the list!

countless hours of listening, head-scratching, sorting, writing, re-writing, and this is all you've got to show for it? (or a better question--are YOU really going to read all this?) my superfriends and i will soon join our powers for a composite list of 15 unquestionably awesome 2006 albums, but in the meantime here, in the great 5-year long tradition of musical nerdery of matt and i, are my favorite records of 2006. without further ado, the list:

10 Califone, Roots & Crowns

It’s probably mostly because I haven’t read much about this band or this album, but I can’t understand why this album isn’t more often (and favorably) compared to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Like that album, Roots & Crowns sees Califone with one foot firmly planted in folk and dusty, brittle singer/songwriter stylistic traditions while bravely stepping off with the other foot into uncharted and experimental production values and sonic textures. Far from a spin-off of YHF, though, this album has its own sound, its own textures, and its own thematic concerns—its own identity. It’s hard to imagine the lazy horns of “Spiders House” and the electric energy of “A Chinese Actor” and the slow aching beauty of “The Orchids” appearing together on any album from this or any other year.

Highlights: Spiders House, A Chinese Actor, The Orchids

09 Peter Bjorn and John, Writer’s Block

I nearly missed this album. It didn’t immediately grab me, and I’d nearly tossed it aside when Aaron told me a favorite lyric from “Objects Of My Affection”: “And the question is was I more alive than I am now? / I happily had to disagree. / I laugh more often now, I cry more often now. / I am more me.” That seemed to me to be a pretty good lyric, and it was talking about a lot more depth and melancholy nostalgia than I’d heard on my first trips through the album. I went back and listened a little more closely, and I discovered that the entire album was written with the same sentiment, the same earnest reflection and depth, and a surprising wisdom. What I’d dismissed as a lack of content was actually evidence of great subtlety and restraint and brave writing and production. Suddenly the fancy percussion and whispery, reverb-drenched vocals were the finishing touches on perfect pop songs and not just interesting accoutrements attached to a collection of several intervals of four empty minutes, and suddenly I was hearing a really great, smartly written, and expertly produced pop record so subtle I nearly missed it altogether.

Highlights: Objects Of My Affection, Young Folks, Amsterdam

08 Ratatat, Classics

On their second album, Ratatat broaden their scope, widen their sound, and make another fantastic record of hip-hop tinged beats and stadium-sized near-metal hooks. This album has a few more mid-tempo numbers on it, which is probably part of the reason it wasn’t as giddily received as the debut, but the slower songs here are better than the ones on Ratatat, and the jams this time are just as towering and danceable. The biggest difference between the two albums, though, is the layers and intricacy of Classics. Each song feels a bit more carefully planned (and perhaps unfortunately a bit less spontaneous), with a few more ideas packed into the corners, and develops a little more slowly. If this sounds like a bad thing check out the swirling guitars in “Lex” or the low-end moves in “Wildcat” or the funky shuffle in “Loud Pipes” and be assured that, although they’re "just" an instrumental band, Ratatat has enough ideas and willingness to experiment for more than one undeniably excellent album.

Highlights: Lex, Loud Pipes, Tacobel Canon

07 The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America

How does an album aping a musical icon I never really loved, celebrating a reckless adolescent existence I never lived nor wanted to live, and lifting lines from Steinbeck novels (for the title, no less!) get me to turn my stereo up too loud and jump around my bedroom working up a sweat on my air guitar? One word: RAWK. Marshalls stacked probably two stories high play classic rock riffs like it’s 1975, Craig Finn gets pretty close to actually singing a few times, and the band only slows up to catch its breath twice in the whole 40 minute onslaught (and the ballads are actually good enough that you don’t skip ahead to keep your heart rate up). If you can sit still during the bridge/breakdown of “Stuck Between Stations” or that awesome towering chorus on “Southtown Girls” you were probably complaining about “that awful noise” when Springsteen wrote the spiritual ancestors of these songs 30 years ago. And that almost makes you old enough to be dead, so maybe that’s why you’re not rocking out in your bedroom like me.

Highlights: Stuck Between Stations, Chips Ahoy!, Chillout Tent

06 Sonic Youth, Rather Ripped

When I heard Sonic Youth’s new album was going to be composed of shorter songs than their usual, I was worried they were going to sacrifice some element of their makeup that I really liked. For being a departure in their approach to songwriting, though, Rather Ripped sounds remarkably like a SY album. The shorter songs don’t result in less of the explosions of guitars that I’ve always loved—they’re simply more concentrated. The more traditional song structures give the songs a more compact, explosive feeling, like if you squeezed a million liters of hydrogen into a pop bottle and then threw a match on it. In place of the long drawn-out feedback sequences of previous records, here we have more focused and economical playing—each note feels more important, each crescendo more carefully placed and paced. And yet even in this context they still find space for moments of expansive beauty like the “why won’t you show me what’s inside?” post-chorus sigh in “The Neutral” without making it feel rushed or squeezed. It’s not Sonic Youth lite, it’s Sonic Youth dense.

Highlights: Do You Believe In Rapture?, Turquoise Boy, The Neutral

05 Band of Horses, Everything All the Time

Why do people say “that guy sounds like My Morning Jacket” like it’s a bad thing? Jim James or James Mercer hardly invented the style, and besides that, we should probably be thinking of singing like this as more of an ideal to strive for than an affectation to fake. And anyway this album’s success does not depend on the extent to which Ben Bridwell sounds like Mike Love or your favorite soulful brass-colored vocalist, but rather on whether or not the band brings it and if the lyrics and melody can support the emotional weight Bridwell instills in every note. In the slow-burning, crystalline opener, in the “I’m yours!” release of “Wicked Gil”, and in pretty much every syllable in “The Funeral”, the answer is a resounding, fist-pumping, exclamation point-laden yes. Yeah, this album sort of trails off on the back half, and maybe those acoustic ballads sound a bit like…those acoustic ballads, but this fact never stopped me from putting this on every time I wanted to hear something raw and powerful. Albums like this remind me that flashy ideas or even great playing skills are not requisite to making a great rock record—Band of Horses just play like they mean it and believe it, and I believe it, too.

Highlights: Our Swords, The Funeral, Great Salt Lake

04 Fujiya & Miyagi, Transparent Things

But they were just pretending to be Japanese! Not only is the sonic approach here relatively simple, it’s also been done before (a lot)—why do I flip out every time I hear it? Well, let’s see. There’s the head-tipping beats, the busy bass locking in the backbeat, the thin guitars skittering along on top, the occasionally non-sensical and scatter-brained lyrics coolly spoke-sung, and there’s the warm, warm synths, flawlessly placed in just the right amount in those big gaping holes of sound, like filling a nice sponge cake with a good cup of cream. Mmm…that’s a tasty sonic confection! But more than the individual ingredients, it’s the group’s grasp of the overall feel of their songs and their carefully layered builds and climaxes that send the album’s best moments straight through the stratosphere and into orbit, bringing me right along for the ride.

Highlights: Ankle Injuries, Transparent Things, Cylinders

03 Islands, Return to the Sea

Nick Diamonds returns to make another playground of sound in which to sing songs about love and death and demons and the end of the world. To say no one writes a pop song quite like him is to stake an early claim for the lead in your high school’s big production of “Captain Obvious: The Understatement” next year (break a leg, buddy!). I suppose I’m probably in the minority, but I like this work better than Unicorns—it’s still a little off-kilter, but the production is more advanced, the arrangements more accomplished, the songwriting at once more focused and just as playful. At times it seems the band set out to prove there’s nothing they can’t pull off: creepy spooky hip-hop song? “Where There’s A Will There’s A Whale-Bone”. Sunny Graceland “doo doo doo doo” sing-along moments? “Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby”. Synth-pop freakout with solid gold payoff closing verse? “Rough Gem”, anyone? I could go on, but suffice it to say there isn’t a misstep on the whole album—this is a perfect collection of imperfect pop songs.

Highlights: Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby, Rough Gem, Jogging Gorgeous Summer

02 Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood

Neko Case’s voice is so velvety smooth and powerfully sexy, so smoky and sultry, so volatile and versatile that President Bush actually considered asking her to sing his State of the Union address this year so it would be more positively received. (He changed his mind when he found out she’s Canadian. That’s the last thing America needs!) While it’s probably true that Case’s voice could save even a terrible song from hard drive deletion (is there a more ignominious fate for 4 MB of music in this day and age?), the songs here are haunting stories of death at the mouths of wolves and dirty oil pans, of dead loves or lost loves (and fingers), of crazy gospel characters and the apocolypse. They are in other words the perfect setting for Case’s considerable vocal mastery and uncanny knack for subtle expression. The instruments know exactly how to behave, giving the perfect touch of tension (and terror!) to lines like “and the blood runs crazy / with a giant’s strides / and the woodsman failed to breach those fangs in time / so they dragged him through the underbrush / wearing three winter coats and a dirty knife”. If Bush doesn’t change his mind maybe she should look into singing Jack London stories.

Highlights: Margaret vs. Pauline, John Saw That Number, The Needle Has Landed

01 TV On The Radio, Return to Cookie Mountain

Allow me to dispense with all the superlatives for just a second. This album is my favorite of the year because from the busted brass horn samples of “I Was A Lover” until the freak-out fuzz bass dies out in “Wash the Day Away”, it just doesn’t sound like anything else I’ve ever heard before. It’s not like they invented a new genre in the quest to sound unique—this is rock and roll, but twisted up, turned inside out, stretched, squeezed, and cranked to 11. Tunde Adebimpe’s voice and harmonies, as on previous records, are their own incredible entity, capable of carrying conviction, creepiness, and an overwhelming sense of urgency at the same time. Dave Sitek’s production and waves of guitar noise are nearly impenetrable, and the rhythm section has so many rhythms and ideas happening it sounds like they recorded two trap sets, each manned by cloned vishnus. And sonically the album is all over the map—the open, soaring harmonies of “Blues From Down Here”, the driving 4/4 rock of “Wolf Like Me”, the handclaps and garbage can percussion of “A Method”…and so on. Since the very first listen, this album has continued to captivate and enthrall me, providing equal measures of close-eyed cerebral challenge and fist-pumping visceral pleasure.

Highlights: Wolf Like Me, A Method, Blues From Down Here

across the sea

some of my very best friends live in places very far away from here, so far away you have to cross borders or oceans (or both) to get to them. mostly, this is a pretty bad deal. i haven't seen my very good friend sarah, for example, in more than a year, and since she lives in japan, we don't get to talk very often, either. and when we do talk, it's the end of my day and the beginning of hers, which is just weird--you learn to make it work, but you never really get used to the weirdness of nearly falling asleep while talking to someone who just started her morning work (in this case, teaching english to japanese kids).

but it's not an entirely bad deal. in addition to hearing some fascinating tidbits about japanese culture and japanese elementary school culture, i often get some pretty entertaining excerpts of english according to 5th graders in japan. and as an added bonus, sarah and i have been sending packages to each other in our respective locations (crossing two oceans, including three continents unless i've forgotten one) for the last three years. these two vibrant, wonderful traditions recently came together in a package wishing me a happy thanksgiving, christmas, and easter. included was the work of one young girl, in response to a cultural education project in which the students learned about the american custom of the new year's resolution, and then made their own. what will YOU improve this year?

foiled! by the salt!

these are the steps to my apartment. that's salt that they put down a week ago. ALL of it. is SALT! if the city undergoes a slug uprising, they're not getting in here. at least, not through the front door. which is a really comforting thought. take that, slugs!!!

the christmas tree epic

the people i'm staying with here in chicago did not know me before i showed up at their door with a suitcase and pillow in hand like a blind slumber party play date or something. they agreed to do this in part because of a pretty tenuous friend of a friend of a friend connection (although it turns out we also have a mutual friend, just one degree of separation apart), but mostly they let me in because they're nice people, and i needed a hand. so they did me a favor, and i am thus in some way indebted to them. due to this and the fact that now instead of having a living room they have a third bedroom, i often try to find way to help out around the house. this has included things like cleaning the kitchen or doing their dishes on various occasions, but the biggest chore that's needed done since i got here was disposing of the christmas tree.

so i did some investigating, and it turns out the day before i got to chicago there was a city-wide tree recycling effort, and all that needed to be done that day was carry the tree to the alley, and it would be collected and taken care of. for the week after that day, you could carry it to a tree recycling pick-up location. i looked around and found that the nearest one was about 2 miles away. and i asked myself, "how do you transport an 8 foot tree 2 miles in a big city if you don't have rope or anything other than your suitcase and your pillow?" i imagined larry david manually carrying a christmas tree down busy streets, shouting at the people who gave him particularly nasty looks, and thought that would a pretty funny episode of curb your enthusiasm. all i had to do was carry it, then, and i had a ready-made funny story to tell on future blind dates or in awkward moments after saying something offensive. so i bundled up, got my keys, and walked over to the tree. i picked it up by its unwieldy trunk, shifted my weight as if to make a step toward the door, and laughed at myself for being so ridiculous--this was not going to work. i informed my roommates they had until the end of the week to take it and offered to help, but said i couldn't do it on my own.

the week came and went, and the tree stayed put in a shared unfinished stairwell in the back of our apartment. my drive to be in some way useful was great, however, so i proceeded with plan b. i went to the hardware store and purchased a saw to cut the thing into tiny pieces and throw it away. i started into my work with great enthusiasm, gleefully chopping the tree into manageable pieces. it didn't take long until i'd gotten pretty warm, despite the fact that the stairwell was maybe 20 degrees warmer than the freezing air outside. so i took off my jacket and sweatshirt, placed them inside the apartment, and closed the door. the door that locks! the door that only unlocks with the keys in my jacket! the jacket that was now on the other side of the door! i realized what i'd done about 2 seconds after i did it, and tried the doorknob in case i'd unlocked it from the inside, but it wouldn't turn. i sighed and went back to cutting.

while i finished the job i considered my options. it would be several hours before a roommate came home, and i was at this point wearing a t-shirt. i didn't see as i had any option but to reveal my thoughtlessness to my upstairs neighbors, whom i'd never met before. i shuffled up the stairs and knocked on their back door. they had no way to help me, but they did know the landlord's number, so i called him and told him, too, that i am an idiot, and he told me that he, also, couldn't do anything. so i had to wait, which is where i was before, but now i'd also made a few new friends over "hi, i'm an airhead. lol!". i borrowed my new friends' broom and cleaned up the mess, and then i paced around the stairwell trying to think of something to do for the next long hours (why couldn't i at least have taken my ipod out of my jacket?!?). after some time, pacing and looking through the window at my jacket grew tiresome, so i sat down on the step outside the door i so desperately wanted to open. i thought once again how simply this might have been avoided, and, exasperated, i slumped back, leaning on the door and then falling backwards when the door opened, because i hadn't pulled it all the way shut. (lol!)

so i took the broom back, thanked the neighbors for their concern, told them i'd picked the lock using the super awesome secret spy skills i'd learned when i worked for the cia (now that's what i call saving face!), and went inside. later, after i'd grown confident about the workings of doors and door locks, i trudged out into the snow to the throw the tree pieces away. the biggest bag wouldn't fit in the dumpster, though, so i had to wrestle it in there, and when i did, the lid came down directly on my nose, causing the attractive blood coloration you see above. "dadgummit!" i (probably) exclaimed, and did a little "that hurts!" dance, imagining that probably every apartment window in the alley had people watching the christmas tree get the last laugh on me.

later that night...
"jeremy, did you get rid of the tree?"
"yeah."
"oh. thanks."
"no problem."

...no problem.

there'll even be a band.

after a long 8 hour day of training yesterday, i called my friend mitchell, who was in town for the day. we had a pretty exciting plan for the evening--grab a bite to eat, and then go see andrew bird playing a hometown, sold-out, small venue show featuring new material from the album he was about to go on tour to support. there was just one problem, though: we didn't have tickets. so our getting in would require a little extra work.

our first move was to head down to the venue a few hours early and see what might develop. we took the train and then walked to the address and found ourselves in what pretty much seemed to be a shipping yard. mitchell and i began to wonder if perhaps andrew bird was part of an elaborate crime front, and there wasn't really going to be a concert. finally, though, we found the venue, and decided to walk around back to see if anything was happening back there. sure enough, we could hear the sound check through the back door, which had been left open juuuuust a crack. mitchell and i looked at each other, and then headed in. one exploratory turn inside the building found us a foot from the stage and the band, much to our delighted surprise. they looked at us and then went back to work, so we sort of stupidly stood still, staring like dumbfounded cows. this would have been a good time to come up with a plan for the next move, but instead we just watched. so when the sound guy came and asked us what we were doing, all i could manage was a weak mumble about not having tickets and maybe we could watch the soundcheck. sound guy said that'd be up to mr. bird, who made just enough of a motion with his head to indicate that he in fact heard this statement, but without visibly responding in any way to show support or opposition to the idea. so sound guy escorted us out.

as we walked back to the front, we met the bouncer and chatted him up, doing what the corporate (or myspace people) call "networking". as mitchell and i walked away from the venue and talked about various things we might have done or things we might have said and wondered what, exactly, is the etiquette for offering bribes to bouncers. we got some food and decided to go back and try our luck with the bouncer again. at this point i elected mitchell captain of the team on the grounds that i could drive to see the show in indianapolis so i wasn't as invested as him (but secretly because i fear confrontation). we headed back hoping to find the bouncer, but instead met jessica, who booked the show and who told us there was no way we were getting in without a ticket. when mitchell insinuated that perhaps some financial resources might change the situation, jessica responded that if she was even a little bit unethical, she could have received all kinds of favors in exchange for entry to the show. i asked if there was someone more unethical we might talk to, but she said they were all ethical in there. so we started to leave again, but this time we saw our friend the bouncer through the window and waved at him. he smiled and waved (this big black bouncer guy, smiling and waving at us!) and came out. "have you talked to those two?" he asked jessica, but old jessica just would not back down, so we left again.

this time we regrouped in the lumber section at the nearby home depot instead of over italian beef sandwiches in lincoln park, and we decided that if we came back after the doors had opened we might just see the bouncer, who we felt was pulling for us in this matter. so we killed some time, and came back to the venue. the doors were opened, but no one was waiting outside, so we shuffled up to the front door and went in, where the bouncer was waiting to check IDs. he said it was up to jessica, so he called her over again, and mitchell, pulling out our very last unused trump card, said, "here's the deal. we came all the way from nebraska, and we saw that it was sold out, but we thought..." "you did not come from nebraska! show me your driver's licenses!" jessica exclaimed, sort of smiling (it's good to have good-looking friends!), and i knew we were in. we produced our proof of residence (GO 'SKERS!!!), and she asked us how many times we'd seen andrew before, and where. and then she let us in, and mitchell and i paid and got our hands stamped and then found a place to hide in case they changed their mind.

(i'm sure some of you are thinking that technically i didn't come from nebraska to see the show, but like lots of people have probably said at various times throughout history, don't let the facts get in the way of a good scam. so let's leave it at that, eh?)

and then, there was the show. everyone, go see andrew bird if you can--it's an incredible experience, and andrew bird is a rare phenomenon: a gifted songwriter AND a virtuoso performer. he must have played 10 songs from his new album, which i can very confidently say will be AMAZING. and if you don't believe me, ask mitchell. it was really good.

the apartment people

wiki tells me that chicago has over 9 million people if you count all the suburbs and the small communities that have been gobbled up by expansion. that's a lot of people, but i think it's going to work out because in my week here so far i've come to find out that they also have about 2 million apartments available. so everyone has a place to live. in an attempt to make some sense of all those options, i went to the apartment people, which is a company that helps you find apartments for free. i filled out some papers ("i don't care where or how i live, just make it cheap!") and then i met with the guy who would be my companion for the rest of the day, who we'll call dave. dave took me to his trashed out, cigarette-smelling car and we were off. after we started driving he asked if it'd be alright if he smoked while he drove, and explained he'd had a "weird morning". i said that'd be fine, thinking the cigarette smoke would be the only relic of his morning to which i'd be exposed.

but then, as we were looking at the first apartment, he said he wanted my opinion on something as a third party, and that if it was too weird, i should say so. i imagined he was going to ask me what i thought of the landlord's (admittedly unique) odor, so i agreed, but then as we got into the car to look at apartment number two, he laid it on me. apparently, dave has been living with his girlfriend for the past 9 months, and they're planning on getting married in the fall. for whatever reason, dave decided to in some way use his email or her email to obtain her myspace password (!), which he then used to break into her account (!) and read correspondence between her and her ex-fiancee (!). and she is not very kind about dave when she's talking to her ex-fiancee. in fact, she says some pretty mean things about him, including that she wants to leave him. (the stressful morning, it turns out, had been dave doing all of this internet sleuthery.) dave tells me she's been a liar for quite some time, including for example when she hangs out with her ex-boyfriend and says she has to go because she's on the greyhound bus. oh, dave. after telling me all of this, dave tells me his dilemma is if he confronts her about the myspace messages (and you think he's going to say "i'll have to admit i'm a creepy stalker boyfriend", but...nope), he'll just have to believe her, and he obviously (OBVIOUSLY!) won't be able to read her myspace messages anymore (!!!). so does he confront her about it, or does he just pretend he doesn't know and leave things the way they are?

i was trying to formulate a logical, simple response, but most of my brain was occupied with praying that either my face was showing absolutely no clues as to what i was thinking or that he didn't take his eyes off the road for one tiny second to look at me. i finally managed to say "yeah, that's a toughie. um...have you considered just breaking up with her?" without adding anything about the creepy boyfriend problem or the possibility that maybe he should wait until he's 40 before trying to be involved in a romantic relationship again. he didn't think breaking up with her was a good idea, even when i suggested that it was likely she would soon leave him regardless ("no, when we talk she tells me we're great," he countered). we left the situation unresolved, so i guess i'll never know what will happen to dave.

and that's why i'm taking "try to be more open with other people about your life and your emotions" right off the new year's resolution list.

architectural marvels, modern and medieval

only 4 months after i'd originally planned to arrive, i am writing this update from chicago. i got back from cancun saturday afternoon and then left for chicago sunday morning, and monday was my first day of training at my job. i currently live on a couch on the north side, and if i want to i will move into the tiny bedroom soon to be evacuated by one of the two guys who live in the apartment which houses the couch. this apartment, and this neighborhood, and all that business is really nice, probably significantly better than i need to live comfortably, so for this first week or so i'll also be looking for other options that are more of a dive and are a bit cheaper. you know how i roll. or walk, as the case may be. being here for more than a weekend and seeing things from the perspective of "i live here" is pretty great overall, and i'm pretty excited to see what's next. it's another new deal, another inertia reset, another place in which to figure out which direction is north (almost always a challenge for me). i'm exploring, uncertain about most of the details most people know before they move, and therefore basically happy.

there'll be more to say about chicago (and me in chicago, of course!) but for today let's have a look at some pictures of mexico.

this is the big pyramid at chichen-itza ("chicken pizza" to my family). it's pretty big--those figures at the base are actually not upright-walking ants, they're people. it's also really old and full of historical and sacred religious significance, but to be honest, i sort of wasn't listening to our tour guide. so i'm not really sure what any of that would be. except i can definitely say the mayans built and used this building.

when i wasn't ignoring informative guides in ancient archeological sites, this was the kind of scene i was taking in. the resort we stayed in was about 45 minutes south of cancun, and about 10 minutes north of playa del carmen, whose street and beach view is currently making you jealous of me. it's not digital trickery--the sky really was that blue, the water that clear and bright, and the americans that plentiful and amply sized.

just in case the mayan riviera wasn't exciting enough, jordan and her family came down and stayed at a place a few miles (quite a few along the beach if you're walking there, by the way) from my place, so we hung out down there quite a bit. idyllic moonlit beach walks are better with a friend than alone sometimes even if you're like me and often enjoy the peaceful solitude. so it was a good time. plus we had fun taking pictures in the middle of the night. here jordan perfects her scary kung-fu face and poses. i'll let you in on a secret, though--it's all show, and you can probably take her. look how unimpressed i am.

so that was last week. this week has been pretty interesting, and don't even get me started on next week--probably i'll still be in this country, but who knows what developments will have developed!