Call Me Maybe

The achievement of Carlie Rae Jepsen in this song is to have made something fun and catchy that does not lack a soul and identity of its own. I hear so much music now that is all catchy with no soul. Call Me Maybe has something to it. Maybe it's the string section, maybe it's the meeting-a-romantic-interest jitters inscribed in the lyrics, but it has something different. This is in opposition to the two-line EDM/faux dubstep tracks that litter the radio waves. These all seem to be manufactured with the same set of machine tools in a music factor somewhere in Denmark. They do not move me. Good job, Carlie Rae Jepsen, good job. Yes, I know the song came out two years ago and I'm unfashionably late to the party, but good job.

Il est trop tard (This post is mobile friendly)

The beautiful Georges Moustaki wrote:

Mon enfant ceci loin
Il est deja demain
passe passe le temps
Il n'y en a plus pour tres longs temps

Pourtant je vis toujours
Pourtant je fais l'amour
M'arrive meme de chanter
Sur ma guitar

Tu etais si jolie
Je suis seul dans mon lit
Passe passe le temps
Il n'y en a plus pour tres longs temps

I couldn't have said it better myself. Nor could I have conjugated those verbs without assistance. Well played, Georges. Here's the link.

The smell of New Jersey

Listening to New Jersey bands as the bus transits New Jersey:

Bands/artists (and their most NJ-emblematic song)

-Saves the Day (Always Ten Feet Tall or Shoulder to the Wheel)
-Titus Andronicus (Fear and Loathing in Mahwah, NJ or My Time Outside The Womb)
-Bruce Springsteen (Open All Night)

What is it with New Jersey and producing great music? These are three artists whose music I haven't gotten over. They all have reams of really good songs across multiple albums. New Jersey is an idea to me, raw and unfiltered, symbolizing everything good and bad about America. The music reflects that.

Capturing Moods

The joy of discovering an entire Rilo Kiley live album that I had never heard before. Includes the transcendent 'I Love LA' and a cover of 'Rock n' Roll Suicide. It did feel right. My attempt at capturing the feeling of having seen a band that broke up 5 years ago.

They say california is a recipe for a black hole

I have been on a serious Rilo Kiley kick for at least a week. Blame it on cranberry sauce, which I was making last Wednesday, and it was lovely, had the house to myself all day and just listened to tons of music and cooked odds and ends of supplemental Thanksgiving foods. I love those days, maybe once a month. Silence and solitude and making something out of nothing. Insofar as there is stress in my life, these are the days when it is released, when you might say I channel and release tension from my shoulders into the food I make.

As for Rilo Kiley, they are everything. Sweet, cutting, country, rock, peerless lyrics, great music. Three Rilo Kiley songs:

Jenny, You're Barely Alive

My Slumbering Heart

Portions for Foxes

Just wait and see, cause the rest is yet to reveal itself to me

This was the year of independence.
Depend only on love and the ones who love me
This was the year of confidence.
The self is strong, believe it and see it
This was the year of Allan.

My task: conquer 2011

Continuing my habit of posting lyrics when I can't think of anything else to write

I think I fell in love last night
I think I'll make the same mistake twice
Got my dreams to consider though
Jimmy crack corn
and I don't care at all

-Looker

Check it out, it's a pretty cool song

Peg

Right now,
I can barely tell if I'm sleepin' or awake.
In a little while
It'll be the morning.

You won't remember bein' lost
In the after-hours,
Take my number down
Write it on your hand
Call me in the morning.

Which of these worlds is going to find you?
Is gonna remind you what you have to do
And why do you feel that you're being lied to?
Why don't you feel like anything new?

Peg,
It's almost winter time,
Is it snowing where you are?
Wait another hour,
It'll be the morning.

-Lyrics: Saturday Looks Good to Me
Transcription: Me

When the dealin's done

I just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in.

There's such a great distance between that weird psychedelic beauty by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition and his later song "The Gambler." I wonder how Kenny Rogers bridged that gap. I wonder how, psychologically, he can reconcile those two incredibly different parts of his career.

Kenny Rogers sure is crafty, to say the least.

"America is still the land of the rugged individualists"

I'm going to pose the question that I'm sure is on everyone's mind:

Is the only goal of every indie band starting out to get their song on a car commercial?

I've really had way more than enough of this junk. What happened to the good old days of Chevy picking Bob Seger's "Like a Rock" for their commercials and just pounding it into your head, day after day, night after night, advertisement after advertisement? Yes, those were the days. Enough of the indie band meal ticket ads. Really, what are the people who make these spots thinking? Nothing sells cars like seedy-looking, reedy-voiced twentysomethings in flannel?

J-pop: not to be taken lightly

This one goes out to Tim Durkin

It's bitter, like beer for kids

Bonnie Pink lives!

do the right thing

Legend in two games like I'm Pee-Wee Kirkland

Just thought that was a cool lyric. As usual, it's about drugs.

And also, I've noticed that there are quite a few funny comedians who make fun of Michael Bolton.

Bill Hicks, Henry Rollins, the list goes on.

like a waterfall

you've given me so many songs,

ones that kept me going on when i'd wonder why

I'm wondering about the meaning of love, and the importance it has in the life of anyone. I want to be with someone, because every now and then I feel a sort of nagging, quite subtle loneliness. I know what it is. I want someone to share things with. I want someone who gets me on my terms, so that I don't have to change how I am to impress them. And now it seems like that person will never come around, and maybe even that I'm wasting my twenties not being in love. That's no fun of course, to feel like something is slipping away, specifically the chance to be young and in love, but I'm trying not to worry about it. Things have the darndest way of turning around on you when you expect it least. For now I'll bide my time until destiny shuts me up.

think of you that way a lot,

singing to the coffee pot and the kitchen wall

(lyrics by Kate Wolf)

Brothers always come first

Top 5 songs from Your Favorite Weapon by Brand New (Which nobody who likes Brand New probably listens to anymore, but they should)

1. Logan to Government Center (Which has the added benefit of at least having a Boston-related title)
2. Seventy Times Seven
3. Magazines
4. Soco Amaretto Lime
5. Failure By Design

Honorable mention to Secondary, Last Chance to Lose Your Keys, Jude Law and A Semester Abroad, Sudden Death in Carolina, and Mix Tape.

Not an easy list to make. Also, there was absolutely no reason to make this list! But I did it anyway! That's how committed I am.

I can see by your face that something's not the same

Saves the Day just was not the same. It's hard to put my finger on what went wrong with the set. The lack of David Soloway was huge. I don't think the new guitarist really fits with the vibe of the band, not to mention the fact that he didn't know most of the guitar parts on the songs. A lot of the time he would just let his guitar hang, sometimes he would sort of casually strum. This is not the Saves the Day that I love.
The sound wasn't great, but it was more than that. The set list wasn't great, but really that wasn't it either. It was something unquantifiable about the way they played. To tell you the truth, it made me sad. Maybe they just lost it. Maybe the regular lineup shuffling took its toll, finally. Maybe Dave was the one piece they couldn't do without. I don't know what it was, but for now, it will keep me away from the live shows. I'm gonna hibernate with the old stuff, the good stuff, before they lost it, whatever it is.

This Charming Man

My current Top 5 Saves the Day songs off the top of my head (this is in no way a comment on whether it's worthwhile to make top 5 lists of anything, I'm just bored and let's say I like hastily making judgements on arguments that should be reasoned out over the course of several days, rather than minutes)

1. Hold

2. Jodie

3. Third Engine

4. Freakish

5. Jessie & My Whetstone

The sky grows bigger every day

I'm headed to Worcester today to see my favorite band, Saves the Day. For once, they're not the headliner (that's Alkaline Trio) so we don't have to sit through 2-3 hours and maybe 4 openers before we get to the good stuff. Saves the Day is great because there's a good chance on any song they play that I love the song and I know all the words. And so does everyone else in the crowd, so you can often get a crazy group singalong thing going where the singer's voice sometimes gets drowned out and it's just legions of crazed fans rising as one voice. Pretty cool if you've ever experienced it. 

me vs. maradona vs. elvis

Right now I'm listening to the songs that I listened to all winter, when I was working at the factory and things were kind of tough for me. I didn't like my job that much, felt like it was dead end, felt like I wasn't getting anywhere, and it was cold as heck outside and just overall kind of a bad time. That's why it's actually a little sad to hear these songs. These songs meant a lot to me during the winter. I listened to them when I was home from work, I knew all the words, I sang them to myself during work hours, and they just meant the world to me.

It's different now. I have a good job, I'm in a good place, the weather is warm, and things are just going swimmingly. It's sort of an embarrassment of riches, to be honest. I feel sorry for that edition of me from the winter in a way. If he could see what's going on now in our life, new beginnings, new jobs, new feelings that just feel like they have some promise, like they could lead somewhere, he would be so happy. He didn't have those things, he was stuck. And when I remember these songs and how important they were to me during that tough spot, it hurts. I want to go back there and tell myself that things are going to be so bright soon. Just stick it out.

Cheeky - Choke on a Cheeseburger

Cheeky is a punk band. Their singer is a girl. That's sort of unconventional, at least in the circles I run in (wow, didn't know up to this moment that I ran in circles, glad I learned that). They're not bad, though. They have a nice angst note, along with some plain old anger, which is good too. Their lyrics aren't exceptional, but good enough for this genre. I wish them great success. In the meantime their album can be downloaded for free here. Why not give them a donation while you're at it too. They're only giving you their intellectual property for free.