My Most Awkward Years: Musically Distilled

This is a mash-up of a bunch of songs from the 90s brought to my attention by a fellow wild child of those halcyon days—days that are just as bleak even veiled by nostalgia.


Nineties FTW (Wick-it's 90's Rock Nostalgia Overdose Mashup) by Wick-it the Instigator

If somebody with ProTools was able to similarly condense my existence spanning the years this music was made, the resulting song would entail a machine-gun staccato of crying, masturbating and taking Accutane for my acne. It would sound akin to a Joanna Newsom live album.

This summer went by quickly. I know that sentence makes me sound like a schoolteacher lamenting the return to the classroom, but I am not a schoolteacher because: a) what if anyone found this treasure trove of closet skeletons? and b) I do not like children. All of a sudden it's fall in New York and the sun is setting earlier and I am getting crankier but also reorienting myself with some direction. The blurry summer passed, a shot of methadone focus is definitely in order. Primarily, I am resolving to eliminate negativity (and sources of negativity) and only fight for and with that which fulfills me. My first thought after writing that sentence is to sell all my belongings, quit working and eat cheeseburgers and fried pickles every day until my heart explodes with joy and hypertension. Although that's one path to a greasy form of enlightenment, and Buddha is always depicted as a chubby fellah, it isn't really what I meant. I aim to seek out good people who appreciate my talents, encouraging and inspiring me, and not waste any time with or for those who do not.

Two quotes from one story by the incomparable Southern writer Barry Hannah struck a chord today:

Wretched hesitation ... is what embalms our lives, and that was what age demanded of you more and more, to get less and less life.

I've seen peers accept "less and less life" for the past ten years and it's a been a terrible thing to witness. People who used to seem so full of life are both aging toward boredom and personifying it. Their unnatural progression makes me want to quit Facebook. Ten years ago we flung ourselves toward excitement both haphazardly and erroneously without care or regard for the consequences, only a yearning for escape from suburban drudgery. I only assumed that my partners in crime would just grow older and choose wiser ways to get our fun, our "adult" kicks; instead of sneaking past our parents with a flask of whiskey we'd be vaulting past the rubes trading years of fluorescent office imprisonment for a chance at eventual freedom—retirement at 65, provided they live that long—with a freewheeling jaunt toward success without boundaries. And it hasn't happened. And as much as I'd like to think that they're the only ones who've given up, I must admit to my own struggles with "wretched hesitation."

Another:

I was desperate and would have been throbbing in shame but I was still drunk enough to ignore it and was majoring on the theme Whim of Fortune, and I believe trying to attach myself to a woman of such low estate that the two of us would destroy ourselves in spontaneous combustion at an impossible diving speed.

Now this quote is not quite as introspective as its predecessor, but knowing Hannah's life I think it's more than semi-autobiographical. He's at the pulse of a feeling I've had once or twice or ten times in the past, and evoked with the dexterity of a F-15 fighter pilot, fingers flying Mach-1 over the keyboard. As a young writer, Hunter S. Thompson typed the novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald to get the flow of his hero's writing. To get his rhythm. I only hope that typing Hannah's words can move me in similar ways.

So was that mash-up above the soundtrack to my most awkward years, or have the songs to that time in my life even been written yet? I don't know. But after surviving my first earthquake (yes, in Brooklyn) and a hurricane that shut down all public transportation in the city and called for evacuations in the same week, I biked down to Greenwood Cemetery for a few hours of wandering mental clarity.

And then I grilled cheeseburgers. Everyone deals with mortality differently.

Whoa, Maybe I Should Start a Heady New Brooklyn Music Blahg Brah

conduct breast cancer screenings every year on your friends

Or maybe not. But with the amount of time I have been wasting spending listening to music lately — both live and, er, dead? — I thought I would share a couple of recent thoughts and finds. In recent posts I have talked about rappers with interesting voices and the fact that listening to late-50s era Hawaiian records on cold gray rainy days could theoretically make you happier and more productive, but I caught a show last week (does that phrase sound like a euphemism for getting a venereal disease?) that revitalized my love of live music, especially "catching a show" that doesn't cost a ridiculous amount of money to see (or cure).

When I lived in Athens, GA, there was always so much music to be seen, and covers/tickets were always pretty cheap, otherwise I wouldn't have gone because I was a broke college student whose monthly budget — and how I spent my time — was usually broken down as follows:

~ 35-55% finding "things" with names like "Hawaiian Sativa", "Princess", "Grape-le", "Outdoor Indo"

~ 25-35% eating, trying to eat, driving somewhere to eat, grilling on the front patio, buying food

~ whatever % is left was for drinking, girls, drinking with girls, reading, drawing, listening to music and school (and school was always last)

But you could go out on a random Tuesday, plop down a $5 cover and see a great performance from a band you'd never heard of before (this link also shows the beautiful Georgia Theatre before it burned down). I even saw Kings of Leon (when they were good, around 2004, which was coincidentally when they could barely play their instruments other than make a bunch of noise and howl) and My Morning Jacket play at the 40 Watt Club, a small standing room only venue that only fits about 300 people. The MMJ show was a "costume required" show they called the Under The Sea Prom — everyone was required to wear prom or "under the sea" attire and they threatened to deny entrance unless you conformed to the dress code. They wore pastel tuxes and rubber Elvis hair, played songs like "Dancin' In The Moonlight" and "Johnny B. Goode" and even elected a King and Queen for the night: it was a three-hour dance party and the most fun I've ever had at a concert.

Pre-show dance party at my brother's apartment, listening to The Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet, the best pre-show album of all time:

At the show, random blond stickin' her finger in my nose, probably because I was groping her all night.

lookin' for love in all the wrong places

All that being said, (probably unnecessarily) I went and saw Morning Teleportation at Brooklyn Bowl last Friday for $5, and it reminded me just how great SOME of the music here in Brooklyn can be: Just like Athens, there is a ton of flotsam, basically the result of the ratio of available time slots at bars, lazy club bookers and underemployed twenty-somethings wanting to have a band and skateboard.

This was one of my favorite songs of the night, because I think it best represents the band's rootsy, picking guitar playing that doesn't come across as folksy, but instead modern and splashy.



The whole performance is up on the band's YouTube channel and is worth watching if only to look for the guy wearing the neon green suit; I think the "hit song" that you may have heard is Expanding Anyway.

An upcoming show that isn't crazy expensive and worth checking out if you're in New York is my friend Kurt's band, Country Mice, at The Knitting Factory on Friday. If you don't like the song "Ghost" (streaming from the link above), I probably won't like you. It's a damn-near perfect rock song, just like Kurt's mustache is damn-near perfect.

Also, my token African friend Jasper's band, North Highlands, is fresh out tha studio and is playing later this month at the Mercury Ballroom. Go see them immediately (later this month). I will be in Ohio filming a documentary about Lionhead Rabbits, but you should go and dance and twirl and go to Nice Guy Eddie's afterward to eat cheap hot wings, drink shitty beer and play Naked Photo Hunt and just have an all-around classy night out on New York's hip and trendy Lower East Side. (That is the grossest sentence I have ever written.) Here's their amazing video that features Jasper's amazing van.



Finally, for a band that I have no ties to but has come onto my radar (which sounds vaguely dirty porno sexual if you change the spelling a little) is a band with a relatively awful name, Apache Dropout, but with a lo-fi anthemic sound that I'm diggin' on right now. I want to listen to them while dancing with girls dressed all in black with bleach-blond hair, drinking whiskey and cheap beer from cans and making out while waiting in line for the single bathroom with a broken lock. You can download the first side of their LP at the link above: Listen to "Sam Phillips Rising" over and over and support your bad habits and theirs by buying the album.

Love the cover art, courtesy of Bull City Records:

Also, I think my rabbit's tail is getting too long? Does anyone have any information about this? How long is too long for a bunny tail?

Oh, three more things then I promise I'm done. One: You should save up your allowance and get cultured and smart by seeing my dear friend Cat on Broadway in War Horse, which officially opens today! It had a huge run in London and it is Steven Spielberg's next film, which is slated to come out in December. Congrats to Cat who is the hardest working woman in show-biz that I know, and here's to a long, multi-season run! While you're in that area of town gettin' some culture, don't be fooled by thinking you'll take a break from being smart if you follow this sign:

It is NOT a midtown location for the Insane Clown Posse but instead a bunch of artsy photographs, if you're into that kinda thing, so don't be fooled.

Two, I want to once again issue a formal apology to my friend Stephanie for missing my call to be in Abel Ferrera's new film and get yelled at by Willem Dafoe. That was a mistake I'll never live down and I'm sorry.

Three, I am now going to start editing/programming my friend Matt's great website, Staccato, featuring the best micro-fiction available on the webz. What began as a literary mag in Athens is being reborn once again in Brooklyn and soon in paper form! But for now, check out the website where we will be publishing submitted stories twice weekly. Submit! Read!

Final non-sequitur, this disturbs me: What is corn up to? And what is Korn up to?