Tuesday, May 26, 2009

#9

Radio and the endless song.

"Brown Sugar" - The Rolling Stones



I've come to terms recently that I like to be rushed when I write. I usually wait till the very last moment to start doing all my writing. Drafts? Pfft. Who needs those? I shoot from the hip. When my iPod plays the five songs that are to be used for an issue I immediately try to tie them all together in some kind of basic theme or idea. Something to make it interesting and make you, the reader, keep reading. For this issue however, a lightning storm went off over my head. I guess it was only a matter of time considering the incessant rain we've been getting here in ole sunny Florida. It's been raining here everyday for the past 17 days and counting. Sunshine State my ass.

A few evenings ago I was stuck driving a car that was not my own. No iPod hookup which meant no way to play my pocket-sized digital jukebox which provides limitless comfort in even the most harrowing of situations. No, nothing but Lorenna McKinnet CDs and a mix CD that my brother made. I wasn't in the mood for Celtic croons or emo-punk balladry. My only option was to then swallow my pride and turn the radio on to find a station. It was a big deal for me bearing in mind that I had swore off the medium nearly a decade ago. The only, and I do mean ONLY time I will turn the radio on is if I don't have my iPod or any CDs to play at my disposal, and even then I only listen to talk radio.

And then it came to me. Why don't I do a 5SIAR with five random songs being played on the radio? One right after another, each time from a different station. Just then a bolt of lightning came down about 20 feet away from the road I was driving on. Coincidence?

I immediately dreaded the usual garbage that exists on the airwaves. I was begging the gods that be to not give me Nickelback, Disturbed, or everyone's radio favorite Third Eye Blind. My silent prayers were answered when the first song that was played was none other than the ever classic head-bobbing, rock/soul/blues anthem dedicated to inter-racial sex, sadomasochism, and heroin use- The Rolling Stones' "Brown Sugar"

So as the heavens poured down the rain in buckets I cranked the volume and jammed out to Mick, Keith, and the boys. I had been worried only a few minutes prior that I wasn't going to find anything good to listen to. I've always equated the radio with music television stations like MTV and VH1. Yeah, they used to play videos, but now all their programming consists of reality shows. I view radio in the same light. Nothing but overplayed, top 40, run of the mill standards that are meant to be played over and over till you get sick and just can't wait for that needless station to change their format. It's recycled garbage, and not the good kind either.

Yet on the other side of the coin radio does have it's brighter moments peaking through the dark cloud of mediocrity. Every once in a while (like this one) you come across something you either A: haven't heard in a long time and suddenly hear it on the radio and immediately become nostalgic or B: have never heard the song that is playing in your life and you suddenly discover something new. It may be something you like or dislike, but the point is that you're experiencing something new. I used to think radio wasn't good for something like that anymore, but shame on me for being my usual judgmental self.

"I Want You To Want Me" - Cheap Trick



What is with this song that makes all the girls go crazy over? I mean, c'mon, it's not like Cheap Trick were the ultimate ladies men. Or were they? Were they the Def Leppard of the 70's? I think the only reason girls like it today was because it was in that movie 10 Things I Hate About You. No one even realizes that it was originally Cheap Trick that wrote this song. This annoying, vomit in my mouth a little, yet another played out, but for some reason can't change the station it's on song.

What made it worse was the fact that it was the live version. I don't understand how the live version of this song charted while the original album version did not. Oh, wait, I know. The album version is even more terrible than the live one. I will admit however that the intro to the song sounds like something The Strokes would write. So I guess the music isn't that bad, it's just the whiny & girlish falsetto that turns my stomach. Oh, and Rick Nielsen is kind of a kook too.

To let you know, this was the same station that had just played "Brown Sugar." One of those 70's, 80's, & 90's hits stations. It gives me a good reason to go back to my disownment of radio. I'll hear one song that I can jam to and then the next will be total crap. I like being in control of my music. I don't trust a radio station's computer to be picking the songs I want to hear. Not only is radio dying, but the DJ is as well. There are only a few radio programs left out there that allow their DJs to pick the music. One of them, a personal favorite of mine and one of the only reasons to wake up early on a Sunday, is called Sunday Morning Coming Down, named after the Kris Kristofferson song of the same name. The DJ has a smooth voice and plays nothing but alt-country and folk. Great soundtrack to recover from a hangover while having a cup of coffee and wondering what the hell happened the night before. So if you live in central Florida tune your radio to 104.1 FM on Sunday morning between the hours of 8 and 11. I promise it'll help the constant throbbing in your head from too many shots of Maker's.

"Under The Bridge" - Red Hot Chili Peppers

It was time to change the station. I don't remember what the station was that was playing this classic number. As soon as it came on I pictured myself sitting in front of the TV watching the video and seeing Anthony Kiedis running away from an atomic bomb explosion. Funny how that was the only imagery I remember from it. A shirtless Anthony Kiedis running. It's Gus Van Sant's fault.



Sorry for the ad. YouTube mysteriously doesn't host this video.

The song obviously made the Chili Peppers' career. As I said before, it's timeless. It will withstand the test of time. I think of all the songs released by all the artists in the world - which are in the billions I imagine - only a handful of those songs survive being overplayed. There are one-hit wonders, and then there are hits that continuously travel down a never ending radio road where your origin is the top 40 station and your destination is the classic rock station. It honestly makes me feel old.

All the songs I used to rock out to in high school are no longer played on the major rock stations. They are now considered "classics." It's a right of passage I suppose. Our parents went through it, but did their parents go through it as well? I'm going to say no. Our grandparents didn't have rock 'n roll in their day. They didn't have pop. They didn't have hip hop. They didn't have all the genres that exist today. They didn't listen to the radio like we listen to the radio. Grandma and Grandpa didn't care as much, and frankly, neither do I.

"Rockin' Chair" - Gwen McCrae



If you live in central Florida and are familiar with the radio stations you'll know, or have some idea, that the station Q105 (104.7) has changed their format several times over the past 20 years or so. They went from 70's, 80's to country and then back to 70's, 80's, and added 90's. What will stations say in the future when they add songs from the 2000's?

"The hits you love from the 70's, 80's, 90's, and the zeros!" OK, not that funny, but it made me laugh a little.

I tuned the radio to 104.7 just in time to catch the DJ talking about this song and then playing it. I was an itch away from changing the station until the music started playing. I was compelled to turn the volume up on the radio as loud as it would go and bob my head and do as much dancing as I could allow myself while driving. I'm really glad it was dark out and raining because if I was doing this in daylight I would get some really awkward looks at stop lights.

It was so loud I could even hear it standing outside my car with the door shut as I delivered something back to someone who supposedly needed that something right away but then changed their mind. So indecisive, but I digress.

Just listen to the song. I mean, you can't help but crank the volume up to the "other people are gonna get pissed because it's too loud and obnoxious" level. It's rare times like that that almost make me to not want to swear off radio completely again.

"Smells Like Teen Spirit" - Nirvana



There's no better way to end an issue about radio songs than with the teenage angst anthem of the 1990's. This song has got to be played more than any other song on the radio right now. We can blame it on the martyrdom of Cobain. Now I know the formula to have a song last centuries.

Rip off Pixies + Punk rock + Millions of kids that worshiped you and your band + Suicide = A song that will end up in some 23rd century VH1 list for songs that will never die along side "Under The Bridge."

I'm telling you, it'll outlive roaches if a nuclear holocaust was to happen.

I wasn't a Kurt or Nirvana lover during their heyday. I was more into Tool and Nine Inch Nails. Still am actually. I'll take "Head Like A Hole" over "Teen Spirit" any day. Nirvana doesn't even show up in my top 5 list of grunge acts from the 90's.

1. Alice In Chains
2. Soundgarden
3. Failure (labeled as space rock, but their debut in my opinion was more grungy than Nevermind)
4. Mudhoney
5. Pearl Jam

Can you even consider Pearl Jam grunge? They were more of the rock/blues from the 70's, yet they got corralled in with grunge label because they were from Seattle.

In any case, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was probably the song that made me want to stop listening to the radio. I couldn't change the station and not hear it being played somewhere. It was around the same time I started listening to Tori Amos. She was never played on the radio so I had no choice but to turn it off and listen to CDs. This evolved into acquiring a very large CD collection so I wouldn't have to turn the radio on ever again.

I don't mean to get too scientific here, but it's interesting to me how our tastes develop and change over time. Like our sense of taste, our taste in music shifts from one direction to another depending on our experiences in life and beyond. I can recall sitting in my room on Sunday mornings listening to Casey Kasem and waiting with my finger on the record button on my tape player to catch some of my favorite songs. "Head Over Heals" from Tears For Fears comes to mind. It was the birth of my obsession with making mixes. Even today I make mixes for people that they never hear, and probably never will. It's a connection to my memories. I believed that was mentioned in an issue before.

I watched that movie Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist the other night for the first time. Sappy as to be expected, though Michael Cera reminded me of myself a little bit. Drowning himself in mix after mix as if it was a catharsis (See issue #8). He felt he would be saved if only his ex heard the songs he listened to that reminded him of her. She turned out being a bitch of course, so lesson learned- only give the mixes that mean something, that will, like the other songs in this issue, outlive us and our children...on the radio.
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Thursday, May 14, 2009

#8

The doctor will see you now.

"Over & Over" - Hot Chip

Sometimes I feel I run out of things to talk about on here. I have different songs each time but what I have to say is pretty much the same each time. With every issue I have some kind of loose theme to tie all the songs together. It makes the blog more interesting. This morning I realized that there is a constant theme surrounding all the issues and tying them together. Music is therapy. It's other things as well to other people, but for me it's therapy. When I put on an album on my record player and set the needle down for it to play it's the equivalent of walking into a shrink's office, sitting down, and he or she looking at me and asking how I'm feeling. Then, when the music plays, I let go. Whatever I have on my mind that happened or didn't happen in my life gets flushed down the pipes of a vocalist and drowned in a sea of guitar, bass, and drums. It's a catharsis.

I've had this on my mind for almost a week now. I was hoping to have songs that would fit what I have to say (something from Sea Change?), but the randomness of 5SIAR is what makes it challenging. This song from Hot Chip, for example, is a great song to dance to. In fact, pretty much all their songs give you that get up and move feeling. The question I ask is why? The answer: because not only does the music heal you, but dancing to it does as well. Since time began humans have incorporated dance with their religious rituals that are set to music. The two go hand in hand. It's easier for the music to move you mentally and emotionally if it's moving you physically. I know some of you don't like to dance, but really, it helps. OK, so you're white. Big deal. So your best friend makes fun of you while you're shaking your ass. It's all in good fun because she looks just as awkward trying to move away from some douche-nozzle trying to rub his crotch all over her back side.

The night's over. You're drunk. Very drunk, and very sweaty. Sweaty because you've been on the dance floor all night, unable to leave it because the DJ is actually spinning (or these days cuing from a laptop) decent shit. The friend you conned into getting your drinks for you the entire night insists on leaving. Fair enough. Your time is up. You've had your session for the evening. The wadded up tissues filled with tears have become the sweat, piss, and vomit you left in the toilet. You feel better. That is until the next time you don't. If this hasn't happened to you yet then eventually it will. I promise.




"Natural Resources" - Dntel

(In a Jerry Seinfeld voice) What's with people naming themselves just letters? What do they mean? You've got MGMT (Management), MSTRKRFT (Mastercraft), and Jimmy Tamborello's Dntel (pronounced din-tel according to wikipedia). You may know this guy as being one half of The Postal Service. The other half being indie music's poster boy Ben Gibbard. Sorry Conor Oberst, you've been dethroned. Dumb Luck does however feature Oberst and a slew of other indie music voices like Jenny Lewis and Ed Droste from Grizzly Bear. The album isn't great, but it's not without a few moments. For me it's the pure fact that all the music is programmed, something I aspire to do one of these days when I get my hands on enough money to buy equipment.

Music itself is a therapy and so is creating it. I view programming beats and dialing in synth settings as surgery. Very delicate surgery. One slip of the scalpel and your song will flatline, or will it? With music, sometimes mistakes can be blessings. Obviously when a doctor is repairing an organ he doesn't want to slice an artery. When I'm retooling a preset on a synthesizer to make it sound different I may screw it up in the process, but I make sure to let myself try it out before scrapping it completely. I break it all down. I let it be something it's not. It's something every electronic musician does, which to me, is therapy. You have the ability to create your own sound out of noise. You are the composer and the conductor. You are also the doctor.

Now you're on the other side of things. You're the creator so you're the one providing the therapy. You're the one that's offering the means to a release. It doesn't have to just be music though, it can be the words as well, or a painting. It can be anything you create. It's there for a purpose. It helped you, now you can let it help others. It's a cycle that will always keep going as long as we're here.




"Cloche" - French Kicks

There's another thing that bothers me about some bands lately. Hell, I don't even know what to call it since I'm not a guitar player. I'll give it my best shot though. Strumming pattern? 32nds on one or two strings to give the guitar that, I don't know, Radiohead sound? I can't put my finger on it. Just listen to the song and you'll know what I'm talking about. Whatever its called the French Kicks use it, a lot. Almost too much. I don't really consider it a bad or a good thing though. It's just a thing. Overdone, yes, but at least it sounds cool, right? Well, just because it sounds cool doesn't mean you have to keep doing it.

I feel bands sometimes fall into a comfort zone. They find a sound and they stick with it. It works for some, like the French Kicks, others get bored and venture off into new territory. Experimentation is just another kind of release and catharsis. How does a person learn without taking those steps toward the unknown?

We have an aversion to the unknown. We're scared of it, actually. But progress has never been made without some kind of leap of faith by someone. A person willing to risk it all for the sake of whatever it is he or she believes in. Painful, yes, but needed. I don't think I, or anyone else, would be where they are today without that pain. You need it. How else do you learn? How else do you finally rid yourself of what ails you?




"Come Together" - Spiritualized

We're nearing the nitty gritty now. We have a song from an artist that has created music laced with references to people being sad, people taking drugs because they are sad, and then being sad because they took the drugs. And then, of course, we listen to those songs. People use a song as a drug. Other people just go ahead and use a drug, but that's neither here nor there. It's kind of like the beginning of High Fidelity....

"What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?"

It's a constant, unwavering cycle. It serves itself. The motion of sadness begetting sadness is an occurrence that, to me, is a paradox. It will never end. People will never stop feeling, so obviously people will never stop exploring that feeling through music which in turn will cause other people to explore the feeling. As I said before, it just goes on and on. It's another way we are all connected in this universe. A song is played for you and you attribute that song to that moment and the feeling you had at the moment. It'll break you, but it'll also fix you.




"The Way Out Is Through" - Nine Inch Nails

What better way to end this issue than with the king of healing through misery, Trent Reznor. Even the song title sums up the theme. Yes, the way out is certainly through all the noise and clutter you are surrounded with. You can't go around it because you will learn nothing. Healing hurts sometimes, but that's why we have Nine Inch Nails, or at least I have NIN. Trent has more of a cult following lately. There aren't too many people just now getting into his music. Either you've been a fan since the days of Pretty Hate Machine and beyond, or you haven't. But the time spent being a fan doesn't play into the equation anymore in my opinion. It honestly doesn't matter if you've listened to an artist's music since their inception or just recently started listening.

So yes, personally, Reznor's music is my antiseptic and bandage. There was a time after some not too recent heartbreak that I listened to the album With Teeth on repeat for a very, very long time. When that album first came out I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of it. I have discovered, however, that most albums from the past are played more now than when they originally were released. I suppose an album can serve a certain purpose at a certain point in time. Before that time it doesn't make sense. It's not ready to be listened to until that one moment comes when you're listening to it and it all comes together. It suddenly becomes your best friend. Your lover. Matter to fill the hole until it can fill itself again.

Art is used for a lot of things, but it's greatest purpose is in healing. The rhythm can get you on the dance floor and make you feel free and forget your cares and worries. The beat can stimulate your brain as you're trying to write a sequence of drum patterns for a song. Even something as simple as wind passing through the holes of a flute can do wonders. A few little notes are all a person needs to feel at home and at peace with themselves and others.

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