Brian Wall

“That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” – Mission of Burma 
(Words/music: Clint Conley, available on Signals, Calls, and Marches, Ace of Hearts 1981)

I saw Mission of Burma a few years ago shortly after they reunited.  I had been a fan of the records Rykodisc put out (all of which Matador has reissued over the last couple years and are probably worth some of my eMusic credits at some point) and it was around the time that wiry and spry post-punk caught my ear.  I can’t place it exactly, but I want to say that I saw them either right before or right after their first post-reunion album came out; in either case, I hoped that the balance of old and new would be decent enough so that I knew at least a handful of songs.

They played “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver” that night and a few others that I knew, but now when I look back and think about seeing Mission of Burma, I fixate on the surprisingly visceral sound.  I got the sense of their volume from the Horrible Truth About Burma live album (and from reading about Roger Miller’s tinnitus), but didn’t really expect the band to carry as much of a wallop a couple decades later.  I guess seeing the sound barriers set up around the drum set should have been the first tip for what was to come.  The guitars felt deeper, giving the song’s riff a lurching feeling and the bass and drums felt like gut punches.  Thankfully, this was also roughly the same time I started wearing earplugs to shows.  Otherwise, I might still be hearing “Revolver” rattle around in my brain today.

More on Mission of Burma: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Rock and Roll” – Led Zeppelin
(Words/music: John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant, available on Led Zeppelin IV, Atlantic 1971)

It’s been a couple years since “Rock and Roll” was used in a car commercial, so it’s been a long time since I’ve heard the song.  iTunes tells me it’s been since February 2008, so that was at least the last time I actively chose to listen to it.  In the interim, I’d forgotten how wonderful it is. 

That, in a nutshell, sums up my feelings about Led Zeppelin, or at least about their best known songs.

Back in November, I said that I gravitate toward the “less canonical songs” because I spent my teenage years bombarded by the band.  At one point in time, the drum intro to “Rock and Roll” sent that special spine-tingling excitement through my body.  Now, it generally gets me to switch the radio station.  Every time, whether I actively think it or not, I know that I’m being unfair running from Led Zeppelin the same way I run from songs I actively dislike.  I know that ten years ago if “Rock and Roll” came on, I’d drive around the block a couple times just so I could finish hearing it.  This might come across as a statement about getting older, but the truth is that once a week I sit in my car somewhere for another thirty seconds to finish hearing a song before going on with the rest of my life.  Thankfully, I still find joy in music – until today, it rarely came from Led Zeppelin.

I’m not sure what possessed me to put on “Rock and Roll” today, but I’m glad that I did.  The thing that struck me the most was its looseness.  I think of Zeppelin as this monolithic band with an immovable sound, but here at least John Bonham and John Paul Jones establish an open groove, giving Jimmy Page the space for a blues solo that sounds playful rather than ominous or foreboding.  Even Robert Plant’s screaming, propelled along by that piano that always surprises me, sounds like the yelps of a man having fun.

I’m tempted to use this as an example of the idea that taste is cyclical, but I’m not sure that’s the case.  Yes, the end result is the same – I wish I could stay up tonight, put Led Zeppelin IV on my turntable, and redigest this album for the first time in several years.  However, it’s not entirely accurate to say I see the same things I liked a decade ago; in fact, I’m certain I’ve never really considered Led Zeppelin as “sounding like they’re having fun.”  Instead, this makes me think that our taste continually evolves and makes these return visits interesting, if for no other reason than to see how we’ve grown.  After all, songs don’t change – we do.

More on Led Zeppelin: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Only Happy When It Rains” – Garbage
(Words/music: Garbage, available on Garbage, Almo Sounds 1995)

For the record, I hate the rain.  The only thing that made me happy about all of the rain in the Northeast this weekend was that it wasn’t snow.  While driving home in the rain today and listening to the radio, something (I wish I remembered the song) made me think of an accusation a friend made several years ago.  “You listen to sad music,” she said, and while I do like sad songs, it’s never been strictly because the lyrics are sad.  I know that some people like to put on sad movies when they are sad, but I’ve never really felt that way with music.  Instead, I find myself retreating into favorite albums when I’m sad.  If anything, I think I gravitate toward happier music – or at least music that makes me happy.  If anything, “sad songs” generally need to be that much better. 

So I imagine this was a statement on the sound of the music – quieter, more somber arrangements tend to sound “sadder” than something with a lively beat.  A quick survey of the songs I’ve written about (via the “random post” link in the sidebar) led to a disproportionate amount of lively, happy songs, which would tend to disprove this idea.  Anyway, the combination of all of these thoughts – this random memory and a rain soaked weekend – made me think of “Only Happy When It Rains.”  In the context of this discussion, this is a song that doesn’t overtly sound gloomy, save for the repeated declarations that happiness requires misery.  Members of the band claimed it was a tongue-in-cheek reference to liking alternative rock, but I always thought of that as reductionist thought anyway.  If anything, this is a song about finding happiness in a sound that others find gloomy or jarring.  If every single person saw happiness in the same things, our world would be less interesting. 

So today, my thought is that the music itself is neither happy nor sad.  Instead, we fill in the emotions.  These might change over time and they may not transfer from person to person, but I suppose that’s why we have so many different songs in our lives.  If one doesn’t make you happy, there are plenty of others out there that will.

More on Garbage: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Surf’s Up” – Brian Wilson
(Words/music: Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson, available on Smile, Nonesuch 2004) 

Brian Wilson’s rerecorded Smile, one of popular music’s greatest “lost albums,” came out right around the same time that I started to look at the Beach Boys as more than a kitchy’60s act.  I have a vivid memory driving around northern Rhode Island trying to match a washer for a drum set, listening to late period Beach Boys albums and discussing the efficiency in the arrangements with a friend of mine.  I asked him about Smile and he gave me the run through of unofficial sequences and alternate recordings, rattling off a few of the songs he thought I’d know, almost stopping cold on some major road when I looked back blankly at “Surf’s Up.” 

Now, I regularly listen to Wilson’s piano demo of “Surf’s Up” from the Good Vibrations box and marvel at the way he threads the song’s different sections together.  I’ve never really focused on the lyrics, so I’ve let Wilson’s voice and the different, often overlapping, melodies wash over me.  When I first heard Smile, I was curious to hear how “Surf’s Up” would sound decades later.  Remarkably, it sounds like the original with a little more shine on it.  The harmonies are flawless and perfectly balanced with each other, but it still comes down to Wilson and his piano.  His voice, particularly in every television performance I’ve seen over the last six years, feels worn both by age and by decades of demons, but when paired with one of his melodies, it sounds as arresting as ever.  Certainly as captivating as it sounded that one night stopped dead in traffic somewhere in Rhode Island.

More on Brian Wilson: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Redemption Song” – Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer
(Words/music: Bob Marley, available on Cash Unearthed, American / Universal 2003)

I spent four years in college yet never went through a Bob Marley phase.  My instinct is to say that I got enough of it second hand, but after thinking about it for a minute I’d say that it was repeated plays of the same Marley tunes that burned me out on his music.  I could only hear “Get Up, Stand Up” and “I Shot the Sheriff” so many times before a quick upward strum on a guitar would cause me to retreat.  The positive side effect to this combination of burnout and stubbornness means that occasionally I get to make small discoveries in Marley’s cannon.  The first one, the one that made me rethink my distaste, was “Redemption Song.”  Sure, it partially has to do with the different instrumentation, but it was Marley’s careful weaving of his personal spirituality and politics of liberation that made the song speak to me.  At other moments, Marley leans heavily on one (or both) of these polarizing ideas, but on “Redemption Song” he strikes a balance where it’s easier to see the beauty of his convictions without getting caught up in the polarizing details. 

The first version of “Redemption Song” I truly loved was on Joe Strummer’s posthumous Streetcore album.  In particular, I loved all of the extra touches – the guitar flourishes, the organ chords – that accompanied Strummer’s voice.  Later on, I heard this duet version – the same instrumental track only with Strummer and Johnny Cash trading verses.  Neither man saw the release of this track (Cash Unearthed came out shortly after his death), and I’m not even sure if Cash and Strummer recorded the song together or whether Cash added his vocals afterward (if you know, I’d love to know).  All of this leads me to the most interesting bit of trivia (remember, I’m a Marley lightweight, so this didn’t seem obvious to me) that Marley wrote and recorded “Redemption Song” after his cancer diagnosis.  All three of these men sang this song near the end of their lives (granted, for three different reasons – Marley’s illness, Strummer’s sudden heart attack, and Cash’s slowly declining health), and I’d like to think that this song brought them all peace as they neared the end of their time on Earth.  If nothing else, all three – Marley’s original, Strummer’s version, and the version Cash augments – left beautiful interpretations for us to remember them fondly. 

More on Johnny Cash: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Danger! High Voltage (Soulchild Radio Mix)” – Electric Six
(Words/music: Joe Frezza, Steve Nawara, Anthony Selph, and Tyler Spencer, available on Danger! High Voltage EP, XL 2003)

Right now I have a cold – thankfully one that’s not too dehabilitating, but one that’s just enough to make eating a chore and frustrate me with the periodic coughing.  Most relevantly, it’s only made me more tired the last few days.  Naturally, I looked to music before over-the-counter medication (or quality rest, perhaps the wisest option).  The hope was that the right song would dislodge whatever ails me and put my brain back on solid footing. 

So I turned to “Danger! High Voltage” in my time of need hoping that it would de-gunk my insides.  Maybe it’s the Taco Bell line, but I hoped this song would have a Tabasco-like cleansing effect.  Perhaps it’s over-the-top absurdity and driving beat would lift my spirits.  If nothing else, that gaudy saxophone at the end would give me a laugh, and folk wisdom suggests that laughter is the best medicine, right?  Or maybe listening to it would fill me with nostalgia for the first time I saw this video on the internet, probably in Real Player format before YouTube would make something like this immediately accessible.  As a last resort, I could picture Jack White and Dick Valentine standing over a small fire, manically screaming back and forth at each other about their desires.

Of course, this didn’t work.  I’m still hacking away, but at least I’m smiling a little more.  And now I really want a quesadilla. 

More on Electric Six: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“It’s Only Divine Right” – The New Pornographers
(Words/music: Carl Newman, available on Electric Version, Matador 2003) 

In the past week, I’ve seen a few misconceptions about the New Pornographers that sparked the obsessive music geek in me.  I’ve seen it intimated that Destroyer, the prolific musical output of New Pornographers contributor Dan Bejar, was Bejar’s side project.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but Bejar contributes a few songs to the New Pornographers and generally doesn’t tour with them anymore.  I bit my tongue, writing this off as a mistake in wording (he is better known for being in this band than for his solo output), but an even odder gaffe made me proclaim out loud at my desk.  While going over guests on the forthcoming New Pornographers’ album (which supposedly has many of legitimate guests), “A.C. Newman” was listed as one of the guests.  This baffled me – in certain parts of the internet, this would be like saying Paul McCartney made guest appearances on several Beatles albums!  Newman is best described as the leader of the New Pornographers and, if anything, does his solo albums as side projects. 

I make this assertion because (thus far), Newman saves his best songs for the New Pornographers.  Not to diminish his two solo albums, both fine discs, but it takes maybe half of the New Pornographers’ Electric Version to see what Newman’s songs feel like when he’s firing on all cylinders.  “It’s Only Divine Right” marries many of the best qualities of Newman’s songwriting – a driving beat, gently tangled melodic lines, and some clever wordplay.  It’s equal parts bouncy and bombastic, enjoyable and edgy.  Most importantly, it puts all of its parts to their best use, particularly Neko Case’s beautiful voice.  Personally, I think Case sounds best when singing Newman’s songs, and it’s her harmony notes that bring “It’s Only Divine Right” toward pop godliness.  Whether she’s doubling Newman’s lyrics or singing the series of rising notes right after the hook, Case’s voice adds a different texture to the song.  While she sounds terrific when she takes the lead (“All For Swinging You Around,” among others), she’s equally deadly in this comparatively minor supporting role.  Like a skilled director, Newman knows how to get the best performance out of his company of players by balancing egos to create something greater than the sum of its parts.

More on The New Pornographers: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Dirty Old Town” - Ted Leo
(Words/music: Ewan MacColl, appears on “Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead” EP, Lookout! 2003)

(In honor of the new Ted Leo and the Pharmacists album The Brutalist Bricks, I’d like to re-run the story of when I first met Ted Leo in February 2003.  This post originally ran on January 7, 2009.  Back to new posts tomorrow!)

I’ve been blessed to have been involved with college radio while earning both of my degrees (first at WDOM in Providence, later at WQAQ in Connecticut), and it was (and continues to be) an important factor in my ever evolving musical taste. This post, however, isn’t my love letter to college radio (that comes with a different song) but rather a reflection of my favorite experience as a DJ.

I was fortunate enough to meet and interview Ted Leo during February 2003, right after the Hearts of Oak album came out (and right after I discovered his music). It was a surreal experience for a college sophomore to have to plan questions and interview someone who would be on Conan O’Brien later that week. From the moment that we helped Ted cart in his amplifier and guitar case (the same ones he still uses years later), it was apparent that Ted was almost as grateful to have the opportunity to appear on our modest station as we were to have him come to us. Through all sorts of stumbling blocks – our station’s faulty heater (it didn’t work a lot that winter), a less than vegan friendly cafeteria, his nagging vocal chord problems, and my nervous propensity to mix metaphors (he signed a poster with one of my quotes - “top to bottom, front to back” - my attempt to complement the body of songs on Hearts of Oak), Ted remained upbeat, enthusiastic, and completely engaging. We had Ted on for an hour or so – a mix of discussions about ska music, going to Catholic school, listening to New Order, and other topics with about half a dozen performances of songs from The Tyranny of Distance and Hearts of Oak. By the end of the afternoon, everyone in the room not only became fans of his music, but became fans of the man. In addition to his kindness and wit, Ted’s personal ethics shine through everything he does. Few contemporaries champion their causes as earnestly and completely and it seems that he has time to play on behalf of people and causes that he supports (for example, playing a benefit for a local punk rock promoter who recently passed away).

“Dirty Old Town” was the last song that Ted played that day, introducing it as a “song for the city of Providence.” I didn’t know the song (I hadn’t discovered The Pogues at that point), but I was struck by how he sang someone else’s song with the same passion and conviction that he sang his own songs. Looking back at that day nearly six years later, I have two prevailing thoughts. The first is the refreshing realization that the people that we’re fans of are fans themselves. It’s clear that Ted has a passion for music (look at the wide body of cover songs in his repertoire – in particular the obscure songs he’s playing on his recent solo tour) and that even to this day he remains a fan. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I’ve learned that songs don’t belong exclusively to their authors – they belong to us all. We all have our own unique memories associated with individual songs – sometimes shared, sometimes private – and that some songs immediately can immediately bring us back to a specific place or time. I’m not sure what Ted Leo thinks of when he hears Shane MacGowan sing “Dirty Old Town,” but this song will always make me think back to that afternoon in Providence where I got to interview one of my favorite musicians.

More on Ted Leo: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“You Don’t Know My Name” – Alicia Keys
(Words/music: Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Harold Lilly, J. R. Bailey, Mel Kent, Ken Williams, available on The Diary of Alicia Keys, J-Records 2003)

A few weeks ago, I watched most of the Comedians of Comedy movie and their entire Live at the El-Rey special.  I had never seen Maria Bamford perform standup, so I was surprised and impressed at the different voices she slipped into and out of throughout her routine.  The one that stood out the most was her impression of Alicia Keys’ spoken bridge in “You Don’t Know My Name.”  I hadn’t heard Keys song in a while but Bamford nailed the tone and phrasing of Keys’ phone call (which, in turn, made me think of the recent Saturday Night Live digital short where Keys makes another late night phone call with different results). 

So today I went back to “You Don’t Know My Name” and remembered why I liked this song in the first place and why I never listen to it anymore.  The main part of the song captures a lot of the things I enjoy about Keys, particularly her voice.  I even love the production, in part because it’s an atypical style for Kanye West, especially since he stays virtually undetectable on it (I’d imagine that if this were made now, Kanye would have demanded to have Mos Def’s part in the video at least).  It’s a terrific soul ballad that’s sweet without being overly sappy.  Then there’s the spoken bridge.  It’s a little too theatrical for my taste, but I understand its purpose (and I remember it working well within the context of the video too), and today I enjoyed it largely because I kept thinking of Bamford’s impression.  Looking back at it now, it’s a little over-the-top and features a gratuitously outdated “can you hear me now” reference in it.  Most importantly, the bridge plus the outro push the song over the six minute mark; I like the song, but not nearly enough to devote ten percent of an hour to it on a regular basis.

More on Alicia Keys: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Pick a Part That’s New” – Stereophonics
(Words/music: Stuart Cable, Kelly Jones, and Richard Jones, available on Performance and Cocktails, V2 1999)

If I stop to think about it, Kelly Jones’ voice bothers me.  He has a gravelly edge to his voice, particularly when he’s approaching the limits of his range, that sounds good on paper.  On record, it’s generally fine too – I like a fair number of Stereophonics songs, so it is far from a dealbreaker, and I’m not sure I’d prefer to hear someone else sing any of them.  So it generally comes down to the off moments where I’m finding my attention drawn to his voice rather than the melody or the lyrics.  I guess, to boil it down, on the good songs it’s a nonissue, on the weaker songs it’s infuriating.

So I was kind of surprised tonight when I found myself focusing on his voice when I heard “Pick a Part That’s New.”  This is one of my favorite Stereophonics singles, largely because of that terrific guitar riff and its generally sunny demeanor.  The only explanation I have for this is that I’ve heard this song so many times that my attention shifted looking for something new.  Earlier on this blog, I’ve suggested that songs that reveal different virtues with repeated listening lead to a rewarding relationship of repeated listening.  In this case, repeated listening brought something unfavorable (or, more than likely, subconsciously overlooked) out front.  I’m confident that “Pick a Part That’s New” and I will get through this rough patch.  I might just need a night or two sleeping on the couch.

More on Stereophonics: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“This is Love” – PJ Harvey
(Words/music: PJ Harvey, available on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Island Records 2000) 

PJ Harvey never shied away from difficult subjects in her lyrics, but rarely is she as blunt as she is on “This is Love.”  Where she may approach a subject obliquely, Harvey lays out her thesis within the first two lines: specifically, how can this world be so confusing when my lust is so clear?  The song isn’t sensationalized – instead, it’s simplified down to its instincts.  It manages to capture the way love (or lust, or something in between) causes tunnel vision without being flowery or dopey.  Instead, Harvey asks the sort of questions rarely asked in these situations.  The human brain can process many things, but I’m sure few, if any, might simultaneously process worldwide suffering and the taste of a lover at the same time.  The song turns slightly at the end when Harvey’s narrator recognizes this tendency – when her mind is on someone else, it isn’t on the things that make her heart break, so her unasked questions become a plea for her lover to join her “to keep the walls from falling as they’re tumbling in.” 

The thick guitar riff underscores the lust in Harvey’s lyrics.  It’s slightly distorted sound fills out the arrangement yet while bludgeoning its audience.  It is as direct as Harvey’s lyrics, and its repetition throughout most of the song coincides with the repetition within the lyrics.  It also brings out the more powerful side of Harvey’s vocals, driving her voice to fill out as much space as the guitar’s dense tone.  Where it might drown out another vocalist, Harvey summons enough to make her voice shine through.

More on PJ Harvey: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Root Down” – The Beastie Boys
(Words/music: Beastie Boys, available on Ill Communication, Capitol Records 1994)

Boiled down to one sentence, the Beastie Boys began as brats and became Buddhists, and somewhere in between they made their most interesting work.  With the benefit of hindsight, this broad arc makes senses given that the Beastie Boys strike me as guys with lots of ideas.  Whether it’s the range of sounds in their catalogue, the crowded production the Dust Brothers lent to Paul’s Boutique, or just the rapid pace the three MCs delivered their lyrics (and their tendency to accent each others’ rhymes by tripling up on certain words), the Beasties always seemed willing to explore an idea and see where it took them.

“Root Down” is neither the weirdest nor the best track in the Beastie Boys catalogue (or on Ill Communication, to be honest), but it synthesizes many of their best qualities.  It combines together the live instrumentation (or at least the spirit of live instrumentation – I can’t quite tell) with a DJ’s touch.  The feel of the track depends equally on the funk guitar that swells underneath the hook as it does with the gentle hiss of the record needle hitting the groove at the start and the hairpin turn the DJ triggers right after the hook.  Lyrically, the Beasties are nimble, rhyming quickly and somewhat breathless.  It’s a distinctive flow for a Beastie’s track; as with much of their work, the distinct tone of their voices and their cadence tips off the listener within a few words.  In essence, “Root Down” works as an interesting introduction to the Beastie Boys.  Proceeding deeper into their catalogue means scattering across their different stylistic endeavors, but “Root Down” captures their general essence as much as a single track can encapsulate a group with so many ideas.

More on The Beastie Boys: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Add Your Light to Mine, Baby” – Lucky Soul
(Words/music: Lucky Soul, available on The Great Unwanted, Ruffa Lane 2007) 

Two parts of “Add Your Light to Mine, Baby” stand out the most.  First, Ali Howard’s voice finds a sweet spot between clean execution and soulful embellishment.  She extends a few syllables and bends a note or two but never to the extent a pop diva might elaborate melodically.  This generally precise execution serves the song well – over-performing the vocal, particularly with all of the motion in the arrangement, would weigh down the song.  Instead, Howard goes just a step beyond a precise performance right off the sheet music, adding just a touch of personality to her performance.

“Add Your Light to Mine, Baby” needs this relatively clean lead vocal to support the horn melody.  The vocals melody is catchy, but the horns provide the song’s hook.  This repetitive phrase (including when the key changes near the end) overpowers Howard’s vocal, and it’s simple phrase only makes it catchier.  If Howard tried to compete for space with the horns (and I have every reason to believe she’s capable vocally), the song would suffer.  Instead, her vocals play a supporting role at times, particularly when she settles in on a longer note.  Rather than make her light the brightest in the band, she’s willing to share space.

More on Lucky Soul: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Brass in Pocket” – The Pretenders
(Words/music: James Honeyman-Scott/Chrissie Hynde, available on Pretenders, Warner Brothers 1980)

It’s worth getting this out of the way: every time I hear “Brass in Pocket” I think of the karaoke scene in Lost in Translation.  In particular, Chrissie Hynde’s promise to use her “side step” makes me think of a pink-wigged Scarlet Johansson dipping her shoulders to the side in succession.  It’s appropriate, I suppose, that I associate this song with this moment of indirect flirting, as “Brass in Pocket” details the quest to catch someone’s eye.  The thing that separates “Brass in Pocket” from other seductive songs is its focus; rather than dwell on the object of her affection, Hynde’s narrator goes through her arsenal of charms.  This isn’t the sort of attention-grabbing behavior that reality TV thrives cultivates.  Instead, the narrator prepares her usual tricks and steps up to battle.

Of course, the song isn’t wonderful simply because the narrator promises to prove that she’s “special” (and, if we believe the video, her charms aren’t enough to win over the restaurant patrons). It’s the song’s relaxed groove and just enough of a bounce to keep Hynde’s list of preparations moving forward.  She’s not the only one with an arsenal of tricks, as the rest of the Pretenders came prepared to battle with ringing guitars and a small choir of “specials’” to back up Hynde.  My favorite part of her vocal performance comes right at the end – after an entire song of confident singing, Hynde slides into a more relaxed and less pronounced tone for the “I wonder where you are” line.  It fits the change from militant confidence to slight hesitation, but most importantly it casts the narrator in a different light for a brief moment, suggesting that we haven’t seen her entire bag of tricks just yet.

More on The Pretenders: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Rock ‘n Roll Dreams’ll Come True” – Ted Leo
(Words: Tom Sharpling and Jon Wurster, Music: Ted Leo, recorded on WFMU 3/13/2007)

New Jersey free form station WFMU is in its annual fundraiser this week, and tonight is the marathon’s flagship event when Tom Sharpling’s The Best Show on WFMU takes to the airwaves to solicit funds to fuel the station.  I’m out of range (by a couple states) to listen to WFMU in the car, but I’ll occasionally check out the live stream on their website to enjoy their eclectic mix of shows, but generally it’s to hear The Best Show.  Sharpling, a funny man in his own right, brings in hilarious guests on a regular basis (John Hodgman and Patton Oswalt are among regulars), and when the show isn’t deep in inside jokes (or if I follow the joke, at least), it’s an entertaining bit of live radio.

Ted Leo, a friend of Sharpling (Sharpling wrote the liner notes to Leo’s new album The Brutalist Bricks), has appeared on his show several times, including playing odd requests and covers in exchange for donations to WFMU’s operating fund.  His covers range from stellar (“Brass in Pocket” and a WFMU-modified “That’s Entertainment” in 2007, Blondie’s “Union City Blue” in 2008, among others) to ridiculous (Sharpling and Leo performed Streisand & Neil Diamond’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” as a duet, for instance), including “Rock ‘n Roll Dreams’ll Come True,” a Best Show inside joke.  The song comes from a bit between Sharpling and his comedy partner (and Superchunk drummer) Jon Wurster where Wurster called in as an aged rock star with very specific requirements for casting his surefire hit band The Gas Station Dogs.  During this call (which appears on the Sharpling-Wurster disc New Hope for the Ape-Eared and is worth the listen, if only for Wurster’s obsession with details), Wurster’s character Barry Dworkin performs this song, one that only has lyrics and a melody and took nearly two decades to compose.  The Sharpling-Wurster bit explains why these lyrics are inane and, well, awful, but Leo manages to make it into a catchy little tune (and even turns it into a riotous stomp on a Chunklet 7” single he split with Zach Galifinakis).  It’s catchy enough on its own, but even more ridiculous knowing why Leo committed all of these absurd words to memory. 

The Best Show airs tonight between 8-11 PM, so if you’re hanging around with nothing to do, give a listen and see what sort of odd mayhem Sharpling, Wurster, and Ted Leo have in store to try to earn operating capitol for a terrific independent station.

More on Ted Leo: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Your Blood” – Destroyer
(Words/music: Dan Bejar, available on Destroyer’s Rubies, Merge Records 2006)

To those of you who don’t know Dan Bejar’s music, I’ll tell you that this song sounds a lot different than “‘Your Blood’ by Destroyer” might have sounded were I to describe the song based solely on the two names involved.  Somehow, I imagine Bejar likes that sort of misdirection; his songs defy typical genre labels, calling for the even less-telling adjectives “quirky” and “eccentric.”  Whether composing mini pop-suites complete with MIDI synthesizers or twisting the pure pop of the New Pornographers a couple times each album (and his contributions are always among my favorites), Bejar has a way of making these less-than-likely decisions sound catchy.  Against whatever odds one might place on a pop song successfully referencing several of Camus’ works, Bejar succeeds.

“Your Blood” may as well be called “The Freewheeling Dan Bejar,” as it glides across a crisp shuffle with tinkling piano and bluesy guitar fills.  I imagine Bejar, complete with his giant poof of hair, walking down the same cold Greenwich Village street captured in that Dylan album, quietly singing along to his companion in that tunefully nasally tone he uses so well on this track.  The voice merits a Dylan comparison not because he specifically sounds like Dylan (he doesn’t to me at least) but because it may put some off initially.  However, just like Dylan, Bejar knows how to use his vocal capacity – not to sing arias, but rather to open a valve and let his subconscious mind flow freely, tangling itself with these dense melodic threads.  Usually, it’s these melodic knots that make Bejar’s songs so interesting, but here all of the threads braid together naturally.  Where some of his other songs require some patience, “Your Blood” satisfies immediately.  Sure, there are different sounds to appreciate each time (recently it’s the burst of guitar accompanying the “Tabitha takes another stab” line), but few of his songs are both immediately and continually gratifying.

More on Destroyer: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Lollipop of Ecstasy” - JJ vs Lil’ Wayne mashup

(via tristn, who had the same thought as me - “someone must have done a mashup”)

See also: last night’s post.

“Ecstasy” – jj
(Words/music: jj, available on jj n° 2, Secretly Canadian 2009) 

A few years back, rappers and DJs looked to Scandinavia for samples, with Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks” married to an assortment of freestyles on mixtapes.  This time around, it’s the mysterious Swedish pop group jj lifting the track from Lil’ Wayne’s “Lollipop.”  It’s all there – the echoing keyboard, the melody, and even the beat.  Other than softening the drums slightly and trading Wayne’s auto-tuned purr for the hazy, distant sounding female vocals, “Ecstasy” and “Lollipop” sound like siblings.  Both even take place in a club, although Wayne has his attention on the ladies while jj offers a paean to their club drug of choice. 

Still, the first time through jj n° 2 was jarring, if only because I wasn’t expecting this turn.  The first few tracks are bright and bouncy, featuring woodwinds and hand drums.  I had it on in the background and enjoyed it while cooking dinner and maybe because I was preoccupied I didn’t notice the keyboard line right away.  It wasn’t until the hook came in with the same melody and enough similar syllables to get me to put down the frying pan and turn quizzically toward the stereo.  Even if it seemed out of place, I still found it compelling.  Where the overall skeeviness of Wayne’s lyrics in “Lollipop” (where he’s nowhere near as clever as his finer moments) turned me off, “Ecstasy” sounds somewhat hypnotic and captivating.  Where I’d probably feel out of place in a dance club that played “Lollipop” (which is to say that I’d feel uncomfortable in just about any dance club), there’s an inviting warmth to “Ecstasy.”  Maybe it’s the song’s lower intensity, but I feel like I could survive in a place playing that song.

More on jj: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

sometimesagreatnotion:

If you’ve got nothing else to do today, The Fearless Freaks, a fascinating documentary on the The Flaming Lips, is available to watch for free at Hulu.  Even if I didn’t love the band (though, admittedly, I do) I would still strongly recommend this film.  The filmmaker (Bradley Beesley) is a long-time close friend of the Lips and has spent countless hours with them over the years (the stuff actually used in the film is culled from over 400 total hours of footage).  He basically has total access to the band, including a harrowing scene in which guitar/drummer/genius Steven Drodz calmly shoots up heroin while explaining the depressing history of his addiction to the camera.

And the music! Oh the music!

“The Town Halo” – A.C. Newman
(Words/music: Carl Newman, available on The Slow Wonder, Matador 2004)

Carl Newman may be better known as the de facto frontman of The New Pornographers, but his two solo albums continue the same sort of power pop as his more famous output.  His first solo outing The Slow Wonder generally finds Newman in the same sort of melodic vain as the Pornographers, contorting their ebullient melodies into slightly different forms.  The songs collected on this disc generally sound like they could be New Pornographers songs yet take on a different twist.  It’s interesting to see how Newman chose to adapt these songs, often by emphasizing one element of the instrumentation over the others (putting the drums front and center in the albums opener “Miracle Drug,” for instance).  Rather than use his solo outing for a radical departure (or worse – an acoustic album), Newman uses it as a playground to experiment with some different sounds, utilizing some on later New Pornographers’ albums.

The most jarring, at least off the top of my head, is “The Town Halo,” specifically because it takes what might be a normal New Pornographers riff and plays it with a cello.  The rest of the track uses standard rock band instrumentation, but it’s this main, rhythmic phrase that stands out.  It’s simultaneously characteristic of Newman’s songwriting yet distinctive (and slightly out of place) due to the instrumentation.  One usually expects a cello in a rock song to take a supporting role and play beautiful legato phrases to create mood.  Instead, Newman puts the rich instrument front and center.  It still evokes mood – not in the same manner, of course – especially when played in conjunction with those loud piano chords.  Even with a fairly typical melody for Newman (even if it’s a little more blunt and deliberate than usual), the atypical instrumentation gives it a unique twist.  Even if a song like “The Town Halo” is a notch below material from his main band, it’s this adventurous spirit that makes The Slow Wonder a worthwhile listen.

More on A.C. Newman: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“9-9 (Live at Florida Atlantic University, 1984)” - R.E.M.
(Words/music: Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe, originally available on Murmur, I.R.S. 1983)

(This post originally ran as a guest post on A Post Punk Tumblr’s Top 35 or So Songs of the 1980s late last summer, not because “9 - 9” specifically was one of the best songs on Tristan’s list, but because Tristan was kind enough to ask me to write a guest post.  I linked to it but never ran the text of it on this blog, and with all of the new people reading this blog I thought today was as good a time as any to run it.  It was originally shared with the studio version, but tonight is shared with a solid bootleg from the Reckoning era).

The paradox of music is that it’s simultaneously a shared experience and a highly personal one.  Whether it’s being part of a crowd at a concert, discussing a single with friends, or giving a head nod to someone wearing a shirt of a familiar band, music unites us.  It’s also the sounds of solidarity – the company on those nights where we want solidarity yet don’t want to be alone with our thoughts.  While our relationship with music draws on both sides of this relationship, music discovery tends towards the social side.  Specifically, it’s hard to “stumble” on music from another era without an introduction.  For example, I count a bunch of records from the postpunk era among my favorites, but I discovered them many years later.  Some of these records came through friends’ recommendations, but a lot of my musical discoveries seem like the results of a personal journey.  Still, retracing my steps now, I’ve realized that while it often seemed like a personal and solitary process discovering to music, I wasn’t alone.

Thinking back, even if I didn’t have a cool older sibling to pass on records from bygone eras, some of my favorite bands helped “guide” me to these albums.  In the mid-1990s, when I started becoming obsessed with music, I had no idea what the term “postpunk” meant, but I loved R.E.M. and started working my way through their discography.  As I became enamored with their albums, I started devouring every interview, biography, and review I could find, taking note of the records and artists they mentioned repeatedly.  This was my introduction to a lot of the bands I’d love like Television, Gang of Four, and Patti Smith.  As I developed this personal relationship with R.E.M., I developed a sense of trust that led me to other records.  I largely have R.E.M. to thank for my love of Marquee Moon, Entertainment, and Horses (in addition to Reckoning and Murmur and the other half dozen R.E.M. albums I adore).

I ended up taking to these records because I heard a lot of the same things that I loved in those R.E.M. albums, in particular the first couple discs.  “9–9” from Murmur leans heavily on these influences.  Listening to it now, I hear the same wiry guitar lines that stitch together Marquee Moon ringing through Peter Buck’s Rickenbacker.  Michael Stipe’s rapid, free-associative lyrics feel like they came from someone who spent hundreds of hours with Patti Smith LPs.  Mike Mills and Bill Berry creep into the front of the mix just like the bass and drums on my favorite Gang of Four songs.  Before I owned any of these albums, I spent hours listening to Murmur, and in a way it prepared me for these other records.  My time with songs like “9–9” gave me a running start toward a lot of records I now adore, and I have the boys from Athens to thank for pointing me in that direction.

More on R.E.M.: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Grace, Too (Live)” – The Tragically Hip
(Words/music: The Tragically Hip, available on Live Between Us, Sire 1998)

Between the first and second verse of “Grace, Too,” lead singer Gordon Downie lays out one of the best improvised non-sequitors I’ve heard placed in a song.  “Jesus Christ, a big fucking bear!” He yells, charging his words with the kind of surprise and excitement that one experience when viewing a wild animal from a safe distance.  It’s appropriate for a couple reasons.  First, this particular version of “Grace, Too” contains three distinct sections of improvisation and/or embellishment on the original song.  There’s the opening, courteous nod to the Hip’s opening band (and how many would start their live album by mentioning another band in such complimentary terms?), one is this bear monologue, and the third is the “I was raised on TV / like so many of you I see around me” spontaneous verse over the song’s closing sequence.  This sort of improvisation, even if it feels disconnected from the rest of the song, isn’t unprecedented.

More importantly, Downie’s sincerity and intensity during this “bear” line is how he operates.  Once he gets going, Downie’s voice creates the bends in an otherwise linear song.  His subtle vocal variations, whether sliding slightly closer toward a scream or simply shifting his cadence, also help to highlight the building intensity in the rest of the song.  Downie sounds immersed in the song – and perhaps lost in his narrator, while singing – so perhaps these improvisations come from “living” these characters for a few minutes.  Perhaps he imagines this song’s protagonist in a situation where he might see a giant bear.  Maybe he just thought it was funny.  Regardless, it somehow works, and every time I hear it I smile a little bit and make a mental note to delve deeper into the Hip’s catalogue, if only to see what other gems Downie might improvise.

More on The Tragically Hip: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Right Now” – Van Halen
(Words/music: Michael Anthony, Sammy Hagar, Alex Van Halen, and Eddie Van Halen, available on For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, Warner Brothers 1991)

The way I see it, there’s a difference between knowing something as fact and thinking something.  For example, I know that Van Halen was a better band with David Lee Roth, or rather that I enjoy Van Halen far more with David Lee Roth than with Sammy Hagar.  I like more of the songs, I prefer Roth’s borderline absurd persona to Hagar’s constant strain.  While I have a cursory knowledge of Van Halen at best, they seemed more adventurous in their earlier days; by the time Hagar joined the band, Van Halen seemed comfortable to rest on their laurels and/or smooth out all of the roughness in their sound. 

That’s the “fact” part (or, for the sake of argument, what I believe to be fact).  The contrary belief comes from my strange adoration with “Right Now.”  In general, the things that fascinate me in this song goes against what I would normally think about Van Halen at any other point in my life other than the five and a half minutes when “Right Now” plays.  Sure, the combination of that opening piano riff and the heavy-handed drums would be terrific no matter who played them (not to mention this is a guitar band generally moving the spotlight elsewhere), and maybe that’s why I’ll let the song continue past its opening notes.  However, these aren’t the things that I enjoy the most.  Hagar’s strained vocals, particularly the way he sings the second line of the song, suck me in every time.  It’s not even an ironic adoration – somehow, this style works in this setting.  Even the lyrics (and if you haven’t thought about them before, don’t waste your time now) don’t bother me.  I even like the second verse quite a bit, in part because of the contrast between Hagar’s delivery and the overly-dramatic music. 

This would normally be cause for cognitive dissonance, but in all honesty, I’m usually too busy air drumming.  That, or I’m hurting myself trying to sing like Sammy Hagar.

More on Van Halen: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Walk Hard” – John C. Reilly
(Words/music: Judd Apatow, Marshall Crenshaw, Jake Kasdan, and John C. Reilly, available on Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Columbia 2007) 

A large part of the appeal to Walk Hard, aside from goofy jokes, comes from the earnestness of the film’s music.  John C. Reilly’s Dewey Cox shifts musical styles with the wind, and the film’s songs captured the different musical styles surprisingly well.  Sure, the lyrics were generally dumb (this is a Judd Apatow film, for what that’s worth), but the performances could pass as artifacts from their respective eras, at least from a distance.

The title track, Dewey Cox’s signature song, best captures the film’s musical successes.  Reilly turns in a solid Johnny Cash impression (even though his vocal tone is stronger than Cash’s) backed by a convincing arrangement mimicking Cash’s early output.  Of course, it helps that Marshal Crenshaw wrote the music, giving the song its seamless transitions and, ultimately, making it more than a series of Cash-related puns.  It’s difficult to take the song seriously while listening to the words, and even without paying attention it wouldn’t’ pass for one of Cash’s original recordings.  Still, from another room, it sounds like a serious and professional recording, and it’s this earnestness that makes the film funny in the first place.  If nothing else, “Walk Hard” works well as a sort of “souvenir” from the movie – a reminder of an afternoon spent giggling at a grown man wearing ridiculous outfits singing ridiculous songs.

More on John C. Reilly: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Atlantic City (Gonna Make a Million Tonight)” – East River Pipe
(Words/music: F.M. Cornog, available on The Gasoline Age, Merge Records 1999)

I won’t try to rehash Fred Cornog’s journey from homeless junkie to reviled pop recluse because others have covered his biography better.  You should go read the feature on Cornog from New York Magazine or the Allmusic entry for East River Pipe (or the recent Merge Records oral history Our Noise), because it’s difficult to separate the biography from the songs, specifically the idea of a guy making these weirdly charming songs with keyboards and drum machines in his bedroom.

The single element that stands out the most to me – more than the nine and a half minutes of running time (although the last minute is mostly just a sound collage), more than the hopefulness in Cornog’s voice – is the way the long keyboard notes and delayed guitar shine in the background like a fluorescent light.  It ends up giving the song “soft lighting” as well – keeping the focus on the dream of becoming a millionaire rather than the impossibility of the feat.  Eventually, I end up losing myself in the reverberations, as the delayed guitar decays into that strange hum of slot machines whirling.  This is the point where Cornog’s dream fades into reality – one where (in my experience, anyway), casinos are far more depressing than those “Vegas, baby!” exclamations might make you think.  For a long stretch of time tonight, every time the song hit the eight minute mark, I went back near the beginning and dropped the cursor, getting lost in that loop again for a few more minutes.

Then I thought of how its creator made this in his bedroom studio.  At that point, I looked around at all the clutter in my bedroom, dropped the cursor back around the two minute mark, and closed my eyes in an attempt to fall back into the sound.

More on East River Pipe: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“History (Live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon)” – Mos Def & Talib Kweli featuring the Roots and Amber & Angel from the Dirty Projectors
(Words/music: Talib Kweli Greene, Dante Smith, James Yancey, Cecil Womack, Mary Wells-Womack, originally available on Mos Def’s The Ecstatic, Downtown 2009) 

In the closing of his review of The Ecstatic for Pitchfork, Nate Patrin boils “History” down to its most crucial details: “It’s a Black Star reunion over a Dilla beat.”  Not that either Talib Kweli’s presence on the track or production from the late J Dilla requires instant success (nor does Mos Def necessarily need the help), but it certainly turns a few more heads that way.  Sure enough, neither the former Black Star MCs nor the departed Dilla disappoint.  “History” coasts on a smooth soul sample that feels more looped than chopped, with Mos Def and Talib Kweli reflecting on their personal history.  While Mos Def’s first verse deals primarily with personal history, Kweli evokes Black Star’s name, contrasting with the current era of rappers who “dumb it down considerably.”  Even if “History” isn’t as essential as that Black Star LP, it is, like Mos Def says in the outro, “not a comeback in particular.”  Instead, it’s an enjoyable track from a duo many would love to hear record an entire album.

As for the production, this version from Jimmy Fallon’s late night performance feels like a two and a half minute homage to Dilla’s production.  With The Roots and the female vocalists from the Dirty Projectors providing the music, the musical talent on stage could rival Mos Def and Talib Kweli’s lyrical capabilities.  However, rather than try to embellish on Dilla’s production, the musicians carefully replicate his soulful track.  ?uestlove, perhaps Dilla’s most prominent supporter in the last few years, even commented via Twitter (forgive the missing link – that man tweets a lot!) how impressed he was that Amber and Angel could pick up the subtleties in the way the intonation of “History” changes throughout the track.  Appropriately, the show’s mix probably had the MCs a little lower than necessary.  As a (unintended) result, I find myself focusing less on the words and instead on the rhythm of the delivery mixed with the track itself.  If nothing else, it makes me want to spend all my eMusic credits this month solely on Dilla produced beats.

More on Mos Def: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Love Buzz” – Shocking Blue
(Words/music: Robbie van Leeuwen, available on At Home, Pink Elephant 1969) 

If I may go out on a limb to begin, most people would know Shocking Blue for their song “Venus,” a number one single in 1969 and a staple of TV commercials in recent years.  Admittedly, I knew the song but not the band for the longest time.  I say this because I knew song “Love Buzz” for years before I ever heard of the band.  “Love Buzz” was the A-side to the first Nirvana single in 1988, the first in the Sub Pop Singles’ Club series that helped fund the label during lean years.  A decade later, “Love Buzz” was among the Nirvana songs I extracted from CDs for use in mix tapes.  I loved the agile bass line underneath the wall of distortion.  In particular, I loved “Love Buzz” because it was one of the popier songs on Bleach (an album I never fully loved the way I loved the band’s later output).  Of course, this was still “pop” run through a distortion pedal, sung with a slightly deranged vocal tone.  In short, this was pop that I could co-sign at fifteen.

So at some point (one of the unsung tragedies of the digital era is that acquiring albums don’t leave imprints as much), I heard the original “Love Buzz.”  I knew it was a cover, but some of the more high profile Nirvana covers (The Man Who Sold the World was the first Bowie album I owned).  I knew that Kurt Cobain (born today) loved some offbeat pop songs, but “Love Buzz” still took me by surprise.  Despite adding a far more aggressive guitar tone, Nirvana streamlined the song somewhat.  The original version moves at a slower, deliberate pace with Mariska Veres’ deep vocals flanked by a sitar.  If the Nirvana song churned along at the same pace as much of their early material, Shocking Blue’s version sounds eerier at its slower tempo.  Then, there’s a double-time section where the drums, measured and restrained to this point, pound away.  The whole thing, whether it’s Veres’ tone or the sitar or just all the open space, sounds slightly creepy yet still entrancing.  I understand why Cobain was fascinated with a song like this.

More on Shocking Blue: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Wolf Like Me” – TV on the Radio
(Words/music: Tunde Adebimpe, available on Return to Cookie Mountain, 4AD 2006) 

Not being the biggest TV on the Radio devotee (for no specific reason, I just never fell in love with any of their records), I’ll qualify the following as an over-generalization: the band’s most successful tracks create a very specific soundscape.  As much as the elastic vocals are exciting, my ears inevitably go back to listening to the instrumentation behind the singing.  This probably explains why my appreciation of the band stalls at the “admiration from afar” stage, but my emotional attachment to their music begins and ends with the mood the song crafts.

Taking a step back from that statement for a minute, it’s no wonder why “Wolf Like Me” stands out the most.  From the moment that first fuzzy chord joins the pounding drums, “Wolf Like Me” captures the anxiety of pursuit.  Whether it’s the tension in the chords, the relentless drums, or the way the vocals overlap at times, the song’s “A” section feels unrelenting and constantly in pursuit.  Even a few years later, I haven’t had figured out the slower “B” section – whether it’s a momentary relief from the predator, the part in the nature video where the prey is caught and the camera slips into slo-mo, or just a different hallucination – aside from the way it contrasts the beginning of the song in its intensity.  The vocals remain the same yet the rest of the song slows down around it.  When the song picks back up for the ending just as it catches its breath, the same anxiety resumes.  Appropriately, the lines that stand out to me are the ones that fit in with this sense of anxiety – “my mind’s aflame,” “bloodlust tanks,” “we’re howling forever.”  If music often serves to enhance the lyrics, these words feel like the natural extension of the music.

More on TV on the Radio: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Little Eyes” – Yo La Tengo
(Words/music: Yo La Tengo, available on Summer Sun, Matador 2003)

“Little Eyes” always sneaks up on me.  It starts with a series of innocuous beeps and long metallic tones before it locks into its groove.  From there, it continues along for a little more than four minutes at the same volume.  Other than the liquid-like guitar line bending throughout the song, nothing really stands out from the rest of the arrangement.  The drums stay fairly low key, Georgia Hubley sings in a near-whisper for most of the song, and the bassline moves along yet does so in a subtle way.  This is the kind of thing that if played in public wouldn’t turn too many heads.

Still, I have the entire melody committed to memory and could finish almost every line if you sang the first half of it for me.  It’s nowhere near my favorite Yo La Tengo track, yet I know it better than the majority of their catalogue.  The best guess I have is that it’s the net effect; if any part of the song were turned into the main attraction – whether it’s the vocal melody or a particular instrument turned up louder – it might be exposed in its isolation.  Instead, with its unassuming presence, “Little Eyes” lets its charms work subtly.  In a way, it’s an apt metaphor for Yo La Tengo as a whole, but I’ll leave that for another time.  For tonight, I’m content to call “Little Eyes” a team victory despite not having a superstar performance.

More on Yo La Tengo: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

Last night I wrote about two versions of Stephin Merritt’s “100,000 Fireflies” - the Magnetic Fields’ original recording and Superchunk’s cover.  I’m not sure which I prefer, so I figured I’d ask you.  Let me know what you think!

What’s your preference - Superchunk of Magnetic Fields?

“100,000 Fireflies” – The Magnetic Fields
(Words/music: Stephin Merritt, available on Distant Plastic Trees, Red Flame 1991)

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the latest version of Stephin Merritt’s Magnetic Fields close one of their recent shows with “100,000 Fireflies,” as I didn’t know that the band still reached that far back into their catalogue. I’m mostly curious to see how their string-heavy recent lineup would interpret a song that relies so much on its production aesthetic. The keyboard, bouncy drum machine, and Susan Anway’s vocals make this recording of “100,000 Fireflies” sound like a slightly warped music box – it still sounds beautiful and pretty despite being a little weird. I remember the first time I heard this version after knowing (and loving) Superchunk’s cover and being amazed at the way Anway’s vocals and the change in octave on the keys sounded during the “I’m afraid of the dark without you next to me” line.

Trying to resolve the two distinct versions tonight, the best I can do is to compare them both to fireflies. The Superchunk version draws on the frenetic energy of a firefly humming around. Thus, their spin on the narrator’s loneliness draws on this restlessness and focuses it on pleading for another opportunity. This Anway-Merritt recording (perhaps influenced by my vision of a “100,000 Fireflies” music box) looks at the firefly inside the glass jar with its beauty and wonder carefully preserved. Their version feels smaller and more restrained yet feels more distant and isolated like an object untouched. Like the bugs stuck inside the jar, the narrator feels alone yet doesn’t quite know what to do to mend heartbreak. Instead, the narrator swaps out the missing lover for lightning bugs to find some solace in the dark the same way one might cling to a song when feeling lonely. This quiet, understated loneliness might not burn with the Superchunk version’s intensity, but it might cut deeper. While it looks bright and beautiful from far away, the lonliness doesn’t reveal itself until we get closer, the same way we wouldn’t notice the jar enclosing the beautiful fireflies unless we’re looking for it specifically.

(I wrote about the Superchunk version of “100,000 Fireflies” in the previous post – click here to read it).

More on The Magnetic Fields: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“100,000 Fireflies” – Superchunk
(Words/music: Stephin Merritt, available on Incidental Music 1991 – 95, Merge Records 1995)

I first knew “100,000 Fireflies” through the Superchunk version, and because my original copy of Incidental Music was on a CD-R, I didn’t know it wasn’t a Superchunk song.  With a bit of hindsight and and much deeper love for Superchunk’s catalogue, it stands out from a bunch of their earlier songs.  Lyrically it’s a little more dramatic than Mac McCaughan usually gets (I don’t think the phrase “I want to kill myself” appears in any of his songs).  Their cover highlights a lot of the things I love about the early Superchunk, particularly their fusion of melody and mayhem without sacrificing either.  It’s also more complex than the three chord pop-punk birthed at the end of the decade; the arrangement rises and falls in both volume and intensity.

There’s a certain justice to follow the “when I turn up the tone / on my electric guitar” lyric with electric guitars, and the energy Superchunk breathes into the song is infectious.  McCaughan’s strained vocals, particularly in the post-chorus section, lean on the desperation in the lyrics.  The guitar slows down and feels heavier as he pleads for another chance.  Gradually, Jim Wilbur embellishes on the main riff, twisting it into a brief solo before the song ends. 

In many ways, Superchunk gets right to the core of the song, bringing the urgency to the forefront with distorted guitars.  Like the Magnetic Fields version (and more on them in the next post – give me a half hour or so), the Superchunk cover relies on crafting a specific mood.  Their mood draws on the ones that run beneath the surface – ones I might not have gleaned just from the original version alone.

(Part 2 on the Magnetic Fields’ version can be read here)

More on Superchunk: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

I’m in the mood to write and I’m generally torn between two different versions of “100,000 Fireflies,” so I’m going to write about both.  Off to write!

“The Crane Wife 3” – The Decemberists
(Words/music: Colin Meloy, available on The Crane Wife, Capitol 2006) 

I’ve realized that loving songs shares a lot with romantic love. This probably says more about my own relationship with music than it does about love itself (that sound you’re hearing is the simultaneous nodding of every woman with whom I’ve been involved), but it makes sense given I spent the bulk of my teenage dating years devouring records.  My point is that just like meeting someone, songs have their initial obvious charms.  In this case, it might be a memorable lyric or a particularly exciting bridge or even just a really catchy melody.  However, there are lots of clever lines, stunning bridges, and catchy melodies out there; the songs I end up loving reveal different aspects of itself over time.  What was once a catchy song ends up being one with an offbeat chord progression or interesting instrument deep in the mix.

Tonight I was in the right mood to hear one of these tiny discoveries.  While “The Crane Wife 3,” a song I love on an album I rarely listen to, played, something nondescript caught my attention right before the third verse.  I paused it, grabbed my headphones(which are still on even though I’m not playing any music), and backed up the track.  Sure enough, right after the little glockenspiel melody at 2:07, there’s this odd bent guitar note right before Colin Meloy starts singing again.  I always loved the way that this song gathered steam, building from that solitary acoustic guitar to a fully augmented band by the end, but never noticed this little tic before.  To the best of my knowledge, there isn’t any slide guitar in the rest of the song.  Perhaps it’s not played with a slide and just a bent note, but it’s an anomaly in a song I thought I otherwise knew completely well.  It’s not the purest form of love deepening itself (more on that another time, I suppose), but it’s the type of serendipitous discovery that makes me wish I had more time to listen to older records on a more frequent basis.

More on The Decemberists: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“It’s a Shame About Ray” – The Lemonheads
(Words/music: Evan Dando and Tom Morgan, available on It’s a Shame About Ray, Atlantic 1992)

“It’s a Shame About Ray” fascinates me because it hints at a story more than it actually tells one.  Evan Dando laments someone without giving a specific reason why.  The best guess is that Ray is gone; it could be anything from Ray just leaving before Dando arrived to moving away to passing away.  It doesn’t really matter, because this lament ends up telling more about Dando’s narrator than about Ray.  Whether intentional or not, Ray becomes an excuse for the narrator reflect on himself.  He tells us that he’s “never been too good with names” twice, and in between he suggests that he’d be better off putting his feelings back with the cobwebs – hidden away in a place rarely touched.  Whether he’s an introvert or he’s extracting a lesson from Ray’s situation, the narrator sounds resolved to keep to himself for a little while.

Thankfully, the entire song isn’t as mopey as it sounds.  Dando sings with a deceptively melodic voice; he isn’t belting out the song like an arena rock singer, but he still projects his voice with a bright tone.  In an era where singers hid behind their hair and a wall of distortion, Dando puts his voice front and center (ironically with an introverted narrator).  Even with his generally upbeat tone, Dando finds just enough sadness in his notes at the right times.  Perhaps the moderate tempo helps to give the song a general melancholy quality around the end of the verses, but something about the melody keeps it from completely contradicting the lyrics.  It’s difficult not to let the music influence the story in the lyrics, but with so few clues in the narrative it doesn’t feel like too much of a leap to suggest that even while he laments Ray, he feels like it’s for the best (whether for him, for Ray, or for all involved).  Perhaps that’s just the optimist in me hearing what he wants to hear.

More on The Lemonheads: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“My Slumbering Heart” – Rilo Kiley
(Words/music: Jenny Lewis and Blake Sennett, available on The Execution of All Things, Saddle Creek 2002)

It’s unfair to say that Rilo Kiley were better when they were unpolished for a couple reasons.  First, I don’t mean this to suggest they were ever rough; they were one of the tightest live bands I’ve seen far before Jenny Lewis tried to become a pop star.  It also gives the wrong impression about The Execution of All Things.  It’s less rough than it is unpasteurized – one where the rough edges were like birthmarks – attention grabbing and character building.  Where much of the later Rilo Kiley records try to set up Lewis for her star moment, her brashness feels more charming than the slick sheen backing her in recent years.

I don’t just mean the cursing; Lewis’ lyrics here have a brashness and directness without being purely confessional.  “My Slumbering Heart,” for instance, describes those moments somewhere between being fully awake and fully asleep, often triggered by too many stressful days and late nights.  Childhood memories collide head-on with adult awareness and Lewis carefully tries to balance the nostalgia for childhood games with adult irritability.  The song then shifts to a half-awake, half-asleep scenario, where her lover in bed and the song on the radio seem too hazy to be completely real yet believable enough to seem like reality.  Eventually, she takes a break from assessing her fatigue and chronicling her dreams to step back and change perspective slightly.  Rather than focus on the things draining her, she shifts her focus to the things that rejuvenate her – specifically waking up next to this person buried under the covers.  The guitar and keyboard crashes behind her, giving the most emotionally direct moment in the lyrics the musical climax.  It’s this sort of rush – both musically and lyrically – that gets smoothed out too often.  It’s too bad, because this is the spark that a lot of their later records lack.

More on Rilo Kiley: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Since U Been Gone” – Kelly Clarkson
(Words/music: Lukasz Gottwald and Martin Sandberg, available on Breakaway, RCA 2004) 

Great songs aren’t made solely on great hooks.  Sure, a golden hook brings an otherwise forgettable song to the top of the charts, but only a wholly great effort translates into a great song.  I’ll get to this song’s hook in a minute, but the thing that strikes me today listening to this song for the first time in ages are the verses.  From the overall taught sound of the drums and guitars to the way the title threads through the verses like a mini-hook at the end of every few lines, these verses run efficiently.  There’s even a new wrinkle after the first chorus with high harmonies accompanying Clarkson’s vocals.  The double-tracking might get tiresome throughout the whole song, but in this controlled dosage it gives this verse it’s own twist, particularly after returning from the hook.

Then there’s the hook – one that revels in its joy over its newfound freedom.  Between its infectious melody and its post-break-up rally cry, the hook would do just fine on its own.  However, when coupled with these meticulously arranged and somewhat subdued verses, the unrestrained elation in Clarkson’s voice burns brighter.  Like the background buildup in a good anecdote, the verses help to set the stage and bring us all up to speed on the relevant details.  It’s the hook that seals the deal; Clarkson gives us just enough in the verses to tip us toward her side of the story, so her bold declaration that she’s better than ever feels even more satisfying.  By the time we hit the key change in the bridge, we know enough to appreciate the way her heartbreak fortified her.  Besides, we’re already singing along, we may as well be on the same page.

More on Kelly Clarkson: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Noise Brigade (live)” – The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
(Words/music: Nate Albert, Dicky Barrett, & The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, available on Tibetan Freedom Concert, Grand Royal / Capitol 1997)

“A dime for a dozen if that’s what you’re after” stands out to me in this song even if I’m not quite sure what to make of it.  It seems accidentally referential, as the Mighty Mighty Bosstones were the ones who broke open the late 1990s ska-punk revival (and, effectively, opened the door for the “dime for a dozen” ska bands to have their fifteen minutes).  It doesn’t sound cynical; the Bosstones never struck me as a band jealous or resentful of their peers.  Quite the opposite, as I have a vivid memory of Dicky Barrett proclaiming how Reel Big Fish would follow in their footsteps performing on the marquee before the MTV awards. 

There’s the thought that Dicky Barrett isn’t describing his band (or any band, for that matter) but his voice – one that he asks “should I call this my range or a ridge?”  This live version, from the 1997 Tibetan Freedom Concert, only supports that claim.   His band sounds as tight as ever with horn hits and guitar lines all falling into place.  Then there’s Barrett’s voice sounding like he’s trying to sing exclusively out of the back of his throat.  For a man with such a naturally strong speaking voice (as shown in the breakdown and an introduction on the concert compilation’s previous track) the way he’s singing undercuts his voice’s power.  Barrett doesn’t always sound like this, but the imperfections only magnify the self-critique in the lyrics.  Regardless, Barrett doesn’t need to sound like an angel, particularly when the rest of the band sounds this heavenly.

More on The Mighty Mighty Bosstones: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Take the Skinheads Bowling” – Camper Van Beethoven
(Words/music: Victor Krummenacher, David Lowery, Chris Molla, and Jonathan Segel, available on Telephone Free Landslide Victory, Cooking Vinyl 1985) 

Two chords in the verse and a third introduced in the chorus, and that’s it for “Take the Skinheads Bowling.”  If I didn’t know all the trouble I had getting a F chord to sound good when I first started playing, I’d recommend this song for beginners new to the guitar.  Hell, it would be a lot better of a song for random dude at a party to pick up the guitar and start playing.  It would at least make things a little more interesting. 

I cite the simplicity of the chords only to set the context for my desire to over-analyze the lyrics.  I’ve spent most of my intellectual life training myself in close reading, and with that comes the tendency to look deeper than necessary in some occasions.  With “Take the Skinheads Bowling,” it’s a fruitless exercise trying to find some kind of motif.  It’s unnecessary as well, as it’s a goofy, fun song that might be ruined by a line-by-line analysis.  If anything, I’m tipped only by the final verse and its repetition of the phrase “had a dream” followed by the different images.  If the whole song is meant as a series of oddly related dream images, then it explains some of the oddities.  Then again, the dreams are bookended by dreams that he “forgot what it was” and “nothing,” so perhaps not.

Crap, I fell into the trap.  I’m just going to stop and practice these chords.  Where’s my guitar?

More on Camper Van Beethoven: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Dig Me Out” – Sleater-Kinney
(Words/music: Sleater-Kinney, available on Dig Me Out, Kill Rock Stars 1997) 

OK, so this song came to mind in part because I do need to dig out my car from the snow storm that hit the northeast (and continues right now, I think).  Truth be told, this is one of the last songs I need to hear right now.  I haven’t left the house all day and it’s been completely unproductive.  Whether it’s because I haven’t done too much or because I can’t go anywhere, I’ve been feeling stir crazy.  Hearing a song like “Dig Me Out,” particularly when I should be forcing myself into bed, only heightens that cabin fever-fueled anxiety.  Thankfully I went against habit and didn’t make an entire pot of coffee today.  I can only imagine how I would feel stuck home, over-caffinated with the wiry guitars in “Dig Me Out” making my pulse quicken beyond a healthy level.

That being said, “Dig Me Out” serves as a solid litmus test for someone new to Sleater-Kinney.  Their sound went in different directions – occasionally darker, occasionally fuller – but “Dig Me Out” represents a sort of “home base” for the band.  The guitars and drums push forward quickly, shifting from a straight-ahead stomp into a half-time arpeggiated breakdown.  These guitars provide a fast counter-melody to Corin Tucker’s bellowing vocals.  She sings with such power and force that it feels overwhelming at times, particularly with the fast moving arrangement underneath her.  In a strange way, though, her vocals provide an anchor for the song, letting those guitars cut around quickly.  Those who might be turned off by her voice get a strong sense of Tucker’s upper register in “Dig Me Out,” but those who find it exciting or impressive will likely find the trio’s minimalism surprisingly dynamic.  Considering that (most) of their songs feature two guitars, drums, and voice, Sleater-Kinney makes the most of a few pieces.

More on Sleater-Kinney: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Atlantic City” – The Band
(Words/music: Bruce Springsteen, available on Jericho, Rhino 1993)

This Levon Helm led version of “Atlantic City “ threw me for a loop the first time I heard it. I know Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska by reputation as some of his starkest songs with some of his darkest characters. So hearing the brightness of the accordion and mandolin on the Band’s version caught me off guard. For a song where the narrator turns to gambling as a desperate solution to problems, The Band’s version sounded too bright. It sounded more like a leisurely afternoon on the boardwalk than terse moments inside a casino.

So I went back to Springsteen’s recording and found his original version closer to this one than I remembered. Sure, this isn’t the inspired, determined protagonist associated with a lot of his later work, but the main character in “Atlantic City” isn’t completely devoid of hope. He tempers his observation that “everyone dies” with the hope that “everything that dies someday comes back.” Whether it’s what he wants to believe or it’s a true sign of faith, hope remains nonetheless. Even some of the sonic details in the Band’s version that I found surprising – specifically the mandolin and the harmony vocals – exist in Springsteen’s recording too. Whether Springsteen plays a mandolin or an acoustic guitar in its upper register, a string instrument accompanies him the same way his double-tracked vocal harmonizes with him during the chorus. Levon Helm and his bandmates did what good covers often do by highlighting certain aspects of the original. As a result, it creates a distinctly unique version of the song that differentiates itself while still paying tribute to the original.

More on The Band: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Who Are You (Single Edit)” – The Who
(Words/music: Pete Townshend, available on Thirty Years of Maximum R&B, MCA 1994) 

The Who sounded fine last night at the Super Bowl – not quite revelatory yet not quite embarrassing – and provided enough overly-obvious age-related fuel for people who think that they are funny.  The band’s medley of CSI theme songs sidestepped the question I wondered going into the weekend – would Roger Daltrey still sing the “who the fuck are you” line in “Who Are You?”

In reality, I knew it wouldn’t happen; I imagine that Super Bowl producers have snipers waiting for anyone who might go off script.  I only raise this question because this is an obscenity that frequently makes its way onto the radio.  It doesn’t happen every time, but it happens regularly enough for me to stop noticing it as something out of the ordinary.  I don’t mention this because I’m offended, but rather that I’m curious.  Sure, Daltrey runs through the line quickly, but it’s not exactly a subtle obscenity either.  If nothing else, I’m fascinated by it – do radio programmers not notice it, or did someone sign off on it? In any case, I found this far more interesting than commenting on the band’s age this weekend.

More on The Who: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Dream Police” – Cheap Trick
(Words/music: Rick Nielson, available on Dream Police, Epic 1979) 

When asked about his music being used in a commercial, Iggy Pop (or I think it was Iggy Pop, please correct me if I’m wrong) said (and again, I’m paraphrasing – I can’t find the exact quote) that he saw no issue with licensing his songs.  Specifically, Pop said that his songs weren’t written with the intent to sell products, intimating that it’s not selling out if they come to you after an indiscriminate amount of time. 

I share this along with the following statement of facts: I don’t write songs, let alone songs anyone cares about.  What people do with their songs is their business, and if it puts food on the table or makes a loved one’s life a little better, then even better.  So when Cheap Trick decided to rerecord “Dream Police” for an Audi commercial and rechristen it as “Green Police” (to tout the car’s environmental credentials), it’s ultimately Rick Nielson’s prerogative to provide for himself and his family.  Hell, given the same opportunity, I’m not sure I’d do it differently.

That being said – ugh.

Cheap Trick, one of the finest and (generally) underappreciated power pop bands of their era, deserved the crowd who heard their music tonight.  Their songs are ebullient and wry and stick in your head for days.  “Dream Police” may not be on the same level as “Surrender,” but its slick production and eerily-tinged synths find the sweet spot between the song’s bubbly melody and the lyrics’ sci-fi paranoia.  Yes, it’s a ridiculous concept, but it’s the right kind of ridiculous that’s tempered with the proper goofy demeanor that makes it charmingly ridiculous.  Perhaps “Green Police” is the equivalent government related fear (judging by the number of folks on Twitter labeling it a “liberal dream,” perhaps it’s even more polarizing) thirty years later, but tonight it came off as hokey. 

Again, I’m not against anyone collecting a paycheck.  It’s just a shame that it had to come in such a patronizing way.  Maybe Rick Nielson is laughing at people like me (and maybe subconsciously I’m resentful because I’ll never afford an Audi), but I can’t help but feel like “Green Police” is counter-productive.  Not only will the melody to one of my favorite songs cause me to change the channel, but after tonight I’m not sure how long it will be before I’ll be able to listen to “Dream Police” and enjoy it again.

More on Cheap Trick: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Candy Everybody Wants” – 10,000 Maniacs
(Words/music: Dennis Drew & Natalie Merchant, available on MTV Unplugged, Elektra 1993)  

My iTunes library on my current computer goes back to July 2007.  “Candy Everybody Wants” is the song that’s been played at least once (an embarrassingly large percentage of my library has a playcount of zero) that went back the furthest until moments ago when I played it.  The suggestion is that I went two and a half years without listening to the song, and that’s not likely true; I may have heard it on Pandora or it may have played on my iPod on one of the times where my music didn’t sync (not to mention clicking on another song before it ended).  Regardless, I haven’t heard it a lot since July 2007 and that makes me kind of sad.  

The melody in “Candy Everybody Wants” suits Natalie Merchant’s voice well.  Merchant’s rich tone serves it well while still giving her a few minutes to show her vocal strengths, particularly at the end of the verses.  Lyrically, the song tangentially addresses the debate about content in the mass media, specifically whether the entertainment industry should be ashamed for glorifying sex and violence or whether it’s merely listening to and providing for its audience’s demands.  The whole thing, the melody, the assortment of stringed instruments, and the subject are all pleasant – certainly charming and clever, but not in a particularly outstanding way.  I suppose this is how I could go from July 14, 2007 to today without having heard the song; it’s the kind of song that might lose its charm when in constant rotation.  While two and a half years is too long, in this case absence made my ears grow fonder.

More on 10,000 Maniacs: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“King of Ska” – Desmond Dekker and the Cherry Pies
(Words/music: Desmond Dacres, available on The Definitive Collection, Sanctuary 2005) 

When reggae music started to gather steam in the mid-to-late part of the 1960s, Desmond Dekker was right in the middle of things.  By the end of the decade, Dekker wrote one of the most iconic tracks of the time period (“Israelites”) and found commercial success with several other tracks (including Jimmy Cliff’s “You Can Get It If You Really Want”).  However, as early as 1964 Dekker declared himself “King of Ska.”  Recording with the Cherry Pies (later known as the Maytals, reggae icons in their own right), Dekker seized the throne.  While the music sounds dated to the mid-1960s, lyrically Dekker sounds more like a battle rapper than a young reggae star.  “I am going to burn your skin like a blazing fire” he declares in the song’s contrasting section, giving his proclamation of power some more teeth to it.  If nothing else, it foreshadows the unforgiving nature that made “Israelites” its urgency. 

While I can’t refute Dekker’s royal lineage, I will always consider my friend (and frequent SSC commenter) Kevin to be “Ska Royalty” in my world.  I met Kevin in college and to this day I’ve never met someone with a more complete knowledge of a genre both in its contemporary form and its historical roots.  I’m pretty sure he was introduced to me as “Ska Kevin” and he certainly lived up to the name (all the while possessing one of the most open minds to non-ska music as well).  Today is Kevin’s birthday and he’s currently coping with the “Snopocalypse” blanketing the mid-Atlantic region, so I send warm happy birthday wishes along with this post.

More on Desmond Dekker: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Across the Universe” – David Bowie
(Words/music: John Lennon & Paul McCartney, available on Young Americans, Virgin 1975) 

The Beatles’ recording of “Across the Universe,” recorded primarily on February 4, 1968, gradually unfolds itself and lets subtle layers of strings and harmonies roll out as the song progresses.  It’s appropriate, given both the song’s famous opening line and the way John Lennon described the song “flowing” into him one night in bed.  With its Sanskrit mantra mixed in, “Across the Universe” thrives on this circular interconnectivity on both the lyrical and musical level.

All this makes David Bowie’s version a little stranger.  Where Lennon’s performance flows effortlessly, Bowie’s version lags.  Anchored by a strong backbeat, the rest of the song feels like it’s moving in slow motion – the harmonies are strained and stretched out and the guitar melodies expand past their original length.  This isn’t a bad thing, either.  In fact, a straight-ahead cover from Bowie would be boring and out of character.  Instead, as it appears with the rest of the “plastic soul” Young Americans, Bowie’s universe feels slightly melted and warped and just slightly more irregular than Lennon’s perfect circle.  However, even with slightly disjointed parts, Bowie’s version reaches a moment of connectivity as well when Lennon shows up and trades off vocals at the end.  If Lennon’s original is a meditation, Bowie and Lennon’s trade off feels like resolution in the face of hardship.  With disjointed pieces and all, it’s a reminder that sometimes inner peace comes from ourselves rather than our surroundings.

More on David Bowie: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Terms of Psychic Warfare” – Hüsker Dü
(Words/music: Grant Hart, available on New Day Rising, SST 1985)

The verses in “Terms of Psychic Warfare” feel like a cousin to “Wild Thing” or other similar 1960s garage rock songs.  It has the same kind of repetitive riff and even Grant Hart’s vocal cadence reminds me of the extended pauses between lines.  That being said, “Terms of Psychic Warfare” is the distorted, slightly twisted take on garage rock, pushing the tinny guitars to the front of the mix and sticking Hart’s somewhat mumbled lyrics further back into the mix.  Ultimately, these cousins share the same loose garage-rock feel and lo-fi production aesthetics.

Of course, “Terms of Psychic Warfare” isn’t, to echo one of 2009’s recurring debate, great because it’s lo-fi; it’s a great song that transcends its production limits.  Even with Hüsker Dü’s standard production budget, the coarseness doesn’t preclude ability both as performers and as arrangers.  Bob Mould’s feedback-heavy guitar contrasts Greg Norton’s carefully plucked bass line, giving the song its strange pseudo-Spectorian wall of feedback beneath Hart’s rantings.  There are even harmony vocals deep in the mix, eeking out just enough to hint at their presence after several listens.  The song’s deceptiveness masks its assets beneath the treble-laden surface yet gives it enough charm to make it interesting many listens later.  Whether it’s embellishing on the garage rock form or funneling an entire lifetime of listening through the sound available to them, Hüsker Dü’s songs like “Terms of Psychic Warfare” warrant a reputation that expands beyond simple shredding.

More on Husker Du: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Live)” – George Michael and Elton John
(Words/music: Elton John and Bernie Taupin, available on Duets, MCA 1992) 

Maybe it’s from a lifetime of waiting rooms filled with easy listening music, but given the right circumstances a sappy song hits the spot.  It’s not necessarily a specific mindset; it could just be a moment where a chord change captures my attention or a harmony makes me look up from what I’m doing.  This isn’t to say that every bit of muzak can stir a soul.  Rather, there are moments that deserve more than something to cover up the sound of magazine pages flipping.

“Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me” immediately comes to mind.  It’s not the smartest or deepest Elton John song.  I don’t even really have a deep personal attachment or association with this song the way I do with a song like “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.”  It’s just an extremely well written ballad with some stunning moments.  Particularly, the harmony at the beginning of the chorus melts my heart even on my grumpiest days.  When put into George Michael’s hands – (whose tabloid tales overshadow his pipes) – this approaches ballad perfection.  I don’t watch American Idol (mainly because I don’t watch a lot of TV) but I imagine this is similar to the show’s transcendent moments – where a gifted singer takes a beautiful song and rivals the original.  For me, at least, this is the definitive version, and the one that I’d actually listen to outside of a waiting room.

More on George Michael: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“Living Well is the Best Revenge (Live)” – R.E.M.
(Words/music: Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe, available on Live at the Olympia, Warner Brothers 2009)

Earlier today, Yahoo! Sports Kelly Dwyer wrote an unexpected treatise on fandom.  I encourage you to read his post not only if you’re a sports fan, but if you’re a passionate fan of anything.  Dwyer, a life-long Chicago Bulls fan, looked back at his obsessive fanaticism during the end of the Bulls’ dynasty and subsequent recession into mediocrity.  His advice is to maintain joy even in the most critical moments.  “Nothing’s guaranteed save for the joy you create,” Dwyer writes, and the more I thought about what he wrote, the more it made sense beyond the world of sports.  Even if there aren’t championships to win or lose in music (and let’s be honest, the Grammy’s or Billboard #1s aren’t equivalents), there’s the same gamut of emotions when a favorite band missteps or disappears, whether it’s betrayal or disappointment or depression.  To be a fan is to open yourself up to heartbreak as much as it’s to open yourself up to euphoria.

As a fan, I have the longest and strongest allegiances to R.E.M..  They were one of the first bands I obsessed over, and remain the band I return to the most often.  They are the most played band on my Last.fm profile by several hundred plays.  Over the past decade and a half, I’ve seen the band’s popularity recede and return gently.  Their output over this period runs the gamut from surprisingly charming to crushingly disappointing, to the point where I started to write the band off around the middle of the last decade.  This is what made 2008’s Accelerate such an important album – one that revived my faith in the band and brought me back to long-forgotten corners of their back catalogue.

When the band toured in support of the album in 2008, I bought tickets to three different shows, none of which were in my home state.  I ventured to Massachusetts and came within 30 feet of the stage.  I braved a torrential downpour and near-brush with lightning in Long Island.  I took several days off from work to take the train down to Philadelphia and even bought scalped tickets just to move up a couple dozen rows.  Despite the time and money invested, I didn’t question my decision because deep down, I knew the fleeting nature of this moment.  Somewhere deep in my brain I knew that the band might never sound this good again (and the jury’s out on that, hopefully I’m wrong), but rather than dwell on the tour as the band’s swan song, I wanted to be in the house for every possible second I could.  To this day, I have notebook pages full of thoughts from these shows, dozens of blurry pictures, and archived downloads of every bootleg I could find.  I’m even on YouTube ruining a perfectly good video of “Begin the Begin” by singing along too close to the camera.  All of these artifacts bring me back to the sheer joy of seeing one of my favorite bands perhaps at their best moment during my fandom.

“Joy” is the operative word here, and it’s the key to being a fan.  As Dwyer suggests, there will always be imperfections (not to mention the lingering feeling that what goes up must come back down).  These are valid parts of fandom yet shouldn’t preclude the reason for being a fan in the first place.  In reference to these moments, Dwyer says, “So make them work for you. Don’t ever let up, and question everything, but make them work.”  It’s easier said than done, especially when disappointment sets in.  Still, I’m brought back to the end of Michael Stipe’s speech accepting R.E.M.’s enshrinement in the rock and roll hall of fame.  Stipe shares that his grandmother interpreted the band’s name as an acronym for “remember every moment,” and I can’t think of a better definition of fandom than that.

More on R.E.M.: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

“L.A. Woman” – The Doors
(Words/music: John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek, and Jim Morrison, available on L.A. Woman, Elektra 1971)  

For whatever reason, “L.A. Woman” is the Doors song that fascinates me the most.  It’s not the weirdest Doors song nor is it the best representative track.  However, this is the version of the band I enjoy the most.  The arrangement feels fuller and more freewheeling than a lot of their work and Jim Morrison sounds immersed in his vocals.  Even if the lyrics aren’t his most brooding, his delivery seems particularly unhinged.  He sounds like he’s tossing off lyrics as they come to him – repeating some lines that he wants to mull over a little more, annunciating some lines more than others, and tossing in whoops and “yeahs” at random intervals.  Robbie Krieger is right behind him, echoing some of Morrison’s vocals with similarly phrased lead licks.  Even though the band only performed the song once, this is the version I’d like to picture live – freewheeling and fun.

Even if “L.A. Woman” feels like a live improvisation, other moments suggest its meticulous construction.  Even if Morrison sounds like he’s making up the words on the spot, the repetition and phrasing of the words seems planned out.  Particularly on the bridge, Morrison knows exactly how to contort each syllable to fit with the right melodic and rhythmic bend to it.  There’s also the anagram – “Mr. Mojo Risin’” as a rearrangement of Morrison’s name.  No matter how off the cuff and free associative the end product sounds, it takes too many twists and turns to be anything less than carefully planned out.

More on The Doors: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm

From the raves I read about Spotify, this is a good thing.  Admittedly, I don’t know a lot about its details though.  How does it compare with, say, Lala?

1. Pavement (21)
2. Beach House (8)
3. The New Pornographers (5)
4. TBJ (2)
5. Yeasayer (2)

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Well played, people of Brizzly.

joecarryon:

thedailywhat:

Early Bird Special: Eduard Khil, The Trololololololololololo Guy, watches several parodies of his now-legendary performance on YouTube, while being interviewed concerning the recently renewed interest in his musical career.

[reddit.]

Today’s SO META moment of the day has been brought to you by…

This made my week.

Can we stop calling OK Go leaving EMI a sea change?  This isn’t exactly Dylan going Electric.

(Similarly, Bill Simmons declaring Corey Haim’s death “the end of an era” was enough to get me to click through and unfollow him on Twitter.)

wasted-efforts:

cursed!

Meet the new Mets; the same as the old Mets.  Ugh.

maura:

So who’s the bigger draw at this point: Conan or Jay-Z?

Please let them duet on “Big Pimpin’.”

This is only part of the picture: This is twice through Quarantine the Past and doesn’t include twice through The Brutalist Bricks on LP and a ton of online radio. (Not to mention half a dozen streams of the new Japandroids single and that Trolololololo guy a couple dozen times).

1. Pavement (44)
2. Beach House (5)
3. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists (4)
4. The Magnetic Fields (3)
5. R.E.M. (3)

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Good morning to me.  There are too many ! moments on here to highlight.

(via You Ain’t No Picasso)

MICHAEL GIACCHINO, upon receiving his Oscar for Best Original Score (Up).

(via inothernews:makingofmovies:thedarkspark)

(via raptoravatar)

I didn’t watch a whole lot of the Oscars last night, but I saw this and I’m glad I did.

Zach Galifianakis’ monologue last night on SNL was wonderful.

Wait - Hulu doesn’t have the Pageant Talk skit?  What?

emmiline:

hypem:

hamtunes:

Talented Kids Being Talented of the Day: The fifth-graders of the PS22 Chorus strike cute gold yet again with a heart-expanding cover of Pheonix’s “Lisztomania”.

This must be the longest a sure thing has ever had to wait to become a TV show.

[hyst.] thedailywhat:

watch this and feel happier.  wonderful.

Does the death of 6 Music mean the end of ‘new music’? | Tom Ewing | Music | The Guardian

Another interesting article on taste, specifically the idea of “trusting” a DJ (the way so many trusted John Peel).  I agree with this idea that music discovery is more than an algorithm or tags (I discovered this when i gave Tom’s Last.fm clickthrough game and found myself stuck in very specific genre loops).  He makes a point about having to take chances with something outside of one’s comfort zone to discover something new, and it’s hard to find something new if all someone does is stick to Pandora stations.  Sure, there may be different versions of whatever you started with (a Van Morrison station leading to more Morrison-esque singer-songwriters) and Pandora has its purpose, but I’m not sure music discovery, at least for the voraciously willing consumer of “new music,” is its thing.

I wonder if the idea of discovery on the internet isn’t with Last.fm but with blogs.  People trust Pitchfork or Fluxblog (or their Tumblr network or their Google Reader subscriptions) and might discover something new based on their introduction the same way a DJ would slide in something different into the middle of a show.  Of course, seeing words (and in the case of Pitchfork, grades) only highlights the editorial part of the selection - DJs do it too, but it’s easier to forgive something when three minutes later a new song comes on, as opposed to a link that could be clicked during every return visit to the site.

(via eyeonspringfield)

“Dar-ryl.  Dar-ryl.”

“Silence Kid (Live in Australia 3/4/10)” - Pavement

Seriously, bless the internet.  The last time Pavement was playing gigs (and before I was into them, to be entirely honest) you might be able to get a recording of a show from a message board or e-mail list or whatever else I used to use to trade cassette tapes.  I remember getting a show like eight weeks after it happened and thinking that it was so cool that I got something that recent (let alone the first time I got a recording of a show I actually went to!)

Now, a decade later, it’s 11:00 AM and I’ve already watched half a dozen videos from a concert that already happened today halfway around the world.  Amazing.

(Also, I take back the insinuation a couple posts before about Pavement being “boring” on stage).

“Date with IKEA” - Pavement

This is from today’s show (3/4/10) in Australia.  They sound wonderful, in particular Spiral Stairs.  Maybe that hat is giving him enhanced vocal powers?

Review of today’s show from Oceans Never Listen, who provided the setlist. Songs debuted at this show: “Frontwards,” “Zurich Is Stained,” “Debris Slide,” “We Dance,” “Fin”. (via pavement2010)

This is great to hear - Pavement aren’t going to put on a show with an electric stage presence, so it’s going to be up to the audience to create that sort of atmosphere.  (Also: “We Dance” in the encore is superb.)

1. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists (31)
2. East River Pipe (21)
3. Phoenix (12)
4. Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs (4)
5. R.E.M. (3)

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

perpetua:

Ted Leo
“Bottled In Cork”
Live at WFMU, 3/2/2010

I filmed this last night at the Best Show On WFMU marathon show, which raised about $72,000 in three hours. If you haven’t pledged yet, please do so next Tuesday, 8 PM - 11 PM EST — the show pulled in a lot of money, but the station is still far off from their goal, and every bit helps. By the way, I agree with Tom Scharpling — “Bottled In Cork” may be the best Ted Leo song ever.

“A little good will goes a mighty long way” would be a great slogan for the WFMU marathon!

I hate to pile on here, but this is a hell of a song (Scharpling’s appraisal of it at the end of the video is pretty spot-on).

Senator Dikembe Mutombo Blocks Record Amount of Legislation | The Onion

Essay - I Was a Teenage Illiterate - NYTimes.com

For several reasons, this essay hits close to home.

Such a simple and brilliant idea.  After a fan in Toronto successfully gathered 300 others to commit to seeing comedian Paul F. Tompkins perform, Tompkins booked a gig there and had a blast.  Thus, he’s extended the offer elsewhere - organize three hundred people who are committed to seeing him perform and Tompkins will make it happen.  It looks like the Boston group eclipsed that number already (and how NYC only has 150-ish people is beyond me).

I’m not sure this could (or world) translate to the music world (it’s easier for a single person to travel to a city than for a band plus gear to do the same), but imagine being able to gather a certain number of diehards for a band that rarely (or never) comes to your part of the country to coax them out for a gig.

yourmandevine:

thebasketballjones:

Big news!

Clap for ‘em, boys.

If you like sports, jokes and passionate people talking about the things they love, you HAVE to be thrilled for these guys.  They deserve this, and they will succeed at it.

Good luck and God bless, Skeets, Tas, JD and Matt.  We’ll be watching, beaming with pride the whole time.  (Well, some of us will, at least.)

I’m so thrilled for them, especially when I saw this article that says they are getting a mobile application, a TV spot, and a gig on Sirius radio (I’m in day 3 of a 7 day trial and that would only fall into the “pro” side of subscribing).

The only bummer is that they won’t be opening their shows with “Napoleon Says” anymore.  A small price to pay to see some people who are really good at what they do earn a full time gig doing that.

tomewing:

Five minutes and thirteen seconds: This is “R-Type” by Jo, from 1995 - she was 18 or 19 at the time, one of the few women producing jungle records and (I think) the only producer at that time to use videogame soundtracks as their main sample source. The result is glitchy, rough-edged, psychedelic jungle: propulsive and woozy at the same time, and thanks to the continued fascination with 8-bit sounds it’s aged very well.

I wanted to upload a bit more jungle and hardcore because all the recent conversation about cassettes had reminded me of it: for me it was a cassette medium, when I started listening to it (relatively late! 1993 or so) the Oxford dance music shops still disapproved of it and never stocked the vinyl, they just had a handful of cassette mixes on one corner of one shelf. The first jungle compilation I got was a cassette, in a 99p remainder bin in Tower Records. And my all-time favourite drum’n’bass compilation, Virgin’s Kodwo Eshun compiled Routes From The Jungle, I bought on one of those chunky and resilient double cassette packs. That was where I first heard Jo’s music, in fact.

What would your 5’13” track be?

I feel it’s my duty to help this track get to its home on ittookseconds.  All yours, Tom!

Apparently not.

Craig Ferguson (a naturalized American) has the Ben Franklin “Join or Die” political cartoon tattooed on his arm.  He showed this off during his hour long interview with Stephen Fry conducted without a studio audience.  It was awesome.

I know that this is for a plush doll, but it’s still kind of funny.

via gorillavsbear.net

Maybe I’m just a little grumpy this morning, but I took that “inexplicably failed to mention” bit as a dig.  It’s not that I want to defend the Pitchfork piece (I haven’t read it yet), but rather the idea that a single review must be all-inclusive (or rather, reflect the opinions of all).  It’s entirely possible that the reviewer has plenty of salient points and insight based on entirely different songs (and, from what you Tumblr folks are saying, this record has a lot of high points).  It’s impossible to say everything about a record in a few hundred words, and if someone does, either the record or the review probably isn’t that interesting in the first place.

It’s one thing to argue with a point in a review.  It’s another thing to take issue with it because it doesn’t mention your favorite song.

(EDIT: It’s worth clarifying that I haven’t read the P4K review yet because of time.  I’m looking forward to reading it!)

This weekend, after realizing that I rarely enjoyed reading the baseball blogs I received in Google Reader, I unsubscribed to all of them except MLB Trade Rumors.  I get most of my baseball news via other sources and the “analysis” in these blogs usually just drove me insane.  So far, I’m happy with my decision.

All that to say - I’m willing to accept that I wasn’t reading good ones (as opposed to just not liking baseball blogs).  Do you read any good baseball blogs?

maura:

Who among us has not clicked that “I have permission to let Tumblr stream this file” button without really meaning it, hmm?

I really don’t see how that would make Tumblr more profitable anyway.  We’re not talking a lot of money - not the kind of thing to provide a return on VC money at least.

I really don’t like the idea of pay-for-promotion either.  I shudder at the idea of people paying to have their picture of sunsets with Helvetica overlays.

1. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists (38)
2. Neon Indian (7)
3. R.E.M. (5)
4. Superchunk (3)
5. The Lemonheads (2)

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

perpetua:

The New Pornographers
“Your Hands (Together)”

The first mp3 from the forthcoming New Pornographers album Together is up on the Matador blog this morning. I like it, but I’m holding out for more exciting material. My early opinion is that it’s nice, but in terms of lead singles, it’s not exactly a “The Laws Have Changed” or “Letter From An Occupant.” The blog also the tracklisting for the album. I would be kinda let down if “Valkyrie at the Roller Disco” is not a Dan Bejar song. Unless, that is, Neko Case is singing in character as a Valkyrie, and it’s actually a disco song.

Co-sign with everything Perpetua says here.  This is kind of New-Pornographers-by-numbers, which is not a bad thing - it’s just not that exciting. Certainly nowhere as good as the two singles he named.

I’m hoping for several Bejar songs as well!

Just introduced to this blog via Bradley’s Almanac.  Perhaps some of you already read it, but thought I’d pass it on to anyone interested in reading a ’80s alternative / college rock blog.

I’m late on the discussion of this article (another good one, Tom), so scold me if I’m rehashing anything.  This made me think back to the “test of time” Poptimist article (and, admittedly, the first of Tom Ewing’s work I remember reading and responding to).  Now I want to go back and re-read that one!

As for band that critics “missed the boat” on, perhaps it’s worth looking back to the 1990s - an era where we’ve distanced ourselves enough from yet (many of us) remember fairly well.  If it’s too soon to pick out whether Fall Out Boy was misjudged, maybe there’s the right balance of nostalgia and measured distance between now and, say, 1995 to start looking back at that era with this agenda.

Ebert reflects on this week’s Esquire piece about him.  Not surprisingly, he does so in an insightful, graceful, and humorous way.  A really interesting companion to the article, especially when he gets into the craft of writing a profile piece.

Well, Wu-Tang is for the children…

andrewtsks:

But I think it’s more that for me, loud guitars with distortion and drums and frantic tempos are what I associate with the sort of emotional catharsis described in the lyrics. There’s no way a line like “This is the worst night I’ve ever had” will ever work as well for me being sung over mannered piano and a programmed drumbeat.

Stephin Merritt does deserve a great deal of credit for this track, though. “I’m afraid of the dark without you close to me” is one of the all-time great chorus lyrics that I’ve ever heard. And while I may like Superchunk’s arrangement better, it’s his tune. But in the end, this song will never sound right to me without the loud guitars.

I love the way you phrased it there.  I wish I thought of “catharsis” an hour ago because that’s what I was going for!  I know that Devine probably agrees for similar reasons.

I hate to put it this way (because it’s trite), but I think my preference depends on my mood.

“It’ll Be Fun!” and Other Extrovert Lies | Psychology Today

Finding this “introvert blog” on Boing Boing should probably be considered enabling, right?

Audio posts may now be reblogged as audio posts.  Those Tumblr folks acted quickly!

staff:

Reblogs of posts greater than 500 characters are now automatically reblogged as links.

OK.  Again, I’m grateful for the kind folks at Tumblr for providing a free service, but I don’t like this at all.

First, it means that reblogging a media post (video or audio) becomes a link if it has more than 500 characters (which is not really a lot, roughly a hundred words).  This means a lot of links on the dashboard rather than songs and videos to click on.

It also means that a lot of the back and forth discussions (which I understand can get annoying, but I’m lucky to have interesting discussions frequently on my dashboard) get hidden behind a link.  In all honesty, this will mean that I will probably read far fewer of them.

Again, I appreciate the idea, but I’d like a little option to disable it please.

(For frame of reference - the part I wrote minus this parenthetical aside is 584 characters not counting spaces.)

EDIT: I checked again and audio posts can be reblogged now.

Speaking of listening to records, the first track from the new Ted Leo record is on Matador’s blog.  It’s pretty excellent.

Roger Ebert: The Essential Man | Esquire

There are so many parts of this worth excerpting, and the whole article is terrific - from the ups and downs of his medical condition to the bit at the end about Siskel.  This one made me stop reading for a minute or two and think.

I could ask for no better success as a writer than this.  It’s nowhere near true, and I hope that some day I find something in my life - whether it’s writing or whatever - that gives me this same sort of peace and fulfillment.

(PS - Ebert’s blog really is incredible. Even if I don’t follow a lot of the film stuff he’s talking about, it’s incredibly fascinating to read him.)

maura:

So this whole Pitchfork/Tumblr/Tumbledore kerfuffle — which Tumblr handled really poorly and shadily, make no mistake — has already mutated into “Pitchfork sucks” and “I never would deign to get my musical tastes from Pitchfork” and blah blah blah. It is rancid and stupid and it drives me crazy because it clings to this outdated notion of “Pitchfork” that has not been true since Brent DiCrescenzo was on the masthead, if ever.

Some of the best music writers working right now are writing things for Pitchfork. Nitsuh Abebe, Douglas Wolk, Jess Harvell, Eric Harvey, Tom Ewing. Some of them have Tumblrs! With posts that you’ve probably liked! I wonder how many people would hit the like button on a piece of writing by one of these writers that appeared on Tumblr and would summarily sneer at the same exact piece were it to be published by Pitchfork.

Well said, Maura.  It’s a case of contrarian instincts coming alive.  In a strange way, Pitchfork is “mainstream” (at least in terms of the internet) and it’s another way for people to define themselves by what they aren’t into than what they actually like.

Besides, it’s easier to just dismiss Pitchfork than to actually read some of the columns, consider the ramifications, and leave three separate blog posts in draft status (like I did with the latest Poptimist column).  Yes, nobody should glean their taste from one source (what happened to developing musical taste from, y’know, listening to records?) but Pitchfork consistently has some excellent pieces.

(All that aside, shame on Tumblr for taking someone’s user name without warning or apology.  If Pitchfork asked them to do that, shame on Pitchfork as well.)

1. Ted Leo and The Pharmacists (16)
2. Yeasayer (8)
3. Quasi (6)
4. Hot Chip (3)
5. R.E.M. (3)

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Putting the main issue aside (he’s right that he only got an apology because he’s famous), I think the fact that Kevin Smith is flying Southwest in the first place says something about his recent creative output.  I fly Southwest the one or two times I fly a year, but I also don’t direct Hollywood movies.

I bought tickets for the Pitchfork Music Festival.  Because I hesitated, I only bought Saturday & Sunday (making it for Friday might be tough, but I’m not opposed to hustling & buying a Friday ticket if someone awesome signs on for it).  Still, Pavement, LCD Soundsystem, and an excuse to go back to Chicago again this summer makes it worth it.

2 humor blogs and one parenting blog.