Arms Against Atrophy - Titus Andronicus - The Airing of Grievances - 2008

The Airing of Grievances was one of the few capital "R" rock albums that really grabbed me last year. In a year that was primarily dominated by dancey electronica and hushed, pastoral folk, it was nice to find an album that could find a way to marry low fi production with shredded vocal and bashed drums energy levels and still be interesting.

And this was probably the song that sold me on them, with it's Westerburg-esque vocals, paint by numbers guitar solo and intense Catholic imagery to describe something fairly mundane (in this case a broken arm) this song had me at "Hello"

Armchairs - Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha - 2007

So last night I went to see Will Ferrel's show on Broadway where he plays former President GW Bush giving a farewell to the nation. My buddy Shani bought me a ticket as an early birthday present since she'll be in LA for my actual b-day. As is typical, I got stuck in the bar a little too long and had to haul my ass to the theater district to make the gate. We barely had time to throw down a quick glass of champaigne before the lights started blinking and the show started.

Now Ferrel has certainly lost a little of his luster in the last year or two, but there is no denying he has been one of the comedic superstars of the last decade, and his Bush impression has certainly made the last 8 years slightly more bearable...but what struck me most about the show was how much of it might have been too painful to laugh at.

There was certainly very funny stuff, but by and large it was the bits of absurdism(Bigfoot, Monkeys with spear guns, western style handjobs) that packed the biggest punches. The topical stuff (My Pet Goat, "Nice Job Brownie" and of course "Mission Accomplished") mostly served as reminders of what a total clusterfuck that administration was. It's not that Ferrel wasn't funny, or that the time wasn't appreciated so much as...it was the first chance I'd had to look back since President Obama's innauguration. And to see the scope of exactly how badly the W administration really and truly bent this country over a table was staggering. There was still funny stuff in this (Dick Cheney and the Goat Demon, Condie Rice as the office hussey) but mostly it was a bit like being punched in the gut.

Anyway, this Andrew Bird song is a good antidote for that. Bird has always had a strong knack for writing a melody, and his instrumentation has generally been one of his strong points (a rock musician who clings so strongly to the violin as his core instrument certainly has to be inventive). In recent years, Bird has added a level of maturity to his songs that shines through on this track, a fine song for a sad evening.

Armagideon Time - The Clash - London Calling B-side - 1979

So I watched the Coen Bros Burn After Reading last night...I have mixed feelings about the Coen Bros and equally mixed feelings on the film. On the one hand they are the directors of my favorite film of all time, Miller's Crossing...a beautiful, sad and lyrical film that manages to encompass all of the genre trappings, cartoonishness, and showy violence the Coen's are known for while still being a touching statement about loneliness, self-destruction, redemption and loyalty.

The Coens have made many other fine films as well the wonderfully tawdry Blood Simple, the hilarious Raising Arizona, the enigmatic Barton Fink, their Oscar films Fargo and No Country for Old Men, and of course the sublime Big Liebowski...but they have also made some crap. Hudsucker Proxy is an interesting failure, whereas Intolerable Cruelty and The Ladykillers are just failures. And even in their best films lies the sense that we are watching a movie. Even the semi-realistic tones of films like Fargo and No Country are steeped in cinematic convention and idiosyncratic behavior. Even when their movies are good...they remain fake.

Burn After Reading is probably closest to Hudsucker in terms of it's success, though the two films are very different. The attempt to satirize modern Washington DC, a city where even the people not involved in the government are involved in the government, is interesting and certainly not something that I have seen explored before. It is probably the only comedy I can think of that uses the Valerie Plame affair as it's cheif inspiration. And there are some wonderful little bits of characterization (Most of the stuff Brad Pitt does, Clooney's dildo chair, JK Simmons doing his usual unflabbable thing) but as a comedy...it just isn't that funny. And as a politcal mystery...it's rather lackluster...which again, is sort of the point, but then it needed to be a stronger comedy.

The Clash's Reggea attempts are much like this. It was an admirable attempt to fuse punk with the new found sounds of Carribean music...to fuse the tone of one dissaffected culture with the tone of another. Again, the attempt is admirable, but how often do you want to listen to it?

Arm and Hammer - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder - 2007

Okay, this song represents one of the bigger challanges of this project...well, okay, not this song specifically, but this kind of song. This song is terrible. Unremittingly awful. It is from a clusterfuck of an album produced by a producer I admire and a band whose first album I enjoyed. It's soul redeeming quality is that it is brief.

But I can't quite bring myself to delete it...because well, what if I have a total critical re-evaluation of this album? What if I'm just hearing this single annoying minute and half of "music" out of context? What if it provides the perfect bridge between the two songs that sandwich it, and I erased it because I made the rookie mistake of judging this song out of context? Is that sort of thinking even relevant anymore in the digital age? Is the album a dead art? Or for that matter, is this actually just a bad album that will not age gracefully? You know, like the way you go back and watch Temple of Doom one more time, on the chance that your opinion will be softer on it with the passage of time only to discover that it's still pretty crappy.

Be thankful you don't have my issues.

Arizona - Kings of Leon - Because of the Times - 2007

Sometimes a band must be seen in a live setting to be appreciated. I went through a lengthy period of time not particularly liking KoL. I found them to be a lesser version of My Morning Jacket. I found Caleb Followill's weird voice to be...well weird. And also, as a University of Kentucky grad, I felt obligated to support the KYers over the Tennessee boys.

But then I saw KoL at All Points West. In order to make sure we had some visibility for Radiohead, my buddy Anand and I made our way as close to the front as we could during the King's show. And it's impressive enough that they could change my opinion with a good live show, but to change my opinion with a good live show at a huge outdoor festival (which is death to many better bands...Grizzly Bear for instance). All in all, the Kings of Leon boys put on a great show and lead to me downloading their catalog. They aren't my favorite band by a long stretch, but I've certainly enjoyed listening to them.

This particular song is a nice slow jam with a searing guitar line and good build up. I'm glad they changed my mind about them.

The Aristocratic Swells - Beulah - When Your Heartstrings Break - 2000

I have never been to California (or the West Coast at all) but a band like Beulah basically represents every reason that I am sure that I would hate it.

Ares - Bloc Party - Intimacy - 2008

So, after spending a relatively lazy and mostly sober weekend at home I ended up getting violently ill on Monday night. I'll spare you most of the gory details (though I assure you, they are quite gory)...but probably the most grueling part was after midnight on Monday (Tuesday if you want to be pedantic). The only position I could take that would not leave me horribly naseous was to lay on my back...however, I have never been able to sleep on my back. So, this left me laying in a kind of dazed limbo all night long...never quite asleep, looking at the clock every fifteen minutes and doing the math on how much sleep I'd be able to get if I got to sleep right then. Or then. Or then.

I'm not even really sure what I thought about during this time or how my mind passed the time (other than the occassional prayers to God that he'd let me die). I spent all of yesterday in a fog, listless and confused (more than usual). I didn't want to mess up my sleep schedule too much, so I forced myself to stay up till ten and then promptly passed the fuck out. I could honestly have used another day of sleep, but dear sweet lord did that suck.

If you had told me in 2006 that I would greet the release of Bloc Party's 3rd album with an earth shattering yawn, I wouldn't have believed you...well, that's not neccesarily true, I've seen plenty of examples of the Sophomore Slump taking all the wind out of a band's sails...but if this band had anything going for it in 2006, it was wind in their sails. Either way, this song isn't bad...it returns some of the rock that was desperately missing from A Weekend In The City...but can't quite escape the sameness that has plagued all of their albums.

Are You Swimming In Her Pools? - Swan Lake - Beast Moans - 2006

My girlfriend started a new job last week. I am exceptionally happy for her to have found a publishing job in this shitty economy, but there are a few substantial downsides. First and foremost she has a really terrible commute. We've all been there (here in NYC at least). You end up needing a job, and taking something way out in Long Island that take you an hour and half to get too...but her's is especially grueling, as she's tied to the LIRR schedule. She basically has to either show up 45 minutes early for work, or 15 minutes late...and as the job has the usual level of draconian requirements placed on entry level employees, she is pretty much forced to do the former rather than the latter. This means she out the door at 6AM and not home till 730PM and dead tired when she shows up.

And of course the job has pretty much put the kibosh on any extra-curricular IMing or emailing...so I don't get to talk to her during the day, other than some furtive texting she does covertly in the ladies room and on her lunch break. So, I've gone rather suddenly from being in mild girlfriend overload, to pretty hard girlfriend withdrawl, which sucks for both of us.

But as my friend Shani pointed out...it'll just make her appreciate the kick ass job she'll get in a few years even more.

Despite being mildly underwhelmed by Swan Lake, it is interesting to hear a Spencer Krug song stripped of it's grandiose Wolf Parade trappings. Mostly reduced to an acoustic guitar and vocal (with some keyboard noodling and harmonies from the band's other two high-ish profile members) it sports a surprisingly sweet melody that is only slightly undercut by the out of the blue profanity (not that I'm prudish, it just seems really left field) and an intentional (or intentionally included) mistake in the middle of the song.

Definitely one of the better songs on the album.

Are You Faster? - Guided By Voices - Mag Earwhig - 1997

A fairly routine GBV half song from back in the day when we used to wonder what would happen if Bob actually wrote a whole song. And then we found out and realized we generally liked the half songs better. Typically, the song stops right when you think it's going to get amazing. Bob knew the way to keep us in suspense was to never give us the pay off, or sometimes to just give us the pay off...this strategy worked for a good long time.

Are You Experienced? - The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced? - 1967

It's really ridiculously cold here in NYC today. I know, it's January and I live in the Northeast, I should expect this stuff, but keep in mind the majority of us NYCers have to walk a lot. Leaving my apartment this morning, my hair froze in the half block walk it took me to get to the coffee shop.

The title track from this classic rock staple is a lot more experimental than I generally give Hendrix credit for. Sure, he's a great guitar player, but at least in what we hear on the radio, he's rarely more than a flashy blues player. But the backwards tape loops and chiming piano part sound like something from more of a studio innovator than Hendrix is generally credited with being. No complaints on my part.

Are You A Hypnotist? - The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots - 2002

So the other day, my friend Corey asked me about The Flaming Lips. His taste tend to run a bit more to the dancey and electronica-y, so he wasn't quite familiar with why the Lips are held in such high regard. And these days, now that they've sort of ossified into...well if not quite a self-parody...a band that is fine with falling back on reliable tricks...which they never used to be.

But in telling the whole story to Corey, I remembered what a truly great yarn it is, and it reminded me of how visionary The Lips were. Formed in the mid 80's by a group of Oklahoma white trash who loved nothing more than dropping acid, playing sidelot football, and listening to punk rock, The Lips began as a noise rock band with little in the way of the bitter sweet melodicism or acid head philosophy that would characterize their later work.

By the early 90's they were starting to gel, their live shows were already the stuff of legend and lead singer Wayne Coyne was beginging to find his songwriting (and singing) voice. However, just as they were about to make the leap to the big leagues, their most (technically) talented member, guitar player Jonathan Donohue left the band to concentrate on Mercury Rev full time, also their drummer departed...this was inexplicably the best thing that could have happened to them.

They were replaced by Ronald Jones and Steven Drozd. Jones was one of the most unique guitar players of the 90's, with a style that is still quite unlike anyone else. His use of a slide in conjunction with an array of effects pedals gave him a rich gliding tone that sounded gigantic (and not nearly as bluesy as the slide would seem). His tone gave novelty hit "She Don't Use Jelly" it's bite, but for a real glimpse at what he was capable of check out "Psychiatric Explorations of the Fetus With Needles" from Clouds Taste Metalic. Jones would leave the band after two albums, never to be heard from again, unable to cope with the rock life style and his growing paranoia over his bandmate's drug use...

But Steven Drozd was the real story. Growing up in a family of musicians, Steven is a prodigy. Hardly limited to the drums, he would prove that he can play anything, and play it well. His reedy voice, while not quite interesting enough to hold down a lead spot, was useful in combination with his perfect pitch, in creating the choir of background voices The Lips would later become known for. In short, Steven enabled all of Wayne's wacky visions to be brought to full color and virtuoso-esque life. But...and this is a big but, Steven had a bitch of a smack problem, that would lead to the departure of Jones.

(incidentally, all of this can be discovered in the really quite excellent documentary Fearless Freaks...including an amazing scene where Steven describes how heroin has destroyed his life...his mouth tells the story seemingly unaware the entire time that his hands are cooking up a shot and injecting it)

With Steven at his side, Wayne's projects became more and more ambitious, including the infamous parkinglot symphony...where a parking lot full of cars played tapes of instrumental parts, turning them off and on as conducted by Mr. Coyne and Zaireeka the album that was meant to be played by playing four different CD's simultaneously.

Following Zaireeka, the band had several brushes with death...Steven's drug use was a daily reminder that he could die at any time, bassist Micheal Ivans was in a near fatal car crash, and most importantly, Wayne Coyne's father died. In the aftermath of these events The Soft Bulletin was born. An orchestral pop album of incredible sonic density and wonderful melody, it also featured serious ruminations on the nature of mortality, and the inevitability of death. It has been routinely voted by many publications and websites (and me) as one of the best albums of the 90's.

But it seems as if that is where The Lips have stopped. 2002's Yoshima, from which this decent, but not exceptional, track comes was more of the same. It managed to catch some of the magic of TSB, but still felt like a bit of a retread. Their most recent album promised a return to rock, but managed mostly to be noticed for it's dopey (if sincere) anti-Bush, anti-war lyrics. Hey, I hate the Neocons too, and have oppossed this war from the start...but seriously, these lyrics are just dumb.

I hope that a man as smart as Wayne Coyne and as talented as he and Drozd are together, can pull their way out of this creative slump...but I certainly won't be lining up for their new release in quite the same way.

Arcturus - Crystal Antlers - Crystal Antlers EP - 2008

For a person who majored in film, I have seen a shockingly low number of films in the theater this year. Easily less than 10...probably less than 5. On some level I can blame what is almost universally regarded as a bad year in film...but I must also say that I feel as if movies are not made for me anymore. By and large they are made for children or middle aged women or protracted adolescents, and at least 2 of those I am not.

But having said that, I've actually been to the movies twice in the last week (The Wrestler and Gran Torino) and have to say that both films were absolute home runs...but then I have to think about why I connected to them. Both are about men out of their time...who look at the present day and niether understand it, nor particularly like it. This is helped by two performances by lead actors whose heydays were in other and far different time periods...and good as Mickey Rourke was, I can't help but be more touched by Eastwood's performance.

Eastwood (the actor) has been an institution longer than I've been alive by a decade. I'm niether a hater nor his biggest fan. None of his films would make my top ten (though Unforgiven would probably make top 20)...but there is the fact that Eastwood really is our last real cowboy. Other actors have ridden horses and worn hats since Eastwood first played the man with no name...but none have been so unquestionably identified with the genre like Clint. Even his other most famous role, as Dirty Harry, is something of a cowboy's role. And none of those other actors acted in a time when the Western was a real force in cinema. Sure they still make them, but the days of Stagecoach, Rio Bravo, The Searchers, and The Good The Bad and The Ugly are well behind us, and have been for my entire life.

And here was Clint, playing this man from another era facing a very modern and ignoble Detroit. If the rumors are true, and this is his last role...then I can hardly think of a better one. It allows him to be funnier than I've ever seen him, and ultimately more touching. To briefly enter spoiler territory, when Walt goes to his final showdown...he can't help but have the ghosts of THe Man With No Name, Dirty Harry, Josey Wales, and William Muny at his shoulder...which is why when the showdown goes the way it does, it couldn't be anymore beautiful. Sure, there is the obvious Christ metaphor at play (Which niether Clint, nor the exceptionally Catholic screenplay shys away from), but hasn't he earned it? Both in his career and in this film?

Also, I have to give the film credit for having a priest that was a decent man. Sure, the priest was presented as callow and niave, a charge that he himself does not deny, but he was above all else decent. And when was the last time you could say that about a priest in a modern movie that was neither about molestation nor exorcisms?

Anyway, I loved the movie and Clint's performance...

As for the song, these guys seem to be mining similar territory to Single Frame: A little spazzy, a little space rocky and a little punk/noise rock infused. They do it well enough, but Single Frame made it work with better songwriting than these guys muster here. Their full length is due this year, maybe they'll actually sharpen their chops for that.

The Architecht Has A Gun - Chin Up Chin Up - We Should Have Never Lived Like We Were Skyscrappers - 2004

I've been dogsitting for a friend all week, and as such have paid a bit more attention than usual to my neighborhood's sidewalks. As I've been walking the pooch, I've noticed in the past few days that a large number of Christmas Trees have been placed out on the side walk...which makes me wonder: Are the people who kept their trees up hardcore Catholics who actually know that it is appropriate to leave your tree standing until the Feast of the Ephiphany (The 12th Day of Christmas) or is it just that these people were lazy?

I mean sure you have your people who take down the tree on Dec 26th, Christmas is over, time for the tree to go. You have your people who take it down on Jan 1st or 2nd (the end of the holiday season for most of the secular or protestant world) and then you have people who left it up till this week. We've had a weekend since New Years, they could have taken their trees down then. So does that mean my neighborhood actually has that many serious Catholics in it? Or is it simply that my neighborhood has that many lazy fucks in it? These are the questions that weigh on my mind.

Anyway, Chin Up Chin Up does a kind of watered down Modest Mouse thing here with a little bit of swirly keyboards to make sure we know that this was recorded in the middle 2000's and a lackadasical approach to singing that only barely qualifies as such. Nice enough, but doesn't blow me away.

Archepelago - Mirah - You Think It's Like This But Really, It's Like This - 2000

...this New Years however was something of a mixed bag. The evening started out well enough. My buddy Corey offered to host at his quite swanky and spacious Bushwick loft. My ladyfriend (who looked quite fetching that night) and I had sushi at our friend Shani's and then headed over for the festivities about 830. We helped with some of the party prep and drank some wine...the evening was going swimmingly.

Soon the guests began arriving and again, things were going well. It was a nice mix of close friends and people I'd never met. Several of my ladyfriend's Russian friends showed and turned up the excitement a bit. There was a fair bit of rowdiness, juvenile horseplay, vodka slamming, and party lesbianism...exactly what you want in a good NYE party.

Midnight came and I kissed my girl and slammed champagne and prepared to ride out the evening watching Russian girls grope each other....but then, about 130 AM, one of the party attendees had to turn into That Guy.

He'd shown up about 1130 and started pounding booze. He saw a room full of attractive girls engaging in mildly risque behavior and probably thought that 2009 was shaping up to be a GREAT year. It took him till about 130 to realize that all of those girls were going home with the guys they showed up with, and he was going home alone...that's when a tantrum of epic proportions broke out. He began going around the room, having determined that smoothness would get him nowhere, and blatantly asking women to service him...usually in this request was made in front of the target's boyfriend. When he was inevitably denied, he would respond with what I'm sure he thought of as a clever witticism "You won't suck? You suck!"

Eventually one of the boyfriends decided to do something about this and chucked a piece of ice at his head...this meant that I now had a six foot two wildly drunk and angry Latino man with a gushing head wound to deal with in a room full of suddenly surly Russians at 2 in the morning on NYE. My visions of how my evening was going to end went from pornographic to sad and annoying rather quickly.

Anytime I attempted to point out that perhaps it was time to go, I was given the response of "Listen, I am HOME...I am HOME, right here!!!" He then went on to trash the bathroom, man handle my girlfriend, and at one point stand in the middle of the room with a broom handle and stamp the ground over and over. Finally at 245, everyone was tired of his nonsense and we decided to simply call the party and show everyone the door.

We threw him in a cab, only for him to refuse to tell the driver where he lived and to hurl strings of insults at him in Spanish. My girlfriend ended up paying the cabbie $20 just to get him out of there. We both went home and crashed, our visions of ringing in the new year appropriately long forgotten and the memory of what had been a really great party forever tarnished.

Needless to say, we aren't speaking to this guy anymore.

Anyway, back to the music...I love the album this Mirah track comes from, but find this particular track a little lackluster. It takes an extra-special bit of songwriting to elevate a song that is merely voice and acoustic guitar. Archipelago isn't bad, but it's hardly strong enough to be anything but NPR/Starbucks compilation bait.

Archetype - Through The Sparks - Lazarus Beach - 2007

So, typically speaking New Years Eve is my favorite holiday of the year, though most people I know hate it. To me, New Years is about celebrating possibility. Granted, things look really really bleak right now, but you never know: 2009 could be the best year of your life. 2009 could be the year that the whole world comes together. 2009 could be the year that you have the craziest adventure, the wildest love affair, the best new job. 2009 could be the year that a cure for cancer/diabetis/baldness is found. 2009 could be the year we implement a workable solution for health care/education/poverty. Any of this is possible. 2009 could just be another year, or the worst year of your life...but why not celebrate the possibility of what it COULD be?

As for NYE itself, people talk about hating the expectations, but I've found that if you go in with no expecations, just treat it as a night in which you are drinking with some friends...you will find that you will have a great night. If you go in expecting some sort of grand experience, you will probably be disappointed.

And usually, NYE is one of the best times of the year for me...usually...

Archer v Light - Chris Walla - Field Manual - 2008

It seems kind of fitting that I say good bye to 2008 with a song like this...a song that probably seemed very relevant before November 4th and already seems a little bit dated, like a 60's protest song.

I've probably said before how shocked so many of my friends (including myself) were by the 2000 election. We simply thought of Republicans as old people and bible nerds, surely they could never unite to over come the basic "rightness" of the Clinton Administration...but that was the shortsightedness of youth. Never having seen the pendulum of history swing, I was honestly stunned that a simple blow job could sway the country so dramatically.

And now, as we sit on the brink of a new era, and Chris Walla's protest song sounds so dated...I have to fear that the same complacency will set in with the American left again. "No one is going to elect a Republican after what Bush has done"...but the pendulum always sways.

Musically, Walla was always the brains behind Death Cab, but sadly his voice is reedy and not that interesting...and it's sort of shocking that anyone could have a more reedy voice than Ben Gibbard (Oh and on that subject, how does that wussy little emo boy end up engaged to Zooey Deschanel? There is no justice in the world)