Chad Van Gaalen "Wind Driving Dogs"

A week or so ago, my girlfriend Forrest and I took a three-day drive, racing the movers in their truck, to Arizona. The scenery was pretty self-explanatory through Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma and the Texas panhandle, but once we hit New Mexico, everything changed. I'd driven (or, rather, rode shotgun) out in this area before, but I never really took in the amount of sky available to the eyes out there. It's breathtaking, and makes it seem like where I live currently is a pinhole in comparison. We were coming up on Albuquerque on day two and nearing the point where we'd take the rest of the night off, when we looked up to the north and saw, essentially, an entire storm. The entire scope of a storm, with the dark cloud above and the rain looking like jellyfish tendrils stretching to the ground, looking deceptively still. It's probably the closest I can come to saying I've seen something sublime, in the Schopenhauer sense of the term, as in something so remarkably huge and powerful that I found myself at a loss for words to describe it. I found myself swerving between lanes as I craned to look around the rear-view mirror to keep it in my sight. We never drove into it, which pretty much seemed impossible anyway, but it's been permanently etched into my memory as clear as anything ever has been.

As is what I was actually feeling while looking at the storm in the distance: a mix of pure wonder, a little bit of fear, and a strange sense of curiosity. The forthcoming Chad Van Gaalen record Skelliconnection could have soundtracked the moment well, especially the song "Wind Driving Dogs" (mp3). When Van Gaalen sings, with that very specific, harmed voice of his, "It looks like that storm is coming our way, and will soon be over our heads," and ends the song suddenly with "this could be the final swell," even though he's referring to a different section of the country, the sentiment still manages to evoke the bizarre sense of gratitude and spellbinding joy that storm gently tugged out of me. Especially because it's clear that he's having fun waiting.

Skelliconnection comes out in September on Sub Pop.

ELSEWHERE: I'm a little bit late to the game on this, but Jim Lewis offers his two cents on the Jill Greenberg (seriously, fuck Jill Greenberg) exploitative baby photo controversy on Slate:

As Greenberg herself explains in the gallery's press release, "The first little boy I shot, Liam, suddenly became hysterically upset. It reminded me of helplessness and anger I feel about our current political and social situation." "As a parent," she continues, "I have to reckon with the knowledge that our children will suffer for the mistakes our government is making. Their pain is a precursor of what is to come."