3/31/12

"It's such a shame/I heard the wind say this morning
Be still, my heart/I age by years at the mention of your name"
~Behold the Hurriance
The Horrible Crowes, Elsie

That's a loaded line right there, isn't it? Don't we all know those people, those who snap us back to the moment we met them? When a too-quick second-held glance fills your chest with defeat or regret or love or whatevewr it may be, and you're flooded by perspective.



Like a fool, I read all the buzz about Brian Fallon's side project The Horrible Crowes without actually listening to it for quite some time. Now I've purchased "Elsie," and I'm fawning over it quite a bit.

("Sugar" was my acoustic triumph and tribute, it was quite a fun project.)

The whole album is a dance-hall flirtation, an affair played out in bars and loud cars with patron saints hanging from the rearview mirror.

Fallon's vocal are easily more impressive on this project than on The Gaslight Anthem records, which makes me really fucking stoked for 2012's "Handwritten." His phrasing is pure theater, but his tone is the grittiness you'd except from a sexy, sleeved Jersey rocker, and he plays around with range a lot throughout the album and individual songs, making for wonderful contrasts. Which, come to think of it, is a good word for this album - it's love and it's regret, it's heartfelt and a little trashy.

"Elsie," in true Fallon form, rips out your heart just so you can dance on it yourself. Admittedly, I find myself playing individual tracks from the first half of the album a little more than the latter now that I've listened to the whole thing. But piano-driven "Black Betty and the Moon" and "Crush" feel like Billy Joel at his most pop-poetic, and I dig it. I dig it all.

And then there's "Ladykiller," chill-inducing, lost love testament, when all the reasons for the pain al right htere in your face. Here, let's watch a stripped-down live version, and you shall see what I mean:



"And how about this for a good one
Maybe we don't ever come down
I can leave the wound wide open
And maybe see if I can tough it out
Let it pour over my head
All your shame and your history
And see if I say a thing
As it rolls up inside of me

And you must've met a man
Tall and handsome at that
Who must've put a spell on you, baby
And must've kept on coming back
Cause I can smell him in your skin
I bet I taste him in your blood
Must be all the young boys, baby
Lady killer got the two of us"
~Ladykiller
The Horrible Crowes, Elsie

3/30/12

"I'm just a dreamer/but I'm hanging on/though I am nothing big to offer"



"Sometimes the blues just a passing bird
And why can't that always be?
Tossing aside from your bichers crown
Just enough dark to see
How you're the light over me"
~The Dreamer
The Tallest Man on Earth, Sometimes the Blues Just a Passing Bird

First of all, I just know the guy's name is Kristian Matsson and he is Swedish, so this isn't a well-researched post. I can say The Tallest Man on Earth makes me very happy and less lonely when I am very pensive, and alone.

I can also tell you I got out of bed this morning just so I could listen to this song. Sometimes the blues is just a passing bird, and why can't that always be? Sounds like fucking Robert Frost or something.

I get a half Dylan, half Jeff Buckley vibe, portrait-painting and revealing. The guitar tones in this song make me unbelievably happy, though he picks from a variety of instruments on recordings and in live performances (according to YouTube). A lot of the parts aren't terrifically complicated, though he has a fantastic melodic ear and unbelievable songwriting. You don't need virtuoso playing with those ingredients in a song like this one though. You just let it speak for itself.

It is a simple song, from a simple point of view. Those of you who say the world has too many singer-songwriters, that it's too hard to keep them all straight, (I know you're out there) shut your mouths! Let them write, let them sing, and let me sit here and press replay.

This too:

3/26/12

Acoustic Jim Adkins, on one of my favorite Futures tracks:



Is it wrong that Arizona is on my list of "places I'd like to live" partially because I could catch Jimmy Eat World gigs like this?

"i'll pick up put down the phone/like your favorite Heatmeiser song goes/it's just like being alone"
~Kill
Jimmy Eat World, Futures

3/25/12

Oh, wow, this song. It got stuck in my head sometime yesterday around 7 o'clock maybe, as I was waking from an accidental nap and snuggling up to blankets, a cat and the 'Cuse game.


*Unfortunately I can't find a version like the one on my circa-2004 mix CD, acoustic without the rather unsuitable drum loop. Let the record show I do not approve.*

Here I am today, as I was the day before that and will be tomorrow, trudging along through tasks and assignments and life in hopes of some sort of gratification, satisfaction, maybe even a raise someday. Is there really nothing else to be offered right now? Nothing but chances emboldened by memories.

"I don't remember what it used to be like
The things that I'm not proud of
And the only reason I kept coming back to you
Was 'cause I thought I was in love

But I don't think about you anymore
And I wonder what the hell I came here for
When I'd rather just fall right off of your floor
And come beautifully undone"

There is the past, tangible, like pictures of happy times when you were younger. They are there for reflection, inspiration, but you will not find your answer in it.

Why do we look for answers in a time that no longer exists? Why do I think there's growth to be found on lands I've clearly scoured? When did I lose my way, and how do I get it back, and are the keys what I think they are, or are those distractions? These are questions I ask when trying to sleep, and when waking up from accidental naps.

"I don't recall San Francisco at all
It falls right from my memory
And the only place that really exists
Is where you thought you'd found me

But I don't think about you anymore
And I wonder what the hell I came here for
When I'd rather just fall right off of your floor
And come beautifully undone"
~Beautifully Undone
Lindy

3/25/12

Apparently Look Mexico is into hunting, subject matter suitable for the video to their first track of their 2010 release, which is in my daily rotation. Illuminating the everyman, he who hangs with friends and kisses hounds, it makes the band seem pretty fun. But I think there's more to say for this song than the video says, though.

There's fed-up anger here, and it speaks to me in time signatures.

"When you live out your time/In hope of impossibility/We stripped down lies/We treated you like family/Credit where credit is due/Now the bureau is looking for me/So as you thank us for our patience/Expect something else, not a thing/and I thank you/I'll thank for/Thank you for absolutely nothing"
~You Stay. I Go. No Following
Look Mexico, To Bed, To Battle

Literary worlds are inflamed wtih income inequality tales, academic journals are quick to point out problems and debate each other's solutions. Everyone's talking. But where's the music on this? It's there in a pop track or two, an occasional reference to money or fame ("I Wanna be a Billioniare," that damn song) or escape (think Coldplay's "Paradise"). Fleet Foxes did a pretty good job capturing the feeling of it all on "Helplessness Blues," but commentarywise, the album speaks to the individual far more so than the whole of the culture or its direction.

One of the constant drawbacks of pop culture is it's always trying to define itself into what it wants to be, rather than be what it is. Underground, you find the antidote. Underground, you can call the spade a spade. But I've yet to come across a force inspired recent events in recent years, unless I'm forgetting somebody.

Essentially, where is my Guerilla Radio about derivatives?