Roadtrip Music Rundown Mark II
Herein lies the second part of my road to musical discovery. The journey was initially about other things than music--it was about moving as well, I think. But all else was quickly washed away on that great open roadway called life. Soon I was really quite busy getting my face rocked off by these albums.
The Shins -- Oh, Inverted World
The Shins had changed my life even before Natalie Portman told me they would. The album she was talking about, though, was different than the one I had. She was talking about this one. I had a newer one.
That newer one changed my life by chipping away at my cynicism. It made music feel fresh again. They were one of three bands I found out about last year that made me really enjoy music again. I've mentioned this before.
I think I lack the musical vocabulary to describe their sound, but I can say it definitely benefits from high production values. The vocals on this album get muddy and tend to blend into the fuzz-riffs and frenetic drum beats. This is troublesome because what really set Chutes Too Narrow apart for me were the brilliantly quirky lyrics. Not having immediate access to James Mercer's words is like plugging your nose at the ocean, you have the same general idea of the place, but there are layers missing--and sorely missed. Thankfully, God gave us fanboys to decipher lyrics and Al Gore gave us the internet to publish them.
Dismemberment Plan -- Emergency and II had the briefest of encounters with this one, but I definitely liked it. Instead of reviewing the thing, then, I thought I'd tell a story about how insanely zealous fans of the Dismemberment Plan are.
I was in a record store, thumbing through the Tom Waits section. Tom Waits' unreleased CD was alternately crooning and death-rattling from the speakers. I wanted it so badly. I longingly fingered the NME review the staff had taped up. I think I drifted off a little.
"I can't wait for this." A voice. Disembodied. Calling me. "It comes out on the 5th."
"Yeah, tight." I was blinking now, trying to orient myself.
"I'm super stoked for like tons of new albums coming out."
"Yeah." I'd never had a record store clerk offer his/her opinions to me without scoffs and rolled eyes as garnish. She was obviously new.
She mentioned a few bands whose names I didn't recognize and forgot immediately. One of them was a solo project from some dude from "you know, the Dismemberment Plan."
"Yeah." I didn't know actually, but the conversation was moderately unbearable and I worried that admitting I had heard of, but not actually heard that band would exasperate the situation.
"God. . . I love them, they're so great. They're amazing. Don't you love them?"
Crap. I could feel my head nodding yes even as I admitted, "Uh, I don't think I've heard them."
"Oh really? Wow, well if you like Tom Waits you'll love them. They've got that whole thing," I must not have been nodding enthusiastically enough because she hastily added, "and you know, if you like, like Deathcab and, you know, other indie bands, they're a lot like that too."
Right.
If given time I might be able to come up with a more dissimilar pair, but, in the moment, Tom Waits and Deathcab for Cutie seemed just about as far flung musically as any two bands can be.
And this human being was telling me that Dismemberment Plan somehow managed to be Yin and Yang simultaneously. Now I was curious, but I'd managed to slowly back away while maintaining eye contact until I could slip into the Drum and Bass section. Would I dare go back and ask her which album to get?
Of course I would.
Her diatribe was reverberating off the wood paneling. Thus by means of crude echo-location, I presented myself back in front of her.
"Alright, so, uh, show me the best Dismemberment Plan CD you have here."
She lit up, grabbed my hand, and led me to the rack, mumbling mostly incoherencies.
This was the CD I left the store with--roughly an hour of uncomfortable nodding later.
It doesn't seem, by the way, to be anything at all like either Tom Waits or Deathcab for Cutie, but this review seems to back up the record store girl's story, so maybe I just don't get it.
And her fingers, are they telling/of the barren of her belly?The Vells -- Flight from Echo Falls
God, that last story was really way too long, so I'll keep this short. Did you ever wish that Geddy Lee had cut an album with The Mommas and the Poppas over the percussion of an ex-Modest Mouse drummer? No?
I think the Vells did. Does that sound tight? No?
It is. Do you want to buy it? No?
You should. Tristan Marcum's vibrato tries so hard to hit Rush-like heights of gender-neutral, pseudo-operatic wailing, he often overshoots Geddy Lee entirely and hits somewhere around Nico. Nico was cool. Shame about the heroin.
Jeremiah Green's drumming is exactly what you'd expect, nuanced and exciting.
I'm going to need a few more listens to nail down everything else, but suffice it to say, this album, more than any of the others, had my car swaying rhythmically across the vast scablands of Eastern Washington while I did my best to wail like a German or Hungarian model/actress/composer/banshee/minx.
Sorry Quasi. That's Hot Shit.
posted by Luke @ 7:38 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Luke, your music reviews are elightening and entertaining, seriously.
Veering quickly off-topic, where and when did "hella" come back? Has it been here for 20 years and I didn't notice? My roommate at school, in 1983, and all his friends from Berkeley and Oakland, said it with every breath. I never heard it down here, before or after that.
Back on topic, you're making me think I might want to actually listen to music again. And I've been pretty happy here in hum-a-tune-in-my-head-as-I-work-land.
OK, Luke, here's a fun game. You mention all the old-school bands in your blog and I'll tell you when I saw them in concert. Geddy Lee in 1982 I think. It was during the Moving Pictures tour, which went on for most of a decade, maybe they're still doing it, I don't know. A Canadian band called FM opened for them that night and I think they I liked them better. Of course this was early in the evening, before the purple haze of 12,000 joints blurred both my vision and my experience.
-- Don Sheffler
Don, you're not playing your own game.
What about Nico and Tom Waits? Nico didn't die until the late 80's so you might could've seen her.
As for 'hella', that catchall adjective wormed its way into my vocabulary after having been carried on the easterly trade winds from Seattle by a group of Catholic school kids (referred to from here as "my friends").
I resisted, but then another friend from Montana adopted it wholeheartedly and eventually I caved as well.
Speaking of the mid-80's, my cousin from sacramento used to say it a lot, but his mom didn't like the Hell in hella, so he said 'hecka'. Some 15 years later I had another friend from Sac-town who used it. Maybe it's a central Cali thing. Dunno.
Thanks for the compliment about the reviews Don, of all the things I pretend to know things about, Music is definitely the thing I'm most self-conscious about. What I said about the Shins can really be broadened to cover all music ever: I feel I lack the vocabulary to describe what it does for me.
If you want to get back into music (and the bands I'm mentioning intrigue you) AND you have a decent internet connection, you should tune into the streaming audio at KEXP.org, a really good indie/public radio station based in Seattle. They feed all their broadcasts and they play something for a variety of tastes.
"Hella" is most definitely a Northern California thing (Sacramento is in Northern, not Central California). I grew up in SoCal (calling it that is a Southern California thing, along with placing "the" in front of all freeway names and numbers, to the continued enervation of Northern Californians). I don't think "hella" ever went away up here, as I hear people from age 15-50 use it from time to time.
Anyway, you're right on about that Shins album. They are my favorite band and have enjoyed that designation since 2001, toppling Belle and Sebastian just after I became disillusioned with Fold Your Hands Child.... What music store did you purchase the CDs at? Sonic Boom? Because good lord, how on earth could you compare The Dismemberment plan to Tom Waits and Deathcab? They revel in being esoterically retarded at that store. They've opened two new locations since I left that city, were you at the Fremont or Ballard store? Who knows, maybe you were at Cellophane Square?
NorCal, right, my bad.
And oh how I lament the decline of belle and sebastian.
Have you heard Camera Obscura? I read somewhere that they're Belle and Sebastian, but still good.
And it was none of those stores actually. It was Easy Street Records on Mercer and 1st (like 5 blocks from my old Apartment).
It's a good store with a very solid selection and good sales. Also, when you buy 15 cds, you get ONE free. NICE.
I'm really going to miss the CD stores there. Spokane has ONE decent music store. . . well one and a half. Hastings is occassionally good and sometimes surprisingly good. Four Thousand Holes is THE good indie store, but the selection is narrow. The owner will order any CD you want though in single quantities, which is nice.
Yeah, but he will give you a nasty look if he wouldn't've ordered it for himself in the first place. Four thousand holes always gave me that bad indie vibe: "I listen to bands that nobody more than one blood-relation removed even knows about. Ergo, I am better than you."
Maybe I just didn't have enough 'cred' to not feel inappropriate in there. Now I have glasses and am, arguably, less cool than I was in high school. I bet I could go in now.
Interesting comment about Nico. I was pretty sure I'm the only person alive who liked Nico at all. The two songs she had on the Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack (These Days and Fairest of the Seasons) were fucking rocked. Chelsea Girl (the album from whence said tracks came) was okay, but it wasn't as good as the stuff she did with the Velvet Underground.
Do you really think that Belle & Sebastian are terrible? I liked at least two or three tracks from Catastrophe Waitress. Those songs are what got me into the band in the first place. Now I've got stuff from -- I think -- all the other albums too, but I don't think all the old stuff is better than all the new stuff. Of course, I'm not even hip enough to shop in Four Thousand Holes, so what do I know?
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
I love Nico, such an odd sultry voice.
And Mike, I'd guess that the B&S songs you like were the ones on dear catastrophe that were written by the lead singer.
He used to write all their songs but as the albums progressed, they took a more egalitarian approach and the songwriting has REALLY suffered, in my opinion. Certainly they can still kick ass, but taken as individual suites of music the first couple albums are vastly superior, with the gradual trickle down to catastrophe waitress.
I've always liked the 4000 holes guy, weird.
Hmmm, provocative theory about B&S. Without the CD insert (I bought the stuff on the iTunes Music Store) I don't think I have song-writing information. If I ever get my laptop back from Apple, I'll have to take a look at the 'composer' tag to see if maybe it's stashed in there.
4000 holes isn't evil it just felt weird to be in there. The guy isn't that bad, but you should've seen his patience tried when Joe asked him to order something (I can't remember what it was).
--Mike Sheffler
... turning to the 3-D map, we see an unmistakable cone of ignorance
Luke, there is actually an interview article on Tom Waits today on the San Diego Union Tribune. Waits grew up here. But as to why I never saw him in concert, it says here that he hasn't played San Diego since about 1979. Makes sense. I'm still researching into whether I brushed up against Nico or not, I don't have any memory of it, although I did see her in those Warhol films. At least one professor of mine knew Warhol and his films were in the curriculum.
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