Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kaviler and Clay
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policeman's Union
T.S. Eliot - Four Quartets
Louise Erdrich - Tracks
Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex
Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated
John Gardner - Grendel
Graham Greene - The End of the Affair
C.S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces
Carson McCullers - The Member of the Wedding
Alan Moore/ Dave Gibbons - The Watchmen
Tim O'Brien - The Things They Carried
Tom Stoppard - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
Stefan Szymanski - National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer
William Carlos Williams - Selected Poems
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
Seven songs
I got this from the blog of former Stylus writer/ current PopMatters writer Ian Mathers. It actually looked like a good idea. Here are the "rules:"
"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to."
I kinda want to see what others are into, but I'm not sure how many people would actually write it up. So I won't "tag" anyone. But I am interested in the frequent listening habits of others these days. So hit it up.
Anyway, here are mine. I tried to make these actually sound, you know, thoughtful and thought-provoking. I may have failed. Here goes either way:
"Electric Relaxation" - A Tribe Called Quest
There's this bit in the first verse of the song, Phife's very first rhyme, I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian / Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation / Told you in the jam that We Can Get Down / Now let's knock the boots like the group H-Town. Right as he starts that rhyme, the upright bassline in the back goes "BOOM-BUM-BOOM-BOOM-BUM-BUM-BOOM-BHUUM-BHUUM-BOOM-BOOM-BUM..." I can't get that damn bass out of my head.
At that point the lyrics of the song (about how smooth the members of the Tribe are, sexually) are pointless. Uncharacteristically of the Tribe, the lyrics take a big backseat. The bass and rhyme structure are so smooth on their own that Phife and Q could very well be rapping through Anton LaVey's "Book of Satan," or "How-to" book on kitchen sink repair, and it wouldn't even matter. Although, Phife's verse near the very end is kind of hilarious, in a twisted sort of way: If my mom don׹t approve, then I'll just elope / Let me sink the little man from inside the boat / Let me hit it from the back, girl I won't catch a hernia / Bust off on your couch, now you got semen's furniture.
"Break Up Your Band" - Chavez
Somehow, Matador let both Chavez albums go out-of-print. Maybe they never got big because they're not really any genre. They're one of those bands where for which it's impossible to create a Pandora station, because it thinks that they're like 5 different (wrong) things. They could be indie, but they're too earnest. They could be emo, but if they sing about relationships, they're opaque about it. They could be math rock, but they actually care for pop song structure. They could be punk, but they're too complicated. They could be metal, but they don't scream enough and they're only good musicians (no Kerry Kings here). See where this can go?
Anyhow, they re-released their entire discography on a 2-disc set. Which equals about 28 songs. It's a pretty excellent comp top-to-bottom, but this is the one song that stands out.
Everything about it encompasses what a three-minute rock song should encompass. Slowly-building intro? Check. Solid drumming? Check. Appropriate hooks (that little power-chord-and-bass thing in the verse that goes "DUH-DUH-DUH-DUNDUNDUNDUN")? Check. Anthemic chorus? Check. Engaging vocal melody? Check. Strange, almost disconcerting video? Check AND check. The only thing it's missing is a solo, which only becomes apparent when you really think about it too hard. Thing is, it would be superfluous. Man, I wish they recorded more music...
"Seven" - Sunny Day Real Estate
An emo band you can actually get behind. One that doesn't even look like an emo band, really (although their lyrics painfully betray their case...but it's sort of another instance of where he could be singing about anything because his voice is so powerful and perfect for the music).
Really, only three things I want to note about this song:
(1) The hook in the verse where the full band comes in and plays those six or seven quick chords.
(2) The fact that the lyrics repeat over twice. Good thing you'd have to look them up to really figure out what he's saying, because it's pretty shitty faux-poetry. Although I do like the line The mirrors lie, those aren't my eyes, even if it means nothing.
(3) The harmonies in the chorus. Geez. I don't even understand what it is about them. But they're just sorta thrown in there and they work.
"Factory Belt" (the second song, halfway in) and "Gun" - Uncle Tupelo
Not just an obligatory nod to both of the main songwriters (Farrar and Tweedy), I'm genuinely convinced that they're both geniuses. Sure, Tweedy's got Wilco and everyone fawns over him, but Farrar got jipped. Tweedy took the band and made another, more successful band, but Fararr basically did the same thing Tupelo was doing (with the old Tupelo drummer, at least) and stayed in obscurity.
Regardless, I like both of these songs for a variety of reasons. The former is Farrar's paean to working life combining Neil Young, the Minutemen and old-school country. The latter is a straight-up love song (well, maybe not "straight-up" like "Love Me Do" but a love song nonetheless). The reason why I'm so into these songs, though, is because both have this one lyric that keeps sticking out in my mind that makes me have to listen to it over and over. In "Factory Belt" it's the chorus line of It's tiiiime to lay this burden down/ Stop messin' arrouuund/ Don't wanna gotothegrave...without a sound.... Especially the harmony on the first "lay this burden down." They do that all the time on their songs (especially Tweedy when Farrar is singing lead), but for some reason this one sticks out.
"Gun" also has a similar sort of musical feel (all the heavy strumming in the chorus, kinda like "Factory Belt"), but its vocal vibe is totally different.
Tweedy sounds more jubilant than somber or gruff, as is Fararr's usual case. And there are no harmonies on this one. Just Tweedy singing 'Cause my heart, it waaaas a gun/ But it's unloaded now/ So don't bother me. The part that really sticks me is after the guitar solo, when everything drops out and he sings I sold my guitar to the girl next door.... It's just so vulnerable. I'm obsessed with it.
"Motor Away" - Guided By Voices
Don't ask me why, but any song that begins with the words "Post-punk X-Men" has my attention. And then the guy gets in the car and it gets serious and Bob starts wailing about how you can be anything that they told you to/ You can belittle every little voice that told you so, it makes you want to ram your car at full speed into whoever happens to be pissing you off at the time. And then when he continues and goes into the part about speeding going down icy streets and finally implores you to speed away...I swear, I start going 20 over on my mountain highway home street.
Nylon Smile - Portishead
Some of the songs on Third blend together, so it's hard to pick one. That's certainly not a knock on the album - I picked it up again the other day after a few-month-long hiatus (I listened to the shit out of it the week or two after I bought it, which ended up being about a month after it came out). It's just that all the songs have a certain minimalist vibe going on in them. It's hard to explain fully, and this live version doesn't have the exact feeling as the album.
Maybe it's the production: on the album it sounds like Beth Gibbons is simply alone in a room. The "instruments" are incidental. They're background noise; the guitar and sequencer could be the rhythm of the city at night while the percussion could be the sounds of the machinery in the boiler room that one can hear through the vents. Either way, they're back there making noise and they're the perfect compliments to her haunting (she sort of howls between actual singing) lament: Cause I don't know what I've done to deserve you / And I don't know what I'll do without you [...] I can't see nothing good / And nothing is so bad / I never had a chance / To explain exactly what I meant. And it ends right there. Literally a split second after the last "t." Is it a song? Or is it emotion?
"List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they're not any good, but they must be songs you're really enjoying now. Post these instructions in your blog along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what they're listening to."
I kinda want to see what others are into, but I'm not sure how many people would actually write it up. So I won't "tag" anyone. But I am interested in the frequent listening habits of others these days. So hit it up.
Anyway, here are mine. I tried to make these actually sound, you know, thoughtful and thought-provoking. I may have failed. Here goes either way:
"Electric Relaxation" - A Tribe Called Quest
There's this bit in the first verse of the song, Phife's very first rhyme, I like 'em brown, yellow, Puerto Rican or Haitian / Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu Nation / Told you in the jam that We Can Get Down / Now let's knock the boots like the group H-Town. Right as he starts that rhyme, the upright bassline in the back goes "BOOM-BUM-BOOM-BOOM-BUM-BUM-BOOM-BHUUM-BHUUM-BOOM-BOOM-BUM..." I can't get that damn bass out of my head.
At that point the lyrics of the song (about how smooth the members of the Tribe are, sexually) are pointless. Uncharacteristically of the Tribe, the lyrics take a big backseat. The bass and rhyme structure are so smooth on their own that Phife and Q could very well be rapping through Anton LaVey's "Book of Satan," or "How-to" book on kitchen sink repair, and it wouldn't even matter. Although, Phife's verse near the very end is kind of hilarious, in a twisted sort of way: If my mom don׹t approve, then I'll just elope / Let me sink the little man from inside the boat / Let me hit it from the back, girl I won't catch a hernia / Bust off on your couch, now you got semen's furniture.
"Break Up Your Band" - Chavez
Somehow, Matador let both Chavez albums go out-of-print. Maybe they never got big because they're not really any genre. They're one of those bands where for which it's impossible to create a Pandora station, because it thinks that they're like 5 different (wrong) things. They could be indie, but they're too earnest. They could be emo, but if they sing about relationships, they're opaque about it. They could be math rock, but they actually care for pop song structure. They could be punk, but they're too complicated. They could be metal, but they don't scream enough and they're only good musicians (no Kerry Kings here). See where this can go?
Anyhow, they re-released their entire discography on a 2-disc set. Which equals about 28 songs. It's a pretty excellent comp top-to-bottom, but this is the one song that stands out.
Everything about it encompasses what a three-minute rock song should encompass. Slowly-building intro? Check. Solid drumming? Check. Appropriate hooks (that little power-chord-and-bass thing in the verse that goes "DUH-DUH-DUH-DUNDUNDUNDUN")? Check. Anthemic chorus? Check. Engaging vocal melody? Check. Strange, almost disconcerting video? Check AND check. The only thing it's missing is a solo, which only becomes apparent when you really think about it too hard. Thing is, it would be superfluous. Man, I wish they recorded more music...
"Seven" - Sunny Day Real Estate
An emo band you can actually get behind. One that doesn't even look like an emo band, really (although their lyrics painfully betray their case...but it's sort of another instance of where he could be singing about anything because his voice is so powerful and perfect for the music).
Really, only three things I want to note about this song:
(1) The hook in the verse where the full band comes in and plays those six or seven quick chords.
(2) The fact that the lyrics repeat over twice. Good thing you'd have to look them up to really figure out what he's saying, because it's pretty shitty faux-poetry. Although I do like the line The mirrors lie, those aren't my eyes, even if it means nothing.
(3) The harmonies in the chorus. Geez. I don't even understand what it is about them. But they're just sorta thrown in there and they work.
"Factory Belt" (the second song, halfway in) and "Gun" - Uncle Tupelo
Not just an obligatory nod to both of the main songwriters (Farrar and Tweedy), I'm genuinely convinced that they're both geniuses. Sure, Tweedy's got Wilco and everyone fawns over him, but Farrar got jipped. Tweedy took the band and made another, more successful band, but Fararr basically did the same thing Tupelo was doing (with the old Tupelo drummer, at least) and stayed in obscurity.
Regardless, I like both of these songs for a variety of reasons. The former is Farrar's paean to working life combining Neil Young, the Minutemen and old-school country. The latter is a straight-up love song (well, maybe not "straight-up" like "Love Me Do" but a love song nonetheless). The reason why I'm so into these songs, though, is because both have this one lyric that keeps sticking out in my mind that makes me have to listen to it over and over. In "Factory Belt" it's the chorus line of It's tiiiime to lay this burden down/ Stop messin' arrouuund/ Don't wanna gotothegrave...without a sound.... Especially the harmony on the first "lay this burden down." They do that all the time on their songs (especially Tweedy when Farrar is singing lead), but for some reason this one sticks out.
"Gun" also has a similar sort of musical feel (all the heavy strumming in the chorus, kinda like "Factory Belt"), but its vocal vibe is totally different.
Tweedy sounds more jubilant than somber or gruff, as is Fararr's usual case. And there are no harmonies on this one. Just Tweedy singing 'Cause my heart, it waaaas a gun/ But it's unloaded now/ So don't bother me. The part that really sticks me is after the guitar solo, when everything drops out and he sings I sold my guitar to the girl next door.... It's just so vulnerable. I'm obsessed with it.
"Motor Away" - Guided By Voices
Don't ask me why, but any song that begins with the words "Post-punk X-Men" has my attention. And then the guy gets in the car and it gets serious and Bob starts wailing about how you can be anything that they told you to/ You can belittle every little voice that told you so, it makes you want to ram your car at full speed into whoever happens to be pissing you off at the time. And then when he continues and goes into the part about speeding going down icy streets and finally implores you to speed away...I swear, I start going 20 over on my mountain highway home street.
Nylon Smile - Portishead
Some of the songs on Third blend together, so it's hard to pick one. That's certainly not a knock on the album - I picked it up again the other day after a few-month-long hiatus (I listened to the shit out of it the week or two after I bought it, which ended up being about a month after it came out). It's just that all the songs have a certain minimalist vibe going on in them. It's hard to explain fully, and this live version doesn't have the exact feeling as the album.
Maybe it's the production: on the album it sounds like Beth Gibbons is simply alone in a room. The "instruments" are incidental. They're background noise; the guitar and sequencer could be the rhythm of the city at night while the percussion could be the sounds of the machinery in the boiler room that one can hear through the vents. Either way, they're back there making noise and they're the perfect compliments to her haunting (she sort of howls between actual singing) lament: Cause I don't know what I've done to deserve you / And I don't know what I'll do without you [...] I can't see nothing good / And nothing is so bad / I never had a chance / To explain exactly what I meant. And it ends right there. Literally a split second after the last "t." Is it a song? Or is it emotion?
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Chest bump
Say what you will about Dubya (I think we all have, so I won't again), but at least he's good for incidental humor. And something about this picture just makes me smile and think, 'Hey, maybe he's not so bad.' For like five seconds. But still.
(Found this on the Freep's Year in pictures 2008. It's not nearly as good as this one from the Boston Globe via the Sadbear, but it has this picture too, which I love.)
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Supernatural Superserious
Accelerate, R.E.M.'s "new" album, (and by "new" I mean "most recent," as in this spring; I'm just now getting around to listening to it) reminds me (1) why I love R.E.M., (2) why every R.E.M. album since Bill Berry left (Up and onwards) has sucked, and (3) why I wish I had grown up in the 80s when they were actually more relevant to the general populace.
Seriously...it actually kinda...rawks. Woah.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
More retooling
I am in the process of doing away with my other blog, which was set up solely for the purposes of having an online clippings archive. But I decided to consolidate. I wanted more people to see the stuff I was doing there (all journalistic) as well as the stuff I am doing here (mostly for the purposes of more literary endeavors and music criticism). Hopefully I can make the transition smoothly. Either way, I'll be posting more of my newspaper work on this site and hopefully, more of the other (non-work related) stuff here.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Tigers eek out 'W' vs. Prates
By Jack Hittinger, Daily Guide
From the beginning of Thursday night’s meet, it certainly looked as if the Waynesville High School wrestling team would have a big upper hand against Branson. But the Tigers didn’t wrestle their best, and only beat the Pirates 44-27—a score that, according to WHS coaches, should have been higher.
The rest here.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Guitar Man Upstairs
This guy makes me happier than words. Also, his bandmate kind of looks like Dr. Reist.
Looks like Christmas has come to Waynesville.
Sunday, December 07, 2008
Fight to the finish
By Jack Hittinger, Daily Guide
LEBANON - The raw numbers of the final score wouldn’t indicate it, but the Waynesville Tigers were lucky to get out of Lebanon High School’s Boswell Auditorium with a 64-53 win in Thursday night’s Central Bank Invitational Basketball Tournament.
Jefferson City Helias hung with the Tigers the entire game thanks to some shoddy defense and costly turnovers on the Waynesville side.
Tiger head coach Tom Bildner certainly didn’t like what he saw on defense.
“We weren’t following our own defensive rules tonight,” he said. “We did not apply the proper defensive help or pressure.
“I know that they understand what to do because they execute it in practice, but for some reason live games are different.”
Read the rest of the story here.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Basketball season tips off
By Jack Hittinger, Daily Guide
LAQUEY - The Frisco League’s annual conference basketball tournament kicked off Saturday afternoon at Laquey High School. Saturday were both boys’ and girls’ play-in games as well as both boys’ and girls’ 4 vs. 5 first-round matchups.
More here.
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