Two Year Anniversary

Yesterday was the Ventilator of Cold Example's two year anniversary. It's been a long time since I've posted. A quick recap of the last couple months of my music listenership involves a couple artists.

John Maus put out his new album We Must Become the Pitiless Censors of Ourselves back in July. It's an awesome album, although it had to overcome my skepticism that it could be anywhere as good as his previous album, Love Is Real. Here's one of my favorite tracks from the album, "Head for the Country."



Almost as beautiful as his music is the video work for his song "Believer."



In the end, I love the music of We Must Become.... In some ways Maus' arrangements and production are richer than ever. But his vocals are harder to make out, and I really find Love Is Real to be a more powerful album emotionally.

Listening non-stop to Maus for a couple weeks, I soon gravitated to the music of Ariel Pink. I had briefly listened to him at one point in time, but now I really got into him. Eventually I came to his most recent album Before Today, which is fantastic. He and his band recorded a live in-studio set for their label 4AD, and it's an amazing performance. "Menopause Man" knocks me out.



Transitioning out of my Pink kick I began to rediscover the music of Can. In particular, Ege Bamyasi and Future Days have been exciting me.



Getting deep into Can makes me want to write music like theirs. I like the hypnotic rhythms, the catchy bass lines, and the haunting atmospherics. I find recently that as I develop songs with my band I keep being drawn to turn them into Can songs.

And this brings me to my main reason for writing today. In coming weeks I will be revising my posting strategy. I'd like to turn this blog into a running account of my experiences with writing music and being in a band. This will still include talking about the music I'm inspired by, but I'll try to tie it to my thoughts on music-making and songwriting. I'm also excited to post sketches and demos of my music as it develops, the idea being that I can show each stage of the process of fleshing out songs as they happen. I might even switch over to my own website if that seems to make most sense. I'll be in touch.

"Papermill"

This song was a revelation to me a couple weeks ago. The woozy samples, the outer-space guitars, the lo-fi grittiness, and on top of it all MF DOOM's hypnotizing flow.

Having never been a listener of hip hop, I immidiately checked out Madvillain's debut album Madvillainy from 2004. This album also blows me away. Every track is a highlight; that's how strong it is. I don't spend much time trying to figure out what DOOM is saying. I just get hooked on his voice's gritty deep tone, his flowing rhythms, and his trance-inducing consonance and rhymes. Take, for example, "Figaro."



"Do not stand still, both show skills
Close but no crills, toast for po' ills, post no bills
Coast to coast Joe Shmoes flows ill, go chill
Not supposed to overdose, no Doz pills"

Right around these lines I fall into a flow trance.

Next I checked out Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers). Like I said, I'm clueless about hip hop, so I've just been checking out the lay of the land. Enter the Wu-Tang is another amazing album. I love the song "Da Mystery of Chessboxin'." The rapping by everyone is tight, and Ol' Dirty Bastard's verse is transcendent.



There's a long road ahead of me to hunt down revelatory hip hop from across the ages. Anyone have any suggestions?

Szilárd Mezei

A couple years ago I came across this post. It was the first time I had heard of Szilárd Mezei. Nád/Reed is an incredible album, and after many listens it is still powerful each time I play it. Mezei's compositions and arrangements are vibrant. Sometimes the themes are full of pathos, and other times they are kinetic and mysterious. With the 14-piece ensemble, Mezei often divides the players and has them playing contrasting themes simultaneously.

I've recently been hunting down more recordings of Mezei's music. They are consistently exciting and beautiful both in terms of composition and improvisation. One thing that always strikes me about Mezei's music is how charged with emotion and feeling it is. His music exudes character and richness, akin to the music of Mingus. As one reviewer put it, Mezei's music is a revelation.

Here's a piece from his 2010 album Tönk (though it was recorded by his octet in 2007). It has the awesome title "Female Boxing." I love the boldness and punchiness of the theme. Once the theme drops out, the rhythm section still maintains the punchiness as the other instrumentalists flutter around. In the latter half there is wonderful interplay between Mezei on viola (or Albert Márkos on cello?) and Gergely Ittzés on flute. On a side note, check out the gorgeous cover art on the album.



Credit must go to Mezei's musical collaborators who bring his music to life, such as his dynamite rhythm section of Ervin Malina on bass and István Csik on drums. Csik in particular is phenomenal every time I hear him on recording.

Here's a video of Mezei's International Ensemble performing in Serbia in 2004. It's a great example of the beauty of Mezei's compositions/arrangements being further enhanced by the arresting saxophone solo of Matthias Schubert.



One collaboration I would love to see in the future is between Joe Morris and Mezei. I think their musics compliment each other very well, and Morris already has a penchant for making amazing music with violinist Mat Maneri. It would be awesome to combine their rhythm sections, too. Let's take Morris' bassist and Mezei's drummer. So here's what I would like to see: Szilárd Mezei (viola), Joe Morris (guitar), Timo Shanko (bass), and István Csik (drums).

According to Mezei's website his quintet will go on a US tour some time in 2011. I can't wait to get more details about that. Maybe my dream quartet will make an appearance in Boston on this tour!

Marc Ribot at the Cedar Cultural Center

On Saturday I went up to Minneapolis to see Marc Ribot perform at the Cedar Cultural Center. It was an awesome evening. I met up with four friends at the Cedar, and before the show we stepped next door to eat dinner at Chai's Thai Restaurant. It was delicious. I had some kind of red curry with chicken and potatoes. The food was great, but what made it amazing was the company we shared together. Lots of laughs and fun.

We then stepped back over to the Cedar just in time for the show. After some words from the director of the Cedar about new air conditioning and heating systems being installed, Marc Ribot made his way on stage. He was wearing a long leather jacket and carrying his trusty flat-top acoustic guitar. My friend and I disagreed about the make of the guitar. I thought Gibson; he thought Stella. I still think it was a Gibson, but if anyone knows, chime in. It's the same guitar that's featured in the second video from my previous post. (Note: the picture above seems to confirm the Gibson theory.)

Anyway, now we get to the important part: his music was wonderful. He played maybe five or six songs for a total of about 30 minutes. For the first couple minutes I was anxious about whether he'd succeed musically in his endeavor. What I mean is that in his music he puts himself way out there without a safety net. Each song begins with a structure or theme of some sort, but from there he goes whichever directions inspiration leads him. For those first couple minutes I was nervous he'd get himself into dead areas musically that would cause me to be embarrassed for him. However, after a couple minutes, I knew I could trust him to make compelling music no matter which directions he was going.

Here's a live performance of his in Dallas from September of 2010, but I believe he played these songs at the Cedar as well.



During his set, I was impressed with his virtuosity. He knows the guitar and music so well, but he always first and foremost plays the way he wants to. Or so I imagine. I don't really know anything about how he approaches music, never read any interviews with him. As someone who likes a bunch of avant-garde guitarists, I sometimes wonder how much technique (traditional or idiosyncratic) certain guitarists actually have. What's important is not how close their technique comes to traditional standards but how rigorous, disciplined, and developed their own techniques are. That's something Joe Morris has helped me to understand. I really admire Ribot for his technique and ability to make very powerful music on guitar.

I would have liked him to play for another hour, but that wasn't the deal. After an intermission, he returned to the stage to accompany a screening of Charlie Chaplin's The Kid. That was a great experience. My favorite scene can be found in the following clip starting at 0:37 seconds. It's the moving scene when the mother and her estranged child encounter each other, not knowing that they are mother and child. It's interesting watching this video with Chaplin's original music. I can't remember what exactly Ribot was doing during this scene, but it seemed to bring out the emotional power way more than the Chaplin soundtrack. I was in tears during this brief scene.



The movie ended, rather abruptly I might add, and Ribot left. The concert was over. A couple friends and I went down to the Chatterbox Pub to play Farkle, drink Shamrock pop, and eat sweet potato fries. Great evening out in Minneapolis. Ribot is fast becoming one of my favorite guitarists.

Thoughts on Marc Ribot

The first time I ever heard Marc Ribot must have been in high school when I listened to Tom Waits' Rain Dogs. That was a great album, but it wasn't pivotal to me or my musical tastes. Years passed without much thought of Ribot. In fact, for a long stretch of time I confused Marc Ribot and Mick Ronson (David Bowie's guitarist) in my head. Then about two years ago I was visiting some friends in New York City. One friend, a good musician that I respect, had mentioned that Marc Ribot was his favorite guitarist.

Later that week I attended a performance of Allen Toussaint's group at the Village Vanguard. Marc Ribot was playing acoustic guitar in this group. I was hoping for some powerful guitar playing from Ribot but was disappointed. He took maybe one solo during the whole set, and his role in the group was strictly supportive. I was left with the impression that Ribot was somewhat of a bland guitarist. When my friend said Ribot was his favorite guitarist, I wondered what the attraction was to Ribot's style.

Two years later (i.e. this past week) I came across a video on youtube of Ribot's group Ceramic Dog.



It's heavy, with gnarly guitar shredding and a ripping rhythm section. I especially love how he and the rhythm section turn the measures inside out. (Turns out the drummer, Ches Smith, also plays in Mary Halvorson's awesome trio.) Finally I was seeing a side of Ribot that spoke to me. If you go back and read older posts here, you'll see that I love heavy guitar solos. So I downloaded Ceramic Dog's album Party Intellectuals. I listened to it and wasn't too thrilled. It's good and has amazing moments, but on the whole I was again left with disappointment. For all the promise his playing had for hitting my sweet spot, there was still a blandness that made the whole album not live up to that promise.

Still, Party Intellectuals sparked my curiousity with Ribot. Then, yesterday, I found that Ribot will be performing at the Cedar Cultural Center in Minneapolis on March 19th. On the Cedar's website they linked to the following video.



This is a rendition of Albert Ayler's song "Ghosts." Here we go! Now this is guitar music that hits me. I looked into Ribot's discography and saw that his 2001 album Saints was entirely solo guitar renditions of songs. I downloaded this album and listened to it three times in a row last night. It's very beautiful and moving music.

Musically, Ribot's playing is a nice contrast with my two favorite guitarists, Joe Morris and Keiji Haino. I love Morris, Haino, and also Derek Bailey to death, but sometimes I crave a guitarist who is a little more anchored to song structure and melodic development. Ribot balances structure with free-wheeling improvisation extraordinarily well. Much more so than the aforementioned guitarists, Ribot follows melodic lines around twists and turns. His sense of melody and structure typically is very skewed and leads into mysterious regions, but his improvisations are coherent and moving. It's amazing how at times when he is playing Ayler tunes he evokes the feeling of Sunny Murray on drums, both in the pulses of rhythm and the vocal moaning.

There's lots to be said about the music of Saints, but you're better off just listening to the album. It's wonderful. I am so grateful that I kept exploring Ribot's music until I found a side of him that speaks to me. May you find some joy in hearing him too.

Women - Public Strain

A few weeks ago, my friend gave me a burned copy of Women's new album, Public Strain. From the first listen they were doing things that really excited and moved me. After many more listens, I have a pretty consistent reaction to the album. Basically, half the album I think is wonderfully beautiful, and the other half falls flat for me. Even though I can't love all of the album, there are four songs on it that make Women my favorite current band, and those songs are enough for me to disregard the ones I don't care for. Getting straight to the punch, those four songs are "Heat Distraction," "Locust Valley," "Venice Lockjaw," and "Eyesore."

The real occasion for me writing this post, though, is that I just read Talya Cooper's review of Public Strain on Dusted. At this point in my life, Dusted reviews more often than not piss me off. Cooper's first and foremost surprised me, and then mildly pissed me off.

Her first paragraph opens with the suggestion that Public Strain derives from nostalgia, defined as a disdain for the present, fear of the future, and yearning for order, constancy, and safety. This blew me away because I definitely don’t associate Women with those things. Yes, I do hear a lot of throwbacks to oldies harmonies and melodies in their music, and I also hear a lot of other musical influences coming through (Television, This Heat, and Wire, especially). They are an interesting band in part because they’ve got one foot rooted in the past, and their other foot is a very forward-thinking foot. Yeah, their other foot has a brain because Canadians have brains in their forward-thinking feet, duh. That’s what makes Canadians so great. They think with their feet, whereas Americans think with their cheeseburgers. [JK, that’s a non sequitur. Americans and Canadians are both great.]

All joking aside, Women is an eclectic band that tries their hand at lots of things, with varying degrees of success as far as I’m concerned. You have to go back to their first album, Women, to get the picture of where they’re coming from. I don’t want to write 10 pages on this, which I could, but that sounds painstaking and hard. Basically, their first album has lots of stellar things going on, but they also equally do things that fall flat for me. There’s also not a lot of coherence production-wise to a lot of that first album, which can be cool. Public Strain, however, is much more cohesive from a production standpoint. Everything fits together pretty well.

On Women, in their most ambitious songs, they have a tendency to come up with very overwrought structures and guitar parts. It can be exciting and interesting to hear, but to me those ideas end up falling flat emotionally. They are neat ear and mind candy, but they don’t speak to me. The big triumph on Public Strain is that those four songs that I love so much have shed that overwrought compositional baggage of the first album. These new songs are so powerful emotionally.

Let me now quickly connect those four songs to what I like about the band Television. A song like “Heat Distraction” reminds me a lot of the sound and style of Marquee Moon. Both Television and Women (on those four songs, mind you) manage to write songs and arrange these songs for two guitars, bass, and drums in a way that channels so much powerful emotion.

Now, Cooper in her review of Public Strain seems to dislike these songs because they feel like nostalgic retreads of some average-sounding indie rock bands from the 90s. I haven’t ever listened to June of ’44 or A Minor Forest, but I did take Cooper’s suggestion to check out their sound clips on Google. I can hear where Cooper is coming from in the musical similarities to Women, but I have to say that Women sounds way better than those bands. It would be interesting to do a more in-depth musical comparison between June of ’44, A Minor Forest, and Women, because I’m sure we would see that all three bands are doing something pretty different from one another and that Women is distinguished from those bands musically in a way that is more complex than just being at a faster tempo.

Cooper says Public Strain “tries too hard.” That’s something I can agree with about Women at times. Certainly some of the songs on their first album try too hard, like I’ve already said. But with those four songs on the new album, I just don’t think you can say they tried too hard when the results are so fulfilling to me. I mean, hell, I’m in a band which I write songs for, and I’d certainly like to think I try very hard to write songs that I’m happy with. Some people have this odd idea that music should just flow from some inner spring of the human soul and that applying any kind of conscious effort to compose music is untrue to the creative impulse. Well that’s wrong. There’s a difference between trying hard and being overwrought. When you try hard, you get beautiful melodies, chord progressions, chord voicings, guitar tones, vocals, ensemble playing, and emotional impact such as “Heat Distraction,” “Locust Valley,” Venice Lockjaw,” and “Eyesore.” Those songs manage to not feel overwrought to me. There’s a naturalness about them. But yes, Women walks a fine line between getting just the right balance and being overwrought.

Moving on. Cooper says that Public Strain succeeds in its moments of bleakness. I disagree. She seems to love the songs I dislike and dislike the songs I love. That’s why her review was so surprising to me. To me, “Bells” isn’t that great. I also didn’t care much for “Woodbine,” their analogous drone composition from Women. I’m not a drone hater, but I just don’t happen to have much of an emotional reaction to “Bells.” I will compliment it on its harmonic movement though. It’s funny how Cooper calls “Bells” the most current-sounding song when, to me, it further shows Women’s admiration for This Heat, a band that was doing mysterious and beautiful electro-acoustic improvised pieces back in the late 70s.

“Can’t You See” and “Narrow with the Hall” both get bogged down by production techniques in my opinion. They would be very moving songs as far as I’m concerned if they stripped away the sound collaging in the former and the wall-of-guitar in the latter. Now if you haven’t picked up on this by now, I am making these claims based on my emotional responses to these songs. I’m not going to go into more analysis than that. I can only say that “Can’t You See” and “Narrow with the Hall” don’t bring me to transcendent heights the way the other four songs do. I’d like to see Women arrange “Can’t You See” and “Narrow with the Hall” for a more live band approach. I’ll bet you I’d like them more.

“Penal Colony” is another great winner, and I don’t really have anything against it. For some reason though I just don’t like it as much as the other four.

We then come to the middle of the album, which really falls flat for me. “China Gates,” “Untogether,” and “Drag Open” don’t really strike a chord with me. Cooper says that in these bleaker moments the album is at its best. I simply don’t agree. “China Gates” falls into the overwrought category. It drives in a cool way rhythmically, but the chord progression and the voicings of the guitar parts feel really awkward and unsatisfying to me. The second half of that song tries to change things up by reharmonizing the song into a brighter sounding major tonality. That song just feels half-baked, more like a sketch, not as fully realized as the other four songs.

“Untogether” is alright, probably the most pleasing of the three middle songs to me. It just doesn’t thrill me the way the others do. I don’t have anything very critical to say about it.

“Drag Open” grates on me, and not just because it’s a dissonant song. I’m not a big fan of the bass line or the drum part. The guitar parts are decent, though I don’t care for the guitar tones a whole lot. The second half features a very Sonic Youth-esque plateau of gentle guitarscapes. Women do their trademark “nothing can be in straight-forward time signatures” approach by having a repeating melody in 15/4 time. I’m not outright dismissing their tendency to use odd time signatures in their song constructions, but it definitely is one of the ways in which they walk the fine line of trying hard and being overwrought. At their best moments, Women write structures that feel natural in spite of the odd time signature changes.

With a song like “Locust Valley,” the odd chord progression feels very natural. Granted, they aren’t playing around with changing time signatures, but it’s just the oddness of how the chords move from one to the other and the repeating cycle. I can relate to that style of writing. You just don’t think about it in terms of “what would be really weird to do right now?” Usually it’s a matter of following a line and letting the musical logic determine itself. Unusual results will happen, and they will be very musical. Women allow their music to follow its own lines of logic in beautiful ways. If anything, I get the sense that on the four golden songs of Public Strain, Women are more and more allowing their music to be what it is. Women are becoming more comfortable letting its music falls into traditional patterns at times, and Women are feeling less compelled to rifle around with the music’s logic. That’s just my sense. Maybe Women don’t relate at all to how I see this.

In the end, I have a totally different reaction to Public Strain than Cooper. I don’t really know where she’s coming from or what she likes in music, but that must inform why she has the opposite reaction to the one I have. My personal opinion about Public Strain is that it would be blindingly powerful if it were released as a four-song EP featuring “Heat Distraction,” “Locust Valley,” “Venus Lockjaw,” and “Eyesore.”

Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman

Maybe a year ago I first heard of an old show called Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman that ran in syndication from 1976 to 1977. I had heard of it because Ornette Coleman and Charlie Haden beautifully covered the theme song of the show on their 1977 duo album Soapsuds, Soapsuds. I must have gotten curious about the show and tried to find episodes online. All I could find were some tiny Youtube clips, and I was fascinated by how weird the show seemed.

Long story short, I bought the DVD of the first 25 episodes for my mother on her birthday. It's a selfish gift because now I can finally watch the show. It really blows me away. The characters are very rich and vibrant, and the writing is awesome. Two things in particular really grab me about the show.

First, it's very intentionally a commentary on American society in the mid-70s. I won't go into details about the commentary because I don't want to make an essay out of this. But basically it's fascinating to me because the mid-70s of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman seems to be this time when so much of the contemporary mass-produced and mass-marketed style of consumer culture emerged. The kind of culture in which Folgers produces 17 different kinds of instant coffee to suit the needs of the consumer. The characters on the show try to make sense of and embrace these changes in modes of production and consumption that they are swept up in. (It's just like these days when a show or movie makes a reference to all the new electronic social networking tools like Blackberries, Myspace, Facebook, and Gmail.) There are lots of other themes going on in the show, and many of them I'm probably not catching because I wasn't alive during that era.

Second, it's a very moving show. The characters are all experiencing emotional challenges in their lives, and the writers were unafraid to portray some very heart-breaking and uncomfortable scenes. They let us into the bedrooms at night and into the kitchens in the morning, and we witness a range of intimate human interactions, from the sublime to the depressing. The most heart-breaking character is Mary Hartman herself, who goes through hell trying to get a grip on her decaying relationship with her uncommunicative husband.

And despite the intensity of the subject matter, the show is hilarious. The humor is often irreverent and surreal and plays heavily on the ambiguity of human language. It's almost like a Woody Allen movie or Airplane. It also reminds me of the verbal and cognitive high jinks of Samuel Beckett, but that might be because I've been trudging through his novels Molloy and Malone Dies recently.

From what I've read, it seems that Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman bares certain hallmarks of creator Norman Lear's approach to sitcoms. His shows, which also include All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and Good Times, have more of a theatrical production quality, center around richly conceived characters, and exhibit social commentary in the subject matters they address. Lear seems like an interesting creative type.

Neil Young

In that Tori Kudo interview I posted a while back, Kudo said this about Neil Young:

"I would prefer believe that he sings as though there were something that needed to be sung, and plays guitar as though there were phrases that needed to be played, not because of his convictions but because of his physical make-up."

Despite one of my best friend's being obsessed with Neil Young, I never tuned into his music. Never listened to it. Then I came across a posting of Young's 1975 album Zuma. I listened to it, and damn if it didn't hit me really hard. Particularly the two epic tracks "Danger Bird" and "Cortez the Killer." It's exactly the kind of guitar music I like. Heavy, plodding, and with a generous amount of blood-wringing guitar solos.

I've now started reading Jimmy McDonough's Shakey: Neil Young's Biography. So far it's fascinating, very well-written. It's also epic, something like 700 pages long.

Lastly, here's a quote from an interview I found with Young:

"Q : What advice would you give a guitarist just starting out?

NEIL : Start playing, learn a few chords and play with somebody a little bit better than yourself. Don't try to learn from books anything you don't already know. Music is learning directly from others. Take certain riffs from here and there and use them to write songs and to discover new sounds and new chord progressions. Create. But even if the results sound shitty, keep creating. Soon, it'll be great."

55 Cadillac

Yesterday I read this review, written by Josie Clowney, of Andrew W. K.'s new album 55 Cadillac. My first thought was being really intrigued that A.W.K. recorded a solo piano album. I never have listened to his music beyond the popular songs of his that I've heard on the radio, and it surprised me that he could play piano or anything really. It seemed to me that his only instruments were his energy and personality.

My next thought concerning this review was, "Wow, this reviewer totally dismisses the music as crap." I listened to the sample song, and I was pretty impressed by the competency of A.W.K.'s playing and his melodic and harmonic sense. Sure, it might c0me from standard musical pedagogy from when he was a kid, but nonetheless I couldn't sit at a piano and improvise such pleasant and joyous music.

I tracked down the album online and listened to it. I won't say that it's the most interesting or beautiful music I've heard this year, but I also would not consider it worthless throw-away music. At many points I find the music to be genuinely good, exciting, and uplifting. Sometimes he has musical ideas that don't thrill me, but they are never so bad that I'd dismiss the whole album. And as for its hackneyed quality that Clowney talks about, it didn't bother me too much. It reminded me of Moondog's album H'art Songs, particularly the latter album's beautiful songs "High on a Rocky Ledge" and "Do Your Thing." It also reminds me of the Kudo's album Light that I've talked about on this blog.

I did agree with Clowney's sentiment about the album being a display of A.W.K. making music for the joy it brings him. However, I don't know if the album needs to be thought of as a statement, as an attempt by A.W.K. to "say something" to cynical adults. Maybe he does feel that way, who knows? On his YouTube promo for the album, A.W.K. says, "I really want the listeners to feel like they are in the car with me and that I'm playing piano just for them. Inside the car, together, that feeling is 55 Cadillac." So it seems more like a genuine attempt to make a touching and evocative album rather than a statement about the value of music acknowledged by its creator to be bad. Because I don't think he'd consider this music bad.

Another thing about the album is that there's a running theme of cars and Cadillacs. While I don't have much of an appreciation for cars, I find it very touching that he incorporates his love of cars into the album. Actually, this summer was the first time I've ever understood the appeal of old cars. My housemate is a huge drag racing fan, and he took me to a drag race at the Brainerd International Raceway on the 4th of July. There I saw an old 70's Monte Carlo.

I thought this was a beautiful car, and in a way I identified with it. It's very long, and I'm very tall. It has a round bulge over its back wheels, and I've got pretty big round thighs. I now think that if ever I am interested in getting a nice old car, it's going to be an early 70's Monte Carlo.

Before this experience this summer, I never would have paid old cars much attention. In fact, I'd probably be judgmental of their owners because I saw no value in the hobby and only dumb manliness on display. But now, in a way, I can understand A.W.K.'s love for cars and why it's a very personal thing for him to incorporate into this album.

A lot of what Clowney says is insightful, and her review contextualized the album in a way that got me thinking. I guess in the end Clowney sees 55 Cadillac as bad music with a noble purpose. The fact that she finds the music to be obviously bad is pretty much what drives her analysis of the album's meaning. I, on the other hand, don't agree that the music is that bad. In fact, I think much of the music is good.

I see 55 Cadillac as something made by A.W.K. to capture and share some of the things that give him joy, and it's an album that gives me joy.

Tidal Wave

The other day I was sitting at home, and I remembered that I had recently had a conversation with someone. In this conversation, a guy told me of how he was obsessed with an Oh Sees song called "Tidal Wave". This was a surprise because I too have been a big fan of that song this year.

The funny part is that as I was sitting here vaguely remembering this conversation, I seriously thought it might have been a dream, one of those fake memories that seem real. Almost like it was too good to be true that I actually had that moment of connection with someone about Thee Oh Sees, one of my favorite bands.

This friend's name is Greg Hunter. He's a real person. Look him up on Facebook for the proof. We went to college together, and we ran into each other at a mutual friend's birthday party last week.

Arrested Development

I heard that the entire series of Arrested Development is streaming free and legally from Hulu.com. Too good to be true, I thought. Well, it's true. Some generous soul who really loves humanity must have made the decision to give us the series for free. It's a gift to the world.

El Día de Seis Flores

Yesterday my housemate came up to me and said, "You know, today is a special day." I said, "Is it your birthday?"

"No."

"Is it the day you first moved into this house?"

"Oh, no, but that's a good guess."

"What day is it?"

"It's El Día de Seis Flores."

He showed me a large hibiscus plant in a room at the back of the house. During the course of the day six flowers had bloomed on it. They looked really gorgeous. The hibiscus originally belonged to his grandfather in Flagstaff, Arizona.

Wet Hot American Summer

I searched out Wet Hot American Summer because I've been loving all things State-related the past few weeks. I found it here. Wow, what an amazingly funny movie.

Japanese Poems

The Kudo's album Light inspired me to check out some Japanese poetry from the library. Here are a couple of my favorite poems from the book One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, translated by Kenneth Rexroth.

"The white chrysanthemum
Is disguised by the first frost.
If I wanted to pick one
I could find it only by chance."

-Oshikochi No Mitsune

*********

"Out in the marsh reeds
A bird cries out in sorrow,
As though it had recalled
Something better forgotten."

-Ki No Tsurayuki

New Bharat Brass Band

There is some great music by the New Bharat Brass Band posted on the stellar Bravo Juju blog. It's very bright and invigorating. Wonderful rhythms, compositions, and ensemble playing.

I also have Bravo Juju to thank for turning me on to one of my favorite guitarists, Joe Morris.

Tori Kudo Interview

I stumbled upon an interview with Tori Kudo, the guy behind Maher Shalal Hash Baz. It can be found at Psychedelic Noise from Japan and NZ.

My favorite quote in the interview is when Kudo says, "Now that I have gained a correct understanding of absolute north, the comical nature of all lyrics about passing through darkness has been revealed to me."

The website also features a great interview with Asahito Nanjo.

Variety SHAC

I've been watching the video shorts of Variety SHAC over and over this past week. It all started when I was watching TV a couple weeks ago. I saw that The 40 Year Old Virgin was on. I hadn't seen it before, but it was almost over. I tuned in right when Jane Lynch was singing a seductive song to Steve Carell, and I was laughing really hard already. I knew I'd have to just rent the movie and watch it from the beginning.

So I went over to the video rental store. They seemed to have been rearranging their stock. I couldn't find The 40 Year Old Virgin, but I did notice Reno 911!: Miami sitting on the shelves. I didn't even know they made a movie of that show. So I went with that.

Got home, watched it, enjoyed it a lot. That got me really curious about the cast and writers. That led me to The State, Stella, and David Wain (the last time I paid attention to that gang was when their show on Comedy Central came and went). I wound up watching all the Wainy Days series, which is amazing. In one episode I saw Andrea Rosen, who I traced to the Variety SHAC group.

My favorite shorts are "Hot Apple Cider," "Book Club," and "River Thoughts," but they're all awesome and genius. Comedy people blow me away. I'm not sure why weird music and comedy are what excite me the most, but I'm happy about it.

Also, I got obsessed with this clip from Michael and Michael Have Issues. Genius!

Reiko & Tori Kudo

In hunting around for more Maher Shalal Hash Baz recordings on the web, I came across a new album released by Reiko Kudo and Tori Kudo (though the music was recorded in 2005 and 2006). It's called Light, and I found it at the fantastic blog Experimental Etc. It's one of those album postings where I could have been like, "Eh, it's just some odd release by two people that are in a band I like, but I don't really care to check it out. I'll pass."

For some reason I decided to listen to Light, and thank goodness I did. It's beautiful. Much like the music of Maher Shalal Hash Baz, the songs on Light radiate some kind of emotional power I can't describe, but every time I play this album it draws me in and leaves me breathless.

And that's just the music. When I checked out the liner notes and read the translations of the lyrics, the album took on a whole new level of beauty.

Maher Shalal Hash Baz

I'm a big fan of a bunch of Japanese rock bands. Miminokoto, Fushitsusha, and Musica Transonic in particular achieve this ecstatic guitar greatness that I really crave. I had heard of this band called Maher Shalal Hash Baz here and there, but I never listened to them. Now, thanks to Mutant Sounds I finally gave them a listen. They don't pull off the guitar pyrotechnics associated with Keiji Haino, Kawabata Makoto, or Munehiro Narita, but they do something else totally amazing and just as awe-inspiring as the other Japanese bands I love. For me, their music is endlessly fascinating and beautiful. I've been listening to Return Visit to Rock Mass the last couple days while noodling along on my guitar. It's perfect for that.

Also, check out this incredible picture of John Dwyer, one of the non-Japanese ecstatic guitar heroes of our time. His project Thee Oh Sees is one of my favorite bands currently making music.