Don't you let us fit in

Yes, another roundup. Surprise!

Day: 5/16/06
Song Whenzy
Artist: Tiny Hawks
Source: Live, Album, here

Short version:
Tiny Hawks played here and rocked. Musically they fall somwhere inbetween the spastic energy of early Gravity records bands and the disjointed mathy-ness of Cap'n Jazz or 12 Hour Turn, bound together by a strong tonal (not quite "melodic" but still pretty catchy as these things go) sense and skillful playing. When they were done the guy behind me said, "I'm dizzy now." They have a new album which just came out, but this song was one of the few they played off their previous recording and is available for free download to boot!

Long version:
Occasionally pesky questions pop into my mind as to why and whether I am still compelled by the diy hardcore/punk/whatever scene. After all I am 30, have a house and a job and supposed to be a grown up. Punk is supposed to be a young person's game of late nights and messin' with the man. Or something. Thing that are hard to do when you have to work in the morning and pay billz.

...and then a band like Tiny Hawks will come to town. They set up on the floor and played a whirlwind set with a mix of passion, fury, humor and heart rarely found elsewhere.

Truth is I never was too "punk" as it is popularly conceived. I never charged my hair or dyed it. I rarely sneer. This scene for me was about revolution but one of a small nature. It was about carving out the spaces - physicaly, mental, musical, social - where you could relaize the parts of yourself not embraced elsewhere and learn to cultivate them in the rest of your life. It was about stiving to create, even if only for short periods, a more free and humane world for yourself and those around you. Its not as cool as anarchy or as sexy as self-destruction. Nor is it as noble as fighting hunger or supporting women's shelters or campaigning for environmental causes. On the other hand it is concrete and immediate and helps give you the strength and confidence to pursue those other things.

This is what the show and band was about, from their ideosyncratic music to their choice of venue. Not to over sell it, in the end the Tiny Hawks show was just a concert where some intersting bands played. But those people in that undergound space reinforced this idea that diy is a concept with power and resonance. We can do it ourselves and with a little luck and dedication it will be full of passion, fury, humor and heart.


Day: 5/18/06
Song: Goin' Against Your Mind
Artist: Built to Spill
Source: You in Reverse (album), you can listen to a stream of it here
Built to Spill's return to form. I felt a bit let down by Ancient Melodies of the Future so I got the new album as much out of a sense of duty as genuine excitement. Thankfully duty faded away on this, the first track. Indie rock at its finest: catchy, adventurous, but in a simple, understated, "I could do that" way. (If I were as good a songwriter, that is.) It also has all the hallmarks of classic BtS: the propulsive guitars, the way they push the song interesting directions, the way Doug's voice floats above it all, the insistant melody. Its a song that has stuck with me, popping into my head at random times, like on this day when I was getting some lunch and a little voice in my head started singing "hiding things that no one wants to find."


Day: 5/19/06
Song: Sometimes I Still Feel the Bruise
Artist: the Mountain Goats
Source: Babylon Springs EP
New Mountain Goats! 4 new songs and a cover! This song is the cover. The grim humor of the lyrics lightens the mood some ("You left an impression/sometimes I still feel the bruise") and the restraint of the vocals and arrangement keeps it from being maudelin or a mopefest. Still this is perhaps the saddest music in the world. We're not just talking unrequited love or lost love here, the song is an ode to a lost, unrequited love. The understated execution lets the song do the work, letting the detatched ache of the lyrics soak through. It makes the song all the more devistating, creating a sense of the narrator's powerlessness to act on his desire.

Day: 5/20/06
Song: new paths to helicon 1
Artist: Mogwai
Live at First Avenue
Everything that made the early Mogwai records great. A simple, simple, simple melody made grand and impossibly beautiful through careful arrangement and use of guitar effects. So many things that are usually opposed - noise/pop, simple/complex, atmospheric/catchy, rock/bliss, spare/epic - exist side by side here. This is Ur-rock.

Day: 5/22/06
Song: The Other Side of Mt Heartattack
Artist: Liars
Source: Drums Not Dead
In a strange way this reminds me of one of my favorite songs, Spiritualized's "Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space". I'm not sure they actually sound that much alike; I think resemblance has something to do with tempo, the repetition of the lyrics, and the similarities in the way the "aaahh-ah" vocal accompaniment plays off the guiar line and vocals of Liars' song and the way the main instrumentation plays off the various layered vocals of the Spiritualized tune. The point of comparison is interesting (if I do say so myself) because while they might be similar muscially they are quite different lyrically. Where Jason Pierce is singing about being unmoored (the story is the album was written after his logntime girlfriend and Spiritualized member married someone else), Liars could not be more anchored. "I can always be found" and "I will stay by your side" they sing. These straighforward, unadorned declarations are matched by their version of the music which abandons the arty, shimmering drones of the rest of the album in favor of a few simple figures which build upon each other.

Day: 5/23/06
Mountain Goats redux, see 5/19

Day: 5/25.06
Song: House of Cats
Artist: Meneguar
Source: "I was Born at Night" Album, here!
OK I've slept on this one for a while. THey toured through here last summer with Gospel and the people I know who went to the show came back raving. Now a year later, I'm finally getting around to giving the album a listen. What can I say? I should have listened to them (and gone to the show, but that's a different story).

Their sound falls somewhere between the great gaping Jaws of early 90s punk-type music - Jawbreaker and Jawbox - with a little Hellbender (especially the vocals) and Braid thrown into the mix. If that means nothing to you, umm... the guitars wind around each other in a driving, angular way like Modest Mouse in double time until they come crashing around the vocals. The singing is rough and tuneful and is refreshingly earnest but not preachy. The whole thing is a "jump around the room, pissed, defiant and gleeful" kind of affair. They're setting someone one notice but they also want to dance.

..and then they get to the breakdown/coda, which is a total anthem in and of itself. Click on the link and wait for the breakdown where they start singing "one hand is broken and the other needs a break", hopefully you'll see what I mean.