Tag: Nostos Nic

Throwback Thursday: Nirvana and Patti Smith Smell Teen Spirit

Patti Smith is undeniably cool. In 1980, she straddled the dead space that followed the end of rock and roll (as it was known to that point) but preceded the stranglehold of punk with her seminal album Horses. Nirvana is undeniably cool. After the release of their album Nevermind in 1991, the year that would be 1992 had no hope of swimming with the current and, instead, swam upstream into Grunge. When both artists sing the same song you get two sides of a very hip coin. To piggy-back on last week’s Courtney Love adventure, this week’s Throwback Thursday  gives you the oft-imitated video for Nevermind‘s first single, “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” in comparison with a Patti Smith video of her “Smells Like Teen Spirit” cover.

Current Obsession: Bombadil

Bombadil at Pendarvis Farms by Kristen Krauter

Having had the concurrent displeasure and honor of planning several funerals, I’ve come to understand the importance of music in the heady moments of a final goodbye. Accordingly, I’ve started a playlist for my own funeral to save my loved ones the agony of soundtracking a ceremony to honor a woman who thought always in terms of music. Also, I don’t trust them to get it right (which makes me a pretentious asshole).

Which is not to say I morbidly contemplate death at every turn. I do not seek the songs on my funeral playlist, they find me and this is how I discovered Bombadil. The track “I Will Wait” off Bombadil’s album All That The Rain Promises–a title which in and of itself can offer an optimistically funerealistic aura–is so incredibly moving in its gospel simplicity. Bombadil, however, is no one trick pony. The rest of the album pairs bouncy melodies with wry humor that showcases the band’s musical ability without taking itself too seriously–offering a wonderfully refreshing contrast to the more somber opening track. All in all, a deeeeelightful listening experience and another notch acquired on my quest to create the perfect funeral playlist.

Featured Show: Americana at the Bottom of the Hill

Place your paw on the heartbeat of American music at this week’s featured show at Bottom of the Hill tomorrow (that’s Tuesday, 7/30/2013). First up we have Shakey Graves, a visitor from Texas, who makes journeyman bluegrass rocking with southern afternoon rhythms and toe-tapping, tumbling refrains. I tried to pick a single track to give you a taste, but loved the entirety of his album Roll The Bones so much I featured it whole.

Second on tap is The Sam Chase, a former Nostos Nic Pick of the Week. Don’t let the dusty, high-noon-in-the-wild-west aesthetic fool you: this feller serves flawless folk punk centered on his guitar, which “runs on diesel and leaks like the morning after too much Whiskey,” and his vocals, which bring a raw immediacy to his musical mischief.

Finally we have The Creak, a feel-good extenuation of the American musical tradition; this is modern bluegrass at it’s best, true to its roots yet proud of the present as showcased in the band’s epic cover art and clever lyrics. The Creak’s album Here, Hold This is sweet, subtle and instantly addictive in a way that will have you humming and air-strumming in the unawares.

Throwback Thursday: Courtney Love

Aaaaaahhhhhh, Courtney Love–the train wreck we love to hate but secretly hope never fades from the limelight permanently. Let’s be honest: people like Courtney Love serve a vital purpose within our society as benchmarks for our self-esteem barometer. Loves the world over are a means to gauge how we’re doing on a personal level, a way to compare ourselves to the “rich and famous” and say, “At least I didn’t fall off a barstool and flash my southernmost private parts to the entire MTV audience, crew, and a music icon.” This is the same reason an old roommate of mine would watch the show 16 and Pregnant when she was depressed: no matter how bad her day was, at least she wasn’t sixteen…and pregnant.

I have a soft-spot for Ms. Love, forever the former Mrs. Cobain, because she was omnipresent during my formative listening years; this means I had no choice but to like her (the proverbial cop-out). Her hot-messness aside, she musically explores what it means to be a woman in the world and this feminist angle hasn’t been adequately explored because she often gets in her own way. Okay, she ALWAYS gets in her own way but hear me out on this tangent. Take, for example, the song “Doll Parts” from Hole’s album Live Through This, released in 1994, in which Love discusses society’s perception of women as playthings (dolls), how it forces women to regress into infantile desires (for cake) to get attention and the effect of this dynamic (turning women fake, making them ache). She’s pissed, and wants you to ache like she aches:

“I am doll eyes
Doll mouth, doll legs
I am doll arms, big veins, dog bait
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, but I do too
I want to be the girl with the most cake
I love him so much it just turns to hate
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache
Someday, you will ache like I ache

I am doll parts
Bad skin, doll heart
It stands for knife
For the rest of my life
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do
Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, but I do, too
I want to be the girl with the most cake
He only loves those things because he loves to see them break
I fake it so real, I am beyond fake
And someday, you will ache like I ache
Someday you will ache like I ache”

In 1998, Love  released what I believe to be her second best album to Live Through This which is Celebrity Skin. On the title track of this album she refers to herself as a “walking study in demonology”–an admission that she is routinely vilified in the press, and rightfully so as her behavior is erratic and often violent. (For more enlightenment on this facet of Courtney, I recommend watching Kurt & Courtney from BBC documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield). However, she is singled-out as particularly heinous where the same type of behavior from her male counterparts are often begrudgingly accepted as part of the rock and roll effect. That makes Courtney Love a fascinating specimen in our search to understand the perception of women in our current culture, particularly because she is so self-aware and open if not tragically unwilling to clean up her act. But should she have to? That is the question.

Now, I am in no way (I repeat: I AM NOT) advocating Love as the pinnacle of feminist mystique, but I do commend her on the courage it takes to be Courtney Love in all her grotesque glory; she is nothing if not consistent. From Hole’s video for “Violet” (featured above) where you can clearly see Kurt’s influence and understand his fascination with her to the video for “Celebrity Skin” (seen below) which showcases her attempt to professionally rebirth herself as the movie star rocker chick, Courtney Love lives her life on a public stage and forces us to confront her and what she represents. Whatever your feelings are about this, you can explore them in the flesh when she plays The Independent here in San Francisco tonight. A truly a throwback Thursday if there ever was one.

Current Obsession: Faded Paper Figures

Hold on, hold on, hold the phone: a song that references Theodor Adorno and Noam Chomsky?! I have been persuaded (couldn’t resist the pun) that this song by Faded Paper Figures delivers on every level: intelligent, thought provoking lyrics that forces we as listeners to examine our consumer culture and its effect on the human condition and our planet set to a repetitive tune which evokes the robotic. Genius. You need to buy and own this album. Wait…damn it.

“He won’t know Adorno
He’s an adult with an adcult
You can buy your way into his head

He was never better
Wearing sneakers and a sweater
Made by 12-year-olds sweating in Shenzhen

He says,
Let’s drive, drive, drive
Till we burn, burn, burn,
We can choke on it later on tonight
And we’ll fumble with the planet
Dry the river and then damn it
Just persuade me that everything’s all right.

This was his reality,
says the stupid love equality
And he’s never seen a car he didn’t like

On code like a reptilian
Pays Rapaille another billion
From your cortex to the page is just a hike.

So Let’s drive, drive, drive
Till we burn, burn, burn,
We can choke on it later tonight
And we’ll fumble with the planet
Dry the river, then we’ll damn it
Just persuade me that everything’s all right.

Because things…we’ve got to have our things.

We’re not persuaded by the Omnicom
We’re not persuaded we’re the only ones
We’re not persuaded by hegemony
We’re not persuaded we were ever free

Is that your conscience, or are you alone?
Is that Noam Chomsky on the telephone?”

Current Obsession: David Gray

Sometimes a current obsession comes from music released in times passed just southeast of the present yet that music is able to remain still north of your present person. For me, that obsession is David Gray’s 2000 album White Ladder. The true test of an album is its longevity, and longevity is beget from timelessness which comes from cyclical relevance. So the question becomes: Can I relate to the same song I first discovered as a teenager when I’m pushing the precipice of 30? In its moment, White Ladder was mainly defined by the radio hit “Babylon,” but it offers the listener so much more. “My Oh My”, “Nightblindness”, and the song featured here–“This Years Love”–are melancholy, contemplative and wax poetic with every turn. Which is not to say I don’t enjoy “Babylon”; it has its place in my listening routine. It is merely that I’m called more strongly by soft sadness wrought from things come hard, and that has been true since I was a raincloud loving teen taken with the Beat Generation but cursed to live in an inhospitable Southern California climate.

This connection to music, the way certain albums and songs are able to stay with me in a visceral way (a way that quickens a pulse, or soothes an ache), is what I’ve chosen to spend my adult years attempting to dissect and describe. Like here, now. But you know what? Sometimes you just like what you like, and there ain’t nothin’ you can do about it. It speaks, therefore you listen.

I’m listening, David. I’m listening.

Nostos Nic’s Picks: Week of 7/15/2013

Playing Brick & Mortar Music Hall: Monday, 7/15/2013.

Playing The Independent: Thursday, 7/18/2013.

Playing Bottom of the Hill: Friday, 7/19/2013.

Playing The Independent: Friday, 7/19/2013.

Playing Cafe Du Nord: Saturday, 7/20/2013.

Playing Bottom of the Hill: Saturday, 7/20/2013.

Playing Bottom of the Hill with Papa: Saturday, 7/20/2013.

Playing Bottom of the Hill: Sunday, 7/21/2013.