Jar Head

It's oh so quiet.

I'm writing this from the new digs. What strikes me most, aside from the obvious, hit you on the head nature of moving, is the quiet. In the last five years I became quite accustomed to the sound of drunken howling, passing ambulances and car horns. The general ambiance of Uptown, in short. Escaping to the farther rings of the city offers something that I used to associate with living in my parent's house as a teenager - total silence. A quiet night like this one, totally bereft of noise, sneaking into the kitchen so as not to wake anyone sleeping with my footsteps and opening of cupboard doors...suddenly I"m 17 again, living in my parent's basement. 

Not all was silent, though. Through out the winter I spent my share of quiet, late nights playing PS2 games with the volume at the audible threshold. Between GTA3, Silent Hill 2 and Tony Hawk 3 I was a content Midwestern recluse. No matter the depths of a blizzard or quiet solitude of a Sunday night, I was happy to sit in the quiet and vid out. A night like this makes me think of a favorite lost song I should be hearing. If I still had my PS2 still hooked up (somewhere, packed away in a box with our shared systems - Atari, Nes, Snes, Sega, N64, PS2, Xbox, GameCube and a Wii) I would get all nostalgic and play Tony Hawk 3 with 'Not The Same' by Bodyjar on a loop.

The Tony Hawk video games weren't just frenetic, addictive fun. They had killer soundtracks, too. As a Midwestern recluse I heard a fair amount of good, fresh music from these games. I can attest that among my friends more than a share of us had memorized lyrics due to marathon gaming sessions. We all had our favorites. Mine was the melodic punk offering of the (now defunct) Australian band Bodyjar. Countless sessions of fevered two-minute rounds were played to the strains of blasting guitars and snide, rounded vocals only half discerned. The only thing missing from tonight that would complete the recollection is a PS2 controller and about three feet of snow, which, being the end of November, should be here by now. 

Hearing the song now, I still dig it, even if my tastes have slowed down slightly. While I listen to more down-tempo instrumental and ambient music, I still have an affinity for the unresolved tension of the main riff to 'Not The Same'. The pre-chorus, with its not-quite-out-of-key chord progression, still sounds great. If you're at all near my age bracket (which you can figure out via context clues) you might be familiar with this song. Give it a spin or hey - bust out the PS2. It's about 10 years on from that sweet spot with all those great games. On a quiet night like this, I'm quite tempted, myself.

Down And Out

...and just like that, I don't live in Uptown anymore.

The big move happened over the course of the last two days. It was a suspiciously smooth process, thanks in no small part to extensive pre-planning and several extremely helpful friends. I find myself typing this on a laptop in bed, my back full of knots and my mind completely shot. We're sort of settled but there are still a multitude of packages to be sorted and put away. As soon as I'm done with this post I'm shutting off the laptop and turning on Netflix. To shut my mind down, I'm going to indulge in the underrated, defunct series Party Down.

Originally broadcast on Starz back in 2009 and 2010, Party Down starred Adam Scott, Ken Marino and Lizzy Caplan as under-achieving caterers in Hollywood. It was a show that, while never killing the competition in the ratings, has garnered a devoted audience that followed along into the second and final season. The show, featuring a who's who of character and comedy actors, followed wash-up actor Henry, played by Scott, as he sorted his life out while slumming it in the catering business run by and old drinking buddy. He hits it off with a coworker and romantic entanglements ensue. His lack of motivation, along with his constant "Don't I know you?" troubles, make for an engaging and human series that was just strange and funny and fresh. It was a bona fide creative TV series amid a sea of banality. 

There are tons of reasons to watch this show. Scott is perfectly suited to play the surly, adorable Henry as he sorts out his life. Marino is an almost too-painful-to-watch natural as the perpetual sad sack boss of the Party Down catering crew. Lizzy Caplan, channeling the misery of Hollywood in her Casey character, is believable and well written. The rest of the cast is just as strong, with Martin Star, Jane Lynch and Megan Mullaly all bolstering the little series that could. Alumni from The State all make appearances, as do a cavalcade of wonderful headscratchers like Steve Guttenberg, J. K. Simmons, Kristen Bell and Ken Jeong. The writing is natural and flows freely, having an improvised air while being meticulously scripted. The plots and events are hysterical and rarely if ever contrived for a TV comedy. Also, who can't relate to taking a job when you need to, instead of when you want to? The underdog nature of the show is totally relatable and a genius creative choice.

It bums me out that this amazing, quality show got the ax after only two seasons, but then again I feel glad just to know it made it this far. 20 episodes is quite the run for a show this smart and funny. Usually we get stuck with dreck that lasts forever and barely a season of anything smart. Party Down shown bright and briefly. Take a look online or on DVD to see what you missed. I'm putting on an episode and tuning out as soon as I can.

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.