8/31/14

Today I get to see my favorite band play for the first time. Since 2010,The Wonder Years have been my link to the past and soundtrack to the present, the kind of pop punk that touched upon everything that made me love the genre way back when in the first place, deepened with an of-age maturity perfectly matching my own struggles, trials, inner demons and dreams. Dan Campbell and company created a tremendous force in a genre ever-shifting, ever-changing, ever running from its own stereotypes without sacrificing their own progression. For this, and for the countless hours spent singing at the top of my lungs, I love them. Check out the tag at the end of this post. You'll see.

I get to see The Wonder Years today, and it's mostly because I live in Pittsburgh, a major market with a devoted community of promoters who work hard to deliver the best of the scene, and one-of-a-kind events like the Four Chord Music Festival. It's been such an improvement in my exposure to bands and overall quality of life to be able to find out a band is touring and know there's a pretty good shot they're coming through a local venue, after I spent a year and a half missing out due to having to travel to D.C., Philadelphia or Baltimore to see the bands I love.

Shows were immensely important to me growing up. They were the only place I felt sort of cool - at school I was an over-achieving nerd, at ballet class I was a tortured young artist, but in my basement blasting Taking Back Sunday or The Early November, I felt alright, understood. Thee early 2000s eruption of indie, emo and pop punk bands gave me an anchor, and I clung to it. Going to see the bands I loved live meant dancing and yelling and gaping in awe like a fool, but it also meant being part of a crowd I didn't have to run from or morph in front of to fit in. I saw kids like me, and older ones with tattoos and cigarettes I'd one day emulate, in my own way. My fascination with stage and performance developed, learning to hear the acute differences between guitar parts and memorize set lists. The fixation eventually carried over to other parts of my life, when wearing band shirts and listening to headphones in the hallways led me to some of the best friends I ever made.

I'm no longer a mousy girl in checkered Vans with a button-covered messenger bag waiting outside the back door of The Bug Jar, but that feeling that drove me there never left. In some ways, my ability to satiate it has only increased with the time and resources adulthood can provide. Sure, I sometimes feel old (there was that time I went to the Touche Amore concert in my work clothes and high heels) but I'm so grateful to be able to indulge this part of myself, now more than ever. So, cheers to the Pittsburgh music community for giving me an outlet again, for enriching my 2014 with so many incredible shows, sounds and memories, for giving me another spin with that all-time favorite companion, distraction and medicine of live music.

Should be a great show.

"I've been acting like I'm strong
But the truth is, I've been losing ground
To a hospital too crowded,
A summer winding down,
I hadn't seen a heartbreak until now,
I hadn't felt a heartbreak until now."
~Dismantling Summer
The Wonder Years,The Greatest Generation

8/27/14

I've become very excited for the LPs to come in the final third of 2014. Among them is Ryan Adams, an artist I will tirelessly follow through all his hills and valleys. It's been three years since we heard his new material (the backstory of why is pretty sad and fascinating in its own right) but when I listened to the opening bars of "Gimmie Something Good" I knew it would be worth waiting for. This guy's songs will never be bad - they will never be, because he knows what he is doing - but maybe, hopefully, I'll find the subtle changes he's made in his taste and structure fit just so with my own slight progressions toward maturity.

I love how hook-filled he made the chorus, how anthematic, and the little bright, resonant intro to it that is just other-worldly enough to play into the off-kilter bluesy quality. He plays guitar like no fucking other but everyone all at once, and I love that. His style is instantly recognizable for its commitment to resolve and clean-stroke aggression. This song has easily been one of my favorite singles of the year, mostly for the chorus but also for all that reverb. The last album he put out clung to the softer side, and though I loved it and found it gorgeous, here we have amps cranked up and electric-fueled energy, like the old days, and it's a refreshing sound, one that sounds like reclamation. It's in the chorus, too -- a cry for revival.

Lyrically I love how his words tend to flash between the past and present, how he would go on for sentences. But this is much more abrupt, direct, succinct, and where one could say that reflects a lack of creativity in metaphor, you can also say it means he's getting the point across better. Unlike other forms of writing, lyrics don't need to be direct to be good. Neither do they have to be overly flowery. This song is as straightforward as it gets, and it excites me to hear what other proclamations are in store come Sept. 9. 

I've found I enjoy listening to artists progress, especially those who apparently seem like they've already reached their peak in days gone by. When you do this, you learn everyone still has something to prove. Every artist still has a story to tell. When some have written them off, when they themselves may have done the same, the words and notes leave these little cues of how they've processed and come back from that, and a song like "Gimmie Something Good" provides no better lesson. I could talk for days about how brilliant "Easy Tiger" is, or defend "Rock 'n' Roll" to the haters, and I'm sure I'll read lots about how even with his upcoming self-titles accomplishments, Ryan Adams is still no longer the rock star he was. But for tonight I'll just play the new stuff and look forward to hearing more. For now I'll just appreciate hearing the old and the familiar in the new and irresistible.

"All my life,
Been shaking,
Wanting something,
Holding everything I have like it was broken
Gimme something good,

Gimme something good

Gimme something good

Gimme something good..."

~Gimmie Something Good
Ryan Adams, Ryan Adams

8/18/14

"I can't leave with words like these
They'll break the bones that hold up my sleeves
I've got to tie her so high her breath freezes before she speaks
But this bus just won't go far enough
So I'll strap my face to a homemade bomb
And blow the bus stop through the parking lot
We'll celebrate like we were free

I know a place where we can both get laced
Take some time to learn about your face
About bawling and bell curves, about strength from inhalers
And I'll take the fifth and you can just sit
And I'll watch from a distance while you open it
This is how I will keep her 

In pieces, she's a keeper

And I'll be holding my breath with the best
My breath with the best intentions

This is not for me, your perfume struggles perfectly
It wraps around and screams at me,
'My hero tastes like plastic, he's elastic and now he's dead.'

My straight-faced grin is the first to leave
Hand in hand with the queen of tragedy
Why do I hurt just on purpose?
I guess I lack a purpose
So smile like a child sitting in the sea
Forget about what's in the water and just focus in on me
I'll be the phantom of the opera
I'll be the lantern you blow out first

And I'll be holding my breath with the best
My breath with the best intentions

This is not for me, your perfume struggles perfectly
It wraps around and screams at me,
'My hero tastes like plastic, he's elastic and now he's dead'

And I'll be the reason you'll leave this city.

And I'll be the reason you'll leave this city.

This is not for me, your perfume struggles perfectly
It wraps around and screams at me
'My hero tastes like plastic, he's elastic and now he's dead.'"

~The Pornographer's Daughter

 Northstar, Pollyanna

Caught a story last week ranking the definitive bands of years and eras, and it made me realize what a difficult task that would be for me to do on my own, in a subjective, personal sense. Often, bands I encounter don't take hold on me until one or two or six years later, when mood and measure align - and so the band may have made its mark on music long before it did on my mind. So it shows up later on my timeline, likely in stronger sense than when I first took a listen and underscored by rediscovery.

One of the best examples of this is Northstar, whose 2005 "Pollyanna" is something of a cult favorite, a particularly warm brand of emotive pop punk with ballad roots and aggressive fills. The contrast between the latter is usually perfect. 

While I knew this record back when, I took more of an instant liking to Cassino,the side project of singer, lyricist and guitarist Nick Torres. Not until the past couple years has this album become something I really appreciated; not until the past couple weeks did it become one of those I'd rather listen to than almost anything else. Baked with sadness, regret and visceral metaphor, decorated with the precise guitar lines you might expect from a band of this era, Northstar shines a little brighter than the rest of their scene in the rear view. 

Their best lines and harmonic progressions dance in perfect step, accentuated with subtle rhyme. Their minor-side melodies come from fast, controlled fingers, their rhythm section is pop punk mastery, adding muscle and movement to the skeleton of not-quite-lost love poetry.  "Pollyanna" is an album where hope is hardly visible, a dying flame, but the momentum of its flicker is just enough to burn the whole place down. I'm enraptured, always, by the word choice, by the unique structure of snaked along sentences and in-the-moment reflections. I'm singing along at the top of lungs, wishing I could say it all this well, wishing I could realize in this way. It may be nine years since these songs found ears willing to listen, but it's tonight that mine have found them to hear.

"I've got this weakening grip
around her arm, around her hips.
her silhouette's my favorite,
I'm not letting go of it.
I'm not letting go of it.

She's got a leash that grips my teeth, 

that cleans the air I breathe
It's wrapped around this city.

You look so lovely running through my fingers,
running through my fingers
where everything's always felt right.

You look so lovely running through my fingers,
running through my fingers
where everything's always felt right.

I will chase it, grab it, stake it
Run until she fakes it,
We all blew faster,
An oncoming disaster,
I will let this hurt.

You look so lovely running through my fingers,
running through my fingers
where everything's always felt right.

You look so lovely."

8/15/14

"Don't ask me where I've been
Cause you don't want to know. 
Don't ask me who I'm seeing, 
No, you don't want to know.
Don't come around here 
When I need you the most.
Leave it alone, 
Leave a little room for the holy ghost. 

Now your pretty horses run wild and free,
You can go and find a lover, baby, better than me.
Talking snow for days with your friends in La, 
Have mercy.

Now your pretty horses run wild and free,
You can go and find a lover baby, better than me.
Talking snow for days with your friends in La ,
Have mercy."

I like it when songs devastate me.

No, I love it. In the way I love strong coffee and long drives, in the way that makes me feel OK being alive and feeling feelings, which for me, like most humans, is a complicated endeavor. So I find songs that devastate me, that speak to whatever hurt I harbor and exacerbate it,like needles in the wound. Sometimes, those songs find me.

The new Gaslight record offers much to discuss in term's of growth, reputation and catalog. But why talk about that right now, when the best moments are those of supreme heartbreak, perfectly channeled bedroom poetry accompanied by muted guitars and ghostly, dark vocals? I see all this when I am transfixed by the final bonus track on the iTunes release, one of the saddest songs Brian Fallon has ever written, one that is cloaked in the despair of loss and yet accepting of its own loneliness. I played it far too many times this week. It is an instant favorite, the kind of song I won't forget, the kind of song I would send like as a message in a bottle, that I would rather wrap myself up in all day than go out and put on whatever face and front is needed to get through the day.

8/9/14

"And when our voices fail us we will find new ways to sing.
When our bodies fail we’ll find joy in the peace that it brings. 

The world is a beautiful place but we have to make it that way.
Whenever you find home we’ll make it more than just a shelter.
And if everyone belongs there it will hold us all together.
If you’re afraid to die, then so am I."

~Getting Sodas
The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, Whenever,If Ever

Lately I've been getting lost in the atmosphere, a conscious decision but a natural one. This morning I am hard pressed to find a band with a better grip on what it means to do this than The World Is a Beautiful Place and I am No Longer Afraid to Die. The post-rock swells and elaborate guitar parts build and decorate emotional weight. While their sound captures many tropes and styles of emo indie rock spanning decades, TWIABP feels larger than that label implies. They are as dramatic and grand as their name promises. 

Instrumentally, they work in textures light and dark, floating as often as they come crashing down. I love the rhythm section's work on their 2013 debut LP "Whenever, If Ever," playing with beat-focused intros as much as they sit back and let the guitar carry the climax. I love how Thomas Diaz choose to sing and shout, I love how scattered he seems and the way his words so often seem to cry out in hopeless recognition. He is as conversational as he is reflective, in the way early Death Cab for Cutie is, blending scenes of trees, cars and bedrooms with self-aware revelations on being alone, flawed, or human. The most memorable lines, I think, come from the latter, and they are placed to be shown off. Frequent use of group vocals add to the highlights, a vital layer in the expanse. But I'm not really listening to this band for its words, so much as I am seeing where they fit, how they fit, inside this greater interchange of sounds. 

For all their intensity, these songs are only so aggressive, they are too melodic to be thrashy. Timing is constantly played with, creating dynamic moments. Songs that begin in the world of echo-y, measured melody then pause for a string solo, and pound out a sped-up, cymbal-colored chorus before building a long, slow bridge to the end. In many ways,these are songs atypical in structure, and I think that is what makes them so good for deep, lost listening. They meander, in a way perfectly paired with ponderous, sad thoughts of being a wreck and being alone. 

I can see why this band is often polarizing, I can see why people wouldn't "get it," and I could see why one wouldn't want to subject their ears to something that is at times disorganized and strange on its way to finding moments of captured, heightened beauty. But what a journey that is to take.

"No, we aren't ghosts.
Even ghosts have a home to haunt.
No, we aren't ghosts.
We open doors and we shed our skin.
No, we aren’t ghosts.
Open your windows and let us in." 
~I Will Be Ok. Everything.

The World Is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Die, Are Here To Help You (Split w//Deer Leap)