Sometimes weather gets in the way of a good time. Sometimes people let it, and I acknowledge that sometimes they have to let it. Some of my best experiences have been with wet people after rainstorms, because we have nothing left to lose. Dancing in wet clothes, running through streets unable to see, slipping and sliding haphazardly across puddles, sidewalks, stages. But WXPN’s All About the Music Festival was actually a washout. I decided to go on Saturday, accompanying my parents to see Slo-mo (pedal steel player from Marah, Philly-based, and totally awesome), Josh Ritter (the same part of me that plays ‘Thunder Road’ endlessly can’t get enough of this), and, importantly Konono No. 1 (Congolese! My father describes them, “as if everyone in the Dead played a thumb piano instead of whatever they play”. But mostly, they’re just fun and loose and cool), as well as a lot of other, mostly unremarkable artists.
Slo-mo was excellent. His band features rapper Mic Wrecka, the women from Stargazer Lily, and a bunch of other veteran Philly scene people of the Marah ilk. He wears a white suite and rectangular black-frame glasses to perform, and writes smart, lively odes to life in Philadelphia, like one to his drug dealer (“Go to the street where the grass is green/ and the smell is sweeter than you’ve ever seen/ Right on Girard, turn left hard/ Get your Shackamaxon”). The band even did a cover of TLC’s “Waterfalls”— which turned out to be weirdly prophetic.
As Konono No. 1 was setting up, it started raining. And not dripping, snotty rain, but full-on thunderstorms with clouds so thick that you couldn’t see the Philadelphia skyline across the river. The thunder was the loud, deafening sort that is scary no matter where you are, and lightening was coming down like straight pins through the sky, but safety wasn’t so much of an issue, because we were between the Delaware and the top of a hill, and there was a huge metal stage and a transmitter tower. But as people ran to their cars and the various concession tents, and the XPN staff lopped frantically about, the rain came vertically and horizontally so virtually everyone and everything got drenched. The storms stopped after about forty-five minutes and they began to set up the stage again. People were mudsliding down the hill where the audience sat with their shirts off, buying cold beer, and idling around the stage. We were all drenched, but sort of happy. There was an air of triumph over dampness. I could see Konono’s megaphones getting dried off.
But the sky darkened again, and XPN decided to cancel the rest of the festival, announcing that they would have a show with various acts from that day’s line-up at World Café Live (their much smaller venue in West Philly) that evening. We decided to go there, still in our sopping clothes. However, as it turned out, the line-up was exceedingly boring and acoustic—aka, no Congolese thumb pianos, but a lot of mediocre singer-songwriters (though Willy Mason and Josh Ritter were good. Steve Wynn, formerly of Dream Syndicate, was okay). So it turned out to be damp, a little boring, and very disappointing. Plus, my cell phone got a lot of water in it, and is now very very broken. Oh well.
7.23.2006
7.20.2006
Coffee, Grass, Blood and Bugs
Even with my continual attempts at lateness (I fumble for the snooze button, get back into bed after I’ve taken a shower, check my e-mail, collapse into my piles of clothes desperately strewn), my father demands that we arrive in downtown Philadelphia a good 30 to 45 minutes before I want to go anywhere near the building where my internship is located. Instead of going straight there from the car, I’ve taken to wasting my first coffee while sitting in Rittenhouse Square and reading. It’s sort of comforting to be there, watching all the badly dressed, frenzied business people walk past. Rittenhouse Square always smells a little disgusting, but the kind of pleasant putrid that is comforting to me. Rotten grass and bags from Dunkin Donuts left in the rain. I sit on a bench that isn’t too close to obvious trash or sleeping bums, and I don’t smoke, not because I don’t want to, but because I’m giving myself a break from that for now. The random guys in too-thin t-shirts who congregate in the square howl at each other (“Motherfuckin’ bitch! Man, how you doin’?) and they pick through the trash cans and cackle and I sort of hold in my smile in. It’s so very Philadelphia, all of this incongruity: beautiful statues, wealthy commuters, cursing regulars, a girl reading boyish Westerns.
I’ve been into very male books lately. First D’ambrosio, and now I’m on a Cormac McCarthy kick. I never took McCarthy seriously before this year, but in my attempts to embrace things that were dark in a different way than the angsty stuff I usually favor, I found myself really liking him. He’s light on character development, but everything in his books is perfect, pulsing, and starkly glowing. He’s a true modernist writer with almost psychedelic spells of beauty that overcome his vague, somewhat cliché characters. The men he writes about are burns, or tattoos—they don’t change, just harden. There’s always more to see out of what they are, but they don’t become anything else. And the world he writes: the timeless Mexico of All the Pretty Horses shocks you with a truck, a radio. In Blood Meridian, which I’m working on again now, the struggle is almost Biblical, but the characters are from Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee. These are books about power, but not the pure aesthetic emotional power that McCarthy could have used (he has the talent of words, certainly). They about evil and love and a weird brand of subtlety-- descriptions of snake-bit horses that entrance me enough to read them again and again, shriveled hearts, and a world of dust and blood that is so seductively gorgeous it seems scary.
So I close my book, and I walk the seven blocks to work with these images in my head. I may not enjoy my job so much, and I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the epic that is McCarthy’s world. But holding one close to me when I have the other, knowing they can both exist through me, through anyone—that’s the idea, and that’s what I’m floating this summer past. Half an hour of gorgeous veins spraying like geysers against a campfire and dead animals prepares me for a day of researching higher education affordability in Pennsylvania. It’s not forever, but I’m glad I have it now.
I’ve been into very male books lately. First D’ambrosio, and now I’m on a Cormac McCarthy kick. I never took McCarthy seriously before this year, but in my attempts to embrace things that were dark in a different way than the angsty stuff I usually favor, I found myself really liking him. He’s light on character development, but everything in his books is perfect, pulsing, and starkly glowing. He’s a true modernist writer with almost psychedelic spells of beauty that overcome his vague, somewhat cliché characters. The men he writes about are burns, or tattoos—they don’t change, just harden. There’s always more to see out of what they are, but they don’t become anything else. And the world he writes: the timeless Mexico of All the Pretty Horses shocks you with a truck, a radio. In Blood Meridian, which I’m working on again now, the struggle is almost Biblical, but the characters are from Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee. These are books about power, but not the pure aesthetic emotional power that McCarthy could have used (he has the talent of words, certainly). They about evil and love and a weird brand of subtlety-- descriptions of snake-bit horses that entrance me enough to read them again and again, shriveled hearts, and a world of dust and blood that is so seductively gorgeous it seems scary.
So I close my book, and I walk the seven blocks to work with these images in my head. I may not enjoy my job so much, and I certainly wouldn’t want to live in the epic that is McCarthy’s world. But holding one close to me when I have the other, knowing they can both exist through me, through anyone—that’s the idea, and that’s what I’m floating this summer past. Half an hour of gorgeous veins spraying like geysers against a campfire and dead animals prepares me for a day of researching higher education affordability in Pennsylvania. It’s not forever, but I’m glad I have it now.
We don't need reason and we don't need logic.
A Brief Playlist.
Camera Obscura, “Let’s Get Out of This Country”
Apparently, if you really love someone, or if you really want to, the best thing to do is leave town with them. Lies! This song acknowledges how momentary, but how satisfying that feeling can be. Wanting to get away makes a person pine for any silly ideal. Lyrically, the song reflects this (“We’ll find a cathedral city/ You’ll be handsome/ I’ll be pretty”) and its loose grasp on humdrum reality. But it’s a good reminder that the world is full of he same unfulfilled desires, the same questionable push and pull. In the album’s first track, the same voice sings “I’m ready to be heartbroken/ ‘cause I can’t see further than my own nose at the moment”. That illogical carpe diem sentiment strums sarcastically, but also with real meaning, through the whole record, but most beautifully in this song.
Kathleen Edwards, “In State”
On the other side of the scale of loving someone or something is the moment when you give it up, and store it in your mind-- though apparently, if it's convenient the state prison will work just fine. The speaker in Kathleen Edward’s ballad is about to turn in her criminal boyfriend (“You talk sweet ‘til the going gets tough/ The last job you pulled was never big enough”), but instead of suggesting they escape together, this song is a quick thump into the real world. She still loves him, but the refrain, “maybe twenty years in state’ll change your mind”, suggests that part of her betrayal is a desire to keep him as hers. Seeing people falling away is hard, and sometimes the ideal you keep may be locked away—or if you can, make that the actual person. The instrumentation on this song is perfect for summer and my mini-van (I’m lame, really), driving with the windows down and singing along.
The Pastels, “Speeding Motorcycle”
This is a Daniel Johnston cover, and I know those are kind of cliché, but I like the way Stephen Pastel opens this song, voice sort of shaky and wobbling. When the whining gives into a brilliant pop song (are those violins? Damn!) and the whole thing pulses out this charming mantra about loving motorcycles but also loving life, one can’t help but be charmed. Everyone needs to remember that “We don’t have to break our necks just to get our kicks”, and there’s real emotion coming through the vocals in this song.
Tugboat, “Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring”
A random Australian somewhat twee band doing a lovely cover of a Magnetic Fields song: well, duh. Instead of Stephin Merrit’s growling twang, this song is charming and poppy. The harmonies melt prettily over the words and the light guitars and synth instrumentation. “I’ve had enough/ You never give me anything/ Don’t you know love goes home to Paris in the spring?” is one of the most staunch and appropriate break-up lines I can think of. This song is simple (I just quoted about a third of its lyrics), but lovely and empowering.
Sonic Youth, “Incinerate”
Man, do I love this newly reinvented catchy, accessible Sonic Youth. This song is not so lyrically smart: it’s mostly about a guy exploding his girlfriend’s heart and getting caught by the fire department. Whoops. It also rhymes “nice” with “ice”. But this is all forgiven when one hears the bass line and guitar solo, Moore’s low vocals. The song builds up to a bright, low-burning finish and I’m left wondering why I didn’t try to see Sonic Youth again. Because they’re middle-aged and creepy, that’s why. But they’re clearly still writing good songs.
Camera Obscura, “Let’s Get Out of This Country”
Apparently, if you really love someone, or if you really want to, the best thing to do is leave town with them. Lies! This song acknowledges how momentary, but how satisfying that feeling can be. Wanting to get away makes a person pine for any silly ideal. Lyrically, the song reflects this (“We’ll find a cathedral city/ You’ll be handsome/ I’ll be pretty”) and its loose grasp on humdrum reality. But it’s a good reminder that the world is full of he same unfulfilled desires, the same questionable push and pull. In the album’s first track, the same voice sings “I’m ready to be heartbroken/ ‘cause I can’t see further than my own nose at the moment”. That illogical carpe diem sentiment strums sarcastically, but also with real meaning, through the whole record, but most beautifully in this song.
Kathleen Edwards, “In State”
On the other side of the scale of loving someone or something is the moment when you give it up, and store it in your mind-- though apparently, if it's convenient the state prison will work just fine. The speaker in Kathleen Edward’s ballad is about to turn in her criminal boyfriend (“You talk sweet ‘til the going gets tough/ The last job you pulled was never big enough”), but instead of suggesting they escape together, this song is a quick thump into the real world. She still loves him, but the refrain, “maybe twenty years in state’ll change your mind”, suggests that part of her betrayal is a desire to keep him as hers. Seeing people falling away is hard, and sometimes the ideal you keep may be locked away—or if you can, make that the actual person. The instrumentation on this song is perfect for summer and my mini-van (I’m lame, really), driving with the windows down and singing along.
The Pastels, “Speeding Motorcycle”
This is a Daniel Johnston cover, and I know those are kind of cliché, but I like the way Stephen Pastel opens this song, voice sort of shaky and wobbling. When the whining gives into a brilliant pop song (are those violins? Damn!) and the whole thing pulses out this charming mantra about loving motorcycles but also loving life, one can’t help but be charmed. Everyone needs to remember that “We don’t have to break our necks just to get our kicks”, and there’s real emotion coming through the vocals in this song.
Tugboat, “Love Goes Home to Paris in the Spring”
A random Australian somewhat twee band doing a lovely cover of a Magnetic Fields song: well, duh. Instead of Stephin Merrit’s growling twang, this song is charming and poppy. The harmonies melt prettily over the words and the light guitars and synth instrumentation. “I’ve had enough/ You never give me anything/ Don’t you know love goes home to Paris in the spring?” is one of the most staunch and appropriate break-up lines I can think of. This song is simple (I just quoted about a third of its lyrics), but lovely and empowering.
Sonic Youth, “Incinerate”
Man, do I love this newly reinvented catchy, accessible Sonic Youth. This song is not so lyrically smart: it’s mostly about a guy exploding his girlfriend’s heart and getting caught by the fire department. Whoops. It also rhymes “nice” with “ice”. But this is all forgiven when one hears the bass line and guitar solo, Moore’s low vocals. The song builds up to a bright, low-burning finish and I’m left wondering why I didn’t try to see Sonic Youth again. Because they’re middle-aged and creepy, that’s why. But they’re clearly still writing good songs.
7.17.2006
You are what you love, regardless of admitting it.
New York, even when I’m lost in its almost infinite depths, usually comforts me more than any city in the world. I think I like most the fact that you can get anywhere, anytime, even when the subway is under construction. I like the heat and the fact that after I wore the same shirt for 36 hours straight it had a sort of grimy, chemical feel just from being in the city. Magic, I tell you. Things drift like that. However, the expanse of New York and the number of people there can make for some shitty concerts.
I came with the intention of seeing at least two concerts—Okkervil River on Thursday evening, and the Siren Music Festival on Saturday. Siren is a huge, sweaty, hipster-brimming extravaganza on Coney Island. The day was hazy, the air was hot, and Coney Island smells iffy. Also, we got lost on our drive there and ended up visiting all five boroughs in one and a half hours. I didn’t mind this so much as the actual disappointment of Siren. Nobody, not a single person, looked like they were having any fun. The thing that is most important to me in my life of music is the propensity of people to actually love it—to dance, to sing along, to grin. But at Siren nobody was happy. In their oversized sunglasses and floppy haircuts, everyone was a little hostile and definitely registering as bored. There was a similar problem at Okkervil. It was probably because both shows were free, outside, and (Siren especially) very crowded. But why go to Coney Island if you aren’t going to attempt to enjoy it? Why wait around for Will Sheff and the Okkervil boys just to yawn and play with your Converses? The city is beautiful. The music can be lovely, it can be awful. But I hate that these people won’t take ownership of what they purport to enjoy.
Conversely, on Wednesday night I went to see the Weakerthans in Philadelphia, where most of the kids came from the suburbs or New Jersey to see the band (I’d wager). Sure they had adolescent dye-jobs and Blink-182 stickers on their backpacks, but the attendees at the Weakerthans show knew every word, and sang along. These are difficult words too—John Samson likes his ‘benediction’, ‘colonize’ ‘dissemble’ etc. Even when the guy behind me was pumping his fist and singing too loudly to the quiet songs, it was nice to know that people really love the band, love them enough to dance, to sway, to spout the words with meaning or without. New York, for all its bustle and comfort, failed to convey any kind of palpable interest or intent. That bothers me.
I came with the intention of seeing at least two concerts—Okkervil River on Thursday evening, and the Siren Music Festival on Saturday. Siren is a huge, sweaty, hipster-brimming extravaganza on Coney Island. The day was hazy, the air was hot, and Coney Island smells iffy. Also, we got lost on our drive there and ended up visiting all five boroughs in one and a half hours. I didn’t mind this so much as the actual disappointment of Siren. Nobody, not a single person, looked like they were having any fun. The thing that is most important to me in my life of music is the propensity of people to actually love it—to dance, to sing along, to grin. But at Siren nobody was happy. In their oversized sunglasses and floppy haircuts, everyone was a little hostile and definitely registering as bored. There was a similar problem at Okkervil. It was probably because both shows were free, outside, and (Siren especially) very crowded. But why go to Coney Island if you aren’t going to attempt to enjoy it? Why wait around for Will Sheff and the Okkervil boys just to yawn and play with your Converses? The city is beautiful. The music can be lovely, it can be awful. But I hate that these people won’t take ownership of what they purport to enjoy.
Conversely, on Wednesday night I went to see the Weakerthans in Philadelphia, where most of the kids came from the suburbs or New Jersey to see the band (I’d wager). Sure they had adolescent dye-jobs and Blink-182 stickers on their backpacks, but the attendees at the Weakerthans show knew every word, and sang along. These are difficult words too—John Samson likes his ‘benediction’, ‘colonize’ ‘dissemble’ etc. Even when the guy behind me was pumping his fist and singing too loudly to the quiet songs, it was nice to know that people really love the band, love them enough to dance, to sway, to spout the words with meaning or without. New York, for all its bustle and comfort, failed to convey any kind of palpable interest or intent. That bothers me.
7.12.2006
Lessons Learned from The Devil Wears Prada, in Haiku
lose a dress size, but you won’t
find real joy. Shock!
Ex-editor of
Northwestern’s paper this girl
can’t get a job.
This nice boyfriend will
be dumped by Act III. So please
forgive their make-out scene.
Meryl Streep acts like
a huge bitch! One never could
have guessed, the challenge!
Guys like pretty clothes
on a pretty girl: also,
fancy lingerie.
Inappropriate
outfits are quite in style!
Oversized necklaces too.
Sleazy writers are
sleazy, especially
in Paris, when drunk.
Grainy film stock means
our heroine is sad, but--
sad enough to change?
Sisterhood equals
understanding that in all
bitchiness is power.
Success means giving
up personal happiness,
but not stilettos.
Happiness is love,
freelance journalism and--
well, no, just those two.
7.11.2006
Radio Radio
So today, WXPN, Philadelphia's notorious Adult Alternative station (this means they play some synthesis between really cool and sort of lame music on a regular basis) and Y100Rocks, a webstreaming descendent of Y100, Philly's only alternative rock station that was shut down a little more than a year ago, announced a merger of sorts.
It sort of seems like a good idea, almost. Jim McGuinn, who will be hosting the new evening show on XPN (called Y-Rock on XPN, which is not as lame as the XPoNential Music moniker that applies to the webcast), always had the best music taste at Y100, and I would sometimes actually try to listen to his Sunday show which featured good new music. However, McGuinn will be replacing Matt Reilly's usual slot. Reilly plays the best music on XPN, by a long shot. I'm glad to see the demise of the "Indie-Rock Hit Parade" (another exceedingly lame title), which I could never listen to because it was worse than WHPK, my radio station, on a bad day. But this new format seems to support everything that was silly about both XPN and Y100-- specifically XPN's frantic desire to reach out to young listeners (their current base is 35 and up, but hey, those people will at least give them money), and both stations' decision to not actual play so much that could be described as alternative. Y100Rocks has improved on this over the old Y100, considering the presensce of actual female artists (Sleater-Kinney, Rilo Kiley, Tegan and Sara) and good local acts on their top 150 songs of 2005. But Reilly is virtually the only XPN dj who would fit into both formats. Also the only dj who my friends and I wrote a fan letter to last year, after he first started. Reilly is also the only XPN dj that I regularly chose to listen to instead of my own music. I'm well under 35, but I have no money to give. Oh, well. Maybe y100 and XPN can recognize some of what they don't like about each other in themselve when they work more closely. This experiment will be interesting, at least.
It sort of seems like a good idea, almost. Jim McGuinn, who will be hosting the new evening show on XPN (called Y-Rock on XPN, which is not as lame as the XPoNential Music moniker that applies to the webcast), always had the best music taste at Y100, and I would sometimes actually try to listen to his Sunday show which featured good new music. However, McGuinn will be replacing Matt Reilly's usual slot. Reilly plays the best music on XPN, by a long shot. I'm glad to see the demise of the "Indie-Rock Hit Parade" (another exceedingly lame title), which I could never listen to because it was worse than WHPK, my radio station, on a bad day. But this new format seems to support everything that was silly about both XPN and Y100-- specifically XPN's frantic desire to reach out to young listeners (their current base is 35 and up, but hey, those people will at least give them money), and both stations' decision to not actual play so much that could be described as alternative. Y100Rocks has improved on this over the old Y100, considering the presensce of actual female artists (Sleater-Kinney, Rilo Kiley, Tegan and Sara) and good local acts on their top 150 songs of 2005. But Reilly is virtually the only XPN dj who would fit into both formats. Also the only dj who my friends and I wrote a fan letter to last year, after he first started. Reilly is also the only XPN dj that I regularly chose to listen to instead of my own music. I'm well under 35, but I have no money to give. Oh, well. Maybe y100 and XPN can recognize some of what they don't like about each other in themselve when they work more closely. This experiment will be interesting, at least.
I accept neither of these films wholeheartedly, but I do like them both.
This evening, I stopped my father from re-watching Ingmar Bergman’s 1972 film Cries and Whispers so I could commit myself to another viewing of How to Deal, the straight-up teen melodrama from 2002, starring Mandy Moore and Trent Ford (who I continue to crush on a bit, owing less to his grungy handsomeness and more to his degree in English Lit from Cambridge). I had watched Cries late on Saturday night, and the movie is overwhelmingly brutal. It’s beautifully shot and performed (the whole cast keeps these stoned looks of inner turmoil and family trauma like the seasoned Bergman pros they are, shooting insults at one another with well-lit damp eyes) and painfully written. But it’s a little intense for an off-night. How to Deal has articulate lines like, “Enjoy him and fool around with him, don’t fall in love with him. Why do you think they call it ‘falling’ anyway?”. But hey, Mandy Moore is really good at rolling her eyes. And I might have been lying about caring less about how cute Trent Ford is.
Something funny: Bergman’s film is famous for using a very specific glossy red, which he described as evocative the human soul (“a damp membrane in varying shades of red”). The crimson pulses through scenes: sharper than blood, more stalwart than the characters, intense and passionate. But! That same red is a motif in the less serious (and okay, I’ll admit, less good) How to Deal. Sure, in the latter it serves as a brilliant common accessory color during the ‘falling in love’ montage that looks like a video for American Eagle Outfitters (set to Liz Phair’s popstar reinvention single, “Why Can’t I?), the boyfriend’s car, a single wall in Mandy Moore’s well-decorated room, lots of Coke cans, the clothing of the pregnant teenage best friend. When the young (not!-)lovers encounter romantic barriers, the red shrinks away into browns and oranges, LIKE THE HUMAN HEART. This movie is not subtle. Of course, neither is Cries. They are very different. Somehow they work incredibly well together—where Cries is painful, How to Deal is glossy and fun, and where How to Deal is overwhelmingly lame, Cries is painfully articulate. Neither could be described as anywhere approaching accurate. But there is something real, and actually really good, about both.
P.S. My father says, “Remind me what’s good about this movie other than that some of the actors are cute?” I can’t justify why I like it other than its tremendous attention to lame details like color, and the grandmother who smokes weed. Also, Mandy Moore’s eye rolling, and lines like “If love beats us up let’s beat it up right back!” C’mon. Inaccurate, but charming. I know that life isn’t like this, but film can be. Isn’t that why people like Bergman too? It’s why I like Bergman.
Something funny: Bergman’s film is famous for using a very specific glossy red, which he described as evocative the human soul (“a damp membrane in varying shades of red”). The crimson pulses through scenes: sharper than blood, more stalwart than the characters, intense and passionate. But! That same red is a motif in the less serious (and okay, I’ll admit, less good) How to Deal. Sure, in the latter it serves as a brilliant common accessory color during the ‘falling in love’ montage that looks like a video for American Eagle Outfitters (set to Liz Phair’s popstar reinvention single, “Why Can’t I?), the boyfriend’s car, a single wall in Mandy Moore’s well-decorated room, lots of Coke cans, the clothing of the pregnant teenage best friend. When the young (not!-)lovers encounter romantic barriers, the red shrinks away into browns and oranges, LIKE THE HUMAN HEART. This movie is not subtle. Of course, neither is Cries. They are very different. Somehow they work incredibly well together—where Cries is painful, How to Deal is glossy and fun, and where How to Deal is overwhelmingly lame, Cries is painfully articulate. Neither could be described as anywhere approaching accurate. But there is something real, and actually really good, about both.
P.S. My father says, “Remind me what’s good about this movie other than that some of the actors are cute?” I can’t justify why I like it other than its tremendous attention to lame details like color, and the grandmother who smokes weed. Also, Mandy Moore’s eye rolling, and lines like “If love beats us up let’s beat it up right back!” C’mon. Inaccurate, but charming. I know that life isn’t like this, but film can be. Isn’t that why people like Bergman too? It’s why I like Bergman.
7.09.2006
I thought I was there for a reason, but I guess it turned out that I wasn't.
Jonathan Meiburg, the lead singer and songwriter for the band Shearwater, is a trained ornithologist, which, when you see him live, seems exactly fitting for his long-gazing glazed eyes and arched neck—he certainly could have spent long hours peering at fragile birds and their soft wings, thin legs, black eyes. After he has performed and is standing behind you in the audience, Meiburg wears thin glasses and could be mistaken for any other beer-clutching overly-educated attendee at the Six Organs of Admittance show, but onstage in a Minus Story t-shirt, exploding feedback on his guitar, Meiburg is the kind of mysterious that is almost normative. There is nothing particularly entrancing about him except for the fact that there might be.
Except then he opens his mouth, to sing or to speak. Meiburg told three stories last night in his opening set. One was about taking an old-fashioned train on a demonstration run back from Philadelphia to the dilapidated Camden station, him aged seven and coming down with an intense fever that made everything pulse and expand. When the train stopped in the New Jersey forest for a photo-op, Meiburg detailed the greenery around him, and the train backing slowly down the tracks, moment lasting forever. His second story was about a trip for hawk research in the Galapagos, mysterious and bizarre—a leader who stank of rum, birds so docile they could easily be roped, hiking across lava and jungle. His last story, about a vain fisherman and a dead, pregnant shark and her unborn babies, was particularly eerie especially in its documented truth.
Meiburg’s stories, and to a lesser extent his songs, remind me overwhelmingly of the book that I’m in the middle of reading right now, The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D’ambrosio. This is a book I’ve been waiting for for years, ever since I read the story ‘Screenwriter’ in the spring of 2002. Sated by his book of essays, Orphans, and his first short story collection The Point, I am still immensely enjoying this new collection. The stories have the same sense as the ones Meiburg told during his show—they are about people who are not good, who teeter on cliché but retain an intensely fragile and intriguing quality and reward the audience in the end. They are about youth and sickness and being lost forever in a mind. D’ambrosio writes about bones and sharks and divorces with an equally nuanced level of detail—one that is intentionally hazy but also beautiful and pointed. He is trying to tell us something: these are not empty stories, but they are also vague and muddled in very specific ways. When Meiburg wraps up his story about the Galapagos abruptly, by saying, “Well, I guess the point of this is, I started seeing ghosts everywhere,” and launches into the desperate melody of another eloquent Shearwater song, we catch our breath and we twitter. It is this reaction, this progression, that D’ambrosio feeds me. The dark part of living—not in a dramatic way, but in a rather quiet and expected one. The story shouldn’t make us see ghosts—not logically—but, oh, how it does.
Except then he opens his mouth, to sing or to speak. Meiburg told three stories last night in his opening set. One was about taking an old-fashioned train on a demonstration run back from Philadelphia to the dilapidated Camden station, him aged seven and coming down with an intense fever that made everything pulse and expand. When the train stopped in the New Jersey forest for a photo-op, Meiburg detailed the greenery around him, and the train backing slowly down the tracks, moment lasting forever. His second story was about a trip for hawk research in the Galapagos, mysterious and bizarre—a leader who stank of rum, birds so docile they could easily be roped, hiking across lava and jungle. His last story, about a vain fisherman and a dead, pregnant shark and her unborn babies, was particularly eerie especially in its documented truth.
Meiburg’s stories, and to a lesser extent his songs, remind me overwhelmingly of the book that I’m in the middle of reading right now, The Dead Fish Museum by Charles D’ambrosio. This is a book I’ve been waiting for for years, ever since I read the story ‘Screenwriter’ in the spring of 2002. Sated by his book of essays, Orphans, and his first short story collection The Point, I am still immensely enjoying this new collection. The stories have the same sense as the ones Meiburg told during his show—they are about people who are not good, who teeter on cliché but retain an intensely fragile and intriguing quality and reward the audience in the end. They are about youth and sickness and being lost forever in a mind. D’ambrosio writes about bones and sharks and divorces with an equally nuanced level of detail—one that is intentionally hazy but also beautiful and pointed. He is trying to tell us something: these are not empty stories, but they are also vague and muddled in very specific ways. When Meiburg wraps up his story about the Galapagos abruptly, by saying, “Well, I guess the point of this is, I started seeing ghosts everywhere,” and launches into the desperate melody of another eloquent Shearwater song, we catch our breath and we twitter. It is this reaction, this progression, that D’ambrosio feeds me. The dark part of living—not in a dramatic way, but in a rather quiet and expected one. The story shouldn’t make us see ghosts—not logically—but, oh, how it does.
Life's a whole lot like my whiskers: Life is dark, life is short and life is rough.
Readyville is from San Francisco, but named their band after a small town in Tennessee. They use slide guitar and dissonant harmonies and open their songs with lines like “There wasn’t enough whiskey in this city to get you to tell me the truth”.
Yes, Readyville is a genuine alt.country band. And that’s pretty awesome.
Readyville is Nick Palatucci, who plays guitar and sings main vocals which both sneer and ply, and Eoin Galvin, who sings harmony and plays a lot of other instruments including a crazy sad sounding Organaire. Palatucci’s phrasing is powerful and slightly whiny, but only in the best and catchiest of ways. The songs aren’t as pretty as early Whiskeytown, or quite as witty and self-deprecating as the Old 97’s used to be, but they have a whole lot of heart, or maybe just a whole lot of empty place where the heart keeps trying to be. One of the best things about alt.country music is the absurd amount of consciousness it has about being feeling effectively empty. When you listen to alt.country you suddenly realize that everything you do is a little indulgent. That’s the difference between a sort of roots-twinged, mellow sad and the overblown sadness of most intense emo odes. After a break-up you want to complain, but you can see that “I’m making a big deal out of all of this/ I guess you can tell/ I noticed it as well.” Things are pretty shitty and you like to appeal to lost lovers and your own sense of regret, but you become pretty aware of the mess you’ve made. You talk (or sing) things through, and sometimes you just have to admit that “The timing is lousy and the moral's all wrong/ Well, this ain’t the kind of story that ends in a song.”
Readyville is a charming concept, and they come off as smart and kind of messy, with voices breaking over high notes and guitars picking along haphazardly between smart lyrics. They tell stories about reading while drunk, driving all night, and falling off of the ferry. Their album sounds visceral and tipsy, but they are certainly competent. Though the second half of the record is not quite as charming as the first, the cycle of songs about (ex-)girlfriends (“Monica”, which is excellent, “Anne” and “Lorena”) is well-executed. “An El Camino is a Car” is one of the best tracks on the album, even if they seem to only use the line “El Cerrito is a town by the bay” because El Cerrito scans really well with El Camino. It implores the listener, “I hope you’re sitting down dear/ I hope there wasn’t anyone around here/ You’ve been trying to impress.”
Apparently, Readyville wrote and frequently performs a song about the death of one of the Nick’s former roommates, who is still alive and none-too-pleased about his premature memorial. Readyville doesn’t see why he wouldn’t be. After all, one of the best things about alt.country is that you never seem to really have anything when you have it, possibly including life. You’re always hungover or broken up, drunk or driving (though hopefully not both at the same time). Memorials that haven’t happened yet, bewitched by a slide guitar and a sad voice and often-snide lyrics— that is the soul of alt.country music. We know that we aren’t in the center of the world, that we are peripheral and dumb, but we allow ourselves to indulge in a little wallowing. And then we switch off the record and go on living, because we might as well try while we can.
Yes, Readyville is a genuine alt.country band. And that’s pretty awesome.
Readyville is Nick Palatucci, who plays guitar and sings main vocals which both sneer and ply, and Eoin Galvin, who sings harmony and plays a lot of other instruments including a crazy sad sounding Organaire. Palatucci’s phrasing is powerful and slightly whiny, but only in the best and catchiest of ways. The songs aren’t as pretty as early Whiskeytown, or quite as witty and self-deprecating as the Old 97’s used to be, but they have a whole lot of heart, or maybe just a whole lot of empty place where the heart keeps trying to be. One of the best things about alt.country music is the absurd amount of consciousness it has about being feeling effectively empty. When you listen to alt.country you suddenly realize that everything you do is a little indulgent. That’s the difference between a sort of roots-twinged, mellow sad and the overblown sadness of most intense emo odes. After a break-up you want to complain, but you can see that “I’m making a big deal out of all of this/ I guess you can tell/ I noticed it as well.” Things are pretty shitty and you like to appeal to lost lovers and your own sense of regret, but you become pretty aware of the mess you’ve made. You talk (or sing) things through, and sometimes you just have to admit that “The timing is lousy and the moral's all wrong/ Well, this ain’t the kind of story that ends in a song.”
Readyville is a charming concept, and they come off as smart and kind of messy, with voices breaking over high notes and guitars picking along haphazardly between smart lyrics. They tell stories about reading while drunk, driving all night, and falling off of the ferry. Their album sounds visceral and tipsy, but they are certainly competent. Though the second half of the record is not quite as charming as the first, the cycle of songs about (ex-)girlfriends (“Monica”, which is excellent, “Anne” and “Lorena”) is well-executed. “An El Camino is a Car” is one of the best tracks on the album, even if they seem to only use the line “El Cerrito is a town by the bay” because El Cerrito scans really well with El Camino. It implores the listener, “I hope you’re sitting down dear/ I hope there wasn’t anyone around here/ You’ve been trying to impress.”
Apparently, Readyville wrote and frequently performs a song about the death of one of the Nick’s former roommates, who is still alive and none-too-pleased about his premature memorial. Readyville doesn’t see why he wouldn’t be. After all, one of the best things about alt.country is that you never seem to really have anything when you have it, possibly including life. You’re always hungover or broken up, drunk or driving (though hopefully not both at the same time). Memorials that haven’t happened yet, bewitched by a slide guitar and a sad voice and often-snide lyrics— that is the soul of alt.country music. We know that we aren’t in the center of the world, that we are peripheral and dumb, but we allow ourselves to indulge in a little wallowing. And then we switch off the record and go on living, because we might as well try while we can.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
