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.

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)

Another Sunny Day - Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit - 2006

Ahhh, my iPod just went gay all the sudden. I generally found The Life Pursuit to be the most interesting album B&S put out since Tigermilk, and that it actually possessed some energy, rather than just coasting on Stuart Murdoch's considerable charm and word play.

But this song is one of the throw backs that wouldn't have seemed out of place on the lackluster Fold Your Hands or Dear Catastrophe Waitress...

Meh

Another Step Away - A Place To Bury Strangers - A Place To Bury Strangers - 2007

Man was this album a breath of fresh air last year. I fear a world in which all of the good melodic music that's produced is the product of Sufjan like gentility. A world in which sweet melodies aren't covered in walls of noise to make their delicacy more palatable, a world in which raw anger is replaced by a blissed out numbness, and naked, earnest emotion is preferred to dense confusion and ambiguous dread...this is the fear that keeps me up at night.

But then a band like APTBS comes along and sounds as if they might want to tear the world down to it's foundations, and my faith in humanity is restored.

Keep rocking you W-burg guitar nerds, you're the only hope we got...

Alameda - Elliot Smith - Either/Or - 1997

I started writing this yesterday, when I was full of energy and spring time enthusiasm. At the time, Elliot Smith was too morose, too wistful and sad for my mood and I was going to write all about how ES had invented the quiet indie boy voice and how his death had given him a certain cache that I'm not entirely sure he earned...but today, dead tired from a late night of fun and a long day at work, wired from too much coffee, but wiped out and listless...and with no bed in my immediate future, Elliot is exactly my mood.

Don't get me wrong, there are Smith songs that inspire me (Baby Britain, Cupid's Trick, Bled White, among others) but this quiet whispery Elliot is rarely my choice...but it takes days like today to remind me of their uses.

Aaron and Maria - The American Analog Set - Know by Heart - 2001

By all rights, I should hate this song. Its hushed groove, its delicately sweet lyrics about a couple of trust fund kids in Brooklyn Heights expecting their first child, its adorable lack of realization that these people are probably smug douchebags....but in the summer of 2001, before the world went to hell, I still believed in this kind of happiness.

Plus, despite their mellow vibe, the AmAnSet's can lock into a pocket like nobody's business. I saw them live a few times and was always struck by the way the band all seemed to be in their own world, like they were all in entirely different bands. The bass player wouldn't even look at the rest of them, but they fit together like a jigsaw. Every rhythm fit together perfectly, it was quiet impressive.

So, I like this sweet, quiet, song about rich, entitled white people breeding...go figure.