Music is My Radar

My wife and I had a party this past weekend - perhaps our most successful yet - to celebrate the arrival of spring and some friends visiting from Atlanta, and to mourn the back-yard deck that never was. (Long story.) Anyway, many of our blogolicious friends were in attendance: godbless, upupdowndown, fearlessvk, hifidelity, and fieldguide. (BTW, referring to my friends by their blog handles rather than their names makes me more than a little uneasy. But then, so does beginning a sentence with “BTW.”) At one point late in the evening, as beer made room for scotch, fearlessvk and some others and I were sitting around the living room, chatting on about something or other, as a succession of people passed through my wife’s and my home office, intending to examine my CD collection. (I would say our CD collection, but most of what we have filed away is mine. I mean, technically, yes, it is ours, in the legal/marital-property sense, but that’s like saying that my wife’s yoga clothes are ours. Accurate, but misleading.)

Point of order: I do not feel like I have a particularly large CD collection. By my most recent and highly inaccurate estimate, I have about 750 CDs, including albums, EPs, singles, and box-sets. Yes, I realize that is probably hundreds more than the average bear, especially now that music is rapidly becoming a predominantly downloaded commodity, but compared to other people I know, 750 is paltry.

Granted, if you consider my entire music library - those 750-odd CDs, plus almost 23,000 mp3s and a few hundred vinyl records - I do have an ass-ton of music, but my CD library is only a part of that, albeit the fastest growing. As I’ve written before, I tend to buy CDs with near-reckless abandon, almost on a spur-of-the-moment basis. Today for example, I was listening to Icebreaker International, a pretty solid IDM group with at least one quite excellent CD. As I was listening I remembered how much I like the one CD of theirs I have, their first. So I decided to hop on amazon to see what other releases were available. The end result? I bought their second album. I chose a used copy (how thrifty I am with my profligate spending), so with tax and shipping included, it was about $16.

(I do feel like I got a good deal at least; the only other copy for sale was priced at $45. Such is the market and its price system.)

Hmmm … perhaps discussing my CD-buying habits is not the best way to convince people that my CD collection is actually quite modest. Point taken. But again, compared to past friends, one of whom, having discovered a new band, would go ahead and buy the entire CD catalogue of that band, not just the most recent or highest rated album, I’m doing OK.

Let’s see, what was I talking about … ah yes, the surveying of my CD collection by my friends. After disappearing into the office for a moment to have her own look at my library, fearlessvk emerged and proclaimed ‘Here is why I love ________ (me)’ and plopped a CD on the coffee table. It was Attack of the Killer B’s by Anthrax. Other than being flattered at my friend’s praise, I was mildly surprised, as I hadn’t seen the CD, let alone listened to it, in quite some time. Admittedly, it’s my only Anthrax CD; I never was a fan of speed metal.

So why do I own it? One song, really: “Pipeline.” I was in college at the time, listening to the campus radio station on my crappy yet loud stereo, when I heard this amazing cover of an old surf-rock song I used to listen to when I was a kid. I was most familiar with the Ventures‘ version of the song (and with an album cover like this, is it any wonder I developed an early appreciation of surf-rock?) but new that numerous other bands had covered it as well. The version I heard that day on the radio was louder, faster, crunchier, and all around more exciting than the relatively mild original. I was fairly well impressed, so I called the DJ and asked the provenance of the song. It was a cover version by Anthrax, and so I dashed out and bought the CD.

Soon I began to appreciate the other tracks on the CD: an excellent cover of “Parasite” by KISS; the manifesto cum two-step/thrash anthem “Startin’ Up a Posse;” and the first rap/metal song ever, “Bring the Noize.” But I never ventured into the Anthrax catalogue outside of this CD. In a way, it makes me feel like the “Easter Christians” I would silently mock when I was a regular church-goer: the people who attended services on holidays but never any other time.

This is an issue I’ve visited in a past post, that except for the poppy, catchy songs within a particular genre I would otherwise ignore, I tend to stick with very Beatlesque music. Don’t get me wrong: I do love me some metal, and spent quite a few years in my younger days listening to all manner of heavier music. But what I keep returning to are the songs that have that undeniable hook, chorus, or whatever. Metal for metal’s sake doesn’t cut it.

I can say that for a time, Anthrax was on regular rotation at Chez Moi, and for that I will always hold a special place in my heart for the group, if for no other reason their willingness to push the boundaries of what was then considered metal and their unwillingness to take themselves too seriously. Perhaps I’ll return to my limited Anthrax collection soon and have a nostalgic listen to Attack, but in the meantime, I have many other groups with whom I want to spend some time, including M83, Tapes ‘n Tapes, and the Shout Out Louds, all of whom have released new albums recently, and none of whom I’ve heard. And of course, as summer approaches, I’ll need to dust off my summer-themed music selections and trot them ’round my iPod for a time.

Anyway, thanks to fearlessvk for reminding me of a CD I used to love and now ignore, and for appreciating my paltry but growing CD collection.

Hi everyone.  I want to take a brief moment to some friends who’ve not only visited Music is My Radar but also linked to the site.  They are my local friends fieldguide and fearlessvk who both have fantastic blogs of their own.  Also, selfreliantfilm has recently started lurking these halls, and has his own fantastic blog about the art and craft of self-reliant film-making (as the name implies)

Bonus props to fearlessvk who went so far as to devote an entire blog post to my blog.  Kind of makes me think of this song:

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I have mixed feelings about ________. Sometimes I really enjoy hearing ________ but other times it absolutely puts me in a funk. The reason why I am using ________ to describe what I’m talking about is that I don’t know what else to call it. I could use the term electroclash, but that doesn’t appear to fit well with the type of music I have in mind. Electro-pop or indie electronic (or electronica) work pretty well too, but seem overly broad. So instead of trying to describe the style of music I’m thinking of, I’ll give you an example: Ladytron.

First, what a great name. Ladytron has to be one of the most appropriately named bands I’ve ever heard. (The B-52s are another example of that.) The band has a strong female presence and sounds very mechanized, though not always in a dispassionate way. Robotish though they are, the band can rock. I’ve had a collection of Ladytron mp3s in my library for quite some time now, but have only recently gotten around to spending any time with them. In fact, I have all of their full-length albums (604, Light & Magic, and Witching Hour), but none of their EPs, singles, or remixes. (Click here for an exhaustive list of their releases.) I must confess that I’ve bought none of their albums; all were obtained from friends. I suppose if the band ever comes to Memphis, I should buy them dinner to make up for my largesse. Anyway, after spending a day or two at the office listening to Ladytron as I grade papers or manipulate data in SAS, I can honestly say that I like the band. The vocals are really wonderful and the instrumentation elegantly walks the fine line between programmed keyboards and the feel of a live band.

So why the mixed feelings? Part of it is that I don’t care much for many of the bands that were pioneers in that style of music. Sure, I love New Order, but I’ve never been much for Joy Division, Depeche Mode, or Gary Numan (catchy hits excepted.) There’s something lost for me in the sound. A little iciness goes a long way, I guess. But mostly it’s the, well, bleakness in it all. I realize I’m painting with really broad brush strokes here, so forgive me if I oversimplify, but the combination of electronic or programmed instrumentation (by itself just fine) with bleak lyrics and minor keys is a real downer. Not that I need a spoonful of sugary pop in order to make a song palatable (I do like New Order, remember?), but some semblance of something other than utter despair is nice. (Again, broad brush strokes.)

Further, I’ve always been very easily affected emotionally by whatever music happens to be on at the time. Sad music makes me sad, and profoundly so. I remember walking around Home Depot one morning on some errand and one of those gawd awful 80s ballads came on - something about break-ups or love lost, probably by Phil Collins - and I very rapidly felt very sad, despite the fact that I have a strong marriage and a wonderful wife. I mean, really. Verklempt in the lumber aisle. Sheesh.

All of this is prelude to my most recent Song of the Moment, “Sugar” by Ladytron. It’s off their third album, Witching Hour, and its just gorgeous. Watch the video after the jump.

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Greetings. A few weeks ago I wrote a Crush of the Day entry on the Go-Betweens, an Australian jangle-pop band from the 1980s that recently reformed, albeit with half the original line up, guitarists and singer/songwriters Robert Forster and Grant McClellen. Anyway, apparently Mr. Forster is releasing a new solo album in a few weeks, The Evangelist.

Also, apparently Grant McClellen died a couple of years ago, and I completely failed to mention that in my original post. Sorry, Grant. Didn’t mean to pass over your passing.

One last item - this marks my 20th posting on Music is my Radar, a milestone I had never passed on any previous blog or writing project. Thanks to all who have read and commented. I will keep the drivel flowing.

I noticed today that I hadn’t been to the altar lately to confess my musical sins. Not that I haven’t tried to think of a particularly embarrassing song or group on occasion; I guess I don’t have overly shameful taste in music. (Your bullshit detector should be ringing loudly now. If not, get it recalibrated.) So there I was, sitting at my desk at work, staring at a pile of ungraded assignments, unfinished research, and unreviewed … um … reviews, and it hit me. One of the most ridiculously obscenely bad songs ever to grace my musical library. A relic from the most disgraceful periods in popular music history. What could it be?

The era in question is the hair metal explosion of the 1980s, specifically its latter period. For fans of the genre, late 1970s/early 1980s British metal is among the best metal money can be. Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, early Def Leppard even. Sadly though, the metal of the mid to late 1980s paled in comparison to its progenitors, as style replaced substance and record sales took prominence over riffing. This unfortunate changing of the guard occurred just as my musical preferences were being formed. As a fat, depressed middle school boy, the minimal musicianship, macho posturing, and ridiculous costumes were just what I wanted. (As an aside, you should really question how rebellious and dangerous you actually are if you core audience is pre-pubescent boys. Just sayin’.)

I remember visiting family in Huntsville, Alabama, around this time, where my Uncle Hugh, Aunt Jena, and cousins Leigh (now Nancy), Martin, and Jennifer lived. I’ve always looked fondly on that group of cousins; growing up, they were just old enough to be cool, but not so old that they wouldn’t hang out with my brother and me - or, more accurately, let us hang out with them. Each of them also had a very distinct musical personality, with very little overlap between them. Jennifer, the youngest, very much favored New Wave groups like Duran Duran and OMD. It was through Martin that I first heard about ZZ Top, years before they became unexpected MTV darlings. Leigh, the oldest, was into all things metal, as her mountain of jet black and teased hair would have clearly indicated.

I remember one time in Leigh’s room, she pulled out an album (yes, album, as in LP, 12″, 33 and 1/3, and so on) of some new metal group. The front cover had the group member’s photos and band logo. I remember looking at the pictures thinking, Wow, I didn’t realize that hot chicks could play metal. She then flipped the record over and revealed that the chicks were in fact dudes, leading me to have a brief moment of sexual-orientation horror, as my pre-hormonal genitals shriveled ever so slightly. Anyway, here is the album cover in question.

Oh yeah, it’s Poison. Without a doubt one of the most embarrassing bands ever to pick up a can of Aqua-Net. After hitting it big with the above album, they rapidly began to suck and were soon cast off to the side as grunge and gangsta rap laid early claim on the 1990s.

Beyond seeing the above album cover, my early exposure to Poison was via MTV, which at the time did not suck quite as hard as it does today. Poison’s video for “Talk Dirty to Me” was in heavy rotation for a while, and at the time, I just thought it was the coolest thing. Watch the video after the jump and see for yourself.

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This is getting ridiculous. As my faithful readers of this blog (full disclosure: no one reads this blog) might have noticed, I’ve been on a bit of a CD buying spree lately. And by lately, I mean since about 1990. But seriously, I have been shelling out the bucks for some shiny plastic disks lately, something that in the not-too-distant past would have been difficult if not impossible (financial constraints, you know). When this binge began, probably about a year ago, I mostly stuck to buying full-length CDs; at least an hour of music for around $15, maybe $1 per song. Lately though, I’ve fallen back into a habit I developed back in college, that of spending $5 or more on a CD single or EP with maybe one or two non-album tracks. To give you an idea of the extent of my addiction, here’s a list of the EPs and singles I’ve bought since August of last year. I’ve also included the number of non-album songs on each release. (By the way, there is no way in hell I’m going to look up all the links for all the songs and groups and EPs on wikipedia like I normally do. Copy, paste, and google if you need more information.)

• Quicksand Memory by Ulrich Schnauss. Three non-album songs plus an edited version of “Medusa,” from the recent album Goodbye.
• Peacebone and Grass by Animal Collective. Five b-sides total, two of which are remixes of “Peacebone.” All of which are hopelessly weird.
• Melody Day by Caribou. Beautiful song from a brilliant album. Two tracks.
• All My Friends by LCD Soundsystem. An edited version of the album track, a cover version by Franz Ferdinand (so incestuous is indie rock), and a 12-minute piece of crap called “Freak Out/Starry Eyes.” James Murphy should have paid me to buy the song.
• EP and Hustler by Simian Mobile Disco. The former has three bonus cuts, the latter has four remixes of a song I never liked to begin with. What exactly was I thinking?
• Tender, Country House, M.O.R., Charmless Man, and It Could Be You by Blur. OK, these were gifts from a friend (thanks, Kerry!), but I would have bought them anyway. Altogether, seven new songs, three remixes and three live songs. Not bad, but it could have been expensive.
• Today is the Day by Yo La Tengo. Five b-sides, including an acoustic live (?) version of “Cherry Chapstick,” my favorite YLT song. Really, the EP could have had fifteen minutes of Ira mumbling in his sleep and I’d still buy it.
• Mansize Rooster and Going Out by Supergrass. Two new songs each, although one is a live song and another I already had on a bonus version of In It For the Money.
• Dixie-Narco by Primal Scream. Three tracks, plus the song “Screamadelica,” which somehow didn’t make it onto the album of the same name. (Of course, Led Zeppelin started that trend years ago.)
• I Want To Be Adored by The Stone Roses. Two new songs, plus an edited version of the title track.

Here’s where it gets really effing ridiculous.

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I’m a big fan of serendipity (or is it synchronicity?) when it comes to the happenings of a particular moment and whatever song would best complement the moment. Put less awkwardly, I love it when the perfect song arrives at the perfect time. This can happen because of artful jukebox-programming, particularly fortunate random shuffling in one’s song list (or CD player, for those hopelessly clinging to the 20th century), or just dumb luck. As an example, I remember many years ago at one of the now-legendary Halloween parties my apartment complex in Decatur used to host, someone had tossed Run-DMC’s greatest hits CD in the changer. This of course was back before we had DJs or bands (or iPods, for that matter) provide the entertainment, and had to rely on our CD collections and some democratic process for disk rotation. Anyway, just as the party was swelling with revelers, just as the beer was making everyone prettier and more entertaining, just as the night was peaking, “It’s Tricky” came up in the mix. Maybe I was the only one that felt it, how the energy and drunkenness and the song seemed to converge and multiply, but it really made me appreciate how one song, and often only one song, can complete a moment. When this happens, when that perfect song arrives, it is as though the gods themselves were programming the great celestial jukebox. Of course, it can leave one perpetually searching for that perfect song and in the process missing the moment the song is to accompany. But this post is about one search perfect song, not missed opportunities.

The song in question is “Ginger” by Lilys. (You can listen to a 30-second clip from the song here if you have Windows Media Player installed.) I don’t remember where I first heard of Lilys; perhaps emusic, perhaps friends. Regardless, after some time of sitting unlistened in my music library, I decided to give the band a try. As it happened, the songs were sorted by album, and the first album in the list was A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns. “Ginger” was the first song on the record. I can’t do a great job of describing the song, and a 30-second clip doesn’t do it justice (the song itself is over five minutes long), but I’ll try.

It begins with a slow crescendo of ride-cymbal taps and guitar riffing. Once the song begins the guitars swell and blend with the bass and drums into a near wall of sound, not unlike My Bloody Valentine’s poppier moments. The signature riff repeats throughout the song, both in the slower, quieter moments, and in the most exuberant. I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the riff, other than to say that it is pleasantly Sonic Youth-y and Yo La Tengo-y and all the other bands I love-y. (Unfortunately, you can’t hear the riff in the clip above.) The song returns repeatedly to the intro section, slowing a bit as it does. It is very repetitive, I admit, but maybe that’s why I like it.  Plus the vocals are weirdly messy, which I also like.

Anyway, I don’t remember when I was first grabbed by the song, but since then, it’s figured into several moments of personal significance over the past few years. The greatest of those moments was my wedding date, back in 2006. OK, the song never actually made its way into the ceremony or the reception afterwards, but part of my unrealized musical plans for the weekend was to cue up “Ginger” just as Lauren and I were leaving for our honeymoon. This would have had to have happened in my car, as MARTA doesn’t have DJs, but since we took the train to the airport, it never transpired. Still, it would have been perfect, not least because the first line of the song is “When we leave it will be cold outside.” (Because we were married in March in Atlanta, it wasn’t cold at all, but still.)

To me the song sounds like the sound of the beginning of something, and not just a six-song EP. And for that, it is my Song of the Moment.

Hello again. If you’ve been around me long enough, you know that my astrological sign has made its way into my self-identity. I’m a Virgo - have been all my life - and for as long as I can remember, I’ve exhibited many of the characteristics of a Virgo. For example, I remember one episode that occurred when my family moved from my birthplace (Huntsville, AL) to the western suburbs of Knoxville, TN. My mom and brother and I had just arrived at our new home - Dad arrived a day or two beforehand - and we set about unpacking and setting up our new life. Of course, I wanted to help (as much as a four-year-old can), so I was charged with the singularly important task of unpacking my toys. I guess I didn’t have any idea that we would need to put furniture in my room (the Bekin’s truck hadn’t arrived yet), so I set about meticulously arranging my toys in rows along the walls. A place for everything and everything in its place, I probably thought. I also remember insisting that my friends return each crayon to the exact spot in my box of 64 from which it came. I mean, if Binney and Smith put Periwinkle next to Cornflower when they packed my crayons, by God, it was meant to be there!!

Even as a child my propensity for organization was evident, and it has certainly continued to this day. Not surprisingly, this tendency for categorization and classification has been extended to my music library. (If you need evidence of this, have a look at some of the Smart Playlists I’ve created in iTunes. As you can see, I’ve created playlists for the year the song/album was released, its genre, and artist. I also have playlists for songs I’ve listened to once, twice, three times, more than three times, never, for songs with the beats-per-minute recorded and sorted by increasing tempo (my exercise/DJ playlist), and so on. Believe it or not, I get plenty of fiber.) I haven’t created any formal system for organizing my music by season - no, I’m not joking - but for years I’ve associated certain albums and songs with specific seasons, and their attendant changes in temperature, rainfall, humidity, length of day, and so on.

The seasonal association is made most often based on the time of year during which I first heard the recording in question, regardless of whether the music itself matches well to the season. I have no reason to argue, for example, that Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fanclub is a particularly wintry record; if nothing else, the group is known for its sunny, Beatles and Byrds-influenced pop songcraft, not chilly, isolated instrumentation or bleak vocals. But for whatever reason, I always break out Bandwagonesque around late November, once the trees are bare of leaves, the wind is chilled, and the hours of daylight are mere minutes. OK, the record does have a song called “December,” but that’s irrelevant. It just sounds like winter to me, and so it is a winter record.

But I don’t want to get ahead of myself and start listing my winter music before I have a chance to cover my spring music. After all, we are just weeks into the first season of the year, the zodiac wheel has not yet rolled into Taurus, and the pollen hasn’t started bugging me too much yet. So far, so good.

I won’t try to list or discuss all of my springtime favorites here, as I plan for this post to be part of a series (and I need to do yard work). But to get things going, here’s a handful of albums that mean spring to me.

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I’m an admitted devotee of Pitchfork, the online music magazine. In addition to providing information about new releases and tour dates for bands I already love, Pitchfork has established itself as an invaluable source of new bands for me to check out. Certainly, they do tend to crush out on certain bands for reasons I do not fully understand, but generally I agree with their editorial tastes. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t forward a link from my work email account to my personal address with news of upcoming releases on which to squander my money.

Honestly, the record industry writ large owes Pitchfork a great deal of gratitude, because despite the fact that the site does not exist in any physical form (unlike other music/culture magazines of the day), it has done more to invigorate my consumption of music than almost anyone else. Simply put, I buy more CDs than I would have did Pitchfork not exist. It’s almost as though I have a staff of snarky hipsters at the ready, whose sole purpose is to tell what sucks and what doesn’t. I mean, I pay numerous people to manage my money, why not my CD collection?

Anyway, it was through Pitchfork that I was first introduced to Caribou. For the uninitiated, Caribou is one among many bands that is basically one person, an auteur (Dan Snaith) who languishes in his/her basement or attic, producing music that follows only with his/her internal compass. For many reasons, I really like bands like that. Or, more accurately, I might not always appreciate the music produced by such artists, but I very much relish the combination of solo composition and internal integrity.

It was this review that first brought Caribou onto my musical radar. Given the glowing nature of the review, I decided to buy the record. It did not grab me immediately, as some other records have, but after a few listens I began to get it. The songs on Andorra sound as though they are from another time. I can hear so much of the 1960s in this music, and not the overwrought, hyper-earnest output of the Woodstock generation. Rather, I hear Brian Wilson, and Phil Spector, and the Beatles … artists who really began to elevate rock music from a crude sexual innuendo into an art form. The album is both retrogressive in influence and very much of the present. Snaith’s musical vocabulary is so comfortable to him, so much his native tongue, that he can speak in the same language as Pet Sounds or Rubber Soul without sounding like a mere impersonator.

All of the songs on Andorra are strong, but the one song to which I keep returning is the second on the record, “Sandy.” (You can hear the album version of the song here, accompanied by video shot in a car wash, or see Caribou performing the song live here.) The lead-in track, “Melody Day,” very much has an anthemic quality to it, as though it was the prelude to a greater work. (I’ve long felt the same way about the first song from Prince’s Dirty Mind.) “Sandy” begins with a humming guitar followed by shaken sleighbells and a drum beat straight out of the girl groups of the 1960s. (Or the Jesus and Mary Chain, for that matter.) A sound collage swirls in the background like swarming bees, never revealing a single identifiable sample or instrument, simply imbuing the song with an energy unique unto itself.

When I listen to “Sandy,” I hear a group that looks nothing like Dan Snaith or the touring version of Caribou. I see beautiful young people, clad in white, singing in harmony and accompanied by unseen instruments. There are cherry blossom petals flitting in the air like snow flurries, imparting the song with an organic chill.  The pulse of the drums and bass are hypnotic, the instrumentation dizzying, the vocals breathy … and for that, it is my Song of the Moment.  Enjoy.

We take a pause from this blog’s normal content to say one thing:

GO TIGERS!!!!

Memphis is in the finals, beyotches.  Hells yeah.  We doin’ it.