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.

  1. The Swamp Song
  2. Acquiesce
  3. Supersonic
  4. Hello
  5. Some Might Say
  6. Roll With It
  7. Morning Glory
  8. Cigarettes & Alcohol
  9. Champagne Supernova
  10. Slide Away
  11. Cast No Shadow
  12. Whatever (w/ Octopus's Garden)
  13. Wonderwall
  14. Don't Look Back In Anger
  15. Live Forever (encore)
  16. 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.