10/1/13

The other day I was driving westward around 7:15 p.m., one hand on the wheel and the other on the iPod shuffle, pressing next every four or five seconds partly out of anxiety, partly out of getting fed up with the same old thing. I stopped on "23" to light a cigarette, then turned it up the volume and took it in.

The sun disappeared, slowly, throughout the song, behind the hills in front of me, at first all bright and blinding, then a coral-red glowing orb, then a peachy tint across the base of the horizon. It was a beautiful sunset - I don't head west often, so I don't this much - and this song was a perfect soundtrack to witness such a sight. Wistful and familiar, hopeful and just a little tormented. This song once sold me on "Futures" as an album and that Jimmy Eat World could make incredible music that wasn't "Clarity" and still meaningful. I kept it on the whole time, and listened to the album from start to finish, followed by "Invented" and "Damage."



That guitar riff is instantly identifiable, classic and clean and full. I love the atmosphere of the beautifully mixed in background chords, rising and falling and fading out just before the first verse kicks in. Same for the spacey, hazy,delayed tones at the end, it's pure feel and restraint in the production and in the playing. I love singing this, too, because I think it's one of Jim's best recorded performances as far as JEW ballads go - like his voice before the final guitar solo, where he brings it up at the end of the last line - he is very good with the subtle changes, changing a note or two here and there to give it just a little more depth to repeated lines.

"I felt for sure last night

That once we said goodbye
No one else will know these lonely dreams
No one else will know that part of me
I'm still driving away
And I'm sorry every day
I won't always love these selfish things
I won't always live
Not stopping..."

So much about this song is so sad, and yet, it's incredibly wide-eyed and accepting. It's straightforward and short - sometimes, we think good songs  must be incredibly deep and metaphorical, but this is a song that proves the most simple route is often the straightest, that the most direct phrasing can be the most effective. Especially when cloaked in so much dreamy production, the words could get lost if they were too busy.

"It was my turn to decide
I knew this was our time
No one else will have me like you do
No one else will have me, only you"
I remember hearing these words so fully, so clearly, back in high school. I was in a car the first time I heard it, too. Back then, 23 seemed ages away, I couldn't even imagine what my life would look like but I knew it would be nothing like what it was. I'd be older, I'd be smarter, I'd have it all figured out. I'd have direction, and the consolation wisdom of experiences. Now, 23 is a memory, just as tangible and forgettable as being 16 was.

Not sure if I'm all that different, but I know I've grown some. I know in many ways, that's for the better. But I also know old habits die hard. Still I love listening to this song today, as much if not more than I did back then. I think the more I hear it, the more I understand it - sometimes what we identify with in music or art is premature, and it is not until later in our life's experiences that we can fully comprehend its meaning. It still resonates, maybe in a deeper, different way, one that weighs a little more heavy on the chest than just a sad pretty song by a band I listen to all the time.

When I was 16, I didn't know what it meant to make decisions you consciously know will change your life. I didn't understand the gravity of loving someone, or how difficult it can be to make them understand, or how easy it is to find someone else who does. I didn't know what it was like to drive west, and not look back.

"Amazing still it seems
I'll be 23
I won't always love what I'll never have
I won't always live in my regrets

You'll sit alone forever
If you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I'm here, I'm now, I'm ready,
Holding on tight
Don't give away the end
The one thing that stays mine

You'll sit alone forever
If you wait for the right time
What are you hoping for?
I'm here, I'm now, I'm ready,
Holding on tight
Don't give away the end
The one thing that stays mine..."
~23
Jimmy Eat World, Futures

9/20/13

I have a piano back in my life! It's a full-size Casio, no weighted keys but plenty of settings for weird sounds and modulation - beats, too, which are great for acoustic and timing practice.

I've come to appreciate a good keys melody over the years, and I think the best are simple ones. Obviously musicianship, style are going to make for the best, and the virtuoso jazz type will always own piano playing in my mind,  but a good line backing up a lyric-focused vocal do wonders for setting.

This tune, "Daydreaming" by Dark Dark Dark. has a lot of what I like in a piano-fueled song. A little bit of minor key, a little bit of jazzy technique, and a heartfelt message, one of wandering and wondering. There's a little Tori in there, somewhere, maybe it's just the piano, but it might also be the just-off vocals, the tendency to switch registers. I very much enjoy the overall setting though - and the band is from Minneapolis, a fact I discover just days away from one of my best friend's move to the Twin Cities.



"Think of a place I would go,
I'm daydreamin',
Where the sycamore grow,
I'm daydreamin',
And oh if you knew what it meant to me,
Where the air was so clear,
Oh if you knew what it meant to me,
Anywhere but here.

Oh now look to the east,
Great mountains remember me,
Oh I wound around you for miles,
I sat down right there and stretched my bones.
And oh if you knew what it meant to me,
Oh if you knew what it meant to me,
Oh if you knew what it meant to me,
You would see, too.

Oh the unspeakable things,
It's land I can see for miles,
With only the wind whispering,
Land I can see for miles,
With only the wind whispering,
Oh land I can see for miles,
With only the wind whispering,
Oh I'd run as fast as I can
Land I can see for miles
Oh I'm searching,
With only the wind whispering,
Oh if you knew what it meant to me,
Oh if you knew what it meant to me,
Oh if you knew what it meant to me,
You would see, too.

Oh the unspeakable things,
Oh the unspeakable things,
Oh the unspeakable things,
Oh the unspeakable things."

~Daydreaming
Dark Dark Dark, Wild Go

9/19/13

Lately it seems all I can listen to post-hardcore, The Starting Line or The 1975, but today was dominated by the Turnpike Troubadours. I discovered them when I was listening to a Shovels and Rope Pandora station on a whim this week, but it worked out great because I was researching toll roads at the time.

Turns out they're a pretty amazing bluegrass band, though I've learned that's not necessarily the right term. Wikipedia says they're "American Red Dirt" which is a new term to me, though I think I can get behind it. What a great way to describe something. Sometimes we all feel like American red dirt, amirite?

Seriously though, the straight-talkin' lovesick lyrics, copious fiddle and swinging four-four time truly makes you want to whirl around a dirty bar, or barn, in cowboy boots 'til the cows come home. Lyrically, there's plenty of narrative and scene-setting - the meter, rhymes and references are all quite poetic. Borderline campy, some might say, but I don't think you have to entirely suspend reality to relate to the scenes of broken hearts in small towns. No wonder their third LP, "Goodbye Normal Street" popped off last year - it's gotten me into their whole catalog, courtesy a YouTube playlist. I absolutely love the singer's voice, the key choices and the harmonies. I'm thinking it's time I get myself to a real roots-y concert sometime soon, because bands like this with many players, much soul and a dirty-party twinge to their down-home twang always put on a good show.



"Well I could go downtown and drink till dawn,
I could sing those sad old country songs,
oh but daylight finds me bored and blue,
the whole damn town's in love with you
Well the neon signs light up the block,
its a livin' breathin' honkytonk,
and your hair's wet with the morning dew,
the whole damn town's in love with you
the whole damn town's in love with you

Well all the cowboys in this bar,
oh and all those fools who play guitar,
well they're well aware that we are through,
the whole damn town's in love with you

Well the music pours out in the street,
just clean and cool as a cotton sheet,
well them long and lonley fiddle blues,
the whole damn town's in love with you
the whole damn town's in love with you

Well your worn out favorite pair of jeans,
oh I remember everything,
they were things i'd grown accustom to,
the whole damn town's in love with you
yeah the whole damn town's in love with you
the whole damn town's in love with you." 

~Whole Damn Town 

Turnpike Troubadors, Diamonds and Gasoline

9/11/13

"Now if you never shoot, you'll never know
And if you never eat, you'll never grow
You've got a pretty kinda dirty face
And when you're leaving your home she's begging you, "Stay, stay, stay, stay, stay."

I'll give you one more time
We'll give you one more fight
Said one more line
There'll be a riot, cause I know you.."
~Robbers
The 1975, The 1975

The first full-length from The 1975 is as good - if not better- than I expected it to be. I've been thrilled - it's a great car record, great headphone record, morning or night listening. The sound is incredibly fresh, vocal-fueled and produced to the nth degree....these are stories of youth and sex and frustration, the lure of lust and luxury ever-present but more as plaything than temptation. It's simply fun to listen to, which makes it comforting, but it's complex enough to be thought-provoking, which makes it prime for repeat listens.

Verbally, it's casual, often conversational, but sonic-ly speaking, it's very decorated. There are wedding bells, there are sax solos, and they're all complimenting and highlighting some real intense, reaching vocals. In reviews of The 1975 I think you'll hear a lot of comparisons to R&B of the 90s, and electro pop of recent years, and there is a definite fusion going on, but it's far more authentic than what you might otherwise think would be gimmicky. 

In the quiet moments, you here some real musicianship, and Matt Healy on piano is a treat I hope they use often in their live show. I think these were songs written out of what was fun to play, fun to write, fun to hear, from the point of view of rabble-rousers as fascinated and confused as most creative types are in their late teens/early 20s/entire lives. I'm immensely impressed - and from what I've seen of live footage, the live band might sound a little more raw and maybe even a little better than this record, coated in shiny ProTools glory, can reflect.

Definitely the soundtrack of this fall, and whatever it brings. 

"Well I stay tuned, listen to the news and try to fall asleep at night.
Because I'm living in a house with just three walls,
So I'm always getting recognized.

There's a change in pressure
We're never gonna lie to you.
Change in pressure
My broken veins say that if my heart stops beating
Change in pressure
We'll bleed the same way
Change in pressure,

Oh, my broken veins say..."

~Pressure

The 1975, The 1975

9/11/13

"Mending" by The New Frontiers is still the most humbling, comforting album on days like today - days that are anniversaries of the worst days.

Today I heard a few "where were you" stories, from people who were journalists at the time. Their stories were much different than my own. I didn't tell my own, but my age makes it obvious - I was in school when our principal came on the PA, and when our algebra teacher rushed into the hallway to talk to other teachers. I watched the towers fall via television screen in the chorus room, then a little while later, off a projector screen in the auditorium, large like a movie screen.

I remember crying for the people who died, realizing that nothing would be the same for them or their families, unable to comprehend death at this level. My Spanish teacher hugged me in the hallway outside Cafeteria A  and said it was OK, she cried too. I think I realized that nothing would be the same for me, either, or anyone who saw this happen - and truly, it never was or will be. But I also remember that feeling of togetherness, and the crisis friendships that form when boundaries fall. Weren't we all helpless, hopeless scared Americans? No letters next to the politician's name mattered that day. Yet here we are a dozen years later...if there's one thing that I hope people remember when they're told to Never Forget, it's remembering that moment when you knew, instantly, how human we are all.



"This is the house where you were born

These rooms seem smaller than before
I turned 22 when were you found
Shattered and broken on the ground

They will rob you blind
They will take your peace of mind
And you'll want to run away from here

I know you can't escape from all of your fears
I made my peace with the world and all that it brings
I'm holding my own
We saw a spark within your eyes
Your face reflected in the light
We are all angels in the sky
We are all mirrors in disguise

We will lift you up
We will place you on your feet
We will pick you up
We will never let you go

I know you can't escape from all of your fears
I made my peace with the world and all that it bringsI'm holding my own"
~Mirrors
The New Frontiers, Mending