Well, here's to the Democrats absolutely destroying the Party of Almost Dead White Guys this year. The best part is that the Republican party doesn't seem to realize that it is, indeed, dying. In the recent election, not a single person under the age of 94 voted Republican. That's right, everyone else voted Democrat. I saw that on the Internet somewhere.
And now, with politics out of the way, we move on to another round of band wars.
Once we finish these two matchups, we'll officially have reviewed half of the albums competing this time around.
These two bands--and albums--are different in so many ways. Guided by Voices has a rougher, garage sound. At its worst, their albums sound like they were recorded poorly, so that the album sounds like it was recorded on a tape deck. (With Bee Thousand, their best album, maybe it was.) This album sounds cleaner than many of their previous ones. Aside from that, GBV's sound is fairly standard indie rock.
Here's the best song from this album, the title track:
Then you have Twin Shadow. Confess is one of the slickest sounding albums that I have ever heard. He imitates eighties musicians. Now, according to Allmusic.com and Pitchfork.com, this imitation--and the slickness of his music--are both a good thing. Here's "Five Seconds." I think you'll see what I mean.
I don't know. What do you think? Because my feeling is that although GBV's album is far from one of their best--yes, this is another group that peaked in a past decade--this album by Twin Shadow is absolute crap . . . unless you want to use it as an example of bad music, in which case it provides an excellent example. The video for "Five Seconds" above is about the only thing in the world that seems more annoying than listening to the song "Five Seconds." Twin Shadow took all of the pop eighties music he could get his hands on. With it, he crafted more pop eighties tunes. My question: Who the fuck wants to hear pop eighties tunes? If the answer is a guilty yes, then why not buy Prince's greatest hits? You'll be far better off.
But who am I? Not a music reviewer, surely. I'm probably wrong, and the pros are probably right.
Still, Band Wars belongs to me. Even though the other reviewers label Twin Shadow's Confess as "Best New Music," I'm sticking with Guided by Voices.
So far, this was the weakest of all of the matchups.
Bob Mould has been around for a long time. A long, long time. He's making solo albums these days, but if you enjoy Silver Age, which is quite good, then I recommend that you go back and start looking into his earlier band named Husker Du. They pumped out a lot of good, harder rocking indie tunes.
Silver Age is really not much different. Many of the songs are excellent. It's a relief to hear a band rocking out as much as this one does, in light of the recent trend of whispery, almost apologetic indie albums clogging up the Innerwebs.
For example, try "The Descent."
Then there's DIIV's Oshin. As I was listening to this album, I kept wondering, Where have I heard these songs before? I couldn't figure it out, and it was driving me nuts. Then finally it hit me: they sound just like Real Estate (except not as good). You know the sound. Summery guitar-jangling tunes with mellow vocals and the slightest--or strongest--hint of surf music. Music to play for car trips, picnics, or general flights of nostalgia. Here's "Doused."
The music-review websites would have this appear to be a tough choice. Allmusic favors Bob Mould; Pitchfork gives its stronger review to DIIV.
In this case, I'm siding with Allmusic. After I checked out Silver Age, I immediately hopped online and started downloading the old Husker Du albums that I hadn't yet listened to. I thought, How could I have forgotten about this guy? Which I suppose was part of his goal in releasing his new album.
As for DIIV, the album is pretty good. Just not as good as anything Bob Mould would ever put out.
And now for the updated brackets:
So, halfway done with the first round. Looking forward to the next set of matchups, I'm excited about seeing if the Walkmen, one of my favorite bands, can advance. I also get the feeling looking at the as-yet-untested bands that the right side of both brackets above seem significantly better than the bands on the left side. In particular, the bottom right section of the lower bracket above seems far and away the strongest. Four Tet, Grizzly Bear, Matthew Dear, and Hot Chip are all indie powerhouses. All four are strong contenders to win the competition, yet they're all stuck in the same section, so obviously only one of those bands can get through the first two rounds.
Logged on to Hannity Forums today for the first time.
For those who are not aware of Hannity, he's a talking head on Fox News, which is only a news channel in the minds of rightwing nutbags.
Anyhoo, I figured it might be fun. I started off with a new post. The post was titled, "Does Anyone Honestly Think that Romney Is Favored to Win the Election?"
It's election time again, and by all reasonable accounts Obama is going to roll fairly comfortably to a second term. I use the words "all reasonable accounts" because there are quite a number of editorial writers and pundits who have been claiming as recently as yesterday either (1) that the race is a toss-up, a claim which has no evidence in reality, or (2) that Romneywill win on Tuesday the 6th, a statement that reflects either anger with reality, insanity, or a type of stupidity that considers facts to be opinions.
Example:
My Claim: There is a sun in the sky.
Nutbag's Response: In your opinion.
This last type of stupidity comes up in poker fairly often, by the way. A bad player calls a turn triple-pot overshove with nothing but four to a flush. Jack high sooted. And that bad player thinks, "There are two outcomes. I win or I lose. One of the two will happen. Therefore, I'm 50-50." Of course we dismiss this player as an idiot and hope to play with him as much as possible. Perhaps not surprisingly, a full half-dozen Republican pundits who published editorials last week are that player. Yes, that's the role that the Republicans have assumed for 2012: a moron with a draw.
Because at least two stats guys who have been studying the election, the economy, the polls, and a variety of other factors affecting this election have pegged Obama as an 83 percent favorite--about 5 to 1, close to the odds of that bad player winning after calling a turn shove with nothing but a flush draw.
Will he win? Or, to ask the question another way: Do dumbasses occasionally hit their draws?
Maybe! Anything can happen, of course. Millions of people can suddenly change their minds and their votes. 90 percent of the polls can be fundamentally flawed. Millions of likely voters responding to the polls might be playing an elaborate April Fools Day joke, even though we're half a year from that month.
Nate Silver, a stats guy who studied baseball and now studies elections for the New York Times, recently called out one of his naysayers about this very topic. In a nutshell, it went like this:
Nate Silver: Obama is about a 70 percent favorite to win the election. [This was last week; now his odds are up to 83%]
Dumbass Republican: Nate Silver is full of it. The race is a tossup.
Nate Silver: If you really think that the race is a tossup, I'll bet you $1,000 at even money that Obama will win. Whoever wins can donate the winnings to the charity of their choice.
Dumbass Republican: [sound of crickets].
Now, I don't normally make political comments on this blog, but recent events have made it irresistible. At Romney rallies, the dumbass Republicans continually shout "USA! USA! USA!" during any significant pause in the speech.
Think about that. They are essentially saying that the side of the Democrats are not for the USA. Because you don't see the "USA!" chant at Obama rallies. There's a reason for this. Democrats in large part are sensible people. Republicans, on the other hand, think that Democrats are socialists and are therefore un-American.
The alternatives are worse. Shock Alert: Racism continues to exist in our country. But let's put ourselves in the shoes of a racist. Which party is he overwhelmingly likely to be a member of? Hint: It probably isn't the party that put a black man in office.
I could go on, but my point is clear. By and large, many Republicans are, uh, unappealing people. That's about as nice as I can put it.
So this year, after the election, I am going to celebrate (83 percent of the time). I am going to immediately fly back home and set up a booth outside the nearest gun shop in one of the more hillbilly-rich southern states. It will be a Peanuts-style booth--nothing special. And above my booth will be a sign that reads:
My goal for October was to write 50 hours of fiction. I was ahead of my pace--sitting at 33 hours and 32 minutes of writing as of the 20th--until food poisoning hit. That took me out for 3-4 days, which by itself would've made it difficult to achieve the goal. Another problem was that I fell behind at work and have been playing catch up all month. So I haven't written another word all month. Oh well.
But it's a good failure. I feel good about writing my first two chapters--13,050 words total. I'm pretty happy with the beginning.
If it is true that a typical first novel should be in the area of 100,000 and 140,000 words, I can pump out a pretty good first draft in nine months . . . if I can keep up my current pace--an optimistic assumption by any measure.
So now with Halloween on the way, it is time for November goals. Just one goal, really. For November, I plan to have a completely dry month. No beer, no wine. I honestly have no clue whether it will be a difficult or easy goal. I guess I'll find out when I have my first bad day at work.
Despite only having one November goal, I still plan to continue full steam ahead with chapters 3 and 4.
I think I'd like to do a celebration thread for one of my favorite bands sometime soon too. Not sure which one. Maybe Yo La Tengo, a criminally underappreciated band.
Also, I finished Dances with Dragons yesterday. It took more than 40 days to get through its 1,051 pages. But now I'm all caught up with the Game of Thrones world. Now it's just a matter of hoping that George R. R. Martin stays alive long enough to finish the last two books.
This post will be briefer than earlier music-review posts. I don't really have a reason for it, except that I am feeling more flippant to the music this time around. And my attitude isn't a reflection on the quality of the albums--unless I'm unaware of it. So without further ado, here goes.
Mark Kozelek of Sun Kil Moon has been around for a long time. He was part of Red House Painters before Sun Kil Moon, and he's got lots of good albums under his belt. Tom Krell of How to Dress Well hasn't been around nearly as long. Sun Kil Moon's Among the Leaves is standard, mellow, confessional indie rock, somewhat in the mold--at times--of Nick Drake. Here is "Elaine":
Tom Krell's music comes closer to R&B than anything else. "Cold Nites."
Neither album is fantastic. They're both just pretty good. When I finished them both, I asked myself the question that I usually ask: Which one do I want to hear again in the next round? The answer was the Sun Kil Moon album. Both of the music-review websites disagree with me, so keep that in mind if you're curious about How to Dress Well's new album.
If you aren't aware of Animal Collective, then I recommend them highly. However, I don't recommend this album, which is not one of their best. It seems a bit like a step backward. You should give Sung Tongs or Merriweather Post Pavilion a try. Both albums are absolutely excellent. In a nutshell, Animal Collective makes experimental indie pop music by using lots of found sounds and by creating lots of unusual sounds of their own and planting them in their songs. Definitely unusual music. There's nothing else like it out there. One of the better tracks from this album is "Today's Supernatural."
Tame Impala's Lonerism is a fantastic new album by an Australian dude who makes space rock and sounds like John Lennon. Those two qualifications are enough to get Tame Impala to the next round. This track is called "Elephant."
While Animal Collective is by far the better music group, their new album sort of sucks.
