Minding the Gaps

Catching up here and there

The song I mentioned that crushed me (this is a good thing by the way) is by Cloud Cult. I am not sure the name of the song, but I'm working on it.

Day: 7/6/06
Song: Vocal Test
Artist: Integrity
Source: Humanity is the Devil
I go back and forth between an almost naive optimism about the human condition and extreme misanthropy. This day, after witnessing new levels of pettiness, passive aggression and agressive agression in a local movie house of all places, I swung to the latter. Appropriately enough I had a copy of Integrity's Humanity is the Devil in the car with me to blast on my way home.

As you can guess from the title, Cleveland's finest weren't very satisified with the whole homo sapiens thing (there's even a little booklet/treatise included in early versions of the record about how the Judeo-Christian god has given up on its creations, handing over their care to the demons who are now 90% of the population trying to tempt and damn the remaining 10) and this revulsion comes through in their mix of hardcore, metal, and mosh. This track is just what it says it is, a wordless string of vocal screams over heavy, loud, heavy, riffs to make sure they can be heard. (Kind of like if instead of saying "check, check, check" while setting up, bands played slayer.) Since its not trying to be a "song" it has a direct, expressionist kind of punch. Music for the end times.

Day: 6/23/06
Song: please come home to hamngatan
Artist: the Mountain Goats
Source: Ghana
After they ended the US's hopes at making it out of pool play, I felt I should pay tribute to the Black Stars, by ...errr... listening to indie acoustic rock. But the name of the collection is Ghana! That counts for something right?

Anyway this song is one of my favorites in the tMG cannon, a simple idea excecuted with great skill. Like many of their highlights, this song captures a mindset and situation so vividly, its like meeting someone at a party whose on the verge of falling apart and then having them unload on you. Only its far more pleasant because you're not really at a party, you're at home listening to a record, and there's a pleasant tune that accompanies the whole thing. Also there's something about the mention of "moose" at the very end that sends this one over the top.

Day: 7/7/06
Song: Christmas Isn't Christmas
Artist: Meneguar
Source: I was Born At Night
Meneguar's combination of influences (Braid, Jawbox, Jawbreaker and other 90s bands that straddled the indierock/punk/hardcore divide) are a perfect combination for summer biking, which is what I was doing this evening. Energetic, insistant and defiant, yet still fun and catchy.