playlist for tuesday, march 13, 2007.

the raiders - "unchained devastation fury"
r=w=a - "undone (demo)"
peter bjorn and john - "up against the wall"
love of diagrams - "no way out"
benni hemm hemm - "sweaty in the sunshine"
all smiles - "moth in a cloud of smoke"
deerhunter - "octet"

lavender diamond - "find a way"
mess up the mess - "morrissey already ate"
born ruffians - "this sentence will ruin or save your life"
mission of burma - "donna sumeria"
the aislers set - "the way to market station"
low - "belarus"
jacob berendes - "jla dreamer"
gershon kingsley/leonid hambro - "rhapsody in blue"
bedroom walls - "do the buildings..."
tussle - "here it comes"

the dead science - "unseeing eye"
illinois - "alone again"
belle and sebastian - "i'm a cuckoo"
the sea and cake - "parasol"
hella - "let your heavies out"
jennifer gentle - "tiny holes"
of montreal - "gromlandic edit"
pink nasty - "burn"
pj harvey - "to bring you my love"

serena maneesh - "drain cosmetics"
do make say think - "herstory of glory"
the locust - "AOTKPTA"
my brightest diamond - "golden star"
a hawk and a hacksaw - "saltwater"
m ward - "headed for a fall"
carter family - "hello stranger"
the postmarks - "looks like rain"
the sugarcubes - "birthday"
ted leo/pharmacists - "biomusicology"

architecture in helsinki - "tiny paintings"
au revoir simone - "fallen snow"
the pipettes - "dirty mind (demo)"
thao nguyen - "feet asleep (live)"
page france - "spine"
the stills - "love and death"
tv on the radio - "poppy"

christie front drive - "radio"
bear vs. shark - "ma jolie"
comeback kid - "defeated"
the (international) noise conspiracy - "ready, set, go!"
foot village - "korea"
cave in - "off to ruin"
the mae shi - "lamb & lion"
the mae shi - "run to your grave"

Artistic Merit, Despair and the “Professional Appreciator” Ideal

Sometimes, I don’t understand how serious people can break out of whatever’s holding them back and go out and create something. I understand that there are people in this world who don’t take things as seriously as I do, but I know that there has to be someone out there making it who wasn’t before and never thought they would. The idea of the “professional appreciator” comes from Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity. Any obsessive music fanboy will know the reference, but to anyone else, “professional appreciator” is a nice way of saying “creep.” The idea that someone could appreciate something to the point of it being almost a profession is saying that you have nothing better to do and that you actually might enjoy having nothing to do besides learning everything there is to know about whatever it is you’re into.

The reason I write about this is because of a particular state of mind that you have to be in to understand: despair. I couldn’t think of a better word for it, and I don’t mean to be so particularly bleak or melodramatic about it, but it seems to work. Just like all other professional appreciators, I dream of once being able to step out from behind the keyboard and be able to do what all others can’t. In my case, I would be making music, but it isn’t that simple. Our lives are lived in solitude and because of that, we are harshly critical of everything. Cynicism and self-consciousness tend to go hand in hand with the particular personality type I’m talking about. If I were to ever get out and put something into the world that wasn’t there before, I’d be absolutely terrified that it wouldn’t meet someone’s standards, let alone my own. Of course, these are doubts that most anyone feels on a day-to-day basis without being a professional appreciator, but if you are one or you know one, you’ll also know the higher standard that we hold ourselves to. Since we’re better than most people and we know more, we should be better and never make mistakes; this definitely seeps into the other facets of life quickly.

I was watching Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation recently and thought about one thing in particular: the use of the song “Sometimes” by My Bloody Valentine. I’ve never felt as strange as when I saw that scene in the movie. On one level, there’s nothing particularly emotional about the scene. The cinematography is nice, but there isn’t a whole lot going on in the plot. It’s a damn ride in a cab, and yet there was something else there. Kevin Shields is a solitary man, who, I would imagine, is much like those professional appreciators out there. My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless took over a year and 14 sound engineers to record. You could say that he wanted to get it right. After nearly conquering the world with the album, Shields broke up the band and went into hiding, never to return to the surface again. Of course, occasionally people would see him milling about and every once in a while, he would release a remix of someone else’s song, but he seems to be the archetype for kind of person I’m describing. I got all estrogen-filled at that one moment in the movie because of what Coppola was implying by using the song. I felt that way because I know what it must’ve taken Shields to create something like that and the isolation that was involved. I wondered if I could ever do it, or ever do anything, for that matter.

The moral of the story: be good to yourself and your friends. You know someone like this and all you have to do is reach out and tell him/her it’s okay. What’s good enough for other people should be good enough for everyone. As we say in my line of work, “Know that you won’t ever understand their experience, but be supportive.”

Is this a cry for help? Hardly. I just think that some of you assholes could be nicer, that’s all.

playlist for monday, march 5, 2007 (6-10am).

ella jenkins - "what shall we do today?"
i'm from barcelona - "oversleeping"
freedom dub - "paradise city"
jens lekman - "your kick beats back like death"
wilco - "either way"
kings of convenience - "failure"
feist - "so sorry"

lavender diamond - "here comes one"
peter bjorn & john - "paris 2004"
bishop allen - "things are what you make of them"
camera obscura - "tears for affairs"
arcade fire - "keep the car running"
andrew bird - "armchairs"
epicentre - "re-vision (visit)"

iggy & the stooges - "search and destroy"
let's go sailing - "sideways"

damien rice - "when doves cry"
the format - "wind that blows (demo)"
neko case - "i wish i was the moon"
limbeck - "trouble"
broken social scene - "major label debut (fast)"
rilo kiley - "patiently"
the little ones - "heavy hearts brigade"

ben kweller - "wasted and ready"
cat power - "metal heart"
the thermals - "remember today"
the wedding present - "it's not unusual"
saturday looks good to me - "i wish i could cry"
ten in the swear jar - "san jose fight song"
orange juice - "lovesick"
chad van gaalen - "burn 2 ash"

low - "breaker"
oxes - "panda strong"
fragile fawn - "indian giver"
some girls - "ex-nuns/dead dogs"
barr - "this song is the first single"
dear nora - "round and round"
silver jews - "getting back into you"
m. ward - "to go home"

wilco - "impossible germany"
the decemberists - "apology song"
ghost mice - "sing out"
the weakerthans - "everything must go"
mike park - "born to kill"

billy bragg - "the milkman of human kindness"
okkervil river - "the president's dead"
ted leo/pharmacists - "CIA"
jawbreaker - "kiss the bottle (live)"
armalite - "new wave"

belle and sebastian - "stars of track and field"
!!! - "all my heroes are weirdos"
ooioo - "umo"
hella - "friends don't let friends..."
lcd soundsystem - "time to get away"
menomena - "the pelican"
deerhoof - "believe esp."

The Wilco Experience: Fanboy-ism, Liveblogging and the Whole Truth.

Tonight is a special night for those of us who are diehard Wilco fans. Following the spirit of the last few albums, Wilco decided to beat everyone to the punch by leaking their own album. I promised myself I wouldn’t get all geeky and liveblog the whole experience, but I HAD to write something. Partially, it was due to my extreme enthusiasm for the album in general, but I also felt that doing this is, in some way, a response to all the rest of the fanboys out there who don’t quite get it yet.

I am writing this because I’ve joined a community of enthusiasts much like myself; I’ve recently signed up for an account on the much-maligned “AtEase messageboards.” This is the messageboard responsible for the Arcade Fire leak and most of the ridiculous music rumors on the internet. When the first few tracks off of the new album Sky Blue Sky leaked, there was pandemonium on the board. Blogs were shut down and the RIAA were surely to blame. People didn’t know what to think about the music either. Many of the songs had been played live, but no one really knew what to expect in the recordings, because Wilco is known for playing very straightforward versions of their songs live. It would be next to impossible to recreate some of the studio work put into an album like Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, but that’s besides the point. The music was described by one blogger as “some Randy Newman horse shit” and by several AtEase members as “dad rock.” I decided I needed some time alone with the songs because, I will admit, I didn’t understand A ghost is born the first few times I heard it.

After hearing the songs, I decided that hearing only a few songs wasn’t fair and representative of the whole. When the full album stream went live about an hour ago, there I was, sitting in front of my computer, foaming at the mouth. I was simultaneously on the messageboard, gauging other responses out of curiosity. What was said was somewhat surprising, but in the same, was not surprising at all. I knew immediately by the mood of the album, this wasn’t going to be the typical Wilco album. Generally, Jeff Tweedy is about making big statements with album openers, with big songs like “Misunderstood” and “I am trying to break your heart,” but this time, it started off slowly with “Either Way,” which in itself, is an ambiguous, lukewarm statement.

The thing is, I’m getting tired of the “Well, it’s okay” and “it’ll be a grower” comments. If you don’t understand what’s going on in this album, it won’t grow on you and you won’t understand why it’s going on your year-end, best of list. The “dad rock” tags are correct in some sense, but not in the spirit that they were originally intended. Jeff Tweedy has two children and god knows how old the rest of the guys are. The album is about maturing gracefully, rather than just getting old. The songs are not at all adventurous, as many have said, but it’s not about breaking everyone’s expectations and preconceived notions anymore for Wilco. It’s about writing music that people are going to listen to in 50 years. It’s about longevity. Wilco and “unconventional” have become somewhat synonymous because of their past few albums and people have come to expect it, without regard to the music. A band can be “all reinvention, all the time,” but it turns into gimmickry and it gets ridiculous in some cases (see Sonic Youth catalogue). Bands that intend to be influential, not only in sound, but in presence, need to make solid statements in cautious, well written and mature albums like Sky Blue Sky. Sonic Youth just did it, as a matter of fact; Rather Ripped was a straightforward pop album, without any of the Jim O’Rourke “charm.”

My point is this: forget what you think you know and just appreciate music for what it is. Sky Blue Sky is just a good album. You can’t weigh the fact that it’s “not a Wilco album” against the strength of the music, because the album will stand the test of time and half of what you think is “sooooo amazing” won’t be relevant this time next year. Of course, there are legitimate complaints about the album, but there is no perfection. It’s good, and that should be all there is to it.