Crashing and Burning My Way to the Apple Store

The dreaded Red X of Death.

Well, it finally happened after nearly nine years of constant use and charging the battery over a thousand times: my 160gb 6th Generation iPod Classic has gone to the great electronics landfill in the sky, where it shall rest eternally among other dead electronics and, overtime, leak hazardous mercury and lead into heaven’s water supply because of their poor recycling program. Ahh, isn’t it beautiful.

But no, actually, I’m pretty devastated. Since I’m a deplorable Luddite trying desperately to cling onto the past as long as possible, I was fearing this day for years. I have an iPhone 4S that still works that I got in 2014, those days are numbered. I finally replaced my shitty old 2009 laptop last year with a barely improved 2019 version of the laptop, I don’t plan on changing that up anytime in the next decade if I can help it. I like things the way I like things, and I hate it when I have to change the way I do things when I already like the the way I like things! DO YOU UNDERSTAND??? And more than most companies, Apple is VERY insistent that I change the way I do things. They don’t like large hard drives, they don’t like headphone jacks, they don’t like me not buying one of their products every .333333333 months. Do these people think that Apple-related enthusiasm grows on trees? Yeah, I’ll just go to the Apple Enthusiasm Bank and withdraw another pocketful of capitalistic eagerness from my well-stocked vault.

So I bit the bullet and went to the Apple Store to buy a 256gb 7th Generation iPod Touch. The Apple Store in downtown Chicago, the one at the south end of the Magnificent Mile. A big, dumb glass building in a pavilion overlooking the Chicago River containing about 900 tattooed, bearded employees with walkie-talkies and tablets stationed every eight feet from one another, like they’re organizing a heist mission. I had the pleasure of being directed to Kevin, then JJ, then Dave, then Will, then finally Ken. It was quite a well-oiled machine, oiled from the blood of Steve Jobs’ horde of Indonesian slave children! Ha! Now there’s a hot take for ya.

Namaste, bro. Welcome to the Apple Store.

The thing is, though, it was demonstrably uncool of me to want to get an iPod Touch in the year 2021, and I could sense the daggers of ridicule shooting out the pearly blue eyeballs of every person I talked to. From Kevin to JJ to Dave to Will to Ken, all the way down the line, the scorn in their voices as they responded to questions like “it has a headphone jack, right?” and “is it compatible with iTunes?” Like I had any fucking idea about any of this shit, I’m just here to drop a few hundred on some dumb appliance I don’t really need and know very little about, please.

I made my way out of there and scrambled up the Mag Mile with a the very real sense of buyer’s remorse that can only come from spending a chunk of money on a device that was probably marketed for children. But hey, the heart wants what it wants! And it wanted the largest amount of hard drive space available on a portable music player with the least amount of money possible that couldn’t be subjected to constant telemarketers and “VOTE JERMAINE T. SMENKINS FOR REPUBLICAN LIBRARY ARCHIVIST LOCAL 181” 3am texts.

I’m looking forward to getting to know my brand new iPod Touch and inevitable anxiety that will ensue when Apple phases them out after inventing a cloud-based microchip that has to be implanted in your gallbladder and uses the sonic waves and vibrations picked up from the squelchy bilirubin breakdown process in order to transmit sound to your auditory cortex but makes everything sound like Gilbert Gottfried playing a banjo. Those without gallbladders will be shit out of luck, though, but they can buy the Apple Gallbladder at 20% off.


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Lord Huron, Mare Cognitum, and The Weather Station

Oops, I did it again! The second installment of Newer Release Roundup (I lost rights to the trademark in the landmark case Tom v. the Internet) sees a veritable roller coaster of emotional befuddlement and ennui. Maybe! Perhaps it’s more of a euthanasia roller coaster, actually. In any case, here are three more albums that dropped within the last few months.

Lord Huron – Long Lost
(May 21, 2021)

Lord Huron - Long Lost

I’ve never been too familiar with Lord Huron’s body of work, but it seems to me that most of their exposure has come less from professional music publications and more from the inclusion of some of their songs within episodes of SHITTY MASS-MARKETED TELEVISION SHOWS such as Grey’s Anatomy, Chicago Med, The Vampire Diaries, and many others. Their homey Americana sound resonates well with the sensibilities of the average joe, and their interesting blend of styles creates a very warm sonic palette.

Even without previous knowledge of Lord Huron, Long Lost feels like visiting an old friend. After the gentle introductory track of “The Moon Doesn’t Mind”, the album kicks off strongly with “Mine Forever”, a song I fell in love with immediately. Their combination of surf rock guitars with a Fleet Foxes indie-folk flavor is, to put it bluntly, cool as shit, and the track features two fully realized melodies!

Track after track reveals more angles of American tradition. Country western ballads, jangly early-era rock and pop, sunny folk pastiches, and woeful lyrics of uncertainty, unrequited love, and good ol’ general pain and suffering. What’s not to like!

Oh wait, I know. The final track “Time’s Blur” is 14 minutes of aimless minimalism which takes up about a quarter of the album’s real estate. Supposedly, it’s a collection of all the previous songs stretched out to oblivion into a spacey sonic landscape, symbolizing eternity or rejuvenation or something? I think it sucks! It’s a very frustrating way to end a great album, and if it had been only three or four minutes it would be more excusable, but 14 whole minutes makes for an excruciating failed experiment. Judging the album as a whole, this track is hard to get past.

Early Verdict:

Mare Cognitum – Solar Paroxysm
(March 27, 2021)

Mare Cognitum - Solar Paroxysm

Mare Cognitum is the one-man project of Jake Buczarski out of Portland. In the realm of extreme metal, Mare Cognitum can be categorized as atmospheric black metal. This means extremely long track lengths (each of five tracks on Solar Paroxysm exceeds ten minutes) with long stretches of repetitious, plateaued riffing, long stretches of tremolo-picking, and a guy throatily yelling nonsense.

Yes, my bias is showing. I’m spending a lot of time lately trying to appreciate atmospheric black metal, and I’m stuck at the “how does this REALLY sound different than any other record of it’s kind” stage with…well, with literally any album of its kind. Bombardments of blast beats, walls of sound, it all kind of melds together sometimes.

Solar Paroxysm made me take pause. Production is crisp, which is rare for this type of music. The previously mentioned common tropes are still present, but there are some progressive elements to enhance the unpredictability, to an extent. It’s all still metal, man. Notably, quite a few guitar solos pop up that sound right out of a power metal record, which gels in nicely with the raw, odd beauty that builds within the tracks. I’m gonna be honest here, I’m enjoying this record. The runtime is a little long, but my interest gets piqued often enough to keep coming back. Maybe some day I’ll have this whole thing memorized and then we’ll REALLY see where I stand.

It’s also important that atmospheric music of ANY genre matches the cover art. Do we have a winner? Yeah, kinda. I can dig it.

Early Verdict:

The Weather Station – Ignorance
(February 5, 2021)

The Weather Station - Ignorance

This isn’t my first run-in with Tamara Lindeman’s indie folk band. I had listened to their previous album from 2018, the self-titled fourth album, which I should go back and listen to again because I remember finding it pleasant. I’m not surprised to see so much more exposure for Ignorance compared to everything else they’ve done, considering it got a rare 9.0 score on Pitchfork to boost their signal.

But, honestly, color me bewildered. On the surface, the slightly experimental sax bridges or the occasional garnishes of colorful instrumentation add something special to the flavor, but each listen brings less to the table for me. The flaws become more glaring, and then hard to overcome. Now that I noticed that the same extremely simple drum beat that drives, like, 7 out of 10 of these tracks, I will never get over it. Now that I noticed the complete lack of dynamic vocal range, I find myself unable to differentiate between songs. Now that I noticed the sterile production, I find myself to be rather inattentive through most of this record.

Reviews for Ignorance are stellar across the board, so I must be totally missing something? Maybe the jazz-tinged ultra-shiny sophistipop has some nuance that I still haven’t fully tapped into? I hope so. We’ll see.

Early Verdict:


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Black Country, New Road – For the first time (2021)

Gen Z hates proper title capitalization etiquette and G-d bless ’em for it. FOR THE FIRST TIME I’m writing a review in the same year that the album came actually dropped (see what I did there? How very symbolic and poetic). I genuinely hope and strive to do this way more often, but considering my tendency to be terrified to make any personal opinions about any act that hasn’t been around for the last 57 years AND my tendency to review a band’s body of work in chronological order, I question the longevity of my endeavors.

Black Country, New Road is a collective of SEVEN young men and women based out of London. Every picture of the band looks like something pulled from one of their Facebook profiles: just a group of rather unassuming, normal, slightly nerdy kids fresh out of college. Luke Mark on guitar, Tyler Hyde on bass, May Kershaw on keyboards, Charlie Wayne on drums, Lewis Evans on sax, Georgia Ellery on violin, and, let’s give him a hand, Isaac Wood on vocals. The whole band (except Luke Mark) were originally part of an eight-piece called Nervous Conditions, but some guy in the band named Connor Browne was being repeatedly rapey so everyone distanced themselves from him and the original outfit. Hence the name “Black Country, New Road”, a phrase which, according to Wood, symbolizes the new beginnings borne from old unpleasantness.

So what do these losers sound like? They sound like an early ’90s post-hardcore throwback (i.e. Slint, Unwound, Shellac) with 30 more years of improved production equipment technology. They sound like an Eastern European klezmer punk party (Gogol Bordello). Isaac Wood’s shaky baritone and abstruse-yet-grounded lyricism makes him sound like a philosophical and musical poet laureate of his generation (Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave). And yet, they sound like Black Country, New Road, an aspiring young rock band pushing the boundaries of what the current flavor of post-punk is supposed to sound like here in the new decade. And I’m welcoming them with open arms.

More than anything else I’ve seen the Slint comparisons. They are an obvious influence, BCNR even namedrop Slint in “Science Fair” (“And fled from the stage with the world’s second-best Slint tribute act”). I guess I need to give Slint another try, because what I’ve heard from Slint isn’t nearly as thrilling or dynamic as For the first time. Blasphemy, I know. Slint’s Spiderland is a sacred cow in the world of post-rock / math rock / indie rock / popular music in general, and I’m sure these newbies can’t really hold a candle to what Slint accomplished back in the day, but I’m guessing I’m getting out of BCNR’s debut exactly what dyed-in-the-wool Slint fans get out of Spiderland: thrilling suspense and moments of catharsis. All the best albums in the world expertly play a game of push and pull with dynamics, moods, high points and low points, volume, tension and release, all that fun musical stuff that all the old great composers wrote into their symphonies and concertos hundreds of years ago. I’m not saying that BCNR are classical geniuses! But they do know how to thrill the listener with suspense.

Take the aforementioned “Science Fair” as a perfect example. It starts with an unassuming and repetitive drum/hi-hat beat and then BAM! we get hit with a crunchy, abrasive no wave guitar solo. Soon, Wood starts narrating his devastating science fair experience with the cold, detached focus of a man resurfacing repressed memories, barely able to keep his composure as he slowly increases the intensity…and that fucking drum and hi-hat never stop. After another no wave guitar solo (this time dogfighting with the aggressive sax), the keyboards begin to accompany the drums on this ever-moving sinister train ride to destruction. It’s impossible to describe just how effectively the band unfolds this audio drama over the course of six minutes, just every note and phrase properly placed to constantly raise the tension. I get all tingly every time I listen to it, ooooh baby. Even if For the first time doesn’t end up being my album of the year, I can’t imagine anything else jumping “Science Fair” as my top track.

But each and every one of these six tracks has something exciting to offer to the listener. The thread of the whole album has a very theatrical feel; there’s a beginning, middle, and end, a dramatic and expressive narrative, all the ups and downs of a good story. “Instrumental”, aptly named, is a vibrant and jagged display of each member of the band’s musicianship, and a real kickass way to start the album. “Opus”, the closer, is a similar display and serves as a satisfying denouement to the whole production. Everyone’s got chops with Eastern European and Middle Eastern jazz traditions on both tracks, something you don’t hear much in this brand of experimental rock. “Track X”, the penultimate, sounds like a restrained, but emotionally earnest, avantgarde rock-in-opposition piece from the likes of Fred Frith or Art Zoyd.

“Sunglasses” is another beast altogether. It’s divided into two parts: the instrumentally serene first half with Wood bitterly setting the scene and slowly ramping up to a frenzied wail, then the instrumentally harsh second half, with Wood angrily pushing back against his personal identity, his role within his own suffocating and mundane upper middle class existence, and all the implications therein. The sunglasses themselves represent the wishful thinking of becoming someone else, someone better perhaps, an unmeetable ideal. Pretty heavy stuff.

So, yeah, the lyrics themselves. This is the only area where I can find something to criticize, because while Wood’s vocal performance superbly compliments the music, the lyrics could’ve used a few more rewrites. I love some of them, I think the abstractly metaphorical stuff (“I lose myself in the light of the TV, courtesy of her father/She buys everything that glows gold in the kitchen larder“) goes very well juxtaposed with the literal and descriptive slice-of-life stuff (“Mother is juicing watermelons on the breakfast island/And with frail hands she grips the NutriBullet“). In other cases, they’re compelled to namedrop (“Leave Kanye out of this!“) and obscurely meta-reference (“Dancing to Jerskin, I got down on my knees/I told you I loved you, in front of black midi“) to an obnoxious degree. It’s going to date the material, and when when the band starts aging past their late-teens/early-20s or however old they are, I expect they’ll cringe listening back to this early stuff.

Nevertheless, I’m incredibly impressed! So impressed I found it hard to pepper my writing with as much snarky insincerity as I usually do! It’s been a long time since I’ve been this gung-ho about a debut album, and I’m glad Black Country, New Road was able to leave me invigorated and looking forward to much, much more. I remain cautiously optimistic that the band will be able to progress and mature into something even more incredible.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention “Athens, France”. That’s a good track too!

VERY GOOD


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It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Marilyn

Scary Marilyn! Rawr!

The collagen-injected vampire braves the daylight in search of fresh pancake makeup.

Canton, Ohio’s most famous spooky Bad Boy had better not travel through the lovely state of New Hampshire anytime soon, since doing so may result in SEVERE PUNISHMENTS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW. A warrant is out for Marilyn Manson’s arrest in the Granite State due to an incident that had occurred there on August 18, 2019.

Now, obviously, the rumors weren’t true: Marilyn Manson did not actually have his ribs removed once so that he could suck his own dick. But maybe he should have, because then this monster would’ve never left his house. He would be too busy having fun sucking his own dick and we’d all be spared the atrocities. So what did he do exactly? Arson? Murder? Possession of child pornography? Bank robbery? DOUBLE murder? Murder-suicide? Regular suicide??? Grand larceny? Money laundering? Aircraft hijacking? Boatcraft hijacking? Possession of DOUBLE murder pornography? Close! But not quite! He spit on somebody.

“According to TMZ, the incident allegedly involved Manson spitting at a videographer during a concert. A Class A misdemeanor in New Hampshire carries a possible jail sentence of less than a year and a fine of $2,000 or less.

‘Mr. Warner, his agent and legal counsel have been aware of the warrant for some time and no effort has been made by him to return to New Hampshire to answer the pending charges,’ Gilford PD wrote in its statement.”

OK, well that’s dumb for many reasons:

1) Marilyn Manson should be able to spit on anyone he wants!
Ok, not true, but isn’t this the guy that spits and farts and poops on stage GG Allin-style and sets stuff on fire and sacrifices billy goats and litters and every other manner of provocative performance art? Who’s to say that the videographer didn’t merely get in the way of performance spit, huh? Mary-Lou Manson has been doing this for…hold on let me check the rings under his eyes…32+ years now, it kind of comes with the territory. Now, if he was jerkin’ it and, you know, the videographer got in the way…then…well then…uh…

2) New Hampshire needs to tighten the definition of their Class A misdemeanor punishment.
What the hell is this language? “A Class A misdemeanor in New Hampshire carries a possible jail sentence of less than a year and a fine of $2,000 or less.” So jailtime anywhere from 10 minutes to 364 days? A fine that could start at five Columbian pesos? $2,000 is NOTHING to Marybeth Manson, who could still afford that even after a few hundred dick-sucking surgeries, but about a year of jailtime might cause him to lose what little mind he still has. Maybe we could get some Burzum-style ambient prisons albums out of it?

Gross. Fat and gross.

Gross. Fat and gross.

3) Marilyn Manson should get fined and jailed for other things anyway.
Earlier this week the New Hampshire spitting story dropped, but just today more articles were published about brand new rape allegations, which isn’t new territory for everyone’s favorite industrial plastic surgery factory. Just last year rumblings began to surface from almost all of Manson’s previous girlfriends about his penchant for being a rapey jerk.

The fresh articles go on to relay accounts of him tying the victim to a chair, making her drink urine, and threatening her with a gun, which are the three sexiest things that I can certainly think of! Blech. It sounds like Margaret Manson’s legal team is contesting the allegations instead of spending their energy counselling him on NOT spitting on various stagehands and spending his money on “rape kits”, which according to Manson’s Chief Lawyer Vilhelm Q. Smorgens, is “not what Manson thinks they are”.

In spite of everything, Mary-Louise Manson can redeem himself! I have the perfect idea! He can go get dumped out of an airplane.


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More Bloggin’ About Bloggin’

Check out this nerd over here!

Check out this blogging nerd over here.

I’m still riding the manic highs I’m feeling from my blog overhaul. A fresh new start, I guess? The symbolic uprooting of a tired, old way of life, forging full steam ahead on a new path? Whatever it is, I hope it lasts. It seems kind of silly that something like this could elevate my mood so drastically, and my gut instinct is to stay guarded and not get my hopes up too high.

I’m still spending a lot of time tinkering with layouts, fonts, formatting, fixing links, and fixing all the weird backslashes that were added during importing. I’m sure there’s a plugin for that, but since I’m only paying for the Personal plan on the .com version of the website my options are SEVERELY LIMITED. One day I may decide to .org this bitch and be in full control. For now, though, I’m satisfied.

I’m finding new things to nitpick about every day to add more work to my plate, such as tightening up the organization of my image files, posts, categories, and pages, normalizing page layouts, and shuffling around posts to the right categories. It’s cathartic in its own way, as if the very idea of having all the control I could possibly want over my own little personal corner of this hole we call the Internet is releasing some of that sweet, sweet dopamine! When you have a stressful full-time job, two kids, and crippling anxiety, you take all the catharsis you can get.

I’m starting to wonder why, in 2012, I bugged out from WordPress and switched to Blogger in the first place. Back then I was super poor and woefully unemployed, so I probably wanted something free but more easily customizable. Now I’m glad I’m back to WordPress. I’m pretty thrilled with the easy search option here to find more personal hobby blogs, a feature that Blogger either doesn’t have or it’s not easy to find. It reminds me of the good ol’ Web 1.0 days where plenty of kids like me fucked around in GeoCities making really dumb, endlessly entertaining webpages. Except now the pages are less dumb. Maybe that’s a good thing. BUT, while I’m finding endless amounts of artless blogs where the people are blatantly in it for the fame or profit, there are just as many (if not more) artful blogs where the people are doing it just to do it. I find that thrilling, and I’m having a blast poking around all these personal blogs that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. Beats the pants out of Reddit.

Anyway, I’m having fun. As time goes on I’ll probably continue fleshing out the non-musical portions of my personality here, little by little, WHAT LITTLE EXISTS! HA! I have some ideas for non-music content, but music and writing are my two passions and I imagine I’ll be spending most of my time here writing about music. Fine with me, there’s not much else out there that I like. Seacrest out!


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