Some Words

It’s been a while, and I’m going to start things off slow, though there are several things I hope to get to.

Starting off slow means this video, which is of Lissie recording Little Lovin. The song pulls off the neat trick of sounding like something I’ve heard before, even on the first listen. I’m still not sure it isn’t a cover, but my cursory search revealed nothing. Cover or not, it’s good.

I’ll never be on KEXP, so who am I to talk, but “Mind Idea” has to be about the dumbest song title/opening lyric I’ve ever heard in the entirety of my life. I mean, I’ve listened to, and liked, some crap over the years. But I was unable to keep from laughing when The Current Song of the Day served up this track. He’s a little more mellow in the youtube video. If you hear the studio version it sounds like he’s thinking “I am the Sartre of indie rock” as he belts out “Mind IDEA!” The rest of his stuff stuff seems, you know, okay. But that opening lyric is like starting a first date by opening the door and earnestly telling a girl: “I’m a very deep guy. I don’t mean that ironically. I’m just really like, deep and existential n’shit.” Once you’ve gone there, it’s just not going to happen.

When I hear the studio version of this I hear echos of Bowie, when Pitchfork listens, they hear Motown.

I can’t say that I’m with them on that.

For a day now I’ve been singing bits of this song everywhere I go.

I’m not even sure I like it. There isn’t much of a payoff for me. I’ve always had a weird feeling with Animal Collective. I like bits of their songs, but sometimes they drag a little too much for me. Also sometimes they carry nonsense lyrics to a point I had not even considered possible. I can’t decide if I like that or not either. This song actually makes sense all the way through, but when he sings “I just want: four walls and adobe slabs, for my girls,” I crack up.

Edit: Also, I cannot help thinking of H.P. Lovecraft while watching this video.

A while back this song came up on The Current and I couldn’t help nodding along. I’m a sucker for a certain kind of guitar lick, it’s true.

The future, now with violent centaurs.

I should have known that I had set the expectations too high for Middle Cyclone, the new album by Neko Case. It’s not that it’s bad, it’s very good. It’s just not as good as Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. That’s okay though, as Fox Confessor was one of my favorite albums in I don’t know how long. I lost count long ago how many times I’ve listened to it. It was the only CD in my car for months. So, in light of that, Middle Cyclone is doing very well indeed simply by not frustrating me. Still, I did have this foolish hope that she would rise to the level of ‘almost perfect album’ again. Alas, it was not to be, and very good was all I got. I feel spoiled.

A while back, Minnesota Public Radio created The Current, for which I have found no local replacement in Portland, and which I listen to by streaming audio fairly often. They also have a song of the day podcast, which I subscribe to. The other day I had the excitement of seeing my brother’s band as the song of the day, for the 23rd. It was a nice feeling.

Today’s song of the day got me thinking about one of the tiny sins of songwriting. I had thought of it as an 80s sin until I heard this song. The song is Evident Utensil by Chairlift, and it’s a generally solid song. I’d link a youtube video, but the studio version has been removed for terms of use violation, and that’s the version that I heard. It has background vocals in that weird half singing/half chanting way. Like Right Said Fred is doing the background vocals for this entire class of 80s songs, and Chairlift just said, “Hey, I’ve always liked Right Said Fred, let’s throw some business his way.” In this song, as in many others, its used to echo the lyrics directly.

Does anyone else notice this type of background? Does it drive everyone else nuts? I don’t know that I’d run out to buy Chairlift’s album, but the little background vocal didn’t do it for me, and kinda spoiled the whole song.

Portland has finally managed to live up to my preconceptions of it, with a couple of icky rain days washing away the snow that I missed (replaced by the snow in Iowa and Michigan, which was more significant anyway) when I was away.

I found myself listening to Famous Blue Raincoat by Leonard Cohen:

This in turn got me thinking of the Tori Amos cover of same. I hadn’t listened to Amos in a while, and so I checked it out on Youtube, and was surprised by how much she seemed to be mugging to the crowd as she played. I don’t recall interpreting it this way when I last saw her, which was years ago, and the video I was watching was from last year. Have I just grown up since last I saw her in concert? Quite possibly. I’ve never been sure just how much of the “shock” factor of her songs was a part of my fandom. I still like many of the songs, but I seem to have over listened to many of them, requiring my to step away for periods of time or risk having them get annoying. I was shocked when this happened to Jeff Buckley, who I had thought could never get stale. All of this and Rain Dogs never seems to suffer the same fate.

Also, a brief note bringing it back to Cohen. Looking at the Wikipedia entry on FBR, it appears to be getting more popular to cover it. I can’t say that’s what I would have expected. Roughly half of the covers appear to be post 2000.

One of things that I most wish about our culture was that we had a greater range of shared verbal reference. No, check that, let’s be more honest, I wish people shared my verbal references more. That’s about it. I remember studying the Tale of Genji in college and loving the way the characters could all refer to known poetry in order to express the similarities of situations.

As I was thinking about how the name of a song by Why? “these few presidents” would be a great one to be able to reference at certain times. That in turn got me thinking about the content of the song. I tend to pick up on different parts of his songs at different times, but this time I found myself thinking about the whole song, and how it was very similar in content to a Robert Browning poem, maybe most like “Porphyria’s Lover,” but Browning was hardly short of poems about murdering your significant other.

This is a band that I’ve sort of flirted on the edge of knowing for a while. I’d hear there music in various places and nod along for a bit and then move on. So, as usual, I’m late to the party. But they were on Morning Becomes Eclectic a little over a month ago and I was listening to the podcast, when this song grabbed me.

“Dorothy Parker Blue” by The Real Tuesday Weld

I may have to scrape a little grad school cash together on this one.

Slowly, slowly the email is catching up and the big project is getting finished. This is not at the rate that I hoped, but it is happening.

Shudder to Think is back on tour soon. This makes me unbelievably happy. I still remember staying up late one night in 1995, watching MTV, back when it seemed to have some semblance of relevance. (Isn’t it nice that it doesn’t anymore?) These weird guys came on the screen, there was jarring crunchy guitar, and I was hooked. The lead singer had this strange creepy voice and the video involved elevators and a weird basement scene. I was never able to explain to others what I loved, loved so much, about this band. Lacking the ability to attach any tangible explanation to it, I just assumed that they would take over the world eventually. Needless to say, that never happened. But I never stopped loving them. Pony Express Record remains one of my favorite albums, and one that is directly responsible for my love of rock.

Then the band broke up, and while I thought the stuff they did afterward as solo acts was ok, the big creepy magic and edge were gone. It felt a little too friendly, a little too bedroom or sitting at your breakfast table the next day over a cup of coffee. These guys had a video banned for “unnecessary cannibalism” and even their love songs were creepy. I missed that. I still got the new stuff, but I missed the band that thought re-envisioning the Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “So Into You” as a slow almost violent creeper was a good idea.

Later, STT became like a handshake for me. When someone started talking about 90s rock, we would sound each other out for a while, and then I would drop STT as a reference point. If they got a big grin on their face, I knew we would get along musically. Of course this didn’t happen very often, but STT fanhood always felt like being in on a very special secret, that came with decoder rings. You have a decoder ring, right?

And now I might be able to see them, which I never did get to do while they were together, living as I did in tiny town. What’s more, that video, the one that hypnotized me at the age of 14, is now on Youtube.

New album please guys and come to Portland. Please please please come to Portland.

Tomorrow I head to Portland, hopefully to find an apartment, and a place that sells Lemon Hart demerara rum. While there, I’m going to get to see Dosh and Anathallo at the Doug Fir Lounge. Dosh is on tour with Michael Lewis and from what my brother tells me, they’ve been turning in some awesome sets. Until Dosh, I had only really seen Lewis working with Happy Apple. Indeed, it had been long enough since I had seen Happy Apple that I had forgotten how amazing the man was. Watch him stretch his multi-instrumental chops:

Now, check them out if you get the chance.