memories

35-for-35: 2016 – “Mountains” by Dirty Holiday

November 30, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]This is actually a post about the 36th song from 35 years of my life.

I’ve never understood how “Best of the Year” lists can come out in December. There’s a whole extra month of things that might be the best! There’s more year – more context – that hasn’t happened yet!

The lists should come out in January. I blame Christmas. Some might say I have declared a war on it.

I think “Best of Year” lists should come out in the following January, or maybe even March or April. Who can even know the shape of the year without a little time and hindsight? How many of these 35 songs would I have chosen right at the end their years rather than after? In many cases, I hadn’t even heard them year.

I don’t know what hindsight will tell me about 2016. It was tempting to pick “Blackstar” or “Lazarus” as a reminder of those brief first 10 days of 2016 when it seemed everything was possible before the sad, awful mess of this year set in. Maybe in hindsight one of those will be my song of 2016.

For now, my pick is a song from just two weeks later. Actually, it was the first thing I heard other than David Bowie after his death. The song is “Mountains” by Dirty Holiday, a moniker for one of the many projects of Philly singer-songwriter Katie Barbato.

It also happens to be EV’s favorite song of the year.

This will forever go down as the first song I discovered and loved at exactly the same time as EV. She was sitting at our dining room table the first time I played it from my laptop, and as she requested Dirty Holiday’s Nobody’s Sober EP again and again it grew to be our favorite song amongst a strong crop.

There’s something about how the song picks up from a bluesy, acoustic strum to something larger .The arrangement and production is a perfect fit for this tune. In particular, I’d describe those organ parts as “lurid” – so swirling and colorful that there is almost something prickly and sinister about them, lending a different meaning to Barbato’s tossed off “da dut da” above them.

One Wednesday over the summer I brought EV to the Academy of Natural Sciences to see the dinosaurs for the first time. However, in documenting the story on the blog this summer, I skipped my favorite part.

EV and I reached the intersection of 19th street and Walnut, where 19th is interrupted by Rittenhouse Square. As we crossed from the west side to the east, we very literally bumped into Katie Barbato and her husband Matt. We hugged hello, and then I leaned down to introduce EV.

“EV, this is Miss Katie.” Then, it dawned on me that EV knew exactly who Miss Katie was. “EV, it’s Katie Barbato.”

Here is an artist’s rendering of EV’s face in that moment:

Katie, Matt, and I chatted about Katie’s record and my purple hair for a few minutes while EV hid behind my legs in awe. There we were in the middle of Center City, and her papa was talking to A ROCK STAR FROM THE IPOD. She did not say a single word to Katie or Matt, but as soon as we said our goodbyes the only thing she could talk about for the rest of the day was, “Did you know that I met Katie Barbato?”

Requests for “Mountains” saw an uptick after that, which I didn’t even think was possible.

You can buy the entire Nobody’s Sober EP at BandCamp for $4. It is five songs long and each song is way better than a dollar, so that is a steal.

35-for-35: 2009 – “Love Of Our Lives” by Indigo Girls

November 26, 2016 by krisis

indigo-girls-poseidon-and-the-bitter-bug [Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]You don’t stop being an artist.

I haven’t written a new song in a few months, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped being a songwriter. I never stopped being a blogger in the months this page lay dormant. You might not write as frequently as you did when you were 20, and you might draw inspiration from different things, but that doesn’t stop you from being an artist.

Being an artist has other implications in the commercial world, partially because there are costs associated with artistry. You may be a songwriter, but are you writing enough material to release full-length albums regularly enough that you won’t be forgotten? And, even when you do, will a likely-dwindling audience of tens of thousands of people like it enough to pay for it?

I don’t know how mainstream artists contend with all of those questions and still find the courage to make the art that drives them. I suppose that’s why you surround yourself with a team of managers and lawyers (although that’s a catch-22, since you have to keep making the art to pay for them to enable you to make the art!).

Somehow, despite all those odds, The Indigo Girls have continued to release some of their most vital, engaging work over the course of four studio LPs and a live album in the past decade. The live LP, Staring Down The Brilliant Dream, takes it name from this song, “Love Of Our Lives.”

(This acoustic version is from three years after the LP, but I think being able to see Emily and Amy trading the often unison octave vocals adds a lot to your listen.)

E taught me songs like “Least Complicated” and “Power of Two” note by note from her memory of many prior sing-throughs on long card rides back and forth in her little Corolla from her parents houses in New Jersey, young and in love.

We’ve been wanting to be helped by binding ties
We’ve been fighting for the love of our lives

This song flips that oft-told harmony-singing narrative on its head. We first heard “Love Of Our Lives” together in 2009, newly married (to the tune of “Least Complicated”!) and driving in our own car back on that same route with one window down and the wind whipping through our hair. We were equals as partners and singers, each naturally taking our accustomed parts (E with Emily, me with Amy Ray) and getting tangled up in each other as the two vocal lines merge back into a unison melody.

Fire and water, oxygen
Scotch and soda, or any combination
Starts the reaction.

Is there no mastermind of modern day
Who can blueprint a plan to make love stay
Steady and weatherproof usher in a new revolution?

I don’t know how are these two women writing such stunning statements of words and melody over 20 years into their careers, but I’m incredibly thankful that they are. I have so many favorite songs that remind me of the early milestones of our relationships, but this one will always remind me of the strength of us together.

After trying more, the hopeful ones still try.
How can we help it when we’re fighting for the love of our live?

(Also, a fun fact: “Love of Our Lives” include both of my favorite little marks of songwriting, the word “communication” and a reference to chemistry. They’re like the sigils of my and Gina’s respective houses, and also map onto Nathan and Martina in my novel. In fact, I’d say this song is specific inspiration for it, but to explain that much further would be a spoiler ;)

35-for-35: 2004 – “I Control The Sun” by Lisa Loeb

November 21, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]I sometimes wonder if “one hit wonder” has any meaning in a world of limitless streaming and every album of all time available for purchase.

lisa-loeb-2004-promo-square Today, if someone likes your song, odds are they’re going to listen to another one – either intentionally or through some engine of recommendation.

Things were different in 1994, when Lisa Loeb broke through with her classic “Stay (I Missed You)” (which, incidentally, Ashley and I have discover can create a tender singalong in any barroom).

It truly was a singular hit – it appeared on the Reality Bites soundtrack when Loeb was unsigned without any other songs available on commercial releases. If fans loved that track when Loeb hit the scene they were out of luck. Her only other recorded work was on a cassette tape you could only buy from her at shows. Today, those tunes would be plastered all over BandCamp or SoundCloud, waiting to be devoured, supplemented by YouTube videos.

(For the record, I wouldn’t call Lisa Loeb a one-hit wonder; “Do You Sleep” was huge and she’s had several other charting singles.)

Hardly any artist broke through with their singular hit quite like Lisa Loeb did, but many artists – especially women in the 90s – fell to the same fate. They maybe garnered another LP before being dropped from their labels and dropping out of sight for all but the most ardent fans.

As it happens, E and I are quite ardent in our Lisa Loeb fandom. In fact, you could go so far as to say it’s part of the foundation of our relationship. We’ve never missed a Lisa Loeb release, and this house is a parallel universe where she has dozens of notable singalong hits.

One of those house hits is “I Control The Sun,” off of Loeb’s fourth (and, I’d say, indisputably best) record, The Way It Really Is. The record came out just a few months shy of E and I moving in together when I graduated college. As an overachieving Type A control freak with a raucous OCD Godzilla who rules over my innards, I deeply connected with the song in a way that’s similar to my feelings about “Center of Attention.” It might be the best song about the anxiety of being perfect since Alanis’s crushing “Perfect” on Jagged Little Pill.

There’s no doubt in my mind Lisa Loeb has her own internal raging OCD monster. I’ve seen the way she’s methodically spread her brand across multiple platforms – voice acting and starring in reality shows between albums, and now pivoting to children’s music and a line of glasses as her core fandom ages. And, well, I’m a musician and I’ve seen her live – I know all of those little tells a musician makes on stage when things aren’t going perfectly well, and she’s does them as much as I do.

the-way-it-really-is-lisa-loeb But what use is all of our perfection when it comes to our relationships? Lisa and I can control every factor in the world, but we can’t change how someone else feels. That’s why, for all its whimsy, I hear a certain desperation in this song:

I control the sun
I turn on the stars
I make all the colors that you see as you circle me
I open up the sky
I control the speed
I can make the green lights flash
I can make you crash

Those are the words of someone trying to be the wizard behind the curtain – keeping every light flashing and plate spinning all with a smile plastered across their face. What better to represent the epitome of that control than subverting the sun itself?! It’s the perfect endgame for someone with a galactic-sized need to be in charge.

I can’t make you see things the way I see them
I can’t make you feel things the way I feel them
I can’t wait around for you
I’ve got better things to do

When the sun metaphorically does your bidding, it’s really easy to want to throw up your hands the first time another human being is completely inscrutable. I’ve been that controlling person – not just in romance with E, but with friends and at work. I’ve thought that I’ve had such a good grip on all the measurables that nothing intangible could ever get in my way.

I control the world
I can make it flat
I can make the water deep so I can save you from the sea

(That’s actually a good explanation of how I fell backwards into being a good Account Manager. Early in my career I went to my boss, distraught that controlling the sun and the sea level wasn’t making my clients like me. She, much more of a people person that I, replied, “Have you ever tried asking them if they like baseball?” Being a good AM had very little to do with control and more to do with social penetration and certainty – but, that’s another post entirely.)

The song presses on, with Loeb lamenting, “I’ve tried everything” until she finally admits the truth in a vortex of rising single string bends that signal just how out of control not being in control makes her feel.

‘Cause I control the sun
I control the sun
If I can control the sun
Then why can’t I have you?
I’ve got better things to do

You could read that last line as finally giving up and walking away, but that’s not what her performance conveys. I hear resignation in that last bit of vocal and also a shade of self-reflection. Is there really something better to do, or has Lisa just been busying herself with the anxious work of control?

Maybe it would be better to let the sun rise and set on its own and enjoy the fact that not everyone sees things your way every time.

35-for-35: 2002 – “5 Minutes” by Garrison Starr

November 20, 2016 by krisis

garrison-starr-promo-shot [Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug]We’re getting into double-jeopardy now that I’m blogging about music from the years I’ve been blogging. I keep searching my archives thinking, “surely I’ve said something about this one before?”

This story starts in 1998. I don’t think Garrison Starr had written “Five Minutes” back then, but that when I first saw her play a live acoustic set in HMV on Walnut Street the day of my Junior Prom with my friends Ayelet and Susan.

I had been listening to Starr’s Eighteen Over Me ever since hearing “Superhero” play once on a local record station. It loved its framework of acoustic guitars with a heaping of heavy, squalling electrics on top. It made me feel like the music I had begun to write on my own acoustic guitar could transform into something bigger.

I desperately hunted for any other songs by her, including her 24/7 disc of promotional songs, and her indie Stupid Girl EP that I had to beg Mother of Krisis to let me order from the internet. (It was 1998 ! We couldn’t use credit cards on the internet, heaven forbid!)

Then, one random day while I was sitting in my dorm room in the spring of 2000, Garrison’s name popped up on MP3.com (remember that?) next to new music. It was an EP called Something To Hold You Over [now only available on iTunes], filled with seven songs that showed a clear progression in her songwriting. Some, like “I Can’t Wait” and “Take It Back” were fully produced and hinted at another LP with a massive sound. Others were just acoustic guitar and voice.

One of those songs was “Five Minutes.” It hit me like a punch in the gut.

It feels like love
Not some rigged-up holiday
Where I believe in somebody who can bring me down again
It feels like love
Is this how you make me pay?
Branding me with deep cuts that will never go away
Never go away

To say that I wore out this EP (which was eventually available to buy in physical form) is an understatement. I have the rhythm of the pick scrapes from “5 Minutes” seared into my brain. It’s one of the first songs I ever made up my own harmony to sing along with! I saw her play it live a year later with my friend Hillary (the first time I did not have to bribe my mother or a family friend to take me to see her at a 21+ venue), and I remember thinking as she thunked that first chord on her Martin acoustic guitar, “That is what an F should sound like every time.”

I can’t find that initial acoustic version on the internet, but you can still hear it – which is what brings us to 2002. Garrison Star released her second proper full-length record, the slightly country-tinged Songs From Take-Off to Landing. “5 Minutes” was the only song from Hold You Over to graduate to this disc, and after ten nude seconds of the acoustic EP version a full band slams into motion tracked directly on top of the original performance.

(They remembered to leave some room for my harmony.)

I will always be a fan of Garrison Starr. I’ve seen her many times since that first Junior Prom Day show almost 20 years ago and beamed with pride as she’s placed songs in movies and co-written with some of my favorite songwriters. I admire that she is still a performing songwriter after all these years andI own every one of her records.

She has never once put out a bad one.

I highly encourage you to follow her on Twitter, check out her discography, and listen to her band, Silent War.

PS: Since I can’t find the chords anywhere on the internet, they are:
Capo 1
Verse: Am E F C G/B
Chorus: (Am) F Am G F C Am G F

35-for-35: 1999 – “Center of Attention” by Guster

November 17, 2016 by krisis

[Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug][/Patreon-Nov16-Post-Bug] lost-and-gone-forever-guster Lindsay, Erika, and I formed an only-child club together in 2001, but its origins were in 1999 and 2000.

That’s when five of the more senior members of The Drexel Players – Erika, Kate, Laurel, Megan, and Anthony – all shared the top two floors of an old row home at 3418 Race Street. For all of us Freshman, it’s where we decamped after every informational meeting, audition, and rehearsal. It’s where I met so many of the friends I still hold dear today, and where I met my entire wedding party (aside from Gina, who still factors into this tale).

There were certain records that never left the CD spinner in that house, such that their songs have become synonymous with one or more of those people for me. (Yes, CD spinner, though we were into into the heyday of Napster at this point.). Some of the records were the stereotypical white college kid things you’d expect – Dave Matthews was a frequent play, especially his Live at Luther College with Tim Reynolds.

Perhaps influenced by that choice, there was also Guster’s Lost and Gone Forever, produced by longtime DMB collaborator Steve Lillywhite.

Sometimes when I hear an album for the first time it seems so melodically obvious that I cannot believe I haven’t heard it before. Other times an album is so perfect that I consider every song a slice of 5-star perfection and can listen to it endlessly.

Lost and Gone Forever is both.

There aren’t a lot of catchy, pop-oriented bands that break through mostly on the power of acoustic guitars and harmony, which is the trick Guster somehow pulls on songs like “Center of Attention.” The amount and intricacy of Ryan Miller and Adam Gardner’s harmony is really quite incredible. It hardly ever sticks to the straight thirds most bands plaster their songs with. At points they’re what I’d call the nearest male analog to The Indigo Girls.

“Center of Attention” doesn’t really use any chords. Listen carefully in the first verse as it reaches the “walls inside my head” prechorus. It’s just a pair of riffs churning against each other to imply tonality. It’s also a perfect example of how Guster eschews the typical rhythm section of drums and bass, with most songs rooted by a baritone-range guitar figure and drummer Brian Rosenworcel pounding on all manner of congos, bongos, and even typewriters.

Guster promo flat

That doesn’t sound like it should make for great, catchy pop music and honestly it didn’t on Guster’s first two records. However, the combination of Steve Lillywhite as a producer and this remarkable set of songs created a whole that you could have never predicted by looking at the parts.

Lost and Gone Forever is an amazing record about the changing nature of friendship and platonic love, about selfishness and getting over yourself, and you can sing along to every song on it.

One of us won’t last the night
Between you and me it’s no surprise
There’s two of us, both can’t be right
Neither will move till it’s over

I’m the center of attention
and the wall’s inside my head
And no one will ever know it
if I keep my mouth shut tight

The that motley crew of Drexel Players I met Freshman year shifted in 2000-2001 as I started this blog. Three members of the house moved away, which is how at one point Lindsay came to be renting Laurel’s back bedroom, and I came to be sitting around in the middle of the day with her and Erika watching game shows.

Just as there aren’t many memorable acoustic pop bands like Guster, there aren’t a lot of great, catchy songs about the mental defenses you construct as a clever only-child. “Center of Attention” is, without a doubt, the only-child’s anthem in that regard. I’d say, “maybe that’s just me,” but Lindsay and Erika have proven that it’s not. You’re not only your own protagonist, as every child is, but all of your adventures are entirely contained in the gossamer bubble of your brain.

Somehow (and I honestly still can’t quite explain it, even with copious posts from the time to aid my memory), the three of us wound up renting a house together in the fall of 2001. Three only children, each as selfish and stubborn as the other, all holed up in the top two floors of our own apartment on 44th street (where we’d later be joined by a fourth only-child (sort of), Gina)).

My own little world is what I deserve
Cause I am the only child there is
I’m king of it all, the belle of the ball
I promise I’ve always been like this
Forever the first, my bubble can’t burst
It’s almost like only I exist
Where everything’s fine
If I can keep my mouth shut tight, tight, tight

I think the reason we found each other and became (and remained) so close is because we’d each tried to outlast each other through the night and failed. Once that defense is finally knocked down, you’ve found someone with whom who you don’t always have to keep your mouth shut so tight.