I once joked (to myself, mostly) that if I ever decided to drive north to where the roads end I could escape everything... everything but CBC Radio One. No matter how many times I pushed 'seek' and hoped for the dial to eat itself, I'd never be left with just static when that's what I really wanted. I'd always have dulcet pontificating about gardening or aviation history, and flute-heavy interstitials. (Turning the radio off, of course, was never an option...)

Well, it turns out that CBC is all I listen to now, but that is not the point.

Sunset Rubdown - Us Ones In Between

This song greeted me up north this summer on CBC's Freestyle. It came about two cigarettes from Blind River when I wasn't particularly looking for a soundtrack, but moreso for static. I was retracing footsteps my father had taken forty years ago, and I was on some sort of silent cathartic mission.

That guy from Wolf Parade comes on my radio, and distracts me with droning and twinkling and unsteady vocals; that's musical crack for me. I was taken out of my head, and all I wanted to do was stare at my shoes... Nothing else that came through the speakers on the ten hour drive could break me, from pop music's latest sentence fragment, to the Moody Blues.

And so this song has stayed with me, well past my mission or my road trip, or my summer. My whatever. It's so much more than Wolf Parade. Wolf Parade tries too hard. This is simple and sad, yet smirky all at once.

Imagine sitting and listening to static, hoping that a word, or a message will somehow form itself and come through. We've all done it. This is what becomes of static if it feels the need to sing or sound pretty. No one ever figures that will happen.

-kam

There's a million songs like this.

The first song I that hear by a band - the serious introduction to the band. This wasn't the first Sleater Kinney song I heard, but this was the first song of theirs that I played over and over. I've often considered compiling a million mix CDs of songs that I played incessantly, songs that would be the first thing I'd put on any given mix tape or CD, songs that I had to learn to play, played the chords to repeatedly, sang in the shower, and implored friends to listen to.

Sometimes they ended up being such great songs that the rest of the bands catalogue never quite compared. Sometimes they'd end up being my least favorite song by a band once I'd delved into the rest of their discs. I could give you examples of songs that I played so often, (my personal Billboard chart's longest charting singles), that I can't stand the chords of now. The point is, I guess, that these are the most important songs we'll hear, because they will end up on the CD you compile in your head when you think of any given time, situation or place. That's kinda the point, I think.

Sleater Kinney - One More Hour

-kevin