NaBloPoMo

Heathcliff

Snocaps – Heathcliff

I only learned of Snocaps existence a few days ago when one of my Music League friends sent a text with a heads up about tickets going on sale for their show(s) in New York in December. I like the Crutchfield sisters’ projects but I got busy at work and totally forgot to get in the pre-sale queue. It seems like it sold out right away.

The Music League has been on an extended hiatus which has been both a blessing and a bummer. As evidenced by knowing nothing about Snocaps, I have been kind of out of the loop when it comes to hearing new music. Most of the weekly themes were broad enough that I could usually find something to fit but there were always weeks when it was something like, a song released within the last two months. However, that’s also how I usually learned about new bands.

Sometimes I will also hear of bands from the pictures posted by concert photographers I follow. Did it look like they put on a great show? Was the audience locked in? Chances are it’s worth checking them out. Back in the day I would sometimes just go to a show because it was cheap and I knew the venue booked bands I generally liked. I do get updates from all of the venues I go to regularly but now that everything is a significant distance away, I’m not as adventurous as I was in my 20s.

Anyway, it’s probably too late for you to snag tickets for any of the short run of shows Snocaps announced but hey, here’s some new music for you!

Clockin Out

Ultra Lights – Clockin Out

My boss likes us to put in for our vacation days well ahead of time. We had a staff meeting last week where he asked us to put in our requests for time off as some of us are hitting the cap. That’s me. I did the math and just to avoid hitting the cap again soon, I will need to take off 3-4 days in both November and December just to stay below the limit, then a longer trip in February or March.

But I really can’t plan that far out. I would love it if they could pay us out instead because I always need money but I don’t have anywhere to go. The cold weather is coming too and you know how much I hate that and the darkness. I feel like I’m going to need to start planning something for early in the year.

I recognize that having a job with a lot of vacation is a very privileged thing. It’s not a problem, but I do need to be better about tracking and planning. For now I asked for extra long weekends and then start looking for some free or super cheap vacation options somewhere warm. Ideas?

I Believe

R.E.M. – I Believe

Hot fucking damn! Tonight’s results are absolutely on fire! Virginia, New Jersey, the PA courts, ZOHRAN!!! Prop 50!!!

And so many smaller victories, too. All on the day we learned Dick Cheney died. That’s some kind of karma.

Who knows if we can sustain this kind of energy for the midterms. Who knows how batshit crazy things will get between now and then. But for tonight, change is what I believe in.

Aerial Troubles

Stereolab – Aerial Troubles

I’ve been on the hunt for a replacement for Spotify for quite a while. They’re just a shitty company that pays the artists next to nothing while they fund highly objectionable things with their billions. Not to mention all of the annoying things about the app that have always irked me. The algorithm, the preference given to playlists and shuffle, and just little things that I feel like an app built for music people would get right, but Spotify gets it wrong.

Back in the summer I downloaded Tidal, Qobuz, my phone is an Android so it comes pre-loaded with YouTube Music, and gave them all a test run with whatever free trial they offered. I imported my Spotify library and ran them through their paces. Tidal was the worst of the three. It crashed all the time and the layout was not intuitive. Qobuz was better, though it also crashed a couple of times during my commute. Being able to listen to music on my drive is kind of the whole point. But the sound quality was great and they pay artists the most of all of the streaming platforms. YouTube Music is ok, serviceable, but I don’t know.

Stereolab’s new album had recently come out when I was doing this little experiment. I used this song, Aerial Troubles, to compare how each of the apps sounded. Qobuz won hands down. I started in Spotify then tried Qobuz and it was so much better that I went back to Spotify and made sure that I had set it to play at the highest quality setting. I then tried out the Qobuz download feature at the highest quality and listened to it offline (no crashing issues that way). When Tidal first came out the buzz was all about the audio quality. It’s better than Spotify but I also read something about a shady investor or two and the frequent crashing is just unworkable. Maybe all of the apps work better on an iPhone but since I don’t have one, that’s a moot point. It’s also why I didn’t really consider Apple Music.

Anyway, I would be happy to hear if you’re using something besides Spotify and love it. Try listening to this song and see how it sounds in comparison.

Cross Your Heart

Momma – Cross Your Heart

I was supposed to see Momma earlier this year but life got too busy for me to want to make the drive for the show. Luckily they announced another show closer to home so I have that to look forward to.

There’s such a 90s vibe to Momma. I’ll be interested to see what the crowd is like. I’m often surprised to see quite a few bald or gray heads in the club when I go to see young bands. That throwback sound though, I think there will be a lot of older (ahem, probably still younger than me) people there.

I’d rather have that than the reverse. That’s a post for another day though!

The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)

Car Seat Headrest – The Catastrophe (Good Luck With That, Man)

I am sure you all are right there with me, trying to figure out what to say about the Catastrophe we find ourselves in without just sputtering a string of expletives. Not exactly at a loss for words though words seem inadequate most days.

That might be why I’ve been trying to get to more concerts this year. For those couple of hours in a dark, crowded, sweaty room surrounded by like-minded people looking for some community, I feel a tiny bit of strength.

At the end of September, my son and I headed up to Boston to see Car Seat Headrest together again. This time I got GA floor tickets. We were not going to miss out on the action from the balcony like last time. A veteran of the mosh pit from my 9:30 Club days in the early 90s, I was ready. Yeah, good luck with that, man. When they played this song and the pit got going, I was transported a good 15 feet away from where I started, nowhere near my (20 year-old) kid, my phone – missing. A quick collective search for my phone, found even further away from where I had wound up, returned it to me unscathed. I decided to hit the bar.

I wandered around the back of the floor, unbelievably overpriced beer in hand, looking for pockets where I might be able to get closer to the space I had left without getting back in the thick of it. I tried to work my way in, weaving past furries and people in masks, eventually making it over to my son near the front for the last few songs. I might not be in top form anymore but there is nothing like being in the middle of that energy. Needless to say, my son had the time of his life and declared it his best show ever.

I’m not suggesting you have to get bounced around by a bunch of people half your age but I do encourage you to find some opportunities to remove yourself from the daily onslaught of bad news, if just for a few hours. Recharging is important.

With that in mind, here I am again. Does this recharge me? Sometimes no, sometimes yes. When it clicks, it’s worth it. We shall see.

Making Flippy Floppy

Talking Heads – Making Flippy Floppy

A couple of weeks ago my best friend and I were talking about expressions one could use when you’re asked how you’re doing. Most of the time people say good, whether they mean it or not. It’s a reflex. But in the times we find ourselves, I feel like it rings hollow to just say good, fine, or, ok.

This was brought on by something in Patti Smith’s Substack. It was her daughter, Jesse Smith, retelling a story about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald and the captain of the ship had said, “We are holding our own.” as his last radio message. Jesse said she finds those words to be “grounding during times of struggle, when all odds are against us, when it maybe just isn’t looking good.”

My issue with this expression is that I don’t feel like I’m holding my own, I feel very much like I’ve dropped the ball and, you know, the ship sank and everyone died. So I think that’s not really going to work for me. Listening to this song I thought about, “trying to do my best.” It’s kind of admitting that things are hard, but you’re trying. I’ve never really known what making flippy floppy means but I always took it as things being tossed around, upside down and back again. That feels like what we are heading into with our crazy president returning and the absolute insane shit he says.

When I started this NaBloPoMo I thought about doing this challenge I saw on Instagram; 20 albums that influenced your taste in music. I thought we would prevail in the election and I’d be able to put some attention to really nailing down that list of albums. 20 was always going to be hard but the way things turned out just destroyed my ability to focus on fun and frivolous things. Not that I think my blog posts are riveting reading but the posts I like writing most are ones where I can spend some time really trying to articulate something about why a song/album/band has meant something to me. Maybe I can come back to this idea later but for now, this NaBloPoMo has been brought to you by me, trying to do my best.

Bug

Fontaines D.C.

Thanksgiving turned out to be very busy. Driving, cooking, driving. Today was more relaxed but I still had things to take care of. One of the factors about having the kids home is that there is no such thing as time to myself. Writing something here requires some uninterrupted minutes to think about what I want to write and actually do it. That’s also why the posts are always late at night.

I feel like this week flew by. It’s already the weekend and then it’s back to work. And December! That is nuts. I hit up my local record store today to get a couple of the Black Friday record store day releases as Christmas presents but otherwise didn’t do any Black Friday shopping.

Hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving!

Talking Backwards

Real Estate – Talking Backwards

After several conversations today, I am still not sure whether we are going to do our Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow or postpone it a day. My daughter recently got a cat and she doesn’t want to leave it alone overnight. She can’t bring it with her because my husband is very allergic. The plan has been that we would pick her up in the morning, have our dinner early like a late lunch, and then take her back in the evening.

The forecast is rain for tomorrow, sunny on Friday. It doesn’t really make a difference to any of us when we have the traditional food, but I kind of don’t have other meal options ready for tomorrow if we push it by a day. Mac and cheese maybe?

Also scuttled were other possible plans that involved my mom coming here or some combination of me and the kids going up to her place. As everyone gets older these things have become much more difficult to organize. I never liked it when we did this mad dash, picking up the kids from early dismissal on Wednesday and driving up to Maine, arriving late and hungry. But the logistics were simple and it was just a bunch of hours in the car. Facebook has this (super annoying, usually) feature where it shows you stuff posted on that day in years past. Today it showed me a picture I posted 10 years ago of my mom’s backyard and driveway with a foot of snow on our cars. She is supposed to get snow again tomorrow so I ‘m just as glad we aren’t trying to get up there.

I hope you all are where you need to be and that you have a nice Thanksgiving!