Spinal Tap and my favorite live shows from Portland... aka... another weird Monday list...

OK, so I have a couple topics to discuss this week: the best/my favorite Spinal Tap songs and my favorite shows from my time in Portland, OR (which is not as expansive as you might think. Turns out there’s lots of venues, but not a lot of great one, and not a lot of great music in the city of Portland. College towns are better for mid-level artists. You know, the ones who are famous enough that we’ve heard of them and they’ve played enough shows to be amazing but not too big to phone it in at some “enormodome” type venue). With more than one topic (since I forgot to post this last week, you know, because I was moving into a new apartment and exploring the music scene in Charlotte, NC; so, fuck you) to get to, and already 5 Elijah Craig bourbons in me, let’s “get on with it” Monty Python style.

 

So, here we go. Here are my favorite Spinal Tap songs:

1) GSM (aka “Gimme Some Money” for the uninitiated)

Why is this song #1? Well, you probably figured that I would fucking tell you, didn’t you? It’s #1 because it’s the #1 song I’ve played from this movie over the years. Just as Spinal Tap used it to soundcheck (in Milwaukee, WI, no less! Go Brewers! Despite the fact they have been eating a dick lately…) with it, so did my band. I’ve played or fucked around in rehearsal with this song so many times, it’s basically a Bradley Wik and the Charlatans song by now. In fact, the producer/engineer/mixer of my first album “Burn What You Can, Bury the Rest…,” Rob Stroup, used to also play this with his band. Kinda part of the reason I recorded with him. Kindred spirits/lovers of weird/funny shit.

 

2) Big Bottom

The fact that this song features not one, not two, but three basses plus the synth playing bass lines… Jesus fucking Christ. Maybe it’s only funny to musicians but I can’t imagine how terrible this sounded live. No frequency filling, just lots of bass harmonies, which shouldn’t be a fucking thing. So fucking funny and strange. Also, “My baby fits me like a flesh tuxedo. I’d like to sink her with my pink torpedo” might be the greatest couplet of all-time. Shakespeare ain’t got shit on Tap.

 

3) Sex Farm

Because.. Just because. The opening line is “Working on a Sex Farm…” What a ridiculous concept that even all the fucking jokes, which are awesome, seem to pale in comparison to this absolutely absurd premise. Also, the words “Sex Farm Woman.” Just, such geniuses who came up with this. The jokes about pitchforks, raising hard love, plowing wheat fields is all secondary to the immaculately genius idea of a “sex farm.”

 

4) Tonight, I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight

Umm, using the same word twice in the same title (and chorus) is amazing. I stand amazed by the fact that they say “not a dry seat in the house” in the first fucking line. The genius of these men cannot be overstated. Spinal Tap may be the greatest Rock N’ Roll band ever. Except for their “Shit Sandwich” album. I hear it’s not great…

 

Like the great Brett Favre, lists are better at 4, so we’ll stop there. But, honorable mention is definitely “Heavy Duty” for its’ use of the word “duty” which always makes me laugh. Especially the line “Heavy Duty brings out the dootie in my soul…”

 

OK, here are the greatest shows I saw while I lived in Portland, OR, which was more than a handful of years. Yes, that city sucks and I hate it more than anything in the world but I did see some amazing shows there, so below are the top 4. In any other city, I would have had to do a top 20, but in Portand, 4 will suffice. Even the performances of people I love like Ryan Adams, Wilco, the Hold Steady, etc. were less than spectacular due to the shitty crowds in Portland who are “too cool” to have fun at shows. Fuck that. Music is about communing in something that can’t be found anywhere else and can’t be experience outside that moment. I’ve watched Bruce Springsteen’s live at the Garden DVD probably 100 times and it didn’t even live in the same country from when I ACTUALLY saw the Boss at the Garden. Same for every other live DVD I own (and that’s lots). Anywhere, enough preamble, here you go":

 

1) Damien Rice - Keller Auditorium

Damien is the proud owner of 3 of my favorite all-time shows. For those keeping score at home, that includes all 3 times I’ve seen him live. The first time with a hundred or so people in Madison, WI on the inaugural stateside “O” tour. My buddy Jake kept making illicit comments about the girl dancing on the stage during the opening bands set, which turned out to be Lisa Hannigan. Turns out she’s pretty fucking gorgeous. We didn’t know back then…

 

The second time was in Chicago during the “9” tour. He was equally stunning. It’s hard as artists graduate to larger and less intimate stages to see if they can maintain their awesomeness. Damien did. He did in spades.

 

The third time in Portland, I took my girlfriend (at the time) who was skeptical at best to see this show. She was more interested in the opener Markéta Irglová (from the movie “Once,” and a real life band I hear…) before we arrived. She proceeded to be mesmerized by Damien (as we all were) and occasionally I still hear her talk about how “sexy” he was, especially on “Me, My Yoke and I.” I have to say, she isn’t wrong..

 

2) Joanna Newsom - Schnitzer Hall

This was on the “Divers” tour. Needless to say, my girlfriend (at the time) was equally not excited to Joanna. I assured her it would be amazing, but had to almost force her to attend. You can always tell a great concert when two people who are really into each other (sexually) don’t speak or even look at one another for almost two hours. I actually forgot I bought a drink and it sat there half-drank for two hours until we left and I realized I paid $12 for a shitty whiskey and promptly poured it down my throat. But, it was the second time in a year that I totally blew her mind with a live show recommendation. Though, the flipside of that is that she didn’t want to come out to many more shows since nothing would compare to Joanna and the kind himself, Damien. Fair…

 

3) Bonnie “Prince” Billy - McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom 

It was the first time I ever got to see Will live. I had spent years living in areas he rarely toured, moving during a tour and missing the shows in both my new and old living places, and generally playing geographical “phone tag” with the man responsible for some of my favorite albums (“I see a darkness,” “Viva Last Blues,” and “Days in the Wake”). Finally, I got a hold of him. Yes, it was at one of my least favorite Portland venues. You know, the kind that sections off the front of stage area for minors and makes people drink in the back (Fuck you Berbati’s and re-opened Satyricon as well; both of which closed down shortly after I played them… The Jon Fickes curse continues…). But, the show was wonderful and to finally see my man Mr. Oldham was a treat. He’s a much better singer than he lets on and his band was amazing. Sure, they didn’t play many Palace era tunes, but this was like 10 years later so I’ll forgive him since he did indulge us in more than a couple “I see a darkness” tunes.

 

4) Shonen Knife - Dante’s

#4 was tough as there were a lot of great bands I saw in Portland, but were better at the shows I witnessed elsewhere (read: Ryan Adams, Wilco, the Hold Steady, Modest Mouse, etc.). Land of Talk or Helle’s Belles (the all-girl AC/DC tribute band) are my runners-up but it’s hard to top the random awesomeness of Shonen Knife. First, that night had started strange. My girlfriend, my buddy and his wife all went to this hipster fucking 90’s club because we wanted to get fucked up and sweaty dancing to ridiculous tunes (and hoping against hope that somehow, some way, they would play the Prodigy) but they kicked out my buddy because he was “drunk and couldn’t talk straight,” aka because he had one beer and he was born and raised in Scotland. Also, he had lived for over 10 years in America and his accent wasn’t that crazy, until about 8 more drinks. But since we got thrown out of the shitty hipster club, we wandered over towards Dante’s. Well, actually we were headed to Kell’s or that underground place that had cheap drinks and welcomed drunks when we decided to stop at Dante’s for some pizza by the slice. We hears some strange punk coming from inside. The show had already started so the bouncer let us in for free (after we explained what had happened at the other club). On stage were these three Japanese girls fucking rocking out and singing about how much they liked green tea. Needless to say, we were hooked. We got a Ramones cover shortly thereafter and we fell in love. I’m not sure how much of the show we missed but we still got to see an hour of their set and it was fucking magnificent. Fucking magnificent. I’ve been obsessed ever since.

It’s funny thinking back on the shows and how I’ve seen better shows in Seattle, Salem, Eugene and Spokane during my time in Portland, but the above were my favorite 4 in the city of Portland. An amazing group of performers trying their best to make a Portland crowd not be a bunch of fucking dicks and actually enjoy themselves for once…

 

(dictated but not read)

 Two Words: Shit Sandwich

Insomnia and what cures it, for me, at least... aka music. Top 5 albums I fall asleep to...

Figured I'd give you the music right off the fucking bat in case you're one of those people that can listen to music AND do anything else, like read, at the same time. For me, music is a solitary focus only but I hear I'm a little weird on shit like that...

Well, it's Monday night (or whenever the hell it is when you are reading this), so it's time for your weekly dose of ol' Bradley Wik. I found out recently that, apparently, I was the last person on the planet still using two spaces after a sentence while typing, so I'm trying to get used to using only one. Forgive me if I add extra ones here and there. Fucking old habits die hard. I've had to delete three in these short-ass first paragraphs already...

But, last week was a fucking weird one for me. I had an enormous fucking blister on my thumb which made it damn near impossible to pick a guitar/record (bourbon helps with the pain), I tried to start going through and mixing some of the recordings I made last week only to find they were, for all intents and purposes, unusable, which pissed me off to no fucking end, so I just wanted to relax and watch some TV but football is gone, baseball hasn't yet started, so I binged seasons 5 and 6 of "VEEP" and fell in love with Jonah and Richard Splett all over again. Which was nice, for a while. Then, I had an Asperger's attack/breakdown over getting a new tattoo because I really wanted to get it this weekend but I am going to Disney World in less than a week and was paranoid about it getting infected on the water rides. But, I had already made up my mind to go get it which means I spoiled almost two entire days pouting/freaking out that I didn't get to do what I had already planned on doing even though it was entirely my fault as I had completely forgotten I was going to Disney World so soon after. It likely would've been fine anyways, but I already don't heal particularly quickly (bourbon doesn't help in this case) and generally have shit luck with vacations in the first place. It literally only delayed the new tattoo by a couple weeks but Asperger's is a bitch sometimes and loves to fuck up my days with nonsense...

But, what I really wanted to talk about today was insomnia and my top five albums to fall asleep to. So, no reason to keep blathering on about nonsensical things when I could be blathering on about semi-nonsensical things...

Insomnia and me

I think it started shortly after I turned 18. I had spent the past 9 years sharing a room with my little brother who was (and still is!) 8 1/2 years younger than me. You'd think it would be a bummer for a high schooler to share a room with an 8 year old but it was actually the opposite. My brother and I got along swimmingly (and still do). Of course, it's much easier for me to get along with someone who has excellent (and very similar) taste in music, movies, television and video games. We hung out a lot of the time and I had control of the stereo and TV, so he didn't really have many other options, but, he definitely could've hated listening to Outkast's "Stankonia" on repeat while playing NFL 2K1 (Dreamcast for life muthafuckers!) for hours on end. But, he didn't. He even choreographed one of his first karate test routines to the fucking White Stripes. I think he was 7 at the time. What can I say, kid's a badass and he knows good shit when he hears it.

Leaving home was semi-traumatic as I crave structure and routine. Leaving was the opposite (though, ironically, leaving/moving would become my new routine so staying in one place became the difficult thing) as it forced me to sleep in some place new, eat new food (food I had to cook), go to new stores, a new job, and move into a shitty, college rental house. It turned out to be amazing and I could've lived there forever with Jake and Quinn, but life had other plans for us all.  But, just uprooting everything was jarring for a kid with Asperger's. It didn't sit right and sleeping became difficult. I moved from Horicon, WI, population 3000 to a busy street in Madison, WI, population a billion as far as I was concerned. The street noise, which would eventually become my friend, was such a shock that I couldn't tune it out enough to sleep. For the first month or so in Madison, I think I slept maybe 3 or 4 hours a night. 9 years was a long normal that suddenly disappeared for me. After the initial Asperger's shock wore off, I needed to normalize it. Jake and Quinn listened to music (quite loudly, I might add) as they dozed off. It dawned on me that I could use music, my one true love, to help me adjust to new surroundings. My routine could be the wonderful music that made me feel human, comforted me and gave my life meaning. You see, with Asperger's and its lack of empathy, "human-ness" was hard to come by. I always felt an outsider, a stranger to even myself and someone who didn't understand how other humans interacted and felt so comfortable amongst each other. I didn't  get it. They clearly understood or had something I did not. But music bridged that gap. Suddenly, I could surround myself with people who had the same obsession I did. It made me feel connected to the rest of the world in a way I didn't before. It helped me understand how humans made contact amongst one another in a friendly way. I needed it to survive. Now, it could help me achieve one of the most basic human needs for survival: sleep. For years, I couldn't sleep without music playing. I may not use it every night anymore (as most nights I pass out on the couch watching TV after a handful of bourbons), but when I do, it puts me out like a baby. I can hit the sack and within 20 minutes be sleeping like a baby with the right record. Which brings me to...

My top 5 albums to fall asleep to

 

Honorable mentions: Jeff Buckley - Grace, Portishead - Eponymous, The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

 

Jeff Buckley's music has helped me in innumerable ways throughout my life, including saving it on more than one occasion, so it can occasionally be difficult to listen to passively enough to fall asleep. I've used it to soothe my soul on so many nights, but it's also kept me awake with its beauty on more than one occasion (whether by its pure musical magic or the memories it stirs in me) so I have to relegate it to honorable mention in this case.

Portishead is wonderful late night music. Unfortunately, it's also wonderful late night music for certain, R-rated things as well. So, it can't be counted on 100% to send me to slumberland as it sometimes sends me to excited land, which is not conducive to falling asleep.

The Gaslight Anthem's '59 Sound is like comfort food. It's not the most original, complex, inventive or brilliant album but it knows what it is and it does it fucking well. It's punk, Springsteen, storytelling and about as on the nose as a fucking handjob, but sometimes that's all you need.

Now, to the good stuff:

 

5. Palace Brothers - Days in the Wake

A record recommended to me by the kind (and musically-genius) folks at B-Sides records in Madison, WI. I came in for the Bonnie Prince Billy "I See a Darkness" record and they brought up his past projects and said I'd probably love this. They were right as fuck. I spent 6 months writing songs that could fit on the sequel to this album because it inspired me so much. The rawness, the honesty, the sometimes ridiculousness of it all were so beautiful. When I drink, I always play "I am a Cinematographer" and "I Send My Love to You" without fail. Just gorgeously raw music.

4. Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

This album isn't my favorite Neil Young album, it's not even in my top 3 (well, can be #3 depending on my mood and the day), but it has an effect on me that I cannot fully describe. It's calming and numbing (in a good way) and gets me out of my head in a way that is wonderful. I'll also never forget the night I drank, well, more than my fair share of wine and watched Arrested Development reruns until 3:30 am. I finally went to bed but needed to wind down from all the laughter. I popped this record on but being drunk, wasn't aware of the apparent volume. Turns out, my downstairs neighbor didn't appreciate the late night/early morning Neil Young; except maybe she did as she wrote me a letter saying to keep it down late at night unless I give her a call and invite her up for my late night "parties." If I wasn't with someone at the time, I probably would have. Other than that, I never had any interaction with my neighbors at that Portland apartment, though it was one of the last apartments that allowed smoking since it "had let people do it for so long, they couldn't ask them to stop now. Besides, they had extensive renovations to do (read: the apartments were shitty) so they'll deal with it then."

3. Joanna Newsom - Y's

This is such a strange album for me. My Asperger's brain struggles to figure this out. I don't have any clue how to make music like this and I keep trying to figure out how this came into existence. To me, it's like a crazy math riddle that I don't know the formula to. But, I love it. I love it so much. This vinyl is one of my most well-worn/loved. The CD didn't leave my Sony boombox for months and months on end when it first entered. I listened to this album incessantly on my iPod on the train to work when I live in NYC. Joanna has played some of my favorite live shows that I've ever seen. She truly is an artist in every sense of the word, and if you don't own the vinyl version of this, by God, sell your fucking children (or $20 or $30 worth of something else) to get it. You won't regret it. But, make sure you also get the CD so you can listen as you doze off to "Monkey and Bear." I rarely make it past "Monkey and Bear" when I play this late at night.

2. Bjork - Vespertine

"Homogenic" is far too upbeat and wonderous to fall asleep to. No, this is the album you need to whisk you away into a magical night of slumber and dreams. The majestic tone of this album set against those jagged but hypnotic soundscapes are just too much to fathom. Unlike "Y's" where my brain is trying to figure out the math, this just breaks my brain and it shuts off, in the best possible way when you're trying to turn off the day. If I make it to "Undo," I can't help but let a tear slip despite my eyes being tightly closed. If I could ever make a song like that (or anything on this album) I would immediately retire knowing I'd never achieve such heights again. Luckily for us, Bjork wasn't done reaching heights.

1. Stars - Set Yourself on Fire

This album puts me to sleep in the sadness, most nostalgic way possible. Back in Madison, WI when I was just figuring out the nocturnal magic of music, this was one of the first albums that lulled me to sleep. The reminiscing of high school times, which I was fresh out of, was too much, set against the pop-electronic rock concept while handing off singing duties/doing duets with an equally talented female was something I always wanted to dabble in. This album has all the teenage emotions a young person can handle: fleeting love, anger, lust, sadness, the feeling that somehow this is the best it will ever get, ambition, hope, youthful regret, the false permanence, underage drunkenness, etc. This album is likely not as good as I think it is (one of the 10-15 greatest albums ever made) but it means that much to me. I don't know why. It's just one of those time and place albums that is now so embedded and such a sense memory for all the emotions and experiences that time represents that it is indelibly a part of me. There's a sadness and a joy and a comfort in that. I like that this album keeps all that for me. I don't have to forget. I don't have to carry it with me. This album takes care of all that for me. I just have to place it, close the lid and let the lasers do the rest. That little piece of plastic keeps all that shit at a distance but within reach. God bless it. Thank you Stars for the countless nights that I've enjoyed sleep when I otherwise couldn't. It's a blessing and I cannot repay you enough for what you've given me. I once collapsed at work from lack of sleep, but then I found this album and it literally changed my life. Only a small number of records have done that and these sad, reminiscing kids from Canada did it. Congratulations. I'll probably die with this record on. Or "Born to Run" or "Bold as Love" or "Blood on the Tracks" or "Tonight's the Night" or "Grace" but it's crazy "Set Yourself on Fire" is even in that conversation...

(dictated but not read)

New Music Sucks, Part I. Mumford & Sons Ruined My Will to Live. Well, Almost...

New Music Sucks, Part I:  Fuck Mumford & Sons...

            Sitting here, enjoying a fine glass of Scotch(Glenmorangie, if you’re wondering, even though you probably weren’t.  It’s the nectar of the gods, brought down to earth for our sipping pleasure and is surely the finest beverage available to a mere mortal) and ruminating on why I hate new music so much, I have come to a few different conclusions:  One, music today IS actually much more terrible than it used to be(my most likely candidate, but all in due time, my dear, all in due time).  Two,  is what I call the “Bitter Old Man Syndrome.” In this scenario I have been completely jaded by my Classic Rock upbringing(Thanks Mom! Seriously though, that is not meant to be sarcastic.  I actually am thankful I had her Vinyl to flip through instead of obsessing over Blackstreet’s “No Diggity,” which I did do in equal measure to be honest.  And, man, nothing gets a party going like “No Diggity” and “California Love.”  I am all-encompassingly a child of the Nineties).  And Three,  maybe, just maybe, it’s actually pretty good and I would like it if I gave it half a chance, which to be honest, maybe I haven’t…  Well, maybe I have,  fuck, I don’t know.  I totally fell for the Arcade Fire’s first album “Funeral” as a savior of modern Rock N’ Roll(as proclaimed by Pitchforkmusic.com, now just pitchfork.com, which has gone the way of Popular Music and sucks my hairy, sweaty nutsack, but more on that later, if I still have the strength, which I probably won’t), the heir apparent to Bruce and all the Holiness that He stood for, the record that I, as a Rock N’ Roll purist, have been waiting for, for many years.  I used to walk around Madison, Wisconsin with my Walkman/Discman, extra CD’s in the pouch of my Green Bay Packers hoodie, listening to “Funeral” over and over again as I walked through James Madison Park(or Tenney Park since it had footbridges which seemed very poetic and beautiful to me at the time, though, Tenney Park was usually my Bob Dylan’s “Love and Theft” walking route).  Full disclosure, the other CD’s in my aforementioned Packers hoodie pouch were the Stars “Set Yourself on Fire” which I loved for the romance and nostalgia it brought to High School and teenage relationships(being eighteen at the time,  they were of the utmost importance to me as that was all I had in regards to women) and Death Cab for Cutie’s “Transatlanticism” which had the song “We Looked Like Giants” which was was sort of an anthem at the time seeing as back in the tiny shit town I grew up in, the only places to make-out proper with a girl were parks and scarcely driven country roads, so, we spent a lot of time in the back of whatever shitty car we could buy with five hundred bucks, trying desperately for a lay, though in my case, mostly settling for some good tongue and a tit grab, such is life… 

            So, anyway, let’s start with Theory One:  Music today IS actually much more terrible than it used to be.  To forewarn you, this is not going to be a rant about Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus, we’ll save that for another day as there have always been crappy pop artists being exploited(and having their lives thusly destroyed), though handsomely rewarded as well, by music industry types for third quarter returns and bottom lines etc. etc. and on and on.  This is going to focus a bit more on the bands that are supposed to be “Good,” the new generation’s “Dylan’s” or whatever the fuck and so on and so forth…

Up until about 2007-2008 I really believed in the new generation of bands, they brought such hope and beautiful music to my little lonely world, which was now based out of a tiny, dirty 400-500 sq. ft. one bedroom apartment which I shared with my girlfriend at the time and a good friend of mine, who unbeknownst to me, was a bit of a Hippie(read:  didn’t use deodorant, didn’t clean a whole lot, liked to cook couscous at two in the morning, pass out drunk and leave the rest under his bed til the flies got so extreme in the apartment we left the windows open in the wintertime so they would leave of their own volition because you couldn’t possibly kill them all, you’d die trying, which I almost did on several occasions) which I wasn’t a huge fan of to say the least, in New York City.  My favorite bands at the time, not counting what I call the “Givens”like Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Jimi Hendrix, The Who, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles,  etc., were the Hold Steady(about whom I nearly creamed myself every time I got to see them play live in the City or in Brooklyn), Iron & Wine(who also introduced me to Band of Horses when I saw them open for Iron & Wine at the House of Blues Chicago.  I promptly fell in love with Band of Horses first record “Everything All the Time,” only to fall back out of love by the second.  Oh, all those crazy, drunken one-record-stands, I loved you all) and Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Palace/Palace Brothers/Will Oldham.  A little side note here, I listen to music in a bit of an OCD type way:  when I hear a band I love, I immediately go out, buy all their records(I remember hounding the guys at B-Side records, the best record store in Madison, WI, for “Days in the Wake”for weeks and weeks until they finally got me a copy, probably just to shut me up) and listen to them non-stop for months and months on end until I know every lyric, every riff; or until I find another album to carry my fancy for the time being.  I’m also terribly easy to distract.  I moved around a lot back then, so I could only manage to carry with me, in my fourth-grade, personalized gym bag, with “Brad Wik”sewn on the side next to “Horicon Marshmen,” our team mascot(which is not nearly as cool as it might sound, or could be.  One might imagine some awe-inspiring mutant created from the swamp, I mean marsh, that would rip your spine out Mortal Kombat II style just for kicks on a Friday Night.  A being so wretched that  all those who might dare cross it would be filled with and learn the meaning of true terror...  But its really just a man standing next to some cattails),  a select few CD’s.  There must have been a two year span where all I listened to was:

1.              “Boys and Girls in America” – the Hold Steady, I couldn’t get enough of this.  Thin Lizzy type heavy riffs, a guy from the Midwest, stories of being bored and doing drugs, it sounded a lot like my childhood.  I loved it…

2.              “O” – Damien Rice, a beautiful record.  My favorite memory of Damien Rice is when he finally came to the States to tour.  I remember watching the opening band and me and my buddy were so enamored with this girl just sitting on a wooden chair on the side of the stage.  We made countless lewd comments, as boys are meant to do, about her throughout the Frames’(opening band) set wondering why she was sitting on the stage and not our cocks, etc., etc.  Then when Damien came out we realized it was Lisa Hannigan, which we knew from the liner notes and photos in the CD jacket; and also because she was singing with Damien Rice.  Lisa became the pinnacle of womanly beauty for me and my buddy for years after that.  Not because of her beautiful, sensual voice, it was mainly for her looks…

3.              “The Creek Drank the Cradle” and “Our Endless Numbered Days” – Iron & Wine, my obsession with Iron & Wine was not unlike a steamy romance:  there were years of unbridled love and passion, then I suddenly realized it had become everything I hated.  “Kiss Each Other Clean”is complete shit and I wish I could have my twelve dollars back and wipe that record from my conscience.  I’ll never forget what we had when it was beautiful, but I will never forget the damage that was done in the later years either…

4.              “Grace” – Jeff Buckley, I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful this record is or how much it means to me.  In my more drug-addled days, the bad ones, not the good ones, I kept hoping “Hallelujah” could save me.  And, in a way I suppose, it did…

5.              “The Low End Theory” – A Tribe Called Quest, I was late to the party with this one, but could not get enough when I finally made it there…

6.              “Set Yourself on Fire” – Stars, which was my main “depressed” listen throughout the 00’s.

7.              “Y’s” -  Joanna Newsom, I am still not sure why I became immensely obsessed with this record but I did and I love it to this day.  I’ve even pilfered some lyrics from this for my own music…

8.              “The College Dropout” – Kanye West, maybe it was because he was from the Midwest too, or maybe just because the songs are fucking awesome.  I’ve loved this record since the day I heard “Through the Wire.”  I particularly love the memory of going to LA with my other buddy from Wisconsin(the other member of the “Lisa Hannigan is the best thing that ever happened to Women, and therefore all Men who are lucky enough to have seen her” fan club) and just blaring this album, and reciting lyrics and just generally being obnoxious to the point that our LA friend’s shitty, coked-out, ridiculously good looking neighbors(he lived in West Hollywood) hated us…

So, you see, I owned and loved, many records from this Millennium and was all about the future of Music.  Seeing as I myself was a musician, this was also very self-serving, but nonetheless, I fully believed that music was “Getting better all the time.”  And though there was still the terrible Good Charlotte, Shitty Older, political Green Day, Puddle of Mudd, Nickleback, Creed(fuck, there was a lot of shit back then) of the early to mid 2000’s, the new millennium had brought us the height of Radiohead and Bjork and Wilco, dominating the radio and print.  Rolling Stone was actually reporting on good music for once, not just giving the new Britney Spears record three and a half stars.  These were exciting times.  I actually enjoyed life for a few years, instead of being a bitter, old twat and only speaking of things that I hate(like now, if you haven’t noticed).  Then, it happened…  In 2009, my world was turned upside down, I couldn’t even figure out what had happened at the outset, but I knew it wasn’t good.  The terrible thing which could never be undone, and which ruined everything for me(until it was ruined even further a few years later…More on that to come) happened… I am talking, of course, of the first time I heard Mumford and Sons…  For the record, I am not sure I have ever heard an entire Mumford song start to finish, but that certainly doesn’t negate it’s inherent shittiness; I have never watched an entire game of soccer but I am 100% sure that its terrible, and is poisoning our youth with lies of mediocrity, kicking a ball hither and yon for 90 minutes with NOTHING INTERESTING EVER happening, but, alas, we’ll probably get around to soccer another day, we’re not quite there yet.

To put it simply, and relatively mildly, in my opinion at least, I FUCKING HATE MUMFORD AND SONS.  But seeing as I rarely put anything simply, or mildly, let’s go into it further.  First off, I would like to clarify that listening to, and liking, Mumford and Sons does not make you a bad person.  After extensive soul searching, and in a great effort to better myself and generally become less angry and cynical, I have forced myself to finally ascribe to this realization.  I used to spend hours and hours hating people who liked shitty music/movies/books/art etc. and it was a grand waste of my very limited amount of time, emotion and energy on Earth.  Plus, it generally just made me a douche.  So, there you go, I have accomplished at least something with my life, however small and meaningless, seeing as it was something I never should have done to begin with, but there it is.  I DO, however, believe that the act of liking something as shitty as Mumford and Sons is ruining music today, at least what little is left of music, with the record companies killing most of the industry already.  But more on that in a bit, first, let’s focus on Mumford.  I have an all-encompassing, indescribable(even to myself) emotional repulsion to this band(I’m sick of even just typing their name, so I’m going to stop).  They have somehow come to villainize everything that makes me sick, everything I hate about new music and just everything in general that displeases me about the world in relation to music and hipsters and the whole lot of it.  Now, there is no way to accurately quantify an emotion, which is the main reason why the whole thing remains shrouded in mystery even to myself.  But I knew, from the first note of whatever terrible excuse for a song it was that I first heard, that I could not stand this band, that they shouldn’t exist in this world and do so only to torment me with all their terrible music and faces and banjos.  I suppose, that if I really wanted to, I could choose to live in an alternate reality(as we all do in our own way anyhow) in which, since I almost never read music news or pay attention to pretty much anything happening in the world around me anymore, Sports excepted, M*mf*rd *nd S*ns doesn’t exist.  I rarely, if ever, go to bars that might play one of their wretched songs, associate with no one, since everyone I know has undoubtably heard me rant and rave of my hatred towards them,  who would dare mention them(fearing I would launch into it once again) and could generally live a very M*mf*rd *nd S*ns -free life.  But I don’t.  I instead, and probably unwisely, force myself to deal with it, and by deal with it, I mean just be angry about it all the time. 

           One of the things that has always interested me is our ability, as humans, to immediately identify things that we dislike.  It happens all the time, and on a wide variety of topics.  We meet people, whom we’ve never seen before, and immediately don’t like them, based on nothing real, at least not yet.  We see food that instantly turns our stomach.  We identify books and movies we won’t like without ingesting any of the content.  But how?  And why?  It seems the consensus of people much, much smarter than I, not that that is a terribly difficult accomplishment, but nonetheless, is that our brains are far more capable than we give them credit for and are able to instantly process thousands of bits of data, weigh them within the context of our past experiences and likes/dislikes etc., and come up with an answer before we have even begun to actively “think” about whatever it might be we are forming an opinion of.  It’s happened to me many times, and I’m sure its happened to you as well.  You meet someone, instantly disliked or even hated them, only to find out that…  You were right.  They are indeed a terrible person, who is abusive, a drunk, a cheater, a liar or even just generally a douche, like me.  It happens when you try new foods, like oysters, which I knew I would hate, until I tried them, and then I really fucking despised oysters.  Now, some people like to think that I am predisposing myself to react unfavorably, but I know in my heart of hearts, that I am being true to myself and that, yes, oysters are just terribly disgusting.  This is all somehow trying to explain what has happened in regards to that band which I have learned to loathe.  Maybe, it was because I immediately heard the strum of a banjo, which drives me absolutely fucking insane(banjos are not inherently evil, they can be used for good.  Go see a good bluegrass band or Steve Martin or Steve Martin playing bluegrass, which is actually quite good.  But if you’re just too lazy to learn how to properly play the banjo then FUCK YOU, don’t play it).  Maybe it was the whiny, terrible, trying to be affected and therefore sound sadder than it really is, bullshit voice which sang whatever crappy song I first heard.  Maybe it was the poorly written, lazy, awful lyrics that I was hearing.  Maybe it was the dumbass stomping I was hearing.  Chances are it was all of it.  And I knew, even before I knew that I knew, that M*mf*rd *nd S*ns was the worst thing to happen to music…  And that we could never, as a society, both musically and socially, sink lower than this…  That is until I heard… Fun….  (To note, the first period is from their stupid fucking name, the other three being an ellipsis, and seeing as I didn’t go to school for writing I am not completely sure if I am supposed to factor their period in and just add the proper punctuation at the end or count it as part of the ellipsis, but either way, fuck them for their ridiculous fucking name.)


          Part II to follow soon...