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For those of you looking for to rock Monday night away (and if you're not looking to do that, you're sad and lame not keyed into the counterculture), I feel I should let you know that I'll be playing guitar with Sprites tomorrow at the Galaxy Hut. Lookit:
Sprites January 28, 2007 Galaxy Hut 2711 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA Clarendon Metro
You can tell it's a big deal, because that text is CENTERED, and by law, you're not allowed to do that unless it's VERY IMPORTANT. All-caps indicates an emergency situation, which in a way, this is.
I have to take the chance to throw in that it's such an amazing feeling to play in a band that I'm also a huge fan of. Same goes with The Positions, but that's a little different, since I've been in it from the get-go. To be able to not only still get to play, but play songs that I absolutely love...it's an honor and a thrill. In short: it rules.
Magnetic Fields, "Too Drunk To Dream" Holiday meets 69 Love Songs. Clever genius meets even greater genius. If there was any justice in the world (there isn't), we would all be singing the intro to this song in every bar we went into: "Sober, life is a prison. Shitfaced, it is a blessing."
Vampire Weekend, "M79" The Walkmen meets Afro beat. Not as good as that description and yet so much better than it. How does one band be so wonderfully catchy and so fucking irritating at the exact same time? The second half of this song was in my head all day, and I loved/hated every second it was in there.
School of Language, "Keep Your Water" One of the three guys from Field Music. Appropriately, it's about 1/3 as good as Field Music. Which is still pretty damn good.
Cat Power, "Metal Heart" This album kind of goes by in a pleasant, melancholy blur. It may sharpen and clarify with repeated listenings, but...probably not. Pleasant enough, though.
I can't really say why I felt so sad when I saw the news about Heath Ledger scroll across the closed captioning at the TV in the coffee shop I was having a business meeting in yesterday afternoon. For the most part, I always feel that it's really unfortunate when a celebrity dies unexpectedly and young, but no more so than the news of anyone I don't know. But Heath Ledger...he actually made me feel sad.
Part of it was that I saw Brokeback Mountain again recently and was reminded just what a tragic story it is. Part of it is that the Fourth of July scene in that movie (as well as Jake Gyllenhaal's Thanksgiving scene) really hit me hard and has always stuck with me, acting out a desire to be able to stand up for your values by backing it up with your fists. But even besides that, his character was tragic. It's hard to divorce him from that character.
And I was really excited (and still am) by his turn at Joker, but I really got sad when I found out that he'd obsessed over Nick Drake and had wanted to tell his story. Even though he had given it up when he apparently felt he couldn't do the story justice, that didn't keep me from imagining what an incredible--if difficult--movie it would have been.
I watched the first part of No Direction Home last night, which--I'll tell you as though I'm the first person to say it--is fantastic. It hasn't necessarily changed my feelings about Scorcese, but it's a beautiful movie. Dylan's story is the kind that makes you think that if someone had written it as fiction, it would come off as exaggerated and too fairy-tale to be plausible.
There were two great revelations in part one. The first one was the song "Let Me Die In My Footsteps", which sounded so immediately good that I assumed that it was a traditional song. Nope: a Dylan original, and an outtake--an outtake!!--from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. The man puts out four classic albums of mostly-originals in two years, and he has outtakes that sound like this?! It's SICK. It's beyond "talented" and getting more into the idiot-savant/channeling realm.
"Let Me Die In My Footsteps"
The other revelation was the non-Dylan music in it, which sadly doesn't seem to have been compiled anywhere. There were amazing songs by Odetta and John Jacob Niles that were immediately powerful. I wish someone had the foresight to put all of those songs together, because if we can all agree on anything, it's that my convenience is priority one.
Last on this topic is that, as the film was rolling on (or, more appropriately, as the disc was spinning still), I thought of my favorite Dylan song, "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", and why it's my favorite. When I was re-learning guitar at the age of 19, my mom picked up the guitar and started playing this song, one of the tunes she still remembered how to play from her folky college days, though she sang it with the slight melody change of Joan Baez's version. The chord changes absolutely killed me, and she taught me the chords and it's still one of my favorites to play to this day.
It wasn't too long into the planning stages of my 2007 Mix when I realized that this had been a year of long songs. Some of my favorites topped the six-minute mark, my #1 favorite topped seven, and that if I worked in the constraints of the audio CD time limit of 80 minutes, the mix would be the shortest I'd ever made, and lots of worthy songs were going to be left off. So a new era of year-end mixes begins for me: no more working within the audio CD time limit.
It's a whole new world now. If you wanted the whole mix and are still stuck on audio CDs, you're being left behind. You can still fit it on 2 CDs (with the second disc starting nicely with "Spare-Oh's") if you're up for the marathon.
Forget the tech of it, though. It's the quality that's important, and 2007 was a fantastic year for music. Usually at around this time, I'm ready to put the year behind me and see what the next year has in store, but I'm not ready for 2008 yet. I love this mix so much that I restart it as soon as it's over, and I'm still not tired of it yet. 2007 has high quality in the retro and the futuristic, the sad and the joyful, the quiet and the loud, the quirky and the straightforward. There's lots of dancing and plenty of singing, lots of love and even some self-pity. Good Lord, is this some good stuff.
A few notes about this annual vanity project of mine:
Songs marked with an asterisk have not been featured on the site before
Almost all mp3s are 192kbps, so it's decent quality, but they've all been transcoded, so not great quality. The lone exception is "Footballs And Flower Tops" which is 128. Sorry. Just think of it as adding to the mix tape feel of it all. Let me know if the quality's too crap.
2007 - You Forget What You Meant When You Read What You Said
"All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem "The Magic Position" by Patrick Wolf * "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" by Spoon "Ain't Never Been Cool" by Lucky Soul * "Valerie" by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse "Can I Get Get Get" by Junior Senior "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice "The Opposite of Hallelujah" by Jens Lekman "1 2 3 4" by Feist * "I Am John" by Loney, Dear * "(Antichrist Television Blues)" by the Arcade Fire * "Dead Sound" by the Raveonettes * "Flowers and Football Tops" by Glasvegas * "Bookshop Casanova" by the Clientele * "Me and Mr. Jones (Fuckery)" by Amy Winehouse "You Turned My Head Around" by Dean and Britta "Tourist Trap" by Bright Eyes "Miss Misery (early version)" by Elliott Smith "Spare-Oh's" by Andrew Bird * "Sleeping Lessons" by the Shins * "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider" by Of Montreal * "For Reverend Green" by Animal Collective "Muscle 'n' Flo" by Menomena * "Go Places" by the New Pornographers "I Started A Joke" by the Lucksmiths "Bro's" by Panda Bear "The Pills Won't Help You Now" by the Chemical Brothers featuring Midlake * "All I Need" by Radiohead "Archangel" by Burial * "Bamboo Banga" by M.I.A. "Mistaken For Strangers" by the National "That Summer, At Home, I Had Become The Invisible Boy" by the Twilight Sad "In Our Bedroom After the War" by Stars "Butterfly Nets" by Bishop Allen *
"All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem A few years ago, my friend Meredith, a great singer/songwriter with a few releases under his belt was wondering out loud if the climate of the music world was changing to be more accepting of older musicians or if it was just because he was getting older and seeing what was around him. I couldn't really answer this, because I'd thought the same thing. It did seem that the rule of the rock era--that breakthrough artists had to be young--was fading away, but it could have just been my persepective.
I would guess that there's probably plenty of people in their 20's and even teens who love LCD Soundsystem and never given a thought to the themes of aging in the music; were never awed at how perfectly James Murphy is able to wonder about his aging and what it means to the music-obsessed life that he's led since his teens. They don't stop dancing to "All My Friends" for a minute to think about lines like, "When you're drunk and the kids look impossibly tan, you think over and over 'hey, I'm finally dead'". They won't hear the heartbreaking truth of lines like "you spend the first five years trying to get with the plan and then next five years trying to be with your friends again" and won't for another 10-15 years. It stands alongside Pulp's "Sorted for E's and Wizz" as a classic of finally understanding what your age means to the party life you've been leading.
This song is so revelatory that it rocks me as hard to think about it as it does to listen to it. It's as propulsive as it is philosophical: the off-kilter piano chords blending seamlessly into a dance groove, the vocals that push closer and closer together until they form a killer rhythmic climax, the subtle keyboard and guitar accents that quietly enter the song over its course and push it higher when they do.
Song of the year. Easily. Best part: From the 6:30 mark on. "The Magic Position" by Patrick Wolf * From the sound of my favorite songs of the year, you'd think that 2007 was about the happiest year I could imagine. The year had its ups and downs, of course, like any year, but even during the down times, the tunes hitting my ears (hitting a little too hard, sometimes) most often were stupid fun. The songs would get me dancing while I dreaded work and fill me with joy even while I replayed arguments in my head. It's proof that good music rises above mood, answering the question posed in High Fidelity, "Do we listen to pop music because we're sad or are we sad because we listen to pop music?" with a solid, "Neither. We listen to it because we have good taste."
More often than not, I was naked when I was rocking to "The Magic Position", my face half-covered in shaving cream, fresh from the shower, not quite awake until the hand claps started in, the violins trilled, and then I had self-control for nothing, with no choice but to put down the razor (safety first, kids) and jump around to, "It's YOU!", filled with the same glee that this song radiated out of my tiny iPod speakers. After that, I was not only awake, but I was ready for absolutely anything the world threw at me. Best part: besides the glorious "It's YOU!", the second chorus, where the violins join the handclaps after abstaining from the first chorus. Sheer joy-pop perfection. "You Got Yr Cherry Bomb" by Spoon It's Not Always The Best Songs #1: The Spoon album was one of the few records that I loved as a whole, and songs like "Finer Feelings", "Don't Make Me a Target" and "Black Like Me" struck me for their construction and hooks. Any one of those three could have been the designated Spoon representative to the conference that is this year's mix.
But it's not all about the quality of the song that gets a song on my year-end mixes: it's how much it reminds me of the year, and this song more than any other on Ga, etc. stuck out. The melody may not be as masterful and the hooks not as, um, hooky, but the feel and those amazing amazing horns lifted this song out of the bunch for me over and over. It not only stuck in my head, but it kicked out almost everything else in there. A mind-blower for sure. Best part: say it with me now: when the horns come in. That baritone sax is bliss.
"Ain't Never Been Cool" by Lucky Soul * Sometimes I wish I didn't speak English. Then songs like this could bring nothing but joy, because I'd never pick at the lyrics. I'd be off in another country, jumping around the room to this song before curiosity would overcome the enjoyment of this song's energy and playfulness. I'd track down an English-speaking friend and make her listen to it. She would listen closely to the lyrics, and at the end tell me, "It's kind of about feeling like you've never really fit in, but finding joy in that, and then taking pride in doing whatever you want to do without worrying if it's fashionable."
That would make me love the song even more. I could enjoy the vocal swoops, the loping middle section and the exuberant ending and not get at all hung up on the soccer-mom awkwardness of "ain't" and "cool", not picking at the word choices that make the claim of uncool feel all too accurate. I would just love this song for the blast that it is. Best part: the barely-contained ending, which heightens the highs of the choruses. Never has reserved, calculated rocking sounded so off-the-hook.
"Valerie" by Mark Ronson featuring Amy Winehouse A good cover should accentuate, not just imitate. Bar bands can get away with playing a song exactly the same way, but if you're recording a different version, it should actually be a different version; not just note-for-note. The best covers are not usually radical re-workings, but rather a slight twist on the original that brings out the best parts.
Horns and Winehouse are going to tweak anything they touch, but it's the simple double-timing of the snare that takes the slurring original version by the Zutons and turns it into an irresistible Motown-style rave-up. A should've-been hit. Best part: when Winehouse adds three ascending notes to the end of "lawyer" (1:10). I like the beer-soaked original, but that vocal part is always sorely missed. "Can I Get Get Get" by Junior Senior One of the top shames of the year was that I didn't get as much of a chance to dance in 2007 as I did last year. But I can't help to think that it would have been kind of frustrating to be sweating out on a dance floor and know there was no chance of this song coming on. This should have been the biggest hit of the year, the song that was on everyone's lips, instead of just confined to the foreign-pop fringe. Best part: the back-and-forth between Junior and his dance floor prey is one of the most hilarious moments of 2007 this side of Flight of the Conchords. His disbelieving "why not?!" and then the suit-yourself "okay!" are priceless. "D.A.N.C.E." by Justice Dear world,
I think we can all agree that dance music with pop sense is irresistible, right? We all love Daft Punk and Basement Jaxx. So why does it seem that releases like this fantastic Justice record are so few and far between? The pop gloss and structure on top of dance beats, the killer electro beat, the breakdown just as the repetition seems too much, any and all Michael Jackson references (P.Y.T, ABC, black and white)...these are the keys that unlock our dancing shoe boxes. Why don't we get more of it?
Just askin' is all. Best part: at 2:58, when the beat kicks back in to the breakdown. "The Opposite of Hallelujah" by Jens Lekman The Sum Has Nothing To Do With Its Parts #1: Jens Lekman starts with a voice whose ambition far exceeds its talents and standard-issue twee instrumentation and ends up with songs whose simple hooks end up so deep in you that you stop even noticing the flaws, and even start loving them. Best part: From the Morrissey school of "three notes with a rhythmic lyric is enough for an insanely catchy chorus" comes the chorus. "1 2 3 4" by Feist * I have a theory that the title to this song is actually a reference to the four step program this song requires:
Discovery: You hear this song as a clear standout on the album.
Wonder tempered with doubt: You had forgotten how good a song this was until it started appearing on the iPod ads. It's a shame it took a commercial to point that out to you.
Anger: If you have to hear this fucking song one more goddamn time, you swear to all that is holy that you'll start killing. Any person or animal who stands between you and the mute button when this song comes on will die.
Acceptance: You don't want to hear it again for another five years or so--around about the time you'll be ready to hear "Hey Ya!" again--but it's a great song and is as 2007 as anything.
Best part: is the part that the the iPod commercial doesn't want you to hear, at 2:10, when the trumpet leads the horn attack. Chill city, baby.
"I Am John" by Loney, Dear * One of the biggest reasons that 2007 has been such a great year in music for me is that the year was filled with songs that took unusual paths to song arrangement. Whether through rhythm or structure, music is heading slowly further away from the constraints of the rock 'n' roll era, keeping the quality elements while ignoring the rules (because as much as people like to deny it, rock music and it's culture has a LOT of rules).
"I Am John" seems like standard-issue bedroom-studio pop at first listen, but it's structure is so much more. It's constantly ascending, weaving new vocal parts into the nearly-breathless lyrical structure and keeping enough melodic themes that it tricks you into thinking you're getting choruses, but you're actually not. The climax of this song never failed to blow me away, and if there's any song on this mix that I hope I can sway some of you towards, it's this one. Best part: from 2:53 to 3:04, when the vocals part peaks. It always seems impossible and was a constant source of energy for me. "(Antichrist Television Blues)" by the Arcade Fire * I did not pick this song to be on my mix; my iPod (who's named "I, Pod") did. Neon Bible didn't really stir me up too much. I liked it alright, but there was nothing on it close to the emotional genius of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" or "Wake Up". But almost every time I put on the shuffle roulette of my 2007 Radio playlist, this song came on. So here you go, iPod. This one's for you. Best part: Almost at the very end, there's three successive snare hits behind the line "I was working downtown" that perfectly gets me every time and perfectly sets up the sudden end.
"Dead Sound" by the Raveonettes * "Flowers and Football Tops" by Glasvegas * One of the first things that any student of pop music notices is The Chord Change. It's one of the best hooks to have: it doesn't matter that you've heard it before or that it's attached to an otherwise-ordinary song. The switch from major to minor and back or the quick addition of a seventh chord at the turn...it's a well-worn tactic that's well-worn for a reason: because it melts hearts. Both of these songs are about nothing but the chord changes.
"Bookshop Casanova" by the Clientele * I'm sorry...is that a '60's-style chank guitar hitting on the whole notes? And is that a disco-style hi-hat going on there? Oh. And what happens when the hi-hat drops out? Oh. I see. It changes to a pingy ride cymbal. So let me axe you this: is there anything else going on in this song? And does it matter? I didn't think so. Best part: Given what attracts me so strongly to this song, it's both weird and perfectly sensible that my favorite part is the outro, where the cymbals and guitar can't distract me.
"Me and Mr. Jones (Fuckery)" by Amy Winehouse I love the foulmouthed sweetness of this song and the way the modern lyrics take pull this song from a '60's soul impersonation to a genuine expression of personal and romantic disfunction. And reminds you that music can make even the most disgusting people seem appealing, exciting and fun.
"You Turned My Head Around" by Dean and Britta While the other two covers on this mix show how a good cover can cast a clear light that puts a new shine on the original, this song reveals the down side of a good cover: that clear light can be mighty harsh on the artist's originals. Why Dean and Britta can't put the same vocal energy and instrumental sparkle into their own songs is a mystery. The songs on their new album weren't too memorable anyway, but side-by-side with this stunning version, they're downright dull. Best part: I never, ever get tired of hearing Britta belt out "BABYYYY!" "Tourist Trap" by Bright Eyes I can't think of many other acts that I love and hate as much as Bright Eyes. Conor Oberst's pretentious presentation of tired cliches as though they're undiscovered insights into life gets to new levels of annoying, but there's enough times that he punches through that pretension with amazing songwriting that his moves are always worth following.
So the fact that Oberst still hasn't lived up to his billing as the "new Dylan" is both schadenfreudely delicious and kind of sad. I know it's my own personal reading, but that sadness seems to come out in this song. It's a predictable Gram Parsons-wannabe melody, but it's that fact that Oberst seems to have run out of ideas so young that makes gives this common-but-beautiful song a little twist of tragedy. Best part: when all the instrumentation but the reverbed-out percussion drops out, leaving just the melody on top of the beat, it's a classic moment of beauty. "Miss Misery (early version)" by Elliott Smith It should be clear by now that I have no control of my brain. It does whatever it wants, and what it usually wants is to forget everything. And even though I try to get my brain to embrace logic, it just doesn't really have the time.
So when my brain kept pushing me to listen to this song, I tried to tell it, "But you didn't even like the version in Good Will Hunting much! Why the hell would you be so into this one?" And with an exasperated sigh, my brain (played by Philip Seymour Hoffman in the same style as he does in Charlie Wilson's War) says, "You want to know why I like this song? Spare. Sparse. Simple." And then it goes back to it's cigarette and scotch, and I leave, embarrassed, knowing that's it's right. Best part: it's almost a meaningless line, but the expression of "some enchanted night, I'll be with you" gives this song a beauty that's missing in the more famous version, especially at the very end of the song. "Spare-Oh's" by Andrew Bird * It's Not Always The Best Songs #2: The Andrew Bird record was great largely because of his ever-expanding range of arrangements. Songs like "Plasticities" and "Armchairs" were ambitious in their rhythms and dynamics, but it was this song, with it's boy/girl vocals and ascending melody that struck me the hardest. It's almost like Bird is going back to his Bowl of Fire days, but with the same mood as everything he's been working towards since. Best part: that incredible rise in the melody in the chorus at "through the air" "Sleeping Lessons" by the Shins * I still love the Shins. I've gotten tired of the Shins. There's nothing special about the Shins, but they still stand out from the crowd. James Mercer's pothead pretensions have worn really thin, but not enough to obscure the great melodies and vibrant arrangements and production. I love the Shins, but I don't really know why any more. Best part: the rhythm of the muted guitar strings at 1:30 foreshadowing the pickup of the song. Better than a cup of coffee to ease you into the day. "Bunny Ain't No Kind of Rider" by Of Montreal * Another case where feel is what decides what goes on my mix. There's almost no question, even to me, that my other two favorite songs on the Of Montreal record--"Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" and "A Sentence of Sorts in Kongsvinger"--are not just more ridiculously titled, but better constructed songs with a wider appeal.
But this song, in spite of its quirks, is one of the most vivid, playful songs of the year. Almost any snatch of lyric--"I was judging her friend", "you must be aware I'm not alone; I've got a tigress back at home", "the DJ played a dead gem"--has the power to make me smile and give a little jolt of joy. But it's the real hook of the chorus--"I need a lover with soul power, and you ain't got no soul power"--that makes this song. Between the chanks of guitar and the casual melody, that phrase would almost always be in my head for a good part of this year and always had the power to lift my spirits. "For Reverend Green" by Animal Collective There's scenarios when your back is being scratched really hard. Not enough to draw blood, but hard enough so that it hurts but still feels fantastic. That's what the screams in this song do to me. They're painful, but just enough so that I get a small surge of adrenaline each time they sound out and shoot down my spine. That they're happening during a crack construction of a pop song is icing. Best part: in case you didn't catch it above, Screams are the new Melody.
"Muscle 'n' Flo" by Menomena * A surefire way to get a song to take up residence in heads is to associate it with a common phrase or action. It's usually the tactic of crap pop songs (see: "Some Guys Have All the Luck", "Simply The Best"), but every now and then, a song keeps working its way back into your head and you're glad to have it there. It's like a casual friend that you keep running into by sheer chance, and because you do, you end up becoming really close.
So it was with this song. I didn't listen much to the Menomena album at first, but the first track on the album kept working it's way back into my head with it's day-in-day-out motif: "Oh, in the morning, I stumble my way towards the mirror..." And so the many times that I thought of this song as I stumbled my way in the morning towards the mirror put it in my mind and pushed me to listen again, and I discovered that it wasn't just a good song; it was an amazing song. The agitated drums matched the weary anger of the vocals, entire measures of cymbal crashes gives the song simultaneous tension and release, and this song became a standout example of how music that was both searching and sincere in a year that was full of songs like that. All because I couldn't stop thinking of it because I couldn't stop thinking of it. Best part: The hushed bridge comes as a surprise from the clatter of the rest of the song, and the sparkling peak of it--the rise of force at "come lay down your head upon my chest"--is a revelation every time.
"Go Places" by the New Pornographers There were two camps on the new New Pornos record: the people who thought it was a great step forward and those of us who were underwhelmed. I was in the latter camp. I thought some of the songs were fine, but the production ambition was a little undercooked and AC Newman's tendency towards ridiculous phrase repetition turned me off of otherwise-great songs like "My Rights Vs. Yours".
But the evidence presented in a beautiful melody and brilliant lyric can sway me as a judge, and this song kept me swaying for a good part of the year. There's few more cleverly romantic phrases than "stay with me, go places". Best part: When the chorus comes in at 1:20, the beauty of the melody just seems impossible. I still can't believe that it's as pretty as it is, and I keep waiting for the shine to wear off. It never does.
"I Started A Joke" by the Lucksmiths The self-pity of the Bee Gees' original turns into a cozy, sweet self-deprecation in the hands of the Lucksmiths, highlighting an amazing vocal performance and reminding me that I'm totally gay for Tali White's voice. Best part: the swaying, carefree singing at "I finally died" betrays that the Lucksmiths are playing the song, not the sentiment. A gorgeous version from beginning to end.
"Bro's" by Panda Bear Sounds perfect as the soundtrack to falling snow. Is an incredible mix of clutter and expanse. Is a perfect combination of wild experiment and simple, familiar beauty. Is amazing. Best part: At 2:12, when the already-gorgeous third melody gets a harmony and becomes better than just about anything in the world.
"The Pills Won't Help You Now" by the Chemical Brothers featuring Midlake * Every year, when I start cobbling my year-end mix together, there's always at least one surprise, one song that had never gone beyond simple like until it came time to review everything I'd been listening to, and only then do I find out just how fantastic it is. This is that song this year. I marked this song as the one song I'd enjoyed off the new Chemical Brothers album, only to come fully come to appreciate it's propulsive prettiness in the last few weeks. A true sleeper. Best part: when the quickened beat meets the main synth riff meets the chorus meets the atmospherics at 2:15.
"All I Need" by Radiohead I almost lost friends over Kid A. I've learned to like it, but the aggravation that it gave me then is still a slight irritation now: the feeling that almost every step Radiohead takes on that album (and often since) is a deliberate move to keep from sounding pretty or emotional. A case can be made that it's an artistic choice to create a claustrophobic and desperate sound, and it accomplishes that, but it always sounds to me like they're choking back their natural inclinations (and talents) for soaring, soulful songs.
The first time I heard "All I Need", I thought, "Now this is the Radiohead that I signed up for." Even the warping of the piano and distortion of the vocal crescendo can't cover up that this is a simple, beautiful, emotional song. For a few minutes, they're back to being the Radiohead that apparently only I favor. Best part: when Thom Yorke finally--finally--opens up again at the vocal climax at the end. Where ya been, Thom?
"Archangel" by Burial * The British have become masters of creating new kinds of music and then immediately killing it off. Especially in the electronic world of the last 10-15 years, variations on beats and sounds popped up only to be declared dead before they could ever get fully developed. The name of the style gets changed and the sound gets tweaked and everyone starts over again.
It'll be interesting to see what happens to so-crowned dubstep in the wake of the hype that Burial's been getting. Untrue is an incredibly mature-sounding record that seems to finally fully cook a lot of the half-baked ideas that have floated around since jungle became drum 'n' bass in the mid '90's. I say this a definite outsider to the English electronic world, but "Archangel", with it's twisting vocal sample and logical approach to the frantic dubstep rhythm is the first song of its kind that I've wanted to listen to more than once in a long, long time. Best part: the pop approach of the chorus vocals; to add in the "tell me how..." bit (1:11) only at the second time through that vocal part. "Bamboo Banga" by M.I.A. Simultaneously sleeker and dirtier than "Galang", this song is still a party-starter, with its backing chants and a groove built around a South Asian pop sample. I'm not sure what a "Bamboo Banga" actually it, but from the sound of it, it's something fun. Best part: the globetrotting and great rhythm of "Somalia, Angola, Ghana Ghana Ghana; India, Sri Lanka, Burma, bamboo banga".
"Mistaken For Strangers" by the National The Sum Has Nothing To Do With Its Parts #2: The National start with bizarrely-melodramatic vocals dynamic-less, thudding instrumentation and end up with songs whose simple hooks end up so deep in you that you stop noticing the flaws, and even start loving them. Best part: From the Morrissey school of "one note with a rhythmic lyric and a nice chord change underneath is enough for an irresistibly catchy chorus".
"That Summer, At Home, I Had Become The Invisible Boy" by the Twilight Sad An important lesson that I took from 2007 that I hope I remember but will undoubtedly forget is that I'm not as in control of my emotions as I think I am, and at a point this past summer, I found myself getting worked up and brought down by things that things that I'm now embarrassed to have not been able to shake off. But there was a bright side to that period: things had gotten dark enough that even the P!O!P! couldn't pull me back into the sunshine, and I just wanted something that sounded like my mood. This song was it; perfectly, completely it. It's a fantastic song well beyond its sorrowful feel, but I'm not sure I ever would have dug it out if I hadn't been in a place that this tune was so suited to. Best part: It's always a little disappointing when the climax of a song comes too early, but at 1:53--"and with a broken heart"--the song's feel is totally realized and is almost too much to bear. The Scottish accent doesn't hurt. "In Our Bedroom After the War" by Stars The Sum Has Nothing To Do With Its Parts #3: Stars start with pretentious, fey vocals and lyrics and overwrought instrumentation and end up with songs whose beautiful melodies and irresistible climaxes end up so deep in you that you stop noticing the flaws, and even start loving them. Best part: At 4:20, the swelling violins and drawn out vocals of "war" is proof that Stars can create beautiful moments from forced drama better than anyone else.
"Butterfly Nets" by Bishop Allen * It must be tiring to be a fashionable taste. You're in a heavily written-about indie rock band from New York, written about on every worthy indie music blog and Pitchfork. It's an enviable perch, but it's a precarious one, too; one where you could be dumped off into the pit of uncool with the slightest of "wrong" moves.
So sometimes you must think, "You know what? Fuck you, indie world of cool. I'm going to write a cute song that sounds like it would end up on a 'Songs That We Fell In Love To' wedding mix CD and dive into that pit before I can be pushed off, washing the hip off myself."
Which, of course, is cooler than just about anything else.
Bonus Track If I was really being honest with myself about the songs that made up my year, I'd have to throw in some business socks from everyone's favorite novelty hitmakers from New Zealand:
Happy new year, everyone! Thanks for reading, and if you want to go off on 2007 tracks--your favorites, least favorites, life-changers or just a song that'll always say 2007 to you--you know I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
My list of my favorite albums of the year has turned more into a rumination of the state and future of the album as an art. Will the album stick around? Will it morph into something else? Will it vanish altogether? Will the hundreds of CDs that still line my walls finally rise up in rebellion of their poverty of play and smother me in my sleep? It all remains to be seen. But there's one interesting fact:
In 2007, I bought only one (1) compact disc. In the entire calendar year.
If I could go back in time and tell that to my college self, my college self would probably just collapse into a fetal position and start sobbing, assuming the worst: that I'd become a boring grownup who stops searching out new tunes and there was no point in carrying on. Then I would tell college Reid that many people in the distant future of 2007 discovered new music through TV commercials and watch him cry even harder. I could probably clear things up pretty quickly with a few easy clarifications, but I kind of like the idea of making college Reid squirm some. Trust me: he deserves it.
But while I still really like the album as an art form, and don't think that bundles of music—in whatever form they may take—are going anywhere anytime soon, I took most of my favorite albums in pieces much more often than as wholes. I look at the album covers and think how much I love them, but for the most part, at least half of the album was lost in my preference to pick and choose. I was still exposed to them thanks to my ridiculously convoluted "radio" playlist, but the tracks that never grabbed me eventually got left behind, whereas, in the days of CDs in my car, I would give full albums more of a chance. It's a shame, but it's also incredibly convenient. Guess which wins out?
And speaking of convenience, here's the year in music summed up in a word: fantastic. The mix this year could be my favorite ever. But that's next week. This week is for albums.
1. LCD Soundsystem, Sound of Silver
You may come to this page for a number of reasons. You may come here for the music. You may come to be subtly insulted. You may come here for updates on my life (and will always come away disappointed). You may come here for the typos. You almost certainly come here out of some odd form of masochism.
But you do not come to this site to be surprised about what my favorite album of the year is.
It's worth repeating (for me, anyway) to say that LCD Soundsystem makes perfect music. It's worth saying a million times over that it's music that's as ripe for endless analysis as it is for dumb fun.
But this album made me clutch my heart as well as putting on my thinking cap and dancing shoes because it's a wildly energetic album by a 37-year-old whose humor and self-awareness of his age and place in the world turn an already fantastic album into something exceptional. There's a good amount of musical talent that can spin life truths, but very few tackle aging as beautifully and perfectly as James Murphy does, simultaneously envying and pitying youth:
"Sound of silver, talk to me Makes you want to feel like a teenager Until you remember the feelings of a real-live, emotional teenager Then you think again"
That Murphy is able to confidently spit out lyrics about the unsure feelings of getting older is almost a musical miracle.
It's worth repeating: LCD Soundsystem makes perfect music.
"Someone Great"
"Us v. Them"
2. Spoon, Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
I remember reading a couple of reviews (do NOT make me go back and find the links) that called Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga a "grower". And that blew my mind. It's true that Spoon's song arrangements have gotten increasingly unconventional, but this was one of the most immediate albums I've heard in a very long time. It has a swagger that's hard to find in many albums past the early '80's, and while it may be a little brainy, it's no "grower". It's about as instant as albums get: just add ears. Mine, preferably, because good Lord do I ever love this rekkid.
Also: worst album title ever? It's up there. It definitely wins Best Album With the Worst Name award. Of all time.
"Finer Feelings" (appeared on this site before)
"Black Like Me"
3. Of Montreal, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
It was a quality year for quirk rock. Either that, or I was paying closer attention, because I was suddenly listening to bands I was formerly led to believe by myself that I hated.
But I felt somewhat justified in my old, nearly-baseless dislike of Of Montreal when I went back to the reviews of this record (do NOT make me go back and find the links) after I had grown to love it to find that most of the reviewers made references to this being Of Montreal at their most assured and glam-pop. They have just enough of their former twee and quirk to add some bitterness to the mix, but there's only so much you can do to overcome some of the greatest chorus hooks in recent memory. It's as gleeful a record about personal crises can be, and one of those times when I'm glad I gave in to critical pressure.
"Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse" (appeared on this site before)
"A Sentence Of Sorts In Kongsvinger"
4. Field Music, Tones of Town
As much as I obnoxiously push people to state their reasons for loving something, I do understand that there are those times in life when there's no better explanation for liking something than, "I dunno...it's just good."
This album is just great. The melodies are great, the rhythms are great, the arrangements are great, the harmonies are great. I've listened to Tones of Town tons of times, and there's nothing any more reasoned or deep than that it's just a great, great, great fucking album, okay?
"A House Is Not A Home"
"Working To Work"
5. Panda Bear, Person Pitch
The problem with experimentation is the desire to do something different can really quickly turn gratuitous. Weird for weird's sake. So when something comes along that's both clearly music experiment and has beautiful melodies, it's worthy of all the hype it gets.
An atmospheric pop classic.
"Carrots (edit)"
"Comfy In Nautica"
6. Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha
Sometimes I think that Andrew Bird could give Amy Winehouse a run for her money for the fakey singing crown, but it never sounds anything but glorious, especially on top of songs that get better with every album he puts out. The plucked prettiness of his violin gives his songs a perfect cross between the favored xylophones of the indiepop set with the grit of genuine bluegrass and yet manages to be something far apart from both. He does melodrama without being too dramatic, beauty without being sappy, and odd lyrics that never sound too bizarre. I always was able to enjoy this album in the moment, but I could never stop myself from thinking that Andrew Bird is on a collision course with Everyone's Album Of The Year honors with a future album of his.
"Plasticities"
"Armchairs"
7. Amy Winehouse, Back To Black
I know it doesn't really make sense, but trust me: just because I complain about something up one side and down the other doesn't mean I can't enjoy it. A lot.
So it was with Back To Black. I told just about everyone who would listen that it bugs me that Amy Winehouse does that English thing of putting on a black American soul accent because she's singing soul. And it does bug me. But that doesn't mean she isn't really, really good at it. And that the songs escape the trappings of a bad impersonation through the sincerity of Winehouse's blunt and crass personality (and I mean that in the best possible way).
"Tears Dry On Their Own"
"Back To Black"
8. Animal Collective, Strawberry Jam
Almost everything I said about Of Montreal could be applied here, except for the fact that Animal Collective's lyrics aren't very good, whereas Of Montreal's are pretty fantastic. The hooks are a little more obscured by the gauze of AC's noise, but these are tight, hooky songs.
It's strange that I haven't gotten into them earlier, because in a lot of ways, they're exactly what I've been asking for: catchy melodies delivered in fractured arrangements and creative percussion. I would say I've learned my lesson, but I never have before, so why start now?
"Peacebone"
"Fireworks"
HONORABLE MENTION
The albums below were enjoyed slightly less (only slightly less) than the ones above:
Mark Ronson, Version Albums of covers are rarely classics, but they have as much fun and love in them as Version does. "Just (feat. Phantom Planet)"
M.I.A., Kala Maybe it seems unfair to require this album to be as good as Arular, because not much is as good as Arular, but you know what? Sometimes life is unfair. It's still pretty damn enjoyable, though. "Paper Planes"
Iron & Wine, The Shepherd's Dog If I was going by the albums I enjoyed from beginning to end, this would be up at the top. There were very few songs on this that really stuck out, but it was always a treat to put on and let play. "Flightless Bird, American Mouth"
The comments are now begging for your favorite 2007 music. Begging for it, I tells ya! What'dya like?
Here's a funny story. Seriously, this one is fucking hilarious. Empty your bladder and get out of the library because this one is...
Wait, actually, it's not really that funny.
So I'm poking around in my feed reader the other day—because I have the time for that sort of thing, thankyouverymuch, Pilgrims and Indians—and that awesome Dutch site 3voor12 is telling me that they just posted the new Bonnie "Prince" Billy covers album. Now, I have little-to-no interest in Bonnie "Prince" Billy (though I do love the quote marks), but I'm interested in cover albums, so I clicked on it and listened awhile.
I was surprised. The sound was still dark and hushed, but it was smoother and more melodic than the other stuff I'd heard of his, and the vocals were shared with a sweet-voiced woman who sounded extremely familiar. The second song in particular—which the track listing was telling me was the cover of the Bjork and Thom Yorke song "I've Seen It All", but sounded prettier and with cornier lyrics than I could remember ever coming out of Bjork or Yorke—sounded gorgeous.
I was shocked that this was coming from Billy. Really shocked. So shocked, in fact, that I thought that maybe I'd check to make sure that the 3voor12 luisterpaal was playing me the right album. It wasn't. It was this one:
I'd been duped! I thought I was listening to an album that I'd previously had no interest in, but actually, I was listening to an album that I'd previously had no interest in! And liking it! Those Dutch. They'll always pull one over on ya like that. Right, Jen?
I don't think I ever would have checked out this Plant/Krauss collab, largely because that album cover looks so cheesy. "Where's our album title, Alison? I can't find it, and it should be here because the album is called Raising Sand and here we are in a ton of sand!" "It's just to your right, Robert! You're so tall, you were looking right over it!" "Oh! Ha ha! There it is! Thanks, Alison!"
Turns out T-Bone Burnett has his hands all over this one, which must be why it sounds so great. Take a listen, and enjoy knowing that it is NOT by Bonnie "Prince" Billy.
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, "Killing The Blues"
Today, apparently, is No Music Day, a day whose name also serves as it's instructions: NO MUSIC! All Music's theory is a good one: that it's a way to give ourselves a break from music, make it sound more fresh, and then feast on music the next day.
There's just one little problem for us Americans (which the guy behind No Music Day is not) is that the day before Thanksgiving involves a LOT of travel. So I'm going to try to go musicless, but I'm not sure I'll be able to face the day of trains, buses, planes and cars without music. I'm going to try, but the second I can't get away from the ubiquitous nasally girl on her phone, the ear buds are going in. I'm just sayin' that right now. Getting it out there.
If you've chosen to go music-free today...best of luck to you. You'll need it. Go listen to Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me.
I've never been too into Jens Lekman. He comes across as trying too hard to be treacly; too into his own sensitivity. But sometimes, a cold grey morning comes around, and you're plodding through your morning prep, dreading the work day clock-in (ie, the computer's startup chime), and you're seeing it all through with memories of being be cuddled up with a cute girl in a blue blanket. At those times, Jens Lekman is a divine slice of sugar pop.
Not that I would know anything about it at all, but a popular file-sharing network was shut down last week. Of course, the world record industry chooses to continue to try in vain to shoehorn digital music into their old business model instead of learning a lesson and taking away valuable insight into what these file-sharing networks are telling them about demand.
So here are my suggestions for how the music industry can improve in their digital delivery for people like me (and most of the people I know) who have gone all-digital. Conveniently, this doubles as a list of things that the music industry will never do.
1. Put the albums out AS SOON AS THEY'RE DONE!! I can't web-yell this enough. I know that the delayed releases usually have to do with picking out a marketing-friendly release date, but it's obvious even to the brain-dead (a step up from music industry folks) that so much of the popularity of file-sharing is because music fans are sick of waiting until a precise date before we get to hear it, and if they can't get it through normal channels, they'll look to other places for it. I'm going to use a word I don't often use, but it's too appropriate here: DUH!
A sub-point of this point directed at the online digital music stores like emusic and Amazon: there is NO REASON that you shouldn't have the files available to download at 12:01 AM on the day of its release. Especially you, emusic. It's ridiculous to not find an album on your site until a week or two after it's been released. Ever heard the expression "strike while the iron's hot"? Apparently not.
2. Give users a variety of file types and quality. I'm sure that the (shitty) counter-argument to this would be that the record companies and artists don't want the music so easy to pass around; that if people can get lossless files, it'll just be that much easier to share perfect-quality audio. Well, news flash: the easiest way for a person to make perfect-quality, sharable audio is to buy the CD. In other words, the ability to do that already exists. Go ahead and offer people 192, 256 and FLAC. Hell, you could even charge more while you're at it.
3. Globalize. I know that there's all sorts of wacky, nutty, cuckoo-bananas copyright laws around the world that prevent record companies from spreading their releases over borders without hassle. But logically speaking (which is, of course, the opposite of legally speaking), there's no reason that every album shouldn't be released in every country on the same day. And now that we can go to any website in the world and hear what that country has to offer, it's endless amounts of frustrating that we still have albums being released in the US as long as a year after their home country release. Idiotic.
So of course, the international music industry won't do these things, instead letting the music fans of the world innovate ways to get around whatever barriers they try to put in place. The time when music makers around the world could have created a new business model is running out fast, and soon, record labels and companies will collapse, and it will take another decade or so before someone figures out a way to make recorded music profitable again. In the meantime, music will go local again, and we'll have lots of free music, so really, we win.
I spent the days leading up to my thirty-sixth birthday with people who were much younger than me, finding myself in the role of old-but-cool guy; the guy who prompts exclamations like, "You'd never guess he was, like, almost forty."
For the most part, spending time with people who are 14-15 years younger than me isn't something I really notice or think about, but there are moments when the age difference is clear. Sometimes, it's a little embarrassing, when the chasm of years suddenly seems very deep, and I realize that it sets me apart; that these people--no matter how much they may like hanging out with me--recognize how I'm different than them and their friends.
But this variety in the people I spend time with shines a light on some of the unfortunate parts of aging and helps me shed some of the things I don't like. Okay, we've slowed down and have earlier bedtimes, and our enthusiasm has waned for things that we never imagined being less passionate about. And this is okay. You change and you adjust. It's just different.
What surprises me, though, is to realize how often I have prejudices born of experience that keeps me from giving things a second chance. My mind's archive plays back the times when I forced myself to do or try something that I wasn't particularly inclined to only to find that my initial hunch had been right. Remember?, it tells me. We tried that and we didn't like it. And so the decision-makers in my brain decide to leave it alone and go back to the old standbys.
So I found myself with my 23-year-old co-worker Dave at BWI airport talking about music. Dave has great tastes and is genuinely enthusiastic for his musical loves, and he mentioned yet again how much he loves Animal Collective. My archive fired up: Remember? We tried Animal Collective and didn't like it. Downloaded the new album and thought it sounded like pretentious noise. Don't bother with it.
I ignored it. I went to some different stacks in the archive and found recent times when encouragement to stick with a band has paid off greatly, like with Joanna Newsom and Of Montreal. I found times in my twenties when exposure, repetition and conversation uncovered things that I could have easily dismissed on first listen. I remembered the risks that I was more prone to in my twenties that gave me some of the favorite sounds in my life.
When I got home from the airport, I put on Strawberry Jam again. My first listen had been months before, but this second listen was revelatory. It's a beautiful noise they're making. Like My Bloody Valentine, the pain of the listen is like scratching an itch unnecessarily hard. It hurts, but it's a relief you've been waiting for. Avey Tare's screams sound both ludicrous and luxurious, sending chills down my spine that are somewhere in between revulsion and joy. I've been listening to it tons in the last week, and I never would have if an airport conversation hadn't reminded me that sometimes the best experience is having been inexperienced.
God, I've been so bored. Being sick sucks anyway, but being in the same apartment for four days without any decent human contact just adds insult to infirmity.
But my best friend in the whole world was there for me, as he always is. TV, you never let me down. Here's what me and TV talked about over the last four days.
Pan's Labyrinth ...which I can now put just behind the The Sweet Hereafter and Dead Man Walking on my list of Movies That I Loved But Never Want To Watch Again. I'm not ashamed to admit that, after about the first 15 minutes, I had to turn the lights back on. I would say that it's a triumph to create a human character so evil that even the most grotesque fantasy creature couldn't come close to his scariness, but then again: X ALMIGHTY DID YOU SEE THAT DUDE WITH EYES IN HIS HANDS?!! Nightmare city.
This Is England A fantastic movie whose incredible acting was only outdone by the soundtrack selections. This song should be part of everyone's collection, which I say because it's now part of mine:
Toots and the Maytals, "54-46 Was My Number"
Football There were some great games on this weekend. Thanks, TV! You always know how to cheer me up when I'm sick. TV and I noticed that, once again, it seems like ownership trumps talent in the NFL. It doesn't matter what kind of talent the Saints and Bengals put on their teams: ultimately, they're the Saints and the Bengals, and that beats out any amount of Bushes, Palmers or Johnsons. Hmmm...that last bit sounds like the punchline to a stupid dirty joke. Sorry.
Shot at Love with Tila Tequila I usually consider myself pretty channel-blind when it comes to my TV surfing. Whatever looks interesting, I'll watch, but I rarely pay attention to which of the hundreds of cable channels I'm watching.
But I can usually tell when I've come across MTV when all of the people on my screen seem borderline retarded. Seriously: in the '80's, I was one of the worst students in my school, barely scraping by and making terrible grades. But if I was 15 years old now, I would guess I'd be the smartest kid in class, getting A's from frustrated teachers only because I know how to spell "you're" instead of "ur".
So I turned on Shot At Love for a trainwreck, and I got it. But while I question the "reality" of this show, it's actually a pretty interesting concept: contestants vie for the affections of the hostess, but the hostess is bisexual, so it's a house full of vacuous men and stripper lesbians¹ (a third, less-known category of lesbian). I really wish I could trust the sincerity of the contestants and the hostess (who I believe is looking for "love" as much as Brett Michaels is), because it's a kind of fascinating psychological study in gender and sexuality.
But from the "scenes from the season" shown at the end of the episode, it pretty much looks like they're all idiots, so "fascinating" is probably far, FAR down the list of adjectives that anyone would use to describe this show.
¹ These two words are going to bring a lot of unwanted search engine traffic my way. Sorry to disappoint you, boys.
Check in: who bought the Radiohead album and what (if anything) did you pay for it? Switch tense to future if you haven't yet but will.
And for those of you who did buy it and listened: first-impression reviews? I'll have my review tomorrow, but on first listen, I like In Rainbows a lot. Definitely at least a step or two up from Hail To The Thief, though it does keep in the grand Radiohead tradition of shitty album titles.
Radiohead, "All I Need"
I will say that I was pretty disappointed by "the catch"—that the mp3s were only 160 kbps. It basically makes a statement that this release is a preview only; that it's more for plugging the leaks than a proper release. But I still liked what they're doing, so I put down £10 (which is just over $20) and figured I'll get a high quality version when someone posts it in December.
Something that seems to be lost in the talk of the business model is another way this is totally revolutionary: it's the very first time an anticipated release has come out digitally without any advance copies. That is, it's the first time in the digital era that everyone gets the album on the same day; the equivalent of the midnight release of the CD era.
I'm not sure how I feel about it. When I got the email this morning with download instructions, it felt as though there was a massive missing piece; that it wasn't nearly as exciting as buying the CD with your friends around. Yes, it was more efficient and faster, and I could start it up over morning tea and know that I was getting it at the same moment as everyone else, but...there was a coldness to it. It's like that bit in Robocop where Robocop stop an attempted rape with some precision robotic shooting, but then is incapable of consoling the victim. Okay, maybe it's nothing like that, but I think I've made my point.
A work task last week took me YouTube, where I found out that I didn't have a username yet. "No problem," I thought as I always do when prompted to create a username. "areseven is never taken." Only this time, it was. Some guy in Turkey. I was devastated. What could "areseven" possibly mean to this guy?! Doesn't he know that it's been part of my life for 20 years? Didn't he research and find that I had the areseven.com domain and areseven@ all of the major email providers?! Apparently not.
Then it realized that, not only does this YouTube owner not realize these things, you, my readers may not know it. So here, after four years of blogging, settle in for the unnecessarily long story of the origin of Are Seven:
It begins in Houston, where everything is both exactly like and nothing like it's Texan stereotypes. Football's a big deal. It's hot. It's boring. You can only get around in a car. People say "y'all", but there's not much in the way of accents. Boys wear cowboy boots and jeans with tuxedo jackets and cummerbunds to the formals (aka, "The Texas Tux"). It's an unfortunate place, I never liked it, and now I'm cursed to care about a town I hate.
The high school's architecture was made for warm weather: mostly open with a big courtyard and lots of steel and plexiglass. It was also clearly made in the '60's. It had seven wings of classrooms, which were differentiated by color: blue, orange, green, aqua (where the tough kids went outside to smoke), and red. The classrooms then had numbers with a letter to designate the color of the wing: B-9, O-14, G-17, etc. It sounded like a game of Battleship.
I had almost no friends or social life to speak of through most of high school (I know everyone says this, but I really didn't), until I started doing journalism in my junior year. Extracurricular activities were a big deal (and extremely competitive) at this high school, and the yearbook and newspaper staffs had pretty close-knit communities. It was starting my junior year and into my senior year when I made my first group of close friends in high school. We spent many late-night hours in the classroom that was the journalism headquarters: red wing, room seven. R-7, one of the few numbers in the school that carried a weight of meaning.
A year after I graduated, a line in a Michelle Shocked song—"Texas always seemed so big, but you know you're in the largest state in the Union when you're anchored down in Anchorage"—took on personal meaning when I moved with my parents to Alaska, taking a year off before I went back to college. It was an intentionally lonely year for me, marked by a switch of musical interests from drums to songwriting. I bought two guitars, a bass, and a 4-track and took to writing and recording in my bedroom.
My first stabs at songwriting had lyrics and virtually no understanding of song structure. They were terrible songs. But luckily, this was a time when I became strangely fascinated with surf instrumentals, and I abandoned attempts to write lyrics and just stuck to the sounds, and it started sounding pretty good.
The songs I was constructing started forming into a project: I would write an instrumental for each of the friends I had left back in Houston, giving it a sound that I thought suited the person and then an in-joke title. I finished the songs, mocked up a cover for this "band" called The Mome Raths, after my favorite part in Alice in Wonderland, and copied tapes to send to these friends, none of whom would know about the project until the tape arrived in the mail.
It's kind of amazing to think that, in this grand execution of the album, I almost forgot an important piece: the record label. In one final in-joke, I took a cue from the fact that almost all the friends this tape was going to I had known from the journalism staff, and I decided to nod to the room where we spent so much time. But I spelled it out: Are Seven. In spite of its now-blush-worthy immaturity and clueless recording, that tape was one of the proudest achievements of my life, and the name Are Seven gained an even greater meaning in my life.
The Mome Raths, "The Penguin Spy Theme"
Years passed and I found myself in college and in a real band, with actual other human beings. We called ourselves Touk, and we loved us, which, in retrospect, was both justified and ridiculous. We wanted to conquer the world, and didn't quite understand why it didn't happen. Turns out we made a lot of mistakes, but I'm glad that we gave it a try, and I'm glad that on our releases (an EP cassette, a full-length CD and a 7" single), we attached the Are Seven record label on those self-released tunes.
Touk, "Ten Overrun"
The Touk days changed the way I thought of Are Seven: it turned from a respectful nod to my old high school friends to a goal of my own record label. Laziness and cluelessness kept me from ever making this reality, though, which you may have guessed, since it's fairly well known that, among the many things that I am, one thing I am not is the proprietor of a record label.
The rise of the internet brought on a need for usernames and email addresses, but it was an embarrassingly long time before I realized I could use areseven. But it was perfect once I stumbled on it. It was a pseudonym that I could use almost anywhere, since it was never taken.
