Also, to the people who feel they're going to die alone, it's ok, so do I.

In one of the world's most failed segues: now that we've got THAT cleared up, today I went down to the North Sea and took some pictures.

I have a love-love relationship with my XTi, but sometimes I'm feeling just a little less love.  Mainly, it's a heavy camera to lug around.  Particularly if you're wearing a raincoat and boots AND IT'S NOT RAINING.  Cause like, dudes, you wanna put your feet in the sea and it's October

But I digress, I love photography and I love how my photos have improved.  That said, Aberdeen is a difficult to capture subject.  Some days it's sunny (slightly overcast) and the light catches the granite and it's sparkling and there are people everywhere and it feels bustling and alive.  And then there are days like today where you listen to Elliott Smith and the sun is gone and everything is grey.

And everything is grey, but something happens to make the day all right

and you can switch over to The Kooks, go home, and rest.

Copyright © 2008 WrappedUpInBooksBlog. All rights reserved.

I drink green tea all day and listen to Elliott Smith.

I struggle to put out a couple paragraphs worth of acceptable narrative prose.

Speaking of Elliott... If anyone knows of any Los Angeles tribute shows coming this month please make me aware!

There was a grown man dying from fright
So surprised by the things he'd say
With a giant fantasy life
Running around on feet of clay

Naked except for a perpetual debt
That couldn't be stripped away
An unrightable wrong that moved him along
Closer to division day

Spent a long time living with that
Never could give it a name
And when you don't know what you're looking at
It makes it much harder to take

Mostly they'd meet when he was asleep
And have some sick exchange
That stuck him as wrong and moved him along
Closer to division day

I can't make an exception for a bad connection
That only goes one way
Sell out for a song where I don't belong
With you on division day

The moon stood up on the ridge
Looking down where the water shines
And a man looking over the bridge
Like he done so many times

Thinking about how to stay out
Out of trouble's way
And flying to fall away from you all
It's over division day
Beautiful division day

Thinking about how to stay out
Out of trouble's way
Flying to fall away from you all
It's over division day
Beautiful division day

'Don't Go Down'

'I met a girl, a snowball in hell
She was hard and as cracked as the Liberty Bell
I got her to come on and move in with me
And I said I'd find a better place we could spend eternity
Don't go down
Don't go down
Stay with me
Baby, stay
Her mama called me a thief
And her dad called himself commander-in-chief
I fought him off with my love
But I knew the sense of worthlessness she'd have to rise above
Don't go down
Don't go down
Stay with me
Baby, stay
Don't go down
Don't go down
Stay with me
Baby, stay
She had a dream, woke up in shock
She had seen her own body outlined in chalk
I split the scene, the globe had been spun
And her ghost leaned down to kiss me with a message from the sun
Don't go down
Don't go down
Stay with me
Baby, stay
Don't go down
Stay with me
Baby stay
Don't go down
Stay with me
Baby, stay
Stay'

Here's a list of 101 bands/artists I've seen. With a little research, I can give you another 101 bands.

10,000 Maniacs
Anne Summers
Aviso'Hara
Baby Phat
Bad Religion
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
Blonde Redhead
Bloodhound Gang
Blues Traveller
Bob Mould
Boss Jim Gettys
Built To Spill
Charles Bissell
Ciampi
Circulatory System
CIV
Clap You Hands Say Yeah
Copious Quantities
Deep Blue Something
Del Amitri
Dramarama
Echofission
Elliott Smith
Elvis Costello
Evelyn Forever
Fossil
Frank Black
Frente
Guided By Voices
Hey Tiger
Iggy Pop
Jeffrey Gaines
Joey Santiago and The Martinis
Jonathan Richman
Landspeedrecord!
Last Perfect Thing
Little T and One Track Mike
Love Cinema Volume Six
Love Spit Love
Low
Man Man
Man or Asroman?
Man or Astroman? Gamma Clone Project
Mike Ferraro and the Young Republicans
Moby
Morphine
Mudhoney
Nina Nastasia
NOFX
Particle Zoo
Pete Droge
Phish
Prosolar Mechanics
Quasi
Radiohead
Rusty
Shellac
Sloan
Solution A.D.
Songs: Ohia
Soul Coughing
Souls' Release
Spiraling
Sponge
Superdrag
The Amps
The Angry Monsters
The Arcade Fire
The Beach Boys with John Stamos on drums
The Beta Band
The Bogmen
The Bomboras
The Breeders
The Flowers
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion
The Lemonheads
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones
The Monkees
The Mooney Suzuki
The Murmurs
The National
The Pixies
The Reverend Horton Heat
The Sadies
The Shankbone Mystic Project
The Soup Dragons
The Specials
The Tokyo
The Violent Femmes
The Warlocks
The White Stripes
The Wrens
They Might Be Giants
Tobin Sprout
Tonic
Velour 44
Ween
Weird Al Yankovic
Whirling Dervishes
World Party
You Were Spiraling

one of my favorite quirky things to do is sit at the counter at Bob Evans and strike up conversations with the crusty old men. they are absolutely hilarious! many of them have governmental conspiracy theories (i happen to be a bit of a conspiracy theorist myself) so it is rarely ever boring. as a little girl, i always wanted my family to sit at the counter, but we never did. so now it's one of my guilty pleasures- black coffee, eggs over easy, sausage links, wheat toast, and conversations with funny old men. you should try it sometime.

i love driving on cold october mornings listening to Elliott Smith (such as i did today). i always think about the final scene in the movie Good Will Hunting where Will (Matt Damon) heads out from Boston to California to "go see about a girl" (Minnie Driver). the Elliott Smith song "Miss Misery (Early Version)" is playing as he drives off into the misty morning. i love that scene. i think about it everytime i listen to the song.

lately i seem to be dealing with a case of insomnia. i really want to sleep, i just can't. i tried to go to bed at 9:30 last night, but i struggled for over an hour before i decided to just "call the whole thing off" and putter around for a while. i just hope my insomnia doesn't land me in Al Pacino's position. that movie just about drove me nuts. on the other hand, maybe watching it again would make me tired enough to fall asleep.

my weekend begins this afternoon. i am so ready for it. no big plans, just need to rest my brain.

it was sadly revealed to me that there will be no new episode of The Office tonight due to the vice presidential debate. i probably should actually watch the debate, but i will be too bitter.

did anybody watch the Palin/Couric skit on SNL last Saturday? i thought it was hilarious since i actually had watched the original interview earlier in the week. both Poehler and Fey did a good job. i wish i could say the same about the McCain/Obama debate skit. NBC certainly is biased- and even though i am not a fan of McCain, i thought they took it too far. if you saw it you may know what i mean. why can't we all just get along? oh if only we lived in a perfect world with no need for political crap. a girl can dream.

It references an Osamu Tezuka story of the same name.

In other news, um...school started again.

Elliott Smith > Conor Oberst. Sorry.

:)

Anyway, the winner this week is Tom Waits with 45 plays.

Rounding up the top five was Neil Patrick Harris, Boards of Canada, The Clean and Mogwai. Neil Patrick Harris makes it to second on the back of his four songs in the Doctor Horrible soundtrack. The trailer for that is below. I'm still listening to that over and over.

Another new feature I'm introducing to the "Band of the Week" is a new table. I decided to keep a points total for each band based on their plays for each week. It's also going to be adjusted for time, so bands that I'm listening to recently will be worth just that little more. I've been using last.fm for 6 weeks now to keep track of my listening habits - so here is the first list based on those first six weeks.

1. Mogwai 40.97
2. The Beatles 40.57
3. The Clean 35.77
4. R.E.M. 32.31
5. Neil Patrick Harris 28.72
6. DeVotchka 26.75
7. Belle & Sebastian 24.17
8. Tom Waits 22.04
9. The Chills 19.26
10. The Sparks 17.94

I'll post the full table over the break.

1. Archipelago - Mirah

"I'm in the Arichipelago and
I'm waiting to arrive.
I'm in the Arichipelago and I
know I'm still alive.
You finally told me what you had
been thinking for so long.
And it breaks my heart wide open
but I know that I'll be stronger
next time."

2. Grand Canyon - Magnetic Fields

"If I was the Grand Canyon I'd echo everything you'd say, but I'm just me, I'm only me and you used to love me that way. So you know how to love me that way."

3. Sad as a Willow - (my friends) Carrie & Richard

Listen for yourself. It's about Willow and Tara breaking up on Buffy and it breaks my heart every time I hear it. 

"Oh baby! I'd like you to know that I love you now, now I love you more and I'll change for you all that is bad, keep throwing it away until the day you take my hand. Be my girl again. But, I know, you'll never be my girl"

4. Biggest Lie - Elliott Smith

"You turned white like a saint. I'm tired of dancing on a pot of gold-flaked paint. Oh we're so very precious, you and I. And everything that you do makes me want to die. Oh I just told the biggest lie. I just told the biggest lie. The biggest lie"

5. Please, Please, Please Let me Get What I Want - The Smiths

Really, I think the title speaks for itself.

6. Let Down - Radiohead

"Transport, motorways and tramlines, 
starting and then stopping, 
taking off and landing, 
the emptiest of feelings, 
disappointed people, clinging on to bottles, 
and when it comes it's so, so, disappointing. 

Let down and hanging around, 
crushed like a bug in the ground. 
Let down and hanging around."

-Pitchfork interviews David Byrne.

-Download Bob Dylan's latest offering at amazon.com

-T-Mobile has another announcement regarding the Google Phone. Read here

-Not that you should care, but friends of Fabakis The Birthday Massacre put out another album. We played  ashow with them when we were in the 9th grade... Check out a review of their album on PopMatters and try to remember when your heyday was. Fabakis does not endorse The Birthday Masssacre in any way shape or form.

-PopMatters also reviewed Chuck Klosterman's first novel Downtown Owl. Check it out.

Help promote The Fabakis Blog by sporting one of our cheaply designed banners on your website! 

Listen/Download:

The Zombies-Care of Cell 44

If you'd like to contribute to The Fabakis Blog please contact us at Fabakis [at] Gmail [dot] com

Waaahhh!!! Shadow... (don't forget to wait for him at the airship, you guys!)

***

Though I've probably said it before, I'll say it again: there is something so emotionally raw -- so melancholy and bittersweet, about a really intense, inspired instrumental that is only 30 seconds to 2 minutes in length. Perhaps like classic console RPGs themselves, what is such a miniscule, electronic, symphonic movement but a microcosm of the human experience? Yea, we come and go in an instant, like a blip on the radar screen. And yet even this mere droplet of water, this tear-drop that is our lives -- even that contains all of the strongest aching melancholy and saccharine sweet emotion that colors the whole of the cosmos.

Not that the short tunes are always the best, but I'm just saying: the starkness of it all becomes apparent when a short little ditty can move the heavenly bodies and celestial spheres in all their majesty.

Obviously!

Par example:

• Queen - "'39"

• Elliott Smith - [basically anything, but lets just say "Colored Bars"]

• almost anything off of the FFVI or YS I/II/III original soundtracks

• almost anything off of Ulver's Kveldssanger

• Marty Friedman - "Namida (Tears)"

This past January in the wake of my brief relationship with Amy, I began going through boxes of old junk from the house I grew up in, the compiled remnants of all the things I left behind when I went to college and that my Dad gathered while cleaning the house out to put it on the market. It was a somewhat consoling experience, but ultimately uplifting at the time, going through all my old stuff, exploring the past. I wonder if listening through all my albums might be a similar experience. In the end sorting through and in many cases, discarding my ancient belongings was somewhat cathartic and I think perhaps going through my music may yield similar results. At the very least it's a catalog of where I've been to a certain degree, not unlike the scene in High Fidelity where John Cusack is sorting his record collection autobiographically.

At the very least it will get me to listen to stuff that I haven't listened to in a long while and maybe even find something I had completely forgotten about. I'm not saying I'm comitted to the idea at this point, but it's definitely somethign worth considering, especially for someone as into music as I am.

1. "Abandoned Love" by Bob Dylan

2. "How Tennessee Williams Died" by Fulmarine Petrels

3. "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem

4. "Positively 4th Street" by Bob Dylan

5. "Well I Wonder" by The Smiths

6. "Gemini" by Trapped Under Ice

7. "The Way of the Dodo" by The Streets

8. "Christian Brothers" by Elliott Smith

9. "Hey Joni" by Sonic Youth

10. "Under the Milky Way" by Church

He's one of those artists who seems to have been put on Earth to give voice to the deepest grief and insecurities of the rest of us, to project such exquisitely articulated sorrow that our problems seem minuscule in comparison.

His freakish suicide somehow seemed like the only possible end for a man who so personified despair. In a way, you could say he died for our sins.

Melodrama aside, though, he was a spectacularly gifted songwriter and singer whose quiet melancholy is sorely missed. Of the five complete albums he released (as well as two posthumous records), my favorite is definitely Either/Or but they all have transcendent moments.

Today's song comes from his self-titled album and it's in the same vein as many of his great sob songs. I've read a lot of debate about the lyrics — is it about a woman or heroin, or maybe both? I don't really care one way or the other. It's the lovely guitar work and hushed melody that works on me.

Note: I usually don't pay much attention to the YouTube videos I dig up to present these songs, but here's a case where I find the video even more powerful than the tune. It's footage of a tribute wall fans created in Los Angeles after Smith's death.

Metallica had the first good idea to counteract peer-to-peer file sharing with St. Anger. Just make a shitty album that no one will want to buy, download, or have anything to do with. Radiohead on the other hand had a much better idea; create a sprawling, atmospheric, pop album and release the whole thing online with an option for donations. The joke is on us, the consumers; because Radiohead is incredible live and they will undoubtedly hike up the prices for their US tour, in lieu of little or no album revenue. I loathe the phrase “back-to-basics,” but In Rainbows shows the band going back to what they are best at: writing actual songs. Although the album is full of Johnny Greenwood’s dissonant compositions ("Weird Fishes/Arpeggi") and Thom Yorke’s unconventional arrangements ("Videotape"), it is also incredibly melodic and bares little resembles to the electronic “machine” music of Kid A, and Amnesiac or the hybrid digital/analog sound of Hail to the Thief. With In Rainbows, the band seems to have found a happy medium between their digital side and their guitar-and-vocal-based analog side with tracks like ("15 Step," "All I Need"). Live versions of the songs have been floating around online for some time, but their recorded counterparts are the product of a band retreating to known territory instead forging new territory just for the hell of it. They appear to want to play music they enjoy, for the sake of playing music (and without a contract from a major label), and really, who’s complaining? Playing music for the sake of playing music; really, should there be any other reason?

2. Explosions in the Sky – All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone

I never would have thought I would listen to an instrumental band as much as I do, but the spacious, epic feeling of the songs make me imagine a film in which I am soon to be featured. The group have made huge strides in creating a much more dynamic landscape than their previous albums with tracks like “Welcome, Ghosts” and the fuzzy opening notes of “The Birth and Death of the Day.” Dynamics, in the realm of instrumental artists, separate the epic from the mundane. The sound, somewhat unlike other instrumental bands, can be as heavy [as a metal band] but as gentle as [piano rock]. The arrangements, to the unaccustomed listener, just sound like a groups of stoners jamming, but are actually highly refined and well thought out, crossing over between clean guitar pedal effected lines and distorted, feedback induced hazes. It is absurd that a band with no vocalist or “frontman” has gotten as much press as they have, and more power to them. I will tip my hat to any artist who actively (or sometimes passively) attempts to ruin the rock band archetype.

3. Les Savy Fav – Let’s Stay Friends

Les Savy Fav are a hard working band and have really logged their road miles, indicated by the semi-autobiographical opening track “Pots & Pans.” Although they have not released any new material in a few years, the band have returned with a track list full of dance-punk rhythms, slower songs and their cryptic but “brainy” lyrics. The gravel voiced sing-alongs and the dueling male/female vocals and what most “indie” bands lack; balls (“The Equestrian”). The aging boys of LSF seem to effortlessly put together ballsy dance-punk rhythms that make lesser bands in the critic-created “indie” genre seem like castrated minstrels (paging Bloc Party…).  The guys also prove they can dance with "Patty Lee" and write a slower track with "Comes & Goes."  Down with the flavor-of-the-month, fast road to stardom, disposable music; Long live the artists who worked their asses off to get what little they have.

4. Elliott Smith – New Moon

It must be depressing to be a singer/songwriter in the day and age when an artist such as Elliott can release two better albums from the grave than most can during their mortal existence. Sure, the production quality doesn’t have the Phil Spector-esque “Wall of Sound” featured on XO and Figure 8, but this double album contains the kind of intimate recording of Elliott his fans originally fell in love with on his first few albums. For my money, I prefer the early version of “Miss Misery,” and melodic quality of “All Cleaned Out” is one of the most beautiful tunes he’s ever written. The original version of “Pretty Mary K,” which appeared on Figure 8, is only slightly different lyrically but the meaning is much more Oedipal. Although constructed of demos and b-sides, the album has a surprisingly great flow, each disk delivering an intimate and vulnerable unplugged performance.  The song that named his recording studio ("New Monkey") is the perfect example for the album as a whole; an incredible b-side that would not seem to fit on an album anywhere.  I was always irritated by those who idolized Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur long after their death, so it was surprising that I would change my mind when it comes to Elliott.  The only difference is that Elliott keeps coming out with new stuff after his demise.

5. !!! – Myth Takes

!!! got lucky as far as their timing goes. While hipsters were discovering the heavy funk rhythms of Parliament, Funkadelic and the late great Fela Kuti, the boys of !!! were busy sweating it out in clubs across the country. The band mixed heavy funk beats with equal parts trip-hop and electronic goodness, threw in a dash of dance-punk and pinch of old school rap and threw the whole concoction in the face of the hipster community who were confused as to whether they should enjoy this, or “listen to it ironically.” With Myth Takes, the nine-piece perfected their sound with slower jams like (“Sweet Life”), the quicker, danceable tunes (“All My Heroes are Weirdos”) and the tripped out jams of “Bend Over Beethoven."  Only to be bested by their live shows, the group can record well and create a sonic landscape in which to exist.  Now all I need to do is practice my spastic flamboyant dance moves in short-shorts and I'll be set.

6. Dinosaur Jr. – Beyond

Taoism taught me: “To be great is to go on, to go on is to go forward, to go forward is to return,” which seems like a fitting proverb for Dinosaur Jr. (and Lou Barlow’s) return to the scene. Almost as if the master tapes of a lost album had been found, Beyond sounds remarkably out of its time frame. Even with the use of ProTools, the album as a whole sounds like a slab of sloppy indie rock from 1993. With tracks like the opening track “Almost Ready,” and “This is all I came to do,” the band resurface as a powerful force with Mascis’s meandering guitar lines, and vocals that are at times reminiscent of the mumbled vocals of Pete Yorn. Lou Barlow’s contributions “Back to Your Heart,” and “Lightning Bulb” have the flavor of Barlow, but are not out of touch with the rest of the songs (all penned by Mascis). The standout track (and my favorite) “Crumble,” thumps through one of the best melodies the band has ever written over some of the most melodic guitar lines Mascis has every performed. Comebacks can, and often are, extremely overrated; but somehow in indie rock, some bands never really left.

7. LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver

Don’t hate the playa; hate the game at which he’s kicking your ass. Heaven forbid scenesters actually listen to someone with talent. James Murphy may possibly be the only musician that on first listen might be mistaken for a drum machine or computerized drumming. He also plays more instruments on the album than most musicians can name off the tops of their heads. With jams like “All My Friends,” and “New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down” Murphy discovers new areas of refined songwriting. The production level was raised from his previous album, but the jams have an even brighter quality to them.  The opening track ("Get Innocuous!") is some badass entrance music to a club you will later trash and "Someone Great" is a track to most likely end up on a playlist to which I would get stuck in traffic.  Just as the lyric in "North American Scum" suggests, I honestly thought you were from England.  Sorry.

8. The White Stripes – Icky Thump

I hate Jack White. I’ll be honest, I wanted this album to be a terrible mess, for them to fail and eventually drop out of the limelight (and subsequently off my iTunes library). But the pop song structure of “You don’t know what love is,” the folksy, acoustic jam “Effect and Cause,” and the 1940s style spoken-word antics on “Rag and Bone” are undeniable. The title track and the standout track “Catch Hell Blues” feature Jack at his riffiest, busting out jams that will most likely be imitated (poorly) by baby-boomers just beginning guitar lessons. The album as a whole is much more light hearted than some of their previous releases, giving a more satisfying listen. It sure is not a ground-breaking album, but it is they album we knew they could make, if they abandoned the hit-and-miss experimentation of Get Behind Me Satan. I may hate you Mr. White, but you write a good tune (and Meg is still damn cute).

9. Minus the Bear – Planet of Ice

Thank You, Minus the Bear, for stealing the guitar back from the needle-dicked morons and returned it to an instrument and less of a phallic symbol. The band with all the quirky song titles returned with an album as cool, surreal and spacious as its title implies. The songs feature some impressive guitar work, utilizing loop stations and more guitar pedals than a Guitar Center stock room. All the songs lack the quirky song titles that lined their previous albums (“I am totally not down with Rob’s alien,” and "Hey, Wanna Throw Up? Get Me Naked") but the album does feature the some of the most ambitious and epic songs (“Dr. L’Ling,” and “Lotus”) the group has ever written. Disregard the fans who idolize the band for their percieved Dream Theater-esque showoff chauvinism (let's call them: douchbags) and listen to them as a band who puts forth some rightous (yes, rightous) jams.

10. Against Me! – New Wave

Alright, I’ll admit that by putting this album on my list, I am qualifying myself as a Fat Wreck Chords/Epitaph punk rock sellout; but hear me out. In recent years, the music industry has been flooded with many politically charged songs and albums aimed at the Bush Administration, the Christian Right and all associated others. Some of the songs might be hackneyed (“Thrash Unreal”) or too overly simplistic (“Stop!” and “Animal”) but Against Me! might be the only politically charged act that have at least given the slightest hint that they know the golden rule of writing political songs: Don’t make it completely obvious. If a political song involves too much finger pointing, it can be seen as pandering to one side of the political spectrum (See: Green Day’s American Idiot, NOFX’s The War on Errorism). The safe bet is to write something that asks a question or presents a situation and lets the listener take their own interpretation away from it (See: The Clash’s entire discography). The boys of Against Me! manage to pull this off, along with another little thought about taboo of political song lyrics: including yourself in the receiving end of the finger pointing. As “Americans Abroad” proclaims, the band are part of the problem but are seeking a solution. This was also supposed to be the band’s “sellout album” being that they signed with Sire Records (who houses other supposed sellouts The Ramones, Talking Heads, The Replacements and Dinosaur Jr.). The band graciously accepted this title and even mocked it as well as homogenized radio and the disposable culture in the track “Up the Cuts.” If anything, acknowledging your status as a sellout and even mocking it is almost even more punk rock.

]]> http://adistortedreality.wordpress.com/?p=181 Thu, 18 Sep 2008 18:28:41 +0000 roccopendola http://adistortedreality.de.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/you-little-child-what-makes-you-think-youre-tough/ Sort of annoyed these days (as opposed to not being annoyed on the other days?) with the surface scratch of a society we live in these days.  It was difficult to stomach a Sean Hannity interview with Sarah Palin on YouTube this morning.  Do you know that feeling you get when you are embarrassed for other people?  Or maybe it is merely embarrassment by association?  By the fact that I live in the same world as people like this.  Namecalling is not productive, but objectively speaking, Sarah Palin is little more than a simpleton.  To me, it is not about partianship or politics because I think "Democracy" in America is little more than a waste of time.  A simple distraction whereby the public is given their all-important role to follow along with things on the corporate-controlled news channels and then cast that deciding vote in November.  I am only slightly less disgusted by Obama than I am McCain-Palin.  But what it comes down to is the sad fact that this is what it has come to:  Sarah Palin can be put upon the American public as a legitimate choice for Vice President.  I feel like I am living in a cartoon.  This is a spoof Stewart or Colbert would have pulled off had they not been beaten to the punch by reality.  I think I will distort my reality tonight.  At least Chuck Hagel made a good point...

Some good news though...  One of the beauties of living in Southern California is that you can do THIS in September!  These plants have been in the ground for just two weeks.  Lemon cucumbers, cucumbers, and a crookneck squash plant.  The second photo is waiting on some yellow so I can make lemonade out of lemons I guess.

teraz już wystarczy tylko bać się, że się skończy. nic ponadto.

(imię maciej oznacza dar od boga. i wiem, że to prawda.)

The Skid Row stuff has got me cautiously excited.  In the past with writing projects (and other stuff) I have been a "junkyard full of false starts."  I think this is partially because I was not working with a complete package, just a flimsy idea, idealism, and euphoria.  This time around I think I might actually have something.  I spent a year doing pretty intense research in Skid Row.  I have had time to reflect on what I did and what it all means.  And now free from the shackles of academia I am putting it on paper and it is really flowing.  By the end of the year I think I will be ready to shop a proposal around.  Therein lies a challenge or a conflict:  Do I get a literary agent or attempt to go direct with small, alternative publishers that still accept unsolicited manuscripts from "new writers?"  I will likely do both, but there is a bit of anxiety tied to that whole process.

So, right now, it is sort of all good.  And I am amused by the search terms used that end up leading people to this site... Kris Day (11 times)... Elliott Smith (9 times)... numerous variations of "Rocco Pendola" (12 times) and everything ranging from "feeling disconnected" to "being bitter."

Mom: "Pays ta..."

Kids: "...clean."

"Paystaclean."

I wish that written words had the capacity to convey the nuances of voice inflection in this beautifully familiar phrase, but alas, this is oral history.  You have to have lived it or heard it passed on to truly understand.

So speaking of oral history, the other day I was cleaning (wouldn't mama be proud?) and came across a CD which I had long since forgotten about.

"Pays ta clean."

It was an old bootleg concert recording from October 10, 1998.  Elliott Smith singing at the 400 Bar in Minneapolis.  At the time I received the recording I didn't know him well enough to appreciate it, so I let it get lost among all of my other things.  Finding it this past weekend, I was ready to love it.  Backing Elliott in this recording are Sam Coomes on bass and Janet Weiss on drums (you know, Quasi),another element I wouldn't have appreciated at age 16.  It's great.  I want to share some of it with you:

(right click and "save link as" to download)

Bled White

Happiness/The Gondola Man

The Biggest Lie

It started the other day when I, Chaos, started thinking about how Elliott's musical production aesthetics have been propagated for commercial use in recent years. Hipsters and corporate shills have taken the Elliott Smith "sound" and use it to sell movies, cars, TV shows, TV ad products, and whatever else can accompany a music track. Which is okay on some level, because almost no one will ever mimic the intense mastery of pop song-writing that Elliott possessed.

I always found it confusing that Elliott Smith was grouped in with the "post-punk", "indie-rock" crowd, and I just assume that happened because those were the scene circles the guy ran in. His music to me always reeked of a combination of accessible quality and sincerity not found even in The Beatles. The Beatles certainly were sincere, but their music didn't have the same emotional depth. Now I'm not saying it didn't have the same range -- because between the 3 Beatles they certainly did have more musical variety -- but they didn't have the same depth of emotional character. Sorry guys 'n gals, but I am convinced of this one-hundred percent! Those of you who don't agree, I have to wonder about your overall ability to recognize artistic subtlety... Ahaha!

But my snooty musical opinion is actually kind of irrelevant to this post. What interests me about Elliott Smith today is how he influenced modern rock music, and subsequently the world of hipsterdome marketing. Almost every contemporary cutesy white-collar, drug-using hipster musician (and is there any other kind of modern rock musician?) either intentionally rips off some aspect of Elliott Smith's aesthetic, or idolizes the man in musical stone -- whether or not it is acknowledged.

What's so funny (dare I say ironic?) about all this, is the complete insincerity with which Elliott Smith is referenced. As one of my friends pointed out, Elliott Smith's music seems to be "dying with sincerity," in contrast to the horrendously vapid musicians that have stolen and carbon-copied his basic audio production values. But again, it's not just hipster/indie-rock musicians that leech on the ES monolith. The worlds of pop music and advertising (the same worlds?) are awash with direct references and rips from Elliott's career.

A most blatant sacrilegious offense is the hackneyed soundtrack to the *sob* Oscar-winning movie from last year, Juno. In fact, the soundtrack is Juno -- which does not actually make the movie worse or better, but actually makes it something at all. That is, without the cutesy rich-kid soundtrack, Juno would not even be a movie. The music paces the film, indicates the plot points and relationships, and is necessary for all transitions.

Hence I'd like to take a moment to talk about the Juno soundtrack. But before we do, please be warned: this example will make your soul a little bed-ridden for the next few days. (In other words, depression.)

Most of the soundtrack seems to rip off classic post-punk stuff, but there are a number of songs that are blatant ES cop-offs. The most flagrant offense within the soundtrack is possibly this one here, called "So Nice, So Smart". Compare this shot of disease to the Elliott Smith track, "Crazy Fucker," sometimes called, "Another Folk Song". Their astute similarities in composition and recording dynamics could be a coincidence; but then again, this Elliott Smith song was available for download, on the website Elliott Smith B-Sides, many years before the recent double-disc Smith compilation, New Moon (featuring an overly remastered version of this same track), was released.

And what were the results of this?

The film's soundtrack, featuring several songs performed by Kimya Dawson and her bands Antsy Pants and The Moldy Peaches, was the first number one soundtrack since Dreamgirls and 20th Century Fox's first number one soundtrack since Titanic. Juno earned back its initial budget of $6.5 million in twenty days; during the first nineteen of which the film was in limited release.[1] The film has gone on to earn more than 35 times that amount, becoming the highest grossing movie in Fox Searchlight's history. -Wikipedia

Ick.

The reason Juno is such an easy culprit to point out is because it's an obscenely corporate (right-of-center?) attempt to cash in on the post-Elliott Smith, Elliott Smith-removed, Elliott Smith aesthetic (what?!). And whether or not movies like this are a conscious rip-off of Elliott Smith himself, his actual music has been snagged for other productions after his death -- such as in the hackneyed garbage, Georgia Rule, the TV junk-food formerly known as The OC, and some films by the excessively celebrated Gus Van Sant.

But here's where my gripes get kind of... crazy. Elliott certainly approved of his music appearing in movies back when he was alive, in stuff like The Royal Tannenbaums, Good Will Hunting, and so forth. And I suppose most people would take those royalty checks. But as a result, the movies "cheated" a little bit and stole his magic for themselves. To emphasize this point, let me quote from Judith Williamson's Decoding Advertisements. This quote is more relevant to visual images used in advertising, but replace the terms for visual imagery with music and the message becomes rather stark:

Images, ideas or feelings [...] become attached to certain products, by being transferred from signs out of other systems (things or people with 'images') to the products, rather than originating in them. This intermediary object or person is bypassed in our perception; although it is what gives the product its meaning, we are supposed to see that meaning as already there, and we rarely notice that the correlating object and the product have no inherent similarity, but are only placed together (hence the significance of form). So a product and an image/emotion become linked in our minds, while the process of this linking is unconscious. (Marion Boyers, 1978: p30)

To summarize: when we use powerful music, such as Elliott Smith's, in advertising or movies (which are another form of advertising or propaganda in themselves) it makes the viewer subconsciously, unknowingly associate the feeling of Elliott Smith's music with the movie or product which is using it. Unless one makes a conscious effort to acknowledge this process, one becomes affected by the product/film/ad in this way.

Advertisements, unable to actually use Elliott Smith's music, have gone on to rip off his aesthetic as strongly as possible (although now it seems to just be the basic shitty post-indie-rock aesthetic, doesn't it?). So for all the citizens of the world who love this aesthetic, you are probably buying the products that use these kinds of musical flourishes, whether you know it or not.

Oh well, whatever.

***

On a lighter note, the other day I was cruisin' the Information Superhighway when I happened across a fairly recent, decent post dissecting the pop genius of Elliott Smith's song, "Can't Make a Sound". I found it over on the Koax blog -- a site linked to a site, linked to a site that I frequent. This article piqued my interest because, unlike typical gushing fanboy stuff written about Elliott Smith, it actually puts forth an interesting discussion about the late musician's pop sensibilities as they were utilized on the second to last track off of Figure 8 (a track which my pal Nate has previously singled out as being his favorite Elliott Smith track, despite the fact that he's not such a ginormous fan as me).

There's a lot of this going on in the aforementioned post:

But the chorus is not expanded at all, it's still the same two lines of melody that were present the first time. What's different in its repetition, though, is the stomping guitar line, that overlays it, the arpeggiating rhythm guitar now asserting itself into the lead. The long notes of the melody -

Eyes locked and shining

have turned into a root that the guitar is now playing against. The guitar's phrase fills the space after the first line, and the end of this phrase leads into the second:

Can't you tell me what's that burning?

And the chorus has again performed its function: again it ends with unexpected abruptness, again it leads us into a change in the character of the song.

Mr. Koax seems to agree with my friend Nate, that "Can't Make a Sound" is one of the Elliott's best songs. The post starts out by noting the lack of variety amongst pop songs and their verse-chorus formula and goes on to exemplify just how this song radically rejuvenates the typical method.

It's a refreshing read on a played-out subject.