Accidental Historian

In Which Geds Talks About Music

The Sons of Bill-ification of The Gaslight Anthem continues apace.  That, for anyone wondering, is an actual sentence in English.  I know, I’m as surprised as you are.

It turns out that I kinda-sorta have to eat my words from the post I wrote about The Gaslight Anthem a couple weeks ago.  I compared them to Sons of Bill but gave them a markdown because they couldn’t seem to shift into a lower gear like Sons of Bill can.  I apparently had not made it all the way to the end of Handwritten then, because there’s this song called “National Anthem.”  Here, listen to it:



I could have used that song about four years ago.  The first verse pretty much defines a certain period of my life.  And the second verse…

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Now everybody lately is living up in space
Flying through transmissions on invisible airwaves
With everything discovered
Just waiting to be known
What’s left for god to teach from his throne?
And who will forgive us when he’s gone?

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I like music.  I’ve defined my life, or at least parts of my life, through and by music.  I like writing about music.  I also tend to really, really despise people who write about music.  I don’t think people should write about music.

This is awkward.

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In order to get me into the proper mood for this post I set up a randomized playlist consisting of exactly six albums: Sons of Bills’ A Far Cry From Freedom, My Hometown, and Sirens and The Gaslight Anthems’ American Slang, The ’59 Sound, and Handwritten.

The randomizer just went from Gaslight’s “National Anthem” to SoB’s “Roll on Jordan.”  This is how “Roll on Jordan” starts:

Yeah, in this sad world we live in
The government bought all the trains
And there’s a lot of lonely people
And they’re all flying aeroplanes
And they think they’re closer to heaven
Lord but that is far from true
You gotta take that ride on the
River of Jordan
See what a boy from Galilee can do

The second verse of “National Anthem” makes me think of the first verse of “Roll on Jordan.”

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The problem with people who write about music is that they generally write about music to let you know how much smarter they are than you.  Or they write about music to let you know that they’re not nearly as dumb as you think they are.  It kind of seems to depend on what they’re writing about.  If it’s some indie band like, say, Sons of Bill or The Gaslight Anthem it’s probably the former.  If it’s Taylor Swift it’s probably the latter.[1]

Here’s the thing: I don’t care what you think of me for writing about Sons of Bill.  I like them.  Don’t get me wrong, I want you to like them, too.  I think that they’re one of the ten best bands in the world right now, and that’s a list that includes the reconstituted Soundgarden, two different Scott Lucas projects, Mike Doughty, Flogging Molly, Matt Nathanson, and Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers.  I also genuinely don’t give a shit whether you actually do like them or not.  Music, like all art, is completely subjective.  My appreciation for a particular band or song shouldn’t have any impact on your appreciation of the same thing.  It doesn’t fucking matter.

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I took Amy to exactly one concert.  It was a Local H show at Durty Nellie’s in Palatine.  I couldn’t go to Local H shows or listen to Local H songs without thinking about that night for a long time after we stopped talking.  That included the time I saw Local H in Houston and Fort Worth when I was in Texas and desperate for anything that reminded me of home.

It sucked.  It’s weird, too, the memories that come from moments like that.  I was driving my old Cavalier at the time and I’d just installed a new Clarion head unit.  It was a pretty high-end unit and I was proud of it.  As I drove home from the Local H show she pointed out that the colors weren’t lined up correctly with the rest of the dials on the dash of the car.

At least she knew to be happy for me about the fact that I had a cool head unit.  I’d installed a pretty cool Pioneer unit in an earlier car and the girl I was dating at the time had only pointed out that my radio presets were suspiciously secular in their musical content.  I think I’d told Amy that story.  So she might have gotten the message already.

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I was at a party a couple weeks ago.  While I was there I met this really cute blonde.  I walked her back to her car, which required a detour to my car for…y’know…reasons.  It was really cold, so I turned the car on to get the heater going.  I reached over to turn the sound down on the stereo and she told me to leave it on.  She wanted to know what I was listening to.

As it turns out it was one of many CDs I’ve been obsessively working on of late.  I keep trying to come up with the greatest randomized driving compilation.  It contained everything that mattered: Veruca Salt, Letters to Cleo, Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Local H, Scott Lucas & the Married Men, Sons of Bill, Garbage, the Wheeler Brothers, and Mike Doughty.

I reached over to turn the music off and she said she wanted to hear what I was listening to.  She didn't seem to realize that she might as well have asked to see me naked.

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Right after I moved back from Texas I went on a couple dates with this one woman.  After the first date I was walking back to my car with Sons of Bills’ “So Much for the Blues” running through my head.  It was right then that I knew it wouldn’t work out.

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That’s the thing about writing about music.  I don’t have to justify any of it to anyone else.  If you, as the reader of this blog post, listen to Sons of Bill and don’t like them it doesn’t negate my memories.  If you, as the reader of this blog post, listen to Sons of Bill and love them it doesn’t make me like them more.

Too many people who write about music don’t get that, though.  They think that your appreciation levels somehow impact their lives.  It doesn’t.  Or, at least, it shouldn’t.  If you’re the sort of person who thinks that the opinions of others somehow invalidates or reinforces yours then, well, you’re just a sad, pathetic person.

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The thing about music, though, is that you can’t get more personal than a song.  You also can’t get less personal than a song.  I love Sons of Bill.  I’m coming to love Gaslight Anthem.  I want you to love both bands as well.

Please.  Go.  Love them both.  But know that if you decide that they’re not your cup of tea that I just don’t care.

Why should I?  You don’t think about the same things that I think about when you hear them, after all.

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[1]For the record, Taylor Swift sucks.  It’s not because her music is trite and overcommercialized, which it is.  It’s not because she seems to think that fucking other people over to fuel her next number 1 hit is a good business decision, which seems to be the case.  It’s because SHE CAN’T FUCKING SING.  That’s my main gripe.  Listen to her sing live.  She doesn’t get within the same ZIP code as the appropriate key.

I Bring Glad Tidings of Great Joy

Do you feel like your life is missing something?  Have you been wondering if there’s something more than that which you’ve been able to experience and understand up until now?  Then I have good news for you.  There is more out there.  You just need to open yourself up to the possibility that there’s something bigger.  You need to admit that you’re not capable of making it on your own.  Then you need to accept The Dollyrots into your heart.

Will The Dollyrots fix all your ills?  Probably not.  Chances are that they won’t find you a job.  Chances are better that they won’t cure you of cancer or herpes or that annoying cold you’ve had for the last couple days.  They probably also won’t get you a date on Friday night.  So you might ask yourself, “Why should I accept The Dollyrots into my heart instead of, say, accepting tequila into my stomach?”  I’m glad you asked.  The answer is “hangovers.”

The Dollyrots will not give you a hangover.  Tequila most likely will.  Ergo, tomorrow you’ll be better off with The Dollyrots.  Tonight you might be better off with tequila, but, well, have you considered that it’s your short-sightedness that has caused you to become the unemployed, single, cancer-riddled sad sack you are today?  Think about it.  No, YOU think about it.  But not too long.  Especially about that cancer-riddled part, since I don’t think that tequila causes cancer and if you think I’m saying that you’ll probably decide I don’t know anything.  And tequila manufacturers might sue me for libel or something.

Anyway, where were we?  Oh, yeah, you were accepting The Dollyrots into your heart.  Why were you doing that, again?  Because the Dollyrots are awesome, that’s why.  In fact, if you listen closely, chances are that you’ll hear The Dollyrots tell you that they’re awesome.  See if you can catch the undercurrent in their song “Because I’m Awesome:”



The Dollyrots kinda-sorta jumped onto my radar last week and have basically clubbed my head against the various bits of solid equipment that make up said radar.  I’m okay with that.  I didn’t really need my head, anyway.  I mean, I didn’t need it as much as I needed The Dollyrots to take up residence in my heart.  That might be a long-term problem, though, since my heart is where my blood used to be and I feel like that might be detrimental.

Eh.  What’re ya gonna do?

I came of age during the reign of grunge.  I also came of age during the golden age of pop punk.  As such, while Soundgarden is the most important fucking band in the world to me, Green Day and the various Green Day clones that followed had more than a bit of influence on my determination of what makes music good.  For anyone who’s been paying attention to this here blog I’ve also recently spent quite a bit of time making sure that ‘90s riot grrl rock got added to its proper place in my own personal pantheon.

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, then, I was in the exact perfect state of mind to get my mind completely and totally fucking blown by The Dollyrots.  How do I explain The Dollyrots, then?  Basically, they’re what would happen if Kay Hanley of Letters to Cleo and Emma Stone had a daughter[1] and raised their love child on a steady diet of Green Day’s Dookie, Sugarcult’s Start Static[2], Letters to Cleo’s Go!, Veruca Salt’s Eight Arms to Hold You, and No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom.[3]

Seriously.  Kelly Ogden of The Dollyrots sings like a hybrid of Kay Hanley and Louise Post of Veruca Salt.  This is more of the Kay Hanley side:



This is more of the Louise Post side (weirdly, every single live YouTube video of the band seems to have the same washed-out lead vocals. This is the best example I could find. What're ya gonna do?):



Also, in case you’re wondering, Kelly O plays the bass and is the lead singer, which puts her in the same, rarified, air as Lemmy Kilmeister of Motorhead.  So, fuck yeah?



And, um, yeah, that was just an excuse to put up another YouTube video.  What’re ya gonna do about it?

Either way, The Dollyrots: go get you some.  Your life will be better.  Even if you have cancer-herpes.  I don’t know what those are, but I’m guessing they’re cold sores that break out all over your body every couple weeks and never, ever go away until they kill you.  Don’t get cancer-herpes.

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Because I can, here’s some music cited in the above post:



Veruca Salt’s “Volcano Girls.”  Because I can, that’s why.



Japanese people.  So hilarious.  Amirite, guys?



Green Day used to be fun.  Then they went all political and Billy Joe started wearing eyeliner.  I miss the old days of songs about masturbation and, um, other songs about masturbation.  And albums named after slang for poop and dumb people.  The ‘90s, man.  The ‘90s.  They were the best.



Let’s all move to Portland.  This has nothing to do with anything, but I need the dream of the ‘90s to be alive right now.  I just do. Also, I totally want to move to Portland. Except I fear that the reality will be more annoying hipster than musical numbers and that hot girl with the glasses and the blue bandana. Who's probably actually an annoying hipster.



Every time I see this video I realize that there will come a time when we’re as embarrassed by the fashion of the ‘90s as people who came of age in the ‘80s are about leg warmers and pastels.  I mean, all the dudes in the video are dressed like Charlie Sheen from Two and a Half Men.  And the whole cutoff jean shorts + leggings thing Kay Hanley was rocking?  Yeah…no.



Oh my god, you guys.  THIS WAS A THING.  I TOTALLY FORGOT ABOUT THIS BEING A THING!

Okay, then, I think that the Flaming Lips just broke my brain.  The lesson, as always, is that following YouTube links is dangerous.



Eh.  Have some No Doubt.  Nothing bad comes from that, right?

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[1]Which is totally possible according to science.  It’s why the feminazis want to get rid of men, after all.  Consider yourselves warned, men who would otherwise be procreating with Emma Stone or Kay Hanley.

[2]This is technically impossible, since the band’s creation myth comes from the election of George W Bush in 2000 and Sugarcult put out Start Static in 2001.  But my theory makes sense because, um, shut up, that’s why.

[3]By the by, a playlist consisting of Green Day’s Dookie and Nimrod, Sugarcult’s Start Static, No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom, Veruca Salt’s Eight Arms to Hold You, Letters to Cleo’s discography, and The Dollyrots’ discography is kind of awesome.

Hello, World!

So...I'm not dead.  I guess I've got that goin' for me.  On the heels[1] of the Being Me stuff I decided I need to get out more and meet more people and say, "You know, that seems like a terrible idea, I'ma go do that," more often.  It's kinda like what I tried to force myself to do with last year's Dancing Monkey Project, but it's actually working because I'd gone to great lengths to exorcise the demons that required me to try to force myself to do things like that in the past.

Or, y'know, whatever.

For the record, it's amazing how quickly life starts throwing you curveballs when you decide to do something like that and then actually follow through.  Back when I was all Churchy Joe and whatnot we used to talk about the dangers of asking god to open our eyes and lead us to opportunities to do his work because, boom, those opportunities would appear.  I've realized now that it's not because the universe changes, but because the way you view and interact with the universe that changes.  We close our eyes and ears to so much and tune out everything that's not a direct influence on our desires and habits that we miss just how much there is out there in the world.

There's a lot of world out there, folks.  It's terrible and wonderful and big and broad and there's not enough time to see all of it.

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Meanwhile, I've been letting The Gaslight Anthem grow on me.  They're kinda what would happen if the guys from Sons of Bill grew up in Jersey and had a bit more of a punk influence on their style.  This is a statement that makes no sense and is why people shouldn't write about music and expect to seem like they're anything other than pretentious twits, complete idiots, or completely pretentious idiots.  Just, y'know, listen:



That said, they don't seem to have the ability to downshift that Sons of Bill exhibits, so their songs kinda sound the same.  Still, I got Handwritten and The '59 Sound the other day and I'm not regretting the decision.



It also seems from live videos that the Gaslight guy...how do I say this...benefits from studio magic.  This is not something I would say about, say, James Wilson of Sons of Bill.  So I'm less likely to truck my ass out to see Gaslight live is what I'm saying.

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Speaking of Sons of Bill, they seem to have made a new video for "Virginia Calling."



I enjoy both the composition and the storytelling.

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[1]Or the heals, if you enjoy homonym-based punnery.  Which I don't.  Not in the least little bit.

Welcome, February

So I managed to make it exactly one week on the 1434 Fridays idea.  That's...that's par for the course.

I am planning on getting back to it, don't worry.  This week was just a bit odd.  See, on Tuesday night I was here:




That's Soundgarden.  That's Soundgarden at the Riviera Theater.  That's Soundgarden at the Riviera Theater with me about, oh, fifty feet from the stage.  It was a religious experience.

The setlist was amazing.  They only played five songs off of the new album, four of which were the four actual tolerable songs from the new album: "Rowing," "By Crooked Steps," "Worse Dreams," and "Non-State Actor."  They also played "Been Away Too Long," which wasn't so great, but it was the first song and that seemed to be par for the course.

Either way, I'd trade that Soundgarden show for any five shows I've been to in my life.  It was that amazing.  I was pretty much sold halfway through when they played "Loud Love" and then followed it with "Big Dumb Sex."  This is "Big Dumb Sex," which is probably NSFW:



So, weirdly, I knew "Big Dumb Sex" from the first chord.  I didn't realize that "Rowing" wasn't "By Crooked Steps" until the song was over.  And I thought "Worse Dreams" was called "Bad Dreams." So...I guess I'm that guy, now.

Either way, since I ain't done with this, apparently, here's the setlist:

Been Away Too Long
My Wave
Worse Dreams
Room a Thousand Years Wide
Jesus Christ Pose - intro tag of Jesus Loves Me, which was a nice touch
Rhinosaur
Non-State Actor
Drawing Flies
Hunted Down
Loud Love
Big Dumb Sex
Blow Up the Outside World
Fell on Black Days
Tighter & Tighter
Burden in My Hand
Rowing
Superunknown
Fresh Tendrils
Nothing to Say
Spoonman
Black Hole Sun
4th of July
Encore Break
Outshined
Rusty Cage
By Crooked Steps
Incessant Mace

Basically, if I were to make the perfect Soundgarden setlist with the caveat that it had to have a decent number of new songs...this is pretty close.  My perfect list would cut "Been Away Too Long" and add "Like Suicide," "Slaves & Bulldozers," and "Searching with My Good Eye Closed."  If I were also expecting a pony it would involve "Ty Cobb."  If I had to take anything out to get those additions I'd remove "Spoonman" and "Blow Up the Outside World."  I would have said "Incessant Mace" before Tuesday, but it's a really cool show ender.

The show ender is an important song.  Pearl Jam famously plays "Yellow Ledbetter" to end pretty much every set.  Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers play "Nada."  The Saw Doctors play "Hey Wrap."  Some bands don't really have an ender, but for the bands that do it's an important signal that, y'know, it's time to go home.  Soundgarden played "Slaves & Bulldozers" as the ender last year on pretty much all the shows I looked up.  "Incessant Mace" works about as well.  I think "Like Suicide" would be an excellent choice, too.

Also, Chris Cornell kept referring to The Riviera as The Vic, which amused me to no end.  My favorite venue in Chicago is the Vic.  My second favorite venue is probably the Riviera (although my love of The Beat Kitchen knows no bounds and Schubas, the Double Door, and The Hideout are all very cool).[1]

Either way, Soundgarden's on the headline and all's right with the world.

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So it's February in Chicago.  February in Chicago is the absolute fucking worst.  Scott Lucas and Brian St. Clair would like to tell you about it.



I have mixed feeling about that video.  "Another February" is very much a political song in the middle of what is very much a political album.  The way they set it up looks like it's definitely commentary on the point of the song: that life is pretty much shit for people who don't have money.  It looked like a perfect setup for, "It's always February for some people."

Then it got to the bit at the end with the snow globe.

Either way, this year February is even crazier, since on Tuesday I went to the Soundgarden show wearing a hoodie over a long-sleeve t-shirt with no coat, since it was in the 50s in Chicago.  Then we got a cold snap on 1/31 and it was awful.

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So you might be asking yourself how I've managed to write a full post about Soundgarden and Local H but couldn't seem to write a 1434 post.  Basically, I came down with an awesome flu/fever (fluver?) thing.  Right now I have zero energy and my head hurts.  Tossing 1434 on top of that seems like a really bad idea.

For the record, the 1434 posts (and the 1421 posts before them and, actually, the After the Flood posts from way back in the day) are the hardest posts to write.  There's just so much awful packed into every paragraph that it's hard to know where to begin.  That takes energy.  Energy I don't have right now.

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Also, after I took a nap this afternoon/evening I watched the pilot episode of The Americans on FX.  Two of my favorite shows of the last few years are White Collar and Burn Notice.  The Americans is basically like those plus Homeland (which I do not watch, by the by).  It's definitely more Homeland in tone than either of the USA shows, though.  Either way, I am enthused.

Nothing like a show starring Felicity as a hard-ass Soviet sleeper agent during the Reagan years...

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[1]Yeah...I guess I need to list my favorite Chicago venues now.

1.  The Vic
2.  The Riviera
3.  The Beat Kitchen
4.  Double Door
5.  Schuba's
6.  The Aragon
7.  The Hideout
1,506.  House of Blues
1,507.  UIC Pavilion

I've also seen shows at the United Center and Soldier Field.  I don't like stadium shows, really.  Also, weirdly, I kinda liked the House of Blues Dallas.  My theory for all venues is that their main purpose should be to put as little in the way of the people trying to see music as possible.  The more shit, the worse the grade.  The Vic wins on accessibility and feel.  The Riviera is basically a slightly larger Vic, but the problem is that it's laid out sideways.  The back of the main floor of the Vic goes right outside.  At the Riv you have to walk down a hallway, so it can be a pain in the ass to get in or out.  The Aragon has a hallway plus a staircase.  The Beat Kitchen, Double Door, Schuba's, and the Hideout are simply too small for that to be a problem.

The HoB loses on two things: overbearing staff and a tendency towards all-ages shows.  I get that all ages = more money, but all ages also often means 16 year-olds who just got let out of the house for the first time and don't know what the fuck they're doing.

The UIC Pavilion is just awful.  It's got this single, narrow concourse that they choke with merch tables and adult beverage stands when there are shows, so it's basically impossible to get in or out if the place is full.  For the record, the place was quite full in July of 2012 when I saw Soundgarden there...

Oddly, I've never been to the Metro.  There are five legendary Chicago venues for rock shows: the Double Door, the Vic, the Riviera, the Aragon Ballroom, and the Metro.  I'm not sure why I haven't been to the Metro.

Friday Midday Diversion: Overexposed!

There were two problems with being a kid who listened to a lot of music on the radio in the 1990s.  The first was that the songs you wanted to hear never got played.  The second was that the songs you didn't want to hear got played every twenty minutes or so.  Still, since I was a teenager in Chicago who didn't have cable that meant that the middle of the '90s for me was spent walking in lock-step with the good folks at Q101.  It had such a powerful pull, in fact, that in the early 2000s Q101 went to a format of playing all the shit that was popular between 1999 and 2004 and a new station called 94.7 the Zone started on a business model of "hire all the popular Q101 DJs from ten years ago and have them mostly play songs from 1992-1998."  It was awesome.  And it actually worked for a while.

However, I'm here to talk about overexposure.

There were three bands who I ended up pretty much hating because of their overplayed-ness.

Weezer: I actually liked them.  Then "Buddy Holly" got played every fucking hour on the hour, the quarter hour, the half hour, and the three-quarters hour.  True story: there was an all request hour in the evenings on Q101 that was manned by, if I recall, Brook Hunter[1].  One night all the requests were for "Buddy Holly."  So probably-Brook played the song.  Then she said, "Here, you want to hear it again?  I'll play it again."  And she did.  Then she did it again.  And again.  She played the song at least four or five times in a row while getting angrier and angrier, probably because there were jackasses calling in during the song to egg her on.  I shared Brook's frustration with "Buddy Holly."  To this day I don't like Weezer.  I'm still slightly in love with Brook Hunter.

Pearl Jam:  Believe it or not, Pearl Jam is on this list.  When I had my "Black Hole Sun" moment the only Pearl Jam albums were Ten and VS, which are still pretty rad.  Then Vitalogy came out and Pearl Jam said, "Here, play whatever song you want, we ain't releasing no singles, honkies."  So Q101 played "Spin the Black Circle" every. Five.  Fucking.  Minutes.  "Spin the Black Circle" is terrible.  Truly, truly awful.  I got past that, though.  It just took the better part of a decade.

No Doubt:  It was impossible to escape from No Doubt after Tragic Kindgom came out in 1995.  Half the album was eventually released as singles.  So I pretty much felt like I'd already heard of it and didn't need to try to find anything else.  I probably heard all of Tragic Kindgom on several occasions, but it never really registered.  As such, when I lately started saying, "Hey, I'ma link to this No Doubt song from 1995 in every fucking post," I also decided to actually go back and re-explore Tragic Kingdom because, really you guys, so good.  So, here, for a Friday diversion here's a gem from the unreleased half of Tragic Kingdom:



So.  Much.  Funk.

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[1]Who also ended up on 94.7 the Zone.  Then she went back to Q101.  Then Q101 went out of business but they restarted it on a different station and apparently she's there and apparently they're doing Local 101 shows in Rosemont and the next two are Lucky Boys Confusion and Local H.

Oh, and apparently she shares a name with an adult film star.  So, y'know, careful Googling that at work.

In Which Geds Talks About Feminism, Part 1

I’m basically done with the Being Me stuff.  That doesn’t mean that I’m done with the thought processes behind it, though.  There’s just a bunch of stuff that kinda-sorta fits in context but didn’t fit in the narrative I chose.  That doesn’t mean it’s not important.  It just means that I’ve been working somewhat harder on composition and not throwing all the shit I could find against the closest vertical surface.

Part of it, too, is that there are a couple of topics that I think are important but that I hesitate to say anything about except in a roundabout way.  The big one on that list is feminism.  That’s one of those things that privileged suburban white boys don’t talk about much on the internet unless they’re the type of privileged suburban white boy who wants to go to feminist sites and tell the people there that they’re all feminazis and they just don’t get how hard it is to be a privileged suburban white boy, man.

There’s also the bit where I came to the party kinda late and in a kinda sidelong fashion.  I lacked a language to discuss the topic outside of things that had been fought and re-fought long before I arrived.  As such, I defined the whole thing for myself to my own satisfaction and then I pretty much moved on.  It wasn’t my fight, it wasn’t my place, it wasn’t my thing.

This was further complicated by the fact that feminism and discussions of feminism hit me at about the same time I was withdrawing from Christianity.  I needed something to continue to fuel my neuroses in regards to my relations to the female gender in the absence of all the Jesus stuff.  Rape culture, male privilege, the notion of the male gaze and all that other stuff fit the bill perfectly.  I basically replaced, “Oh, shit, Jesus gonna hate me if I have sexual thoughts about women,” with, “Oh, shit, that woman is going to assume I’m a rapist if I so much as look at or talk to her in any way, shape, or form that isn’t completely and totally on-the-level professional.”  So, hey, rationalization for the win, amirite?

So let’s say that’s not a thing anymore.  Let’s say I want to talk about something that I consider to be damn important.  Since my circulation on this blog is decidedly small, anyway, I figure I can go right ahead and do that.

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Back in December I wrote a post about Soundgarden that ended in a bizarre little aside about an early ‘90s Christian surf rock band that went by the moniker Dakoda Motor Co.  I ended up comparing Dakoda Motor Co. to No Doubt and making this observation:

What Dakoda lacks in bare midriffs and pointed social commentary compared to No Doubt they make up for with, um, happy Jesus-y stuff.  So they’ve got that goin’ for ‘em.

It turns out that this comparison was less apt than I thought.  The true secular match for Dakoda was Letters to Cleo, which I’ve called the most tragically underrated band of the ‘90s.[1]  But that’s not my point at all.  My point is the observation above.

One of the things that occurs to me, and this post of awesome songs by ‘90s bands fronted by women kind of confirms it, is that I came of age during the golden years of riot grrrl feminism.  That particular golden age did not make its way past the doors of my church, however.  The difference between the Dakoda videos and No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” that lead to my statement quoted above wasn’t really an observation about one obscure Christian band against one major secular band.  It was an observation about the Christianity in which I grew up against the larger world in which I grew up.  We simply did not talk about important social issues in church.

Okay, that’s not actually true.  We did talk about social issues.  What we talked about, though, was how awesome it was going to be when everyone accepted Jesus and made Jesus the center of their lives and Jesus fixed all the social ills of the world.  It should surprise no one anywhere, ever, that Jesus’s fix for the world would be to make everything look exactly like the church thought it should look.  As such, in a weird way, Dakoda Motor Co. was making a social statement.  The statement was just, “Jesus is awesome and will make everything awesome.”  That’s a fantastic sentiment.  It’s also completely and totally wrong.

So let’s talk about feminism.

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Actually, I’m gonna yield the floor to the honorable Gwen Stefani, Esq. to make a few remarks.





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I really don’t have that much to say about feminism as a personal thing, now that I think about it.  It all boils down to the statement that I began using in college when I was introduced to the idea of feminism as a thing to be embraced and celebrated as opposed to a thing to be feared and ridiculed.  Mostly, though, it boils down to why I hate using that statement.

The statement I started using was, “Women are people, too.”

The statement I would have preferred to use was, “Women are people.”

Actually, the statement I would have preferred to use was nothing.  It seemed pretty obvious to me that women are people.  However, it strikes me that in a world where we talk about how, say, President Obama fared in elections with women and minorities that we’re saying two things: first that women are a minority and second that neither women nor minorities truly count.  Post-election Republican rhetoric certainly followed that logic.

Looking back I realize that I didn’t get that idea from the Bible or church.  I got that idea from Shirley Manson, Nina Gordon, Louise Post, Sarah McLachlan, Kay Hanley, and Gwen Stefani.  Hell, I even got it from Alanis Morrisette and Courtney Love.[2]  It was simply an accepted part of my life that there are women out there and that women have something to say and that what they had to say was valid because it was part of their experience and their existence.  That didn’t necessarily mean I had to care what they wanted to say, but I don’t think that’s really a litmus test.

There are lots of white guys who say stupid shit that I don’t feel the need to listen to, after all.

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The problem that I have talking about feminism, I think, is how feminism fits into my Unified Field Theory of Group Dynamics.  Whenever you get involved with a group there are a collection of self-proclaimed gatekeepers.  Those gatekeepers think that it’s their duty and sacred mission to keep the riff-raff out and make sure that only the properly informed and vetted are allowed into the discussion.

This, by the by, is why I love the feminist book store sketches on Portlandia.  I don’t really see Fred and Carrie making fun of feminists there.  I see Fred and Carrie making fun of a certain variety of feminist.  For that matter, they’re making fun of a certain variety of atheist and a certain variety of Christian.  They’re also making fun of me.

Part of my Unified Field Theory of Group Dynamics requires me to admit that I’ve appointed myself as a gatekeeper of something, too.  In my specific case it’s music.  I am a proud child of the ‘90s.  I judge all music based on how it stacks up to the music I started listening to in the ‘90s and, more specifically, how it stacks up to the music I liked in the ‘90s.

To that end when I run into one of those people who says that there hasn’t been a single good album since 1979 I say, “Man, you’re out of touch.  Soundgarden and Pearl Jam are so much better than Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones.”  Then I turn around and shake my fist at the damn kids listening to their Biebers and their One Directions and their Taylor Swifts.

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If you have two brain cells to rub together you’re looking at my example above and saying, “Whoa, wait a minute.  There’s a difference here.”  You’re correct, there is a massive difference.

My boss might be a Black Sabbath fan.  There’s a reasonably good chance that he’s not going to fire me for being a Soundgarden fan or make sure that I get paid 75 cents on the dollar, either.  If I were to get elected President in 2016 there’s pretty much zero chance that it would be declared historic on the grounds that I’m the first Soundgarden President.  I probably wouldn’t get death threats for it, either.

On some level I’m a fan of Soundgarden because that was the world in which I came of age.  If I were a 13 year-old in a van in 2004 I might have ended up with Nickelback as my band of choice.[3]  If we go back to 1984 it might have been U2.[4]

What I’m saying is that context matters.  We find things when we find them.  Self-proclaimed gatekeepers, however, tend to think that’s not the case.  They don’t want anyone to join a group unless the new people join in exactly the right way and with exactly the right motivations.

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The reason I bring all of this up is because it occurs to me that being a child of the ‘90s did actually equip me to discuss feminism in 2012.  I couldn’t tell you what the difference is between 1st wave and 2nd wave feminism.  I’m still a little fuzzy on the difference between Gloria Steinem and Gloria Allred.[5]  I’m a little baffled at people who find it necessary to label themselves as “sex-positive,” because who the fuck isn’t sex-positive?[6]

I think I’m properly equipped because I heard No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” about seven thousand times between 1995 and 1999.  No Doubt’s “Just a Girl” is pretty much a perfect introduction to what feminists are talking about in 2012, what with the rape culture and the slutwalks and the notion of white male privilege.

The reason I tossed “Sunday Morning” into my bit where I gave the floor the Stefani was because that, too, encapsulates a central point of my theory on feminism as asserting that women are people.  I don’t know if it’s intended to be a statement about how women are treated like “Just a Girl” is, but I do know that I like what it has to say.

You're trying my shoes on for a change
They look so good but fit so strange
Out of fashion so I can’t complain

Seems about right.

Meanwhile, though, this is already much longer than I thought it would be.  So let’s make it a two parter.

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[1]I’m not gonna lie to you, Marge.  That’s probably based 90% on the fact that, holy shit, Letters to Cleo was way too amazing to be a marginal one hit wonder and 10% because I want Kay Hanley to find my blog while doing random Google searches for Letters to Cleo.  Because Kay Hanley is awesome and right up there with Louise Post and Shirley Manson in my book o’ kick-ass ‘90s rock frontwomen.

[2]I’ve never really liked Morrisette.  I’m not that big a fan of Courtney Love and Hole, either.  That said, I was having a text-based conversation with a friend about ‘90s music the other day while listening to a Pandora station with Letters to Cleo, Garbage, Veruca Salt, Republica, and the Breeders as seeds.  I made my standard, “But Hole still sucks,” statement.  My friend pointed out a couple songs he thought were good from them.  Then the station threw “Celebrity Skin” down my earholes and I had to admit that, yeah, that song was pretty good.

Also, too, it’s probably important to bring country music into this one.  I started listening to mainstream country in the late ‘90s because I made some terrible decisions during my sophomore and junior years of high school.  There were a bunch of really good country singin’ women in those days.  So, y’know, there’s that.  I still like Terri Clark.

[3]Ugh.  Kill theoretical me.  Kill theoretical me now.

[4]Totally okay with that.

[5]Okay, I’m not.  I mean, I fucking linked to stuff about them.  But it seemed punny to me at the time.

[6]This one actually does genuinely baffle me.  My sole interaction with someone who labeled herself as “sex-positive” was on o’ them online dating things.  And I tell this story because it amuses me to no end.

I got an email from someone who lived a thousand miles away.  The email said, and I paraphrase, “I’m going to be in your area next week.  Want to get a drink?”

I, it should be noted, am I proper dipshit.  So I went to her profile and looked around for some indication that, like, she was planning to relocate and looking for friends or something.  Such things were not forthcoming.  There were, however, keywords like “casual sex,” and “kinky,” and “sex-positive.”  So I was genuinely confused and sent back an email that said (and, again, I paraphrase), “Sure.  But why?”  The response then pretty much spelled the whole thing out and the gist was that I should have been paying more attention to the “casual sex” bits.

Needless to say, we never did get that drink.

Question of the Day: Nina Gordon

When I went back and was all, "Hey, Veruca Salt!" a couple weeks ago the thing that struck me was the realization that not only was Nina Gordon in the band but that she actually did most of the singing, at least before she went and did her whole solo career thing.  The reason that didn't exactly occur to me is because of that whole solo career thing.  This brings to mind my important question of the day.

How did this:



and this:



Become this:



and this:



I mean, really.  We already had Jewel and Natalie Imbruglia when Nina Gordon went solo.  We didn't need another one.

Although the YouTubes do bring this up, which is kinda hilarious:

Wherein Geds Talks About Taylor Swift for Some Reason

I know that one of the first signs of old fogey-dom is hatred and immediate dismissal of all that crap music played by the kids these days.  I'm okay with that, as one of the nicknames I received from a certain member of the female gender about half a decade ago was "geezer."  Still, I have a very good reason to say what I'm about to say: I am absolutely baffled by the popularity of Taylor Swift based entirely on the fact that the girl carries a tune like she's using three-foot-long tongs coated in teflon and trying to put it in a bucket with a rusted out, leaky bottom.  I only bring this up because I just found it out, given that I can't generally listen to Taylor Swift for more than five seconds, anyway, and she resides firmly in the middle of the Uncanny Valley in appearance as far as I'm concerned.  Seriously, she looks like she's made of plastic and her songs are terrible is what I'm saying.

Either way, on New Year's Eve I was having a conversation with a coworker who mentioned that she's a horrible singer live.  This didn't shock me but it didn't mean much, either.  As midnight approached the east coast I was sitting on my couch watching IFC's Portlandia marathon and basically ignoring NYE, as is my yearly tradition.  Then a friend of mine texted me and told me to turn to [whichever major network had Ryan Seacrest, Jenny McCarthy, Carly Rae Jeppsen, someone who was either Hammer or Pitbull, and a bunch of other people I didn't recognize].  Taylor Swift was on.

Taylor Swift was awful.  She was beyond awful.  She couldn't find the key she was supposed to be on for more than about five seconds at a time and when she missed she'd pop the clutch so hard it would throw the transmission into nearby storefronts.  Then from time to time she'd stop singing and start talk-singing, which was still somehow, miraculously, off key.

I mentioned it to my coworker the next time I was in the office.  He said he hadn't seen it, but he hadn't heard anybody mention it.  So we looked it up and found this HuffPo article (with embedded video!).  The article only says this about her vocal stylings:

As Zap2it notes, Swift also appeared to have help from a vocal track, but not that much: The singer's voice cracked a couple of times on high notes, lending the performance an air of live-on-stage credibility.

That's...that's precious.  It's kind of like saying, "The Titanic nearly made it to New York City on its maiden voyage, leading to hopes for many years of North Atlantic crossings."  Seriously.  How do you point out that "her voice cracked a couple of times" to point to authenticity while completely and totally ignoring the fact that she couldn't hit the right key with a shotgun from three paces?

And here are some other analogies so that I may horribly date myself (because it doesn't seem like anyone else wants to.  Ba-dum-ching!):

New Coke is off to a rocky start, which just means that Coca-Cola will try harder to reach the people who really like it.

Milli Vanilli had a rough concert last night when their backing vocal track gave out, but the resulting confusion should cement their legacy as a genuine act who only tries harder when the chips are down.

Sales of Nintendo's Virtual Boy were disappointing, which means that there's still a very large, untapped market of Nintendo enthusiasts who will surely be lining up to buy it in the coming months.

The movie adaptation of Coneheads opened to disappointing box office numbers, which should cement Dan Akroyd's status as an icon of smart but largely inaccessible art house films.

An Addendum

Did you know that Candlebox released a new album in April of 2012 called Love Stories and Other Musings?  I did not, either.

The primary difference between me and you in that regard, however, is that I actually own Candlebox's Love Stories and Other Musings.  I've got a vague recollection of purchasing it when it first came out.  A quick refresher informs me of three things:

1. It sounds exactly like a Candlebox album.

2. Part of the reason it sounds exactly like a Candlebox album is because five of the fifteen tracks are barely-discernably-different versions of "Far Behind," "You," "Cover Me," and "Change" off the self-titled and "Simple Lessons" off of Lucy.  Actually, "You" is discernably different, since they somehow managed to record it in a way that's simultaneously the same as and far worse than the original cut.  It's basically like they recorded it underwater or something.  I can't explain it.

3. Since it's partially made up of songs from a younger, better time in Candlebox's career, the album is decidedly short: nine songs plus a special bonus track (I have the Amazon bonus track, there's also another, differenter iTunes bonus track.  That sort of shit, for the record, is really, really annoying).

Either way, since I don't actually actively hate this particular album, that means I need to amend my 2012 album list.  As such:

10.  Soundgarden, King Animal
9.  Candlebox, Love Stories & Other Musings
8.  American Aquarium, Burn.Flicker.Die
7.  Turnpike Troubadours, Goodbye Normal Street
6.  Scott Lucas & the Married Men, Blood Half Moon
5.  Lovehammers, Set Fire
4.  Matchbox 20, North
3.  Garbage, Not Your Kind of People
2.  Sons of Bill, Sirens
1.  Local H, Hallelujah! I'm a Bum

So...there you go, I guess.

2012 in Music

Last year I skipped the whole Top 10 conceit with my 2011 in music review.  I did that mostly because there were a lot of albums I really liked and a lot of songs I really liked but there was nothing that was really the sort of thing that made me want to rank anything.  2011 was, basically, filled with a lot of decent music.

Well, my friends, 2012 is different.  2012 was also weird.  See, in 2012 I realized that there are a lot of bands that are either banking on my nostalgia to continue existing or re-forming to cash in on the fact that I’m now an adult with money to spend to see them and buy their t-shirts.  Also, Art Alexakis needs money, but that’s been the case since 1995, so there’s nothing to talk about there.

Either way, here’s a short list of ‘90s acts that put music out in 2012 and about whom I had no shits to give:

Eve 6:  No, really.
Lit: They actually had a pretty decent lead single off of the new album.
Everclear: Art Alexakis needed money.  He does this every couple years.
Smashing Pumpkins:  Although I’ve made my peace with the Pumpkins, the new one sucks.
No Doubt: I made it 55 seconds into the lead single before shutting that whole thing down.
Soul Asylum: I actually saw them live in 2011 after seeing Mike Doughty.  I cannot be arsed to care.
Dave Matthews Band: They’re the Grateful Dead of the ‘90s.  What do you expect?
The Offspring:  No, really.  The Offspring.

Here’s an even shorter list of ‘90s acts that put out music in 2012 about which I am conflicted:

The Wallflowers: They’re streaming it on their website.  It’s really good musically, but lyrically it’s basically the same as those late-‘90s early ‘00s mainstream popular Christian acts like Lifehouse and POD.  I cannot, in good conscience, give Jakob Dylan money for that kind of shenanigan.
Green Day: They put out three albums in 2012.  I’ve been told that iDos! is good.  I cannot be arsed to care.  This is sad, since I still like Green Day.  It’s just that everything I heard from the new stuff made me want to strangle myself.

Anyway, let’s do the top 10 songs of 2012.  Y’know, because.  Truth is, I had a hard time with this list.  I plugged twenty-some songs into a playlist and then deleted until I got down to ten.  The last four were really tough.  Basically, some really excellent songs came out in 2012.

10.  American Aquarium, “Burn.Flicker.Die”



This is the title track off of the new American Aquarium album.  It’s a perfect fit with one of the genres of music I love: songs about music, touring, and failure.  It worked well for AA this year.

9.  Scott Lucas & the Married Men, “Out of the Boat”



This song gets me (and it was down to this or the Married Men’s “Lover the Lullaby” for the last cut) because the song it most reminds me of is Ravel’s “Bolero.”  It flabbered my gast when I realized that I was comparing a song written by Scott Lucas to one of my all-time favorite classical music compositions.  However, the song has a quiet, stepped-in buildup and then a quiet, stepped-out falling action that is exactly reminiscent of the Ravel piece.

8.  Matchbox 20, “Radio”



This song is just fun.  It also reminds me of a friend of mine, which is never a bad thing.

7.  Sons of Bill, “Siren Song”



It was down to this or “Santa Ana Winds.”  “Siren Song” won, pretty much on a coin flip.

6.  Turnpike Troubadours, “Gin, Smoke, Lies”



It’s hard to kick more ass than this song.  Also, this is one of this year’s two entrants in the “songs that are really dangerous for me to play just after merging onto an expressway.”

5.  Local H, “Blue Line”



This song is the heart and soul of Local H’s Hallelujah! I’m a Bum, about which I wrote extensively right after it came out.  It’s pretty much solid and one of the three songs that I think of when considering said album.

Aslo, the link is from a show at the Beat Kitchen, which is one of my favorite venues in Chicago. Back in 2008 Local H did their seven night stand at the Beat Kitchen. Last fall the Lovehammers did two awesome shows there. It's a small venue on Belmont in the middle of the north side and it's just awesome.

4.  Lovehammers, “Shine On”

(This is the best I could do on YouTube. Just skip to 2:20 for an acoustic version.)



Honestly, this song just makes me happy.

3.  Garbage, “Control”



Certain songs just hit me right in the, “Everything about this song is exactly right,” center of my brain.  Everything about this song is exactly right.

2.  Sons of Bill, “Virginia Calling”



Sons of Bill is one of those bands that can function on both the shit-kicking level and the deep pathos level.  I like both shit kicking and pathos.  For my money there’s no better example of a song bathing in pathos than the deeply-felt song about failure, hope, and the promise of home that is “Virginia Calling.”  It’s a brilliant song by an absolutely brilliant band.  The fact that it’s not my song of the year is probably the best compliment I can pay to the actual number one song of 2012.

1.  Local H, “Another February”



I wrote extensively about the new Local H album shortly after it came out.  On December 1st I went to the release show for the Lovehammers’ Set Fire and also decided to find out if I was correct in my assessment that Local H’s Hallelujah! I’m a Bum was, indeed, disposable.  That was how I found myself westbound on the Eisenhower at sometime around 1 AM listening to “Another February” on the maximum possible volume my car’s stereo could achieve and forcibly reminding myself that one cannot and should not go seventy-five on the Eisenhower at 1 AM whilst blasting Local H’s “Another February.”

So, with that done, it’s time for the albums on the year.  First, a couple honorable mentions:

Lost Immigrants, An Americana Primer, Vol. 1

I’m reserving judgment on this one.  There are two more volumes coming out and I was promised as recently as today on Facebook that they’re coming out in 2013.  So I’m probably going to end up calling this whole experiment a 2013 music thing.  I like what James has done so far and I hope the other two segments are as good as or better than what I’ve heard so far.

Counting Crows, Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation)

This is actually a collection of bluegrass/folk/country covers.  It’s very enjoyable, but since it’s a collection of covers I can’t count it towards the list.

And now the Top 10:

10.  Our Lady Peace, Curve

This album is, to put it lightly, not enjoyable.  The only reason it made it onto the list is because the Lost Immigrants don’t qualify yet, the Counting Crows disqualified themselves, and I neglected to come up with more than nine other albums I actually liked in 2012.

9.  Soundgarden, King Animal

I kinda-sorta hate myself for doing this.  By the same token, every time I hear King Animal I like it a little less.  I already listed one of the songs off of the album as the lowest point of 2012.  For a while it was number 5 just on the principle of the thing, then I moved it down to 7.  But every time I listen to it I like it a little less.  I couldn’t come up with a single song that I liked enough to put on my top 10 songs list in spite of putting 3 songs on the original roster.  I genuinely love that Soundgarden’s back together.  I saw them in 2011 and it was one of the best concerts ever.  I’m looking forward to seeing them later this month.  But I don’t want to hear much of anything off of King Animal.

I hope that Soundgarden stays together and puts something much, much better out in 2014 or 2015.

8.  American Aquarium, Burn.Flicker.Die

Honestly, I just never got around to getting into this album.  It’s not bad, but it’s not really compelling.  They do a lot of the pathos-driven questioning why they’re a band thing, which is nice, but I can tell you another band that did it much better in 2012.

7.  Turnpike Troubadours, Goodbye Normal Street

“Gin, Smoke, Lies” kicked ass.  “Before the Devil Knows We’re Dead” is an awesome blend of country and what would best be described as “Irish folk.”  “Morgan Street” is a strange fusion of zydeco and Hal Ketchum’s “Small Town Saturday Night.”  “Wrecked” is good, ol’ honky-tonk.  The album’s strength is that it’s a strange fusion of all kinds of crazy and amazing things.  The album’s weakness is that it’s a strange fusion of all kinds of crazy and amazing things and, as such, rather uneven.

6.  Scott Lucas & the Married Men, Blood Half Moon

My only knock against this album is this: it’s eight songs long, one of which is a Johnny Cash cover.  Even at that it’s nearly 45 minutes long.  There isn’t a bad track on it and several tracks are genuinely amazing, including “Lover the Lullaby” and “Out of the Boat.”  It also has two genuine rarities in “Steady Gaze” and “Heavy Lidded Gaze:” genuinely upbeat songs from Scott Lucas. I didn’t know that was possible.

5.  Lovehammers, Set Fire

My marks against Set Fire are similar to my marks against Blood Half Moon: it’s short.  It’s nine tracks plus a live cover of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” plus two alternate versions of tracks that already exist elsewhere on the same album.  That said, I like all nine tracks and it’s impossible to make me turn down a good cover of “Baba.”

4.  Matchbox 20, North

No, really.  Matchbox 20.  I saw them at the Aragon Ballroom shortly after Yourself or Someone Like You came out and I would see them again if they were in the neighborhood today.  North is basically exactly what you’d expect out of a Matchbox 20 album and I like the things I expect out of a Matchbox 20 album.

3.  Garbage, Not Your Kind of People

This one literally came out of nowhere on me.  Garbage’s self-titled debut was one of the best albums of 1995.  Verson 2.0 was, quite simply, one of the best albums of the 1990s.  After that they didn’t manage to do anything that I even remotely cared about.  So last week when I realized that Garbage had put out a new album it was a combination of boredom and nostalgia that prompted me to listen to samples.  It was a $5 sale on Amazon that prompted me to buy the album.  It was the album’s general kick-ass nature that prompted me to listen to it over half a dozen times since then.  It says little to point this out, but Not Your Kind of People is easily Garbage’s best since Version 2.0.

2.  Sons of Bill, Sirens

If this were any year since 2004 Sons of Bill would have probably made the top spot on my top 10 albums list with Sirens.  The only albums I can think of that I’ve enjoyed on the same level in that time are Scott Lucas & the Married Men’s George Lassos the Moon, Idlewild’s Post Electric Blues and Make Another World, Local H’s Twelve Angry Months, and various Mike Doughty albums.  And yet…

Still, Sirens is an astounding album. Sons of Bill already put out two albums that pointed towards potential greatness in A Far Cry From Freedom and One Town Away.  They’d proven themselves to be intelligent songwriters who could work on several different musical and lyrical levels.  Sirens pulled it all together and has already put the band up in some pretty rarefied air in my musical estimation.  It’s just too bad that I’m no longer ambivalent about an album that came out late in 2012.

1.  Local H, Hallelujah! I’m a Bum

I wrote this about Hallelujah! I’m a Bum right after I first listened to it:

Right now my big question is whether or not anything can stack up against Sons of Bill’s Sirens in 2012.  Hallelujah! I’m a Bum most certainly can.

That’s pretty much the story of 2012.  The biggest question I had about the new Local H was whether it could overcome its relentless focus on politics and society at the moment it came out, which was America after the Tea Party but before Obama’s re-election.  If it could it was destined to be Local H’s best album since Pack Up the Cats.

Hallelujah! I’m a Bum is Local H’s best album since Pack Up the Cats.  That means it’s Local H’s best album since the album I consider the second-best album of all time.  That’s tough to beat.

Also, from a historical perspective, that means that this is the second time Local H went head-to-head with Soundgarden.  Considering that my number 1 album is Soundgarden’s Superuknown and my number 2 is Pack Up the Cats, that’s kind of a big deal.  However, in direct competition Local H’s As Good As Dead is a better album than Soundgarden’s Down on the Upside.  Hallelujah! I’m a Bum is a much, much, much better album than King Animal.  For that matter, Blood Half Moon is much better than King Animal.  The only other head to head was Local H’s Here Comes the Zoo against the self-titled Audioslave.  Honestly, I thought that one would be more likely to go to Audioslave.  Then I went and reviewed both.  No contest: Local H.

As such, in direct competition it’s Scott Lucas 4, Chris Cornell 0.  Who saw that coming?