Grouper - Heavy Water/I’d Rather Be Sleeping from Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill
I got really into this record last year, but now that it’s cold again, it’s made it back into the regular rotation. I included this song on a fall mix I made for my friend Todd’s blog as it’s my favorite on the record and always reminds me of this time of year. Every time I hear it, I feel like I’m laying in a giant snow drift miles from any sort of civilization. Either that, or I think of an endless walking journey through snowy, grey countryside not unlike scenes from Dr. Zhivago. Perhaps I’m just imagining it but I can hear the wind in the background of this song and it conjures up all these images of total desolation. In the good, lone explorer kind of way. Not the weirdo serial killer way.
Broken Social Scene - Swimmers from Broken Social Scene
Woke up really late for work today, now I have to suffer the consequences… Continuing the cycle of a lifetime of sleep problems.
“If you always get up late, you’re never gonna be on time.”
Desolation Wilderness - Boardwalk Theme from New Universe
I can’t stop listening to this record and more specifically, this song. Much of the record reminds me of another dreamy, lazy, favorite, Starflyer 59 though I don’t think they sound overwhelmingly like them. I think both just share a common thread of sounding incredibly warm and comforting, perfect for the end of summer as it turns into fall.
No Age - My Life’s Alright Without You from Weirdo Rippers
Situations in my life lately have made me feel very callous. Usually I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum of being too emotional or dwelling on scenarios beyond my control, but this time it’s different. I just sort of feel nothing and it really makes me question what kind of person I am. However, sometimes I think this song kind of sums it up. You can only miss someone so long before they just sort of fade away.
Stone Temple Pilots - Plush from Core
Grunge.
Probably one of the most annoying (and misleading) genre defining words I can think of. It ranks up there with “Alternative” and “Screamo” (to define safe, mall friendly bands like The Used, not in the original sense of the word which is slightly less annoying) for me. Grunge(y) was originally used to describe bands that sounded legitimately dirty and shitty (like The Melvins) and became a term lazy music journalists co-opted so they could easily classify all these rock bands from various parts of the country that didn’t particularly sound alike. Stone Temple Pilots were lumped into the category of “grunge” bands because they had minor chord heavy songs, “dark” videos and a singer whose voice, at times, was said to resemble Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam. Sure, the 12 year old me considered them a grunge band and thought they sounded like Pearl Jam, but as an adult I see the differences between those two and the rest of the bands lumped into that category. Let’s get real though. STP was a rock band from San Diego who went straight from playing locally to a major label contract.
I don’t know why, but I have listened to this song 5-10 times every day at work over the past week. Something about it has been incredibly appealing to me lately and I can’t put my finger on what it is. I think most of it has to do with the chorus (post-chorus?) where the melody gets even higher and more epic sounding.
STP isn’t a band that has spanned the years for me the way Nirvana has. I rarely think about them or listen to them unless I hear it, but something about this song has really been satisfying my nostalgic tendencies this week.
Eagles - Take it Easy from Eagles
The first tour I went on was a truly disastrous affair. I played drums in a very mediocre hardcore band with little to no collective song-writing ability with four of my best friends. I was 21 and though we only had 5 songs, knew 2 covers, had only released a demo and played MAYBE 20 shows total we decided it would be a good idea to travel all the way to California from Chicago with our good friends and brother band Def Choice. This was a bad move. Def Choice, while a great band and great people were a terribly disorganized unit. They wanted to tour the west coast since they had to cancel the time they were supposed to go with ETA, but didn’t want to book it. The guy who did most of their booking previous to this had more or less washed his hands of them after some squabble or another. I don’t remember the details, but I remember the split being pretty amicable. Either way, our guitarist Matt took over the reigns of booking this thing and he did about as good of a job as anyone can do booking two bands no one cares about. We played the Lemp Arts Center in St. Louis, MO, a gazebo in Redlands, CA, a living room in Denver, CO, an incredible show with Terror/Most Precious Blood/The Takeover in Tempe, AZ and the upstairs of a bowling alley in Riverside, CA. Both bands literally played to one another and the sound guy in Riverside and though it was the worst show I’ve ever been to (not just played, but ever set foot into), it was possibly the most memorable night on tour.
This tour was in 2003, before iPod’s were the norm and the van we took only had a tape player which was broken so we couldn’t listen to tapes or hook up a CD adapter. So, we listened to classic rock radio across the half the country trying to find a station that most closely resembled Chicago’s own 97.1 “The Drive.” “The Drive” was at the time, one of the greatest radio stations I can remember. They played all the hits from the classic rock era, but didn’t just resign to play hits. They played songs deep into the record and had theme days like “Album Side Friday” where they’d play the entire side of an LP (the actual LP, not a CD version) and “Artist Portrait Thursday,” where they’d play blocks of one particular artist every hour. They also had a lot of hilarious, over-dramatic ads, especially at night, aimed toward sending the listener into a state of overwhelming nostalgia by painting a vivid picture of what it’s like to listen to Night Moves by Bob Seger or something of the sort. They were really lame, but funny, and a running joke within my group of friends.
During the tour we found one station late at night in Colorado called “The Mountain” that was almost IDENTICAL to “The Drive,” right down to the whispered ads with wind noises in the background. It was great. They even had coyote sound effects too, something that isn’t applicable to the geography of Chicago.
It was on this trip that I got into Eagles. We ended up hearing a LOT of Eagles songs on the 10 or so days we were out, which makes sense because they are one of the best selling bands ever, but I’d never really paid them any mind. There is one song we heard on a daily basis and after tour I went and bought like 7 Eagles LP’s searching for this song and never found it. Even now, 6 years later I don’t know what the song was, but it made me actually appreciate Eagles and not just think of them as a “dad” band.
This past summer I listened to the self-titled Eagles record a lot and this song, “Take it Easy,” will certainly be a song I closely associate with the Summer ‘09 6 years from now, much like I do with that mystery Eagles song I liked so much in the Summer of ‘03.
Modest Mouse - Edit the Sad Parts from Interstate 8
Modest Mouse has slowly crept back into my life as of late. I keep hearing them everywhere I go and it seems like a lot of people my age are going back and rediscovering their past fondness for them. The only record of theirs I got heavily into was The Moon and Antarctica but I appreciated other songs of theirs here and there. This is one of them. Whenever I think of this song or hear it, it reminds me of nostalgia. Not even feeling nostalgic (though it does bring back memories of my friend Matt’s ex-girlfriend who listened to Modest Mouse so much it soured me on them for years), but rather the idea of nostalgia and how we look back on the past with rose colored glasses. When I look back, things always seem so much more simple and carefree than they are now, but that wasn’t the case. I, like everyone else, face the same problems I did years past, but they are just the more adult versions of them. As far as this song goes though, I think it’s among Modest Mouse’s best, both lyrically and musically. I’ve always like the line, “Sometimes my feelings get in the way of what I really feel I needed to say.” I think that sums it up.
Ceremony - This is My War from Ruined
Honesty, Ceremony is kind of a two trick pony for me and This is My War is one of those tricks. While they are one of the bigger current HC bands, they don’t particularly do much for me, except for this song and the first song off this 7” “Kersed.” Lately, I’ve been having a hard time at work, getting frustrated with people and feeling generally unpleasant and at those times I think of this song. It makes me want to smash everyone in my way as I claw feverishly to the top in a fit of irrational teen angst. Sure it is juvenile, but it’s taxing talking to the lowest common denominator of humans on a daily basis.
“I hate everyone and every fucking thing. This is my War.”
Give Up the Ghost - Since Always from We’re Down til We’re Underground
Before the release of We’re Down til We’re Underground, GUTG leaked two of the songs from their forthcoming LP. The first being “Love American,” a song that would go on to be released as a 7” single (containing a b-side and a cover of the Archers of Loaf classic “You and Me”) and another titled “Since Always.” “Love American” was more tried and true AN/GUTG material - short, fast and driving, but “Since Always” strayed from the familiar (at least in my opinion). It was slower, had more of a groove and reminded me a lot of Snapcase. I hated it. When the album finally came out it was the song I always skipped on an album of unconventional hardcore songs.
In recent years though, I’ve grown to love it. Musically, I think it’s fantastic, especially the mid-tempo verse and the repetitive ending. Lyrically, I think it’s one of the best songs on We’re Down if only for the line “I used to compare myself, but I don’t care anymore.” Much like the Sage Francis line I referenced a few posts back, this lyric has always hit home for me. I haven’t reached the point of not comparing myself to others, but it’s in the horizon.
Gene - Haunted By You from Olympian
Morrissey and The Smiths - often imitated, rarely touched and certainly never surpassed. The only band that gets close on a consistent basis is brit-pop band Gene. Their 1995 debut, Olympian, traced the lines that Morrissey and Marr had drawn a decade before with their bouncy guitar work and Martin Rossiter’s best Moz impression. While there are many similarties between the two bands, Gene is not without their merit. Olympian is a great record full of solid tunes like the album opener “Haunted By You.” Great song for fall by a band that reminds me of my freshman year of high school.
