Have you ever waited six years for anything?
A college freshman waits less time to earn a degree. A defeated presidential hopeful, for his next run at the White House. An underdog Olympic medalist, for a chance to show the world that her triumph was no fluke. But six years is exactly what fans of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire epic have had to endure since the release of the fourth book in the series, A Feast for Crows. Worse, due to the narrative choices that Mr. Martin made (not necessarily bad ones), this is the first we've seen of some of the series' most compelling characters since the third book, 2000's A Storm of Swords.
ASoIaF is the best fantasy fiction currently being written (though some of Brandon Sanderson's stuff comes close). That said, the series has lagged a little in its more recent volumes: A Feast for Crows is the slowest and least interesting book in the series, and Dance is only slightly better. (Its proximity to the first season of the excellent HBO adaptation only served to contrast it to the fast-paced, at-times shocking first book.) But, as many a fan has pointed out, mediocre George RR Martin is better than nearly everything else out there.
More than half of Dance is devoted to just three characters: Jon Snow, Tyrion, and Daenerys. Jon has always been among my favorite characters, so it was a welcome sight to see him commanding about a fifth of Dance. And of the book's three "main characters," Jon's chapters are definitely the best. There's a sense of progress throughout, from when Jon beheads his old rival Janos Slynt, through his gradual peacemaking with the wildlings and re-establishment of the garrisons along the Wall, to his climactic scene in Castle Black rallying the wildling chiefs to march against Winterfell.
Speaking of Winterfell, why not make a battle at Winterfell the climactic scene in the book? It would have touched the stories of plenty of POV characters--not only Jon but also Asha, Davos, Theon, and Melisandre--and a massive, pitched battle would have been exactly what the book needed to cram some excitement into its last quarter. Also, even though the Bastard of the Dreadfort claims it, I doubt very much that Stannis is dead.
The big cliffhanger to Jon's story is that he maybe, possibly, could be dead. He's not. His story isn't finished yet, his destiny not fulfilled. And without Jon, we would have no narrator to describe the events at the Wall and the looming battle with the Others. Plus, you can't set up a march against the Boltons at the head of three thousand wildlings and Tormund Giantsbane by your side and not deliver on it. (Also, Tormund Giantsbane for best minor character? I vote yes.)
Unfortunately, the rest of the "main character" chapters aren't as good as Jon's. Daenerys has admittedly never been my favorite character--which is increasingly a bad way of looking at the series--but at least her chapters in previous books have constituted a sort of travelogue, a way of getting some insight into the rest of the world beyond Westeros.
Even that grinds to a halt in Dance. After relatively brisk stays in Pentos, the Dothraki Sea, and Astapor, we find Daenerys settling herself into Meereenese politics. It would be a fine story if it were told by itself. But as a handful of chapters in the overarching plot, it doesn't work. Dany is smitten with a mercenary captain (whom we don't care about because he was just introduced in this book), betrothed to a local noble (whom we don't care about because he was just introduced in this book), attended on by a different local noble (whom we don't care about because he was just introduced in this book), and the list goes on.
All of this is mighty far away from Westeros, which makes it really difficult to become invested in. One of the many reasons that ASoIaF is so compelling is that Westeros is so very nearly like our own world that there's a sense of proximity to it. The cultures, customs, and names of the Westerosi are vaguely familiar in a way that makes them seem more human than most other fantasy authors' characters.
But Ghis, Slaver's Bay, and Valyria are distant and bizarre. Mr. Martin succeeds in creating a foreign, almost alien, culture that's intriguing--but at the price of removing our attachment to it. Virtually every Daenerys chapter in Dance feels like a speed bump in the book, distracting our attention from the characters and places we've thought so much about over the last fifteen years. If those speed bumps meant that Daenerys were about to get back on the highway of the main plot, that would be fine. But what does she have to show for her months in Meereen and her chapters in Dance? A trio of feral dragons and a marriage to a man who is probably out to kill her.
With Daenerys planted firmly on the throne of Meereen, it falls to Tyrion to be our tour guide through Essos, but our beloved dwarf would rather brood on his past than point out landmarks. Yes, you shot your father Tywin with a crossbow while he was on the toilet. We read all about it in A Storm of Swords. We understand that your feelings about it are mixed and that it's constantly on your mind. That does not mean we need to read about it in every one of your many, many chapters in Dance.
Nor do we need to read about you choking Shae with her jewelry or your obsession with finding Tysha or how much wine you've had to drink or if you were winning or losing at cyvasse. Every Tyrion chapter can be reduced to some combination of those thoughts, and after three or four iterations of it, it ceases to be interesting. Tyrion's personality and occasional encounters with other branches of the plot and POV characters save his story from becoming a complete trainwreck--but barely.
Even his great cliffhanger falls flat: he's going to convince a turncloak group of mercenaries to... turn their cloaks again? At the end of the book, I realized I didn't even remember how Tyrion's chapters had ended because the "climax" seemed like such a non-event at the time.
Fortunately, not all of Dance is as dreary and inconsequential as the adventures in Essos. Ironically, the characters with the fewest viewpoint chapters have the most interesting things to say. Melisandre's lonely chapter shed some important if oblique insights on her relationship with the Red God and even more on the destiny of Jon Snow. (Hint: if you ask to see Azor Ahai reborn in your fires, and all you see is Jon Snow, maybe it's time to rethink the whole Stannis bit.)
My favorite character in the series remains Jaime, and his one chapter was excellent. It mattered to the story, it told an interesting detail about the world, it showcased how his character has developed, and it reunited him with Brienne, another POV character (not to mention confirming that Sandor Clegane is alive). Cersei's lesson in humility was deeply fulfilling to watch and kept its pace nicely.
There's a certain morbid thrill in watching Arya develop into an assassin, and it's going to be a very bad day for her hit list when she returns to Westeros. And Dance definitely needed more Bran. His scant few chapters were chock full of mythology and magic, and I look forward to the day when he becomes a flying tree.
Even Jon Connington's handful of chapters are interesting. By my own logic, I shouldn't care about him because he was introduced so late in the game... but given that he's already involving himself in Westeros instead of huddling in some corner across the Narrow Sea, he hasn't made himself an unwelcome addition. The news that Prince Aegon is still alive was a nice twist, and we finally got an answer to the age-old question of "whose side is Varys on, anyway?"
(Maybe that's the secret to bringing back the intensity and excitement of the first three books: limit George RR Martin to no more than five chapters for any one POV character!)
In the end, if fans are disappointed by Dance, it's not because they disliked the book--after all, this is A Song of Ice and Fire, and we would gladly read seven hundred pages of Rickon Stark playing with his direwolf if that's what Mr. Martin gave us. Instead, the disappointment comes from the dread of what comes next: do I really have to wait another World Cup and a half to get book six?
Currently listening: "The Police and the Private," Metric
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Deathly Hallows Part 2
A few days before the premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, my roommate Zach asked me if the Harry Potter movies were any good. He'd asked a much tougher question than he thought he had.
When you're adapting a book to a movie or TV show, you're necessarily dealing with a story, characters, a setting, and sometimes even dialog that aren't your own. So whether you've made a "good" movie or not often rests less on your cinematic skills than on the quality of your source material. For instance, say you're a film studio that's charged with adapting a certain book into a movie. It's not a very good book--it has a cast of unrelatable characters and a plot pockmarked with holes--but you do your best. You direct it artistically, produce it professionally, and depict it faithfully to the book. Have you made a great film? By independent artistic standards, probably not, even though you've done your job well, and fans of the book will probably like the movie very much.
On the other hand, say your film studio somehow lands the job of adapting the hypothetical Greatest Story Ever Told, one with a cast of delightfully complex characters and an intricate, powerful plot. Again, you do your job, doing justice to the book and turning out a well-made film. Have you made a great movie this time? Possibly--but how much credit can you take for it? And in either case, you're going to have the purists who cry foul if you so much as change one character's hair color arguing against the interpretive artists who lament an adaptation that's too faithful, lacking an original spin put on by the filmmaker.
I thought about Zach's question for a few seconds, and I told him, "they do a good job visually representing the books," knowing full well I hadn't answered his question. Whether the Harry Potter movies are good disproportionately depends on whether you think the Harry Potter setting is any good, characters are any good, story is any good.
For example, Minerva McGonagall (played by Maggie Smith, both the most underrated character and actress in the entire series) marshaling the defenses of Hogwarts is an impactful, triumphant scene. It looks great on film thanks to director David Yates, but without JK Rowling having written it four years earlier, it never would have been part of the movie. Similarly, the epilogue is among the worst scenes in the movie. (I'm in the "epilogue is more corny than cathartic" camp, though I recognize that not everyone shares that opinion.) But short of excising it completely, what was Mr. Yates supposed to do about it?
Instead, where the film adapter can succeed is in illustration of the books and its themes, in using cinematic devices to emphasize the most important ideas and events in the novels. As much as Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows story is about diving deeper and deeper into despair, Part 2 is about reconciling all the emotional highs and lows of the story into a coherent (and ultimately happy) ending.
(For all the awkwardness caused by calling a movie Harry Potter Part 7 Part 2, it's clear from both the first installment of Deathly Hallows and this one that splitting the movie in half was exactly the right decision. The two movies together run a total of 276 minutes, and they really do need at least four hours of that to tell the story completely.)
Both narratively and cinematically, one of the artistic successes of Deathly Hallows is how sharply it contrasts with the earlier volumes in the series. Innocence, childhood concerns, and a world that's firmly steered in the right direction by its adults give way to tragedy, adult emotions, and moral compasses that don't function any longer. Mr. Yates does a fantastic job of illustrating this, however briefly, in the landscape shots of Hogwarts after its destruction and in the Snape's-memories-in-the-Pensieve scene that shows footage from the first movie.
Speaking of Snape, Severus Snape is by far the most interesting character in the Harry Potter story. You could call him the only truly three-dimensional character, and while you might be overly critical, you wouldn't be wrong necessarily. So it's fitting that the character is the recipient of the best acting performance in the series. Alan Rickman's Snape is egotistical, sardonic, and antagonistic--but vulnerable in the right time. It's an iconic performance, one that will be sorely missed now that the metaphorical train has moved "on" from King's Cross Station.
But we're going to miss a lot more than that. One of the reasons that Harry Potter resonated so strongly with this generation was that the story was timed just right to coincide with our lives. Sure, I was twenty when Harry was seventeen in the last book, but I'd been a teenager right alongside him. And Harry Potter and I were both eleven-year-olds slightly enchanted by fantasy and magic back in 1998. A twenty-year-old reading through all seven books would likely find the story derivative, even juvenile; an eleven-year-old would find the entire experience far too intense and wouldn't be able to appreciate the gradual maturation of both the characters and the series.
That's why we think Harry Potter is good. A skeptic might argue that Harry Potter is a story that's been told a thousand times and populated by stock characters, and all JK Rowling did was change the narrative perspective. But maybe that's all she needed to do. To bring the logic around fully circular, the people who are going to be attending a midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie, camping for four hours on Kittredge Avenue next to the Berkeley Public Library, are going to be people who think the Harry Potter story is at least good--most of them going much further than that. So maybe the real test of whether an adapted movie is good is whether it pleases the fans, and by that standard, Deathly Hallows Part 2 succeeds unequivocally.
Currently listening: "Come Clean," Eisley
When you're adapting a book to a movie or TV show, you're necessarily dealing with a story, characters, a setting, and sometimes even dialog that aren't your own. So whether you've made a "good" movie or not often rests less on your cinematic skills than on the quality of your source material. For instance, say you're a film studio that's charged with adapting a certain book into a movie. It's not a very good book--it has a cast of unrelatable characters and a plot pockmarked with holes--but you do your best. You direct it artistically, produce it professionally, and depict it faithfully to the book. Have you made a great film? By independent artistic standards, probably not, even though you've done your job well, and fans of the book will probably like the movie very much.
On the other hand, say your film studio somehow lands the job of adapting the hypothetical Greatest Story Ever Told, one with a cast of delightfully complex characters and an intricate, powerful plot. Again, you do your job, doing justice to the book and turning out a well-made film. Have you made a great movie this time? Possibly--but how much credit can you take for it? And in either case, you're going to have the purists who cry foul if you so much as change one character's hair color arguing against the interpretive artists who lament an adaptation that's too faithful, lacking an original spin put on by the filmmaker.
I thought about Zach's question for a few seconds, and I told him, "they do a good job visually representing the books," knowing full well I hadn't answered his question. Whether the Harry Potter movies are good disproportionately depends on whether you think the Harry Potter setting is any good, characters are any good, story is any good.
For example, Minerva McGonagall (played by Maggie Smith, both the most underrated character and actress in the entire series) marshaling the defenses of Hogwarts is an impactful, triumphant scene. It looks great on film thanks to director David Yates, but without JK Rowling having written it four years earlier, it never would have been part of the movie. Similarly, the epilogue is among the worst scenes in the movie. (I'm in the "epilogue is more corny than cathartic" camp, though I recognize that not everyone shares that opinion.) But short of excising it completely, what was Mr. Yates supposed to do about it?
Instead, where the film adapter can succeed is in illustration of the books and its themes, in using cinematic devices to emphasize the most important ideas and events in the novels. As much as Part 1 of the Deathly Hallows story is about diving deeper and deeper into despair, Part 2 is about reconciling all the emotional highs and lows of the story into a coherent (and ultimately happy) ending.
(For all the awkwardness caused by calling a movie Harry Potter Part 7 Part 2, it's clear from both the first installment of Deathly Hallows and this one that splitting the movie in half was exactly the right decision. The two movies together run a total of 276 minutes, and they really do need at least four hours of that to tell the story completely.)
Both narratively and cinematically, one of the artistic successes of Deathly Hallows is how sharply it contrasts with the earlier volumes in the series. Innocence, childhood concerns, and a world that's firmly steered in the right direction by its adults give way to tragedy, adult emotions, and moral compasses that don't function any longer. Mr. Yates does a fantastic job of illustrating this, however briefly, in the landscape shots of Hogwarts after its destruction and in the Snape's-memories-in-the-Pensieve scene that shows footage from the first movie.
Speaking of Snape, Severus Snape is by far the most interesting character in the Harry Potter story. You could call him the only truly three-dimensional character, and while you might be overly critical, you wouldn't be wrong necessarily. So it's fitting that the character is the recipient of the best acting performance in the series. Alan Rickman's Snape is egotistical, sardonic, and antagonistic--but vulnerable in the right time. It's an iconic performance, one that will be sorely missed now that the metaphorical train has moved "on" from King's Cross Station.
But we're going to miss a lot more than that. One of the reasons that Harry Potter resonated so strongly with this generation was that the story was timed just right to coincide with our lives. Sure, I was twenty when Harry was seventeen in the last book, but I'd been a teenager right alongside him. And Harry Potter and I were both eleven-year-olds slightly enchanted by fantasy and magic back in 1998. A twenty-year-old reading through all seven books would likely find the story derivative, even juvenile; an eleven-year-old would find the entire experience far too intense and wouldn't be able to appreciate the gradual maturation of both the characters and the series.
That's why we think Harry Potter is good. A skeptic might argue that Harry Potter is a story that's been told a thousand times and populated by stock characters, and all JK Rowling did was change the narrative perspective. But maybe that's all she needed to do. To bring the logic around fully circular, the people who are going to be attending a midnight showing of a Harry Potter movie, camping for four hours on Kittredge Avenue next to the Berkeley Public Library, are going to be people who think the Harry Potter story is at least good--most of them going much further than that. So maybe the real test of whether an adapted movie is good is whether it pleases the fans, and by that standard, Deathly Hallows Part 2 succeeds unequivocally.
Currently listening: "Come Clean," Eisley
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
An iTunes-created top 15 artists
It's facebook viral survey time again!
Directions: open iTunes and sort your songs by number of plays. List the top 15 distinct artists that appear in terms of plays and the most-played track by each (along with the number of plays). Eminem and Eminem feat. xyz and variants thereof are not distinct artists, as much as iTunes may think they are. Write something about each of them. Tag me in your note.
1. "Greater Than," Vedera, from Stages (38). Okay, this one is going to take a little explanation. Two and a half years ago, Last.fm suggested that I listen to a little EP called Stages from a band called Vedera. It was awesome. It's three songs of brilliance; if you want them to, they can tell a cohesive story, and if not, they're perfectly amazing in isolation. But the best part was that Vedera hyped the EP as a preview of things to come with their second full-length album, also called Stages. The full-length didn't quite live up to the EP, but I still listened to it far, far too many times back in fall 2009. "Greater Than" is both the first and best track on the album, explaining its gratuitous number of plays.
2. "Sing Me Spanish Techno," The New Pornographers, from Twin Cinema (30). In a year that also saw the release of The Everglow, Plans, Illinois, and Picaresque, Twin Cinema still managed to be a standout album. This was the first song I heard by the New Pornographers--tragically, not until 2010!--and it made me an instant fan. Energy, imagery, and creative lyrics make this song a worthy addition to the list. Go listen to it.
3. "Careful," Paramore, from Brand New Eyes (20). Yep, guilty as charged, I'm into Paramore. The only surprise here was that my most-played Paramore track wasn't from Riot!, because that album is seriously good, and I will defend it with every ounce of critical credibility that I have. "Careful" is a fine track too, with enough energy to have been on Riot! and slightly more sophisticated lyrics.
4. "Australia," The Shins, from Wincing the Night Away (17). Love this song, love this album, love the Shins. It's so happy--how could you not love it? Some highlights are grin-inducing lyrics like "faced with the dodo's conundrum," a vague theme of breaking out of the mold and doing what makes you happy, and an absolutely delightful music video.
5. "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid," The Decemberists, from The Hazards of Love (15). The Decemberists have a lot of material that's tough to explain to a non-fan, and Hazards takes the cake for furthest out there. It's also irrationally my favorite Decemberists album--I think the theater/folk/prog experiment paid off. This song is essentially the end of "Act I" of the implied musical; it's about the shape-shifting protagonist William trying to escape the clutches of his jealous forest-queen mother. And in the context of Hazards, that not only all makes sense, but is really entertaining, both narratively and musically.
6. "Jewel to Sparkle," The Juliana Theory, from Love (14). A little surprised this showed up until I remembered how often I listen to the Juliana Theory at the gym. They might be the most under-appreciated rock band of the 2000s, and if they're known at all, it's for Emotion is Dead. It's a fine album, but Love is probably better and certainly under-rated. It contains a lot of harmonic and instrumental explorations not normally associated with circa-2003 emo rock, which it what makes it such good music.
7. "Daniel," Bat for Lashes, from Two Suns (13). My friend Andrew and I have a fine tradition of listening to the Pitchfork "top ten albums of the year" every January. 2009's was particularly terrible (some trash from Animal Collective was apparently the "best"), but the one bright spot we came across was Bat for Lashes. And by bright spot, we meant this song and maybe two or three more on Two Suns. "Daniel" is an out-of-place techno-inspired track on an album that feels like an opiate-induced day-long dream; it's Bat for Lashes at its most accessible and musically sound.
8. "Someone Else's Arms," Mae, from The Everglow (12). Absolutely a travesty that this track is so far down on the list, it's possibly my favorite song from possibly my favorite album of all time. My love for The Everglow defies explanation, but it involves some combination of personal significance and musical brilliance. Of all the songs on it, "Someone Else's Arms" rocks the hardest and leaves the strongest impression.
9. "Desecration Smile," Red Hot Chili Peppers, from Stadium Arcadium (12). Not being a huge Chili Peppers fan in general, I was pleasantly blown away by Stadium Arcadium. It has a few weak tracks on it; "Desecration Smile" is not one of them. It might be about a relationship, or drugs, or nothing at all, but it hardly needs lyrics considering its modal, brooding melodies are so intriguing.
10. "Shady Grove," as performed by Among the Oak and Ash, from Among the Oak and Ash (11). Very cool. I've never been shy about admitting that I like a little folk and bluegrass garnish to go along with my steady diet of indie pop, which explains why I took to AtOAA so readily after hearing them on Paste Magazine's podcast a couple of years ago. "Shady Grove" is an old American folk song, with thousands of renditions out there, and Garrison Starr's simple banjo-accompanied version is as good as any of them.
11. "Bohemian Like You," The Dandy Warhols, from Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (11). I claim to be a Dandy Warhols fan on the strength of this album alone; in fact, I've never even heard any of the other albums, I just assume they're a fraction as good. My friend Nicholas shared this album with me back in 2005, and this track was an instant favorite: "Bohemian Like You" made fun of the hipster culture before it was cool to make fun of hipsters.
12. "Help I'm Alive," Metric, from Fantasies (11). In the wasteland of music that was 2009, Metric somewhat quietly released by far their best album, managing to incorporate their dance-y unconventionality from previous albums without being nearly as aggressively in our faces about it. "Help I'm Alive" is far more interesting than it deserves to be for how much it repeats, but Emily Haines and company make me want to hear the insistent, driving chorus each of the dozen or so times it shows up.
13. "We Are What You Say," Sufjan Stevens, from A Sun Came! (10). Hardly a shock that a Sufjan Stevens song shows up on this list, the only surprise being that it's from A Sun Came! instead of the more recent The Age of Adz or the more brilliant Illinois. Along with "A Winner Needs A Wand," "We Are What You Say" opens Stevens' debut album with a surprisingly hard-rock take on Middle Eastern folk. Complete with slightly unconventional instrumentation and structure and vaguely-religious-but-draw-your-own-conclusions lyrics, "We Are What You Say" laid the foundation for more than a decade's worth of experimentation by Sufjan Stevens in the realm of indie folk.
14. "Barrowland Ballroom," Amy MacDonald, from This Is The Life (10). Every season, Starbucks releases a "Have You Heard" compilation that has historically done a pretty impressive job of picking out the next big thing in indie-land. I first heard Amy MacDonald on the Fall 08 edition, which also included current indie darling Bon Iver. I wasn't as impressed with his music as I was apparently supposed to be, but "This Is The Life" convinced me to buy Amy MacDonald's album. Most of it isn't as good as the title track; "Barrowland Ballroom" is one of the few songs that's probably better. Once styled as "the UK's answer to Katy Perry, except she can actually sing," MacDonald pilots her spirited contralto through a stride piano-driven track about doing awesome things with people you love.
15. "Close Call," Rilo Kiley, from Under the Blacklight (10). Even though they're the two most different-sounding Rilo Kiley albums, Blacklight and Take-Offs and Landings go back and forth for the honor of "Matt's favorite Rilo Kiley album". Blacklight must have won out, at least over the two-year span that this iTunes library has been racking up plays. Like every good Rilo Kiley song, it's a Jenny Lewis vocal showcase with just a hint of country
Currently listening: "My Lovely," Eisley, from Room Noises (only 3 plays? what?)
Directions: open iTunes and sort your songs by number of plays. List the top 15 distinct artists that appear in terms of plays and the most-played track by each (along with the number of plays). Eminem and Eminem feat. xyz and variants thereof are not distinct artists, as much as iTunes may think they are. Write something about each of them. Tag me in your note.
1. "Greater Than," Vedera, from Stages (38). Okay, this one is going to take a little explanation. Two and a half years ago, Last.fm suggested that I listen to a little EP called Stages from a band called Vedera. It was awesome. It's three songs of brilliance; if you want them to, they can tell a cohesive story, and if not, they're perfectly amazing in isolation. But the best part was that Vedera hyped the EP as a preview of things to come with their second full-length album, also called Stages. The full-length didn't quite live up to the EP, but I still listened to it far, far too many times back in fall 2009. "Greater Than" is both the first and best track on the album, explaining its gratuitous number of plays.
2. "Sing Me Spanish Techno," The New Pornographers, from Twin Cinema (30). In a year that also saw the release of The Everglow, Plans, Illinois, and Picaresque, Twin Cinema still managed to be a standout album. This was the first song I heard by the New Pornographers--tragically, not until 2010!--and it made me an instant fan. Energy, imagery, and creative lyrics make this song a worthy addition to the list. Go listen to it.
3. "Careful," Paramore, from Brand New Eyes (20). Yep, guilty as charged, I'm into Paramore. The only surprise here was that my most-played Paramore track wasn't from Riot!, because that album is seriously good, and I will defend it with every ounce of critical credibility that I have. "Careful" is a fine track too, with enough energy to have been on Riot! and slightly more sophisticated lyrics.
4. "Australia," The Shins, from Wincing the Night Away (17). Love this song, love this album, love the Shins. It's so happy--how could you not love it? Some highlights are grin-inducing lyrics like "faced with the dodo's conundrum," a vague theme of breaking out of the mold and doing what makes you happy, and an absolutely delightful music video.
5. "The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid," The Decemberists, from The Hazards of Love (15). The Decemberists have a lot of material that's tough to explain to a non-fan, and Hazards takes the cake for furthest out there. It's also irrationally my favorite Decemberists album--I think the theater/folk/prog experiment paid off. This song is essentially the end of "Act I" of the implied musical; it's about the shape-shifting protagonist William trying to escape the clutches of his jealous forest-queen mother. And in the context of Hazards, that not only all makes sense, but is really entertaining, both narratively and musically.
6. "Jewel to Sparkle," The Juliana Theory, from Love (14). A little surprised this showed up until I remembered how often I listen to the Juliana Theory at the gym. They might be the most under-appreciated rock band of the 2000s, and if they're known at all, it's for Emotion is Dead. It's a fine album, but Love is probably better and certainly under-rated. It contains a lot of harmonic and instrumental explorations not normally associated with circa-2003 emo rock, which it what makes it such good music.
7. "Daniel," Bat for Lashes, from Two Suns (13). My friend Andrew and I have a fine tradition of listening to the Pitchfork "top ten albums of the year" every January. 2009's was particularly terrible (some trash from Animal Collective was apparently the "best"), but the one bright spot we came across was Bat for Lashes. And by bright spot, we meant this song and maybe two or three more on Two Suns. "Daniel" is an out-of-place techno-inspired track on an album that feels like an opiate-induced day-long dream; it's Bat for Lashes at its most accessible and musically sound.
8. "Someone Else's Arms," Mae, from The Everglow (12). Absolutely a travesty that this track is so far down on the list, it's possibly my favorite song from possibly my favorite album of all time. My love for The Everglow defies explanation, but it involves some combination of personal significance and musical brilliance. Of all the songs on it, "Someone Else's Arms" rocks the hardest and leaves the strongest impression.
9. "Desecration Smile," Red Hot Chili Peppers, from Stadium Arcadium (12). Not being a huge Chili Peppers fan in general, I was pleasantly blown away by Stadium Arcadium. It has a few weak tracks on it; "Desecration Smile" is not one of them. It might be about a relationship, or drugs, or nothing at all, but it hardly needs lyrics considering its modal, brooding melodies are so intriguing.
10. "Shady Grove," as performed by Among the Oak and Ash, from Among the Oak and Ash (11). Very cool. I've never been shy about admitting that I like a little folk and bluegrass garnish to go along with my steady diet of indie pop, which explains why I took to AtOAA so readily after hearing them on Paste Magazine's podcast a couple of years ago. "Shady Grove" is an old American folk song, with thousands of renditions out there, and Garrison Starr's simple banjo-accompanied version is as good as any of them.
11. "Bohemian Like You," The Dandy Warhols, from Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia (11). I claim to be a Dandy Warhols fan on the strength of this album alone; in fact, I've never even heard any of the other albums, I just assume they're a fraction as good. My friend Nicholas shared this album with me back in 2005, and this track was an instant favorite: "Bohemian Like You" made fun of the hipster culture before it was cool to make fun of hipsters.
12. "Help I'm Alive," Metric, from Fantasies (11). In the wasteland of music that was 2009, Metric somewhat quietly released by far their best album, managing to incorporate their dance-y unconventionality from previous albums without being nearly as aggressively in our faces about it. "Help I'm Alive" is far more interesting than it deserves to be for how much it repeats, but Emily Haines and company make me want to hear the insistent, driving chorus each of the dozen or so times it shows up.
13. "We Are What You Say," Sufjan Stevens, from A Sun Came! (10). Hardly a shock that a Sufjan Stevens song shows up on this list, the only surprise being that it's from A Sun Came! instead of the more recent The Age of Adz or the more brilliant Illinois. Along with "A Winner Needs A Wand," "We Are What You Say" opens Stevens' debut album with a surprisingly hard-rock take on Middle Eastern folk. Complete with slightly unconventional instrumentation and structure and vaguely-religious-but-draw-your-own-conclusions lyrics, "We Are What You Say" laid the foundation for more than a decade's worth of experimentation by Sufjan Stevens in the realm of indie folk.
14. "Barrowland Ballroom," Amy MacDonald, from This Is The Life (10). Every season, Starbucks releases a "Have You Heard" compilation that has historically done a pretty impressive job of picking out the next big thing in indie-land. I first heard Amy MacDonald on the Fall 08 edition, which also included current indie darling Bon Iver. I wasn't as impressed with his music as I was apparently supposed to be, but "This Is The Life" convinced me to buy Amy MacDonald's album. Most of it isn't as good as the title track; "Barrowland Ballroom" is one of the few songs that's probably better. Once styled as "the UK's answer to Katy Perry, except she can actually sing," MacDonald pilots her spirited contralto through a stride piano-driven track about doing awesome things with people you love.
15. "Close Call," Rilo Kiley, from Under the Blacklight (10). Even though they're the two most different-sounding Rilo Kiley albums, Blacklight and Take-Offs and Landings go back and forth for the honor of "Matt's favorite Rilo Kiley album". Blacklight must have won out, at least over the two-year span that this iTunes library has been racking up plays. Like every good Rilo Kiley song, it's a Jenny Lewis vocal showcase with just a hint of country
Currently listening: "My Lovely," Eisley, from Room Noises (only 3 plays? what?)
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Game of Thrones, Season 1 (Part 2 of 2)
If you missed yesterday's post where I mention my surprise that Game of Thrones has an audience and talk about my dislike of some of the more egregiously "HBO" scenes, read it first.
One of the reasons it's been such a pleasure watching Game of Thrones (the TV show) is how well it's followed A Game of Thrones (the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire--won't it be nice and confusing next season when we're watching Game of Thrones based on A Clash of Kings?). I haven't read the first book in a long time (maybe a decade?) so I don't remember its fine details well, but nothing seems jarringly out of place.
While the Unburnt scene is the proper denouement for the first book/season, and probably the one that's going to have the most important consequences for the series as a whole, my favorite scene in A Game of Thrones has to be the King in the North scene. And it turned out awesome--if the Greatjon taking out his sword and saying "there sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to" doesn't give you chills, you're watching it wrong. It could have used some broad shots of various castles in the north raising the Direwolf (one part of the book that I definitely do remember, and vividly). But otherwise, that scene--and virtually all of the first season--is both good television and a good match to the books.
Where the TV show has really excelled, though, has been in the characters. Sean Bean expectedly nails Ned Stark, and the rest of the Stark family is pretty spot-on too. The Lannisters are comparably well done: Cersei and Jaime are great, Tywin is better, and no discussion of the first season would be complete without praising Peter Dinklage's Emmy-worthy Tyrion Lannister. Because I read the first few Song of Ice and Fire books at around the same time that the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I couldn't deconvolute the two series' "dwarves," and I've had this ridiculous mental image of Tyrion as looking like Gimli for the past decade. Credit to Mr. Dinklage for showing me exactly how Tyrion is supposed to look, act, and behave.
That's been the best part of the television adaptation: getting reasonable depictions of all of the characters. Some characters are relatively important to the plot, yet if you asked me based on the books to describe them, I'd be at a loss. In particular, Syrio Forel and Littlefinger are shown much more vividly in the TV show than I could have envisioned them.
Only a few characters were portrayed significantly differently than in the books. The biggest misstep was probably Renly Baratheon; where the Renly of the books is a charismatic, influential adviser to the king, the Renly of the TV series is reduced to Loras Tyrell's gay lover. Robert Baratheon's drunkenness and misogyny are emphasized at the expense of his former diplomatic ability and skills as a warrior, which is not as much a mis-portrayal as a difference of opinion. And both Cersei (in emphasizing Robert's lechery) and Tywin (in showing that he has a sense of honor, albeit a self-serving one) are portrayed much more sympathetically than in the books, an interesting and not unwelcome take.
Next season, I'm looking forward to seeing Stannis, Mance Rayder, Jaqen H'ghar, and Roose Bolton. But I'm most interested in seeing Melisandre; a good decision in casting her could lead to the most evocative TV villain since the smoke monster from Lost.
Currently listening: "Is Patience Still Waiting?", the Juliana Theory
One of the reasons it's been such a pleasure watching Game of Thrones (the TV show) is how well it's followed A Game of Thrones (the first book in A Song of Ice and Fire--won't it be nice and confusing next season when we're watching Game of Thrones based on A Clash of Kings?). I haven't read the first book in a long time (maybe a decade?) so I don't remember its fine details well, but nothing seems jarringly out of place.
While the Unburnt scene is the proper denouement for the first book/season, and probably the one that's going to have the most important consequences for the series as a whole, my favorite scene in A Game of Thrones has to be the King in the North scene. And it turned out awesome--if the Greatjon taking out his sword and saying "there sits the only king I mean to bend my knee to" doesn't give you chills, you're watching it wrong. It could have used some broad shots of various castles in the north raising the Direwolf (one part of the book that I definitely do remember, and vividly). But otherwise, that scene--and virtually all of the first season--is both good television and a good match to the books.
Where the TV show has really excelled, though, has been in the characters. Sean Bean expectedly nails Ned Stark, and the rest of the Stark family is pretty spot-on too. The Lannisters are comparably well done: Cersei and Jaime are great, Tywin is better, and no discussion of the first season would be complete without praising Peter Dinklage's Emmy-worthy Tyrion Lannister. Because I read the first few Song of Ice and Fire books at around the same time that the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I couldn't deconvolute the two series' "dwarves," and I've had this ridiculous mental image of Tyrion as looking like Gimli for the past decade. Credit to Mr. Dinklage for showing me exactly how Tyrion is supposed to look, act, and behave.
That's been the best part of the television adaptation: getting reasonable depictions of all of the characters. Some characters are relatively important to the plot, yet if you asked me based on the books to describe them, I'd be at a loss. In particular, Syrio Forel and Littlefinger are shown much more vividly in the TV show than I could have envisioned them.
Only a few characters were portrayed significantly differently than in the books. The biggest misstep was probably Renly Baratheon; where the Renly of the books is a charismatic, influential adviser to the king, the Renly of the TV series is reduced to Loras Tyrell's gay lover. Robert Baratheon's drunkenness and misogyny are emphasized at the expense of his former diplomatic ability and skills as a warrior, which is not as much a mis-portrayal as a difference of opinion. And both Cersei (in emphasizing Robert's lechery) and Tywin (in showing that he has a sense of honor, albeit a self-serving one) are portrayed much more sympathetically than in the books, an interesting and not unwelcome take.
Next season, I'm looking forward to seeing Stannis, Mance Rayder, Jaqen H'ghar, and Roose Bolton. But I'm most interested in seeing Melisandre; a good decision in casting her could lead to the most evocative TV villain since the smoke monster from Lost.
Currently listening: "Is Patience Still Waiting?", the Juliana Theory
Monday, June 20, 2011
Game of Thrones, Season 1 (Part 1 of 2)
There's something I can't figure out about Game of Thrones. It's not what the relationship between Houses A, B, and C is. It has nothing to do with whether Character X's motivation to betray Character Y had something to do with Character Z. And it's not even the true parentage of that bastard, or the true allegiance of that eunuch.
It's why the show has any mainstream appeal at all.
I say that as a huge fan of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, the epic fantasy book series that Game of Thrones is based on. It is awesome. It's probably the best fantasy fiction being written today. But it also has plenty going against it, especially from the standpoint of being a successful TV show.
First, it's complicated. Martin has described his books as having a "cast of thousands". You don't have to keep close tabs on all those thousands to understand the story, and not all of them are around in the first book (i.e., the first season of the TV series). But A Game of Thrones does have a dozen or so characters who could rightly be considered "main characters" and another dozen or so supporting characters with complex personalities and enough relevance to the story that you do need to keep track of them.
Similarly, while you don't need to have the membership of all eight or nine Great Houses committed to memory, you do need to understand the interrelationships among four of them to follow A Game of Thrones, and the series only becomes more demanding as it progresses. And you don't need to be a scholar of all seven millennia of Westeros's history, but knowing the last fifty years or so provides some very necessary background.
Second, it's a "genre show" if ever there was one. Find two people who are familiar with Battlestar Galactica. Ask one of them "is BSG a drama?" and the answer will most likely be "yes." Ask the other "what sort of show is BSG?" and the answer will most likely be "sci-fi." If a TV show (or book series, movie, etc.) can be classified as fantasy (or sci-fi, or Western, etc.), it's overwhelmingly likely that it will be.
TV series like this are often referred to as "genre shows"; despite really only being dramas dressed up slightly differently, there's a propensity among critics to over-classify. And it can be to the series' detriment. Some people aren't "sci-fi people" or "don't do Westerns," but they're actually closing themselves off to good entertainment just because of the setting. If anything, the stigma is worst with fantasy.
Finally, the story isn't told yet. After a six-year wait following A Feast for Crows, we're finally getting the fifth book next month. Nobody (save George RR Martin) has any idea how this is going to shake out, and at the current rate, we probably won't know this decade. But even for fans of the TV show who haven't read the books, there are still plenty of stories untold.
Remember that time when Ned Stark told Beric Dondarrion to take a hundred dudes and track down Gregor Clegane? How about when Barristan Selmy stormed out of the Red Keep after Cersei forced him into an early retirement? Is Walder Frey serious about his demand for Robb to marry a Frey daughter, and will Robb keep the promise? And who's this Stannis Baratheon character everyone keeps talking about?
Having read the books, I know the answers to all of those questions, and most of them turn out to be relatively important points. But to someone who doesn't already know the answers, they seem like gaping plot holes.
Yet, despite all of those reasons why it shouldn't, Game of Thrones has succeeded, commercially, critically, and artistically. The one area where it's been less than stellar is its over-"HBO-ification". Yes, Martin's world is a gritty one, with sex, violence, death, and vulgarity in every corner. And no, I'm not the sort of prudish viewer who immediately dismisses a show with the first sex scene. But there are scenes that advance the plot and/or the characters, and then there are HBO scenes. One particular scene (with two random girls in Littlefinger's room) was actually hard to watch--I had to plug in earphones lest my roommates start asking questions.
Aside from the one scene per episode where you can't help but wonder "did we really need to see that?", Game of Thrones is a rousing success, following at least the first book perfectly. In the next post, I'll talk more specifics about the series and the books: what matched, what didn't, and where either the books or the show were better.
Currently listening: "So What," Miles Davis
It's why the show has any mainstream appeal at all.
I say that as a huge fan of George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, the epic fantasy book series that Game of Thrones is based on. It is awesome. It's probably the best fantasy fiction being written today. But it also has plenty going against it, especially from the standpoint of being a successful TV show.
First, it's complicated. Martin has described his books as having a "cast of thousands". You don't have to keep close tabs on all those thousands to understand the story, and not all of them are around in the first book (i.e., the first season of the TV series). But A Game of Thrones does have a dozen or so characters who could rightly be considered "main characters" and another dozen or so supporting characters with complex personalities and enough relevance to the story that you do need to keep track of them.
Similarly, while you don't need to have the membership of all eight or nine Great Houses committed to memory, you do need to understand the interrelationships among four of them to follow A Game of Thrones, and the series only becomes more demanding as it progresses. And you don't need to be a scholar of all seven millennia of Westeros's history, but knowing the last fifty years or so provides some very necessary background.
Second, it's a "genre show" if ever there was one. Find two people who are familiar with Battlestar Galactica. Ask one of them "is BSG a drama?" and the answer will most likely be "yes." Ask the other "what sort of show is BSG?" and the answer will most likely be "sci-fi." If a TV show (or book series, movie, etc.) can be classified as fantasy (or sci-fi, or Western, etc.), it's overwhelmingly likely that it will be.
TV series like this are often referred to as "genre shows"; despite really only being dramas dressed up slightly differently, there's a propensity among critics to over-classify. And it can be to the series' detriment. Some people aren't "sci-fi people" or "don't do Westerns," but they're actually closing themselves off to good entertainment just because of the setting. If anything, the stigma is worst with fantasy.
Finally, the story isn't told yet. After a six-year wait following A Feast for Crows, we're finally getting the fifth book next month. Nobody (save George RR Martin) has any idea how this is going to shake out, and at the current rate, we probably won't know this decade. But even for fans of the TV show who haven't read the books, there are still plenty of stories untold.
Remember that time when Ned Stark told Beric Dondarrion to take a hundred dudes and track down Gregor Clegane? How about when Barristan Selmy stormed out of the Red Keep after Cersei forced him into an early retirement? Is Walder Frey serious about his demand for Robb to marry a Frey daughter, and will Robb keep the promise? And who's this Stannis Baratheon character everyone keeps talking about?
Having read the books, I know the answers to all of those questions, and most of them turn out to be relatively important points. But to someone who doesn't already know the answers, they seem like gaping plot holes.
Yet, despite all of those reasons why it shouldn't, Game of Thrones has succeeded, commercially, critically, and artistically. The one area where it's been less than stellar is its over-"HBO-ification". Yes, Martin's world is a gritty one, with sex, violence, death, and vulgarity in every corner. And no, I'm not the sort of prudish viewer who immediately dismisses a show with the first sex scene. But there are scenes that advance the plot and/or the characters, and then there are HBO scenes. One particular scene (with two random girls in Littlefinger's room) was actually hard to watch--I had to plug in earphones lest my roommates start asking questions.
Aside from the one scene per episode where you can't help but wonder "did we really need to see that?", Game of Thrones is a rousing success, following at least the first book perfectly. In the next post, I'll talk more specifics about the series and the books: what matched, what didn't, and where either the books or the show were better.
Currently listening: "So What," Miles Davis
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Resurrection of a Laptop's Audio
Spring has not, in recent years, been the kindest season to my electronics. About a month ago, I had several simultaneous maladies visit my computers. First, my desktop, barely two years old, decided it no longer needed to turn on for no apparent reason. A new motherboard ordered and RMA'ed later, whatever was ailing it was still utterly undiagnosable, so I bode my time until I could pounce on a stellar deal at Woot!.
The second problem was that my laptop decided it no longer needed to play audio out of the right channel. It only refused to work with headphones or external speakers plugged in, of course. I was reduced to the choice between one channel of audio and three: my laptop's internal speakers feature the conventional "left" and "right" plus the extra added bonus of "static".
Obviously, it was a much less disastrous problem than what befell my desktop, but man, it was irritating. And if my laptop was to become (at least temporarily) my actual computer, it was a problem that I wanted to get fixed. (How else was I supposed to enjoy Indie Pop Bonanza during my lunch hour-and-a-half?) I tried all the usual steps: disable and re-enable the device, uninstall and re-install the device, update the driver, roll back the driver... all to no avail.
Skeptically, I give Sony tech support a call to see if they had any ideas, fixes, or straight-up magic to cure my machine, but I was pretty much resigned to it being a hardware issue. I speak with "Hugo," and of course I can't get the idea out of my mind that I'm getting tech support from Hurley. (I console myself by remembering that his name probably is not really Hugo.) He leads me down the exact same path I've already trodden, and eventually he concludes that it's a hardware issue. Thanks, Hugo.
Hugo gives me a link to the Sony service site, where I'm sure I can send in my laptop (currently my only computer) and probably pay $89 for the privilege of having someone pop out my old card and put a new one in. Or, I can take the grad-student approach and fix it myself for $9. Doing an Amazon search for "sound card," I discover a product I never knew existed: the external sound card.
This is a brilliant inch-and-a-half piece of plastic that plugs into a free USB slot and makes your computer play sound again. I didn't notice a significant drop in quality, though it's possible that a serious audiophile comparing it with a dedicated sound card would. If you can stand the slight inconvenience of another part to keep track of and a permanently occupied USB port, this thing really is straight-up magic to cure your machine.
Currently listening: "Tell Your Mama," Vespers
The second problem was that my laptop decided it no longer needed to play audio out of the right channel. It only refused to work with headphones or external speakers plugged in, of course. I was reduced to the choice between one channel of audio and three: my laptop's internal speakers feature the conventional "left" and "right" plus the extra added bonus of "static".
Obviously, it was a much less disastrous problem than what befell my desktop, but man, it was irritating. And if my laptop was to become (at least temporarily) my actual computer, it was a problem that I wanted to get fixed. (How else was I supposed to enjoy Indie Pop Bonanza during my lunch hour-and-a-half?) I tried all the usual steps: disable and re-enable the device, uninstall and re-install the device, update the driver, roll back the driver... all to no avail.
Skeptically, I give Sony tech support a call to see if they had any ideas, fixes, or straight-up magic to cure my machine, but I was pretty much resigned to it being a hardware issue. I speak with "Hugo," and of course I can't get the idea out of my mind that I'm getting tech support from Hurley. (I console myself by remembering that his name probably is not really Hugo.) He leads me down the exact same path I've already trodden, and eventually he concludes that it's a hardware issue. Thanks, Hugo.
Hugo gives me a link to the Sony service site, where I'm sure I can send in my laptop (currently my only computer) and probably pay $89 for the privilege of having someone pop out my old card and put a new one in. Or, I can take the grad-student approach and fix it myself for $9. Doing an Amazon search for "sound card," I discover a product I never knew existed: the external sound card.
Currently listening: "Tell Your Mama," Vespers
Thursday, June 09, 2011
Death Cab: Codes and Keys
Back in 2001, when all the cool kids were listening to The Photo Album, there are plenty of ways you could have described Death Cab. "Overproduced" would not have been one of them; frankly, it would have been laughable. Something About Airplanes (1998) and We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes (2000) seriously sound like they were recorded in Chris Walla's linen closet, and The Photo Album isn't much cleaner. Even Transatlanticism (2003), an album that I adore, has its less-than-crystal-clear moments.
It wasn't until Plans in 2005 that Death Cab produced an album that sounded fully put-together (not coincidentally, Plans was their major-label debut). Narrow Stairs (2008) definitely represented a leap forward in production value, but (after some getting used to) it still sounded like Death Cab.
That's why so much of Codes and Keys is so surprising. It's not that it doesn't sound like Death Cab--it does, even though you might have to take a careful look to find it, especially with the conspicuous absence of Mr. Walla's guitar. Instead, it's surprising because there's production at every turn, sometimes to the album's detriment. At times, Ben Gibbard's voice sounds muffled ("Home is a Fire"), scratchy ("Some Boys"), underwater ("Doors Unlocked and Open"), or echo-y ("Unobstructed Views," "Portable Television," and about half of the album).
The natural question is why? Ben Gibbard has a fine voice--and that doesn't do him justice; he has an excellent voice--so just let him sing! You mix a questionable whiskey with coke to make it drinkable; mixing a 21-year single-malt with anything is a disastrous waste. Maybe the argument is "we've had the same single-malt for the last fifteen years, and we wanted a new flavor this time around." And Death Cab is at the point in their musical career where experimentation for the sake of experimentation is totally acceptable. But they're also sufficiently accomplished musicians that they ought to know when an experiment has failed. Intentionally obscuring Ben Gibbard's voice fails more often than not, and for that matter, so does removing virtually all of the guitar hooks.
But the change in musical style is only one of two tonal shifts that differentiate Codes and Keys from Death Cab's earlier work. The other, equally important one is a change in subject matter. For the first time, the driving emotion behind Death Cab's music is "happy". Back when Ben Gibbard was still making music with The Postal Service, he once described "Such Great Heights" as the only positive song about love he'd ever written. If he didn't change his tune after the if-not-joyous-then-at-least-longingly-hopeful Transatlanticism and Plans, then he sure has some explaining to do now.
Even the song titles reflect the album's sunnier mood: half the songs on here suggest removed obstacles ("Doors Unlocked And Open," "Unobstructed Views") or unbridled enthusiasm ("Stay Young, Go Dancing"). These sentiments would have been jarringly out of place on Death Cab's earlier albums, and they're not without their detractors here. One particularly skeptical commenter on NPR's review of the album said it was like "a Death Cab album with the soul sucked out."
In reality, Codes and Keys plays out more like a Death Cab album with an extra piece of soul added in, one that Ben Gibbard didn't know he had until he married Zooey Deschanel. While Death Cab had has success with happy-sounding sad songs ("The Sound of Settling"), it's played out by now. They had their flirtation with angry-sounding angry songs ("I Will Possess Your Heart"), and that worked fine for a while. Now that Ben Gibbard finally has a reason to expand his emotional spectrum to include happy songs, we as fans should be equally happy for him.
Currently listening: "Dawn of Time," Christie DuPree
It wasn't until Plans in 2005 that Death Cab produced an album that sounded fully put-together (not coincidentally, Plans was their major-label debut). Narrow Stairs (2008) definitely represented a leap forward in production value, but (after some getting used to) it still sounded like Death Cab.
That's why so much of Codes and Keys is so surprising. It's not that it doesn't sound like Death Cab--it does, even though you might have to take a careful look to find it, especially with the conspicuous absence of Mr. Walla's guitar. Instead, it's surprising because there's production at every turn, sometimes to the album's detriment. At times, Ben Gibbard's voice sounds muffled ("Home is a Fire"), scratchy ("Some Boys"), underwater ("Doors Unlocked and Open"), or echo-y ("Unobstructed Views," "Portable Television," and about half of the album).The natural question is why? Ben Gibbard has a fine voice--and that doesn't do him justice; he has an excellent voice--so just let him sing! You mix a questionable whiskey with coke to make it drinkable; mixing a 21-year single-malt with anything is a disastrous waste. Maybe the argument is "we've had the same single-malt for the last fifteen years, and we wanted a new flavor this time around." And Death Cab is at the point in their musical career where experimentation for the sake of experimentation is totally acceptable. But they're also sufficiently accomplished musicians that they ought to know when an experiment has failed. Intentionally obscuring Ben Gibbard's voice fails more often than not, and for that matter, so does removing virtually all of the guitar hooks.
But the change in musical style is only one of two tonal shifts that differentiate Codes and Keys from Death Cab's earlier work. The other, equally important one is a change in subject matter. For the first time, the driving emotion behind Death Cab's music is "happy". Back when Ben Gibbard was still making music with The Postal Service, he once described "Such Great Heights" as the only positive song about love he'd ever written. If he didn't change his tune after the if-not-joyous-then-at-least-longingly-hopeful Transatlanticism and Plans, then he sure has some explaining to do now.
Even the song titles reflect the album's sunnier mood: half the songs on here suggest removed obstacles ("Doors Unlocked And Open," "Unobstructed Views") or unbridled enthusiasm ("Stay Young, Go Dancing"). These sentiments would have been jarringly out of place on Death Cab's earlier albums, and they're not without their detractors here. One particularly skeptical commenter on NPR's review of the album said it was like "a Death Cab album with the soul sucked out."
In reality, Codes and Keys plays out more like a Death Cab album with an extra piece of soul added in, one that Ben Gibbard didn't know he had until he married Zooey Deschanel. While Death Cab had has success with happy-sounding sad songs ("The Sound of Settling"), it's played out by now. They had their flirtation with angry-sounding angry songs ("I Will Possess Your Heart"), and that worked fine for a while. Now that Ben Gibbard finally has a reason to expand his emotional spectrum to include happy songs, we as fans should be equally happy for him.
Currently listening: "Dawn of Time," Christie DuPree
Friday, June 03, 2011
The Oregon Trail, Day 4: May 30, 2011
New to this? Start with the prologue, Day 1, Day 2, and Day 3!
10:30 am, OR 126, between Redmond OR and Sisters OR: Having long since departed the Super 8 for the last time, we pass a farm featuring something called "Operation Santa Claus live reindeer". It occurs to me that I've never actually seen a reindeer until now.
10:52 am, Sisters OR: This town was either part of the Oregon Trail, or it really wants unsuspecting passersby on Highways 20 and 126 to think it was. We're disappointed not to witness a buffalo stampede.
12:02 pm, OR 126 west of Sisters OR: We stop at the McKenzie River to see some nature.
Look how clear this water is!
1:37 pm, Eugene OR: Eugene seems to be closed. The whole town. Granted, it's a college town on a federal holiday during the summer, but you'd think there would be something more interesting than a Wendy's open for lunch.
4:21 pm, Coos Bay OR: These "sour nightcrawlers" I bought in that Eugene drugstore aren't sour at all.
5:46 pm, US 101 south of Port Orford OR: The Pacific Northwest's version of the West Coast is gloomy, almost like you're living a black-and-white photograph. Artsy people with tricked-out cameras, take note.
7:32 pm, Redwoods National Park: Thanks to Josh, I've learned something about redwoods. Since they're so massive, redwoods are really bad at using their vasculature to transport water to their extremities. That's why coastal redwoods only grow in foggy regions: they need to be in saturated moist air and absorb water through their limbs.
8:08 pm, US 101 south of Redwoods NP: Elk! Aside from in burger form at lunch yesterday, I'm not sure if I've ever seen one of these. Add that to my list of new animals for this trip.
9:00 pm, Eureka OR: We stumble upon Lost Coast Brewery, almost by accident. Driving through Eureka, we're all getting pretty hungry, when Josh notices a Lost Coast sign on a building to our right. It's our third brewpub experience in as many days, and we're not complaining. Their Downtown Brown is one of my favorite beers in the world; the Raspberry Brown somehow manages to surpass it.
11:17 pm, somewhere down US 101: In an effort to stay awake, the evening's entertainment has become another over/under game. We're guessing the population of various Northern California towns, which is fun because none of us has any idea what to guess. I offer the over/under of 3800 on McKinleyville; Josh takes the under and is clearly defeated. While I don't remember what the bet on Garberville was, whoever took the under was probably the winner.
1:06 am, further down US 101: I realize I've failed at my passengerly duties, having been asleep for about the last half hour.
2:42 am, Berkeley CA: Back home at last. Through detours, pit stops, and side trips, we've managed to more than double the length of time it took to get to Oregon on Friday, but it was totally worth it. I return to Berkeley a few hundred dollars poorer but don't much care because this has been the most fun I've had in months.
10:30 am, OR 126, between Redmond OR and Sisters OR: Having long since departed the Super 8 for the last time, we pass a farm featuring something called "Operation Santa Claus live reindeer". It occurs to me that I've never actually seen a reindeer until now.
10:52 am, Sisters OR: This town was either part of the Oregon Trail, or it really wants unsuspecting passersby on Highways 20 and 126 to think it was. We're disappointed not to witness a buffalo stampede.
12:02 pm, OR 126 west of Sisters OR: We stop at the McKenzie River to see some nature.
1:37 pm, Eugene OR: Eugene seems to be closed. The whole town. Granted, it's a college town on a federal holiday during the summer, but you'd think there would be something more interesting than a Wendy's open for lunch.
4:21 pm, Coos Bay OR: These "sour nightcrawlers" I bought in that Eugene drugstore aren't sour at all.
5:46 pm, US 101 south of Port Orford OR: The Pacific Northwest's version of the West Coast is gloomy, almost like you're living a black-and-white photograph. Artsy people with tricked-out cameras, take note.
7:32 pm, Redwoods National Park: Thanks to Josh, I've learned something about redwoods. Since they're so massive, redwoods are really bad at using their vasculature to transport water to their extremities. That's why coastal redwoods only grow in foggy regions: they need to be in saturated moist air and absorb water through their limbs.
8:08 pm, US 101 south of Redwoods NP: Elk! Aside from in burger form at lunch yesterday, I'm not sure if I've ever seen one of these. Add that to my list of new animals for this trip.
9:00 pm, Eureka OR: We stumble upon Lost Coast Brewery, almost by accident. Driving through Eureka, we're all getting pretty hungry, when Josh notices a Lost Coast sign on a building to our right. It's our third brewpub experience in as many days, and we're not complaining. Their Downtown Brown is one of my favorite beers in the world; the Raspberry Brown somehow manages to surpass it.
11:17 pm, somewhere down US 101: In an effort to stay awake, the evening's entertainment has become another over/under game. We're guessing the population of various Northern California towns, which is fun because none of us has any idea what to guess. I offer the over/under of 3800 on McKinleyville; Josh takes the under and is clearly defeated. While I don't remember what the bet on Garberville was, whoever took the under was probably the winner.
1:06 am, further down US 101: I realize I've failed at my passengerly duties, having been asleep for about the last half hour.
2:42 am, Berkeley CA: Back home at last. Through detours, pit stops, and side trips, we've managed to more than double the length of time it took to get to Oregon on Friday, but it was totally worth it. I return to Berkeley a few hundred dollars poorer but don't much care because this has been the most fun I've had in months.
Thursday, June 02, 2011
The Oregon Trail, Day 3: May 29, 2011
New to this? Start with the prologue, Day 1, and Day 2!
10:20 am, Redmond OR: Slow start today. After Sonia and I fail to find a Catholic church in central Oregon with an 11 am Mass, we're forced to abandon Plan Go To Church. We enact Plan Investigate the Check Engine Light instead.
10:32 am, US 97 between Redmond OR and Bend OR: Josh's iPod, as is customary for it, plays some Tupac. Mr. Shakur raps the lyric "crack cocaine rocked us," which is probably the cleverest rap lyric I've heard in quite a while.
11:01 am, Bend OR: There is nothing wrong with Josh's car.
11:38 am: Driving aimlessly through downtown Bend, we come to an outdoor market selling items by local artists. A man who calls himself the "Nutmaster" is selling various delicious nuts; I order some cinnamon pecans with the accent on the first syllable.
12:05 pm: Beer tasting at Deschutes Brewery. It's slightly pretentious in a winery sort of way, where the beers are described with flavor notes. They're pretty tasty, and the Twilight Ale is a fine drink, but I still can't stand IPAs.
12:30 pm: Time for the brewery tour. There's chemical engineering here!
1-2 pm: Bend is no Portland, but it holds its own in terms of local Oregon flavor.
1:34 pm: "Thaiphoon" might be the best restaurant name ever.
1:43 pm: Ranch Records. Oh yes. These guys have Dr. Dre's The Chronic on vinyl. They also have a poster for tonight's Decemberists show in the window. I ask the grungy guy behind the counter if they have any more. "No, the promoters come and put that stuff up, so that's all we have. If you come back later, when we're closing, we can probably let them go." (He looks at his phone.) "I mean... if you just want to take it off the wall now, I don't care. I can just look the other way." I do, and he does.
2:46 pm: Linner at Deschutes Brewery's brewpub affords us a chance to taste yet more beer.
4:48 pm: While in line for the Decemberists concert, there's some concern about the blanket we just bought. We got it from Wal-Mart, which is the single least hipster place we might have bought it. If we were locals, we obviously would have taken a trip to the Goodwill. Josh turns the bag around so nobody can see the Wal-Mart logo.
5:35 pm: The pre-show music is decidedly twangier here than it was at the Death Cab show. It's true that The King is Dead has a lot of folk inspiration, but people expecting a straight-up bluegrass concert will end up sorely disappointed.
5:37 pm: The age distribution here is a lot wider than at Friday's concert. More forty-year-olds, and strangely, more four-year-olds.
5:38 pm: Parenting of the Year Award: baby in one hand, cup of beer in the other.
5:55 pm: Of all the foods the hipsters to our right could have sneaked in, they have chosen raw carrots.
6:09 pm: The first opener, Dan Mangan, totally obeys the Canadian Indie Band Rule by bringing six people to the stage.
7:04 pm: Gabriela Quintero of Rodrigo y Gabriela is pretty crazy, in the way that she's jumping up and down while playing acoustic guitar for a bunch of indie kids. In the context of metal, she's beyond tame; here, she's rocking hard.
8:07 pm: The hipster couple to my left is discussing their favorite things to buy at Trader Joe's.
8:23 pm: The Decemberists open with "The Infanta"! It's one of my favorite Decemberists songs, and the very first one of theirs that I heard. They hadn't played it at either of the other two concerts I'd seen them at, so it was a really nice surprise to hear it here.
It's followed by three tracks from the new album, "Down By the Water," "Calamity Song," and "Rise to Me". Given that Decemberists albums are usually two-thirds hit and one-third miss, it's pretty much on par. "Water" and "Calamity" are both excellent; "Rise" is okay but doesn't do much for me.
8:42 pm: Yes, that is Jenny Conlee on the accordion/keyboard/auxiliary percussion! She's undergoing treatment for cancer, and she was scheduled to miss all of the Decemberists' summer tour dates, but she's made a surprise appearance here. It's awesome to see her, and I've never heard so much heartfelt applause for an accordion player.
Like Death Cab, the Decemberists have done a really good job of sampling music from all over their discography. Older material (from Castaways and Cutouts and Her Majesty, two albums that I can never keep straight) includes "Leslie Anne Levine" and "Billy Liar," the latter with some fun audience participation. Picaresque has a nice showing after "The Infanta" with "The Bagman's Gambit" and "16 Military Wives," the latter also featuring some audience input.
The only song from The Crane Wife turns out to be "The Crane Wife Part 3," but that's as good a choice as any from that album. I'm still irrationally attached to The Hazards of Love, though explaining the album makes me realize how inscrutable it can be on a first (or fifth) listen. I got to jam to "Won't Want for Love's" prog rock-y intro for half a minute before I realized I should probably explain what in the world was going on to Josh, who isn't nearly as into the Decemberists as I am.
"Okay, this song is from the Decemberists' prog-rock opera The Hazards of Love. It's sung by the female protagonist, Margaret. She's commanding forest plants to do various things. She can do that because she's pregnant with the male protagonist William's child, and William and the forest are tight. Well, at least until the Forest Queen gets involved, but that hasn't happened yet. Oh, and William shapechanges into a fawn sometimes."
Later: "This one is called 'The Rake's Song'." "As in the cut the house takes in gambling?" (Josh plays a lot of poker.) "No, as in the immoral pleasure seeker. He's the antagonist in the rock opera. This song is about him killing his children in especially brutal ways."
And The King is Dead gets some more love (four and a half months out, this is still the King is Dead tour, after all) in "Rox in the Box" and "This is Why We Fight," "Rox" still being my favorite track on the album. The main set ends with "This is Why We Fight," but I've seen the Decemberists enough to know that their set isn't close to finished. On the Crane Wife tour, these guys played a seven-song encore, so I'd be surprised if we didn't see at least fifteen minutes more music.
The encore starts with "January Hymn," also from the new album. I like "January Hymn." It's quiet and simple, yet evocative; and it gets in, does what it needs to, and gets out. Afterward, Colin Meloy starts talking like it's actually the end of the show. They'd better play something big if my "fifteen more minutes" prediction is going to hold up. He tells us the next song will "fall apart" without our help. When Chris Funk (hearty round of applause) gives the signal, we're all to scream as if we're being eaten by a whale! It's "The Mariner's Revenge Song".
I have a schizophrenic love-hate relationship with this song. On one hand, it's totally awesome. It's not the sort of song I choose to listen to frequently, because it requires such a big time and emotional commitment. But as a creative piece of music that's well-performed and tells as engaging story, it's one of the Decemberists' most interesting songs.
On the other hand, I'm puzzled and a little dismayed that the song is so intimately connected to the Decemberists, particularly by non-fans. Upon mentioning that I like the Decemberists, I've had multiple people independently ask me "aren't the band that does that belly of the whale song?" Yes, they're the band that does "that belly of the whale song". And if all you're expecting to find from the Decemberists is nine-minute-long sea shanties, that's all you're going to find. But I promise, this band does a lot more than that.
Regardless of my conflicted emotions toward the song, "The Mariner's Revenge Song" was a lot of fun live, and it seemed the perfect note to end the show on. After a few minutes' absence, though, the band retakes the stage yet again for the rare double-encore. They play "June Hymn," another selection from The King is Dead that I like a lot, but it seems sort of a strange follow-up to the intensity of "Mariner". This time, the Decemberists leave the stage for real, having played sixteen songs--not as many as the twenty-four-song behemoth of a set that Death Cab gave us, but a healthy bit of music nonetheless.
The Decemberists are the only band that I've seen in concert three times, and it's a testament to how great their live shows are that I haven't gotten tired of them yet. Sure, they're playing new music every time, but Colin Meloy engages the audience so well, and the entire band is so accomplished at showmanship that I would gladly see them three more times.
11:06 pm, Redmond OR: Back to the Super 8 for our last night in the great state of Oregon.
10:20 am, Redmond OR: Slow start today. After Sonia and I fail to find a Catholic church in central Oregon with an 11 am Mass, we're forced to abandon Plan Go To Church. We enact Plan Investigate the Check Engine Light instead.
10:32 am, US 97 between Redmond OR and Bend OR: Josh's iPod, as is customary for it, plays some Tupac. Mr. Shakur raps the lyric "crack cocaine rocked us," which is probably the cleverest rap lyric I've heard in quite a while.
11:01 am, Bend OR: There is nothing wrong with Josh's car.
11:38 am: Driving aimlessly through downtown Bend, we come to an outdoor market selling items by local artists. A man who calls himself the "Nutmaster" is selling various delicious nuts; I order some cinnamon pecans with the accent on the first syllable.
12:05 pm: Beer tasting at Deschutes Brewery. It's slightly pretentious in a winery sort of way, where the beers are described with flavor notes. They're pretty tasty, and the Twilight Ale is a fine drink, but I still can't stand IPAs.
12:30 pm: Time for the brewery tour. There's chemical engineering here!
1-2 pm: Bend is no Portland, but it holds its own in terms of local Oregon flavor.
The Cyclepub
Bend Haiku Weekend--one week too early!
Vintage and local.
1:34 pm: "Thaiphoon" might be the best restaurant name ever.
1:43 pm: Ranch Records. Oh yes. These guys have Dr. Dre's The Chronic on vinyl. They also have a poster for tonight's Decemberists show in the window. I ask the grungy guy behind the counter if they have any more. "No, the promoters come and put that stuff up, so that's all we have. If you come back later, when we're closing, we can probably let them go." (He looks at his phone.) "I mean... if you just want to take it off the wall now, I don't care. I can just look the other way." I do, and he does.
2:46 pm: Linner at Deschutes Brewery's brewpub affords us a chance to taste yet more beer.
4:48 pm: While in line for the Decemberists concert, there's some concern about the blanket we just bought. We got it from Wal-Mart, which is the single least hipster place we might have bought it. If we were locals, we obviously would have taken a trip to the Goodwill. Josh turns the bag around so nobody can see the Wal-Mart logo.
5:35 pm: The pre-show music is decidedly twangier here than it was at the Death Cab show. It's true that The King is Dead has a lot of folk inspiration, but people expecting a straight-up bluegrass concert will end up sorely disappointed.
5:37 pm: The age distribution here is a lot wider than at Friday's concert. More forty-year-olds, and strangely, more four-year-olds.
5:38 pm: Parenting of the Year Award: baby in one hand, cup of beer in the other.
5:55 pm: Of all the foods the hipsters to our right could have sneaked in, they have chosen raw carrots.
6:09 pm: The first opener, Dan Mangan, totally obeys the Canadian Indie Band Rule by bringing six people to the stage.
7:04 pm: Gabriela Quintero of Rodrigo y Gabriela is pretty crazy, in the way that she's jumping up and down while playing acoustic guitar for a bunch of indie kids. In the context of metal, she's beyond tame; here, she's rocking hard.
8:07 pm: The hipster couple to my left is discussing their favorite things to buy at Trader Joe's.
8:23 pm: The Decemberists open with "The Infanta"! It's one of my favorite Decemberists songs, and the very first one of theirs that I heard. They hadn't played it at either of the other two concerts I'd seen them at, so it was a really nice surprise to hear it here.
8:42 pm: Yes, that is Jenny Conlee on the accordion/keyboard/auxiliary percussion! She's undergoing treatment for cancer, and she was scheduled to miss all of the Decemberists' summer tour dates, but she's made a surprise appearance here. It's awesome to see her, and I've never heard so much heartfelt applause for an accordion player.
Like Death Cab, the Decemberists have done a really good job of sampling music from all over their discography. Older material (from Castaways and Cutouts and Her Majesty, two albums that I can never keep straight) includes "Leslie Anne Levine" and "Billy Liar," the latter with some fun audience participation. Picaresque has a nice showing after "The Infanta" with "The Bagman's Gambit" and "16 Military Wives," the latter also featuring some audience input.
The only song from The Crane Wife turns out to be "The Crane Wife Part 3," but that's as good a choice as any from that album. I'm still irrationally attached to The Hazards of Love, though explaining the album makes me realize how inscrutable it can be on a first (or fifth) listen. I got to jam to "Won't Want for Love's" prog rock-y intro for half a minute before I realized I should probably explain what in the world was going on to Josh, who isn't nearly as into the Decemberists as I am.
"Okay, this song is from the Decemberists' prog-rock opera The Hazards of Love. It's sung by the female protagonist, Margaret. She's commanding forest plants to do various things. She can do that because she's pregnant with the male protagonist William's child, and William and the forest are tight. Well, at least until the Forest Queen gets involved, but that hasn't happened yet. Oh, and William shapechanges into a fawn sometimes."
Later: "This one is called 'The Rake's Song'." "As in the cut the house takes in gambling?" (Josh plays a lot of poker.) "No, as in the immoral pleasure seeker. He's the antagonist in the rock opera. This song is about him killing his children in especially brutal ways."
And The King is Dead gets some more love (four and a half months out, this is still the King is Dead tour, after all) in "Rox in the Box" and "This is Why We Fight," "Rox" still being my favorite track on the album. The main set ends with "This is Why We Fight," but I've seen the Decemberists enough to know that their set isn't close to finished. On the Crane Wife tour, these guys played a seven-song encore, so I'd be surprised if we didn't see at least fifteen minutes more music.
The encore starts with "January Hymn," also from the new album. I like "January Hymn." It's quiet and simple, yet evocative; and it gets in, does what it needs to, and gets out. Afterward, Colin Meloy starts talking like it's actually the end of the show. They'd better play something big if my "fifteen more minutes" prediction is going to hold up. He tells us the next song will "fall apart" without our help. When Chris Funk (hearty round of applause) gives the signal, we're all to scream as if we're being eaten by a whale! It's "The Mariner's Revenge Song".
I have a schizophrenic love-hate relationship with this song. On one hand, it's totally awesome. It's not the sort of song I choose to listen to frequently, because it requires such a big time and emotional commitment. But as a creative piece of music that's well-performed and tells as engaging story, it's one of the Decemberists' most interesting songs.
On the other hand, I'm puzzled and a little dismayed that the song is so intimately connected to the Decemberists, particularly by non-fans. Upon mentioning that I like the Decemberists, I've had multiple people independently ask me "aren't the band that does that belly of the whale song?" Yes, they're the band that does "that belly of the whale song". And if all you're expecting to find from the Decemberists is nine-minute-long sea shanties, that's all you're going to find. But I promise, this band does a lot more than that.
Regardless of my conflicted emotions toward the song, "The Mariner's Revenge Song" was a lot of fun live, and it seemed the perfect note to end the show on. After a few minutes' absence, though, the band retakes the stage yet again for the rare double-encore. They play "June Hymn," another selection from The King is Dead that I like a lot, but it seems sort of a strange follow-up to the intensity of "Mariner". This time, the Decemberists leave the stage for real, having played sixteen songs--not as many as the twenty-four-song behemoth of a set that Death Cab gave us, but a healthy bit of music nonetheless.
The Decemberists are the only band that I've seen in concert three times, and it's a testament to how great their live shows are that I haven't gotten tired of them yet. Sure, they're playing new music every time, but Colin Meloy engages the audience so well, and the entire band is so accomplished at showmanship that I would gladly see them three more times.
11:06 pm, Redmond OR: Back to the Super 8 for our last night in the great state of Oregon.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
The Oregon Trail, Day 2: May 28, 2011
New to this? Start with the prologue and Day 1!
Roughly 10 am, Redmond OR: On the road again. After a break to grab some Livewire, of course.
11:24 am, US 26 north of Madras OR: I'm not sure I'd stay at something called "Bear Springs Campground".
11:41 am, US 26 near Mount Hood: It's snowing. I know we're up some elevation and some latitude, but it's May 28, and there's snow.
1:52 pm, Portland OR: In a region of the country renowned for fresh fish, sushi seems an obvious choice for lunch. Josh has his first sushi experience, and Sonia doesn't miss the opportunity to act the Asian tourist.
2:34 pm: Walking near the Wilammette River, we run into our buddy Tony Ferrese! It's an unexpected stop-and-chat with one of our colleagues from Berkeley.
Also, this guy is blowing bubbles.
3:30-5:00 pm: Portland doesn't disappoint.
4:17 pm: Somehow, we get on the topic of what "beer house" translates to in German. Josh took a lot of German back in high school, and he tells us it's just "bierhaus," pronounced the exact same way. Sonia thinks it may have been "bierhosen," and we agree that pretty much all hosen are bierhosen.
4:29 pm: Sonia wants to go into a Sanrio store in a downtown mall. Josh offers a side bet to the day's "spot that hipster" main action: clearly the Sanrio is going to be full of Asians, but will they be hipster Asians or fobby Asians? In any other city in America, the choice is an easy one; in Portland, I still opt for "fobby". Josh is perfectly happy to take "hipster". The rules: every Asian in the store must be assigned to exactly one of the two categories. Some discussion and/or observation time is permitted, but we must come to a consensus.
4:35 pm: There are no Asians in the Sanrio store! Instant death rules: the next Asian to walk in the store settles it.
4:38 pm: Green flannel shirt and thick-rimmed black glasses. I admit defeat.
5:15 pm: Dinner is at Rock Bottom, a brewpub in downtown Portland. In what will become a theme over the next two days, we sample some of the Pacific Northwest's various beer offerings. The red ale is not quite as good as Jupiter's Red Spot but tasty nonetheless.
7:22 pm: In our effort to find the Most Hipster Coffeehouse in Portland, Stumptown Coffee Roasters has lived up to our expectations. Note 1) the wall of pretentious magazines and 2) the actual hipster. What you don't see is 3) the girl on her Macbook writing poetry, 4) printed on the cup: "These cups are 100% compostable because we care," and 5) the incredibly vulgar rap, presumably played ironically, that all the baristas danced to.
7:52 pm: I didn't know there was such a thing as a hipster donut shop, but man, Voodoo Doughnut gets there. We get the "Voodoo Dozen," which is slightly cheaper than ordering a dozen doughnuts of your choosing, but (in an especially hipster twist) you get no say in what you order. The line is out the door and halfway around the building, but these are doughnuts we're talking about.
8:55 pm, I-84 east of Portland, OR: There are a whole, whole lot of Subarus at this part in the country.
9:30 pm, US 26 east of Portland, OR: Absolutely amazing sunset in the rear view mirror.
11:41 pm, Redmond OR: These doughnuts are incredible.
Roughly 10 am, Redmond OR: On the road again. After a break to grab some Livewire, of course.
11:24 am, US 26 north of Madras OR: I'm not sure I'd stay at something called "Bear Springs Campground".
11:41 am, US 26 near Mount Hood: It's snowing. I know we're up some elevation and some latitude, but it's May 28, and there's snow.
2:34 pm: Walking near the Wilammette River, we run into our buddy Tony Ferrese! It's an unexpected stop-and-chat with one of our colleagues from Berkeley.
Also, this guy is blowing bubbles.
3:30-5:00 pm: Portland doesn't disappoint.
4:17 pm: Somehow, we get on the topic of what "beer house" translates to in German. Josh took a lot of German back in high school, and he tells us it's just "bierhaus," pronounced the exact same way. Sonia thinks it may have been "bierhosen," and we agree that pretty much all hosen are bierhosen.
4:29 pm: Sonia wants to go into a Sanrio store in a downtown mall. Josh offers a side bet to the day's "spot that hipster" main action: clearly the Sanrio is going to be full of Asians, but will they be hipster Asians or fobby Asians? In any other city in America, the choice is an easy one; in Portland, I still opt for "fobby". Josh is perfectly happy to take "hipster". The rules: every Asian in the store must be assigned to exactly one of the two categories. Some discussion and/or observation time is permitted, but we must come to a consensus.
4:35 pm: There are no Asians in the Sanrio store! Instant death rules: the next Asian to walk in the store settles it.
4:38 pm: Green flannel shirt and thick-rimmed black glasses. I admit defeat.
5:15 pm: Dinner is at Rock Bottom, a brewpub in downtown Portland. In what will become a theme over the next two days, we sample some of the Pacific Northwest's various beer offerings. The red ale is not quite as good as Jupiter's Red Spot but tasty nonetheless.
7:22 pm: In our effort to find the Most Hipster Coffeehouse in Portland, Stumptown Coffee Roasters has lived up to our expectations. Note 1) the wall of pretentious magazines and 2) the actual hipster. What you don't see is 3) the girl on her Macbook writing poetry, 4) printed on the cup: "These cups are 100% compostable because we care," and 5) the incredibly vulgar rap, presumably played ironically, that all the baristas danced to.
7:52 pm: I didn't know there was such a thing as a hipster donut shop, but man, Voodoo Doughnut gets there. We get the "Voodoo Dozen," which is slightly cheaper than ordering a dozen doughnuts of your choosing, but (in an especially hipster twist) you get no say in what you order. The line is out the door and halfway around the building, but these are doughnuts we're talking about.
8:55 pm, I-84 east of Portland, OR: There are a whole, whole lot of Subarus at this part in the country.
9:30 pm, US 26 east of Portland, OR: Absolutely amazing sunset in the rear view mirror.
11:41 pm, Redmond OR: These doughnuts are incredible.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
The Oregon Trail, Day 1: May 27, 2011
New to this? Start with the prologue!
6:01 am, Berkeley CA: My alarm goes off. This is literally the earliest I have woken up all year.
7:15 am, Hercules CA: The Burger King Croissanwich might be the best $4 I've spent in recent memory.
10:24 am, I-5 north of Sacramento CA: "London Bridge" be Fergie comes on Josh's iPod. He claims it's not his fault it was on there.
11:36 am, Weed CA: The men's restroom at Weed's Chevron station smells like gasoline; all things considered, there are worse things for a men's restroom to smell like.
12:05 pm, US 97 north of Weed CA:
2:17 pm, US 97 north of Klamath Falls, OR: T-Mobile does not have my back. I'm on something called "UNICEL," which is presumably part of a United Nations plan to bring cell phone service to central Oregon because the coverage here is so poor.
5:20 pm, Bend OR: After a delicious linner of Red Robin, we've made our way inside the venue. "Daniel" by Bat for Lashes is playing, and I have total indie cred for knowing the song.
5:53 pm: Jenny and Johnny start their set not on time, but early!
6:12 pm: Jenny and Johnny needs more Jenny, but other than that, it's pretty good music.
6:45 pm: Bright Eyes starts their set, and it starts to rain. I'm not making this up as some sort of emo joke. As soon as Conor Oberst gets halfway through his first song, the rain starts falling.
7:22 pm: Bright Eyes finishes their set, and it stops raining. I'm not making this up either--right before the last song, the weather clears, and it's sunny for the rest of the evening.
8:15 pm: Death Cab finally takes the stage! They open with "I Will Possess Your Heart," and not the watered-down radio version either.
The set continues with "The New Year," which is off Transatlanticism and therefore good, and "We Laugh Indoors" and "A Movie Script Ending" from The Photo Album, which is an album I don't know nearly as well as I should. "Some Boys" is the first track they play from Codes and Keys, and it's probably my least favorite track on the album, though it sounds blessedly less over-produced live.
9:50 pm: After finishing "Title and Registration," Death Cab finishes their set with "Transatlanticism," and I am thrilled.
6:01 am, Berkeley CA: My alarm goes off. This is literally the earliest I have woken up all year.
7:15 am, Hercules CA: The Burger King Croissanwich might be the best $4 I've spent in recent memory.
10:24 am, I-5 north of Sacramento CA: "London Bridge" be Fergie comes on Josh's iPod. He claims it's not his fault it was on there.
11:36 am, Weed CA: The men's restroom at Weed's Chevron station smells like gasoline; all things considered, there are worse things for a men's restroom to smell like.
12:05 pm, US 97 north of Weed CA:
Mount Shasta
2:17 pm, US 97 north of Klamath Falls, OR: T-Mobile does not have my back. I'm on something called "UNICEL," which is presumably part of a United Nations plan to bring cell phone service to central Oregon because the coverage here is so poor.
5:20 pm, Bend OR: After a delicious linner of Red Robin, we've made our way inside the venue. "Daniel" by Bat for Lashes is playing, and I have total indie cred for knowing the song.
5:53 pm: Jenny and Johnny start their set not on time, but early!
6:45 pm: Bright Eyes starts their set, and it starts to rain. I'm not making this up as some sort of emo joke. As soon as Conor Oberst gets halfway through his first song, the rain starts falling.
7:22 pm: Bright Eyes finishes their set, and it stops raining. I'm not making this up either--right before the last song, the weather clears, and it's sunny for the rest of the evening.
8:15 pm: Death Cab finally takes the stage! They open with "I Will Possess Your Heart," and not the watered-down radio version either.
Death Cab winds their way through an impressive array of music, hitting twenty-one (!) songs in in the main set and ranging from their earliest material (1998) to their most recent. Three or four songs come from the "old" albums, Something About Airplanes and We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes, which are fine music live but way too lo-fi for me when they were recorded in Ben Gibbard's kitchen the studio. Most of Death Cab's albums have three or four songs each make an appearance: the Plans contingent is "Soul Meets Body," "I Will Follow You Into the Dark," "Crooked Teeth," and "What Sarah Said".
Both "Grapevine Fires" and "Cath..." show up, and we discuss a bit which is the better song. I like "Cath..." for the musical structure, and Josh prefers "Grapevine Fires" for the imagery, but both tell awesome stories, and both together are far and away the two best tracks on Narrow Stairs. The great part about a concert is you get to hear them both!
With the album releasing literally two days later, it's hardly a surprise that Codes and Keys is so well represented. "You Are a Tourist," the title track, "Underneath the Sycamore," and a couple of songs I don't recognize by name yet all show up after "Some Boys". I liken the new Death Cab album to a Decemberists album (review coming soon!) in that half of it is awesome, a quarter of it is forgettable, and a quarter of it is just sort of bad. The song where Ben Gibbard sounds like he's singing underwater about "California" and "isolation" is in the "bad" pile, but luckily it's balanced with "You Are a Tourist" and "Underneath the Sycamore," which are both fine songs.
9:25 pm: The set is winding down, and our old friend Transatlanticism has been sorely under-represented since "The New Year". After my bold prediction of "Soul Meets Body" for the encore was shot down about half an hour ago, I switch to "Title and Registration" and wonder if we could be so lucky as to get "Transatlanticism" on top of it. "The Sound of Settling" is played, which makes me really happy. I don't know of a more upbeat song about failed relationships!
10:50 pm, Redmond OR: We arrive at the Super 8, our home-away-from-home for the next few days. Reflecting on the concert, we're all really happy with the variety and length of the set. Our consensus Song We Wish Were Played is "Marching Bands of Manhattan" from Plans; "Styrofoam Plates" and "I Was a Kaleidoscope" from The Photo Album and "The 405" from We Have The Facts are honorable mentions.
Midnight: I fall asleep, visions of Portland dancing in my head.
The Oregon Trail, Prologue
March 26, 2011, 10 am: Tickets for Death Cab for Cutie's San Francisco concert go on sale.
March 26, 2011, 8 pm: I log on to Ticketmaster and am surprised to find that I can't buy a ticket to the concert. "This is odd," I think. "Surely this concert hasn't sold out in less than a day."
Late March-Early April 2011: I stalk Ticketmaster (and Stubhub and Craigslist) several times a day... and no luck. I come to find out that the concert had sold out not only in less than a day, but in less than an hour. Ticketmaster isn't doing it for me because there are literally no tickets left, and the resale markets are essentially useless because the tickets are will-call, photo-ID only.
But I'm not about to give up on this concert. I've been a fan of Death Cab for six or seven years, having never seen them live, and they've easily worked their way to the top of my Bands I Need To See In Concert list. On a whim, I look at the rest of their tour dates, curious if they'd be playing a show elsewhere in northern California. They're not... but they are playing at this sweet-looking venue called the Les Schwab Amphitheater in some town called Bend, Oregon. That's "only" eight to nine hours away... and The Decemberists are playing the exact same venue only two days later. Better yet, all of this happens over Memorial Day weekend, so I could easily make a weekend of it: drive up Friday, stay through Sunday, and come home Monday, only missing one day of work.
Late April 2011: I convince my friend Josh and his girlfriend (now fiancee!) Sonia to come along. The Oregon Trail is going to happen.
March 26, 2011, 8 pm: I log on to Ticketmaster and am surprised to find that I can't buy a ticket to the concert. "This is odd," I think. "Surely this concert hasn't sold out in less than a day."
Late March-Early April 2011: I stalk Ticketmaster (and Stubhub and Craigslist) several times a day... and no luck. I come to find out that the concert had sold out not only in less than a day, but in less than an hour. Ticketmaster isn't doing it for me because there are literally no tickets left, and the resale markets are essentially useless because the tickets are will-call, photo-ID only.
But I'm not about to give up on this concert. I've been a fan of Death Cab for six or seven years, having never seen them live, and they've easily worked their way to the top of my Bands I Need To See In Concert list. On a whim, I look at the rest of their tour dates, curious if they'd be playing a show elsewhere in northern California. They're not... but they are playing at this sweet-looking venue called the Les Schwab Amphitheater in some town called Bend, Oregon. That's "only" eight to nine hours away... and The Decemberists are playing the exact same venue only two days later. Better yet, all of this happens over Memorial Day weekend, so I could easily make a weekend of it: drive up Friday, stay through Sunday, and come home Monday, only missing one day of work.
Late April 2011: I convince my friend Josh and his girlfriend (now fiancee!) Sonia to come along. The Oregon Trail is going to happen.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
3-Sentence Reviews: End of the 2010-2011 Television Season
To bookend the season properly...
I can’t give a proper three-sentence review to The Event because I stopped watching it mid-season. What began as a promising political thriller a la 24 with a touch of Lost-like supernatural intrigue turned into a bland mess of aliens over the course of about three episodes. The acting performance turned in by Zeljko Ivanek was a much-needed bright spot, but sadly the writing was so uninspired that I can’t even remember his character’s name.
Against all odds, Michael Scott leaving The Office just might have breathed new life into the show. The last few episodes of this season, beginning with a surprisingly touching farewell to Michael, were the strongest the show has been in years, and the B plots (like Angela marrying a gay state senator) are firing on all cylinders. As long as new boss (and I’m thrilled that it’s not going to be Will Ferrell’s DeAngelo) creates the same inane dynamic that Michael carried through seven seasons, The Office has at least a few more years of life in it.
The number of people who wrote off Outsourced without giving it a chance (“oh, it’s set in India, so it must be racially offensive”) continues to astound me. After performing reasonably well in the fall despite that negativity, NBC shipped the show off to the death slot of 10:30 pm, where it had expectedly miserable ratings leading to its cancellation. That’s a pity, because Outsourced’s Vaudevillian-meets-absurdist comedy was like very little on television, but at least fans got the relative satisfaction of a reasonable season-turned-series finale.
This season of Survivor only went to prove the point that a cast filled with less-interesting-than-average people leads to a season that’s less interesting than average. I didn’t hate the redemption island mechanic as much as a vocal contingent of fans apparently did, though I agree that its impact was lost when it crammed in four people (erroneously calling it a duel) and having everyone but the guy who came in dead last “win”. And CBS, if you subject me to the Rob Mariano or Russell Hantz season one more time, there’s a good chance I stop watching your show; the novelty of bringing back old players has long worn off, and I’m already skeptical of next season because of it.
After a mostly solid season, The Mentalist shocked with a season finale that might have been the best-ever episode of the show. The constant one-upmanship between Jane and Red John took some seriously inspired writing and acting, but everyone pulled it off. The only question now is where does the series go from here?
House burdened us with some real clunkers (see the horrible attempt at a Pulp Fiction tribute episode where House decides to spend a few days hanging out at an elementary school), and storylines like Taub’s ongoing marital issues aren’t nearly as interesting as the show thinks they are. Worse, we had to endure an entire season of “Huddy” detracting from the snarky medical drama just to hear a restatement of the show’s main theme that everybody lies and nobody changes. Now that the show has it out of its system, and especially with Lisa Edelstein’s much-publicized departure, maybe House will hearken back to its brilliant first three seasons as inspiration for its last.
I laugh, on average, about three times per episode of The Big Bang Theory. It's become oddly romantic comedy-y, with even Sheldon, the caricature of social ineptitude, settling into his approximation of a relationship. Bernadette and Priya add basically nothing to the show, there's been virtually zero character development over the course of the show's sixty-plus episodes... yet each of those three jokes is genuinely hilarious enough for me to keep watching the show.
Currently listening: "Underneath the Sycamore," Death Cab for Cutie
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Kathryn Calder: Album and Concert
The great thing about being a fan of a band that's billed as a "supergroup" is that you instantly get five or six more bands and solo acts to delve into. Neko Case, of course, has an amazing voice (she and Jenny Lewis are almost certainly the best female vocalists in the business today), but her disregard for the "song" when she's singing by herself makes it a little tough to get excited about her solo work. A.C. Newman's own solo work has enough of the energy and creativity of his contributions to the New Pornographers that I'd pretty much just rather listen to the New Pornographers. And Dan Bejar is a talented guy too, but his slightly off-kilter vocals on his slightly self-satisfied tracks usually end up as my least favorite on any given New Pornographers album.
Now Kathryn Calder is launching a solo career of her own, which I sort of knew about but didn't pay a lot of attention to until Stephanie (of "whitest day of my life" fame) touted her album as "really really good". Calder seems determined to show the world that she's a whole lot more than "that other girl singer that the New Pornographers have who's not Neko Case". Because she was originally part of the band as a touring replacement for Neko Case, and now sings a lot of harmony with her, it can be tough to disentangle what vocal parts are Neko Case's or Kathryn Calder's (or, for that matter, A. C. Newman's falsetto's).
That's why it's such a pleasant surprise to listen to her 2010 album Are You My Mother? and hear that Calder has a lovely mezzo-soprano that weaves effortlessly among Pornographers-style power pop, "conventional" acoustic singer-songwriter, stripped-down piano ballads, and jangly indie folk. The entirely "ooh"ed chorus of the first track, "Slip Away," is a statement of Calder's vocal register, and "Low" is a fine song if you're a connoisseur of the deliberately lo-fi keyboard-driven, but it's with the energy of "Castor and Pollux" that the album really hits its stride, and it doesn't let up until somewhere around track eight or nine.
The standout track (if I really have to pick just one from the outstanding middle chunk of this album) is "If You Only Knew," and since I'm such a sucker for both indie folk and unabashedly happy music (not to mention songs that mention places I've lived), that's probably not a huge surprise. But "Follow Me Into the Hills" is pretty excellent too, and so is "Day Long Past Its Prime," and so is just about everything on the album. Only one criticism lingers for more than a few seconds, and that's how slightly underproduced many of the tracks feel. There's actually a really touching story behind that, so maybe we can cut Kathryn Calder some slack here.
The silver lining to wanting a better production value from her album tracks is that when you see Kathryn Calder live, you get it! In true Canadian indie musician fashion, "Kathryn Calder live" is actually Kathryn Calder plus four or five people playing various instruments and harmonizing all the "ooh"s and "la"s that make her music so delightful. She proves to be an remarkably talented musician, delivering an outstanding vocal performance on top of deftly switching between guitar and keyboard.
After better fidelity (coupled with convincing live musicianship), the second-best reason that Kathryn Calder in concert is actually better than Kathryn Calder on your iPod is that there's more to listen to. Three songs showed up that aren't part of Are You My Mother ("One Two Three," something to the effect of "Turn the Light On," and another that I don't think she named), and they were all really really good. Given that these were described as "new," it seems likely that Calder has a follow-up album in the works, which is nothing but good news.
As can be expected from an artist embarking on the first tour of her solo career, Calder's vocals wavered a bit for the first song or two. And the band members aren't talented enough stage artists yet that they're comfortable vamping or chatting with the audience for the minute it took Calder to get some tuning issues worked out--or maybe they're awkward indie kids, just like their audience. But they made up for it by being entertainingly Canadian (confirmed: people from Vancouver actually do say "aboat" instead of "about"!) and having genuine fun on stage.
Going to the show was genuine fun. Buying a ticket was a genuine deal--not since I was convinced to see Zao and Throwdown back in 2006 have I paid twelve dollars to see a live show. And between the album, the concert, and the promise of more good solo material, I am now a genuine Kathryn Calder fan.
Currently listening: "Blindness," Metric
Now Kathryn Calder is launching a solo career of her own, which I sort of knew about but didn't pay a lot of attention to until Stephanie (of "whitest day of my life" fame) touted her album as "really really good". Calder seems determined to show the world that she's a whole lot more than "that other girl singer that the New Pornographers have who's not Neko Case". Because she was originally part of the band as a touring replacement for Neko Case, and now sings a lot of harmony with her, it can be tough to disentangle what vocal parts are Neko Case's or Kathryn Calder's (or, for that matter, A. C. Newman's falsetto's).
The standout track (if I really have to pick just one from the outstanding middle chunk of this album) is "If You Only Knew," and since I'm such a sucker for both indie folk and unabashedly happy music (not to mention songs that mention places I've lived), that's probably not a huge surprise. But "Follow Me Into the Hills" is pretty excellent too, and so is "Day Long Past Its Prime," and so is just about everything on the album. Only one criticism lingers for more than a few seconds, and that's how slightly underproduced many of the tracks feel. There's actually a really touching story behind that, so maybe we can cut Kathryn Calder some slack here.
After better fidelity (coupled with convincing live musicianship), the second-best reason that Kathryn Calder in concert is actually better than Kathryn Calder on your iPod is that there's more to listen to. Three songs showed up that aren't part of Are You My Mother ("One Two Three," something to the effect of "Turn the Light On," and another that I don't think she named), and they were all really really good. Given that these were described as "new," it seems likely that Calder has a follow-up album in the works, which is nothing but good news.
As can be expected from an artist embarking on the first tour of her solo career, Calder's vocals wavered a bit for the first song or two. And the band members aren't talented enough stage artists yet that they're comfortable vamping or chatting with the audience for the minute it took Calder to get some tuning issues worked out--or maybe they're awkward indie kids, just like their audience. But they made up for it by being entertainingly Canadian (confirmed: people from Vancouver actually do say "aboat" instead of "about"!) and having genuine fun on stage.
Going to the show was genuine fun. Buying a ticket was a genuine deal--not since I was convinced to see Zao and Throwdown back in 2006 have I paid twelve dollars to see a live show. And between the album, the concert, and the promise of more good solo material, I am now a genuine Kathryn Calder fan.
Currently listening: "Blindness," Metric
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
No Other Show Like It Round Here: The New Pornographers in Concert
I haven’t been a fan of the New Pornographers for nearly as long as I should have been, or nearly as long as you might guess based on what I feed into Pandora and Last.fm on a daily basis. One play of “Sing Me Spanish Techno” last September on my “Indie Pop Bonanza” Pandora station, though, and I was A Fan. Call them whatever adjective of indie you like, or invoke the “supergroup” label if you must, but it doesn't matter. These guys make the exact brand of music I like: happy, poppy music with conventional tonality and familiar structure but themes and vocabulary that are anything but ordinary.
It's my policy not to comment on openers unless they're any good, so I'll skip to my Concert Gripe of the Day: unnecessarily long set changes. Clear some guitars out of the way, put some new ones out. Drag a drum kit twenty feet. Arrange stools, microphones, bottles of water. Then let the band play. It really shouldn't take more than ten or fifteen minutes, and it rarely does, but for reasons that can only be related to the venue wanting to drum up drink sales, we're forced to gaze at the empty stage for fifteen more minutes.
But after the wait always comes good music, so it's something the concertgoer must be willing to endure... and if nothing else, the New Pornographers make good music. The opening number, "Moves," played out almost like an extended sound-check (something that theoretically could have been done during that fifteen minutes of nothing). Neko Case in particular took charge of the stage like a general on her battlefield, giving cryptic hand signs to offstage sound guys and sprinting to bark a few seconds of orders in between most of the first six or seven songs.
It was good to see Neko finally start rocking a few songs into the set--"tentative" is not exactly the word you'd usually associate with the woman responsible for the vocals on "Letter From An Occupant," but for the first ten minutes, she seemed strangely out of her element. It seems utterly ludicrous to associate stage fright with someone who's been at this for at least ten years, but whether it was nerves, an overriding concern for the sound balance, or second-guessing where she'd told the Second Cavalry to make its charge, she settled down soon enough. By the time they started jamming about "The Slow Descent into Alcoholism," the entire band was brimming with an energy that lasted another entire hour.
Along the way, the New Pornographers completely nailed "Mass Romantic," "It's Only Divine Right," "Crash Years," "Jackie, Dressed In Cobras," and probably a dozen more songs I'm forgetting. "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk" still has never failed to make me smile. "The Bleeding Heart Show" was exactly the right way to end the show (though the band missed a golden opportunity for audience participation in the "hey-la" out-tro), "Challengers" was the encore song I never knew I always wanted to hear, and "Sing Me Spanish Techno" made a triumphant actual end to the show.
Three more things made this show awesome. First, even people who weren't too familiar with the band had a great time, which is a sure sign the band is doing something right. Second, blessedly few concert fouls were committed--even the weed cloud kept itself at bay until nearly the end of the show. And third, like any "hey, let's get together and tour for fun and profit" shows, it wasn't tied to an album, and there was a legitimate chance the band will play any given song in their discography; if I'd made a wish list of, say, ten songs I would have wanted the New Pornographers to play, they would have hit at least eight of them.
Currently listening: "Home Is A Fire," from the soon-to-be-released Death Cab album
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