Okay, fine, warbly voiced next-big-thing James Blake, I readily admit you got all of this one. But I’m not sure how much credit goes to you or my head, a moodily time-traveling Rebecca Hall or, most likely, the utterly unruinable song Joni Mitchell gave us in the first place, which sounds like hymn written for some long-forgotten god.
Still: This makes me ache.
The best moment, hands down.
Usually this special is required viewing for me every year. I want this scene in my head always
December, San Francisco, walking a thin line as always.
And yet so clearly not. Keeping my head up while walking in my footsteps in San Francisco. Thought I saw myself coming the other way a couple times, but kept going forward, only forward.
Wednesday. 6:25 pm, Glassel Park. I either hallucinated a hair-metal Peter Fonda or there’s some next-gen nested irony in the air that none of us are really prepared for. Be vigilant.
I do not understand.
Is this ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ except with a lot more crying? This game only makes sense as a weapon during a zombie plague
npr:
The dog of slain Petty Officer Jon Tumilson refused to leave his side during the Navy SEAL’s funeral earlier this week in Rockford, Iowa. The heartbreaking photo taken by his cousin, Lisa Pembleton, shows Tumilson’s dog Hawkeye lying by the casket. (via The Daily Treat: Animal Planet)
i have nothing further, everything’s just gone kind of blurry over here.
Soundgarden, Rusty Cage, last night. You know, I’m fully aware this was a nostalgia trip arguably no better than those Eagles shows I made fun of 20 years ago, but when a band can still swing the heavy lumber like this I don’t mind. Maybe all those baffling solo records by Cornell and bland albums with Pearl Jam were just devices to keep the two core members of this band in shape, somehow, because it was a little jarring how solid they sounded. I also don’t think there are four other humans who can pull off a song as knotty and relentless as ‘Jesus Christ Pose.’ Maybe there’s a little bit of good in that.
Besides, due to a mix of bad luck and circumstance, this was my first time seeing these guys, ever. ‘Hunted Down’ and ‘Big Dumb Sex’ in the context of a delirious Forum is an odd thing, but no odder than an era where Primus could become an arena act. For a night, I was brought back to all the now-slightly-embarrassing, exhilarating, dumb promise of the early ’90s. And it was good.
Plus I’ll seriously put prime Soundgarden against any post-Zeppelin rock band out there. A probably unnecessary comeback record is coming, but I’m just happy to have them — and, weirdly, a bit of me — back.
Bon Iver seems to attract a cultish lot, and while I found “For Emma, Forever Ago” unerringly pleasant, even gorgeous in some moments, I have not been one of his devotees. However, for all the creamy keyboards and occasional baffling moves on Mr Vernon’s new album (good lord, someone explain the last track to me), this song, Jesus Christ.
This here video, while moodily homemade, doesn’t capture what “Holocene” does when I hear it. In fact the only way I could transfer that feeling is if maybe you turn your head and stare out a window while you’re listening.* Driving into work this morning hearing this song’s slow build the stereo disappeared, my car, and even me, and somehow this entire damn world with its gold-plated guitar and exhausted drum rushes completely merged with the one outside. As ugly as the drive from Glassell Park through Chinatown can be with its crumpled pedestrians and mustard-tinted sky, everything changed and became different. Better.
Ever since I got into this mess of music nerdery I think that’s been the aim, finding these transportive experiences. The song goes from sound to soundtrack, and it’s not an easy thing to do.
*Obviously, if you’re already predisposed against Bon Iver’s stylings, don’t bother.
Simple pleasures in San Francisco, and I caren’t what a Mission-visiting post-hipster quasi-snob cliche it makes me out to be. Four Barrel coffee brings me warm comfort among the fixies.
