Feeling Low

I saw the band Low a long time ago, opening for the Swans in Philadelphia back on January 26, 1997. They used to successfully capture that odd combination of ennui, navel gazing, loneliness, and melancholy ether that I would imagine my life being but never really was. If I tried hard enough, I would imagine that my life's banality hid some deeper meaning. This was, of course, self-deception on the grandest scale. But upon reflection, it's not so bad to think that way. And music is often my ticket to that self-deception.

Tonight I post two songs from Low, both of which I've posted before.

The first is a song called "Sunflower" which is possibly one of the most beautiful songs recorded in the last decade or two. I don't know what the song is about but it's a mini-story involving a death, a crime, and perhaps a betrayal. But it's also about a dream lost.

The lyrics are:

When they found your body
Giant X's on your eyes
With your half of the ransom
You bought some sweet, sweet, sweet
Sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the night

Underneath the star of David
A hundred years behind my eyes
And with my half of the ransom
I bought some sweet, sweet, sweet
Sweet sunflowers
And gave them to the night



The other song I'm posting is "Shame." The lyrics are:

A long time you waited
You thought it had abated
Shame of it all
The harm that it causes
Pours down like a faucet
Shame of it all



Tonight these two songs capture my mood.

Happy Birthday

So, on this day, I thought I would post one of my favorite songs from last year. For a few minutes, life becomes exciting, dreamy, endless, mobile, full of possibility.

The song is "Quick Canal," the band is Atlas Sound, the album is Logos, and the woman's voice is that of Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier. Atlas Sound is the 'side' project of Bradford Cox, he of the band Deerhunter, another one of my favorite bands of the last few years. Turn it up.

Enjoy.

Joy Division's Pop Moment

For some reason, people consider Joy Division above criticism... in the same way that for baby boomers, Jimi Hendrix is beyond criticism. They are artists who share similar trajectories and legacies, death punctuating their careers (I say "punctuated" because their careers have continued long after the deaths of Hendrix and Curtis). I'm not a terribly big fan of either, but I do understand why people tend to eulogize and worship them.

My discovery of Joy Division came with their compilation album Substance, which was basically a collection of random songs and singles which had not been featured on their two proper albums, Unknown Pleasures (1979) and Closer (1980). I loved Substance, partly because it had a clear arc from its punk-ish first song ("Warsaw") to the inevitable and obvious concluding song "Love Will Tear Us Apart." People not into Joy Division but who are somewhat familiar with the name will know the latter song. It is famous for many reasons. The singer, Ian Curtis, after all, committed suicide only weeks after recording the song which ostensibly captured some inescapably poignant moment in his descent into desperation. But the song is also hummable, with a melancholy and maddeningly catchy melody, not difficult to dance to, aided by a propulsive drum beat advancing the minutes along. It's first and foremost a pop song, even if it emerged from the heart of the post-punk moment when discord and dissonance were the central aesthetics. "Love Will Tear Us Apart" was for people who didn't really like or take to punk (or post-punk) but who could claim some modicum of hipness. Sort of like when liking R.E.M. in the eighties made you "edgy," you know, so you didn't actually have to listen to Husker Du or Mission of Burma. The song was made for a movie featuring John Cusack.

Yet, yet, yet, the song is undeniably beautiful and brilliant. It's not the best Joy Division song (probably "She's Lost Control" or "Isolation") but it may be the only song they ever recorded which had an emotionally vulnerable center. Ineffably sad. Like Polka dot sounded on the phone.

Here, then, is Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" followed by a version by (the?) Swans. The latter has been completely disavowed by Michael Gira as a horrible misstep but I find it strangely poignant in itself. Maybe it's because I know Gira's story too, which while not as terminally dramatic as that of Ian Curtis is still a story of sadness.

Joy Of Speed EP (song 1)

Invisible

In my first science fiction novel
I wrote myself cartwheeling over a deserted highway
In a brand new spaceship
That flew over my father's car

He drove for miles past the lights
In the backseat I rolled down the window just a little
Pushed my nose against the glass
But I couldn't make out any stars

And then the boy left his home
He grew arms as big as his memories
But they never could reach far enough
when he looked down from his spaceship
He was now invisible

I need to get up, I need to wash my face
I need to make constant plans to travel from place to place
Arriving and departing all at once
I fall asleep the moment I wake up

And in my dreams, I'm with my dad again
Packed into the backseat on a trip across the state
I'm blowing air on the window
Blotting out the sky outside up above

And then the boy left his home
He grew arms as big as his memories
But they never could reach far enough
As he looked down from his spaceship
I was now invisible

Joy -- Invisible [mp3]

Top 10 Movies of the '00s

My Top 10 Movies of the '00s

10. The Family Man (2000)
9. The Wicker Man (2006)
8. National Treasure (2004)
7. Ghost Rider (2007)
6. Knowing (2009)
5. Next (2007)
4. Lord Of War (2005)
3. Matchstick Men (2003)
2. The Weather Man (2005)
1. Adaptation (2002)

Am excitedly waiting for Season of the Witch (2010).

Life is good.

So It Goes

I have a terrible headache, a bad cold, you know, the usual. It is a Friday night and I'm considering what to do. Not that there are that many options. I mean, there are basically two options, stay in or go out. The 'out' option is not terribly exciting and involves meeting up with a person, probably downtown somewhere even though I want to stay uptown. And conversation will inevitably be stilted. And let's face it, I don't really want to go out, I mean what's the point? I will spend money pointlessly, forget about the obvious shittiness of my life for a coupla hours, and then feel bad physically (and otherwise) tomorrow. And I don't want to stay in because I don't like 'in.' Long story.

I got an e-mail from an old friend of mine in Bangladesh yesterday who wrote to me to remind me of the songs we used to listen to as kids. Apparently, I had a cassette tape (!) which had a song by the band called Poco. Yes, Poco, that Poco. Think of 1970s-era sub-Eagles feel-good California music that flows over you. As soon as the song is over, you've forgotten it, but it felt good to listen to it for a few minutes, especially 'cause when you first heard it you were 15 years old and had a crush on some girl. The song in question, "Crazy Love," is actually not as bad as I make it sound. It still conjures up little feelings buried somewhere in my keenly sharped indie brain. "Crazy Love" was perfect for being 15 and being, um, of the sensitive ilk.

Anyway, the dude who wrote me the e-mail is exactly my age, has the same name. We followed very identical paths in our adolescence, smoking our first cigarettes together, having our first girlfriends, discovering Houses of the Holy at the same time, reading Slaughterhouse Five simultaneously, etc. etc. One might say that he was my best friend at that time. We were two clowns, he the witty optimistic and me the sardonic foil. (Although when we argued, it was always because I accused him of using my jokes, which were better than his, to impress people and pick up chicks). I have not had much contact with him since we were about 18 although I've seen him on and off over the years, sometimes at parties, once in a bar in the West Village, another time at the international airport in Calcutta (Kolkata). He remains perfectly frozen in time, maybe not physically but his personality and his presence. He's just as full of optimistic one-liners and has nary a dark strand in his entire body. He has no time for melancholia or navel-gazing or yearning or any such thing. Life is good and it is what it is. In his free time, he seems to follow English soccer and posts youtube videos of forgotten seventies bands on his Facebook page. ("California" by Manfred Mann, anyone?).

I have my headphones on, listening to stuff on random. Am listening to an old Verve song, the one called "So It Goes." He ends the song with the obvious lines.

"....another drink and I won't miss her
another drink and I won't miss her..."

Yeah Yeah Yeahs -- Skeletons

I can't get over how awesome this song is. From their recent album It's Blitz.

The Knife

In my haste to do a top 75 list of the '00s, I forgot a lot of really awesome albums, including, of course, Silent Shout (2006) by The Knife, those folks from Sweden--actually two people--who make the weirdest most interesting electronic music this side of Burial. They have this whole shtick in which they never appear in public and don't give interviews. I don't really know how to describe their music but lazy reviewers always say "electro pop." Whatever. One of the people in The Knife lists her influences as:

David Lynch
Aki Kaurismaki
Korean cinema
Trailer Park Boys
Donnie Darko
Doom
Black Hole

Hmm..

Anyway, recently, they decided to write an opera for the Danish performance group Hotel Pro Forma. The opera, entitled Tomorrow, In A Year, is based on Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. They recently released the first product of this work, an 11-minute track called "Colouring of Pigeons" which is a collaboration with Mt. Sims and Planningtorock.

It's mind-blowing.

The Knife -- Colouring of Pigeons [mp3]

Jay Reatard (1980-2010) R.I.P.

Very Sad.

I Was Buying Some Feelings

Yes, Nick McCabe was awesome. This is from 1997