The Dear Jerks 2013 Retrospective Chitchat

Seasonal Greetings, Readers! Thank you for joining us in our peek back at 2013, which is neither Top Stuff Listicle nor Chronological Recapathon, but is a jumble-y assemblage of wistful remembrances of thoughts that happened in our brains or events that happened to our persons that for one reason or another were tied to music. Witness below a written conversation that we hope will keep you entertained for a few minutes, and possibly encourage you to have a spoken or written or other kind of conversation with a loved one, stranger, or pet.

KYLE: So it's the end of the year, which means we're supposed to reflect on... things. Things that happened this year. Where, oh were should we start? It was a strange year for me personally. Getting married took up a bunch of my attention away from other things (like record shopping), but it was a great year for musicians I love putting out new stuff. I mean, Eluvium, My Bloody Valentine(!!), Tim Hecker, Fuck Buttons, Four Tet, Oneohtrix Point Never, Boards of Canada, Mogwai, The National, Deerhunter, and so on and so forth. 

Plus, there was the unexpected but welcome (to me at least) rebirth of emocore, the all consuming release of Random Access Memories, crossover metal catching on in 'mainstream indie' circles, the whole fox thing, and YOU SIR releasing your own fine collection of songs. Personally, and I think this goes for both of us, I'll also remember this as the year that I stopped caring about Arcade Fire. it was a little bittersweet to realize that I'm just not that into them anymore right as they cement their position as the 'biggest indie band in the world'. Is it Death Cab for Cutie all over again?

IAN: You know, I was in DCFC's camp since mail ordering the cassette of You Can Play These Songs with Chords, and then thought they lost it with Transatlanticism, while the general consensus decided it was their best album. (Subsequently, I think there were some great songs on the two albums that followed, though I can't think of one from their last album.) Similarly, this past ten years has not been the decade I expected to have with Arcade Fire. Like pretty much every other one of our peers, Funeral was the sound of the fall and winter of 2004. Given that I was simultaneously catching up with Broken Social Scene's 2002/2003 breakthrough You Forgot it in People (which, of course, you put in my hands) after coming back from spending half of the year in London, it seemed at the time that 2004 was something like The Year Canuck Broke. The timing was such that Arcade Fire also seemed to naturally fill the empty space left by Godspeed You! Black Emperor going on hiatus in 2003: a Montreal band with a lot of members making dramatic-yet-uplifting BIG music with a predilection for occasionally playing shows in churches.    

When Neon Bible came out, the reviews seemed to fault it mostly for sounding too big, or at least for trying to sound too big, which felt like the first schism between what I heard when I listened to Arcade Fire and what most everyone else did. The only song that really sounded "huge" to me was the one they carried over from their debut EP. That said, shouting the "whoa-oh" verse in "Keep the Car Running" along with 25,000 other people at their Randall's Island show later that October (what a line-up that was, eh?: LCD Soundsystem, Les Savy Fav, Blonde Redhead...) was one of the more ecstatic communal experiences I've ever had at a concert -- along with doing an encore of the "whoo-ooh"s from "Headlights Look Like Diamonds" with dozens, if not hundreds, of most-likely-also-drunk people while walking across the bridge back to Harlem after the show.  

When it was finally time for The Suburbs, I was bummed to realize how little I had listened to Arcade Fire in the interim. Where Neon Bible had felt to me a little oddly stunted (I still don't quite get what they were trying to do with "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations"), The Suburbs, like TV on the Radio's Return to Cookie Mountain and the Stills' With Feathers, started with two different songs that sounded definitively like "opening" tracks, giving the momentum a feeling of being immediately rebooted. It also had five songs too many. Beyond that, clearly gone was the interest in a sense of intimacy with the listener like the one they had once established with more gentle, intricate songs like "Une annee sans lumiere." Everything was now spacious chords and choruses. It was clear the follow-up to Funeral I had always wanted was not likely to ever materialize. Reflektor is now their second overstuffed album in a row. It seems I'm not hearing the same record as the folks who are giving it rave reviews are. I don't think it's bad, I don't think it's great, I'm just...indifferent, which, thinking back on Funeral, is not a feeling I expected I would ever have about their music.

What is it for you?

KYLE: Indifferent was exactly my reaction to both The Suburbs and (especially) Reflektor. The thing is, I think I always expected my relationship with Arcade Fire to end up that way, given how different (i.e. earnest and emotive) Funeral was from anything I was listening to at the time. Maybe it was a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, but regardless the end result was that I was much more attached to Funeral than I was to Arcade Fire the recording group, making Neon Bible easier to swallow, and the resulting slow drift apart much easier to accept.

I should note, just to be clear, that I make the 'recording group' clarification because I'm sure they continue to put on an amazing live show, albeit one that I am unlikely to see again on my own dime given my distaste for paying NFL suite prices for rock shows... but that's a whole other conversation.

Speaking of sporting events and segues and things that happened this year, I'm eager to get your full report on the Rangers (hockey version) game you attended a few weeks back. You mentioned that the house music in the arena was... of questionable merit. It's often a bit awkward when sports stadiums and music collide, but from what you mentioned it sounded like the trouble went well beyond simple bad taste?

IAN: Okay, so first off: enter Twitter contests. For reals. We got the tickets to the Rangers vs. Canucks game because our friend won them from some watch company via a Twitter contest, and they were the most amazing seats I've ever had to anything, no joke. They were technically fourth row, right behind one of those corner circles where they do face offs. Because of the way it was set up, there was no one in front of us, barring the people who get to sit in folding chairs right behind the boards below us. I could hear the puck hit the goalie's leg pads, and see the players' facial expressions. They tickets would have been, I think, maybe $300 each, and our friend won four of them. From a freaking watch company, via a freaking Twitter contest. Who freaking knew?

But, yes, here's the thing. From 1992 to 1994, I was a rabid hockey fan and went to dozens of Seattle Thunderbirds games, back in that old no-frills '50s era arena at the Seattle Center, now gone, where I also later saw Oasis and The Verve, and where my high school graduation ceremony took place. (The only thing I remember about that ceremony, by the way, was that my friend Samson Kwong quoted that "hope you had the time of your life" song by Green Day in his valedictorian speech. At length. I probably would have quoted Iggy Pop if I had been invited to speak, but to each his own.) During those years, Metallica's "Enter Sandman" was the Thunderbirds' "take to the ice" music, they played Gary Glitter's "Rock'n'Roll Part 2" every time they scored a goal, and for some reason the sound guy couldn't get enough of blasting that opening low note of Rush' "Tom Sawyer." To this day, when I hear that song, I get visions of minor league hockey players skating around the ice in that arena. 

Granted, that was Seattle in the early '90s, and the Rangers play in the New York of the '10s, but the commercial pop music they kept blaring over the PA at the game we went to was shameful. Does Lady Gaga really get a hockey crowd going in 2013? Mainstream rock has been a garbage dump since Limp Bizkit was allowed to happen, and it wouldn't be any more manly to play some of Imagine Dragons' awful Coldplay-ripping Butt Rock or whatnot...but all the same, I felt embarassed for everyone there who wasn't a child or disinterested wife/girlfriend. In fact, the only two times they played a rock song were when fights broke out. After the first fight, they even played a snatch of "Master of Puppets," which I thought I was hallucinating at first. The game is the same, but the music done changed.

Speaking of dark times, maybe now it is time to explore my favorite album-cover-related hypothesis of 2013? That is: your album-cover-related hypothesis of 2013.

KYLE: You must be referring to the great colorless album cover conspiracy! Well you see, it all started when I picked up Cupid's Head, the latest full length from The Field, and noted that the 'white text on black background' album cover was quite a departure from his usual 'color-y words on off-white background' theme. Departure is a definitely a relative term in this case. For an artist who works exclusively in the '10 minute long microhouse tracks built out of slowly shifting loops' genre, any sudden jump feels bigger than it would otherwise. 

At any rate, around the same time  Tim Hecker's excellent Virgins was released, and right away I thought it was interesting that his music had taken a dark turn from his recent work and the album cover, while it does feature a color photograph predominantly on a black background, reads overall as black to me. 

Not long after that is when I noticed that Fuck Buttons had made it a trifecta* with Slow Focus. I think I joked to you that all the ambient experimental guys must have gotten together and made a black album cover pact. In fact, just looking at album cover, 2013 seems like the year of 'thingy on black background' albums, with bands from Deerhunter to Daft Punk using the technique. 

*I so want to include Oneohtrix Point Never in this group , but R Plus Seven has too many damn colors on it. Still, musically it takes a subtly darker turn.

However, maybe there's more going on here than that? In the experimental world at least, the change in color palate seemed to apply to the music as much as the art. Could there be some external forces at work here pushing things this direction? I'd be inclined to think it was the growing influence of metal if it weren't for the fact that the great crossover metal record of the year, Deafheaven's Sunbather, features a pink cover. Also, it is called Sunbather.

I'll toss the ball back over you you at this point. Do you think we are seeing the product of a long wartime recession, a purely musical trend, complete coincidence, or something I'm not thinking of?

The full four-fecta

IAN: Oh, it is a four-fecta when you add in Baths' Obsidian, and that Darkside record can go in the "electronic album with thing-on-black-background cover" category. Those Burial EP's count, too, yes? You definitely weren't just seeing things, this was an unspoken 2013 visual art trend. As for why the music itself would take a dark turn...probably different reasons? In the case of Baths specifically, it was documented that Will Wiesenfeld was understandably influenced by recent issues with his health. Maybe all of these artists went through trying times, and these are the creative results? Personally, I think it would be fun to speculate that the world of electronic music was also at least partially reacting to whatever is left of populist guitar-based music, which has somehow made a tired cliche out of white people shouting "hey!" en masse in the middle of rousing anthems about hero trials to listen to on Apple products while driving hybrids. Or maybe all of these guys randomly got into the Cure's goth trilogy together last year.  

If they have now got it all out of their system, do you think more artists will be following in Deafheaven's footsteps, releasing brightly colored albums in 2014? Are there there any trends that you suspect are coming, or would like to see? My partial 2014 Music Wish List would be for:

A) Dr. Luke & Co. to retire, so every song they play at my gym would stop sounding 100% exactly the same. That kind of commerce approach to "song" writing is bad for the body and mind, like eating McDonald's every day. 

B) Actually, if I could get "A," that would be more than enough. But a new Lotus Plaza album wouldn't hurt either, if that's even a possibility.  

KYLE: It'd be interesting to see what the most common colors are in album art over time. You could take the average color of each album, group them by year, etc. I'm curious to see if there's much difference, and if there's any sort of trend... but man that'd take FOREVER so perhaps one of our fine readers will take up the challenge?

I'm kicking myself for forgetting about Obsidian by the way... ah well. As far as 2014 trends to go, I think that's something to keep an eye on. Are we in for more blackness, or was 2013 just an anomaly?  

In terms of predictions, I'd say we should be on the look-out for genre zombies. As with emocore this year, in 2014 I'm going to guess that we'll see more of the same, with young bands showing renewed interest in every single remaining '90s sub-genre we loved and/or hated. This trend will accelerate through 2015 and beyond, until all music is a nostalgic nod to the music of the previous month.

As for a wish list, I'd like to see:

A) Some new material from James Murphy. A west coast tour to support it wouldn't be so bad either... probably not in the cards, but a girl can dream.

B) More realistically, can we say goodbye to some of these talent competition shows? I have accepted that reality TV is here to stay, but enough of the competitive singing already. It's bad enough that they're constantly on the 3 times a week I try to watch live television, but these shows are DESIGNED to give gigantic recording contracts to singers who appeal primarily to, I don't know, 12 year old girls? Soon, pre-teens will be curating the very world the rest of us have to live in, at least until the adults revolt resulting in the demographic wars of 2020-2023.

Anyway! I think that's my last rant of 2013 unless the Seahawks manage to lose this weekend, and so with that, I think it's time to say goodbye. Say goodbye Ian. 

IAN:

Smoke Sculptures and Cattle Auction Performance Art: Station to Station in NYC

Because it's America, that's why

"Over the course of three weeks in September 2013, a train will travel from New York City to San Francisco, making nine stops at train stations across the country...Station to Station will connect leading figures and underground creators from the worlds of art, music, food, literature, and film for a series of cultural interventions and site-specific happenings. The train, designed as a moving, kinetic light sculpture, will broadcast unique content and experiences to a global audience."  
-- Stationtostation.com's About page


A single smoke bomb is just a smoke bomb, but many of them arranged on a scaffolding frame and lit at the same time is a Smoke Sculpture. Sewing, when done by a small cluster of people who probably don't actually sew for a living within a gazebo-like wood structure, is more than sewing. An evening of artistically minded bands, experiential yurts, and performance art interludes should be more than enough on its own, but no, this show packs up at the end of the night and rides the rails through different cities until it gets to California.

McNasty infiltrates the Levi's sweatshop

 It's definitely saying something that Station to Station, which happened Friday, September 6th, on the south Williamsburg waterfront (which has morphed into DUMBO North at rapid speed), was the most crowd-photographed show I've ever been to. But at times that seemed to have been by design. The music stage backdrop was three large screens that hosted far more interesting visuals than the average psych rock show. Even the predictable footage of trains ranged from tasteful to hypnotizing to disorienting. The interstitial performance pieces between the bands' sets -- which might be the night's biggest triumph, eliminating the boring downtime between acts -- were enacted on small platforms in the middle of the audience. The arrangement of colorful yurts were set against the sun sinking into Manhattan's skyline. It's even possible that audience-generated social media content production was the unaddressed meta performance piece of the night. Perhaps its no longer a novelty that, at any given cultural event, the safe bet is that everyone in the room has a camera in their pocket, but it's still interesting to consider what things specifically get more of those cameras out of those pockets than others. Was Station to Station designed to be lived vicariously through a hazy Instagram filter? Probably not.

No Age

Did it mean to address the idea that the way we live now is to not live in the now? Also probably not. But if you're old enough to fondly remember concerts without smartphones, it would be possible to see how Station to Station might be daring its audience to be present in the moment of the actual physical world and simultaneously swamp our insatiable pixel existence mirror with visual and textual summations of experience.

No Age again: same pose, different backdrop

But that notion would be predicated on the idea that people even care about, or are even consciously aware of, that divide anymore. The time to reflect on these generational differences has nearly passed. Whoever lamented the loss of the simple efficiency of telegraph communication would have surely blogged a rant about it if they could.  

Speed-talking auctioneers + whipping + cowboy hats = art

But then, any time-traveling telegraph aficionado would surely feel a familiarity with Twitter and its encouragement of brevity -- only the cost of each letter is time (yours, and your followers), not money. Does this make Twitter effectively "Steampunk"? Yes, absolutely, it does. Twitter is the Steampunk telegraph.

Upside-down dudes on roller skates + spandex + ballerina = more art

And cattle auction performance art pieces are Cowpunk. And dudes-on-rollerskates-in-a-slow-motion-moving-sculpture ballet performance art pieces are Rollerderbypunk. And two older men in awesome hats and sunglasses pounding on a keyboard and speaking seemingly improvised lines at an uncomfortable volume level is post-punk, because Suicide put the 'no' in no-wave. And No Age put the wave back in no-wave. And Ariel Pink put the spazz in florescent spazzrock, which isn't a thing. But enough words...

Ariel Pink: into the blue

Ariel Pink: into the black and white

Suicide: both older and younger than you will ever be

Think twice before you get on stage and mash a keyboard with your fists, Martin Rev has already done it better

Freedom Sunset on Yurts

   
  

  

"Whenever You See Fit" by Modest Mouse & 764-HERO: Let's Do One of Those Anniversary Write-Ups, Shall We?

Fifteen years ago on Valentine’s Day, two of the Seattle area’s most-likely-to-succeed indie rock bands consummated their mutual appreciation by recording a sprawling fourteen-minute song that they had cooked up while touring together. “Whenever You See Fit,” a spacious rise-and-fall reverie, was released on 12” vinyl that summer on July 7^th, 1998, with two abbreviated remixes on the flip side. Five years later, one of the two groups would be dissolved, while the other would soon be entering the studio to lay down what would become their first Billboard No. 1 hit, bringing them international acclaim, a Grammy nomination, and a kind of minor ubiquity. 

The existence of “Whenever You See Fit” makes less sense as time passes, but when it first landed on the shelves at record stores across Seattle, it was pure wish fulfillment. At least, it was wish fulfillment for one native whose list of favorite local bands had Modest Mouse and 764-Hero at the top. The year before, in the fall of 1997, both groups had put out their best discs to date. 764-Hero’s We’re Solids EP, a trebly short punch after their spare and contemplative debut, Salt Sinks and Sugar Floats, had come out that October. A month after We’re Solids, The Lonesome Crowded West dropped, instantly becoming required listening everywhere between Bellingham, WA, and Eugene, OR. It seemed like every other show that Modest Mouse and 764-Hero played in town was with each other, and they frequently took that camaraderie on the road.  

Languid yet insistent, “Whenever You See Fit” was, and still is, more than just a love letter between two bands; it’s a defining scene document. But defining the song itself is a bit trickier than it first seems. The artist credit is separated as Modest Mouse/764-Hero, but it is not a ‘split’ record in the usual sense. They are playing one song, together. That togetherness is textually reflected on the cover with the large outline-lettered “7M6M4” behind the Modest Mouse / 764-Hero; which uses a smaller-print bracketed title of the song for the hyphen dividing the names.

Other technical details only add to the conundrum. Is it a single because it is one song backed by two remixes?  Is it an EP because it takes up a full slab of vinyl, and is longer than, say, all of We’re Solids? On that note, it’s also a mere two minutes shorter than Meet the Beatles.

The Modest Mouse/764-Hero credit suggests that the intent is to retain individual band identities within the same song. Or, it could mean that they just couldn’t come up with a worthy supergroup name, despite the obvious choice of Modest Hero, or the un-dial-able 764-Mouse. (An etymology aside: 764-Hero took their name from signs that are still sprinkled along Washington State highways, which prompt drivers to call the number to snitch on other drivers who are violating carpool lane rules. Modest heroism, for sure.)

764-Hero's 'High School Poetry' 7": Better than poetry.

“Whenever You See Fit” was also a split release between two new-ish Pacific Northwest indie labels. It is both ‘up058’ for Up Records, and ‘s008’ for Suicide Squeeze Records. Up was founded in 1994, and Suicide Squeeze in 1996, but the ties between everyone involved were already deep by this point. 764-Hero’s first 7”, “High School Poetry,” came out on Up Records, and their second 7”, “Now You’re Swimming,” was Suicide Squeeze’s first ever release. Modest Mouse’s “A Life of Arctic Sounds” 7” would be their third. Up, of course, put out most of Modest Mouse’s records through the Building Nothing Out Something compilation, as well as almost all of 764-Hero’s albums, barring their last. “Whenever You See Fit” is thus the point at which all four lines finally converged. There was surely a lot of love in the room.  

http://tinyurl.com/arnoj24

Because 764-Hero were still a duo at the time, the Mouse’s Eric Judy had the responsibility of being the lone man on the low end, while the dueling drummers and guitarists pushed and pulled for space in the other ranges. This would ultimately be the last time singer/guitarist John Atkins and drummer Polly Johnson (ex of Bell Jar) represented on tape as a two-piece. Later that year, in October of ’98, they put out Get Here and Stay, a lush departure from their previous output, and the first of two albums they would record with James Bertram (Lync, Red Stars Theory) who jumped in on bass to help expand their sound. Coincidentally, Bertram’s post-rock dreamscapers Red Stars Theory would go on to record a single of theirs on Valentine’s Day the very next year, the “Tremely”/”Rustin” 7”, which was released by the Paper Bag Series.

For having the ramshackle feel of an impromptu improvisation – which it sort of is – the two bands’ trademark characteristics are out in force from the start. The first chord, even: in 764-Hero’s early years, Atkins had something of a predilection for dramatically up-strumming dissonant chords. The animated note bends, which begin sixteen seconds in, were also firmly established as one of Isaac Brock’s tells early on. Such was the strength of their respective personalities already. Not bad for two acts that were still routinely compared to wider-known contemporaries like Built to Spill at the time (the Up Records connection probably didn’t help). 

In the first section of the song, the two singers alternate lines almost evenly one-for–one. Atkins’ lyrics are, roughly, about the dissolution of a personal relationship:

You and me, whenever we go wrong…

Nothing is clear…

Tell the truth…

Spend some time, whenever you go wrong…

Everything’s wrong…

Brock’s, on the other hand, are mostly about the perils of keeping a responsible sleeping schedule:

Wake up early and you'll live to regret…

Talking on the telephone/You'll go to bed early and you'll talk to your pillow…

Of the few lines Brock gives himself, he repeats “you wake up early and you live to regret” in a few places throughout the song until it becomes a mantra. Brock’s attitude toward the lameness of daytime hours had come up before, in “Custom Concern” (from their debut This is a Long Drive for Someone With Nothing to Think About), which laments having to get up at noon to go work at some jerk job. Near the middle of the song, Brock grabs the lead on vocals, seemingly free-styling lines in that shambling almost-rap way that he used to break into here and there, most notably on “The Fruit That Ate Itself.”

Various song lyric websites will tell you that Brock sings the line “talking like a talking bell.” I refuse to believe this. For a lyricist as playfully abstract and alliterative as Brock, “talkin’ like Taco Bell/you go to bed early and you talk to your pillow” (what these ears have always heard) makes much more sense. A “talking bell” is not a thing anywhere, but Taco Bell most certainly is.

As things wind down toward the end, Atkins finds his way back to the mic and gets the last word in, sighing a resigned and unconvincing “everything’s fine.” Throughout, Atkins’ sigh and Brock’s yelp intertwine with more poignancy than could be reasonably expected. The effect of them repeating the same few phrases over each other comes off almost like sampling. In fact, the differences between the vocal interplay in the actual song and the two chop shop remixes are insignificant.

S(c)ientific American's excellent debut

Speaking of, side B widens the ‘local legacy’ scope of the record, adding to the snapshot of Seattle’s scattered-but-vibrant post-grunge landscape of that moment with appearances by Sientific American (sans ‘c’ here, though not later) and Dynomite D. Sientific American is/was Andrew Rohrmann, who played with Atkins (along with John Wickhart) in his pre-764-Hero band Hush Harbor. Short-lived but beloved, Hush Harbor’s aggressive vulnerability was ultimately limited to a five-song EP recorded by Phil Ek and put out by – you guessed it – Up Records. That one was up012 in 1995. There is also a stray track or two out there, like the live version of “Day Old Tree” on the 1994 Yo-Yo-a-Go-Go compilation.

Yo-Yo-A-Go-Go 1994: Top notch.

While Atkins held on to his guitar after Hush Harbor, Rohrmann shacked up with modern technology. Under his new copyright-taunting moniker, he sought out ways of making sample-fueled electronic music that was neither dance nor ambient – not the “Electronica” path most taken at the time. Rohrmann’s music was featured in art exhibitions, and soon enough he would go on to find ‘commercial’ success soundtracking ads for major companies. In addition to his remix contribution here, Rohrmann also did the design.

“Whenever You See Fit” is an outlier in the catalogs of both bands. The song bears many of their distinct stamps, yet it would still be out of place on any other record between them except its own. Modest Mouse certainly had protracted workouts like “Trucker’s Atlas” and “Edit the Sad Parts,” but they weren’t quite as long, and their wires were hotter and more taut. 764-Hero were even more in the habit of keeping things concise. “Whenever You See Fit” is all unfurling slack. Brock draws out a few great earworm riffs, and they get more than enough space to breathe – as do Judy’s choicest bass lines, and everyone else’s best ideas as well. How much of the song was in place before they hit the ‘record’ button? It’s hard to imagine every minute coming pre-scripted, but there was enough structure in place that everything comes to a perfect swell at the 7:20 mark, exactly half way through.

 

The Moon was playing everywhere on this street circa 2000.

Modest Mouse entered the aughts by putting out the aforementioned Building Nothing Out Something in the first month of the new millennium, after which their move to Epic Records was cemented, and they joined a growing legion of bands who could retain indie cred while residing on a major-major label – a distinction which has even less significance today, if any. The Moon and Antarctica was launched a mere six months later in June, and that was that. In Seattle, at least, it was omnipresent. One weekday afternoon that summer, I was walking south on Broadway from Orpheum Records (which, now gone, was at the north end of the street’s business district on Capitol Hill) to the book store Twice Sold Tales, stopping at a coffee stand along the way, and The Moon and Antarctica was blaring at all three in such timing that it continued almost perfectly from place to place as I went along.

Meanwhile, 764-Hero continued the two bands’ tradition of putting out records within a month of each other when they released Weekends of Sound that July. It would be their last for Up Records, but not because they jumped to a major label. The Moon and Weekends both showcased artistic growth. In Modest Mouse’s case, there was widespread relief that they hadn’t ‘sold out’ their sound, whatever that might have entailed – rap rock? – at the time.

Still, a small end had already come to a small part of a small era. With the Mouse’s new notoriety and obligations, it was difficult to imagine the two best-friend bands coming together in the studio again in the same random and carefree spirit, captured perfectly by the picture on the “Whenever You See Fit” sleeve: the five warmly dressed musicians throwing rocks through the shattered windows of a bricked-up industrial building at night. Thankfully they did so when they had the chance.

Guess Who Stayed Home While His Wife Went to Go See New Kids on the Block: at Barclays Center, 6/16/13

I may not be a father, but I certainly wasn't the only husband in the greater New York City area left at home on Father's Day while their wife snuck out to see The Package tour, the 90's boy band event of the year at Brooklyn's preeminent rusty bird's nest, the Barclays Center.

When I was a fourth grader just tryna get by at the height of the Hangin' Tough era, seeing the overpowering effect it had on the bedroom walls of the few girls I vaguely associated with at the time, I gave no thought to the quintet's temporality one way or the other. As perception of time goes at that age, it seemed fair to assume that they might be around for a long, long while. Given another year, of course, it appeared the opposite was certain. Now, it looks like my first impression might have been closer to the truth, not counting what we'll refer to as their "wilderness years" of 1995 - 2007, during which one can safely assume they were all living off the land together in the Massachusetts wilderness. If such a place exists(?).

There we were, on the Bolt bus coming back from Philadelphia on Sunday morning, when my wife, J, got a text from her friend, A. A had won tickets to the NKOTB/98 Degrees/Boyz II Men concert, and needed a cohort to brave the spectacle with. J was reluctant at first, but, after some "Are you kidding? Don't let a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to witness crazy badness like this pass you by!" goading on my part, she was persuaded. We checked the internet and found a somewhat troubling abundance of $5 tickets for the concert. We guessed that not just her friend had won tickets, but also everyone who entered the contest. (Also, just to note, there's no real reason why I'm half-assedly protecting J and A's anonymity here other than trying to keep them from becoming internet-search-affiliated with 90's boy bands.)

Once J and A finally made it to the arena, J's encroaching fear of sad old men singing to a sad sparse audience was quickly squashed by what she later described as the "frenetic energy" pulsing through the very crowded stands. As J's photo reports from the front began to trickle in, the captions went from distanced observations like "crowd is 99% women, some preggers" (leaving me shocked that a full 1% of the crowd could be comprised of men) to, eventually, what I had been expecting all along at some point: "OK, I'm glad you made me go." Really though, my powers of persuasion are nothing compared to that of NKOTB's hits like "You Got It (the Right Stuff)," which are, apparently, now and forever.

Also, as mentioned, 98 Degrees performed. They happened way too late in the 90's for me to actually know any of their songs, but that's them on the left with their custom-built blue-light-special mic stands. Boyz II Men were, unfortunately, too punctual, and J missed them. This was a sincere disappointment. Boyz II Men were the bee's knees in the way-back-when, and remain the top selling R&B group of all time. I'm pretty sure they still get a commission off all bear skin rug and Duraflame log sales in the contiguous United States. Poignantly, while in Philadelphia earlier that weekend, I enjoyed my first official Philly cheesesteak.

We'll Take Any Excuse to Play "(I Wanna Be) Touchdown Jesus"

So, yeah, how about the big Tim Tebow news, amiright? No matter how you feel his signing does or doesn't affect the Patriots' douche-factor, one thing seems clear: the NFL loves messing with this dude. Granted, the totes-Catholic Boston area (why do you think they named it MASSachusetts?) has gotta be more churchy than the den of iniquity that is the New York metropolitan area, but this new chapter in Tebow's ongoing saga in the secular Northeast only gives further support to any notion that these are his "wandering in the wilderness" years. (Yes, we know we're inconsistently mixing all sorts of Bible-y stuff here). Maybe the whole thing is intentional missionary work, but it feels like an intentional punishment that the poor man can't get transfered somwhere below the Mason-Dixon line.

Anywho, this ordeal reminded us of a beloved old Giant Steps-era b-side by The Boo Radleys. Unfortunately, YouTube came up empty handed, so the best we could do was find it on Grooveshark. Enjoy!:  http://grooveshark.com/s/i+Wanna+Be+Touchdown+Jesus/3ZnfOD?src=5

Top 11 Songs with "Wedding" in the Title That Should Never be Played at a Wedding

Start practicing your Funky Chicken and speak now or forever hold your peace, because wedding season is here to yank tears of happiness out of your eyes and devour your weekend plans. In fact, we love weddings so much that our very own Kyle decided to get one himself last weekend! He's the one on the left, with the antlers:

(Those two deer made it through fine, but the delicious cake they were perched on did not survive the night.)

Weddings have been a rich source of inspiration for songwriters as long as there have been both weddings and songs, which we're pretty sure is a long time. However, one must be careful when compiling their playlist for the reception, because a song about a wedding is not necessarily a "wedding song." If you have been assigned DJ duty this year and are currently shopping around, buyer beware: listen closely to those lyrics before you download...

11:  Billy Idol  -  "White Wedding"

Let's just get this one out of the way. Yes, Billy Idol's greatest hit is surely played at many weddings, because some folks can't leave a bad joke alone.

10:  The Swords Project  -  "Shannon's Wedding Song"

Solid live performance found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWwOH8aUB8E
(Fun fact: we were at the show this video was taken at, because we're not very young.) Disqualifying lyric: There are no lyrics, and it's actually a beautiful song, but it is also a long GYBE-gone-delicate instrumental, one that will probably not go down well when your relatives want to get sloppy on the dance floor.

9:  The Wrens  -  "I Won't Come to Your Wedding"

Not that Wrens, but a 1950's doo-wop group also called the Wrens. Seriously though, that would also be a perfect title for a song by the other Wrens.
Disqualifying lyric: See title.

8:  Outkast  -  "Dracula's Wedding"

 

Disqualifying lyric: "...but I'm terrified of you," repeated ad nauseum.

7:  Kate Bush  -  "The Wedding List"

Delightful live performance found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJvXpvH2-Hk

Disqualifying lyric: "All of the headlines said "Passion Crime: Newlywed's Groom Shot Dead" should give you an idea of what's on Ms. Bush's to-do list.

6:  Radiohead  -  "A Punchup at a Wedding"

Disqualifying lyric: Take your pick! This song is essentially "I Gotta Feeling" played backwards;  aimed at ironic wedding receptions instead of Bar Mitzvahs.

5:  Mark Lanegan  -  "Wedding Dress"

Disqualifying lyric: The most disqualifying aspect of this one is possibly Mark Lanegan's inimitable voice, because typically you don't want to play songs with "haunting" vocals on joyous occasions...but a line like "The end could be soon, we'd better rent a room" comes to mind.

4:  The Wombats  -  "My First Wedding"

Disqualifying lyric: "She's my heartless bitch that I just can't seem to get enough of" is one of many.

3:  Smog  -  "Your Wedding"

Album version found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocxe56rvpFc

Disqualifying lyric: There are basically two lines in the whole song, but it is Smog, so both of them.


2:  Guided by Voices  -  "Big Boring Wedding"

Disqualifying lyric: As to be expected, the lyrics for this one are a bit random/esoteric, but there are enough darts like "It's hard to imagine that you just wanna leave," that you shouldn't take the risk. And don't play "Game of Pricks" either, no matter how much you love it!


1:  Damien Jurado  -  "Wedding Cake"

Disqualifying lyric: Well, the chorus is "It was clearly never meant to be," but the whole thing is a domestic tragedy set to an upbeat strummy backdrop, and would surely bring anyone's big day to an awkward, upsetting halt. Nice tune, though.


And one more picture of Billy Idol, for symmetry...