High On Low

Back in April when I was living the bachelor dream (i.e. pop tarts and nachos for dinner and never having to do the dishes) my first real act of being a one-month bachelor was going to a concert with my friend Paul.  This is not to be confused with the piano recitals and violin concertos that Paul often refers to as concerts; no, this was a real, check your ID at the door, ink stamp on your fist, people wearing weird clothes, rock concert.

The band was Low and the venue was The Black Cat in DC.  Low was touring their new album, 'C'mon', which I highly recommend by the way.  The new album, and the live performance served as a reminder that Low is an awesome band.  

As white males standing 6'2''and 6'1'' respectively, Paul and I fit right in to Low's target market demographic

They are pioneers and perfectors of the "slow-core" rock movement.  It's the kind of music to which you can get lost deep in thought one minute, and then find yourself doing feet stomps and air drums the next.

I was surprised to see just how good of a singer and performer Alan Sparhawk is (lead vocals, lead guitar).  His vocals were floating up and down the treble clef and he is impressive in his ability to sustain notes at the top of his range (I was further convinced of this when I tried to play some songs on my own at home and was downright ashamed at how awful I sounded).  His guitar style is completely unique as well.  Almost everything is in alternate tunings and he's an unconventional strummer.  When he plays the more intense guitar parts he appears like he's trying to simultaneously chop wood and birth a child.

And on the skins (simple drums) is Mimi Parker.  Her voice is mostly melodic and angelic, but occasionally harrowing.

What is even more interesting to me is the band's personal life.  Alan and Mimi are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (you're welcome, President Packer).  This seems like a real struggle to have to balance what seem like two incompatible lifestyles.  And from what I can tell it has been a struggle for Alan Sparhawk (some skeletons in his closet include drugs and a belief that he was (or is) antichrist).  Add to this the fact that they are raising two children and one has to wonder how they manage.  I won't try and guess; but maybe they manage just fine; maybe they manage better than you and I do.

It seems like a whole different kind of romance and marital connection to me to have two people sing together and harmonize the way they do.  I think all couples should find some format in which they can really get on their own wavelength like these two do.  I really admire it.  This youtube clip is a good example of how they achieve that wavelength (just ignore the fact that they look like drugged out hippies).

My wife still can't get into Low (she cites monotone and boring and heavy as her key criticisms) so I guess they won't be our "wavelength," but I'll convince her eventually.

The King Of Limbs (Music Review)

'The King Of Limbs' is Radiohead's 8th studio album.  It was self-released on Feb. 18 and is available from the band's website for $9 as an MP3 download

I have gone through the whole album about 6 or 7 times by now. I find that the best way for me to enjoy new music is to just clean around the house with my headphones on. If the music is really good (like in this case) I get a lot of cleaning done.

I'm a big fan of the music and they repeatedly cement themselves as one of the best (the best in my opinion) bands since the 90's. They've practically achieved a PhD in sound engineering at this point. Their recent music (particularly 'In Rainbows' and now 'The King Of Limbs') sounds so crisp and rich, it's hard not to enjoy it.

Radiohead: The best band since the 90's 

I find similarities between this album and 'Hail To The Thief'. The style and feel of some of the more avant garde tracks of the latter (e.g. "Where I End And You Begin," "Myxamatosis") find their way back on 'The King Of Limbs' in a big way. Where they were almost afterthought songs on 'HTTF' they are the main attraction on 'TKOL'.

Tracks 1-5 are as strong a string of songs as Radiohead have ever put together. The percussion work is AMAZING and the bass and vocals complement it perfectly. It's almost modern jazz. It's almost techno. It's almost rock. But it's none of those really.

But then track 6 comes along which feels so dull and simple. And then track 7 is kind of cool but it seems a bit campfire-ish and out of place. And then they get back on track with track 8 and before you know it the ride is over.

So, I love the sound they achieve but I think the album suffers a bit from being too short and from having a couple of songs in there that sound out of place to me.  But they get props for managing to blindside the entire music industry with the release of the album.  With only about 1 week to get hyped up about the album and to build expectations it was hard to be disappointed.

You can also buy the "newspaper" collectors edition of the album (available May 9) with vinyl records and tons of original artwork.  It costs $48. 

Rating: 9.0

Best Albums of 2010

1. The ArchAndroid - Janelle Monae
2. Sisterworld [Deluxe] - The Liars
3. Brothers - The Black Keys

This band is two dudes from Akron, Ohio, named Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney.  Their 2004 album, 'Rubber Factory' was the subject of some praise but in hindsight I think it sounds a little too much like an indie version of The White Stripes, whereas this newest album is totally original and more energetic.  It's a fine production and it's apparent that they put a lot of work and finishing touches into the project, and with 15 solid tracks stacked one after the other it really makes for an enjoyable album experience.  "Tighten Up" is one of my favorite singles of the year.  And, "my next girl will be nothing like my ex girl" is just a cool line.

Rating: 8.6

4. Plastic Beach - Gorillaz
5. The Suburbs - Arcade Fire
6. This Is Happening - LCD Soundsystem
7. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy [Clean] - Kanye West

Hailed by many critics as a masterpiece, a glimpse inside the mind of one of the most interesting personalities of our generation, best album of the decade, and various other superlatives.  This is a good album, but I don't think it's that good.  When one of your tracks is a Chris Rock voicemail that sounds like he just discovered the echo effect on the Inception app and can't help hearing himself talk I think you just wrote off your chances for the best-album-of-the-decade-award.  "All Of The Lights" is a really cool song and I like the Rockyesque horn bit.  "Lost In The World" is another one of my favorites from the album and I think having a chorus of robots is such a simple yet ingenious idea.

Rating: 7.0  

8. Go - Jonsi
9. Body Talk Pt. 1 (and Body Talk Pt. 2, and Body Talk) - Robyn

An ambitious Two Thousand and Ten for the sexy, sassy, Swedish pop star.  She released a trilogy of albums all within a year for her 'Body Talk' project.  Her music has the bubblegum pop appeal to make you want to sing and dance upon first listen but it also has the attention to detail, and production quality, and clever lyrics etc. to give her music staying power.  "Fembot," for example, has just the right blend of funny computer terms and futuristic sound effects to make me a certain kind of happy that I hadn't experienced since listening to Neil Young's 'Trans'.  The way she uses bass guitar and synthesizer helps to bring an emotional charge to the music and is reminiscent of the great Billy Idol.  This must be why my brother, Des, likes her so unabashedly; at the risk of being a feminist sympathizer... not that there's anything wrong with that.

Rating 6.9
 

10. Le Noise - Neil Young

This album also got a lot of love from critics and it even won a grammy for Best Rock Song with "Angry World" (Neil Young's first grammy, in fact), but I didn't care for it tons.  The appeal is the exposure that Neil Young allows for in this record.  It's just him and his guitar and his producer (Daniel Lanois) in an empty mansion (I heard) somewhere in LA.  It all makes for a dreamy effect and you have to be in a certain mood to enjoy the album.  I still prefer the classic stuff (especially the Archives Volume 1 box set which was released in 2009) but kudos to Neil for continually reinventing himself.

Rating: 6.5

Last Possible Place: The Age Of Adz - Sufjan Stevens

I was dumbfounded at how awful this album is.  But it all made sense after reading an interview in which Sufjan said, "I'm very aware that this material is far less popular and accessible than the kind of songwriting on Illinois. I'm also willing to admit that these songs don't measure up to the songs I was writing five years ago; these aren't great songs in terms of the palpable, fundamental nature of a song. But I'm not interested in songwriting anymore. I'm interested in sound and movement." Translation: "I've gone off the deep-end."  I'm actually OK with sound and movement experiments (I mean, I definitely prefer Talking Heads' "Burning Down the House" to David Byrne's more experimental "Glass, Concrete & Stone") but the problem is when you decide to sing like a shameless prepubescent teenager at the very top of his range.  Listening to this album the whole way through was one of my greatest accomplishments in 2010.

Album Rating: -9.0

Good Things to Come: 
Low: C'mon (April 12)
Radiohead: The King Of Limbs (February 19)

Update

Fans,

I have not managed to write a post for a while.  I think blogosphere activity has been down in general; though not over at Trifecta's blog which appears to have been overrun by Chinese spammers (his most recent 100 posts or so are either exercise ads from buyallonline.com or investment strategy tips), as evidenced by the picture below which appears on one of his posts.

Fortunately, he has added a Twitter feed to his blog where you can find one of his top 25 quotes of all time: "I hope that I can make my genus side of me to kick in and make me a company that will make me money. I am very intelligent not ur Average."

Anyways, to make up for my lack of posts I am treating everyone to this new blog design which should be a lot easier on your eyes than the white text on red background (though we sure had our share of good times).

I look forward to a happy and prosperous and entertaining 2011.

Podcasts

Podcasts are great.  In case you don't know what they are, they are essentially free mp3 audio recordings of radio shows that you can download to your iTunes (either manually or through automated subscription) and listen to on demand (at an hour that suits you, in segments, or all at once) either directly through your computer or through an iPod or similar device that plays mp3s.

This means that my mom no longer needs to queue up the clunky, family-room radio player to record Prairie Home Companion every Sunday at 10:00 am onto cassette tapes that she would then lug around with her to share with her friends.  She can just subscribe to it on iTunes and carry around hours and hours of the show on her mp3 player.  And if she wants to share it with her friends in UT she can simply send them a link, like this: http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/podcasts/xml/prairie_home_companion/news_from_lake_wobegon.xml.  Also, you can just open up iTunes, go the iTunes store, and search for whatever podcast you want and you should be able to track it down in no time.

Now, to say that podcasts are simply on-demand radio shows would be selling them short.  Since the advent of the podcast and in step with the proliferation of mp3s creative individuals and universities have also jumped onto the scene and are setting out to publicize their content or ideas to anyone that will be their audience.  This means that the total content can be overwhelming but to the extent that you can sift through it you might just find a treasure that perfectly suits you.  Regarding the university content, in theory, you can now essentially audit a class anywhere in the world assuming you find a partcipating university and a subject matter that interests you.

With all that in mind, here are some podcasts I regularly listen to and recommend:

Sound Opinions - A weekly radio show hosted by Jim & Greg, two geeky rock and pop music critics from Chicago.  They typically spend a few minutes discussing music news (e.g. artists in jail, deaths, records and concert sales, federal rulings on things like Napster) and then they have a 30-minute feature with either a special guest (past guests have included Thom Yorke, Trent Reznor, Arcade Fire, etc.) or a dissection of a theme (e.g. the advent of disco music, an exploration of Pink Floyd's The Wall) and then review new music which is always an enjoyable listen even if you don't care much for the music.

Filmspotting - Another weekly radio show from the same studio as Sound Opinions.  This is pretty much the same show as Sound Opinions but dealing with film instead of music.  The two hosts are Adam and Matty and I find them to be very likeable--guys that just love watching movies but that are also trained in the art and can offer intelligent opinions and critiques.  I heard what they had to say about my movie, Avatar, and it hurt but I completely respect their opinion... and I still like Avatar by the way.

Fresh Air (NPR) - This is a more serious radio show which was recently recommended to me.  Its format is refreshingly simple: find interesting people and sit them down for an hour-long interview.  Terry Gross is typically the interviewer and she operates with great comfort and tact so as to get her subjects to relax and come out of their shells a bit.  The episodes I've really enjoyed so far have been interviews with Bob Woodward, friends and family of John Lennon, Jon Stewart, Jason Schwartzman, and Justin Timberlake.

ESPN: The B.S. Report - A podcast hosted by Bill Simmons (Sports Guy) dedicated mostly to sports but heavily interlaid with Bill Simmons theories and analogies.  He also brings on guests who are only slightly connected to sports (e.g. Tre Parker from South Park) and he often has shows entirely dedicated to TV shows, happenings in the media, movies, and other stuff like that.  I enjoy listening to him call his friend JackO and just chew the fat on Yankees/Red Sox talk, but this is definitely not for everyone.

The Ricky Gervais Show - The greatest podcast of all time.  It was actually awarded the Guinness World Record for the most downloaded podcast.  This show is actually 100% about the mind of Karl Pilkington.  Ricky Gervais is a comedian and British personality (best known as the creator and star of The Office BBC) and Stephen Merchant is his co-creator.  These two gentlemen are actually pretty intelligent, scientific-minded guys and, given their sense of humor and quest for anything funny, they prove to be the perfect counterpart to simple-minded, bald-headed, shaven monkey, complete idiot, Karl Pilkington.  Karl is the rare individual who teeters between idiot and genius.  Ricky and Stephen pretty much just ask him questions and probe him with intellectual subject matter and laugh hysterically as he deconstructs or simplifies or just outright misses the mark on whatever it is they're talking about.  This podcast had three strong seasons and is actually no longer available, except as audiobook.  If you're interested in a free, mp3 version just let me know and I can send it to you.

This American Life - A weekly NPR radio show that consists of inspirational/interesting stories that take place in America and are typically based on a theme and staged in 3 acts.  This show is hit or miss (erring on miss) but sometimes I really enjoy it.  It is hosted by Ira Glass.

WNYC's Radiolab - Similar to This American Life but less inspirational, and more interesting/scientific.  One out of every 10 episodes is really good.  I enjoyed one that was about gun control and another one about how cities are living organisms and how their citizens all adapt to the city's footspeed and physicists claim that by knowing a city's footspeed you can extrapolate countless characteristics from that city (e.g. libraries per capita, expected AIDS outbreaks in a given year, etc.).  Also, their technique for editing is really cool; it makes the show fly by and it keeps your ear interested. 

Econ Talk - It's a very good show hosted by this really bright, really level-headed academia guy, Russ Roberts. He brings on various economists and discusses their theories. I wish I were more disciplined to listen to this show regularly but I only check in every so often.

LDS General Conference - A great way to relisten to general conference talk by talk.