Lacunae

DON'T LISTEN TO, OR REALLY LIKE THAT MUCH, BUT PROBABLY SHOULD
Bands/artists I don't like (but I probably should):

OLD STUFF
- Leonard Cohen
- Bruce Springsteen
- Derek & The Dominoes / "Layla," etc.
- Eric Clapton (any part of his career)
- Beach Boys / Brian Wilson / Smile, etc.
- Grateful Dead
- Kiss
- Rush
- Frank Zappa
- King Crimson
- Electric Light Orchestra

NEWISH STUFF
- The Hold Steady
- Wolf Parade
- Perfume Genius
- Sufjan Stevens
- Father John Misty
- Animal Collective
- Grimes
- Sun Kil Moon
- Tame Impala

NOT BAD / NOT GOOD, BUT EXCESSIVE AFFECTATIONS OF CLEVER
Bands/artists I think are overrated and represent a kind of mediocrity disguised as cleverness:

- Tom Petty (with or without the Heartbreakers)
- Elvis Costello

OK I GUESS
Bands/artists that are fine (and often quite good) but are somewhat overrated in the pantheon of pop, rock, and rap, and now it's just too late and too much to try and mount a challenge to the orthodoxy:

- Beyonce
- Jimi Hendrix
- Metallica
- Nick Cave
- Nick Drake

I LIKE THEM! I DON'T CARE!
Bands that will never get any cred from critics but I unabashedly love them and think they are brilliant:

- Tool
- Bauhaus
- Tears For Fears
- Alice in Chains
- Monster Magnet

DONE WITH THEM
BAND THAT I USED TO LIKE BUT OVERPLAY and TOO MANY COMPILATIONS AND REPACKAGING OF SAME OLD MATERIAL HAS COMPLETELY DESTROYED ANY JOY IN EVER LISTENING TO THEM AGAIN
- The Who

BLASPHEMY
Bands whose critically acclaimed phases (e.g., Roxy Music in 1972-73) I think were not as good as the other stuff they did:

- Wire (I much prefer their Eurotrash techno-pop from the '80s over their initial three-album run)
- fiREHOSE (much prefer fIREHOSE to Minutemen; yes, I just said that)
- Flaming Lips (much prefer their mid-period acid psychedelia from late 80s/early '90s to their later Brian Wilson-esque The Soft Bulletin, etc.)
- Husker Du (much prefer the last two albums over earlier stuff)

Ought - "Forgiveness" and "Habit"

This is pretty amazing.

This is the band Ought playing two songs ("Forgiveness" and "Habit") as part of a short movie called "A Take Away Show" (or "Concert á Emporter") as presented by the French website La Blogothéque.

An amazing 15 minute 37 second performovie that is well worth watching.

The two songs are originally from Ought's debut album More Than Any Other Day.

When Song Titles Describe How You Feel

DEAD SET ON DESTRUCTION

DON'T WANT TO KNOW IF YOU ARE LONELY

SORRY SOMEHOW

HARDLY GETTING OVER IT

TOO FAR DOWN

I heard this (Candy Apple Grey) for the first time in '88 or '89, I think. Can't remember. K used to listen to it a lot on a cassette. It sounded like shit. But it felt deeply midwestern in a way that I can't articulate. Like being in Columbus, Ohio or Milwaukee in October. Or maybe even Mankato in Minnesota.

The album is not known as one of their best. But it is my favorite of theirs, bar none.

And just so it's clear: I always preferred Grant Hart over Bob Mould. Still do.

When song titles describe how you feel, a kind of songomatopeia:

Grizzly Bear - Three Rings

Everything feels at once beautiful and about to fall apart. I experienced lots of beauty today with people I love (and I think, people who love me). But yet, at the same time, it feels about to fall apart. This, the new song from Grizzly Bear echoes that feeling. I know I shouldn't like Grizzly Bear (serious white men who do indie rock) but I can't help myself. They make beautiful music. Can't wait for the album, whenever it comes:

Scritti Politti - The Word Girl

Josh > Me

This is Swans with "Better Than You," the opening track from White Light From The Mouth Of Infinity (1991),

I'm so glad I'm better than you
I'm so glad I'm better than you are
I'm so glad I'm better than you
I'm so glad I'm better than you are

Visitor to Archway

A bit of a demoralizing and depressing day today, for obvious reasons. I need some coffee and I don't have any brilliant erudite and pun-ripe observations to make.

There is music for every mood. But is there music at the bottom?

For these moments, I made a mix once of all the songs that mattered to me before I was ten years old. Before puberty, before adulthood, before relationships, kids, etc. Frozen in wide-eyed childhood, parked (perched?) somewhere between toddler and boy-into-comics-but-before-girls sophomoric-journal-writer

But that mix seems a bit tedious now, all British Top 30 from the early and mid 1970s.

But I like to imagine the happiest moment in my life (well one of them anyway) being on a drive on Route 155 in Texas, sometime in March 1989. Hung over, as the white brittle clouds passed over the blue Texas skies. My head leaning to the side, while the radio station played music that eventually turned to hiss as the station disappeared in a sea of static. That static, a kind of hiss, was really the sound of happiness. For miles and miles neither of us moved the dial to find a new station, because it just seemed right to hear that filled up static and noise, mixed with the wind as it jetted over the tops of our window panes, pulled down a little bit.

Something like this, but with the volume turned down low. How it feels today.

Jain - Makeba

He Wins / I Lose

Theme from the Movie 'Fucked'

though my problems are meaningless
that don't make them go away....