Free Download of The Nods Unreleased Full Length April 15, 2009
Posted by misterbuckets in Friends and Future Enemies.Tags: bloomington, download, free, indiana, indianapolis, Music, nods, pop
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For those that are unaware, I spent the better part of my twenties playing with some of the most interesting, exciting, and generally weird individuals in a band called Even Homer Nods, later shortened to the Nods. We shared the stage with many good bands, most notably Yo La Tengo, Dead Meadow, and Faun Fables, to name drop a few. What I have for you here is our full-length that was never released (we broke up before it could happen…long story involving fire, mountains, hitchhiking, and copious amounts of beer. No joke.) so download and enjoy the fruits of labor from, in my opinion, a terribly overlooked band. Yes, it might be because I was in it.
Vocals/Guitar: Patrick Bower (The World Without Magic, solo)
Bass/Percussion: Luc Rodgers
Moog/Xylophone/Percussion/Vocals: Sarah Ferguson
Keyboards: Robert Gowin
Drums/Percussion: Casey Tennis (Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos)
Engineer: Paul Mahern (Iggy Pop, John Mellencamp, Superchunk, ex-Zero Boy)
Produced by: The Nods and Paul Mahern
So, the never-named full length from the Nods:
Hurt Love (Chapters 3 & 4) January 13, 2009
Posted by misterbuckets in Fiction.add a comment
3
After crossing only a few streets and following the walkway underneath Lake Shore Drive we found ourselves at the lake famished and already sweating. My right arm hair lay thick and gathered and wet from the constant swiping to keep the salty drips from entering my wounds.
The lake seemed especially blue and expansive giving the cement an insignificant, narrow feel. How easily this water could swallow us all in a single dragon-gulp. Keeping it sane and relaxed is the same force exuded upon us. What is it? Where is it? And are we better off because of it? The seagulls screamed and dove at the trash and children. Mothers screamed in many languages but none that the birds understood and the children just didn’t listen. Cyclists and runners utilized the trail and divided the lakefront into east (where the sunbathers napped and dried) and west (where self-inflicted victims ate with their understanding friends). A plane flew high above advertising interest rates or a sports drink, the pilot humming the song of getting paid too well for what the job entails.
With our location decided we bent knees and unwrapped our kill. Two bottles of water, already sweaty, ringed the cement. I reached into the bag and felt the cool paper of my tuna salad, soft with the ground-up muscle and mayonnaise. Underneath rested a warm heavy mass which was Greg’s sandwich. “What did you get?”
“A reuben. They really have a nice one, Harold’s. Their kraut is a little sweeter than most places.” He accepted the sandwich and, upon unwrapping, studied the ingredients. “Is that brown sugar in it?”
“Let me see.” As the sandwich inched closer I noticed my vision blurred. That bitch destroyed my dominant eye. My focus eye. My everything eye. “I couldn’t tell you. It does smell nice. I don’t know about eating a hot sandwich out here, though.”
“I’ll be fine. How’s the tuna?” He made a screaming face and pushed the hand-held meal into his mouth. The crunch of kraut and the sound of the first step of digestion showed that he would listen to anything I had to say. Greg was not one to talk with his mouth full.
“I don’t know, yet,” and I grabbed the water. The clicking of the safety cap was rhythmic and required by law. Only slightly chilly, the water spilled down my gullet with ease, as if down a well. I sighed and replaced the cap, now silent, and watched a child beg her mother to go into the water. The sandwich was wrapped neatly and taut like a gift. The bread was soft and warm to the touch and I, too, silently screamed before filling my mouth. “It’s good. Better than if we were eating in the restaurant.”
“Good. Tell me,” he spoke earnestly as he peered his reuben for a second or third bite, “how are you feeling?”
I rolled the tuna as long as I could, habit finally taking over and shoving it down my throat. I rinsed and swallowed with water and answered, “Weird, Greg. I’ve never felt like this before. I guess that’s why I don’t know how to deal with it.” I held my sandwich and looked at the ground. Food even tastes different, like I have a flu. Why am I even questioning the hot air?
Greg merely nodded in recognition. He was chewing. After a swallow, “Life is all about learning, you know. This whole mess, this…this horrible thing will teach you something in the end. Really. Honestly. It has to.” Another bite and no question asked, I remained silent and still, the tuna repulsing me. His swallow and wash and, “What did you feel when you found out?”
I half-cocked a smile and thought. No one had asked me that before, therefore I had no generic response. I don’t think there is one. “Relieved. At first, of course.”
“Really?” I could tell his surprise as his voice was muddled through kraut. “Why?”
“It’s just part of being a guy, I think.”
“How so?”
“In that when you are with someone all you can think about is every other girl that you come across. And you think to yourself, ‘I bet that she doesn’t nag like Liz.’ ‘I like her smell better.’ ‘I wish that Liz would laugh like that.’”
“That’s normal.”
“Well, that’s why I felt relieved. I was free, Greg. All of those others that I watched and longed for…they could be…”
“They couldn’t be, Brian. You know that. You have yours. Had. Sorry. Oh, sorry.” His hand rested on my knee and he stopped eating.
“That’s okay. I know that now.” I set my sandwich down and drank more water. The sun was no longer hot but welcome.
“Can I ask?”
“What. Ask what.”
“When the relief left. What did you feel?”
“Guilt.”
“Why. Brian? You did nothing.”
“Guilt for feeling relieved. And guilt for doing nothing. Nothing for her, nothing for us.” I wrapped the sandwich and placed it back in the bag. I leaned on an arm and drank water. “Can I have another cigarette?”
“Of course. Don’t start smoking, I won’t let you.”
“I won’t. I just want something foreign.” I pulled it out of the box and placed it on my lips. Greg lit it and I looked at a distant ship. I feel lonelier than a sailor and more helpless than an overboard. This mainland is for the birds, though they won’t take to it. “Thanks.”
“Can I do anything for you?” His hand remained on my knee. His gaze rested on me and I changed my focus to the horizon. “Why don’t you stay with me and Kate. It would be nice having you around…”
“Not as I am now. No, thanks. I’m good at the hotel.”
“Can I ask you something else?”
“Of course.”
“Have you heard anything about the guy? I mean, any new leads?”
“How would I know?”
“I just thought if they found…”
“No, Greg. They wouldn’t tell me. They would tell her fucking family…yes, that’s what they would do. And you know what else?” I was erect with one red, angry eye and one red, swollen eye, “They should. I wasn’t family. Not yet.”
“Sit down, relax. I’m sorry.”
“I have to go.”
The tuna sandwich with a single bite removed fit in my hand perfectly, albeit sweatily, and I walked west away from the lake, away from Greg, and away from an honest conversation.
4
In this kind of heat not even the underground subway tunnels gave solace. Hidden away from the sun, they still seemed to radiate a heat, an energy, but with the lack of wind it was a stale muck that filled the eyes and pores and mind. A busker sang, with eyes closed, “Amazing Grace” while passers-by ignored him. Is that why his eyes are closed or can he still feel this song? I tossed a dollar into the guitar case and it rested atop of a pile of miscellaneous change. Metal Washington: “I’ve been in a meter for almost a week, and was it ever hot!” Paper Washington: “Try being clutched in a child’s sweaty, soft hand after being neatly tucked in a grandfather’s wallet for days! It’s shocking!” Metal Lincoln: “I’ve been everywhere.”
With the hot wind came a rumble and two yellow eyes watching the track ahead. Everyone approached the edge of the platform trying to guess where the train doors will meet them. A last minute adjustment and all of us piled in looking feverishly for a seat that wasn’t next to the fat guy eating popcorn. The air conditioning pumped from vents unseen but it wasn’t enough; the sweat collected under my collar and down the front of my neck. I decided to stand next to the doors and feel the dirty tunnel wind eek through the seeping door seam rather than nestle my body next to another’s. As we chugged forward, books were opened and headphones adjusted for the long ride home. I folded my fingers in front of me to evoke a sense of piety and watched as the tunnel walls moved but remained unchanged.
At each stop new people arrived and old ones left, a metaphor for digestion, and I watched and wondered. An old woman searched for a seat already taken but everyone was too busy with their time-passings that no one realized her aching, dying body. A young fellow rose and motioned to her and smiles were exchanged.
The tunnel, the people, everything the same, everyday. How long has it been like this?
Finally my stop came and I exited. The narrow escalator prohibited any stair climbers to overtake the stair-standers but all seemed to accept it. Outside, the air wasn’t cooler but it was moving, giving life to the manmade mess that we’ve made it. I met eyes with a dog, a Golden Retriever, and it smiled at me. Nature’s clown, that little fucker. Always merry and bright. Dumb, but that must equal elation.
I walked for five blocks, turning by instinct and habit. The trees were dressed in green and were the only ones enjoying the heat. With the wind they talked to one another, sharing as much news before the hibernation began in a few months. I reached into my pocket and retrieved my keys. As I pulled them out, the pocket itself followed, not wanting to let go, not wanting to let me in my own apartment. Everything is such a goddamn production. Why can’t it be simpler? When will that something be just that and nothing else?
I stopped at the front door. 4267. The buzzer still read Gill/Pratchett. 3A. I pushed it in hopes of hearing it from the street. It was still just the trees I heard. And a car. Not a person talking. Everyone must be dead. The key slid in easily and the entryway still smelled of old carpet (though it was tiled) and envelope adhesive. The mailbox was filled with so much paper, but only paper. I started to pull a few articles out and after glancing at the first addressee, Liz Pratchett, I decided to leave all inside the box until another time. What was she thinking the last time her fingers closed this box softly? Softly, like she did everything. Breathy with her words. Cautious with her concerns.
The stairs creaked in a familiar way. On the third stair after the second landing I smiled. It was the long groan of that piece of wood, so unlike the other short barks, that welcomed me home, us home, so many times before today. Easier times. At the top, the door, door #3, stared and told me that it’s been waiting. I nodded and slipped a different key into the different keyhole. A click, the click that I would love to hear when inside, clicked and the whoosh of familiar air crashed my body, first to its knees, and then comfortably with ass on floor. The sun blonded the wood floors and glared upon a beige wall. From my reduced height I tossed the keys into the key-bowl and rolled, military-style, the rest of the way into the apartment. With a kick the door closed and my heart calmed. I’m here. I’m in here. It’s not home, merely here. The rug cushioned my head as it dropped. The ceiling became an unknown memory, something that is tied to nothing though it protects us from everything. With its bumps and cracks and lights, it could be anyone’s. I can only guess that it was ours, but I haven’t any proof. The picture molding was familiar, yes, but only because that was the highest point that the eyes would ever focus. With each breath I sweat more and finally drifted into a clean blackness, the kind that only comes with exhaustion.
“When you were gone, I was looking at something interesting.”
“What was that?” Liz was arranging magazines on the coffee table as if someone was coming over. She liked to live prepared.
“The ceiling. Have you ever looked at it?”
“Why, yes.”
“But if someone came over and replaced it with a new one, would you notice?”
“Why would someone replace it? What’s wrong with it?”
“Nothing, babe. There’s nothing wrong with it,” I said while thumbing through the mail. Bill, coupons, bill. Yes, email destroyed the written letter but it also destroyed the excitement of looking through the mail. “It’s just something I noticed that I had never noticed before.”
“Huh.”
“I mean…you know where the bumps and cracks are in the walls, right?”
“Yeah. Like the one in the bedroom? The one that you were gonna patch up?” She smiled and winked. Nothing was ever important to her, unless it was honestly important.
“Yeah, like that. Tell me, though…what about all these valleys and mountains in the ceiling? Shouldn’t they be fixed, too?
“Yes, I guess. No one looks up there so…I guess maybe, no?”
“Exactly! No one looks up there! That’s what I’m saying. I just noticed it the other day.”
“What were you doing?”
“Lying on the floor. Right over there,” I said, pointing to the rug in the entryway. “I rolled in commando style. It was manly. You really should’ve seen it.”
“I guess so. But…why did you do that?” She approached and puckered for a kiss. I pulled her towards me and landed safely onto her flesh-pillow-runways.
At a much lower volume, one only heard by lovers to each other, I said, “I, uh…collapsed in the doorway.”
“Why, Brian?”
“Because. Well, I had lost you. You were gone.”
A sigh and a smell of breath. Her breath. A smell that only Liz’s lover could know. “That’s right, Brian. I am gone. But I didn’t want to leave. Not like that. Not…like…this,” she said as her post-kiss smile frowned and began bleeding. “Not like this!” Her face switched from sadness to horror. Within seconds it was still a face, but not her face.
I stared into the eyes of a victim, an undeserved victim. As her head flew side to side, silently but violently saying no, I could only feel relieved that I no longer saw what was agonizing underneath the long, brown hair. Shiny always, but now shiny with a deep, wet red.
I quivered and whispered, “No, Liz…who is doing this? Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit…”
It was a deep gasp that I drew in and awoke to. At first it was relief I felt. After that it was vomit being shot out by the mighty bag of air just gasped. On the rug, on the floor, and on the wall, one large mass of puke noisily grafittied the apartment. Our apartment. Now just my apartment. I rolled onto my back, away from the puddle and cried. Looking up, the ceiling remained untouched and unnoticed.
With a wipe of the nose and the mouth I leapt up and threw the door open, as if to find a better prize than an escape from a nightmare. I grabbed the keys from the bowl and locked the door behind me. I ran down the stairs, making sure to skip the welcoming one, and bolted outside.
The birds had joined the trees in a summer song. The traffic was heavier because of the approaching rush hour but I could only hear the fucking birds and the trees. With hands on knees I cursed the world and I cursed the subway. I have to walk a long way back to the hotel, but walking, for me, is the only sensible way to get there. If everything else is going to be this hard, transportation must be included.
The Best of the Extent of My Short-Term Memory December 21, 2008
Posted by misterbuckets in Reviews.add a comment
I don’t know if all of these were released in 2008 because I don’t care.
Most Underrated Album
Scout Niblett, This Fool Can Die Now
Should Have Been Annoying but Turned Out Alright
The Cave Singers, Invitation Songs
Best Song From an Album That Has Only One Good Song
Goldfrapp, “Eat Yourself,” Seventh Tree
Best Album That Encompasses a Lifestyle Completely Foriegn to Me
Jens Lekman, Night Falls Over Kortedala
The Most Frighteningly Positive Album/Career
Danielson Famile
Coolest Hippie
Destroyer, aka Dan Bejar
Coolest Group of Hippies
Midlake
Best Late 60s/Early 70s Rip-off Sound
Black Mountain, In the Future
Best Use of Bicycles
Bat for Lashes, “What’s a Girl to Do,” Fur and Gold
Band That I Most Want to See Beat Up But Still Like Their Music
Cloud Cult
Most Deservedly Talked About Reunion
Portishead, Third
The Darkest, Non-Metal Band
Those Poor Bastards
Best New Metal Subgenre
WWII Death Metal
Honorable Mention: Worst Music Video to Show Your Christian Parents
Flying Lotus, “Parisian Goldfish,” Los Angeles
The Most Anticipated Album of Late ‘08/Early ‘09
Medusa, En Raca Sul
Best Example of the British Outdoing The Americans at Their Own Game
Taint, “Drunken Marksmen,” The Ruin of Nova Roma
Most Disappointing Band That at One Time Had Everyone’s Attention
The Flaming Lips, At War With the Mystics
Most Exciting Band in Metal
Nachtmystium
Lifetime Achievement Award
Tom Waits
I’ve Listened, or Happened Upon, These Recently… October 18, 2008
Posted by misterbuckets in Uncategorized.2 comments
…after walking barefoot outside and then locking myself indoors for the duration of the sunshine as to bring you this unneeded installment of my discerning taste.
Artist: Sunn O)))
Album: Domkirke
Format: LP
Mercy me. One of the best ideas actually came to fruition and was captured on wax: doom-sayers Sunn O))) performing live in a church in Bergen, Norway (home of supreme blasphemists Gorgoroth). Haunting VOCALS (yep) hover and ride atop a wave a sheer doom in front of a small group of lucky onlookers. This is what it’s like to walk on hot coals, sleep on a bed of nails, get hit by a bus, and float whilst taking a boiling hot shower; though some say, “boring,” or, “overrated,” I rest comfortably in the “serene and perfect” party.
Artist: Of Montreal
Album: Skeletal Lamping
Format: Mp3
I remember bringing Of Montreal’s The Gay Parade into the living room at my old house after band practice for the guys to listen to. Before deals with steakhouses and lyric content revolving around asexuality, Of Montreal were the paradigm of pro-tools psychedelic. “Just listen to everything going on,” I remember saying years ago. “And somehow it all fits together.” While it has since been more simplified, it has also become it’s own worst enemy; the grandiose nature of this beast has, and will forevermore, damn them as a simple kitsch. Where there was once an under-appreciated eternity has evolved into, “Jesus, what happened to this dude?”
Sure there are arguments for both sides; commercials are easy money for artists, but to change the lyrics so as to include the words “Outback Steakhouse?” Eat a dick, Kevin.
Artist: Danielson
Album: Tell Another Joke at the Ol’ Choppin’ Block/Fetch the Compass Kids
Format: LP
More on the Danielson front! These wonderful records, where Mr. (song)Smith really came into his own, have also been reissued on vinyl. Innocence, somehow, coupled with a mature worldview give this fruit the juice to flex its Freak Folk muscles against anything out there.
I’m talking to you, Banhart. This fellow’s a freak in the best of ways in that he really believes in everything he sings about: redemption, love, and a willingness to welcome and knuckle-punch anything that comes in his way. The supportive cast cannot be overlooked as they put Smith’s dreams to music in the finest way possible: patiently, layeredly, and with open arms.
Oh, and remember when I mentioned watching them in the daycare of a cult I lived in? Aw, hell…I’ve never mentioned it. Yep, lived in a cult. Uh-huh…saw Danielson perform in the day care of said cult.
I feel like I should talk to you about this face-to-face.
Yeah, it was weird.
Hail the return of the man-in-the-tree:
Artist: Secret Machines
Album: Secret Machines
Format: Mp3
With Ten Silver Drops, these guys lost my faith in their ability to make a wonderful soundscape jam into the netherworlds. Now, for the love of everything, they’ve seemed to re-center their original goals and abilities, albeit without their original guitarist, Benjamin Curtis, and slapped the world across the face with Secret Machines.
This is a warm walk with the sun to your back.
This is the excitement of getting high and jamming with your friends.
This is when, after finishing recording, the band members shake hands and congratulate each other on getting over their sophomore slump.
Dramatic and poignant, Secret Machines leads the listener on a natural urban jouney complete with the smells of the forest, the difficulty of moving forward, and a statement that screams, “This is all I have, take it or leave it.” I’ve bitten and, as I type this, am being reeled in.
For olde time’s sake:
Artist: Nadja
Album: Radiance of Shadows/Truth Becomes Death
Format: LP
Soundscape metal artists are a dime-a-dozen these days. Luckily there’s Nadja to counter-balance the shit with not only beautiful music but album art to back it up with. There must be something in the Canadian mindset that pre-programs these fuckers to make the best
music (examples: Destroyer, Cursed, Fucked Up, Arcade Fire (even though they’re popular, Johnny, one can’t deny the brilliance and likability), Black Mountain/Pink Mountaintops, blah, blah, blah) because the media raining down from America’s hat is just jaw-dropping.
Instrumental metal is all about the buildup, whether simple and poetic or simply lambasting, it is the “chorus” for everything else to center around. Nadja settled on the latter, peaking with such sounds that are almost nauseating in their beauty that I’ve stopped the record a few times to collect myself. The apex is fair game between both albums in that it shares the same extremity; there is no loser here except the one that is bored and jaded with the likes of this genre lulling up the airwaves.
Named after Andre Breton’s fantastic surrealist novel by the same name, Nadja consists of Aidan Baker (this and that) and Leah Buckareff (those and these) and a mindset to destroy everything you know about what good music should be. Scathing, check. Wonderous, on the tip. Encompassing, that’s just the beginning. Already I’m worried about their demise as I sit and hit myself for not taking a friends advice earlier and check them out.
Lord, help all of us Americans to see the beauty in simplicity.
Artist: Eagles of Death Metal
Album: Heart On
Format: Mp3
I like the Queens of the Stone Age through and through. What’s not to like? Testosterone-driven riffs with a cock-sure, let’s-fucking-fight attitude driving heavy pop songs is the perfect formula.
Doing other things (the Desert Sessions exempt) seems silly, as the misleadingly-titled Eagles of Death Metal showcase.
Simple 50’s-derived beats and riffs fronted by a douche explaining to one why he likes to party wears thin quickly. Now thinking about it, everything about this band is plastic…the ideas, the promise, the band itself is self-damning and a joke.
Though you could figure that out by their song, “Wannabe in LA;” No one wants to be in that shithole unless they’re fakes wanting to make it…oh, wait…Wannabe…yep, that encapsulates it perfectly. Wannabes.
And for the QOTA fans, Josh dishing it:
Artist: Bobb Trimble
Album: Iron Curtain Innocence/Harvest of Dreams
Format: LP
Long overdue is my take on these Secretly Canadian re-issues of 80’s seminal creep, Bobb Trimble. Yes, both are late-to-the-party psychedelic classics, but what is more interesting is Mr. double B’s story.
These were both recorded and paid for by himself as he could not find funding for such collections. Surprise. After a brief hiatus, he resurfaced as the Crippled Dog Band which, besides himself, consisted of a few 15 year old boys. Even though there was no Catholic Priest-like foul play, the parents became suspicious and pulled the plug on the band. According to Bobb, he just liked the “sound of 15 year old boys playing instruments.”
These records collect the loneliest that sound can actually get. While expanding simple “Where are you, lover?” songs to include layers and layers of falsetto vocals, keyboards, and botched phone conversations, Iron… and Harvest…pollute the stereo with an unsaid creepiness and focus only seen in fellow creep Bill Fay in both self-imposed confinement and overshadowed brillinace. These albums, my friends, take confidence in execution.
One wants to hug him but holds back because god knws what would Trimble would do in that brief encounter with an actual human body. Especially if he is still holding that fucking gun.
And here are the 15 year old boys:
I’ve Listened to These Recently… October 14, 2008
Posted by misterbuckets in Reviews.Tags: Alpha, Chemistry of Common Life, chicago, Danielson, Fucked Up, Harvey Milk, misterbuckets, Music, Omega, Reviews, The Pleaser, The Walkmen, Tri-Danielson, you & me
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…while attempting to teach my dog how to “wonder.”
Artist: Fucked Up
Album: The Chemistry of the Common Life
Format: Mp3
With their last outing, Hidden World, Fucked Up (aka F***** Up, or just unnamed, in the mainstream press) asserted themselves as the new wave of hardcore punk. Now with The Chemistry of Common Life, they’ve become the Refused of the 21st century. With dabblings in psychedelic nomenclature, balls large enough to “jam out” on a punk record, and the best vocals, courtesy of Pink Eyes, heard ’round the world, these Canadians are out to destroy your life and let you hit them in the face while they do it. Unabashed, unapologetic, and downright smart, Fucked Up are going to be here for a while, even though they already have been. Huh? As Pink Eyes put it, “To get popular in Canada, the Brits start to like you, then the Americans. After that, the Canadians will finally get a clue. But you know what? We’ve been around for a while already. Welcome to the party!” Oh, and word to MTV Canada: if you invite a band that despises you to play on your show (and they’re called Fucked Up, for chrissakes) expect the bathroom you shoved them in to get, um, fucked up. Pun intended.
Artist: Harvey Milk
Album: The Pleaser
Format: LP
Now with hipsters coast-to-coast creaming their pants for Harvery’s latest, Life…the Best Game in Town, thanks to the well-written Pitchfork review, good old Chunklet magazine (smartly) jumped on the cash-in and re-released The Pleaser on fancy double LP gatefold vinyl. Old fans rejoice! New fans…$25, please. The last album before the breakup and reunion, this saw the band in their early glory. Downright rucuous blues. Pounding heavy southern rock with live tit-bits thrown in so as to hit yourself for not living in Athens to witness the greatest heavy band to be birthed in the capital of outsider music. It is classic rock in both age and importance.
Bonus points for performing in shorts:
Artist: Danielson
Album: Tri-Danielson Alpha/Omega
Format: LP
I hate to be that guy, but I’ve been into this fellow/family since the first album, A Prayer for Every Hour, was released on the we’re-Christians-but-not-really-wait-yes-we-are label Tooth & Nail back when I was in high school. His abrasive high pitched squeal pissed off
everyone around so I clung dearly to it. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Danielson, aka Daniel Smith and various friends and family, would continue and produce some of the most memorable, demanding, rewarding, and downright brilliant albums of the late 20th century into the 21st. Way before some hippie Banhart dude would come along and revive freak-folk for the new set, Smith & co. were penning pop-folk-freak-kitch celebrations like “Btwn the Lines of the Scout Signs” (a gospel exercise in taking the power away from the middle finger and turning it to good), “Rubbernecker,” “Pottymouth” (an audio skit in which a female, most likely Christian, goes on a date with a guy that has a razor tongue. It is chuckle-worthy as she attempts to explain to her friend this “strange language” spoken whilst dropping a bowling ball on his toes and many other innocent activities), and a thoroughly entertaining cover of Ken Nordine’s “Flesh,” an obvious choice akin to their beliefs. In short, this re-release (courtesy of Smith’s own Sounds Familyre label) celebrates the childlike humor, the strong songwriting, and all-around likabilty of a group once damned to just make every listener cringe.
Artist: The Walkmen
Album: You & Me
Format: LP
As mentioned before, I like these guys. So much so that I turned down the opportunity to review their live show, reason being that even if they played a bad show I would love it. I settled for the opening band.
You & Me hit the shelves a little over a month ago, though I’ve been fortunate enough to delve into it since a few months prior. “Mind-numbingly exceptoinal” is the term that comes to mind first and foremost. Throughout the record, first to last song, the voice of new rock ‘n roll, to be discovered by a yet-unborn generation, swaggers through the drones and escalations with such cocksure sensibility that to question its importance would be simply uneducated. It is denying God’s existence to his face. If that opportunity actually arose.
I will not go into specifics…however if they are playing in your town go see it. Without a single stage prop, idiotic ‘tween-song banter, or even rock star moves, these guys had the packed house at the Metro dumbfounded for the entire one and a half hour set with the simple power of talent and songwriting.
The Walkmen are my Rushmore.
More Creepy Photos! October 12, 2008
Posted by misterbuckets in Uncategorized.Tags: antique, chicago, chicagoist, found, misterbuckets, photography, photos
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Doctor appointments are never fun…so spice up the day with this tidbit from Mister Buckets: “Find the nearest antique shop and hunt down some creepy antique photos and then laugh at them.” CHECK IT.






















