Zookeeper - Becoming All Things (Belle City Pop, 2007)

My wife said it best that if Christopher Simpson pooped in a paper bag and set it on fire on our doorstep, I would call it genius (and be all giddy about the fact he knows where we live). He can do no wrong in my book, and that's usually because he keeps me interested and seems to go through life at the same pace that I am. Mineral was a huge influence when I was in my "the world is crashing down" phase (ok ok, it was my emo phase). When my tastes started maturing and I was realizing the world around me, he was there with me in The Gloria Record. And now that I've started to take life less seriously (or at least try to...) he is Zookeeper (the picture of Simpson on the album cover with a sack on his head says it all really). While Mineral and TGR were full of design, emotional expense and vulnerability, Zookeeper loosens up quite a bit and allows for all kinds of ingredients to be thrown in the pot. Zookeeper really is the most perfect name for this new venture as all the animals at the zoo, er, more like all his musically capable friends, take part. And there doesn't seem to be too much dictation or direction from Simpson, just a basic framework to build upon by whoever wants to take part. A community of musicians-on-the-side seems like such a cool concept to me. 

Becoming All Things, the first Zookeeper full length, swings in a few directions at different points. It's not a single theme kind-of-album, but sort of leaps and hops around a bit, which I dig, of course. The bombastic Snow in Berlin and Ballad of My Friends kick oh so well, while Boy & the Street Choir and On High are whispers where you need whispers. About half of the songs on this album had been made available on Zookeeper's MySpace page for a while, so I had already heard them in heavy rotation, and was a little worried I wouldn't get the full effect. One song turned this around for me and that was the brilliance of the title track, Becoming All Things. The way it built and spun and, well, became all the things I wanted to hear, made me realize that while the structures and environments Simpson works within might have changed, there are consistent themes that still feel like home to me. I anxiously await what's next.

Here's a clip from their last tour featuring an unreleased track that's been in my head since the show. "I want to be the kid whose not. Congratulate the kid whose not."

Jellyfish - Split Milk (Charisma Records, 1993)

My two older brothers and I had been building it up for weeks. We had tickets to the Jellyfish and Dada show at Six Flags and were preparing with a constant rotation of their albums - it was going to be a huge sing along rock opera for the decades. Sadly, rain cancelled the outdoor show and disappointment settled in and I don't think it ever left. I must have been only 13 or 14 years old and this concert, of contemporary bands that I loved, was supposed to be a significant event in my life (technically seeing Heart and the Oak Ridge Boys with my family were my first true concerts, but choosing to see a band is a completely different event).

I was too young to appreciate a band like Queen, but I think the Jellyfish guys took a note or two from them with a pop twist to it. I loved the stories, the theatrics and how they still found room to rock it significantly. Records like Spilt Milk were made by heavily talented musicians who were largely appreciated in the mainstream. Doesn't seem to hold true these days. Classics include New Mistake, The Ghost of Number One and Joining a Fan Club.  

  

Brak presents - The Brak Album, starring Brak (Rhino, 2000)

I absolutely take things way too seriously. It's something that probably won't ever change, especially with the type of music I am constantly drawn to. A friend gave me The Brak Album in 2000 partly because I was a big fan of Space Ghost Coast to Coast (SGC2C), but probably more because I needed to lighten up a bit - it was, and still is, just what the doctor ordered when I haven't smiled or laughed in a while. 

If you have never watched Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, you are either a) not a nerd and/or b) had reasons not to be home watching cartoons late at night. SGC2C was comic brilliance to me, taking old Hanna Barbara animated characters, recreating them from the old footage, and pitting them against each other in a talk show format where they hate each other, yet sing so sweetly together. The end result was hilarity of the most stupidest sort, but never left me without milk shooting out my nose. SGC2C was the first of its kind and eventually Cartoon Network made spin offs and similarly designed shows, like Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law, and, of course, The Brak Show.


A few songs from The Brak Album and a clip from the show I love. 

"Soup on a Stick" from The Brak Album  

"I Like Hubcaps" from The Brak Album

Learning to Talk Italian from SGC2C

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