America

My roommate just walked out his room with no pants on. "This is happening," he said.

Just woke up from a nap. During that nap, I had a dream that my girlfriend might have been replaced by an exact double. I was trying to figure out if she was actually my girlfriend, or someone else.
Woke up, called my girlfriend. She said there was really no way to tell.

I actually really like the long song from The Crane Wife, "The Island," that is, whenever I actually listen to it. Usually when I'm in the car, I just skip over it. Long songs are hard to listen to, especially when you get bad song ADD. Sorry, Bob Dylan. At least I always feel bad.

Come and join the Youth and Beauty Brigade

It's raining here. I mean really raining. What are good songs for rainy days?
Well, any Andrew Bird, of course. But those rainy day songs (or at least today's rainy music)?

1. The Decemberists- "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade"
2. Sonic Youth- "Teenage Riot."
3. Wilco- "Jesus, Etc."
4. "The Decemberists- The One-Two punch that is "The Engine Driver" and "On The Bus Mall."
5. The Antlers - "Kettering."
6. Beach House - "Tokyo Witch."
7. The National "Fake Empire."
8. Belle And Sebastian- "Judy And The Dream Of Horses."
9. Blaine Duncan & The Lookers - "Virginia (State Park)"
10. Callooh! Callay! - "Quentin"
11. Sufjan Stevens - "To Be Alone With You"

Sleigh Bells

So, you've heard of Sleigh Bells, right? I mean, of course you have. We're all cool kids here.
Describe them? Hmmm, okay. They're noisy pop mixed with what I think of as M.I.A. style hip-hop (although I don't really know, I mean, I've only heard the one M.I.A. song. Yeah, "Paper Planes." At least I heard it before it was used in the Pineapple Express trailer).
Anyways...
It's pretty cool. I really like their song "Crown On The Ground." Listen. It pretty much sums them up. Love 'em, hate 'em, you can tell by that song.
(Yeah, I know, all the other blogs have been going nuts for ages over these guys. Shut up about it; the Commissioner took away my license for this one).

What's the point of having lyrics when I can barely hear them?
I say this listening to My Bloody Valentine's "When You Sleep," a song I absolutely adore. A song, I should point out, whose lyrics I can hear. It took me a while, but I can pick it out. On the other hand, some My Bloody Valentine songs I'm lucky if I get one or two words out of the whole thing. I love My Bloody Valentine. But still. What's the point?
For me, I suppose, it makes me really pay attention. The songs leave the pop sphere, where it kind of sinks in subconsciously and I wander around singing it for the next three days or so. I have to put in work to make sense of the lyrics and music. Or, I have to accept the music for what it is, whether I can understand the lyrics or not. The words become another instrument, taken less for their meaning and more for poetry on a basic level, the way the words sound.

That can't be normal

Do you think I should see a doctor?

Prayers to Summon the Destroying Angel

I love the Mountain Goats. I really do. Their albums, with a few exceptions, like The Life of the World to Come, and Tallahassee, are, for me, uneven affairs. There's always at least one song that I just love, a song that is life changingly good. There are a few okay songs, where the overall song is good with a few odd phrases, something that turns me off, or maybe I never latch onto anything. Then there are few (sorry, "Tianchi Lake") that I don't particularly care to listen to.
It's so worth it, though, for that one song. "Against Pollution." "Love Love Love." "Lovecraft in Brooklyn." "Heretic Pride."
Those one or two.

Summer Albums

My first three, for the start of summer:

1. The Decemberists - Castaways and Cutouts

2. Laura Veirs - July Flame

3. Horse Feathers - Thistled Spring

The first two are also a good mid-summer albums, and Horse Feathers works for both spring, fall, and winter, but they all seem appropriate for the start of summer, when Midsummer's stretches before us, when evenings still lengthen. Before we pant for summer's end. The beginning, when the world seems largest.

A good read for those wishing to escape to cooler climes? Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight. I promise.

You know, James Murphy kind of looks like he could be someone's dad. And not the cool kind of dad who works at a tattoo parlor until he can save up enough money for that chop shop he's always wanted to open, the cool kind of dad who buys beer for you and then tells the cops that "he's sixteen years old, he can bail himself out of jail." No, he looks like the kind of dad who votes in every civic election and works at something stable and boring. Like IT. Or management.

Black Prairie

Hey. You know those people in the Decemberists who aren't Colin Meloy? And the drummer (I think. I don't know. I'm not getting on Wikipedia to check). Well, they made a band with some other guys. It's called Black Prairie. It's big and sweeping and mostly instrumentals. Just like the prairie, I guess? The instrumentals are great, although I wish they had a few more songs with purty words because their rendition of "Red Rocking Chair" is a standout moment on the album. Regardless, it's bluegrass, it's fun, it'll hold you over until the Decemberists come.

I just read the phrase "it made my uterus tingle" in regards to the film "Babies."

Pretentious Summer Reading Project Update

I just finished Animal Farm. Please don't make fun of me, I know you all read it when you were five. I had a bad feeling about Boxer from the start. It only got worse once someone told me what a knacker is.

Josh Folmar and the Motions were at the Mellow Mushroom Sunday night. Josh, I salute you for the line "The devil dragged her down to be his bride," which gave me chills, and a salute to the Motions for working Animal Collective into one of your songs.
Your move, Hackberry Social Aid and Pleasure Club (which, may I add, everyone should listen to if they're in Tuscaloosa Sundays at 10. 90.7 is the station. You'll learn something).

So there's an airshow here in town this weekend. It's a lot of fun watching the city collectively lose its mind. With the airplanes roaring overhead I'm alternately cowering and sympathizing with the Afghan tribesmen living with U.S. air superiority.

In a world where my iTunes library bleeds my Grizzly Bear right into Guns 'N Roses (I don't have to justify myself to you) with no line of demarcation, is the album dead?

America

My other roommate walks around the apartment and forces himself to belch. It's got this really wet sound to it. I'm thinking of taking him to the vet soon.

Beach House

Went to see Beach House at Bottletree up in Birmingham a week ago Tuesday. As my roommate put it, "Yeah, I'm wearing flannel, but I'm wearing it sincerely." Yeah. It was that kind of place. Roommate again: "Hipsters. White people who are really into dance music, but won't actually dance." For the tattoo I hope you will one day get I have boiled it down to this: Hipsters. White people not dancing to dance music.
In Russia, they are happy if they are even allowed to dance, much less have music to dance to. You ought to be ashamed.
Three people stepped out on that stage: Two men, and a woman. One man held a guitar. One man held a tiny drum kit. The woman held a keyboard, and her voice. They played songs, and she sang.
You know what? Her voice was pitch perfect. The songs were pitch perfect. And when everything is turned up that loud, those dreamy songs really rock.
Their vocalist's name is Victoria Legrand. You know that Grizzly Bear song we all really like? "Two Weeks?" Yeah, she's on that, too.
If you listen to the record, it's easy to see why Beach House is labeled dream pop. I was expecting something sedate, and stately. I was honestly expecting to be a little bored. I wasn't. And it wasn't. It was anything but. Here's the thing: Dreams have emotion, too. They can be light, or dark, happy, or roar, and scare you. It's dream pop, in the truest sense of the term. It envelops you, completely. Shoegazey like shoegaze can only dream of. Then, when you're in there, they can do whatever they want with you.

Summer is almost here, and you know what that means, right? The Annual Pretentious Summer Reading Project! I'm thinking Ulysses, because after I give up on the second page I can always use it to stun a burglar.