Music Ramblings: Metal

Metal sucks.

I'm only half kidding. My personal relationship with metal has been relatively short-lived and my feelings about the genre are complicated and inconsistent. During my very impressionable pre-teen and teenage years my jam was mostly Weird Al and nerdy new wave/post punk, so I completely missed the metal boat at a time when I imagine most metalheads would get into metal in their lives (it's a figurative metal boat, by the way, not, like, you know, an aluminum boat, or something). I was 25 years old when I gave it a fair shot and maybe 26 or 27 before I could really say that I genuinely liked what I was hearing, so with such a vast and varied subset of music I hardly think less than half a decade of critical listening is enough time to make a judgment call already. But I will anyway! And I look forward to reading back on this post 10 years from now chagrined to all hell about my premature opinions on one of the most revered musical genres in existence by insecure white males aged 13-60.

Frankly, I'm not comfortable reviewing metal right now. I've clocked many hours of metal listening, easily of thousands hours by now...but as you dig deeper into the rabbit hole of metal music you'll find catacombs of subgenres and sub-subgenres, bands going strong into their fifth decade with jaw-dropping discographies, and more albums than any listener can reasonably hope to listen to in a lifetime, let alone absorb and attach any emotional value toward. It's a genre that begs to be listened to with breadth, not depth, and that's my problem at least. I try so hard to listen to everything that I'm not coming out with any deep-seating feelings about anything. That's what happens when you try to pick apart the nuances that categorizes "atmospheric black metal" separately from "post-black metal", or "grindcore" separately from "deathgrind". As I write this right this very moment I'm listening to Helloween, which sounds like Gamma Ray which sounds like Hammerfall which sounds like Sonata Arctica which sounds like Stratovarius which sounds like Edguy which sounds like Sabaton etc. etc. etc. forever to infinity. Anyway, the whole classification system fascinates me, and the metal classification system is one of the most daunting phenomena existing in popular music today (with electronic music hot on the heels). Even the most dyed-in-the-wool seasoned metalheads are unable to describe their absolute favorite albums without language like "the riffs are amazing" and "it's fuckin' heavy and in-your-face". I have a hard time sifting through written reviews, professional or otherwise, that don't just fall back on these base emotional sentiments...unless it's some band on the hipster radar like Deafheaven or Baroness, and then the reviews are completely bloated with purple prose and over-intellectual musings. It's almost like metal's really difficult to write about? It's almost like there's nothing to write about? It's almost like every metal band who is pumping out their 17th album already made 16 other similar albums so what fresh perspective can one actually bring to the table without resorting to comfortable commentary on the great riffs or the not-so-great riffs? Until I'm ready to elevate myself over this limited vantage point I don't see myself as being able to write a good metal review.

Needless to say, people like me approach the genre as bean counters observing through a microscope instead of becoming one with the music and culture. Maybe it's for the better; I find the fashion to be atrocious and the overall metal attitude tends toward the juvenile and close-minded. So, as a result, I'm perfectly comfortable continuing to appreciate metal through a sort of an outsider lens in a spiritual sense. That means I get to enjoy the blisteringly caustic industrial blastbeats of Anaal Nathrakh AND enjoy the precious teenage high school romantic musings of Tegan and Sara without feeling any shame whatsoever! The cool thing about avoiding prescribing myself to a scene is that I don't have to feel bad about listening to literally anything. And I think that's what seemed pretty unappealing at first about the metal scene way back when I was an impressionable youngin', that one has to GO ALL IN on it or they're not a true believer or a true fan or some similarly stupid shit. I'm 33 years old, that way of thinking has been meaningless to me forever at this point. Now I'm surprising myself at what I'm willing to listen to and enjoy. Heavy, power, death, black, speed, thrash, doom, folk, sludge, avantgarde, you name it. I like it all.

So, I've got yet another new idea for the blog that's one of my 2021 resolutions to try out. I'm going to attempt to mash my knuckles against the keyboard to bang out some halfway-intelligent thoughts about the metal I'm listening to without the self-imposed pressure of formal review. I want to try spotlighting a random album or two with regular frequency and see what happens when I try talking about it. I want to talk about metal and I don't know how yet! And since I can't pass up the opportunity, the blog feature will be called "Metallurgical Evaluation" since I'm not only a metallurgical engineer in real life but I'm also a horrible nerd and I should have been put out of my misery long ago! Cheers!

Judas Priest's infamous photoshoot in Grandma's den. Rawr! Hail Satan! Where's my inhaler?

Music Ramblings: Top 20 Albums of 2020

My Excel spreadsheet of albums from 2020 to check out is currently at 255, and I still keep adding to it. Of those 255 I've probably listened to a little over 100. So that means I could completely overhaul my list of 20 below if I kept right on listening to the albums I haven't heard yet, right? THEREIN LIES THE DILEMMA. But, if I don't do this now then I never will! So here it is, as of 12/28/20, my top 20 albums of 2020. The 2020 20, as it were, plus the countless honorable mentions at the top. See you in 2021, which will assuredly be a much better year. Ha!

HONORABLE MENTIONS: Aesop Rock, Airbag, Aksak Maboul, Akurion, All Them Witches, Arabs in Aspic, Armand Hammer, Beach Bunny, Bitch Falcon, Black Curse, Blóm, Charli XCX, Chromb!, Couch Slut, Crack Cloud, Crippled Black Phoenix, Cryptic Shift, Damaged Bug, Dawn of Ouroboros, Dream Nails, Einstürzende Neubauten, Empty Country, Enslaved, the Flower Kings, Fontaines D.C., Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Freddie Gibbs and the Alchemist, Ganser, Gazpacho, Haken, HMLTD, Horse Lords, Intronaut, Junglepussy, Kelly Lee Owens, Kooba Tercu, Kvelertak, Lantern, Lil Uzi Vert, Liturgy, Lunatic Soul, Megan Thee Stallion, Motorpsycho, the Mountain Goats, Nadine Shah, Nation of Language, No Joy, Of Feather and Bone, Oneohtrix Point Never, OOIOO, Oranssi Pazuzu, Pain of Salvation, Panzerballett, Peel Dream Magazine, the Pineapple Thief, Porridge Radio, Pottery, Protomartyr, Public Practice, Pyrrhon, Rina Sawayama, Run the Jewels, Serpent Column, Sex Swing, Shabazz Palaces, Shards of Humanity, Special Interest, Stephen Malkmus, Sweeping Promises, Taylor Swift, Thundercat, Thy Catafalque, Ulcerate, Undeath, Wobbler, and Young Knives.

#20. The Wants - Container

Container dropped on March 13th and it immediately became newest obsession. I was ready to call it my album of the year, but then, as the year went on, listening to Container would bring forth every single fresh, nascent thought and feeling that I had ever felt during the very beginning of the fucked-up Covid times. Nothing else will do that quite like this album will. I ruined my enjoyment of it forever just because I had it on repeat during the extremely anxious uncertainty of early lockdown. And that sucks. BUT, this album meant a lot to me in March so it deserves a spot on my list anyway. That'll teach me to enjoy music during stressful situations!

#19. Cable Ties - Far Enough

Australian punk trio Cable Ties went to the Sleater-Kinney school of aggressive-yet-catchy feminist riot grrrrrrrl rock and roll! Far Enough jumps around from gritty, to furious, to passive, to pensive, and everything in between. There are some real kickass solos too! I like it a lot! NEXT!

#18. The Tangent - Auto Reconnaissance

The Tangent's 8,000th album makes my list as the token whimsical British prog album of the year, narrowly beating out the Pink Floyd-ripoff by Arabs in Aspic and the Sting/Smashing Pumpkins/Porcupine Tree dadrock epic by The Pineapple Thief. Auto Reconnaissance drew me in with the many captivating and humorous spoken-word diatribes about modern-day stuff like Brexit, the TV show Lost, Flat-Earth conspiracy theorists, and many other subjects, layered over eclectic and ever-changing musical styles. For me, this album has an adequate amount of self-awareness that I need from my prog rock, and I find myself coming back to it more often than I do with others. So on the list it goes!

#17. Fiona Apple - Fetch the Bolt Cutters

OHHH how InTeREsTinG, a year-end list with Fetch the Bolt Cutters on it. Oh boy, oh wow. That's original and not at all boring in a year where this album tops every single list! So I listened to a Fiona Apple interview on a podcast once a couple of years ago and she was completely neurotic and anxious and obsessive compulsive. She was absolutely nuts! I totally fell in love with her in a very literal sense. And yeah this album is pretty ok! Not 10/10 worthy, of course. The only album that is a true 10/10 is Kidz Bop 29.

#16. Svartkonst - Black Waves

Roughly 45 million albums come out per year that sound identical to Svartkonst's Black Waves. It's some hybrid of death/black metal that leans more toward one end of the spectrum than the other. Nothing about the song structures or the vocals or the riffs are original. Even so, a few albums like this break through the barrier for me every so often and I'm not intelligent enough in my death or black metal knowledge yet to explain why. Maybe it just hits all the right buttons with respect to the speed, heaviness, overall length, who knows? Maybe I'm intrigued by the fact that the whole project is completely created and executed by a single Swedish dude? For some reason, whatever it might be, I kept finding myself coming back to this one and not getting tired of it. So on the list it goes! Also, go fuck yourself, Tom, you're not fooling anyone by pretending to like this shit. Wakka wakka!

#15. The Cool Greenhouse - The Cool Greenhouse

I'm a big fan of Mark E. Smith and his band The Fall, so when I first heard this album and realized that it was nothing more than an incredibly dry British guy rambling inane nonsense over repetitive non-musical post-punk beats I was FLABBERGASTED that anyone had the audacity to completely rip off The Fall. And then this album grew on me, because I love The Fall and I guess that extends to the cheap imitations! I'm only human, after all.

#14. Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo

I've been a giant Mr. Bungle fanboy for a quite long time, but I was lukewarm about the news that they were going to come out with a proper re-recording of their 1986 thrash metal demo. Well fuck me sideways, sir, this album slaps! I didn't expect these geezers to pull off something that sounds so lively, competent, and legitimately angsty. I don't even miss the oddball hurricane of genres that you would usually get with a Mr. Bungle album. You can tell these guys had a ton of fun doing this too, I hope they come out with more stuff soon. Or else!

#13. Jerskin Fendrix - Winterreise

Little is known about Ferpsin Grenbinx except that he's some rich over-educated kid from the London area who spent a lot of his free time as a young man being a weirdo shut-in with weirdo interests. So, of course, I couldn't wait to dig right in! This is, as it turns out, a very weird album. It brings to mind thoughts of Ween or a poor man's Zappa. Porpchin Vernstix bounces around a million different genres and styles in 40 minutes, which is BORING AS SHIT if done incorrectly but this ain't incorrect! It was underwhelming at first, but after quite a few spins this album solidified in my mind as something that was completely unlike anything I've ever heard before! And I've heard a lot of weird shit! I'm looking forward to the future offerings of Mr. Skerfjin Cornchex for sure.

#12. Open Mike Eagle - Anime, Trauma and Divorce

Mr. Michael Eagle is a huge insufferable nerd, so of course I was going to like this. Also, while I'm not a very big fan of anime, I'm a very big fan of both trauma and divorce so two out of three ain't bad! The whole album covers his terrible 2020 without forgetting the sense of humor, which I found pretty damn relatable except for the part where I forgot my sense of humor this year entirely! One of the best songs of the year is "The Black Mirror Episode", which is a very vague semi-autobiographical recount of how watching Black Mirror ruined his marriage. Funny! This album would've been a 10/10 just like Kidz Bop 29, but the omission of an Oxford comma in the title cost him a few points overall. Sad!

#11. Grimes - Miss Anthropocene

I once saw Grimes described as the world's most famous and public Invader Zim fan, and that nicely solidified my perception of her from that point forward until the next three eternities. Miss Anthropocene came out in February while the world was still relatively normal and she was still making the news regularly with her Elon Musk-induced pregnancy. It must have destroyed her that Covid pushed her out of the news cycle. Even giving birth in May and naming her child after a Star Wars robot didn't keep her in the spotlight for too long. Anyway, this album is pretty good and "Delete Forever" is up there in my top tracks of 2020. Good for Grimes!

#10. Hen Ogledd - Free Humans

Once upon a time, way back in the day, there was a certain EXCITEMENT that came from wading through countless indie rock records. Now I'm cranky and old and jaded and it seems like every indie rock record I ever listen to these days sounds like something else I've heard before already. And then FINALLY I felt that UNADULTERED EXCITEMENT again for the first time in a long, long time after listening to Free Humans! These four talented musicians come from some backwoods Scottish town and they sing with their adorable rural Scottish accents over some deeply interesting and varied melodies. This is a long album but it sure doesn't feel long at all. Fuck Phoebe Bridgers, fuck Perfume Genius, fuck Waxahatchee, fuck Fleet Foxes and Adrianne Lenker and Laura Marling and Sufjan Stevens and Tame Impala and Soccer Mommy and any other dreary critically-acclaimed indie artist that put out indie rock that sounds like all the other indie rock that keeps coming out and haha whoops sorry ok I'm done now

#9. clipping. - Visions of Bodies Being Burned

I wish I could find more hip hop albums like the ones that clipping. have been putting out over the last 10 years. Cold, sharp, smart, dense, and calmly aggressive. Aggressive, like, in an industrial way, not in a "I'm gon' kill you bitch" way. But it's aggressive in that way too! It's aggressive the way your grandmother is aggressive with her Catholic-guilt bullshit. It's aggressive like this album isn't mad at you, but it's disappointed. I'm not making any sense! Hip hop album of the year right here! It's rife with cheesy '80s horror tropes and interesting, noisy slasher sound effects. Don't listen to it, you'll hate it.

#8. Neptunian Maximalism - Éons

Oh hell-and-a-fuck yeah! This, right here, this is the good shit. This 130-minute-long album is a brutal, unrelenting torrential downpour of heavy, drone-y avantgarde punk jazz metal. It's exciting in a way that only a giant slab of boundless free-improvisation can be! I love this kind of shit to death. It reminds me of those 2+ hour Swans records that I can only listen to once in a while since they tend to be these giant sensory onslaughts. Éons could easily be at the very top of my 2020 list, and maybe some day it might be, but right now I have to be honest with myself and say that I'm just not going to spin this one that often. It's a demanding listen. And that's ok. I wouldn't change a thing about it. Sometimes you need a demanding listen once in a while.

#7. Jehnny Beth - TO LOVE IS TO LIVE

IS ANYONE ELSE OUT THERE FOLLOWING JEHNNY BETH'S CAREER? NO? JUST ME? The frontwoman of the excellent Siouxsie and the Banshees-style punk band Savages put out her debut this year, and I like a whole lot yes I do! It's a brutally personal and emotionally intense record full of heartbreak, lust, anger, depression, and confusion. BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, HOW ABOUT THE ALBUM??? HA HA! Goddamnit! Of course, indie darlings Phoebe Bridgers and Perfume Genius put out emotionally-charged records too but those albums were super boring and this one wasn't at all! That's the difference!

#6. Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses

I call this kind of stuff "slacker post-punk". It's the kind of music you got a lot from the disgruntled young people of the late '80s and early '90s. It's music that chugs along at mid-tempo and sneers through its teeth with menacing passive-aggressiveness, but never actually raises its voice at you. It gives you hypnotic 16-minute long krautrock-style tracks that DARE you to actually sincerely enjoy it and, honestly, it won't give a shit if you don't. Like early Sonic Youth. I love that kind of music. No one really makes that kind of music these days, but Hey Colossus did and they did it very well this year. And that 16-minute track is the best part! There's even a 3-minute reprise track immediately after it! Now that's funny.

#5. Hum - Inlet

I ain't know nuthin' about the band Hum, but Inlet is their first album in 22 years and their fifth album overall. Without listening to even ONE NOTE from any their previous four efforts I'm going to make a sweeping, baseless claim that Hum picked up right where they left off since this album sounds '90s as fuck with its shoegaze-y, grungy, unhip alt-rock. I must say, though, this music does everything right for me. Very melodious and hypnotic drones, a nice balance between light and heavy, clean post-hardcore (AND non-emo) vocals, and a surprisingly unique cohesion among all the various styles. I hear elements of My Bloody Valentine, the Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, Hüsker Dü, Spacemen 3, and even newer stuff like the War on Drugs or Kurt Vile. And I like all that stuff a lot! So there you go.

#4. Pharaoh Overlord - 6

WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that combining growling death metal vocals with cheesy '80s synthwave and post-disco beats would end up working so well? I don't think there are any guitars on this album! Very weird and very satisfying! It's like superimposing incomprehensible, guttural growling over some of the more ethereal music from Super Mario 64 or something. It became an instant classic, like I heard this music already years ago. Check it out immediately if, like me, you have no respect for your own taste in music!

#3. Poppy - I Disagree

POPPY PEED ON THE SOFA!!! Fun fact: The guy who played Poppie on Seinfeld died this year on the same day my second daughter was born, August 1! Other fun fact: Poppy the musician didn't die, but in fact put out a crazy album that's a slurry of J-Pop, heavy metal, and industrial music. And guess what? It works very well! I like to think that this YouTube star, who started out making saccharine-y sweet bubblegum songs for pre-teens, suddenly put out this fuck-you album of semi-aggressive and creepy music to alienate her fanbase on purpose. It won me over though! This album is fun as hell and I can't think of much else like it. She sounds like an even nuttier Grimes, which is really saying something since Grimes named her baby after a license plate this year.

#2. The Ocean - Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic | Cenozoic

Vast. Heavy. Sprawling. Dense. Suffocating. Intimidating. That's the ocean, baby. Every album by The Ocean is really good and this direct follow-up to their 2018 album is no different. Listen to both back-to-back and crush a dang can against your head! This one in particular is a very immersive experience with its hypnotic and atmospheric electronic pulses and ambient wall-of-noise soundscapes as a backdrop to the sludgy heavy metal riffage! And it just gets better with each listen. It's a great way to experience the scary dang ol' ocean from the comfort of your bean bag chair, hippie. Highly recommended!

#1. Melt Yourself Down - 100% Yes

100% YES, INDEED. Melt Yourself Down's third album is exactly what I fucking needed in 2020. Track after track of upbeat jazz funk with a DIY punk aesthetic, strong afrobeat and Middle Eastern rhythmic influences, and swirling tinges of electronic psychedelia thrown into the mix as well. Energetic from beginning to end, I can't think of another album this year that took me somewhere else quite like this one. And trust me, no matter where I was I often wanted to be somewhere else anyway. I want to be somewhere else right now, but instead I'm typing these words that no one is reading. Hello! Thanks for playing! See ya in 2021 unless we're all dead!

Music Ramblings: Top 15 Albums of 2010 - 2019

Whoa, did you know that a lot of music albums came out this decade?? Here are 15 of my favorites in alphabetical order by band/artist name because actually ranking them is a stupid exercise in stupidity. You'd actually probably hate all these albums, knowing you. Yes, you. Anyway, here we go:

Battles - Gloss Drop (2011)

Gloss Drop was the first new album I became obsessed with after college graduation, also known as the time of my life when I finally had to actually learn how to grow up and become an adult. Ha! Still haven't done that yet anyway! Take THAT, Life! Anyway, this album very much represents my erratic transition from sheltered college life to equally-sheltered-but-in-a-different-way post-school new-beginnings life in a way that, honestly, feels pretty comforting in spite of it all. Battles sounds like no other band, this album sounds like no other album, and this noisy, zany, electronic hodge-podge of weird, fucked up groove-laden experimental math rock IS the summer of 2011 to me. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (2015)

Courtney Barnett's debut really hit home for me. The Australian indie singer-songwriter is basically having the calmest nervous breakdown ever recorded over 11 tracks, forcing a blasé slacker don't-give-a-shit exterior while covering topics such as depression, anxiety, self-esteem, jealousy, introversion, self-confidence, shame, and disillusionment. All over mostly happy, upbeat, and catchy music! It's like, the only difference between me and her is that she got rich and famous being self-deprecating and I work in a fucking metals testing lab. Life is funny sometimes. Half a decade later this album is still as fresh and relevant to me as it was when I first heard it, which may be good or bad depending on the perspective. Oh well.

Death Grips - Exmilitary (2011)

This mixtape was my gateway to hip-hop. I hated hip-hop until I threw Exmilitary on during the summer of 2013, which I only did because I decided by then it was stupid to hate hip-hop. The funny thing is, Death Grips is not at all representative of the genre as a whole: they're exaggeratedly loud, hostile, angry, abrasive, annoying, immature, ferocious, even pretentious. Exmilitary is a hip-hop record for hardcore punk fans. Exmilitary is a hip-hop record for white hipster doofuses. I love it unconditionally, and I owe it my unending gratitude for extracting the stick out of my ass and motivating me to dig deeper into one of the most diverse and emotionally rewarding genres available. Fuckin' A. Now go listen to some Ghostface Killah.

Fever Ray - Plunge (2017)

Nothing is more attractive to me in my music than a creepy, off-putting persona, and Karin Dreijer is positively gifted when it comes to being off-putting (just Google image search "Fever Ray" for a trove of horrible, horrible photos). Plunge is a thrilling, feminist, sexually terrifying, and ultimately accessible electronic and poppy experience. In short, it's fucking fun to listen to. I was lukewarm on a lot of 2017 releases and this one was like a breath of fresh, weird air. I'm the only person who is going to remember this album in 10 years, but by then Karin Dreijer will have reinvented herself (xemself) 40 times over. Me too if I know what's good for me.

Foetus - Hide (2010)

Speaking of off-putting, Foetus is a solo project by JG Thirlwell, a guy who sounds like raspy Spongebob and basically records albums of himself throwing pots and pans against the wall. Hide is different, though, it sounds more like a creepy industrial off-broadway musical complete with over-dramatic orchestral arrangements, female opera singing, spaghetti western ballads, and somber soundtrack-y sonic landscapes. Plus pots and pans against the wall. Albums like these are exactly my cup of shitty tea.

Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer (2018)

As time went on this decade I became more and more enchanted with Janelle Monáe. While Dirty Computer is likely not her best it was certainly my fast favorite. She stayed relatively guarded on her first two albums where she mostly talks about robots and dystopias and other sci-fi nerd tropes, but on Dirty Computer she weaves the science fiction stuff into a more personal narrative, which ended up being unguarded and vulnerable and cool as shit. Janelle Monáe is cool as shit. I wish I was as cool as Janelle Monáe but since I'm a straight, white guy it will never ever happen, and I have to learn to accept that.

Knifeworld - Bottled Out of Eden (2016)

I was no stranger to Knifeworld in 2016, but Bottled Out of Eden passed under my radar until December of that year, three weeks before the birth of my daughter. My head was a torrent of anxiety and Christmas stress that the British whimsy of Knifeworld's third album was able to quell. Lush, progressive arrangements and odd, angular melodies are married together in a beautiful way that, frankly, bands usually suck at achieving. This is like a Genesis album for people who hate Genesis. I don't like Genesis that much, but I do like Knifeworld. I know you've never heard of Knifeworld before, but you should go listen to Knifeworld. Don't continue on with this page until you've listened to Knifeworld.

LoneLady - Nerve Up (2010)

I'm a huge fan of all things post-punk, from Talkings Heads to Joy Division to The Cure to Siouxsie and the Banshees to The Fall to Wire to Big Black to <insert 900 other forgettable post-punk bands between 1976-2019>. LoneLady's debut album puts together everything I love about the genre and adds some R.E.M.-style jangle pop in the mix as well. I can see you sneering through your fucking teeth right into your screen right now, but this is my list and not your list so go away.

Major Parkinson - Twilight Cinema (2014)

Remember Knifeworld? OK, so maybe you didn't like Knifeworld. Maybe progressive rock isn't your thing. That's fine. It's my thing though, and sometimes even I get annoyed and fed up with the cheesiness of the genre. Prog rock albums are a dime-a-dozen, and it's unfortunate when a really really good prog rock album, one that doesn't succumb to the pitfalls of every other prog rock album, one that could be elevated into mainstream appeal, gets zero exposure. That album would be Twilight Cinema by Major Parkinson. This Norwegian band was my most rewarding discovery this decade. They have four fantastic albums of off-kilter dark pop, humor-laden cabaret, flawless prog rock, beautifully arranged symphonic suites, and a guy who sounds like a manic-depressive Cookie Monster. Twilight Cinema is my favorite album of the decade. Describing it won't do it justice. You'll have to listen to it for yourself and then yell at me for hating it later.

Man Man - On Oni Pond (2013)

Aha, another pivotal-point-in-my-life album! Man Man's On Oni Pond dropped at the precise time that we were moving from our depressing first Chicago apartment and into our slightly less depressing second Chicago apartment! It may not seem that big of a deal, but to me this transition was pretty fucking important. Man Man was one of the first (and few) bands I fell completely in love with after college, so it's only fitting that their fifth album from 2013 was in super heavy rotation at a time when I finally started legitimately loving living in the city.

Ramona Falls - Prophet (2012)

I was almost a year out of college when this album dropped. I was unemployed and living in Chicago with only a few hundred bucks to my name, facing the very likely reality that I would have to pack up and move back home to my parents within a few short months. This sprawling, melancholy album was on constant rotation at the time and it was one of the only albums that helped me feel better during one of the worst periods of my life. Basically, emotionally, this album is the antithesis of the above On Oni Pond by Man Man. I find Prophet tough to listen to now since that wasn't a time I look back at too fondly, but it was once the most important album of my life and its spot on my list is therefore well-deserved. FUN FACT: We did NOT name our daughter after this band, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Not even me! But seriously.

Sky Ferreira - Night Time, My Time (2013)

The only problem with this album is that there are full-blown titties on the cover so I had to find a censored version for my family-friendly blog. However, feel free to search out the full album cover if you wish (the one with the titties on it). Anyway, this album is very important because, as Death Grips' Exmilitary hoisted me out of my bullshit "hip-hop sucks" opinion, Sky Ferreira's Night Time, My Time hoisted me out of my bullshit "female-fronted pop music sucks" opinion and I'm forever grateful for it. This album is criminally underrated and if Ferreira had released it a few years later she would've been completely swept up among the other greats during the pop music craze that started in the late half of this decade. If you like Lorde, Lana Del Rey, Charli XCX, Billie Eilish, Carly Rae Jepsen, Taylor Swift, or Ariana Grande, you'll love Sky Ferreira.

Swans - To Be Kind (2014)

Every album that Swans put out between 2010 and now was incredibly impressive, but their 2014 album To Be Kind is far and above better than the rest. But hey, I'm the kind of guy that can sit through and enjoy a two-hour album of fucked up noise so your own mileage may vary. Massive, drone-y, staggering, abrasive, beautiful, and stunning. There's even a song on here that breaks the 30-minute mark. My favorite song of the decade is "Oxygen", which is 8 minutes of a 60-year-old Michael Gira losing his goddamn mind over the noisiest and intense track you could imagine. It's glorious.

Tub Ring - Secret Handshakes (2010)

Tub Ring is the stupidest sounding band ever, they sound like a bunch of suburban white boys trying to sound weird and cool but they actually just sound like a bunch of suburban white boys trying to sound weird and cool. But enough about my own suburban white boy hangups! I didn't actually get around to listening to this album until early 2012 when I was in the throes of unemployment depression, but Tub Ring was huge for me at the time and this album of twisted, quirky, and ultimately satisfying weirdo pop music was the most fun I ever had during my Ramen-twice-a-day cleaning-dishes-with-cold-water penny pinching days of yore. I'm largely over Tub Ring as a whole, but I can still throw on Secret Handshakes once in a while and have a grand ol' fucking time (unlike that Ramona Falls album, which sends me into a veritable tailspin of panic attacks and self-loathing lol).

Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin (2018)

Ty Segall is a cool dude. Usually he likes to put out album after album of crunchy garage rock, but Freedom's Goblin was one big 75-minute love letter to classic rock and that's awesome if you're into that kind of thing. I very much am. This diverse collection of 19 tracks sounds like everything from The Beatles to David Bowie to T. Rex to Neil Young to Led Zeppelin to Patti Smith to The Who to The Rolling Stones to The Ramones to 100 others that I could bore you tears about if I listed everything. The guy can even sing like John Lennon! It's almost like, instead of being murdered in the '80s, John Lennon is singing through your speakers here in the '10s. What a world that would be!

Whoa, that's a lot of albums! I hope in the next decade I like 15 albums even half as much as I liked these 15! See you on the flipside, nerdmongers! Cowabunga!

Music Ramblings: Comedy and Music

My sister, Nicole, is nine years older than me. While I'm  a scrappy little kid figuring out the world around me, she's already a teenager in the early-mid '90s doing her own thing and listening to her own music. And she didn't have much patience for the likes of me at the time, who could blame her?

I wasn't terribly interested in her music collection when I was a kid (or ever, for that matter, honestly), but Nicole did prove to be a pretty strong influence for comedy at an early age. Throughout the '90s we were able to bond over movies like Wayne's World, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Ace Venture: Pet Detective (we both agree that the first Ace Ventura movie is better than the second, much to the chagrin of every other person on Earth), Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Dumb and Dumber, Austin Powers, Tommy Boy, National Lampoon's Vacation, Uncle Buck, and a plethora of others. Nicole turned me on to the Simpsons when I was 3. Beavis and Butthead when I was 5. South Park when I was 10 when it was brand new. I didn't even watch a drama until I was probably 14 years old. Who needs that dry, sullen, miserable shit when you have Jim Carrey flailing about the screen, man?

There was always a certain exciting forbidden aspect to watching these movies intended for 13-year-olds OooOooOOOOoooo when you're still young enough to be in the demographic to enjoy Nick Jr. Now just imagine the thrill when, in 1996, Nicole brought home Adam Sandler's What the Hell Happened to Me? comedy album. This wasn't just some mass-marketed movie that I know millions of people had watched, this was an artifact brought into our home for our own personal, private indulgence. Its presence in our home was almost perverse. And, holy shit, it was dirty! Filthy! Horrid skits about creepy old men, farting hypnotists, raunchy talking goats, public sex, crass mothers, all of them with terrible curse words! A smattering of rude, crude songs about fuckin', about a shitty car, about getting high! Have you heard "Steve Polychronopolous"? I felt like I was besmirching the name of God just by listening to something so edgy, insensitive, and savage! I felt alive! ALIVE!

My 9-Year-Old Comedy Audio-Bible

Give me a break, I was barely nine-years-old at the time. It saddens me, actually, to know that I'll never experience such visceral thrills ever again from something so banal and essentially harmless (as it turns out). But at the time I really thought I was indulging in something completely hellish and universally inappropriate, and it was certainly a coming-of-age experience. Again, it's Adam-Fucking-Sandler. I feel stupid for even talking about him in this way.

Between me and my sister, two more Adam Sandler CDs would be purchased over the next five years or so. Each one was about 20 tracks with five or six being actual songs, the rest skits. Of course, being the young flourishing comedy nerd that I was, I vastly enjoyed the skits over the songs, but that isn't to say that I wrote off the songs completely. I enjoyed most of them, but I remember finding no interest in the singing, the melodies, or the instruments whatsoever. Just the words, only the words, nothing but the words. BUT, fuck it, I rightfully consider it my first foray into the realm of appreciation for SOMETHING music-related. It counts.

I got my first portable CD player from my parents for my 14th birthday. It was a red Sony, the kind that skips when you turn it on its side. The look of disappointment on my face was not only noticed, but expected. They all knew I had no interest in music at the time. My mother gently told me that it was an experimental gift and I was encouraged to see how it goes; no pressure. I started out by buying a couple of Simpsons television soundtracks. This was 2001, and 9/11 had happened just 20 or so days ago, I was still rattled as fuck, and I found the music comforting. By now I was fully entrenched in music performance as a high school band student, so absorbing the music from this new perspective was interesting. Of course, I use "music" loosely here, it was all a bunch of semi-artless novelty tunes. Other than that I was buying stand-up comedy records.

It wasn't until early December of the same year that I took the plunge and purchased my first ever CD of music by an individual that is widely recognized, and begrudgingly so in most circles I'm sure, as a legitimate artist in the business: "Weird Al" Yankovic's Bad Hair Day. This was a huge step for me, but I figured the amalgam of comedy and music was a perfect starting point. Unlike before with the Adam Sandler records, I found myself unexpectedly preferring the music over the lyrics! On a goddamn Weird Al CD! My friends, this was the beginning of my new life.

I got more to say but not now! Smell ya later, homes.

Music Ramblings: The First 10 Reviews

In only two months I was able to write ten fully fleshed out, not rushed, non-contrived (hopefully) reviews of actual music albums that actual musicians wrote and produced and distributed for the actual public. This is an extremely huge deal for me for exactly two reasons:

1. I've been wanting to write album reviews ever since I discovered George Starostin's website back in the summer of 2005 between high school and college, but I've been deathly afraid to do so.
   
2. I initially would have predicted that writing ten reviews would have taken me 30 times longer.

--Let me expound upon Point #1 for the moment. George Starostin is absolutely one of my biggest influences of all time, as far as people I don't know personally, when it comes to my interest in popular musical. I discovered his site back when the only real bands I listened to were They Might Be Giants, Talking Heads, Oingo Boingo, and I was just getting started dipping my toes into Frank Zappa's discography. Reviews of all four of these artists and bands were available on his website, and was bowled over at how intelligently Starostin's thoughts on all these albums actually were. It was as if he was involved in their production. It made me want to branch out to other bands in his "Smart Pop" category (in which TMBG, Talking Heads and Oingo Boingo resided). I wanted to intimately know all these bands as much as he seemed to. I wanted to be able to have my own intelligent thoughts about this music. But, and especially at the time, I knew nothing of the history of modern music whatsoever. Intelligently writing about music requires actual knowledge about music itself and its modern history, of which I still to this day have very little confidence about. I'm getting better each day.

Starostin never claims to be musically trained. He even had his own hangups about starting a music review page back in the late '90s. Hell, English isn't even his first language. The guy was born in Communist Russia. He has a degree in linguistics, though, which made me feel even less able to do what he does. Who the hell am I? I can barely tie my damn shoes, son, how can I describe the emotional, or lack thereof, nuances of Frank Zappa's Lumpy Gravy? But, above all else, Starostin pulls no punches when it comes to his brutally honest opinions. He also never pretends to be anything he's not, or to know more about something than he actually does, and I find that immensely respectable.

Also, part of my fear is that I feel like I need to know nearly everything about the band and its full history before even attempting to review their albums. This is why I'm starting with the bands I've loved since high school. I may love Nick Cave, but I've only been listening to him for five years. I'm terrified to write about him even though part of me knows that once I try I'll surprise myself. I may love David Bowie, but I've only listened to about 12 out of his 25 studio albums so I'm not qualified yet to make generalizations on his whole career. Don't even get me started on genres such as hip-hop or black metal, which are so new to me at the moment that it would be completely irresponsible of me to even attempt reviewing any such band or artist. How can I review Immortal or Bathory without any semblance of knowledge about why they sound the way they do at that moment in music history? How am I supposed to review Earl Sweatshirt without even a passing understanding of east coast vs. west coast hip-hop, or a complete sociopolitical understanding of the evolution of black culture with respect to and because of their music? I may enjoy it all, even immensely, but I'm in no way ready to talk about any of it yet.


--Point #2 is more straightforward. I've been writing on personal websites, personal blogs, and message boards in some capacity since my family hooked up the Internet in our house back in 2000, so for more than half my life I just want to write write write. The problem is that I can't think of any topics that hold my interest and drive me to actually write consistently lately. I mean, look at the rest of my sad, sorry little blog. I've written one "Goosebumps From Memory" so far. That didn't last long, did it? "Sucky Comics Sunday" is my most popular feature, but I only made four of them and the last thing I want to do these days on a Sunday morning is scan for that very day's shitty comic strips and type up an entire thing. I won't even go into the "RASP Files". Therefore, I figured I wouldn't be driven to actually write up album reviews as consistently as I have been so far. And that may still change someday, of course, but right now I'm thrilled that I was able to get to ten in such a relatively short time. And, if anything else, I'm more driven than ever to keep doing this.

Here's to another 10! Woo!

Because my OCD requires a picture in every post, here is a photo of Waldo's dad from the '90s Little Rascals movie:

Music Ramblings: Growing Up and the Tastes of the People Around Me

My parents aren't the biggest fans of music. Mom grew up on '60s and '70s soft/pop rock and is a casual listener of "oldies" and Top 40 radio hits. I'm not convinced that Dad was ever that big of a fan of anything, really, and listens to talk radio most of time. He has told me what he likes and what he was into growing up, such as some Led Zeppelin, some Beatles, some Zappa, maybe Deep Purple, but I have seen no evidence or behavior that suggests he was ever gung-ho about anything in particular.

My parents' record collection is modest and doesn't highlight a fanaticism to any particular artist. Off the top of my head I can remember a couple of John Lennon albums, a Moby Grape album, an Elton John compilation, Electric Light Orchestra's Eldorado, King Crimson's In the Court of the Crimson King, Jethro Tull's Warchild, Talking Heads' True Stories, and Seals & Croft's self-titled debut. There might be some Paul McCartney and some Patsy Cline. Lots of others, though. I don't think they have any Beatles albums. I've bought my mom some Jethro Tull, David Bowie, and Elton John records. Throughout my childhood my mom was always talking about needing a new turntable to play all these old records, and when they finally bought one in 2002 it hasn't gotten much use at all. I've always thought when I was younger that this collection of music was pretty wimpy. I still think it sort of is. I'm trying to think of the heaviest album in their collection. I guess the King Crimson one, which is an oddity anyway because I don't think either of them even like it.

I was born in 1987, so my earliest sticking memories with respect to music involve two of Mom's cassette tapes in heavy rotation during car trips: The Bangles' 1990 Greatest Hits compilation, and Billy Ray Cyrus' 1992 debut album Some Gave All. I'm not going to give the Bangles too much shit, because they aren't awful and Walk Like an Egyptian is a good song, but Billy Ray fucking Cyrus? This is the album with Achy Breaky Heart on it, widely considered to be one of the worst popular songs of all time. That album cover is forever burned in my brain, because Mom made a point to let my 4-year-old self know how attractive she thought Miley's dad was in his denim jacket, and I remember how much I thought how stupid that American flag patch looked on his dumb butt. When we would listen to the "oldies" station it would likely be folky, rootsy, inoffensive classic rock such as the early Beatles, the early Rolling Stones, Byrds, and Kinks, and anything on contemporary pop radio at the time would be stuff like Phil Collins, or Bryan Adams, or Paula Abdul. Needless to say, Mom's music didn't make much of an impression on me, but as I got into my 20s I started to appreciate some of this stuff a lot more.

Yeesh. Is that a rattail too? Gross.

So Mom's listening to schlocky adult contemporary, Dad's listening to Howard Stern and local Detroit morning talk radio, so what's my teenage sister listening to during my formidable years? Her collection of cassettes and CDs also suggested no particular affinity with a specific artist. Off the top of my head here I can remember Green Day's Dookie, Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill, "Weird Al" Yankovic's The Food Album, Weezer's Blue Album, Nirvana's In Utero, The Presidents of the United States of America's self-titled debut, and maybe an album or two from Soundgarden, Beck, Smashing Pumpkins, and Pearl Jam, plus a ton of others. Basically, anything you'd hear on an episode of MTV's Daria. I also remember the soundtrack albums to Forrest Gump and Dumb and Dumber, and she used to like those Now That's What I Call Music! compilation albums. None of this music particularly thrilled me at the time either. She also had two albums that would prove to be a SIGNIFICANT influence on my life, and they're Adam Sandler's They're All Gonna Laugh at You and What The Hell Happened To Me? I can trace all my current comedy and music influence back to those two albums. Sad, isn't it? I like modern experimental klezmer music because I liked Adam Sandler. That's a topic for another post.

And my friends? Fuck them. In middle school and high school, the years where people generally find their taste, they were all listening to shit like Eminem, blink-182, Rammstein, NOFX, Linkin Park, HIM, Third Eye Blind, the Offspring, Three Doors Down, Dave Matthews, John Mayer, all sorts of stuff that even now I can't really bring myself to appreciate whatsoever. These are all the same people who will make fun of Nickelback when their whole music collection consists of bands that sound exactly like Nickelback (and probably some Nickelback anyway for good measure). I had one friend in high school who had some overlap with my then-meager musical diet, but this was discovered after my interest in music began anyway. And then I learned of another friend from high school who was as open-minded as I was, but this wasn't discovered until later in college. So, none of my friends influenced my taste either, and if anything put me off popular music since I thought this was all there was.

So, in summary, I can say with confidence that none of the people around me were significantly shaping my musical horizons. If only I had known back then that the word of music was way, way, WAY more diverse, but I had to learn that the hard way from scratch. And I'm better for it, so it worked out.

Those Adam Sandler discs, though. Man.

Music Ramblings: Introduction

Remember that time I had the grand idea of writing a POST A WEEK chronicling the development of my newborn daughter? I gave up after Week 2. I look forward to following the same path here with this new short-lived idea of mine. THIS TIME, for the first time ever, I'll eschew from pressuring myself to being funny in my writing ("not that it was noticeable!" - you) and hopefully that will be a nice motivator. And I'll dazzle you with words like "eschew" along the way.

So what the hell do I intend to talk about here? I don't know yet. What I do know now though, at a jaded 29-years-old, is that through the highs and lows of my life, through the certainties, uncertainties, anxieties, et. al., music is just about the only thing that I can confidently declare to be one of my true passions in life. There was once a time that I thought it was math and science, but I was only kidding myself. And believe me, I put a lot of effort into trying to make math and science one of my passions. I learned that there's a difference between devoting your life and to science and pursuing science as an interest/hobby only. I would consider my secondary passion to be comedy, but it doesn't come close to music.

And we can break it down even further. Over time I learned that I just don't like playing music at all. There was once a time that I loved playing music, but that ship sailed when I was still in middle school. I would continue to play trumpet in high school and college, but purely for the social aspect of it. From about 8th grade forward I never cared about getting better at it (which is the exact opposite feeling of basically every other trumpet player I've ever met, where it seemed that the ultimate goal was to prove to the people next to you that you were better at playing trumpet than them. Trumpet players, as a personality trait, are awful, but that's a digression for another post). I do not consider myself a musician. My passion for music does not lie in this realm and I'm perfectly fine with this.

So, Tom, your passion for music is related to listening? And that's it? Boo-o-o-ring. I agree, but fuck you, because I refuse to even simplify it to that degree. It gets way more banal, my friend. For one thing, about 99% of the time I don't enjoy live music. I can dig deeper into the reasons another time, but I've long believed that music is not a visceral experience for me, and I therefore don't get much out of being present at a live show. And furthermore, I don't find that I have any reason to brag that I saw a band at a venue at a certain time, or for a certain number of times, or before they were famous, or before they sold-out, or anything of the sort, so that component of the live experience is lost on me as well. I can count on one hand truly memorable concerts I've attended, and even those I wouldn't have consider essential to my life experiences. I'm a boring fucking dude, give me a break. I don't like going to concerts. Suck it.

So, Tom, your passion for music is related to listening to the radio? No, shut up. Through and through, I'm an album guy. I love an artist's work rendered in an artful representation of the studio album. I don't like singles, I don't like the radio, I don't like having my iPod on shuffle, I love listening to a studio album from beginning to end with barely any exceptions. I rarely enjoy live albums, but my thoughts on live albums in general are pretty nebulous and there are a ton that I do like. I intensely dislike compilation albums, because the art is lost for me there. I don't even like EPs, I consider an EP a medium to "get the music out there faster", instead of the fully realized studio album. The art is lost for me there too. Albums, son. Albums.

Anyway, that's a shitty introduction. I'm not good at introductions. I guess the point here is that I'm pretty sure I have a lot to say about music, and that's why I want to start writing about music. I may have opinions about death metal today that won't match my opinions of death metal in two years, but the cool thing is that my opinions will be time-stamped. Today's opinions will be perfectly valid, and tomorrow's opposite opinions will be perfectly valid as well. Music opinions change, as they should for any free-thinking human being who gives even a basic crap about music on an intellectual level, and I look forward to contradicting myself at every turn along the way.

An opinion that I believe will never change is that I consider myself a "good" music listener. Like I said, it's not a visceral experience for me, it's an intellectual one. I'm not bogged down by biases and emotional attachments, for the most part (especially considering how late into the game I was with respect to listening to music as a hobby, but more on that another time), so I'm open-minded to anything and everything (and I do mean everything), and I'm constantly looking to branch out, become more educated, and piece together the entire history of modern music in my brain one day at a time. This is my ultimate goal, and hopefully I can transcribe my passions to the written word and stick with writing consistently for once in my damn life. Have fun reading. Or don't. I don't care, this is all for me.