Hicksville

This took me back.

This took me aback.

Last post I wrote about how I've (somehow) started enjoying the process of mowing my lawn. Yes, yes - domestication and all that. I don't care. I like me. Moving on. In that piece I mentioned how I no longer listen to music when I do any kind of chores by myself. When it's my better half tackling something with me, we're all about some odd-ball jams. When I'm operating as el lobo solo, though, I'm almost always listening to podcasts or comedy albums. I like the idea of POTENTIALLY bettering myself, either through some sort of instructed or guided dawning moment of insight. Otherwise, to quote Anthony Jeselnik "Life is full of horrible things that will eventually get you and everything you care about. Laughter is a universal way to lift your head up and say 'Not today, you bastards.'"

So.

I made my way through most of my comedy albums over the summer. By the end I had made my way to something I had been putting off. Someone who is known in smaller circles, one of those comedians who gets a lot of praise but never popped like others of his era. Bill Hicks.

My roommate in college did me a life changing favor in introducing me to Bill Hicks. I had never heard such acerbic  intelligent breakdowns on the subtle miseries of life. We bonded over the absurd bits on hooligans in light of American gangs, the heady stuff about LSD on the nightly news and nodded along about the never-ending threat of the world ending. It was a complete game changer for how we interpolated the world around us. We consumed all of Hicks we could and moved on with our lives. Like most things you're enamored with, though, you obsess over it for a while and then just carry it with you. 

I hadn't listened to much of anything by Hicks in the last eight years. So on one of my recent days spent doing yard work I listened to a couple of his seminal works. I weeded, picked up compost, mowed and trimmed, my head cocked the whole time as I digested what I was hearing with a fresh set of ears.

It was...not...as awesome as I had remembered.

Maybe I've softened in the last decade or so. Maybe I'm (somehow, despite what I say) less cynical. Maybe I just bottle it up more. Whatever changed in me, I was struck by how it didn't hold up and how little I enjoyed it. To clarify, I certainly enjoyed choice bits, but more for the wit and less for the bite now. 'Changing the world' seems flatly impossible now. To listen to some grand proclamations to which I used to nod feverishly, I winced and shook my head. It was grating. It was dismissive and vitriolic. A surprising amount of it was straight up homophobic, which was really surprising. 

Listening to Bill Hicks after being introduced to it almost a decade ago, I was struck mostly at how I had changed, as well as how his material ages in light of his reputation. Was a genius? No. But he was insightful and incredibly ahead of the curve. He cut a (very premature) path in the world for others to slip into. But the murmurs you hear about his reputation being better than his material are not entirely unfounded. Kind of a bummer, of course, but also enlightening as to how I've grown and changed in this short span of time.

I'm not saying you should never listen to his material. I'm saying I heard it for the first time in the right place and mindset. You should absolutely hear some of it. There are some real gems in it. Just dig in for yourself and remember it's just a ride. 

Shot

Aw man.


It's always hard to go from vacation mode to work mode. Being a Midwesterner, it was a shock to my system to see so much sun during December, even if it was barely a week. Getting up and going in the total dark, only to return home in said dark, is a wearing task. It forces you to look for solace and comfort in the sunny, exuberant things you wouldn't normally turn to. 

For me, there was relief in digging out an old standard from the oddball days of the alternative 90s. Blasting 'Cannonball' by The Breeders gave me an awesome distraction from the bleak, oppressive and never ending darkness. Also, it's a punchy pop song that may have been cutting edge 20 years ago. Now it just seems like a bit of hipster power-pop. Curse you, ravages of time! 

Screw it. For a year now, I've been realizing, bit by bit, that I have an extreme fondness for all things early 90s. Some of it is so widespread and general that it becomes too hard to connect the dots. Other times, there is a distinct pattern that emerges. I feel like this song, with the loopy bass and clean guitar lick that builds to a wall of distortion, is right in that wheelhouse of songs that stand out as codifiers of the period. All the more amazing is that fact that this legend of alt rock was (at a time) comprised of former Pixie Kim Deal and her sister Kelley. It seems like it wouldn't be fair or possible for someone to make more excellent music after being in such an influential band as The Pixies. We got lucky, apparently.

Look, you think 90s alt rock, you think this song. Probably some Doc Martens in there, and a wacky montage of Gen X-ers painting the camera and doing wacky, ironic things. Sort of a genetic precursor to hipsters. Fitting, then, that this fantastic song would fit in so well in a similarly jaded playlist. Who cares, I love it. Gets me through a dark night to the weekend on the other side.

Home Again

Kevin Mcallister must have been an anti-social nerd.


I realize that this stance on Home Alone sounds harsh, but hear me out. As is the annual tradition, we were watching the 21 year old movie tonight when I noticed a trend in the movie that hadn't picked up on before. You see Kevin building all of his gadgets and traps and have him talking about making ornaments with the forbidden glue gun and his dads new fish hooks.


This all makes for fitting foreshadowing to the madness that follows in the second half of the movie, but it also shows his ingenuity in Macgayver-ing his schemes. The whole thing with the mannequins as a faux party to throw the set bandits off his scent? Inspired stuff, I wouldn't have thought about that now, let alone at eight years old. So his gearhead/crafty nerd side is firmly in place.


But here's the other thing - I don't think Kevin has any friends. Not once in the three day ordeal does he think to call a friend. I'm not saying I'm throwing a ripper the minute my family disappears (actually, I did do that in high school...once) but never in his folly did he think about calling a buddy? Sure, everybody in the immediate neighborhood was out but that doesn't mean Chicago was empty. Furthermore, are there no Jews in Chicago? Not everyone is tied down for the holiday. So no friends came over, not even the kid from across the street, the talky one whose fault it was anyway.


Poor, misunderstood Kevin Mcallister. No friends and a nerdy passion for building contraptions and booby traps. He endured his darkest hour, a Twilight Zone scenario that saw him unleashing his crafty talent to save his own life. The Looney Tunes action turned dark at the last minute, with Joe Pesci threatening to bite of Kevin's fingers. Yeah, it got kind of weird there as the Wet Bandits hit the end of their rope.


They never stood a chance against that adorable little nerd, though.

Vacation

Did you guys know Juliette Lewis was in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation?


That still weirds me out whenever I see that holiday staple. I'm on vacation, taking in one nice meal after another, usually topped off with a Christmas movie. Today had me dining on some superb burgers and splitting a bottle of cab, followed by Christmas Vacation. It's no Citizen Kane or Dark Knight, but it has a lot of nostalgic charm. Since that seems to be my forte, lemme extol the virtues of this weird little movie.

It's really a patchwork affair. The movie plays out like an extended series of skits for the first 2/3rds, only to dovetail into a sub-par 'kidnap the boss and learn the meaning of Christmas' cliche. Still, the stuff that happens before that is a great bit of relatable, and insane moments.

The endless trek into the woods to find the right tree, forgetting the shovel of course. Helping your dad set up the decorations and lights. The sheer insanity of a whole slew of elderly relatives arriving en masse, filling the air with conversations about sores, symptoms and maladies. Pets making a ruckus. Sledding misadventures. Pretty much any horrible or awkward experience you deal with this season has been touched upon by this strange movie from 1989.

It is a strange movie, after all. There's a totally unrelated and unnecessary animated sequence in the beginning. Juliette Lewis is taking the role rotation of the Griswold daughter. Chevy Chase existed as a proto-Pierce Hawthorn. I'm not saying its the best movie, just a fun, cathartic and nostalgic way to deal with the holidays. Enjoy some slapstick and try not to think of all the stuff you have to do before Sunday.

More Untraditional

So yesterday I extolled the virtues of the Futurama episode Xmas Story. Huge fan, I'm all about it. It was a game changer, for sure. The only thing better was the follow up, released a year later. Titled 'A Tale of Two Santas', this episode was even crazier and more over the top than the last. You want to celebrate Xmas? Go over the top with this under the radar episode.

The last Futurama episode had introduced us to the seasons greetings
in the year 3000. This episode sees the cast and crew digging in for their most cathartic and destructive iteration yet. Why observe the holiday in solemn silence when you can see the withered remains of Neptune or the legally mandated execution of a robot in the name of Xmas?

Here's the gist: the Planet Express crew is tasked with delivering letters to Santa, no matter how evil he may be. When the Robot Santa becomes trapped in an ice block, Bender takes on the mantle to become Santa for a night, enduring all forms of torture and mistrust in the process. You come bearing Tri-Ominoes? Good luck escaping unscathed. When he's brought before a jury, everyone in the Planet Express crew has to step up and prove his innocence.

This episode ups the insanity from the previous years Xmas installment in the best way possible. It's bigger. It's badder. The world is more established. The Neptunians are a grim, sobering bunch. Santas workshop is a horrible relentless place. There are more explosions and gunfire. More violence and jokes. Basically the cast and crew figured out there voice and hit it at full stride for this Xmas episode. Plus, a lovely holiday tune that starts with the line "We are free and fairly sober." Super fun stuff.

When people talk about the 'golden period' of Futurama, like they do with the Simpsons, this is an episode that stands out. Just ask Santa's friend Jesus. It's insanity at the best level. Keep reading. We're gonna hit dirt in a couple days...

Little Monsters

Evening, kids.


How about a trip down memory lane? After all, hasn't that become a de facto theme to this site? I breakdown something we've all forgotten about while giving you a personal anecdote? On board? Good? Great. Let's do this. Today's Xmas Xception is Gremlins, a film like no other.

If you are roughly my age, there's a strong chance this movie gave you a serious case of the creeps when you were young. It was terrifying despite being oh so appealing to the youth market. Gremlins was part of that microgenre that blends horror and comedy in a subtle way. Ghostbusters was another prime example, as was the modern iteration, Shaun of the Dead. How could kids not get suckered in by the adorable Gizmo - voiced by Howie Mandel, nonetheless. Still, you break those three inscrutable, arbitrary rules and all Hell breaks loose. Nothing seemed safe as a kid after that. The little monsters were so devious! So malicious! The original draft of the screenplay was even darker, with decapitations and animal mutilations abound. Nasty stuff, eh? Of particular note was the over the top gore of the finale when a melting gremlin becomes a horrendous, dripping mess. It broke my mind as a kid. Hey, as an adult it still elicits a visceral reaction from me. Pretty killer Christmas movie, huh?

Oh, what's that? You forgot Gremlins was a Christmas movie? That's right, world. This nasty little staple of 80s horror was planted squarely in the midst of yule tide madness. I found myself forgetting that fact, only to see a clip of the movie online and I recalled all the snow and realized "Oh man, I have to watch that again! I haven't seen it in years!" Well, by a bit of serendipity that actually happened to me last Christmas. There had been some conflicts with my Christmas arrangements last year, and I ended up spending the holiday here in Minnesota while my better half saw her family in Arizona. I had to be back at the office the next day, so when I got back to my place in Uptown I grabbed my mail and headed upstairs. There, in a now defunct Netflix envelope, was Gremlins. By some excellent coincidence my DVD queue had synced up perfectly with me being all alone after Christmas. So I did what any twentysomething would do - popped it in and cracked a bottle of wine.

It was awesome.


Gremlins was cathartic and mischievous, a fantastic way to vent after the stress of the holiday. A little Cabernet Sauvingon didn't hurt either, but hey! Monsters terrorizing the town and ruining Christmas! What better way to indulge my inner (but most likely outer) child! While obviously dated and intentionally hokey and B-movie-esque at times, it still held up really, really well. I had a lot of fun poking through the memories of my previous experiences watching this movie and being do damned scared. Sounds like good holiday fun!

Video Clipped

Moving right through the week. 

Just a short bit today, very full life and schedule. Lots of obligations. I've got many debts to keep and miles to go before I sleep. In contrast to yesterday's in-depth look at Purple by Stone Temple Pilots, today's post will be a simplified look at a song from the same era. 

Before the days of DVRs and YouTube, it was darn near impossible to find something illusive on TV. If, like me, you only had MTV to serve as an introductory source of music you had to pay rapt attention, lest you miss the little info box on the small of the screen at the beginning and end of the clip. Good luck if it was a more obscure song, too - while there were still videos on MTV at the time, they were becoming fewer and farther between. A sick day from school was a guaranteed marathon of MTV at that stage in my life - it was the only way to see some of the videos I wanted to see so badly. That's how I saw the debut of the Mentos-themed clip for 'Big Me' by The Foo Fighters, or the premiere of Green Day's dual release 'Brainstew/Jaded' when I was an obsessed young teenager. 

This unfortunate catch-as-you-can modus operandi made me into a rapt viewer. Of course, I was too stupid to write anything down, instead relying on my own intellect to recall anything worthwhile. It may have been a vain, foolhardy technique, but hey - I was 13 and it might be responsible for whatever powers of pop-culture recollection I possess today. Anyway, point is - one sunny spring afternoon I saw a video for a band called Stabbing Westward. The lead singer sounded a bit more like Ozzy than I would really prefer, but the song, at the time, was incredibly heavy and rocking. The video for the song was interesting as well, a bit of performance footage interspersed with the band watching a movie for what may have been an earlier version of the clip itself. Unfortunately the name of the song was a bit generic, to the point that I pretty much forgot it as soon as the text disappeared at the end of the clip. All I had was the band name. I filed it away in the back of my head as awesome but likely to never be heard again.

 Time passed, I found other music I was more excited about. Then, one day months after seeing the video once, I was in my dinky little music store I frequented when I saw a name that tugged at the back of my mind. It was Stabbing Westward's album, Wither, Blister, Burn + Peel. 

"It was good..." I thought of the single.

So I plunked down fourteen (14!) hard earned dollars for the album. 

The album, as a whole, was wildly uneven. That single, though - good stuff. Not $14 good, really, but pretty good when I was younger. Actually it's pretty good now. I figure by the law of averages , the price of that cd is offset by all of the free or "free" music I've obtained in the course of my life. Sometimes you have to pay in, amiright? Anyway, remembering that single and picking up the album was a good choice. I didn't really know it at the time but this was basically my first foray into the world of industrial music, even at it's most mediocre. I wouldn't get into NIN until years later.

'Shame' proved to be a decent track I kept coming back to. It's fairly de-rigeur and of-the-times with it's distorted guitars and wailing vocals, but as longs you're not looking for high art it's a fun rock track. There's a tone here that's quite appealing, something created by the verses and chorus playing off of each other, that makes an air of sleek movement and chases via hard rock of the 90s. Check it out.

Good Catch

What's good?


I'm heading out to what will be the first of a slew of holiday parties tonight. I mean, the first of the season. No party hopping for me. Just getting a jump on the season. Super excited, no joke. While I get ready, I plan on listening to something a bit odd, a lost song that fell through the cracks of the world in the 90s. It's one of my favorite hidden gems. I got it on a CD that was given to me by my older brother's friend back when I was an impressionable youth and everything everyone older than me did was irrevocably cool. 

This friend of the older, benevolent brother was as constant a source of new tunes as my brother. When he sold me a stack of CDs he longer listened to, I was (for no discernible reason) really enthralled by a sampler for a label based in New York. For years after, I was unable to find any information on who or what the album was. Only in the last few years has relevant info popped up on the Googles. At the time, though, it was this inscrutable oddity - no real story or explanation as to what it was, just a random label sampler. Sure, there were some stinkers on there, but there were some great hidden gems, too. It was from Grass Records, which later evolved into Wind-Up, which kind of solves that little riddle. According to the Wiki, there were financial problems, which may account for the lack of any information whatsoever. The sampler was called Grass of '96 and it featured what must have been the new artists of that year. 

My favorite track off the sampler was (of course) similar to Sneaker Pimps, Portishead and Massive Attack. Performing a song called 'Catch Me', Chimera popped into my life with this lone single and disappeared without a trace. From what I've found, they were an Irish band that existed long enough to put out a few albums but never had much mainstream success here in the states. Too bad, because I really still dig this song. It's always felt a bit like the typical 90s alt sound, a bit of looped drums (how edgy!) and some caterwauling distortion beneath a clean, spacey guitar line. Singer Eileen Henry had a fine voice, nothing crazy but just fine for the song, clear and emotive, high and light. 


There's no big, startling revelation to this song, or a dramatic memory attached to it. Just something that was always odd and it stood out to me as something that should have had broader success than (seemingly) me being the only person to ever hear it. I guess I got the sampler around fall/winter, so it pops back into my mind this time of year. Give it a listen and see what I'm rambling about. Hopefully you dig it like I did.

Shell Shock

There it is. 

There's no knowing if it will last for an extended duration, but the first legitimate snow of the season sneaked in last night. When confronted by the sight of my car huddled under the inch-or-so dusting, I found myself slightly confounded. I forgot how to proceed for a moment. Then I remembered I still had brushes and scrapers in my car from last winter. Never even took 'em out. After catching the bus into Minneapolis, I stepped down onto Nicollet Mall and started the cold walk into the office. Even knowing the cold and snow were going to last for at least another five months, it was a gorgeous way to start the day. The sidewalks were full of people pulling their coats tight against the brisk air, breathing into their scarves and gloves......we're all going to go mad from cabin fever in two months, aren't we? 

What made the morning journey even more enjoyable was the soundtrack supplied by the inscrutable Tortoise. Their surreal and genre-slipping album TNT added a wonderful touch of the ephemeral to the sojourn. I don't even recall acquiring the album - at some point it found its way onto my hard drive from my sister in law. The two of us are always exchanging musical pleasantries; this must have been one she left for me that I hadn't found for some time. I'm really glad she did, though, because I was looking for something relaxing and intriguing to listen to as I went about my day. I feel like I've exhausted my usual ambient/triphop/downtempo canon. Tortoise make a fine addition to what I think of as personal soundtracks. 

Released in 1998, TNT is an album that never stops shifting. It's not a hectic defiance of convention or an all-encompassing project like Gorillaz. No, TNT is an album that not only evolves as you listen to it, but shows you a band evolving. At this point in the band's career, they had recently brought on board their first guitar player and second bass player, in addition to a multi-membered percussion section. The unorthodox lineup afforded the already eclectic group to create more far-out songs and soundscapes. The music never quite hits a firm pocket, but it subtly shifts in tone every song, just enough to make your ear perk up. The phaser-based jazz of the title track. The espionage-inciting mood of 'I Set My Face To The Hillside'. The bells and bones playing on the eerie 'Ten-Day Interval'. 

What a great find. I wish I had found it sooner, though. Just goes to show what good things lie in store for you when you start spreading around good music. It comes back to you in the best way possible. Now I have a great soundtrack for the walk to the office, or any other time of potential contemplation. It sure made today a better day, thanks to this divergent start. Winter's here, it seems. Good tunes will help me get through the next five or six months. 

Space Out

Man. Crazy day.


Busy stuff. One of those days that sees you just trying to keep up with whatever comes down the pike, not just trying to knock things off your list but more along the lines of juggling while someone keeps throwing in fresh elements for you to keep aloft. I got through, though, without any of my weary remembrances of the dark days of my youth. Nah, sometimes you gotta take a bad day and just flip it over on itself. So instead of the slice and dice dangers of adolescent angst, how about we go full on Glam Rock? 'In The Meantime' by Spacehog. That's how you can turn it over.

 Not to pigeonhole the band, but these guys were a one hit wonder, right? I mean, think of another significant song of theirs - nothing else they did even comes close to the iconic riffage of 'In The Meantime'. It came out in 1996, at the heyday of, or maybe the downward slope of MTV's alternative love-fest. This song, and the strange video, got a lot of airplay on the old standby 120 Minutes. Too bad it was the only thing on the album Resident Alien that got any airplay despite the fact it went gold.

It has that kind of recognizable riff that immediately cuts through the white noise of our modern world. You hear the guitar lick the song is built around, and the high pitched backing vocals and BAM - there you have a song that gets you to cock your head and say "Yeah, okay. I got this." The whole song is good, with the little telephone signal intro and the strutting bassline under the verses. The vocals are pure Glam-era Bowie, over-sung and over emoted in the most goofy, sincere way. That chorus, though. It's total Glam cheese, but it's so insanely great that you can't be in a foul, stressed mood when you hear it. One spin around and you probably have a growing grin on your face.

See how that works? You can have me getting all existential and reflective one day, extolling the virtues of the Deftones and their alt metal gestalt, only to see the mood totally flip after a hectic day by listening to a single, bizarre song. Listen to it and try to place all the idiosyncratic times it's popped up in your life. 

Fur Is Murder

Evening, all. 

These cold, dreary days that linger between the fall and winter, but existing completely in neither, get me to thinking about what I was listening to when dealing with some of the worst I can recall. There was a particular time frame spanning a late fall/winter/early spring that was brutal. It was really hard for me to persevere. The strange thing was that it didn't really stem from any particular factors - instead it sprang seemingly from the depths of my mind, some horrible monster clawing its way up the walls of my head and having reign of the place while I waited it out. I think in hindsight I was just terribly unhappy with who I was. It seems (from the comfort of a distant mindset) that I just wasn't realized as the person I suspected I could be or was going to be. Even in my darkest days now, I can acknowledge that not only am I kind of really awesome, but that in general I am happy with the person I've turned out to be. Similar to what I'm experiencing now, being in an office during all daylight hours and almost never seeing the sun, I vividly recall what little social activity I partook in to involve a great deal of darkness, both real and imagined. My mind was a reeling, loopy thing that was reaching out for any kind of cathartic comfort, something to exorcise the demon from inside. In my darkest hours I reached out to a band I didn't understand - the Deftones. 

Sporting what is possibly my favorite band name ever, the Deftones were (and still sort of are) an alt-metal band that flourished right around the time of the dreaded Nu-Metal that brought us all sorts of terrible music I shamefully enjoyed. The Deftones always seemed a bit removed from that unfortunate label, though. They had an unusual (forgive the word choice, please) deftness about their musicianship and presentation that gave off a slightly more nuanced air. Sure, it was still scream-till-your-throat-is-raw metal at times, but there were also moments lighter, more subdued sounds that suggested a more artistic flair. As I said, their cathartic music was a release for my frustrated adolescent mind. A large portion of that unhappy time was spent driving around listening to their end of the millennium album 'Around the Fur'. 

'Around the Fur' is an album that is both sharp and slick, a sonic blade delivered from the CA-born band. Vocalist Chino Moreno vacillates between tense, anguished whispering to open-throated howling, never quite technically singing yet creating oddly unique melodies nonetheless. The first track, the blistering single 'My Own Summer (Shove It)' uses a twisting, descending riff coupled with a driving bassline to make one hammer of a track, especially when the chorus blasts out and Moreno's screaming takes center stage. The title track thumps away with heavy, propelling kick drums and guitars that grind and slice your ears. 'Headup' still makes appearances in my workout mixes due to its sheer frenzy and near-indecipherable rapping, but to be honest most of this album appears in workout and running mixes. If you want to read a longer breakdown of my love for the spacey metal of 'Be Quiet and Drive', follow the link to an older post. 

I leaned heavily on this album when in a bad space, which I suppose is odd, considering the abrasive and unsettling sounds it contains. What does that say about me? I don't know, maybe I was just a cliched angst-ridden teenager venting through alt-metal that my own band at the time couldn't produce. Whatever the case is, I still get a lot of sneaking satisfaction out of listening to this album on a cold, dark day like this, knowing that everything seems to have turned out alright. I like me, and I like the me that can listen to this and shake my head at the distant memory of the troubled teenager. 

Fantastic Crimes

What's up, gang?


So tomorrow is the big day. We move out after four years in the same condo in Uptown. As crazy excited as I am for this new adventure to start, I'm also feeling the natural amount of saudade over closing this amazing chapter. As we've finished the packing process and started processing the emotions, something has become apparent - I listen to a lot of down beat or melancholic music. Anything I played while packing the last of our boxes mad me too sad to press on. Instead of some contemplative trip hop or ambient mood music I had to resort to some more energetic music. Not wanting to go full-on optimist (given the situation) I ended up stumbling over a phenomenal song that still sounds great - 'Criminal' by Fiona Apple.

I wrote about Apple and her sophomore album a while back. I stand by my assertions about taking her at face value and embracing her passion. None of that would have been asserted without her amazing, passionate debut album Tidal. Jumping right onto the charts with 'Shadowboxer', Apple was a firebrand at a young age. When her video for 'Criminal' came out though, more attention was paid to the scandalous video than the superb song. Too bad, cause the song was tops. The video was part of a weird wave that was occurring in the mid 90s that seemed to anchor around the suggested exploitation of young women. Seedy settings and trappings. Scantily clad, scrawny young women with sunken cheek bones. It was a weird kind of bummer, seeing it so embraced by the media and pop culture. Thank goodness that's all changed, right? Well, it certainly is understandable then, why Fiona Apple got so pissed at the VMAs that year. What I'm saying is forget the video, just listen to the song.

'Criminal' is a dangerous, malicious and self-loathing burner of a pop song. Apple had channeled something fierce inside of her when she wrote this song. Opening with the unnerving adult confession "I've been a bad, bad girl, I've been careless with a delicate man," Apple goes on to exorcise her emotional demons in the most satisfying way. She unleashes her guilt and anguish in a sublime, slinking piano piece. Her low, angry voice is strong and firm even when she floats into a gorgeous higher register she rarely taps into. It's a song with some verve and menace, a little swing to the punch. Basically she was as dangerous as we thought she was safe. We had her all wrong with that vapid video.

Forget the exploitative white noise of the video. I don't even like linking to it, save the fact that it hosts the actual tune. Apple is still a bad ass, she's just not as out in the fore-front of the noise brigade. She's still making her music, you just don't see weird videos without the medium of MTV to facilitate the bad mojo. Give an ear to her tunes and see how you can feel the passion coming through. It shot me out of the saudade of moving out. Lord knows what I'll have to listen to when I drive away for the last time.

Maximize

Look, I'm not even going to beat around the bush on this one.


You need to listen to Tricky's first release, Maxinquaye. It not only is a sublime standard among the field of trip hop and a defining album of the Bristol sound, it's simply fantastic and still holds up just as well today as it did when it was released a decade and a half ago.

Tricky was one of those musical acts I would always see photos of in the copies of SPIN and Rolling Stone back in the 90s, when I had no access to anything beyond terrestrial radio and MTV. I was always intrigued by what I saw and read, but I had no context. The curse of being born just a decade too early, right? What misery! Spoiled self-pity aside, I picked up his first release after falling in love with trip hop through fellow Brits, Portishead. It was one of those moments where you realize you had been missing out on something very kindred and relevant for years, only to kick yourself when you finally catch up. 

Maxinquaye, named for his late mother Maxine Quaye, was released in 1995. Featuring light and vaporous vocals from a then-young Martin Topley-Bird, the album is a work that sneaks in like a cat. You barely register the sounds as they creep into your ears, but within minutes it calls your head its home. The little moments and hidden corners absolutely make this album as amazing as it is commonly held to be. It's the kind of music that seems to grow before your ears, the sounds rising like tendrils from cracks in the floors and walls. Burbling notes in the refrain of 'Overcome' create a soft, murky world to get lost in. 'Ponderosa' is a slinky, weird little bit of music that makes you twitch and bob subconsciously. Uptempo numbers like 'Black Steel' maintain this same mysterious quality despite the pace and added distroted guitars. Tricky's smirking vocals on 'Hell Is Around The Corner' codify what we're getting here - it's a touch ominous, a bit playful, yet deadly serious in delivery.

Maxinquaye is one of those timeless albums, a touchstone that everyone should be able to pinpoint where it puts them in their life. It has a feel to it that is so alluring and dangerous that its appeal persists through modernity. You want some sexy music for a private get together? Done. You want a slinking soundtrack to secretive errands at night? Done. You name it, this album fits the bill. Listen to it now, for the first time or the hundredth time. See if I'm wrong.

Fakeout

I suppose this could have been written a decade ago.

Previous posts have explored the idea of the futility of discovering music in a society that lacked omnipresent web access and hyperactive culture. Trying to catch the name of a band or song on the radio or MTV was hard enough. Deciding to waste the money on an album (or even a CD single) was even more frustrating. As I've previously written about my internet endeavors, I spent a fair amount of time in college searching for long-forgotten songs and things tucked in the farthest corners of my mind. One such song, 'Pure Morning' by Placebo, was a fantastic find. It could just as easily be a modern release, to boot.

'Pure Morning' was released in 1998. Originally a B-side from a more popular single, Placebo found themselves too enamored with the song to relegate it to the reject pile. It was not only included on the album but became one of the band's most popular singles to date, along with their earlier effort, 'Nancy Boy'. They've enjoyed enduring success in their native UK and abroad, but this track was the start of their slow descent from the top - the band peaked in the late 90s, essentially. This is not a bad thing - they're still doing just fine and selling millions of albums. It just takes a little longer with our fractured media landscape. Regardless, they endure and continue to have successful tours and releases. 

So why the big fuss? I guess I just dig the song. I feel like it could have been just as popular today as it was when it was released. Were one to slip the song into a playlist on, say, AltNation on satellite radio the audience would most likely not skip a beat. Maybe that's what makes the strange track so appealing in the long run. It's a great song but perhaps it was ahead of its time. Brian Molko's voice is peculiar but memorable, both indicative of the indulgent 90s music scene and our modern quirky-for-quirk's sake hipster ideals. The bass and guitar are spacey and fuzzed out in an obtuse but catchy sound that would fit either decade. The drums bang and wallop in this wide open loop that feels like it both belongs in the era of The Verve's 'Bittersweet Symphony' and would fit on any spotlight collection in the iTunes store. The only thing out of place about the song is the video, solely for the long, slow shots of police men interrupting a suicide attempt by Molko as he steps off a ledge. It's to calm and measured for our ADD minds. Bleak and strange, absolutely. Just too calm to fit in now.

Take a listen and see if I'm nuts. Even if you disagree with my assertion that 'Pure Morning' still feels modern you'll rediscover a great, overlooked song from the end of the last decade. It was a hard time to find music in the Midwestern town I called home - forgive me for indulging my nostalgiac embrace. 

Warm Feelings

Sometimes these posts are just as much about taking something back from the ether as they are about spreading love.

Allow me to clarify. 

So many of these posts are about things that have been swept under the rug by our collective hyperactivity and perpetual distraction. The world is so full of amazing things that it's easy to forget that we should appreciate what's there rather than denouncing emergent media or hailing the next big thing as 'BEST EVAR'. I get it. Hyperbole is what runs the internet. If it's not an opinion that polarizes, it's lost in the din. Life doesn't work that way, however. Sometimes we're lukewarm to things, or just not moved to passionate reaction. A nuanced life in this world we've created is a rare thing. I like to think, though, that minds change. People grow and reflect. I can embrace that which used to put me off. 

For example - when I was younger I hated fall with a passion that matched any miscreant on Xbox Live. I hated the days growing shorter, the cold, the inevitable winter that followed. I also hated the things I associated with it, retroactively. Albums I had listened to the previous fall were tainted. Things I had said or done were looked upon with regret or disdain, simply because of the intangible feeling associated with this time of year. At some point the tide in my head shifted. Maybe it was getting older and mellowing out just a bit. Maybe I started to understand to a greater extent my insignificant place in the universe. Maybe it was realizing someone loved me and wanted to spend the rest of their life with me as much as I did with them. That takes away a lot of your distemper, I've found. So when fall approaches now, I find myself picking through the mental detritus of my life, overturning stone and marveling at the things underneath, like ephemeral silverfish. I enjoy poking through my own neglected memories, things I hadn't thought about in years.

There was an album by Bush that I so strongly associated with this time of year (and admittedly, my own poor mental state at the time) that I simply refused to listen to it. There was something about it that was like biting on tinfoil when I heard the opening track. So strongly did I associate The Science of Things with these darkening days that I convinced myself that it was the music that was bad and not my listening experience or frame of reference. Through self indulgent curiosity I've found I had fooled myself. While it's not the greatest record EVAR (per common online parlance) there are some interesting and worthwhile moments to come back to. 

In particular, the opening track (and second single) 'Warm Machine' is beautiful in its crashing waves of sound. The discordant riff that dominates the song pulls so strongly at my heart and causes such a physical reaction in my chest that I can see now why I put it away for so long. There is such a melancholic, saudade-summoning essence to the ambiance that I must not have been able to handle the tones as a younger person. My own depression and unhappiness at the time tied in too closely with the feelings stirred up by the change in season and hearing this song as the sun set on an overcast, Midwestern skyline. Hearing it now makes me remember with vivid clarity just where I was and who I was with every time I heard it. The intensity of my rejection of the song is somehow proportional to my emergent appreciation for it a decade later. 

Funny how that works. Sometimes you're not in the right place or time or frame of mind to get something. A lot of art blew right past me as a young man, much as some things do now. I'm sure when another decade has passed I'll kick myself for not enjoying something simple and obvious like tomato soup. But you know what? My better half has already started me down the soup loving path. That's how life works. You learn to love the world, one piece at a time.

Fall Apart

No bones about it.


Fall is here and making way for that dreaded sequential terror. The W word. It's lurking just around the bend. The days are shorter. The nights are longer. More often than not the sky is overcast and we have to pull up our collars around our collective scarves to keep the ever-growing chill out of our coats. Not all hope is lost, though. There are the small, subtle things to aid us in our journey, to give us lift in our daily endeavors. For me, one small thing is the old hit by INXS, 'Never Tear Us Apart'.

Unlike other posts I won't cite here, with this 80s hit I can cite specific reasons for personal relevance. I always associate this song with Fall. The melancholic air of the lyrics and sounds. Michael Hutchence's wailing and the pulling-at-the-heart string arrangement. They convey a cold and somber time, which is only furthered by the classic video from the late 80s, which I also saw repeated viewings of during the Fall season. In it, the band struts around in pained, pretentious manner in heavy coats as they sort of perform the song. No elaborate set up, despite the decadent decade - no, in an interesting twist on convention, INXS just wandered around Prague in the cold season, performing the song in a somber setting. I love it.

The song itself is great, a real hidden gem of a pop tune from an otherwise genre busting, funky New Wave band. I love that they made this weird, morose song that stands out among their canon. It's this stealth reminder of finding beauty in the heartache of the seasons passing and fading. Every year I find myself listening to this song more in Fall than in any other time. It's surprisingly lush and gorgeous despite its cold, isolated sense of heartbreak and romance. Hutchence sells it well with his plain yet theatrical voice. The dramatic pauses are wonderful as they unleash in the understated guitar licks and pounding drums. I have to confess this might be the only time that I will go on record as staunchly in favor of the saxophone contribution. There is no way this song would be the same at all with any other instrument playing that solo.

Give in to the season. Feel it surround you, the crisp air and the leaves beneath your feet. It gets cool, yeah, but it's not a bad thing. Just try it on and see if it fits. Putting INXS on your headphones as you tromp through the fading light of Fall is the perfect addition to the season. Let it wash over you and see if I'm right. No bones about it, we're in the thick of it. Might as well make the most of it while we can.