VAGUE SPACE

Farewell Transmission

In honor of the new Magnolia Electric Co. super box set Sojourner, available here, I've posted what is sort of the first "Magnolia" song, the kickoff song on the final Songs: Ohia album The Magnolia Electric Co., titled "Farewell Transmission," signaling the end of the band, Songs: Ohia, rebirthed into Magnolia Electric Co. just one year later.  Sojourner is Jason Molina at his typically downtrodden best, and has a number of gems, a couple included below.  But I don't really have the energy to give a proper review, which is the other purpose of this post.  Vague Space is going on a brief hiatus until the end of August, the first blog-free vacation in 2 1/2 years of the site.  We will be back and better than ever after Labor Day, I guarantee (well, I guarantee the "back" part, not necessarily the "better than ever.")  Enjoy some Molina for the road.  I'll return after Labor Day with posts about my upcoming trip to the Mt. Snow Brew Fest, the EFFL football draft (which I will be doing via conference call), the fall softball season of the Rounders, the inevitable collapse of the Phillies and Mariners, and of course, a bunch of new music posts and reviews.  Thanks for reading.

• Download Magnolia Electric Co. - "Nashville Moon".mp3
• Download Magnolia Electric Co. - "What's Broken Becomes Better".mp3
• Download Songs: Ohia - "Farewell Transmission".mp3

The whole place is dark
Every light on this side of the town
Suddenly it all went down
Now we’ll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun
Now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon
Someone must have set 'em up
Now they’ll be working in the cold gray rock,
Now they'll be working in the hot mill steam
Now they'll be working in the concrete
In the sirens and the silences now all the great set up hearts - all at once start to beat

After tonight if you don’t want this to be a secret out of the past
I will resurrect it; I’ll have a good go at it
I’ll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back
I will try and know whatever I try, I will be gone but not forever
I will try and know whatever I try, I will be gone but not forever

The real truth about it is no one gets it right
The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try
There ain’t no end to the sands I’ve been trying to cross
The real truth about it is my kind of life’s no better off
If it's got the maps or if it's lost
We will try and know whatever we try, we will be gone but not forever,
Come on, let's try, and know whatever we try, we will be gone but not forever,

The real truth about it is there ain’t no end to the desert I’ll cross
I’ve really known that all along
Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall
Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall
Long dark blues
Will o' the wisp
Long dark blues
The big star is falling
Long dark blues
Through the static and distance
Long dark blues
A farewell transmission
Long dark blues
Listen
Long dark blues
Listen
Long dark blues
Listen
Long dark blues
Listen...

38. Ceremony

Song:  "Ceremony"
Artist:  New Order
Album:  (single) b/w "In a Lonely Place"
Year:  1981
Length: 4:23
Label:  Factory Records
Rating:  Reached #34 on the UK Singles chart in 1981

First available on CD on Substance, 1987's compilation of singles that included new track "True Faith," which became their first Top 40 album here in the "States."

• Download New Order - "Ceremony".mp3
• Download New Order - "Ceremony (live)".mp3
• Download Joy  Division - "Ceremony (live)".mp3

This is the report of the song on Wikipedia...

After the death of Ian Curtis the remaining three members of Joy Division renamed themselves New Order. Their first act was to complete and release the single Ceremony. The two songs, "Ceremony" and "In a Lonely Place", were written as Joy Division and originally intended to be released as such. For this record Bernard Sumner took the role of vocalist by singing the elegiac lyrics of Ian Curtis. "Ceremony" is written in the key of C-major but has a duality of tone, with the second version being brighter, more typical of New Order.

In March 1981, the first version of "Ceremony" was released on Factory Records (FAC 33). Martin Hannett (Joy Division's producer) produced the record.

In September 1981, "Ceremony" was re-recorded. Gillian Gilbert played keyboards on the recording, just before she formally joined the group.  The single was re-issued as a 12" only in September 1981 with the same catalogue number (FAC 33).

There are significant differences in the recordings. The original is approximately 4:34 in length while the re-recording is 4:23. The original has a much more "Joy Division" sound, with throbbing bass, distorted guitar, spacy vocals, and solid drums also contributing a wash of cymbals.

In the re-recording the bass is diminished, cymbals restrained, and the vocals are "drier". The guitar has a sound typical of that used on the album Movement. Drum hits in the opening verse are dramatically panned in the mix. There is a greater contrast between verse and chorus, with the latter sections reaching some of the emotional pitch of the original.

The re-recorded version was used on all subsequent compilations until the 2005 compilation Singles.

Joy Division performed "Ceremony" live only once, at their final show 2 May 1980 at High Hall, Birmingham University, sixteen days before Curtis's suicide. This is available on Still. This performance features a slightly different lyric in the last verse; Curtis sings 'picture me in ten years time watching' whereas the New Order version lyric is ' picture me and then you start watching'.

#38 of all time

This is why events unnerve me,
They find it all, a different story,
Notice whom for wheels are turning,
Turn again and turn towards this time,
All she asks is the strength to hold me,
Then again the same old story,
World will travel, oh so quickly,
Travel first and lean towards this time.

Oh, Ill break them down, no mercy shown,
Heaven knows, it's got to be this time,
Watching her, these things she said,
The times she cried,
Too frail to wake this time.

Oh Ill break them down, no mercy shown
Heaven knows, its got to be this time,
Avenues all lined with trees,
Picture me and then you start watching,
Watching forever, forever,
Watching love grow, forever,
Letting me know, forever.

Challengers

The New Pornographers:  Challengers
Rating:  7.5 (out of 10)

Ignore the lukewarm Pitchfork review.  This is a very good album.  We all know Pitchfork's reviewers are nothing but haters now anyway.  I mean, they didn't even mention the beautiful "Adventures in Solitude" in their recap, which is not only the best song on the album, but one of the best songs of the year.  So they suck.  And Carl Newman and Neko Case and Dan Bejar and Kurt Dahle and Kathryn Calder are in excellent form here for their fourth full-length and first since the acclaimed 2005 blast of Canadian goodness, Twin Cinema.  Having been less than overwhelmed by previous albums (with the notable exception of the phenomenal Bejar tracks), I'm not going to compare this album to their earlier efforts, or waste this entire post determining whether or not Newman and Co. are a "supergroup" (as Pitchfork was wont to do).  Instead, let's just cut to the music.

• Download The New Pornographers - "Adventures in Solitude".mp3
• Download The New Pornographers - "Go Places".mp3
• Purchase Challengers at Insound

You Don't Know Dick

Dick Cheney, in 1994, defending the Bush I's administration (in which he was Secretary of Defense) for not going to Baghdad to depose Saddam Hussein. 

How many additional dead Americans was Saddam worth? Our judgment was not very many, and I think we got that right.

He even mentions the word "quagmire."  So, to paraphrase Jon Stewart, who brought this video to my attention on Wednesday night's show in which he interviewed Cheney's supportive biographer, how come the 1994 Dick Cheney realized the extreme difficulty of an Iraq invasion while the 2002/03 Cheney mentioned things like "greeted as liberators" and downplayed the difficulty of the enterprise.  And how come American soldiers in 2002/03 were worth so much less to him and Bush II than those soldiers in 1994?  His biographer meekly attempted a defense framed around "Cheney would say that the world changed after 9/11" - which, I won't even get into why that defense is not only useless and inaccurate and terribly dangerous since it's been used to thoroughly gut the personal freedoms of our Constitution in addition to killing all those American soldiers and Iraqi civilians - but even if the "9/11 change" somehow justified an attack on Baghdad (even though the two events had absolutely nothing to do with each other), how come the 2002/03 Cheney did not plan for the difficulties of such an attack?  He knew them in 1994, all of the opponents of the march to Baghdad (both in 1990/91 and in 2002/03) knew it.  How come those in charge in the Bush II administration (including Cheney), did not do anything about it?  Why did they run the invasion so poorly?  That's not just ideological politics getting in the way of governmental decision-making, that's just plain incompetency.  Which we expect from many or most of Bush's politically based appointments (Gonzalez, Brown, Bolton), but not of the supposedly qualified people running the most important offices (Cheney, Rumsfeld).  This video is, frankly, appalling.

The House That Hell Built

As I write this, the Phillies and Mariners are atop their respective league's wild card standings - the Phillies tied with the Padres, the Mariners 1/2 game up (2 in the loss column) over the Evil Empire - with about 40 games to play.  So that's pretty damn cool.  But yesterday, I infiltrated enemy defenses on a weakened ankle and an empty stomach and watched the Yankees beat Detroit (who are in 3rd in the wild card standings) in front of a violently drunk crowd in the worst place in the world to watch a baseball game, Yankee Stadium.  I'm pretty sure rectal surgery would have been a better spent afternoon.

Our seats, acquired only recently, were the best available under $300, which meant we were sitting near the very top of the upper decks, toward the outfield.  And walking up those thin concrete stairways built in the early Napoleanic era, to end up squeezed into some undersized chair with plenty of leg room for anyone under 5'2" who was suffering from malnourishment, did wonders for my badly the badly sprained tendons in my ankle, which were being held together simply by an air splint and hope  for the past few days.  And since the only refreshments available in the concourse anywhere near where we were sitting was Budweiser, Bud Light, and Hot Dogs - each costing upwards of $8 per serving, we had to do a lot of walking to even try to locate a nacho stand (which wasn't successful) or better beer (which was -- $8 for a 12-oz bottle of Bass after swilling Bud Light all afternoon?  Priceless).  Admittedly, this is the second-to-last year that the stadium will be in existence (thank the lord), but couldn't Steinfucker have maybe shelled out a million or two over the past 20 years to maybe improve the concessions in the upper decks?  Or spread out the seating?  Or offer, you know, a cup holder or two?  Or just maybe not turn a visit to the stadium on a Saturday afternoon not into something out of Dick Cheney's "fact-finding" torture sessions? 

But that wasn't even the worst of it.  That all was bearable, because by then we were at the field.

39. Cody

Song:  "Cody"
Album:  Come On Die Young
Artist:  Mogwai
Year:  1999
Length: 6:33
Label: Chemikal Underground
Album Rating: 6.1 (out of 10) on Pitchfork

• Download Mogwai - "Cody".mp3

The song that this album appeared on was released just a month after my #40 song "Carry the Zero," which is oddly coincidental and strangely impressive.   Pitchfork, and most reviewers, didn't like the album when originally released, but according to Wikipedia,

It received a somewhat muted reception when compared to Young Team. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, writing for All Music Guide, wrote:

“

Perhaps Come on Die Young wouldn't have seemed as disappointing if it hadn't arrived on the wave of hype and expectation, but the truth is, it pales in comparison to their own work.

”

However, it is now praised by many fans and critics as one of the best, if not the best album they've released. It has also been said by some critics that Mogwai will never top Come on Die Young.

Of course, even back in 1999, P4K realized the beauty of the title track "Cody"...

"But it's the album's title track, carrying the record's only vocal, sung in soft sighs, that pulls apart your heart like string cheese, muscle fiber by muscle fiber."

I cannot disagree.  #39 of all time.

Of all I knew, her held too few.
And would you stop me, if I try to stop you?

Old songs stay 'til the end.
Sad songs remind me of friends.
And the way it is, I could leave it all
And I ask myself, would you care at all.

When I drive alone at night, I see the streetlights as fairgrounds
And I tried a hundred times to see the road signs as Day-Glo.

Old songs, stay till the end.
Sad songs, remind me of friends.
And the way it is, I could leave it all
And I ask myself, would you care at all.

40. Carry the Zero

 Song:  "Carry the Zero"
Album:  Keep it Like a Secret
Artist:  Built to Spill
Year:  1999
Running Length:  5:44
Label: Warner Brothers
Album Rating:  9.3 (out of 10) on Pitchfork

• Download Built to Spill - "Carry the Zero".mp3

(also appeared on the Carry the Zero EP, 1999)

From Jason Josephes' Pitchfork review (because I can't think of anything original to say about an 8-year-old song that I absolutely love)...  "And what have we here?  It's the downright pretty "Carry the Zero," which merges Cocteau Twins- esque guitars and melody with equal sigh and much more articulate lyrics, none of which I'm going to quote to you. "

Ah, but I will quote the lyrics in their entirety.  Enjoy my #40 favorite song of all-time....

I'm not knocking your want to carry that home
Took it with you when you moved and got it broke
Found the pieces, we counted them all alone
Didn't add up, forgot to carry a zero

I can't be your apologist very long
I'm surprised that you'd want to carry that on
Count your blemishes; you can't, they're all gone
I can't see your response putting them back on

Like they're waiting for your guard to fall
So they can see it all
And you're so occupied with what other persons are occupied with
And vice versa

And you've become,
What you thought was dumb
A fraction of the sum
Yeah you've become
Yeah you've all become a fraction of the sum
The middle and the front
And now it's coming back; hasn't it come too far?
I was trying to help but I guess I pushed too hard
And now we can't even touch it
Afraid it'll fall apart

(Editor's Note: This is the first part of a 40-part series exploring in detail my favorite musical compositions of all time.  I hope to finish sometime around Christmas - at which point they'll all be listed together... I was hoping to do it all at once, but it's taking much longer than I'd hoped.  Sorry.  You might get 35 to 39 soon, because that's finished already.)

1995 All Over Again

I've long hated the Yankees, but I have to admit I haven't hated them nearly as long as many of my friends have been fans of the team, and I certainly haven't lived a lifetime of hatred like Red Sox fans or Brooklyn Dodgers fans or even New York Mets fans.  As a child growing up outside of Philly, I was a Phillies baseball fan (Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, Pete Rose back before he was betting on games - maybe) and my most hated team was the Mets, or probably more accurately, no team in particular.  The NL East had a plethora of contenders in the '80s and by the end of the decade, the Phillies were no longer regularly in contention.  But when I went away to school at Rutgers, the Mets were likely my most hated team.  That changed quickly, as I encountered for the first time the horrendous, overwrought, opinionated, pompous embodiment of self-righteous fandom otherwise known as a "New Yorker."  In the early '90s, the Yankees were horrible and the Mets were an overrated and overpaid disaster (enjoyed by all), but the Giants fans and Knicks fans and Rangers fans (and even worse, their media counterparts) were annoying enough to take the wrath of my hatred.  These were the days before the Internet and we didn't have cable in the dorm rooms, so basically all my sports information came from New York stations, which basically meant an in-depth recap of the Yankees and Mets losses and... that was it.  They might flash a screen with all the out of town games but I'd basically have to wait until the next morning's USA Today to find out whether anyone on the Phillies hit a home run or got injured or, you know, got blown up by a nuclear missile, because if it didn't happen in New York, it was meaningless.  Long story short, I hated New York sports.

By the mid-90s, the Yankees started getting good, prompting the huge throngs of fans-in-waiting to come out of their primordial shells and sparking up debate all over WFAN and the Post and the local coffee shop about how THEEE Yankeezzzz were back and the greatest blah blah crap.  At the same time, my adopted favorite AL team Seattle Mariners made a miraculous September comeback to tie the Angels on the last day of the season, followed by Randy Johnson out-dueling Mark Langston for the AL West title to make the playoffs for the first time in team history.  And waiting for them in the first round of the playoffs?  The first ever AL Wild Card team in ML history, the New York Yankees.  Alex Rodriguez was a backup shortstop for the Mariners in his rookie season with the team.  Derek Jeter played briefly as an already stuck up evil bastard who ate the blood of the young to give him the strength to bloop fastballs over the second baseman's head to try to distract everyone from his horrible fielding and lack of power.  And my hatred for the team was in peak form.

John Allyn Smith Sails

"On a whim I decided to stop in Minnesota to visit the Washington Avenue Bridge [the site of American poet John Berryman's 1972 suicide]. I had a really profound experience standing there trying to imaginatively leap, and get into Berryman's brain at the moment. There's a lot to say about standing in the last place a person stood while alive," says Will Sheff [of Okkervil River] on the phone from a Brooklyn bar. "I love John Berryman and I was reading him a lot while I was doing Black Sheep Boy. I think Berryman influenced how I wrote that album in some sort of weird way."

The album's final track, 'John Allyn Smith Sails', takes this idea to fruition, ending the album with lyrics from a traditional folk song and poem – most famously used as the center of the Beach Boys' 'Sloop John B' – as a way for Sheff to reckon with his John Berryman connection. "The 'Sloop John B' character and the John Berryman [real name John Allyn Smith] were at the same juncture in their lives. They're both kind of wreck," says Sheff. But still, he claims the inspiration stemmed from a book of poetry by another American poet, Carl Sandberg, who also used the words. "When I was writing that song I was not necessarily thinking of the Beach Boys version, although I do love it the most, but that's a great example. I was just writing that song and [the reference] just jumped into my head. I couldn't say no and I just went with it. I might not have done that if I was less confident as a songwriter. Really, on a gut level, it just felt right." 

Thanks to Wireless Bollinger for their interview with Will Sheff and post about The Stage Names, helping to explain what the beautiful and majestic final track of the album is about.  Have a listen yourself.  Slow-building to a wonderfully poppy even Beach Boys style conclusion.  Which is surprising for what is basically an ode to suicide.  And the acoustic demo version is nearly as good.  Lyrics are after the jump.

• Download Okkervil River - "John Allyn Smith Sails".mp3
• Download Okkervil River - "John Allyn Smith Sails (demo)".mp3

Buy The Stage Names at Jagjaguwar

This One's For Maggie, This One's For Sam

I can't -- or at least I won't -- post any more tracks from the new Sunset Rubdown album Random Spirit Lover, since it's still two months from official release -- why?  what's the holdup exactly?  I don't know, but I certainly more than expect Spencer and co. to want to make money off this record - this absolutely brilliant record.  In fact, this whole post is about how this album has been one of the most monumentally enjoyable new releases I've heard in a long, long time.  We're talking The Moon and Antartica or Lifted, or the Story is in the Soil, or (gasp) In the Aeroplane over the Sea type feelings after one week of listening.  It's a concept album, clearly, with all the songs running together, and I'm still in the process of digesting the songs themselves - let alone the apparently brilliant lyrics - but... wow.  Just wow.  It's quite clearly the automatic frontrunner for album of the year.  And at nearly one hour running time (58:33), it's just killing all my free time this week.  But in a good way.

And suddenly, Spencer's own "Apistat Commander" has a big contender for song of the year as well, the wonderful, brilliant, majestic, epic, enormous, catchy, beautiful opening track, "The Mending of the Gown."  The lyrics of this one are absolutely magical, but since I can't share the song here, I'll simply share a brief choice passage.  Get thee to Jagjaguwar's site to demand a pre-order... or you know, go download it somewhere today.  But make sure you buy it in October.  Spencer definitely deserves lots and lots of money for this album.  If he weren't Canadian, I'd say elect him President.  Maybe he could win a Nobel Prize for literature?

• She had a name, she had a spirit, she had a line in the play if you waited to hear it.
  But a master of disguises, her demise was her design, they said.

• Was it the mending of the gown, or the running, and the running and the running it around?
  She said my name and my spirit are both corrupt and if you hold me close, you gotta hold me up.

• It was the tender mending of this slender gown that brought me bending to the ground.

• Now you’ll wear any old thing, oh you’ll wear any old thing.
  So she wrapped herself in swallowing up the fever to the air to a broken wing

• It’s an act I think, she’s just pretending.
  It’s an act I think, she’s just pretending.

• If you burn the virgin flags, then I will shake (Shake!) as the heat waves in the sand.

• This one’s for Maggie, (this one's for Maggie) this one’s for Sam. (this one's for Sam)
  This one’s for Maggie, (this one's for Maggie) this one’s for Sam. (this one's for Sam)

• Oh, any other random spirit lover busted, I have lusted after you…
  The way bloodsuckers do!
  The way bloodsuckers do!
  The way bloodsuckers do!

Here's a live copy of the track, which doesn't even remotely do it justice, but maybe will tide you over, along with a whole host of other rare and live Spencer tracks.  I thusly declare the rest of August as Sunset Rubdown month.  I'm seeing them live at the Bowery Ballroom in early October.  I cannot wait.

• Download Sunset Rubdown - "Mending of the Gown (live)".mp3
• Download Sunset Rubdown - "The Dust You Kick Up Is Too Fine".mp3
  
  • from Sunset Rubdown's Snakes Got a Leg EP
• Download Sunset Rubdown - "A Day in the Graveyard II".mp3
  
  • from the Sunset Rubdown EP
• Download Sunset Rubdown - "The Weather Can Turn on You (early demo)".mp3
• Download Sunset Rubdown - "The Empty Threats of Little Lord".mp3
  
  • a little better known, of course, from Shut Up I Am Dreaming
•  Download Wolf Parade - "Cathedral Bells (live)".mp3
  
  • a pretty awesome live track from last year by Spencer's "other" band