Day 3 - The Hives, Say Hi, Siberian, Flight of the Conchords, The Mars Volta, The Flaming Lips
By the third day, the Gorge experience became otherworldly. The last time I went to Sasquatch, I had only gone for two days and adding a third day of music and camping made the whole ordeal exponentially more exhausting. Monday had far fewer people than the weekend. I don't know if everyone had just come to see The Cure, or if they needed to get back to work, but the campground was eerily at half-capacity when we woke up. My cell phone battery was dead, and we only had five beers left.
It was difficult to motivate the mile and a half trek from the campgrounds to the main stage, but we eventually did. Much of Monday would be spent on the grassy knoll rather than the floor. It was relaxing, and after a few morning showers, Monday soon became the nicest day of festival, weatherwise. The first act we caught was the Swedish band The Hives. The Seattle Weekly blog would later refer to the lead singer as "auditioning for a Mick Jagger biopic" and I know that to some, the band came off as arrogant and obnoxious, but I liked these guys. "Such a lovely gorge you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it" cracked the frontman ominously in a thick Scandanavian accent. It was amusing how rowdy the floor was getting during "Main Offender" and "Hate To Say I Told You So" because way in back, it was surprisingly pleasant and pacifying. And speaking of our lovely gorge, it was certainly in full effect.
Next up on the main stage was Built To Spill, who I had just seen a few months earlier, so I ventured elsewhere. Just starting on the Yeti Stage was Say Hi, a local act I have been getting into over the last few weeks. I had been led to believe it was just one guy, but a duo was performing on this day. Most of the songs were off the recent album The Wishes and the Glitch, which I recommend checking out if you can find it. It was good to see some of the smaller acts. I always mean to visit the other stages more often, but I'm a sucker for spectacle and I find it hard to tear myself away from the flashing lights and shiney objects that the bigger names tend to bring out. Say Hi finished up with the song "Northwestern Girls" and I was very content lying on the grass with my eyes closed. The fatigue of three days of camping was setting in, and I knew I needed to conserve my energy for the U.F.O. landing (more on that below).
Following Say Hi was another local band, Siberian. I knew nothing about them going in, but I was quickly won over. After their set, I checked out the T-shirt stand, bought some ice cream, bumped into my friend Nick, and wondered around aimlessly for a little while. With the Lips mere hours away, we headed back to the main stage and caught the tail end of Rodrigo y Gabriella. HOLY SHIT! I hadn't heard of these two, and acoustic folk isn't usually my thing, but I was hella impressed by what I saw here - Spanish guitar jams that periodically diverged into covers as diverse as Metallica's "Fade to Black" and Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here". If I had known how truly badass this was gonna be, I certainly would've caught more of it. Oh well, maybe next time.
It was kind of a shame that Flight of the Conchords had to follow them. They may be "New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo", but their musicianship didn't compare to what preceeded it. But that's not really the point, is it? Like Spinal Tap and Tenacious D before them, Flight of the Conchords walk that hazy po-mo line between ironic rock band and exactly the thing they are mocking. I did enjoy their live performance of "Business Time" and their earnest assertations that they were a real band (Jemaine: "We've got picks and everything. Bret even has a spare pick in his pocket." Bret: "Here it is.") Their HBO show is incredibly amusing and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys bizzarro comedy along the lines of Upright Citizens Brigade or Mr. Show, but ultimately I feel that their act didn't benefit from being performed in front of 20,000 people and I probably should have gone to see Battles instead. Nevertheless, here is part of "The Humans Are Dead" -- I'll be looking out for all those domes.
We were now just a few moments from the Lips, but in true Sasquatch fashion, the absolute shittiest band of the weekend had to make their prescence known first. It's as if the event coordinator plans it that way, knowing that the rewards will be that much sweeter if they force the audience to endure 90 minutes of bullshit before Wayne can begin rolling around. In this case, it was The Mars Volta, who within one minute of appearing onstage had already tossed the drummer's ride cymbal into the audience in a staggering display of drunken assholery. Seriously, fuck these guys. Luckily they sounded like shit, so they're that much easier to hate. I have no embedded YouTube clips to offer as evidence, but let me assure you that the deafening static/microphone distortion effect that has plagued my other clips would have improved these douchebags.
At long last, the end of the show. Closing out the festival was a band I've seen three times in the last two years. Billed as "The Flaming Lips Presents The U.F.O. Show", this promised to be more of a spectacle than anything that preceeded it. My first inkling that this was going to be intense was the ridiculous lighting contraption under construction on the main stage. Once the sun set and the switch was flipped on the Lip's fancy toys, what followed was one of the most absurd things I've seen in my life.
As the U.F.O. descended and the band emerged from it, the crowd started to go absolutely apeshit. The front was packed so tight I could barely return my camera to my pocket after taking these photos. Once Steven and Mike had taken their places on stage, Wayne, who in my humble opinion is one of the coolest motherfuckers alive, emerged from the top of his bizarre vessel in a hamster ball and proceeded to roll down into the crowd. It was at this point my camera battery died, but in its final moments, I managed to catch one of history's best rock star entrances ever.
Of course, the Lips were terrific, playing mostly songs off of At War With The Mystics and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots. The show's highlight, as if the U.F.O. wasn't enough, was a cover of Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains The Same", in which five attractive girls from the front jumped up stage and proceeded to dance around naked (NSFW), along with the assorted teletubbies and aliens already doing so. Wayne seemed just as surprised as anyone and needed prodding from the band to kick off the next song, "Fight Test". Also included in their set were modern classics "Free Radicals", "Do You Realize?", "Race For The Prize" and quite surprisingly, "Pompeii Al Götterdämmerung", which I had not seen them perform live before. All of the songs were accompanied by the usual Flaming Lips flair -- confetti cannons, strobe lights, furries, smoke machines. I'm guessing it's a pain in the ass to clean up after these guys. After a finale of "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" (which perhaps featured a little too much lyric explanation and audience participation), the Lips climbed back aboard their interstellar vehicle and left the stage, awkwardly depriving the audience of an encore. Two years ago, Beck left the stage in a similar, encore-less display of confusion, leading me to believe that the show HAS to end at a certain time for whatever reasons. It's a shame I was unable to get any footage of the Lips actually performing, but I'll trot out some choice shots I got two years ago at more or less the same show (I was even standing in the same place in front).
So that's it. Three incredibly fun, incredibly exhausting days at the Gorge. If I had to pick my favorites, I'd go with M.I.A, The Presidents, R.E.M., Death Cab and The Flaming Lips, in no particular order. Can next year's line-up possibly be as good? Will I go again and blog about it? What aging rock band of yesteryear will be trotted out for 2009's main stage? I don't know, but if I had to make my predictions, I'll go with (1) probably not, (2) yes, and (3) Rush.
Day 2 - Cold War Kids, Tegan & Sara, The Presidents, Death Cab, The Cure
The second day of Sasquatch began damply. After seeking refuge from the morning rain inside our trusty Liberal Mobile (a Volvo with not one, but two "Concerned Scientists for America" bumperstickers), we headed over to the Denny's tent for a Moon's Over Mi-ham-i, downed our 5 Hour Energy shots and began the second day of music and standing around waiting for music. As far as I was concerned, this was the day to beat. This was going to be the best day of Sasquatch!
In a move representative of every Northwest music festival I've ever attended, we arrived to catch the final two songs by local hip hop artists Blue Scholars. Nothing against these guys -- they're fine at what they do -- but I've reached my saturation point. Without any effort on my part, I will still inevitably find myself at two or three of their shows each year and a little "Seattle is pretty cool" and "Let's hear it for Queen Anne, y'all" goes a long way. However, the sea of pale white arms bumping along in unison is a site to behold. I can't decide if more Seattle-centric hip hop is the answer, or less, but I'm jonesin' for something different on this front. A solid meh from me.
Following the Blue Scholars were the Cold War Kids. It was still too early in the day for me to fully get into anything, but I still liked these guys. Weird and discordant, but still really interesting. I hope that I'm not balls tired next time I catch their show.
Next up were Tegan & Sara. Despite being completely unable to tell them apart, I managed to get pretty close on the floor. They performed songs mostly from their most recent two albums, which is fine by me since those are the ones I know (as does anyone who watches Grey's Anatomy). Their in-between-song banter was shy and awkward, but I think that's part of their shtick. It was a bold choice to open with "Walking With a Ghost", but they worked it. I was amused by their need to switch guitars between every song, since it all sounds the same. All in all, it was the first true highlight of what was gearing up to be a day to remember. I just wish next time they'd wear nametags.
Immediately after T&S were The Presidents of the United States of America, one of my favorite bands back when I was in middle school. There was no way I was gonna give up my good spot in the front, so I waited it out. Since their songs are generally only 2 minutes long, they played a shit ton of them. Like many Presidents fans, I often forget they have other albums besides their first one. The crowd was jumping, moshing and crowd surfing continuously through golden oldies like "Lump","Peaches","Little Blue Dune Buggy" and "Kitty". I managed to get a little video from the front insanity. The shakiness is the result of my jumping around and the deafing static is from the giant speaker only feet away, but if you really pay attention, there's a song in here:
They closed out their show with an extended version of "Kick Out the Jams". Once they were done kicked out, we pushed our way out of the crowd and got dinner.
We ate dinner in the small courtyard area near the Yeti Stage, where you can hear all three stages if you listen for them. The overlapping sounds of The Kooks and Michael Franti were obnoxiously cacophonous, but it felt good just to sit down. After dinner, I was faced with the first truly obnoxious scheduling conflict on the festival -- Stephen Malkmus and Death Cab For Cutie.
As it turns out, I opted to see Death Cab, making them the record holders for band I've seen live the most (four times). I feel pretty meh about the majority of their recorded material, but I'll hand it to them that they are terrific live. They have a real good sense of the audience and seem to be able to adjust their set to fit the mood of their fans. Case in point: the last time I saw them was two years ago, also at Sasquatch, when they followed Queens of the Stone Age and put on a surprisingly rocking show. This time, taking the stage between Michael Franti and The Cure, their show was more jam-band-y and dreamy. And the sunset behind them was just fucking incredible:
Every time Death Cab is at a music festival like this, I'm always pleasantly surprised. They're never the band I'm most aching to see, but they always deliver. Towards the end of their set, I caught a few moments of "Crooked Teeth". Enjoy.
Wrapping up Sunday's lineup was The Cure. According to an overheard rumor I'm too lazy to verify, they canceled a Seattle show to be at Sasquatch and as a result, many of the Sunday concertgoers were just Cure fans who'd been given Sunday tickets as compensation. I'll buy it, considering that the crowd during The Cure was the largest I had ever seen. How was it, you ask? I dunno, pretty good. I'll say the same thing about them I said about R.E.M. -- a band that's been around that long knows how to play the shit out of their songs. But I'm less familiar with The Cure's back catalog and the songs that weren't the half dozen or so that are still played on the radio ("Just Like Heaven","Boys Don't Cry", etc.) started to blend together. From a technical standpoint, the music was flawless and the light show was one of the most elaborate I've seen outside of Daft Punk's Alive 2007, but the band itself has zero stage presence. If you're wondering why this clip of "Lovesong" tends to focus on the lights and the bigscreen, it's because they tended to overshadow the actual musicians.
An awkward "Hello, Sasquatch" and "A new song..." were all the crowd got from bloated frontman Robert Smith, who to be fair, was probably full from eating 60 or 70 Big Macs backstage. Rounding out possibly the most unattractive band in history (although The Ramones give them a run for their money), the main guitarist that looks like a combination of Boy George, Marilyn Manson and a vampire. Maybe that was on purpose. In the end, I'm glad I saw these guys, if only to say I have. A bit past their prime, but still rock icons. And considering Robert Smith's role in destroying MechaStreissand, we're forever indebted to his courageous efforts.
Wow, where the hell have I been? Good question. Most recently, I've been off in scenic Central Washington attending the Sasquatch! music festival (exclamation point emphasis part of the actual name but equally representative of my enthusiasm). Three days and nights full of rockin' music, random friend encounters, terrible burgers, overpriced beer, smokable contraband, sweaty douchebags and a Denny's in a tent. All in all, it was a terrific weekend of tunes and it seemed a fitting return to DDYH to chronic-WHA?-cle my Memorial Day adventures at the Gorge.
Day 0 - The Presets
Day 0 you ask? Why yes, of course. An appropriate place to begin my tales is the Friday before I left. I spent most of my work day trying not to fall asleep due to a midnight showing of Indiana Jones the previous evening. After an early work departure and three or four hours of GTA 4, I set out for the Nectar Lounge in Fremont with my friends Ruth, Matt, Amanda and Kevin. Playing that night was Australian electronic band The Presets. If you don't know who they are, you should -- check out some of their videos:
It was perhaps very ambitious to kick off a weekend of countless bands by seeing a club show in Seattle, but there was simply no way I was going to miss this one. The Presets set the bar high when I first saw them open for Ladytron two years ago. Since then, they've released one of the most catchy albums of the decade, Apocalypso, which I recommend acquiring. The show was great - they played not only all of my favorite songs, but more or less all of their songs. I did not bring my camera to the venue, but let me assure you that they're performance of "This Boy's In Love" managed to get the entire crowd of typically fashionably-unimpressed Seattle hipsters dancing and flailing around like children. No small feat. After they wrapped up (around 1 am or so), I went home and rested up for my weekend of camping. Wait, no I didn't...I played another two hours of GTA. Ooops.
Day 1 - The New Pornographers, M.I.A., Modest Mouse, R.E.M.
Our small posse arrived at the Gorge at about 2pm on Saturday. After a few hours of dicking around, setting up the tent and drinking Ranier, we wandered into the concert grounds towards the main stage. Due to some scheduling conflict I still don't completely understand, we missed The National and the first few songs by The New Pornographers. Well, poop. What I did see of The New Pornographers was pretty solid -- good to see them actually finish their set after Neko Case was forced off the stage by hail two years ago.
Next up was M.I.A., one of the main draws for me to go in the first place. Her set was fucking insane, probably the most energetic of the whole weekend (excluding perhaps The Mars Volta, who redefined the word "suck"). Halfway through her set, she brought several dozen fans on stage and had the rest of the floor dancing like crazy while the side monitors projected trippy images of dancers superimposed on clips from 1980s NES games. Her performance of "Galang" prompted this excellent photo. Rock on, my friends.
Saturday's penultimate performers were Modest Mouse. I actually don't have much to say about them -- I know a lot of people swear by them, but I've just never been won over. I will give them this: they sound exactly the same live as they do on the radio. The grassy knoll started to smell funny during their song "Fire It Up" - I'm still looking into that. Good performers, but I was just counting down the minutes until the big guns came out.
Closing out the evening was R.E.M., arguably the biggest band at the festival. Following a peculiar introduction by infrequent emcee Dwight Schrute (aka Rainn Wilson), Michael Stipe and the other four guys took stage and showed the crowd how it's done. Following an obscure oldie, Stipe remarked "That's only the second time we've played that." Could've fooled me. "We've played this one a few times," he later said before breaking out "The One I Love". The crowd got moderately rowdy during "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" and "Orange Crush". I liked their new stuff, which was lucky considering their set was about 80% new stuff. If I had to nitpick, I'm a little sad by what was left out, including "It's The End of the World As We Know It", "Bang and Blame" and "Nightswimming", but since R.E.M. has recorded somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,000 songs, I couldn't reasonably expect them all. They closed their encore with one of my favorite tracks off of Automatic For The People, the Andy Kaufman-inspired "Man on the Moon".
I decided during their set that I would try to capture a little bit of video so that the experience can be relived. Needless to say, the poor little microphone in my digital camera was more or less raped by The Gorge's massive soundsystem.
So, I sort of lied when I said I'd post the second part of this post tomorrow (which would have been a few days ago). Oh well, it's here now and hopefully everyone was able to get on with their lives in the meantime.
Anthony Bourdain has taught us that food is always an important component of travel. It's always a good idea to get a sense of the local cuisine, or as is often the case, the faux-local only-there-for-tourists cuisine.
I had three dim sum meals over the course of the five days. Dim sum might be my favorite food ever - it's cheap, there's a huge variety, you never leave still hungry or overstuffed (if you do it right, that is) and most importantly, food is just better when served in multiples of three from a cart pushed by someone who doesn't speak English. I know that some people find the dim sum experience stressful. There's always the vague notion that the cart pusher will be offended whenever you refuse some morsels, although as far as I know they don't make commission and couldn't care less. There are also those who enjoy the food, but prefer not to sit in the decision chair -- the seat closest to the aisle where the carts will be. Like an exit row on an airplane, this seating location comes with additional responsibility. The success of the meal depends on your successful selection of the perfect dishes. Siu mai, honey spareribs and steamed pork humbau? Good work, a meal well seized! Bean curd wontons, chicken feet, or that weird vaguely gelatinous purple glop? Fuck you, you are no longer my friend.
The other local delicacy we enjoyed was time-honored plate of chicken and waffles. Some people seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of secret to this dish, but it's remarkably straightforward. You get a waffle and a piece of chicken. It's up to you to either eat the waffle and the chicken separately or make a delicious stack. As you can see below, Dan chose the latter:
Mmmm, hmmmm. Chicken 'n' waffles!
Alright, I'll be back on track with this site next week, where I shall ramble on at great length about the usual bullshit. Take care and be well everyone!
Hi! I'm back. As you may have noticed, I've been relatively quiet for a little while -- those close to me know it's been a crappy few weeks and despite my abundance of free time, I haven't been able to write anything complete and/or concise since the beginning of April. I've got a half-dozen or so failed attempts at blog updates that are either stunningly incoherent, veer off on random tangents, or get too personal to share with the Internet at large. Maybe someday I'll get in to all that, but in the meantime I plan to focus on more pleasant matters. In the midst of this month's two maelstroms of unpleasantness, I took a much needed sabbatical down to the bay area to visit my friend Dave. There's probably more to say about this trip than can reasonably be contained here, so I'll break it up into installments.
This trip was only my second time in Oakland and I find it to be a very intriguing city. It's oddly nicer than I had been led to believe and it's much quieter than one would think a major city would be. Downtown seems perpetually dead, and the comparatively bustling neighborhood Dave lives in near Lake Merritt seems populated entirely by people who have just awoken from a nap. For a west coast city, it is exceptionally diverse. Seattle is multicultural too but in a bizarre semi-segregated sort of way - Downtown, Central District and Beacon Hill are fairly jumbled ethnically and financially, but elsewhere, black and white people tend to shyly separate and huddle by themselves as if they were boys and girls at an awkward middle school dance. By comparison, Oakland seems fairly homogenized. Walking between Dave's apartment and the coffee shop around the block, I overheard about a dozen different languages, as well as some regional slang I'm still not fully clear on ("Hyphy"?). The block contains an Ethiopian restaurant, a Mexican aquaria, a sushi place, a Roundtable Pizza and half the street signs are in Chinese. In an odd way, it all reminded me of Honolulu's similar racial scramble. The fact that it was 80 freaking degrees out might have helped with that illusion.
An equal amount of time during this trip was spent doing more traditional touristy activities in San Francisco and Berkeley. Dim sum was eaten, college campuses and old shipping vessels were toured, substances were consumed, music was played and old friends caught up with each other. One of the more surreal outings of the trip was a visit to the corporate and production headquarters of Jelly Belly, a company whose candied beans I've enjoyed for the majority of my life. Pictured below are Dave, Daniel, myself and Vitas standing in front of a giant inflatable arm-flailing lemon Jelly Belly bean making the universally recognized gesture for "Suck it".
So how was the tour, you ask? Well let's see... The guide was barely literate, able only to sound out the words of his script but not give the puns and fun facts the deadpan-yet-whimsical delivery they so richly deserved. The machines were turned off, robbing us of the once-in-a-lifetime chance to see embryonic Jelly Bellies ushered through various conveyer belts and apparati whilst factory laborers sung Oompa Loompa refrains. And considering that we voluntarily subjected ourselves to a 45 minute commercial for their product, I was expecting a whole lot more free shit. We settled for one cheapo bag of beans each, discounted prices on 6 pound bags of aborted mutant beans known as Belly Flops and an uninspired "Surprise! The tour ends in the gift shop!" reward for our efforts. Oh well. One the plus side, there were dancing robots, kids looking sick after trying the Booger and Earwax and Butt Crust-flavored novelty beans, and photo ops aplenty. Here's Dan looking as excited as a kid in a...um....er....candy store....
Don't dismiss this image as some ironic nonsense as I believe it holds historic importance. I challenge each and every one of you reading this to find a picture on the Internet or elsewhere of anyone else looking giddier standing next to a candy replica of Ronald Reagan.
I'm glad to be back up to my old shenanigans here. Happy belated holiday to all and I'll see you guys back in Seattle in just a few days. Come back tomorrow for more exciting tales of my Bay Area adventures.
I don't really seek out music on my own anymore. I'll leave the work of sifting through all the crap to my friends with more comprehensive taste. In the last month or so, I've found myself in possession of about 10 GB of random new music. However, during the last few days, I've found my musical inclinations have leaned back to some of my old(ish) favorites. I'm not a music snob, at least I don't think I am. I don't bother trying to keep up with discussions of underground bands or the proper names of uber-specific sub genres. I'm not claiming that my preferences are particularly fascinating or original -- I just wanted to share ten albums that been in pretty much constant rotation on my various discmen, car stereos, iTunes and pods since they came out. I'm not even claiming this as any sort of best-of list -- just ten albums that kick ass. If you need a copy of any of these, let me know and I'll hook you up purchase them legitimately so the record companies may get proper compensation for all the fine work they do.
In no particular order...
The Flaming Lips - Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots
The Flaming Lips, in addition to putting on the best live show I've ever seen in my life at Sasquatch 2006, have an incredible ability to write songs that transcend meaning and emotion. You can ask twenty people what "Fight Test" or "Do You Realize?" are about and you will get twenty vastly different answers. Wayne Coyne's imaginative lyrics can be infinitely interpreted, and sure enough, this album means something different to me each time I play it. When my dad died, I listened to "In the Morning of the Magicians" and "It's Summertime" on repeat for about two hours straight. Why? I have no idea, but it made me feel better. Hearing these songs live while Wayne shoots confetti canons and crowd surfs in a giant hamster ball while the rest of the band plays amongst dancing Santas and aliens elevates them to a whole new level. I think The Flaming Lips may be the only band that will get you high simply by listening to them. My Favorite Tracks: "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell", "It's Summertime", "Are You a Hypnotist?"
The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
My theory is that Jack White is the only current true rock star. Check out this clip of him playing Death Letter off of De Stijl and then come back and tell me that he's not the coolest motherfucker making music today. Say what you will about Meg -- I think I could drum more competently with my face -- but that's not the point. These guys strip every ounce of pretension and overproduction from rock and roll and rebuild it from the ground up with the most basic elements of blues and country. With the exception of Get Behind Me Satan, I've loved every album Jack White's name has been on and this is his best. When I first heard it my freshman year of college, it fundamentally changed how I perceived music. I tried to learn to play every track on guitar (with moderate success -- "I Think I Smell a Rat" is a bitch). Everything is great -- Jack's yodeling voice on "Little Room", the raw, grinding feedback and abrasive harmonics on "Aluminum", the way the chorus comes crashing in on "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground." That "Fell In Love With a Girl" has perhaps the most badass music video ever made is just icing on the cake. My Favorite Tracks: "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground","Offend in Every Way","The Same Boy You've Always Known","The Union Forever"
The Decemberists - Picaresque
Maybe I'm just buying into their image a little too much, but for some reason I always think this band is from the 1800s or something. It's amazing how good of a storyteller Colin Meloy is. All of his songs take place in some awesomely anachronistic steampunk universe, but involve characters with surprising depth. This album in particular tends to jump back and forth between moderately depressing tracks about love and loss ("We Both Go Down Together","From My Own True Love Lost At Sea") to dense theatrical songs with plots thick enough to write novels about ("The Bagman's Gambit","The Mariner's Revenge Song"). I realize that these tracks aren't meant to be cheery and upbeat, but they've always seemed very whimsical to me. I know that not everyone is into these guys, but who else can write a 12 minute sea shanty about one man torturing and killing another inside the belly of a whale? My Favorite Tracks: "On the Bus Mall", "The Bagman's Gambit", "Eli the Barrow Boy", "The Mariner's Revenge Song"
Beck - Midnite Vultures & Sea Change
These two albums may seem like odd choices, especially since most music critics would have you believe that Odelay is Beck's masterpiece. One first thought, these albums seem to be polar opposites. Midnite Vultures is a heavily produced funky-disco album about freaky sex and Sea Change is a somber acoustic recording full of minor chords and mopey lyrics. So why do I love both? Perhaps this speaks to my inner bipolarness, but I always listen to the one that would seem inappropriate at the time. In the last few days, I've listened to Midnite Vultures in its entirely three times and I'm convinced it's flawless. The free association wordplay of "Hollywood Freaks", the catchy hook of "Sexx Laws" and the hilariously high falsetto on "Debra" all contribute to what is essentially the least depressing, most carefree album I own. That Beck followed it up a few years later with a dozen affecting tracks about a messy break-up speaks to his versatility and range. I sometimes enjoy putting both of these albums (and occasionally Guero) on shuffle and just going back and forth between the moods. If I didn't know better, I wouldn't even guess it was the same artist. My Favorite Tracks: "Nicotine and Gravy", "Mixed Bizness", "Debra", "The Golden Age", "Lonesome Tears", "Lost Cause"
Daft Punk - Discovery
Like The Flaming Lips, these guys put on a hell of a live show. Unlike the other bands on this list, it's rather nebulous how much credit to give them for their sound. Sure, almost everything on this album is sampled, but some of the most memorable songs ever have been covers. If something different can be brought to the table, then by all means, I'm for it. Daft Punk's previous album, Homework, is often the one that gets credit for kicking off the big electronic sound fad in the second half of the 90s, but I've always preferred this one. Perhaps it's because it tells a story (or at least the film Interstella 5555 would have me believe). The guitar solos of "Aerodynamic" and "Digital Love" are instantly recognizable, as is the vocoder trickery in "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger." It really says something for a band's inventiveness of they can cover an obsure 70s funk tune and then a decade later have it resampled by Kanye West and STILL sound ahead of their time. My Favorite Tracks: "Digital Love", "Face to Face", "Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger", "Short Circuit"
Radiohead - The Bends & OK Computer
Wow, what a limb I'm going out on with these two. Who would've thunk that two of the most critically adored and commercially successful albums of the 90s would actually be good? Perhaps I don't like these albums for the same reasons that everyone else does. I disliked both upon first hearing them when I was young, preferring more accessible stuff like Green Day, The Offsping, Bad Religion, etc. Come to think of it, I also hated Kid A and Hail to the Thief the first time around. Radiohead has always managed to stay a few steps ahead of me. I've never been able to predict, when listening to a song of theirs for the first time, what the next chord will resolve to, if the time signature is going to change, if any real instruments will be introduced. Will this song ever have drums? Intelligible lyrics? A melody? It doesn't matter. As long as they remain unpredictable and experimental, they could release an album of cats fucking and I'd be trying to figure out the hidden genius. Thank you Radiohead for weirding up music. My Favorite Tracks: "Just", "My Iron Lung", "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", "Paranoid Android", "Electioneering", "Subterranean Homesick Alien"
The Arcade Fire - Funeral
Love it or hate it, this album tends to provoke very intense feelings. Nobody thinks The Arcade Fire is okay; they're either one of the greatest bands currently touring or the most overrated indie-cred namedrop of the Pitchfork-reading hipster-douchebag crowd. Any form of artistic expression that divides people so much is automatically interesting to me. It doesn't take much to make someone say "meh." I'm obviously in the former crowd and I believe that Funeral may be the most accomplished recording of the 00's decade. I can literally hear about half my friends cringing at that, but fuck it - this album's terrific. It almost single-handedly makes up for Canada giving us Celine Dion, Alanis Morrisette and The Barenaked Ladies. Almost. My Favorite Tracks: "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)", "Wake Up", "Rebellion (Lies)"
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
It took a lot of effort on my part not to score every Whitman film project I was assigned entirely with tracks off this album. Everything is more intense and cool if its soundtrack is "Angel". Of all the albums I have listed here, this is the one I have the most trouble legitimizing my appreciation of. With all the lessons I learned in college about subtextual analysis and evaluating artistic integrity, I feel a little weird saying that I like Mezzanine simply because it sounds rad. Shouldn't that be enough? My Favorite Tracks: "Dissolved Girl", "Inertia Creeps", "Angel"
I'm utterly amazed by what the brain is able to recall if provided an anchor. When I was a little kid, my family moved around a lot -- almost a new state each year. Because of that, I have an uncanny ability to remember exactly what year movies were released based on what city and with what friends I saw them. I know that The Fugitive came out in 1993 because it was the first movie I saw with my dad when we moved to Las Vegas. The summer after that was Speed and True Lies because I can associate seeing those with moving to Phoenix. I moved from Phoenix to Honolulu in the summer of 1995 - right between Batman Forever and Die Hard With a Vengeance. Scary huh?
Lately, I realized that there's another movie I can exactly recall seeing -- Old School. I don't even particularly like Old School, nor have I seen it second time. But the first time I saw it was the end of March 2003 during a snowboarding trip in Whistler, BC.
It's kind of fucked up that that was five years ago. Not to be totally cliche, but where has the time gone? That trip occurred during the spring break of my sophomore year at Whitman. I went with six of my good friends, five of whom I've seen or at least talked to in the last 48 hours. I had never snowboarded before, so I couldn't really comprehend that I was at what is considered the best location in the Northwest. I remember that the seven of us were piled in a room designed for only four people. After three days at the slopes, we drove back down south, through Vancouver to Seattle, where we stayed for several days. Even though I now live here, back then, that was only my third or fourth time in this city. During the second week of that spring break, a few of us road tripped down to Reno, where I snowboarded for the second and third time, respectively, at Mt. Rose and Lake Tahoe. On the second to last day before classes resumed, we drove back up to Walla Walla. I had spent most of my life up to that point in the Southwest and Hawaii, so I was excited to be seeing so much of the part of the country that I now call my home.
When I got back to Whitman, I had a little bit of a loose end to take care of. One week before we left for the trip, I had spent the night with a girl I had been hanging out with for a few weeks and liked, but was too shy and naive to really do anything about. Something seemed different about this compared to past experiences, but I had no idea why. On the Thursday night before the trip, we got together again. Throughout the entire trip, I kept thinking about this -- was it just something random and meaningless? It really didn't seem like it.
It was on my mind the entire spring break. I remember thinking about it while on the ski lift at Blackcomb, while on the numerous 10+ hour drives, while watching a lacrosse game and playing hackysack, while getting stoned and eating Chinese food with my friend's hilarious gay uncles, while watching another movie for the first time, The Core, in Reno. And I remember not paying very much attention during Old School -- what was I going to say to this girl when I returned? Even though we've only been together twice, I have an inexplicable instinct that this is something special. But how do I say that without sounding creepy? What should I do?
The answer is that I didn't do anything. A few days after classes resumed on April 2, exactly five years ago, that girl came to my dorm room and started up the conversation I was to nervous to initiate myself. That day I made a decision and I can say without any doubt in my mind that it was the best decision I've ever made in my life.
Five years ago. In some ways nothing has changed. The war in Iraq was only a few weeks in -- I thought it was fucked up then and my opinion has not swayed. But in many other capacities, my life is entirely different now. In April 2003, I had not yet met many of the people I know consider to be my closest friends. I had not yet decided to declare film studies as my undergraduate major. My dad was still alive.
I've always been a very in-the-present type of person. I don't give enough thought to the past or future. I'm working on that, but right now the future is scary and uncertain and the past is full of memories that make me smile. I would do a lot of things differently if I got a second chance, as would most people. I would not change a single thing that happened over those few days in the Spring of 2003.
Hi. I haven't posted anything for a few days, and those close to me know the score. Before I had this website, I never kept any sort of journal before. As superficial and random as it seems, I've really enjoyed putting my thoughts down on paper (well, screen) and forcing myself to look at them again. It's led me to become a more keen observer of the world around me, geeky and irreverent as that world may be.
I don't really know what the future has in store. As I scroll back just a few days, I am reminded of how different things were. When I wrote my last real post on Friday, the one on Battlestar, the world as I knew it was still at ease. As I read through my old thoughts, I'm surprised at how arrogant and cynical I come off. Sure, a lot of that is affected writing -- I wanted to write stuff that was funny to other people. I'm not finding much funny right now. I don't know why anyone would still be reading this site, but it's never really been about other people. Writing forces me to collect my thoughts into neat little paragraphs of coherent reason. I've never had so much thought without reason before.
Last night, I finally watched No Country For Old Men. As I had expected, it was brilliant, terrifying and powerful -- easily the Coens' best movie, which is crazy since they made Fargo and Lebowski. I had heard going into it that many people were disappointed with the ending, which is oddly serene and poignant for a film so unrelenting and violent. I don't want to wreck the film, so I will only say that it involves one of the last surviving characters contemplating a dream -- trying to tie it into the big picture and trying to decide what to do next.
It's a difficult ending because of its ambiguity, but I appreciate that. I didn't want the bad guy to die, good guy to get the girl, all loose ends to be tied up and the credits to roll up over a happy ending. Life doesn't work that way. It's much more honest for the characters to silently struggle with all that's happened before, unsure of the future, unsure what the point of it all was.
Last night, I had one of the worst nightmares I've had since I was a little kid. I was on a road trip of sorts with an awesome hodgepodge of college and high school friends, coworkers, family members and a couple of celebrities (Dominic Monaghan was randomly there, as just another one of my friends). We came across a small town that had fell victim to some sort of 28 Days Later/I am Legend type scenario. Fearing for our lives, our ragtag crew ran into a church to seek refuge for the night, and just as in those films, the church turned out to be full of dead bodies. Realizing our situation was very movie-like, we determined the rules of the situation; the corpses couldn't reanimate and attack us if we all stuck together. Of course, shortly thereafter, I was separated from the group and found myself in a little boy's room with several dead kids on the floor. FUCKED UP. Before I would let my dream get truly freaky (I've been playing too much goddamned BioShock), I psyched myself out of it. I stood there thinking "This is a dream. Just wake up and this won't be there." It's a strategy I've employed towards nightmares for as long as I can remember and it's always worked.
I woke up, in my apartment, on my couch, about an hour before I needed to get ready for work. There's no dead bodies lying around. My bizarre band of travelers still hasn't returned. But I'm in a different nightmare. I am still alone. I still don't know what to do. I can't wake up.
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