So the winter is going to rear its frosty and pissed off head this evening by starting the First Great Dump of the season. I already went grocery shopping and got the essentials (Raisinets, coffee, bananas, jam) so I can hunker down and enjoy the frozen tundra that was once my front lawn. But besides the eating necessities I listed, there are a few other helpful things for weathering a storm. Besides an igloo…which I will be constructing in the aforementioned tundra as soon as there is an impressive layer of snow to use.
I recently finished reading a beautiful book called Love Begins in Winter by Simon VanBooy. It’s a collection of five short stories written from the perspectives of people whose lives are turned completely around by love. And not the kind of love found in The Notebook or Monster-In-Law, so cloyingly sweet it tickles the gag reflex.. The stories are about the kind that works because the people were crying out on the same wavelength, and didn’t have to pretend to be perfect once their cries were heard. It’s a book that dampens noise around you, and makes patterns in the couch seem like universes to be contemplated. People on the street soften, and strangers’ eyes reflect less of my jaded expectations. Love isn’t polished up, or put in a display window, but it isn’t made into desperate tragedy. It’s just…there. As much as the crack in the front step that I stub my toe on every day…it makes love seem so painfully obvious it made me cry. As though I had been waiting for fireworks in a sea of candles.
A comforting new voice warmed my chilly eardrums a while ago. Her name is Laura Groves, and she hails from
Check out her self-titled debut that popped onto the market this summer.
Doubtful Comforts- Blue Roses
So bundle up everyone! Snow can be wonderful when you want to create your own world and its own rules. The rules of my Snow World will include hot beverages, blankets, and some wild dance parties with the dog and cat! Bipeds have an advantage, though.
I am sitting in Anna’s place of work for six hours because she, unlike some people (me), earns money. That’s fine with me! I’ve been swaying inconspicuously in a corner comfy chair. It's fun to watch university students filter in and out as they study on thick wooden tables and as they cast sexual glances to every fellow young figure that strolls by in search of complicated coffee drinks. I have a bottomless mug of coffee, my headphones, and a few projects to do. One project is to not get super depressed about my lack of attendance at the BIG FINAL LAST LIVE JOY FEST of Everything Absent or Distorted in
EAOD has been my friend this morning (along with a couple other wonders), keeping me company as I squirm to find a comfortable position to settle in to. They’re a band that could border on being a wall of noise with no fewer than eight people contributing on stage. But…instead it’s the most tangible, drinkable, electric musical output I’ve had to joy of experiencing in a while. Ever since they released their album in 2008, The Great Collapse, I have yet to stop spinning it in my headphones or just plain in my head. Everything Absent or Distorted doesn’t quit just at bouncing melodies or painfully relatable lyrics, but pushes it to where it goes beyond what any amount of band practice could do; and leaps into the wilderness of playing out of joy and the need to let feeling linger far after the last spark has faded from the speaker. I am feeling sentimental to the point of a public weeping fit as I write about it.
This collective of Colorado human beings has helped me reach deep into my own dancing heart and encourage myself to think about what it means to swim in the deep end of existence, and to like it. Even when I get tired.
So I’ll be listening to The Great Collapse several times today, feeling more real and more nostalgic at every turn. If you can even FATHOM driving into the city tonight…do it. Please.
In regards to Sufjan Stevens’ new release BQE, a commentary on the horrifying social project that ripped
So there comes a time when I feel like that spoiled kid with tons of toys, and nothing to play with. I was staring at my music library the past couple days and stamping my mental feet. I had nothing to LISTEN TO!! I started hounding friends for suggestions. Luckily, I have some very tolerant friends with very good musical taste. And after spending a lot of time on LaLa listening to some delightful albums, it occurred to me to check up on the bands I had left by the wayside since their last releases. What kind of person am I to forget about those wonderful tickling artists who delighted me just a few months ago? So I buried myself in familiar newness. And here are a few gems.
The Spinto Band enchanted me, like it did many people, with their 2008 release Moonwink. The track Summer Grof was filling me with ear fireworks made of crescendos and carefully calculated bursts of bright energy all summer long. I eagerly awaited more to spin to, and was pleased with the EP that they gave birth to all by themselves, Slim and Slender. It has the same tablespoon by tablespoon dosage of starry eyed staccato beats, and sweeping fits of swimming guitar with controlled, reaching vocals wailing into the setting sun. The opening number, Jackhammer, leaves me feeling like an LP from The Spinto Band will make me even smilier, with its coasting, driven, jangly melodies. Regrettably, the rest of the EP does not make me shimmer with whimsy as much as I hoped, but the succinct taste of things to come does whet my appetite.
This song convinces me that I will never live in a city for very long.
something says she wants you/wont you ever learn?
If I could tackle Liam Finn and thank his Kiwi brain for coming up with such brilliant new music, I would. I’ve been harboring deep love for him ever since his 2007 I’ll Be Lightning sent me whirling with layers and layers of goodness. The man can deliver a powerful, yet subtle, punch of dream-like strangeness that makes sense to people who dream of “oceans of pink lemonade.” He speaks of the things I want to see in my own head. And that is exactly what this son of Crowded House’s lead man Neil Finn (who I do love so) has done again. His recent EP release, Champagne in Seashells with backing vocals by Eliza Jane, shows me that his ability to make me want to jump into tornados and find the pulsating rhythm in the eye of the storm has only increased. Here is the opening track, Plane Crash.
November is approaching. And I’m depressed about it. Luckily, my friend suggested I finally listen to the
I think I will feel better when the winter is gone. And I'll have to repeat it as much as Elbogen does to make myself believe it, too.
Simplicity has been left by the wayside. In one of my all time favorite movies, Almost Famous, Philip Seymour Hoffman says that rock could become an “industry of cool.”
Has it? I don’t know. On my bad days I’m almost convinced there is nowhere for a person who doesn’t know how to have a good haircut to go. No music to listen to. On most days, though, I find my heart carried away by the words and sounds of people who write from a part of themselves that I ache to find on my own.
And so it begins. The quest to find music, friends. Music that doesn’t need someone else’s opinion to validate it for you. Music that when you listen to it, you find a friend without any awkward small talk, or small white lies about the crazy stuff you did in college. Music that does what it feels, says what it wants, and sounds like honesty and beauty just backhanded you across the dance floor.
So to begin. I’d like to share an artist that knocked me flat with absolute power this past week by ripping out his plug from his Guild, standing on the speakers, and pushing his music right into my blood. Joe Pug, everyone.
