Decade: Ten Stories of a Future (American) War

In celebration of our fine independence from those dastardly, tax-heavy Brits, I'm posting a novella/collection of short stories I wrote about a year ago that, well, sat on the shelf. I wrote it to get out of my heady-prose mindset after coming off two Chronicle novels (the behemoth Ages and the still-self-confused Century) and to expand my fictional future-America-universe to cover absolutely everything unnecessary.

(Also I'm in a bit of a clearinghouse mode with one long-time-coming script given another polish and my own plan to write another goddamn, better-written novel since making another movie looks pretty slim.)

This piece is called--

Decade: Ten Stories of a Future (American) War

--and the ten stories are:

1. Sharpshooters
2. Rogues
3. Acronyms
4. That Goddamn Bridge
5. Modern Mechanized Warfare
6. Death Messages
7. Keys
8. Colony
9. The Lecture Circuit
10. Old War

You can download the PDF.

Stats (some via Wolfram Alpha):

• 10 stories
  
• 26,124 words
  
• 48 PDF pages
  
• Approx. 36 book pages
  
• 95 mins. estimated reading time

Also, for whatever reason, I actually had this formally copyrighted. (I didn't even do that for Transmissions. Probably since I used licensed music.) So steal away and send it to fancy magazines and say you wrote it. Go ahead: I'm not doing anything with it, other than writing an adaptation that becomes vastly different (and better) within five pages.

Mux024

Doing things a bit differently this time. I'm pretty anal about between-track transitions, so I thought I'd pull a JDK Radio and smush it all together. I also accidentally stumbled upon some beat-matching near the end, so hang it there for an awesome crossfade.

Also, download Mux024 via drop.io.

The tracks:
1. Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit
2. Hole - Violet
3. Wavves - So Bored
4. The Undertones - Teenage Kicks
5. Dinosaur Jr. - I Want You To Know
6. The Chills - Pink Frost
7. Sonic Youth - Antenna
8. Dirty Projectors - Stillness Is The Move
9. Massive Attack - Teardrop
10. Smog - Teenage Spaceship

Second spin: Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca

Stream the whole album at Lala

The post title is misleading. I've been listening to the Dirty Projectors' Bitte Orca on Lala streams, my PC iTunes, my Mac iTunes, and on my iPod while falling asleep or waking up in the middle of the night, so the playcount isn't quite a second spin, but a third or fourth or tenth spin.

But I still can't decide whether the hell I like it or not.

Sure, once I mentally-verbally pinned it down, I find it rather palatable as a sort of blend of the sugar Afro-pop of Vampire Weekend versus the schizo-anything-can-happen turns of Fiery Furnaces, plus a whole lot of open sound space that gives it almost a danceable quality. So, by those criteria, I should like it. Love it, even.

What I'm really coming to grips with, I suppose, is my first "grower" of the year. Last year it was No Age, which I initially fucking hated but which I now place up on some pedestal. The year before was The National's Boxer, which, while I didn't first hate, I didn't yet have the gall to call it one of my favorite albums ever.

I first spun Bitte Orca on a Lala stream via Pitchfork's sensationalist-by-9.2-score-alone review, which, for any insecure casual-hipster like myself, demands a listen. I sort of left it drift in the background while I tidied up my internet rounds. And then Tiny Mix Tapes (usually a hype-check for post-release reviews that surgically extract the score-inflated buzz Pitchfork is way too prone toward [see: P4K v. TMT re: Wavves' Wavvves and The Pains of Being Pure At Heart's self-titled]) gave it its blessing. And then, after letting it sit for a long time as my internet-background music, one of the somewhat-reputable AV Club's staffers put it on his short-list for possible best music of the year, thus far.

So now I'm in a really weird place. Most of all, the album is simply too slow to play during my usual album-playing times, which are, in order of weekly time consumed:

1) Vacuuming
2) Working out
3) Washing dishes
4) Mowing the lawn
5) Driving

--and, as those activities suggest, I need something a bit high-octane to take me through the dreariness of said activities. (I've been meaning to do a post on best lawn-mowing albums, but it'd really just be a quick list of Death From Above 1979's You're A Woman, I'm A Machine, Jay Reatard's Blood Visions + assorted singles, and Japandroids' Post-Nothing.)

And, as mentioned prior, my casual-hipster insecurity wants - nay, craves - the sort of hipster-barometer websites to give said album really high marks so that it forces many listens. That is, after all, how I learned to appreciate No Age, and how I've begrudgingly accepted Animal Collective's MPP as really good.

In typing this post, I've been background-listening to the album and, my god, it's already over. I barely even noticed. Maybe that's more telling about the album than any of its individual qualities.

JDK Radio 003: Beats

Discovering that beat-matching is something I don't excel at, but I've been listening to a lot of hip-hop/rap/whatever-you-want-to-call-it lately.

Late to the party: The PS22 Chorus sings "Don't Stop Believing"

JDK Radio 002: The National

Some cuts from pre-Alligator albums, live tracks, and random rarities by The National.

JDK Plays Crystal Castles

Re-listening to Crystal Castles + boredom + GarageBand + bitcrusher + no Auto-Tune + heavily-distorted electric guitar (yes, it is a guitar and it took me like two hours to remember how to play it) = my first cover song in ages.

• Download: JDK - Vanished (Crystal Castles)

JDK Radio 001: Classic Rock

I hate it when songs fade out and screw with a playlist. So I took matters into my own hands:

But don't expect this to happen again or anything. Sometimes I just like to stream while online instead of downloading and junking up my iTunes library.

Mux023: June 2009

Download via drop.io. The tracks:

1. Jay Reatard - It Ain't Gonna Save Me
2. Franz Ferdinand - What She Came For
3. Green Day - Basket Case
4. Radiohead - Subterranean Homesick Alien
5. Beach House - Gila
6. Sunset Rubdown - Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh!
7. Swan Lake - Heartswarm
8. The Arcade Fire - Une Annee Sans Lumiere
9. Japandroids - Sovereignty
10. Mission of Burma - That's When I Reach For My Revolver
11. Tortoise - Chateroak Foundation

Second spin: Born Ruffians' Red, Yellow & Blue

Steam via Lala

I like a good 45-minute-ish album. I don't have any of them fancy iPod docks in my car, so I'm stuck with the best of early 00's tech: burned CD-Rs. And since I've fancied myself as an Album Guy instead of a Songs Guy, I like a drive to have a musical accompaniment from a single band.

So most of my drives are 45-minute affairs round-trip, which is time enough for an album. My most recent excursion had me digging through my recently-rearranged CD wallet. I didn't get too far before I stopped on a disc I had passingly enjoyed last year but had never given too much ear service.

The unstoppable output of modern music leaves the vast majority of good-to-great works as woefully unappreciated, and Born Ruffians' debut LP Red, Yellow & Blue is no exception. (My best of 2008 list, which is still decently accurate, excludes said album.) I gave it a second spin on a drive and came away with an appreciation that hadn't been found outside of my repeat-listening of "Kurt Vonnegut."

First off, the album leads with a bit of misdirection. Opener "Red, Yellow & Blue" sets up the B-side of the album nicely, with a preview of the softer, more wistful balladry, along with some lyricism that anchors Born Ruffians on the fine line between honesty and naivete.

Then there's the one-two punch of "Barnacle Goose" and "Hummingbird," which simply take off from the first few measures and don't stop. This is the band at its energetic height: all guys sing-shouting, with a surprisingly filled-out composition given that they're a trio.

"I Need A Life" is indicative of a few songs on the album. Just thinking about the song, it's easy to forget about the rather meandering parts leading up to the massive "I need a life! I never had one!" blow-up at the end. But that's the beauty of it; a good song with an enormous payoff. The same can be said of penultimate track "Kurt Vonnegut," which, poignant lyrics aside, drifts along on a hammering percussion track until the beautiful ending harmony of "Won't you come outside, love? Won't you come outside?" That track earned a listing on my best tracks of 2008 mix for good reason.

Post-"I Need A Life," things get slowed considerably. Those inundated by the sugar-high of "Barnacle Goose" and "Hummingbird" might want to stick to the singles, but there are buckets of aw-shucks charm in "Little Garcon," "Hedonistic Me," "In A Mirror," and the ramshackle closer "Red Elephant."

And then there's "Foxes Mate For Life." At 4 minutes, 30 seconds, it clocks in as one of the album's longer tracks, but it extends a life of its own with a drawn-out, instrumental intro. Past that, though, are lyrics you can expect from the song's title. I imagine it will find good use as the second-to-last track on every mix you'll ever make for a prospective girlfriend.

(That last sentence was the original, sole reason for writing this.)

Additions to the best albums of 2009 (thus far)

A lot of great new music recently. New additions in bold.


Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion


Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career


Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains


Dan Deacon - Bromst


Fever Ray


Franz Ferdinand - Tonight


Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest


Japandroids - Post-Nothing


Sonic Youth - The Eternal


The Thermals - Now We Can See


Tortoise - Beacons of Ancestorship

Mux001 flashback

How strange of me to reference my first muxtape without supplying said muxtape? Here's the download link at drop.io. And here are the tracks:

1. Wolf Parade - Language City
2. Cut Copy - Saturdays
3. Ted Leo - La Costa Brava
4. My Bloody Valentine - Off Your Face
5. The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
6. The National - Slow Show
7. Destroyer - My Favorite Year
8. The Joggers - Back To The Future
9. Pavement - Cut Your Hair
10. The Hold Steady - You Can Make Him Like You
11. Spoon - Finer Feelings
12. Dan Deacon - Pink Batman

That's a solid line-up. Probably because it was my return to mixes after moving out of Chicago, where I was the unofficial music guy at the Post-Production Center. (And, you know, having two years of new music to compile.) While I kept my still-current rule of never repeating a song on a series of mixtapes, back then my only restriction was that a mix came in under 1 hr. 20 mins. so I could burn it to CD and rip it on the work computer. That was in the dark ages before thumb drives - how novel!

I'm glad muxtape added the rule of a max of twelve tracks. For one thing, it weeds out anything not in the top tier of songs. And second, twelve tracks usually rounds out around forty-five minutes, and I usually don't do anything that requires continuous music for more than that time.

Mux022 / Re-examining The Red Album

Just in time for Mother's Day. And one year after my first mux, when Muxtape used to be worthy of creating muxes. I don't even know what they do now. Not even worth linking. Or checking.

Download the full mix via drop.io. The tracks:

1. Metric - Help, I'm Alive
2. Japandroids - Wet Hair
3. Rage Against The Machine - Guerrilla Radio
4. Franz Ferdinand - Ulysses
5. The Thermals - When I Died
6. The Sea And Cake - Car Alarm
7. Radiohead - Blow Out (Remix)
8. The Ting Tings - Be The One
9. Atlas Sound - Springtime Instrumental
10. Why? - The Hollows
11. Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
12. Camera Obscura - French Navy

Also, I gave this neglected album an impromptu listen earlier:



Seriously, it's not that bad. Sure, it disappointed all post-Blue Album, post-Pinkerton expectations in which everyone expected it to be as good as The Blue Album or Pinkerton, but there are some good tracks here. And forget all the ridiculous stuff Rivers and the band said about how "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" was the best thing Weezer has ever recorded.

I listened to it as a reaction to Green Day's 21st Century Breakdown last night, which I think is a resounding Eh at best. I pinned it down pretty easily: even if some songs are catchy power-chord pop-rock, Green Day positions themselves as some saviors of everything, which comes off as condescending, obnoxious, and really pretentious. With regards to the latter, it doesn't help that the over-arcing "opera" is some impenetrable, impossible-to-follow-without-liner-notes narrative.

So here's why, at the root of things, I like the Red Album: it doesn't take too itself seriously. "The Greatest Man That Ever Lived" isn't an unnecessary statement about the state of things; it's a huge, proggy, silly song. "Troublemaker" is fairly innocuous. "Porks and Beans" is downright solid. "Thought I Knew" is the only downright-bad track, mostly considering that a song not sung or written by Rivers, by definition, isn't a Weezer song. The rest are fairly mild on the ears.

I don't recall ever downright-trashing The Red Album, and now there's further reason not to: it's passably good.

Mux021: Back to Rock

After including some electro cuts across the last few mix/muxes, I wanted to go back to my roots, if that is, in some way, possible. That doesn't make sense, since the first good album I bought was Kid A, and that strays pretty far from rock. Regardless, you can download Mux021 via drop.io, and here are the tracks:

1. The Kills - U.R.A. Fever
2. Radiohead - Palo Alto
3. Sunset Rubdown - Idiot Heart
4. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Some Trees
5. Asobi Seksu - Thursday
6. No Age - Cappo
7. The Thermals - Now We Can See
8. Sonic Youth - Theresa's Sound-World
9. Modest Mouse - Life Like Weeds
10. Mastodon - Colony of Birchmen
11. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)

Simple explanation for the somewhat-random Mastodon inclusion: it's awesome to play in Rock Band 2.