You Already Know How I Feel: The Five Songs We Use Not To Talk. Pt. 4

The Best Taste.

Several months ago more than a few of my friends got onto a Big Star kick. It was hard to shake and it was an addiction. Unlike a drug addiction a music addiction has the oddest “tells”. You might be at dinner with one of them and not even notice. But if you pay attention you’ll see. They might pause or interrupt the conversation, no matter how serious it is and say something like “Hey! This is great song”, or “Did you ever hear that crazy rumor about Rod Stewart”. Before you know it you might find yourself in a conversation about how the Deftones self-titled was their best record or how Flannery O’Conner could have been the best folk artist of her time. Finding their drug of choice to is just a matter of asking the right questions, such as: What were you listening to in your car on the way here or What do you want played at your wedding/funeral. These questions will help you out and possibly them as well because I guarantee it that are really wanting to talk about it, but back to Big Star.

If you don’t know anything about Big Star then don’t feel left out. Big Star is a musical treasure that only a few people have actually discovered. They were an American rock/power pop group from Memphis Tennessee back in the 1970’s. The Big Star story is not only a heart warming tale but it also totally pulls on your heart strings and makes miss authentic musicians. They never became a huge success until after the band had been disbanded for decades. Now with only one of the founding members still alive their music has only kept alive by musicians covering their songs or referencing them as a musical influence. Our addiction, well it all started with the documentary that was made in 2012 called, “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me.” The documentary was showing at a local indie theatre downtown and it was all we could talk about in the weeks leading up to the screening. The three largest campaign managers of the Big Star addiction was Rob, Chris and I. Now Chris had a good reason for being on the sonic crack, he was throwing the event but for Rob it was painfully obvious. He has been addicted ever since he discovered the G chord. How do I even begin to describe this man?

Imagine that you are at a dive bar in a small southern town that you’ve never been to. The wind is blowing, the rain is falling in sheets and the sun won’t be back for hours. You sit alone at the bar, destitute and questioning if the person you are waiting for is really worth the awkward stares. You might have asked the bar keep for another brew and then suddenly felt that it was to late to recall your order. Then it happens. Crash! The front door bursts open with the wind howling and the rain sneaking in like a herd of cats. A tall figure looms in the doorway. His shoulders are broad, chest built like a whiskey barrel and his beady eyes are hidden by a prickly red and orange beard. The figure saunters towards you in a holiday pace and places his large mitt on the table top right by your beer. He looks you straight in the face and smiles.

“Dude, you straight up look like John Rzeznik! It’s uncanny! You smoke? Okay good. So do I. Want this expensive cigar, well to bad. Now let me tell you something, Broadway... not the most solid rock/pop song of the 90’s but damn, it was so much better than Iris. Are you drinking a Guinness? That’s my favorite. Irish, couldn’t you tell. Can I ask you something, have you ever listened to Carmen? Let me tell you something man... that song the Champion, doesn’t matter if you are an atheist, that song will save you. So what do you think of that cigar?”  

You can’t even get a word in. His cadence is like a freight train but his demeanor is that of a liturgical father. You feel comforted but yet at risk of learning to much. You softly sip your soothing juice as the night ages on. You have met Rob.

Mecca

That’s Rob in a nut shell, well besides the fly fishing of course. Rob has been a close friend and father figure in my life since I was 16. I met him at a small church plant and I quickly fell under his wing of musical guidance. Mainly thanks to people like him I was never able to let go of the 90’s and I am eternally grateful for that. Rob had a pension for all rock music and what I mean by rock music is Rock. Music. So when he heard about the Big Star documentary, he was in my face fast. We would pump each other by posting our favorite Big Star songs on each others social media sites and taking photos of CDs we found of theirs in used record stores. We’d talk about the passion it took to write such solid tunes for hours upon hours. Then it started, the music challenges.

I awoke one morning and decided to open my laptop before crawling out of bed. I could see that Rob had posted something on my wall and it said, “MUSIC CHALLENGE!!!!” He posted a play list for me to listen to and he “dared” me to have my mind melt by the power of rock. It was Big Star and Teenage Fan Club back to back to back and it was glorious. It was a perfect short compellation of their best tunes. I listened to it several times over and ever since then we have been dishing out Music Challenges. The Music Challenges range from “rock music for the sake of rock music” to “this is a serious tune that appropriately describes my soul.” To this day I open my laptop in the morning just to see if there is a Music Challenge waiting for me.

At the end of 2013 we had a celebratory get together at our favorite watering hole for Robs upcoming wedding. The bar was packed with all of my favorite people, but then their were the “locals”. What you have to know about this bar is that there is a jukebox in far corner. Cloaked in smoke and neon lights it sits, waiting for a suitor to bring it life. This jukebox is often abused by the locals. They braid it with songs by Creed, Shinedown and newest and latest pop travesty. When ever a good song is played it is swiftly followed by butt-rock. There was no winning. Imagine trying to train a puppy. You get him to shake for a tasty doggy treat but then, as soon as you turn you back he has turded all over the carpet and you are stuck with the stench for weeks. But that evening we had the Best Taste, Rob defeated the jukebox. Rob had dropped around 40 dollars in it and the whole evening was nothing but pure musical bliss. We heard Bush, Smashing Pumpkins, Sugar Ray, Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, Weezer, Garbage, Blind Melon, Everclear, Our Lady Peace and much, much more. Our entire table was in sync. Every once in a while a random person at the table would be like, “Hey, hey! This song! This song right here...” and then they’d dive into story. The locals looked like lost and confused parrots. They’d strut around the pool tables and cock their head to the side trying to decipher what was playing. For them it was a different world, for us, it was the Best Taste.

We were lost in a world of nostalgia with the closest of comrades. Often when people in my generation have flashbacks of nostalgia it’s a haunting tale. We talk about the hard times, but also times when our best friends were there for us, with our arms wrapped around their shoulders. But the Best Taste is a dose of nostalgia with only the best of times being discussed. On this evening not a word had to be said, we were remembering the best moments in life where music had placed a song in our heart and smile on our face. When we use “The Best Taste” our soul connects to the fondest moments of our life and is uplifted through the power of music. The “Best Taste” can only be had though when we are surround by true friends. They understand our faults but see us for our strengths.  The friends that get us, know us and could pass for us on an electronic dating profile. That evening was the Best Taste in it’s purest form. We drank fine bourbon, smoked the best cigars, told the loudest of stories and listened to music that mattered. At the end of the night Rob turned to me and yelled, “Brady! I beat the jukebox! This better go on your website. I just completed the ultimate Music Challenge.” I raised my glass to him, saluted and said, “Yes Rob, you just played the Ultimate Music Challenge.” So maybe it’s time for you to gather your close friends, find a jukebox and partake in the Ultimate Music Challenge, defeat the beast and have the Best Taste. If I learned anything from the “Best Taste”, my friends and also Big Star it is this: The light that you have is the only light that you have. And you better put that shit on the line.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you... BIG STAR!

10 Cover Songs that are in My Library (5-1)

Covering your tracks... 10 songs at a time.

#5. Somewhere Over The Rainbow // Israel Kamakawiwo'ole (Judy Garland) 

When it came to The Wizard of Oz I usually had two different discussions, the first of the conversations (being from the older generations perspective) would be about how magical Judy Garland was, what a tragic story and how it should have ended better for her. The second conversation was (my sad generation) "Hey man! did you see that video clip online of the midget hanging himself in the woods!?". (ok bad start... *beeeeeeep* start over). But thank the Lord for Israel Kamakawiwo'ole for giving us conversation number 3. Man, what a voice on this guy. Upon my first listen, I had was astonished by the softness of this mans voice. It was like i was being swaddled in washcloths made of bacon in the middle of a Hawaiian hot spring. Yes, yes I did feel that, then I saw a picture of him and it made complete sense why I sensed bacon, but then I became less of an ass and realized how beautiful this cover is. There is something captivating about this song that I can't quite put my finger on. Israel delivers this sweet song to your ears, as if its the last song you hear at a funeral or the first song at a wedding. What ever it is, its great for mix cds, compilations and just a fine sunday morning with orange juice and toast.

#4. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun // Greg Laswell (Cindi Lauper)

Discovering new character/personality traits about people you've known for a long time can both be an amazing and/or horrifying discovery. For instance, I was at a house party some odd years ago. The yard was filled with friends and strangers, new and old, close and distant, it was the perfect cabbage patch of personalities, but at this party was a really close friend of mine, and she beyond intoxicated. Kate rushed up to me like a little girl, spilling her beverage like rose pedals down an isle and greeted me with her gaped tooth smile, "Eyy! Brady-dude, I need you...". As soon as she said I need you, her face swelled like a balloon and she dropped her equally colored cup full of beer on the side walk and hugged me. To make a long story short, that night she wanted to leave because the boy who had sexually abused her back in High School was there, she had never told me in the several years that I've known her. Kate collapsed in my car as I buckled her in, brushed her hair out her mouth, turned on some Otis Redding and I drove her home probably when I shouldn't have (sorry Mom&Dad). Greg Laswell's cover of Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is like this story for me. It's a classic that has been completely redone and I can never listen to it again the same. The lyrics cut deeper and something dark and honest reflects out of the tune.

#3. Bitches Ain't Shit // Ben Folds (Dr. Dre) 

If you've never listened to Dr. Dre before and you aren't a fan of "language" then you might want to scroll on down to #2. Just some friendly information.

When it comes to "old school" rap my two favorite albums are: Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) by The Wu-Tang Clan and The Chronic by Dr. Dre. "Bitches Ain't Shit" is the last track on the Dre's magnum opus and has been covered many, many times. But in 2005 Ben Folds released his cover of this priceless gem and it went to #71 on the billboard charts. Needless to say, it blew up and he was started to be commonly refereed to as "the bitch guy" because audiences loved his entirely different take on "g-funk, west-coast rap, gangsta-rap, etc...". When I first heard this I was so excited because I knew this would be the "sleeper-cell" on any mix CD I made for people. But then after it got way over popularized, I stopped using it. Sad day. BUT! Bitches Ain't Shit is my #3 because it's probably one of the most creatively original covers I have ever heard. I hope you think so too.

#2. Wonderwall // Ryan Adams (Oasis)



There are many reasons to love this song, First, in my personal opinion I'm just gonna come out and say it, the cover is better than the original by Oasis. I know that I may have just upset many people by saying that but hear me out. Much like the Greg Laswell cover, the song feels completely different after hearing Ryan Adams croon. The lyrics of the song contrast the rock vibe that Oasis "chugga chugga'd" out. I do understand that they have been an influential band of the 90's but still, a recovering alcoholic, nine years later just changed the ENTIRE feeling of that song. The second reason why I love this cover, which might completely invalidate everything I just said, is The OC. Again, many people might have just deleted me from their history, but you can't tell me that The OC did not have some awesome music on that show. (you can watch a clip from The OC Here) This song is featured on his album Love & Hate and it fits in so perfectly. I could write an entire paper on this song, but i'll just let the song speak for its self.

#1 Hurt // Johnny Cash (Nine Inch Nails)

I saved the best for last, my hero, Johnny Cash. I will always respect the Man in Black, and for many reasons too, but one of them being is that he never stopped writing and preforming. And his music was personal  to his life and friends and family. He didn't become a washed up country artist hoping to make the pop charts. When Johnny Cash covered Hurt I was blown away for two reasons. The first being that Trent Reznor wrote the song. I had never been a huge Nine Inch Nails fan, but this song made me fan of his writing. Secondly, the music video just kills me. It has to be one of the most beautifully sad music videos I have ever seen. Almost brings me to tears every time.  Johnny Cash will always be around and as it should it be, and this song should prove to those who never got him that it is possible to have all the fame and fortune and still be empty.

The music video was nominated for an MTV music video award but lost to Justin Timberlakes "Cry Me A River" video. Probably the day I stopped putting the "M" in front of MTV, its now "Bravo #2" to me.

So there it is!
My top 10 cover songs that should be in your music library.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Don't forget to e-mail me your favorites questions and or comments to: bradyeffler@gmail.com.


My name is Brady Effler and I am currently unemployed. That is the truth, but it is also not because I don't want to work, I do. I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma at the end of July 2013, and now I'm fighting the good fight. I am currently going through chemo treatments. From the advisement and orders of my doctor, I am not supposed to be working. Currently I am in the waiting process to receive social security, but that is taking it's time. If you liked what you read, please feel free to donate. I am currently trying to pay off my student loans and other bills (pills, hospital visits, etc...). I'm not going to lie to you, some the donation money will go towards gasoline, or perhaps even a cup of coffee. Anything you give is awesome. Feel free to shoot me an email too if you'd like. I can also make you a gnarly playlist.
Thanks again for reading. I'm not begging, or trying to pull the wool over anyone, just being honest.
- Brady

A Tribute.

And I will take you and leave you alone
Watching spirals of white softly flow
Over your eyelids and all you did
Will wait until the point when you let go

Circling All Around The Sun.

Back in March  I was asked by my good friend Dave to write a piece on how I found/discovered/first heard of Neutral Milk Hotel for a blog he was starting up. Dave asked me though to tell me the story of when Jeff Mangum, the lead singer/lyricist first "spoke to me". This may sound like a supremely gross hipster thing to say, because it is, but I got excited because I had the story!  Obviously I didn't dare hesitate and began to write as soon as we parted ways in the coffee shop, literally, I sat down 15 feet away from him and began to type. If you aren't familiar with the band, they started out around 1989 and broke up after 1999. I'd risk sounding like a retarded audiophile if I tried to describe how they sounded or even tried to explain their lyrics. But they are magical.

"And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see ..."

As the months have pasted I have become keenly aware of what has been important to my history. I've exhumed, from both paper and digital earth, journals and diary's from high school, Tumblr blogs from sophomore year of college, photos, letters and even the dreaded Myspace notes. These literary quarry's have inspired and become series such as the Keeping Track of History, You Already Know How I Feel: 5 Songs We Use Not To Talk. But tonight something incredibly important is happening, I am going to see Neutral Milk Hotel, live with my older sister and I can already feel the tears welling up in me. 

So pretty, so pretty, so pretty, so pretty
Please, please don't leave me here

Since the diagnosis, it's been hard for me to mentally maintain my natural relationships. I often feel like a touchable leper, or an exhausted tree house that the kids used to rough house in. Why? I can't explain it, but when you get cancer you might be able to relate. I love my family with my whole heart, and they know that but it's also been hard with them as well, but the one person that I have missed the most during this process as been my older sister Emily. Without Emily, none of my musical life would have happened. And I'm more thankful now for her husband because his love for music is toxic. So what you'll find below is some music by Neutral Milk Hotel and the story how Jeff first spoke to me.

So with out further hesitation here is my Jeff Mangum story.

 

I have no fairy tale or a series of isotopic events that magically linked me to Jeff. Nor was there a chemical fire or an act of truancy, evading some mystical life lesson, Jeff simply just happened. You could have said that years back, because of sibling love and relation, I met Jeff at a party with my older sister.

Emily was my beacon of insight, the poster of nonconformity, she was the prima donna during the most important years of my life, the years when one actually begins to think about what is being poured into his soul via rhythm and tone. But what did I listen to? 

Tragedy.

Pure, unadulterated tragedy. I had recently purchased Britney Spears second studio album, Oops!... I Did It Again and also in my collection, sitting upon my night stand like a turd left by an oversized rodent, was Creed’s “Human Clay” on tape. Granted I did have some Metallica albums and also Live's Throwing Copper, but quiet simply, I was tunneling my way pucca shell necklaces and dock shoes. As a great teacher told me once, “What ever is worth doing is worth doing… poorly” and inspiration certainly did start out poorly.

It was a breezy Tennessee night and two California kids where locked inside their parents keep. Emily was in her overly sized bedroom, painting on her largest wall, meticulously completing her mural one oddity at a time. If the Berlin Wall was a symbol of art and freedom, it would have looked like Emily’s wall. It was littered with quotes, ranging from Green Day to Lisa Lobe. There were large portraits of the Cookie Monster and Big Bird from Sesame Street followed by elegant drawings of peacocks and traced hands. Emily was the artist and the move from California to Tennessee had been the hardest for her, so my parents aloud her to express that, I was to much of a little turd at the time to have any sort of "artistic medium". 

I was in my 4x4 cellar complete with an overly sized TV and the latest video game system. My walls were bland, maybe a Star Wars poster that could have come from a cereal box and models up on dusty shelves. There was sticky shit on the tape player and collared shirts scattered the floor like a river flowing from the closet. The collared shirts... signs of a dress coded school. 

That school was hell on earth. 

But that's besides the point.

It was past ten at night, the quiet hour were the wardens slept soundly but gingerly. Then I heard it, footsteps from downstairs slowly and delicately climbing the stairwell, then I saw the shadow past by underneath my door heading for my sisters room. I had deduced that from the sounds of the worn squishy converse and that who else would be going to Emily's room that night, it was John-Michael, the boyfriend was here.

If my parents had been right angles, JM was certainly the bevel. His contoured mental state came at a wide birth, where as my parents… an acute opening. There was never a dull moment when he was here, so I quickly followed. As I opened the door I could tell that Emily was mildly discomforted that I had appeared. She didn’t want father to know he was here and I was a liability. 

Emily beckoned me to leave at once but in my younger years was I was very firm, I would not leave or else I would tell daddy. 

I was a little shit.

JM eventually told her that it was ok for me to be here, but I could still see Emily’s discomfort, like a cat her hair was still raised. JM, hoping to diffuse the situation pulled out a cd from one of Emily’s large jewel case stacks, placed the disc into the boom-box and clicked the play button. It was her favorite cd, but I had never heard her say that before. How had I not known what her favorite was? I was agitated… I was supposed to know. 

The speakers popped, cracked, came to life and then it happened; strummed fuzz, organic hums and a manilla nasal voice crooned. 

What was this shit?

Emily and JM just began to talk, talk over the music and talk over my face exploding from the inside out. I had once thought that every song was about sex. “Danger Zone” by Kenny Logins is about fornication, right?! “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac is completely about sad coitus, duh. The Mortal Kombat theme song is about nerdy relations, I mean come on?! Every Beetles song is about the birds and bees just like every rap and/or pop and song in a Memorex commercial was about copulation. It was all about SEX!… But for the first time, my roasting puberty and 14 year old intellect couldn’t imagine a girl naked.

My sister was telling JM some story where she was at a party with Davy Havok (the lead singer of AFI) and how he made out with her friend. (I still don't know if that's true to this day...but) I couldn’t follow a thing they were saying. For the first time in my life I felt like a fraud. I didn’t know anything about music. And that’s where I met Jeff. 

My heart was floating in glass.

He lingered in my mind from that day on, slowly becoming a parable of youth. Like the song “Two-Headed Boy” I felt as if Jeff was listening to where I was. As if to touch a moment of present purity and offer solitude. A patience to a confused youth, a yielding and cuddling truth, whispering that all-time is truly a moment to be free. Temperance for tranquility, something much deeper than any intimacy I had experienced. When ever the trumpets sing, like that hollow breeze, I am transported back to a time where I knew nothing… and what a comforting feeling that still is.

The End.

My name is Brady Effler and I am currently unemployed. That is the truth, but it is also not because I don't want to work, I do. I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma at the end of July 2013, and now I'm fighting the good fight. I am currently going through chemo treatments. From the advisement and orders of my doctor, I am not supposed to be working. Currently I am in the waiting process to receive social security, but that is taking it's time. If you liked what you read, please feel free to donate. I am currently trying to pay off my student loans and other bills (pills, hospital visits, etc...). I'm not going to lie to you, some the donation money will go towards gasoline, or perhaps even a cup of coffee. Anything you give is awesome. Feel free to shoot me an email too if you'd like. I can also make you a gnarly playlist.
Thanks again for reading. I'm not begging, or trying to pull the wool over anyone, just being honest.
- Brady 

You Already Know How I Feel: 5 Songs We Use Not To Talk Pt. 3

#3 The Karaoke.

(The 1st half of Keep Track of History: The Legend of the Iron Curtain.)_

I had been preparing for this all week. I had been a grunt in the pop-punk trenches, suffering the sweet symphonies of Fallout Boy and Hellogoodbye. I constructed foxholes out of teenage angst and quotes on hot topic shirts; it's hard to find a hater of gooey pop magic in a foxhole (well, actually not really...). Back at the barracks I had begun to elegantly dishevel my hair like a good garage band king, brushed my teeth at least three times a day -- with whitener and Jack Daniels. I made sure that I had even washed my favorite Bon Iver t-shirt in that good smelling detergent. After the washing I would rub some dusty man musk on it, a.k.a. loading to the seams with Burberry Cologne. Why was I doing this, for a hot Russian girl of course? 


Gitte Kendel was going to be at least, based upon her lean, five inches away from me for the next who-ever-knows-how-long, or maybe only one and a half inches if I take that left turn extra sharp. Did I pay attention in physic, yes I did. Gitte was one of the most attractive visual pieces of art that God had made in my lifetime and by god, this diva (meaning MUh!) was going to make a run for it. She had tickets to a concert and I was the headliner.

I was practicing an adsorbent amount of self-tidiness but I was also working on that vocal-reflect-pop voice, it was my dream to start a pop group called, "Real Foxes". Some days I toyed with the idea of calling "Real Fauxs". My car had been the karaoke booth for months and every stoplight got a show until I choked and changed the tunes back to either Otis Redding or Bane. Realistically all I wanted to do was dance around with a corded microphone while doing torso twerks and make sassy hand motions. If this doesn't send up any red flags, then I'll fill in the blanks. I have had a rough time relationally in Cambridge and by the time I had gotten back, I had replaced loneliness with a flaming hot ego.

When you leave the country for a while, your mind goes a little hey-wire and my dream was to be famously sexy. I wanted groupies that just cried out in blood lust after my single sparkly glove; I would toss this glove after every show, or perhaps tear my shirt just so they could get a glimpse of these rockin pecks. I really only had written one song, it was about a dream I had with a hot nurse who enjoyed sunbathing and Campbell's soup. Needless to say the only line I had penned so far was "Hellllloooo Nurse!" followed by a minor chord; chicks love minor chords. Original, I know. 
I had been listening to Bastille, a band from the UK for the past two weeks and felt like that was the direction I wanted to go in. Imagine if Instagram filters had the audio quality of sprinkles and sexy bass licks, that was Bastille but with a British touch. 

I could not hamper my excitement. Gitte said yes to a lunch date and it was time for me to make my pop debut. The location of the concert was my trash littered, white and ugly, softball dented, Toyota Solar that I'm pretty sure was manufactured for retired, single soccer moms. 
Enter the Karaoke!

The Karaoke is a delicate art. Not only are you using someone else's poetry to convey how you are feeling, but you are becoming that artist and that song. It is the very less creepy and graphic version of Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Instead of swinging a chainsaw around, embodying the personality of the person’s face you are currently wearing, you are sonically absorbing and simultaneously discharging that very same power through your vocal chords; hopefully slaying the crowd with your hot torso twerks and corded microphone tricks.

Earlier that day, during Spanish class I had asked Gitte if she had wanted to grab lunch at the local this pastry place. After the words as escaped my lips like a virgins first words, she smiled, nodded and with one sultry accent said, "Why, yes."

YAHTZEE!

After class we walked back to my car, the white lightning stead was parked a good distance away, so it gave me plenty of time to focus on three things: How much I had to pee because I was so nervous, her obsidian hair reflecting it the summer breeze and hopefully this leads to a couple beers. By the time I got done sweating out the 1st and 3rd item on my mind I had popped the door open for her and walked around to my side of the car. I had listened that Ataris song, Your Boyfriend Sucks* a lot as a kid, and she didn't open my door... should have been a red flag. Oh well.


We pulled out into the summer wind; I readied my iPod like a gun and tighten my vocal chords like a helmet. 

And as the Joker said, "Heeeeere ... we ... Go!". 

"Here's a song I want you to listen to, I think you'll really like the band. They are Bastille", I said.

And with a smile she replied, "Oh I love new music! Play it!"  

"I hope you're ready for some pop-punk gooey goodness!", I mashed the play button and the Karaoke had begun.

The trickle of the keys and the fuzz of the mono bass crept their was through my speakers like friends in the doorway caught in mid laugh, I was ready. I started to belt the song as the chorus perfumed out of my stereo speakers, and it was magical.
"You have always worn your flaws upon your sleeve”

Gitte was beaming. She placed her hands over her mouth to hide the dimples of her smile and snickered. Whenever we made eye contact it was like the super laser on the Deathstar striking Alderaan, but instead of a thousand voices crying out in pain, it was just my voice booming and crooning. I don't know how I didn't wreck my car because I worse than a drunk driver. I was either looking at the ceiling trying to hit the high notes, steering wheel drumming or focused like a puma on her sunlit smile. By the third chorus she had begun to sing along, it was like two distant star-ships docking after a long flight; two anointing airlocks saying welcome home, be at peace.

Gitte and I played that song over, and over again. We sang to each other for what seemed like hours. It felt safe, it felt right and most of all it bonded us together much better than a beer and cold hook up. The Karaoke is powerful song because it brings us out of our box and transports us into a reality that is not ours, but it still tends to the needs of the present reality around us. The Karaoke is much like cosplaying, or trick-or-treating. It gives us that much needed excuse to be someone else, but yet find it completely excusable to act on our hearts deepest desires. At that time, my desire was to be with her, thus there I was doing the Karaoke.

Even after that famous car ride we listened to that song whenever we were together. For the time that we spent together it became our song and its a fantastic one to have. The song has a beautiful message to it, stating that we are all human, we all have done wrong, but it out those flaws we would not be as beautiful as we are today. Do I ever regret having that Karaoke moment with Gitte? No, not ever. But I now know how power and intense it is to "not speak to someone that way."

Do you have a Karaoke Story? If so email me at Bradyeffler@gmail.com

But there is more to this story. Gitte is the Legend of the Iron Curtain and last chapter of Keeping Track of History. So to get ready for the the next piece here is a song that will lead you in the right "emotive" direction of what is about to happen. Wolves // Phosphorescent.

My name is Brady Effler and I am currently unemployed. That is the truth, but it is also not because I don't want to work, I do. I was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma at the end of July 2013, and now I'm fighting the good fight. I am currently going through chemo treatments. From the advisement and orders of my doctor, I am not supposed to be working. Currently I am in the waiting process to receive social security, but that is taking it's time. If you liked what you read, please feel free to donate. I am currently trying to pay off my student loans and other bills (pills, hospital visits, etc...). I'm not going to lie to you, some the donation money will go towards gasoline, or perhaps even a cup of coffee. Anything you give is awesome. Feel free to shoot me an email too if you'd like. I can also make you a gnarly playlist.
Thanks again for reading. I'm not begging, or trying to pull the wool over anyone, just being honest.
- Brady

*The quote from the Ataris song, Your Boyfriend Sucks

"Alright, listen to me. You pull up right where she is, right. You go get out of the car and you lock both doors. You walk over to her, bring her over to the car, take out the keys, put it in the lock, open the door for her, and you let her get in and you close the door. And you walk around to the back of the car and you look through the rear window. If she doesn't reach over and lift up that button so you can get in, dump her!" "Just like that!?" "Listen to me Jim(?). If she doesn't reach over and lift up that button so you can get in, that means she's a selfish board and only seeing is the tip of the iceberg. You dump her and you dump her fast!"

5 Songs We Use Not to Talk. Pt. 2

#2 The Fragmented Sentence.

Built To Spill // You Are

"Everybody knows...

Everybody knows...

That you..."

It was early September of 2011, during my last full semester at Lee University, when the trees had just begun to malt -- shearing colors of gold and orange. The wind was perfect, as if the breeze was a tiny little boy who had happily gotten lost in an open air super market, dashing from side to side clustering my hair. It was perfect. I was happy, I was content and I was looking forward to the future. I wasn't day dreaming like any normal 23 year old dude at the time. Instead of thinking of ways to pull pranks on my friends, what kind of beer I wanted that evening or if it's to early to call my girlfriend to make out -- rather I was thinking about a career, my upcoming semester in England and if Target had any gnarly sweaters on sale. (or pea-coats! I love pea-coats!) But then my phone rang, it was father on the other line. He sounded pensive and serious, but this wasn't far from the norm so I said "Hey/What's Up" and he responded with "Poppy died...".

I attacked the phone receiver with a battalion of untrained soldiers equipped with the standard edition rifle tears. These are my tears, there are many like them, but these are mine. Each sentence was more whimpered than the last. My eyes had contracted a fever, and it wouldn't go away. That day, like my grandfather, I couldn't leave the same way I came. I needed my car and roads I had never seen before. My tongue was riding as fast at it could on the phone, but when silence is your best friend... it's not very fast at all. I don't know how many phrases I belted out on the phone, there are so many that one seems to use when dealing with death that it get's annoying fast. So I'm sure you might be able to relate to my list, contracted like a disease:

• How did it happen?
• But why? 
• I just saw him!
• I don't fucking believe...
• Is Mom alright!?
• I'm coming home right now.
• ...shit 
• What should I do?
• I... I ... Are you okay?

After I hung up the phone I thought about running, just running. To my car, I don't know, perhaps. Any direction will do. Motion, it seemed like a good idea, a much better idea than standing in the middle of a christian campus swearing like a sailor and craving a cigarette. If I just ran to my car, maybe I could... maybe I could... I don't know but maybe I could just fucking... do something, but what's the point, he's dead and it's not like we had a dinner reservation.
So I just walked.
I popped in my head phones and started slowly. My feet felt like fat slippers soaked in kerosine as I tromped to my vehicle. All the trees seemed so repugnant as if it's not a big deal to have an arm full of dead droppings. The hot sorority girls laughing on the corner looked fatter and I could feel the lack of depth permeate from their skulls, as if they were empty boxes of soggy light. God that walk sucked. It wasn't until I got into my car that it really hit me, I need to call my girlfriend.

She picked up the phone

"Hey! What's up?"

"My grandfather just died..."

"The one out in California?"

"Yeah... Poppy."

"Are you gonna be okay? Do you need to see me?"

"No, no... I'll be okay. I just needed to hear your voice..."

The conversation didn't last much longer than that because unlike my feet, my tongue couldn't put one foot in-front of the other. It was stuck in a suffocating pattern dryness, sealing it's self to the roof of my mouth.When I got to my parents house later that day it didn't get any better. I had no words, just... just a mouth full of pythons and a fist that needed to placed properly in a door. I kept on trying to comfort my Mother, but I couldn't say anything good. The next day passed and the funeral arrangements where being made. The family decided that my mother and my sisters would fly out to California to be at the small family gathering where they would spread his ashes in my grandmothers garden. The night I found out I wasn't going I cried like a child who had seen his blood for the first time. As We Were Promised Jetpacks would say, it was a far cry from all that was dead inside. I couldn't go because I had "exams", so I had to write a letter to give to my grandmother. My condolence letter. My hated for school spiked significantly that day.

My girlfriend at the time, who was much younger than me, tried her best at comforting me but it just wasn't working. She was lost in the torrent of choice-less words and my hot-n-cold comfort zone. I had no way of communicating. It was like I was deaf and trying to tell her that I was having a heart attack, it was useless. After the deluge of "I'm sorrys" and "is there anything I can do" I left her place. I went home to write that letter.

I dug through my iPod while it was on shuffle, pecking the skip button and getting pissed after every track. Sometimes I think I torture my self for no good reason and love it.
I would scream at it,
"No. I don't want to listen to Damien Rice right now you twat!"
"What! No! Frighten Rabbit and Copeland are OUT of the question!"
I was secretly hoping it would jump to Guernica by Brand New because I wasn't going to pick it my self. That song always upset me, and I wanted to be the distorted hum of one sad and lonely alcoholic. And if the fate of the shuffle wouldn't pick Brand New then my second wish was that it would land on Pedro The Lion's "Suspect Fled The Scene". I just knew from the the bottom of my heart that if I picked those songs on my own that I'd be inflicting a ridiculous amount of pain on my heart, so I was hoping fate would do it for me. When your as sad as wordless poet, you don't argue fates cruel and provocative hug, you just accept it with a pinch of poison. But then shuffle did it again, it saved my soul. It landed on the one song that I usually associate with the moment when the prettiest girl smile, the whole "cat's got my tongue" thing, where she's just to beautiful to look at. The sliver rectangular angel started to play "You Are" by Built To Spill.

 The fragmented sentence, an iota of tangibility, the mouthful of crumbs that came dribbling out of my face and my figures began to scoop them up like puzzle pieces. I played the song over and over and over and over and over and over. I sent it to my friends, my girlfriend and anyone that would listen. I felt like a seventh grader trying to tell his parents that he got shoved in a locker at school yesterday. I wanted to shout the guitar patterns, break windows to the drum beats and steep in the memory of my grandfather while the guitar solo painted every memory I had with him. This hot sense of odd pleasure drove me to room for hours.

There are only five words in the entire song. "Everybody/knows/that/you/are" but the way it is sang invokes an irresistible amount of feelings. Doug Martsch, the lead singer goes in rounds as if he knows, this is all he's got and this is all he can say and it's the only way he can tell you, so it's odd, but it's perfect.

It's perfect.   

And it was perfect.

Here's a small portion of the letter that I wrote: "...throughout my childhood Poppy played a key roll in my developing years. I couldn't think of a memory that encompassed what he truly meant to me. Poppy was much more than a memory to me. He was a legacy of ideals. Ideals that started me down the pathe of being an artist, an artist that encapsulates mystery in truth and love through nobility. Poppy was an artist and now so am I. He gave me the inspiration to play each key with fervor and integrity. Each string to be strummed with an intimate passion and an ear to always listen closely to my heart... Poppys brush strokes have painted the most beautiful foreground and now it is my duty as his grandson to take up the brush and make something beautiful for the world to see and for the world to feel..."

The fragmented sentence is one of the most powerful songs we can express to an individual. It's the moment when words aren't enough, we've lost the ability to even define our selves and the situation, so we let our most powerful form of express take control -- for me, the music. As a young man I find my self in phases in my life where I am left with nothing but the music, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Whether it's the death of a close relative, the lowness from exiting a relationship or the metaphorical Triton in the road, because let's be real, these days it's no longer a fork, and we are left with invisible character defining art. In these phases our internal soul cries out to others in ways that we can not express. We might even feel guilty or angry because there's an unfulfilled tension that is created deep within our psyche, but there's a way out. Don't say it, just play it.

Now when ever I hear this song I think of two things. The first is that sometimes in life the best way to tell someone that you love them is through art. The second thing is this: your art will inspire, cultivate and move people in ways that you never knew and perhaps will never know. I never told my grandfather that I started playing music because of him. I never told my grandfather that he taught me to look for beauty in all things. But I told him I loved him and I'm sure that rolls over into heaven. 

What's your fragmented sentence?

 

5 Songs We Use Not to Talk. Pt. 1.

#1 The Daywalker

Shout Out Louds // Very Loud.

“But I wanna change, change the way we always have

And to make different plans and try not to make this sad…”

As I teetered into my room, cane in one hand, cup of coffee in the other, I turned on the light and just stood there for a moment. Whether if it was due to the medication or just because I naturally stop to dwell, I froze and non-verbally judged my room. There were pants, socks, cards, candy wrappers, record sleeves and just random shit… everywhere. It’s one thing to lose your zen in a place that is your own, but it’s another to lose it when you are forced to move back into your parents’ house. Yeah, this was my old room and I moved back there due to medical reasons.

The last time I lived there was about a year ago when I was in transition from one apartment to another. These transitions happened only a few times because once I was 18 I out like a candle. I never tried to stay longer than I had to either, their place just wasn’t where I wanted to be. Being at my parents was always an internal struggle, so whenever I vacated, I did it in a hurry and always left much behind. Transitions, they’re not my favorite card in the deck that life seems to give me often.

"My room’s a fucking mess…" I thought to myself.
I sighed and decided that something must be done. You ever get that wild hair up your ass, the one that says, "Gosh I should clean?” well I did. And the thing is, I rarely clean my room! It always self-implodes hours later, so I preemptively came up with a strike plan; I had to make another mess before I could start cleaning! My mind needed retrospective destruction, so I opened my closest and began to dig through one of the old boxes that I had left in there years ago.

I didn’t exactly know what I was searching for, but I knew there was something in this box that would satisfy. After digging through old hats, Star Wars posters and “How to Learn Japanese” cassette tapes I found it, my old CD wallet, a.k.a. the bible. Back in its heyday the wallet was bursting at the seams. CDs were double stacked on each-other, crammed into those clear cd slips and album art inserts cushioned the back like a stack of pillows. The variety ranged from the Japanese punk boy-bands like Mongol 500 and the Garlic Boys to deep and classic cuts like Johnny Cash’s vault collection and Live’s “Throwing Cooper”. But then I saw them, The Shout Out Louds. Enter the Daywalker…

When I listened to love songs back in 8th grade I was defined by butt-rock, such as Course of Natures “Supercalla”, America Hi-Fi’s “Flavor of the Week”, and even “Hero” from the Spider-Man soundtrack, written by Chad… Kroeger… (Oh, did I ever get saved). I was your “A-typical” 14 year old, with his mind pockmarked by my female colleague’s newest addition, breasts. And I thought breasts loved butt-rock, so my song with my first girlfriend was “Caught in the Sun” by Course of Nature… She broke up with me the day I got out of the hospital, so perhaps that wasn’t the wisest choice. But all that changed when I started to listen to bands like The Shout Louds, Wolf Parade and Green Day (RIP). My perspective on love songs changed, my relationships lasted longer and breasts became more metaphorical foreplay than attack and defend. Love songs, they don’t have to sound like… complete and utter butt-hurt-bull-shit. 

Derp...

I squatted on the floor and shoved the CD into my record player like it was a parrot and begged it to talkback. It came to life, but before it even had the chance to blink or even play the first song I mashed the next button to my favorite track, track two, “Very Loud”. As soon as the rolling drums hit, that’s when it happened, the sweet beast herself, nostalgia. In a constant hum of musical rubble and re-enhanced oblivion I remembered I wasn’t alone.

The static in the air shrank and I heard my friend Amy stir who had been sitting on my bed the whole time. She had been over to help me organize my room, rearrange it, beautify it, etc, but I was lost. As soon as I stepped into the unintentional need for reconnection I unknowingly brought her along with me. Like the good Dr., Amy had unknowingly stepped into my Tardis and was now experiencing a time shift that she couldn’t see or understand, teenage Me.

I tried to explain to her how I moved up and down the genre ladder like a drunk fireman. How the paradigm shift in music was like moving from dove soup to juicy couture and then back. The change affected my relationships, my driving, smoking, etc… but the fragmented rambling, it felt useless. So I just let the song play, over and over again. As it played I could feel her understand what I was trying to say and little by little my secret world, and she was day walking*, just like me. To use the daywalker is to slip into a world that is outside of our time but yet to still common in the present. We are listening to a jogging dream, a bookmark for a reserved seat in a museum, we are vampirically feeding during our nap time, we are not talking. But, just because we are using this song to “not talk” does not mean we are not communicating, in fact for some it may be the most significant moment of that day, week or month. The transformative language of this type of song will happen in movements, just as it did for me. At first I became lost and unaware of my surroundings. I discovered, relapsed into memory and then followed it to wherever it lead me. I honestly could have had this moment with other songs, and that doesn’t make the Shout Out Louds any less significant, but I had it with them and it was destiny. 

So what’s your daywalker? What song do you use not to talk about the past, but to feel it, experience and share it?

“But I wanna smell, smell the way you do

And to wear those clothes, the clothes your friends do

But I always choose another way

So this is why this love can't stay…”

- Shout Out Louds // Very Loud.

Keeping Track of History Pt. 3: In the presence of the "Secular".

 

Put down... All your weapons.
Let me in through Your open wounds...
Finding God through secular Music.

"The road to the sacred leads through the secular."  

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel

  Son Lux

Secular music verse the none secular; could that really be a... thing? Is one bad for you and the other good? What makes music sacred and what makes it secular? Or better yet, why the fuck should you care?
Through out my years as a child I grew up under a christian roof, and no the roof wasn't on fire. The patriarch was a pastor and the matriarch was his guide, following quietly in the shadowed footsteps of God.  My father used to be drummer and my grandfather played the organ like a saint, but I was never captured by the evangelical argument that music was either secular or sacred. The halls of my household echoed scores of famous composers and 60's surf swag from the Beach Boys. I was surrounded by tapes and Cd's from all walks off life. My first two cassette tapes were the Top Gun soundtrack and the Mortal Kombat soundtrack. It was very much a "wax on -- wax off" method in my room. I took it to the danger zone with  Kenny Logins, and then once Take My Breath Away by Berlin started to play I switched tape. I did my usual cool down/post work-out by destroying Lego's with the classic Liu Kang bicycle kick. It was an art. (No need to argue about that.)
During the summer months with my cousin and I blasted Metallica, Godsmack and Incubus (post Fungus Amongus) while fantasizing about what it would be like to "do" Rouge from X-Men. At the dawn of my teenage years my parents gifted me the album 13 Ways to Bleed on Stage by Cold before my open heart surgery. Their hit song was "Just Got Wicked". I'm pretty sure B-rated wrestlers from the WWE made that their intro song... I don't know what my parents were thinking, but I'm pretty sure the only reason I got away with it was because there was a small percentile that I might die the next day. 
(Prayer quickly followed).

"I can taste your innocence 

Young and sweet like mother made you 

Everything froze in to ask

These motherfuckers just got wicked..."

I'm not here to argue that Cold is more or less sacred then bands like DC Talk but I am hinting that there could be the minuet possibility. There was a moment on my hospital bed when that nurse who looked like Mr. Cleans gay father took away my Walkman. (One of those "From my cold dead hands!" moments.) He told me to count to ten backwards as I laid there in my hospital gown, wondering if I'd ever wake up after this was done. The last song I had in my head was the butt-metal anthem, Send in the Clowns, and I didn't feel afraid. Divine or not, I was comforted. 
I still like that song.

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

― Aldous Huxley, Music at Night and Other Essays

Angus & Julia Stone

I had a conversation with a dear friend of mine long ago. Let's just call her Miranda. The subject of personal failure arose, and like an ugly head it glared back at us as if it lived in the bathroom mirror. Like Miranda, I struggled daily with the thought that I have not been living up to my fullest potential. I tended to loath my self more than the actual instances that had occurred in my life that formed and shaped me into who I am today. Miranda saw this, and she could read me like a book. But this evening she she sat in my wicker chair on my front porch like a blank page, frizzled and smoking a single cigarette. She was like an Eels song, just a beautiful freak with a lo-fi smile. 
Earlier that week she was crippled by some "holier-than-thou" boy. He spoke over her words of affliction concerning her attire and constitution. Some, or rather those with a single original thought, would find her beautiful for things like her affectionate twitch and distinctive pitter-patter of trailing thoughts, but this boy did not understand -- thus was prejudice. Make matters worse, she actually like this prick.
  
Within our culture today, maybe even in particular for women, there is the problem of self-deprecation that is brought on by the trivia of others. These moments often lead to intrusive thoughts mostly about our relationship with others. We tell our selves that we are ashamed for feeling different, third wheeling relationships, not having the prettiest husband/wife or none at all. There is this constant sense that we need to prove our selves because we were born unworthy, born without reason. We struggle to make up our dreams, goals and/or our "calling" on the spot as if to sing karaoke in front of thousands. We claim it as our own. And if we don't have nail the song in front of them, then we are fucked. 
If there is anything I've noticed from being around the block, it is this: More kids, teenagers, and adults are finding their peace through "secular" music than a sacred workshop that teaches them to clap.

"Tell me anything you want to tell me.

I have nothing to say.I have nothing to say to you,

But you have everything to say to me.

You have everything to say to me."

Son Lux

As Miranda and I sat there in the humidity of the lowering Tennessee sun, I decided to put on some music. I guess that's my calling card, but hey, it works for me. I picked the self-titled album by Son Lux and set my laptop on the ground littered with cigarette ash. My favorite song, Break, came on and I explained to her what it was about, or at least... what I assumed it was about, which lead to me saying this to her:

(Journal entry from May of 2009) The war we fight is a war for uniqueness, made by television, magazines and sexual predators. But have we lost the war if we chose to even recognize the battle? A battle that has strung us like a marionette puppet. A temperamental brand of barbed chords hiding the snare that violently adulterates and perverts it's self like a parasite into our chest. Are we really who we are or even want to be?

 
Miranda asked me to repeat the song again, and again. And each time the song repeated she had something new to say. She would comment on the bizarre opening break down, relating it to opening moments of a car crash. As she talked about the song she painted the horrific image of standing in the middle of freeway while it rained both water and ash, "searching for your friend within the twisted metal" she said. "But there's always something beautiful waiting,"

She asked me how peaceful could death really be. 
"Would it be as smooth as the piano once the drums are done fighting?", she said. 
I don't remember my exact response, but looking back on it, I can only imagine that it would be that smooth. Pain dribbling off a window like water as we sleepily count backwards from ten.

Now that I look back on it I feel like I could have put on a number of records, but it was that one and it was devine. 
It's not the genre or the classification of music that makes it bad or good, secular or sacred, but it is what is at the core of the moment. 
So when does music really mean impact us?
I believe that music means the most when we don't do anything about it. It's an apocalyptic revelation, an occurrence that brews from the soul of your gut, and you never knew it was there. Music means the most when the story of your life collides with the sincerity of the present emotion. Miranda spilled her heart out that night, but I didn't catch her nor did I even dry her tears, the music did. 

Several smokes and bathroom breaks later we started to play "pass the laptop". Miranda would typically pick something like The Ataris or Sugarcult. She would reminded me about how she saw them live, or she'd tell me again about the guy she used to date who tried to swoon her by covering "Punk Rock Princess" by Something Corporate. My insides would hurt with laughter because her ex was no garage band king, more like a prepubescent Rob Lowe.

Miranda tied her untamed hair into a topknot, patted me on the arm (to sweaty to hug) and hopped into her Honda blasting The Authority Song by Jimmy Eat World, which was a vast improvement from when she pulled up two hours before to quiet drone of Damien Rice. 
When Miranda left my front porch, she stunk of off-brand smokes and smiles, 
but more importantly

"She was back." 
As she drove home that night,  I could feel her energy for five blocks. 


Jimmy Eat World.

Yes, we did have a meaningful "bro-down" but it was more than that, it was the moment of what was playing in our hearts. It was the music that carried us both home. We didn't find it in a hymnal or a Newsboys anthem, we found the sacred meaning of love and compassion in "secular" music. I think the true argument is this: are you listening to music that is keeping you together or tearing you apart? Are you listening to music that places you in a box or music that re frames the box? 

We are a generation that is hungry for the spiritual, not a church service, but a revelation of the soul and it's painfully obvious that we can find that through the music we choose to listen to. So next time you listen to a record, break out the lyrics, figure out the chords, or paint a picture and you may be surprise by what you see and feel.

Also, here's a small challenge. Make your self a mix. Give it a name and make it important.

Shaky Graves 


My name is Brady Effler and I am currently unemployed because I am going through chemo treatments. I was diagnosed with Multiple Meyloma at the end of July 2013, and fighting the good fight. If you liked what you read, please feel free to donate. I am currently trying to pay off my student loans and other bills (pills, hospital visits, etc...). Anything you give is awesome. Thanks again for reading. I'm not begging, or trying to pull the wool over anyone, just being honest.