There are time when nothing exists but work. This is one of those times. Work consumes every aspect of my life. Lately I've been having two kinds of dreams: one wherein I accomplish everything on my task list and have the office in shining flawless order (and then wake up and pout when I realize it was a dream), and the other wherein I can get nothing done and it's basically an extension of my actual days and I wake up with my fists clenched under the pillow.
I have to admit, I don't always mind. When something in my relational life collapses, it's always good to hurl myself into my work. I love and hate the arrival of five o'clock, because I get to take a break...and I also have no idea what to do with myself. Times like these remind me of all my show weeks in college theater, where everything is a catastrophe and the world is COMING TO AN END AND WHERE THE F--K IS THAT BLUSHER AND WHY CAN'T ANYONE MAKE THEIR CALL TIME AND IF I HEAR THAT STUPID SONG ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO KILL THE STAR OF THE SHOW. And yet it was the very head-cleaving stress that was part of the enjoyment of doing theater. Everything, not just the show, was extremely dramatic. Yielding to (and exacerbating) the slightest emotion held a savage catharsis that made the whole thing almost grossly therapeutic.
So with times at work like these. And it's good to feel that I'm finally getting something done.
But I'd like a little balance. Lately I just don't know how to relax.
On a musical note, I would like to highlight two songs that I love for their base lines. Give me an interesting, mobile, creative base line any day. Something you can feel intelligent blasting out your car window. For this, I recommend Josh Ritter's "The Golden Age of Radio" (which has searing lyrics), and Bright Eyes' "Classic Cars" (which just hits me in the pit of the stomach, I don't know exactly why; but the final variation on the chorus is amazing).
6 comments:
I understand how you're feeling. Except insert studying for work. My national board exam is in a week (Oh. My. Dear. Lord.), and the past month has just been one long day wherein my work is never done and I wake up every morning clenching my jaw and weary before the day even begins. I think I may weep with relief when the darn test is over.
"The Golden Age of Radio" is such a fantastic song. It doesn't quite surpass "Monster Ballads" as my favorite Josh Ritter song, but it's close. I've also been playing Sufjan Stevens' "The Dress Looks Nice on You" on repeat this week.
Ooo, "The Dress Looks Nice on You" is so wonderful.
Sufjan is fabulous for summer. Well, he's fabulous anytime, but summer in particular is when I love to listen to him. And, although I think "Illinoise" has more, um, critical merit as an album, I still love "Seven Swans" best. My highlights on that album are "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "He Woke Me Up Again," the title track, and, of course and always, "The Transfiguration."
Favorite Josh Ritter song...favorite Josh Ritter song...oh Lord I can't choose.
I will be PRAYING for you as you prepare for the Evil Exam to Surpass All Evil Exams (at least to date). And yeah...that verse that says that to God a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day? I think we tiny humans can sort of comprehend that, in a weeny little way, every once in awhile. Except for us it would be a thousand hours is like a day.
Let me know how it goes! I'm glad to see you're unscathed by the tornado activity surrounding the Windy City.
Ladies, you’re preaching to the choir (to an extent). People driving around in little cars with huge subwoofers, blasting trunk-rattling hip-hop bass have always left me in stitches, but a fast-walking, tight bass line played at high-volume while road tripping is an unique kind of transcendent joy. Admittedly, our tastes in music may differ slightly, at least going by the artists you’ve lauded here (though Illinoise is on heavy rotation at my desk at work), but a great bass line is a great bass line.
My favorite bassist has always been Matt Freeman, a punk from a Bay Area town near where I was born. He languishes in relative obscurity, preferring to operate within a genre held in disdain by most of the musical community, but he’s got a knack for rhythm and counter-melody that is rarely seen in jazz, or anywhere else, for that matter.
He’s most known for his work with Rancid, but he’s participated in a ton of side projects. I’ll link to a few of my favorites, but you can find torrents of their complete discography easily enough on isohunt.
I’ll warn you, though: this music is far from traditional singer-songwriter fare. While passionate, it is not sensitive. It wants to played loudly, sung along with, and driven quickly to. I’m not responsible for any angry neighbors or speeding tickets you may accumulate.
Radio Havana
Journey to the End of East Bay
Detroit
Hoover Street
Old Friend
Radio
I Wanna Riot
There's something...GROTESQUE about those hip-hop base beats (I can no more call them "lines" than I can call them "notes" -- maybe a flatline, like what they attempt to do to your heart when you hear them); Boy #1 and CB were quite fond of them, and I tried to put up with it, but there's something sinister about the way they try to take over your heartbeat and make it match their own rhythm, especially when the lyrics tend to be, at the risk of sounding quaint, filthy and repugnant. Like the pulse of IT in A Wrinkle in Time.
A good, tight, fast-moving, intelligent baseline, however, invites you to PLAY with it, to make a conscious decision (rather than yield to a physical coercion) to engage with where it's going. It applies to your mind more than your body, and then your body follows your mind, which is how the best entertainments (and the best forms of music) run.
When I have a bit more time (read: off-work) I'll check out your links -- I have something of a music addiction, and I'm always trolling for new recommendations. And one of the best ways to "talk up" an artist is to tell me that he languishes in obscurity. Perhaps it's my little version of a social rebellion, but when a certain artist is popular, I take a dim view of that artist automatically.
And I freely admit that my favorite artists have strong folk roots.
Sufjan, though, is in a class of his own -- he's a bit of everything, and so brilliant it hurts. Have you heard "Snowbird, Majesty"? It's not released on any album yet (CURSES), but if you can grab a byte of it, it's quite haunting. Orchestral, with a touch of prog rock. It got me through Christmas.
So you're a punkish music listener, eh? I’ll be interested to explore the links. And the grand thing about my life in a small town is that I know all the cops. :)
I, too, am blessed (cursed?) with an addiction to music. I tend to buy CDs, along with books and tools, compulsively, and my “to read” and “to listen to” piles tend toward the overwhelming. Oh, well. C’est la vie… Besides, an empty shelf is an ugly shelf.
And I concur wholeheartedly: the popularity of an artist or an author, at least in my mind, tends to be inversely proportional to my affection and respect for them. Sometimes, though, this really makes very little sense. Love in the Time of Cholera is a beloved favorite of mine, but when Oprah selected it for her insidious book club, I was irate. Subconsciously, I think that I decided that her viewers weren’t worthy of reading Marquez, but why on earth should I let that diminish my esteem of the book, or the pleasure I derive from reading it? It must speak to a small bastion of selfishness and elitism I harbor. It still irks me to no end, however.
And you’re right: I managed to find a live version of “Snowbird, Majesty,” and it was indeed as beautifully layered as you hinted it would be (unfortunately, the constant coughing from a man in the audience disrupted my reverie a bit). Sufjan is an extraordinarily unique artist, and the more I listen, the more I enjoy his work. He manages to emote without ever coming across as “whiny,” which is relatively rare among indie singer-songwriters. Conor Oberst, unfortunately, tends to walk that line a bit too closely for my taste. If I recall correctly, though, you’ve admitted to harboring an affinity for Ray LaMontagne, and his is music that I hold close to my heart. I can listen to “Lesson Learned” and “Empty” all day, and the simplicity of “Please,” “Jolene” and “All the Wild Horses” makes the songs so elegantly intimate. I’d love to see him play live some day.
Umm, I listened to "Empty" the ENTIRE drive back to the Midwest from central PA two Christmases ago, right after I first bought "Till the Sun Turns Black." Seven hours of the same repeated song. And I'm still never sick of it. "Jolene" and "Hannah" are two of my other favorites ("Hannah" not only because it's a great song, but also because the chords very closely match those of "The Weight" by The Band, which ranks high on my Kills Me Every Time list – the cover by Travis is excellent).
You're exactly right...the simplicity of his pieces is what defines the beauty. That and his rough-yet-tender voice.
That guy coughing on "Snowbird" is always irritating and yet I've come to think of it as an intrinsic part of the piece. (This ought to encourage Sufjan to get a new album out, if he doesn't want concert attendees' bodily noises to permeate his work. Or maybe that's part of the -- organic -- nature of the experience.)
I understand objections to Conor's tone (I share some of them). But I must say that, right alongside "Illinoise," "Cassadaga" (his latest) is at the top of my Perfect Album list. For one of the first times, Conor isn't weeping into the mic; as he says in "Four Winds" (which has a FANTASTIC intro), "I've buried my ballast, I've made my peace." There's something...settled about it: it's enriched by a sense of acceptance without resignation, and yet still emotive, and still bearing touches of his trademark bitterness (I think I like the bitterness because it's all centered around his loss of faith -- the feeling I get from his music is that he, or his "narrative voice," went through a similar struggle to mine, and although we came out on different sides of the conclusion, I still understand its origin). And each song moves flawlessly into the next, and altogether they make a quite astonishing whole.
But there; I've talked it up too much, which can only bring it disdain. :) I too harbor an internal bastion of elitism, and, in fact, generally refuse to buy editions of books with "Oprah's Book Club" on the cover. I will happily buy said books WITHOUT the printed seal, and I am glad that her recommendations run often toward excellent literature. But the internal elitism wants the excellent literature to remain undiscovered: It's MY treasure. How DARE someone else peek at it? (Ah, the literary legacy of the 1920s. Thank you, Ezra Pound.)
"Love in the Time of Cholera" has been sending sparks of color at me whenever I walk into my library lately -- it's been on my "to read" pile for quite some time, and I think it wants to change piles.
Summer usually sees my annual Music Spending Spree, where I glory in the beauty of the Amazon Marketplace for all kinds of priceless finds. I feel it coming like a wave...
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