Dying Formats

This bit of sad news comes from one of the best labels and batch of people in music over at Suburban Home:

Suburban Home Records has been my life for the past 11 years. Through my experiences with the label, I have had some of the most incredible times of my life, met some of my best friends, and even found the love of my life. Although some of my greatest moments have occurred because of Suburban Home, I have also experienced some of my lowest lows. Running a record label in 2007 has become much more difficult considering the music retail landscape. Due to declining sales/revenue, I have been forced to make a very difficult decision. On May 1st, 2007, Suburban Home will have to cut back on staff and move the company into the residence I share with my wife and son, my Suburban Home. [Read the entire message...]

I admire how honest Virgil continues to be with his business, as people fail to realize just how difficult it has been to maintain a truly independent record label in 2007. There are very few labels left that are free of major-label funding and, of those, basically none of them are thriving. They push on through love of their products (and, in some cases, probably some ego). I wish more indies would step up and let people know when they're struggling. I'm not calling for a massive pity-fest, but it might remind people to try and stick up for the good guys (when they can) rather than chuck another 14 bucks to Fueled By Ramen for a Panic At The Disco reissue.

In my school, the term "dying industry" has been tagged to music more than once, and that's absolutely one of the most depressing things I've ever heard. People are listening to music more than ever, and they'll pay 500 bucks to see Mick Jagger evade death for one more day but apparently don't have 10 bucks for a CD they enjoy. The industry, at the top, is run by idiots who blame the computing industry for their problems rather than find revolutionary solutions to revitalize their business, but it just upsets me so much that the most honest and hard working people in music are the ones that are losing the most.

Stop buying 30 dollar shirts from Urban Outfitters and go buy a freakin' record. Take a night off from your nightly 80's dance-club rotation and go to a fucking show.

Syllable Counting LIVE

I had the opportunity to see ex-Hot Water Music frontman Chuck Ragan's show on Monday night at Tangier in Los Feliz, CA. He was recording a portion of his Side One Dummy debut in an intimate live setting in front of about 80 onlookers, goof-ups and all. He brought out mandolin and violin players to supplement his blue-collar folk anthems. As my roommate put it, "I had a smile on my face for the entire set." His rugged and powerful voice kept the room completely riveted for over an hour. I better get on to the haiku, or this will be a worthless post. Look for Chuck Ragan's solo record on Side One Dummy later this year.

Beers are six dollars?
Seriously, what the hell?
Great show, however.

Syllable Counting 7

Comeback Kid Broadcasting... (Victory)

This record sounds huge.
Way better than Wake The Dead.
Youth crew renaissance?

Syllable Counting 6

Fall Out Boy Infinity On High (Island/Def Jam)

The Babyface song?
Actually not terrible.
The rest of this blows.

Syllable Counting 5

The Bled Pass The Flask (Reissue) (Vagrant)

I haven't listened.
CD's copy protected.
Come back in two months.

Syllable Counting 4

The Draft In A Million Pieces (Epitaph)

Hot Water Music!
How I miss your rugged songs.
This is pretty close.

Syllable Counting, Thrice

Saliva Blood Stained Love Story (Island)

Hahahahaha
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Worst band of all time.

Syllable Counting, Again

Shiny Toy Guys We Are Pilots (Universal)

That song "Le Disko?"
Yeah, total one hit wonder.
Very Depeche Mode.

Syllable Counting

Here comes another regular feature. I plan to start writing haiku reviews of records that surface at our house that only barely deserve to be reviewed in the first place (I tried this once before). Normally I won't give this little intro paragraph to really put the focus on the all-encompassing nature of the haiku itself, but let's just call this one an explanatory example. Freya is comprised of most of the members of Earth Crisis, and is probably one of the least important bands in music today. They don't completely suck, but you get the idea.

Freya Lift The Curse (Victory)

Remember Slither?
Earth Crisis gone groove-metal?
Same thing, pretty much.

I'm Sure I Won't End Up Going...

...but this year's Coachella lineup is pretty outstanding.


We could all dream though...

My New Years Resolution Is To Talk About 2006 A Lot.

I resisited composing a best-of list for 2006 for a few reasons, the most obvious being that I no longer run a music website. Additionally, I just hate writing lots of paragraphs of mini-reviews backing up my picks. It's impossible to avoid thinking about, however, and as I started putting my list together, I noticed a lot of similarities between the best records in my player this year. For me, 2006 was all about punk rock actually getting good again beyond the biannual efforts from Bad Religion and Green Day.

The Riverboat Gamblers - To The Confusion Of Our Enemies

The Loved Ones - Keep Your Heart

No Trigger - Canyoneer

The Lawrence Arms - Oh! Calcutta

Ryan's Hope - Apocalpyse In Increments

Rise Against - The Sufferer And The Witness

Good Riddance - My Republic

Ignite - Our Darkest Days

Latterman - We Are Still Alive

The Falcon - Unicornography

I'd love to see someone do a study on the inverse relationship between the quality of punk rock and the president's approval rating. While bands like The Riverboat Gamblers don't necessarily have a sharp political bent, all of these records are inspired and thrilling efforts that should make any fan of fast music smile.

The second grouping of great records in 2006 is basically just a list of the Vagrant 2006 roster (not counting Senses Fail and Saves The Day... please). After a few years of pedestrian releases and label-building, Vagrant strung together a number of great releases, all from bands offering their Vagrant debut.

Protest The Hero - Kezia

The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls In America

The Lemonheads - The Lemonheads

Moneen - The Red Tree

Alexisonfire - Crisis

I lied - Moneen's on their second record for Vagrant but, honestly, who really noticed? As a bit of a corollary, Alexisonfire's side project Cancer Bats dropped easily the best hardcore record of the year (speaking of... it was a rough year for that genre).

The final cluster of releases that contributed to my car stereo's untimely death over the summer were the guilty pleasure records. These might not have been the most groundbreaking or intellectually challenging records, which means pitchfork writers and their related devotees will mock my ignorance for enjoying these, but someone once told me that you can't argue with taste... so, more or less, fuck you.

Set Your Goals - Mutiny

Saosin - Saosin

Gnarles Barkley - St. Elsewhere

The Sounds - Dying To Say This To You

DJ Shadow - The Outsider

Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage

Maxeen - Hello Echo

The only record I left out of these three categories because it managed to stick out completely on its own to battle with the Gamblers for my record of the year is one I wrote about a couple months ago. The Long Winters' Putting The Days To Bed is the one record that you should buy this year, regardless of your tastes.

And for the worst record of the year, I'll throw it over to this interview with Mike Patton. Dead on.

Caveat Emptor

If you buy the LA Times at Starbucks today you don't get the section containing the crossword puzzle. Fair warning for those whose daily 50 cents is allocated mostly for the crossword.

Oh, and the new Blood Brothers record is shockingly good. The video for "Laser Life" isn't so hot, but I really don't know what to expect from music videos anymore.

Alright, and one vaguely-titled link to an amusing news story.... I would have voted for him for president.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction, But Not As Strange As Lies (Or As True)

You can lecture me to your heart's content about the injustices I may impose on a bar by adding "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Right Now" to the jukebox queue, but there's never been a time in my life I've wanted to start an unruly bar brawl more than tonight when a drunk girl and her intoxicated boyfriend found the skip button behind the jukebox to jump over the Smiths, Elvis Costello and INXS selections (it was the best they had) to play "Love Song." Like the bartenders hadn't already endured that song eight times tonight (and probably have eight more time since I left).

Ten-Second Show Review

Any sense of eloquence or flow fails me this evening. I have a midterm in the morning.

Minus the Bear put on a sensational live show. Dave Knudsen is probably the most underrated musician to come out of Seattle in the last ten years. He's managed to raise the proverbial bar in two entirely different genres between Botch and Minus the Bear, and his playing style is nearly impossible to replicate. They're supposed to be releasing a bunch of remixes from Menos El Oso this year... I'd rather they just put out a new record.

P.O.S. has come a long way since he did a half-hour set on our stage a few years ago. He's now a fully-functional indie-rap operation (his 5-gig ipod has been replaced with an actual DJ), although he continues to throw in some incredible a capella sequences that were the original reason I began to enjoy his music. He coaxed a room full of 800 "impatient hipsters" (his words) to almost unanimously nod in approval by the end of his allotted hour. Scheduletwo.com has a bunch of live videos from earlier this year (and surprisingly the sound quality doesn't suck). I wish his actual albums were better...

The Velvet Teen and Russian Circles also played. I didn't watch (although I highly recommend checking out the Velvet Teen for a less masturbatory version of the Mars Volta).


Minus The Bear - The Game Needed Me

I Like The Old Days, But Not All The Old Days

Considering the overall horrible crop of music that's come out this year, it's quite a relief to occasionally find a good record, even if you're four months behind. Alaska's Long Winters released a pretty great record on Barsuk (a label that managed to elude me in the promo department) over the summer. The record is very similar to Nada Surf's most recent offering, which probably isn't all that surprising to anyone. The lyrics are on the jaded and despondent side, but far too eloquent to be considered "emo." I'm impressed.

Pitchfork Review
Full-Album Stream

If It's Any Consolation, I Don't Begin To Understand It

My iTunes has evolved into a regular three-song playlist of The Replacements "Bastards Of Young," The Pixies "Planet Of Sound" and Elvis Costello "Moods For Moderns." I apologize in advance for any negative externalities I impose on surrounding bedrooms, as well as for any economic terms I accidentally slip into regular life.

I attempted to listen to a couple of Dillinger Four songs earlier, but it didn't work out. Are they ever going to release a new record? It's been four excruciating years, and the fact that their homepage still resides on angelfire is a terrible sign.

Dillinger Four - Noble Stabbings!!

I Finished My Homework In Record Time

Actually, finishing my homework at all is a milestone.

I'm getting the tattoo bug in the worst way again. I already have a lot of work to complete on my cold war tattoo, and now I've decided that I badly want a huge snowman chasing a bunch of smaller snowmen. Don't try to tell me it's a lame idea.

The Departed lives up to all of the other Scorsese movies, and is well worth the price of admission. He always manages to take organized crime to gruesome new heights. It looks an awful lot like they found the same alley that The Boondock Saints opens in. Very useful trivia.

The new Tim Barry record sounds pretty refreshing after hearing him write the same Avail record 14 times.

There's a fascinating article in the new Working Mother on saving money around the holidays! They also have an advertisement for a fabulous new toaster that toasts smiley faces into your bread.

I had the luxury of seeing Mew for the second time in a couple months last night. Given the brevity of their current tour, I'd say that we might not see them in the states again for a while, so you might want to go out of your way. The changes they make to their songs in a live setting make me crave a live record greatly, although I've yet to figure out why "Snow Brigade" isn't a part of their set.

I found a new way to USC from North Hollywood: 107S->Burbank Ave. -> Lankershim Blvd. -> Turn around at campo de Cahuenga -> Cahuenga Blvd. -> Hollywood Way -> 5S -> Los Feliz -> Vermont Ave. -> Boom. You're there. It takes two and a half hours, and is supremely helpful when the 101S, 170S and Lankershim (all integral parts of the regular route) are all closed. I think the gods of traffic sneezed on the map of Los Angeles on Friday.

On the subject of gods in a plural sense, has anyone ever considered polytheism? I mean, other than the Pagans and such like. It seems like it could be sort of fun, albeit overwhelming.

I took a few days off from reading and, as a result, have lost the ability to say anything meaningful. Sorry people.

Forget Your Platitudes

Have you ever noticed that most of the upper echelon of heavily-trafficked blogs are simply a flamboyantly represented digest of links to other authors' rigorously-generated content? Of course you have; what am I talking about? (Side note: have you ever noticed how bad english can sound if you just keep piling on the adverbs?)

These editors must get some euphoric feeling after posting a few links, a couple of cleverly-photoshopped pictures of themselves with Jared Leto, a recap of how much they drank last night and, if they can't keep their ego at bay, a scan of their most recent monthly $68,000 Google AdSense paycheck (someone actually did this, although five minutes of searching for it has already taken up enough of my time). Let's give it a shot.

Book Soup posted a recording of the John Hodgman performance from last week. It's about an hour long, and I'm quite certain that none of you have "better things to do."

Latvian researchers have pushed the bootlegging business to wildly new frontiers. The mere idea that a bootlegging industry still exists in some nations will make me sleep well tonight.

Any fans of the Kirby's Dream Land series on NES/SNES (or just GameBoy, if you had mean parents) should probably check out the new version.

Gawker editor Jess Coen quit last week to a sea of "who cares?" from the greater internet public (other than from the people that saw her go on the air on CNN to staunchly defend the social relevance of Gawker Stalker). I wouldn't even mention this except for the fact that the current guest editor is actually quite good.

Since I doubt I'll find a more appropriate space to mention this, I'd just like you to point your various trendy Mozilla-based browsers to animalshirts.net for a moment to observe the stiff competition Paul Frank, Ed Hardy, etc. will be facing in the upcoming years.

The new Jeremy Enigk record came out yesterday on some label I've never heard of. People seem to like it.

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of a vacation spot in Italy that allows you to rent an "entire village." Apparently he never learned that there's a fundamental difference between the words village and villa. I'm pretty sure the only entire village I'd ever want to rent is Colonial Williamsburg, anyway.

How exhausting.

(Somewhat) Massive Nights

Over the past few days I've spent a lot of time rambling about bands that probably mean very little to most of my friends, so I'd just like to briefly (term used in a very liberal fashion) point out that I had the privilege of seeing The Hold Steady perform to a sold-out Troubadour tonight, and I can now finally start to grasp Pitchfork's undying faith in the new "indie sensation." This band better get all the same rewards that came to all those other overhyped bands like The Decemberists, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Interpol, Modest Mouse, etc. Vocalist Craig Finn has one of the most intriguing and unique lyrical dispositions I've encountered (that's been the case ever since he sang for Lifter Puller). His drunken eloquence is light years beyond simply reading words on a page or hearing melodies on a record - this is a must-see show, even if you don't much care for their records. Oh yeah, Kiefer Sutherland was at the show and, as a fan of 24, I thought that was pretty cool.

Tomorrow I promise to write about celebrities or politics or offer some flowing stream of consciousness piece on nothing in particular. I'm pretty sure 5/7 of my crowd bolted for the exit already anyway.

The Hold Steady - "Stuck Between Stations" (Live in NYC)

Band That Everyone Likes But Nobody Loves Of The Day

How many times in the last six years have you flipped through your records and thought to yourself, "I could really go for some Samiam right now." Yeah, probably less than once. Maybe, if you were really nostalgic, you tossed "Capsized" on a mix cd. Their breakup a number of years ago was vague at best, and didn't exactly spark any suicidal dread in listeners. It's with that same sort of exuberance from music fans that Samiam reunited - with a collective "oh, that's kind of neat." In fact, a more common response would be, "who?"

I always loved Samiam, but I loved them like I'd love an aunt or uncle I see only on holidays. I understand their relevance and recognize that there are few bands that have sounded like them, and I'd even sing along if one of their songs came through when iTunes was on shuffle, probably remarking "wow, I forgot how good this band was." Unfortunately, this is one of those bands that wouldn't be on anyone's top ten list, but probably would slip in between 20 or 25 on almost everyone's list. I had the pleasure of seeing them at the Troubadour this evening (supposedly their first LA show since 2000), and they performed like a band ecstatic to make their return, even if only to a limited audience. Their singer's passionate performance drove an impressive show (said performance being largely driven by the bottle of red wine he polished off during the set). It's really a shame that their new record has the production of a basement recording from 1986, so the band remains unlikely to emerge from the realm of obscurity. For fans though, the band's reunion is a welcome addition to an otherwise festering music landscape.

Samiam - Dull

Hot Water Music's Chuck Ragan opened the show with half an hour of inspired blue collar folk songs that sound suspiciously like Hot Water songs without the drums and distortion. He's releasing all of his music exclusively through a regular 7" club on No Idea right now, although I believe the entire lot of songs will be released on CD sometime next year. Or you can just listen to his myspace songs and artificially inflate his play count. With The Draft recently releasing a great debut, it's a lot easier to confess now that Hot Water's final album really wasn't all that good.