Mountain Goat-astic!!

The Mountain Goats - "No Children"



The Mountain Goats - Lion's Teeth

About three years ago, I was at a party having this really profound conversaion with this Jewish girl about music, largely centered around her having phenomenal taste, and me wanting to wear her reproductive organs as a ski mask. About thirty seconds before Bystol decided to cockblock me BY DENYING THE HOLOCAUST, she mentioned the Mountain Goats, and how I should check them out. I made a mental note of this that eventually drifted into the crowded pasture where my other dormant ideas go to wander, and forgot until I read about Aesop Rock's upcoming Mountain Goats collaboration. This then lofted the idea into the stratosphere of things I need to actually follow up on (past due notices, poopy pants, burning toast, et cetera). Finally, I was able to digest it all, and it lived up to all of the swastika-cular hype that Bystol drove it to so many moons ago.

If a comparison was absolutely necessary, I'd say there's a little Elliot Smith, some Jeff Mangum, and more than a passing similarity to
every basement cassette recording Lou Barlow ever made. These are all good things, however, as are the hyper literate lyrics, the recent trend towards stringed accompaniment, and the fact that none of the songs mean anything. Except the album where they mean everything. And finally, he has an amazing blog, where he advocates, among other things, new recordings from Guns N Roses, ITunes alternating between fantastic and dogshit, and the year in metal. I'd call him a rennaissance man, but I fear that the connotations of that phrase have shifted in years past. Thus, I will call him, simply the man.

...Now with 50% More Self-Serving Ego!!

Dead Rabbit - Out of our Heads

About a week ago, I was ravaging the interweb looking for a set of Tapes 'N Tapes demos that I wanted mainly because I knew far dumber people that had them, and I was jealous. About an hour in, foaming at the mouth over my failure, I stumbled into a blog that mentioned the Tapes, but only as a reference point for a band that they deemed vastly superior. While I refuse to rank the two (in part, because I was late to the party, and wouldn't want to lose credibility if, in fact, Dead Rabbit ARE superior), I was quite impressed with the music (albeit stymied by their refusal to mention ANYWHERE where I can buy the album).

This is where you faithful readers come in. Buy it at Trash Bar tomorrow, when they play from 8-9 with an open bar! And as for you 15 other readers, wondering what you have to gain from reading a post that is essentially a love letter to Ryan in the hopes that I can get my mitts on this CD, just consider yourselves lucky to find out about this band now, from me, and not later, out of distorted speakers at the Buckle. Every song on their MySpace is dope, and it's nice to hear a band with a slight vibe. Psychedelic Furs vibe.

[fist thrust into air] John Hughes Movies Forever [/fist thrust into air]

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In other news, I plunged deeply into the Matrix on Saturday, acquiring posh luxury box tickets for the Brewers game, and getting into a VIP bar in left field. This is only noteworthy because the Maitre D of said establishment... HAD A HOOK HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!
While I value my membership in the proletariat, I would totally sell out, yuppify, and vote republican if I could see a sharp upswing in day-to-day hook-handed encounters.

Engine, Engine, No. 9...

Neutral Milk Hotel - "Engine"

Gibberish is underrated. If you scour the reviews section of Amazon, amongst other places, it's tough not to be inundated with sour-grapes hack music critics that deny any set of lyrics not going from point "A" to point "B" in the strightforward manner advocated by grandmothers, Republicans, and ESL students alike.

Nonsense can be a gorgeous phenomenon; just ask Lewis Carroll, killa cam, or anyone that has ever taken mushrooms. Jeff Mangum, the driving force behind Psychedelic revivalists Neutral Milk Hotel, is another staunch advocate of the compelling power of acid-headed gobbledygook.

Currently a recluse in the mode of Brian Wilson (circa-1980) or Sly Stone (until he re-emerged with that shitty blonde mohawk), Mangum spent most of the 1990's releasing groundbreaking experimental recordings as a member of the Elephant6 Collective, culminating in the 1998 landmark recording "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea". While the bare emotional content and bat-shit crazy lyrics ultimately pushed dude off the deep-end, he did leave us one last reminder of his unparalleled talent: 1998 b-side "Engine".

Much like Van Morrison's work in the late 60's and early 70's, Mangum's voice exists as a conduit for lyrics channeled from a place unknown to singer and listener alike. Attempting to transcribe these words devoid of sonic context would make them look ridiculous, bold poetic structure aside. In execution, however, the beauty is stark and phenomenal.

While the place of Neutral Milk Hotel in the musical pantheon is up for serious debate (it's hard to pen a mushmouthed, lysergic concept album about Anne Frank and not open yourself up to some ridicule), they undoubtedly rank as one of the 90's most profoundly unique acts.[1]

[1] And using a saw as an instrument is fucking cool. Ask Armand Van Helden.

Covered Like a Jimmy Hat

Martha Wainwright - The Traitor (2005)



Leonard Cohen - The Traitor (1979)

One of the problems with learning the difference between your musical head and your musical ass is that as you develop a more sophisticated palette, sometimes you skeptically (and unfairly) dismiss otherwise worthwhile material due to sins committed by vastly inferior artists. [1]

For instance (unless you're my mother, you vote republican, or you're 10 years old), you realize that an all-covers bar musician is the lowest form of musicianship possible, far beneath even the toothless guy that plays the bucket in downtown Chicago and smokes metholated reburns. As the sensitive Abercrombie singer-songwriter, the Eagles t-shirt sporting deadbeat dad, or the "ironic" pop-punk cover band, each incarnation is still rooted in the idea that the only way to enjoy music is if you know it already. Obviously, all of these people deserve the business end of a Tyrannosaur phallus.

Sadly, though, due to the staggering number of atrocious covers (is linking to the Ataris even necessary???), many otherwise sophisticated listeners fail to explore the world of covers around the time they stop purchasing Greatest Hits compilations (yeah, there won't ever be a post here defending those vile products). As a result, tributes like 2006's "I'm Your Man" fall beneath their radar.

Designed to pay respects to Canadian troubador Leonard Cohen, "I'm Your Man" was a combination documentary/concert designed to show the dramatic scope of his influence across the music industry. From Jarvis Cocker and Rufus Wainwright, Nick Cave to Bono, the project brought out the kind of A-List names usually reserved for eulogies (Cohen, thankfully, remains among us).

One of the lesser known performers, Martha Wainwright (Rufus' sister) fittingly reinterpreted a more obscure track, 1979's examination of fate "The Traitor". Loosening the tempo from the standard meter-perfect rhythm Cohen is known for, Wainwright reconfigured the track as a Randy Newman-esque construct, propelled along sporadically by the performer's whim alone. This new-found slackness makes the protagonists climactic realization about fate all the more compelling. By the end, the listener's only question is if Martha's version of "The Traitor" has unseated Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" as the most profound of all Leonard Cohen reinterpretations.[2]




[1] Another problem is that sometimes, you struggle to separate the music that you're drawn to with the music that will best facilitate your goals. Trying to listen to the new Lil Boosie album while I typed this was fucking impossible.

[2] Yes, I realize Buckley's cover was actually a cover of John Cale's cover. Try harder.

This Goes Out to the Asses that You Don't Ride for Charity Fundraisers

Justice - D.A.N.C.E.

It was only a matter of time before my blog became redundant for anyone with an ounce of hip. As much as I wanted to avoid the pitfall of pimping the same new Pitchfork anthem as every other self-important jerk-off, the sheer staggerring dopeness of the new Justice single has forced me to compromise my vision in order to facilitate the shaking of your asses.

Justice, who I've only recently been digesting (thanks to Ryan) apparently have set out to become the indie-Daft Punk, and I'm completely fine with that, especially considering what an abomination the last DP album was. As for the song itself, I've always thought the lyric sheet of any anthem should be less than 10 sentences. This clocks in at about 8, with none of the gristle that would clutter up a lesser jam.

I eat fools like Reptar

Architecture in Helsinki - The Owls Go



Sufjan Stevens - Romulus



Grandaddy - Stray Dog and the Chocolate Shake



Bonnie "Prince" Billy - A Minor Place

Remember how 20 years ago, every indie rock band sounded like the Velvet Underground?? Jesus and Mary Chain, Galaxie 500, Echo and the Bunnymen, Sonic Youth; these musicians have Lou Reed's template to thank for their hipster lofts, hybrid cars, vegan diets, and dental insurance (looks like you picked the wrong horse, Shane Macgowan). Fifteen years later, a similar revival took place, with bands like the Strokes and Black Rebel Motorcycle club making sonic statements hugely indebted to waters first charted by Television's "Marquee Moon". We're currently in the midst of another such wave, though only a man of keen insight, vast knowledge of the history of recorded music, and a pop can- dick would be perceptive enough to spot the inspiration: Mark Mothersbaugh's theme from Rugrats.

Mothersbaugh, founding member of Cleveland post-punks Devo, traded his flower-pot head gear and his MENSA membership for a xylophone and a prolific soundtrack-scoring gig about 10 years ago. Since then, he's greatly inflated his profile by dropping aural backgrounds into Nickelodeon television, Wes Anderson movies, and all points in between. His signature sound, (playful tinkling piano, floods of soft-pitch percussion, and multi-layered lo-fi production) bears striking resemblance to various bands on the hipster du jour profile. What these people fail to realize, however, was that Tommy, Angelica, Chuckie, Phil, and Lil, were all hip to his game long before the skinny tie crowd.

The Standing Still is the Only Dance I Know

About six months ago, various friends, co-conspirators, fans, and inspirations of mine suggested I start a blog. I did, maintained it for a month or so, and then blew it off. Little of it was of any merit, though the six or seven anecdotes about me being a drunken parasite probably elicited a hearty chortle or guffaw from a person or six. The problem, aside from hosting it in a more or less barren and unnavigable province of the e-wasteland, was that it was simply a text-based rendition of my popular stage show. You might of seen it performed before. It's like Gallagher, but you hold up the garbage bag to keep obscenity from staining your Hawaiian shirt.

This attempt, while still ultimately bike-locked to my failures and inadequacies, at least attempts to merge my bloated, self-important prose, with the amenities of the digital age. Such as indulging in music from corporations, in a manner easy enough for even the most lobotomized of my acquaintances to figure out. As a mighty cymbal crash to mark the event of my blog re-opening, I present to you... music that I probably stole from some other blog a year ago and forgot about.

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The Dismemberment Plan - Ellen and Ben

The Dismemberment Plan, one of the greatest bands of the nineties, essentially birthed every verbose, danceable indie-rock band of the modern-era, and then broke up before they could cash in on it. While the former of the linked tracks, "Ellen and Ben", showcases the sort of angular, cerebral pop that they would become legendary for, I always think of them for their daring, imaginative covers.



The Dismemberment Plan - Crush

"Crush", by Jennifer Paige, is notable amongst the vast ocean of 1990's Jock Jams, in that the original performer has a first and a last name. While Robyn (Show Me Love) and Amber ("This is Your Night") went the Cher/Madonna route of the egomaniacal singular moniker, Paige clearly had enough self-doubt and vulnerability to invoke her full government name, qualities later manifested by the Plan's distorted, morphine-drenched rendition of the 1998 roller rink anthem (or, um, I heard they played Jennifer Paige at roller rinks. I was too busy... knife fighting).