So, I fucked up yesterday, by not posting a song. So, this is going up in it's stead.

I couldn't stop listening to this song the other day. I wish I could find lyrics to it, because I swear it sounds like they say "A HORSE STATUE WILL APPEAR, A GEESE ..." and so on, but I am not sure. It doesn't matter: it's got the same kind of vibe that Ed is a Portal does, those Lovecraftian reference's that Akron/Family seem to be down with.

Yes, it hasn't even been a week since I posted a song from this album, but I figure today can be considered a "bonus day" since I was a bit late. The mood on it is too great, especially in the last frantic three minutes when it turns into a funky prog-rock epic.

Enjoy! I'm glad it took me so long to finally miss a day.

For all the passion I have for several of Akron/Family's songs, I've never really considered myself a fan of their albums. It usually ends up just being one or two songs I take from each album (or in the case of Meek Warrior, I took none and hardly listened to the thing) and love intensely (Ed Is A Portal) or merely enjoy within the mix of the rest of my music (Before & Again) or just listen to for the novelty (Running, Returning's wailing at the end of the track always makes people in my car go "what the fuck who would listen to a cat dying?").

And, so far, I'm going to say my reaction to Set 'Em Wild, Set 'Em Free is going to be largely similar. I haven't even gotten through a complete listen yet, so I can't say for sure, but I already know one of the songs is obnoxious and I'll never want to listen to it.

My point is, Akron/Family crafts songs that are pure genius and then they fuck around, I think maybe just because they can. When I saw them live, they had a three night residency at the Center for Inquiry West, they did sort of the same thing: they lured the crowd into a marvelous groove by playing this song and others that have a somewhat danceable beat. At one point most of the crowd was dancing around a little bit to them.

But then the tone shifted, and the second half of the set turned into an overwhelming noisy experimental explosion where you could hear bits and pieces of songs taking shape but then they would distort them back into repetitious noise. By the end of the set, no one had walked out, but only because we were all waiting for the band to take a turn back into the beautiful stuff they had been playing earlier, a turn that they never took, leaving most of us (I think) scratching our heads as to what just happened.

When I saw them at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum they did no such thing, but that was prior to the departure of guitarist Ryan Vanderhoof. If I had to choose between the two live shows, the Natural History Museum one was far superior, and the version of Ed Is A Portal they played their was inspiring, while the version at the Center of Inquiry left me feeling kind of empty.

Still, I bought one of their shirts, and a set of their pens. The shirt is now one of my favorites, being some sort of 50/50 blend from American Apparel, it is an absolute joy to wear and I love it. I wear the pen with this album's art on it on my jacket, because what could be cooler than a tie-dye flag?

The point of this post, however, wasn't to talk about the band, and for all intents and purposes I should probably just erase all that, but I won't. The point of this post is, quite simply:

This song is fucking awesome.

Oh my fucking god, it is so awesome!

I love it when I get excited about music, because it makes me feel like I could burst, and this song does this. It's just so... beautiful, you know, man? This song reminds me of what it feels like to be in love; to live a day that was so powerful that you can't help but smile at the end of it all. It's a sunset on an empty beach; it's staring into a pretty girl's eyes and actually being able to see her in them; it's sitting around a fire with a bunch of friends after spending a long and entirely pleasant adventurous day together, clearing the day out of your lungs and head; it's lying in the back of your car with a girl at a drive-in theater. This song is all these things, to me, right now.

Thank you, Akron/Family, for taking me to places in my mind that the day has yet to carry me to, for inspiring my feet to take me to places that remind me of the way this song makes me feel. Thank you for making music that can make me feel full of life even when I'm just driving around by myself.

It's February! Happy February. Why is February spelled so strangely? I just doesn't look right. Shouldn't it be Feburary? Am I pronouncing it wrong?

I saw Akron/Family play at the Los Angeles Natural History Museum (at about this position, looming elephants, bowing giraffes, and dignified looking whatever those things are on the right and all) and they were fantastic. Their albums tend to be kind of noodly (if you understand what I mean by that, then yay!) but in a live context their music takes on a vibe more akin to... this song!

(OH MY GOD! I never saw the huge walking dinosaur while I was there? I would have shit myself! I was not in my right mind at all. I probably would have ran screaming from the building if I had seen that thing coming at me. Man. They serve alcohol there. What are they thinking, walking a dinosaur through the halls?)

(Also that guy complains about The Dodos' front man sitting through his whole set. I only mention it because it struck me as odd, to complain about that. You better stand up while you play unless you're 70! Like, what? Let the guy sit. Maybe he has some sort of... sitting disease. Where he has to sit.)

(There was indeed a dancing circle of "hippies" [actually it was a bunch of teenage blonde girls wearing outfits straight out of the 80's] during their set, which became greatly amusing when this tall, let's say Armenian, guy with sunglasses on decided to dance by them, after joking about it with his friends, and within seconds the entire gaggle of girls were dancing around him as one swirling mass. After a minute he walked off, thoroughly amused. [Minutes later two skinny white boys dancing like punk rockers but dressed like they were from Hogwarts (kill me for that reference) bounded into the group of girls and, again, it only lasted briefly.])

(That paragraph was so rife with typos on my initial publish! God! Dropped words everywhere.)

This is the best song ever. I hope it sets the tone for February.

It's Sunday! No one reads this on Sundays.

Song Note: I was supposed to post this forever ago, back when I posted Johnny Appleseed by Joe Strummer. So go listen to that one too. Hopefully it shows up in the "Related Songs" box so I don't have to manually link it because I am lazy. I'll say it some more: Joe Strummer. Johnny Appleseed. Ah-ha, there!