 |
|
10-8-03 // 8.27 pm even the wrong words seem to rhyme NP: Howie Day - "Stop All The World Now" The more I listen to this one the more I warm to it. On first listen, I was aghast at the seemingly bolted-on string sections and Production (with a capital 'P'). But slowly, song by song, I'm becoming alright with the record. Which is good, as it's a rather nice album. It doesn't have the visceral, raw emotion of "Australia", but in many ways, the songwriting is far superior. I'm still not sure how I feel about Day's rerecording She Says (originally a vocals-and-acoustic-guitar stunner from his debut) with a full band. I normally hate when bands do that sort of thing (hello Dashboard Confessional, what up Green Day?!), but this new "big" version of She Says is almost well-done enough for me to stop being pissed about it. Almost. Anyway, Mr. Day is remains and excellent, gifted songwriter. Love, "Forever Changes". This came out the same year as "Sgt. Pepper's" and which one gets hailed as the masterpiece? What a travesty! And this is coming from me, a dyed-in-the-wool Beatles fan. The new Belle & Sebastian is weird. I mean, Trevor Horn producing fey indie popsters sounds like some sort of industrial accident waiting to happen, but you know, I think it actually works, despite the fact that it has no right to. But yeah, "Dear Catastrophe Waitress" is polished, but not too polished. It also finds Stu Murdoch & Co. daring to not mope. Its best moments are reminiscent of the R&B influenced pop of standalone singles like Legal Man and Jonathan David. It's not to say that there aren't old-school B&S moments -- a few tunes like If You Find Yourself Caught In Love are rife with the "Charlie Brown" piano lines and lispy vocals we all know and love. But yeah, in addition to that, Stay Loose is pure post-punk (if B&S were around in 1980, that is), Roy Walker is a fantastic 1970's AM radio pop pastiche (intentional or not), and Step Into My Office, Baby provides a glossy yet powerful burst of '60s style pop. It's a disc that the majority of the faithful will shun, and that probably won't win the band any new fans, but for those who fall in the no-mans-land inbetween, it's possibly the most cohesive B&S album since "If You're Feeling Sinister". That's not to say the two full-length LPs inbetween didn't have their moments. They did, and their heights are probably better than anything on "Dear Catastrophe Waitress". But as an album, as a coherent whole, this new one is a killer. And come on, a song called Piazza, New York Catcher -- Murdoch writes about jet-setting with a girl (I think) and baseball (barely) with lines like 'the catcher hits for .318 and catches every day; the pitcher puts religion first and rests on holidays'. Can't go wrong there, now can you? I had One Of Those Days today. Seriously. From the moment I woke up I felt like I had done so on the proverbial 'wrong side of the bed'. Traffic on the way to work was killer, I was almost hit by several tractor trailers, and I arrived at the office in a frazzled state of mind. The working day was brutally boring -- I had about an hour's worth of work to fill an eight hour time period. It should all pick up tomorrow, but for today...it was stifling. Came home and finished up some chores -- washing dishes and folding laundry. But it's alright, I'm all done, and now I'm kicking back. Scratch the writer thing from the last entry. If I really sit down and think about it, I love language. Everything about it, from learning new ones to reading about language families and history, to articles about grammar, pronuciation, systems of writing...you name it, it fascinates me. Sad, perhaps, but if I had it all to do over, I might focus on my Spanish studies, eventually becoming a professor or a translator or something, or even a general linguistics professor or researcher -- something like that. In any case, even as things are, I still get totally engrossed in sites such as this or this. Ahhh. Hung out with Ryan S after work yesterday. I actually got to his house a bit early, so I helped him, his dad, and his brother Don load up a truck full of Don's stuff to move him to his new apartment the next town over. It wasn't a big deal, in fact I was happy to help. I've known Don for as long as I've known Ryan, and while we're not good friends, more of acquaintances really, he and the whole family have been incredibly good to me over the years. So it was my pleasure, really, to help 'em all out. So yeah, after the moving of things, Ryan and I walked to one of the village bars and had some beers and a bite to eat. It was nice spending time like that, it was the sort of thing we used to do when I lived there, and it's always nice to hang out in a place without a hint or trace of pretension. Anyway, we had the food and the beers, had a few games of Magic, and then I drove home to meet Erin, who had worked the late shift at her work. It was really great to see her -- I hate those marathon days where I get up and go to work while she's still asleep and she doesn't get home from work till I've been home for four or five hours. I mean once in a while it's nice to have the solitude (I've always been a stickler about liking to hole up alone for an evening with music and books), about once a week would be perfect for me, though it's usually more like three or four times weekly. But oh well, what can you do, eh? Absence makes the heart grow fond... Which it does, incidentally. Nowt much else going on at the moment, really. Looking forward to this funky working week ending, looking forward to Erin being off two days in a row Friday and Saturday, and looking forward to the Grandaddy/Elbow show (not to mention getting to hang out with Ryan H) on Sat. night. It's like 70 degrees out right now, in the middle of October. Indian summer always weirds me out. Though I should just be quiet and take it all in, as before I know it, it's going to be 5 F out there. So yes, cheers to open windows and cool breezes.
|