Influential Albums 1/28/2009

So, I was sitting in my dorm room listening to some music and I thought about compiling a list of some of the albums that have really influenced me artistically/albums that I would have sex with if they were creatures capable of intercourse. Ive listed them as such, artist-title and I have written a small blurb under each of them. Here goes nothing:

Dinosaur Jr-Bug:
Firstly, the guitar work on this album will make you shit in your pants. I'm almost certain that both Lou Barlow and J. Mascis are Gods amongst men. I would pretty much put every single one of Dinosaur Jr.'s albums up here, but I have decided to restrict myself to listing one from each artist. The reason I choose Bug over the others is for one moment at exactly 2:00 in Track 3 entitled "They Always Come" where some ungodly guitar tone pierces through the mix and completely floors me everytime I hear it. It comes directly after a few seconds of slightly distorted chords, acting as a buffer between the beginning half of the song and what it is about to become (just listen to it and you'll hear what I mean). If I had to pick one sound that sums up everything that is beautiful about being alive, I would pick the sound of this single piercing note rising above the rest of the loud-ass mix of driving bass, heartbeat-like drum and layer upon layer of fuzzy guitar. I don't really expect anyone else to quite understand this feeling, but all I know is that this is the type of song that makes me glad to be a musician.

Beck-One Foot in the Grave:
A minimalistic effort for Beck Hansen that created some of the most beautiful and heartfelt songs I have ever heard. "Girl Dreams" has quite possibly the corniest lyrics of all time, but Goddamnit if I don't know exactly how he feels when he's singing and I'd be lying if I said I never felt the same. Amazing album, warm tones, detuned acoustic guitars. Pure beauty.

Queens of the Stone Age-Songs for the Deaf:
This album changed my life, plain and simple. I bought it on a whim after hearing "No One Knows" on the radio. This album represents everything that is great about Rock and Roll. Its got amazing production, awesome fucking riffs, perfect guitar tones, stellar drumming, churning guitar chords and vocals that sound like they were laid down in roughly 35 minutes with all care thrown to the wind. The backing "ooohs and aaahs" sound like theyre being sung by a choir of angel-voiced demons and Josh Homme has the Midas Touch with anything guitar. This is another one of those bands where I would like to list every album theyve ever done up here. Listen to this album if you haven't before. That is a command.

The Black Keys-Thickfreakness:
Firstly, The Black Keys are a two person band who sound like a four piece. Secondly, Dan Auerbach sings like he's an old Bluesman from Mississippi when in fact hes a dorky white dude from Ohio. Thirdly, the opening sounds of this album set the tone for what is easily the sweetest set of blues riffs compiled in the past 25 years.

The Bronx-Bronx I
Pure fucking rock and roll. If "Heart Attack American" doesn't make you want to get up and punch someone square in the face, then I am completely certain that you have no testicles. Listen to this album and go ragin'.

GZA-Liquid Swords:
I had a tough time deciding on whether I wanted to put Wu-Tang"s Enter the 36 Chambers or Liquid Swords up here, considering they are essentially the same artist, but I decided on Liquid Swords simply for the track "Four Chambers". This track is Wu-Tang at it's best, the production is brilliant and the verses sound like they lit the microphone on fire. Fuckin' hellified.

Sebadoh-Bubble and Scrape:
Another Lou Barlow effort here. Everything he wrote on this album is perfect. Anyone who has ever felt broken-hearted will be floored by "Soul and Fire". Each band member wrote a series of songs and recorded them with the other bandmates for the album, so in a way it's three albums in one. Each artist brought a very distinctive style to the table. Stay away from Eric Gaffney's songs if you don't like weird-ass sometimes dissonant psychedelic music, but both Jason Lowenstein and Lou Barlow's music is very easily accessible. If you get the chance, read Barlow's lyrics too. As I said, if you've ever experienced a real broken heart, you'll get it.

Kings of Leon-Aha Shake Heartbreak:
I've listened to this album so many times that I actually wore the CD out. I know every single lyric, note, lick, drum fill, bass run, whatever and I still love to listen to it. I will whole-heartedly say that this band will never ever come close to matching the awesomeness of this album again. Incredible album, "Milk" still sends chills down my spine every time I hear it.

Weezer-Blue Album/Pinkerton:
I simply couldn't choose between this two albums, also I can sort of justify having the both of them up here in the sense that I rarely listen to one without listening to the other right after it. In my opinion"Tired of Sex" is the best thing Weezer has ever written, and by far their most underrated song. To me, it is a perfect track in every sense of the word, guitar, drums, production value, lyrics, and pure fucking sweetness. Both of these albums are essential to anyone who appreciates Rock Music. If you haven't listened to them, you are doing a disservice to yourself and all of humanity.

Minutemen-Double Nickels on the Dime:
Awesome album, over 40 tracks, all short songs (hence the band name). I love D. Boone's style of guitar playing (possibly my biggest influence outside of J. Mascis) and pretty much every song on here is dope as hell. None of them can really sing, but it just doesnt matter, it's real jazzy punky weird rock but its sweet. MTV's Jackass made their song "Corona" famous, I in fact named my first full length after the last line of it.

So, that's ten albums that I find to be incredibly influential. I could listen to each and every one of these all day long and not get sick of them. I feel as if I'm committing a musical sin though by leaving out some of the other albums which I love, but I suppose that can be for another day. I hope you enjoyed my two cents and I really hope each and every one of you can get out there and give a listen to these albums, I doubt you'll regret it. Maybe someday in the future I'll do a follow-up with some more music but I suppose that is TBD.

Be Easy.

-Nick

Its Been A While...

Firstly, yes I did rip a Staind song title for the heading of this blog...sorry for that. Really.

Anyway, Since my last Pre-Halloween entry I've had quite the time. I'm back at Holy Cross, which has its pros and cons, clouds and silver linings, whatever you want to call it. I finished up my CD which I wrote incessantly about. I'm not quite sure what to do with it now that I've finished but oh well, at least it's done. I'm taking a break from music right now though and focusing much more on schoolwork and my writing (which I'll talk a little bit more about later).

So, I'm back at school, yep, I am, woohoo, yep, awesome, yep. Frankly, I'm not so sure how I feel about this whole thing. Granted, almost anything is better than being forced into an 8-4 workday situation where the majority of the workforce is uneducated and for the most part remarkably unhappy. But, now that I've been able to wet my feet in the so called "Real World's" waters, I have come to see how childish both the college life and its followers can be (I of course include myself in this assertion). Going to a college where the student population is noticeably smaller than your high school can lead to the occasional aggravation/existential crisis and I find that I've been experiencing a hearty helping of both of these since I've returned.

I've always known that Holy Cross is a cliquey elitist school and that my personality was never a perfect fit, but now that I've had some time away from this place, I can see the differences more clearly than ever. I enjoy being here the majority of the time and I would be making an obscenely unfair generalization if I claimed that I thought that most of my fellow students suck. But, sometimes I just can't stand it. Last night was a perfect example of this:

After partying for a while with some close friends, I decided to head
off campus with a team-mate to go check out a party we had been told
was "wicked sick." We headed off to the house and through a few drunken
interactions various wanderings we lost sight of each other. We weren't
able to reunite and my friend decided just to head back to campus. I,
being fairly loaded and ready to do something cool, took it upon myself
to explore the off-campus scene and try and make something out of this
bust of an evening. I wandered in and out of a few houses, mainly
interested in observing the scene/finding someone cool who I could talk to
and I ended up in some random smelly fire hazard of an apartment filled
with way too many people and way too few personalities. I listened to
conversations between people who just seem to take their lives too damn
seriously. The party seemed to be filled with people who were way too
concerned with who or what they could do. There was a serious lack of
interest in conversation if there is no gain associated with it. The social system here
seems to be that you only talk to someone if you're trying to hook up with them, get beer
from them, or if you want to find out about a new party from them. No one
seems to want to talk for the sake of human interaction, no real interest is
shown in trying to dig deeper and make some kind of a real connection, a connection
rooted in something deeper than the typical shallow niceties of Saturday evenings.
Maybe I just look too deeply into such trivial encounters. But, then again, maybe not. I just
like to think that most people have the same innate want to search for genuine
companions, people who like to have fun, talk, and aren't concerned with
putting up some heavy front in order to hide some stupid inadequacy. I want
to meet people who get The Joke (people who get it don't have to ask what it is)
and sometimes I feel as if that just is not an achievable goal here at the College
of the Holy Cross. So, after I dejectedly shuffled in and out of houses I decided it
was time to call it a night and walk back to my dorm alone and think about what
this night had really been about. I strolled down the streets leisurely and looked at
the stars and watched shallow drunken romances and faux inebriated camaraderies
form on either side of me. To make an even longer story somewhat less long, as
I was walking back feeling worse and worse by the minute I came across someone
who I had never met before and I decided to strike up conversation in some kind of
last ditch effort to maybe salvage the general downer theme of the evening. We
talked about where we're both from and we each mused for a while over the attitude of this College's general populous. It was nice to find someone else interested in talking for the
sake of talking. Made my bunk night just a little bit better.

After re-reading that story, I see that I somewhat deviated from the original purpose of it. Oh well, I suppose that is just the beauty in stream of consciousness online journal entries. The simple fact of the matter is that I have returned to my College as a much different individual than I was when I departed for an extended stay away and I'm not really sure how to handle it. I'm sure I'll be able to get a grip on that sometime soon but for the time being, it's just a strange period of transition.


On another note, two of my best friends and I have decided to actually follow through with something we've always sort of joked about. We are collaboratively writing a screenplay. With what goal in mind? Hopefully to have it be made. Why would we do it? Because we think we've got some pretty good stories to tell and also, we just fucking want to. The inception of this project is not easy. I've never written a screenplay, nor had I read one up until about three weeks ago. We'll see how it goes. Just before I sat down to write this I was making a few edits/changes on our current script. Right now it is at a whopping 31 pages. Exciting, eh? As the project progresses, I hopefully won't slack off as bad as I have been and keep this page somewhat in the now, hopefully updating more frequently.


I suppose that is all I really have to say for this evening, I'm pretty damn tired and I'd like to get some sleep. Stay tuned for updates as I intend to write a little more tomorrow and/or Tuesday.


Grazi.


-Nick