The Post-Rockist

Lately, I’ve been telling pretty much anyone who’ll listen that the Beach Boys’ 1971 album Surf’s Up is, without a doubt, the most terrific pop album I’ve heard all year. Maybe I’m overcompensating because I’m 37 years late to the party, so let me explain why I’m bringing it up now: it’s summertime, I’ve been on vacation (hence the lack of updatage from yours truly), and I’ve been on a huge Beach Boys kick. Ample enough reason for me.

“Don’t Go Near the Water” is the opening track on Surf’s Up. It’s an unexpectedly political and (perhaps?) unintentionally goofy song, but I think it’s those odd quirks that make it such a memorable and catchy tune. And as much as everyone loves to hate Mike Love, it’s songs like this that make me tip my hat in his favor.

The below video clip is from YouTube, so of course the audio isn’t great: the harmonies are condensed; the slinky, descending Moog bass riff on the chorus is muffled; and Al Jardine’s high notes aren’t quite as piercing as they are on the record. Even so, thanks to YouTube, you get to scope their wicked early ’70s garb: they look like a group of surly merchant marines on shore leave waiting to be picked up by the Mystery Machine to help investigate some spooks on the dock. Dig those beards!

“To be cool with the water is the message of this song.” Really, Mike? That’s soooo deep.

And in case you can’t get enough of Mike Love and his scraggly beard (I know I can’t), then you’re in for a real treat with cokemachineglow’s list of the Top 22 Pictures of Mike Love Looking Like a Douche. Behold:

I nearly choked on my tongue looking through this list. The photo of Love looking like a douche above looks like it was taken during the video shoot for 1969’s “Break Away” single. Everyone else in the band decided to go with white leisure suits, but not Mike Love. His attire of choice? Jesus robes. (Were Jesus robes his “thing” for a while circa 1969-71? Czech out the video of “Long Promised Road,” also from Surf’s Up. There, at 2:35, again with the Jesus robes! But seriously, though, do watch the video. Not only is Carl Wilson absolutely adorable, but I promise the song is better than any other song dealing with long roads released that decade.) (Continued)

The Shins - “Gone for Good”
(from Chutes Too Narrow)

As with all these sorts of things, I saw it coming, but it still came out of nowhere. It was like a basketball to the face; of course you see it coming, but you can’t move out of its path, and you don’t really believe it’s going to hit you until you hear it collide with your skull.

It wasn’t one of those “big” breakups. We’d only been together for a couple of months – enough time to get to know each other, but not enough time to understand the mechanics, which I think makes things worse – when you don’t know why things happen the way they do in a relationship, when you’re not sure what made those formidable bridges of expectation fall to bricks all around you.

Jens Lekman - “A Little Lost”

Appropriately for a post-rockist romance, we met at a Jens Lekman concert, where the starry disco lights, swelling ballads and the sweet Swedish crooner’s honey tones set just the right mood for a swoon. Then we found out that we knew each other already; I’d commissioned him to do an illustration for my magazine months ago, and we had exchanged a lot of pleasantly-mannered and modestly flirtatious emails. If every great love needs a great story to hold it together, this one, I thought, was clearly meant to be. How could an encounter so enchanted not lead to a legendary affair?

(Continued)

This video is absolutely fantastic on so many levels. But first, before you click ‘Play,’ let me give you a preview of the awesomeness you’re about to experience: the 1970 incarnation of the Flying Burrito Brothers (consisting of three ex-Byrds, one future Eagle, and “Sneaky” Pete Kleinow on pedal steel) prancing around on a boat, lip-synching “Older Guys” for some poorly scripted television program I’ve never heard of before.

Now, if you’re anything like me and your mix of 2008 summer jams consists mostly of 38-year-old country rock singles, then your heart’s already beating a little faster. But hold on to your wild horses, kiddos, because it only gets better. The obvious focal thrust of the video is Gram Parsons, hamming it up for the camera and displaying the sort of affectations you would expect from a man who was born to a wealthy Florida citrus magnate and grew up to spend too much time indulging in the company of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But the image that will forever etch itself into your mind is that of Bernie Leadon popping out of the hatch to sing back-up in all his unibrowed glory. Wow.

As a pre-MTV music video, the awkwardness of what to do in front of the camera is clearly evident. What do we do during the guitar solo? Hold your instruments close together and smile! Because if there’s anything more rock & roll than a boatful of foppish country dandies waving their hats about and exchanging boyish smirks, then I don’t want to see it.

Okay, enough of my yakking, just watch the clip. It’s a great song.

…to come. Sorry folks, I write, download, upload, code and publish slowly. However, if you want to know what went down, check Webvomit and Five-Three Dialtone. I’ll be up in the next day or two. Today’s Dad’s day (gotta put in some time) and tomorrow I’m going to see Barack Obama at Joe Louis Arena, where he will official choose The Post-Rockist as Vice President.

Reel 163, by Louis Armstrong

Armstrong made generous use of various kinds of adhesive tape not only to attach images to each box but also to laminate, frame, or highlight them. The works are untitled and undated, but he was making them as early as the 1950s; in a letter from 1953 he wrote, “Well, you know, my hobbie (one of them anyway) is using a lot of scotch tape . . . My hobbie is to pick out the different things during what I read and piece them together and [make] a little story of my own.”

–The Paris Review, via marathonpacks

Woman in Red Lion Pub, by Bob Dylan

Today he [Dylan] expresses similar impatience with the critics who have read into his art a variety of underlying feelings - anonymity, transience, rootlessness, even loneliness. Reaching again for the Halcyon book. “Let’s have a look, shall we [the pages fall open at Woman in Red Lion Pub, her dress executed in a vivid yellow]? Do you see loneliness in that? Or that [Six Women]? I don’t. And this one’s just a pastoral scene [Sunday Afternoon]. What’s rootless, transient and lonely about that? It’s a mystery why anybody would say or think such a thing.”

And later, in more topical news, Dylan endorses Obama (!!):

“Well, you know right now America is in a state of upheaval,” he says. “Poverty is demoralising. You can’t expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we’ve got this guy out there now who is redefining the nature of politics from the ground up…Barack Obama. He’s redefining what a politician is, so we’ll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I’m hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.” He offers a parting handshake. “You should always take the best from the past, leave the worst back there and go forward into the future,” he notes as the door closes between us.

–Time Online, via Fancy

1. Woody Guthrie - I Ain’t Got No Home
(from Dust Bowl Ballads)

2. Hank Williams - Ready To Go Home
(from The Ultimate Collection)

3. Dolly Parton & Porter Wagoner - Better Move It On Home
(from The Essential Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton)

4. Eddie Floyd - Bring It On Home
(from Chronicle: Greatest Hits)

5. Elvis Presley - Baby, Let’s Play House
(from The Sun Sessions)

6. The Kinks - I Took My Baby Home
(from Kinks)

7. Solomon Burke - Home In Your Heart
(from Home In Your Heart)

8. The White Stripes - Let’s Build a Home
(from De Stijl)

9. Tom Waits - Come On Up To the House
(from Mule Variations)

10. Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young - Our House
(from So Far CSNY)

EPILOGUE: Swan Silvertones - I’m Coming Home
(from Love Lifted Me/My Rock)

Lately I’ve been giving a lot of thought to house music over here at Post-Rockist HQ, and not the four-to-the-floor variety. But the idea of “home” in music. Everyone has one, or had one: that place with four walls and a roof over your head where you plant your roots and watch Judge Judy comfortably in your sweatpants. But in pop culture “home” isn’t so much a place as it is a goal; a site for departures and arrivals. Someone’s always leaving home, coming home, dreaming of home, building a home, wrecking a home, sick of home, or homesick.

So in that spirit of adventure, I’ve put together a little mix of house music. It’s not necessarily the greatest selection of home-themed songs, but it follows a loose story arc of homelessness to homecoming. We start with Woody and Hank bemoaning the absence of home in a socioeconomic and spiritual sense, respectively, before picking things up a notch with the saucy country duo Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner toying around with the foibles of spousal obligations. Eddie Floyd tries to smooth things over with his departed lover with remorse in his voice and a sturdy Stax strut to signify his sincerity. Meanwhile, Elvis and the Kinks, lovers in tow, want to bring their babies home with non-too-subtle metaphors veiling their animal intentions. The man with the sexiest voice on this list, however, Mr. Solomon Burke, is seeking a home with a little more permanence than a brief playdate. And Jack White… well, I don’t really know what he’s on about, but he sounds serious. With home finally in sight, Tom Waits is there to rattle our foundations with his booming growl, reminding us of the fragile and shambling nature of all those things we hold dear to our heart, but reassures us like a bohemian Baloo that transcendence can be found in our transience. Home at last, Graham Nash celebrates the little joys found in our domestic setting, and yes, this song has been overplayed, but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful. Finally, the a capella gospel legends the Swan Silvertones figuratively bring it all home to tidily wrap up the spiritual void first noticed by Hank Williams at the beginning.

Quite frankly, I’m a little surprised that “Home” hasn’t been the subject of one of Bob Dylan’s Theme Time Radio Hours yet, considering his other topics. Bob, if you’re reading this, and I know that you are, feel free to use the idea. Just be sure to give credit where credit is due.

Well, I’ve finally moved into my house. It’s been quite the ordeal: the cable guy accidentally drilled a hole in my brand new kitchen floor, a door had to be removed to fit in some new appliances, and I have a metric ton of cardboard boxes left to dispose of. But at least the hard work is behind me now. And, to celebrate, I’m playing the obligatory non-ska hit “Our House” by the British ska band Madness. This song has held up surprisingly well over time, sounding more like Dexy’s Midnight Runners than any of their other not-as-successful ’80s ska singles. And the video, of course, is priceless. A small part of me still likes to believe that this video accurately reflects the lifestyles of men in Great Britain: cheeky, tweedy, and slightly effeminate.