Day 67: In the first few years of our new lives back in Michigan, I don't think I really bought too many, if any CDs from new bands. I had stagnated. I just didn't think new bands had anything of any of quality to offer. But, as time passed, I made several new friends at my new job at Toyota, and my mind started to open up a bit. The turning point, I believe, is when I met Alvaro Masias [don't tell him all this, BTW, his ego won't be able to handle it :)] Al is a little younger than me and it seemed like any time we would ride in his car to lunch, he would have some interesting music on. At some point in 2005, I probably asked him what band was playing and he said, "Death Cab For Cutie." "Death what for what?" I most likely replied, but the tune kind of stuck with me. Around the same time I had discovered that MTV2 had another incarnation of alternative rock music video programming (as 120 Minutes had been cancelled long ago) called Subterranean. I set me TiVo to record it, and I would watch bits and pieces of episodes here and there. One day, an episode aired that played videos all from the same album, Death Cab For Cuties' album Plans. When this episode got cued up on my TiVo, I was transfixed. I watched the full episode. I watched it again. "Holy crap, this 'new' band is pretty good", I thought. I even tried to make Al a copy of the episode on CD-R (mostly to try out some new software that I had acquired...) But that day, my music listening habits changed. I was in my early 30s, and I loved new music again. It was a Renaissance. In honor of that great album, I offer up the opening track, "Marching Bands Of Manhattan". It is a beautiful, majestic, yet melancholy opener that builds to the hook of, "sorrow drips into your heart through a pin-hole. It's like a facet that leaks and there is comfort in the sound. But while you debate half empty or half full, it slowly rises. Your love is going to drown." A good song is poetry plus rhythm and melody, and this song has it all. It had many of the elements of the music I loved in high school, but with a more adult spin that somehow spoke to the now 30-year old version of Paul. I thought it was brilliant, and almost 10 years later, it still is.
12/07/2014
Day 68: Yesterday, I mentioned how Al Masias helped to reignite my love of music. Well, as it turns out another Toyota colleague, Al's now-wife Kimber Stamm Masias also played a role in that process. Kimber joined Toyota a few years after Al and I, but I quickly figured out that we shared a lot of similar musical interests. The main difference was that as I had essentially given up on new music somewhere in the later 1990s, Kimber never given up hope and continued to have her finger on the pulse of new music. At some point, I asked Kimber if she had any recommendations for "new" bands that I might like (as in, new since roughly 1999), and this began a series of mostly (but not always) one-way CD exchanges. One day, a new CD appeared on my desk from a band I had never heard of, The National. All Kimber said was something quite simple like, "you're going to like this one." I took it home, and boy was she right. Lead singer Matt Berninger's baritone voice has an almost haunting quality, and although the music itself is somewhat simple (or at least straightforward?) it has a very unique quality. The National quickly became one of my new favorite acts of the 21st century. Today, I would like a feature one my favorite tracks of theirs from a slightly newer record, The National's 2010 offering, High Violet. The song is "Afraid of Everyone." I think this song highlights the beautiful and haunting vocals ("little voices swallowing my soul"), cool intensity, spare nature of the music that I find so compelling.
12/08/2014
Day 69: Around the same time that Kimber introduced me The National, she also pointed me in the direction of another American band that I also had a hard time getting out of my head, Band of Horses. Their music has a similar brooding quality as The National, but in contrast the lead singer is a high tenor. In addition, Band of Horses seems to choose guitar progressions to percussion. The two bands complement each other beautifully. For today's song, I am selecting "The Funeral" from Band of Horses debut album "Everything All the Time." It starts with a trademark beautiful guitar progression, the vocals then come in, and then about a minute in, you get hit with a bit of a wall of sound. Again, it is a bit haunting, yet quite beautiful.
12/09/2014
Day 70: As luck would have it, I had friends beyond those at work who also helped open my eyes to the new music of the 21 Century. Somewhere along the same time, our friend Abigail introduced Jen and I to the soundtrack from the Zack Braff / Natalie Portman movie Garden State. We had not even seen the movie yet (we rented it later), but the soundtrack got our attention right away. There are a lot of great songs of the album, from bands like Coldplay (who I had heard in college but forgotten about), Iron and Wine (new for me), and Simon & Garfunkel (Fleetwood Mac Exception), but one band was special enough that they got 2 songs on the soundtrack and even a mention in the film itself. That band, is Albuquerque, NM's own The Shins. Today's song, "New Slang," is a great example of the lovely combination of spare acoustic guitar and tenor vocals of singer James Mercer that typify The Shins early work. Having now discovered few new bands, I could not help but wonder what else I had been missing.
12/10/2014
Day 71: Fortunately for me, The Shins was not the only act that my friend Abigail introduced me to. A few years later during one of her visits back home to Michigan for the holidays, Abigail brought over another CD that I had not yet heard about. Abigail has always had similar taste in music to Jen and I (which from Jen's perspective goes back to high school) and so she usually has a pretty good feel for what we will like. On this particular day, the CD in question was "Begin to Hope" from Regina Spektor. Since we were now in the mid 2000s, we dropped the CD into our iTunes library, but didn't necessarily listen to it right away. But, over the next few months, we started to play the CDs more and more frequently and in slowly crept farther and farther into our brains. There are a lot of things to love about Spektor's music. It is piano driven with strong female vocals, not unlike Tori Amos, yet it is also has a quirky quality that reminds me of a little bit of two of Dawn's favorite artists from the 80s, Kate Bush and Laurie Anderson. It was fresh and cool and the more I listened to it, the more I wanted to listen to it. It was autocatalytic. So, today, I offer up one of the signature tracks of that album "Better," which I hope makes everyone out there feel a little bit better on this December Monday morn.
12/11/2014
Day 72: You know how the old saying goes, once you teach a man to fish, he can eat for life. Well, that is a little bit how I felt in the mid 2000s. I had been re-introduced to music, and after some initial help, I was able to begin to once again find new music for myself. But I as think about it, by this time the world had changed yet again in ways that made my reintroduction a little easier. You see, during those early internet, pre-iTunes days when I gave up on new music, my sources of new music were still essentially radio and cable TV. In the late 90s, as alternative went mainstream, my usual channels of discovery got overrun my poser rock stars and horrible ska acts. The indie, creative spirit got diluted into nothingness (or so I had thought). But, by the mid 2000s, the power of the internet had created our current "choice your own adventure" world where now people are empowered to use the worldwide web to simply go out and find new music for themselves. A few radio or TV executives in their smoke filled rooms could no long decide what I was or was not going to like. I could figure it out on my own and vote with amuse clip, 99 cents at a time. Because of this we seem to have much more interesting and varied options. At least that is how I see it. (You may disagree, and for all I know, you may be right, but this is my story and that is how this story goes.) Anyway, where was I? Ah yes, due to this paradigm shift, on one particular day while driving back to the office from a Friday lunch with Doug Bishop, there happened to be a song playing on the radio that I had never heard before. I thought it sounded like a modern, more serious version of Public Image Limited. It had a unique, art-house rock feel that really caught me interest. I think I even made Doug wait in the car with me until the song finished so that I could figure out who it was. As it turns out, it was today's song, "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)" by Canada's own extraordinary Arcade Fire. I imagine that I went straight to Kimber's desk and within a few days was able to borrow the CD. Within a short period of time, I owned all their CDs myself. And in the end, I am sure Doug eventually forgave me.
12/12/2014
Day 73: Some bands were a little easier to discover than others. I am sure that I was a least somewhat aware of the Las Vegas act The Killers at some point when their first album, Hot Fuss, came out. After all, songs like "Somebody Told Me" and "Mr. Brightside" were all over the radio back then. At first, I was pretty skeptical. That sounded a little too much like posers to me at first. But then one day, we started playing Guitar Hero over at Steph and Andy's house. What's that you say? a video game where you pretend to play the Guitar? I'm listening... Soon, it became our Friday night obsession. Soon enough, Jen and I decided that we needed our own game system, so we went out and bought a PS3 (which also was a pretty good BluRay player...) so that we could jam during weeknight. Not much longer after that, we decided that the 2nd guitar/bass, mic, and drum set that came with Rock Band also seemed like a good idea (there were 4 of us after all). Finally, it became the cornerstone event of the Fanson Xmas party. But, I digress. Getting back to that first version of Guitar Hero that we used to hone our skills, it happened to contain today's selection, "When You Were Young," by The Killers. As I attempted to master the various riffs on the this track, the song slowly sank into my consciousness. Maybe the Killers weren't so bad after all. One day I broke down and bought Sam's Town, and you know what? It is a pretty solid album. So I went back and bought Hot Fuss. Also solid. The Killer, as I to discover, have this slightly retro and 80s feel to them, not unlike the underrated 80s act The Cars. Yet, they are able to blend a modern sound and some creative lyrics along with it. They remain a bit of a Guilty Pleasure for me, but I keep buying their records to this day. Solid.
12/13/2014
Day 74: Sometime near the end of the first decade of the 21st century, a new sound started appearing on the radio. It was strangely familiar, like a sound I once heard from a puppet frog playing in a swamp. That sound was the sound of the banjo. But these banjos were not like any other banjos I had heard. These banjos were we played by British folk-rockers. These banjos were being played Mumford and Sons. When I first ran across this group, I think that I was with Al somewhere, and then it seemed like every time I was in a public place for the next few months, I heard a song from their 2009 debut album Sign No More. I eventually added the album to my collection, and I have to say, I think that they are my favorite act of the 21st century. Even though they are British, their music reminds me of a strong blend and American bluegrass, alt country, and even a hint of gospel from time to time. Oh, and did I mention the awesome banjo? Yes? Ok, good. For today's selection, I would actually like to highlight one of their newer songs, "I Will Wait" from there sophomore album, "Babel." It really is hard to identify one song of theirs that typifies their style, but I think this one with it's high energy, beautiful harmonies, and positive vibe, does a pretty good job. Oh, and did I mention the banjo? Yeah, I guess I did.
12/14/2014
Day 75: Mumford and Sons was not the only act in the current wave of folk rockers that caught my ear. About a year or so ago, I started to notice a couple of other bands which a similar sound that was quite compelling. The best of those, in my opinion, is the group "Of Monsters and Men." I believe it was about a year ago when I put their debut album "My Head Is An Animal" on my Christmas list as a bit of a flier. Fortunately, I was not disappointed. If I had to pick one new album from the last 2 years that I liked the best, it would be this one. I put it on heavy rotation both at home and in my car and the whole album in just a joy from top to bottom. Today's song, "Little Talks" is their most recognizable single, and once you listen to it, you can easily see why. The male and female vocal leads play off each other beautifully, and they are even able to pull off the use of a horn section (not an easy task, in my opinion). It just makes you want to get up and dance. And so, with this fun little number from one of my most recent purchases, I will bring this chapter to a close.
75 days have now past since we began this journey, and I have told my musical story from its origin up to the current date. There are of course, many other stories that I could have told along the way, but don't worry, we will get to those in due time. I won't be 40 for several months, and I have always had a special place in my heart for nonlinear story telling anyway. In the meantime, did somebody mention Christmas? Oh crap, I haven't started my shopping yet! But that reminds me, shouldn't I say something about the tunes of the holiday season? Yes, I think that I can do that. So starting tomorrow, it will be time to get my Yule on!
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