New Year's Resolutions

It’s almost 2009, which is a good thing. 2008 was a terrible year for just about everyone with a pulse. I think the only people happy about 2008 are Barack Obama, Christopher Nolan, and Satan. And even Satan’s not really feeling it this year. In keeping with the theme of the New Year and new beginnings and all that happy, fuzzy jazz, I’m going to participate in the annual ritual of committing to new ideas and new endeavors. With the knowledge, of course, that I will drop all of these commitments by the end of January:

* In 2009, I will adopt a Taiwanese boy in my continuing efforts to be more like Angelina Jolie, minus the boobs and other assorted girlie parts. I will name him “Trimm Trabb” and we’ll go to charity functions together. He’ll be the fabulous accessory that proves that I am both compassionate about world affairs and ultra-hip to boot.

* I will make an honest effort to understand the musical genius that is Phil Collins. I do realize that I’ve never given this man a fair shake. He was in Genesis, so that has to stand for something, right? I’ll start with the Tarzan soundtrack and make my way backwards. I’m just working on the assumption that the Tarzan soundtrack was his last album. He died ten years ago, right?

* I will do something “jauntily.” I’ve never done anything in my life “jauntily” and I feel like I’m missing out. If I must be accompanied by all times by a squadron of chirping bluebirds to accomplish this feat, I will make it so.

* I will attempt to watch an entire Will Smith movie without throwing up. Now, vomiting while consuming vast amounts of alcohol doesn’t count. I’m talking about the whole nine yards. I will watch an entire Will Smith movie sober and not vomit. I’m currently practicing for this feat by watching the films of lesser demons. I’ve gotten three-quarters of the way through a Tom Cruise movie before having to skedaddle to the nearest water closet. My tolerance for Nicholas Cage is still only at half a film. I have a lot of work to do before I can claim victory over the ravages of Will Smith.

* I will cease referring to the Bakersfield City Council as “mah bitches.” It’s rude, inappropriate, and only partially true.

* I will also quit drinking in 2009… Ah, just fucking with you…

Fiona Apple

I have a confession to make, but it’s one you already knew about…

I first heard Fiona Apple on a compilation for CMJ magazine, back when Sony was thrusting out copies of “Shadowboxer” to anyone who’d listen. This was a few months before the release of Tidal, and it was the first time I’d heard of her. She just seemed plucked from the streets somewhere and given a record deal and promoted heavily because of her age and voice.

And I hated “Shadowboxer” on principle. It was just the sort of thing I dislike. An artist snatched up by a major label and foisted on the public as sexy and cool and exactly the sort of thing a person like me should listen to. I was resentful. I rejected Fiona Apple.

But then I met you. You loved Tidal and listened to it all the time. Your favorite song was “Slow Like Honey.” I played along and bought you a new copy when yours got too scratched to listen to. I didn’t get it. When her second record came out, I bought us both copies. I gave her a second chance and, wouldn’t you know it, I actually liked When The Pawn… I became a fan because of you. Because you urged me to give her a second chance.

Years later, we went to the Greek Theatre in LA to see Fiona with my friend Rachel. It was cold and the crowd was huge. We had a blast, acting like kids. All three of us would scream at Fiona between songs, “You tell them Fiona! You tell those fuckers how it is!” We had an unbelievable time, and it was a massive bonding experience for the three of us. No matter that we’re not together anymore. No matter that Rachel lives in a different country now.

It’s now over between us and I keep coming back to Fiona Apple. I listen to her all the time. It took me over a decade to really understand her. I get what she’s saying now. She really was telling us the entire time. She knows how it is.

My favorite song by Fiona Apple is “The Way Things Are,“ because it was the first of her songs that really spoke to me. To who I am. But I listen to “Shadowboxer” because of you. I still have Fiona Apple, but “Shadowboxer” still belongs to you. It always will.

Orange Juice

Mom: “Sebastian sure does drink a lot of orange juice.”

Me: “Yeah, he also drinks a lot of tonic water.”

Mom: *grumble*

A Bouncing Soul

It’s Tuesday and it’s two days until Christmas. My dear friend is in town and we’ve been drinking and eating at various establishments in Bakersfield all afternoon. It’s evening and we’ve wound up at one of our favorite bars. And something inherently amusing to me is about to happen.

My friend lets me in on a little secret. She tells me that regulars at this bar tend to be given jobs around holidays to cover shifts so the owners don’t have to hire extra people. Sure enough, we’re given a job a few hours after our arrival. My friend is to check I.D.’s at the door the rest of the evening and I’m to back her up. To be “the muscle,” as it were.

Here’s a confession: I’m not a particularly intimidating person. But there is a small percentage of people who are intimidated by me for whatever particular reason. So, my friend alternates between telling me to stop laughing and to stop looking like a kicked puppy. “Butch up,” she says.

We work a four-hour shift at the door, covering each other and drinking for free. The bar is insanely busy. By this time at night, most of the regulars have absconded, leaving a plague of wannabe hipsters and lonely youngsters on the prowl.

We laugh at the boys and girls younger than us, the ones that look ten years older than we. I instantly fall in love with a girl who looks like Jennifer Connelly. She’s surrounded by a shield of willing suitors. I’m just “the muscle.”

A drunk man is confused by the jukebox and asks for help playing James Brown or Al Green. My friend gently takes him by the shoulder and explains how the jukebox works. She has a delicate touch with the damaged.

A man takes umbrage at being asked to leave his drink at a table before leaving the bar. Another man is upset that he’s being carded in the first place. I’m intimidating enough, apparently, that neither presses the issue very far.

Eventually, final call starts and we help the drunk and weary from their tables to the door. It seems like a hundred or so people are in the bar at final call. We lock the doors and help the bartenders clean the bar. They pay us from the tip jar for our efforts and thank us before sending us on our way.

Our reward to ourselves is the best-tasting Dell Taco experience of our lives. There’s nothing quite like working your ass off and rewarding yourself with mediocre fast food at 3 am.

Working the door at my favorite bar is not where I expected to find myself two days before Christmas, but it was an interesting experience, nonetheless. If I had a Bucket List, you could tick “bouncing” off of it. Maybe I’ve missed my calling this whole time. Who knows?

The Best Albums Of 2008 #1

Portishead-Third

It took Bristol’s Portishead eleven years to release their third album, appropriately titled Third. They didn’t break up in the interim. This isn’t their big cash-in before a reunion tour. They just quietly did other things. Vocalist Beth Gibbons made an album with Paul Webb from Talk Talk (2003‘s Out Of Season). Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley produced records and started a record label. It was an inadvertent hiatus. An eleven year hiatus would normally kill a band. Not Portishead. Portishead made that third album as if only a few years had passed. Third isn’t just the proper follow-up to their first pair of amazing albums, 1994’s Dummy and 1997’s Portishead. Third is Portishead’s best album, period.

Third displays a downplaying of the “trip-hop” style that made Portishead (and Massive Attack, among others) famous in the early ‘90s. Album opener “Silence” features many of the textures and oppressive mood swings of early Portishead songs, but without being danceable or groovy in the slightest. “Plastic” is practically krautrock, reminiscent of Can in the best ways imaginable. The album’s highlight is “The Rip,” a song that slowly builds around an acoustic guitar loop and eventually crashes into synthesizers and Gibbons’ moody lyrics (“While, white horses/They will take me away/And the tenderness I feel/Will send the dark underneath/Will I follow?").


“Machine Gun”



Bonus! Radiohead’s hotel room cover of Portishead‘s “The Rip.”

The Best Albums Of 2008 #2

CSS-Donkey

Music labels are completely useless until you actually find yourself writing about music. So-and-so is electro. So-and-so is gypsy punk (Okay, so that’s just Gogol Bordello, but whatever.). When Cansei de Ser Sexy released their self-titled debut in 2006, they were lumped into the New Rave scene, a genre comprised of bands that sound nothing alike (Like most of the bands in these genres do.). CSS sounds nothing like Klaxons who sound nothing like M.I.A. But the media loves a good genre tag, so there you go. CSS became a bit of a genre representative, achieving a few minor hit singles and a surprisingly large following for a Brazilian band with questionable English language skills.

Their second album, Donkey, pulls back quite a bit on the pacing and pep of their first album. The songs are more mid-tempo and ready for live play. And if we were to label this record, it’d be with the good old “Alternative” tag (It‘s like a scarlet letter, no?). The songs on Donkey meld the electronic rock stylings of Cansei de Ser Sexy with a more straightforward alt rock sound. The influences on this album are more Dinosaur Jr. and Pixies/Breeders than EMF or Jesus Jones or whatever the New Rave tag is supposed to entail. The result is a more confident and complete record than Cansei de Ser Sexy.

“Move”

The Best Albums Of 2008 #3

Clinic-Do It!

Over the course of five albums and a handful of EP’s, Liverpool’s Clinic have made about a decade’s worth of weird and underappreciated music. They’re a quartet more noted for their predilection for surgical scrubs on stage than their music, which is a shame. The band has mastered an unusual blend of genres, from rockabilly to folk to krautrock, and continues to refine that sound every album. Singer Ade Blackburn has a whiny voice reminiscent of Thom Yorke, and is nearly as unintelligible. But unlike Yorke’s Radiohead, Clinic seems content to do one sound just right. Believe it or not, the band benefits from this approach.

There’s little on 2008’s Do It! to differentiate it from any of Clinic’s prior works. If you’ve heard any Clinic record, you’ve heard them all. What’s interesting about them is this: If you were to recommend any Clinic record to a newbie, this would be the record. Just as whatever their next record winds up being would be the record to recommend. Every new Clinic record is the same as the one before it, but it’s tighter. It’s better written. It’s fresher, even if it’s basically the same thing at its heart. So, Do It! is this year’s model. It’ll be interesting to see how much longer Clinic can keep improving on the same formula.

“Tomorrow”