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2004:04:12:11:30. Monday. LASSIE.
We got another parakeet yesterday, a little female we're calling Lassie. The total is now three parakeets, one cockatiel and one cat who's not especially skilled at being a predator. Lassie's job will be to mate with Dinner, who we got last summer as a test for the cat. We should be in the new house by the time they get to it, and then we'll be able to enjoy the never-ending fun of baby parakeets all over the place. [Motion City Soundtrack] When my best of '03 post gets done, Motion City Soundtrack's I Am the Movie will be at the top of it. I vascillate on what my favorite track is, but lately it's been "The Red Dress" (3.6MB), one of many MCS songs that puts to shame most of the last decade's Moog-based pop. Plus, they're absolutely crazy live. [Burning Airlines] Two years ago, Burning Airlines was at the top of the list. Their second (and ultimately ultimate) record, Identikit, was unlike anything I ever would've expected from J. Robbins, formerly the main guy in Jawbox. The opener, "Outside the Aviary" (2.0MB), sets a blistering pace that describes angularity in a way nobody outside of math rock has done since. It's a shame almost nobody paid attention and they broke up in 2002.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:04:04:19:27. Sunday. PRICED TO MOVE.
Emily and I went to some rummage sales yesterday. At the first one, which was really this big community center benefit thing, I bought a game that apparently failed to replace Scrabble several decades ago, called Option, and a kitchen device that doesn't make much sense to me but only cost $0.10. I think it may be a grapefruit puller-outer, or at least that's what I'm using it for. [Mark Lanegan] Tomorrow it's ten years since Kurt Cobain killed himself. I was 14 at the time, and a huge Nirvana fan. The event had as much impact on me as any cultural event probably could, and it still informs most of my thinking about death, depression, rock and roll and the mass media. I posted something a couple years ago about Bruce McCulloch's "Vigil," a spoken word track full of flip brusqueness and desperate curiosity, to the effect that I doubted I would ever be able understand what Kurt didn't see in the world and whether I couldn't see it either. I don't know if Mark Lanegan has ever spoken publically about any of this. Lanegan, then the frontman for Screaming Trees, and Cobain were friends in the Seattle scene, and they collaborated on a couple tracks for Lanegan's solo debut, The Winding Sheet. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (3.6MB), the Leadbelly song with which Nirvana closed their Unplugged set, features Cobain on guitar and Krist Novoselic on bass and has a much more driving, gothic feel than does the Nirvana version. Lanegan and Screaming Trees were always the closest thing there was to a "grunge" prototype, I think, even more so than Soundgarden. I saw him perform with Queens of the Stone Age last summer and couldn't believe that the Trees never became huge arena-fillers. Their early work (and much of The Winding Sheet, to be honest) is a little inaccessible, but by the time "Nearly Lost You" got them their 15 minutes in 1992, their material was ready for prime-time. Like everybody but Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees are gone now. After the suicide, one of Cobain's songs was given to Lanegan, but I can't find anything to indicate whether or not he's recorded it. Courtney Love has become a sad punchline, for the most part, Dave Grohl is now his own rock star and Novoselic is helping tend to the pigs on Bill Berry's farm. Ten years have elapsed in all our lives, unless you got here after Kurt left. If there are lessons in this that haven't already been summed up in 20-word greeting card poems, I don't know what they are.
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:03:28:12:29. Sunday. MILWAUKEE RIFF-OFF 2004.
I became a TA at the beginning of this semester and already I'm about to go on strike. Basically, the state is offering us a new contract that includes no cost of living raise, and introduces a payment into our currently free health insurance. Also, no domestic partner benefits. We're still operating under the old, expired contract, which is better than anything we can hope for in the new one. I have no idea why we're talking about striking, given that we can't possibly gain anything from a new contract. In an effort to get the word out to the undergrads -- who, frankly, don't care and have no influence -- the TAA has been leafletting trees and putting up "informational pickets" all over campus. We'll see what happens. I tend to think we should just ride out the old contract as long as we can, because the state isn't going to want to lock us out. [+/-] My girlfriend, Emily, and I went to see Death Cab For Cutie in Milwaukee on Friday. It was "Free Ticket Friday" at the Rave, which meant you got two free drink tickets when you bought your ticket to the show. It turns out that since the last time I was at the Rave, drinks have gone from $6 to $9. Also, parking has gone from $12 to $20, so we parked eight blocks away in a Marquette University ramp. The Rave actually contains three separate venues, and unbeknownst to us, another show was going on in the big ballroom while our show was in the medium-sized, theatre-style room. It appears that parking was all fucked up because ironic hair-metal flash-in-the-pan the Darkness was upstairs. Because of the resulting time spent walking from the car, we missed opening act +/-. I was only sort of nonplussed by this; I like their latest album, You Are Here, but I wasn't interested in paying that much extra to park next to the building. When Death Cab came out, frontman Ben Gibbard chastized us for missed their "amazing" set. And then, on the way home, "Trapped Under Ice Floes (Redux)" was stuck in my head for the entire drive. [Benjamin Gibbard] Death Cab's tour is actually a co-headlining affair with Ben Kweller, whom I'm neither familiar with nor terribly interested in. As it happened, Death Cab played first, but didn't quite announce themselves clearly. When they got to "Photobooth," Emily said they shouldn't be playing Death Cab covers when they're on a Death Cab bill. Then I corrected her and we laughed. I tend to be of the opinion that their most recent album, Transatlanticism, is their best, and my favorites from that record, "The New Year" and "The Sound of Settling," were the highlights of the set. When it became clear that the Darkness had taken the stage upstairs, due to the slight sound leak through the ceiling, Gibbard challenged them to a riff-off, which they appear not to have accepted. Score one victory by default for indie rock. [MP3 links removed as of 2004.04.12.]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra 2004:03:21:13:54. Sunday. STATE OF MATES.
"No Smoking" signs are a rare sight in Wisconsin nightclubs. Before Friday night, every time I'd been to Milwaukee's Cactus Club, the small stage area had been filled to capacity with smoke. This time there were signs all over the place -- turns out Kori Gardner, the Mates of State vocalist/organist barely seen here, is about halfway pregnant. As far as I could tell, all but one person stuck to the rules. [Mates of State] This was the third time I've seen Mates of State live and they always deliver. If I ever get my best of 2003 post finished, it'll have their latest, Team Boo, at #9. The whole thing is terrifically catchy, but I key on "Whiner's Bio" for some reason. [Crime & Judy] I'd never seen Crime & Judy before, but one of my students said they rocked. I kind of liked them. They've got dual lead female vocalists and a violinist, both of which are pluses in my book. It's kind of like that dog. if Anna Waronker's voice had a more strident sound. They had some problems keeping in tune while singing in unison, but pretty good other than that. "Kill Me Goodnight" is from their recent live EP, Vendetta Chants. [Jail] Jail opened the show, and is my girlfriend's brother's band. We almost missed part of their set, because we were waiting for the extremely slow food service at Palomino and the Cactus Club was closer than ever to starting on time -- Jail's set started at about 10:30, scheduled for 10:00. "Bullets Flying" is my favorite song from their debut, Décor, but they didn't play it on Friday, so here's one they did -- "Annex the Doubt." [MP3 links removed as of 2004.04.03.]
posted by Aaron S. Veenstra |
