I’m smiling big on the drive to work today. And I’m listening to Voxtrot’s latest EP and I’m not caring about anything, because this album is feeling like Xanax to me, only without the comedown. And I’m daydreaming about buying a hot-air balloon

Austin, TX’s Voxtrot are gaining critical acclaim despite having yet to release a full-length album.or maybe pulling over and making myself a picnic or something. And I’m wondering if these five dudes know a secret they’re not telling the rest of us. I’m wondering what could that secret be, and why wouldn’t they let me in on it? I’m thinking it’s because they don’t know who I am, probably.

I’m already planning on adding them to MySpace and sending them stalker messages. I’m thinking I hope I can meet these guys and drink beer with them. I’m thinking maybe we can talk about Vonnegut or Palahniuk. Or maybe buy lollipops and go to the beach. Build sandcastles.

I’m wondering why don’t these guys sound like they’re from Austin. Where’s the edge. This is indie pop, I’m thinking. I’m thinking of Frank Black and Belle & Sebastian or something. I’m smiling because they are rhyming work with work. I’m smiling because these songs are so divine. And I’m smothered in syrupy hooks and probably almost driving into other cars because I’m too happy to pay attention.

I’m not caring about that.

I’m wondering why the beginning of “Four Long Days” sounds familiar. And then I’m turning it back to track 1. I’m hoping it doesn’t end this time.

I’m almost to work and I’m wishing I wasn’t, because I’m feeling pretty blissful. I’m wishing there are more than five songs on this EP. I’m wishing and wishing.

• Leave a comment... (1)

Once upon a time, not too long ago, in an enchanted land somewhere in middle America (hint: Cleveland, Ohio) lived two humble boys. The two humble boys soon discovered that they shared a fierce (perhaps fanatical) love for music. So the two humble boys formed a band, which they decided to call Bears. The two humble boys began playing music and decided to make the most beautiful bedroom pop record ever written. They released this album of exquisite, morose, dreamy pop music before they ever even played a live show.

The two humble boys sang quiet, delicate songs that were similar to Simon & Garfunkel or Belle & Sebastian. The songs that they sang were very sad, but they were also very beautiful. So intensely beautiful, in fact, that when the two humble boys sang them, the entire world slowed to a standstill and every living being in existence was left hypnotized; overtaken with bliss.

Meanwhile, all across the land, many music lovers happened upon the songs made by the two humble boys by way of a new invention called “the internet”. The music lovers rejoiced, for they had never heard anything so magnificent. One by one, the music lovers fell in love with the songs — praising them on their blogs and to their friends. Sometimes even emailing the two humble boys with their praise and adoration.

Naturally, the music lovers wanted to see the two humble boys play the songs in person. And as it turns out, the two humble boys had just recently decided to play their first show. Imagine the music lovers’ delight when the two humble boys walked onstage not by themselves, but with four others! The two humble boys had recruited three more humble boys and one humble girl to ensure that the songs they were to play sounded so majestic that even God himself would be left gasping for breath from their heavenly melodies.

And so it was. The five humble boys and one humble girl had begun their quest to immerse the land in the sweet, sweet transcendence of their songs. Their journey would continue until the end of time, and mankind would live in euphoric ecstasy for all eternity.

• Leave a comment... (1)

There’s this band from Alaska with a weird name. And they recently released an incredibly delicious album of hypnotic and danceable indie rock. And it’s one of the greatest albums I have heard this year.

Ladies & dudes, meet Portugal. The man.

They sound like they are from Alaska (In other words kind of cold and isolated). Also, divine and mesmerizing — like miles and miles of desolate, snow-covered Alaskan landscape.

Portugal. The Man’s new album is sure to make plenty of the year’s best-of lists.For example, they made a song called “Elephants” for the album (which is called Waiter: You Vultures by the way) and it’s maybe the best song of the year. It begins calmly enough, drenched in reverb — like something in a David Lynch or Tarantino film — but that’s just the beginning. Then come the barbaric, pounding drums which when paired with the song’s grinding guitars accelerate your heartbeat and raise your pulse and leave you gasping for breath and maybe you’re dead now. And finally it explodes into the chorus like a massive army of tanks and war machines invading an underground wasteland of misguided rebels.

On the chorus of “Horse Warming Party” voices keep chanting “born and raised [insert possibility here]” as if they’ve become stuck in time, going through each conceivable scenario. (Maybe that’s the one. Or that. Or that.)

“Tommy” is kind of like a train clammering on the traintracks. “Chicago” goes back and forth between hammering skulls and dancing ballerinas. “Stables & Chairs” is calming and soothing and relaxing.

This album is serene. It’s mellow, it’s androgynous. It’s shrouded with dancy hooks and smothered in a punkish gleam. It’s the kind of album where every song sounds connected. The kind of album that makes you turn the volume knob to the right; makes you fall in love; makes you drive fast or in slow motion or both. It’s the kind of album that leaves you begging for more.

And I am begging for more. Like a true beggar. I’m standing on the corner of the street saying “Lady can you spare some Portugal The Man” and “Hey dude can I get some more Portugal The Man” and they’re looking at me with a giant WTF painted on their faces but I don’t care because that’s what this album has done to me.

• Leave a comment... (3)

Sometimes musicians can do no wrong. Thousand of critics and fans alike cite the likes of Thom Yorke, Robert Pollard, Sufjan Stevens and others as demigods of their craft.

But there are those who can do wrong. It turns out Omar Rodriguez and Cedrix Bixler fall into this category.

It pains me to say it, and it probably makes you mad too, but The Mars Volta sucks. This is masturbatory guitarist narcissicm to the fullest extent — the Yngwie of indie rock.

The Mars Volta, in typical hipster attire. The band’s brand of masturbatory, self-indulgent prog rock brings Yngwie Malmsteen to mind.I suppose there might be someone who likes this. Like that guy we all know who’s always doped up and never misses a chance to drop six hits of acid. You know — that guy who thinks he’s an orange now.

We all loved At The Drive-In. And how couldn’t we, with those studly afros, crackhead performance antics (which were so much more hypnotically suave than Thom Yorke’s drug-addled tremors, I might add), and an effortless fusion of melodic and hardcore influence. This band was beautiful. Like watching a colossal tornado destroy a small midwestern town in super slow motion. Breathtaking, you know?

And then they split. Into two species of the opposite spectrum. The very two species who initially bred to form this magnificent creature of sound in the first place. While most of the band took their radio-friendly hooks and vocals to form Sparta, Cedric and Omar couldn’t manage to let go of their giant egos and instead started playing… prog rock?? WTF? There is nothing more annoying than prog rock (until someone starts playing prog country, in which case we are all doomed to an eternity of hell on earth). The term prog by definition should mean horrible. Or megalomania at least.

While the initial Mars Volta releases were tolerable (and in some rare cases actually good), they have since evolved into some kind of terrifying egomaniacal space mutant destroying otherwise good songs by stretching them to infinity and leaving them to fester in their own urine and feces and boring guitardom. To be fair, Bixler’s vocals are still pretty good — it’s mostly Rodriguez who stagnates these promising beginnings into the stale, drudging, ear-piercing wreckage they become.

After listening to Sparta and The Mars Volta separately, it becomes pretty easy to hear the reason for their prior successes and their neoteric failures.

It’s that simple — like a yin yang.

• Leave a comment... (21)

I don’t know how rare it is for weirdo hipsters like me to be smitten with sports. I’m guessing the rarity is parallel to an early Modest Mouse vinyl. Or something. My love for sports is just about as great as my love for music. Also, just so you know, I do own some early Modest Mouse vinyl. And just like I do Modest Mouse, I like sports (if women aren’t involved, of course).

Honestly, ever since I was a kid I’ve been kind of sports geek. Minus those teen-angst years, of course — when I denounced the NFL in favor of Slipknot and Hot Topic (yeah, that includes the ONE year the Falcons were good). Over the years I’ve somehow managed to meld my tattooed arms; my stretched earlobes; my fauxhawk and every other element that puts me on the hipster Bingo chart with a career designing sports pages for one of the biggest newspapers in the country. It’s like my own personal peanut butter & jelly vitality.

So yeah, that leads me to the home-run derby. It’s on right now — as I write this in fact. When I was younger (back before all these latin americans invaded the league with their gonzalezy names; when the “foreigners” in the league looked like Jose Conseco) I always rooted for Griffey, Jr. Those days are gone, and now it seems like most of the major steroid-crusted manly-men are too pansy to participate. So we’re left with the likes of Troy Glaus and David Wright. Yeah they’re good hitters, but much better at getting on base than hitting a ball 500 feet.

I got screwed into the 5th pick in our office pool, so I’m stuck rooting for David Wright.

Like everyone in this year’s contest, Wright’s a pretty good hitter, and he’s got the Mets way up in the NL East. But I’m not holding my breath. Where’s Pujols? Giambi? Come on you nancies. Just use an extra needle and you’ll be fine by next week. Hike up your skirts and play. You’re already getting paid millions for playing the world’s easiest sport. The least you can do is give me a chance to win my five bucks back.

Come on David Wright, if you win I can buy the new Walkmen vinyl.

• Leave a comment... (0)

Doug Martsch has a nasally voice. He sounds a lot like Neil Young.

Neil Young is cool, but I’m only 24 — I wasn’t even alive during Vietnam. And the 60s were awhile ago. Don’t get me wrong — I love old music, but usually only when the dude (or dudette) is dead. That’s how I can love The Velvet Underground & Nico but wish for death before seeing a Rolling Stones show. It’s why I cherish my Pixies records and it’s the same reason I would kill my own family before seeing them live after their reunion.

In a perfect world, all great musicians would die from a drug overdose or suicide during the crescendo of their musical careers. But that won’t happen. And that’s why I continue to dream.

I’m getting off track here though. Built To Spill is a version of Neil Young for the MTV generation. For those of us who didn’t grow up in the 60s and 70s swallowing acid with our morning cheerios and smoking doobies while protesting the war. These days — the days of blogging our Dubya hatred inbetween page refreshes of Digg and Myspace — we need a new, less political Neil Young. A Neil Young who’s more sad and depressing. A Neil Young who was barely even alive during ‘Nam. A Neil Young who makes feeling sad okay despite living in an upper middleclass suburban oasis of trustfund hippies. Give us a Neil Young who understands that we wear flip-flops to work and our parents give us our money. Well, that Neil Young is Doug Martsch, and he has written his most culminating record yet — an unparalleled opus brimming with beauty and sadness.

In fact, I kind of hope Doug Martsch dies now because he’s not going to top this.

As is the case with most of Martsch’s work, it took me damn near two months to fall in love with this record. It’s the kind of album you put in, knowing you’re supposed to love, only to find yourself switching to the latest indie band with ‘wolf’ in its name, forgetting about it in a few days and eventually posting on your blog that it’s underwhelming — giving it a nod in your top 25 at the end of the year in name only.

(Hint: that was me)

Then I kept accidentally listening to it. Not even realizing that the sheer beauty of this record was hammering itself into my brain. One day the guitar solo from “Mess With Time” came on. Then I played it again. And again. And again.

That’s more or less what happens with every Built To Spill record, but You In Reverse is just so fulfilling, so inspiring. It’s enchanting even. And also sad. And, Lord knows I love sad music. Martsch’s aforementioned Neil Young-esque nasal whine allows him to sing damn near anything (I’m pretty sure he could sing happy birthday and I’d be in tears) and make me glad to be crying.

• Leave a comment... (3)

In case you weren’t aware: Pitchfork is this: blows.

An embarrassment to indie music, to intelligence and to writers and reviewers in general.

Their recent review (and ensuing grade-schoolesque taunting) of Sound Team’s new record (Movie Monster) is what finally put me over the edge. Not that this surprised me — I never fail to laugh at these reviews (remember the Dandy Warhols review by shitstain writer Nick Sylvester last summer?). But comedic value aside, there is an army of music lovers out there giving genuine forthright credence to these abortions of writing and reviewing.

That stops now.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not new to me. I’ve hated Pitchfork for as long as I can remember. But this most recent display of narcissistic hubris has me ready to embark on a lifelong quest to bring them each to Hell myself. Yeah that’s right, they’ve earned the coveted spot on my fridge next to Stuart Scott, Ween and Steve Urkel.

It’s not that Pitchfork writers are unintelligent (they aren’t, for the most part. As a matter of fact I think one of them might even read Pynchon. Though I wouldn’t know — they never namedrop or anything). And it’s not that they don’t like the same things as me (deep down I’m pretty sure they do—even Pitchfork couldn’t rationally spurn the genius of Neutral Milk Hotel).

Similarities and dissimilarities aside though, the world’s hipsters and scenesters need a new czar of indie music fandom—a brand new place to get the latest happenings and scandals. A place filled with candy and chocolate covered words. A Willy Wonka’s Music Review Factory of sorts.

Yeah, I suppose it’s mildly ironic to buy a domain, start a blog, and wax poetic on hating a music review site. And it probably is. But that’s the beauty of the interweb.

• Leave a comment... (2)