"I'll play it and tell you what it is later."

Recently I've dived into a very large collection of jazz between the 1950s and 1960s.  It's amazing to think that some of the most square sounding music could have such a chalky history of drug abuse.  For example, I would have never guessed that this guy had such an intense herion addiction:




I think part of the allure of this music (and I go from everywhere, Mingus, Coltrane, Getz, Davis, Monk, anybody) during this time, you start to figure out more what the music is about. I mean that in two ways:

- The first is the idea that any great jazz composer couldn't be able to demonstrate their ability to create in any other way.  Hearing how singers sing and then how jazz artists actually speak (honestly, Miles Davis' voice sounds worse than Tom Waits'), it makes you realize that this is their medium.  While people focus so much on how one sings and how the arrangement needs vocals, the fact that its stripped away is so refined.

-  The second is the story behind the music.  Bill Evans, Miles Davis, and Charlie Parker all had serious drug addictions.  In fact, a lot of them didn't live very long.  Listening to Bill Evans without knowing how much the man struggled makes the music feel empty and listless, but understanding it puts so much raw emotion into a keyboard.  Miles Davis was an incredibly angry man and knowing that makes you realize how aggressive and intense his message is.

Few other times (since the 1940s) have really been able to convey that intensity.  That's why I would rather listen to Vince Guaraldi's soundtrack he wrote for the film A Charlie Brown Christmas in July than have to tolerate the choppy compositions that are ham-fisted together.  Contemporary jazz is so shameful because the art isn't really appreciated.  The tempo is dropped and mood was lightened in the last three decades.

After meeting a former jazz musician and having him tell me personal stories about famous musicians during the time I really got where the vanguard was coming from.  It makes people you had no idea existed become fascinating because of their music.  You go back and you imagine Charles Mingus being so large and violent like he was thought to be, and you hear Mingus Ah Um and you really understand where his chaotic sound and bass come from, having instruments abruptly chime in and out.

People easily remember a band because of a familiar voice, but I think it's just as easy to do the same with solid jazz sound.  They all sound distinct as a cohesive body AND with the associated instrument of the composer.

I guess my point to this is that I feel people too easily shun some of the most intense music one could listen to.  Many people have been moved by lyrical songs (i.e. when I drove for the first time at 16 by myself listening Jimi Hendrix's track "Are You Experienced?")  but it's just as easily capable listening to "Waltz for Debby" or "Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul".   Jazz is better at intensifying and soothing the psyche than any other genre.

Part I: A Response To Something I Wrote A Long Time Ago or "Country Music: The Sequel"

The aesthetics of the city, even after residing here for the better part of three years, is still jarring to me.  We didn't have homeless people occupying vacant space, we had cattle.  It's still difficult identifying myself here as I wasn't raised like this.  I grew up with a "Dukes of Hazzard" mentality, and perhaps it's considered an outdated outlook on friendship.

I grew up with a brotherly camaraderie.  Four specific friends that were of the "thick and thin" disposition.  With this time my peak were two specific summers; June-September 2007 and June-August 2008.  During which time I came to a point with why I'm rambling right now: Country Music.

I should preface that I began scribbling this at a diner knowing I promised myself to get the juices flowing. I am now drinking probably the biggest fucking iced tea I think I've ever been served:

The man next to me is discussing some sort of drug rehabilitation and divulging insane stories to the woman he's eating dinner with, and for some reason I keep hearing the sound of duct tape being pulled off of the roll.

...so naturally my mind escapes to the idea and history of country music.

Now I preface this story like that because my "modern" experience with country music came out of those two summers.  Before that I kind of resented it.  Mostly because after the 90s it became more beach/hypermasculine.  Now while it's debatable that this genre has ALWAYS been hypermasculine, it lost whatever subtlety it had intact.

I grew up in rural Washington (and it was RURAL in 1993).  My family moved there in 1993 after being born in Bakersfield, California.  Let me explain to you something about Bakersfield.  In the 1930s during the heart of the Dust Bowl's destruction of mid-western farmland, Bakersfield became a final destination for much of the migrant population looking for anything that was better off.  In this time Bakersfield began to develop its own music scene based on a, I guess one could say, "unrefined" version of country .  Let me put it to you this way: in the early part of last decade when garage-rock took over with a dirtier rhythm influence, this was country's version of that.  Bakersfield/Merle Haggard were The White Stripes of Nashville Country.

Now I was BORN there.  It gathered my attention so much so that I'd later come to realize 21 years later that in my Junior year of college, I'd write a qualitative analysis of "Okie from Muskogee" because of that.

So there's that subtle influence... but this is deeper.  My mother loved Reba Mcentire and early Shania Twain.  My father was somewhat partial to Clint Black.  At the age of 6 my two favorite songs of all time were Brooks and Dunn's "Boot Scootin' Boogie" and Alan Jackson's "Chattahoochee".  I heard every popular country single between 1994 and 1998 without missing beat.  Now at this time it seemed really good.  It had this duality in both a neo-traditionalism  (Randy Travis "King of the Road") and sheer enormous popularity (Garth Brooks' entire career).  It had a fucking pulse.  Lyrics were somewhat structured and evocative.  I realize it now that starting my life hearing that was a great introduction.  Believe it or not Shania Twain at the early point of her career (before she crossed over) was almost par.

...so let's skip ahead using major stepping stones in my influences: Disco, Frank Sinatra, Chumbuwumba, Boyz II Men, pop radio, Green Day, The White Stripes, most of the 2000s, now.  Now in that second to last step I lost my roots.  After Johnny Cash passed away in 2003, I grew to love him slowly, but as far as much else, I thought it was useless and hated the music.  I think it was a combination of me being out of the game for ten years and experiencing the shit-show that was the country music scene at this time.  The emergence of Brad Paisley, Kenny Chesney, Tim McGraw, Trace Atkins, and the devolution of Toby Keith all caused the downfall.  By the time Taylor Swift showed up it was all over anyways.  The early mark of it was started with the beach orientation... and then Jimmy Buffet showed up.



TO BE CONTINUED

Part II;  further examination into the duality of hypermasculinity and the beach, extreme patriotism, and the triumph of brotherhood and nostalgia.

This year just ceases to amaze me.

The Black Keys have finally hit their stride again. This time with more subtlety. In fact, upon further review, there's a lot of things out there that are really rocking some shit.

This year so far appears to be very much a mix between mediocre debuts and solid returns from a whole slue of the vanguard... and by vanguard I mean people who have come out with more than just a single good album.

It's late. I should get some sleep.

Mid Quarter Review transcends into something else.

Part of my reemergence into life has consisted of several things:

-Quitting smoking (FINALLY)

-Continuous running

-Having the next six months completely mapped out

-Getting the job I've always wanted

But one in particular is something I never thought I'd have to do, and that was to immerse myself once again into modern music.

I spent a lot of time this quarter going back to what I've loved for a long time.

But something got a hold of me that was slightly geriatric, a distaste for the modern scene.

I put a lot of money into a very well polished record collection, and at the same time woed about the lack of taste in what I saw in music in the year 2009.

It's now that sad (?) point in my life where I now realize that music simply does not cater to how I see fit. This is ironic because music has almost never done that* and yet I seem to be fixed on this idea.

Part of this might also be due to the fact that I began listening to beat and rhythm in an advanced, sort of fetishistic way at about the same time that a great turnover in music was beginning.

Garage rock was finally being articulated upon. Influences from soft rock were being polished to something better. It was as if the Quentin Tarantinos and the Jason Reitmans and the P.T. Andersons of the music world were finally being influenced and elaborating on what they love.

And the best thing about it was there was this popularized statement about it. Nitsuh Abebe wrote a great essay** about how indie is no longer a movement but a franchise. To me this was my moment to cherish. I remember after my family had moved into our new house and I started watching music oriented television they would have whole shows dedicated to the Phantom Planets and The Caesars type bands of the world. A show specifically was called "Next Big Thing". I didn't realize then, but it had appeared that the market had become self aware because the whole show was dedicated to nobodies that you were to call in and vote for***. They all sounded like The Kaiser Cheifs but to me this was that unintentional development of my full understanding. They tried to sell more shit to me, but I in return got angry at Metallica and apprehended The Secret Machines albums.

...and so you cut to 2010. People are already starting to "define" the decade's moves and shakes (whereas it was will be two more decades before we can actually get our meathooks around it). I look at the vast number of albums I own now and grow weary when I hear the last shreds of indie from emerging bands and the final wheezes of the once great giants (I think it's safe to say that I was disappointed by nearly every band I love these last two days).

This is because I am now an old man in such a rapid moving society. In 2006 when The Strokes released their last album SPIN did a cover story on them and the author had written about how had The Strokes released their first album in the early 1970s they would have made three Is This It's, two Room on Fire's, and one First Impression of Earth. Some of you may not understand that reference, but what it's saying is there was this availability to relax and move around in your space with music before the demand of instantaneous everything in our society. After broadcasting today on the radio and thumbing through hundreds of albums of bands I love and stumbling upon a resurrection of one in particular (I'll explain later) that I didn't know existed, I finally understood this. I honestly believe that, through a transactional analogy, if Led Zeppelin released their first album today, they would have stopped at Led Zeppelin. It's the reason nobody remembers hardly anything from the 90s unless they've reinvented themselves (be it intentional or not).

This tradeoff comes with the availability of all of this music literally minutes away.

...and so I sit here in truly the most jarring paradox. Would I have been able to experience this revelation without the use of the thing that destroyed how music grows?

People older than myself enjoy the art of bitching to me about music's lack of development, and I couldn't agree more. Unless technology is dismantled and society becomes both simultaneously healthy and patient once again, we will never have such a fluid ability to articulate our joys.

This is why Danger Mouse and James Mercer are now collaborating like retirees. This why James Murphy is fading and dressing like fucking Bryan Ferry. These people would have become legends in a much larger way then they are now.

As Wayne Coyne's hair grows progressively grayer, so does everything I love. It's a tough day to swallow when the new bands I enjoy look my age.

But with this comes a last hurrah. For you see this whole thought into 2001-2007 is simply what recalls when I listen to a particular album.

Earl Greyhound's Suspicious Package

Everything just stated comes to mind hearing an album like this.

What you probably don't know is that Earl Greyhound was one of those next big things that existed during that self aware heyday. In 2006 they released Soft Targets which was simultaneously hugely buzzed and terribly overlooked. In my desert island, that might be one of the top three. It was so organic, and yet so respecting of its influences that it came off as blooming and insatiable.

In four years they have not released a single LP (or EP for that matter) until this week (the album you see above), and it is beautiful. I mostly assumed that they were split and done. Instead, they did disappear but only to work on their craft and become more serious than all the other reemergence. It is not a Roky Erickson or a late-years Johnny Cash, because they never were well known. They are the same, without the label of once-was. It's as if they fell asleep for four years and awoke last week without the fucked out feeling the rest of us feel in our early adulthood, and yet I realize that they were there for all of it.

I feel the tree in this album is very symbolic of what has changed in merely four years. The tree is now is fruiting electronic bands like no other while we sit and relish in what once was.

My only hope is that they one day, everything will become as genuine as this band.

*negating 2003-2004

** This was from a Pitchfork article. I'm never that scholastic.

***Even more ironically, it was sponsored by Tower Records

The Most Polarizing Issue Ever.

Ok I've been put in a situation where everyone seems to be polarized.

This is the red state/blue state argument of hip music: Is MGMT's Congratulations good?

Kind of. I've heard both sides of the argument, and this is the argument:

I'll be generalizing both sides as "good" (as in "I thought it was good") and "bad" (as in "I thought it was bad")

ahem:

Good: MGMT's new album is good.

Bad: No it's not.

Good: (sounding wavy in tone) Yes it is.

Bad: No it isn't. Popularity and record sales have infected their sound and now it's bad.

Good: No. It's a concept album. They're trying to experiment a new sound.*

Bad: Wait, wait. Pet Sounds was a concept album. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was a concept album. Congratulations is NOT a concept album.

Good: Okay you can't compare everything to the Beatles and then say it sucks. That has to be a fallacy.

Bad: Okay, fine. How is Congratulations a concept album?

Good: It holds a theme of dealing with fame and fortune and experiencing it as a new reality, they would say another dimension.

Bad: Poor songsmithing doesn't mean you can get away was a loose thematic approach to being loaded.

Good: Fuck you.

Bad: Fuck you, too.

(Good and Bad do it while accidentally leaving MGMT's Congratulations on the iPod dock.)

*end scene*

It's difficult to come back after a very decent (some would say great, but I wouldn't) freshman album (ask Vampire Weekend, The Strokes, The Darkness, Coldplay, and most bands who first hit it big between 2000-2009*), and MGMT is no exception.

While I do enjoy the intricacies, you cannot not give the people what they are not expecting, but in that same vane can't rehash the old shit (or else feel the wrath of critical bloggers**). What I'm saying here is MGMT is fucked. They flew to high and are now orbiting accidentally around the planet until they burn up into the earths atmosphere.

But I enjoyed it, I'll just never remember it when I write my decade list in 2020.

*Despite Spoon still clamping on for dear life

**Self-awareness

The XX "Islands"

A Brief Testimonial for Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings

Now It's not really a secret that I love funk and soul, specifically from the 60s and 70s.

and last year I posted an enthusiasm for Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings' last album 100 Day, 100 Nights, but this time I thnk this might be the best album I will hear this year.

There is such a strong connection to the music that it sounds like a b-side to something much bigger from the golden age of Marvin Gaye, Tina Turner, Al Green, and Aretha Franklin.

For those of you who don't know who she is, a quick reference is she was the lady, assisted by the Dap Kings whom sang the cover of Woody Guthrie "This Land is Your Land" at the beginning of the film Up In The Air.

The authenticity and integrity of this album is so fucking genuine and appreciative of its elders that I question my own knowledge of how far the genre has traveled.

I'm moving this from a "don't buy" to a "sell". I'm kidding, this is a fantastic album.

Things I did over Spring Break

Over break I watched a lot of Sober House with Dr. Drew (because I could) and watching him dealing with addiction seems a lot like a highly abusive relationship (partially because it is).

Especially in the realm of seeking help. The guy from that band who sang "Butterfly" kept using the phrase "So you're really giving up on me?"when talking to Dr. Drew.

and the response that validated the thought was “Well, this is the LAST time…”

Also I discovered the fine art of quilting.

Tight jeans and a v-neck in Illwaco, Washington usually go together like house plants and a can of raviolis, but I persevered.

I’ll explain:

Over the break I went to a quilt show with my family. It was mostly for my mother who digs the stitch. As I was walking around it was like trying to understand art before when my favorite artist was Norman Rockwell (he still is technically, but then again my favorite movie is still Ferris Beuller’s Day Off). Anyways after trying to intensely stare at this large compilation of fabrics I gave up and asked my mom the appeal and art of quilting.

To my surprise I was quite enlightened. Much like all other mediums there’s a lot of different techniques, with stitching, with pattern layouts, with whether they use a machine, the types of batting, etc.

So cut to me staring at quilts in a Elk’s Lodge type of building (with an eye for what I’m looking for) and taking a true appreciation for the art side by side with a majority of women over 60.

Also, there’s something to be said about the lack of snobbery. I would like one day to see a record store or an art museum curated strictly by 60-year-old women (negating their taste, but simply their approachability.)

Now I’ve just created a mental image of old ladies sitting outside of the fine arts building smoking cigarettes and wearing ironic sunglasses.

Also I tried to baptize myself in the Pacific Ocean, and it was highly unsuccessful.

(more to come as I remember)

Delilaaaaaaaaaah

Months back I was working a very very very very very very very long shift

Four hours patrolling on foot followed by another eight driving around campus.

This shift also started at 8pm.

A lot of weird shit congeals into thought when you watch the sun come up after being fatigued.

This was back during the holiday season, so the main things on the radio were npr holiday pieces and a straight sets of music on the local channels.

But before the shift to daylight there became one thing I haven’t heard in years: Delilah.

Years back my sister and I use to listen to this woman on the local soft rock station during the holiday season. Delilah was on all of the time, but during the November/December programming, she was forced (?) to play holiday hits.

A couple years ago, to our discontent, we discovered that apparently John Tesh took over, and Delilah was rendered useless to lull the masses to sleep with contemporary Sheryl Crow songs.

(Part of my despise with terrestrial radio comes with a large knowledge of its demographical appeasements)

ANYWAYS here I am barely awake operating a motor vehicle and all of the sudden I hear the familiar jingle of a bygone era “Deeeeeee-liiiiiiiiiiii-laaaaaaaaaaaah”.

Oh the familiar nostalgia! Delilah, you sultry woman with your love for the same Bing Crosby/David Bowie duet being repeated too many a time! How I missed you so!

I hear that same tone of voice I heard a long time ago announcing songs and reading off fan emails about uplifting stories of struggle overcome.

Well, apparently shit is different.

Now the problem is not change in format, but rather it has to do with clarification of her anonymity. Delilah is not who I think she was.

First off, I had no idea Delilah was a single mother with a troubled past husband. This doesn’t bother me. Rather I feel this demonstrates strength.

She tells many stories of her children (who it seems haven’t aged since the last time I heard her) and has quite a few children call in talking about what they want from Santa.

Her familiar nature seems the same until it take a total left turn.
What I didn’t realize about Delilah is that she is a raging Christian. Not like “I have my beliefs although they will not affect the literal way I frame my show”. It’s more like the opposite of that.

And every caller over the age of 18 is in a heterosexual relationship. I question either her call screening or her orientation of the show.

For about 15 minutes I seriously considered calling into the call screener as a straight man missing my girlfriend during work, and then when the switch to the actual Delilah came I would throw my best fake story in about how my boyfriend is in Seattle and how I miss him for the beginning of Hanukah… just to see if she actually knew how to handle the situation.

Now back to the Christian thing. She did this thing where she had the “subtle” tone in her voice that you’re going to burn in hell if you didn’t believe in Jesus as your personal savior.

She had one listener sent an email to her saying the following the story.

This woman is listening to Delilah after getting of the late shift of her place of business (I swear to god [ha!] every revelation story starts off this way) driving down this random highway thinking about her adherence to Agnosticism when she hears (wait for it, wait for it) a Faith Hill song about Jesus and Christmas. Suddenly as this song comes on she notices a farm coming up in her peripheral vision. As she approaches this farm on the highway she sees on the barn is an illuminated cross made out of Christmas lights. And this woman suddenly feels that something “higher up” has called to her with this faith, saying something like “well… I don’t know, I’m not positive but I think someone was speaking to me.

And then Delilah goes “Well, there’s something to think about.”

Then a really really old Christmas song.

Fuck you, Delilah.

Ok first thing:

I now know why Portland, Oregon no longer chooses Delilah for quality soft rock hits to lull you to sleep.

Second, when did Christmas become such an aggressively Christian celebration? Or has it?

I remember as a younger person I use to get very angry about news stories reporting a Christmas tree being taken down for freedom of religion reasons.

To a certain extent, I still do, but for different reasons. Christmas to me means nothing about accepting a personal savior or celebrating a new born king.

Christmas mean the following:
Hedonism
Guilt because of hedonism
Overcoming hedonism via giving
Satisfaction of overcoming hedonism
Drinking too much whiskey, watching It’s a Wonderful Life, and then passing out in your old bedroom.

Now, where has Christmas gone wrong?

Agenda.

Atheism is a growing trend in our society (not that I really adhere to much of anything these days). Make Chirstmas cool. Or rather, change the agenda. Make strictly a “home for the holidays/give to the needy” vibe.

Because as I sat there in that Dodge Colorado with little to do I realized that we hear so many Christmas classics because the new shit is much like the Republican Party, overly Christianized. Bring it back to its roots (and here I’m picturing something slightly Mad Men-esque). Everyone dresses in a shirt, gets church out of their system the night before, tosses a highball, and socializes while stuffing their craws with excessive amounts of starches. None of this really takes place.

I mean, Christmas as an adult never equates lots of fun with family. Rather the holiday entices a little bit of aggravation more than anything.

But at least we could try and sell it back to the gold standard (ok I promise this is the last political analogy). The music was catchier, less morale compass, and usually involved alcohol. Except “Santa Baby”. Holy god is that song awful.

So boil down Christmas: Alcohol, Family, Hedonism.

Religious undertones are killing Christmas music.