Brandon Records

Liner Notes

6-28-08

Ryan's Road Trip

For Ryan's westward expedition, I began with one playlist slot--I didn't want to overload myself, you see--and I only knew that it must be the first playlist of the day, so as to complement the opening song, "Circle of Life."  The movie version, too, not the spectacular Elton John one.  I also joked about incorporating various tribal chants on my playlist.  But as I went on, like everyone else, I realized I needed more than one hour.  And I refused to give away any information about the songs therein, with the exception of what I think are fun hints.  So, here for the first time on the internet (btw, internets and interweb are so yesterday, but strangely Information Superhighway is still totally retro-sweet), I present my playlists. 

Day 1:  California - I wanted to avoid the biggest California-related songs ("California Dreamin'," "California Girls," the Phantom Planet one, "Hotel California"), because I figured other people would cover them.  And when I realized the California songs I had left were very folky, the rest fell together easily. 

1.  "Going to California" by Led Zeppelin - Ryan said he wanted this to be the first song he listened to, and I was already aiming to have the first one on Day 2, so I figured I'd continue the theme with the opening slot on each of the first three days.  Didn't happen for Day 1, but it's still the best introduction to my California-theme playlist. 
2.  "Across the Universe" by the Beatles - As far as I'm concerned, we should all be listening to this daily.
3.  "Another Travelin' Song" by Bright Eyes - Obviously.
4.  "The Underdog" by Spoon - A bit shoehorned, it remains my favorite Spoon song off their latest album.
5.  "Broke Window" by Gary Jules - An old folk favorite that transitions well, I think.
6.  "California" by Josh Ritter - L and I doubled up on this one accidentally.  I bet it sounds better here.  But the song namechecks so many California sites I couldn't drop it. 
7.  "California Stars" by Billy Bragg and Wilco - Have I told you about my late Wilco obsession?  It extends to this almost-country album.
8.  "Neptune's Net" by M. Ward - An instrumental transitional song that works great on its own.  I was surprised how well it leads into the next one.
9.  "Death Prayer in Heaven's Orchard" by Howlin Rain - I have no clue what this song is about, but I love it so.
10.  "Los Angeles" by the Rosewood Thieves - For the obvious reasons.
11.  "John Allyn Smith Sails" by Okkervil River - Perhaps a bit depressing, but it's awesome nonetheless.  "This is the worst trip I've ever been on" should not be taken literally.  Or figuratively.  Just enjoy the sound.
12.  "Earthquakes and Sharks" by Brandtson - I will forever credit this song with getting us to go Disneyland instead of Big Bend. 
13.  "This Train Will be Taking No Passengers" by Augie March - Perhaps not the best introduction to Augie March (it's not the best representation of their sound), it's nonetheless one of my favorites.
14.  "Panama" by Van Halen - Superbad driving song.
15.  "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade" by the Decemberists - One of my top few Decemberists songs, and it's about a gorgeous California highway.  And the deliberate pacing positions it as a perfect finale.

Day 2:  Driving - I knew I was opening with "Circle of Life" and the closest thing to tribal chants I had, which meant a lot of percussion early on.  I figured that would be a good wake-up call. 

1.  "Circle of Life" by Carmen Twillie, Lebo M, and Mbongeni Ngema - It was theoretically going to be a sunrise song, but as long as it's the first song of the day, I'm good.
2.  "Wasted State of Mind" by ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - It opens like a tribal chant, which I find awesome, but I also love this song.
3.  "Bohemian Like You" by the Dandy Warhols - One of my all-time favorite driving songs, and it fits with my tribal drums motif.
4.  "Let it Dive" by ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead - If I had thought this play list through, this wouldn't be here, because of the minute or so of denouement.  Oh well.
5.  "Ride" by the Vines - A kinetic, percussive track about riding in a car. 
6.  "Song in the Key of Chance" by Augie March - Phenom, but impossible to decipher on first hearing.  I probably should have aimed for some different Augie March.
7.  "Bird on a Wire" by Rogue Wave - I have no real explanation for this, aside from liking it.  I really didn't think this playlist through...
8.  "The King of Carrot Flowers, Pt 1" by Neutral Milk Hotel - I wanted "The Aeroplane Over the Sea" but this is almost half as long and I was strapped for space.
9.  "Killing the Blues" by Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - One of my favorite tracks from last year, I really wanted to find a spot for it.
10.  "Life's a Song" by Patrick Park - It'd be sappy if not for that ending, which is my favorite thing about it.  
11.  "Jade Like Wine" by Six Organs of Admittance - My current favorite song by them, perfect for New Mexico/Arizona.
12.  "One Big Holiday" by My Morning Jacket - Here's another good song to drive to, on top of being the most obvious My Morning Jacket song to use.
13.  "Johnny Appleseed" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - An inexplicably quintessential summer song for me.
14.  "Four Leaf Clover" by the Old 97s - Since this is the driving-themed playlist, I had to find a good driving song to go out on.
15.  "Carry On, My Wayward Son" by Kansas - I think I have the longest version of this song in existence, but no matter.  In all, I'm not thrilled with this playlist, but the other two make up for it.

Day 3:  Open Road - I didn't have a real theme for this one.  It leans toward country, but stays on the folk side of the line.  There are some automobile/transportation/road songs.  I reprised a few artists from Playlist 1 (like Return of the Jedi going back to Tatooine and using a new Death Star, am I right?), and worked in two of my favorites (Fionn Regan and Stephen Malkmus) that had been heretofore unaddressed.  But mainly, I aimed to have a good flow that gradually builds.  And at the end, a bonus track.

1.  "Girl, You'll be a Woman Soon" by Urge Overkill - This song title is my message to Ryan.  Also, it's totally awesome. 
2.  "Either Way" by Wilco - Such a warm opening, particularly for the Southwest with a bright sun and an open sky.
3.  "Faust Arp" by Radiohead - "Wakey, wakey."  Perfect for morning.
4.  "Abacus" by Fionn Regan - In addition to being my favorite Fionn Regan song, it's about leaving to go somewhere new.
5.  "Make Your Own Kind of Music by Cass Elliot - Yep, the song Desmond plays when we first enter the hatch.  Also, hilariously cheesy message.  I only invoke old songs for the irony.
6.  "Closer" by Matt Pond PA - I had no real reason to include this except it fits great, and I hadn't yet included a Matt Pond PA song.
7.  "If the Brakeman Turns My Way" by Bright Eyes - Apart from my desire to include train songs throughout the playlists (hopefully at least one of them played near train tracks), I couldn't leave out Bright Eyes, and this one fit better than my other nominees.
8.  "All Roads Lead Home" by moe. - Another "road" song that feels rather country-rock, or at least incredibly southern. 
9.  "Pagan Angel and a Borrowed Car" by Iron & Wine - Sam Beam is a poet.  One who uses awesome words like "copse." 
10.  "Sister Nebraska" by Tarkio -  Time to pick up the pace a bit, with a nostalgic (but not remotely sentimental) tale of Middle America.
11.  "The General Specific" by Band of Horses - More fast-paced goodness.  I knew L was already using "Islands on the Coast," but this is my favorite song from that album anyway.
12.  "Good Man" by Josh Ritter - I wanted to include one of my favorite Josh Ritter songs, and of those, this one fit the best. 
13.  "To Go Home" by M. Ward - Starting to build to a happy ending.  Not like that, I just meant a fun climax. Jesus, get your mind out of the gutter.
14.  "Beautiful Day" by U2 - My spiritual followup to "Either Way."  I really hope Day 3 is a beautiful day or my playlist will fail colossally. 
15.  "Cold Son" by Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks - I chose it for the simple reason that it's the best short song from their album.
16.  "Live Forever" by Oasis - It was between this and "Don't Look Back in Anger," but as much as I love that song, I wanted something more upbeat.
17.  "Let's Go to the Mall" by Robin Sparkles - The one I paid for.  So worth it.  I now know all the words and many of the dance moves.  Don't judge me.

6-28-08

Take a long drive with me

Driving back to the Station this weekend, I started listening to my summer mix, but decided that wasn't appropriate.  It was, after all, 11 PM.  Nothing sunny about that.  So I shifted to Augie March when I got to 45, intending to just float through all three albums on the way back so as to preserve Liz Lemon's draining power.  But by the Beltway, I had a better idea.  It was time for some Decemberists reimmersion.  So I put it on shuffle, went to All Songs, and scrolled to "The Soldiering Life," which for some reason popped into my head.  I haven't listened to that song in ages, as Her Majesty is my least favorite Decemberists album, but as I was trying to figure out what my soundtrack should be, lyrics suddenly forced me to rediscover the song:  "But you/my brother in arms/I'd rather I'd lose my limbs/than let you come to harm."  I wasn't thinking of anything in particular, but I love that refrain, and my Decemberists journey began.  Along the way, I rediscovered several other songs I'd forgotten:

1.  "The Soldiering Life" - As much as I love that bit that popped into my head, just after it is my favorite part:  "But I/I never felt so much life than tonight/huddled in the trenches."  All the while, glockenspiels lighten up the song like distant explosions.

2.  "Apology Song" - You know, the one about the guy who lost his kid's bicycle.  As I listened to the wonderfully funny opening--"I'm really sorry, Steven/but your bicycle's been stolen"--I remembered:  I really love this song!  Sure it doesn't feature ancient mariners or chimbley sweeps, but it's somehow perfectly at home amongst the other Decemberists subjects.  "I guess we'll never see poor Madeline again." 

3.  "The Bachelor and the Bride" - I may have never listened to the lyrics of this one, but come to find out as I merged onto 290, this is all about a groom raping his would-be wife on their wedding day because he can't wait for that night.  Or did I misread that?  Regardless, it's a haunting, forgotten gem that, along with "The Soldiering Life" has me reappraising Her Majesty the Decemberists. 

4.  "The Infanta" - Unlike the others, this isn't one I've rediscovered, as it's at least one of my five favorite Decemberists songs.  But I once again appreciated the artfulness of the opening song off their best album.  And then I got to thinking about how Picaresque is by far their most openly social album, with "16 Military Wives" leading the way, but also parts of "On the Bus Mall," "The Bagman's Gambit," and "The Sporting Life."  Maybe "The Infanta," with its glorification of an undeserving young girl, is a bit of a jab at our young tabloid celebrities?  After "Los Angeles, I'm Yours," I think it's at least a possibility. 

5.  "Of Angels and Angles" - Still not feeling it.  Picaresque should close with the epic "Mariner's Revenge Song".  Colin Meloy doesn't do soft and soothing very well, hence the glory of decidedly non-nursery rhymes "The Shankill Butchers" and "A Cautionary Song." 

6.  "Everything I Try to Do, Nothing Seems to Turn Out Right" - So it starts out like you're at the ballpark with that pumping organ, but stick with it anyway.  This is a sad, gorgeous song about a missed opportunity.  Of course, it's a bit dramatic (written, I think, from a teenager's perspective), but that doesn't make it any less charming.

No other real rediscoveries, but I did recall my appreciation for several other tracks.  "Your frame went limp in my arms" still devastates.  Awesomely, my iPod played "The Crane Wife No.1 and 2" and followed up with "The Crane Wife No. 3," so I got that whole story in chronological order this time.  Also, I came to realize the across-the-board greatness of Picaresqueties, for me their best EP.  "Bridges and Balloons," "The Bandit Queen," "Constantinople," and "Kingdom of Spain" provide a much-needed romanticism to the more modern Picaresque, and I love listening to them together.  And to finish us off, here are my favorite songs off each album:

Castaways and Cutouts:  "California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade."  I think the opening three songs ("Leslie Ann Levine," "Here I Dreamt I was an Architect," "July, July") are the best sequence on the album, but nothing speaks to me like "California One."  It seems to me the Decemberists are often best when they take their time with songs, building up to the meat, but that's a fine line, because you don't want another "The Gymnast, High Above the Ground" situation. 

Her Majesty the Decemberists:  "Los Angeles, I'm Yours."  Tough to choose between this and "Song for Myla Goldberg," but I went with the one with content.  "Myla Goldberg" is deliberate gibberish.  Of course, "The Bachelor and the Bride," "The Soldiering Life," and "The Chimbley Sweep" are my other worthwhile songs. 

Picaresque:  "The Mariner's Revenge Song."  Obviously my toughest choice, this being my favorite Decemberists album and featuring such highlights as "The Infanta," "16 Military Wives," and the magnificent yet underrated "On the Bus Mall."  One of my favorite parts of the entire album is "we bit our tongues/sucked our lips into our lungs till we were falling/Such was our calling."  So let it be known that I adore every song off this album except the finale, which I replace with the lineup of Picaresqueties. 

The Crane Wife:  "The Island."  Yes, it's technically three songs, but it's one track, so it qualifies.  And it reaches those epic atmospheres that the Decemberists can only do with time.  And don't tell me "Go to sleep now, little ugly" isn't your favorite lyric from 2006.  My backups are the Crane Wife songs, "O Valencia!," "Yankee Bayonet," and especially, "Summersong." 

The Decemberists are no longer in constant rotation on my iTunes, but they are one of those bands that I love periodically catching up with.  Underneath all the gloom and despair, there's enough warmth and hope to make it all worth it.  "We're calling all bed-wetters/and ambulance chasers/poor pick-a-pockets/bring 'em in/Come join the youth and beauty brigade!"

12-30-07

Penny Lane is in my ears

This year has been huge for my relationship to the Beatles.  Freshman year, despite my being tragically musically impaired, I was forced to sing Beatles' parodies for our OM skit, and I'll just say it:  I will eternally despise my OM team for that.  Flash forward to 2007.  This summer being the fortieth anniversary of the Summer of Love, I immersed myself in Sgt. Pepper's.  I just recently realized the connection to other "greatest" works of art in the idea of the alias/mask (like The Murder of Gonzago in Hamlet or Charles Foster Kane as William Randolph Hearst), which I think is worth exploring.  Then, my birthday weekend saw the arrival of Julie Taymor's beautiful and exciting Across the Universe, and my Christmas vacation afforded me the opportunity to see the Beatles' Love in Las Vegas, which was mind-blowing and probably my favorite show I've seen (yes, over Rent).  Lately I've been trying to listen to this year's albums so I can come up with a worthy top ten list, but I keep going back to the Beatles.  And accordingly, I wanted to give a list of Beatles songs I didn't know I loved until recently.  In April, I picked "Eleanor Rigby," "Here Comes the Sun," "Penny Lane," "Something," "Lady Madonna," and "Help!" as my favorites, so they, as well as the obvious popular favorites (most of the 1 album, "A Day in the Life"), will not be included (unless I used to not love it and now I do). 

1.  "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" - I think I've seen this on lists before but not really cared, but this is up there with my aforementioned favorites already.

2.  "Dear Prudence" - Across the Universe introduced me to this (and most of the White Album), and ever since I've been hooked. 

3.  "Octopus's Garden" - This was an incredible scene in Love, and it got me listening to this song a lot

4.  "Get Back" - I'd always been cold toward this song, not that I didn't like it, I just didn't love it.  But, Love opens with a slow little "Because" number, and it's dark and the audience is divided by four curtains.  But they immediately launch into a rocking rendition of "Get Back," and lights flash everywhere and actors show up from everywhere and the curtains disappear and an incredible number followed, and I couldn't contain my glee.  It got the audience in the perfect mood for the show, and now that song has so much semantic power for me. 

5.  "Helter Skelter" - Again, an always liked, never loved.  I don't know if it was the Across the Universe rendition (which crosses the song with "Across the Universe"), but I have been in love with this song this Fall. 

6.  "I've Just Seen a Face" - This was certainly thanks to Across the Universe, as I'd never heard the song before.  But now it's just glorious. 

7.  "Across the Universe" - This is not because of the version in the movie.  But, I have been listening to it lately, and it's really powerful, up there with these new favorites and my old ones. 

It's always great to discover and rediscover such great stuff, and it's still awesome to me how such a short-lived grouping can result in so much greatness. 

12-28-07

Come back to me again, and play your sad guitar

I've been meaning to update this more.  A lot more in fact.  I promise I'll try to make an effort to remember my musical musings (see what I did there?) and force-feed them to you.  So here's a two-fer.  First has to do with The Carpenters' "Superstar."  Well it's actually kind of a circle so I'll try to start at the beginning (If that didn't make sense, it's not just you).  Well I caught Todd Haynes' Bob Dylan examination "I'm Not There" and generally loved it.  Before watching I had listened to the two-disc soundtrack rather extensively, falling in particular love with the title song.  I also fell in love with the Sonic Youth cover of "I'm Not There," although it's slightly less mumbled and confused, which takes a bit of the appeal away.  Moving on, December gave us cinephiles "Juno" which features a scene where Jason Bateman's character lauds the Sonic Youth cover of "Superstar" and he and Juno listen to it.  I'd heard the song before, so that scene just served to get it pretty high up in my subconscious.  Later that week, I caught up with Todd Haynes' first masterpiece, "Superstar:  The Karen Carpenter Story" which topped a list of music-based films I saw recently.  The film was amazingly disturbing btw, as I already have a problem with medical things like anorexia, but add to that the low-budget, black-and-white, and Barbie dolls, and I was sufficiently disturbed for the entire forty-five minutes.  But the movie sort of completed that cycle for me, connecting Todd Haynes, "Superstar," and Sonic Youth.  And of course two of my favorite films of 2007.  Anyway, I completely agree that the Sonic Youth version of "Superstar" is way better than the original, especially in light of the story of the Carpenters.  It's dark and fuzzy and a little horrifying, vastly different sonically from its wholesome origins.  It's kind of like the all-American cheerleader being exposed as Carrie.  That deep connection between the true story of Karen Carpenter and the appropriately disturbing Sonic Youth cover really elevates the song for me.  And more than that, it is a great example of how music biopics or even less traditional music-based films can break free from cliché and really investigate a subject.  Which brings me to my second entry:

12-28-07

You try so hard, but you don't understand

Music biopics (in case you haven't noticed, this "column" will probably become a television/film-based music section) are the bane of my existence.  Well, a bane of my existence.  I absolutely hate the formula that we all know.  For a single artist, they'll cheat on their spouse and get involved in drugs or alcohol and recover and be revered by the world.  For groups, there'll be internal conflict as one of them gets more famous, and they'll break up, and there's probably drugs and cheating going on there too.  And what pisses me off most about this is the familiarity, because if I can see the same story in 22 minutes of Saved by the Bell, then I don't need to watch two and a half hours of it.  Which is why Dreamgirls' critical popularity confounded me last year.  And Walk the Line the year before and Ray the year before.  Now obviously, these formulas exist for a reason, and a brilliant example is the Beatles.  Their short career is marked with events that have become cliché (drugs, internal conflict, manager's a friend of one of them, assassination), but on the other hand, this formula can also be done well, as in what is currently my all-time favorite film, "Almost Famous."  But unless you are Cameron Crowe (writing his own semi-autobiography), I'd be much more interested in seeing a non-traditional music film, of which I saw many this year.  Criterion's Monterey Pop box set, forty years after the infamous concert, is a well-directed, rocking, consistently interesting portrait of 1967, particularly the Moterey Pop title itself.  But of course, that's just a concert, not a biopic.  Todd Haynes is for me, so far, the best biopic guy.  I just read an interview with him where he says he approaches his films like essays (which explains why he makes so few), and it really shows.  "Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story" is shot with an extremely low budget and accordingly high grain, Barbie dolls instead of actors, black-and-white, and lots of intercutting to scenes that seem innocuous on their own but are in context disturbing (plates of food, syrup of ipecac, the White House) to scenes that are truly, inherently disturbing (Mr. Carpenter spanking an adult Karen).  But the forty-five minute movie does not follow the causal pattern of history class and traditional biopics.  Karen does not simply develop anorexia, battle it, and succumb to it, but instead we are treated to intermittent discussions of causes of anorexia and how it continues, and we find the patterns of control in Karen's life.  Further, we are given an interesting perspective on the time, with references to a Watergate-disillusioned public and food as a commodity after Vietnam.  It's really a fascinating look at a culture that lost its innocence explored through the microcosm of Karen Carpenter, and to me, that makes it a film worth watching, if its visual style wasn't enough.  And finally, we have "I'm Not There," the infamous Bob Dylan biopic with six characters.  I'll get into it more on the movie side of the site, but what it comes down to is a quote near the end about freedom.  Dylan says how, the more you are the person you're expected to be, the less free you are, and for that reason, Dylan had many different phases in his life, elaborate fake histories, and a strange reclusiveness until recently, and that is why Haynes has Dylan played by six different people.  To me, the Haynes biopics are fascinating essays, and I appreciate them on such an extraordinary level as such, even if they are not my absolute favorite films ever.  Now I'm off to catch Control (about the lead singer of Joy Division) , and hopefully I'll find a biopic in the line of Haynes' work. 

8-6-07

Oh, I've done that one before

I watched the pilot of Reaper the other day, Kevin Smith's CW pilot about a kid who is forced to work for the Devil as a bounty hunter, basically returning escaped souls to Hell.  Sounds like Bryan Fuller, I know.  It was pretty good, but because of my CW boycott, I will be downloading the show.  More to the point, however, the show employed like 30 songs in 42 minutes, all of them great.  I was particularly pleased to hear Dirty Pretty Things' "Deadwood," one of my favorites of theirs, The Fratellis' "Henrietta" and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' "Date With the Night."  Anyway, a recurring theme, used to represent the Reaper kid's romance with the love interest is Iron and Wine's cover of "Such Great Heights."  I therefore propose that we enforce a moratorium on all songs from the Garden State soundtrack.  Not because I'm tired of hearing them (which, to clarify, couldn't be further from the truth), but because they are the rightful property of the film that has been called my generation's "The Graduate."  And just as the Graduate had its own beautiful soundtrack, Garden State deserves not to have its music spread across the pop culture-osphere.  I mean, the film was universally adored, and its award-winning soundtrack is already a staple of every college student's music library.  Now, I know the song was already used in those M&M commercials and Ask.com ads, so the statute of limitations is long gone, but Kevin Smith should be savvy enough to avoid such already-overexposed music, especially as a recurring theme.  Soon enough he'll feature "How to Save a Life," and I'll just have to end it all. 

I'm Listening to:  Picaresque - The Decemberists, "The Queen of Seville" - The Clientele, Teenager - The Thrills

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