Snobbin: Beautiful Trash in the Pop Culture Gutter

I used to be a wallflower at the punk show.  Standing in back like those cool people in that Jawbreaker lyric or Peter Parker, replete in sweater vest a tour song well defined. I watched everyone else participate, slunk in the corner like a ragdoll  in required black hoodie, shock of auburn hair, drooped over crooked glasses. '90s indie fashion or a Weezer video extra, the early days of emo.  A backpack possibly slung over my shoulder, and a lack of beer in my hand, made me stand out, an awkward clown, never a joiner. Even though I loved the volume of the music, the warmth of the room, distinguished from the blustery, wintery outside, I found it hard to join.  These states never get warm. The band never breaks a string. Once I finally joined and met the people in the room, I became a figure in the scene, with my own nickname and relevance. Seldom a band member, I was the eternal commenter, the guy who could talk records, a legend in my hometown. Like that irredeemabl...

While "This Year" generally gets the most accolades of the songs on The Mountain Goat's arguably most signifcant song cycle, The Sunset Tree , due to its catchy chorus and relatable message, my favorite track on the album is undoubtedly "Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod," although its nearly impossible to pick a song from this stellar set of doubtful, autobiographical uncertainties. The album fits into what I consider John Darnielle's greatest period, the albums that added more instrumentation starting with Tallahassee and stretching to Heretic Pride . Of course, there are also cases to be made for Darnielle's earlier boom box tape recordings. After that, I drifted away from their catalog and am hoping to revisit the later albums more extensively.  I could probably write about most of Darnielle's songs, but "Tetrapod" connects more closely to my life than many of the others because of its relationship to music, growth, and fear. The pain o...

Jeremiah and I rented the Lost House some time in 2001 because we wanted a bigger place that would hold us and our friend, Matt. The place was too big, so we had to get a roommate. Eventually, Jeremiah's cousin moved into a room in our house that was not that bigger than a closet. Another guy  moved in upstairs with Mat, and maybe I will discuss him in more detail in a future post. Needless to say the guy was a mess and caused us more stress than you could ever imagine.  We decorated the house in Punk and Industrial Chic, taping flyers, newspaper clippings, and comic strips to the dirty walls. It soon resembled  a larger version of my bedroom in high school. Much to my mother's dismay, I covered the walls of my room with clippings and pictures from floor to ceiling, tacking up whatever took my fancy from punk ads to clippings from old books. My room was on the second floor of the house, which earlier had been converted from an attic, so the lower half of the wall had pa...

Kathleen Edwards's new album Total Freedom (Dualtone) is her first album in eight years, but she has not missed a beat. Her songwriting is still warm, evocative, and thoughtful. Wry observations about relationships, character studies, and songs about death and aging set a familiar tone for an album that is realistic yet positive despite the darker subject matter. Not as complex as Voyageur , my favorite record of 2012, it is still a strong contender for my best record list of 2020.  The first single "Options Open" is one of her best both lyrically and musically and capturing doubts similar to those that led her to stop making music and open up her coffee shop, Quitters. The song is both optimistic and realistic and could be as much about career changes as relationships. She sings, "There were some things behind me / An open door I did not close when I was lonely / But I swore I wouldn't go near you with a ten-foot pole / It's not my fault that I wasn't...

I moved in that summer, not prepared for a hot, festering several months in a strange, small house that had seen its share of drunken, college parties. I moved in with three other guys who I had known awhile: Dave, Joe, and Jeremiah. We were a motley crew: a punk rock English major, a brusque music major, a science major, and an opinionated psychology major. I was the progressive English major that flirted with anarchism, like a less obnoxious version of Rik from The Young Ones . In some ways, we resembled that troupe, except with far less humor.   Joe was a more conservative psychology major who liked to argue. We were both from the same hometown and had honed our friendship as outsiders. Dave majored in teaching music; he was the authoritarian taskmaster that wanted to keep us in line. Jeremiah, the science major, added a new flavor to our little group of outsiders. We met Jeremiah when he took a room in the house the previous January. He and I would move into another house, T...

I've been reading the Beastie Boys Book , and Luc Sante's introductory, "Beastie Revolution," gave me chills. He describes New York City in the 1980s in terms that bring the city to life. He explores the intersections of different cultures, and how each defined the city, as background to The Beastie Boys' journey. His essay is a loving exploration of hip hop and the city that recalls Ed Piskor's graphic history,  Hip Hop Family Tree. This passage resonates strongly; particularly because it captures the impact of music on many of our lives:      "Even if music isn't your gift or your strong suit you are obsessed with music, and even if you are      completely incapable of making music yourself, you want to live inside it. It's the primary      language of your time, the major medium of exchange, the principal commodity . . . it rules and      shapes every moment of your life . . . and all the music around you is in the...

I recently hooked a portable record player up in my office, so I could listen to more music while I work. Before I was relegated to listening to MP3s and podcasts, but now I can listen to most of my music collection, allowing me the opportunity to listen to scores of records that somehow got lost in the shuffle.Thus, I've been rediscovering many records that I barely remember listening to. Many of my LPs have been purchased either in bulk or at the thrift store over the years, so there are a lot of older records that I have not spent an appreciable amount of time exploring. Needless to say, it has been an excellent experience, and I have been able to run the gamut on genres, listening to every weird little record and major seller in my collection, even finding those albums that should reward repeat listens, but have barely made a blip in my daily soundtrack. Of course, genres such as traditional folk, punk, classic rock, metal, rockabilly must live on my shelves in an interes...

I find myself sleepwalking through life these days. I spend much of my day writing and listening to music, reading and catching up on movies, drifting through life in a sedentary fashion. Once in awhile I go hiking in a national park or bicycling down the slow moving streets of DeKalb. Most of the time I remain motionless, dreaming dreams and working on my writing. I recently made it out to see The Reigning Sound at the Double Door in Chicago. The band was tight and the acoustics were near perfect. It felt good drifting amongst others. I saw old friends and ate suspect tacos, but most of all I was able to shed some of the doldrums and anxiety of recent days. As I try to kick start my life in other directions, I realized how vital live music still is in my life. It is one of the driving forces that makes each day better than the last. It is as important at thirty-three as it was at sixteen. We are creatures that can drift into habits that are so often bad for us. We forget about ...