Heartache With Hard Work

In lieu of an in-depth post on the many wonderful bands I really ought to be talking about, here’s some songs for a lazy Sunday:

Elevator Love Letter – Stars (highest possible recommendation)
Everyday is Like Sunday – Morrisey (if your only exposure to this song is Colin Meloy’s cover, check out the original to see how it’s really done)
Sweetheart – Tiger Baby (dreamy Danish pop – see their homepage for more)
Tonguetied – Daisytown (incredibly warm bedroom pop – see their homepage or Myspace to hear more)
Ruby – Utah Carol (Winsome folk-pop from a very fine album)

Dirty Blue Jeans – Jeremy Warmsley

Jeremy Warmsley is yet another young indie-folk artist with loads of talent and not quite enough idea of what to do with it. At his best, on this whirlwind of a song, he is loose, free-wheeling and delightfully off-kilter.

I can’t say I’ve been overwhelmingly impressed by most of the stuff of his that I’ve heard – too much pop-sheen and not enough of the eccentric style that makes him so unique – but this song alone is worth the price of admission. It hits every point on the compass and a few more they don’t even have names for. He’s still very young, so I’m willing to forgive some missteps by someone capable of producing something with such eccentric beauty.

If you like indie pop music from Scandinavia with rousing choruses, tons of energy, and handclaps galore (and if you don’t, why are you reading this blog anyways), you’ll want to check out South Ambulance. Another band featured on the fantastic collection: Labrador 100: A Complete History of Popular Music, they fit in very well with the likes of Acid House Kings, Laurel Music, Pelle Carlberg, The Radio Department, etc. It’s non-stop entrancing melodies with a hint of shoegaze.

Die 5 times times 5
Saturdays for Sad Excuses
Hanging in a Tie

Not a full politics post today. Just three quick comments.

Still a Long Way to Go – James Dean Bradfield

First, today June 19 is Juneteenth. We’ve come a long way, but still have a long way to go.

Second, last week I forgot to mention one of my favorite things about the Scooter Libby case. As you probably know, all his celebrity academic friends came to bat for him in filing an amicus brief arguing for the original decision to be overturned. Judge Reggie Walton permitted the brief, but appended a footnote as perfectly rude and awesome as you could ask for:

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.

10 points for the argument and plus several million points for style.

Third, am I the only one deeply disturbed by the apparent cluelessness of Robert Reich (former Labor Secretary for Clinton) in his discussion of the options available to fight global warming? To whit:

The winning idea isn’t a cap-and-trade system, either. That system would allow companies to continue polluting, just require them to buy the right to pollute more from companies that keep their dirtying to a minimum. Today’s biggest polluters — those who’ve done least to reduce their emissions — would be the biggest winners because they’d get the highest caps.

The best idea I’ve heard is described as a carbon auction. Companies would have to bid for the right to pollute. And, most ingeniously, the money raised in the auction would be shared equally by all citizens in the form of yearly dividend checks — just like the residents of Alaska now get yearly dividends for their share of the state’s oil revenues.

I’m curious exactly exactly what former Labor Secretary Reich thinks the difference is between a cap-and-trade system and a carbon auction, given that the overwhelming consensus of those involved in climate politics is that the best method for distributing carbon allowances in a cap-and-trade system is…wait for it…an auction.

This doesn’t ultimately matter that much, I guess, but it frustrates me to no end to keep hearing all of this nonsense talked about cap-and-trade systems. It’s the most politically viable and effective means of cutting carbon emissions, and it does no good for people to keep mischaracterizing it. And frankly it’s a little worrisome that someone who was in such a position of power can reveal himself to be so ignorant of the basic issues at hand.

I’m going through another one of those blogging lulls, where I have a ton of albums I want to talk about, but which I feel deserve some serious effort to review in full, and I’m just not feeling motivated to write that much. Hopefully I’ll get around to them in the next week or so, but until then, a couple quick thoughts.

I made a quick trip down to Boston this weekend to see a couple of the matches in the Gold Cup quarterfinals. The first was between Canada and Guatemala. I had mixed feelings about who to root for (mostly because I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with Canada) but once I realized I was surrounded by about 85% energetic Guatemalan fans and their team fell quickly behind, my love of the underdog and fear of getting screamed at made my decision easy. The second match was the US v. Panama, which featured a less exuberant crowd and a solid, if not spectacular, victory for the US. All in all, it was a fun trip. It’s cool to experience even the tame American version of a soccer crowd, and I have to say that Gillette Stadium is a pretty nice place to watch a game, particularly on a beautiful June day.

My own athletic activities ran into some serious trouble when I was playing ultimate frisbee this afternoon, as my glasses inexplicably and without any observable cause snapped right down the middle. I did manage to recover the pieces and in my half-blinded state still make a pass to score a goal, so I am sort of proud of that. But I will be needing new glasses. Should I stick with the hipster style? Go back to the round John Lennon frames? Huge geeky glasses like when I was in middle school? These are the tough questions I’m faced with.

Finally, on the music front (this is a music blog after all), here’s a song that deserves endless enthusiasm. But as I said I’m not really feeling the muse so just listen to her sing those “hallelujah”s and look inside your own soul to see how deeply it pierces you. If this doesn’t move you, you don’t have a pulse.

Los Cruzados – Elk City

The band is Elk City. The album is New Believers. Both are great.

Be Less Rude – Frightened Rabbit

Frightened Rabbit are two brothers from Glasgow, who make some great music. Their debut album is called Sing the Greys (eMusic) and it’s full of exuberant guitar-driven pop, with some truly inspired percussion, and the added bonus of a Scottish accent. It’s brilliant, dark, slightly off-kilter (see “Yawns”), and expertly walks the thin line between detached irony and depressive self-reflection (see “Music Now”).

Perhaps the best thing I can say is that this sounds like music made by people with nothing to prove. It is beautiful at times, but it also raw and untaught, perfectly free to dwell on the imperfection. And it doesn’t hurt that they’ve got some killer melodies. “Be Less Rude” is the most obvious example – I’ve had a lot of trouble over the last month or two getting it out of my head – but their less frenetic songs are nearly as good. “Be Less Rude” also demonstrates the impressive mileage they get out of the simplest things, where the all-too-obvious refrain “you should be less rude, you don’t know what it might do for you” feels as textured and complete as a novel. And check out that harmonica!

You don’t have to take my word for it. Check out Amy from Shake Your Fist (who you really should be reading regularly already – she’s best music blogger around, I think) for some more thoughts.

Never Trust a Monkey – Brak

Last week I was astonished at the percentage of people who still think it should be illegal to be gay. This week I’m perplexed at public opinion on evolution. Via Political Wire, a Gallup survey says that only 28% of people believe in evolution.

28%!!!!!

To be fair, the other 72% don’t all think evolution is wrong – a lot of folks want to find a middle ground (God created evolution), but here’s their conclusion:

• 24% of Americans believe that both the theory of evolution and the theory of creationism are probably or definitely true
• 41% believe that creationism is true, and that evolution is false
• 28% believe that evolution is true, but that creationism is false
• 3% either believe that both are false or have no opinion about at least one of the theories

That still leaves almost 150 million people who think the earth is about 10,000 years old. Come on America.

* * *

Fighting in a Sack – The Shins

More ridiculousness.

I saw a number of headlines over the past week about interest in creating a “gay bomb” designed to make enemy troops become overwhelmingly attracted to each other, thus undermining their fighting ability, but I wrote them off as some elaborate joke. Perhaps some sly comment on the absurdity of continuing to hang onto Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (kudos to the Democrats for making a strong statement that people should be free to serve regardless of sexual orientation, by the way). But it turns out to be completely serious.

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soliders to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistably attractive to one another,” Hammond said after reviwing the documents.

It’s one of those things that’s both depressing and intensely funny at the same time. I suppose we can take comfort from the fact that the idea got nixed in the planning stages.

* * *

Not much comment about the news that the Supreme Court is going to finally hear a case on the ridiculous sentencing disparity for possession of crack and cocaine except to “it’s about damn time” and lets hope Kennedy manages to stumble into the right decision this time.

* * *

A solid quote from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “I’ve learned one thing in listening to all the debates and reading about all these people running for office, and the one fact I’ve learned, I can’t get out of my mind, is that Rudy Giuliani has been married more times than Mitt Romney’s been hunting.”

* * *

Finally, Scooter Libby gets 30 months. My prediction is that Bush pardons him and eviscerates whatever remaining legitimacy he had left.

How much do I care about the last episode of The Sopranos? Not even a little bit, that’s how much. Was this show really that good? I saw a few episodes here and there and it seemed pretty standard Mob+soap opera fare. Am I really missing something?

Here’s something I do care about:

Dream On – Celestial

It’s like standing ankle deep in a cool mountain stream on the first night of summer. It glides past you, ripples effortlessly, and sets every difficult thing right.

The band is Celestial, the album is Dream On (eMusic) and like most good things in the world, they come by way of Music Is My Girlfriend. The album came out earlier this year and you want a copy, trust me. I only got around to picking it up yesterday and haven’t listen enough to give a full review, but I can tell you that it is a wonderful salve if you (like me) are anxiously awaiting the new records from Club 8 and Trembling Blue Stars.

Today theme: songs with cute titles.

Clever Girls Like Clever Boys Much More Than Clever Boys Like Clever Girls – Pelle Carlberg
Crying All the Way to the Pawnshop – Pelle Carlberg (link fixed)

Pelle Carlberg is another artist on Labrador, demonstrating once again that know Scandinavian guitar-pop better than just about anyone. These songs are exactly as good as you would expect from the titles. My only complaint is that I disagree with the premise of the first; clever girls are the best. I included the second both because it’s a very good song but also because Hunter has been obsessing lately about the dueling phrases “laugh all the way to the bank” and “cry all the way to the bank.” So I just thought I would introduce some more confusion for him.

Both these songs are from his excellent new record In a Nutshell (eMusic). It’s going to be released stateside on July 3 from Twentyseven Records, and I’m told that anyone who preorders it will receive a handmade CDR single with some live covers of Edson’s “14 18 20” Elton John’s “Rocket Man” and MIKA’s “Grace Kelly.” And check out some videos of his recent tour.

Me, Violin and Dancing Bear – Page France

This is the song that finally got me hooked on Page France. I’ve had people recommend them to me for quite a while, given my interest in quirky medium-fi twee-pop (with horns) but they never quite clicked. Then I heard this one and now I’ve joined the bandwagon. This one is also vaguely topical since I was just reading my friend Jonah’s travel diary (he’s hiking the Appalachian Trail) where he talks about running into some bears. And he has a mandolin with him, which isn’t exactly a violin, but it’s a lot closer to one than, say, a Patagonian Toothfish.

This is from their new record, out last month, called …And the Family Telephone (eMusic).

Johnny Quest Thinks We’re Sellouts – Less Than Jake

The brief ska/punk fusion of the 90s produced a lot of terrible bands, but there was some great stuff in there, too. Probably the best of the lot was Less Than Jake. They’re still around and their recent stuff has been decent, but they had a run of three albums (Losing Streak, Hello Rockview, Borders and Boundaries) that were truly fantastic. I still hadn’t restored their stuff after the Great Computer Theft of Aught-Seven, but I finally got around to it today and have been reminded of just how good they were.