VAGUE SPACE

Your Blues

Destroyer was blaring from speakers up the stairs, a little Your Blues for my blues, not that I was blue, I was just a bit confused...

That's the opening line to my symposium reading next week, my official end to my long and sometimes stressful but usually wonderful journey of a return to school for a writing degree.  It's my last week there and this semester -- mostly due to work, but also due to symposium and thesis and another class and everything, I've hit my breaking point about sixteen times without breaking, not yet, so I'm relieved it will be over in a week.  And then hopefully I can get back to some sense of normalcy in my life, or at least regular posting here.  Thanks for being patient, I knowing postings have been less of late, but it's been crazy.  Not a good crazy.  Just crazy.  So please enjoy a little Your Blues for my blues, for this should be a celebration and not just a relief.

When I Have No Time To Post

There's nothing like a little Colbert Report to supply the content for me...  about the crazy Arizona immigration bill, which I would rail against if I had the time or energy, but I'll leave it to the expert, Mr. Colbert.  The "Esteban Colberto" part is a little corny (and brief -- but Colbert's Spanish is excellent) but the rest of the segment is just perfect... love "The Word" every night, but Monday night, it was perfect.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word - Docu-Drama
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Fox News

New Music Tuesday

Paul's Tomb: A Triumph is releasing today from Frog Eyes and it's absolutely a wonderful triumph.  I spoke at length about the band and the album here, and as I've explored their back catalog since that post, I'm more amazed at what a monster leap forward the latest album is.  Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of wonderful songs among Carey Mercer's rambling career as Frog Eyes, but nothing this unified, spirited, and flat-out kick-ass awesome as Paul's Tomb has come out of his catalog before, and in fact, nothing from any other band this year has approached it (although the new National might be its first serious challenger).  I highly urge you to check out the album as soon as you can.  It will blow your mind.

• Download Frog Eyes - "The Sensitive Girls".mp3

• Dead Oceans website

Because you were always unnoticed
You were always the flame that dies
Bastard with a flat-top singing "The Cloud of Unknowing"
Bastard with a flat-top singing, "The flame never dies"

Because you were always unfocused.
Jinxing the photograph with the pain in your eyes.
Bastard with a flat-top singing "I will wait for your love, I shall wait for your love all days."
Bastard with a casket singing, "I shan't wait for her love, I shan't wait for her love."

But you were always:
A saint, a flower in a glove, a night made for the raising of your glass,
The night's going to be a foolin' and a foolin', but still
Judith ain't sure,
Toil away, play in the sand, gross out your heart,
The night's going to be made for the la-la-la, but still
Judith ain't sure.

You were always unloading,
Soft on the weight of your palm and your hand,
Bastard with a passport to the old destinations,
Bastard with a map of the palm of your hand.

You were always, "Shut him out."

You were always:
Sun, dash of white light,
A night that has passed, has passed into the records of all
That the little record keepers fear,
Dear Mary-Anne, Bastard of Light
I swept your flax bang, I swept into the currents of the river where Judith ain't sure.

You were always...

Oh man, it was you, oh it's you, and did you ever think of a bad idea?

Because the river is bad, the river is cold.
How was the King, was he sad, was he cold, was he low?

Put your hand on my face, row away from the grief-stricken man,
Put your trust in my fate, I shall track that abrasive wasteland:
We are richer in love, but you know: 

You just can't have it.

Earth Day

By special request, here's a great song by a really great band that was written sort-of tongue-in-cheek about Earth Day some 20 years ago, but here on the 40th anniversary of the "holiday", I think we can all support the Clean Air and Water Acts and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency, which all came out of the Earth Day movement that began with rallies in major cities on April 22, 1970.  Somehow, some 40 years later, we seem to have become a completely backwards nation when it comes to major policy change and I've become so frustrated with everything I've seen from so many of our citizens since Obama's historic election that it's difficult for me to see how even the Clear Air Act would come close to passage today or not be greeted with the same panicked, angry, racist rallies that giving health care to uninsured fellow citizens sparked.  I mean, 41 Republican Senators just this week signed on to oppose reform of the financial industry -- siding with Wall Street and the bankers who helped create the recession, along with their Republican president, so it really wouldn't shock me if Republicans sided with air and water polluters.  Hell, they actually do, when it comes to the thought of a climate change bill.  Or any change.  Or anything that might improve the country that vast majorities of polls say needs to change.  It boggles the mind.  But I'm glad our air is cleaner.  And I'm glad some activists fought for it 40 years ago.  I don't know how they had the strength.  Perhaps painfully stupid and selfish wasn't so widespread in 1970.  Happy Earth Day.  I wish I could be happier about it.  What are we gonna do?

• Download DramaRama - "What Are We Gonna Do?".mp3
  

War

I finally saw The Hurt Locker last week and while I'd hardly say I thought it was Oscar-worthy (Inglorious Basterds was better, by a wide margin), it was definitely a very good film, telling the story of bomb-defusing soldiers in Iraq circa 2003.  Jeremy Renner was nominated for an Oscar for his performance as a crazy brave team leader of a 3-person IED diffusion squad, one who repeatedly risks his life in multiple ways to try to keep bombs from blowing up and killing fellow soldiers.  He's excellent in the movie, and the end of the film -- when Renner returns to America and finds it so difficult to adjust to life picking out cereal in an overstocked supermarket, is just beautifully written and acted and he ends up re-enlisting to head back to war.  Unfortunately, the movie was a little disappointing in its storytelling -- there basically was no story, we just see a sequence of scenes of bomb diffusion and related events, but we never get any exposition about why they do the things they do to diffuse a bomb, and when the bombs are supposed to exactly explode.  The opening scene shows Guy Pearce in full astronaut protection suit walking out to set off a bomb in the middle of a courtyard (after clearing out the neighborhood) but an insurgent with a cell phone sets it off before he can get back to safety and he blows up (astronaut suit and all).  The team (now with Renner in charge) fears this event recurring for the rest of the film, but really do little to prevent it, and it seems like not only could an insurgent blow up the bomb (and Renner) at any point, it also seems like someone could shoot him, especially when he removes his suit (frequently) to get a better look at diffusing the bombs.  So theoretically the bombs were set and left but then when would they go off?  It's never explained.  So I was confused throughout.  I think that perhaps the point of it all is to show that the soldiers really had no idea what they were doing, or why, and that every Arab around them was a potential killer (and is shown to be, through the soldiers' eyes) which is a horrible situation to be in and I'm sure approximates the experience of being at war in Iraq.  Or anywhere.  In that way, it was an excellent movie, completely harrowing, and the acting and characterization were wonderful.  But I just think it lacked an overall dramatic arc that would have made it less confusing to this viewer.

New Music Tuesday

Well I heard a leak of the new Broken Social Scene album yesterday and um... is it bad that a part of me is hoping this is some sort of fake leak  meant to throw off the fans of the band and the real album is going to be much, much better?  Yes?  Well I don't know what to think.  It was only one listen, and I was really tired, but it was just... um... what's the opposite of good?  And "World Sick" is such a great song.  I don't know.  That's the downside I guess to being so excited about an upcoming release.  When it isn't a great as you'd hoped, or even any good at all, it's kind of devastating.  With so many of my favorite bands coming out with albums this year, there were bound to be a couple disappointments.  But I didn't expect it from BSS.  Not at all.  I'll give it a few more tries, but if anyone's heard it, let me know what you think... is it an April Fool's Day joke?  A few weeks late?

Here's some new tracks from forthcoming albums I'm hoping and praying are not disappointments...

• Download The National - "Afraid of Everyone".mp3

• • website

• Download Stars - "Fixed".mp3

• • website

• Download LCD Soundsystem - "I Can Change".mp3

• • website

• Download Here We Go Magic - "Collector".mp3

• • website

• Download Deer Tick - "20 Miles".mp3

• • website

A Cold Night in Nascar County, NJ

We were only a few miles from my friend's house, maybe 10 at most, but somewhere between central Jersey and our destination we entered a strange wormhole in the gravitational pull of the planets and ended up in a different time and place -- not like Lost, though, even though we felt incredibly lost, believe me I would have preferred being attacked by the smoke monster to this... this place, this strange, weird place where people actually spend money to watch cars race at deafening volumes around a small dirt track.  I just... there really are no words.  I don't know why we went -- curiosity, boredom, my friend's father's friend had discount tickets and we had nothing to do... I don't really know, and I still haven't processed, not really, it's just um... like I said, wormhole, different place, different planet, and I'm pretty sure not a single Obama voter anywhere in the crowd.

Apparently every Saturday night at racetracks in New Jersey (this wasn't the only one, I was told), there are a bunch of -- um... I guess you could call them races, in which "modified" cars and trucks with souped up engines spin around on the dirt (in this case), spewing fumes and mud and noxious fear in the air at deafening volumes while an announcer with a strange southern accent narrates what's happening and those in the audience, on high school bleachers, get drunk enough from their coolers to dull the meaninglessness of their lives, spent on a Saturday night in a town called New Egypt.  I'll have to admit that the lure of "bring your own coolers" had a certain appeal, especially when I'm used to buying $8 beers at crowded stadiums for any other sporting event, and that was probably the only reason we went.  Insanity I don't think is a proper defense.

Spartacus Dominates the Cobbles

I don't know enough about cycling to know the intricacies between all the different races and seasons within the sporting year, but I know that the "Cobbles" events take place in the spring, as distinct from the "Grand Tour" events (Spain, Italy, and the Tour de France) that take place in the summer, but I'm not sure if all spring events in northern Europe are considered Cobbles or not.  Long story short, Fabian Cancellara just won the two biggest Cobbles events back-to-back, and although Liege-Bastogne-Liege awaits (won last year by his teammate Andy Schleck), I don't think that's strictly a Cobbles event, so the Cobbles season may be over.  And Cancellara (aka "Tony Spartacus") just kicked ass and took names all over the place.  On consecutive Sundays, Cance won the Tour of Flanders and the legendary Paris-Roubaix one-day races, in absolutely dominating fashion.  A week earlier he'd won another, more minor race, so that's three weeks in a row that Cancellara has beaten the world of cycling.  Only Tom Boonen has been remotely close, but he hasn't been good enough, as Fabulous Fabian (he has a lot of nicknames) has lived up to the hype this year as the fastest cyclist in the sport (when they are not riding up huge mountains). 

Paul's Tomb: A Triumph

Frog Eyes:  Paul Tomb - A Triumph

Rating:  8.8 (out of 10)

Wow. Wow. Wow. A triumph indeed.  As any regular reader of the blog knows, I'm obsessed with Mr. Spencer Krug.  He is the lead singer/writer/superstar of both my new #1 favorite band of all-time  (Sunset Rubdown), but also #15 (Wolf Parade -- just got tickets to see them in July in NYC woo hoo).  Oh, and he's also a part of #47 (Swan Lake), but I'll get to that.  Spencer grew up in Penticton, British Columbia (born May 7, 1977 according to Wikipedia, which is always accurate, right?) and at age 12, his family moved to Victoria (also in BC, which is in Canada, which is the greatest place in the world for indie rock music, but I digress).  So at some point, he befriended a fellow Pentictonian named Carey Mercer, and they became roommates in Victoria and formed a band by the name of Frog Eyes.  The first Frog Eyes album The Bloody Hand was recorded in 2001, with Spencer as a part of the band (presumably playing keyboards).  But then Spencer moved to Montreal to study music at Concordia University and he left the band.  While in Montreal, in 2003, he and fellow BC transplant Dan Boeckner joined forces (they'd known each other from back in their BC days) and formed a little band by the name of Wolf Parade, who toured with another little band from Montreal called Arcade Fire that year.  Then in 2005, Spencer put a bunch of his own recordings (separate from Wolf Parade or Frog Eyes) together on an album that he called Snake's Got a Leg, for a "band" that he called Sunset Rubdown, which wasn't so much a band but just his own side project.  Of course, Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary came out in September 2005 and became the next best thing since sliced bread (or the next best thing since Arcade Fire's Funeral took the indie rock world by storm a year earlier) and Spencer took the opportunity to turn his side project, Sunset Rubdown, into a full-fledged band that would release 3 full-length masterpieces within the next 4 years and became my favorite band of all time.  Cool, huh?  But whatever happened to Carey Mercer, his old roommate still back in British Columbia? 

Mono: Holy Ground NYC Live

Mono has released a new combination live album and DVD that chronicles their one-time performance last May with the 24-piece Wordless Music Orchestra in NYC to celebrate their 10th year anniversary as a band.  The DVD is well-shot and captures the entirety of their 90-minute performance, but it's the accompanying CD that blows me away.  Their music sounds so beautiful live, so stunning and expansive, and the amazing thing is it sounds so similar to the recorded music, especially since they have a full orchestra backing them in this performance.  How they are able to create such a large sound normally with just the four regular members of the band (Taka Goto, Yasunori Takada, Tamaki, and Yoda) is just shocking to me.  You have to listen very carefully to the album through good speakers (or through headphones) to detect the orchestral flourishes at the edges of the songs.  They are quite beautiful and on the DVD you can definitely watch the interplay between the band and the backing accompaniment, which is great, but everything about this package is beautiful.  Highly recommended.