Taking Off and Landing

Waco has entered that season when the sky unzips, prior to that season when the wind blows and gives us relief for a few months. It’s a good time to be in Waco, as I cohere better to the blustery weather than the good. Today is lunch with one professor for no particular reason, and a session of reading through a chunk of the dissertation with my director. This morning,  I told my wife this morning that the dissertation is what some guys call “the other woman”; she asked me what I meant by that, at which point I realized that the metaphor is both sexist and kinda stupid–it’s not like I’m sexually attracted to my dissertation, or that I’m slipping off to meet my dissertation in the afternoon, but rather that, like any relationship, it requires a lot of time and attention. So, let’s just call it “that friend”, the one who overstays their welcome and asks a lot.

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I’m putting together an Advent mix, but with a slightly different spin on it. Instead of doing the thing where I just put a bunch of Christmas-y songs together, I want to do a mix that traces out the nativity story, in song. For example, “Sit Down/Stand Up” by Radiohead is a fairly ominous tune, perfect for mornings like this when the rain deluges the city streets.

OR.

It could be the perfect song to put in between a song for Jesus’ birth and escape to Egypt, when the children of Bethlehem are murdered. It starts off slow and steady, and erupts into a torrent of sound and energy, retaining the mood and sorrow.

So, I need suggestions. I don’t have any master plan for the mix yet, but I want to play fast and loose with it. In other words, this is more a mix of mood suggested by the contours of the nativity story, rather than songs that specifically talk about camels or angels. I mean, the songs COULD talk about those things, but I’m looking more for mood. Be creative, and let’s put something different than the normal Christmas song mixes.

plays tonight in Dallas. I have tickets.

That is all.

Ryan Adams is persistently the most frustrating musician who I’ll buy everything created by. Between albums of utter crap (Rock N’ Roll, 29), he puts out stunners (Cold Roses, Love is Hell, Gold). Easy Tiger, the newest offering, is mostly the latter category: back to good songwriting, and short pieces that capture epiphanies of the normal.

And so, today, lyrics from “Oh My God Whatever Etc.”, a three minute solo piece describing normal fatigue and normal weariness:

“If i could i’d fold myself away like a card table
A concertina or a murphy bed, i would
But i wasn’t made that way so you know instead
I’m open all night and the customers come to stay
And everyone tips but not enough to knock me over
And “i’m so tired” i just worked two shifts

But the light of the moon leads the way towards the morning and the sun
The sun’s well on it’s way too soon to know and
Oh, oh my god, oh my god, whatever, etc.”

That’s all I got. But it’s how I’m drifting this morning. I mean, who hasn’t wanted to just fold themselves away into a corner, out of the light and off of the floor?

The news just broke. Their first album was sheer genius.

Justin, we hate to see you go, but go towards a healthier life.

Sunday, we were getting a little tired. 10 hours outside for two days straight, walking around, eating little, beaten by the sun, and one more day to go. This is a great weekend, no doubt, and every year I love it, but every year I pay for it a little bit more by way of work that has to be done on the back end.

But enough of that. Sunday’s set.

Anathallo: I heard a little clip online, which was enough to drag us there even earlier on Sunday than any day before. And it was not without its reward. This little band from Michigan reminds me of Sufjan Stevens’ love child with Broken Social Scene–lots of instrumentation, horns, xylophones, odd rhythms, kettle drums, expansive songs with harmonies, the occasional lyric in Japanese. The best part was that ten minutes into their set, it started to downpour, and they loved it. As the sound crew came in to tape down tarps, they powered on through their set, and we were all rejoicing. It was truly one of the most joyful sets I’ve ever watched. They’re coming to Austin in November, and there’s no way I’m missing them.

The Black Angels: Led Zep meets Jefferson Airplane. Their lead singer was a little self-concious of his tambourine, but on the whole, good stuff.

Husky Rescue: mood music from Finland. Good to listen to, boring as mud to watch.

Damien “Jr. Gong” Marley“: one of the most fun sets of the weekend. I’m not that much into reggae, but this was crazy fun. Yes, this is one of Bob’s kids. Apparently, there were many, many kids. At one point, there were three Marley kids up there singing, with the backup singers/dancers going crazy. The pot smoke circling the audience was augmented by the dude with the Jamaican flag who danced on stage the whole time–this was his job: to wave the Jamacian flag, not sing or dance, but wave the flag.

Jose Gonzales: one man and his spanish acoustic guitar. Very mellow, but beautiful.

Matisyahu: a little boring. Yes, for a Hasidic reggae phenom, you would think he’d be good stuff, but it was a little…boring.

Ween: and moving right along to…

The New Pornographers: tight, together, but a little too power-pop for me. File under “everybody’s talking about how awesome they are, but I don’t know why”.

Flaming Lips: I nearly lost my mind during this show. The Lips are famous for their carnival atmosphere on stage. What do you expect from a band whose lyrics include, “Oh, Yoshimi/ they don’t believe me/ but you won’t let those robots eat me.” To set the stage, the band walks out with the bass player wearing a skeleton suit, sans head. Wayne Coyne comes out in a plastic bubble, wheeled out over the crowd, and proceeds to walk over the thousands of fans in this plastic ball. Upon arriving back on stage, the volunteer dancers come out, dressed in Santa Claus suits and space-age go-go dancer outfits. Confetti cannons, fake blood, balloons cascading into the audience, enormous inflatable dolls of spacemen and aliens. And of course, the music was great. It set the bar as far as what a concert experience should be.

MUSE: On the way out, you could always hear the band playing at the far end of the park, which was this band, picking up where Depeche Mode left off, and filtering it through the industrial scene. It’s really good.

Sadly, I missed Tom Petty. But the way the big bands were set up, you couldn’t really see a lot unless you camped out up front where I was for the Lips, and by Sunday night, we were ready to call it a festival. And a festival it was. Until next year, when I’ll worryworryworry about how much work I’ll be missing, and then go anyway.

There’s far too much to cram into one post with regards to the festival, so we’ll make this a three-post gig. Today’s installment, as the title indicates, covers Friday.

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I’ll do this bullet-point to save time and to keep me from being bored. I mean, Thailand’s coming apart, man. I want to give a full account of what I’ve seen and heard, but there’s more to talk about than music. Though, to be fair, music does move me in ways that no other voice can.

Ted Leo/Pharmacists–too much dance, too little substance.

The Dears–amazing. Brit rock meets xylophones and bandanas. Check it.

Guster–always great. Revamped a few old tunes with new stuff and a fourth touring member and all is well and right with the world.

Stars–terrible. One of my pet peeves is when rock stars start pontificating on George W. Do they know what the hell they’re talking about? I mean, seriously guys, you write music that sounds like the OC soundtrack: why so vitriolic?

Gnarls Barkley–fantastic fun. Had to skip Nickel Creek to see them, but it was worth it to see the band dressed up as John Nash and the Beautiful Minds. Lab coats, and thousands of people grooving to Cee-lo’s fantastic voice.

Cat Power–don’t waste your time. Her backup Memphis band is great and soulful, but they were better off backing Al Green than Cat’s preening on stage. Terrible stage presence, and just plain boring.

Ray Lamontagne–the man kills me. I’m wearing his name on my shirt today, if only to say thanks for making beards so cool again.

Van Morrison–he’s still got it. Mostly. I mean, he’s pushing 70. But he could still make a grown man call his mom weeping.

More to come. But that’s enough for one shot. Needless to say, seeing Gnarls and Ray in one day about blew my mind. But the mind-blowing was yet to come.

For starters, Derek Webb is giving away his last album for free, and who didn’t like his stuff when Cademon’s Call was still cool?

Second, this engine will find tracks that bloggers are putting up for free, so you can finally get a hold of that Pretenders track you’ve been dying to hear. Seriously. The Pretenders rule.

Stop laughing.

Seriously. Stop it.

P.S. If anyone has a copy of the Yeah Yeah Yeah’s song Modern Romance in an mp3 file they want to send my way, I’d be much oblidged.

Mol Jr. recently posted about the wonders of the 90s music, and in that vein, I must come clean.

I still harbor feelings for a certain band. My love for Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Cake, The Cranberries, and Soundgarden aside, there is one band that always gets left out of the pantheon of 90s rock.

It is time for this error to be corrected, this slight of history to be undone.

Give me a little bit.

A little bit.

A little bit of…them Jimmy Olson Blues.

The naysayers can rave all they want to, but this album is a gem. And like any true work of genius, it generates great love, and equally great animosity. I mean, if you like this album, you REALLY like it. And if you hate it, you can’t wait to burn every copy you can get your hands on. Once, on a drive from Waco to Amarillo, I put this one in, and Coleman hated every minute of it. Coleman, the man who loves and adores Widespread Panic, couldn’t make it past the Spin Doctors.

And so, faithful readers, I emplore you: give it another chance. Don’t write them off as has-beens or washed out carnies. Do your ears a favor and pick up this thing of beauty.

“I’m quite contended to take my chances
Against the Guildensterns and the Rosencrantzes
It’s a matter of Cain and Abel
And I can feel your knee beneath the table.”

Tell me that’s not allusional, literate.
Tell me that it’s not…beautiful.

If this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.