nutella. climbing trees. photobooths. my bike. argyle socks. grocery coupons. bandanas. thrift stores. standing too close to moving trains. cereal with marshmallows. girls in glasses. asian supermarkets. number two pencils. not missing the last train home. "air quotes". when the rhythm of the music is perfectly synchronized to something else like windshield wipers or a wagging tail or someone on a stair climber. pete rose. sniffing my hands every 30seconds after i've used someone else's soap. repeating visual patterns. saving fortune cookie fortunes. abandoned subways. cat breath. palak paneer. unicorns. yellow bananas on their way to brown. that wrist-to-elbow area. transit maps. chinese propaganda posters. staring at lobsters at the market. bigass headphones. bigphone headass. used book smell. fake sausage, real eggs. 5 1/4" floppy disks. sparks. mini-vacs. well-oiled lion tamers. perfectly broken in t-shirts. hideous deep sea fish. the sound of packing tape. vodka connoiseurship. beer snobbery. friends coming back to me. the kids in my building who run screaming down the hall. water towers shaped like milk jugs. cookies with icing. handmade soap. quinoa. not working and still getting paid. people who drink non-alcoholic beer in a brown paper bag. Cincinnati style chili
and since they deleted this too, i guess this means i don't need to meet anyone anymore.
i saw LIARS a while back, and witnessed something i hope i never forget. i'm used to seeing teenagers at shows, but this time there was a group of about 8 or 9 kids who looked to range in ages from about 10-13(!!) milling around outside. and once we got inside, they were right up in front, and they TORE IT UP. one kid in particular, a 12yr old boy named ben, was so into cutting completely loose that a visibly (even with his hair completely covering his face) shocked-and-amused angus (the 9ft tall singer) pulled him up onto the stage and danced with him. and during the last song of the encore, the guitarist pointed to the two drums on the side of the stage and said "do you want to play those? i'm not using them"... so ben got up on stage and did an inpressive job keeping up. and the whole time i'm dancing and enjoying myself, and i realized that i was totally feeding off the energy of these unjaded, genuinely excited kids 10ft away. these kids, and ben in particular, were having a pure amazing Rock And Roll Experience they will remember for the REST OF THEIR LIVES. and THAT, as listeners and particpants in music, is what what i believe we should be striving for.
i have recently realized that i have no idea whatsoever what albums could qualify for any sort of "best of 2006". everything i've been listening to for a long long time is from, like, ten years ago (current active band exeptions include TV On The Radio and Espers). so instead, i'll throw together a list of what i consider to be perfectly flawless albums:
Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Spiritualized - Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space
A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory
Superchunk - On The Mouth
Radiohead - OK Computer
Slint - Spiderland
Fugazi - Red Medicine
charade. instrument. the jerk.
The Office, mainly.
Love In The Time Of Cholera. Lolita. A Confederate General From Big Sur. Brave New World. Acme Novelty Library. a Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Burn Collector. More Noise Please. Our Band Could Be Your Life. Bomb The Suburbs/No More Prisons.
Angela Davis. my parents. lots of people who never heard of myspace.