"Prolegomenon" As the Boss would say...

 "Prolegomenon" As the Boss would say...

 “Come up for the rising.

Come on up for the rising, lay your hands in mine”.

Like all good Americana music, as to when Bruce Springsteen croons, a spirit is summoned. This spirit is better known as “memory”.The spirit of memory has a very tricky handshake as well. It's no Loki, but it might as well be just as blind as Lady Justice. I do not believe that I've ever listened to a song by Bruce or anything from the Americana genre and not have been immediately taken back to a distance place, firm and/or loose handshake. For me, personally, that’s also how I’ve felt about my writing. I can’t talk to you guys about baseball, GTA 5 (hookers) or how Mother’s should raise sons, but I can write about music, how it takes me back and hopefully you as well.


Even though the chorus section of the song "The Rising"  is the most “blast” worthy, as in “crank it to eleven Bruce!”, it’s not the part that hits home for me. Home is where the heart is, I am homeward bound and the Boss knows that I have kept track of everywhere I have been. At the very beginning he sings,

“Lost track of how far I've gone

How far I've gone, how high I've climbed…”

I remember when I was in Scotland and I hiked to the top of Arthur's Seat, the highest point in the city of Edinburgh. Like a retard, I didn’t dress the part for hiking… I had converse, some tight/skinny jeans and I even went shopping at the record store before hand. So like some portly kid, toting a shopping bag that invited himself on the adventure at the last second, I scrambled up the mountain. I took several photographic opportunities, or as the angel on my shoulder might say “a very sinful, angry but yet protectively mumbled rant”. When I got to the top, the wind touched my face with a cool smile and the city below was quietly humbled. I had totally forgotten about the struggle I had just experienced. I just stood there holding my bag of records taking in the beauty of nature. Life is like that sometimes. Everything from here has been a journey. From discussions of how Mum could be the “made for adult ears” version of Death Cab For Cutie or to how the song Night Moves still may be the most perfect jam to belt at the top your lungs while facing an uncertain dusk, top down and cold soda in hand; I’ve come a long way, and hopefully you have too. So here is your informal invite to start the ending of two series that are close to my heart, Keeping Track of History and You Already Know How I Feel: The 5 Songs We Use Not to Talk. The double feature is coming and I hope you're ready.

You maybe wondering why I am ending KToH, well that's just a surprise for you later down the road, but you can expect them to make a comeback with some different "clothes" next year. As for The 5 Songs... that one is kind of obvious, but hey, you still have two left after this one is done spinning.

As I was writing the other day (which was a Sunday in case you were curious) I couldn’t help but feel as though these two stories belonged together. Over my many years of "womanizing", (if you dare to even call it that -- I'm such a sweetheart) I don't think I've ever experienced more infatuation and stress in such a short amount of time than during the summer of 2012. There are a couple of things that you should know about the "2012 Effler" though. I had just returned from my study abroad in England and my beard was getting larger than my ego; all the beard wanted to do was make-out and write “glitorious” pop-music. I wouldn’t say that I deserved the lovey-dovey heart palpitations or that post-crack-fix stress twitch that this girl caused, but I could be guilted into thinking I needed both. I don't think this is the appropriate use of the term "hot flashes" but it might as well be the male equivalent. Our "hot flashes" could be defined as the relentless weakness to both strangle and in the same beat daintily adorn with silk-baby-bottom-soft rose petals our current beloved. These hot flashes are also how I feel about Robin, the boy wonder. I never understood how Batman dealt with "them", but for me “they” always caused both intense frustration and merriment.

Either way, there are only two types of girls that could cause such a brouhaha for me: Any girl cos-playing* as Princess Leia and this swank sexy Russian by the name of Gitte Kendel. Now to avoid connections, such as an angry phone call and/or letter-bomb, I changed the names for the consideration of others, well… just Gitte's. But you guys seem like a smart enough crowd to know that Gitte is Bavarian name, which suits her because her hair swung like a heavy obsidian axe while her matching eyes would have brought any retired jewel thief back to their shadowy feet. Gittie was a babe, she knew it, she owned it, I was snared and now she is part five of KToH: The Legend of Iron Curtain. Gitte is also how I stumbled upon number three for the The 5 Songs… series: the Karaoke. The Karaoke happens in the middle of the story, and I'm most positive that everyone can yoke my experience to when we've felt young and foolish. So from hot flashes, hopeful glitter ambitions, robin the boy wonder and one sexy Russian, this is really a summer's tale with a more awkward John Travolta. It's basic, guy stares at girl, girl ignores guy and by some freak accident, sparks fly. But this summer loving has a totally different sing along, it's all about flaws.

So later this week expect a rather large update. Your homework assignment is to re-read posts, tell me what you liked, what you didn't like and also send me some of your moments. I'm also playing with the idea of how I'm going to write this piece, so don't be bashful. I'm about to start responding to fan-mail/"dude this is my jam letters", so get involved.

*Cosplaying: short for "costume play", is an activity in which participants wear costumes and accessories to represent a specific character or idea from a work of fiction.

Mùm

(I encourage you to press play before reading)

Welcome to the dark side of the Postal Service.

During my senior year of high school the banana-pancake Jack Johnson phase was exploding for the wannabe art kids and "accidentally  to-public" potheads, along side with that "hot fuzz" buzz by The Killers. For the band nerds and pre-teen goth kids it was AFI and The Black Eye'd Peas, peeling their way in with the sounds of emo-skunk grime. Needless to say I was apart of both of these groups, but I was also secretly keeping some music to my self. I'd drive to school listening to the local college radio station, relentless hoping that when I got to school I'd get into a verbal argument over economics or some war about "terror". But then there was Death Cab For Cutie. 

Ben Gibbard -- my nightingale. He'd let me have a good silent cry. I always felt I was long over due for an angry "dead-journal entry", so that came in handy too, but once I discovered the Postal Service, all those raw emotions and 'goofy feelings about girls' clicked. I was satisfied being melancholy but yet synthetically bubbly -- in the trendy way Lite-Brite could have been, but damn-it, it just was art!

Now that I'm in a post-graduate life, I found that I had sat down my Postal Service record sessions a long time ago (but not in a galaxy far far away...). Life had taken its course and I had gotten older. Like anyones life, there had been a series of up's and down's or "life altering" experiences/people. The shift of adulthood wasn't something I had noticed immediately, but when friends began to move away and letters from crazy ex-girl friends weren't fun to share anymore, I felt the heat of the water that had been boiling for sometime.

When I discovered Mum, I really took the time to sit down and listen to them. I don't recall the day I found them, but I'm certain that my ears felt like cellophane and my craving for a vintage smoke rocketed to it's highest potential. Their soft patterns of electro glitch beats, and kitchen noises are tucked into a whirlwind of emotion. The piano sounds like its being hit by a mallet made of silly putty, and the bass and percussion are recorded through a walkie-talkie... or gramophone. Their whole sound just screams, layers!
I felt like I did in high school when I found the Postal Service. I chanced upon a band that completes a small niche in my life. I listen to them in the car, walking to class (rain preferably) and in bed when I should be writing. 

Glass Fractal

The Album, We Finally Are No One, essentially sounds like rainy day emotion wrapped up into a glass fractal and set in front of a candle. I honestly have nothing to say about their cord progression, beat-choices, or lack of unintelligible singing, because I feel like I just can't. And like I said, its the dark side or adult version of the Postal Service. Meaning just that, its not something many people would catch if they are consumed in rotisserie pop music, regurgitated every year.
There is a work of genius here, and I suggest you listen to it.
If you like Mum you should check out: Seabear, The Album Leaf and Broadcast.