Basement Jaxx

Sometimes Basement Jaxx are the best band ever but today for the first time, they seemed really amateurish, like they have a clear idea in mind what they want to do and how to do it, just no goal of where they are going with it. The parts I was looking forward most to on their Singles compilation (the breakdown going back to the chorus in "Romeo" and the chorus of "Plug It In") had little to no impact on me. I kept on being pleasantly surprised at the songs they did, I like this feature on hits compilations. There is an abundance of older songs, like from Remedy or before where there just these ambling hey-what-an-idea songs, like one where the Jaxxers are telling us that we don't know them in a female voice, that one is boring. I'd never really thought of the Jaxx as a flawed entity, but walking around with them on the headphones I felt more vulneurable than anything. Getting into this whole pop-aware-of-itself thing, I think bands have to kind of step back from any sort of 'precious' treatment of music, which is what I suspect the Basemen might be doing. Anyway, me feeling slightly superior to the Jaxx is a good thing, it means that I'm on the right track, even if I'm wrong about this.

The Bravery

Also I just listened to this band because of something written on NYLPM and GOD ARE THEY BORING. Its like hi-hats for the sake of hi-hats and synths for the sake of synths and boring intercom vocals because hey, if Julian Casablancas does it it must be the thing to do. Right, but Julian Casablancas matters and you don't. Fuckers.

The Wanderer 2

Gracie and Taylor's review of the album:
"Remember when we had a sleepover and you were at our house and we didn't know who was at your house and we thought it was Conner?"
"What shoes were you wearing [when you recorded this]?"
Of track 3: "This one's crazy"
"I didn't know you were in the computer"
"Are you playing the pinano?"

So again, no press and no fanfare and no cares. I guess I just figure at this point that one of the friends it gets to will play it for somebody who will demand a copy and the chain will continue. I recognize that the chorus in this album's best song ("Wine on Weekends" in my opinion) is not as good as the chorus in Le Fou's best song ("Half Hearted Holiness" it has been agreed) and so the album isn't as good. I don't know, I guess the time thing really gives each song time to develop. The problem is that I am starting to get more tired with each song, or maybe more scared that each one won't pan out. Like with this album I really just went into recording with a bunch of song titles, I would say "okay, this one is called Jamaica Millions" and start playing and it would be finished half an hour later.

The next three albums then, which I'm going to write about now are going to be more thought out. I'm going to put accents in the songs and write challenges for myself to remember. I already have a few songs written for them. Love Drums is on the backburner until we have a guaranteed hit formula. Vanessa proposed the idea of "Instrument Days" where we just hang out with our instruments as a 'band' and just get really into them. As I told her, I don't want musicians, I want alchemists that bend the fabric of space and time into the essence of soul using music as their tool.

So I'm going to have these lists of songs, concepts of songs and like the best songs on Artillery and Corsair and so forth, I'm going to map it out and explain to everybody. Cactuses has to have spikes, We Could Work it Out has to have sing alongs.

30. Too Loud For The In Crowd

Its going to open with cymbal crashes. The opener is going to be one of these thumpers that you always hear and are impressed by, I'm impressed with it by how it goes in my head. I got really excitied about this album watching some live footage of the Who when Keith Moon turns his drum over and all of this water starts shooting out of it inexplicably. Every song is going to be really fun and we'll do that prog song about summer that we started on this last album on this one. We'll merge Sparks and Zeppelin in a way that will beflux you and fummel you. I'll play guitar really well and you'll think that we rock. If we ever toured it would have been for this one.

31. Continental

Impressionistic, minimalist. The few songs I've been writing for this have been very piano heavy. We'll have to record some of these on a real piano. There are going to be a lot of horn parts that I'll have to write and learn because, damn, its hard for me to play the horn. There will be a lot of bop stuff, I'll have to bite the bullet and purchase A) a wah pedal and B) some bongos, because even though we say we can emulate the sound with coffee cans we can't. The big single is going to be straight-up disco. I'm going to think of some ways besides ninth chords that 'impressionistic' can be done.

32. Cavalier

Also minimalist but focus is more on strange sounds. Think like the opening of "Lovers A to Z" (A failed experiment if ever there was), where people asked 'what IS that?' a lot more of that. Like in Corsair, we had an impressive list of instruments that we played, but really it just sounded like keyboard, drums, bass, other things hit. There will be melodies on things no melody has been played on before, harmonies on things that will only make one note, rhythms on puzzling new instruments. Cavalier and Continental are going to be like a double album, but packaged maybe differently. Or in this cool half-way where the covers and tracklist are all half-pages, I don't know. I'm thinking what will happen is that we'll record these two or maybe all three at the same time and then kind of forge tracklists from there. Though maybe each at its own time would be best, because there there's the pressure of finding more singles within a smaller body of work.

Challenges:
Falsetto
Speed-up

To Consider: Where did "Stayin' Alive" come from? How did the bassline come about? Songs that are just a part of our souls, "Celebrate" "Come on Eileen", how did they become instant unquestionable classics? I think the key to making pop music, rather than rock music that is poppy is to make the -music- part indistinguishable from the song as an entity. People shouldn't be thinking about how the song is played (you know when you turn on college radio you think F Fm C C7) people should be grabbed by the ears, shaken and not let go under any circumstances.

The Wanderer 1

So when you're recording an album in a week the last thing that comes to mind is subtlety. Not that this album is particularly blatant (except the opening lines). By subtlety I mean the sort of touches that make music great. Because, hey, this isn't a great album, partially because we did it in a week and partially because we did it. I'm still in search of an editor, a producer, somebody to take my weaknesses and turn them into strengths. Somebody to smack me in the face and say 'you idiot! you need to write a better song than this' or 'can't you see that this song demands more attention!'. I'm sorry, theoretical producer, when you have zany deadlines, you've got to keep on your toes. So what if a few others get stepped on?

There's parts in the week where Conner comes in from work and is angry at everything and nothing in particular and notices that I'm working on a new song and HEY, that's not me drumming! Did you let Grayson play the drums? No, Conner, its you drumming. Wow, I don't remember this song at all. There were a few cases of that. There were a few cases of me kicking back and not writing a song at all. For an afternoon, Max transcribed some former keyboard noodlings and arranged them into a three-Max coo-fest, I appear on the track only briefly. Mike wrote this zany seven bar guitar chorus that took us all a while to figure out why our parts didn't go with his and eventually just adapted.

I'm currently thinking up three albums that I want to record over summer. I would write about them but I remembered something. When are we going to do Love Drums? Its like we keep doing these fine, but mediocre albums and we never step things up. Its like since Le Fou, we've been searching for an heir, and no, no, no, no, no, none yet. We're just making more Heart of Golds, and while that's fine, its all very 2001 and not at all 2005. So the three albums I have in my head, maybe they'll have to wait until I can get my head together, take us back to the moment when we rehearsed for Le Fou in Conner's room and the fact that I couldn't play bass didn't matter, as long as we had the big explosions and the insane transitions planned, all the other stuff would work itself out. Sorry that we've given you five albums of white bread since then.

Anyway, this is a move towards more of making the kind of music that people will want to listen to as opposed to music that people listen to with a sense of duty because you handed them a cd. I think we've done a good job, but we will do better. I'll tell you about those three albums in a bit, even if they are just treading water.

Cover the Clocks

Working non-stop Conner, Mike, Max, Megan, Grayson and I have recorded an album over the last week. It is really peppy and tries things we haven't done before. I'll tell you more about it in Santa Cruz. 12 hours of sleep this week.

Separation Sunday

The Hold Steady's second album is less immediately fulfilling but ultimately more rewarding. If you are a fan of Pavement's Crooked Rain-closing "Filmore Jive" you will like this album as it is pretty much eleven little Filmore Jives.

I listened to this album twice today. I caught a bus, drank a soda, walked around downtown listening on the headphones, took the long bus back to campus, and of course, I was listening to this the entire time as a sort of guide to my future. There's this abyss that is looking up at me and it is the abyss of growing older, having to deal with having nothing but a B.A. and a few rumpled resumes, doing laundry at an honest-to-god laundromat, living in a house with "Three skater dudes and a hoodrat chick". This album is terrifying to me, there is no bright side to things, every character is "a soft chick who's had a hard time" or a drug dealer or "the guy who answers the door knowing what you're looking for". The best possible situation our narrator finds himself in is looking like a young Rod Stewart, but even then all the punk kids hate him. The way my life is working in Santa Cruz right now, all of these things apply horrifyingly.

There was this party either a weekend or two weekends ago, and I took Julia aside and I said 'this party is my argument AGAINST staying in Santa Cruz', so many burned-out Seniors and post-seniors and mediocre bands that people are living for, at least for the moment (in this case the Two Gallants and the Bodicellis. So Mediocre. You bands will never be great.) So many second-hand cigarettes and two hour conversations defending one's decision to become a literature major. My solution to being trapped in the corner by folks I wasn't kosher with was to leave, but this proved unfruitful as well. "Holly was supposed to be a CCD but she was walking around on shady streets, she was looking for something she could take to a party."

One of the most immediately affecting and saddening songs is the first one, but not until you've heard it several times. There's this lyric where he says, "I have to really try so hard not to fall in love, I have to concentrate when we kiss" it hit me like a ton of bricks. This is as I'm walking to catch the bus. "I like the crowds at the really big shows, people touching people where they don't even know you", take me back to this party where too-comfortable people are bumping into me and there's that option to either be okay with it or to not be okay with it, and these opened up button-down shirts aren't a very good argument for staying.

So here's how the weekends work, as night rolls around half the people around me say things like "x is going on tonight" (where x is a party or a show or a happening) and the other half of the people on my other side say "what is going on tonight?" as if x is the solution to the night's equation. Solve for x. I frequently don't, I'm a poor go-between. The nights work themselves out, with x turning out to be the obvious whatever happens happens, and we find out through this that there is no sureshot formula for weekend-night-success, but this doesn't matter because you'll be right back where you started next weekend. Lead Hold Steady-er Craig Finn knows what this is all about and I do not know what to do with this.

Right now, I am immune to these long-term worries, sitting in my apartment listening to the Hold Steady, not because I like how they sound but because I am trying to get some good lyrics to include as I am typing this. This is very much like my literature career, I find something that I like and I try and make a case for either liking it or a case for something I'd put in a paper. I'm looking things up on google right now to make sure I don't mishear or misunderstand these lyrics (what's a CCD?). So Hold Steady, first album = their mission statement, second album equals their maybe masterpiece. There aren't as many brilliant lyrics, but the songs together are more rewarding. I'm scouring the internet and my brain. Listening closely for something to make my case stronger, but there's an expiration date to this album for me right now, as soon as I finish writing this. So I hope I find some good lyrics.

Well, hey. Aside from the brutal realism in each and every line, in the very core of every line, there's some nice obvious religious imagery in here. Charlemagne and Gideon, recurring characters in earlier songs going back to Lifter Puller come up time and time again and don't really mean anything to me, but I'm sure you could work something out about them. I'm just listening to them as clever names. One of the clunkier lines in the album is where he says something about original sin, trying to compare it to some busted-up-sex-romp-in-public, "I heard the chick blamed the dude, I heard the dude blamed the snake, and I heard they were naked when they got busted". The clunkiest line is "tripping is for teenagers" but it is followed by some of the better lines, which my memory do injustice to, but trust me.

Right now I have at least three, maybe four pages to write to complete this Faulkner final. After this, its pretty much guaranteed for my mediocre undergrad studies to be complete. There's just tests this week and then I'm mostly graduated. Three more units, or seven more? something like that, treading water next quarter. Summer has opened up, there will be an album there, but who knows in what shape I will be for it. Who knows where I will be for it.

Obligatory James Rabbit (The Band) Related Post

So finals week is coming up and I am relatively unconcerned. A revision here, a study session there, things will pull through and Friday will be here before we know it. Before I know it I will be in Fresno for five (or eight) fine days of spring break. I have three or four semi-excellent songs that I've been working on, we'll see if we can get an ep out of them. Conner has no work over spring break and I have no nothing anytime.

The things I have to concentrate on, having nearly written these songs, are putting all the pop parts in the proper places. I am trying to avoid my past failures, writing songs this time that ARENT about the songs failing as songs. Its all about connecting with the listener, hopefully a line like "She's gotten good at being lonely" has more resonance with you than "I'm just too cool for this artistic station...". I'd rather be simple and profound than complicated and obvious. Certainly I've not been successful at this so far, so I'll keep trying. In addition to me trying to write more accessible lyrics, I'm also going to start caring how this all sounds. We are going to try and mine sounds that we find spectacular and present them to you in a way that will addict and possibly injure you.

I'm very big into the idea of the addictive 7". You know, like the 45 that you buy because you heard part of the end of it and the name of the artist on the radio and you put it on and keep on putting it on because its so so so good? Yeah, I want to make a lot of those.

Fiery Furnaces: EP

Remind me to write something later about how this album so perfectly mirrors my life right now.

Okay.

First of all, I'm not thrilled with the Furnaces sound, especially on this record. Everything recently is sounding too harsh and a little bit amateur. Its not enough that the pianos and synths and guitar are played masterfully and layered magically in "Sing For Me", they could stand to use a little bit of soul. Matthew and Eleanor, however hard they try, do not provide this soul. The way the Furnaces work, Eleanor is the red hot coal in the belly, she's either red hot or smoking. Physical attractiveness aside, these qualities are not things that I particularly care for in a vocalist. She is either obvious like a train wreck, or slightly less obvious, like a train wreck clean-up crew. So when Matt comes in, its like water being doused on the burner, he is a welcome change, but not because he is a good singer.

This album is like my life right now. Everything is going really whimsically and smartly and attractively but I'm not sure how I feel about it. I listened to this album today in lieu of Heroic Epic, which was the best thing I could have done today (besides watch Holy Mountain in the library, which was the awesomest movie ever. EVER.) I went down the hill to get a pop and found myself not disagreeing with the EP. I got it as soon as possible, December '04, having previously only heard "Evergreen" (loved it) and "Single Again" (hated it). I found a few more songs to like on it "Here Comes the Summer" and "Smelling Cigarettes", but the coherence didn't find me. The coherence found me a few times, driving home from Christmas in Sacramento, you know, but I haven't really immersed myself in it like I have the other Furnaces albums. Today, I got all shaky on the way to getting the shakes and enjoyed the Furnaces, almost on a profound level.

When I took to it at the beginning of this quarter as a remedy for the blues, it didn't take. The tone was (and still is) too harsh, as much as I love the lyrics and some of the keyboard playing. Since then, I have found ways to appreciate the record. First, there's the Shibuya-Kei drums that are sprinkled hither and thither, which remind me of Pizzicato Five, OMD, and many other bands whose names I don't know. There's also the bass, which is sounding more and more informed that hey, maybe continents exist outside of the top of the Americas. The piano, as always, tinkles with a Charlie sheen and the rest of the synthesized sounds have you guessing as to the size and birthdate of the keyboard in question. Then, there's the progression of songs within themselves, like "Sing For Me", where the only movement is adding instruments in. I feel like I have some sort of desperation connection with Matt, like we don't know how to make good arrangements, so we come up with kinds of arrangements.

I hate "Duffer St. George" but by now I've gotten used to "Single Again" and enjoy it in that start-off-the-album way, kind of like I like "Monday Monday" from the first relevant self-titled Fleetwood Mac album. I don't really hate "Duffer St. George" that much. It might be my third to last favorite Fiery Furnaces song (coming just before the two cover songs). I like where they go with their little tangents, like in "Cousin Chris", where the warbling keyboard part tries to hold up the song with a melody and kind of does. I like how "Sweet Spots" could be a new direction for the band, but really its just a B-side. But really its just a really good B-side. At least as I remember it. It conjures up quite the attractive mental image when I'm not actually listening to it. That's the thing with this album. So many times this calendar year I've reached for it but then not put it on. I don't want to get lectured anymore by those zany siblings.

I'm not going to talk about the lyrics. I like the pitchshifted vocals that open "Sullivan's Social Slub". I also like the title of it. I like that the vocals are reversed in "Tropical Iceland (better than the Gallowsbird's Bark version)". I like that Matt sings, even if that's all it is; Matt singing. I'm not going to say anything about them being kids, but there's certainly a homeschooled feeling about this, in a negative way. Homeschooled in the way that you know the kids have no idea how to handle themselves when they go into the outside world and so they engage in a lot of self-dialogue, coming up with things that they have to try and find the common ground between: themselves and everyone else.

They don't know where they are going, and they might not be going anywhere deep. The masterpieces on this are only masterpieces of ideas, and kind of not that great to listen to. Its audacious, but so is the 28 cat song medley that Mike and I did at the Shop Show this weekend. Anybody can be audacious, but it takes a talent to make you lose yourself mid-walk. With this album I always know where I'm going. It actually anticipates where I know I'm going. It anticipates itself anticipating going where I know I'm going.

So here's the beans: Best album of the year so far. They've got two more tries.


Of Montreal - The Sunlandic Twins

This is number two. It isn't as good at Satanic Panic in the Attic because it is simpler and more stupid. It is better than Satanic Panic in the Attic because it looks delightfully shallowly backwards to the hep-steppin' nineties where bands like AR Kane and M.A.R.R.S. ruled the earth and the eighties seemed like a good idea. Fine Young Cannibals, kind of. There are a lot of eighth and sixteenth notes on programmed cowbell presets that I really like and support.

There aren't any great songs on here. There are a few songs where its like 'oh yeah, way to go in a different direction with things' but they never really reach the pinnacles that they reach on SPITA. There's the few blatant dance-pop songs, like Wraith Wrapped in Mist or whatever, The Party's Crashing Us Now. And then there's the songs, those amalgams of whatever's good, like that Oslo in the Summertime and the Closing Song, which, for a glorious second becomes a Queen song. Phew, Rah and all that.

The opening track says it all, though, they've got that strummy deal and bump bump drums. Hey, wait a minute, this is almost as good as the Strokes. Hey wait, there's a strokes album coming out later this year that is going to blow everything away. Still crazy after all these years.

The Best Moment of the Summer:

I have no idea what day this happened on. If I was my mom, I'd keep receipts and thumb through the Trader Joe's ones and be able to find the day that we bought a bottle of expensive pink lemonade, a bottle of expensive normal lemonade and two bottles of Orangina. It was a dinner party of some sort, we probably had chicken and artichokes. The important part isn't the dinner party, it was the morning after. Actually the afternoon after.

I woke up at about two pm to a vague promise of something in the air. I sleep with the back door open so that all the air can come in and make things a little bit less a hundred degrees. We had gotten rid of the good couch (my mom thought we got rid of it, but we secretly moved it into my room. It was way late in the day, I overstayed up and I overslept. I believe earlier in the day I had missed an opportunity to 'jam' (our phrase) with Conner:

"Hey, I'm going to work in an hour"
"mmnnhh"
"Tyler, Can I drum?"
"mnnh the drums are right by my head"
"I'll drum quietly"
(he drums)

So I wake up after he's gone and I have a very specific want. All I want is Orangina. I get up off the couch and I'm wearing my ridiculous sleeping shorts that I'm sure everybody laughs about to my face but I don't notice. I slip on nearby shoes because I have an idea that I should climb out the window to the backyard for some reason. I climb over the couch and open the screen and I'm standing on the step. But it isnt the step because we took those out a long time ago, its the cooler from last night. But could there be... I open it. It is cold inside, despite the fact that the ice has all melted. It is. An unsullied bottle of Orangina. Nobody had opened it the night before.

I grab my favorite green glass (the breed I believe may now be extinct) and proceed to make the Summer, consuming at least a liter of cool, shining orange truth.

11. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Junk Culture

I can offer you a compelling argument why each of OMD's first six albums are their best album. Their first is naive and sprightly and brilliant. Their second is emotionally devestating. Their third finds religion for us and crumples it up and throws it in the immaculately designed wastebin. The fourth is labored over and brief and the most unique sounding new wave record ever. The sixth is a masterpiece of falling apart. You and I will hang out some time, and barring an unfathomable distaste of eighties drum sounds, I will get you to love each of these six albums like they were your children, all equal, all different. Junk Culture is the second-to-youngest child that is the most endearing and the most consistently surprisingly solid. Two words: sax breaks. Okay, maybe some more words.

Side one is the party side. It starts with the traffic sounds and choral chants and some wonderful mock-dub stew that gets all wound up with nowhere to go. Every instrument is completely removed from its social intent, creating this clever little threat of a tune. The next three songs are some ridiculous zany eighties party where nothing makes sense and the only spoken language is chromatic zigzags. "Tesla Girls" once again finds them overstepping their boundaries as singers and straining to create some delightful pop failure. "Locomotion" has these delightful lyrics, "moving through the landscape at a million miles an hour", if I close my eyes as I listen to this I picture myself in a car at the age of seven quietly being driven across some desert landscape. "Apollo" has this ridiculously wonderful skank-guitar that punches a hole in your ear, for free, without purchase. Its like its the year 1997 and you've just spent three days downloading a demo of a 3-D videogame and you've just finished installing it. OMD was thirteen years ahead of their time.

"Never Turn Away" has OMD pull a few new tricks out of their bag, which is a really special thing for OMD. They have like five or six tricks, they are really good tricks and at least six more tricks than you have, but this is the seventh one, contained somewhere in this song. One of their songtypes is this really blatantly heartbreaking slow song full of pretty stuff and this is one of those kinds. If I'm still talking about side one being the party side, its when the girl you have a crush on is led into some whirlpool of deception just on the other side of the room. You scream but your sound is swallowed in arpeggiated synth-strings.

Side two is where it gets good. "Love and Violence" and "Hard Day" are pretty much the same song in my mind. "Love and Violence" uses this thing that raises the melody up to the fourth of the chord, it seems like a really feminine thing to do. You kind of have to hear it to understand. "Hard Day" is more sparse and a little bit more devestating. It tries to mutate to "Heroes" (an octave up, more passionate) but it doesn't really have anything that brilliant to say, so there's yelping and gasping and singing just a little bit out of rhythm with the skittering drums. When his voice cracks in the line 'its been a hard, hard da**y' it is simultaneously embarassing and profound. This is like that time when your goofy friend takes a sudden turn and can only conjure up the blues. You aren't quite sure what to say, how to console them, considering that that is usually their area.

But enough, back to the party. "All Wrapped Up" takes the exact same "Apollo" guitar (thank God, its more refreshing than Sierra Mist!) and conceals it under its coat like a dagger before thrusting it deep into your forehead at first opportunity. Then it riddles your body like the mafia with tons of brilliant keyboard or real horns. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have to trick you into liking it, the percussion is very very vibrant; its like they're drumming on cups and desks. You'll find yourself mentally bookmarking this song, though you'll forget and when you finally return to it, it will be this great surprise.

"White Trash" is the same kind of zany dub that "Junk Culture" is but more strangely menacing. He sings 'I'm going to break every bone in your body'. The synth in this song has a very Eno-doing-Bowie quality to it. Its very fleshed out but kind of hidden in the background. The drums have a mind of their own, adding reinforcements when necessary. "Talking Loud and Clear" is either about getting it on in public or watching two people getting it on in public. Either way, the synths remind me of Reading Rainbow. You kind of have to hear the nine minute version for all the creepiness to unfold, but its in the weird air-y sounds, picture a lot more of that in the nine minute version.

Its a very out of order OMD album. Usually they have only one peppy song, a few great midtempo head scratchers and has the heartbreaking songs at the end. This one has three or four peppy songs, gets all the heartbreakers out in the exact middle and uses songs in the end that kind of start like heartbreakers and turn them into something strange and confounding. The two closers have a melancholy attitude to them, but are not the heartbreakers like 'Stanlow', 'The Beginning and the End', 'Of all the Things We've Made', 'The Lights are Going Out', etc, they are much more conflicted as closers. Their second-to-last good album, before the crystalline and severely conflicted Crush, Junk Culture shows us a band that is too mature for their own good.