turn on the bright lights

Interpol is a New York band that’s been putting out consistent albums since 2002. Their brand of dark post-punk has been compared to Joy Division and the Cure; it is tight, sharp and anything but free-wheeling. Drummer Sam Fogarino plays complex beats with computerized robotic exactitude while Paul Banks sings in a cold monotone. Though the vocal can be off-putting and the lyrics uninspired, there still exists a transcendent beauty in the music itself. The shimmering guitars, precisely layered and wasting no opportunity to add a counter melody, the deep-in-the-cut bass at times providing more atmosphere than rhythm, and the progressive drumming meld seamlessly to cultivate a feeling of detail that is almost angular in its sound. Songs like “Obstacle 1” with its stabs of reverb, the hook-laden “Slow Hands,” and “Say Hello to the Angels” with its lonely bounce all pulse with a living quality. It’s heaven and hell all rolled into one—a sublime assault on the senses.LISTEN TO PDA, OBSTACLE 2, NOT EVEN JAIL, REST MY CHEMISTRY

yee-hoo!

Saddle up, partner! It's high time to get country!

in the doorway

Despite the misguided devotion of Hot-Topic-mall-punk kids that just like the theatrical look and campy lyrics of the Misfits, I’m still a big fan. But instead of feeling rebellious or counter to the norm singing along to the baby-killing and mother-raping lines of “Last Caress,” I just feel cool shaking to the simple rock.

The band’s sound is full of mirth and malice. Directly influenced by the simple chord progressions and vocal stylings of 1950s rock and pop but injected with a heady dose of doom and gloom, it ups the distortion and changes the lyrical content to something more sadistic than saccharine.

Though the Misfits’ contemporaries regarded them as KISS wannabes (New Jersey meatheads who wore weird costumes and makeup to make up for their lack of talent), audiences were a little more forgiving. While the mainstream ignored them, they soon gained a small but loyal following that was eventually dubbed the Fiend Club by singer and chief songwriter Glenn Danzig.

With a revolving cast of musicians, the band played shows in NYC and embarked on short tours around the Northeast. They recorded an album’s worth of material in 1978 that was sporadically released as a series of singles and EPs but didn’t see the light of day as an LP until 1997. Their first official album Walk Among Us was released in 1982 and made use of horror and sci-fi film-inspired themes and imagery. It’s the kind of music that might upset your parents if they heard you listening to it. With song titles like “Mommy, Can I Go Out and Kill Tonight” and lyrics like “hack the heads off little girls and put them on my wall,” it’s clear that the band was really trying to separate itself from the pack. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, nobody really took notice and the Misfits remained under the radar before Danzig left in the mid-1980s.

LISTEN TO THE STATIC AGE ALBUM. LISTEN TO THE SIMPLE COOLNESS OF THE ONE-NOTE GUITAR SOLO ON “WE ARE 138.” LISTEN TO DANZIG’S TRADEMARK BELLOWING CROON ON “SKULLS.” LISTEN TO THE POP SENSIBILITY OF “ANGELFUCK,” “HYBRID MOMENTS” AND “SOME KINDA HATE.”

"Stuck Inside of Mobile with The Memphis Blues Again” by Bob Dylan

One of my favorite Dylan songs, this sprawling word-fest strings together a series of images and symbols to sew a lyrical coat of many colors. Not to be overlooked, the music also envelops listeners in its warm folds with the reticent organ and modest lead guitar serving the verses well by being jauntily unobtrusive and thoroughly complementary. While the backing track takes care not to draw attention away from the words, Dylan sings nine verses identical in meter and melody that culminate in the exasperated recitation of the title lines. But just what he’s singing about is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps he’s commenting, in his cleverly roundabout way, on a sort of purgatory he found himself in after switching from the traditional acoustic folk that characterized his early years to the more mainstream electric sound that turned off (and turned on) some fans. Maybe the song was just an excuse to spout seemingly deep lyrics to an audience of analytical hop-heads that were all too eager to read into the arcane and esoteric words of a poetic genius. I think, perhaps wrongly, that the song is told from the perspective of a somewhat overwhelmed, possibly aimless, person in an existential tug-of-war, maybe Dylan maybe not, who is just watching things unfold through the distorted lens of a chaotic, surreal and hazy high. But at just over seven minutes, the song certainly isn't short on interpretation fodder. Get some!

LISTEN TO BLONDE ON BLONDE

mike aho

LISTEN TO MERLE HAGGARD

all I have to do is dream

I don’t really put much stock in the dream world. I don’t really buy into the kind of analysis that tells us what dreams may mean either. The other night however, and this was right before the election, I had a telling dream that hinted at the changing of the political guard. Whether or not my dream had anything to do with recent events is, of course, totally debatable. Either way, the coincidence is noteworthy.

Perhaps signaling the departure of a Republican from the Oval Office, the dream showed the death of a baby elephant. And while I’m glad to see Bush’s reign come to an end, I admit that the dream was a total nightmare. I watched helplessly as a giant snake deliberately constricted the little elephant, squeezing its poop and guts out its butt and causing white junk to leak out its pores like the agonizing popping of a thousand zits. The poor pachyderm moaned pitifully as his eyes bulged and color changed from a healthy grey to a hideous, lifeless grey. It was a slow death, disturbing and deeply troubling, met with little resistance.

So if I’m to take the death of the elephant as symbolic of the Republican party’s descent into the minority and ultimate decline in power, then what does the snake represent? Certainly not Obama and my fellow Democrats, right? Right?

LISTEN TO THE EVERLY BROTHERS

David Foster Wallace

A self-described “semi-agoraphobe,” David Foster Wallace was hailed as a literary genius, and prestigiously honored as such, before hanging himself in September of this year. I recently read an article on him, his writing and the lifelong bout with depression that arguably fueled his creativity, powered his pen and ultimately led to his death. I’ve yet to read Infinite Jest, the book that solidified his reputation as a beautiful mind, but I just finished a journalistic piece he wrote for Harper’s Magazine in 1996. The essay, in a word (well, two): totally awesome.

It finds Wallace describing and commenting on the tourist experience, the trifling minutiae and the uniquely American excess exhibited during his one week trip aboard a luxury cruise ship in the Caribbean. From Wikipedia: “His ironic displeasure with the professional hospitality industry and the ‘fun’ he should be having unveils how the indulgences of the cruise turn him into a spoiled brat, leading to overwhelming internal despair.”

Wallace writes “Shipping Out” as an unedited camera, taking in everything with little regard for cuts. Neurotic attention is paid to the smallest of details, not necessarily for the sake of adding to the glut of information already provided in the piece, but if only for the special joy that comes from observing and recounting such trivialities. His prose is long-winded, heavily punctuated but not overly complex, and peppered with the kind of specific vocabulary that characterizes a rabid reader. Nouns like “appurtenances,” verbs such as “brazed” and “instantiating,” and perfectly descriptive adjectives like “glaucous,” “uterine” and “methamphetaminic.” Too, the content is so dense, though certainly not exhausting, that Wallace is forced to use extensive footnotes, unable (or unwilling) to cram even more information into the actual text of the piece. His writing is eloquent and pedantic but still retains a conversational quality that shines through in frequent colloquial phrases and exclamations. Whether measuring his cabin in units of “size-eleven Keds” or extolling the virtues of his overachieving shower and “fascinating and potentially malevolent toilet” (“a harmonious concordance of elegant form and vigorous function”), no stone is left unturned. I’m looking forward to reading more of his work.

http://www.harpers.org/media/pdf/dfw/HarpersMagazine-1996-01-0007859.pdf

I read the news today, oh boy

The American people have spoken and elected Barack Obama as their 44th President. As a relative newcomer to the topsy-turvy and scandalous world of politics, I’m filled with pride, happiness, relief and faith in the future through which our new leader has pledged to guide us. And while Obama’s campaign was run on the platform of hope and change, I hope that Americans, first-time voters and other converts to the political process don’t slip back into apathy with the expectation that government and the new guard will change things for the better, dutifully take care of them and ask little in return. The President-elect even said in his acceptance speech last night, “This victory alone is not the change we seek – it is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were. It cannot happen without you... So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.”

Obama certainly has his work cut out for him; the situation he’s inheriting is indeed daunting. Though his message resonated with the majority of voters, he still made some big promises that, if he intends to keep, will require considerable patience, sacrifice, and investment on our collective part. Change won’t come easily and instantly, but it will come.

LISTEN TO SAM COOKE’S “A CHANGE IS GONNA COME”