Music Discovery Doesn’t Have to Be Homework

by KevinLeave a Comment on Music Discovery Doesn’t Have to Be Homework

A few last thoughts on taking chances, getting buried in a mountain of new releases, and finding music without the pressure to keep up.

Good morning!

This week we’ve got some more thoughts on music discovery and a great mix of fresh tracks and fan favorites.

Last week, I wrote about the idea that “new” music doesn’t have to mean something released last Friday, and how “new to you” is new enough. I’d also been thinking about how to put a bow on that (or at least tie up some of the loose ends). Mostly, these were three or four disparate ideas all swirling around in my head, fighting for airtime.

Then Rachel left a comment that catalyzed my thinking about how we find new music.

She shared her story1 of impulsively buying tickets to see Fruit Bats at the Troubadour for her 18th birthday. This was back in the Myspace days, when she could hear a song or two rather than pull up an entire catalog. She didn’t know much about the band. She liked indie rock, wanted a night out, and took a chance.

It became one of her favorite discovery stories.

“Nowadays I constantly feel so behind in keeping up with what’s out there,” she wrote, “but the idea that there is always something new (or new-to-me) to be discovered keeps things exciting.”

I love that. I’m also stuck on the dissonance between those two thoughts: excitement about everything we might discover, and exhaustion at the thought of keeping up. Somewhere in the overlap of that Venn diagram is where I spend a bunch of my time.

There’s the music I find organically, the music people recommend (still the gold standard, IMO), and what lands in my inbox. Plenty arrives through publicists. Some pitches immediately catch my attention in all the right ways (spoiler: this usually involves a RIYL list that includes a band like New Order or the term “shoegaze”). Others are evidence that an artist somewhere is throwing good money after bad. A generic pitch with no apparent connection to what I cover doesn’t feel like much of a service to anyone. Doubly (triply!) so if it’s AI-generated or part of an automated sequence.

But I can’t blame my entire listening backlog on somebody else’s mailing list.

Earlier this year, I wrote:

“So, I managed to ditch the systems meant to help offload some of that cognitive load. Fewer apps, fewer systems. Simple, right? Yes, except I just kept right on accumulating artifacts. The behavior hadn’t changed, only the format. Ostensibly, the goal was to ensure I didn’t forget anything. It was also a safeguard against running out of ideas, though I’m lucky to cover a part of our lives with an endless supply.

It was supposed to free up my brain so I could focus better on other creative endeavors. In reality, it just clogged up the network. Someday never came, and I’d ironically forget about what I’d saved to ensure that didn’t happen.”

Apparently, I’d already given myself a warning. Who knew?

Rachel’s story offers a different route. Buy the ticket. Go to the show. Find out. There’s friction there, some real intent. You’ve got to buy the ticket, get dressed (please don’t skip this step), find a way there, and watch.

I don’t want to pretend we’ve lost the ability to do that. Her comment is evidence that those experiences stick with us, not that they’re extinct. And they do so because of the effort involved. Can you name the last two or three songs that streamed while you were at work? Probably not. But I’ll bet you can recall with near-perfect clarity the last few shows you’ve been to, or even the last couple of records you gambled on. Sometimes that curiosity was enough! And maybe it’s just me, but I miss the spirit of choosing a record because the cover caught my eye, without first needing to make sure it deserved my attention (or money).

I’m too old to use “vibes” unironically, but that’s the energy I’m trying to preserve and perpetuate as I sift through everything: making space for old favorites, of course, but also for releases I haven’t already vetted into the ground. Leaving enough room to follow an unlikely recommendation wherever it takes me/us, or just spend more time with a record than I’d first planned.

My job here is to help you find music worth hearing, and to do that without passing along the feeling that you’re falling behind. There will always be stuff we miss on the first pass. Rachel missed most of a band’s catalog before buying a ticket.

She still had a pretty good night.

On to the music:

Spoiler alert: There’s nothing from Fruit Bats (or New Order). Maybe next week?

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? How’d you come across it? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Share your thoughts in the comments!

“There’s No New Music” Is a You Problem

by KevinLeave a Comment on “There’s No New Music” Is a You Problem

Some thoughts on hearing older tracks with fresh ears, chance discoveries, and why “new to you” is new enough.

Good morning!

I first penned this intro around this time last year. I’d love to say it hasn’t aged well, but well, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I penned my first eulogy to the gatekeeper a few years ago now.

It was premature, but it felt like a corner had turned. It has, but it also turns out that they’re hardy creatures. Someone’ll need to keep the cockroaches company post-nuclear apocalypse, I guess. Part of their insidiousness is the way they change form. We’ve all had a run-in with the “name 3 songs” dorks and the boomer who will regard your disregard for Dylan as a war crime. They’re easy to spot and fun to laugh at.

But once you leave them in the dust, you meet the final boss, the “there’s no good new music anymore” guy. Guys like this:

It’s just 3 “name three songs” guys in a trench coat. And kudos to Gabbie for calling it out.

Look, there’s nothing worth feeling overwhelmed. An unholy number of songs are released every day. It’s reasonable to think you don’t have enough time to check out everything being released (that’s where I come in!). It’s also totally okay to like stuff from your youth (see also: Kevin & New Order). It’s science. But to frame discovery as a sort of loser behavior is mind-boggling. That’s some next-level fixed mindset happening!

It also misses a crucial point; “new” can also really just mean “new to you.” Any doubts I had evaporated over the summer listening to records as part of The Best Record of ‘89 bracket challenge. These are obviously decades-old records, but I was hearing several of them for the first time. And take your favorite band: odds are good you found them in high school or college. Now imagine someone hearing them for the first time. Today. The truth? That’s probably happening somewhere in the world as you read this.

The best solution for folks like this is to offer them an off-ramp, and that‘s what this is. New doesn’t have to mean chronologically recent. It can just mean hearing it with fresh ears. Some people are too far gone to get it, but for others, there’s still hope.

The first step is to hand ‘em a copy of Technique.

On to the music:

Spoiler alert: There’s nothing from New Order. Maybe next week?

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Some thoughts on Tom Petty, Fugazi, and the distance between what we say we believe and how we actually live. Plus, this week’s playlist.

by KevinLeave a Comment on Some thoughts on Tom Petty, Fugazi, and the distance between what we say we believe and how we actually live. Plus, this week’s playlist.

I was invited to take part in a project about songs that describe America, and, well, if you look up “paradox of choice” in the dictionary, it’s really just a picture of my invitation email. I’m pretty sure I’ve finally figured out what I’m going with, but my Google Docs folder is a graveyard of drafts started and stopped. When you’re asked to be part of something as cool as this, you want to do it right, you know?

At any rate, two of the records/artists I had in mind were both released this week in years past. Tom Petty’s Damn the Torpedoes was forged in the fire of rebellion. Throttled by his record company, he was willing to burn it all down for a better tomorrow, and, well, if that isn’t the story of America, I don’t know what is. Along the way, he also happened to make a helluva record. Forty-seven years on, and you don’t have to go long without hearing several of the tracks—doubly so if you’re in the Central Time Zone. That iconic opening riff on “Refugee”? The familiar comfort of “Here Comes My Girl”? Wholly American. And in this country, even the losers get lucky sometimes. And lucky he was. Four of the nine tracks here hit the charts.

But the record is all killer from start to finish. “Century City” didn’t chart, but it could’ve (should’ve?). The track is a blistering bit of rock; it’s Tom raising his middle finger to a city he loathes but clearly can’t quit. Jimmy Iovine was on the boards and channeled that energy into a stadium-ready sound. If Iovine teed the band up for stardom, the writing and music on the album knocked it out of the park. For a guy who often sang about losers, this was—and remains—a huge W.

That Fugazi’s The Argument is now old enough to rent a car is, well, yet another reminder that time is screaming by. It’s also a reminder that bands—and records—can be a force for change. And what’s more American, at least on paper, than doing things on your own terms?

Talking about the band’s Repeater LP, I noted:

Some records change your life, but rarely does a band come along that changes the way you live. Fugazi did both. In an era when selling out was still a four-letter word, the band did what they did best: they lived their lives on their terms. They could make a compelling case for why you should be on their team, but if you weren’t, that was okay, too. It was a big tent, and their live-and-let-live mindset was a far cry from that of the straight-edge kids who had teased those threads to their extreme and spent shows looking for drinks to knock out of people’s hands.

Back to The Argument: Want an oddly eerie, oddly infectious guitar line? “Life and Limb” has you covered. Every part of what made Fugazi special is still here: the off-kilter riffs, the dub-heavy rhythm section, the vocal interplay between MacKaye and Picciotto—really, the ability to splice together different genres and make the whole thing sound easy. Again, nothing new for the band at this point. But on The Argument, all of it sounds sharpened and more practiced. The music got more refined; their take on the world around them didn’t get any softer.

That this was also their final (for now?) record means we’ve gone a long time without any new material from one of the most influential bands of my generation. It also means they went out on top and on their own terms. There’s that idealized version of America we’re all supposed to aspire to again.

No spoilers, but the song I landed on for this project has elements of both of these and splits the difference between aspiration and reality. Between what we say we believe and how we actually live. We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, happy belated birthdays to Damn the Torpedoes and The Argument.

On to this week’s playlist:

This week, we’ve got a newer one from old favorites Jane’s Addiction, an all-timer from Swervedriver, a deeper cut from LUSCIOUS JACKSON, and Young Gun Silver Fox takes us out to the Best Coast. We’ve also got Kratzen, Jesse Welles, Jack Barksdale, Wallgrin, and the latest from Fontaines D.C.

Soft Science blew my mind with their 2023 LP, Lines. They’re back and better than ever. If you like your shoegaze with more of a drive, their latest LP, Sand, is for you. We’ve also got one from our pal Pąșśìóň Pïț and some rock from Dead Rock West (shout-out to Glenn Cook for getting this on my radar!). There’s a great one from Olivia Rodrigo—a sentence I never imagined writing—and, closer to home, some white lightning from The Hussy. In other words a playlist that hopefully livens up your commute and leaves you ready for whatever the coming week throws at you. Windows down if the weather allows.

Onward!

KA—

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Dummy Share Video for Latest Single ‘N of 1’

by KevinLeave a Comment on Dummy Share Video for Latest Single ‘N of 1’

LA-Based Dummy link have a new record do you love the color of the sky? coming out this Friday. The fourth and final advance single is “N of 1” which came with a video directed by the band’s Emma Maatman.

Says the band’s Joe Trainor “I liked the idea of taking glacial guitar drones and cutting ‘em up inti a new context of jungle-inspired drum. To me some much of the record is like the remixed versions of pop songs you’ll never hear. “

A Forgotten Gem from the Way Back Machine

by KevinLeave a Comment on A Forgotten Gem from the Way Back Machine

It feels like the entire state of Wisconsin has caught Brewer Fever, and I’m here for it. There’s an electricity in the air the likes of which we haven’t seen in awhile- maybe The Bucks championship run? Even then I’m not sure it hit this level of fever pitch. It’s also, frankly, a nice distraction form a world gone sideways. No counting my chickens before they hatch- we’ve got a lotta games to get through before we get to any hardware- but man is this a fun wave to be riding!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

A few last thoughts on the nine-album challenge, the friends who opened those doors, and this week’s playlist.

If you’ve been on Notes this week, you might’ve noticed that the “9 albums that formed me” challenge is inescapable. (And if you’re not, and you’re wondering what the heck I’m talking about, congratulations!) I’m mindful that we’ve already spent a lot of oxygen and column inches on the topic, but if you’ll indulge me just a little bit more here, I want to make a couple of last points before we resume our normal doomscrolling media consumption.

I’ve leaned really hard into the formative part of the prompt. One of the things that I keep circling back to is the delta between the ones you could say formed me—or at least sent me on a different trajectory—and the ones that I actually play with any frequency.

For example, Van Halen’s 1984. A record I likely haven’t listened to in full for 30 years. It’s good, but it’s not even VH’s best (take a bow, VH II). But it was the gateway to meeting my best friend—one who’s held that title long enough that one of us is a grandfather now. He’s also responsible for tipping me off to Public Enemy, Metallica, and Slayer, and he tried his damnedest to get me into Sepultura, but I digress. While we’re here, you could probably add R.E.M.’s Green to the pile—we saw the band together on this tour. This was also the only show we ever went to together—something that still surprises me when I think about it.

George Benson makes the cut, too. If you’ve ever seen the picture of a little kid listening to records on our page, that’s me, and the odds are good that it’s George Benson playing in my headphones. I don’t have a specific LP I can point to as formative per se, but Breezin’ is probably as solid a pick as any. Mostly, it turned me on to the idea of (sonic) fidelity, pop sensibilities, and being genre-agnostic (yes, even during my most insufferable years).

New Order will be on there because, well, yeah. How could they not be? But so too will Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense and Pixies’ Surfer Rosa. Both are “palatable” picks, of course, but both first hit my ears after being pressed into my hand by a friend who urgently told me I had to hear ’em. Both are totemic of an incredible era of music discovery for me, and both LPs successfully rearranged my mind. They still do, really. That’s formative in its own right, but really, each was also a gateway drug to a whole slew of other records; it’s a rabbit hole I still haven’t found the bottom of.

I don’t know where on the grid Young Gun Silver Fox’s West End Coast will be, only that it warrants a box. A man named Brian Davis turned me on to them after tagging me in a tweet. He described ’em as “in the pocket” and was sure I’d like them. He was correct on both counts. He’s no longer with us.

The takeaway here was that I realized one could actually find good records via friends you only meet online. What a sweet relief from the Reddit viper pits this was! In a roundabout way, he was part of why/how the ball got rolling on this here newsletter.

I always say a record finds you at just the right time. Well, so too do the people who put them in your hands/ears. My dad was a jazz guy, so I suppose some osmosis was a given, but the only reason I knew the kids I did growing up is that our parents all decided separately to buy homes in the same suburb. I also happened to live on the boundary line for my school (literally, actually), so were it not for a few feet or a different lot, this list would be entirely different. Some real “sliding doors”–type stuff! That’s infinitely interesting to me—way more than filling the grid with critics’ picks or whatever—and as I scroll a TL awash with these things, that’s what I find myself thinking about the most.

On to this week’s playlist:

Speaking of gateway records, Mike Connell of The Connells was on Matty C’s podcast last week, and that led me back to the band’s One Simple Word LP, which I first found on 120 Minutes. That record then opened the door to pretty much every other band in the Raleigh-Durham area (Superchunk, Archers of Loaf, The Veldt, etc.). Dharma Bums make an appearance and take me back to those “formative” years of cheap shows in PDX. Ditto Hammerbox and Completely Grocery. The latter’s shows were legendary and now really exist only in the minds of people lucky enough to say they were there. Lotsa good music and bad decisions, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Closer to my current home, we’ve got Madison’s Red Pants and Clay Pigeons. The latter is a high school band. The kids are alright!

We’ve also got tracks so new they’ve still got the window sticker on, from Wishy, THAO, BODEGA, Soft Vein, Jess Williamson, and Avery Friedman. Note: if you’re a fan of Robert Longo’s Men in the Cities photo series, check out Soft Vein’s video for “All We’ve Known of Heaven.”

KA—

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

A few thoughts on binge watching, daytime TV, and The Boss. Also a buncha fresh tracks.

At some point this week, I will join 99.999999% of the rest of humanity and be able to say that I’ve finished watching Game of Thrones all the way through. There are really only a few other long-running dramatic series I can make that same claim with, namely Dallas (yes, really) and Cold Case.

For the former, it was more a case of “why not?” than anything else and was a real field trip through primetime soap operas, cultural mores, and, um, fashion. For the latter, it was simply a case of proximity. When you are done with work by lunchtime, there’s not a whole lot on, and unless you’re into infomercials or courtroom TV series (how are there so many of these?!), the pickings are slim.

I loved Cold Case as it was—I’m a sucker for a mystery and a nice, compact ending before the credits roll—but it was the music that really set it apart from anything else released.

For those who might not know (or work a regular shift), the series followed a group of homicide detectives in Philly who would tackle a new cold case in each episode. Pretty boilerplate stuff, I know. But what really set it apart was that the producers would use music from whatever year the murder originally took place. Sometimes they would even use a single artist, which they did with Bruce Springsteen1 in Season 3, leaning heavily on Born in the USA (among others).

It makes sense; the record gets a lot of love and is often at or near the top of people’s favorites lists. Others default to Born to Run, while “serious music people” often gravitate toward Nebraska. No one ever picks Only the Strong Survive, and not nearly enough pick Tunnel of Love.

Tunnel of Love turns 39 this week, and it is my favorite. There are plenty more in his catalog I like, including the ones listed above, but none feel quite as honest as this one. When it came time to take on the Top 100 records of all time, there really wasn’t going to be another choice for me.

Writing about it at the time, I noted:

After Born in the U.S.A., Bruce Springsteen could’ve kept making soundtracks to Midwest beer-league softball games. Instead, he bet the other way and released one of his most introspective, sober records.

1987 saw him at a crossroads; he was a star with the world at his feet. He was also in the middle of a marriage that was rapidly disintegrating. It’s hard to write stadium rock when your world is falling down around you. At its heart, Springsteen’s music is aspirational, if occasionally simplistic: love, victory, the open road. After all, like the song says, it ought to be easy, ought to be simple enough; man meets woman, and they fall in love, right?

All well and good, except love isn’t always that straightforward, and sometimes the ending isn’t the happy one you hoped would be written. Listening to the record, it’s clear that this was what he was grappling with.

Tunnel of Love wrestles with all the things unsaid. It’s fraught. “Tougher Than the Rest” paints love as a contact sport. “Valentine’s Day” is when the lights go down, the applause stops, and you’re left alone with your thoughts.

And someday, I’ll hear it for the one-too-many-eth time, and it’ll break me.

The E Street Band is here, but more in theory than anything. They appear sporadically, with Springsteen choosing to write and play most of the parts himself. We don’t hear a single note of Clarence Clemons’ sax here—his only credit is for backing vocals on “When You’re Alone.” Sometimes, you just gotta work through things yourself, and I’m betting that’s why he made the personnel decisions he did here.

Tunnel of Love is not Springsteen’s best-selling record. It’s not his most commercial or radio-friendly one. But it is him at his most honest. It’s the Boss at his best.

He’s made records that are more timeless. Ones that sold more copies. Ones that TV producers decided to base a whole episode around! Sure, the sound is more of its time than almost any other he’s made—except maybe Only the Strong Survive—but with lyrics as potent as any writers’ room could gin up, you’d be hard-pressed to say he made one more honest than this one.

Onto the music:

Tunnel of Love is here, of course, as are R.E.M.’s “Ignoreland” and the Afghan Whigs’ “Gentlemen.” Both are also celebrating birthdays this week, and while it took a while for Automatic for the People to grow on me, Gentlemen worked its way into my ears right from the start.

Ditto Spoon, another band where everyone seems to have a different favorite—except Transference, and maybe some people even dig that?—and Ride. Oasis too. Nothing wrong with “Wonderwall,” but this one’s my favorite. Most people look to Wire’s first three as their best, but I love the middle era of the band. Ideal Copy, A Bell Is a Cup… Until It Is Struck, and IBTABA are peak Wire for me, and “Ahead” is at the top of a long list of favorites.

Speaking of Philly, Kurt Vile’s here as well. Not sure if this one was ever big, but it’s one I come back to often.

I don’t spend all my time in a time machine, and there are plenty of brand-new tracks here as well. Lily Konigsberg is back. Her album Lily We Need to Talk, Now was one of my favorites of ’21, and I’m excited to hear more from her coming up. We’ve got another one from Isa Heller as well. Look for more on that record at some point soon. We’ve also got killer sounds from Local Drags, the BV’s, and, last but not least, we travel down to Louisiana for one from Other Desert Cities, our friend Patrick Fellows’ latest project.

KA—

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on Discussion: What’re You Listening To?

A few thoughts on kids in the comments, New Order’s Brotherhood, and brilliant closing tracks.

The kids are all right.

NPR recently shared a story about comments that were appearing underneath its podcasts. In isolation, they didn’t make much sense, but they did seem to be talking to one another. At first blush, staffers assumed they were bots and set out to clean up the comment sections.

But then they asked a Gen Z coworker for their take, and her response will shock you…

Just kidding—we’re not doing that here. But it is an interesting story. As most of you know, social media platforms have started age-gating, and, well, like water seeking its natural level, kids got creative in trying to find new places to chat. It just so happens that the relatively empty comment sections under NPR podcasts fit the bill, so there they were. I don’t know who these kids are—though Ira Glass spoke to one of them, because of course he did—but I hope all of ’em wind up at NASA someday. That’s my kind of subversion.

Kids will always find an overlooked corner of the internet and make it their own. In a much less technologically advanced version of that impulse, I’ve spent the week thinking about New Order’s Brotherhood: a great record that has spent far too long in an overlooked corner of the band’s catalog. If ever a record had middle-child energy, New Order’s Brotherhood is it. It’s also magnificent.

Talking about the record for an article on What Am I Making, I wrote:

Can a record have middle-child energy? If that’s possible, Brotherhood is it. Other records by the band spark lively discourse on fan forums or get slapped with a critic’s-darling label. Brotherhood has been unfairly exiled to a purgatory of inattention. Meanwhile, it’s just in the corner doing its thing, happy to be left alone. Split in half between electronic and analog, it’s a wild ride—and well worth it.

Brotherhood often gets overlooked in discussions about the band’s discography, and, to be fair, it does occupy a bit of a weird space in the group’s timeline. With one foot in the analog world and the other firmly planted in the electricity of Italian discos, the band was split on which direction to go. So they did the only thing they could: Side A is primarily acoustic, and Side B is dominated by digital. That represents a literal split in musical stylings and a fracture within the band.

So, you have a band growing tired of one another as people and split into two distinct tribes—rock and electronic—as musicians. All the while, their label was pushing them for a follow-up to Low-Life. No pressure, then! Those factors are a sure bet for disaster, and yet, once again, despite—or in spite of—themselves, they released a record that holds up well.

“Paradise” feels almost claustrophobic, with Sumner’s pleading vocals feeling almost smothering. Up next is the much brighter “Weirdo,” a track where everything feels like it’s this close to flying off into space, and the only thing holding everything in stable orbit is Hook’s bass. To my ear, it’s them at their best, and anytime I get a new stereo—or AirPods—this is the song I use to test them. “As It Was When It Was” gives listeners a wistful breather before things ramp back up with “Broken Promise.” Side A closes with “Way of Life,” a track that feels like a close cousin to “Weirdo.”

Initially intended to be a single, it was even released as a promo 12”, but it wasn’t meant to be. From Hook: “I really wanted to get another bass riff that was as good as ‘Age of Consent’… I managed it here by turning that riff backwards and using it again. Distorted bass intro. We got that by putting it through an Akai cassette player!”

“Bizarre Love Triangle” kicks off Side B and sets the tone early. As good as Side A is, the song isn’t halfway over before it’s clear what the future looks like for New Order.

That record turns 40 tomorrow, and I think it’s pretty clear that the future for the band did indeed include a lot of 808 synths and an overindexing on digital. I’m not mad about that, but it also included a lot of internal strife and the eventual fracturing of the band, with bassist Peter Hook advocating for a more analog sound and the rest of the band determined to follow the muse they’d first heard thundering out of clubs in NYC. The cracks really first start to appear here.

Hook is now performing with a supporting band, Peter Hook and the Light. Meanwhile, recent health issues have sidelined Gillian Gilbert and, by association, Stephen Morris, leaving frontman Bernard Sumner as the last original touring member. It’s a real Ship of Theseus situation, and, if I’m honest, for two people so at odds with one another, there’s not much daylight between what Messrs. Sumner and Hook are currently doing. One history, two ways. So be it. I guess this is my way of both plugging a great band and saying: get out and see yours while you can.

And listen to Brotherhood! Turning 40 tomorrow, it is no longer a kid, but what it does do—and does well—is hold up. For a record heading headlong into middle age, it sounds as good as it did the first time I heard it… as a kid.

In the above article, Morris talks about the band’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” and how it was initially grossly overlooked. He also talks about “Face Up” (from the band’s “Low Life” LP), which he loves but that fans met with indifference. You could’ve fooled me; it’s one of my favorites from the band, and arguably their best closer.

In my talk with Matty at WAIM, I mention another track from Brotherhood, “Weirdo,” and how anytime I get a new stereo, speakers, or even AirPods, it’s the song I use to first test ’em out. I don’t see that changing anytime soon; I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.

Onto the music:

“Face Up” and “Weirdo” are both here, as is “Way of Life,” which was initially slated as the record’s “breakout” single (You didn’t really think I wasn’t gonna try to squeeze a third New Order track on here, did you?). But there’s also much newer stuff, including the latest from community favorite Lydia Loveless, Julia Jacklin, and Nathan Kendall. We’ve also got one from Louisville’s Future Fossils that, if you’re not careful, will melt your speakers, and one from the Klittens. Isa Heller’s also here, closing things out with a sticky groove in “Wildflower.”

Speaking of closers, besides “Face Up” and Wildflower, there are a couple of others here. Over at The Runout Grooves, our friend Mitchell Stirling is running a survey on the best closers of the 2000s, and to say they’ve been on my mind and in my ears would be an understatement. If you’ve got a second, check out the survey and vote for your favorites. I can almost guarantee a couple will still be in your heavy rotation, and maybe some you’ve completely forgotten about.

If you’ve got some thoughts on closers, New Order, or anything else on this list, I’d love to hear them.

And if some random kids show up in the chat, be cool!

KA—

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!

What’re You Listening To?

by KevinLeave a Comment on What’re You Listening To?

FTA: Some thoughts on family, football, and having a little faith. Plus a whole buncha killer new tracks.

Note: I’m resharing a post from this same weekend last year. It has only been mildly updated. In a world that’s gone sideways, celebrating life events has become much more essential. I also will take any chance I get to talk up John Hiatt and Ducks football, so there’s that. FWIW, I wound up finishing the book I mention below not too long after this first ran. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it.

The Ducks and Badgers don’t play each other this year, but maybe next year? We can talk all day about the perils of college football, but in my case, it’s serving as an excellent pretext for family reunions, and my life is all the richer for it. Oh, and I still have no idea where my suit is.

KA—

Today, twenty-two four years ago, we had a party, and not a lot went according to plan.

For one, we ran out of food. I’m told it was delicious.

Attendance was capped at 150, split three ways between my mom, my in-laws, and us. With us in Oregon and most of my in-laws in Wisconsin, I assumed many people would not make the trip. Never underestimate Badgers’ desire to travel.

For my part, I have the sort of family where if you invite one, you must ask another 8. The ones you skip will drive 4 hours and crash it anyway (see my comment about the food). Never underestimate my family’s affinity for a gathering. 

We told people to prepare for any kind of weather. It was in the 80s. I sweat in March. You can imagine how this went. I’m fairly certain that was the last time I wore a suit. Last I knew, a kid in the neighborhood borrowed it for a science presentation at school.

Maybe he still has it?

Like most weddings, there are plenty of lovely, very professional pictures that document that day. They are nice, with everyone perfectly posed, beaming, and in just the right pairings: the parents, the moms, the wedding party—you know the drill. If nothing else, it’s evidence that I can clean up nicely. Outside of the 2-3 that we had printed, they’ve maybe seen the light of day a handful of times in the last two decades.

The candid shots taken throughout the event are much more interesting to me. None of these were taken on a phone or posted to Instagram. They found their way back to us via US mail, or more commonly after someone had printed them and shared them the next time we got together. Even with a candid shot, there’s an intentionality you don’t get with a phone. Each picture tells you as much as it leaves out. I wish someone had taken a picture of the food.

A quote in this article has stuck with me for several days now:

For me, at least, my Polaroid project this summer was really about memory and time, tangibility and loss. The act of reaching for something that you know, even in that moment of capturing it, is already out of your grasp. Like our memories, too, because what we choose to frame tells us so much about the things that we hold onto – as well as the things that we let go.

(Yes, another week of talking about Polaroid pictures, physical media, and how we used to use them to document the mile markers of our lives.)

The shots from that day are dispatches from the road, full of people still in our lives and those who aren’t, of people held onto and people let go. Some of those friendships didn’t survive the attrition of distance, and some have shuffled off this mortal coil.

One of my groomsmen lives 10 miles away. With two kids each and busy careers, we’ve seen each other once, and that was at a soccer tournament. Somewhere, there’s a picture of that, too—both of us a little older, both in cargo shorts; I guess we’re both suburban dads now. It was in the 80s that day, too.

I was probably sweating. We’re both beaming. 

One worked with me and left for another airline. He’s younger than me and somehow managed to retire. Lucky him.

My best man has been in my life for almost all of it. He and I still talk a few times a week via text, usually sending each other mildly offensive memes that the 12-year-olds in us would delight in. I haven’t seen him in five years. I’m grateful technology keeps us close. Lucky me. 

I hadn’t seen my cousins on one side in 10 years and wouldn’t see them for another dozen or so (at one of their weddings, of course). I’ll see them again in 56 days. It will have been one day shy of 6 years. I’m grateful the Oregon Ducks moved to the Big 10.

For our reception, we crowdsourced the music, adding a line on the RSVPs to request a song. In hindsight, this was a good idea, and I wish I had thought of it. In retrospect, we also should’ve known that picking the date we did would sentence us to a lifetime of receiving memes like this. On the plus side, it makes it easy to remember. 

Van Morrison’s “Moondance” was the most popular request. I don’t know what to say about that. John Hiatt’s “Have a Little Faith in Me” was our spotlight dance. He’s very much still in my life. I listen to his records often and just started a biography by the same name. That we could dance at all was remarkable; my wife’s knee had been demolished a few months earlier while playing soccer. She scored on that play, by the way. That injury was definitely not according to plan, but the dance was an incredible win. 

Of course, there were up-tempo songs too–it was a party, after all–and people rarely miss the chance to tell me how great it was to see my stepdad and father-in-law “fast dancing” at different points. They’re both gone, and I’d like to think that they’d laugh at that being their legacy. It’s a helluva snapshot if you think about it.

Whether at a courthouse, a church, or on the beach, a wedding is aspirational. The couple has a lifetime ahead of them, an early chapter in what hopefully will be a long story of life events and milestones, and regular Tuesday nights watching TV. 

Depending on when you see this, we may be celebrating at brunch, record shopping (I hope!), riding bikes, or at a concert by going to work and then hopefully somewhere cool for an early dinner. It’s fast livin’ for sure.

Twenty-two four years ago, not much went according to plan, but everything went right. Surrounded by friends, family, and lord knows who else, underneath a warm sun and next to the gorgeous Oregon coast, my (now) wife and I decided to have a little faith and said yes.

As always, thanks for being here.

KA—

On to the music…

Were I not solidly middle aged, I’d just type something like “Hard Life by The Tubs? OBSESSED” and call it good. The reality is that I’ve been playing it pretty much nonstop, and every time I do, a new favorite track emerges. Kalshi’s probably got the odds of this being on my AOTY list easily at 75-80%.

Speaking of Badgers, there’s also a couple of WI bands on here with Milwaukee’s Fellow Travelers and Madison’s Parting Blue (aka the band formerly known as Depression Glass). The latter have a new record out, and it’s got a great heartland indie sound going. RIYL: The Jayhawks, Spooner, or Son Volt.

We’ve also got killer sounds from Outer World, Phosphene, Devecia Mack, Gift, The Tisburys, and more!

The Playlists: | Apple | Qobuz | YouTube Music | Tidal (NEW) |

Now it’s your turn.

What’s been exciting you lately? Any releases or shows you’re looking forward to? Whatcha got? Share your thoughts in the comments!