I'm in another rut. It robs me of having much to say about anything. If you're reading this through the website, you'll see I reverted back to the old design. The other one, while pretty, discouraged exploration, and broke older multi-song posts. I'll try to find a way make this version prettier as time goes on.

This might be one of those off periods, where I don't write very much. I went on a real tear last week listening to this song repeatedly throughout the day. Great song, lots of fun. The album as a whole ain't bad either. Archers of Loaf, who I only listened to now because they're reuniting (does that make me uncool? yes), are pretty good. They point out the clear divide between Nirvana's 'grunge' and 90's general 'indie rock'.

Last week I finally really tried my hand at laying down a couple good chord changes on guitar and singing something over them. I did three short two minutes songs. One was said to sound like The Dandy Warhols. Another was my attempt at a Skinny Puppy song though it came out sounding more like ... this band whose name I cannot think of right now, but let's just go with 'industrial dance'. My last one was just guitar and vocals, shades of everything. It was cool when the first one was called out as sounding like the Dandy's, because I thought: well, that's one of my influences, and I would love to make music that sound like them.

I'm trying to pay better attention in music to what influences me, what bits and pieces of music I'd like to take with me on the path to making my own music, finding my own style. Peter Gabriel has been a big influence on how I look at music since I 'discovered' him when I was 17. Sometimes I get sad when I think of all the young people out there who might have preconceived notions about Peter Gabriel as the crusty old world music humping enviro-hippie. I mean, sure he's that now, and sure that covers album he recently released was sincerely awful, but Gabriel has a back catalog of several albums that don't fit in any mold that I know of.

This one, his third self-titled album also known as "Melt", opens with a fierce pounding drumbeat and snidely whispered lyrics from the perspective of an expert at home invasion. "Intruders happy in the daaaaaaaaaaaark" he howls in a small voice that sounds almost unlike his own. After the second track, we're greeted by a jazzy interlude that segues into processed drum beats and what would eventually become Gabriel's distinctive wailing/scatting hybrid. A driven song leads into a tranquil one, but even that is misleading, because the song is about an assassination from the perspective of the would-be assassin. This album is, simply, all over the place, and every song is fantastic. The last track, "Biko", one of Gabriel's most famous tracks, his him finally dipping his toes in world music and the outcome is, I think, better than any of his other forays into it.

What I'd like to take from my love of Peter Gabriel is the sense of spontaneity in his vocal. He's never scared to drench the song in his voice. In this song, "And Through The Wire", the entire hook revolves around his elongation of that one letter in the word wire. The second hook is his way of singing "I want you" to sound like a tape playing backward slowly. They're both incredibly simple hooks but I can't really imagine a voice that isn't his pulling them off properly. Maybe I'm biased. The guy sounds like it's nothing to toss off an album of excellent material... I wish he'd do a tour where he just plays stuff off his first three albums, authentically, not rearranged or fucked with, but I know it'll never happen. He's too busy humping that dead world music horse. Some sort of innocence was lost with Gabriel when "Biko" hit it big and he realized he could make it big with 'world music'. His output has never been quite as good since.

As a unicyclist one of the first things you learn about wobbling your way through bicycle paths and the real world is that there are terrors living among us. Creatures that exist for no purpose other than getting in your way and destroying whatever graceful moment you were in. I'm talking, of course, about little girls. They're not to blame for the way they are. They're just lost in their own little girlie dreams, wandering wherever they please without much concern for where they're going, and that includes, most of the time, directly in front of you and stopping. One time I was going at a decent clip on my lumbering behemoth of 29" unicycle and a little girl dashed out right in front of me, maybe chasing a butterfly or an errant thought, and I had to fly off the front of it, stick the landing like an Olympian to prevent myself from falling on top of her, while catching the 20 pounds of metal crashing against my back. She just smiled and ran off.

Seems like big girls aren't much better, though you'd think the maturity that age is supposed to bring would make them less so. Unfortunately that is not so. The grown up women in my life have always wandered in and out at a moments notice. They show up in my path randomly and leave me tumbling, and when they notice they just smile and wander off in some other direction. Some say they could love me, and then end up fucking everyone else they say they couldn't love. Some say they love me, and then end up fucking someone else anyway. A few say they love me, but maybe I don't have enough money or maybe I'm not interesting enough, because eventually they don't anymore. One said she loved me, that she wanted to be with me forever, but the second I showed any weakness she ran away as quickly as she could.

I don't know what it is about this world. Maybe it's too much choice. A little girl can't choose between multiple butterflies, they're all too pretty, so after you've seen one up close you just gotta wander back across the road to see the other ones, too. Maybe it's the inhuman pedestal us guys place them upon. When you're a God you don't need to treat those beneath you with any respect or dignity. You don't have to mince your words or be polite. Tact is a weakness of character only displayed by cowardly mortals. I don't know. Either way, falling all over myself every time a girl wanders into my path is getting pretty tiresome. Seems like I can't get steady before another one sends me sprawling. The only solution is to stay inside forever and never go anywhere or talk to anyone ever again. I think I can do it!

All I want to do anymore is lie in bed. I've got nothing to be upset about but I feel upset about everything. I'm pissed off at the way the world works, the constant hypocrisy and contradictions that drive this world. I see people in my life doing things I'd never do, things that I think are wrong or stupid, and getting away with them, being rewarded, getting the things they want, and I'm left wondering: what's wrong with me? I know I'm not like them, and I swear to FSM that the difference is that I'm better, so why's it always feel like my world is crumbling?

I'm sick of women who say they want someone to be interested in them for more than sex, but then fuck guys who are only interested in them for the sex and pass over guys who are actually interested in them. I'm sick of situations like this missing woman in Aruba being defended as something other than the clearly Darwinistic occurrence it is---You wander off to a foreign country with some random dude you meet on the internet and you're surprised that you're dead? Sounds like survival of the fittest to me. It's improper or not politically correct to say "one less dumb slut in the world" but it's true. She did something slutty and stupid, and now she's dead, so let's stop acting like she was some innocent bystander. You buy the ticket, you take the ride.

I'm sick of guys who fuck women and then lie about it to anyone and everyone who'll listen. Why stick your dick in something you're not willing to cop to? Even to your best friend? It's one, scummy, thing to fuck someone you're going to be ashamed of fucking, but it's entirely another to be so ashamed you don't even share it with your friends. And what of the women who fuck these guys? Have some fucking self-respect, for fuck's sake. Call me crazy but I'm not going to give a hot beef injection to someone I'm not going to be willing to tell the world that I'm fucking, but maybe I just have more discerning taste than others.

I'm sick of things being so easy for people who don't even try, for people who don't even care. I'm sick of the fact that only things I get when I don't try, when I don't care, are shitty things that I don't care about or who don't try. I'm sick of waking up every morning and wondering if today is going to be the day that things are finally different, but knowing that they won't be. Just the same old dicks, the same old cunts, the same idiots laughing at the same unfunny idiots as yesterday. I'm worn out on trying to shed every weight from my life in an effort to lighten the load I feel but only coming away from it feeling even more weighed down.

I'm tired of feeling like I'm getting a raw deal. I'm watching pretty pictures and figures move through my field of vision... shadows on the cavern wall... and none of them ever bother to enter the cave I've secluded myself in. Sometimes people shout in, and try to lead me part of the way out, but the whole nine yards are never covered and I never get any closer to the shadows, pictures, people. The hand is dropped and I wander back to where I'm from.

I don't know what to do.

It's amazing how in a couple short months unemployment has reduced me to a pile of ash, but boy do I feel like getting a job is the last possible thing I want to do. How is it that sorrow can feel like a cage but also a warm bed you never want to climb out of? We are simple primates, we aren't meant to suffer from cabin fever, to feel like we're stagnating. I'm not supposed to be like this. It's not romantic. It's embittered and reclusive. I'm tired of feeling this way. I'm tired of being this way. Twenty-six years and running, it's never been any different for me. Someone's always got what you want, and they're not going to let you have it.

I originally misheard that this album was recorded without guitars at all, which left me feeling pretty worried. I'm not one who has great faith in the power of the synthesizer, still scarred by hearing so much of the 80's blasted at me through the radio. Even though I've been floored by many synth-based bands (Passion Pit, Red Wire Black Wire, YACHT) I still remain skeptical.

But I had heard wrong. It's just that they wrote this album primarily on keyboard because for some reason that's easier and more portable than guitar? Their press release seems to think so. I don't know. Either way, there is guitar on the record, but it's never front and center, always just in there floating among the drum machine and synthesizer(s).

So is it any good? Oh yes. I actually think this album might be better than Face Control. They just keep getting their music tighter, leaner, and more on point. There's not a weak moment on this album. Boeckner's voice is just as anxious as ever. This should be an inspirational album to many: this is what you can do with a drum machine (or iPad), a microKORG, and a guitar... and it kicks total ass.

The new War on Drugs album is almost too beautiful. I don't even really know what to say. I get this feeling that in a little over four months I'll be writing about how this is the album of the year. I knew it was going to be: I'm a pretty big fan of both Wagonwheel Blues and the Future Weather EP.

Actually, that's sort of an understatement. It's more like this: when I think of music that perfectly captures the feeling in my head when I'm happy, when I'm truly content, those moments when I'm so impossibly calm that my life seems absurdly lucky, that is what The War on Drugs sounds like to me. Peace, love, and understanding. The hyperbolic stillness of a quiet moment rustled by a gentle summer breeze. A car drive down the coast with all the windows down. I think I've said this before... in another life.

It's pretty clear from the press copy about the album that Adam Granduciel and company have put a lot of work into this album. Every instrument, every reverb saturated moment of this album feels certain and sure. It feels relaxed and easy going, like there was never any other direction a song could go in; this is just naturally what comes out when Adam sits down in front of a steady, driven beat, with his piano and his guitar in his hands. At the same time, it's just so damn beautiful it must have taken forever to get it that way, right?

So much of it just sounds like a pleasant dream. I want to lie in bed and let it fill my head with soft colors. Strangely, they are the same soft colors and memories present in the Urban Outfitters produced music video. Such a synergy of vision fills me with hope: I am not alone. Other people listen to this music, and they feel the same thing. What I am saying to you right now, someone else can understand, because the feeling emoted by the music is felt by all of us in almost the same way. That's beautiful, maaaaaaaaan.

I can't listen to this album without feeling certain that it's going to be a big deal. At least that's my hope. I hate for the bands I really love to become very successful, because then their concerts become expensive and full of douchebags, but at the same time I want everyone to hear this album. I want to hear it coming out of the windows of other cars when I'm driving down the street. I want to be inside Jack in the Box and go, "Really? Am I actually hearing The War on Drugs on the radio?" I guess I could just go to Urban Outfitters.

I worry that there is not enough peace and love in the world for an album this great to be loved by many. I recently watched Easy Rider, and the memory of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Cool Hand Luke has left me feeling kind of like the world is a disturbing, scary place, full of people just waiting to screw you over for stepping out of line. The War on Drugs becoming the next big thing in the musical realm I exist in, well, maybe that would prevent my eventual slide into reclusiveness.

You can stream the whole album over at Urban Outfitters.

P.S. Hey guys: please play in LA again. Seeing you at the Echo once was not enough. Though the chick who couldn't play tambourine to save her life up on stage was pretty funny.

The nice thing about the new YACHT album is that it's pretty good. The downside is that there's a distinct lack of male vocals on the album. While singer Claire L. Evans is great fun, I don't think she's capable of carrying an entire album. While there is one song with a male vocalist (and whether that's Jona Bechtolt singing is not something I can parse) the rest all feature Evans front and center.

Evans is great fun on songs like "Dystopia", and great on this song, "Shangri-La", but she becomes very annoying on tracks like "One Step", which sounds like it's trying way too hard. (Alliteration is something you shouldn't try to do lyrically unless you've got an incredibly strong idea propping it up, and "One Step" hasn't a good idea anywhere near it.) When she gets shout-y on a song like "Beam Me Up" I mainly just want to smash my head through the wall screaming "Stop trying so fucking hard to sound clever!".

This is an album slightly ruined by not enough variety. While some songs off of it will blend in great on a mixtape, the album as a whole is ultimately tiresome and kind of forgettable. At the end of it I, and others I know in reality who are also fans of YACHT, are left asking: Where's Bechtolt, and why isn't he singing? The best songs off See Mystery Lights weren't sung by Evans. "Dystopia" is a great song, but the lyrical hook is stolen from nostalgia and the synth hook is basically "Dance Yrself Clean" and they should be ashamed of that, and there isn't a "Ring The Bell" anywhere to be found on this album.

I might sound like I'm being too down on the album. It's a fun listen. It just suffers from not being as good as what came before. It's better in some ways, like just listen to how clean and beautiful "Shangri-La" sounds, but overall I'm left wanting. Your mileage may vary, but I'll stick with my decision to mark this album as one you should pick clean for the songs you like and then forget about.

Hey. If you're browsing this site the way you should be, via the main design, then you'll see I've made some changes to the site. First of all, it looks very slick, thanks to a Tumblr theme that I modified for my own purposes. Remember, please turn off Adblock, there are no advertisements on this site, but Adblock will block the album art and mess up the new design, just like how it messed up the last one.

Also, I will no longer be accepting submissions or publishing my email address on this site. Over a year of receiving submissions via email has shown me that almost nobody I like actually emails me content I truly enjoy. If I like your label or your bands, I'll contact you in order to be on your mailing list. I'm sorry, if you're a musician and you read this and you feel burned, but your music probably sucks. I don't want to hear it.

If you're a fan of a band you think I'll like, contact me via Twitter as usual.

This will be returning primarily to what it was before I got picked up by hype machine and started being flooded with emails: a site for me to talk about music I really, really like. Otherwise it's just not worth the effort. I don't make any money doing this, so I might as well make sure I enjoy it.