Cool Band T-Shirt Contest

A little game I play at concerts, mostly to pass the time in the pre-show standing around time, is what I call the Cool Band T-shirt Contest. How it works is this: when you come to show that I attend, if you choose to attend wearing a Cool Band T-shirt, I will judge you. If you wear the coolest of cool band T-shirts you may win! And what is your prize? Well, mostly the respect and admiration of your peers (fellow music geeks), which may, if you happen to be fortunate enough, get expressed with a glance and a nod, perhaps even a muttered "Cool shirt. You see them?" Now, as you may have figured out, I went to the Pixies Doolittle show tonight. Yes, it was awesome. I may share more in a future post, I may even devote an entire post to the music that played before the opening act, between them and the Pixies, and after the show. Although I didn't have time to properly judge the Cool Band T-shirt Contest tonight because the show started promptly on time, I think I won! Not only did I get more than one glance and nod in the direction of my TV on the Radio Hoodie, I got an enthusiastic "That is awesome! I love that!" from a fellow music fan.

Love & Hate

Two columns over at Pitchfork this week both make reference to the vast amount of music available to us in this day and age. I should point out first that while I read Pitchfork almost daily, I rarely read a full review (although their reviews are really the power they wield). I'll maybe read a paragraph or two of a review of an album I'm interested in, mostly to see how they are justifying the 5.8 or 7.9 or 8.5 they are giving it. I do however, read the columns completely (Why We Fight, Poptimist and Resonant Frequency) - that is where I find the really interesting and fascinating ideas. But back to the point - too much music out there and the old twins love and hate. When you are as in to music as I am you often think of yourself as a music lover - the one thing I shared in my "About Me" is my music fandom - but this leads to all sorts of problems. You look for things to love and this can be costly in terms of time and money. I spend hours listening to new music - it's the reason I watch the Wedge weekly, listen to several podcasts that are devoted to new music, read blogs, review sites and aggregators that will help me find my next love. Plus I lose those hours to music that I already know I love (I can feel my brother agreeing with me as I type this). I have justified this in the past by the power, joy and wonderful sensation of falling in love with new music - it can be exhilarating! But when faced with the amount of music that it is possible to expose oneself to you do have to choose what to limit yourself to. Perhaps you can write off entire genres - "I don't like rap/country/classical" - or time periods "Nobody's made truly great rock since 1973/1979/1987/1991/2000" - or levels of popularity "If they signed to a major label, I'm no longer a fan" - or locality "I don't like anything but local music." So you choose to hate music in order to cherish your true loves. When I was younger, I was very much in tune with that hate - I was an angry young man after all - but somewhere along the line I decided to be nicer. Perhaps it's my job that makes me want to feel only the positive emotions of love and joy and lose touch with the anger and hate but maybe I can embrace and cherish my inner angry young man to say no to more music and YES to less? Why the Frente album cover up there? Because I love it and I know few other people who do.

I was wrong

I remembered today that there actually is a song with my name in it. It is called "Space (I Believe In)" from the Pixies, although technically it is about a guy named Jefrey with one F! Did I mention that I'm seeing them live this Saturday. Plus I get to cross "see a band play an album in full" off of my bucket list.

Dancing about architecture

The title above comes from the oft repeated but difficult to attribute quote that "talking (or writing) about music is like dancing about architecture." The point usually being that it is difficult to convey anything meaningful about music through words and we should just listen. If it is true, which it might be, I still want to talk about music. I like talking about music, I like thinking about it, I like reading about it, and I even like writing about it (however poorly that might be). Sometimes I do all this analyzing at the cost of actually listening but I do think it is helpful. I think that doing anything well requires you to think about why, how and what the point is rather than living easily with your eyes closed. All of this is in part inspired by the news that some Radiohead fans received their King of Limbs Newspaper Albums editions early today and I can't wait to get home, check my mail and, once I receive mine, talk about it with the other Radiohead fans I know. It also reminds me of my half serious plans to start something akin to the Devon Record Club right here in Calgary.

Cut The Cable!

I had each of my two sons in my car today and as usual, was asked to play a Beatles CD. The one I usually select is a Ringo heavy mix I made for them that starts with "Yellow Submarine." For the past year or so, my oldest son and his cousin have insisted that among the sound effects and captain's orders are the words "Cocker Muncher" which to them is just ridiculous gibberish (for now) but for others, well ...
I finally found a satisfying answer from the internet. The words are actually "Cut the cable, drop the cable."

Yin & Yang

I was watching The Wedge tonight and during a video for the song "Vanessa" by Grimes I was thinking an apt comparison might be Crystal Castles. Now, typically, when a comparison comes to mind it is often of the "sounds like" or "if you like x you'll like y" variety but this was an example of Grimes being the yin (soft, gentle) to Crystal Castles' yang (hard, aggressive) although they both feature high, sonically manipulated, female vocals over a largely electronic background. The other time that this sort of yin and yang comparison hit me so definitely was when first listening to Juana Molina's Un Dia and thinking that the yang to her yin would definitely be Drums Not Dead by Liars.

Breadth Versus Depth

I like music, a lot of music, a lot of different music and much of the time when I'm selecting music to listen to one of my many considerations is variety. I rarely listen to the same album twice in a row or even in the same week or month. My typical answer to "What are you listening to lately?" is "A little of everything."  There are advantages to this pattern including feeling like I'm actually listening to much of my (admittedly large) collection of music - I have to justify all the time, money and effort I've put into that collection after all - and by listening to stuff from all through that collection I feel like I get more of it than if I'm sampling a small slice. But I'm beginning to consider the advantages of sticking with one thing for awhile. Currently, I'm listening to the Pixies non-stop, including multiple consecutive plays of Doolittle in anticipation of seeing them play live in just over a week. They will be playing Doolittle in its entirety too! And when The King Of Limbs came out, I listened to only it for a solid week. Some time ago, I advocated to my brother (another music geek extraordinaire) the act of "pretending a band is coming to town" so that you would then immerse yourself in their material in order to be "ready" for the show. This works even better when they are coming to town and you are actually going to see them.

Calgary

Today Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver announced his new album is coming out in June. When I read the track list I couldn't help but notice two things: 1) most of those song titles are places and 2) one of those places is Calgary, which is where I live. The first point is important because maybe this means it will be a concept album - ooh cool. And the second is nice because all of a sudden I get to connect with the song on this weird, sort of superficial, but personal level. There are no songs about my hometown that I'm aware of - I can pretend that "Backward Town" by the Grapes of Wrath is though because, you know, close enough. There are no songs with my name, my wife's name and especially not my last name so I'll have to settle for a song about my current home. The only other Calgary song is the brief mention of it in "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" by Death Cab for Cutie. It made for a pretty emotional moment when I saw them live here in Calgary a couple of years ago even though I knew they would play it, had heard it many times before and figured everyone else in the audience was waiting for it too. They will probably play it again when I see them in a couple of months and I'll probably get chills again. And maybe, just maybe, Bon Iver will come and play "Calgary" in Calgary.

Going Mainstream

I had been thinking about this idea for about a week then read this article on Flavorwire about bands "selling out." Implicit in the piece, and I think in comments elsewhere (recently on the NPR All Songs Considered Podcast, for example) is the assumption that bands tend to progress toward selling out or going mainstream. It seems we expect bands to become more polished, "radio friendly," "pop" or what have you as they develop as bands. I was thinking, where does this assumption come from? I remember it being a pretty big part of my attitude growing into music fandom. Part of it for me was thinking about when to join with a band and when to jump ship. If a band started out too weird, lo-fi, punk, noisy you might not like them until they developed their sound and matured - a good example here being the Replacements. If they continued getting too mainstream then you would pull out the old "I liked them before they got popular/mainstream/polished/boring" cliche - then you could argue about the point at which the Replacements lost their "edge," typically just before or after Don't Tell A Soul. But it seems that maybe this whole thing is just a product of the punk/post-punk era. Those bands typically got more polished because they got better - at playing their instruments, writing songs, using the studio. More recent bands - I'm thinking of two dominant forces of the past twenty years: Radiohead and Wilco who, if anything, seemed to get weirder, more experimental and less mainstream sounding as they matured (up to a point). For Radiohead the examples being OK Computer into Kid A / Amnesiac and for Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with its weird radio noises and A Ghost is Born with its 11 minute drone, Krautrock influences and abstract Neil Young guitars. It seems that the Strokes have been kind of assuming this progression as well - the loud, radio and arena friendliness of First Impressions of Earth that resulted in critical rejection of it creating a retreat into the more "Strokesy" sound of Angles. Maybe they didn't realize that Radiohead and Wilco had made it cool to be weird and experimental. Certainly James Murphy's comments about his post LCD plans suggest that he does.

The White Album

I was recently reading the Wowee Zowee edition of the great 33 1/3 series of books and, as I expected, someone compared WZ to the Beatles' White Album. This got me to thinking about what exactly that comparison means - it certainly gets thrown about quite a bit in the music press; comparing a given artist's work with the iconic Beatles album. One of the first instances I remember was in a description of One Chord to Another by Sloan. I think in that context it meant that each member of that band, which also has four singer-songwriters, was using the other members to back them up on a wide ranging set of strong songs that were essentially solo compositions. But since then I have heard the White Album comparison in a number of other ways which seem to imply the following qualities: long, in need of editing, varied both in style and song length, containing sonic experimentation ("number 9, number 9 ...), and often involving a variety of songwriters. If this is the case, the One Chord makes a poor comparison and the Sloan album worthy of the tag is Never Hear the End of It. I have also thought impenetrable is often implied in the comparison but I find the Beatles anything but impenetrable, although many of the albums I think of as "their White Album" I do find took some work to appreciate: Sandanista!, Have One on Me, Sign O the Times ...

The Music Diary Project

Here is where I will be tracking my listening habits as part of the Music Diary Project (details here) Please feel free to join in or check back often as I add more.

April 4

As I ate breakfast I saw the following videos on Much More Music:
Pumped Up Kicks - Foster the People
One Night, One Kiss - The Russian Futurists

Driving to work, in car, on CD:
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (tracks 1-9) - David Byrne & Brian Eno

Walking from car to work, listening to my Zune:
Last bit of the Panda Bear Guest DJ episode of the NPR All Songs Considered podcast including
Slow Motion - Panda Bear
Eastover Wives - Dent May

Walking from work to car:
Sound Opinions SXSW Podcast including:
Pinetop Boogie - Pinetop Perkins
Dress Off - Le Butcherettes
Apply - Glasser

In car on the way home, on CD:
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (tracks 10,11, 1-3) - David Byrne & Brian Eno

At home, on CD, through headphones:
Sgt. Pepper - The Beatles
Magical Mystery Tour - The Beatles
Relics - Pink Floyd

April 5

On the way to work, on CD:
Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (tracks 4-11) - David Byrne & Brian Eno
Summer Sun (tracks 1&2) - Yo La Tengo

Walking from car to work:
Sound Opinions SXSW Podcast including songs by:
Bewitched Hands
PS I Love You
Esben & the Witch

Then back to the car:
More of the SO Podcast including:
Tuneyards
Dominique Young
Wild Flag

In car on the way home:
Summer Sun (tracks 3-11) - Yo La Tengo

After reading the some of Nick Southall's notes on the project (the guy who started this thing), I thought I would add a few notes. You can expect a similar pattern all week - listening to CDs on the commute to and from work, podcasts on Zune while walking and occasional "serious listening" at home. Last night's Beatles & Floyd was accompanying me reading Clinton Heylin's "The Act You've Known All These Years" which attempts to chronicle the year in the life of the Beatles as they recorded Sgt. Pepper. I was listening on headphones as Lori watched TV in the other room (her shows that I don't watch). Also, the Eno/Byrne and YLT are recent purchases that hadn't been listened to yet, that is why they got chosen for the car.

Watched last week's episode of The Wedge I had PVR'd

April 6

In the car:
Summer Sun (tracks 12&13) - Yo La Tengo
This is Happening (tracks 1-4) - LCD Soundsystem - because of all the buzz about the final show

Walking:
SO Podcast review of new Strokes
Musicheads Podcast review of Yuck

Walking at lunch:
Musicheads reviews of Low Anthem & Soft Province
House of Balloons - The Weeknd (downloaded this last week, first listen, track 1 so far)

Walking to car:
House of Balloons - The Weeknd (I'm about halfway through now)

In the car:
The end of This Is Happening
then I listened to the radio - CJSW (the local college station) and heard most of one Replacements song (Hold My Life)

At home:
Faust - Faust (two songs) This is due to reading the Wire Primers book and the Clinton Heylin book and being interested in hearing "experimental music"
Watched this week's Wedge
Watched American Idol

April 7

In the car:
Destroyer's Rubies - Destroyer (tracks 1-6)

Walking to work:
House of Balloons - The Weeknd (I'm starting to get turned off by the lyrics - even if that is the point)

At lunch, walking:
House of Balloons (the rest of it) - The Weeknd
Follow the Leader - Sloan (a song off the upcoming album you can download for free from their website)

Walking to car:
Caffeinated Consciousness - TV on the Radio (another freebie ahead of the album)
ep - Junior Boys (ditto)
The start of the KEXP Music that Matters podcast - I think the first track was by Acrylics?

In the car:
Destroyer's Rubies (the rest of it)
Woman Power - Yoko Ono (how did she invent the 80s drum sound 10 years early?)

Watched the Idol results show

April 8

In the car:
more of Disc 3 of Onobox

Walking to work & walking at lunch & walking to the car again:
more of the Music That Matters podcast including a great track by The Joy Formidable - I'm going to have to check them out.

In the car:
I worked late so I listened to CJSW to catch the Musiquarium - the official start to the weekend

At home:
A bit of U2 because I wanted to hear their version of Unchained Melody due to seeing part of it when watching Idol

I should note that our receptionist at work often has the radio on - Lite 96? - and most of the time I don't really notice it unless it is something out of the ordinary or something I like - the only standouts this week were U2's With or Without You and Thank You by Dido

April 9

Now you get to see what having kids does to my listening - I can report trying to recall how a number of Pavement songs go because I'm reading the Wowee Zowee entry in the 33 1/3 series of books, which I did while the boys watched cartoons. Later I played We Will Rock You and We are the Champions by Queen for the boys to show Oliver how a simple beat (boom boom clap ...) can be a big part of a song - Lori let the boys play the drums for the last few days. In the car later we listened to the Beatles - a Ringo heavy comp for Oliver. After dropping the boys off for a sleepover at Jeff & Jill's (Thanks!!), Lori selected Radiohead's The Bends for the van while we drove to and from Chinook Mall - got through all of it. I'm currently listening to Pavement's Wowee Zowee, naturally. Also saw Foo Fighters on SNL.

April 10

More Beatles in the car with the boys. Radio in the car on the way to and from the groceries - Lizstomania by Phoneix and a mash-up of Monkey Gone to Heaven and The Boys are Back in Town. Right now listening to Double Fantasy (I picked up the Stripped Down version last night).

Nothing else to report except - Hey! I listen to a lot of music! More than I thought! and this was a week of working late, watching a few movies at home and a night out with Lori. This was cool (thanks Nick!) and I hope some others I know took part too. Maybe someone will post something Monday?