Playlist for the Air Force

This is for perhaps one of my favorite people. Long before I became an unprofessional blogger, I wrote little short stories.  She approved of them, thought they were funny. For various reasons I won’t be posting those up on here, I just wanted you to get a sense of how much I truly care about this person.

                When it was my birthday, I got the least amount of hits ever for my blog. Upon that realization, I understood that I live in the real world. What this person did, this Air Force, she sent me an entire box of goodies for me to open. Now I just received it and can sleep easier as a result.

                We’ve been friends for years. What this playlist does is introduce her to a little bit of who I am and a little bit of who she is. The intention with this one is to bring both of our interests closer together. Also, this is partial repayment for the package you sent to me.

                As I have done for the more recent mixes, this one will be kept short and sweet. Hopefully you’ll be able to enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. 

1.       The Kinks – Afternoon Tea

Everything should start with the Kinks: weeks, drinking sessions, karaoke. The Kinks are the band that did no wrong. Plus, they are the most British thing I can think of.

2.       Modest Mouse – Doin’ the Cockroach

“Doin’ the Cockroach” introduced me to Modest Mouse. “Lonesome Crowded West” sounds American, Western to me. Since I grew up in the East I wonder whether or not that affected what I listen to, what I enjoy. This is a blast of a track.

3.       Meat Puppets – What to do

I like the low-key attitude of this song. Every MIX CD needs a flippant track, so here’s mine. 

4.       Wire – 106 Beats That

AF enjoys a type of music which leads me to believe she’d enjoy this as well. Hopefully she does, it’s a classic.

5.       Magnetic Fields – Papa was a Rodeo

Magnetic Fields released 69 Love Songs, and this one is easily my favorite. The relaxed atmosphere (obviously I’m a down tempo kind of guy) is perfect. 

6.       Tuxedomoon – New Machine

Actually, I lived off this band for a while in college. Years after the fact, this song inspires me like it is some kind of half-remembered Saturday morning cartoon. 

7.       Marine Girls – Second Light

This is twee cutesy music done right. 

8.       Yann Tiersen – Dust Lane

Triumph over adversity and geography. I wish geography didn’t stifle my dreams the way it does.

9.       Deerhoof – Secret Mobilization

Deerhoof are great. As soon as they get really sweet and caring, they explode. Just like people living, loving, and exploding. 

10.   Low – La La Song

She likes these guys. Clearly she has good taste paying attention to one of the most overlooked American band. 

11.   Xiu Xiu – Blacks

Few bands capture what a nervous breakdown sounds like better than Xiu Xiu. 

12.   Women – Venice Lockjaw

I liked their album a lot. By having more people listen to them, I hope the positive experience of listening will convince them to come back together.

13.   Pavement – She Believes

She believes in me!

14.   Washboard Rhythm Kings – Just Another Dream of You

Aw, this song says everything I’m too shy to say. 

15.   Tim Buckley – Anonymous Proposition

I’m glad I care about someone enough to put this on a MIX CD. One of the most romantic songs I’ve ever heard in my whole life.

Altogether you have 55 minutes of sweet stuff. PS: I’ll send a MIX CD to this special someone, who might just be you (contact for further details!).

Like the Air Force, she protects me from the gray skies.

Poetry Review: I am like October when I am dead

Poetry confuses me. It is one of those art forms where the purpose is often obscured. Usually the power resides with the reader than the writer. I have a few poet friends and I’ve mentioned how anxious I feel going through it. How should I react to this? Is it even good that I can relate to it? Am I supposed to understand what’s going on? Is this even a place for a poetry review, since most of my writing has to do with music?

I decided to try and push aside my natural prejudices towards this art form as I dove into Steve Roggenbuck’s chapbook “i am like october when i am dead”.  Apparently this poet had randomly been following me on twitter, with rather cryptic, bizarre tweets, so I decided to return the favor by reading his more full length work. 

His poetry reads like twitter poetry, since most of it is very brief. Most (but not all) of these poems are within the 140 character limit required. I liked some of these poems more than others, since I felt the minimal style worked well for him. Below is each poem, followed by my reaction. Note everything is lower case in his writing. And if you’re familiar with the likes of Tao Lin and his ilk, then this may be somewhat familiar to you, tone-wise. 

1.

i dont care about reading a poem

who do you think i am, robert frost?

i have never been in the woods and i hate walking

-Reaction: I thought this ended up being a tad bit too cute. Steve acknowledges the reader’s hesitancy in wanting to read poetry, but it came off as a bit too silly for me. Actually it took me another go before I decided to read the other ones.

2.

god help me im throwing my neighbor off a building

-Reaction: Liked this one more than the previous one, but it still made me anxious about what awaited me. 

3.

i drink ten gallons of rice milk and pull the headlights out of my car hood

now they are way gone

-Reaction: This one mixes what I think is his sense of humor with strange detail. Using “way gone” instead of “gone” gives it a funnier vibe. I started to become more interested in it, though I acknowledge beginning anything is always tricky.

4.

there is a show on the history channel about the mayan doomsday prophecy

jupiter is in the south of the sky

i love you in the south like the hurricanes of Jupiter

-Reaction: As a person who takes great interest in doomsday, I liked the meshing with it and love. There’s actually been writing about the destructive powers of love, so I feel the poem works on that level. 

5.

you are gone

for lunch i had peanuts

-Reaction: I like his shorter stuff. This seems to flow nicely from the previous passage, giving it a sense of continuity. Or I might just be reading into it too much. 

6.

i have two sunflowers wilting on my bookshelf

thats it

thats all

the poem is done, get out

-Reaction: Again, the referencing of itself bothers me a bit. I’m not sure if I’m the kind of audience he’s trying to appeal to though. Had he kept just the first sentence or simply removed the last, I would’ve liked it more. It is kind of strange for me to ask for edits in such a short thing. Oh well. 

7.

climbing onto this church

thank god

carrying a giant rake with me to scare walking individuals

-Reaction: This is funny. I enjoyed the image of carrying a giant rake. 

8.

last february i drove home from the library next to finch fieldhouse, sigur rós was on the cd player in the car with a tape adapter

i saw an elephant walking out of a circus truck into the parking lot of finch fieldhouse

-Reaction: Apparently the Sigur Ros reference was to improve the emotional content of the poem, since he felt for the poor Elephant. But my music snob tendencies went into overdrive once he said that the CD he was listening to was their “()” album, which I disliked. Ignorance is bliss I guess. 

9.

to my nephew on his birthday

i will choke your dad

i dont care

im not afraid

-Reaction: For whatever reason, this reminded me of the Doors song, perhaps it is that last line. Though he wrote “im” my mind reads it only as “I am”. It feels defiant. 

10.

if you call me, i wont answer

i am sitting under the moon inside of a wheelbarrow

-Reaction: Enjoyed this quite a bit. Despite the short length, it conveyed to be a sense of childhood, where our emotions take hold of logic. That still happens as adults, but the wheelbarrow confirmed it could only apply to kids. 

11.

i am like october when i am dead

there is my hand

i am like the killers of people

-Reaction: This one is bizarre. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to feel about it. 

12.

i asked my dad if the corn harvest is over

it is way over, my dad said

-Reaction: I had no idea about this one. I didn’t grow up on a farm. Apparently Steve did according to his youtube video thing. His voice sounds American, he looks American, and he probably picked corn or milked cows or whatever in his rural town. I’m not as American as Steve Roggenbuck. Sorry. 

13.

the hymnal at my grandmothers funeral says 'wives be subordinate to your husbands, as is proper in the lord'

five months ago i saw a video of a dog being thrown into a garbage compactor

-Reaction: The darkest one in here. I don’t know whether or not I like it. Since it leaves me so confused, I’ll say that’s probably a good thing. 

14.

oh, you have a smock on

-Reaction: This reminds me of Ernest Hemingway’s six word story. Obviously, Steve’s take is lighter. The choice of the word “smock” gives it a playful connotation, like little children or painters. I enjoyed this one a lot. 

15.

i rented a movie and recorded over it with two hours of myself

on the video i am shouting compliments at my family

i burn my car on purpose

it is january

i greet myself at the beginning of a great career

-Reaction: I liked bits of it. Steve mentioned in the commentary that the last line was re-phrasing Walt Whitman’s line of “I greet you at the beginning of a great career” (via his own commentary on his writing). This one feels chaotic, since he’s doing so many strange things. 

Overall: I liked this. Had he removed some of the more coy parts of it, such as the poem referencing itself, I might have enjoyed it a bit more but this might be a personal preference of mine. Hopefully I get to see more material of his at a later point in time. Since he seems keen on having this available to the public, it won’t be long before we see more from him. I’m strongly considering actually ordering one of these chapbooks from him. The use of space in the chapbook and on the website allows you to place your own ideas into them, various doodles and notes. Please keep up the work, good sir!

Low – I could live in Hope 9.6

This is the most ambitious quiet music I’ve ever heard. Since autumn comes in full swing, with sweaters being brought out of the closets, I figured now would be a good time. Listening to such quiet music, it is like the knee jerk reaction to loud, stupid, overbearing mainstream music. 

“I could live in Hope” avoids most of the egoism of rock and roll. None of the players appear to be particularly interested in soloing at any time. Rather, the sum is greater than the total of their parts. By the way, they don’t actually rock. There’s nothing on this album to indicate such a thing.

Most of their music following this album followed a similar format. Vocals seem to float together in space. The bass appears to be particularly prominent, though that may also be due to the lack of volume. According to legend, during their first few performances, they got heckled for their quiet attitude. Rather than satisfy those annoying Duluth crowds, they put the volume down. Now if that isn’t the most polite punk thing to do, I don’t know what is.

Slowcore basically got invented by these guys. From the beginning of their career, they knew how to keep things moving at the pace of molasses. Plus, in case being slow wasn’t enough, they stripped down rock to a guitar, bass, and the sparest drum kit known to man.

“Words” starts things off sort of explaining their mindset. The lyrics “Too many words” and “I can’t hear them” dive deep into your brain, as does the vocal delivery. It is a unique delivery. “Down” and “Drag” are probably some of their best songs to date.

Autumn marks the beginning of browned lawns and dead leaves. I really think the album sort of captures that quiet desperation. Unlike Codeine, the music doesn’t get particularly experimental. No loud surprises are in store for you; just one of the few bands carving out their own niche in an overcrowded field.

800beloved – Bouquet 7.9

Bouquet sounds much more together than their later work “Everything Purple”. For one, the sound is much denser, maybe even a little melodramatic. And the album does sag a little in the middle.

Despite this, it still succeeds in being an emotionally unstable album. The singer’s voice conjures images of dark punks from the 80s, with a deep, clear baritone. Pretty much, if you can’t handle the first song, you can’t handle any of it since the sound is uniform throughout with little letup in terms of lightening the mood.

Even with the sameness in sound there are still winners. Those would be the vaguely optimistic song “Colors” which comes out of a mid-80s movie where the protagonist is going through a grueling montage to become a better person. “The Skeleton Collector” blasts through with a unrelentingly bass.

Basically, if you’re looking for some mope rock, you couldn’t do much worse. This embodies all the best of teenage angst music, with overwrought emotions, inarticulate disappointment, etc.