New Life

New life – Depeche Mode

This might be my most posted song here. Then again it might not be. I’ve stopped keeping track of such things. It’s certainly come up before, and more than once, so it’s a contender. Anyway, this my favourite Depeche Mode song. Their first song off the first album. It was all downhill from here. Maybe i just like Vince Neil and don’t care about the US market and austerity. Silicon teens playing bass, rhythm and lead on three monophonic synthesisers set to the most danceable of tempos. Perfect.

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Who Is It?

Who is it? – Talking Heads

Far down on the list of the greatest things my mother ever did for or gave me, but a great, indebted thing nonetheless, was passing her Talking Heads records down to me. There was an intent on her part. I remember sitting down with her and her saying “you’d really like this,” with every wish, effort and assured benevolence of transference. And i did! She had pretty good taste. For a mum. And when i think of the records she didn’t pass down to me – couldn’t, because she sold them to support herself and baby me – and what she lists among them, ooh it renders me heartbroken. Still, i got the Talking Heads albums.

I live a fairly comfortable existence: Livable income, no debt, low wants and expectations, support available if i need it (i hope). It’s a rut, but a safe rut (which is probably what keeps me in it). If it were to one day fall from beneath me, to one day be in that same situation and have to let go of my hoardings, that is a prospect i am not ready to face. Who is? I don’t think i will ever be in a situation as desperate as my mother’s (and i’m not just talking about selling some records) and it is largely due to her, how i was raised, and the sacrifices she made to ensure i would be ok. I should call her.

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Strawberry Sundae

Strawberry sundae – BMX Bandits

Scottish band. The twee-est of bands. Apparently Kurt Cobain’s favourite band. And my girlfriend’s new-found favourite band. Well, it’s mostly for one song in particular, and it’s not this one. We never hear this one because that particular one is put on repeat forever. Other songs. I don’t really care. I care that she has something she loves. No, i don’t care. Grrr.

And i’d like to take this moment to say that after twenty plus years of fussiness i am finally ok with strawberries. I like them now.

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Hanging On The Telephone

Hanging on the telephone – The Nerves

Though it is possible they might have been screwed in some fine print somewhere, what a boon Blondie covering this song must have been for the Nerves. To have their song raised to a profile they, themselves, could never have (it’s true. Blondie are a very special band. A perfect band), to make it such a hit, and to live off those songwriting royalties as it becomes something of a standard, covered, played and licensed for years to come. The only problem is that this song is all but lost as a Nerves song. Oh well. Only squares would care about something like that. The same squares who actually prefer the original over the Blondie version. Squares like me.

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Inhuman Nature

Inhuman nature – Mohinder

When Emo Summer declared their purpose to restore and honour the Cupertino Library basement of 1994, it seems clear now that (amongst others) they were talking about Mohinder. Mohinder still seem the most obscure and underappreciated band of the first tier of dredged up mid 90’s emo they have been made a part of. And maybe my favourite. Probably not. There’s Heroin. And Shotmaker. And others. Don’t ever examine your hyperboles, people

In this age of everything from any age surfaceable thanks to this heaven sent archiving and sharing tool we call the internet, i have found exactly two (2) photographs and zero (0) videos to transmit to me, here, now, an actualness of what they may have been like live – that corporeality i like. But i have found all the records. Maybe that is enough. Maybe this maintained obscurity helps.

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You’ll Never Know

You’ll never know – Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipators

Well this is just weird and awkward. Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipators is this friend of mine Glen’s Garageband (i think. Ipod is to mp3 player as Garageband is to DAW) thing he did a few years ago by himself out of his filthy flat. It’s something i don’t think he knows i have, nor that the only fifteen plays his project has on lastfm come uniquely from this computer. And it’s something i don’t think either of us would have expected to ever be in my head.

So this post could be the unsanctioned, unwanted music blog airing his band has been waiting for, complete with myspace link. And the can’t-say-anything-nice, eggshell-stepping self-censorship talking about the familiar obliges. I’m kidding! Though i could be the life and death of this. I didn’t know he had this in him. It doesn’t sit well with his inseparable internet and outside of the internet persona. He makes bloopy stuff, Neutral Milk Hotel stuff, other stuff the influences aren’t all that apparent to out of touch me, and this is his complicated love song. I had to actually check who this song was by one time it came around on shuffle. It surprised me no end. The things we do by ourselves for ourselves as ourselves. It is better than anything i could ever do. It is something actually done, for starters.

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The Promise

The promise – When In Rome

Well this song has completely taken over my life. This is just like it seems to have taken over the lives of every pop punk (not MTX, Sicko, etc. pop punk. The other kind) earlier this/last decade. Hey Mercedes, the Eyeliners, New Found Glory, Anberlin, and i’m sure some others who’ve had this song resurface for them, be it from Napoleon Dynamite or whichever volume of that snowball that they happened to be hit by and caught up in. So i guess i’m late to this. See what happens when you avoid youth culture?

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The Promise

The Promise – When In Rome

And now i know who this song is by. When In Rome. I guess those words had to eventually fall as some band’s name. This is a really great song. And it’s in Napoleon Dynamite! That’s my generation’s link to it. The cool part of my generation that knows how to have fun. That’s a defense of the movie.

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The King Of Wishful Thinking

The king of wishful thinking – Go West

So that’s who this song is by. That’s who Go West is. This is a service to all those who didn’t live through this, who’ve had to live with this song just there, around, authorless. I hate my job so much.

Yes, i will do something about it.

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Tormentor

Tormentor – Kreator

Though it is a bit beyond me technique-wise (especially the palm muting as my wrists don’t seem to work that way), this seems an incredibly fun song to play. The open palm muting to those fill in chords that just make sense to play is one of the best examples of strapping one’s guitar on and letting fly that i can think of. Metal, especially thrash, is replete with such examples. It can’t all be about guitar magazine ads and endorsements. It can’t be all cold theory. It can’t all be untouchable heroes. There is something corely enjoyable, primal and transcendent about playing music. It’s found in riffs like these.

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