Admittedly, last year’s lists were born in the wake of seasonal affective disorder and not the heat of it. I was gettin’ all cocky and excited to report that I’d escaped it this year but lo! Like a whisper to a scream in a hairsbreadth, like the pruned paw of inevitability, like a kissing partner with canker sores, it’s here and it’s great. In a very psychologically complicated way.
A is for affliculitis, which I think Dr. Yee made up, but still: not a sex disease.
B is for Beach House’s Beach House, for indulging the mopey indie obscurantist—remember how great The Double’s Palm Fronds was? Not really? Here: several alt-takes from Jack Nitzsche’s Young Marble Giants sessions. Mind you, I have a policy about only making up intoxicating hypotheticals for beautiful shit. And Mazzy Star was lost on the country question. The Fragile Hands and Teacup Society’s would-be 2007 Gold Foil Choise for Staring Longingly Out Yon Window, were they so inclined to make assertions.
C is for The Coasters. The American Kinks. Or Blur. All the banalities of everyday life wadded up into proto-rock songs and an abundance of punchlines besides. “Charlie Brown” is great for karaoke because you can do three different voices in as many minutes. I drunkenly ruined a conversation the other day while The Ultimate Coasters played at a brunch: “This song is about marrying a stripper. Listen to those chipmunk voices. Those are their little babies, which are apparently everywhere. This song is about getting bored in front of the television. This song is about a guy who has a monkey for a pet. He teaches the monkey to do all kinds of silly and naughty stuff. It ends with the monkey waving a gun at him. Ta ha ha.”
D is for Doris Duke’s “Congratulations Baby.” Doris Duke was a pudgy singer forgotten by nobody because nobody knew her to begin with. Except Dave Godin. Bonus points for using the word “baby” literally. A snappy tune about the existential fears of parenthood that basically plays like a two-minute deep soul version of Eraserhead: you are disgusting and as a result my waking life is ever-carried on a current of muted terror, etc.
E is for Eugene Debs, my cat. I have only adored one animal more than this animal.
F is for Fred Neil’s “Little Bit of Rain,” a creation myth and family tree of the indie baritone whose climactic scene paints Bill Callahan of Smog as a dickless barker on the other side of a wide river from Neil; Neil just smiles quietly and Bill tries, vainly, to swim across. No survivors. One of those indoor songs that makes your head feel high and cold like a narrow cathedral.
G is for Get Up With It by Miles Davis. Hot, crazy, and pitch black. Without reason. Spookier than women. The best album I’ve heard this year. Some nights I’ll be in the dark listening and think I can see my bed from here.
H is for Hasil Adkins’s “No More Hot Dogs.” Tale as old as time: woman, you keep eating hot dogs and I will cut your head clean off and nail it on my wall. At the beginning of the song, Hasil seems focused on the hot-dog issue. But by the end, he is pretty singularly concerned with decapitating his girlfriend.
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you heard the Scratch-produced version of “Congrats” by sultry masochist librarian Susan Cadogan?
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Hey, I like your new blog header. It’s so dark on my work monitor that I can’t actually see anything but the screen, but I know exactly what it is.
Comment by Dave 11.27.06 @ 5:39 pm