Paul Simon Pulls a David at the Convention

Watching Paul Simon perform Bridge Over Trouble Water at the Democratic Convention and I couldn't help thinking of that story that Nathan tells David in the Bible about the rich man who kills the one lamb of the poor man so that he can feed his guests and then Nathan thunderously condemns David as being that man.

Paul Simon has a rich and long writing and recording history. He has won Grammys, he has platinum solo albums, he has critical acclaim as a songwriter, has has fame, he has everything. To top it off, he was tasked to be the Official Democratic Troubadour for the convention.

What does Garfunkel have? He has one song that he didn't write but that he can sing really well. Really well. It's a song that everyone wants to hear him sing. That song is the only reason that people will ever go to a Garfunkel concert. It's his ace in the hole for being able to negotiate Simon and Garfunkel reunion tours that get him that extra few millions to survive another decade.

And you know Simon hates it. He hates that he wrote the song but let Garfunkel sing it. He hates that the reason they can pack hundreds of thousands of people to Central Park or the Colosseum in Rome is not to hear him sing 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover but to hear Garfunkel sing Bridge Over Troubled Water. I cannot imagine the countless times he has ground his teeth in rage as Garfunkel sings lead on one song and his clear tenor dissolves the audience into weeping and cheers.

I don't know who came up with the idea of Simon singing Bridge Over Troubled Water. It could have been a Clinton staffer trying to unite the party and like all incompetent politicos didn't have a clue about pop culture. Or, they could have asked Simon to sing a song and he thought, "Now's the chance, my time has come at last! Under the guise of unity, I will reclaim the song I lost 46 years ago!"

And he went out on stage, hauled out Garfunkel's little lamb, and slaughtered it in front of God and his country.


(Shine on, Art.)

Doug goes to Wave Records

Contrary to how they are depicted in popular culture, record store clerks in the US have never been particularly interested in talking about music or helping me find a record. (It is very likely that they look at me and think that this nerd isn't worth my time. My prime example of this is when I went to Disc Go Round as a teenager and there was a sign that said: "Please let me know if you know which song has these lyrics." I looked saw the sign and looked at the girl at the desk and said "That's High by Feeder." And she looked at me like I was insane. "The song with those lyrics. It's High by Feeder."   I could tell that she did not believe that the person in front of her would know the song and she didn't. "I have the song. It's Feeder. They are British." Finally, she just said: "Oh, ok." And that was that.)

But the record store clerks in Europe have been great. In Budapest, I went to a place called Wave Records. It's one room that is absolutely packed with CDs and LPs (including a Kraftwerk LP way high up on the wall). I looked around at all the English-language CDs mustering my courage to ask the tough-looking Hungarian clerk if he had any indie rock Hungarian bands he would recommend. The poor guy spoke hardly any English, but he spent the next twenty-five minutes browsing through the latest Hungarian CDs and selecting three for me to listen to. One was the most popular Hungarian indie band, one was a band that he knows and has seen live, and one was a band where he explaines that their sound has evolved over the last three albums into aomething that he thinks is really great and different. And you know what? He was right! That last CD was very different but very cool sounding. I bought it. And that was despite the language barrier and that I was dressed in my work clothes so did not look at all like a typical patron. Just some top notch clerking. 

(The sad thing to me is that all young Hungarian bands sing in English. I asked for Hungarian language bands and he only was able to find one for me and unfortunately, I didn't like their sound. Maybe there are others that he doesn't know about, but I just wish more bands sang in their native language.)

Hungarian Folk is Rock Music

British Sea Power's Do You Like Rock Music? baffled critics because the critics thought that the BSP boys were trying to play rock music. Instead, in the liner notes BSP noted that they were, in essence, equating rock music with goodness. And much of the album (notably No Lucifer) dealt with the battle of good and evil, with BSP coming down on the side of deer, old bicycles, darker skies, the wind in your hair, innocence, and immigration.

This somehow relates to my experience watching Hungarian Folk music and dancing. I promise.

Around the corner from my hotel in Budapest, is an old building. (That's a joke. Everything is an old building.) In this particular old building on the European second floor (American third floor) is a theater and in that theater, a Hungarian Folk Ensemble performs nightly. The theater is full of tourists and not just any tourists, but Old Tourists on Cruises. Budapest is one of their Port of Calls and apparently, part of the deal is going to see this Folk Ensemble. So, you would think that this would just be a Grade A tourist trap, like going to the Bar F in Cowboy Town, USA and watching three men in chaps, cowboy hats, and bandanas play Old Suzanna on the guitar with some funny lyrics while you eat pork and beans and wish you were dead. But you would be completely and utterly and gloriously wrong.

Because these Folks bring it and bring it hard. They seem unable to do anything at half-speed and how could they? Hungarian Folk Dancing isn't like square dancing or maypole dancing or Seven Brides for Seven Brothers dancing. It involves boot stomping, boot slapping, hand clapping, thigh whacking, ground slapping, chanting, and yelling. Some times, it almost seems like they are trying to sing to the music, but then it goes back to chanting. The women periodically unleash these "YEEEE-AH"s that pierce your soul. But, in the end, the dancers are a mere distraction away from the musicians.

The musicians are exactly what you would imagine folk ensemble would look like if you pulled them from a Hungarian village one hundred years ago. Mostly middle age, some older and pot-bellied, only one slightly younger, most with thinning hair, and one guy who looks like he could be a vampire, skinny, with thinning, slicked back long hair, a weak goatee, and a sallow complexion. At first sight, it looks like a farce. And then they play and they play with the intensity of the best rock bands I have seen. No sheet music. Each takes turns being the lead and as the lead, he sets the pace and the others watch to keep up. And when those dudes take solo turns, they shred like the great guitarists. The clarinet might be the worst instrument ever created, but this Hungarian absolutely destroyed his solo in Brahms' Hungarian Dance. I have never seen anyone yield a reed instrument in any comparable way. Left me stunned. The violinists played like their fingers were on fire, like the devil was chasing them, like the entirety of their life, the tragedies and the joys, were all being expressed through their instrument.

They joked with each other, they pushed each other to play faster, they played because they loved the music and it just so happened that an audience was watching. It was thrilling. Even if there had not been an audience, I think they would have played the same way.

It was Rock Music.

Using Brexit to leverage change in the UK's approach for Eurovision 2017

The morning after Brexit, there was some concern among the British citizenry that exiting the EU would also mean that Britain was exiting Eurovision. Thankfully, David Cameron provided sterling leadership in a time of crisis and explained that participation in Eurovision was independent of membership in the EU.

But, what Cameron did not address is that the UK is abysmal at Eurovision. Over the last four years, it has finished no higher than 17th out of 26 countries and the music has been generally pretty insipid, even by Eurovision standards.

Here is Bonnie Tyler with a terribly cheesy song in 2013:



Someone named Molly in 2014 singing about Children of the Universe:




A complete mess in 2015:



2016 was pretty decent in my mind. Kind of Coldplayish arena stuff. But it was not well received by the other Europeans.



As a huge Anglophile when it comes to music, it bothers me to no end that the UK keeps submitting such banal songs. I know they are trying to suck up to the Eurovision votes with a "we are the world" kind of aesthetic, but every year they are soundly rejected. And after Brexit, there is no way that the UK can bring that message to Eurovision in 2017. Even if they did, they will be roundly booed for being hypocrites and will be crushed.

However, as Rahm Emmanuel says "Never let a crisis go to waste." Knowing that they are going to lose anyway, now is the opportunity for the UK to pivot away from schlocky, crappy, high-minded tracks. Other countries don't hew to the winning formula and they are incredibly more interesting.

For example, here is Cyprus's 2016 track about being a werewolf:




The better example for the UK is (unfortunately for the UK) France in 2013. This performance is so unlike any other Eurovision performance that I have ever seen. It's intense, dark, seductive, and goes completely crazy by the end. (I don't know what she is saying but I am pretty sure it's not Kumbaya.) Naturally, Europe hated it:



This is what the UK needs to bring to post-Brexit Eurovision 2017. It needs to be snarling and unapologetic. It needs to be about materialism and greed. It needs to be massive and it needs to have the potential to explode/meltdown on stage. You know where this is going.

The UK needs Oasis.

And I can't think of anything else that would cause Liam and Noel to get back together than an opportunity to melt faces at Eurovision. But, if that doesn't work, I am sure there are 100 other bellicose lad-rock bands that would be more than willing to rip it up at Eurovision. You don't often get a chance like this, UK. Make the most of it.

God Help the Girl

Well, that was different.

The trailer for God Help the Girl came out in 2014 and I probably have watched it 15 or 20 times because I am a huge Belle and Sebastian fan. Christina even got me the soundtrack for Christmas and I have listened to it pretty consistently over the last six months. All these things had me convinced that the movie was going to be kinda Wes Anderson-y, quirky, twee, lighthearted. I mean, look at those reviews! "Charming!" Refreshingly unconventional!" "A delight!"

I don't know if I would call it any of those things.

To put it into Belle and Sebastian terms: I thought I was getting Century of Elvis and instead I got the Chalet Lines.

It's not as bleak as the Chalet Lines, but the whole plot (scattershot as it is) revolves around a girl who is living in an institution and is suffering from anorexia and depression.

There are charming moments: Anytime Cassie is on screen, the whole movie brightens up considerably. The canoeing scene is relaxed and great. James has some really great lines about music and bands. (Two that stand out: (1) The discussion about naming a band [*Doug paraphrasing* James: "Why do people who play music have to give themselves a name? It's ridiculous. There are three other lifeguards who work with me and we don't think we have to have a name just because we are a group." Cassie: "What about the Lifeboys?]; and (2) His feelings about David Bowie after Cassie says that the song she wants to write is a little bit like Bowie (*Doug paraphrasing* "Everyone goes through a Bowie phase, but you don't want to be like Bowie. I never shed a tear listening to Bowie. And that's what music should make you do.")

But it is also pretty heavy. And, yes, even though it was dealing with a heavier subject matter (I wasn't expecting to watch a movie where Eve pukes on the floor because her stomach isn't ready to hold food yet or to watch her go through depression jags on her couch), I was more than happy to give it a go. Some of the heaviness worked. For example, I thought the ending was great. It is bittersweet, not a solid happy ending or a solid sad ending across the board, but instead a varied ending with some happy, some sad, some indifferent endings for the characters.

The problem with the tone of the movie came with the performances. The movie Once has a similar kind of heavy and depressing vibe that runs through it, but the difference is that while the music is Once fits in with the story as they create music, some of the music in GHTG is done whimsically like a traditional movie musical (reality suspended, choreography, extra music). If the whole feel of the movie was quirky, this would have worked. Instead, it felt really out of place especially when followed by a scene of Eve taking her pills or in the hospital. I much preferred the straight-up performances.

And I think that best captures what I think about the movie overall. In the end, it never felt sufficiently...coherent. It's a muscle system that is missing all of the tendons and sinews and other connective tissue that tightly binds it together. There are great individual bits but it doesn't quite work together as a whole.

(Perhaps the greatest thing about the movie, though, is that Emily Browning as Eve, did a great job capturing the essence of a Belle and Sebastian female character. She is the cinematic version of Lazy Line Painter Jane, Judy, Sukey, and the others.)

Who Let You Listen to My Music?

On May 7th, Baltimore indie rock station WTMD debuted the new song by Fulton Lights called Little Town of Not No More. Do you think Andrew Goldman, the brains behind Fulton Lights, would love to know that there was someone out there in radioland that heard the debut, loved the song, listened intently for the name of the band and the song once it was over, and then muttered it to himself over and over for the next hour until he was able to get back home and find it on Soundcloud? I am sure that is exactly what Andrew Goldman hoped would happen when someone heard his song. But, maybe, just maybe, Andrew Goldman would not be as excited when he found out the circumstances of this listen. For that person was me. And I was not engaged in any hipsterish behavior such as ironically playing chess with an old man in a dangerous park in West Baltimore or riding a single speed bike in Fell's Point. I was driving to Costco in a minivan with five kids.

(An aside: hearing new music with kids in the car is great because their minds are sufficiently uncluttered that when you yell back to them: "Remember this title! Panic Switch!" or "Remember this line: 'Self help guru with neck tattoo'" they can easily spit it back to you when you get home. It's a good reason to have kids. [It works better when you have more than one kid, because then they repeat it back and forth to each other.])

This isn't just the case for Fulton Lights. There are a bunch of Baltimore bands (Dan Deacon, Wye Oak, Future Islands, Viking Moses, Monster Museum, just off the top of my head; other people would add Beach House but I don't really care for Beach House) who have put out great music in the last couple of years. There's probably a real "scene" up there in Baltimore. And I am not the target audience for any of them. Not a one would say, "Yeah, we play music for people like that guy."

I guess I should be more bothered by this, but I really like it instead. Instead of speaking truth to power, I am speaking truth to coolness. You may have carefully crafted a sound that you think only intelligent modern young liberals would like and yet here I am in your audience proving you partially failed. I like to think that if I went to a Dan Deacon concert, Dan would look into the audience, see me and think, "That guy doesn't belong! Who let him in? Why is he listening to my music? Why are there five kids with him?" (This is a variant of the Ben Gibbard Wrong Audience Problem. He once said something to the effect of that it was really strange looking into the audience and seeing the cool people who would have beat him up in high school.)

The sad reality, though, is that I have aged out of the scene so I can't torture the artists I love with my presence. I have become content with just listening to the music and not trying to go down to clubs in Baltimore to see shows. Maybe it's a subconscious decision analysis (the negative value of getting mugged in Baltimore when multiplied by the likelihood of such mugging exceeds the positive psychic benefit I would receive of watching Viking Moses in a dive under I-83) maybe it's a value issue (I would prefer to go watch my kids play baseball games) and maybe it's because it's because no one I know around here likes the type of music I like because they are old and set in their ways so I have no one to go with. Whatever it is, 35 year old Doug makes excuses for not going that 20 year old Doug would not have.

(Aging even affects if I am willing to listen to a band. There is a new Baltimore indie band called Legends of Etcetera that gets a lot of play on WTMD but I cannot like because they just graduated from high school. I feel like an old weirdo even if I just listen.)

I didn't think I would ever get here. I guess that means some of those Projections (to use a term from A Swiftly Tilting Planet) of sitting in a basement listening to Kraftwerk and watching the Giants or loudly telling my teenagers that there hasn't been any good music made in the last decade or going to a Counting Crows/Hootie and the Blowfish concert because they represent music from my youth regardless if I liked it, all of these Projections are becoming sharper, clearer, more likely. And while they seem monstrous now, maybe 45-year-old Doug won't mind watching Adam Duritz and Darius Rucker harmonize on A Long December. (But I am still going to do what I can to make them Might-Have-Beens and not realities.)

Cabin Project's Unfolded and Soft Melancholy

When I was sixteen, I had a feeling that I still distinctly remember. I was lying on my bed in the basement and I felt a certain kind of soft melancholy. Naturally, I wanted to match music to my emotion, so I took a mental inventory to see which album I should put on. Nothing fit. Grunge was too harsh for the feeling, anything from the 80s was too brash, post grunge was too quirky. I tried playing my parents' Enya CD, but that didn't work either. I had to think of what I did not have in my collection and it finally dawned on me: emotional, poetic, feminine music. The closest thing I had to that was Elastica which was loud, brash, and snarling.

I didn't find the musical fit to my soft melancholy that day. But some months later, I found it. In the pre-internet days, a vital part of my musical education was the CD and cassette collection in the bowels of the Orem Public Library. So, somewhere along the way while browsing through the Smithereens, early OMD, Joy Division, early New Order, Icehouse, Asia, Oingo Boingo, Aerosmith, etc, I came across Sarah McLachlan's debut album, Touch. And there it was. The answer to the void in my collection. (Further exploration yielded her sophomore album Solace as being even better. The next two albums don't have quite the same impact for me.)

Touch and Solace-era Sarah M. was the starting point for me when listening to the album. The sound of the vocals in the chorus of "Where I Stand" for example, could be from Solace. There is also some late-1990s Heather Nova in the feeling of some of the vocals. But there is one thing that strikes me about the vocals that is very different for me compared to Sarah and Heather: The first few listens, I cannot make out a lot of what is being said so the voice works as an instrument in coloring the sound of the album. That voice! It hovers high, it goes low, it's soft, it hardens up, it conveys so much emotion and yet I cannot tell you a single thing that it says.

Although the voice is the starting point, the viola is what really drives the album. The long drawn out notes of sadness or driving the tempo with short staccato strokes. Because the viola is used so liberally in the early tracks and to such great effect, I thirst for it in the remainder of the album when the viola isn't featured prominently at the beginning of some of the later tracks. I wait eagerly. I know it’s coming. You don’t let a PhD in viola not get in on the action on every song. For example, in the song Highways, there is that great moving viola line at the beginning, it seems to drop out for a little bit while guitar picks up the voila line, and then it comes back with a drawn-out aching and emotional line that is the best use of aching emotional strings since Max Richter remixed Vivaldi’s Summer. I think the viola is what takes this from being an album that I can only enjoy when caught in melancholy to an Album of all Moods and Seasons. (It's telling that I listened to it during a sunny week in the summer in Maryland and not covered with pine sap in a cabin in Oregon in the fall and still thought it a winner.)

There is something very different about having strings appear in an album and having a member of your band whose sole responsibility is to play the strings. For the former, you can imagine the leader of the band (James Mercer, Conor Oberst, Thom Yorke) at some point in the production process say, "I think we need some strings here," but because the strings aren't a part of the band, the song isn't written with the strings in mind. (As I wrote this, I imagined Phil Selway of Radiohead listening to Burn the Witch and thinking, "How are we going to do this live?") Usually, they are there to just add some color. (Even Matt Pond PA and their use of the cello feels this way. Matt Pond just wanted to have some background strings.) But when you have a member of the band (especially a trio in the case of Cabin Project), then the strings are as important to the structure of a song as the guitar, drums, or bass. The only other band that even compares to Cabin Project in this regard is the Levellers. By making the strings (fiddle for the Levs, viola for CP) so integral to the music, it creates a sound that is set apart from others.

Here come the questions...

If you are given the task of creating a being that is an animated representation of the sound of the band and, when you have assembled the structure of the figure from parts plundered from the local charnel houses and cemeteries and you only have to place the final bone and you turn to your assistant and he informs you that he has taken the sacred reliquaries from the Cathedral of Comedians that contain the bones of each of the Three Stooges, which Stooge Bone do you choose? Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, or Curly Joe? The answer is Larry. On screen, Larry is the embodiment of a sad viola. You put Larry's bone in and your creation now has the requisite melancholy to represent the sound of the band.

Which song would I choose to add to my If I Were to DJ an LDS Stake Dance playlist? Love You More. Oh man, this song would be a killer follow-up to I Would Live in Salt by the National which I would play near the end. Even better, as relationships grow out of dancing consecutively to these two songs (how could they not?) and then collapse, only then will the couple realize that Love You More is actually a sad break-up song, that the song that cemented their relationship also built into their relationship the seeds of its dissolution.

Which song could you convince an aging Lilith Fairer was that one song she heard Sarah McLachlan play in 1999 when got so close to Mother Gaia that she felt her feet sink deep into the earth, her heart echoed the natural rhythms of the earth, and she felt the life-giving wick move up through the soles of her feet until it filled her entire being? I am going to go with Crows (sample lyric: Singing like a banshee like they’re the only ones who know whether the wind is going to move us higher). Where I Stand would be a good choice here as well. But to do something to an aging Lilith Fairer would be cruel.

If SkyNet was going to hold off Judgement Day if you could make it feel true human sadness, would you play a song off of this album? No! This is too soft a melancholy to avert Judgement Day! Don't be fooled! If you are in this position, you should always play something from Taylor Swift. If SkyNet heard All Too Well, it would think: "If this is the depth of sadness that human beings can feel after a puppy love type of relationship, I cannot fathom the depths from mass extinction. I will destroy myself instead for I feel nothing."

Grade: A- (because its melancholy cannot save us)

Shearwater: JP&O

Douglas Call Tuesday, April 12, 2016 7:45 AM

I think you would like the new Shearwater song Quiet Americans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr2pdwhjtjU

It sounds like a late 80s/early 90s Depeche Mode track

Josh Sorensen Tuesday, April 12, 2016 1:49 PM

and, yeah! this song is cool!

I never would've said this was Shearwater

Josh Sorensen Tuesday, April 12, 2016 1:57 PM

Wow, this song is amazing.

third time through. It definitely sounds like a throwback to the past, but done so well.

so that it stands alone

Josh Sorensen Tuesday, April 12, 2016 1:59 PM

it's totally a winner.

Josh Sorensen Tuesday, April 12, 2016 2:15 PM

Listening to "Backchannels" now. I love this.

Josh Sorensen Tuesday, April 12, 2016 2:23 PM

man, this Backchannels is a haunting song. I can't stop listening.

Josh Sorensen Tuesday, April 12, 2016 2:36 PM

I've got my friend Mike listening to Quiet Americans and Backchannels on repeat.2:36 PM

you've touched two lives today.

Josh Sorensen Wednesday, April 13, 2016 9:14 AM

I started my day with Shearwater "Backchannels" on repeat

Josh Sorensen Wednesday, April 13, 2016 9:16 AM

I love the lyric: "put down the knife, The night is here.
But still is spinning out stars in its wake." Dang. so beautiful. And his voice is so weary.

I can't get enough Quiet Americans and Backchannels.

Josh Sorensen Thursday, April 14, 2016 11:49 AM

You're right, “Whither the Americans?!” is a great thing to shout.

Josh Sorensen  Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:16 PM

btw, the last half of Jet Plane and Oxbow was my main entertainment last weekend.

Josh Sorensen  Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:17 PM

I find Stray Lights fascinating. It's a great album ender.

The only track I don't love is Wildlife in America.

Josh Sorensen  Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:18 PM

it'd be hard to follow Pale Kinds.

laugh, kings

Josh Sorensen  Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:21 PM

I should probably save this for the blog, but sometimes when I'm listening to JP&O I feel like I'm listening to Mike and the Mechanics.  The weird thing is I don't even know Mike and the Mechanics beyond their radio singles. one night a week ago or so I went down this strange rabbit hole wondering how the end of the 80's would've looked to Mike and the Mechanics. The onslaught of grunge and rap and r&b. I wonder what the view was like from their seats.

Josh Sorensen  Wednesday, May 18, 2016 12:19 PM

man, we haven't agreed on an album in years.

Since, what, War on Drugs?

Doug's A-Z Listening Experience: Surprise Song Follow-Up

Unlike so many of my goals in life, the A-Z Listening Experience is still going strong. I just plowed into the Is which gives me the chance to give an update on the Surprise Songs from D-H. (Remember, these are songs that I have in my catalog that I have no memory of hearing in the past. So, they cannot be songs where I say: "Oh YEAH! This song is so great!" They have to be total surprises.)

D is for Diggin' Up the Heart by Brandon Flowers. (Disconnecty by Grandaddy was a close second.)

This is off the album that he released last year that a lot of people liked but that I never listened to except in the car with Christina and the kids and even then, the kids kept requesting certain songs. So, I never caught this one and I like it better than anything else on the album because it's a Brandon Flowers Nevada song. The best thing to me about Brandon Flowers is that he continues to write about Las Vegas and, when the characters aren't in Vegas, they are somewhere out in small-town Nevada. When kids from the Sun Belt listen to his stuff, they don't have to try and imagine themselves in New York, the docks, or the Midwest. In this song, it's about a guy who is in prison out in the desert where he can smell the sagebrush when he is out in the yard. Sure, the story in the song could have been about a kid in the Midwest, but because Flowers specifically marks the location in the song (the desert, the girl in the song being Humboldt County queen), it evokes driving through Winnemucca (county seat of Humboldt County) on I-80, coloring the whole song with memories of vast blue skies, blistering heat, sagebrush, and utter emptiness. 

E is for Execution of All Things by Rilo Kiley. 

I have always liked the sound of Rilo Kiley, but there is something in the way that Jenny Lewis swears that is incredibly ugly to me. It seems that in the first few tracks of this album that there were enough of Jenny Lewis swearing to deter me from the whole thing. (Personal preference, of course. Other people might find the way she swears cute or endearing or empowering. I find it ugly. That's the only way I can describe it.) So, I never got to this song which is a great angry song about havoc being rained down on the head of an ex. (This explanation doesn't make sense because this is track three. Whatever.) This is really the apex of Rilo Kiley for me because I like the sound of this album (previous album was kind of boring, next album because really slick) and it isn't marred by the ugly swears. (I can't write this in any less prudish way. Sorry, man.)

F is for Flake by *shudder* Jack Johnson.

That is the most difficult sentence I have ever had to write. I cannot stand anything else I have ever heard by Jack Johnson. I cannot stand his vibe, his voice, his lyrics, everything he stands for. (Laid back dude on the beach with an acoustic guitar who strums idiotic ditties without a shirt but with a shell necklace and all the girls think he is so deep and so talented.) If someone asks me what music I like, part of the description is "...and I cannot stand Jack Johnson." And yet, here I am, completely besotted by Flake. I was shocked that when it first started playing, that I didn't give it an immediate thumbs down like all his other songs. But the songs evolves into something much more interesting and cool by the end and I could not get it out of my head. I spent the rest of the Fs hoping that something else would come along to knock it out of first place. I kept relistening to it, hoping that I was mistaken. Instead, each relisten further confirmed a most inconvenient truth: I liked a Jack Johnson. (Even worse, according to one of my beach bum friends, this was a popular Jack Johnson song back in the day.)

G is for Good Old Days by the Lodger. (Close runner-up: Generate by Collective Soul. Seriously.)

It's a very simple peppy British song. Nothing much to it. Which makes it almost a perfect song. It's like a Whoville Christmas after the Grinch stole it, without all the trimmings and trappings and roast beasts.

H is for Heartbeats by Jose Gonzalez. (Close runner-up: He Seng by Carsick Cars.)

Jose Gonzalez is one of those soft acoustic men from the early 2000s that people recommended to me and when I listened to their albums and thought they sounded same-y. No idea how we go this particular song (it must have been popular because we also have a version of the song that is sung by some chorus), but divorced from the rest of the album, it really shines. 

The lack of Republican Rock

You know I think (likely erroneously) that I am as middle-of the-road as possible when it comes to my politics. I like to think that I am the swing voter that every politician cherishes. Because I think I am middle-of-the-road, I like it when there are viable candidates from both parties, when it seems like both parties are getting their message out there. So, the following is not my endorsement but an attempt to figure out why one side kills it in the political music department and the other is so so terrible.

Fact: Payola by the Desaparecidos is a great album.

Fact: It's also a very political album.

Possible Fact: Conor Oberst when interviewed about the album said something to the effect of "if you only have three minutes to say something, you have to be direct." (Even if this isn't a fact, pretend it is because it makes my point.)

Payola touches on a bunch of different policy areas: immigration, health care, foreign policy, Wall Street are the ones that come to mind but I am sure that there are others. And while Payola is a completely political album (Muse's Drones is another political album from 2015), a number of indie bands at least write political songs.

Fact: All of these songs are from some the same ideological perspective. (I would guess that any political hip hop songs are also going to be from a similar ideological perspective, but I do not listen to hip hop so I can't say for certain.)

Fact: Republicans are so loathed by rock bands (mainstream and indie) that not only can Republicans not get bands to play at their rallies, they can't even get approval from a band to play a recording at their rallies (unless it's Ted Nugent).

Pretty sure a fact but not wanting to look it up: Republicans have anemic support among young voters.

Why? Democrats do a great job in presenting what's wrong with the country and what needs to be fixed. You listen to any of those tracks and Payola and you say, "Yeah! That's a real problem! A guy dying from lack of health care! Immigrant families being treated inhumanely! Wall Street bros getting golden parachutes while the common man is underwater! We need to fix it!" (Note that the messaging is heavy on problems, light on solutions.)

What do mainstream conservatives give you as problems? Over-regulation of small business, activist judges, too much government spending, not enough guns. Try stoking the fires of political activism with that. Try writing a song that will change the minds of others about those issues.

Of course, then you have the Donald Trump branch of conservatism with messages of xenophobia and racism. Much pithier but deplorable messages that if you are a mainstream Republican, you really don't want to see put into a catchy three minute song.

The issue with conservative messaging is that it focuses on the wrong problems. Small business regulation is a boring issue. Declining life expectancy in the Midwest? That's an issue. Opiod addiction? Great issue. Increasing rates of nonmarital births? Oh boy. Declining labor force participation? Bingo. And those topics would be fertile territory for songwriters.

So, let's say I am a Republican candidate and I decide to shift my message to "America has problems. And the problems are with substance abuse and disability and no jobs and suicide" who is the band that I ask to play at my rally? Some country band who sings about patriotism? Not on your life.

Give me...The Offspring.

*Josh clutches his pearls and asks for his smelling salts*

Yes, because amidst the sea of vapid songs, they have a couple that nail the problems that should be the heart of conservative messaging:

(1) Hit That: It's about teen pregnancy, sexual and material irresponsibility, and a condemnation of the hook up culture.



(2) The Kids Aren't All Alright: All the kids on a street grow up and their lives are broken. Drop outs, nonmarital births, drug abuse, suicide.



So, yeah, change the messaging so that it can be articulated in a three-minute rock song. Bring in the Offspring, get them to play for the rally. Bus in some straight edgers. (If you think this is all too 1990s, uh, let me remind you that Dave Matthews just played a Bernie Sanders rally. At least the Offspring have hit singles in the last ten years.) Get other bands on board. Create a Republican music scene.

Because, only then, will we achieve what I think would be the most important step forward in American politics:

Election Eve.
Live.
Battle of the Bands: Democrats vs. Republicans.

Such is my hope, such is my prayer.

Shearwater: The Importance of Removing a Thor from Your Side or Designing Play Names for Tim Tebow

Upfront disclosure: This review will be biased.

Unlike you, I don't send emails/write handwritten notes to bands that I like. I have done it twice. One was a completely unfair request for the Mountain Goats to come back to Salt Lake City something like three months after they played there because I had just discovered the Sunset Tree and I really wanted to see it played live. 

The other time was when I wrote Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater. I was really into the Winged Life album and the Thieves EP (side note: I just hit I Can't Wait on my A-Z Listening Experience and I had the same experience that I had when I first heard it 11 years ago: This guy's voice is incredible), so I was exploring their website and they had a demo up for a song called Turn Your Transmitters Off. I loved the song, but I couldn't understand all the lyrics at one point in the song, so I sent an email to Jonathan Meiburg asking him: "On Turn Your Transmitters Off, what is the missing word in the phrase 'It was a ______ disaster'?" He responded quickly: "It's 'f@#$#$%', I'm afraid." I was impressed that he responded AND that that his response was so gentlemanly. (Side note: Turn Your Transmitters Off became Red Sea, Black Sea on Palo Santo, but *music snob alert* I still prefer the demo.) 

Since that time, I have been all aboard the Jonathan Meiburg/Shearwater train. I have become more and more convinced that Meiburg sharpened Will Sheff's genius and that his leaving Okkervil River in 2008 to focus on Shearwater full-time was a crippling blow to Okkervil River (I don't think that Sheff's fit of nostalgic solipsism that was The Silver Gymnasium [their worst album] happens if Meiburg is still in the band because then Sheff doesn't view himself as the undisputed leader of OR).

One nagging thing I have felt about Shearwater since they became a fully-realized band and not an Okkervil side project is that although their albums were at various times brilliant, they also had some languid moments. (I am talking about the island trilogy of Palo Santo, Rooks, and the Golden Archipelego). Sometimes I felt like that was just part of the band's MO, the quiet, the slow tempos, sometimes breaking out in rampages but many times there was barely anything there. Each of the albums, though, had one really solid loud, fast-tempo song and I always wondered whether there was friction within the band, if someone wanted to go harder and faster and someone wanted to go slower. I read one time that the drummer, named Thor, was a believer in minimalist drumming.

Thor left the band after the Island Trilogy.

The next album, Animal Life, was ferocious. And it was also amazing. There are still some quiet moments, but nothing as torpid as on previous albums.

Which means I was beyond excited for Jet Plane and Oxbow. And, at first, I thought Meiburg had blown it.

Why? Electronics. The album begins with Prime and Prime begins with some synth arpeggios. And that synth stays throughout the song, although ultimately buried in drums and guitar. And then Quiet Americans starts up and it sounds like the beginning of a really great industrial track. Great sound, but not really a classic Shearwater sound. A Long Time Away gets off great, but because I already have the electronic concern in my head, I am much more aware of the little descending synth line that appears throughout the song. And this obsession just grows so that I stop paying attention to the songs and just keep thinking: "Why are they ruining their great sound?"

And then Pale Kings bursts forth and it's just a complete and total Shearwater track in the veins of You As You Were. It's driving, it's radiant, it's upbeat, it is thrilling, it is Shearwater at their finest. And I felt like it's this beautiful gesture from Meiburg saying, "If you were distracted by the electronics, here's this non-electronic gem. The songs, the lyrics, the sounds, they are all still there. Now go back and listen to those first five tracks and realize that the electronics don't factor into them nearly as much as you thought they did." And I went back and listened to those first five tracks with Pale Kings as my reference and absolutely loved them.

But the other surprising thing about the album is that Pale Kings not only unlocks the key to understanding the first five tracks but it also leads you into the spectacular second half that is much more of the Animal Joy sound. (And, in the case of Radio Silence, sounds like a prime British Sea Power cut from the Do You Like Rock Music? era. That guitar line that rips through the song, the call of "disarray", followed by the imploring "I need it I need I need it" is so BSP.)

Now, let's answer the questions:

How many football plays for Tim Tebow can you make from derivations of the title of the album?
(1) Jet Plane and Tebow: Zone read for Tebow with a really fast halfback as the option.
(2) JetBow and Oxplane: Sprint out for Tebow with a fullback in the flat as a safety valve
(3) TePlane and Oxbow: Goal line play, O line forms an oxbow, Tebow makes like a plane and flies over the line into the end zone
(4) Jet Plane Te "is a freaking ox"Bow: Short yardage, shotgun play, Tebow makes like a fullback and plows ahead like an ox.
The answer is 4 plays.

Which song title do I always get wrong in my head? Pale Kings. Every time I think of the name of the song, I think it is called White Knights. Meiburg's title is better.

Which song could be played during the credits of a Jerry Lewis movie to help people feel forget that the movie had no real ending?
None. But maybe, if you translated Stray Light at Clouds Hill into French, it could work some magic.

Which song should you not play during the credits of a Jerry Lewis movie because it would further the ennui of the patrons?
That would be Long Time Away. "I just watched 90 minutes of a movie about a sad clown without an ending? And now there is a song telling me that I have been a long time away from my life where anything would have been better than suffering through this?" *spiking ennui levels*

Let's say you are in line for a concert at the 9:30 Club and in a flash of an eye, you are caught in a snob-off about this album with a bearded doughy fellow. What's the winning criticism?
"Electronics" is too obvious, and it's likely the shiv that beardo has brought to the fight. You gotta go with track sequencing. "I mean, it's a brilliant album, but Pale Kings is such a rush that you have to put a really quality track right after it. And Only Child just starts off so small that it just kills some of the momentum of the album. Glass Bones should be track 7." Beardo hasn't considered it. You just pulled a Marion-drinking-game-in-Tibet move. Collect your winnings. (I think some metaphors got mixed in there...)

Grade: A+

Best of the No-Skip Albums

Herein I attempt to reply to your challenge of the Best No-Skip Albums while attempting to adhere to your wishy-washy criteria.

I refuse to put a pleasant album on here that can just drift by without me caring one way or the other. And I refuse to make this a complete list:

Radiohead - The Bends

Muse - Absolution

Muse - Origin of Symmetry

U2 - Joshua Tree

U2 - Achtung Baby

REM - Green

REM - Fables of the Reconstruction (Hey, what's this doing here? This isn't an REM classic!)

Guster - Goldfly

Guster - Lost and Gone Forever (I frequently use the name of this album in both UMD and primary classes)

Idlewild - Warnings/Promises

Idlewild - Make Another World

Idlewild - The Remote Part

Obi - THE ENTIRE FREAKING CATALOG OF OBI!! THE ALBUMS, THE B-SIDES!! WHEN WE DIE, PEOPLE WILL ASK US WHAT ERA WE LIVED IN AND WE WILL SAY "WHEN OBI'S MUSIC WAS AVAILABLE" AND PEOPLE WILL FALL DOWN AND WORSHIP US!

Isolde et Les Bens - L'Inconnu (only chose so as to appear pretentious)

The Standard - Wire Post to Wire

The Standard - Swimmer

Ivan and Alyosha - It's All Just Pretend

Parts and Labor - Constant Future

Parts and Labor - Receivers

Pela - Anytown Graffiti

Arcade Fire - Funeral

Better than Ezra - Deluxe

Of Monsters and Men: EVERYTHING THEY HAVE EVER DONE!! WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?? EVEN THE TOSSED AWAY SONG THEY CONTRIBUTED TO THE HUNGER GAMES SOUNDTRACK!! CELEBRATE THEM WHILE THEY LAST!!!

Belle and Sebastian - Boy with the Arab Strap

Black Keys - El Camino

Shins - Chutes Too Narrow

This is getting too long. Which means I am probably a liar. I am sure I hate one song on some of these albums, that I finally snap and say: "No! I have heard enough out of you Win Butler! SKIP!"

Jimmy Eat World - Bleed American

Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism

I can't keep going. I have too many. I am afraid I have failed. You set me up.

Elf Power - Walking With the Beggar Boys

See, now I am just putting down the names of albums! I could listen to Elf Power all the way through or I could skip every song saying: "Stop listening to a band named Elf Power! Stop believing in Elf Power! Stop saying those incantations to imbue yourself with self-said power!"

This list ends now.

The A-Z Listening Experience

To the reader: At the beginning of the year, I was listening to WTMD and they were playing some songs following a certain theme and I thought back to when 107.5 used to do the A-Z weekend where they played songs in alphabetical order. And then it hit me. I should do my own personal A-Z weekend except that it would likely take all year. I have since dubbed it my A-Z Listening Experience. Critics (Josh) have (has, because it is really only one person) described the quest as "brave," "daring," "quixotic," and "chilling." (Josh has also embarked upon his own A-Z Listening Experience.)

To Josh, because I need to get back to the dialogue form of this blog: What I didn't tell the readers in my note above and may have been something I have feared mentioning in our ongoing dialogues, is that this experience was partially driven by my insane desire to make my music feel nurtured and loved. The last two years, I have been pursuing the new on Spotify and after I finally pull the trigger to purchase a song or an album, I take it off my Spotify lists. It sits and sulks in my music catalog, looking haughtily at its new companions who seem so old and dated. Mystify (INXS) introduces itself and says, "Ah, yes, Doug once loved me, used to break into a run while mowing the lawn when I came on. But, that was long ago. The pain will subside soon enough." The new song (let's call it The Beigeness) doesn't respond. Just patiently waits for some device somewhere to summon it and let it entertain as it did so often through Spotify. But as the days and weeks pass, hope withers and it knows that when it is called upon, it might only decide to play itself at 128 kbps, not 256 kbps. 

That withering is what I am trying to stop. The clarion call has gone out: "We shall all be listened to!" Old songs and young songs alike are shaving, taking a bath, spritzing themselves with lavender and bay leaves, and lining themselves up, alphabetically, for their chance to shine. Some are nervous, having sat idly for a decade. Others are excited, for they somehow entered the catalog without a listen at the great Merging of Catalogs that took place in 2003. Others are terrified, for they they that there are rumors of a trimming. Or will it be a purge? Love Voodoo heard from Dandy Life who smugly heard from Creep that only a select few will remain standing at the end of harvest, that where once three songs stood, only one will remain. But Brilliant Fake heard from Death of a Party that this is just a showcase and that those who will be cut have already been marked for death. (Brilliant Fake reported that Death of a Party had pointed at the blissfully-unaware Bubbly Toes and made a hand gesture much like unto a guillotine blade falling.)

And how they have performed! From the opening wailing of the bagpipe of A A Cameron by the Queen's Own Highlanders through Deliver Me (where I was as of last Friday), it has been a panoply of sounds. Here are some themes:

(1) The best surprise songs in each letter thusfar

• A is for All Too Well by Taylor Swift. It's like I suddenly understood why every teenage girl freaking loves her. Not for the stupid singles, but for these deep cuts that sound like she is narrating their lives. (I don't think I have ever though much about her song-writing until she dropped the line "so casually cruel in the name of being honest" and I thought "I wish I had said that. And I wish someone had been casually cruel to me in the name of being honest when I was a teenager. Because then I could have freaking scrawled this on a desk in Algebra 2.")
• B is for Bronx Sniper by Mister Heavenly. Nicky Thornburn's best song by a long chalk. So stompy and aggressive. Has the same rhythms of the best Franz Ferdinand songs. And it's tight unlike his Unicorns work.
• C is for The Crush by Matt Pond PA. I bought this album on a whim at a used CD store and never really listened to it. My problem with Matt Pond PA is that they never really get above a certain tempo. Way too many of their songs are pretty boring pieces of languidity. This thing is tight and killer with not one but two guitar solos. Indie rock instead of indie chamber pop.

(2) The Smashing Pumpkins album Adore is loaded with songs that have titles between A and D. And they are all blah. I have always wondered if I have given that album short shrift. I wonder no longer. Begone Billy!

(3) Ten different versions of The Christmas Song. Ten! And it is amazing how they vary in quality. (Idina Menzel is the worst by a long shot.)

(4) There are moments when a song comes charging on and you realize you have missed it for so long. Behind the Wheel just grabbed me by the collar and shook me and said: "Do you remember when you were going to make a music video for me featuring your friend Eric and a girl driving in the rain because you were too big of a loser to actually be the one in the car with a girl? Remember that? WHERE'S MY #@$#@% VIDEO???" It then slapped me across the face. I tasted by own blood and felt alive.

(5) The great embarrassments: 

• Apparently, I really like Matchbox 20's second and third album. At least the songs with titles in the A-D range.
• I sang along to Howie Day's Collide and gave it a strong thumbs up. 
• I thumbs-downed a British Sea Power song because it was, as I have adamently refused to admit to myself, very very boring.
• I listened to a Joy School song all the way through before deleting it.

No-Skip Albums

I apologize for the formatting of this post.  I started in Word and the pasted in Blogger and tried to make corrections.  

......

I’ve been thinking lately about why I feel like I’ve been listening to the same things over and over.  Mind you—it's good stuff, but it does seem repetitive.  I think I’ve got it figured out.  But it’s kind of a long story.

It all began on a snowy Utah Christmas Day back in 2015.  My wife gave me a set of headphones for Christmas.  Now these headphones were great and I was really surprised and super pumped to receive them.  However, there were on-ear headphones and apparently I have super sensitive ears because by the end of the day, my ears were sore.  I knew that I would need to return them and get a pair of over the ear headphones.  So, after about a week of agonizing over choices I finally settled on a different pair.  I’m very pleased with these headphones.  However, one of the features missing on this set of cans is inline control.  I was somewhat concerned about not having this feature but sound quality takes all and I tried to max out sound quality for my price range. 

One thing you probably know about my wife and me—we have a deal: she cooks dinner, I clean up.  I have no problem with this deal because she’s a fantastic cook and I love to eat good food.  However, we don’t have a dishwasher, so I’m guessing it takes me a bit longer than the average American to clean up dinner. I really don’t mind this, though, because somedays the only time I have to seriously listen to music is when I do the dishes after dinner so I don’t mind an extra 15-30 minutes.

So, getting back to the lack of inline control, since I got the new headphones I’ve been choosing albums that I know I like every song on the album to listen to so I don’t have to dry my hands off to pull my phone out of my pocket to skip the song.  (I’m not a playlist listener.). I’ve been choosing my safest, most complete top-to-bottom albums.  I’ve been listening to many of the same albums because I didn’t realize what I was doing.  But now I’m aware of what I’m doing it’s got me thinking: what are my favorite albums that I love every song?  This may seem kind of redundant to “What are my favorite albums?” but I think it’s different.  Maybe it’s not different for everyone.  For me, I think there are albums that are so incredibly well crafted that I don’t believe there is a single weakness (e.g. War on Drugs Lost in the Dream, Radiohead Kid A) but there may be songs I don’t necessarily “like;” they are albums I tend to devote a more careful or intentional listen to.  So, maybe for most people, there isn’t a difference in what I’m saying, but for the sake of this post I’m asking: What are your best no-skip albums? These are albums that may not be best of the best but they have NO SKIPS, no regrets, no fear of letting the album run through to the end without having to cringe at least a little bit.

This is what I’ve come up with so far:

·       The National

o   Alligator

o   Boxer

·         Weezer—The Blue Album

·         The Features—Exhibit A

·         Cake—Fashion Nugget

·         The Thermals—F’n A (edited for your sake)

·         AMFM

o   Getting into Sinking

o   Mutilate Us

·         The Beatles

o   The White Album*

o   Sgt. Pepper

·         Mates of State—Bring it Back

·         The Shins—Chutes Too Narrow

·         Vampire Weekend

o   Vampire Weekend

o   Contra

o   Modern Vampires of the City

·         Pavement—Crooked Rain

·         The Killers—Hot Fuss

·         Bright Eyes—I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning

·         Neutral Milk Hotel—Aeroplane*

·         Spoon

      Kill the Moonlight
      A Series of Sneaks

·         James—Laid

·         REM

o   Green

o   New Adventures in Hi-Fi

·         Possum Dixon—Possum Dixon

·         Unicorns—Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone?

·         Islands—Return to the Sea

·         Jane’s Addiction—Ritual de lo Habitual

·         Smashing Pumpkins—Siamese Dream

·         War on Drugs—Lost in the Dream*

·         Boat—Setting the Paces

·         The Cure—Disintegration*

·         LCD Soundsystem—Sounds of Silver

·         Okkervil River—The Stage Names

·         The Mountain Goats—The Sunset Tree

·         The White Stripes—De Stijl

·         Depeche Mode—Violator*

·         Violent Femmes

o   Violent Femmes

o   3

o   Why Do Birds Sing?

·         The Vaccines—What Did You Expect From The Vaccines

·         Radiohead—Kid A*

·         The Long Winters—When I Pretend to Fall

·         The Boat People—Dear Darkly

·         Wilco—Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

·         Flaming Lips—Yoshimi

·         The Walkmen—Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone*

*Because I’m still not positive I can separate my “Best of” list from   my “No Skips” list, I’m including some “Best of” albums here    that I don’t usually listen to casually.  They are indicated with the  asterisk.

That’s a pretty good handful of albums.  And it was helpful to me to list them all out like that so I can see what I’m dealing with.  I have given myself a much broader list of no-skip albums to work with.  And I can definitely say that some of my all-time favorite albums are on this list, but not every album on this list is an all-time fav.  Cake, Mates of State, The Vaccines, James, The Features?  Entertaining, but not all-time greats.  However, I wouldn’t hesitate to put on their album and let it run through without having to worry about skipping.