Adam Yauch, AKA MCA of the Beastie Boys (right, above) has died from cancer at age 47. Adam lived a life of creativity, friendship, purpose, and betterment that we can all aspire to. He actively tried to expiate his publicly juvenile past by educating himself and others and trying to leave the world a better place than he found it. All while spending over 30 years making music with his best friends, the three of them always seeming happier than anyone else on the planet while doing it.
Forgive the sentimentality, but I’ve listened to this song repeatedly every spring since I moved to Los Angeles. It reminds me what the hell I’m doing here and gives me some strength to keep going.
“Swim Until You Can’t See Land” by Frightened Rabbit, from The Winter of Mixed Drinks
click to enlarge
Happy Bruce Day! Every couple of years on a Tuesday a new Bruce Springsteen album comes out, and I gleefully race from the house at lunchtime to buy an actual physical copy. My excitement’s tempered somewhat this time because the tracks from Wrecking Ball have poured from the web for a couple of weeks now,1 and because the $12.99 special edition CD is my one luxury purchase for the quarter. Nevertheless Bruce Day always brings a little joy to my world.
Today the joy’s mixed with anger. Actually, it’s joy sprung from anger: that primal elation that comes when you find someone else who’s angry about all the same things you are. The exuberance you only feel from someone singing loudly against everything that’s wrong. Wrecking Ball is Bruce’s angry album, and it makes me happy to hear him writing the most vital, pissed-off protest songs out there today.
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Maybe it’s just been my spending a couple of years unemployed, but I’ve noticed a subtle, glacial shift in the assholism of our culture. It feels like sometime not too long ago we crossed an invisible line on this side of which it’s ever so slightly more probable that people will act like assholes than not.
We choose to just be a tiny bit lazier and not return that email. We decide to spend just a little bit more time on our own stuff instead of doing that thing we promised to do for someone else. We quickly jump on Twitter to badmouth other people instead of spending just one moment to stop and think about whether or not we should, let alone an additional moment to judge ourselves. And we all seem to have finally agreed that it’s probably okay to screw someone else over a little bit if it’s not personal, just business.
Photo © André Bergeron
On Sunday I wrote about French & Saunders, a great comedy team that’s phenomenally popular in the UK but relatively unknown in the US. Today I want to talk about a guy and his band that are equally popular in Canada and equally unknown down here. Sam Roberts has scored multiple number-one songs and albums in Canada, had his very first single nominated for a Juno,1 and has won six since then. He’s released four albums since 2003, but you won’t find anyone in America who knows him outside of the well-quinoaed cult of Adult Album Alternative radio listeners.
Even Pitchforkians are largely unfamiliar with Sam, possibly because his music tracks a few rarely traveled paths. For one, It’s very high quality, but without any distinctive innovation; listening to it is like eating a perfectly made pizza. For another, it’s rock and roll of a type that’s particularly out of fashion, because it’s really just plain ol’ really good rock and roll. So much so that it’s hard to put a name on it. It’s not indie rock, or roots rock, or folk rock, or horrible modern rock, and certainly not punk rock. It’s just melodic, guitar-forward, five-piece rock and roll, played without conceit, gimmick, or nostalgia.
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I loved Uncle Tupelo. Discovering their albums in the Nineties was one of a few artistic milestones in my life. They blended country, punk, and folk into a single new genre that shaped my musical and political tastes for years. I used to call Uncle Tupelo my favorite band, and my love for those guys transferred over to the offspring of their parting: Jeff Tweedy’s Wilco, and Jay Farrar and Mike Heidorn’s Son Volt. I eventually grew tired of both (Son Volt much faster than Wilco) and after I left my twenties I grew apart from Uncle Tupelo without even realizing it. Eventually I went years without listening to one of the band’s albums in its entirety. More…
Recently Sophie and I have had a couple of chances to hang out with friends in bars, something that we rarely get to do on our unemployment austerity budget. That made me nostalgic for the days when hanging out in bars was part of our regular routine and we allowed ourselves luxuries like paying an extra $2 for a beer that had distinct flavors other than mammal spit. It made me particularly nostalgic for Friday nights at my favorite bar in Pittsburgh, Kelly’s.
I want my money back
I’m down here drowning in your fat
You got me on my knees praying for everything you lack
I ain’t afraid of you
I’m just a victim of your fears
You cower in your tower praying that I’ll disappear,
I got another plan, one that requires me to stand
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I GOT A LIST OF DEMANDS
written on the palm of my hands
I ball my fist and you’re gonna know where I stand
We’re living hand to mouth
-Saul Williams, “List of Demands (Reparations)”, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust
