Things could be different, but they’re not.

Written by

Of Montreal – The Past Is A Grotesque Animal

Now that I live on my own, I stopped making my bed. Why bother? I’m just going to mess it up later that night anyways.

I dropped my toothbrush down the garbage disposal. The crunch snap made me cringe. But every day just serves to yellow the teeth I was trying to whiten. Why fight God?

All the quarters I save from skipping laundry go to parking meters. They fit so perfectly in the slot, and the reassuring numbers flash that me and my car are safe, at least for now.

The last thing I ate was some yellow curry from that Thai place a week ago. Sure, I feel weak, but eventually we all lose power, lose strength. Our bones snap easier, our flesh can’t heal itself anymore.

Staying alive is so much work. It takes a lifetime of effort.

[Buy Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? for a pretty miserly $7.]

Posted on April 17, 2010 - Tunes - 3 Comments »

And all the spilt milk, sex, and weight.

Written by

Modest Mouse – Gravity Rides Everything

IT ALL WILL FALL, FALL RIGHT INTO PLACE.

Georgia and Happto, Georgia’s boyfriend, are sprawled across the sticky leather sofas at Karyn’s place. Karyn is leaning sharply against the kitchen bench-top, cupping her Earl Grey tea close to her face. She just likes the smell. Georgia and Karyn discuss marriage, while Happto, altogether uninterested, flicks through the magazines half-opened on the coffee-table.

GEORGIA: I don’t see the point.

KARYN: The point of what?

[Happto quietly turns the page of this month’s Cosmopolitan, feigning disinterest, but curious to know what it is that women are thinking on a monthly basis.]

GEORGIA: The point of marriage.

KARYN: What? Why?

GEORGIA: It seems stupid.

KARYN: How does it seem stupid? It seems fine. It seems good. It’s two people, and a certificate, and love, and a ring, and a ceremony, and lots of friends and family, and lots of applause, and lots of crying. It’s very emotional.

GEORGIA: That sounds stupid.

KARYN: It sounds beautiful.

[Happto’s eyebrows raise as he comes across the already-torn booklet midway through the magazine discussing “How To Please Your Man Without Having Sex”, with suggestive photos to boot. He worries that they’ve noticed, and quickly flicks to another section.]

HAPPTO: We should get going.

Lenka – Gravity Rides Everything (The Woodstock Sessions)

[Buy Modest Mouse’s The Moon & Antarctica.]
[Buy Lenka’s cover single of Gravity Rides Everything.]

Posted on April 15, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments »

“We have time-Warped with the best of them.”

Written by

Jimmy London – Bridge Over Troubled Water

Today I flicked through a guestbook of an old – now closed – Irish restaurant based in Dublin, Ireland. The guestbook had the strong outward presence of a hardened cover and a fleshy inside of yellow and browning paper. There were names, there were dates, and some drawings – some random, shaded drawings. There was also a drawing of a beetle.

Names flew by without any recognition and then:

O R S O N – W E L L E S

Not spelt out in such a manner, you’ll surely understand, but the letters followed each other in the same rigid formation. I knew that name, didn’t I? Of course I did. Then more. Christopher Lee (the darkness), Ingrid Bergman (the sensation), and Alfred Hitchcock (the genius). I was flicking through sheets and page after page of worn paper that these people had once held, had once pressed their creative – and sometimes beautiful – hands against. These pages they had pushed ink upon. And then, of course, the drawing of a beetle.

To be specific, the drawing of a beetle wasn’t so much a drawing of a beetle as it was a drawing of a Beatle by a Beatle, understand? John Lennon had drawn an image of what looked like Paul McCartney with a right-handed bass guitar (I tut at you, Lennon) with small musical notes drifting in waves from his sketched mouth. Beside it, no note or autograph, but simply:

“The other the three
are saving up to
come here !

YEAH – 3

BSL

Flicking through these pages and slowly dragging my fingers over such a drawing almost felt as good as this song. Almost, but not quite.

[Buy A Little Love.]

Posted on April 14, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments »

I am a man; I am self-aware

Written by

Vic Chesnutt – Flirted With You All My Life

On December 25, 2009, Vic Chesnutt killed himself. Left partially paralyzed from a car accident, he faced thousands of dollars of debt for hospital bills and other health-related fees. Knowing he could never pay it off as a musician, he overdosed on muscle relaxants on Christmas day.

The only time I saw Vic Chesnutt live, he told a hilarious, self-deprecating story about a complete stranger holding him up as he used a urinal in some bar. I think that works as an excellent analogy for a more ideal health-care system: those able to stand holding the crippled aloft as they piss.

I’ve been listening to this song a lot lately. I find it cathartic; it trivializes my problems. Here’s Chesnutt’s take in an interview with NPR less than a month before he killed himself:

CHESNUTT: Right. Well, this song is a love song. It’s a suicide’s breakup song with death. You know, I’ve attempted suicide three or four times. It didn’t take. And this is really a breakup song with death. You know, it’s talking about flirting with, you know, flirting – I had flirted with death my whole life, you know. Even as a young kid, I was sick and almost died a few times. And then suicide attempts – it’s a kind of – you know, it’s a breakup song.

NPR: Did you try to kill yourself even before the accident?

CHESNUTT: I did, yeah.

NPR: And after the accident?

CHESNUTT: I did, yeah.

David Bazan – Flirted With You All My Life (American Songwriter Sessions)

[Buy At The Cut, with Thee Silver Mt. Zion as the backing band.]
[Listen to Bazan’s American Songwriter Sessions.]

Posted on April 12, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments »

You can spend the night.

Written by

Black Kids – Hurricane Jane (rmx. The Twelves)

[Buy the Ministry of Sound’s Chillout Sessions XI for this song. I can’t say for sure if it was ever released on a Black Kids or Twelves album, so if it was, let us know in the comments section. Thanks.]

(Credit for the illustration above goes to Mitch Blunt. I’ve been spending some time perusing through his website, and I like what I see.)

N.B. Yeah, I know: there’s no writing to go with this song. I wrote something, and then I didn’t like it. Then I listened to the song again and I thought, fuck it, I just want to dance. You guys write something.

Posted on April 11, 2010 - Tunes - 4 Comments »

I shall wait for love

Written by

Frog Eyes – A Flower in a Glove

And you were always a botanist at heart, I think, stopping to smell the roses, literally, for as long as I knew you. Or pointing out lilacs or hyacinths or rhododendrons when we saw them in the park.

And you were always finding odd places to cram flowers into your third floor apartment. Hanging pots, a stove that didn’t work because instead it had rows of buds under a sunlamp, bookshelves devoted to a mess of bright, growing colors. My favorite was a single pink lotus in a blue glove, hanging by a nail outside the window. You would tenderly bring it back inside during rough weather.

And you were always bringing flowers to me at work. You’d show up with a silly grin and one hand inside your jacket. When the hand came out, so did your latest present. I kept them all, lined my cubicle with them, watered and cared for them as you would have. It didn’t seem to bother you to give them away, as long as you kept growing more.

And you were always talking about leaving, about going somewhere with more exotic species and more tracts of land to make into gardens. We – I – thought you were just talk. We thought you’d stay forever, in your third floor apartment with the flower in the glove hanging out the window.

And you were always saying sorry when you accepted the job. Always apologizing that it didn’t work out between us or telling me you’d come back in a few years. But you were always going to go.

And me, I will wait for your love; I shall wait for your love. I shall wait for love, here in this third floor apartment, meticulously watering the flowers.

[Pre-order the triumphant Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph for an instant mp3 download.]

Posted on April 10, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment »

Come on, somebody – say something!

Written by

Alexandre Desplat – High-Speed French Train

Do songs and their emotive power enhance movie scenes? Or does that emotion you embrace – that punch pounding its very way through the eyes of the actor – infiltrate the song on future listens? Or is it possible that they come together to form the perfect balance, one of equal passion and charm and wit and thrill? This song, with all its dainty nooks and pure subtlety, will not answer any of the above. This song is simply yet another song to raise the thought of which came first.

Two foxes sit together in a room lit by weakened night lamps. They watch as a train glides in circles along a toy track; their burgeoning minds and tiring eyes captured. Those brief seconds, seconds void of jealousy and frustration and fear, are utopian. If you’re not moved then widen your eyes, stare a little harder, take it in, and allow it to soak. Every twist of colour splashed upon a sound canvas by an intoxicated and boisterous Vishnu, every loop of frail yet gallant noise intoned with senseless and joyous gravitas.

[Buy Fantastic Mr. Fox (Original Soundtrack).]

Posted on April 9, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment »

I’ll tell the truth, so bear witness.

Written by

De La Soul – Say No Go

Okay, so, so, so, so, so, so – NOW. (A tip: when you can’t for the life of you think of anything to write, you just sit back and let the music do it for you.)

Little ol’ drum beat ticking to the time. Guitar grinding to a slipping, dripping line. POSDNOUS. Crack babies and jerk mothers fiending for a hit in verbal punches – it’s a hook! Say no go. Say no go. And you feel your hips shaking a little bit, and that’s okay. Fidgety? You’re getting it, that’s right. Tongue rubbing against your gums, stretching your lips wide. Throw on some wooden rollerskates and do loops of the boardwalk.

My mama is a cleaner and she works ’til her feet go bust and the veins go greenish purple in a way I can’t describe any better. And my mama is submissive in an aggressive kind of way, and she always knows best. My mama gave birth to a boy born beaten with a cheek for being clever. My mama sees a gypsy in her son and I know that makes her sad. But my mama couldn’t help it she did what she could, and she did it well. And the red moon rising saw it all coming.

My papa is a worker and his hands tell you that. They’re rough and tough with a grip like lightning when it wraps around your heart and zap! It stops. So we don’t shake hands too much. And his face is tired and I look in the mirror and I ain’t never seen the resemblance people are always talkin’ about but I feel my face aging and I’m worried, man, really worried. The nights go quiet with the questions of days waiting their turns. AND YOU JUST YELL: “NEXT PLEASE.”

OW OW OW.

I just want to walk behind the rushing crowds playing this riff faster and faster and faster ’til they start running and I’ll start sprinting, screaming. SAY NO GO.

[Buy 3 Feet High And Rising.]

Posted on April 5, 2010 - Tunes - 3 Comments »

Roti canai and char kway teow

Written by

Damn Dirty Apes – Naninong

Hi. This is my real voice, not my fiction voice. Just me casually talking at you. I know, I know, you imagined it deeper slightly less nasally. Fuck you. Just listen.

During a recent visit to Penang, I met someone a girl who enjoyed Damn Dirty Apes, which slightly exploded my brain. Half Swiss, half Malaysian, she wore her hair short and moused, and spoke with a gentle, soothing voice. I didn’t really know anyone else had heard of DDA.

When I was a freshman in high school, a senior named Sina quit his band, Analog Vs. Digital, to drum in a group his brother, back from college in Australia, was putting together. The brother, Pedram, and some random European tourist who was bumming around Malaysia for a couple months played guitar in a band they called Damn Dirty Apes. Since I attended a very conservative Christian boarding school, we spoke of the band in hushed whispers and called it DDA. (Not to be confused with Dance Dance Revolution, which we also enjoyed.)

I remember Sina walking around with stacks of self-printed CDs in red cardboard sleeves, selling them for RM 5 a pop (equivalent to 2 U.S. dollars at the time).

Air is thicker in Penang. Dripping with humidity, it’s gives everything a slightly underwater feel. And it carries smells better. When I listen to Damn Dirty Apes, I can feel the weight of the air on my skin and smell roti canai (pictured above). And then I think of gorgeous, ethnically-mixed women.

[If you find a place to buy this music, tell us in the comments section.]

Posted on April 4, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment »

If what we had was good… then why?

Written by

Prince – How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?

The city background had faded to aqua blue, but street lamps were still ablaze with light. His little red cigarette had burned with a temper for minutes without ever leaving his hand or waist. An eager stream of rainwater twisted its way down along the cobbled street, between each stone and merrily around his brown Oxfords. He flicked at whatever water had gathered and watched as the flying tail of stream whipped the streets onrushing glisten and disappeared for good.

He tried to see could his eyes follow what flew.

He flicked at the surrounding water again and immediately lost sight. Gathering some spit, he swished it and laid it upon his tongue. Curling his tongue to gather the spit whole, he brought it forward to part his lips and catapulted – what once sat in his mouth – up and onto the street. He followed this bubbly glob for maybe three seconds, but that disappeared, too. The man straightened his lilac tie, looked again at everything that would disappear, the world and its edge, stepped inside, and called her.

[Buy How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore (LP Version).]

Posted on April 1, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »