One of my favorite but neglected genres of modern rock music is the post-punk revival sort of cacophony. It grabbed my ears maybe a year after high school, which was probably too late to cash in on the scene. By the time I found Pretty Girls Make Graves in 2009, the band was shelved for two years. That doesn't mean I can't be a dreamer.
One of the reticent issues I have with getting into real "punk rock" is that it doesn't always sound very interesting. Usually I find the production a bit furry where it should be clean-shaven. Sometimes I hear a song and think "that was great! -- for thirty seconds". In other words, punk rock has no payoff.
As a music enthusiast, I want crescendo. Better than thirty second crescendos in a song here or there, I want the album to experience a crescendo. When an album has crescendo and masters the musician's impulses with the "not yet... not yet" ethos of the world's greatest epic stories, it captivates me. Pretty Girls Make Graves have made two such enrapturing albums: The New Romance and Elan Vital.
So some time around graduating high school, I had discovered the love of mathcore welling up inside me. Reaching through the Zune marketplace (Yeah I had one of those things and there hasn't been a PMP like it since), I found every bit of music I could find, using Wikipedia as my brainstorming tool of choice. Converge (on the recommendation of high school friend Justin) led me to Botch.
From Botch I was taken toward Minus The Bear and These Arms Are Snakes. From These Arms Are Snakes I was wisted toward Sharks Keep Moving and Kill Sadie. From these bands, I was presented with Pretty Girls Make Graves. Not quite the heritage of Botch and their brand of destructive atonality, but intriguing nonetheless.
PGMG have all the markings of "underrated indie" that I look for. They aren't really "emo", because the music is interested more in art than emotion. They aren't really "punk", because belying the somewhat-aggressive lyrics are the smart cheek-kisses of careful production values. The vocals don't have the razor-sharp overdubbing quality of pop-punk, and neither do they sound like a lawn mower trying to chew up your grandfather's old yard tree stump. Guitars sound crisp, but without the corn-sugar empty spaces taken up by resonance.
So surprising it is, then, that both the radio-friendly Romance and the brooding Elan Vital are such equitable examples of how to do "post-" music without letting the arbitrary experimentation cause creativity overdose.
What makes the music good is that the guitars never seem to follow a formula. Drums don't detract but enhance the identity of the album. And nothing negative could be said of Andrea Zollo's work as a vocalist. The bass is like heavenly sourdough on an equally divine BLT sandwich.
As I listen through PGMG, I'm reminded of how undeservedly short the post-punk revival wave was. There are good examples of bands out there today, but most seem to have become dormant. Every time Drive Like Jehu comes out to play a show, I'm somewhere else. I've missed two or three opportunities since moving to California where I could have seen them. If PGMG would re-unite and tour, I would be the evangelist telling everybody to go see them.
We need to have a conversation about guitars in music today. I like them. I hate them. I mean, I like them when they sound good. I hate them when it's all they sound like. Something that makes PGMG so interesting is the eschewal of "follow the melody" with all their strings. Bass does it like it should. Guitars always seem to be taking turns diving into the ocean of noise. One verse, the strings are screeching and you could mistake them for a confused mathcore headbanger's breakdown; next they are taking turns massaging the listener in the arms of post-rock's orchestrated melting pot of sine waves.
Some moments they invoke the best moments of Circa Survive in the space of fifteen seconds. Then they summon the Franz Ferdinand-oise chops, shredding the strings in measured bursts. Touches of indie-pop electronica pervade their albums in the tinest spaces. PGMG brings new life to the adage that less is more. While they aren't musically minimalist, they are most certainly musically prudent in their usage of noise, guitar, melody, harmony (or lack thereof), and always seem to leave a good taste in my mouth.
Don't miss out. Besides, if Trump gets the next presidency, it might come back for the next four years. I can't imagine a second presidential term would happen anyway.
Nick
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Music Recommendation: Best of 2015
I'm just gonna tell you guys my favorite releases this year. No particular order.
A couple notes:
I was not able to listen to a bunch of music like I normally do, and not for lack of wanting. I wasn't slacking. I was just working a lot. Probably over-working. Beside that, if year one of a marriage is a shake-up, then it's even more ambiguating than puberty. Not in a bad way.
You will find mostly math rock here. That's because my wife listens to a lot of math rock, and the majority of what she sends to me is math rock. I do listen to songs with lyrics, but it's draining to listen to emotional music and I'm not the sixteen-year-old I once was. I prefer to let most music speak for itself.
This is in no particular order, but if I had to say one of these was my favorite, it would be the latest ASIWYFA release, Heirs. A close second (or maybe first on other days), would be toe's release Hear You. These were probably the best acts I saw this year, and both of them are from overseas. I hope toe comes back to America soon. It's not fair that Japan gets them all the time.
Still up for debate: how to pronounce 'toe'. Is it "toh" like your little toe? Or is it "to-eh" like "I wish I could read Japanese and find out how they write it out"?
This is nowhere close to-eh resolution, but I will probably try listening toh more music in 2016.
Anyway, that's enough about me. Let me tell you more about me through my favorite music releases this year, along with whether or not I saw them in 2015, and a one-sentence description of the album.
Oh, and here's the playlist:
Toe - Hear You - and I saw them live.
Syncopation at its Japanese finest, like listening to a jam band's collective dream.
And So I Watch You From Afar - Heirs - and I saw them live.
Quiet moments and raucous crescendo.
The Oh Hellos - Dear Wormwood - and I saw them live.
Eschatological poetry put to the sympathies of folk-indie rock.
Grinstead - Hymns
A good and varied example of how to make old hymns taste good to newer ears.
mewithoutYou - Pale Horses - and I saw them live.
The simultaneously resolved and resigned spoken word-indie rock with one part maturity, two parts poetry, and two parts gray hair.
El Ten Eleven - Fast Forward - and I think I saw them live this year. But I don't remember. I've seen them a whole bunch.
Two-piece work of wonder, with an injection of EDM sensibilities multiplied by chillwave.
Between The Buried And Me - Coma Ecliptic - and I saw them live.
Progressive Metalcore.
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
Trans-Episcopalian anti-folk.
And here are my favorite bands I saw live this year. The State of California should thank me for all the tolls I paid going across their silly bridges. (about 50% of these were in San Francisco. Probably 25% of these bands played at Bottom Of The Hill).
BTBAM
Animals As Leaders
Toe
Eisley
ASIWYFA
mewithoutYou
Mylets
Pinback (Thanks guys for the music)
Mae (Everglow 10-year Anniversary!!)
Dustin Kensrue
The Oh Hellos
MuteMath (finally)
Future Of Forestry (Just kidding, I had the headache from hell and missed their Christmas music show).
A couple notes:
I was not able to listen to a bunch of music like I normally do, and not for lack of wanting. I wasn't slacking. I was just working a lot. Probably over-working. Beside that, if year one of a marriage is a shake-up, then it's even more ambiguating than puberty. Not in a bad way.
You will find mostly math rock here. That's because my wife listens to a lot of math rock, and the majority of what she sends to me is math rock. I do listen to songs with lyrics, but it's draining to listen to emotional music and I'm not the sixteen-year-old I once was. I prefer to let most music speak for itself.
This is in no particular order, but if I had to say one of these was my favorite, it would be the latest ASIWYFA release, Heirs. A close second (or maybe first on other days), would be toe's release Hear You. These were probably the best acts I saw this year, and both of them are from overseas. I hope toe comes back to America soon. It's not fair that Japan gets them all the time.
Still up for debate: how to pronounce 'toe'. Is it "toh" like your little toe? Or is it "to-eh" like "I wish I could read Japanese and find out how they write it out"?
This is nowhere close to-eh resolution, but I will probably try listening toh more music in 2016.
Anyway, that's enough about me. Let me tell you more about me through my favorite music releases this year, along with whether or not I saw them in 2015, and a one-sentence description of the album.
Oh, and here's the playlist:
Toe - Hear You - and I saw them live.
Syncopation at its Japanese finest, like listening to a jam band's collective dream.
And So I Watch You From Afar - Heirs - and I saw them live.
Quiet moments and raucous crescendo.
The Oh Hellos - Dear Wormwood - and I saw them live.
Eschatological poetry put to the sympathies of folk-indie rock.
Grinstead - Hymns
A good and varied example of how to make old hymns taste good to newer ears.
mewithoutYou - Pale Horses - and I saw them live.
The simultaneously resolved and resigned spoken word-indie rock with one part maturity, two parts poetry, and two parts gray hair.
El Ten Eleven - Fast Forward - and I think I saw them live this year. But I don't remember. I've seen them a whole bunch.
Two-piece work of wonder, with an injection of EDM sensibilities multiplied by chillwave.
Between The Buried And Me - Coma Ecliptic - and I saw them live.
Progressive Metalcore.
Sufjan Stevens - Carrie & Lowell
Trans-Episcopalian anti-folk.
And here are my favorite bands I saw live this year. The State of California should thank me for all the tolls I paid going across their silly bridges. (about 50% of these were in San Francisco. Probably 25% of these bands played at Bottom Of The Hill).
BTBAM
Animals As Leaders
Toe
Eisley
ASIWYFA
mewithoutYou
Mylets
Pinback (Thanks guys for the music)
Mae (Everglow 10-year Anniversary!!)
Dustin Kensrue
The Oh Hellos
MuteMath (finally)
Wednesday, December 2, 2015
Music Recommendation: UnderØATH: Ø (Disambiguation)
UnderØath has always been one of my favorite bands.
I know they broke up and now I guess they are back together. And while I think I have moved on from the phase in life where all I listened to was metal music --
When I was 14, I used to have a binary test for whether or not a metal band was good. It was:
Is the band UnderØath? Yes=1 No=0. I didn't make a lot of friends for a while.
-- I can always find myself crawling back to the accessibility in Florida-native UØ's brand of distortion.
--
I discovered UnderØath when I got a Tooth and Nail sampler of 96kbps tracks from their up-and-comer's. It was probably "It's Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door". I could never remember the whole track name. All I remembered was SCREAMING. And SINGING. And SCREAMING. And SCREAMING. It was SCREAMO
Then I borrowed They're Only Chasing Safety from Justin who was in the 10th grade, and listened to it on my Phillip's portable CD player with my Panasonic clip-on earphones, for probably three hours straight on a field-trip to the Phoenix Art Museum (or something like that). I was enamored with the noise. But I was mostly enamored with "I'm Content With Losing". I couldn't get over it. It was SCREAMO
Well, I had to give the CD back, but then I got it again and ripped it to my PC and it was bomb's away. Over a period of a couple months, it was all I could listen to.
Well, over the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I managed to borrow a copy of Define The Great Line from Thomas who was in the same grade I was. Over a period of a couple years, it was all I could listen to.
Well, over the summer between 11th and 12th grade, I managed to buy a copy of Lost In The Sound Of Separation with my own money. Over a period of a couple years, it was all I---
My dang brother managed to find the .mp3 files I made of that album and proceeded to over-play "Too Bright to See, Too Loud to Hear" (literally for hours, same song, repeat, for like a year). Well, Josh and I both had an appreciation for the juxtaposition of Aaron Gillespie's clean vocals against the heavy-shred bleeding esophagus of Spencer Chamberlain. I still really enjoy the album but it took a few years of maturity to get over the sibling-jealousy I had for My Favorite Band. I started listening to UnderOath because nobody else in my family wanted to listen to it and he had to go and "ruin" it by enjoying it like I enjoy it.
But I'm more hardcore, see? I actually think it is UnderOath's Ø (Disambiguation) that stands on the pedestal of Magnum Opus. I think it is the best album they ever created.
And innumerably I've been told I was wrong. Nobody likes it. Well, some people like it. But seriously, nobody likes it.
Why? Because UØ always ran on the fuel mixture, a stoichiometric concoction of SCREAM/CLEAN DISTORTION/EXPERIMENTAL LYRIC/INSTRUMENTAL HAPPY/ANGRY UPLIFTING/DEPRESSING music that got them the label deal, that got them millions of albums sold, that got them on the fathers of crossover music list. They were giving into that patriarchy, the one that said "you'll only sell music if Adam D likes it".
Subsequently, bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, and HASTE THE DAY were winning the battle at the release of 2010's gooder metal album. I don't really like to talk about it.
No, Disambiguation was the kind of album that makes a person think twice about its merits. It isn't an instantaneous joy-ride. It's thoughtful, and deep, and tragic like the last famous battles of warriors long past dead. It's the kind of progressive that makes you uncomfortable because you didn't think music made you feel like this.
I'm convinced that it is the best metal album to ever come out of a Solid State band (with the exceptions of maybe The Chariot's The Fiance and The Chariot's Wars And Rumors Of Wars), sheerly due to the creative force that was unleashed by the depature of last remaining original member Aaron Gillespie from the band. (I love The Almost, and I think that Aaron is a very good musician, so this isn't so much an insult as pure observation and conjecture).
It really takes some listening with Ø (Disambiguation). It's an acquired taste. It's not easy like the previous stuff. You aren't given the respite of soft vocals with emotive lyrics. You're stuck listening to the whole thing;
like you're standing in the Tower of Terror line,
waiting to get to the place where you sit,
where they take up you up,
where they send you up and down,
and the whole thing is uncomfortable.
You have to let it grow on you. And then you reap the rewards of your patient ears, the feeling of microgravity for that split second where if you dropped your phone, it would float there with you all the way down.
And then the drop stops.
And shoots you up.
And then drops you again.
And then you're released back to the wild wondering what happened to your ears and why the breath in your lungs is aching for community.
That's Ø (Disambiguation) in a nutshell. I can only explain it by metaphor because there is no simile to suit it. It's incomparable. It's deep. But not deep in the bungie-jumping way. Deep in the "leagues under the ocean" fashion.
It isn't fashionable. And that's why it suits my fancy.
Recommended listens:
In Division
Paper Lung
Who Will Guard The Guardians
Vacant Mouth
I know they broke up and now I guess they are back together. And while I think I have moved on from the phase in life where all I listened to was metal music --
When I was 14, I used to have a binary test for whether or not a metal band was good. It was:
Is the band UnderØath? Yes=1 No=0. I didn't make a lot of friends for a while.
-- I can always find myself crawling back to the accessibility in Florida-native UØ's brand of distortion.
--
I discovered UnderØath when I got a Tooth and Nail sampler of 96kbps tracks from their up-and-comer's. It was probably "It's Dangerous Business Walking Out Your Front Door". I could never remember the whole track name. All I remembered was SCREAMING. And SINGING. And SCREAMING. And SCREAMING. It was SCREAMO
Then I borrowed They're Only Chasing Safety from Justin who was in the 10th grade, and listened to it on my Phillip's portable CD player with my Panasonic clip-on earphones, for probably three hours straight on a field-trip to the Phoenix Art Museum (or something like that). I was enamored with the noise. But I was mostly enamored with "I'm Content With Losing". I couldn't get over it. It was SCREAMO
Well, I had to give the CD back, but then I got it again and ripped it to my PC and it was bomb's away. Over a period of a couple months, it was all I could listen to.
Well, over the summer between 9th and 10th grade, I managed to borrow a copy of Define The Great Line from Thomas who was in the same grade I was. Over a period of a couple years, it was all I could listen to.
Well, over the summer between 11th and 12th grade, I managed to buy a copy of Lost In The Sound Of Separation with my own money. Over a period of a couple years, it was all I---
My dang brother managed to find the .mp3 files I made of that album and proceeded to over-play "Too Bright to See, Too Loud to Hear" (literally for hours, same song, repeat, for like a year). Well, Josh and I both had an appreciation for the juxtaposition of Aaron Gillespie's clean vocals against the heavy-shred bleeding esophagus of Spencer Chamberlain. I still really enjoy the album but it took a few years of maturity to get over the sibling-jealousy I had for My Favorite Band. I started listening to UnderOath because nobody else in my family wanted to listen to it and he had to go and "ruin" it by enjoying it like I enjoy it.
But I'm more hardcore, see? I actually think it is UnderOath's Ø (Disambiguation) that stands on the pedestal of Magnum Opus. I think it is the best album they ever created.
And innumerably I've been told I was wrong. Nobody likes it. Well, some people like it. But seriously, nobody likes it.
Why? Because UØ always ran on the fuel mixture, a stoichiometric concoction of SCREAM/CLEAN DISTORTION/EXPERIMENTAL LYRIC/INSTRUMENTAL HAPPY/ANGRY UPLIFTING/DEPRESSING music that got them the label deal, that got them millions of albums sold, that got them on the fathers of crossover music list. They were giving into that patriarchy, the one that said "you'll only sell music if Adam D likes it".
Subsequently, bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, and HASTE THE DAY were winning the battle at the release of 2010's gooder metal album. I don't really like to talk about it.
No, Disambiguation was the kind of album that makes a person think twice about its merits. It isn't an instantaneous joy-ride. It's thoughtful, and deep, and tragic like the last famous battles of warriors long past dead. It's the kind of progressive that makes you uncomfortable because you didn't think music made you feel like this.
I'm convinced that it is the best metal album to ever come out of a Solid State band (with the exceptions of maybe The Chariot's The Fiance and The Chariot's Wars And Rumors Of Wars), sheerly due to the creative force that was unleashed by the depature of last remaining original member Aaron Gillespie from the band. (I love The Almost, and I think that Aaron is a very good musician, so this isn't so much an insult as pure observation and conjecture).
It really takes some listening with Ø (Disambiguation). It's an acquired taste. It's not easy like the previous stuff. You aren't given the respite of soft vocals with emotive lyrics. You're stuck listening to the whole thing;
like you're standing in the Tower of Terror line,
waiting to get to the place where you sit,
where they take up you up,
where they send you up and down,
and the whole thing is uncomfortable.
You have to let it grow on you. And then you reap the rewards of your patient ears, the feeling of microgravity for that split second where if you dropped your phone, it would float there with you all the way down.
And then the drop stops.
And shoots you up.
And then drops you again.
And then you're released back to the wild wondering what happened to your ears and why the breath in your lungs is aching for community.
That's Ø (Disambiguation) in a nutshell. I can only explain it by metaphor because there is no simile to suit it. It's incomparable. It's deep. But not deep in the bungie-jumping way. Deep in the "leagues under the ocean" fashion.
It isn't fashionable. And that's why it suits my fancy.
Recommended listens:
In Division
Paper Lung
Who Will Guard The Guardians
Vacant Mouth
Friday, November 27, 2015
Music Recommendation: Jimmy Eat World: Clarity
"Hey man."
"Hey."
"Hey, I got a music question for you."
"OK, shoot."
"OK, so have you ever heard of Jimmy Eat World?"
"Yes! I love that band. They are probably my favorite band."
"Dude! Yeah me too. Like, Bleed American is so good, man."
...
end conversation.
So, you say you like Jimmy Eat World. You say you jumped on before they were ALL BIG. You got into them before they made the decision to change "Bleed American" to "Jimmy Eat World" because of post 9/11 sympathies. You heard "The Middle" and you liked it before the video, before the radio play, before everyone else saw them in concert. Well guess what. You're a poser.
You're a poser like your dad's love for the C3 Corvette. You're a poser like Christian butt rock. You're a weirdo who tried to be cool. You got left in the dust because the 90's weren't with you like you were with them. You were watching "Hey! Arnold" because it was on T.V., not because it was transcendent. You were sitting in the bathroom picking your nose in the stall. You were not listening to Clarity.
Clarity.
Now, I'll be honest and say this up front: I discovered Futures before any other Jimmy Eat World album came to my ears. I discovered them because my friend Nathaniel told me they were good. He had the "deluxe edition" and I had a CD player so I just borrowed the thing for nigh-near two years, just to give it back scratched and well-worn. Thanks Nathaniel.
McDaniel had this protomillenial habit of collecting myriads of burned CDs with low-fi MP3 tracks from all sorts of crap audio on it. Remember when the iPod was not a household name back in 2005? That's when we were burning CDs and dealing with the awful two-second pause in between tracks, because both iTunes and Windows Media Player were pathetic and weren't interested in giving us the full experience. We had to be economic. You had 80 minutes and it was a waste to use less than all 80 revolutions of the second hand. We weren't torrenting. Some of us had dial-up. We had to burn our stuff to laser disks because upload speeds were in the 128-768kbps range and we had time limits on how much we could use the computer. We were using MSN messenger. Or AOL. or Yahoo.
And myspace. oh myspace.
So anyway, Nathaniel gave me one of those plastic holders that came holding fifty blank CD-Rs, and he gave it to me with about fifty used CD-Rs. There's a long list of bands I could be thanking Nathaniel for, but really, this is about Clarity. This is about the time I discovered a CD full of Jimmy Eat World tracks and most of them were from Clarity. This is about the time I got used to the inevitable skipping that comes with the peeling surface of cheap CD-Rs. This is about the time when I discovered my favorite album and couldn't drop it.
No, I've carried Clarity with me for years.
So eventually I was able to scrounge up a couple bucks and find Clarity at Barnes and Noble. It was miraculous. Fifteen year-old me found an album he had been wanting since he heard the first couple tracks off of it. All the redbook audio quality. No more track skipping.
Enter "Table For Glasses." The beauty of the first track is its understatement. In fact. Clarity is an album of understatements. The first track is just the understatement of the album of understatements. It's the breaking voice in the middle of "hello". It's the gasp for air after you've exhaled and delayed breathing. It isn't so much deep as it is wide. That's not to say that Clarity lacks depth. But you have to get past the second syllable of the proverbial understatement to get anywhere. It takes a certain kind of viligence to keep listening for the subtlety.
You get to the first single of the song "Lucky Denver Mint". The chorus sings
You're not bigger than this
not better. why can't you learn?
I'm not really certain why this song got the "single". I'm not sure that there's any song here that really commands radio time. And that's alright. That's part of the charm.
"Your New Aesthetic" comes on and suddenly you're anti-nostalgiating forward to "Nothing Wrong", the only RADIO PUNK on Futures. This is the roots of the angry political JEW that we've all come to know or skip tracks.
"Believe in What You Want" is probably the only track I ever consider skipping. Why? I don't know. It's just as good as the others. I just have impossible standards.
"A Sunday" -- Now here's where the album gets good. Here's where the album goes from standard emo father fare to underproduced beauty. From this point forward, the album goes uphill and fast. You've survived the last three songs just to get to this one. You've pulled up to the top of the coaster and you're on the brink of heading to oblivion.
"Crush" -- The second "Believe in What You Want" but twice as good. It's got the typical Mark Trombino flare you find everywhere. It's because of tracks and albums like this that got me into Drive Like Jehu (Trombino drums for them).
12.23.95 - Merry Christmas, baby - Enough said.
"Ten" -- The trifecta begins with the under-the-table whiskey drink song. Listen to the chorus. Listen to the piano. Listen to the drums. Listen to the beat. The syncopation. And then listen to Blame no one. Blame no one.
"Just Watch The Fireworks" -- The second of the sweet trilogy. I'm always stuck between this song and the next for "best song ever". This song has the exposition of musical themes. Strings. That epic Jimmy Eat World build-up stolen by many a worship drummer years over.
"For Me This Is Heaven" -- The prestige. The reveal. The heart swoon. The nail in the coffin which drives in home this thought "Yes, this is the best Jimmy Eat World Album Ever." So famous is the chorus line that the re-master released in 2007 featured the lyric on the CD front.
"Blister" -- Good ol' rocking Jimmy Eat World.
"Clarity" -- The one before the big one.
"Goodbye Sky Harbor" -- The one that puts you to sleep. I don't mean that in a bad way. It goes from emo, to alternative-ish... to synthesizers. To the fade-out. It takes 13 minutes and you shouldn't ask for it back.
__
It's not my typical to do any track-by-track. I'm not even sure the above is good advice or good descriptions. But I swear this is my favorite album.
Lots of other bands that I like have made three albums in a row that correspond with the Jimmy Eat World format.
There's the Clarity, the underproduced one that sounds perfect, but only in practice. It doesn't make sense until you've listened to that album as whole, and it cements itself as your favorite because this is the one where you suddenly see everything clearly.
Then there's the Bleed American, the one that everyone likes. The one with all the singles. The one that warrants the most track skips because you really only care about the singles. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, "Bleed American" is one of the hardest songs ever, bro. Nobody cares.
Lastly, there's Futures, the one that everyone should like. The one with all the brains. The one that somehow perfectly engineered the production process to keep all authenticity inward and all the pretension and pop-sensibility away. The one that you know should really be your favorite, but you wouldn't call it the "best" album.
See, bands like Death Cab For Cutie, and Sufjan Stevens have albums that fit under these. Not necessarily in the same release orders.
Clarity - Transatlanticism - Seven Swans
Bleed American - Plans - Illinois
Futures - Narrow Stairs - Michigan
I think about it now.
Just ignore that guy that says things like "Static Prevails was the best Jimmy Eat World album, and I really only listen to the Photo album. And Enjoy Your Rabbit was back when Sufjan was real."
I never really have gotten over Clarity. It's the album that started me down understated drums. It's the album that stopped me from listening to emo-pop (with few exceptions like Taking Back Sunday). It's the album that stopped me from thinking about death and more about learning to live. Futures was all about dying to me. A guy from high school named David passed and all I could listen to was "Pain" and "23" and think about growing old. Clarity was really about learning to live with consequences. Learning to move on. I guess I haven't learned that lesson yet.
Nick
"Hey."
"Hey, I got a music question for you."
"OK, shoot."
"OK, so have you ever heard of Jimmy Eat World?"
"Yes! I love that band. They are probably my favorite band."
"Dude! Yeah me too. Like, Bleed American is so good, man."
...
end conversation.
So, you say you like Jimmy Eat World. You say you jumped on before they were ALL BIG. You got into them before they made the decision to change "Bleed American" to "Jimmy Eat World" because of post 9/11 sympathies. You heard "The Middle" and you liked it before the video, before the radio play, before everyone else saw them in concert. Well guess what. You're a poser.
You're a poser like your dad's love for the C3 Corvette. You're a poser like Christian butt rock. You're a weirdo who tried to be cool. You got left in the dust because the 90's weren't with you like you were with them. You were watching "Hey! Arnold" because it was on T.V., not because it was transcendent. You were sitting in the bathroom picking your nose in the stall. You were not listening to Clarity.
Clarity.
Now, I'll be honest and say this up front: I discovered Futures before any other Jimmy Eat World album came to my ears. I discovered them because my friend Nathaniel told me they were good. He had the "deluxe edition" and I had a CD player so I just borrowed the thing for nigh-near two years, just to give it back scratched and well-worn. Thanks Nathaniel.
McDaniel had this protomillenial habit of collecting myriads of burned CDs with low-fi MP3 tracks from all sorts of crap audio on it. Remember when the iPod was not a household name back in 2005? That's when we were burning CDs and dealing with the awful two-second pause in between tracks, because both iTunes and Windows Media Player were pathetic and weren't interested in giving us the full experience. We had to be economic. You had 80 minutes and it was a waste to use less than all 80 revolutions of the second hand. We weren't torrenting. Some of us had dial-up. We had to burn our stuff to laser disks because upload speeds were in the 128-768kbps range and we had time limits on how much we could use the computer. We were using MSN messenger. Or AOL. or Yahoo.
And myspace. oh myspace.
So anyway, Nathaniel gave me one of those plastic holders that came holding fifty blank CD-Rs, and he gave it to me with about fifty used CD-Rs. There's a long list of bands I could be thanking Nathaniel for, but really, this is about Clarity. This is about the time I discovered a CD full of Jimmy Eat World tracks and most of them were from Clarity. This is about the time I got used to the inevitable skipping that comes with the peeling surface of cheap CD-Rs. This is about the time when I discovered my favorite album and couldn't drop it.
No, I've carried Clarity with me for years.
So eventually I was able to scrounge up a couple bucks and find Clarity at Barnes and Noble. It was miraculous. Fifteen year-old me found an album he had been wanting since he heard the first couple tracks off of it. All the redbook audio quality. No more track skipping.
Enter "Table For Glasses." The beauty of the first track is its understatement. In fact. Clarity is an album of understatements. The first track is just the understatement of the album of understatements. It's the breaking voice in the middle of "hello". It's the gasp for air after you've exhaled and delayed breathing. It isn't so much deep as it is wide. That's not to say that Clarity lacks depth. But you have to get past the second syllable of the proverbial understatement to get anywhere. It takes a certain kind of viligence to keep listening for the subtlety.
You get to the first single of the song "Lucky Denver Mint". The chorus sings
You're not bigger than this
I'm not really certain why this song got the "single". I'm not sure that there's any song here that really commands radio time. And that's alright. That's part of the charm.
"Your New Aesthetic" comes on and suddenly you're anti-nostalgiating forward to "Nothing Wrong", the only RADIO PUNK on Futures. This is the roots of the angry political JEW that we've all come to know or skip tracks.
"Believe in What You Want" is probably the only track I ever consider skipping. Why? I don't know. It's just as good as the others. I just have impossible standards.
"A Sunday" -- Now here's where the album gets good. Here's where the album goes from standard emo father fare to underproduced beauty. From this point forward, the album goes uphill and fast. You've survived the last three songs just to get to this one. You've pulled up to the top of the coaster and you're on the brink of heading to oblivion.
"Crush" -- The second "Believe in What You Want" but twice as good. It's got the typical Mark Trombino flare you find everywhere. It's because of tracks and albums like this that got me into Drive Like Jehu (Trombino drums for them).
12.23.95 - Merry Christmas, baby - Enough said.
"Ten" -- The trifecta begins with the under-the-table whiskey drink song. Listen to the chorus. Listen to the piano. Listen to the drums. Listen to the beat. The syncopation. And then listen to Blame no one. Blame no one.
"Just Watch The Fireworks" -- The second of the sweet trilogy. I'm always stuck between this song and the next for "best song ever". This song has the exposition of musical themes. Strings. That epic Jimmy Eat World build-up stolen by many a worship drummer years over.
"For Me This Is Heaven" -- The prestige. The reveal. The heart swoon. The nail in the coffin which drives in home this thought "Yes, this is the best Jimmy Eat World Album Ever." So famous is the chorus line that the re-master released in 2007 featured the lyric on the CD front.
"Blister" -- Good ol' rocking Jimmy Eat World.
"Clarity" -- The one before the big one.
"Goodbye Sky Harbor" -- The one that puts you to sleep. I don't mean that in a bad way. It goes from emo, to alternative-ish... to synthesizers. To the fade-out. It takes 13 minutes and you shouldn't ask for it back.
__
It's not my typical to do any track-by-track. I'm not even sure the above is good advice or good descriptions. But I swear this is my favorite album.
Lots of other bands that I like have made three albums in a row that correspond with the Jimmy Eat World format.
There's the Clarity, the underproduced one that sounds perfect, but only in practice. It doesn't make sense until you've listened to that album as whole, and it cements itself as your favorite because this is the one where you suddenly see everything clearly.
Then there's the Bleed American, the one that everyone likes. The one with all the singles. The one that warrants the most track skips because you really only care about the singles. Yeah, that's the one. Yeah, "Bleed American" is one of the hardest songs ever, bro. Nobody cares.
Lastly, there's Futures, the one that everyone should like. The one with all the brains. The one that somehow perfectly engineered the production process to keep all authenticity inward and all the pretension and pop-sensibility away. The one that you know should really be your favorite, but you wouldn't call it the "best" album.
See, bands like Death Cab For Cutie, and Sufjan Stevens have albums that fit under these. Not necessarily in the same release orders.
Clarity - Transatlanticism - Seven Swans
Bleed American - Plans - Illinois
Futures - Narrow Stairs - Michigan
I think about it now.
Just ignore that guy that says things like "Static Prevails was the best Jimmy Eat World album, and I really only listen to the Photo album. And Enjoy Your Rabbit was back when Sufjan was real."
I never really have gotten over Clarity. It's the album that started me down understated drums. It's the album that stopped me from listening to emo-pop (with few exceptions like Taking Back Sunday). It's the album that stopped me from thinking about death and more about learning to live. Futures was all about dying to me. A guy from high school named David passed and all I could listen to was "Pain" and "23" and think about growing old. Clarity was really about learning to live with consequences. Learning to move on. I guess I haven't learned that lesson yet.
Nick
Friday, November 13, 2015
Music Recommendation: Norma Jean: Bless The Martyr And Kiss The Child
White tie. Black Jacket. I ain't see you in a while.
Your whites shine, black velvet. I ain't seen you in a while.
You're slick, a slick and polished mess. I ain't see you in a while.
Let's just face the facts. And get back to the basic form.
^^
The lyrics above belong to a song that's like SEVEN minutes long.
I don't know if I'm going to be making a point here. I'm just once again revisiting an album that I enjoy and endear to my adolescence.
Norma Jean is now a very recognizable metal band. But from back when Christian metal was a thing, this album probably set an impossibly high bar. Everyone can limbo but nobody can jump higher. Except for The Chariot but that's a blog for another day.
A Solid State pandora's box of slam-dancing, incoherent and illiterate guitar screeches, cacophonous crashing drums, with a dash of "God" here, "Jesus" - there. "Christ" speckled over the oblivion of screams, absence of overdub, guitar-flavored distortion, and the lyrics of a poet.
Have I talked about the lyrics?
Do you get it now?
By way of disclaimer, this album was done back before Josh Scogin split to raise up the screaming adulation of METALCORE fans with his third labeled band, The Chariot; a comparison with who would not be fair. Neither do I believe it fair to make Cory Brandan's headship face:face with Scogin's brand of incoherence. All this to say, I have two favorite Norma Jean albums, and this is one of them. The other one (NJ's latest which I've already talked about here) is a standup album by its own right. It has its own merits and it would be obtuse to compare this album from 2002 with a different headman to their recent releases.
But back when, I was a child, see? And I spoke in hyperbole because metaphor was too similar. I said "This is the best Norma Jean album". And I was right, see? Because I had all the ideas figured out. Bless The Martyr... is the most crunchiest, distorted, absolutist, atonal, progressive,thrash drunken cousin metal rock band album to come out. Back in 2006 when the harmony of Underoath
--[Yes they are still a good band, and Disambiguation was the best they ever released]
--wasn't really RESONATING with my teenage tumult into romances and long nights wasting away with thoughts of holding hands and breathing shared air with a nameless ideal, I turned my face toward Norma Jean's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child.
Resonance? DISSONANCE.
Meter? AMBIMETER.
Singing? SCREAMING.
Pose? POISE.
Dishes? MUSIC
Catharsis? SURFING ON LAVA
Guitars? Experimental music? WHATEVER MAN IT'S JUST NOISE
I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just saying that the ~16 minute Pretty Soon, I Don't Know What, But Something is Going to Happen is 16 minutes long, man, and it's gonna blow your mind. It's so long, they actually have a longer official name for it which Wikipedia used to reference but no longer does. Why? Because everyone who edits Wikipedia was my age when they were my age, and now they are older and they don't have time to remember obscure 16 minute song titles from an obscure album from their obscure teenhood. I don't either. I'm too busy listening to math rock to listen to mathcore anymore.
Did I tell you about the lyrics?
Norma Jean, the fathers of anthemic illiterate breakdowns. Here's a line. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Listen to the guitar do a thing. The drums are nuclear weapons exuding from the hamfisted percussionist. Just listen to it. Do you feel the ART?
NO! You feel DEATH. You feel like you're watching something dying. And it's not just dissonant. It's not just crashing noises and weeping and the gnashing of teeth. It's beautiful. Why? Because the music and unintelligible screaming require you read the lyrics and then you've realized: This is poetry. Poetry. Poetry read aloud in the middle of child-warfare battlefields and Orwellian martyrdom. "It's all worth while".
It was so worthwhile that I got my Zune 80 engraved with an abridged version of one of their lyrics on the back of it. I didn't need to exude creativity. My ears needed to absorb it. I owe all my teenage poetry to bands like Norma Jean and The Chariot and Converge and Botch. I was a sweaty mess. I was quitting basketball and picking up drums FOR REAL. 2006 was an interesting time for me. I now know that I'm mostly an uninteresting person (much less interesting now than I was back then and back then I was already boring) and that I can enjoy my music in my headspace and not have to share it with everyone. I don't have to say "This album is good and here's why" because now I've got nostalgia on my side and the only thing that defeats nostalgia is death. And when I'm dead, nobody has won the argument because, really, there wasn't an argument in the first place.
I digress. Why is this album one of my favorites ever? I blame my adolescence. I finally found some music that my entire family hated and that I loved. And they hated it for good reasons based on their decadent sensibilities, and I loved it because what produced such aural hatred in others produced sonic affection in me (the bitter taste of discordance has never gone away and I hope it is here to stay). I was on top of the world when nominal Christianity was starting to fade from my heart and meaning was found more than in the scribes of dictionaries.
Bless the Martyr is like a 180-proof shot of whiskey. It burns. It goes down hard. It lowers your blood temperature. You're not sure you could take another one. But the distilled product is the THING. It's so much the THING all other things are suddenly really small things.
I will leave you to ponder my motivation with the recommendations to listen to:
Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste
Sometimes It's Our Mistakes That Make For The Greatest Discoveries
Organized Beyond Recognition
Congratulations.
This is my escape.
A pen and a book
And if the world can see what I got
Then let's all have a good look.
A fortunate one.
Peace.
SDG
Nick
Your whites shine, black velvet. I ain't seen you in a while.
You're slick, a slick and polished mess. I ain't see you in a while.
Let's just face the facts. And get back to the basic form.
^^
The lyrics above belong to a song that's like SEVEN minutes long.
I don't know if I'm going to be making a point here. I'm just once again revisiting an album that I enjoy and endear to my adolescence.
Norma Jean is now a very recognizable metal band. But from back when Christian metal was a thing, this album probably set an impossibly high bar. Everyone can limbo but nobody can jump higher. Except for The Chariot but that's a blog for another day.
A Solid State pandora's box of slam-dancing, incoherent and illiterate guitar screeches, cacophonous crashing drums, with a dash of "God" here, "Jesus" - there. "Christ" speckled over the oblivion of screams, absence of overdub, guitar-flavored distortion, and the lyrics of a poet.
Have I talked about the lyrics?
Do you get it now?
By way of disclaimer, this album was done back before Josh Scogin split to raise up the screaming adulation of METALCORE fans with his third labeled band, The Chariot; a comparison with who would not be fair. Neither do I believe it fair to make Cory Brandan's headship face:face with Scogin's brand of incoherence. All this to say, I have two favorite Norma Jean albums, and this is one of them. The other one (NJ's latest which I've already talked about here) is a standup album by its own right. It has its own merits and it would be obtuse to compare this album from 2002 with a different headman to their recent releases.
But back when, I was a child, see? And I spoke in hyperbole because metaphor was too similar. I said "This is the best Norma Jean album". And I was right, see? Because I had all the ideas figured out. Bless The Martyr... is the most crunchiest, distorted, absolutist, atonal, progressive,
--[Yes they are still a good band, and Disambiguation was the best they ever released]
--wasn't really RESONATING with my teenage tumult into romances and long nights wasting away with thoughts of holding hands and breathing shared air with a nameless ideal, I turned my face toward Norma Jean's Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child.
Resonance? DISSONANCE.
Meter? AMBIMETER.
Singing? SCREAMING.
Pose? POISE.
Dishes? MUSIC
Catharsis? SURFING ON LAVA
Guitars? Experimental music? WHATEVER MAN IT'S JUST NOISE
I don't know what I'm saying. I'm just saying that the ~16 minute Pretty Soon, I Don't Know What, But Something is Going to Happen is 16 minutes long, man, and it's gonna blow your mind. It's so long, they actually have a longer official name for it which Wikipedia used to reference but no longer does. Why? Because everyone who edits Wikipedia was my age when they were my age, and now they are older and they don't have time to remember obscure 16 minute song titles from an obscure album from their obscure teenhood. I don't either. I'm too busy listening to math rock to listen to mathcore anymore.
Did I tell you about the lyrics?
Norma Jean, the fathers of anthemic illiterate breakdowns. Here's a line. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Repeat it. Listen to the guitar do a thing. The drums are nuclear weapons exuding from the hamfisted percussionist. Just listen to it. Do you feel the ART?
NO! You feel DEATH. You feel like you're watching something dying. And it's not just dissonant. It's not just crashing noises and weeping and the gnashing of teeth. It's beautiful. Why? Because the music and unintelligible screaming require you read the lyrics and then you've realized: This is poetry. Poetry. Poetry read aloud in the middle of child-warfare battlefields and Orwellian martyrdom. "It's all worth while".
It was so worthwhile that I got my Zune 80 engraved with an abridged version of one of their lyrics on the back of it. I didn't need to exude creativity. My ears needed to absorb it. I owe all my teenage poetry to bands like Norma Jean and The Chariot and Converge and Botch. I was a sweaty mess. I was quitting basketball and picking up drums FOR REAL. 2006 was an interesting time for me. I now know that I'm mostly an uninteresting person (much less interesting now than I was back then and back then I was already boring) and that I can enjoy my music in my headspace and not have to share it with everyone. I don't have to say "This album is good and here's why" because now I've got nostalgia on my side and the only thing that defeats nostalgia is death. And when I'm dead, nobody has won the argument because, really, there wasn't an argument in the first place.
I digress. Why is this album one of my favorites ever? I blame my adolescence. I finally found some music that my entire family hated and that I loved. And they hated it for good reasons based on their decadent sensibilities, and I loved it because what produced such aural hatred in others produced sonic affection in me (the bitter taste of discordance has never gone away and I hope it is here to stay). I was on top of the world when nominal Christianity was starting to fade from my heart and meaning was found more than in the scribes of dictionaries.
Bless the Martyr is like a 180-proof shot of whiskey. It burns. It goes down hard. It lowers your blood temperature. You're not sure you could take another one. But the distilled product is the THING. It's so much the THING all other things are suddenly really small things.
I will leave you to ponder my motivation with the recommendations to listen to:
Memphis Will Be Laid To Waste
Sometimes It's Our Mistakes That Make For The Greatest Discoveries
Organized Beyond Recognition
Congratulations.
This is my escape.
A pen and a book
And if the world can see what I got
Then let's all have a good look.
A fortunate one.
Peace.
SDG
Nick
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Questions for Ann Coulter
This is in response to her article "The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth, But They Shouldn't Be President". Anybody who reads her loyally and agrees with her and is in her purported demographic (Conservative, Evangelical, Republican, Christian, etc.), I would love to hear your responses. Thanks.
__
1. Who exactly do you believe the "meek" are? Since you are using scripture, give me some scriptural references to the "Meek" and which qualities they possess which would bar them from presidency?
2. The country needs a man. And it needs a man all the time. What kind of man? And also, how do you judge the qualities of a man? What qualifies a "man" as president-material? Bible verses?
3. Please give the context of Job 12 which would apply positively to Donald Trump.
4. Does your understanding of this context apply when Mr. Trump says he has never asked for forgiveness? Is that not pride? Isn't the entire life of Christian one of repentance (I'm paraphrasing German reformer Martin Luther)? How could you expect an apparently unforgiven man to run the U.S. appropriately? What does the bible speak of ungodly rulers (and an unforgiven man has no capacity to be a godly ruler unless he repents and is forgiven)?
5. On which basis do you call the "concept of America" the "last hope for Christianity on the planet"? It seems there are many other last hopes for Christianity, a majority of which are popping up all over China. Do you really believe that if America went down the tubes, there would be no hope for Christianity on the planet? The kingdom grows with each dying martyr.
6. Where's the biblical basis for your views on immigration flow? Do government borders limit people or governments? If they limit people, then you're encroaching on the ideals of socialism. Tread carefully here.
7. That's a very cute plug for your book there. Have you noticed the self-fulfilling prophecy in your book? "If illegals enter the states, they will ruin us. I hate them. And look how they don't want to vote for my team. That's why I hate them." What does the bible say about the sojourner? What does God's law say about the sojourner?
SDG
Nick
__
1. Who exactly do you believe the "meek" are? Since you are using scripture, give me some scriptural references to the "Meek" and which qualities they possess which would bar them from presidency?
2. The country needs a man. And it needs a man all the time. What kind of man? And also, how do you judge the qualities of a man? What qualifies a "man" as president-material? Bible verses?
3. Please give the context of Job 12 which would apply positively to Donald Trump.
4. Does your understanding of this context apply when Mr. Trump says he has never asked for forgiveness? Is that not pride? Isn't the entire life of Christian one of repentance (I'm paraphrasing German reformer Martin Luther)? How could you expect an apparently unforgiven man to run the U.S. appropriately? What does the bible speak of ungodly rulers (and an unforgiven man has no capacity to be a godly ruler unless he repents and is forgiven)?
5. On which basis do you call the "concept of America" the "last hope for Christianity on the planet"? It seems there are many other last hopes for Christianity, a majority of which are popping up all over China. Do you really believe that if America went down the tubes, there would be no hope for Christianity on the planet? The kingdom grows with each dying martyr.
6. Where's the biblical basis for your views on immigration flow? Do government borders limit people or governments? If they limit people, then you're encroaching on the ideals of socialism. Tread carefully here.
7. That's a very cute plug for your book there. Have you noticed the self-fulfilling prophecy in your book? "If illegals enter the states, they will ruin us. I hate them. And look how they don't want to vote for my team. That's why I hate them." What does the bible say about the sojourner? What does God's law say about the sojourner?
SDG
Nick
Thursday, October 8, 2015
Music Recommendation: Citizens & Saints: Join The Triumph
Two consolations:
I know I haven't posted a music recommendation in a while.
I know this album technically came out last year.
Citizens & Saints (formerly Citizens) released this album almost a year ago as the time of this blog's writing. I'm just here to make a couple observations and link a Spotify thing.
Observations:
1. Even less contemporary guitar-bass-piano-bass. Lots more synth.
The band has gotten a lot more comfortable with the almighty synthesizer. Expect more artificial noise. I personally think these sorts of things detract from the musicianship, but I'm saying this as a drummer who prefers to hit real drums. Take my salt with a grain of feelings. The sound works for them, and for that, I am glad.
2. Even more clean production.
Production value is an all-time high for this band. I prefer the dirtiness of their first EP (back when they were a Mars Hill band). But this is not necessarily a detraction.
3. Even more hymns.
Criticisms of Mars Hill's church strategy aside, I do believe there has been an increase in the proliferation of the hymns of the last few centuries, in no small part due to the influence of Mars Hill's worship music and its stylistic pervasion into the CCM sphere. The helpfulness of the old forms is not to be dismissed; and the hymn+modern music sensibilities formula never sounds terribly formulaic. Advantageous to hear these words because of how malleable the media is.
The verdict:
Citizens... sounds kinda like what I expect. A non-nonsense 80's-tinged indie rock worship album with clean production and classic hymns.
The Recommendations:
The Strife Is Over
Be Thou My Vision
Father You Are All We Need
I don't give out letter ratings, but if I did, I'd give this one a B.
I guess I give out letter ratings.
SDG
Nick
Spotify:
I know I haven't posted a music recommendation in a while.
I know this album technically came out last year.
Citizens & Saints (formerly Citizens) released this album almost a year ago as the time of this blog's writing. I'm just here to make a couple observations and link a Spotify thing.
Observations:
1. Even less contemporary guitar-bass-piano-bass. Lots more synth.
The band has gotten a lot more comfortable with the almighty synthesizer. Expect more artificial noise. I personally think these sorts of things detract from the musicianship, but I'm saying this as a drummer who prefers to hit real drums. Take my salt with a grain of feelings. The sound works for them, and for that, I am glad.
2. Even more clean production.
Production value is an all-time high for this band. I prefer the dirtiness of their first EP (back when they were a Mars Hill band). But this is not necessarily a detraction.
3. Even more hymns.
Criticisms of Mars Hill's church strategy aside, I do believe there has been an increase in the proliferation of the hymns of the last few centuries, in no small part due to the influence of Mars Hill's worship music and its stylistic pervasion into the CCM sphere. The helpfulness of the old forms is not to be dismissed; and the hymn+modern music sensibilities formula never sounds terribly formulaic. Advantageous to hear these words because of how malleable the media is.
The verdict:
Citizens... sounds kinda like what I expect. A non-nonsense 80's-tinged indie rock worship album with clean production and classic hymns.
The Recommendations:
The Strife Is Over
Be Thou My Vision
Father You Are All We Need
I don't give out letter ratings, but if I did, I'd give this one a B.
I guess I give out letter ratings.
SDG
Nick
Spotify:
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