Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans

It has been pouring rain for the past 24 hours or so. It's a Saturday night. Something in me decided to put on Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans, one of the albums I probably spent most of my time with in college, along with The National's Boxer and Jose Gonzalez's Veneer.

It brought back a rush of memories from those four years, good and bad. With every gentle guitar pick, I remembered a different relationship, a mental struggle, a night alone in my dorm room, a day where I sat with a friend, trying to learn how to play a rudimentary version of one of these songs on my grandma's old acoustic.

"To Be Alone With You." That was my favorite for a while. I remember being home at my parents' house on winter break, long after everyone else in the house was asleep, listening to it on repeat on my first or second generation ipod, trying to help myself fall asleep.

There's something just so beautiful about every nuance of Seven Swans. It's carefully peaceful, intricately gorgeous, and so well-thought out, I could cry. It doesn't give me happy feelings, despite some of the good memories that it brings back. Instead, it draws out the mental battles I fought with myself, fearing my future, which at the time, seemed to wide open that it could swallow me up.

Listening and thinking about these songs tonight, I wish I could go back and tell myself it was all going to be ok. But even I can't figure out how I got from there to here. Life has been full of surprises, great surprises, and some not so great ones. But when I give myself enough time to think about the past, and allow my emotions to wrap around these old songs, so engrained in me, it's truly amazing to think of the path I've taken since the first time I heard this album.

How wonderful, to be able to journey through life with such beautiful soundtracks. Pieces of me, told in the memories that songs carry with them. Ten thousand points to nostalgia, and how it helps you learn about your past and your present and future all at the same time. And one million points to Sufjan Stevens, for creating this masterpiece that never ages, only grows more layered and complicated
by the day.

Ben Folds - The Best Imitation of Myself: A Retrospective

In the first anthology of Ben Folds' career, the man behind the piano peels back some of the mysteries behind his brilliant songwriting, and listeners will have a hell of a time exploring the journey. The Best Imitation of Myself is available as an 18-song album or a 3-album set, including one with Folds’ greatest hits, another that stitches together his best live performances, and a B-sides and rarities disc. Best, though, are the extensive liner notes detailing the story behind each song, from “artfully ripping off” Elton John (“Zak and Sara”) to making lyrics out of his ex-wife’s bitter letters to him (“Smoke”). It’s a joy to get a sense of the person behind such heartfelt, often hilarious musical narratives, all while enjoying a well-tailored collection of songs spanning from his early years in Ben Folds Five to three brand new recordings made for this retrospective. “Tell Me What I Did” fits right in with the playful synth blasts on Rockin’ the Suburbs, “Stumblin’ Home Winter Blues” is a slow, sweet serenade, and “House” is painful nostalgia, on par with Folds’ best melodies. The joyous playfulness of Folds’ live improvisation, reflected in this set in full measure, is a true testament to what makes him an unstoppable force and ever-evolving artist.

Beirut's Uncanny Nostalgia Trips

Nothing transports me quite like Beirut. Oftentimes, while listening to their music, I'm taken to foreign countries, pieces of my ancestry, a time before I existed. And, more often then not, into my own memories.

Listening to March of the Zapotec, I'm back in the Appalachian hills of Athens. I don't pack myself dinners for work, and I have no idea that I'm capable of a half-marathon. Life is uncertain, and the moments are more important than the end goal. Well, not really, I always was that kinda girl who's concerned about the future. But the moments, there were plenty.

I did best when I slept til 9, squeezed in bike rides between classes, never forgot to set my alarm. I never knew who I was going to meet that night, or where I'd end up.

Life is now routine, I pack my dinners, and my job requirement of listening to police scanners for 9 straight hours has lessened my desire for late nights of music listening. I come home. I want silence. It takes something pretty strong to waken my senses.

Beirut's new album, The Rip Tide, has already struck me with it's grandness. It could make me cry, its unabashed horns and bold gestures. It takes you to a place... a place more important than the current minute inner-workings of your world. Wall Street is a set of two words, and I don't even know what unemployment numbers mean -- let's just hold hands and forget about it for a few minutes.

The electronic effects we first heard Zack Condon release with Holland, the previously unreleased solo bedroom project that made up the second half of the March of the Zapotec album, sneak into songs like "Santa Fe." But halfway through the song, they're hidden beneath a behemoth of ringing trumpets. It's the best of both worlds. Very human in the midst of the technology Condon's unleashing.

The strum of acoustics on "East Harlem" is so twee and special sounding, like it was dreamed up for a child's birthday party. Condon's deep vibrato could pop the biggest balloon at the party.

Not a song in this collection is anything but beautiful and unique, a web of shimmering gems in a sea of Odd Future horribleness and Kanye West's ego. It so far transcends the moment in which it has been captured, just nine songs drawing strength from the beauty of their instruments played to the highest caliber.

Maybe it's not as grand as I'm making it out to be, but it's so easy to get lost in these moments, forgetting about the all-consuming, at-times horrifying details of everyday life. And getting lost in the moments can be more valuable than... well, anything.

My Haphazard Relationship with My Morning Jacket

My relationship with My Morning Jacket began after my freshman year of college. I went to Lollapalooza, my first ever music festival, that summer with three of my best friends. It was my first experience with the most heavenly days of life, those filled with back-to-back concerts, chasing from one field to another to catch the next show, standing until dehydration and exhaustion overtook my body.

We watched My Morning Jacket at the Bud Light stage, one of the two huge stages. You could see the Chicago landscape behind the stage, but my focal point was on this wasted lady in a long dress and heels, dancing off to the side of front pit, waving her arms in oblivion to the minutes-long jams into which each song eventually morphed. I could do without it. In fact, I grew bored, stared vacantly into the shade of the trees to the side of the stage. I couldn't for the life of me understand the appeal of My Morning Jacket. I've never been much of a jammer. Not sure if I lack a chemical in my brain or the capacity to injest mushrooms. Either way, I felt nothing.

My friends proceeded to travel up to Cleveland -- my hometown -- sometime that fall to catch another My Morning Jacket show. I stayed behind in Athens. Forget it, I said. No way I'm paying to see them.

My sophomore year roommate, Lauren, was on an MMJ kick. She would play "One Big Holiday" every morning as soon as we woke up. Along with that one stupid album by the Format that everyone except me loved. I would cringe when she played it, but eventually it became habit, and it kinda settled into the depths of me, and I accepted it. (And this is no dis to Lauren. She also played Paul Simon some mornings. She has lovely taste. To this day, the mix CD she made me before I went to Spain is the best mix CD anyone has ever made for me.)

I saw My Morning Jacket the next summer, once again at Lollapalooza. But this time, they played the opposite large stage, and we sat on the hill by the baseball field. The Chicago Youth Orchestra (I believe) came onstage, and it was sort of unreal. Yet I still didn't get it.

The moment I really heard My Morning Jacket was May of 2008, the first time I heard Evil Urges. This album was unlike any other MMJ album. Falsetto, Prince-like, or Winnie-the-Pooh-like. Spacey electronics, ambling love songs and an ode to a special librarian, tongue in cheek, so clever, so embraceable. "Highly Suspicious" was highly messed up, and one of the best weirdo songs I'd ever heard. I rated the album as my #3 favorite of 2008 (after Fleet Foxes and Bon Iver's debut albums). It was all over the place, the kind of sonic adventure that makes you want to dive off a cliff into musical oblivion.

I explored their older material, finding that even the songs that once irritated me were so incredibly magical. All that time, I had under-appreciated what was right in front of me.

When I decided to move to Louisville, I had no idea I was moving to the band's hometown. In fact, I knew pretty much nothing about Kentucky or Louisville or horses or the fact that it was on the Ohio River. I didn't know that My Morning Jacket recorded one of their live albums partially at Ear X-tacy, an independent record store here. I didn't know until I listened to that live album, which my friend Josh had just made me a copy of, and heard Jim James pledging allegiance to Louisville and the store. And then it was fate for me to love the band. And the city, for that matter.

I went to Ear X-tacy last night. They were releasing MMJ's Circuital at midnight. I wanted to see the excitement. At least a hundred people showed up. The town felt alive. On a Monday night, it was alive. The record has been on repeat all day, and I think it might just top Evil Urges for me. The first three... hell, every song has roped me in. "Holdin' on to Black Metal" is maybe more courageous than "Highly Suspicious," "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)" is completely devoted, and I can't even begin to get my head to stop spinning from the title track.

The band is playing at the Palace right now. I didn't get a ticket before they sold out, but strangely, Todd Haynes (I'm not gonna go off on too large of a tangent, but I kinda worship the guy. His short film about Karen Carpenter that I watched in a women's studies class made me cry. It was made entirely of barbie dolls that he carved to the point of emaciation. And those barbie dolls made me cry. That's how good he is.) is directing a live youtube streaming event of the concert. I've been watching it all night. The last song in their first encore? "One Big Holiday." Huh.

I'm about ten minutes from the venue, yet I'm sitting in my room, wondering how I fell so hard in love with a band that I once stood so strongly against.

Maybe I'm growing up. Maybe I'm growing weirder. Maybe, just maybe, I'm just riding the path that is my life, and as I travel farther, I grow closer to understanding all these things I've missed along the way.

Sad Mraz

I woke up this morning in a strange sense of disarray. A song had noodled its way into my brain - a song I had not heard in years. I leaned across my bathroom counter trying to remember it before the moment passed, hesitating to start brushing my teeth lest I lose it.

At first I could make out the word "absolutely." I knew it was slow, and beautiful. Zero. Absolutely Zero. Oh my blobinthesky, I had vintage Jason Mraz in my head!

I'm not sure how he got there. After all, I've been trying to forget about him for years. Jason Mraz went from a sad sack with the most beautiful songs of heartbreak to the most irritating ukulele-toting fedora-wearing man in the history of pop music. And all of this happened within the course of a few short years. Waiting for my Rocket to Come, the 2002 masterpiece, slowly disintegrated into 2005's mediocre Mr. A-Z, a sub-par effort where Mr. Mraz went from Awesome to a little too Zany. Then came 2008's We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things. where the only track worth listening was track 7. It was a sad sack song. And I can't even remember its name.

And that's when he brought out his ukulele. The worst use of ukulele known to mankind.

Back to Waiting for my Rocket to Come. These songs are precious raindrops and morning dew. They are sensitive, and gentle, and everything great about waking up on a fresh morning. "Who Needs Shelter" has the sweetest sort of guitar plucking, while "The Boy's Gone" has a steady pace of contemplative lyrics and a simple-but-catchy guitar riff. "Absolutely Zero" is full of break-up sadness, enough emotion to somehow bury itself in the depths of my brain, only to emerge 9 years after I first heard it.

Sad Mraz, come back. You may have been miserable, and I may have been naive, but life was simpler back then.

Zero Plans, Multiply Nostalgia by 7

There was a time I used to sit underneath my lofted bunk bed in a skinny dorm room in the corner of the second floor of a quaint building in Athens, Ohio. I mostly tried to adjust. It was the beginning of college... my roommate was spending time with her girlfriend, and I was usually alone. I had friends, but it was the beginning of this new journey for me, and on weeknights, I had to get some work done. I would sit there, a giant desktop computer that the school lent to freshmen taking up most of my space. The printer, which sat beside it, took up the rest of the desk. I used it as my coffee table. I would sit two water bottles next to one another on the printer, and the occasional cookie I had stolen from the dining hall.

I was never really a group studier. I spent most of those nights alone.

Music was my company, as it is today. Friday night, past midnight, I find myself once again in a new city with few friends.

Zero 7. I don't remember how I first heard of them, but I spent a lot of time with them those first couple years of college. Later, I would find Pitchfork, and read scathing reviews that belittle their work. It was a long time ago that I cared to do this, and I can't remember much except that they called Zero 7 lazy and boring. Point taken. I disagree. I was disappointed in that assessment.

You see, this was, to me, the perfect accompaniment for a lonely night. Slightly uplifting, contemplative... the music seems to hint that they are about to stumble upon something... it's an exploration of some sort.

"Somersault," I thought (and still do) was one of the sweetest love songs. Maybe it's a little cheesy, but I don't care. This is coming from a girl whose favorite love songs include the cheesiest - Stars' "My Favourite Book" and The Cardigans' "For What It's Worth." (I think I'm just focusing on female-fronted love songs at the moment, but you get the point.)

When I feel the unknown
You feel like home, you feel like home

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet and you were sound
You saved me

I mean, come on.

I remember getting a 4 track EP that previewed their 2006 album, The Garden. I was in a music meeting for ACRN, and I grabbed it before anyone else could. Sia sings "Throw it All Away." This song still gets me carried away.


I accidentally stumbled upon it today, and it was sort of a hidden blessing. Life repeats itself, and here I am, trying to sort things out again.

So I sit, at a white desk, in a cold room that smells vaguely of smoke, where the echoes of the baby that lives in the apartment downstairs sometimes travels up through the floor. I sit, with a small laptop, and bottle of water on the desk next to me, alongside a container of hummus and bag of crackers. I wonder what I'm going to do this weekend. I think about the work ahead of me. And somehow, I know it's all going to be ok.

Slacker Nostalgia

There are so many things that are wrong with this video.

First of all, it is a horrifying remake of Grease, with a poor Sandy transformation that is just downright degrading. Instead of going from sweet to sassy, the girl goes from geeky adorable to slutty.

Second, Jordan Knight, you have the worst style of all time. Turtleneck/leather jacket/baggy pants? This was not cool in 1999, when this video came out, or ever!

Third, this guy was about 30 years old when he made this video. 30! A little old to be doing bad high school cliche movie-music video remakes.

Fourth, I think the guy who did Darrin's Dance Grooves (also known as the best infomercial of my late childhood) - I guess his name would be Darrin, right? - choreographed this. And it shows. The little finger wiggles? Laughable, and so very admirable in their own self-importance.

YET. BUT. HOWEVER.

This is also one of the most catchy songs of the '90s! I forget about it for years, but when I hear it again, it has not lost any of it's amazingly cheezy-fabulous aura! Plus, a 30-year-old Jordan Knight seducing me with a turtleneck and really embarrassing dance moves still gets me going... and I think that's a testament to his vocal crooning power. Long live the '90s. I mean, yeah riot grrl. Yeah grunge. But let's not forget where I spent most of my time - in my friends' basements dancing to the Backstreet Boys. This is important history.

Best Weezer SOT

Back when I was a broadcast journalist (oh, say, one year ago), we always talked about and looked for the best SOTs.

SOT stands for Sound On Tape, which really just means a sound bite (captured on video, ya dig?). In journalism land, it kind starts sounding like slang, like "Oh, man, I got the best SOT today! It's going to be in the show teaser!" or "I sat through this whole press conference about the boring potential candidate for the Vice Provost of Ohio University, and I didn't get one good SOT."

At one point, I played on a intramural softball team called the VO-SOT-VO's. That's a sort of TV story (VO - voice over). It was pretty ha-ha-funny-journalist of us, and we were terrible and probably lost every game and I was so young that I just hoped that someone would talk to me and maybe I would catch a ball in the outfield so I could prove that I could hang with the older senior journalists.

What I'm getting at here is that I found a quote that so witty, true, and amazingly structured that I have to upgrade it from "great quote" to "best SOT of the day." Even if it is only in print.

Pitchfork Reviews Reviews, you've done it again:

"AND YOU ARE WONDERING WHAT IS GOING ON IN RIVERS CUOMO’S MIND RIGHT NOW FOR THE LAST TEN YEARS, was he kidnapped by aliens who replaced him with a pod person who looks exactly like Rivers but has an alien’s brain, did success drive him literally insane, does he know how bad Weezer is now or does he actually think (in his “heart of hearts”) this is good? is it performance art and in like five years he’ll reveal that he was just joking around for like fifteen years? what would a transcript of his cognitive process even look like? a few days ago Jacob asked me if i could think of an artist that’s disappointed their fans more consistently than Weezer and i couldn’t think of one at the time but now i think maybe M. Night Shyamalan?"

And another SOT, in the VERY SAME BLOG ENTRY!

"and now as Danielle Staub shimmies on stage at this strip club on her 48th birthday after the debut performance of her debut pop disco single, presumably off a record that is to Paris Hilton’s pop record what an Indian reservation casino is to Las Vegas"

Oh man, who could even think about comparing Indian reservation casinos to Vegas? Brilliant

Spring Wind in a Torrential Downpour

All this time, and I never stopped loving Jack Johnson.

As my tastes grew spicier, and my friends more musically “selective,” never did I ever stop loving the warm blasts of heat that radiate from Johnson’s voice or the strummy, strummy style of his guitar – the way it sways back and forth like palm trees on a calm day.

I forgot about him, sure, but the love never went away.

I forgot about the Banana Pancakes and the Bubble Toes. I forgot about the days I spent downloading Jack Johnson on a dial-up connection, waiting an hour for each three-minute morsel. I forgot about how easy life used to be – waking up at noon on the weekends after gossip sessions in a friend’s basement, football games followed by late night Denny’s milkshakes.

I went to college, I kept listening to Jack Johnson. I worried about boys liking me. I worried about getting good grades. I worried about finding my way to the Jack Johnson concert at Blossom without getting lost.

Suddenly, life started changing. I got over the acoustic-music part of my life. Gone were the days of Mason Jennings and early John Mayer and Ben Harper. Life was growing more complex, and the music I listened to mostly reflected that. The contemplative lyrics of the National, the complex musical structures of John Vanderslice. Worries shifted – would I get a job after college? What was I doing with my life? Did I like the person I was becoming?

Life got so complicated.

So this morning, as I was driving to work listening to the new soundtrack to 180 Degrees South: Conquerors of the Useless, an album that compiles James Mercer (the Shins), Mason Jennings, and - of course - Jack Johnson, I just had to stop and breathe for a second. Johnson’s “Spring Wind” kinda knocked me down in its quiet simplicity. Sometimes there is a beauty in life so uncomplicated, so pure, and it hides there among the folds and folds of worry and stress. And you have to remember that life needs a good Jack Johnson song every now and then.

I want to remember the things I’ve loved, and not just for nostalgia’s sake. I want to openly embrace this new Jack Johnson song. It’s not an advance for mankind, nor does it challenge me in any way. But it stands as a reminder that life is pretty good, when you throw some of the crap aside. So I’ll revel in the strum of Johnson’s guitar and the kindling warmth of his vocals once again. I’ll remember I love it.

Jack Johnson - Spring Wind
Photo by Elle Nicolai

The Significance of a Funeral in the middle of The Suburbs

It came to me on my first ever MP3 CD, and that alone warrants some attention. It is Arcade Fire's debut album. Funeral came out in 2004, and I first heard the entire album in the summer before my senior year of high school. I was working as a camp counselor at a day camp. By day, I had eighteen 9 and 10 year olds hanging on my arms and legs, accompanied by a less than admirable co-counselor. At the end of the day, after we took the school bus back from the campsite to the community center, I was free. I jumped in the pool for an hour or so, and sped off onto abandoned backroads on my way home.

It was the first summer that I had my own car, and I had a hand-me-down convertible at that. That fading green piece of junk came with an MP3 CD player in tow, all the way from my uncle in Arizona. My friend, and fellow counselor, Jeff, gave me my first MP3 CD.

That CD stayed in the little dinky player all summer. I had problems with it every day. It wouldn’t turn on, it would turn off randomly, I’d have to fix the cords, find the perfect place for it to sit on the passenger seat. It always defaulted to play the first song, and there was no way to skip to song number 80, so oftentimes, I just left it at the beginning.

The beginning was Arcade Fire.

My first taste of freedom behind the wheel was accompanied by an album that pushed every boundary for me. Until that summer, subversive music in my repertoire included Dashboard Confessional and, yikes, some Yellowcard. Funeral was like nothing I’d ever heard – it wasn’t like my dad’s classic rock albums that I had tried to ignore in middle school, it wasn’t oldies, and it sure wasn’t anything I’d hear on the radio or amongst my choir buddies (who introduced me to pop punk/emo).

“Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” starts the album. How many times that summer did I hear the peaceful alien twinkling of the keys that sounded like glittering raindrops? You hear Win Butler’s voice creep in there, ominously, full of texture and full of reason. I used to look up those lyrics on songmeanings.net.

He took nothing easily. “Meet me in the middle, the middle of the town,” he demanded. “We let our hair grow long, and forget all we used to know.” The song kicks into high gear, rushing to life. Funeral begins.

And then there was “Neighborhood #2 (Laika),” which was the most bizarre song on the album. I loved the screeching jabs of guitar, Butler’s hoarsely yelled lines, and the pure intensity of the mess. Clean beats held the song together, even when it felt like a village of people was singing along.

Can you imagine this small girl, accustomed to corporatized music and clean tennis shoes and a job in the middle of a campground, finding her world turned upside down every afternoon on her drive home? I was floored. This was a new future.

I saw U2’s Vertigo Tour the next year. Right before the band took the arena stage, “Wake Up” blasted from the massive speakers, bringing the auditorium to life. That’s when I knew: Arcade Fire was so much bigger than I even knew.

I listen to Funeral now, and it hasn’t lost any of its profundity. There’s the eerie quiet of “In the Backseat,” and the driving motion of “Rebellion (Lies).” The workhorse feeling of “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” glares at listeners like a ball of fire, ready to shoot into the air with the thrust of a hip. Funeral took a cheese grater to my conventions, shredding my past expectations and manufacturing a whole new set.

So where will The Suburbs fit into my chronological learning process? Of course, I hope it feels as significant as the hypecloud of excitement is telling me. But when Arcade Fire’s first album became the foundation of my present musical obsession, it makes me wonder if anything will compare, no matter the magnitude.

Landmark Day

Today I can celebrate the biggest invitation I've had yet... an invitation to a concert that even people outside my indie territory might have heard of. Hell, maybe my dad has even heard of this band.

Hello Danielle~

I hope you've been well!

The SMASHING PUMPKINS will be performing Tuesday, July 6th at the House of Blues in Cleveland, OH.

I wanted to check in and see if you would like to attend or have any coverage in the works for the show.

You know, this is kind of cool. But it is on a Tuesday night, and I would have to drive downtown (see how I'm already making excuses for my stupid corporate job life?), and I'm not even sure I know more than 3 Smashing Pumpkins songs, which would not really qualify me to "review" this sort of thing.

I guess the point in this entry is this: I can write and write and write, and never find a journalism job. Yet as a little tiny writer for an alternative paper and a small blog, I can get some pretty cool places.

This is the future we are living in - a future where bloggers and freelancers rule and actual paid journalists are clutching to their jobs with every ounce of strength they have left. (It can't be a lot, if they've been in the game for a while. Who can deal with threats of salary cuts and layoffs and endless furloughs for so long and stay positive?)

Cool, yes. Depressing, MAJOR YES. ("Ground control to Major Tom" also just popped into my head.)

In reality, I want to live in an age where this kind of work can make for a solid career and not some side-hobby that you have to balance of your shoulders along with 7,000 other side hobbies in hopes that it will one day pay off and materialize into something so much greater. It's easy to get jaded. And it's easy to get jaded very quickly.

Especially in Cleveland. I promote this city to everyone I talk to. But much of the time, I sit here and wonder how much longer I can exist with a soul intact in this town. (To be fair, I live in a moderate suburb of Cleveland with a bunch of old people and babies... so it's not exactly the "hip" part of town. And I spend 45 hours a week in a grey cubicle with artificial lights.)

Let's leave this post on a "Danielle's not going to go off and slit her wrists" kind of note.

Two songs to stay on top of the world with.

Nada Surf - Blankest Year
Janelle Monae - Tightrope

Oh, and this:

Smashing Pumpkins - 1979 (Live)

I had to. Hell to the yes for middle school nostalgia and my first mp3 player, which only held 10 songs at a time. This was one of them. Thanks Uncle Mike, for my lame mp3 player and the excellent variety of music you gave me on my first (very first!) data CD!

It's Funny How Music is Cyclical

Almost exactly a year ago, I was feeling rotten. I was about to graduate from Ohio University, and with that significant moment in my life, I was leaving behind people I loved, a town I loved, goals and challenges I loved, and a lifestyle… yeah, I loved. I was sappy, miserable, and listening to a lot of music that I thought was helping me through my situation, but was probably actually making it worse.

That music can be summed up very easily. The only thing I listened to for a month straight was Sun Kil Moon’s Ghosts of the Great Highway.

I listened to that album on repeat, walking to the last classes of my undergrad career. I looped it on long rides through the trees of the bike path, which had become one of my most treasured places in Athens. I played Sun Kil Moon as I lay in bed, when I woke up in the morning, while I wrote sad, regretful letters that I never delivered, while I cried big, splotchy tears. They smeared the paper.

There were great, happy moments in that last month, many of them building up to the huge come-downs that typically took place Sunday night, in my bed, when it kept dawning on me – this was all ending. Everyone else seemed excited for something new. But I’ve never been good with change, and the future scared me more than anything. I didn’t know if I could find people like I found in Athens and achieve things like I did in college. It’s horribly pessimistic thinking, I acknowledge, but I was so unsure.

I clung to Mark Kozelek’s guitar, and his songs about boxers, which had no relevance whatsoever to what I was experiencing. It was a blanket for me; it was the words I needed to hear when real words couldn’t coax me. I was at the end of an era, and this was the album that marked it.

I requested to review the new Sun Kil Moon album months ago, and received my digital copy yesterday. I put it on today, and when I hear this familiar voice and the sweet plucking of those nylon strings, I just kinda froze. The truth is, I haven’t had the courage to play Sun Kil Moon since I left Athens, for fear of what kind of emotions it would dredge up.

I struggled terribly in my first few months home from school. I missed everything and everyone with such a vengeance. I blasted Japandroids because I was angry, and I wanted to be young, and I was living in the goddamn suburbs. With my parents. And I wasn’t really finding what I hoped to find out there in the big, real world. As I adjusted, I grew to appreciate the things I have today. I found a steady job, and you know what? Everything is ok. Just ok. And sometimes, well maybe half the times, I actually remember that life is good.

Today I return to Athens for the weekend, to visit some of my closest friends before they also graduate. Each time I go back to visit, the place seems stranger, more foreign - a wobblier memory of four years of my life. This is the last time that Ohio University will feel remotely familiar to me.

So I find it funny that today, of all days, I subconsciously, or maybe consciously, began to listen to Sun Kil Moon’s Admiral Fell Promises. It feels so right, and it feels like home. Emotions are rushing back, and the memories of the past flood my mind. But the newness of the album also reminds me that we can hold onto the past, and still embrace the future. Ghosts of the Great Highway may have been a crucial album that came into my life at a crucial time, but one year later, I have Admiral Fell Promises. I haven’t lost anything, but look what I’ve gained.

Photo credit: Robert Caplin from 45701.

Blabber 2 - Double Dribble

I promised to give you Part 2 of ACRN Days today.

It's chock full of great generic indie rock songs from my infancy into good music. Full disclosure: I went into college as a huge fan of Ted Leo, Ben Folds Five, Something Corporate, The Strokes, and Interpol. I didn't know much of anything. (I still like these groups.) Some of these songs are BABY songs. You'll be like: dude, that Postal Service song has been around for longer than you've had leg hair!

I know, I know! This list is easy. It isn't challenging. And none of these songs are NEW.

My blog is not new. I don't try to be hip. (Ok, maybe a little?) I just like music, and music is music, and if I want to put an old Phoenix song next to an old Neutral Milk Hotel song, I'm going to. And you can laugh. And then you can be like, oh, she included The Wrens. She doesn't even know the struggles they have faced in the 13 or something years since they released The Meadowlands. And you'll be right! I don't even know! I wasn't even conscious of anything other than Backstreet Boys when that record came out. But Nick Carter was hott with two T's.



Ahem. Download here.

ACRN Days Part 2

1. Kevin Devine - Buried by the Buzz
2. Ko & the Knockouts - Go-Getter
3. Langhorne Slim - Restless
4. M. Ward - To Go Home
5. M.I.A. - Boyz
6. Mates of State - Fraud in the '80s
7. matt pond PA - Halloween
8. Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945 (I once played this song after telling listeners I was gonna play a set of happy, upbeat songs. Then a kid came in and yelled at me - "THIS SONG IS ABOUT ANNE FRANK. It's not happy." He was right.)
9. Phoenix - Too Young (This one's pretty happy though.)
10. The Postal Service - The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
11. The Rapture - Whoo! Alright Yeah...Uh Huh
12. Russenorsk - Buzz + Spit
13. The Secret Machines - Lightening Blue Eyes
14. Southeast Engine - Where Are You Now?
15. Sufjan Stevens - The Dress Looks Nice on You
16. Tapes 'n Tapes - Insistor
17. The Thermals - Here's Your Future
18. Vampire Weekend - Walcott
19. Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives
20. We Are Scientists - Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt
21. Wheels on Fire - I'm Turning Into You
22. Wilco - Jesus, Etc.
23. Wolf Parade - Shine a Light
24. The Wrens - Faster Gun

I'm a Blabbermouth

I can't keep secrets.

I mean, I'll keep your secrets, sure. But I don't really keep my own secrets. I find it easier to tell everyone everything. Let's be honest here, there's no reason to hide. I confess how I feel every week, sometimes even every day, sometimes even on this blog. I try to keep it to music secrets here because otherwise you could read my blog about Spain, or my blog about life, or maybe you could read my mind. (Wait, what?)

The point is, I find myself opening up to you... my dear friends, my dearest strangers.

Here's a not-so-secret secret: I really miss being a DJ at a college radio station. I think about it from time to time, but sometimes it really gets to me. I feel it today. Talk about the best (non-paid) job of all time, kids. I could pretty much say what I wanted, play what I wanted, and interview exactly who I wanted (if they would have me... let's be honest... I never was able to book Bono on my radio show. I did talk to the creator of Pitchfork. And all my favorite Athens bands. And Jesty Beatz. He's FAMOUS. Just ask him. That's gotta count for something, right?).


It's a time and a place in my life that I think I'll always come back to, year after year. The friendships I made, the things I learned... you could say I found myself sitting in that DJ seat. I FOUND myself. Before I even realized I was lost. (Ok, that was a lie. I always knew I was lost.)

I've put together a collection of songs that I played over and over. I had to separate them into two groups because I had a lot of favorites. OK?! Do you have a problem with an overobsessed DJ? I didn't think so. I loved playing all 47 songs. Today you get artists A-J. Tomorrow you get the rest.

Click this link to download.

ACRN Days

1. A.C. Newman - Miracle Drug
2. Adam Torres - Dusty Wing Spirit
3. Andrew Bird - Tables and Chairs
4. Animal Collective - Peacebone
5. Arcade Fire - Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)
6. Arctic Monkeys - I Bet You Look Good on the Dancefloor
7. Band of Horses - Is There a Ghost
8. Beck - Girl
9. Beirut - Nantes
10. Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress
11. The Blow - Parentheses
12. Bright Eyes - Take It Easy (Love Nothing)
13. Cat Power - Love & Communication
14. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth
15. The Dandy Warhols - Not if You Were the Last Junkie
16. Eagles of Death Metal - Cherry Cola
17. Georgie James - Need Your Needs
18. Hot Chip - Shake a Fist
19. Interpol - C'mere
20. Joe Anderl and Imaginary Friendship Choir - Dayton, Ohio
21. John Vanderslice - White Dove
22. Jose Gonzalez - Slow Moves
23. Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart

Weezer, An Epic Story

While it seems impossible, and improbable at best, Weezer has accomplished it. It is what we call irrelevance. In a manner.

Today is my birthday. I knew I needed a freaking great album for my drive to work today, something that would temporarily subvert the mundane qualities of my everyday life. And today, I looked down at my very limited CD collection (let's face it, I probably need an iPod converter for my car), and AHA! I saw Weezer's Blue Album.

I had just rediscovered that I physically own this album while scoping out my little sister's room for a belt. I found no belt, but I did find some of our joint CD collection. She had them in her room! And she doesn't even live in our house anymore! These babies were abandoned! I promptly snatched Weezer, Rooney, City of Angels, No Doubt, and one more, I forget now. What a Discovery (and I don't mean that duo by Vampire Weekend dude and Ra Ra Riot dude, however awesome it is)!

As I rolled my windows down just slightly, and turned my car speakers up more than slightly, a smile rolled across my face. The smile was simultaneously matched by a ping of guilt. Guilt for my realization that Weezer's discography has taken a serious pitfall in the recent years. So much so, I think, that it might, and I stress might, imply that the older the Weezer record, the better the quality.

Blue is the absolute tops, though. The way the band manages to be slightly rough around the edges but still accomplish that perfect sparkling pop sound. The heavy guitars and the melodic vocals. It sparkles, it shines. It takes no prisoners. It was a relevation. One in which I realized, my ears were pointing me to something right back in middle and high school. It felt good.

Gone are the days of Blue, though, and here to stay are the "Ratitude" years. Collaborations with Max Martin? Collaborations with Outcast? Bejeezus freaking jesuchristo, what is Rivers Cuomo coming to? I never said I wanted uberpolished throwaway pop, guys! Even if it is a little catchy!

In ninth grade (or was it eighth?) I met a girl named Marie. I always said it back then. She was too cool for school. That girl knew music while the rest of us were still grooving to Incubus' "Drive." (But, dude, that song is great.) She loved Weezer. She later introduced me to Wilco, Elliott Smith, Metric. But, point here: she loved Weezer. She had a secret crush on a boy we dubbed "Weezer Boy." (I know! We were creative kids back then.) Yeah. They both loved Weezer. It started as a secret crush, and then a long term relationship involving love of Weezer. These kids were the coolest. What's my point? The cool kids, who were cool before we even knew what cool was, listened to Weezer back then. And now, everyone listens to Weezer. F. My dad listens to Weezer. He calls them Tweezer.

Let's go back in time. Let's live the Blue life again.