When a band is so in your wheelhouse. . .

that it actually takes you time to develop a relationship with them as themselves, rather than genre placeholder ("well, Falco hasn't done anything in a bit, so I GUESS I'LL LISTEN TO Single Mothers*). . . when the most recent** Protomartyr record came out it took me a second to recognize the band as something special, rather than just Graham Jams. I've been immersing lately; there's a maturity to this that a lot of sardonic post punk/indie/blah blah blah doesn't muster.

*Single Mothers and Future of the Left don't actually sound much alike at all, save for being in a larger genre of loud, literate rock music.
** The song posted above is not off the most recent record, but it's the song I've been feeling most intensely lately.

Technically Not An Instrumental:

Spent my money on traveling/health has never come first

2 of 4.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! Listen to this Irish Music:

here's some new stuff, with the addendums to follow:

Lord and Savor

Tell me about this weird moment, he said, chewing an elongated piece of intestine. He gnawed and gnawed. Tell me about this epiphaaaneeeee smack smack smack smack gulp, this new revelation that you—spit—know. I love beef jerky. I love it. I suspect, however, that much of it is actually pork.
The ceiling fan continued its one-per-minute rotation.
But tell me, young sir, young miss, youngling, what is this thing that happened in a second and is now gone but has changed the way you feel about everything? Tell me, and talk into this tape recorder, then we will let your parents go. It is the plan.

The sun was grey and dusty and the two stared out the county courthouse windows for a long time. The child also chewed a stick of jerky, and eventually said that it was when he saw the ponys, he knew he wanted to be a cowboy, and the man knew that this meant absolutely nothing, and that he was not, in fact “the one” by any stretch, the prophecy would have none of him, just some fucking kid, and his parents had been beheaded for nothing.

Sword and Labor

We unfolded the sign over the bridge over the freeway near the university and the residentials. “FUCK YOUR WAR” it said. The anticipated military parade didn’t arrive. The city council members who’d voted to fire on Everett did not pass by. They were in a hotel talking tunnels.

But everyone has their war. We hadn’t taken into account the use of metaphor in self help books. The passing subarus became alcoholics, the passing jeeps filled with self doubt. At some point a Dairigold tanker crashed into the Betty Paige house and everyone fighting a war against sexual repression just lost, all at once. We were trying to roll the sign up again once we saw what was happening but it turned out that our war was with prudent withdrawal, which was also why the walls of so many vaginas collapsed and we had nothing warm to soften us. Also, the bridge. They warned us this could happen.

You can't win, how do you feel about that?

This is the song for yesterday, for today, maybe tomorrow. We'll hope to change up the soundtrack by the end of the week.

Hissing.

Sorry, Kanye

. . . but like always, yours won't be my favorite rap record of the year.

 

2012 recap number one: some songs

These songs existed in my life in 2012. To varying degrees.



Its pretty safe to say that the year started out with this record. Though I don't think Not Drugs and I played it much on the actual trip, it reminds me of Victoria.

One of the best shows of the year belongs to Liars, whom Not Drugs and I saw at Neumos with Bem, Gusta, Ryan Johnson and other people. One of the best albums belongs to them, too.




it was an election year! this was probably also the best up and up rap album, though i'd take suggestions. I know that Kendrick record came out last year, but I didn't really hear it until this last month.

I probably listened to The Plot Against Common Sense more than any other record this year, though it dropped off (partially due to exhaustion) in the second half of things. Also an excellent show.




Not terribly *proud* of how much Nacho i consumed in the last year, but I'd be a damn liar if I didn't include him on the list. Lots of jokes that alternate between goofy/punny and strange/sick. Triggers.




Probably my fave second half of 2012 record was/is White Lung's "Sorry."



and, of course, the H.

Library Signs (with apologies, on occasion, to Cloud Nothings)

Enter/Exit
the only profession in the world
where the "sexy" version can be the
same as the real one. but don't do that,
please.

check out and reserves.
I'm stuck in here, like beef in a locker. like a mark
in a book.  a list of names.
held for a moment and dropped down the chute.
(tired of everywhere, so close to the door)
how
ultimately
does one leave?

Reference and Information
everything listed.
counted.
decimated.
decimaled.
decimalfunction city.

the sign on the librarian's computer reads


Bother Me
with long question about the Teutonics.
things we must know
NOW
I need time
I need time
I need--

Please Do Not Reshelve Reference Books
all things in their place, all metal, wooden shelving
in it's place, all screens in their place, all stools just askew,
all visitors in their place, from place to place, jaws
hung open, all studious in their place, all procrastinators
in their place, at the tables, with eyes hanging out of their
sockets, their tongues lolling over, to stop moving,
useless.

Covered Drinks Only, When Using A Computer
give up your crusades, guardians of civility.
let people talk. there was a day when we had to walk outside
to slurp. to squeeze and gatorade our studies into waking hours.
but fuck it, whatever. don't spill on the keyboards,
look at porn if you want, speech freedom. the temples
of knowledge have already burned, the idea of quiet
is a museum.

Cell Phones, Please Take them Outside
This is our waterloo. The last of our dignity.

Reserved For Research and Scanning
nothing I could do could make things change.

Poli post #2.

I'm willing to "forfeit" a blog of my own reckless musings to provide a brief, but scintillating soundtrack to the upcoming election:


Local H are not, as some would assume (because I like them) a "faggy, left wing, espresso sipping"band. They're pretty goddamned blue collar. And at some point, I'd rather just listen to a politician's own words form the noose.

"we want america back--"

WAIT! Who's "we?" What "america"? Tell me. In detail, asshole.

_________I never left?

synthy instrumentals and guinness. it's like ___________________

3 versions of nerdery

1) The last few months have been a lot of gigs I've had my hand in making happen, behind the scenes, stuff like that. From the fairly large-scale greenwood litcrawl to the more frequent, but much cozier claustrophobia series, there's been a lot of collaborative planning. as such-- and because I'm currently wrangling the last bits of knowledge from filthy jerry and all things before trying to put myself out there much-- I've almost felt I'd fallen out off practice at just showing up, throwing down and leaving.
Fortunately, August has had a couple readings I've felt pretty solid about. Yes, this is the part where I post setlists and "reflect." If hearing what pieces I read, where and with whom, isn't your bag, there's a part 2 and 3 to this post that you can skip to.
August 3rd, I co-featured with Dave Wheeler and Kate Farrell in the aforementioned Kate's backyard in the Central District. We read in a round, around a fire until it got dark. The general "it" and the fire.
My set:  Unacceptable but Inevitable*/Isolation Therapy/All Things Return to the Dusty Liquor Shelf
Ambition is Critical/Little Fear of Drowning/Missing Every Day
Civic Duty/Several Snapshots*/Genus, Species and Flavour
Rugby '08
This was the first time I'd ever read while seated and it felt natural and right. I think that speaks to the success of the casual/artsy vibe, a vibe that too often falters under its own expectations.

A couple nights ago I opened for Scumeating at The Josephine, a DIY spot in Ballard, next to a bad irish bar and down the street from the Tin Hat, which it is good I don't leave nearby, because I would be there with unhealthy frequency. I did two sets, on either side of Scumeating's performance, ended on my knees, shouting a half-adlibbed ending to Filthy Jerry Gets Paid. If there were video, it probably wouldn't be as awesome as I wished.
Set: Filthy Jerry Sleeps with the Fishes/2012/Tall Drink of Water/Genus, Species and Flavour
Filthy Jerry Gets Paid
Sometimes I wonder why I do readings at venues that are at best, ambivalent toward spoketryword, but some good friends came out and I also am getting back into finding that sort of ambivalence energizing and facepunchy, instead of shoulder-slumpy.

2) The new Aesop Rock album:


It's good. Feels more isolated than his last record, as he's the only rapper and while there are hooks, there are fewer Singles than the last record had (which was still like, three? four, if you're generous?)

3)
All the jokes I want to make, leaving
a new Comic Book movie
with my Dad
are a bit to arch for him,
a bit too newb
for a true believer.

The in-car cd player
stays silent.

The cranes over downtown spark in sunset.
There is no media I can use to improve my standing.

Trudgery.

Because I'm back from a vacation that was good in many ways, but left me exhausted, because it is sunday night and I am up early tomorrow but hacking away at things I'd hoped to have finished a while ago, both professional, personal, and artistic, because my face is cracking up like a cheese pizza, because everything has felt especially heavy today, we'll just go with a Mark Lanegan song.



more about stuff later, later.

fj sketch #6

the men at the dogfights abhor good lighting. all they care about is sound and silhouette. the men at the cockfights, they want to see the feathers casting shadows, angle of each peck. blood on the beaks. at the dogfights, it’s all about barks and growls, yips and howls, the chanting, the cheering. big doug is the onhand vet. the city department of controlled activities turns a blind eye as long as there is a vet onhand. big doug is very good, has saved at least three chickens, four dogs lived to yelp another day by the spiked fences beneath the dental repair school, he is also a bouncer, keeping those like filthy jerry, or phillipe the sexy, from entering and scaring away the respectable types. rumors had it that jerry had spent a year filing and stapling for an architectural firm, paid in vanilla wafers and poker chips, and these are the types of people who give underground animal death rings a bad name. big doug knew the men who came in, whose hair gel doubled as cologne, whose swagger turned to a stomp, whose girlfriends lingered in the back and pretended it was a movie, except for loose mary, who shouted herself hoarse at the scenes unfolding. they all knew—big doug, harold the handshake—who was and wasn’t wanted here, loss of animal control like greek tragedy in another language.

_____________________________________________________

this is part of an ongoing series that should be wrapped/booked pretty soon. not sure if this segment will go in the final product, partly because I'm not sure how well it stands on its own. thoughts?

in other news, Sounds of Youth I Haven't Re-Filed*:

*i still like this a lot. perhaps not with the monolithic "best _____ of ____" that I did, but such hyperbole is best left to youth and music writers.

I almost titled this post "elf-promotion" but that would have just been silly.

tomorrow! two readings. one here at the school, where I'll continue to erode my reputation as a responsible adult and then:

prepping breadline stuff today. none of this can change the fact that I'm premium-level irritated that you now have to enter HTML for line breaks in blogspot. you can't just press "enter?" no, you cannot.

Leftovers from 2011, part 2 of 1 (or maybe 3)

in 2011, there were songs. Oh yes. and there were bands. and there were songs by bands and bands banning songs they used to play and I didn't so much make a list of "the best of" because I am still hearing songs that came out in 2011, and probably will be, well into 2017, because that is how music works. Rarely does anyone simply immerse themselves in "the now" in a way that doesn't also make them look a little bit silly. Here are some songs that I heard a lot of times in 2011, most of them on purpose. I'll bet you could get a good buzz on if you made a drinking game out of the ones that I'd already posted at some point, and forgot about. Most of these are just sound, but there's a couple videos.



Mogwai's album from January is still good 90% of the way through (that opener is a snooooze) and should not be relegated to any sort of bins. This song sparked my interest in actually checking out Mogwai for real, since people had been assuming that I already liked them for years.



The Obits are one of those bands that deserve a bigger following, but most of their fans listen to no new bands except the Obits. They will never write a hit, but they have a lot of cred, and sometimes they write things that sound like hits from a weird alternate-universe mashup of 91-93, 1980, and 2001, just after "fell in love with a girl" came out. "Moody, Standard, and Poor" is a good record.



I assumed Blue Sky Black Death were from Bristol, or France, or Latvia because of their gorgeous instrumental beats/melodies. Guess they're from Seattle. Huh.



. . . of course, everyone and everyone and everyone's mom who knows that Shabazz Palaces are from Seattle because HOLY SHIT SHABAZZ PALACES EVERYONE! EVERYONE! SEATTLE HAS RAPPY TYPES! EVERYONE!



"lana del ray" "odd future" "___________"



Brielle moved to Chicago this year. Go, Brielle, go!



I was gonna do a whole double-entendre thing about this band being called The Men, but realized it would be labored and hackneyed. If they were just called "Men," though, that'd be awesome.

(see also, a few posts down, the Thee Oh Sees clip for the continued up-bubbling of punk/psych/garage from various bits of the nation)



Chuck Klosterman pissed this band's fans off. I won't post a link, I'll just say that Klosterman's gotten fuckin' lazy in recent years, and tuneyards fans are touchy folk. Less people need to write about how a Feminist Woman Artist writing about rough fucking is a Statement, and more people need to write about how it is awesome.



Stay weird, Annie.



One night, after working 13 hours combined jobs, a little drunk off beers from work, I wanted to listen to something funny and aggro and weird and didn't feel like FOTL (I know, RIGHT?!) and so I loaded this video up to play this awesome song by these awesome rappers and the internet in Rainier Beach is so slow that it never played and I was angry at 3 a.m. and put on an episode of "Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia" but it woke up my housemate, who had to work at 8 a.m. so I had to turn that off as well. Marty has since gotten the internet fixed.



Momma's gonna buy you a mockingbird.



This song can play from start to finish three times in a row, starting at Westlake Station and ending at Northgate Transit Center. The sheer fucking amount of times this has soundtracked the sunset over Lake Union, or the roll out at rush hour by exit 173, or the absolute lack of any view at all.

futures.

so much comfort in meat.

sweet labor day jams.

"This reminds me of bellingham.""this reminds me of ellensburg."

In everett last night I read the following poems in the following order: doot doot de doot(summer)/pink laces and kierkegaard/fear of drowning/genus, species and flavour/bellevue/most important meal/body party/rugby '08/swansea-cardiff (b'ham ed)/story problem
For the record. The open mic was mainly guitar players but there were a couple interesting folks who got up and simply read. The crowd was supportive and I succeeded in feeling okay about the whole thing. Sold some broadsides, but the quagga remain.

It is still weird doing a reading with your folks in the front row.

The drive to and from Everett, what with stopping to get/drop off people/acquire necessary goods was around 3 hours of driving.
I don't hold to the popular-with-some belief that all suburbs are terrible, soul-crushing places, but Lynnwood, Wa., which is pretty much designed to be driven, still saps a whole lot of time getting from one place to the next. Yeesh.

tonight, rachel and i will hope her car doesn't break down when we drive to georgetown with the intention of drinking beer, being in fun places and getting the fuck away from cap hill for a night.

content soon?
content, soon?
maybe.

appropos to Music: I think the Dum Dum Girls are aptly named. I got their doing the Youtube-hop game from Male Bonding, who I think are pretty good.