This Saturday was a seemingly never-ending, “Did that really just happen?” day full of great music.
NOW, I’d venture to guess that I’m not the only dude with a music blog who’s going to saddle up to a laptop this week and write a sentence that sounds something like the one you just read. That’s because The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival took place over the weekend in Indio, California — nicknamed, if you can believe it, “The City of Festivals” — and it sounds like Saturday’s lineup was exceptionally good. But what the intrepid, music-loving outdoorsmen who attended Coachella may not know is that another unforgettable day packed full of tunes was happening 2,516 miles away, in just-as-sunny Richmond, Virginia. My Saturday also rocked, and its events were split up into three distinct parts, like some benevolent, three-headed musical monster (think Cerberus and Falcor having a fluffy puppy with 3 adorable, boop-able noses). Before I get keystroke diarrhea and try to tell you about the whole day at once, let’s start at the beginning, at a late-afternoon party in a coworker’s backyard.
So I was lucky enough to catch Youth Lagoon on Saturday, March 24, at Rock and Roll Hotel in Washington, D.C., along with my friend Travis (you might remember him as the pioneer of the Gaga Challenge) and our music-loving wifeys. The following Friday, our better halves proved that the “better” is short for “better judgement,” as both of our spouses decided to rest up in Richmond in preparation for the Monument 10K, while Travis and I espoused certain sleep deprivation and inflated race times by driving west to Charlottesville with my buddy Josh to catch Reptar at the Southern. Both shows were great, and there was something especially cool about seeing one up in Travis’ neck of the woods and one closer to Richmond inside of a week (OK, so Charlottesville isn’t exactly my neck of the woods, but ever since the Jefferson started stealing a sizable percentage of the good central VA shows, it’s starting to feel that way… but I digress). I thought a fun way to report back on this mini concert series would be for Travis and me to do some yearbook-style superlatives, so let’s dive right in…
So this past Friday night, I spun at a super exclusive club. So exclusive that only two people were allowed in. I bet you’re dying to know which club it was, right? OK, OK, I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell ANYBODY. It was… my living room. That’s right, the two people in attendance were me and Mrs. You Hear That, who was sleeping peacefully on the couch the entire time. Sounds bumpin’, huh? Awww yeah! Because my set was so underground, I wanted to share some (11, to be exact) of the tunes we — OK, I — listened to while we — OK, I — watched college basketball. If you want to consider this a basketball playlist, go right ahead. Just know that it has nothing to do with basketball and would probably ruin even the most well-intentioned Final Four watch party. Just for fun, in spite of my sub-par photography skills (Glare? What glare?), I snapped pictures of all the records I played. What can I say? I’m a sucker for album art. Hope you enjoy!
R.I.P., State Fair of Virginia. The fact that this 150-year-old institution is shutting its doors is a serious bummer. Where else can I watch pig races and eat two bacon cheeseburgers with Krispy Kreme donuts for buns without being judged? And the fried cheese! WHAT WILL BECOME OF US WITHOUT THE FRIED CHEESE?!? It’s a grim future, to be certain. But instead of getting all panicky about a lack of trashy eating opportunities (there’s always the Pennsylvania Farm Show, and I’m hopeful something will pop up in its place), I’d like to share my favorite story from this past year’s trip to the State Fair.
¡Hola, amigos! As I type this here sentence, I’m situated a terrifying 33,000 feet above South Carolina, just an hour or so away from completing the last leg of my trip back to Richmond from a beachy Mexican locale called Playa del Carmen. And despite the fact that I derive very little enjoyment from being this high in the air, I’m excited to be writing these words, because I’ve been looking forward to this post for a while now. About five months, in fact.
In October of last year, Mrs. You Hear That and I took a trip to Portland (this one, not that one), where we tried some amazing restaurants, flipped through some excellent record stores, stumbled across an absurd number of tasty breweries and made sure to include a stop at the storied Powell’s City of Books. Why storied? Well, size, for one thing. A number of people told us about how Powell’s takes up an entire city block (it’s true, check out this screen grab from Google Maps), giving the store an almost legendary aura. It’s also storied in the sense that there are multiple floors in this city-block-sized bookstore, with separate rooms for different genres, meaning the shelves really do go on forever. And lastly, they’re storied because, ya know, that’s what they sell, and the story I decided to buy couldn’t have been more appropriate for the trip.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about a group called Little Dragon and how my friend Greg’s 5-word description of their song “Ritual Union” — he called it “alien Motown in the snow” — made such a fantastic and indelible impression that my enjoyment of the song went through the roof. Listen to the song here. He’s totally right, right? I know!
Well, Greg came up with the awesome idea of trading these types of descriptions back and forth (an idea I promptly militarized*, being a dutiful son of Norfolk, VA) and after we traded a few emails about how fun this would be, the joys of structured creativity and about Spin’s new Twitter reviews, which aim, with no small amount of chutzpah in my opinion, to sum up and rate new albums in 140 characters or fewer, Adjective Battleship was born!
While you won’t find any star-based or scale-of-1-to-10 ratings below, I hope these descriptions, or “unread footnotes to a haiku” as Greg put it, will help you find something in these songs to latch onto and love, as happened for me with “Ritual Union.” Before we get started, here are the rules, as ratified by the two contestants.
RULES FOR PLAYING ADJECTIVE BATTLESHIP
Each player nominates 3 songs.
Each player provides a description comprised of up to 5 words, not all of which actually have to be adjectives, for all 6 songs.
There is no time limit on composing descriptions.
The player who compiles the descriptions for posting purposes cannot look at the other player’s descriptions before finalizing his or her own.
There is no winner, just congratulatory high-fives for a game well played.
As for listening strategies — that’s entirely up to you. Song then description, description then song, song then description then song… do whatever floats your boat. Without further ado, let the battle commence!
Those who know me best are aware that I have a hopelessly damagedone-of-a-kind sense of time. I won’t go into detail, as it would take quite a while (and probably half a box of crayons) to explain exactly how time works in my brain, but suffice it to say things tend to sneak up on me. This is both good and bad. It’s good in that my life is full of surprises — “Oh wow, our vacation in the Outer Banks is next week?!? Awesome!” But it’s bad in that I don’t realize engagements overlap until it’s too late — “If we’re leaving for the Outer Banks on Saturday, that means I can’t go to the Bon Iver concert at the National…” That one stung. But I have a secret weapon that’s going to ensure that forethought somehow squirms its way into my consciousness in 2012: the calendar. OK, before you’re all, “Whoa! Hey! That’s crazy! It’ll never work!”, hear me out. The moment I find out about a concert or album release date that I don’t want to miss, I’m going to add it to a special Google Calendar (aka the YHT Pumped Up Calendar) that I’ve created for this very purpose. Plus, I’m going to make it public, so all you fine people can join in on the fun. To check it out, just click here, or click the calendar that’s sitting with the rest of the social networking links. I’ve already added a bunch of shows and releases, but the one that inspired me to get started was Lianne La Havas’Forget EP. She released a pair of EPs in 2011, one live and one in-studio, and both were fantastic, each one an invitation to fall more and more in love with her graceful voice and warm demeanor. So when she tweeted that a new EP would be coming out on February 13 (fingers crossed that date is for the North American audience as well), I didn’t want to forget. Because I do want Forget.Wait, what? Moving on… If you live across the pond, some of the songs that will be featured on the February 13 physical release are already available on iTunes. Since us ‘mericans aren’t quite as lucky, I invite you to listen below to “No Room for Doubt,” from her Lost & Found EP, and join me in getting excited for her next installment. Now if only I could add a Lianne La Havas concert to the Pumped Up Calendar as well…
Another thing about my top 10 albums from last year stands out in retrospect — I walked down some pretty well-traveled roads in 2011. Awesome roads, but well-traveled ones, nonetheless. I can just feel Robert Frost’s disapproving glare from the afterlife. And even though I refuse to fetishize obscurity and can’t claim to be an expert in any esoteric genre (aside from editing the semiannual Journal of Postmodernism in the Underground Hip Hop of Botswana), I could probably stand to stray a little further from the recommendations of major criticism sources. Besides, finding out about music from friends is way more fun and doesn’t come with arbitrary, distracting and dehumanizing rating systems. My resolution to get by with a little less help from the grid started unofficially on New Year’s Day, when I saw a Facebook post authored by Greg, a fellow writer/musician (we prefer to be called wrisicians — don’t we, Colin Maloy?) who has shared some excellent recommendations in the past. Greg’s post was about an artist named Jesca Hoop (NO, it’s not Jessica. It’s Jesca. Stop being so mainstream), and I couldn’t be more glad I Spotify’d her. Hoop’s album Hunting My Dress offers a staggeringly beautiful mix of darkness and light, with songs that feel tempestuous one moment and fragile the next. As you listen to the full-album stream below, I recommend closing your eyes and imagining yourself lounging in a screened-in porch as a summer thunderstorm passes violently overhead. If you enjoy the ride, click here to buy her album on iTunes; and if you’re interested in submitting a scholarly article for the next issue of Journal of Postmodernism in the Underground Hip Hop of Botswana, please mail a copy of your manuscript to Botswana. I’m sure they’ll find it very interesting, and they… um… actually exist.
Happy New Year, fellow 2012 dwellers! There’s a brand spakin’ new calendar year staring at us like a blank slate — who wants to make a few resolutions? What’s that you say? There’s no point because the Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012? Well, they did, but don’t be ridiculous! That’s not supposed to happen until December 21, so we have a solid 353 days to make good on a few promises to ourselves. Since I’m definitely not making good on any resolutions related to food (Mrs. You Hear That made too much icing for her New Year’s Eve chocolate cake, so naturally we’ve been dolloping the extra icing on each piece we eat), I thought I’d stick to the music-related ones. First up — keep it upbeat. Ahem, let me try that again… KEEP IT UPBEAT!!! Much better! As I was finishing up Part 2 of my top 10 albums post, I took a step back and thought, “Holy shit! What a downer!” So many of the songs that I loved most in 2011 were downbeat or moody or slow, even when the lyrics were conveying an upper of a message. That’s why in the coming year, I resolve to balance my intake of bitter-sweetness with a little more sugary goodness, tooth decay be damned. To get things moving in the right direction, I thought I’d share a song my friend Tex shared with me a few years back that never fails to bring on a feeling of mindless joy, not to mention an urgent desire to dance — the BPA’s “Toe Jam.” The BPA (stands for Brighton Port Authority) was/is a Fatboy Slim-spearheaded project that released a super-fun album in 2009 called We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat. “Toe Jam” includes one the album’s highest-profile collaborators — David Byrne — and screams upbeat optimism in every way. I mean, how can you go wrong with lyrics like “Every day is fucking perfect”? Amiright? Check it out below, click here to buy the album from whence it came, and check back for a few more reso-tune-tions.
Welcome to Part 2 of YHT’s Top 10 Albums of 2011, also known (as of this very moment) as the High Five! Before continuing, I highly recommend high-fiving the first person you can find, or if no one’s around, simply accept the internet high five above. Yay! OK, let’s finish 2011 off in style…
Dubstep not your cup of tea? Mine neither! But so much of what James Blake does well has nothing to do with wobbly bass or sub-bass or wobbly sub-bass. Take his minimalism, for example. A track like “Lindesfarne” builds so much tension via empty sonic space that by the time the track is in full-swing, it feels like your heart is going to explode, even though his version of “full-swing” is still relatively sparse. He’s also capable of making songs feel emotional, regardless of what’s going on lyrically. In some ways, James Blake is like the musical equivalent of the plastic bag from American Beauty — an object of creation that seems simple on the surface, but as you continue to fill it with your own emotions its meaning becomes almost overwhelming. Then, like I said, your heart explodes. Boom. Just like that. Listen to “Lindesfarne” below, read more here and here, and buy here.
I don’t know if I would have made it through this past year without Helplessness Blues. 2011 was a time of exciting change for me (this blog being one big development), and the Fleet Foxes’ latest effort resonated deeply, touching heavily on themes of transformation and self-determination. I fell in love with the album’s exhilarating title track, which manipulates momentum so brilliantly, but our affair was sidetracked abruptly when I heard “Someone You’d Admire,” a hymn-like song with lyrics that offer both an admission of personal defeat and a reaffirmation of the ongoing inner-struggles that push us to get out of bed in the morning and keep fighting. Wow. This blurb certainly got serious. Here’s a video of a monkey riding a dog! Better? Great! See what I mean about “Someone You’d Admire” below, read more here, and buy here.
3. Bon Iver — Bon IverBON IVER AT #3? I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! GOOD DAY SIR!
Wait for it…
Wait…
[DOOR SLAMS]
Alright, now that that guy is gone we can have a rational conversation about Bon Iver, one of the most ambitious albums I’ve heard in a long time. In my mind, making this album was an act of extreme musical courage. It would have been easy for Justin Vernon to dust off the For Emma, Forever Ago recipe and make another batch of the same bittersweet-yet-delicious confections, but he went so much further with his second full-length, thickening the batter with diverse instrumentation and bold stylistic leaps. Out of the oven came songs that feel radically different, even though they bear the same yearning falsetto that so many people have grown to love since 2008. So why do I have it ranked at number #3? Um… I dunno it just kinda felt like the right place. Listen to “Holocene” below, read more here, here and here, and buy here.
Why is this one’s album art smaller? Is it because it’s just an EP, and it’s size is being represented in correlation with its running length? Actually no. For some mysterious reason I couldn’t resize the image. Oops. Besides, if I had to represent how impactful this album has been, I would need a shit-ton more pixels. Probably more pixels than any other album on this list. The Alabama Shakes have landed on so many year-end “Best New Artist” lists with just these four soulful rock songs and some YouTube videos, making this album the pound-for-pound, hardest-hitting release of the year. I’m still recovering from being slugged by their early-December show at the Jefferson in Charlottesville, VA, and I’m beside myself with anticipation for the next time they’re anywhere near Richmond. Listen below to “You Ain’t Alone,” which is just a scary-good song in my opinion, read more here and here, and buy here.
The top spot goes to the album I played more times from start to finish than any other this year. When The Harrow & the Harvest came out, a big deal was made about how long it had been in the making — 8 years had passed since Welch’s last release — but this is no Chinese Democracy. Many of these tracks were captured on the first take, giving the album a natural, lighting-in-a-bottle feel that stands in stark contrast to their remarkable quality. I read that she and David Rawlings started a few recording projects in the years between this album and her last, but they abandoned each one because they weren’t convinced that the material up to snuff. These songs sure as hell are, and though nothing’s perfect, “Hard Times” is as close to a perfect song as I heard in 2011, offering a pure, heart-wrenching, two-by-two pairing of verse and chorus, guitar and banjo, her voice and his. Take a listen below, read more here, and buy here.
Before you go, I just wanted to say thank you so much for reading You Hear That in 2011. It means so much to me that you’re reading this here blog, and I’m beyond excited for what’s in store in the future. I hope you have a wonderful New Year’s Eve, and that your 2012 is 1000% better than the Mayans said it would be. Now let’s all go get hammered, call cabs and get home safe and sound!
BON IVER AT #3? I WILL NOT STAND FOR THIS! GOOD DAY SIR!
You Hear That 