Concrete Fiction

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

2009-05-29T00:58:00.008-06:00

Photo: Tony Gutierrez/ Associated Press

It didn't make much sense to me then, what Gnut was going through, but after Pila and me had our little twins, and we put a family together, I got an understanding of how terrible love can be. You wish you hated those people, your wife and children, because you know the things the world will do to them, because you have done some of those things yourself. It's crazy-making, yet you cling to them with everything and close your eyes against the rest of it. But still you wake up late at night and lie there listening for the creak and splash of oars, the clank of steel, the sounds of men rowing toward your home.

--Wells Tower in Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

Find the book and read it. Tower has crafted sad, beautiful and often desperate characters around prose filled with shimmering detail into what can make or break an afternoon, or an entire. I don't know why short stories don't get more love from the world of readers. Short stories are not only my quick-to-consume fixes, but also my secret love and source of envy.

Sure, the novel has the reputation of the record-setting home run slugger, or maybe more aptly, an entire baseball season. Novels are big, in both scope and cast of characters. They often play out slowly, taking long-passaged road trips and perhaps even an all-star break somewhere in the middle. Novels are the long slog, dealing with the minute details of many lives at the same time as grand conspiracies and odysseys.

The short story though, is the clutch shortstop who may not be swinging for the fences in plotted ambition, but the short story/stop has a scar under his left eye where a torrent of a grounder scorched off his glove, leaving a gash when he was fifteen. Every time he squints to field a ball, he can is aware of that momentary lapse of attention years ago. He has a secret communication with his glove, with the second-baseman, with the dryness of the dirt, so that he can elevate to acrobatic swoops after a line drive. The short story is the half-inning that ends in a miraculous double play and a toss of the ball to the the nine-year old girl behind the dugout.

Top Albums of 2008, 12 - 1

2008-12-23T01:26:00.003-07:00

The final countdown. On the final day of the year. This time it's descending. Deal with it. I was hoping to post some audio links, but my free internet got turned off at home and so my internet is more limited than usual. But on to the list. Numbers one and two have been back and forth since I started putting this together all month, but I think Fleet Foxes have it.

12. She & Him - Volume 1

11. Deerhunter - Microcastle

10. Dr. Dog - Fate

9. Shearwater - Rook

8. Thao & The Get Down Stay Downs - We Brave Bee Stings and All

7. TV On The Radio - Dear Science,

6. Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson - Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson

5. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight

4. Okkervil River - The Stand-Ins

3. No Age - Nouns

2. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

1. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes/Sun Giant EP

Top Albums 2008, 13 - 25

2008-12-21T08:46:00.004-07:00

It's been a good year for music and a long time since a post. But hey, I love lists. Here are 13 - 25 on my favorite albums of the year list. Stay tuned for the quorum of 12 to come. (In ascending order, don't ask why).

13. The Devil Whale - Like Paraders

14. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend

15. Apple Miner Colony - The Heat Haunted Fever

16. Department of Eagles - In Ear Park

17. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular

18. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

19. Randy Newman - Harps & Angels

20. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy - Lie Down in the Light

21. Calexico - Carried To Dust

22. Times New Viking - Rip It Off

23. Tolchock Trio - Abalone Skeleton

24. The Dodos - Visiter

25. Drive-By Truckers - Brighter Than Creations Dark

Farewell, David Foster Wallace

2008-09-15T01:29:00.017-06:00

I am still trying to collect the ways that David Foster Wallace has changed my perspective on life and the way I approach my storytelling. As he has been a rather recent discovery, I can't do justice, but all I know is that I can't remember a time that a figure whom I didn't know died that has left me so profoundly sad and unsettled. He apparently hanged himself in his home.

The first writing of his I read was his May 21, 2005 Kenyon Commencement address. I recently read his short story collection, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men and have been poking through his last published book, Oblivion, and his essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, since I received them through the mail last week. It feels as though a conversation with someone stopped abruptly, like there was a pause mid-sentence and then he was dead. But at least I can continue to read.

In the short spurts of time I've had in front of the computer today, I've written a couple thousand words in an attempt at gratitude for his work, what it has meant to me, the understanding it has brought to me. But thus far, it is jumbled, bloated and ineloquent. Perhaps it is enough for now to say that I am sad, but it seems wrong to say when there are family and loved ones of his who no doubt feel a much greater loss.

An excerpt from the above commencement speech:

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually

expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental

that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot

themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth

is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull

the trigger.

And I submit that this is what the real, no bullshit value of your liberal

arts education is supposed to be about: how to keep from going through

your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious,

a slave to your head and to your natural default setting of being uniquely,

completely, imperially alone day in and day out. That may sound like

hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. Let's get concrete. The plain fact is that

you graduating seniors do not yet have any clue what "day in day out"

really means. There happen to be whole, large parts of adult American

life that nobody talks about in commencement speeches. One such part

involves boredom, routine, and petty frustration. The parents and older

folks here will know all too well what I'm talking about.

The minor fall and the major lift

2008-09-09T01:01:00.003-06:00

It's amazing what a song can do. Music can accentuate joy, provide solace, express things which we are not able to do ourselves at the time. Great art can provide empathy as well or better than any person, even the person who created it, is possible to give. The great Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" is a very well-documented example of this. It is perhaps one of the most covered songs of the past twenty years, probably because of the way it moved the artists who later decided to give their own version a try. Jeff Buckley has the definitive version, his angelic voice reigns over the religious/sexual themed lyrics as though he and the song were paired by fate.

I have loved this song for years now, but its cathartic nature became very real to me recently when the only thing I could do to get out of the way I was feeling was play this over and over on my housemate's nylon-stringed guitar that has to be retuned every five minutes. It came out as a prayer and a plea and left me feeling more in touch with the nature of existence like nothing else at the time could do.

Below are some of my favorite versions I've come across. Along with Cohen and Buckley is a great one from David Bazan aka Pedro the Lion, a ukelele version from Zach Condon of Beirut, Regina Spektor accompanied by a cello and John Cale's great, emotive performance with his piano. There's also a live Buckley version, which is different, longer, and of course, beautiful.

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah

David Bazan - Hallelujah

Beirut - Hallelujah

Regina Spektor - Hallelujah

John Cale - Hallelujah

Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah (live)

When the world collapses into the heat

2008-07-17T11:10:00.009-06:00

Banks and financial giants are failing. Everyone is worried about the price of oil and gasoline. War is translated and morphed from gunfire to body counts over the span of thousands of miles. Oh, and Andy Dick has been arrested again.

Seems like a good day for some music, literature and art.

Pablo Picasso's La Vie can currently be seen at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts’ exhibit, "Monet to Picasso," which is definitely worth checking out if you're in the Hive. That painting tore me down emotionally and then built me back up, completely refurbished, in the span of about fifteen minutes.

There is so much going on in the scene that has to do with grief, as though there is mourning on many different levels. This resounded deeply within me because, in my most melancholic times, what keeps me from being engulfed by the harshness of the moment is this: the knowledge that I am a being, aware of the world, able to experience the full spectrum of existence.

Whether it be joy, sadness, anxiety, or feeling whole, there also comes solace and beauty from all things. I may not understand in the moment, but ultimately I find gratitude that I am able to have a life of multivariate experience. That is what the painting brought to me.

The scene shows a somber couple looking toward a woman holding a baby. Between the four are pictures of people grieving, like the young couple, in the nude. This could represent generations of human suffering. But the baby, so innocently unaware of the sadness around it, is the hope that even in the bleakest of moments, there is opportunity to start anew and experience life all over again.

It brought to mind a quote from Douglas Coupland's Life After God, which I recently reread for the first time since my summer after high school:

"Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we've missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy."

To the music, then.

Download entire playlist here:

Songs for An Altered Existence

Or individually on the links:

Man Man - Von Halsing Boombox
Black Kids - I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance with You

Conor Oberst & the Mystic Valley Band - Danny Callahan

Thao Nguyen & the Get Down Stay Downs - Feet Asleep

Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

Spoon - Believing Is Art

Beulah - Me and Jesus Don't Talk Anymore

Jolie Holland - Old Fashioned Morphine

Wilco - Theologins

White Williams - New Violence

The Dutchess & The Duke - You Can Tell The Truth, Now

King Khan & The Shrines - Welfare Bread

M. Ward - Sadie (Joanna Newsom song)

Two Poems: Joe Bolton

2008-05-09T00:41:00.006-06:00

Last week I was introduced to an amazing poet named Joe Bolton. He was from Kentucky and died at the age of 28. His poems burrow themselves into my flesh and my soul, they are utterly overwhelming in their beauty and sadness. I find that a lot of what makes the deepest impression on me in life is both sad and beautiful, so it's no surprise that I have been walking to my mailbox everyday in anxious hope that his posthumously published collection, Last Nostalgia: Poems, 1982 - 1990, will make its way to my home.

A Sort of Praise

Some morning in my city, a woman
Sits putting make-up on, expecting
No one, separated by one white wall
From the landscape that needs her.

And I--risen from fear, letting
My loneliness dissolve into the sunlit
Bough of a pine--will step out
And enter the shadows of tall buildings:

The sky glazed blue & gold, the streets
Drawing me to her door, the places
My feet hit like stones sticking up
Through the surface of some wide river.

And when our eyes meet, it will be
In the hue that happens when light finds dark,
In the secret music of worlds spinning true,
That we will move toward a sort of praise.

Death In Orange County

It's in the way the waves fall like dull lead,
Water warmer by September but still cold,
The bougainvillea's crinoline, fresh blood,

The sky's blank face, the blank face of a child.
A skywriter spells SURRENDER. To what?
This ease? This difficulty? Of the mild

Astonishments of a Saturday night,
Not one survives—not her face, not her name,
Not her. And certainly not how the light

Spilled broken on the bay and made a game
Of whatever it was you were trying
To make clear between you there, over rum.

Sometimes you don't feel like doing anything.
Sometimes you're done before you even rise.
It's in the way the sun mutes everything,

The mist, the fog, the high latticed fences.
The girl on the plane was reading a book:
Death of a "Jewish American Princess."

Sometimes you don't know quite what you feel like.
You put on your favorite disc, Camelot,
And walk around the house having the look.

A good part of the time, you feel like shit.
It's in the stylishness of restaurants,
In the sweet note of a single gunshot

Echoing off the glass of lit storefronts,
In the cool distances of these houses.
Nobody knows what anybody wants,

Or else knows all too well what those tan faces
Are trying hard not to show they don't feel.
And that's all that's left to you now are the traces:

House, stock, Jacuzzi, clothes, automobile.

More Joe Bolton at Identity Theory

Twilight Concert Series taking form

2008-05-08T23:47:00.004-06:00

Summer is slowly and cautiously creeping its way into the shadows of the Wasatch Mountains and I'm ready. One of my favorite things about summer in Salt Lake City is the Twilight Concert Series at the Gallivan Center located downtown. I've been attending for eight or so years and each year the line-up gets better and better. Last year, Calexico was the highlight for me. The official line-up hasn't been announced yet, but one show has leaked its way out: Andrew Bird will playing on July 17th, apparently with Josh Ritter opening.

Anybody who knows me or reads this blog knows that I was blown away by Mr. Bird's show in L.A. last December - the fact that he'll be playing for free in Salt Lake gets me even more excited for my favorite month of the year to roll around in all its sultry glory. Josh Ritter is a singer-songwriter with a folky-roots rock sound who is adored by the folks at NPR. His excellent 2007 release, The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter ended up on a lot of year-end top ten lists.

Take note and mark the date. This will be a free show you will not want to miss.

Andrew Bird - Dark Matter (Live) from Fingerlings 3

Andrew Bird - The Naming of Things from The Mysterious Production of Eggs

Andrew Bird - Plasticities from Armchair Apocrypha

Andrew Bird - Daytrotter Sessions link

Josh Ritter - Girl in the War from The Animal Years

Josh Ritter - Mind's Eye from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter - The Temptation of Adam from The Historical Conquests of Josh Ritter

Josh Ritter - Me & Jiggs from The Golden Age of Radio

The Regal Seagull - Utah's newest news source; plus, killer tunes

2008-05-04T13:23:00.009-06:00

I'm back from a necessary and prolonged hiatus, but as always, bearing good news that will uplift and edify ... or the opposite.

What prompted me to post again? Well, spring semester finished, which gives me some actual free time, I now have a laptop that I want to make gentle prolonged love to and I'm going to pimp a new website that I'm involved with - The Regal Seagull. From the website:

The Regal Seagull’s long and storied career began in the 19th century with Joseph Christensen Young Smith, a muckraker and saloon assistant manager. Joseph Christensen Young Smith, or “Bitch Tits” as he was known to friends, was a contemporary of Brigham Young’s. In a demonstration of his progressiveness, Joseph Christensen Young Smith founded The Regal Seagull in Utah in 1839, several years before the Mormon pioneers would arrive.

The Regal Seagull has played an integral part in history over the past 169 years. The Regal Seagull was the first to find the link between the sinking of the Titanic and Great Salt Lake. It was The Regal Seagull who brought The Beatles to America, by way of Utah. ‘Deep Throat’ in the Watergate scandal was none other than The Regal Seagull. The Regal Seagull also killed Jimmy Hoffa. Sorry.

The Regal Seagull ran for congress sometime back in the ’70’s, but was forced to drop out of the race due to a sex scandal involving a prostitute, a Doberman pinscher and a broken Jell-o mold. The Regal Seagull doesn’t really want to talk about it.

The Regal Seagull has won many awards and recognitions over the years, including being voted in 1983 “Most Likely to Become Pregnant and Drop Out of School.” It has also won five Pulitzers Prizes, two Peabody Awards, two Grammys, an NAACP Spirit Award and an Oscar Nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

The Regal Seagull now enjoys success as Utah’s #1 one news source in all of Utah.

Check it out, there are a lot of funny people involved. The website launched on Monday and we have updates every Monday hereafter. I wrote a few stories for the first edition and when the update goes up, I'll provide links to my stories. Read, enjoy, and, hopefully, laugh.

Just to keep you around for a little bit, here are some songs from new albums that have been on heavy rotation around my parts lately. Fleet Foxes hail from Seattle, combining the indie-poppiness of the Shins with the laid back harmonizing of Crosby, Stills and Nash. She & Him are actress Zooey Daschanel and M. Ward - their album Volume 1 is a a daydream you won't want to come back to the real world from. The Black Keys new album Attack and Release was deftly produced by Danger Mouse, keeping the Keys bluesy rust belt roots intact while adding some nice flourishes. I was just recently turned on to the electropop of Australia's Cut Copy and have been digging the duo's new album In Ghost Colours. Frightened Rabbit hail from Scotland and after some hype at South By Southwest last year are making waves in the U.S. with their new album The Midnight Organ Fight. I love everything Jack White touches and the new Raconteurs album does not disappoint. Finally, the over-hyped but still immensely enjoyable Vampire Weekend, whose eponymous debut album is like a stripped down version of Paul Simon's Graceland. Enjoy the songs and the beautiful weather out in Salt Lake.

Fleet Foxes - Ragged Wood

She & Him - You Really Got A Hold On Me

The Black Keys - All You Ever Wanted

Cut Copy - Strangers In The Wind

Frightened Rabbit - The Twist

The Raconteurs - Many Shades of Black

Vampire Weekend - M79

Sundance Installment Two - I.O.U.S.A. and Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

2008-01-20T21:49:00.000-07:00

Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired - 4 out of 4 stars

I was somewhat reluctant to see this movie. While I am a fan of Polanski's work as a director, I thought it would turn out to be an apologist's love-letter to Polanski in the midst of a statutory rape of a 13 year-old girl in California in 1977, an event that led him to flee the country for refuge in Paris. When Polanski won a Best Director Oscar for 2002's The Pianist, he wasn't present to accept the award because he could face arrest for fleeing prosecution.

That's about all I knew about the case going into this film and upon viewing the screening I realized how sensationalized the story had become. The film deftly produces objectivity and factual reporting while providing both a biographical sketch of the French-born Polish director (his parents were killed in the Holocaust and the only stable relationship in his life - with his wife Sharon Tate - ended with her murder by Charles Manson's clan) and a compelling view of the court case that followed Polanski's police charges.

The court case involved the judge's love of media attention and it culminated in shady (and possibly illegal) attempts by the judge to compel both the defense and prosecutor involved in the case to help make him look good. He neglected recommendations by the legal system regarding sentencing, altered promises made to the defense and prosecution, ultimately Polanski's pre-sentencing flight from the country. The movie is both well-researched biography and compelling courtroom drama.

I.O.U.S.A. - 4 out of 4 stars

What's the biggest threat to our nation today - Terrorism? Illegal Immigrants? According to the sensible and persuasive United States Comptroller General David Walker, it's the nation's ballooning debt, which is $9.2 trillion dollars.

That's 9,200,000,000,000.

I.O.U.S.A. focuses on Walker and Robert Bixby, the Tab-swilling executive director of the Concord Coalition, a non-partisan group advocating responsible fiscal policy as they go on a nationwide Fiscal Wake-Up Tour to educate Americans about America's perilous financial situation. What could have been a rather dry, didactic sermon about the United States' debt and economic policies past and present is instead an urgent, fascinating call-to-arms for citizens to take the initiative in demanding responsible governmental spending and financial planning.

The film doesn't blame any single president or administration for the catastrophic way our nation has dealt with its federal debt since World War II. (Though during the current President Bush's two terms the debt has swelled from over $5 trillion to its current $9 trillion. I feel slightly vindicated in my exasperating confusion over how doling out corporate and individual tax cuts while boosting spending and paying for a war helps the country's economy in the long run.)

What the film does do is bring in well-educated officials from the financial arena, from Warren Buffett to Comptroller Walker to Robert Rubin to Ron Paul, to explain in a plain-spoken manner the way that the crisis could come (48% of our debt is held by foreign nationals; the debt issue is often buried in news coverage and on the campaign trail by sexier subjects; government entitlements need to be cut and taxes need to be raised). The film urges people to become informed and hold their elected officials responsible to help fix this problem. In the interest of education, see this movie and check out these web sites:

Government Accountability Office
The Concord Coalition
I.O.U.S.A. official site
Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis (the book that inspired the movie's director, Patrick Creadon)

Sundance - Installment One: Under The Bombs, Recycled, Shorts Program V

2008-01-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

I've seen a few Sundance screenings the past couple of days and here's some short reviews.

Under The Bombs - 3 and 1/2 out of 4 stars

This French-produced film based in Lebanon during the Israeli incursion into Lebanon during the summer of 2006 and lasted 31 days until a cease-fire was brokered, avoids making political statements about who was right and who was wrong and instead focused on the impact that it (and all wars) have on the innocents who are forced to live through war. Zeina is a woman who arrives in Beirut from Dubai during the massive Israeli bombings in search of her son, who she sent to stay with her sister in southern Lebanon. She is finally able to find a taxi driver who will take the dangerous and often broken roads to the south and may have some alterior motives of his own. This film was heartbreaking, human and raw (it was conceived and partially shot during the conflict itself), using mostly real non-actors to play the incidental characters. My favorite decision about the film was to not let the story linger on the personal aspects of the characters, but rather to end it in a way that leaves the audience reeling at the very real consequences that disagreeing factions can leave on civilians caught in the middle.

Recycle - 2 out of 4 stars

I had high hopes for this documentary in which the filmmaker returns to his hometown of Zarqa, Jordan, hometown of the infamous Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musa al Zarqawi, to investigate the beginnings of what makes a person make the kind of choices that Zarqawi did. While it scratches the surface in interviews with a few sheiks in the city (economic hardships, religious persecution), it loses focus of both that investigation and the life of its main subject, a struggling religious man in a poor part of the city. The editing and information that director Muhammad al Massad chose to put in the film reflects some questionable and sometimes confusing choices and in the audience is left with too many questions about the motivations and characters - questions that seemed like the could have been answered if a more polished touch and deeper reporting were involved. The highlight - the main subjects young son, who he lets steer his truck around town and at one point directs his father to "hit that camel for me."

Shorts Program V - 3 out of 4 stars

One of the programs of short films presented at the festival, this one was entertaining enough to earn my recommendation. Nine shorts (3 of which were Isabella Rossellini's short and funny interpretations on how certain insects procreate) are in this group and they progressively get better as the program rolls on. The best are the final three - the Chinese August 15, which is the tale of two robbers who board a bus in rural China and the results; Sara St. Onge's film about a woman preparing her final wishes (rife with gallows humor) appropriately called The Funeral, and the Australian bizzaro short about teenagers and zombies, I Love Sarah Jane. Yeah, I'm a sucker for zombies.

Sundance 2008 is here!

2008-01-18T09:41:00.000-07:00

Utah has just entered the best part of the winter. January in this state means ample snow for skiing and snowshoeing and, of course, the Sundance Film Festival. While I'm cynical about the growing popularity of the festival in terms of celebrity-gawkers rather than film-goers and too many movies about dysfunctional, but quirkily endearing families, it is still a showcase of great independent film and great cultural event to have in this state. I'll be staying mostly in Salt Lake City for screenings this year, doing the wait-list thing and avoiding the movie star vehicles that will likely end up at the local megaplex in the coming months. One thing I've learned about Sundancing over the years: There are some pretty terrible dramatic features every year, but I've never come across a bad documentary. While some are certainly more engrossing than others, they are a safer bet for enjoyable viewing.

Tonight: Under the Bombs

The movie is set (and was filmed during) the Israeli-Lebanese fighting of 2006, with the main character Zelna, returning home to search for her family during the conflict and the taxi driver who agrees to drive her.

I'll be posting short reviews of the movies I see, so check back daily.

The Best Show on Television - The Wire

2008-01-06T14:10:00.001-07:00

I'll do what I can to help y'all. But, the game's out there, and it's play or get played. That simple. - Omar

I love storytelling. Always have. I remember laying my head against my mother's shoulder, closing my eyes, and listening to her read stories to me since I can remember memories. Storytelling has pulled me to rock, country, hip-hop, blues and folk music, spoken word monologues, books, books, movies, storytelling festivals, television and more books in my life. And though my taste has gotten more complex since the days of The Mouse and the Motorcycle, I am drawn to a great yarn like a dog to a bone, whether fiction or non-fiction.

Though books will always be what I consider the ultimate of the storytelling templates, the visual filming of a story is one of the most intriguing, as it can assault your senses not only with words, but images and sounds as well. I love television ("good" TV, that is, though "The Soup" is a "bad TV" guilty pleasure of mine) that tells a good story, whether it be in half-hour sitcoms and animated comedies (Seinfeld, The Simpsons, Arrested Development) or hour-long dramas (The Sopranos, The West Wing, The X-Files, Deadwood).

However, the most effective, engrossing and well-written stories to ever grace the small screen is creator David Simon's ode to Baltimore, The Wire. It is the tale of a decaying urban American city, the tale of the fogotten people who are casualties of the machinary of class and inhuman institutions. It is the tale of the police who chase the drug pushers and hitman, of the individuals who try to beat the shitty hand that was dealt to them. It is the tale of a broken society, where hope is sometimes spoken of, but only cautiously and by those who can afford to say it.

The Wire is, on surface, a show about cops and the criminals they deal with. But when discovered, it is the tale of the modern American city, warts and all. There is no solidified group of good guys and bad guys. The overall theme would have to be the way the machine of the institutions crush the individuals, no matter whether the individual is deserving or not, or if the institution is ideal (justice system) or a reality to be dealt with (the drug trade). The way that the issues and characters are dealt with are why it is often referred to by critics as a "visual novel." You get to know the lives of those who push drugs in western Baltimore and the police who pursue them (season 1); the unionized longshoremen trying to survive and the smugglers who take advantage of the situation (dwindling boats to unload) on the docks (season 2); the politicians and powerbrokers vying for positions, sometimes with good intentions, sometimes bad and the way that redevelopment can shake up a city (season 3), and; the children who suffer through a woefully underfunded education system, with bad role models or no role models at all at home and tough choices about their reality at such young ages (season 4). All the while, the storylines are followed by elements of the Baltimore legal system-- some admirable characters, some unctuous ones, and a couple who are just plain corrupt. Each season unravels slowly, building characters and story while depicting the harsh realities of a dying industrial city on a level unprecedented in television.

Because each season is 12-13 hours long, it is much more densely layered and rich than films can be. Characters and storylines don't end with a season, either. The show is more like a 60-hour movie than anything else.Creator David Simon approached the serial from the beginning like it was a novel, unfafraid to let it be a slow and intense burn or to throw popular characters in the background for long lengths of time (or kill them off) so the story can develop.

Season 5 (starting tonight and available on HBO OnDemand) will focus on the media and its contribution/detraction to the realities of the world in which it works through journalists at the fictional (of course, not based on the real newspaper that Simon worked at) Baltimore Sun. The season premier is tonight on HBO.

I got into The Wire late in the game. A friend and I were void of a television show to watch on our usual Sunday night get-together that was usually augmented by HBO, so we decided to check out the hype we had read about. I was hooked. Although the show offers the most rich and rewarding viewing to those viewers who know the characters and storyline from the beginning, the beginning of a season is a good time to jump on board and you won't be lost.

The show has been characterized by some as a downer, as it observes some of the brutality and sadness that is reality to some in this land, but there are acts of heroism and times of joy littered throughout the series, as performed by the individuals who fight against the odds stacked against them. It is the most rewarding television you'll experience. Simply put, it is television as art. And if you watch, you'll have a symbiotic relationship with your television to see what is to come of McNulty, Bubbles, Omar, Kima, Namond, Dukie and the rest.

My Year In Books

2007-12-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

So I read a lot more in 2007 than I have in the past couple of years. Part of this is because I haven't been in school for the calendar year, so I didn't have much requried reading to throw me off. It is also partly because I was more anti-social this year than I have been in awhile. But, as always, I still didn't read enough.

Reading is the ultimate alone-but-still-connected activity. The reader has an intimate and symbiotic relationship with the author. The author has decided the language, the characters, the context, the setting, but only the reader can assign sounds and images and the mental details and judgements which the author left out. In a sense, the author creates a vague set of directions, but it is up to the reader to observe, as she is on the journey and each individual experience will be different and unique. Without the reader, the author wouldn't exist (at least his book contract wouldn't) and without the author, the reader wouldn't get access to such a godly feelings of omniscience that fiction can bring.

A novel may have certain philosophies, the author may assign her characters certain traits and a few clues to the visual appearance of the characters and locations, but it is the reader who takes these fragments and forms them into a cohesive, living world inside their mind. The author may preliminarily set the time frame in which the story begins and ends, but the reader has the last say over the elasticity of the conclusion. If they don't like the book, the reader can smash the cover on the author's world hundreds of pages before the author envisioned his creation's story would end. And even when the book ends, the characters and stories can continue far beyond bounds created by the physicality of a cardboard book cover: I constantly hear Holden Caulfield's caustic cynicism as I journey through the everyday world; Kilgore Trout has been creating fantastical observations and plots in my head, even since Vonnegut has died; Sam Spade has been informing me of how he would react in certain sticky situations.

I'm setting a goal to read 45 books next year, which I can do as long as I manage my time well. I want to include more histories and biographies than I did this year, but fiction is closest to my heart, so I'll see how it goes. I didn't make any goals about reading in 2007, but after compiling the list of what I read (there may be a few I'm not remember just right now), I figured I'd set a number goal for 2008, the ideal is to beat it, but I'll at least meet the mark. I won't be including books assigned by the classes I'll be taking at school.

On the list are a few books I started this year but didn't finish (I usually am reading at least 3 or 4 at a time, sometimes books will escape me and lose them in the shuffle) are Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Crossing To Safety by Wallace Stegner, Jay Anthony Lukas' account of class and turn-of-the-20th Century Western United States, Big Trouble, and David McCullogh's John Adams. Also on the list is: David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism by Gregory Prince and Robert Wright, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, Strong Opinions, a collection of letters, reviews and such by Vladimir Nabokov, In The Arena by Richard M. Nixon, Jonathan Franzen's Strong Motion and Steinbeck's East of Eden, which I started to fall in love with a couple of years back, but was derailed by school a hundred pages into it. Any suggestions for the 2008 list?

Here's the 2007 list of what I read:

Immortality - Milan Kundera

Refuge - Terry Tempest Williams

A Kind of Flying - Ron Carlson

Practical Demon Keeping - Christopher Moore
A Dirty Job - Christopher Moore
The Stupidist Angel - Christopher Moore

Breakfast of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut

The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen

The Tie That Binds - Kent Haruf

No Country For Old Men - Cormac McCarthy
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy

Without Remorse - Tom Clancy

Coronado - Dennis Lehane

The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett

The March - E.L. Doctorow

On Beauty - Zadie Smith
The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith

Letting Loose The Hounds - Brady Udall

Laughter In The Dark - Vladimir Nabokov

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

The Final Solution - Michael Chabon

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

No One Belongs Here More Than You - Miranda July

Choke - Chuck Palahniuk

Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris

The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin - Gordon Wood

Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-24T22:24:00.000-07:00

In lieu of writing a long post or digging myself in a deeper theological hole (see previous post) so close to Christmas, I'll give you all the gift of humorist/essayist David Sedaris. "The SantaLand Diaries" put Sedaris on the map after it aired in December, 1992 on NPR's Morning Edition. It is one of my favorite Christmas stories, as it recalls his holiday season as an elf at the SantaLand within the Macy's Department store in New York City. Sedaris is always gold in his writing - very self-deprecating and full of wit and observation - but hearing him perform them in his dry, almost disconnected, subdued manner brings out a magic in his work that just can't be matched when read internally. Hope you all find joy and love this holiday season, that you give as much as you receive. Merry Christmas.

David Sedaris - The SantaLand Diaries

Purchase fine works by David Sedaris from Amazon

Drive-By Truckers - The Mike Cooley Files

2007-12-16T23:51:00.000-07:00

2007 ain't quite through yet, but 2008 is bringing a triple dose of good news from one of my favorite bands, Drive-By Truckers, as they are releasing a brand spanking new album Brighter Than Creation's Dark and getting their back catalog released on vinyl and happen to be stopping in Salt Lake for a show on February 20th. I have no idea what or where The Paladium is (must be a new venue, but can I maybe cross my fingers that the old Zephyr Club is re-opening under this name?) but that is where I'll be on that cold winter evening. If you haven't experienced DBT live for their Rock Show, you haven't truly experienced Rock 'N Roll. I'm dead serious.

The Truckers are one of the most criminally under-appreciated bands in America - the only band in the country I can think of that has been producing music at or above their level this decade is Wilco. Much like the Jeff Tweedy & Co. Drive-By Truckers are a truly American experience. I think one of the reasons they are discounted by some is because they are often labeled "southern rock", probably because of their 2001 concept album Southern Rock Opera.
If pressed, I would simply call them Americana - but if you like your rock with a pedal steel and some twang in the electric guitars, this band is definitely for you. The band is down one stellar songwriter in Jason Isbell (playing in at Suede on February 2nd), but they still boast two great ones in Patterson Hood and Mike Cooley (plus Shonna Tucker even takes lead vocals on a few of her songs on the new album!).

I'm gonna end up posting more on DBT in the coming while, so I figured I'd start with a killer mix of my favorite band member, Mike Cooley. His songs are detailed enough to feel personal, yet broadly themed to feel universal and he can turn a line better than almost anyone writing in rock today. Oh, and dude freakin' owns on the kind of guitar licks that make you pump your fist in the air.

Some of my favorite Cooley lines:

"Well, my daddy didn’t pull out, but he never apologized / Rock and Roll means well, but it can’t help tellin’ young boys lies." - from "Marry Me"

"And don't ever let them make you feel like saying what you want is unbecoming / If you were supposed to watch you're mouth all the time I doubt your eyes would be above it." - from "Gravity's Gone"

"You say you're tired of me taking you for granted / Waiting' up till the last minute to call you up and see what you want to do / Well you're only fifteen, girl, you ain't got no secretary / And "for granted" is a mighty big word for a country girl like you." - from "Zip City"

"We've been this close to death before, we were just too drunk to know it / Guess the price of being sobers being scared out of your mind ... Living in fear's just another way of dying before your time." -- from "Shut Up and Get on the Plane"

DBT: The Cooley Files
(pay close attention to "Space City" and "Loaded Gun in the Closet" - the lyrics and musical accompaniment are unbelievably beautiful)

A Ghost to Most
Marry Me (live)
Space City
Guitar Man Upstairs
Women Without Whiskey
Where The Devil Don't Stay
Loaded Gun in the Closet
Gravity's Gone
Zip City
Shut Up and Get on the Plane

MLB's day of reckoning?

2007-12-13T11:18:00.000-07:00

The day has come that all baseball fans have been fearing, even if they've been trying to deny it: the league has a massive problem with players using performance-enhancing drugs and it's a widespread issue, not just limited to the few sluggers (Barry Bonds, Rafeal Palmero, Mark McGwire, Jose Canseco) previously fingered. Indeed, the users ranged the positions, even the pitchers got in on it. It's like Curt Schilling once said, it's not like hitters are the only ones doping, wouldn't steroids help you throw harder too?

I've written about it before, but now that George Mitchell's report has been made public, it is an issue that the sport of baseball and all those involved can no longer ignore or try to pin on a few people. Perhaps the most astounding aspect of Mitchell's investigation, is that his information is culled from so few cooperating (under threat of prosecution) sources, but seems so wide in its inclusiveness of players. This likely tells that anabolic steroid and human growth hormone use in baseball are much more prevalent than this report was able to identify. As the cliche goes, it's just the tip of the iceberg.

From the sources in the New York Yankees and New York Mets organizations and what was found through the Bay Area Laboratories Co-Operative (BALCO) cooperators, clubs and players from around the league were implicated, as were the player's union and commissioner's office and league owners (from what I've read in the report, economics always took precedence in trying to monitor and combat illegal drug use in the majors).

One interesting fact that the Mitchell Report revealed was that players who used didn't necessarily succeed. Sure, there were the big stars like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte and Miguel Tejada who were accused, but the majority of the 80 or so players mentioned were essentially non-impact players who spent only a few years in the Major Leagues.

Commissioner Bud Selig (disclosure time: I've never been a fan: he ruined the meaning of the All-Star game) has vowed to punish those active players who have "hurt the integrity of the game." What does that mean? How is that defined? How do you punish players who were named by a couple of people (many without corroboration) which basically come down to heresy? My guess is he will try to push more blame onto Bonds, who is facing legal trouble in a perjury and obstruction of justice case, and brush away the others as not damaging to baseball's integrity. Don't expect a lot to come of this report, it will be hard enough for the Commissioner's Office and Players Association to hammer get together in the same room, let alone hammer out an effective drug-testing policy. As long as the fans keep coming and don't demand it by withholding their Visa cards from merchandise and box offices, not much will happen.

Also, this report doesn't even touch baseball's dirty little secrete: the fact that amphetamines have been widely used in the major leagues since the long bus-trip days of the 1950's and 60's to keep player's stamina and alertness up.

The Morality of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports

The question that remains is: should the players, the owners and the fans care if players are using steroids or HGH or amphetamines? Obviously, none of us (including myself) has cared very much up until the past few years, if at all. Technically, everybody was winning while they were being used. We the fans got to enjoy dramatic races for home run records and top-notch pitching performances, the players (who used and succeeded) likely got more money through salaries and endorsements, as well as beefing their stats, while owners gained profit through attendance and merchandising revenues gained from the amazing performances of doped-up players.

But what morals are there to be had in sports? Should there be any at all? If the point of sports is to win (sure, playing the game is fun and all, but on a professional level, you win or lose, there is one champion and 20-plus losers every year), then why not gain every conceivable advantage one can to do so? Where do we draw the line in what is performance-enhancing and what is not?
So let's say that using steroids or HGH gives an athlete an unfair advantage over others. What about supplements and vitamins? Or access to trainers and equipment? Or altitude variance? Should the Olympics say that all competing athletes must train on the same equipment, have the same access to trainers in all countries so as not to gain unfair advantage, thus assuring that the very best athletic performance is rewarded, not the most well-funded programs?

I think there's a root problem in trying to lay down morals and ethics in sports, just as there is in war, because they are both about competition and victory. If the mindset is one of winning a gold medal or world championship, then when one has an opportunity to gain advantage in order to have a competitive edge, it must be taken. Why else would one be competing if not to win? Is it unfair to attempt to put athletic competition into a box with morality and ethics? Are they compatible with each other?

I'm honestly not sure. I like the idea of athletes competing and winning based on sheer skill and talent, but I can see why all the cheaters we've seen in sports lately did it, when all that is at stake and the mentality of competition is put into context. Sometimes I wonder if we should just do like the old Saturday Night Live "Drug Olympics" sketch and allow anything and everything to gain a competitive edge. Wouldn't the playing field be more even?

Until this all gets figured out, until testing becomes reliable and all of the parties involved make an honest and concerted effort to combat the drug problem in professional sports, I will still be a fan. I'll love baseball as long as I live, if not for its purity then also for its flaws.

Beautiful Birdsongs in the City of Angels

2007-12-09T23:45:00.000-07:00

I return from Los Angeles unscathed, yet somewhat disillusioned by the freeze that has entrenched itself along the Wasatch Front. I always forget someting when I travel, this time it was my toothbrush (which as to be the most-oft forgotten item in traveling) and, sadly, the digital camera. Boo to me.

Some things I noticed: I don't get what a lot of people around Utah (or the U.S.) are doing complaining about Spanish being too prevelant. A common comment I hear is "learn the language or leave". Most of the arguments against immigration in the country I have heard sound couched in racism, now and historically, whether it be against Irish, Italians, the Slavic or Hispanics. Driving around L.A. (and whenever I visit a true metropolitan) reminded me just how much the United States is an immigrant country, that it is essentially hypocritical for us to carry on in such a way that some do, talking about deporting people who have lived here for years working hard and depriving their children (who have done nothing wrong) of basic rights in healthcare and education. Koreatown, Thaitown, Chinatown - these are all unique elements that add to Los Angeles's identity in a positive way. Incidentally, people of Hispanic descent are now the largest ethnic "group" in the city.

The consumerism aspect was great, in a used sort of way. I spent bills quite freely and got two (used) shirts, a new (very slightly used) pair of sneakers, a (used)hoodie and a new hat (as if I don't have enough of those) at Buffalo Exchange and narrowed the dozens of vinyl finds at Ameoba Records to Los Lobos, Sunset Rubdown, George Jones, The National, Randy Newman and Camper Van Beehtoven. (I could literally spend days there. I made a foray over to the hip/hop and electronica sections only to run away - my list was already too large from browsing just the rock.) I also picked up an Andrew Bird vinyl and tee at the concert.

About the concert: Andrew Bird was amazing, spectacular. I never realized what a presence he is on stage - a true showman. The music that he creates live is overwhelmingly beautiful - I've listened to and loved his records, but seeing him pull it off live gives such depth to his talent and adds an extra dimension to the musical textures he creates. Decked out in a three-piece suit, he played a few songs solo, just him, his violin and his loop pedal, before bringing out Martin Dosh (his great solo work can be found on one of my favorite labels, anticon) and Jeremy Ylvisaker to join him for the remainder of the show. He covered a lot of territory from his two most recent albums - Armchair Apocrypha and The Mysterious Production of Eggs, threw in a few older tunes and played a new one - about "if humans were to evolve into something else in the space of their own lifetime" called, I believe, "Anom-A." It was the best live show I have seen in a long time, certainly the most moving I've seen this year. There points when the beauty of it all nearly brought me to tears. It was so intimate that I felt throughout the show that he wasn't playing for a crowd of a couple thousand, but rather for me a dozen people in a small room (and the Orpheum's architecture and atmosphere were a boon to the music).

I've a good bit of Bird lately. Oh well, here's more, along with some Dosh. "Simple X" is one that Andrew Bird put lyrics to a Dosh song, "Simple Exercises." Listen for Bird's violin samples on "Um, Circles and Squares". It's hard to miss.

Andrew Bird - Measuring Cups (Live) (from Fingerlings 3)
Andrew Bird - Simple X (from Armchair Apocrypha)
Dosh - Simple Exercises (from Pure Trash)
Dosh - Um, Circles and Squares (from The Lost Take)
Dosh - I Think I'm Getting Married (from Pure Trash)

A parting post - Rothko, Radiohead and a poem

2007-12-06T00:53:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, I head to Los Angeles for a weekend of Andrew Bird at the The Orpheum Theatre, Amoeba Music (then I'll have visited all three locations), Buffalo Exchange, good food, and most importantly, solid time away from work and landlock. Hopefully there will be reportage from the battle front, some good vinyl and wardrobe finds, and as always, intellectual and spiritual enlightenment. Or at least some good laughs.

Upon departing, I leave you with a poem I wrote several years ago, the painting which inspired the poem, by one of my favorite artists, Mark Rothko, and two songs from the bonus b-sides disc of Radiohead's recent release, In Rainbows. "Last Flowers" and "4 Minute Warning" are the two most simply constructed songs on the disc and they show how easy it is for Radiohead to write straightforward, beautiful tunes, even if it is their complicated compisitions that give them their most praise. What amazes me about the band is just how great even their b-sides are. Rothko and Radiohead share a cozy place near my soul. Last time I checked, you could find the Rothko original at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Mark Rothko, No. 14, 1960

No. 14, 1960

The docent asked how it made us feel,
A pallette of red, darkness.
"Violence."
"Rage."
"Hate."
Heads bobbed in unison.
Their assumptions soon validated
By the guide's eager gossip,
Your late-life suicide.

As the group's feet echoed
Unenthusiastically into another atrium
I stood, transfixed with warmth,
Alone in the pure passion -
Your painting.

Emotion framed on canvas.
A scraggly, fading rectangle surrounded
By a deep crimson darkness.

Life is simple and messy and pure.

-J.D. Nielsen

Last Flowers
4 Minute Warning

Respite from weather and politics

2007-12-02T16:12:00.000-07:00

After the politics and the snow, here's a few tunes. Once again, they include Philip Glass from his Solo Piano and Godspeed You! Black Emporer, this time from the live from their John Peel Session. Concluding the music is another post-rock song from Explosions In The Sky's The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place.

"Obsolescence is the leading product of our national infatuation with technology, and I now believe that obsolescence is not a darkness but a beauty: not perdition but salvation. The more headlong the progress of technological development, the greater the volume of obsolete detritus. And the detritus isn't simply material. It's angry religion, resurgent countercultural ideologies, the newly unemployed, the eternally unemployable. These are the fiction writer's gurantee that he or she will never be alone. Obsolescence is our legacy."

-- Jonathan Franzen from the essay "Scavenging" (which can be found in How To Be Alone)

Godspeed You! Black Emporer - Hungover As The Queen in Maida Vale

Philip Glass - Wichita Sutra Vortex

Explosions In The Sky - First Breath After Coma

Sundance 2008 line-up announced

2007-11-29T15:10:00.000-07:00

The slate of films chosen to represent the Sundance Film Festival in 2008 were released today, jostling a jolt of excitement in me. I don't know why I neglected the festival for so long, being a lover of movies and living along the Wasatch Front, but once I finally braved the traffic and cold January ticket lines, I was hooked. It's always hard to tell what will be good and what won't, which is why it's good to get some word-of-mouth advice from fellow festival patrons. This year there is a Chuck Palahniuk adaptation (Choke), a new Michel Gondry film, some off-beat comedies (there's almost a Sundance Quirky Comedy genre now), dysfunctional family dramas, U2 in 3-D, and documentaries about linguists, gang violence in South L.A., steroids, Hunter Thompson, rural Russian delenquints, water, and Morgan "Supersize Me" Spurlock searching for Osama bin Laden. Should be an interesting year. I've learned a few things in my few festivals as attendee (links to the 2008 line-up below):

1)It's best to see the films that may not get a wide-release rather than the star-driven vehicles that will show up in the local movieplex a couple of months (or even weeks) after the festival - this generally means more foriegn-language and lower-budget ones for me.

2)Documentaries are the easy-to-get-into, hidden gems of the festival. I've seen my share of pretty bad to mediocore dramatic features, but all of the docs I've seen have been anywhere from good to absolutely riveting.

3) It's nice to get your tickets in advance, but there's also something about wait-listing your way in. This usually means showing up two hours before the screening, getting a piece of paper with your designated number and hoping that some people don't show up for the screening. There's only been a couple that I haven't gotten into, but luckily there's generally another movie starting soon somewhere nearby to catch as a back-up. Last year I was able to see my two favorites, "Once" and "In The Shadow of the Moon" by wait-listing. Plus, wait-listing is a good way to meet some fellow film buffs who have traveled from all around the country or world to be there, as well as a lot of the filmmakers who are also taking in the festival.

4) Stick around for the question-and-answer sessions after the movies. These are what makes festivals like Sundance so cool. Getting into the filmmakers and actors motiviations and desires while making the movies can be extremely interesting and sometimes hilarious. You'll hear behind-the-scenes stories that will never show up in the DVD extras.

5) Don't waste your time star-gazing/stalking. You're just as likely to see that untalented harlot sipping a soy latte at a local coffee shop as you are standing outside Harry O's for three hours in the cold wating for her to stumble out after an invite-only Snoop Dogg set. Celebrities and psuedo-celebrities are freaking everywhere in Park City during Sundance. Go to the movies and you'll be just as likely to see them if that's what you want.

6) Check out Slamdance Film Festival, Sundance's first (and best) offspring. I discovered it while reviewing for the University of Utah's student rag, the Daily Utah Chronicle, and saw a couple of good movies and one that was better than most Sundance dramatic entries. It's what I imagine Sundance was like fifteen or twenty years ago, before any company with a new product line to schill devoured the streets of Park City. The films will be announced December 5th. It has a cool do-it-yourself vibe and it's cheaper and has much better access to the filmmakers than Sundance.

I'll be reviewing what I see, with daily updates, right here at Concrete Fiction once the festival gets going.

Here is a list of competition films at this years festival (Documentary, Dramatic, World Cinema Documentary, World Cinema Dramatic).

You can find the list of non-competition films (Premiers, New Frontier, Spectrum, Park City at Midnight) on this page.

----------------------------------------------------------

In the spirit of the upcoming festival, here are a few songs that have appeared in Sundance movies I've seen in the last couple of years. (Song links at bottom of post.)

First is M. Ward and his song "Carolina" from the movie "The Go-Getter", a 2007 selection starring Lou Taylor Pucci, Zoey Daschanel and Jena Malone. Ward and his band are featured heavily throughout the film, and they even make a cameo near the beginning. This is a movie worth seeing when it gets picked up.

Then we have Gogol Bordello's "Through the Roof and Underground", a song that plays prominently in the 2006 Sundance alum (and recent release) Wristcutters: A Love Story. Gogol Bordello is a true treat live, something I learned not long after being introduced to them simaltaneously through this movie and my buddy. Bandleader Eugene Hutz was in They are part circus-act, part immigrant folk troupe, part pure dub-punk energy when they hit the stage. Don't miss them if you get the chance.

Finally, we get Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová's "When Your Mind's Made Up" from the brilliantly understated musical love story, Once. I've written about this film a bit elsewhere on this blog, but let me just say, Hansard and Irglová are pure magic onscreen. A must-see.

Sundance Songs:

M. Ward - Carolina

Gogol Bordello - Through the Roof and Underground

Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová - When Your Mind's Made Up

Winter here to stay? Andrew Bird is!

2007-11-27T23:32:00.000-07:00

There's something about a physical, visual finality of metamorphosis that is so beautiful. Along the Wasatch Front tonight, we were witness to what could be called the end of autumn and the beginning of winter. After weeks of hearing about ski resorts pushing back their opening dates and the predictions of future drought from climatologists, we were finally treated to the first real snow of the season.

Before now, there have been flakes in the air, but not much stuck. While this wasn't exactly a substantial snowstorm, there is a good couple of inches that managed to stick on the ground. It's quite late in the year for the snow to finally signal winter is around the corner, it seems like there's usually a good storm pre-Halloween. But I walked out of work this evening excited and entranced. The snow was falling haphazardly, in a mad rush to get to the ground and make its claim on the season, to show the warm fall days we've been having who owns the climate now.

Autumn is my favorite season - as I've written before - but in the past couple of years, I've picked up snowshoeing, so winter has gotten a passionate boost. I wasn't really prepared for it when I first broke in my new pair a couple of years back, after about two hundred yards up a not-too-steep grade I was gasping and panting. (The first snow hike of the season is always like that and after gorging during the Thanksgiving holiday, I'm ready for a good, cold slap in the face.) But I kept it up and found the exhilaration and solace that the woods in winter time can bring. I love the way the world is muted after new-fallen snow, and outside the confines of the city, the serenity and harmony of things that this brings is magnified. Plus, bombing down a steep slope in your snowshoes with some sturdy snowboard boots to keep the ankles stiff is really something else.

So, welcome Winter, I hope you're hear to stay and bless us in Utah with mounds of that airy, dry snow that you so expertly whip up each year.

Oh, and how about cheering up your day a bit with some Andrew Bird? The folks over at Daytrotter recently lured Mr. Bird into their studio with the band Diagona backing him up and released these songs. If you've never encountered any Daytrotter Sessions before, you should definitely check out the website. A studio located in Rock Island, Illinois, it's enviously fantastic how Daytrotter gets so many relevant and masterful musicians into their quarters to re-work or lay down songs to be released free to the public. Here are the songs from the Bird Sessions. "A Breaks B" is apparently a Diagona original, to be released on a future album and "The Giant of Illinois" is a Handsome Family song, who happen to be currently on tour with Bird. The versions of these other songs are lush, interesting, but still not too-foreign from the album originals. "Fiery Crash" in particular is allowed to take a little more meditative time compared to the more urgent take on Armchair Apocrypha.

Fiery Crash (Daytrotter Sessions)
Lull (Daytrotter Sessions)
A Breaks B (Daytrotter Sessions)
Pasticities (Daytrotter Sessions)
The Giant of Illinois (Daytrotter Sessions)

Rivalry Week and Why I Love Sports

2007-11-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

I've often wondered what it is about sports that gets us (who choose to) so riled, so emotionally involved, so proud/angry over something that is, as we who participated in youth athletics were all told at one time or another, "just a game". This weekend is as good a time as any for myself to contemplate this. Rivalry week just wound up here on the Wasatch Front, when my beloved University of Utah Utes football team blew a lead for the second year in a row with under two minutes left to lose to the hated Cougars of Brigham Young University. First, a bit on the rivalry.

If you didn't grow up in the Beehive State, it's difficult to fully comprehend the depths to which this football game plunges. I would argue it's one of the best in the country. (By best I also mean worst; I mean fans acting without reason or any notion of maturity. As I'm writing this sentence, there is a news story on KSL-5 about a Ute fan who was head-butted by a Cougar fan at the game, breaking his nose.) The Utah-BYU rivalry has all the characteristics of other big rivalries in college football (usually based on in-state or geographic connection, ivy league snobbery or armed forces branches) except, just to make it even more interesting, it has become known as a religious rivalry. Some see it as the Mormons against the ubiquitous "non-members", though among us fans who are able to reconcile being a Ute fan and LDS, I would say it's generally characterized as the "regular" Mormons (Utah fans) against the "weird" Mormons (Cougar fans). That streak of religiosity, however falsely perceived, gives the game a zest of fundamentalism (on both sides) rarely seen in this country, with the exception of outside abortion clinics in the South - or in the halls of the White House.

Growing up, I was plagued by a perpetually terrible Utah football team, which meant mockery from neighbors, who also carried about a holier-than-thou attitude about choosing to root for "the Lord's school" rather than those heathens at the U. This was in the midst of Lavell Edwards' greatness, but luckily for me, the playing field began to even itself in the early nineties. Utah football improved drastically, with the pinnacle coming in 2004, and a rivalry with question as to who would win was reborn for my formative years.

Yesterday I made a trip to Provo with my brother for the annual throwdown, the third time I would witness it in Happy Valley. The first was in 1995 - the Utes won, I sat in the Cougar Club section, and a middle-aged Zoobie who was sitting a row behind smacked my friend Nate in the back of the head after we stood up to cheer for a Utah play, claiming that we "didn't know anything about the world". I'm still not sure what he meant by that, but Nate had the last laugh when he replied, "At least I know it's immature for an adult to hit a kid." Oh, and Utah won that year.

My second trip was ten years later, in 2005. I wasn't eager to go down - the Utes had just lost their starting quarterback, the season was feeling like a letdown after the literally perfect 2004 campaign and I didn't want to sit among 60,000 blue-clad freaks for four hours. I decided to go mainly as a chance to visit Megan, Tanner and Jason, who were students down there and I didn't see very often. Jason and Tanner were good men, though - Ute fans through and through. Megan and I were lucky enough to have a friendship based on a hatred of math and a love of literature, therefore I was able to look beyond her school affiliation. Jason and I used to go to Ute games together in high school, and we got to sit together among the red-wearing faithful in the western part of the north end zone. Oh, and Utah proved victorious in overtime. It was probably the best all-out football game I've ever been to.

I had high hopes for yesterday. After an extremely disappointing 1-3 start (and an open-letter blog I wrote but never posted after a 27-0 loss to UNLV), the Runnin' Utes were playing their best football in two or three years - the defense was especially amazing. And BYU was, well, BYU. Just ask any Ute fan, BYU always sucks. It was a very good game - very defense oriented, but Utah couldn't get their offense going to compliment the exemplary "D" being thrown down by Robert Johnson, Steve Tate, Stevenson Sylvester and the rest of the crew.
Then, with a minute and forty seconds left, Utah orchestrated a touchdown drive to take a 10-9 lead. BYU got the ball back and three plays later (including one sack by Sylvester), they were looking at 4th down and 18 yards to go deep in their own territory. This was it. I was elated -- laughing, smiling, hugging my brother, touching hands with other Utah fans interspersed among the Cougar faithful around me. We were jubilant. Then, in one play, it all went bad. Brice McCain blew coverage on Austin Collie, while Max Hall escaped another sack and threw a fifty-yard bomb to Collie for the first down. My heart sunk. I was devastated. My heart was broken. My faith was suddenly doused in caffeine-free Diet Coke and stomped on by metal-spiked cleats. It was only a couple of questionable calls and an eleven-yard run later that the Team Down South sealed their victory. My week was ruined.

So why did I allow this to happen? Why did I invest so much emotion, so much faith, so much purported happiness in a freakin' football game?

I think it all goes to the same reason I reach for religion -- I want to feel part of something bigger than myself, something communal, where we, the like-minded, can all dress up similarly, pass signs and physical contact among each other in our celebration and mourning. In this we hope that we might find reason among, and make sense of, all the madness in the world, all the events that are absolutely beyond our control. We are united in one common purpose. In sports, we clap and cheer, in religion we clasp our hands and bow our heads.

I'm glad I went to the game yesterday, even though we lost and I was surrounded by people in blue who represented something I don't understand or think is quite right, we were all reaching for personal fulfillment through something greater than ourselves.

Whew. Got that one off my brain. Now, here's a little playlist for the ears. I just kind of browed my music collection on the old computator and picked some songs that seemed to fit for me, here and now. It begins with a Glass solo piano work (who could ever argue against Philip Glass?!), followed by the bizzarely beautiful cut-n-paste sounds of Animal Collective. If you haven't heard them, check these guys out. Animal Collective is what happens when you put Brian Wilson in the washing machine with a Super Nintendo, the Information Age and sea water. Following is Trent Reznor's soft-loud-soft-loud "The Day the World Went Away." I've loved this song since high school, when I bought the single. The song highlights some reasons why Reznor is a great producer. Medeski, Martin and Wood, the best damn avant-jazz-funk combo around. Whenever they come to Utah, it is with a jazz festival and the stuffy, upper-crust, old-school, donating-members jazz types are pushed out of the way by the young folks dancing to MMW's infectious grooves. It's a funny sight. Then we have Humanity's Best Candidate for Elf, Joanna Newsom's closer from The Milk-Eyed Mender. I love how her voice takes precedence on this song and the delicate picking of the harp rather than grand, dramatic swoops. Closing out the mix is everyone's favorite orchestral rockers, the Canadian Marxist musical collective, Godspeed You Black Emporer! with their glorious, epic (when are they not glorious or epic, though?) opener to their masterpiece, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven, "Storm".
Enjoy.

Philip Glass - Metamorphosis One
Animal Collective - Unsolved Mysteries
Nine Inch Nails - The Day The World Went Away
Medeski, Martin and Wood - Take Me Nowhere
Joanna Newsom - Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie
Godspeed You Black Emporer! - Storm

Arcade Fire on Austin City Limits This Sunday!

2007-11-08T00:05:00.000-07:00

Every year there are one or two bands that I really get into. Not just happily introduced to or discovered, but more to the point of becoming quite fanatical about them, thrusting burned cds into strangers hands unsolicited and attempting to decipher the meaning of ambiguous lyrics long into the night. Past artists be on this prestigious list (at least to anyone who holds my opinion prestigious - I'm raising my hand) include Subtle, Calexico, Elliott Smith, Wilco, Radiohead, Bob Dylan and my first pop music obsession, The Beatles. This year, that band is Arcade Fire.

I didn't receive the band very warmly when their first album, Funeral was released. I remember hearing a track or two on public radio and feeling, just, well I guess not feeling would be the way to describe it. I can't tell you exactly why, just not the right time and situation, I suppose (though some of it had to do with the massive hype surrounding the release, I'm always wary of the Pitchfork effect in the indie rock world). However, I gave the band another go-round this spring when they released their second full-length, the inspiring, splendid Neon Bible and I was blown away. This has happened to me before (giving a band or album a second listen months or years down the line). It is actually quite cool - like discovering meaning after-the-fact, through events already trudged through (and hoped by the experiencer to never revisit).

Well, I've been enjoying a nice honeymoon with husband-wife duo/band founders Win Butler & Regine Chassagne and the rest of the Canadian crew for the past six months, absorbing all the demos and b-sides I could get my ears on. The band has a great reputation live, and this weekend they appear on the best music television show America has to offer, PBS's Austin City Limits. Here in Utah it airs on KUED-7 at midnight (technically Sunday morning) and the episode looks to be a hoot. You can check out "Keep The Car Running" on the show's website, complete with hurdy-gurdy. I've got my DVR set.

Below are some of my favorite Arcade Fire songs. I think what draws me to the band most is the ability for the music to sound like a downright celebration while the lyrics often reflect unease, uncertainty and cynicism.

It's kind of like life - at least as viewed through my eyes - a helluva a lot of suffering and doubt adorned by beauty and warmth beyond description.

Download the entire Arcade Fire playlist

or, individually:

Wake Up (from Funeral)
Keep The Car Running (from Neon Bible)
My Body is a Cage (from Neon Bible)
Surf City Eastern Bloc (from "No Cars Go" single)
Crown of Love (from Funeral)
(Antichrist Television Blues) (from Neon Bible)
Headlights Look Like Diamonds (from Arcade Fire EP)
Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover) (from some 2007 Coachella sampler)
In The Attic (from the band's 2001 demos)

The Lost Art of Facial Hair

2007-11-02T23:53:00.000-06:00

I'm a guy who likes to switch up his look. One of the easiest and best ways to do this is by messing around with different varieties of facial hair growth. I'm big on experimentation: standard beard, fuzzy lambchops, pencil-thin mustache, goatee, soul-patch, lenghty beard, neck beard, sideburns, standard 'stache, soup-strainer stache - the more I see and the thicker my hair gets, the more I try. Ever since I grew my first sideburns and soul patch when I was eighteen (when I finally could) I haven't stopped. It's a fascination in morphing appearance that probably won't ever end. In fact, I haven't had a totally shaven face since then: the soul patch at the least always stays so there is something I can tug on when I'm thinking (or, perhaps more appropriately, want to look like I'm deep in thought).

My whole fascination must be some hybrid of my love of the Old West since I was a child and idolization of all things classic rock in my early teens.

However, I live in a time and place that is pretty tough on creative facial hair. Sure, rock stars, liberal-art teaching academics, construction workers and (shudder) hippies get away with it well enough, but everywhere else in society seems to frown upon it. There's some unwritten code that dictates: grow facial hair, don't succeed (including all you professors out there - "liberal arts" - scoff!). Is it some indication of prediliction to immoral acts or teacherous motives that I am unaware of?

I have yearned for a return to the days of 150 years ago, when men's facial hair in America was finally expressing its collective freedom. The mid-to-late nineteenth century truly was the golden age of creative facial hair. Hell, sideburns got their name from General Ambrose E. Burnside's (see picture to the right) famously uninhibeted ear flappers. They're like the rings of Saturn.

I long for the day when your average, white-collar professional (admittedly, something I've never yearned to be) has six inches of mustache twisted and formed into a terrifically fanciful twirl, when the President of the United States has chops patterened after an-upside down Floridean shape (perhaps to win votes?), and the leaders of my church return to the glory of their long-bearded ancestors. I think there is some freedom, some part of ourselves as masters of our own destiny that we lose when we allow such a prominent sign of our masculinity, of our gender, to be cut away with the shear of a scissor or blade of a Bic.

I predicted years ago that we'd see a beard trend on the horizon, and though it hasn't taken over society like some widespread system of strangly roots, it has made progress. I applaud you men out there who are fighting the good fight. Keep up the good work. Now let's get a start on bringing back the 'stache - no longer will it only be the domain of sexual predators and highway patrolmen.

Men, it's time to stand up. It's time to throw down the pre-pubescent, look of clean shaven lollygaggers and grow some David Crosby mustaches, Lincoln chin beards and burly mountain man unruliness!

And now, some songs by those who have inspired me not only by their music, but also by their gnarly choices in facial hair.

Download the entire playlist here

The Beatles - I've Got A Feeling
Band of Horses - Weed Party
Bob Dylan - Po' Boy
Outkast - Love Hater
Built To Spill - Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Cold & Wet
Charles Mingus - Better Get Hit in Yo' Soul
Grandaddy - Now It's On
Tom Waits - Straight to the Top (Vegas Version)
The Grateful Dead - Cumberland Blues
The Band - Ophelia
The Killers - This River is Wild

My Morning Jacket - Dancefloors
Iron & Wine - The Spectre of Jasper County

Talkin' Politics, Red Sox and Sigur Rós

2007-10-29T19:44:00.000-06:00

Anyone who has ever talked politics with me for more than five minutes has probably realized a couple of things. First, I'm a political junkie - the theatre of politics is unceasingly interesting to me, definitely to a geek level. Second, my own politics fall well beyond any of the political parties in mainstream America (sorry, the two parties) and I hold about equal contempt for both, it just depends on the day and who is in power. When I say I have libertarian-socialist-via-capitalism leanings, I'm not kidding, it's just hard to fit in a box. If only I ruled the world ...

That said, I like to follow both the liberal and conservative opinion of whatever is going on in my country. I read The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, and Salon.com to try to keep up. Yesterday, I read a fascinating profile by Matt LaBash over at the conservative Standard about Roger Stone , a political operative in the most cunning (or sleazy, depending on your political affiliation) of sorts. The man worked behind the scenes in virtually every election from Nixon-Humphrey to Bush-Gore (LaBash credits him for stopping the recount in Dade County, Florida). He's the kind of political consultant that poli sci students like me drool over, idolize and worship as a god (Karl Rove is also a god, by the way). The stories told (if you can believe them all, that is -- deniability is one of the best assets to a behind the scenes consultant) are the stuff of political thriller movies. It's lengthy, but definitely worth a look.

The fact that I worship men like Roger Stone and view politics as he does (basically as performance art, only you screw as many people as necessary with whatever tactics to win) is why I've scared myself away from seriously considering politics as a career. But I'd be one helluva man to have on your campaign - just don't ask questions.

Today, over at The New Republic is an article about Utah's favorite presidential candidate Mitt (The Biggest Massachussets Flip-Flopper Since John Kerry) Romney and why the Mormon issue is an issue for him unlike it was for John Kennedy in 1960. It's short, concise, insightful analysis. I'm not a big Mitt fan, he's got a track record as a good leader, but after changing many social stances about the same time he decided to run for president, he's lost my trust. Either he's telling social conservative primary voters what they want to hear, or he truly had some sort of epiphanous moment of realization that has affected his views concerning women's rights, homosexual rights and health care (including advancements that stem-cell research could bring). Both reasons for his morph rub me wrong.

**********************************************************

Now on to the congratulations: Thanks to the Boston Red Sox for providing a great season for their fans and winning the World Series for the second time in four years. Curse? What 86 year-old curse? This year baseball actually had the best team throughout the season win the title, which seems to be rare since the wild-card was thrown in. The Colorado Rockies just couldn't catch a break in the 4 games, while Boston's bats where stinging balls down the lines for double after double, the Sox starting pitchers all had excellent outings and perhaps the strangest guy in baseball, (and baseball is full of weirdos and freaks, more than any other American sport, I think) Jonathan Papelbon, was unstoppable when he came in to close the games.
Ever since I was eight years old and watched the official videotape of the 1988 World Series L.A. Dodgers season, I've wanted to participate in a locker-room champagne free for all. Maybe I can scam my way into a general manager job somewhere ...
**********************************************************

And now onto the best stuff. The music, of course. Sigur Rós is on my mind today, I'm not sure why, I think I just needed some beauty to accompiny contemplation earlier on. For those who haven't heard the band, they are a foursome from Iceland, guitarist/vocalist Jónsi Birgisson sings in a made-up language, and they produce some of the most unique, graceful, gorgeous, enlivening music to ever pleasure your ears. If someone were to ask me what one concert they should see, if they only got one in their life, I would not choose Radiohead or Bob Dylan or Wilco or any of my other faves I've had the chance to see live. I would direct them to Sigur Rós.

I bought the band's American debut, ágætis byrjun in the winter of 2000/2001. I was living in St. George, Utah for school at the time. That winter, I remember driving the 300 miles north to my home one weekend during a white-out blizzard that stretched from about Cedar City to Scipio in my 1974 Mercedes, travelling into nothing but pure white as the music floated my car through the storm. It was one of the most beautiful music-to-driving moments I've ever had.

When I saw them in the summer of 2006, I had, no shit, a couple of minutes that are among the most spiritual, trascendent of space and time as I've ever had in my life. (And just for you naysayers out there wondering about chemically psychedelic influence, I was completely sober.) It was during "Hoppipolla", I closed my eyes, and I just was. A pure moment of being. I was not physical, I was spiritual, I was energy. It was absolutely amazing. They've got a really cool looking DVD coming out soon of interviews and performences in some unique places in Iceland, so keep on the lookout.

And for life's sake, if you ever get the chance, see the band live. Best 30 bucks I've ever spent on a concert and definitely worth planning a trip around to see.

Download entire Sigur Rós playlist

Hoppipolla (from Takk)
Untitled #4 [from ()]
Svefn-G-Englar (from Agætis Byrjun)
Staralfur [acoustic live]
Nýja Lagið [Live] (from Svefn-G-Englar EP)
Syndir Guðs [Live] (from Svefn-G-Englar EP)
Vaka (Untitled #1) [Live]

Elliott Smith

2007-10-24T12:01:00.000-06:00

I missed the anniversary, but October 21st was four years to the day that Elliott Smith took his life. Funny, I can still remember I was driving up 1000 North in Centerville, on my way to a waterfall hike, when I flipped on NPR and heard Robert Siegal talking about Smith in the past tense. It took me a second to double take and think, "He doesn't have an album coming out", and then I realized, and seconds later the radio confirmed that Smith was found dead inside is apartment in Los Angeles.

This was a sad afternoon. I didn't cry or become hysterical, but rather hiked and reflected the way that his music, his lyrics had played part in my life. I am one who prefers downer music when he is down, it is like forcing empathy in your head. When I had my first (and so far hardest) heartbreak, it was Elliott Smith who predominated my playlist. But he went beyond that. He has also found his way onto my record player and iPod when I'm in the mood for something unearthly tuneful and melodic. When Jeff Tweedy sings about being "Saved by rock and roll" it makes me think of Elliott Smith and his music at moments in my life.

I was lucky enough to see him at the University of Utah's Redfest about a month before his death. Turns out that was his last show. My highlight: his cover of "Long, Long, Long" by the Beatles.

Elliott Smith is missed, but not forgotten. If you missed this year's New Moon, check it out. The 24 tracks sparsely re-worked by one of Smith's studio cohorts is not only fantastic, but represents what I consider the best period of his career (1994-97).

Here's some songs by the master of songwriting and pop music:

Download entire Elliott Smith playlist here

Thirteen (from New Moon)
In the Lost and Found (Honky Bach) (from Figure 8)
Say Yes (from Either/Or)
Let's Get Lost (from From A Basement on the Hill)
King's Crossing (from From A Basement on the Hill)
No Name #3 (from Roman Candle)
Waltz #2 (XO) (from XO)
Angeles (from Either/Or)
The Biggest Lie (from Elliott Smith)

OCTOBER 10 - BEST DAY IN MUSIC FOR 2008!

2007-10-02T11:57:00.000-06:00

Radiohead has again proved why they are the greatest band in the world. And by greatest, I mean not only by musical output, but also ingenious guerilla tactics. I recieved an e-mail yesterday from the band's merchandise site, w.a.s.t.e. saying that Radiohead's new album, titled In Rainbows will be released on October 10 -- yeah, that's next week!

I posted recently about how it was looking like an '08 release for the new album, especially because the band was currently label-less. Well, they still are. The band may just throw the record business on its end because they are offering two ways of getting the album, one of which could be for free. If you follow the In Rainbows link above to pre-order the album, you'll find that if you get the digital/downloadable version, you pick the price. That's right, you pay as much or as little as you feel it is worth (or, I would say, are able to at the time). Then, on October 10, you can download the album.

There is also an option though, for what they are calling the discbox version of the album -- which are made to order. This includes two heavy-pressed twelve inches that vinyl geeks like me drool over, as well as CD versions and extra songs not available for download. Oh, and the artwork, which has always been a reason to buy the special edition Radiohead albums. The discbox is running at 40 British pounds, which is pricey (I haven't even converted it yet), but for quality pressed vinyl in basically a box-set, is not too bad.

The band has talked about doing this for a few years, about how they hate sitting on an album for up to six months after it is finished before the world hears it, about being done with "albums" and possibly releasing net only EPs as they finish the songs, etc. Well, they're taking a big risk. Check out Green Plastic, my favorite Radiohead fan site for more details and some excerpts of record industry reaction. Apparently, some are saying, if the best band in the world is going to offer music for free, why would people pay .99 cents for songs by artists who aren't near as good?

Wow, I am excited. Beyond excited. This is like waking up in June and having someone tell you that Christmas is next week. I am giddy and am heading over to the website to order my copy of the discbox right now.

Until then, contain yourself with these oldies-but-goodies from the band:

Talk Show Host
The Trickster
Pearly*

Two poems, two songs, by two artists

2007-09-29T22:37:00.000-06:00

The Night, The Porch

To stare at nothing is to learn by heart
What all of us will be swept into, and baring oneself
To the wind is feeling the ungraspable somewhere close by.
Trees can sway or be still. Day or night can be what they wish.
What we desire, moer than a season or weather, is the comfort
Of the matter, which is why even now we seem to be waiting
For something whose appearance would be its vanishing-
The sound, say, of a few leaves falling, or just one leaf,
Or less. There is no end to what we can learn. The book out there
Tells us as much, and was never written with us in mind.

--Mark Strand (from A Blizzard of One)

Coming To This

We have done what we wanted.
We have discarded dreams, preferring the heavy industry

of each other, and we have welcomed grief

and called ruin the impossible habit to break.

And now we are here.

The dinner is ready and we cannot eat.

The meat sits in the white lake of its dish.

The wine waits.

Coming to this

has its rewards: nothing is promised, nothing is taken away.

We have no heart or saving grace,

no place to go, no reason to remain.

--Mark Strand (from Darker)

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Love Comes To Me (from The Letting Go)
Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I See A Darkness (from I See A Darkness)

Iron & Wine - A Hero To Men With Beards

2007-09-25T12:10:00.000-06:00

Today being the day of new music releases, I'm giving a taste of the new Iron & Wine album, The Shepherd's Dog. Sam Beam began Iron & Wine with beautifully hushed, lo-fi recordings of simple folk arrangements and his almost whispered singing. Over the past five years and with subsequent releases, however, he has begun fleshing out full-band arrangements, first with theWoman King EP and then my favorite record from 2005, his collaboration EP with Calexico, the southwestern daydream-infused In The Reins. Though I haven't heard the full album yet, The Shepherd's Dog sounds to be everything I expected - Beam's multi-tracked voicing of parables backed by interesting arrangements and intstrumentations to great effect. If you've only been exposed to I&W by M&M's commercial or the movie Garden State with his version of "Such Great Heights," you owe it to yourself to give Iron & Wine's own material a listen. Folk music is alive and well and still mutating thanks to bands like this.

As for more I&W news: It looks as though Iron & Wine is slated to play here in Utah on December 7 at Saltair. While it's not my favorite venue as far as audio-logistics go, I've still seen some fine shows there and there's nothing quite like the experience of listening to live music while the wind scents the stage with salt and dead brine shrimp.

Download entire playlist

Boy With a Coin (from The Shepherd's Dog)
Carousel (from The Shepherd's Dog)
Muddy Hymnal (from The Creek Drank the Cradle)
The Trapeze Artist (from the In Good Company soundtrack)
Jezebel (from Woman King EP)
Jesus the Mexican Boy (from The Sea and the Rhythm EP)
Communion Cups and Someone's Coat (from Passing Afternoon EP)

Gettin' Right With God

2007-09-23T14:29:00.001-06:00

I went to a full block of church today for the first time in probably at least a year. In Latter-Day Saints church, this includes sacrament meeting (partaking of the sacrament, speakers from the congregation, hymns), Sunday School (instruction), and Priesthood meeting (all the dudes, more instruction). I'm definitely on the outside fringe of most church-going Mormons, so it can be a struggle to stay devoted to attendence in times when I feel so out of place. Whether it be my qualms and questions with the way the organization of the LDS church has distorted the historicity of its own roots and past or my own personal interpretations of what means what within the canon of scripture, I always have had a difficult time in my attempts to be a Mormon. Usually, if I decide to try again with renewed vigor or on an epiphanous high, there is a brief honeymoon period where I'll shake off comments that I consider ignorant from the person teaching the lesson or I'll remember to find the subtle positive spiritual moments I usually have vs. the magnanimous ones that I seem more privy to in the solitude of nature and literature.

What always brings me back (I've been an on-again, off-again, semi-active church member for about eight or nine years now) is the community. As weird or off-base or just plain messed as I think their own personal interpretations can be, as estranged from a strong sense of faith that is apparent in others as I might be, communal worship fills a void in my life. If there is anything Mormons are good at, it would be community. You can pretty much fill up every night of the week with worship and activities within your congregation if you choose. And while I tend to avoid a lot of the non-Sunday activities when I participate in church at all, there is something so beautiful, so near to perfect as is imaginable in people joining together, striving to lead better lives, to better understand the existential, to offer a hand and a hug.

So in that spirit, here are some songs that came to mind today as I contemplated my situation. The final one, Randy Newman's "God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) is a wry, cynical take on God - I always loved a quote of his I read in an article, (paraphrasing) "I don't believe in God, except on days when I'm really sick."

Sufjan Stevens - Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing (from Hark! Songs for Christmans Vol.II)
Lucinda Williams - Get Right With God (from Essence)
Randy Newman - He Gives Us All His Love (from Sail Away)
Randy Newman - God's Song (That's Why I Love Mankind) (from Sail Away)

Download Entire Playlist

Saturday Sounds

2007-09-22T19:50:00.000-06:00

Bleh. It's been a long last few days, putting in a lot of hours at work while we finished a big project under a tight deadline. So I came home this afternoon hoping for a nap before the Utes football game tonight, but I was/am too wired on caffeine to do anything much more than close my eyes and pretend I could drift away. After half an hour of fooling myself, I read a bit about the early days of Caldwell, Idaho (in J. Anthony Lukas's Big Trouble) and made a little playlist. Here it is, fit for my Saturday, inspired by my wide-awake weariness and the weather. (Okay okay, and I had to throw Built to Spill in. I am reading about Idaho - but it was also a cloudy, breezy afternoon in the desert as well.)

Download the Entire Playlist

The Beta Band - Dry the Rain

Built to Spill - Car

Oasis - She's Electric

The Black Keys - Act Nice & Gentle

Pavement - Trigger Cut/Wounded Kite at :17

Neutral Milk Hotel - Holland, 1945

Beck - Jack-Ass

TV On The Radio - Province

Weezer - Falling for You

M. Ward - Headed for a Fall

Flight of the Conchords

2007-09-18T13:08:00.000-06:00

Today I picked up The Distant Future by my favorite musical comedy duo (sorry Tenacious D) Flight of the Conchords. The Conchords are Bret McKenzie and Jermaine Clement of New Zealand and they recently wrapped up the first season of their show on HBO. On the show, Bret and Jermaine play themselves upon trying to make the music business in New York, with hilarious results as they fight over women, quit and rejoin and quit and rejoin the band and hang out with their manager and number one (as well as only) fan. Episodes tend to incorporate one or two of the band's songs into the storyline, I'm posting two of my favorites here. There's also a lot of stuff to view of them on YouTube, if you are so inclined.

Flight of the Conchords - The Most Beautiful Girl In The Room (from The Distant Future)
Flight of the Conchords - If You're Into It (from The Distant Future)

Are You Ready For The Country?

2007-09-17T11:43:00.000-06:00

I always feel bad for country music (the name, the entity) because of all the crap that gets dumped out of the rotting, bloated Nashville music labels and songwriters that have dominated for so long. It just opens up the term to abuse. Because of this, I always have to defend myself when I say I love country music and go into long explanations about not liking the seventies country-rock imitations (Kenny Chesney grafting and transplanting that early-70's Jimmy Buffet sound, jsut not as good) and adult contemporary rip-offs, which is what popular country has become. If I were able to choose a band to be in, my dream line-up would include a fiddle, pedal steel, dobro, acoustic guitars and banjo. There's something about music with a country bend that, when done well, strikes me more than any other type of music. So here are fifteen of my favorite country-ish artists and songs, though there are many more beyond that. I may have to do a part two to this (especially if y'all like it).

Just a quick shout out -- Band of Annuals are an amazing Salt Lake band, so support them if you dig it. You can buy their records on-line or at my favorite SLC shop, Slowtrain.

(This was inspired by a post over at the ever-entertaining The Wounded Mosquito, where TWM went on a rant of country-inspired loathing. Don't give up, Josh - a lot of this music was made post-grunge.)

Hank Williams III - Trashville (from Lovesick, Broke and Driftin')
Calexico/Iron & Wine - A History of Lovers (from In The Reins)
Johnny Cash - Let the Train Blow the Whistle (from American Recordings)
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood (from Fox Confessor Brings the Flood)
Gram Parsons - Return of the Grievous Angel (from G.P./Greivous Angel)
Drive-By Truckers - Gravity's Gone (from A Blessing and a Curse)
Whiskeytown - Inn Town (from Stranger's Almanac)
Wilco - That's Not the Issue (from A.M.)
Merle Haggard - Honky Tonkin' (from Roots, Volume 1)
Son Volt - Hanging Blue Side (from Wide Swing Tremolo)
Band of Annuals - Blood On My Shirt (from Let Me Live)
Neil Young - Out on the Weekend (from Harvest)
Ryan Adams - Sweet Black Magic (from Gold bonus disc)
Pure Prairie League - Amie (from Bustin' Out)
The Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers (from Sticky Fingers)

Radiohead sometime in '08; Band of Horses next month

2007-09-10T14:40:00.000-06:00

Before the beginning of this year, I was already holding out the #1 spot on my 2007 top ten albums list for the album that I was anticipating most this year. That would be Radiohead's 7th LP, which was slated for release this fall. Well, winter and spring came and went with hardly a whisper of news. Then, last month, rumors abound that the band was in New York mastering the album, but that it wouldn't be released until 2008. Now that has been confirmed at At Ease. Such a bummer, but expected from the lads who will put five years between albums in order to get the sound they want. I doubt we'll have an official date until the band settles on how to release the album, as they have fulfilled their obligations with EMI/Capitol and are currently label-less.

I sometimes think of the Phish documentary Bittersweet Motel, where Trey Anastasio is reading a review that says, in essence, "Phish could urinate into the ears of their fans and they would lap it up happily" and wonder if Radiohead could do the same for me. I'll not lose sleep over the thought. Here's some Radiohead to tide you over, including two live tracks that I hope make it onto the new album (I've been waiting for a proper "Nude" release for almost ten years now). Here's looking to the best album (hopefully) of 2008.

Like Spinning Plates (Live) (from I Might Be Wrong)
Palo Alto (from Airbag/How Am I Driving EP)
4 Minute Warning (6.04.06)

Nude (8.17.06)

In late 2005 I stumbled upon a new band (thanks to links on Iron & Wine's home page) out of Seattle called Band of Horses. They would post demos on their website from the album they were working on and I really got into them. I saw them at Kilby Court a few weeks before their debut hit the shelves. They were fantastic. I didn't know the extent to which they would be recieved by the music community, but figured if the right things happened, they could go big. I also passed as Philip Seymour Hoffman at that show. Some girl came up to me and said "Congratulations on your Oscar" -- this being a week or so after Mr. Hoffman won for his role in Capote -- I thanked her and offered an autograph, but alas, no pen or marker tobe found. It was the third time I had been mistaken for him (the other two were in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival the previous year), so I decided that from then forth, I'd just roll with it and see what happens.

Well, BoH haven't been content with all the laudatory comments and buzz-band worhty hype that came with their 2006 debut Everything All The Time, relocating to bandleader Ben Birdwell's home state of South Carolina and cranking out a follow-up for this year. Cease To Begin is no-doubt one of the year's most anticipated albums for me and from what I've heard so far, it is no let down. It will be released October 9th on Sub Pop. I'm posting two tracks from the forthcoming album. "Lamb On The Lam (In The City)" is my fave -- I'm a sucker for piano-chord driven melodies, while "Is There A Ghost" is right where EATT left off. Also, enjoy a couple of tunes of their debut.

Lamb On The Lam (In The City) (from Cease To Begin)
Is There A Ghost (from Cease To Begin)
The Great Sale Lake (from Everything All The Time)
Funeral (from Everything All The Time)

Sunday Mix #1

2007-09-09T18:05:00.000-06:00

Today is a beautiful Sunday -- bright and sunny, mild and lazy. Enjoy the mix.

Sunday Morning - The Velvet Underground
Dark Matter - Andrew Bird
Crazy Dreams - Jolie Holland
Mandan Dink - Death Vessel
Hold On - Tom Waits
Golden - My Morning Jacket
Buckets of Rain - Neko Case
(Do You Wanna)Come Walk With Me - Isobell Campbell and Mark Lanegan
The Orchids - Califone
Psalm - M. Ward
One For The Rose - Ryan Adams
What Light? - Wilco

Beirut

2007-09-07T13:26:00.000-06:00

In the past year, I've been attracted to and exploring more and more music of the Eastern European Folk persuasion. I can't get enough of it. I think it started with Gogol Bordello, after I saw the film "Wristcutters: A Love Story" at Sundance '06. Their gypsy/punk/dub-influenced music is featured in the movie, but most of it is on the gypsy folk side of things. After that, I found Beirut, led by wonder boy Zach Conden, who's like 20 years old right now and making some of the best music in the American music scene today. Gulag Orkestar, inspired by Balkan folk music and made without use of guitars, got me hooked. In January came Lon Gisland EP, which has done a good job tiding me over until October 9, when the new Beirut LP The Flying Club Cup will be released. Condon has said he was inspired by French pop music, of the grand, over-the-top kind for this album. From what I've heard so far, it holds up to what the band has done in the past. Check out this sampling and go to the band's website for a download of "Sunday Smile" from the new album. I also recommend viewing the "Elephant Gun" music video. Me likey.

Nantes (from The Flying Club Cup)
Mount Wroclai (Idle Days) (from Gulag Orkestar)
Elephant Gun (from Lon Gisland)

Beirut's homepage:

http://www.beirutband.com/

Hipster Olympics

2007-09-07T02:12:00.001-06:00

Hipster Olympics

2007-09-07T01:56:00.001-06:00

This video is brutally hilarious. From the sponsers (Pabst, Pitchfork) to the events, to ripping off Monty Python, this made my day. My favorite competition is when they must find a record in their collection by a band that they discovered, only to chuck it because the band became popular. After I watched it, "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols immediately came to mind -- it would be a perfect theme song.

Dandy Warhols - Bohemian Like You

In the beginning ...

2007-09-06T22:41:00.000-06:00

Welcome to Concrete Fiction, a blog created for ... well, music, to start. I read a good number of music blogs (maybe to say I am addicted to music blogs is more apt), and have been toying around with the idea to start my own for awhile now. So if nothing else, check us out for time to time for some good tunes of (hopefully) kaleidoscopic variety. One more thing -- I'm easily distracted by pop culture, politics and the rest of the world, so don't be surprised if I opine on other issues from time to time, but hopefully I'll bring it all full circle back to the music.

To begin, I will post a short, 6-pack mix of my favorite artist, Bob Dylan. I can still remember the first time my father threw Bob Dylan's Highway 61 Revisited on the old radio/record player/8-track/cassette player cabinet that we had in our basement. It kicked of with the unmistakeably significant "Like A Rolling Stone", which was chock full of sneering contempt for the older generation and wildly playful, literate lyrics. Three quarters of an hour later, after the needle gently lifted from "Desolation Row", I was hooked. The album was a revealation to my 14 year-old mind, shaking something in my soul. I can honestly say that this album began my dream to pursue art through letters. It plays out like a cautionary fairy tale, think the brothers Grimm, where characters both historical and mythical meet in a land where danger lurks beyond the boundaries, where time and reality is suspended, revealing a surreal, bluesy look at humanity. This is all done with a creative lyrical and musical playfulness. I've listened to this album hundreds of times and everytime I discover something magical, something I've missed.

The other five songs span Dylan's career -- "Series of Dreams" was recently used in a beautiful montage on the final episode of HBO's now-cancelled drama (damn!) "John From Cincinnati". I hadn't listened to the song for probably a couple of years, and that brought it back to mind as one of my forgotten favorites.

Watching The River Flow
Summer Days
I Believe In You
Series of Dreams
Not Dark Yet
Desolation Row

Hope you enjoy and come on back for more in the time to come.