Band Wars--Quarters--M83 vs. Lotus Plaza

M83, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

Lotus Plaza, Spooky Action from a Distance

M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming starts off with three hooky tracks and soaring vocals.  An ambient song four leads right into "Wait," a moment that seems to announce the variety of the album.  From there, we bounce back and forth from ambient track to another hooky track with soaring vocals and catchy synths.  The sound is anthemic.  You feel like you're listening to something important--but then you are undermined by the story-telling of a child (track 6).  It's hard for me to find a weak spot, so I gave up and enjoyed myself.  This is a good album for almost any moment--except for parties.  Most of it is too mellow and atmospheric for a party.

Here's "Intro"

Spooky Action at a Distance is also a fantastic album.  You feel yourself carried by the echo-y vocals and tremendous guitar loops.  You wonder whether he's worried about his voice the way he buries it in the music, but it doesn't matter.  It works.  Here's "Out of Touch"

"Monolith" is a good song too.

M83 is just better.  I write this despite feeling that I'll end up playing Spooky Action at a Distance more than Hurry Up, You're Dreaming.  It's close.  The Lotus Plaza album is closer to my "default" music, the type of stuff I play all of the time.  Despite that, I can't shoot down M83.  But you should really check out both albums.  The last of the albums by Deerhunter alumni is finished.  Bummer.

Edit: Five minutes after this decision, I regret my choice.  Too late now.

Band Wars--Quarterfinals

Julia Holter, Ekstasis

Chromatics, Kill for Love

This one is going to be quick and easy.  Julia Holter sounds like Kate Bush, which I consider a plus (although I understand if you feel it's a minus).  For my second listen, Ekstasis mostly sounded like background music.  After I finished, I felt like I wanted to put it away for a while.

Then I started Kill for Love and started to enjoy myself.  This album sounds better on second listen than the first, and I really liked them the first time through.

The result of this round was no surprise.

Kinked Neck Saga

I suffered a neck kink last week and am still recovering from it.  Apparently, a kinked neck can be the result of me grinding my teeth in my sleep.  Grinding teeth can also cause lower pain and earaches.  I've had an earache for 3 weeks now.  It's finally mellowing out, but last week my right ear closed and my own voice ended up sounding really loud whenever I opened my mouth--as if my stopped-up ear had trapped it inside my skull and it was just echoing around.

I did some searching, and activities that cause me to grind my teeth are smoking and drinking too much coffee and alcohol.  Check, check, check.  I do all of those things.

I went to see a doctor.  Seeing a doctor in the UAE can be a risky proposition.  It can be like going to a plumber for a colonoscopy.  I'm guessing.  Haven't ever had to have one of those.  But if I ever do, I won't have it done in the UAE.  The guy will probably be a plumber.

In the middle of it all, my laptop shut down on me last night.  The monitor flickered for a few minutes and then went black.

Good news is that when I headed over to a computer repair dude that I've used a couple times in the past and turned on the laptop, everything was normal again.

So maybe things are turning up.

My Time as a Bully

When you grow up with a younger brother, as I did, you find yourself headed toward one outcome: you will bully him.  As I write this, I notice that I'm already planting an excuse for myself.  All older brothers bully all younger brothers, my argument goes.  Therefore I, an older brother, inevitably was led to bully my younger brother.  We all know that I had more control over myself than that.  I could've been nicer to him.  And I was, sometimes, when I wasn't bullying him.

I was 23 months his senior, minus a week, and my fight record against him was something like 94-0 with zero knockouts.  My fight-ending move was to punch him in the upper arm until he cried.  Sometimes he'd run off to "tell" on me.  However, I don't remember being punished very often, a result that leads me to suspect that I was  my parents' favorite.  I think I remained the favorite in part because our fights were secret--or, to be exact, I was smart enough to beat up my brother when my parents weren't around.

Another reason, by the way, that made me think that I was the favorite had to do with the visit of President Ford to our state.  My Dad was so amped about the visit that he drove me and my brother out to the airport to watch Air Force One land.  I was about six years old at the time, and so my memories of the event are hazy, but here's what I think I remember:

While we waited on the outside of a chain-link fence, men in suits, whom I would guess now to be Secret Service agents, approached the other side of the fence and monitored us.  They watched us, and we watched them.  Soon someone exclaimed, "He's coming!"  Voices grew louder and people pushed toward the fence, hands outstretched--because the President was shaking hands over the fence!  That fact juiced the crowd up pretty good.

Now came the definitive moment.  My Dad wanted us to shake Ford's hand.  Realizing that he could only pick up one of us in the time that Ford would brisk past, he selected . . . me.  He gripped me under the armpits and lifted me toward the fence.  I stuck out my hand.  Ford grabbed my fingers and walked quickly past.  The.  President.  Had.  Shaken.  My.  Hand.  And then as my father turned and lowered me to the ground, I saw the dark, cloudy look on my brother's face as it rose to greet me.

Now maybe my Dad just picked up the nearest one of us without a thought.  I understand that I may be reading too much into this memory.  And to be fair to my parents, I can't think of many instances where they seemed to favor me.  Perhaps that would be a better question for my brother.  Sometimes, however, a lot can be revealed in a moment when a parent has to make a snap judgment--to look at his children and select one over the other.

My bullying of my brother didn't last forever.  The window was a four- or five-year one.  And I'm not talking about daily fights.  I didn't love being the bully.  It was just a natural consequence of our fights.  A --> B --> C.  I was bigger.  Therefore, I had to win.  Therefore, I was the bully.

Over time, I got too caught up in golf and playing games on my Commodore 64.  And I always read too many horror books--Clive Barker was my favorite--to qualify as a nongeek.

What was the result of all of my bullying?  I think it ended, not coincidentally, right around the time that my brother started training to be a ninja.  He'd stand barefoot in the front yard, wearing a black gi in full view of passing traffic, and swing wooden nunchuks around his waist and neck.  He seemed to be preparing for an assault from an unseen army.  With all of his training, it's sort of funny that he never sought revenge against me.

From my end, I became nonviolent and rather mellow.

I don't think I harmed him too much psychologically.  He's married with children and very successful working in the computer industry in Silicon Valley.  He's far more successful than I've been, I'm proud to say.

Nowadays, I consider myself a pushover, one that avoids conflict whenever possible.  Odd that I became a lawyer, I suppose.  Perhaps I can trace my passive ways back to rebellion against my cruel younger self.  I'd like to think so.  Still, that bullying weasel is easy for me to forgive.  He was just a kid.

Band Wars--Finishing Round One

We'll find the winner of the last two matchups in this post.

Grimes Visions

versus John Talabot's fin

Both of these albums use house or dance music in different ways.  Grimes goes for a strange mix of sinister tones and a girly voice singing in falsetto.  Very sugary.  Sometimes it's hard to tell whether she's imitating or mocking bubblegum dancepop.  Despite that, I'm not sure that I dislike the album.  Maybe it's a "grower."

Here's "Oblivion" by Grimes:

John Talabot's album sticks closer to what I imagine "house" to be.  It's a solid if not incredibly original album.  This is the kind of music for late-night playing when I'll want to add some variety to my mellow music.  Here's the most attention-getting track, "Destiny."

Well, John Talabot wins this one, and it isn't remotely close.  Hopefully, Grimes grows on me.

* * *

In the last first-round matchup, we have

Cloud Nothings, Attack on Memory

versus Spiritualized, Sweet Heart Sweet Light

In an article or two about Cloud Nothings, reviewers say that this album is a huge departure from their earlier stuff.  I have no clue.  This album is my introduction to the band.  And Attack on Memory is a straight-up rocker.  I couldn't hear any other instruments besides guitar and drums.  Sounds like these guys met in a garage and started rocking and someone recorded the session.  If I didn't know better, I'd guess that this album came out in the heyday of Nirvana and Pearl Jam.

This is their opening track, "No Future/No Past":

Spiritualized, you might remember, is the band that had that indie track that was famous for starting off, "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating through space."  And "space rock" is the best musical category that I've seen applied to this band.  No matter how any of the songs start, you come to expect the sound to break up and go somewhere totally unexpected.  He's strumming an acoustic guitar one second, and you feel firmly on the ground.  Then suddenly the guitars stutter, and keyboards launch the song into a psychedelic meadow with gigantic neon flowers.  The word on the album cover, after all, is Huh?


Here's "Hey Jane," as performed on David Letterman:

Well, I try to be open-minded about the music I listen to . . . up to a point.  What I'm saying is, if you ever spot me listening to Garth Brooks, please club me to death on the spot.  I'm trying to be all-inclusive--or as inclusive as I can be.  But compared with Cloud Nothings, Spiritualized's music is far closer to the kind of music that I've loved for decades.  So Spiritualized advances to the next round.  This is an album that I look forward to hearing again.

Well, round one is all done.  Here are the results:

Reflecting on this game, I was worried that I would quickly become bored with it--either because I figured the game itself was lame, or because I would keep selecting the album that I already suspected would win.  I don't have either of these worries anymore.  Of these first eight matchups, I tried to guess the winners before listening, and I was right only five times.  That means three surprises: Julia Holter, Youth Lagoon, and the Men.

Also, finishing round one means that I am already past the halfway point.  Eight matchups down; seven to go (four quarterfinals, two semis, and the finals).  At one per day or so, I'm guessing I'll have a winner right around next Sunday.  I hope you're enjoying this.  I am!

Search Terms in Google Images

Here is one of the first images I get when I type in the following:

"Toe Brain"

"Falafel Boy"

"Margaret Thatcher Eating Cheese"

"Zombie Burger"

"Obama Steel Cage Death Match"

"Penguin with Machine Gun"

"Tank with Amnesia"

"Spastic Colon with Fries"

"Abraham Lincoln vs. Spiderman"

Band Wars--Girls vs. the Men

Girls, Father, Son, Holy Ghost

The Men, Open Your Heart

This is the first-round matchup that I had been looking forward to.

The overwhelming sense you'll get from Girls' Father, Son, Holy Ghost is that you've heard these songs before.  From '50s pop song arrangements to Pink Floyd psychedelic freakouts to just about anything else you can imagine, Girls does it on this album.  The one constant in this variety of tunes is the lead singer's mellow, sometimes whispery, voice.  Of all the albums in this competition, this one is as retro as they come.

Here's "Vomit"

The Men's Open Your Heart is by far the hardest rocker of the albums I've listened to so far.  Reviewers have compared the Men to Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin.  The first band that comes to mind for me is Sonic Youth.  The album starts with shouted lyrics and pounding guitar.  After all of the earnest, confessional albums that I've listened to in the last week, I enjoyed how much fun these guys are having.  The mid-album 7-minute rocker "Oscillation" sounds like it's being sung by a zombie.  Awesome.  I feel guilty enjoying this album as much as I do, because I think it's geared towards high school kids.  Sadly, that's true for more of my music than I'd like to admit.  Thankfully, the cascade of drums and guitars relax long enough for "Candy," Open Your Heart's best track (and one unlike any other on the album).

"Candy"

Both albums are excellent.  I'm choosing The Men to go on to the next round, which basically means that Father, Son, Holy Ghost is far and away the best loser in the competition so far.  If the luck of the draw had pitted Girls against any of the other losers--and some of the winners--Girls would be advancing to the next round.  I also suspect it is one of the likeliest albums that I'll listen to regularly.

We are quickly approaching the end of round one.  Should be done tomorrow.  Here's how it looks: