UPDATE 11/9/2019: I can't believe i never went back and edited this. I changed the last track on the disc very late in the game, right before release, and i never went back to change any of the blog posts. This post has now been modified from it's original version. There will likely be another update in the near future.
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This is going to be a very peculiar entry in the Poor-Ass Christmas line. The Digital Mobyfort was offline for most of the year, and thus i've been entertaining myself chiefly with Pandora. This leads to hearing a lot of the hits, or at least singles, over and over, and not much in the way of deep cuts. I've also been almost entirely out of the Madison music scene this year, in the anxiety-fueled exile that's now entered its third and so far most furious year, so the only local music that's present is my own band and a Rockford band that should've appeared two or three comps ago. There's also a lot of pop, since i've built my Pandora playlists with odd incongruities like Pelican and Taylor Swift, and prog metal songs are just too long to justify fitting in here...mostly. The overall tone is also a little more sedated than usual. Where i typically pack the PAC with high-energy punk and dance pop, this edition chills out a lot more often than you'd expect. Another interesting note: only one artist on this year's CD has a previous PAC appearance.
I think a lot of the subject matter of these songs is going to reflect the frustration i feel with life in general right now as well. I can probably connect most of these songs to my own rampant, sickeningly human emotions this year.
Anyway, on to the most self-indulgent part of my year!
1. Cat Power - Cross Bones Style
catpowermusic.com
Oh how the time flies. Yeah, that's a good lyric to open up with. I've bumbled through time at a weird pace this year, i feel. For the first nine months, i was kicking and screaming, and i kept freaking out that 2018 was so close, even back in March. This was because i was adamant on having my debut feature film, The Monster of Mud Lake, finished and released this year, and i knew i was nowhere near where i needed to be, preproduction-wise. Time was crawling, just so i could experience the extended panic. Well, come September, once we knew we weren't going to get principal photography even a little bit done and decided to push off until next May, suddenly time started speeding, to the point where i didn't even realize that November had come and the PAC was barely started.
Time aside, let's talk about Cat Power. Moon Pix, from which Cross Bones Style hails, was my first Cat Power record. And though i've dabbled with Chan Marshall's work in the years since discovering her, i guess i never paid enough attention. I've spent more time listening to her covers than her originals. But this song came up on one of my Pandora stations and was startled by what i had been missing out on, what i should have already known.
You have seen some unbelievable things.
2. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Something Big
tompetty.com
This was one of the first tracks i added to the PAC, probably in February or March, long before he died. Around that time, i went through a phase where i was listening almost exclusively to Tom Petty; i loaded up the six-disc Playback boxed set in the van's CD changer and it just stayed there for a month or more. I also changed my religious views on Facebook to "Tom Petty is God." So you can imagine how well i've taken his untimely departure.
Of Petty's vast catalog, or even just of that massive boxed set, this song struck a chord with me because of the chorus: It wasn't no way to carry on, it wasn't no way to live, but he could put up with it for a little while, he was working on something big. Considering the aforementioned feature film i've been developing, coupled with my complete frustration with my current employment situation, it felt almost as though this song were written about my 2017...and released three years before i was born.
It was Monday when the daymaids found the still-made bed, all except the pillows that lay stacked up at the head, and one said, 'i know i've seen his face, i wonder who he is?,' and the other said, "he's probably just another clown working on something big."
Gosh, i hope that part's not about me.
3. Tracy Bonham - Mother Mother
tracybonham.com
Given how exhaustively i've compiled 90s alternative music, collecting CDs out of the bargain bin, countless hours reading Wikipedia, and building playlists that would put any functioning radio station from the time to shame, it was an absolute shock to me when Pandora managed to hit me in the face with actual, unbridled nostalgia. I haven't said, "i haven't heard this song in ages!" in ages, and yet here we are. Something i remember fondly from my youth, but which had somehow escaped the cataloguing fingers of my 20s and 30s. Welcome to the Mobyfort, Ms. Bonham.
This also speaks to the early-20s angst that's been resurgent in me lately. Especially considering that i'm contemplating moving to a new city 2000 miles away, it looks like i could be returning to the pressures of early adulthood soon. Everything's fine!
4. Cats on Leashes - Shitty Kitty
catsonleashes.weebly.com
The second of two cat-themed band names, here's the band i've been playing guitar in for the last three years! We finally got something recorded, yay! It's been a long journey, full of tacos and dead owls, and i'm just happy to have something to show for it. This is one of my favorite songs to play live. It's aggressive, and i get to throw myself around the stage and smack my guitar on stuff. Also, that's me screaming in the background.
How does this fit the running theme? Oh, uh, i guess i have angst about...cat diarrhea? Let's go with that.
5. Be Your Own Pet - Super Soaked
myspace.com/beyourownpetmusic
[I've included the link to their Myspace page because the band no longer exists and their official web site seems to have become...some...weird, incongruous random blog that posts miscellanea twice a year?]
Here's a band i've been told about several times and never looked into. Another Pandora find, this is exactly the kind of punk rock energy i seek. It's also another angsty early-adulthood song about partying and avoiding responsibility. Perfect! Also relevant because next year i'll be 21.
That...that was a joke. Next year i'll be 34.
6. Russian Circles - Fathom
russiancirclesband.com
Here's one of those instrumental prog metal songs i was talking about in the intro. Giant, heavy guitar riffs and epic drums that just get caught in my head and never get out. I've picked this song because, yes, it's one of the guitar riffs that i can't stop thinking about for days on end, but also because, at five minutes, this is one of the shortest songs i can find in the entire genre.
The worst thing about getting into instrumental bands like this is that it's impossible to Google their songs. This is not even the one that i really wanted to include; there's another that has been in my head for weeks or months. I feel like it used to pop up on my Pandora shuffle a lot, but i haven't been able to find it at all since i started compiling in earnest. All i've got is that the guitar riff goes duuuun, duuuun, duuun, dah dah dah duuun, and i can't even say for sure that it's by Russian Circles; it might as easily be Pelican or Explosions in the Sky. It's just as well that i couldn't find it, though; it's probably twelve minutes long.
7. Sohodolls - Right and Right Again
facebook.com/sohodolls
[I've included the link to their Facebook page, because the band no longer exists and their official web site seems to have become a lifestyle blog.]
Here's a pop song. There are a lot of pop songs on this year's playlist. Running Russian Circles straight into this is a good example of how i've lived my life this year.
That's...i guess that's it. I don't have anything profound to say about Sohodolls except that they've come up on Pandora a lot, and i've really enjoyed all of their songs that i've heard. This one the most, but also Bang Bang Bang Bang is up there.
8. Tiye Phoenix - Killin Everybody
twitter.com/tiyephoenix
Early this year, i went through a phase where i was listening to a lot of rap, almost exclusively female MCs. I was offered free tickets to see Run the Jewels, and wanted to get pumped up for it, so i listened through their stuff and then naturally progressed into the other limited options in my collection - Method Man, Busta Rhymes, Ice Cube. But once i landed back on Lizzo, the dudes didn't stand a chance. From there it was all Sophia Eris, Missy Elliott, Mala RodrÃguez, and so on. Which...shit, speaking of Mala RodrÃguez, i probably should have included 33.
So back to Pandora. Using Lizzo as a seed quickly led me to this song by Tiye Phoenix, who is impossible to find information on. Literally all i know about her is that she was part of a rap group called Polyrhythm Addicts, and a little bit of demographic info i found on a Dutch Wikipedia page. The only link i can find for her is her Twitter feed, which is, to put it lightly, updated infrequently. Looks like she's back in college after her rap career didn't work out, so good for her. So i bought her album off of Amazon, and i haven't regretted it. I've actually listened to it a lot.
Oh, and the Run the Jewels tickets fell through, unfortunately.
9. Lindsey Stirling - Crystallize
lindseystirling.com
Is Lindsey Stirling a big deal right now? I mean, i'm pretty out of touch with that sort of thing anymore, but i've been getting vague glimpses at the world that make it seem like she might be popular. I mean her web site asks if you want to buy VIP tickets to her shows before you get to see any content at all. Anyway here's a dubstep song with classical violin laid over it that i found on Pandora, and it's just so, so good.
10. Motorcycle - As the Rush Comes (Gabriel & Dresden Chillout mix)
officialjes.com
Another Pandora find. Here's a story though.
This song was popping up constantly on my Pandora stations. Plural. Like, most of them. Pretty much any station i built that wasn't explicitly for rap or metal, this song would somehow worm its way into. Part of that was because i had thumbed it up, which i've learned from excessive recent Pandora use means that they'll try and play it for you as often as they think they can get away with. But the other reason is that the EP this song is from is literally just five remixes of this song. So even though Pandora thinks it's playing me a different song by an artist i've enjoyed, it's just playing the same song over and over with slightly different arrangements. I like the song enough that i didn't want to remove the thumb, but doood. Play something different.
So when we walked into Frugal Muse, and the CD was sitting proudly on their Featured Titles shelf, with that inescapable artwork and all five fucking remixes, i picked it up angrily, said to Amanda, "I cannot adequately explain why this makes me so angry," and then angrily bought it. It now sits angrily in the Mobyfort.
11. The Naked and Famous - Punching in a Dream
thenakedandfamous.com
This is worse than it seems
Wait
I don't ever want to be here
Like punching in a dream, breathing life into my nightmares
New Zealand's next most important pop import to the US, after Lorde, i can't recall when i first came into contact with The Naked And Famous. At first i didn't want to give them a chance, being a little miffed that such a sickly sweet pop group had taken their name from my favorite Presidents of the United States of America song, but i've since recognized that as stupid. Especially since most of my listening habits this year have geared toward sickly-sweet pop music and dark lyrics. Hey, this song has both! God i love this song. And this band is pretty great.
12. The Sounds - Painted By Numbers
the-sounds.com
This is the only band on the 2017 PAC that has previously appeared on a Poor-Ass Christmas, all the way back in 2010, when i offered up one of their punkier tracks, Riot. This is more pop fare, perfect for 2017 Trevor.
We'll be the same tomorrow
Because we've all been painted by numbers...
13. Lazerhawk - Children of the Night
facebook.com/Lazerhawk-302433556433458
The second of two six-minute (!!) tracks that i couldn't bring my self to cut, even for the sake of brevity, even knowing that it could make way for two or three other tracks (i cut 19 tracks from my starting playlist this year, a record). I'm really enjoying the Synthwave movement. Like the soundtracks to cheesy 80s horror movies, which i've also developed a new affection for this year. This is something i discovered by plugging Espectrostatic (see PAC2015) into Pandora, because i was curious if anyone else was doing that sort of thing. And i've been pretty happy with the results. Also, while i was working on the playlist over the last few months, Amanda commented that this reminded her of one of her favorite Sega games from her childhood, Altered Beast.
14. Spinnerette - Ghetto Love
brodydalle.com
It's shocking that it's taken me this long to find Spinnerette, considering my proclivity for Brody Dalle's works since i was first exposed to The Distillers almost ten years ago. I clearly haven't taken enough time to explore her side projects. When this popped up on Pandora, all i could do was sit there like an idiot and go, "Gosh, that sounds a lot like Brody Dalle." So anyway, here's a dash of punk rock to try and salvage what's left of my cred.
15. Betty Blowtorch - Love/Hate
bettyblowtorch.com
Here's another band i should have been into much earlier. Originally formed by three former members of Butt Trumpet, including vocalist Bianca Butthole, they're a little more straightforward rock than the crass punk of the band that spawned them. I heard many of their songs on Pandora, quietly in my cubicle while typing up chlamydia demographics, but this one was my favorite. While i was cutting tracks, i had considered losing this one, but Amanda pointed to it as one she really liked. Frankly, any time i can get Amanda into punk music heavier than Blink-182, i'm going to file that in the win column. Interestingly, since Bianca Butthole's untimely death in 2001, the other members of this band have gone their own ways and separately formed all-female tributes to Black Sabbath and AC/DC, which are also things i'd probably be interested in.
16. The Pack a.d. - Sirens
thepackad.com
I don't know anything about this band, and that's a shame. I'd call them punk but they're more of a heavy garage rock, and listening to their music, it's hard to believe they're a two piece. Also they're Canadian, and they have an album called We Kill Computers. There, now you know as much as i do. I might get more into this band in the near future.
17. Mono in Stereo - Long for Yesterday
facebook.com/monoinstereoband
Ah, here are these guys, with their long-overdue first PAC appearance. Mono in Stereo from Rockford, Illinois, have a long history with The Type, one of my favorite Madison bands who some of you may recall i ended up joining a band that, at the time, featured three former members of. I'm speaking of course about Cats on Leashes, who also have shared bills and swapped shows with Mono in Stereo for the length of our brief existence. To top off the bond, Mono in Stereo guitarist Bill Maynard engineered, mixed, and mastered our debut album, which you can hear the hit single from at track #4 on this here compact disc.
I also had these guys on Wisconscene, even though they're technically from Illinois, because Bill technically also lives just north of the border. In some ways, i wish i'd put the Wisconscene recording of this song on the PAC a few years ago, because it's been stuck in my head since then, but in other ways i'm glad i waited until i got the actual album version. As good as the album is, i prefer their live performances; they're just so much rawer and punkier. And overall i'm not sure how i feel about the piano tracks, it gives them a real Bruce Springsteen/The Hold Steady vibe. But, while i'm fumbling here for the right words to adequately describe my feelings on the matter, i think i'll just let my actions speak for me by pointing out that this is the one i chose.
The lyrics to this song also reflect a lot of the stuff i've said above about aging and existing.
Always looking forward to the next time i can share a stage with these dudes.
18. CSS - Music is My Hot Hot Sex
facebook.com/CSSSUXXX/
[I've included the link to their Facebook because their official website seems to have been hijacked by an Indonesian shitposter...not unlike Be Your Own Pet above. Actually exactly like that...that's fucking weird. Are shitposters going around buying the domains of defunct pop and punk bands now?]
CSS is from Brazil? All this time i thought they were French... Today i am learning things.
Pandora reminded me of this band from one of our few New Zealand CDs, all the way back in that long-forgotten year of 2008.
It's a bit ironic, though, that i'd choose to include a song like this on the 2017 Poor-Ass Christmas. The lyrics aren't subtle; it's about loving music over literally anything else. Music is my boyfriend, music is my girlfriend. And i've been finding myself questioning lately whether i've completely lost my passion for music. The answer is obviously not completely; but maybe...maybe like, a lot. A lot if it. Maybe that's why there's so much pop this year.
19. Ladyhawke - Magic
ladyhawkemusic.com
Wait a minute...Ladyhawke is from New Zealand also? Damn. At least her name isn't Ellie or Ella. I have a weird tendency to like pop singers who use stage names, and then later find out their real name is Ellie or Ella or Elly, or perhaps some other variant. Wikipedia also tells me she used to play guitar in a grunge band called Two Lane Blacktop. Awesome.
This was a late addition to the PAC, another pop song i kept hearing on Pandora, but then right around track sequencing time just couldn't get out of my head. And even now, after everything's finalized and i've been listening to a beta copy of the disc in the car for the last few weeks, this is the one i'm thinking of just all the time. There's nothing more insightful on this one, it's just infectious.
Also i couldn't resist having both Ladyhawke and Lazerhawk on the same disc.
20. Blue Foundation - Eyes on Fire
bluefoundationofficial.com
The counterpart to track 10, As the Rush Comes by Motorcycle. This one has a similar story, and in my mind i've associated the two. It's another song that i had thumbed up and has remixes available on Pandora, so it's found its way into most of my playlists and has just been played over. and over. and over again. But, i love it. I had considered the Zed's Dead remix but overall i prefer the original version; there's a particular sound in the background that sounds like the warbling of warm tape that really gets me. Also, for as chill as this song is, the lyrics are bonkers. I'll seek you out, flay you alive, one more word and you won't survive. And i kind of like that.
21. Wolf Alice - Giant Peach
wolfalice.co.uk
A last-minute replacement track for the comp. I'm really glad that i made the change, and also just very glad to be able to include Wolf Alice on this album. I think history will thank me for it later. I never wrote a blurb for this track in 2017, and i'm just circling back to it now at the end of 2019, while trying desperately to finish this year's PAC at the last possible moment. I'll come back and write something nice later. In the meantime, check out the next entry, about the song i dropped at the last second, even though it's written as though the song is still included.
XX. Brand New - At the Bottom
Okay.
I'm going to address this one in two parts.
Part the first. What i would have written before November 13, 2017:
Brand New is a band name i've heard bandied about a lot in various circles for years, but had never gotten around to checking out. Thanks once again and for the last time this year to the magic of Pandora, i got to experience At the Bottom for the first time while i was grappling with hitting my own bottom. The first thing i noticed about this song is the haunting guitar lick at the beginning. The next was this: If i wanted to die before i got old, i should've started some years ago digging that hole. And that, right there, is exactly what i've been feeling for the last few years. The remainder of the song's lyrical content sat with me in the same unsettling manner, seemingly about dying with a lifetime's worth of regret and unfulfilled potential. Which is exactly how i've seen myself for a while. And the chorus, about burying a friend and hoping they would do the same for you, just hits me like a ton of bricks. Objectively i know that there would be plenty of people that would be there to care if i was gone, but depression lies. Anxiety lies. And the things that i know are objectively true aren't necessarily what my stupid brain will accept as input. Putting all of my more recent mental health issues aside for the moment, the idea of literally FAILING TO DIE YOUNG hits me like a ton of bricks. I've long said that i expected to die the day before my thirtieth birthday. When i didn't, i wasn't sure how to feel. I never pictured myself being over 30. I felt old. And i felt like i hadn't accomplished anything worthwhile yet. Probably comes from a lifetime of looking up to members of the so-called "27 Club:" Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, et al.
I knew this would be hard to write but i guess i didn't know how hard. I can't lay out all of the disgusting human emotions this song makes me feel without making people worry about me, but i sincerely don't want that. This might be a tangent, but i've had a lot of resolution to those feelings recently as well; and, since i'm actually writing this on December 2, 2017, well after November 13, i can say that my recent trip to California has, for the first time, given me a pleasant outlook on life; i now have goals for where i want to be at 35, 50, 60, and beyond. I'm starting to internalize a lot of cheesy inspirational quotes too, actually feeling like i understand them for the first time. Dropping some of my cynicism.
This song is still crucial to me though. I knew the first time i heard it at regular volume (ie, not quietly in my cubicle at work) that it had to be the closing track this year. It's the only thing that can properly cap off 2017.
Part the second. What i have to write because this is still 2017:
The day after i finalized the track list i read that Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey was being accused of serial sexual misconduct with minors. My first instinct was to go back, drop the song from the comp, and forget i had ever found Brand New, what with having only been into them for a month or two. This is always my response to these sorts of things. I've cut out many entertainments that i had previously enjoyed, including bands, directors, and authors, for being shitty fucking human beings, particularly of this kind. I cut my own father out of my life entirely when i found out he was a sexual predator. It fucked up my entire perception of my upbringing, the whole first 22 years of my life that i had lived with him, and put my whole life into a different perspective. And i wasn't even one of his victims. He has never faced any consequences for his actions.
But i didn't toss the song off of the comp. I do feel weird listening to it now, but did you read all the things i wrote up there? I've spent the last few years viewing the Poor-Ass Christmas as me writing my autobiography as a mixtape, and i can't have the 2017 chapter missing one of its most important elements.
So we come back to an age-old argument: do you separate the artist from the art? This is a philosophy that i've never subscribed to before. I don't believe that i should support shitty humans that i find repugnant on a moral level. Also, as an artist, musician, writer, and filmmaker, i can attest to exactly how much of yourself you put into your work. But in reading the comments on some of these articles about Lacey, i came across another angle to the argument that i hadn't considered before. A lot of people were drawing parallels to the Lostprophets case, wherein it suddenly came out that their frontman had been conspiring to have sex with A ONE YEAR OLD GIRL, as well as other related charges, which he has since been convicted of. In response, the rest of Lostprophets disbanded, seeing it as the only appropriate course of action.
So what happened to those guys? They had spent years building this band, putting their souls into it, everything that they were and had, and now it was wrecked because of one piece of shit and his actions outside of their control. These guys are victims here, too. So discarding the whole band, the whole work of a group of people, because of one bad egg...actually seems unfair. It's punishing the whole class because one kid put a tack on the teacher's chair. The rest of the band doesn't deserve to have their lives ruined too. The predator claims additional victims.
Coming back to Lacey, he's issued an apology, which was longwinded and rambling, which claims he's long since gone through therapy and gotten sober, leading to a positive change in his behavior. The question becomes, do we forgive him? While he does apologize for treating people like shit and states that he doesn't forgive himself, he doesn't make any mention of the fact that they were underaged, or that he strung them along for literal years. Has he made any reparations to the victims themselves? I'm guessing not, since they're all coming forward now. So he might just be making this all about himself and his own journey toward self-actualization, with no regard to the lives he's destroyed along the way. I don't know. I feel like we'll hear a lot more about this before it's all over.
I'm leaving this song on the album, and i've written all of these words about it. It's a conversation that we, as a society, need to have, really. Overall i'm still very glad that all of these powerful men who've gotten away with taking whatever they want for years or decades are finally facing the consequences of their actions, and i don't feel sorry for any of them, regardless of how much i enjoyed their work. But, now what do we do with all of their art?
This discussion is really the only thing that can properly cap off 2017.
All of that probably should have been its own blog post, really.
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So there you have it, Poor Ass Christmas 2017. The weirdest PAC yet. Hey, here's something that i've forgotten to do the last two years: a list of the songs that got cut! Just in case you were curious. I do regret losing a lot of these, but i'm not naive enough to believe that anyone will put up with this becoming a two-disc affair. Seriously the songs i cut add up to an hour and thirteen minutes, plop two more songs in there and you have another entire PAC.
The Birthday Massacre - Shallow Grave (Imaginary Monsters version)
The Birthday Massacre - Shallow Grave (Pins and Needles version)
Bjork - Army of Me
The Cardigans - My Favourite Game
Dick the Bruiser - Day Glow Me
FC Kahuna - Hayling
Heartsrevolution - Kishi Kaisei
Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked
The Interrupters - The Metro
Land of Talk - All My Friends
Nightmares on Wax - You Wish
Planetakis - Messages
Screaming Females - Glass House
Teddybears - Glow in the Dark
The Trucks - Shattered
Uh Huh Her - Common Reaction
Wax Fang - Magic Hour
Wolf Alice - Giant Peach
Discount - Soup
That last one, Soup, i hung onto until the bitter end. I kept trying to build Pandora playlists with Discount, forgetting that they only had one Discount song in their entire fucking library, and so i heard Soup just an unnatural number of times early this year. They did eventually manage to expand their Discount catalog though, so that's nice. Overall, though, the tone of the song just didn't fit with everything else. I know - that seems like nonsense - i've mixed pop, metal, rap, and punk here and i'm calling it seamless, but i couldn't get this one pop punk song in? No, it really felt out of place, even among such already mixed company. My biggest regret, though, is cutting Day Glow Me by Dick the Bruiser. It would have been the only local track besides Cats On Leashes, and the opening lines Everything's on fire, but i feel great, because i'm not on fire are about the most 2017 thing i can think of, even though this song is from 2012.
Well, until next year. What will happen to our heroes in 2018???!?
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This is going to be a very peculiar entry in the Poor-Ass Christmas line. The Digital Mobyfort was offline for most of the year, and thus i've been entertaining myself chiefly with Pandora. This leads to hearing a lot of the hits, or at least singles, over and over, and not much in the way of deep cuts. I've also been almost entirely out of the Madison music scene this year, in the anxiety-fueled exile that's now entered its third and so far most furious year, so the only local music that's present is my own band and a Rockford band that should've appeared two or three comps ago. There's also a lot of pop, since i've built my Pandora playlists with odd incongruities like Pelican and Taylor Swift, and prog metal songs are just too long to justify fitting in here...mostly. The overall tone is also a little more sedated than usual. Where i typically pack the PAC with high-energy punk and dance pop, this edition chills out a lot more often than you'd expect. Another interesting note: only one artist on this year's CD has a previous PAC appearance.
I think a lot of the subject matter of these songs is going to reflect the frustration i feel with life in general right now as well. I can probably connect most of these songs to my own rampant, sickeningly human emotions this year.
Anyway, on to the most self-indulgent part of my year!
1. Cat Power - Cross Bones Style
catpowermusic.com
Oh how the time flies. Yeah, that's a good lyric to open up with. I've bumbled through time at a weird pace this year, i feel. For the first nine months, i was kicking and screaming, and i kept freaking out that 2018 was so close, even back in March. This was because i was adamant on having my debut feature film, The Monster of Mud Lake, finished and released this year, and i knew i was nowhere near where i needed to be, preproduction-wise. Time was crawling, just so i could experience the extended panic. Well, come September, once we knew we weren't going to get principal photography even a little bit done and decided to push off until next May, suddenly time started speeding, to the point where i didn't even realize that November had come and the PAC was barely started.
Time aside, let's talk about Cat Power. Moon Pix, from which Cross Bones Style hails, was my first Cat Power record. And though i've dabbled with Chan Marshall's work in the years since discovering her, i guess i never paid enough attention. I've spent more time listening to her covers than her originals. But this song came up on one of my Pandora stations and was startled by what i had been missing out on, what i should have already known.
You have seen some unbelievable things.
2. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - Something Big
tompetty.com
This was one of the first tracks i added to the PAC, probably in February or March, long before he died. Around that time, i went through a phase where i was listening almost exclusively to Tom Petty; i loaded up the six-disc Playback boxed set in the van's CD changer and it just stayed there for a month or more. I also changed my religious views on Facebook to "Tom Petty is God." So you can imagine how well i've taken his untimely departure.
Of Petty's vast catalog, or even just of that massive boxed set, this song struck a chord with me because of the chorus: It wasn't no way to carry on, it wasn't no way to live, but he could put up with it for a little while, he was working on something big. Considering the aforementioned feature film i've been developing, coupled with my complete frustration with my current employment situation, it felt almost as though this song were written about my 2017...and released three years before i was born.
It was Monday when the daymaids found the still-made bed, all except the pillows that lay stacked up at the head, and one said, 'i know i've seen his face, i wonder who he is?,' and the other said, "he's probably just another clown working on something big."
Gosh, i hope that part's not about me.
3. Tracy Bonham - Mother Mother
tracybonham.com
Given how exhaustively i've compiled 90s alternative music, collecting CDs out of the bargain bin, countless hours reading Wikipedia, and building playlists that would put any functioning radio station from the time to shame, it was an absolute shock to me when Pandora managed to hit me in the face with actual, unbridled nostalgia. I haven't said, "i haven't heard this song in ages!" in ages, and yet here we are. Something i remember fondly from my youth, but which had somehow escaped the cataloguing fingers of my 20s and 30s. Welcome to the Mobyfort, Ms. Bonham.
This also speaks to the early-20s angst that's been resurgent in me lately. Especially considering that i'm contemplating moving to a new city 2000 miles away, it looks like i could be returning to the pressures of early adulthood soon. Everything's fine!
4. Cats on Leashes - Shitty Kitty
catsonleashes.weebly.com
The second of two cat-themed band names, here's the band i've been playing guitar in for the last three years! We finally got something recorded, yay! It's been a long journey, full of tacos and dead owls, and i'm just happy to have something to show for it. This is one of my favorite songs to play live. It's aggressive, and i get to throw myself around the stage and smack my guitar on stuff. Also, that's me screaming in the background.
How does this fit the running theme? Oh, uh, i guess i have angst about...cat diarrhea? Let's go with that.
5. Be Your Own Pet - Super Soaked
myspace.com/beyourownpetmusic
[I've included the link to their Myspace page because the band no longer exists and their official web site seems to have become...some...weird, incongruous random blog that posts miscellanea twice a year?]
Here's a band i've been told about several times and never looked into. Another Pandora find, this is exactly the kind of punk rock energy i seek. It's also another angsty early-adulthood song about partying and avoiding responsibility. Perfect! Also relevant because next year i'll be 21.
That...that was a joke. Next year i'll be 34.
6. Russian Circles - Fathom
russiancirclesband.com
Here's one of those instrumental prog metal songs i was talking about in the intro. Giant, heavy guitar riffs and epic drums that just get caught in my head and never get out. I've picked this song because, yes, it's one of the guitar riffs that i can't stop thinking about for days on end, but also because, at five minutes, this is one of the shortest songs i can find in the entire genre.
The worst thing about getting into instrumental bands like this is that it's impossible to Google their songs. This is not even the one that i really wanted to include; there's another that has been in my head for weeks or months. I feel like it used to pop up on my Pandora shuffle a lot, but i haven't been able to find it at all since i started compiling in earnest. All i've got is that the guitar riff goes duuuun, duuuun, duuun, dah dah dah duuun, and i can't even say for sure that it's by Russian Circles; it might as easily be Pelican or Explosions in the Sky. It's just as well that i couldn't find it, though; it's probably twelve minutes long.
7. Sohodolls - Right and Right Again
facebook.com/sohodolls
[I've included the link to their Facebook page, because the band no longer exists and their official web site seems to have become a lifestyle blog.]
Here's a pop song. There are a lot of pop songs on this year's playlist. Running Russian Circles straight into this is a good example of how i've lived my life this year.
That's...i guess that's it. I don't have anything profound to say about Sohodolls except that they've come up on Pandora a lot, and i've really enjoyed all of their songs that i've heard. This one the most, but also Bang Bang Bang Bang is up there.
8. Tiye Phoenix - Killin Everybody
twitter.com/tiyephoenix
Early this year, i went through a phase where i was listening to a lot of rap, almost exclusively female MCs. I was offered free tickets to see Run the Jewels, and wanted to get pumped up for it, so i listened through their stuff and then naturally progressed into the other limited options in my collection - Method Man, Busta Rhymes, Ice Cube. But once i landed back on Lizzo, the dudes didn't stand a chance. From there it was all Sophia Eris, Missy Elliott, Mala RodrÃguez, and so on. Which...shit, speaking of Mala RodrÃguez, i probably should have included 33.
So back to Pandora. Using Lizzo as a seed quickly led me to this song by Tiye Phoenix, who is impossible to find information on. Literally all i know about her is that she was part of a rap group called Polyrhythm Addicts, and a little bit of demographic info i found on a Dutch Wikipedia page. The only link i can find for her is her Twitter feed, which is, to put it lightly, updated infrequently. Looks like she's back in college after her rap career didn't work out, so good for her. So i bought her album off of Amazon, and i haven't regretted it. I've actually listened to it a lot.
Oh, and the Run the Jewels tickets fell through, unfortunately.
9. Lindsey Stirling - Crystallize
lindseystirling.com
Is Lindsey Stirling a big deal right now? I mean, i'm pretty out of touch with that sort of thing anymore, but i've been getting vague glimpses at the world that make it seem like she might be popular. I mean her web site asks if you want to buy VIP tickets to her shows before you get to see any content at all. Anyway here's a dubstep song with classical violin laid over it that i found on Pandora, and it's just so, so good.
10. Motorcycle - As the Rush Comes (Gabriel & Dresden Chillout mix)
officialjes.com
Another Pandora find. Here's a story though.
This song was popping up constantly on my Pandora stations. Plural. Like, most of them. Pretty much any station i built that wasn't explicitly for rap or metal, this song would somehow worm its way into. Part of that was because i had thumbed it up, which i've learned from excessive recent Pandora use means that they'll try and play it for you as often as they think they can get away with. But the other reason is that the EP this song is from is literally just five remixes of this song. So even though Pandora thinks it's playing me a different song by an artist i've enjoyed, it's just playing the same song over and over with slightly different arrangements. I like the song enough that i didn't want to remove the thumb, but doood. Play something different.
So when we walked into Frugal Muse, and the CD was sitting proudly on their Featured Titles shelf, with that inescapable artwork and all five fucking remixes, i picked it up angrily, said to Amanda, "I cannot adequately explain why this makes me so angry," and then angrily bought it. It now sits angrily in the Mobyfort.
11. The Naked and Famous - Punching in a Dream
thenakedandfamous.com
This is worse than it seems
Wait
I don't ever want to be here
Like punching in a dream, breathing life into my nightmares
New Zealand's next most important pop import to the US, after Lorde, i can't recall when i first came into contact with The Naked And Famous. At first i didn't want to give them a chance, being a little miffed that such a sickly sweet pop group had taken their name from my favorite Presidents of the United States of America song, but i've since recognized that as stupid. Especially since most of my listening habits this year have geared toward sickly-sweet pop music and dark lyrics. Hey, this song has both! God i love this song. And this band is pretty great.
12. The Sounds - Painted By Numbers
the-sounds.com
This is the only band on the 2017 PAC that has previously appeared on a Poor-Ass Christmas, all the way back in 2010, when i offered up one of their punkier tracks, Riot. This is more pop fare, perfect for 2017 Trevor.
We'll be the same tomorrow
Because we've all been painted by numbers...
13. Lazerhawk - Children of the Night
facebook.com/Lazerhawk-302433556433458
The second of two six-minute (!!) tracks that i couldn't bring my self to cut, even for the sake of brevity, even knowing that it could make way for two or three other tracks (i cut 19 tracks from my starting playlist this year, a record). I'm really enjoying the Synthwave movement. Like the soundtracks to cheesy 80s horror movies, which i've also developed a new affection for this year. This is something i discovered by plugging Espectrostatic (see PAC2015) into Pandora, because i was curious if anyone else was doing that sort of thing. And i've been pretty happy with the results. Also, while i was working on the playlist over the last few months, Amanda commented that this reminded her of one of her favorite Sega games from her childhood, Altered Beast.
14. Spinnerette - Ghetto Love
brodydalle.com
It's shocking that it's taken me this long to find Spinnerette, considering my proclivity for Brody Dalle's works since i was first exposed to The Distillers almost ten years ago. I clearly haven't taken enough time to explore her side projects. When this popped up on Pandora, all i could do was sit there like an idiot and go, "Gosh, that sounds a lot like Brody Dalle." So anyway, here's a dash of punk rock to try and salvage what's left of my cred.
15. Betty Blowtorch - Love/Hate
bettyblowtorch.com
Here's another band i should have been into much earlier. Originally formed by three former members of Butt Trumpet, including vocalist Bianca Butthole, they're a little more straightforward rock than the crass punk of the band that spawned them. I heard many of their songs on Pandora, quietly in my cubicle while typing up chlamydia demographics, but this one was my favorite. While i was cutting tracks, i had considered losing this one, but Amanda pointed to it as one she really liked. Frankly, any time i can get Amanda into punk music heavier than Blink-182, i'm going to file that in the win column. Interestingly, since Bianca Butthole's untimely death in 2001, the other members of this band have gone their own ways and separately formed all-female tributes to Black Sabbath and AC/DC, which are also things i'd probably be interested in.
16. The Pack a.d. - Sirens
thepackad.com
I don't know anything about this band, and that's a shame. I'd call them punk but they're more of a heavy garage rock, and listening to their music, it's hard to believe they're a two piece. Also they're Canadian, and they have an album called We Kill Computers. There, now you know as much as i do. I might get more into this band in the near future.
17. Mono in Stereo - Long for Yesterday
facebook.com/monoinstereoband
Ah, here are these guys, with their long-overdue first PAC appearance. Mono in Stereo from Rockford, Illinois, have a long history with The Type, one of my favorite Madison bands who some of you may recall i ended up joining a band that, at the time, featured three former members of. I'm speaking of course about Cats on Leashes, who also have shared bills and swapped shows with Mono in Stereo for the length of our brief existence. To top off the bond, Mono in Stereo guitarist Bill Maynard engineered, mixed, and mastered our debut album, which you can hear the hit single from at track #4 on this here compact disc.
I also had these guys on Wisconscene, even though they're technically from Illinois, because Bill technically also lives just north of the border. In some ways, i wish i'd put the Wisconscene recording of this song on the PAC a few years ago, because it's been stuck in my head since then, but in other ways i'm glad i waited until i got the actual album version. As good as the album is, i prefer their live performances; they're just so much rawer and punkier. And overall i'm not sure how i feel about the piano tracks, it gives them a real Bruce Springsteen/The Hold Steady vibe. But, while i'm fumbling here for the right words to adequately describe my feelings on the matter, i think i'll just let my actions speak for me by pointing out that this is the one i chose.
The lyrics to this song also reflect a lot of the stuff i've said above about aging and existing.
Always looking forward to the next time i can share a stage with these dudes.
18. CSS - Music is My Hot Hot Sex
facebook.com/CSSSUXXX/
[I've included the link to their Facebook because their official website seems to have been hijacked by an Indonesian shitposter...not unlike Be Your Own Pet above. Actually exactly like that...that's fucking weird. Are shitposters going around buying the domains of defunct pop and punk bands now?]
CSS is from Brazil? All this time i thought they were French... Today i am learning things.
Pandora reminded me of this band from one of our few New Zealand CDs, all the way back in that long-forgotten year of 2008.
It's a bit ironic, though, that i'd choose to include a song like this on the 2017 Poor-Ass Christmas. The lyrics aren't subtle; it's about loving music over literally anything else. Music is my boyfriend, music is my girlfriend. And i've been finding myself questioning lately whether i've completely lost my passion for music. The answer is obviously not completely; but maybe...maybe like, a lot. A lot if it. Maybe that's why there's so much pop this year.
19. Ladyhawke - Magic
ladyhawkemusic.com
Wait a minute...Ladyhawke is from New Zealand also? Damn. At least her name isn't Ellie or Ella. I have a weird tendency to like pop singers who use stage names, and then later find out their real name is Ellie or Ella or Elly, or perhaps some other variant. Wikipedia also tells me she used to play guitar in a grunge band called Two Lane Blacktop. Awesome.
This was a late addition to the PAC, another pop song i kept hearing on Pandora, but then right around track sequencing time just couldn't get out of my head. And even now, after everything's finalized and i've been listening to a beta copy of the disc in the car for the last few weeks, this is the one i'm thinking of just all the time. There's nothing more insightful on this one, it's just infectious.
Also i couldn't resist having both Ladyhawke and Lazerhawk on the same disc.
20. Blue Foundation - Eyes on Fire
bluefoundationofficial.com
The counterpart to track 10, As the Rush Comes by Motorcycle. This one has a similar story, and in my mind i've associated the two. It's another song that i had thumbed up and has remixes available on Pandora, so it's found its way into most of my playlists and has just been played over. and over. and over again. But, i love it. I had considered the Zed's Dead remix but overall i prefer the original version; there's a particular sound in the background that sounds like the warbling of warm tape that really gets me. Also, for as chill as this song is, the lyrics are bonkers. I'll seek you out, flay you alive, one more word and you won't survive. And i kind of like that.
21. Wolf Alice - Giant Peach
wolfalice.co.uk
A last-minute replacement track for the comp. I'm really glad that i made the change, and also just very glad to be able to include Wolf Alice on this album. I think history will thank me for it later. I never wrote a blurb for this track in 2017, and i'm just circling back to it now at the end of 2019, while trying desperately to finish this year's PAC at the last possible moment. I'll come back and write something nice later. In the meantime, check out the next entry, about the song i dropped at the last second, even though it's written as though the song is still included.
XX. Brand New - At the Bottom
Okay.
I'm going to address this one in two parts.
Part the first. What i would have written before November 13, 2017:
Brand New is a band name i've heard bandied about a lot in various circles for years, but had never gotten around to checking out. Thanks once again and for the last time this year to the magic of Pandora, i got to experience At the Bottom for the first time while i was grappling with hitting my own bottom. The first thing i noticed about this song is the haunting guitar lick at the beginning. The next was this: If i wanted to die before i got old, i should've started some years ago digging that hole. And that, right there, is exactly what i've been feeling for the last few years. The remainder of the song's lyrical content sat with me in the same unsettling manner, seemingly about dying with a lifetime's worth of regret and unfulfilled potential. Which is exactly how i've seen myself for a while. And the chorus, about burying a friend and hoping they would do the same for you, just hits me like a ton of bricks. Objectively i know that there would be plenty of people that would be there to care if i was gone, but depression lies. Anxiety lies. And the things that i know are objectively true aren't necessarily what my stupid brain will accept as input. Putting all of my more recent mental health issues aside for the moment, the idea of literally FAILING TO DIE YOUNG hits me like a ton of bricks. I've long said that i expected to die the day before my thirtieth birthday. When i didn't, i wasn't sure how to feel. I never pictured myself being over 30. I felt old. And i felt like i hadn't accomplished anything worthwhile yet. Probably comes from a lifetime of looking up to members of the so-called "27 Club:" Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, et al.
I knew this would be hard to write but i guess i didn't know how hard. I can't lay out all of the disgusting human emotions this song makes me feel without making people worry about me, but i sincerely don't want that. This might be a tangent, but i've had a lot of resolution to those feelings recently as well; and, since i'm actually writing this on December 2, 2017, well after November 13, i can say that my recent trip to California has, for the first time, given me a pleasant outlook on life; i now have goals for where i want to be at 35, 50, 60, and beyond. I'm starting to internalize a lot of cheesy inspirational quotes too, actually feeling like i understand them for the first time. Dropping some of my cynicism.
This song is still crucial to me though. I knew the first time i heard it at regular volume (ie, not quietly in my cubicle at work) that it had to be the closing track this year. It's the only thing that can properly cap off 2017.
Part the second. What i have to write because this is still 2017:
The day after i finalized the track list i read that Brand New frontman Jesse Lacey was being accused of serial sexual misconduct with minors. My first instinct was to go back, drop the song from the comp, and forget i had ever found Brand New, what with having only been into them for a month or two. This is always my response to these sorts of things. I've cut out many entertainments that i had previously enjoyed, including bands, directors, and authors, for being shitty fucking human beings, particularly of this kind. I cut my own father out of my life entirely when i found out he was a sexual predator. It fucked up my entire perception of my upbringing, the whole first 22 years of my life that i had lived with him, and put my whole life into a different perspective. And i wasn't even one of his victims. He has never faced any consequences for his actions.
But i didn't toss the song off of the comp. I do feel weird listening to it now, but did you read all the things i wrote up there? I've spent the last few years viewing the Poor-Ass Christmas as me writing my autobiography as a mixtape, and i can't have the 2017 chapter missing one of its most important elements.
So we come back to an age-old argument: do you separate the artist from the art? This is a philosophy that i've never subscribed to before. I don't believe that i should support shitty humans that i find repugnant on a moral level. Also, as an artist, musician, writer, and filmmaker, i can attest to exactly how much of yourself you put into your work. But in reading the comments on some of these articles about Lacey, i came across another angle to the argument that i hadn't considered before. A lot of people were drawing parallels to the Lostprophets case, wherein it suddenly came out that their frontman had been conspiring to have sex with A ONE YEAR OLD GIRL, as well as other related charges, which he has since been convicted of. In response, the rest of Lostprophets disbanded, seeing it as the only appropriate course of action.
So what happened to those guys? They had spent years building this band, putting their souls into it, everything that they were and had, and now it was wrecked because of one piece of shit and his actions outside of their control. These guys are victims here, too. So discarding the whole band, the whole work of a group of people, because of one bad egg...actually seems unfair. It's punishing the whole class because one kid put a tack on the teacher's chair. The rest of the band doesn't deserve to have their lives ruined too. The predator claims additional victims.
Coming back to Lacey, he's issued an apology, which was longwinded and rambling, which claims he's long since gone through therapy and gotten sober, leading to a positive change in his behavior. The question becomes, do we forgive him? While he does apologize for treating people like shit and states that he doesn't forgive himself, he doesn't make any mention of the fact that they were underaged, or that he strung them along for literal years. Has he made any reparations to the victims themselves? I'm guessing not, since they're all coming forward now. So he might just be making this all about himself and his own journey toward self-actualization, with no regard to the lives he's destroyed along the way. I don't know. I feel like we'll hear a lot more about this before it's all over.
I'm leaving this song on the album, and i've written all of these words about it. It's a conversation that we, as a society, need to have, really. Overall i'm still very glad that all of these powerful men who've gotten away with taking whatever they want for years or decades are finally facing the consequences of their actions, and i don't feel sorry for any of them, regardless of how much i enjoyed their work. But, now what do we do with all of their art?
This discussion is really the only thing that can properly cap off 2017.
All of that probably should have been its own blog post, really.
---
So there you have it, Poor Ass Christmas 2017. The weirdest PAC yet. Hey, here's something that i've forgotten to do the last two years: a list of the songs that got cut! Just in case you were curious. I do regret losing a lot of these, but i'm not naive enough to believe that anyone will put up with this becoming a two-disc affair. Seriously the songs i cut add up to an hour and thirteen minutes, plop two more songs in there and you have another entire PAC.
The Birthday Massacre - Shallow Grave (Imaginary Monsters version)
The Birthday Massacre - Shallow Grave (Pins and Needles version)
Bjork - Army of Me
The Cardigans - My Favourite Game
Dick the Bruiser - Day Glow Me
FC Kahuna - Hayling
Heartsrevolution - Kishi Kaisei
Ida Maria - I Like You So Much Better When You're Naked
The Interrupters - The Metro
Land of Talk - All My Friends
Nightmares on Wax - You Wish
Planetakis - Messages
Screaming Females - Glass House
Teddybears - Glow in the Dark
The Trucks - Shattered
Uh Huh Her - Common Reaction
Wax Fang - Magic Hour
Discount - Soup
That last one, Soup, i hung onto until the bitter end. I kept trying to build Pandora playlists with Discount, forgetting that they only had one Discount song in their entire fucking library, and so i heard Soup just an unnatural number of times early this year. They did eventually manage to expand their Discount catalog though, so that's nice. Overall, though, the tone of the song just didn't fit with everything else. I know - that seems like nonsense - i've mixed pop, metal, rap, and punk here and i'm calling it seamless, but i couldn't get this one pop punk song in? No, it really felt out of place, even among such already mixed company. My biggest regret, though, is cutting Day Glow Me by Dick the Bruiser. It would have been the only local track besides Cats On Leashes, and the opening lines Everything's on fire, but i feel great, because i'm not on fire are about the most 2017 thing i can think of, even though this song is from 2012.
Well, until next year. What will happen to our heroes in 2018???!?
