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The Strokes return to Earth

03/09/2011 by

This is so marvelous I can’t describe how happy it makes me. Ever since First Impressions of Earth made it feel like the Strokes had left the Earth as opposed to just joining it, it’s been an oddly dark time of waiting. Waiting and re-trying. I would every once in a while put the record on and try, TRY to like it, but it was so scattershot that I just couldn’t do it. My mind warped in a thousand directions and the unbalanced EQ with squeaky guitars doing opposing lines and barely harmonizing while Julian warbled just turned me off – or rather, turned me back to Is This It? and Room On Fire to remember why I liked them in the first place. With the exception of “You Only Live Once” and “Ask Me Anything”, which I still think is beautiful and sad, I barely give it a chance anymore.

When Julian released a much-touted solo album last year, I bought it on my birthday at Best Buy in Cleveland and blasted it all the way through in my rented Mini Cooper. I knew the lead single from Stereogum, and was pleased. But alas, the rest of the album fell into the First Impressions… trap, only this time there were synthesizers and polyrhythms. Where was Fraiture and Valenci, Moretti, and Hammond, Jr. (names that I somehow still have memorized from years of adolescence Rolling Stone magazine absorbing) when I needed them?

They were here, holed up in a gaudy opera hall with the tuxedos to match. From the opening beat, to the reverbless jangle of the dueling guitar parts, revealed to be white Fenders subtley augmenting each other in their Tele/Strato differences, I was hooked and in love and feeling 19 again. I want to believe the enjoyment isn’t pure nostalgia (especially since culturally I don’t feel that removed from 2002, certainly not the way someone in 2002 would have felt removed from who they were in 1993), though it certainly plays a part. This is the missing 3rd album, taking the charm and joy from Is This It? and the musical interplay from Room On Fire and smoothing out the edges to create the best of both worlds. Enjoy it as I did, marvel at how cool the leather jacket is, and anticipate the full album as 1,145,674 other people have in just under 2 weeks.

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Oh, Girl Talk

11/17/2010 by

Girl Talk’s latest album All Day was sneak released online yesterday – this time eschewing the “pay what you want” model of 2008’s Feed the Animals for an even simpler “download it for free” scenario. Christmas has arrived early.

After trying in vain to download it from http://illegal-art.net/allday/ like the rest of the Internet, I consoled myself by singing “Play Your Part (Pt. 1)” a cappella in my vacant apartment. It wasn’t half bad, if I do say so myself – though I undeniably appeared to be schizophrenic and obsessed with top-notch hoes.

This evening, I tried to download again, and was finally successful. I hesitated to listen to it at first; listening to Girl Talk is such a communal experience, whether jumping and dancing like fools with your friends or simply sitting and listening and playing Guess That Sample. When I first discovered Feed the Animals 2 years ago, I regretted not being able to share some of the surprise with others when the guitar from a Rod Stewart song appeared, or a 2 second drum break from a Ben Folds Five song that I somehow recognized danced across the speakers. This time, I wanted to share it.

Well, upon seeing DOWNLOAD COMPLETE flash across the screen, I knew my efforts to wait were futile. I unzipped (the file), uploaded (the file), and hit it (the play button).

A couple seconds of silence. What a tease.

Air rushing to a crescendo, and at the peak – Oh my God.

He starts the whole thing off with Sabbath’s “War Pigs.”

And not the slow intro (while unquestionably cool, not the way to start a party), but the sweet guitar part. The awesome call-to-action of Tony Iommi’s D-to-E power chords. He even lets it play as is for a couple bars, showing reverence to the source and acknowledging how awesome this 40 year old (!) masterpiece is on it’s own.

Then the syncopated drums from some other unknown sample come in, right as Jay-Z slips in the door. It’s not long after Ozzy finishes his first line describing generals and masses when suddenly Ludacris rudely insists that we get out the way. All Day has begun.

As the type of rabid nerd that reads more about music than actually listening to it, I had read that Girl Talk (Greg Gillis to his friends) aimed to focus more on each sample this time around, veering from the frenetic pacing and swift left-turns of Feed the Animals. While reminiscent of his earlier work, I was skeptical, considering Animals is clearly the most perfect manifestation of the Girl Talk aesthetic. I wonder if Greg himself ever though classic rock samples layered under popular hip-hop would garner such scholarly assessment.

Suffice it to say, my worries were vanquished when Gillis somehow managed to squeeze 3-4 of my favorite songs in the first 10 minutes. Elation was at a high when 7 minutes and 10 seconds in I immediately recognized the piano intro to the best song ELO ever wrote, and certainly on my short list of desert island tracks: “Mr. Blue Sky.” I love this man.

Despite the rapid delight filling my face, wiping away a day’s worth of stress and distraction, I opted to stop the music at around the 10 minute mark. It’s not fair to have this much fun by myself. I have to have to have to wait and share this with someone. Or at least play it over the phone to Jeana.

If the beginning was this joyous, I know the rest will be euphoric.

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Good Old Round Stick Medium

10/19/2010 by

After consistently maintaining a schedule of inconsistent posts, I have finally buttoned down and customized my WordPress to the fullest.  Thanks to the help of my lifelong friend Matt Manes, I’ve got an official-looking site host AND my very own URL – and it only took me 27 years.

Matt was around when I designed my first website, and by “designed” I mean signed up for Tripod, which is now owned by Lycos.  Spectacularly, these two Internet dinosaurs are still in existence in the age of Google and Bing.  Perhaps their names weren’t ridiculous enough.

But yes, Matt and I first collaborated on a website for our band, Round Stick Medium.  In those days (the late 1990′s), you didn’t really need anything of substance on your site; there mere fact that you had a site was a pretty impressive feat.  As time went on, gigs were played, band line-ups changed, hair was grown in a variety of places and styles, and PHOTOS were added to the site.  This would be the extent of our burgeoning Internet presence.

While no record deal or even record came from the days of RSM, we did manage to sell a hefty number of official t-shirts to fellow seniors who were looking to slum it through the final days of high school.  As a result, the 2001 Canon-McMillan yearbook, the cleverly named “Elmanac” (a combination of “almanac” and “elm”, the type of tree that was viciously destroyed to make room for the current school building) featured a number of Round Stick Medium shirts scattered throughout the various club/team/best friend photos.  Throughout college, I often heard from friends at distant schools that they still wear the old garb, usually as pajamas or gym-wear.  I still have my original (of course), and taking up space in my parents’ attic is a box with about a dozen more (mostly XL).  I truly feel that in this way, our band lived up to it’s original rallying cry: RSM4LIFE.

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