“Broken Arrows” - Francisco The Man Plenty of artists brought the rock in 2012. We’ve already heard from Bob Mould and Corin Tucker. We will still hear from other artists who made sure that the spirit of rock was present. This track, though, takes a slightly different approach to rocking. It begins as a fairly standard alt-rock piece. Jangly electric guitars. A decent-enough melody. Nice vocals, although the lyrics are difficult to pull out of the noise.
I knew it was coming. For two weeks, as rumors swirled, I expected that one night, probably late int the evening, word would come that the Royals had traded their top prospect, outfielder Wil Myers. Likely for a starting pitcher. Almost certainly for one that had value, but still was too flawed to be an ace for the Royals. So it was no surprise when, last night, as I was checking Twitter one last time before bed, the news was just breaking that Myers and others were headed to Tampa for James Shields and Wade Davis.
“Capricornia” - Allo, Darlin' Speaking of songs that are perfect for summer… Here is an impossibly gorgeous song about the bittersweetness of leaving things you love behind in order to chase your dreams.
“You Kill” - Eternal Summers Some bands name themselves after their sound, the Clash being the most famous example. That is the case for the Eternal Summers, who make shiny, happy music to be played endlessly over summer weekends. Take this song, for example, which tells the story of the beginnings, and endings, of a romance. Doesn’t it sound like something you would want to hear, ohhh, a million times while you wasted your summer away at the neighborhood pool?
“Answering Machine” - Scout The most controversial song in the countdown. But only because of my silly music rules. Should a cover, a song both written and made famous by someone else, get consideration as one of my favorites for a given year? Often I would say no. But when it is as exceptional as this one, I say yes. The 1984 original was a classic Replacements song, sounding as though it was recorded after a marathon drinking session.
“Lafaye” - School Of Seven Bells (Administrative note: the countdown will continue over the weekend, so check back Saturday and Sunday for songs #15 and #14.) I’ve always enjoyed sub-genres like Dream Pop and Shoegaze. Noisy, atmospheric realms where lyrics are often difficult to discern, but where you can close your eyes and completely disappear inside the soundscape. School Of Seven Bells' Ghostory was my favorite Dream Pop album of the year.
Many of my regular readers are on our Christmas card list. Thus, they know that we generally go with the obvious option and just slap a picture of the girls on it. Over the years, that process has become problematic. I have no idea why, but there’s something about lining up for a picture in Christmas pajamas or other holiday outfit that makes our girls lose their minds. And thus we lose ours.
“Groundhog Day” - Corin Tucker Band The second 1990s indie rock hero to make the list, Tucker was one of the founding women of the Riot Grrrl movement. With Carrie Brownstein she formed Sleater-Kinney, a band that helped to set the standard for women who wanted to make intelligent, socially-conscious music that also rocked hard. She hits all those points here. Smart? Check. Socially conscious? She doesn’t know how not to be.
“Peacemaker” - Jesca Hoop Massive. That’s the word that pops into my head each time I listen to this song. It is huge, punching you in the mouth and demanding your attention. Even if you wanted to, you couldn’t turn it off or skip to the next track. But why would you? It’s freaking brilliant. Hoop’s genius is combing vaguely Siouxsie & The Banshees-esque music with those killer, tribal drums and then putting her modern spin on an ancient Greek tale of women withholding sex from their men in order to end war.
“October” - The Helio Sequence Echoing early U2, this Portland duo offered a gorgeous set of atmospheric pop on their Negotiations album. This track fits the month it is named after perfectly. Warm, with a hint of a chill in the background. A reminder that no matter how perfect things may seem, there is always something just below the surface that can upset them.
Lots of sports, and sports-related things, from the weekend. Friday I had my first boys basketball game of the season. It was a 20-point loss, which is about what I expected. My team actually got as close as seven in the second half, which was not expected. Thanks to a double overtime JV game, I only had time to file a brief story, which was just fine with me. The news from the evening was my attempt at local food.
“Star Machine” - Bob Mould Last summer was was the summer of Mould. In July, all three Sugar albums got the remaster/rerelease treatment and I spent a couple weeks wallowing in Mould’s epic, mid-90s pop. It came as a surprise six weeks later when he dropped a new solo album, a nifty recreation of the classic Sugar sound. Like another 50-something artist from Minneapolis, he can still crank out peerless pop when he sets his mind to it.
I wonder how many songs I listened to this year. Thing is, despite using multiple tools to track what I listen to and how often I do so, I purge so many tracks after sampling them a time or two, that I would imagine the majority of the songs I screen are buried deep in a virtual pit of 1s and 0s. So there’s no real way of knowing exactly how many individual tracks I listened to over the past 12 months.
M. took another step in her religious life last night when she had her First Reconciliation. I’m told this is a big deal if you’re Catholic. In the van after school yesterday, C. asked her what it was that she would be doing later in the evening. As best as I can remember it, here is M.’s response: Well, later, next spring, there's this big thing called First Communion. And it's about getting closer to Jesus or whatever.
It was a fine Thanksgiving weekend for the B’s. As I mentioned last week, we hosted the family get-together this year. We had 16, which for our family is small, but still takes some work to prepare for. I did the bird and stuffing. I narrowly avoided disaster with the bird. My thermometer wasn’t working correctly so I guessed on when to take it out of the oven. Turns out I left it in a little too long.
I might be slipping. You’ll probably recall how I’ve generally been militant about Christmas preparations not starting until after Thanksgiving. That meant no trees up, no holiday music, no exterior decorations, and profound head shaking each time I saw a Christmas commercial before we’ve carved the first turkey of the season. This year, though, I’ve been looking forward to the Christmas season since September. In early October I found myself spending far too much time examining the holiday lighting section at Lowe’s.
How I Became a Famous Novelist - Steve Hely I knew when I picked this up that it was a novel, a satire of our current pop culture where anyone can become famous regardless of how much (or little) talent they possess. But I’ll admit, I just might have been hoping to find the secret to getting published while making my way through it. If only it was as easy as the title suggests.
An oddly busy Monday, with a couple appointments in the morning and the need to squeeze some leaf collection activities in before St. P’s lets out for the day. So I’ll try to crank out some notes here. A mixed bag of football action for me over the weekend. The two teams I care about, the Jayhawks and the Colts, got thrashed. But the games I didn’t have a vested interest in, particularly the K-State-Baylor and Stanford-Oregon games, were terrific to watch.
I am sooo reluctant to write this, but I can’t put it off any longer: the Kansas State Wildcats are the best story in sports right now. Blech. Who, even among the most optimistic of K-Staters, saw this coming? With two winnable games left, the Wildcats are almost certainly going to play in the BCS title game. If they luck out, it will be against a good, but not ready for prime time, Notre Dame team.
I planned on posting some pre/early season thoughts on KU basketball yesterday, but got distracted by one thing after another, and decided to watch last night’s game against Michigan State first. The game confirmed everything I was thinking about this year’s squad: they are immensely talented with some glaring weaknesses and are certainly overrated now, but have the benefit of everyone being in love with KU/Bill Self after last March’s run and people ranking them based on where they think they’ll be next March.