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So George Rebelo of Hot Water Music is the new drummer for Against Me! and I can’t help but be pretty stoked. I love Hot Water Music and I love Against Me! (Yes, even after the grave disappointment that was New Wave.) I’m a little concerned that this’ll prohibit Hot Water Music from getting back together in the future, but I think they could work it out by going on tour together and therefore making my life awesome. Actually, this kind of gives me hope for AM! Maybe their next record won’t SUCK SO EPICALLY.

I’m supposed to be packing all my stuff up right now, by the way.

You would not believe how much of a hold out I was on the Gogol Bordello bandwagon. All of a sudden, everyone was talking about this “gypsy punk” band and how amazing they were. These people were usually wearing head-to-toe American Apparel, so I dismissed the band as the new Animal Collective and rolled my eyes whenever anyone talked about them and never so much as looked them up on Wikipedia.

That was until I was hanging out with someone who asked if I liked them. I said I’d never listened to them, and from the look on his face, you’d think I said I liked to punch babies and old people. So he put a couple songs by the band on a truly epic CD. I listened, I liked it. I used my magic internet powers to find Gypsy Punks Underdog World Strike and Super Taranta! (File-sharing, yo. It’s a Godsend for music-obsessed weirdos).

There’s just something bizarrely appealing about a mix of punk, dub, and folk sung by a gloriously mustachioed, heavily-accented Ukranian, backed by a large array of musicians. I hear their stage shows are wild, I would really love to see one.

So here I am, sitting in my room listening to a band I’d previously scorned. It just goes to show you that a) I can be totally a jerk about music and b) people can change! But I will never, ever listen to Animal Collective.

A list of people who are stoked about Thorns of Life recording.

1. ME

Nothing Nice to Say

I was maybe 10 years old and I was camping with my father and my younger sister. My sister had gone to bed, and my dad and I were sitting on folding chairs around our campfire. We were singing, which is something we really should never do, because neither of us is particularly tuneful. At least the only living creatures around to hear us were the mountain lions. We’d already exhausted the supply of songs that we both knew (I had only been alive for 10 measley years, after all. Most of the songs I knew were by NSync). So he started singing songs he knew. He started slowly and sadly, “Sittin’ in the morning sun / I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes”. There was something eerie about the song, sung quietly and a cappella by the last coals of our campfire. He told me it was by a soul singer named Otis Redding.

I didn’t hear the song as sung by Otis until I was a freshman in high school. My religion teacher, Mr. McCullough, started every class period with a song. One day his selection was Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay. I went home and looked it up on Wikipedia. I read about the plane crash. He was only 26 when he died, and ”Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay” had been recorded days before his aircraft plummeted into Lake Monona, killing all aboard except backing singer Ben Cauley.

With this new knowledge, the song seemed even more spine-tingling. As I got more and more into Otis Redding’s music, I found that this song didn’t sound quite like his older work. But what really got to me is the fact that the song wasn’t finished. The whistling bit at the end was just a placeholder until Otis could write another verse. He had such a career, for a man who died so young. So yeah, just like D4 says, “I know he’s never gone.”

Photo by Max Varkudal

Remember a couple posts ago, when I was talking about songs that make me cry? Remember “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong” by Against Me!?

I punched a dude in the kidneys to this song. It wasn’t a random act of violence–I was at an Against Me! show in Seattle back in October. Ever since the release of their latest album, New Wave, their fan base has grown exponentially and unfortunately it includes more than a few jerks. I had been shoved by hulking Cro-Magnons to the back of the pit and was separated from my friends, not to mention surrounded by huge jocky guys and their girlfriends, who more resembled child prostitutes than kids at a show. So I had to fight my way back to the front, elbows out and teeth gritted. After the show, Stephie said, “I hope some people piss blood tomorrow.”

I have this friend. Against Me! is her favorite band. When she was still at Evergreen, we’d sit around and sing along to our favorite songs. She’d pull out her guitar and begin to strum the familiar chord progression. I can never remember the words to songs, but “Pints of Guinness Make You Strong” is one of the few I know all the words to. So it became my song. The one I always had to sing in my cracking, off-key voice.

And of course, there’s the emotional response. I’m often accused of being an emotional void. This is totally true, unfortunately. But this song manages to melt my cold, cold heart and I usually end up choking back tears because it’s so sad–”I swear to God that I’ll love you forever, Evelyn / I’m not coming home tonight”. It gets me every single time.

My dad is probably one of my favorite people in the world. He is a quality individual. I also talk about him a lot. I’m pretty sure this annoys the crap out of people and generally gives the impression that I’m such a loser that I spend inordinate amounts of time at home playing Guitar Hero with my dad (Nunz N Mozes is the best fake band ever), which is pretty much a true impression. It has made me fairly decent at GH, however.

We were IMing today and I happened to be listening to Amy’s “It’s Snowing, Let’s Overreact!” mix (from the post below). The song playing was “Sun or Snow” by Chuck Ragan & Austin Lucas. I told him the song I was listening to made me sad and I sent it to him.

Dad: when did u start listening to hilbilly music?

He then proceeded to quiz me on my pronunciations of “Appalachia”, “pen”, and “guitar”, all of which were apparently in the style of the hillfolk from which I am descended. (Appalaycha, pin, gittar). I proceeded to send him the following songs:
“Wagon Wheel” – Old Crow Medicine Show
“The Boat” – Chuck Ragan
“Last Pale Light in the West” – Ben Nichols
“Restless” – Rumbleseat
“The Weight of Lies” – The Avett Brothers

He sent these:
“Amie” – Pure Prairie League
“Dixie Chicken” – Little Feat
“Can’t You See” – The Marshall Tucker Band

Dad:  this is fun!

Then we talked about our mutual dislike of Led Zeppelin (sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who doesn’t think Led Zep is God’s gift to rock ‘n’ roll)

Then it was past his bedtime. He’s coming up to visit next week (!) with my mom and little sister. I can’t wait to see them.

“It’s Snowing, Let’s Overreact!”
By Amy
December 2008
No More Fighting Cats, OK? – Des Ark
Secrets of a Salesman – Rocky Votolato
Sun or Snow – Chuck Ragan & Austin Lucas
Snow Creature – Matty Pop Chart
I Am Citizen – Against Me!
Emotional Weather Report – Tom Waits
Cold Weather Gear – The Menzingers
Sleeping Weather – Small Brown Bike
Thunder Road – Tortoise & Bonnie Prince Billy
Salamander – The Butchies
I Hear the Rain – The Violent Femmes
And Then the Rains Came – William Elliott Whitmore
Interstate 8 – Modest Mouse
Fake Palindromes - Andrew Bird
Think I Wanna Die – Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
It Wouldn’t Be – Slingshot Dakota
Restless – Rumbleseat
Imitation of Life – R.E.M.
In the Aeroplane Over the Sea – Neutral Milk Hotel
Death Is Not the End – Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
I listen to this a lot when I’m going to sleep.

Untitled
By Mr. Byrnes
January 2009
The American in Me – The Avengers
We Are the One – The Avengers
Paint it Black – The Avengers
Alone Again – Love
Seven and Seven Is – Love
Fuck and Run – Liz Phair
What a Wonderful World – Joey Ramone
Seven and Seven Is – The Ramones
I Don’t Want to Grow Up – The Ramones
Pet Semetary – The Ramones
Day of Wine and Roses – The Dream Syndicate
The Ledge – The Replacements
Merry Go Round – The Replacements
What’s She Done to Your Mind? – Rain Parade
Love Is All Around – Joan Jett
Hollow Man – R.E.M.
Kids Are Alright – The Who
I Have Had Enough – The Who
John Coltrane Stereo Blues – The Dream Syndicate
World Leader Pretend – R.E.M.
To Susan on the West Coast Waiting – Donovan

Three songs that make me cry like a little girl, every time.

Pints of Guinness Make You Strong (Acoustic) - Against Me!

Left and Leaving - The Weakerthans

Restless - Rumbleseat

“Hey, you like Jawbreaker, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Have you heard Shorebirds?”
“No.”
“Dude, listen to this.”

I fell in love with the band. Boasting the double pedigree of Matt Canino (Latterman) and Chris Bauermeister (Jawbreaker), Shorebirds was an Olympia band that recorded only one LP and one EP before breaking up in the summer of 2008. Only 16 songs, 37 minutes of music. That’s all you really need, though. Quality versus quantity is at play here, my friends.

Shorebirds is a sonic punch in the gut. The promotional blurb describes it as “a pop punk walk through the panic attack of a world in ruins” and that’s exactly what it is. Matt’s gruff vocals and crunching guitar ride effortless over Chris’s notoriously rad basslines (case in point: Jawbreaker’s Want), while Adam Henderson’s solid drumming anchors everything down. Each track practically begs you to sing along at the top of your lungs. By turns uplifting and downtrodden, each song is worth multiple listenings. When I first got into Shorebirds, I listened to them for approximately 3 weeks straight. It’s that good.

You can get both records from No Idea or Rumbletowne (Matt and Erica’s label).

Matt and his mullet still live in Olympia. He’s got a new band now, called RVIVR. They’re good, too, as you might expect. They’ll be playing another Olympia show in March, according to Rumbletowne’s website. Stoked? You know I am.

I made my younger sister a mix CD and she hated every single song on it. If you ask me, this is possibly one of the most devastating things that can happen to a person. However, I should have known it was coming—her music taste is strictly Top 40, which, in my defense, I was unaware of at the time. When I was going through a Le Tigre phase in high school, she was totally down for a dance party, and she loves “Holiday in Cambodia” by the Dead Kennedys. Of course, that was before middle school hit and she got all weird and lame, more concerned with the mall than anything else. (She would probably describe me as “weird and lame” as well).

So I spent 6 hours crafting this glorious gift to her and I sat the girl down and forced her to listen to it. All 22 tracks. She politely listened to the first 10 songs in full, and the rest, she skipped before they even reached the chorus. She reached over me, a sneer on her face, to quickly press the button to skip the song. I tried to stop her, but I have absolutely no muscle whatsoever, and she is a gymnast. It was not a fair match. I sat there, helpless, observing my favorite songs reduced to 10-second clips, quickly tossed to the wayside by the disdain of a 13-year-old.

Some choice criticisms:

“I can tell it’s going to be stupid” (It’s Hard to Know - Hot Water Music)

“I don’t like old music” (Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield)

“His voice is weird” (Ask the Angels - Patti Smith). I informed her that it was, in fact, sung by a woman. She refused to believe me. A Google Image search only convinced her that she was correct.

“The song name is dumb” (Like Eye Contact in an Elevator - Dillinger Four)

“This is hillbilly music” (Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show)

I love the child, I really do, but I still haven’t come to terms with the fact that we are fundamentally different. I like Jawbreaker. She likes the Jonas Brothers.