If I Made the Magic 8-Ball...

You would shake it and it would say:

"All signs point to doing something brilliant, doing something stupid."

I probably wouldn't sell very many. Still...

*shakes magic 8-Ball*

More Than the Blur

Life has been pretty hectic lately. I've found myself spinning a lot more plates to their inevitable conclusion than I would have thought right now. But somewhere in that chaos, I can still remember to take the time to find the beauty in life. Cause it can go by pretty fast and I want to remember more than the blur.

So tonight, I'm sipping on a little Jamie and listening to new millenium music. New millenium music, eh? You betcha.

Every music magazine that has ever made a list of the 100 most essential albums tends to skew towards my father's record collection, not mine. Sure the Beatles and the Stones and the Beach Boys are all great. But when the Clash are the youngest act second to Nirvana (and sometimes Radiohead), its time to hit the refresh button.

Hence, new millenium music. Nothing with a release date before '00.

Hence, Modest Mouse. Blink 182. Franz Ferdinand. Regina Spektor. Even a little Black Eyed Peas. Maybe at some point soon, I'll actually sit down and write a list. But for now, I'm just as comfortable asking you what your new classics are. Drop me a line if it moves you.

How I Spent My Memorial Day Weekend

The Twilight Singers at the Clubhouse in Tempe.

I'll follow up with a few words soon. Then I can spare you all the the incessant Twilight Singery going on in my head lately.

Your Bitchin' Mixtape: the Twilight Singers

In celebration of our small road trip this weekend to see Greg Dulli and his Twilight Singers, I thought it best to come up with a new bitchin' mixtape. Here are your essential ingredients:

*2011's Dynamite Steps
#2006's A Stitch in Time (EP)
^2006's Powder Burns
+2004's She Loves You
~2003's Blackberry Belle

As usual, everything is sequenced to listen like the most killer of killer concerts you could hope to see. That means first act, long encore, small final encore. All restrained to the 80 minute confine of a CD. Tracks are sequenced for maximum flowability with the best songs weighted to the backend.


And now...
Your bitchin' Twilight Singers mixtape.

1.*Last Night in Town
2.~Teenage Wristband
3.^Forty Dollars
4.~Fat City (Slight Return)
5.+Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair
6.*Blackbird and the Fox
7.^Candy Cane Crawl
8.*Gunshots
9.^There's Been an Accident
10.^Bonnie Brae
11.*The Beginning of the End

12.+Feeling of Gaze
13.#Sublime
14.*Get Lucky
15.#The Lure Would Prove Too Much
16.~Number Nine

17.#Live With Me
18.^Underneath the Waves
19.~Follow Me Down

For best results, burn it onto a CD, pour yourself a nice scotch or irish blend and turn up the volume up. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.

the hardest part

The hardest part is the admission to yourself that you somehow lost your nerve. That somehow, you are failing yourself. Again.

So stop worrying about the road not taken and just choose a road, any road. Too many people don't and the end result is the same. They never get anywhere.

For me, that means kicking open some of the doors I've worked really hard to get to. Now is not the time for losing nerve. Take your chances, make your mistakes and laugh about it later.

Because honestly, I've been so exhausted and stressed to the point of breaking over the last few months, I lost my nerve. It's as simple as that. And when you do that, you lose your ability to dream big.

So, it's time to get out of my own way and change my life for the better.

indie

What, in this day and age, does it mean to be indie?

First person to tell me that I wouldn't get it gets socked in the face with a can of PBR as I defile their sweatervest and skinny jeans.

Indie used to mean something. Even after Nirvana was poached by Geffen records. Even after R.E.M. left IRS for Warner Brothers.

But in this day and age, where books can be published on demand (a tool, mind you, that is completely underutilized by comic publishers), what does that mean for artists? More artistic autonomy. A larger slice of the pie. A smaller pie.

Technology is moving faster than we can keep up. So what does that mean for content distribution in both the digital and tactile realms? How capable will artists actually be in delivering their message independently of corporate interference?

So, legitimately, I'm asking: What does indie mean to you?

I'd ask Joe Strummer but he killed punk the day he signed to CBS.

Stories That We Share Without a Word

"It was a funny thing, it was a sad thing," she sighed, "about that thing that happened."

Nervously, I contemplated deep and heavy looks over the rim of my glass as I stared away from the direction of her voice. The rocks in my whiskey had melted down to pebblish icy flotsam congregating at the top.

She reached for the cigarettes between us. Cigarette lit, she blew smoky rings into the air above us as they dispersed into the jazzy air of the club around us.

"But ultimately, we all know the truth. About that thing. That happened."

I nodded half heartedly.

"She had some pretty strange relationships, y'know."

Again, I nodded. Let my silence be my complicity.

The Ronin is NOT Out.

But the Ronin has been busy working on a number of things. More business than pleasure, really, but new reviews for DeVotchKa, the Strokes and Radiohead are pending and due soon. Also on the horizon: a re-examination of the Pharcyde's first two records, a new bitchin' mixtape for the Hold Steady, for Gogol Bordello and more hijinx waiting to ensue.

Until then, I leave you with Chicken Jr!

Ten Quick Thoughts Leftover From Collapse Into Now

1. I am really enjoying this album. Even after Accelerate, which was a really nice showing for a bunch of old guys.

2. Speaking of which, I also tend to really enjoy the majority of their second career doldrums. See the following thoughts.

3. UP gets a bad rap. If that album had been a debut for a new band, it would have destroyed the marketplace. (See also Pop by U2)

4. Around the Sun was also quite enjoyable for me. "Ascent of Man," "Aftermath," "Boy in the Well" and "Leaving New York" all got a lot of play in my home.

5. Reveal was... okay. I wasn't so crazy about that one.

6. While we're at it, beyond "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?" there's nothing on Monster I'd kill for either.

7. I wasted about a thousand words trying to figure out that last review. Some of you probably feel I could have wasted more. You're probably right.

8. Automatic for the People and Document are still the best albums this band has ever made.

9. Reviewing Collapse Into Now, I compared it to Document. Interestingly, and I could be wrong (but I don't think so), these are both contract fulfilling albums. What's next for our indie stalwart heroes?

10. People forget that R.E.M. were the most important American band of the Eighties. These guys were real punk rock in the sense that they showed anyone could do it. And from the Eighties to the Nineties, they inspired a lot of people to try. God bless.

Collapse into Now by R.E.M.

The tall shadow that has engulfed R.E.M.'s career is just that- their career. The first half of it was a thrilling ascension of critical and commercial acclaim as they managed to release Document, Green, Out of Time and Automatic for the People in the span of six years. Only U2 could stake an equal claim to alternative music's blueprint. The second half has been steeped in thematic missteps and crises of confidence.

With the release of Collapse into Now, the tallest shadow looming over the band has to be 1987's Document and this is a good, if not great, sign. The opening track alone, “Discoverer,” is oddly reminiscent of Document's opening call to arms, “Finest Worksong.” Its urgent, its anthemic, and its a dare to listen further. Following up with less than a breath's space to pause, “All the Best” shows the band moving at full tilt as they deliver their own brand of pop punk cheekiness. Easily, this one two punch, full of vim and vigor, is the best opening they've put on an album in more than a decade.

Not content to rest on their laurels, though, the band switches attacks as they move into the elegiac tracks of “Uberlin” and “Oh My Heart.” And so it goes as they rifle through their bag of tricks, borrowing from Out of Time's rural country flare at one moment and Automatic for the People's mournful balladry the next.

Unlike the majority of the last decade's output, Collapse into Now shows a confident understanding of what was missing from the other albums: abandon, sometimes reckless and sometimes not. The title alone makes the suggestion to give in to the moment and as the band does, they've managed to make an album that sprawls thematically but is musically engaging nonetheless.

This is the sound of a band in full control of their creative arsenal. They draw confidently upon the best of their tricks (such as the Out of Time like “Me, Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando and I”). They knowingly improve upon their faults and missteps (like speeding up Around the Sun's country pluck for this album's “Uberlin”).

Few examples could be more indicative of this than the closing “Blue.” With Patti Smith in tow crooning over walls of guitar feedback squallor, the obvious swipe here is New Adventures' “E-Bow the Letter.” But Stipe's vocals, which sound as though they're being delivered via bullhorn from a soapbox, is much more of an appropriation of Out of Time's “Country Feedback.” Stealing from either would be inspired, but here, it's genius.

As is Stipe's voice, the obvious but potent anchor to R.E.M.'s music. It's everything you want it to be here as he hooks choruses into your brain for days to come. Whether it's “Mine Smell Like Honey” or “Alligator_Aviator_Autopilot_Antimatter,” Stipe's gleefully anarchic vocals mainline the bratty energy of “It's the End of the World (and I feel fine).” It's not afraid and it dares you to sing along.