The Blow, Live At The Showbox, Seattle, February 9, 2007

“Just how naked are we gonna get, just exactly how naked are we gonna get?” whispers Seattle native-cum-Portlander Khaela Maricich––who calls to mind a younger, hipper, way more musically talented Ellen Degeneres––as she nervously takes the stage. There is no instrumentation yet, and she keeps a beat merely by taping the microphone with her finger. Everyone standing in the audience assumed this a cappella performance was just a mic check, but as the song continues, with no abrupt mic checking end in sight, it becomes evident this is the Blow, and the audience is now fully captivated.
Of course, for the rest of the set there is music. Those addictive, plucky, body-rocking beats created by Jona Bechtolt, the Blow’s second member, are played underneath Khaela’s beautifully clean and startlingly sincere singing. The music is not live, though. Jona is nowhere to be found on stage; Kheala is up there all by herself with just a microphone and her awkward yet forceful white-girl-can-dance dance moves performed in time with the music. Plus, the solo performance makes the already heartfelt songs seem even more personal.
“You know those songs, where it’s just like ‘ugh, I want you!’?” she asks a few songs into her set, “well, those are the most interesting.” She then proceeds to tell the audience, who, as a whole, is still not at all sure what to expect from their evening, how she felt there weren’t enough songs like that out there and how she decided to write some more.
This explanation truly does explain everything: if you are at all familiar with the Blow’s album, Paper Television, you are sure to have asked yourself why are all of the songs are about some girl who constantly doubts herself (with lyrics like “I would consider myself lucky to be right in on your threesome,” “I guess I’m on the long list of girls who love the shit out of you,” or “you really wanna hold my hand?” it’s hard to focus on any other theme) and can never completely get that guy?
Well, the short answer is that the woman who wrote them thinks they’re more interesting and fun to sing. But, the long, more correct answer, is the woman who wrote them is very aware of how many people feel the same way about themselves and how difficult and awkward loving, or even just liking someone is.
It is evident that she is very, very adamant about this revelation, and, between songs, continues to talk in an animated and excited way, almost like a stand-up comic, about how strange love is. The beat keeps thumping as she tells us about this “guy who works at my work who yells at girls,” or good advice to use “if you’re out with someone and you’re not sure how things are gonna turn out.” That advice turned out to be the honest and precisely-sung chorus of the pounding, metaphor-y “Pardon Me”––“I’ve felt a heart before/And I’m learning what a heart is for/I believe. A heart. Is made to feel. The things that lay in front of it”.
The Showbox was packed with people confidently singing along with Kaehla and moving in-step with the music. The venue was also a good choice for an outfit like the Blow because somewhere bigger wouldn’t have allowed the dance club beats, intimate lyrics and delicate singing to be heard as clearly or thoughtfully. As she finished her last song and cheerfully left the stage, the whole club was filled with a feeling of contentment and silent vows made to love on your own terms could almost be heard over the applause.

-February 10, 2007

The Summer of 2007

Here we are at the Official End of Summer. School is back in session for just about everybody. This summer went fast. Much faster than any other summer I can remember. Summers seem to speed up as you grow up; how you spend your time during your summer also changes. The things you do, the people you see, the trips you do or do not go on, the music you listen to, the places you listen to it, the food you eat and the clothes you wear are all very different this summer than they were just one year ago. So now I'm going to look back on and review this above-decent, mostly fun-filled and occasionally crappy summer, the summer that was, of course, The Summer of 2007.

Let's start with that all-important element of any summer, music.

Best Musical Discovery:
Dandelion Gum by Black Moth Super Rainbow. The perfect summer album. It's full of sugary synthesizers, disembodied vocals and very summer-y song titles like "The Afternoon Turns Pink" and "Lost, Picking Flowers In The Woods."

Top Chill-Out Songs:
"Rollerdisco" by Black Moth Super Rainbow
"Ego Tripping (Ego In Acceleration Jason Bentley Remix)" by The Flaming Lips
"That's The Way" by Led Zeppelin
"Ramblin' Man" by Lemon Jelly
"Hallogallo" by Neu!
"The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
"Like A Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan
"Strawberry Fields Forever" by The Beatles
"Stevie Nix" by The Hold Steady
"Comfy In Nautica" by Panda Bear
"5 Years" by Björk
"We're Always Waiting" by Yacht
"Second Hand News" by Fleetwood Mac
"Small Stakes" by Spoon
"Justin" by Against Me!
"Memory of a Free Festival" by David Bowie

Most Partied-To Songs:
"Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin')" by T-Pain
"Umbrella" by Rihanna
"Waters of Nazareth" by Justice
"Stronger" by Kanye West
"I Want To Love You" by Akon
"The Way I Are" by Timbaland
"Massive Nights" by The Hold Steady
"Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses
"Easy Love" by MSTRKRFT
"International Rock Stars" by The Punk Group
A tie between "Summer Love" and "LoveStoned/I Think That She Knows (Interlude)" by Justin Timberlake
"Eagle Eyez" by Mr. Flash

Worst Thing Ever/Second Best Musical Discovery:
Night Ripper by Girl Talk. For just over two weeks at the beginning of the summer this album was the best thing anyone had never heard. Then everyone heard it. Then it was all that got played. Now it's awful.

Best Song Titles (these don't nessacarily have to do with summer, but they're good names for songs):
"Let's See If Any Ghosts Are In Here, Yeah?" by Fuck Buttons
"Sleater Kinney Sucks" by The Punk Group
"Spinning Cotton Candy In A Shack Made Of Shingles" by Black Moth Super Rainbow
"Moonage Daydream" by David Bowie
"Jealous Guy" by Art Brut

Best/Cheapest Musical Find:
Rock Off And Fuck On by The Punk Group. With songs called "My Space" (about how it's easy to find someone to have sex with on MySpace), "I'm Not Wearing A Tie" (about, um, not wearing a tie) and "F-U-C-K-Y-O-U" (about the possibility of you fucking off) all sung as straightforward-ly as possible and set to so-crappy-they-rock synth refrains and guitar riffs, this album was well worth the 99 cents I paid for it at Easy Street.

Best New Release:
† by Justice

Most Looked-Forward Release of the Fall:
Graduation by Kanye West (out 9/11 on Roc-A-Fella)


I think that pretty much sums up the music portion of the summer, now let's look back on TV, books, movies and all of that pop culture.

Best/Funniest/Most-Quotable Summer Movie:
Superbad.

Essential Summer Phrase:
"I am McLovin."

Runners-Up:
The Bourne Ultimatum, The Simpsons Movie, Knocked Up

Most Intense Movie I Saw This Summer:
High Tension. From the very same French hipsters that brought us The Hills Have Eyes comes this violent, lesbian-ist thriller. It's creepy-good!

Awesomest YouTube Video:
"Chocolate Rain"

Best New TV Shows:
Rock of Love with Bret Michaels on VH1
The Hills on MTV

Best Shows To Just Chill and Watch:
Family Guy on fucking douche-y Adult Swim
Seinfeld on every channel ever
Entourage on DVD
I Love The [insert decade]'s on VH1
Best Week Ever on Friday night on VH1

Best Late-Night Music Video Source:
Nocturnal State on VH1

Best Late-Night Bad Rap Music Video Source:
MTV2. They premiered Yung Berg's "Sexy Lady"!

Best Overall Summer Channel:
VH1. No question about it.

Worst New Summer Show:
Newport Harbour: The Real Orange County. "The people, the locations, the drama...Are all centered around Chrissy's strict parents!?" No thanks.

Biggest Item of the Summer:
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows by some crazy English woman

Best Read:
Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman

Classiest Read:
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I want to live in the 1920s and be an alcoholic.

Number of Books Read By Me:
8

That covers all of the things we read, listened to, bought and watched this summer. Next comes the stuff we created ourselves. And the stuff that we said. And the stuff that happened to us.

The New Thing to Call Bobby Morris Field:
"Cal Anderson"

Most Facebook Albums About One Weekend Made By One Person:
3

The Top Three Types of Parties That Did Not Happen Enough:
1. House
2. Beach
3. Dinner

Best Rediscovered Food:
Domino's Pizza

Days Spent Working:
Too many

Hold Steady Songs That We Recreated In Real Life:
"Stevie Nix"
"Party Pit"

Best Words/Phrases/Quotes:
"Bro"
"Chill"
"I dun even know, I'm just tryna get zooted"
"Zooted"
"Are we seriously listening to Girl Talk?"
Anything Bret Micheals says on Rock of Love

Number Of Things I Did On My Summer List:
9

Number Of Things I Didn't Do On My Summer List:
12

Well, there you are, The Summer of 2007 pretty much summed up. Kind of. So much more happened that I can't really remember but it was certainly not a bad summer. It was not quite what I was expecting and it was definitely a little strange but it sure had its moments.

ALL ELECTRONIC MUSIC COMES FROM A DUO?!?!!!

Daft Punk
Air
Justice
MSTRKRFT
The Knife
Datarock
Goldfrapp
Junior Boys
Chromeo
The Pinker Tones
Simian Mobile Disco
The Blow
Motor
Eurythmics
Chemical Brothers
Ratatat
The Postal Service
Yaz
Thievery Corporation
The Crystal Method

What do all of the above groups have in commom? They are all made up of a mere two people and they all produce electronic music of some sort in some capacity. Most of the duos are 100% men, some are 50/50 (Yaz, The Blow, Eurythmics, The Knife) and the woman sings in each one of the 50/50s. Does she do anything else? I don't know. Probably. Hmmm. I don't really know what this all proves, I don't really think it proves anything except that duos must be conducive to producing good electronic, ambient, house, trip hop, techno, and dance music. It must be the perfect balance of creativity and control. The ideas are coming from two people as opposed to one or five; the correct amount of restraint and input. I'm not sure, but pretty much every single one of the above duos are really good, so something must be working.

The Metro Life

Recently I became an employee at my local highish-end grocery store, Metropolitan Market. The job is not difficult by any stretch of the imagination. I am a courtesy clerk (read: that guy who asks “paper or plastic?” and then puts the food in whichever bag the customer chooses and then asks if he can carry those bags out to the customer’s car and then, if they say “no, I don’t want help,” insist, insist and beg until they let you take their groceries out, because there is a “100% carry-out policy in effect…) and the pay is not at all terrible considering the ease of the job. The schedule changes from week to week, which is simply a nuisance but it’s fairly flexible and I like most of my fellow co-workers. With four exceptions.

Firstly, there is the jaded, angry courtesy clerk. He’s about sixteen, working at a classy supermarket a handful of days a week: the whole cynical, tired thing doesn’t really cut it in this case. During one of my first days on the job, he was showing me the ropes and I was thrown into the following conversation:
“Gawd, the manager’s such a dick,” he said as soon as we were far enough away for the “dick” not to hear.
“Really,” I asked just to make conversation. I was well aware that the manager was a perfectly nice guy.
“Well, if you get on his bad side. I’m on his bad side.”
“Gotcha,” I replied. I thought, That makes sense.
Then, again completely unprovoked, came: “You smoke? I dunno if you do but if you’re on your break, don’t smoke in the parking lot. I learned that the hard way.” He related this information to me in almost a whisper as we walked down the cat food aisle with a broom and an enormous dustpan. This entire conversation seemed to be engineered by my co-worker to let me know just how badass he was: He smokes, he learns things the hard way and in some unexplained way he is now sitting comfortably on the perfectly personable manager’s bad side. Cool, bro.
People, especially this type of people, seem to think learning things “the hard way” somehow earns them cred. Other people, especially smarter people, know that learning things “the hard way” is exactly what it sounds like––hard. It would be far less trouble to have simply asked someone more knowledgeable if you could smoke in the parking lot. That way you wouldn’t have to learn anything the hard way and, more importantly, people would still know that you smoke cigarettes.

Then there are the customers. These customers somehow seem to think that they run the store, which in a way I suppose they do, but in actuality they don’t know shit.

Some of the best interactions I have had so far:

A woman approaches the check stand. As the checker begins to ring her up and I begin my courtesy clerking duties, the shopper begins to talk to us:
“Can I make a suggestion?” This is not a good start. The checker and I glance at each other. “If you put two things of sanitizer wipes on either side out there I think that would help a lot.” Outside, next to where the carts are kept, there is a small plastic canister full of sanitizer wipes to clean off the carts’ handles. It is completely optional to use them and most people don’t bother. In short, they are not in high demand, at all.
“Yeah,” the checker says. “I think one is enough, but if that one is empty we would be happy to go get more.”
I finish bagging her groceries and hand them to her. “Have a great day,” I say. She walks out of the store.

An elderly woman carrying a container of fresh-made soup and a large box of saltines is in line. Now it’s her turn to pay. Before I even get a chance to ask her bag preference she holds up the box of saltines, which is quite damaged, and asks us if we have any other, less-smashed up boxes of tasteless crackers. The checker calls up the grocery manager, who quickly checks and lets us know that there are no more boxes in the store. The checker tells the woman this.
“Okay, well is it okay if I just open this box and see if they are really broken?” She asks.
“Sure, that’s fine.”
She opens the box and pulls out the tubes of crackers. Each tube is about 20% dust; the crackers are broken up sorta badly.
It occurs to me that the only other item she bought is soup. The crackers are obviously for the soup.
“You know, we have little packets of saltine over by the soup for free,” I say.
“I don’t like that flavor,” she retorts, as if it was the most obvious thing in the entire world and there was nothing unusual about holding up the checkout line to examine a box of crackers. I look closer at the box. She’s right, or more accurately, she’s oh-so-wrong; the saltine crackers she has in her hand are unsalted. What?! In fact, the more I thought about it, as I stood there looking at the line forming behind her, the more flaws I found within her entire issue.
“Could you just, like, give me these two?” The woman says, holding up two of the least-crunched tubes of saltines. The checker and I look at each other again.
“No, I can’t do that,” the checker says, somewhat taken aback.
“Well, I just don’t see why I should have to pay for them.”
I fight the urge to tell her all of the things wrong with this argument: Because you’re buying groceries; The crackers are just going to be broken up into the soup, what does it matter if they’re half-broken all ready?; Who the fuck buys unsalted saltines?; and finally the pièce de résistance that I already told her about: WE HAVE FREE SALTINES NEXT TO THE SOUP.
Of course, I don’t say any of this and instead the woman asks me how long her soup will stay hot for because she wants to go to another store to look for the crackers. The checker and I look at each other once again. “About an hour,” I say.
“I don’t know…” the woman says again, seemingly expecting us to make up her insane mind for her. “I think I’ll go home first. Then go out again,” she tells me as we make our way to her Toyota.
“Sounds like a plan,” I tell her, turning to leave.

There are a few not-crazy customers, too though. One day, for instance, Susan Hutchison of local news “fame” bought me a hamburger. That was awesome.

Basically, it is a pretty fine job. It provides me with laughs, some money and a bunch of cool people to talk to in order to balance out all the really not-cool people I don’t want to talk to.

Summer Update

So, here we are, a few weeks into summer. Anything good happen yet?

'I’m having an awfully strange summer, all things considered. I used to have strange summers semi-annually, but strange summers tend to dissipate as you get older. In 1991, I lived with two guys, one of whom was a collegiate pole-vaulter; we had pole-vaulting poles lying across the floor of our living room for three months, and we tripped over them constantly. I played video games all night and never had any money. There was a Mexican guy in our apartment complex who worked on his van 11 hours a day, and we referred to him as “Van Guy.” We would play Skid Row on maximum volume at 2 A.M., and nobody complained. This was the kinds of housing development where nobody complained about anything, ever. Van Guy would actually ask us to turn our stereo up if we happened to be playing “Monkey Business.” One night, a drunk girl broke into our apartment while I was sleeping on the couch, but it turned out she was simply confused (she thought she was breaking into her ex-boyfriend’s apartment). I fell in love with one out our neighbors; her name was Heather, and he would rush over to our apartment every time MTV showed the Alice in Chains video for “Man in the Box,” coquettishly claiming that the video’s imagery terrified her. We went to see Point Break together, but nothing happened. That, obviously, was a weird summer.'

–Chuck Klosterman, Killing Yourself to Live.

Sometimes I Wish I Was Part of a Weird Bus Couple

Weird bus couples. I think I see one every time I ride the bus. You know the ones I mean; they get on the bus talking very loudly. They have no regard for anyone else, they are audibly making fun of the people sitting in front of them and not giving one ounce of a shit about it. They will probably start making out before you get off of the bus. There are probably teeth missing from both parties. At least one of them will be wearing a cracking leather jacket. They are probably much younger than you think; you ballpark them at around 50, maybe 40. That figure is probably closer to 30, but that many cigarettes and who-knows-what else doesn’t do wonders for ones appearance. There is certainly a mullet involved. Probably a WalkMan, too. So why, why would I ever want to be a part of a grubby couple like this?

Simply because, underneath the missing teeth, questionable fashion choices and way-dated cell phones, they seem happy. They have a simple, fun-loving, compatible relationship: they don’t care what anyone thinks, they are obviously not very concerned with very many material things and they can have fun––I assume––anywhere they are. I mean, I’m not saying I would want to grow a mullet, wear black New Balances and knock out a few of my teeth just to get into a relationship of this caliber, no, but the attitude behind a relationship like this is definitely appealing––when applied to your own life.

Think about it. You are dating someone you don’t have to constantly worry about impressing; you are comfortable enough to talk about anything you want (I guess you could wear anything you want, too) and the both of you do not care at all what your friends––or random strangers––think about your relationship because you know it’s a good one. I dunno, but that sounds pretty damn good to me. Plus, you can be a total douchebag on any mode of public transportation you find yourself riding and nobody will say anything to you. And if they do, they’re just jealous. Or really offended. Or both. But forget ‘em, because you’ve got your woman at your side and as soon as you pull that cord thing and request a stop and you’re off the bus you can make fun of that guy for the rest of the afternoon. Hell, you could even make fun of him while he’s still sitting two seats away from you, what do you care? You’re a weird bus couple now.

Summer Is Here!

Alright, so it really is summer now and we know we all need good summer lists. Here's mine. And don't even think about stealing any of the things off of this list. Just don't even.

(Click it to make it bigger.)