Paul Westerberg - Stereo/Mono (Vagrant, 2002)

I just about peed my pants when I found out there were two cds in the case. I had been listening to, and absolutely loving, Paul Westerberg's Stereo for weeks until one day when I noticed the back panel had a slight opening that I hadn't seen before. Out pops another cd labeled Grandpaboy - Mono. It was a whole other album that kicked me even harder than the first. It was like a Double Rainbow all the way!

Westerberg also did me the favor of writing the perfect explanation of each disc:

Stereo - What we have here are songs written and recorded at home over a two-year period that followed a much longer period of performing, traveling, and explaining. Cut mostly live in the middle of the night, no effort was made to fix what some may deem as mistakes; tapes running out, fluffed lyrics, flat notes, extraneous noises, etc. Many were written (or born if you will) as the tape rolled.

Unprofessional? Perhaps. Real? Unquestionably.

Mono - This is rock'n'roll recorded poorly, played in a hurry, with sweaty hands and unsure reason. 

How it sounds

What it says

Who played what

Is irrelevant

It feels right

This is my blood.

There is no denying Westerberg's way with words. It was so refreshing to hear a rock record (two actually) that knew a thing or two about what makes a raw song good. Thank you Paul Westerberg, for so many reasons. Some of my favorites:

Off Stereo: Let the bad times roll, Only lie worth telling, We may be the ones,

Off Mono: Silent film star, 2 days 'til tomorrow, Kickin' the stall

Dashboard Confessional - The places you have come to fear the most (Vagrant, 2001)

Ungh, this record is hard to listen to again. It's a complete throwback to times where it felt better to "hear the saddest songs and sit alone and wonder...cuddling close to blankets and sheets." At the time, nothing was better as Christopher Carrabba seemed to be singing directly to me and, honestly, nothing sounded like this that I had heard. It was this horribly guilty pleasure that I would turn down while driving when pulling up at stop lights, but then turn way up after it turned green again (you know what I'm talking about, don't you, whoever you are out there). 

Despite the painful tales of heartache and putting fists through walls over a girl (I swear I almost didn't make it through Bitter Pill without ejecting the cd, but kept it in for the integrity of the Textbook Committee-so far no broken rules), there were a lot of positives on this record. "The places you have come to fear the most" was where I learned what Drop D guitar tuning was and how it could be poured on in the thickest possible way (a tactic I would steal). It was on Vagrant records, a favorite of mine and one that I was a Street Teamer for, so I got free promo copies and tons of posters, stickers and buttons to take to record stores and give out to friends. I found out that Dan Hoerner, from Sunny Day Real Estate (true Godfathers to most of the music I loved then and now), hopped on the DC tour as an additional guitarist adding an instant boost of credibility. Lastly, the whole album clocks in just under 30 minutes, so its over before you know it, quick like a band aid. 

I know I sound like I'm hating on this record, but to me it's a one-of-a-kind record and is actually brilliant in a lot of ways. It just reminds me of a time and a feeling that doesn't need to be relived. I don't own any other DC albums, if that tells you anything. 

A few songs you should hear:

The Good Fight

Standard Lines

Again I Go Unnoticed

Iron & Wine - Woman King / Pavement - Terror Twilight / Jimmy Eat World - Clarity

Each of these cds represent bands that have stories to me but this particular release just isn't the one I want to talk about. Nevertheless, they have been in my "write about this" pile for a few weeks. So I will at least give a nod to a few of the songs I dig on these records. Nothing fancy. 

Iron & Wine - Woman King (Sub Pop, 2005)

An EP from Samuel Beam's Iron & Wine. Apparently every song features a spiritual female figure with biblical undertones (thanks wikipedia).

Jezebel 

My Lady's House

Pavement - Terror Twilight (Matador, 1999)

A goodbye record of sorts. You can hear it in a lot of the tracks on Terror Twilight. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when Malkmus and the boys dreamed up their music videos. Like when kids get hold of their parents camcorder.  

Spit on a Stranger

Major Leagues

Carrot Rope

 

Jimmy Eat World - Clarity (Capitol, 1999)

Second full length from JEW, still produced by Mark Trombino. A definite maturity from their first release, but not one I'm sure I liked right away. I do remember driving south from Denver with this record turned way up.

Lucky Denver Mint (the knock at the ultimate frisbee geeks is both sad and funny to me)

For me this is Heaven

Ryan Adams - Heartbreaker (Bloodshot, 2000)

Where do you start with a record this solid? The best I can do is tell my story and how Heartbreaker fits in. I don't care what you think of Ryan Adams or what you have heard of his drunken asshole antics. It's a record like Heartbreaker that really makes that stuff orbiting the music not matter a bit to me. His arrogance even sort of comes across in the intro to the first track where Adams argues with David Rawlings about whether a track is on Bona Drag or Viva Hate or both. All ends well with a joke about having a mouth full of cookies and then counting in, with a "one, two, one, wee-hoo," to the opening track,  "To be young (is to be sad, is to be high)," thus thrusting you into a roadtrip across the south, into the bar fights, bouts with cocaine, and friends who stole your records, that this whole album takes you down. 

I was a big fan of Whiskeytown already but will save those stories for when I get to Stranger's Almanac. I had this impression that Adams had too much talent and an ever-inflating ego to be "held down" by the compromise it takes when you creatively conspire with others in a band. It was obvious on Heartbreaker how much Adams had in his bag-o-tricks and how wide his catalog could be. Every song was a slightly different version of his voice than the one before. He always had a way with mixing, skipping or inserting words and singing them in a rhythm that make sense only to him and only fit with his song ("I'm as calm as a fruit stand in NY and maybe as strange"). Accompanied by, the icon, Emmy Lou Harris on Oh My Sweet Carolina is beyond what I thought beautiful music could be. The middle of the record is paired well with rain crashing down outside, with tracks like Bartering Lines, Call Me On Your Way Back Home, Damn Sam... and Come Pick Me Up (usually my favorite track, depending on my mood) will get you throwing bottles against the wall, singing along and dancing around the room... it always makes me at least.

"Well, the pills I got they ask me let's go out for a while, and the knives up in the kitchen, are all too dull to smile, and the sun tries to warn me, boy those wings are made of wax, while the things I do to kill me, they just tell me to relax." To Be The One

"Bought a borrowed suit and learned to dance, and I was spending money like the way it likes to rain." Oh My Sweet Carolina

Peter Murphy - Deep (Beggars Banquet, 1989)

I owe a lot of my early musical influences to my two older brothers. One of the first artists that I remember we all dug was Peter Murphy. I guess I sort of did it backwards, not knowing who Bauhaus was until after I knew of Peter Murphy, but I was also 11 years old. My musical maturity and knowledge of relevant and influential 80's bands, although off to an earlier start than most, was still a ways off.

Revisiting Deep makes me realize how ahead of the times Murphy was, almost pulling what would be the next sound to him instead of waiting for the 90's to start. The whole album is filled with radio ready tracks and I think most of them made it to the airwaves at some point. Cuts You Up might be the one you recognize and stands to be the most finished in my ears among some very well crafted songs. Crystal Wrists is a song that seems to have influenced a lot of the early 90's stuff I would get into.


The liner notes leave a lot to be desired but get right to the point - pictures of the backing band (the hundred men), song titles, black typed lyrics on a white background, credits and that's it. Not even a Thanks to anyone... it was all business I guess at that point. I do like the image of Murphy both on the cover and on the cd itself stretching, contorting and bowing in all black. I distinctly remember walking to the Richardson Blockbuster Music at Plano and Spring Valley and asking the store manager if anyone had claimed the promotional poster they had of this album in the window, but was too late. I heard Murphy was a beanpole in real life which made you wonder where his deeeeep voice came from.

"I twist a shade to my right and spit at beezlebug on sight and go on loving all I see for here I live on patiently." Crystal Wrists

Guided by Voices - Bee Thousand (Scat/Matador, 1994)

I used to tape the Adventure Club on Sunday nights and then listen to the show over and over during the next week looking for songs that would stick. I Am a Scientist was my honest introduction to GbV when I heard it on the Adventure Club (thanks Kevin) and it absolutely stuck. In fact, it was probably the strongest a song had hit me since I started seeking out new music. I went out and found that GbV had a lot more records than I was prepared for, but found which one had this track and bought it. I'll admit, I listened to the first few tracks, scratched my head a little, and then skipped to track 18 to hear the track that got me hooked and was initially disappointed. The version of I Am a Scientist I heard on the radio, as I would later find out, was a rocked out version released as an EP later and the one on the album was, well, a lot more subdued. What happened next was a true leap of faith that would change the way I would learn to love and accept different music. I started back from the beginning and concentrated, for once, on what was pouring out of the speakers and started to discover an ear I didn't have before.

Bee Thousand represents a marked transition where I started to try harder and find the big rewards that seem sometimes hidden. Song after song, I found sparks of genius and inspiration too many to list here as I would undoubtedly leave many out. I found something in EVERY song and usually they centered around the strength of Robert Pollard's anthemic lyrics. Later, I would realize the second chapter to each of these songs when blasted live - I swear not much compares to live GbV (check out the classic lineup reunion tour news here). The handmade feel of the liner notes made it obvious that Pollard and the golden boys had their hands in the artwork too. This is not the 33 1/3 review (which you should check out to hear what someone who can actually write and loves this album has to say about it) of Bee Thousand, so I will force some of the best from this record on you although it's brilliant in it's entirety.  

Buzzards and Dreadful Crows, Echos Myron, Awful Bliss, Smothered in Hugs, Gold Star for Robot Boy, Mincer Ray, Peep Hole, The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory

"and he tells you of the dreamers, but he's cracked up like the road, and he'd like to lift us up, but we're a very heavy load, and we're finally here and shit yeah, its cool, and shouldn't it be, or something like that" - Echos Myron

Lotion - Nobody's Cool (spinART, 1995)

I am a self-admitted music snob. It is very hard for me to accept suggestions from other people, that is, unless they have a similar foundation of what I feel is truly brilliant music. Lotion was a band that was introduced to me by an unlikely friend after we realized that strong foundation existed. On the swim team we named him Pigpen (dirt clouds followed him) and he decided the school we were at was not the school for him anymore, and he went back to NY. Lucky for me, we had long enough to learn we each loved bands like Guided by Voices, the Promise Ring and Christie Front Drive but also that the New York local scene was where he grew up... cool. He let me borrow Lotion's Telephone Album and the Tear EP, to which I urgently found someone with a cd burner to make my own. I knew these guys were legit and began looking for the rest of their catalog right away. 

I found a promo copy of Nobody's Cool for $8 at the only good record store in Colorado Springs - Toons. As a NY band on spinART, I guessed that they had paid their dues, but also somehow felt like they made music for no one else but themselves, secretly letting us share in the rock. An added bonus, Pigpen made me a copy of a GbV tribute album where Lotion contributed a cover of their Quality of Armor...double cool. Swap out the liner notes for a review by Thomas Pynchon, an apparently well known NY fiction writer (thanks wikipedia, I should read more) and the answer isn't Nobody's Cool, but rather Lotion's Cool.

Nobody's Cool came out in what I consider the golden years of 1995-1996 when not only the most shaping music in my life was coming out but also marked my senior year in high school. Although I didn't get this record until closer to 2000, it took me back (and still does) to 1995 in the way it sounded and how I imagined Lotion being part of their own spinster NY scene. Nobody's Cool starts with a kick on Dear Sir, rarely drags on, even on the slower numbers like The Sad Part, and keeps you interested with side two kickers like Sandra, Juggernaut and, a radio show favorite of mine, Dalmacia 007.

"when will this be over, I can't stop wondering" - Dalmacia 007

Pinback - Blue Screen Life (Ace Fu, 2001)

So far, this record represents the biggest "oh yeah!" (more of the forehead smacking than Kool-aid man version) moment of this project. Neglected is a better word than forgotten for Pinback's Blue Screen Life when I consider how often I scroll past this band and this record on my iPod. Pinback was a recommendation from my music shaman, Andy, as a "must check out." It got to the point where once or twice a year, when we met up in Dallas, Andy and I would spend about five minutes catching up on life, and then spend the next twenty asking "have you heard so and so" and "oh, dude, you need to hear this band." Invariably he would list about twenty, I would remember about ten, all of which I would love. For every five albums he gets me into, I maybe have one that I introduced to him, and maybe he liked it. Over the years, I have learned a few of his secret resources just enough to feel like I can keep up.

Many things make Blue Screen Life a truly complete record that can stand alone from start to finish. But the biggest reason it's cool to me is the fact that it's two guys writing, playing and recording in "zach's living room, rob's bedroom, donny's garage and tom's garage." I broke my rules and listened to this record a few times and kept discovering things I hadn't heard before. Penelope, Seville and Prog are tracks that grabs you in the first 10 seconds, but there are plenty of others that take patience before you start to realize their beauty, like Boo, Your Sickness and Tres. I actually never knew the words Prog until digging into the liner notes, but its not one that you have to know the words to love it. No offense to the lyrics, which I already forgot, its just that the music has all the legs this songs needs to stand up big among some of my favorites.

"anything I say to you is gonna come out wrong anyway" - Concrete Sounds

Wally Pleasant - Houses of the Holy Moly (Miranda, 1994)

Proof that music can be, and should be, more fun, Wally Pleasant adds some humor to the catalog with Houses of the Holy Moly. I'll admit that I thought he was from Dallas until just now when I actually read the liner notes and realized he is from, and still performs in, East Lansing, Michigan - who knew? I only saw him live once at a Barnes and Noble in Ft. Worth and Josh and Kevin played Alternateen (linked here) regularly on the Adventure Club (including a hilarious local promo spot by Wally for the show), so I can see how I would make that assumption. Alternateen was my introduction to Wally and what made me become an instant fan after hearing the first 30 seconds of the song, maybe because, well, I was sort of who he was poking fun at. There's a part of me that believes he was too which makes me feel better. Every one of these songs on Houses of the Holy Moly is clever and classic in it's own right (Mr. Pleasant even helps you record a new answering machine message at the end). The titles alone will bring a smirk to your cheeks, among them Post Graduate Overeducated Out of Work Blues, Dysfunctionally Yours, Toxic Waste Block Party. I will leave you a bonus of multiple lines from a few of my favorite songs on this record.

"The day Kurt Cobain died, we both held each other and cried, but you made me feel a lot better, when you said thank god it wasnt Eddie Vedder" - Alternateen

"I've got nowhere else to go and nothing else to do, except stare at this bright yellow menu, I wish I hadn't ordered that god damn grand slam, Denny's at 4am" - Denny's at 4am 

"Now basically I feel so traumatized about my stupid day job that I'm gonna try and start singing like Morissey now, Stupid day job stupid day job stupid day job aahhh ahhh ahh stupid day job" - Stupid Day Job

Radiohead - The Bends (Capitol, 1995)

I don't plan to do this record justice, it is truly timeless. The Bends is one of those records that I knew I would come across in this project and not know where to start. So I will just tell you my Radiohead story. Like most of you, I heard Creep on MTV and the radio enough to sing both versions by heart. Bought Pablo Honey after a year or so at a CD warehouse (used cd chain store in Dallas) for a few bucks. Liked Pablo Honey, but didn't dust off a special corner of my tiny cd collection for it. In '95, still glued to MTV (when it was still delivering), I fell in love with Fake Plastic Trees, both the song and the video. My high school budget didnt allow for me to buy every record that I wanted and my instinct told me The Bends would be in heavy rotation so why bother with the record at this point. Impressed with my teenage insight, but sad it happened that way, to be honest. It wasn't until another trip to CD warehouse in '96 that I saw a used copy of The Bends for $9 and picked it up. Funny how my OK Computer experience wasn't much different. I guess it took me a while to take this band seriously just because everyone else was telling me to - I'm just not wired that way.

This is one of the best records of my lifetime and absolutely defined what could happen when a well of unending ambition and talent is tapped. The parts I love stem mostly from the lyrics that all tell stories and paint pictures like music should and in a falsetto that I never appreciated until I tried to sing myself. And a video for every category: Best slow-mo movie magic in Street Spirit (Fade Out), Most clever storyline/cliffhanger, also in slow-mo, in Just,  and the "let's-just-cut-to-the-live-footage" collage
(after all, Thom Yorke and co. in their live form are animated enough) in My Iron Lung.

I am really finding myself lost for words on this record and honestly, you shouldn't need my opinion on The Bends as you probably already know why you need it.

"if i could be who you wanted all the time" - Fake Plastic Trees