Top Track: "Make Me A Bird"

I was watching something the other day and something happened that doesn't happen very often these days.

I heard something I had to hear again, immediately. 

I nearly forgot to pay attention to the show, I was so busy trying to listen to the music. But the scene itself did in fact strike me as pretty interesting.

A lanky blonde Swedish kid with lips like Angelina reclines in a chair on the bottom of the vast, white basin of an empty indoor pool, lit from above by a single broad beam of bluish light. It's that lighting reserved for classic interrogation scenes, the kind that obscures everything not directly beneath it. He's brooding (which is typical of this particular character) and sulky (also pretty typical) and by now I'd say he has pretty good reason. He's working on a dark bottle of something, and a cigarette. There's a small stereo next to him, blasting out this song. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEhPOpBvb54

And I just imagined the weird and fabulous acoustics of an indoor pool, and I thought to myself, if I were in that position, I'd probably play this song exactly. It reminds me of everything I like about the Donnie Darko soundtrack. It's like The Smiths, it's like Skream. I'm probably going to need to check out a little more of Elektrik People. 

One of those rare moments when the context and the content fit perfectly.

Don't you love it when that happens? Nothing at all could come of the spark of interest, or it could become the flavor of the month, or your new favorite band, but it doesn't really matter because you got what you didn't know you were looking for? 

It made me so happy. I'm going to listen to this song all by myself with my headphones on tonight, and shake my head in time when it says "beyond the comforts of the sick, sick game". 

"Hallelujah, lock and load!": My Chemical Romance

"Bad news from the Zone, tumbleweeds."

News broke last week, I think it was, about the disbanding of My Chemical Romance. I did not cry, and it did not ruin my day, but it did give me a kind of saggy feeling in my heart, and I had to text a few people to spread the news.

Yes. This may discredit absolutely everything I have said so far but I am about to tell you the truth: I thought My Chemical Romance was pretty awesome.

There are a lot of elements I like about their music. But I think it's something about Gerard Way's vocals that especially engage me. In my private mental world, when I close my eyes and pretend I'm a rock star on a big stage, strutting and sneering and crowing, he is what I sound like. He's my secret alter-ego. Eyeliner, gothy rendition of a Sgt. Pepper uniform, and that sharp voice- like crossing Brian Molko's pipes with a cheese grater and a jet pack. (I know, this fantasy might sound weirdly anticlimactic. Kind of like if you found out that Rob Zombie wears footy pajamas. Of course, you might think that would be awesome. In which case, I will imagine you in the audience next time I imagine I am Gerard Way.)

It definitely happened slowly. I really rather liked "Helena" from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, which was arguably their breakout song from their unarguably breakout album. I was crazy about the video. (It was that one and The Killers' "Mr. Brightside" that I ended up buying- when you love something, you'll pay for it even if you could get it for free on YouTube.) But even now I'm not sure I'd like, heartily recommend Three Cheers. It's very.... Oh, yes. Emo. That is the word. The ugly word that turns every thinking person off of a band. But honestly, what else could you call an album that has songs like "It's Not A Fashion Statement, It's A Deathwish" or "Thank You For the Venom"... which is our title track tonight, by the way, and also a decent tune. It's a good example of its kind, though, for what it's worth.

I think what clung to me about that album, besides the aforementioned video, was a track called "Ghost of You" that I really liked, without even knowing the artist. I remember waking up from a dream the morning after my eighteenth birthday with that song in my head. I asked my sister if she knew it and I hummed a few bars. She raised an eyebrow and said "That's MCR."

Huh?

"My Chemical Romance."

Oh. Tres embarrassing. I wasn't an emo kid. I didn't like that stuff. I decided to tell no one.

But that kept happening. Every time I heard an MCR song I always found myself going "This ain't half bad" and then groaning when I found out the artist. So at last I caved and bought The Black Parade.

Which is a very different animal from Three Cheers.

The Black Parade is a cool little gem. It moved away from the melodrama on the previous album and moved more toward a concept album, lyrically. (I heard of a critic saying Roger Waters should sue for the story rights.) And it moved away from definitive "emo" and leaned toward glam rock, sonically. Don't get me wrong, it's still rough and punky but there's some extra swagger in there and it's great. Inexplicably great.

After I quietly came to the realization that I may in fact, LIKE My Chemical Romance, I confided this to my friend Alex, who has excellent and eclectic taste of his own. I knew he wouldn't judge me, see. In fact, he went out and listened to the album and came back as favorably impressed as I had. That made 2 of us, secret fans of the former emo band My Chemical Romance.

And then came Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys. Which, I think, was even better than Black Parade. The whole album I love unabashedly. But if you don't believe me, listen to "S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W" which sounds a little like a nursery rhyme from the dystopian post-apocalyptic future... Which is the setting of the album, by the way. This album also contains the unexpectedly beautiful "Sing" which that abomination Glee took and made into a super hit. (It's ok, I guess. You gotta sell out sometime, huh, guys? "Gimme gimme some of that vampire money, c'mon!")

The handfuls of music they released last year lean toward the earlier stuff, which as I mentioned, leaves me kinda cold compared to the concept albums. For being a return to that form, I'd venture to say it's better than the older work- they've learned a few tricks in the last few years. But it's too late for me, I'm already their fan. I would have borne with whatever they flung me, and given it a fair chance to grow on me.

And now they are no more. Yes, it's over. And I am sad. Maybe most sad that I didn't run off impetuously to Los Angeles to see them the last time their tour brought them close to me, which was for Danger Days. Alex and I toyed with the idea but ultimately we didn't. And now, there is nothing else to do but step up and say yes, I liked that band. I liked them a lot. I genuinely hope that we have not heard the last of these guys.

"Keep your boots tight, keep your gun close, and die with your mask on if you's got to."

Their body of work is available to hear on Spotify, with the exception of what came before Three Cheers (an album called I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love).


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Introducing the Band- Or, Reflection on the Difference Between Writers and Rockers

"I want the style of a woman, the kiss of a man/ Introducing the band!" -The London Suede

Today I read a post by a dear friend of mine, one Elizabeth Barrett, and it was so charming I decided to file away the post I was anticipating to write tonight in favor of acknowledging hers. If you'd like to read the "parent post" (and you should- it's darling) you can do so so here. If you choose not to (shame on you- it's darling) I will summarize crudely and say that it is an essay exploring a particularly shy aspect of her personality, and the vehicle is a reflection of a memory of some concerts she saw- particularly primo seats for Neil Diamond.

I don't listen to Neil Diamond and I don't think anybody would have guessed from looking at my rock pedigree that anyone in my family did. But my dad famously (according to his sisters, who report this story with an all-knowing smugness of which only we older sisters are capable) got bounced from a Neil Diamond concert for attempting to get onstage and interact with the singer. The story goes something like that Dad suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to take home a souvenir from the show, and the story says that the selected item was Mr. Diamond's belt. I find this last part especially odd. It is disconcerting, to say the least, to imagine your dad grabbing at another man's belt onstage. Especially if that man is Neil Diamond, and Dad's record collection tends to have things like Frank Zappa, Judas Priest, or (on the other hand) Jackson Browne. But this story gives me context to appreciate the fan fervor in The Other Elizabeth Barrett's story.

Except I think even my dad would have been tired long before the 20th "Bah-bah-bah" of "Sweet Caroline". And he doesn't really put his hands in the air for concerts anymore, either. It has less to do with getting into it, I think, than with not feeling particularly demonstrative. I thought for sure he was miserable during the Bowie concert, but as I was bouncing along radiantly back to the car with him afterward, he said "That might have been one of the best shows I've ever seen."

Me, I do put my hands in the air. My fan fervor can become an uncontrollable fan frenzy. I don't mosh but sometimes I wish I did... instead, I do what little people do: squeeze to the front of the crowd, very politely, and open my eyes and ears as wide as I can, and hyperventilate into the music. The time will come, I'm sure, when this will not thrill me so much as it does now, and it will likely have to do with significant hearing loss at an early age. But for now I will clap and cheer and sing my heart out. I once held hands with a stranger at a folk-rock concert, and I saw a girl a few feet from me singing and crying at once at another (also folk-rock...). I have no problem letting it tear through me.

But that's because music brings this out of me. That's because true artists have the power to captivate and pull things out of you that, short of religious experience, don't often surface. That's why Jim Morrison could hold the Coliseum in the palm of his hand, and start a riot with a word.

I genuinely used to dream of being a rock star. I'd performed quite a lot as a kid for church and school functions, such that by virtue of the demand I received I thought I was good. I don't remember stage fright except as an affectation- being shy and nervous was something people demonstrated because it was done. But eventually I started to grow up and started to feel it. Oddly, it wasn't really so much for when I was singing for an audience (of course, that happened less and less) as for when I was speaking to one. When I was just saying what was on my mind. My heart still pounds and my face flushes and I twitch my feet if I'm sitting down or twist my hands if I'm standing up. When I give my own gift, my own thoughts, to a crowd, I lose all my internal composure and just pray it doesn't sound like word vomit.

But I think maybe it's less that I am afraid people will think I'm foolish, off topic, etc, than that I won't do justice to what I want to tell them.

I'm content to be a face in a grocery store. I hate playing Speed Basketball because there will come a point where I, absolutely spotlit, will hold up my team with my ineptitude for minutes that seem like eternity.

But when I'm at a rock concert, I'm part of the music. I don't hold a candle to the artist's charisma, but I will absorb and learn from it and someday maybe I will speak my own mind, present my own art, with as much power and conviction. I will learn how to help people feel that way, like they can throw up their arms and repeat the chorus til they collapse, and together we will have no inhibitions.

"I need you to believe in not me, but my words." -Taylor Mali

And for laughs: Tim Minchin- "Rock and Roll Nerd" (Disclaimer: PG-13 for strong language)