Dawn To Dusk

Alright, I admit it.


Yesterday's post kinda sucked, huh? No biggie, I was spent and I still stand by it, pointless though it may be. I still dig Hulu. Hope you're cool with it. Let's switch gears, shall we? To contrast the brevity and vapidity of yesterday's content, let's take an in-depth look at a strangely huge album from the 90s, Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness by The Smashing Pumpkins. Being a double album, I'll take two posts to break it down a disc at a time. Today - disc one, Dawn To Dusk.


The Pumpkins were, at the time of recording this album, a huge force in alternative rock. Coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally) Billy Corgan was known for being egomaniacal and...kind of a dick. He had Pavement kicked off Lollapalooza, for example, because of a (possibly imagined) feud. That ego-driven attitude was both a blessing and a curse for the band, as it gave rise to the most prolific and fruitful time of their career but also drove them to exhaustion and temporary ruin. In late 94/early 95, though, they were ascendant. Burning away countless hours in the studio, Corgan constructed what would be his magnum opus one obsessive layer at a time. Although he finally began to include the rest of the band in the process, what emerged is still unequivocally Corgan's work. The resulting concept album stands as some of their best work. Let's dig in and see what we find, eh?

The album opens with the eponymously titled piano piece, serving as a thematic forbearance and subtle indication of tone. While pleasant, there's not a lot to it, but I will touch back on it later in this examination. The album really wakes up and leaps to life with the epic and grand 'Tonight, Tonight'. It's a massive song, one that signaled that the band had grown and taken steps in new directions after the streamlined Siamese Dream. 'Tonight' feels vibrant and alive, even today, with its lush strings and urgent lyrics - a natural choice for a single. The video is still charming and fun to watch, as well. 'Jellybelly' feels a bit like a return to old habits, for better or worse. It's a juggernaut of a song, pummeling and hammering down with fuzzed out riffs but also wielding a soaring chorus that rides the momentum. It sounds like it could have been left over from their last album, but that's hardly a knock - it's just not that original for Corgan. 'Zero' does see the band change their sound in a subtle way. There's something sleek and metallic about this tune I can't quite put my finger on, but Corgan referred to it as 'cyber metal'. They would eventually come back to this sound during the Machina years, but that would be six years later. 

'Here Is No Why' marries the new and old sound quite handily, and its here the theme of the album really emerges. A lurching, syncopated riff and some lyrics about teenage ideals and giving up show both Corgan's strength as a write and his stealth aim. He's claimed Mellon Collie to be about "mortal sorrow" and themes of life and death but if you listen closely on this song and the next, the debut single 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings', it becomes clear Corgan is actually writing about his own disillusionment with being a teenage icon, the Bishop of Generation X in the absence of King Cobain. His arrogance and egomania and relentless work ethic pushed them to the top, only to realize he was alone in his tower, looking out at a sea of youth that would eventually move on without him.


That's what I think Mellon Collie is about. 


The theme continues on as the album plays. 'Bullet' is Corgan actually realizing the hollowness of his dream and being "still just a rat in a cage". 'To Forgive' is an abrupt shift to a sorrowful song of saudade and lost youth, which I think furthers my understanding of this album. There's hint of a great song here, but its buried under uninspired chord changes and dour mood. The next track, the nihilistic and inscrutable 'Ode To No One', seems to be Corgan firing off a nonsense-laden missive at the audience, almost as a kiss off. The defiant and bizarre lyrics paint a picture of his frustration in his role as teen spokesman. The fuzzed out, cracked and broken dirge 'Love' could be a time travelling cast off from Machina. Synthesizer emerge around the corners here, with Corgan toasting to his "mistakes of cowardice" and justification in the name of love. The flip-side to damaged, damaging 'Love' is the saccharine 'Cupid De Locke', almost insipid in its banal simplicity. To be honest, I've never really gotten this song.

'Galapagos' appears on the surface to be a love song, but close inspection shows its actually about Corgan's insecurity about growing older and irrelevant to his audience, singing literally "Too late to turn back now, I'm running out of sound. I'm changing". 'Muzzle', a loose, jangly alterna-rock anthem, is just as literal, with the opening lyrics "I fear that I am ordinary, just like everyone". It's a good song, not a great song, and a sign that even for someone as prolific as Corgan, a double album can be prone to serve indulgence. Fittingly, the penultimate track on Dawn To Dusk is the nine minute wanderer 'Porcelina Of The Vast Oceans', a drawn out number that seems to be about a variety of subjects. It's a gorgeous, sprawling song, a testament to what the Pumpkins were trying to accomplish on Mellon Collie - it just is a little vague. From the established themes it seems to suggest that Corgan finds relief in therapy and pharmacology. All I really know is that I love the near-two minute intro's guitar layers. They're sublimely played and structured. The final track on disc one is 'Take Me Down', a contribution from guitarist James Iha. Other than some lay-to-rest, sleep to dream elements, there's little relevance to the rest of the album. It's a nice song, but a bit sleepy. Maybe it's supposed to be a lullaby.


Dawn To Dusk, I feel, is just that. It opens at dawn with the soft piano piece. Day breaks and the band launches forth with 'Tonight, Tonight', singing of eventual plans and seizing the day. Weariness and disillusionment sets in, and as night comes we settle to bed after being tranquilized from anxiety and frustration. This is just my take on the first half. I'll post part two tomorrow and see if this holds up as strongly on Twilight To Starlight. 


Stay tuned!

It's Free & Legal Entertainment

Do I really need to tell you this?


Dude, it's Saturday night and I have to tell you what's up?


Alright, well...here's the deal - I'm getting married and have little time. My DVR is handy but fills up too damn fast. Really, it's mostly full of shows preferred by my better half. While I have little free time to kick back, especially in the coming weeks, it is important that my time be consolidated and used wisely.

Basically this post is just a short little reminder to use Hulu while you can. I recall the confusion over their bizarre ad campaign featuring Alec Baldwin and jokes about aliens and the atrophy of brain cells. Here I am, years later, with a long-standing account with play-lists and subscribed shows despite having cable and Netflix. It's fantastic, in a word. I can't always catch stuff as it happens and often times forget to record shows in order. Hulu has my back. Not only that, its modern and up to date - basically the only way I found time to watch Fringe and SNL this year was through their presence on Hulu. Now that they have my two faves back (The Daily Show and The Colbert Report) I make even better use of the site. 

Honestly, it sounds like whoring and maybe it is, just a bit. But to be blunt, Hulu is awesome if you take advantage of it. It's free and incredibly convenient. Do yourself a favor and peruse the sheer volume of shows they have on tap before the pay wall becomes larger and more enforced. I'll see you, along with a more fleshed out post, tomorrow. Happy Saturday Night Viewings, kids.

I'll Shut Up

Alright.


It's Friday.


I've had way too much coffee to push through today and a couple Vodka/Sodas on top of it only exacerbates the problem. So I'll keep this confessional brief. I've made my share of apologist statements about mediocre music on this site in the past, so I figure what's one more?


I was in Europe when I first heard the Deftones. It was a class trip and I was indulging in cheap wine and cigarettes, so maybe sleazy things were on my mind. Whatever it was, maybe the person who introduced me to the ascendant screamo/nucore band, maybe the smokey little bar, maybe the crappy disc-man I was hearing them on, but I'll always see the Deftones, no matter how much I love the name, as a bit of a sleazy outfit. I think they cultivated that image on purpose.

Regardless, I still love 'Be Quiet And Drive'. It's a balls-out, (at the time) modern take on the Californian interpretation of the Smashing Pumpkins. From the chords themselves to the progressions the song is written around, there is undoubtedly a specter of Billy Corgan in the midst of this (ugh) nu-metal song. But nuts to that horrible label and all the millennial  Fred Durst-ian connotations. The Deftones were always a little stronger than their peers, I felt. Look back at that lot - Limp Bizkit (oof) Staind (ugh) Mudshovel (wut?). Do you see how mad just my auto-correct gets? It's like these bands actually fought against any rational intelligence. In hindsight, maybe that was their audience. I dunno, maybe it's a case of rose colored lenses, but I still like 'Be Quiet And Drive', even after all these years. 

It's just usually through headphones and not in public, is the thing. You know what is absolutely, unabashedly worthy of adoration, though? The acoustic version - some serene dream pop there, kids. Listen.

Michael Wanted Someone

What's happening?


How are you?


I completely credit my better half for introducing me to Arrested Development, which still stands tall among the best created fiction in visual mediums of the last 20 years. An astoundingly funny and audaciously intelligent show that gave the viewers far more credit than we deserved. Everyone complains about its demise, yet no one is thankful that we got 3 (THREE!) seasons of the Bluth family. I still love it, and like anyone who has seen it and really connected with it, Arrested Development becomes part of your lexicon - no exaggeration, if my better half is around when the word 'Catalina' is uttered, we both a smile. But there's an unspoken integral element that gets little credit for the quirky nature of the show - the superb score and incidental music that gave life and set the mood for the absurd, bleeding edge series.

See, the thing is...I first saw the first season in almost a vacuum. It was just after New Years and I was in AZ with the better half. Her parents had flown back early and we were left to our own devices. On a supply run to Target she saw the first season (which was freshly out at this point, in 2005) and immediately picked it up, saying her housemates were swearing up and down that it was the funniest thing on TV. We went back home to nurse our hangovers and take a nap, putting in the DVDs almost out of curiosity. I was completely caught off guard, both by the quality and intelligence. Honestly, I hardly even saw it as a comedy. If you watch the first disc with little context of the broader series, it comes off as sweet and goofy more than biting and absurd. There was a particular moment, though, that really sold me on the beauty of the show and the music.

In the fourth episode, Key Decisions, Michael slowly wakes up to the fact that he loves his brother's girlfriend Marta. The development of the plot is wonderful and more poignant than it ought to be, but very sweet, regardless. The real tipping point for me (and apparently quite a few other viewers) is the musical cue by Gabriel Mann, his painfully brief song 'You Here With Me', a lovely little pop song that has all the major beats of a massively popular song in just under two minutes. It's a moving, genuine piece of music that was created for the show that people, for whatever reason, connected with. Watch the scene here (because Hulu is FREE AND AWESOME), and listen to the song here. It was, to be honest, a bit of a Holy Grail for me - tracking down the soundtrack to the show was really just an excuse to listen to 'You Here With Me' over and over again (and create some killer ring-tones from the ukulele motifs).

 I adore this song. 'You Here With Me' is a short, brightly shining bit of pop-masterpiece that shows just how deeply the quality and love ran on this show. Gabriel Mann is a very talented musician with a new, rising band called The Rescues. Give 'em a look, see what you like. I'm glad I found this bit.

Mindful Things

Word.


Like, a few of 'em.


That's all I've got for you today. The heatwave, short as it was, finally broke and those of us in the Middle West are coasting nicely back into comfortable temps where death is not a constant threat. It no longer fees like the fires of Hell blowing against your face when you step outside. Yesterday I wrote a bit about Portishead and how the heat reminded me of listening to them last summer. I got to thinking about what else had that kind of thing going for it, that same recollection and similar feel, and it hit me. 


Last summer when my better half was out of town on a business trip I spent my nights working through an unusual video game  doing so because I was afforded some uninterrupted time on the widescreen TV. That game? A re-imagining of the original Silent Hill for the Wii, subtitled Shattered Memories. The game is a slightly tweaked and twisted take on the original experience, with some novel concepts. Among some of these changes were setting the otherworldly parts in a frozen, icy landscape and removing all of the combat from the game, which had really been ancillary in past versions anyway. Most intriguing was the idea that the game would be psychologically profiling you as you played it, altering the game-play to respond to what it interpreted from your choices and behavior. It was an interesting experience, one that was quite unlike any other game I'd played before. I was torn on removing the combat - the game became more of a post-modern adventure but lost some of the danger, which I'm sure was the opposite of the intentions of the creative team. As always, what really hooked me was the sound.

There's a moment in the game in which the protagonist's car plunges off of a bridge into the partially frozen river below. Yes, you of course make it out at that point in the game, seeing that you're only halfway through. It was a tense moment, regardless. I fumbled around with the Wii's mediocre motion controls, frantically hitting the door locks and windows, trying to remind myself its only a game, when I accidentally hit the radio. In a beautiful moment of scoring, the radio starting blaring Akira Yamaoka's version of the Country Western standard 'You Were Always On My Mind', complete with amazingly haunting vocals by series mainstay Mary Elizabeth McGlynn. It was right at the chorus, the moment when this version is bubbling through some churning synthesizers as Mcglynn moans the title. 


The effect was serene and haunting, the best moment of the game for me.

I absolutely adore this version of the song. To be honest, the C&W versions are not my thing. This take on the standard, though - wow. McGlynn's gorgeous, breathy voice has been an integral part of the soundtracks to the games thus far. To be honest I'm a little ashamed I went this long without acknowledging her contributions, as some of the best tracks are due to her involvement. Check out the song and try to see what I experienced - it's dark and I've had some wine. I'm completely wrapped up in this psychological game, headphones on in front of a massive TV. An hour into the session, the car crashes and I'm fumbling in the dark, trying to hit the locks. Then, out of nowhere, but in a very real, believable moment, I hear this.

It's something that will stick with me for a long time, something I'd cite for the long-contested "Can games be considered art?" debate that rages today.

I'm Waiting Patiently

Heatwave.


Woof.


It's bad, gang. Furreals. Like, bad enough that my better half called me on the way home this afternoon to say the readout in her dashboard said 109 degrees. That's not okay for anywhere, ever, at least on Earth. Maybe if it gets down to 109 degrees (Fahrenheit) on Venus, then we'll talk. The heat is making me dumb. Groggy. Sluggish. Groggish. My favorite restaurant, a mere five blocks away, has closed due to power outage. It's the first week of June and there's some kind of minor brownout due to this insane heat. I'm tempted to go raid the coolers at Fuji Ya, just so their amazing selections don't go unappreciated in this mini heat wave.


I love it.


It brings me back to this time last year, when I was still mining the vaults of Portishead's canon. It was summer and my soon-to-be sister-in-law kindly bestowed upon me a gift card for iTunes, which still is one of the best gifts of which I can think. Seriously, it's like free reign to find esoteric stuff you would normally never experiment on! Anyway, free music in hand, I started poking around on the store, then remembered that there was something by the phenomenal trip hop band I had yet to hear - their stand-alone single 'Chase The Tear', released after their most recent and genre busting album, Third.

In short, I love it. It's a fantastic song from the band that not only shows they're still vibrant and full of life, this far into their career. Plenty of bands with this level of clout and free-pass would take the opportunity and squander it - Smashing Pumpkins, I'm looking in your direction: shape up or hang it up. Instead, Portishead, fresh off the heels of their rejuvenating and more-aggressive-than-ever Third, decided to go into the studio and record this single. Not only is it a great song, it's at a pace rarely touched by the band - trip hop and fast tempos are typically mutually exclusive things. Not here. Somehow the band flexed their creative muscles to conjure up a driving, hurtling piece that throbs and snaps, jerking you along with it. 

My only gripe is that we've yet to hear what else is coming down the pike. Word on the street is that while there are high profile gigs lined up for the rest of the year, there's no word on a new album or any new material. This single dates back to 2009 - I don't want to wait any longer, but for this amazing band, I will. Until then, I have the memory of last summer's (and now this summer's) steamy walks to work in the morning, getting a little out of my head on this crazy music and the summer sun beating down in the morning. I'll keep my fingers crossed. If I don't melt, I'll see you tomorrow.

Viva La Sampler!

Hey, kids.


Heat wave.


I'm moving slow. 


It's the beginning of the week and not only is it the Worst Day of the Week, it's also bad enough there's a heat advisory and I'm in the thick of planning the final stages of a wedding. So forgive me if the brain pan isn't functioning at full capacity. Or something. Anyway. You know how I write about how hard and crappy of a time I had discovering new and interesting music in my formative years? Sometimes you get a freebie. Literally.


Again, bemoaning the lack of hi-speed WiFi as a youth, I bought a ton of music mags. Dumb thing was I had the mental and economic wherewithal to spend the money and mental energy into reading about fresh new artists, but then I would freeze up in the CD stores, petrified of spending my limited cash on a poor choice. Preemptive buyer's remorse, I guess. Hell, for a long time I didn't get an Iphone because people I'd never met on the internet were calling it a dumb choice - what if they judged me? See how deep the neurosis goes? It feels a lot better when you just say "Screw it! This is what I like and I wanna buy it! No apologies!" I'm super glad to have hopped on board the Apple bandwagon, if you couldn't tell - I feel, more and more everyday, that my life is like Star Trek as a result. But I digress.

So I'd buy these music rags in the hopes of a good discovery. One of them (I forget which) occasionally had a sampler with it. Not everything on it would be good. In fact, quite a bit sucked. BUT! This one particular sampler not only introduced me to Monster Magnet's awesome 'Space Lord' but also introduced me to a phenomenal song that no one else seems to have heard. It was by a little British band called Drugstore. The tune, 'El President', was a duet with none other than hipster deity Thom Yorke. I loved it, lost the CD for a couple years, then found it on a file sharing program years later. The song sublime, all swooping and lurching acoustic guitars. Vocalist Isabel Monteiro's singing is light and sweet, a sound that fits well alongside Yorke's buttery, perpetually mournful voice. Give a listen here and see what I'm talking about - it builds well and isn't too laid back for an acoustic track.

I'll see if I can give more tomorrow, gang -  as the heat wave continues and the wedding looms, I fear my circuitry may just up and quit on me. I'll fight it, though - there's still a couple tricks of my sleeve to maintain momentum. Stay tuned!

Who, What?

Oh, man.


It was pretty today, folks. Really pretty.


The kind of beautiful day where I said "Screw it!" and walked to the grocery store with a shoulder bag full of cold packs just to have an excuse to be out in the sun rather than in my condo or car. The sun was, in short, refreshing and there was just a bit of a breeze. Good lord, do I love June. On the walk back I put on a mix of summer tunes I recently downloaded, to make sure I was keeping the pace. Things spoil, after all. One of the songs in the mix really grabbed my attention, I should say. If it's not already huge, it sure will be, by all means.


That song?


'Houdini' by Foster The People.

I think there's about 30 different things going on in this single, pretty much simultaneously. Amazingly, all of these disparate elements hold together incredibly well. Maybe it's a testament to my faith in our cultural mash-ups I wrote on yesterday. Anyway, from the opening drumbeat, this song is fantastic. The verses are full of keyboard chord changes that move and shift like sand in the desert, evoking older tunes the likes of which were popular in the 80s. Somehow the pre-chorus becomes a jarring, 90s-esque bit of pop/r&B, then the whole thing switches gears once again as it hits the actual chorus, which is full of infectiously dance-able synthesizers and twisting beeps and buzzes. It's one big mess of a single that works against all odds. I don't know how all the different parts work together but I am totally sold on this insanely catchy song.

The song comes courtesy of Foster The People's album Torches, which is also home to other great stuff like the single 'Pumped Up Kicks'. They've clearly found a niche with their neuvo-throwback sound. Give 'em a spin before summer comes into full effect and you're sick of this stuff. Have fun with it, eh?

Backspin

Week ends.


It's an heartbreakingly gorgeous day here in MPLS for once. It seems like the entire spring has been a cold, rainy affair but as soon as June rolled over we've had warmer weather. It's almost as if May was the month for the weather to get the water out of its system before it got hot. Anyway, it's too nice to sit inside writing about music, so I'll just tell you about something I love and get on my way. 

If you're like me, you probably love folkster extraordinaire Sufjan Stevens. Fantastic music that bobs and weaves, floating in and out of your ears. In particular, the album Come On, Feel The Illinoise. Great, unusual music that is not quite unlike Andrew Bird. As wonderful as it is, I do, in fact, prefer a secret remix of the album. Done by Donald Glover under his DJ alter ego mcdj, the album Ill-inoise! serves as a complete reworking of the Sufjan Stevens masterpiece. The resulting remixes are absolutely gorgeous. It's as if Glover took these beautiful but grounded balloons and just undid the tethers that grounded them. All of the tracks have a lightness to them, partly from the raised pitch of the original samples, but also stemming from the fact that there are some deftly crafted drum loops and atmospheric touches. Glover's sense of space and style show an intrinsic love of his craft and a deep understanding of the source material.

I find it quite fascinating that our culture has taken such flight with the idea of reworking pre-existing works of art - I struggle to think of other generations where there has been such a movement that is so meta-contextual and almost self referential. I've written about the circular nature of our mashup culture; I've also heard grumblings from older generations about the shallow nature to the culture as a result. Some would say it certainly seems a mixed blessing at best. I don't think that's the case - after all, listen to how gorgeous this album turned out when mixed by a second artist. What are the odds that he would have created a similar work in his own right if the source material hadn't existed? That's your homework assignment - download this album and make notes. Test is Monday. 


I'll leave it at that and let the remixes speak for themselves. Go find mcdj and his music here - it's serene music for a barbecue or pool party scene like today. I'll see you tomorrow.

The Great and Powerful

Holy Hannah, cats.

Friday, at last.

So I'm back to writing about some post-grunge guitar driven alternateen-anthems once again. I wrote, a while back, about a concert experience that turned me on to one of my favorite bands, The Get Up Kids. I mentioned, in passing, seeing the band Ozma as an opener. You know what? I still dig Ozma in their own weird way, even after all these years. 

One could get the sense that Ozma, hailing from Pasadena, frequently got labeled some variation on the derisive 'Weezer Lite', a term I heard hurled at them during that show. I dug their sound, though. Personally I found it to be similar enough but distinctive and unique in their own right, enough that I half heartedly sought out their music after the show. Unfortunately their performance was eclipsed in my eyes by that of The Get Up Kids, and I soon forgot about the little emo band that could. About a year later, killing time in study hall, a friend of mine fired up a certain f s program that shall remain nameless. Agog that she had installed it on a school computer (it was a different time, then) I asked to see what she on on the horrendously under powered pc. Among the tracks was Ozma's awesome introductory track with which they had opened their show - 'Domino Effect'.

"Oh my god Ozma!" I shouted.

She cocked her head, conjuring. "Oh yeah, we were at that show together, huh?" We weren't super close, if you couldn't tell... 

I loved the song and listened to it on that pc in the computer lab whenever I had class in there. But then time passed, she graduatued and the teacher cleaned out the hard drive. I forgot all about Ozma and that song. I was about to go off to college myself when I was poking around a Best Buy, looking for something I can't recall, when I saw that album by Ozma, Rock and Roll Part Three. I immediately switched gears and went gung ho for Ozma, throwing it into my car's CD player on the way home. The night of the concert came rushing back to me, hearing those songs. The excellent opener, the eversoslightly Western tinged 'The Ups and Downs', the crushing and epic 'Battlescars', a song whose power and heft still drive me crazy today. As much as I love those tunes, though, I still can't get over the bizarre and hopelessly pleading love letter to the genius pixie, 'Natalie Portman' - it's a strangely written track that rocks, never the less. A churning, rolling affair of power chords, octave-riffs and morose lyrics, singer Ryan Slegr wails the final lines of the song in resignation and frustration, belting "There's nothing! There's nothing! There's nothing I can do!" It comes across as an amazing mix of heartbreakingly sad and a touch absurd. Basically, I love it.

The band split in the last decade, only to get back together in the last few years. To be honest I've fallen out of step with Ozma, not really following their developments, but I still love Rock and Roll Part Three. There are some fantastic songs on there that not only feel great but they bring me back so vividly to that unbelievable great show. Give it a listen.