Monthly Archives: November 2014

Mic City Sons

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Band: Heatmiser
Album: Mic City Sons
Best song: “Plainclothes Man” is among Elliott Smith’s best songs.
Worst song: I am lukewarm on “Eagle Eye.”

I’ve referenced this before, but Patton Oswalt has a track on his record Werewolves and Lollipops called “At Midnight, I Will Kill George Lucas With a Shovel.” The premise is that if we like a thing, we don’t always want to see where that thing came from, but rather we want to see that thing. He uses the comparison of Jon Voight’s ball sack and Angelina Jolie to young Anakin/Darth Vader in The Phantom Menace. Continue reading →

Electric Guitar One

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Band: Emma Ruth Rundle
Album: Electric Guitar One
Best song: “For Paul”
Worst song: “Dialogue Preceding”

One of the self-evident parts of fandom is the strange reality of coming near the subject of said fandom. I suspect it’s not a real thing for super duper mainstream artists.

Let me back up.

I’ve interviewed a bunch of musicians in my life and have, generally, taken to the idea that they’re just people. Name-dropping isn’t going to do me any good, but meeting people like Chris Walla or Ike Brock or Wayne Coyne or Doug Martsch didn’t bother me; ultimately, they were just some dudes.  Continue reading →

Wildflowers

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Band: Tom Petty
Album: Wildflowers
Best song: The title track is one of my favorite Petty songs.
Worst song: “Hard on Me” isn’t the best.

After the Concert for Valor, I had an interesting conversation with my boss (a big Springsteen fan) about a certain brand of straight rock and roll and its place in society. He referenced U2 as the type of band that’s, basically, always been relevant since inception, yet never really fell into the dreaded “classic rock” category that many bands of that vintage do. Springsteen is in that category, but most bands of that and earlier eras most certainly do not; Zeppelin, Dylan, the Stones, REM, etc. are still giants, but when they tour, they do the hits. No new stuff. Shit, Concert for Valor artists Metallica thinks themselves the former, but are most definitely the latter. It’s hard to avoid. Continue reading →

So Much For The Afterglow

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Band: Everclear
Album: So Much For The Afterglow
Best song: “Everything to Everyone” is very catchy.
Worst song: “Hating You For Christmas” is as dumb as the title suggests.

Recency bias is a funny thing. Because I want to rewrite my own history, I tend to claim my high school years were soundtracked by a combination of underground 80s/90s punk (Big Black, Naked Raygun, Rodan, Fugazi, etc.), classic rock/punk (The Who, the Kinks, Beatles, Clash, etc.), prog (mostly Genesis, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull and King Crimson) and, eventually, era-appropriate indie rock (this is where my love of Smog, Tortoise, June of 44 and the like started). That’s certainly the vast majority of the story, but it is not, shall we say, the entire story. Continue reading →

Goddess

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Band: Banks
Album: Goddess
Best song: “Brain” is brilliant.
Worst song: “Warm Water” is not my favorite.

I first came across Banks because of her acoustic cover of Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody” that was splashed across every music blog in the world over the summer. Being a huge fan of that song, I listened to that cover hundreds of times, along with the acoustic version of Banks’ song “Brain” recorded during the same session. Continue reading →