Favorite Songs of the Year, Part II

So, I'm 31 now. Doesn't feel much different, except that I know this is going to be a big year for me. 31 is the year that I'll get married, graduate from law school, make a big move across the country, and start a possibly semi-permanent career. Anyway, mortality-schmortality. Here are another five songs I loved this year on albums that didn't make the top 10. Sorry for the delay.

Lil Wayne- "A Milli": The sexual posturing on what seems like Lil Wayne's 8th record of 2008 is so outlandishly off-putting and weird-sounding at times that you think you're hearing an alien attempting to synthesize a day spent in a specially-made Earthbound Misogyny Vortex. Trying to solve Weezy's thought process on Tha Carter III is an exercise in futility; the man is not like the rest of us, and what results from his attempt to make us "get it" is utterly fascinating. What we get here is a syrup-sick, all over the map manifesto of a real, live freak who literally spent his formative years in one of those rap videos. "A Milli" is my favorite track on the record, and one of the strangest-sounding massive pop hits I have ever heard. An orchestral flourish at the beginning gives way to a machine-gunning minimalist beat featuring a chopped-and-screwed vocal hook substituting for instrumental accompaniment. For the rest of your life, you will not hear a line in a million-selling hit quite like "I be the shit, now you got loose bowels."

Death Cab for Cutie- "I Will Possess Your Heart" : I don't know if it's the name or what, but I'm always surprised when I love the new Death Cab record. The first single from Narrow Stairs is about girls, sure, but it's not the semi-precious, wordy missive on love you'd expect. Like the motorik it emulates, "Possess" is a cold, moody exercise in repetition that does more with less than any Gibbard-affiliated song I've heard. Refreshingly simple lyrics and a memorable, tasteful piano line are a complement to the atmosphere and charging drums that you don't often hear from a band so often preoccupied with the stories its songs tell. A 9-minute meditation on obsession that builds without adding. It maintains. Fantastic.

The Slackers- "Happy Song": For over a decade, New York's ska heroes have hinted at breaking out of Genreville. Head man Vic Ruggiero's songwriting has always been grounded in decidedly un-Jamaican tradition- punk, doo-wop, and Dylan, to name a few. Self-Medication represents the farthest step out of familiarity for the band, with explorations in psych-rock and 50s rockabilly peppered among the expected ska and reggae. While the title track, the stunning "Don't Forget the Streets," and surprisingly strong contributions from trombonist Glen Pine offer a tantalizing look at what could happen if the Slackers continue to hone their ability to integrate seemingly disparate sounds and influences into their songs, the cut with the most replay value is the most straightforward "American ska" song on the record. "Happy Song" is a short, sweet reminder that there is something to be said for the mastery of a form.

Black Mountain- "Stormy High": An intriguing collision of metal, folk, and prog-rock that draws as much from coffee-house songwriters and murky ambient atmospherics as it does from Led Zeppelin and Queens of the Stone Age. While the 17-minute chant/dirge "Bright Lights" can get to be a bit much, "Stormy High" grooves the album into life with a witchy wail and a shit-hot 70s riff that would make the Woodersons of the world nod their heads in unison on the way to the nearest beer-bust. Alright, indeed.

Fucked Up- "No Epiphany": Wow. The Chemistry of Common Life is a beautiful, jolting, jarring addition to the canon of hardcore. In my old age, the screaming gets to me sometimes, but I have a sense that the more I listen to this album the more I'll get to loving it as much as I appreciate just what it does and how potentially important it is. On "No Epiphany," psych-rock, shoegaze, and East Indian elements meet shimmering production and a driving beat to form the only hardcore anthem I can think of that reminds me primarily of The Chemical Brothers. The guitar layering on the track is worthy of Kevin Shields, and I don't say that lightly. If you can handle abrasive, barking vocalists, do yourself a favor and look past this band's unfortunate name. This is a really, really good record.

Favorite Songs of the Year on Albums That Didn't Make the Top 10

What a boffo mood I've been in today. Not having to study for the first time in weeks has a lot to do with it, but I also ate Chipotle, got a Christmas tree, bought a Costa Rica travel guide for the honeymoon we're taking in a few months, and spent a lot of time with Pam and the animals. It was awesome.

Anyway, it's the end of December now, so here's a taste of my favorite music of the year. Look for the big post with my top albums as soon as I get around to it. Until then, these are some of the songs released in 2008 that moved me most but happen to be on albums that didn't quite make my top 10:

MGMT- "Time to Pretend": The best single of the year, and it isn't close. Impossibly, no, freakishly catchy glam-dance with snark-fest lyrics that only improve when you imagine thousands of club rats shouting along, joking a little but really with far-off hopes that their lives will someday, somehow take them to Paris, where they can "shoot some heroin, and f%*k with the stars." An instant classic that keeps getting better. From "Oracular Spectacular."

Spiritualized- "Soul on Fire": "Songs in A&E" is frustrating at times if you're like me and you prefer the droning psychedelia and obsessively perfect production and track sequencing of early Spiritualized. As has been the case with all of Jason Pierce's post-millenium output, though, specific moments manage to keep "A&E" compelling. The record's delirious high point comes with Brit-rock throwback "Soul on Fire," an homage to true love, heroin, and even Oasis that all adds up to the purest pop song Pierce has ever released, and one of the best.

M83- "Graveyard Girl": Trying something new seldom fits so well as M83's "Saturdays=Youth," which pastes the group's familiar woozy synthscapes onto an almost perversely straight-faced 80s pop album. "Graveyard Girl" is the album at its Hughes-iest. If the mid-song monologue doesn't make you sigh, then congratulations, you skipped being a teenager.

GZA- "0 Percent Finance": Every few years, GZA drops a coldly efficient reminder that the most consistent MC of the past 15 years remains one of hip-hop's best. "Pro Tools" doesn't break any new ground, but it's a grower and there just aren't many rappers anymore that can spit like this. Over a nervous beat that manages to remind us of Enter the Wu-Tang, The Police, and Rocky III at the same time, The Genius shows us that only he could turn a visit to a car dealership into an urgent, layered meditation on fast women and (I think) making records in the digital age. See also the scorching battle rap "Paper Plates."

Blitzen Trapper- "Furr": The title track on a record that came thisclose to making my top 10. On a sprawling exploration of what seems like every rock trend of the 70s, "Furr" is the stripped-down center. A nu-folk re-telling of the classic boy-raised-by-wolves tale, with a great melody that makes a pretty compelling argument that the verse can play a dual role as the hook. This one stays with you from the first listen, but doesn't overwhelm the other stuff - like a friend you can count on but who comes over just often enough. One of my favorite songs of the year, and I'm already regretting having some pretty suspect shit in my top 10 instead of Blitzen Trapper. You'll see.

Another five of these, and then my top ten albums at some point soon.

We Fear Change.

I'm currently up to my eyes in trademark law (right now, it's "secondary meaning"). In fact, I've been in full-on exam mode for the past week-plus, which explains the lack of activity here. Obviously, it's not too important. I have time to do this, drink protein shakes, pet the dog, watch television, and obsess over who the Cardinals non-tendered this week (Aaron Miles, Randy Flores, Tyler Johnson, because I know you all care). And, for the record, Sam Bradford can take his Heisman and, well, you know the rest.

So anyway, here's how it went down. I'm sitting in the living room with Pam, various animals, and THE Ricardo Williams. We're flipping through the channels shortly after Saturday Night Live when lo, a familiar mise en scene. A darkened room. On the wall, a strange device of some sort. Clap, clap! The lights come on, as if by magic, and the logo for the magnificently so-last-century Walgreen's gift-aisle staple The Clapper appears. Excitement wells up inside me. I love that song. Clap on! Clap off! You know the one:



Awesome. So the Clapper commercial re-enters my life for a fleeting moment, right? And I change the channel happy that I've relived a small but precious part of the collective consciousness of trash culture, right? Wrong. No. They changed the song. You can't believe it, can you? That snappy military-style melody that jerks you to attention, even in the stupor of late night channel-surfing? Don't tell me you haven't clapped along, because you have. That is not what I heard after the lights came on in the ad. Is it an *entirely* new song? No, it's one of those, gasp, "re-imaginings," the worst kind! The Nipples-On-Batsuit kind. They took an established property. Check. Realized that what they had was gold, so they kept the wonderfully cadenced rhythmic structure. Check. But alas, they're boneheads. And what do you do if you're an bonehead and you have a jingle that works? You f*&% with the melody. Never again will I pass through the aisle with the Clappers, Chia Heads, and fondue pots on my way to the pharmacy counter without feeling at least a little scandalized. This is the abomination I witnessed:



I know, right? I acknowledge that it's not at, like, Greedo-shoots-first levels of innocence-raping, but it's at least as bad as when they discontinued the Chilito. And it totally set me back on my Trademarks outline.

Speaking of trademarks, though, this whole episode did make me wonder: could the Clapper people have been sued by the army or some jingle writer or something, and had to change the melody? If so, I would feel bad if the new Clapper song didn't suck so hard. Discuss.

Lap Quilting With Georgia Bonesteel

My dark suspicions have proven true. OU, which still sucks, has vaulted ahead of Texas in the final regular-season BCS ranking, and will play in Kansas City for a tainted Big XII championship. For a few hours on Saturday, and for the first time in my life, I will be a rabid fan of the Missouri Tigers and their bloated pretty-boy of a quarterback. Er, handsome Heisman finalist of a quarterback.

So anyway, my fiancee and I spend a fair amount of time fighting over the remote control, despite our taste in television being somewhat similar. Our latest episode started as many do - I pretended to pause with mild interest on each channel as I gradually (and so casually) made my way up the dial to SportsCenter, whereupon I'd be able to: a.) present myself as having reached a fair result by carefully considering the other options before settling on channel 254; b.) receive important, live updates on the sports news of the day; and c.) laugh at advertisements featuring professional athletes and ESPN personalities in hilarious scenarios. This time, it was going to work. We had made our way past The Girls Next Door and Bizarre Foods, and even the usually must-see Anderson Cooper didn't have much going on. The only obstacles I saw to victory were a possible last-minute bathroom emergency or Hour 3 of the house-hunting marathon on the Home & Garden Network, which had already tempted both of us earlier in the evening.

The tension in the room was palpable. Our puppy is usually aroused, and for no good reason, but this time it felt like he knew something important was about to go down. His "lipstick" in full glory as he laid askew between my lap and the back of the sofa, he waited. The cat perched atop the record player stared intently at Mommy, and then Daddy, anticipating a major happening. The television seemed to get louder, and even our normally pathetic collection of IKEA cacti in the corner of the room seemed to stand taut. There was a feeling in the room. As if scripted, my fiancee alone was oblivious. It was electric.

I was seconds away when it happened. I paused, and then flipped past the HD version of the local PBS affiliate when Pam looked up from her laptop and said the words I dreaded most: "Hey, hold on a minute. Go back."

The game was up. Sure, I could kick the dog off of my lap and fire up the computer as usual, but then I'd risk a whole new (and entirely valid) line of attack: "You spend too much time on the computer. Pay attention to me or do the dishes or something." Point pre-emptively taken. Plus, watching SportsCenter is kind of like going to the movies instead of watching the DVD - it's just a feeling you get that can't be replicated.

The only word I could muster was a weak "Seriously?" I hoped for a second that I'd accidentally skipped something good, like a Ken Burns doc or Austin City Limits or something. No, it was "Lap Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel."

Epilogue: I was hooked. It was like watching one of those instructional videos from 1986, but with worse production values. You knew it was a fairly recent episode from newish-looking cars and a couple of passing references to "green" living. Soon we were locked in intense discussion over what city in Texas Georgia had chosen for her travel segment, and whether "Citrus Daydream (or something like that)," that week's featured quilt, was intentionally psychedelic. The show was half-over by the time we found it, but it only took a minute of lap-quilting for me to forget why I was so disappointed that we'd stopped on PBS.

Check her out:
http://www.georgiabonesteel.com

Review: Chinese Democracy Only Kind of Sucks And Is Awesome Too

Through all of the speculation and ridicule, I always figured we'd get to hear the new Guns N' Roses album at some point. These days, it seems like everything that ever gets recorded is so meticulously documented and channeled through so many people that something as high-profile as this would have nary a chance of completely disappearing, even if the project were to be put on hold or "scrapped" altogether. In fact, I'd put pretty good money on both "scrapped" and "on hold" as catchphrases for "Democracy" at various points during its development, and here we are.

So, what's the story? Over a decade has passed since the last remaining original members of Guns N' Roses decided that Axl was too much of a Jujyfruit even for the ridiculous money they were pulling in. Without his bandmates for the first time since the mid-eighties, the frontman persevered, retreating to the recording studio and setting to work on what was sure to be the magnum opus, the Big Shot To The Head that proved once and for all that: 1.) Axl Rose was a genius; and 2.) You don't f*** with genius, man.

Time passed, and soon rumors of a happy reunion with Slash and the boys dried up. There were no developments from the studio except for vague assurances every so often from Rose that something "big" was underway, and that we would have something to hear "soon." Months faded into years, years became a decade, and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. The productive (if eccentric) Rose ceased to be what he once was, and became something of a bedtime story, a cautionary tale to aspiring singer-producers - this is what happens when you allow a single-minded obsession to take hold of you.

Rose retreated further and further into his hillside home, spending countless days and nights at the controls, tinkering with what he was now convinced was the Most Important Work of All Time, the One Album that would win the hearts of men and rescue real Rock music from the ashes of the post-grunge backlash that led to the resurgence of boy bands and hip-hop's takeover of popular culture. He spoke in riddles, coyly suggesting that "Chinese Democracy" was nearly ready for the masses. Meanwhile, band members came and went, leaving small impressions on the project but unable to wrest from Rose's grasp what had gradually become his most precious possession and most far-off pipe dream.

One day, Axl emerged from his hillside studio, and the world saw what obsession can do to a man. He carried a master tape in his mouth, and demanded that his record company barter for raw meat and several millions of cans of Dr. Pepper. He looked like this:

Axl proceeded to gnaw several toes off of his longtime business manager and tear off toward West Hollywood, pausing fits of maniacal laughter only to mutter intermittently about Paul Newman and "stupid fat copses."

All that aside (and I hear they're now searching Burger King dumpsters in Reseda for some reason), is it any good? You know, parts of it are actually pretty awesome. When he is back in full-on Howlin' Axl mode, Rose's voice is as great as it has ever been. Not expecting anything whatsoever from the record, I was quickly put in my place within 30 seconds of the opening strains of the title track (which also opens the album) when Rose's "Appetite"-era scream gave me just the slightest tingle. Had he really done it?

As I got further into the album, each new track begged me to hate it and then totally sucker-punched me with an unexpectedly memorable hook or some of the best honest-to-goodness nuts-in-hand guitar soloing I've heard in years (no, folks, Slash is not missed). Even signatures of Axl's mental, erm, transition (such as an inexplicable Eastern European accent taken on for much of a verse) give off more of an Endearingly Crazy and Rather Interesting Guy vibe than a Wow, I Hope That Crazy Guy At The Bowling Alley Didn't See Me Looking At Him thing. This is Axl at his weirdest and most excessive, and often we come out better for it. Most interesting of all is "If The World," a slinky string-accented creeper so directly lifted from every 007 theme song ever that I actually Googled the song afterwards to see if it had been considered for one of the Brosnan Bond movies.

Are there missteps? You bet. Rose seems to have put nearly all of his melodic energy into crafting perfect choruses, often at the expense of the rest of the song. Also, each track is so elaborately layered and produced, and so complicated to listen to, that it is easy to get lost in the elements of each production. At times, it is possible to forget that we are meant to be, very simply, listening to a rock band play songs. And, there just isn't anything simple about "Democracy." In the end, just listening to each song had become so tiring that I was desperate for the record to be over with - by the eleventh or twelfth song, the weight of production, instrumentation, and concept just becomes too heavy for the record to endure.

Of course, there is harmony to be found in excess, and the very things that can make "Chinese Democracy" frustrating can be rewarding as well. Just as the bloated triumph Use Your Illusion kind of sucked but was awesome too, "Democracy" ultimately succeeds as proof-positive that Rose is still capable of producing interesting music. With each successive listen, new things (both good and bad) are discovered about the record. This can make it hard to really get to what the crux of what an artist is saying, but can also help bring the repeated rewards that help good albums endure. In any case, and unquestionably, in whatever form the band takes Guns N' Roses sounds quite unlike anything else out there. And, shocker, the music seems to be relevant even today. As I type, the record has streamed over 5 million times in the Vortex of Youth Culture itself, Myspace.com.

If nothing else, the finished version of "Chinese Democracy" functions as a fascinating historical document of a recording that is truly the product of several different eras of popular music. Within individual songs, we hear classic 80's "shredding," prog-lite string sections, drums influenced by the "industrial" metal of the early 90s, and modern ultra-compressed production techniques. Even Axl Rose sounds on some songs as if overdubs were done years apart from each other. To not only know that this record is the culmination of over a decade of what we've heard was constant revision but to be able to hear it in the recording itself makes the whole thing worth it for me. It's a weird, ridiculous, excessive, glorious thing. Welcome back, old man.

Rating: 3 out of 5

State & Tula

Hi, everyone. Any attempt at an introduction or explanation of what I'm trying to do will stop here and wait a while. I'll begin the inaugural post with what won't be the last mention here of my alma mater, The University of Texas. The latest BCS standings were released about an hour ago - we're #2, and in position (for now) to win a three-way tie-breaker for the Big XII South division title and a chance to play ourselves into the national championship game. I don't suspect the standings will hold, but at any rate, there is at least reason for hope right now. For that, I say, it could be worse. Hook 'Em Horns.

So anyway, I go through phases during which I flirt with the idea of contacting people I know or used to know but haven't talked to in a while. Usually I don't follow through with anything - I'll google someone's name in a couple of different ways or look at their Myspace page, and then I won't think of them for another 3 years. It's probably for the better. Lately, though, I've been slightly more serious about reconnecting with people. See, I'm getting married in a few months, and there are certain folks from my past that are/were important enough to me that I'd really like for them to see it happen. There's Walt, for example, the guy I started my old band with, with whom I share a birthday and who may or may not still be in the Army. Speaking of sharing my birthday and joining the Army, there's the long-lost Mike. The last I heard of him, he married some chick who goes to Renaissance fairs. Go figure! There's my friend Heather from high school, I hear she has three kids now, and the list goes on and on.

Then there's Kyle. He's one of a handful of what I considered "inseparable" friends for the first couple of years of college. He drove a big old gold-painted monster of a car, and we'd drive around crashing classy parties in the rich neighborhood and listening to jazz on the tape deck. Things change: in 1998 I stopped showing up at school, and Kyle declared he "had the blues" and was moving to Louisiana. He wound up at LSU, and I dropped in on him a couple of times during Mardi Gras or whenever, but we weren't really close once he left, and like a lot of friends do we gradually fell out of touch altogether. I got a random phone call from Kyle in 2002 while I was scouring the dollar bins in the back of the old Sound Exchange in Austin. He was living with a girlfriend in San Francisco and working for some kind of advocacy group, and he told me he wasn't the same person he used to be and was thinking of moving "somewhere." Somewhat fittingly, my clearest memory of that conversation is walking out of the record store to get better phone reception and almost getting run over by an ex-girlfriend. The distraction of nearly dying at the hands of a girl I'd really kind of screwed over threw off the dynamic of the conversation and made it hard to remember what we'd been talking about. Kyle said he'd let me get back to it, and that was the last time I heard from him.

I had a close call in 2005 when, according to my friend Mikey (not the Army one) I missed Kyle by about 15 seconds at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. I had run off to get beers, and Mikey said he appeared like a ghost, out of nowhere. He looked the same except for a crew cut, was back in New Orleans to work in media, and left a phone number that turned out to be wrong. This made me start thinking about how I could go about finding the guy, and when I starting making wedding plans, the idea of getting back in touch with Kyle had been lingering in my head for a while.

After some Google iterations, a scan of Myspace turned up a long-abandoned page for a filmmaker/teacher based in Taipei with a picture attached that was certainly the Kyle I knew. He was never as into film as some of us were, but there he was. And God damn, he looked exactly the same. A web link on the page didn't work, but left me with the name "La Corriveau," which as it turns out was the popular name of Marie-Josephte Corriveau, a convicted and executed French-Canadian murderer/folk hero from the mid-eighteenth century. The hunt was on. Anyhow, putting two and two together, this is where I wound up, and it's as far as I've gotten:





Well, if an adult puppet film about an executed and apparently anguished Quebecois frontierswoman/army brat isn't getting anywhere, I don't know what is. Calling Kyle Craig.