“Full Disclosure” – Line & Circle. Fall has finally arrived. We were pushing 90 earlier this week – with the heat indices well above 90 – but suddenly this morning it was below 40 and people were scrambling to turn on their furnaces. The next week promises only one day above 60. Mother Nature is a bitch… Perfectly timed is this song, which may hew a little too close to early R.E.M., but still fits the mood of the season, when the days get shorter and thoughts get a little more wistful.
“The Flowers Beneath Your Feet” – Laura Carbone & The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Keeping it in the fall vibe is this dreamy, shoe-gazey gem. Carbone opened for TPOBPAH on their most recent tour, and they sat down to write and record this song together after. You would think they had been recording together for years based on this track.
“Spit” – IAN SWEET. IAN SWEET is a band, not a man, thus, I guess, the all CAPS offering of their name. I don’t listen to 90s music nearly as much as I do 80s music these days. But when I hear a song like this, that recalls the best of the middle part of that decade, I’m all for cranking it up.
“Panic Attack” – Liza Anne. Steven Hyden put Anne’s album, Fine But Dying, on his list of near-great albums you may have missed over the summer. He was right, it is a really good piece of work. However, I’ve struggled with what to share from it because it is filled with a bunch of B+ songs, but there is no great, centerpiece song that stands out. I finally picked this, one of my favorites, but like so many others comes up just short of being something I throw into my Best of ’18 working list.
“Eyes to the Wind” – The War on Drugs. Yeah, I know I’ve shared this one before. But it fits the moment and YouTube keeps wanting me to watch it again.
It fits the moment because, back in 2014 when the song was new, I was making a quick grocery store run right around dusk on the last night of summer when this song came on. The air was warm and heavy, but the earlier sunset was a reminder that winter wasn’t that far away. I also believe that was the first time I noticed the song had some strong elements of Bob Seger’s music in it. I found some irony and pleasure that I was driving a large Chevrolet automobile listening to something that recalled Seger. Forty years earlier on the last night of summer, there were probably plenty of dudes driving around in Chevys listening to Seger with the windows down. When the weather changes, I always think of this song.
As for the YouTube thing, I guess I’ve watched this video a lot because no matter what I’m watching on YT, this will always be sitting over in the right column as a suggestion of what to watch next. Doesn’t matter if I’m watching another music video, a sports highlight, or something completely different, there it is. So a few times a year I click on it and I’m sure that keeps it over there.
There’s so much to like here, but by far the highlight is the ridiculous guitar solo that begins at the 3:55 mark. Adam Granduciel has a whole closet-full of epic solos, but, man, this one gives me every single feel. He plays so hard he knocks his headphones off, which is kind of fresh.
Usually after watching I check out their Austin City Limits performance of the song. The audio isn’t as good, but it has the added bonus of adding an outrageous sax solo that kicks in at the 4:30 mark.