Accidental Historian

You Know I'm a Peaceful Man

So, this is one o' them stories that doesn't really have a point but does give me an excuse to put some music on my blog.  As such, hooray!

And so but anyway, I finally got a chance to listen to the new Counting Crows, which, as it turns out, is a whole album of cover songs.  I'm actually okay with that in principle, but it does mean that the album no longer counts for a best of 2012.  Sorry, fellas.

Anyway, the album begins with Romany Rye's "Untitled (Love Song)."  I am not at all familiar with the band, I didn't know the song, and I didn't realize that it was all covers yet.  So I started listening and I thought two things: 1. "Holy shit, Counting Crows are trying to be The Band," and 2. "It's actually pretty much working."



Basically, this reminded me of nothing so much as "The Weight."  If you don't know The Band, you probably still know "The Weight."



The Band, for those who don't know, basically hit the big time when they toured backing Dylan.  I don't actually like Dylan that much as a performer, but, holy shit, could the man write songs.  As such, I almost always like a good Dylan cover, like, say, when Scott Lucas & the Married Men do it.



I also mention this because I decided to start a Pandora station for The Band.  There was only one problem: Pandora wouldn't let me.  I put in The Band and hit enter and suddenly ended up with a station for The Band Perry.  So I tried again and the closest I could get was a The Band & Bob Dylan station.  But it then gave me a similar artist: The Band.  I was forced to wonder if The Band would have come up with a different name had they known it would be impossible to create a Pandora station some fifty years later.  I'm assuming the answer is, "No."

Anyway, the only neat transition from here goes in the wrong direction, so here's some Lost Immigrants doing "Circle in My Hand" at the fantastic White Elephant Saloon in Fort Worth.  You can hear a bit of a different song tagged in at the beginning and then the whole coda at the end.



The other song is "Wagon Wheel," by Old Crow Medicine Show.



"Wagon Wheel is a re-write of an old, unreleased Dylan tune.  Dylan, as it turns out, attributed the song to an old bluesman.  Why?  Because everything goes back to the old bluesmen (even things from before the blues.  Black dudes with soul can time travel.  How else do you think that noted Kenyan anarchosocialcommuatheistmuslim Barack HUSSEIN Obama managed to travel back in time to plant his birth certificate and announcement in Hawaii?).  That, for the record, leads me down yet another rabbit trail for another day.

Meanwhile, in looking for a video for "The Weight," I discovered this.



Yes.  That is Mavis Staples singing with The Band.  Why do you ask?

So, then, you go with The Band and you can find Dylan.  You can find Old Crow Medicine Show.  You can even work the long way around to hit Scott Lucas & the Married Men.  You can find Woodstock and (through Mavis Staples) the Chicago Blues Fest.

This is The Band Perry:



That right there is bland, inoffensive countrypop with a little bluegrass mixed in.  From there you can get to, um, Sugarland.  Or Lady Antebellum.  Or Taylor Swift.  Now, if you're lucky you'll follow the bluegrass to Alison Kraus, which is a gateway to some great stuff.[1]

But, otherwise, yeah...good show on that, Pandora.

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[1]Alison Kraus is one of those musicians who I really, really want to like.  She's really good at what she does and collaborates with some great musicians.  I just find every song she does is, well, slow and boring.

Every Day I'm Rising Up

I turned 31 on Monday.  I know, right?  I'm sure some of you are all, "Wow, that's fucking old."  Others are like, "Pffffft, young'in, come back and talk to me when you can grow hair on your nuts."

As such, I think 31 is a pretty damn good age.  And it was definitely time for a party.  Three years ago on my birthday I saw Local H at the Double Door in Chicago.  Two years ago I saw the Lost Immigrants at the Doublewide in Dallas (and met James Dunning, who turned out to be a cool dude).  Last year I got my offer letter to come back to Chicago from Dallas.  This year, well, this year I had a party game:



Yup.  Nothin' like taking the day off to sand down your stairs.  Anyway, it was a good birthday, all things considered, especially since I got an email from Barnes & Noble at 11:30 on Monday night that Blackout, the third Newsflesh book, was ready to be downloaded.  I hadn't been expecting to get it until June.

And so but anyway, now that I'm officially ensconced in my fourth decade on this planet, I feel it's time to pretend like I've developed some wisdom about life.  So here are my three big lessons on life:

1.  Every few years I realize how dumb I was a few years ago.  I fear the moment when that stops being true, because it means I've stopped growing and learning.

2.  I always have to be willing to get hurt and be disappointed.  I've spent the last few years focused solely on expectation management, i.e. if you don't expect too much you won't be let down when the roof inevitably falls in on you.  I've finally figured out that the only thing you get from that is misery compounding misery, because if you don't dedicate yourself to something and try you'll just end up wondering why you can't have nice things.

3.  If I'm waiting for someone or something to come along and complete me, I'll never be whole.  No one else can tell me who or what to be.  It doesn't matter if I'm looking for god or a significant other or that job that I think will be the best thing ever.  If I don't know who I am and can't give myself meaning, then I'll just be defining yourself by some external thing.

So, yeah.  It's pretty trite and obvious, I suppose.  But it took me thirty years to learn, so maybe it's not.  Life is really good right now and I've got some developing developments of a developmental nature that I think will probably actually cause my head to explode if they go the way I hope they do.  But even if they don't, well, I've learned enough to say that it won't be the end of the world and there's always something new and exciting around that next corner.

Anyway, here's some happy-making music:



And here's some Florence + the Machine, because, holy shit, Florence + the Machine:

Greetings from Chicago

So, Chicago has returned to normal.  That seems like a good thing.  So it's time to get to the truly important questions in life.

WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T ANYONE TELL ME ABOUT FLORENCE + THE MACHINE?!?

Seriously, I think someone was asleep at the switch for that one.

Also, too, Florence is what would happen if you gave Zooey Deschanel's hair and Adele's pipes to Karen Gillan.  I don't understand why she's not the most popular human being in history.  This is especially true since she's got a band with some serious musical chops.  I keep trying to figure out who the band reminds me of, but it's tough.  The closest I can come up with is the incarnation of the Waterboys that put out A Pagan Place.  There's also a bit of Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds and Sarah MacLachlan circa Mirrorball nibbling at the edges.  Basically, what I'm saying is that Florence + the Machine is fucking awesome.

That's actually the main thing holding me back from being able to think of Adele as anything but a temporary pop fascination.  She's only got about three songs that actually take advantage of her vocal range.  Fortunately, though, she's only 23.  Hopefully she'll take the Harry Connick, Jr route and use her youthful phenom status to gather the resources and confidence to branch out and try new and challenging things.  But she probably shouldn't move into the epically-instrumented britpop musical space, as Florence + the Machine pretty much owns that territory.

And, yes, that's about three more sentences about Adele than I thought I'd ever write.

Oh, and, hey, Florence + the Machine released Ceremonials in 2011.  So let's review 2011 in music (in no particular order):

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds
Flogging Molly, Speed of Darkness
Mike Doughty, Yes and Also Yes
Wheeler Brothers, Portraits
Matt Nathanson, Modern Love
Florence + the Machine, Ceremonials
Roddy Woomble, The Impossible Song & Other Songs
Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears, Scandalous
Foo Fighters, Wasting Light
Cord Carpenter, Nights on the Old No 9
Over the Rhine, The Long Surrender
RCPM, Unida Cantina

As for 2012, well...

So far we've got Sons of Bill's Sirens, which I've already said some crazy shit about (and I stand by every word, now that I've edited my poorly constructed grammatical abortion).

Counting Crows, Our Lady Peace, and Candlebox (!) have all released new music.  I own the albums, haven't actually had time to put them into proper format for trasfer to a portable device, though.  So I haven't heard them.

Rumblings from the Lost Immigrants' camp indicate the new album, An Americana Primer, Vol 1 (if I recall), will be dropping fairly soon.

We're exactly two weeks from Blood Half Moons by Scott Lucas & the Married Men.  I'm also told the new Local H, Hallelujah, I'm a Bum! (if I recall) will be out in the fall-ish.

New Lovehammers soonish.

And, of course, SOUNDGARDEN.  "Live to Rise" was on The Avengers soundtrack.  It wasn't great, but it was pretty good and I take that as a good sign, since it pretty much sounded like I expected new Soundgarden to sound.

Also, too: in the interests of discussion, I do not like Mumford & Sons.  I feel like I should, but I don't.  Anybody have any theories?

Chicago Bear Patrol

I'm currently 30 miles outside Chicago.  That saddens me, since I'd rather be in Chicago right now so I could walk around the Loop and take pictures of the streets that I'm told are surprisingly empty for a gorgeous Friday in late May.

So, basically, after three solid weeks of ratcheting panic and, "STAY AWAY WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE," Chicago is enjoying what might be the most peaceful day it's ever enjoyed.  At the very least it's a close second to the city-wide day of mourning declared when it was announced that Chicago Code had not been renewed by FOX.

It'll be nice, though, to hear all of the talking heads and pundits and everyone else stand up and say, "You know what? Maybe we panicked over nothing and we need to seriously re-consider our response to things like this.  Perhaps it's time to have a little faith in humanity again."

Oh, wait, I'm sorry.  That's how things work in my alternate universe where people are intelligent and decent and capable of being reasonable.  In that universe I'm also married to Kristen Bell and Mary Elizabeth Winstead at the same time.  Also, I have a pony.

So, since we don't live in that world, I'll bet I can tell you exactly how this went.  The whole thing ended up being peaceful and no one got hurt because of all the great prep work done by the City of Chicago and the various other entities who spent the last month working all the office workers up into a nice frothing panic at the thought they might have to possible be in the same street at the same time as an unwashed freak.  Also, too, there might even be MORE unwashed freaks than usual, so said office workers wouldn't have the luxury of ganging up on that person and yelling, "Get a job!"

Because, y'know, that's the real problem.  They're all too goddamn lazy to work and they want to take all of the hard working office peoples' stuff away.

Again, welcome to America in 2012.  Treasure it, people.

The Calm Before the Summit

They're giving the city of Chicago over to the mob on Friday in preparation for giving it over to the landed gentry of the largely superfluous Cold Warmongering body known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on the weekend.  It's been strange to be in Chicago for these last few weeks.

Way back on May 2nd we got our first warning about what to expect when the rabid hordes of Occupy protesters descend on the city like so many patchouli-scented locusts.  At the time I made jokes about the importance of holding hourly panic drills.  I also planned on taking my lunch hours on May 18th and May 21st to (gasp) head out into the streets of Chicago with a camera and take pictures of the doin's-a-transpiring.

In the last two weeks I've witnessed the panic slowly getting ratcheted up from "pointless and laughable" to "extreme and genuinely worrisome."  Last weekend I found out that Metra (the collective train lines that connect the suburbs beyond the reach of the L to the city) is putting in regulations for Saturday to Monday that skip merrily past "draconian" right into "completely batshit absurd."  Then yesterday my company declared an all-company work from home day and said that the doors to the office will be locked and don't bother even trying to come in because OH MY GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE.

Well, that last part was more subtext...

Anyway, I hope to have an opportunity to write more about this later.  But I've drawn one conclusion.  In America we now have two sides: the fascists who want to take away your freedom and the wild, unreasonable animals who want to burn everything to the ground.  Because, y'know, that's way easier to believe than any sissified moderate option that actually requires listening to your opponent.

There's really no sense in wondering why we're so fucked up.  This is America in 2012.  Treasure every minute of it, people.

Truth

That’s why you’ve been able to push things this far. We’ve kind of been hoping that you’d wake up one morning, look at the things you’d written or said, the sermons you’ve preached, the blog posts you’ve published, the hateful things you’ve screamed at children and grieving parents, and suddenly see them with new eyes. We’ve been hoping that you’d wake up. No, not hoping — assuming. It happens often enough. People drop their fear all the time, shake their heads, make amends for the harm they’ve caused and start living their lives without the poisoned anger and hatred.

Read the whole thing.

Does this Count as Blogwhoring?

Fred reminded me that today is the 101st anniversary of the birth of one of the most important men in the history of music:  Robert Johnson.  In honor of the event, I do believe I will link to my mini-history of blues and rock music.  Go back, refresh your memories.

Then celebrate by having a Dogfish Head Hellhound on my Ale.  Wait, what's that?  You don't have one in your fridge?  Well, that's too bad.  I guess not everyone can be me...

The Party blessed me with it's future and I protect it with fire

Once again, irony doesn't stand a chance:

Representative Paul D. Ryan strolls the halls of Capitol Hill with the anarchist band Rage Against the Machine pounding through his earbuds.

Although, hey, the next time someone tells you not to let children listen to the evil rock music, lest it influence them to the Devil or something, you know where to find a counterpoint.  So, hooray?

Ignoring Haymarket

Wow.  There's a coda to yesterday's post that kind of makes me gag.

Apparently May Day was rebranded to Loyalty Day back in 1958.  Because, y'know, Commies and shit.  I...I don't even have enough snark to cover this.  Freedom, Thomas Jefferson told us, comes at the cost of eternal vigilance.  The problem is that we also need to be vigilant against those who make themselves the self-appointed defenders of freedom.  Something called "Loyalty Day" may actually be well-intentioned (which, honestly, I doubt, since I missed the Red Scare but lived through 9/11 and the Patriot Act.  It seems that every generation simply updates and re-invents the stupid ideas of the past generation), but "loyalty" is anathema to "freedom."

Passing Haymarket

Turn on the radio
Nah, fuck it, turn it off
Fear is your only god on the radio
Nah, fuck it, turn it off
-Rage Against the Machine, "Vietnow"

It's really too freaking bad I'm so damn busy right now.  I want nothing more than to write and I know exactly what I want to write about: Chicago.

Specifically, I want to write about that which defines the essence of Chicago.  It comes down to one word: Haymarket.

Yesterday was May Day.  Friday is the 126th anniversary of the Haymarket "Riot."  Yesterday's May Day labor rally and parade went right past the memorial at Haymarket Square, which was once a monument to the heroism of the police who opened fire in the dark on a (mostly) peaceful crowd and mostly managed to kill themselves.

Chicago was once the heart and soul of the labor movement.  There's a reason that Upton Sinclair set The Jungle in Packingtown.

Anyway, yesterday was May Day.  I posted this picture:




In a bit over two weeks, we have this:




NATO is coming to Haymarket.  I've already witnessed someone -- specifically someone with authority in the CFD -- connect yesterday's extremely peaceful and orderly May Day rally to the expected NATO rallies a "the insanity that started off yesterday."

I also received the official "It's Time to Start Panicking" warning from building services that include all the beefed-up security procedures and warnings not to associate with the protesters, lest they, I don't know, kill me or something.

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Meanwhile, yesterday morning I read "The Butcher of Anderson Station," a prequel-ish short story to Leviathan's Wake.  I read it right after finishing Mira Grant's Countdown, a novella prequel to the Newsflesh trilogy.  After that I started re-reading Feed.

I consider my recent reading choices extremely timely, here in the space between Haymarket and NATO.