Editors - "Lights"
(Fader Label / Kitchenware Records, 2005)
This is quite an explosive, riveting song for a band to open its debut album with. Even the chorus' line "I got a million things to say" seems to cleverly relate to the band's name, as well as to the album's cover art.
The guitar sound is just mind-bogglingly great, writhing with feedback and treble, like the guitarist soldered his axe into a powerline out on the street and started playing during a lightning storm. Editors came around in the immediate wake of Interpol, with pretty much the same image and set of influences, so a lot of people, including myself, shrugged them off without really giving them a chance. Even their name put them in the crop of studious bands (e.g. Engineers, Prosaics) who refused to use a "The" in front of their names, in opposition to all the "The [Noun]s" bands which were so hyped in the early '00s as the supposed saviors of garage rock. (The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Hives, The Vines.) I first heard them via the song "Munich", which was iTunes' free download of the day sometime in 2006. For some reason I didn't care for it then (and in fact didn't even download it for free), but I dig it now. Along with "Two Kinds" by Film School, Editors' "An End Has A Start" was probably my favorite song of 2007:
That video is truly terrible. On Editors' most recent album they went totally synth-pop, with pretty cingeworthy results, but at least they're trying to evolve and stuff.
On Monday I hit my fav. thrift store (Red, White & Blue in Marrero) and finally got a Defend New Orleans t-shirt, and one commemorating the Space Shuttle's 1981-2011 lifespan, and two others.
I turned on WTUL in my car and heard one of my all-time top 10 anthems, "Golden Soldiers" by The Sound, starting up. So I freaked out and called the station to thank the DJ. I also asked if the station had any Comsat Angels in the stacks, and she said no, but that she had brought some of her own Comsats stuff in, specifically their debut album Waiting For A Miracle. So I requested "On The Beach," and told her the origin of its name (a post-nuclear-war novel by Nevil Shute). Generally, requests take about 10-30 minutes or more to process, if they get played at all, but literally a minute or so later, I hear its distinctive lurching bassline kicking in amidst vinyl pops and hisses. Man, that made my day. Check her playlist for that day here. I played some 2-on-2 for a few hours at Ama Park in an occasional drizzle. In the car I played rock music by Bright Channel.
I dislike most beers, but I've recently caught on to the fact that the ones called stouts are amazing. Yesterday I did a side-by-side taste comparison between my two favorite beers, which happen to be two of the world's most revered stouts: Guinness Draught and Murphy's Stout. It's like choosing a Rolls or a Bentley, and they were almost completely identical in every way, but Murphy's is a bit more flavorful overall, while Guinness is more mellow. Both have almost no hops, and lots of malt, making them very smooth and dark, not unlike chocolate milk. Both are low in alcohol, and both come with nitrogen widgets in the cans for a smooth, keg-quality pour.
Today I woke up and checked my Careless Operation ticket from October (see 10/12 post) and realized with shock that my court date and/or ticket payment date was two days ago. Oops. It's a weird feeling to know there might be a warrant out for one's arrest. The late fee ("contempt of court" fee) was $125, bringing a fairly minor ticket up to a whopping $279. So I went and got a money order and sent it off to the courthouse in Hahnville, lowering my checking account balance to $37. So in summary, the only person who was driving the speed limit on that bridge two months ago shelled out $279 today, due to several boneheaded errors. This is the first ticket I've paid in almost 20 years of driving.
Since I forgot to post any photos of myself from California, I'll do a few this month. All of our home videos were lost in Katrina, so there is literally no video of me as a kid, which is distressing on so many levels... This one is from some kind of statue garden area by that big rotunda in Golden Gate Park:
And this is from the same day & same place, looking much less annoyed to be near each other:
I pretty much didn't have any eyebrows until I was about 14. We were both dressed in highly fashionable Osh Kosh B'Gosh, as our mom usually made us wear at this time. Wherever in the world you live, you have to make a pilgrimage to Golden Gate Park, because it's possibly the best thing in America.
Planets with similar climates: Big Black - "Kerosene" (1986), Unwound - "Entirely Different Matters" (1993), The Emerald Down - "Perilized" (2001), Dub Sex - "Then And Now" (1989).
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