I need something to pull me through to next week, the back to Fresno, the impending album.

I seriously have twenty songs written. And they are all at least better than anything I have ever done. I have visions of us pushing ourselves. I am demoing songs that I'll probably throw away, but its a good kind of throwaway. (there's this funny point in one of the demos where I"m doing this keyboard solo and my roommate comes in -we haven't talked about my doing music- and I say 'hey'). There's a cover and a title, so that takes care of at least three weeks of worrying. See, we're half done.

I have three finals to do. And I will let the internet know how they go, as they go.

Speaking of who is going to pull me through, I think these five friends are who I need: Jon Anderson, Chris Squire, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman and Steve Howe.

Brian Wilson - SMiLE

So there's this thing that I do where I'll develop a strong opinion about something upon first listen or so. So here it is, I hate this album so much. And then its like, what should I do? Do I listen to it again? That's just going to confirm the hate, though, so its useless because I could be listening to something I like where the drums DONT sound like every indie record released this year. They're good to great songs, don't get me wrong, its an issue with sonics. Nobody has really been able to cover the Beach Boys, to get that perfect mix of brotherly harmony and studio wonder on record, so why would the burned out former lead Boy be able to? And why is the album number one in Uncut's year end special? Is it just 'oh, we finally have SMiLE? Best thing ever?' If anything, this makes the original more of a lost album.

The Holiday Season

I feel like I'm honing in on what this takes. What this music takes. I wrote at least one good song this weekend. I spent a lot of time with pianos or guitars.

If you ever get to see the Artillery documentary (which requires Sterling borrowing Sandra's friend's camera which is on loan to a maybe now ex-friend, who knows) you'll see how much determination went into making the 'singles'. We started the album and I said, 'here are the two big singles, speed dogs and cactuses' and we hadn't written them and I hadn't had any idea about them, I just described what they were kind of like and we tried to get some idea of what that would look like on a cd album.

So going into this album (what we're going to try to do over winter break) I'm going to have at least four singles in mind. This is crazy, I know, because XTC took four weeks? or six weeks? on "Making Plans for Nigel" and that isn't really even that great of a single, but it is a really good XTC song. So four singles. I have a few names of things jotted down on a piece of paper, but I haven't looked at that so I don't know how good those ideas are. Maybe I'll sneak the names of them into these posts and see if there is a good reader reaction. But I'll have to be really BERLIN AGAIN sneaky.

I have an idea of how I want the album to start. I want it to first be this really clear bassline and then it plays the riff once and then it plays again but then harmony vocals and an electric keyboard come in. And then the vocals and drums enter at the same time and things kind of take a right turn or some sort of turn. And then instead of the chorus there's this cool guitar part which is both melody and chords and people will hear that and say 'wait, you can play melody AND chords?' and also 'wait, is this boy from South Africa?' No, 'this MAN IS from South Africa'.

I have demos of songs on my computer that could be something good, or are already something good if I put drums to it. If Conner puts drums to it.

Essentially this album is going to be a bunch of really minimalist songs with some weird maximalist additions. Lots of overdubs of non-instruments basically. Disco Inferno's EPs meet ELO's 80s albums to destroy whoever would make comparisons like that to describe what music sounds like.

We'll be listening to weird technical things. And I'll be practicing the bass in class, pretending to be practicing the guitar, because air guitar is so much cooler than air bass. Both of these are of course cooler than air loss. Get it, 'air loss. Lose some 'air gov'nah? And I just got better at playing the keyboard. But not that noticably better, just like 'hey, that's cool'. Someday I'll be caught up to that snooty fifteen year old I saw play Liszt when I was seventeen.

I promise I'll sing well somewhere on the album. Leave me alone.

It all Sounded the Same

Its good right now. I don't know, you know. The depression becomes sort of -fun- and the loneliness is quite welcomely populated. I'm listening to a terrible album right now that I'm not going to say anything about except that it is of the moment. Sometimes with these of the moment albums, before they become 'of the moment' for everybody else I want to stay up nights and rip off and release before they get a proper release and win public attention for doing it first. Because the way record geeks do it is they say 'hey that sounds like a Yes riff' and then they look it up but, oh wow, it was released 2 weeks AFTER that album. But in the 00s, we can't think of release dates, we've gotta think of leak dates. I suppose some of these bands may play live, but I can't prove that.

I'm getting music done. I have five short songs done. And others that I've written with others. The fierce 20some days of winter break are going to find me trying, trying, trying. If you know how Kevin Rowland would pronounce 'trying', 'trwoyoin', that's about it. If you don't know how Kevin Rowland would pronounce it, get your hands on any Dexy's Midnight Runners CDs that you can find and listen to it until you love it. (this may require the presence of no other humans.)

I've got to make my mind sing like a stone. My voice, we'll write around that. I've listened to enough records to know how to avoid making a bad one. Mediocre? Well, I've got that in spades, but I'm piloting all ways around to avoid some collision with obscurity. I have to do more Han Solo and less Lando Calrissian. I'll play that guitar like a madman. A three stringed madman. We'll write songs with so many changes that historians will piece them together and put them on 8 cd box sets that our widows will approve of (but only because it buys them the greenhouses they've been longing to add). And then Brian Wilson will rerecord them thirty years later and it will sound like desperation personified. God, Brian.

I'll make a list of things that we can learn from everyone we know. AND the thing that I've learned best from Santa Cruz (finding here that the worst Santa Cruz is at least more entertaining than the best of the Fresno bands) is that we have to pioneer. Its not enough to retread. Have I ever been guilty of that? There were a couple of embarassing things that I recorded in the year 2000 that were derivative, but you haven't heard the worst of them, they're hidden away in computer's folders. I did a song with a British accent. I swear I did.

But when I hear 10cc I don't think 'wow, let's learn those chords', I think 'let me think how it happened that one of the guys played acoustic guitar and then the other guys had the audacity to put those slides and harmonies that totally dominate the acoustic guitar and how did whoever wrote those chords do that?'. That's in the song "Old Wild Men". And when I hear Bowie I don't think 'let's use those chords' I think 'who do I know that plays the sax?'. And when I hear OMD I think 'if I'm going to use chords, I'll use them like OMD.' And when I hear bow wow wow (which I haven't in a while) I think 'yes. Let's rip this off completely.' But Bow Wow Wow is one of these bands where you can rip them off and it will still be original. A Malcom McLaren Original.

Steely Dan

Countdown to Ecstacy

So the last time they got a few right. Good for a debut. This time they know their muscle (the rhythm section) and they know how to get the best day's work out of them.

It opens with Bodhisattva, which is arena blues rock. Its so huge and Yeslike and encapsulates all of the concise wit that we'll come to know better on later Dan albums. Its got those awesome prog runs, and I'm going to talk about prog more in a minute here.

Razor Boy kind of revisits this ping bump dugga chk groove thing that we got in Do it Again and later in Rikki Don't lose that Number.

The Boston Rag does this kind of thing that happens in a few Genesis songs, where they'll lay off for a minute and it feels so wonderfully lonely, the piano and the guitar that's playing itself, first with the lone feedback whine a third above whateverthehell inversion of a thirteenth the piano's playing, it gets its barings and then proceeds to immolate the amplifier. Its got this great hook/groove thing where this guitar slides into all the right places and the other guitar and piano just agree.

Your Gold Teeth. I had a lot to say just a minute ago about how this song rewrites the Yes catalog for furniture shopping, but then I can't explain the stupendous electric piano solo that's GUARANTEED the best music ever for running up flights of stairs. If you ever have to climb up a lot of flights of stairs, put this song on. And if you don't want to climb up the stairs, put it on anyway and stand at the bottom of the staircase and rock out. And if there is a crazy ward in the upstairs and the orderlies are downstairs, they will carry you up, saving your legs any unnecessary expense.

I'll do the second half tomorrow.

Steely Dan

From their first album "Can't Buy a Thrill"

1. Do It Again - My friend Miles and I were in band in high school and we played this medley of Steely Dan songs. When Mr. Ruffner played the actual songs for us the thing that stuck with us the most were the lyrics for "do it again" aka 'the song about stealing water'. The lyrics (now understood as some sort of antebellum revenge story) don't matter so much as the super 70s groove that steals the show for six straight minutes.

2. Dirty Work - This is the conglomeration of every smooth 70s backing vocal into one chorus where the backing singers are complaining about the structure of the song, but only if you look at it that way. It's a good song but I can't be bothered to remember it at this moment.

skip skip skip

6. Reelin' in the Years - The apostrophe at the end of the Reelin is the important part of the title, an abbreviation, but just barely at the terminal point of a bait'n'tackle shop. I picture the narrator singing directly to me and I think 'he has it exactly' and I just want to break down into tears.
"You been tellin' me you're a genius
Since you were seventeen
In all the time I've known you
I still don't know what you mean"
Jesus Christ Donald Fagen. You have the last four years of my life pegged down.

7. Fire in the Hole - After the most devestating Steely Dan song, I'm running down the stairs to rapid piano and I just want to go home and sleep it off.

But thanks.

Its like running into what I want myself to be at 30 or 40 or 50 and, while they admire me for my youth - something that they can never get back - its like watching a plane crash, you can't do anything but watch.

The Kinks. Can I Use Them?

The First albums with 'kink' in the name - There's a lot of power poppy stuff, somewhere between the Beatles and the Who in terms of excitement. This is not particularly a kind of music that I use a lot, so I make no exceptions for the few hits that are pretty much the same song.

Face to Face - A lot of fluffy psych tunes that aren't as cluttered as other psychedelic stuff, but not really as interesting either.

Something Else - I can't use "Waterloo Sunset" anymore, which is their most appreciated song (as far as I've seen), so that's a bummer. The other songs on this album that I would potentially use are the ones where their sister is singing in the bathroom and the reverb is nice.

The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society - No. Its too nice-y. Picture Book, maybe. But that song is quick losing its power.

Arthur (or the rise and fall of the british empire) - Eh. A few stellar songs that are my favorite kinks tracks (Victoria, Yes Sir No Sir) but nothing that holds together. And also concept albums suck.

Lola vs. The Powerman and the money-go-round part one - Ehh. The only song that I really latched onto the first listen through everyone else dismisses as a throwaway (that's the money-go-round track). Also more lame concept stuff. Oh, monkeys, cross dressing, record industry, all laid out so bluntly.

Muswell Hillbillies - Here's where the songs start to rock again and sound more like the Rolling Stones. The Stones if they wrote more drawn out songs and used more nearly-piercing melodies.

The Great Lost Kinks Album - Should have kept it that way.

After that - everything gets this 80s edge, even before the eighties get there.

The Kinks. I cannot use them.

Junior Boys

Too bleak. Its like the Pet Shop Boys for me, where yeah, the songcraft is good and the expressiveness is good, but the singing coupled with the electronic backing makes for some depressing listening. No matter how interesting a song like 'West end girls' or 'More than real' is, they make me think of being a kid sitting on a couch and for some reason not moving out of the sun. And then I'm thirsty and I don't drink anything for another hour and a half because my mom's on the phone having a long conversation with somebody about the whats the best cooking show on tv oh I haven't seen that one -cough- did you say david Sprenner? And then I have milk with dinner.

I have two memories about listening to this. The first one I was 'cleaning' my room in Fresno and decided to give it an honest listen. Nothing doing. The songs were too long. The second time I was testing out staying up and listening to music on my headphones and it didn't work, because I wanted to watch TV at the same time but I was afraid that the flashing light of the screen would wake up my roommate so I kept on trying to turn the screen so I could still see it and I kept moving around. And when I finally gave up on this, TV turned off, I lay my head down on the pillow and Last Exit was the soundtrack to this failure.

I'm not saying its not good, half the people I know would probably like it, I'm just saying that for me its a depressing record and not one that I need in my life. For everything written about how well they nailed a specific aspect of OMD-ness I'm just thinking that I'd much much rather listen to OMD. At least they have a sense of humor. 4/10.

The Arcade Fire

Terrible name. I don't know. I'm listening to this (my third attempt) and I really like it this time. I'm not happy that I like it. I made an ironic folder to put all of my songs from critically/popularly acclaimed albums this year and I find myself enjoying all of them at least a little bit. And being excited about all of them. So is EVERYBODY ELSE. Are these albums really good? I mean, I'd like to think so. Even though they all sound, indie, they have enough good ideas.

I wouldn't see them in concert. I'd much rather see a band I don't like with thirty friends than a band I do like with a few hundred fashion solipsists. In San Fransisco probably. I say this, and I say stuff about L.A., but in real life, they're probably like the Blood Brothers and the Arcade Fire, I'd like them given enough secret listens.

I guess the end result of this, even though me knowing a lot about music isn't as important as it once was, is that I should be happy that other people have the amount of musical listening to combine stuff like disco drums with motown bass and vocal riffs aping from eighties keyboards and sometimes contrast two or three different genres happening at the same time. The singing's bad, but what are you going to do about that.

Okay, at least I don't like that new ambient or new folk stuff. I'm not with everyone on that. And I don't like Jandek.

Also, I do like a bunch of things that people don't like and aren't listening to, even if they would like it. ELO? Huh? Heard of them? Maybe? Scritti Politti? Sorry, you wouldn't like it. The Free Design? What? Okay, maybe you do know the music that I listen to.

Well, maybe if I think of this all in a nonselfish way I can say 'Well, I'm happy that you have those spectacular albums and we can share their amazingness together'. And then I'll look them in the eye and say 'friend'.

Listening List:

So Family seems to be this crazy superband that I never want to listen to (my roommate is beating a water bottle in the front room like a drum) because I think I'll catch all the good parts early and It'll be wrecked for me forever but that pre-Bowie bleat and the pre-Logic saxophone, man, I don't want to listen to it or share it with anyone. So stop reading this.

Nelly McKay making the same music that she mocks her audience for listening to. She performed on the view and its fun to watch each of the members of the view crew come around to the fact that her song isn't just being ironic, its being biting, mocking, crucial of the way that they operate their lives. The slow lady on the view even drops her jaw for the wrong reason early at the song at a mis-understood rhyme. Its like she's luring people to a performance just to make fun of them. I'm not completely comfortable with her penchant for rap, not that I don't like her raps, just the fact that she's into the... you know, maybe I do like that. And the production that's a million dollars I can forgive because I'd think, if it was inexpensive production, get some better equipment.

The Free Design have really nice album covers and their albums aren't cheesy if you aren't paying attention.

The Move always gets me participating.

Last night:

"Hey Tyler are you playing tonight?"
"Yeah, sure"

"Hey Jen, let's get focused, back to the G in the bridge"

"The principal, he called your mom, said her parental method's wrong,
just like these next chords, you're in suspension"

"WHO! YOU! I MISS YOU! WHO? YOU!"

"Oh, hey Tyler, we just got here"

(Guy from the Castanets:)
"Come on you guys, buy CDs, we're going to San Diego tomorrow and we don't want to make our FRIENDS buy them"

"Hey, are you guys coming to our electric show?"

"Oh, see you later then?"

Hypothetical Conversation:

"So why all the progressive rock lately?"
"I don't know, hoping to find something that I like"
"You like the drawn out songs, then?"
"well sometimes I think I do. Even though sometimes bands that work better in a pop framework like Genesis (P.G. Genesis) can't quite draw out things very compellingly all the time"
"So why not just go for bands with more concise songs?"
"Well, its in the drawn out bits, where they clearly didn't want to write lyrics that you get the best idea of the band's chemistry. Also you know that they can speak the language of music instead of just plain english"
"You say you like the Jesus and Mary Chain"
"Well, you know I can say I like them all I want, but really I just like their potential. You know, I can fantasize about the album Psychocandy all I want, but that doesn't mean I can get all the way through it."
"What about the Ramones?"
"Yeah, you know, they're good, but its just like any given thing, I can't really get into the same thing over and over unless its a really good same thing"
"Like Steely Dan"
"Yeah, but the big difference between Steely Dan and the Ramones is the community. The Ramones is fist-pumping in the back of the car, Steely Dan comes on in the supermarket when you are trying to decide which kind of milk to buy."
"But you love Steely Dan, though."
"Yeah, in the way that someone loves a David Foster Wallace book, you can't really share, because the people that know about it are tools and even if you could, you wouldn't want to talk about how great it is."
"So the prog stuff is like.."
"Well, it has a more concise vocabulary than traditional 'classic' rock, there's something about the split rhythms and thirty-second note runs that make it... even though it is mentally alienating, there's a nice sonic unity about it."
"But Tyler, Eighteen minutes"
"Shut up, its going somewhere..."

The great thing about being a lit student

If I turn this book upside-down, I'm almost done.

If I haven't posted anything in a while its because I'm either too busy or because I can't think of anything.

The new Interpol album I'm liking more with each new listen, it has a nice personality. The guitars are well-informed, there's meta-reverb all over the place, the bass keeps quiet but does its own nice thing. There's some well-placed piano and organ, which I worry about because the way it sneaks in there so well, it makes me feel like the guitar might be more important than I think. The drummer is probably my least favorite member, but the drums sound nice enough.

Its the lyrics though, those sore thumb things like 'You make me want to pick up a guitar / And celebrate the myriad ways that I love you' and 'I can take you places / Do you need a new man? / Wipe the pollen from the faces / Make revision to a dream while you wait in the van', that make you think. Paul Banks, lyricist, writes metaphors like he's busy moving furniture at the same time, all his aggression is focused on getting the COUCH! around the CORNER! up the STAIRS! but at the same time his post-undergrad mind is philosophizing half heartedly about watching 'the pole dance of the stars'. They are adorable clunkers that I can really sympathize with. 8/10

There's this other album out right now, called "Set Yourself on Fire" by a band named Stars who I should hate because if I had to give you a type of music that they are I'd say that they're that effete type of alternative rock. But. They're also the exception, much like the Magnetic Fields. Not in a transcendant way, like S. Merritt, but in a surfing with the stars way like, well to scoot over a genre, like Kanye West. The way they do things, its with such a level of comfortability and quotation there's virtually no (don't listen to track nine) awkwardness and, though a lot of the sounds contained within are indebted to Sarah Records (yeah, bleh, I know), there's also a lot of craft. Craft like 'let's take this song in a new direction after verse two' or 'let's add another melody and push it over the top'. So I like them also and I've listened to their album twice which is quite a bit, considering the genre. 7.5/10.

There's two lyrics on that Stars album that reference music specifically, there's a really good line about how "Tainted Love" is too fast to dance to, and then there's a sucky line about a Velvet Underground cassette. I think when you are old enough to be affected by the Velvet Underground you are too old for them. I remember listening to "Sister Ray" in the backroom and soloing along on a guitar and then Conner came in and switched the CD and I protested 'aw, man, there was only seven minutes left', but I didn't miss it and my fingers wouldn't have been able to keep up. Vanessa doesn't like that song either.

The new Soft Pink Truth album has one good song on it, the first one, but the rest is the kind of cut-it-up-aint-I-swell stuff of the first album and the Matmos stuff. The idea of the album is interesting, but the way its presented it just makes every song seem like a joke and every genre involved is devalued. In a bad way. 2/10.

Dogs Die In Hot Cars - This year's OK Go. 2/10.

Dungen - 6/10. There's a couple pretty good songs, but they all go on for too long. I'll listen to it again maybe sometime if I don't have anything better to listen to,

Which I wont,

Because I have so many progressive rock albums right now. I have to open my mind to things outside of "Fragile" because that's the best thing ever and makes me want to purchase a car just so I can drive to Alberta or someplace far so I can listen to it on repeat and turn it down when I stop at a drive-through to order my 26th burger of the drive. When I get back, everyone will ask me what I ate and I will say "I lost count at 26 burgers" because I was concentrating on some five-four rhythm. The rest of Yes, I'm afraid is either too focused or not focused enough.

Gentle Giant I think I might like a lot, but the two albums I've heard so far I've thought 'oh, so they're an instrumental band', but DUDE, No. They aren't. They've got singing all over the place. It just sinks into the background in a weak way. I like it though. Rush and King Crimson are probably too 'rock' for me. Emerson Lake and Palmer I already like. Caravan I think I'll like. Magma might be too alienating for me, but I'll share it with Grayson. Genesis I think I already liked but might be too boring for me now. The little bit I listened to seemed exciting enough.

I played two different melodicas these past two weekends.

Four More Years of Winter

So I had this dream last night. I was on some sort of field trip with a modern lit class and we took this bus, it was just supposed to be from Fresno High to Dailey Elementary which is a really short walk, but you know, schools and their wacky ideas. We took the bus and all these little kids got on at Dailey (which we thought was our destination) and they said 'we're hungry'. The bus driver said 'I don't have any snacks, but I have a record player and you can put on a record if you want. One guy came prepared and put his own cartridge in the record player and then put a record on. It was one of these normal 'we do beats mainly, but with a twist' nothing too spectacular. But all of the kids on the bus laughed, mirroring the thoughts I had about the guy having lame taste.

We got to this hotel and I was the only one who got a room. Everyone else kind of hung out in the lobby and flipped through their books. One of the bellhops came in and asked for my social security number and I grabbed him by the arm and said 'no way' and led him out and told Bill Nickell (Why in God's name would I be on a field trip with HIM) and he said 'no way' and the bell hop said 'well the bus driver's nowhere to be found'. Everybody was sitting in the lobby eating food from a paper bag, which I guess they'd brought, but there was glass all over the floor. I went into my hotel room and went to sleep.

I woke up in the evening and there was a note on top of a stack of coupons that said 'we've gone for burgers' and I thought 'allright!' so I walked through the strip mall that the hotel was housed in, ripping up the coupons as I walked, being careful to not let the strip mall security see me. As I got to the place where I supposed everyone was eating (DiCicco's) I looked at the last coupons in my hand and realized that I'd been throwing out helpful coupons for my dining experience. I left and went to a supermarket and bought twenty dollars worth of produce and brought it back to the table where everyone was eating and presented each bunch of fruit to them. I got: raspberries, bellpeppers, jalapenos, blueberries, celery and maybe a few other things. I thought that this dinner didn't apply to me anymore, so I left to go get a present for Vanessa.

I've got to go, I'll finish this later.

Okay, so the strip mall was on the edge of this freeway and the place I wanted to shop was on the other side of the freeway. I looked across, there was a steak place and the clothing place, which is the place I wanted to go to. So I look to the left and I notice something happening to the sky and I think 'I should probably write this down so I remember it when I wake up.' So I go through my pockets, nothing but a knife, and with nothing to write on but my arm, that wasn't going to work. I looked down at the ground behind me and found a red sharpie. I took the following notes as I saw the following things happen to the sky:
1."Pink Moons" - The moon multiplied and became a lot of pink moons with the one original moon remaining in the center.
2."Feathers" - All of the pink moons turned into feathers and fluttered around in the sky for a few seconds.
3."Lightning" - Against a lightening backdrop, the feathers all came together in the form of some really big but not particularly threatening creature, like a giant flaming bear.

Everytime I started crossing the street some vehicle on the horizon would rush up from the left and be going too fast for me to make it. Diesel trucks, muscle cars, a gang of motorcycles, all coming only from the left side. I eventually got across the highway and into Urban Outfitters and everything was completely gone. The shelfs had a few mangled items on them, but the store was mostly empty except for some thuggish guys. They started walking over to me and I ran out the door and across the street again.

I got back to the hotel and Vanessa and her roommates (in real life) were there. I had to go to the bathroom so I woke up and I looked at my arm and the writing was just a few small red lines. I remembered the notes though, and told them the entire dream anyway, they were mostly impressed but didn't particularly care aside from a few 'gosh'es.

Later in the dream I had to sneak through a window to deliver some sheet music to my film teacher. She was trying to make a compilation of songs to help students study, but I already had made a better one.