Vagrants Beware

Word. 

Alright, so I am a bit sheepish about the interference the other night. We're all human. To offer a make-up post on something awesome, may I suggest some light-hearted unwinding from the insanity that is the post-Black Friday shopping season? How about some intelligent and rewarding humor in the form of an online comic? Sound good? Yeah, you deserve a laugh. You deserve a look at Hark! A Vagrant! 

Drawn by Kate Beaton, Hark! A Vagrant is an online comic that plays to the high minded but never becomes as obtuse or inscrutable as, say, the New Yorker. Regular subjects include historical figures and classical literature, as well as the histories of Beaton's homeland, the fabled Canadas. It's hard to pin down exactly what she calls her sense of humor. Subjects and punch lines vary from strip to strip, but they cover everything from Nikola Tesla's frustrations with adoring female fans to Benjamin Franklin flying kites instead of signing the Declaration to Dude Watchin' with the Brontes. No matter the subject, though,Beaton approaches the comic with a human sensibility and down-to-earth language the is absurdly contradictory to the stuffy jumping off point. It's not crass (often) but more silly and sweet and irreverent. She takes unwieldy historical figures and makes them asinine buffoons or takes the stuffing out of our assumptions of antiquity. The idea for establishing time zones, for example, seems impossible to craft a joke from, yet Beaton does it with swift inanity that makes me smirk. Jane Austen's true motivations? Adorable. 

Not all is history-lesson fodder, though. Pop culture seeps through, as well. Her take on a crass and surly Wonder Woman are hilarious, as is her neurotic and concerned interpretation of Aquaman. Also hysterical and adorable - her drawings of a feral Wolverine and a look at how life is different with Brown Recluse Spider Man. My particular favorites of Beaton, though, are her interpretations of Nancy Drew cover illustrations. The expressionist humanism style on the books is distinctly post-WW II insanity, with clear artistic intentions despite the sub-par design. Using the illustrations as a jumping off point, Beaton takes inspired turns into the bizarre and disjointed world Nancy Drew must have been investigating. Her own artistic style is incredibly unique and charming, yet it almost makes the covers seem like a natural fit for inspiration. She gives similar irreverent treatment to old-timey book covers by Gorey, as well. 

Other notable comics on Hark! A Vagrant include her real-world take on Mystery Solving Teens, who, instead of solving the mystery at hand, just sulk and act like normal teenagers. It's a sublime dissection of ideal vs. reality. Also of note is her collection of strips about The Great Gatsby, which are not only incredibly funny but also nuanced and insightful views I hadn't necessarily been able to articulate about the famous story. 

I really can't say enough good things about Kate Beaton and her amazing writing and illustrations. It's intelligent. It's adorable. It's well drawn. It's a funny, fresh voice that hits a part of my funny bone that is rarely touched on. I think you should unwind and spend some time clicking through her site, or if you want to please the bookworm in your life - head over to her online store and pickup prints, shirts, mugs or collected strips. Online shopping is less stressful than any mall, we all know. Get a laugh and ditch the rat race. Read up! 

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.

Glandular Problem

I keep trying to run but the tiles are tricky.

No Exterminator

The pneumatic doors at the back of the bus clicked and opened slowly, as if they didn’t want to release me into the humid summer day. It was before eight, still, but it was already warm and muggy. As I stepped down off the last step of the bus I straightened my shoulder bag around my frame and trudged off to my office.

Hard At Work

Heeeeeeeeyyyyyyyy kids!


I am a little low on fuel right now, despite the feast that occurred earlier today. I made a fairly sizable road trip out to my family in Wisconsin and back, followed by an additional round of gear to the new homestead. As such, I have had little to no time to write to an emphatic recommendation of pop miscellany.


So here's what I'm proposing - I'm going to post some short fiction, at which I've been poking away. They are a pair of unrelated, but similar in tone, pieces that stem from nightmares I've had. Maybe you're reading this on a slow Friday morning. Word on the street is if you have to be in the office on Friday you don't have to actually work, you just have to do compliance training. So you're all caught up? Good. Read these fictions and tell me what you think on the ol' twitter - 


No Exterminator


Glandular Problems


I'll get back to my usual routines as of the weekend, despite the big day for moving. Zero hour, man. It's gonna be a trip. I'll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck and read up!

Posed

Are you stressed?


I hope not. Turkey day can take a lot out of a person. Travel. Traffic Jams. Family. Complex interpersonal dynamics. Cooking. A lack of preparation in the kitchen. Man, there are way too many things that can go wrong in the next 48 hours. I'm not trying to jinx you. Quite the opposite, in fact. What I'm trying to do is find that little steam valve on the back of your head and turn it, ever so slightly, to vent a little pressure. As much as the next couple days may take a toll on you, you deserve a break. So how about a private dance party? Something that seems personal and small, but funky and fun? How about you listen to 'Cameras' by Matt & Kim when you feel uptight. I think it will help.

Matt & Kim are a band most people have heard, whether or not they're aware of it. The de-facto named group, Matt Johnson on keys and Kim Schifino on drums, share vocal duties while making a series of wide-ranging tunes. Most famously the duo hit the Alt/Indie charts with the thumping, melodic and above all sparse 'Good Ol' Fashioned Nightmare'. It was everywhere for a while, including the pilot of our modern Arrested Development, Community. Sidewalks, last year's follow up to the cross-over Grand, has a great single in 'Cameras' that I still love to shimmy to. It always come on shuffle when I'm cleaning on Saturday mornings. My better half has more than occasionally caught me dancing around with a broom, shaking my shoulders with the beat.

Starting with a series of synth tones that evoke early-era Sega, 'Cameras' bounces right into the pocket with some fake horns and a heavy drum beat. A swirl of looping xylophone notes and Matt's vocals craft a verse that's as hook-laden as the chorus. In a way the laid-back shuffle reminds me of 'Nothing to Worry About' by Peter, Bjorn & John. The chorus breaks the song into a sailing half-time that feels like it spreads the tune over a piece of bread like butter. It's a slice of solid gold, in short.

'Cameras' may not be cutting-edge new, but man if it isn't some funky fun. When you're feeling the pressure of the big day getting to you, either blast this for everyone in the room or go find a private spot and jam out on your own. It's a personal, cathartic secret that lets you burn off a little steam. You'll feel better with your three minute dance party tucked under your cap. Do yourself a favor and cut loose when cutting the bird.

All Right, Place

I'm facing the end of an era and I'm okay with it. 

It's a personal era, I should clarify. For the last five years I've called Uptown my home. I've had fantastic times here - amazing memories with my better half. Crazy nights out. Adventures with friends. I've seen shows that were to die for. Block parties that enveloped the entire neighborhood. I got engaged here. We got married here. I've seen landmarks come and go. I still miss the Uptown Bar. It's not a bad thing, this change. It's a necessary one. As I've grown older, the world has changed around me. Most of my friends have moved away or moved to the suburbs. I don't go out as much, these days. While I love the accessibility and convenience of the stores and night-life, I'm tired of dudes on motorcycles roaring past my place all night during the summer. Makes it hard to have a conversation some times. I'm ready to go, but that doesn't mean I'm not feeling a little sad about leaving a place I've called home for the better part of a decade. 

I'm using music to cope with this change. A lot of days, we've been putting on tunes that relax us and make us happier while we pack boxes and break down our place into smaller pieces. Sometimes the more cathartic music makes more sense to me, but I don't always want to share that with her. As I've been walking to the bus in the morning, each time savoring what would normally be a cold walk through Uptown to the Transit Station, I've been listening to Manchester Orchestra's 2009 single 'I've Got Friends'. It's a song that hits the sweet spot between comfort and upheaval, a perfect compliment to the back and forth states of mind I've been experiencing.

Starting with only a sparse guitar line and a simple but evocative chord change, 'I've Got Friends' is a song that builds over its five intense minutes. Singer and guitarist Andy Mull's voice is high and clear, a warbling thing that trills the melody as a descent over the hypnotic verse. On a dime, the band switches gears and jumps into the refrain, Mull singing over and over "I've got friends in all the right places. I know what they want and I know they don't want me to stay." Every repetition of the refrain sees his voice growing more and more raspy and broken; by the end of the song he's created a wall of his pained wailing, the high harmonies being just as powerful as the inflection in the lyrics. From the ambiguity of the lyrics and the mixture of joy and sorrow in Mull's it's  not immediately clear whether or not he's happy about his predicament, but I hardly care at this point. I'm completely hooked on this anguished ouroboros of an indie rock song. 

Pained or anxious, joyful or eager, I find my pulse rising for no discernible reason these last few weeks. I think it's from the knowledge a major change is going to take place. I feel great about it, I just wish I didn't have to close a chapter in my life along with it. Songs like this, with the simultaneous suggestions of having kin but not feeling wanted, make the self-removal process easier. Most of my friends are out of the area now, so who do I feel I'm leaving behind? My younger self? I don't know. I just want to go home to my better half and get started on our new adventure together. I'll just turn up my music as I'm walking home to ease me through the transition. 

Cut Loose

What. The Hell. Was That.


Doomtree have lost their minds.


You think you know an artist, having listened to them for years. You get a sense of communicated identity. You learn their inflection and tendencies, even more so when they're a local legend. Hell, in some cases, I've even kicked back and shared drinks with the odd member of the crew. You make assumptions, you feel safe, if not confident in their choices. The last crew release was a killer, a massive album that served as a landmark in the divergent Doomtree canon. When word of the available-any-second No Kings, I made the mistake of thinking "Oh sure, more of the same, but better and harder, right?"

Remember what I said about assumptions and sanity?


The leaked tracks should have been an indication. 'The Grand Experiment' and 'Beacon' signaled a darker, more nuanced tone from an already complex and dexterous crew. The video for the album cut 'Bolt Cutter' though...it's dark and disturbing. Not in the gory, over the top schlock Hollywood tries to force feed us. No, this is the kind of strangely unnerving imagery that one would think impossible to pair up with hip hop, let alone such phenomenally talented artists as these. Stalking the gritty, grimy corridors of abandoned buildings. Climbing over the walls. Dodging spotlights while looking like their minds are unhinging before your eyes. Doomtree have lost their damn minds.


It couldn't be better art.

The song itself, a multi-segmented beast of a track, is just as sinister. P.O.S. brings you into his world over frantic, broken beats. Sims lurches through ever more violent wordplay, brandishing a verbal knife in the shadows as speakers bust and distortion flairs up. Suddenly the song breaks and becomes a slinking little thing that Dessa bats around like a cat with a mouse. She owns it and dares you to take her toy away. When you think it's safe, the track breaks wide open and Mike Mictlan screams in your face over crazed dance beats, rapping face down on a dirty floor in the video. As the crew stalk the empty corridors, P.O.S. ascends a ladder into the night time city and the song continues shifting. All of this is horrifyingly cohesive.

By the time you read this, No Kings will be available. Go get it. Once you've listened to it, call the men with the nets and white coats. These rappers are a danger to society, in the best possible way.

Subterranean Dwellings

Yo.


So it's another late Sunday night as I write this. It's been another fun and productive, but ultimately busy weekend. Moving is a real thing now. Packing boxes and making trips with a stuff-to-the-gills car is a non-stop duty. The amount of thought-out, pre-planned elaborate meals has gone down significantly, so now the better half and I regularly resort to quick fixes and simple foods like oatmeal, rice and eggs. Not all at once. Although, maybe that could...nah, never mind. Anyway, point is...while stopping in at our preferred grocer's  on the way home from another round of life assessment and storage evaluation I heard a song on the honest to goodness FM radio that brought me back. It wasn't some massively famous, touchstone thing like Nirvana or the Stones or anything like that. Just a song that made me instantly relax as I thought about how I used to listen to it quite frequently. 

Like anyone, I was stressed out about going off to college. My youthful indiscretions had resulted in me spending the lead-up to my collegiate endeavors out in Seattle, living and working in the suburbs with my uncle. I loved the Northwest but the absence of a normal social routine threw me for a loop, especially when considering I was about to embark on a huge new chapter in my life. The dorms were frequently trouble - both mine and other students. Communal living is fun for only a microscopic handful of people, I think. I made my way, though. I found friends and enjoyed my classes. Going home for Thanksgiving, though, brought back a fair amount of stress. I hadn't been the best graduate - I put my parents through a lot. My friends and antagonists hadn't seen me for a very long time (more so than they'd seen each other, anyway). I wondered what had become of them.

So while all this was going on, I had a fresh musical Linus blanket I turned to, to sooth the mental inflammation, so to speak. I used to play No Doubt's 'Underneath It All' really, really loudly in the car when I went anywhere in those days. Say what you will about the emergent fashion focus and impending end of the ska/punk SoCal band during the dawn of the millennium - I still love this overlooked single. It has this smooth, rounded pillowing affect on my mind when I listen to it. All the stress I was dealing with melted away when I heard the humming and throbbing bass of the reggae posturing the band adopted. Gwen Stefani's poppy, crystal clear voice layered over the booming bass and ultra slow dub tune just turned my anxieties to molasses, an effect usually accomplished with a case of beer and a bad movie. Instead of that, I would play this song really loudly as I went somewhere anxiety-inducing and try to slow down my worries. It usually worked.

I guess it says something positive about my life that I never have to resort to blasting this song to crumble away my anxious nature. I feel better about who I am. My friends and family love me for who I am, and are always happy to see me when I come home for the holidays. When Thanksgiving comes this year, instead of sweating the possible outcomes of strange social situations, I'll gladly embrace my family for a big meal and tons of laughs, no audio pacifiers needed. I just need to finish packing boxes, first.

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.