road trip music

in which I write about torturing my family with music for the duration of our drive.

So we’re on vacation. We drove from NYC to Cape Cod this past Friday, which meant I drove, which meant that I picked all the music for the trip, which meant that my poor family was completely tortured by my musical choices.

I love listening to music in different contexts, because I always end up hearing things that I’ve never noticed before, or getting to experience new emotions in the music. In the car, the music goes along with the scenery, keeps me awake, and gives my brain something to focus on, other than watching that double yellow slide by. I can think differently about the songs, experience them differently, and like them in a completely new way.

Plus, my main context for music listening is on headphones, either on the subway, which has a lot of background noise, or while walking through the streets of NYC, which, again, has background noise issues. So getting the chance to listen to music played through a sound system (however shitty) and with different things to look at is pretty central to my existence. And thought process. And my enjoyment of music itself.

I know it might sound weird, because these are the same songs, but I’m not the same person each time that I listen to them. There are fundamental shifts in my perception of, and interaction with, the music when I’m listening in different locations, times, and mental states.

Here is the playlist for the road trip (and yes, we only have a CD player, not an MP3 player, so we listened to actual albums. OMG. I know you thought nobody does that any more, but I do. Post on that forthcoming.):

1. Atlas Genius - When it Was Now. This album did not sound good in the slightest on my car’s craptacular sound system. Nor did it sound good with the windows open. (we don’t have AC). Terrible choice on my part. But I listened to it to the end. Bruce and I continued the trend of analyzing the band obsessively, although again, I feel bad because he’s only heard them live (with a crappy sound system) and in the car. 
2. Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines. Holds up surprisingly well in the car. I didn’t get too much negative feedback from the family. In fact, all of his albums hold up well with the car’s terrible speakers. Go figure.
3. Bruno Mars - Doo Wops & Hooligans AND Unorthodox Jukebox. I requested it, and the husband said, “Why do you hate me?” and then commented on Mars sounding quite a bit like MJ. He might have actually liked a couple of these songs.
4. LCD Soundsystem -Sound of Silver. I think this was a 55:55 minute endurance experiment for Bruce. Poor, poor man. While I absolutely adore this album, I will concede that it is not good car music, sounded terrible in the car, and I should probably have never played this for Bruce, despite the fact that he likes the song New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down. Also, listening to it in the car really made me realize exactly how much LCD Soundsystem stole from the Talking Heads. Which is cool, because the Talking Heads are awesome.
5. Los Amigos Invisibles - Repeat After Me. Bruce chose it, because he likes them (we’ve seen them live twice now). We listened to it until we pulled into the driveway on the Cape. Life was good. 

Bruce is driving us up to Provincetown on Wednesday, so he’ll be choosing the music then. He purchased a HUGE sleeve for CDs and packed music that he likes.

We have fairly divergent musical tastes (although we agree on some things, like Tom Petty’s awesomeness). This should be interesting. 

atlas genius

In which I write about the next great hope for rock. Or something.

So. Atlas Genius. If you haven’t heard about them yet, you probably will soon, providing they don’t implode in a morass of music industry bullshit within the next few years.

They are…a great band. Their sound, in its nascent form, is pretty clearly influenced by U2 and Coldplay (among various other folks), and is awesomely accessible, but smart, rock. I bought their album, When it Was Now, a few weeks ago, and its been on constant rotation ever since (with a break here and there for Robin Thicke). I’m a little worried about getting sick of them, since I’ve listened to this freakin album about three times a day for the past few. 

What I’m trying to say is, the album is good, y’all. Go buy it. (Amazon &iTunes both have it).

Yesterday, I was telling 7-year-old daughter about going to see Atlas Genius in concert later that evening. She was interested, so I popped on their album. She listened for about 10 minutes, and said “their guitar player sounds like The Edge.”

Sniff. So proud. She really DID watch It Might Get Loud closely. He DOES sound like The Edge on occasion, with those really excellent clear, church bell tones on the guitar.

These crazy bastards apparently built their own recording studio where they recorded this album and produced it themselves. Which is amazing, because its really fucking good for a first album (there isn’t a track on here that I dislike), their song writing is damn good, and I can see that it will only get better. There’s a quality to their songs and sound that, given the right environment to flourish, will go from really fucking good to completely transcendent.

They use a little too much synthesizer for my taste but then again I’m a child of the 80s and got plenty of that shit the first time around. Still, the kids these days seem to go for that sort of thing, so who am I to question their musical choices? (Lack of quals will not stop me from questioning, by the way)

My greatest wish/hope is that they get a really excellent producer on board who will help them refine and direct their artistic vision to the aforementioned transcendent phase. (for instance, what producer Alex Da Kid did for Imagine Dragons.) They’re so young, and to have that much talent, both from a musicianship standpoint, and from a songwriting one… GAWD, I hope they have a solid mental/emotional foundation so that they don’t burn themselves out.

My heterosexual life mate (and he adds “regular provider of cock”. Just keepin it classy), Bruce, (fine, husband. Whatever. don’t label me) and I went to see them in concert at the iheartradio theater in NYC this evening, after scoring free tickets. The theater is small. like, only slightly bigger than our NYC apartment small. Which is pretty fucking small. There were maybe about 100 people there. The sound quality was dubious. On a few occasions, the PA system was completely overwhelmed, which was kind of a bummer, because some of the musicality was lost. And on their final song, Electric, the vocals were completely overwhelmed. 

This was also Bruce’s first time hearing any of their music, and while he liked it, he’s unfortunately going to have a not-so-optimal next listen to their stuff as I will likely play it on our 1994 Jetta’s shitacular sound system, with the windows open, while driving up to Massachusetts next week. Yup. 

Having now seen Atlas Genius live, after having listened to their album (obsessively) for the past few weeks, it was clear to me that they’ve really lived in the songs for a while. They’re all excellent musicians, and it sounds like they’re having fun with the music. At one point in the show, the keyboard player threw in a different synth drum beat than is usually played on one of their songs, and it was cute to see the other band members react to it.

So, a listy review of the live show:

1. They seemed tired. They looked tired. I have nothing but respect for people who are going through the music business mill, because I know that they’re all working ridiculously hard. And… yeah. Tired.
2. They’re so cute and so tiny and young! Sometimes it seemed like the lead singer was a little bit too aware of how attractive he is. But whatever.
3. They had terrible rock star faces. That, in and of itself, was fucking adorable.
4. I was a little bummed that the lead singer/guitarist had equipment issues on the song Centered on You. So was he. Definitely showed in the next song, when he was clearly playing pissed off. Or frustrated. or whatever. But he got his head back in the game. (I was bummed because we missed out on one of the prettiest guitar parts I’ve heard in a while.
5. The lead singer played All These Girls solo. Which was fine. It’s my least favorite song on the album. As I mentioned before, I like them all (and freakin adore most of the songs), but this one… Yeah. So Bruce was saying that it sounded like something that would be used in a TV ad for Verizon. Or in a very intense scene on One Tree Hill. I said maybe for a tampon commercial. Yeah, we’re assholes. But I like that about us.
6. Did I mention that I really enjoyed the live arrangements of the songs? I did. That’s one of the things that I like the most about going to live shows, is listening to how the artists are interpreting their songs in that moment, on that stage, with whatever emotions they happen to be having at any given moment. I like listening to the experiments and the failures and the expressions of their “now” through these pieces of music that belong to so many people other than them. It’s pretty beautiful. And I’m thankful that these boys did that with their music this evening. Looking forward to seeing them do it some more.
7. The show started on time (7pm) and ended before the sun went down. Which rocked. Because I’m old, and want to go to bed on time.
8. I’m a little bummed that I went to see a concert at apparently the only venue in all of NYC that doesn’t serve beer. 
9. It would be awesome if they did move to NYC. I would encourage them to move to Astoria, not to Brooklyn, because Brooklyn is so fucking clichéd. Also, Astoria is cheaper. And has a great music scene.

Side note that has nothing to do with Atlas Genius:

Every time I see live music in the city, something bizarre happens on the subway afterwards. This time was no different.

After the show, while in the middle of analyzing the band to death, poor dears, my man and I got on the subway to go home. While we were talking, this guy in his 20s got on the train, clearly tripping his balls off. He was also wearing clashing plaids on his shorts and shirt. This nearly sent my husband into apoplexy, but that’s another story. Anyway, tripping boy was freaking out because we were making fun of him, but he was too fucked up to figure out whether it was actually happening, or if he was just being paranoid. On top of that, he was tripping about a couple of teenagers dry humping on the seats next to us. Fucking awesome.

Ah, New York. We love you so.