Prick Up Your Ears 2008

A good friend of mine (with impeccable taste) generally sends out an annual "best albums of the year" list via email to a select group of friends... This year he has posted it on a friend's blog for easy sharing.

Click the photo to read his comments on the top 10, and several honorable mentions.

Go check it out and discuss the merits and pitfalls of his list (or come up with you own)!

All thanks to Greg Stump... who deserves all glory (and ridicule) for the list.

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Hymns to the Electoral College

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)


Don't know if you've heard about this yet, but apparently there's going to be an election tomorrow. I guess it's sort of a big deal.

To inspire you to participate in your civic duties, we hereby present a mixture of sonic delights, all themed in some overt fashion toward the concept of a free and democratic nation -- some more cynically than others. So skip school, ditch out on your work day, or just wake up before noon you lazy unemployed bastard, and spend your day at the polls. If you happen to see George W. voting at the very next booth, be sure to give him Tragically Hipster's regards, and tell him to not to let the door hit him in the ass on his way out.

On the Mixtape:

1) "This Lands is Your Land" by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
2) "Pindar" by The Shapeshifters
3) "California Über Alles" by Dead Kennedeys
4) "Rock the Nation" by Michael Franti & Spearhead
5) "Imagine / Walk on the Wild Side" by RX featuring George W. Bush
6) "(I'm in Love With) Margaret Thatcher" by Notsensibles
7) "Behavior Modification / We Will Rock You (Bipartisan Mix)" by Emergency Broadcast Network
8) "Mass Destruction (George W. Mix)" by Faithless
9) "What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes" by Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
10) "That's What a Pimp Does (Obama Mix)" by DJ Excel
11) "Chocolate City" by Parliament
12) "George Bush Doesn't Like Black People" by The Legendary K.O.
13) "Election Day" by Arcadia
14) "Alles Neu" by Peter Fox
15) "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Rebekah Del Rio and the Section Quartet

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Dancing With the Devil By the Pale Moonlight

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)


This is for when the radio is broken and crackles like uranium orchids.
This is for when the fohn-wind rattles the telegraph wires like a handful of bones.
This is for when dream ambulances skitter through the streets at midnight.
This is for when you get caught in a sleep-riot and the sky is out of order.
This is for when your sex is full of voodoo.
This is for when your clothes are imaginary.
This is for when your flesh creeps and never comes back.
All Hallow's Eve is perhaps our all-time favorite holiday here at Tragically Hipster headquarters, and so accordingly we produce this week a mix of fiendish devilry to dance by. Dark scores; satanic rhythms; tales of terror; flesh of the undead; ghoulishly galvanizing beats; things that go bump-bump in the night -- we provide it all here in a single conveniently streaming package, with special guest spots reserved for appearances by Alfred Hitchcock and Vincent Price, the season's patron saints.

On the Mixtape:

1) "Music to Be Murdered By" by Alfred Hitchcock
2) "This is Halloween" by Danny Elfman
3) "Somebody's Watching Me (Thriller Mix)" by Rockwell featuring Michael Jackson and Vincent Price
4) "Pet Semetary" by Ramones
5) "At the Munsters'" by The Munsters
6) "Magic and Ecstasy (The Power of Christ Mix)" by Ennio Morricone
7) "Spellbound" by Siouxsie & The Banshees
8) "A Christian Perspective" by Mike Warnke
9) "No One Lives Forever" by Oingo Boingo
10) "Hell" by Squirrel Nut Zippers
11) "Red Right Hand" by Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds
12) "Halloween (Theme)" by John Carpenter
13) "The Hanging Garden" by The Cure
14) "1-800 SUICIDE" by Gravediggaz
15) "Living Dead Girl (Naked Exorcism Mix)" by Rob Zombie
16) "The Horror" by RJD2
17) "Mask" by Bauhaus
18) "Bela Lugosi's Dead (The Blood is the Life Mix)" by Nouvelle Vague
19) "Blue Flowers Revisited" by Dr. Octagon
20) "Monologue" by She Wants Revenge
21) "March of the Sinister Ducks" by The Sinister Ducks
22) "In Heaven" by Miranda Sex Garden
23) "The Hour of Parting" by Alfred Hitchcock and Danny Elfman

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*It's fair to say that "Magic and Ecstasy" is pretty much the only redeeming thing to come from the otherwise unwisely-conceived Exorcist sequel, Exorcist II: The Heretic. In a spectacular display of what it means to be unclear on the concept, John Boorman's sequel took everything that made the original film compelling -- its atmosphere, its subtlety, its impossibly solid grounding in reality -- and threw it all out the window in favor of pseudo-science and cheap gothic thrills:


*Improbably, the Sinister Ducks is a collaboration between Bauhaus bassist David J and comic book writer Allan Moore. A one-off single in the early 80's, the pair would later work together again on Moore's album The Moon and Serpent Grand Egyptian Theatre of Marvels.

*One of the most memorable sequences in David Lynch's first film Eraserhead occurs when a lady in a radiator sings a song about the glories of the afterlife, appropriately titled In Heaven. The song has become an unlikely favorite of alt-rock bands everywhere: Bauhaus performed a cover at their final live show of their pre-reunion career; The Pixies' version is a fan favorite; and then of course there's the Miranda Sex Garden take featured here. But for pure surrealism, nothing beats the original:



Dancing With the Devil By the Pale Moonlight Mixtape

Special Note for Sarah Treem: Meredith Monk at REDCAT

A few months back I took in a performance of Sarah Treem's play A Feminine Ending at South Coast Repertory. Though it was by and large an enjoyable piece, the music lover in me couldn't help but be irked when the main character -- a young wannabe composer with the aggravating name of Amanda Blue -- monologued at length about how she had searched extensively but had yet to discover a single major female composer. Sitting in my seat, I could think of at least three, and the fact that the character couldn't meant either that she was remarkably uneducated in her chosen field or that the playwright who created her had deliberately skimped in her research, probably for thematic expediency's sake.

All of which is a roundabout way of getting to the point, which is that next week the Los Angeles REDCAT center will host the area premier of Songs of Ascension by Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton.


Songs of Ascension Preview
The REDCAT website, ever willing to reduce its hyperbole to the merest whisper, describes the performance thusly: "Soaring to a grand scale of artistic gesture and ambition, this major new multimedia work reunites two of the most influential artists in the United States today. Monk’s signature form of incantatory music-theater finds an uncanny match in Hamilton’s sensuous visual artistry as the full-evening piece channels an exploration of the spiritual, vocal, and physical notions of ascension across geography and time."

Future Amanda Blues of our readership would do well to check out Peter Greenaway's documentary on Ms. Monk, thoughtfully broken up into component parts and posted for all of the internet to enjoy on the ever-useful YouTube:


(Further segments of the documentary can be found here.)

WHERE: The REDCAT theater in Los Angeles.
WHEN: October 28th through November 2nd, 2008.
COST: $30-$35 general admission, $24-$28 students
MORE INFO: REDCAT Website

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: 20 Years of They Might Be Giants' "Lincoln"

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)

For my maiden voyage here at Tragically Hipster, "Greg" has given me the opportunity to host this week's Mixtape Monday. I thought I'd begin by honoring an album that had a marked impact on me as a musician, artist and person in general and that recently turned 20: They Might Be Giants' masterpiece, Lincoln.

It must have been shortly after the release of this album when They Might Be Giants first came to my attention. I was 11 at the time and have clear memories of watching a Dr. Demento video special on cable when the bizarre video for "Ana Ng" popped up on the screen. I know I had never seen anything like it before. What I was witnessing was post-modern MTV (before it was called that), a sort of Dadaist concept for music video. (TMBG would further explore this concept two years later with their video for "Birdhouse in Your Soul," in which dozens of people in identical plaid shirts and masks marched in a circle, wearing signs that said "STOP ROCK VIDEO.")

But more than anything, it was the song that grabbed me...especially that unforgettable chorus, with its jangly instrumentation and frenetic recitation of long sentences, like some nonsensical version of "Schoolhouse Rock":

Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow of each others' majestic presence
Listen Ana, hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you

I don't remember getting ahold of the tape of Lincoln until the next summer, which I was spending at my grandparents' house in Palm Desert (as I often did). On that same day, I also picked up "Weird Al" Yankovic's In 3-D album, which would jump start another, albeit minor, obsession. (Unlike TMBG, that obsession ran out of gas around 1991.)

Those two albums became my soundtrack for the summer of 1989. I would sit and play both albums over and over on my grandma's old portable cassette player: a little box with a handle, a crude speaker and big white keys on it.

I had absolutely no comparison points to draw from for Lincoln, which often makes me wonder if it was the first true "alternative" album I ever owned. (I had picked up 10,000 Maniacs' In My Tribe two years earlier, but that's not even on the same planet as Lincoln.) It didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before (or since, really). These were skewered pop songs in a myriad of different styles using synthesizers, guitars, drum machines (it would be another four years before TMBG would begin recruiting live musicians for their recordings and stage shows), brass, zithers, banjos, glockenspiels and even a string quartet.

I would often tell people the band reminded me of "Weird Al," but in a few years' time it became clear to me that I was making this comparison based largely on perfunctory aesthetic qualities. For instance, like Al, TMBG's John Linnell often sings with a nasal whine. (Oddly enough, Al's overly earnest balladeer voice also smacks of John Flansburgh.) And of course there's TMBG's predominant use of accordion, certainly a rarity in the pop world of the late 1980s.

And then there are those lyrics, many of which often come off as "silly" (and surely, some of them are) but some of which prove to be deeper and occasionally even profound upon closer inspection. I remember poring over the lyric sheet of Lincoln continuously as I listened. Songs like "Cowtown" were obvious fun, but what of "Purple Toupee"?

I remember the year I went to camp
Heard about some lady named Selma and some blacks
Somebody put their fingers in the president's ears
And it wasn't too much later they came out with Johnson's wax
I remember the book depository
Where they crowned the king of Cuba
That's all I can think of, but I'm sure there's something else
Way down inside me I can feel it coming back

Nowadays, it seems obvious that the song is a brilliant play on words about American history...about someone who misremembers significant events (or, at the very least, a speaker who is trying to mask them...an unreliable narrator of sorts).

At the time, though, the "Johnson's wax" line made me laugh and that was all I cared about.

The full potency of some of these songs (especially the sad ones) didn't hit me until years later. For instance, Linnell's perfectly crafted "They'll Need a Crane" encapsulates the disintegration of a relationship in a way that few songs do, particularly in the frenetic bridge section, in which Linnell almost free associates:

Don't call me at work again, oh no
The boss still hates me, I'm just tired
And I don't love you anymore
And there's a restaurant we should check out where the other nightmare people like to go
I mean nice people
Baby wait, I didn't mean to say nightmare...

The band saves its most daring statement for the last track...the devastating indictment of power, greed, narcissism and mind control, "Kiss Me, Son of God," a song whose lyrics are so powerful and clever that they beg to be printed in full:

I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage
Called "the blood of the exploited working class"
But they've overcome their shyness
Now they're calling me Your Highness
And a world screams "kiss me, son of God!"

I destroyed a bond of friendship and respect
Between the only people left who'd even look me in the eye
Now I laugh and make a fortune
Off the same ones that I tortured
And a world screams "kiss me, son of God!"

I look like Jesus
So they say
But Mr. Jesus is very far away
Now you're the only one here who can tell me if it's true
That you love me and I love me

And to think that my 12 year old mind wondered if this song meant they were a Christian band...

Lincoln presents an interesting dichotomy in that it contains many of the band's most profound songs (some of which are incredibly somber, not something the band is typically known for) seated next to just as many that are unabashedly silly. Linnell's dour analysis of a relationship, "I've Got a Match," is followed by Flansburgh's ridiculous "Santa's Beard," in which the narrator alleges that his girlfriend is cheating on him with a Santa Claus impersonator. Flansburgh's mournful "Piece of Dirt" sits alongside the ridiculously glorious, faux military march of "Pencil Rain." ("They're searching the yonder blue/they look out for number two.") For every "They'll Need a Crane" you have a "Cowtown." You get the picture.

And yet, somehow, this collection of songs works well together as a cohesive whole. Lincoln, like a good chunk of TMBG's work, is like a funhouse: the listener is invited to enter this strange, surreal world of bizarre sounds and cryptic concepts, but somehow one is reassured that everything is going to be alright and the exit will be found. I would cite the band's unfailing ability to craft incredibly strong melodies as one of the main reasons for this. (In a BBC interview years later, Flansburgh would claim that "melody is our secret weapon.")

I kind of put TMBG to the side until the following year, when some girls in my class did a dance routine to the band's cover of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" for the school talent show. When a friend told me the band was They Might Be Giants, I recognized them as "those Lincoln guys." At the time, I had no idea they had continued to release material. (Back in the pre-internet days, it was much more difficult to keep up with current releases, especially when (a) you were attempting to follow an "alternative" band and (b) you were an only child.) Eventually, I would get ahold of that album, Flood, as well as Apollo 18, which both kicked my fanaticism until full gear. I even joined the fan club, a phenomenon that now seems to be nothing more than a sad relic of a bygone era in today's world of MySpace, Facebook and "e-mailing lists." Back then, it was a special thing to get a postcard or newsletter in the mail every few months (sometimes even hand addressed!) announcing tour dates or forthcoming material.

30 discs, 14 concerts, hundreds of mp3s and scads of autographs, set lists, t-shirts and assorted memorabilia later, TMBG is still one of my favorite bands, and while I don't listen to them nearly as much as I did in, say, 1995, they've become, to paraphrase a friend of mine, "like old friends." Even though many would argue that some of their initial charm was lost after their initial duo phase was over, I know they will put out a good to great album every 2-3 years. I always have to see them whenever they're in town, as I know they can always be trusted to put on a great show. Their never-ending output of material would make even Prince blush, and while new tracks often slip past me all the time, I know I can enjoy them when I finally get ahold of them.

But it all started with Lincoln, that bizarre little album that made no sense to me at age 12 yet made all the sense in the world. It is still one of my top five albums of all time.

I've often said that They Might Be Giants is a band you either instinctively get or you don't. Their aesthetic either clicks and resonates with the listener (and often comforts them in some strange, inexplicable way) or comes off as annoying, quirky "novelty music." But to dismiss the band as mere "novelty" or "comedy" is to do them a great disservice. Mssrs. Linnell and Flansburgh are supreme pop craftsmen and Post-Modernists of the highest order.

As such, TMBG fans and fanatics often come off as relentlessly cultish and obsessive (traits which yours truly certainly shares from time to time). One of TMBG's b-sides contained a snippet of a conversation between two people on a conference call who had unknowingly left a message on TMBG's famous Dial-A-Song service. The woman had called the number after seeing it in a cryptic advertisement in the Village Voice. She may have unwittingly summed up the entire oeuvre and strange pull of the band when she said to her call partner "well, I can't explain it...'cause I don't know what it is!"

Lincoln was my first indoctrination into this strange little cult that I've been a member of for almost 20 years now. For this Mixtape Monday, I've plundered my vaults and assembled an alternate version of the album, culling tracks from demo tapes, rare EPs, bootlegs, concerts, web-circulated mp3s and even TMBG's own short-lived e-Music rarities service TMBG Unlimited. (Unfortunately, I could not find any alternate versions of four tracks, so I've retained the album versions in those instances.) Some of the versions even feature slight lyrical variations.

For those who know and love this album as I do, this Mixtape will hopefully prove to be a treat. And for those who've never heard it, maybe this will inspire you to give the band another look.

Join the cult. It's free! (When you call from Brooklyn.)

On the Mixtape:


1) "Ana Ng" (Live at the Sony Music Studios, NYC, 10-19-94)
2) "Cowtown" (Demo)
3) "Lie Still, Little Bottle" (Live on Record Guide, 1988)
4) "Purple Toupee" (Live at the Sony Music Studios, NYC, 10-19-94)
5) "Cage and Aquarium" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
6) "Where Your Eyes Don't Go" (Live on the Frank O'Toole Show)
7) "Piece of Dirt" (Live in Chicago, 1992)
8) "Mr. Me" (TMBG's Other Thing, featuring the Velcro Horns)
9) "Pencil Rain" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
10) "The World's Address" (Joshua Fried Remix)
11) "I've Got a Match" (Live in Atlanta, 6-26-87)
12) "Santa's Beard" (Album Version)
13) "You'll Miss Me" (Live at Irving Plaza, 2-12-97)
14) "They'll Need a Crane" (Album Version)
15) "Shoehorn with Teeth" (Live at the Bowery Ballroom, 10-21-99)
16) "Stand On Your Own Head" (Album Version)
17) "Snowball in Hell" (Album Version)
18) "Kiss Me, Son of God" (Alternate Version)

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*Tracks 1 & 4 are both from the very rare college promo "Live!! New York City," a full concert that was put out in a cardboard sleeve in 1994. This was sent to me by a kind soul in Hawaii years and years ago when I was a regular poster at the tmbg.org forums. This version of "Ana Ng" was substantially remixed and even overdubbed when it was finally issued commercially on the live compilation Severe Tire Damage in 1998.

*This demo of "Cowtown" comes from the band's original demo tape from 1985. Many of the songs from this tape were later remixed and/or overdubbed for proper release on their 1986 debut album They Might Be Giants.

*Tracks 6-8 were issued as part of the TMBG Unlimited mp3 service in 2001.

*Tracks 10 & 18 are single b-sides and were issued on the 1991 compilation Miscellaneous T.

*All other tracks (bar "album versions") are rare and previously unreleased.


LINKS:
Lincoln (Alternate Version) Mixtape
Lincoln by They Might Be Giants
Miscellaneous T by They Might Be Giants
Then: The Earlier Years by They Might Be Giants
Severe Tire Damage by They Might Be Giants

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Melodies of the Jumping Fleas

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)


Depending upon whom you ask, the word "ukulele" means either "the gift that came from here" or "jumping/dancing fleas" (after how a performer's fingers appear when playing the instrument). Or, alternatively, it means neither of those two things.

While the etymology of the ukulele may be under some debate, Tragically Hipster's love of its sound is not. On this week's mix you'll find tunes drenched in uke-playing, only lightly glazed with uke-playing (deal with it), and lyrically obsessed with uke-playing; there are tales of true love lost and gained and painful and even an implication that it might be on occasion joyous; existential meditations from Sweden and Huckabees; pop songs from former Beatles and current Fires; and in general a wealth of uke-centric (and uke-tangential) tracks. Do we make mixes like this because we love you, or out of a nepotisitic desire to inspire our fellow Tragical Hipsters to learn how to play an instrument of such magnificence? Like the origin of the name "ukulele," we may never know for sure.

On the Mixtape:

1) "With My Little Ukulele in My Hand" by George Formby
2) "Taint No Sin to Take Off Your Skin" by Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys
3) "Ukulele Me!" by Stephin Merritt
4) "When You Were Mine" by Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele
5) "Little Bit" by Lykke Li
6) "The Opposite of Hallelujah" by Jens Lekman
7) "The Boys Are Back in Town (KCRW Session)" by Jon Brion
8) "You You You You You" by The 6ths
9) "Ram On" by Paul McCartney
10) "Your Arms Around Me" by Jens Lekman
11) "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing" by The Magnetic Fields
12) "True Love is Not Nice" by Yayahoni
13) "Moana Chimes" by Jon Brion featuring Adam Sandler and Emily Watson
14) "Poison and Snakes" by Liz Janes
15) "Such a Color" by Shugo Tokumaru
16) "Keep the Car Running" by Arcade Fire
17) "You Keep Me Always Living in Sin" by Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys
18) "Elephant Gun" by Beirut
19) "Knock Yourself Out" by Jon Brion

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*George Formby, a legend with the Ukulele-Banjo, was no stranger to controversy. His song "With My Little Ukulele in My Hand" was banned for "lewdness of lyric" back in the 20's, because... well, let's just say that if you listen carefully, you'll find that the "ukulele" Formby keeps in his hand during this song is a largely euphemistic one.

*Stephin Merritt pops up three times on this playlist, under three different guises and with three different lead singers tackling his songs. Aside from "Ukulele Me!", there's "You You You You You", released under the name The 6ths, and "Nothing Matters When We're Dancing", possibly my favorite song on the mix, released with his primary band The Magnetic Fields. Merritt's unapologetic love for the bizarre and Byzantine naturally led him to a generous use of the ukulele in his various compositions.

*There's something of a glut of cover versions in the rarefied world of ukulelelism; it's an easy lure to take a song that is self-important or distinctively tied to a specific genre (dance, punk, etc.) and then twist it on its head by playing the whole thing on the toy-like ukulele (see Jon Brion's admittedly novel cover of "The Boys Are Back in Town" for a quick example). The problem is that the novelty wears off incredibly quickly. Covers that are still interesting songs in and of themselves, that use the ukulele's unique sound to enhance rather than detract from the song they're covering, are few and far between. But they do exist, as Dent May's cover of Prince's "When You Were Mine" and Yayahoni's take on Jonathan Richman's "True Love is Not Nice" attest.

*Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys have a regular slot at the Steve Allen Theater on the first Thursday of every month. Klein obliges with the ukulele and vocals, while Her Boys provide the 1920's early jazz-pop backing flavor. "Taint No Sin to Take Off Your Skin" and "You Keep Me Always Living in Sin" are two excellent reasons not to pass up next month's show.

LINKS:
Melodies of the Jumping Fleas Mixtape
Listen to the Banned by Various Artists (including George Formby)
Paradise Wobble by Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys
Showtunes by Stephin Merritt
Dent May & His Magnificent Ukulele (MySpace Page)
Little Bit (CD Single) by Lykke Li
Night Falls Over Kortedala by Jens Lekman
Pieces of April by The 6ths
Ram by Paul McCartney
69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields
Punch Drunk Love (Score) by Jon Brion
Poison & Snakes by Liz Janes
Night Piece by Shugo Tokumaru
Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
Living in Sin by Janet Klein & Her Parlor Boys
Lon Gisland by Beirut
I Heart Huckabees (Score) by Jon Brion

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: U2 Redux (Boy / October / War Deluxe Edition Remasters)

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. Mixtapes will be kept online only until the next week's column is up, so listen while you can. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)

I originally wrote this column two months ago, but an unfortunate quirk of timing saw the Muxtape servers go offline less than half an hour after its initial posting. For this second go round, we've switched to the more reliable and, y'know, actually legal 8tracks service. Since it's a longer-than-normal column this week, you may just want to skip on down to the actual Mixtape portion toward the bottom. Go ahead. We won't judge you.

It can suck, falling out of love with a band.

The first single I ever bought was a double A-side of U2's "New Year's Day" and "Two Hearts Beat as One"¹. I didn't know much about the band -- this was in their pre-Joshua Tree mega-stardom days -- I just knew that "New Year's Day" had a lot of bass in it, and I've always had a strange kind of love for that frequently under-appreciated instrument.

I took the single home and played it so often that I all but wore out the grooves. At the time I knew nothing about the Polish solidarity movement that inspired the song (and truth be told, I still don't know much about it), but I knew that there was something haunting about its darkly aggressive opening notes. I doubt I was more than seven or eight at the time -- certainly not old enough to have a real handle on my feelings -- and yet something in me responded instinctually to Bono's yearning croon

Say it's true, it's true

That we can break through

Though torn in two

We can be one

And for the next fifteen years or so, U2 was my band.

In a very real sense, U2 taught me how to love music. After I played the "New Year's Day" single down into near-incomprehensibility, I moved on to the album that it issued from, War, and was delighted to discover that the version of "New Year's Day" contained therein was a full minute-and-a-half longer than the one found on the seven inch. The idea of a "single edit," that a song could be cut and cropped for distribution to different mediums, seemed enticingly exotic to me, like I had discovered some secret about how musicians worked that no one else was privy to. I listened to each one of their tracks with an intensive concentration, studying every note lest they should betray some larger, heretofore unhinted-at secret.

There were no further technical revelations to follow, but my attention to detail paid off in other ways. After a while it occurred to me to think about why they would use certain instruments in one song but not in another, to question why a turn of phrase in the lyrics of War's first song would be repeated in its last. And slowly over the years that followed, I began to put together an understanding of music that went beyond gosh I like how this song sounds and delved into issues of intent and meaning, of purpose and art. It was an autodidact's music appreciation course, centered on the albums of four lads from Ireland.

I became a rabid fan, consuming everything the band released. Not just albums and singles, but guest appearances, charity compilation albums, movies soundtracks with slightly alternate mixes; my selection of U2 bootlegs is larger than my collection of most other bands' albums. In the days before artists' discographies were exhaustively cataloged on internet websites, I became my own sort of mini-expert on the band².

My musical love-affair with U2 lasted for their next seven albums, each one more interesting than the last, until it finally came to an unceremonious halt during a 2001 concert at the Anaheim Pond in support of their then-latest album, All That You Can't Leave Behind. It wasn't the first U2 concert I'd seen -- it wasn't even the tenth -- but it would be the last.

The set that night had consisted of a hodge-podge of "classic" U2 tracks, mixed with a healthy smattering of tunes from Leave Behind, the first U2 album that I would have defined as "sub-par," but which had proven itself to be inexplicably popular. Just before the evening's mid-point, they launched into "New Year's Day" to a tumult of applause, when a unbidden revelation struck me: U2 wasn't a band any more. They were a nostalgia act.

With a strange, stark clarity, it became suddenly apparent to me that they weren't dusting off old tracks from their previous albums and giving them a healthy workout as they had in tours past; this time they were simply working their way dutifully through the back-catalog, much like a Vegas revival act or, more charitably, a second-generation Rolling Stones. Like the album which the tour was accompanying, this was U2 on autopilot; a giant, pulsing two-hour version of a high school reunion "remember when?" conversation, where you sit around rehashing the details of a shared past not because it was such a glorious time in all your lives, but because otherwise none of you would have a thing to say to one another. There was something achingly depressing about this realization, as though I were one of those stifled housewives in Victorian novels who wake up one day and finally see themselves to be leading a loveless, oppressed existence.

I couldn't listen to U2 for a long time after that. I just didn't see the point.

Every time I put on one of their albums it felt like I was vainly trying to recapture the magic of those early years of infatuation. Maybe U2 was just a phase, and I had finally grown out of them, like being love-sick over an oblivious girl in high school. You grow up; learn not to waste your time on those who don't return your affections; and hopefully move on to fuller, more mature relationships that are still alight with passion, though perhaps not that unique brand of passion that so controlled your world during your teenage years.

When U2 announced last year that they were re-releasing their first three albums in deluxe remastered editions, I wasn't particularly interested. I hadn't listened to a U2 album in six years, and while both Boy and October were interesting records, they were never amongst the best of the band's output to begin with.

But War had been an immensely formative album for me, and my CD copy was scratched and skipping from years of abuse. Almost on a whim I put in a pre-order on Amazon.com. When the album came a few weeks ago, I put it on out of fiscal obligation more than anything else, expecting to hit the stop button before I reached the end of the first track.

I listened to War twice that night, all the way through.

The next day, I listened to it again. And then the day after, once more.

What a fucking great album.

Like every band worth the trouble, U2 evolved over the years through a number of distinct phases. Their first three albums form what I like to think of as their "Christian Warrior" trilogy. These albums feature a kind of passionate aggression not seen on U2's later albums, fueled in large part by Bono and The Edge's intense faith, not simply in religion as a personal experience, but in religion as a transformative political force.

Here "peace" is not an idea or a restive state of being, but a breathing, beating thing that must be fought for, a teething philosophy that is sometimes a struggle to accept, with the easy allure of violence readily at hand. Though it's tempting to dismiss U2's politics as pretentious or eye-rollingly simplistic, I'm struck, listening to these albums decades later, by just how cynical the band really was. Indeed, most of their early songs spit and howl at the injustice of the world around them, and what optimism there is to be found comes not from the naïve belief that activism will make the world a better place, but from the decision to fight on anyway, if only so as to go out kicking:

I believe in the third world war

I believe in the atomic bomb

I believe in the Powers That Be

But they won't overpower me³

Lyrically, Bono has always had a gift for album-long metaphors that he plays with and expands upon in each track, without falling into the trap of making a direct "concept" album. On War, he uses a motif of divided lovers as a stand-in for a divided Ireland, which then expands to encompass a divided Cold War world; and the act of singing as a rough analogue for political action ("How long must we sing this song?" forms the chorus of both the rebel-rousing opening number "Sunday Bloody Sunday," and the hopefully meditative closer, "'40'").

I doubt I'll ever see U2 in concert again. Their last album, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, was if anything even less impressive than All That You Can't Leave Behind. When I can bring myself to check out the set lists for their recent shows, they seem filled with the same "hey folks, you might remember this little ditty"-type mentality that finally broke me seven years ago.

But that's alright. Even if my fandom is only an echo of what it used to be, I'm delighted to find that I can still take immense joy from their earlier albums, not as a remember-how-good-it-once-was nostalgia trip, but as works in their own right, still as vital and pulsing today as they were when first released.

And my breathe still catches, just a tiny little bit, every time I hear the opening bass line to "New Year's Day."

On the Mixtape:

1) I Will Follow (%)

2) A Celebration (#)

3) Seconds (&)

4) 11 O'Clock Tick Tock (Single Mix) (%)

5) New Year's Day (7" Single Edit) (&)

6) The Electric Co. (%)

7) Like a Song... (&)

8) Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl (#)

9) Gloria (#)

10) Two Hearts Beat as One (&)

11) October (#)

12) "40" (&)

% = From the Boy Deluxe Edition reissue

# = From the October Deluxe Edition reissue

& = From the War Deluxe Edition reissue

Quick Notes on Select Songs:

*Though I defy you to guess it without checking War's liner notes, Seconds features lead vocals by The Edge.

*Martin Hannett was one of the most innovative producers of the post-punk period, putting his indelible stamp on everyone from Joy Division to the Psychedelic Furs. "11 O'Clock Tick Tock" is the only U2 song to be produced by Hannett, and one of only two songs (the other being "A Celebration") that were released as singles but which never made an appearance on any album.

*The original plan for October was to record a series of modern psalms, paeans of faith in a modern world sorely lacking in direction and values. But then the notebook containing the only copy of the as-yet-unrecorded album's lyrics were stolen by a fan during a concert in Seattle, and Bono was forced to improvise new lyrics live in the studio. The result was a mostly-lackluster disc, musically strong but meandering in theme and content. One of the few bright spots is the opening track "Gloria," a song which U2 had debuted on the road, and which consequently Bono had already memorized. The chorus to "Gloria" is the Latin invocation "Gloria in te Domine / Gloria exultate," which translate as "Glory in you, O Lord / Glory! Exalt him!", taken from the thirtieth Psalm.

*"40" is based on the fortieth Psalm, and hence the title. The Edge and Adam Clayton swapped places for its recording, with Edge playing bass and Clayton the guitar. Back when "40" was a staple of their live act, the two would repeat the swap for the show's finale.

--------------------------
[1] I also purchased a seven-inch of Huey Lewis' "The Heart of Rock and Roll" the same day, but there began and ended my flirtation with The News

[2] Even today, I barely have to reach into my memory to pluck out dozens of tidbits of meaningless trivia, the kind of pointless minutiae that only seems to really matter to you when you're young and in love. With only a cursory look at the tracklistings for the new Deluxe Edition reissues of Boy, October and War, I can tell you that they seem to have left off the instrumental and remixed versions of "October" done for the documentary They Call It an Accident, and that the versions of "Seconds" and "Like a Song..." featured on War are both slightly shorter than the ones on the MFSL "gold" CD pressings done in the mid-90's. I can tell you that in the nearly 30 years since its release as a single, "A Celebration" has never before been issued on compact disc, and that the "remix" version of "Tomorrow" found on October is actually a re-recording done in 1998 for the Common Ground compilation. There are only a handful of bands whose discographies I can claim to have such an intimate familiarity with, and almost without exception they're all bands I started listening to in high school or earlier, back in the halcyon days of my youthful passions.

[3] From "A Celebration," on the October rarities disc.

LINKS:
U2 Redux Mixtape
Boy Deluxe Edition
October Deluxe Edition
War Deluxe Edition
U2 Deluxe Edition Box Set

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Songs for Brian Evenson

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)


A month ago, I didn't have a single book by Brian Evenson. Today, I own almost all of them.

About three weeks ago I received a copy of the latest issue of McSweeney's Quaterly Concern. As I wrote at the time, Brian Evenson's fable "The Book and the Girl" was compelling enough that it inspired me to purchase a copy of his short story collection The Wavering Knife off Amazon in the hopes that the rest of his work would be as interesting as that single, brief story. And it was, more so than I could have hoped.

Before I even finished The Wavering Knife I put in an order for his first story collection, Altmann's Tongue, and then found myself adding his novel The Open Curtain to the cart (for the free shipping, of course). The next day, annoyed that my books had not yet magically arrived at my door, I traipsed down to the local used bookstore and picked up copies of Father of Lies and Contagion. I'm now knee-deep in Evenson books, and once I finish the four currently residing on my nightstand I still have Dark Property and The Din of Celestial Birds to purchase, and then I'll have to really buckle down and try to scrounge up a copy of his limited-run chapbook The Brotherhood of the Mutilation, which already sits high upon my list of Greatest Titles Ever. (If anyone out there in the internetdom can aide me in my chapbook-quest, please drop a note in the comments. It's my understanding that Mutilation has forevermore dissipated into the ether, but maybe one of you kindly hipsters can help a brother out.)

There's a future blog entry coming that will no doubt find me wallowing in the sickening hyperbole of my Evenson-love, but for the time being I'm going to satisfy myself with subjecting you good folks to a playlist comprised entirely of music that sounds, at least within the narrow confines of my own twisted imagination, like Brian Evenson's stories read.

Consequently this week's mixtape features chaotic noise-rock; dark southern-gothic country; murderous yarns; surrealistic narratives; industrial drones; much talk of religions and God and Jesus, none of it comforting; angry cellos mimicking angrier guitars; German horror-a cappella; forebodings of deaths and plagues and apocali; black humor and witty wordplay; all washed and spattered with a river's worth of cynicism and human hemoglobin. Many of these songs are amongst my all-time personal favorites, so it's perhaps little wonder that a writer whose work fits snugly in amongst them might curry some considerable favor with me.

On the Mixtape:

1) "Indestructible Life!" by Old Time Relijun
2) "The Plague" by Scott Walker
3) "Time Jesum Transeuntum et Non Riverentum"
by Nick Cave and The Dirty Three
4) "Halber Mensch" by Einstürzende Neubauten
5) "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen
6) "What We All Want" by Gang of Four
7) "Riding" by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
8) "Altmann's Tongue" by Brian Evenson, Tamarin & Xingu Hill
9) "Emission Curve" by Bruce Gilbert
10) "Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb" by Sterling Jubilee Singers
11) "Misery is the River of the World" by Tom Waits
12) "One" by Apocalyptica
13) "Death to Everyone (Peel Session)" by Will Oldham
14) "The Order of Death" by Public Image, Ltd.
15) "Hallelujah" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
16) "Session #13-1" by Hiroyuki Nagahsima

Quick Notes on Select Songs:
*Nick Cave and Brian Evenson have a similar obsession with religion, violence, and language, so its perhaps no shock to find two Cave songs on the mixtape this week -- and, indeed, I had to restrain myself from putting even more. Both "Time Jesum Transeuntum et Non Riverentum" and "Hallelujah" share that certain kind of surrealistic bent common to Evenson's storytelling: they seem to take place in a distinct world all their own, operating under very specific rules which we're never quite privy to. The result is a pair of songs premised in uncomfortable beauty, lovely in melody but with a strong undertow of confusion and despair lurking just beneath the surface.

*In 2005, Brian Evenson recorded an album with Tamarin & Xingu Hill based around readings from his book Altmann's Tongue. The titular story is read here in its entirety, and gives a good sense of what you're in for when you delve into Evenson's short fiction.

*A group of four cellists with a mean Metallica fetish, Apocalyptica manage to rise above the so-so conventionality of the "string quarter tribute to…" albums and deliver a cover of Metallica's "One" that somehow seems even darker and more oppressive than the original, this despite being a more elegant, spartan arrangement.

*"Session 13-1" is taken from the soundtrack to Shinji Aoyama's Eli, Eli Lema Sabachthani, about a future world that is reeling from a plague that makes all those who become infected with it lose all interest in life, and eventually commit suicide. There's no cure for it, but a pair of quasi-free-jazz musicians have found a way to minimize the effects through creating bizarre noise-pastiches that somehow mimmic the feeling of death within infected listeners. Much of the film's run time is spent watching these musicians at work building their songs, which can make for either a fascinating or deeply annoying viewing experience, dependant upon your interests and your temperment. It's not out on DVD domestically, but excellent subtitled copies can be obtained fairly readily through eBay.

LINKS:
Songs for Brian Evenson Mixtape
Brian Evenson's Official Website
Brian Evenson short stories online at Web del Sol
Brian Evenson's books on Amazon.com
Catharsis in Crisis by Old Time Relijun
Boy Child: The Best of Scott Walker 1967-1970 by Scott Walker
B-Sides & Rarities by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Halber Mensch by Einstürzende Neubauten
I'm Your Man by Leonard Cohen
Solid Gold by Gang of Four
Sings Greatest Palace Music by Bonnie 'Prince' Billy
Altmann's Tongue by Brian Evenson, Tamarin & Xingu Hill
Ab Ovo by Bruce Gilbert
Jesus Hits Like the Atom Bomb by Sterling Jubilee Singers
Blood Money by Tom Waits
Inquisition Symphony by Apocalyptica
This is What You Want... This is What You Get by Public Image, Ltd.
No More Shall We Part by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

MIXTAPE MONDAYS: Musique Français

(Every Monday at Tragically Hipster we'll feature a look at a band, performance, or vague musical concept, with an accompanying virtual mixtape for your listening pleasure. There's no need to thank us; it's just one more service we like to provide for you, our dedicated readers. Most of whom also write for this site.)

Tragically Hipster music idol Serge Gainsbourg,
taking a cigarette break and generally looking cooler than you.

DECLARATION:

The music on the mixtape this week is all in French, and was for the most part recorded in France. Most, though not quite all, of the performers heard here are themselves French nationals. Some of the music was recorded this decade, and some during decades past.  Much of the music is pop-oriented. Some of it is hip-hop. Two of the pieces are instrumental. At least four have been featured on movie soundtracks. 

Thank you for your continuing patronage.

DÉCLARATION :
Toute la musique sur le mixtape cette semaine est en français, et pour la plupart a été enregistrée en France. Les la plupart, cependant pas tout à fait toutes, des interprètes entendus ici sont eux-mêmes les ressortissants français. Une partie de la musique a été enregistrée cette décennie, et certains pendant des décennies au delà.  Une grande partie de la musique sauter-est orientée. Une partie de elle est hip-hop. Deux des morceaux sont instrumentaux. Au moins quatre ont été décrits sur des bandes sonores de film. Si vous trouvez la qualité de cette traduction manquant, gardez svp vos plaintes à vous-même. 

Merci de votre patronage continu.

On the Mixtape:

          1) "Mon Clan" by Shurik'n
          2) "Faust 72" by Dynastie Crisis
          3) "Requiem Pour un Con" by Serge Gainsbourg
          4) "La Marquise" by Guesch Patti
          5) "Disco Science" by Mirwais
          6) "Laisse Tomber Les Filles" by April March
          7) "Ne Me Quitte Pas" by Jacques Brel
          8) "La Bête et la Belle" by (The Real) Tuesday Weld featuring David Guez
          9) "Regarde" by IAM
          10) "Je Suis Bien" by Los Super Elegantes
          11) "Cybele's Reverie" by Stereolab
          12) "Milky Boy Bourgeois" by Stereo Total
          13) "Pop Fashion (B.O.F. La Piscine)" by Michel Legrand
          14) "Tel Que Tu Es" by Charlotte Gainsbourg
          15) "Oh Malheur Chez O'Malley" by Sébastien Tellier
          16) "Nid De Guêpes" by Akhenaton

LINKS:
Musique Français Mixtape
Ou Je Vis by Shurik'n
Ocean's 12 (Soundtrack) by Various Artists
Production by Mirwais
Paris in April by April March
Ne Me Quitte Pas by Jacques Brel
I, Lucifer by (The Real) Tuesday Weld
L'Ecole du Micro D'Argent by IAM
Channelizing Paradise by Los Super Elegantes
Emperor Tomato Ketchup by Stereolab
My Melody by Stereo Total
Easy Paris by Elisabeth Butterfly
5:55 by Charlotte Gainsbourg
L'Incroyable Verité by Sébastien Tellier
Black Album by Akhenaton