I wish I was an extra in Slacker, that I was seeing the Replacements in '84 in Minneapolis and that it was 1905 in Peoria, that Wire was the biggest band from the '70s and Starship never existed. I wish Danger Mouse would stop trying to collaborate with all my favorite bands and that James Mercer would reform the Shins. I wish it was a Thursday night in 2004 and I was heading to Andiamos, that I was a freshman in college and that I was forming a post-pop electro/alt-dancewave punkcore proto-disco seminalchill band before sharing a cigarette with Jim Jarmusch at some crap diner in NY. I wish hip-hop maintained its DIY ethos and that Clear Channel was bought by an independently wealthy businessman and burned to the ground. I wish vintage analogue synthesizers weren't out of my price range and that I had the time and energy to read. I wish the Dormitory's jukebox was free and that "This is Happening" was out today and it didn't have "Drunk Girls" on it. I wish Yeasayer could write more than 5 good songs for an album, that nearly every good record this year wasn't completely front-loaded and that (often meaningless) NSFW music videos would stop getting such easy publicity for (what's now) standard-practice titties and gore [I'm looking you M.I.A., Flaming Lips, Yeasayer, Girls, Erykah Badu, No Age, Matt and Kim, Massive Attack, The Kills, etc (dammit they just won again)] I wish there was a performance venue in town to draw indie acts, that my hipster mailman would stop taking my issue of Paste every month that I then have to call for a replacement copy of (which has also disappeared once). I wish I was hearing Elvis Costello's "My Aim is True," Otis Redding's "Otis Blue," Tom Waits "Heart of Saturday Night," Pixies "Doolittle," Pavement's "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain," Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," and Beck's "Odelay" for the first time again. I wish I wasn't nostalgic.
You know, I just recently polished off the megabytes of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot again to listen to for the first time in a while, and not having heard it all too much, the opening of "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" gave me chills, really took me back to when I first heard it- admittedly, just the end of last year. Something about Tweedy's voice evoked these strong feelings in me, it was great and all too rare these days.
Nostalgia's a bitch sometimes, but don't you in some way love it? It creates a more developed appreciation for past experiences, and I don't know, gives you something to think on and feel warm about, if not thought on to excess.
In some ways I agree about nostalgic with you Brendan, but in other ways it has a way of making it impossible to appreciate the present as much as the past, and as you get older it just gets worse and worse. I was about to say you're in the part of your life that people are nostalgic about for the rest of their lives, but then I realized I probably am too, being in my mid 20s and all.
Bahler I put Transference back in rotation this week and I agree, it's one of the albums I was specifically talking about, too. The first five songs are absolutely killer. The second half isn't that weak, but it doesn't hold a candle to the first half.
The Morning Benders record is a strong first half (or more like strong first two songs) and then ....
Surfer Blood seems to be the one album breaking that trend, with the middle section being the weakest.
9 comments:
This is the best thing I've read on the internet in a long time.
thanks duder
You know, I just recently polished off the megabytes of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot again to listen to for the first time in a while, and not having heard it all too much, the opening of "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" gave me chills, really took me back to when I first heard it- admittedly, just the end of last year. Something about Tweedy's voice evoked these strong feelings in me, it was great and all too rare these days.
Nostalgia's a bitch sometimes, but don't you in some way love it? It creates a more developed appreciation for past experiences, and I don't know, gives you something to think on and feel warm about, if not thought on to excess.
Many likes.
Even though, damn you, I like this so much it should've been mine. I feel like it's all of ours.
And yeah, what's with Odd Blood, Transference, The Big-To Do, Teen Dream being two EP's of varying quality?
In some ways I agree about nostalgic with you Brendan, but in other ways it has a way of making it impossible to appreciate the present as much as the past, and as you get older it just gets worse and worse. I was about to say you're in the part of your life that people are nostalgic about for the rest of their lives, but then I realized I probably am too, being in my mid 20s and all.
Bahler
I put Transference back in rotation this week and I agree, it's one of the albums I was specifically talking about, too. The first five songs are absolutely killer. The second half isn't that weak, but it doesn't hold a candle to the first half.
The Morning Benders record is a strong first half (or more like strong first two songs) and then ....
Surfer Blood seems to be the one album breaking that trend, with the middle section being the weakest.
nostalgia*
I wish you weren't so gay.
But I wish I could see you in person to tell you that. And, that you should write more entries like this.
man now you insultin my manhood and shit
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