3 Recent Albums I Feel You Should Listen To. (Not very current EDITION)

Deep:

The Reigning Sound Time Bomb High School

I've yet to make head or tails out of this one.  Recently I got a hold of this after Scion and The A.V. Club released The Reigning Sound's newest album.  From reviews that I read it was as bold as to imply that this was an album for those with severe White Stripes deficiencies; to which I reply "bullshit".  Time Bomb High School does indeed constitute garage rock, but this is where I feel that people try and reel it in.  Not all garage rock is The White Stripes, and not all of The White Stripes is garage rock.  TBHS has got a 50s pop kick to it (as the title would imply), and I feel it leans it closer to King Khan & the Shrines and BBQ.  But that's okay because in between it travels to places like classic rock and perhaps even country rock.

Deeper:

Radar Brothers The Singing Hachet

I suppose the best way to preface this is to say that this was suggested to me by a total stranger at a bar.  He was the kind of man who had years of devoted music love in his character, and he was also completely hammered.  Austin, Texas I suppose enables this in a lot people (mainly because everyone understands an elevated difference between an obscure reference and a piece of common knowledge).  Anyways, he struck me as the kind of man who had a copy of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea before his friends, and my assumption was it was a vinyl copy.  It was a man I could respect even through his slurred speech and confident speaking.  I'm straying toward ambiguity in describing The Singing Hachet because I too did not know what to expect when my girlfriend and I started listening to it later that night.
I will say that my interest in 90s lo-fi is close to zero, with the occasional grand exception, and this is one of those exception.

Too Deep:

Love Forever Changes

Recently I finally bought my first book in the 33 1/3 series, which happened to be a compilation of excerpts from many of the books, and this was the only album I had yet to ever hear of (mainly because in my parental reference as a child hovered between James Taylor, Pink Floyd, and Garth Brooks).  Hear the rainbow, taste the rainbow.  Firstly, this sound like Pet Sounds on acid.  But Nowak Attack,  Pet Sounds already sounds like it's on acid? True, but this is truly a hodgepodge of sounds.  Where it goes differently is that stays strictly melodic.  I could turn this album on and hear one genre, go get a cup of tea, come back, and then I would forget completely what album I was listening to.  Sometimes it's The Doors, and sometimes it sound like Dusty Springfield, yet it doesn't miss a beat.  If you stay with it for the hour-fifteen it streches, you won't veer off-track.  But it's like Sigur Ros that way.  Don't go anywhere, just shut up and listen.

Nowak-cember is around the corner

and by around the corner, I mean the end of this week.

I'll be heading back to the motherland (Washington, which in many ways feels like Soviet Russia during the wintertime).  I've spent so much time ingesting music this year that I feel compentent enough to dedicate the full month to year-end lists.

Mind you I won't start most until mid-December because, really, I won't make major assessments until the new Black Keys album is out.  No, I'm serious.

That means:

-The Foxes 2011 (maybe)

-Honorable mentions 2011

-Biggest Disappointments 2011

-The Nowies 2011

-ALSO:

• Best podcasts 2011
• Best reissues 2011
• Best EPs

The Questionable Defense of Fast Five and How it Relates to the Genre

Several months ago the internet told me that Fast Five, the fifth installment to the Fast and Furious franchise.  Since then, time has stewed.  The A.V. Club at the time of its release gave it an "B+", which was the overall dissent of the movie community.  The rationale behind this was simply that it was more self-indulgent than previous Fast and Furious creations.  This was positively true.  The film was by all means bombastic.  At one point Vin Diesel uses a bank safe as a mace to knock police cruisers off of the road.

Now I'm going to be a dick and compare it to Bullitt, perhaps the best domestic action film of the last century.  There's little difference on the surface of either of these films; both films contain the use of American manufactured cars chasing each other incessantly through crowded streets.  The patriarchal roles are fulfilled, and protagonists take place.  How is it then that both are minimalists and yet the simpler succeeds (Bullitt).

For one, Steve McQueen.

For two, the sincerity.  While Fast Five utilizes little dialogue, it's framing attempts to hold up a plot with little going.

The same reason Westerns and Samurai films integrates a emcompassing a huge storyline.   Since moving to Austin, I've spent a lot of time analyzing the structure of most of these films.  Whether it's Ocean's 11, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, or Star Wars, they consist of lost of things to happen to build up.  Yet, the elements are indulgent.  It allows for much to create substance, thus making a full picture to be painted, interweaving everyone so that the finish creates an even better conclusion.

Fast Five appears to throw out most of the other story lines from past installments (to be honest I've only seen all the first one once and the second one half way through), makes it easygoing from the start, and strips it down to the formulaic basics.

I remember a news story about a month ago about a woman who sued (I'm not exactly sure who the defendant would be in this case) because the advertising to the movie Drive made it appear to be too much like Fast Five.  This is confusing because both maintain the same integrity in story-structure (albeit, watered-down for easier consumption).

And perhaps this might just be me, but honestly over-the-top action sequences rarely hook me anymore.  The literal suspense is more exciting on an emotional level than what Fast Five threw at me.

The point I'm making here is that indulgence does not mix with emotion.  In fact, perhaps the opposite. Public dissent gave a lot of slack to this movie, but I still don't accept that when it remains indulgent.

This is a polarity that I wish was more prevalent.  Between pop music and music, between reality television and Mad Men.  I feel if we took the time to really separate the two, both could be held to different standards.  It seems instead that this facilitates the idea of pretentious.

My suggestion would be to separate the cream from the milk in a better fashion.  What that method would be, I'm not quite sure.  But it's the fact that we haven't created a category for indulgence properly, and thus it becomes a dick move to compare Fast Five and Bullitt in the same conversation (although admittedly one-sided).

Rock N Roll gave us the birth of a popular, modern, American music, but it also gave us Nickelback.

Analysis:

I finally finished The Grapes of Wrath for the first time.  Yet, not once in my public education was this suggested to me.  In a time with such strange dissent in this country, I felt it more applicable to modern day than ever before.  Perhaps not to such a scale as depicted in this book.  Regardless, by far my favorite except:

"The squatters nodded - they knew, God knew.  If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land.
     Well, it's too late.  And the owner men explained the workings and the thinkings of the monster that was stronger than they were.  A man can hold land if he can just eat and pay taxes; he can do that.
     Yes, he can do that until his crops fail one day and he has to borrow money from the bank.
     But you see, a bank or a company can't do that, because those creatures don't breathe air, don't eat side-meat.  They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money.  If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat.  It is a sad thing, but it is so.  it is just so.
     The squatting men raised their eyes to understand.  Can't we just hang on?  Maybe the next year will be a good year.  God knows how much cotton next year.  And with all the wars -- God knows what price cotton will bring.  Don't they make explosives out of cotton?  And uniforms?  Get enough wars and cotton'll hit the ceiling.  Next year, maybe.  They looked up questioningly.
     We can't depend on it.  the bank--the monster has to have profits all the time.  It can't wait.  It'll die.  No, taxes go on.  When the monster stops growing, it dies.  It can't stay one size.
     Soft fingers began o tap the sill of the car window, and hard fingers tightened on the restless drawing sticks.  In the doorways of the sun-beaten tenant houses, women sighed and then shifted feet so that the one that had been down was now on top, and the toes working.  Dogs came sniffing near the owner cars and wetted on all four ties one after another.  And chickens lay in the sunny dust and fluffed their feathers to get the cleansing dust down to the skin.  In the little sties the pigs grunted inquiringly over the muddy remnants of the slops.
     The squatting men looked down again.  What do you want us to do?  We can't take less share of the crop--we're half starved  now.  The kids are hungry all the time.  We got no clothes, torn an'ragged.  If all the neighbors weren't the same, we'd be ashamed to go to meeting.
     And at last the owner men came to the point.  The tenants system won't work any more.  One man on a tractor can take the place of twelve or fourteen families.  Pay him a wage and take all the crop.  We have to do it.  We don't like to do it.  But the monster's sick.  Something's happened to the monster.
     But you'll kill the land with cotton.
     We know.  We've got to take cotton quick before the land dies.  Then we'll sell the land.  The plows'll go through the dooryard.
     And now the squatting men stood up angrily.  Grampa took up the land, and he to kill the Indians and drive them away.  And Pa was born here, and he killed weeds and snakes.  Then a bad year came and he had to borrow a little money.  An' we was born here.  There in the door--our children born here.  And Pa had to borrow money.  The bank owned the land then, but we stayed and we got a little bit of what we raised.
     We know that--all that.  It's not us, it's the bank.  A bank isn't like a man.  OR an owner with fifty thousand acres, he isn't like a man either.  That's the monster.
     Sure, cried the tenant men, but it's our land.  We measured it and broke it up.  We were born on it and we got killed on it.  Even if it's no good, it's still ours.  That's what makes it ours--being born on it, working it, dying on it. That makes ownership, not a paper with numbers on it.
     We're sorry.  It's not us.  It's the monster.  The bank isn't like a man.
     Yes, but the bank is only made of men.
    No, you're wrong there.  The bank is something else than men.  It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it.  The bank is something more than men, I tell you.  It's the monster.  Men made it, but they can't control it.
     The tenant cried, Grampa killed Indians, Pa killed snakes for the land.  Maybe we can kill banks--they're worse than Indians and snakes.  Maybe we got to fight to keep our land, like Pa and Grampa did.
     And now the owner men grew angry.  You'll have to go.
     But it's our, the tenant men cried. We----
     No.  The bank, the monster owns it.  You'll have to go.
     We'll get our guns, like Grampa when the Indians came.  What then?
     Well--first the sheriff, and then the troops.  You'll be stealing if you try to stay, you'll be murderers if you kill to stay.  The monster isn't men, but it can make men do what it wants.
     But if we go, where'll we go?  How'll we go? we got no money.
     We're sorry, said the owner men.  The bank, the fifty-thousand-acre owner can't be responsible.  You're on land that isn't yours.  Once over the line maybe you can pick cotton in the fall.  Maybe you can go on relief.  Why don't you go on west to California?  There's work there, and it never gets gold.  Why, there's always some kind of crop to work in.  Why don't you go there?   And the owner men started their cars and rolled away."

-John Steinbeck; The Grapes of Wrath

3 Recent Albums I Feel You Should Listen To.

Deep:

Blitzen Trapper American Goldwing

This music feels amply appropriate for any venture the more agrarian-natured areas of the world.  It's strange to hear something that has almost nothing to do with classic rock, yet it sticks a strange landing.  Veering off-track listening at times I feel like I left a classic rock station on the radio.  What Drive-By Truckers is to southern rock, American Goldwing is that to Northwestern classic rock.  It feels very much parts Idaho, Washington, and Oregon in nature.  Which is odd, because the last time I was listening to Furr, I didn't really feel much of anything.

Deeper:

The Budos Band The Budos Band

Yes, the first one.  Everyone in the last 18 months have gotten really into the third album The Budos Band III (which, in all honesty, is no slouch on it's own).  However this is more stripped down than any of it's predecessors.  It's less neo and more funk/soul (which makes sense, as Daptone Records was just getting its sea-legs.


Too Deep:

Various Artists: East of Underground; Hell Below

I suppose that most of this album collection is in its story:  It's a collection of recordings by a series of bands whom were all active Army servicemen stationed in Germany during Vietnam.  It's all funk, and it's all covers.  My first thought about this was that, aside from it's nostalgic edge, it's little more than a heavy dose of vintage b-sides on the funk side.  But what diminished this thought was how consistently tight the instrumental arrangements are connected, which I equate to a military structure.  Only something funded by the military could be so crisp and tight, which in some strange way works for a large amount of songs that don't typically resonate the views and opinions expressed by the government.

As told by MF Swanke:

He once bought an album (The Bambi Molesters'  Sonic Bullets: 13 From the Hip) by going to record store 40 minutes south of Tacoma, WA.  Except that he drove there twice because he spent so much time thinking about the album cover.

This album cover:

He wasn't even sure what the genre of music it was, nor anything about the band.  Rather, he just kept thinking about it.

That night he slept, and couldn't get the image out his head, and the next morning he drove the 40 minutes south back to Tacoma and promptly bought it.

Things that sound like Rilo Kiley, and don't narrate well to a video.

A family trip recorded for the internet in Las Vegas in 1962:


Las Vegas 1962 from Jeff Altman on Vimeo.


1.  Las Vegas, it appears, didn't use to suck so hard in 1962.

2.  I need to acquisition all my family's old video recordings.  My father did this years ago from our VHS'.

3. We use to call them "video tapes" when "video tapes" were what we used to watch movies at home (namely, a very worn out copy of Mary Poppins, Home Alone, and Uncle Buck).  1990's Macaulay Culkin, for the win.

4. Dick Van Dyke playing the Chimney Sweep guy in Mary Poppins
 is really is damn funny.  There's also a ton of drug references in that film.

5. At least 60's cinematography was better, from a D-I-Y perspective.

Today in Proxy War news:

They killed Gaddafi, or captured him, but probably killed him.

At least that's what Facebook is saying.

(via Reuters, Twitter, Facebook, my roommates, most news sources, etc.)

Something from two months ago:

Read:

News of the World closes it's doors (permanently?) due to poor manners (via The Daily Beast)


Below: a copy of their final issue

Just kidding.

Or, as it read from the desk of Rupert Murdoch:

Listen:

Buck 65's cover of "Talking Fish Blues"

Courtesy of MF Swanke

Thoughts on Dual Survival

I suppose this is my first real post since the new design (hey there, have you noticed? bam.)

Anyways the blog is now fully functional.  I've also added a second medium!  nowakattack.tumblr.com! Hot damn!  Also a twitter!   So from here out, now that school is out and it's time for job development, we've got ourselves a blog here.

Also I spent the last 1.5 hours at my new apartment in Austin developing my new mediums and

Two heterosexual men heterosexually demonstrate heterosexual tactics of survival in the form of a white person pretending to be a Native American, while the other heterosexual person breathes in heavy sentence form of out-of-breath sentences.

and the two characters are:

No, I'm serious.

I can understand how a legitimately styled documentary could really emphasize some value to what they're doing.  The problem is that people want odd people doing it wrong.

Blog ON!

Read

Washington Post: Blocking of an appointee for the Fed.

Right here.

Oh no. Hell no.

...and in the final flames of collegiate activities and academia galore,  I am now 5 days away from graduation

apparently in college, finals week is more like a "victory lap" more than an actual week of studying.

Then again, I did finish up all my major requirements a quarter ago.

Anyways, the point is NOWAK ATTACK has gone from its sleepy sleepy hibernation to an up and coming meme-starting fully operational brain.

I've had a lot of recent theories on the brain as the computer, which I'll divulge later.

So watch the FUCK out for Nowak Attack 3.0, which may either be:

-A different url

-A different name

We'll see.

Also, if you're curious to know, The Passersby Post was accidentally deleted.

Yes, accidentally.

and now this:

I probably should have done this four months ago...

... but I've been doing a new radio show for over 4 months now.

If the Blues Are A Rockin', Don't Come A Knockin' is a radio show mixing together the blues in all different senses of the word.  A lot of 60s soul, Delta Blues, Punk Blues (Soledad Brothers, The Black Keys, etc.), Funk, and so and and so forth.

I just found out a couple days ago that the time is staying exactly the same which is Sundays from 4-6pm.

You can hear my audible hodgepodge (for locals) at 89.3 fm or at kugs.org.

Oh hey!

Another quarter has passed (barely), and with that here I am.  So... hey!

If there's a tone for the next few upcoming months, it's this:



Posting this may have been inspired by an episode of Freaks and Geeks I watched last night.  I don't want to go there right now, but I will say that Rush is a terrible band.


Actually, that might actually be more abrasive...




Rush still sucks.

Dictators and such.

So I spent the entirety of my weekend (and I'm serious) coping with an intense head cold and watching Al Jazeera.  I've found the entire Egyptian uprising completely fascinating (I may have gotten emotional on Friday when I woke up to see the people physically removing their leader from his authority).

It should be noted that I'm really not a politically motivated person in general.  At one point I use to be staunchly Libertarian, but I just have lost most of my motivation since the 2008 election (and if you've been following my blog since then, I think the general trend has shown).  BUT I did find this impressive because , honestly, I didn't think something like this was possible (especially in such an oppressive government).

But more than anything, a colleague of mine and I noticed something very particular about Hosni Mubarak:

He's got a very "Bond Villian" thing going for him.  And for several reasons:

-He seems like a neuter, amorphous human.  Not personality-wise, but more-so with demeanor.  Expressionless yet possibly pissed off all of the time.
 
-Anyone with a state-run television station tends to fall under this category (which, I don't know if anyone noticed, but the logo for the state channel is a transforming pyramid.  I didn't think people still quoted one of the 7 wonders of the world to symbolize political empire.)

ALSO: I learned today that this man:

Is going to be the next leader of China after Hu Jintao steps down in 2012.  How does this matter? It really doesn't.  But this is his wife:

The kicker: they've been married for 20 years.

So just know that when Mubarak decides to finally fire his moon laser at the Capitol Hill, at least we can take solace in knowing that Xi Jinping's wife is a smokin' babe.

Things I've Learned in College Part 13

I decided to humor myself by enrolling in a freshmen-level philosophy class this quarter.

This takes some adjusting to, as I realize in four years I've become so disenfranchised from "the kids", especially since I went home and watched a James May documentary series after I finished class.

Aesthetic:

-The whole class smelled like a Holister clothing store. I bought a coat from that franchise on time, and that kind of smell never leaves your memory bank.

-At one point I saw a very tall freshman wearing a t-shirt that said "SWAN DIVE... into the best night of your life."

-The beards (and I'm not talking shit here) were all very scraggly.

-The girls all seemed to be dressing like a commercial hipster.  Some unnecessary denim, a lot of straight long hair.

But more than anything, I noticed my own alienation.  At one point my poor professor tried "lecturing" which amounted to me writing the minor points (what is epistemology, the difference between that and metaphysics, etc) where the students stared blankly at him, and then he referenced beer, and then a whole group of chuckles.

"God dammit" I thought to myself.

Then a kid fell asleep on the first day, and I immediately became infuriated, whereas in 2007 I would have considered copying his behavior.

But the cout de grace was when the professor made a reference to Tom Rundgren and I laughed (out loud), which shifted 10 heads or so to me, and it hit me:

I've become the "old creepy guy" in the college class.  My only goal now is to remain silent and motionless until finals week.