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.

Assessment - The Beta Band - Heroes to Zeros - 2004

So there we stood at our own temple of football, about to go in. Since Rance was a late addition to the trip, he hadn't gotten tickets with Anand and I. He had actually pulled some strings at work to get into one of the press boxes for the game. We shook hands and wished him luck, feeling bad for him that he'd have to spend the evening relatively sober with work people while we'd enjoy the game from our seats...

Now you have to understand the way it works...games at The Emirates are sold out, pretty much in perpetuity. The unused tickets are announced by the club 2 weeks before the game and then sold back to the populace at face value...but that would mean waiting two weeks before the trip to actually confirm your tickets. The other option, is to go through a website to buy someones season ticket for that game only at extremely marked up prices...which is what we did.

We walked around the stadium looking for our entrance, which was near the away section. The particular game was against Roma...an Italian team. Now as much stick as the stereotypical Brit soccer fan gets for being a hooligan, that's pretty much a passe image...particularly in London. Since the Hillsborough disaster in 89, British soccer games have been pretty tightly controlled. Beyond that, the game has simply become too expensive...working class fans can't afford the tickets anymore and in general this is the population that has nothing to lose by cracking a few heads at a match. Italian fans are another matter all together.

Italian games saw 7 fatal stabbings last year...with Roma being one of the worst offenders. A line of police blocked the entrance to make sure the Italian fans were well behaved...the problem was, we had to walk through this line of police with our illegally purchased tickets.

We were through and in the clear when he saw us. The one cop in the whole world who thought a couple of American tourists with scalped tickets were the biggest threat to security. He closed down on us fast, walking a good 15 feet away from his line of bobbies and stopping us cold and asking to see our tickets.

Anand assuming there was nothing out of the ordinary showed him the ticket...he immediately confiscated it and stated that he was under orders to do so with all scalped season passes. He asked me for mine as well, and I turned it over, while trying to reason with him...but he clearly had a giant stick up his ass. Two stadium attendants and a second cop all came over to him and asked him to just let us in...but he shock his head "I am under orders to confiscate these, I am going to report this to the club and the persons who sold these tickets will have their season passes revoked as well"

Every person who tried to help us was shot down and left shaking their head that anyone could be such a cock. Finally the cop relented enough to give us the two ID numbers so we could try to at least purchase these seats legally. He then gave us a patronizing lecture that began with "Now you two seem like intelligent gentlemen"

We went to the ticket stand and were told that the game was sold out. When I pointed out that we knew for a fact that there were two empty seats, the ticket seller simply said "The club has no comment on that". The fight was over...we were not going to see the game...except fucking last minute Rance. Anand slumped to the ground and it took me a good amount of convincing just to get him to go to a bar so we could at least SEE the game. Our prize at the end of the rainbow had been ripped from us by one gigantic asshole cop...we were pissed.

The Beta Band got most of it's acclaim after "Dry the Rain" made a stellar cameo in High Fidelity. Sadly, the Scots never did much past that...though there subsequent albums weren't bad. This song is actually pretty good...it just sounds like a faster Dry the Rain.

Assassination on X-Mas Eve - Archers of Loaf - All The Nations Airports - 1996

After dropping off the car, we had a fair bit of spare time, thanks to Anand's action star driving. We got back into London and into the hotel. After that, it was back to North London on the above-ground transit train to get ready for the game. At this point it was reality...we were going to see Arsenal play a Champions League match...live! At Emirates Stadium! It was no longer the prize at the end of our trip, it was now the reality of our evening and we were going to enjoy the hell out of it.

After briefly considering a few of the other restaurants we ended up back at The Famous Cock. We figured one more night of British Pub food wouldn't kill us. As Rance pointed out, the food in that country was like someone left a 12 year old in charge of the entire cuisine.

"What do you want for dinner little Allister?"

"I want sausages and mashed potatoes, all covered in gravy!!! I want everything in a pot pie. And I want french fries at every meal!"

After 3 beers and a shot, it was time to make our way to the stadium. We walked down the street with the throngs of people all feeling the same excitement as us. The big game was coming and we were going to be there.

All the Nation's Aiports is the only Archer's album that I owned during the life of the band, I came around to the rest of their catalog after their demise. Sadly, I never got to see them live...though I've seen Crooked Fingers many times and Bachman solo once, I will always feel as if I missed one of the great bands of my generation by not seeing these guys. This song rocks.

Asphyxiated Circle - Guided By Voices - Half Smiles of the Decomposed - 2004

Jesus, is every song on Half Smiles...in the A's? Such a glut of GBV. This is one of those mid-tempo rockers that crowded most of the later GBV albums, giving them the appearance of being more "even" but in reality they just replaced the weird tracks with boring, if competant tracks...I'm not sure that's a step up.

So we woke up early on the final morning in Scotland. Kick off was at 8PM and we wanted to make sure we could make it back to London with plenty of time to drop off the car, check into the hotel, pick up our tickets, and hopefully get some pregaming in before we had to be to the stadium. We were actually on the road by shortly before 9, which should have put us back at the car rental place by 4...

We cruised our way out of Glasgow, listening to Brits bitch on Talk Radio about how they were considering privitizing the royal mail, callers were calling in irate! Irate I tell you, that the government was considering taking away their rights as British Citizens. Now I'm all for greater government socialism in our country, but really, seriously...how gives a fuck about the mail? When was the last time anyone mailed anything? Privatize it, who cares?

Anyway, as soon as we were clear of Glasgow two things became apparent. The first was that Rance was going to sleep through most of the car ride in the front seat. The second was that Anand was going to drive like Batman. I sat in the back seat taking pictures of the Scottish/English country side and trying to pretend that I wasn't certain that we were going to die in a blaze of twisted metal.

The 7 hour drive from Glasgow to London was done in slightly less than 5 hours. I'm still not sure if Anand ever got a mountain of speeding tickets from the electric cameras, but he certainly broke every traffic law in Great Britain...but on the flipside, we got to London by 2PM.

As Ugly As I Seem - The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan - 2005

It had been our plan to wake up around 9ish and get on the road by 1030. We knew that it would take us about an hour and half to get out to Heathrow to pick up the rental car and then 7 hours to get to Glasgow, so we wanted to try to get there with enough time to have some of the evening left.

I was woken up by the sound of the cleaning people coming in at 1120 and realized that our plan was going to be a little off. We finally got ourselves up and packed and checked out by about 1230. We hustled our way to the subway station drinking the useless warm brown water that Londoners claim to be coffee and eating greasy and heavy sausage and cheese rolls from a kiosk.

It was nearly 3 by the time we got to Heathrow and we were already way behind schedule when we discovered that we had hit another hitch in our plan. Apparently, renting a car from the airport in London is not quite the same as here in the states. In the states (and in Mexico for that matter) they have a centralized area for all of the car rental shops. You land, you take the train to your car rental and you go. At Heathrow, all the car rental places were attatched to the airport hotels...this meant waiting for and taking yet another bus.

By the time we got to the hotel/rental car place and had filled out all of the paper work it was nearly 4 and we were all accepting that Sunday was pretty much going to be a wash...

The rare slow and gentle song from Jack White, though with his usual self depricating lyrical bent. Not bad.

As The Terror Dances Your Way - The Capitol Years - Dance Away The Terror - 2006

From there, things started to get ugly. After leaving the underground bar we went to a pub that was caticorner from where we parted ways with Matt. More drinks were had and that's when we told Rance about our adventures with SoCo in Berlin, and Rance had a bad, bad idea.

You see, Rance and I were both heading back to the states on Wed...but Anand was continuing on his trip until Saturday. He'd be heading to Belgium for a few days. Rance suggested that if he would personally pay for every single shot of SoCo that Anand did while abroad. Anand considered it, but ultimately decided that the benefit of drinking for the rest of the trip on Rance was outweighed by the thought of having to drink all of that SoCo.

It just got worse from there...it was 1230 by this time and most bars were closing. For a nation of boozers, the bars in London close absurdly early. I guess they just start at 5 and are passed out by midnight, but still...it's Saturday. We knew that there were a few after hours clubs that we could go to that would stay open till 2, so we went around trying to find these...but none of us really had a clue what we were doing. At one point we walked into a place called the White Horse Tavern. I realized that it was a strip club, but I don't think the other two did. We got about 2 feet into the door before the bouncer turned us back around as they were looking to close for the night. My quick glance towards the stage revealed sad, pale british flesh...I was not sad to see the back of this place.

We then tried to find our way back to the underground bar, but had no clue where it was anymore. We finally ended up in a TERRIBLE bar packed to the rafters with college aged kids drunkenly making out. We stayed there till last call, drunkenly talking about god knows what.

On the way back to the hotel, we all realized none of us had eaten since the terrible pies in The White Swan...we popped into a local convenience store and bought the sort of snacks that only drunk tourists would be at 2 in the morning in London...Oreos, Pringles (2 different kinds), Slim Jims...Rance made the odd decision of buying Gouda and crackers.

The rest of the evening was spent in the hotel eating junk food and taking ridiculous pictures. Rance was still adjusting to jet lag so he crashed first.

This is another one of those albums I downloaded and listened to once or twice and liked well enough before it disappeared into the ethos of my iPod. It's a decent song on a decent album, but I just have so much mid-tempo pleasant enough Indie-Rock. I want something with some energy, some fire dammit!

As Quick As It Comes/Carrera - Calla - Televise - 2002

We stayed at The White Swan for a couple of hours, eating the shitty British pub food and drinking beers. Our perspective was changed somewhat by the fact that Arsenal drew the match 0-0. On one hand, we didn't miss much by not going to the match or seeing it on TV...on the other hand, our team did not win.

We then headed back to the hotel to meet up with my friend Matt C. Matt, though originally from Yorkshire had spent a year in NYC on a work study program with a financial firm. When his program ended he looked high and low for ways to stay in the USA, but without luck. I felt bad for Matty, but on the flipside, it was nice to have a friend to show us around some of the cooler parts of London.

We started out at fancy cocktail place in Shoreditch called Lover's Lounge. Anand and I made the mistake of ordering martini's forgetting that the Europeans actually consider vermouth to be an ingrediant in a martini and not just a faint flavor. They were pretty nasty. Rance got a mint julep, which as a Kentuckian he approved of, though he was tempted to give the bar tender mixing tips.

From there we went to a standard issue British pub and had a few pints, before Matt took us to a rather cool (For London) underground bar where I had whiskey and discussed the failings of British women. To venture into sexist territory for a bit, with the rare exception (Kate Winslet) White British women are not attractive. It's really depressing going from the cornacopia of women that is NYC to the total dead end of London. The one thing they have going for them is their total willingness to make up for their short comings by totally slutting out in the wardrobe department. Doesn't matter the weather, low cut blouses and high skirts are always in abundance. But at the end of the day, it's still a bad toothed, bad skinned, bland and flat British girl in all the slut-wear.

When we finished up our drinks, Matt pointed us in a few directions for more bars and headed off to party of his own, leaving us with a few more hours to kill in London.

Calla...Calla is one of those bands that I want to like more than I do. There is just something so lethargic about this band that I can't quite get past. Every once in a while they'll play a song that has some real energy to it though...this is not one of those songs.

As Night Is Falling - The Clientele - Suburban Light - 2000

After catching up with Rance and getting settled in our room, we knew we needed to head over to Islington fast, kick off was a little less than an hour away. We determined there was no way we could get to the stadium in time to scalp tickets, so we were just going to try to watch the game at a bar in the area. We figured it would be not unlike going to the bar next to Yankee's stadium: jam packed full of rowdy and drunk fans.

We grabbed a cab and headed over to the Arsenal bar right outside of the Islington station. The bar has the unfortunate name of The Famous Cock, and is also possess the most disgusting bathroom I encountered in my entire trip, BUT...it's an Arsenal bar. When we arrived the place was mysteriously quiet and subdued.

We were informed by the Polish barmaid that the game was not on TV, but we could try a few of the other bars in the neighborhood and see if they were showing it.

Incidentally, the Polish in London seem to be a lot like the Mexicans in NYC. They work all the jobs nobody else wants. The men drive buses and cabs and do consturction and maintenance jobs, the women tend bar in tight tops.

After poking around in a few bars we soon learned that the game was simply not going to be seen on TV. We ended up in a bar called The White Swan where we grabbed a late lunch and grumbled. It was baffling that a soccer match we could have easily watched 4000 miles away was unviewable when we were less than a mile from where it was actually being played. I had been to London once before and hated it...and my opinion was not improving on this trip.

I have been listening to the Clientele quite a bit recently. They started off as a good band to listen to with a hangover, or when putting the moves on an indie-rock loving lady...but more and more I find their music speaking to my moods. This song from their hit and sorta-miss singles collection is one of the better tunes on the disc. It's mournful and heartfelt tone combine with the crisp, sad music to get the Scottish gloomy vibe that these guys are the masters of.

As I Rise - The Decemberist - Her Majesty The Decemberists - 2003

6:45 AM came very early that Saturday in Berlin. I groggily answered the wake up call and then threw myself in the shower. Didn't want to drink coffee as I hoped to catch at least a little bit of sleep on the plane. I knew that if I didn't get at least a little bit more, I was going to be useless for the evening in London.

We got ourselves to the airport without too much incident, though both of us felt awful. Our flight was via EasyJet.

If you aren't familiar with EasyJet, it is a low cost ZERO frills airline that flies to locations within Europe for ridiculously low prices (I think I paid 40 Euros for this flight). The downside, as I mentioned, is the zero frills part. You pay for your baggage, you don't get an assigned seat or beverage service. It didn't matter to me, I just wanted to sleep.

We were, of course, to the airport way too early and had to sit and wait for the flight to board. I was afraid to let myself sleep as I was certain I'd sleep right through boarding. When I finally got to a seat on the plane, I put my hood up and was out like a light...not waking up till I was on the ground in England.

"London" Luton airport is only in London by the most generous of definitions. It's about 45 minutes north east of the city and requires a bus ride to get into town. As such I decided to take care of some business at the airport (TMI, I know, but it becomes relevant). So, I'm in the bathroom and I can tell that there are a bunch of British Teenagers in the bathroom with me. All of the sudden, and hand darts underneath my stall and tries to snatch the strap of my shoulder bag. The bag moved quick, but fortunately I was quicker and grabbed the strap and yanked back. I had the mild thrill of hearing my would be bag snatcher smack his body against the stall. And that was the last I heard of that.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and was fortunately feeling a bit more stable than I had been in Germany. We got on the bus and finally headed into the city to meet up with Rance, but our trip would still not be that easy. As I mentioned it was about 45 mintues outside the city, and the trip ended up taking closer to an hour and a half because the door of the bus would not stay closed. Every 5 minutes or so, the driver would pull over to the shoulder to try to fix the problem only for the door to open up again a few minutes into driving. Eventually he just gave up and drove like that.

After missing our stop and taking the underground back, we finally arrived at the hotel ready for the next portion of our adventure to begin. Rance was sitting in the lobby working on his laptop, and our room was ready in a few minutes.

When people think of The Decemberists, they probably think of this album. The ridiculous period pieces, the homoerotic subtexts, the wry commentary in obsolete dialouge, the stories told from the point of view of antiquated genre characters were all solidified on this album rather than their somewhat more restrained debut, or their more ambitious later albums. Having said that, this is probably the least Decemberist-esque song on the album. A simple porch-swing anthem carries the day all the way through with nary a Harlequin nor Brick-bat to be seen.

Army of Me - Bjork - Post - 1995

So, as of 2PM today I will be embarking on a little bit of a journey. My friend Anand and I will be heading off to Berlin for a couple of days. From there, we'll be flying to London and meeting up with our friend Rance. We'll try to catch the Arsenal v Sunderland match on Saturday. On Sunday, we'll be picking up a rental car and driving up the length of England, all the way into Scotland and stopping in Glasgow. On Monday (my birthday) we'll rock it out in Glasgow. Tuesday we'll head back to London and catch Arsenal v Roma...Wednesday I'll be back in the states.

This may be a pipe dream, but I hope to do some blog updating while on the road...if not, I'll come back with plenty of updates.

Anyway, this is in my opinion the best Bjork song...debate while I'm away.

Arms Aloft - Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros - Streetcore - 2003

Wow, you blink your eyes and all of the sudden it's two weeks later and you haven't touched your already ridiculously ambitious blog...sigh. It's busy times here in my life. Work is insane, the world is falling apart, and I have a bitch of a chest cold (my second of the winter)...and I leave for a weeklong vacation in 6 short days.

Though I must say nothing gets you jazzed up for a trip to drive around England and Scotland quite like Joe Strummer singing about driving around England and Scotland. I shall add it to the Driving In England playlist, post haste.

The Apt. - Times New Viking - Rip It Off - 2008

As an avid drinker and a nine year resident of the city of New York, I have complicated relationships with many bars in this city. There are the now defunct bars that I hated at the time, but romaticize in the past (The corny MC Exchange that was the bar of my Dotcom, the truly awful Village Idiot that used to sell cheap pitchers when i lived in Manhattan). There are the bars that I used to haunt but am now too old and cranky to tolerate the young clientele (Blue and Gold, Soda). The bars from my old neighborhood (Enid's, Matchless) that I don't visit so much anymore. The places I went with co-workers, the places I went to meet up before concerts, and the places I just found myself all have complex histories, but none is more convoluted than my relationship to Nevada Smith's.

I'm sure I must have talked about Smith's at some point, but for a quick recap: Smith's is a bar in the nether zone that is niether the East Village nor quite Union Square. It is uniformly dark, not especially cheap, generally smells like an arm pit, and it's owner is a cranky old asshole of the highest order. It remains the only bar I've ever been thrown out of in my entire life...but I've probably at this point clocked more hours in this bar than any other in the world.

You see, Nevada Smith's is the bar to go to, to watch English Premeire League Soccer. If my team's game isn't being shown on cable, it's basically my only option, and I am a devoted enough fan that I am willing to go to a bar at 730 AM if need be (for a 1230 kick off in London). This means that no matter how much I may hate this place, no matter how many times I've sworn that I'll never step foot in that place again...as long as EPL games aren't all on TV, I'll be forced to go (Well, "Forced").

But as I was there on Saturday to watch Arsenal beat Portsmouth, I stopped to realize how much the place had changed in the five years I had been there. When I first started attending, a heart broken young man looking for an excuse to drink in the mornings and finding it in soccer, the place was almost exclusively attended by Brits. We Americans were the intruders, the interlopers who would never really understand the sport. There were many colorful charcaters and even more colorful language. The Arsenal corner was ruled by a Frenchman named Andre who was always there and knew more profanity than the devil himself. Andre once broke his hand pounding on the bar during a frustrating match.

Gradually through the years a new type of patron began attending who was niether us nor them: NYU students looking for a place to keep an all night bender going or to kick start the day with beer. They knew the place was open at 7AM, and if the abuse of a few brits was the price to be paid then so be it...but gradually these obnoxious kids picked up the sport, and in a step me and my friends didn't even take, the culture.

I was struck by this moment on Saturday, when I realized that there was just as much singing as always in Smith's but not a single one of the singers was british. These kids had learned the songs and taken up the mantle, but had also driven their British teachers away. It was an odd moment, on one hand seeing American's embracing soccer and "football culture" was a source of pride, on the other it's sad to see the old replaced by the obnoxious new. I certainly left with my complicated relationship with Smith's even more complicated than ever.

Anyway, I get the deal with Times New Viking, they play catchy garage rock, but recorded at earbusting levels so that it seems that their engineer has no clue what they are doing. This is the same trick that has gone on since The Beatles first learned to use feedback, i.e. cover something sugary in so much noise that the listener has to dig to find the sweetness. Usually I'm a fan of this strategy, but frankly, to further put on my old man hat, I just think the sonic mess is too great...it just sounds badly recorded...and not even a "recorded in a dumpster" way that The Thermals sometimes pull, but in a "I can't hear the actual song" way that I just don't care for.

Kids these days!

Apply Some Pressure - Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger

Of all of the post-Libertine's bands to come flooding out of England in the middle part of this decade, Maximo Park seemed like the forgotten middle child. They lacked the spikey ferocity and politcal savvy of Bloc Party, but weren't as monotonous as one song wonders like The Cribs or The Fratellis. But as Bloc Party has released two underwhelming follow ups that have takent he bloom off their rose (and the other two bands have released lack luster follow ups that confirmed them as one trick ponies) the Gang of Four-esque pop of these Newcastle lads seems more and more appealing by the day.

Amsterdam - Peter, Bjorn, and John - Writer's Block - 2006

Well I'm pretty much stuck talking about Amsterdam for this one aren't I. Well, I've been a couple of times...but I'll save the crazy stories for another time and just talk about the city. Frankly, I was underwhelmed by it.

Sure, I'm all for their liberal policies regarding controlled substances...but sadly I really dislike most of the people that are their to enjoy them. Sometime I'll get good and liquored up and talk about what a blight on humanity British tourists are. Also the red light district, with it's ugly hookers, blind drunks, and spoiled American hippies is just depressing.

Also, it is a beautiful city....absolutely lovely architecture and a real sense of history, you feel how old it is...but their cuisine leaves something to be desired. And also, and I know this is petty...the Dutch language is pretty ugly. It sounds both guttaral and kinda like baby talk.

I will grant them this though...the bike riding is cool. Wish the USA would take a queue from them, but then we'd have to ditch our middle american fear of the city, and the belief that a car is somehow connected to your penis.

Anyway, good song...er, yeah.

Addicted to Love - Robert Palmer - Riptide - 1985

Wait Robert Palmer was British? This changes everything...

And yes, Robert, you were right. I am.
Sad really.

Add Your Light To Mine, Baby - Lucky Soul - The Great Unwanted - 2007

What's with all these British chicks wishing it was still 1966? Amy Winehouse, The Pipettes, Kate Nash, Lilly Allen, and now this one...apparently London is the new Motown. Who knew?

Still, if the accent doesn't throw you off, it's a pretty decent Supremes song.

Acrobat - Maximo Park - A Certain Trigger - 2005

And speaking of songs that feel like fighting with your girlfriend....It's always nice when this project actually works, when one song bleeds into the next without missing a beat or changing the vibe.

This song feels like a cousin to R.E.M.'s "Belong"...with it's spoken word verses and anthemic chorus, it's hushed but ominous instrumentation. But replacing Stipe's rumination about conformity and lemmings is a story of a failing relationship told in little details (in Paul Smith's adorably thick Geordie accent). Every line is increasingly brutal, the way the chill of the house can't be fought, how he's afraid to touch her leg with his foot as they lay in bed together, the twice repeated "I don't remember losing site of your needs". Jesus, it's like getting kicked in the heart as the guitar comes in and builds to the chorus...the moment when the weight of her expectations just become overwhelming. "I am not an acrobat, I can not perform these tricks for you."

I've been in this relationship and God does it suck.
Good work, limeys.
Shame your second album is so tepid.