I'm not sure what to make of the new Wilco album. To be honest, I haven't really listened to it the whole way through enough times (I think I'm at 3 so far). But I have a boring anecdote that I want to tell.

There's a song on the album called "Impossible Germany." It's a pretty ho-hum song, intriguing lyrics maybe, mediocre melody, and then a guitar solo that NEVER ENDS. NEVER. EVER. It's so damned boring. By the third time I heard it, I was getting infuriated at the start of the song knowing that The Jeff Tweedy Noodling Show is right around the corner. I know it's nothing compared to the pair of 10+ minute snoozers that were on A Ghost is Born, but it's still annoying.

And yet, the stupid melody that he plays over and over on the solo is the only actual melody from the album I can remember at the moment.


Oy. I need more time with this one.

thoughtses about thingses

When I worked for UPS at the Philadelphia airport, it resulted in me having a lot of very detailed knowledge about very specific things that would be of no use whatsoever off of the job. I still have pretty much every ZIP code in the state of New Hampshire memorized, for example.

And I thought THAT knowledge was useless.

Now I'm working construction, and if you took me to the high school in Elkton, MD, and asked me what the elevation was at any given spot in the parking lots and landscapes and such outside the building, I could probably tell you, off the top of my head, to within a couple inches.

But, you know, everybody probably has crap like that with their jobs. So whatever. This post was more interesting in my head.

Thoughts:

Some friends and I decided last week that Liars' Drum's Not Dead is the only album we could think of where you can identify any song on the album by beating out rhythmic patterns with your hands.

This year's Panda Bear album is way better than last year's Grizzly Bear album (a band called Polar Bear needs to get a lot of hype next year). Noah Lennox pretty much has Brian Wilson's voice, as well as a similar melodic sensibility, which results in some experimental rock that's actually fun to listen to, after he slaps that voice on top of his mesmerizing instrumental loops and textures. Also, I love the way Person Pitch sounds from a production standpoint. Any album with so much reverb on everything that it sounds like it was recorded from the far end of an enormous cathedral is going to grab my attention.

"Africa" by Toto is pretty much the embodiment of everything that was wrong with a lot of music in the 1980s, but it's still somehow a great song. Sometimes you can't overpower a good enough pop song, no matter how hard you try. Can you imagine how good it could have been if it was recorded in a way that didn't attempt to suck every last bit of life out of the song? I'm sure somebody's done that cover. I think the Polyphonic Spree need to cover that song.

That's it for now I think.

metal sucks (the genre and the material)

A couple days ago, my dad was getting on my case for not wearing my safety glasses at work (I am in the construction biz now). I listened to what he said but didn't really do anything. I figured I haven't been hurt yet, I spent all that time doing construction a couple years ago and nothing ever happened, and on top of that I was already wearing glasses. What was the worst that could happen?

Well, apparently the worst (or at least a bad) thing that could happen is getting a piece of metal in my eye.

I know that you just cringed thinking about it, and basically it's as painful as it sounds, even though the thing was about the size of a grain of salt.

I guess it flew off of either the head of the hammer I was using or the top of the pin that I was hammering. The good news is that now I'm fine. Just remember to wear your safety glasses if you need to, is what I'm saying.

eeeeeep

Arcade Fire.... BJORK BJORK BJORK BJORK BJORK

I saw Arcade Fire live last weekend. Some of you may be shocked at hearing me say that. I'm still mostly indifferent toward them, don't worry.

I was all right, I guess. They have a lot of energy. This one guy was ripping out pages from a book in time with the rhythm of a song, which seemed like a weirdly empty gesture, like a really dorky version of smashing a guitar into a drum set on stage. Or like I put it that night, "he went at it like he was taking a sledge hammer to the Rosetta Stone, and it was just a few pages drifting mildly to the floor."

There were problems. It was neat to watch that many people freaking out at once, but I couldn't hear crap aside from drums and some vocals. They were playing organs and glockenspiels and freakin' hurdy-gurdies, for Chrissakes, but for all I could hear it might as well have been a chorus of kazoos. That's the problem when you get that many people playing that loudly at the same time in a live environment.

All of their songs sound the same to me, even more so in a live setting. That drummer sure does like his "four on the floor" drum beats.

I have more in-depth thoughts about them and their popularity and whatever, but I'll save those for when I'm feeling less lazy.

Basically, watching a really large band with some unusual instrumentation from a foreign English-speaking country that isn't England, with a guy singing some songs and a girl singing the others, I kind of wished I was watching Architecture in Helsinki instead. OK THAT COMPARISON WAS A STRETCH. But I like Architecture in Helsinki. IT'5!

CHANGE OF SUBJECT

I was going to be all coy about the new Bjork album and write my long manifesto about how it's the best album of the 00s later (ok, I haven't even actually listened to it yet) but I'm holding it here in my hands and I just want to say that this is some of the strangest CD packaging I have ever seen. And I've seen some doozies. There's a sticker on the front that's part of the artwork, that seals shut a sort of gate. Then after you either peel off the sticker and agonize about throwing it away (or agonize about ripping it in half in order to leave it on), you open up the gate, and there's a flap that folds up, and behind the flap is the CD. Then there's your liner notes, artwork, lyric sheet, etc., inside the flap that just folded up (now upside down).

As a side note to a side note, the liner notes are on that ultra-glossy paper that I like, like the last Four Tet CD was on. And... that's the only one I can think of right now. I think all those weird post card-like things in the new Deerhoof album are on them too. It's the paper that's almost slippery in your hands.

I'm looking forward to listening to it, even if there is a 7 1/2 minute duet with the dude from Antony and the Johnsons. Hearing about that was displeasing. Kind of like if I'd read "the centerpiece of the new Brian Wilson album will be a collaboration with William Shatner and Scarlett Johansson." I really can't stand that Antony guy's voice. Oh well. Maybe it's good anyway.

Short people got no reason to live

I got made fun of at work today for being short.

I didn't think that 5'9" was short. It's only slightly below average.

I know short people. I ain't one o' them.

Also the word "short" no longer has any meaning to me.