2009 in Music

What a fine year.

About a month ago I posted a question on my Facebook page asking what people felt was the best year in music and if they could defend their stance. This is such a loaded question that we'd argue for years over years. There were some great posts. 1969—Woodstock? Mid-70s rockers? Beethoven completed the 9th in 1824 . . . I've always had a soft spot for 1994--but it's also because I was young and that music is full of memories. Grunge before the wave broke, and "our" Woodstock.

 

Music appreciation is shot with nostalgia and at times I try to be bigger than that, to try to appreciate something for just the merits it has on its own. In about August of this year I started to realize that '09 had been a really good year for music (this was still a month before the new Pearl Jam album!). Not to say '08 sucked, it didn't. But there's been something really special this year, certain stars aligning, whatever. Maybe with MJ dead, the musical world decided to turn it up a notch. That might be over-thinking. Here are my twelve reasons, by album but in no real order, why 2009's music has been so good.

1. Neil Young—Fork in the Road

 

In February I saw Bob Dylan live in Calgary. I'm no big fan but he only played two hits and the rest was new stuff. It made me believe that someone who's been making music for forty years just can't keep it up live. But in April I saw Neil Young in Lethbridge(?!). I went with my mom and brother. Young played his greatest hits plus three newbies, and we sang our lungs out. It was tremendous.

Young's one of my heroes. He releases an album every year and yet they're always different, usually good, often great. Fork, an ode to his electric car, is pure, guitar-driven folk-rock. It's awesome.

TASTY TRACK: "Singing a Song." A song about how singing a song won't change the world, from a guy who's released quite a few tracks that would beg to differ.

 

2. U2—No Line on the Horizon

I'll level with you, U2 was always like the Beatles to me: I appreciated their genius but I preferred their contemporaries. But four about five years I've been in a band with a huge U2 fan, and it's also helped that their two albums prior to No Line were the best they've ever made.

It's not the greatest album, but it's still pretty good. It plays like two LPs hinged together by the single "Get On Your Boots." Had I not been a recent U2 convert, this album would not have done the job. But it's maintained my like for them.

TASTY TRACK: "I'll Go Crazy if I Don't Go Crazy Tonight." Though it's lost some glimmer for me since it became a TV commercial.

3. Green Day—21st Century Breakdown

Green Day has proven that they are the greatest punk band ever. Yes, better than the Clash, Sex Pistols, Social Distortion, SNFU, Good Riddance, Rancid, Operation Ivy, or me and two guys named Shawn when I was in Grade 10. No argument, the best. And don't feed me that "the Beatles would be better than the people who copied them if they came later" crap.

I like The Who better than the Beatles, and they were playing at the same time. Green Day has surpassed any work of their predecessors and contemporaries, and they've done it with this album.

That's because they've shown that American Idiot was no fluke. They're not a one-comeback wonder. 21st Century Breakdown shows that they have mastered the art of blending three-chord hooks with social commentary. This stuff is amazing. One of the three or so albums that I've listened to almost daily since its release. Maybe it's not the seminal album Idiot was, but it's every bit as good. It is a touch smarter, and a move in an even more ambitious direction.

TASTY TRACK: Tough, tough choice. I'm gonna go with "American Eulogy," but don't miss the bonus track where they cover The Who's "A Quick One While He's Away."

4. The Tragically Hip—We Are the Same

It's funny when you think about it. Neil Young releases an album a year and I'm all over it, and he's been doing that since the 60s. The Hip, the greatest Canadian rock band of my generation, does the same and I find I'm losing track of them. They're still a great band but I feel like I've fallen a few steps behind them. It's a good album, pleasantly mellow, but I haven't listened to it quite enough to do it full justice.

TASTY TRACK: "Coffee Girl.”

5. Tori Amos—Abnormally Attracted to Sin

I think any man who avoids this woman does it because he's afraid of being gay. Or he's afraid of having his balls cut off, musically speaking. Tori Amos is a smart woman, and there's nothing that frightens some men more than a smart woman. Do I sound like I'm trying to convince myself I'm not afraid of her? Sorry. She does scare me a little, but I know I'm not gay and I know she won't cut my balls off . . . without good reason. She's so unapologetically sexual, and she purrs lyrics that push the line of every one of society's outdated gender norms. But she does it on a piano bench in a smoky room, with a short dress and a smirk on. She takes full advantage of who she is to say what she wants rather than preach.

She does it superbly on this album. She's been at this a while and she keeps getting better. Smart, sexy music.

TASTY TRACK: "Strong Black Vine"

6. Metric—Fantasies

When you discover a band that’s been around for a bit, why do people treat you like you’re an idiot? They don’t do that with books. I’ve known about Metric for a couple of years—they get a lot of airtime on the only two radio stations I listen to, CBC and X92 outta Calgary. So when Fantasies was released, I decided to pick it up and . . .whoa. Intense. This stuff is genius, a perfect mix of rock, mod and wit.

And then I saw them live. They were so passionate, pulsing with an energy that makes Iggy Pop look boring—they put it all on the line to entertain you. I’ve quickly become a serious fan.

TASTY TRACK: “Gimme Sympathy,” which Emily Haines introduced with the hope that “this is your summer anthem.” It had been mine already. Tough call, though, this album is near-perfect.

7. Dave Matthews Band—Big Whiskey and the Groogrux King

Geez, I just realized that I’m smack-dab in a trilogy of brilliant albums that formed my soundtrack to the summer.

Dave Matthews is too close to my heart for me to tell you if he can do wrong. I can tell you that with this album he’s really, really doing right, though. This holds up with his best work, and I think lyrically it sometimes transcends Crash. Wow, this is an album that constantly shows its worth. There’s never an off song. If Fantasies was brilliant and new this was somebody who’s been around for a long time showing that he’s still brilliant.

TASTY TRACK: Probably the hardest album on here for me to choose from, but I’ll go with “You and Me” because it makes me think of my wife. But really this is song for song an album of sure things.

8. Ben Harper and the Relentless Seven—White Lies for Dark Times

Ben Harper’s passionate voice, his one of a kind slide guitar skills, and his touches of southern-folk gospel have always suggested the blues anyway, so it makes sense that he took this chance minus the Innocent Criminals to record a great blues album.

They were also a pleasure to hear live. When these guys hit the stage, all eyes are on Ben. He’s Ben Harper, one of the greatest song makers of the past twenty years. But his band mates do their best to steal some attention. At the start of “Number With No Name,” drummer Jordan Richardson hammers the intro beat with maracas on his skins, then tosses them into the air, grabs his sticks and charges into the verse without missing a—well—beat.

TASTY TRACK: “Keep it Together (So That I Can Fall Apart.” I walk around the house singing this riff to myself. Waow-chucka-waow-na-na-na-waow-waow-aow-aow-aow-aow.

9. Dream Theater—Black Clouds and Silver Linings

Waiiit, did Ben Harper and Dream Theater go to the same Eastern Philosophy class this year?Regardless. . .

Pearl Jam, Green Day, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and Dream Theater are some of my very favourite musical performers. It is unprecedented that they should all release an album the same year. This one’s good—I like everything these guys do—but it’s pretty much just a re-hash of what they did on Systematic Chaos. Prog-metal ain’t for everyone, but it suits me just fine from these fellas. This one’s extra-special because there’s the album, then a bonus-album of cover songs. When you double a six-song album (granted, your average track is ten minutes) it’s pretty delightful.

TASTY TRACK: “The Shattered Fortress.” For the past ten years they’ve been including one track per album dedicated to three of the twelve steps in the Alcoholics Anonymous program. Drummer Mike Portnoy is a reformed alcoholic. Still with me? Okay, well, this song is its own glory but it’s also an amalgam of musical and lyrical themes from the earlier tracks as they bring the suite to a close. Ambitious.

10. Jervis Cocker—Further Complications

Former Pulp front man (no, I didn’t know that before I saw him live) kicks out a joyous concoction of nerd-pop so neurotic and wussy he’d get bullied by Weezer. But, man, is it witty. Sample: “I met her at the museum of palaeontology and I make no bones about it.” YES! Thank Elvis somebody’s making music like this!

TASTY TRACK: “I Never Said I Was Deep.” A ballad about a dude who just wants to get laid. Tori Amos could use Jarvis for a tooth-pick and I love them both for it.

11. Pearl Jam—Backspacer

Pearl Jam are my gods and they have new album.

They were tremendous at Canada Olympic Park this summer.

TASTY TRACK: “The Fixer” is one of the most uplifting rock songs I’ve heard in a long time. It’s about a dude who just wants to make things better. “Just Breathe” inspired some really enjoyable dinner conversation. Hey, it’s Pearl Jam—I can pick two.

12. Blue Rodeo—The Things We Left Behind

As of this writing, I’ve had this album for a day. But they’re as reliable as Dave Matthews and Pearl Jam so after a couple of listens I’m already liking it. These guys aren’t country, not rock, all good and dammit, they’re fine Canadian lads. I always thought they were “truly alternative” back in the days when alternative meant something. Which wasn’t long.

Anyway, it’s mellow. That’s okay, though, they’re aging and so am I. Pearl Jam needs to still kick it out sometimes, but these guys can do a laid-back album (a double-album no less!) after twenty-some years.

TASTY RACK: I really like “All the Things That Are Left Behind,” even though it’s essentially the title track and because it’s the first track it makes it look like I haven’t listened to the album that much. I haven’t, but it’s a good song.

So, there you have it. A fine year in music. You’re bound to disagree, you might mention Weezer has a new album (they haven’t had a good one since the turn of the century), or you may like the garbage that some screamo band or another shat out this summer. Hey, good for you. Debates are fine. These are the albums I think combined to make 2009 a very special year in music.

Books are So Dead

How many times has the death knell been rung for books? Well, this time it really sounds like it, but then it's sounded like it before.

I'm reading a book called The Case for Books: Past, Present, Future by Robert Darnton, a Harvard librarian. I like reading books like that, books that have a touch of irony when people see you reading them on the bus. I read Harold Bloom's How to Read and Why and I always delighted in what people must have been thinking when they saw that.

"How can you read a book about it if you don't know how to read?"

Danton's book is interesting because he's telling us why books are important now, when they may be done for good. There must be thousands of books written every year telling us that books are dead. Irony again.

In university, I attended a conference called The Future of the Page. Pretty self-explanatory. There was fear in some parties that books were being killed slowly by the Internet. That was almost ten years ago. I mean, they were worried that books were obsolete and we were still using Windows '98 for God's sake! Barbaric.

Darnton addresses these neat little devices, one made by those dastardly Sony folks--no, constant reader, I'm not banging that drum again--upon which you can read an entire book. Google is uploading books by the thousands now, though there are still some lawsuits pending.

They're getting close to the convenience of a book in device form.

Now, people can say these things will never take the place of real books. Bill Gates himself says he can't read more than three pages of text on a screen before he feels he's got to print it off.

Great, we're using more paper since digitization. My word, that's more irony, that is.

Darnton was recently interviewed on CBC Radio and besides Mr. Gates' inability to stare at computers too long, the professor described a study that had revealed that some French students found smell to be a really huge part of their reading experience. I knew a girl once who said the smell of the stacks in the library was an aphrodisiac. . . . Digression. Anyway, an enterprising company provided the French students with those handy dandy book-readin' gadgets, which had been affixed with a sticker that gave off the smell of books.

They're creating long-lasting batteries and water/weather-proof cases so you can read in the forest or by the seaside for almost the same duration you can with a regular book.

So much work being done to make something like a book, seems to me a book might still be the way to go.

But maybe Bill Gates has an issue because he's from an older generation, a generation raised on the printed word. Maybe kids who grow up reading books on hand-held doohickeys will be accustomed to the experience, especially as Gates' underlings continue to play with screen resolution and fonts and electronic ink (no idea, I heard about it somewhere) which'll make the whole thing much easier on our poor peepers.

So, yeah, I think this time, for real, just maybe, the end of the book might, eventually, probably be coming . . . soonish. SHOUT IT FROM THE MOUNTAIN-TOPS!

As a writer and a book-collector, I should be worried. As a writer who values ideas more than money, I'm not. Sure, I'll miss looking at my bookshelves and daydreaming about the joys of past summer reads, but this won't be the end of the book. It just might be the end of the paper book . . . in a while.

I like trees. S'okay.

If I write a book. If I have a good idea, I put it down, and you read it, and one of the purest forms of communication transpires, does it matter how? Not to me.

Oh, but what will writers sign? Publishers may find you less viable to promote without the pretty front cover. Blah, blah, blah. Has anyone considered that the publishing industry is long overdue for the same digital kick in the ass that Big Music suffered? Gets us back down to the basics of what it's about--the art, not the package.

Just as an aside, Google is doing some pretty ambitious work in digitizing books, but I'm not so sure I like where it's headed. See, you'd pay to access their database, and that isn't the noble goal a library has: enlightenment to the masses. No, Google wants to charge you an access fee, which they say'll be cheap for now. But it's being done for dollars, and anything that is done to make money first is soulless, and I despise it.

Print newspaper ain't dead, but it's waiting to be unplugged from life-support. But that isn't the end of journalism. Hell, it isn't even the end of newspapers.

Books are going, yeah, but it's hardly the end of books.

The Fool

Something I wrote about clowns. It's dedicated to Caleb and Nevada's brilliance as performers.

Why so serious?

I am Clown.

I am Fool.

I am Psychopompos.

My land is limbo; I’m the go-between in the in-between. My reality is insanity. I sit between the alpha and the omega. I am the line, the point of intersection. I am chaos.

Nothing so trivial as good and evil. I am the bridge, the passage, and I am the gatekeeper, the boatman, Janus, Jester, Joker.

Fool.

Don’t mistake what I do for what I am.

I am home in limbo, but travelers must be content[1]. To walk with me is to invite transformation, metamorphosis, growth. Growth can be a terror, for it is a death of sorts. It’s the death of a past self.

Youth’s a stuff will not endure[2]. I stand at the threshold, seeing backward and forward.

I can take you in, I can walk you through. But I sow chaos, I embrace the inane, I walk in the haze of dreams as sure-footed as if on the straightest stone path.

And I can lose you in limbo’s recesses. I can cast you deep into the maelstrom, in thought, lose you in your own emergence, lose you to yourself, and all. Oh, the fear of falling into the unknown, I can tell why a snail has a house[3].

So, come, hold tight my hand, follow me . . . Or, What You Will. Stay. I cannot promise you solace, but an awakening. I am neither malice nor mirth, but a merging at your emergence. For Feste knows festivities can be frolics and fatal.

To awaken with me is to fall into a deepest sleep, to see my reality, the unreal.

I’ll tell you what I can . . . Or, What I Will. My own fancies are fickle. Perhaps I’ll speak, but the more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly[4].

I see that you can’t help but follow me. So let’s begin.

Let’s put a smile on that face. Herein we’ll split our thinking, tickle our fears, laugh at our follies.

The cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen[5].

[1] As You Like It 2.4.18
[2] Twelfth Night 2.3.52
[3] King Lear 2.1.30-31
[4] As You Like It 1.2.17-18
[5] King Lear 3.4.78-79

Consumable

Stuff. It’s built to break.

The world is full of used cell phones and mp3 players, iPods and electronic picture frames, televisions and laptops, vacuums, vehicles, freaking toasters and washing machines. There is no longer any quality.

Sony. Quality electronics. The Walkman. The more expensive VCRs and then DVD players. This quality was always derived from the fact that Sony was, well, Japanese. If you lived through the latter part of the twentieth century you understood that Sony meant Japan and Japan meant two things: fine electronics and rubber-suit monster movies.

A few years ago when my wife and I bought a Sony Cybershot digital camera, we thought we were laying our cash down on a sure thing. Then, after three years, the camera up and died for some reason. No beep, no crunch, no smoke even. It just wouldn’t turn on, even with the freshest of fresh batteries. Weird.

So we took it to our local big box electronics store and seeing that the warranty (a paltry year) had expired, the repairs to fix the camera—which no one guaranteed would work because no one knew any better than we did what the hell was actually wrong—would cost more than just buying a new camera. My “But what do we do with the old one?” was answered with a shrug and a mumbled something that may have been “You could find a place that recycles” or may have been “Throw it in the garbage like an old bicycle.”

Anyway, turned out that digital camera technology had shed water a dozen or so times in the three years since our last purchase and we bought a newer, smaller, vastly superior camera for a much cheaper price than our original. Swell. Once again the best model (price + quality) was a Sony Cybershot.

We loved this new camera. We documented our son’s first year of life with it. We were really pleased with some of its funky new options, including superior video.

Then the dang thing died too. In exactly the same freaking way as the first. It just stopped working. Change batteries, shake it, smash it against the wall—nothing would do the trick. Sucker was deader than teenage telephone etiquette.

Guess what? It died one day after the warranty expired. I found this so ludicrously coincidental that I suspected a plot of Dickensian proportions.

What could we do? Back to the same dang store to hear the same dang speeches.

“Sorry. I guess it could be the motherboard.”

I was suspicious. Had Sony doctored its motherboards? Perhaps a timing chip clipped onto the motherboard to kill it just after your warranty expires thus guaranteeing perpetual camera purchases? I mean, call me crazy, but as a consumer I think that things I consume should be food and beer and things I don’t intend to keep around long term. I buy cameras, preferably not in the plural—I don’t wanna consume them.

“We could try to fix it, but it’s cheaper to buy a new one.”

Seriously? That old chestnut? Not even any remorse? I became agitated. I near made a scene. I mean, two straight Sony cameras had died on us, the same stinking way! And Mr. New-and-Improved had lasted two fewer years than his predecessor. Didn’t anybody besides me see this as odd?

“It’s just a reality you’ll have to face, sir. These cameras only last a couple of years.”

There it was, the impossible truth. Stated with a complete calm that belied the madness of the statement.

Built to break.

And then—the gall!—he actually tried to show me the newest model of built-to-break cameras, recommending—with dull-eyed incomprehension of the vein popping on my forehead—the newest Sony bloody Cybershot.

Whatever happened to craftsmanship? Time was a person, a group of people, took pride in making something that lasted.

My whole young life, my mother had the same camera. The thing was sold to her in the early 1980s with one extra-feature: a built-in flash that popped up on demand. Zounds! No zoom, no red-eye reduction, no light filtering, no damn video. Every Christmas, graduation, birthday, wedding, new baby, twenty-nine point cribbage hand was documented with that old black piece of work.

That camera lasted her for twenty years. It never broke. It’s probably still usable though the decline of film showed its years more than wear and tear ever could. Mom just wanted some options. She wanted to play with images a bit more. So she retired the old thing and bought a shiny silver digital camera about four years ago. She’s already on her second of those palm-size hunks of feces.

The 21st century, defined by our ever-increasing need for gadgets with insect-like lifespans. Cameras, computers, listening devices—we’re so slow to follow technology that this is the best name we can give this stupid category! If you want to remain trendy, you need to get a new one of everything every year. The makers of these plastic junk-boxes know that, so they don’t worry for a second about building quality. They just make sure it’s flashier than the last one you bought and will keep your interest and the envy of your peers for the next couple of months.

Did we all wake up one morning and decide we were six?

If my mother wanted to buy another camera to last twenty years she’d have to fork out at least a grand, and she’d also have to spend hundreds of dollars on one of those stupid service plans, that’ll maybe get her two or three years of service. That’s where those big box stores really make their money.


Now, I’m not above buying gadgets myself. I have a cell phone, a laptop and an iPod. I only get a new cell phone when my old one breaks. I’m on my third in five years which some people say is an impressive run, but it disgust me. A laptop is a great tool. I’m working at my second in eight years, bought because my first one—though it had only crashed once—couldn’t support the ever-advancing demands of the Internet.

As for my iPod, it was a birthday present from my wife three years ago. It’s an eighty gigabyte version, which holds my entire music collection. It’s also an invaluable portable hard-drive. I love it. It’s an iPod Classic. Called “classic” because it’s of the style that’s existed—in who knows how many generations—since about 2002.

2002 is classic? Where the hell is this going?

“I just bought a vintage April Mustang Convertible. Original seats and everything.”

Or: “For Sale, Samsung Phone. Last Thursday Edition. Like new.”

People look at my iPod and ask me when I’m going to trade up. What for? This one still works fine. “Ah, but it’s not the latest.”

As of this writing, the iPod Touch is the lean, mean superior to my grand-dad Classic. The Touch’s largest version is sixty-four gigs. By the time I post this, touch technology will be passé and there’ll be some new thing where they beam the songs right into a plastic receiver surgically implanted into your noggin. A plastic receiver that you’ll need to replace every six months.

I like my Classic iPod just fine, thanks. I still think the clicker is pretty fast. I mean, in my life—which hasn’t been that long—I’ve placed needles on records, fast-forwarded through cassettes and skipped tracks on CDs to find a song. I still think the clicker is pretty wicked by comparison.

A friend of mine is editor of a great magazine. One of its constant features is articles on the theme of sustainability. It decries our horrifying consumption habits. There are more people alive in the twenty-first century than if you added up every century before up until the nineteenth. Earth can’t satisfy that kind of resource-rape.

Millions and millions of these billions are using laptops, cell phones and iPods. We are discarding mountains of plastic and only some can be reclaimed from the recycling process, a process that itself gobbles up resources, energy and money.

Here’s my little plea: be satisfied. Sustain. If you have something that works, keep it. Use it until it breaks. Force quality workmanship back on Sony and all the other corporations who are gagging us with the latest geegaws and doodads constructed under their built to break philosophy.

Your life is not going to magically get better if you get the next cell-phone on the market. I promise. Complete life satisfaction is not tied directly to touch technology. Instead, squeeze every last drop of happiness from the crap you’ve already got and realize it’s just crap and the happiness comes from not needing to live to collect crap anyways.

Then go outside and throw a ball.