Songs My Son Should Know: 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

[An Avenue]'s Best 101 Tracks of 2012

This isn't a beer post. This post, it's not about beer.

What it is about, is beer's best mate, for there is nary a better time to consume heavily than in the supportive embrace of music. Its a daily tradition at the offices of [AA] to consummate this bond between beer and tunes every night in large doses by regulation of the Canon Law of St. Augustine the Blessed. And it gives us something to ruminate about besides the trillionth discussion on hops or farmhouse ales.

Then, at the end of the year, we try to make some ordinal sense of it all.

This is list season! Oh, how its powers are untold!

Best of! Top 10! Editors choice! Pee drinkers on the internet box offering humorously disturbing reader picks! I don't care who you are, lists are just addictive by nature. Our brains love organizational outcomes, neatly packaged next to ascending numerals and made to create order amidst chaos. Who amongst us doesn't love poring over the subjective opinions of total strangers in a manner that makes you fume and writhe when the author isn't even answering the fucking question correctly?

The answer is: none of us.

If somebody in my general proximity is in need of immediate or urgent assistance, they had better hope I didn't just start reading a list of rankings pertaining to just about anything -- food trailers, liberal arts colleges, Bollywood actors under 3 feet, whatever -- because it is an unnatural act to quit on a list before reaching climax. Lists are brain sex! But because there is very little intimacy between the author and the reader, its like college brain sex! The quickies of the literary world.

Unfortunately for you, pal, this list goes to 101 -- so I'm gonna take my time here and have you think about NBA scoring leaders since 1965. I think it will be worth your time getting to know it, in an "Oh no, I love you" sort of way, especially because I don't patronize you by ranking anything to do with Jack White or Tame Impala, since I tend not to habituate with utter shit.

Sure, it might not be great, but there's a lot of it.

The 7th Annual [An Avenue] Best 101 (v. 2012) on Spotify

101 All Wash Out | Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

100 Seven Stars | Air

099 Apocalypse Dreams | Tame Impala

098 Do Ya Thing | Gorillaz ft Andre 3000 and James Murphy

097 Heavy Metal | White Rabbits

096 Let's Go | Matt & Kim

095 October | The Helio Sequence

094 Rembihnútur | Sigur Rós

093 Without You | Lana Del Rey

092 Breakdown | Gary Clark Jr.

091 Angels | The XX

090 Primitive Girl | M. Ward

Friday, November 16, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Gorillaz | On Melancholy Hill

Parenting makes one protective and testy. The wilds of the world are not at all for small children, and the continuous sniper hunt for things that will attempt to fuck him up is both endless and exhausting.

But having lived an entire year with my son, watching him sprout from a helpless sheath of flesh into a flourishing, albeit, incessant boy has made me realize that he is the most resilient creature I've ever been in close contact with. And why wouldn't he be? The absolute improbability of making a living person from a poppy seed into a thriving system of cells, axons, and systems should tell me all I need to know about how humans have an indelible will to thrive. A small boy whose actions create both humor and concern in his parents with equal measure indicate that it is us who need to be protected. Exaggerated myths and urban legends were created to scare and preserve the young, but all they actually do is end up frightening the adults.

The absolute delight of watching your child grow is matched in emotion with the dread of his imminent self-realization. He'll cry because he is forlorn, he'll fidget because he is embarrassed, he'll question morality. But, as a father, protecting him from those emotions -- against all of my conscientious instincts -- would be denying him from establishing his character.

Yes, it is the guardians who need to be protected.

It reminds of the first verse of Gorillaz Melancholy Hill, which begins with the sort of pace and prose that would suggest an inquiry to a beneficiary from his isolated keeper; sequestered to an imperceptible perch but by faith and conduct.

Up on melancholy hill
There's a plastic tree
Are you here with me?
Just looking out on the day
Of another dream

Which will eventually be my role as a father: imperceptible but nearby, faithful in his autonomy but advocative, willing to observe his struggle but alleviating of his burden. Just looking out on the day of his dream.

Well you can't get what you want
But you can get me
So let's set up and see
'Cause you are my medicine
When you're close to me
When you're close to me

I am not his medicine. His father. I am not his medicine. But invisible is my perception of impossibility because he is my antidote against mental complacency. He is my medicine when he's close to me.

So call in the submarine
'Round the world we'll go
Does anybody know
If we're looking out on the day
Of another dream?

So fuck it, let's quell our fears, let's dream. Let's conquer things together. Progress from children's deeds to deeds that children kind-of do, to listening to Otis Redding in a small bar in Bruges toasting our nearly-mutual birthdays with a gueze. Lovingly heckling mom's record collection for being schmalzy and lame. Whatever it is that sons and dads do without diminishing that boundary between friends and paternal bonding.

If you can't get what you want
Then you come with me

Up on melancholy hill
Sits a manatee
Just looking out on the day
When you're close to me
When you're close to me

When you're close to me

Until then, I'll be the living juxtaposition of guarding him closely from a distance. As inconspicuous as a manatee. On a hill. Looking out on the day.

Happy first birthday, son.

Friday, September 21, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Robert Earl Keen | The Road Goes on Forever / Feelin' Good Again

One thing that I am musically assured about is the fact that I have spent a lot of rewarding hours with outlaw country, a raging buzz, and my own thoughts. There are very important and poignant times when pasty hipster shit just doesn't give you the lemon-up-your-jacksie that outlaw country demands.

To know outlaw country -- to relate to it, to sing it drunkenly to nobody, to commandeer a jukebox with a $10 bill and a Lone Star, to hit repeat on an entire album while sitting on the dark porch -- is to know exactly where you stand with your masculine emotions. With those, I stand square.

Nobody seems to know exactly what country music actually is, these days. From what I can tell, the genre was lost in translation somewhere between the transition from the magnificent Texas-redneck-hippies-and-cocaine of the 60s through 80s to the soft-dicked-dilution of Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw in the 1990s. The genre just devolved into CMT and cross-over music festivals involving trite aberrations like Lady Antebellum and Rascal Flats, which are labeled 'country' for no other reason except having sprung from the trash heap that is Nashville.

Country music is -- and will always live as -- Willie, Waylon, Cash, Hank Jr., Merle, Kris, Guy, Earl, and several of their like-minded counterparts; the rough-and-ready cowboys of the honky tonk. Subsequent torchbearers, like as Robert Earl Keen, Lyle Lovett, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Cory Morrow are also acceptable as true Texas Country. And this is what I am talking about here. Leading the third generation by way of the second.

It is this defiance against the polished, twangy turd of Nashville's glitter and pomp that will allow country music to survive as, not only a genre, but as a culture of sweat, and manual labor, and Gilley's. Like Darrell Royal opined when faced with a proposal from the administration in the 1960s to adorn UT's iconic football uniforms with stripes and unnecessary orange-y glitz; 'These are work clothes. No need to candy 'em up."

Texas country is work clothes. Nashville is the Oregon Ducks.

Melissa reminded me the other day of this classic, classic Texas Country sing-along. You just try not hammering it home if in the company of one or more Texans, and even more so if the assemblage is drinking Shiner Bock by the fists full. Un-possible.

When Melissa and I took a roadie from Phoenix to San Francisco, then later from Phoenix to Austin, we were serenaded by this song that reminds that road trips across the southwest are no fucking joke. The road goes on forever. But as compensation, the party does not cease. Nope. Not ever.

Everyone in Texas needs to have a favorite country song. Its just the way it is, like picking a football team to root for or a favorite Q joint. Its part of our legacy as Texans.

I would go further than calling this my favorite country song, and without hesitation, call this perfect masterpiece one of my favorite songs of all time. End of.

As a general rule, I fucking loathe hokey narrative-driven songs. They remind me of glammy show tunes, which are great in an appropriate setting, like, let's say, the London Palladium -- but absolutely dreadful for my ears and sensibilities in small-speaker format. Unfortunately, this is a well-known character flaw in most of country music.

But like any steadfast statement, there are generally exceptions. One is Willie. The other is Robert Earl Keen. The man can tell a hell of a fucking story through harmony and melody.

Feelin' Good Again is a dewy-eyed vignette that gives a beautifully impressionistic insight into one momentary breath in the life of the protagonist: The bar, the band crooning Otis Redding, the townie surveying the typical rapscallions playing stick, the drunken caballeros outsinging the band, the perennially spatting couple on that temporary upswing, the unexpected $70 of beer money found in an auxiliary pocket, the lady friend on the stair.

The whole setting is painted so magnificently by Keen, that I've pictured the exact same detailed bar room scenario in my own thoughts in each of the countless times I've listened to it over the course of the last 14 years.

They said that David Allen Coe wrote the perfect Country & Western song, and maybe he did. But Robert Earl Keen has written the formula for keeping Country music relevant.

Friday, August 31, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] The University of Texas Band | The Eyes of Texas / Texas Fight

So here we find ourselves on the absolute brink of college football, and for those of us in Texas -- and Austin in particular -- this signifies the beginning of autumn since there is a very palpable change in the seasonal hue around this town. Summer's contemporary colors turns the chloroplast in our threads into fall's classic burnt-orange.

The cacophony of wildlife immune to summer's weight is suddenly replaced by the uproar of brass and wind and percussion, the plaintive re-stashing of luggage in the closet rotates with the ritual of undraping team-branded accessories denoting the flagrant barbarism of the Longhorns.

Fall is also high season for inebriation, shouting at an uninfluenced television screen, fretting too much about a 4-4 defense vs. the rush attack. It this season that makes the entire region -- hell, the entire country -- come alive with anticipation and passion and pride, for the school colors represent affirmation in ourselves and those who wear the colors with us. Not only can college football impact our generational genes for eons, but alter our very internal biological fluid. The goal is orange blood, identifying with similarly-minded braggarts and assholes; flashers of a manual steer head.

Most of all, Fall is represented by hymnals of tradition; music written for the grand colosseums of physical theatre -- which, ironically, is played in majority by small instruments for the sole purpose of motivation as if summonsing the cavalry. It is the musical composition to a story of battle, art narrating combat; piquing intense emotions from the disciples and acrimony from the rivals.

Despite that, these traditionals represent something enjoyed by both children and pensioners alike, creating a rights-to-passage sent down through the generations. Such is the timeless message of the Horns: Texas Fight, Hook 'em, and The Eyes of Texas are Upon You.

You have successfully registered for this class. Goodbye and good luck.

.. and ou sucks.

Friday, August 24, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Alt Rap Mixtape: Kid Cudi | Pursuit of Happiness ✌ Das Racist | You Oughta Know ✌ Odd Future (WGKTA) | Orange Juice

Yesterday, I was referencing Alt Rap in this post over on the other page, and I summarily followed that up by wildin' out on 9% beers and indie rap with Melissa on the front porch all night long like it was the first night of Negril Spring Break -- so, I thought, why the hell would we not talk about some underground, indie-influenced hip-hop today, to help with this skull fracture?

Enzo will indisputably grow up with a healthy diet of all rap's most popular and fringe subgenres -- most notably, the lyrically dextrous, rhythm-based rap of the 1980s East Coast; the urban-grime, beat influenced, gangsta rap of the 1990s West Coast; and the experimental, electronica avante-garde rap of the 2000s Mid-America.

One of the advantages of living in the Live Music Capitol of the World, is the opportunity to catch acts like these as they were intended: the dirt lot, abandoned warehouse, parking garage rooftop, pop-up club, small-venues of SXSW. Fuck it, they'd put these acts in a drainage ditch if only they could fit a 5x5 stage and get a permit to give away free Goose.

One of the dreams I've had since pre-parenthood is to take Enzo to the full, four-day shitshow that is Austin's indie mardi-gras. I'm not sure at what age SXSW is kid-appropriate, but last year, I scoped all the cool-dads with their progeny in tow, hitting up Grimes and Big Boi like motherfuckin bosses. I plan on being admitted into that segment of Gonzo indieism (although, full disclosure, Enzo's first gig appearance was at 2011 SXSW courtesy of Melissa).

Like so many of us -- the people around my age reading this, at least -- we grew up like delinquents on rap. Keggers involved Beastie, Nas, Bone, Common, Pharcyde, NWA, Ice Cube, Dre, Snoop, Eazy, Jurassic 5, Tupac, Biggie, Public Enemy, and Wu. You wanted to work out in the high school gym? Hope you liked rap; the same gym that likely played a shitload of Duran Duran and The Crüe only a decade prior. Heh.

Kid Cudi | The Pursuit of Happiness

For the indie-heads listening, these percussions, rhythm movements, basslines and synthesizers might appear familiar, as they were performed by MGMT and Ratatat in collaboration with Kid Cudi. And, apart from the overt message in the title and the amazingly driven beats, the words reflect a blithe regard for anything going on, except for at this moment.

Das Racist | You Ought to Know

Me and some pals of mine were fortunate enough to be in the final dudebro push into the tiniest club I've ever been to on 6th Street -- seemingly built for five people, but hosting at somewhere in the 50,000 range -- for Das Racist's 2010 SXSW gig. It was worth unintentionally grinding with some of my closest friends in order to hear these guys perform. This song is an all-time [An Avenue] porch-lounging favorite, particularly during those high-ABV nights. This song provides the will for us to pop open another bomber that we know we probably shouldn't.

Odd Future (WGKTA) | Orange Juice ft. EarlWolf

If you are not between the ages of 21 and 39 or have a decent amount of principles, I would probably recommend that you not click on the song file above -- just in case you wanted to have yourself a lil looksee. Odd Future (WGKTA) performs some of the most brackish shit your Victorian ears will never hear -- however, the duo of Tyler the Creator and Earl Sweatshirt may be the most talented in the short, but prestigious, history of rap.

Wait. Moreso than OutKast, GangStarr, EPMD, Black Star, Erik B & Rakim, muhfukka? Well, OK. I see your point, but Odd Future are at least in the conversation.

At the time of this recording Tyler and Earl were just 19 and 15-years-old, respectively. Their musical talent doesn't even begin to taper off at rapping, with classical instrument training and record producing also a formidable bullet point on their resumes. (And, you may have heard of Odd Future charter member, and current internationalist, Frank Ocean, who was 21 at the time of this album's release).

---

So, although not an exhaustive list, this is a good primer to get Enzo started in the world of heavy weight lifting and throwing raging flyer-parties in the backyard with a bunch of impressionable candykids.

And who will be the coolest of the cool-dads, then? Swag.

Friday, August 17, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Oasis | Whatever / Wonderwall / Live Forever

It was a fine two weeks of Anglophilin' all up on the Brits during their big sporty showcase over the past two weeks -- and also reminded me to re-up my annual dues to The Culturists for the Queen, flip through old fanzines with articles praising Martin Rossiter and Louise Wener, and sniff my 90's-pressed vinyl copies of The Great Escape and Different Class.

Yes, my fondness for Britain knows little boundary, excepts for the shitheads up at Old Trafford and maybe the entirety of UB40's discography.

However, for every Red, Red Wine, there are 30,000 examples of British kickassery: Tudor architecture; three button suits; The Kinks, Queen, and The Beatles; India pale ales; Earl Grey Tea; Bill Shakespeare, Dickens, Wilde, and Rowling; fish & chips; 007, Winston Churchill, Simon Cowell, and Kate Middleton; The EPL. Alan Mother Fuckin' Shearer.

I could really just go on and on, can't I? But I won't because people get real cautious of others who are too bent on the Eng-er-lish, and I don't want you to lose focus.

---

It was the 21st day of April in 1996 -- a Sunday -- when my buddy Alex and I drank cans of Shiner Bock in the general admittance of the old Austin Music Hall, watching Oasis perform their album What's The Story Morning Glory with highlights interspersed from Definitely Maybe -- all at the frenzied apex of the band's world-wide popularity.

We felt like teenaged kings, drinking college beer, ditching the road-traveling school days of Friday and Monday, getting swallowed in the howl of a delirious crowd, and witnessing the extraordinary melodrama of the Ghallager brothers providing a spectacular circus assured to linger long in our cortices beyond the 90-minutes of this English brilliance. It was an impact that cratered our fragile teenage emotions like soft earth, and likely diverted any residual senior-year shittiness into one of the best years in life.

Bigger than the Beatles, they said. Bigger than the fucking Beatles, indeed.

The Swamp Song

Acquiesce

Supersonic

Hello

Some Might Say

Roll With It

Morning Glory

Cigarettes & Alcohol

Champagne Supernova

Slide Away

Cast No Shadow

Whatever (w/ Octopus's Garden)

Wonderwall

Don't Look Back In Anger

Live Forever (encore)

I Am the Walrus (encore)

Back in those days, it was a serious pain in the buttox to get a hold of show tickets, and even more so when one was dealing with an out-of-town gig. You actually had to talk to a human about it.

I really can't even remember how or when specifically we had the brilliant idea to leave town for that weekend -- probably missing some crucial exam -- to act like higher type of class at the old Ginger Man when it was still spectacular and The Tavern before it had 6,000 TVs.

Somehow, we did persevere through the trials of the 1990s-TicketMaster grind, my brother Chris' janky Ford Escort, the middling Sonora to Ozona Dairy Queen HungerBuster shits, and my other brother's pre-hipsta South Lamar apartment linoleum. Its those kind of trip descriptions that makes one remember it as being legendary of sorts. We thought it was, at least.

So, as I was saying, I don't know exactly how or when we made the final decision to embark on this adventure, but I would say that this is the song that provided the 'why'. If I could take away one song from the final semester of 1996, I would say that this would be it. "Whatever" was never on an official album release, which meant Alex and I wore the fuck out of the 3-song CD single with the constant reversing of the CD skip button.

But let me back up a substantial bit and reflect on the personal devotion to the band as a 17-year old American living by the gospel of MTV Europe while studying abroad in Scandinavia.

By the time I reached my temporary destination of Denmark in the summer of 1995, Oasis was fairly acquainted with Radio 1 and Top of the Pops in Europe on the strength of their first album.

But that was nothing -- I mean, really, nothing -- compared to the hysteria caused by their second album, which dropped in the Fall of that year. Wonderwall could not be overlooked, even by lift operators and chimney sweeps, shut out from society all through the day.

One of my most distinct memories is seeing -- possibly hearing -- this track for the very first time in the living room of one of my Danish friends apartment. The memory of that is just burned right up there in my head, forever.

And finally, the song that started all the hysteria in the first place and tapped the world on its unsuspecting shoulder. Live Forever is as tied to Brittania lore as Queen Elizabeth's handbags, and continues on as perhaps be the greatest closer in concert history. Most definitely, maybe.

Gonna live forever.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Summer Soundtrack Part II (2012)

How does the saying go? Better a shit summer day in Northern Michigan than a good day in the furnace of Central Texas.

Only, fucking hell, the weather didn't exactly cooperate this year at all, and all the beanies I packed with glorious anticipation of an icy 65° became just beer padding for the plane ride back home instead.

Sweaty or not, there are few things better than having fuck all to do with anything beyond starting a fire in the woods and popping the caps off regional beers with the ass-end of a cigarette lighter. Oh, and the grilled meat. Grilled meat is also a large part of our summer zodiac; along with a relevant and a highly anticipated summer soundtrack. No other season tithes your memory bank quite like summer jams do -- songs made more magnificent by persistent twilight and the aromas of hops and burning animal flesh . This is how we've come to know summer.

During our trek from Detoit to Tahquamenon Falls in Michigan's Upper Peninsula by way of Traverse City, and then back down again to Detroit by way of Lansing -- a trip that canvassed 1200 miles of the country's shittiest roads -- we somehow missed the iPod auxiliary connection cord that sat dormant in the glove box of our piece of shit rental. This made for a lot of regretful words as we're pulling into the rental return at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. We listened to a metric asstonne of horrible early-aughts Nashville Country and everything Clear Channel throws at its insipid audience. It got really bad at about the 600 mile mark, so a lot of times we just drove in silence, waiting for another campsite with which to plug in the portable iPod player.

At those interim checkpoints, there were three songs that persevered over the summer lull, each with a distinct memory of another great summer trip -- this time with our small rapscallion in tow.

The Walkmen | Heartbreaker

We discovered very quickly how awesome this album was by the early part of the summer, particularly during the drinking hours -- so we thought we'd bring it along for a nice holiday. We didn't however, realize the greatness of this particular track until we were somewhere above the 45th parallel. Every summer needs a poppy track to get the momentum swinging towards epic.

Beach House | Wild

One of the byproducts of camping, and nature-ing in general, is the inevitable request for a foot hike. Look, I really DO enjoy hiking. Hiking is fun -- but Melissa tends to overestimate my will and ability to haul 200lbs across uneven terrain in the dead of day. One time she took me on a 5 hour hike through the Atlantic rainforest of Brazil's Ilha Grande that led to a secret, gorgeous beach (#humblebrag) -- only it wasn't so secret when a boatload (like literally a boat-load) of rested tourists sauntered up to our spread with their own, freshly folded tapestries. So, fuck hikes.

This time, Melissa took my ass through the Vietjungles of Tahquamenon Falls which felt more like survival than recreation. Melissa at one point wanted to stop and eat some chips and I was thirsty as balls so I had to use most of my will power to not crush the damn chips in protest. Also, there was the minor threat of bears eating our small child as we waddled through Charlie-land.

So, what better way to ignore these concerns than to chirp indie hits at a mostly deranged decibel level? Song of choice: Beach House's Wild. We eventually made it -- out into the gorgeous mouth of the Falls and up into the local brewery.

Dirty Projectors | Impregnable Question

There is always a cerebral point in the summertime -- or at least something to reflect on. I guess I was too lazy to really think during the summer, coming off a crazy year, but this song felt like it fit that bill. Its a great song for long rides and last calls.

---

Yeah, its a concise setlist due to dumbassery on my part, but I think that its pretty poignant and speaks well to the adventures of Enzo's first summer in Michigan.

You can enjoy the tracks of [SMSSK] all in one place! [An Avenue] is down with Spotify, so clickity click.

Thursday, July 12, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Summer Soundtrack Part I (2011)

One of the great ceremonies of summer is the ritual of making that idyllic road trip through the arterial veins of this country's underbelly. In doing so, having a soundtrack that will narrate the exploits over those two days on the road -- or two weeks, for the more adventurous -- is an absolute necessity in order to acoustically chronicle all of the badassery and dumbfuckery that was had, along with all of the associated life lessons that were learned.

As in the summer-centric film industry, July means large-scale rhetoric of symphonic compositions and anthemic refrains that suggest celebration, bemusement, introspection; all of the spectral moods of summer. When quarantined to a domestic crossover vehicle and beholden to a Congressional Library's worth of musical material in the iPod for eight and nine hours per day, you tend to develop some strong feelings towards all kinds of shit going on in your little mobile prison, both positive and negative.

This was the soundtrack to my small family's 2011 Heartland road trip which consisted of my pregnant wife, our 65lb German Shepherd, Enzo the Fetus, and me. Sounds like a kickass boys weekend don't it? Well, I did get to visit a shitload of microbreweries and pave the entire rear floorboard with rare bombers, so, yes ... it kinda killed.

The Antlers | I Don't Want Love

I Don't Want Love got a ton of love on the way up north, primarily because we had just seen these dudes live at the old Emo's (RIP) a couple weeks before our departure. It was another one of Enzo's in utero gigs, and the album ended up being my #1 of 2011.

Beruit | East Harlem

Driving through Tennessee and Kentucky is actually kind of beautiful, and in doing so, requires an equally pretty accompaniment. It is a good long-state song, because the horns stick with you long past the track's duration -- which is necessary absentminded fodder when your navigator is taking another nap.

Cut Copy | Need You Now

I can't say for sure, but I can't image that synth-pop will be exceptionally attractive to the acoustic senses of our young descendents. Synth appears to have come on strong during the crystalline-drugged decade of the 1980s and returned for another run at the methamphetamic generation of the late-aughts. I don't think it will get another chance at another hopped up generation, because its not that long until the Wyld Stallyns bring about universal harmony and everyone is wildin' out to Joe Satriani hymnals and wearing Oakleys.

Such a shame, because Cut Copy are tits. As another part of Enzo's Gestational Gig Series (EGGS), Melissa and I got all electro-clashed in Detroit when we saw them perform their album Zonoscope and all their highlights from In Ghost Colors. This was the opening number, and its a fucking treat to rock with the people of Rock City, and especially seeing your very pregnant wife dancing to electronica on top of a bench.

Bon Iver | Calgary

We depended a lot on Sirius' XMU and Josiah -- my dude on the decks -- to get us through the boring stretches of flyover country. He always knew the right time to play it -- when things were getting contemplative and I'm dreaming about the imminent White Castle feast I would be partaking in. That bastard Carles outright refused to throw me a bone.

M83 | Midnight City

And here was the pastoral anthem, the heroic closer to an epic summer soundtrack -- leading us across borders homeward, brisking into the state from which we were torpedoed three weeks prior; entering the outskirts in its acerbic opening riffs and minding the view of the city as it calmly boils to saxophone and longing.

Friday, June 29, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Tamba Trio | Mas Que Nada

Sometimes life comes at you slow, sometimes life is very easy. Its an open-net sitter, and all that was required of your efforts was to be in the right place at the right time.

In fact, life is not as hard as we allude to in text form or around attentive audiences. Perceived strife is empathy, and I get why we are normalized to do it. Tension builds an audience and it captivates people. Some people cannot even have a simple conversation without some sort of labored monologue. This is how cable news networks overwhelmingly succeed and the Hallmark Channel is buried somewhere deep in the lower 300s of your dial. Also, this is why women have -- and keep -- crazy friends. Its both entertaining and therapeutic for everybody.

But life slows down if you allow it. It will let you pause and have a lengthy look around the place. Life is very spectacular most of the time, it really is. It is when you begin living for moments -- and recognizing when you are actually in one, that things start to really get good.

Living in a moment is the primary canon to life; becoming fully cognizant as if in a wonderful dream, infallible for the next minute-and-a-half before alert consciousness takes you over. It is what separates us from lesser intelligent species, recognizing that fleeting moments don't return, programming ourselves to capture them internally.

We remember seemingly inconsequential moments because somehow they've impacted us so profoundly, but like a janitorial keyring, you have to remember what emotion they unlock -- pride, love, comfort, exhilaration. I still remember what it was like to be proud of myself for a shitty Honorable Mention in kindergarten. Its very possible that the motivation to succeed could have stemmed from that. I remember what it was like to kiss my wife for the first time -- not why or how or where, anyone would remember that -- but what it was physically and emotionally like; awkward and sweet. Life slowed down for me when I met her. It got better. These kinds of moments have to be internalized because they will stay with you and guide you forever.

Something your mother and I are really, really trying to be perceptive of is how much we enjoying each of those moments with you. Yes, we will remember the first teeth, the first steps, the millionth laugh -- but we also remember your first look of recognition, the first time you looked upon mom and me as if you had wished on everything for us. How happy it made us that you approved of who we were, and that it meant everything to you to be a part of our small family. You were all we wished for too. We remember.

For our first anniversary, your mother and I set out on kind-of a big fucking adventure knowing that the chances of being as whimsical and free of the real-deal responsibilities in the near future were dwindling. Mom had the hilarious idea to try to invent you on this trip, and together we were dead set on naming you after the relevant city: Rio. Relax, it could have been Casablanca had only Morocco been more inviting to its female guests.

If you do the maths, well, obviously, that didn't happen. You granted us a couple more months of leisure and latitude that we parlayed to a bunch of really fun, really drunk nights of scenester dancing. I thank you for this because this is surely something that would have never been a part of our history -- your mothers and mine -- because, though short-lived, it was fucking wild and fucking spontaneous, and just generally a nice time to spend as a happy couple. A moment.

But back to Brazil: One of my favorite memories -- one of those nearly imperceptible life-moments that I've been going on about here -- was after our visit to the top of Corcovado to see Cristo Redentor. Shopping around the district of Ipanema, we deviated into a very quiet and quaint record store, more similarly resembling a musical library than a place of commerce. There was a kind, older gentleman keeping inventory of the place, which would have been better suited in an educational setting or research institution someplace away from the bustle of Rio. The gentleman, without other customers to tend to (not that it would have mattered) led your mother and I on a very precise and historical audio tour of Brazil's most famous musical export: Bossa Nova, playing one record after the next with the grace of a professor and the enthusiasm of a student.

This was a moment. I could remember myself thinking that: remember everything, as if willing myself to internally ledger the smells of the vinyl, the very low din of ambient noises coming from the megalopolis of 13 million people, painted and accompanied onto the pantomimed bodies of women in sarongs walking towards the beach and men in yellow Brazil jerseys walking to the pub. There was something so pure and genuine about listening to first-print records from this man's impressive, but concise collection. This was an art class taught by the distinguished scholar, surreal in perspective, as we were his only audience, surreal in proximity because we were literally in the center of Brazil's cultural mass of humanity.

The next record played, and he lit a smile:

At this point in time, as I'm listening to him precisely place the correct "ba-bum" percussion beats with his articulators, it is quite difficult to resist a squeeze of your mother's hand in silent urge to cede our former lives, take up a small residence near the beach, and set forth on an alternate autobiographical path. It was in that moment, where the bustle of soot and industry and millions futbol fans bypassing the storefront, that time slowed to its most deliberate crawl. I'm telling you son, find these moments and capture them.

Instead of selling our worldly possessions and camping on the beach forever, we regained our sensibilities and went to a Bossa Nova niteclub instead. Gruff with knowledge and perspective, we proceeded to drink rum-and-cokes and "ba-buh" to the beats until we could no longer distinguish between Portuguese and a stapler. We smiled at people when they looked at us.

Life is just a collection of these moments, and the way you process them, sequence, and recollect them makes your own library of nostalgia. That is what I live for, this is how I slow life down because it will move too fast if you let it.

Friday, June 22, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Band of Horses | Marry Song

The third date with a one you've been fancying is probably around the time when you start attaching together pieces of the puzzle that ask your subconscious, 'so, where is this going'?

But with Melissa, I had already gained that insight. This gig was going on a week-long, college-style, fun-bender to San Francisco; away the sultry heat of Arizona with a family-sized back of jerky, a 6 hour playlist that would have to be played twice, a winery map, and one trusty Japanese SUV. That was it. That was the third date. Two unfamiliar people mapping out a future together, immediate and distant, 12 hours or 60 years?

That was the July of 2007.

Two summers later we were off to the other coast, New York City, exchanging nuptials like graduates of La Société de la Fortune, alma mater to the colleges of Preparation & Opportunity, an imagined Wes Anderson plotline with an ensemble cast of friends and family, thoughtful dialogue, strange happenstance, and most importantly, a poignant soundtrack.

With every great film score comes the definitive musical crux of the story's plot -- Mark Renton's flop house Perfect Day, Max Fisher's Ohh La La moment, or The Dude's Man in Me. There is so much derivative meaning in music, and we found it crucial to heighten the emotion of the room set to the climax of our courtship biography.

Not only should the song be hopeful, but also triumphant, peddling towards life's dénouement with the aplomb of an old French man with dinner groceries. The delivery should not be pantomimed or false or have veiled social critique. It should not have opposition to the context in which it is be used; Marriage should be its only category. It should not be clumsy or used; its message aesthetic and pretty.

Though obvious in name, Marry Song is inconspicuous in public ovation. The meter wavers with both pace and patience, an important characteristic for dancing through a marriage through its seeding and its harvest. Its message is spartan in its approach, stripped and honest, like a telegram. It presents love as a humble dowry, weary minds long pursuing peace.

This was the Express to San Fransico five years ago. She is gone now, but may she live forever.

Friday, June 15, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Neutral Milk Hotel | In the Aeroplane Over the Sea

Three years ago from right now, as Melissa and I were lifting our seat backs to their full and upright positions, each two-or-three bloody marys deep into the flight that would ship us to our rainy wedding weekend in New York as a two-pieced parcel, later to be fit together as one; this song was triggered by the music gods on my earphones as a Call to Post:

It was entirely befitting as a cross-section of what my life had been up to that point as an individual -- but also an example of the antonym of singularity, which, in the case of this story, would be the bond of marriage.

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all around the sun

Here I was sitting in this airlifted carriage beside the woman who had brought me such a very long way in life to this particular moment in the sky; circling all around the sun, trimming the sea, writing pages to a better story.

What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly
From the aeroplane over the sea

And our chance meeting years prior caused the realignment of integers so that this life is measured by alternate calculations: a flash on the screen, or a blink of an eye is an eternity or more with this beautiful face I have found in this place.

But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

And because of this awareness of the indefinite, we bathe in the beauty of devotion and love without the anxiety of loss; in his arms she will always be.

-----

Later that day, waiting amongst the immeasurable mass of humanity inside of New York's City Hall for our license application, it was very clear that there is no cross section to this life. The multitude of living organisms that have bisected my life and influenced it in every way possible had led me to exactly there, on that day, with this person. It was, quite simply, staggering. There was no single moment, but an explosion of moments. Every bit of organic machinery working overtime to ensure your fate. I was not enraptured by marriage only three years ago -- just as Enzo was not born only seven months ago, he was created centuries prior, when the gods of music made it so.

Friday, June 8, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Kings of Leon | Arizona

When it comes to the Kings of Leon, there are so many odious demonstrations by the band, that they could teach a volume of lessons before they begin strumming one, single, solitary note.

1) Don't believe your hype
2) Don't overextend your boundaries
3) Don't insult your admirers
4) Don't become a rocketdouche Sooner fan.

And while The Kings are a case study in buffoonery, they also come with certain caveats, because we, as humans, tend to egregiously apologize for our athletes and artists as reimbursement for making us feel so fucking thrilled all the time.

When this album was released, it was a massively transitional time for your mother and I -- the kind of transition that makes you nearly collapse from dread had the circumstances surrounding it happened any differently.

In the complicated pre-summer of 2007, there was a very slight sliver of opportunity where it was going to be possible for your mother and I to meet, hit it off, and eventually decide that a relationship was worth the tokens for admission. Any sooner than that small window, and the complications of other circumstances fold the relationship before it even begins -- and any time after those three days, we ride out our final days of the school year having never met, mommy moves on to New York by autumn, and your daddy continues to grind it out, never knowing the fugitive of an alternate universe that is this life.

This song reminds me so much of those three compelling days; probably on an iPod playlist I built to drift along with my in Phoenix -- because that is what people do in Phoenix, they drift. It probably never extended past its initial song: Arizona.

The laze of the melody speaks intricately about the melancholy of isolated, desert living. I always called Phoenix The City of Dreamers, because so many people there had other ideas about where they would end up -- in some far-off exotic locale -- and just how they were gonna do it. Rarely did someone forget to remind you of their ambitions. Dreamers. In the face of easy, comfortable living, nobody appeared to be exactly satisfied with their open-ended drift. Living in Arizona was like renting temporary space in a broken heart. Don Draper said it better then I can, "Tell them that it didn't work out because it didn't. Tell them the next thing will be better because it always is."

And I don't think he was very inaccurate with that statement, for here we are now. And this is how we did it.

Friday, June 1, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Aerosmith | Sweet Emotion

Aerosmith actually used to kind-of rule the school before they were making dedicated theme songs for commercially appealing event films and casting Alicia Silverstone in every 1990s version of my wildest dreams.

In perhaps the greatest opening film montage ever conceived, it's Aerosmith's Sweet Emotion that binds the whole two minute mini-episode together like saliva to Zig Zags -- and so much so, that this entire rock opera has become correspondent with the awesomest day of school: The Last One.

That, my friends, was yesterday -- which makes today the awesomest day of the entire year: The First Day of Summer Break.

This suggestion doesn't end at the endorsement of Sweet Emotion. Instead this promotes the entire film and its accompanying score as an essential experience for the Class of 2029. While the natural elation and triumph of educational finality is celebrated fairly uniformly from ages four to twenty-four, its the peek into historical context that provides for mimicry and personal inventory on how to properly beast the final day of classes -- a beer bust, a vintage Pontiac GTO, staying out til sunrise. Despite the prospect of these events being displaced 52 years by the time of Enzo's senior summer, it will still be relevant.

Its pretty much the way we've all experienced it -- but then again, we've all hit a layup before and no one is mistaking us for Wilt Chamberlain. This generation were the engineers of lewd-cool; a rebirth from the 1920s after the four, long decades of composed-cool. Better still, these were the artists of Austin-cool, which paced the rhythm of ideology for the way this city operates today, even after a millennial turn -- hipsters and the creative class and old hippies and students. Government plodders, professors, struggling musicians, and dragworms. Cool kids, scene kids, fit kids, and just too-many kids.

At last, a way to amplify the foundation of post-modern Austin into a solitary tune. Austin is infinitely the Last Day of School. To the maxx.

* ... and sure, you will always have record of your Aunt Annie's theatrical debut. There was just no way to bypass this familial fact. :)

Friday, May 25, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] Morrissey Mixto

CHAPTER X:

Eventually, it would come to this, and I would be forced to whittle down a very large Morrissey inventory into a select and biographical few. This assignment has taken me the better part of too-many hours and proved to be both complicated and melancholy -- which is to say, both clear and uplifting -- to those of us who follow the precise exposition of our Saint Steven.

For those unaware, Morrissey, El Mozza, The Mozfather, turned a gracious and stately 53 this past week, which pretty much puts him in his cantankerous prime, which should be a handsome treat upon his next, full musical release. The future looks as bleak and wonderful as ever, fans!

But its Morrissey's vast resume that inspired a whole fleet of Mexican teenagers to adopt English culture, philosophical introspection, theatre, and sexual instinct; all while rekindling the romance of heritage identity, pride in civil persecution, boredom, and poverty. Its a complex proposition to be introduced to such an array of emotional hues at a tender age, but those who I've known to adopt the challenge have all turned out to be interesting, complex human beings as we enter the corridor of our fourth earthly decade.

Enzo does happen to be a half-blooded Morrissey enthusiast, a birth-right with fortunate access through his ethnic lineage. He may never see the value in this artist, or, by geographical dissipation, he may never feel the impact of his music -- but he will know that the frame in which his father sculpted was heavily influenced by the provocation of Morrissey.

------

CHAPTER XI

While not literally impossible to reduce the catalog of Morrissey's genius to one solitary track, it is figuratively hopeless to attempt to deduce the brilliance and imagination of his music to just one. Therefore, on Morrissey's birthday week, Enzo gets a mix that spans the 23 years of bedroom moping and discotheque cord-whipping. This is the historical account of unrecorded events.

Hear the entire Moz Mixto on Spotify

Suedehead

Everyday is Like Sunday

November Spawned a Monster

There's a Place in Hell For Me and My Friends

Tomorrow

Seasick, Yet Still Docked

I've Changed My Plea to Guilty

Hold On To Your Friends

The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get

The Boy Racer

Boxers

In the Future When All's Well

All You Need is Me

Friday, May 18, 2012

[Songs My Son Should Know] The Walkmen | In the New Year / Juveniles / The Rat

On Friday, March 4th, 2011 at Stubb's BBQ in Austin, Texas, you attended your first-ever gig.

As you can clearly see, daddy was drinking solo that night because there's this fable that women shouldn't get blasted while carrying their very small progeny to term -- even though, like, those tickets were totally purchased long before you came hurtling into our third dimension and we weren't expecting you to show up like an early house guest. I mean, we had certainly invited you to our party, but c'mon, we were still in our robes and funny underwear -- and we had tickets to The Walkmen!

But that's okay -- more for me on that night, half-pint. It appears you've been looking out for daddy since day one!

Anyway, the circumstance that The Walkmen were your first real show was purely coincidental, and because your mommy is like Tommy from Trainspotting in exactly one way, WE PAID FOR THE TICKETS! Plus, she was an absolute commando when it came to resuming our normal day-to-day lives even though she was minding the most precious hop that would ever be sprouted. As the kids today would say, she's the shit. (Hopefully kids stop saying that by the time you're old enough to be too cool).

I have to tell you, son, the show was an absolute rager. I guess I really didn't know what to expect from a band that sounds so un-technically technical on compressed data, but sound absolutely, fucking pristine live. In the moments of the show, when the blue glint of the stage lights would radiate your mother's face like an immaculate spirit, I was already a proud father. I was excited to meet you. I couldn't wait to tell you about your incredible run of luck in your extremely young life.
_________________________________________________________________________________

Blue As Your Blood

In The New Year

Angela Surf City

Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone

Victory

While I Shovel The Snow

On The Water

Little House of Savages

Canadian Girl

All Hands And The Cook

Woe Is Me

Juveniles

Encore

I Lost You

The Rat

We've Been Had

_________________________________________________________________________________

Well, at least that's the setlist as best as I could cobble together from the intergoogles (Hopefully kids stop using that by the time you're old enough to be too cool). Pretty lofty standard by which to live the rest of your life, I know, but I have faith that you will be a billion times cooler than us, that's for sure.