The Zimmermann Note

Tame Impala – Innerspeaker

I can say this for certain that this 2010 release is the most recent recording on this list.

The Zimmermann Notes Note: I tried to avoid either more recent releases/purchases. Time is such an essential component to the album review and something that is quite impossible early on because it lacks a certain amount of context. There could be an entire post about this but if you do not let your opinions change then you are an idiot. I love the idea, for example, of someone telling me that they went back to an album that they initially thought sucked, and listened to it in it’s entirety again and came up with the same conclusion. If they were honest with themselves that there was a desire to check again to see if they missed something, i.e. when they listened to it the first time around that something was clouding their judgment. It should not be looked at as an exercise in futility and surely they are not pissing into the wind either.

The fact that this album made the list to begin with says just how much it has impressed me in this short period of time.

How does time make a difference? When I put together my best of 2010 listing this album was 11th on the list. Looking back at that list there are some amazing albums that I still listen to. Tame Impala was a grower, which as I think back upon it, had not as much to do with Tame Impala but rather a slew of amazing albums in 2010 and a debut album from a band from the land of OZ might not capture your attention right away. When the dust settled however, it was this album that I went back to.

I remember seeing the band at Lincoln Hall in 2011 and was blown away partly due to the fact that Lincoln Hall in Chicago is the best sounding venue that I have ever been to. I was particularly impressed however with a cover that they did of Massive Attack’s ‘Angel’:

When you put a psychedelic band onstage in an acoustically perfect venue the rest is history. Kevin Parker, the brainchild behind the entire band, found a way to make 60s psychaedelic music sound fresh. This is “Open Your Mind” music plain and simple.

The other important factor, and if you have ever listened to Sound Opinions is that they have a segment where Derogatis and Kot host “Rock Doctor” where they try to set up music for couples that have differing tastes. While we do both have our own interests there are bands such as Tame Impala and especially this album that we both thoroughly enjoy so this one is definitely wife approved.

Judging from their latest release ‘Lonerism’, Tame Impala could be the biggest thing that has come out of Australia in a long time.

#57 Leonard Cohen – Songs

When I thought I could write, I had conceived a screenplay in my head based on the song ‘So Long Marianne’. I have to admit the details are hazy, other than to say it would have been some very complicated postmodern plot that would have been hard to follow. Secondly, I had always felt that if I did do something it could have to have been something unique and surreal. Keep formulas in the classroom.

The above does not have much to do with Cohen other than to suggest that a certain song had caught my liking and was played fairly often because that is what you do when you play songs (especially on CD or any electronic format) as it is much easier than the days prior when batteries were wasted rewinding tape players.

At this time, Cohen did not have his raspy, Pall Mall voice but if you were to give me a folk singer that I have most obsessed over it would be Cohen over Dylan anyday. Bold statements, I know, and trust me it is not to diss my namesake Mr. Zimmerman, (minus the second N in the name) but rather to stress what I thought Cohen’s words have been so meticulously chosen.

He’s created a couple of sirens during his time. “Suzanne” for example, which is not a song about love per se, but the human condition especially with the parallel to Jesus.

“So Long, Marianne” offers both the bittersweet reminiscing of past events as well as the current truth of a relationship gone bad, not to mention the subject of a previously mentioned never written screenplay for a movie that will not be coming to your hometown anytime soon.

What strikes Cohen as a true artist was that he was a poet first before grabbing a guitar and beginning a professional music career. His poetry offers a certain vividness that cannot be replaced. You feel that certain bohemian quality in his work. He feels like a man of the streets, seen injustice, seen his heart broken or yearn for others. He did spend some time in Warhol’s Factory which might suggest that bands and artists like The Velvet Underground and Nico might have rubbed off on him.

My introduction to Mission of Burma was actually through R.E.M. who used to cover the song “Academy Fight Song” on their live shows, especially in the late 80’s when they were touring for that pop album, ‘Green’ and thus my interest in the Burmese began around then.

“Walk into my room, ask me jerky questions”- Academy Fight Song

At this point, ‘Mission of Burma’ was not a household name but rather featured a fairly catchy song that didn’t describe the true genius of this band and in the process, I admit to asking some fairly jerky questions regarding its background. For example, the original release of ‘Signals, Calls and Marches’ did not include either Academy Fight Song or Max Ernst, which were added later in a reissue of the album. The two songs were actually the first single the band had released in 1980. When you chip away and find gold, there might be more where you are looking.

In the case of Mission of Burma, it is the fact that they have probably not received their due recognition for their role in the post-punk movement. The fact that they were influential on bands like Nirvana and Fugazi should suggest their importance but I bet that if Mission of Burma play in your hometown that the show will probably not be sold out and will put on a better performance than bands half their age.

Of course part of the issue with the band was their inability to cash in on their success. With Roger Miller’s worsening Tinnuitis, due to their live shows the band had to call it quits.

Thirty plus years later their legacy still grows and this is the album to start with.

#59 – Animal Collective – Sung Tongs

What I always found special about listening to ‘Sung Tongs’ was its ability to reminisce on the past.
A song ‘We Tigers’ express this as almost as if they are moments pulled from our unfeigned memories. Dancing around with masks, beating of drums, shrieking like a child in such a vivid detail it feels as if you are there.

Sung Tongs was the earliest of the releases that really bonded with me both due to themes as well as it’s ability to create more arching melodies that didn’t just feel like art students banging pots and pans and screeching. Of course the last comment was not to offend the art community but rather bring to attention at what Animal Collective had been slowly attempting to do.

At the heart of the album is primordial and the ability to live and thrive, a very Peter Pan-like quality.

‘Winter’s Love’ on the surface is so beautifully written that if handled in the wrong hands could musically sound very schlocky. The song challenges that same childlike premise, suggesting that more than just foreplay happened on this winter evening and turned that boy into a man. While there is no suggestion that this was completely innocent or lacks a certain level of complication, (I mean when is sex not complicated) there is still a level of vigor to the event but also a level of transformation. That boy turned into a man.

The soul of the band has been it’s strong understanding of rhythm. It’s the drumcircle, or the campfire songs, the most primitive nature at which we listened to music in the first place and they slowly begin to expand this onto a broader stage.

Maybe as I get older and consider my own mortality I see that in my son, this concept of life, the random shrieks or the banging of pots and to conclude there has been a level of comfort from the album. I am reminded in songs like ‘Who Could Win a Rabbit’, that Mr. Ferris Bueller, said it best when he said, “Life moves pretty fast, if you don’t stop and look around once and awhile you can miss it.”

It seemed fairly obvious that after the government was caught snooping in my private life that I could no longer keep this list a secret. As we count through the days of summer, what better time than to spend moments careening over my 60 best albums of all time. Unlike a Greatest Hits listing this is a Best Of which means it’s going to be better quality than a greatest hits. For example, if you were to ask someone how you did on a task, and you got “You did great!” that is not as good as “You were the best”.

Secondly, this is better than a top 100 listing in that there are 40 less spots so this makes it just that much tougher.

I made this argument fairly recently that best of lists are more than just showing off my record collection but rather provides a gauge in terms of how I felt about music in 2013. Now of course I have been working on this list on and off for over a year and I realized that at some point I needed to stop fucking around and actually post something.

I decided to spend time and do something fairly substantial because at the time I had started this list, I was only a “Father-to-be” and wanted to share something with my son that I enjoyed and that was music. That and I am in my 40th year and I wanted to come back to something years from now to see how right or wrong I was. I wanted to see what albums pushed up the ranks and which ones fell down.

There has not been any typical rules per se, other than being albums that I listened to. There might be situations where the actual tracks were different on import releases or the disc changed on later versions so my rule was that I stuck with what I listened to.

No soundtracks are included although I have to give kudos to “Until the End of the World” which was the only soundtrack that could even be close to consideration.

Every day or so I will try to post my next album on the list counting down from 60. And drumroll please…….

Number 60: R.E.M. – Out Of Time

Part of me wanted to lead off with this album just to fuck with people. I guess if you live in the R.E.M. world as I do, there is part of me that finds moody Michael dancing around with Kate Pierson pretty hilarious. While Stipe at this time was not Morrissey and writing songs about unhappy birthdays I surely would not call him Mr. Congeniality either. That being said ‘Shiny Happy People’ has a certain dated quality on this album and might work better as a hilarious B-Side. Another B-Side would be Radio Song which leads off with KRS-1 intermixing a bit of rap. There is a song somewhere buried here but the song feels too much like 1991. For every Radio Song there is a song like “Country Feedback” for which Neil Young wished he wrote himself and arguably their best song ever written.

I would make the case that people that think that “Shiny Happy People” sucks also think that “Losing My Religion” has anything to do with the literal translation in the title.

For me it was not the singles but the subtle moments on this album with album tracks like “Low”, “Belong” and “Me in Honey” that really begin the delve into an album on relationships, something that Stipe had not attempted much before this.

Lastly, the reason that the album made the list is that it was the album that pushed my fandom onto a different level. The album came out just before I went to college which meant access to better record stores and well we know the end of this story.

Oh yeah, this one too..

There is not enough time to write and as we are almost through January, I figure this would be an appropriate time to look back on 2012.

12. Peter Buck – 10 Million BC

What has to be impressive right off the bat with this album is that Buck would be the last individual that you would think would come out with an albums worth of material, some of which he actually sings on. There are some worthwhile tracks such as the title track and the several tracks that take him on his lo-fi surfari nightmare. For that he took challenges. It would have probably made my top ten list if it had kept off some of the more “Country & Western” tunes off the album. We don’t wear cowboy hats in Chicago.

11. Animal Collective – Centipede Hz

Animal Collective – Centipede hz. If you have the opportunity to pull out Animal Collective’s “Merriweather Post Pavilion” or either of Panda Bear’s last two records there is one thing that is common on all three in that the album content has quite a bit of depth. It has air to breath and develop in your brains. There is no doubt about it that Centipede has great songs but it comes off as if you are watching cartoons in the 70s on a UHF station watching programs such as the Banana Splits and Speed Racer. Songs like “Today’s Supernatural” give the eerie feeling of watching Japanese animation with flashing videos that children would have seizures while watching. As I have been listening to it, I have been reluctant to gather my thoughts, in the same way I would be unwilling to critique a bottle of wine just after it has just been opened up. In this way it makes a list that considered a concept that seemed worthy on paper but not necessarily in reality and for this reason missed the cut

Top 10 List:

10. Crystal Castles (III)

Alice Glass is a rockstar pure and simple. She holds all the keys behind what you need to do to be a great front person. Confident, mysterious, poetic, strong, dark and plays her role to perfection and I am not just talking about the album but on the stage as well. Crystal Castles (III) is dark, violent, and still danceable. While I would not suggest their last album was necessarily mainstream this album pushes back from that dangerous territory (the lamestream) when Glass could become one of the greats. However, there is a second element to the music and that is Ethan Kath, the electronic mastermind behind the project. Kath just doesn’t write tracks for Glass to sing to but rather consume. At times the music becomes the barrier and you feel the struggle that she is trying to break through such as on ‘Insulin’. Other tracks like “Child I Will Hurt You”, she haunts you with her siren voice.

9. Trust – Trst

Another band from Toronto, Ontario like Crystal Castles which plays along the same moody electronic dancemusic. To be honest with you the thing that really caught my eye with this album was the overweight goth rocker on the cover. As any album with overweight goth stars, it’s dark and moody with plenty of dance pop hooks to keep you drawn in. At times, Robert Alfon’s lead singing sounds a bit like a muffled Vincent Price which I think gives the album a bit of character and not just like any other run of the mill rock album with an overweight goth rocker on the cover.

8. Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory

The first important note about this album is that it was engineered by Steve Albini. This would mean that it is probably opinionated. The bigger question of course would be if Albini was feeding the band, as his secondary career over the past few years has been having just as serious opinion of food. The second important characteristic this year was trying to have more rock music influence my listening habits. As much as I enjoy the concept of someone sitting behin a mixing board, there is something compelling of getting back to the roots of guitar, bass and drums. This album was reminiscent of the late 80’s and 90s hardcore/grunge sounds while still sounding fresh and invigorating. “Wasted Days”, checking in at nearly 9 minutes, was on repeat during the early part of the year.

7. Ty Segall – Twins

The first of the Ty Segall releases to appear here. In typical “Guided By Voices” fashion, Segall has been prolific in 2012 releasing 3 albums worth of material. I would say that he is also the artist most influential on my music listening in 2013. I think it started with last years Grammy winning artist “Bon Iver” whose album “Bon Iver” seemed to have won over the hearts and minds of those that are impressed with music that you want to slit your wrists to. I began to miss the cockyness that rock and roll was built on vs. the artist that would admire their own shadow. I wanted every that was “Anti-Iver”, which meant that it needed to be a “Bon-ifide” rock and roll record. Segall became that artist for me and allowed me to embrace or believe in something that felt real. In some ways it reminds me of lo-fi grunge because there are some definitive 60s pop sensabilities in his work but it doesn’t sound as polished as many of the 90s albums that defined the early part of the decade.

6. Foxygen – Take the Kids Off Broadway EP

This album feels like a combination of Motown, Nuggets-era rock and the Rolling Stones. On the surface it sounds a bit rough but that is also what gives it its charm. It doesn’t have that polished feel but as if the band is sitting there doing their best impression of Mick Jagger going cukoo for Cocoa Puffs. While the inevitable comparisons exist and the band is clearly up on their 60s genre’s this EP is still fun. However, where I see that this bands future is in it’s ability to create something that still feels like their own. Having listened to their follow-up album that was released just a few weeks ago, I am concerned that they are trying to emulate the various sounds from the era rather than create their own.

5. Grizzly Bear – Shields

There could have been a time when this album would have been ranked higher than 5 but when I saw that Edward Droste seemed disappointed that the band was not nominated for a grammy, it got dropped a couple of notches on principle. Of course there is a reason that the Mumford & Sons can secure 6 Grammys because the Mumford, etc. suck and well the Grammy’s suck. Droste’s disappointment would suggest that they (The Grammy’s) mean something and that they were looking to follow in the footsteps of Bon Iver and Arcade Fire.

(Admittedly, the Mumford & Sons/Lumineers, Civil War rock fondness has already reached it’s peak and it is time to burn the acoustic instruments.)

Grizzly Bear is a much different band than the one that Droste formed as an art project, pushing more in the direction of pop band than say ‘Dirty Projectors’ but still providing enough of their art rock to not sound stale. ‘Shields’ is an appropriate follow-up to ‘Veckatimest’, continuing in the direction of offering some of the more intelligent baroque pop that is in existence today.

4. Ty Segall & White Fence – Hair

One of my favorite “underappreciated” tracks of the year was Ty Segall and White Hair doing the song Tongue on their album “Hair”. The glory is the combo of Segall’s lo-fi pop with Tim Presley (White Fence’s) psycha-funkyness. The second Segall album to break the top 10 and the one that in my opinion flew a bit under the radar. The question of course when someone releases 3 albums in a year would be whether or not had they edited down the work and only released 1 album would the quality be such where it could be considered a classic?

As this is often the question that plagues “Guided by Voices”, Segall’s travels lead him to various artists which should suggest unique working relationships which should push different influences forward.

3. Spiritualized – Sweet Heart Sweet Light

The neo-psychaedelic space rock sounds of Jason Spaceman, Spiritualized, in my opinion brings it’s strongest album, a flurry of tunes that will allow you to reminisce from the classic Spacemen 3 days. Quite possibly the track of the year was “Hey Jane”, which seems appropriate with its luring Velvet Underground feel. While the album does move in various soulful directions as it progresses there is plenty of white noise to be excited about.

2. Ty Segall Band – Slaughterhouse

The third of the Ty Segall releases to grace this listing, this album features Ty with his entire band and the album that definitely ignites the most amount of energy. It also breaks one of my rules regarding bands with the name “Band” in the band name. This is just pure unadulterated rock and roll. From the opening track “Death” opens with almost a minute of guitarwork before the onslaught occurs. While some have compared him to Jay Reatard, I sense a closer relationship to Wavves, but with a bigger sound. There is a definitive B-Movie Surf rock that begs for your eardrums to bleed. It does it in such a way that it creates an aura rather than make the process painful, such as Sleigh Bells. It feels like a mixture of Iggy Pop meeting Nirvana and that is a good comparison in my opinion.

1. Tame Impala – Lonerism

Oftentimes the term “Classic” can feel overused. One of my favorite talkshow hosts Kevin Matthews, formerly of the Loop AM 1000 joked that it “doesn’t have to be good to be a classic”, referencing the classic rock stations that would fill the airwaves of the best of the 60’s and 70s, offering up songs that on the surface were a bit overrated.

The goal when bands try to capture the essence of prior decades is to put their own stamp on the material, that line in the sand which you can clearly capture the essence of a prior decade rather than copying a sound.

Tame Impala’s own rise among my own favorite bands was built by their debut LP, ‘Innerspeaker’, an album that has improved over time with it’s brilliance slowly revealing itself. Over two short albums, the troubadour, Kevin Parker has made himself one that should be noticed. The influences he is pulling from, as well as his attention for detail is such that the landscapes are captivating. “Lonerism” becomes the theme, i.e. getting lost in the music on top of the themes discussed in the music which deal with the concept that you are alienating yourself from the rest of the world. There is the euphoric, “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”, which uses an almost dreamlike bubbly music to describe a relationship that seems to stall. “Apocalypse Dreams” theme is suggestive in the title itself.

While the album might take influences from works like Pink Floyd, Supertramp or Fleetwood Mac, Parker has developed his own signature sound that makes this release a true classic.

In the midst of a presidential campaign season, R.E.M.’s politically motivated ‘Document’, turns a quarter century old. From the fiery pulpit of Michael Stipe and guitar work of Peter Buck, R.E.M. masterfully craft these 11 songs into an iconic work. I always felt that Stipe laments the dangers of ‘isms’ but while the band has always sought a more progressive point of view and while it truthfully ridicules some of the Reagan cheerleading of the 80’s, it also clearly points fingers at some dangers of institutions in general.

‘Finest Worksong’ opens the album as an almost “Pseudo Workers Party Theme song”, straight from the “Barack Obama Socialist” handbook some might say. There is a certain hokeyness to the lyrics, as if I need to sit there and be inspired to psych myself up for the workday. It drives home an opening statement and an idea. The album follows some of the themes of prior albums in a different manner. ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’ opens thoughts up to the idea of “Let’s begin again”, “Lets start a new country up”. For Document, it’s let’s organize with a different purpose than the America that we currently live in. Let’s not just talk about beginning again but actually starting over. The first side of the album becomes a bit of a propaganda piece, a PSA, if you may.

Realize that R.E.M. becomes more than just singing these mantras without actually believing in the concepts behind them. As they tour, their shows always have a local politically minded groups with worthy causes having tables set up near the entrance ways for fans to gain knowledge. Realize that this is before the internet where the power of information was much more expensive than it is now.

‘Welcome to the Occupation’ and ‘Exhuming McCarthy’, both make their points known with one suggesting the hypocrisy of how America values it’s own freedoms but not those of other countries, in this case a country in Central America and another, a reference in the title to Senator Joseph McCarthy who went on his dirge regarding communist spies in the United States. They kick start this album in such a manner in that we are not speaking about ‘Hope and Change’ but challenging the very fabric of America and the party on the right. As some have claimed that Ronald Reagan has grown to become an icon among the right wing, there needs to be a realization that the progressive left did not have the power during this time challenging the listener to understand the ideas of what it means to be an American.

‘Disturbance at the Heron House,’ grapples at the heart of the album. The song contains all the necessary ingredients for a classic R.E.M. track. There are lyrics like the following: “The followers of chaos out of control” and the “Gathering of Grunts and Greens” which will leave even the most studied R.E.M. fan questioning what is being derived by the song unless they read the “Stipe Notes” and see that the song is Stipe’s version of Orwell’s classic novel “Animal Farm”.

For me, the song’s strength was not realized for me initially, on the album itself but live and in this case the acoustic version.

R.E.M.’s songs invoke a level of flexibility that show both their delicate nature in tracks like the one above or their more “Stomp and Stammering” nature like the version on the album. Bill Berry’s percussion has this very shocking and persistent beginning, a sense of prevailing order where the fable being shared is quite the opposite. Stipe’s mechanism of enunciating during various elements of the acoustic track pulls in the listener in the sad spectacle.

‘Strange’ is the second time that the band has covered a song from another band on a regular album. In this case, its Wire’s with the lyrics slightly altered to Michael’s own nervousness rather than Joey’s. It offers a nice segway into ‘It’s the End of the World As We Know It’, a song that would be considered more popular now, especially with all the various “Doomsday” items that will hit the news, the song often becomes part of that news cycles soundtrack.

If we were old school, we would then flip sides and run into the song “The One I Love”. It’s the first time that Michael Stipe uses the word “Love” in any song and one listen to the caustic lyrics and one you realize that the reminiscent moment holds very little meaning. The simple message is Stipe doing Morrisey, “A simple prop to occupy my time”. However, on the live version on the Deluxe Edition that was released, we see a much more vulnerable side. The acoustic version here shows an even darker side.

Per the liner notes, it would appear that there were plenty of different versions of the song available and each one would seem to be reinvented but each would have a different story. For a song that repeats itself, it is one of the few that often feels so complex and yet at the same time, you can take a word like “Love” that Stipe had refused to use in a lyric before this and somehow made sure that it would be utterly complex, confusing and their first legitimate hit single.

The 25th Anniversary Edition of Document contains not the complete but most of the show from Utrecht, Holland from September 1987. The diehard fans out there will whine and scream that the second disc was not the complete show, choosing to leave off some cover tracks like the Clique’s ‘Superman’, which appeared, on ‘Lifes Rich Pageant’.

Others will complain that they would have preferred a demo concept, like the previous 2 reissues that contained early versions of songs worked on during that period of time. What I have found with Demo’s in the past is that while there will be a handful of the songs that will feel unique, there will be some that just do not feel all that different than the version that ended up on the album itself and will thus get 4 songs that feel partially interesting.

While this might satisfy the anal retentive R.E.M. fan wondering if it is true if a song was originally written with a mandolin in mind, the truth of the matter was that R.E.M. is a live band. For the fan that is introduced to R.E.M. with this album, the show that is attached is a worthy piece of history with one minor exception being the editing down of So. Central Rain to remove both Time After Time, and the Capella snippet of “Red Rain”, from the album. That part is a bit of a travesty because the medley is one of the most beautiful renditions of So. Central Rain that I had heard and for me there is a bit of sentimentality in that it was this B-side that had pushed me deeper into the R.E.M. discography looking for anything and everything R.E.M.

By the time of Document, Michael Stipe had been getting much more comfortable in the live setting taking on the role of the lead singer more prominently than before. While the band had grown by leaps and bounds, Stipe had exhibited a level of growing pains in front of the audience. Interviews were rough, as he would get tired of the same questions being asked and often make up answers while the other band mates would roll their eyes. If you read old interviews you will note that it is often Mike and Peter doing interviews for this reason.

When he got around to touring for Fables, he would often tell stories onstage about Old Man Kensey before the band would sing or discuss Brevis Mekis, i.e. the man behind the song ‘Life and How to Live It’ who split his house in half and would live in one side for awhile and would move and live on the other half. While the live show does contain a mention of Mekis during Life and How To Live It, it’s the ability of the songs to be injected full of energy that might be missing on the album versions. This is not to say that their music is boring on the albums but rather, unlike todays bands, the live sound often features less meddling and more emotion. While their earlier albums can be characterized with less studio work than their later years, they were never trying to be Pink Floyd either, expanding songs past the 10 minute mark

‘Oddfellows Local 151’, a song that is actually referencing a liquor store (The Firehouse is a liquor store in Athens) rather than the suggested thought that it might actually be a firehouse and Peewee was union member. Its duplicative meaning is often tricky and when realized, maybe even a little hilarious. As I am reminded from doing an Athens tour with Paul Butchart that we did pass by that Liquor store but did not see Peewee hanging around anywhere. The live track emanates more of the eeriness of the moment that you don’t feel as much on the regular album a song that in my opinion feels much more sanitized than on the live version.

Document is the last of the truly strong politically motivated albums the band released. I have always felt that “Green” has been a little flawed and considering some of the carefully worded lyrics for “Document”, “Green” always felt a bit more dumbed down, ‘Document’ is often complex , especially musically but I am always mindful of the lack of music and lyrics that can match the power of what Stipe penned to paper 25 years ago. A work of art.

“Last year, a girl was raped by two wastes of sperm and eggs while they sang the lyrics to our song “Polly.” I have a hard time carrying on knowing there are plankton like that in our audience. Sorry to be so anally P.C. but that’s the way I feel.” – Kurt Cobain from the liner notes of Incesticide

I have to admit before I start this, that one of the aspects that I have always appreciated about R.E.M. is their support for causes, whether they were local issues, global politics or their ability to build awareness among their fanbase. In their heyday, the reason that the music meant so much was not just limited to the fact that they were good songs, but that it meant something. They were more than just a pop song on a piece of plastic but carried an inherent meaning much greater than many people realize. They grew in prominence from grassroots beginnings, keeping their small town charm while providing audiences with thoughtful rock and roll that didn’t dumb down their audience but rather challenged them.

Throughout their career, they had been very careful about having their songs used in advertisements for products, clearly understanding that they did not want to go down that path of selling out their music. There was even some misconception of course when I believe it was Microsoft used the song “Superman” from Lifes Rich Pageant on an advertisement. Of course, while the song received acclaim from the band, it was actually written by a little known band “The Clique” in 1969. But for the most part, you can say over their 30 years they were pretty clean in that respect.

That all boiled over when I would imagine, Michael Stipe was on his second espresso of the morning, flipped to Fox News and found Fox and Friends playing the song that he made a hit.

Ok, maybe I am slightly exaggerating my point here aka pulling a Ryan. He was probably on his first expresso. The simple point is that Fox News had used a clip of Losing My Religion on the air. Oh the horror!

Of course, the response from the reviled Fox:

“Fox News Channel’s use of an R.E.M. song was in full accordance with its license agreements with all appropriate parties. Nevertheless, we’re always flattered to have this much attention for a song selection and we hope R.E.M. was able to satisfy their publicity fix.”

Since, I have misplaced my online correspondence law degree from Dr. Nick Riviera’s School of Law, so I am really not going to discuss the legalese of the case but if I were to make a guess, I would imagine that R.E.M. doesn’t have much of one but that really wasn’t the point.

My knowledge of Fox News of course is that it is about as relevant as professional wrestling. In fact, in many ways professional wrestling and Fox have a lot in common in that they are both fake, a display that is purely entertainment with no educational value whatsoever. The only difference of course is that the hosts of Fox are not lathering themselves up with body oils (at least when they are on the air).

To their credit they have a strong fan base of nimrods, and I would imagine that nimrods have to go somewhere to be entertained and they have built a healthy franchise in instilling hatred and fear.

My knowledge of Losing My Religion of course can be summed up by looking at my iTunes collection which features a hefty 66 mp3s, most of them live performances, not to mention countless others on disc. I had often joked that I wanted to come out with a boxed set of 20+ discs just playing all the different versions of ‘Losing My Religion’ with the dream that there would also be a full 200 page booklet written by Peter Buck describing each of these versions. Of course, knowing Peter Buck he would fucking pull it off and people would buy it just to read that shit.

(Peter Buck of course is the guitarist of R.E.M. who is coming out with his own solo album out November 20th, which just so happens to be my 40th birthday. Of course Peter Buck is such in dire need of PR that he is releasing his album only on vinyl and limiting it to 2000 copies.)

The true meaning of the song has nothing to do with becoming atheist as the nimrod might understand. It would be about completely obsessive or infatuated with someone else. The song has nothing to do with organized or disorganized religions/cults/sects whether they are Christian, Muslim, Judiaism.

The song is about being 18 and totally infatuated with someone and doing everything fuck shit wrong and getting totally depressed about that and listening to the song about 50 times in a row. It has nothing to do with choosing not to take communion anymore.

If you are like me, sitting with your Che Guevara shirt on, and staring at naked photos of Oak Trees in a luscious manner, or bronzing children’s lunchboxes, I would imagine that if you ever had written a song or put together a piece of art and that piece was represented on a station like Fox, of course you are going to be upset. You are a liberal and your creation is now being broadcast on the anti-Christ channel. Congratulations, someone is taking a shit on your lawn and now you have to pick it up!

I was clearly impressed by quote by Michael Stipe: ‘We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage. Our music does not belong there.’ the emphasis on Puff Adder of course.

If R.E.M. were in the business of keeping its fans they would have kept their mouths shut during their career. They would not have supported candidates, protested wars, got booed on stage for their comments ,.etc. The point was that they just didn’t put shit on a record and sell units but rather were the band that mattered. So I am not sure how this is a PR move. Their comments in this case could have clearly alienated fans who might not be aware of their status of being very progressive in their politics.

From someone like myself who feels very passionate about politics, I have to admit that I do have problems listening to “Republican” bands. You will not see me play any, Ted Nugent, Hank Williams Jr. or Megadeth anytime soon.

Yes, you rile up the fanbase by being political but alienate some fans that might not share the bands opinions.

At the end of the day, it is their song, they are playing on and they are fucking playing a Mandolin. Does Steve Doocy even know what a fucking mandolin is? There are times when a nice “Fuck You” is warranted.

In the meantime, I think I will have to devise my own “Puff Adder” playlist to dedicate to Fox. Stay tuned.

The day after Bill Doss, founding member of the Olivia Tremor Control had passed away, I was in transit on the Red Line (El), listening to the album ‘Black Foliage: Animation Music Volume One’, and the song “I Have Been Floated” had entered my earlobes. The song had always resonated with me and my emotions had taken over.

It was this chorus, taken/borrowed from Emerson’s Intellect:

I have been floated to this thought this hour
on a series of events I cannot explain
gather your with, your will, your luck, your power
that what it would effect that will not remain

It was more than the words but the way that the chorus had played out. It is sung three times throughout the song, the first time they play it straight, the second time they cut back the instrumentation and do it in a minimalist manner and the third time psychedelic. Every instance felt more powerful than the previous version. I am sitting in a packed sardine of a subway car with a tinge of water in my eyes and in this case there was no putrid smell causing this.

Hailing out of Ruston, Louisiana, four friends Bill Doss, Will Cullen Hart, Jeff Mangum and Robert Schneider who were pretty much daring themselves into writing different types of music. Robert Schneider went to Denver, Colorado and formed the Apples in Stereo. Mangum, Hart and Doss went to Athens, Georgia and formed the Synthetic Flying Machine, which later morphed into The Olivia Tremor Control. In the meantime Schneider formed the Elephant 6 Recording Company and the other three were on board in Athens. Jeff Mangum eventually begins his own project, Neutral Milk Hotel and we see the formation of the core of the Elephant 6 Recording Company (E6).

There was always a collectivist soul when discussing Olivia Tremor Control and well, E6 in general. The band led by front men Bill Doss and Will Cullen Hart were able to unlock spaces in our brain with their underwater psychedelic sounds. Their albums ‘Music from the Unrealized Film Script: Dusk at Cubist Castle’ and ‘Black Foliage’ are both masterful works, both inventive and exploring sounds that opened the doors for artists that have followed in their footsteps.

I had first been introduced to the band back in 1999 at about the time of their release of ‘Black Foliage’. As I had been planning a trip to Georgia to see R.E.M., it had been announced only weeks earlier that they and Elf Power, another Elephant 6 band would be opening for them. I had been instantly hooked at that time, taking in their inventive nature and bohemian style to not just listen to their albums regularly but search out their partners in crime and by 1999 there had been several other bands in existence as well as a healthy amount of side projects.

The concept seemed pretty simple: a love for music and a support of each other’s endeavors. Reading the liner notes of an Olivia Tremor Control album, you would see a host of outside names filling in on instruments. Most of the works in the 90s had been recorded on 4 or 8 Track players where they would have to create detailed schematics that would list when certain pieces would start and end. Of course now with Pro Tools and other computer software programs they can make this work much more simplistic on their end.

Psychedelic is not a fair label. Their style as such was one that engaged many different genres and they were not fearful of taking chances. While Doss had described themselves “Mid-Fi” they definitely had an impact on “Lo-Fi” music as well as seeking out cheaper recording styles and not relying on large labels to produce their work. They did so as well with their inventive nature. Their recordings include some of the most blissful pop sounds (ala Beach Boys and the Beatles) mixed with inventive musical interludes which felt at times they were part animated (See Black Foliage) and other parts mechanical. I had often felt that the band had taken the Beatles song “Blue Jay Way” and deconstructed it and formed a world within it.

“Dusk at Cubist Castle” is quite amazing that they were able to record this on 4 track equipment but they never made it sound like it was a 4 track, rather were intelligent enough to make proper music. I have always revered Green Typewriters suite, a selection of 10 identically titled tracks called “Green Typewriters”, (of note/coincidence, there was a “Green Typewriter” made by the Oliver Typewriter Company). It feels almost like an album within an album. The album contains some of the bands best pop moments with songs like “Jumping Fences” and my favorite “NYC-25” (“Pleasant dreams but please don’t sleep too long”).

Where ‘Dusk at Cubist Castle’ featured several interludes pieced together, ‘Black Foliage’ feels like your true ‘concept album’. While the liner notes provides a healthy explanation, it’s stated intent was to take a section of guitar and create sections of animation based on that guitar and then create different sounds onto the animation and reshaping different sections into each other. Unlike albums that focus on quick rewards, this one takes a good 50 or so listens to even start comprehending it. It’s been 13 years later and I still am not sure I totally get it. There aren’t bands or albums that are made with so much thought to detail so many that were arranging and rearranging, deconstructing and putting back together to put something that felt so real so alive and visual.

The last time that I had seen the band was during the Elephant 6 Surprise Holiday Tour in 2011. The band played on for over 3 and a half hours comprising of over 40 tracks from the Elephant 6 canon of works. Between songs it was the shuffling of instruments from one individual to another. Through it all, you saw the members having fun on stage, joking and laughing as if it was more than just a show but a celebration. They started the show by entering the stage moving through the audience, playing their instruments and treating the event as if it was a communal endeavor and did the same as they left by engaging the audience in singing Sun Ra’s “Enlightenment” as they brought the band down onto the audience floor.

With the Elephant 6, no one person stood out. Sure, Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum has received quite a bit of notoriety for his two albums but I get the impression that he would prefer living a quiet live anonymously rather than ever steal the spotlight. This was never part of the act with the E6. That was why I have failed to mention Doss directly through most of this. It never felt like “His” band. It was a band he helped form with Hart, Peter Erchick and John Fernandes as well. It was a group of individuals: (Andrew Rieger, Julian Koster, Scott Spillane, Laura Carter, Jeremy Barnes, and Bryan Poole/Helium to name a few), that would lend support on a project whether it was adding vocals, percussion, brass instrument or some other oddity that helped a project along. It was a community that lost a brother. Each one had a place on the stage whether it was clapping in the background or in the spotlight. It was a group of individuals that appreciated music. As a fan when you embrace that community, you not only appreciate the music that they have made over the years but embrace what they have stood for and this is when it becomes difficult to comprehend.

When you put it all together you find yourself on a subway listening to a song that you have admired for 13 years still having the same power and weight that it did when you first heard it in 1999.

Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven’s David Lowery is living in the past. His blog post criticizing NPR’s music intern Emily White has received some notoriety so before I proceed, I would first suggest you check out the article by the intern and the article by Lowery.

There are several things that go wrong here, namely why Lowery got on his high horse and started off on this tangent. It would appear that Lowery is attacking White as being part of the problem where I more would think that there is a generational gap in how we consume information.

Emily admits in her blog that much of the music that she has in her collection was not bought by her but obtained in other manners. She admits to a brief fling with Kazaa in the fifth grade but admits to receiving music in other ways, such as through mix CDs or in her unique situation, burning albums from her college radio stations collection.

As a generation X’er, I have to admit to getting tape dubs of albums from friends and or doing them for others. This was (and still is) a form of stealing and while in my personal situation I did purchase several albums, I would not be surprised of Mr. Lowery can also attest to receiving free music in the past. It would seem that the methods at which Emily has obtained this music are different than the methods at which the Music Industry has attacked, i.e. (Bit Torrent and File Sharing sites).

I support Emily’s position in that she is bringing the point of view of the current music fan that wants to go to concerts and buy t-shirts and wants to purchase music as a form of convenience rather than an owning a physical copy of the album. Is buying a copy of a piece of plastic or downloading a copy off the Internet the only way to support a band? Is Spotify a valid mechanism to distribute music? Now these are questions that I cannot necessarily answer to the detail of knowing the nuances of contracts but I do think that Spotify is a direction at how we sell music. Like any service, (see Netflix), there is eventually pullback from those parties that want a bigger share and even Emily brings out hope that methods in the future are more fair for artists.

This does not speak of a “Free Culture Movement” as David Lowery points out but rather speaks about an artist that has lost touch and a bitter old man because the band he is hasn’t been relevant for over 15 years. Emily is not asking for these items to be “Free” but rather change the mode of service. There is no ownership of Mr. Lowery’s Cracker cds but rather the fee to borrow them or have them on standby if need be and receive appropriate compensation of those albums are actually listened to.

Why do we need to buy a physical CD or record? What is so important about the piece of plastic? Does it have magic powers? If I subscribe to a service like Netflix and stream the same show over and over again is this any different than listening to the same album over and over again on Spotify?

An artist today has more power than ever before to completely control the method at which their music is going to be released. If they do not want to put it on Spotify, they do not have to. If they only want to put it on vinyl (see Peter Buck) they can do that.

The most shameful moment of course was the comments that Lowery made about Vic Chestnutt and Mark Linkous(Sparklehorse). I am not sure how can somehow blame file sharing for their suicides. Vic Chestnutt had financial/health issues before we even knew what file sharing was. I do not believe that in either situation that if file sharing had somehow not existed, that they would still be alive today but he makes it all seem so simple that if everyone that downloaded their music illegally had bought it properly they would still be alive today.

Music is not socialism. Where were the bands when all the fans complained about Ticketmaster? They were raking in the profits.

Where were the bands in the 90s when the price for a CD could be anywhere from 16-18 dollars?

We have more tools than ever to listen to music, whether it is on our computers, our telephones, our iPods (and yes, these do cost money but is that any different for those expensive Cracker CDs in the 90s needed the CD player and the amplifier and speakers that cost hundreds of dollars? Companies like Sony made out like bandits. Of course where is Sony today? In the shitter.

Fans, took over, they decided to make their own rules, and they threw away the corporate playlists at the radio stations and made their own Spotify playlists. They determined what was relevant to listen to not what the industry told them to. They shared music with their friends in their Facebook feeds to make more fans of their favorite music. They acted as that moment of free promotion, that level of excitement when you are sharing that song or album for the first time with a friend hoping that they like it too or the mix that someone finds several songs appealing only to go and check out that band for themselves.

Lastly, a lot of bands just suck. They are not going to make money selling their albums, going on tour and selling T-Shirts. At the end of the day, the music has to be good, plain and simple. You can discuss the economics of music all you want, Spotify, stealing, .etc, but the biggest question comes down to the contents. Is it good.