Taps

I went hiking with Jill in the Marin Headlands yesterday. As we were walking towards some small abandoned bunkers that once held gun turrets during WWII, we could here music coming from across a cove or inlet where another large bunker or barracks was. It was brass band music and it sounded like some funeral durge, like the ghosts of some army band was playing for their fallen camrades. Very much like the out-of-tune horn stuff in Neutral Milk Hotel. And the way the wind was catching it and modulating it and the way the sound was bouncing off the landforms twisted it and made it sound other-worldly. Truly ghostly.

When we got closer, we realized there was some sort of band camp. A YMCA inside the park was hosting it and the brass section of the marching band was practicing in what looks like an amphitheatre, but is really the base of where a gun turret once swivelled. The picture above/left is of that turret at the top of that very exposed bunker. As we walked on we saw the drum line and the color guard. For some reason, geeky teenagers wearing Columbine trench coats hitting tightly tuned snare drums as Magic the Gathering cards fall out of their pockets just isn't as cool as a troop of spooks playing taps from beyond.

Sometimes I would very much like to have field recording equipment.

My Record Collection

A pretty complete inventory of my record collection can be found HERE, if anyone's curious. I did this a couple weeks ago and it was really fun. It doesn't include most of my vinyl or some rare compilations and it doesn't include the CDs I married into.

"Pricks!"

Love how Bob introduces this song.... quite possibly one of the best pop songs ever written.
Don't believe me?

Robert Pollard


Guided by Voices at Ameoba

Review of Friday's show

On Friday Jill and I went to see Mates of State at the Greek Theater. They were openning for Spoon and Death Cab For Cutie. Mates went on right at 7:00 sharp before the majority of the people had even come in. Basically, the stadium was empty. We sat in the stands and watched happily as the yuppie set bought $16.95 cocktails, the hippie set wandered aimlessly, and a lot of parents escorted their teens and preteens. Kinda weird.

It felt like they only played for fifteen minutes. Most of their set lacked energy, as I think they feed a lot off of the crowd and the crowd wasn't giving them anything compared to the recent packed out bouncing, singing along, dancing crowd at the Great American Music Hall. It was an OK set and one highlight was how they smartly slipped that Gnarles Barkley song into the bridge of "Like You Crazy". They announced that they had two songs left, but only played one and were quickly swept off the stage.

Spoon played forgetful songs. Not sure how to describe their sound or style or genre. It's like when you put your drink cup under the Coke dispenser at a fast food stop and only the carbonated water comes out. No flavor. Sorry Spoon. Enjoy your Jaguars.

We stuck around to see what Death Cab was gonna do. They definately played the good stuff first (stuff from the Photo Album and the rare song "Photobooth"), but then they quicly fell into the pattern of sort of making fake endings to every song- slow it down, get very quiet. Then build it back slowly to sort of a climax and that got sort of old, when done in every song, so we took off.

MATES OF STATE "Fraud in the 80s" video


MATES OF STATE some footage that includes recording of "Ha Ha"


DEATH CAB Actual footage from the other night playing "Photobooth"

Book Talk I (Ask the Dust)

Recently one of my favorite books was made into a movie. It's called Ask the Dust by John Fante. It's a book about an 18/20-year-old Italian American who moves out on his own to LA during the depression to "make it" as a writer. He does things like blow all his money on stupid stuff so that he can't pay rent and has only oranges to eat. He falls in love with the impossible-to-get Camilla Lopez and does things like use racial slurs and being plain old disagreeable to get her attention. Their tumultuous relationship (or lack thereof) frames the time before the semi-autobiographical character Arturo Bandini really does make it as a writer by writing about Camilla.

I read this book when I had just moved out on my own and had no money and was trying to make it as a musician and in my career. I did stupid stuff and I said stupid stuff and I felt just as bold, indestructible and yet stupid all at the same time- just like Arturo Bandini. I was so into this book, I even thought I would name my first son Arturo Bandini Gidlund because I felt so connected with this character.

Then came Colin Farrell and Selma Hayek to ruin everything for me. Watching two folks pushing 40 playing two characters who were written to be at least 20 years younger was pathetic! Ebert and Roper gave it thumbs down because they couldn't figure out why two people would insult each other and put each other down in such an immature way if they really loved each other. The answer is that that's how it works when you're 18, 19, 20. That age group is like a 2nd adolescence and love is interrupted by insecurity.

Besides that, their acting was melodramatic and half-ass. The whole story was changed. And the whole theme of growing out of an insecure youth through experience to reach real goals in a new-found adulthood is thrown out with the bathwater.

Donald Southerland does a fantastic Job as the gin loving Helfrick, but they left out the part where Helfrick takes Arturo to "get a steak" and drives him out into the countryside and smashes a calf's head in and makes Arturo help him get it back into the car. Hilarious! And I'm glad they put the Vera character in the movie (Arturo's scarred [think Sun Also Rises] and domineering 1st sexual experience) but in the book, she more like seduces Arturo rather than guilts him into sex.

Anyways, don't ever watch this movie. It will liquify your brain. However, I think Ask the Dust is an American Classic and Fante is overlooked as being one of the greatest Californian writers. Kiddin me? I'd put him right below Steinbeck.

MOVIE TRAILER:


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Also, yesterday was our third wedding aniversary and Jill posted a great Creeley poem on her blog that was printed on our wedding program.

Review of Friday Night's Show

"Broke my heart to leave the city
I mean it broke what wasn't broken in there already"

" I think the stars are just the neon lights
Shining through the dance floor
Of heaven on a Saturday night"

"I learned how to make a living out of making mistakes
Besides, you've got such pretty eyes for a snake"

......Just some lyrical highlights from Magnolia Electric Co.


We got to the Bottom of the Hill at about 10:00 and shortly thereafter the local Dying Californian started out the evening. They were sort of like if the boozey lurch of Palace/Will Oldham had a drummer like Mineral's Gabe Weiley or SDRE's William Goldsmith. It was entertaining and their bassist looked just like Ray Ramano. They also had an actaul real back-up singer and he even kinda looked like Will Oldham.


Next up was Ladyhawk. When they took the stage, I was a little surprised. They were basically gutter punks. Black hooded sweatshirts (hood on, mind you) filthy dirty tight pants or big shorts. They started out with a blaring rocker that had a lot of mathy parts. I think everybody in the room had their mouths dumbly hanging open. These guys have mixed mathy metal with (yes, again) boozey Palace/Will Oldham country. Their guitarist looked like another TV star- that Hobbit on Lost. He did some crazy stuff on that guitar and always had great feedback and this huge crunchy-but-warm fuzz tone. The singer, a portly gutterpunk with a beard (that was probably just there because he didn't care to shave/bathe, not because of the fashion) introduced one song by saying, "This song is about burning yourself with cigarettes." Very fun set with funny moments and moments where they did these great mathy changes and everybody in the room was like, "How in the crap did they do that?"


Magnolia Electric Company is like if my dad was in a band that could ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE! Singer, Jason Molina is an old guy. And he rocks. He's kind of like a Hobbit, too. A Hobbit that really BRINGS THE ROCK! What can I say, an hour of Crazy Horse-esque jamband guitar assault. One standout feature was that you could actually hear the piano/keyboard! That never happens. Even though I shouted out for them to play "Hard to Love a Man" a ton of times (and probably embarassed Keith), they never played it and "Bowery" was the only song they played off that fantastic EP.

The bummer is that they had their new record for sale at this show and it doesn't come out until October! What a find!!!!! And I was like, "Oh, I'll get it right before we leave so I don't hafta carry it around all night." When I went back, it was sold out! How much does that suck for a collector like me!!???!! And it pains me to think that maybe one of the people who bought what could have been my CD was one of the MANY annoying 16-year-old girls who spent the whole show rudely text messagingtheir annoying friends (probably in the same room) and don't even appreciate how cool that early-release-rare-hard-to-find disc is. RaaaaAAAAAARRRRGH!

Other than that, we had a great time. Great show. And we didn't even start any bar fights or anything.

Hold On, Magnolia

"Punk rock was my first girl
She left me a scar, so I have her still

She's not young, but she's not old yet
We share the same sun, but hers never sets"

I listened to Beulah's (link to band website) entire cataalog yesterday while working and those few lines from the song "Silver Lining" have always rang true with me. A lot of us found punk rock because it was the only thing we felt like we were good at at that time in our youth. It was nicer to us than girls were.


Can't wait to see MAGNOLIA ELECTRIC COMPANY with my brother tonight!
Here's a live clip of them doing "At Least the Dark Don't Hide It".


Here's a fan video of the song "Hold On Magnolia" with a smash-up car derby.

Here's Songs: Ohia's (Jason Molina solo) music video of "Back on Top".

HOLY CRAP! IT'S GONNA BE GREAT!

What I've been listening to lately...

Originally Posted 8/3



Listening to a lot of music since I've been working out in the yard the last few days. A lot of instrumental stuff like the Timeout Drawer (video) and Saxon Shore (video) and Sharks Keep Moving (bio/photo). But I also can't stop listening to (and singing loudly along with) Ryan Adams and the Cardinals "Jacksonville City Nights".

It's fantastic. I've owned this for a while, but I never appreciated it like I have this week. Ryan Adams has done a full swing back to old-time honkytonk country. And I can't get enough. "Dear John" is so super sad. Also here, as on his solo debut Heartbreaker, Adams has a tendency to have a couple-three short songs that barely have one verse and one chorus and then they end without a lot of development. On Heartbreaker, these songs are drab, boring, and trail off unimaginatively. On Jacksonville, though, these short tracks (ie. Silver Bullets, September, Pa) are colored by his backing band The Cardinals, whose pedal steel, harmony vocals, violin, etc. make up for the purposefully short, intentionally unrealized compositions. Plus, holy crap! Adams covers one of his own songs- Whiskeytown's "My Heart is Broken". Homerun! Can't stop listening!

Ryan and the Cards on Austin City Limits doing "Hard Way to Fall" (video)


Here's them doing "The End"(video)

Here's Ryan doing the classic "Come Pick Me Up"(video).

Shows to see, records to get......

Originally posted 7/30

Shows to see:
Magnolia Electric Co. August 4 at Bottom of the Hill
Mates of State/DeathCabforCutie Greek Theatre Aug 11 (scored 2 tickets!)
Unwed Sailor Aug 11 at Hotel Utah (....woops, I can't go to this one)

FYI: the underlined stuff are links (usually to really great video footage). I know it's hard to tell since they're still in orange writing. Click on 'em if you're interested.

Albums to get:
Sparklehorse "Dreamt For Lightyears In The Belly Of A Mountain" September 26 release
Jay Farrar/Anders Parker "Gob Iron" October Release
Pernice Brothers "Live a Little" October Release
Unwed Sailor "The White Ox" October 17 Release
Son Volt new album Spring 06 Release

Oh, and here's a great Pernice Brothers video. It's funny and features a song from their forthcoming album.

Fallen Angel

Originally Posted 7/22

When I woke up today I put that new Gram Parsons movie in. That guy just wasn't that great.

Sorry, I wanted to watch it because both Parsons and Townes Van Zandt (see earlier posting about Townes with link to one of the coolest songs ever!) are folks that people tried to turn me onto a while ago and I "just didn't get it", but when I watched that Townes documentary I "got it" and got really into it. So I wanted to see if that happened the same with Gram Parsons. Side note: I think I got a CD or double CD of GP at the public Library when I was living in Hayward and didn't like. Anyway, I did not get into Gram the way I got into Townes.

The doc sucked. Boring. Good thing the guy discovered Emmy Lou, because he sucked on his own. I'll give him that- thanks for giving us Emmylou Harris. All his music just seems half-ass, but I really like his fashion stizzyle.

61

Originally Posted 7/16

"There's no reason to feel downhearted. There's music in the wheels there to be found."
(link to video of Son Volt's Letterman performance of "Afterglow 61")


Thanks Jay.

Waiting Around To Die

Originally posted 7/09

Oh man, if anybody actually reads this blog besides myself, they should watch this entire clip.

Also, I'm reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Sorta can't believe that I'm gonna read another by him. This is by far his most violent. And probably the second most violent thing I ever read. But I think what I'm drawn to is this visual, like, old west "circus" type image that's always in my head. You know. He's so vague. Most of the time his writing is just a skeleton, not much description, yet, I always have this sort of creepy circus visuals in my head. You know, indians with top hats ....or.... Gypsy caravans full of Asian Mormons, or something, who are going through high desert eating their own mules as they go. I read his books and I think, man I wish I could write a song the way he writes a book.

Let's Get Technical!

Originally Posted 6/28

Still reading "Nothing Feels Good" and I'm starting to get a little disappointed. The lack of technical insight is blaring. The author keeps referring to Jeremy Enigk (of SDRE) as singing in falcetto, but Enigk doesn't go into a true falcetto but once on the whole album being referred to- Diary. Are we listening to the same CD, Andy Greenwald?

Also, in reading all of these music journalist books, music bios, I really just need more technical info. For instance, Andy should have established some basic norms of what that music sounds like and why it sounds the way it does, like: The calling card of the genre is a drum pattern consisting of 4 consecutive 8th notes from the kick drum followed by two quarter note beats from the snare while keeping four quarter notes on a ride or crash. This is accentuated when preceeded by a verse in 2/4 time, causing the listener to feel like the tempo has slowed, suggesting introspection or mental pause, when in reality it has only changeld to 4/4 time and the tempo has not changed at all. And Andy, it was nice to say that Sunny Day was one of four key bands that spawned the genre (I too am of that opinion), but how about siting specific technical examples to back that up, like: The aforementioned drum pattern was popularized by William Goldsmith of Sunny Day Real Estate and mimicked by the next generation. This can be heard quite clearly in Mineral's "Gloria", Appleseed Cast's "Marigold and Patchwork", and Weezer's "Tired of Sex".

You can use that in your next book!

And this goes to all you music journalists/authors! Stop dumbing it down. What kind of gear did they use? What time signature was the song in? What does it sound like? Tell us! I read Johnny Cash's autobiography that spent hundreds of pages desribing his Jamaican Mansion, fancy tour bus, Tenneseean ranch in vivid detail, but never mentioned what kind of guitar he prefered or what pieces were in his drummer's trap kit. And there are 15 other biographies of Cash and they're all like that.

The truth is that I think Greenwald wrote his book for 17-year-old patrons of Hot Topic, rather than folks like me. And I think Johnny wrote his autobiography for folks who can play his songs on a CD player and not necessarily on the guitar. And maybe I should just get over it.

Just Some Stuff This Week

Originally posted 6/22

Reading "Nothing Feels Good" by Andy Greenwald. I like it.

On another note.....

This Califone video is fantastic! Califone is fantastic!

Where is My Califone T-shirt Anyway?

Just blew my tutoring money on some CDs and got a Califone album called Roomsound that was out of print and has just been reissued by Thrill Jockey. Like usual with Califone, there stuff doesn't really catch you right away, but I can tell I'm gonna love it.