The density of life

I've been thinking a lot about Mitch Clem lately. It's strange how much a webcomic can influence your life.

I have been a Blake Schwarzenbach fan for five or six years now, finding out about Jawbreaker and Jets to Brazil simultaneously. Ever since then, he's become this mythological figure, a Jeff Mangum type who doesn't really make music anymore, when everyone around him knows that he really wants to, but might never eclipse the glory that he once had. There will never be another In The Aeroplane Over The Sea, but Mangum will continue to tour with the traveling Elephant Six gypsies, only showing up at certain dates in cities like Milwaukee and the fourth tier stop in Texas. I used to put Kevin Shields on this list, but God knows that he wants to be big again (or for the first time, really).

Schwarzenbach had the chance to be big, getting signed to Geffen in the mid 90s by Rob Cavallo, who was the young producer/A&R guy that discovered the pop potential of the East Bay 924 Gilman scene, specifically Green Day. Jawbreaker was to be the seriously literary college kid foil to Green Day's stoner high school rebellion. Blake wrote about some seriously fucked up moments at the age of 24. In 1995, Jawbreaker released Dear You on Geffen Records (ed: What a year for Geffen... not getting Songs From the Black Hole and Dear You?!) and it flopped massively, despite being one of the era's best punk albums (it was like this and Hello Bastards). After this, Blake started the even more unfriendly Jets to Brazil and wrote simple songs about the harsh reality of being alone and unsuccessful. Of course, being a Morrissey fan, this had some appeal for me, but for most Jawbreaker fans, this did not really resonate and many had written Schwarzenbach off as washed up.

Fast forward to late October 2008. The news from the Jawbreaker camp has been minimal up to this point, but a bulletin from the Jawbreaker myspace account pops up, announcing progress on the forthcoming Jawbreaker documentary. Adam Pfahler, drummer for Jawbreaker, sends out the occasional news and wrote previously that Jawbreaker got back together one night to play some music, just for fun. Many fans got excited, thinking they'd get to see Jawbreaker play some sort of show, but the rest of us knew Blake better than that. Those of us who really listen to his albums know that he wouldn't put himself in that position again. The October 2008 bulletin contains a short message from the man himself with a short note about a new band that he's playing in. The next thing you know, there are pictures on Brooklyn based punk blogs of Blake playing house shows in a new band with Aaron Cometbus from Crimpshrine, opening up for The Underground Railroad to Candyland. The world stops turning. Everyone seems to be asking the same question... "Is it as good as it seems?" and the next thing you know, videos start popping up on the Youtube, and of course, we come to find out that we have something else to be excited about.

I hope that I will get the chance to see Blake's new band, not only because I've never seen him live, but simply because I must.

re: Songs From the Black Hole

While writing a paper late last night, I completed a satisfactory version of Songs From the Black Hole. As I previously posted, there are a few pieces missing, but most of them are inconsequential set dressing/narrative type pieces that would have only been the proverbial "cherry on top" of this already amazing album. The tracklist has changed since last night, but not significantly. Anyways, here it is (explanation to follow):

1. Blast Off! (Alone I)
2. Who You Callin' Bitch? (Alone I)
3. You Won't Get With Me Tonight (Gimme Skelter)
4. Oh Jonas (Alone II)
5. Please Remember (Alone II)
6. Come To My Pod (Alone II)
7. Why Bother? (Pinkerton)
8. Oh No, This is Not For Me (leaked demo)
9. Tired of Sex (Pinkerton)
10. Superfriend (Alone I)
11. The Love I'm Searching For (Excellent Stocking Stuffer)
12. Dude, We're Finally Landing (Alone I)
13. Getchoo (Pinkerton)
14. I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams (The Good Life EP)
15. No Other One (Pinkerton)
16. Waiting on You (The Good Life EP)
17. Devotion (El Scorcho UK CDS)
18. Longtime Sunshine (Alone I)


As I mentioned before, this version more closely resembles Tracklist One; the glaring exceptions here are the Pinkerton songs included ("Why Bother?" and "Waiting on You" were both to be included at some point, however don't appear on either tracklist) and the Rentals demo. The placement of "Why Bother?" seemed fairly obvious if you imagine it as part of Jonas' regret of going back to Maria's pod. "Waiting on You" also seemed somewhat obvious, taking on the regretful tone of the end of the album. It is a natural bridge between "No Other One" and "Devotion" and is the "Holiday" of SFTBH.

The really tough placement came with the Rentals demo. If you asked any other Weezer fan, this song has no place on the album, but since I'm way into Weezer's mythology and am an amateur conspiracy theorist, I believe this is at least one of the early Rentals songs that belongs on SFTBH. I think there are a few more that could have fit in somewhere, but that's for another day.

Everything written after this is purely opinion and I haven't decided whether I'm serious about everything or not, but here it is anyways. It's well known that Matt Sharp didn't really receive as much attention as Rivers did in terms of songwriting for Weezer; in fact, he wasn't credited as a writer on the Blue Album or on Pinkerton and sued the band for cutting him out of the credits for songs like "Undone (The Sweater Song)", "El Scorcho" and "The Good Life." The suit was settled out of court, with the band paying Sharp. The way I've always imagined it was that Sharp was a foil to Rivers, always playing the opposite end of the spectrum, whether it be writing hooks when Rivers wouldn't focus or making things weird when Rivers was trying too hard.

It seems to me that Sharp was excited by the idea of SFTBH because it seemed like more of a collaborative process; he would even have singing parts on the album that weren't backup parts. It seemed as though he began writing songs that would fit somewhere in the narrative arc, but wasn't told exactly what his part was going to be (he was set to play Dondo, one of the two stooges on the spaceship). He wrote songs like "The Love I'm Searching For" and "Waiting" around the time when SFTBH was being written, along with songs like "California" and "So Soon." When Sharp decided to record Return of the Rentals, it seemed like it was Matt's way of saying goodbye to Rivers; he took the Hadens and a bunch of really good pop songs (and was probably trying to take Pat Wilson too) and released ROTR in 1995. When asked in a chat room a few years ago what happened to SFTBH, Rivers answered "ROTR." Many people believe that Rivers didn't want his songs on SFTBH to sound too much like Sharp's ROTR, but I believe that a lot of SFTBH was Sharp and his releasing the Rentals' first album sent everything off the rails.

Anyways, I believe that this is a satisfactory version of Songs From the Black Hole and I hope you enjoy it.

Songs From the Black Hole dilemma

So, I've pretty much recreated the ultimate version of Songs From the Black Hole, combining tracklists one and two, but I'm not sure it's quite complete. I focused more on tracklist one, even though we all know that Rivers intended on releasing a version more closely related to tracklist two. Also, I know I'm missing "Superfriend (reprise)", "She's Had a Girl", "Now I Finally See", "What is This I Find?" and the one I'm most curious about, "Longtime Sunshine (special coda mix)", but the dilemma here isn't about those songs. It's about the two Rentals songs that most certainly belong with the Songs From the Black Hole. You know they're totally a part of the collection and they were the songs that Matt wrote before leaving Weezer for good, but where do they fit? Is the point that they're not supposed to fit cleanly or at all?

Anyways, my version of SFTBH might or might not be available for your listening pleasure on my website, depending on how I feel after writing about what Immanuel Kant would have thought of it, but here's the tracklist in the meantime:

1. Blast Off!
2. Who You Callin' Bitch?
3. You Won't Get With Me Tonight
4. Oh Jonas
5. Come to my Pod
6. Why Bother?
7. Oh No, This is Not For Me
8. Tired of Sex
9. Superfriend
10. Dude, We're Finally Landing
11. Getchoo
12. I Just Threw Out The Love Of My Dreams
13. No Other One
14. Please Remember
15. Waiting on You
16. Devotion
17. Longtime Sunshine

Rentals Songs?
1. The Love I'm Searching For (Excellent Stocking Stuffer version)
2. Please Let That Be You (the ROTR version is closest in lyrical content/sound to SFTBH)


*EDIT
Here is my final version of Songs From the Black Hole:
MUXTAPE'D
The tracklist is slightly different and only contains one Rentals song, but it makes the most sense to me after reviewing the mythology.

Jennifer's End of 2008 List

Editor's Note: I will be posting the year end lists (as well as muxtapes) for anyone who so chooses, so let me know. This will be a mandatory assignment for some of you (expect emails soon with instructions).

In the spirit of the season, here's Jennifer's year end list. GET STOKED!


hello blog world.
let me start this off by saying I have no idea why chris asked me to contribute to his blog.
i don't read or post on the radiohead message board. i only read two blogs: gravitas kills and swan fungus. i tried to have my own blog once, but it was hard. what was i supposed to write about? i thought i would have things to say, but then it hit me: i don't know anything about anything. so, yeah.. i bet you're really excited to read my list now. have fun!

1. aretha franklin- rare and unreleased recordings from the golden reign of the queen of soul, 1966-1973

chris said this doesn't count... but it was released this year and it was my most listened to thing of 2008, so i had to make it #1.

2. Lilys- Everything Wrong Is Imaginary

chris said this doesn't count either, because this came out in 2006... but it was my favorite album of 2006, 2007, and 2008. it's also my favorite record of 2009. what? yeah, i went there.

3. The Starlite Desperation- Take it Personally



4. Mary J Blige- Growing Pains

sorry chris! this didnt come out in 2008 either. it came out december 2007, which is basically 2008... just watch the video. i love you MJB!



5. Spiritualized- Songs in A & E

6. Primal Scream - Beautiful Future

(ed: the best part about this album being here is how it got here. I found a link very early on, thinking it had leaked, however it was one of the fakes that Atlantic put out, meaning that all the songs were there, but they were the wrong length... why, you ask? Because it was 30-45 seconds from each song looped. Imagine how much she would have liked the album if she'd actually heard the real one!)



7. AU- Verbs

8. T Bone Burnett- tooth of crime

9. Lil Mama- Voice of the Young People

10. Bonnie Prince Billy- Lie Down in the Light

11. vivian girls- vivian girls

Really Quickly...

The links for previous muxtapes have been updated, so if you want to find an old mux, just click the muxtapes tag at the bottom of the post and it will take you to all the muxtape entries thus far.

MUXTAPE #1 UPDATED

MUXTAPE #2 UPDATED

MUXTAPE #3 UPDATED

muxtape updates: #4

MUXTAPE

So, if you haven't gotten the news yet, all current muxtapes are currently available on chrisyamashiro.com, so check it out.

I previously posted that this was muxtape #4, however in reality, it was #3 and this is muxtape #9, but let's not get into that just yet. Eventually, I'd like to have a section on my website devoted to muxtape naming conventions, but I don't think anyone would read that (even you, Jennifer).

Anyhow, this muxtape is a longstanding favorite around these parts and it is called "College Town, 1997." This is not because it is filled with hits from 1997's CMJ top singles list or anything, but it is how I imagine college dorms sounded in 1997, somewhere on the east coast.

1. Jets to Brazil - "Sea Anemone (Orange Rhyming Dictionary)"
I'm totally excited for Schwarzenbach's new band and his master's degree in English, as well as the Jawbreaker doc that's coming out. Apparently, it's crazy professional because it's being made by the guys that did the Minutemen documentary. I was expecting something super punk, but I also forget that Jawbreaker was supposed to be the East Bay's next superstars or something back in 1995. Like much of Blake's music, this song seemed so sad, but it seemed to also be a little bit about Jawbreaker not making it big.

2. Heatmiser - "Plainclothes Man (Mic City Sons)"
Is that some Elliott Smith b-side? Well, apparently he did play this song live quite a bit, but it was from Heatmiser's final album, which many regard as their best. I think people like it just because Elliott's songs sound like his solo stuff, rather than the "alternative rock" of the first few albums, but that's just a stab in the dark.

3. Pavement - "Shady Lane (Brighten the Corners)"
For a long time, I never thought of Pavement as a band outside of Crooked Rain or Slanted and Enchanted, but once I heard this song, I fell in love with the rest of their discog and became a Malkmus believer. The bit about Geddy Lee and the false endings are plain genius. The only thing better than Pavement singles were their videos, for example, the Spike Jonze video for this song.

4. Grandaddy - "El Caminos in the West (Sumday)"
Yeah, this came out way after 1997 and doesn't even sound that much like 1997, Jeff, but I still dig it and sort of wish it had been out around then. I think that if Jason Lytle hadn't been a pro skateboarder in 1997 and was writing these songs, Grandaddy would have been as big as The Flaming Lips were at this point. Yeah. I said it. Seriously.

5. Yo La Tengo - "Sugarcube (I Can Feel The Heart Beating As One)"
What a wonderful song. Also has a wonderful 90s video. Also, this video is great because it really doesn't focus on the song at all, cutting in and out of the audio, finding that the narrative structure was more important. This was supposed to be their "big, coming out" single that broke them into some sort of mainstream consciousness, but I think the video was their attempt to be a non-MTV MTV band. They had the amusing parody video, but the song was chopped and fit for the video, which changed everything. Too bad this came about as 120 Minutes was either dying or dead (and before MTV2).

6. Steve Burns - "Mighty Little Man (Songs for Dustmites)"
Yeah, it's Steve from Blue's Clues and the talented heroin addict from The Flaming Lips! This song also takes liberty with the time period, but I felt like The Flaming Lips in 1997 didn't quite fit this tape. It was after Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and before The Soft Bulletin, so it really doesn't matter to me.

7. Weezer - "You Gave Your Love To Me Softly (Angus OST)"
Yeah, I included the non-demo version, Jeff. I prefer audio files that aren't decayed to hell by Limewire and Karl's hard drive bursting into flames. This b-side from Pinkerton was on the Angus soundtrack. What a wonderful little song to put into a movie. I just wish that I would have seen them play this song as Goat Punishment or something.

8. The Rentals - "Barcelona (Seven More Minutes)"
I never bothered to listen to Seven More Minutes, thinking that Matt Sharp couldn't have written more than a few good songs without Rivers as his foil, but once I learned of Maya Rudolph's involvement in this album, I knew I had to listen. I can't even tell which songs she sings on, and it doesn't matter. The demos for this song are called "California" and are totally different. Some Weezer scholars argue that "California" is the better version, because it reflects more of Rivers' songwriting that Matt lifted once he left Weezer, but I love this version because it really sounds like what the Rentals should sound like (and provided a blueprint for Korg/Moog-emo bands in the future).

9. The Dismemberment Plan - "Gyroscope (Emergency & I)"
I remember downloading this song when I was 14 or 15, reading about The D Plan on the Weezer message board or something. I just knew that they were one of those bands that most Weezer fans respected, so I wanted to get to know something about them. I was just getting into Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral and thought the Dismemberment Plan must sound something like one of those bands, just because of all the Weezer fans being way into it. What I didn't know is that The Dismemberment Plan was way more influenced by that which surrounded them (Washington DC and Dischord Records) than any other "emo" band at the time. They were somewhat cut off from the Midwest, being from DC, so they sounded a little different (like SDRE, who sounded sort of like Seattle). After I downloaded this, I downloaded all the Dismemberment Plan I could find. Travis Morrisson has a wonderful sense of humor that you don't find every day in "indie rock."

Liveblogging TC5 Premiere

I decided to forego livetweeting the show. I figured the few people that follow me would appreciate not being bombarded with tons of tweets along the lines of "LOL@" or "SRSLYWTF".

6:57p - Reliving the TC4 finale. Richard looks so sad and I was totally sad for him. I hear both of his restaurants closed down and now he's "consulting," whatever that really means. I guess that gives him more time with his adorable baby.

7:02p - GENE RULES ALREADY. Too bad he's not going to win. Jeff is too pretty; he'll get far, but he can't win.

7:05p - UP THE BEARS.

7:07p - Great elimination quickfire. PEEL THE APPLES.

7:09p - blood. gross. Immunity? Man.

7:12p - I better see some great apple dishes. Also, Radhika might have been a bad choice for fantasy league.

7:18p - God, some of the cheftestants this season are annoying. Also, I love the alpaca commercials.

7:20p - GREAT. The loser is OUT.

7:22p - Oh no! The cat from Boulder doesn't know where Brighton Beach is!

7:23p - GAY ALLIANCE FTW.

7:25p - Fabio/Stefan... bromance or rivalry? Prediction: they will both be in the finale.

7:27p - Who will be out? I hope Carla gets far. I totally dig it.

7:31p - I also dig the dyke. I don't dig Carla describing everything as 'yummy' or Ariane.

7:33p - Gene v. Alex. This will be a tough one. Some of the other matchups are going to be too easy.

7:36p - Asian? We're all the same.

7:38p - Molecular gastronomy is so last year!

7:40p - I predict that if Fabio wins one of the first two elimination challenges, he will win TC5.

7:47p - BEAR AGAIN (fail), Stefan wins. Also, Spike just gave out Andrew's phone number on the TC twitter.

7:51p - My picks are pretty much shot, except for Stefan (FABIO=FAIL). Patrick is done.

7:55p - GENE WINS. BY ACCIDENT.

7:56p - I love it already.

8:00p - Richard is gone soon. So is Ariane and Melissa. Eusebio will get halfway, but that will be it.

8:03p - Eugene will get far unless his inexperience gets the best of him. Also, I have a feeling that Ariane's going home.

8:15p - it's over. Babyface is gone. Duh.

TONIGHT, WE DINE IN HELL

Everyone should get stoked on fantasy leagues for completely irrelevant reality shows. Should I livetweet this ep?

MAD WEBSITE UPDATES

there is a SECRET that is not so secret. it contains the following:



i will update with tracklistings and such soon.

If you haven't been there already...

NEW WEBSITE