Album of the Year

Finally, this is it! I’m exhausted from this Top 25 business, and my list wasn’t nearly as extensive or thoroughly documented as the noiseboy’s! Perhaps that is why, though exhausted, I averted total burned-outedness. Thus, I will not be joining the noiseboy in his 2005 trip, Year Without Music, but I wish him much luck—he’s gonna need it. (A more detailed, pseudo-philosophical response to the Y.W.M. will likely be forthcoming.)

So anyway, to the list. Numero uno.

I gotta tell ya—this one wasn’t even close. Of all the many excellent records put out in this last year, one in particular stood head and shoulders above the rest.


(drumroll, please…..)











1. Brian Wilson – Smile



It could be no other. For so many reasons, it could be no other. My favorite album of the year. Best album of the year. In fact, I think it is quite possibly the best album of the last decade. (All things being relative, of course.)

Though released on CD in late September (thirty-seven years after its initial release date!), I held out for the vinyl pressing, an embossed gatefold double-platter thing of beauty, so I didn’t even begin thoroughly digesting Smile until the first week of December. With the very first spin, I knew it would be my #1, and I haven’t stopped listening since.

As Rock n’ Roll’s Holy Grail for more than thirty years, diehards were rightly skeptical of the latter-day Wilson’s ability to pull this off. The unreleased Smile’s reputation built to a point that its mystery, magic, and myth took on a life of its own. Bootlegs flowed freely, allowing aficionados to construct their own ideas of what Smile was. Many people invested themselves psychologically in its myth. No one ever expected an official release. And as with most everything else, surely its reality could never match the myth.

But it did.

Somehow, it did. Shockingly, the final product is more satisfying than the myth ever was. I mean, sure, one can quibble about the new lyrics in “Good Vibrations” or some other odd detail, but I really don’t think anyone can deny this record’s excellence.

There’s so many more things I could say about Smile—entire books have been written on just this one album—but I’ll let someone else do the heavy analysis, I’m resting my case here. Trust me, you need this. Have a happy new year, y’all.

N/P Schooner – You Forget About Your Heart

Waiting in Slow Motion

The last few days have really been a bummer. Jodi’s mom was admitted to the hospital yesterday and they’ve been running all kinds of tests on her and what not. Nothing to do but sit and wait, which begets a certain feeling of helplessness to all involved. Too hard: to hear her say, “I’m so sad...”

I feel really bad too—I’m so terrible at consolation. I’ve never been one for mouthing empty platitudes, but sometimes there is a genuine need for words of assurance and I find my tongue failing me. And it doesn’t help matters that I’m not much of a “phone person.”

So Crystal (the dog) and I have the run of the house this week. Still don’t know when Jodi will be back. It’s looking to be a bittersweet ringing in of the New Year indeed. I may check that Ghost Buffalo show out, if I feel like it. Or maybe the Antisocial Me will just peep some flicks and hide out in the ‘burbs. We’ll see.

Last night I started catching up on some of those flicks that have clogged up our Tivo for so long. First up: Mystic River. At long last I got to see this powerful film. That Sean Penn is something else. I’m trying to think of another actor of his generation who even comes close to his talent—is Johnny Depp the only one? Then I finished the last half of Death in Gaza, a heartbreaking documentary about a couple of Palestinian kids growing up in the Gaza Strip. Finally, I caught about the first half-hour of Errol Morris’ Fog of War before conking out on the couch. Very interesting stuff—I’ll probably finish that one tonight. All in all, some pretty heavy shit.

So everybody’s talking ‘bout the big tsunami, and once again, the bloggers showed up the mainstream press. I donated a few bucks to the Red Cross this morning and encourage you all to do the same.

N/P Pugh Rogefeldt – (Ja, Da A Da!)

(Btw, noiseboy, did you ever find that keyboard shortcut for an umlaut? Cuz I need it too, you witty bastard.)

The Second-Best Album Of '04

2. The 101 – s/t EP

After great consideration, I give my nod to The 101’s self-titled debut EP for the number two slot: high praise for a five-song EP that runs all of eleven-odd minutes and, in fact, actually came out in December of last year. Second-best album of this year? Maybe, maybe not. My second-favorite album of the year? Damn straight.

First, a lesson in genealogy: The 101 is the sequel to Antarctica, as Antarctica was the sequel to Christie Front Drive, vis-à-vis the frontman for each outfit, one Eric Richter. For myself, it all started with the late, great Christie Front Drive (ca. 1993-1996), a band for which, to this day, I find it surprisingly difficult to express my undying love in words.

It is an irrational kind of love, an unquantifiable love, that of a boy and his best tunes. It is such irrational love that drives the record collector to his familiar condition: the mild case of OCD. A beautiful thing, really, unqualified passion and holy fervor engendered by a work of art absorbed and found to be lovely.

This was the sort of love I held for Christie Front Drive. Still do, now more than ever. So naturally, when they split, I followed Richter as he moved on to the synth-driven, New Order-inspired pastures of Antarctica in the late nineties. Antarctica never made the waves that CFD did in its heyday during The Golden Age of Mid-Nineties Emo, but they managed to put together two very strong releases before fizzling at the end of the century.

Several years passed, with little news from the Richter camp. Finally, earlier this year, I read about his new project, The 101. Excitement built. I eventually picked up the debut EP at LA’s Amoeba Records on my very first trip to California, earlier this year. Now these were tunes to drive to! I must have played it as many times as the band’s name suggests, cruising the streets of the greater Hollywood Hills in my rental—up and down Wilshire and Santa Monica, winding round Mulholland Drive, thru the gates of Bel-Air, down the twin boulevards of Hollywood and Sunset, up the famed Pacific Coast Highway, and yes, stuck in traffic on the 101 itself—through it all, this EP was my constant companion.

Much different than Antarctica, The 101 is Richter’s triumphant return to guitar-based rock. I took to describing their sound as “Superchunk does Christie Front Drive”, a description by which I stand, more or less. It is atmospheric punk rock, with each short, punchy number running into the next and Richter’s voice “still the icing on the tits”, as Drawer B called it. To this day, when I play this marvelous little EP, I see palm trees and feel sunshine, instantly whisked away to the streets of LA for another spin. Funny how a New York band does that to me.

Click here for the official band site, here for a great interview with Eric, and here for Heller’s Westword review from last spring.

(This just in: The 101 has apparently issued a full-length LP of which I was entirely unawares. How do such things happen? More on this once I can get my paws on it.)

N/P Brocas Helm – Defender of the Crown

Xmas-Vac Round-Up

So the pilgrimage to P-Town was a grand time in many ways, bittersweet and heartrending in others.

Thoughts:

• The importance of family: something most all of us can agree on, no matter who you did or didn’t vote for.


• In many ways, those things beyond our control can impact our lives far more significantly than those that we can control.


• Better to act now than to regret not acting.


• Did I really just get a pedicure?


• Mork & Mindy: a series ahead of its time. Hilarious!


• Colorado winters kick Illinois winters’ ass.


• Yes, Virginia, there are people who work in grocery stores who don’t know what sushi is.

Anyway, I had a good time hanging with my brother and sister, seeing my cousin for the first time in ten or fifteen years, and meeting her husband, Scott, for the first time, a totally cool guy who I didn’t have nearly as much of a chance to get to know as I would have liked. Next time, my friend.

Anniversary dinner at the Bistro. Playing with my niece and nephew. A Christmas church service at Northwoods. "Grazing" for food. Interesting conversations about religion: Christianity, Islam, and yes, even Satanism. Thanks noiseboy!)

I missed seeing quite a few people—like most of the Chicago crew—but I was lucky enough to have a few drinks with The Mike Johnson before he cruised back up to Chi-Town. How weird is this: it was Mike, Sean, and me at the bar in the early PM on the 26th. That very same day, this ebay auction ended, and I won an original Buffington painting titled "Mike Johnson". And so it was that some strange twist of fate found us three together: the proud winner of the painting, the handsome model, and the talented artist/seller. A triangulation of old friends and fates.

We all met up at Richard’s later that night, and everybody was digging on my red pants. Hell yeah—I gotta say—it was pretty hot. The conversation was lively, and there were many great ones to be had, and Harps as well. It was awesome to talk to Tracy & Fran, the Jeffs Gregory & Phelps, The Age of Precarious Tom, and Gared & Brandy & Mike & Gwen of course. Had a little fun with Wise & Keith & the rest of their Outer Space Crew. Sean aka Skinatra, Anthony, Matt (bro), Iwanski...Austrians Shane Lusher (who I haven’t seen since ’94) and Brent Keesey...and Jared from Thinker Thought, who I hadn’t met in the flesh…good times, very good times.

And so it was.

Books:
Barack Obama - Dreams from My Father
Gavin Baddeley - Lucifer Rising: sin, devil worship, & rock n’ roll
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction

N/P
Mummi Kutoo s/t
Johnny Cash - My Mother's Hymn Book
Caetano Veloso - The Best of Caetano Veloso

Top 25 of 2004, A First Draft: #5, 4, & 3

I’m getting close: only two more slots to write up after this.

I grouped these three records together for several reasons. I have already written about each of them and don’t feel the need or have the desire to expound much further. Others have written more eloquently and extensively, and if you would like to explore further, I would sooner point you to their write-ups than clog the net with more of the same. All three of these fantastic releases are showing up on a great many Best Of 2004 lists, so I need not worry about their exposure, or the non-lack thereof.

With that said, let us dig in.


5. Devendra Banhart – Rejoicing in the Hands


The rise of Devendra Banhart was one of 2004’s great success stories. Every emerging scene needs an icon to rally around and, by great consensus, the world chose Mr. Banhart to fly the freak-folk flag for us. This ever-prolific 23 year-old actually released two records in ’04 (both culled from the same session)—Rejoicing in the Hands in April, Nino Rojo in September—the only reason Nino Rojo didn’t make the list is because I haven’t actually heard it yet. (I refrained from making this essential purchase only because I read that the two would be packaged together for a vinyl release in early ‘05. As always, holdin' out for the vinyl.)

The hype behind the Banhart machine is entirely well founded. That voice—a fragile, magical, spidery thing wisping ‘round melodies that creep into your brain and never leave—decorated just right with lovely fingerpicking. And his lyrics—unique, bizarre, unforgettable. If Devendra Banhart is the icon of the current psychedelic freak-folk scene, it is only because no one can touch him—his is as singular a voice as ever there was.

My ranking: #5
Noiseboy ranking: #3
Pitchfork ranking: #7

More info



4. The Arcade Fire – Funeral


Even more hyped than the big DB, this was easily the most talked-about indie rock release of the year, and beloved by just about everyone. A debut from Canada’s finest (move over, Broken Social Scene...), released early in the fall. Pitchfork raved, and the masses opened their wallets—at one point every online distro across the country from Aquarius to Parasol to Other Music were sold out. And by all accounts, the live show is even better—I was supposed to see them, but I, too, fell victim to the band’s meteoric rise, as the Denver show sold out before I could get my head in the door. A powerful, moody, enchanting, life-affirming piece of work.

My ranking: #4
Noiseboy ranking: #9
Pitchfork ranking: #1

More info



3. Dungen – Ta Det Lugnt


Just like Mr. Banhart, the man behind Sweden’s Dungen, Gustav Ejstes, must have one hell of an old soul. That an unknown kid in his early twenties could deliver music so mature, inspired, and well-rooted in the kitchen-sink kaleidoscope of early seventies psych-rock might be rather difficult to believe were not the incontrovertible evidence right here on this slab of plastic. Utter brilliance from beginning to end, its popularity stateside another example of the power of the Fork.

My ranking: #3
Noiseboy ranking: #2
Pitchfork ranking: #13

More info


N/P: Metal Urbain - Anarchy in Paris!

Almost Forgot (How) to Blog

Hello, my friends. I hope everyone is having a wonderful wrap-up to the weird year that was 2004. Here at Unfinished Novellas, most of me is looking onward to ’05 and beyond, yet there is still hand-wringing to be done over ‘04, mostly over the stalled final installment of the Top 25 Albums list, which I had hoped to have done before leaving town, then had hoped to work on while I was gone, and now hope to post by week’s end. I know everyone is just dying to know my Top Five! ;)

Incidentally, the list has already been amended twice since its initial (80%) publication: first, with my accidental inclusion and subsequent disqualification of the Terminal Lovers LP at #7, and now, with my holiday purchase of The Legends’ most excellent Up Against the Legends LP. More on these Swedish cats later, fer sure, but for now, Pitchfork, take it away!

So anyway, it’s good to be back, and I had a blast, as usual, back home. Bittersweet, though, as Jodi unexpectedly had to stay behind because her mom is so sick. If you know her mom, you know how selfless and wonderful she is, so please, send your prayers and positive thoughts her way in these times.

It’s after midnight. I don’t have the time I thought I did, so the big Christmas vacation wrap-up will have to wait for tomorrow. Good night, everyone. I leave you with Robert Anton Wilson’s Thought for the Month, but you gots ta click for it.

Recent spins:
Nuggets Volume Five: Pop, Part III
Ken Nordine – Word Jazz
Morgan Geist – Unclassics (Obscure Electronic Funk & Disco 1978-1985)
Opeth – Blackwater Park

Top 25 of 2004, A First Draft: #10-6

10. Franz Ferdinand – s/t

An exciting band that actually lives up to its Strokes-like hype. The catchiest record in my Top Ten, and one of the party records of the year.







9. Comets on Fire – Blue Cathedral

Dead Meadow’s PCP-smoking kid brother is stoned to the gills, punk as fuck, and noisy as all get out. The band’s third outing, and by far the best Sub Pop joint in recent memory. The Comets’ enchanting brand of heaviness calls for equal parts Stooges, Floyd, MC5, and Hawkwind. Oftentimes this record comes on as a more relentless Fun House. And the addition of six-slinger Ben Chasny, aka Six Organs of Admittance, sure hasn’t hurt.



8. The Hold Steady – Almost Killed Me

If record geeks drew up best-of lists at the half-year, this likely would have topped mine at the end of June. I just might have spent more time listening to the Hold Steady this year than any other band on this list. What great music to start a workday! Yet I haven’t been quite as successful in converting my friends to the godlike wordsmanship and hilarious tall tales of former Lifter Puller mainman Craig Finn. Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all. But I’ll be listening.



7. THIS SPACE RESERVED

I’m an idiot. When I sketched this list out, I thought I had thoroughly vetted all records for basic eligibility (ie, was said album issued in calendar year ‘04?). Yet I somehow overlooked this process in giving up a precious slot in the Top Ten to the Terminal Lovers’ awesome, but sadly ineligible, Drama Pit and Loan. According to Cope, "these songs were released in various guises and under different names, with different songs and different running orders, in 2001 and again in 2003." Doh! Had I not already published the rest of the list, in reverse order, I would have adjusted it accordingly, thereby giving Robyn Hitchcock membership in the exclusive Top Ten club for which I once considered him a shoe-in, but for now, I guess I’ll just leave this slot open for future use. Hey, this is a first draft, after all.



6. Witchcraft – s/t

In 2004, defying all logic, the Swedish band Witchcraft proved that, in fact, the world really DID need another band cut from the black cloth of Sabbath. But there’s so much more to these cats than some lame tribute to or imitation of Black Sabbath. Rather, they operate as if that band never existed; theirs is an intriguing parallel universe in which Witchcraft plays the role of doom metal demigods in their place. An astonishing full-length debut, this is highly recommended for anyone who rocks—-not just the stoner rock choir. Start here. You need this.


N/P: Relatively Clean Rivers - s/t (Radioactive)

Top 25 of 2004, A First Draft: #25-11 + Honorable Mentions

I’d like to get the Nagging Annual Best-Of List Monkey off my back before I head back to Peoria for the holidays on Tuesday, so here goes with part one of a hopelessly flawed, unthoroughly researched, and tragically incomplete list, but, alas, it is the best I can do for the time being. I certainly could not outdo the noiseboy in this department—my main man has put together the most beautiful, well-written list you will see this season—it is certainly the Best of the Best-Of 2004 Lists, bar none.

Each list comes with its own caveats. Most of mine can be summed up, ironically enough, in a spontaneous poem by my least favorite defense secretary. From The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld:

As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

It would seem, then, that the incompetent running of a war is a lot like listening to music. What follows is a non-Rummy-approved list of known knowns. These are albums I know I know, albums I have enjoyed immensely over the last year, albums I have listened to enough times to evaluate their relative merits against those of others.

Alas, there are known unknowns as well. These are albums to which I have not yet been privy, mostly for lack of unlimited cash flow. These include the latest from Interpol, the Libertines, U2, PJ Harvey, Eminem, the Drive-by Truckers, the Go Find, Eagles of Death Metal, Ghost, Stars, Iris Dement, Circle, Nick Cave, Morrissey, and Sonic Youth, and plenty more. Someday I will hear each of these records and factor them into the equation, but for now, they lie with the ranks of the known unknowns, that is, unknowable.

Finally, of course, there are the unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know, and the most exciting category of all. There is no greater feeling to a record collector than the discovery of an unknown unknown, but there is nothing more that can be said here about them here.

There is another list, too, of known knowns—these are they who didn’t quite make the cut.

Just missed, coming in at #26:

ARCHITECTURE IN HELSINKI – Fingers Crossed

Right on the heels of Helsinki (but not necessarily in order):

JENS LEKMAN When I Said I Wanted to Be Your Dog (+ numerous EPs)
MOONBABIES The Orange Billboard
GHOST BUFFALO s/t EP
BETA BAND Heroes to Zeros
BUDDY MILLER Universal United House of Prayer
XIU XIU – Fabulous Muscles
JESSE MALIN – The Heat
MODEST MOUSE – Good News for People Who Love Bad News
BJORK – Medullah
BLACKOUTS – Living in Blue
MASTODON - Leviathan

There are those I have not heard enough yet to judge (the Castanets), and those I just don’t really feel yet (Joanna Newsom, Mirah, White Magic). There were some disappointments (Steve Earle, TV on the Radio), but a heckuva lot more that I liked, but not enough to make the cut, including the latest from: Clinic, the Thermals, the Mendoza Line, Division of Laura Lee, Loretta Lynn, Kasey Chambers, Decemberists, Hip Whips, Bigger Lovers, Memphis, Sufjan Stevens, Lali Puna, Graham Parker, Marah, Tarentel, Polyphonic Spree, and Unbunny.

With that said, I offer you a partial list of numbers 25 through 11; the top ten will receive a bit more attention later this week. Perhaps I will say something else about each of these outstanding records, but, for now, it remains but a list.


25. IRON & WINE – Our Endless Numbered Days

24. !!! – Louden Up Now

23. AIR – Talkie Walkie

22. THE CONCRETES – s/t

21. PINBACK – Summer in Abaddon

20. WILCO – A Ghost is Born

19. SIX ORGANS OF ADMITTANCE – Dark Noontide

18. WOVENHAND – Consider the Birds

17. DESTROYER – Your Blues

16. ANIMAL COLLECTIVE – Sung Tongs

15. THE GRIS GRIS – s/t

14. WALKMEN – Bows & Arrows

13. FROG EYES – The Folded Palm

12. PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS – Up in Them Guts

11. ROBYN HITCHCOCK – Spooked


****************************
Finally, a snippet from today’s playlist, b/c there's no such thing as too many lists!

The Notwist – Neon Golden
Zerfas – s/t
v/a The History of Northwest Rock Volume I
The Fallen Angels - It's a Long Way Down
Third Ear Band – Raga Live
v/a Nuggets LPs volumes 3-5
Arzachel – s/t
Queen II
Wovenhand – Consider the Birds
Brian Wilson - Smile
Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day

Radar: 10 Items of Note

This world just gets crazier and crazier.

With the election over, most of us lay citizens have been taking a much-needed vacation from the political rat race...or even news altogether, since frankly, ain’t a whole lot of it good. My vacation from politics, though, lasted only a handful of days post-election before I was back to the old steady state of hyper-awareness through real-time electronic media addiction.

Lots of big things are flying under the radar right now. We don’t want to think about Iraq or Social Security—we wanna think about Christmas presents and eggnog. We don’t want to worry about the deficit or a gay marriage amendment or the results of a Ukrainian election—we want to worry about expanding waistlines and top twenty lists and credit cards maxing out. Which is all perfectly fine. For now.

But the month and a half since Black Tuesday has proven to be remarkably eventful. The wheels are beginning to come off the Bush juggernaut—and though he hasn’t been sworn in yet, the stage is being set for what should be a very interesting Second Term (gasp! I never thought I’d have to say that!).

Items of note, early afternoon, December 17, 2004:

1. The bizarre transformation of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko. Dioxin poisoning is a bitch, in case you haven’t seen the before and afters yet. Needless to say, conspiracy theories abound.

2. Russian President Vladimir Putin, codename: Pootie Poot. Methinks Dubya may not be quite the judge of souls he thinks he is. Kristof gets it right: "The bottom line is that the West has been suckered by Mr. Putin. He is not a sober version of Boris Yeltsin. Rather, he's a Russified Pinochet or Franco. And he is not guiding Russia toward free-market democracy, but into fascism."

3. As for Gen. Augusto Pinochet, justice stalks him. Finally this evil man, personally responsible for the deaths of thousands in Chile from 1973 to 1990, will face the families of his victims. Next up on the chopping block? Dr. Henry Kissinger, perhaps, willing accomplice of Pinochet’s, among others. I mean, really, was there a single Latin American dictator that our country didn’t support in the seventies and eighties? Well, there was always Castro, I suppose.

4. It seems Donald Rumsfeld’s club of admirers is dwindling by the day. McCain, of course, you expect his dissent, but a substantial number of other Republicans have followed suit, including Bill Kristol, and now Trent Lott. Trent on the Donald: "not a fan." Mr. President? Are you listening? Now that we’ve been over in Iraq for almost two years now, don’t you think it's about time we did this right? Give Rummy the boot and send Wolfie and Feith with him. The despicable quality shared by these men (and Kissinger) is their tendency to "look at battlefield soldiers as chess pieces at their disposal. In the end, they care about nothing except their game."

5. Bush’s idea of an economic conference: a cheerleading rally in his own honor ("There were no real dissenting viewpoints from the panelists.") It seems that fantasy worked so much better than reality in the first term that the Dubya is sticking with it to the bitter end.

6. Friedman scolds Bush again. It seems the administration has held up the release of the third Arab Human Development Report, due back in October, because of language critical of the US invasion of Iraq and the Israeli occupation:

So there you have it: a group of serious Arab intellectuals - who are neither sellouts nor bomb throwers - has produced a powerful analysis, in Arabic, of the lagging state of governance in the Arab world. It is just the sort of independent report that could fuel the emerging debate on Arab reform. But Bush officials, along with Arab autocrats, are holding it up until it is modified to their liking - even if that means it won't appear at all.

It makes you weep.

Once again, Bush’s inability to admit a mistake or to even reevaluate past events in light of "what we know now" rears its ugly head. And more soldiers die.

7. Speaking of expensive failures, have any of these missile defense tests ever worked right? And what’s this secret spy satellite program all about? Weren’t conservatives supposed to be, well, conservative when it came to your tax dollars?

8. The Bernard Kerik Story and the Job nobody wants.

9. Bush fiddles as Iraq burns. Bob Herbert delineates our misplaced priorities. Meanwhile, Saddam is reportedly in high spirits. I suppose he has some reason to be, what with the success of the guerrilla tactics that he likely shaped in a significant way. So we wait for the elections and pray.

10. Finally, lots of soul-searching in the Democratic party since the election. Where did we go wrong? How do we fix it? Predictably, there’s an intraparty fight underway between the liberal MoveOn faction and the DLC centrist types. It’s an argument worth having, but only with the sense that, in the end, we’re all on the same side. It need not end in the victory of one over the other, as some on both sides have foolishly suggested—rather, it MUST not end as such, or the Dems won’t win another election this century. On a macro- level, we don’t need to go left or move to the center—we just need to extract the common sense from both sides, define our message more concretely and inclusively, and do a better job of framing the debate.

We also need some new blood. Did you know that there are no more than twenty people younger than the age of 40 on the 447-member DNC?? That is a travesty on its face. This article has it right on:

Young Democrats believe that the party is dominated by people who came of age politically in the 1960s, and it's time for them to make room for new ideas and new voices. Theirs.

"We respect the struggles of the feminist movement, the civil rights movement and Vietnam, but (we) are not defined by those struggles," says Kirsten Powers, 37, a New York-based strategist and commentator for Fox News. "We want to take what is good in liberalism and make it better, and get rid of what is not working."

In this sense, then, I endorse Howard Dean for DNC chair. I did not support Dean for president in the primaries, though I admired many things about his strong campaign. But what didn’t work well in a presidential campaign might work splendidly from this position, with just an ounce of savvy. He’s a fresh voice, not from Washington, full of new ideas, youth support, and enthusiasm. I believe that he understands what the party needs to do. And, really, Dean ain’t the wacko leftist he was made out to be last year—as a governor he was more of a fiscally conservative centrist. I think Dean is the guy that can reach out to both factions of Democrats, bring them together, and make them the majority party once again.

Recent Jukebox fodder:

Sister Rosetta Thorpe – Shine for Jesus!
Amon Duul II – Yeti
Enslaved – Below the Lights
The Lounge Lizards – s/t
Donovan – Live in Concert
Crime – San Francisco’s Still Doomed
Zolar X – Timeless
Dismiss – the demo tape

STAR SLIGHT DESTINY

(Big yawn.)

So I was up 'til 2:37 AM last nite putting the finishing touches on my xmas mix for The Skyway :: The Replacements Internet Mailing List. Given my current obsession with psychedelia, the original vision for this mix was a sort of Best of Psych thing (an impossible task for a single disc), but, as usual, it ended up something quite different than planned.

No, this has nothing to do with my top twenty of 2004. That list will be forthcoming.

Want your metaphorical ass kicked? Request a copy: unfinishednovellas [at] hotmail [dot] com.

01 ALVA Kill Everyone
02 THE MISUNDERSTOOD Children of the Sun
03 SIMON FINN Jerusalem
04 CIRCLE Back to Pori
05 TSUNODA TSUGUTO Rena + Ami
06 THE SCIENTISTS Frantic Romantic
07 MOONBABIES Fieldtrip USA
08 THE 101 Psychotropic Love / Blossom
09 O BANDO E Assim Falava Mefistofeles
10 STRAPPING FIELDHANDS Heave Ho
11 HIP WHIPS Stay With Me Forever
12 MAVI ISIKLAR Iyi Dusun Tasin
13 THE RANGERS QUARTET I’ve Found a Hiding Place
14 AT THE DRIVE-IN Star Slight
15 DOLLFACE Destiny Oh Destiny
16 FROG EYES The Fence Feels its Post
17 DANNY BEN-ISRAEL Do You Believe in Fairy Tales?
18 THE THIRD BARDO I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time
19 THE SOFT PINK TRUTH In School
20 BLISSFUL Kick the Porcupine
21 MILTON NASCIMENTO Tudo Que Voce Podin Ser
22 GREG ASHLEY Deep Deep Down
24 THE ECSTASY OF SAINT THERESA Square Wave
25 LIFTER PULLER Lovely in a Limousine
26 TWINK Fluid

12.16.04. an unfinished novellas production.

N/P: Larsen - Rever

Back in Action!

Touch And Go Records
Attn: Slint Project
PO Box 25520
Chicago, IL. 60625

Rock n’ Roll is Dead: Long Live Rock n’ Roll

About once a decade, like clockwork, the pundits write up a death certificate for Rock n Roll, only to declare its resurgence a few years later (and as of this moment, the last I checked, Rock is considered very much alive). This semi-predictable cycle of ebb and flow obscures one crucial difference between the World of Rock, Circa Now, and The Ghosts of Rock n’ Roll Past, and that is this: very, very few actually live what might be called the quintessential rock n’ roll lifestyle these days. It might even be argued that no one, in fact, lives it anymore. Certainly not the way Jimi Hendrix or Gram Parsons lived it.

You want sex, drugs, rock n’ roll? You have to go back at least as far as the eighties and the hair metal scene for the last vestiges of true bacchanalia in rock. Nirvana and grunge and a tide of political correctness killed all that off, and whatever it is that’s grown back in its place (I’m talking to you, nu-metal!) pales in comparison. To say the least.

But Rock n’ Roll really did die long ago, long before the boy Cobain ever took to the git-fiddle. He knew it was dead—he dwelled on it and it drove him mad. I couldn’t tell you exactly when Rock died, but somewhere out there is a map with a straight line from Altamont to Mark David Chapman's backyard. Lots (lots!) of great music came out of the 1970s, some of which we’re only now rediscovering, but that decade also marked the unfortunate, full-throttled onset of rock’s corporate bastardization. When the autopsy is performed, that will be the coroner’s verdict.

All this becomes clearer (yet paradoxically, so much hazier) with a screening of the Rolling Stones’ unreleased bootleg documentary of their legendary 1972 tour, Cocksucker Blues. Hell, even 38 minutes’ll do—that’s how much time I spent with this gem of debauchery several nights ago before the damn DVD froze up on me. I never did see the rest, but I don’t even think it necessary. Long story short: they just don’t do shit like this anymore. Do they? The film was so outrageous and explicit, the Stones obtained a court injunction against its release and distribution (an injunction which likely played a major unwitting role in the Mick’s still being knighted by the Queen years later). Cinematographer Robert Frank finally obtained the rights to screen the movie, but, by some bizarre arrangement, he can only do this once a year. Obviously, then, don’t go looking at your corner Best Buy for this one, kids, though you can usually find bootleg copies on ebay. Click here for a better review of "the greatest rock movie ever made."

So I was pissed for not being able to finish the Stones flick, yet determined to spend my evening wasting away on the couch watching the proverbial rockumentary. Next on my list: Inside Thin Lizzy - 1971-1983: An Independent Critical Review. When I borrowed this from him, Gared warned me that it was pretty academic, but I foolishly brushed aside his warning. I love the underrated Thin Lizzy, but even I, known for the occasional bout of wonkishness, couldn’t manage to stay awake for this one. In addition to Gared’s warning, I should have known from this, on the DVD jacket: "FOR STUDENT USE: This DVD provides suitable reference for college courses offering a Popular Music module." ‘Nuff said.

It was in this context, then, of disappointment (the Stones, frozen @38min.) and boredom (Thin Lizzy, dried out and over-intellectualized), that I put in We’re Never Going Home, the recently released DVD from Gainesville’s finest, AGAINST ME. Third time was definitely a charm. This is one of the best music videos that I’ve seen in awhile, and it seems quite effortlessly put together. Against Me is one of the few bands from the emo/punk scene that gets me going anymore, and I only like them so much more after watching this. A chronicle of a 2004 tour with my boys Planes Mistaken for Stars and No Choice, it’s a fun, highly watchable time capsule of one month in a band’s life.

If punk rock has let you down...if you thought you were over it...that there’s nothing left to be said...IF YOU THOUGHT ROCK N ROLL WAS DEAD, then I’d suggest you give Against Me a listen. Long live Rock.

Now playing:

Brian Wilson – Smile
Dyke & The Blazers – The Funky Broadway
The Free Design – Stars Time Bubbles Love
Yo La Tengo – Today is the Day EP
Cursive – Burst & Bloom EP
Gene Clark w/ the Gosdin Brothers
Children of Bodom – Hate Crew Deathroll
Soft Boys - A Can of Bees
Magma - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh

Belated Tidings for Treacy

Many thanks to one Anais Pinhead, whose recent comment on my post of 11/22 revealed some rather earth-shattering news:

you do know that Television Personalities are alive and well, recorded some new material and played Friday 12/10 in London, yes?

Okay, so the definition of "earth-shattering" may shift from one person to the next, but anyone who’s a fan of the TVPs and didn’t know this crucial bit of information, i.e. yours truly, is bound to be shocked. I’m honestly more surprised that I didn’t know about it months ago than that it actually happened. "It" being the resurfacing of one Dan Treacy after a prolonged, heretofore unexplained disappearance that was cause for much speculation by fans and press.

(Meanwhile Richey Edwards, aka Richey James, former Manic Street Preacher lyricist and guitarist, remains missing. Many people think he simply engineered an elaborate suicide, others think it was staged. Some have spotted him in the Canary Islands. Maybe he’ll turn up someday. In the meantime, if you’ve never read the lyrics to The Holy Bible, the Manic Street Preachers’ 1994 epic tale of self-loathing that is widely considered a "brilliant, bleak masterpiece," then you’re in for a brilliant, bleak treat. Click here.)

Anyway, like many Gen-X’ers, my first exposure to the Personalities occurred via Kurt Cobain’s liner notes to Incesticide—yet it was nearly eight more years before I would actually hear the band. I don’t remember where or when exactly I picked up a copy of their glorious debut, And Don’t the Kids Just Love It, but I certainly recall promptly falling in love.

So tonight, lift your pint to Dan Treacy. I hope it’s as good for you to be back as it is for us to have ya.

N/P Ulver Perdition City

Digging Deeper into the Nuggets' Treasure Chest

I always figured that owning both Nuggets box sets would forever satisfy my then-occasional yearning for sixties garage rock. Sure, I had a few Seeds albums, and the Shadows of Knight, the Troggs, the Standells, the Prunes, the Elevators, and others made substantial cameos in my collection, but I never felt a pressing need to go much further than that until only recently. My long-running rules of price sensitivity declared that if I found a good deal on an LP, I’d pick it up. But it’s not very often that you see some of these more obscure records for sale, and when you do, the obscenity of its price tag usually matches the record’s obscurity. Of course, this has all changed with the rise of the 180g reissue!

I used to think that Nuggets was the end, when in fact it is merely the beginning, a launch pad for further musical exploration. My first hint of this came nearly six years ago, when I first moved to Denver. (Six years??!! Has it really been that long??) My first week in town I picked up a Chocolate Watchband cassette and that baby didn’t leave my car’s tape deck for months! (I think I ended up passing it on to Gwen...) I look back on that tape as my first recognition that many of these garage bands, though all similar-sounding to unfamiliar ears, had unique qualities worth exploring in greater detail outside of their contributions to Nuggets.

A while back I posted on the legendary sixties group The Misunderstood, whose singular track on Nuggets, the outstanding "Children of the Sun", cannot on its own begin to do this great band justice. After soaking up their Lost Acetates record for the last few weeks, I am still convinced that this is THE "lost" band of that decade. Like the Watchband, the Misunderstood have that special something, a mysterious gift of transcendence which permeates their body of work. Perhaps it’s that both of these bands, I would argue, more successfully than their peers, straddled their roots in early rock n’ roll and gritty R&B with the experimentation and freedom of the burgeoning psychedelic scene.

Digging deeper into the Nuggets treasure chest unearths all kinds of random connections and bits of trivia. Did you remember that the Golliwogs were really an early lineup of Creedence Clearwater Revival? Ever listen to Ted Nugent before he began a long career of right wing sucking? Blue Cheer fans: have you heard guitar maestro Randy Holden’s pre-Cheer outfit The Other Half? Did you know that the Lyme in Lyme & Cybelle (the psychedelic Sonny & Cher) is none other than the then-unknown Warren Zevon? And that singer for We The People? He would later join the Allman Brothers.

We The People—there’s another Nuggets band well worth checking out. Very few of these bands lasted long enough to warrant a double-disc anthology, but theirs is well worth owning. Next up in my journeys, hopefully: the Lollipop Shoppe. I’ve heard they’re pretty swell. (THIS JUST IN: Turns out the dude from the Lollipop Shoppe is still playing music, currently in the garage band Dead Moon!)

(All this talk of Nuggets is not to leave out Pebbles, Rubble, and the seemingly endless run of similar-minded compilations…There seems to be enough to keep one busy forever…)

So I scored again at Black & Read—Friday night I found a copy of the Barbarians’ 1965 self-titled debut on Laurie Records for five bucks. Another famous Nuggets band, whose "Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl" was a modest hit back in the day, the Barbarians were a gang of scraggly-lookin’ long-hairs, led by a one-armed drummer with a hook (Check album cover above! And speaking of one-armed drummers, Def Leppard ain’t got nothin’ on the Barbarians!). I did hesitate, because though the sleeve was in pretty great shape, the record itself had seen better days—but when I got home and threw it on the turntable, there were no skips to be had, just that crackle and pop I love so. The album itself is an enjoyable but inessential timepiece consisting mostly of well-chosen covers. Another bit of Nuggets trivia: What band, then known as the Hawks, play on the Barbarians’ song "Moulty", as rumored in the Nuggets liner notes?

Answer: The Band

Other Black & Read pick-ups:

Konk’s The Sound of Konk compilation. Konk was one of New York City’s finest, funkiest bands of the eighties, who ran in the same crowd as ESG and Liquid Liquid. It’s on Soul Jazz Records, thus the rich and detailed liner notes, fascinating stories of a period of time when one would cross paths with Grandmaster Flash and the Cro-Mags in the same day.

Africa Funk: The Original Sound of 1970s Funky Africa 2xLP. With this purchase, I’m really feelin’ that Afro-beat! I’ve been thinking that it’s about time I heard what else was out there besides Africa’s most famous son, Fela Kuti. All I can say is: WOW. I know there is much more where this came from, and I fully intend on seeking it out. More to come. Stay tuned.

And finally: A street singer championed by Frank Zappa, among many others, Wild Man Fischer's last album, Nothing Scary. Trouser Press calls him "one of the true wackos of our time." But really, the poor guy just has Tourettes syndrome. Fascinating "outsider" music. I need a few more listens though.

But really, I gots ta get working on my Best of ’04 list. I haven’t done much of anything yet, I know thenoiseboy is way ahead of me in that department. I also have a mix tape to make for Skyway, this Replacements email list that I’ve been on for years. Should be fun—I get to turn some lucky person on to the tunes of my choice, while I get the same in return. A marvelous thing, really. Anyway, so much to get done before we leave for P-Town for the holidays!

Today’s hits:
Clear Light – s/t
Fine Young Cannibals – The Raw & The Cooked
The DB’s – Stands for Decibels
Motorpsycho – Let Them Eat Cake
The Barbarians – s/t
Big Star - #1 Record
Anita Carter – Anita of the Carter Family
The Remains – A Session With the Remains
Echo & The Bunnymen – Porcupine

Words are Swords, Part Two

[Read Part One]

I was compelled to begin this series of posts as a reaction to my own post of last Thursday, "GOD vs. MACHIAVELLI," in which I laid into Jerry Falwell, the Dubya, and those in this country who have interpreted his reelection as a mandate to tear up the long-running contract between church and state. Upon rereading that piece, I was struck by the dichotomy between its tone—sarcastic, dismissive, accusatory—and my own strong belief in the value of compromise and coalition building. You see, while I consider myself a strong, moderately left-of-center progressive, I am also one of the dwindling few who wishes to find a way to work with those who don’t always agree with me.

I actually find it mildly exhilarating to sit down with someone on the other side of the aisle and try to forge an agreement. To me, it means that we as a society may not really be as divided as the media portrays with its maps of Red and Blue—a more accurate map might color this entire country varying shades of Purple. Yet dogmatists on both sides rule out the noble art of compromise altogether, considering its required give and take a tool for the weak, the wishy-washy, or the unprincipled. Ridiculous. Political principles are starting points for negotiations. They guide us through the process, but they do not ensure results. There is little purpose to a principle that is an end itself rather than a means to an end.

If everything I need to know I learned in kindergarten, why should politics be any different? Is not the mechanism of compromise one of the first tools we pull out the behavioral toolbox to settle our disputes? Likewise, any true democratic system by its very nature compels a give and take. In fact, not so long ago, such deal making was quite commonplace in Washington. The Times’ David Brooks addresses this topic in his 12/4 op-ed, "Lift a Pint for Coalitions":

The Social Security issue changes the incentives. The rule is compromise or fail. If the president is to avoid a debilitating defeat, the atmosphere has to change.

In the end, it all comes down to bigger problems that can’t be solved by a simple tyrannical majority alone:

Maybe the context for old-fashioned coalition building no longer exists. There aren't as many cross-party friendships as before, nor as many master deal makers. But somehow we're going to have to fix Social Security so the baby boom generation doesn't imprison its children in a fortress of debt. We're going to have to bring the entitlement system into the era of longevity.

I tend to agree. We don’t have a choice—we can delay honestly brokered compromise, but only at the expense of making difficult problems worse and inevitable compromises more painful. It’s kindergarten stuff, really.

What We Have

“Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromised ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles?” Wilson asked.

A big cheer arose from the approximately 2,300 soldiers in the cavernous hangar who assembled to see and hear the secretary of defense.

Rumsfeld hesitated and asked Wilson to repeat his question.

“We do not have proper armored vehicles to carry with us north,” Wilson said after asking again. Wilson's unit is about to drive into Iraq for a one-year tour of duty.

Rumsfeld replied that, “You go to war with the Army you have”, not the one you might want, and that any rate the Army was pushing manufacturers of vehicle armor to produce it as fast as humanly possible.

Today Don Rumsfeld finally got a comeuppance of sorts from the brave men and women who actually fight this war. The headlines:

*US troops slam Rumsfeld over shortages
*Defense secretary gets his own ‘talking to’ from disgruntled GIs
*Rumsfeld hears gripes from angry US troops
*Troops' Queries Leave Rumsfeld on the Defensive

Ain’t it interesting how, with all the Cabinet members and Administration officials coming and going of late, the architects of this war—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz—they of the Grossest Miscalculation of All—maintain job security?

“You go to war with the Army you have.” But the Army we have is one under the command of the so-called Rumsfeld Doctrine, accurately described by the Times’ Tom Friedman as:

“Just enough troops to protect ourselves, but not Iraqis, and just enough troops to be blamed for everything that goes wrong in Iraq, but not enough to make things go right.”

In Iraq, because of our misguided Defense Secretary, we went in with too few troops, beginning the fight with one hand tied behind our back. This was a conscious decision, made against the advice of our own military. (Whether we should have gone in at all is a wholly separate question.)

While Rumsfeld’s inability to accept responsibility for what occurs on his watch is rather appalling, it is standard fare for this crowd. More unacceptable is his boss’s inability to dish it out. This is the President of the United States, for chrissakes! Whatever happened to The Buck Stops Here? Or is that expecting too much?

Why did we try to fight this war on the cheap? We skimped on troops, armor, and plain old-fashioned common sense, not to mention our own homeland security, while giving away billions in tax cuts to the folks who need it the least. This is the country we have become. The only folks who make sacrifices are the poor kids over in Iraq. These are our priorities, ones we will come to deeply regret.

Rumsfeld should have been fired long ago, long before Abu Ghraib, and I call for his head once again. Let us ask Google:

Results 1 - 10 of about 114,000 for hire rumsfeld. (0.21 seconds)
Results 1 - 10 of about 584,000 for fire rumsfeld. (0.07 seconds)

It would seem that the answer is obvious.

You go to war with what you have. It’s worth pondering, then, what we have with this war.

N/P Pelican Australasia 2XLP

Unfocused Snapshots

With the anxiously awaited second installment of Words Are Swords forthcoming, but still to be written, I present the following fuzzy thoughts and scattered links:

• Dude, You Can’t Be Serious! A linguist from the University of Pittsburgh has published a scholarly paper deconstructing and deciphering the word "dude," contending it is much more than a catchall for lazy, inarticulate surfers, skaters, slackers and teenagers.



• DOZENS of seats on the world's most luxurious cruise liner have collapsed under the weight of obese American passengers and the company who has to fix the chairs is French! If that’s not some sort of vague metaphor, I don’t know what is.



• Load up on Terence McKenna mp3s: mckenna.psychedelic-library.org



• MSNBC’s point man in Washington, Howard Fineman, surveys the political landscape thru the lens of the just-passed intelligence bill and offers a preview of GOP turmoil to come.



• Tivo for your iPod. A new technology allows listeners to subscribe to homemade radio shows and listen to them on their digital music players. It’s called PODCASTING, and it was invented by none other than former MTV VJ and proud mullet-bearer Adam Curry!



• Check out this September post on G-Word, a blog out of New Zealand, for a brief history of vinyl.



• The Best Little Record Fair in Texas. Perhaps I can time a visit to my sister in Dallas for one of these twice-annual events.



• Does anyone else find it amusing that Dubya was in the audience at an event honoring mad-libs Elton John and Warren Beatty?



• Blogging from the front lines. How soldiers are using the Internet to share their stories. Go to optruth.org and read some of these soldiers’ stories.



• Go here, here, or here for more dirt on Dr. Henry Kissinger. This guy is an absolute slimeball who should probably go to prison for the rest of his life.



• Ever since the neoconservatives hijacked this administration, I have at times been shocked to find myself in mild agreement with Pat Buchanan of all people, if only vis-à-vis the wisdom of this Iraq War and Bush’s misguided Middle East strategy. At times, his realist/isolationist stance has been a useful counterweight to the absurdity of the neocons. But I couldn’t disagree more with his defeatist attitude on Israel/Palestine (The Mirage of Mideast Peace). Sure, this could very well be the single most intractable problem in the history of humankind, but treating it as such gets us nowhere. Besides, there have been numerous post-Arafat signs that a new reality could be forged. Don’t we owe it to ourselves to try? Sometimes politics makes for strange bedfellows, but when the fellow next to you starts stinkin’, you gotta kick him out of the bed.

N/P Pharaoh Overlord – s/t

Farewell to Alt-Country: Phases and Stages

Perhaps more than most, I am driven by my obsessions. And for as long as I can remember, my obsession with music has been one of the monumental forces in my life, an immutable fact of my existence. But drill down further and this consistent obsession and its remarkable staying powers mask the real journey beneath its surface: the flux and play of musical genres and subgenres and sub-subgenres, the ebb and flow of a million different mini-obsessions, aggregated under the umbrella of Aural Pleasures, subsets of the Meta-Obsession.

Anyone who knows me can probably tell you a story or two about one or another of my obsessions or phases. Being an exceptionally curious person, esp. about music I haven’t heard, coupled with an interest in just about every genre under the sun, means I am unlikely to run out of new music to hear in this lifetime. At the moment, the pressing interest is psych (a term so broad as to be nearly useless). Six months ago it was death metal. Before that, I had gone from the Beach Boys to old school honky tonk straight into the wide swath of musical territory known most definitively, for better or worse, as alt-country, where my head would remain for about a year.

It was during this period that I began writing a regular column for Skyscraper magazine called "The Beaten Path: Country, Folk, & Other Americana", in which I covered dozens upon dozens of new releases from this genre. And I’ve been doing it ever since, a good 2+ years now. It was really a blast for the first year and a half or so, but at some point the alt-country phase passed, and though my tastes shifted (temporarily) from Wilco to Death, I was still writing about fiddles and banjos instead of double-bass drums and corpse paint. Things just got out of sync. It was at this point that the column began to feel restrictive and too much like work.

So now, having finally decided that my next column (and nearly written already) will be my last, I feel almost elated, an immense burden lifted from my shoulders. I’ll still write for Skyscraper, though I’m not sure yet in what capacity. But this frees me up to do more features, if I want, as well as ensuring I don’t slack on the blog. I think it was this blog which really pushed me to realize that I needed to move on. (When in doubt, praise the blog!) There are only 24 hours in the day, you know. And I wouldn’t want to let my fans down! :)

The caveat is that, no matter what the current obsession is, I still listen to everything. Though I’m sick of alt-country in general, that doesn’t mean I’ll ever tire of Kasey Chambers, whose latest disc just arrived in the mail yesterday, or Iris Dement or Buddy Miller. I’m pretty burned-out on metal right now, but that won’t stop me from blasting Kreator at top volume when I get home from a day’s work.

Which is why this blog is such an infinitely better format for me, as it caters to a certain lack of focus. One minute I’ll be telling you how extraordinarily important it is for you to see the reality showcased at fallujahinpictures.com and the next I will suggest that you divert from this reality to a world measured by the metric: Number of "Moddafokka" per minute. Neither do I mind if this cartoon has a damn thing to do with this here prose.



So it is in that spirit, then, I say, fare thee well, alt-country, for now I blog.

Black discs spinnin' round:
Pelt – Empty Bell Ringing in the Sky
Acid Mothers Temple – New Geocentric World of Acid Mothers Temple
Caroliner – Strike Them Hard, Drag Them to Church
Double Leopards – Halve Maen
Tarantula Hawk – s/t (#2)

Weekend Update

Hey kids, it’s another Monday morning, and, in the spirit of nonacknowledgement of a full week’s worth of work to look forward to, I will instead spend the morn looking back at the weekend just passed. Saturday night was the annual Corporate Express Christmas party, the third one of these things we’ve attended. Jodi got a killer haircut and looked smashing in her new dress. My hair was shaggy and unruly, as usual, and I looked, well, okay, I guess.

Anyway, by now we have a routine with these things:

4:00-5:00 – Drive to hotel, check in, get dressed, prepare room for onslaught of tequila-maddened CEXP employees and equally mad sig. others.

5:00-6:30 – Others arrive to room, festivities begin early. Bottles of champagne, Crown, and tequila are quickly opened and passed around. Let the consumption begin!

6:30-7:00 – Head downstairs for appetizers, photos, and more drinks. Two-per-person drink tickets are history within 15 min.

7:30-8:00 – Eat.

8:00-9:30 – Transition phase. Some sit at table, others mingle, many dance, a few take off for a smoke break.

9:30-? – Back up to the room for the remainder of the evening. Traditionally the craziest and most fun of the time slots, it is also the one least likely to be recalled the next day, and 2004 was not the year to break tradition. (THIS JUST IN: Jodi just called to tell me all the things that I supposedly said during these hours….none of which rings anything like a bell...uh oh...)

The next day we shoot back over to the hotel room to clean up and grab the stuff we left behind the night before. One is always a bit nervous as to the room’s condition; fortunately, it is intact and free of major wine stains and cigarette burns.

Sunday afternoon. After nursing a mild hangover, I made the trip across greater Denver to southeast Aurora and the home of the O’Donnell family: Gared, Brandy, and Lux. Gared and the PMFS crew returned from yet another successful tour last week, and it had been too long since I’d seen either my Best Man, his little man, or his little lady. We polished off a 12-pack of PBR and caught up for several hours. Gared’s always such a great guy to talk to, full of eternal wisdom and sound ideas and good humor. Plus, he's just Gared. I turned my brotha on to Comus, while he returned the favor by kickin’ me a little Burl Ives. Funny how every time I go over there, G-Rod’s raving ‘bout ‘ol Burl. Oh, and he gave me a Fever Tree record that I’ve been looking for. Thanks dude!

From there, I swung by Dave Paco’s house to chauffeur him up to the 15th Street Tavern for the Ghost Buffalo show. Pac is one gutsy SOB, having recently returned from bumming around India and Southeast Asia for three months. One day this guy just decided to do it, and he bought a ticket to Delhi. Imagine yourself flying into India for the first time, an American in this day and age, not knowing a single soul, without a clue as to where you’re gonna stay or what you’re gonna do, and without the pursestrings of a benefactor to fall back upon. Utterly fascinating. Someday I gots ta check out those photos, Dave!

So we made it to the Tavern in time to catch Pena's last few songs (pretty cool stuff) and then the GBs, who, despite some technical problems, blazed through a tight set. The guys (and Marie!) really seem to be hitting their stride...their onstage rapport is palpable, and everyone looks like they’re having a good time (even when they’re being zapped by live electricity!) The first song they played, an instrumental, kicks ass and really sets the mood for the rest of the set. Another thing—more and more I’m lovin’ Tom’s background vox. His voice really blends well with Marie’s and has the effect of kicking up the emotional ante a few notches, esp. on "Stars Fall on Our Town."

Mikey made my night when he told me how much he loves the Dungen record, and how he’s been trying to turn people on to it. Sweet success! Zed and I had a great talk on blogs, ‘70s rock, reissues, and the many ways in which Akarma Records is a godsend (Gared had actually said the exact same thing several hours before…). And Tom hooked me up with a copy of the new Liz Phair CD, a disc that charted on his recent list of guilty pleasures, so that I could judge for myself the relative merits of this much-reviled record. (And the verdict? Well, it’s certainly no Exile in Guyville, and neither does it touch the cool indie-pop sounds of Whip-Smart or even Whitechocolatespaceegg, so disappointment is perhaps inevitable for longtime fans expecting more greatness. Yet there are a few songs on here worth hearing, and the 0.0/10.0 rating on the Pitchfork scale seems more than a tad harsh. I’ll give it a 3.5. I can see how this record might become one's guilty pleasure.)

Finally, home, to catch Bobby D's captivating, though much too brief, interview on 60 Minutes, and to fall asleep. More soon.

N/P The Late Great Daniel Johnston, Discovered Covered, disc one.

Bummers & Rynos & Officer Frank Drebin

Last night was the big Arcade Fire show, and if you’re familiar with my previous posts, you will recall my having mentioned more than once how much I was looking forward to it. Funny thing about that—not once did it occur to me that the show might sell out. Major, major bummer. Jason called me with the bad news, and I ended up meeting him down at the Hi-Dive, and later to Gabor’s, for drinks anyway. As usual, thought-provoking conversation ensued. I’m currently in the process of persuading him to join our loose-knit circle of bloggers, and I have high hopes he will come around to the idea. His is definitely a voice to be reckoned with. So anyway, I can’t remember the last time I slept in ‘til 11, nor the last time I saw the first Naked Gun. (Ah, the good ol’ days, when baseball’s biggest problem was stopping a hypnotized Reggie Jackson from killing the Queen of England! A true American hero, that Frank Drebin.)

In more benign baseball news, I’m really interested to see who makes the Hall of Fame in the next two years:

The next two years present as good an opportunity as there will be for players who might have been shortchanged in recent elections - Ryne Sandberg, Bruce Sutter, Jim Rice, Andre Dawson, Rich Gossage, Lee Smith and Jack Morris. Wade Boggs is the only one of the 12 first-time candidates on this year's ballot who figures to draw strong support and there is nothing distinguishing about any of the 21 potential first- time candidates a year from now. While newcomers in 2007 will include all but certain Hall of Fame locks Tony Gwynn, Cal Ripken Jr. and Mark McGwire, Rickey Henderson (2009) is the only other lock between now and 2010. That means voters could give a more serious look to those who have come up short of the required 75 percent support from veteran members of the Baseball Writers Association of America who vote in the annual election.

I’m not nearly the baseball fan I once was, but I do like to reminisce, and these are the guys I grew up with. Both Sandberg and Gwynn were, at different times, my favorite player. And just reading these guys’ names conjures up so many memories—great memories—of baseball and youth, of trading cards at Hoepker’s Saw Shop, clutch hits in 8th grade little league, and the long-running trials of Cubs fans. Baseball is another subject in which thenoiseboy and I have a bit of shared history. More on that at a later date.

But when you look at Sandberg, Sutter, Rice, Dawson, Gossage, Smith, and Morris, I’m not really sure who, if any, really deserve enshrinement. Or maybe they all deserve it? It’s getting more and more difficult to make the HOF calls these days. Dawson and Rice had similar careers, so if one got in you would think the other would as well. But I don’t know if they have the overall numbers. Same with the relief pitchers’ trio of Sutter, Gossage, and Smith—if one gets in you probably have to let ‘em all in. Morris, I’d have to say no. Not dominating enough for long enough. Sandberg probably has the best shot—the premier player at his position for nearly a decade.

Elsewhere, it appears that rock music, or rather, hip hop, is still revolutionary somewhere. This reminds me of a book I read a few years back called Guerrilla Radio: Rock 'N' Roll Radio and Serbia's Underground Resistance. Or go further back and it is suggestive of a band of revolutionaries from the former Czechoslovakia, The Plastic People of the Universe, whose sprawling mid-seventies opus Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned found its way into my collection this summer. (One of their biggest supporters, the playwright dissident Vaclav Havel, is now Prime Minister of the Czech Republic. More on this, for certain, to come.) It would seem that the significance of music to a nation evolves inversely in accordance with its prosperity and accompanying complacency. Or perhaps I’m reading too much into it.

Speaking of revolutionaries, Bob Dylan’s first TV interview in 19 years airs tomorrow on 60 Minutes, I believe. The media byline? "I’m no prophet." Hell, that ain’t news, he’s been saying that for years! Anyway, now’s a pretty good time to be a Dylan fan, what with the opening of the bootleg vaults and the release of Dylan’s first volume of memoirs, plus "Like a Rolling Stone" was just named the greatest rock 'n' roll song of all time by Rolling Stone. Check out this great article in the Times on how the song was almost never released.

Someone started an online petition to try to convince legendary black-metal band Emperor to reform. Hmmm…mixed feelings about that one.

Secretly Canadian posts unreleased Jens Lekman material to promote his upcoming debut US tour.

Terminal Lovers: A band you will hear much more about in days to come. Ex-Pere Ubu, Cobra Verde, & GBV, and possibly better than all three.

Report: 44% of Americans Medicated

Oh yeah, and HERE’S A SHOUT-OUT TO MY FAVORITE SISTER DOWN IN TEXAS! All ya’ll Texas cowboys better treat her right!!

On the turntable:
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Second Helping
Prefuse 73 – One Word Extinguisher
Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Gandalf – s/t
NRBQ – Scraps
Pinback – Summer in Abbadon
The Misunderstood – Lost Acetates 1965-1966

Words are Swords, Part One

"So don your armor and pick up your sword—for this is a battle that we must win."

So ended my last post, in which I discussed the more dubious elements of abstinence-only sex education programs and how they are symbolic of the current state of our nation, its citizenry, and their unfortunate longing to be deceived.

I would like to clarify a bit what I mean when I speak of battles and swords. A few weeks ago, Jodi and I flew back to P-Town for the Getz/Grethey wedding. It was a blast, and I had a number of memorable conversations that weekend. Inevitably, the talk would swing to politics at some point, as the election was then a mere two days away and I was still feeling really confident about our chances, offering up meticulously thought-out, well-reasoned, and wholly incorrect electoral predictions to anyone who would hear.

The point I came back to over and over again, though, was the tragically poisonous nature of today’s political environment and the absolute imperative for We the People to somehow overcome our differences and work together to get some things accomplished. I know, I know, hopelessly naïve. But absolutely essential nonetheless. Two conversations in particular stick out most in my mind, probably because, aside from the fact that both of these guys are way cool and totally brilliant individuals, both of them were voting for Bush. The horror! Seriously though, it is usually far more enlightening to sit down with a rational person on the other side of the fence than it is to preach to the choir. More on the echo chamber in part two.

I talked to both of them for an hour or two each, and I really felt a great deal of the energy and excitement that can result when genuine open-mindedness and a penchant for problem-solving trump political ideology, even though we weren’t really solving real problems, of course. We agreed passionately about the need for bipartisanship and the need to keep the debate civilized, to tone down the shrill rhetoric of the extremists on both sides, for it is they who are truly poisoning the system.

So why, then, do I speak of armor and swords? Well, that’s why I’m writing this piece, as I’m sort of figuring this out on the fly. One need not read much of this blog to discover my antipathy to the direction this country has been headed for the last four years, this is true. George W. Bush really rubs me the wrong way. I am honestly frightened of his policies. And this blog is not anything if it is not honest. Thus, what you see on the page, much of it, is a raw emotional response, a catharsis of sorts, set to the music of the English language. And in general, what makes for good blog copy is not always that which is couched in the most thoughtful, bipartisan terms.

Yet I do not wish to contribute to the poisonous climate I decry, thus the disclaimer. I’ve been known to let it slip that someday, perhaps, in the far-off future, I may take the plunge and run for some sort of office, provided my political viability ain’t shot b/c of something I said in this here blog. I would like to be known as a person who values problem-solving over partisan loyalties and someone who will work with anyone to get the job done, because that, I believe, is the more truly noble way.

But that doesn’t mean that I’m gonna censor these raw emotional responses of mine. The folks who disagree with me, hopefully, will learn to live with a little colour, metaphor, and hyperbole. I hope you comment on the posts, and I hope you come back.

GOD vs. MACHIAVELLI

So Giambi took steroids and lied about it, and surely it is just a matter of time before he finds himself among friends….(Barry…Sammy? Who’ll be the next in line?) As MSNBC’s Mike Celizic points out, no one should be surprised at this turn of events. Rather than taking the usual tack of bemoaning the ceaseless tarnishing of the national pastime, Celizic cuts right to the heart of the matter:

"Our problem is that we want our heroes to lie to us…. the reality is that we don’t want the truth. As the line in the movie goes, we can’t handle the truth. When we’re shopping for a home, we want the salesperson to convince us that if King Arthur had known about this bungalow, he’d have abandoned Camelot. If we admire an athlete who’s suspected of using drugs, we want that person to tell us he or she is as pure as the driven snow."

For the most part Celizic confines his thesis to the sports world, but I was immediately taken with his argument and its intersection with the current goings-on in Washington these days. It seems that our capacity to not only accept but to unconsciously crave The Big Lie is running rampant across all of society.

Just a half-hour prior to reading the Celizic story, I was talking to a co-worker about a story that is supposed to make greater waves in the coming days: the shockingly inaccurate information being impressed upon our children in the abstinence-only sex education programs favored by this president and his minions. One such program, taught in our public schools, basically stated that the ability of condoms to reduce the risk of STDs is an unproven liberal myth. Huh??!! That’s not only news to me, that’s news to Bush’s own CDC!

From a congressional report prepared by California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman:

11 of the 13 most commonly used curricula in such programs contained unproved claims, subjective conclusions or outright falsehoods regarding reproductive health. Waxman's staff found the curricula included misconceptions such as a 43-day-old fetus is a "thinking person," HIV can be spread through tears and sweat and condoms failed to prevent HIV transmission in 31 percent of the time in heterosexual intercourse. Some courses teach that touching a person's genitals can lead to pregnancy, abortion can lead to sterility and suicide, and half the gay male teenagers in the United States have tested positive for the AIDS virus.

What a crock of shite! And mark these words, this is only the beginning of the outrages soon to be thrust upon us by overzealous right-wingers in the name of public morality. So many things bother me about this, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Naturally, abstinence is the only 100% way to avoid STDs. No one questions this; that, my friends, is a funny little thing called a "fact". What is at dispute is the most effective way for this supposedly secular government of ours to combat a serious public health crisis. What is at dispute is how long we Americans will allow the truth to be sacrificed upon an altar of extremist ideology. What is at dispute is the right of the minority to live their lives the way they see fit, without being told how to live by any self-proclaimed moral majority.

This is basic Constitutional law, folks, Civics 101.

If only this problem were confined to the issue of premarital sex! Sadly, from the environment to fiscal policy to, most glaringly, Iraq, the obfuscation of truth has been standard operating procedure across every facet of this administration for quite some time now. And with all the misplaced moral-value brouhaha vis-a-vis the election, Falwell & Friends can declare the triumph of Faith over Reason with a straight face.

Do these folks sleep at night?? Didn’t one of the Ten Commandments have something to do with LYING, and, uh, how you shouldn’t do it? How does W square that with the Christianity that is supposedly his foundation?

Can one worship both God and Machiavelli?

Church and state were separated for a reason, and I’m afraid we’re only on the cusp of seeing that reason play itself out in a nasty, protracted, public battle. So don your armor and pick up your sword—for this is a battle that we must win.