6/11/14

The team at Hopeless Records has an eye for talent - and my new indulgence from their catalog is Driver Friendly. With horns, synth, duo lead vocals and grim, grinning lyrics, this band is everything I like about "new" pop punk. They pull threads of bands that have been around for years like NGF, TBS and TDS while fitting in with the hook-friendly likes of All Time Low or We are the In Crowd (who, by the way, have a cover of "Sic Transit Gloria" that makes me want to claw my eyes out).

I was pleased to find this band, via aimless clicking through YouTube recommendations, for something new and upbeat but just so-slightly cynical on an ordinary day, full of feeling my ordinary ways. Even better to find their new LP drops next month, because those bridges, back-up vocals and radio-friendly fills just beg to be blasted through a car stereo on a hot summer night. While there's a lot about Driver Friendly that's pretty formulaic and perhaps juvenile, their last record has some really memorable moments and creative use of instrumentation. Beyond that, it's usually strangely comforting to me when I find new scene bands carrying on the themes and tropes of the scene bands I grew up with - themes of falling, striving for stability, recklessness - whose songs don't completely suck and are actually fun to listen to. These are the songs I identified with as a younger version of me, the ones with narratives of struggle, loneliness and helplessness. I still do. With every year, and every album that finds its way into meaning something in my life, there's new manifestations and understandings of those same old fears and feelings. Who cares how new or old the song is  - or, for that matter, the band?

And as far as Driver Friendly goes, having a guest verse from Dan Campbell doesn't hurt either. How am I not supposed to click on that? Smart move, Hopeless. 

"Used to believe in stability
Or the thought of being stable
Well, I'm not able
To stay inside the lines
Details and numbers
Swallowed up my insides
And it starts to slip away

I found safety in the taste of the ground
Why do we fall down?
You always tell me you’re just waiting for the fall
If we fall we can claw our way out
I’d rather crawl than stand so tall.

I just want to see the finish line
Just want to see the other side
But I’m not able.
Stuck between the past, some times,

and the future tense
Balance on the precipice
And it starts to slip away

I wish I could refuse to cave in
But it’s so easy to pretend I’m brave
When in the end, I’m collapsible at best.

I’m collapsible at best.

If we fall we can claw our way out,

If we fall we can claw our way out.

I found safety in the taste of the ground
Why do we fall down?
You always tell me you’re just waiting for the fall...
If we fall we can claw our way out,

I’d rather crawl than stand so tall."

~Stand So Tall 

Driver Friendly, Unimagined Bridges

6/4/14

Her voice, on those last few notes of the chorus, is nothing short of shiver inducing. Her words, phrased in uncomplicated scenes and feelings, are full of all things sad. Her loneliness, and strength, is palpable.

Jenny Lewis is one of those musicians I don't think I'll ever tire of. I don't think she'll ever stop making music that works for me. From that first time I heard her, live with Rilo Kiley on Coldplay's X&Y tour in 2005 from the lawn of Darien Lake, I was instantly hooked. Ten years later, about, she's putting out incredible solo work and recording with the best of them. She sounds rich, raw, assured. She sneers with a shyness, her voice a softly fluttering, slippery ribbon. Some tracks party a little harder than others, some quiver with strains of gospel, and some, like this beautiful title track from her last LP, are ballads in the key of heartache, full of honest longing.

With simple acoustic strumming in a four-chord form, and harmonies full, rich and deep, the words of this song are free to shine, and the structure makes it so. Writing in such succinct patterns can be a challenge, a maze whose walls are not always high enough to contain the meaning and means of the message, but when it is done well, no doubt can be had: it is a song. It is meant for melodies, to be sung and heard, bound to resonate and satisfy. Our minds like patterns and rhymes, we like repetition, but we also crave connection. So from there, simplicity rules: words like "liar," and casual, reminiscent "we's," and fire metaphors, the comparison of loneliness and addiction, these are things we know and feel. Lewis does not pontificate, but she is thoughtful. She does not parade, but she does spin a yarn. She leaves hints, casts doubt, and wraps it all up with a tough and trembling cry. 

Looking forward to The Voyager on July 29, and hearing what else she has to say.

"I went to a cobbler
To fix a hole in my shoe
He took one look at my face
And said, "I can fix that hole in you"

I beg your pardon
I'm not looking for a cure
Seen enough of my friends
In the depths of the godsick blues

You know I am a liar
You know I am a liar
Nobody helps a liar

Because I've been down to Dixie
And dropped acid on my tongue
Tripped upon the land
Until enough was enough

I was a little bit lighter
And adventure on my sleeve
I was a little drunk
And looking for company

So I found myself a sweetheart
With the softest of hands
We were unlucky in love
But I'd do it all again

We build ourselves a fire
We build ourselves a fire
But you know I am a liar
You know I am a liar

And you don't know what I've done.

By the rolling river is
Exactly where I was
There was no simple cure
For unlucky in love

To be lonely is a habit
Like smoking or taking drugs
And I've quit them both
But man, was it rough

Now I am tired
It just made me tired
Let's build ourselves a fire
Let's build ourselves a fire"

~acid tongue, 

Jenny Lewis, acid tongue

6/2/14

Ever write the date only to pause, pull your hand back and feel a little dazed for a second? In a "wow-how-is-it-this-day-this-year" kind of moment? These moments still me, center me, in a frighteningly human way. That future you wondered about, the plans you made and re-made, it all happened and it is passed, but still, it is all there...the years wrinkled into your skin, tied up tight in your neck and shoulders and ribs and brain cells...but how could it move so quickly, and for what ends, exactly, at this juncture?

Some of my favorite songs are about wandering, about that recognition of time and space. This one never gets old. With a subtle harmony, brush strokes of rhythm and bluegrass auxiliary, this song is one of several from Peter Bradley Adams I find quite timeless and centering, although wistful. I find his style inspiring, as folk-pop/Americana like this can sometimes feel too contrived, or too country. Adams, though, has a gift for the perfectly timed rhyme, measure for measure and syllable for syllable, I find his music stirring without being intrusive, memorable, without digging under the skin. Simply sweet, sad songs, for sweet, sad nights in need of calm, meditation and dancing.

If it weren't for such a pleasing melody, everything about this song would be sad. But it burns even and tempered, a campfire at dusk, a pensive walk through the tangled woods of memory, where setting suns and rising moons peak through the trees.

"When my blood runs warm with the warm red wine

I miss the life that I left behind
But when I hear the sound of the blackbirds cry
I know I left in the nick of time

Well this road I'm on's gonna turn to sand
And leave me lost in a far off land
So let me ride the wind til I don't look back
Forget the life that I almost had

If I wander til I die
May I know who's hand I'm in
If my home I'll never find
And let me live again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losin again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losin again

Tell my brother please not to look for me
I ain't the man that I used to be
But if my savior comes could you let him know
I've gone away for to save my soul

If I wander til I die
May I know who's hand I'm in
If my home I'll never find
And let me live again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin' my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin' my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losin' again

The longer I run
Then the less that I find
Sellin my soul for a nickel and dime
Breakin my heart to keep singing these rhymes
And losing again
Losing again..."

~The Longer I Run 

Peter Bradley Adams, Leavetaking

5/26/14

"Even at 25, you gotta start sometime." 

With only a few days left where that lyric can be relevant to my age and existence, this song has been floating through my head at regular intervals in recent weeks. Few bands have held as constant a presence in my life as Jimmy Eat World during the past decade or so, a testament to their timeless mastery of the American rock song and coming-of-age, accepting-of-age narratives. I will never tire of them. 

This song, a better known track by fair-weather fans and a firm staple in any best-of catalog, is the ultimate kiss-off to self-doubt and procrastination. It also has one of the most memorable hooks, and opening cymbal hits, you'll find from the early 2000s alt-rock era. This song, with its undeniably catchy melody and backbeat, is about action, about being present, about showing up for your own life.  

"Are you gonna waste your time 

Thinkin' how you've grown up, or how you missed out?"

Spending a life waiting for something to happen is no life at all, not when the potential to act, to achieve, to love and feel and experience exists at the fingertips of those willing to reach for it. At a quarter-century of life, it is not too late to shape these dreams. Modern society seems to have these boundaries mapped out for us, suggesting when adulthood should kick in and when we should become the functioning cog we're meant to be, but life is far more messy than those broad strokes allow. We fumble and fall on the way to our destinations, we take one step forward and two steps back, then leap ahead miles in a single bound and stumble on the landing. 

Still, what a comforting, inspiring reminder it is to know it's never too late to keep trying. All I need is just to hear a song I know.

"I'm on my feet, I'm on the floor, I'm good to go.
So come on Davey, sing me somethin' that I know.
I wanna always feel like part of this was mine.
I wanna fall in love tonight, here tonight.
I wanna always feel like part of this was mine
I wanna fall in love tonight."
~A Praise Chorus
Jimmy Eat World, Bleed American

5/19/14

Is there ever a better musical gift from the universe than a new Tori Amos album right when you need it?



On "Unrepentant Geraldines," Tori Amos gives us who she is, who she always was, and who she is proud to be. Amid plenty of high-culture, full-band and symphony-tinged numbers filled with whimsy and smart lyrical takes on life and society, I cannot help but feel instantly drawn to the softer, piano-led moments of composition-driven narratives, the kind where she channels analytical depths of heart and mind the way she has so many times before, though they've only grown with age, experience and time.

There is much to be said about this record, and its many movements and muses, but tonight I find myself completely struck by a mid-album ballad, "Selkie," which is the kind of song that creeps into your subconscious, lays down roots and digs deep. By Tori standards, it's a positively uplifting ode to romance and devotion. Characters and scenery paint a story unknown to any but the author, and yet, with the right chords, chorus and metaphor, we recognize its tenants. Tori is difficult for many listeners to understand, but she has never been anything short crystal clear feeling to me. On this record, on songs like "Selkie," I think we see an artist who, for decades, has honed her natural-born talent and hard work into a sound all her own, one that now is most prominently influenced by the artist's own body of work.

I've listened to this album 10 times through so far, and more tracks are instant classics than I could ever hope to hear. "Selkie" is very likely one of them, because it is delicate and thoughtful, it is straightforward, it is artistic, strange and beautiful.

"Selkie unzips her skin, finally determined
Through a window in the dark, there he sits all alone

I've been waiting on the love of my life to find
He's been waiting on his selkie to come back

He said "I know these shores are not like yours
But will you make your home in my arms?"

Selkie battled tide and wave just to gaze upon his face
Hiding behind rocks to learn if he found a new love

Lorelei sings the song for lovers who were torn apart then left broken-hearted
Lorelei hears the cry of lovers that the sea of fate had separated.

Selkie puts her hand in his, he knows the gift she gives
There inside his cabinet, folded safe her seal skin

I've been waiting on the love of my life to find
He's been waiting on his selkie to come back

He said "I know these shores are not like yours
But will you make your home in my arms?"
~Selkie
Tori Amos, Unrepentant Geraldines