The Furnaces Are Lit – Commence Shuffle

I am in deep.  Deep in these headphones, much like someone else who posts here, in a land I seldom linger: the land of the full album.  Actually, a few full albums, from the same artist.  The Fiery Furnaces.  In wine tasting lingo this would be a vertical tasting, one in which you taste the same house, same varietal, over several vintages.  My interest was piqued when another writer here foretold intentions of  attending a future FF show.  I own most all of the Furnaces’ releases, save a few recent ones since Bitter Tea, though I believe one is live, and the other is soon to be released.  I could be off here, so feel free to set me straight.  Since I own them all, one would have assumed that I have listened to these “albums”, but yet I haven’t, and therefore we find my situation with all its cosmic jaunts.  See, for the majority of the last decade dedicated to musical listening,  I have lived in shuffle, whether at work or at home.   I’d say that besides the random listen to a live show, ITunes is set to shuffle, and honestly, its my best, and only slightly my worst friend.

I stand by the shuffle like a gay republican does the Christ Fellowship.  My shuffle and I live by illogical tenets cloaked in secrecy; though I am neither gay nor driven by pop spirituals with a driving bass and a female lead(well, maybe the female lead. Ok, the driving bass, too).  Those enthralled by the pop spiritual  should love it for all it is, I will pass.  I’ll take my gospel, my Gregorian and  Buddhist Sutras/Chants.  Chamber Music tickles me silly.  My fondness of bluegrass stems not from spiritual traditions found commonly within, but from instrumentation and harmony, and that old-time story telling tradition.   Hell, even the Grateful Dead and Robert Hunter understood, like Joesph Campbell before, that stories worth retelling will again be told.  And should–through my shuffle tab.

Shuffle is my own version of the “law of attraction”.  More often than not, shuffle plays the correct song at the appropriate moment in my life.  Examples aside, Shuffle in my life is an embodiment of synchronicity.  When single CD players were trumped by disc changers, i got one. A three. Then a five. I never moved into the world of 100+ disc changers:  at that point I was in school, relatively poor, yet still music rich. CD’s never stayed in the trays for more than a song or two, with conversations and inspiration springing from those sessions of boundless play.  And, musically, my play never stands still.  You can will your mood, in part, through equanimity; if you listen to enough music, your player of choice (shuffle enabled) will complement.

In iTunes you now have the ‘Genius” option. This fancy new iTunes Genius which Bruce so rightly expounded on, is total dreck.  I’ve run it through its paces.  Genius and Shuffle must be based on some algorithm, which if analyzed  shows neither randomness nor synchronicity, only some human tendency to find patterns in everything we see or experience.  Sure.  We can go there, but for those that do, you suck and are not fun.  We should never play together.

The Furnaces–I believe they are lit.  The heat is on.  When a tune from them percolates the speakers and fills the house, I always have to go see who it is.  Same for the likes of Akron/Family (though not as much recently), Midlake, Fleet Foxes, etc.  Any of these so called “indie rock” bands.  The Fiery Furnaces come off  as more avant garde, as do many in the genre. (I’m not one for categories, though: I’ve got that tab turned off in my ITunes.) My friend and artist Popi Feeldz compares their “tonal qualities to The Residents, but more accessible.”  This makes perfect sense to me.  The Residents make my mind bleed, and when they shuffle by, I almost always know who it is, as with the Sun City Girls, The Swans, etc, again.  Where the Furnaces win out here is with the story telling.  Some of the songs come off as music worked over a cut/pasted short story audio book.  Hints of “Isis” or “Lily, Rosemary, & the Jack of Hearts”.  Prose weaving in and out of electrons,  drums, whistles, beats, pianos, moogs – seriously, some of this stuff has to come off a computer or keyboard – which at one time would have crawled my skin, only here i appreciate it.  With the former bands mentioned, The Residents, SCG, Swans, i have always gone there for the music, the edge, tension.  Any tension in the FF’s seems trivial compared to the individual compositions.

Each album continues to reaffirm the FF’s as a band, and so I see the FF’s being able to create more of the tension I often seek..  I feel like The Residents moved in and out of this throughout there career. Wow. In need of the newer FF material at this point. Good thing.

In all, this vertical tasting has reaffirmed the belief in my shuffle. While everything from ‘Widow City’ to ‘Bitter Tea’ is accessible,  I dont yearn, yet, for a whole album take. I need bits and pieces, glimpses at musics past and present along the way, along the day.  Tension and release.  As I finish this piece (did I actually say anything), I will admit I am sonically lost in “Rehearsing My Choir”.  This might be the best vintage of The Fiery Furnaces.  At least for my palate. Young tannins, with a sonic whole head feel; should age nicely over a few decades in you player.

HT

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The Miley Intervention, A Hard Listen

I can’t believe I’m doing this.

So I’ve been in my headphones again, this time plugged into my daughters iPod. I have a 1st generation iPhone and the adapter for my AKG’s doesn’t fit the top.  I have to carve out the plastic on most plugs, but this is gold plated metal, so, no dice.  So I found her new iPod in the office and figured, “what the hell, why not?”

Let’s cut to the chase:  it was a birthday present, and I had to put some tunes on it,  all we had that was child-friendly on our machine was some Jack Johnson and Colbie Caillat.  Nothing else seemed okay.  I’d planned on getting her an iTunes gift card but didn’t, so I went online and bought some Hannah Montana.

There, I did it.  I said it, $325 worth of counseling later.  Acceptance is the first step to recovery, or something like that.

I bought M-I-L-E-Y  C-Y-R-U-S. I bought Mitchell Musso.  I bought Taylor Swift.  I bought Selena Gomez.  I even bought the damn Jonas Brothers.  I EXCEEDED my weekly beer budget with bubblegum pop.  So I figured I should listen to it.

Not that I haven’t heard it.  Radio Disney is a staple in carpool, which is how I knew what I needed to buy her.  I’ve watched her sing along to these songs in the rear view mirror.  It’s not what I would have picked, but its what I’ve got.  Parenting seems to have its share of compromise, just like growing up, and I would rather her enjoy music, good or bad, than not.

So I plugged into the bottom of her purple iPod and spun it to Jack Johnson.  Jack is all about making sure you feel at home.  He wants you in the room, wants you to sing along or smile when you don’t know the words.  You never even have to lift your hands when you dance to it, just keep your hands low, maybe holding the top of your solo cup while the groove works its way from your shoulders to your feet.  You’ve got to love Jack, unless you just generally hate people.

I felt good about that one, that’s okay stuff for her to listen to.  Nothing sketchy in the lyrics, nothing too suggestive.  And I can listen to it, too.

But I don’t know if she will, and really, it’s the Disney feed into which she is dialed.  So I rolled it over to the Artists and scrolled down to Miley.  It seems almost perverse to put it on the headphones.  You can hear it all in here: back up vocals, clear separation of rhythm and lead guitars, over dubs, foot squeaks, volume pushes, spittle–everything.  Hannah, the Fraud, will be exposed in seconds.

Man, I wish.  She is for real.  Guitar tight, bass reliable but with a bounce, she’s singing about LA.  “Party In The USA” is ‘Miley Goes To LA’, all about feeling awkward around stars, hearing a good tune (Jay-Z), and letting your body move to the DJ.

I got my hands/ they’re playin’ my song /and I know I’m gonna be okay/ nodding my head like “yea”/ moving my hips like “yea”/it a party in the USA!

She nervously contemplates, “Welcome to the world of fame excess/whoa am I gonna fit in?”

That’s the question, really, in the world of ‘fame excess’, are our kids going to fit in?  It struck me why she’s such a big deal, and I can’t believe I just took this for granted:  She’s got our kids, and Disney knows it.  Hannah Montana was all about being a kid, a kid star, maybe, but a kid.  Being triumphant in a complicated world.  But not complicated by anything specific, just complicated. (There’s always gonna be another mountain/I’m always gonna want to make it move) or (do me a favor and tell me what you think about me/tell me what you want to this toe/go out on a limb and just be)(nothings out of reach, so dream, dream, dream).  Big, emotional, but, at least, personal.  That’s all about to change for Miley and with her, for our kids.

There was the tour, when Hannah handed the torch to Miley, the photographs, and now the new album cut, a patriotic, self-deprecating anthem to her new, nearly ubiquitous star power.  And with her goes a crowd, documented through ratings, album sales, concert tickets–a quantifiable group of fans that will follow her into commercial success.  That’s, at least, my take on it, and it’s from that perspective that I came to the conclusion that Party In The USA is not a good song.

Because, really, she can sing, and she can shake some Star Salt on a song make it taste okay. This song is about transitions.  It’s about moving from home, community (if you can call Nashville that) into something scary and exciting.  Something unfamiliar, a party with different older (“so famous”) people, and knowing you’re going to be okay.  But Miley is the shepherd, she has the access (her TV show works that angle too, not that I’ve watched it or anything.)  So what’s to keep our kids from wanting it, what’s to keep them from thinking it will be theirs?

There are other kids’ songs on this iPod, but they are garbage compared to Miley Cyrus.  Cheap one-hit blurbs about being “stuck on you/running on empty” (Mitchell Musso) or ranting eunuchs going on about being “Paranoid”, its benign in comparison to the empire that Miley will become.  Our daughters can learn to dance from her, learn to date and cope with loss from her; if she is smart (and she seems to be), then she will be the next generation’s Madonna; if she’s not, then she is at least a Britney or a Lindsey Lohan.  They are following her from Nashville to LA, from Billy Ray to some as-yet-to-be-vetted lifestyle.  We don’t get to pick it.

I figure that there is a chance that somebody reading this might be thinking, “Yea, Miley Cyrus is a child superstar, kids like her, that’s pretty obvious, so what?”  Its relevant because I believe we will get to watch her grow up Hollywood-style over the next few years.  I would love to think that her handlers, knowing the grip she has on the market, would use it for the better.  Let her join Americorps, work in inner city or in a rural community or New Orleans or something like that.  But, as the photo above suggests and the content of her new songs indicate, she poised to become another Jessica Simpson/Britney Spears glitter sensation although on a completely different scale.  She is probably bigger than anything we have seen in the past.

It is relevant because we are aware enough to know that if our daughters listen to Miley music, look at Miley internet, watch Miley TV or buy Miley merchandise, then Miley is part of the conversation.  She holds some sway, just because she is always there, ubiquitous in the world of little girls.  It is foolish to think you can ignore her.  Even if your kid isn’t into her, everybody else at school is, and they learn from her. In my case, my daughter is on the tail-end of her audience: she is 8, and Miley’s crowd is teen-aged.  So my 8-year-old, if she continues to listen and watch, will have to grapple with Hannah’s ascension into a staged adulthood before she is prepared to understand the difference between Hannah Montana the child an Miley Cyrus the young woman.  And the very nature of the act requires them to preserve her youth in order to draw along the younger audience–my daughter and kids her age, in fact.  But, at the same time, Miley will have to grow up in ways that attempt to reach an older, untapped audience, as well.  And they are interested in different, more mature things.  I don’t know how I feel about that.

It is relevant because Miley Cyrus is for real, as real as teen idols can be in the world of marketing.  She’s bigger than Madonna.  And the kids will be watching.

BL

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Rock Music, Remember?–A Hard Listen

I’m wearing headphones, the kids are asleep, and its quiet inside.  But inside these ear cups (some big, open-backed AKG’s I picked up last year) I’ve got something rare: its rock, and it’s got rigor, it’s got substance, and its loud. I’m not one for lyrics, I get wrapped up in a tune and a beat when there is one to be had, and I forget about the rest, because, ususally, there isn’t much to hear.  But these guys inside my earcups put the words to the music and they dance.  Or wrestle, and shout, and kick, and spit.

I’ve been listening to the Raconteurs Consolers of The Lonely album for months now, I keep waiting to get sick of it, for the tunes to turn trite or the lyrics to reveal something missing, but it won’t give up.  No, it keeps revealing itself to me.  It’s got rigor, it’s got substance, and it kicks–and it kicks hard.  But I’ve got these headphones on, and, I just realized there are tracks behind the tracks, a whole other quiet background layer that weaves in and out of the album.  Kids, production commentary, and snippets cut in and out of songs.  It’s back there if you want it, behind all of that music.

These guys just wear out their gear:  bass cabinets pushed to edge and the guitar is just smeared through the air—but with intense control, keyboard drawing the groove through the tight, heavy snare and thumping kick drum.  It is just loud and heavy, and they never let go of it.  There are points where there are multi-part harmonies, parts where drums and strings are in different meters but tight as a knot, parts where the song seems to decay and other parts where the song seems to evaporate, but it snaps back after it stretches out.  And how about some nice, clean acoustic guitar intros?  You can hear the pick on the strings and the sound of the fingers on the fretboard and something else going on behind it.  Somebody walking around the room, or a belt buckle hitting the back of the body or something.  Whatever it is, it makes the album a rawness that occasionally seems unedited, even though it is sharply produced and deliberate.

There is defiance in it that belongs in Rock, in the music and in the words.  It thinks hard, it’s sarcastic and ironic, it makes commentary–it talks about things that rock and art should talk about.  They even sing about the color black.

If there is a hope for a new tomorrow, it is that somebody still remembers how to write rock music.  Real music, real lyrics.  Its got some throwback to it, and some of it seems like it could have been written in the early seventies.  But that’s whats to love about the album.  It is is composed, played hard as hell, and has some words to back it up.  It sounds like music sounded back when people still believed that music made a difference.  Its has been years since rock and roll has been played on the radio.  So long that radios may not  really deserve it.

I don’t know if a Bose Wave radio or an iPod dock is even capable of making some of these noises.  Headphones:  a must with a digital signal. But as rock goes, I would step out and suggest that this is worthy of a vinyl buy, if you are set up for that.    Move your coffee table and slide a big chair in front of some fat, wood grained speakers, set the needle, dial it up so that your neighbors will notice, and get in.  Music still matters, and a few people are still making it like they mean it. – BL

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