Alrighty, I'm back. After realizing three years have passed since I started this thing, I've decided to stop beating around the bush and just post lots of my all-time favorite songs, since I've barely gotten to many of my all-time favorite artists. Yes, Tumblr has been consuming most of my attention, since I can post major-label songs (recently by the likes of Ween, the Sundays, the Pointer Sisters, the Police, *NSYNC, Ride, PJ Harvey, the Church, Marvin Gaye, Goldie, the Bangles, the Future Sound Of London, Depeche Mode, PM Dawn, Daft Punk, Plexi, Sinéad O'Connor, etc.), which is something I obviously can't do on here. I'm going to start doing shorter posts on here.
Miracle - "Strange Taste"
(self-released[?], 2013)
Here is an astounding song from Steve Moore (Zombi) and Daniel O'Sullivan (lots of bands). It effortlessly lays to waste most of the '80s-wannabe bands of the current era, as well as the output of most actual '80s bands. I got it for free from Mixmag at SoundCloud. The production is gorgeous. You can tell the band did not treat this song as a mere throwaway.
Here are the young men
This song is not on any of Miracle's official releases (an album, an EP, and two singles), for some unfathomable reason. I really hope they release it as a standalone single, because it could be huge on college radio. The bio at the Planet Mu page says "In fact it was on a Guapo / Zombi tour in 2006 they first met, with the music starting to trickle out slowly around 2010. Initially the music was intended as an instrumental dance project, however the project started to take on a life of its own when Daniel started to add vocals and lyrics." I would love to get an instrumental version of "Strange Taste," but the version with vocals is impossible to improve upon. The long pause between "sun" and "fall" in the chorus is so tantalizing.
I think this sums up Miracle's main influences pretty well
The concerts I've seen since I last posted on here 4 months ago:
Cat Power + Nico Turner at House Of Blues
Rihanna + A$AP Rocky at New Orleans Arena (rechristened Smoothie King Center [really] last week)
Bodhi3 w/ guest poet Moose Jackson at Siberia
Darkside + High Water at House of Blues
Julianna Barwick + Vasillus at Tulane's LBC Quad
Cobalt Cranes + Grooms at Circle Bar
The Body + Pyeya at the Mushroom
The Amazing Acro-Cats (yes, performing cats) at the AllWays Lounge's Marigny Theatre
Chelsea Light Moving + Merchandise at One Eyed Jacks
(After the Darkside show ended on Super Bowl night, I drove by Siberia to possibly catch High On Fire, but after seeing the huge throng of black-clad people milling about outside, I assumed it was a sellout and didn't even stop.) Skipped Voodoo Fest, at which the Cure played "Burn," my favorite song by them, for the first time ever. Out of the bands in the list, Grooms were the most striking and memorable. Expect a song from them on here very soon. The new Warpaint and Blouse albums are big disappointments so far. And Grimes signed to Jay-Z's management team... No comment on that.
Planets with similar climates: Depeche Mode - "Blasphemous Rumours" (1984), National Skyline - "Metropolis" (2000), Tears For Fears - "Change" & "Start Of The Breakdown" (1982), Satisfact - "Dysfunction" (1996).
This is one of those songs that causes you to think "Okay, this band is gonna have a box set one day." Just like the Wye Oak song in my last post, I heard this one on WTUL while driving around (in this case, on the Westbank), and just about flipped out and had to call in immediately to find out what band it was. This was in spring of 2006. I obtained the mp3 as a free download from their website probably the same day, probably with crazed drool issuing forth from my mouth and my eyes bugging out of my head. Just last week, I finally bought the CD that it's on, The Dividing Island. Befitting the band's artsy leanings, it comes in cool gatefold packaging with triangular flaps, all done in a black and white color scheme.
Right down to its puzzling name, Lansing-Dreiden has always shrouded itself in mystery, and I always heard that they do not actually appear in the official music video:
As one astute YouTuber said: "Lansing-Dreiden rule! Fuck Pitchfork!" I swear, someday I hope to have "Fuck Pitchfork" on my tombstone. Make it happen, someone... I'll have my sister make you a free mix CD. (Pitchfork actually gave the album a 7.7 rating.)
The video was also available for free download on their site back in 2006 in MPG format, and I sent out its URL to all my online music buddies. (This was at the dawn of the YouTube era.) Yes, they simply gave away this song and its video for free, for many years in fact. Incredibly, this song wasn't released as a single, though having a video qualifies it as a de facto single. I was constantly haranguing people to check this band out, and I was sure they'd be the next big pop stars or something. L-D seemed to pattern themselves after The KLF in many ways, and "A Line" could've been as big a hit as "3 A.M. Eternal", if not bigger. (I bought the "3 A.M. Eternal" cassingle in 1991, a day before going to Cozumel!) In my review of The Dividing Island on Rate Your Music in 2007, I said "Unfortunately, the rest of the album veers from quirky '60s pop to other genres, since I once read that the band's goal on this album was to make it sound like a compilation of several different bands in different genres."
In recent years, the post-L-D project Violens has been garnering a good amount of attention in the indie blogosphere. They released the dazzling, kinetic single "Acid Reign" in 2010, but have turned sort of boring since then in my opinion. They're currently on Slumberland Records.
Mexican Summer (home of Best Coast, Tamaryn, No Joy, and others) is about to reissue L-D's first three releases. Ariel Pink is quoted as saying "Lansing-Dreiden was a musical entity shrouded in mystery and a best kept secret to muso’s the world over in the early 2000's. With this highly anticipated and beautifully packaged reissue of the band’s most treasured ouvres, Lansing-Dreiden is finally set to gain the appreciation and attention they have always deserved."
(Note: The mp3 in this post is from the original 2006 CD, not the upcoming Mexican Summer reissue, which will presumably be remastered. Remember that I always try to avoid giving away the highest-quality version of a song, because I want people to have a reason to buy the latest pressing of an album.)
Mon. 3/25: Went to the Baton Rouge Zoo for the first time, and my animal-snob self was pretty impressed. Also went to the Cohn Arboretum right down the road, but my über-plant-snob self was not too impressed. Lots of cheesy generic landscaping plants like waxleaf ligusturum, yuck.
Wed. 3/27: Went to the Hornets-Clippers game with Damion via free tix from Hector. The Hornets lost, but I did excitedly snap a pic of a young Chris & Cliff Paul as we were arriving.
Afterwards, I went to see Helen Gillet play a fun but poorly-attended solo show at the AllWays Lounge. She did lots of covers of peppy French pop tunes, which came as quite a shock to me, since I had seen her doing strictly experimental stuff with her cello.
Those are copies of her two CDs for sale at the foot of the stage
Had a great 1AM conversation with a WTUL DJ, Calder King, in which we talked about shoegaze bands. I was blown away when he immediately played my requests for Drop Nineteens' "Delaware" and Swervedriver's "Never Lose That Feeling." And I pretty much decided to become a DJ there, since I now know of three WTUL DJs who didn't go to Tulane.
Thu. 3/28: Went to the Iron Rail's new location to pick up a 12" by Arctic Flowers that I had ordered last Oct., but someone had bought it. Bryan (Funck, the Ian MacKaye of the NOLA punk / indie scene) was playing a Duran Duran best-of album, and not for irony value either. In fact, when it ended, he upped the ante by wordlessly putting on a Milli Vanilli album, again not for irony value. They definitely don't make 'em like that dude very often... Loyola represent. Some of the crusty punks shopping inside seemed a bit bewildered, but I can report that I heard some people humming along. I'd like to volunteer there or help out in some way, but I'm unfortunately not much of an anarchist.
Fri. 3/29: Continuing the theme of going to new places, I went to Pizza Delicious' new digs with Ashley (impressive art gallery inside, by the way), then showed her Euclid Records and Harold's nursery briefly. Scored Blouse's debut LP on white vinyl w/ alternate cover art at Euclid; a pretty unexpected find. I lent Ashley Wild Nothing's Nocturne and the Cure's Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. Went to the Defend New Orleans store for the first time and bought a mohawked-skull logo pin. Finally made it to Stein's Deli for the first time, and was not disappointed by their beer selection, which was rumored to be amazing. They were playing Tool's Undertow in its entirety, not the hipster stuff that you'd hear at, say, Dat Dog. Gave the remainder of my pizza to two difft. thrift stores, since it was too spicy for me and I'm trying to cut way down on my dairy intake in order to clear up my sinuses. I'm not religious, but this Good Friday really lived up to its name, right down to the breezy, NorCal-esque weather. Sorry for all the details, but this was an eventful week for li'l old me. The next post will be free of personal details because I will not do anything next week.
Planets with similar climates: Tears For Fears - "Head Over Heels" (1984), Simple Minds - "Promised You A Miracle" (1982), Depeche Mode - "Stripped" (1986), School Of Seven Bells - "Heart Is Strange" (2010), The Psychedelic Furs - "Heartbreak Beat" (1986).
On August 3rd, while pulling into the parking lot outside the Saints' facility in Metairie to watch an open practice, I heard this song on WTUL and just about lost my shit. I called in and found out who it was, then asked the DJ if he was sure that it was really Wye Oak, since this song is totally different from their normal rustic alt-country sound. He and I talked about how 4AD-ish it was, and I mentioned that it sounded a lot like the album Euphoria by the band Insides. He said he hadn't heard any Insides, but would check them out. The next night, the Oak opened for the dreadful Dirty Projectors at the House Of Blues. I almost went just to see them perform this song, but I couldn't justify the cost of around $30.00, plus I would've lost all respect for myself if I had stood in the same room with the Dirty Projectors or their fanbase.
Wye Oak are named after the state-champion (that means largest) oak tree in Maryland. R.I.P. This song premiered as a free download at Stereogum, which is where I downloaded it, and it is still available there. Singer / guitarist Jenn Wasner said on Stereogum "This track was written specifically for this Adult Swim series, but they didn’t provide any thematic or sonic guidance for the song. A lot of the music I had been working on independently at the time sounded something like this — so I felt like the Adult Swim opportunity was, as a standalone track, a great opportunity to experiment with some of these new sonic and rhythmic ideas in a low-pressure context. The song revolves around the idea of repetition and rhythmic interplay — parts that are fairly minimalist and circular that come together to form an almost hypnotic wash." The song's stuttering ambient marimba finale strikes me as a clear homage to Tortoise's genre-busting "Djed." Check out the passion with which impending indie heartthrob Wasner belted out this song on the same day I first heard it, meaning the night before they played in N.O.:
After seeing that video, I was absolutely kicking myself for not going to the gig. But I'll see them when they come back to N.O. or B.R. as headliners. If they can continue exploring this type of sound, I'd say they'll instantly be the most compelling band in all of indiedom. You could say Wye Oak pulled a reverse Slowdive with this song, considering how Slowdive suddenly went from an electronic dream pop sound to a country-ish sound under their new name Mojave 3 in the mid-'90s. Well, folks, the Oak is the new sheriff in town and they're ready to right Slowjave 3's wrong. My only complaint is that the vocals in "Spiral" are hard to decipher due to the massive amounts of reverb and Wasner's breathy, innovative phrasing, but that actually helps the music to more dreamlike and disorienting. For a not-so-accurate stab at them, go here. I think she sings "Hearts have signed for(?) a contract: Constant contact" and then she definitely sings "You look over my shoulder / Distant, abstract."
You can download every digital single in the Adult Swim series for free here.
Jenn's new project, the hilariously-named Dungeonesse, is a full-on dance/synth thing, so hopefully they'll put out at least a few songs in the same vein as "Spiral."
View the best pic I took at Saints practice that momentous day here.
Tue. 3/12: Got an eye exam from a new doctor and then got contact lenses for the first time in a few years; had been wearing really scratched up old glasses. It was like seeing the world in HD and I was somewhat in shock for the rest of the day / week.
Sat. 3/16: Went to the spring Record Raid and talked to the usual music buddiez but didn't see the person I hoped would be there, so I was pretty depressed the rest of the day. In my haul: School Of Seven Bells - Disconnect From Desire (2xLP on swirly gray vinyl), Broken Water - Whet (LP on translucent green vinyl), Steve Reich - Reich Remixed (2xLP), Dead Leaf Echo - Truth (EP), Niki And The Dove - Instinct, Crowded House - Temple Of Low Men, Joan Armatrading - Greatest Hits, Frank Ocean - Channel Orange, Toro Y Moi - "So Many Details" promo single, Mary Timony - The Golden Dove, TEEN - In Limbo. Bought some vitamin B-12.
Thur. 3/21: Went to the Alicia Keys / Miguel concert at New Orleans Arena with Em, Ashley, and Ashley's mom. Was stunned at Em's new car that she bought a few days earlier. Almost wore my Glish t-shirt, but donned a long-sleeve shirt at the last minute. Only saw Miguel's last 3 songs due to a ticket snafu, so I dunno if he played my fav. song of his, the future #1 hit "Don't Look Back". He finished with an extended rendition of his mega-hit "Adorn." Saw Hornets star Eric Gordon in the drink line; probably should've shook his hand or something since he will surely leave as a free agent soon. Alicia brought her A-game despite the fact that the arena was about half full. (Everyone on the upper level got a free upgrade to the middle level.) Seeing her perform "Un-Thinkable" while bathed in orange lighting was one of the top 10 concert moments of my life, and I was pleasantly surprised at how berserk the crowd went when she did an old fave of mine, "Diary." Maxwell dueted with her via a pre-recorded video segment shown on the screen behind her. She played for almost 2 hours, meaning about twice as long as when I saw her in '04. Afterwards, I hurried over and absorbed the end of a hushed and beautiful Benoît Pioulard show at the Circle Bar by myself. A rude bartender tried to throw shade when I mentioned the concert I had just seen up the street, but I still stupidly tipped her a dollar.
Fri. 3/22: Decided to do the "be a tourist in your own town" thing... Well, in my previous hometown at least. Went to Barrister's Gallery at its new location on St. Claude (used to be inside of or next to Zeitgeist Theatre on Oretha Castle Haley) and saw some very impressive avant-garde stuff; got a poetry book at Maple Street Book Shop at the N.O. Healing Center; got some cool stuff at Euclid Records (Acetone LP, Cul De Sac 7", Lansing-Dreiden CD); got a thyme plant at Harold's; played basketball at Delgado for 2+ hrs until dark; watched March Madness.
Sat. 3/23: Went to Slidell on a whim and scored a book about Ani Difranco at Goodwill. Man, I had forgotten how much she once meant to me, and how endearingly funny she was/is, but flipping through a few pages in this book brought it rushing back.
Planets with similar climates: Cocteau Twins - "Road, River And Rail" (1990), Insides - "Distractions" (1993), Beach House - "Wild" (2012), Lush - "Undertow" (1993), Twin Sister - "The Other Side Of Your Face" (2010), Grimes - "Be A Body" (2011).
Note: I started writing this in June but never got around to posting it. I noticed the outdated R.I.P.'s at the bottom and decided to keep them in.
As you have probably already gathered, most good band names are taken by now. I mentioned in the last post that Portland is a hotbed of talent, and Blouse is another great example. I think Johnny Marr or Robert Smith would be proud of this song's loping, serpentine guitar riff. There's something sexy and funky and very New Orleans about that jazzy, off-beat stutter in it. And the singer is the one who plays that guitar part, as you can see in the video clip embedded below. This song is almost impossible for me to get out of my head. If I heard the line "And you're a strike of lightning, making up a sky for the gods to kiss with" correctly, then I'd have to say that's one of the coolest lyrics I've heard in the past few years. (You can actually hear the lyrics better in the live clip.) There's some line about a stained glass window near the middle, and the intensity ramps up subtly in the song's final minute.
"Fade to black" is of course a cinematography term, and this song has a very cinematic feel. A convenient way to describe Blouse would be "The XX meets Joy Division," and it wouldn't be far off from the truth. The sound quality of this song is awfully murky and "dark" (bass-y), in production lingo, but I guess it suits the music well. One expects this kind of jangle-pop stuff to be trebly and shimmery, so it sort of surprises the ears to hear something so sludgy. The synth near the end of the song does brighten it up and adds some extra edge. This song was released as a 7" single in early 2011, with striking cover art that was a clear homage to Joy Division's Closer. It then appeared on their self-titled debut album near the end of the year. Their song "They Always Fly Away" is their other clear standout, with a truly badass bassline, showing that this band is much more than a one-trick pony. AllMusic Guide said "There's a tingling chill running through Blouse's self-titled debut album that suggests both erotic reverie and nervous foreboding. Blouse seems to be a work in progress, but this provocative first effort shows the band is heading for fascinating territory."
I'd have to say Captured Tracks, also home of dreamy retro janglers Wild Nothing, is my favorite up-and-coming record label right now.
Amazingly, I just went and checked out the song on YouTube and noticed lots of people saying that the MTV teen ho dramedy Awkward. (yes, the show's name has a period at the end) "brought me here." So I guess MTV scooped Blowtorch Baby for the first time, but only due to my procrastination.
Wed. Oct. 31: I went in to N.O. to see the Jezabels at Circle Bar. I had a weird feeling that it would be cancelled, but I didn't call ahead of time for some reason. Sure enough, I walk into the near-empty club in my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt and green wristbands only to find out they had cancelled, due to their singer's alleged throat problems.
So this pic sums up my two dismal trips to the Circle Bar in late October... Two headlining bands, one of which played for 10 minutes and the other of which didn't show up. When I took this pic next to the club's jukebox on the 24th, a few minutes before Exitmusic went on, things seemed so promising:
(Look at the size of the crowd in that Jezabels poster, and then think about the fact that the Circle Bar holds about 50 people.)
Thu., Nov. 1: Took a pic of some random CDs in my car:
I originally bought the N.W.A EP on cassingle in 1991 (at age 14... sorry, PMRC!), the PJ Harvey album on cassette in '95, and the MBV album on cassette in '96. Sensing a trend? Lesson to record industry: If people buy or obtain a musical item cheaply or for free, e.g. on cassette or as free mp3s, they will end up later buying it on CD if they like it enough. So if you record labels sign good bands and put out good albums, people will continue to buy them in multiple formats over the years. Anyway... I bought the Nudeswirl CD in '96 in Richmond, VA, and the Pale Saints and Six By Seven CDs in '02. The Twin Peaks soundtrack was bought by one of my parents when it came out; I later borrowed it & decided to keep it. I added a clear red tray to the Lush CD's case in order to match the cover art. Those of you who don't own early Mercury Rev on CD are missing out, since the spines say STEREO PATHIC, STEREO PHOBIC, STEREO FUCKED, etc.
I was so bummed by the Circle Bar shows that I didn't go to see the Psychedelic Furs on Nov. 2 with my sister and Damion. She said it was a great show, and they even played one of my favorites, "All Of This And Nothing." (But no "Highwire Days" or "Dumb Waiters.") And she said Richard Butler was dancing around as crazily as !!!'s singer, which is pretty impressive for a guy of his age.
So the promising month ended with a whimper, but I still saw over a dozen bands, the best of which were Godspeed You Black Emperor, Merchandise, MONO, and Meta The Man. And locals Glish, the Tarik Hassan Group, Miss Mec, and I, Octopus. The two songs that Exitmusic played before quitting were good. In fact, the bands that I skipped last month would constitute a best-ever month of concertgoing for a normal Pitchfork-focused indie-vidual: Dinosaur Jr., M83, P-Furs, Silversun Pickups, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Kendrick Lamar, Dum Dum Girls, Cold Cave, Diamond Rings, Trust, etc.
I'm not bragging whatsoever, just trying to start a dialogue about how one decides which shows to attend and which shows to skip. I've been wanting to do this for a long time now, so this seems like a good time to do it. For me, going to a show a very complex form of calculus that factors in obvious things such as "Does the band kick ass?" with more nebulous ones like "Is their career on the downswing or is it still on the upswing?," "Have I missed them in concert before?," and "Could this be their last-ever tour?" (If the band members hate each other, any show could be their last.) Ticket cost, opening act(s), venue, etc. also factor in. How many original members, or members from the band's "golden era," are still in the band? It of course helps to find out whether or not the band is playing your favorite songs on this particular tour, or if they've decided to move on to "the new stuff," or if they're doing one of those stupid "Play an entire album all the way through" things. However, this only applies to "song"-based bands & solo artists. There's of course a whole other category of experimental music in which the avant-gardeness of the music is the only thing that matters, and you're surely not going to recognize anything in terms of a lyric or a melody. You're going just to hear them try to play something you've never heard before and may never want to hear again. Sometimes a band that hardly ever tours is hitting the road; in this case, it's more important to see them then to see some band that tours constantly. If it's a hip hop or electronic / DJ act, how much of their music do they actually perform live and how much of it is pre-recorded samples? Are you under the weather, and if so, just how devoted of a fan are you? One of the toughest things for me to decide on is seeing a local band, since you can probably see them any old time, but what if they break up and you never got to see them, or only saw them once? (E.g., the fact that I only saw my favorite-ever local band, The Universal Chrome, once. And I never saw Falling Janus, Dead Hand System, Burnversion, Evil Nurse Sheila!, etc.) When in doubt about seeing ANY concert, even if it's "just" a local band, it's always best to just go, because otherwise, you might be wondering for the rest of your life if you missed a great show. If the show was mediocre, at least you saw it, and you know that you don't have to wonder for the next 50 years if it was great or not. And you supported the band and supported the music club. The turnout may influence the band's decision to come back to your town again, and may influence the club's decision to book the band again. And you might meet an interesting person, or see a flyer at the club informing you about an upcoming concert that you didn't know about.
As examples, here are some recent & upcoming concert dilemmas spanning early October to early November:
1.) The P-Furs only had two original members, the Butler brothers. But they are the main driving forces of the band, and the lineup also has fiery saxophonist Mars Williams, who joined ca. 1983. (Did not go, and regret it.)
2.) In a few days a fairly lame synth-pop band called Future Islands is playing at the Spanish Moon. I have no desire to see them, but the opening act is an uncompromisingly brutal female noise-rock band called Talk Normal. Do I go just to see the opening act? What if the opening act cancels or is replaced? (Will probably go.)
3.) Voodoo Fest every October: Lots of bands, but most are lame or washed-up, and tickets are like $90 per day. (Solution: Went to the free local band festival Houmapalooza.)
4.) MONO at the Spanish Moon. Yes, they're great live, but I had already seen them there 3 times. Do I go yet again? (Went & was glad I did.)
5.) Mercurial band Merchandise playing at a club with barely any air conditioning, right as I was getting over a cold and hence was pretty feverish. (Went, because they could be legitimate stars soon, and I had missed them in April at an even smaller club called United Bakery.)
If you have anything to add about concert dilemmas you have valiantly faced and overcome, let Blowtorch Baby know. I'm currently wrestling over whether to see DJ Shadow next month at Republic... The dude's first album kinda changed my life in 1997, but do I owe him the favor of buying a ticket to one of his shows 15 years later? He played at House Of Blues as the opening act for rapper Jeru The Damaja in '97, and I bet tons of underground music heads went to that show just to see Shadow do his magic. Then again, what if he still "has it" in 2012? The interesting thing about a DJ is that his music never "ages," since he's spinning samples, and those samples will still sound literally identical to how they sounded x amount of years ago, and you're not gonna see some aging guy on guitar.
R.I.P. Ray Bradbury, a genius.
R.I.P. Tim Mooney of American Music Club, Sun Kil Moon, and other San Fran bands.
Brilliant retort I observed on June 23, in the AOL chatroom The Crash Pad:
Murrican: i've got a nickname among a certain group of females.
SpudMakenzie: heart attack while havin sex with a hooker/?
Planets with similar climates: The Organ - "Brother" (2004), Sonic Youth - "Becuz" (1995), Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Christine" (1980), The Cure - "Lullaby" (1989), Bell Hollow - "Eyes Like Planets" (2007), The Lucy Show - "Ephemeral (This Is No Heaven)" (1985), Tamaryn - "Love Fade" (2010), Lush - "Take" (1992).
(Thrill Jockey Records [U.S.] / City Slang Records [Germany], 1998)
Note: I wrote most of this last September, but couldn't post it because that was California Month, so here it is. One of the reasons I'm doing it now is that I recently stumbled upon & bought a 1976 movie called FutureWorld at a thrift store. Another reason is that I realized the bassline starting at the 4:30 mark was probably inspired by / stolen from the opening guitar chug in This Heat's "Horizontal Hold." (See previous post.)
After a few unassuming retro post-rock / deconstructed-metal LPs with sarcastic synth splatters, Trans Am reprogrammed their algorithms to finally allow for vocals and true song structure. Their recipe came to terrific fruition on their 1999 album Futureworld, whose title was, I assumed, a reference to CAN's album Future Days. But like I said above, I'm now pretty certain it referred to that movie. This one goes out to Joey Buttons & Kathi. I bought lots of cool CDs from their booth at the Record Raid in March, and it turned out they were also at the '99 Trans Am concert I will be talking about below. [Update: Oops; only Joey was at it.] This album came out in early '99, so I dated the song 1998, the year it was recorded. This is the most effort I've ever put into a post, so I hope somebody gets something out of it...
The song's greatness is pretty self-explanatory, so there's not much to say here, other than to point out that it's a song about the isolation that people will feel as we become more bogged down by gadgetry that supposedly allows us to stay more interconnected. Sound like 1999? 2012? Well, imagine how it'll be in 2050, 3000, or 5000. (5000? Yeah right... I'll give you a million dollars if humans even make it past 2200.) Sebastian "Seb" Thomson is simply one of the best drummers in history. You can tell he's heavily influenced by Jaki from CAN, yielding that style that is uniquely choppy & funky, yet sleek & robotic. He probably wears a shirt less frequently than Dave Navarro or Matthew McConaughey. When the song slows down at about the 4:20 mark and shifts into a sinister, "prowling" mode, it's just the coolest thing ever. I think Nathan sings "the falling snow" during the second half, but the vocoder is much more heavily used in that half, so your guess is as good as mine. The music video was edited down by 2.5 minutes, omitting most of the ending, and sucked in many other innovative ways too:
Fun Fact: Yes, that's Ed Helms, later of The Daily Show, The Office, and The Hangover, in a cameo appearance on banjo.
As far as other tracks on this album are concerned, "Television Eyes" (whose title is a reference to the Stooges' "TV Eye") and "Cocaine Computer" (please, folks, no jokes about Whitney Houston's Facebook account) are unquestionably the best. In fact, I struggled for a long time deciding whether to post "Futureworld" or "Television Eyes," and had to look to my orb for guidance.
The early '99 Thrill Jockey mailorder catalog has this very succinct sales pitch for the album: "Can you say vocoder? Sure you can – VO CODE R. Lawful evil beats, nature documentaries, car chases and rock and roll anthems."
Jonathan Bunce of Eye Weekly gave the album a 5-star rating, and said"The world's most forward-looking rock band has created the definitive millennial document. Forget the false hopes and fears surrounding the three big zeros -- this is the sound of technocracy collapsing into banality. 'Sitting alone in my future home / Fax machine, telephone / Phonograph, gramophone,' sings Nathan Means on Futureworld's drone-rockin' title track, with a gentle melancholy that would sound alienated even if it wasn't processed by a vocoder. Yes, the fourth Trans Am disc is the first to feature vocal stylings and embrace pop melodies -- which enhances, rather than dilutes, their conceptual electro-rock assault. On first glance, the trio seems to have turned into Kraftwerk, with Teutonic titles such as 'Am Rhein' and the motorik melodics of 'Runners Standing Still' -- one imagines them waiting out Y2K in a Berlin bunker with only Six Finger Satellite for company. But there's accessibility, depth, humor and chaos colliding here, from the more-bounce-to-the-ounce bleepery of 'Cocaine Computer' to the aggressive fuzz-bass destruction of 'City in Flames' to the lighter-in-the-air finale of 'Sad and Young.' Just as last year's The Surveillance had the final word on urban paranoia, Futureworld says more about the sci-fi dystopia we live in than any Hollywood blockbuster ever could."
My Trans Am timeline:
First read about them in Nov. 1996 in a Thrill Jockey mailorder catalog
Got their debut album Trans Am on vinyl in March '98
Missed them live a month or so later at the Mermaid Lounge in New Orleans due to having to cram for a test that night; swore I'd catch them the next time out
Read a glowing review of Futureworld in Mar. '99 in Spin*
Finally got to see them in May '99 (with lame openers Pan Sonic and The Fucking Champs) at the Mermaid
Got Futureworld on vinyl in 2005
*I also bought Moonshake's Dirty & Divine that day at that store
Note: Local instrumental prog / post-metal band Weedeater (not the stoner metal Weedeater from North Carolina) were for some reason replaced on the bill by The Fucking Champs.
I never got to see "our" Weedeater; check out this clip (probably from '94 or '95, based on the Dead Eye Dick video teaser at the end) of them. Trans Am's first album sounded a lot like this.
At the concert, they played a couple of vocoder-ed songs, hence they played "Futureworld" and "Television Eyes," the two best songs on the album. And I remember someone in the audience shouting out "Illegal Ass!," which I later learned was a song from one of their obscure EPs. Here are pics from that show, taken by me and Andrew Mister on my Kodak disposable camera; sorry for the small file sizes:
A Loyola student was filming Trans Am and projecting the images in real-time onto a screen behind them while they played. This must have been a digital camcorder, because the images were being altered in various ways to make the band look like computer-animated drawings and/or robots. Unfortunately this did not show up in the pics because the flash drowned it out. As you can imagine, I would give anything for a video of this gig! Nate was sporting an all-gold basketball uniform for some reason... Coincidentally, the Washington Bullets/Wizards briefly changed their main jersey color to gold several years later. For good measure, here's a pic of Finnish minimalist techno "band" Pan Sonic (f.k.a. Panasonic) playing their "music" while standing behind lots of expensive equipment:
I never saw Trans Am again, even though they came through here a few more times. They toured arenas(!) opening for Tool in late 2007, and I actually almost went to see one of those dates, but I had not paid any attention to either band for about five years, so I skipped it. Futureworld was reissued on LP with remastered sound and free digital download (containing two rare tracks) in late 2011.
Monday, Apr. 30: Saw Dayna Kurtz at the Hi-Ho Lounge; got there late and only saw the last 30 or so minutes. There were only about 20 people there. Like most folk singers with an affinity for New Orleans (Ani Difranco comes to mind), she has allowed NOLA's music to influence her recent music for the worse.
Tuesday, May 1: My dad had knee arthroscopy, so we helped him with icing it, etc. Dropped off a few trees at Parkway and had an impromptu conversation with Haley (sp.) for around 2 hours. She works for that organization and I just volunteer there; she recently put in all the native trees around the "Big Lake" in City Park by the art museum. I showed her a separate farming plot a block away that she had never been to, which kind of blew her mind. She signed me up to do a long-term project with her that will involve us designing and planting a fruit orchard for some new school in New Orleans East. It's kind of a thrill when an attractive, much younger lady follows one around and writes down one's botanical musings on her notepad for a few hours, but I didn't let it go to my head. Okay, I did, but who wouldn't? It was one of those "I've got the brawn, you've got the brains" kind of things.
Afterwards, went to Home Depot a few blocks away and saw a very rude older white lady verbally accosting a black male H.D. employee (and a white male one, who soon walked away and left the other guy to fend for himself) for a long time about something he had no control over. Specifically, light bulbs. Sample gripe: "You people who work at Home Depot are almost as bad as the ones who work at Lowe's nowadays." Reported her b.s. to a store manager, and mentioned that if it were my store, I'd kick her out. Shot hoops at the Annunciation St. court, and then, for the first time ever, at the NOPD station's court on Magazine. The latter was a bit difficult because the rims are a little too high (some courts do this to discourage dunking, which damages rims) and were double-thickness (which makes the ball bounce wildly on even a slightly-errant shot). Got dad some chocolate with bacon in it at La Dulce Vita. Had New Girl Night with Em, mom, dad, Vanessa.
Wed., May 2: Despite a sudden rainstorm, I stopped off at a small nursery on the Westbank that I almost never go to. Ended up talking to the employee for about an hour about tons of stuff after she asked me "Want a free tomato plant?" in the greenhouse. Let's see, we talked about cacti, tomatoes, mushrooms, music (she used to have punk bands play at her apartment), tattoos, asparagus ferns, atheism, Russian sage, etc. I showed her that the white petals of the Pineapple Guava tree look, feel, and taste like marshmallows, which she was pretty impressed by. Definitely my dream girl, and I think she spoiled me for all other females in the future... (And of course, the rain magically stopped right after I walked in.) And to top it all off, the last song I heard on the radio (WTUL) right before turning my car off and going in was a song that I later found out was "Endless Summer" by this Aussie band called The Jezabels. Kind of a mash-up of Kate Bush, U2, and Sunny Day Real Estate. My point is that it's a really dramatic song that seems tailor-made to lead into something great, kind of like the boombox scene in Say Anything. So overall, it was like a scene out of a movie: I hear that song in my car while it's raining; something impels me to go into a plant store; the rain stops to make way for the "endless summer"; I meet The One and we hit it off. And knowing my luck, I probably never see her again... But for me, a great convo is better than sex, and probably less grueling than a marriage. She's a big fan of mushrooms and '70s psych music, so I made a mental note to give her a CD-R of Amanita by Bardo Pond.
Later that day, I planted my Mayhaw tree in Vacherie during another bout of rain as the sun went down. Watched a bunch of videos by EatTheWeeds, which are always fascinating, until the wee hours.
Over the past few days, I've planted a Viburnum dentatum (Arrowwood) and Lyonia lucida (Fetterbush), as well as those free tomato plants. Deciding if I want to accept some free tickets to Jazz Fest today from my sister; the only good act is the Foo Fighters, but they're playing for 2 full hours, and I recently became obsessed with their song "Best Of You." Saw them in '97, and that gap of years would usually preclude me from seeing the same band nowadays; but they've had a ton of good singles since then. Dave Grohl's semi-ironic "metal warrior" posturing really sticks in my craw, though, and it's gonna be 95º heat index today with possible rain. Decisions, decisions...
In honor of heat, humidity, my dad's knees, and film cameras, here's me, Em & dad on a pier on the Mississippi coast in mid-1990. The fam was tagging along with him en route to one of his many triathlons that he did ca. 1990-92. He's 38 in that pic. I was wearing my LSU Basketball Camp t-shirt which I had just gotten weeks earlier. Shaquille O'Neal signed the back of it at the camp right after a breathtaking LSU intrasquad scrimmage. That's the only athlete autograph I've ever requested or received; unfortunately I never took a pic of it before throwing the shirt away a few years ago.
Yes, we threw them back
Planets with similar climates: Simple Minds - "70 Cities As Love Brings The Fall" (1981), Add N To X - "Metal Fingers In My Body" (1999), Satisfact - "First Incision" (1996) & "Triple Deck" (1998), The Horrors - "New Ice Age" (2009), Mocket - "Un-Man" (1998), The Sound - "World As It Is" (1984), probably some stuff by Tubeway Army.
I got into this band a few years ago, right after they had broken up, as luck would have it. I had them confused with all the other "Bell" bands of the era (Bell Tower, Howling Bells, The Belle Stars, etc., and later the Broken Bells), so I unfortunately missed them when they played in NOLA in '08 with local Interpol acolytes The Public. This song is from their sole full-length, Foxgloves, named after the plant from which the heart drug Digitalis is made. The vocal performance is just stunning, with singer Nick Niles effortlessly assuming all sorts of voices, like a 4AD-ified version of Mike Patton. Singing along to any Bell Hollow ditty is like the Vocal Olympics, but at these Olympics, everyone wins a medal. Two members of the band were in the mid-'80s goth band The Naked And The Dead, so this is a type of music they have felt deeply for several decades, and hence they were not just some younguns trying to cash in on the post-punk revival of the '00s. Guitarist Greg Fasolino is a massive Chameleons fan, not surprisingly, and on this song he nails The Cure's loping, watery, slo-mo, reverbed, surf-rock-stuck-in-molasses Disintegration-era guitar sound.
Note: This post was originally going to be about the ultra-jangly, Smiths-esque "Copper Crayon", but I rewrote it after having a change of mind. Another stunner on this album is the acoustic, mournful "Eyes Like Planets".
From the German magazine Gothic Chronicles (issue #63), July 2006. The last sentence is all that matters to me.
A band called White Lies came along with pretty much this exact same sound but little to no discernible songwriting talent, and are now semi-huge stars touring big venues across Europe. Go figure.
Correction: My mom just hit the big 5-9, not 6-0. On the night after we went to the Pelican Club, my sister and I took her to a Mexican place called the Velvet Cactus on Harrison Ave. and had lots of tequilas at our table outside. I got her a mini jigsaw puzzle, one that is billed as the world's smallest wooden jigsaw puzzle, in fact, earlier that day in Slidell. It was made in Sweden some decades ago. I found it in an antiques store that had mainly trinkets rather than actual antiques.
I somehow made myself watch both of the Shins' songs on SNL last night. It's sort of mind-boggling that a former member of Bare Minimum made it to what could be called the top of the pop culture mountain, albeit by joining one of the suckiest, most derivative bands in history. His drumming was really the only interesting thing about the first song, and the second song was so boring that I literally can't remember a single detail about it.
If you want to be really depressed about the current state of music ("indie" or otherwise), just check out this concert listing page from exactly 20 years ago, March 11th '92. It's from the 3/14/92 issue of Melody Maker; click here to view it full size:
Toni already had her existential Robert Smith impression down to an exact science, right down to the floppy hair strands, eyeshadow, lipstick color, & head tilt
...not that I'm complaining.
I personally have no idea which of those gigs I would've gone to on that night, because I would give my left hand to go to about five of those shows. Which would you have gone to? You can see that the previous owner of this rag was so excited about that night's gig bonanza that he/she actually BLED ON IT. Or maybe the blood came later that night during a rough session of something or other, or maybe it's pomegranate sorbet, but the point is that people in England in the early '90s were spoiled beyond belief when it came to music. And all they ever really did was bicker about which band ripped off which other one, blind to their good fortune, to the point where most of these bands changed their sounds dramatically just to get some respite from the constant critical drubbings coming from all sides. Another interesting thing is that all of these shoegaze bands seemed content to play locally at this time, which was their all-time peak of commercial popularity / exposure, rather than touring to far-flung corners of the world. (Although that "Rollercoaster tour" mentioned on the front cover did criss-cross the U.S. and helped to establish shoegaze over here.) So I guess it really was as insular of a scene as people make it out to have been. And I think Bell Hollow would've fit into that scene quite effortlessly. Maybe they would've toured big theaters across the pond rather than dingy clubs over here in America.
I will not be pinkwashed: Komen's race is for money, not cure- "Susan G. Komen for the Cure is a multimillion-dollar company with assets totaling over $390 million. Only 20.9% of these funds were reportedly used in the 2009-2010 fiscal year for research 'for the cure.'"
Planets with similar climates: Kitchens Of Distinction - "Aspray" (1990), Asylum Party - "Play Alone" (1989), Pale Saints - "Thread Of Light" (1992), Echo & The Bunnymen - "The Killing Moon" (1983), Film School - "Two Kinds" (2007), National Skyline - "Air" (2000), The Comsat Angels - "Independence Day" (1980), Band Of Susans - "Blind" (1993).
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).
This is the barnstorming first song on Pittsburgh duo Zombi's album Surface To Air. The whole album is an unquestioned masterpiece of the genre, particularly "Digitalis," the title track, and 18-minute closing epic "Night Rhythms," which is basically the "Djed" (Tortoise, 1996) of this past decade. "Challenger Deep" is definitely more aggressive and "rock" than Zombi's overall sound, with a titanic bassline that has been enhanced by performance-enhancing drugs.
I have not been to every weightroom in the country, but I have to wonder aloud, "Why is this not the most-played album in weightrooms across the country?" Most of Zombi's tracks (remember, I don't use "songs" to refer to instrumental compositions, since "song" implies singing) are prominently based on synths, with occasional galloping drums providing the gravitas, but mostly keeping in a controlled, almost New Age / Phaedra vein that sounds straight out of Berlin in the mid-'70s. For example, the aforementioned "Night Rhythms":
The production of the album, done by band members A.E. Paterra and Steve Moore themselves, is phenomenal, almost 3-D. It could even be the best-produced album I've ever heard. In keeping with the band's epic tendencies, the CD booklet is one of the thickest I've ever seen, packed with dazzling full-color satellite photos of land formations.
Back cover
Keep in mind that this band had its name before the whole ludicrous infestation of zombie / vampire / werewolf chic that has happened in recent years, to the point where any lonely dip can walk into a drugstore and buy a romance novel whose plot involves a lonely housewife being seduced by a vampire or nonhuman entity of some sort. (Pers. observation; CVS drugstore, 8/20/11.) I bought this CD in early 2007; I think I missed Zombi live once circa that year, but I'm not sure.
Tremendous 2004 press photo taken in a mausoleum; L-R: A.E. Paterra, Steve Moore. (Photo by Shawn Brackbill.)
Some capsule reviews:
The driftwood at the Rivertown pier in Kenner: A huge pile of it, a couple of city blocks long. I got a great piece on which to mount my staghorn fern which I've owned for 13 years. Few good board-esque pieces remain, so you'll only want to go if you need long pointy pieces.
Those white oval stickers with abbreviations in them, for the backs of cars: Still not good. My mom just added a "VH" one to her Tahoe, denoting the island of Vinalhaven in Maine, making her look like a Van Halen fan to 99.9% of the world.
Jay-Z: Still douching it up, referring to his wife Beyoncé "my bitch" on his new collabo album with the even douchier Kanye West. On a related note, Amber Rose looks better and better with each dis lyric Kanye writes about her.
Breakfast for dinner: Along with TV dinners, the Nestlé's theme song, and Fruit Wrinkles, one of my favorite food trends of the '80s. Am trying to help it make a comeback, but for some reason, people still seem to want to eat dinner for dinner.
Planets with similar climates: Trans Am - "Trans Am" (1995) & "Television Eyes" (1999), Simple Minds - "Theme For Great Cities" (1981), Deadsy - "The Key To Gramercy Park" (2001), Six Finger Satellite - "Race Against Space" (1998), Rush - "Tom Sawyer" (1981), Quicksand - "Baphomet" (1992), Faith No More - "Kindergarten" (1992).
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