Now That I'm 26...

Here's 26 songs that I love.

Starting now with:

 26. Eleven Miles Out. By Doves. Now, anyone who knows me should know that Doves are one of my favorite bands. There's a calmness and a depressing side to their music. Now, this song is about being eleven miles out in a darker sea and sailing away. Now, this deep cut is interesting because Doves rarely curse and the line, "Don't let the f---less grind you down." feels perfect. It's a b-side to their Some Cities album; which had the overall theme of needing to find a place to fit in.

25. So I like shoegazer music and UK bands. And they just happen to be depressing sometimes. Rob Dickinson's band, (The) Catherine Wheel had a great song called, "Eat My Dust You Insensitive F---" which is nothing at all like the title. The song is about being better than how you are and not settling.

24. The Sunny Day Real Estate is perhaps one of my guiltier bands on my playlist. I'd like to say that Seven was probably the first song from them that I fell in love with. Just start listening to this song and "You taste it, you taste it. In time."

23. I can't move away from the Sunny Day Real Estate without wanting to mention The Fire Theft. Now, Jeremy was the vocalist for both bands. And while Heaven is not their best track, it was the first track I heard after SDRE broke up.

22. Kasabian's Underdog. It's a motivational song to me. I know, I have a weird taste in music and everything, but this song's about not being taken down easily. Definitely a great song that often finds its way on my playlist.

21. I'm from New Jersey and not in love with Bruce or Bon Jovi so I have to compromise. And with that compromise, I'll give you The Gaslight Anthem.  "That '59 Sound" is such an upbeat song with such dark lyrics.

20. The acoustic sounds of Jeffrey Gaines will always be in my head. While his cover of "In Your Eyes" will come to my mind, I cannot neglect his own work. Coming in at #20, is "Hero In Me."

19. Moby's "Mistake." Great lyrics and great visuals. Enough said. :)

18. The late Elliot Smith with "Everybody Cares, Everybody Understands" comes in on my list.

17. Now this is funny; a rare b-side cover of a b-side from Dynamite Hack. Yes, Dynamite Hack made a cover/b-side of a deepcut of their own music.  I liked the original but this version with the vocalist's sister singing and doing the song on the piano gave a great song a different meaning.

16.  In the last two years of my life, I have started to crush on this band called The Receiving End of Sirens. With deep emotions entrenched with great instrumentals, each one of their songs tells a story. "Pale Blue Dot" is a great romance story.

15. Hailing from the UK is the amazing Idelwild with "Tell Me Ten Words." I've actually used the lyrics from this song on a couple first dates as a conversation piece. I'd like to know the ten words people would use to describe the world to people. ;)

14. "Nrrrd Grrrl" by MC Chris. It's a cute love song by Hess/MC Pee Pants from Adult Swim. MC Chris and I might not agree on a lot of things but we have the same taste in women, apparently.

13. 65daysofstatic's "Drove Through The Ghosts To Get Here" is a beautiful experimental sound. If I had to pick a song from their discography, it would have to be this one.

12. Now, this isn't as easy it seems. I'm trying to cram all my favorites in a small grouping and also think what counts. Plus, as you can see, I'm running out of steam. So, for #12, I give you Cake's "The Distance."

11. M83's "We Own The Sky" is a new addiction but the song is so great, it deserves to be on this list down here. The song, to me, is about how humans think we have the rights to do whatever we want and then end up being able to stop it.

And now we are in the last 10.

10. Collective Soul was there for me during the 90s and up until college. Dosage was the first CD I recall buying with my own money. "Run" was the song that I burnt out CD players on because I'd loop it.

9. "Do You Believe In Me?" by The Juliana Theory makes it in at a spot near the top songs that I love. With energy, great lyrics, and instrumentals, this band bypasses other great bands like Muse and Jimmy Eat World.

8. The band known as Stabbing Westward was a great band. "Save Yourself" will always be the best song they ever did.

7. A's "Monkey Kong" takes the seventh spot.

6. Jacob Dylan covering David Bowie. How can we not like that? The Wallflowers did this amazing track, "Heroes."

5. In 2001, I found The Beautiful Mistake. In 2005, I saw them at CBGBs.  I'll always remember who I am and "This Is Who You Are."

4. "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits play into this spot. Several long drives at night with the windows down and this song being blasted as I sped into the abyss.

3. Sean will tell you that he thinks I am the goth by from New Jersey. Because I like Tim Burton? No. It's because I love Depeche Mode and The Cure. "Fly On The Windscreen" is actually my favorite Depeche Mode song.

2. The Clash is my favorite punk band. "Magnificent Seven" is a must for any Clash fan.

1. And now, I can finally rest... "Dead Man's Party" by Oingo Boingo seals the position for favorite song of all time.

FIN!

Not Alone At All...

As I write this blog, it will be the last post I make as a 25 year old. When I wake up, I'll be a year older. Apparently a year wiser and some other things should be changed. Maybe that feeling that I'm alone will be gone. Everyone wants to feel unique but I'm on the side of feeling alien sometimes. But you know, we all go there sometimes. And it's nice to find someone who understands you.

Finch understands that sentiment all too well with "What It Is To Burn." It's a song about empathy and having someone else understand your burden. Starting off with a screamo and emo opening, Finch sets the audial stage with a scream of "She burns." and follow it some heavy drums and instrumentals. It almost mixes love and pain together with the great chorus of, "Like a bad star, I'm falling faster down to her. She's the only one who knows what it is to burn."

Tune in tomorrow for the 26 songs that I will turn 26 with.

It Feels All Right

As summer winds down, I thought I'd bring out one of the best songs of the summer. When the term "summer song" comes on, you start thinking that you may hear the equivalent of a Nerds candy rope: something that provides a brief rush, but has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. I'm thinking of *NSync, I'm thinking of Wil Smith's "Summertime" (actually a decent song), or that Perry girl's summer song (the one with the candy cane bra).

So what a relief when one breezy song comes on that doesn't come with its own dentist appointment. Luscious Jackson signed on to the Beastie Boys Grand Royal. Like the Beastie Boys they played their own instruments. Like the Beastie Boys, they had hip-hop elements in their songs. And like the Beastie Boys, they released some great albums.

If you're looking for a Luscious Jackson entry point, look no further than "Naked Eye." Actually, take this song for what it is - a remix, doable, but not nearly as sweet as the original (which has embedding blocked on YouTube, but here's a link to the vid anyway). If this song doesn't make you a convert, you may be suffering from a neurological impairment.

Like The Beach Boys' best songs, "Naked Eye" has a gift of having a hidden chorus that only reveals itself to a careful listener, or a listener who has listened to the song repeatedly. The chorus has Jill Cunniff singing in a cool tone "With my naked eye...the falling rain coming down on me." The vocal is so far in front and the drums are so crisp that the underlying chorus almost goes unnoticed. But it's there.

"It feels all right...It feels all right" is repeated in a monotone. It's soothing enough to be a mantra. So soothing that oftentimes at work, home or anywhere else, when things get out of control, I find myself muttering "It feels all right...It feels all right." As Labor Day nears, be sure to give Luscious Jackson's Fever In Fever Out another spin if you have it in your collection. It's the summer anthem for the art student in us all.

Grab A Kazoo, Let's Have A Duel!

So I may have been getting heavy with all the political subjects lately so I'm going to take it back a couple steps and talk about the amazingly underrated Australian electronic band called "The Avalanches." Now most people don't know of any really good bands from Australia besides INXS but now, you can say you know of a second one; The Avalanches.

Now, I'm not going to lie and say I know a lot about this band. Or their discography. Actually, what I do know is that my iTunes is completely lacking in this band and that all I have to listen to them is from YouTube and a friend of mine, let's call him Mac or Sam, introduced me to the one song that I know by them about a year ago.

And this song is called... Frontier Psychiatrist. 

Now, instrumentally, this song is catchy, with various sampling, scratching, and drum beats. The lyrics are like a hodgepodge of various people saying probably the most random things you can ever hear. After checking up with Wikipedia, I came to this discovery; "The song contains samples from 37 spoken word records.^[1] The main choir and organ sample is taken from the Enoch Light recording "My Way of Life", and the track's opening words are taken from the John Waters film Polyester. Also sampled are audio samples from comedians Flip Wilson and Wayne and Shuster (the latter whose track "Frontier Psychiatrist" serves as the basis for the track), drums from Harvey Mandel's "Wade in the Water", a sample from the movie The Burbs, "Overture" by Maurice Jarre and the guitar from Flo Sandon's' "El Negro Zumbon". The horse squeal is also taken from Mel and Tim's Good Guys Only Win In The Movies."

To top it off, the audio is not just the masterpiece. The music video is amazing. Seriously...  The drumming grandma, the ghosts dancing, and anything else. I really like the coconut puppet.

Michael Been - RIP

I was supposed to cover The Call for The Daily Nebraska when they played at Knickerbockers in Lincoln, NE in 2000. At the time, the band was enjoying a slight resurgence in popularity, thanks to Al Gore selecting their song "Let the Day Begin" as his campaign song. Still, even with Al Gore's endorsement, the band could only get 200 people to come out and see their show.

200. This coming from a band that scored a number one hit only a few years before with "Let the Day Begin." This from a band whose fans included Peter Gabriel and Bono. But 2000 was totally different landscape than 1987. When the band took the stage, I couldn't help but feel sorry for them. What are they going to say to each other after they load their gear in the bus?

But any pity I felt for the band was erased midway through the first song. Lead singer Michael Been closed his eyes and let out one of his soulful cries. It's a voice that's unmistakable once you hear it. Writing Been's type of music has never been "cool." He doesn't hide his Christianity, but he never resorted to preaching. He sang about family, commitment and simple joys, but the catch was that he was so sharp a songwriter that the song never resorted to cornball sentiment.

After The Call disbanded, Been did what any great father would do: he spent the rest of his life supporting his son, who is in the band Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, either through mentoring the band or even taking the ever humble reigns as sound engineer. Here's hoping any person who discovers the movie The Lost Boys will pause and track down the band who wrote that great track "I Still Believe."

I Want You To Get Mad!

Sometimes it's the videos you find on youtube that make you accept who you are. Seriously, as dorky as that sounds, it's true. I often stay out of the political ballpark because I know if I'm up to bat, I might end up having to use the sports equipment as a weapon. Just because sometimes these debates get to be too heated.  Sometimes the people I talk to about politics just are too extreme and they don't care about how or what I feel; they just want to spit out any thought that forms in the back of their head as a tangible argument against whatever issues or concerns or statements I have.

If you ask Sean, I'm not a fan of Obama. Most of my friends know that. I'm not against everything he has done but I'm not in favor of him. I'm also not a fan of Bush (Junior Edition), Clinton, or Bush (Senior Edition). Heck, Reagonomics weren't even that great. Every now and then when I tell someone that I am not a supporter of Obama, I'm told it's because I'm racist.  Truth be told, I am not a fan of most of the presidents we have had so I guess if I'm not a fan of Obama because he's black, I don't like white people. But that's the extreme liberal side's argument. Let's talk about our good friends the Right Winged Conservatives. I'm told by them that I'm a Communist or a Socialist if I like some ideas that go against their ways.

The last presidential election was a tough call. I was not a Obama or a McCain supporter. And anytime McCain gained an inch of favor, Palin would instantly take a foot back. I actually wanted for Hillary Clinton to run and win. So I guess I was not going to be happy either way. The same with the Bush and Kerry Election.

Maybe I'm at the snapping point of my sanity; which I wouldn't doubt. I've become more or less as socially awkward as Egon Spengler and starting being able to rationalize things rather than have an opinion at times or jumped into the madness of Deadpool because I can't rationalize the irrational so I'd match their level. But now as I'm watching what is left of my sanity flee, I'm trying to revert back to who I am more or less like; Jack Skellington. A born leader who wanted to change the ways around him. And tragically flawed because he couldn't see the wolves for the forests sometimes and had to take some steps backwards to undo the massive damage he has done. But still sociable.  I was thinking about making a political blog/forum where my friends and I can share out views and have calm and friendly debates on the issues but I decided to not go that route, at least yet.

Since we've been able to stand as bipedal creatures, we've found new ways to hurt our neighbors. Fire went from being a tool for survival to a tool to kill your enemies. We had no governments back then either. We were nomadic tribes that looked to the sky for answers. We invented religion. Gods or signs told us what to do. So did the creation of governments. You were told, at first, to worship this man as your link to god. If you disobeyed his decrees, you were going to pay for it in the afterlife; which was coming soon because you were punished for being a heretic. Then came the other rules; you can't eat this meat, you have to have these items in your house, you paid this to your temple, you built shrines, you can only think when commanded to, etc.

Now that's before the whole A.D. era and where are we today? We're regulated with government ideas being forced on you; Obama's healthcare and Bush's War On Terror for some examples and then the whole mess of what the media tells you; the ramble mutterings of the O'Reilly Factor, Hollywood's lust for Obama, television telling you that you have to be below a size 6 to be desirable, homosexuality is a joke/disease, and so many other things.

I think it's time we unplugged ourselves from the electric box that we glue our eyes to for hours on a daily basis, and start trying to figure out the answers ourselves. The government has been spending billions of our tax dollars to try and get the answers. Look into the ideas of Lucius Quinctius Cinnatus. Wait, who is that? It's the man that was called into duty by the Roman Empire to be their dictator for a good portion of the Roman Empire to fend of a siege. After he was successful, they tried to make him a king and he voluntarily turned it down. His original power rights were alloted for six months but he did everything he was supposed to in sixteen days. He was the common man and he cared for the common men around him. In fact, he was only a lowly farmer.

So what are I am looking for with this political argument on a music blog? For someone to start to get people to think on their own. For people to start to question the answers that we are force fed by the electric boxes we use for communication. Do I think there is anyone out there that will help with this? Is there anyone willing to arise to that occasion?

*cough* Maybeshewill. *cough*

I'm no stranger to the UK music world; especially with my love for bands like 65daysofstatic and sometimes I don't like sharing my tastes with everyone but Maybeshewill is the band I'm going to introduce to you today for our song. Maybeshewill is from the United Kingdom and basically an instrumental band with some experimental twists. They are a DYI band and are trying to prove it's possible to make music without spending money; the members of the band are their own managers, producers, and everything else. They're disheartened by the commercialization of the industry.

So where does all this build up to now? This song, "Not For A Want Of Trying," that is composed with heavy instrumentals and a drumbeat to shatter glass combined with an audio clipping from the 1976 cult classic movie, Network, where the fictional newscaster reveals that he is, "...mad as Hell."

And since this song only has that speech clip as lyrics and their instrumentals are astonishing, I figured I'd give you the speech so while you listen to this song, maybe you'll stick your head out the window and realize you aren't going to take it anymore either...

Maybeyouwill.

Imagine a time when it all began...

No doubt I'll be proven wrong, but I think almost every music nerd has gone through a Rush stage in life. Critics may not like them, but based upon the bands they've influenced, they should be shoo-ins for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It's hard to determine what gets you into a "Rush stage". The music isn't particularly catchy. The lyrics are well thought-out, but are too idealistic to be taken serious by the Pitchfork crowd. And then there's Geddy's voice.

But if you get into Rush, it will consume your life long after you've grown out of that phase or have moved on to other genres.

Case in point - last week, I was driving home after a particularly brutal workday. Suddenly, a glimmer, a billionth of a volt registered. "All the powers that be and the course of history / will be changed forever more."

All you have to do is look at the title to know what the song is about. Rush isn't big on subtlety. But for all their complex time signature changes and intimidating musicianship (for all the deserved plaudits bestowed upon Neil Peart, Alex Lifeson would be hailed as a guitar virtuoso if he was in any other band), the band can actually write songs that stick in your head.