The 30-Day Song Challenge - Day 2

Day Two: Your least favorite song.

I'll admit it: I started on this thing without reading what the 30 different categories were. I'm starting to get the sense that they were written by someone in their formative years.

When I was 19, I had occasion to interview the sing for the Judybats, a band I dearly adored. We were scheduled to speak by phone and I departed from my normal interviewing routine of basically having a conversation, and then clarifying the points which needed it either at the end or sometime before publication. Since I wouldn't have a chance to follow up with more questions later, I decided to prepare some in advance, and was immediately confronted with the idea that there are only a handful of standard questions that people ask when a record is coming out.

As I said, I was 19, so my immediate thought was to come up with questions that would oppose the normal interviewing and marketing conventions. I suspect I just wanted one of my heroes to remember me.

Which is how I ended up asking him what his least favorite song on the new album was.

He was understandably nonplussed, and asked me to repeat the question. I did so, and he hemmed and hawed about various things before finally settling in on a track that had been written during the sessions for the previous album, but was making its debut on this one. He made it clear that the age of the song was the only criteria for naming it as his least favorite. He was simply more excited about newer songs.

I bring this up because it's what I thought of when I read today's category. It's a weirdly antagonistic question to ask someone who is giving up a bit of time to share music with people. I felt bad the instant after I asked the question, as I could see that, rather than coming up with something new, I had simply inverted a normal question in the least interesting way.

And there's a lot of that on this list. For most of the times you get to pick a favorite, you come back the next day and ponder its opposite. The challenge is doing so in such a way that it stays interesting to me. It would also be nice if it were interesting for you, but I'd settle for it not feeling like a chore.

Then there's the promotional nature of this thing to consider. I'm meant to add a youtube video of whatever my choice is. I can think of loads of music I do not enjoy, for whatever reason, but I wouldn't want to add a clip of something I dislike to my blog.

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My first thought was something to do with the Black Eyed Peas, even though I think it's mostly about context with them. I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live, and my impression was that they were about as good as a mediocre high school talent show entrant. Which is pretty underwhelming, but if I were watching, say, a high school talent show, I doubt it would register so much as being atrocious. It's merely the heights of success they've managed to reach with their minimal gifts that I find galling. It's not so much about them as is it about the disparity.

So then, I thought I should think in terms of something I find loathsome or unlistenable from an artist I generally admire. That seems more appropriate. I thought of "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" by the Beatles. It's not hard to find people willing to admit this is their worst song, but it was a b-side, and it has a sense of whimsy and was clearly a lot of fun to record, so I'm giving it a pass.

And so, we come to the high-water mark of bad music by great musicians: Metal Machine Music. The basice story is as follows: Lou Reed still owed an album to his record label, but was angry about something, or didn't want to do it. He was contractually obliged, however, and the result was a full album of, well, this:



Note the appropriate imagery. I'm guessing no one who clicks in is likely to last longer than a full minute. I had a rather nice box set of his music in the early 90s, and it contained about a minute from this work, which seems about right.

Still, it was borne of frustration, and it sure sounds like it, so it does sort of work on some level. As a statement of displeasure with a record label—who must have blinked, swallowed hard and looked around a couple of times before shrugging and releasing the album as is—it seems like a particularly elegant way of saying "fuck you." It's the sonic equivalent of that famous photograph of Johnny Cash angrily flipping off a cameraman.



And for me, it's the high-water mark for unlistenable music from someone I admire greatly.

Or it was, until a couple of years ago, when Mr. Reed decided to stage a "Symphony for Dogs." It's gonna be hard for anyone to dethrone that. It cannot be heard by human ears, and that sort of inverts the idea of "unlistenable" in much the same way I tried to invert "what's your favorite from the new record" all those years ago.

The 30 day song challenge - Day 1

Day One: Your Favorite Song

A couple of friends on Facebook have been doing this (the Facebook page is here), and I figured I'd leap in as well, but do it over here where I can take a bit more time to discuss why a particular song made the cut or whatever. This way, I'll have a way to blog daily with a relatively easy meme.

Already, though, I'm in trouble. Day one asks you to post your favorite song. Do adults still have favorite songs? If it asked me to list seventy songs I particularly enjoy, I'd have no problems whatsoever, but a single song that counts as my favorite?

Yes, by the way, I shall likely be overthinking each of the 30 entries.

The other issue is that you're supposed to link a youtube video of the song in question, but a lot of the music I listen to is relatively obscure by youtube standards, and no such video exists. I suppose in those cases, I'll mention at least two songs, and have a video for whichever ones I can find.

For my favorite song, I decided to go for a Beatles track, as they are my favorite band. My favorite record of theirs is Revolver, and the track that most exemplifies what makes that record so exciting for me is "Tomorrow Never Knows." While much of Revolver straddles the line between the jangly pop music that put them on the map in the first place and the expanding consciousness music that would cement their legacy, "Tomorrow Never Knows" has both feet planted firmly in the future.

As a feat of songwriting and recording, it's kind of audacious. It's one chord droning on and on with backward looping guitars crying out like seagulls and some of Ringo's finest drumming creating a sense of dynamics under Lennon's nasal monotone.

I actually used to call a radio station in sixth grade and request this song. Sometimes, they even played it for me.

The youtube version that I am linking is apparently from the Beatles' Saturday morning cartoon, which I've not really seen since I was ten or eleven. I'm more than a bit surprised that they made a clip for this song.



Cartoon shorthand for backward guitar? Giant horns that terrify bats but seem to arouse dinosaurs. Good to know.

Technology = weird

As part of my preparation for Lollapalooza, I looked into various ways I might be able to use my phone to communicate with the outside world. It turns out that I have two different ways to update my blog from my weird little mobile device, and three different ways to update via Twitter/Facebook statuses. That seems like at least two too many ways to stay "in touch" during a three-day music festival. Woodstock, this ain't.

It got me thinking about the various ways the digital age has completely changed how things are done. Practically nothing remains the same as it was twenty years ago, when they were still pressing vinyl for any album that came out and photography was a weirdly poetic alchemy of chemicals and paper and darkness and time.

But fear not, gentle Blogreader. This is not a post of weepy nostalgia for a simpler time. Frankly, most everything is way more convenient nowadays. If nothing else, it turns out that digital was the main thing that kept me from taking a lot of pictures earlier in life. I simply did not have the time or money to invest in it back in the pre-digital days. Film was expensive, let alone darkroom fees, paper, chemicals.

Blah, blah, blah. The long and the short of it is that I might fling some words or pictures up here from my phone during the weekend.

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So Lollapalooza starts in a few scant hours. We have not been blessed by the weather gods. Tomorrow should be gorgeous, right up until it rains. Saturday and Sunday are both scheduled to peak above 90°F. I'm hoping that our proximity to the lake will provide at least a small amount of relief. Even so, I expect to sweat out a lot more than the one liter of water that the rules allow me to carry into the festival with me.

Lolla rules also prohibit me from bringing in my good camera, so I spent a little time today dinking around with the consumer model I used to use a lot. I discovered that I no longer know how it works with any certainty, so I'm not sure if I'll get any decent shots or not. But I sure will try.

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Speaking of things I never expected to have the word "electronic" attached to them, I have begun a transition to electronic cigarettes. They provide the part of a normal cigarette to which I am addicted, without any of the stuff that is striving to kill me. So that's nice.

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Tomorrow's lineup includes Gaslight Anthem, Heartless Bastards, Fleet Foxes, a tough call between Andrew Bird and Of Montreal (that I suspect Mr. Bird will lose by virtue of not being the kind of performer one benefits from seeing in a festival), and a headliner matchup between Kings of Leon and Depeche Mode. The current plan is to see a bit of each of the latter two. Am hopeful this will be enough to sustain my friendship with Los Angelista. There are also dozens of other bands, but the list above are the ones I'm most interested in seeing. Fleet Foxes, especially, who had one of the best records of last year.

Sorry, Decemberists.

More soon...

Groundhog

Once again, woodland mammals had no effect whatsoever on the tilt of the Earth in relation to the Sun. Imagine me slackjawed in stunned disbelief.

Winter continues. It always does.

Snow fell here over the last few days and nights. I had heard the word "blizzard" bandied about a few times in the days and hours before the actual snow arrived, but it was merely a snowstorm. The difference between the two is an important one for those of us who live in areas prone to either phenomenon.

Thursday night I bundled myself warmly and stepped outside around midnight. So I guess it was Friday morning. I was out hoping to take pictures, but mostly, I think I just wanted to soak in the bright hush a big snowfall brings to Chicago.

I walked around for maybe 15 minutes, and in that time I noticed only one lone automobile shushing by me. It was nearly as quiet out as if I did not live in a city at all. What sounds there were were absorbed nicely by the layer of snow. It was easy to feel like the only soul in the city.

It is never dark in Chicago, not even deep in the night, but a fresh snow makes the whole place glow with refracted light. It's like the light cannot escape. I absorbed as many lumens into my eyes as I could, but it had no effect that I could discern on the overall brightness.

My sluggish camera found enough light bouncing off all the new white to hold focus in the night, even if all the resultant images were heavily tinged in yellows and golds. They were nearly sepias already, so it was not a giant leap for me to finish the job myself when I processed the results.

Here are a few shots from my midnight creeping:




While it crunched satisfyingly under my boots, the snowfall was a little disappointing in terms of actual accumulation.

In the shots, the lights are all severely blown out, which I guess is technically bad photography, but I love how they turned out nonetheless.

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And I guess, if you are a bad blogger and stop posting regularly, Blogger will take away the stripey backdrop of your banner at the top of your page. Just another thing to be wary of, Blogwriters. Hope you guys can still enjoy the site without the friendly stripes until I can remember where that thing was in my code and fix it.

Maybe it's a punishment not for the lack of posts so much as that I think it may have been longer than six months since I posted about children or animals, in clear violation of the Blogger terms of service. I think my last post that counts was probably "Sphinx," in which I recounted my difficulties in teaching my cat to quiz me with riddles in our idle time.

The cat, of course, has nearly nothing but idle time. His schedule is clear. I left out the classifieds not long ago, in hopes that he would show some interest once more in computer programming, as he did when he was young. To show his contempt for my plan to get him to start contributing to the household, he or his sister urinated on the pages.

Does this qualify as a cat post now? Can I have my stripes back?

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I think this blog is open again, Blogreader. Soon enough, you might find Monday Morning Haiku (often before Tuesday afternoon) and buzzing about a fiction contest sometime in the future. Maybe even the reinstatement of the ill-fated "Ask the Moon" advice column.

But smaller steps are necessary. I feel unreasonably skittish about blogging lately, and I don't want to spook myself right back into the darkness.

In the meantime, as I find my feet again, feel free to drop me a comment, tag me with a meme.

In fairness, I was a bit grumpy going in...

My friend Caroline was interviewed on BBC radio yesterday about her new book, In Search of Adam, with which most of you are already familiar. If not, click the link above and go find out more. I was curious to hear how she had done with the nerve-wracking interview process, and she had expressed concerns on her blog about how she would fare.

Due to a glitch with the BBC website (or possibly just because I'm on a Mac) I was unable to fast forward through the broadcast, so I ended up listening to approximately 2 hours of streaming broadcast from Manchester's morning show, complete with traffic updates, news, and a slew of other interviews before Caroline finally came on. That's more radio than I've listened to in years.

I was pretty sure I had the right broadcast because the host (Heather Stott) mentioned periodically that there was going to be an interview at some point with a woman who had been discovered and awarded a book deal through a "cyber-scout." While I knew that this was obviously a hook for the press when dealing with Caroline's book, I hoped that she would prove a little more knowledgeable in the actual interview.

My dismay and apprehension deepened somewhat as I listened, as the chatty radio personality interviewed another author early on in her program, and clearly had never so much as glanced at the books the woman had written. She seemed more interested in whether the author ever followed people through bookstores to find out if they were buying her books.

Finally, Caroline came on, and Ms. Stott waded into the interview about how she had been discovered through her blog, and how magical and wonderful that seemed to be. I felt terrible for Caroline when the host revealed that she was completely unaware that the book was already out, waiting in bookstores for her listeners to purchase.

Had she (or anyone on the staff for the show) done any research at all?

For all her nervousness beforehand, Caroline came off as cool and confident. Her book has some pretty dark themes (although I should confess to being one of apparently very few of the bloggers I know who have not yet read it—I plan to read it very soon) which were somewhat incongruent with the perky morning program, but she managed to intergrate these things pretty easily into the conversation. She even managed a preliminary plug for her next book.

I suppose I just wanted to blog about this because I was proud of Caroline, and because I was angry with the interviewer (possibly irrationally, as radio is not something I tend to enjoy) for not having prepared other than the "author discovered through blogging" angle. I've been interviewed on the radio before, and once choked so badly that all of my remarks about a play I was in were edited out of a segment on NPR except for one moderately intelligent bit. I know how strange it can feel for one who is unaccustomed to such a thing, and I thought she handled herself gracefully.

Potpourri

Busy times, Blogreader.

While I've spent a lot of time lately working on my novel, and a lot of time fretting over what seems to be a shortage of entries to the current GBA(s)FC, I've also been living a life (of sorts).

Well, good news on all fronts. The first two entries to the contest are posted and I'm hopeful that more will show up soon. Click the graphic in the sidebar to check them out. Still plenty of time to get your own stories together, by the way.

A friend of mine joked yesterday (when no entries at all had yet come in) that he could write the word "growth" five hundred times and walk away with all of the prizes. I informed him that no entry can win more than one prize. I also informed him that he is mean.

"Maybe your topic just sucks," another friend counseled via chat. Special "thanks" go out to that friend as well.

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I went to see a softball game last night, a team of Workers battling against some athletic foes in a very chilly late evening match. They did not fare well, in spite of the celebratory nature of the image at right. Something called a "slaughter rule" was enforced, and the game ended early. Perhaps they were simply happy to be able to go someplace warm, or that none of the players had sustained an injury.

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Tonight was a trip with a cadre of good folks to see the incomparable Grant Lee Phillips. I have reached the conclusion that no one has more fun at a Grant Lee Phillips show than Mr. Phillips himself. His humor and obvious pleasure at playing music are incredibly infectious, and I think we came close. He's a tremendous singer and a great songwriter and if you've never heard him, there is almost certainly something in his catalog that will bring joy to your ears. Try Jubilee or Virginia Creeper or Mobilize.

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The biggest bit of personal news is that I've made a bit of a breakthrough on my novel. A lot of pieces suddenly made sense this week, and I've got a better idea of the larger story and how things are going to connect. I've solved a lot of the problems that have kept me from being able to write much, and this weekend I plan to spend some time outlining in preparation for a serious burst of writing next week. If I can carry this story into a full draft without crushing it in my big clumsy hands, I think I'll have a pretty good book. I haven't felt like that for a while.

And I'll close by reminding you all yet again that there is still plenty of time to cobble together an entry for the GBA(s)FC. Deadline remains May 7.

Seven songs

Tagged by Liz:

List seven songs you are into right now. No matter what they are. They must be songs you are presently enjoying. Then tag seven other people to see what they’re listening to.

Liz is wily. She knew I could not resist a meme which allows me to blather on about music. It should probably be noted that I've learned that I don't write very well about music. I can never say exactly why I like something, or what grabs me. I get all excited and cannot think properly. So I'll just do my best.

These are in no particular order. Here goes...

1. Miracle Drug (A.C. Newman) -
(no lyrical excerpt)
A.C. Newman is the redheaded Canadian guy behind the goodness of the New Pornographers. I've been popping this track on almost daily at work, when I need to concentrate. It is, right now, always the very first song I pick when I need to be productive. Something good in the drums and the little bursts from the guitar that I just love love love.

2. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea (Elvis Costello) -
"...she give a little flirt, give herself a little cuddle / but there's no place here for the miniskirt waddle..."
Map of July used to attempt this song, but we never came within a mile of the effortless perfection of the original. When EC released this as a summer single in the 70s, a reviewer called it "tantamount to bragging." Hard to believe his American label dropped it from the album for being "too English." This song bursts out of the speakers and never fails to energize me. Not even close to my favorite Elvis song, but it's been in the playlist a lot lately.

3. Rehab (Amy Winehouse) -
"...I ain't got seventy days..."
I have no idea if this song will still be as pleasurable in even a few months, but at the moment I've been playing this in the mornings before work. The most authentic "girl-group" arrangement recorded in years, and Winehouse has an amazing, soulful voice. Very hard to believe that she's only in her early 20s. Plus it's difficult not to like a song with handclaps and a horn section (and even some very subtle strings) about not going to rehab.

4. If You Have Ghosts (John Wesley Harding) -
"...the moon to the left of me is a part of my thoughts and a part of me is me..."
Another nearly-perfect pop single, this time from 1991, and released on a tribute album to Roky Erikson. I had to dig to find a copy of this last summer. When I popped in the cd and hit "play," I was treated to a rare moment: a long-lost favorite still sounding as good to me as the first time I ever heard it. So I've been making up for lost time.

5. Get Him Back (Fiona Apple) -
"...I think he let me down when he didn't disappoint me..."
I suppose I should point out that I'm talking about the leaked bootleg version of this song, and not the official release, which I don't really like very much. Less convincing than Amy Winehouse, but some nice flourishes and girl-group arrangements on the bootleg version, which was the one I fell in love with a while back. Played this tonight while working late, and Suzi—who sits next to me—kept asking who it was. She seemed to like it, too, which made it even nicer to listen to.

6. The Big Guns (Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins) -
"...let's pretend that everybody here wants peace..."
Jenny Lewis took a break from her duties with Rilo Kiley to make a record out of the type of songs she apparently used to just throw away. I hope that the acclaim she has gotten will convince her to keep them from now on. It was kind of hard to pick a track off of this record, which I have been listening to for more than a year straight, as I tend to play the whole thing all the way through. Anyway, the record and the song have elements of country and soul, some great songwriting (deeply personal and weirdly accessible at the same time) and a feel Rilo Kiley never even hinted at. Plus I have a crush on one of the Watson Twins...

7. My Mathematical Mind (Spoon) -
"...planning for the apocalypse is not considered / considered cool / I don't suggest it myself..."
These guys sure as hell don't sound like they come from Texas. Craig said recently that he thought they were really good "recordists," and when I said they wrote great songs as well, he replied "Well, I'll take your word for it." I have no idea what he meant by that. Another album in nearly constant rotation for more than a year. It has survived every reworking of my main playlists for both working and general use. Sometimes, though, I wish the singer would blow his nose.

[Hidden Bonus Track] That Teenage Feeling (Neko Case) -
"...and nothing comforts me the same / as my brave friend who says / 'I don't care if forever never comes 'cause I'm holding out for that teenage feeling...'"
Neko Case lives somewhere in my neighborhood, but that has nothing at all to do with why I love her music so terribly much. I've heard her voice described as being like Patsy Cline's so often I've lost count (recent favorite: "Patsy Cline with a graduate degree"). Her early records were pretty straightforward country of the sort that Nashville hasn't made for at least 40 years. Now she's branching out, and her songwriting is growing more sophisticated. Her voice dissolves me. The best I can do is to say that if you've never listened to Neko Case, you should stop reading now and go mend your ways. You might not like her at all, or you might end up falling in love.


I tag no one, of course. I've never tagged anyone, and I probably never will unless I write a meme myself. But if you do this one, let me know so I can check it out.

Saturday night

I was awakened in the dead of night by a shout from a pubescent male. I was not, strictly speaking, asleep, but the shout awakened me nonetheless. My ears had stopped scanning the neighborhood for sounds and were resting. If they monitored anything, it was the peaceful snoring of my cat.

But then came this shout, and suddenly I was paying attention again. The sound split the night in two: the relative silence which came before, and then the period after the sound, when the camouflaged sounds I had apparently been ignoring came into relief. I heard the shushing sound of cars passing by. I heard the cry of a police car off in the distance, off to right some wrong or just cruise through all of the intersections without having to stop. My street is a popular one for both such behaviors.

The boy was attempting to sound like a man, so whatever had excited or agitated him seemed to make him feel that he would be better served if his voice would just change already and stop playing games with his life. I wondered if he was in the period where it is not uncommon for a boy to be mistaken for his own mother on the telephone. This is not exactly a high point in life. Still, his attempt at disguise was detectable through the windows and walls of my building, and I have no doubt that it was transparent to his intended listener as well, who made no audible reply.

I looked at the clock on my computer, and saw that there was still an hour left until the bars closed. Saturday-night drunks were due shortly thereafter to festoon the street with shouts of their own, wearing their disregard for the rest of us like badges. Their shouts, curses and fights would echo off the buildings and intrude upon apartments all across the city. Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the lack of respect for one another that city life seems to foster. The sirens will continue at all hours, and the shouting as well. Only yesterday a car that had parked outside of my apartment was showing off its grotesque new speakers for a gathering of onlookers. The bass notes shook my building so much that a picture fell off of the wall.

What is the purpose of such speakers? They do not accurately reproduce the music their owners would have us believe they love so much. They merely produce a more palpable sensation, and transfer the act of listening to music into an experience that can be more readily seen in the vibration of things, and felt through the skin. "Here is your new heartbeat," the rhythm section says, and the body has no choice but to follow along. This is understandable in a club or at a concert, perhaps, but not outside my home on a beautiful spring afternoon.

Within moments of the boy's shout in the street, and the passing of the siren, my brain was already trying to convince me that neither sound had actually happened, even though it could accurately reproduce either one when I asked it to. The silence they suddenly left behind had a shape like sound itself, and my brain was telling me that this was the sum of sound.

I am sleepless again tonight, but so far nothing so exciting as a boy's shout has come along to pull me out of me and into life. I am just lying here in the dark, illuminated by the face of my laptop. In a moment, I will smoke another cigarette and stare jealously at the foot of my bed, where my cat is sleeping peacefully once more.