What Do You Call A Female Donkey?

Indeed, what do you call a female donkey? This question is vexing me 3:30 on a Monday morning. Outside the last of the New Jersey turnpike speeds by as the Peter Pan bus I'm in accelerates out of a tollbooth. One of the tiny TV screens -- ridiculously upholstered, along with the ceiling of this bus -- is playing some video of asinine trivia. The ass inquiry is it's first offering. I'm not nearly as annoyed as the man seated beside me.

"Fucking thing...turn the fucking thing off...fucking...fuck...turn fucking thing off!"

He spits the words out as they bubble up through garbles of phlegm.

"Fuck...fuck fuckfuckfuckfucking TURN IT OFF!!"

I'm staring off to the right; at nothing; away from him. Is it over?

He barely whispers, "...cunt."

What, I think, our driver is a man. This early in the morning and this far from home, nitpicking the ramblings of a roaming, raving lunatic seems to be a reasonable thing to do. Is he still upset about Bewitched?

The Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell vehicle was the in-trip movie, and my coarse companion did not hesitate to share his hatred of it with anyone in earshot. I preferred the more civil method of trying to drown the movie out with my iPod, but for some reason the driver had the movie's volume at an ungodly high level.

So I was forced to watch most of it. From what I gathered, Kidman falls for Ferrell and they end up together. I thought Kidman was playing the witch? Ferrel's character would have to be a warlock of considerable powers -- of the mountains into oceans variety -- to achieve such a feat. I thought I saw Michael Caine collecting a paycheck, but that could have been fatigue. Or denial; I still refuse to recognize Bob Hoskins' role in Maid In Manhattan, unless it's to point out when the acting begins and ends in the movie. Is he in the room? Yes? Then actual acting is occurring. No? Then enjoy the view(Jennifer Lopez provides a great view).

Anyway, Bewitched mercifully ended around three thirty in the morning, fooling me -- and my cursing seatmate -- into thinking we would be treated to the pleasantness of a dark, silent bus.

Then the TV asked as about the bitch donkey, before going on to test our knowledge of the Jackson 5 and Jim Palmer. Considering the cheesy new wave music, the video must have been produced sometime in the mid eighties. It went from question to question using screen wipes straight out of a high school audio/visual club production(the circle! the star! the turning page!).

Still, cunt?

Thankfully, the driver kills the video. The crazy bastard beside me is still muttering though. I can't be sure, but I think he might be half asleep. His rantings start out as whispers before riding a parabola up to screeches. Wiggling in my seat, leg sticking out into the aisle, I lay my head on half the head rest, trying to give him as much space possible while retaining some small measure of comfort.

I can't risk listening to my iPod; I might miss an audible clue of his inevitable attempt to slash my throat. That rules out sleep as well. Looking up at the ceiling -- why is it upholstered? -- I realize I have to be at work in six hours. I won't have time for any snoozing after my arrival, it will pretty much be a stop at my apartment and maybe the gym before going to work. That leaves the remaining, reaming bus ride of roughly two hours as my only opportunity to sleep.

It's so dark out. People snore, my companion occasionally calls some phantom a motherfucking bitch, but otherwise the bus is silent. A big, empty, rumbling, silent chamber. Daring me to close my eyes.

Fuck it, I think, if he kills me in my sleep, at least there will be plenty of witnesses. Straight to judge, jury, and executioner. I put some classical music on my iPod, recline the seat, and close my eyes.

I wake up minutes before our arrival in DC, unharmed, to the sound of my companion's whistle-high snoring. It's 4:30 in the morning. This is the life.

And I'm doing it all again this weekend(though hopefully not coming home as late).

Oh, and a female donkey is called a Jenny.

Freedom Brings The Funny

Goddamn J. Freedom du Lac, tell us how you really feel. This is some cold shit about Amy Winehouse from today's 'Freedom Rock' chat on Washintonpost.com:

Amy "Kottonmouth" Winehouse: Hi Freedom,

I checked out the new Amy Winehouse CD over the weekend and was very impressed. But as I listened to lyric after lyric about her over indulgence in alcohol, I couldn't help but recall the Kottonmouth Kings -- the rap/punk group who made more albums full of odes to pot use than even Cheech and Chong would have thought possible. Winehouse's stuff is definitely higher end. But it seems to me that there's a point where one's inspiration becomes one's crutch.

J. Freedom du Lac: Hey, she sings what she knows. And to be fair, she has lyrics about other vices, as well. Ganja, for instance!

And those relationship sings are pretty great, in a scary, wouldn't-want-to-date-her kinda way. Not that I'd want to date her anyway. I mean, she sort of looks like a tranny Elvira impersonator or something. But I sure like her new album. Her earlier CD, which never came out stateside, isn't nearly as interesting.

Though I heartily disagree with him(I think Winehouse is quite fetching, and yes, my girlfriend does not read this blog), that was pretty funny. Freedom's chat usually has at least one laugh out loud moment. Here's one of my past favorites:

James Blunt in the Army?: Did he suck there too?

J. Freedom du Lac: No, he was a one-man force. He'd sing, and the enemy would drop by the hundreds.

Every Tuesday at two in the afternoon. Check it out.

It's Only Tuesday

The Getting Through The Work Day Hits of 3/27/07:

1. "King For A Day", Bobby Conn - King For A Day ("I'm back at my job/back at my job.../Every Monday Morning.../I was King For A Day")
2. "12:51", The Strokes - Room On Fire
3. "Satan Said Dance", Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Some Loud Thunder
4. "Out On The Weekend", Girls In Hawaii - Sounds Eclectic: The Covers Project
5. "On The Radio", Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope ("on the radio/you hear november rain/that solo's awful long/but it's a nice refrain")
6. "Call To Arms", The Black Angels - Passover
7. "Put Your Records On", Corinne Bailey Rae - Corinne Bailey Rae
8. "Mack The Knife", Bobby Darin
9. "Boyscout'n", Menomena - Friend And Foe
10. "You Know I'm No Good", Amy Winehouse - Back To Black
11. "Where Did My Baby Go", Howard Tate - Howard Tate
12. "Bang And Blame", R.EM. - Monster
13. "Dashboard", Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank
14. "Every Single Line Means Something", Marnie Stern - In Advance Of A Broken Arm
15. "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Tori Amos - Crucify EP
16. "Tony The Beat", The Sounds - Dying To Say This To You
17. "The Post", Dinosaur Jr. - Bug
18. "Formed A Band", Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
19. "In The Mouth A Desert", Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted
20. "Track You Down", Sondre Lerche - Two Way Monologue ("I saw you, you saw me /And you were naked, which was weird")
21. "Tear Me Down", Gov't Mule - The Deep End Volume 2
22. "Zelda - Fortress", The Advantage - The Advantage
23. "Without Me", Eminem - Curtain Call
24. "Thunder ON The Mountain", Bob Dylan - Modern Times
25. "Help!", The Beatles - Help
26. "Can't Stand It", Wilco - Summerteeth ("No loves as random/As God's love/I can't stand it/I can't stand it")
27. "Go", The Replacements - Stink EP

After A Week, That's What My Resolve Is

I gave in; I succumbed; I wilted to impulse - but I don't feel guilty. Sounds Eclectic is mine.

Am I a soulless yuppie now? Does buying one CD from Starbucks tag me as such?

Sigh. Why worry about labels -- yuppie, hipster, blondie, neo-nazi looking motherfucker -- that follow you around. Some things you have to accept about yourself. I accept that I am willing to buy overpriced CDs at Starbucks, helping a faceless corporation keep the material exclusive while allowing myself to feel a little better because public radio benefits from my purchase. I know it does; a little yellow sticker on the cover brightly told me so.

I could use a drink; I can't remember the last time I had some alcohol. That's a good thing, really, in the same sense that going to church every Sunday -- even if you don't believe in God -- is a good thing. I'm not abstaining because of health, morals, or addiction. It's just habit now. I need some social spirits. Part of it is my girlfriend doesn't drink. Like Jules said, "My girlfriend's a vegetarian, which pretty much makes me a vegetarian." But I do enjoy a good drink.

We'll see what the future holds.

I'm Not Paranoid

The elevators in my building are planning murder. The bank of five that sits in the northwest lobby has two troublemakers: the first one on the right, and the second lift on the left. Daily these two conspire to kill innocent, hard working federal employees and contractors. Well, the federal employees are innocent, anyway.

Okay, they're just federal employees. And the elevators want to kill them, along with innocent hardworking contractors like myself.

They differ in style greatly; disparate as Hannibal Lecter and Jason Voorhees. The second, far right elevator welcomes you warmly with open doors, before emitting a shrill, piercing beep as it tries to crush you between it's doors before you've even taken half a step into it. They retract -- as you would expect when you try and hold an elevator door -- only to attack you again, refusing to stay open for even a nanosecond. Jason the elevator will give you a beating before you make it past his doors.

The Lecter elevator is more subtle, and is the most likely to actually succeed. Until you are inside for a ride, nothing seems amiss. Then the creaks start. The sound of scraping, twisting metal. The cuh-cuh-cunk between floors rattling beneath your feet, reminding you of the hollowness below. The bottom could fall out of this elevator, or the entire thing might just go down. It often gets stuck between floors, requiring a technician to pry the doors open to let potential victims out.

It will succeed one day, I know it. I thought it had me this morning, as the cacophony of breaking sheet metal was louder than usual, the stutter and stop more pronounced. When I safely arrived at my floor, a gentleman who I knew resided a couple floors up got off as well. The doors closed, and he pressed the up button. We shared a smile; we shared a thought: that bastard elevator isn't going to get me.

Mild Mannered

I'm having a Clark Kent day. Those are the days when I wake up too tired to put in my contact lenses(which is pretty tired), and opt for my glasses instead. I had a restless night; I'm not sure why. Maybe trepidation from a task at work I had to complete today that's full of aggravating, time-consuming glitches, spread throughout the source code like little landmines. A task that kept me from a co-worker's farewell lunch. A task that -- surprise five o'clock changes pending -- is finally, thankfully done.

Maybe. Who knows.

Starbucks is starting their own music label, Hear Music. And I for one, welcome our caffeine selling overlords. While I'm not a Starbucks fanatic -- it's hard to be when you don't drink coffee -- I do love their hot chocolate and the store's general atmosphere. I've been to many independent coffee shops, and I can never tell the difference between what they shill and the offerings at Starbucks. Then again, I am a complete, utter philistine: whenever I go to an upscale restaurant with my girlfriend, I'm secretly disappointed to discover buffalo wings aren't on the appetizer menu.

I can't really object to the company's taste in music. When I peruse the CD displays at Starbucks, there's usually at least on or two albums that catch my eye. This week, they have KCRW Sounds Eclectic: The Covers Project, with live covers from Damien Rice, Robert Plant, K.D. Lang, The Magic Numbers, and others. One or two of these I already have, but still, the album glowed with a neon "buy me NOW" halo. Flipping the CD over, the halo vanished in a poof of overpricing: $14.95. A Hear Music exclusive; nowhere to be found except hanging among the green aprons of your local Starbucks. Fifteen bucks for fifteen tracks, plus some pretty liner notes courtesy of the folks at KCRW. If I buy this, am I technically supporting public radio? Yes, I am - the proceeds will help KCRW digitize their music library. That makes me feel a little less guilty...ah, fuck it - I'll buy it, then magic marker "WHITE LIBERAL YUPPIE" on my forehead. Who cares, I'll be rocking out to Robert Plant covering "Black Dog"! Wait, what?

Maybe this isn't such a great idea, then again, as The Onion shows in it's American Voices feature, it can't make the record business any worse:

"It's a sad day when the music industry gets co-opted by giant, faceless corporations that are more interested in profits than music."

I have a weekend of gaming with friends ahead of me; I love getting my nerd on with some Magic: The Gathering. It keeps my brain strong and -- being in a long distance relationship, this part is crucial -- it defends me from pretty girls.

Anyway, I'm going to get back to praying for no five o'clock changes.

Rap Brings Brothers Together

Ghostface Killah thunders from the blue car's speakers. My two younger brothers sit up front; Scott(four years younger) driving and Mike(eight years younger) beside him going through CDs. The blue car is a Saturn Ion. My entire family owns Saturns, so we differentiate them by color. Mike's car is the blue car, my mother's is the black, and Scott's is the white.

Normally we would be in the white car, but someone stole Scott's massive speakers out of the back while he was at work.

"Did you hear? Someone stole my fucking speakers, right out of the back of my car!" he says.

"How much was all that shit worth?" I ask.

"...a couple grand," he answers.

"Well...fuck."

He asks Mike to skip to the last track, "Three Bricks.", featuring the from the grave flow of the Notorious BIG. I ask Mike to instead to play the badmouthed kid skit. He chooses the latter and we all laugh at the child spewing profanities at Ghostface while he laments the perceived lack of discipline in today's children:

"That's the problem, ya'll kids don't get beat no more..."

I get Mike to play "The Champ" next, my favorite track. The fusion of lines from Rocky III and the boasts of Muhammad Ali delivered in guttural rage along side Killah's rapid-fire delivery is sick.

Mike moved into rap from metal during his last couple years of high school, though he still wears a Tool hoodie. The fact that we both own Fishscale -- though I bought it from Best Buy like a sucker -- is comforting. To say nothing of the nearly decade age gap it bridges, to me it shows that I haven't completely shed my connections with them and the old neighborhood. Or at least I hope it does. I've always had the sneaking feeling my brothers suspect that since I left PG County to live in relatively quiet Towson, then Foggy Bottom and now Columbia Heights, that I became somewhat...too highbrow for Laurel. Or that living in walking distance to Georgetown, having a real job and briefly being a married man, that I had grown up and looked back at them the way an adult might marvel at his baby pictures.

Ghostface brings me back to them, albeit with tons of obscenity.

We arrive at their gym in Bowie. Years ago when I still lived close by in Laurel, I worked out here. There was a Laurel location, but the basketball courts here are 94 feet long, like God intended.

The place hasn't changed much. The walk through the gravel parking lot; the climb up the stairs; the glass double doors; the familiarity is thick and I have to remind myself I wasn't just here yesterday. They even have my old information in their computer, and I spend a few minutes explaining to the front desk man that I don't live around here anymore, I'm just want to workout with my brothers today. Somehow, giving a former member a guest pass -- even at the absurd price of twenty dollars -- feels dirty to this man.

Catching up to Scott and Mike, I get berated for asking how much the guest pass was.

"You never ask how much," Scott says. "They might say 'fuck it' and just let you in, they don't care."

"I know, I just froze up. Technically I think I still owe them for four months back in 2002."

I have my own routine to do, so Scott and Mike go off to do their regular workout. I walk to the mat area, still in the same place. The machines are set up identically, though some are new. The walls are still lined with before and after pictures of the more persevering and disciplined members, portraits of the personal trainers, and basketball and racquet ball sign-ups.

Has nothing changed in Bowie?

It's painfully obvious one thing has when I rejoin Scott and Mike. I haven't worked out with Scott since before his stint as a Marine, and even then I considered it an accomplishment to lift the same weight, do the same amount of reps, or just to plain keep up with him since he was the athlete of the family. That was about four years ago.

Today, I find the Marines combined with his own discipline turned him into a machine. After watching him tear through an exercise, I don't even consider trying to keep up -- lightening the weight each time it's my turn. Mike does the same, though it doesn't seem to bother him at all.

"I don't think the kool-aid worked," he says.

The kool-aid is some kind of energy drink mix they took(and made me drink) before we left. It tastes like a sour version of it's namesake.

"This will get you jacked, son," Scott had said. "And this time, you won't puke."

Brothers never forget. Before a workout -- five fucking years ago -- Scott and his best friend(and current Marine) Greg coerced me into drinking a protein shake concoction of theirs. I downed the entire thing quickly, held it with a smile for a split second, promptly walked to the kitchen sink and heaved it all back up. Somehow, I still worked out that day.

Scott was right this time; I kept the entire thing down. Unlike his previous drink, this one doesn't taste like liquid feet.

Anyway, it doesn't seem to be working for Mike.

"Maybe it's because your working on four hours sleep dude," Scott says. "You stayed up all night again."

"That...could be it."

Good, two things haven't changed.

Which Neon Bible Do I Choose?

From The Onion: "Unreleased Jimmy Page Guitar Riff To Be Retrieved From Secret Vault To Save Rock And Roll"

"We who believe in the immortality of rock took a vow 30 years ago that we would never release this incredibly powerful force unless we faced a Day of Reckoning—and that day has come," said Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi, one of the chosen few who helped forge the Secret Vault to Save Rock and Roll, at a press conference in the Welsh highlands. "Just look at the pop charts, and you shall know I speak the truth."

"Let's give rock and roll its fucking balls back," he added.

Hilarious(Who knew Jack Black was an Onion ghost-writer...I still have to see The Pick Of Destiny), though in the real world we have Earl Greyhound instead of a mythic Page riff.

Arcade Fire's new album, Neon Bible, was released yesterday. As DCeiver noted, rock critics all over the Internet are going to have tough time out doing each other in lavishing cleverly worded praise on the new saviors of indie music. I enjoyed Funeral, so buying the follow-up is a no-brainer. The question vexing me is whether to buy the CD from Amazon, or to download the album from eMusic.

Yes, I still buy CDs. The collector in me loves having something physical attached to the music I love. Hundreds upon hundreds of five inch pieces of plastic sorted out in stacks, announcing their variety with artist and album names lettered in infinite styles. A satisfying site.

Next to my carefully organized(by artist name, last name if necessary) CD collection starts, there is an ever-growing shelf of vacant discs. Stored in identical thin STAPLES jewel or 5inch.com trigger cases, the CDs are either anonymously silver or the slightly more fulfilling vinyl-imitating design. My downloaded albums; at least the ones I've had time to burn. Between eMusic, free albums, music from friends, and the occasional iTunes purchase my digital music intake dwarfs my traditional appetite of CDs. eMusic alone gives me almost seven albums worth of music a month for twenty dollars.

And eMusic has Neon Bible. It can be mine instantly(depending on how well my WIFI is working). The rave reviews are in...I need to hear this for myself! Yet, if I find it moving, if it takes it place among my favorites, it's physical presence will be just another faceless disc distinguished only by it's title sloppily written and sprawled in magic-marker across the front. Am I too romantic to think that's a detestable fate for a great piece of music? iTunes 7.1 has full screen CoverFlow; shouldn't that be enough?

For $13 and a two day wait, I could have the CD, double 180-gram audiophile quality discs with three sides of music and an etching on the fourth side. Artwork, two 32-page flip books designed by the band, and the thank-yous that no one ever reads.

Or, I could download it tonight.

Can I do both; will downloading the album trump buying the CD? Does that make it empty? Stupid?

What to do, what to do.

You Forgot It In People (The Meadowlands)

Ian Mathers, an excellent writer and podcaster for Stylus, pondered how he had never seen the video for Broken Social Scene's "Anthem For A Seventeen-Year-Old Girl". And I thank him for pondering, because I don't know how I hadn't seen it before either:



I bought You Forgot It In People during the death throes of bad relationship(though it would recover, only to die again...but that's a story for another time). Up late one night, eyes red from tears and the piercing glow of my computer monitor, I searched Amazon for something that would sound different, profound, and beautiful. This obscure band from Canada was in everyones "must have indie rock" list, so I read a little about BSS and ...In People. It seemed a likely pot of musical gold, so a click and UPS trip later, I had the CD in my hands.

Others have celebrated the album far better than I could, so instead of telling you how great the music is, I'll just give it a more personal praise: it got me through tough times. I listened to it constantly, in the morning, at work, but most importantly, at night. I can't sleep when my relationship has gone to shit. I tossed and turned, I took deep breaths, and I counted backwards from a hundred. Nothing worked, until I popped in the beautiful, soothing sounds of ...In People.

The intro was mysterious, the way it rose from a flat line to a split-second of cacophony before instantly melting into the second track, the rollicking "KC Accidental". "Almost Crimes", track four, was a shot of pure joy and optimistic energy(exactly what you need at four in the morning after spending the entire night dreading the rest of your life). "Anthem", at track seven, is the perfect song to fall asleep too. The video above is the perfect companion for it: ethereal, intangible, and beautiful.

After that, I bought The Wrens' The Meadowlands, and I had a soundtrack for the breakup. I sang along with "Happy", screaming "Are you happy?/You got what you want/I'm over it now". I nodded along to the opener, "The House That Guilt Built" : "and I’m nowhere near/what I dreamed I’d be/i can’t believe/what life has done to me". The album was therapy; the only closure I could get.

My nightly ritual for weeks was Meadowlands followed by ...In People; they became my tried and true "bad love" albums. One for cathartic mourning, the other for remembering there's still a big, beautiful world outside your door.

Helicopters Are To Blame

Surfing the internet, I came across this gem from Dave Barry:

The badness of a movie is directly proportional to the number of
helicopters in it.

Reflecting on movies I've seen recently, I think he is on to something:

• Ghost Rider. Horrible movie, I'll admit(as much as I don't want to). At least five, maybe six, gigantic helicopters in one scene. Ghost Rider briefly battles a Police helicopter. Horrible.
  
• Breach. Not one helicopter. Excellent flick.
• Seraphim Falls. It's a western. Excellent flick.
• Primeval. At least one helicopter in the beginning. Bad movie, though not as bad as Ghost Rider. I'd rather watch Nicolas Cage and Eva Mendes in a horrible movie than Dominic "Prison Break" Purcell and Brooke Langton in anything. Orland Jones is a wild card.
• Apocalypto. The setting is the ancient Mayan civilization. Good movie.
• Rocky. No helicopters that I can recall. Great movie.
• Blood Diamond. This movie had numerous rides in helicopters. The exception to the rule; a great movie.
• Night At The Museum. No helicopters that I can remember. Bland, boring movie.
• Casino Royale. This must have had at least one helicopter, right? It is a James Bond movie. Great movie.

So it's not a hard rule, but it sure is fun. Maybe the real rule should be Nicolas Cage + Helicopters = Horrible Movie. You know, like Firebirds. Top Gun With Helicopters also stars Tommy Lee Jones and the chick who played a dude posing as a chick in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

Well, happy frivolous Friday everyone.

Dreams, Alkies, And Starbucks

My review of Marnie Stern's brilliant debut album In Advance Of A Broken Arm is up at BigYawn. I enjoy writing about music, and seeing my thoughts posted at BigYawn has been -- pause for a dork moment -- exciting. Still, I don't know if anything I've written is any good. Is it foolish to dream of writing for SPIN, Rolling Stone, or the Post? And not just about music, but I dream to write about life, the world, and to maybe someday interview the President years after he took the country on an eight-year bullet train ride and ask him, "So...you were just fucking with us, right?"

Speaking of alcoholics, make sure to check out Back to Black, the new album from Amy Winehouse which will be released in the US on March 13th. "Rehab", the first single, has been getting all the attention -- and it is a great song, one of my favorites of the year so far -- but it's the second track, "You Know I'm No Good", that leaves you floored. A remixed version featuring Ghostface has been getting a lot of radio play in New York since it's release in January(I should note that I don't listen to radio in DC, so it may be getting airtime here too, but I'd be ignorant of it...I only listen to the radio in New York because it's what my girlfriend puts on when we...er, when she brushes her teeth). The Post ran a great story about Winehouse, "100-Proof Voice", last month.

Starbucks added a new location near my office, one that is potentially on the way to work. Great news, even if the service isn't what you can call friendly yet(though -- as co-worker Brian noted -- karma can be a bitch). It's a little late for me, since I only drink hot chocolate at Starbucks and the season for that is quickly disappearing. I hope. I haven't had much need for my power trio recently, and I like it that way.

Earl Greyhound Are My Masters Now

March is almost here. In fact, it arrives this week. So, it's a little late to write about an album that came out in August of last year, an album that I didn't even know about until December, and outside of the band's dedicated following and a brief mention in SPIN, an album that has received little attention.

The album is Soft Targets, the band is Earl Greyhound, and they are really, really fucking good.

Matt Whyte(guitars/vocals), Kamara Thomas(bass/vocals), and Christopher Bear(drums) form the power trio. And I do mean power. Soft Targets opening track "SOS" wastes no time getting things started. Whyte's voice soars over his grinding guitar and Bear's exploding drums. They achieve stunning depth for a band with only three members; you can listen to this album dozens of times and never grow tired.

Earl Greyhound take everything good about the golden era of hard rock, the rumbling epic sound of Led Zeppelin, the brazen yet subtle sexiness of Jimi Hendrix, the balls-out fun of AC/DC and the unapologetic glam rock posture of Queen and T. Rex. All of this without any sense of bullshit hipster irony. The play cock-rock because they fucking love it, and it shows. Soft Targets has no filler, all killer. From the ultra-catchy "Like A Doggy" and "Back And Forth", featuring Thomas and Whyte belting out a dual-vocal attack(though Thomas provides deep, beautiful howls and harmonizes with Whyte beautifully on nearly every track), to the epic eight minute stoner rock anthem "Monkey", this album...can you tell how much I love it yet...it just fucking rocks. "Monkey" and "Fashion" are hot sweaty fucks in song form. Whyte's guitar meshes with Thomas's bass perfectly. Behind Whyte's pyrotechnics Bear drums with passion and thunder; he didn't get the memo that nowadays drummers have to have ironic distaste for being flashy or showing off. J. Mascis would love the way he plays(not that he's dead, I just can't speak for him, he's busy recording a new Dinosaur Jr. album with Lou Barlow and Emmett Murphy which I can't wait for). This would have been my number one album, by far, last year if I had known better. I had their EP, but slept on the album. Few things do I regret more, possibly my first marriage, but it's close.

Go to their website, stream the album, and be converted. The buy it. If you're lucky, catch a live show(I will). As Thomas told SPIN:

"If you come to one of our shows," she says, "I promise your face will get ripped off."

A-fucking-men.

Video for "SOS"

Surprise Sunday Snow

I wake up Sunday, and what do I see. Snow. All over the place.



I thought we were done with snow this year. Wasn't it just a week or so ago temperatures were climbing to almost sixty degrees? I go to New York, it's freezing, come back to DC, it's warm. I figured that meant an early Spring and no more snow for us. Nope. Can't pack away the scarves and gloves yet.

At least this time it wasn't around long, and it didn't bring bitterly freezing air with it. One day it's a winter wonderland, the next day most of it's melted away. A one day decoration, the way it should be.

Arrive Early, And You Will Pay

As I left for my weekend in the city Friday, I listened to Block Party's new album A Weekend In The City, because aside from loving things that connect, I'm capable of astounding acts of unoriginality. Darker in tone(both musically and lyrically), Weekend is the perfect Empire Strikes Back to Silent Alarm's Star Wars. BigYawn covered it in detail already so I won't rehash, but if you enjoyed Alarm you will love the follow up. The first two tracks, "Song For Clay (Disappear Here)" and the post-9/11 society commentary "Hunting For Witches", are ripping tunes.

I also took in Menomena's Friend Or Foe, a stunning piece of indie rock with everything from power chords to saxophones. I loved the opening track "Muscle N Flo", as well as "Air Raid", "Weird?", and "Rotten Hell". Again, over at BigYawn Chris Daly does a better job exhorting the albums merits than I ever could.

I had some interesting times during the long weekend, which I'll get into later. I saw Ghost Rider.

To make up for that, I saw Breach. A gripping yet understated thriller. Chris Cooper was excellent as the walking paradox Robert Hanssen, who appears to be sincere about serving God and Country while betraying both that and his family, friends and colleagues. His final scene in the movie is chilling. Ryan Phillippe was equally excellent as Eric O'Neill, the young agent-in-training the FBI planted as Hanssen's clerk during the last two months of their investigation. Phillippe still suffers barbs from critics who hate the genetically blessed; every review I read took pains to point out his supposed shortcomings that Cooper and the script made up for. Which is a bunch of shit. I'm not saying Phillippe is an excellent actor, but he is certainly -- at the very least -- competent. Phillippe, like Keanu Reeves, could turn in a performance worthy of Peter O'Toole and it would still be shat upon by critics from the east coast to the west. Beautiful actors, when they miss, are ostracized for only having their faces and bodies to offer us. By that reasoning, if Steve Buscemi ever turned in a sub-par performance, he would have to be labeled as one of the worst actors ever.

It was fun to hear New Yorker's gasp in amazement when Laura Linney's character uses her cellphone on the Metro, something you can't do in NYC yet. The movie was almost ruined, however, by the banal commentary of a man who thought of himself as some sort of spy buff. Sitting next to me, this smelly know-it-all laughingly intoned "Welcome to the agency!" after O'Neill's first verbal thrashing from Hanssen. Too bad both Hanssen and O'Neill work for the FBI, which -- unless my grasp of the alphabet has atrophied considerably since Kindergarten -- has no word in it that begins with an "A". It's the BUREAU, jackass.

A common fixture of movie theaters today are the "First Look" shorts that run before the previews. Extended looks(ads) of upcoming movies and television shows, I find them a little more entertaining than the slide-show of ads and repeated trivia that used to play until the lights dimmed. They are at the very least just as easy to ignore...most of the time. One preview, which aired before Ghost Rider and Breach, froze me in my cushioned seat, though not exactly in a positive way.

The preview was for the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs. The host runs around with a water snake expert chasing water snakes, which I gather are non-poisonous, since one bites the host in the arm and he doesn't die. As the snake digs in deeper the host growls about how he hates his job, he cries out and the snake lets go and flayed flesh falls from it's fangs. Red strips of skin clearly fall to the ground. The camera then treats us to a close up of the hosts bloodied forearm, the wounds matching the discarded skins scraps like puzzle pieces.

This wasn't the worse part.

After that, in the safety of a lab the host forces a water snake to throw up. And, on a fifty foot screen, I and everyone else who arrived early so we wouldn't miss the previews(one of the best parts of going to the theater) were treated to watching a water snake vomit up a slimy, still recognizable fish.

"...That's just weird," the host says, looking at the glistening, half-digested carcass.

No. No, it's not just weird...it's fucking disgusting. I was trying to eat nachos, now I can barely sip my coke without my gut reeling. If I wanted to see that, I would be at home watching the goddamned Discovery Channel. Who thought this was a good idea to show a few dozen potential concession stand patrons? I haven't seen a more disturbing display of puking at a movie theater since The Exorcist was re-released, but at least that was in the movie. Shit.

I'll still arrive early, but damn, I may take an early trip to the bathroom.

Underground Gucci

Purses have a darkside I never knew existed. A seedy, sinister side as mysterious as the contents of the purses themselves.

I always thought of them as innocent little accessories, first noticed as the place Mom kept tissue, gum, and loose change for the candy hoarding vending machines. I see them now out and about on busy city streets, slung from the shoulders of every working woman from baristas to CEOs. They are where my girlfriend keeps her cellphone, lip gloss, makeup cases, and the terrifying tampon.

What I didn't know(but am now wise to ways of the real world) was that your average woman will gladly venture into back rooms, dank stairways and beyond dark alleys to obtain that precious piece dangling at her side. Your lady, if she really fancies purses, is more versed in the criminal underground then you could ever hope to be -- that little March Madness pool pales in comparison.

Now, I've been to Canal Street.

My girlfriend told me what to expect during the six train ride downtown:

"We're looking for someone on the street whispering 'Gucci', 'Louis Vuitton or just 'Purses'. Got it?"

"Got it," I replied, repeating the brand names like an oath. "Gucci, Louis Vuitton."

"Or Prada" she added.

Canal Street is in New York's Chinatown; a hotbed of illegal purse activity. It didn't take long to locate our first contact: after barely half a block a short man dressed head to toe in NorthFace apparel said "Lady, Purses, Ladies, Purse", going in and out of plurals. He said this only to female passersby; men were fodder to be sifted through. This being his day job(I guess) he looked bored(probably to attract the least attention...day job? I am so far removed from criminality).

My girlfriend parroted back his invitation. He opened one half of a grimy glass double-door, and motioned us through. We entered the underworld.

The underworld had a lot of screaming children running around. An old color TV sat atop a high-chair, serving as a makeshift obelisk surrounded by baby toys and their captivated owners. The kids shouted about stolen toys and who was a jerk-face. The man handed us off to a young, equally small woman. She led us to a glass door obscured by a black curtain hanging from the inside. She squatted to work the bottom lock, then the middle before opening the door, lifting the black curtain, and hurrying us inside with pinwheel spins of her forearm.

Inside, my girlfriend started looking over the wares. In neat organized rows -- covering every available square inch of wall space -- hung all the desired suspects: doppelgangers of Gucci, Coco Chanel, Prada, and Louis Vuitton. The room was small, barley bigger than my cubicle back in DC. The grey walls didn't reach the high ceiling, allowing the cacophony of the playing children to echo and mix with the Q&A my girlfriend was having with our host.

I was told earlier I wasn't supposed to act interested in any item, to help with bargaining. Even so, my girlfriend insisted on asking me what I thought about each potential purchase. If it was a test, I passed and failed depending on how distracted I was when asked.

A bag hanging in the top row caught my girlfriend's eye, and the woman hoisted it down with her metal purse grabber(not it's real name I'm sure, but this is the only context that I have for it). The make was Gucci and the style was "hobo", so called because of it's large size and low-slung style. What a cruel name; an urban luxury item named after people who can never afford it. If everyone followed that example, NorthFace would have "bum" style wintercoats and Urban Outfitters would sell "derelict" style loafers to hipsters who love spending hundreds of dollars to pretend being penniless. Swing a hobo bag in a Manhattan UO and you'll hit two or three trust-fund kids.

Anyway, after examining the bag my girlfriend asked if they had it in a different pattern. The woman said they did, whipping out a flip cellphone and -- after the familiar beep -- barked orders over it's walkie-talkie. Technology makes everything more effective, I thought. Even the illegal purse business. A confirmation reply came back; I could hear the echo of the man's real voice talking a few rooms over. Sure beats having to walk over there, lock the doors(you don't leave the room unlocked with only customers in it, I learned), ask about the bag, come back, and unlock the door again.

I tried to stand still and out of the way, but out of a protective habit kept close to my girlfriend. She told me she had done this alone many times. These were purses, not freshly cut kilos of fishscale. The woman and the man were physically unimposing. Wouldn't mean much if they had guns, though, would it?

After a long, fruitless semi-silent wait for the purse it was decided that the purses here were about ten dollars too expensive, and the quality was terrible. I concurred with confidence, fully ready to contradict myself if the desired purse suddenly appeared. It did, but too late as my girlfriend was out the door despite the woman's pleas to reconsider ("Hey lady, what price you pay? It's very good bag!", an ubiquitous line in the underground purse business I would later learn).

Emerging outside, we continued up the street. It was cold. The wind blew past us and froze me inside my coat, since I only wore a t-shirt under it and my scarf. I felt it was unfair trick of the coat, my girlfriend marveled that I had not died of pneumonia before meeting her. Our next contact was a homely looking lady with heavy eye make-up.

She led us down an alley, past a storefront and through a pair of huge sliding metal doors. Unlocking a large wooden door, she motioned us through saying "last door on the left". The hallway before us had four identical wooden doors on each side. The ceiling was high -- dripping flaked plaster -- and I could hear haggling over the hallway walls.

Inside the last room on the left, another short woman was already attending to two other couples. The women were both middle-aged, Long Island looking housewife types, their ballooned bottoms matching their husband's hanging paunch. They had manicured nails and trumped up hair to go with their dumpy sweats. They loved their purses, and their men dutifully waited. Outside of this potential police raid target, you would see them driving children to soccer practice, arguing with the sale's clerk at the GAP, or ordering lattes at Starbucks. Here, they were purchasers of contraband. I guess that made me and the other men accessories.

This room also proved too expensive. After two more rooms(one nestled behind a labyrinth of narrow stone stairs and halogen lit, winding white-brick catacomb-like hallways - I was certain at one point we'd fallen victim to the Western slave trade) my girlfriend finally settled on a black Gucci "hobo" bag.

My reward for being her shopping escort was warming up at a nearby Starbucks. Standing in line to order my trademark tall, skim, no-whip hot chocolate, I felt my girlfriend tug my arm. I lowered an ear.

"I don't want to freak you out, but look who is standing next to you..." she whispered. I glanced at the man to my right.

Jerry. Fucking. Springer. Who is taller than you would think.

Thus ended one of the stranger days of my life. Later, my girlfriend bought me some long-sleeved shirts and we had dinner, but nothing matched the adventure in Chinatown capped by an appearance by the Ringmaster himself.

Only in New York.

Quick Hits

Hardly anyone in the office today, though a couple more have trickled in, we are still at less than half strength. Nice and quiet. Too quiet...

Break it up with:

• Nicolas Cage loves Ghost Rider, hates Entertainment Weekly. Makes me want to see the movie that much more. [ MSN Movies ]
• Why no one thought of using the Truffle Shuffle like this before is a mystery. [ YouTube , courtesy of Deadspin ]
• You can almost see this being real, can't you? When I read The Onion lately, I get that feeling way too much for my taste. [ Bush Cuts Off Diplomatic Relations With Congress ]
• Holy shit. [ Video Of Skydiver Hitting The Ground At 80 mph ]

You could also read my latest review at Bigyawn, and some good ones by other writers . Happy Valentines Day bitches.

Hey, It's That Guy! : Michael Wincott

"Hey, it's that guy!" - a declaration heard around countless television and movie screens and often followed with "You know, from [insert movie title here], he played the [insert memorable character actor role here]. You know, that guy. From that movie. Don't you remember? We talked about how great he was the entire car ride home!"

That guys get just as many blank stares as they do snaps of recognition. They deserve more recognition. That guys make movies more entertaining, believable, and memorable. Sometimes they carve out niche roles, and seeing that guy immediately centers you in a universe full of miscast superstars(like R. Lee Ermey, who started a very long that guy career with his role as a Marine Drill Sergeant in Full Metal Jacket), or they frequently steal the show from their more celebrated cast mates(like Henry Czerny, the that guy from Mission Impossible, Clear And Present Danger, and The Ice Storm).

Today, we recognize Michael Wincott. Please, hold your applause.

Wincott had completely slipped from my memory until I saw Seraphim Falls a month ago. He plays the same role I always remember him playing: a sinister henchman. The one that will surely die, but not until the third act.

I knew it was him before I saw him. Distracted -- situating the popcorn and the Reese's Pieces for maximum convenience -- he snapped me to attention with barely one and half syllables of his calling-card voice: deep, raspy, and deliberate. A voice with immediate character; an actor's dream. It stands every hair on your body, forcing you to swallow whatever you were about to say. And that's a hard swallow too; a lump that really fucking hurts going down. I'm a real son of a bitch, don't fuck with me his voice says.

He played Guy of Gisborne(a that guy literally playing a Guy, how poetic) in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, holding his own against Alan Rickman's wonderfully depraved Sheriff of Nottingham*. He reprised the role, for all intents and purposes, as the evil enforcer for Tim Curry's villainous Cardinal in The Three Musketeers, an otherwise forgettable film. Curry was entertaining, but Wincott's fellow that guy Oliver Platt(who is arguably no longer a that guy) was the only other source of entertainment with his boisterous Porthos. The movie helped catapult Chris O'Donnell to fame, making it indirectly responsible for the Batman franchise's temporary demise years later, and other cinematic crimes(In Love And War, The Bachelor).

Wincott's best performance was one of his only stints, to my knowledge, as a flick's top villian in The Crow. He played Top Dollar, the head of the film's eerie Gothic crime syndicate, and for the first time was given ample screen time to lay forth sadistic lines in his gravelled, yet smooth voice, the stones in his throat having been worn flat and polished by the Jack he no doubt used to wash down his six-pack-a-day habit**.

I'm not a huge fan of serial killer movies, but I'll have to see Along Came A Spider, since Wincott plays the main villain, Gary Soneji.

Today, aside from Seraphim Falls, Wincott does a lot of voice over work in video games like Halo and NARC. A perfect fit I'll admit, though I pray for the day I can watch him bedevil some poor superstar on the silver screen, and maybe if he's blessed with a cynical maverick for a director, he'll win.

A victory for that guys everywhere.

Michael Wincott, I salute you.

*One of my favorite lines of all time is from this movie, between Wincott and Rickman. After one of Robin Hood's many escapes, Rickman yells he'll cut out Robin Hood's heart with a spoon. Later:

Guy of Gisborne: Why a spoon, cousin? Why not an axe?
Sheriff of Nottingham: Because it's DULL, you twit. It'll hurt more.

Pure Brilliance. Other great lines:

Sheriff of Nottingham: Wait a minute. Robin Hood steals money from my pocket, forcing me to hurt the public, and they love him for it?
[Scribe nods]
Sheriff of Nottingham: That's it then. Cancel the kitchen scraps for lepers and orphans, no more merciful beheadings, and call off Christmas.

-----

Azeem: How many are there?
Robin of Locksley: Twenty
Azeem: Twenty?
Bull: How many?
Robin of Locksley: Five.
[to Azeem] Robin of Locksley: They can't count anyway

----

Sheriff of Nottingham: What a beautiful child. So young, so alive, so unaware of how precarious life can be. I had a very sad childhood, I'll tell you about it sometime. I never knew my parents; it's amazing I'm sane.

----

Azeem: Is there no sun in this cursed country? Which way is East?

----

Robin of Locksley: And you. You travel ten thousand miles to save my life and leave me to be butchered.
Azeem: I fulfill my vows when I choose to.
Robin of Locksley: Which does not include prayer time, meal time, or any time I'm outnumbered six to one.
Azeem: You whine like a mule. You are still alive.

----

[after Robin Hood and Azeem are catapulted over a castle wall]
Will Scarlett: Fuck me! He cleared it.

**I have no idea if Wincott smokes or drinks. Here are some great lines from The Crow(though you have to hear them to really appreciate Wincott):

T-Bird: I got trouble. One of my crew got himself perished.
Top Dollar: Yeah, and who might that be?
T-Bird: Tin Tin, somebody stuck his blades in all his major organs in alphabetical order.
Top Dollar: Gentlemen, by all means, I think we ought to have an introspective moment of silence for poor ol' Tin Tin. [sniffs]

----

Top Dollar: Ya know, my daddy used to say every man's got a devil. And you can't rest 'til you find him... but if it's any consolation to you, you have put a smile on my face.

----

Top Dollar: Our friend T-bird won't be joining us this evening on account of a slight case of death.

----

[gazing at falling-snow crystal ball containing a mini-cemetery] Top Dollar: Dad gave me this. Fifth birthday. He said, "Childhood's over the moment you know you're gonna die."

----

Eric Draven: I see you have made your decision, now let's see you enforce it.
Top Dollar: Aw, this is already boring the shit out of me. Kill 'im!

----

Grange: I saw him too. He had a guitar. He winked at me right before he jumped out a fourth floor window like he had wings.
Top Dollar: He winked at you?
[sighs]
Top Dollar: Musicians.

----
[after shooting the crow] Top Dollar: Quick impression for you: Caw! Caw! Bang! Fuck, I'm dead!

A Year Of Music (from Last.FM)

On February ninth of last year I signed up for Last.Fm, a music service that tracks what you listen to and then recommends new music based on that data. The Last.Fm scrobbler has recorded nearly every track played in my iTunes for a year(though not on my iPod). 9,749 tracks later, and I have a lot of information that only interests me.

Here, for example, are my top 50 artists of the past year (number of songs played in parenthesis):

1. 1. The Replacements (253)
2. 2. The Wrens (193)
3. 3. Pixies (169)
4. 4. The Beatles (154)
5. 5. Metallica , The White Stripes (153)
6. 6. McLusky (137)
7. 7. Modest Mouse (122)
8. 8. The Flaming Lips , Queen (119)
9. 9. Jimi Hendrix , Drive-By Truckers (116)
10. 10. The Black Keys (104)
11. 11. The Strokes (103)
12. 12. Ryan Adams , The Redwalls (100)
13. 13. Arctic Monkeys (96)
14. 14. Led Zeppelin (90)
15. 15. Eagles of Death Metal , Bob Dylan , Jesse Malin (85)
16. 16. Broken Social Scene (84)
17. 17. Bloc Party (81)
18. 18. The Rakes (79)
19. 19. Nirvana (78)
20. 20. Yeah Yeah Yeahs , Sam Cooke (76)
21. 21. The Coup (74)
22. 22. AC/DC (73)
23. 23. Johnny Cash (72)
24. 24. Creedence Clearwater Revival (71)
25. 25. The Rolling Stones (70)
26. 26. Guns N' Roses (69)
27. 27. Talib Kweli (67)
28. 28. Elvis Presley , Sufjan Stevens , John Legend , Bright Eyes (66)
29. 29. Aerosmith (65)
30. 30. The Shins , Iron & Wine (64)
31. 31. Spoon (62)
32. 32. Pearl Jam (60)
33. 33. Eagles (59)
34. 34. The Spinto Band , The Arcade Fire (57)
35. 35. My Morning Jacket , Stars , The Velvet Underground , The Ramones (56)
36. 36. Sondre Lerche (54)
37. 37. The Raconteurs (53)
38. 38. Jet (52)
39. 39. The Hold Steady , The Streets , Art Brut (51)
40. 40. Wolfmother (50)
41. 41. Coldplay , Iron Maiden (49)
42. 42. Alice in Chains (48)
43. 43. Ray Charles (47)
44. 44. Queens of the Stone Age , The Magic Numbers , The Clash (46)
45. 45. Frank Sinatra , Tool , Lupe Fiasco (43)
46. 46. Q and Not U (42)
47. 47. Ghostface , The Sounds , Destroyer , Cat Power , Kris Kristofferson (39)
48. 48. The Black Crowes , Pink Floyd , Beck, Soundgarden (38)
49. 49. The Killers , Pavement , Dinosaur Jr. , Young Love (37)
50. 50. Wolf Parade , Bettye Lavette , Rhymefest (36)

I grouped tied artists together.

The top 10 isn't surprising; The Replacements and The Wrens are two of my favorite groups. The Replacements are so far ahead because I own more of their work(and they have a larger catalog, pre-dating the Wrens by about ten years) than I do the Wrens, and I play Tim and Let It Be at least once month.

It's good to see that artists from my salad days -- Metallica, Jimi Hendrix, Queen and The Beatles -- still make up a large part of my musical tastes. Outside the top ten, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Nirvana, CCR, The Rolling Stones, Guns N Roses, Elvis, Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Eagles, Alice in Chains, Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, Tool, Pink Floyd, and Soundgarden bring a lot of memories to the Top 50.

Queen, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Floyd and their ilk were part of my typical American white adolescent "classic rock phase". During my junior and senior years of high school I worked a summer job with an older friend(he was in college), and he played nothing but these bands(plus a lot Heart, and for one week we listened to The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy on tape, as read by Douglas Adams; in many ways he was my mentor geek) in his beat up red Le Baron while he drove us to work every morning for two summers. I lived an innocent Happy Days existence to the Dazed And Confused soundtrack.

The Seattle bands felt monumentally important in the early nineties. I was thirteen when Nevermind hit, the perfect age to start buying music that you thought made some sort of statement about yourself and your place in the world. I wasn't sure what Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, and Alice In Chains records said exactly; in retrospect I think they added a stormier, grayer layer to the old rock 'n roll message that all adults where full of shit. Plus, I really dug the "Black Hole Sun" video.

Guns N Roses doesn't really fit into either of those two categories. You listened to them because they were fucking bad-ass. Up until The Spaghetti Incident, the Guns were the most Rock N' Roll of rock bands. I let a friend buy the aforementioned covers record, the entire idea seemed so fucking weird. We listened to it in his bedroom, and the next day I helped him take down his giant Appetite For Destruction poster and put up a Stone Temple Pilots concert poster and a Cindy Crawford poster in the revered space over his bed's headboard. Young idol-worship led to young disillusionment, and him sleeping with his head by the bedpost.

There are some interesting ties. Coldplay and Iron Maiden(excellent!)? I picture Bruce Dickinson punching Chris Martin in the balls and dropping him with a knee to his shiny dome.

Tool and Frank Sinatra? Sinatra may have been a little guy (5' 7"), but I'll take him against Maynard and the rest of his prog-metal rockers.

It'll be interesting to see how the list changes in the next year or so; who drops out, who moves up. I predict The Killers, Wolf Parade, Q and Not U, and Frank will all drop out for various reasons: slipping interest(The Killers), I only own one album(Sinatra, In The Wee Small Hours and Q and Not U No Kill No Beep Beep), or they just annoy me(Wolf Parade).

Who will move up? I have no idea, but I look forward to another year.

A Power Trio

I'm not going to lie. My room almost froze Sunday night, what with losing power sometime around one in the morning(I gathered from the difference between the blinking alarm clock and my cellphone). The low that night was 11 degrees, the temperature in my room didn't feel any warmer Monday morning. I'm still sick and cold. The situation is dire and bleak. But I have a plan.

And now, I shall unveil it(with some help from my family for picking up some heavy duty extensions cords).

My Power Trio:

Heater One.

Heater Two.

Heater Three.

Between these three machines, I can sleep somewhat warmly. According to the digital readouts of Heater One and Heater Two, it's about 60 degrees now.

In a weird twist of fate, the next installment in my series of 2006 hidden musical gems is Mastodon's Blood Mountain, and I originally wrote this while freezing(as noted in the text). So, enjoy!

Artist: Mastodon
Album Title: Blood Mountain
Record Label: Reprise/Relapse
Release Date: 9.12.2006
Rating: 8.7
Bands Web Site: http://www.mastodonrocks.com/main.html
Sound: Heavy Metal, Alternative Metal
Similar Artists: Killswitch Engage, Iron Maiden, Tool

Something is going to leap out of my closet, I thought. Something is going to leap out of my dark, cold closet - a giant wolf, like the one from The Never Ending Story - and tear my throat out...and it will fucking rock. Listening to Mastodon's Blood Mountain in my unheated, cold dark apartment, these were the kind of thoughts I was having. Maybe it was a mild hypothermia induced delirium, or maybe it was just how immersing Mastodon's brand of heavy metal can be.

Blood Mountain is a concept album based around the trek up, well, a mountain, and all the scary shit you would endure and encounter. Upon first listening to the record, this might be hard to pick up. Bassist Troy Sanders' vocals are not the easiest to understand, especially when they wander too far into cliched "Cookie Monster" territory(Sanders actually sings on most tracks, though).

A feeling of eminent doom is layered throughout songs like "The Wolf Is Loose", "Sleeping Giant", and "Circle of Cysquatch". A Cysquatch, incidentally and for the curious, is "a one-eyed Sasquatch that can see into the future", according to Sanders. You know, kind of like the cyclops from Krull, only with lots more hair and a bad-ass soundtrack. One thing I love about bands like Mastodon; they take shit like this very seriously. Another thing I love about bands like Mastodon is they really, really play the hell out of their instruments. Not many bands can stand up to Mastodon's technical skill, from Brent Hinds and Bill Kelliher's shredding guitars to Brann Dailor's mind-blowing drumming. They aren't afraid of diversifying their sound either, ranging from the blazing, Iron Maiden sounding epics to the eerie, melody driven songs featuring rich vocal harmonies, echoing Alice N Chains.

Even with my heat out, I was managing with a space heater. While I was listening to "Bladecatcher", though, the space heater shorted out the electricity to my room, right at the part when the song went over the edge with an assault of bizarre sharp sounding "vocals"(or at least I assumed it was the heater, maybe the fuse box just couldn't take one of Mastodon's more extreme tracks). Actually, the problem wasn't with the fuse so I listened to the rest of the album on my iPod, and as Mastodon blasted very epic, immense, unforgiving music it fit perfectly with the bleak white walls of my room, barely lit by the dim light of an overcast winter's day. I didn't know perfect music to freeze to death in your apartment existed, outside of whatever the hell was on the St. Elmo's Fire soundtrack.

Blood Mountain is a superbly constructed album. No song feels out of place, and the record not only holds up to repeated listens but actually makes you want to peel back it's dark, snowy layers. For their first record on new label Reprise, Mastodon hasn't dumbed anything down, in fact, this might be their best work

Music, Hidden Gems, Let My People Go

I've been very busy with my new side job, amateur record reviewer. You can read my to latest reviews at BigYawn: The Autumn Defense's S/T album, and "Too Young To Fight It" by Young Love.

In retrospect, I should have rated Young Love's effort a little lower. Only a third of the album really stood out - the other two thirds were one half mediocre and one half uninspiring dreck. Those four good ones I really liked, though, and it pushed the album's quality a little higher in my mind than it should have. Such is hindsight.

February may be a little late for sharing 2006's hidden gems, but punctuality has never been my strong suite. So, starting today, I'll post three albums you(maybe) and I missed out on in 2006. One of which would have been my number one album of the year - by Secretariat lengths - if I had heard it when it was released in August.

Here's the first, more to follow:

Artist: Darondo
Album Title: Let My People Go
Record Label: Ubiquity/Luv N' Haight
Release Date: 1.24.2006
Bands Web Site: http://www.ubiquityrecords.com/darondo.html
Sound: Soul, Funk R&B
Similar Artists: Al Green, The Isley Brothers, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone

John Legend wasn't the only artist to release a beautiful piece of anachronistic music in 2006; little known(except to hardcore soul and funk devotees) singer Darondo's album Let My People Go sounds like Al Green circa 1972. Which makes sense since Al Green isn't just an influence of Darondo's, but a contemporary. Known only to San Francisco area musicians in the early seventies, Darondo was expected to be the next big thing in soul. Then, he simply disappeared from music. A rumored pimp and confirmed late night television host in San Francisco, it seems between Watergate and the death of Luther Vandross the man did everything but record music(even hosting a children's television show, Tapper The Rabbit).

Luckily for us, Darondo was resurrected by UK DJ Gilles Peterson when he took Darondo's single "Didn't I" and made it the opening track for his Digs America compilation. The renewed interest in the man who once rode around the bay area in a white Rolls Royce and wore only tailor made suits(a perfect man to be a musician; a player before there were playas) led label Luv N' Haight to compile the six tracks from Darondo's three early seventies singles that up until now, were the entirety of his musical output, and throw in three previously unreleased tracks. Lean without any filler at those nine tracks, Let My People Go is musical time capsule.

The title track itself is a nugget of past troubles, with Darondo's Green-like falsetto echoing the plight of his starving people, while fools in rocket ships pretend to be Superman. NASA hasn't been a scapegoat for progressives for some time, but it's still a fantastic put-down of our social priorities when forcefully delivered by Darondo, even if most of us are hearing it 25 years too late.

Darondo's social commentary begins and ends with that first track, however, and he gets right into the soul staples: lust, love, and longing. "Legs" crackles with sexiness, and whereas "Let My People Go" is more soul, this is where the funk kicks in. Throughout the record there are hints of funk, blues, and jazz. While this record does wear its influences on its sleeve(especially after 25 years to listen to Al Green and Sly Stone), at no time do you think "I've heard this before, done better". The man demonstrates himself to be a living instrument, not a cheap imitator. He delivers vocals reminiscent of not only the aforementioned Green and Ronald Isley, but also a latter day Marvin Gaye. Whatever the song, Darondo crafts his sweet voice to fit it.

Since none of the material here is new(Darondo provided backing vocals and some guitar for the unreleased tracks), this album wasn't widely considered among the top albums of 2006. A shame, but maybe that minor snub and the renaissance Darondo is enjoying will ultimately lead to some new material. Even if it takes three decades and an English record collector to emerge, I'll be waiting for that record.