go on little sister!
There's a song, the last song, on the new Sufjan Stevens EP, All Delighted People, called "Djohariah." It's seventeen minutes long and doesn't have any words for the first ten or so. It's amazing.
Over the past week I've listened to this song non-stop. The last time I became so engrossed with a single song was with the famous "take 20" leak of 2009. I'm seriously sick in the head about this tune; addicted. I've started measuring time in "Djohariahs;" how many Djohariahs can I get in at the gym in the morning?, before that next meeting?, while I wash up after dinner? Sharaun tells me we have to leave the house in fifteen minutes so we're not late for church and my brain goes, "Oh, that's almost one whole Djohariah," as I fumble to hit play.
Those who know me would undoubtedly say hyperbole is no stranger to me, but I do find this track some kind of "transcendental." I have listened to nothing but this song, over and over and over and over, for days. My last.fm profile says I've listened to it 113 times since the EP leaked on Sunday. That's 113 x 17 minutes, or 32 hours of Djohariah; averaging over half of each of my working days this past week. This is an amazing statistic for me: one hour each morning at the gym, a couple hours combined each day at work, and evenings at home. Sharaun has been more than accommodating of this fanaticism, and I think even likes the tune a bit - although won't likely get as much mileage from it as I can.
It's not just the music here that's amazing. Not just the eleven minute opening guitar-work, reminiscent of a set-closing "Cortez the Killer" and having all the magic spontaneity and wonder of a one-take masterpiece ala Emerson's "Lucky Man" closer. Not just the swelling chorus of human voices used where others might simply use a synthesizer to fill the space. Not just the attention-grabbing changes in tempo and mood. No way y'all, this track says something. The more I listened the more I wanted to know what the heck the track was about. I Googled "Djohariah," and found a link to some hippy-spiritualist lady... which, being that we're talking about Sufjan here, sounded plausible. But a couple links later I learned that Djohariah is, in fact, the name of Sufjan's sister.
Oh man it's a song about his sister. That made it all the better. Would that I be able to write something as awesome about those that I love. Then I listened.
Djohariah got caught up with the wrong kind of guy and he did her wrong; left her and the child God gave them; split. Sufjan is writing to encourage her, his little sister, now a single mother. Her man has left her, squandered their money, neglected their house and yard, and she's ashamed at how the neighbors see her. Sufjan asks her not to cry, reminds her what a blessing it is to be a mother, and implores her, "Go on! Little sister! Go on! Little sister! For your world is yours, world is yours! All the wilderness of world is yours!" I don't know if it's really biographical or just germane fiction, but it's emotive and powerful and personal and it has all the markings of a heartfelt composition in both sound and words. I love this song, Ms. Stevens you must be one amazing woman to have engendered such an organic outpouring.
You can listen to Djohariah right here, and buy it for a buck while you're there. Enjoy.
best of 2010 – halfway
Hard to believe it's already more than halfway through 2010, right?
I've had my usual "halfway best of" list near-ready to post since way back in early June, but I was really unhappy with the substance of the content I'd written on each record. What I needed to do was sit down and listen to each one as I wrote about it... but even until now I've only had times to do that in fits and starts. With Cohen's arrival and work and the other trappings of the daily grind the best I could muster was a few re-writes aimed at saying something more than "this album is good, you should try it." I'm still not entirely satisfied, but I've been working on this thing so long it's just time for us to part ways.
So I sat around Sunday night with headphones on and banged this out. I tried to flourish where I could. Hopefully it might turn you onto something, or at least give you cause to call me a front-running wanna-be hipster, one of those two (perhaps both). See if there's anything you can dig on:
10. Sleigh Bells - Treats [listen]
People who know my taste might find it odd I like this record so much, but so help me I do. You know what this record is? It's a cheerleading record. No I swear I'm not kidding. It's an album that tweaker cheerleaders do routines to. At times the guitars and beats and vocals and everything else are so distorted and clipped that songs risk becoming a static wall of sound, but in the end the beats and teenage-chant vocals prevail and land smack after smack of meth'd-out Toni Basil. All of it hits hard, but "Kids" and "Riot Rhythm" are likely my favorite of the stompers here. A lot of times I'll try and give my opinion on what setting a particular "best of" album works best in - but for this one you should just turn it up and dance. Go; dance. Badly around your living room with your sons and daughters like I do. Dance and have fun doing it. This music is stupid and disposable and that's what makes it so very enjoyable.
9. Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today [listen]
One of the later entrants on the midyear list, Before Today didn't grace my ears until sometime midway through May. I can still remember my first impressions: "What is this? Some retro Bowie/Eno/Hall & Oates mashup thing? Oh no wait here comes some Velvet Undergroundy guitar stuff. Man this is oddball. Drug music. Music for drugs. Slick; intravenous." I guess this is what they call "art rock;" what a dumb taxonomy, music nerds are so full of themselves. But man, this swings. Pink's music divides critics; some hate it some love it. With ties to indie wunderkind Animal Collective and a ton of underground press I think people are actually afraid to like this album for fear of being judged to be among the sheep. So do I like it or did the internet tell me I should like it enough that I'm brainwashed? Does it matter? I like it, of my own doing or the hivemind's... I like it. Shut up.
8. Yeasayer - Odd Blood [listen]
If most of what I dug in earl 2010 can be pigeonholed as dreamy harmony-based pop, then Yeasayer's record is the outlier. Opening with a relatively unapproachable (at first) beat-based Radiohead-sounding experimental piece, the album changes quick and offers up several pieces of highly danceable quirk-rock. In fact, I daresay that tracks like "Ambling Alp" and "ONE" would get most people shaking something. While other numbers aren't as easy to categorize, the album as a whole leaves you with a happy feeling - each song upbeat in its own way, no harshing of one's buzz here. It's a hard sound to describe, and maybe a hard one to fall in love with, but I'm convinced that spending some time with this one will turn you, too.
7. The National - High Violet [listen]
The National's records have always been "growers" for me. I don't know how they manage to do it, but the urgency and energy of their music is often masked to me upon the first few listens. Yet as I listen more and listen carefully the real push and charge of each track is revealed. Sharaun has commented more than once that this album sounds "slow" and "boring," but she's still got the scales on her eyes and I'm just a little closer to Damascus. When those scales drop, my friends, you'll hear such a passion in each deceptively muted rythym and baritone lyric you'll know right away there's substance to this one. The National do more with less (the pause between the words "blood" and "buzz" on "Bloodbuzz Ohio" drips with anticipation and is likely to make the weak swoon).
6. Surfer Blood - Astro Coast [listen]
Surfer Blood make trashy surf rock that, upon listening, recalls hearing Weezer's debut album for the first time. You like guitars and fuzz? You like triple-tracked vocals with stadium echo? You like shimmery cymbals on a majority of downbeats? You like a 2010 take on 1960s beach-styled phrasing? Well by God man you owe it to yourself to get this album! I want to listen to these tracks hanging onto a rope stretched off the backside of a ski boat, a wakeboard strapped to my heels and a bellyful of beer while my bald head simmers in the summer sun - it's that record you were listening to that one time you lost your sunglasses. The Ventures and Beach Boys meet Weezer (when they were good) and JaMC. You'll want this to accompany your waterside summer, get it and find a palm tree to lounge under, bring a chick and a blanket.
5. Zeus - Say Us [listen]
I'm not even certain how I heard about Zeus, but this album is what Dr. Dog should have made in 2010 (let's not talk about what they did make). Every month of every year since the days of The Beatles some band released an album that sounds like the Beatles. That's a lot of Beatles-esque records since 1969. Zeus shouldn't be shy about their Beatles-tinged effort, however, they've done a great job and crafted some great pop-rock gems in the process. If you are looking for the most universally-approachable entrant on this year's list look no further than "Say Us" - hardly anyone would ask you to turn this off at the barbecue, I promise.
4. Wavves - King of the Beach [listen]
The whole Wavves frenzy of a couple years back completely missed me. I didn't even download that acclaimed record. The reviews alone turned me off, rambling on and making the music sound all a bunch of overblown half-baked garage crap, listeners suffering from the same strange mass hysteria that allows bullshit like Trout Mask Replica to rank as a "great" album. So I didn't touch it. Then I heard the title of the new Wavves record and I was intrigued. For in 2010 the beach/surf/coastal theme is in vogue (sorry The Thrills in 2003, you tried), and calling your album King of the Beach is like catnip to front-running indie hipsters. Next, I saw the dang album cover. All Sgt. Pepper badge-esque in terms of color and featuring some kind of Freemason weasel or fox smoking a joint. I mean come on - I had to download it. And you know what, it is simple, it is garage, but it's anything but overrated. In fact it's right up my alley.
3. The Local Natives - Gorilla Manor [listen]
This record, the Morning Benders Record, and the Beach House record pretty much sum up the "sound" I'm digging so far in 2010. These LA-area folks seemingly came out of nowhere. I read about them in the UK press sometime early in the year and decided to give the album a try. Wow. With harmonies that would do any modern folk outfit proud, rim-and-stick happy percussion, and enough chops to get loud when they should - the Local Natives have made one of the best records of the year. And so yes, people may say that the album droops and sags at points (namely points that aren't shored up by the stellar "Airplanes" and "Camera Talk), but the whole effort is sound to me. I mean, honestly, you could put eight tracks of random noise around the awesomeness that is "Airplanes" and I'd still buy the record.
2. Beach House - Teen Dream [listen]
Picked and plucked scales, dreamy harmonies, and plush backdrops. I got this album as winter was turning to spring and it fit so well. I just love the tunes here, the melodies are incredible - almost understated to the point of near breakdown, but done to perfection. As far as songs go, I often find myself falling for tracks with vocal melodies that are well-defined enough to be standalone songs in their own right. When a band or artist is able to craft a killer song musically, and then layer a completely different, yet just as amazing, vocal accompaniment on top of it I get goosebumps. Teen Dream is like that, and although you might think it's too slow or limp at first I'd urge you stick with it. I mean just listen to the harmonies on "Love of Mine" and you'll see what I mean.
1. Morning Benders - Big Echo [listen]
There's that very last scene in the very last episode of the Wonder Years. It's a slow-motion soft-focus Fourth of July parade and we learn the fate of the entire cast; it was a perfect ending. Even today my heart swells when I watch that scene, my eyes sting with tears held back. Not sad tears but the tears you experience when years of nostalgia crescendo and eclipse everything else in your head. When those moments come, those points of piled-on memory when all else in the mind slips away, you get a moment of pure feeling. That's what happens in my head when I hear this record. The songs are somehow so familiar to me that I instantly loved them, "remembered" them even. In part I think it's the lead singer's voice, in part it's the subject matter. I mean, the, "I can't help thinking we grew up too fast," bit in "Promises"... the tinkling piano and hints of feedback at the ends of the chords... fantastic. This is the kind of record that doesn't come often, one of those love-at-first-sight things, and nothing in 2010 has topped it for me yet.
Honorable mention this year goes to The Radio Dept.'s Clinging To A Scheme [listen] and The New Pornographers' Together [listen]. Both excellent records but each, whether due to pure whim or a lack of diligence or true deservedness, not bowing in my top 10. This should not, however, prevent you from checking them out - and it does not preclude my listening habits from elevating them come end-of-year.
So that's what I dig so far. And yeah I know the Arcade Fire's new one leaked already, but I've only been listening to it for a week or so and it can debut at end-year if it deserves it (I'll let you guess).
Goodnight.
cohen’s song
Back in February of 2006 I told blog readers of my choice for Keaton's "first song." I wrote an entry about it, and shared the track itself near the end.
I've always loved the idea of our kids having a "first song;" a song they can tell their friends was the first piece of music they ever heard, a song which hopefully conveys a message to them. I got the idea from my oldest buddy Kyle, whose dad remembered the song he first heard as a newborn. Kyle had a cassette tape, the j-card in his dad's own hand, where that track had a big start next to it to denote the significance - I always thought this was a neat concept.
And with both kids, Keaton first and now Cohen, the songs I chose jumped right out at me without much thought - leading me to believe they've always been their songs and I've always known they were... they were just waiting for babies to be associated with.
The song that maybe always wanted to be Cohen's song and now can be is a standout from John Lennon's 1980 Double Fantasy album, "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)." At first, when it popped into my head, I worried it might be too... "fay"... but after listening to it a few times and getting the sentiment vs. testosterone "OK" when I queued it up for my brother-in-law those fears were put to bed. It starts as a simple reassurance, a father to his son, after what might have been a nightmare - and develops into an awesome statement of how rad little boys can be.
Anyway, here then I present to you Cohen's song:
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Cohen's first song: John Lennon's "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" from the Double Fantasy album, 1980.
Monday Keaton and I laid on the bed with Cohen and put this song on repeat. I taught her the words and we both sang it to him over and over again, five times total. Cohen was awake the whole time and listened to each go-'round of our crooning, a solid twenty minutes.
Guess he liked it.
let’s hoist one
Hey Friday, good to see you again... feels like a long time. Let's hoist a drink to putting a point at the end of a fine week.
Again my days, each one, were overripe; swollen with work and not-work, stretching and bulging and going soft in spots. In the end, though, things were good. Work was rewarding in a way it seldom is, with several pieces of outright praise and formal acknowledgment; the kind of stuff that can keep a worker motivated for half a year or so (not to mention the kind of stuff that can give a worker a God complex and therefore needs to be basked-in cautiously). Outside-work was evenings filled with activity... not a one left wanting for something to do (also something that can be a blessing and a curse). Anyway, I expect the whole thing will lead to an exhausted collapse of a Friday.
Wednesday night Sharaun and I hit up the Black Eyed Peas show she won tickets to over the weekend. While they're not my favorite act by any stretch, I can dig a few of their more melodic dancey tracks and have enjoyed seeing them live a couple times before. In fact, the last time we saw the Black Eyed Peas Sharaun was pregnant with Keaton. We joked that both of our kids will have "seen" the Black Eyed Peas in utero. The show was OK but the free radio tickets were in the nosebleeds and the sound was sort of echoey and bass-heavy by the time it bounced its way up to our ears. Plus the couple sitting directly in front of us had brought their kids, a ten year old and maybe a five year old, both little girls. Seeing the little one out so late covering her ears and looking all mopey and bored while her mom bounced around ignoring her made me sad.
Goodnight.
an orange afterglow
Work continues to press close, choking out most of the day and leaving an orange afterglow around my mind well into the evenings.
Today at work I decided to limit the iPod's shuffle to all Velvet Underground. Sometimes, the alternate fey and noisy qualities of their "heroin rock" is just what the doctor ordered. As I indulged I remembered back to my first experience with the Underground. I imagine I was introduced to them in much the same way that most folks my age were - by picking up the soundtrack to the 1991 biographical movie about The Doors. Remember the scene where Morrison meets Warhol at the party? The song "Heroin" is playing in the background and, at the time, it was an odd a piece of music as I'd ever heard. I can remember it playing a large role in my pre-drugs teenage romanticizing of drug use. The song seemed to flaunt the fact that it was made to hear while one was wasted... and I felt like I was missing out. Anyway... it's more than drug music, and it was a good backdrop to my hectic day.
Tonight after putting Keaton to bed she called out from her bedroom, "Mom, when I get older and I'm a mom, what will you be?" Sharaun chuckled and answered, "When you're a mom I'll be a grandmother. I'll be your babies' grandmother." "Oh," she replied thoughtfully, "Then I'll have to cook food!" Sometimes I wonder what thoughts spur these kind of questions. She must really be laying in there thinking about the things that'll happen to her when she grows up. Earlier that night she told me that her friend Jake was her "best friend" because when she grows up she's "going to marry him." I can remember being a kid and looking at adulthood as something so foreign; purely incomprehensible from my then standpoint, like trying to imagine what it's like to be dead or a monkey or a woman. It must be super abstract to a four year old.
The baby growing in Sharaun's stomach is a super active one. She says he's moving and turning and punching and kicking and doing all sorts of comfort-impairing things inside her all the time. Keaton has grown quite attached to her swollen belly, kissing it and resting her hand on it and even talking into it to her coming baby brother. Sharaun and her have "decided" on a name they like and have adopted using it even in utero. I, on the other hand, am yet to be 100% convinced of the viability of the name and thus am the sole detractor amongst the family. This puts me in the "stubborn" category as far as Sharaun is concerned... but I'm not on the same wavelength this time around. "Keaton" was a slam-dunk, and I'm kind of hoping for repeat in finding another name we both immediately gravitate to. We'll see.
Goodnight.
winner winner (and a chicken dinner (for real))
Good Monday to ya, online friends. Hope your Easter weekend was relaxing and whatnot; ours was.
For her birthday Keaton got a "toddler cookbook" from friends. It has a small selection of fun recipes which kids can help with. Since she and I have a history of enjoying cooking and baking together, we've been anxious to try it out. So on Saturday morning we paged through looking for something to cook for Sharaun that evening. We settled on cheesy bread rolls, which we'd serve as an appetizer, and chicken satay skewers, which would be our entree. We told mom we'd be cooking dinner and even made up a fancy menu and lavishly set the table. We went on a shopping trip together for a few ingredients we were short on, and then we set about cooking.
Even though it's a toddler cookbook, the recipes are fairly demanding in time and prep. I actually liked it, because Keaton got an idea of how much time can go into creating something yummy. We did the biscuits from scratch, kneading and rolling the dough by hand and then leaving the rolls to proof while we worked on the chicken. She learned to how juice a lime, grate ginger, dredge chicken, and even stir a sauce while simmering. She also learned that the cheesy bread roll sheet is hot when it comes out of the oven, and you get burned if you touch it (a good lesson, despite of, or maybe in owed to, the pain). Anyway, it was a truly fun thing to do together and, as much as dad's opinion counts, the cookbook was far and away her best birthday gift.
If your eyes work and you feel like it, you can check out some pictures of the fine dining and prepwork just below. Despite her apparent absence, Sharaun was indeed the guest of honor and was there... she somehow just managed to stay out of any photographic evidence.
OK let us move along.
Ever since I told Sharaun that Black Eyed Peas tickets weren't in the budget this month, she's been on a quest to win them from the radio. Her track record here is quite good, so I was pretty sure she'd actually end up scoring them. She called all day long all week long, and I suffered an entire Saturday listening over and over and over again to same stinking seven songs that the stupid radio has in heavy rotation while she tried and tried again. She even enlisted me to help, and I'd dial and hangup and dial and hangup and dial and hangup right alongside her when she'd hear the cue to call. In the end, though, around 11:30pm that day, she (of course) did win the tickets. I half wish the lottery did call-in shows; I'm reasonably confident she could win us millions if they only gave it away over the phone...
Check out her winning moment below:
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When she decides she's going to win, she wins.
(direct link for those on mobile devices without Flash)
I really should start keeping an index of things that are given away this way... and have her start doing it more strategically... I think we'd have to start claiming winnings on our taxes.
Goodnight.
something a little cooler
I've heard it said that there are three things which, in life, you should never want to see being made: 1) sausage, 2) hot dogs, and 3) laws.
I verified this yesterday by actually watching the House wrestle with this health care legislation. Only, I watched on C-SPAN. Minus all the commentary you get from the cable news outlets things become very procedural. After watching the way these "adults" act, I can only imagine Mr. Robert rolling over in his grave. Most people know that I'm one of those odd-duck, oil-and-water, socially-liberal, emerging church religious persons, so it won't come as much of a surprise that I'm happy with the way the vote went yesterday. And since I don't want to mire us down here with politics, let's move onto something a little cooler...
Lately I've been pretty enamored with a couple albums, my second favorite of which is a freshman effort called Gorilla Manor by Californians The Local Natives. There is a brilliant track on the record called "Airplanes." Not only is it musically chill-inducing but the lyrics are poignant and relevant to what's been going on lately for me. The singer sings the song (I love that that's a grammatically correct sentence intro) to his grandfather, who has passed away, and it's basically a statement of loss and anticipation towards one day meeting again "in the sky." You lose the studio version's strings in this live performance, but what you gain in rawness is more than an even trade in for passion and power.
Man, the tiny imperfections present in live-performed harmonies are always super endearing to me... Anyway I predict at least some part of this song will be on a commercial by year's end. Seems to be a safe bet based on what's gone down with standout tracks from word-of-mouth "indie" records of late (I'm looking at you Grizzly Bear).
And that's all the writing I've a mind for this afternoon. Sharaun's got another one of her pregnancy migraines and is laid-up in the bedroom so I'm on Keaton-entertainment duty. Today we planted garlic, pruned the grapes down to the strongest vines, and trimmed the old growth off Pat's hops to make room for all the new green that's starting to show. We also spent some time hand-watering the planters because Keaton loves doing it (the drip system is cool, but nothing beats hand-watering with your girl).
Goodnight.
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