I just sat outside smoking a cigarette syncing the lyrics to this song in TuneWiki, which is probably one of the coolest things ever and I would like to see it become a mainstream feature on all media players, if possible. The short of it is that TuneWiki uses all that G1 or iPhone screen real estate to display the lyrics to the song playing, and they can be synced to scroll with the song. It's pretty rad. I've synced a couple songs and I will say that the experience is worth it just to learn the lyrics.

It's a shame when the lyrics are rubbish, which I am inclined to say about this Michael Penn song, but I won't. I like Michael Penn, he is kind of a guilty pleasure. He's got this neutered sort of adult pop vibe, like Chris Isaak (I have listened to Chris Isaak albums, they are interesting) and even Jon Brion (who shares a lot in common with Penn, musically), and yet I have 27 songs by him, hand picked and rated, in my iTunes rotation. I'm going to be posting Michael Penn on this site for the next four years. Better get used to it.

Michael Penn's songs are obtuse, and I didn't realize it until I synced this one. He writes poetry, or, since I hate poetry, I am just going to say that he plays to a certain school of songwriting similar to Mike Patton, but taken to the next best level. Michael Penn's songs may be relatively meaningless when you think about the song as a whole, but if you take any two lines, they will mean something, and they will sound damn good at whatever place they have in the song. He writes for feeling, not for meaning. (Mike Patton writes for sound, the words are so meaningless they almost have no feeling, but the tone of the music does it all.)

I tend to hate music with nonsense lyrics, but Penn's aren't nonsense, they're just so laden with a variety of meanings that you can't possibly pick only one.

Song Note: Instead of linking to the album this song is from, I'm linking to a big awesome collection of his music that kicks ass. You should listen to it.

Twitter Note: Twitter users will see the January 2009 Staires! playlist go up today at some point, when I get around to it. I don't expect it to be as good as the December 2008 one, though.

Site Note: I added "Tweet This Song!" links to the main page and a possibly annoying box encouraging you to "Tweet This Song!" because it would make me happy. I put up a page about how I did it with PHP.

I've been reluctant to post a Cloud Cult song because I didn't feel like I could pick one that would do them justice. Cloud Cult is so diverse in their stylings that I am fairly certain that you could hear a song that could annoy the piss out of you, and then hear another that you love to death. This morning, however, I realized that I should get over that and post this song, one that has stuck with me for a while now, that made it into my best 2008.

I wrote this big long rambling paragraph and then I deleted it! I am expressing restraint.

There is so much joy and beauty in this song, and hearing it felt like a revelation: I've been trying to tell people this forever. It's not an eye for an eye, it a favor for a favor. It doesn't matter if there's a billion saviors, because there's so many things to be saved! A miracle's a miracle even when it's ordinary! I guess it sounds like a collection of motivational catch phrases or something but it's all true, so fuck it.

I'm not religious, I've become all moodily disenchanted as I am certain so many do when approaching the ripe old age of twenty-four, but this song is important to me, and the messages it contains have absolutely nothing at all to do with religion or God. (Kind of like what Jesus preaches in the Gospel of Thomas [and a decent amount in Matthew], to let my former religious side cut in for a second.)

Just... be good to people, and don't sweat the small stuff. ("And it's all small stuff!") I don't know why this is so hard to for people to understand, but all you've got to do is stop doing things to other people that you wouldn't want done to you, and vice versa, do things for other people that you'd want done for you. (I'd say that this usually begins with: stop telling people what to do unnecessarily, stop giving unsolicited advice, and stop saying needlessly bad things about other people when they are not around.)

The whole "do things for others" part is really hard sometimes, but I like to give money to people/homeless people because I know if I were homeless or needed money bad enough to ask random people, I'd want some skinny guy to hand me five dollars, you know? It's tough when someone calls you up right as you're going to bed and they want you to rush out of the house to do something with them and you're lying in bed thinking: Damn, I really want to sleep right now, but if I were on the other side of this phone call I'd probably want me to wake up and do this... Shit. It's worth it, though. Generally people will start to think you're awesome and want to be nice to you.

If you start doing this and your life doesn't immediately become awesomely stress free, then I'll give you $50 and tell you to quit your job, get some self-confidence, and stand up for yourself, because you're probably letting other people get you down. If that doesn't work then you should really stop being so much of a pussy. It's possible to be nice to people without being a floor mat. Maybe that's the hardest of all.

~fin

Site Note: So much for restraint! Maybe tomorrow.

It's odd for me to write about The Polyphonic Spree when I am not concurrently in my "Polyphonic Spree Season". I mean that I love the Spree, they're right under Eels on my list of "music I love", you see, but that I only really listen to them when I am about to see them live, and for about a month after I have seen them live.

The Polyphonic Spree is so unique within my collection, though over all, musically, they are similar, because Tim DeLaughter ("De-lah-ter") and gang (all 20+ of them) don't write songs about break ups and endless sorrow. Or maybe they do and it's so obtuse I'd never be able to figure it out! I don't know, I don't care, girls just wanna have fun, snakes on a robotic monolithic palsied marsupial, etc.

This album is a bit of a breakthrough for them because out of three albums this is the first one to sound somewhat genuinely edgy, like there is a hint of darkness in there somewhere, but it's all still wrapped in the type of language that makes you want to pull yourself up by your own bootstraps and march out into the day (and suck a bunch of cock like a real trooper, not that that is what I do for a living, I just mean, if whores and professional working faggots [and I use that term kindly, as one of my sisters was gay, once upon a time in mexico and now isn't, and that totally gives me the right] listened to this, they would be inspired to take it like a champ, is all i'm sayin).

This song is kind of like that. It starts off all slow and kind of moody and as (you) the song becomes more "comfortable" with the situation of the song (loneliness and the conflict of maybe revealing to someone something that you shouldn't and general life and--oh, fuck, it's about everything) the mood picks up and before you know it you're singing the same sad lyrics but you're rocking out to them.

It's perfect.

I've seen the Spree five times now (at least one every year since 2004, except they never came around in 2008 and that sucked). I used to drive up from San Diego to see them play in Los Angeles. Two years ago, the second to last time they were here (they were here a month or two after I saw them and I didn't go because I am silly), I saw them in Los Angeles and then, two days later, drove to San Diego (w/ Nick, who saw them in LA with me, and two other friends) to see them again. At the San Diego show I experienced the gayest but most awesomest moment ever when Tim DeLaughter came down off of the stage and embraced me while everyone was singing the song. I can't even remember what song it was now, but it was like getting hugged by Jesus or Thom Yorke or Billy Corgan or Nikki Sixx and there were all these people around to witness it. No one can ever say you were bluffing.

If I have the money next time they come around I am totally taking a car load of people with me to San Francisco to see them, before hitting Los Angeles and San Diego. It will be legendary, to quote Barney Stinson.

Author's Note Hi, what's goin' on?

3.) This song is nearly eight minutes long for no good reason. It is the clear definition of excess, which could probably be said for most of this album, though it's got pretty excellent reviews on Amazon, which I'll attribute to Blur having insane fans, though when I listened to it years ago I did enjoy it a lot, which can be explained by young age and relative unfamiliarity with good music, though I do still listen to this song, so I guess maybe Blur was on to something, which I won't attribute to Damon Albarn because he's a jerk.

3.) I'm an Elastica fan, so I have to be a bit of a woman and say that I am bitter that Damon Albarn wrote a whole album about his breakup with Justine Frischmann when she went out of her way to make sure Elastica's second (epic failure of a) record wasn't about it at all (and I'm sure it's hard to hold back all those feelings when you're a crazy hot british punky rock chick who is, more than likely, on drugs). I mean, come on, guy.

3.) Apparently Justine lives in Boulder, CO, and is married to a college professor. Damn. If only I had gone to college right after high school and moved to Boulder. I could be married to Justine Frischmann. Not that she's super hot or anything, but I used to listen--wait a second! This post isn't about Elastica! What am I doing!

3.) I don't really like Blur all that much, but I totally dig this song. It's sort of stupid, but I dig songs with stompy beats (like Viva Voce's Believer and Michael Penn's Mary Lynn). I used to listen to the whole album, but it's not something that stuck with me. I played the album for my parents back when it came out, on a drive to San Diego. Their reaction during this track was: "This is new?" "This is pretty good." And then once we got into the later tracks (track 4) where Damon Albarn starts screeching STICK IT IN MY VEINS, STICK IT IN MY VEINS my parent's opinion (and my own, really) dropped quite a bit.

I'm pretty sure this song is something of a homage to Session 9, a great psychological horror movie directed by Brad Anderson (of The Machinist, and less awesomely, Transsiberian--a movie that made both me and my girlfriend seethe with hatred because its main plot mechanic ["bitches are stupid liars who can't stop being stupid liars, even when someone is threatening to kill the whole world bitches can't stop being stupid liars, fuck"] was so ridiculous and infuriating) starring David Caruso, who gives a 'tour de force' performance. No, really, click on that link, it's a 7 second video and you should watch it over and over again because David Caruso is awesome and stuff.

I don't have much to say about this song aside from go watch Session 9, it fucking rocks and that this song has those influences I love so much that I can't name outside of saying "hey this sounds similar in mood to The Dresden Dolls, I like it a lot." My girlfriend classifies this as "pretty" and "creepy", or maybe she meant "pretty creepy" which is pretty close to the band's name so I'd say they accomplished their goal.

And, of course.

I'm going to pretend, as I write this, that you interpret this song the same way I do.

The pairing of sex and death was so influential to me at a young age. I think. I got this album when I was in the fifth grade, along with Green Day's Dookie and Insomniac and they were the first pieces of popular music I owned. They were on cassette, which I mention only so that one day I can one up some kid who goes "cassettes are so retro!" and I can be like "yeah i am do cool i grew up with cassettes, thuglife!" and I don't know what I'm saying.

I feel awkward around death. I surrounded myself at the vet hospital with dead animals, on occasion, when I volunteered to tally up the names of the dead in the freezer, but any time a doctor cut open an animal and started showing me their insides, I got kind of squeamish. (With notable exceptions.) I don't like the insides of things, that's stuff we shouldn't see. The insides of dead things smell bad. I take that as a good sign we shouldn't play about in them.

What this has to do with this song so far, I don't know.

Oh, yes! This song pairs the imagery of dead pets with a chorus that just screams sex, to me, and it's so weird, because I was listening to this at ten years old and I kinda sorta understood.

I explained my feelings on this song in depth to people once and came back from it feeling kind of awkward so now I feel all hesitant, which is why I am blahing.

I think the song is drawing parallels between the childlike horror and curiosity of discovering rotting animals and the masculine fear and dread that lurks deep and silently within every man when he deeply contemplates the implications of sex.

The end!

Site Notes: This isn't supposed to get posted. I drafted it the other day and planned to not post it, but my internet has been down for over 12 hours and I don't know when it'll get back up so this is today's post.

I get paranoid sometimes, like full on crazy paranoid delusions, or at least I think so. What I mean is, sometimes I scare myself. I recover from whatever it is I am suspicious about and I look back and I think: Holy shit! What the hell is wrong with me! Conspiracy theories scare me, I used to keep myself up late at night reading about Vince Foster and then I'd have to walk around the house turning on all the lights, which probably makes me more paranoid, and even locking myself into a closed room doesn't help either, because what good does being boxed in do?

Paranoia is great, in that it could be totally useful to manipulate in someone else, if you could become skilled at it. On the other hand, it also sucks a lot of balls when you're the one being all nonsensical, running around with your head filled with stupid bullshit.

There's a fine line, I think, between paranoia and fear. I think fear can be fun, because at least when you're filled with fear, if you're afraid, you know that something is coming for you and you should be ready for it. In the past I have explored this series of abandoned building a number of times, part of a mental institution in the 80's, because it's scary. There is nothing more exciting than darting around the burned carcasses of buildings, the dusty (likely asbestos filled, so I'll die of cancer) interiors strewn about with old chairs and medical files, knowing that if you peek your head outside at the wrong moment or shine your flashlight in the wrong direction, you could end up running from the cops as fast as you can. Fear is great. I have a lot of fun with it sometimes.

Paranoia is the devil. All that uncertainty. You have to wonder whether you are the thing you should be scared of, that you have nothing to be afraid of but your own malicious inner dialog. Such a killer.

But, in the end, who cares? I get annoyed at people who are excessively frightened of anything, like full on "Let's get out of here man!!" sort of fright. I think it's a weakness. I have lost respect for friends who act excessively scared, (and it's funny because the friend who acts like the biggest pussy in scary situations is the friend who has to act all 'alpha male' when he's around everyone else, like he's so fucking tough).

I kept trying to tie this back into government conspiracy shit so that it would all make sense in the context of the song, but I find myself unable!

My point:

So what if Big Brother is watching?

Let 'em watch.

You know, I assumed there would be an image of Michael Pitt nude in the few movies he's been naked in floating around somewhere on the internet. I was going to link to it in my opening paragraph with a little warning say "don't click on this if you're a girl scout" or something, but I can't find a decent set of screencaps. I only checked Google, so I didn't try that hard, and I'm certainly not going to download The Dreamers so that I can cap shots of Michael Pitt's junk.

Do me a favor, though, put Michael Pitt in your head. Think about Michael Pitt. Look at him standing there, with his beady eyes and pouty lips. Put him behind a microphone, singing this song, doing that Kurt Cobain grungy sway, moving his head around the microphone while he sings like he's working the head of some gigantic invisible cock. Now, strip him completely naked. When he swings his hips, his penis flops around everywhere!

THAT'S ALL I CAN THINK ABOUT WHEN I HEAR THIS SONG.

OK, it isn't really, but I got hooked on the image around the sixth time I listened to this song in one day and I had to write about it. It's ridiculous, and it makes certain Pagoda songs unlistenable. When he starts into the "blah blah blah blah" on Amego, I kind of want to climb up onto this imagined virtual stage and slap Naked Michael Pitt in the face for doing something so stupid and then slap him again for looking so ridiculous while he does it.

This song, however, is the best thing ever. The lyrics are relatively ambiguous about whether it is pro- or anti-abortion. It seems guilty, but indifferent. Angsty! It's so grunge, you know? I don't think you can get any more grunge than admitting the wonderful benefits of abortion while hating yourself for it.

Kick ass, Michael Pitt. I just wish I haven't seen you naked so often.

Site Note: As you can see this post isn't about a song from my youth. This is because I didn't really feel like writing anything else about my youth at the moment. I sat down and forced myself to write an entry for a different song but I wasn't happy with what I wrote, so instead I am posting this, a song I am currently obsessed with and can write about it quite easily. Sorry if anyone is disappointed.

Wait!

Youth Week: I totally left out my discovery of Grunge and it has factored into my taste. I discovered Nirvana in my freshman year after purposefully avoiding them for some time for no reason at all. Local H leaped upon me when I was nineteen, and I have since found other grunge / rock / early 90's indie rock bands that I love and adore. I like Local H a lot, definitely one of my all-time faves. Grungy angry rock is important to me, too. Yay! I win!

This isn't the first Eels song I'd ever heard. I grew up watching MTV in the mid-nineties so of course I saw the video for Novocaine for the Soul and I remember that for much of my elementary/middle school years it was one of the songs I would randomly get stuck in my head though I didn't actually have any of the music. (Connection by Elastica was another that I found myself singing to myself on the playground. Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand was yet another.) I never sought out the majority of these songs, except for Elastica when I was in middle school and deep into an obsession with Garbage that was ridiculous and will never* be discussed here.

I was sixteen when I sat down with a copy of Electro-Shock Blues, fondly remembering Novocaine for the Soul and wanting to see what else Eels had to offer. I went to what I knew the first single was, Last Stop: This Town, and it all sounded so ridiculous to me. I didn't even get through the full track. I didn't understand why there was a big weird deep voice and people yelling, the whole thing sounded like a cartoon. I was totally above it.

A while later I came across a copy of Eels' third album, Daises of the Galaxy, and bought it despite the protests of my girlfriend at the time who insisted they sucked, which only bolstered my desire to love them fully. I think at this point in time I was really branching out into what I listened to, I think I discovered Peter Gabriel around the same time, but I am pretty sure that I wasn't at all ready for the horns and Hot Dog on a Stick references contained within album opener Grace Kelly Blues.

Maybe this is the song to blame for my strange obsession with Hot Dog On A Stick. Maybe my attachment to Eels early on came from this reference, as the Sara mentioned yesterday worked at a Hot Dog on a Stick at some point back then. Perhaps I was climbing out of my youthful depression at late sixteen and Daisies of the Galaxy spoke to the sad optimism that has quietly resided in me since that age?

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out why Eels sound like home to me, why they're my top artist on last.fm (which is actually easily explained by the fact that I have fourteen hours of Eels songs on my iPod and I listen to pretty much all of them, completely dwarfing any other artist in my collection by sheer mass of material), why that no matter what they do, I love it.

I think it's the sad optimism. I have to wonder if it was inherent in me, this coping mechanism of saying, "Man, this is some god awful shit, and sure it'll probably get worse, but I might as well listen to some music and enjoy the day, you know?" or if Eels taught me that the way to cope with overwhelming sorrow by putting my face in the sun/rain and smiling at it all the same?

I don't know, but out of all the other bands I've mentioned this week, Eels is my #1 to this day. I really don't know what I would be like if I had never discovered the Eels, or if they had never existed. Mark Oliver Everett (and I link to his Wikipedia article here simply because the picture of him in it is absolutely ridiculous) is an inspiration. His autobiography, Things the Grandchildren Should Know was exactly what I expected, as E is just a regular guy who has a lot of baggage weighing him down due to the way his family deteriorated around him, but for the most part... I don't know, he's just like me. He doesn't cry about what's happened to him, he speaks about it frankly and embarrassingly, and it doesn't matter to him what anybody thinks, or if anybody thinks at all.

Jesus, I didn't mean to rub one out over Eels or anything. I guess I did.

Have a good day! If you're feeling down and you buy this album and listen to it and don't feel better (if you don't feel better half way into "I Like Birds" you have no soul), I will refund your money out of my own pocket.*

Site News: I'm pretty sure I don't reveal anything personal about myself in this screen shot so I'm going to post it here, even more publicly than it's already publicly posted on my Twitter, this is what it looks like when I write on here.

* "Never" is a relative term meant to equal any amount of time between now and around the time I die. ** Please allow at least 3 years for refund to process upon receipt of request.

In first through third grade I had an on-again-off-again playground romance with a girl named Sarah. Up until about fifth grade I had a crush on a girl named Sarah who lived up the street from me, but she was always interested in my slightly older (but not a grade higher) neighbor. (Who tried to fight me once, all dramatically, in front of her. I grabbed his arms and swung him around a little bit, and somehow he ended up with a nosebleed, at which point he ran home crying. She called me a jerk and ran after him. Life has always been so unfair.)

When I was 13 I met a girl online named Sara which resulted in a lot of probably dirtier-than-it-shoulda-been cybersex and phone sex for at least a couple of years, which is kind of weird to think about now, ten years later. We still talk, though now it's all talking and not so much touching ourselves while panting into the phone at each other, and she tells me now she's dating this eight foot tall Asian guy (and has a son who has to be at least six by now). I don't know.

My last ex-girlfriend was named Sarah. (Hi, Sarah! [Sometimes she leaves comments mocking me. I think they're sweet.]) I'm sure there's numerous other Sarah's that I have been attracted to at one time or another that aren't significant enough to remember. There are a lot of Sarahs in the world. If you judge by film, literature, and television, you could safely say that there is no one in the world worth loving as much as a Sarah. Or maybe I'm crazy and I'm attuned to the name for some reason so I notice it disproportionately.

Am I crazy? Isn't everyone always named Sarah? It's always some dude who is like, "Come on, Sarah! Just give me one more chance!" or, "That Sarah girl, there's something about her." There's too many. It's overwhelming.

It also completely obliterates any chance for stereotyping the name. I can't say there is one unifying characteristic about all of the Sarahs I have known in my life. Some were complete opposites of each other. Names carry weight!

Holy shit, someone has proof of this! Check out this totally rad chart! Look! Brad is "High School Jock" at 63%, stronger than any other. So crazy. Wait... I wonder what Sarah is?

Sarah - Sunday School Teacher: 19% - Cheerleader: 16% - Business Executive: 15%

Well, that's weird. I've never known a Sarah who was any of those things.

In high school I think I was reaching some sort of height in my depression, but I was fighting back against it as hard as I could. I was listening to a lot of Radiohead and trying to be high on something as much as possible. I became attached to the idea of hitting on this girl I'd seen around. I think she was a little funny looking, because everyone called girl wolf girl, but I didn't really get it. (Maybe this is some sort of Black Hole type situation that I can't actually recall in which I was attracted to some weird looking girl. Maybe I thought that if I lowered my standards to super low I could achieve just about anything. I really don't know. All I remember is that I thought she was cute but other people said bad things.)

I would wake up in the morning and read my horoscope excitedly, hoping for positive things, and I would blast this song through some earphones and become all overwhelmed with a rush of good energy, like I could do anything and it would be awesome, like I actually had confidence to do whatever I wanted and the horoscope always said something that made me believe I could talk to this girl or punch someone in the face. It was rad. When Mr. Yorke wails, "It's going to be a glorious day, I feel my luck could change," my heart would melt a little. I knew I was nuts, deep down, but I liked it.

I did manage to talk to her, eventually, when I got myself into an argument with a mutual friend in front of her. I'm pretty sure she wasn't cute when I got up close to her, because I never really felt much like talking to her again after that. Or, she looked about two years older than me and I felt like a little boy and decided to give up. Whichever. I don't really remember. I am so unreliable with these things.

I don't particularly care for the song these days.

Site Note: I've got blisters on my fingers!

Author Note: I spent a good 15 minutes proof reading this and editing it and extending it and then, due to some weird random tab confusion, I lost all my edits completely. It was awful. I almost cried.

My freshman year of high school was a beautiful time. It was rife with all sorts of psychologically damaging things, such as the common "friend kills himself" complete with the "aftershock" suicide attempts, of which there are always a few, or the verbally violent rejections, and the "he said she said bullshit" as it was so eloquently spoken by poet Fred Durst. You know, things everyone deals with at some point in high school. I think I got them all in one year of high school.

The best thing that happened to me in high school was that I discovered The Beatles. This surprises me, now, because I grew up singing Yellow Submarine. My mother actually saw The Beatles play all three (or two?) times they played here in Los Angeles. My mother saw The Doors, and didn't care for them. (I don't care for them either, really.) I grew up surrounded by The Beatles (a poster of John Lennon hung forever in the living room, only to eventually be replaced by Gene Clark) and yet never knew of them.

By the time they were exposed to me, I was already dressing like a hippie, but I listened to System of a Down, Powerman 5000, Nine Inch Nails, The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead (a lot of Radiohead), Type O Negative. I was all over the board, but aside from the occasional Cat Stevens (though I'll never remember how or why I discovered him back before Skinny Puppy, foreshadowing I guess) I didn't listen to anything "old".

My clothing choices (green jacket, long hair, white shirt, blue jeans, red eyes) were due to my involvement in the political scene, where we all listened to System of a Down and organized protests in Los Angeles. Or something. I don't know. All I knew is that we staged a "walk out" where everyone left school and marched across town and it was sick shit. I wanted to be involved with these people, they did cool dangerous things and wore images of Che. Also, they smoked a lot of pot, something of which I never had any of my own, so that worked out too.

One night I tried to visit a girl I had a mean crush on in 5th grade. Hadn't seen her since, but in my freshman year I met up with a mutual friend we had back in elementary school. He said they still hang out and I----and I admit that this would make more sense if I wrote what I was supposed to write about today, in which I explain how in my younger years I was a hopeless romantic sap who didn't know how to deal with the concept of attraction or nostalgia or, I don't know, what a pussy I was? or am? or... I don't know, nevermind----got all excited like, "Yay! Let's meet old friends and damn I'm lonely, maybe she's cute, and chemistry at ten will translate to chemistry at fifteen?" Maybe my thinking was sound.

She wasn't there when we arrived but I ended up hanging out with her sister, Timothy, who was really cool and looked a lot like Winona Ryder at that age. I got really high by their swings (with pot I probably stole from someone who wasn't paying attention) and went into their den to lie down on their couch. Timothy came in and said, "Have you ever seen Yellow Submarine?" and I don't remember what my reaction was.

I hope I was like, "No, put it on," all cool like, but maybe I was a dick. Maybe I said something like, "Isn't that a cartoon?" and she replied, "Well, yeah, but it's the Beatles." "The Beatles, huh? I don't know about the Beatles..."

She put it on and I was somewhat amused in my sleepy stoned state, but it wasn't until Eleanor Rigby came on did something finally strike at my depressive teenage stoner heart. The visuals accompanying it were cool too. Sorta nonsensical, but interesting in their own right. I went home changed that night.

I pulled all my mother's Beatles CDs off the shelves and spent weeks listening to just the Beatles. If they had Last.FM back then, I would have been the top Beatles listener of back then. I loved the Beatles then. I love the Beatles now, but I love a lot of other stuff too.

I feel like it was genetically inherent in me. Something about being a Quaker and having a mother who was a die hard Beatles fan gave me a predisposition to like a lot of the music I like now. It was my destiny to love The Beatles.

The Presidents of the United States of America (the band) and Green Day were the first real bands that I listened to. Nine Inch Nails were my first real obsession that drove me to explore music in a research/intensive way. The Beatles exposed me to an entire era of music and shaped my taste forever. I hear The Beatles in so many of the artists I love (Michael Penn, Jon Brion, Olivia Tremor Control, Type O Negative) and I love them all the more for it.

I have to thank The Beatles (and Nine Inch Nails) for pretty much everything I listen to these days. So, thanks John, Paul, George, Ringo & Trent. You guys are great. Or were great, in some cases. Peace.

Site Note: Ten bucks if you read all that and didn't vomit. I'm in a rush to eat breakfast and go to work so I'm not going to proof read this ever. Not even when I get to work. If there are horrible typos and things that just outright confuse you, I don't give a shit. I'm probably going to get sued for putting up the Beatles.

Update: I proof read it sloppily. I am a liar. I really need to sit down a day in advance and plan these things out and write them properly instead of churning them out in a rushed couple of minutes. This thing is full of more unfinished plot lines than John Sayles' Limbo.

P.S. The girl finally showed up, but I was asleep and I woke up to her sitting across from me and my dad on the phone telling me I can't stay longer so we only got to hang out for that initial awkward period where it's like "Hi, it's been a while," "Yup," "So," "Yeah," and then I had to leave. I didn't see her for another six years. She's fucking weird now. I spend a lot of time with Timothy.

Trent Reznor gave an interview, that I read on the internet back in middle school, talking about his music. He said something along the lines of, "If my music exposes people to other music, like Skinny Puppy, then that's great." He dropped the names of a couple other bands, but I decided to check out Skinny Puppy because their name sounded somewhat sinister and I liked their little SP logo.

The first Skinny Puppy album I bought was Brap, back before I learned all about researching albums to find out the best place to start, but I was pretty lucky. Within this odd compilation of alternate versions and live takes, there exists a live version of Tin Omen (the studio/album version is posted here, as my MP3 copy of Brap seems to be mislabeled or completely wrong) and I couldn't get enough of it.

Though it was against the rules and I risked getting my CD player taken away from me, I listened to Tin Omen non-stop. In the live version the song starts off quiet and then bursts into high volume somewhat and I loved it, I would rock out in my seventh grade Home Economics class, much to the ire of everyone around me. I was hooked. I was obsessed. I collected all their albums, a bunch of t-shirts, I drew SP logos on my school work.

Part of what amazes me about Skinny Puppy, that I never bothered to pay attention to much when I was younger, was that while Nine Inch Nails songs are all about "me" or "you" or "whatever", Skinny Puppy's songs largely deal with specific topics. Tin Omen is about Tiananmen Square with parallels to the Kent State massacre. They have whole albums dedicated to animal testing (Testure, vivisect vi), and other shit like that (too lazy to find other examples). Not that you'd ever know it underneath the mental patient vocals and shredding guitars (which come courtesy of Ministry's Al Jourgensen on this track) but that's OK.

I was going to write all about this goth chick I was obsessed with in 6th grade, but this song is totally 7th grade to that so I'll write about it some other time.

Bonus story!

In 8th grade, I was sitting at my lunch table listening to music, minding my own business, when this duty aid came up to me and said, "Listening to music is not allowed, give me your CD player!"

To which I said, "I'm at lunch, I don't think I am doing anything wrong?" At which point she grabbed my CD player and tried to pry it out of my hands, but I held fast. "Hey!" I shouted, "You can't just grab my shit like this!" (I swore, even then.)

"You damn kids listening to your Marilyn Manson!" she shouted at me, which just pissed me off further because, at that age (at any age, even now) implying that I am a fan of Marilyn Manson was nothing short of an absolute insult.

I shouted back "You stereotyping bitch! You think just because I dress all in black that I listen to that stupid bullshit?" and yanked my CD player out of her hands.

Of course, I got in trouble, but it was no big deal. I also had the biggest balls ever according to everyone who was around at the time and watched me wrestle with a duty aid.

I was pretty bad ass.

I'm not sure why or how, what aspect of my upbringing it was, or my social status in school, but when my friend Keith handed me his beat up copy of Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral, my entire outlook on everything changed forever. I'll say that I never thought about it too hard before, but this is "the album" for me.

I can't help but feel kind of like someone bowing before a deity when I write anything positive about Nine Inch Nails & Trent Reznor, not that I look at him that way, but this album is so significant to me. I am not sure who I would be now, without it.

This album is so powerful, so richly layered, and the emotional gamut it runs is so blatant and unapologetic, even cheesy, but Reznor's sincerity reigns supreme and there are no sour notes in this suicidal magnum opus. (That paragraph was written strictly for pull quotes.)

Was I depressed as a teen before I was exposed to Nine Inch Nails and just didn't show it because I didn't know how? Or did Nine Inch Nails give rise to a voice in me that didn't exist previously? Or was it just, you know, science? And dressing all in black and listening to Nine Inch Nails & various other industrial was how I decided to cope with the angst of puberty at 12? I don't know.

I'll say that Nine Inch Nails made it easier, though I can't really be sure. I found a lot of solace in the chainsaw guitars and I remember turning up my earphones as loud as I could bare just so I could listen closely for all the background screaming and effects. Did it encourage me, or did it really make a positive difference?

I took all my NIN albums with me on Sunday school trip, this was probably around eleven or twelve years old and I was still going to Sunday school (I was born a Quaker, which has been randomly odd or helpful at times) even though my parents hadn't taken anyone to church since I was seven. I had just gotten my first pair of Dr. Marten's, and I was so proud of them. We stayed in a cabin by Lake Arrowhead and I remember it being beautiful (the trees and the leaves and it was cold and beautiful!) and terrifying (at one point I wandered off through the trees and very briefly found myself absolutely lost amid all the samey trees and cabins) all at once, but I was so upset all the time.

At one point another kid turned my music up too loud to mess with me and they took away all my CDs. I ended up staying in bed for a whole day, completely melodramatically miserable, until they finally gave me my music back. As soon as I listened to a couple tracks I was all better, back downstair_e_s, listening to their hushed whispers about what a weirdo I was. (If I remember correctly, on that church trip, the girls dressed up me and another guy as chicks out of boredom. Unconventional, it was. There are pictures somewhere. I had long hair and a sad look in my eyes, so I could work it better, you know. [That sentence could be taken horridly out of context. No one touched me, I swear.])

I do look back on myself at that age and wonder what my problem was. I'm still a depressive person now, it comes and goes, but now I've got things I can be upset about now. Back then I have no fucking clue what I was so upset about. I guess it was science.

If I could go back in time I would wave The Downward Spiral in my face and say, "This is good stuff and thank you for listening to it, but stop acting like such a fucking pussy, Jesus Christ."

Site Note: This is Day 1 of "Youth Week" in which I'll be picking songs that relate to my, uh, youth, duh. Don't be dumb. Originally I was like, "Oh my god, I have to plan this all sick, and have a clear progression through the years of my life," but after I sat in front of iTunes trying to pick songs and keep all the stories straight in my head for about 20 minutes I was more like, "Oh, wow, fuck this shit, I just want to write something and go do something else!"

P.S. There's a 5.1 mix of this album that is simply incredible and is a great way to stress test your surround sound system. It is sonic bliss and all the "gimmicky" uses of having rear channels are absolutely sublime. Reznor uses the rear channels to great effect on March of the Pigs. Totally adds to the already existing feeling of the music. The guy is a fucking genius. It's too bad his music has sucked pretty consistently since The Fragile.

Th' Faith Healers are ancient history, and that's OK. Their sound is unapologetically early nineties, and their genius is immense, not that anyone has any idea who they are or has ever listened to their music. I'm sad that I never caught them when they were touring around randomly years ago. Apparently I'm not the only one who listens to Th' Faith Healers.

That paragraph was composed of random sentences. I had a bad dream right before I woke up, like, a really bad dream, as if something earth shatteringly awful had happened to me and within the dream I was crying hysterically uncontrollably until I woke up. Of course I woke up feeling like you do after you cry hysterically for hours, all drained and tired, even though I didn't actually do any real crying. Harrowing, it is. The point is that... well, I could ramble for hours.

Song Note: This recording of this song is from their Peel Sessions, which are not available on Amazon MP3. I link to the real album here, and the recorded version of Curly Lips seems tamer than this one. Just a heads up.

Site Note: Tomorrow will kick off "Youth Week" in which I talk about the various ways I traumatized myself when I was a kid and the music I listened to while doing it. I figure I'll do themes every couple of weeks to keep myself entertained and write about more stuff than "hey here's this song, it is good, listen to it, blah blah blah."

I can't wait for "Songs I Had Awkward Tentative Sex To Week".

Today I don't feel like writing anything about a song, so I chose this one because I like it a lot and have virtually nothing to say about it. This is Day 38 since I've opened the site and only now am I starting to get worried about having nothing to say. Kind of dumb, since when it comes down to it I can say anything I want and as long as it has some basic connection to the song, that's fine.

My problem is (aside from what I am realizing is seasonal depression) is... uh... shit, seasonal depression. I just don't feel like doing much of anything. It comes and it goes. Maybe I'm crazy. It's like, the seasons man, one second you're sad and next minute you're happy. Or cold, and hot, you know, like seasons. But with seasons instead of minutes it's months. Etc.

Just like Tim DeLaughter, recording this hauntingly sad (but powerful!) song (with his band, Tripping Daisy) and then, years later, moving on to form The Polyphonic Spree to make beautiful happy music that can bring joy into the heart of... people open to bringing joy into their hearts. You can't convert the unwilling, you know.

I am an idiot. Whatever. I've got a lot of nothing to say, I can probably keep this going forever.

In my freshman year of high school, I would walk around campus with my CD player in my ears, listening to the first disc of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness over and over again. I was into a girl, who lived across the United States, who was into The Smashing Pumpkins, and aside from the music communicating directly to my angsty teenage heart, it made me feel a little closer to her.

I liked Cupid De Locke the most at that time. It would swirl around my head as I was walking and leave me feeling light headed and full of love for the whole world outside of the block that contained my school. It was escape. Every now and then I'd put the second disc on and listen to We Only Come Out at Night and rock out to Where Boys Fear to Tread (which really got to me because I played a lot of Doom and even now the sound of the rocket firing and exploding makes me a little wistful for opening a portal to hell), but for the most part the first disc is where I chose to spend my time.

How lucky do kids have it these days? Admittedly a generation before me can say that about cassette tapes, and before that they could say it about vinyl, and before that, radio, but kids these days, man, they can pick up a double album (for $15 on Amazon MP3! An album that probably cost at least $30 at Tower Records; I spent probably $300 on collecting the entire Pumpkins discography in 1999 when you can download it from Amazon MP3 for <$100 these days) and then pick and choose the songs they like and construct their own version of the album... or easily listen to both sides of the album without having to change discs. Lucky bastards.

The song prior to Cupid De Locke is this one, Love, which is the only Smashing Pumpkins song I can really stand these days. Billy Corgan's unapologetic pomposity over his supposed genius has ruined most Pumpkins material for me, his silly solo project brought shame upon him and all he deals with, and reports of how lousy they are live these days makes me extra sad. It's OK, though, I won't miss the Pumpkins much, because I have this song.

I get a lot of "Is this Smashing Pumpkins?" in my car when this plays. While I am no Pumpkins fan these days, I find this silly, that no one recognizes this song (which I consider to be superior to most of their singles). The Smashing Pumpkins are an important band from the 90's, and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness is an important album that everyone should listen to a couple times. Regardless of what I just said, the work here is genius and should be heard.

It's fifteen bones for two hours of music and a piece of grungy rock history! Who could ask for more.

When I saw Zykos open for Okkervil River (which they do a lot, apparently, since Okkervil River has a song on one of their latest albums titled "On Tour with Zykos") they randomly sold $5 t-shirts. I went home and bought their EP on Amazon MP3 (instead of from them in person) and then commented on their Myspace that they should put the rest of their material up on Amazon MP3. It's been a few months and it looks like they listened to me. Their complete catalog (two albums + E.P.) is up on Amazon. How swell.

At the Henry Fonda, my girlfriend and I both preferred the sound of the vocalist live to how he sounds on the album. His voice isn't so deep and gravely live, and I wonder why he sounds that way on the album. It doesn't detract from the song at all, it's just different.

This is a definite "hump day" (Wednesday, you see, if you're unfamiliar) song. Feels to me like tumbling downhill. Preferably at a park somewhere. At a young age. Getting your pants all covered in grass stains. It's supposed to be 80 today in Southern California. Maybe I'll go tumble down some hills.

This is our latest installment of "music everyone listens to but Brad doesn't". I liked TV On The Radio's debut album, it was pretty genius, but I got tired of it really quickly. I got tired of all of it really quickly, even the songs I liked a lot. I never even tried Cookie Mountain, what was the point? All the reviews said it was good. Why bother listening to it? I bet it was good.

I felt the same way about Dear Science, but I figured I'd give it a chance. The first track, Halfway Home, really grabbed me. I love the darkness of it, the hand claps, the "bum, bum, bums" (as someone points out on SongMeanings), where the song breaks like a wave into a rave up, and even the lyrics are genius. The whole song is layered and textured beautifully. I can't help but listen to it over and over again.

It's too bad, then, that I don't care for the rest of the album. The single everyone likes, I can't stand. Nothing else stands out from it, for me, but that's OK, because Halfway Home is enough song. I will easily listen to it over and over again to fill the fifty minute playtime of Dear Science.

"It's over now, and I'm insane."

P.S. Try singing "Surfin' Bird" along with this. I might be on to something.

Christine Fellows doesn't make music that sounds like this, and that's a shame. She's more into playing piano and singing weepy / unfortunate / suicidal sounding songs, but she snuck in this track at the end of The Last One Standing and I'm glad, because it's by far my favorite song by her. Things I like about it: guitars, bitter chorus/hook line ("Didn't know you... had it in yoooou..."), general 90's grungy feel.

If I am lucky, at some point in my life, Christine Fellows will read this and will record an entire rock album and it will propel her into the mainstream and rock stardom and then she'll give me ~15% of her income as thanks, as a tip, you know.

I learned of Christine Fellows from an ex-girlfriend. When I first listened I asked, "Does she do anything else like that Surprise track at the end of Last One Standing?" and she said, "I don't know," but then later said, "I can't believe you like that song, I absolutely hate it, can't stand it." Then I punched in her in the face!

OK, no, I didn't punch her in the face, but, God, had I only known, I would have. She would have shouted, "Why! Why did you punch me in the face! Oh my God!" (imagining this said in her voice amuses me greatly, she is making wild arm gestures as she says it) and I would say something like, "Because this song is great--and in a few months we will have several repeating sad and bitter breakups!"

Pssht, totally over it.

*Amazon has some serious issues with Christine Fellows. They have this album, correctly titled, in the MP3 section, but the preview links play some other album. Then they've got the album, incorrectly titled, in their regular hard-copy album department. I link to the hard-copy album just to be safe, here, which is a shame.

Jon Brion is that guy who makes all those great film scores: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Punch Drunk Love, I Heart Huckabees. He's an impressive artist live: just like how on this album he plays all the instruments himself, he does the same live (a trick that is becoming fairly widespread among solo artists who don't want to use a band live), using samplers and scrambling around on stage arranging drum and guitar loops until he can push and twist the song into shape in front of you. He's quite the showman and I haven't seen him in years, unfortunately, though he plays at Largo every Friday. I've never been.

This is the "my girlfriend broke up with me nine months ago but I am still not over her, damnit" song. I don't even really have much else to say about it, except to say that I have listened to it and thought of several different women over the years, but these days, these less single days, I don't think of anyone at all when I hear it, which is nice.

Unfortunately, again, Amazon MP3 does not offer Jon Brion's Meaningless for download or even purchase. This is his fault for being so indie that he released his album all on his own years ago, but you can buy it at CDBaby. Here's hoping Brion stumbles on this post and goes, "Oh! I am so daft! I should put up MP3s of my awesome album on Amazon MP3! And right quick!"

The Verve Pipe have not aged well. Probably why they haven't made a new album since 2001. They had their one hit song (yeah, that one), but to my thirteen year old mind, their other song Villains was much more interesting. So, while I was listening to Nine Inch Nails and Skinny Puppy, I was also listening to The Verve Pipe, quite possibly the kings of generic sounding post-grunge pop rock songwriting.

They still reign, is what I am trying to say, and sometimes they're awkward to listen to. They're clearly a product of their time, a band with one big hit who tried to make it big over and over again, but perhaps that isn't the fault of the late 90's. Brian Vander Ark, singer & songwriter, has released three solo albums since 2001. I was a fan of the first one, which largely contained the same style of songs seen in The Verve Pipe. (The other two I have not listened to because my days as a hardcore Verve Pipe fan has past.) Maybe this is just who they are? And who can blame them?

Now that I've written all this, I'm a little unhappy. It's caused me to assess and rediscover my love of The Verve Pipe and now all I want to do is go back through their albums and listen all over again. Lame! Running a website is dumb.

P.S. This song is good.

I can't find lyrics for this song anywhere. Bottom of the Hudson, though having released a decent amount of material by now, are so insignificant that they have no songs on SongMeanings. I mean, come on, people, there are at least three good songs by these guys. This is one of them.

Not that I have any fucking clue what he is saying. I can understand words here and there, but I swear sometimes he just slurs random words together. Quite frankly, I don't care that he sounds like a muppet, because this song has a great feeling. That's what it's all about: feeling. I'm sure that if I had lyrics I could read, I would be dazzled by the poetic genius of the lyrics that I can't understand because I am just really bad at understanding vocalists.

But, isn't it a bitch when that isn't the case? For all I know the lyrics to this could be on par with Linkin Park and it would forever taint a song I've listened to over 40 times! Maybe it's a risk I shouldn't take. I know I loved pretty much all of St. Vincent's album until I delved into the lyrics and realized they were nonsensical crap with no meaning at all. It ruined the entire album for me, though sometimes Paris is Burning still gets a listen every now and then, and that's sad. I don't think I'd be any happier about it if I was ignorant, but then again I wouldn't know so how could I be upset? Jesus.

I guess there is comfort, then, in not knowing.

Don't read me the riot act. I'm always on thin ice.

Site News: A bit late today. But: It's been a month! December 9th to January 9th, I think. I might be wrong. Sometimes I am. Due to various things, this works out to 33 songs. There's a little something at dec2008.staires.org that I posted on Twitter yesterday. I'm going to go make breakfast now.

Unfortunately Amazon MP3 does not have Middle Class Rut's latest EP available for purchase. This is too bad. I left them a comment on MySpace about how awful it is that they do not have DRM-free copies of their album for purchase, but I never received any response.

I saw Middle Class Rut (how many times in a row can I preface my blurb with "I saw this band blah blah?") open for Burning Brides a couple months ago and they were very impressive. I've seen bands crank a lot of sound out of a single guitar and drums successfully (White Stripes) and sometimes with much genius and aplomb (Local H), but Zack Lopez shreds the fuck out of his guitar and summons massive walls of swirling noise, with a wide stance and veiny arms. I ran home and bought their EP on iTunes instead of from them in person because I'm a giant idiot, only to discover that it was full of the same awesome songs I heard them play live.

So Long is by far my favorite (although 25 Years comes close), and one of my faves of 2008. I can relate to the situation described in the song, from both sides, and I think the intensity of the music is perfectly paired with the lyrics. Definitely guys to watch. Also, man, does that guy sound a lot like a young Perry Ferrell or what?

I was fortunate enough to see Noah and the Whale at Spaceland for free a few months ago. Outside the concert, while looking for a cigarette to bum, I ran into Zack Wiesinger who just so happened to be opening the first pack of cigarettes he'd ever purchased. He showed me and my girlfriend a cartoon he'd drawn and scored on his iPhone. He was a cool guy. He said he'd hit us up before his next show, but he didn't, and we couldn't have made it anyway because we were seeing Kings of Leon on the same night. Too bad.

But Noah and the Whale are brilliant live. They look like they sound, as if they're practicing for a part in a Wes Anderson film. They'd blend right in, too, on Steve Zissou's ship, on the stage of Rushmore Academy, aboard the Darjeeling Limited, or in the Tenenbaum's backyard, and that's definitely part of their charm.

Second Lover is probably one of the most obtuse songs off their album, about guy having some difficulty reconciling the distance between himself and his online paramour, (something I had quite a bit of experience with when I was a tween, hanging out in IRC chatrooms, afloat alone in the dangerous waters of the internet). While it's sad [and, if you pay attention, most of their songs are sad songs wrapped in cotton candy (and, if you pay attention, most Wes Anderson movies are sad movies wrapped in cotton candy, so we've got like meta-reference going on here)] the ending of the song picks up and it's simply blissful.

It's hard to pick a single song to post off this album, for now. In the future I'll post others, so it's no big deal I guess, but there are so many good songs off this album it just isn't fair: Nine Good Fingers, We're Just Temporary Ma'am, O'William O'Sarah, The Admiral, What's An Ocean For?

But it's this track that really gets me. I'm a sucker for simple driving riffs. This is one of those songs that I put on if I feel like getting pumped up for what a day is going to bring, the whole song just sounds to me like it's saying "Put all that behind you, and go out there and fuck some shit up." I don't even really know what the song is about (I assume it's about the death and/or departure of Admiral Yummyman, seemingly the central character of the album, but I've never paid close attention to the lyrics) but that's OK, 'cause sometimes music isn't about the message of the words... just the meaning of the music.

Also, wow, this band must not be popular at all, as you can't find lyrics for any songs aside from Nine Good Fingers online. Sad. It's a good album. The reviews on Amazon compare them to The Arcade Fire, The Kinks, The Decemberists (very sea-faring they are), and Neutral Milk Hotel. I think they're fitting comparisons.

Blake Sennett, the man behind The Elected and Rilo Kiley, used to be on the Nickelodeon show Salute Your Shorts, which I watched growing up. (He looks so young!)

God, know that I've spent half an hour looking up stuff about Salute Your Shorts on Wikipedia, I don't even feel like writing anything about this song.

If you're sick of the bullshit that Rilo Kiley has been putting out, all that ya ya ya moneymaker we're soulless assholes dancey pop shit, then you need to listen to The Elected. Blake Sennett splits away from Lewis and creates the music (I bet) he wants to create in Rilo Kiley. I am not a fan of Lewis (in fact I pretty much hate her and her country posturing bullshit--Lewis, you're from San Diego, stop pretending you're from the south, it's so goddamn insincere it kills me) and after/during More Adventurous my love of Rilo Kiley started dwindling, and Under The Blacklight killed it solidly dead. If you miss albums like The Execution of All Things, and don't listen to The Elected yet, you're missing out. It's Sennett who carried all the creative weight behind Rilo Kiley, not Lewis. The Elected's albums prove this.

After my harsh words about Death Cab for Cutie the other day, I meant for yesterday's song to be this one, but I have a lousy memory. Although The Postal Service is not Death Cab for Cutie, they occupy the same memory for me.*

I'm always worried when this comes on in my car when there are passengers, because I hang out with the kind of people who make fun of 'emo's, people like me, but this string cover of Such Great Heights always elicits positive comments. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Gibbard (and co.) write excellent songs but then bog them down with silly/blatant songwriting that no one wants to listen to outside of a horrible break up, or while cutting themselves alone in the bathroom.

You subtract Gibbard's twee lyrics about answering machines and eye freckles and you're left with a pretty song. You go further and perform the song on strings and you have something beautiful and lovely. I never thought I'd use the word 'twee' before. Thanks a lot, Gibbard, you big asshole. (Also, screw you Gibbard, getting engaged to my--and every indie / scenester / hipster boy's--girlfriend, Zooey Deschanel.)

*That memory being that about three years ago I went through a break up that hit me a lot worse than it should have. I ended up listening to nothing but Give Up and Transatlanticism for at least a month (or three) while I lied around dramatically, full of inner turmoil and sorrow after this girlfriend of three months broke my heart forever and ruined me for all women to come in the future! Of course, it was bullshit, and I blame Ben Gibbard personally for extending the time it took me to recover by writing such wimpy-sappy bullshit.

I saw The Section Quartet play years ago, they opened for The Polyphonic Spree in Los Angeles. They came on stage and played something with Jon Brion and it was utterly sublime, but I can't for the life of me remember what it was. In their set they played No One Knows and it was rad. If I remember correctly, the chicks are hot. Why are chicks playing stringed instruments always so hot? I guess it's watching their nimble fingers work the neck, while the other hand pumps the bow with fervor.

So hot.

I saw The Dutchess and the Duke open for some silly group I couldn't sit through, and why they were opening for them I wasn't quite sure. Their styles are polar opposites aside from a possible mutual worship of the 1970's. By their second to last song there was a heckler booing and shouting that D&D were boring. I don't mean to defend the heckler, but D&D are boring. (This song isn't, though.) It's just a guy (who looks a little like Kevin Smith) and a girl (who looks a little like Sweet Dee from It's Always Sunny, but brunette, and maybe less tore up) and another guy (who looks a little like John Lennon, except not really like John Lennon and more like 'the early 70s' as a whole) who play mostly sleepy-dreamy folky-sounding whatever recorded so it sounds like it came straight out of the 70's.

But the important thing is that they nail it. It doesn't matter that the only song on the album that I deeply enjoy is Reservoir Park, I went to see them live because their music feels important to me (a lot of italics in this post), as if in ten years we will be hearing about this group spearheading some sort of movement, changing things, doing something important. I'll get to be there (hopefully in some small European country that didn't exist prior to 2018) and say, "Hey, I saw these guys get booed in Los Angeles in 2008. I just knew they'd do great things!"

I also saw Fight Club upon original release in theaters (I was 14) and Rushmore (I was 13!) which are also things that, in retrospect, have made me better than other normal people. However I didn't see Donnie Darko in a theater until the Director's Cut came out, so, in the end, I am just a poseur.

Site Note: If you're having trouble seeing the album art on posts, let me know. It's come to my attention that album art doesn't display on the T-Mobile G1 web browser. In short: if your browser doesn't support SSL, you won't see album art, and I don't think I can fix this by doing anything other than not being lazy, so...

I was going to post Death Cab for Cutie's "The New Year" but since I'd rather shove a set of broken glass anal beads up my ass and then slowly remove them than align myself with anything emo, I decided not to. No offense to Death Cab, and it's not like the music I listen to isn't, uh, a bunch of pathetics whining about being pathetic, but, seriously, if I post Death Cab, where's all my indie cred go? I don't listen to them anyway so it would be unfair to you, the reader, to make you think I do.

I also, however, don't really listen to The Mountain Goats. I used to listen to this album, The Sunset Tree, a few years ago when it was released, but since then I just hear the occasional song off of it in my rotation and have never found anything else by the guy that I like. Considering the guy has released 12 albums, I guess that's sad.

But The Sunset Tree is all about his (John Darnielle's) relationship with his abusive father, and by relationship I mean fear & hatred of & desire to escape from, of course, (don't all boys feel that way about their fathers?) and while I can't relate specifically per se, I do feel that this whole album channels my mentality at any variety of my teen years. This song alone probably sums up how I felt between 13 and 18 years old.

As a cool side note, The Hold Steady reference this song and album in the song Girls Like Status, a bonus track/b-side from their own album, Boys and Girls in America.