Best songs and biggest disappointments of 2008

2008 wasn't a great year for music. Take a look at several year-end lists. There is no great rock and roll or hip hop to be found. Instead, we got lists of record-collector-nerd indie rock that most of you will never hear, and I can't say that it is essential that most people ever do. I don't know if this says more about the laziness of music critics or the sad state of music in 2008. I think it's a little of both.

I'm hoping that in 2009 there is a resurgence in music. It would be nice if the auto-tune phenomenon disappears from hip hop and rappers actually start rapping again. Here's hoping that new Eminem and Dr. Dre albums will actually come out and they'll be as good as they should be. The industry needs a reminder how rap is done well. Heck, even Kanye West released a crappy auto-tune-filled album this year, and this was after I spent years going around telling everyone he was a genius after his early work on Jay-Z's The Blueprint.

I'm hoping we hear a few rock albums (punk, metal, alt, anything that rocks) that knock us on our asses with how damn good they are. This year we all we got were Metallica and AC/DC albums that some people wrongly praised simply because they weren't embarrassments, and a Guns N' Roses album that was wrongly praised for simply surfacing.

Even with my complaining, there was music I loved this year. Not enough full albums to make an honest list, but many individual songs. Here's my list of current favorites for the year. There are others I like quite a bit - Jenny Lewis, MGMT, Teenage Bottlerocket, Okkervil River, My Morning Jacket, etc. - but these are five that are probably most replay worthy.

1. Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma. I love this song. The whole album is pretty damn great, and that was a rare thing this year. This is simple minimal pop music, but it is done very well in an original way that make the melodies refreshing and unexpected.


2. Conor Oberst - Lenders in the Temple. Conor released a solo record this year, which may seem slightly unnecessary since he is the major uncontested force in Bright Eyes. If anything, this album made me long for the lush accompaniments that Mike Mogis gives to many Bright Eyes songs. The songs weren't as consistently great as the last few Bright Eyes albums, but there were a few great songs. I love this one, and it wasn't even the single. Damn shame.


3. Weezer - Pork and Beans. No doubt about it, The Red Album is easily the weakest album in the Weezer catalog. At their best, Weezer makes great catchy pop songs with loud guitars. At their worst, Weezer can sound like they forgot their own simple formula and are clueless as to how they should proceed. I suppose it didn't help that Rivers Cuomo let up on his dictatorial bandleader qualities and let his bandmates contribute a song or two, but even his songs weren't always up to snuff this time around. Still, even Cuomo is too good to go an entire album without displaying a little brilliance. Cuomo wrote Pork and Beans after the record company said they didn't hear a single in his latest batch of tunes. Lyrically, he gave the record company his best middle finger response, but musically he fell right in line and gave them one of the catchiest songs of his career.


4. She & Him - Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? If you need yet another reminder why most actors and actresses shouldn't sing, go check out some clips on YouTube of Scarlett Johansen's awful album of Tom Waits covers. By covering Waits, Johansen was clearly trying to make an artistic statement rather than a cash grab, but she's not strong enough of an artist to be making any statement at all.

On the other hand, Zooey Deschanel has an incredible voice, which as an actress she briefly displayed as Will Ferrell's love interest in the movie Elf. This year she teamed up with M. Ward, who is an amazing songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist on his own. His self-produced albums are filled with gems that display guitar and vocals of unmatched warmth. While he left Deschanel to handle the songwriting and vocals as he stuck to guitar work and production on their first album as a duo, Volume One, his style is a perfect match for her voice. I don't think Deschanel is quite the songwriter Ward is yet, so some of his compositions would have been nice. Still, there are moments where their pairing is absolutely perfect.


5. Pink - So What. This was the best radio song of the year if you ask me. Pink and Max Martin are a damn good combination. Hell, Max Martin makes a good combination when paired with anyone. (Hopefully Kelly Clarkson now realizes that after ditching the Since You've Been Gone tunesmith when making her last album for an unsuccesful attempt at writing her own material.) Pink can sing her ass off, and this year she had at least one great catchy song to sing.

The Cult of Kenny Rogers

No doubt about it, I love me some Kenny Rogers. I'd rather listen to Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town than almost anything, even if Kenny's lyrics leave me a little choked up. One of the finest moments in The Big Lebowski is the montage featuring Kenny's First Edition hit Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Was In). Heck, I've been known to rock out to the Islands In The Stream clip on YouTube.

But every now and again, in my never ending quest to view every last entry in Wikipedia, I'll run into a fairly recent picture of Kenny. I can't decide if I'm more disturbed by the burn victim look of his skin or the crazy eyes. Those eyes freak me out. Kenny says they freak him out, too. Turns out, his eyelids are stretched so tight he has a hard time blinking.

Damn.

I know one thing. I haven't seen a case of the crazy eyes quite so bad since cult leader Marshall Applewhite made the news for convincing 38 of his followers to poison themselves so they could ascend their bodies and chase after a comet.

Now, as far as I know, Kenny's never tried to poison anybody, but I did have a wicked case of the shits after eating at a Kenny Rogers Roasters once in the nineties, so beware the next time you're in a far flung corner of the world where one of Kenny's eateries is still in business.

I really think Kenny could learn a thing or two from fellow aging country star Hank Williams Jr. No, I'm not talking about revitalizing his career by rewriting one of his former hits as a psycho propaganda tune.

Instead, like Hank, Kenny needs a permanent pair of $10 truck stop sunglasses. Hank has rarely been seen without his since smacking his head while rock climbing in the seventies. Maybe that traumatic brain injury partially accounts for his fucked up world view. I'd bet a look behind those sunglasses would reveal the craziest eyes of all. (As I watched the above clip, I quietly prayed for Hank to ingest some of Kenny's shit storm-inducing chicken and a big vat of cult-leader-approved cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.)

But, back to my point. Sunglasses, Kenny. Invest in some, and the rest of us will continue to enjoy your countrified easy listening jams in peace.

Alan Colmes vs. the Harlem Globetrotters

Yesterday while reading random news stories online, I clicked on a news story documenting the announcement by Alan Colmes that he would be leaving Hannity & Colmes, the political discussion program on Fox News where he has served as Sean Hannity's liberal punching bag for the past twelve years.
Can you blame the guy? He's the Washington Generals of political debate. The Washington Generals are the poor schmucks who play the Harlem Globetrotters every night. And every night they lose in grand fashion while they get depantsed at the free throw line and have balls bounced across their foreheads. Crowds watch the Globetrotters miraculously stage dribbling exhibitions through the legs of patsy Generals players who are in too much of a need of an easy paycheck to object. Still, losing every night while a roaring audience cheers you looking like a buffoon has to get old eventually.

Maybe it finally got old for Colmes. I swear, he makes Sean Hannity look like a regular Meadowlark Lemon. As Colmes haplessly sits back in interviews and misses easy jabs that even Larry King wouldn't miss, Sean Hannity puts on a regular trick shot exhibition. Hannity and his conservative cronies bounce verbal shots off Colmes' dumb noggin as he looks on in a daze. Heck, that show is about as fair and balanced as the Generals 13,000-odd game losing streak since 1971.

Good riddance, Colmes. Have fun in the graveyard of weekend Fox News programming. Who knows how long you'll last? Who the hell would want to see the Washington Generals display their incompetence without a Globetrotter like Curly Neal throwing bounce passes at their nuts? I know I wouldn't!

Obama, Republicans and a Question of Morality

While I sometimes fall short of my own expectations, I try to lead a moral life and exist as a good person. The political causes I support are largely based on simple moral beliefs. This is why I have been so disappointed to see the Republican Party stake a claim to being the moral political party. Now, I'm not foolish enough to say that Democrats are right on every issue, but I think that if we balance the issues that amount to real quality of life, the Republican party has gone astray.

These are the issues that matter to me:

The Iraq war is wrong. It was wrong from day one. It was sold to the American public on bad intelligence, and the Bush administration used fear echoing from 9/11 to drum up support. We acted as the world police and removed a secular leader and have left the country in the midst of a civil war. Young American soldiers are being torn from their familes, scarred for life, or are losing their lives. At the same time, we're virtually ignoring the real strongholds of terrorism, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This war is a shameful stain on the history of our country, and I hope the world forgives us.

Global warming is a crisis. It is caused by humans. We are ruining the planet for future generations. Republicans consistently have blocked progress in combating global warming.

Public schools need our help, not our scorn. I teach middle school students out of a text book published well before they were born. Many computers in my building are so ancient that checking email is a challenge. Still, I try to prepare quality lessons (even though I'm still smarting over the county denying us pay raises we deserved last year). I also give regular standardized tests that are mandated by No Child Left Behind, even though teaching to these tests stifles my creativity as a teacher. I completely disagree with solving the problems in our educational system by spending government money on private school vouchers. Instead, let's make improving public schools a real priority. Public school teachers are largely a dedicated, underappreciated bunch. Although I agree teachers should be held accountable, I'm disappointed that this is the first line of attack John McCain often takes when addressing the failure of our education system. We need to work at making public schools in our country great. The National Education Association endorses Barack Obama on the basis of fifteen different topics that relate to quality education. I agree with them on all fifteen.

The poor are ignored in our country. The Republican Party has consistently supported a philosophy where we only look out for the rights of the shareholder. The working poor deserve human rights and equality that we simply haven't been willing to give them. The fact is that we are the only wealthy industrialized nation that doesn't provide health care for all. In a nation as great as ours, this is just wrong. Business profits go to a small few, and simply haven't trickled down. Having grown up in a small town I was somewhat oblivious to the horrors of poverty in an urban setting. I no longer have that comfort. I now am glad to hear Obama supporters such as John Edwards and Colin Powell say that we need to take major steps in helping the poor in both our country and the world. Also, while I'm no fan of abortion, I think there are real issues of human suffering that need to be resolved before any of us can claim any moral high ground on that issue. We should, and can, help to alleviate the conditions that afflict many scared young women before we look down on them concerning their choice on this issue.

We need more rational gun control. I think we can honor the rights of sportsmen and law abiding citizens who want to protect their homes while also passing strict laws that keep guns out of the hands of criminals. Republicans have continually supported positions on guns that leave our cities unsafe. How could we let an assault weapons ban expire? Why not close the gun show loophole? I hear another police helicopter flying over my apartment as I type this. I fear sending a child out into these gun infested streets.

Gay people don't deserve to be discriminated against. If you are morally against homosexuality, don't engage in it. My feeling is that many conservatives have latched onto issues concerning homosexuality and have used a supposed Biblical perspective to justify bigotry. As the Republican Party has moved further to the right, I feel the base of the party has become too concerned with the judgment and ridicule of gay people.

Government spending has gotten out of control. Bill Clinton left office with a budget surplus. The national debt has doubled under Republican control, and is now at roughly $11 trillion. This endangers national security. This endangers the hope of a quality existence for workers in this country in years to come.

I think the Republican Party has been hijacked by people that have lowered the standard of political debate and discussion. If I honestly believed in the real core principles of the Republican Party, I would be outraged by this. Colin Powell obviously is. Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and the like have become superstars by lowering the standards for political discussion so low that their followers are unable to engage in any political discussion based on real issues. I've been disappointed in the arguments people have offered me as they state reasons for supporting McCain. People have forwarded me racist images of things like "Obama Bin Laden," showing Obama's face Photoshopped onto Osama Bin Laden's image. People have forwarded me bigoted information claiming Obama is a Muslim, as if there would be something wrong with that. I've watched the political rallies on television where someone yells "terrorist" and instead of that person being corrected, it's used as some sort of rallying cry. I choose to believe John McCain is probably sickened by the bigoted, small-minded turn many Republicans (including his running mate) have taken in opposing Obama, but it still doesn't excuse it.

I think we have a real chance to swing the political pendulum back the other way. The Republicans have really lost their way, and I think that in the weeks and months to come many will admit to that. Today I'm gladly casting my vote for Barack Obama. I honestly believe he's a good man who wants to make the world a better place. I have no way of knowing if he'll fulfill his promises and make a good president, but I know that when he speaks he inspires me like no politician I've ever seen. By voting for him I feel I'm making a truly moral decision.

Sarah Palin is too stupid to be Vice President

After watching Tina Fey's comedic take on Sarah Palin's CBS News interview, I was curious to see the actual piece. It was just kind of amazing to see.

You'd think that her handlers would have briefed and coached her at least a little bit on some of these issues. She just looked like a deer in the headlights for much of this interview. She either stammered, deflected, danced around the questions, or relied on extremely basic talking points. I almost felt bad for the woman until I remembered that come January she could be a heartbeat away from the presidency.

I watched Friday's presidential debate in its entirety and thought Barack Obama proved that the same fears that many people like myself have about Palin don't apply to him. He was knowledgeable, had well defined opinions, and was able to speak off the cuff. I honestly don't see how any people who aren't absorbed by anti-Obama rhetoric that is largely rooted in racism wouldn't have found themselves at least slightly more comfortable with the thought of an Obama presidency after watching that debate.

The fact is that John McCain is 72 years old, which would make him the oldest first term president in history.  He has already survived four instances where skin cancer was removed from his body. There is a huge likelihood that by electing John McCain president we could face a situation where Palin would have to finish his term. As Matt Damon said, this is an almost unbelievable scenario. I believe he likened it to a bad Disney movie where a hockey mom becomes president. As much as I've always been a big Obama supporter (with good reason), at one point I wasn't horrified by the thought of a McCain presidency. Well, No more.

Face it people, Palin would be no better as president than you are I. Hell, If you'd given me a few days of preparation time with the best Republican handlers, I would have done a better job being grilled by Katie Couric. And that's really scary.

Emo leads straight to suicide! Deputy Maygra says so.

Thanks to Youtube, I recently saw this laughably poor report on emo music and culture from a North Dakota TV station. I have much love for the ol' Peace Garden State, but this is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen in ages.

This was the lead story on an evening newscast. It reminds me of parents that used to freak out because their kids had Motley Crue records. Damn, rock and roll is supposed to be a little dangerous, and thank friggin' God that it is. But emo??? Maybe it'll put your son in danger of being a big wuss who wears his sister's pants, but that's about it.

Well, Sheriff's Deputy Fife, I mean Maygra, doesn't agree. He thinks those damn Sunny Day Real Estate albums are a straight ticket to suicide. And guess what? The popular girl who sits on the other side of the lunch room thinks those emo dorks are real weird. Better yet, ace reporter Lacey Crisp might not understand satire, and she might not have actually interviewed any of these "emo's," but she did uncover websites that are trying to push this wrist-cutting agenda on our kids!!!!
 

More Bush-bashing commie liberal bands on late night tv

OK, so nobody seemed to pay attention to the obviously brilliant clip I posted  of Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) playing his Bush-bashing anthem, "When the President Talks to God," on Jay Leno, but that's OK because I'm just  going to assume  you'd all heard that song before and didn't need me to remind you how good it was.

So for everyone that loved that one, here's a song that used to be on my profile page. It's one of my favorite bands of all time, NOFX, performing Franco-Unamerican live on Conan O'Brien before the last presidential election. My favorite line is "We all know  George Bush is an imbecile. He loves Dick but he hates homosexuals. We're sick and tired of the embarrassment. The whole world wants us to get a better president."

NOFX-Franco Un-American

A George W. Bush fan just yelled at me in traffic

The weirdest thing happened this evening as I was driving home from work. The woman next to me honked and I didn't think much of it. A block later she honked again and motioned for me to roll down my window. Since I drive a bit of a piece-of-shit car and it was starting to get dark, I figured I had a headlight out or something. When I rolled down my window she yelled "What do you have against George Bush?" I was fairly shocked, and then I remembered this bumper sticker that's been on my rear window for the past few years.

Heck, there's been another election since Bush was re-elected so I was recently thinking of taking this sticker off and making it into a magnet to add to the fridge.

This was a fairly young woman, and we were in fairly busy rush hour traffic. I wasn't at all worked up about the situation, but I couldn't resist getting a few shots back at an irrational Bush supporter who was rude enough to start yelling at a stranger in traffic who she assumed would be too timid to say anything back. To make sure she could hear over my engine, which sounds like it is getting ready for lift-off, I yelled back my response of "I'm against this war." She then yelled back something along the lines of "Do you want your grandchildren to die?" So I yelled "Well, I sure wouldn't want them to die in Iraq"

I also added "I don't have a problem with gay people," and "I think women should have the rights to abortions." (Although this last statement is true, there are reasons why I hate George Bush that I find more important in this unstable world than the abortion issue, but I was thinking on the fly.)

She responded by yelling "Well, do you think they should have their clitorises cut out?" Now, apparently this was in reference to saving women in the third world from sexual mutilation. I didn't know that George W. Bush had made a definitive stand on this issue. Maybe this woman finally figured out why we're in Iraq stirring up a bee's nest and making half the world needlessly hate us. George Bush loves pussy!

She then yelled "What about education? What about No Child Left Behind?" Now, I don't know if this woman was delusional enough to think that George W. Bush is a champion of education, or if I miraculously had converted her to rational thinking, but she was suddenly making points for me.

At this point the woman's friend was embarrassed and trying to get her to roll up the window, and traffic was busy, so I shouted one last thing, "The death penalty is racist," and she pulled ahead in her lane. What a freaky interaction. For one thing, I live in Maryland, which is highly Democrat. There are anti-Bush stickers all over the place. Also, W's popularity is as low or nearly as low as it's ever been. Look at the results of the most recent election. The people, politicians and the media all finally are seeing that Iraq was a mistake and that the Republican party got a little too drunk on their power these last few years. I'm not foolish enough to believe that all beliefs held by Republicans are inherently bad, but to have a young woman yell at me in traffic in defense of George W. Bush is just plain crazy.

Going back ten years, I lived in Gillette, Wyoming, and drove an even bigger piece of shit, an '87 Mazda 323. I had a Darwin emblem slapped on the back of that hot rod. One day a man rolled down his window and started hysterically screaming "Jesus is Lord" and telling me that I was going to rot in Hell. I didn't have time to inform that fool that evolution and believing in God aren't contradictory ideas, but I digress. Today I have a similar emblem on my bumper.

I don't think my new Bush-loving friend saw it. She didn't raise any religious arguments and as she pulled ahead I noticed she had a bumper sticker making reference to being guided by the Bible. Personally, I'd rather be guided by rational thought than be guided by the Bible, but I guess many George W. Bush Followers don't agree. Heaven help us.

Damn I hate Lynyrd Skynyrd

I can't think of a punishment much worse than being forced to go to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. Don't get me wrong. I can live with the songs that were in Forrest Gump and Dazed and Confused. After all, I did come of age in the nineties, but come on. Let's get serious. In my prejudiced mind, when I see you walk down the street wearing a Skynyrd tour t-shirt, I'm thinking you failed the litmus test for having any intelligent social or political values, never mind having decent taste in music.

Admittedly, my hatred for Lynyrd Skynyrd has much to do with the modern incarnation of the band. Half the friggin' band died in a 1977 plane crash (including singer/songwriter Ronnie Van Zant). So, when you go see Skynyrd today, you are seeing two out of seven members of the '77 lineup. You're seeing a band that makes up for their lack of current relevance by pandering to the redneck fan base that is foolish enough to give them the time of day. They play the Republican National Convention. They drape the confederate flag all over their merchandise. They've made their sound less rock, more country - perfect for actually finding a place for airplay on Country Music Television.

They write songs like Red, White and Blue where coattail rider Johnny Van Zant (Ronnie's brother) sings "My hair's turning white, my neck's always been red, my collar's still blue, we've always been here just trying to sing the truth to you. Yes you could say we've always been, Red, White, and Blue."

Damn Johnny, you're a poet. Wait, it gets better. 

"Ride our own bikes to Sturgis.  We pay our own dues, smoking camels, drinking domestic brews."

Smart Sturgis reference by Johnny considering motorcycle rallies, where they play for actual regular Joes, are big gigs for Skynyrd. He forgets that he fell into a goldmine of a gig and didn't pay any dues, but what the hell.

The lyrical gold continues with "My Daddy worked hard, and so have I, paid our taxes and gave our lives to serve this great country so what are they complaining about. Yeah we love our families, we love our kids.  You know it is love that makes us all so rich. That's where we're at. If they don't like it they can just get the HELL out!"

We've got your basic love it or leave it crap. Johnny talks about the evil "they." This "they" must be people that actually read a newspaper or watch the news on occasion.

Maybe Skynyrd was a good band at one time. Maybe not, but I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Now they're a bunch of old dumb asses in leather cowboy hats that look like they should be downing Old Milwaukees at the Moose Lodge instead of being in a "rock" band. Even worse, they're making a buck off a legacy they didn't write and drumming up interest by embracing conservative white trash values.

So, if you were wondering if I want to go to that big Skynyrd show, I think I'll pass.

 

Damn I love the Lillingtons

Growing up in Wyoming, I actually was lucky enough to be exposed to great music. Granted, none of it actually came from Wyoming, but my friends and I immersed ourselves in indie rock and punk. What else is there to do in a small town? Get loaded? Well, we probably did that too, but we listened to lots of good music. Unfortunately, good rock shows rarely came around, and any local music scene usually consisted of some crappy bedroom band that some friend of a friend was in.

In the spring of '98, when I read that the Donnas and the Groovie Ghoulies were coming to Casper, I was totally excited. Now, I wasn't exactly a fan of either band, but I sure was a fan of their record label. Lookout! Records had released some of my favorites by Screeching Weasel, Operation Ivy and the first few Green Day albums. That was enough for me to criss-cross the state with a few friends to make it to that all-ages show in Casper.

The opening bands were almost beside the point. We missed the first band, Laramie's Homeless Wonders (featuring a pre-Teenage Bottlerocket Ray and Brandon Carlisle). We made it to the show just before the Lillingtons took the stage, but we weren't concerned. I might have heard their I Lost My Marbles 7", but I honestly didn't pay much attention.

That all changed when the Lillingtons took the stage. The lights weren't even turned down as they played. They didn't look like much, but they blew the crowd away. The songs had a Ramones influence, and unlike many bands this influence obviously wasn't derived from a lack of talent. This wasn't a cheap parody. These guys obviously had love for this type of music, and the entire crowd was won over.

Afterward, the Donnas and the Groovie Ghoulies almost seemed like an afterthought. I was amazed that some band from Wyoming that almost no one had heard of was so much better than these bands that were getting national attention. I bought Shit Out of Luck, the CD the Lillingtons had for sale that night, and drove the two hours back to Gillette. I had to get back to college, so the next day I spent four hours driving from Gillette to Laramie. I listened to Shit out of Luck the entire way. I realized that my ears hadn't fooled me at that show.
The Lillingtons were great, and not just great for being from Wyoming. To me, Shit out of Luck seemed to have this idealistic, fun view of 50's culture as seen through the eyes a guy that probably had as much luck with girls as I did, which would mean none at all. With that songwriting and that voice, I knew the Lillingtons from Newcastle, Wyoming, population 3,000, were going places.

I spent the following year telling anyone that would listen about how great they were, and it didn't take long before my friends were all Lillingtons fans. I even emailed Lookout! Records head Chris Appelgren (He didn't reply, but I won't let my ego become too bruised because, based upon the majority of the output Lookout! produced since he took over the label in 1997, I don't think he'd know a hit record if it hit him in the head).

That next year while I was gracing University of Wyoming students with my writing in the college newspaper, the Branding Iron, I met a guy who worked on our website who had gone to high school with two of the guys in the band back in Newscastle. I made sure to inform him of their genius, and didn't think much more of it. He approached me one day and told me that he was surfing around on Amazon one day and discovered that the Lillingtons had a new album coming out. I looked online and saw that it was being released on Lookout! Holy shit, I was doing backflips. This was great news. So, being the ace reporter I was, I called up Lookout! and found out that the record was being distributed by Lookout!, but was actually being released by Ben Weasel's new Lookout! imprint, Panic Button Records. So I called up Panic Button and they gave me Lillingtons frontman Kody Templeman's phone number. I arranged with Kody to drive to Newcastle and interview them in their rehearsal space, which was in the old Newcastle radio station building. The results of this interview were printed in the UW Student magazine, Frontiers, and I also wrote a full page review of Death By Television on the front page of the Branding Iron entertainment section (If I can actually find copies of these, I'll post them on here.)

So, in the years that followed, people outside Wyoming found out about the Lillingtons. How could they not have? I'd say that Death By Television was one of the very best punk rock records of the nineties. Dig around on the Internet a little bit and its isn't too hard to find people who feel the same way, whether it be legends like Fat Mike and Ben Weasel or some kids arguing on message boards. Lyrically and musically, the songs were tighter than ever. Explaining its greatness would require me to ramble much much more than I already am, so if you already don't have a copy or three get on it right now.
Unfortunately, the band never got a big push, and they didn't tour much. They released The Backchannel Broadcast in early 2001, and not much else was heard from them. As great as they were, I thought they deserved to be full-blown groupie shagging, MTV Cribs featured rock stars. I'd heard they were all busy working day jobs and were saying the band was over, so I was a bit sad.

After years of no news, the last year and a half have been great. The band finally put their pre-Panic Button releases from small Clearview Records back in print via the 3-CD set Technically Unsound. The set includes a live album and unreleased tracks, but I was most excited for the inclusion of Idiot Word Search. Prior to this release, the Lillingtons half of the Idiot Word Search split LP had only been available on vinyl. This is one of the best things the Lillingtons ever did, and for years I had been stuck listening to a crackly copy a friend had recorded onto CD (actually I still listen to that crackly copy, but it's nice to have a proper copy). Technically Unsound is already somewhat difficult to track down, but scouring eBay for a copy is definitely worth your time.

Clearview also released Get Wrecked, a one-off CD from Sack, a band led by Kody that had more of a straightforward booze-fueled style. The album had been sitting around for awhile, and before its release, bootleg copies were going for a ridiculous amount.

As a fan of what Kody did with the Lillingtons, I was most excited when I heard he joined Laramie's Teenage Bottlerocket. The Carlisle brothers formed TBR in 2001, having given up the ska and progressive tendencies of the Homeless Wonders for a sound that more resembled the Lillingtons and the Ramones. The change worked and they released a great album on their own called Another Way. With Kody on board for 2005's Total, people started paying attention to Wyoming punk rock again. Total was good, damn good! The band got signed to San Francisco label Red Scare Industries, and the album was actually easy to find at Internet CD stores and download sites (Do yourself a favor and go get a copy right now.) TBR has actually toured the past few summers as well. Last June I saw them win over a crowd at the Ottobar in Baltimore (just as I thought with my first Lillingtons show, I thought they blew the other bands off the stage that night).


Red Scare also re-released the Lillingtons' Panic Button/Lookout! releases. The Lillingtons were actually among many bands (including Green Day, Operation Ivy, Avail and Screeching Weasel) that pulled their releases from Lookout! after years of label mismanagement had resulted in late or missing royalty payments. Death By Television even got remastered along with the re-release, and although I'd argue this is completely unnecessary, if it helps sell a few more copies, I'm all for it.

That brings us to right now, the fall of 2006. While not promising a full-on reunion, the Lillingtons recently got together to record The Too Late Show, which Red Scare recently released. I'm practically doing backflips again. Guitarist Zachary Rawhouser is handling more of the songwriting duties, but lyrically, the songs are still perfectly inspired by late night television and regular guy logic in the way the last two albums were. Musically, the album is a mix of catchy but ballsy nuggets that made Death By Television so great and the cleverly dark sound of The Backchannel Broadcast. The mix works. If anything, I want more. With 11 songs clocking in under 24 minutes, the thing is over before you know it, but it's a damn good 24 minutes.

I haven't been back to Wyoming in a few years, but I continue to be proud that music that matters as much as the Lillingtons and Teenage Bottlerocket came out of the old home state. Let's hope it keeps on coming.

Anti-Bush protest song performed on Leno by Bright Eyes

Yes, I know this clip is a few years old, but it's fairly new to me and I find myself playing it over and over. I can't believe Leno had the cojones to let Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes) on his show knowing he would play When the President Talks to God. This almost makes up for the total softball interview Jay did with Ann Coulter in front of an audience that was obviously filled exclusively with facists, I mean Coulter supporters.  Anyway, here are the lyrics and the clip from youtube. Maybe Oberst is the new Dylan. He can sure write some lyrics, even when he isn't bashing Bush.

"When The President Talks To God"

When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our womens' rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?

When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommends

When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God

When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?

I doubt it

I doubt it

..>

Henry Rollins on Ann Coulter and the FCC

I think that I'd rather listen to Clay Aiken than the Rollins Band, but Henry Rollins is always good for some interesting commentary. On his IFC show he has a segment where he reads open letter pieces that allow him to vent on various topics.

In this first Letter From Henry to Ann Coulter, I like when he says "You'll never have a real place with the beltway incrowd as they see you as a Northeastern hickoid pro-wrestler NASCAR type with a degree from Cornell." I think he's right. I'm sure that conservative insiders see her as a joke, but probably a welcome joke since so many people eat her shit up.

The next Letter From Henry is to the FCC. I like when he questions how people like Howard Stern are getting huge fines while violence goes practically unchecked. He says"I don't know about you, but these broadcasts never made me want to blow up a building, or build a meth lab, or even bring a gun to school. Sexual content seems to upset you, but violent content seems to be alright. That's kind of like the Bible. Not a lot of sex, whole lot of violence."

Ann Coulter makes me sick

Of course, I realize my reaction to Ann Coulter is exactly what she wants. She says inflamitory things and it helps her sell books, but she is dumbing down America. So many people are falling for it and believe that this is what politics is about. She's creating unnecessary division in our country, rewriting history, saying one side is always right while the other is evil, and convincing people that this is how politics work.

I'm not just saying this because she is a conservative either. I generally don't vote Republican, but the Democrats have their faults. Believing in all the crap one particular side wants to feed us is just stupid, and it doesn't help the world. It's almost comical to read the things Ann Coulter says about Democrats and "liberals." For a good start, read the entry on Coulter at Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Coulter. She thinks Joseph McCarthy was a hero, the New Deal was a bad thing, there should be literacy requirement to vote, the problems in the middle east could be solved by converting those "camel jockeys" to Christianity, and so on and so on. I can't imagine that any intelligent person who tends to have conservatiave views would take her seriously. I can't believe news programs have her on as an expert. I can't believe newspapers run her column.

Unfortunately America is buying into her sort of rhetoric, and we're hated throughout the world like never before. I don't think it's a total coincedence. I'm pissed that people like Ann Coulter have hijacked political debate and turned it into a circus.

I recently saw a report on 20/20 or a similar show that documented how voting in Congress is more partisan than ever. While a few decades ago, Democrats and Republicans voted with their parties sixty some percent of the time, now they do about ninety percent of the time. It seems like politicians stick to their "side" and throw mud at the other worse than ever before. I'm sure Coulter loves it.

Her book is still at number one on the New York Times. I wonder how many books Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky sold this week. God, (see, I'm praying to God, since I'm not Godless) I hope Coulter's readers are reading her for the comedy value.

Jenny Lewis and M. Ward Live

I missed the Super Bowl this year because my girlfriend and I went to New York City to see Jenny Lewis play. Well worth it. She played in an old synagogue on the lower east side. The place only held two or three hundred people, and Jenny kicked ass as expected.

We were surprised how good her opening act was. M. Ward, who produced some songs on Jenny's new album, came out with just a guitar and some revolving guest musicians. He was amazing. Great voice and great playing. It didn't hurt that a few of those guest musicians were Conor Oberst and My Morning Jacket's Jim James.

We wanted to get a bite to eat before the show, so we walked into this place called Katz's Deli. Turns out it was the "I'll have what she's having" deli from When Harry Met Sally.

Here's Spin Magazine's online review of the show.
http://www.spin.com/articles/live-jenny-lewis-nyc

At the bottom of everything

I'm not completely convinced that Conor Oberst is the genius some people think he is, but I've decided that the song At the Bottom of Everything by Bright Eyes is the absolute shit. It's one of those songs that just gets better and better the more I listen to it, even if I end up fastforwarding through the intro most of the time.

edit: Since originally writing this post, I've decided that Conor Oberst is indeed at least occasionally a genius.

An almost live parade and the greatness of Green Day

I woke up on Thanksgiving and watched a bit of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I noticed that all the performers that stopped to sing in front of Macy's were lip syncing terribly. Actual live vocals couldn't have possibly come across worse than these God awful performances. Live performances might have some blemishes, but why does everything need to be so bland, safe, and talentless. There was this band called the Click Five whose members all pretended to play their instruments. What a bunch of jokers. As they hammed it up and mugged for whoever the hell buys this crap, the actual drumming, which wasn't muted very well, could be heard over the tape.

After watching the parade, I had Green Day's Macy's Day Parade stuck in my head for the rest of the day. Damn, that's a great song. MTV never played it too much, which is a real shame because it's a great song and a great clip.

As a matter of fact, that whole album, Warning, is great. If you are one of the many people that forgot about Green Day between Dookie and American Idiot, I suggest picking it up. I read several articles written when Green Day was doing press for American Idiot where lazy journalists hyped American Idiot by saying Green Day had been in a rut with Warning. BULLSHIT. I'll be the first to admit that I never put a lot of hours in listening to Insomniac or Nimrod, but Warning is as good as anything Green Day has done. Macy's Day Parade, Church on Sunday, Castaway, Warning, Minority, and Waiting were all personal favorites. Every Green Day fan I know loves that album.

Downplaying that album might have made for an easy story angle, but it just isn't fair or accurate. The truth is that the album came out at the height of the whole rap rock thing, and it didn't get nearly the airplay it deserved at radio or MTV ( I never saw the videos for Waiting or Macy's Day Parade -both great songs - until I discovered them on the Internet). The truth is that considering the hostile music environment of the time it was released, if Warning had been half as weak as feature writers from Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly, etc. are now saying it was, Green Day may have collapsed like many bands from the ninteties, or become irrelevant like the Offspring.

American Idiot is a great album, but let's not forget that it wasn't an album by a band on the rebound. It was an album by a great band that did great work through tough times, and luckily stuck around until mainstream audiences rediscovered them. Good for Green Day. Go out and get a copy of Warning and see for yourself.

The execution of all things

I can't exactly figure out why Rilo Kiley isn't huge. Like with any other band, part of me wants them to blow up (Hell, they deserve it), and part of me wants them to stay relatively small (I don't have to worry about them changing their formula to get on the radio, and they still play relatively small venues). Maybe there's some middle ground. I don't know, but here's a damn good song, The Execution of all Things.

I Will Follow You Into The Dark

Maybe I just need to give it more time, but I haven't gotten that into Death Cab For Cutie's new album, Plans. I loved their last album, Transatlanticism. I find myself skipping through the new one a lot of the time. I absolutely love the song I Will Follow You into the Dark, though. I've been playing it over and over when I skip the other songs. Damn, I need to give this album another chance.

Fields of Joy

I downloaded "Fields of Joy" by Lenny Kravitz last night and I've been listening to it over and over. Some things never change, I guess. I mean, Lenny Kravitz isn't exactly the hippest music any more. Was it ever? But, there was a time when Lenny's music meant everything to me -1991, just as I was turning 16.

I've always loved "Fields of Joy" in particular, and I've always been prone to listen to it over and over. Don't you just love it when you dig a song so much you have to listen to it over and over? I do. I remember first hearing that song in the summer of 1991. I has just spent a miserable month alone with my father in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. He was a man I didn't really know, and all I really learned about him that summer was that he hated my fucking guts. After the disaster of visiting my father, I was spending a week with my sister in Madison before I went back home to Wyoming. She had a cool little apartment in the city with her boyfriend, Alejandro. Best of all, Alejandro had a huge CD collection - crates and crates full. Who had so many CD's in 1991? I had just recently stopped collecting tapes. In fact, I doubt that today I have as many CD's as that guy had in 1991.

I remember that Alejandro was nice, or foolish, enough to let me run through his collection. He had a brand new copy of Lenny's Mama Said album, which easily gets my vote for being Lenny's best album, and "Fields of Joy" is the best thing on there. Funny, actually, since it was the one song Lenny didn't write, but I don't care. That song rules, and I'm not some Lenny Kravitz nutswinger. Lenny didn't seem corny when he sang about love. He seemed so idealistic, and so unpretentious. This was a guy that understood love, damn it. (I know his wife had just left him for banging chicks on the road, but at least he could talk the talk). That song is so quietly optimistic, and I sure needed that feeling that summer. Shit, I need some quiet optimism at this very moment. I remember sitting and staring out my sister's window listening to that damn song until my sister insisted I change it.

Unfortunatey, Lenny started to really suck on later albums, although he achieved much larger commercial success. His next album contained one of his biggest hits, "Are you gonna go my way," but the songs didn't drip with hope and soul like the songs on Mama Said. He was instead copping some seventies Led Zeppelin sound. He always did a better job of copping John Lennon and seventies soul, if you ask me. When Lenny moved on to the riff rock, his songs had absolutely no emotional power. Yuck. I can still enjoy a spin of his Greatest Hits disc, but none of those songs mean shit to me compared to "Fields of Joy."

The Photo Album from Death Cab For Cutie sucks

I just started listening to Death Cab For Cutie this year, and I have to say that they show signs of being a great band. I randomly picked Transatlanticism as my starting album, and I absolutely love it. The melodies, lyrics and production are all great. I then bought Give Up, the debut album by DCFC frontman Ben Gibbard's other group, the Postal Service, which is also a great, inventive album. So, I had big expectations for The Photo Album, their 2001 release. After many listens where I've tried to convince myself that I just needed time to get into it, I have to say that this album just isn't very good. There are a few good songs, but it isn't an album that I naturally just want to leave in the stereo. The vocals sound much more hollow. I love the memorable songwriting on Transatlanticism, whether its catchy pop numbers or slower songs that pack an emotional punch. The songs here just get boring. They just aren't as finely crafted and don't force me to get cought up in them. They aren't terrible, but I have to force myself to listen to them. Where are the hooks? When am I going to start rambling to all my friends about how great this album is? I won't be doing any such rambling anytime soon, and its a great disapointment, because Gibbard's recent efforts had me telling anyone and everyone about their greatness.