. If you like that kind of thing…then have at it. For those whowould rather avoid a series of catatonic moments, consider me havingdone you a favor.

Thoughts On Sukurov's "Russian Ark"

2011-12-18T10:38:00.000-08:00

Readers! I apologize for the slowweek on Pueblo Waltz—I guess that’s what happens when I have to plow throughthree final papers, an exam, and a revision of a paper…as well as goodbyes to all thosewho will remain at Hamilton College and those who will be going abroad…

I throw in that last detail because it's about time to mention to you all that I will spend this coming semester in Edinburgh,Scotland! I’m excited to explore the city and hopefully write a little moreabout my experience of Scottish culture on this blog. If you have suggestionsof things to do in Scotland—especiallywith regard to the arts—then don’t hesitate to contact me and give me aheads up!

Unfortunately, there will be noSaturday Songs this week—I’m priming for a "My Favorites of 2011 Music" list thatI will post later this week—hopefully around Dec. 24 and you can all head intothe holidays with some musical suggestions (or last minute stocking stuffers?!). Until then, hereare a few thoughts on Sukorov’s wonderful film Russian Ark.

Cheers,

Taylor

Pueblo Waltz

Crisp, otherworldly, and withouta doubt one of the most impressive technical feats of all time, AlexanderSokurov’s 2002 film Russian Arkconsists of a single unedited 96-minute shot—a journey through 33 rooms of theRussian State Hermitage Museum. A few years ago, Joe Wright got a lot ofattention for the 5½-minute tracking shot during the Dunkirk sequence of Atonement, in which the camera ducks inand out of clusters of wounded and desperate soldiers waiting on the beach toreturn to England. There are other famous examples of epic long-shots inmainstream cinema (Hitchcock’s film Rope—ofonly 11 shots), but also an entire world of avant-garde cinema whose conceptionthrives at least partly on the nature of duration, including, infamously, AndyWarhol’s Empire (485 minutes of thesame shot of the Empire State Building at night) and James Benning’s 13 Lakes—composed of 10-minute shots of 13American lakes.

Sukorov's epic film maintains an intricate eye for period detail throughout; via moviemail-online.co.uk

But in terms of sheer,jaw-dropping incredulity, Russian Arkbeats all other films over the head. Not only is the film a single shot, it ispractically a ballet of extras—over 2,000 actors and 3 orchestrasparticipated—and there are brief, flitting scenes throughout the film that allcome off without a hitch. The film is a long sashay through Russian history: frominto deepest, darkest corners—watching Peter the Great knock someone to theground—to the most vibrant highlights—the final ball at the Winter Palace in1913. Some familiar Russian history should probably be a prerequisite to thefilm. (I watched the film with my girlfriend Kayla, who is somewhat of abudding Russian history scholar.) But even without a firm grasp of Russianhistory, there is an immense joy to be taken away from this film.

The intense organization andawareness that must have gone into this film is astounding. Even during thesequences in which we follow around only “the European” (Sergei Dontsov), acharacter based on the Marquis de Custine, who acts as our guide through themuseum, the movement of the camera opens up the viewer to a different,reflective sensory experience. The camera bobs up and down and focuses on tinydetails: a hand, a face in a painting, a sculpture. So when Sukorov introducesus to the complicated sets of the film: the ball finale, the apology issued bythe Shah of Iran to Tsar Nicholas II, and a play being watched by Catherine theGreat, they come across as revelations of detail. There is so much to look at and Sukorov, along with his army of costume andset designers, don’t slight us a single detail. Everything struck me asformidably accurate.

But as beautiful and transcendentas these scenes are—particularly the final part of the shot as the camera movesbackwards down a long hallway filled with the exiting attendants of the lastball in the Winter Palace—the scenes between the European and the narratorended up being the most striking of the film. Indeed, I have forgotten tomention the narrator, the grizzled voice that seems to come from behind thecamera. We never see a face or gain even a footnote of his personal history,but his voice guides us from room to room of the Hermitage, musing in dustytones about Russian history and always worried that he, along with theEuropean, will be expelled from the museum. Large portions of the film’sdialogue are discussions between these two characters, more often than notdebating Russia’s sense of itself, particularly in relation to Europeanhistory. The European points out several times that Russian cannot help butmodel itself off of Europe—in politics, in fashion, in art. Wandering throughthe galleries of the Hermitage, the European never fails to make his point,gesturing even the decoration of the rooms.

The European (Sergei Dontsov) criticizes the decoration in the Hermitage Museum.

But the unspoken truth thatfloats throughout the film is that there isone area of culture in which Russia has been preeminent for some time:film. Although the emergence of the Soviet Union undoubtedly constricted theRussian film culture into a vein of “social realism” filmmaking, film hasalways remained a strong tradition, producing filmmakers such as AndreiTarkovsky. However, during the early Soviet era, the film culture in Russianproduced several of the greatest filmmakers and theorists of all time: SergeiEisenstein, Lev Kuleshov, and Dziga Vertov. The essence of “montage” filmtheory emerged from the work of these three artists—the theory that images infilm “collide” with one another in a dialectical sense, such that anunderstanding independent of either shot emerges from the “collision.” (I oughtto note that, in some ways, this is a somewhat severe simplification and thosefurther interested in the theory should read this Wikipedia page andview Eisenstein’s The Battleship Potemkin.)

What is so striking about Russian Ark is that it enacts—notexactly the antithesis of early Russian film theory—but in an essentiallyopposite way. Sukorov’s epic long-shot certainly is endebted to the Russiantradition established by Tarkovsky, who employed long-shot and slow, meditativesequences to deliberately accentuate the metaphysical qualities of his films;however, I would offer that Sukorov has nevertheless created something whollyoriginal that emerges straight out of Russia. There is a definite way to read thethesis of Sukorov’s film as that Russia, at least in the world of film, does not depend on anyone. Russian film movesout to the world, not the other way around. If you’ve seen this beautiful film,then it’s hard to disagree with that.

Saturday Songs – Dec. 10

2011-12-10T18:28:00.001-08:00

1. “Riding With Private Malone” –David Ball

A respected songwriter in his ownright, Ball’s most famous song is not his own. This tune off his 2001 album Amigo, written by Wood Newton and ThomShepherd, hit a nerve in the recently post-9/11 world with its patriotic themeand military invocations. The song, however, causes the listener to implicitlyquestion the legitimacy of invoking the Vietnam War while ignoring the volatilepolitical undertones that have historically been attached to the war.

The song, of course, was notwritten in light of 9/11 and obviously not written in light of the wars in Iraqand Afghanistan, but the horrors and difficulties of those wars have nowthematically dug their heels into the story of “Riding With Private Malone.”Can we ignore those themes and treat it as an essentially harmless countrysong?

If I have one complaint with thesong, it’s that you can hear the manufacturing process all around its edges.That’s not to say that Ball doesn’t turn in one hell of a performance; in fact,the striking performance is what really makes the song worth listening to inthe first place. But you can feel thethought process behind this song: what kind of car should it be? what shouldthe name of the soldier be? what should happen to the narrator? Like an awkwardshort story, the song doesn’t feel natural in the way that it should. Songs—likecars—shouldn’t ever seem like they came off the assembly line.

2. “Heyday” – Mic Christopher

Just shortly after he hadrecorded his debut album Skylarkin’,Christopher, who had become famous as part of the Irish band The Mary Janes,died due to head trauma resulting from an accidental fall down a set of stepsin the Netherlands. Christopher left instructions as to how his final recordingcould be improved. The final album, released in 2002, has since become a majorinfluence on the folk and rock scenes in Ireland.

The lead track off Skylarkin’, “Heyday” is an acousticlo-fi romp that sounds rough and unfinished, but somehow complete at the sametime. Unlike, for example, the woefully incomplete sessions of My Sweetheart the Drunk left behind byJeff Buckley, this album from Mic Christopher has a polish and a shine to it.

3. “We Found Each Other In The Dark” – City and Colour

Perhaps the right way tocharacterize Dallas Green, the singer-songwriter behind City and Colour (City =Dallas; Colour = Green), is as aCanadian Ben Gibbard. Not that being Canadian really has anything to do withit—being Canadian only has the disadvantage of slighting Green his properaudience. While there are a number of worthy Canadian acts who have foundsignificant followings in the United States, there are just as many (more!) whohave not.

Given the major slight that’sbeen dealt to Green and his music, it’s hard to know where to start: everythingis good. I’ll offer you “We Found Each Other In The Dark,” the first track offof Little Hell, the latest City andColour album.

Filled with warm piano lines anda smooth slide guitar, this song breathes like a Band of Horses tune…but it’shappy and not nearly so self-conscious of itself. Green is confident and soundssure of himself such that nothing ever sounds forced. He’s a real talent towatch out for—hopefully he’ll cross the border and we’ll hear a little moreabout him down south.

4. “L.A. County” – Lyle Lovett

One of my all-time favorites,Lovett’s slight ballad about a lost love ends up being so much more than youthought. But rather than ruin the surprise for you, I’ll let you explore thesong on your own. Pay close attention to the lyrics!

Anyways, the entirety of Lovett’ssecond album, Pontiac, is worthchecking out—especially “If I Had A Boat,” Lovett’s best-known song.

5. “Bet Yo Mama” – Chuck Cannon

A very funny song from a SouthCarolinean songwriter, “Bet Yo Mama” revolves around the (somewhat tired) countrycliché of offering up comparing an attractive woman with her (equally?) attractivemother. The different spin taken by Cannon here is that he offers insights intothe rest of the family as well:

I bet your uncles and your brothers are big and strong—

I bet they don’t appreciate the way we’re carrying on.

They could probably whoop my ass if they was so inclined.

If they don’t understand they would have to be blind,

because your momma looks good too!

Download the song for free using the above link from ReverbNation!

4 Reasons Why I Don't Like Rolling Stone's "Greatest Guitarists" List

2011-12-08T18:46:00.001-08:00

I like lists. Heck, I even love lists. I love seeing people andthings and places ranked just as much as the next person. That said, I have never liked Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.” I dislikethe list for a few reasons. You should be aware that from here on out I fieldonly complaints—some nuggets of compliment to the insight of RS writers and editors—but mostlycomplaint. My response, fittingly, takes on the form of a list.

1. There are no guidelines

“Greatest” is a loaded word.Standing alone, as it does in so many supposedly “critical” contexts, itdoesn’t mean anything. “Favorite” or “influential” or “best-selling” allconnote specific guiding principles, although some are more obscure ordifficult to parse through than others. It would not be a problem if RS phrased the list as their “favorite”guitarists; that would imply a subjective measurement with whichreaders/writers (like me!) cannot literally contest. The list would become anexercise in taste, which is fine with me, because so much of RS (music/film/culture reviews) ispremised upon their opinions being better informed, better researched, betterobserved than those of the rest of the world.

But they don’t phrase the list insuch a way. Instead, as I’ve already harped on, they claim it as a list of the“greatest” guitarists. Given the placement of so many key early blues and rockfigures, the notion of “influence” weighs heavily on the whole affair. The waythey explain the list (at least on the RSwebsite) is that they gathered “a panel of top guitarists and other expertsto rank their favorites and explain what separates the legends from everyoneelse” (Rollingstone.com). But was that the only guideline they provided thesevoters? I assume—perhaps incorrectly—that this group of mostly guitarists wasnot assembled into a single space in which they carried out this grand debate.Rather, I would think that each participant (besides contributing RS editors, who probably had a moreinside understanding on the project) had his or her own differing set of valuations.

So what are we left with? Are weleft with a collection of “favorites” that somehow translates into “greatest”by virtue of the participants? Are we trying to create a canon of guitarists?If that is the intention, then I doubt there is much scholarly sensibility atwork. In part, those who actively participate in the art form create the canon,but readers and scholars also help formulate the canon. Hemingway (and thosewho studied him) was fond of pointing to Sherwood Anderson’s short story cycle Winesburg, Ohio as a formativeexperience in terms of his writing. But is Winesburg,Ohio part of the short story canon the same way that Hemingway or FlanneryO’Connor are? I don’t doubt that Anderson’s work has a place in an extendedvision of the American literature canon, but I don’t think one wouldcomfortably posit his work sitting next to the like of “Big Two-Hearted River.”

I would offer that RS either clarify the guidelines of thelist or introduce far more input fromcritics and writers to offset the literal monopoly that guitarists have on thelist. They might even go so far as to reshape the list into two separate partssimilar to how Sight & Soundconducts their “greatest” (another problematically titled list) filmslist—breaking it into the list from directors and the list from critics.

2. Why is John Lennon on the list?

I don’t offer this quite as acomplaint, but rather as an annoying feature. Some of the folks on this listare givens; if Hendrix had not beenat the top of the list, there would have been a violent backlash. But there areother contributions that seem like merely pandering either directly to thestars themselves or their legacies. I’ll rag on Lennon because it is the mostglaring error in the list.

Even RS has some trouble justifying Lennon’s presence. Lennon’s musicalchops are decidedly thin: he was merely capable on guitar and piano, but he hada brilliant voice and an otherworldly knack for writing music. Lennon’s inclusionraises the question of whether or not he would have been included in the listhad he not been both a member of The Beatles and a successful solo artist inhis own right. I apologize if that seems like a dumb point, but I think it’s apoint worth making. Would, for instance, Lennon have been brought into thestudio to lay down a rhythm guitar track? It might even be worth comparing himto Ry Cooder (another guitarist on the list at #31 compared to Lennon’s #55),who is actually someone who mighthave been pulled into the studio for a rhythm guitar track.

My complaint raises the questionof whether or not we can ever truly separate a songwriter from his guitar work(or, for that matter, his work on any other instrument). In the case of otherguitarists on this list—say, separating Angus Young from his riffs in “Back InBlack”—I think that would be a contentious claim. But is “often adding rawnessto pristine pop songs” deserving of #55 in the “top 100 greatest guitarists”? Ithink not…

3. What are we supposed to make of the changes?

RS published a list in the same spirit in 2003. In some sense, wearen’t supposed the make anything of the differences between the two lists. AsI pointed out above, the more recent list was composed of guitarists selected bya diverse group of people. On the other hand, one of the RS senior editors, David Fricke, compiled the 2003 list.

But that doesn’t make the changesany easier to parse through; Fricke is a smart man and makes smart choices,especially in terms of influence, that a guitarist might as well have made. Buthe also provides choices that reveal a critical voice—something that seemslargely absent in the recent list. For instance, renowned Malian musician AliFarka Touré and English folkie Bert Jansch make appearances on Fricke’s list,but go without mention in the newest list. There are curious movements with thenew list as well: why, for instance, does Duane Allman slide from #2 down to #9?Why does Eddie Van Halen jump from #70 to #8? Gilmour up to #14 from #82? Whydoes Prince appear at #33?! He’s nowhere onthe first list!

4. What kind of music are we talking about?

I broached this when I expressedadmiration for Fricke’s inclusion of Touré and Jansch…exactly what kind ofmusic are we dealing with when we say “greatest guitarist of all time”? Does RS place implicit limitations on whichstyles of music they choose to include? The obvious answer is yes—of coursethey do. They focus on rock music, often straying into the blues. But folkmusic is largely absent in both lists, along with classical music and, moregenerally, world music.

Next time around, I can only hopethat RS considers the matter moreclosely…and maybe takes some cues from the Sight& Sound poll.

Saturday Songs - Dec. 3

2011-12-04T20:31:00.001-08:00

1. “Arrowhead” – Richard Shindell

Shindell is a master songwriterof character sketches; from illegal immigrants to long-haul truckers, Shindell reachesfar and wide for his inspiration. “Arrowhead” tells the plaintive story of adrummer boy in the Confederate forces during the Civil War, who is too young tofight, but not too young to be up at the front lines. The live version of thissong released on Shindell’s album Courieris a real treat—providing some serious galloping drums to the mix. But thisacoustic performance above captures the spirit of the song equally well.

2. “Kingdom Come” – Mark Erelli

On the surface, this song soundssweet, but underneath the surface, this is a dark look at a dangerous world.The opening lines establish that much:

The wasp she lays an egg

‘neath a caterpillar's skin.

It hatches and the larva grows,

feasting from within

It kills the host then off it goes

to sting another one.

3. “Someday House” – Greg Brown

Someday House

Tipped off to Greg Brown by aYouTube video featuring Jeff Bridges (he was listing Top 5 musicians everyoneshould listen to and I, of course, was on the prowl for a Townes Van Zandtreference, given the presence of “If I Needed You” in one of the emotionalmontages in the Bridges’s Best Actor vehicle Crazy Heart), I went straight onto Spotify and looked him up.

His deep, dark baritone maypresent a problem for some listeners, but the voice—verging on TomWaits—probably couldn’t any more accurately reflect the quirky characters Brownsketches in his songs. In this song, you can practically hear him smiling as hesings:

I don’t mind doing laundry

if you’ll help me fold

looks like bright sunshine

well, let’s hang ‘em out on the line

and it starts to rain again.

4. “Say It Anyway” – Rosi Golan

Just recently, I sat down tolisten to Golan’s second album, which I’ve been anticipating for some time now,after having seen her in concert as she toured her 2008 debut album The Drifter & The Gypsy, an albumwith several excellent cuts, including “Think Of Me” and “Come Around.” Thisalbum did not disappoint; there are, again, several excellent compositions. Iadmit there are a handful of weaker songs, but, all in all, it’s an impressivesophomore album. “Say It Anyway” has less flair than some of the other tracks,wisely choosing to focus on Golan’s excellent voice.

5. “Meeden Station” – The Bowmans

A twin sister folk act hailingfrom Iowa, the Bowman women craft a neat sound on this simple song—a portraitof a railway station. While the recording itself could stand some improvement,the sisterly harmony still shines through.

The Descendants Review: The Morals Of A King

2011-11-29T22:49:00.001-08:00

The miracle of The Descendants, the new Hawaii-based Alexander Paynefilm starring George Clooney, is that it holds itself together while dashingthrough the twists and turns of its plot. There is a comatose, dying wife and hermourning husband—two daughters struggling with separate problems of growingolder—the realization that the dying wife had been unfaithful with a localrealtor—a father who is kept (and keeps himself) from confronting the wildnessof his favorite child. And that’s not even covering most of it. Payne and hisace cast handle all of these developments with great care and subtlety, appearingeffortless in the execution.

But the overarching plot issue isthe one that Payne et al handle best. For those entirely unfamiliar with thefilm, the film focuses on Matt King (Clooney), who must deal not only with hisdying wife Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie) and his troublesome daughters, but alsowith his role as the trustee of a 25,000-acre spread of land on the Hawaiianisland of Kaua’i. King and his family are the descendants of missionaries andnative royalty, which pedigree entrusted them the land and the trust expires inseven years’ time. King and most of the extended family wants to sell the landto a developer, which will bring in millions of dollars into the family. Thereare a few relatives who oppose the sale, but Payne’s film doesn’t give themmuch screen time.

I cite this plot element asoverarching because it winds in and out of the film, appearing largely at thebeginning and the end. King’s dying wife and his deteriorating personal life quicklytake center stage once he learns that his wife had been cheating on him priorto her fatal boating accident. King and his elder daughter Alexandra (ShaileneWoodley) take on the task of investigating and finally confronting Elizabeth’shapless lover. As separate as the issues of land and King’s wife may have beenup to that point, the melodramatic fates cast them into allegiance with oneanother; King learns that the realtor his wife had been seeing is the same man whowould end up receiving the commissions on the 25,000 acres, should it be soldto this developer.

With regard to the land, Kingmakes the decision the audience already knew he would make: the land stays inthe hands of the family. We have to thank that expectation the briefconversation between King and his two daughters in the middle of the film asthey survey the entrusted land. After Alexandra mentions how she used to gocamping with her mother on the entrusted land, Scottie (Amara Miller)disdainfully points out that, young as she is, she hasn’t had the chance (andimplicitly will never have the chance) to camp on the land as Alexandra did. Asdominated by the notion of inter-generational conflict as the environmentalmovement is today (let’s not ruin this planet for our children! [and ourchildren’s children!]), I think anyone could have predicted the ultimateoutcome.

The moral complexity of the filmarises from how King makes his decision after having learning about theinvolvement of his late wife’s lover in the development deal. While Iultimately come down on the side of King’s decision regarding land (thedevelopment of land for recreational/resort uses is not the same case as miningthe same pristine landscape for a necessary mineral such as copper; see JohnMcPhee’s excellent and excellently objective book Encounters with the Archdruid for more on these matters) I cannothelp but feel a distaste for his final decision. Amidst the triumphantenvironmentalist feeling in the wake of that scene, there is a lingering dissonance.Is something still right even if donefor the wrong reasons? Would Kinghave arrived at the same decision without the knowledge of that particular realtor’s involvement in theplans?

I must conclude by offering thatthe film, while quite impressive, had one glaring flaw, which was King’soverbearing voiceover narration that opens the film. The narration serves as aneffective, if entirely clumsy, method of grounding the audience with plotdetails. This, I think, is in contrast to the rest of the film, which tacklesscenes with an earnest energy and expects the audience to follow along. As muchas I don’t like screenwriting guru Robert McKee’s dictum that voiceovers shouldnever be used—famously parodied in Spike Jonze’s Adaptation—I think it applies to this film. The voiceover in The Descendants is a writer being lazy;I expect better work from the screenwriting team of Payne, Nat Faxon, and JimRash, who did such a bang-up job on the rest of the film.

Also, perhaps some of you thinkthat I have “spoiled” the film by letting you in on the ending. That, I think,would be a grievous underestimation of this film. As much as I have made of theplot, that is not where the film derives its power. The power is in the closewriting of the scenes and the earthy, believable characters brought to life ina series of awkward, unfortunate moments. But those moments lead somewherewonderful: the final scene provides the most heartwarming episode of domesticharmony I’ve seen in quite some time. Look forward to it.

Saturday Songs – Nov. 26

2011-11-26T22:02:00.001-08:00

Posting them late again! Apologies– Taylor

1. “I Just Can’t Take It Anymore”– The Lemonheads

A lost Gram Parsons tune, EvanDando and The Lemonheads resurrect both this song and themselves on their 2006covers album Varshons. Sure, it’s acovers album and it doesn’t exactly demonstrate a return to form, but it is, atthe very least, a demonstration of Dando’s esoteric music taste and sense of craft. From countrytroubadour Townes Van Zandt to “post-punk” band Wire, Dando is all across theboard. The song probably truest to the sound of The Lemonheads (circa It’s A Shame About Ray), however, isDando’s take on this country lope by the grandfather of country rock.

2. “Moving Pictures Silent Films”– Great Lake Swimmers

Just as there are certainconcepts in a film that one almost likes more than the film itself—forinstance, the concept of Louis Malle’s 1981 film My Dinner With Andre—I like the concept of Great Lake Swimmers’self-titled debut album almost more the album itself. While we’re stuck on slow-movingfolk music, I think it’s worth looking to Bon Iver’s rise to fame. Vernon’sreal claim to fame—both in the music press as well as in personalconversations—was his winter say in a Wisconsin cabin. Everyone adored thatidea: Vernon, broken up with his girlfriend and his band, moping away in alonely corner of the woods, writing songs to make himself feel better.

Thinking in terms of these albumconcepts, this debut album from Great Lake Swimmers is almost better. Thetragedy of For Emma, Forever Ago isthat we can’t actually hear thosemonths out in the woods on the tape itself. The album is full of haunting, sadsounds, but there is nothing overtly “woodsy” or “natural” about it. On theother hand, “Moving Pictures Silent Films,” the first track on Great Lake Swimmers, starts out withwoodsy hiss and the chirping of crickets.

The entire album was recorded inan abandoned grain silo in southern Ontario over the course of several months.So, the reverberant threads of vocal, guitar, bass, piano, and percussion,bouncing eerily off the walls of the silo are drawn over that foundationallayer of natural white noise. That, Justin Vernon, is “woodsy” for you!

3. “God Is God” – Steve Earle

As far as I’m concerned, SteveEarle’s most recent album, I’ll NeverMake It Out Of This World Alive, is fantastic throughout. But as some of you may know, I’ve got a soft spot for songs reflecting seriously on God andGod’s relation to man. Naturally, questions of a religious, philosophical nature + SteveEarle = one helluva song. Earle, with this song, begins to approach the statureof some of Townes’s more elaborate, labyrinthine songs (such as “Only Him OrMe”).

I love some of the phrases Earleconcots in this song, especially:

And as our fate unfurls,

Every day that passes I’m sure about a little bit less.

Even my money keeps telling me it’s God I need to trust.

And I believe in God, but God ain’t us.

4. “Las transeuntes” – JorgeDrexler

Still on my binge ofSpanish-language music, I’ve stumbled upon Jorge Drexler, who’s probably afamiliar name for Oscar buffs out here, having garnered an Oscar for BestOriginal Song, thanks to his contribution “Al otro lado del río” to thesoundtrack of The Motorcycle Diaries.Outside of the United States, however, Drexler is a big deal as a songwriter. “Lastranseuntes” is a fine example of Drexler’s craft—not only of his songwriting,but also of his ability as a performer. “Las transeuntes,” along with the restof the songs on his recent album Amar latrama, was recorded live in front of a small audience in a recordingstudio, lending it an earthy, warm sound.

5. “The Sailor” – Ben and the Sea

While I don’t find myself asattracted to the three other songs on the first third of Ben and the Sea’sdebut album A Life Outside, I reallyenjoy the first track “The Sailor.” This tune has a cutting directness and adelicate sense of craft that makes it easy to like. Get the song for free below:

Margin Call and the Death of a Dog

2011-11-25T10:07:00.001-08:00

Given the financial death knells sounding in J.C.Chandor’s recent film Margin Call, it's surprising, to say the least, that the saddest part of the film is the death of a stockbroker’s Labradorretriever. Having grown up with two black Labrador retrievers, I sympathizedwith his plight; I suspect that the American film-going audience atlarge also sympathized. After all, Hollywood didn’t produce Marley & Me just for shits andgiggles; people love to watch films in which pets die and then cry about itafterward. So perhaps that aspect of MarginCall was understandable. Throw in a dying dog and garner everyone’ssympathy.

However, I feel as if dying petsare (at least now—given their clichéd run in popular culture) a rather crass,childish way to approach underlying issues of human mortality. Indeed, the lifeand death of Old Yeller functions as a learning device for Travis in Old Yeller, the granddaddy of alldying/dead pet films. However, that childish device serves no ostensible purpose in Margin Call, something that should alertthe viewer to the underlying issues that the film is exploring.

For one, it’s worth taking intoconsideration that Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) explains to Will Emerson (PaulBettany) early on in the film that he’s been spending $1,000 per day to evenkeep the dog alive. Emerson, of course, had walked into Rogers’s office andcaught him at a teary moment. As Rogers explains his emotions, Emerson seemsentirely detached from the situation—his body language speaks for itself. He seems so uncomfortable with the entire idea of the dying dog that it looks as if he's not even listening.

That lack of empathy on the partof Emerson, however, skews the audience away from the important point the filmis making: this financial executive (or however you want to term hisposition—I don't recall the particulars) is spending $1,000 per day on a dog. Granted, giventhe resources, people will go pretty far to save their pets. In fact, I’mpersonally familiar with the absurdity of the situation; my family's dog Otis ended upwith pretty serious case of melanoma on one of his paws. Because we caught thecancer early, the paw was still operable and Otis is alive today. I bringup my own dog to make the point that I can appreciate Rogers’s desperation tosave his dog at any financial cost. (After all, removing melanoma from a dog’spaw is not inexpensive.)

But that said, there are limits thatshould be placed on canine medical practices. My parents, for example, havestated that they won’t operate again if further cancer appears on Otis. He’s anold dog—11 years old—and it would do him no good to have a cast on his paw atthis point in his life. But not only that, it also would do us no good as afamily—particularly in a moral sense. I don’t mean “moral” in the sense thatit’s wrong for the dog (which it might be, anyway), but rather in that we would simplybe confounding our understanding of mortality at that point. When you’reputting as much effort into saving the life of a dog as you’d put into savingthe life of, say, your grandmother, then a moral disparity emerges. How do wevalue the life of a dog versus that of a human?

For me, the contentious issue that arisesout of that scene between Rogers and Emerson is that humanity seems toplay second banana to the dog world in MarginCall. A second scene—this one between Rogers and hisex-wife—further illuminates the second banana-hood of humanity. Digging agrave for his dead dog in front yard of what was once his house, Rogers is the embodiment of pity itself…but not due to the death of his beloved dog or the failure of his marriage, but ratherbecause, from his point of view, his own personal problems have escalated intothe provinces of high tragedy.

That, of course, is a absurdnotion, given the fact that earlier that day Rogers helped orchestrate anexodus of bad investments, the effects of which, looking to the financialcrisis of 2008 and its repercussions, will change the lives of millions of people. How does that reallycompare to a dead dog and a divorce? Reflecting on the film, I have no sympathyfor Rogers; any sympathetic feeling I had for him was an illusion, a phantom ofa feeling. Sure, his dog died, but that doesn’t mean he’s any better than therest of the characters in the film.

4 Things I Learned at MoMA Yesterday

2011-11-22T18:04:00.001-08:00

1. Why Monet used all those damn water lilies

Monet and water lilies are sointerwoven in art history that it’s hard to disentangle the two. In the artworld, I get the sense that they might as well be synonymous. I offer thatprelude as a kind of apology—an apology for the fact that until yesterday, Inever understood why Monet loved them to the point that he painted themhundreds of times. To me, Monet and water lilies seemed like a given; thepairing was like pancakes and syrup or Hall and Oates.

However, sitting for severalminutes in front of the multiple-paneled Monet painting Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond from his Water Liliescollection, I came to a startling realization. But before I get to thatrealization, I’ll offer a confession (this post so far is full of myshortcomings): I’m not really sure what one is supposed to do when looking atartwork.

Monet's Reflections of Clouds on the Water-Lily Pond in the Modern of Modern Art; photo by trish thanks to the Wikipedia Loves Art project

Someone recently explained to me(it might have been a professor) that when visiting an art museum or gallery,you should pick a few pieces of artwork and then stare at them for a long time,letting them “do their work” on you. Yesterday I chose this particular Monetand sat there for a few minutes to allow the painting do with me what it would.

I won’t go ahead and tell youthat I taught myself some art theory sitting there on this bench staring atthis Monet; in fact, I struggle to reconstruct my exact thought process as Ilooked at the painting. But somewhere in the middle of my meandering thoughts,everything converged on the notion of “surface.” A painting itself is, afterall, simply a surface imposed upon the surface of the wall. This particularMonet painting (I’m ostensive here because modern painters tend to break awayfrom this traditional aspect) is essentially pictorial—a flat surface depictingdepth, assuming no depth itself.

Like many other Monet paintings,the puzzle is such that while the viewer sees the literal surface of thepainting, there is another surface to contend with: the water. The surface ofthe water exists within Monet’s painting at an entirely different angle fromthe surface of the painting; the surfaces are neither parallel norperpendicular to one another, but rather they are somewhere in between. Exactlyhow the perspective of the painting (i.e. the literal surface of the painting)is oriented with regards to the surface of the water is difficult to say. The littlegallery note at the side of the painting (alas, I have neither a photograph nora direct quote) suggests that it is impossible to ascribe a perspective ororientation when looking at the surface of the water.

That is, unless you think aboutthe water lilies. The water lilies break up the reflective surface of the waterin the painting; without the presence of the lilies, the painting would lookabstract or, at best, an upside-down version of a colorful cloudy sky. Thelilies are the key to revealing the surface. Perhaps that’s a moronicrealization to have so late in life, but, nevertheless, the recommended methodseems to have worked out pretty well. Pick a painting, stare, and think.

2. Serious art can be funny…very funny

It might be said by some thatlooking at people looking at art presents its very own, distinct set ofartistic implications and concepts. Indeed, German photographer Thomas Struthhas capitalized on that reality, with his series of photographs of visitors tofamous galleries such as the Louvre and the Prado looking (or not looking) atpieces of famous artwork. Struth plumbs some serious questions in that seriesof photographs, implicitly addressing our assumptions about how to approachartwork and even how to envision a space for the exhibition of artwork.

In that sense, Struth’s work isnot entirely different from some of the conceptual artwork on display in MoMA.The key difference is that while Struth’s work is serious and takes itselfseriously, there is an entire world of meta-art and conceptual art that doesn’tbother with seriousness. In fact, some of these pieces seem bent on simplymaking fun of themselves and the people (like me) who bother to spend timethinking about them. In other words, they’re fun!

One of my favorite conceptualpieces was Robert Barry’s 90mc CarrierWave (FM). A (terrible) photo of the gallery note is below.

Robert Barry caption in MoMA; photo by Taylor Coe

On one hand, Barry’s goal of“[challenging] long-held assumptions about what defines a work of art and[expanding] notions of sculpture, positing that sound, like objects, can definespace” is a perfectly plausible piece of modern artwork. On the other hand,people can find this very annoying. “What’s the point?” they might ask. Thenatural reaction, coming from someone who can appreciate Barry’s challenge oftraditional assumptions about art, is humor. It’s very funny to watch peopleread this little plaque and grimace before walking off in a big huff. As Ipointed out to my unhappy mother later on, “This isn’t the kind of art you buyand install in your home.”

Another fantastic piece was LawrenceWeiner’s A 36" x 36" removal to the lathing or support wall of plaster or wallboard from awall. Weiner’s piece was exactly what the gallery note claimed it was: asquare area—36" x 36"—removed from the wall to reveal the plywoodbeneath. Weiner’s body of work, as you can probably guess, is wild. His“declaration of intent” runs as follows:

1. The artist may construct the piece.

2. The piece may be fabricated.

3. The piece need not be built.

Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist thedecision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion ofreceivership.

While some viewers might findthis clear lack of surety and total openness abrasive, I found it entirelyamusing. Weiner, in A 36" x 36" removal, among other pieces, has created art that is almostinfinitely connotative. To laugh, I now know, is not necessarily to scoff, butrather to enjoy in the process of interpretation, to grapple with these bizarrepieces and joy in their strangeness. To laugh, in other words, is not todismiss.

3. Art overload is a real thing

In the middle of trying to deconstructa Mondrian (not really—I was just sort of admiring the neat 90° angles), myhead suddenly felt cloudy and I had to turn away. All the pieces that I sawafterwards have fallen into a series of bewildered recollections. I think I sawa Man Ray or two…a Joseph Cornell piece…I had a glimpse of the Cy Twomblysculpture exhibit. However, all of it was lost on me. Too much art makes themind go weak?

So before you do multiple artmuseums in a day, maybe you should reconsider. Either that or pick ten piecesyou want to see and see ‘em. Maybe you’ll understand why Monet loves waterlilies or why Van Gogh loves sunflowers (still working on that one…is that,unbeknownst to me, somewhere on Wikipedia?).

4. Important art seems not so important in person…which isn’t ourfault?

I haven’t seen the Mona Lisa, but I’ve heard from many thatit’s an underwhelming experience. There are lots of people crowding around itand it’s hard to get any kind of good look at it…and it’s small. It’s a small painting with an oversize reputation. To besure, the case is not quite the same with Vincent Van Gogh’s The Starry Night—which is not smallexactly, at 29" x 36¼"—but there is something lackluster about seeingit.

My impulse is to point out thatI’ve seen posters that size of thepainting, probably seen posters even larger than the actual painting. But thereal takeaway came when I wandered over to Jackson Pollock’s One: Number 31, 1950. Before I had seena Pollock in person (I saw Number 2, 1949 at the Munson Williams Proctor Art Institute in Utica, NY last year),I doubted the gravity of their impact. I had heard from others how they hadbeen bowled over by these pieces.

Butthe moment I stepped in front of one of these massive pieces, I understood. They are so expansive, sogargantuan, so…wall-spanningthat you can’t even really see the entirety of one of these pieces at once.Stepping in front of One:Number 31, 1950 was markedly different from my experience in front of The Starry Night. The size of Pollock’scanvases was, in a way, a part of the modernist reaction to the smallness ofthe canvases in the painting tradition. If you haven’t seen a Pollock, then youshould.

None of this is to say thatPollock is better than Van Gogh (or even vice versa). I mean only to point out thecultural establishments that certain artworks have become; everyone in theWestern world recognizes Van Gogh’s TheStarry Night. But that status it has achieved remains somewhat independentof, say, my own viewing of the painting. A question I might pose: How could younot like The Starry Night? (More modern artists such as Pollock and Rothko makethat question problematic.)

My point is that all of us havebeen culturally trained to like the Van Gogh painting. We see the painting intextbooks and on the walls of classrooms and on the t-shirts of tourists. Thepainting is inescapable. We’ve built it up in our mind’s eye to the point thatit’s a myth of itself. It doesn’t really have a physical being any longer; itis an abstraction. Confronted with the real deal, we feel…well…shortchanged.

Saturday Songs – Nov. 19

2011-11-19T19:16:00.001-08:00

1. “On Your Porch” – The Format

Not too long ago, I stumbled uponthis song—a sad, vivid depiction of a young man’s relationship with his dyingfather. Buoyed by a mellow harmonium line and a few toned-down drum parts, thesong is largely acoustic guitar, partly strummed but mostly picked. Over thatfabric, the singer collects some haunting images: “I was on your porch / Thesmoke sank into my skin / So I came inside to be with you.”

The entire time I was listeningto this song (probably seven or eight times in a row at one point), I keptwondering: whose voice is this? The voice was unmistakably familiar. It was thesame sense of familiarity I’d had when I heard Desaparecidos’ Read Music/Speak Spanish. When I foundout that Conor Oberst was behind the raw sound of that band, I was at onceshocked and yet totally unsurprised. Although I’ve never been an Oberst junkie,I have always respected him for being able to at once turn a phrase (more likeseveral phrases) and write a melody. That fact that Desparecidos and BrightEyes were both vehicles for a versatile songwriter was no surprise.

Likewise, I wasn’t surprised tofind out that Nate Ruess was behind “On Your Porch.” For those unfamiliar withRuess, not only is the voice of the now-disbanded The Format, he’s also the voicebehind the indie band fun. (To be clear, that’s “fun.” with a lowercase f and aperiod.) In fact, fun. has previously been featured on Saturday Songs withtheir song “All The Pretty Girls.” That song, which I deemed a “maniccross-polination of Electric Light Orchestra and Queen,” could not be anyfurther away from this mournful tune. But, as is the case with Oberst, that’swhat you get with versatile songwriters.

2. “Hymn 101” – Joe Pug

I’m almost at a loss to explainwhy Joe Pug hasn’t yet made an appearance on Pueblo Waltz. Although hailingfrom Chicago, Pug sounds as if he might have walked straight out of deepestAppalachia and then taken a few shots with Townes himself. I think the obviouscomparison is to The Tallest Man On Earth, Kristian Matsson, but that would bea slight to Pug’s voice. Unlike Matsson, whose grating (if entirelyinteresting) voice has “Dylan” written all over it, Pug’s voice manages theneat feat of sounding world-weary, but never whiny.

There’s also my less explicablesense that when Matsson sings about “[holding] a pony by a flagging mane,” Ibuy the performance a few jots less than when Pug sings, “And I’ve come to meetthe sheriff and his posse / To offer him the broadside of my jaw.” As much as Ilove Matsson, he comes across as a little too precious. Pug, on the other hand,sounds like the real deal.

3. “Inní mér syngur vitleysingur”- Sigur Rós

As bad of a music critic as itmakes me sound, I will admit that I listened to Sigur Rós for the first timethis past week. As much press as they’ve gotten over the past several yearsthat I’ve been an avid reader of music criticism and journalism, you’d thinkI’ve have been at least a little curious…especiallygiven the fact that their body of work is almost entirely not English—either Icelandic orgibberish. After all, the success of non-English speaking bands in the UnitedStates is almost unheard of.

Anyways, feeling somewhat betterthan I was finally introducing myself to them, I sat down for their most recentalbum Með suð í eyrum við spilumendalaust. And I loved it. It wasbizarre and otherwordly; some songs were perfect pop songs and others weremeandering aural explorations. The sheer range of the album’s soundscapes wasstaggering.

This song was one of the songs Ilatched onto from the get-go. It’s fun—something I hadn’t expected Sigur Rós tobe. It was also one of the best pop songs I’ve heard in a long time. Everythingabout it—from the mysterious, Icelandic lyrics to the final blast of trumpetsand keyboards that closes out the song—was brilliant. Apologies, Sigur Rós,that I’ve ignored you for so long; I will visit Takk… in the near future…

4. “The Fireplace Poker” – TheDrive-By Truckers

I drop this tune into theSaturday Songs because I saw the Drive-By Truckers for the second time this year last Wednesday night. They were, of course,fantastic. In some ways, the show was an improvement on the concert over thispast summer: more Mike Cooley songs, more stage chatter out of Patterson Hood,and an encore that stretched far away from the typical three songs intoseveral.

But the highlight for me was thethird tune they played—“The Fireplace Poker”—which is off their most recentalbum Go Go Boots. The song is thestory of a small-town reverend who pays a high school buddy to murder his wifeso he can take up with another woman. For those who don’t know the song, Iwon’t spoil the story, but it should be obvious that some serious problems ensue.

Despite how many times I’dlistened to the studio version, the song assumed a new kind of life hearing itcoming directly from Hood. The song might be dark as hell, but that doesn’tmean it isn’t a fun one.

5. “Come Back Home” – MatthewMayfield

Entering into a solo career afterthe demise of his band Moses Mayfield, Mayfield pushes towards Goo Goo Dollsterritory with this album—not that it’s a bad thing. “Come Back Home” is atonce intimate and anthemic, breaking out into a giant chorus around thetwo-minute mark that you don’t see coming, especially on the tail of his warm,gruff voice. Download the entire album for free of Noisetrade below.

I want to make an offer here: ifyou have any music to suggest to me or music that you’d like me to review (keepin mind that I want to maintain the directness and critical value of my site atall costs…so don’t go submitting your own music or that of a close friend unlessyou want to risk my hearty disapproval—I am not cruel, but I am honest), then Iwould welcome the ideas and suggestions. If you think you’ve got some musicthat I would really dig, then please pass it along! You can leave a commentbelow or send me an email at tjcpoet@gmail.com.Thanks for reading!

Guest Post - Empty Distinctions: the Pernicious Sameness of Contemporary Music

2011-11-14T17:08:00.001-08:00

By Chelsea Wahl

A few weeks ago, I was in a Payless Shoe Source with myfriend Elly. A song came on that I recognized but couldn’t place. I rememberthinking, “This is really catchy. Where have I heard this before?” The answeris, likely, everywhere: the song was “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People.Since its release in September of 2010, “Pumped Up Kicks” has been featuredeverywhere from TV shows, such as GossipGirl and Entourage, to films, suchas Friends With Benefits and Fright Night. Even indie rock legendsWeezer have taken notice, covering the song at the Orange County Fair earlierthis year. And, to cap it all off, the song has topped charts in the U.S.,Canada, Australia, Belgium, Poland, and New Zealand. Not bad for a two-year-oldband with no credentials to speak of.

After listening to the song a few times, it started to sounda lot like another song I like. You know that weird cognitive trick, whenyou’re humming one song and then you start humming another? It kept happeningwith “Pumped Up Kicks” and a song called “Do What You Will” by Papercuts. Aftercomparing both songs, I was shocked at the similarities: the syncopationbetween the drums and the bass, the nearly identical fuzz in the vocals (not to mention low range vocalsin the verse and high range vocals in the chorus), and even the samethree-chord structure from verse to chorus. “Pumped Up Kicks” certainlybenefits from cleaner production, and a few handclaps, but apart from that theyare virtually indistinguishable.

Of course, the songs are not identical, for many reasons.Foster the People is signed to Startime International, a subsidiary of thecolossal Columbia Records; Papercuts are signed to Sub Pop, the indie darlingof labels. While popular on the festival circuit, Foster the People has a verymainstream following (as I said, I first heard the song at a Payless), whilePapercuts has not even debuted on a Billboard chart. The bands are just“packaged” differently, which has an indelible effect on the popularity oftheir material.

While this parallel may seem trivial, it says a lot aboutthe way we consume music. Why should one song be so much more ubiquitous thanthe other if, musically, they are so similar? Music, in its popular conception,isn’t as much about music as weclaim. A song’s popularity is dependent on the flexible preference of socialgroups (hipsters, Goths, punks, etc), the visual and verbal messages associatedwith songs themselves (music videos, lyrics), and more than anything, themarketability of the group and its musical products. If something can be marketedwell, it will be accessible to a much larger audience.

“Pumped Up Kicks” is a commercial success precisely becauseits constituent parts form a neat, consumer-friendly package. The song isstructured simply, and organized around an ascending bassline that varies onlyduring the 8-bar bridge. What could be easier to follow? The band is agenial-looking gang of twenty-somethings. They’ve got Ray-Bans, so we knowthey’re cool, but they don’t have visible tattoos or gauges in their ears, sowe know they’re not going to hurt anybody.

And while most music videos attempt to tell a story, or atleast to add some visual depth to the auditory experience, the video for“Pumped Up Kicks” tells the viewer nothing that could not be inferred just bylistening to the song. The video features the band members playing shows,driving around in a van, surfing, bopping their heads in the studio, and beingadmired by girls in midriff tops. The theme is, apparently, “These Cool GuysAre in a Band.” Plotless music videos, driven by presumably “intimate” shots ofa musician on tour, seems to be a pattern for massive chart-toppers; see JasonMraz’s “I’m Yours” for comparison.

“Do What You Will,” on the other hand, doesn’t go down quiteas easily. First off, “Do What You Will” was featured on Urban Outfitters.com,on one of the apparel site’s digital mixes. While Urban Outfitters is nothingshy of a billion dollar corporation, it markets to a very specifically alternativedemographic—it inspires the word “hipster,” in both noun and adjective form,more than probably any other singular corporate entity. That “Do What You Will”was featured on their site says a lot of about the target audience.

The video for the song centers on a bearded man, who leavesa party along with his bearded friends, and is subsequently chased around citystreets by a mysterious gaseous substance. The gas follows him to hisapartment, and soon the entire place is enveloped in a fog and the protagonistfalls to the floor. He is motionless as the gas recedes. Seriously. Whetherthis video is meant to be a kitschy horror clip or a self-referential joke, itis nearly unintelligible to the average viewer. Indeed, the top-rated usercomment for the video on Youtube states, “Indie rock beard chased by fart.Interesting concept.”

To be fair, music (contemporarily conceived) is not allabout popularity. Papercuts probably markets itself as alternativeintentionally, as a means of distinguishing itself from the seemingly endlesshorde of attention-mongering pop groups. But it speaks to our means ofcategorization that literally no band gets heard without conforming to a marketable,pre-established musical identity, as both Papercuts and Foster the People do.

It really isn’t about the music, and it hasn’t been sincethe advent of technologies like the radio—technologies that widened and alteredour understanding of music, and almost everything else. This redefinition ofmusic has been crucial to our culture: where would we be if Elvis Presley hadnever swung his hips, if The Marvelettes had never sung “Please Mr. Postman”?But as the internet increases the scope of music to an almost infinite degree,spawning new genres and new forms of musical creation all the time,generation-defining music becomes less and less likely. Already, we see thatthe musical giants of ages past (the Beatles, Michael Jackson, Queen, LedZeppelin, ABBA) have no contemporary counterparts.

This is why the musical similarities between “Pumped Up Kicks”and “Do What You Will” are so disturbing to me. The endless stream of internetsensations and college radio station hits has dulled our musical taste buds,and now nothing tastes quite as fresh. The only thing to separate one act fromanother is now the consumer package in which it is presented, because one couldnever actually listen to enough songsto form a truly educated opinion about musical forms today. This scares me alittle, and maybe it should scare you too.

Saturday Songs – Nov. 12

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1. “Once I Was A Bird” – LaurenShera

This song seemed somewhat of aretread through familiar singer-songwriter territory until I reached thechorus. The chorus, with the introduction of strings and a beautiful vocalharmony, elevates the song right out of banal, repetitivesinger-songwriter-land in a flash. It’s not a particularly polished metaphorthat Shera is working with, but the image of a bird meeting the sky has animmediate resonance.

It was only after a few listensthat Shera’s song really jumps out at me. There were elements that I hadn’tnoticed the first time around, especially Shera’s delicate elocution, which isnever pushy with the words she sings, but playful as well as the throaty warblethat ducks in and out of her phrasing, coming across…well…as a frightened bird.

You can’t download this song for free, but you can find Shera’s song “Endless Love” for free on herwebsite here!

2. “Kingdom Of Your Own” –Matthew and the Atlas

A band that I imagine willshortly emerge out from under the giant shadow that Mumford and Sons casts onthe English folk music scene, Matthew and the Atlas have a sound that effectivelycombines the ecstasy of a Mumford song such as “Little Lion Man” and aworn-down melancholy. Lead singer and songwriter Matthew Hegarty’s gritty,bluesy voice certainly helps carry that melancholic atmosphere.

3. “If I Had A Gun…” – NoelGallagher’s High Flying Birds

I don’t think anyone reallyexpected that the quality of Noel Gallagher’s songwriting would substantiallydecline as he departed Oasis and moved on to his solo work. While brother Liam isstill a better singer, there’s something to be said for Noel’s singing chops;he doesn’t have the versatility of his brother nor does he have the edge ofvitriol in his voice that made Liam so popular, but he’s still got a voice.

One of the singles off the debutalbum by Noel’s solo project band, “If I Had A Gun…” has remnants of theclassic Oasis sound, but I think it ventures into some interesting, newterritory for Noel. The creepy and obsessive undertones in this seeming lovesong elevate it out of Noel’s former Oasis songwriting.

4. “Alta Suciedad” – AndrésCalamaro

Continuing my explorations intothe wide world of Spanish music, this past week I encountered Andrés Calamaro.Calamaro has been cited by some as the “Bob Dylan” of Argentina, which seems atleast somewhat inaccurate judging by the heavy-metal crunch of this song, whichis derived more out of Black Sabbath and Metallica than to Dylan.

Granted, I’m not exactly theright person to ask, with my years of learning Spanish a bit behind me, but“Alta Suciedad” doesn’t really strike me as Dylanesque in its lyrical content.Any Spanish speakers out there are free to judge for themselves!

5. “The World Will Move Along” – EvanMcHugh

The World Will Move Along by Evan McHugh

A Nashville-basedsinger-songwriter, McHugh distinguishes himself through his excellentconstruction of pop songs. The tunes on his album The World Will Move Along all demonstrate that craft, but the titlesong is an especially good example. With a voice that looks to fellow Nashvillesongwriter David Mead, McHugh’s delicate vocals are the best part of this song.You can download McHugh’s entire album for free below off Noisetrade.

Barthes, the Curse of Exercise, and the iPod's Power

2011-11-10T13:56:00.001-08:00

Because I am the consummate nerd,sometimes I like to imagine that I am Roland Barthes and think about culture interms of Barthean “myths.” The Barthean notion of “myth”—drawn out of Ferdinand de Saussure’s system of signs (signifier/signified/referent)—is such that“signs” in the Saussurean system are elevated to a second level, in whichsigns end up becoming signifiers for larger cultural notions. While you might be thinking that thissounds somewhat too theoretical to be fun, Barthes's treatment of semiotics in his collection of articles Mythologies is both fascinating and funny.

For example, one of the culturalmyths explored by Barthes in the book is that of “red wine” in France. Movingpast the nature of the word as a Saussurean sign, Barthes discusses how wine existsin French culture, particularly in terms of how wine functions as an equalizerfor the proletariat—citing how “wine will deliver [the bourgeoisie] from myths,will remove some of his intellectualism, will make him the equal of theproletarian” (Barthes 58-59). On one level, the notion is somewhat absurd (do the French really conceive of red wine as such?), but on a structural level, the claims he makes have a fascinating resonance with one another.

So while I cannot claim to makequite such elaborately staged arguments as Barthes in Mythologies (he does,after all, have this entire system of cultural semiotics behind each strangeargument in the collection) as I’m going about my day, I do have somethoughts that aren’t so far from Barthes’s notion of red wine

One Barthean thought that I havefairly frequently is regarding the gym. I find the modern, American gym a riveting space, whose inhabitants operate between the polar principles of necessity and aversion. The gym demonstrates to me that physical exercise, in our society, no longer centers on pleasure; the pleasure that people now associate withthe gym is the pleasure of having gotten something out of the way, of havingcrossed that "work-out" line off their to-do list. Exercise has become somewhat of ascourge; exercise is what everyone mustdo and what no one wants to do. This, in fact,is similar to how I talk about exercise and, I suspect, not so far from how you talk about it yourself.

But what does this have to do withan arts blog?

The answer to that liesin how people mediate between those two opposing notions of necessity and aversion, how people inject pleasure back into the act of exercise. This new thought, while less Bartean, seems to me no less intriguing. Confrontedwith something that they would rather avoid but cannot, people do what theyhave always done: distract themselves.

When I do go to the gym, which is lessoften than I’d like (see above paragraph), I witness a swarm of people withear-buds plugged into everything from iPods and other .mp3 players to the smalltelevision screens on treadmills and ellipticals. There are others who bring booksor other reading materials to peruse as they dotheir half-hour on the stationary bike. There are even people who do more thanone of these things at a time; I have seen people on ellipticals with a iPad“open” to a book while listening to music and even occasionally glancing up to thebank of televisions hanging over the fitness area.

I would offer that there are two problemshere. The first one strikes me as the more Barthean claim; these practices ofdistraction only contribute to the general malaise that has fallen upon modernnotions of physical exercise. These modes ofdistraction—what seem like solutions to the problem of evading exercise—end upbeing more like an exacerbation of the problematic nature of exercise.

The other problem, far morepressing in terms of this blog, is that of what happens to those artistic formswe digest while we are running or biking or elliptical-izing. Let's look at reading: do we really think we’re “getting” the materialwe read while simultaneously pumping out legs back and forth or in or out orwhatever? However, it’s a fairly smallpercentage of gym-goers who turn to reading for entertainment. The bulk ofdistraction is, without a doubt, manifested in the presence of .mp3 players and television.

To be honest, I don’t care muchfor how television programs are transformed by their being watched in a gymsetting. Television, in my mind, is a medium that (mostly) doesn’t demand fullattention from its audience. There is a core of primetime programming thatreally asks its audience to sit down and pay attention, but there is also an entireuniverse of television that asks for only a modicum of thought. In my collegegym, the television programs shift between sports, news, andreality television. Only occasionally are there films or formal televisionsseries.

Like I said, most televisionprograms don’t demand the full attention of their audience; news and sportsprograms are structured with exactly that in mind. These programs don’t provide the kind ofin-depth reporting you'd find in a print or online setting nor do they beg for a “complete” viewing. Organized into a series ofsegments, which are even further broken up by commercials, news and sportstelevision shows clearly don’t really pine for attention. As for reality shows…well…I won’teven go there.

Music, it turns out, is my realconcern. What happens to music when we listen to it in a gym setting—not simplyfor the sake of the music itself, but out of some half-baked notion of spicingup our exercise routine and making it, in some sense, “bearable”? The music,obviously, changes. Becoming a crutch for another activity, music is subsumedinto a category of "audience interaction" in which music functions less like an activity in and of itself and more like a distraction from another, entirely separate activity. [By no means do I mean torefute the notion of art as a distraction from the emptiness and nihilism ofthe universe, for there is some validity to that claim, but rather I want to point out that we’re not talking aboutdistraction from life, we’re talkingabout distraction from exercise. That’s a pretty severe distinction.]

If it sounds like I’m one ofthose people who has never been on a run with music, that’s almost true. I’venever really taken to running with an iPod or listening to one while exercising in thegym…and that’s not for lack of trying. Indeed, there have been severalinstances over the years when I thought to myself, “Hey! That whole music-thingwhile working out would be a great idea!”But that’s never really the way that it turned out for me: the ear-buds were alwaysfalling out…my iPod would die halfway through the run…I would end up breathingto the beat of the song (not a good thing!)…in other words, there were just issues with the practice.

So, now that you know of my failed attempts, youmight read me as a failed music-listener, a kind of patheticpariah now stuck decrying a practice that never accommodated itself to him, butnevertheless seems to “work” for everyone else.

But does that mean that what I’vepointed out about music should lie by the wayside? I think, regardless of mystance on music, that there’s an issue with how readily we employ music as adistraction from something we’re convinced is necessary but not fun. But while I’m temptedto take an opinionated stance on all this, it would feel self-contradictory.I must admit that if I could somehow get used to listening to music during my workout, then I would probablyfall in with everyone else.

Thinking over this post, I see that it clearly looks back tomy post about the legacy of Steve Jobs in terms of how he affected our culturalconceptualization of music; this notion of music as distraction in the gym isonly a new manifestation of that new cultural role music plays. So maybe it’snot so much good or bad—as I’m tempted to think—but rather just different.

Saturday Songs – Nov. 5

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1. “Ofrenda” – Pedro Guerra

Spotify, as I’ve raved to quite afew people in the past weeks, is not just an easy source of streaming music,but it is also a world-wide playground of music that had never been open to mebefore. I’ve listened to albums that escaped me in past years and I’ve foundnew artists with such ease that I’m almost frightenedby the sheer bulk of unlistened to (for me, that is) music out there in theworld.

In particular, one area of music thathas opened itself up to me through Spotify is that of Latino and Spanishmusic—particularly music coming from Spain. I’ve had somewhat limited contactwith Spanish-language music, something that is doubtlessly evident to anyonewho read my “Canciones de Sábado” earlier this year. But now, with Spotifyleading the charge for me, I feel somewhat more territorial aboutSpanish-language music.

One of my recent finds is theartist Pedro Guerra, who, while new to me, seems to be quite a big deal on theother side of the Atlantic. One of his songs that really caught my ear is“Ofrenda” off Guerra’s 2001 album of the same name. The song, filled withpunchy horns and a fantastic guitar part, is a beautiful plea asking for alover to return. The song ends with the repeated line: “para que vuelvas” (so that you return).

2. “Oh Yoko!” – John Lennon

One of those songs that took me alongtime to warm up to, Lennon’s love song for Yoko Ono strikes me as funnyin that while I have somewhat of a grudge against Ono (partly for pulling Johnaway from the Beatles, partly for her bizarre contributions to cinema), thereis still something warm and fuzzy and wonderful about the song that I can’tignore. This country-shuffle-of-a-song is simple and happy and that’s aboutenough for me.

3. “Fuck This Place” – FrightenedRabbit

In a wonderful twist of fate(thanks to my girlfriend Kayla’s helpful contribution), my free offering thisweek is from one of my favorite bands, Frightened Rabbit. The three-song EP includesall new songs: two well-planned duets, “Fuck This Place” and “The Work,” aswell as “Scottish Winds,” a cathartic ode to Scotland.

While all three songs are great,I’m particularly fond of “Fuck This Place,” a duet with Tracyanne Campbell, thelead singer of the Scottish band Camera Obscura. Campbell’s presence not onlyadds some stature to the song (Frightened Rabbit lead singer Scott Hutchinsonwas apparently flabbergasted that she wanted to record the song with them), butit adds a happy new texture to Frightened Rabbits gruff, extraordinarily male repertoire.

I also recommend checking out theother duet on the EP as well, which features legendary Scottish folk singerArchie Fisher (who penned one of my favorite songs, “Dark Eyed Molly”). You candownload the entire EP here.

4. “49:00” – Paul Westerberg

In my two-part discussion oftrack listing this past week, I used Westerberg’s single-track album as anexample and inadvertently fell in love with it. The album (or track?!) is aroughshod, nostalgic trip through Westerberg’s basement recording studio,revisiting the ramshackle sound of The Replacements at their messy best and atthe same time leaning on Westerberg’s careful pop songwriting. The secret ofthe album, I think, is that it sounds both breathless—almost nervously throwntogether at the last minute—and self-consciously clever—jumping out of one songand into another, briefly citing famous rock songs, sending up the musicindustry. It’s a kind of joyous ride. I can’t really offer you a full listen ordirect you to a place to buy it (it’s not being sold anywhere anymore), but I assure you there are ways… (takethat as a hint, not a directive…)

5. “Hangin’ Your Life On TheWall” – Guy Clark (and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott)

http://www.last.fm/affiliate/byid/9/7687888/6/trackpage/1281548363

Off of Clark’s classic 1995 albumDublin Blues (which also features thetitle track “Dublin Blues,” which counts as one of those songs that has made mecry), this tune is typical Clark: carefully constructed and nostalgic, sad, andfunny all at the same time. There is a delicacy to his songs that you don’thear in the country blues that Clark mostly plugs his lyrics into. This song, aduet with fellow country legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, is a laughable ode toold people not throwing out the towel and “hangin’ their life on the wall.”

A Discussion Of Track Listing (II)

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The Internet has created anessential polarity in how musicians play with track listing—pulled back andforth between the choices made by musical acts such as Coldplay and PaulWesterberg.

If you missed the first part (itis right below or to your right, so you can read it), I began with thetentative case studies of Coldplay’s MyloXyloto and Westerberg’s 49:00 asalbums that represent opposite ends of how artists are choosing to deal withtrack listing in the past couple years. I’ll start by looking at Westerberg’sapproach because it’s certainly the more extreme of the two cases.

Westerberg, for those who areunfamiliar with his work, was the lead singer and songwriter for theMinneapolis-based alternative/punk band The Replacements through 1991 when hebroke up the band to pursue a solo career. That solo career has been spotty,but not without its highlights—including two songs on the soundtrack of CameronCrowe’s film Singles as well as ahost of well-reviewed albums (though nothing in his solo ouerve has been quiteas well received as the classic Replacements albums). Westerberg has, in recentyears, journeyed further and further away from the music industry, not onlyrecording albums in his own basement, but eventually releasing them on theInternet more or less as according to him whim.

[My discovery of this YouTube video is fascinating, because any YouTubeuser/viewer is confronted immediately by the reality of the "tracked" version of the album—one would not be able to listen only to "Terri" in the case of Westerberg's album without some serious iTunes / music player fiddling.]

Westerberg’s DIY impulses reacheda climax with 2008’s 49:00—releasedwithout (much of) a title, any track listing or liner notes, cover art, andavailable only for download onAmazon.com for the mere trifle of $0.49. (Get it? $0.49 for 49.00!) The most striking part about therelease, however, was not its lack of presentation—many people download musicthese days and couldn’t care less about album art or liner notes—but rather thestark reality of a single .mp3 file without even any easily divisible “tracks.”There are certainly songs on the album that might be easily excised as singletracks given some fun time in a sound-editing program, but there are othertracks that blend together and tracks that interrupt other tracks.

While there’s lots to be saidabout the fascinating nature of the album and how it plays into Westerberg’sostensible ideas about rock music and recordings, the takeaway point in thisdiscussion centers on how the album celebrates the idea of “album” rather than“song” or “track.” In the case of 49:00,the division of the album into separate audio tracks would probably have leftmany of the pieces feeling disjointed as well as simply superfluous. Thetwenty-second songs thrown into the mix of 49:00would have certainly been scrapped in putting together a traditional album. But,with the single audio file, all the random musical ideas presented byWesterberg are perceived as part of a larger whole rather than as individualfiles that can simply be deleted (quite literally…I have deleted some of those“inter-tracks” myself).

But what happens when we have allthose “inter-tracks” or—to be blunt—a more segmented listening experience? Thereality, of course, is that given choice, people will choose. In discussing Mylo Xyloto with my friend Chelsea, Icame to the odd conclusion that, for some reason, I appreciated how Coldplaywent ahead and divided up into separate tracks songs that might have clung togetheras in a Viva La Vida-style track suchas the quite-obviously-double-song “Lovers In Japan / Reign Of Love”—looking inparticular at the pairing of “A Hopeful Transmission” and “Don’t Let It BreakYour Heart.”

My appreciation stemmed from thefact that I might play “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart” without sitting through the introductory 33-second bit of “AHopeful Transmission.” Perhaps that sounds like a silly reason for liking an album, but my gut reactionreally was a singular admiration for that willingness to chop up a song intoits separate parts and sell them that way. The reality of iTunes and otherdigital music stores is, indeed, that a shorter “Don’t Let It Break Your Heart”without the instrumental lead-in willsell better than the alternate longer one.

But my admiration for that movehas slowly soured. After a few listens through Paul Westerberg’s bizarrely-constructedalbum, I’ve come to a new appreciation of the open-ended album (or track)listen that hasn’t been effectively marketed out into its solid pieces. Andthat’s not to say that I am making a blanket statement about marketing andselling music for financial gain. Rather, it’s to say that I’ve gained a newappreciation for the intrinsic value of a track or an album. The cohesion of“Lovers In Japan / Reign Of Love” strikes me as somewhat unnecessary, but thecohesion of a song such as Frightened Rabbit’s “Skip The Youth,” off theiralbum The Winter Of Mixed Drinks,strikes me as central and important.

In an interview (that I nowcannot find—but I swear I read it and it is real!), Frightened Rabbit’s leadsinger Scott Hutchison was asked why the band felt compelled to add the openingsection and whether they ever considered leaving it out. Hutchison—or at leastthis was how the interview transcript conveyed it—reacted in a really negativefashion to the question, seemingly upset at the suggestion that the openingsection could have ever been left out of the final song. In Hutchison’s view, thesong presents the listener with three distinct parts—it doesn’t, I think, favorone part over any other. Thanks to that understanding of the song, all partswere set together as a single track, rather than split apart.

In no way do I wish to suggestthat Westerberg’s track listing model is the best one (or even a very good onefor most artists…though it works for Westerberg), but I want to rather implodethe notion that track divisions are a necessary thing. I myself confessedearlier to the unreasonable joy that Coldplay had it in them to separate “MyloXyloto” from “Hurts Like Heaven;” that, of course, is an initial reaction andsubject to reflection and change. For those out there who consider the divisionof songs as a sacrosanct notion, I think they ought to reflect a little on thatidea…imagine dividing up “Stairway To Heaven” into three parts… (For thoseinclined to “hear” such a version of the song, I suggest dividing around 4:20and then around 5:34.) Or, for that matter, imagine the first part of Derek& the Dominos “Layla” divided from the second part…where is the balance inthat?