VAGUE SPACE

2. Two-Headed Boy

Song:  "Two-Headed Boy"
Artist:  Neutral Milk Hotel
Album:  In the Aeroplane over the Sea
Year:  1998
Length:  4:26
Label:  Merge
Rating:  10 out of 10 (for the album on Pitchfork)

• Download Neutral Milk Hotel - "Two-Headed Boy".mp3

The last three songs on my top 40 songs of all-time list have been part of albums that have received 10 out of 10 ratings (Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation, Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted, and The Smiths' The Queen is Dead) and this song continues that trend.  (I haven't looked it up yet, but I'm pretty sure my #1 song falls short of such universal acclaim).  So the question is, are my picks being influenced by such critical praise?  It's possible, although I'm fairly confident 95% of the mouth-breathing public has never heard of this song or band before, so I can continue to be proud of my "alternative" and "indie" cred.  I hope.  Mostly, I just love these fucking records.  I've probably told the story of the meaning of Neutral Milk Hotel to my life several times before, but please indulge me one last time.

I first heard this song several years after its release, in the spring of 2001.  That year was a transitional one for me musically, and was the beginning of the spark of the advent of my embrace of indie rock as a genre and the Internet as a forum for delivering great, new, undiscovered musical masterpieces.  Eatontown's FM106.3, the only local alternative station in the NYC area, got sold about a year earlier, and my radio use dropped precipitously as a result.  My time spent listening to music dropped as well, and I truly feared whether my time might have passed and I'd spend my latter years reliving the glories of The Smiths or Pavement or Sonic Youth, for there were no "new" bands coming out with good alternative rock music anymore.  What passed for alternative those days was the crap-rock of a Limp Bizkit and what passed for pop music was the fucking Backstreet Boys.  I had basically given up hope.  The only new music I ever heard was when I received the CD that came every month in the CMJ New Music Monthly magazine, but increasingly many of the 20 tracks included were hip-hop or dance tracks that I didn't like, or a bunch of bands I never heard of before (mostly because I wasn't paying attention).  I actually bought Grandaddy's The Sophtware Slump as a result of the recommendation of that magazine, but I never actually got around to listening to it despite the dearth of new music selections in my catalog at that time.  I don't know why.  But anything that was too original or too different and too unknown still kind of scared me off.  Until I bought In the Aeroplane over the Sea.

Merge Records is the home label of Superchunk, founded by Mac and Laura of the band, and since the Chunk were just about my favorite band at the time, I was often getting mailings from Merge urging me to buy more records from their artists.  The one that kept sticking out was this weird band with the weird name that Merge was pumping for its glowing reviews equating its album with all-time musical greatness.  I finally, reluctantly, after a couple years of resisting, gave in and purchased an album from a band I'd never heard a single note from, despite its weird name and weird album cover.  And almost exclusively out of complete desperation to find something - anything - new, that I might like.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

FISA and Dodd

My first political contribution this election season was to Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd, whose campaign for the president ended with a less than 2% showing in Iowa and New Hampshire (he might have even dropped out before NH, I don't remember).  So in one sense, it was wasted money.  But I feel proud of that contribution for the efforts that Dodd made both in December and this week, in protecting the FISA bill that President Bush and the Republicans in the Senate are trying to ram through Congress from becoming law.  This bill accomplishes one thing and one thing only that Dodd (and all of us Americans) do not want:  retroactive immunity for the phone companies who turned over our private conversations to the government after Bush requested their assistance in his warrantless wiretapping scheme from 2001 to 2006, when the program was exposed in a New York Times article that didn't receive nearly enough play in the mainstream media or America's consciousness.  The rest of the bill - the protecting our country from potential terrorists by allowing a special FISA court to hear requests for wiretaps (the way it's been in this country for 3 decades until Bush took over) is supported by everyone.  It's just the retroactive immunity that we have a little problem with.  And Bush is screaming and threatening to hold his breath and veto the bill if we don't include the immunity.  Why?  Why indeed...

I'll put it bluntly so that anyone can understand -- your president was willfully breaking the law in order to listen to American citizens' private phone conversations.  Not foreigners.  Not al Qaeda operatives.  American citizens.  Every single last one of us could have been wiretapped without reason or court order or really, anything but the president's word... and the phone companies broke the law by giving him the access.  They all ignored the long established FISA law and decided to do what they wanted when they wanted and this bill Bush is trying to get passed would immunize everyone from their illegal actions, most especially him.  And before you feel so bad for Verizon and AT&T and the rest of the lawbreakers who allowed Bush to do this, realize that the telecoms have shut off the legally requested court-ordered wiretaps this year because the government was late in paying its bills.  They care so much about protecting our country that they cut off the wiretaps.  And President Bush needs these wiretaps so badly to protect our country that he can't even pay the phone bills on time.  It's just frightening hypocrisy and no one - I mean, no one besides a few dedicated reformers - is speaking about it.  Which just makes me angry.

So Senator Dodd stood up and fought it, successfully so far (as of yesterday), and he'll need America's support to continue the fight, because for some unknown reason, Republicans and some Democrats from southern states are willing to cave on retroactive immunity because the president tells them to.  And here I thought we had a Democracy.  I mean, this is Stalinist Russia stuff.  Un-freak-ing- believable.  Read some of Senator Dodd's inspirational words on the subject below and how he distills the true nature and importance of stopping this bill.  And then call your Senator and encourage them to stand by Dodd and fight against this bill.  You can find your senator's contact information here.  Thank you for your time.

New Music Tuesday

New music from the following artists comes out today.  Buy the albums by following the links below. 

• Xiu Xiu :  Women as Lovers (Kill Rock Stars) 
  
  • Buy from Amazon.
  • Download Xiu Xiu - "In Lust You Can Hear the Axe Fall".mp3
  • Download Xiu Xiu - "Bishop CA".mp3
  • Download Xiu Xiu - "Clowne Towne".mp3

• Chris Walla:  Field Manual (Barsuk) 
  
  • Buy from Amazon.
  • Download Chris Walla - "Everyone Needs a Home".mp3

• Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend (XL Recordings)
  • Buy from Amazon
  • Download Vampire Weekend - "One (Blake's Got a New Face)".mp3

• Ida:  Lovers Prayers (Polyvinyl)
  • Buy from Amazon
  • Download Ida - "Lovers Prayers".mp3

• Radar Bros:  Auditorium  (Merge)
  • Buy from Amazon
  • Download Radar Bros. - "Warm Rising Sun".mp3

The Challenge Returns

And so the time has come again for one of my guilty TV pleasures, the Real World / Road Rules Challenge , and as usual, I've been sucked right into it one more time.  I mean at this point, I don't even remember what season of The Real World these participants came from -- I just know them from the challenges.  But it's tough to get a better format than sticking a bunch of hyper-competitive, angry, aging former reality world stars into a resort in Mexico and have them get drunk, hook up, hate each other, and try to physically annihilate their opponents in a battle for a share of $300,000 cash, which will be the entire income for most of the cast members for the foreseeable future.  It doesn't get any better than that.  And oh yeah, after a brief hiatus, Coral's back.  It really doesn't get any better than that.

The name of this year's challenge is Gauntlet III, and the format is slightly different than previous seasons.  The winners of the challenge get to select one member from the losing team to go into the Gauntlet (five different one-on-one competitions, winner survives) as well as a member from the losing team who will be immune from selection.  Then the losing team has to pick the other member to face his teammate in the Gauntlet (but not the member who was chosen to be immune).  The matchup is Veterans vs. Rookies -- long-time (and for most of them, really, really long-time) contestants from the Challenge vs. Real World and Road Rules alumni who are Challenge virgins, or have only been on one show (and for the most part, not lasted very long).  There's another added twist as well -- the individual competitions are not worth any money to be banked into the team's potential winnings, so it's (a) winner take all for the 300K at the end, and (b) except to avoid the Gauntlet, there is no need to compete to win the intermediate challenges and since the Gauntlet alternates sexes week to week, there may be an already expressed desire of the Veteran men to tank the women's weeks in order to intentionally lose female members before the Final Challenge.  This strategy has occurred before among some of the Veterans that are currently playing, in order to dump some dead weight from the Final task (which is usually a "you don't win until your last player crosses the finish line" contest) and also to reduce the number of competitors to share in the 300K.  And if you don't think that matters to these cutthroat, selfish fame whores, you're a little mistaken.

(Note to LegFu Johnson:  "lesbians" ahead... read on)

3. Here

Song:  "Here"
Artist:  Pavement
Album:  Slanted and Enchanted
Year:  1992
Length:  3:56
Label:  Matador
Rating:  10 out of 10 (for the album on Pitchfork)

• Download Pavement - "Here".mp3
• Download Pavement - "Here (Peel Session 1)".mp3

Here's the problem with the beautiful ballad that forms the centerpiece of Pavement's transcendent debut album, Slanted and Enchanted.  While I absolutely love it, and would under any circumstances consider it a top 10 song of all-time in its original version as appeared on the 1992 album, I actually kind of prefer the sped up version played for a Peel session that appears on the re-released Luxe & Reduxe album from 2002.  But since I couldn't realistically give the song two slots in my top 10 of all-time, "here" they are together, at #3.  And you can download both versions and see which is better.  Much like the rest of the album, it's all fucking great. 

Slanted & Enchanted is a left-field classic, a record that came out of nowhere to help establish a new subgenre of rock & roll. Pavement had already sketched out their sound, as well as their amateurish lo-fi aesthetic, on a series of indie singles before recording their debut, but Slanted & Enchanted is where they pulled all of their disparate sounds together into a distinctive style. At first, the primitive sound of the record is the most gripping thing about Slanted, but soon the true innovations of the record appear through the songs themselves. Stephen Malkmus and Spiral Stairs subvert conventional pop structures, turning melodies inside out, reinterpreting and reworking older songs, and bending genres together. It's a complex, enthralling record, filled with fractured riffs, strong melodies, and cryptic melodies, and with all the hiss and static, Slanted & Enchanted sounds like listening to a distant college radio station -- melodies and hooks keep floating in and out of the mix, with individual lines instead of full lyrics surfacing through the murk. This unique song structure as much as the sound of the album itself makes Slanted & Enchanted an individual, signature work and one of the most influential records of the '90s.

#3 Favorite Song of All-Time

I was dressed for success
but success it never comes
and I'm the only one who laughs
at your jokes when they are so bad
and your jokes are always bad
but they're not as bad as this

come join us in a prayer
we'll be waiting waiting where
everything's ending here

and all the sterile striking it defends
an empty dock you cast away
and rain upon your forehead
where the mist's for hire if it's just too clear
let's spend our last quarterstance randomly
go down to the outlet once again

painted portraits of minions & slaves
crotch mavens and one night players
are they the only ones who laugh?
at the jokes when they are so bad
and the jokes they're always bad
but they're not as bad as this

come join us in a prayer
we'll be waiting waiting where
everything's ending here

and all the Spanish candles they sold
away have gone to this
and a run-on piece of mountain
trembles, shivers, runs down the freeway
I guess she spent the last quarter randomly
I guess a guess is the best I'll do
last time last time
was the best time...
we spent randomly

Click forward for a vintage performance from 1992 in Belgium of all places, which is closer to the "alternate" version of the song that I love, and also includes some "alternate" lyrics seemingly made up on the spot by the Patron Saint of Vague Space, Mr. Stephen Malkmus himself.

4. The Queen is Dead

Song:  "The Queen is Dead"
Artist:  The Smiths
Album:  The Queen is Dead
Year:  1986
Length:  6:24
Label:  Rough Trade
Rating:   10 out of 10 (for the album on NME)

• Download The Smiths - "The Queen is Dead".mp3

I distinctly remember the events of Valentine's Day, 1990.  I woke up to receive a Valentine's card from a girl named Anna that was slipped through the outer door of my suite.  We had wild, torrid sex that afternoon and she raved to everyone about it afterwards -- oh wait a second, that part didn't happen.  What I actually did was the spend the morning studying for an exam I had that afternoon.  My roommate Alec was busy burning things in my room (I forget what, or why), but I moved into another room in my suite to do my studying, and sat at the empty desk of my roommate Jamie, where I looked through his CD collection and decided to play some music to accompany my studying.  I didn't quite have the most advanced musical tastes at the time.  Sure, I'd loved U2 for years, and in my later high school days I discovered The Cure and The Replacements and R.E.M., artists that quickly supplanted the more mainstream interests I had listened to while growing up.  But it was my first year at Rutgers that truly expanded my musical horizons, as friendships with more discerning listeners introduced me to the wonders of New Order and Depeche Mode and The Alarm and the Psychedelic Furs, and on February 14th, 1990, The Smiths.  Now I'm sure I had heard the band before, and I'd definitely heard Morrissey solo's efforts and liked "Suedehead" at least, but I'd never heard an album proper until I listened to my roommate's copies of Meat is Murder and The Queen is Dead on that fateful day.  My musical life has never been the same since.  Meat is Murder became my favorite album of all-time (although for the entirety of my collegiate years I only had a cassette copy I'd made from Jamie's CD) and The Queen is Dead moved into the top 5.  The Smiths themselves soon jostled U2 from atop my favorite artists list and even though they broke up in 1988, they remain at the top spot to this very day.  All this is a long way of going about describing the feeling of wonder and excitement when I heard the first strains of the opening track "The Queen is Dead" on my roommate's CD player almost 18 years ago, and realized that this was music and a moment that would forever make everything I'd ever heard before somehow less worthy. 

I'm not alone in that point of view, of course, as the album is generally regarded as the strongest for the band (my preference for Meat is Murder notwithstanding). 

In 1997 The Queen Is Dead was named the 15th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 2003, the album was ranked number 216 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2005 Channel 4 viewers placed it at number 20, and in 2006 Q magazine readers placed it at number 12. In 2000 Q placed it at number 27 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever; in 2004, a similar list by The Observer Music Magazine's critics placed it at number 37, behind the band's eponymous debut which was 21st. It was ranked 5 in Spin's "100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005" (2005). The German newspaper WAZ placed it at number 1. In June 2006, 20 years after its original release, NME dedicated almost a whole issue to the album. Much More Music placed it at 24 on Listed's Top 40 Album of the Past 25 Years. In 2006 NME placed the album second in a list of greatest British albums, behind The Stone Roses.

The album is popularly regarded as The Smiths' best album. With its unique blend of musical styles (including jangle pop, British Invasion, rockabilly and punk rock), it quickly became a British sensation and established The Smiths as one of the biggest bands of its era. Both Morrissey and Marr disagree, however, citing its 1987 successor (and unexpectedly final Smiths LP), Strangeways, Here We Come, as their peak.

Keep reading for some classic videos and the lyrics...

Death of the CD

I had another incident with my Infiniti and an animal, this one not as bad as last year's deer accident, although worse for my conscience since the animal in question this time probably had an owner.  I will say that the chances of me avoiding contact with said animal in question after it leapt over the barrier on Route 1 - at that point a 6-lane highway - right in front of my car, were minimal at best.  And my swerving into the center lane to avoid the animal could have caused a much more serious accident if it wasn't Martin Luther King Day and traffic wasn't light, and if the cars around me that morning hadn't also performed successful evasive maneuvers.  But I'm fine and no one else hit me so I guess I cannot really complain.  The animal probably can't say the same, but last I heard it was taken by the police to the hospital so maybe there's a chance it lived.  I'll try to believe that. 

(above... the side of the car that didn't get damaged; below... the front of the car (sans bumper and left headlight) and assorted parts that used to be inside my car... total damage estimate: $2830. Not good times)

This accident has unfortunately resulted in another chance for me to get up close and personal with Enterprise Rent-a-Car and although this rental is a definite step up from the Hyundai debacle of last March, the Passat that I'm driving this week - while a fine car (and in fact the vehicle I owned before the Infiniti) - does not have a satellite radio installed, nor - and this is worse - a way for me to hook up my iPod while driving.  My dependence on the iPod for musical accompaniment on my lengthy travels is so strong that even after just 10 minutes of the FAN (featuring 7 minutes of commercials!), I was already missing my faithful companion. 

Cloverfield

Starring:  A bunch of people that haven't acted before and some shaky cinematography
Rating:  2-1/2 stars (out of 4)

The big mystery coming into Cloverfield, held tightly under wraps in the six months since the first previews were playing in theaters, was what the hell was attacking Manhattan and chopping off the head of the Statue of Liberty.  The big mystery coming out of Cloverfield was what the hell was attacking Manhattan and chopping off the head of the Statue of Liberty.  But even though the movie didn't exactly spend much time completely explaining what the hell was happening, and despite pretty bad acting - or lack of acting - by the main characters (who are mostly in the dark and out of focus anyway), this was still a fairly thrilling action ride that is basically nonstop from the moment the first quakes are felt inside a downtown Manhattan apartment in the midst of a going away party for "Rob," who the movie follows throughout. 

The basic intriguing premise of the movie is that the film we are watching is videotape shot on a camcorder by an attendee at this party (Rob's best friend Hud), discovered by the U.S. Government sometime after the "incident."  So the movie begins with a few scenes of Rob and his girlfriend/best friend/fuck buddy, a month or so before the party, followed by scenes of the party that help to introduce the main characters - namely, Rob, Hud, the girl, Rob's brother, his girlfriend, and Marlene, a relative stranger that Hud has the hots for.  The characterizations are decent, although the acting is rather poor, and the shaky camerawork is actually not too annoying and certainly achieves the cinema verite effect that the filmmakers were clearing looking for.  Then there's basically a huge earthquake and they run out onto the roof to find that Manhattan is under attack by... something... (if you don't want to know what, don't keep reading....)

2008 New Release Schedule

The following is a list of some of my most anticipated releases in 2008:

• Out Now:
  • Magnetic Fields - Distortion
  • Envy - Abyssal
    
    • This EP is brilliant!!  Buy it at Temporary Residence

• January 22nd:
  • Hello, Blue Roses - The Portrait is Finished and I Have Failed to Capture Your Beauty

• January 29th:
  • Chris Walla (of Death Cab for Cutie) - Field Manual
    • Pre-order at Barsuk
  • Xiu Xiu - Women as Lovers
  • Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

• February 5th:
  • Bob Mould - District Line
  • Nada Surf - Lucky

• February 12th:
  • British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
  • Morrissey - Greatest Hits (with 2 new tracks)

• February 19th:
  • The Mountain Goats - Heretic Pride
  • American Music Club - The Golden Age
  • Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
  • Headlights - Some Racing, Some Stopping

• February 26th:
  • Beach House - Devotion

• March 4th:
  • Stephen Malkmus - Real Emotional Trash

• March 25th:
  • Destroyer - Trouble in Dreams

• April 8th:
  • Animal Collective - Water Curses

• April 15th:
  • M83 - Saturdays Youth
  • Wye Oak - If Children (sometime in April on Merge)
    • Listen to four excellent songs from the album at their web site here

Click through for mp3s of these releases... pre-order or purchase these albums by following the Amazon links below.  Happy 2008!

Giants in the Super Bowl

Holy shit.  I'm in shock.  Lawrence Tynes bangs home a 47-yard field goal in overtime after missing two much closer ones in the fourth quarter, including one at the end of regulation that would have won the game, and the Giants stun the Green Bay Packers to make the Super Bowl.  Yes, the Giants.  The 2007 edition that nobody -- and I mean, nobody, not even the most diehard fan within in the tri-state area -- would have predicted could have come this far.  Eli Manning was absolutely lambasted all season - and rightfully so, he had a fucking horrible season (and I should know because he killed my fantasy team) - and came through with a four-game stretch (including week 17 against New England) that was not only by far the most impressive of his career, but one of the more impressive in NFL history.  The Giants just won 3 straight road games - including at Dallas and at the Frozen Tundra of Green Bay in -4 degree temperatures - to make the Super Bowl.  Un-fucking-believable. 

Tom Coughlin was supposed to be fired.  Eli Manning was the biggest bust of a #1 pick.  The defense gave up 90 points in the first two weeks - losses to Dallas and Green Bay -- and the team's run of decent games that followed was supposedly only due to weak opposition.  They struggled down the stretch, threatening to back into the playoffs before a close win against Chicago (was it Chicago?  It's too late for me to look it up).  And then they had a couple key injuries in that final game against the Patriots and were banged up, beaten up, and playoff fodder for the beasts of the NFC.  A few people thought they might get by the crappy offense of Tampa Bay.  They killed them.  Nobody expected them to keep up with the high-powered offense of Dallas, a team that had beaten them twice.  They won a close one.  And no one -- and I mean no one -- thought that Eli and company could walk into the freezing conditions and home crowd advantage of Green Bay and even keep the game close, let alone win.  They did.  It's over.  The Giants are in the Super Bowl.