2009 Wrap #10: Travis Vogan
Monday, December 28, 2009
Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish I Were an Eagle To be honest, Callahan could probably release anything and I would love it. He’s one of my favorite lyricists and there’s a sort of wryness to his voice that has got me since I heard “Julius Caesar” way back. Another sort of honest statement is that this album would have still been on my top ten if it only consisted of the first track, “Jim Cain,” which I consider to be among Callahan’s best. But wait, there’s more. Eagle has like eight other tracks, including “Too Many Birds,” which is also a killer diller.
Freddie Gibbs Midwestganstaboxframecadillacmuzik / The Miseducation of Freddie Gibbs I think this is my favorite hip-hop release of the year and I have to give E-Harvatron a shout for pointing me toward it. Gibbs does the “raw” thing very well and his flows combine pretty conventional gangta topics with sharp wit and musings on Gary, Indiana’s increasingly depressed circumstances. The result, I think, is strangely cathartic in a way that makes me think of Tupac’s early stuff. And while comparisons to Tupac are pretty easy to make, I think this one actually holds up. But Gibbs’ flows are nothing without some pretty great beats concocted by some pros who Gibbs was working with before being dropped by Interscope. A definite highlight is “What It B Like,” a rousing gangsta roll call that tips its hats to every gang from the Latin Kings to the Crips (‘what it C like’). I would often listen to this song while walking around campus. I felt like spin-kicking everyone whom I passed. It was like some “Bittersweet Symphony” video kind of shit. To sum it up, this is an incredibly powerful record by a rapper who can balance associative flows with concrete storytelling.
jj jj No. 2 It’s funny, when I look back on the year and think of my favorite albums, this one does not jump out at me. But when I checked my itunes “play count” this was one of my most listened to albums of the year. Does that mean it should be in the top ten? Would I listen to an album that much if I didn’t like it? I guess not. In addition to being a pretty good album, I think I have to give this one the nomination for best album cover of the year. A pot leaf with splattered blood, when combined with cutesy music, gets my vote.
Kurt Vile Childish Prodigy This is my last selection on the top ten. It was down to this one and Built to Spill’s most recent opus maximus. I think I chose Vile because I like the way he opens the album with “Hunchback” and the Springsteen hoot. As far as I’m concern, you got to have some juevos to open a record with a Springsteen hoot. And I most certainly respect juevos, chutzpah, and other forms of arrogance. This is the show I probably most regret missing this year.
Lee Fields and the Expressions My World I’m a sucker for the resuscitated soul singer genre. Fields is macho, nasty, smart, weathered, and sensitive—a witch’s brew of sexy soulfulness (baby). He seems like the kind of guy who can have intelligent conversation with people by just cocking, taking more and less powerful drags from a cigarette, and grimacing. Think I’ve romanticized him? Some highlights from the album are “Money i$ King,” “Honey Dove,” and, my favorite, “Ladies,” which evokes that great time of the year when the sun is starting to come out and the gals are beginning to wear a little less. As Fields says, “And when you pass me by, you’re like candy to me eyes.” If I said it, it would just affirm people’s suspicions that I’m a lech. But when Fields says it, it seems pretty classy. I asked him how he pulls it off and he just grimaced while ashing his cig, which I think meant “If you don’t know, you never will.” How hard and long, the road to cool.
Memory Tapes Seek Magic Low-key and groovy. I don’t know if I have anything any more interesting to say about this album. I’ve recently been into good music that can also be ignored. Memory Tapes is representing this genre on my list.
Mt. Eerie Wind’s Poem I’m going to say that this is my favorite “doom metal” album of the year, and it’s not really a doom metal album. I would have liked this album if it came out last year, but I think I liked it even more because it came after 2008’s really great, and more folk oriented, Lost Wisdom, which was one of my favorite albums of last year. Both of these albums show that Phil can do more than just write a solid, droney folk dittie. He’s become a really great orchestrator and organizer of talents. In my opinion, Julie Doiron’s contribution to Lost Wisdom was as great as anything she’s done since Eric’s Trip. Phil does the same thing with Wind’s Poem, a relatively complex mix of rumbles combined with his vocal wispiness. Plus, if we’re going to consider WP to be a part of the doom genre, Phil bring a pretty interesting voice to this group of folks. He maintains the magical, mythic quality we see in lots of doom as combines it with a sense of optimism and wonder that’s not always present in the genre.
Mos Def The Ecstatic Best album since Black on Both Sides. There’s my provocative statement for the list. Actually, it’s not that provocative since he hasn’t released anything worth a skank’s droppings since then. Ok, maybe that last one can be my provocative statement. I love this record. I find it solid, well-paced, and containing enough jams to keep me listening to the whole thing rather than just flipping around like I usually do. I also really like this cover as well, with a tinted frame enlargement from Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep. Some highlights are “Supermagic” and “Casa Bey.”
Soulsavers Broken Wow, twice in two years that something with Mark Lanegan makes my top ten list. Creepy, baby. Maybe I should get over it and just start smoking and wearing eyeliner. But it runs and burns my eyes when I sweat, mom! This supergroup creates a pretty solid collection here with a mix of steady rockers and slow-burners. My favorite jam is actually the cover of Palace Brothers’ “Will You Miss Me When I Burn,” which sounds like it was made for Lanegan—or at least a voice that is older than Will Oldham’s. Another nice thing about this album is that we don’t have to deal with Lanegan throughout its entirety. I like the guy, but I need a break after a few songs. Soulsavers augment Lanegan’s always-teetering-on-the-edge-of-annoyingly-self-indulgent (do you think the whiskey he drinks is actually apple juice like Dean Martin used to do) voice with the very pretty voice of Red Ghost (aka Rosa Agostino). Another tasty lick is the Gene Clark Cover “Some Misunderstanding.”
Wilco Wilco (The Album) Don’t hate on aging rockers. I loved A Ghost is Born. I loved Sky Blue Sky. And I love this one. I actually had a dream the other night that I wrote “Bull Black Nova” for someone who I thought was awesome. When I woke up and realized that not only did I not write the song, but that I also have no musical talent, I got pretty bummed. But I didn’t cry.
Album I Liked for about a Day and Now Can’t Really Listen to: The Rural Alberta Advantage Hometowns
I have the same problem with this album that I have with refried beans. I threw up after eating them when I was seven. It wasn’t the beans, mind you. I just got sick and the beans were the last thing I’d eaten. I was really grooving with this album, but then I got sick and so I can no more listen to it without feeling like I’m going to go insane. Taste; ‘tis a fickle pickle.
Two Albums that Came Out This Year that Make Me Feel Old and Sad about It: Girls Album; Japandroids Post-Nothing
This is not to say that I didn’t like these albums. I did quite a bit. Girls’ “Hellhole Ratrace” and Japandroids “Together Forever” are as good as any other cuts that I encountered this year. But these are albums made at the tail end of childhood, the precipice of adulthood when these guys are starting to realize that things might not be all we imagined them to be. But they aren’t yet jaded enough not to write songs about it with the confidence that what they are saying matters. Even those of us who don’t write music go through this time, I think. It’s an important moment and listening to these albums makes me realize how long ago it was when I was having these thoughts. Like anyone’s going to insure me after writing this kind of stuff.
Best Re-discoveries: The Paul Collins Beat; The Records Crashes
Some dope powerpop that helps me to simplify how relationships work. You know, why won’t she talk to me kind of stuff. Thank you Paul Collins Beat and the Records for reassuring me that it is her problem. You dudes are the best.
Favorite Music Video: Nike “Don’t Criticize”
Yes, my favorite music video of the year is an advertisement for shoes, Nike Hyperizers. But this advertisement features a song made by DJ Quik and Andre “Chief Blocka” Iguodala, Mo “Fog Raw” Williams, Kevin “Velvet Hoop” Durant, and Rahard “Ice-O” Lewis rapping as if they were in 1991. At one point Lewis is tattooing a shoe on a woman’s back. The only bad thing about this video is that it makes me more depressed that my beloved Portland Trailblazers failed to draft Durant instead of O(steoperosis)den.
Best Shows:
Bonnie “Prince” Billy at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Bloomington
Wilco at the IU Auditorium, Bloomington
Neil Hamburger at the Funny Bone, Bloomington
Travis Vogan is a PhD candidate at Indiana University, in the same department as Eric Marathonpacks. Travis is writing his dissertation on NFL Films, which has allowed him to, among other things, put an arm around Steve Sabol. Travis once witnessed Eric, in a fit of “creative walking”, nearly break his ankle. Travis is the founder of, and frequent contributor to, The Dwight Gooden Poster.