September has been a pretty exciting month for the editorial staff. Both Jason and Tim celebrated birthdays a few weeks back, and just yesterday, our very own Jennifer Grathwol just got herself a new surname yesterday as she tied the knot (huge congratulations go out to Jen!). Heck, even outside of our department, there's good news: Our production director John Millin and his wife Bridget had their first child last week, and they named her Ragan Rose (which I'm assuming is a tribute to both Hot Water Music's co-frontman Chuck Ragan and Johnny Cash's "Give My Love To Rose," which automatically makes this kid cooler than I'll ever be).
For me, though, this month has been pretty low-key (except for that whole Dillinger Four thing). I've felt a bit stir-crazy lately, which resulted in me cutting off all my hair yesterday, which was therapeutic. But after today, I feel positively awesome, and it's all because of choral music.
I know, I know: Totally nerdy, right? Well, it gets nerdier -- I'm a member of the Cleveland Messiah Chorus, an organization that has performed Handel's Messiah (you might know it as "that big piece of music that features the Hallelujah chorus in it") every fall since 1921. It's a small group, one that I discovered last year when trolling the internet looking for singing opportunities (I've been singing chorally since I was 12 -- I've toured internationally three times with various choirs, and even went to college on a vocal scholarship), but it is an incredible release for me. We had our first rehearsal of the season earlier today, and I've been on a natural high all day. There's something about singing in a choir that just gives me a rush, especially when the material is as majestic and powerful as Messiah is.
While it is sort of weird being the only person under 30 in the group (and this is by at least a decade and a half), there's also something incredibly freeing about it, too. No one there really knows what I do for a living, nor the "scene politics" that come with it. No one is pitching me on bands, nor asking what my favorite album of the year thus far is, nor getting into debates with me about how incredibly overrated [insert band] is. I'm able to leave all of that behind for just 90 minutes a week for the next two months, and it is definitely something I am looking forward to each week.
It's also strange to me how choral singing is still viewed as "uncool" by people who are too obsessed with trying to stay cool. There's a discipline to it that you don't get just by belting out Moneen songs in your car, and there's an appreciation you develop from performing it that will heighten your knowledge of contemporary music and will help you see connections between things that you never would've seen before. I encourage anyone reading this to find a local choir and give it a try, just once. I promise you that no one will make fun of you (and if one of your friends actually does, they're just jealous they don't have the talent you have). And if you live in Cleveland, come join the CMC! Everyone is welcome, and there's no audition required. And since I'm already there, you won't be the only person wearing a Hold Steady T-shirt or a Braid hoodie, either.
There is really no better feeling than getting to see a glimpse of what your favorite musicians are cooking up in between records. Sure, it can be great hearing an MP3 of a new song performed live by one of your top bands on your last.fm chart, but in my opinion, it's far better to see just what they're working on. Here's a small sampling of what I am beyond pumped for right now:
TOM GABEL Heart Burns EP
RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28 on Sire
Anything Tom Gabel is involved in is always worth a few listens, and this being his first proper "solo" release since the early days of Against Me! makes the anticipation all sorts of huge. Out of the seven songs on the disc, only one has officially been released, and it was in the form of a makeshift music video for "100 Years War." It's a little bit chilling, in the best possible way:
Another one of the EP's songs, "Amputations," has been played at a number of shows by Against Me! in the past few months, so there's a swath of live clips on YouTube. Here's my favorite:
Anyone else think the hook of that song kinda sounds like Meat Loaf's "Paradise By The Dashboard Light," or am I totally crazy?
DEFTONES Eros RELEASE DATE: winter(?) on Warner Bros.
Chino and the boys recently wrapped production on their sixth proper album with Terry Date again at the helm, and while there is no firm release date yet ("winter" could be anything from late this November till next February -- please, please, please, don't make me wait till February), guitarist Stephen Carpenter recently told my cohort Tim that this record is "more melodic" than past efforts, which truly gets my blood pumping. Deftones are good when they're angry and thrashing, but they're truly great when they can true heavy yet melodic masterpieces ("Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)," "Beware," "Minerva"). Here's some in-studio clips the band have released, and of course, they love to tease with hints of new music:
WEATHERBOX The Cosmic Drama RELEASE DATE: TBA 2009 on Doghouse
This release cannot come soon enough. I truly look at Weatherbox leader Brian Warren as an unbelievably talented songwriter that not enough people are paying attention to (no matter how much I relentlessly hype the 'Box's debut album American Art, which is damn near perfect). I've been craving new Weatherbox material essentially all year, and am super-bummed that the split 7-inch between the band and Person L has yet to materialize, even though both groups have recorded their songs. In the meantime, I will continue to play this live video over and over and over; it's Brian performing a new song, tentatively titled "God Shuts His Door (It Happens To The Worst Of Us)," and the raw emotion and drive in his voice just kills me. Brian, I believe in you:
It's also better than pretty much everything on Chase This Light, too. I would totally buy a childrens' album from Jimmy Eat World! At least then Jim Adkins' ridiculously cheesy lyrics would be acceptable. What band would you want to see make a kids' album?
Which was awesome. Then, to wrap the night up, I ate this:
While watching the last half-hour of this:
Which was decently funny. All in all, it was a good day.
SUNDAY
Today, I watched this:
Which didn't really put me in a great mood. So I kicked myself in the butt and did this:
And painted this:
But the biggest thing I accomplished today was taking a picture of this:
Pretty cool, right? I then wrapped the weekend up when I went out to see this: (That's an amazing band called Mock Orange, in case you didn't know.)
And that about wraps it up for me. Did you do anything exciting this weekend? Leave me a comment and tell me about it (words are fine; pictures are optional).
I don't care what everyone else is saying about iTunes' new "Genius" feature -- it isn't that cool. No matter what band or song I seem to start with, the playlist almost always focuses on two things:
1) Radio singles from tenuously associated bands
2) Multiple songs from the exact same band, as well as multiple songs from any other band a member has been in
For example, last night I selected Jawbreaker's "Oyster" as my start song. Over the next 24 songs, I heard two more Jawbreaker songs and three Jets To Brazil songs, as well as the Get Up Kids' "Don't Hate Me," Cursive's "Dorothy At Forty" and Descendents' "I'm The One" -- all three of which were singles (well, the TGUK song wasn't technically, but it more or less was Four Minute Mile's "single").
I just made another playlist right now starting with Muse's "Stockholm Syndrome," and the next 24 songs include two more Muse songs as well as two songs from Interpol, Jimmy Eat World and Queens Of The Stone Age (all singles), Deftones' "Hole In The Earth," Rise Against's "Ready To Fall," Modest Mouse's "Dashboard," "OK Go's "A Million Ways" and the Mars Volta's "The Widow" (all of which are singles, too).
Where are the B-sides? Where are the rarities? Where are the live cuts? What is so special about this program? I know both my work and home iTunes libraries are more diverse than this; let's get it together, Steve Jobs!
My apologies for my blog laying dormant for the past few days; I've been mostly disconnected from the internet, as the girlfriend and I spent the weekend visiting my parents, going to a wedding reception in the middle of nowhere, dealing with something like 14 inches of rain in Chicago in under two days, watching the Bears lose to Carolina (oh, come on! How did we blow a 17-3 lead?!?), seeing WALL-E (finally! This movie was too cute), etc. etc. etc.
Anyway, I am back now, and I have a few small thoughts (and one big explanation) for you.
1. The driver of the CTA bus I took Friday afternoon had a tattoo visible on his forearm that said "BORN TO KILL." Maybe the dude was just a big fan of Full Metal Jacket; I don't know. But that seems like a really bizarre thing to have inked on your body for eternity. And the choice to purposely roll your sleeve up so every passenger would see your tat upon paying fare? Either positively genius or unbelievably stupid.
2. Do I look like any of these people, all of whom are apparently named Tom King? After the reception on Saturday, the under-30 crowd moved the party to a local bar, and as I sat there enjoying my glass of water, two middle-aged men in suits walked in and immediately began waving at me. Thinking they were waving at someone behind me (as I obviously did not know these dudes), I ignored them. They then walked up to me and said, "Excuse me, you're Tom King, right?" I then had to break the news that I was not, in fact, Mr. King. The only question is, did the men mistake me for 19th century boxer Tom King, Olympic gold medalist sailor Tom King, or fictional British soap opera character Tom King? (Personally, I'm hoping it was the boxer.)
3. I have not gotten anyone fired from anything in my life. Last week, Dillinger Four's new album, C I V I L W A R, leaked, allegedly due to one person who was sent an advance online stream of the album by Fat Wreck Chords as they worked for a magazine (not AP) and then decided to share it with friends, who then shared it with more friends, who then posted it on various message boards around the internet, until someone tech-savvy enough decided to rip the streaming audio into MP3s and release the record for free to whoever wanted to use the bandwidth to grab it.
Not only is this illegal, it is immoral and immature.
When I asked a friend who worked for Fat where they think the leak came from, they pinpointed it to one specific person from a specific magazine (again, not AP) who had been begging them to hear the record. Upon hearing this person's name, I realized that same person had been emailing and IMing me incessantly for the past few weeks about trying to write for AP, and while his work was okay, I didn't believe it was up to par for our magazine, so I more or less didn't follow up with him, hoping he would get the point. Once I found out the label was holding him responsible for the leak, I promptly wrote him and let him know that AP doesn't use writers who leak records, so I would not need his services. This is a decision we've made at AP for a number of reasons, most notably being we would be held liable if a record we assigned to someone for review was leaked. Luckily, there have been very few instances of this happening since I've worked at AP, and we've tried to keep it that way.
Here's where the story gets wacky: Unbeknownst to me, the magazine which this guy worked for found out he was the alleged leaker, and they canned him. Somehow, this fact spreads across the internet as "Scott Heisel got [dude's name] fired." This is 100% false -- there is a long, long, long way to go from alerting Fat that the D4 stream had leaked (which I did, in hopes they could try and contain it) and getting someone fired from their job because they made an incredibly poor decision (which I did not do). This is the power of the internet: People don't want to actually seek out the truth; they'd rather have it handed to them in bite-sized nuggets on message boards and in comments of stories on music news websites. So let this be my feeble attempt to set the record straight. It probably won't help any, but at least I've told what little story there actually is. (If you want to read the alleged leaker's account of the events (as well as a whole bunch of digs at yours truly), you can do so here.)
If anyone out there still has any questions about this non-issue, feel free to leave them in the replies and I will be happy to answer them.
There. That's done with. Now, back to listening to this totally awesome Thursday/Envy split CD (Tim, you were right, this thing utterly kills). Time to go pre-order the vinyl!
See, I took the Megabus from Cleveland to Chicago yesterday to spend the weekend with my beautiful girlfriend (it's our one-year anniversary!), and I grabbed the office laptop to take with me, as well as the neat little phone card adaptor thing that allows the computer to connect to the internet from anywhere, essentially. So my plan was to do a blog while flying down I-90, discussing the people on the bus, scenery, what I decided to have for dinner at the rest stop (a teriyaki beef stick, two Sobe-brand vitamin waters and a bag of Munchos, with a small box of Junior Mints for dessert, in case you were wondering), etc.
But this plan was foiled from the get-go, when I found out that the battery was completely dead (even though I had charged it the night before), After some text-message tech support from our director of new media, Rob, it was more or less determined that the battery had officially shit the bed.
Bummer.
So instead, I spun my iPod for most of the 6-hour trek, trying not to get too nauseous (man, that recycled air really is stale -- Ben Gibbard, you are correct, sir). Here was my in-transit playlist:
Brand New - Deja Entendu (Goddamn, does this album still hold up perfectly over five years later) Dashboard Confessional - The Swiss Army Romance (this one, not so much, but "Ender Will Save Us All" is still incredible) The Decemberists - Picaresque (can you tell I was just going through my iPod's library alphabetically?) Explosions In The Sky - The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (interesting side note: While looking up the title of this record on Wikipedia, I just learned their drummer, Chris Hrasky, is from the same hometown as me: Rockford, Illinois. Small world!) Family Force 5 - Dance Or Die (this record sounds like a mixture of Self, the Faint and Death From Above 1979. Totally serious. It's pretty awesome.)
Now I'm sitting around in my underwear at my girlfriend's house waiting for her to get home from work, killing the time by watching a bunch of Norm MacDonald clips on YouTube (what a brilliantly funny guy, seriously). We're seeing Maritime tonight, which I'm way stoked about, but I'm totally not stoked about having to put my pants back on to leave the house.
Bummer.
Your task, dear blog reader? Recommend me your favorite headphones-only road-trip album. Not the one you put on with your friends when you're driving to a show; the one you put on to drown out your parents when you're on a family vacation, the one that helps enhance the scenery outside the car window. I need suggestions for my return bus ride this Monday, so get to it!
Well, it's better than most Christian metalcore, anyway. Bring in the 4th wave, already! Big D And The Kids Table are probably pretty lonely being, like, the only good ska band left on the touring circuit.
Jason Pettigrew, stop reading this blog immediately.
Okay, now that he's gone, I can say the following: I saw Journey last night with 20,000 other people, and they kinda sorta totally rule. Their massive tour rolled into town with Heart and Cheap Trick opening, and amazingly, I was able to get myself on Journey's guestlist (finally, something I can impress my mom with!) so my good friend Josh and I ventured out into the great arena classic-rock unknown, having no idea what to expect.
We initially left my house at 5:30, and the outdoor venue hosting the show, Blossom, is roughly a 40-minute drive. Cheap Trick were scheduled to go on at 7, so I figured 90 minutes was plenty of time, right?
This is the traffic jam we became entangled in less than five miles from the venue right around 6:15. Totally awesome.
When we ended up alongside this minivan, we did honk enthusiastically. The driver was not amused.
The windows were tinted, so unfortunately, we really had no idea what was happening in that Jeep.
We finally made it onto the off-ramp -- roughly 1/4 of a mile from where we were initially stopped in traffic -- around 7:15.
This is the license plate of the asshole in an SUV who flew by all of us on the shoulder of the highway, wedging himself in at the top of the off-ramp and cutting about 500 or so other cars in the process. You, sir, are an asshole, and I hope someone reading this recognizes your license plate and eggs your car. Dickwad.
By this point, we'd completely missed Cheap Trick, and were wondering if we'd even get to our seats before Heart started. After lots more traffic-jamming, we finally parked our car at Blossom (of course, we were put into the farthest lot from the entrance -- about a half-mile walk -- and of course, there were no shuttles or anything). We finally got to our (surprisingly close) seats about three songs into Heart's set:
The people-watching at this show was completely out of control (we think the singer of Disturbed was sitting a row ahead of us -- or maybe he has a twin brother who looks like just as much of a douche?), but what was truly fascinating was how they were all brought together by this music. The response to Heart was overwhelming, especially considering they were technically an opening act. Here's a video I shot as people were cheering for their encore. In case you ever wondered what 20,000 people sound like, here you go:
After a half-hour set change, Journey took the stage, surprising much of the audience as they had absolutely no sort of "intro music" or anything. AC/DC's "Back In Black" was playing over the PA, people were waiting in line for $8 beers (or peeing in the woods), and then next thing you know, Journey's onstage, jumping right into their first song without even saying a word. Strange, especially for a band of that size and stature (and in a venue that large), that you wouldn't tease the audience a little bit to get them hyped up again.
Not that it took much to get the crowd hyped once Journey dove into their hits. "Only The Young," "Lights," "Open Arms," "Faithfully," one after another -- these dudes lined 'em up and mowed 'em down like the seasoned vets they are. Here's a clip of I shot of "Separate Ways," my personal favorite Journey jam; it's only a portion of the song, as I was accosted by a security guard and told that if I didn't turn my camera off, it would be confiscated. Whoops!
We expected "Don't Stop Believin'" to close out the show (or even be their encore), but the band threw it out about 45 minutes in, with the place exploding in response. The best part? When it ended, they threw up a clever graphic on the big screens of the word "Journey" in a Sopranos-style logo, as sort of a shoutout. (It got a laugh from me, at least.)
Does it kind of bum me out that Journey draws 20,000 people in Cleveland when, say, Weatherbox probably would draw 20? Yeah, but at the same time, it's undeniable that Journey, love 'em, hate 'em or really hate 'em, have penned some absolute classics when it comes to '80s rock (and I'd take them over lite-FM Cheez-Whiz like REO Speedwagon any day). There's something entirely strange about watching a massive crowd groove to 20-year-old hits they've heard a thousand times before, but going nuts for each note just the same. Sometimes, I feel like I've lost that feeling for the "classics" in my collection in favor of a constant search for new music, just so I can be the first on my block to say I was listening to them way back when. But sometimes you just need to belt out some cornball classic rock and let yourself go, without caring who's watching you or how many scene points you may lose in the process.
I don't view myself as an actively political person. While I am very strong-minded in my beliefs, I don't think I purposely try to bait people into debates about the government, mainly because I don't know nearly enough to carry myself correctly. But after watching both Barack Obama's nomination acceptance speech last week and John McCain's tonight, my mind is seriously blown at why people would want to vote for the candidate representing a political party made up almost entirely of rich, old, white people (if the crowd at tonight's RNC in Minneapolis are to be of any indication of the "diversity" of the GOP). I actually found myself yelling at the television tonight when McCain went into his spiel about how the current government wasn't working for them and how "we need to bring change and reform to Warshington" (yes, he said, "Warshington").
HEY, JOHN MCCAIN AND ALL OF HIS SUPPORTERS: The people in power for seven of the last eight years were REPUBLICANS! Republican president, House and Senate -- these are people in your own party. To accuse them of looking out for themselves instead of America is to accuse yourselves of the same thing, because you're the ones who nominated and elected them into office! How can you reform and change what you're an active, willing participant in???
Ugh. Anyway.
If you're someone who honestly wants to cast your vote for McCain, I hope your reasons are solid, concrete and well-researched, as much of what his campaign is spewing out regarding Barack Obama and his policies is misleading at best (otherwise known as "outright lies"). As much as I would love to elect another old, rich, white man (and a book-banning, secession-supporting, creationism-believing woman), I'd rather support a candidate who believes in progress, reform and change -- not just the buzzwords, but the policies he outlined in his historic speech last week (something McCain completely shied away from tonight -- I didn't hear a single policy come out of his mouth. Maybe it got lost under the incessant "U-S-A! U-S-A!" chants...).
Barack Obama, I believe in you. I hope you don't let me down, but I don't think you will. I'm pretty sure the American people agree.
(I apologize for the rambling nature of this blog; as I wrote above, I do not consider myself an actively political person, and as such, I don't feel like I'm very good at articulating my points. Hopefully you got the gist of what I was going for.)
And now, to leave you with a song -- this is one of my favorite songs of all-time, although listening to it now, I feel like the narration is akin to the Republican party: Ignorant, borderline incoherent and unintentionally hilarious.
For those not following the drama associated with the Matches' "Yankee In A Chip Shop" music video, the band were all set to debut it on the front page of MySpace(!) this past Friday for an entire week, which would've been absolutely huge for a band of their size (it doesn't hurt that the song's a brilliant, two-minute piece of pop magic). The morning of the scheduled debut, however, the band ran into some serious roadblocks involving the London police that, honestly, have yet to be fully explained (something to do with the music video containing footage of the band "violating British law"; you can read Shawn Harris' note about the flap here). The clip has been in limbo since Friday (although it somehow managed to air on an Australian music-video program called Rage), which has caused the band's fans to cause an uproar). And even though the band themselves currently have their hands tied with the official release of the video, leave it to the fans themselves to embrace "Commotion Promotion," a technique the Matches themselves invented to promote their band: Do whatever it takes to make a scene and get your name out there.
With that, I present to you the "Yankee In A Chip Shop" music video. I don't know how this particular fan got their hands on it, nor do I know how long it will last on YouTube, but you owe it to yourself to check out a music video that actually is artistically creative and clever, as well as being an excellent visual to an already stellar song:
(If the video stops working, check out this stream on an Australian site.)
If you like the song (And I really don't see how you can't), please consider spending your money on purchasing a copy of A Band In Hope, the album which the track comes from. I wasn't in love with this album when I first heard it, but between this song, "AM Tilts," "Wake The Sun," "Their City" and "Point Me Toward The Morning," it's the textbook definition of a "grower."
