Dot Dot Dot...

So lax in the blogging game have I gotten that Sound of Nonsense is now existing solely on soundofnonsense.blogspot.com as I let the domain registry lapse on the old site (i.e. I don't want to pay for no one to read this anymore....).

Other new stuff (at least for me):

• Jose Gonzalez. After doing a silly, long year-end list, I recently found a great album from 2005 that I missed, Jose Gonzalez' Veneer. It has been around for a while but was released just last year. It's solo acoustic ballads but pretty diverse (RIYL Iron and Wine, Jack Rose, Joanna Newsom, etc.). He also joins the ranks of those covering "Love Will Tear Us Apart," doing a pretty good job of it...
• Went and saw Coachella, the documentary about the California music festival of the same name... it receives my thumbs-down for most the performances therein (Arcade Fire, Pixies, Bjork excepted), and the overall flick. Not to mention the terrible Ballston theatre messing up the sound. A great music festival year-in, year-out now, but there's really no documentary-worthy story to tell about it... just kinda boring.
• I tore through two books Erin gave me for Christmas, Wonder Boys and Fargo Rock City. I had read neither, but knew I would love both, for obvious reasons...
  
• A night out at Vegas Lounge can break the bank, but it's a damn good time. Wonderland still holds my top spot though...
• The new Cat Power record is all I wanted the new Fiona Apple album to be... it's certainly Chan Marshall's "greatest," in my opinion....
  
• Brett has a nice year-end list of his own up on Goldsounds. As for my dabble in music reviewing on the side, I called it quits before I ever really got started... a lot of leg work, calling "dibs," and hell, very few free CDs...
  
• The Short House penthouse is now fully furnished, with a beautiful red curtain for a door, but the "bed" now deflates on a nightly basis. In related news, my back is killing me.
  
• After a week, I *think* I'm going to love my new job.
• Pic of the Day......happiness is a huge nipple...

Discovered by the Germans in 1904, they named it San Diego...

I have been sporadically updating the last couple weeks from Erin's palatial beachside estate in Mission Beach, San Diego, CA for what has been a great couple weeks (see pic of me at left). But now it's time for me to return to the real world, and that world is in the greater District of Columbia metro area. Yeah that pic is really Laird, and it's really courtesy of gayoutdoors.org. Seriously.

Anyway, before the holidays, I accepted a job at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, where I will be a trademark attorney, or put another way, I will be assinging and defending the 'R' in the circle next to most consumer products. But it does mean, after a torrid affair with California, I will be fully embracing D.C. for the next couple of years. Except the Redskins.

All my contact info is the same, except for my address. All correspondence may now be directed to Short House c/o The Tall One, 744 N. Vermont Street, Arlington VA 22203.

Enjoy your bender (in honor of MLK, of course) this weekend.

#1: Twin Cinema

The New Pornographers: Twin Cinema
The Old Milwaukee beer ads used to say, "Guys... it doesn't get any better than this." The guys were always in the woods, away from their wives and kids, and sitting around a campfire or something. Sure, a little Brokeback Mountain, maybe. But for those beer-drinking guys and for most of us, work usually sucks, relationships can be taxing, and money is somehow never plentiful. What we need is cheap beer.

We need diversions from life's overwhelming seriousness, and for people like me, music has always been that. Pop music in particular has the elusive quality of conveying a free doubleshot of happiness in three measly minutes. And pop music simply doesn't get better than Twin Cinema. I want to see The New Pornographers try, but with this album, i'll really be satisfied for years and years.

See, head porno Carl Newman writes most of the stuff, but he's also supplanted by crazy-uncle figure Dan Bejar on a few tracks. To make it even more interesting (and busty!), they have Neko Case, who was created in the image of Patsy Cline. So you have a constant shuffling of vocals, of musical styles, of highs and relative lows, and 14 tracks worthy of being released as their own singles.

On an album of standouts, "The Bleeding Heart Show" is somehow still easily my song of the album, and of the year. It's Twin Cinema in a nutshell--a simple ballad sung by Newman and Case that morphs into a chorus of woos from the entire band (that always gets me teary), which then rocks out over the most beauftiful pop convention of them all, they "hey-la, hey-la, hey-la, hey-laaaaaa." Then Case takes it up and away higher yet, as only she can, and all in attendance (at least at the 9:30 Club this past fall) are left breathless and goosebumped.

Pop music is not groundbreaking, and the New Pornographers are not aiming for anything like that. The lyrics are fractured, but things that at first seem nonsensical, when done so perfectly, take on new meaning. Case in point for me is "Sing Me Spanish Techno," which didn't fully grab hold of me until about the 10th time through the album. The chorus "Listening too long /to one song... Sing me Spanish techno" all at once crushed me. 2005 had its moments, but an all-encompassing feeling of treading water was its most pervasive quality. It turns out that I had been listening too long to one song, or to quote another song here, "for you there's not any warning / and love is five in the morning." What such stuff was meant to mean, I don't know. It's not important. Just put it over a ridiculously catchy keyboard line, it invariably sticks in your head, and then you are hearing it all day. And sometimes, that's whatcha need.

Twin Cinema's simply the album that got me through 2005, and I'm quite sure the one from the year that I'll listen to the most over the rest of my life.

So, Happy New Year, everybody. Here's to 2006. It does get better than this.

#2: Illinois

Sufjan Stevens: Illinois
Heavenly choruses hailing booming cities, heartbreaking tales of John Wayne Gacy's childhood, the staggering journeys of newly-freed slaves. And that's just in the first five songs.

It's Sufjan's decade, really, as he continues on the most impossible quest in music history in documenting the essence of all 50 states. That's not the real attraction, however; it's the terrifying beauty and crushing weight of some of these now-timeless songs. Put another way, it's not all Lincoln and Da Bears, it's the way of life, the sociological perspective that these albums manage to encapsulate that sings their highest praises.

That said, Sufjan, please do Minnesota next. I'll chip in on the research.

#3: Apologies to the Queen Mary

Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary
Montreal denizens rock U.S. hipsters into blissful oblivion. Stop me if you've heard this one before. But for all of the comparisons, Wolf Parade are no Arcade Fire, and despite my unabashed love for those guys, that is a good thing. And jesus, they're not Modest Mouse either, despite Isaac Brock's production and the occassional similarity ("Grounds for Divorce"). Within the relatively narrow straits of rock music these days, they are different.

But now that that's out of the way, by way of comparison, epic single "Shine a Light" is last year's "Rebellion (Lies)," i.e. the perfect bass-driven rock song. The themes of consternation at convention and the attempt to drag the rest of the world into the 21st century ("Modern World," "We Built Another World," etc.) has been done by those two aforementioned bands, among others. But, as is a common theme throughout this list, none of this has anything to do with how much I like and how frequently I listened to this album. In fact, I'd say of the top three, each has their mood, their place in my pantheon of music consumption, and each could be #1 on any given day or hour. Due apologies, then, to Apologies, because it's #1 good.

#4: Black Sheep Boy

Okkervil River: Black Sheep Boy
Will Sheff, lead man of Okkervil River, is indebted to many people, but one is certainly Jeff Mangum of indie rock legend Neutral Milk Hotel. After hanging around for a while, the creation of Black Sheep Boy, a concept album that has obviously been pored over and had heart poured into, dictates that the indie rock world is now indebted to Will Sheff and company. Future like-minded artists will revere him as they did Neutral Milk Hotel. And, in this way, the universe creates itself anew.

#5: Gimme Fiction

Spoon: Gimme Fiction
I listen to a lot of Spoon. As I've said here before, I find I'm always in that particular mindset, kinda rockin', kinda groovin', (or if you know me, neither, really). Or is it something else that makes me keep coming scrolling back to Spoon on the iPod? Yes. But that something is a lot of little things, like...

• "The Beast and Dragon Adored": Within the first few descending bars, you know it's a Spoon record.
• "The Two Sides of Monsieur Valentine": I like the strings, but the piano line is priceless.
• "I Turn My Camera On": The way I am forced to walk around like Mick Jagger upon hearing it.
• "My Mathematical Mind": That percussive piano is Spoon. Yep.
• "Sister Jack": The extra fifth beat on the final choruses is unnecessary and great.
• And the list goes on...
  

I find these morsels in nearly every Spoon song. And I like that.

#6: The Sunset Tree

Mountain Goats: The Sunset Tree
The Mountain Goats are John Darnielle. And John Darnielle writes songs like I take craps. Quickly, regularly, cleanly, beautifully, and smelling of roses. The guy is a machine. But while I had a quiet appreciation for the Goats prior to this year’s release, The Sunset Tree, I had never been the passionate fan that so many others are. Shit happens.

To keep this short, it is just incredibly beautiful and incredibly, well, credible. He’s an honest man writing honest songs, reflecting on a the grandiosity of childhood and the various accoutrements of growing up. Darnielle’s trademark nasal, literate lyrics remain consistent but the music varies as much as any Mountain Goats release, with the primary driver remaining acoustic guitar, but also piano, strings, and even some danceable rhythms included.

The Sunset Tree just works as an album, like a movie that is perfectly cast. And of all of the records on the list, this might be the one I can recommend to anyone and everyone. That means you.

(Darnielle also has a great blog, Last Plane to Jakarta)

(Also: excellent review of this album here)

#7: Silent Alarm

Bloc Party: Silent Alarm
When do bands change from rock to pop? And why? U2, REM, Weezer... and so many more. Is it fame? Is it growing up? Is it the presence of money that forces you to open with "uno, dos, tres, catorce" or have Hugh Hefner in the video? You can probably throw in The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand ("Do You Want To" is just goofy to me) of the newer breed in there.

But not Bloc Party, at least not yet. All the hooks are there, the energetic, attractive frontman, the political mumbojumbo... but Silent Alarm is not a guilty pop pleasure. The band has some edge, I think, and continues to rank very highly on the informal "f*** yeah" scale.

I really didn't think this album had the staying power it did. I saw it performed live and thought it was good, not great (their foppish guitar player, on the other hand, is outstanding). But at the moment where I would have normally shuffled it off, I kept listening to it. Everywhere. What did they release like seven singles off of it? Jesus. Catchier than bird flu.

Where other hyped bands have failed, I have confidence in the Blocs' survival, mostly stemming from their newest single, "Tulips" (not included on here), which suggests a darker, more electronic direction that could be great. But stop with the remixes and stuff boys, just keep the arena rock riffs coming, and that edge that separates the rock from the pop...

#8: Feels

Animal Collective: Feels
An acquaintance of mine is aware of the existence of Animal Collective, their unique sound, and their current revered status as folkie cult favorites of those "in the know." To which he posed this question: "At what time, when I want to listen to music, would I want to listen to Animal Collective?"

On the one hand it's a fair question. As much as I liked Sung Tongs, last year's critically acclaimed album by the foursome, it's not driving music, it's not party music, it's not around-the-house music. It requires a bit of focus on the part of the listener. Not a lot, but enough to hear the depth of what they are doing, which is making the most original pop-folk music to emerge in a long, long, time (ever?).

So, to answer his question, you initially just have to make a little time for Animal Collective. Then you digest them fully. Feels is the easiest animal to consume yet, with the first two tracks "Did You See The Words" and "Grass" extremely sweet. The whole album sits in your stomach like Sushi Ota, San Diego, CA. Highly recommended.