This little album's been with me since high school. Instead of becoming interesting and knowledgable, not to mention cool, through listening to Broken Social Scene or Conor Oberst or somesuch others, I alienated myself entirely by getting into heavy metal, a subgenre of rock so militant its press and the rest of the world's do not at all meet, except for the latter to poke fun at the former. Emperor, Mayhem, Burzum--these motherfuckers burn churches & slit their wrists & aren't even that gifted (but they sure as hell are principled).
But Electric Wizard, well, these dudes just rock. At the time of Dopethrone, the fine album I'm pitching today, it was three late-20-somethings, apparently super-stoners, using a detuned, fuzzy bass, a detuned, almost superfluous guitar, and a most-likely-detuned drumset to make very heavy, very slow rock. The lyrics are best explained by the album cover:
Ah yes.
Anyways I don't expect people to like this album, or even be interested by it. Nor am I claiming that Jus Onborn, the sole songwriter/singer/guitarist, has all that much in terms of musical talent or even ideas, at least no more than, say, a rabid lover of Black Sabbath muck might gain by taking said sound to its natural limits. So as an experiment in heavy rock haze, this is the fucking cat's pajamas. Get it now and listen to it at once.
Check out these track lengths:
There's a 3' opener which feels like pop in comparison to the rest. The second track is nine minutes long and it's worth the entire wait just to hear the same riff get faster & faster & heavier & heavier. The third is 15', split up conveniently into a 5 minute song, a 5 minute riff, and 5 minutes worth of feedback fuzz named 'Altar of Melektaus' (I suggest splitting up the song in GarageBand, these latter two really press the patience).
Then there's a 6'30" standard fare riff-rocker, an 11' snoozer, a 0:47 bass riff w/guitar-accompaniment that is the very highlight of this entire genre & mood, another 5' standard riffer, and finally a 10' closer featuring the title (and heaviest) riff, followed by another 10 minutes of silence before a hilarious radio encounter in hushed Satanic tones. I transcribed it a while ago cuz I felt like it:
- That's terrifying, and that's.. no, look, if this happens to your kids, or if you look at this and you have children and you say, 'Could this happen to my child, out of some kind of rebellion?' how would a parent be aware?
- Many youngsters are into it, uh, teenagers and younger, and the..the..the clues are there, the satanic symbols, 6-6-6, if you see that written on your child's notebook, if they're into heavy metal music, if they're associating with strange characters or drifting off to ceremonies and not explaining where they're at, it's well worth it for parents to look deeper and ask, 'What exactly are you up to?'
- And with whom!
- Because this is serious...
- It could be harmless. It could just be a diversion. But it could also be DEADLY serious.
The phrase "drifting off to ceremonies" never fails to crack me up.
A while back I kinda really liked Neil Young's second (or third?) album, After the Gold Rush..
It's a real peculiar album, even peculiar in why it's peculiar, cuz it is, after all, kinda conventional (I guess?) It's a strange sort of somber. It's slow, but not in that complacent way, rather slow but still going strong. It's mighty pretty, but it doesn't connect like it is, cold-like.
Now I'm not saying all this as if it's a bad thing, I'm saying it like it's an interesting thing. But there is one song which continually hits me, viscerally, the "you feel no pain" kind of hit Marley's talking about, Cripple Creek Ferry. I think the only way I can accurately describe it is, it's like the Beatles wrote it. You know how the Beatles basically do no wrong and you don't even question it at some point? Where just about every album they did is among your all-time favorites but you don't even need to include them cuz it goes without saying?
Yeah, I feel like the Beatles wrote Cripple Creek Ferry. It does no wrong you see--I can always sing along. It grooves. Slowly, but it grooves. I've munched it up 22 times over a couple of weeks, in 5-6 song bursts I think. You should partake instantly.
It started with Androgynous—piano and voice with spacy production and a sound so pained you’d think Westerberg was talking about himself. Of all the way-acclaimed albums the ‘Mats had (as it goes, the critics love them all), only “Let It Be” remained, due to this one song.
A year of that, and I guess “Sixteen Blue” must’ve come on shuffle one day, cuz there’s no reason I would’ve been tinkering around with this album otherwise. A gorgeous mess of notes, that song, and a dozen or so listens afterwards, I put the whole album on and noticed its entirety is a gorgeous mess of notes.
On the second run-through, I was finally hooked for good with the end of “Seen Your Video.” I guess albums don’t usually have climaxes, but this one’s is marvelous. “We don’t wanna know, We don’t wanna know, We don’t wanna know”—it’s about music videos but basically he’s shouting “We don’t give a shit,” in context (and out). There is no punk out there more pissed off, defiant, and somehow at the same time so anthemic.
And so give or take 30 plays into the album, I’m still not tired of it. I hope it’s got the longevity of others that have taken me so by storm, or maybe it’s just a raucous mood I’m in (key point: these drunks fucked up their chance at success because, well, they got drunk too often). If no song is like another; if the notes are so interesting they belie the simple chords changes; if the playing is so loose-perfect you wonder what side of the pro-am fence these dudes are on; how can I get tired of the sound?
I can’t encompass something this good. I can only hope someone else feels it the way I do. And so to help with that, let me just say, “Gary’s Got a Boner” works best in sequence, between the climax and the sweetest song on the album; don’t forget “Tommy Gets His Tonsils Out” has more mock-snarl attitude than anything else on the album; and a Kiss cover remains a Kiss song, no matter who performs it.
the first track on each of the album's two discs references Daft Punk. of course this is a great album.
this is one of the few albums (up there with the White Album, Drukqs, etc.) that i think truly deserves to be two discs long. like the Beatles and Aphex Twin, James Murphy (he basically is LCD Soundsystem) just had too many things to do. the Beatles wanted to do surf rock, punk rock, folk rock, and even weird sound experiments. Richard D. James wanted drum & bass, eerie minimal piano pieces, ambient techno, and even a 30-second sample of his parents wishing him a happy birthday.
what does Murphy want? he wants to make you dance. there's slow stuff, fast stuff, soft stuff, hard stuff. something for everyone, as long as everyone likes to dance. an acid disco garage house pop psychedelic punk rock medley, LCD Soundsystem's debut/self-titled album is an electronic dance music masterpiece, still the best LCD five years later.
i'm not going to say anything about the music though. i'm not really going to say much anything actually. i just want to share some of this album's amazing lyrics, usually the least important factor of any music to me.
i'm really easy to please lyrics-wise. you can repeat "ooh baby the music sounds better with you, love might bring us back together" for seven minutes and i'll be in ecstasy. this doesn't mean i can't tell the difference between that kind of trite (though strangely elegant) couplet and, say, the poetry of Bob Dylan.
Murphy's lyrics fall everywhere between the two extremes. the lyrics for the song "Yeah" are pretty much just "yeah yeah yeah yeahyeahyeahyeah yeah. yeah hey hey hey hey" and "everybody keeps on talking about, no one's getting it done" (what the fuck is it?). the first track gets a little more complex. here's the first verse:
well Daft Punk is playing at my house, at my house i'll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes i got a bus and a trailer at my house, at my house i'll show you the ropes, kid, show you the ropes
it's a song about Daft Punk playing at his house. what more would you expect? you gotta PA the house, Sarah's girlfriend is working the door, the robots descend from the bus, etc. etc. oh yeah Murphy loves singing about music, though he usually takes it a step further:
beats on repeat, beating on me from every car in the street there's constant repeat on repeat of your paranoid, heartbreaking beats on repeat
it's a five song repeat, beating on me your favorite band helps you sleep and here comes the new stylish creep from every car in the street on repeat on repeat
. . .
i wish i could complain more about the rich but then all their children would line the streets, come to every show, no one wants that
i wish i could complain more about the rich but then all their children would flee the schools, come to every show, drugged and unwashed
i wish i could complain more about the rich but then all their children would line the streets, come to every show, unwashed and drugged and beats on repeat, beating on me on the radio on your radio on your radio
music about music! "Daft Punk is Playing at My House," "On Repeat," "Disco Infiltrator," "Beat Connection," LCD Soundsystem is all about dancing yourself clean and being hyperaware of it.
the best example of Murphy's clever lyrics and super self-conscious irony comes on the first track of the second disc, "Losing My Edge." the song starts with a miminal thumping bass line backed by a couple snares and hi-hats. then comes Murphy's nasally singing. then come more hi-hats and a little flickering guitar. the vocals start whacking out, echoing like there are two James Murphys in the room. the guitar starts creaking like an electronic insect, still minimal. when we hit around 2.5 minutes, cymbals crash announcing a less restrained, more potent bassline, still playing the same old minimal phrase though. it won't stop until the song ends. the drums pick up a little more. the guitar gets a little whackier. slowly, always slowly building to a paranoid, anxiety-ridden, frustrated cry for help at the end: "look at all the good music i know!" here are the lyrics, in full:
yeah, i'm losing my edge. i'm losing my edge. the kids are coming up from behind. i'm losing my edge. i'm losing my edge to the kids from France and from London. but i was there.
i was there in 1968. i was there at the first Can show in Cologne. i'm losing my edge. i'm losing my edge to the kids whose footsteps i hear when they get on the decks. i'm losing my edge to the Internet seekers who can tell me every member of every good group from 1962 to 1978. i'm losing my edge.
to all the kids in Tokyo and Berlin. i'm losing my edge to the art-school Brooklynites in little jackets and borrowed nostalgia for the unremembered eighties.
but i'm losing my edge. i'm losing my edge, but i was there. i was there. but i was there.
i'm losing my edge. i'm losing my edge. i can hear the footsteps every night on the decks. but i was there. i was there in 1974 at the first Suicide practices in a loft in New York City. i was working on the organ sounds with much patience. i was there when Captain Beefheart started up his first band. i told him, "don't do it that way. you'll never make a dime." i was there. i was the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids. i played it at CBGB's. everybody thought i was crazy. we all know. i was there. i was there. i've never been wrong.
i used to work in the record store. i had everything before anyone. i was there in the Paradise Garage DJ booth with Larry Levan. i was there in Jamaica during the great sound clashes. i woke up naked on the beach in Ibiza in 1988.
but i'm losing my edge to better-looking people with better ideas and more talent. and they're actually really, really nice.
i'm losing my edge.
i heard you have a compilation of every good song ever done by anybody. every great song by the Beach Boys. all the underground hits. all the Modern Lovers tracks. i heard you have a vinyl of every Niagra record on German import. i heard that you have a white label of every seminal Detroit techno hit - 1985, '86, '87. i heard that you have a CD compilation of every good '60s cut and another box set from the '70s. i hear you're buying a synthesizer and an arpeggiator and are throwing your computer out the window because you want to make something real. you want to make a Yaz record. i hear that you and your band have sold your guitars and bought turntables. i hear that you and your band have sold your turntables and bought guitars. i hear everybody that you know is more relevant than everybody that i know.
But have you seen my records? This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, the Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, the Human League, the Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra, Joy Division, Lower 48, the Association, Sun Ra, Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc, Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force ("just hit me"!), Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil! Scott! Heron!, the Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders and the Fire Engines, the Swans, the Soft Cell, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics, the Sonics.
you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want. you don't know what you really want.
i know i want to listen to every one of those artists now.
they certainly have some sick albums, eps, singles, etc, but make no mistake: Thee Oh Sees is a band best served live.
i spent my last two nights seeing them: the first, at a dirty garage show in Los Angeles, and the second, at a tiny classroom trailer on UC Irvine's campus.
every time i've seen them, they open the set with Enemy Destruct, the first track off of Help. of course, it's considerably sped up and, like a firecracker, the previously still pond of people leaps into a torrent of raging rock & roll-induced madness.
their songs, though bursts, just explosions of energy that don't last very long, make up for their shortness in sheer intensity. when you're gasping for air and limb a minute in, you're happy to be able to breathe when they finish at minute two. that said, i have yet to see them live without experiencing one of their songs drawn out to its extremities, stretched minutes upon minutes into infinity, a brutal chant of rhythm and melody that possesses your feet, makes you think it's punk rock disco night across the universe.
the rest of the band fucking rocks, but it's clear that the lead guitarist, John Dwyer, is the general in this war. like a sun, all our energy we owe to him. and, like a good military superior, he's always dicking around. whether eating his microphone like in the above photo, forcing the head of his guitar into the ground, or hopping like an lsd leprechaun, Dwyer attracts all eyes in the room. (that is, if you don't have hair or fists in your face already.) at one point last night, he shoved his microphone against the head of one of the drummer's toms and started guitar-humping the amp to draw as much fucked up feedback from it as possible. keep in mind, this is halfway through a 10-minute epic of a jam whose only recognizable lyric (to me) is "all you need is the summertime oh oh," repeated over and over. eventually Dwyer gave up (or was fulfilled) and the drummer somehow mustered up the energy to bust out some cracked out drum solo that had one kid in front of me convulsing until he collapsed on the floor, where he continued to shake his arms, legs, and head anyway.
I need to say something about Sonic Youth, anything. It's hard to be at all concise about a band this great, but let me try.
First, they are the greatest band in the universe. They join The Beatles, who've mastered pop, Pavement, who've mastered their own style of suburban pop, the Stones, who've mastered rock (and its ego), and certainly others you can come up with, bands which never disappoint, which always do something new but discernible.
Second, in a 30 year existence, there is no weak album. Some I admit I haven't fully "gotten" yet, but it's obvious the potential is there. I've heard the usual love-of-dichotomy "SY is split on a continuum between artsy noise and hard-rock songs," but there is so much more than that. There is always ambience, and there is always some kind of melody. The rhythms are pronounced (sometimes the rhythms are the melodies), and there's almost always some kind of "noise," an all-encompassing term if ever there was one.
Mostly what I would like is for others to notice how fucking amazing this band can be, a hard task, admittedly. Their discography is huge, and ambient noise isn't always the easiest thing to notice, even if sometimes the songs are clearly in the pop form or the melodies are highly pronounced (Teenage Riot, anyone?) And while every album is indeed unique, at distant listens they all sound the same. And consider that every critic and fan out there has their own opinions about which is the best album. How diverse is their discography?
2000's NYC Ghosts & Flowers is pure ambient, while 1992's Dirty is a Butch Vig-produced noise/grunge fest (they're both wonderful). Their first 1982 album is no-wave. Their second, 1983, is ambient noise rock (check out the Stooges cover and the lyrics to Confusion is Next). 1988's Daydream Nation is about as catchy as they can get, while 1998's A Thousand Leaves is about as laid-back as they can get. I could go on. I used to think Thousand Leaves was my favorite, but really it's just my first vinyl fetish and the first SY that I truly got into, opening up this wonderful world. I could always go for parts of Washing Machine, Confusion is Next, Dirty, and of course, shuffling through the entire discography.
And so to close, if there is any doubt about the ever-constant strength of this band, listen to a song from each album:
1982 S/T: I Dreamed I Dream 1983 Confusion is Next: Freezer Burn/I Wanna Be Your Dog 1985 Bad Moon Rising: Death Valley '69 1986 EVOL: Shadow of a Doubt 1987 Sister: Schizophrenia 1988 Daydream Nation: Teenage Riot 1990 Goo: Kool Thing 1992 Dirty: JC 1994 Experimental Jet Set, Trash, and No Star: Sweet Shine 1995 Washing Machine: Little Trouble Girl (or Unwind...) 1998 A Thousand Leaves: Snare, Girl 2000 NYC Ghosts & Flowers: Nevermind (What Was It Anyway) 2002 Murray Street: Sympathy for Strawberry 2004 Sonic Nurse: I Love You Golden Blue 2006 Rather Ripped: Jams Run Free 2009 The Eternal: Massage the History
the album starts with the sound of a goddamn rollercoaster.
a rollercoaster! the machine which gave you the greatest highs you could ever imagine when you were 10, 15, 30 years old! you ascend into the clouds where a pulsing chant embraces you, and a singer steps out of the chorus to tell you to "always have a good time." and you listen! you tap along, stomp along, sing along, whistle along, walk along, and dance along until jet after jet after jet zooms by until suddenly the darkness engulfs you, and you wonder.
i don't want to write about this album.
there are just some things that can't be converted into words. when you try, your mind turns to sludge, your typing goes all wrong, and the words on the screen reflect that. you start typing things like "it sounds like running through a meadow towards a scarecrow except the meadow is made of brain tissue and the scarecrow is a rainbow unicorn" or "it sounds like if birds had teeth and lizards had wings" or "it sounds like if all the strongest people in the world started living in trees, only coming out to eat squirrels" or "it sounds like purple dipped in cream dipped in fur dipped in girl dipped in music dipped in mind."
the alternative?
i don't know, get stoned? buy a good pair of headphones? when you wake up in the morning, listen to your alarm? hear the rain? listen to the difference between a plate and a bowl? listen to the people talking to you? (just don't listen too closely, or you might not understand what they're saying.)
"hey man what's your problem don't you know that i don't belong to you"
no, you don't. you don't belong to anybody. you're a 12-and-a-half minute composition that escapes on the wings of an owl, you've got the turnpike on your side, trucks zoom past but you laugh because you don't need a ride, you're crying because you're leaving but you know it's the right decision.
what does it mean to not be able to hear a common phrase, such as "i'm not," without singing?
"ready?"
"what?"
"nevermind."
i once read a review that said this song sounded like an Amazonian tribe perform their chants while under the influence of LSD. how stupid. it's just Noah Lennox clicking buttons on a computer. the fucking magic! in his own words, he gave the computer a soul! us humans are all about soul but i don't know what we'll do once computers have them. in other words, i'm not ready.
all of a sudden i'm supposed to enjoy a fast tempo? well, okay. chant me into submission. submit me into chanting. you're getting water everywhere. i may be marine but i might not be me, and it turns out that "/" means i'm not.
"it's not a ticket for you to pick at other people who don't know what's up like you're so sure you do"
ouch.
eventually the ice cream will come around; you can heal your wound and eat neapolitan simultaneously. what's the difference?
tigers, gorillas, seals, koalas, panda bears, and little kids. the artist knows the music.
when my soul starts growing when my soul starts growing when my soul starts growing
a aa and
i wish i wish i know
stop stop stop
and here you were, expecting something epic.
it's funny reading reviews of this album because each one of them rings so true while at the same time only capturing one facet of the whole:
"Starting an album with a clattering of industrial rhythms sliding into a huge clap-and-stompalong with angelic vocals and what sounds like the Brotherhood of Man on a vocal loop tip not far removed from Suicide or Laurie Anderson is one way to make a mark." -- allmusic
"Sometimes ominous, sometimes celebratory, always compelling, Person Pitch is as clattering and tactile as a beaded curtain." -- The Onion
"Person Pitch as a whole-- and "Bros" in particular--evokes the sunshine of Lennox's adopted Lisbon, Portugal home. But it's the kind of light best experienced with eyes closed-- with the rays filtered through eyelids, turning the world into various shades of red and orange." -- Pitchfork
"For an album constructed from so many constituent parts, Person Pitch is amazingly warm and inviting at times, wrapping around the ears, nestling the head, and squeezing like a nice familial bear hug after years of no contact." -- Tiny Mix Tapes
"Person Pitch sounds like everything. To some, the upstroked guitars and vocal stacking in “Take Pills” make it a consummate summer record. To others, the city clacks and tracks, the sampled noise and confusion make it a winter record, the kind of thing you curl up with in front of a frosty window in order to be reminded that something exists beneath the snow." -- Aquarium Drunkard
"Person Pitch sounds like everything." "Person Pitch sounds like everything." "Person Pitch sounds like everything." "Person Pitch sounds like everything." "Person Pitch sounds like everything."
i don't know what it is. that's probably a good starting point.
if there are such things as favorites, this is my favorite Animal Collective song. if you know what the sublime is, this song is it.
and no, it's not just because it's one of the band's longest songs. it has to do with how this song FEELS.
i'm trying to be eloquent about this, but it's coming out terse.
how fitting, i continue, that it comes to how this song FEELS, because that's the name of the album you find it on. this whole song just FEELS good. it FEELS like head nodding. it FEELS like dancing, swimming, climbing, loving. it makes me want to stretch my arms out, kiss the Earth, hug the solar system, and inhale the whole universe like a delicious sea breeze. you couldn't take enough bong rips to FEEL the way this song makes you FEEL. i want to mail a letter to the President asking him to listen to this song. i want to ask you to listen to this song because i want you to tell me if it's even remotely possible to experience happiness without sadness. i want you to tell me if it's possible to love without feeling a chill run down your spine. can you hug the solar system without burning your belly button?
'Banshee Beat' FEELS like life. 'Banshee Beat' is life. it's sublime.
it doesn't start with a wailing, panning guitar or tribal drumming or a wave of distortion or dazzling, psychedelic strings... no, no, no, it starts with a whisper of a strum. reverberating whispers of strums. crackling.
a man's voice. also reverberated. a hint at a piano. reverberated.
guitars coming from all sides now. whispering. walking past us talking about something. piano tones growing and dying. crackling. crickets. chirping. crackling
the man's voice stops and something starts happening. the crackling, chirping, strumming, ripping, tapping, all that noise grows in intensity. it gets braver. it approaches you, face to face.
the guitars sidle this way and that. and the voice comes back.
a booming bass drum.
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
So I duck out, go down to find the SWIMMING POOL Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a SWIMMING POOL Hop a fence, leave the street and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
the rhythms by now are at full speed, the guitar is strumming along lazily down its own reverberated river, ah ah ah ah.
every line he sings = every chill i feel.
So I duck out, go down to find the SWIMMING POOL Hop a fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool 'Cause when I'm snuffed out I doubt I'll find a SWIMMING POOL Hop a fence, leave the street, and wet your feet to find the swimming pool
it has always been about the live experience with this band. before i fell into The Downward Spiral, before i touched The Fragile or Pretty Hate Machine, there was And All That Could Have Been and nothing else.
i've come to realize that my main criterion for judging music is sincerity. i don't care if you sound like death metal or like a guy dragging a tipped over ice cream truck or something in between: as long as what you're doing is making you happy, as long as you are making music that you love, then i love it too. and what better test is there for sincerity than a live demonstration?
if you watch that video, you'll see NIN performing the usual two first songs of their Fragility Tour shows, "Terrible Lie" and "Sin." and, in less than ten minutes, you'll see the energy, the love, the destruction, the emotion, the absolute fucking sincerity of Trent Reznor performing his music.
sure, he's wearing a mask of cornstarch and makeup and, whatever, the videos are not actually complete performances, instead composed of patched up clips from ten different shows, but these things don't make Trent seem any less sincere. what's really important is how much detail goes into each performance. notice every flash of lighting, perfectly matched up with a synth or drum break. notice the structure of the bandmembers on stage, like a pentagon: bassist, front left. keyboardist, back left. guitarist, front right. drummer, back right. Reznor, center stage. five musicians with the main man at the front leading the charge. beyond that, there's the obvious stuff. the whole band headbanging like they fucking mean it (take a look at 4:30-4:50, in particular... those 20 seconds practically taught me how to headbang). you don't headbang the whole song, goddamnit, you wait until that shit breaks, and you follow the dynamics closely. this is a science. then at 5:10, there's that fucking lighting again. a guy playing a theremin. strobe lights. the usual, the weird, the greatness.
but i'm not posting this just to talk about And All That Could Have Been, although that album and all of its distinct parts (CD/DVD/Still) certainly deserve their own posts. this is the Nine Inch Nails live experience. and though they are all created equal in awesomeness, they are not all the same.
it used to be a lot messier. NIN's Woodstock 1994 performances are famous because, just minutes before going on stage, the band got into a fun little mud fight backstage, making for quite the picture-perfect look onstage:
there are legends that tell of performances on the Spiral tours in 94-95, in which, sick of sitting in bloody fucking SEATS at a Nine Inch Nails show, rabid fans tore apart whole rows and sections of seats, ripping them straight out of the ground. whether those stories are true or not, there's plenty of evidence on Closure, the documentary of that tour, that the band caused enough destruction themselves to not even warrant the extra legends. check out the trailer for Closure for a peak into the madness:
a few years later, things got toned down a little bit on the Fragility tour, which i've already talked a little bit about above. Trent was still doing a shit ton of drugs, but he was destroying himself more than hotel rooms (oh, fragile Trent) and focusing his madness more on the visual experience than on anything else.
and that ended the era that i would never get to see because i was too young.
when i finally got into the band, Nine Inch Nails didn't really exist. it was 2003 or so, And All That Could Have Been was three years in the past and the last thing Trent had said was inscribed as a little message in that DVD's packaging:
just a glimpse
just a little reminder
of a time and place we
used to live in
this dvd attempts to
document the
experience of
nine inch nails live,
as we were in the
summer of 2000
we filmed and recorded
most of the dates of
the north american
fragility 2.0 tour
with home video cameras
then assembled
mixed and edited this
ourselves with our
home computers
in my eyes
fragility 2.0
was a summation of
what we had
accomplished up to
that time so this dvd
serves as a reminder
of achievement
as well as
a departure point
this is almost what
it felt like being there
trent reznor
i read this little message often, perhaps too often, and almost cried every time i read that last line, because i was certain that the DVD would be all i could ever have. i would only ever have "almost what it felt like."
with 2005 came new hope (sort of), when NINdom found out that Trent barely made it alive through a hefty battle with alcohol, cocaine, and heroin addiction. next came news of a new album. i said "new hope (sort of)" because when i heard the first new NIN song in 6 years--"The Hand That Feeds"--i instantly knew that the Reznor who had composed songs like "Terrible Lie," "Mr. Self Destruct," and "Somewhat Damaged" was a changed man now.
he would be clean, sharp, and productive as shit.
it took stoned Trent ten years to release 3 studio albums and 1 ep. it took sober Trent three years to release 4 studio albums. ridiculous. and though i'll agree that the quality of the music decreased, i can't say the same about the live experience. though i never truly experienced a pre-With Teeth show, i think i landed on the same heavenly cloud of musically energetic paradise that existed in those early years. though he may not be able to make music like he could back then, he can still play it like he used to.
i still remember the exact date the first time i saw NIN the first time: March 25, 2005. it was that time of year where my allergies start picking up, and when they pick up, so does my asthma. but fuck it. i was seeing motherfucking NIN in a tiny auditorium on the uc davis campus. i had moaned for this for too long. he opened with The Frail --> The Wretched. it was a dream come true. i screamed the whole night and nearly rushed the barricade when he started singing Piggy. i killed myself at that show.
the next day i was sick as shit, but it didn't matter. i could fucking die for all i cared because i had finally seen Nine Inch Nails live. i didn't die. i went to my computer and downloaded a bootleg of the show and listened to it nonstop for days, sick in bed. the song "With Teeth," in particular, with its soft, soothing, brutal refusal to let go of life, struck me so hard.
i was in love.
i proceeded to see NIN four more times that year: twice in the next month (two days in a row in San Francisco at a small venue called the Warfield, once with a bunch of friends and once by myself because none of my friends were as psycho as I was), once in November at the huge Oakland Arena, and once in December at a smaller venue in Santa Cruz.
the Oakland show was the one.
the show had originally been planned for an earlier date, about a month earlier, but the drummer at the time, Jerome Dillon, had repeatedly called in sick. Trent got pissed, got a new drummer, made a new date, and made it up to us more than we could have possibly imagined. Adam and i got to the venue before noon and we were still about 50 people back. we waited all day, hearing about how at other shows Trent had let NIN fan club members in for meet & greets and/or soundchecks. we got the latter. everyone casually walked into the venue as NIN was right there on stage, in broad daylight, like any other band, rocking out to Into the Void. and even when they were just playing for sound levels, they were having a good time. sincerity.
the actual show destroyed me and actually destroyed Adam. he hadn't eaten enough during the day and hardly enjoyed the show because he was dying. i didn't need food that night. firmly planted on the barricade, my arms, firmly planted on the band, my eyes, dazzled, firmly planted on the music, my mind. the light show, unlike any other NIN show (nay, any other show, by anyone) that i had every seen, was phenomenal. and they weren't just rehashing the same old shit over and over. i think Trent got sick of playing same old Closer, so he remixed it with a song from Pretty Hate Machine, "The Only Time." and it worked beautifully. check out the switch around 2:50.
i even got to experience that shit i saw on And All That Could Have Been, where in the middle of "Piggy," Trent hands the mic to a bunch of fans in front so they could sing. a few people around me and i caught a thrown microphone from Trent in the middle of "Suck" and belted out the lyrics like it was the last song in the universe. the light show was stellar, the whole band was feeling it, movement, movement, motion, motion, madness, madness, music music music music music music. i wanted to die (again).
and so it went.
in the summer of 2006, i saw NIN at Mountain View with my dad. another great show, and the second time a parent of mine attended a NIN show with me. (the first was in Oakland, but my mom and little brother were in the seats while i was at the barricade with Adam... not everyone likes getting to shows nine hours early.)
a year ago was the first time i took a girlfriend to a Nine Inch Nails show. i thought it would suck. for years, i had witnessed boyfriends have miserable times trying to defend their little girlfriends, half the time fighting with everyone around them instead of making love to Trent. thank god, Meryl and i got to the show ballsass early, like Adam and i in 2005, and we got barricade, once again. protecting the girl was hardly a problem.
the show itself, of course, was amazing. it got interactive again, too. to go along with the Year Zero theme, security-style cams displayed everyone at the barricade in our section on giant screens in the arena during "Survivalism." so silly, but so fun.
my favorite part of this show was the Ghosts breakdown. of all of NIN's new releases, Ghosts is the best. it's experimental and instrumental and glorious sound manipulation, which is all music is. oh, and it feels sincere. at the show, the band replicated a few songs off the album with upright bass and xylophones and all sorts of strange instruments i don't know the names of. oh yeah, and the lighting ruled, of course.
i saw Nine Inch Nails for the eighth and (supposedly) last time two nights ago. and i've concluded a few things: Trent loves music, NIN still rocks, and Trent loves music. over the course of the night he had a bunch of his friends, influences, and more come on stage to play music with him over the course of the 31-song and 2.5 hour set. they included Gary Numan, Eric Avery of Jane's Addiction, Greg Puciato from Dillinger Escape Plan, and Danny Lohner, the bassist from the Fragility tour. in the following video, Mike Garson, who was David Bowie's keyboardist back in the day and played those insane arpeggios on The Fragile for "Just Like You Imagined," made an appearance to add some piano mischief to the standard NIN repertoire.
i was stunned. and almost died (once again).
also, i'd be stunned if you actually read this whole thing. i just wanted to express how important the Nine Inch Nails live experience has been to me over the years and how, i'm sure, it will continue to be important to me for the rest of my life.
probably for a very long time, i will continue to say that a mass of people ebbing to Nine Inch Nails performing "Terrible Lie" live is probably the best possible thing that anybody can ever experience. i will compare all light shows to NIN's light shows. i will compare all bands' endurances to the endurance of a band that can rock and rock hard for well over 2 hours. every night. i will compare the dedication of other musicians' fans to the dedication of NIN fans who line up before the sun starts rising just for a barricade spot. at every show. i will compare the recording policies of other bands to NIN's policies, which strictly demand that everyone bring an HD camera and sturdy tripod to the show for the best quality possible. and, more than anything, i will compare your favorite musician's sincerity to the sincerity of Trent Reznor, who bleeds the stuff from his fucking eyes and throat.
today Apple and EMI are releasing two box sets: The Beatles Stereo Box Set and The Beatles in Mono, two epic compilations of remastered stereo and mono recordings of the complete Beatles studio catalog. beautiful. to mark my renewed obsession (sparked by both the box sets and also by seeing the Cirque du Soleil show LOVE in Las Vegas with Adam), i'm making this little post, which falls back on a classic six stars strategy: speechlessness at sheer musical genius.
I recently re-discovered Blue (1971), her fourth album, after admittingly not understanding it in high school. Its forte is a classically-grounded melodic and harmonic know-how to put poetry to music. It's even bouncy at times!
So, excited about Joni as I was, I got Court and Spark (1974), her sixth album, and listened to it today. It's too interesting not to mention. Of course I can't make any sort of real judgment after just one listen (especially given an artist of her depth), but I can say for certain that it's a weird kind of musics that sounds smooth, efficient, and meaningful. "Jazz folk-rock," Wikipedia calls it.
I hear she's got other great albums. I'm not surprised. GO BUY SOME. Or pirate them, I don't give a shit. Click on her lovely face to get a list of all her releases (in a new window, or in a new tab if your browser has them).
Let me qualify: this is actually how I fell in love with Dear Catastrophe Waitress. And let me be blunt: I was stoned.
Now let me clarify my bluntness: this album, along with If You're Feeling Sinister, had sat in my library for ages, largely un-listened. Pot was the impetus necessary to lose any pre-conceptions about bands and albums and what I have or haven't listened to yet, so that I could, among other things, put on some headphones and get lost in a maze of shuffled music. And it doesn't surprise me at all in retrospect, that as with any relaxed, bias-free and intimate listen, I discovered truths previously invisible. And thus, my entry into the world of these lovely Scots.
The sound is gentle. It's the soundtrack to the lives of lonely high school boys and girls who, instead of becoming angsty, rebellious, or destructive, continue to believe that life can be beautiful, lovely, and maybe even lively. Where both groups embrace the all-too-important fact that life's (often) a bitch, one throws a finger in everyone's face and the other hangs on to who-the-fuck-knows-what. Hope, probably.
The music's romanticism is sharp, and so, as Chopin's was grounded in "harmony, counterpoint, and fugue," so is Belle & Sebastian's grounded in reality and in the honest belief that life can be beautiful. As such, the album becomes wistful, blurring the line between being pensive and being content. Its joie de vivre means when it's happy, it's exuberant. Its romanticism means when it's sad, it's either nostalgic or just selflessly hopeful, roaming along in a haze of comfortable familiarity (which is always changing).
Rarely does music, lyrics, and statement (otherwise known as swagger in bands like Bad Company) come together so well on an album as they do on this one. And I ask you, how can anyone so me-against-the-world love the world so much? Key theme: books.
By the way, the musicianship is astounding; tight, lyrical, and professional. Thus, a song like Asleep on a Sunbeam still wins, and when those horns drop in you'd think the album had peaked.
okay. i admit it. i'm obsessed with this album, not just the album art:
originally, i simply wrote, "another quick, short post. what i imagine when i think about good and fun psychedelic rock: a purple smiling bat that can magically make rainbow arcs squiggle."
i tried to reduce my love for this album to its album art. let me try again: in less than a month, this has become one of my favorite albums of the year.
it's grungy. it's one of the dirtiest albums i've listened to in a long time. the drums are simple, but they provide a perfect backbone to the swampy, distorted humming of the guitar. i can't tell if the vocals have tons of effects put on them, or this guy just sings like a maniac, but i'm at last sure the reverb is out of control. it's like he's singing for a football stadium inside a garage. which brings me to my next point.
it's psychedelic. this guy sings like a retarded angel shaman, or something. i don't know how else to describe it. his voice is high-pitched and harmonious and wonderful, but it's also kind of whiny and just plain weird. beyond the vocals, this will FEEL just like good old rock & roll, nothing psychedelic at all. and yet, there is something in the sound that i think you will find makes it teem with rainbow sparkles and talking purple bats coming out of walls.
it's fun. all i want to do when i listen to this record is get off my goddamn chair and jump around. it's not particularly danceable, it's not what you'd call headbanging music, but i can't stop myself from dancing and headbanging to it.
ambiguous descriptions of a few tracks (which can all be listened to fully and freely here):
electric guitar and bass guitar wind, wind, wind, wind in the first three seconds and then, suddenly, the album blasts off with "Enemy Destruct." drums splashing, maybe some tambourine, and the singing comes in, trippy, like we just got dropped off on the peak of an acid trip.
the second song, "Ruby Go Home," is my favorite on the album, but i don't know why. it starts off relatively simply, with some basic guitar riff, basic drum thrashing, etc etc. the verse involves all sorts of nonsense and the phrase "ruby go home!" the chorus involves a bunch of oh!s and "ruby go home!" the bridge involves repetition of "ruby go home!" there's nothing inherently special about this song. but the band sinks into this moment, this glowing red moment, and they just feel it. they sit there and rock and rock and rock. the moment doesn't end. the guitarist starts fucking around a little bit, nothing fancy, nothing to suck us out of the moment, nothing extraordinary, just more rocking out. and it's catchy, too.
what the hell is that sound at the beginning of "Meat Step Lively?" i have no fucking clue, but it sounds like a baby guitar crying. more rocking out, more living in the moment. except halfway through this one, a wind instrument comes out of nowhere. somebody's blowing on a flute or something, transforming what just sounded like acid-tripped-out Kinks into the pop version of King Crimson or something.
the sixth track, "Can You See," definitely reminds me of something i've heard before. the way it swings back and forth like a pendulum. no, more like a crowd at a show. it's like swaying, not swinging. the bass does it. do do do.......do...do do do......do... and so on.
unfortunately, (for me) the album sort of tapers off towards the middle after an explosive first half, barring one song:
"Destroyed Fortress Reappears" is my second favorite song on the album. this is where the vocal reverbs go nuts. for five minutes he just chants like a high priest over this snare drum march and simple bass/guitar strumming, highlighted with this awfully catchy hook every so often.
i'll admit. the first time i listened to this record i was baked out of mind. i was sitting on a couch in my friend's apartment in the mission, facing one of two tower speakers bellowing out the cool tunes. i really couldn't speak, but i periodically checked with other people to make sure they thought the music we were listening to was as good as i kept thinking. i think i downloaded it the next day.
then a few weeks later, a couple days ago, i went to a bar to see them live for $7. seven bucks! well, not counting beers. but the show was outstanding. short, maybe. but they've only got two albums and each one is full of 1-3min tracks. i expected people to enjoy the show but not rock the fuck out like they did. we were practically moshing. they played "Ruby Go Home" thank god. and i'm pretty damn sure they played it twice as long, illustrating my point that the band has found an inescapably savory moment in that song.
this is good fucking rock & roll, plain and simple.
Last night, i went to a farwell party put on for me, by my music club I am a part of over here in Japan. My good friend who is in the club who speaks very decent english, gave me this cd as a thank you/goodbye present. As she gave it to me, she mentioned that the members of the band used to go to our college, and were a part of the same circle we were all in. I also recieved another cd by a more current group that had recently graduated.
Anyways, this cd is excellent from the first listen. even though I hate it I will go for it: if Can made a band Air, had a japanese girl singer at times, and were super mellow and driving. Its a stretch I know, and rather pointless, but go for that idea, maybe. This mini-lp, as its called, is one 35.2 minute track split up into five parts, but never truly stops. Its got great mellow but moving basslines, upbeat up simple drumming, athmospheric singing at times, sweepingly simple accordians, and tactfull guitars. There are also some bells and pianos in there. and some quiet spoken words. The layers pile up at times, but its great. A guitar part that is minmally used in part one is brought to the front more, in part 5, and a little in almost every part actually. besides that, its a fun ride. long delays on the vocals, and lost of echo on everything. this album will fill the entire room. its got that warm feeling to it.
i'd recommend listening to it at night in the car. or on the cpu while working or surfing the inetrnet. but then again, thats how I listen to all of my music, so who knows when you will like it best. I feel as if the album could be twice as long and just as interesting, but thats just me. I love the cover of the album, and that they dont look so serious, and that they are in the woods.
its summertime here in japan. the rain has for the most part stopped. the humidity is.... well slightly less than its soup-iness of months past. and its time to listen to belle and sebastian again. i have a love hate relationship with this band. I am sorry to admit that, but i can only listen to this band when i really feel like being a bright sun-shinny individual. other times, i just find the stuart's voice annoying and it silly pop music. i know this is truly telling you more about me than the music, but I cannot describe how good it feels to walk to school, in the warm sun, and to hear this band in my ears. I just randomly started thinking about this band on the way to school. some song of 'the life pursuit' and i hadn't listened to it in about 7 months. and it felt so fresh and new and warm and happy and oh my goodness it felt so good.
me: "i really feel like listening to the life pursuit today" tori (smirking and with great half serious disdain):" its ALWAYS the life pursuit in my car..."
what else needs to be said. its making me dream of love and beautiful girls. for some reason this music and them are one in the same in my mind. thank you summer. thank you stuart.
i know it's all about Michael Jackson right now, but here's a dance song i guarantee you haven't forgotten:
before The Field, before Daft Punk, before Michael Jackson, these guys mastered the art of repetition.
lay down a bass drum, thump it, 1. 2. 3. 4. add some hi-hat to the mix for some extra clicks. next, slurp out an irresistible bassline, sidewinding around the four-on-the-floor kicks. it's getting real dancey. then you hit the synths, caressing the keys, remembering this isn't about dominating the song, just keeping it rolling, keeping it fresh. maybe some strings here and there. finally, lay down the vocal track, smooth, funky, rocking, spiraling, spinning, dizzy, and real cool. nothing wild, just simple, to the point, sweet, and beautiful.
anybody who writes a good dance song knows that the key is simplicity and repetition. listen to "Thriller." listen to "One More Time." listen to "Stayin' Alive." ah, you've heard 'em all before...
I am in love with color, and lots of it, solely because of Animal collective and their recent album, Merriweather Post Pavilion.
first there is the eye tantalizing cover
then their is their first video for 'My Girls'
and then there is the first single for 'Summertime Clothes'. I could stare at this for hours.
and then there is the video for 'Summertime Clothes' with many dancers, balls of light, excellent textiles, and of course colorful light!
I must admit, that the sounds and colors of this album are so complementing. a full frontal on your ears and eyes. if only I could get to one of their shows these days :(
