Every once in a while I experience a strange personal phenomenon that makes me ponder certain unseen forces that may or may not exist in our world. It’s a strange and slightly befuddling experience, and it makes me feel like I’m in the Matrix or something. Before you get the wrong idea, let me just say that I’m not talking about ghosts or Ouija boards or anything like that. I’m talking about vocabulary.
Sometimes when I’m on the train or brushing my teeth, a random vocabulary word will pop into my head. It’s always one that I don’t immediately know the definition of, like “diaphanous” or “welter.” I’ll turn to whoever I’m with at the time and ask them if they know what the word means. Oddly, whoever I happen to ask never knows the definition. And it’s not like I’m turning to the nearest 1st grader for answers either. It’s usually somebody with an advanced degree and a pretty decent score on their SATs.
Anyway, because I can’t ever get the answer by asking, I’m forced to look it up. (FYI, “diaphanous” means characterized by such fineness of texture as to permit seeing through; a “welter” is a confused mass or a jumble.) It’s after I look up the definition of the word that things start to get a little mysterious. Immediately after putting the dictionary down, I will hear or see the word used several times. And let me just preempt all you skeptics by saying that I understand that once I’ve made such a conscious effort to define these words, I am unconsciously paying closer attention to them - like when you buy a blue Honda you suddenly start noticing more blue Hondas on the road. This is not that. I’ll use the case of “diaphanous” to illustrate my point.
The word popped into my head while I was brushing my teeth one morning. My wife couldn’t define it off the top of her head, so I looked it up. Then I went to read a magazine. The word “diaphanous” appeared in the first sentence of the first article I started to read. I told my wife what was going on so she wouldn’t think I was high on drugs when it inevitably happened again and I started going, “See!? There it is again!” When I went into the living room to tell her, she was watching the news. I tuned to see what she was watching and the guy on TV used “diaphanous” in a sentence. Then I left the house to catch the train for work. There were two hippie chicks sitting next to me talking about some dress they were knitting or something. One of them turns to the other and, swear to god, describes the material of the dress as “diaphanous.” What?! What kind of hippie uses the word “diaphanous?” Up until she said that, every other word out of her mouth had been either “mellow” or “vegan chocolate chip cookie.”
Fast forward to last week. All of a sudden I start hearing the expression “soft targets.” I’m sure it has something to do with one of the wars currently being fought somewhere in the world, given that “soft targets” is a military term referring to unarmored/undefended targets needing to be destroyed. While not technically a vocabulary word, the phrase did catch my ear. I didn’t know what it meant, so I turned to the guy sitting next to me in the movie theater and asked him. Ironically, that guy happened to be my brother, who just got out of the Marines. He gave me more-or-less the exact same definition as Wikipedia (see above).
So this is weird because, for once, somebody does have the answer. But get this: it’s not the right answer. In fact, Soft Targets is a rock n roll band from Chicago. Note that I’m specifically using the term “rock n roll” and not “indie rock.” These guys are certainly independent, but their songs are full of big guitars, big pop hooks and, best of all, big endings (big endings are totally rad! -ed). Their sound is more similar to The Smithereens or Urge Overkill than to any of the shaggy blog rock bands pouring out of Brooklyn. And like any good rock band, they’ve been through about a thousand line-up changes since they formed in 2005, which makes their solid, cohesive sound even more impressive.
Thus we come full circle. I sought to define Soft Targets. I did, and then, in keeping with this mysterious trend, I heard them right away. And since I keep listening to them I’m likely to hear it several more times today.
Some people are morning people. In fact, you often hear people talking about their disposition in relation to this fact. They will say, “I am totally a morning person” or “I am definitely not a morning person.” Unfortunately for the latter, the world is pretty much biased toward the former. For most of us, work starts around eight or nine in the morning. This is also when stores open, this is when breakfast is served at most restaurants, and this is when the early birds will be out looking for worms.
It is said that this daylight-centric schedule comes from our early days as an agricultural society. Back when raising crops and tending to cattle were the primary focus of everyone’s lives, the day time hours had to be used to maximum effect. So it was early to rise and early to bed for everybody other than the vampires and nightcrawlers. I guess we’re all just creatures of habit, because here it is 200+ years after the Industrial Revolution and we’re still getting up with the sun and off to work as soon as it gets light outside.
In the 21st century this no longer makes much sense. Again, the majority of the work force heads off to work in the first hours of daylight, but it’s not to tend the fields or work somewhere outside where daylight is required. Most of us get in cars, trains, and buses and head to office buildings, stores, or classrooms. All of these places have electric light and protection from the elements. So really, the work we do there could just as easily be done at 9pm as it could at 9am. And at this point, many of us are interacting via computer with people in different states, countries, and time zones, which means that there’s not even any real value to having everybody in the same place at the same time.
(Side note: You know what also makes no sense? The fact that UPS, FedEx, and the cable/phone company will only come to your house during regular business hours. They’re just as stuck in this outmoded, 18th century scheduling rut as everybody else, even though it’s wildly impractical for them to operate that way. For example, they will leave several notes on your door saying, “We came by at 11:15am. Sorry we missed you!” No shit. You wanna know why you missed me? Because I’m at work at 11:15am - just like everybody else in the frickin’ world. Why don’t they just start the day a little later so that they can make all the home deliveries/service calls between 5 and 8 pm when everybody is actually home?)
Ultimately what I think it comes down to is light and dark. It’s not so much morning people versus night people, it’s that most people still have some ingrained, primitive fear of the dark and they like to be safe at home before the darkest part of the night falls. However, there are a few of us who relish the dark, be it the dark of a cold, moonless night, or the dark of a warm, windowless bar. Thankfully, some of these people have also started bands so that they can play music for the rest of us.
San Francisco’s Dangermaker is one such band. They play slick, haunting guitar rock that goes perfectly with a shot of whiskey and an absence of light. Don’t bother listening to this band first thing in the morning as you enjoy a bran muffin with your skim latte. This is not a breakfast band. Instead, you should throw on their EP at the tail end of a three-day bender when you’ve jacked up the stereo and you’re just looking to make one last pass at the girl sitting by herself at the end of the bar. I can’t say for certain, but I’m pretty sure Dangermaker are creatures of the night - which works for me because I am definitely not a morning person.
Modern technology has had some strange second-hand effects on society. One could certainly argue that ATMs, automated gas pumps, online shopping, and cable television have made our lives better. If nothing else, these modern conveniences have allowed us to be more efficient with our errands and optimize our leisure time. But what appear to be improvements in the living standards among those of us in the industrialized first world have actually come with some unintended consequences.
I’m thinking specifically of the value of human interaction. Back in the proverbial old days, communities were built upon the exchange of goods and services - and the face time that came with them. Even in large cities, the average person in an average day would have to speak with a gas station attendant, a waiter, a librarian, a milkman, or a neighbor. People knew one another, if not by name than at least by sight.
A sense of recognition is an essential component of the human psyche. In fact, one could argue this is why famous people like movie stars and pop singers are deified in our country; because they are the most recognizable humans of all. For us non-celebrities, a series of daily interactions with our fellow man satisfies this same need, albeit on a much smaller scale. Knowing that other people know you and know of your place in the world validates your existence in some profound, yet intangible way. When you die, these will be the people that carry on your memory - and everyone wants to be remembered.
The thing is, modern technology has removed many, if not all, of these interactions from our lives. We pump our own gas simply by sliding a card into a machine. We get our money from a slot in the wall. We drive to work alone in our cars, stopping on the way home at the drive-thru to order food from a talking box. If we’re lucky enough to have a family, it is very likely that we will find them at home plugged into their own entertainment devices - iPods, computers, TVs, video games - with communication limited to a few words and some fleeting eye contact.
Taking a bleak view of the future, it’s possible to envision this country populated by lonely, disenfranchised individuals. Sleep walking through life, we would essentially be alone together. With this absent sense of community or recognition would inevitably come a decreased sense of accountability. This, in turn, would lead people to withdraw from human interaction and curl up inside their own minds - minds that have been pickled by television, first person shooter games, and internet pornography. The nightly news already features enough psycho killers and deranged perverts to tell us that the human mind is too volatile to be left to alone with these influences. Nothing good can come of it.
Instead, you should use technology for the good of humanity. The internet allows you access to places and people you might never have otherwise seen or met. You can share recipes with a stranger in Minnesota. You can send pictures of your cat to an old lady in North Dakota. You can watch videos of snow falling on New York City. You can even use your computer to check out the music scene in Bellingham, WA.
Let’s say you opt for this last one. A basic internet search will probably turn up a few big names like Death Cab for Cutie and the Posies. Of course, faithful readers of this blog (hi dad!) will know that we’re not interested in big names. Those people already get plenty of recognition. Instead, we try to dig a little deeper and, as a result, we often strike music gold.
Citizens of the world, please meet The Love Lights. These crazy kids have taken shimmering 1960s soul music and given it the indie rock treatment. You can still hear the treble-heavy Memphis rhythm guitar and thankfully there is also a horn section. But underneath it all is a band from the Pacific Northwest that has clearly spent some time in a musty basement, writing lyrics and listening to Pixies records.
So there, we’ve gone ahead and shared the love. But don’t keep it to yourself. Step out on your front porch, maybe introduce yourself to your neighbor or somebody passing by. Tell them about this cool band from Washington you just read about on theinternet. It might just end up making the world a better place.
Today was unofficial crazy day in San Francisco. Actually, almost any day in San Francisco might be considered crazy if you don’t live here and see all the weirdos on a daily basis. But even for somebody accustomed to all the fruitcakes, I’m telling you today was nuts (pun intended). In the two blocks between the train station and our office I saw the following:
- A woman staggering down the sidewalk chanting, “Snakes! Snakes are falling from the sky!”
- A man stopping traffic in the middle of street and then dry humping the bumper of one of the cars that tried to drive around him.
- And a another man just doing the generic crazy - i.e. running down the street, slobbering and wild-eyed, going, “Blah bloo wah bla arrrgh!”
Many of you who live in other cities might wonder why we let our crazy homeless people roam the streets instead of giving them shelter, medical attention, and lessons in personal hygiene. The short answer is that we are a bunch bleeding-heart liberal cupcakes whose good intentions cloud our ability to make rational decisions. Each time a new mayor gets up at city hall and lays out a plan to handle the crazy, drug addled homeless population of San Francisco, an outcry goes up among those vocal groups of people prone to outcries. They insist that the mayor has no right to infringe upon anybody’s personal freedom. Being crazy and homeless is not a crime, they contend. If crazy homeless people want help, they will seek it out. If they don’t want help, they will let you know by exposing an open sore, eating from the garbage can, and asking you for a dollar.
Perhaps the biggest tragedy in all of this is that being crazy doesn’t necessarily mean being a menace to society. In fact, crazy often equals brilliance in musicians and artists. Take, for example, Jared Falcon. From 1986 to 1988, Jared Falcon attended Petaluma Junior High in Northern California. He played baritone sax in the orchestra and did not do particularly well in school. However, he was a songwriting prodigy. Falcon wrote almost a song a day and recorded each and every one onto a Fisher Price tape recorder. This practice started in January 1987 and ended, 336 songs later, in February 1988, when Jared was institutionalized.
The tapes lay in a dusty pile in his mother’s attic for years until they were discovered by Shannon Ferguson, an old classmate of Falcon’s. Ferguson was helping Jared’s mother clean house when he found the tapes, and he knew right away that he had stumbled onto a gold mine. He returned to New York and started a band with a singular vision: Take the tapes born of Jared Falcon’s confused teenage brain and turn them into the songbook of a Brooklyn indie rock band.
And thus the band Falcon was born. Playing only reworked versions of the original songs found on those early Fisher Price recordings, Falcon has built up a repertoire of about 20 songs and has just released an EP. The songs feature soaring guitars and wander from dreamy psyche rock to rhythmic pop in a way that sort of illustrates the open freedom of a broken mind - it goes where it wants to. With these songs, Falcon shows that crazy people can sometimes lead us to beautiful places. Now if only we could lead the crazy people off the streets of San Francisco and into an institution, who knows what kind of hidden genius we might find.
Conventional radio is in a weird place these days. With the exception of some college stations at the low end of the dial and maybe NPR, almost everything you can pick up on your car stereo is a commercial station owned by Clear Channel, Infinity, etc. Those guys have openly admitted that they’re in the business of selling advertising, not bringing new and exciting music to the people. It’s no surprise then, that they play only the most obvious Top 40 drivel. Everybody’s busy talking on their phone, or listening to their iPod, or not giving a shit, so what difference does it make anyway?
What is comic about the whole thing is that these stations are still entirely under the control of the FCC. This means that despite the fact that a lot of these stations play music that brazenly glorifies sex and violence - and despite the fact that this has been largely accepted by the public - the radio stations still have to go through the basically pointless step of bleeping out “bad” words. C’mon now. Everybody knows that “chick” rhymes with “dick,” “itch” rhymes with “bitch,” and “fuck” rhymes with half the English language.
The other day I was at a stop light and heard a so-called urban station blasting from the car next to me. The lyrics were something like, “Got that itch, driving in my truck/looking for a *bleep* for me to *bleep*.” Well done FCC. Like any 10 year old can’t figure that one out on their own.
What’s even more comic is that a lot of the smooth jazz/R&B stations cover this same territory - albeit with songs that are easily twice as lewd. At the laundromat where I wash my clothes, the radio is stuck on a station that seems to cater exclusively to the grown n’ sexy crowd. There’s no profanity in any of the songs they play, but there certainly is plenty of licking, caressing, stroking, grinding and making of sweet love all night long. I’m no prude, but I feel like some of these songs should only be played when two people are between the sheets (not folding them).
Which reminds me of another thing. I once played in a band with a singer who sounded a lot like Bill Withers. Some times at the end of band practice, when everybody was good and drunk, we would play fake slow jams with lyrics pulled from the pages of Penthouse Forum. You should try it some time. It’s super funny to juxtapose the underlying idea of an R&B slow jam with pornographic language that describes the same thing.
R&B slow jams (slow jamz?) get old pretty quick though, so it’s nice to see an indie rock band stepping up to the plate and broadening the options for those of us who want to say dirty things without being too dirty. The Ums from Tallahassee, Florida have a clever new track that does a nice job of laying open the male psyche. Of course, the fact that guys spend a lot of time thinking about sex is no secret and, honestly, not that interesting. So The Ums have couched that idea in a jazzy little pop song, reminiscent of Ween’s “Freedom of ‘76,” but with better lyrics, better production, and some weird guitar parts. It’s catchy as hell and makes me want to *bleep* and *bleep* every girl I see.
Way back in 2007 we wrote an article on a plucky little New York band called Rich Girls. We even posted an MP3 of their soon-to-be classic pop hit “You & What’s His Name.” Well, now the band has gone and completed their album and they’re giving the whole damn thing away for zero dollars. Bam! That’s how things are done in 2008!
Some times a small thing can really brighten your day. Like when you’re on your way to work and a train pulls into the station just as you come down the stairs. You don’t have to wait at all and you get a seat next to somebody who isn’t wearing too much cologne or talking loudly into a Bluetooth device. Or when you put on a pair of pants that you haven’t worn for a week or so and you find a five dollar bill in the pocket. When this happens, it’s kind of like an anonymous stranger is buying you a cup of coffee and a donut.
Of course, waking up in a pile of naked supermodels would be better. Heck, that would probably brighten your whole week. But occasionally you have to thank god for the small favors. It is in that spirit that I would like to offer up a little prayer of thanks for Community Gun from upstate New York. This scrappy band will shamble their way onto your stereo and win you over with an unexpected dash of style. I had already written them off when I saw the publicity photo of them playing next to their van in what looks like the parking lot of a local junior high. But I listened to a few tracks anyway and was surprised to find a band that sounds like a looser version of The Wallflowers, with a singer who sounds like Tom Waits before he started smoking.
Well, that was a nice surprise. Just like the five dollar bill I didn’t even know was there. Nice work guys. Now just let me know when you’ve got those supermodels ready for me.
There was a point in the not-too-distant past when being a DJ required a certain rarefied skill set. It wasn’t something that just anybody could do. In the beginning, the amount of technique involved - not to mention the cost of a pair of 1200s - kept all but the most dedicated aspiring DJs away. Then techno came along and showed how easy beat matching could be, which got a lot of people thinking, “Hey, I could do that!” Still, you needed a pretty impressive record collection if you wanted to be anything other than a wedding DJ, and spending all your free time hunting down rare white labels wasn’t something that everybody had the time and inclination to do.
Yet, by the mid-90s, a lot more people were taking a run at it. Record labels realized what was going on and started re-issuing hard to find albums and singles on readily available 200 gram vinyl. Every club, bar, restaurant and shoe store got their own set of turntables. When the iPod epidemic broke out around the turn of the century, it appeared that we had finally reached the DJ singularity. These days, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a DJ - especially in New York or San Francisco.
The thing is, a lot of these so-called DJs suck. A lot of them rely on compilations of 80s novelty songs. Others are oblivious to the nightclub or dance floor full of people they’re supposed to be entertaining. This particular breed of bad DJ will play a Beatles slow jam right up against something from the new Lil’ Wayne album just to prove how eclectic they are. And god help you if you get stuck listening to some stoner/hippie/hesher DJ who is trying to blow your mind with epic rock jams from the late 60s. Your ears will be ringing from scratchy MC5 records all night long.
An exception to this rule, however, is hip hop DJs. I’m not talking about the DJs all up in da club, rocking the daytime playlist from Wild 94.9. I’m talking about the group of heads that work as a self-regulating body, making sure everybody in their group wears fresh kicks and plays only certifiable quality hip hop. Every time I get to thinking that nothing good is going on hip hop-wise, all I need to do is check out the dudes from Beat Sauce on KUSF or Fat Beats on EVR or anybody from the Urban Umpires crew. When I can’t find anything that rates a second listen, these guys will have dug up hours of hot new beats and rhymes. I’ll be standing next to the DJ booth with a pen and paper going, “Who’s this? What’s this one called? Where are these guys from?”
At least now I can return the favor. Attention all hip hop junkies: you need to get on Black Spade right now. Hailing from St. Louis, the producer/MC/clothing designer (?!) makes music that demonstrates a refined technique and listening habits that go well beyond the standard rap portfolio. Lyrically Black Spade is somewhere between Common and PharoahMonch. Musically he’s all over the map. The beats hit hard, but they’re topped with little bits of sonic weirdness that make you stop and listen. You might not get it at first, but any DJ worth his salt will seek this out on his next trip to the record shop.
I’m a mixtape junkie. I’ve got a problem, I acknowledge it, but I don’t see myself quitting any time soon. Talk to me about music for a minute or more, and before you know it I’ll be forcing a CD-R on you, chock full of esoteric songs that perfectly match your taste in music - or at least what I imagine your tastes to be. I’ll be all, “You know how we were talking the other day about the Black Keys? You said you kind of liked that one song with the guitars. Well, I made a mix for you. It’s all songs that feature heavily distorted blues guitar riffs played with a slightly tongue-in-cheek garage rock sensibility. Let me know what you think.”
It’s hard to say whether this behavior is more dorky or annoying. Probably both. Like I said, I have a problem.
One of the things I really like to do is make mixtapes for hyper specific occasions. Anybody can make a compilation of 80s dance hits. In fact, that theme is so far-reaching that they sell those compilations on late night TV. I like to aim a little closer to the bull’s eye. Recent projects for me have included such mixes as Drinking All Night In A Cheap Motel Room Outside Of Reno, Tropical Disease: Songs For The Central American Jungle and The Eagle Has Landed - which refers to an inside joke between my friends and I that I won’t elaborate on, for fear of legal repercussions.
One of the mixtape themes I struggle with though is BBQ music. There are just so many different ways you can go with that. I live in Oakland, and if we’re grilling in the park it’s pretty much got to be West Coast hip hop. I’m not trying to get shot for encouraging the ballers down at Mosswood Courts to listen to something other than Mac Dre. Here in San Francisco, most bar-b-quers (SP?) like to keep it old school - either soul, punk or rap, depending on whose backyard you’re in. Back in New York, rooftop BBQ decorum dictates that you try to please everybody, so you don’t really make a mix as much as you just load up your iPod and hit ’shuffle.’ Either that or you get an indie rock band from Brooklyn to drag their shit up the stairs and play a set over by the water tower.
In general BBQ music is a pretty amorphous category. You can go with something gritty and urban, or you can just as easily go with something twangy and rustic. Classic rock works too, particularly after every one’s been there long enough to drink a few beers. It’s with this in mind that I plan to add Pearlene to my next BBQ playlist. They started out back in Kentucky as an acoustic Delta Blues band, but quickly added sweat and electricity to their sound. What emerges on their latest album For Western Violence and Brief Sensuality is a smoky mix of stoner rock and hipster Americana. Granted, this kind of music would sound good in a lot places, but I’m willing to bet it satisfies my BBQ (mixtape) craving in particular.
In a lot of ways America is becoming more and more like a third world country. For a nation that is supposed to be a leader in technology, democracy, and free-market efficiency, we still handle certain vital institutions with the bumbling ineptitude of a night manager at Kinko’s. Take, for example, airport security. I know this old trope has been talked to death, but still. After getting to the airport two hours early, after taking off your shoes, your belt, your watch, after chugging any water you happen to have on you and showing your ID to twelve different senior citizens (many of whom look as though they were formerly employed as greeters at Wal-Mart), and after having some fat guy wave a wand over your crotch - do you really feel any safer? Do you really think some apathetic high school drop-out making minimum wage working the X-Ray machine is going to outsmart a terrorist? I mean, come on. The frickin’ CIA can’t even keep up with these guys.
And yet we accept the inanity of this process as par for the course. Like we don’t really expect our government or our country to do better. Corrupt politicians, crumbling infrastructure, failing industry - these are all the stereotypical hallmarks of a third world republic, and they’ve become part of the normal discourse on the United States. WTF?
For the most part it seems like our government just likes chasing its tail. They’ve hypnotized themselves into a sense of accomplishment by repeatedly treating the symptoms of our critical shortcomings instead of solving the problems that cause them. Think, for example, of how many times in recent years you’ve heard about foreign musicians being denied visas to play in this country. And we’re not talking about, like, the Al-Qaeda 12 Man String Band or anything. In most cases it’s just some scruffy indie rockers from Canada or England. This is what happened to Ontario band Young Rival. The last time they tried to cross the border to play a sold out show with Tokyo Police Club at the Bowery Ballroom they were denied entry.
Really? Really? Look at these guys. They wouldn’t squash a grape in a fruit fight. Do they not teach common sense to those government agents guarding the border? Has our country become the kind of place that doesn’t tolerate dreamy guitar rock? What are we supposed to listen to on late night drives through the desert? Who will provide the soundtrack to boozy summer make-out sessions? If Young Rival continues to be denied entry to this country then our nation will definitely suffer in these areas. Is that really the kind of place where we want to raise our children?
Watch out America. Canada is looking better and better each day.
