Year End Music Issue 2005

Albums

1. National – Alligator

Through thick and thin, this weird little slab of Green and Black accompanied me on each stage of 2005. Initially I was disappointed, as I had viewed the National as a terrific singles band, without ever pulling off the big album.

Well they managed it with Alligator, as repeat listens cemented the dark crevices into my life, early in the morning, or the last song at night, this album seems to have a mood for every emotion, and the songs sound different each time you play them, evolving and maturing like wine.

The album opens with a lyric that sets the stage for the delicate paranoia that’s riddled with the trappings of fame that have yet to occur. “I think this place is full of spies, I think they’re onto me.”

There are phrases hear that stand alone, so much that songs are know more for poignant one-liners that define the song and the mood.

Turning from Paranoia to narcissism on a dime, often in a single chord change, the songs morph and change, coming across like a complex person on a fuzzy night. These songs are dark, twisted little ditties, riddled with sexual hang-ups that are barely mentioned from the constantly opening and closing of doors that reveal one tidbit of information in one moment while pushing them away the next, holding the audience just far enough away to warrant fascination.

“With that warm water in my head, all I see is black and white and red.”

“I’m living in the targets shoe” Matt Beringer writes lyrics that inhabit worlds, that border on the ridiculous but manage to pull the whole thing off like a melodramatic French New Wave film.

There’s a bruised ego at work, undulating themes of grandiose statements about self mixed in with self-effacing riffs culminating in the rage-filled finale of “Abel”, which consists of a screaming refrain “My mind’s not right, my mind’s not right”.

This ego flexes his muscles in the mirror of a dingy backstage dressing room the band would play throughout the year, constantly on the verge of full-blown success. And they have the chops, like the Stone Roses did in the late 1980s, possessing a diabolical sense of talent with a sense of self determination that borders on the maniacal. They are aware of the powers, and of their ability to conjure these worlds, and they revel in it.

In “All the Wine”, Berringer’s lyrics taunt and flaunt, exposing the ridiculously large ego he totes throughout the song’s three minute duration. “I’m put together beautifully, big wet bottle in my fist, big red rose in my teeth, I’m a perfect piece of ass, like every Californian.”

This balance, of confidence and derision, passion and indifference followed me everywhere, through the dark corners and locked doors of my life in 2005, finally tucking me in at night, “all safe and sound, all safe and sound, I wont let the psychos around.”

2. My Morning Jacket – Z

It’s clear to the listener at the start of the record just how much the band dynamic has changed. Keyboards provide a down tempo reggae feel, swishing of the synthesizers offering company to the reverb honey of Jim James’s voice.

Elements of gospel masked as background vocals on the opening track is just one of the elements of freedom in this record, as the band sounds fresh and rejuvenated exploring the other side of their southern roots. (Soul, R&B and Gospel.)

“Religion should appeal to the hearts of the young, who are you, what have you become?”

There’s a chip on their shoulder this time, as if comforting someone in a time of need, and when the guitars come, loud and crunchy they seem to offer salvation in the way that the lyrics simultaneously search for meaning in religion, as in the tracks “Gideon” & “What a Wonderful Man” illustrate, questioning the ideas behind these archetypal figures, feeling spiritual without being preachy or overtly religious. It’s a firm balance, making a gospel tinged record that questions the very nature of belief, but My Morning Jacket’s themes were always murky.

Channeling the Who’s “Baba O Reily”, and the usual Neil Young references, the band seems to be fully matured, switching easily from tender ballad to four on the floor rockers, all in the same song. The compositions are shorter but tighter, filling in the gaps with gobs of sticky wet guitars, that come at you from all angels, daring you to sing the falsetto in “What a Wonderful Man” in the car, waiting for the moral tale in “Off the Record”, and I felt like playing air guitar in the car, crossing the bridge and I did.

“Anytime” doesn’t waste any time in bringing out the guitars, and runs on its own momentum, resembling a freight train heading straight for a brick wall, crashing through it, revealing one of My Morning Jacket’s more direct songs, lamenting a lack of communication and a sense that it’s too late to fix.

The whole album clocks buy without one being aware of time elapsing in the process. Seeing them live only reenergized my love of this band, especially when the roadie handed Jim James the Flying V guitar from off stage and you knew it was time to go to church with spirituality questioned, felt by everyone there, our own religion of rock and roll.

3. Aimee Mann – The Forgotten Arm

An album with a surprising amount of staying power, Aimee Mann‘s “Forgotten Arm” tells the tale of a boxer and his lover, and their many tribulations as they struggle with heroin addiction. If it sounds too calculated for pop music, and seems more suited to a novel, its only because you know going into this one that it’s a concept album. Reviews speak of the plot before they even speak of the music. That said, its pretty difficult to gauge the quality of transitions as the songs seem to organically stem from the characters themselves, making the listener unaware of the characters motivations, at least on the first few listens.

In my opinion this her best album ever, as each song builds not only the characters troubles with the law and smack, but builds the listener engagement, and by the time “Clean up for Christmas” comes along, we’ve got a little tear in our eye, as we look back on the plot and characters met and we applaud Mann for creating a such a compelling album.

4. Spoon – Gimme Fiction

The ever-evolving Spoon beefs up their resume with this their fifth album. More strident than their predecessor “Kill the Moonlight”, it features white hot stabs of funk and rock.

Songs like “I turn my camera on” and “Sister Jack” sound frustratingly similar at first, until one looks under the melodic hood, and spies the loose wires and burning oil in their machine that sputters, jerks and slinks inward on itself, reversing the opinion with each lesson. There are conventional moments, like in “The Two sides of Monsieur Valentine” that resemble “Taxman”-era Beatles, and other songs, like “Camera” that flaunt the histrionics of Prince, a fantastic, eclectic affair.

5. Bloc Party – Silent Alarm

The first time you hear this record, you can’t help but see past the Blur comparisons. Once that’s achieved, you see how these guys are the real deal. There was a lot of bands in 2005 aping the 80’s New Wave sound, but Bloc Party inject their own brand of energy, punk and dance into an infectious combination of songs that defy convention and offer new twists and turns onto a map that frustratingly looks back to recycled riffs instead of reaching out to the chaos just enough to keep it interesting like these guys do.

6. Supergrass – Road to Rouen

They say great music comes out of times of sadness, and this record is no exception. Although the band never mentioned it, this record reeks of divorce, and band in-fighting. There’s a heavy weight on the band’s sound, its most mature record to date.

While other bands of their era would have broken up, or turned their melancholy into one of an almost lugubrious nature, Supergrass revel in the sadness, painting up situations from different points of view in the fading relationship, as the listener gets the feeling that something is slowly ending, and by the end of the record, the band will be no more.

I really hope this isn’t true. As I haven’t read any press to the contrary, I can assume they will carry on making great records, handling pain and strife through songs while still looking back on the shoulders of their pasts, notably their 1997 effort, In it for the Money.

7. Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree

The Mountain Goats are an acquired taste. It’s the voice that gets to you, sounding like a hopeless child at first whining about life.

Until you notice how he turns a phrase, or describes so succinctly an experience you had when you were seventeen, playing video games, drinking scotch and wondering exactly how you will make it out of your parent’s house. This is all over the opening track, “This Year” and in 2005 this year meant student teaching, first year teaching, and looking back on years past.

Instead of writing from a fictitious angle, John Darnielle instead reflects on his own upbringing and brings a startlingly honest record filled with retellings of a painful youth.

Wondrously rendered by producer John Vanderslice, this became my record to write to, and to imagine a parallel universe where my life didn’t turn out so great.

8. Ryan Adams - Cold Roses/ Jacksonville City Nights/29

None of these albums alone merited placement in the list on their own, but culled together, and looked at as the total output for one calendar year, its impressive that Adams was able to create this much compelling material after being in what most people would agree has been a creative slump since the release of “Heartbreaker” in 2000.

“Cold Roses” is probably the best of the bunch, taking in hints of the Grateful Dead and moments of clarity from “Heartbreaker”. It’s the sound of Adams finding himself in a band again, and sounding all the wiser for it.

“Jacksonville City Nights” is his homage to his alt. country days, and he sounds quite like idol Gram Parsons on these songs. The duet with Norah Jones actually works, turning what could have been a cheese ball rendering of a ballad into a touching tale of lost love.

“29” sounds ridiculously self-indulgent, writing a story song for each year of his twenties. In what is supposed to read like a Tropic of Capricorn, Adams instead turns these into thoughtful reflections on his youth.

A surprising turn of events then.

9. Okkervill River – Black Sheep Boy / Down the River of Golden Dreams

There’s no getting around it, these albums polarize people, you either love one or the other, and the lead singer doesn’t take the time to serenade you, he just launches into his songs with bravura and verve, switching parts paranoia and wailing.

There are great songs on here and not so great songs, and even though half the time I’m not in the mood and the other half I find it invigorating, somehow the year didn’t seem complete without either of them.

For the record, I’m leading towards “Down the River..” as my favorite. “Black Sheep Boy”, while the better produced of the two came out this year and frequently occupies space in my mind.

10. Rosebuds – Birds Make Good Neighbors

There’s no doubt in my mind, “The Lover’s rights” is the best single of 2005, bar none. Coming across like the best works of Lloyd Cole and the Lilac Time, it’s all bouncy shimmering beauty that sounds timeless, like the best Galaxie 500 record, “On Fire”.

The record is all over the place sonically, and its creators are a husband and wife duo from North Carolina. I wasn’t as taken with them on their first record, The Rosebuds Make Out!, but this one nailed it for me, and too many jaw-dropping pop moments to mention.

11. The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday

One I didn’t want to like. This is one of those records that gets under your skin like a virus. The lyrics are about down and out skaters and gutter punks in Minneapolis, and the lyrics tell tales about violence, drug overdoses and bad sex. But the classic rock riffs worthy of the best Georgia Satellites songs make me think otherwise.

I found myself singing along to tracks like “Banging Camp” and “Your little Hood Rat Friend” as if I was one of them, living in the dark alleys of Minneaplis with my guitar, scruffy dog on a chain, and a raging case of the fever from “Separation Sunday”.

Honorable Mentions

12. Doves – Some Cities

13. Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy & Matt Sweeney – Superwolf

14. Ben Folds – Songs for Silverman

15. Eels- Blinking Lights and other revelations

16. Wilco – Kicking Television Live in Chicago
17. Ray LaMontagne - Trouble
    

Singles

Michael Doughty – “Drinking in my dreams”

Rosebuds – “The Lovers Rights”

Josh Rouse – “My Love has Gone”

Iron and Wine & Calexico – “In the Reins”

Iron and Wine – “Woman King”

Idlewild – “Love Steals us from Loneliness”

Gorillaz – “Dirty Harry”

Foo Fighters – “DOA”

Ben Folds – “Late”

Decemberists – “Sixteen Military Wives”

Death Cab for Cutie – “Marching Bands of Manhattan”

Common – “The Corner”

Andrew Bird – “Sovay”

Cat Power – “The Greatest”

The Cardigans – “Good Morning Joan”

Bob Mould –“Paralysed”

Big Star – “Turn my back on the sun”

Marah – “Walt Whitman Bridge”

Thirsties- “Case Misbehavior”

Topanga Canyon

For rock star Colton Smith, it’s like the past, or his vision of it, was a continually evolving parade that never closed for the weekend, only to move on someplace else shortly the next day. For the reticent recluse who spent most of his time these days hidden away in Topanga canyon, his view of the world continually shifted, as to his direction in a forgotten time cloistered away where everything around him stunk of the patchouli-drenched late 1960’s.

His band the broilers had enjoyed hits steadily throughout the 1960s, played mostly on AM radio, squawked three-chord bar chords that made hairy people raise their fists into the air and make a devil sign, the forefinger and pinkie extended out, the thumb ready for some serious hitchhiking. But he hadn’t had a hit in years, and there was talk of a reunion by some of the band members that actually went further out into pop culture to discover there was a whole different world out there then the one in Topanga Canyon.

The moist, burned out joint in the ashtray, the felt posters emblazoned with reflective stripes, all added to the Brian Wilson décor. He still had a sunken living room, and he had mirrors on the ceilings.

At night, when the lights dimmed to all but the faintest glow above the rooftops, Colton would go out to the porch – afforded to him by the string of minor hits that turned him into a minor celebrity almost overnight – kick back in his big easy chair, and rock, listening to the wails of the coyotes that sounded like vampires preying on those alive, squandered between the boulders and craggy inlets that dotted the canyon.

At this time of night, the light fading, standing up and stretching, he would go in search of his prey, the silver hairs in his mane becoming more illuminated as the evening wore on, waiting for the eventual emergence of the moon, whose arrival triggered additional organic rhythms to change, diurnal churnings that led him to further flights of distortion and monstrosity.

Its not that his entire face changed, or that he grew hair everywhere, for he was already quite hairy to begin with, but that his presence took on a far more menacing weight than before the moon crept up and burned off what few clouds remained after dark.

And the hunt always made him feel better, more secure at his role in this environment. In the bushes, silver moonlight drifted down upon the shadows, emanating sounds that brushed past his whiskers that now protruded six inches off of his face, he looked up at the moon and its crevices, valleys and rock, it was like staring into a refection, with the ball of rock in the sky in the middle of millions of tiny needles.

He felt that significant, a man with a deeper connection to the canyon, the thrill of a night’s feeding, the hatred locked in his heart all day, the rage turned to the natural urges of hunger and desire.

The first deer that night barely made a sound when he quietly took its life from him, feeding on the carcass several meters away from the Safeway parking lot, at the edge of the canyon, and acting as a portal from which he could safely store the bones of the victims.

Because if they ever found the remains, ones scattered in ash cans, display tables, barrels of oil from fast-food restaurants, the discoverer would know true horror, not in a phantasmagorical way, or in the gothic writings of Graham Stoker, but they would see what man was capable of, and during one summer of 1989, when the wildlife had migrated, and the chill of a summer night left Colton needing a good feed, for not even rare steak tartar could satiate the beast in side him, the daily hunger pangs disturbing sleep, putting off the band practice. But they never knew, until the victims would have to become human, because feeding becomes the most important thing when its taken away.

The authorities were unaccustomed to finding human remains anywhere around Topanga Canyon, and so Deputy Dan Falchick found himself baffled at the state of the remains found tied up in cheesecloth at the base of a canyon. And while initial beliefs yielded the usual suspects, Satan worshippers, cultists, serial killers, there was a chilling accuracy to the remains that spoke of something more organic, something closer to the primal needs of man coupled with the rabid accuracy of nature.

Melvin Hamlish and the Untimely Arrival of Puberty

At the start of the last school year, Melvin Hamlish spent most of his days glued to the cathode rays in the monitors in that last computer lab down in Denley Hall.

The days were short there; hours spent accessing the latest updates from his mother who was still employed by the Foreign Service and currently occupying a small shack at the edge of the North African Desert in Tunis, the capital city of Tunisia.

Melvin knew little of this North African country before he mother was stationed there, and despite the long hours, the sheer volume of distance the two of them were forced to share, the exorbitant hazard pay did much to make the whole effort worthwhile, while Melvin’s father was consistently on the edge of one mental breakdown or another.

In typical fashion, Melvin’s older sister Carrie spent the bulk of her time taking advantage of her mother’s absence and speeding her cherry red 2001 Volkswagon Bug through the extended parking lot at school, jetting off to the exotic locales of Taco Bell parking lots while Melvin sat in the rear of the computer lab and hoped for another update.

It was on an afternoon such as this that he discovered a hidden part of his mother that he struck him as rather odd.

The tones of her emails had lightened in the most recent transmittals, and he in his adolescent mind could not see how her mood could have lightened by anything else than some sort of extra-martial affair.

The scenes in his head while disturbing, did display a penchant for fantasy, and reflected the imagination of a boy who dreamed his life away at the back of the computer lab.

The instructor, Mr. Larson, was a wiry man, constantly animated, and possessed an ill-fitting mustache that highlighted his torpid stature by gently announcing itself; the way a goiter does on an unexpected first date.

He’d talk to Melvin, mainly about the amount of time he spent in the rooms on those particularly hot May afternoons.

At this same time, Carrie would be slugging Diet Coke out of a warm 20 oz bottle while waiting for a boyfriend to step out of a neighbors house with the right amount of required speed necessary to fulfill the requirements of a until a few hours ago forgotten assignment of a fifteen page research paper, the results of which would all but guarantee an early admission into Stanford, the ticket out of the emotionally frigid New England tundra, leapfrogging her into the more culturally aware (or so she thought) and altogether more happening digs of the West Coast, where vapid wayward youths had sowed their own breed of defiance for decades, hatching plans while undoing bra straps waiting, camping overnight even, for the early-morning release of Kiss Tickets from a Milwaukee mall parking lot.

And at this same time, Gary Hamlish, a steadily employed auditor ticked time away working for the local school district in a newly-refurbished office that closely resembled the sterile environs of the more fervent global corporations from which Gary had recently managed to exorcize himself from the pained memories of employment at said corporate job.

Only on this afternoon, instead of performing his usual task of waiting for an Email from Cecily, had instead arranged a rendezvous of sorts. For weeks now, to combat the increasing need for companionship in the wake of his wife all but symbolically leaving her whole family for the arid local of the North African Desert, had repeatedly put his toe into the lukewarm waters of infidelity, for which he was not suited.

Gary was at heart a loyal man, lover and friend. To betray Cecilia like that (unbeknownst to him at the time, Cecilia had herself managed to entwine herself into the arms of a particularly libidinous European gentlemen, who worked at the French Embassy in Tunis) was unthinkable as it was unimaginable, as immediately offensive to him as the cut of the wrong color tweed with his new khaki pants which at this moment he had spilled mustard from a reheated knish acquired at the deli on the way home from the office during the previous evening.

As repulsive as infidelity was, in Gary’s case it was almost certainly bound to happen at one time or another, as the recently hired secretary had an almost death wish like desire to sabotage and sublimate her own feelings at a rate faster than the numerous failings of Gary’s own sexual advances ( as they were always misread, too late, and lacked the necessary grace and discretion the paramours of men ten years his seniors most certainly had perfected at this point in the hum drum existence of experienced auditors.) could manage.

Still the magnetics of attraction meant that before long the two would accidentally (intentionally on the part of Claire, the would be participant in said illicit affair into which he had been placing his largest toe into the proverbial Epsom Salts of displaced aggression) be paired together to analyze and adequately allocate funds to the essential purchases of the myriad of departments and sub-departments found in the New Cannan School District, a highly-regarded district that represented the hundreds of thousands of dollars invested into the spit shined polish of the various Mercedes Benz’s, Aston Martins, and pinnacled Jaguars that decorated their subdivision like Roman Statues, the very symbol of wealth and power immortalized in solid pewter.

And as the long hours turned into evenings over coffee, slowly mutating into lavish dinners paid for, unbeknownst to the taxpayers that pumped their money into the local budget of the New Canaan school district, so did the romantic intensions of the persons involved in what was becoming the illicit affair that Gary wasn’t sure he could pull off, but the same one that he nevertheless found himself ensared in.

So Gary and Claire, an out-of-key rhyming scheme of a couple if ever there was one, were having an affair, one dished out over the plates, cloth napkins and balance sheets containing software upgrades for the same one Melvin Hamlish received the news, rather bluntly one troubled morning, in which he had dropped the entire contents of his trapper keeper on the bus, and in the subsequent melee, had inadvertently misplaced the necklace that his mother had given him, a fist and a star, representing not only the most powerful Arab interest party in Tunisia, but a symbol of creativity in the face of oppression that expressed their own similar world views, that his mother was not due back any time soon, that her stay had been extended indefinitely until further notice, but that, as Cecilia had quite elegantly said in her email, that he should “not be expecting your loving mother home anytime before the timely arrival of the late summer of 2009.