MUSIC: The best of 2009

(This article was originally supposed to appear in the 2010-opening issue of Birmingham Weekly.  It did not.  Perhaps it will eventually pop up there, but in the meantime, you can read it here.  Do so… now:)

Mastodon “Crack the Skye” – It’s the year that Mastodon reached out to the overlooked and underappreciated Trustifarian metal heads.  A friend remarked at their tour kick-off at Workplay in the spring that Mastodon had become “Widespread Sabbath”.  And maybe they have, but goddamned if these aren’t the scariest, most brutal hippies ever.  Blenderize old-school Metallica, Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, a conceptual thread inspired by Bill Burroughs and a sheet of blotter acid, and two bottles of Absinthe, and you’ve got a hangover made just me.

Hey, Charlie Manson might really dig this disc, now that I think about it.  Maybe Phil Spector can pass him a copy?

Bigelf “Cheat the Gallows” – I’ve heard people categorize Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie as horror rock, but I think of both of them as more slasher-metal.  Really, is Jason Voorhees that scary? Bigelf, though – man, there’s something really creepy lurking underneath the surface of this whole disc.  Yeah, it sounds very retro, sort of Alice Cooper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and the Floyds From Mars, but then you start picturing the three-ring circus, and the tent, and the clowns… Yeah, lots of clowns, but not the happy ones.  More like that goddamned doll from Poltergeist. And John Wayne Gacy.  And Willie Whistles. Ever been ear-raped by a clown?  Yeah.  That’s it. (Note: This apparently came out in August, but I live in Birmingham, AL, where nothing happens when it’s supposed to.  Therefore, it counts. For me.)

Swallow the Sun “New Moon” – In a better world, the sequel to TWILIGHT would have been written by 1970s Wes Craven and directed by Eli Roth.  It would have been filled with torture and buckets of blood — not red syrup, but actual blood.  The entire soundtrack would have been replaced with the latest release from Finnish doom metal band Swallow The Sun.  It would have been AWESOME.  And teenage girls everywhere would be traumatized for life.

Ah, to spend a day in my fantasy world…

Muse “The Resistance” – Does Matthew Bellamy have a Thom Yorke fixation?  Does Muse want too badly to be Queen? Are positive answers to the previous two questions bad things?  Really, imagine it: Paul Rodgers stuck with making Muddy Waters tribute albums, and so Brian May and company invited Yorke to spend six months away from Radiohead to work on a new album. How wonderful would that be?  The correct answer: “The Resistance.”

Animals as Leaders “Animals as Leaders” – I wouldn’t normally list an all-instrumental guitar record on a year-end list, but there’s something so phenomenal and out of this world about Tosin Abasi’s debut that not including it is a musical injustice on par with Jethro Tull’s 1989 Grammy win.  Sometimes I want to compare his writing and playing to Miles Davis, but that’s only because both are so far beyond my ken that it’s pathetic.  Other times, I compare it to putting Mentos and bleach into a mixture of Diet Coke and ammonia.

3 “Revisions” – You know how critics are always all like, “These guys are an overnight success!” And then the bands are all like, “Nuh-unh! We worked for, like a month on this!” New York’s 3 are not at all that band; in fact, they had three discs released indepently before scoring a national distribution deal.  REVISIONS is a nice little project of re-recorded reboots from those first three discs and some bootlegs, cleaned and tightened for a modern day.  These are tight pop songs, not as adventurous as their last two more progressive efforts, really showcasing Joey Eppert’s songwriting and arranging abilities. It’s a great introduction to the band, as well as being something that fans of other bands may find themselves wishing for – another, more polished listen to songs that deserve a wider audience.

Them Crooked Vultures – This is like the best tribute album you could ever imagine.  It’s Zep, but it’s not.  And it’s not a Queens of the Stone Age disc, but it kinda is.  If you know both bands, and picture smashing them together so violently that neither one ever existed, then this is the album you got stoned to every day after class in high school. I expected Grohl to be more prominent, until I realized that if ever John Bonham had a natural successor it was the guy who played drums on Queens of the Stone Age’s SONGS FOR THE DEAF. In all honesty, this disc made me ask for a Karmann Ghia for Christmas.

Andrew Bird “Noble Beast” – My girlfriend couldn’t make Bird’s show at Workplay earlier this year, and so passed on her ticket to me. I was, to drastically sell the moment short, blown away, so I borrowed her iPod and now refuse to give it back. Among all the indie, alt-kewl stuff I’m finding there, Andrew Bird’s is probably the most cinematic, like watching someone paint with sound.  It’s captivating, provocative, and best of all, happy.

I still though, for the record, hate hipster audiences.

Porcupine Tree “The Incident” – There’s this idea that progressive rock has to be pompous and effete, that concept albums are for stoners and armchair philosophers. But remember TOMMY? Or THE WALL? Both are concept albums, progressive in their own right, that have a number of brilliant and classic songs that stand alone (Pinball Wizard and Comfortably Numb, respectively). Add THE INCIDENT, a fourteen track “song cycle” about “beginnings and endings and the sense that ‘after this, things will never be the same again’”.  It’s a seamless, beautiful  but demanding project filled with dynamics and explorations both comfortable and challenging.

Devin Townsend Project “Ki” / “Addicted” – Look, folks. Off and on, since 2000 (holy crap, Glenny – 10 years!), I’ve been writing these little capsule reviews of albums that I love and hate.  I try to focus on the stuff I love, because there’s too much hate in the world.  And seriously: if you’ve not yet picked up a disc featuring Devin Townsend – either one of his solo projects or some of his work with Strapping Young Lad – then maybe my job here is hopeless, superfluous.  There’s only so much I can rant and rave about something before I realize that no one’s listening.  KI is soothing, sublime, reflective – I love it, but I’m willing to accept that maybe it’s more personal than something I can recommend to everyone.  ADDICTED, though – frankly, if you don’t pick this disc up, you’re doing yourself a real disservice, and if you pick it up and don’t like it, your soul was stolen in the middle of the night.  It’s bouncy, and heavy, and poppy, and layered, and filled with so many ‘ands’ that your head will explode.  If there’s such a thing as an aural orgasm (an eargasm, maybe?), you will experience it sometime during tracks 7-9.  And then you can thank me – after you wash your hands, please.

–

Friends of mine also suggested the following albums make the list: “Born on Flag Day” (Deer Tick), “Veckatimest” (Grizzly Bear), “American Sunshine” (Colin Hay), “I and Love and You” (The Avett Brothers), “Cage the Elephant” (Cage the Elephant), “OK Bear” (Jeremy Enigk), “Me and You” (VAST), “Elvis Perkins in Dearland” (Elvis Perkins in Drealand)“Monsters of Folk” (Monsters of Folk), “Black Clouds and Silver Linings” (Dream Theater), “Outer South” (Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band), “Wilco” (Wilco), “Back from the Dead” (Spinal Tap),”It’s Blitz” (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), “Bitte Orca” (Dirty Projectors), “Masterful Mystery Tour” (Beatallica), and “Kingdom of Rust” (Doves).

Sadly for them, this is my list, not theirs.

Someone also suggested Scream (Chris Cornell), but I punched them in the throat, and we are no longer friends.

Protected: A Christmas Card to an angel

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The Great Here and Now

I’m not sure why — I’m still hashing through that as best I can — but I feel too much the past couple of weeks as though I’ve abruptly and randomly stopped my progress, sitting down in the middle of the path to play an indeterminate number of games.

I need a good solid kick in the ass.

38 down

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to become a person that I like.  One big component of that person is having a positive outlook on the world — not being a Pollyannaish “The world is beautiful place!! With Unicorns! And Rainbows! For Everyone!!!” type, but avoiding my depressions, finding the beauty in the ugliness around me, and appreciating everything that I have.

38 years ago, in a hospital room in Nashville, Tennessee, I became my parents’ first child.  Those years have been sometimes hard, sometimes easy, but always filled with life and living.  And here, at what is probably the midpoint of my time here in this world, this life, I think I have done a pretty good job of finding happiness, and learning to recognize the good things in my world.

I couldn’t ask for a better family.  My parents are not perfect, but whose are?  Not only did mine provide for me and then some, making sure that I grew up healthy and educated and happy, but (most importantly, to me) taught and encouraged me, both directly and indirectly, to appreciate knowledge, to think for myself, to question and to seek answers.  My siblings Mandy, James, and Kate have all taught me a lot — about people, about life, about differences, about myself.  I don’t get to see any of them as often as I wish, as there’s a lot of ground between all of us now, but I think about them all often.

My friends make up in quantity what they lack in quality.  Kidding aside, I’m surrounded in every facet of my life with the widest variety, the most diverse people.  Each and every one of them has taught me something (no unimportant lessons in life), helped me up when I was down, shared good times and bad with me.  I may not always be good at showing my appreciation, but it’s there.

I’ve got no shortage of creative stimulation in my world.  There’s so much amazing music and film and reading that I’ve been exposed to, and that I continue to find and be introduced to on a daily basis.

I have two jobs.  Again, not perfect jobs, filled with their own eccentricities and downsides, but overall two of the better jobs that I could hope for.  While I’m not getting rich, I have enough money to live comfortably and happily.  The people I work with are mostly those I count as friends, and the work is fulfilling and challenging, each in it’s own way.

I’ve had a lifetime and then some of love, both given and received.  Even the failed relationships have provided me with learning, new experiences, and wonderful memories. The love and happiness and laughter and passions that I share now are more than I ever hoped for, more than I even dreamed were possible in this world. I am amazed and astonished daily, left speechless more in the past month than the writer in me would ever have imagined possible.

I’ve always felt as though everything that came before led up to wherever  I was at the time.  Today, at least, I feel that that is true on a fundamentally and undeniably good level, that all my years of seeking and exploring and learning and sometimes even suffering have paid off in ways that maybe are more than I even deserve.

To everyone that has touched my life — positively or negatively, but especially the good: thank you.  It’s a wonderful feeling to consider: as ecstatic as I am to be alive and living this life today, I’m pretty sure this is nowhere near the peak. The past 38 years have led me to this point; the next years, I think, will only get better as I go.

Another week already?

I love the difference between calendar time and experiential time.  Not knowing without thinking very carefully about it whether something happened last week or three months ago… That overwhelming influx of experiences and memories in formation…

Adjusting to a new world is equal parts awesome and traumatic.  The awesome is perfectly logical; the traumatic is completely illogical.  Who still feels fear of the unknown in this day and age?

It feels good to be inspired again.  Creatively and metamorphically.

I wonder if this will make as little sense to me in three years as things I wrote three years ago?

Observations: October 2009

Some things are no one’s business but your own.

Some things aren’t your business, no matter how curious a being you may be.

Life moves forward, whether you are ready for it to do so or not.  If you’re not careful, it will pass you right by.

There are things that happen in life that may seem to beg an explanation.  But when you can accept that the universe unfolds as it should in bad situations, then you can learn to accept the same in good moments as well.

“Bones doesn’t feel the pressure to act or do or say anything that she doesn’t want to.  And no one – no one – can make her. And that’s what makes her Bones.”

Why is it that we seek the approval of others to the point of compromising ourselves to get it?

There is no such thing as too good to be true.  That’s fear speaking.  And we have no reason to fear the unknown.  Just clowns and spiders.

Untitled 4477

It’s winter he says of his dream.  It’s winter, and there’s a light snow falling.  Not that that matters, since everything’s already buried under a thick blanket of blinding white.  Isn’t it funny, how even though there’s clouds in the sky still dropping the little crystals on the world, it’s blinding white?

He pauses, then, and I can’t help but think he’s a little sad.  Or not sad, perhaps, but wistful, wishing that it were a memory of tomorrow instead of a dream of yesterday.

There’s a field filled with people he continues, the smile returning to his face like a Woodstock, or one of those outdoor festivals?  And I mean filled with people — it’s weird, how the world flows seamlessly from snow to people and back to snow, and I can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.  Except…  he trails off for a moment, and I swear that I can see his heart skip a beat in his eyes … except for her.

And I don’t know why this is important, or how, but the air is music.  I mean, I know that music is just vibrations in the air, right?  But that’s not it.  We’re not breathing oxygen in and carbon dioxide out, but notes, and harmonies, and polyrhythms. Do you get it?  The air, every molecule surrounding us, me and her, this woman who is the only thing that isn’t snow or faceless people, is living and evolving and shifting.  And there’s no band, at least not that I can see maybe they’re buried under the snow, I think but there’s music everywhere. And it’s the most glorious, intense, powerful, soul-shaking thing I’ve ever heard or felt.

He stops. The smile is still on his face, but his eyes are glistening.  As I watch him, waiting patiently for whatever’s coming next — because he’s surely not going to leave me hanging on this — a lone tear swells on his lid and escapes down his right cheek. He doesn’t even twitch a finger to stop it, and I can barely resist the urge to catch the drop on my finger, like a butterfly that should be touched before it flies away forever.

I think that music that was in the air was unique for everyone that heard it, that it became whatever you needed to hear, whatever would touch your soul at that moment.  And maybe some of those people heard Mozart, and others heard speed metal symphonies, and probably some of them heard silence.  But it was different for everyone, because that musical air was alive and intelligent and just wanted to make everyone happy.

And while I was losing myself in that space, that tick between inhaling and letting it go, feeling the snow gathering on my hands, she turned, and I saw every feature, every detail. And her eyes – my god, her eyes, like stars being born – met mine.

His voice cracks, and I suddenly realize that the one tear has become a genuine river of tears, but all the while, his smile just gets bigger and bigger, and I can’t help but feel some of his happiness myself, so contagious is it.

And I know — KNOW he says with such emphasis that it shakes me – that she and I, in all the world — we two are hearing the same song.

And it’s the only song either of us ever needed.

We sit in silence, then. And I envy him, and his dream, and his memory of the music that connects.

Yet more on perspective

Don’t be afraid
Open your mouth to say
Say what your soul sings to you

Your mind can never change
Unless you ask it to
Lovingly rearrange
The thoughts that make you blue
The things that bring you down
Will mean no harm to you
And so make your choice joy
The joy belongs to you

And when you do
You’ll find the one you love is here
You’ll find you
The love yeah

Don’t be ashamed no
To open your heart and pray
Say what your soul sings to you

So no longer pretend
That you can’t feel it near
That tickle on your hand
That tingle in your ear
And ask it anything
Because it loves you dear
It’s your most precious king
If only you could hear

And when you do
You’ll find the one you need is here
You’ll find you
Love you

-What Your Soul Sings, Massive Attack

When good things happen to us, we become suspicious, questioning the veracity of the moment.  We wonder if what’s in front of us is too good to be true.  We seek out the catch, the fine print, the hidden price for what’s being offered us.

When bad things happen, we may question, “Why me?” but we accept that the bad things happen.  It’s an every day occurance.

I lost my wallet.  Damn it.  I guess that’s just the way it goes.

You want to offer me a great deal on the car that I want — in fact, need, as my old beater finally gave up the ghost?  Okay: what am I not seeing? What are you going to pull on me here?

Why do we do this?  Do we not deserve the good things in life?  Do we bring so much bad on ourselves that the good seems undeserved?

I’m as guilty as anyone else of this, but I’d like to not be. I don’t want to be suspicious of the good things in my life.

It took me a long time and a fair amount of effort to get past the point of stressing about things I can’t control. I realized that I was missing out on a lot of the present by either obsessing about the past or worrying about the future — one which I can’t change, and one over which I have very little control — and so I fixed that.  But now I wonder how much I might be passing up in the world because I think I don’t deserve it, or that it goes against the rules and expectations set up by society-at-large.

Especially given my proclivity to ignore those same rules and expectations.

Little by little, I’m learning, I think, how to make a world that is, if not better, then at least a little happier.

The Mirror

What would you do if you met yourself?

Would you like yourself?  Would you be interested in hanging out with yourself, having a beer?  Would the conversation be fascinating, or would you be bored in minutes? When the night was over, would you hope to see yourself again, or would you give anything to avoid that awkward situation?

Yes, I’m aware of the stunning amount of narcissism inherent in this line of thinking.  Shut up.

After my first divorce, years and years and a lifetime gone by, I realized that I had a tenuous grasp of my own identity. I had spent so much time trying to make other people happy (thinking that that was the key to my own peace of mind) that, when left alone with no one else to please, I didn’t really know myself at all. I’ve spent the last fifteen or so years trying to understand myself — not just knowing who I am and what I like and don’t like, but the underlying reasons and causes for why I am who and what I am.  I’ve tried to figure out the pieces of myself that I don’t like, and to discard those pieces.

And contrary to my above statement, I don’t really see this as a mark of vanity.  I think understanding yourself, a sense of self-awareness, is incredibly important to understanding those around you, and your interactions and relationships with them. Of course, as always, the more I learn, the more I know I don’t know shit.  Mileage may vary.  Caveat emptor.  Slow: falling rocks…

For me, over these past years, this self-examination has been largely key to my happiness and optimism (cynical though that optimism may be colored).  I’m perfectly content being alone, which means that I’m not constantly on the hunt for validation through attention from others.  When alone, I have plenty to do, and I enjoy my own company.  When not alone, I don’t have to question the motivations of others, or of myself.  There’s an honesty to my own behavior (and I think of those I choose to be around) that I can distinctly say was not there in my “other” life, pre-questioning.

They say that opposites attract.  I get that, to a degree.  There’s a lot you can learn (and I do so love learning, often) from someone different than you.  But it seems so much more obvious to me that — in the long term, at least — having friends and lovers that are alike would make more sense. Not identical, obviously — you’ve already got one you to hang out with, from here until the day you are no more.  But identical enough that there’s an inherent understand, shared passions, similar belief structures; a foundation upon which you can explore your differences and learn new things and experience the unfamiliar and (hopefully) unexpected.

Real self-awareness — the kind that is meaningful to yourself — requires that you ditch the rose-colored glasses. The side benefit of that is an ability to view life the same way, to admit that things aren’t perfect, to see the flaws.  The important follow-up is realizing that, in your acceptance of your own imperfections, you can find the ability to accept and even embrace the imperfections of those around you.  You become aware from the beginning that this isn’t some mirage or illusion, and the early acceptance of reality can keep that same reality from making a sudden sharp intrusion into your fantasy.

Kurt Vonnegut’s Timequake deals with the idea of having to relive, moment for moment, action for action, the past ten years as a passenger in your own body.  Just as he posits that you might consider living your live in such as way that the unpleasant moments you would have to relive are kept to a minimum, it seems important to me that you become the kind of person you would be okay spending an evening, a week, a year, a lifetime with.  Because that’s the reality of situation: no matter how much you may (even successfully)  distract yourself, eventually it’s going to come down to you, yourself and you. Shouldn’t you be okay with that thought?

I know I’m not there, yet, but I’m getting closer every day.

Don’t tread…

Sometimes, writing very angry things down on paper is all that you need to do.  Sometimes, typing them onto a screen over the course of two hours — two very bitter, angry, black-metal fueled hours — and then re-reading your words, and then highlighting them all and hitting delete is all you need.

Rather than go over the same ground that I’ve beaten into a concrete floor, I will simply say to the people in my life that have never taken me for granted, or tried to make me feel guilty for their self-imposed problems (knowing full well that I feel in no small part responsible for the well-being of those around me, for better or worse), or lied to me to get their spoiled bitch way: thank you.

To the others, who probably don’t think this applies to them: I know who you are, even if you don’t.

——-

On a lighter note: if you really want to drive your blog’s traffic up, post a topless picture of Phoebe Cates (specifically, from Fast Times at Ridgemont High) in one of your rants.  (The daily traffic here — or more probably, just to that one post — has gone up, I shit you not, about 3000% in the past few weeks, and after eight years, I’m pretty confident that it’s not my writing.)