The City Veins

When Aaron and I got in the car last Sunday to drive back from New York, we realized that my iPod was running low on batteries. No problem, I thought, I have an iPod charger in my car. So I open my center console to pull it out, only to find that it is missing. I now have a 5 hour car ride with the possibility of only the radio, and Aaron, to entertain me.

When we were in college, Aaron and I spent a lot of time driving around together to various concerts up and down the East Coast. This was during the dark, pre-iPod, days, so we spent most of the time listening to tapes. We made a bunch of mix-tapes, and when we got tired of those, we would buy whatever we could find at truck stops. This included Hanson’s totally awesome album “This Time Around.” Most of the tapes were horrible, but you can learn a lot listening to music you don’t like. Aaron and I would have extended discussion about what was wrong with a particular song, and that probably shaped our music as much as listening to Marquee Moon on repeat did.

We ended up stopping at the Thomas Edison stop on the Jersey turnpike, and we shocked to find that they still had tapes for sale. Unfortunately the selection was particularly bad, I assume because they don’t make tapes anymore and thus the tapes in the store were the ones that had been passed over for probably the last 10 years. We ended up picking out an Eddie Money Greatest Hits, a Cosmopolitan (the magazine) mix tape, and Steely Dan’s “Pretzel Logic.”

In addition to “Take Me Home Tonight” and “Two Tickets to Paradise,” Eddie Money’s tape also had the song “Trinidad.” This prompted Aaron and I to want to do a set of well-meaning but culturally insensitive songs. Included in this set would be “Cherokee” by Europe and “Every Picture Tells a Story” by Rod Stewart.

Also, did you know that “Up Where We Belong” by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes features the line “where eagles cry?” Aaron and I were convinced it was “where eagles fly,” because that would make sense. Does anyone have any idea why the eagles are crying? I have included the whole chorus to help you all out:

“Love lift us up where we belong
Where the eagles cry, on a mountain high
Love lift us up where we belong
Far from the world we know
Up where the clear winds blow “

The only explanation I can come up with is that the songwriters are from Philadelphia and crying Eagles are all they know.

Photo by Flicker user Velo Steve.

I couldn’t think of anything to write today, but as I thought about it I was listening to this unknown band I love and was thinking of how I wish more people knew of them. So, as a result, I thought I’d take some time to plug some cool local and unsigned bands I’ve been into lately, all of which I think deserve way more recognition than they currently get.

Brighten up your Tuesday by checking these guys out:

• The Physics of Meaning (www.myspace.com/thephysicsofmeaning): Can’t say enough about this band. Their self-titled album (for sale here, BUY IT!) was by far the best new album I bought last year. I can’t believe all the bloggers and indie kids haven’t shot these guys to stardom yet (especially because singer/songwriter Daniel Hart has some serious indie cred, having worked with St. Vincent and The Polyphonic Spree), but it’s way overdue. Maybe their upcoming new album will help that cause. I saw them preview a few songs at Velvet Lounge a few weeks back and they blew me away. It’s going to be tough to beat their debut album but I think they might do it based on listening to “Song for a Snake Charmer” on their MySpace. I’m psyched out of my mind for that record to come out.
• The Chaos of Birds (www.myspace.com/chaosofbirds): We’ve shared a bill with these guys twice and their live show is AMAZING. It’s quiet, its subtle, it’s soulful, and its very, very powerful. If you don’t get goosebumps, you’re not human. It always amazes me how intensely audiences respond too; no one can talk through a CoB show. The four songs on MySpace give a good idea if you listen close, but my favorite is “Disappeared,” a haunting song with an incredible climax.
• The Hall Monitors (www.myspace.com/hallmonitors): Bad-ass, super-tight garage music from DC. We had the pleasure of playing on a bill with them at WMUC last Sunday. When we were doing our interview, The Hall Monitors were warming up, and I was distracted on several occasions by how good they are. Real nice people too. They play in DC a lot, you should go see them.
• Birdlips (www.myspace.com/birdlipsmusic): Birdlips is a Charlottesville duo playing with The Blackjacks (www.myspace.com/blackjacksmusic), another great DC rock band, at Jammin Java on Dec. 28th. I checked them out on MySpace and I was blown away. Really phenomenal acoustic-guitar driven music, very rhythmic and melodic. I must have listened to “Some Kind of Death” at least 4 times yesterday. Singer Cliff Usher has a great raspy, soulful voice. I always appreciate men who sing like real men, but recently more so than ever given the current state of music, which is filled with whiny emo pussies and Fall Out Boy type douche bags.

Got a great unsigned band I should know about? Leave a comment or e-mail me.

This blog will be an interesting illustration of what lyric writing has been like for me for the past few weeks…

As Charles has alluded to several times, our band has a difficult time with lyrics. I suppose as the lead singer I should take up the responsibility of writing lyrics because I will be singing them, and over the past few weeks I’ve been writing like Earnest Hemmingway in heat. Yes, there have been some struggles, but for the most part I think I’ve been moving along swimmingly. And that, my friends, is rare for a man of few words and a limited vocabulary.

The problem is I have some pretty limiting self-imposed restraints to lyric writing. Here, let me list them:

1) I will not write about love or girls, sex, booze, or drugs.

There are many reasons for this set of restraints, the most obvious being that every good song written on these subjects has already been put together. I really cannot offer any insight that wouldn’t be specific to myself and thus, boring for everyone else.

2) I refuse to put myself into my lyrics.

It is self-indulgent and narcissistic to write about your problems and actions. I have enough ego to go around; I do not feel the need to convince others that I am important. In the event that a first person narrative slips into the lyrics, it is never the intention that the content represent my life or those around me. Not that this comparison is prefect, but it’s similar to the process by which Eminem uses first person narrative. I would prefer to tell a story of reprehensible action and morality through the eyes of the perpetrator, and that is the instance in which the “I” can be useful.

3) I would always prefer philosophical exploration over subjects of other sorts.

This is possibly the least “rock” thing anyone could ever say, but the bands I respect most (The Clash, Radiohead, Q and Not U) are very philosophical, although in entirely unique ways. Radiohead are really constantly exploring the metaphysical, while both Q and Not U and The Clash are exploring ethics. The best lyrics that Charles or I have ever written were borne of existentialism. The trick is not to over-do the philosophical rhetoric, and that is not always the easiest thing to do. While it may seem self-indulgent and pretentious to try to take on these subjects, it’s more of an attempt at something difficult than an assertion of my intellectual superiority. And while I often fail to effectively tackle these subjects, I still find the process fulfilling.

So after I finished writing the lyrics to “Oh, Backwards” and “Friends Like Us” (new song we start our sets with), I ran out of quick ideas. So, like any good liberal, I turned to the New York Times for content.

One of my favorite philosophers and film-makers, Errol Morris(Mr. Death, Vernon Florida, Fog of War), writes a blog for the NYT. Errol Morris is an epistemologist, constantly trying to answer the question of what constitutes knowledge. His first film, Vernon, Florida, explores a town in which the entire citizenry is running an insurance scam by intentionally cutting off their fingers at the digits. His most recent blog in the New York Times explores the variety of ways one can light an object in a photograph, and how difficult it is to trace the origin of that light back from the finished product given the number of variables involved. It’s difficult to summarize, but it traces back to Errol Morris’ fascination with the flimsy reliability of sensory perception.

To make a long story short, I am working on turning this into a song, the basic outline of which is currently in the works. I have always thought that there is nothing more interesting than those who dogmatically believe X, Y and Z are true, even in the face of visual evidence to the contrary. Somewhat conversely, I also think believing anything dogmatically which is SUPPORTED by visual evidence is fascinating (and possibly misguided) because our sensory perception is so often wrong. To me, this process is song-worthy.

This will be the rare instance in which the lyrics and the music are constructed at the same time. We’ll see how it goes.

Several months ago when Amy Winehouse was on the cover of every music mag on the shelves, I think I made a statement that went something like “Fuck Amy Winehouse. She’s just the next Joss Stone.” Now I think that was a ridiculous statement.

In my view, in order to qualify as an artist you have to have more than a great voice. It’s fine to do a few covers, but when your most identifiable song was created and made popular by someone else (Joss Stone: Fell in Love With A Girl) you’re not worth a whole lot. This, of course, is in the modern era. It’s fine that Aretha Franklin’s greatest works were written by other people. She still qualifies as an artist. But I’m hesitant of labeling singers as “great” these days when I know how much can be done in production to make an average singer sound great. So for me, Joss Stone is just a very good singer, but she needs more than that.

But Amy Winehouse is not Joss Stone; her work is filled with vitriol, anger, and edge. I don’t like her slower, more melancholy work, but I love “Rehab”. I will defend this position against Charles, Spencer, or whoever else chooses to challenge me on this point. We bitch and moan about how the modern pop artist has distanced herself from the purity and strength of blues-influenced pop, or how the Rhythm and Blues of ‘60’s Motown doesn’t have enough of a place in modern music. Then an artist comes along with clear and proper influence, and we deride her for any other reason imaginable. I’ve even heard the argument that she’s not hot enough to be a pop artist. Fucking ridiculous.

Maybe the reason Amy Winehouse is a polarizing figure has more to do with our modern confusion over the public persona of our rockstars than with her music. Certainly, sex, drugs, and rock and roll is boring, and it seems that we now want our artists to be hardworking and brilliant in a different way. Or maybe I’m just getting too old. But I don’t think Amy Winehouse is manufacturing the excesses of rock and roll with her work; I think she is genuinely fucked up. And I like my fucked up artists, be it Jeff Buckley, Tom Waits, or even Thom Yorke and the Arcade Fire. None of those artists are fucked up in the same way, but they all have an element of discontent that seems to drive them forward. I like anger and discontent in my music. I can’t stand “love songs” and would be a clam if no-one ever wrote another one. It doesn’t have to be anger, per se, but the role of artists is to magnify our inadequacies and faults in order to point them back at us. Maybe discontent and absurdity are better words to describe it. Since we’re now too self-absorbed as a culture to enjoy a good protest song, it has to be about the inadequacy and absurdity of the individual. To this end, I feel that Amy Winehouse and these other artists genuinely understand both their own faults and the specific faults of others. And that, my friends, makes her better than Joss Stone.

Last night I was fortunate enough to get back from Pennsylvania early enough to attend a jazz concert featuring two sets of immensely talented jazz, one from Jason Moran and one from The Bad Plus, at GWU’s Lisner Auditorium. Both sets were phenomenal yet only one received a standing ovation: The Bad Plus. This was disturbing to me because 1) the musicianship of Jason Moran and his band was unparalleled, 2) Moran was the headliner (though he surprisingly played first), and 3) The Bad Plus is all white and all but one of Moran’s 8-piece band was black (95% of the audience was white).

I have all kinds of theories on why this happened. I’ll throw out one of them, but I’d really like to hear feedback from you, dear reader.

My biggest one theory is that I don’t think the audience that was there for The Bad Plus is a real “jazz” audience. The Bad Plus’ jazz cred is beyond question, but a lot of their fans know them from their covers of rock songs; i.e., people that wouldn’t normally listen to jazz. They don’t appreciate that without the Monks and Coltranes and Parkers of the world we wouldn’t have The Bad Plus. The same is seen in pop music too. Justin Timberlake is hailed for essentially sounding like a black man; Elvis is the “king of rock and roll,” even though that music was invented by the likes of Little Richard and other black musicians. Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones gain massive fame by basing most of their music on blues progressions and riffs developed decades before by black pioneers. (NOTE: I’m not indicating the white artists here; they almost universally acknowledge the debt they owe to black musicians before them. I am indicting white audiences and critics though.)

So, it begs the question: What is wrong with white people that so many of us seemingly don’t give credit to the originators of the music we love? Moreover, why do we seem to not even care about what came before? Is it just a problem with white people, or do all music fans need a history lesson? (Also, to what degree is this indicative of people’s ignorance of history in general?)

These are massive, open-ended questions for a reason. The time is yours, please comment. I just want to open a dialog on these kinds of things.