B - Boy Bouillabaise - The Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique - 1989

I work right outside the NYC side entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Me and several of my coworkers just spent a solid 10 minutes looking at a traffic accident out our window, that caused traffic to back up for blocks. We couldn't actually see any damage to either car, we didn't hear a crash, yet several people (and one baby)were taken out of the front car in stretchers. Curious...

On another note, here is the last track on the Beastie's breakthrough and (in my opinion) still best album. They seem to be borrowing a trick from The Beatles here by releasing a suite of half completed songs as a single song...unless of course you get the new reissue which separates each segment as an individual song...much the same that the CD version of Abbey Road does to side two. In the interest of simplicity, I've only included the link for the first song in the suite.

B - Pinback - Offcell - EP

B!!!! I made it to B! That's right haters, doubters, mimes and Rance, I made it to the letter B and it only took me a year and a half. Ugh.

Well, at least I'm not in the A's anymore.

Anyway, gotta love Rob Crowe's "white guy attempting to deliver a dancehall rant" on this puppy. If it weren't for that odd machine noise intro, this would be one of my favorite Pinback songs actually.

I've always assumed the title was a reference to the key the song was played in, but with these guys you just never know and my ear isn't good enough to tell you for a fact that this song is actually in B. Whatever, it definitely displays Pinback's rockier side, and for me that's their stronger side.

Awoo - The Hidden Cameras - Awoo - 2006

So, I'm experimenting with adding Amazon links to my blog, should anyone wish to actually buy the songs I'm (occasionally) writing about. One of my co-workers was bored today and told me I should do this, so I figured "why not?".

Anyway, Awoo (the album) is one of those things that I downloaded after reading a good review listened to once or twice and liked well enough and then promptly never ever listened to again. It pops up on random from time to time and I find myself enjoying it just enough to not delete it...plus I seem to recall that there were a couple songs on this album that I was into...just not this one.

Not much of a recommendation, but hey...if you want to check them out, click the Amazon link.

Awkward Duet - Sons & Daughters - Love the Cup - 2004

A surprisingly delicate cut from S&D, from back in the days when the guitar player used to sing too and pop sheen wasn't there foremost target. I saw these guys open up for Clinic at a CMJ show in 2003 and was thoroughly impressed with their girl/boy harmonies, ability to combine rockabilly instincts with dark noir undertones, and of course the completely unabashed Scottish accents that has since become a much more acceptable strategy (The Twilight Sad and Frightened Rabbits, I'm looking at you!).

So I went to go see Polvo in concert at The Belle House last night with some of my long time friends. The show was good, and it was nice to see 90's math rock getting it's due...but my concert experience was definitely shaded by a middle aged, totally sloshed Brit who insisted on wearing his narrow brim fedora through the whole show. Seriously dude, take off your fucking hat! Some of us would actually like to watch the show and not have our view constantly obstructed by your obnoxious affectation. I've never understood the need to display your personality through wardrobe. Why not display your personality through your words and actio...on second though, you're probably an asshole...just take the hat off during a concert so the rest of us can see the show, you limey douchebag.

Awful Bliss - Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand - 1994

So I have a really awful story to go along with this song. Like a really, really embarrassing and shameful story, but frankly, it is what I think about when I hear this song and will be what I think about when I hear this song until the day I die...so I pretty much have to tell this story.

The song itself is relatively simple. One of the small handful of GBV tracks sung by reedy voiced "Classic Lineup" guitar player Tobin Sprout, it clocks in at barely over 1 minute long. It's a sad, acoustic ballad in the middle of an album of Pollard's bombastic triumphs. And it's really just one verse and a single line repeated a few times as a chorus, but epic song lengths were not GBV's forte.

So...about that story...it was the weekend before Thanksgiving of 99. I was living my last year in Cincinnati, saving money to move to NYC the following summer. My girlfriend at the time was visiting her family in Ecuador, and I decided to go grab a bite to eat with one of my friends. As there is jack-shit to do in Cincy, we ended up at the TGI Friday's in Kenwood drinking and eating Jack Daniel's Chicken Strips (Cuisine was not high on Cincy's list in the 90's...though my mother assures me it's gotten better). After a few we headed our separate ways.

Cut to Tuesday night by which point both myself and my friend have easily the worst food poisoning either of us have ever, ever had. It was so bad in fact that I couldn't drive to my family's thanksgiving celebration, because I was in the bathroom every 20 minutes AROUND THE CLOCK. And it's this around the clock thing that really brings us back to this song.

Now, I don't know if you've ever gone a few days straight sleeping only in little 15 minute bursts...but let me tell you, you start to go a little loopy. You live in a fog where the whole world is strange. It's like the worst drug you've ever EVER taken. I remember laying on my couch, Thanksgiving Day, trying to watch the Macy's Parade and drifting in and out of consciousness between trips to the toilet. (Again, I apologize for the scatological nature of this post)...and for some strange reason for that whole period, I just had that one single line "And I wouldn't dare to bring out this awful bliss" running in my head...over and over. I'm fairly certain it's what madness feels like. Like maybe Manson just kept hearing "Helter-Skelter" in his head, just like that...granted I wasn't homicidal...if anything I mostly just wanted to die...but still...

Anyway, by Friday I had to go to the ER and be rehydrated and given some anti-biotics. It took me about a week after that to get back on solid food, and I will honestly say without fear of exaggeration that nearly 10 years later...my stomach has never fully recovered...and I will never hear this song again without thinking about that just awful, awful 4 days.

Away with Murder - Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career - 2009

Despite their move away from Merge records (a decision I will never support) Camera Obscura continues to do what they do and do it very well. Mopey, girl-group inflected, Scottish accented pop. Traceyanne Campbell continues to have the lowest self esteem in the world, but that, along with a wonderfully forlorn voice, is how she works. This particular song adds nice little country touches like the organ and peddle steel, all of which work well to increase the sad-sack vibe.

Away From The Numbers - The Jam - In The City - 1977

And so The Jam continues it's odd stranglehold on the "A's"...with a solid rocking number from their first album, when they were still a post-punk band. Though again, the preponderance of Jam songs in the first letter of the alphabet gives the impression that I'm a bigger Jam fan than I actually am. Still this is a good song.

So, I ran into a former co-worker on the street...and it just baffles me how some people's lives are just destined for drama. Granted, I occasionally have an interesting and exciting life, I live in NYC: I go out a bit and work at a somewhat unorthodox company...but most nights I go home and watch movies with my girlfriend, watch soccer with my boys, or play video games alone...but this girl...well, granted, she's 11 years younger than me and most would consider her a looker, but the amount of crazy things that happen to her do tend to leave me shaking my head.

On this particular occasion she informed me (I hadn't seen her since April or so) that she had recently gotten married. Though I'm used to her surprises, this one definitely caught me out of the blue, as last time I saw her she was complaining about the fact that she hadn't had a date in years. Additionally she was not wearing a ring. When I mentioned this fact to her, she just laughed and pointed out that she was marrying an old family friend so that he could get his papers and that she was being very well paid for it.

Now why doesn't this shit ever happen to me? Baffling.

Award Tour - A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders - 1993

And so speaking of the frustration of following things that used to be a cool little niche that are now more and more mainstream...it's actually become harder and harder for me to be an American soccer fan (A soccer fan who is American, not a fan of the generally awful MLS).

Again, like Indie Rock, it's counter-intuitive. I would have thought, 10 years ago, that living in a world in which everyone knew who Pavement and The Pixies were would be AWESOME! But instead, I find it sort of troubling and frustrating. Well, Soccer has sort of become the same way. With EPL games becoming increasingly broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta Sports and starting this season ESPN2 I have more opportunities than I ever did to watch the sport I love...but the problem with this came up yesterday.

Arsenal played the first round of the Champions League group stages yesterday against Belgian Champions Standard Liege. The game was live at 245 and was being shown on FSC at 5 PM. I set my TiVo, stayed away from the Internet in the afternoon and prepared to go home and watch my game. As it turned out, do to some collasally stupid defending Arsenal went down two goals in the first five minutes of the game (This is exceptionally fast, for those that don't know)...and within ten minutes after that I received all sorts of messages from various friends and acquaintances that know of my strange obsessions "Dude, sorry about your team", "Are you watching this, yikes!" and "Yeah, you may not want to watch this game..."

Now fortunately, we did come back to win 2-3, but...even as little as 3 years ago, no one I knew, besides my fellow soccer fans would have had any clue that there was a game on. And certainly none of them would have been watching...but there it was.

It's hard being me.

Anyway, this Tribe song is a further result of my girlfriend's attempt to broaden my horizons. It's fun, I don't hate it...that's about all you can ask, right?

Await Lightening - Amusement Parks on Fire - Out of the Angeles - 2006

I generally have a problematic and troubled relationship with Pitchfork Media, but I did think that this article was well written and brought up a lot of valid points...it's a bit of a slog, but take a look if you have the time.

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7704-the-decade-in-indie

Despite being a review of the decade in Indie Rock, it largely details the problems of being a fan of a genre that was a niche when you found it but has become less and less of a niche by the year.

And Amusement Parks on Fire is as good enough a place to start with this conversation as any. The Nottingham band might have sound unique and like a niche band circa 1994 when Swervedriver came out of Oxford and had the brilliant idea to couple Shoegaze's sound textures with the drive of more traditional rock. But now, in 2009...or even in 2006 when this record came out...little sounds more safe than this band. This song could be in a car commercial, it could be played at an Applebees. Don't get me wrong, I listen to this band and generally enjoy them...but...the idea that this band, by virtue of being "indie rock" is breaking any new ground, or that it's underground existence is a product of the discerning tastes of their fans and the "ignorance" of the plebes holds little sway.

And so the bigger question remains, what are you when the very category that you defined yourself by...no longer makes sense as a definition. If that's not the question for our age...I don't know what is.

Avalon - Sigur Ros - Agaetis Byrjun - 2000

Instrumental.

Available - The National - Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers - 2002

I keep waiting for the The National to release an album that sounds like they do on this song. Every National album has 2-3 tracks like this that prove to the world that they know how to rock. These songs are invariably the singles and the songs that produce the most excitement when played live, but a deep dive into any National album will also show you that surrounding these 2-3 songs are usually 10 other songs that drift on through a fog of red wine and the inherent disappointment of adult relationships. These songs are often quite good, and at worst are just dull...but taken in total can make an album drag and drag. Much as loved 2007's The Boxer, it could have easily cut 3-4 of it's dirges, and replaced even one of them with another rocker in this vein and they would have had a perfect album on their hands.

Instead we must make due with the little bits of adrenaline that The National deign to serve to us between bouts of melancholia. Not that this song is without its share of darkness, in fact the bitter tale the lyrics spins is one of the uglier tales in band rife with them. A familiar tale for anyone acquainted with The National's catalog or single life in NYC, it tells of the story of man consistently compelled by liquor and sex to keep coming back to the same hopeless dysfunctional relationship...punctuated by Matt Beringer's wonderful parlour trick scream.

He uses that scream twice on this album (the other time on the equally great Slipping Husband), but since has seemed reluctant to pull it out again...but the effect that occurs when Beringer goes from his deep, honeyed baritone to a throat shredding screech of frustration is jaw dropping. Coupled with the lyrics "Why do you dress me down and liquor me up?!?" it presents the picture of a man who hates this woman for using such low methods to manipulate him, and hates himself more for allowing himself to be manipulated by them. Damn near note perfect.

Autumn Sweater - Yo La Tengo - I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One - 1997

So now that I've finally finished describing my Boston trip in detail...what the hell do I talk about on this thing again? Oh yeah, right...music.

In 1997 Yo La Tengo were already 11 years into their career (though in all fairness, they were only 5 years with their most recognized, and current, lineup). With the somber masterpiece Painful and the rockier, slightly less consistent Electr-O-Pura behind them, they seemed to have settled into a comfortable groove of critic friendly, Velvet Underground-ish indie rock. All bets would have been on the band putting out more of the same for the remainder of their career, but I Can Hear The Heart... found the band exploring more eclectic styles.

Sure there were the moments of familiarity: neither Sugarcube nor Deeper Into Movies would have sounded out of place on previous albums...but what was most surprising was not only the range displayed by the band, but also the inventiveness, and there is probably no better place to start than with Autumn Sweater.

The band had done organ vamps before, but usually they were a method to find a new instrument for Ira Kaplan to wail on when he bored of his guitar. But this is no noise filled scronk fest. Instead it's a chord based jazzy shuffle (complete with bongo drums) led more by Georgia's snare drum than by Ira's playing or sad sack mumble-core vocals.

I've probably heard this song half a million times in my life, and while it's no longer the playlist staple it was in 1997 (back when we called them mix tape staples) I still can't help but get a little tingle at hearing the pleasure of three long time musical compatriots locked in perfect grove while a nebbishy husband sings about the chills he got upon first meeting his wife and she keeps perfect rhythm behind him.

Autumn of the Seraphs - Pinback - Autumn of the Seraphs - 2007

We left the theater bar drunk as Mickey Roarke, but we weren't about to leave until we'd gotten the most out of Boston. We attempted to go visit the north end and take some pictures, but we ended up getting confused by Court St and found ourselves right back at Boston Commons where we were accosted by an old crazy drunk Irish (actually from Ireland) dude named Paul who spoke in rhymes and had his jaw tied with a white handkerchief.

Walking by one closed bar, we saw two guys and two girls hanging out in front of the establishment smoking. One of the girls was laying on the sidewalk, blowing smoke rings up in the air. As we passed she cooed a "Hello boys" to us in a voice that I suppose was trying to be alluring. We just nodded at which point she said "You two look hammered"...it occurred to me later that the right comeback was "We aren't the ones laying in the street, honey" but at the time the best I could manage was a "We are". She then asked (as we were already walking past them) if we were English (in reference to Anand's Arsenal jersey I would assume) which seems pretty silly considering I had already spoken and I'm clearly from Indiana.

Finally, we gave up on finding any after hours action and just resigned ourselves to taking pictures of the city. But by 330, when Anand showed no signs of stopping talking in that Shakespeare accent we decided head back to the hotel.

Our last bit of humor came as we were near our hotel. A woman excited an apartment building at 4AM, still wearing a cocktail dress, clearly hoping the early morning departure would mean an escape from the prying eyes that usually go with a walk of shame. She immediately stumbled on her high heels three feet from the door. Anand and I applauded and gave her a thumbs up...cause we're jerks.

Anyway, the next day was spent checking out of our hotel and driving back to NYC. We rocked Boston as hard as we could and found it somewhat lacking...try harder Boston, try harder...you have the right ingredients.


Piano is usually a bad sign for Pinback. The band is typically at its best when they rock their punk rock side out, whereas ballads tend to be dragged down by their laid back cali vibe. Beyond which, a stint at the piano means that Zach isn't on the bass, where he consistantly proves himself to be the most inventive, technically skilled bass player in Indie Rock...but this song has strengths that most of their piano efforts lack.

For starters, it's not as "dreamy" as a lot of their slower stuff can be, in fact by the time the song reaches the "It's the monster at the end of the book" climax, it stands up to their heaviest songs. Beyond that, Pinback can frequently be a band for whom lyrics are just a place holder to accompany the sounds they want to make, but this songs rather sinister lyrics also aid in lifting it out of the stoned San Diego vibe they so often get stuck in.

And for the final touch of class, there is a truly awesome vocal performance by Rob Crowe. I always admire Crowe's restraint with his vocals. He's certainly shown before that, when he wants to, he has one hell of a set of pipes on him...but most of the time he hangs back and picks his moments (Take the end of Concrete Seconds for a great example) to display his talent...but this song actually lets him show off a bit more than usual and he does so. Impressively, I might add.

Autoriche - Autechre - Incunabula - 1994

We left Eastern Standard in a cab, in an effort to catch another one of the bars on our list before it closed, but of course we showed up to find the place wasn't even open on Sundays to begin with. So that left us bar-less at midnight...I made a game time decision and headed us towards Chinatown...there was a bar I had been to on one of my previous trips that I thought might stay open later. But we found something else along the way...

As we were walking down through the theater district we happened upon two Irish bars right next to each other. The first, was shut down for a private party, but the second was wide open and actually fairly busy for that late on a Sunday night. We plopped down at the bar and got ourselves a round.

Observing the unusually busy bar it quickly became evident what the deal was...in one corner was a group of ratty t-shirted burly dudes with longish manes and scruffy facial hair, in another was a group of slightly posh seeming openly gay men, at the front stood a pretty-ish woman who was less pretty the closer you got and wearing too much blush...she kept practicing a weird pose with one of the gay men where they would both stand facing into the bar, shoulder to shoulder, with her hands locked together at the fingers...we were at the wrap party for a play.

Upon sharing this observation with Anand, he immediately decided this was the funniest thing in the world and proceeded to spend the majority of the rest of the evening speaking in a bad phony Shakespearean actor accent. "Ohhhhhhhh, me lord, wouldst though parlay with the barkeep and find me another mug of ale?"

At some point I went to the bathroom and saw a bunch of guys shredding lines off the waiters tray. Later on, the only other guy in the bar who didn't seem to be with the play came up to us and asked us if we knew where he could buy weed. The actress approached me at some point with one of the gays as a wing man, she had apparently mistaken us for stage hands and was either honestly curious about the progress of the breakdown of the show, or was looking to find a bastion of heterosexuality. Either way, I just sort of mumbled something about being a tourist and having no idea what she was talking about.

2 O'clock rolled around and though last call had been...er called, no one seemed to be in a hurry to leave. Though the bar tender kept dropping hints that it was quitting time, Anand was insistent that we stay and try to figure out what sort of action was going to happen when they closed the doors...needless to say, we did not get this invitation...instead we finished our drinks and headed back out.


I have nothing to say about Autechre...their one of those groups that you have on your iPod cause bands you admire, speak in hushed and worshipful tones about them...but my actual experience of listening to them is generally a shrug and an "OK?" No different here.

Autonomy Boy - The Long Blondes - Singles - 2008

Jesus...still trying to wrap up a story that took place over a month ago...anyway, after we got back from the game we all took a few minutes to get cleaned up before heading back out into the city. I exited the shower to find Skip laying in his bed, under the covers. I asked him if he intended to stay there, he stated that he'd probably just slow us down...so we headed back into Boston one man down.

The first place we went was probably the coolest bar we went to in Boston, a basement bar on Commonwealth called "The Lower Depths". The furniture was oak booths, the beer selection was impressive, and the bar tender was a friendly indie rock dude, but after a few rounds, we decided to check out another bar on our list.

The next bar was an upscale cocktail lounge called Eastern Standard where I had a fine whiskey smash. Unfortunately by this point I was also so hammered that I could not stop staring at the woman in the corner in an absurdly cleavage-y dress. Even the usually reticent Anand had to point out "Can't stop staring at those boobies, can you?" I blame the whiskey. It was abundantly clear that we had no business in a bar this classy when we were clearly hammered and under-dressed.

I tend to like Long Blondes songs when they are at their most Pretenders-esque (Weekend with out Makeup, Knife for the Girls, Christmas is Cancelled) but in reality the band is more typically a kind of Ska band, as demonstrated on this song. And I fucking hate Ska.

Autonomy - Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen - 1978

As much as the drive to the stadium was a better experience than expected, the stadium itself was a lesson in disappointment. We paid $30 to park in a lot almost a mile from the stadium itself, in an effort to prevent being stuck in the bottle neck that escaping the stadium would be post game.

As the game we were actually there to see was a match between two Italian teams, the people we walked along with were a healthy mixture of Italians, American soccer fans, and various ex-pats just glad to be able t see some quality "footie". Even the dudes at the liquor store where we bought our tailgating supplies chatted a bit about soccer...it was encouraging to see how the game has opened up in America.

Once we actually got to the stadium itself getting to our seats involved walking up a seemingly endless series of ramps snaked along the outside of the bleachers. On the walk we watched some Italian try to race his girlfriend only to elbow her out of the way and watch as she wiped out face down on the concrete. We all stopped to make sure she was ok, giving the jerk the appropriate level of dirty looks. He seemed indifferent. After we finally got to our level, we discovered that there was only 1 ATM on the level and that it was out of order...oh and absolutely nothing accepted plastic.

We tried to get beer at a beer stand that served microbrews from New England (one of the few nice touches) only to discover that nearly everything was sold out and the few beers that they did have were foaming uncontrollably...it took the woman behind the counter nearly 10 minutes to pour out three beers causing us to miss the beginning of the game and the first goal (of only 2). We spent the rest of the game drinking margaritas (Margarita stands were a nice touch...we need those at more sporting events, particularly for summer games). Due to the lack of cash, I never ate, but the hot dog Anand had he proclaimed to be the worst hot dog he ever had. At least the view was good.



When the game (which was itself a bit lackluster, but then we weren't expecting much from a preseason exhibition match...even between two giants with a fierce rivalry) was drawing to a close, we tried to leave a few minutes early to beat the crowd. We slipped in with a couple of reporters to try and sneak down on the elevator and were understandably turned away. We then tried to go over on the (COMPLETELY EMPTY) stairs only to be told that the stairs were reserved for media only...I had to be dragged away before I attempted to shout the security guard to death. I still, an entire month later, fail to see the harm in allowing us to go down those stairs. There is little that infuriates me more than a rule followed for the sake of foolish consistency.

Ultimately we got back to our car and navigated the back roads successfully. Another pleasant drive home awaited us now with a pleasant buzz and a good tan for the non-drivers.

The Buzzcock's can always be relied upon to deliver a good jolt of punky power pop and this song is no exception. It's always amazing to think that these guys were putting out music like this in 1978.

Autobiography - Sloan - One Chord To Another - 1997

With our disappointing meal in our bellies, we were reasonably impressed with the museum itself. We spent a considerable amount of time walking through the Asian exhibit, particularly a reconstructed Buddhist shrine that was given the appropriate amount of reverence...unfortunately the clock was ticking, so we didn't quite get to see everything. Though most importantly we did get to see the weird giant creepy baby heads that were on display outside the back entrance of the museum.



After we picked up the car, we did have one last bit of business to attend to before the game...As we were parting ways with Uncle Singh the night before, he had stated that his wife had made a lunch for us to eat before we went out to the game and that she would be very disappointed if we did not eat it. We were stuck between not wanting to be rude, and not wanting to have even more of our road trip eaten up with familial obligations. The compromise solution was for us to swing by on the way to the game and pick up the food in a picnic basket to take with us. This situation was further complicated by the fact that Anand had lost his phone at some point during the evening last night, and Skip didn't have anything in his phone besides Uncle Singh's house number. We made several attempts to contact them at this number and left messages...we even stopped by their house, but the couple was apparently out and about and waiting for our call on their cells. After a few minutes of knocking on their front door we took off.

The one time I was truly happy about the Singh's love for their GPS Devices was on the drive to the stadium. From the Uncle's house in Alston it took us down back roads, rather than the main highway, allowing us to enjoy the warm summer air as we drove at high speeds down green tree lined streets...rather than sitting in traffic on the gray and dismal 90.


Autobiography is one of those songs...the song you don't like on an album you otherwise love. Sloan's extremely (Self-consciously) Beatlesque One Chord To Another is one of the great loves of my early 20's, songs like the bouncy "Can't Face Up" and the horn driven "Everything You've Done Wrong" are quintessential soundtrack items for my pre-NYC, post college Midwestern boredom driving...but this song has always bored the holy hell out of me, and annoyed me with it's WAY-TOO-CLEVER pun lyrics, but I can't bring myself to delete it...cause I love the album. I know, I know...I have issues.

Auto Rock - Mogwai - Mr. Beast - 2006

As expected, we spent a big part of the morning sleeping in. The soccer game we had come to attend didn't start until 5, so even with the lie in we had a bit of tourist time. We figured, we'd hike down to the Museum of Fine Arts and grab brunch somewhere along the way...and yet again, Boston seemed determined to thwart us.

As we walked each block between our hotel and the museum we were continually amazed by the lack of brunch options. There was not one neighborhood cafe or at least a pub with a big Irish fry-up...but no, nothing but chain restaurants and houses.

We finally arrived at the museum and resigned ourselves to eating at the restaurant onsite. The good news was that there were three of them, the bad news was that they were all crappy in one way or another. The downstairs was simply a cafeteria, the upstairs was a place that was going for the illusion of being upscale and offered a $35 pre-fix brunch (I wouldn't even pay that in NYC, let alone at a museum in brunch-less Boston). The place in the middle was where we settled, but none of us were overly enthused with the option. I got a bowl of seafood chowder and ate a bunch of the free bread. It would turn out to be my only meal of the day.


Ahhh Mogwai, is there anything you can't make sound ominous? Since their songs are generally wordless, the titles are usually the only place you can look for meaning and in this one it's fairly easy to see. From the plunking, Knight Rider keyboards, to the slow build of the synths and guitars swelling to an almost overwhelming level of intensity this is the sound of driving alone on a rainy night with a gnawing anger in your stomach. Having personally driven through the black Scottish night, and seeing just exactly how dark, dark can get...I feel like I know exactly what this song is about.

Authority Song - John Cougar Mellencamp - Uh-Huh - 1983

The last bar actually skirted the rules a little bit and let us stay until 215. I guess this is as close as Boston gets to "after hours". Once we were finally given the boot from whatever random sports bar this was, we headed back to the hotel.

However, being who we are, we decided to walk the five miles back...at 230 in the morning. All in all it was an enjoyable time. We jumped in a sprinkler that was watering the lawn of some Boston College building (Well, at least Anand and I did, Skip looked at us like we were idiots). We took some pictures along Commonwealth Ave and enjoyed the sort of freedom that comes with walking through a city that is otherwise completely asleep.

When we got back to the hotel, Skip called it a night. His intestinal unpleasantness had subsided, but it left him a little lagging in the energy department. Anand and I decided to wander around taking some pictures of the city at night...which lead to one of our bigger disappointments of the trip. We walked all the way down up from the prudential building to city hall. We figured it's golden dome would be an awesome site all lit up and glowing in the night. We'd have no tourists in our way to obscure the picture and we'd have the commons between us to keep us entertained on the way there and back.

Upon arrival, we realized one flaw with this plan...they don't light the goddamn thing up at night. Like so many other things about this city, it was a let down. Boston could be so much cooler than it is...

Speaking of which...I'm definitely letting my white trash roots show here. There is almost no criticism one could level at "The Coug" that I wouldn't 100% agree with. Is he cheesy? Is he faux-earnest? Is he derivative? Does he need to wear those ridiculous tight jeans and add "cougar" to his name? To all of those, the answer is No, No, No and one million times NO! But then, you didn't grow up in Indiana, where the man was already considered a state treasure a few albums into his career. You've never actually driven by the Tasti-Freeze in Spencer Indiana (probably...I mean, I don't know you...maybe you have). I'd love to hate The Coug for all of the things mentioned above, for his glamorization of a small town America that never really existed, and for his really bad mullet...but at the end of the day, I'm a Hoosier, and I was born in a small town...and I fought the Authority and the Authority always wins.

Author Unknown - Jason Faulkner - Can You Still Feel? - 1999

After we cleared out of The Middle East, Uncle Singh suggested we hit another nearby indie rock club called TT The Bear's, but I think we were all musiced out. At this point, I had simply accepted that this was going to be my Saturday night in Boston. It was approaching midnight, bars in this town closed early and the older Singhs showed no sign of wishing to go home. My hopes for a night of drunken debauchery and carousing had been transformed into a mildly pleasant night with a nice couple and an early call time.

We drove down to another bar in Allston (after the GPS was set, of course) to close out our night. The Sunset Tap and Grill had come highly recommended to me as the best beer selection in the city, and it seemed like it would be the type of place that we would all enjoy. Upon arrival, I was actually satisfied that I had picked the right place. An impressive beer menu and draft list was presented to us and we grabbed a quiet table in the corner to close out the night. Anand and I decided to sample the mead.

The table next to us got a plate of nachos...which I have to say was the biggest plate of nachos I've ever seen in my light. It could have fed a small village. If any of us had been even remotely hungry, we would have gotten them. As it stood, with our belly's full of fine Italian food all we could do was stare in amazement at the enormity of the plate.

After a couple of drinks last call was announced and we wrapped up our night. As we walked the older Singhs to their car, Uncle Singh asked if we wanted to come back to their apartment and drink some wine...we declined, hoping to take advantage of what little we had left of our night. We even declined a drive back to our hotel, as we wanted to walk. We put them in their car, thanked them profusely and then as soon as they were out of site, went back to the only bar on the strip open till 2.

This little power-pop nugget by Jason Faulkner manages to squeeze in the most jamming flute solo this side of Anchorman into it's late 90's instrumentation...and that's saying something.

Australia - The Shins - Wincing The Night Away - 2007

Once dinner had finished, we all piled back into the Singh's Acura and headed towards The Middle East (after setting the GPS, of course). The Middle East is Boston's equivalent of Mercury Lounge or Bowery Ballroom (bigger than the first, smaller than the second) it's a bar with a performance space where your mid-level Indie bands play. I was under the assumption that we would be hitting the bar half of the venue, enjoying some tunes and beverages and then going our separate ways...and yet again, my assumptions would prove to be incorrect.

As soon as we got to the bar, Uncle Singh proceeded to lead us down to the performance area and buy us tickets for whatever band happened to be playing...a band that absolutely none of us knew.

The lower level stank of patchouli and BO. The band itself was some sort of sludge metal band from Athens Georgia, that was louder than even the younger of us wanted to deal with. I was decidedly older than most of the audience, so I can only imagine how the older Singhs felt. Aunt Singh was certainly doing her best to appear as if she was having a good time, though she was clearly not. All of us tried to be gracious, since they boys' uncle had purchased our cover...but clearly none of us were having much fun. Anand and I stepped outside to smoke and get out of the noise and stench and the rest of the group followed us...it was clear that we would not be going back in.


I've been listening to Wincing The Night Away a little bit lately...it's not the crushing disappointment that it seemed on first release. In the early part of the decade, The Shins released a wonderful, shimmery indie-pop debut album. Shortly after their less shimmery, but still quite good second album was released, tool bag etraordinaire Zach Braff saddled them with the unreasonable expectation of being "the band that will change your life"...suddenly they went from being a cozy little secret to the poster children for the new wave of Indie bands...and that's when they seem to have hit the wall. WTNA isn't a bad album, it just couldn't possibly live up those sort of expectations...fucking Braff.

Australia - The Kinks - Arthur (or The Decline and Fall of the British Empire) - 1969

We arrived at the restaurant around 730. It was a nice modern Italian place in the ground floor of a swanky hotel in Cambridge with a patio that looked out over the Charles, but since we were late for our reservation the places on the patio were all taken. We were seated inside, only to find ourselves the ONLY customers on the inside.

Now Anand and I had discussed this on the train ride out...we figured we stick around for dinner and maybe an after dinner cocktail or two and then we wrap up around 10 and go check out some of the bars in Allston and Cambridge, flirt with some Boston girls and then head back to the hotel. Simple plan. But from the get go, Uncle Singh was talking about taking us to some of the bars after dinner, and a picture was being painted here.

Now, let me first say, that the boys' uncle and their aunt were both very sweet, kind, and generous people. They paid for our dinner and nearly all the drinks that followed...they were nothing but gracious, friendly, and charming...but spending my entire Saturday night in Boston with the Singh family wasn't exactly how I envisioned this evening going.

The waitress came around to take our order, and she was immediately told by the Uncle that he wanted to have a few cocktails first, maybe have a few appetizers, and just hang out before he ordered dinner. At that point, I was certain of what was going on. Regardless of MY vision, it was clear that he envisioned a fun night on the town with his favorite nephews. When this man was my age, the Singh's would have been teenagers...he was the cool uncle who bought them drunks and took them out to rock shows. And now he lived in Boston, a town he had just moved to 1 month ago. He and his wife were both professionals, and between their jobs and the move they hadn't been out for six months...his very sweet wife was clearly delighted to be out on the town. Obviously, I was going to be stuck with them for the long haul.

After a few rounds of dinner, we did order our dinner and dessert and more cocktails. The food was quite good, and the drinks even better. It was well after ten when we finally headed out, Uncle Singh paying the bill without us ever seeing it. He was now ready to take us to phase two of his plan...


I was at a friend's birthday last week when the wife of the birthday boy chimed in that she thought The Kinks were probably the greatest rock band ever. Several people, all of whose opinions I respected, agreed with her. I just can't hang, I guess. I love a few of their songs (Victoria is particularly awesome) but by and large they bore the holy hell out of me...I try, I really do...but I just don't see the charm. Ah well.

Aunties and Uncles - The Jam - News of the World B-Side - 1978

Which brings us to the car...Now, I certainly haven't spent enough time around other Indians beyond the Singhs to know if this is some sort of Indian cultural thing...or just particular to this specific family, but my God are these fuckers useless without a GPS device. How did they drive before they were invented.

The Singhs had insisted we pay the extra $10 to rent a car with GPS, and in all fairness, it did come in quite handy the following day when we'd take back roads to get to the stadium...but on the drive up, the brothers had spent a solid ten minutes trying to program the address of the hotel into the GPS and then find a way to successfully mount it on the window or dashboard...instead of, you know, just driving to Boston, following the signs and then figuring it out.

So here we sat, wedged in the back seat of their turn-of-the-millennium luxury sedan, already late for dinner and waiting while a middle aged Indian couple programmed their GPS device. Now, what made this slightly more ridiculous was that, as the car was nearly 10 years old...it had a GPS built into the dashboard, but since this was an old and slow model, they had also purchased a newer, shinier GPS...and they were now trying to program both or either of them to tell them how to get to the restaurant. The restaurant was just on the other side of the Charles, in Cambridge...again, simply driving over there was, I guess, not an option. After 5 or so minutes of fiddling with it, they finally got one of them to work and we headed out.


Sometimes a band can put out material as a B-side that is every bit as strong as their A-Side material. The Beatles were, of course, masters of it (Daytripper, Penny Lane, Revolution). Radiohead, in their heyday certainly put out some amazing b-sides (Permenant Daylight, Trickster, Palo Alto, Pearly*), and I would say that in this instance The Jam have put out a song that stands with their best work. Solid rabble rousing, that's equal parts punk and Beatle-esque...it's everything Paul Weller does, done well.

Auf Achse - Franz Ferdinand - Franz Fredinand - 2004

I knew going up to Boston that The Singh brothers needed to put in a visit with their uncle who had recently moved to Boston. So after a series of phonetags and voicemails it was finally determined that we'd be having dinner with them on Saturday night. Anand got his uncle on the phone and attempted to make arrangements to meet at the restaurant, but his uncle was insistent that he keep dinner a surprise and that we meet up with them at their place in Brighton before dinner.

We took the T out there, which was slow and painful. Once you are out of Boston Central, the train runs above ground on street level. This means that the trains must stop at stop lights...in addition to it's already scheduled stops, making for a frustrating, lurching experience that is only slightly less annoying than taking a bus through Queens.

We finally arrived at our stop on Washington St. and began our relatively short walk to the boys' uncle's house. It was then that I was informed of a situation brewing in our little party. It seems that one member of our party, who shall remain nameless, but was neither Anand nor me...had been having some stomach issues during the trip. This person had purchased some medicine at the CVS the night before to correct this particular stomach issue and had taken some in the morning. When this proved ineffective, he'd taken more in the afternoon...now, several hours later, the medicine was beginning to take hold and he was desperately in need of place to take care of the situation.

When we arrived at the door, it took Uncle Singh several moments to come downstairs, causing the afflicted party to shuffle quite a bit and to occasionally grasp the chain link fence and clinch. Eventually, we were admitted to their very nice residence and Anand and I were left to make small talk and pretend not to notice the amount of time our fallen comrade had been in the bathroom.

Finally, when all was clear, we piled in the car to head to our dinner reservations...which we were already 15 minutes late for.

Most Franz Ferdinand songs sound pretty much the same, and either you like that vibe or you don't. On their first album, I generally like that vibe.

Auditorium - Guided by Voices - Alien Lanes - 1995

Following our child heavy adventure at the aquarium, we took a seat at an outdoor bar in Quincy Market to get our drink on. The day was getting hot and our walking and museum going had left us a little parched. Quincy Market is basically the same as the South Street Seaport here in NYC, designed for tourists, dominated by over-priced chains, and full of people that you are deadly certain that you are cooler than...but it still has it's seaport town charm. And you can't knock a margarita on the boardwalk on a hot day.

After we finished our drink we walked back to the hotel. Though Anand and I weren't particularly interested, Skip, the younger Singh brother was curious to see the Cheers bar (Which is actually called The Bull and the Finch) so we walked back via Commonwealth Ave. After a bit of circuitous walk we found ourselves in front of the famous sign only to find a line of people coming out the door. Both Anand and I had been to the bar on previous trips, and assured Skip that A) it was just a bar and B) the inside looked nothing like the show, and that C) there was no way we were going to wait in line to get into a bar on a Saturday afternoon.

Finally, we swung back to our hotel for a brief late afternoon respite before our evening plans would kick in...

Back in 1995 Uncle Bob Pollard wanted to record arena rock, and by God if the powers that be were not going to let him do it on their terms he'd do it on his own. Auditorium is one of the charming mid-90's lo-fi attempts at said arena rock that GBV would make a name for themselves on. Of course, 4 years later, Pollard would get a chance to record this type of music the way he wanted to and we'd all come to realize that we preferred it when he had to improvise with a cassette recorder in his garage. Just think of what a shitty movie Jaws would have been if Spielberg could have gotten that fucking shark to work.

Auditor - Britt Daniel/Brian Reitzell - Stranger Than Fiction(OST) - 2006

We ate lobster rolls on the water at a place called The Chart House, which I gather was at one time John Hancock's counting house. The history nerd in me couldn't help but be amused by this fact. We sat outside, next to a family gathering of sorts. There were two older parents, with their adult son and his girlfriend/wife/fiancee and an additional man who I think was the other son, but who said very little. In fact most of them said very little, save for the daugher in law (or whatever) who did not shut up through the entire meal. Her father in law, clearly detested her and would occassionally attempt to talk to the men about the Red Sox, only for her to dominate the conversation the whole time.

The thing that always baffles me about people who talk loudly and constantly in public, is that they seem completely unaware that they are broadcasting information about themselves to everyone around them. They are giving everyone ample opportunity to judge them...and generally with this type of person, there is plenty to judge. This woman was clearly shallow and materialistic, petty and amused by awful things. She told a story about how as a child they'd take vacations where her family would drive an RV to a destination only to sleep in the hotel. It never seemed to occur to her that this might make her appear pampered and awful. She never thought of these things, all she could think of was how wonderful it was to have people listening to her, to be the center of attention...regardless of whether that attention was meritted. The arrival of her food did not stop her verbal diaherria.

Following our meal, we went to the Aquarium, standing in line for nearly 1/2 an hour to get tickets. Nearly a decade in NYC has made me forget a truth about museums of any type in American places that are not NYC, a lesson I should have remembered from my trip to DC. NYC, due to it's booming tourism industry and self appointed need to be seen as a cultural epicenter, regards its museums with a sort of European air. Museums are places where adults go to be edified about culture or educated about science. Museums in any other American city are places you take your kids so you can pretend you are doing something "educational"

The Aquarium itself was impressive, with it's central cone of water with a descending ramp wrapped around it and individual exhibits on the oppossing wall. The problem is, you couldn't get anywhere near these exhibits due to the sheer mass of children between you and what you'd want to see. Being polite, I'd stand aside and wait for a group of kids to clear...as soon as they did I'd step up and look at what I wanted to see...only for another group of kids to decide that the space between me and the glass was a place they could stand to get a better view...never mind that someone else was there first and viewing the fish. After about 45 minutes we gave up...there was just no way the kids were going to be polite, and no way that we were going to get to see what we want. With a few exceptions, it was $21 down the drain. If I had wanted to be annoyed by children, I could have just gone to Park Slope for the day.

Listening to these songs in alphabetical order means that I have heard this brief instrumental, performed by Britt Daniel of Spoon on the Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack, several times immediately following "Audience with the Pope"...the problem is that for the first few listens, I assumed that this was just an outro to the previous song. It actually works really well, in fact I think they are even in the same key and the same basic tempo. What is ultimately a coincidence of the alphabet and my particular tastes makes sure that "Audience..." well always sound a bit too brief without it's "Outro".

Audience with the Pope - Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid - 2008

After a bit of a sleep in the Singh bros and I were up and out the door before noon, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day. 87 degrees, no humidity, a perfect ocean breeze and not a cloud in the sky greeted us when we walked out the hotel door. Our first activity for the day was the Aquarium, and we decided that there would be no better way to get there than to walk across town on this beautiful day.

If you didn't get a chance to read my European adventure from February, then I probably should explain again that I love to walk...and if possible would rather walk somewhere even if the distance seems greater than your average car loving American would normally go. Our hotel to the Aquarium was about 4.5 miles...no sweat.

We walked down Commonwealth Ave and across Boston Commons stopping for the occasional photograph or people watching moment. For all the negative things I could say about the city of Boston, there is absolutely no arguing with the fact that it is a really beautiful city. My very first visit to Boston was for Thanksgiving in 2002, a holiday that was accompanied by an early ice/snowstorm. While on many levels that particular trip was absolutely fucking miserable, I will always remember the beauty of the city covered in crystalline ice...and now I was here at the opposite time of year, with the city decked in green leaves and sunshine and looking just as lovely.

We took small detours, swinging by the site of the actual Boston Massacre (a rather unassuming circle on a cobblestone street) and down the market before we reached the water, to enjoy the full force of that ocean breeze and the sun reflecting off the water. Some days, it's just impossible not to love the world.

Sweet crooning from Elbow's rather impressive latter day output. Good stuff.

An Audience of One - The Swords Project - Entertainment Is Over, If You Want It - 2003

We had the cab drop us off at the first stop on my list for "Southie", a place called The Blackthorn Bar only to find that it was pretty close to dead. So we walked a short distance over to another bar called The Junction which had some life to it.

As an Irish-American, I had always had a sort of morbid curiosity about South Boston. To me, the Southie's are an embarrassing cousin...with their "Yo, brah we're going out on a pissa and getting wicked retarded" lingo and attitude, they seem to have inherited absolutely none of James Joyce's DNA and an over abundance of Colin Ferrel's (only with even less class). To me, this was a bit like visiting my cousins who live in a trailer park (Which I also have)...but the experience was by and large not what I expected.

The problem you see, is that Boston is such a college town. Despite it's hallowed place in American History, it's supposed rivalry with NYC and it's abundance of my peoples, Boston primarily serves as the location of Harvard, MIT, BU, Northeastern, and BC and as such, it's bars are designed to appeal to college kids. Cheap pitchers and beer pong tables are the order of the day, waitresses in jean skirts and frizzy hair are the norm. So, I went in expecting little Dublin, and instead was treated to a Northern version of Chapel Hill.

We pulled a waitress over in The Junction to help get the lay of the land, but then were stuck with her for the night as she thought I was hitting on her. So, we put down our beers and made our way to the next location, a bar with the rather tony name of "The Playwright" only to find it largely the same vibe. It was quickly apparent that we were going to be in for an evening of college style bars, and while slightly more adult, The Farragut House was only a slight improvement.

After that, we took a walk down by the water to work off some of the beer wait. The last stop on the list was a place called Murphy's Law, which I had been told was a must check out. We approached the bar at 10 minutes till 1 and heard the roar of a crowd. A trio of people, 2 women and a man walked a few yards behind us and had been behind us for several blocks. As we neared the door, the bouncer stuck his head out and told us the bar was closed...only to allow the 3 behind us right in. The Singhs were convinced this was racism, which might be true, but I was more on the side of it being about getting more women in. Either way, our night in Southie was done...with very little Irish culture absorbed and very little to write home about.

The Swords Project is currently a band called simply Swords. I heard their second album (First with that name) a few years back and had a brief infatuation with it, and decided to check out the first album. Much like their moniker, their songs used to be much longer (This one clocks in at over 10 minutes), and while I still enjoy the sounds they produce, I must say I drastically prefer the shorter more refined songs on the Swords album. Even with their whiny Indie-boy voice singer given a more prominent role, the shorter songs have a stronger since of melody and use the atmospherics to greater effect.

Auctioneer (Another Engine) - REM - Fables of the Reconstruction - 1985

The final bar we hit in Jamaica Plain was a place called Brendan Behan Pub, which turned out to be something of a gem...though not really what we were looking for at the moment. It was a smallish bar that was clearly a bit old. The wooden walls and benches were all a bit warped, giving the bar an odd angular look that us NYC-ers would refer to as "Character".

The crowd was mostly neighborhood types and most interestingly enough, dogs. Now, not dogs in an 80's slang, ugly chicks kinda way...I mean actual canines. There were easily 4-5 dogs in there with their owners, just randomly wandering the bar and socializing. As I am a dog person, this was a plus. I'm sure if I lived in JP, I'd find myself in this bar quite often. We were, however, looking for a bit more excitement than that and the pub was not providing it...so we were out after one drink.

We made a quick stop in the CVS, as I had forgotten a toothbrush and deodorant (Prompting Anand to snipe "you use those?") and then it was a cab to "Southie" for the remainder of the night.

Fables of the Reconstruction, the band's 3rd album, has always been my least favorite of the "Golden Age of R.E.M." albums. Sure, I'd listen to it 20 times in a row before I'd listen to Reveal or Around the Sun even one more time...but compared to the stunning debut album and the autumnal majesty of Reckoning, this album has always been a bit of a let down. Not quite sure whether to recapture the murky haze of the early work, or to head towards the arena rock they'd move towards on Life's Rich Pageant and perfect on Document...Fables seems stuck in two places at once, neither one thing nor the other.

Beyond this, it always seemed an odd decision for a band so steeped in Americana (Despite it's artier tendencies) to produce an album explicitly dedicated to a sort of modern American folk lore in London. The band wouldn't record out of The States again until the execrable Reveal. Stripped of all of their baggage, R.E.M. are, at the end of the day, an American rock band and they are at their best when they remember that fact.

Auctioneer - REM - Live Rockplast Oct 2nd 1985 - 1985

As we stumbled East on South St., now fairly lubricated, we came across a bar that hadn't been on our list (Even on vacation, I project manage...I had put together a spreadsheet of 40 bars and restaurants, spread around different neighborhoods, for us to check out). The bar was called Alchemy and was a bit more of a lounge type place, complete with low lighting, a cocktail menu and a fair assortment of Boston skanks in nice-ish dresses.

It was approaching 7 o'clock and the fact that we hadn't eaten anything but a small order of chicken wings and 1 bagel (both split 2 ways) all day long was beginning to take it's toll on our drinking. Additionally, we were beginning to rethink our plan. Clearly JP was too residential to get much of a happy hour scene, and most of the bars we'd been in were drastically under populated. If there was a good time to be had in this city we hadn't found it yet. We debated pulling the plug on this hood and heading over to Southie (our night time plan), but as we only had one JP bar left on the list, Anand insisted (in the insistent way that he does when he is drunk) that we finish the job and visit the last bar.

This is R.E.M., back when they were still a rock band playing in Amsterdam in 1985, complete with some unfinished spoken word nonsense from Stipe to kick off the song. This has never particularly been my favorite song but it is impressive to hear the band kicking in their prime.

Auctioneer - The Broken West - Now or Heaven - 2008

My friend Shani had hooked us up with a discount rate at the Marriot in Copley Square, which is located inside the Prudential building. Our spacious and accommodating room was on the 17th floor with a great view across the Charles. The building had a gym and pool facilities, 2 bars, and a very friendly concierge service. If nothing else, we couldn't really complain about the lodgings.

Once we were settled in and had had our pre-game cocktail, we hit the subway to go check out Jamaica Plain. I'd been to JP a few times to stay with a previous girlfriend's sister and her husband and found it a nice enough neighborhood. It's clearly Boston's best swing at having a Brooklyn style area, with neighborhood pubs, little cafe's and craft stores. It would do the trick on a sunny Friday afternoon.

After dealing with Boston's almost useless subway system, we got off and found our first bar with the Jeanie Johnston Pub, which was easily the least interesting bar we were in that night. We kicked off the festivities with a beer and a shot and some small talk, before heading out...so far we were unimpressed.

After that we hit James's Gate, a totally cool Irish Pub in the center of the hood. The problem with this place was that it's a winter bar. Old world style dark wood fixtures, steaming bowls of clam chowder, and thick pints of stout are all great on a chilly November night, but on a hot July day...we ended up in the back yard watching the girls walk down the sidewalk, downing a few pints and a some chicken wings. The younger Singh had a salad, for which we gave him no end of shit. Then we settled up and headed back to our explorations.

The Broken West does non-threatening power pop with a fair bit of melody. What it lacks in risk, it makes up for in sunny accessibility. They aren't going to change your life or anything, but this song is a fine example of the way that a simple sing-song melody can be stuck in your head for days.

Auburn and Ivory - Beach House - Beach House - 2006

AC Milan and Inter Milan (2 of the best teams in Italian football, and as such, 2 of probably the 10 best teams in the world) were playing a "Friendly" pre-season exhibition match in Boston this weekend. As such, me and the Singh brothers decided to head out to Beantown for a long weekend and see what the city had in store for 3 strapping adventuresome men.

Friday morning, I took the PATH out to Hoboken. The car rental was cheaper to pick up in Jersey and there was no sense back tracking into Brooklyn if we didn't need to. The Singh's picked me up, and we were on the road before 11...a good start.

The ride up North was relatively cut and dry, we hit some traffic in some of the larger cities (Stamford, Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford) but these were rarely more than 10 minute stops. We marvelled at how, despite it's image as the "Who's the Boss" wealthy suburb state, Connecticut is largely blue collar, grungy, and depressing. It does however possess beautifully landscaped rest areas.

We arrived in Boston a little before 4, and tried to find street parking, but this was considerably trickier than we thought. Parking in NYC, is rather famously, a bitch, but if you are willing to take the effort, you can usually find street parking after a few swings through some residential blocks. Boston has residential blocks, but all of these require resident passes to park. Eventually we gave up and just begrudgingly sucked up the $30 a day parking fees available at the local garages. This town was already showing it's downside.

It's a good day here for Beach House...their name is deceptive. Rather than the sunkissed Beach Boys record you might expect from such a band, they play the kind of music that you'd associate with being stuck in the rain all week on vacation. Sad, morose and lethargic. It's pouring rain here to the point that my coworkers just stated that it was a hurricane, and it feels like Beach House weather.

Attention - Gentlemen Jesse and His Men - Introducing Gentlemen Jesse - 2008

So ever since I was 15, my left eye has been noticeably worse off than my right. I wear glasses from time to time, and for a while wore them most of the time. Last summer I lost my glasses and since then have basically been going without. As a Brooklyn resident, I rarely drive and it's such a gigantic hassle to go to a movie in NYC...so I rarely need to pull out one of my old pairs. Most of the time I just make do with the good right eye.

The problem with this is that I've developed a head lean to favor the good eye. Additionally, I am noticeably aware of my left eye going lazy. This has lead me to try a few experiments, which if nothing else, makes me acutely aware of the way my brain process visual information.

Perhaps the one that is the most entertaining involves me blindfolding the right eye to force the left eye to get some exercise. I'll usually blindfold it for about half an hour and then do something that requires some visual work...play a video game, read a book or webpage, walk around the apartment swiftly. After about 20 minutes, when I remove the blindfold, a weird thing happens. There is a few seconds in which I am aware of my brain switching. At first the flood of information coming into the right eye is overwhelming. Then, I can feel my brain realizing that the information is more valuable than that coming in through my left...and in response, the left returns to it's "lazy" state.

This all happens in like 2 seconds, but it's a cool 2 seconds.

Anyway, Gentlemen Jesse sounds more or less exactly like The Exploding Hearts, only with less quality, less exuberance, and fewer dead members.

Attack on Love - Yo La Tengo - Electr-o-pura - 1995

Barring an amazing late career resurgence, the span between 1993's Painful and 2000's And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out will probably be regarded as YLT's heyday. But it is important to remember that even during this period, Hoboken's finest could still turn out some total crap.

YLT are at their best when the tension between Ira Kaplan's undeniably explosive talent is tempered by the unbelievable discipline of his wife Georgia and bass player James McNew. Together Hubley and McNew are probably the tightest, most versatile, rhythm section in all of indie rock...and without them Ira is just a middle aged Jew masturbating on a guitar or organ.

Case in point, Attack on Love.

Attack of the Killer Bees - Archers of Loaf - All The Nations Airports - 1996

Instrumental...though it is impressive that Bachman could make his guitar sound like a killer bee.

Atoms for Peace - Thom Yorke - Eraser - 2006

Saturday evening I took a trip up to Cityfield for the annual visit of the Cincinnati Mets. I met up with my friends around the Penn Station area for some pre-gaming before the first pitch. The problem with this plan is that the Penn Station area ("The Fashion District") is not really a friendly place for my type of bar. The whole zone is covered with tourist traps, fratty sports bars, and faux-Irish pubs that are usually filled with the spill over of Tourists and fratty sports fans. So, it seemed like a totally great idea to go to Deno's Party House and Bikini Bar.

The logic was, ok we amuse ourselves by going into a shitty dive bar where the bar tenders are all FOB russian girls in bikinis...sounds like a win-win situation, right? The problem here is this...we aren't usually the kind of guys to go these bars. Now I don't mean that in a "We're too classy to go here" kind of way, but rather...single men go to bars to meet women, attached men go to bars to NOT HAVE TO TALK TO WOMEN. If we wanted to talk to women, we'd stay home, where we get plenty of that.

We sat at the mostly empty bar (it was only 5 in the evening on a Saturday) and ordered our beers only to have our every attempt at having a conversation interrupted by one of the two (or both) bartenders attempting to "flirt" with us. We tried to make it clear that we really just wanted to drink and talk amongst ourselves, but that didn't really work. At one point, the smarter of the two asked us our names and my buddy introduced himself as "Terd Fergeson" (classy as always, Anand)...this resulted in me laughing uncontrollably. Unfortunately our bikini clad bartender took this as me laughing at my friend's odd name and tried to console him and tell him that it was a very manly name...which resulted in me laughing further. Finally we just had to put down our beers and head for another bar.

Atoms for peace is one of the more underwhelming songs on Yorke's underwhelming solo album. Like much of the album, it's not bad...but, so what?

Atomic Power - Uncle Tupelo - March 16th - 20th, 1992 - 1992

If Uncle Tupelo was the godfather of the Y'alternative movement, then March 16th-20th, 1992 probablys marks the subgenre's first official album. No Depression was a gritty, punky rock album with occassional country larks...the country influence was more pronounced on the follow up Still Feel Gone, but it was really this (largely acoustic) album on which the band let it's country folk flow. Peter Buck was even brought in for some feedback noise, giving tribute to the heavy work done by "Don't Go Back to Rockville" in the creation of country-punk ethos.

I still stand by Anodyne as the band's best album, but for purity of focus it's hard to beat March, and a track like the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou-esque "Atomic Power" is as good a place to hear that as any.

Atomic - Blondie - Eat to the Beat - 1979

So the other night I was out with my buddy Anand and we ended up in some wine bar on the outskirts of Soho/Tribecca. In our quest to find new bars, we had intended to close out our evening at City Winery on Varrick, only to discover that there was some sort of show going on that you had to have tickets for to even come into the bar. Having decided to close out the evening with wine, we ended up going into this hole in the wall place.

It was quiet and tasteful seeming, with oak book shelves and a jazz tro playing in the corner. The forty something, librarian-ish hostess spotted us and took an almost immediate dislike to us. It's probable that she assumed that we were wasted (correctly) and that we might cause a scene. Little did she know that we were trained professional drunks with ninja-like skills at keeping it together. She was condescending from the get go, trying to usher us into a back corner.

Once we were seated, we ordered a couple of glasses of wine and a meat and cheese plate and got on the business of planning our next adventure. A youngish waitress brought out our glasses of wine, and promptly proceeded to dump both glasses on me. Now I wasn't dressed terribly well, and it was Rose, so it wasn't really a big deal...but still...

Anand and I both looked at each other to confirm that niether one of our drunk assess had been responsible for the accident. The condescending hostess zoomed over to wipe down the table and move us to another one, her condescention now tempered by the knowledge that her staff had fucked up...but still present. Our wine, was of course on the house. The waitress who had spilled on me refused to look at either us, or her boss for the rest of the night...spending the following half an hour furiously scrubbing the espresso machine.

As we wrapped up, the hostess came around to give us our check and asked what had made us come into her place. Anand told her that we liked to wander from neighborhood to neighborhood and check out different bars.

You could see the lightbulb go off in her head...she thought we were restaurant reviewers...and she realized that her waitress had probably shot the review in the foot. It was totally amazing the speed with which that condescention turned to obsequeisness. Our remaining five minutes in the bar were filled with ass kissing on a level I've rarely experienced. We quietly left, tipping well, and letting her stew in the fear that she'd shot her business in the foot.

I'm just barely old enough to remember the time when Heart of Glass was a hit. To me, Blondie were always that band. It was only as I got older that I discovered that there was a much more interesting band behind the hits. Atomic, with it's Spaghetti Western Guitar, disco drums and typically haunting vocals show a band with much more going for it than you'd think.

Atom Eyes - Guided By Voices - Under the Bushes Under the Sky - 1996

Tobin Sprout's songs on the Guided by Voices albums that came out during the reign of the "classic" line-up are always a bit of an enigma. It seems inconceivable that an ego as outsized as Bob Pollard's could allow another songwriter, even a minor one, to have his moment in the spot light. Beyond that, Sprout's songs, while rarely bad (And this, along with Alien Lanes' "Little Whirl" is probably one of the two best), are generally pretty mundane affairs. Typically the fall into the niche of sub-REM mid-90's indie rock. Eschewing the arena rock gestures that always elevated GBV's lo fi days, Tobin's songs were...nice, and little more. And by and large they were interchangable, offering little sonic variation.

So again, the question is...how did they make it onto GBV albums that were already overflowing with tracks? I have no good answer...there is a temptation to say that Bob put them on the record to showcase how much they were inferior to his work...but that is hardly being fair to Uncle Bob. Also arguable is that Bob, always the coneisseur of the classic rock move, decided he needed a George Harrison to his Lennon/McCartney, a Spiral Stairs to his Malkmus...which isn't outside the realms of possiblility. Or perhaps Bob just liked Tobin's songs...we don't have an answer...instead, they just stand as interesting side alleys on albums already full of experiments, both succesful and less so.

Atmosphere - Joy Division - Substance - 1995

Of all of my relatives, the one that I am probably most like is my maternal grandfather. I may have gotten my alcohol tolerance, blarney, and sense of humor from my biological fathers side, my intellect from my mother, and my professional sense from my (step)Dad...but my grandfather is the person I see myself in most.

Born in 1930, he was certainly raised with Depression era ethics. He was too young for WWII and his service was concluded before Korea. He worked most of his early adulthood as a shoe salesman before opening up his army surplus store in Kokomo, IN. He was 2 pack a day smoker until he had a heart attack at the alarmingly young age of 38...at which point he decided to go on mission to Puerto Rico to help build a church.

Always an incorrigible flirt and a man who loved to stir the pot, he was a son of a bitch in the best possible sense. I lived with him for a few years in high school due to some family difficulties and he was my first employer, putting me to work at the shop and at the gun shows he'd attend on weekends to sell his wares.

I went to go visit him this weekend for the 4th, as my family has recently had to put him in a home. He is wheel chairbound, and at nearly 80 has survived 6 heart attacks, many strokes and recently been diagnosed with bowel cancer. It's heart rending to see a man of such limitless spirit stuck in a place that he clearly sees as a waiting room for death...though it is encouraging to see that he has made many girlfriends among both the nurses and the other inhabitants.

I've survived 34 years without losing a family member...and for that I should be thankful, but it is never easy to watch someone you love fade away.

Was this an appropriate post for Joy Division...maybe? They are certainly a band for whom death (though not aging) is usually associated. The best I can say is that at least I gave tribute to my grandpa on a great song as oppossed to one of the filler tracks.

Atlas - Battles - Mirrored - 2007

Not to ride in on the coat tails of Pitchfork too much, but this probably was the best song of 2007. The rest of the Battles album has it's charms, but this was the clear winner with it's absolutely propulsive drum beats, piston engine guitars and nonsense vocorder singing that somehow doesn't get annoying after 7 minutes.

As usual, it's always harder to write about a song I really like than one I totally hate. This song rocks, and it's great for driving in the summer or taking the subway home at night. Cheers!

Atlantis to Interzone - Klaxons - Xan Valleys EP - 2006

So I guess I've strung you guys along long enough with the tale of the third guy who broke his hand punching me in the face...incidentally, this was also the last time I was punched in the face.

As I've probably mentioned on this blog before (I'm too lazy to check) I worked as a summer camp counselor for several summers in my late teens/early twenties. My second summer there, I was twenty and was generally having a pretty great time. For those that have never worked at a summer camp, you are basically locked into a 24 hour a day, 6 day a week microcosm with a lot of hormonally overdriven other teenagers and given the responsibility to care for children. You get nearly no sleep and even less pay, but on the plus side you spend a lot of time with hot and sweaty college girls.

One of the girls at the camp was a crazy Irish girl who drove most of the boys mad. She was a mess of curly hair and long freakled legs and evil manipulations, she knew all the boys wanted her and that she could get whatever she wanted without giving much in return...and mostly what she wanted was attention.

So one day, her non-camp employed boyfriend came tearing into camp on a motorcycle, convinced (not unreasonably) that his girl was not being entirely faithful to him. Much drama ensued and at the end of the fight, the guy swore that if she didn't follow him out, he was going to kill himself. When she refused to acqueise, he tore off on his motorcycle, making a rather sad show of ditching it in the gravel to give some authenticity to his "suicide" attempt.

Now this is where it gets complicated...for insurance reasons, because he had made a suicide attempt on city property, the camp was not allowed to let him leave the premises until the paramedics arrived to examine him, but because he had tried to commit suicide on 2 prior occassions (Probably each time with the same level of seriousness) one more reported attempt meant that he would have to stay at an inpatient pysch facility for 2 weeks for evaluation. For this reason, he certainly did not want to be detained for long enough for the authorities to arrive.

To prevent his leaving, the camp director gathered the 4 biggest guys in the camp...of which I was one (ok, I was the smallest of the 4, but I still made the list) and had us surround him to keep him from getting back on his bike. Now keep in mind that 3 of the 4 of us had some kind of history with the crazy girl...so we weren't exactly viewing this douchebag as a guy to be respected. Seeing that he was surrounded, he decided to try to fight his way out...and the way to go was through the smallest of the 4 guys. Unfortunately for him, his punch landed right on the point of my chin breaking three fingers in the process. The pretty much put an end to the fight.

Incidentally, I ended up running into the crazy Irish girl years later in NYC. Not much had changed. We had a 6 month spell of quasi-dating/sexually charged friendship that ended in a bar fight...but that's a story for another time.

I enjoy the energy of Klaxons...you definitely don't want to listen to them before you've had your first cup of coffee...but they'll get you going.

Atlantic City - The Hold Steady - War Child: Heroes Vol I - 2009

The Hold Steady try an interesting approach to covering a song that, if you read my previous entry you'll know, I find near impossible to improve upon. They take what The Boss did with a guitar, harmonica and one hell of a killer hook...and perform it as if the song had been on Born In The USA with the full E-Street Band backing it up. There's the tinkling piano, the harmonic squelling guitar solo, the Jersey Shore sax that may very well be played by the Big Man, the female background singer to hammer home that hook, and synchopated stop to a chanted chorus before a big kick back in.

I may have my issues with The Hold Steady, and I certainly don't prefer this version, but I have to give them credit for turning what sounded dull on paper into a solid reinterpretation. Well played boys, well played.

Atlantic City - Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska - 1982

Well, I'm going to take a small detour before giving you all the third punched in the face story, mostly because I need to talk about this song...

Springsteen, when he is at his best (Which he unquestionably is in this song), captures the frustration of being stuck in a working class life while tormented by bigger ambitions. He's most remembered for his moments of triumphant catharsis through escape ("Tramps like us, baby we were born to run!" "This town's full of losers, and I'm pulling out of here to win!") but the real drama comes from the sense that those escapes are false hopes and dead ends. His characters are doomed Calvinist, already damned from birth and the protagonist of this song is no different.

If anything his plight is worse, he holds no false hope of redemption. He knows the choice he makes when says "last night I met this guy and I'm going to do a little favor for him" will bring no redemption, only temporary relief before a greater hell.

Springsteen was always a great admirer of Dylan, and the entirety of the Nebraska is an attempt to wed the sonic sensibilities of a pre-electric Dylan to the Jersey Shore narratives (along with a healthy dose of Charlie Starkweather) for which the Boss was already quite famous by 82. The strategy doesn't always work, some of the songs can seem overly sparse, and other meandering...but when it does work, it is amazing...

The Athelete - Erland Oye - Unrest - 2003

The thing is, I had considered fighting Aaron before...but there's just no winning a fight with a tiny dude. You beat the crap out of him, and you look like a bully...he beats the crap out of you, and you look like a pansy. So my strategy was essientially to avoid contact with him.

This is why his hit and run while I was on a date was particularly annoying...but once he'd thrown the punch, I knew he was going to have to engage. The punch hadn't particularly hurt so much as jarred me, but it had stalled me long enough that every girl in school had surrounded "poor little Aaron" and gotten him as far from me as possible.

So a couple of interesting things happened in the aftermath. The punch hadn't really done much damage to me. Catching me right on the top of the cheek bone (Remember he jumped up to punch me and threw the punch downwards), I had little more than a little red dot on my cheek to show for the excitement. Aaron on the other hand had broken his first two fingers, his wrist and his arm to the elbow.

This had all happened on a Friday night.

Monday, for reasons that were honestly completely unrelated to the incident, I had foolishly decided to play hooky on the Monday afterwards. Not yet familiar with the intricacies of the high school rumor mill, I was shocked to discover that the word on the street was that he had shattered my eye socket and walked around the school all day on Monday, at long last the bad ass that he wished he could be. Needless to say, he was not happy to see me back and relatively unscathed on Tuesday.

We shared a class, 6th Period Spanish. The teacher, in what I am 100% certain was an effort to look up more plaid skirts of my female classmates, had arranged the desks in the class into two banks of three rows that faced each other and as luck would have it, he sat directly across the aisle from me. So I had to look at him all day. And in his misguided attempt to make himself seem tougher would spend the bulk of spanish class bashing himself in the skull with the cast on his arm...which he would follow up with a "manly" grunt and "fierce" eyes.

It must be really hard to be a short guy...fortunately I wouldn't know.

Kings of Convenience's Quiet is the New Loud is one of my all time favorite hangover albums. Having said that, I don't know that I ever need to have another album by the Norwegian folkies. There is only so much that sound can do. One of the members of Kings, Erland Oye attracted my interest when I heard his stuff was more electronica based...however it is still just as soft and delicate. The skill with melody is still there, but the acoustic guitars have simply been replaced by the bleeps and bloops of Scandanavian Electro-pop. It's nice enough, but a bit of a snooze fest.

Ate It Twice - Boston Spaceships - Brown Submarine - 2008

So, the second time a guy broke his hand on my face, I was 15, and if time #3 is the better story...then time #2 is the stranger one.

I was a freshman in highschool and was just starting to get comfortable with this notion of having a friend who was a girl (as comfortable as any man ever can be with it) and I had a friend named Jen. She was a shy, bookish girl who would later go on to become a doctor and we had a sort of low key lunch table friendship that was helped by the fact that she wasn't particularly my type. Now the problem was this kid named Aaron.

Aaron was a very particular midwest type...short, scrawny and even whiter than me Aaron adopted the pose of the "Bad Ass". He kept his head shaved and wore combat boots every single day and was convinced that he could kick the shit out of anyone who got in his way. He ran with a dopey flunky, who's name I can no longer remember (though we called him Wing Nut). Anyway, Aaron and his flunky would frequently make stops at my lunch table to toss game at Jen.

Now at the time, I found the notion of him and Jen together ridiculous. As I said, she was studiuos and shy and in my mind was so far above that little twirp that she shouldn't have even given him the time of day...I was too inexperienced to realize that women will often date men wildly beneath them. So I spent the entirity of Aaron's visits belittling him while he was trying to get his groove on. And I was a smartass, so my belittling was probably fairly brutal...but even then I was six inches taller and probably 40 pounds heavier than the kid. This started a sort of mini-cold war between me and Aaron, with me constantly ripping on him while he seethed and postured. This goes on for a few weeks.

So one Friday night, I'm on a date...one that was already disastoriously bad BEFORE the violence erupted. My friend Bryan, who was immune to shame and as such always had dates lined up, had fixed me up with the friend of whoever his current girl was. And as usual in this arrangement it was a terribly bad match, because the friend was always a shy quiet girl...so we'd both sit in awkward silence while Bryan pawed his girl.

That particular night we'd also chosen a particularly bad venue for our date...the school play. Now granted, there isn't a ton of stuff you can do on a high school date in the Midwest, and even less before you can drive...but still, the school production of Little Shop of Horrors was probably a bad call. And it was an even worse call for me, because the sole reason I was attending was because I had a massive ungodly brutal crush on the senior who was the lead in the play...my date was so little the object of my attention at that play that I even forgot her name (Incidentally, it was also Jennifer, a fact that I'll never forget NOW).

So anyway, the play lets out, my date is going horribly and I'm standing on the corner with my friend and the girl's waiting for Bryan's mom to pick us up. I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around. At that point, Aaron grabs a hold of my shoulder and uses this to leverage himself to jump up and punch me in the face.

To Be Continued...

Bob Pollard's Boston Spaceships seems to be the closest thing we'll get to a "return to form" from Uncle Bob. Stripped of his prog rock leanings that he's cultivated over his past few solo albums (and the last few GBV albums), he returns to straight ahead guitar rock and by and large it serves him well. I haven't enjoyed a Pollard Release this much since...well at least since Half Smiles of the Decomposed.

At What Point Did You Stop Believing In Me - Bound Stems - Appreciation Night - 2006

As I was hanging out with my friends the other night, I off-handedly mentioned that I have had 3 different people break their hand while punching me in the face. Like most of the details of ones own life it didn't occur to me that this was odd until after I thought about it (For instance I have a friend who has been shot 5 times and probably doesn't think about it much). In telling what I thought were just the routine stories from my youth (all 3 incidents happened to me in my teens...the last one occurring when i was 20) I realized that it probably was a bit unusual.

The first time was easily the least interesting...when I was 13 I reached a point where I began walking the 2.5 miles home from school rather than taking the bus. This actually started a trend that would carry over through most of my life...I'd far rather just walk than wait on inefficient public transportation to ferry me home. Anyway, I was walking along when several slightly older kids from a neighboring rougher school jumped me for my pocket money. I was in my catholic school uniform, so I'm sure I was clearly an easy mark. A kid on my left started yelling stuff at me to distract me...when I turned back around, my right cheek was met with a fist punching me three times in quick succession.

At the time I was wearing braces, so the punches tore up the inside of my cheek and caused me to have a mouth full of blood which I spit at my assailant...but amusingly enough he was in a lot more trouble than me. He lay on the ground clutching his hand and crying. Despite my opponents prone state, I quickly ran away and got myself home. My mother of course freaked the fuck out and called the police, but other than a sore jaw, I was relatively fine...and I had learned a valueable lesson. Never hit anyone with a closed fist...you'll break your hand.

Bound Stems is something of a hybrid between Pavement and Modest Mouse, combining the latters vocal style with the more lackadasical musical approach of the former. The album never really grabs me, but I generally enjoy it while it's on. The waving synths and the lady background singer both make this song a little more interesting than it would be otherwise.

At The Party - M83 - M83 - 2001

Instrumental...and a short boring one at that.

At The Feast - The Congos - Heart of the Congos - 1977

Antartica, the bar that has the distinction of being about ten feet from my office has a curious phenomenon they call "name night". At the begining of every month they publish a calendar with a name assigned to every day of the week (except Sundays when they are closed). If you enter the bar on the night corresponding to your name you can drink that night until 11 free of charge. Granted, there are restrictions on what you can have...but still, it's free booze...and free booze served by very attractive and friendly ladies...so you can hardly turn that down.

So, I'm sure you've gathered by now that last night was Josh night, and honestly I have to say that I pulled it off with some aplomb. 3 Pints of Vodka and Soda, 1 Pint Rum and Coke, 2 vodka shots and 2 Stellas....all in all a good showing and with very little day after nastiness. Other than a powerful thirst, I was in good shape this morning. My friend Josh also came out to take advantage of the free booze, and lost his hat...literally, but hey...in war there are always casualties.

I've never been a huge reggea person...I tend to find it monotonous, but occassionally I try. My friend Corey put the Congos on my iPod...I keep them there for historical purposes.

At My Window Sad and Lonely - Billy Bragg and Wilco - Mermaid Avenue - 1998

Back in 1998, Wilco was relatively small potatoes when they were asked to feature with noted British punk/folkie Billy Bragg on an album of unrecorded Woody Guthrie songs. At the time the were the band led by the less respected member of the Uncle Tupelo. They had had a minor "Y'alternative" hit with Box Full of Letters and then faded into the background with a solid but low selling follow up and a third album that relied more on Beach Boys-esque pop than Hank Williams Sr.

But then with Mermaid Avenue, their rise to the thrown of Starbuck's Comp/Dad-Rock icons was on it's way. The Guthrie estate had a set of lyrics that Guthrie had written but never set music too...they hand picked Wilco and Bragg to make an album with these lyrics and the results were solidly succesful...take this song for instance.

At My Most Beautiful - REM - Up - 1998

Well, sorry again for a bit of a lengthy gap between entries, but I took a few couple of days off of work to make a little road trip down to DC and then I had a fair amount of catching up on both work and sleep when I returned.

So anyway, since I've sort of gotten the hang of this whole travel blog thing recently I'll probably be writing a bit about DC...but I actually have a few things to say about this song, so the DC stories can wait for the next entry.

In 1998 I was working night shifts at a hospital's computer help desk in Cincinnati. I worked completely by myself for most of the night, and unless a system was down I rarely got many calls. As such had plenty of time to work on projects, catch up on reading, listen to music, etc. And one of the things I was doing was starting an internet romance with a girl I had known for a few years. She was obsessive about REM and had seriously recommended this album to me.

Now I, like many people, had sort of assumed that Bill Berry's departure after New Adventures in Hi Fi meant the end of REM as a creative force...and by and large I was correct, however they still had one last good album in them (Unless they seriously surprise me in their middle aged incarnation). And that album was Up.

The departure of Berry left the band free to experiment a bit. Their tour with young upstarts Radiohead as openers had left them with a taste for a bit more unusual textures and much of the album shows this influence. At My Most Beautiful however is one of the few songs on the album that looks backwards...it is admittedly a band trying to sound like the Beach Boys and they do a stirling immitation. Michael Stipe has long admitted his boredom with the icons of classic rock, but in doing his band mates a "Favor" and doing this song in the Pet Sounds style actually allowed the song to open up and breathe rather than stagnating in imitation. The sleigh bells, the baritone horns, the perfect pitched harmonies all work to show the delicacy of the song in both lyrical content and structure. It's really a lovely song and makes me wish even further that they had simply hung up their hats after this album.

At Least That's What You Said - Wilco - Kicking Television - 2005

I am currently DVRing the Champions League Semi-final between Arsenal and Man U...the two great rivals of the EPL (circa 1996-2005) meet in the European cup for the first time ever and it should be a great game...assuming that I can avoid any spoilers.

The DVR is really the double edged sword of the soccer fan these days. Since our games are played on a continent 5 to 6 hours ahead of us, the games are usually played during the day...so unless I want to take a day off work (or have a "doctor's appointment") then I have to set the DVR and wait till I get home. THe plus side to this is that, if I can pull it off, I can still have the majority of the excitement of watching a game live (but you know, there's still a little something missing knowing that it's not). I can watch it at my leisure. If I'm home a little late, I don't miss anything.

But, I have certainly had big games spoiled by the internet. When Liverpool made their amazing comeback against AC Milan in 2005...it was a a big enough story to make the AP newswire, even here in the states. Earlier in the year, when Arsenal was playing Roma in a tightly contested game...I stayed late at work so I could head straight to Rance's to watch the game. I avoided anything sports related. And then some kid in Cincinnait, that I was his camp counselor a billion years ago, updates his facebook profile to say "I can't believe Arsenal won on penalties!!!" My evening plan was shot.

So now I sit here, avoiding sports AND facebook and waiting for the day to end. Hopefully, I'll make it through and hopefully Arsenal will pull the victory off.

This is a live version of the previous song. It sticks pretty close to the text, which is fine since it's a great song...but doesn't really require much additional comment.