Kickball - “Sometimes”
off of their 2007 album “Everything Is A Miracle Nothing Is A Miracle Everything Is”
It takes a lot these days, but the end it really probably isn’t much.
it takes a glass of water alone at 2 AM outside of a social gathering.
it takes a failed sunrise at 5 AM on my roof with two people, one of whom I had only really met the day before.
it takes a really, really, awkward visit to a porn store with someone to whom I owe my childhood.
it takes a fine line between a miracle and feigned acceptance.
it takes a exasperated view from a 2 story window.
it takes pouring your heart out to someone you had never met before.
it takes it takes it takes it takes
me to the grave.
“The ache in my head is like the ache in my chest. No inspiration. The need for a paragraph begets you to think like you do. Nothing nothing nothing. This won’t be long.”
“you’re a sunset, sometimes pretty…
…oh my god.
sometimes sad.”
Kickball is a band from, according to their myspace, Olympia/Portland, Washington. And, if given the chance, they can easily become your new favorite band. I can’t even tell you how it felt when I first heard their song “Polarbears”, the excitement I immediately had for the music this band makes is not something I could accurately convey with words. I don’t know what it is exactly, though I do have a few leads - all of which are present in this song, probably my favorite of theirs (it’s really incredibly hard to say, they’re all so good). The seemingly stream-of-conciousness lyrics that speak of so much beauty despite their simplicity, the incredibly trebly and hard-to-wrap-your-mind-around basslines, the beautiful and (for lack of better term) angular guitar work, how everything seems to tighten and tighten and tighten until it unravels and explodes (you’ll know when you hear it). It’s all so weird and to be honest, a little unsettling - but therein lies the beauty. This is an unconventional band and all this talk about them actually reignited the love I have for them. This is the music I want to hear at all times. You need to get their albums. http://www.myspace.com/kickballl
Bastro - “Tallow Waters”
off of their first full length “Diablo Guapo”
It’s difficult, it really is. Writing off the old guard completely. You know what I mean? I mean, the old adage is somewhat true, that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but by accepting that you will have to accept being written off yourself some day. We don’t stay young. We’re the future old dogs and the new tricks won’t come to us just like the “new” tricks aren’t coming to them. It’s an endless cycle…but it’s one that needs to happen. Look at the people we look down upon now.
So what will become of us?
(fuck man what am i even saying?)
“I remember my grandfather, the racist. I remember my grandfather, the fool. I remember my grandfather, the stubborn, intolerant prick. Whatever. I mostly remember my grandfather as the man who bought me a $200 acoustic guitar for my 12th birthday. The same year my parents spent 15 bucks on a CD for a band I don’t even like. Really, Mom and Dad, Staind? Was that your subtle way of telling me that you thought you were raising a tool?
But I digress. My grandfather was a right bastard. But what am I supposed to do? Hate him? The same man who taught me how to ride a bike? Am I supposed to hate a man who would listen to me, at 13, talk for hours about how I thought life was fundamentally corrupt, when in reality I should probably be outside playing sports or some shit? I certainly think I hate the old republican men I see around town. The ones with the confederate flags plastered on their windshields, the ones with the bumper stickers that say “Guns Save Lives”. Grandpa owned a gun. Killed an unarmed man who broke into his home when he was in his 20s and didn’t get prosecuted. And yet he was the one who held my hand when my first girlfriend broke up with me.
What the fuck.”
“Tallow waters don’t run dry”
It all started with the the way-too-good-for-a-high-school-punk-band Squirrel Bait. How good are we talking, you ask? Husker Du was all about them, and Peter Searcy, their vocalist, was often favorably compared to Paul Westerberg. Anyway, after releasing two pretty damn good full lengths, the band, with an average age OF ONLY 17 YEARS OLD, broke up and most of the members went on to bigger, better things. Guitarist Brian McMahan went onto Slint. Drummer Ben Daughtry went on to play with The Lemonheads. And guitarist David Grubbs, who was later joined by with bassist Clark Johnson, started Bastro. This song is off their first full length, Diablo Guapo, and is a pretty good starting place as any. By this time, they found a drummer and were able to stop using a drum machine, therefore enabling them to rise above being written off as a poor man’s Big Black. Not that their blistering bass lines and careening, off-kilter, feedback-heavy guitar parts aren’t similar. But this is not a bad thing. Grubb’s voice, while it doesn’t exactly stand out, fits so perfectly here. Albini-esque in delivery, I don’t know what the fuck he’s saying. But that’s ok, it’s not really about the lyrics, it’s about giving an intense song a little more texture. But before you know it, the song ends, and you’re left wanting more.
When asked ‘What do we need to learn this for?’ any high-school teacher can confidently answer that, regardless of the subject, the knowledge will come in handy once the student hits middle age and starts working crossword puzzles in order to stave off the terrible loneliness.
— David Sedaris, describing a fate I can see many of my high school peers experiencing
I'm not TRYING to be anything
I’m just how I am and I record what comes out
This is mostly a free writing experiment sometimes based around songs so I don’t doubt that most of what I write will probably miss more than hit
But I live for the hits and if you count the misses then what are you, really?
A lot of this may seem like some sort of “Baby’s First Philosophic Thought” kind of thing, do you know what I mean?
But I’m not trying to be anything or the enlighten anyone, really, I’m just trying to understand the world in my own way so…
bear with me.
The thing about love is that you never know when it will hit, and,
(when it does)
when it will go away. I think the latter is my biggest problem. Let me just, you know, wax poetic…
Love is beautiful. I , haha , love it. Being in love is probably the best feeling in the more, more than listening to music, more than being playing music, more than reading a good book, it’s sort of like all of that together.
It’s knowing that wherever you go you always belong somewhere and that, if all else fails, you have something that will NOT fail.I hope to fall in love someday.
“To me the best affection is on the roof tops, the kind of love with fingers entwined to watch the sun rise even though you’ve seen it so many times before because you know that with every risen sun comes another day to be together, another day spent, another afternoon potentially basking in the warmth of your better half”
“It told me to risk it all with the chance of nothing returned
Why do we make it so hard?
Why live our lives in distance?
Why do we make it so hard?
I thought life should be a chance to defeat statistics
I thought life should be a chance
And if sometimes I don�t pursue it
The sea speaks my better half “
One Last Wish is pre-Fugazi and post-Rites of Spring Guy Picciotto still singing that same old song. It’s not as rough around the edges and the beauty is more apparent. My Better Half is probably the best track on their only album, 1986. You need to have this album. Ask me, and I will burn it for you.
