5/20/06

"I Will Dare" The Replacements
man. i love androgynous boys. there's something about the androgynous crowd that i find irresistible. perhaps it is because i am not yet far enough away from living with that young androgynous tone in the air (the one of unsure-and-awkward-yet-utterly-irrepressible sexiness) that it does not still sometimes singe my nose hairs and stir my soul. basically, i still kind of like a boy band. so what? sue me if it's so wrong. christ.

"Sull Aria" Maria Callas (The Marriage of Figaro)
Mozart? sounds saucy like him, but i'm really not 100% sure who wrote this opera. i should research it before i post this, but that would be dishonest. as i sit here listening, i'm not sure if this is Mozart or not, but i really want to be right in deducing that it is. so, i've clearly never seen this opera. i have no idea what it's about. i do know that it is a comedy, and i think it is pretty much focused on 4 people (2 men and 2 women). i imagine it to be a comedy of the romantic sort, perhaps about the hilarity of miscommunication? that's it though. that's all i've got. based on what i know and what i assume and what i think might be going on here, i've decided that this aria is sexist and gratuitously catty and pretty much right on point in regard to competing females. i do not expect to be right about this. *i'll save my maria callas views for another day.

"Ain't No Sunshine..." Bill Withers
this is my absolute favorite song to sing in the shower. hands down. i'm sure that this is not an uncommon preference.

"We've Been Had" The Walkmen
sometimes i think that The Walkmen are overly novel, cheap-shot charmers who cover up unimpressive lyrics with slurry vocals and unimpressive tunes with a whimsical toy piano. other times i think that i'm prematurely bitter and that i just hate everything no matter what.

"How the Plains Left Me Flat" flotation Toy Warning
put down the pipe, dude. i think you need to get out of the house for a little while. seriously... and no, you can't take your Diamanda Galas/Nina Haagen records with you this time.

"Battered" Labradford
this is like the cheesiest good dream i ever had, in a bad way. it's ridiculousness makes it difficult to get to what it's really trying to say. it still has an overall good feeling to it, (not happy. but good). i feel, however, like i'm missing out on something that's bubbling underneath. i just can't take high drama seriously enough bother examining it. ah, but the hippy jam part at the end is pretty undeniably great though. no need to think about that part.

"Held" (smog)
the hands clapping as part of the percussion sound like strong, thick, man hands. i don't know why you can tell that they are, you just can. what a nice little detail for a song entitled "Held". i'm not even being an asshole here, it's really quite subtle and uncorny. you know that a man who writes lyrics like "i surrender to your charity. i lay back in the tall grass and let the ants cover me" can artfully string together a captivating little song. anyone who has ever laid in tall grass knows what i mean. it's a great feeling if you can get over the fact that bugs are going to crawl on you. the ants are worth it. yes, a song about letting go, called 'Held' with the hands clapping in the background... it all seems so literal and tacky, but it works i tell you. it works well. i buy it.

"Prove It" Television
man. 'Marquee Moon'. what a tease.

"There is a Place" Silver Jews
more like Silver Snooze. stop rolling your eyes. yes, i do know who he is, and i still stand by my opinion. i am not, however, opposed to being proven wrong. i am, in fact, quite open to it. change my mind. make me like him.

5/15/06

"A Dog With Sharper Teeth" Daisy Chainsaw
if i were ever to start my own band it would probably end up sounding a lot like this tune: an uninspired, guitar driven birthday party rip-off with a girly twist. knowing me i'd skip the 'guitar driven' part because that's how i do and it's my band. of course, in regards to this song, the guitar is precisely where all the charm lies. listen, i don't expect my band to go anywhere, okay? it's just something i do for fun. god. get off my case.

"Avalanche" Leonard Cohen
this song is intense and thought provoking and i do like it, yes indeed. i've listened to it a few times now i'm still not sure of what exactly it is supposed to be about, but i think i have a pretty good idea so far. something along the lines of not wanting to be "saved" by people who don't understand you. i'm sure it's deeper than that, i'll give it the thesis treatment one day. anyway, i can never profess to liking it because this boy who i am in non-adult-love with is a huge l. cohen fan and i don't want him thinking that i only got into this because of him. i'm about 85% sure that that simply is not the case, i like it because it's good. it's not my fault that i happen to fall for boys who happen to like things that i happen to end up also liking. good taste run-off is an accidental side effect of being around interesting people and is absolutely not some obsessive single white female shit, okay? at any rate, which ever road led me to thinking that 'avalanche' is a pretty great song, the mere existence of 'obsessive single white female blvd' makes it too risky for me to come out of the cohen closet. one never knows what others may assume.

"Happy Birthday" The Birthday Party
i don't really have a diatribe for this one. remember the daisy chainsaw song? yeah. in many ways, i feel like this is what an urban rock band should sound like.

"Tomorrow" Espers
good music to stretch to, or drink wine to. some late 20's early 30's ex-cool kid shit, like having crunchy babies whose hair you never comb and who you dress in dirty hoodies and bring with you to outdoor music festivals. or like growing a big beard and wearing the same pair of very expensive burnished leather shoes everyday. oh, you get where i'm going with this.

"Walk in the Park" Icy Demons
this is so tediously long and shitty that it's even pretty annoying when you're stoned as shit. what's amazing is how it manages to also be so shitty and underground sounding that it's actually kind of awesome and fun to listen to anytime.

"The Mess Inside" The Mountain Goats
this is not one of his better songs, but i love this guy's music. so much so that i can freely admit that i think i'd love the man, mr. john darnielle, mr. the mountain goats if i ever met him. real love. deep and possibly obsessive love... and not because i'm a fan or a groupie or a starfucker. it would be because we'd have undeniable chemistry. anyway, i'd rather not have to explain why i like his music so much because it would sound cheesy as shit. what am i saying 'sound'? it would be cheesy as shit. let's just say that i'm a sentimental person and leave it at that.

"The Last Trumpeter Swan" Deerhoof
now that they are no longer puritanically unacceptable, tight jeans on young people should never go out of style. i truly hope that that whole 90's thing was a fashion fluke that never happens again. tight jeans are hot, period. boys, girls, doesn't matter. go forth future young ones, feeling confident about your packages and your thick asses. it's good. it's all good. this band, on the other hand, i was pretty into for a second, but then got over just as quick. they are, in some ways, like tight jeans: fashionably provocative in a gritty and darkly slutty way, but 'fashionably' is the operative word here. tight jeans are sexy because you get to look at them. like, pho tastes good and all, but would you want to listen to it all day?

"Psycho Killer" The Talking Heads
fuck you if you don't like this band, or at least this song. you must be dead inside and totally not worth knowing.

"Angel's Share" Vetiver
New Weird America. blah blah blah. i checked it out. i get it. i really do. if i hadn't already made the deerhoof mistake (a thousand times over) i'd probably let this one into my heart too. but i did. and i won't.

"Subway Train" New York Dolls
new york in the mid-to-late 70's was so cool. i would have liked to have been there. definitely more so than london at the same time. i'm pretty interested in this era. i've read several books and watched oodles of documentaries on the subject. that's a lot of effort for me. trust. for this reason, i can't not like this band. this song in particular, i find to be more palatable because it lacks the kitchiness of a lot of their other ditties. but over all i think they are too novel and i'll always regard them as the beginning of the end in a lot of ways. buster poindexter? i don't think so.

"Silence Kit" Pavement
i recently went to an Animal Collective show and this douchy, preppie, jock guy from my high school was there. one of the kids i really resented back then for being so mundane and uninteresting and yet well liked by the general populous. during our 'hometown- hey we went to school together' conversation, he got on some condescending tip and asked me if i was "familiar with the band Pavement?"
mother fucker. i was 'familiar with the band pavement' back when you were listening to the new Hootie album on your way to soccer practice. yeah, he basically ruined both Pavement and Animal Collective for me. is that immature and shallow? i don't care.

"The Puppet" Echo and the Bunnymen
here's another one. i recently saw some band at some hipster function. i can't remember what they were called, but they (the singer especially) sounded just like Echo and the Bunnymen. i really hate this trend of blatantly ripping off old bands (Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order, Siouxie and the Banshees, The Talking Heads, etc.) and re-packaging their whole schpeel for kids who don't care enough to do their homework. it sells the kids short and encourages laziness. xerox copies are never as good and honest and real and the original, kids.

"Pictures of You" The Cure
that fateful day during the second semester of my freshman year in art school, the day that my best friend/drug buddy moved out of the dorms after having a mental breakdown and getting expelled, i listened to this song on repeat and cried a little. i enjoyed reading 'The Rules of Attraction' too.