Last night, I downloaded the three newest Wilco tunes: “Just A Kid,” from the SpongeBob Squarepants soundtrack, and “Panthers” and “Kicking Television” from their online EP. I even paid for some of them. I’d used the iTunes store before, but never to purchase new material from a band I really like. There was something really fun about it, and it wasn’t just the guilt-free feeling of buying instead of downloading from a p2p network. There was an aethethic legitmacy to the act. I searched for what I wanted, and got it instantly, by itself, without a whole rash of ugly file names that — even if I could successfully download all of them them — might be mislabeled or corrupted anyway. Yes, yes.
“Panthers” and “Kicking Television” are A ghost is born outtakes. Of the three songs, “Panthers” is the first one that jumped out at me. It’s Wilco in quiet mode, all quiet parts flown around the gravitational center of Glenn Kotche’s metronomic tick. In places, it feels elegantly like Hail to the Thief-era Radiohead, stripped of their electronic bells and whistles. Still, I can see why it was an outtake. The song sorta ambles on in the same groove for a bit too long — like a less funky, less interesting version of “Spiders” — and just generally seems to be missing that extra oomph. “Kicking Television,” on the other hand, is perfectly serviceable Wilco punk, sorta in the vein of “I’m A Wheel” and “The Late Greats.” No use in splitting hairs over it, but those had a place on Ghost, and this didn’t. A nice footnote, and probably a good late-set/early encore number.
I think “Spiders” is going to end up being an important touchstone for Wilco, as they become (it seems) more of a band. If they continue on the sparse course they set with Ghost, the stripped Krautrock grooves of “Spiders” might easily become the template for the way Wilco play together. If “Just A Kid” — the first song recorded by the band’s current touring lineup — is any indication, that just might be the case. The song is driven by an insistent tock, established right away. The band never falls below this starting tempo, but accelerate beyond it with riffs and rhythmic inserts, and then fall back perfectly. They groove effortlessly — like a band that has been playing “Spiders” for 15 minutes on stage every night.
“Just A Kid” is a children’s song for adults in the same way as “In My Room,” though more self-aware of that fact. “I don’t wanna go to bed, there’s so much going on in my head,” Jeff Tweedy sings, in a great power pop evocation of childhood (made all the cuter by the fact that his son sings during the song’s bridge). “Everybody’s gotta do something they don’t wanna do,” runs the chorus — innocent advice for kids, weirdly comforting for adults. Most of all, it sounds like a song on the soundtrack to a children’s movie: big hooks, almost syrupy production, and undeniable bounce. It sounds mainstream (which makes it a more legitimate children’s song; what kid in his right mind would be turned on by “Radio Cure” or “Hell Is Chrome”?)
In short: New Wilco songs. Yay.
week of March 19, 2005
#1 this week, #1 last week, 7 weeks on chart
So, there’s all this backstory to 50 Cent and — while I guess I’ve read it through a few times — I don’t instinctively connect it to “Candy Shop.” No matter how much I listen to it, the music that tends to penetrate the Top 10 often sounds positively exotic to my ears. Or at least it does so in this context, sitting at my desk late at night. Hearing pop in public makes perfect sense to me. “How obvious!” I’ll think if I hear one of these tunes coming out of the speakers of a passing car, its sonics blending with the natural audio environment of Brooklyn or Manhattan, circa 2005. But here, in my private space, amidst poctcards and Polaroids tacked to the walls, it feels very foreign.
A history of drugs and violence notwithstanding, the voice that sings “Candy Shop” sounds — to me — either bored or real baked. Either way, I don’t believe it when he intones “so seductive” during the song’s lead-in. (But, then again, I already admitted that I’m basically a tourist, so I’m willing to concede that maybe it’s a part of some local mating ritual.) But, to me, 50 sounds apathetic about the whole process of seduction — possibly even disdainful, if one allows the ominous orchestral loop to be some kind of mirror of the singer’s emotional state. I heard somebody say that this song was tailor-made to be played in strip joints, and I think that about nails it. That is not sex as a treat; this is sex as an inevitability, a reality as desperate and weirded out as other parts of the human psyche.
What makes the song unique — and creepy — is its lack of humor (well underscored by the mechanical deep thump/finger snap groove). It’s not that the lyrics aren’t funny. Because they could be. Sex as candy ain’t exactly a new conceit, but it’s a reliable one. “I’m trying to explain, baby, the best way I can / I melt in your mouth, girl, not in your hand,” 50 sings, and then laughs. It’s a satisfied laugh, not a shared one. The punchline serves nobody but the teller. It’s amazing how much the backing track defines this. It could be remixed into something way happier, but it would likely lose all of its peculiar sexuality.
Pop music is often so positively dumb that surrendering to it becomes a compact between two people dancing with each other, both willing to overlook (or just not care about) how silly it is, such that they might get it on. “Candy Shop” inspires a similar effect, except — instead of its mindlessness — our potential couple must jointly forget about the song’s pimples-and-all pathos. Together. Isn’t that sweet?
It’s been a wooly-ass three weeks, which included (but certainly wasn’t limited to): the meltdown of my computer’s harddrive, the collapse of a proposed trip to the Himalayan foothills to assist a friend in building a recording studio at a monastery, the departure of my roommate of the past three-and-a-half years, the death of Dr. Thompson, the spiffy (albeit messy) construction of ceilings and stairways and bookshelves and such in my loft, the occasional non-delivery of pieces of snail mail I would very much like to receive (new contact lenses, money), the consumption of small chocolate hamburgers from the pan-Asian convenience store on Third Avenue, the unplanned viewing of Wes Anderson’s first three films on consecutive evenings, the discovery of David Byrne’s totally fucking awesome blog/tour journal, an accidental usurpation of this site by the Biscuits Internet Project, a seemingly Kafkaesque pursuit of my missing computer with the folks at TekServe and the eventual resolution of its problems with a simple conclusion (loose wire), the subsequent non-loss of any data whatsoever, and much dancing in victory. So it went. I’m back now. More posts to follow.
1.) Bob Dylan playing five nights at the Beacon Theater in late April with Merle Haggard.
2.) Bollywood For the Skeptical, a well-organized introduction to Indian film music for newbies (like me), complete with an album’s worth of mp3s.
3.) A 3-D flash recreation of PT Barnum’s American Museum, an occasional pet obsession of mine. Filled with mermaid bones, little people (the real Tom Thumb!), and artifacts from around the globe, the Museum — which burned down in 1865, was moved up Broadway, and burned again in 1868 — was a discomforting mix of real specimens and fabrications. The website — which also has a feature where one can try to figure out who set the place ablaze — is a creepy fusion of Myst and history.
(3a.) The previous two links both came via BoingBoing, undoubtedly my favorite blog not written by a roommate.)
4.) Medeski, Martin, and Wood playing what will surely be four weirded-out sets at Tonic on March 7th and 8th. It’s too bad it took Tonic’s threatened closing to get ’em back. (And that’s not to mention Jim O’Rourke’s own benefit there on February 23rd.)
5.) My 10 favorite albums of 2004 as they stood on the day I filled out my Pazz & Jop ballot.
This afternoon, after a minty-fresh visit to my dentist on Central Park West, I passed through Christo’s fabled Gates just south of Tavern on the Green. I walked to the Sheep Meadow and wended my way through the southern tip of what Rem Koolhaas called “synthetic Arcadian carpet grafted onto the Grid.” This arcadia is my arcadia, indeed. It was a glorious afternoon, sun glancing perfectly over every conceivable surface, illuminating them with postcard precision: hot dog stands, ducks on half-frozen ponds, cyclists, midtown secretaries out for cigarette strolls on their lunch hours, even horse shit. It was almost unbearably picturesque.
But I must admit to being fairly baffled – disappointed, I think – by the Gates themselves. Most certainly, there are many qualities about the work that I admire. Public environmental art can be astounding, especially in Manhattan, which absorbs weirdness with a natural ease. A large aspect of the Gates, I think, is the way it forces people into interaction with their space and the people around them. Christo has said that one can’t really understand the piece without walking through it. There’s a certain amount of truth to that, of course, but mostly it seems like a New Age excuse. The potential for a public art project spread across the entirety of Central Park, interacting/playing/dialoguing with Frederick Law Olmstead’s sweeping Arcadian landscapes is so unbelievably vast, so incredibly rich, that it is a true shame that Christo and Jeanne-Claude didn’t do more with it.
Simply, the Gates follow the park’s existing walkways, pulling them out of the environment like an ink pellet through varicose veins. And that’s nice and all. Pleasant. But why do they have to follow the park’s proscribed paths? Why can’t they take the viewers on little journeys, dips off the beaten trails, winding through the faux-wilderness to small, Zen conclusions? Why shouldn’t they play with scale, increasing the size of dimensions of the Gates to create Wonderland-like optical illusions? The Gates, uniform in their abrupt day-glo orange are astounding in their repetition. That is quite pretty. Yes, yes. But why that color orange? It doesn’t seem to relate to its surroundings at all — not the glass and concrete boxes surrounding the park, not the bare trees, not the snow-fortified mud. And, if the point is for people to go out and interact with them, why the middle of fucking February when the public (remember them?) will be lucky to get one or two nice days to check it out?
The Gates feel very much like a gentrified happening, a much deeper bureaucratic achievement than aesthetic one. I had a wonderful time walking through them, but only because I was astounded (as I always am) by Law’s vision of Central Park. I imagine the Gates would be a lot prettier right about now (approaching 3:30 in the morning), their shapes looming like a massed army of shadows in the park’s peculiar, still nightmare-infested darkness. Perhaps I’ll go back sometime.
week of February 19, 2005
#3 this week, #4 last week, 13 weeks on chart
1.) A guitar song. This is probably the only second one that has come up in the weeks I’ve been doing this (the other being “This Love” by Maroon5). I have a hard time thinking about it on the same terms as Ciara and Mario and Lil Jon, because its form is familiar, less exotic, though it does sound contemporary (especially the intro, which sounds like it could include some kinda spoken-word tag-line).
Mostly, I feel like I’m at a family gathering and have been introduced to a distant cousin that I will undoubtedly get along with because we share common ground in some wholly unspecific interest, like music. “This song has guitars. You like guitars.”
2.) The title seems hackneyed to me, like a shitty lyric off of a latter-day Allman Brothers album. I know I’ve heard the expression before, but it’s one that’s lost a specific meaning. Is it a reference to something older? Google searching, the popularity of the Green Day tune has overwhelmed and obscured other bits. In the first 10 pages, we get: a vinyl-only 1985 Joy Division bootleg, a celebrity studded parody of Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks,” a graphic novel, Final Fantasy fan fiction, and a 1933 song by Al Dubin and Harry Warren (along with an instrumental MIDI file that automatically fired up inside Explorer and played atonally along with the Green Day song streaming through my iTunes). This, I suspect, will be the oldest reference to be found Googling.
The very diversity of results goes to show just how well the expression has melted into common usage. I still don’t like it much.
3.) Pirates of the Caribbean has circulated around my building recently, so I’ve watched various bits of it here and there. I saw it in the theater and – for a big budget Disney movie – I quite enjoyed it. There’s something to be said for a picture that’s accessible without being excessively stupid, that keeps the viewer locked in through a nice pace of swash-buckling sequences, chases, cannon fire, bawdy “family” humor, and the high seas. The Aviator does this, too, in its own way.
And Green Day’s American Idiot is a musical version of that: a Pirates of the Caribbean for us rockist savages. But there’s a difference between Pirates and AI, at least for me: listening to popular music is very different from seeing a popular movie, the latter being such a forcibly immersive experience, compared to the flexibility of songs and the ways we listen to them. Unless it is an artist I am intimately familiar with, it is rare that I sacrifice myself to a piece of music the way I automatically do if I go to the movies (or even watch one at home). All of which is to say that I dig “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” for what it is, but it’s not likely to make any of my playlists anytime soon.
4.) I like the brief, wordless verse that begins at the 1:15 mark. I can imagine this becoming a big sing-along at an arena show. It is for this reason that I like this song ideologically. It means that, at least while it’s popular, kids will still wanna go to big-ass rock concerts and do things like sing along. Hey, I think guitar-based pop music is a form worth preserving beyond the future equivalent of contemporary jazz clubs.
5.) That main riff is familiar, the melody kinda haunting, like it’s lifted from a Dire Straits record or something else I can’t place. The phrasing certainly helps — methodical, assured, sweet as candy.
BRAIN TUBA: iTunes A Go Go
Corn Syrup Conspiracy by SeepeopleS
Dick’s Picks, v. 33 by the Grateful Dead
brief reviews of 10 bands
Real Gone by Tom Waits
In the new Tracks (John Lennon cover), only in print: album reviews of Frank Zappa and the North Mississippi All-Stars, and a book review of The Wilco Book.
And, in the new Relix (Gov’t Mule cover), only in print: a live review of Yo La Tengo at Maxwell’s, a feature I edited (and wrote chunks of) titled “36 (Studio) Albums By Which To Get Yer Jam On,” album reviews of Pinback, Precious Bryant, and RANA, a DVD review of Vida Blue, and book reviews of Da Capo Best Music Writing 2004 edited by Mickey Hart and Rolling Thunder Logbook by Sam Shepard.
Spam received between 5:15 am and 5:15 pm on Saturday, 5 February 2005, organized according to Dr. Harold Tuttledge’s classification system by spam type and listed by sender.
0. No content
nsbch@forum.dk (2/6/05, 12:10 pm)
ernbcpbwlsmbge@wp.pl (2/6/05, 11:50 am)
Dion Cotton (2/6/05, 8:39 am)
Donald H. Callahan (2/6/05, 8:38 am)
Donovan Jewell (2/6/05, 6:32 am)
Beverley Fletcher (2/6/05, 6:29 am)
Ismael Peck (2/6/05, 5:16 am)
0.1 Foreign language
Adan Sea (2/6/05, 1:17 pm)
�U�����~���?��r�W�l�X�`�����X (2/6/05, 10:01 am)
0.2 English nonsense
Lange (2/6/05, 7:44 am)
1. Goods
Monique (2/6/05, 4:39 pm)
Jennifer A. Clark (2/6/05, 4:28 pm)
Phoebe Frazier (2/6/05, 3:44 pm)
Rosemarie Givens (2/6/05, 3:36 pm)
Preston Murphy (2/6/05, 2:35 pm)
Harry Crane (2/6/05, 1:09 pm)
Benita Wiseman (2/6/05, 12:05 pm)
Darcy Cernvantes (2/6/05, 11:39 am)
Rickie Bell (2/6/05, 11:32 am)
Deidre Reeves (2/6/05, 10:56 am)
twxtgfgp@aol.com (2/6/05, 10:13 am)
Carlton (2/6/05, 9:39 am)
Ella Fenton (2/6/05, 9:32 am)
Felice Mungan (2/6/05, 8:09 am)
Beryl Fisher (2/6/05, 7:53 am)
Mike Cameron (2/6/05, 7:45 am)
ZNPI New York Gzlobal (2/6/05, 6:03 am)
Tammie Parrish (2/6/05, 5:35 am)
Tamika England (2/6/05, 5:31 am)
1.1 Insurance
Autowarrantydelz.com (2/6/055, 11:30 am)
2. Urgent Messages
no examples received
3. Real Estate
Hattie (2/6/05, 10:07 am)
Twila Albert (2/6/05, 9:35 am)
Scott Holden (2/6/05, 8:40 am)
Saman (2/6/05, 7:16 am)
4. Work at Home
no examples received
5. Elegant chains and investment opportunities
Chris Erickson (2/6/05, 4:35 pm)
Ernie Ponce (2/6/05, 4:06 pm)
Rosemary Souza (2/6/05, 3:02 pm)
Wilfred Petty (2/6/05, 1:41 pm)
Brandy Culley (2/6/05, 1:05 pm)
Sydel Buske (2/6/05, 1:04 pm)
Lacey Rasmussen (2/6/05, 1:03 pm)
Philip Kirkpatrick (2/6/05, 12:42 pm)
Anita Chan (2/6/05, 12:23 pm)
Greg Heard (2/6/05, 12:17 pm)
Sharron Tipton (2/6/05, 12:11 pm)
Camille Bassett (2/6/05, 10:39 am)
Tonya Lin (2/6/05, 10:28 am)
Luke Velz (2/6/05, 10:21 am)
Sebastian Ash (2/6/05, 9:16 am)
Sally Carlisle (2/6/05, 8:33 am)
Wendy Askew (2/6/05, 6:50 am)
6. Pornography
Alvaro Randall (2/6/05, 4:43 pm)
Cotopaxi O. Angle (2/6/05, 4:26 pm)
Lucy (2/6/05, 3:40 pm)
Christy Ashley (2/6/05, 3:08 pm)
Henderson (2/6/05, 2:44 pm)
Roland Paul (2/6/05, 2:04 pm)
Doug Wilson (2/6/05, 12:52 pm)
Crystal (2/6/05 12:44 pm)
Stuff Q. Detests (2/6/05, 12:19 pm)
Lily (2/6/05, 12:12 pm)
Dustin Rouse (2/6/05, 11:30 am)
Gogol K. Depths (2/6/05 10:39 am)
Lisa (2/6/05, 8:28 am)
Crystal (2/6/05, 6:45 am)
Paltry O. Kathiawar (2/6/05, 6:06 am)
7. Personal appearance and general health
Clint Oliver (2/6/05, 8:06 am)
7.1 Drug distribution
Noah Devine (2/6/05, 4:45 pm)
Jason Barnier (2/6/05, 4:37 pm)
Ola Surez (2/6/05, 3:57 pm)
Bob Haines (2/6/05, 1:36 pm)
Althea Flowers (2/6/05 1:31 pm)
Luciano Mckay (2/6/05, 1:06 pm)
Lionel Newton (2/6/05, 11:33 am)
Kristin Magee (2/6/05, 11:32 am)
Niki (2/6/05, 10:58 am)
Drew Ames (2/6/05, 10:20 am)
Kevin Bynum (2/6/05 10:00 am)
King Ashton (2/6/05, 9:32 am)
Janey Taylor (2/6/05, 9:32 am)
Johnnie Browning (2/6/05, 9:28 am)
Donnie Melvin (2/6/05, 9:02 am)
Wilson Briggs (2/6/05, 8:58 am)
Jacquelyn G. Joiner (2/6/05, 8:56 am)
Delia Solomon (2/6/05, 8:31 am)
Barney Hutchins (2/6/05, 8:30 am)
Morton Frasier (2/6/05, 7:45 am)
Garland Garrick (2/6/05, 7:45 am)
Emilio Ortega (2/6/05, 7:06 am)
Roosevelt Webber (2/6/05, 7:03 am)
Yvonne Hicks (2/6/05, 6:24 am)
Ed (2/6/05, 6:14 am)
Raymon Boberg (2/6/05, 6:13 am)
Augusta Maria (2/6/05, 5:42 am)
Maria Harden (2/6/05, 5:42 am)
Geoffrey Levitin (2/6/05, 5:35 am)
8. Sexual performance and mating
Raul Muller (2/6/05, 5:15 pm)
Beck Amip (2/5/05, 4:59 pm)
Ariana Rivera (2/6/05, 4:58 pm)
Tim (2/6/05, 4:59 pm)
Kenton Ybarra (2/6/05, 4:46 pm)
Inez Sanford (2/6/05, 4:24 pm)
h Quinn Incoporated (2/6/05, 3:45 pm)
Tabitha Langston (2/6/05, 3:31 pm)
Parmutations C. Capsizes (2/6/05, 3:31 pm)
Entreating T. Ballot (2/6/05, 3:17 pm)
Synopsized M. Anguished (2/6/05, 3:17 pm)
Sean Bell (2/6/05, 2:50 pm)
Connie Burrell (2/6/05, 2:42 pm)
Keisha L. Rangel (2/6/05, 12:53 pm)
Karl Emerson (2/6/05, 12:53 pm)
Kerri Novak (2/6/05, 12:23 pm)
glay.org (2/6/05, 12:10 pm)
Nathan Henson (2/6/05, 12:02 am)
Vilma Ross (2/6/05, 10:18 am)
k Belcher Inc. (2/6/05, 10:17 am)
Brain (2/6/05, 9:45 am)
bodywrap@suddenlyslender.com (2/6/05, 9:37 am)
Weston Ramierz (2/6/05, 9:09 am)
Liver K. Elongated (2/6/05, 8:46 am)
dbzmail.com (2/6/05, 8:27 am)
lycos.com (2/6/05 (8:16 am)
Delbert (2/6/05, 8:11 am)
Cristina J. Vazquez (2/6/05, 8:07 am)
Bettie Key (2/6/05, 8:06 am)
Rachelle Springer (2/6/05, 5:17 am)
9. Anti-spam devices
Gordon Harding (2/6/05, 10:26 am)
SurfClean (2/6/05, 9:58 am)
Margaret Booth (2/6/05, 7:59 am)
A Very Long Engagement is grotesque, sweet, and darkly hilarious — and sustains these three traits, in nearly perfect balance, for its entirety. There is hardly a moment that isn’t all at once. It’s also (easily) the most Decemberists-y movie ever made: a distinctly French romance set in the trenches and hospitals of World War I.
People often speak of maturation, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more clear-cut example than this. In City of Lost Children, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and collaborator Marc Caro created an authoritatively immersive reality. With cloned half-wits, a circus strongman, a cult of cyclops (and that’s not to mention the talking brain) the film was a bit surreal. Amelie, on the other hand, applied the same weird logic to the task of a Rube Goldberg-like romance that genuinely was romantic (if simultaneously a wee too cute).
Turned out, the best way to resolve these two over-excited directions was by introducing a hard-line “realism” into the picture. A Very Long Engagement doesn’t flinch from brutality. There are decapitations, maimings, mutilations, and about a half-dozen other varieties of death. Whether or not it’s accurate to classify these devices as “realism” is another question, but they certainly achieve that effect — people in the theater where I saw the film often turned their heads from the screen during particularly graphic sequences.
In a way, the humor and romance help the violent stuff go down, or at least give us a way to rationalize watching it. Mostly, though, the characters are such unique and vulnerable specimens that it’s nearly impossible not to get drawn in, and soon stirred by the two dozen simple twists of fate strung along an elegantly knotted plot dotted with nooses. Highly recommended.
