Tuesday, September 30, 2014

9/30/14

"Maybe every promise anybody makes 
Is destined for the rocks
The longer it takes
Daylight is so close I can almost taste it
It's all I got,
and it's not right
Everything is broken in my mind
Ain't no place to run
Ain't no place to hide
Don't wanna lose control
Baby I just might."


Is there any better antidote to any sick feeling than the perfect guitar line? No, not really, and so often I find what I'm looking for in Ryan Adams. His latest record did not disappoint., It exceeded my expectations, stepping up its aggression from the pretty yet maudlin folk of Ashes and Fire, tapping into a classic-rock cadence and delivering the straightest, surest messages from a crooked, complicated heart. The first time I heard "I Just Might," I must've played it a dozen times in a row, on a sullen, pivotal Wednesday night spent pacing and gnawing at my fingertips. Songs about this kind of desperation - the mad kind - are hard to do in this blues-rock style without coming off as kitcshy, but his always-sharp playing and subtle melody changes add sophistication to chords and structure that, in less masterful hands, could feel far less effective and elegant. I love love love this song. 


See how slowly it builds? See how effortlessly it repeats, but not quite? Hear how far a little tambourine can go? The final bars and the outro are  perfectly contrasted, a dash of uplift followed by the now-familiar shadow of a melody. His lyrics and imagery, as they are on the rest of this fulfilling self-titled, are direct, dramatic and precise - "shaking in the wind like a lame excuse," "ghosts dwell in the streets from a hit and run."  The pace toys with the idea of increasing without really committing, never hitting that point of no return into an all-out break, but it feels like it just might, proving how sound can better encapsulate a feeling than most, or any, combination words may ever hope to. Though I like these words, though they mean something to me, the composition here tells the story. This is what it sounds like to feel tangled and naked and obvious, lost and dark but so, so aware of the ever-approaching brink. What a precarious place. 

This is, I think, one of my favorite albums of the year, for so many songs and moments. I could see where it sounds too familiar to feel fresh, but these songs are ripped from the pages in so many ways, and crafted with such expertise that I am hard pressed to find a better recent example of what it means to write good, pure songs, straight from the heart and the lips and the strings, than these. The last four tracks, in particular, are my favorites. I will listen to them much more before this year is through, and this everlasting Ryan Adam's admiration/inspiration grows.

"Hell is rising in front of my face
I'm free from desires, I rise above the maze
Every step I take, closer to the sun
Darkness is so loud, surrounding everyone
Ghosts dwell in the streets from a hit and run
Keep your head down
Keep your eyes shut tight
Don't wanna lose control
Baby I just might

Don't wanna lose control
I just might
Don't wanna lose control
I just might
I just might

You make a wish, you want it to come true
But somewhere underneath all the hope is the truth
Prayers go unanswered
You're waiting for the proof
Don't know what to say
Don't what to do

Maybe every promise anybody makes is destined for the rocks
The longer it takes
Daylight is so close I can almost taste it
Don't know what to say, don't know what I said
Everything is broken in my head
Lost out in the darkness, looking for the light
Think I'm gonna run
Baby I just might

I might,
I might,
I might,
I might..."
~I Just Might
Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams


Thursday, September 25, 2014

9/25/14

This is my favorite Black Keys song of late, though it's not new. I suppose I first heard it on a breeze-through listen of El Camino after its release, an album I appreciated but never listened to much, as I always favored the older stuff. "Little Black Submarines" re-entered my consciousness as a radio edit in mid-August. Now it is a weekly, or daily, obsessive listen.

It's classic Black Keys in the best way, dreary and aggressive, composed and chaotic. They performed it during a magnificent spectacle of an arena tour in Pittsburgh earlier this month, and I felt stunned by Dan Auerbach playing solo in spotlight. I felt shaken by the kick kicking in at the bust, enraptured by the newfound attack of the hook. Subtle tambourine and synth harken back to this band's earlier days, the ones of rebellious distortion and analog glory. Then everything collides, a punishing offensive of one loud-ass guitar and a little of everything else backing it up. Auerbach's effortless cool is trademark, and rugged, and I can't think of a better sound than his vintage pedal-fuzz to accompany this hardening of hearts. Lyrical brilliance has never been this band's strong suit, though it has never needed to be with this kind of blues-rock feeling, and yet here they hit their mark with dead-on aim, with a story of a desperate broken heart sullen and thrashing in its own misery.

Vulnerability never sounded so tough.




"Little black submarines,
Operator please,
Put me back on the line.
Told my girl I'd be back
Operator please,
This is wreckin' my mind


Oh can it be,
The voices calling me,
They get lost,
And out of time,
I should've seen it glow,
But everybody knows,
That a broken heart is blind.
That a broken heart is blind.

Pick you up, let you down,
When I wanna go
To a place I can hide.
You know me, I had plans,
But they just disappeared,
To the back of my mind.


Oh can it be,
The voices calling me,
They get lost,
And out of time.
I should've seen a glow
But everybody knows
That a broken heart is blind

That a broken heart is blind.

Treasure maps, fallen trees,
Operator please
Call me back when it's time
Stolen friends and disease,
Operator please,
Patch me back to my mind.


Oh can it be?
The voices calling me
They get lost
And out of time.

I should've seen a glow
But everybody knows
That a broken heart is blind
That a broken heart is blind
That a broken heart is blind."

~Little Black Submarines
The Black Keys, El Camino

Sunday, September 21, 2014

9/21/14

"I took a trip down south and felt the sun on my face,
and it made things OK for a second.

I drew a picture of my problems when I was going insane.
And I focused on the currents.
It's the funny thing about it,
I never seem to worry that every single current's not the same.
It's all about position, and where I choose to lay.
And God, I am going away."


I heard this song for the first time in awhile today, a surprise find on a borrowed iPod. I heard this song with fresh ears today, and it meant all the same that it used to, filtered through a new lens. I think this was one of the first TDS songs I really *heard*, sometime while living in the Finger Lakes racking my brain over how to do better at my job and not fuck up relationships.  That was four years ago. Some things, they don't change - like the constant drive for self-exploration and development AJ Perdomo captures so well. This album, I think, is certainly his best. From the time I first heard it, I remember loving the drama in his voice, the slow-climb guitar parts and the intensity of the minor chords. This song in particular is a lesson in how to build tension with tight patterns and throw grenades in a bridge, a step one example of the kind of pop punk/alt rock made all the brighter and better by its intelligence, thoughtfulness and dig-deep awareness. This song was a good one to hear today, offering comfort to a wild, raging heart and a line of scripture for a tired head, making things OK for a second. 



"Would you believe in my songs
if I gave them all to you?

I can find the strength in my voice
to call you back and say that everything is bad without you
and I'm lost again, oh God believe I'm lost again."

~Weathered
The Dangerous Summer, Reach for the Sun

Thursday, September 11, 2014

9/11/14

"I had a dream I was being dissected by all of my friends, and I was so scared of the scalpel. Anytime it was raised to make another incision, I would start crying and screaming even though I knew I wouldn't feel it. Everyone would verbally try to soothe me, and I kept screaming for someone to touch me so I knew I was still alive, but it's like they weren't sure either. The next thing I remember, I was standing outside in some field, and I felt perfectly fine. Then I sat down, and suddenly it was like the sutures ripped, and all my organs fell out." 8-11-05

(I have no place else to put that, so there it is. I wrote those words years ago, and yet, I remember that dream crystal clear.)

This is my favorite song I listened to today. It came into my head this morning, after waking up at 6:30 a.m. when the sky was still dark blue for the first time this season. That, and the chill in the air, says to me it's changed for good. Until next summer, anyway.

So this morning, I put this song on, from an old album from a previous life that resonates perhaps truer than before but has not lost its pretty quality. Now, I am not a Matt Nathanson apologist. Rather, I genuinely think he's a great songwriter and performer. He sets lyrics very well, he writes satisfying progressions and melodies. I love the simple piano in this song, the effortless ascension and suspension that holds and wavers and fades. And I love the desperate questions. What is it about songs about New York that are just somehow sadder than the rest? And what is it about the impending loss of intimacy that makes seeing the world outside go on about its business feel so much more empty? Why does it feel like the seasons are changing? Probably because they are.



"Somewhere in between
The beginning and the end
September took the tourist
And settled in for good

You could hear the trains again
Brooklyn girls in scarves
Summer left and no one said a word.
We'd open your window,
Stay in your bed,
All day 'til the street lights came on

So what happened to bulletproof weeks in your arms?
What happened to feeling cheap radio songs?
What happened to thinking the world was flat,
What happened to that?


Up on 59th street,
Right before the rain,
Lovers catching taxis going downtown.

I'm talking to what's left of you
Watching what I say
Counting all the freckles on your perfect face

You open your window,
And I stay on your bed,
Just hoping that right words will come.

So what happened to bullet proof weeks in your arms,
What happened to feeling cheap radio songs,
What happened to thinking the world was flat,
What happened to that

So what happened to bullet proof weeks in your arms
What happened to feeling cheap radio songs
What happened to thinking the world was flat
What happened to that?


 It's all gone,
Love, it's all wrong.

So what happened to bullet proof weeks in your arms
What happened to feeling cheap radio songs
What happened to thinking the world was flat
What happened, what happened to that?"

~Bulletproof Weeks
Matt Nathanson, Some Mad Hope

Monday, September 8, 2014

9/8/14

What do hearts sound like when they break at 4 a.m.? What does it sound like when the light is gone, when the conscious mind goes dark and detached from the best of experience and intention?

It sounds a little like floating, a little like falling. Visceral and delicate. Fragile. It sounds spacey, with intense, focused vulnerability. These sounds, nearly angelic, are bright and flickering and patient with themselves and everything I am not.

I put this album on the shelf most of this summer, after initial captivation. I enjoyed its sound despite its critical flop, I thought its ambiance was moving and heartfelt and captured a quality blend of electric sounds and rich, deep layers. But I thought it was really sad, it was kind of a downer and tells sad, sad stories, and I just wasn't there with it, at least, I didn't want to be, and now, tonight, this song is kind of my own sad story and the perfect accompaniment to my insomniac misery, the kind that lasts on repeat for hours and obsessives over small details in memories, like long, elegant fingers tracing my arm, like whispers echoed close against my neck. So too can I fixate on the small details in sounds, in delay, the soft swell of blissfully faked-out strings and synths, of two-to-three note piano melodies tying together one-off lines, simple and clear and resounding.

Thoughts are dangerous weapons, and the night is a silent, still place where they ravage and tear peace to bits. Best to give them something to slice up, something to occupy their vicious progression as the hours pass and the sky lightens and the dark doesn't feel so lonely anymore.



"I think of you, I haven't slept 
I think I do, but I don't forget.
 My body moves, goes where I will 
But though I try my heart stays still 
It never moves, just won't be led 
And so my mouth waters to be fed 

And you're always in my head,
You're always in my head.

This I guess is to tell you
You're chosen out from the rest."
~Always In My Head
Coldplay, Ghost Stories