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Jan. 3rd, 2009

Some Sort of Top 5 List

location: Brooklyn
Another six months have passed since I've written. I'm still working as a publisher, still living in Brooklyn with two wonderful roommates, still single, and still writing music on the side (that's another story though). I don't have the energy to do some exhaustive post, but this year was a good one for me, musically speaking. I'd like to present the top five albums that I discovered this past year (although they need not be from 2008):

5) GunFight! - Hide Your Empties EP (2008)

Ok, so I am definitely biased about this band being one of the best bands I've heard in a long time considering have known some of the members since high school. As it turns out, Drew (vocals, guitar) and I were not exactly best of buds back in school, but time has healed whatever wounds there were (if there even were any). I first saw these guys playing with some friends in Westchester a few summers ago, and I've been keeping up with the guys minimally since. Now that the members of the band all reside in Brooklyn and have been playing a number of shows in the Borough of Kings, I have had about a half-dozen chances to see them this year; all have been great.

They play some mutant form of roots music that they like to call "Post Country". No its not Rockabilly or Psychobilly (thats what I said at first, until Drew rebuked me), but more of a hybrid of Indie Rock, Punk, and Classic Country. Imagine The Strokes guitarists fronted by a shrill Hank Williams with classic country bass and Tommy Ramone on drums. Yeah, chew on that for a while. The EP is a good balance of ballad-esque (at least, as ballad-esque as this sort of music can be) and hard-drinking tunes played at break-neck speed (ok ok, maybe sprain-neck speed). If you have a chance, go check them out here. Best songs are: All You Need and Empties.

4) Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God (2008)

Oh Metal. I have renewed my love of metal this year, after some mediocre years past. I don't know how I found this album, but somehow I got my hands on a copy and it is fantastic. Every song is brutal, fast, hard, and somehow related to Norse mythos which, if I had my way, all metal would be. Apparently there is some controversy amongst Amon Amarth fans, some of whom believe the album to be too well produced, too melodic, and too mainstream. Cry me a fucking river: this album is great. After doing some research into their older recordings, they are absolutely right in saying that the album is more melodic and has better production, but I am sick of "purists" who suggest that this is a bad thing. The individual instruments are so well balanced on the record, that the sound is a million times better than previous efforts.

Check out the guitar work on the title track (especially at about the 3:20 mark), and the heavy heavy heavy riffs on Varyags of Miklaagard and Guardians of Asgaard (both are suburbs of Valhalla, I think). I think my favorite song, lyrically speaking, has got to be Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags:

There comes Lopt, the treacherous
He stands against the gods
His army grim and ravenous
Lusting for their blood

So fucking metal. The album is full of gems like this one, and you can order it here.

3) The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta! (2006)

I am a big fan of Mitch Clem's seminal webcomic Nothing Nice to Say. Chicago pop-punk band The Lawrence Arms are mentioned a few times, and Mitch had done some concert flyers with their name on it. Despite the number of people I know who listen to punk (or at least punk-related) music, nobody I know has ever heard of them, let alone listened to them. So I downloaded an album of the old stuff, did some research, and bought Oh! Calcutta! when I saw it at a record store here in Brooklyn. It is brilliant, and has been on constant repeat since I bought it over the summer.

Lyrically stunning and musically driving, the album is everything a good punk album should be, replete with sing-along parts that only the die-hards will be able to keep up with at a live show, interesting little stops/starts, and an overall coherent sound. The best track is most definitely Devil's Taking Names, which has shot up to number 2 on my top 25 most played songs playlist on iTunes; right behind "Ante Up" by Bane, which I have had on my computer for like 6 years. You can buy the album here.

2) Noah and the Whale - Peaceful, the World Lays Me Down (2008)

Another instance where I don't know how or where I heard of this band, but I am exceedingly glad that I did.  This is one of the poppiest, most delightful records I have ever had the pleasure of listening to.  Ever.  All of the songs manage to be original, fun, slightly bittersweet, and a pleasure to listen to.  This is one of the few albums I heard this year where every song is very good with most approaching excellent or amazing.  Great use of ukelele, pennywhistle, and other folk instruments, simple chord structure, and a handosme baritone voice all lend themselves well to the lovelorn songwriting.  As someone who is trying to write an album of simple, story-telling, folk songs, this shows be that it can be done, and it can be done brilliantly.  It doesn't hurt that every woman I have played this for has loved it (along with most of the guys, but that doesn't do anything for me).  Find their Noah Baumbach/Wes Anderson obsessed website here.  Best songs are Jocasta, Five Years Time, and Rocks and Daggers.

1) Midlake - The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

This album was suggested to me by a friend in late 2007, but I didn't get around to listening to it until January of 2008.  It has honestly changed the way I think about music and songwriting.  Midlake plays some pretty indescribably and uncategorizable music, but it might be somewhat handy to think of them as a mixture of 70's folk-rock (Jethro Tull), progressive/synth-rock (Styx or Rush, I am sure there are better examples, this is not a genre I know well), and more modern stuff (Radiohead, Grandaddy).  They use a number of different synth effects with their well orchestrated instruments.  This is one band that gives me the feeling that all of the members really understand their role in the cohesiveness of the band's sound, which is a rare thing.

From what I understand, the album is a concept album featuring the story of a scientist (Van Occupanther) and his young bride.  They move out to a remote farmhouse, but are robbed by bandits and must go on a journey to survive the winter.  Oh, and I think it is set in 1891.  On this cd, I have all of the songs ranked at least 4-out-of-5, and the overall vibe of the album helps to make it a perfect 5-out-of-5, putting it in such illustrious company as Joanna Newsom's "Ys", Bane's "Give Blood", and Coheed & Cambria's "Second Stage Turbine Blade" on my all-time top albums list.  The melodies are complex, at times haunting, and at other times simply beautiful.  Effects are used well, and not overdone, while the vocal harmonies are simply brilliant.  If you only listen to one album on this list, let it be this one.  I will personally guarantee that you will enjoy it.  Band website here.  Best songs: Roscoe, Bandits, Young Bride, Head Home, and It Covers the Hillsides (but really, all of them are good).
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Aug. 3rd, 2008

Trusty Chords

It has been one long year since I last posted to this journal.  Where have I been?  What have I been doing?

I graduated from college in June of 2007 with a fantastically interesting but utterly useless BA in both Comparative Religion and World History in Montréal, and (like many of my compatriots) promptly moved back to my mother's house in suburban New York.  For a few months I languished in the glory of post-graduate suburbia: drinking with old friends every night, sleeping until noon everyday, and having delicious, home-cooked meals every night.  For a time it was good.  But then I became stir crazy.

"I hate this place, but I love these chords
An empty fate just means an even score"

  It seems mothers have trouble delineating between 16-year-old sons and 22-year-old sons.  Here I am, a twenty-two-year-old MAN, who has accomplished much, and I have a curfew?  This was not what I signed up for!  Where are the undergraduate girls who would be impressed by my BA?  Where are the throngs of exciting job offers from ingenious companies working to make the world a better place?  Where are all of the grad schools calling to offer me a scholarship?  I had to get out.

Getting a BA can be difficult.  Getting a well-paying job with said BA is exceedingly difficult.  Getting that job and being happy with it after a few months is nigh on impossible.  My first job out of school was writing the script for an upcoming documentary on Zen.  "Cool!" you think, "Isn't Zen, like, your thing?"  Why yes, Zen is, like, my thing.  I spent three years studying Zen, trying hard to get deeper beneath all of the pseudo-hippie, Kerouac-esque, New Age crap.  I had an amazing professor for those years, a man who was a retired Rinzai Zen monk from Japan.  I was good at Zen, or at least at writing about it academically.  This was going to be perfect.

Unfortunately for me, the producer of the Zen documentary was a New Age, pseudo-hippie who was under the false impression that Zen was all about happiness and farts.  I quickly realized that I could not write the kind of documentary he wanted without selling out my own understanding of the subject matter, something I felt extremely uncomfortable about since my more punk years.  Besides, they were paying me peanuts and would not have adopted anything I would have come up with.  So it was time to hit the internet for a job search.

I went on a couple monster.com interviews, but there was no way that I could sell insurance in Nyack, New York, I would just hate myself forever.  After many months and many more applications/resumes sent out into the abyss, I was hurting for cash and a reason to get up in the morning.  My dad, seeing my plight (and probably getting an earful from my mom) offered me a "Summer Internship" at his book publishing company in NYC.  Seriously interested in the $15/hour part-time schedule and the idea of working in New York, I accepted.  "Hey," I thought, "publishing is a necessary industry!  I don't feel bad working in a corporate environment so long as we are peddling something so honest and usefull as books!"  A publisher was born.

"Its a gamble, double-down or don't,
Step out if you want to, stay in if you're bold"

My dad was excited to have his son "in the business" and pushed me to take a more permanent position.  Knowing how my dad and I operated, I declined and, when work got slow around the office, I started sending out more resumes within the publishing industry.  I hadn't found anything by the time my internship was up, so I left my dad's company knowing a bit about the industry and having met some good people who offered to help me find a job.  Within a few months I was interviewing at the big houses: Houghton Mifflin, Scholastic, Harper Collins, Random House, etc.  Eventually I accepted an Assistant Managing Editor position in the children's division of one of these houses (I'll give you a hint, I would never work for a company owned by Rupert Murdoch).

Ok, so now that I have the job, it is time for an apartment in the city and a girlfriend.  Easy right?  No, like so much of my naïvete, I grossly underestimated the difficulty of both.  It took me six long months of looking to find an apartment with a nice lesbian couple in Park Slope.  They kicked me out ten days after I moved in (not my fault, I swear), but that is a whole other story.

To be continued...

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Jun. 19th, 2007

This Side of the Blue

location: Shrub Oak, NY
mood: melancholy
music: Television's "Marquee Moon"
We first met during my second year at university, in a class I was doomed to fail.  She was really shy, more so than I, and she could usually only manage a smile towards me each day in class.  As time went on, I tried to get some conversation out of her, managing very little until the day she asked me to be her partner for a class project.  That night she called me and we went over our project for a while, with me trying to sneak in some personal conversation.  I told her I would make her a mix CD, and I ended up bringing in about a dozen the next day in class.  I could honestly say that I had a crush on her from the moment we spoke.

As time went on, we studied and hung out together more and more frequently and most afternoons saw her over at my apartment, either reading or baking or watching High Fidelity with me.  She told me about her life in the midwest, about her boyfriend and their small town.  She told me about her hopes, and about quirky little things she enjoys like Edward Gorey, well-bound books, and writing long letters on fancy paper.  The only thing that stung was tales about her boyfriend, reminding me how I was made to want and not to have.  I held my tongue, not wanting to make her uncomfortable or scare her off by telling her how much I wanted her.
I'm in the high point of my night, I feel so lost, impressive life,
All this time with the Marquee Moon, hesitating.
That summer she went home to Minnesota, broke up with her boyfriend, and began to write me the most amazing letters.  I still have them, in an old shoebox with some belt-buckles of mine.  Each is written on a number of pieces of paper, some torn from magazines, some salvaged from recycling bins.  Each is genuine and they all made me feel strangely perplexed and hopeful at the same time.  She really understands the craft of writing; the art of carefully choosing her canvas and words so that each page has its own distinct feeling yet, somehow, form a cohesive whole: perfect in its rough and patched-together nature.  I knew that when we got back to school, it was time to make my move.
I'm in the high point of my life, I feel so impressive, life,
All this time with the Marquee Moon, but I ain't waitin'.
Flash forward to my third year at school and (after a brief and somewhat awkward courtship) we are together, learning more an more about ourselves and each other.  She is sweet, and selfless, always giving and offering.  I try to do the same and before we know it, our relationship becomes about bending over backwards for each other, constantly trying to preempt the other one's needs and offering whatever we have before it is asked (and we never really asked for help anyway).  20 months we were together; my first serious, long-term relationship.

But, as all good things must come to an end, and every sales pitch has a catch, so to did she and I find a snag in our perfect relationship.  Maybe it was obvious, but she is a year younger than I am, still studying at university for another year while I am off to a new city to try and make my fortune in something that I do not yet know.  Her plan is to finish school and then volunteer for NGOs for a few years while she decides to do something else.  Since we bend over backwards and never ask for anything, neither of us would (or should) ask the other to change their plans for the sake of the relationship, and neither of us would want the other too either.  So perfect we broke up.
I spoke to the man down at the tracks, 
And I asked him how he don't go mad,
He said: "Look here, junior, don't you be so happy, 
And for Heaven's sake, don't you be so sad."
Should one of us have been selfish?  Should I have changed my plans to follow her all over the world?  Maybe.  But at the end of the day, I'm not one for regret: it takes time away from memory.
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Apr. 18th, 2007

Starting Again

location: Montréal, QC
mood: awake
music: Bane "It All Comes Down to This"
I was a 15 year old kid...
OK so I was actually 17 when Jon introduced me to hardcore.  We were hanging out after work; I had called my mom to tell her that the boss wanted me to stay late so she wouldn't bug me about being out late.  Jon's girlfriend Brooke had shown up, and she was laying on the trunk of his car when he and I came outside.  They had started going out a few weeks before, and I barely knew her.  She put out her cigarette and ran over to Jon, jumping on him and wrapping her legs around him.  I got a less enthusiastic, but still friendly "Hey Mike."

"First thing's first.  You have to hear this Bane album," Jon said, popping a CD into the car stereo, "The new album comes out next week and I am so stoked."  What came out of the car was the most beautiful noise I had ever heard.  At first it was tough to pick out individual melodies, harmonies, or lyrics from the overall sonic assault, but once I keyed in on the particulars of the music, I realized just how amazing it was.  The guitars had the unique ability to move from crazy lead riff to a barely noticeable background drone of gutteral animosity.  Then the music stopped, and only the rhythmic "chugga chugga" of a breakdown could be heard echoing through the parking lot.  Jon started to dance, but like I had never seen anyone dance before: fists clenched, arms swinging, legs jabbing out at unseen targets.  It was just us three in the parking lot, Brooke was smoking on the car with a satisfied look on her face while I sat awestruck on the curb.  Jon stopped, color fading from his fists, "Its good, right?"

...with nowhere to fit in, I just wanted to skate...
I had a few close friends at school, but most relationships I had with others were more acquaintances than friends.  I hung out with a bunch of stoners and "punks" without any affiliation toward either, with my main friends and I sort of moving in and out of the static high school cliques.  I was in Honors classes with a group of kids year after year so that, after so many classes together we knew each other well enough, but I didn't really hang out with them outside school.

The rest of my school was kind of a blur of jocks and hipsters, some nice people here and there, but few ever really made any attempt at conversation beyond, "That test was hard, huh?"  I remember dreading gym class because I was overweight and less of an athlete than most other kids in class.  And so it went for four years; hanging out with a small core group of friends while chumming it up with the other nerds during class.

Most nights after school, I went to the gym my mom worked at to workout for a few hours before hading home for schoolwork and hours of videogames.  I loved RPG's like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Final Fantasy X, but my real favorites were RTS games for my computer like the Warcraft and Starcraft series.  Plus, I worked in toy store selling games, so I could at least pretend I was doing "research".  Working at the store introduced me to Jon, and Jon introduced me to a whole slew of people and bands, an entire scene of music and expression that I didn't even know existed.

...listen to my Suicidal tape...
I first started actively listening to music (to differentiate from hearing music in the passive sense) when I got my stereo for my twelfth birthday.  I had no idea which stations were good (read: cool) so I asked a random kid in class the next day which station he listened to.  I went home that day and tuned my radio to Z-100.3, the Top 40 station in New York City.  Apart from the occasional rock- or punk-esque (as much as Blink 182 can be considered punk) jams they occasionally blessed us with, the listening was mostly dance, pop, r&b, and shitty mainstream rap, not that my senses were highly developed at this point.

One day, after I heard that God damn Titanic theme one-too-many times, I switched to the classic rock station that my dad had listened to when I was a kid (92.3 K-Rock, "Howard Stern in the morning, classic rock all day long").  To my surprise the format had changed to more modern "rock" but they played a bunch of classics too like Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and The Doors.  For the most part I was into the mainstream rock acts until I began working at the toy store, having an unhealthy dose of Nirvana, Linkin Park, Korn, Deftones, Green Day, Blink 182, 311, and (God dammit, the shame) Limp Bizkit.  Hanging out with Jon was about to change all that.

...when someone told me about a place where the strange were accepted, and judged by what's inside...
My first hardcore show will be an event forever etched in my memory.  I was 17 or 18, and I had finally convinced my slightly overprotective mom to let me go to a concert (or as I would come to call it, "show") a few towns over with Jon.  I was really excited, although I didn't even know who was playing, or what they would sound like.  The show was at a venue called Dock 73, which was a converted storage facility in a blue-collar neighborhood, right next to some train tracks (so friggin' Punx).  The winding halls that lead to the music room were thick with cigarette smoke, as a bunch of teens and early 20-somethings hung around chatting and listening to the discordant echoes as they bounced around the concrete and steel structure.  These people were dressed differently than anybody I had ever met, with tons of patches and metal studs clumsily sewn to leather jackets, hair spiked and dyed, and boots painted.  I felt like I had stepped into a movie, a documentary about the early 1980's punk scene in New York.  Suffice it to say, I was a little blown away.

We made our way through the crowd, paid our $5, and piled into an overcrowded room with two huge PA speakers offsetting a stage no more than six inches high.  A band was on stage, tuning in between tracks.  They began to play that beautiful noise that Jon had played for me in the parking lot some time ago.  The room erupted into a seething pit of fists and boots, bodies flying everywhere in some sort of magnificent organized chaos.  Every so often, someone would fall, the pit would open up, and the person would be carried out of it unscathed.  Kids were jumping off the speakers into the crowd of hands waiting to pass them over our heads.  The breakdown began and a hole opened up in the center of the pit.  One by one guys (and a few girls) flailed in perfect time to the "chugga chugga" of the guitar; some kicked, some punched, some did orchestrated moves, some just flailed about chaotically.  Feeling moved like never before, I jumped into the pit, swung my arms in wide circles, and kicked like an angry mule (and probably looked like an ass) for about 20 seconds before I exited the pit the way I came in.  The band's songs seldom lasted more than a minute, and before I knew it, Go! For the Throat was done with their set, packing up for their trip back to Philadelphia.

A space opened up as one band moved stuff off stage and anther moved stuff on.  Only this next band had a female vocalist...

...a scene of truly open minds.
The next band maneuvered their amps and heads gingerly through the crowd until one of the guys caught eyes with Jon.  "See that guy?" Jon asked, pointing to the short, stocky, guitarist setting up his rig, "That's Brooke's ex-boyfriend.  He wants to fight me, I could take him, right?"  I looked back and forth between the guitarist and Jon.  "No way." I replied, straight faced, "Dude, he'd wreck you."

In all honesty, the band that went up was an only mediocre 4-piece with a pretty girl on vocals.  She stood out the most among the musicians on stage, but unlike Go! For the Throat, nobody really danced until the breakdowns (possibly because most of the crowd had cleared out after G!FTT had finished).  The guitars were good, and the drums and bass were passable, but the girl's voice was awesome among the heavy undertones.  A while after they finished playing, I saw the singer standing by herself in the hall and I made it a point to say how much I liked her singing.  She seemed genuinely grateful for my compliment and she introduced herself as Carly.  The guitarist came up to us while we were chatting and, extending his hand said, "Hey bro, whats your name?"  I introduced myself and found out that this guy, who I came to call Hardcore Rob, had a really firm handshake to the point of being a little threatening.  "I was just telling Carly how much I liked the set" I offered, a little sheepishly.  "Oh, right on dude.  We thanks for coming out" Rob replied, turning to carry his last bit of equipment to his car.  I got the distinct impression that Rob didn't like me too much, probably due to the fact that I was seen with Jon pointing and whispering about him.  It is funny how some of the best friendships start out so wrong.

Do you still believe?  I do.
As chance would have it, the second band I saw that night was called Ash Return; a band that I would later join and play with for about a year.  Ash Return was never the best band in the scene: our songwriting needed work and none of us were virtuosos on our given instruments.  But we played 30+ shows while I was in the band, and wrote some really good songs.  The music changed and kept evolving, we kept playing, and I kept on enjoying myself for that entire year.  For me, the experience of being in that band, of sharing both amazing highs and depressing lows with a few bright, caring people mattered more than a successful record or legions of fans (we had three, on a good day).  What's more, Rob would become somewhat of a mentor and big brother to me, really showing his magnanimous character during my most trying times, especially when my parents got divorced.

By the time I left for college in 2003, the scene had changed; or maybe we had changed beyond recognition of our former selves.  What was a huge group of caring, nonjudgemental, and creative minds had dwindled to a handful of hipsters and scene politicos who sucked all the life out of the game.  But the scene was not the important part; after all, it is only the sum of its parts.  When I go to Westchester these days, and see Rob and Jon (who made up after Brooke and Jon broke up) I still see those truly open minds.  If you ask me if I still believe, I do.
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Apr. 17th, 2007

Counting the Cars on the New Jersey Turnpike

location: Montréal, QC
mood: rejuvenated
music: Paul Simon's "Concert in the Park"
Each summer and some spontaneous points during the year, my family would pack up the car and take the trip to my dad's parents' house in New Jersey.  Coming from Westchester, NY it was an unusually long trip and brought us, invariably, to either the New Jersey Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway.  Besides my grandparents' house, this was all I knew of New Jersey.  I remember waking up early in the morning, getting some bagels at the local bagelry and speeding off toward the highway with my dad at the wheel and mom sitting looking out the passenger window.  Eventually we were joined in these epic journeys by my little sister, who slept in her carseat until we hit a bump which woke her.  She'd then ask how long it would be before we could see grandma and grandpa, grumble at the response, and go back to sleep.

For those lucky souls who have never had the unique experience of driving through New Jersey, please allow me to give you a brief description.  You come into Jersey (from New York) with a full view of the New York City skyline and you would wish, with every ounce of your being, that you were actually headed into the City for the day.  The huge co-op apartment buildings would give way to suburbs as we go onto the highway.  After leaving the skyline behind you come to a tangled web of causeways, entrance and exit ramps, and rest stops that resembles a concrete rosebush, except for the noted absence of flowers.  Eventually things calm down as you hit the swamps; brackish, sandy, long-grass ridden bogs with little or no human agency available for the eye to see.  The swamps bleed into industrial park after chemical plant.  Oil containers whiz by for miles, and the stench of rotten eggs hangs thick in the air.  Whenever I heard the word "pollution" I immediately thought of these industrial horrors spewing smoke of green-gray hue into the usually blue sky.  After the loading docks and ports, you would eventually drive along the pine barrens, which were ok, I guess.  If you head far enough down, you drive along a short but very long hill and you can see the ocean with little beach towns dotting the shore.  Thats when I knew to look for Atlantic City, and then Wildwood so I could see the ferris wheels on the boardwalk.  Thats when I knew we weren't that far from Cape May: one of two good things in New Jersey (the other is Camp YMCA Ralph S. Mason, in case you were wondering).

We only had a handful of tapes in the car such as, "Who's Next" and "Tommy" by the Who, "Strange Days" by The Doors, "Teaser and the Firecat" by Cat Stevens, "Speaking in Tongues" by The Talking Heads, and The Beatles' "White Album" (a very obvious list as my parents were adolescents of the 70's).  However the one album that was played most in the car was Paul Simon's "Concert in the Park", a live double-album recorded in 1991 at New York City's Central Park.  Both of my parents loved this album and we usually just exchanged one tape for the other until my dad would say, "OK, thats enough Paul Simon for now.  Lets put on The Who or something."  My mom would oblige, for she was always in charge of the music rotation while dad was driving.

The record is great, replete with members of Olodum who played backup percussion and rhythm instruments as well as backup vocals on some tracks.  My favorite was the bassist who ripped a few lead-lines that, even at the age of 8, i recognized to be pretty fucking nasty.  I also liked how the album was a constant up-and-down cycle of songs, moving from jumpy tunes like "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard" and "You Can Call Me Al" to ballads like "The Sound of Silence" and "Bridge Over Troubled Water", a song that both of my parents felt compelled to sing; the only time (in my memory) that they sung together.  The album would go on and on, with hit after hit until, just as we were getting a bit tired of it:

Let us be lovers we'll marry our fortunes together.
I've got some real estate here in my bag.

"America" is my ideal song.  The perfect blend of ballad and story, of hope and longing, of cynicism and patriotism.  I didn't really understand the song then; all I had was a vague idea of a couple traveling by bus all around the country.  But I knew that there was something important in the song because my parents' moods would change from agitated by the traffic to a bit softer.  Dad would put his hand on mom's thigh, gently pat it a few times, and give a big, toothy grin from behind his sunglasses and beard.  She'd give out a big sigh, as if she was finally letting something go.  Then he'd turn around halfway (don't worry, we were almost always in traffic at this point) and look at my sister and I and say something to the effect of, "Hang in there kiddo, we're almost there."  We'd all go back to looking out our windows, my sister would shuffle, and dad would crack the window a bit (a dangerous thing in certain parts of Jersey).  And then it would come:

"Kathy, I'm lost," I said, though I knew she was sleeping.
"I'm empty and aching and I don't know why."
Counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike:
They've all come to look for America.

One of the first times I can remember getting chills from a song.  It felt like Paul Simon had written that song just for that moment of our lives, just for me and my family.  It was simple, beautiful, and had the unique ability to make even the New Jersey Turnpike acceptable, at least for a little while.
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Apr. 16th, 2007

Only Skin

location: Montréal, QC
mood: sad
music: Joanna Newsom "Ys"
It is December of 2006 and the smell of the first snow is in the air.  So far in Montréal we had had a pretty warm start to winter, something which is unheard of here.  I bundled up to head out to my friend Josh's place, stopping only to pick up a 22 oz. bottle of Heineken and some chips.  Somewhere around the corner of Ave. des Pins and Ave. St-Denis the first flakes of snow start falling, melting rapidly as the hit the still warm concrete.  From Ave. des Pins you can get a great view of the mountain (including the famous cross) and the more older part of the McGill University campus.  The city has a strange orange glow from the yellowish covers on the streetlights.  On this particular evening, I get the feeling that the city is slow cooking over the embers of an almost dead campfire, that the flame isn't too close to going out, but we should seriously invest in some more kindling.  Its warming, against the cold night air, so I take my time.

Josh and I are met by my friend Simon, and we proceed to watch a fantastic documentary on heavy metal.  Effectively, it is a biased pseudo-anthropological approach to music theory, looking at the socio-political effects of heavy music.  Mostly, however, it is an excuse to interview the biggest acts in metal while showing footage of some truly badass music.  A debate follows on the heels of the movie.

Simon (who has been into hip hop since he was a kid) is a big fan of the flashy imagery in popular rap music, especially the songs that glorify drug dealing, gang banging, and the objectification of women.  I too enjoy this music, and for some similar reasons, most important of which, I am removed from the life portrayed in the songs, so I can look at it as a cheesy, not-to-be-taken seriously, kitschy form of expression.  It is much the same way that we look at metal, from a removed (dare I say it, "ironic") perspective.  Its not like I am going to listen to Cannibal Corpse and suddenly grow hungry for fetus-burgers.  Similarly, I'm not going to listen to Ghostface Killah and decide, "Hey, you know what?  I think that selling coke is the life for me.  I'm gonna go get a piece tomorrow and start dealing my first key." Dead-baby jokes, death metal, Vice magazine, and hip hop: pushing the envelope for the sake of pushing the envelope (whether or not that is a good thing is another story).  Simon, Josh, and I all agree on this point.

However, Simon takes the view that there are no people out there who take the flashy rap seriously enough to take up the life portrayed in most hip hop songs, certainly no more than those who take Borknagar seriously.  But hip hop appeals  to many different groups of people, from suburban white kids to inner-city minorities (and here, I apologize for the broad statements about race, ethnicity, and class: no statement is ever 100% true...except for that one...and that one...) and everyone in between.  If an MC is rapping about how he came up from a socially and economically disadvantageous position by selling drugs and getting involved in gang violence, others in a similar position can certainly identify with their song.  It is easy for suburban white kids like Simon, Josh, and I to sit back and listen to this music from an "objective" (or, at least, "removed") standpoint and suggest that the music is descriptive and not prescriptive, that it merely talks about the problem and doesn't talk to the problem.  Conversely, a few fans of some of the crazy-ass death metal bands do take the music seriously enough to do harm unto themselves and others, although the numbers of metal fans has to be less than the number of hip hop afficionados.  I guess the point to this rant is that musicians have to be more responsible with their "art" (some music is art, but you can't tell me some mass manufactured pop and hip hop where the "artist" is barely involved in the creation of the product counts as "art") by recognizing that once their product is released into the world, they have little control over how it is understood and used.

The argument concludes with the various parties agreeing to disagree.  Simon breaks out a CD with a painting of a pretty blond woman in medieval garb on the jacket.  "This is the CD I was telling you about Josh" says Simon, placing the disc in the tray of the stereo, "You're either going to love or hate her voice."

The meadowlark and the chim-churee and the sparrow,
set to the sky in a flying spree for the sport of the pharoah.

This mix of Billie Holiday and Lisa Simpson came through the speakers, accompanied by beautiful orchestration and a harp (who plays the harp?!).  The song was delightful, the singer's voice cracking over the higher notes, but in a way that was elegant.  The song's lyrics weren't really about anything in particular, just a clever assortment of phrases that sounded complimentary enough to be put to music.  Her harp playing was at times rythmic but at others tended to float gently over melodies that no other instrument could master.  I was awestruck.

This was not my usual fare, but I asked Simon to borrow the album overnight and he agreed.  It had stopped snowing as I rushed home.  I spent the next few hours listening to the album on repeat, feeling a little overwhelmed by all the melodies and alliterations.  It is a feeling hard to describe, but It was as if I was being covered by a heavy blanket, which was a little cold in places, but had the effect of stopping my breath at times (a weird simile, but whatever).  I hadn't been moved to tears by music since my grandmother had passed away and I listened to her favorite Harry Belafonte song "Kingston Town".

But I'm sad to say, I'm on my way,
won't be back for many a day.
My heart is down, my head is turning around,
I had to leave a little girl in Kingston Town.

I thought about my grandmother and her cooking something in the little brown kitchen at their beach house in Cape May, NJ.  I used to spend two weeks there at the end of every summer, playing in the ocean all day, and crashing after eating too much at dinner.  My grandparents had a yellow and black tape player with exactly three tapes: "Harry Belafonte: Live at Carnegie Hall", "Berl Ives' Greatest Hits", and the Vienna Philharmonic's performance of Mozart's "Requiem".  After dinner, we would watch the sun set from the screened-in porch listening to one of the tapes until I would fall asleep and either grandma or grandpa would carry me to bed.  In the moments before I would fall asleep, I would listen to the sound of the ocean and swear that my body was ebbing and flowing within the sheets.  They are both gone now, but I think of them often.

I will swallow your sadness and eat your cold clay,
just to lift your long face.
And though it may be madness I will take to the grave,
your precious long face.
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Posted at 02:09 pm | | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

Time Consumer

location: Montréal, QC
mood: nostalgic
music: Coheed and Cambria "Second Stage Turbine Blade"
I was 17 in the summer of 2002.  I'd been working at the toy store in my town, which is only a few minutes walk from my parents' house, although I usually ended up getting a ride to and from because we lived on a very steep and dangerous hill.  I had begun working at the toy during the Christmas season of 2001, but unlike numerous other seasonal helpers, had actually made the cut and been put on full-time during the summer.  I worked predominantly in the videogame section of the store, which was a sweet deal because I would talk, stock, and sell videogames all day.  My favorite customers were the middle-aged "soccer moms" who would come in with a piece of paper and ask sheepishly, "My son is looking for a game called Grand Theft Auto.  Do you have any for sale?" not knowing how violent and suggestive a game it really was.  I was amazed how, even after I had given the standard warning about the nature of the game, most moms said, "Oh, I had no idea it was so violent.  Oh well, if Timmy doesn't get it, I'll never hear the end of it.  I'll take a copy please."  And these are the same people who decry videogame violence as the root of all societal evils.  But I digress...

Jon and I had begun to hang out before and after work.  He's a cool guy, my height (short) and pretty boisterous and distracted, but funny enough that any flaws were overlooked.  He and I had a similar philosophy to work, be extremely nice to customers while suggesting lightly that their demands and desires were a little ridiculous, and perhaps there were better places to throw their hard-earned cash to.  The uniforms we all wore hid most aspects of personality (which was the point, I guess), but Jon managed to leave little bits of himself showing through; peeled nail polish, a "spiked" bracelet, and a black choker necklace among other things.  We'd get to work early to shoot-the-shit in the breakroom before our shifts, and we'd hang out in the parking lot for an hour or so after work to listen to music in his car.  One time, on a particularly slow day, the cool manager Danny had said to us, "OK guys, we don't really need you and I'm hungry.  You can take a paid break to go across town and get me some Wendy's, but take too long and we're all in trouble".  Jon and I didn't hesitate and took off on the backroads to the restaurant, choosing to eat there for a while before heading back, two hours later.  To our surprise, we had hardly been missed, and Danny had almost forgotten about his delayed lunch.

One day Jon asked me if I wanted to hang out since neither of us had work that day.  I agreed and gave him directions to our house.  I put on my 311 t-shirt that I had since I was in middle school (the self-titled album was one of my first/favorite purchases).  Jon showed up a little late, and with two other guys in the car; polar opposites if ever there were.  Mark (who some had nick-named The Ogre) was about a foot taller than me, and always wore black t-shirts with bands I didn't know on them.  Steve-O (who's fitting nick-name was Ralph Wiggum), by comparison, was actually shorter and rounder than me, but both he and Mark shared a macabre sense of humor that I would learn to appreciate and adopt.  All the introductions were made and we sped off toward Wendy's to grab some lunch, unintelligible music blaring.

Wendy's was across town, about 10 miles away from our house and the toy store.  However, our burgeoning metropolis in Northern Westchester had never been intended to be more than a sleepy little hamlet, so traffic through town was always horrendous during the day.  We slinked along backroads, through parking lots, and school driveways.  Of course many people had the same idea, and the Wendy's drive through was backed up.  Steve-O asked if he could change the music, and I was quite glad to be rid of the growling, angry music that I hadn't yet learned to like.

"Sure," answered Jon, "What are you thinkin'?"  Steve-O smiled and pulled out a green CD with small, black writing around the center.  "Mike, have you ever heard of Coheed and Cambria?"  Steve-O asked me, popping in the CD.

"Um, yeah," I answered tentatively, "but I haven't gotten a chance to listen to them yet."  A bold-faced lie.  I had never heard of this band, but I didn't want my new friends thinking I was a cultural dunce.  Later I would find out that these guys wouldn't care that I was a cultural dunce, but rather, would relish in the prospect of spreading their vast knowledge of music to some newbie.

A strange intro began, something that sounded like it came from a horror movie about a killer circus or something.  The line repeated a few times until it fell away to a well-orchestrated instrumental piece, replete with circling lead lines, and a complex baseline and drum part.  The sun beat down on the car and all the trees around the lot were green, with a bright blue sky hanging over top.  It was warm, but a breeze came through the open car as we each stared out our respective windows at suburbia around us.

 The young stale memories of, play the role to your part.
Librarian find me the pole, the one that kicks your head in.

Just like that, the record began in ernest.  I had never heard anything like it before.  Everyone was lost in their own listening of the song, and my ears focused like the seldom had before.  Claudio Sanchez's voice was unlike any singer I had experienced (and no I don't think he sounds like Geddy Lee), and the harmonies were brilliant and attention-grabbing.  Jon looked over at me, basking in the moment; the moment where you share something that makes someone's day, and you can't help but feel as elated as them.  He smiled, nodded, and turned up the volume.

We sat in traffic most of the day, but it didn't matter.  Somehow that music made the situation around us disappear, so that we could focus on where we were in a more real sense.  Jon and I worked together for almost two years.  He would go on to introduce me to my future band, and so many musicians and albums that have found their way into my very being as a real part of that time of my life.  I haven't spoken to him in some time and I'm not sure if he really knows just how important he is to me.

Thank God for your strength, will you hold your breath?
Waiting for me to exhale, in the short life lived.

Thanks, my friend.
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Posted at 03:38 am | | Leave a comment | Add to Memories | Tell a Friend

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