…and one of the first steps is to tell everyone that you’re doing it so when week 2 gets here and you want to quit, you’ll stick with it because you don’t want everyone to think you’re a loser. And I’ll be honest – it just started, and I’m already starting to sweat it.

National Novel Writing Month, more commonly known as NaNoWriMo, is something I’ve been making excuses not to do for several years now. The past few years I’ve instead undertaken something called the Salon Challenge, which is explained here. NaNoWriMo, conversely, is all about quantity, not quality, so the Salon Challenge isn’t really in the same spirit, and hell, I’m unemployed and 24 in Chicago, and what else do I have to do with my time than write 50,000 words of drivel in 30 days?

Anyway, I’m going to try to do this thing right. No cheating or writing 50,000 words of TDW or anything – I’m going to write a whole first draft of a brand new novel, from conception to finish, in 30 days. By nature, this is a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, stream-of-consciousness exercise, so I can’t really give you an outline of what I’m working on since I myself don’t know. I tried to start with an open-ended concept, something that I can get 175 pages worth of play out of: famous evangelical Bill Glass discovers that death is impermanent for him (though it can have some pretty weird side effects), so he forms a team of globe-hopping, high-flying, space-blasting adventurers who set out to fix all the world’s problems. Fun!

So what this means for you, dear reader, is that I can’t really predict what will happen to Awkward World during the coming month. Either I will write myself blue on the NaNoWriMo story and have no desire to even think about music reviewing, or else I’ll so desperately need a break, need to write something, anything else, and reviewing music will be my only respite. Who knows. But I’m planning for the former, which is a bummer because I just got a ton of new music for my birthday (or spent my birthday money on it), and there’s a lot I want to say. So, until (or if) I get a chance for real reviews, here are the highlights:

-Sainthood by Tegan & Sara is one of the best records this year.

-Backspacer by Pearl Jam is really good also.

-You can skip the new Swell Season and Monsters of Folk.

-The new Mike Doughty and Ben Gibbard/Jay Farrar efforts are worth hearing, but there’s nothing really groundbreaking.

-Nickie and I went to a Gaslight Anthem concert at the Double Door last week. The openers were Murder By Death and the Loved Ones, and it was awesome. Haven’t been to a real punk show in a while. And Matt Skiba of Alkaline Trio was there too, just hanging out. Wow!

Okay, gotta go. Making cupcakes. See ya in a month.

PS – If you want to join me and 120,000 others in National Novel Writing Month, you can get all the info you need here. And if you want to keep up with what I’m writing, well you can see that right here.

Red State Blues
An essay

It took moving to Chicago to understand North Carolina, or at least the anti-intellectual movement among the Southern Baptists and old rebels in Stanly County. Things I didn’t want to understand, maybe, but there’s at least a certain logic to the racism and stubbornness that I hadn’t seen before, and the thin line between bravery and foolishness. Back in Stanly County, the little white triangle which brought me up, the word “rebel” gets tossed around a lot, and these days I can see what they’re aiming at: wear your greasy Levis and trucker hat in Chicago, your frayed wife-beater and stretched tattoos, wave that Dixie flag, and yeah, I guess you are a rebel. I don’t own any of that stuff, but I went vintage shopping in Wicker Park today, wearing my grey Land’s End sweater over a polo, my Dockers slacks and black wool overcoat, and I couldn’t help from thumbing through the racks of ironic cowboy wear. Snakeskin boots. Yellow leather with fringe. Where I come from, that ain’t ironic. I haven’t felt ironic in a while.

It goes back to when I first moved here and unwittingly became the ambassador of southern culture to my new Chicago friends. I made them sweet tea and usually had a case of Cheerwine on hand. I told them all about the crazy racial politics in the Stanly County public schools — we get a day off every March for Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee Day, the South Stanly Rebels were finally forced to change their mascot to the Fire Ants, then back to the Rebels, then finally to the Rowdy Rebel Bulls, and they call the women’s teams the Rowdy Lady Rebel Bulls — and as a case study, it was generally agreed that I came out pretty well despite my upbringing. Eventually I stumbled across some other North state exiles, and we bandy names about like Bojangle’s and Cook-Out like currency, little islands of affiliation amid the great big primitive sea. In North Carolina, we don’t much joke about MLK/Robert E. Lee Day and the rebels of any shape or constitution, because some of those rebels incite a lot more damage than jokes. If you talk too much about the South Stanly mascot wars, you eventually have to talk about Carlos Roberson getting dragged behind Ed and Mike Prosser’s pick up till he came apart, and it was the cross-burners at the courthouse that gave us Robert E. Lee Day, so it’s not so funny underneath.
It was the underneath parts that drove me and some folks of like mind away from the South and to here. I live on the north side of Chicago in a Swedish neighborhood, about half an hour on the Red Line from downtown. The violence is west of me and south of me, and the papers here are too expensive to buy, and I’m mostly ignorant of city politics because I don’t claim Chicago yet. I like it just fine, but I could leave it tomorrow and I don’t think I’d be cooing to some new friends in some new city about how I can’t believe they changed the Sear’s Tower to the Willis Tower, or berating them for putting ketchup on their hot dogs. Illinois is a big blue state, and we’ve got Obama here, and Oprah, if that’s your thing. And after campaigning my little heart out in South Carolina for Obama in the Democratic primary back in ‘07, now that he’s in office, I’m starting to waver. I used to want to be a preacher, but I’m not so sure about god anymore, and I only half miss it. I miss the half where the responsibility for my life lay with someone else, but the justification, the afterlife, the leap of faith itself… I’m peeling off the layers of irony and finding a harder man to fool.

Like Nick Hornby and Steve Almond and far cooler people before me, I can’t help but define myself through music. I won’t get into it much now, except to say that I’ve been devouring the back catalogue of the Drive-By Truckers these last few months. Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Jason Isbell, the triple electric guitar attack. They’ve got their own section at Reckless Records called “INSURGENT COUNTRY,” and they understand the complexity of the lives of poor white men below the Mason-Dixon better than anything I’ve ever heard or read. For good or for bad, the DBT are defiant, rebels by nature. On their new b-sides collection, there’s a cover of “Rebels” they recorded for an episode of “King of the Hill.” It wasn’t until I heard their take on Tom Petty’s old standard that it clicked for me:

“Even before my fathers’ fathers
They called us all rebels,
As they burned down our cornfields
And left our cities leveled.
Well, I still feel the eyes
Of them blue-bellied devils
When I’m walking around
Through the concrete and metal.”

There is so much anger in the South. We have such an inborn need to prove ourselves righteous by fighting something, anything, that our whole identity is based on opposition. Hence the stereotypical Southern obsession with the Civil War; by god, it was the last time we took a stand. It was the last time we were taken seriously, the last time we almost won. We’re a joke to the rest of the country now — beer-bellied trailer park trash, meth addicts, wife-beaters, jingoistic, neo-conservative, short-tempered saps. For a comparison, look at inner-city gangs — if you tell somebody their whole life and their parents’ whole life that they’re criminals, they’re going to be criminals. I think black urban communities of the west and northeast have more in common with the fens of Alabama than either population would like to admit, and their music reflects that. How many times have you heard someone say they listen to every type of music except rap and country? In their purest forms, those two genres are populist anthems, impossible to truly understand unless you’ve lived the life.
I feel that Dixie insurgency too, even if I focus it differently. If I didn’t have it in my veins, that reactionary curse, I don’t think I would be able to understand the Drive-By Truckers, or Old Crow Medicine Show, or Lucero, or the old cowboy songs my dad used to sing. For christsake, I grew up on a chicken farm. You can see the house where my dad was born through the oaks behind my parents’ house, and none of my cousins, none of my aunts or uncles ever left the county for more than a year or two. All that racism, that sexism, the homophobia, the nasty politics, the belligerent ignorance, it all comes out of a desire to just be left alone. That goddamned flag, that red and blue Confederate thing that has chased me all my life, that Southern Cross I hate more than anything — it’s the flag for another country. For some of them, yeah, it’s about hating niggers. But I think more of them fly it out of wishful thinking, out of nostalgia for a world that never existed. It’s the same men in their forties who can never let go of their high school football days, the pass they almost caught, the shoulder they almost didn’t tear. There’s another world for them under the rebel flag, another country they can idealize, where they’d be richer and happier, where their own interpretation of the word of god would go unchallenged.
Hell, I’ve wanted to secede for years. The younger and middle-aged southerners have been fooled into believing the holy hypocrisy of the neo-conservative agenda, but the old hardliners are still real conservatives. I like these guys. These are guys who truly, deep in their wrinkled hearts, hate the fuck out of the United States of America. They hate the bureaucracy, hate the courts and Congress, really hate the President no matter which party’s in power. They hate anything remotely socialist, from public schools to income tax to Welfare to hospitals. They hate the war in the Middle East and the ideological war between the right and left, raging in their backyards. They hate the church and the sheriff. They hate the niggers and the Mexicans, the fags and the whores, and they most certainly hate you and me. I’m talking about the Fred Phelpses of the world, the Gary Birdsongs, if you know who that is. They’re pieces of shit, but at least they’re pieces of shit with consistent worldviews. They’re pieces of shit who believe in an unregulated free market, an unfiltered gospel, an eye for an eye. They’re not going to vote Democrat or Republican — they’re not going to vote at all. I’ve never seen a subjective sense of justice so developed as I see in these old men. The rest of the southerners, the hillbillies and rednecks, the shitkickers and townies, they’ll rebel against whatever they can — homos, liberals, books, deodorant. They’re against everything. The old timers are for something, and even though I disagree with what that something is, I respect them.

I consider myself a rebel. I hate the government, the Democrats and the Republicans. Capitalism doesn’t work, but neither does socialism — both are too easily corrupted by the greed of the upper class. I distrust the poor. I hate big business. I hate the church, the mainstream media, and law enforcement. I hate anyone or anything that tells anyone what to think. I hate the war. I do not support the troops. I don’t give a damn about justice — if there’s a heaven, Hitler and Hussein are most certainly there — because I believe in human forgiveness, if not godly forgiveness. I don’t have a temper, but I am full of criticism. America is a shitty place, even if it is one of the least shitty places currently available. I have my own ideas for utopia, but don’t we all? And if it had a flag, I suppose I’d fly it. There is so much that I love. I could never kill, and I don’t think I could even intentionally hurt, not even in self-defense. I believe in a unified scene, but I don’t think it’ll happen in my lifetime. What I hate more than anything are the false divisions imposed upon people — countries, races, gender identities, social classes, red and blue, left and right. I don’t hate George Bush, despite disagreeing with every single decision he’s ever made. I still tentatively like Obama, but if he doesn’t give us some public health care he’s going to be on my shit list. Everybody deserves a lot of second chances, because everybody is doing the best they can. I guess I’m something of a positive nihilist rebel. I like Trotsky’s idea of permanent revolution — every government, every corporation, every religion, anything that gains too much power will ultimately become corrupt, and anything that no longer serves the interest of the people is due for an ass-kicking.
So what do I do with all my big social ideals? How do I start the permanent revolution turning? Like almost all of my red state brothers and sisters in North Carolina, my blue state friends here in Chicago, my positive nihilists across the scene, I don’t do shit. I write an essay and put it on a blog. I’m a coward, of course, and my desire to see real change in the world is not quite as strong as my desire to avoid confrontation and be as comfortable as I can for as long as I can. That’s why I left. In the end, if you’re not Gandhi or Mandela, or Phelps or Birdsong, or Hitler or bin Laden, then you’re just talk. You might as well just fly the flag, for all the difference it makes. I fear violence, but I suspect that it is the character of this world that nothing can get better without the violent exsanguination of the old and corrupt. I’m not that guy. I’m just the guy who writes about it. So to the readers, to the dogs or whoever, I encourage you to take up arms, violently, and rebel, not against injustice but for your subjective utopia, no matter how malevolent or doomed that world may be. Take up arms or, as I have, accept the compromise blues as the price of inertia.

Drive-By Truckers – The Righteous Path

Drive-By Truckers – Rebels

Drive-By Truckers – The Day John Henry Died

Drive-By Truckers – The Boys from Alabama

I just want to brag that Awkward World had its busiest traffic day yesterday, with almost 200 distinct visitors. You guys are actually making this happen for me, which is something I never expected. I started this blog a year ago as a way to keep in touch with old friends when I moved to Chicago, and in that time it’s morphed into a self-sustaining, music-reviewing, unstoppable machine of awesome, fueled by the your visits and Glen Beck’s golden tears. So I just wanted to say thank you, to every visitor who comes across this posting, and especially to the RSS subscribers. Thanks for reading, for sending me your music, for Googling “conor oberst,” “juliette lewis,” and “dead man’s bones” (according to my stat tracker), and for making a hobby into a legitimate enterprise. You guys are amazing.

And since I’ve learned what really brings a lot of traffic to my site…

Kim Kardashian Kanye West Hannah Montana Sex Nude Jonas Brothers Barack Obama Fox News American Idol Jessica Simpson Dog Coyote.

Update: 212 visitors on October 22! Happy early birthday to me!

Update: 245 on November 8.

I have a cold, or a cold-like thing. I am told that my tonsils are ripe for picking, but I don’t have much in the way of insurance right now, so it’s a cold.

While I haven’t been leaving my apartment or making any sudden movements the last few days, I’ve had the opportunity to listen to some new music, as well as to some of the submissions from my previous post. Something else I have discovered: did you know there’s a super-weird redux of “Let’s Make a Deal” (not to be confused with “Deal or No Deal,” where dignity goes to die) that comes on before “The Price Is Right”? Even better: it’s hosted by Wayne Brady. Consider it a companion piece to another delightfully terrible 2009 game show, “Trivial Pursuit: America Plays,” starring Christopher Knight. That one comes on before the new “Family Feud.”

Anyway, on to the music reviews. First up is an album I expect to see on a few of the more open-minded critics’ top ten lists, Brand New’s terrific new LP, Daisy. Brand New has charted a strange course since their 2001 pop-punk-tastic, Your Favorite Weapon. If you can remember that far back to the golden age before Good Charlotte and Simple Plan, pop punk was a halfway respectable genre. You had your early Blink-182, your mid-period MxPx, and a few truly awesome outings from Reel Big Fish and Goldfinger. You also had Brand New, who were a little snarkier and cleverer than the pack, but otherwise not much different.

Then 2003’s Deja Entendu (French for “already heard”), which had nothing at all in common with Weapon — a thundering art-rock manifesto that showcased vocalist Jesse Lacey’s haunting songwriting as much as his emotive pipes. I think I heard Deja Entendu at exactly the right time in my life; it’s a prickly, mean-spirited, and deceptively sensitive testament to what it’s like to be a young man of a certain age and temperament. Deja Entendu said all the things I never knew I thought in those years, and it’s still one of my favorite albums. Top ten material, all the way.

2006’s The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me was a purposely divisive album. It’s a downer, and it introduced the element of heavy metal to its sound. The album took its title from a conversation Lacey had with friend and iconic/schizophrenic rocker Daniel Johnston, and the album is a bit like the kind of metal the reformed Smashing Pumpkins have been putting out: grinding, loud, matured, nihilistic, kind of annoying to listen to. I remember someone saying they were the American Radiohead, and Devil was their The Bends. The implication, then, was that OK, Computer was next.

So now we have Daisy. I haven’t actually heard any reviews of Daisy so far, but I’m going to tentatively say it’s terrific. Is it the American OK, Computer? Er, probably not. Give it a few years and ask me again. What it is is a dense, careful study of solitude and loss, spare on the clever lyrics, heavy on the Hemingway-style simplicity. And screaming. Oh, the screaming. “Vice” and “Gasoline” sound like Glassjaw b-sides. “Sink” and “In a Jar” have a significant Modest Mouse influence, and the first single, “At the Bottom,” could have been written by Built to Spill or Pavement. This is certainly the most we’ve seen Lacey wearing his influences on his sleeve, which isn’t a bad thing when his influences are as varied and esteemed as these. And as usual, the slow songs are fucking devastating.

Like Devil, I didn’t care for Daisy on first listen, but it’s an album that invites contemplation and adoption, and in that way I think Brand New is absolutely the American Radiohead. Pretty much all 1990s Radiohead and Brand New’s last three records seem designed to have personal meaning assigned to them. Do you have a specific point of your life you associate with Kid A? I have a Deja Entendu year (2004) and a Devil and God fall (2006). Now I have a Daisy fall.

Brand New – Seventy Times Seven (from Your Favorite Weapon, 2001)

Brand New – Me Vs. Maradona Vs. Elvis (from Deja Entendu, 2003)

Brand New – Sowing Season (from The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me, 2006)

Brand New – Bought a Bride (from Daisy, 2009)

That was much, much longer than I intended it to be. I’ll compensate by writing an anemic, frustratingly uninformative review of Kill Hannah’s new record, Wake Up the Sleepers:

Kill Hannah is a band from Chicago, and this is their sixth album. I feel strongly about it.

Kill Hannah – Radio

Finally, we have The Cloud I’m Under, a synthpop producer and musician from New York who is giving away his new EP, There’s More to Life Than Indie Rock and Roll, for free on his website. Not unlike Kill Hannah (whose new album I feel very strongly about), The Cloud I’m Under records an odd marriage of 1980s electronic pop and 1990s lo-fi noise. It’s a solid EP from an artist that wasn’t previously on my radar, but he’s firmly on there now, and he should be on yours too. The lyrics can be a bit smug for my tastes, but inspired, Bowie-esque arrangements more than make up for a few lyrical missteps. There’s nothing necessarily new here (M83 kind of has the market cornered on this type of sweet electro-pop), but it’s five free songs, and “Saturdays Are Better Without You” has been on repeat for me for the last few weeks. Gotta love those hand claps too.

The Cloud I’m Under – Saturdays Are Better Without You

(P.S. – Just kidding about Kill Hannah. I’ve heard Sleepers, and it’s too heavy on the glam, too light on the substance. I’m indifferent about it, as I was their largely uninspired previous album, Until There’s Nothing Left of Us. A band that’s been around this long should know better. But get your hands on For Never and Ever or American Jet Set, and you’re going to be in glam/grunge heaven.)

I was talking about crappy TV earlier, and I have one last television observation: when did “Scrubs” become terrible? It’s a show I’ve always felt was best enjoyed on DVD or reruns on Comedy Central, but now that Comedy Central is airing the 2009 episodes… somebody be straight with me. Was it always this lazily sentimental? Didn’t this show have some genuine sincerity at one point?

Anyway, there’s a lot of good music and TV out there. “Sons of Anarchy” and “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” are back (with free full episodes on the FX website!), and “Top Chef” is my new best friend. A.V. Club’s excellent T.V. Club section always has informative and thought-provoking recaps if you missed an episode (or the whole first season, as I imagine there are lots of new SAMCRO fans as of late) for these and for many, many other shows. As always, thanks for listening and keep sending me those albums. Happy fall!

<3 Tanner

The Hold Steady says that everyone’s a critic, but most people are DJ’s. Nowhere does this seem to be more true than in Hollywood, where the egos are too big to be contained by the very medium which inflated them. There are lots of shitty, shitty celebrity bands — Keanu Reeves’ Dogstar, Russell Crowe’s 30 Odd Foot Grunts, Jared Leto’s 30 Seconds to Mars (what is it with pretentious actors and that number?), Billy Bob Thornton’s whatever band he’s in now — but there are very few who actually get the respect as a singer that they do as an actor. Here are some that, while not necessarily amazing, don’t completely suck.

(Also: there are some folks I’ve left off this list for various reasons. Phantom Planet was famous before Jason Schwartzman ever acted, so he doesn’t count. As much as I loved Will Smith’s Men in Black rap in 7th grade, he doesn’t count either. Neither do singers who act: Tom Waits is a phenomenal actor, as are Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, but no, they don’t count. No love for Courtney Love either.)

1. Ryan Gosling

Dead Man’s Bones – My Body’s a Zombie for You

Actually, Dead Man’s Bones is necessarily amazing. Their self-titled debut comes out on October 6^th, and it’s a tongue-in-cheek, Halloween-themed record featuring the Silverlake Conservatory of Music Children’s Choir. It sounds like a joke, but just try to listen to “My Body’s a Zombie for You” only once. It’s “My Girls” good (note to self – trademark that new catchphrase). Gosling is a wonderful, goofy actor, and Dead Man’s Bones is a wonderful, goofy album, bleeding with faux-goth themes and very real sincerity. Watch this video. Listen to that song. Buy this album when it comes out.

2. Zooey Deschanel

She & Him – Sentimental Heart

Aww, Zooey, I can tell you what to do with a sentimental heart: listen to it over and over. Anybody who saw Deschanel’s shower duet “Baby It’s Cold Outside” with Will Ferrel in Elf (or heard this achingly beautiful redub of her singing the same song with Leon Redbone) knew the lady had some pipes. But who could have seen She & Him coming? Band-name-grammar aside, Deschanel’s 2008 team-up with M. Ward resulted in one of the most critically acclaimed records of the year. Volume One overflows with charming, retro soul as big as those baby blues, and it earned her a wellspring of good will in the indie rock community. She appeared on Jenny Lewis’ solo album last year, and just this month she got married to Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard. Go check out Volume One if you haven’t already, and I think I’ll go watch All the Real Girls again.

3. Juliette Lewis

Juliette and the Licks – Comin’ Around

If you’ve never heard Juliette and the Licks but you know who Juliette Lewis is, then her band sounds exactly like you think they would – screechy, yowling punk rock in in the vein of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Juliette is as manic a singer as she is an actress, but take one look at her schizophrenic, retina-bruising fashion sense or one listen to her poseur-rific lyrics and it’s evident that the Licks are all about style over substance. While I can’t say I would voluntarily listen to one of her albums all the way through again, she has a couple of excellent singles, like the one above. Consider her mix tape fodder. I am morbidly curious what her live show would do to me.

4. Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson – I Don’t Want to Grow Up

Hi, Tom Waits! I have such mixed feelings about Ms. Johansson, both as a singer and as an actress. I think she’s a talented actress, and back in the days of Lost in Translation and The Girl With the Pearl Earring, she was quite respected in the indie community. And I had a huge crush on her, because of that shy, sincere appeal and silver-age Hollywood looks. But she went mainstream and made a string of mediocre-to-terrible films, and she’s best known now as a glammed-up, blonde sexpot, and that ain’t the Scarlett I used to love. As a singer, she seems to be trying to reverse that image, tackling too-ambitious projects like Anywhere I Lay My Head, her 2008 debut of Tom Waits covers, and the new Break Up, an album of duets with critical darling Pete Yorn. I haven’t heard all of Break Up, but it isn’t half bad, and Anywhere was decent too, though Johansson has a lot more range as a visionary than as a singer. It’s easy to hate her for her image, but I’ve decided to respect her, tentatively. Don’t look for anything revolutionary here, but like the poor man’s She & Him, I predict Break Up will outlive the celebrity hype.

5. Matt Damon

Lustra – Scotty Doesn’t Know

I remember exactly two things about the movie Eurotrip: Michelle “Harriet the Spy” Trachtenberg all growed up, and this song, by Matt Damon’s sort-of band, Lustra. Ya see, the main character in the movie’s name is Scotty, and his girlfriend has been cheating on him for years, and he doesn’t know. And with whom was she making the beast with two backs? Gross-looking Matt Damon, or course, in one of the weirdest celebrity cameos I’ve ever seen. He even wrote a song about the affair, and about the boyfriend’s obliviousness, and debuted that song at a party in front of poor Scotty, which was how our hero learned about the whole shebang. The song keeps coming up throughout the movie, on people’s ringtones or overheard somewhere. The point is, as much as Scotty hates what the song is about, it’s impossible for him to deny how catchy it is. It is also impossible for me to deny. Not a very good movie, but one catchy damn song.

Any other good celebrity bands? Shoot me a comment, and keep those submissions coming. Next post will contain reviews from the first batch.

Peace,

Tanner

Fuck!

God DAMN it!

GYAAAAAHHHHH

Remember when I did that mid-year best-of post a few months ago? I gave a very positive review to Outer South by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band. Apparently people in famous bands like it when I say nice things about them, so I was contacted by a San Fransisco group called AM Magic, which shares a member with the Mystic Valley Band. In my Outer South review, I said the non-Conor-Oberst singer-songwriters were a mixed bag, but Nik Freitas’ tracks on that album were consistently strong, so I jumped at the chance to review AM Magic’s new record, Magique Concrete.

Magique Concrete is the kind of indie pop you hear a lot around a college campus, which is to say lo-fi, stripped down, discordant, and generically pretty. The songs work best when they slow down and get shoegazy, like on “Blue Timbre” and “Make It Right,” but the album itself doesn’t quite have a through-line, a unifying factor that defines a body of work rather than a group of friends dicking around on their instruments. Despite a self-serious, undeveloped sound and some creativity issues with the lyrics, I liked the album overall, especially in its second half. It reminds me of Jets to Brazil or the kind of stuff Saddle Creek/Team Love used to release ten years ago, and my favorite songs from Magique Concrete – “Aeroplane” and the aforementioned “Make It Right” – are sincere and fun, and a little more ambitious than the rest of the album. That’s what I think AM Magic lacks as a whole: ambition. I would love to see where this band can go when they stop playing the kind of stuff WXYC in Chapel Hill would gobble up and really start looking for art, or emotion, or energy, or whatever it is they haven’t quite found. Have some fun, people, and your music will start to reflect it.

AM Magic – Aeroplane

AM Magic – Make It Right

This is as good a time as any to tell you all about my new submission policy. AM Magic sent me a free download of Magique Concrete and asked me to review it for them. I really like free music. So if your band would like to be reviewed on Awkward World, send me a digital or hard copy of your record (email me for my address), and I will review it, and unlike with AM Magic (sorry AM Magic) I will do so in a timely-ish manner. So start mailing me CD’s, people. Seriously.

In other news, we have new or upcoming releases from some of my all-time favorite bands. I picked up the new Lacuna Coil, Shallow Life, with lowered expectations. Their 2006 major label debut, Karmacode, was disappointing, and rarely does a band make a few terrific albums on a small label, then grow older and get a sucky break into the mainstream, then revert back to making terrific albums. Sadly, I was right. Lacuna Coil now records glossy, shiny, metal-type songs with all the darkness and feeling carefully polished out. Shallow Life has too many orchestral ballads and thumping, alternative-rock-radio-ready singles, and not enough screamy/beautiful gothic metal, which is the whole reason to listen to Lacuna Coil in the first place. Their first three full-lengths – In a Reverie, Unleashed Memories, and Comalies – are the wildly melodramatic standard-bearers of what European goth-metal should sound like, and those records absolutely deserve their cult following. I worshiped at the altar of vocalist/Italian sex goddess Cristina Scabbia for all my high school days, but I think it might be time to blow out the incense and move on. Alas.

Lacuna Coil – Wide Awake (from Shallow Life, 2009)

Lacuna Coil – My Wings (from In a Reverie, 1999; this is one of my favorite songs of all time, ever.)

Lacuna Coil – Stars (from Unleashed Memories/Half-Life split, 2001)

Lacuna Coil – Entwined (from Comalies, 2002)

But there’s good news too! Lucero’s new LP, 1372 Overton Park, is perhaps their best album to date, and that’s saying a whole hell of a lot. This self-described “country-ish” band is best known for their raucous live shows, driving heartland rock, and the gravelly, Replacements-by-way-of-Springsteen vocals of frontman Ben Nichols (can you tell what kind of music I like or what?). Nichols’ solo EP earlier this year, The Last Pale Light in the West, made my mid-year top ten, but the energy and heart of Overton Park lays to waste pretty much his whole catalogue. Though I’m still drawn to their rambling, scruffy early work, it’s the more streamlined, southern rock flair that began on 2004’s That Much Further West that really makes Lucero stand out. They’ve added a horn section this time around for a full, whiskey-soaked, Memphis sound, and Nichols’ emotive yowling is in top form. This sounds like a very personal record, and one which took a lot of work to pull off. You can appreciate 1372 Overton Park for yourself when it’s released on October 6, but the first single, “Smoke,” is now available on iTunes. Here’s that song, plus my favorite from their new release.

Lucero – Smoke

Lucero – What Are You Willing to Lose?

Destroyer also has a new two song EP called Bay of Pigs, but don’t let the number of songs fool you: the combined tracks, “Bay of Pigs” and “Ravers,” add up to over 21 minutes. It’s a limited-edition, vinyl-only release, which has made it difficult for me to track down digitally, but I finally found ‘em, and here they are. Like most of Dan Bejar’s work with Destroyer, this is a mature, avant-garde work of art. The A-side, “Bay of Pigs,” is especially haunting. I recommend you spend the 21 minutes just appreciating these without other distractions. You can stare at the cover art because it’s gorgeous too. So good work, Dan Bejar. All three New Pornographers vocalists (Bejar, A.C. Newman, Neko Case) had awesome solo releases this year. Now it’s time to be a band again and make me another New Pornos record. Please.

Destroyer – Bay of Pigs

Destroyer – Ravers

That’s all for now from the music desk at Awkward World international headquarters here in Chicago. If you haven’t picked up the new comedy CD/DVD from Patton Oswalt, My Weakness is Strong, you should really get on that. I was underwhelmed by the Comedy Central special, but now that I’ve listened to or watched the unedited version about half a dozen times, it’s really grown on me. Oddly enough, some of the best bits are the ones Comedy Central cut out. Go figure.

I’ll leave you with some Patton to perk you up after that Destroyer mope-fest. Go support public health care. Till next time,

Tanner

Patton Oswalt – Rats

Patton Oswalt – The Magician

Let’s get to the good part right away: here are five Avett Brothers tracks recorded live at the Bojangles Coliseum in Charlotte, NC on 8-8-09. Those in attendance were given a code to download the tracks, thus, they are available only to about a thousand people. And to Awkward World readers, of course. They are excellent. Enjoy.

I and Love and You
Salina
Shame
Murder in the City
Salvation Song

Now the nitty gritty part in which I admit that I never really listened to the Avetts before going to this show, despite growing up within about forty miles of them. I’ve known quite a few Avett fanatics over the years, not the least of whom are Will Halicks and Sam Stiles, two of the loveliest folks I know, who invited me to join them at the Avett’s only 2009 Charlotte performance. For neophytes like myself, the Avett Brothers – vocalists and multi-instrumentalists Seth and Scott Avett, stand-up bassist Bob Crawford, and cellist Joe Kwon – are a string band from Concord, NC known for their enthusiastic live shows and sensitive songwriting. If you’re from North Carolina, the Avetts are also known because of how much they love North Carolina. Their seventh album, I and Love and You, comes out on American/Columbia on September 29, 2009, and their 2007 album Emotionalism was on quite a few critical top ten lists.

Going into the show, I wasn’t sure how I had managed to dodge the Avett Brothers all these years. They’re critical darlings and a highly respected group in the modern alt-country/bluegrass scene, and pretty much everyone I know loves the shit out of them. I’ve happened across a few of their songs in the past, mostly put on mix CD’s for me from friends, and was nonplussed. But word is that the way to fall in love with the Avett Brothers is to see them live, and the place to see them live is Charlotte. These are true statements.

It was a great show. Top 20 easily. For a four-piece, mostly acoustic string band, they played surprisingly well in the notoriously poor acoustics of the coliseum, which is used mostly for minor league hockey games and second-rate arena rockers. The show had all the earmarks of my favorite kind of concert – energy, enthusiasm for the music and for the fans, distinct personalities among the band members, harmonies, and big, face-shredding renditions of otherwise low-key tunes. The band plays well off each other, and their songs seem to be written for live performance, with lots of built-in instrumental breaks to showcase each member’s respective virtuosity. They were really, really happy to be playing this show, and their cheerfulness was infectious. Great show.

So the first thing I did once my ears stopped ringing was invest in the Avetts’ back catalogue, starting with Emotionalism, ostensibly their best record, and following with A Carolina Jubilee, a fan favorite. After two weeks now of listening to the Avetts nonstop, I feel that I can finally admit the conclusion that I feared all along: their albums aren’t very good. They aren’t very bad either, they’re just… boring. I absolutely understand the hype behind their live shows – I’ll be first in line for a ticket next time they visit Chicago – but every aspect of that performance is neutered in the recording. The songs are slower and plodding. The arrangements are static and thin, and you have to listen hard to even notice the bass and cello, the backbone of their live show. And – this is, I suspect, where I’ll start getting the hate mail – neither of the Avetts are particularly good singers. They have giant, arena-filling voices, and when they harmonize, it’s fireworks, and those harmonies are behind the Brothers’ knockout tracks – “The Weight of Lies” and “Go to Sleep” are damn near perfect, even in the studio – but those harmonies are rarer on the recordings, and the studio tracks are more about cooing softly into microphones than belting out with their full power. I just don’t understand what happened, where the disconnect comes in, or what’s wrong with me that I don’t like their records.
But it’s not just me. Here are the studio versions of the same five songs from above.

I and Love and You
Salina
Shame
Murder in the City
Salvation Song

With the possible exception of “I and Love and You,” almost none of the intensity of the live versions translates. Songs like “The Ballad of Love and Hate” had me near to tears when Seth Avett crooned it live, but on Emotionalism I simply could not care less. From the three albums I’ve heard – I got an advance listen on their new one, and it’s an improvement, but not enough of one – there always seem to be two or three unbelievably great tracks and a whole lot of filler. The end product sounds like a hodgepodge of Nickel Creek castoffs; technically proficient, but who cares?
Still, they won me over with their live show, and I have more positive things to say about them than negative. They can be inspired songwriters, and when they’re on target they’re way on target, and there are fun moments throughout their catalogue – like the out-of-left-field electric breakdown in the middle of “Pretty Girl from Chile,” or the waterfall of neuroses at the end of “Distraction #74” – it’s just a shame they’re couched in such dull songs. Definitely a band to watch, I just don’t think they’re there yet.

And just so you have an idea of what kind of standard I’ve set for the Avetts, this is the sort of modern string bands to which I feel like they’re not living up. So give these country-fied tracks a listen, and if you hate them, then you know to disregard my whole review.
Peace,
Tanner

String Section’s Screaming EP
1. Old Crow Medicine Show – Wagon Wheel
2. Interference – Gold
3. Neko Case & Her Boyfriends – Guided By Wire
4. Nickel Creek – Reasons Why
5. Alison Krauss & Union Station – New Favorite
6. Chris Thile – The Beekeeper (if you listen to no other track in this post, listen to this one)
7. The Greencards – Don’t Want Forever
8. Gillian Welch – Everything is Free
9. Old Crow Medicine Show – Caroline

Also: NPR’s recording of the Avetts at the 2009 Newport Folk Festival.

Also also: All concert photos in this post were taken by Sam Stiles. Thanks for letting me use them, and I’m sorry your favorite band isn’t also my favorite band.

I heard a theory a while back that great music is on a two-year cycle, because that’s about how long it takes the great artists to cut a new album. I’m not sure how much credence we should put in that, since 2006 and 2007 were both very, very good, but there has to be some explanation for 2008. Seriously.
(As a side note, my 2008 year-end list would look a little different if I were to write it now. Big bumps up the list for Bon Iver and Old Crow Medicine Show, and the inclusion of M83’s magical Saturdays = Youth in the top 10.)
So now we come to 2009, which is a little over halfway over, and it’s great. Really, really great. I mean, where have you been? It’s already blown 2008 out of the water, and competing with the best of the decade.
Without further ado, the best albums from the first half of 2009.

10. Dark Was the Night by various artists
Way back in 1993, an AIDS nonprofit called Red Hot released a little compilation called No Alternative, which featured basically anyone who was anyone in the alternative rock scene of the early 90s performing covers, collaborations, and new originals. Many a grunge neophyte first heard of the Smashing Pumpkins, Goo Goo Dolls, or Soundgarden on No Alternative, and to amateur music historians like us, the compilation is an amazing snapshot of the alternative scene at its best, uniting for a cause with original, top shelf art. In 2009, Red Hot Organization is back with another compilation called Dark Was the Night, and it’s our generation’s No Alternative. Over two discs produced by Aaron and Bryce Desner of the National, it’s the rare compilation that flows like a single-artist album, showcasing the best of the late-2000’s indie and alt-country scene. Where else are you going to hear collaborations between Ben Gibbard and Leslie Feist, David Byrne and the Dirty Projectors, Antony and the National, or Jose Gonzales and the Books covering a Nick Drake standard? It’s well worth owning a hard copy of, if for no other reason than you can replay it 15 years from now when the scene is completely different, and show a younger generation what 2009 was all about.
The New Pornographers – Hey, Snow White

9. Farm by Dinosaur Jr.
If someone put a gun to my head and asked me what makes me like or dislike most bands, I would have to admit that it’s the singer. After that, probably the lyrics and arrangement. I’m a big fan of texture too. Very rarely do I zone in on a single instrument – I guess I like Foo Fighters for the drums – and rarer still is that instrument the old rock and roll cliché machine, the electric guitar. But oh my god, J Mascis has to be rock and roll’s most expressive electric guitar player – and I am saying this on record. Listen to the solos on Farm, or on Dinosaur Jr.’s other post-reunion album, Beyond, and I dare you not to be moved by their thundering, streamlined delivery. Mascis’ own shy vocals, Murph’s drumming, and Lou Barlow’s driving bass are all in service of  Dinosaur Jr.’s real frontman, that Fender Jazzmaster. A great album, thoughtfully constructed, and a headbanging good time.
I Don’t Wanna Go There

8. Outer South by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band
I saw Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band live at Summerfest last month. Their live shows are quickly becoming legendary for a number of reasons: for one thing, they refuse to play Bright Eyes songs. For another, they’re awesome. Bright Eyes was dull as dishwater on stage, but the Conor Oberst before us today is nigh unrecognizable. With a big, floppy, country hat, a screaming electric guitar, and a top notch backing band, he’s redefined himself as the musician’s musician, focusing on live performance, cheerful country rock, and – perhaps most surprising – division of labor. That’s right. Oberst only sings lead on about half the songs on this record, giving songwriting and singing duties to three other dudes in the Mystic Valley Band. Does it always work? Hell no. But Oberst has always been a progressive artist, and this seems the next logical step after the gorgeous and uneven folk of the last few Bright Eyes albums (and the god-awful honky tonk of his first solo release). If this is who Oberst wants to be now, I’m ready to embrace it. For the first time in his long and distinguished career, he sounds like he’s having a good time.
Nikorette

7. Far by Regina Spektor
I’m not even going to review this. You like Regina Spektor, don’t you? Well, this is her new album and it’s really good. Go buy it. She makes dolphin noises on this one song.
Folding Chair

6. The Last Pale Light in the West by Ben Nichols, and Murdering Oscar (and other love songs) by Patterson Hood
Here we have a pair of bleak, violent, minimalist solo releases by the frontmen of two of alt-country’s finest acts. Ben Nichols’ gravel-mouthed vocals tie together Lucero’s shit-kicking anthems of youth and rebellion in the style of the Hold Steady or early Springsteen. Lucero has been called the most punk rock country band out there, but on Nichols’ first solo EP, he shows more range and depth as a songwriter and a singer than he has on any of Lucero’s fine, fine releases. The Last Pale Light in the West is based on Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy’s ultraviolent novel about mercenaries cutting a bloody swathe through the southwest in the years after the Mexican-American War. Nichols, like McCarthy, humanizes these amoral murderers, and his stirring acoustic ballads are as lyrically solid as their source material. It’s one of my favorite novels, and I think it’s legendary curmudgeon of an author would be proud of this adaptation.
Murdering Oscar (and other love songs) is the second full solo album by one of the many talented singer-songwriters that make up the alt-country supergroup Drive-By Truckers. The songs here are similar to Hood’s tracks with the Truckers: ruminating, cerebral, sometimes startling in their brutality. As the album title suggests, these are mostly tongue-in-cheek tales of questionable morality, mostly acoustic, and consistently strong. Rarely do two unrelated records complement one another as well as Nichols’ and Hood’s latests. Pick them both up, as well as this year’s #2 entry below for the awesome alt-country trifecta.
Ben Nichols – The Kid
Patterson Hood – The Range War

5. Bitte Orca by Dirty Projectors
Among other things, 2009 could go down as the year that the freakazoid indie electronica acts went mainstream. Well, mainstreamier. With Dirty Projectors, Animal Collective, and Grizzly Bear all releasing their best and most accessible albums to date, that pretentious subgenre is finally available to us common folk. And I have to say I love the direction Dirty Projectors have have been going for their last few albums, with warbler-in-chief David Longstreth diverting some of his vocal duties to allow for the frenetic harmonies of Angel Deradoorian and Amber Coffman. (Side note: “Angel Deradoorian” = my favorite name of all time) In fact, the ladies of Dirty Projectors provide the records’ best moments: Coffman’s spectacular spotlight track “Stillness is the Move,” the appropriately cooing “Two Doves,” and this impossible-to-describe chiming thing on “Remade Horizon” that I had assumed was created in the editing room but when I saw them live THEY CAN ACTUALLY DO IT WITH THEIR MOUTHS. It’s weird and beautiful, and, like the rest of Bitte Orca, kind of hard to explain.
Stillness Is the Move

4. Merriweather Post Pavilion by Animal Collective
Animal Collective is the Kate Finneran of bands. I resent almost everything they stand for, from their pseudo-intellectual posturing to their weird-for-weirdness’ sake non-aesthetic, and most of all what it adds up to: a snobby band you “don’t get” if you don’t like. Then there’s stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid Merriweather Post Pavilion, a near-perfect synth-pop album containing the year’s best song (even NPR says so), and yes, Merriweather is just as amazing as everyone says it is, and I’m forced to admit that maybe the emperor is wearing some clothes, socks, maybe. A banana hammock at most. I still hate this band.
My Girls

3. Swoon by Silversun Pickups
This was the biggest surprise for me this year. Silversun Pickups were almost completely off my radar (though I hear their debut album, Carnavas, is also very good), and I picked up Swoon on a whim. I was in Reckless Records to pick up the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs (which blows, unfortunately) and the cover art caught my eye, as well as an employee recommendation that this was the new Siamese Dream. It isn’t, not by a long shot, but I can understand why he said that. The record opener “There’s No Secrets This Year” is the closest thing to a cover of the Smashing Pumpkins’ “Silverfuck” I’ve ever heard that wasn’t actually a cover of “Silverfuck.” Like the early Pumpkins, Silversun Pickups make sensitive, textured, ear-bleedingly heavy rock and roll, and there’s that same sort of shaggy charm to Swoon. It’s an earnest, personal, and instantly accessible record that is sure to have a long shelf life on both Top 40 radio and every hipster kid’s turntable.
There’s No Secrets This Year

2. Yonder is the Clock by The Felice Brothers
If I could have but one wish on this sweltering summer afternoon, it would be this: for the Felice Brothers and the Jonas Brothers to switch places. I can guarantee there would be a lot more cocaine-fueled knifings at Camp Honky Tonk. And they’re kind of dreamy, right? Do preteen chicks still dig squeaky-voiced bearded fat guys playing accordion? Well, until abstinence promise rings are replaced with promiscuity barbed wire bracelets, we out-of-touch old fogies are going to have to console ourselves with Yonder Is the Clock, the audio equivalent of that dangerously unhinged skinny drunkard at the bar who might buy you a drink or might smash a bottle over your head for looking at him wrong. It’s a wild and cynical ride in the same vein of Tom Waits or Old Crow Medicine Show, careening between southern satire (the title comes from a Mark Twain story) and poignant sketches of rural desperation and the ghosts of the new Depression. Also: two songs about chickens. I smell a Disney Channel series!
Run, Chicken, Run

1. Middle Cyclone by Neko Case

I’ve written plenty about Neko Case in the past, so I don’t feel the need to gush about her too much here. Suffice it to say, Middle Cyclone is on par with Case’s perfect 2006 album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, which is a bit like saying some new book is on par with Finnegan’s Wake. It’s an album about nature, about animals and instincts, and the frightening, titillating undercurrents of the world that we can’t understand but seem to understand us. And believe me, Neko Case understands you. She punctuates her lyrics with vivid abstractions that resonate like those of the best poets – I don’t know exactly what “I listened in when you thought you were alone / calling the Sphinx on a tornado’s phone” means, but I know exactly what she means when she sings it. The orchestration is tight and layered, and Jon Rauhouse’s ratatat pedal steel cuts as clean a line as ever, but the biggest reason to listen to Neko Case is still her booming, lusty vocals, which only seem to grow louder and bolder with each new release. And like Fox Confessor, you don’t need to be a Case superfan to appreciate a precise and disarming work of art such as this.
The Pharaohs

These records didn’t make the top ten for 2009, but they’re all on par with the best of 2008. Check them out. For real.

Actor by St. Vincent
Get Guilty by A.C. Newman
Tonight: by Franz Ferdinand
Art Brut Vs. Satan by Art Brut
Noble Beast by Andrew Bird

I didn’t make a mid-year list of best songs, but I can, if that’s something people want. What do you say, readers?

Either way, thanks for reading. Now go buy some records!

<3 Tanner

Big changes are coming, and I don’t mean to layout. In the meantime, I hope you are all having a lovely summer. I know I am. I’ve been to concerts galore: the ones I mentioned a few weeks ago (Hold Steady, Dirty Projectors, Rancid, Conor Oberst), plus Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, Margot and the Nuclear So-and-So’s, and Reel Big Fish. Most of that was at Summerfest. I’ll be seeing Pearl Jam in about a month, and hopefully Modest Mouse and Regina Spektor. Whew!

What else? I passed my massage licensing exam, so all that’s left now is paperwork, fingerprinting, and the job search itself. The apartment’s coming along, though the shady dealers from whom I bought my bed keep stringing me along on delivery dates. I’ve been sleeping on the foldout for almost a month now. Oh! And I met Stevie Wonder at the airport. That happened too.

I’ll try to post more of these short personal things because they always seem to get a good response. What do we think of the new layout? I’m not entirely satisfied, but it’s certainly a lot less drab. The only other thing I can think of to say is

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LINDSAY ELLERBE

Sweater Weather – Sing the Song