You Say You Want a Revolution!?

Well, I don't have one for you.

What I do have is a brief story about how one time I went out to real Virginia (this would have been last week) and as I was just starting to drive, I realized that I didn't have any CDs with me in the car (and mind you, this car has a 6-CD cartridge changer in the trunk!) so I stopped at my favorite record store to buy some. Since it's kind of a long drive, I purchased 3 new CDs. I am doing my part to keep the record companies in business. I only pirate software. So here's what I think about those 3!

1) Shame, Shame - Dr. Dog: Honestly, I'm a little disappointed. Fate was totally good, so I expected the same. It was only regular, not totally, good, though. I think it earns 11 dog-eared DSM IVs out of 14 (They're not a real doctor, but we call them Dr. Dog)

2) Infinite Arms - Band of Horses: You know that one song, Funeral by Band of Horses? Yeah, that's about my depth of knowledge of them too, until I bought this album. Basically, I chose to buy it because The National was sold out and I'd heard of this band and the cover looked really cool. I know I'm not supposed to judge things by their covers, but a lot of time it works! And it did here. This album does for symphonic dirge-pop what Shame, Shame did for medical canine-pop. By that I mean it was a new album. Rating: a linear approximation of a Taylor series (the fourth Taylor series to be exact)

3) Congratulations - MGMT: I liked it. I don't care what anybody else says, I like it! (BTW, what do other people say? I really want to make sure I'm not going outside the group consensus on this. I don't want to lose my valuable CRED points.) There is a song about Brian Eno. Rating: On a scale of 1 to Clever! this one gets a "ConGradulations!" with a picture of a diploma.

Dispatch from the Metro: Orange Line Art Edition

What a privilege it is to ride the Orange Line everyday from the far reaches of Virginia (don't worry, it's not REAL Virginia, I'm not that far out)! Nearly every day I get to experience one of the greatest pieces of art ever created. Actually, I'd say that I get to hear it many times per trip as the train rolls from station to station. You might be thinking to yourself "Self, what art can exist in such a cramped and utilitarian place?" Or you might be thinking to yourself "Self, it's almost time to eat lunch, isn't it?" Or even perhaps "Self, I can't wait until summer when fresh corn on the cob sells for, like, $2 per dozen!"

All you need to do is listen.

It's beautiful.

A Tale of Two CDs

So I've now listened to the latest Avett Bros. album approximately a baker's dozen times while driving to and from work and/or stores and I've come to the conclusion that I have to call it a total sell-out. It is basically a mainstream wannabe that lacks the pure poppiness of actual mainstream music without the vibrancy and banjo that made their past efforts (see Gleam and Emotionalism for example) so awesome.

Now this is hard for me to say, and I come by this after many hours of deliberation. You see, I've never heard any other Avett Brothers albums before in my life. However, I am aware that many of their "true" fans do not like the latest offering. I definitely don't want to be one of those Ralph-come-latelys because then I totally lose all my credibility (sort of like how I feel about people who have only heard the Kings of Leon's newest album, which sucks and is a total sell-out). So I am forced to pretend that I don't think this newest album is very good so as to look like someone hip and in the know. You wouldn't think being hip should be so difficult, but you are wrong. It's a lot of work.

The great thing about this decision is that even though I claim to think "I and Love and You" is a total cop-out, major-label, Rick-rubin suckfest and how they were WAAAAAAY better back when, I can still listen to it in secret. If I listened to it in public without shame, I would be opening myself up to all kinds of mockery by the real deal fans.

Basically, I just want to make sure I'm hipper than anybody else at work, which is, let's be honest, in the northern Detroit suburbs, like shooting a barrel with a gun specifically designed to shoot barrels with barrel-seeking missiles.

Just This Thing

The Top 14 Albums of 2008 (That I happened to download, purchase or otherwise hear)

1. Dr. Dog – Fate
   In many respects, this album was a watershed moment for bands with the word “Dog” in their names. Not since Three Dog Night were in their heyday has a “Dog” banded sounded…well, so much like Three Dog Night. Not that that is a bad thing.
   
   Rating: A Sheepdog with a Brandy Barrel around its neck so you can make some eggnog when it comes to rescue from a vile mountainside retreat in the Andes.
   
   
2. Vampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
   It sounds like these white-shoe yupsters got kicked in the face by Paul Simon and then accidentally the whole African musical colonialism. Not that that is a bad thing. Any band that calls Bottleneck a “shitshow” is alright in my book. I hate those Bottleneck bastards.
   
   Rating: A werewolf weekday
   
   
3. Okkervil River – The Stand Ins
   Even better than their 2007 masterpiece The Stage Names. Not that that is a bad thing. Probably my favorite of any of the albums in this list.
   
   Rating: Some outsider art by an artist who arguably kidnapped a kid
   
   
4. Coldplay – Viva La Vida
   SMASH HIT 2008!! NUMBER 1 SUMMER JAM!!! Under investigation by the FBI for allegedly stealing tunes from The Creaky Boards and/or J. Satriani. Not that that is a bad thing.
   
   Rating: Dude, I just listen for the articles. I mean the production values. I don’t actually LIKE it, you know.
   
   
5. Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping
   I haven’t quite listened to the whole thing, but I can tell you without a doubt that it is the best concept album about a large, black, post-op transsexual in history. Also, Emusic? Yeah, about that claim that Of Montreal is similar to Neutral Milk Hotel? I think it only holds true if “similar” means that the guys in the bands know each other and they both have a word that starts with “M” in their band names.
   
   Rating: 185 bones out of a full skeleton
   
   
6. The Secret Machines – The Secret Machines
   It’s got a kick-drum that won’t quit. Also there’s a pretty good, albeit short, total freakout on track 6.
   
   Rating: A machine that’s not exactly secret, just not well understood by most people, like an internal compression ignition combustion engine or something.
   
   
7. Frightened Rabbit – The Midnight Organ Fight
   a. Pretty standard indie rock fare. I like when a song from this album comes up on random for whatever that’s worth.
   
   Rating: A+, if you like Scottish accents, Gefilte fish+ if you don’t.
   
   
8. Port O’Brien – All We Could Do Was Sing
   I’ll be perfectly honest here: it’s really not that good. The first song and Pigeonhold are the best songs, so I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.
   
   Rating: Two nautical themed songs too many.
   
   
9. The Rural Alberta Advantage – Hometowns
   Eh, it’s not bad. It’s nothing to write home to Alberta about, but I’ll still listen to it. However, the song Luciana totally needs to be remastered so that it’s listenable. Also, the Distillers song called Drain the Blood is better than TRAA’s song of the same name.
   
   Rating: Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia PUT TOGETHER!
   
   
10. Shearwater – Rook
    Slow, relatively dull with way too much vibrato in the vocals. What else can I say, you know? Hm....the occasional glockenspiel is both soothing and soporific, if you’re into that sort of thing.
    
    Rating: > pawn, < bishop
    
    
11. Bon Iver – For Emma, Forever Ago
    I don’t know if the story behind the recording of this record makes it better or worse than it actually is (something about a Wisconsin cabin in the middle of winter and ice fishing). Regardless of the story, it’s a pretty good album, but if you get a chance to see him (I think his name is Justin something) live, it’s totally way better. Also, Bon Jovi fans: DO NOT get your hopes up. Even though the names are similar, the music is not.
    
    Rating: A Bucket of ice-fish tacos.
    
    
12. Fleet Foxes – Fleet Foxes
    I’m just listening to it right now, but I can tell from the cover and from the stuff other people have written about it that I’ll like it. I’m pretty predictable. I DO like the first five tracks at least.
    
    Rating: 8 out of 10 canine species.
    
    
13. She & Him – Volume 1
    I got it in the mail yesterday. I’ll let you know.
    
    Rating: ALBUM OF THE YEAR ACCORDING TO PASTE MAGAZINE!!!!!!
    
    
14. My Morning Jacket - Evil Urges
    Don't worry about the album name, it doesn't sound nearly that evil. What it does sound is AWESOME. I appreciate good musicianship. Especially when good musicians rock so hard and are not boring. This doesn't happen often.
    
    Rating: Evel Knievel Urges
    

Full Disclosure: There are exactly zero (0) albums released in 2008 that I own that do not also appear on the list above.


POST-POST BONUS ALBUM: CHINESE F'N DEMOCRACY - G 'N' F'N R!!!


UPDATE: I would like to deny all rumors that I voted in the NPR listeners' poll for best albums of the year. It just LOOKS like I did. Hell, I don't even listen to NPR.

I Can Hit A Target Through A Telescope

Being as I am, I was hopelessly unaware of this band called Flobots who have this song called Handlebars. You've probably all heard it, it's the one that's all "I can ride my bike with no handlebars," and "I can keep the rhythm with no metronome," and "I can end the planet in a holocaust," or something like that. I'd heard people singing the first line about the handlebars and I just sort of assumed it was a cheesy nostalgia-heavy song about "wasn't it fun when we were kids?" But it's not. Instead it's a post-modern investigation of the dialectic of innocence and experience, an almost freudian examination of how our hubris and self-centeredness doesn't change so much in form, only in degree. It's a self-reflexive dia/monologue on the state of politics and our own complicity in the actions of others and the effects of those actions. Where is the line, the song asks, between power and purity? Between strength and delusion? Between confidence and conquest? Between my life and your death, or a billion deaths?

All in all it's probably the most pointed and devastating critique of modern culture to come out of the rap-rock genre (did I mention it's a rap-rock song? No? Oops.) since 1996 when The Bloodhound Gang released their seminal gutter-rap jeremiad "I Wish I Was Queer So I Could Get Chicks."

Pondering the Imponderable

Sometimes I wonder if I'm part of the Solution, or part of the Problem.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm part of the Cure, or part of Joy Division.

Whatever Happens, Happens

This one time, actually it was yesterday, I had to go to the oral surgeons. I hate oral surgeons. He had to pull out two of my 3rd molars. It was not very fun. My face looks really lopsided now.

The good news was that I got to miss work yesterday. It's pretty much a toss-up whether I dislike the oral surgeons or work more. I think I dislike work more because work never gives me hydrocodone.



But other than that, I haven't been up to much, you know. Just mostly sitting around at home and at work, eatin some pizza, learnin about Cuba. I do have a favorite new band of the moment. The National. Don't worry, it's still just regular old twenty-something semi-mopey, semi-orchestral white boy indie rock. You know me, I'm a sucker for that shit. I would say that I am a perfect member of the most predictable demographic, behind 4-7 year old kids that is. We're all semi-elitist, semi-self-aware, semi-rich insufferable bastards who think they're different than the stupid normal Americans. Which is true, I guess. We ARE all the same amount different. But at least I'm not really semi-rich anymore, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

Sixteen Tons, and What Do You Get?

So, I was reading this book the other day. It was pretty good.

Then, after I finished reading the book, I listened to a new CD. It was pretty good, too. Then I listened to it again and it was a little better.

After that, I went to work. It was pretty good.

After I got home from work, I went to some store or another. I was pretty good. Not as good as NOT going to the store, but better than eating a shit sandwich.

Then I started finishing another book. It was pretty good in a different way from the other book that I finished.

Then I went to work again.

List Tuesday: I'd Sing You a Song But They Blew it Away

Songs That May or May Not Be Performed by The Growlers On Their 2007 World Tour

1. American Pie


2. Down On The Corner


3. Mary Jane’s Last Dance


4. Blister in the Sun


5. A Way Back Into Love


6. Dust in the Wind


7. Mr. Jones


8. I’m Gonna Be (1000 Miles)


9. We’re Not Gonna Take It


10. Last Kiss


11. Cinnamon


12. Where Did You Sleep Last Night


13. Pennyroyal Tea


14. Monster Mash


15. Have You Ever Seen The Rain


16. Horse With No Name


17. Jesus Don’t Want Me For A Sunbeam


18. Hard Day’s Night


19. What I got


20. Cotton Fields


21. The Scientist


22. Signs


23. Back In Black


24. You Shook Me All Night Long

Please feel free to suggest more songs for the setlist provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Key of Gmajor


2. No more than one or two Em thrown in

You Are Not My Typewriter

Okay, here's a question for you. Why had I never listened to The Long Winters before? I mean, sheesh, somebody could have told me that I would like them. They are totally right up my insufferable white person, blogging, thinks-he's-too-cool-for-most-things alley! You can even tell all this just by looking at the cover of the album that I stole out of my sister-in-law's former basement bedroom last week. She obviously doesn't need it any more if she didn't take it to San Francisco for college. Probably because, in SF, you're required to act like you're not one of those insufferable people, that you're actually better than them, while actually being one. I can't wait to move there. I would fit right in.

Also, since I've got nothing better to do, here's another list of books that I've read in the last couple weeks.

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy - Probably one of the most bleak books I've ever read. I think it might be allegorical or something. Even if it's not, it's still a very interesting book. It's one of those post-apocalyptic books that's not really a story about the post-apocalypse era. Nothing is ever explained other than that the Man and Boy have to keep walking and walking because everything has been destroyed. Also it rains a lot. Also, cannibalism.



2. The Devil's Larder by Jim Crace - You wouldn't think that a book of 64 short (some very, very short, as in 2 words short) stories all about food could be very interesting, but it is. To be fair, the stories aren't really about food, per se, but it does play heavily in all the stories. Also, pathos, love, irony, sex, death, poop, poison, comedy and drugs.



3. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - Huh, turns out I'm probably a Beta, possibly a Beta-plus. If you haven't read the book, that means that I'm born to be a consumer who doesn't like to fix anything and would rather buy it new and who also dislikes the actual country but loves country sports. That way, I buy lots of sporting equipment to use in the country and thus consume more. Spending is better than mending. Also, it's a very funny book. Also herds of midgets and vomiting.



4. 1984 by Erich Blair aka George Orwell - You want a picture of the future? Picture a boot stomping on a human face forever. F'n Big Brother, man. He sucks. Also, I love Big Brother.



5. Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut - Nothing to say, really, but that this is a collection of short stories. Some are good (The Euphio Question), some are really good (Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow), and some are not so good (I don't remember what they were called). Also, the Handicapper General shoots people with shotguns.



One more thing, to save you time next time I write a list of books that I've read recently you can check the list below of books in my quick trick book stack to see if you're at all interested. Just so you know.

The Quick Trick Book Stack (to be read in no particular order)



• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath


• The Population Bomb by Paul Erlich


• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn


• Raising Cain by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson


• Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson


• The Final Solution by Michael Chabon


• The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro


• Narcissus and Goldmund by Herman Hesse


• The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco


• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad


Any more suggestions? Once winter starts next month, there is literally nothing to do but read.

Then it Becomes a River

Well, since all I ever do around here anymore is give lists of things I've recently read, watched or listened do, I figured I might as well keep doing that! So here's some brief and superfluous notes on some albums I've recenly bought, borrowed, checked out from the library or otherwise listened to.

Sky Blue Sky by Wilco
If you like Wilco already, I'm sure you'll like this one too. It's very pretty and soulful. It is also a little bit of a downer, but so is life in general, so it's all good. The best songs are Impossible Germany, Side with the Seeds and Hate it Here. I would recommend that you listen to it while sitting in your office staring at your computer screen blankly and wondering how in the world you got yourself into this.


Nevermind by Nirvana<
Nobody needs me to say anything about this. For some reason, we didn't already own this. Well one thing I can say is that the album artwork for this album definitely aged better than the art for the next album in this list. The next one is almost comical.

Ten by Pearl Jam
Again, nothing I can say will add anything to the world. However, the fold out album art of the band members standing all together in a circle with their hands raised together is funny. It's like they are trying to be a football team or something.

Southernplayalisticadillacmuzic
This is Outkast's first album. I borrowed it from a friend of mine at work who basically only likes it because he thinks that teh Outkast guys are fellow conspiracy theorists, which, in all fairness, they might be. Other than their references to disease engineering and white plots to kill the black man, the album is very rap-of-the-mill.

Live at Stubb's by Matisyahu
An album full of mediocre (at best) reggae rap...BUT the rapper dude is a white Hasidic Jew! So it's cool in a Weird Al kind of novelty way, so I guess it has that going for it.

The Else by They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants' 12th album! It's okay! It comes with a full length bonus disc! THe bonus disc is at least as good as the actual album! It contains one of the best stalker songs I've ever heard! And a song about drunk driving! And a song about nuts that my son already knows! Are you convinced to go out and buy it? No?? Well, imagine my shock.

Some Loud Thunder by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah!
Holy cow. I can't believe these guys were indie rock darlings! Not bad, but certainly nothing to right home about in ridiculous overwrought metaphors and forced significance. Plus, the song titles are borderline stupid. Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning? , Upon Encountering the Crippled Elephant, Satan Said Dance? Seriously?

Everybody's Eyes Are Closed

The other day I was going for a walk at lunch. It's just this thing I do now since I don't have a train station to walk to anymore. Sure the walking is pointless but it's marginally better than sitting at my desk reading conspiracy theories on the internet. Well, anyway, this one day I saw some trash on the side of the road. But not just any trash, I see that ever day. No, on this day, I saw a CD lying there. So I thought to myself, "yes! A free CD! It's my lucky day!" But as I was bending down to pick it up, I noticed that it was cracked. Since I was already bending down to pick it up, I figured that I might as well just pick it up and throw it away when I got back to work. I was still pretty bummed though. I likes me some music. All my disappointment evaporated, however, when I actually picked it up and looked at what album it was. It was a Fall Out Boy album.

I can think of no better thing to happen to a Fall Out Boy album (or U2 album) than to be unceremoniously tossed out the window of a moving car and dashed to bits on our brutal, unforgiving asphalt dystopia. I decided at that point that I would ceremoniously burn the album in an ancient pagan ritual called.......uh, what the hell am I talking about????

I Came Back as a Bag of Groceries

Well, it's that time again folks.

*everybody shouts "WHAT TIME IS IT?"*



It's time for more rambling reviews of some CDs I recently bought!

*everybody shouts "YAY!!!"*




Funeral – Arcade Fire: I'd downloaded this one a long time ago so it's not like I'd never heard it before or anything. But still, it sounds way better in full quality on my car stereo (I now drive 14 miles each way to work every day. Ugh.) than it did in 128kbps quality on my crummy, standard-issue iPod headphones. There are lots of pros to this album: sweeping soundscapes, poignant if melodramatic songwriting, grand instrumentation etc etc. However, there's a big con: poor, poor packaging. I want to listen to the CD, not spend all my time figuring out how to remove it from the stupid cardboard sleeve. Once you get it out, I would recommend not ever putting it back in.

P.S. Mike, you would like this, I'm pretty sure. They use a hurdy-gurdy.




The Greatest – Cat Power: This album is the sauce to Mama Cass's ham sandwich. I mean that it's so full of stuff you might choke on it. Wait, no, that's not what I mean at all. Crap. Um, it's an album full of songs by a chick singer with a large dollop of Al Green, a cherry of Van Morrison on top and Carole King noodles. Not really good driving music, but good for, you know, sitting around, eating goldfish crackers and drinking a limited release Phat Abbot Tripel Belgian Style Ale by Arbor Brewing Company.

P.S. It appears that Michigan has some pretty decent breweries.



Wincing the Night Away – The Shins: (At this point in the post it is okay to start thinking, "what is all this indie BS? Is this guy some sort of, like, wannabe cool person who just follows all the popular streams in 'indie rock'?" Well, pretty much yes) If you've heard of this album, and who hasn't, you've probably heard that it's good. I won't abuse your illusion because it's not an illusion. This is a good album. Well, if you like their first two it is. Maybe even if you didn't like them it still is. I wouldn't know because I did like them and I can't exactly go back in time and unlike them. Who do you think I am? Buck Freaking Rogers?

P.S. The addition of some electronic instruments and stuff pushes this album from good to great.

P.P.S. Isn't Zach Braff so dreamy?
< /obligatory_zach_braff_mention_required_in_all_reviews_of_the_shins>




A Weekend in the City – Bloc Party: With a name like Block Party you'd kinda expect a hip-hop group or sumpin', right? But did you see? It's not "block," it's "bloc." Like the communist bloc! Get it! It's a subtle (or semi-reasonable facsimile thereof) reference to politics! Ha! How'd they ever come up with that?! But anyway, this one is not as good as their first one. I mean, it's still good and all, I just wouldn't write home about it.

P.S. I would write here about it though. In fact, I just did!



Neon Bible – Arcade Fire: I picked this up yesterday for $7.98 at, get this, Target (if you call it "Tar-zhay" I will, well, I probably won't be able to do anything about it because I am way up here in northern south-east Michigan). $7.98? Man, that is less than I paid for toilet paper at Target and all I'm going to use the toilet paper for is, um, well, you know. So first I thought I could just save money by using this CD as toilet paper but then they only had one copy left and it's made out of plastic and cardboard and stuff which is really not that comfortable to use as toilet paper. So instead, I listened to it. And I'm glad I did because I really like it. It's even more melodramatic than Funeral (seriously, "mirror, mirror on the wall, show me where them bombs will fall?" Melo. Drama.) It's also a lot angrier and bitterer than Funeral. Which is good because I'm pretty angry and bitter most of the time. Musically, it is, if anything, an expansion on their earlier sound. It's got huge church organs droning sometimes even. Plus, it's got 11 songs. Spooky.

P.S. Mike, you would like this one too I think.

P.P.S. This is a bogus review because I've only had a chance to listen to it up through track 8.

This post has 10 links

LIST TUESDAY! DETROIT ROCK CITY!!!

So, for certain reasons, I visited the lovely city of Detroit yesterday (City Motto: Now only the SECOND most dangerous city in the country!). Basically, the only time I listen to the radio is when I go to Detroit and rent a car and forget to bring any CDs or remember to bring CDs but the car is only equipped with a tape player. Seriously. This is what happened yesterday. It's like they built a time machine to bring a car from 1997 to the present just to rent it out and annoy me. Stupid Ford. Anyway, I was listening to 89X, "Detroit/Windsor's only New Rock Alternative!" By the way, Windsor is in Canada. I think maybe Detroit is too. I'm not sure. But that is beside the point. What is so close to the point that it can actually be proven to be the point through simple mathematical analysis is this: a list of songs I heard on the radio.

SONGS I HEARD ON 89X DETROIT'S ONLY NEW ROCK ALTERNATIVE

1. Some song by My Chemical Romance: It starts out with some almost springsteenian lyrics about going to see a marching band with your dad with a nice, insistent drum cadence and builds up to an almost epic sound. All in the first 30 seconds. Then it devolves into your basic emo, pop-goth crap completely indistinguishable from approximately 50% of the songs I heard yesterday. Well, not completely indistinguishable. There was this one part with some awesome squealing guitars that sound almost like Poison or something.


2. Candlebox - Does it really matter what song? Well, okay it was their one hit from I think 1993. Confession time: This is almost of Postsecret caliber - I once voluntarily attended a Candlebox concert in the Yakima SunDome. Wow, it feels good to have that off my chest.


3. Another song by My Chemical Romance. Or maybe Ashes of Soma. Or maybe the Used. Or maybe Chevelle. I know I heard songs by all of those guys because the DJ told me so. I just can't tell the difference. Really, I can't. I must be getting old.


4. That one Green Day song that rips off the rhythm and chord progression from Chicago's "25 or 6 to 4." Another song from 1994! I felt like I was back in middle school playing hackey sack! By the way, compared to the the pop-punk/goth/whatevs stuff this song is not bad. It's almost dirgey and not at all emo. If you don't know what "emo" means, it means whining about how sucky life is and how some girl betrayed you and maybe you should go cut her, or maybe yourself. Green Day on the other hand, whom I don't really like but appear to have real potential to be a three decade band, got big by writing about being bored and stoned and lazy without being all depressive like those grunge %*#$ers. That's a much better reflection of the zeitgeist of the younger generations because it will last. Being a whiny self-obsessed, mopey teenager only lasts a few years. Being lazy lasts forever.


5. Some song about a ghost. Maybe by Sleater-Kinney. It was actually really good. If you know what I'm talking about, please tell me what it is.


6. Nickelback. Hey, they're Canadian too! That qualifies as a rock "alternative," right?


7. Another song by My Chemical Romance


8. Audioslave? Oh yeah! The one's with the Soundgarden guy! Man, remember Soundgarden? They were all "black hole sun, don't you come" and then that chick's face was melting off! Sweet!"


9. The Toadies song about asking someone if they want to die or something. It still kicks butt. Just like 7Mary3. Chugging, slow guitar riffs are to a Nokia-brand cell phone what industrial staplers are to orange elm leaves. Yeah.


10. Three Days Grace? Is that a band?


11. Snow Patrol. Or should I call them......SLOW Patrol? HA HA HA HA HA! Because of their slow tempos? Get it? Get it? Thank you, I'll be here all week!


12. Another song by My Chemical Romance


13. An ad for a concert by My Chemical Romance

Oh yeah, I also read a book yesterday in airports and airplanes: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. I think this was the fourth time I have read it. It's only 139 pages long. But it is really good. It has now officially entered my top five books ever. The list now looks like this....

A TON OF BRICKS'S TOP FIVE BOOKS EVER

1. Catch-22


2. One Hundred Years of Solitude


3. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich


4. Lonesome Dove


5. Any book by Thomas Pynchon, none of which I have read, but if someone asks, will claim to have read and really really like.

Beating a Dead House

So we just finished this book. It was pretty good. We bought it in the Seattle airport on Tuesday morning. The airport is where we like to buy all our books about airplanes crashing. It just fits. Anyway, the book was called Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Here is a review for you. It even has a bow on it and some expensive wrapping paper.

It is a good book.

Hm, that's too short...Shall we get all loquacious and/or pretentious? Okay.

First, let us say that there are some very disturbing parallels, well, maybe parallels is to generous a word, more like identicals between the protaganist in EL&IC and the narrator of Gunter Grass's The Tin Drum: both are named Oskar (Schell and Matzerath respectively). Both are relatively strange children who obsessively play percussion instruments among many other idiosyncracies. Maybe it's just a tribute to Grass, I don't know. Anyway, this review is boring. Long story short, the book uses all the classic modernist cliches, time jumps/mixed-up chronology, multiple narratory viewpoints, intentional misspelings, etc. Mr. Foer even throws in diagrams and pictures a la James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake (which, by the way is not a real book. It looks like a book but no one in recorded history has ever been able to finish it. Anyone that tells you that they read the whole thing is a liar, even your English professors. They are so just pretending). He uses these affectations to tell an interesting and well imagined story about a boy whose father was killed in 9/11. He also throws in a Vonnegutian (Vonnegut-esque? Vonnegutious? Vonnegut-like?) sequence about the bombing of Dresden in WWII. Blah blah blah we couldn't put it down, so now we're finished with it. Hm? Not enough literary references? Okay, well we suppose you could also compare it to the recent novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon in that both are written from the perspective of a precocious/disturbed child on a quest and are intentionally disorienting, probably as a reflection of the ennui/fear/overinformed/cynical/confused zeitgeist of our time. Whatever that means. We just made it up right now. Someone put us on the back of a book cover. We want to be blurbed.

Oh yeah, we also bought some CDs.

Wolfmother - Wolfmother: It sounds like Black Sabbath, the Doors, The Who, AC/DC, and the Clash went on a drunken bender and fell down six flights of stairs only to land one right on top of the other in a giant ice-cube tray and then got doused with 56 gallons of putrid, three-week old bath water. So yeah, it rules.

The French Kicks - One Time Bells: Sound like the Strokes. But the CD was only $1.99 in the used bin, so....

Van Morrison - Moondance: Into the Mystic is perhaps the best single-take song ever recorded. Perhaps.

Matador Records Thingy: Also from the used bin. It is a veritable cornucopia Jack-o-lantern (it's still October) of "popular" indie bands like Cat Power, the New Pornographers, Belle & Sebastian etc. It's not bad. We're listening to it right now infact. Our favorite is Brightblack Morning Light.


We are going to Chicago for three days next week. Look for pictures of birds. And snow.

List Tuesday is Back?

That's right all none of you! List Tuesday is back with a vengeance. Well, not so much a vengeance as a mild disapprobation of the current situation.



The Absolute Worst Order of Songs from OK Computer and How Did my iPod End Up With This Travesty of a Playlist?

1. Airbag - Yes! That's so totally right!


2. Electioneering - What? I, who, uh, what?


3. Who cares, it's already all screwed up. What kind of idiot would put the songs in this order? It just doesn't make any sense. I quit.


4. Paradise City

Walkin' Down To Camptown

So, the brickfamily and I went camping this weekend in West Virginia. It was cool. The first time we've ever been camping in a deciduous forest, so we had that going for us.

I won't bore you with everything we did but here's a couple notes from the trip.

Have you ever seen those "tractor crossing" road signs? No? Me neither, until this weekend. They look like this....

I know what you are thinking: "that's a cute little sign with a generic guy in a cool hat riding on a generic tractor." Well guess what, you are wrong. I saw the sign model this weekend. He lives in Virginia, right near the WVA border and he drives a John Deere. He's even cooler in real life than he is on the sign. Seriously.


When we ran out of ice in our cooler, we decided to drive down to the near-by town of Wardensville. After about a mile (after 4 miles of dirt road to get back to the highway) we had to pull over and make sure we were headed the right way. For a minute I thought we turned the wrong way and instead of heading further into West Virginia we had ended up in South Carolina. I guess that's just what happens when I see two confederate flags flying on specially installed flagpoles in front of a house. It turned out that we were going the right way and that there are just racist hosers in West Virginia too. I'm kind of scared to go back. Also, since, in addition to ice, we needed to find somewhere to drop off our bag of trash, we thought the best place was all over the lawn of the racists. So I'm really afraid to go back.

On Saturday, we decided to go find another campground listed in our awesome book (someone has already written this book for Washington State. I wanted to do that!). It was about 20 miles from the one we were staying at (which totally ruled by the way). On the way there we passed through what can only be described as the suburbs of Wardensville. Along the way we saw a roadkilled something-or-other. Knowing what I do about the folks in West Virginia (this was just after we saw the Confederate flags), we decided we should probably stop, pick up the roadkill and go give it to someone. They eat that stuff for dinner right? But, the Brickson was asleep, so we figured we'd better not stop this time. When we came back, it was gone, so I guess somebody got it.

This has nothing to do with camping really, but Ryan and Holly, if you ever read this (I know you don't), I wanted to let you know how much of an influence you had on our son. The whole trip he wanted to "listen to Ryan and Holly singing!" He likes to sing along to the guitar parts (doo-doo-doo-dooo-dah-doooo) and gets really excited when he hears the "hollycup." I think he means "melodica" with that last one, but I'm not sure. Everytime a song ends he says "what's next, daddy? What's next?" So, all this to say, thanks, because now I don't have to listen to crappy kids music for two straight hours. I bet you didn't know you were making kids music, did you?

List Tuesday: Thursday Edition

All-time Best Song Parts (Not Neccessarily the Whole Song, Just Part of It That Is Really Good. The Rest of the Song Might Suck)

1. That one part in Whole Lotta Love off Led Zeppelin II right after the sorta spacey part with all the moaning and cymbals when the guitar comes in and it's all "Dunh Dunh. Bwowh-dee-deedley-deedley-dee. Dunh Dunh. Bwoh-dee-deedley-deedley-diggadum. Dunh Dunh. Doo-dee-doo-doo-dee-doo..." Man, I love that part.



2. That one part in What is and What Should Never Be from Led Zeppelin II when the guitar part is alternating between the left channel and the right channel and it's all "dunh-uh(R) dunh-uh(L) Dunh-uh(R) dunh-uh(L) dunh-uhn-dun(R). You know the part. It rules.



3. That one part from Bring it on Home off Led Zeppelin II (at this point I am thinking about making the list Best Song Parts From Led Zeppelin II) when the harmonica and bass intro transitions to the main riff part and it's all "dun-neener-eenah, bwow-digga-digga-dum, doodle-doodle-doo bwow-digga-duh.."



4. That part from Baba O'Riley about 41 seconds in where the big bashing piano chords start. Gives me goosebumps every time.



5. The whole intro part to Paradise City by G 'n' F'n R. It lasts for more than one minute is totally badical. Especially when the guitar comes in and it's all Baaaaaaa-bigga-baaaaaah chika-baaaaaaah chika-baaaaaaah chika baaaaaaah. And then Slash comes in on the lead guitar and I won't spell out that part, but is bodacious.



6. Basically all of You Shook Me All Night Long off Back in Black but we'll call the intro the best part. And the guitar solo. Any self-respecting guitarist had darn well better know at least the intro riff and preferably the whole thing. The greatest high school dance rock song of all time.



7. The Clarence saxophone solo right about two minutes into Born to Run by Springsteen and E St. Band. Best. Sax. Solo. Ever. Not that that says a whole lot, but still.



8. THe last minute or so of First Wave Intact by the Secret Machines. It's so loud and cacaphonous that it blows you away. Plus, the final snare beat that ends the song sounds like a gunshot, which is cool.



9. The very end of Wake Up by Arcade Fire when whatever-the-hell-his-name-is screams "You better look out below!" I also like the string action going on there.



10. The part from Sabotage by the Beastie Boys when they're all "listen all y'all it's a sabotage, listen all y'all it's a sabotage...." getting louder and louder and shit. Also, how many of you saw this one coming? Everyone? Well, what did I expect. As a white boy who likes rock, I think I'm required to say something along the lines of "nah, I don't really like rap. Except for the Beastie Boys and Tribe Called Quest. And Jurassic 5." I'm pretty sure it's a Federal law.



11. The guitar solo at the end of Sultans of Swing by the Dire Straits. I won't even try to sound it out, it's too fast.



12. I would say the opening chords to Smells Like Teen Spirit, but that's way to obvious. How about the part from Nirvana's Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge on Seattle when the lyrics are "She'll come back as fire, and burn all the liars, leave a blanket of ash on the ground." That is some good stuff. In Utero is another totally sweet record.



13. The second part of Paranoid Android off of OK Computer. It starts at about 2:20 and is so radical that it makes my eyes hurt and my hair catch on fire. Actually this just happened once.


I think that this is about enough for right now. Wait, I just thought of one more!



14. The very end of every single U2 song. You know, the part where it stops playing and you don't have to listen to it anymore. I love that part.

I Give Up

Well, the death of this blog might be on the horizon. I couldn't be cynical today, and without that, my blog persona's got nothing. Nothing.

I wanted to say something cynical and funny about this house concert that I went to last night, but I can't. It was too good.

Dang it, Ryan and Holly!

Everyone else: I highly recommend The Cobalt Season's But I Tell You.

Ahhh, that's the life...

I decided that if I could be any rock star in history, I would be Tom Petty.

First of all, the brickwife thinks he's sexy (don't ask me why, I mean, have you ever seen a picture of the guy??) so I'd have that going for me.

Second, he's a musical genius, but not in the way you usually think of that term. I would wager that half of his songs are in the key of G. The other half are probably in Am. But that's the beauty of this guy! His songs are so simple, yet so good! Almost every one is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, verse, chorus. And yet somehow, they're all different! It rules. Also, he doesn't mess around with weird instrumentation either. One or two guitars, a bass, drums, maybe some keys of some kind, and that's it. That's the great thing about the "standard" rock band set up, it's so simple, and yet so variable.

Third, he's just famous enough. He doesn't have any rabid fans (think parrotheads or U2 fans) that are total lunatics, but he's definitely got a lot of fans. He still plays big arenas, but the tickets are relatively cheap.

Fourth, he got to be in the Traveling Wilburys. How cool would that have been to work and record alongside Dylan, Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne? Pretty damn sweet.

Plus, I bet he has a lot of money.

Which I don't care about.


Yes I do.