Stumbling Toward God?

A week or two ago, I put new strings on my acoustic guitar. For those keeping track, that would be the second time in its nine year life. “Serious” guitar players change their strings once a month or so, but I am, first of all, lazy; plus I really do not like the sound of fresh strings. They are so bright and twangy, go out of tune quickly, and are much more “nuanced.” That last one would be a good thing for a skilled player, but for a sloppy player, it just reveals all the mistakes that much more clearly. So I was playing my freshly strung guitar, suddenly reminded of how much I dislike acoustic guitars.

I really do not understand why anyone prefers acoustic over electric guitars. Aside from the lack of additional necessary equipment of course. Some one probably wants to say “tone” as well, but tone is highly subjective, and even the comments I have on not so subjective facts is a lengthy discussion in itself. As for me, I always feel like playing acoustic guitar is a battle that I usually lose.

First of all, the stings on an acoustic are generally under higher tension than on an electric for reasons I that will not go in to, so it is physically more difficult to play from the start. Also, “fragile” is not quite the word I am looking for, but acoustic guitars are not entirely structurally sound. Certainly less so than electrics, which are essentially a solid slab of wood. The string tension will actually bow the neck and distort the top of an acoustic guitar, making them even harder to play over time. There are adjustments that can be made to compensate for this, up to a point, but eventually it becomes necessary to actually take the neck off the guitar and reset it to reestablish the correct neck-string-body angles. For an expensive guitar, this is worth the cost and effort, for a cheap one, you probably should just get a new one.

I can not help but wonder if this is a secret that girls do not know, because it is rare to find a girl that plays electric guitar, and perhaps more of them would, and for that matter, even more might play guitar at all, if they knew that electric guitars were so much easier.

I also get to pick my selection for the best song of the decade:

“Mr. Brightside” by the Killers. With no runners-up, it was a crap decade for music.

Wait, was 2001 in this decade? Let me rethink this.
“Kite” – U2
“Cut Here” – The Cure
“Idioteque” – Radiohead
“Lost Cause” – Beck
“Hurt” – Johnny Cash
“My December” – Linkin Park
“No One Knows” – Queens of the Stone Age
And what the heck, let’s throw in:
“Fresh Feeling” – Eels
“Such Great Heights” – The Postal Service
“How Far We’ve Come” – Matchbox 20
“Vindicated” – Dashboard Confessional
“Something Beautiful” – The Newsboys
“Pork and Beans” – Weezer
“The Wrong Side” – Abney Park
“Viva la Vida” – Coldplay*
“Crazy” – Gnarls Barkley
“Apartment Story” – The National
“Feel Good Inc.” – Gorillaz
“Hoppípolla” – Sigur Rós

So that’s a list. I probably forgot some. Is it shallow of me to only mention songs that were massive hits? Seems shallow of me. Although, since I have repeatedly mentioned that I do not listen to music much anymore, a song would have to be awfully popular to come to my attention. Oh, and we still need a winner? Let’s see… Hey, what was that song with the “Ode to Joy” guitar solo again? It kind of went: Jealousy, turning saints into the sea/turning through sick lullabies/choking on your alibis/but it’s just the price I pay/destiny is calling me; open up my eager eyes…
Cause I’m Mr.
Bright
Side.

Ah, yes. First instinct is usually best.

*A couple of years ago I wanted to add this song to my regular year end list, except that I thought it was called, “Speed of Sound.” I then discovered that that is a different song by Coldplay. It suddenly dawned on me that Coldplay songs are all slightly different shades of the same color. It is, however, a pleasant color. I guess you can stay.

It’s music time again. Back in July I heard a song that made me think I should call the winner early, because I was not likely to hear a better song this year. I should have done it, because now I do not remember anything about that song. Anyway, lately I have been listening to KBIG 104.3 a lot, which is now calling itself “My FM”, but do not worry, it is still a total “chick” station.

I was thinking awhile ago that The Killers are definitely in the running for the best band of their generation… and if only there was another band that was any good at all we could actually have a competition. The Killers did not have a new album this year. (They did have a live album, but I’m not going to count that.)

You know who did have a new album this year? U2. And it might just be the greatest collection of notes and words that they or anyone else have ever put together. I mean, it might… I would not know, I have not heard it. Though what I have heard from it does not particularly support that hypothesis.

I heard a song this summer that featured the nastiest, dirtiest, fuzz pedal guitar tone that I have heard in a great long while. And it was a welcome breath of fresh air to the bland, over-produced drivel of recent years. It took me awhile to track down the song: “E-Pro” by Beck. From 2005. Oh well.

Another song I ran across is “Fresh Feeling” by Eels. I honestly can not explain what I like about it… it is so… peppy. That ain’t like me. It also happens to be from 2000, although it was also on the soundtrack to the movie “Love Happens”, which I did not see, and I doubt that you did either, but I imagine that that gave it the slight boost in popularity which brought it to my attention.

Didn’t anyone write a good song this year? I heard a ditty on the radio: “Put me in a special school/Cause I am such a fool/And I don’t need a single book to teach me how to read/Who needs stupid books?/They are for petty crooks/And I will learn by studying the lessons in my dreams.” Normally I despise commercials, but this one had me thinking, “Interesting… where are you going with this?” Only it was not a commercial, it was “Troublemaker” by Weezer. A radio commercial that makes you stop and pay attention: triumphant success. A song that you mistake for an advertisement: total failure.

I saw Reba McEntire on Conan performing what was actually quite a good song. But no, I am not going to go that route. Can’t do it. Although it is nice to know that she’s still got it*.

So you know what? Screw it. If the music industry is not even going to try anymore, why should I? My pick for song of the year is “Livin’ on a Prayer” by Bon Jovi. Which I have been hearing quite a lot recently for some reason.

*I actually could not name a single Reba McEntire song, including that one. Though I might take a stab with “Consider Me Gone.”

Back in January, I posted an old song for someone special. That song was, how do you say, “kinda crappy.” It was more of an unpolished sketch with some interesting ideas and more than a few noticeable mistakes. Perhaps it was not so terrible for what I had to work with back then, but I remember thinking when I posted it that these days pretty much anyone could throw together something better in Garageband.

Now I know what you are probably thinking. That was seven months ago, and we have all “moved on.” Sometimes the world moves a little too quickly for me. So finally, I took my own challenge and threw together something in Garageband.

Remembering.

Timothy “Timmy” Elfstrand
August 11, 2007 – January 10, 2009

I was driving yesterday when a song came on the radio that my subconscious immediately recognized from back in the day and shouted, “Now we’re talkin’!” (Can your subconscious shout? Maybe I meant id. I don’t know.) Guitar, guitar, guitar aaaaand… BOOM!
Here you go way too fast
Don’t slow you’re gonna crash
You should watch – watch your step
Don’t look out you’re gonna break your neck

So shut – shut your mouth
‘Cause I’m not listening anyhow
I’ve had enough – enough of you
You know to last a lifetime through

Wait… is this an 80′s song? Nah, man, nah. Gotta be early 90′s. Really? Because it has that poppy upbeat tempo, that smooth female vocal, that glorifying a fast, irresponsible lifestyle, those ‘na nana na na na nana na na naa’s … what about this song isn’t 80′s? But it has that chugchugchugchug guitar thing that’s so 90′s going on!

Alright, who knows who this song is by? Anyone? The name I pulled out of thin air was “Jill Sobule.” This is wrong. It turns out the band in question is “The Primitives”, which I am pretty sure is a name that I never heard before, not one that I had merely forgotten. The song “Crash” was released in 1988. Damn it. BUT Another version of the song (“The ’95 Mix”) was featured on the soundtrack to Dumber and Dumber, released (counter-intuitively) in 1994. Which is likely the version that would be most familiar to anyone who happened to be in high school around that time.

Judges?

Yesterday out of curiosity, I flipped my iTunes library to list in order of “play count” just to see what is at the top. I have to admit, it was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser.

The top five are: “My Country b3″ by The Purple Robe with a play count of 46. Ah, the joke that started it all. Then comes “Vertigo” by U2 with 29. Now, you have to understand that for a fair amount of time after purchasing this computer, these were actually the only two songs in the library, so it is no surprise that they would be at the top. Even so, tied with 28 each are an instrumental version of “When She Walks in the Room” by The Purple Robe and “youreagirl” by Strong Bad. How quaint. In fifth place with 25 is… yet another Purple Robe song. What a freakin’ narcisist.

Alright so, the highest ten songs in the list that I didn’t do myself (which accounted for 9 of the top 20) were:

Vertigo (Single Version) – U2
youreagirl – Strong Bad
cinematic – Cool Hand Luke
Story of Our Lives – The Echoing Green
Gone – tobymac
Everybody To The Limit – Strong Bad
Everything Is Bad For You – Map
Such Great Heights – The Postal Service
Last Nite – The Strokes
Vindicated (acoustic) – Dashboard Confessional

About this point I realized that the whole exercise was rather meaningless, because a very large percent of the staggering 391 songs in my library (yes, that is the correct number of digits) is just stuff I downloaded for free (legally) from various places, and is not a particularlly accurate reflection of my actual music tastes. For example, there are 82 songs in my “Purchased from iTunes” list, two of which I literally purchased, the other 80 being free downloads. Of those, 11 actually have a play count of 0, and 14 more have a play count of only 1. Nice.

The fact is, iTunes is simply not my prefered way to listen to music. I do not really need to download music, because I discovered a long time ago that I can almost always find what I want online, whether it be on a bands official website or myspace page, or a YouTube video (even if YouTube happens to be blocked… there are other sites). Now there is Pandora, which of course only allows you to select certain qualities, not to pick specfic songs, but I just recently discovered imeem, which does. Really the only reason to fire up iTunes at all anymore is just to listen to… my own songs. That explains that, I reckon.

I suppose if there was a point to all this (aside from the obvious amusment of “Seriously? ‘Last Nite’ by The Strokes…?”), it would be that, having recently [ahem] quit my job (in part) in order to focus on music, I have to wonder if anyone actually even buys music anymore. Oh, I don’t know… Maybe people who don’t surf the internet all day, and actually need something to put on the iPod for when they LEAVE THE HOUSE?

That, and also to point out that “youreagirl” is a fine song. If you actually know the song I’m talking about, you are going to go looking for it right now aren’t you? You know who you are. (The rest of you, it’s a bit of an inside joke. You are probably better off.)

I want to play the guitar very badly and I do play the guitar very badly.
–Bono

When I was a young man, I fell in love with a rock and roll band. It was the sort of everything-they-do-is-perfect infatuation that is usually reserved for the opposite sex… though I highly doubt I’m the only one to ever make that mistake. Kids, don’t fall in love with a rock and roll band; they are only going to break your heart.

I used to think that U2 was Bono and the Edge and those other two guys. I remember one day in high school, I was listening to the radio as I drove when the (possibly stoned) DJ announced, “Here’s the theme from Gilligan’s Island.” What followed instead was a new version of the theme from Mission: Impossible, and I thought to myself, “This sounds like U2.” If you can imagine in the days before the internet was common, when information traveled a lot more slowly, I had no idea that – not U2 – but rather Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr. were redoing the theme for the forthcoming movie. And here were these two guys whom I had always overlooked, whose contribution to the band was so fundamental that without any prior knowledge, I could immediately recognize their touch even on a cover of a well know piece of music.

What can I say, I was a man obsessed back then. When did the love die? Was it when Zooropa was pretty good, but certainly no Achtung Baby? Was Passengers: Original Soundtracks 1 just a little too abstract? Was it the continual delays that finally resulted in Pop, which was still so unfinished that almost every song released as a single from that album was a whole new recording? Was it their ever rising ticket prices, for ever crappier seats? Was it a little of everything?

I suppose I have been insulting U2 like a scorned lover for some time now. Particularly their (until last week) two most recent albums. I know that I am in the minority, but I really like Pop. I’m listening to it right now in fact. I admit that some of the electronic stuff is a bit over-the-top, but I think that lyrically, it is their strongest album to date. Then a few years down the road comes All That You Can’t Leave Behind, which had a few songs with lyrics that I honestly wondered if Bono let his kids write. I do not really hate that album as much as I let on. About half of it is really quite good. It is merely the fact that only half of it is good, when I had come to expect so much more, that makes it so disappointing.

Then we had the rise of the iTunes Music store, which I believe I was one of the first to get on board with (and definitely one of the first to jump off board.) But I did take the opportunity to download “Vertigo.” This song was peculiar in the sense that it reminded me most of “11 O’Clock Tick Tock”, a single from before they even had their first album… as if the twenty five or so intervening years had never happened. Yet, it was not really that good, and for the first time, I decided to pass on the new album. Someone eventually gave it to me anyway, and on my first listen, I could not help but think, “Man, there is not a good song on this album!” Maybe “Crumbs From Your Table”… MAYBE… I listen to it several more times before I finally decided that I was just trying to hard, and that I would never give an album that much of a chance if it did not happen to say “U2″ on the cover. The problem with this album is that it is just bland. The online community seemed reluctant to criticize it, but I did read one person’s opinion somewhere that it suffered from “rank amateur mixing” and “too many producers, not enough of whom were named ‘Eno’ or ‘Lanois’.” Fair enough. Some time back I found a clip on YouTube from one of their previous tours, and one commentor mentioned about how this was when they used to be good, but now they “just play songs for your mom.” Well said.

Then they got in bed with Apple and had the U2 iPod, and The [semi-]Complete U2; and then there was the Best Of-According-To-Who-Exactly? And now we have all sorts of ‘Remastered’ this and ‘Limited Edition’ that. One might overlook the selling out if they were still putting out butt-kicking music, but to sell out while releasing boring music? Inexcusable.

FREEEEEEDOM has a scent
Like the top of a new born baby’s head!
The songs are in your eyes,
I see them when you smile.
I’ve had enough, I’m not giving up
On a miracle… A miracle drug!
–U2, “Miracle Drug”
Uhhhhhhhhhh… what?

Even so, on a good day, in a generous mood, I might be willing to admit that there are as many as four decent songs on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Yet after trying to convince myself for so long that it maybe was not so bad after all, I popped Achtung Baby in my car CD player for awhile… and yeah, they have fallen an awful long way. Even the weakest song off of that album [which after much difficult deliberation, I am going to go with "So Cruel"] will still kick the stuffing out of anything off of ATYCLB, HTDAAB, and really probably most albums by a lot of other artists one might care to mention.

U2 3D was pretty amazing though. Maybe “they’ve still got it” when it comes to live performance. You know, if you can actually see them.

It also bares mentioning that I still consider it to be my “useless superpower” to be able to recognize a U2 song in any environment. I have even been so bold as to claim that I can name any U2 song “in one note.” Which is probably not true, but I have made some modestly impressive identifications in crowded restaurants. (The sort of thing where the response is often, “I don’t even hear a song,” then after a pause to listen intently, “Oh yeah, you’re right!”)

So the new album came out last week. I was in denial for awhile. I resisted listening to the new single, “Get on Your Boots” for quite some time. When I finally did, my impression was that it was not exactly ‘bad’, but that it did seem to have “one hit wonder” written all over it, which is sad for a band with a thirty year career. “Sexy boots”? What are you talking about? I read somewhere that the song is about how men have ruined everything and it’s time to let the women take over. I happen to come from a family where I think that idea would go over quite well, but I do not buy it myself.

Anyway, I have not yet bought the new CD. Last week they were unprecedentedly the music guest on Letterman for the entire week. I missed Monday night, but Tuesday and Wednesday they played new songs, one of which was “I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight” and the other I have completely forgotten. But it seems like they went from being too “Adult Contemporary” to trying to appeal to preteens. Then on Thursday they played “Beautiful Day” from two albums back. What, so after three songs they have already run out of new material? Nice.

I was thinking about all of this when it occurred to me that U2′s latest albums are not even my least favorite. You know what album I really do not like? The Unforgettable Fire. Sure, you have “Pride” and “Bad” which are classics, but can you even name another song? [A Sort of Homecoming-Pride-Wire-The Unforgettable Fire-Promenade- 4th of July-Indian Summer Sky-Bad-MLK-Elvis Presley and America.] Wow, okay… I guess I do. (Wrong order though.) Do you know any of the words then? And you hunger for the time/Time to heal/Desire time/Hmm hmm hmmmm/Hmm hmm hmmmmmm…yeah, I’m out. Well, amusing diversion aside, my point was that this album is (ironically) quite forgettable. But they followed that with The Joshua Tree which was pretty okay I guess. So maybe they just have an off album now and then, or an off year… decade, whatever.

I guess this concludes my review of the new album, without touching the new album. I leave you with an observation I made a number of years ago, but since then the pattern has continued to the point that I can only assume that they are doing it on purpose, though I can not imagine why:

Boy
October *song title*
War
The Unforgettable Fire *song title*
The Joshua Tree
Rattle and Hum *song lyric (Bullet the Blue Sky)*
Achtung Baby
Zooropa *song title*
Pop
All That You Can’t Leave Behind *song lyric (Walk On)*
How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb
No Line on the Horizon *song title*

Some months back I decided that I absolutely despise 80′s music, and was so bold as to further assert that if I had my way, I would erase all of 80′s pop culture from history, saving only Calvin and Hobbes.

“What about U2?” I was asked.
“Eh, screw ‘em.”
“But wait, if you get to save Calvin and Hobbes…”
If you are rushing into a burning building, I reasoned, and you can only save one thing… that’s my one thing I am saving from the 80′s.

Now in truth, I was not talking about U2, Queen, Tom Petty… or really any band with a multi-decade career that happened to include the 1980′s. What I can not stand is the 80′s pop one-hit-wonder types; the kind of thing that they play on “flashback” specials, “awesome 80′s” collections, “80′s night” or what have you. The kind of thing that people enjoy for nostalgia value, or like specifically because it is so cheesy… really for any reason other than because it is actually any GOOD.

I put quite a lot of thought into this because it was irritating me so. I realized that 80′s songs weren’t really ABOUT anything, or more specifically, they were about something silly and/or some bizarre analogy for sex. (With quite a few songs specifically about partying/dancing/playing music/having a song on the radio/etc.)

The 00′s has not been such a great decade either when you get down to it. It seems like everything is “over-produced” this or “a cheap imitation of” that. Even my favorite bands from the past are disappointing. Radiohead has transcended the need to make music to which people can relate; I hear that Robert Smith, Simon Gallup, Porl Thompson and some drummer are now in a mediocre “The Cure” cover band. And U2… [sigh].

Last year, despite (or perhaps due to) my profound lack of productivity in other areas, I actually had quite a number of ideas on the music front. At one point I thought of an album title that was so good, it really made me wish that I actually had some songs to put on it. Well, how many songs do you have? I dunno, four or five I guess, if I finish everything that I have been working on. Really, everything? The question was, “How many songs do you have?” Oh… like 30-40… but I was talking about recent stuff.

I came up with a new song in the middle of my “Scarecrow” sessions a few years back. It served as a nice bridge between my older guitar work and my more recent computer based stuff. It even had lyrics based upon a few of my then-recent blog posts, but I never quite managed to “bring it home.”

I put a lot of effort into adapting a certain other song, which I felt that if I ever performed was sure to get me sued, fired or excommunicated depending on the context. It is that good.

I wrote another song with some challenging [for me at least] strumming patterns, and unusual [...for me] chord progressions – including one chord that I just plain made up. I can not even play each piece of the song consistently, let alone string them together. I had a concept in mind for the lyrics but had trouble coming up with specifics. In one verse I merely stated, “Je ne sais rien/Je ne comprends pas” while jamming one time, and decided to keep that for lack of anything better. I have the sinking fear that this song really sucks, even if I could put it all together. That is particularly distressing, because the subject of the song is such that it is very important for this NOT to suck.

I started another song and only got one verse and a chorus before hitting a wall. This one seemed to want to be in a Dean Martin/Frank Sinatra sort of style… a genre about which I know almost nothing. I do not know the structure of such songs, and more importantly, even if I did finish writing it, I would likely need to find someone else to sing it, because there is no way I am capable of “crooning” this baby. It was a good start, but I do not know if it will ever get finished. The particular state of mind I was in at the time has passed and I do not know if I could recapture that mood.

It was while working on that last one that I finally had to ask myself, “Man, what are you doing? Why don’t you stop this nonsense and try to remember how to play ‘Last Night I Slept in the Garden’?” So I returned for a time to my older songs. It was a strange sensation; in trying to remember songs that I had not played in years, which now seemed so foreign to me, I found myself asking, “Did I really write this? I don’t remember writing this.” Then it came to me: You didn’t write those songs… *I* did. Oh. Well that is not exactly good news is it?

I had another new song as well. It started off well enough: I was trying something different by fretting with my RIGHT hand while hammering/plucking with the left. Although that part was rather innovative, in trying to flesh out the rest of the song I kept thinking that I have done something like this before musically, or that I had used that same lyrical pattern in the past – I had to change one line specifically because I had definitely done that kind of wordplay before. It just did not seem that there was anything “new” about this song. Then it hit me: 80′s music had no substance, the 00′s have no teeth… but kids, this is how we did things in the 90′s. (You know… more or less.)

I did this song, Toy Shoppe, (if indeed it can be called a “song,” as it is really more of an “aural painting”) a long time ago. It was originally intended to be accompaniment for a circus act – for which it was (understandably) rejected. I later considered amending the name to “Toy Shoppe (In the Sky)” and thought that I should like to have it played at my funeral*, but I never told a soul, and eventually forgot almost everything but the name for more than ten years.

Yesterday, I was inspired to dig out the cassette tape again. (“What’s that?” you ask.) My initial thoughts upon listening were, “WTF?” Followed closely by, “How on earth did I make those sounds with the technology that I had in 1997?” So okay, it’s not exactly what I would call “good”, but it does have a curious blend of whimsy and gloom which is precisely what I was looking for on this occasion.

Anyway, I thought you might like a little backstory, because today, this song is for you.

*Do not hold me to this.