zero

you want to travel with her and you want to travel blind

2007-12-20T05:24:56Z

I very rarely develop crushes on the subjects of songs. There is, of course, the girl from "Underwhelmed" by Sloan. Every guy knows her. Every guy has a crush on her. Every guy never does anything about it. But then there's "Suzanne", that purveyor of earthy sadness who may feed me tea and oranges all the way from China. I remember waking up in the country one Sunday- there was a snowstorm, and CBC was doing a piece on the actual "Suzanne" on the TV. She's homeless in California. She never had sex with Leonard Cohen. She shows me where to look among the garbage and the flowers. People like this don't seem to exist in everyday conversation. Not around these parts, anyway. I think the closest I ever met was an Australian in India... but she just went back home to work at the bank. Anyway, everyone knows the original. Here are a few versions from artists I love, or at the very least, find interesting. I think my favourite one is The Fairport Convention. Because a) I am a mark for British psych-folk and b) love the way it slowly burns, unlike the original which is hypnotic, but hence, sleepy. Fairport Convention - Suzanne Peter Gabriel - Suzanne Francoise Hardy - Suzanne Nick Cave - Suzanne -kam

dance colin, dance

2007-11-24T06:46:38Z

Grant-Lee Phillips - I Often Dream of Trains (Robyn Hitchcock cover) The Wedding Present - Back for Good (Take That cover) Every year, at the first snowfall, I seem to pine for the previous year's first snowfall. It doesn't help that this year... I was already mired in last year. Which is odd, because things are remarkably different in a positive way... almost strangely so. Listen to the songs... am I trying to depress myself? I just know that no matter how happy I ever get, I will always a) dream of trains (& Grant-Lee Phillips singing in front of my corner store) and b) want you back for good. Two cover songs here, and this is not unintentional. Every passing year seems to cover the last, whether it be a simple acoustic rewrite, or a video with Marilyn Manson in a hot tub. -kam

the copout

2007-09-05T04:23:28Z

I'm going to keep this one simple since I'm currently suffering from the disease that is 'time'. And while Saturday is purported to be the climax of a typically soul-crushing week, it's becoming my least favourite day. But I'll try my best to appreciate it, as I once did maybe eighteen years ago when Saturday meant staying in pyjamas watching "Superstars of Wrestling" followed by "American Gladiators", where welders and waitresses dodged Nerf balls thrown by the same guy you just saw Junkyard Dog beat up an hour before. He 'grabbed them cakes' to the point I got dressed and rode my bike down to the park to point at fish mutating in the radioactive creek while kids fell off the creative playground and broke limbs in the background. My brothers, meanwhile, rode banana-seat bikes and played Dungeons & Dragons in the garage, until Calvin, the kid with the learning disability, got a d20 in the eye. For the longest time, I thought the "dinner bell" rung from the front porch was a part of my imagination, but no, it actually happened. Home then, for beefaroni, and to play Commodore, while my mom watched "Golden Girls" as the North Stars found Borje Salming's unique brand of Swedish defence impenetrable on the CBC. Chicago - Saturday In The Park This song, perhaps, is what it may have been like had it all gone well for the characters in "Requiem For A Dream". And somehow this song is timeless even though I know full well it isn't. I can just keep it here, in my ranks of databanks and play it when I feel like bathing in certain aromas of nostalgia. I don't like having that sort of control- I much prefer nostalgia as a surprise- but perhaps I'm still bitter, because everytime I go to a retro-diner, I feed the table-top jukebox quarters, yet it's woefully out of order. Buy Chicago - V maybe? Bah, I don't know, I just wanted to make a post. -kam

nostalgia & the foot-stink

2007-08-08T05:54:53Z

the gandharvas... Seems pompous, perhaps a bit like something Jeff Martin should have done, to name your band after the minstrels that make music for Hindu gods. But the gandharvas never sent me incense in the mail, no, they always seemed more cheerful than that. The perfect soundtrack for riding your bike around the church parking lot Sunday afternoons when the Buick LeSabres finally drove away, scraped out Jello moulds and irreverent weekly gossip in tow. But I was a little too old for that in the 1990s. The gandharvas may as well have been the house band on 102.1 the Edge's "Live In Toronto", the self-important yet sorely missed dinner hour rundown of all things alternative in the city of Toronto, hosted by the perpetually unphased Kim Hughes. (She talked me through my tenth grade math homework.) It seemed the gandharvas had found that meal-ticket of 90s Canadian alt-rock in regular rotation, that should have scored them beer promotions and roadside attractions. But it was never meant to be. And I don't know why. But I'm glad. While my peers praised "The Hip", I insisted on Paul Jago who may have sounded like Perry Farrell with more phlegm, but less like a Transformer. He was best remembered for wearing a t-shirt that said "Girlie Boy" in the video for "Downtime". While Our Lady Peace, I Mother Earth and the like are all fetishized as being something a bit better than they were for the sake of nostalgia (and perhaps a little Can-Con), the gandharvas seem to have faded out, reappearing every so often on request hours, or within Holly McNarland's stage banter. It seems I was on to something special that came and went like a summer romance, leaving question marks behind in lieu of latching on to a jilted American singer's new project. We shared a few public displays of affection, but for the most part remained comfortable, embedded in private moments with the stars and the waves and a couple bags of cotton candy from the carnival in the distance. Yes, the gandharvas are a part of my own personal "Wonder Years". But they yet remain timeless. Something that the radio, or the townie reunions can't make me get sick of. the gandharvas - The Masochistic Minstrel From the forgotten sophomore album from a mostly forgotten band... those with sharp, patient memories will remember the claymation video. I don't, really, but I'm confident it was no more lame than anything Tool ever put on screen. But yes. Timeless. A welcome song to remember on these nights when it feels time is being told by melting clocks. The album "Kicking In The Water" seems to be out of stock everywhere except for the mothy corners of my closet. Keep an eye out for gandharvas albums here. -kam This entire entry could also apply to the band Pure. But... naaaah. Not the same. Not as good.

I'm Indifferent to You, Rob Crow

2007-07-18T04:38:58Z

Is it too late for me to "get into" Rob Crow? Crow’s one of those guys who has about 40 bands plus 30 side projects, and unless you’ve been following him seriously for at least five years, it’s guaranteed that you’ll get lost along the way. I’ve delved into Heavy Vegetable quite a bit and a little bit into Pinback, but am still ignorant of the ways of Thingy, Physics, Optigonally Yours, The Ladies, Holy Smokes and yes, even the mighty Goblin Cock (with that name, they must be described as “mighty”). See, when I heard this song… Heavy Vegetable - Abducted By The Work Aliens …I was sold on Heavy Vegetable. When I heard this song… Pinback - Tripoli …I was sold on Pinback. Basically, I need someone out there to suggest a single song by any of the other Crow projects that you think will “sell” me on it. So tell me what you think the best Goblin Cock song is, and I’ll see if I can be sold on Goblin Cock. Did I mention one of the side projects is called “Goblin Cock”? This is less a typical post and more a plea for help, so I urge any of you out there to help me in my quest for the mighty Gobl…oh, forget it…saying it for a fifth time would be redundant. Buy Fast Tempos And Odd Time Signatures (Heavy Vegetable) Here! And Pinback, the band that everyone describes as “emo”. I don’t see an emo connection at all. I mean, come on….is every band who plays slighty sad, slow songs “emo”? Where do we draw the line? I’m going to try not to say that word for two months. "Emo", I mean. Not “Goblin Cock”. Anyway, Buy Pinback Here! -kevin

straight up, now tell me...

2007-06-27T03:49:39Z

The Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin

"can the poems, it's ass whooping time!" Lately, this song is following me everywhere, from the soundtrack to "Easy Rider", to the DVD menu for an episode of "The Sopranos", all the way back to AM oldies radio. I've always loved the Moody Blues. Well, that's not true. Of my parents' record collection, this was the least offensive to my eleven year old ears on summer nights when my father and I played ping pong in the basement. He let me choose the music, and this was my favourite, after Bill Cosby. It was just him and I... my mom would be hard at work sewing us all summer clothes, and my brothers were out and about riding bikes or building forts. It was the age before the internet, afterall. Nostalgia aside, I find them overwhelmingly average in the canon of late 60's pomp-rock. Nowadays they may be found playing casinos along-side the likes of Carrot Top, Hootie & The Blowfish and... Bob Dylan? Whenever I get the chance, I play this song over and over again for whoever will hear it. I remember last summer it coming on one of those classic rock stations up north, driving back to our campsite from Wawa. "The Rock" or "The Moose" or "The Pinecone" or something. I could have nearly crashed the car, it put me in such a head-space... even though for most it draws imagery of a shirtless Fabio on the cover of a Harlequin or broken-hearted maidens jumping off of promontories against a gale. But to the criticism I hear when I get in those urges, and play it over and over again... I just argue that this legitimately could be an album-closer for The Arcade Fire. And then, somehow, it would be bonafide brilliance by today's standards, whatever they are this week. It suffers because it's still in rotation on 106.7, The Wolf in North Bay... (boating advisories to follow...) but why should that matter? Please watch the video. There is something oddly hypnotic about it. There is a home video of my brother and I performing "Unskinny Bop" that is more true to life than this. None of you will ever see it though. Buy The Moody Blues. I spared you the full-length version with the poetry and the wankery... but only because I doubt your interest. All of you. -kam

Help Me Bust Up This Chiffarobe

2007-06-20T06:10:12Z

I used to do my best to make it out to local shows; I’d pay my three bucks and watch five or six bands do their damndest to impress the fifteen people in attendance, especially trying to bowl over the 5 or six people that they didn’t bring with them. After a spell (sorry, I’ve just been reading To Kill A Mockingbird, so I’m prone to say “after a spell” and “ain’tcha ‘fraid of hain’ts?”), I decided that pretty much every local band was terrible, including any of the ones I was involved in. Most bands would do something to give me a healthy dose of the “douche-shivers”, such as laying sheets of wood on the stage before their set, (as not to damage the stage when they trashed their instruments), or only jumping around during the cover song they were playing, displaying that, like the audience, they were also completely bored with their originals. I’m glad I didn’t stop attending these local mistake pageants, because I began to discover one or two dynamic bands whose records ended up in my regular rotation. The first of these bands were the Candidates. I saw them open for Die Cheerleader (then known as Cheerleader 666), and was mighty impressed with their banter, which included mocking a band made up of Jehovah’s Witnesses that failed to turn up for the show, and several boasty claims of rock n’ roll superiority. Theirs was the first local CD I bought from a band that a) didn’t go to my high school or b) my brother wasn’t in. After the ‘Dates broke up, two of the members “stole” my best friend out of my band to form the Machines, which was great because a) they're way better than my old band and b) they recorded a record superior to the records of the bands from whence they came, and I’m all for musical purification. The Machines – Time Another group I discovered was the Sourkeys. I was, admittedly, confused upon my first experience with the ‘Keys. That might be because, before the first time I saw them play, someone described them as “the Pixies crossed with Weezer”, basically causing me to expect...well...Weezer's cover of "Velouria". They were a little more involved than that, with their off kilter time shifts and intricate melodies. After a spell (gee!), I began to follow each song, and began to become accustomed to the sudden musical shifts. My friends and I delighted in creating interpretive dances to their songs outside of the bars in which they played. That’s a true story. I never get sick of their records, and their live shows are great even when they’re “bad”. The Sourkeys - Locked & Loaded So support your local artists, because you never know: there might be another artist there who’s better than them. That’s about as clear as I can get, huh? Buy Music From My Friends Pt.1 (The Machines - After My Misspent Youth) Buy Music From My Friends Pt.2 (The Sourkeys - The Spectacle) - kevin

come baaaack

2007-06-10T06:11:33Z

I'm so disaffected nowadays, my irony is boring. Even though I now know what my problem is, I've still buried myself in glacial dream pop; so very wintery, yet it's what I must retreat behind this summer. This calls for Hope Sandoval since she's perpetually standing behind my shoulder, blowing cold comfort into my ear like a Mentos commercial. Mazzy Star - Into Dust Adding Hope Sandoval to David Roback was like adding red wine to dramamine lows. I like Kendra Smith and all (mostly because The Dream Syndicate are largely forgetten), but had she not walked out on Opal, Mazzy Star may have never happened. So here goes perhaps the saddest sounding song of all the 1990's. I can't help but listen to it over and over even still. I suspect it's been on The O.C., playing while some pleathery-skinned teen drinks too much Vex in the hot-tub and confesses something dire to the awkwardly sexy music geek with curly hair and a girlfriend back in Star's Hollow. (fuck, it's actually HAS been on the O.C... I just checked.) Regardless, I dare you to listen to this song and NOT come away driven to regrets somehow. This is the sort of song I figure would start playing ten minutes before I die, even if the clock radio can only receive shortwave. Death In Vegas (feat. Hope Sandoval) - Killing Smile Death In Vegas are orphans of the 1990s electronica boom. They seem good enough to earn a Gallagher brother and a BackToMine comp. along with Hope Sandoval who usurps both Elizabeth Fraser and Richard Ashcroft as the queen of providing vocals overtop cough-syrupy arrangements. Chemical Brothers (feat. Hope Sandoval) - Asleep From Day And then there's this, with which I share a complicated relationship anchored amongst green minds & crushes on girls upstairs and down; we always kind of figured this would be prom theme for poorly-planned formals on the moon. So Hope Sandoval, you're my girlfriend tonight, and for the rest of what will be a sour, humid summer. Buy Mazzy Star -kam

realize you're living in the golden years

2007-05-19T07:47:08Z

Sometimes it is easy to capture an era. Like, if I were to pull up to your basement apartment, get out of my Plymouth Horizon wearing Hypercolor, while carrying an Oopie Ball, you'd be like "oh yeah, it's 1992". Alas, I was not much more than an ickle firstie when I left my Oopie next to the electric heater one February evening, potentially starting a fire, and having my privileges to the Atari with the 300 baud Pocket-Modem revoked. Back then, the "internet" wasn't so much about blogs, or dressing up Zwinky, but more about ASCII art of the Snorks. So... I can't much relate to what 1991 would have truly been like for a conscious young adult, short of the prevailing trends in my brother's mixed tapes at the time, which may have just been Waxtrax! samplers. I digress... my late teens were spent mired in the throes of convenience store retail. A Cold War radio, a Game Boy held together by scotch tape, and a rack of out of fashion schoolyard collectables (Pogs? Crazy Bones? Digimon? These words mean nothing to us in 2007). I ran this store with two lackeys, Dave and Scott. We were literally the gateway into Elmira's nightlife, because that's where the townies came to buy their smokes and mixer. I've probably never been invited out more in my life. But we were happy to just stay in the backroom and play UNO. Somehow it was never dull, because if the drone of our rudimentary existentialism ever ceased, the hum of the Coke coolers kept us company. It's safe for me to say that as the turn of the century loomed, my life was basically the film "Clerks". I can say this unabashedly because, well... who the hell would ever want to admit to that? Soul Asylum - Can't Even Tell "i know you know i wanna know how i feel" One listen to "Can't Even Tell" and it just sounds like the nineties. You can feel the overcast emotion filtered through the rum & OK Soda piss breaks, even if you weren't there. The whole thing grinds like when you first learned stick in the mall parking lot after-hours that one Sunday. See, that's the thing about the nineties, it was fashionable to be sloppy and under-produced, while still posing metaphysical questions like you were writing your crush's name on the school's brick wall with a stone. We began to realize that we don't really know anything about anything, and will we ever? I'm guessing no. Pick up four. Then...: "UNO!". Buy the "Clerks" soundtrack. Sit through all of "Violent Mood Swings" without hating the 90s, and I'll send you my famous banana bread recipe. -kam

Somebody please put baby in the corner.

2007-05-14T05:34:33Z

Lately, I can’t open a magazine, hit a website, or overhear hoboes talking without hearing about "disposable formats". Everyone’s up in arms about what is the disposable format – “make music online only; save the industry”, “crack down on illegal downloading; save the industry”, “think green, no jewel case; use an eco-pak”, “those blintzes were terrible”. I don’t think CDs are disposable, but CD singles are done. They’re dead as…dead, and there’s no excuse for the screw job anybody growing up in the 90’s had to endure. I remember paying up to $16.99 for an Ash single, just to own three songs that were b-sides. Songs that, right out of the gate, can be deemed inferior to the rest of a bands oeuvre. People mention Oasis and the quality of their B-sides, but Noel Gallagher has admitted that he did that on purpose (saving some single-worthy tracks for b-sides), just so we suckers would believe that he was a genius. That’s also why, incidentally, The Masterplan is Oasis’ best album. Anyway, I’m digressing in my first paragraph but, believe it or not, I'm going somewhere with this. The first time I heard Sloan’s “I Am the Cancer”; I heard the rarer acoustic version of the song from Sloan’s Live at a Sloan Party, a CD that was included as a U.S. incentive to buy their One Chord To Another album. I remember thinking “Wow, this doesn’t sound like Sloan”. I, at that time, had perceived Sloan to be…well…a bunch of dorks. When I bought Smeared and heard this version, I liked it more. It sounded “cool”. Sloan - I Am The Cancer It’s still my favorite song of theirs, so when I found a copy of the I Am The Cancer single, I bought it. “Why do you want that Sloan single?” the entire staff of Zero (a.k.a. Kam) asked. Two reasons: 1. One weird trend I have in “collecting” is that if there’s a possible way to own a single for my favourite song by a band, I usually go to great lengths to do so. I have no idea why. Perhaps I’m trying to prove to the song that I like it best. I want it to know, so I single it out, spend money on it, and…kiss it. Or something. There’s one example of this that cost me a little too much money, and anyone who knows me can probably guess what band it was and what song it was for. 2. Sloan singles are pretty hard to come by, and I dig the fact that they used to do stuff like this; the b-side of the single I bought: Sloan - Rag Doll They were flat out trying to sound like My Bloody Valentine. They were trying to be cool. That’s really endearing. Most people don’t know this side of Sloan, and that’s cool. The problem is that it seems like every time a band is trying to find their footing, or trying to sound cool, it’s archived on the goddamn “Waybackmachine”. I guess I’m just saying that no format is disposable, as MP3s are superb for their utter randomness, CD singles for their forgotten 4th tracks and CDs for their…omnipresence? Except for 3” CD singles; that’s just fucking garbage. Spend money on Smeared by a bunch of dorks. -Kevin

less than...

2007-05-03T05:25:29Z

Bonnie Dobson - Winter's Going Wow. Never has spring seemed so daunting. Just listen to the song; it's a slow-moving anxiety attack. Through harmless work banter today, I was reminded of my few months on St. John's wort. I never needed it, of course, because I am not clinically depressed. But this was after 'depression' had finally been defined as affliction over emotion by people like Dateline NBC. Being naive, I ascribed. This was my first year of university. Life became so much more... touchy. In a lot of ways. The side effects were mostly placebo'd I now realize, and I've never quite recovered somehow. There was a reason why I insisted on listening to "Dock Of The Bay" twice everyday on my commute. The following September, 9/11 happened and Dateline began to fear-monger in other, more proactive ways. Lectures and conversations forever-after seemed to be anchored by a certain context. My campus life never really evolved. Short of three friends, two profs, and a pot smoking hamster, WLU held very little in the way of a social scene for me. More just sitting in corners, befriending smokers, or looking sad in front of the boarded-up noodle hut. I had better luck at Western mainly because I stole a pen almost everyday I made it to campus from the store my ex-girlfriend worked at. Traditionally, I think of spring as the rebirth, but maybe I am wrong. In winter, it's easy to hide. Seems easier to act brash and knowingly fuck up. It's easier still to make excuses when the sun sets before the evening news. And yes, I realize I've again said little or nothing about the actual music. In this case, I feel it's justified- the song itself is powerful enough that upon first listen, you'll hear it or something without needing my alliterated adjectives or pop culture pulls. Buy Bonnie Dobson Okay, here's my gimmicky plea: I (for now) have a surplus of time on my hands. I (for now) am feeling generous. I (for now) will send anyone of you who e-mails me, a free mixed CD in the mail. All you have to do is provide me an adjective, or a theme, as vague as can be... I'll do the rest. This is an exercise for me to overcome certain aspects of self-concsiousness... seems silly, yes I know, but I have my reasons. If you're interested, e-mail me at kam [at] uc [dot] org with your address, and your adjective and I'll do the rest. (this offer is only valid for north america) -kam

it was either 11:00 or 1:00 or maybe it was 3:15

2007-04-15T07:35:30Z

Oh, man. People. People have issues. I'm not the only one. I don't want this blog to die. Not yet. Sinead O'Connor - The Last Day Of Our Acquaintaince Sinead is like the chlamydia of '90s alt; itchy and unforgettable. Something to talk about unabashedly when you're brave, years later at parties. I first became familiar with this song during the denouement of Bret Easton Ellis' "Glamorama". That's a good book, when you can handle it. But regardless of that context, it's a song you could dedicate on all-night radio to half a dozen people who've since been left behind. Because as these early twenty-something years accumulate, nothing much is accomplished but goodbyes, when even still acquaintances are now just a facebook search away... -kam, i guess Buy Sinead O'Connor's "So Far...: Best Of" And go ahead and search out anything after. It's pope-rippingly eclectic!

she said, she said

2007-04-04T07:51:07Z

Sugar - A Good Idea Bob Mould's homage (or parody? - I'm never quite sure anymore) to the Pixies. Of note is that I once lifted the phrase "Thick With Temptation" for the title of a high school writing assignment. My teacher loved it, and it helped contribute to my solid 77% graduating average. I suspect nowadays I would have been suspended for plagiarism, due to the internet. Ahh, the passage of time. Bob Mould ended up writing for World Championship Wrestling, which either tarnishes his alt legacy, or makes him ironically hipper (I'm never quite sure anymore, nor if 'hipper' is a viable word). Professional wrestling, unfortunately, is not immune from the same trends as the rest of the corporate world; WCW was absorbed by the WWF some years ago, creating a monopoly. Bob Mould lost his job, but yet sustains a prolific solo career in music (ie- the theme for The Daily Show). Even if no one really talks about it in the blogosphere... which automatically makes it somewhat more interesting. But then again, I'm seventy-six in internet years, and don't have a facebook, so what do I know? Gather around while I tell you the tale of Compuserve's hourly rates. Bottom line is it's as solid a pop song as any The Pixies ever wrote (if a touch less eventful). And, uhh, (they make me do this) buy Sugar's "Copper Blue" if you can... -kam

the u2 problem

2007-04-01T06:42:32Z

Almost everyone I know hates U2 in their present form, yet holds onto some sentimental scrap, whether it be nostalgia from some junior high dance or an episode of Friends... or both. As someone who intended his wedding song to be "All I Want Is You" for many years, I am no different. The fact of the matter is their most popular songs are legitimately their worst and I offer no evidence to back up that statement, as I'm confident the three and half readers of this blog already agree. So, in the interest of creating cheap content, I offer my two favourite U2 songs, accompanied by dubious reasoning why: 1) U2 - Red Hill Mining Town See, I romanticize this song because, as far as I know, U2 has never performed it live. Bono never felt he could hit the notes. It was intended to be a single, and there is even a video floating around Youtube, yet neither were released as such. It just sits there on the shelf, and rusts within U2's canon; a non-transferrable relic from their alternative 80s routes. When I was in India (you know, the only interesting place/life I have ever been/had) I took a jeep up into the Himalayas, just shy of the Chinese border and stayed in a small village in a valley. During daylight hours, there was not an adult in town, only children playing cricket in the streets, and Tibetan refugees making crafts in warehouses, for sale in the big cities down south. I asked my guide where all the adults were, and he explained that they walked several kilometers over the hills before sunrise to tend to their crops or their herds or whatever every morning, and did not return until after sunset. So, most pop songs are about love, somehow. This song seems to be about labour, for love. And it reminds me of all that. I guess it doesn't work the same for you unless you have the same visual or emotional connections. Which is the inherent flaw with these music blogs, so why do we even bother? 2) U2 - Stay (Faraway, So Close!) This song is a little more 21st century, perhaps, with the metaphysical angst and all. I am struck with it more because it's a damn good song, rather than a mainstream cultural anthem or radio staple. The guitar line is rudimentary, but the atmospherics beneath lend credence. The lyrics are grandiose, but relatable to anyone who has transformed a lonely night into an aimless walk through city streets, where all it takes to clear your mind is blinking neon and water-damaged Chinese menues in windowsills. I know the song is inspired by some movie I haven't seen, but I don't care about that. Anyone who reads this has a U2 song they enjoy, whether it be a guilty pleasure or a personal anthem ("vampire or victim? depends on who's around...") I figure this will be the one and only post on this blog that everyone can relate to somehow. So... comment about it? Tell me? (did the wind sweep you off your feet? did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day? with the best soy latte you ever had. and me?) After that we don't ever have to talk about U2, or office-radio rock ever again. Buy U2: (they NEED it!) The Joshua Tree Zooropa -kam

kill me sarah, kill me again with love

2007-03-19T03:11:24Z

All these million little questions breed a billion little more; it makes much more sense once they have something small to believe in again. Yet still, I would be fine if that 'belief' died tonight, because that would be so very Six Feet Under. Music: Modern day hipsters, with their cute little hoodies, and careful beard configurations don't seem to allow themselves to respect Jane's Addiction, even though many of the few nineties bands they namedrop consider Perry & co. a huge influence. Jane's' unique brand of anthemic funk doesn't deserve the rug its been swept under. While some (like Liz Phair) earned their depreciation of hipster cred, Jane's Addiction's mythology has been tainted only by an unnecessary reunion (see also The Pixies, and The Smashing Pumpkins circa 2009). And maybe that's the problem- hipsters (well, music fans in general- I actually like many hipsters I know, but I'm too fat to truly fit in) don't seem to appreciate "mythology" these days. Lyrics are too literal; no one's sitting in their bedrooms anymore trying to figure out who 'Xiola' is (or 'Sarah', as it were), or what that light that never goes out truly represents. One cannot deny the opus that is "Three Days" and the screenplay I may rip off of it someday if I can ever get my shit together. So... I'll post it and say just that it has everything: the first kiss to the good sex to the bad sex to the messy breakup to the next first kiss & all with a mouthful of red wine. Jane's Addiction - Three Days I don't expect many of you to enjoy it, or even get through a third of it. Any of you conscious in 1990 who remember, please share... perhaps it's your older brother's song, but your older brother always has better stories than you, so... please share. Please buy Jane's Addiction's "Ritual de lo Habitual" here. -kam (i've got enough topical cream for everyone)