Some Words

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.

Looks like a little bit of data was lost from the DB, I’m reposting this one, but the post on the horrors of spoiled fish sauce will be consigned to oblivion, no one really needs that.

Why is it that Hot Chip is so much better live than on their albums. I mean, I expect people to be good live acts, but the mix is always better too. Maybe they’re a little more sloppy, but the album cuts are often just slightly… hollow sounding.

I mean, sure it makes me want to see the show, and I’m not nuts about the guitar solo, but come on… That’s a pretty big difference.

I have at times wondered what old pulp fiction would sound like if it was sung.

And in the very near future… less video posts.

While discussing acts to see at SXSW with my brother (who got to see Why? twice, the bum), this song came up. It has been stuck in my head since.

I tend to ignore Pitchfork for long periods of time. I feel justified in this by noting that they’ve got Scarlett Johansson’s upcoming album track list as a top article right now. I’m sorry, but no. It’s mostly Tom Waits covers, and even if the man himself approved, I just don’t want to go near that.

Anyhow, knowing that, it’s not so surprising that I sometimes miss bands they cover. This is bad as often as it’s good. A case of the bad would be my missing Rock Plaza Central for as long as I have.

New Radiohead, New Radiohead, New Motherfucking Radiohead!

10/10/07

I have been waiting for these guys to come out and show everyone how it’s done again. Now they have it out on the 10th for download, with a goodies box that you can buy as well. What’s more, if you just get the digital version, with no goodies box (which has more music, and some vinyl and stuff), you pay what you think it’s worth. Fantastic!

It’s not a business model that would work for every band, but I think Radiohead might even come out ahead on this, or maybe I’m just going to pay too much.

In honor of this, my work monitor’s video cable has gone wonky, tinting the my computer world a sickly blue.

Who comes to Minneapolis next week? The National

For a while I thought that I would listen their new album, “Boxer,” into the ground. It hasn’t happened yet.

A couple of videos:

The second one is of them on Letterman, which turns out to be a surprisingly good performance for a Late Show gig.

By all rights, the half spoken not really singing thing shouldn’t work, especially when they throw in background vocals. Maybe what I like is that this makes it very singable for guys like me, with little discernible vocal talent.

So, there’s a song, I don’t know if I like it. I really don’t. I must have listened to it 30 times in the past week, and I still don’t know. I bounce around to it while it’s playing. But even as I do, I’m trying to make out the lyrics, and thinking, “These are really annoying vocals.” No, wait, it’s great. Just a ton of energy. I like that.

That’s an incomplete video, the actual chart goes on another three minutes. Youtube doesn’t have it though. The full video is on the Pitchfork “forkcast.”

Battles has Ian Williams, formerly of Don Caballero, and John Stanier, on of the many former members of Helmet. The vocalist is Anthony Braxton’s son. That’s a recipe for something interesting, if nothing else. Their first full album came out last month, despite what the Youtube caption says. I’m just going to link the damn Wikipedia page. If “math rock” became the new pop (exceedingly unlikely) I would be so very happy.

They’re in Minneapolis on the 13th of next month, at the Triple Rock. If they put out half the energy live that they do in that video, it should be a good show.

Yesterday, sitting in my coffee shop, I got a weird feeling. It was like I’d traveled back in time, and was 13 again. It was 1994, and somehow everything rocked but I hated it anyway. Then I realized that the barista had put the new Dinosaur Jr album on. I felt a sudden urge to buy a guitar and form a band again.

It is, for the record, a really fun album. This all makes it sound like a simple nostalgia trip. I think it’s more than that, though nostalgia played a part.

So, I bought an iPod shuffle the other day. The dawning realization that I did not need to carry 80 gigs of music with me (I had told myself that I was holding out for an 80 gig hd on one of them) was the motivating factor. The shuffle is tiny, holds a gig, which for me is roughly 14-15 hours, and runs for 12 hours or so before needing a charge.

Recently I’ve been feeling that a lot of the choice that modern society offers actually complicates things. If I have all of my music available to me at one time, I’m not going to be able to decide. I know myself. I am also likely to spend a lot of time listening to the same small sample of music that I fall back on from time to time. The shuffle actually makes me choose to walk out on to the street with music that I might not feel like listening to when it comes up, and it doesn’t have a screen, which makes changing tracks cumbersome.

I decided that I like that.

I’ve spent a while with it now, and I’m liking my music collection more. After I ditched the random loading, I put fifteen albums I wanted to get to know better on it. Then I listened to them. I didn’t skip. I actually paid attention to the music again. It was not the way I’ve been listening to music for a few years now, and it was good.

Which is all beside the point. Here’s what it comes down to when I think about it now. The Shuffle, with 1 gig, costs $80. The iPod Video, with 80 gigs, costs $350. Unless your musical listening experience is almost solely defined by a need for instant gratification, it’s $270 more, for utility that you probably won’t use.

It was one of those moments where I got a little angry with myself for not feeling that way from the start.

Just a quick little software plug here. The other day I downloaded this program called Peel. What it does is it takes the mp3s posted on people’s blogs and lines them up in a row for you, a musical feed reader. So, basically it takes the frustrating part out of mp3 blogs. It’s free for the moment, though it looks like one day it will be pay. Anyhow, it’s got an iTunesish interface, and feels nice.