jazzlawyer’s Neighborhood

It's been a while since I've been so obsessed with a "new" band but holy crap this Gallows record is amazing. Like, really amazing. I've been listening to it non stop and I'm actually looking at my travel plans and their tour dates hoping to find some kind of intersection. This is best listened to whilst driving fast and at extremely high volumes.

If you follow me on flickr or twitter or read my personal blog then you know I'm currently traveling around the north east US and Canada. Yesterday I left Toronto and drive with friends to Montreal. Somehow, somewhere on the endless stretches of road between the two cities (which reminded me way too much of Florida for some reason) I started thinking about this Hankshaw song, most likely since it name drops Montreal, and then had to post it. Enjoy.

Sorry this is another post with mostly the song and lyrics but when iTunes comes across a song that I end up just throwing on repeat all by itself I figure it's worth throwing up here for everyone else to give a listen to. It's no secret that The Pogues are about as close to a perfect band as you can get in my eyes and Rake At The Gates Of Hell is as close to a perfect Pogues song as you can get. It's a perfect example of Shane's brutal writing put on top of perfectly happy cheery music. I can't get enough. Enjoy.

I'll be with them asleep or dreaming
I'll be there when they wake up screaming
At the hour of death I will nurse them
To have a moment more to curse them
Watch the maggots crawl out of them
Hear the angels call above them
Watch them as the cold air sucks them
Down to hell good night good luck
Then if any should escape above me
Beg and cheat until they trust me
Drag them down to be damned with me
Laugh at them as they forgive me

Mothers eyes are sparking diamonds
Still the moon shows no likeness
Roses wither may god deliver
The rake at the gates of hell tonight

I wish that they could walk forever
On the earth alone unfettered
Until they pray for consummation
Until they beg for sweat damnation
Then I'll come and bring them water
Bring them hope, bring them laughter
Raise their hopes both sad and sunken
Slash them up as they lie there drunken
Push them down into the fowl mud
Until they choke up on their own blood
Drag them out before their last breath
To take away the mercy of death

Mothers eyes are sparking diamonds
Still the moon shows no likeness
Roses wither may god deliver
The rake at the gates of hell tonight.

This song "Head On" has taken on a whole new meaning for me all the sudden, and I'd love to upload the original by the Jesus and Mary Chain but all I have with me is an iTunes version with is all protected and shit, so here's the version by The Pixies which isn't a bad second choice at all. Including lyrics because, well, yeah.

As soon as I get my head around you
I come around catching sparks off you
I get an electric shock from you
This secondhand living just won't do
And the way I feel tonight
I could die and I wouldn't mind
And there's something going on inside
Makes you wanna feel
Makes you wanna try
Makes you wanna blow the stars from the sky
And I can't stand up
I can't cool down
I can't get my head off the ground
As soon as I get my head around you
I come around catching sparks off you
And all I ever got from you
Was all I ever took from you
Yeah, the world could die in pain
And I wouldn't feel no shame
And there's nothing holding me to blame
Makes you wanna feel
Makes you wanna try
Makes you wanna blow the stars from the sky
And I'm taking myself to a dirty part of town
Where all my troubles can't be found
I said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
And I'm taking myself to a dirty part of town
Where all my troubles can't be found
Makes you wanna feel
Makes you wanna try
Makes you wanna blow the stars from the sky

I posted these two songs, one from Lush and one from My Bloody Valentine to go with this post on my real blog about walking around Tokyo. Feel free to check it out if you want, if not just enjoy the songs.

One of the cool things about Vox in particular and blogging in general is the folks you run into that you might not have otherwise. Skip.town is one of those people. She found a post I made about some song and commented and I started reading her feed as well. It's really good stuff. Today she posted a pretty great song by The Songbirds but referenced this song by Crimpshrine. It's called "Summertime" and like everything else I post here it's so entirely filled with memories and emotions for me I can barely describe it.

I don't recall if I heard Crimpshrine first on a comp or on their first Lookout! 7" but they instantly became the epitome of East Bay Punk Rock to me. Even more so than Operation Ivy who I could also listen to non stop if required to do so. The wikipedia article on them is incredibly light for a band who I kinda think there would never have been a Green Day without. This was also my first introduction to Aaron Cometbus (and his delicious handwriting) which inspired a hell of a lot of my own graphic design projects later on, most notably of which is probably The Bad Brains Omega Sessions. Funny how small a world this all shapes out to be, isn't it?

So far I've been posting lots of things that came out many years ago, which is fine because there's some damn good stuff that came out many years ago. That is not to say there's not damn good things being released right now as well. A friend of mine, who knows the insane reaches of my eclectic musical tastes was pretty shocked to find out that I liked the White Stripes album. I don't know if that says something about him or about me, but the fact is I've liked every White Stripes album, but the just released Icky Thump is simply amazing.

Of course I don't write off certain parallels with song themes and things going on in my life which make many of the tracks (on this as well as the earlier Racontours album) more poignant to me but whatever, that's how some of my favorite songs became just that. So, to set the record straight, and also to risk much psychoanalysis from close friends, I'm posting a track from the new White Stripes record. This one "A Martyr For My Love For You" has been on my iPod since the moment I got it several weeks ago and I keep finding myself playing it 3-4 times in a row. Lyrical attachments aside, this song flat out rocks. You'll notice the kinda-quite-breaking-into-totally-rocking-it hooks that I seem to be so fond of. So yeah, there you have it. Enjoy.

I can say without any hesitancy that Samiam provided the sound track to my youth. While Jawbreaker has had a chokehold grip on the slot for 'favorite band of my entire life' Samiam has always been a close second and definitely has a few songs that on their own push far beyond. While musically I always leaned towards the sound of their first self titled album when I wasn't being mopey and emo, the tracks on Soar and Billy were each, independently, written specifically for different events in my highschool career. In fact some were written for several. I don't care if the band disagrees, listen to me, I know what I'm talking about. I probably listened to Soar more than any other album between the ages of 14 and 20, and I can still listen to it today and feel the exact same things I felt listening to it then. I can't hear the line "maybe we're just too much alike, or maybe not enough" without simultaneously thinking of every girl I ever made a mix tape for and included that song.

Samiam was also one of the bands that I was way too quick to write off the moment the signed to a major label. This band meant something to me on a very different level and I knew for sure that a major label would ruin that for me. I was young and stupid, what can I say? While I couldn't ever bring myself to stop listening to the pre-major label releases I definitely was in no rush to buy the new albums. I was convinced they would suck simply because of what corp info was printed on the jacket and couldn't stand the chance of hearing that. Well, I was a huge dumb ass. Clumsy came out on Atlantic in Summer 1994 and I didn't listen to it until sometime last year, in 2006. 12 years I waited to hear that record. Funny enough I went right back after they left the major and bought You Are Freaking Me Out the week it was released in 1997. Every time I listen to Clumsy I kick myself for missing out on it all that time. It's perfect Samiam, and the perfect follow up to Billy. So, here's one of my favorites off Clumsy, it's quintessential Samiam, and it's called "Capsized."