Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer

Wolf Parade's sophomore effort At Mount Zoomer (formerly Kissing the Beehive) surprisingly marked itself out as one of the most highly-anticipated albums to be released in 2008. Their 2005 debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, has not really lost any of its charm. Of course, some complicated things have happened since then. It appeared as if the twin songwriting forces of Dan Boecker and Spencer Krug were more interested in solo directions, or weirder collaborations. Boeckner played in the two-person band the Handsome Furs with his wife and released the somewhat boring but above-average Plague Park. Krug worked feverishly, it seems. Shut Up I am Dreaming, Krug's second band Sunset Rubdown's debut was released within a year of his first band's debut, in early 2006, Krug's third band (in which, to be fair, he plays a slightly smaller role) Swan Lake put out their debut shortly thereafter, in late-2006.

In 2007, Sunset Rubdown put out their second album, Random Spirit Lover, an album I will persist in loving and claiming is better than the Wolf Parade debut. I am surprised that nobody seems to know who Sunset Rubdown is despite this. Wolf Parade still remains the band in the limelight. But Krug is arguably, now, at his peak when working for his own band. Boeckner, may be (but I hope not) having a similar thing going on with Handsome Furs. All of this information taken together, At Mount Zoomer is a bit of a disappointment, but it is no slouch of an album either.

Let's see, for starters there are only nine songs, and kind of a weird running order--"Soldier's Grin" (Boeckner), "Call it a Ritual" (Krug), "Language City" (Boeckner), "Bang Your Drum" (Krug), "California Dreamer" (Krug), "The Grey Estates" (Boeckner), "Fine Young Cannibals" (Bockener), "An Animal in Your Care" (Krug), and finally, "Kissing the Beehive," (Boeckner + Krug). The album might have been improved by better sequencing, but it also would be better if the songs were more exciting.

I used to prefer Boeckner's voice to Krug's because it seemed as if he was channeling the tones of Kurt Cobain. Krug's voice was compared to Bowie, and I used to think it was weird and twittering, and while that may be so, few other artists can utilize these eccentricities to greater effect. Needless to say, my proclivities have been reversed. And I should not shy away from admitting that I am now obsessed with Spencer Krug. When I first moved to L.A., Random Spirit Lover came out and gave me something to be happy about in a sea of doubt. I saw them live, and while it was a weird night for me personally, I still recall the show very fondly, some nine months later.

This album, At Mount Zoomer, opens up with a weird keyboard part vaguely reminiscent of the first track on Random Spirit Lover (even though it is not a Krug song). The lyrics are not printed, but the album kicks off on a memorable line--"In my head, there's a city at night," and continues with, "And what you know can only mean one thing." There is perhaps some mystery and ambiguity to Boeckner's songs that Krug's may lack.

Second track, "Call it a Ritual" is especially meaningful for me personally in the way most of Krug's songs are--this time, it would only be better explained if my current zine in production wasn't being delayed due to personal problems. Krug is somehow able to read my mind constantly. His lyrics always strike me as true and authentic, but also melodramatic at times, which endears me greatly.

"Language City" is another quality Boeckner song after "Soldier's Grin" and is probably even a slight improvement, with the line "All this working, just to tear it down," dominating the song.

The best 1-2 punch of the album comes next with Krug's "Bang on a Drum" and "California Dreamer." The first song is arguably the best song on the album, and so is the second song. The first one is the closest to being a Sunset Rubdown song as is on this album, and it is affecting in the same way. "California Dreamer" is probably the only real Wolf Parade song on this Wolf Parade album. Weird to say, but it opens with the big drums on display on their debut album, but appearing nowhere else on this sophomore one. And you want to talk about Krug mind reading! When Sunset Rubdown played at the El Rey Theatre, he asked, "What area is this?" And I didn't know it then but that is what is referred to as the Miracle Mile. It is heartening to think that I saw Krug in his most recent L.A. appearance, and here he is writing a song about the very idea of making a "journey to Los Angeles" and asking "Why did you go?" Of course Krug is not writing a song to me, but it does feel that way.

"The Grey Estates" sounds vaguely like the Arcade Fire song "Antichrist Television Blues" (I am probably the only person that will make that comparison, as well as the next one) and "Fine Young Cannibals" sounds vaguely like the Spoon song "Lines in a Suit." They are both okay.

"An Animal in Your Care" has Krug almost plagiarizing himself. The closing melody of the song seems plucked from "The Taming of the Hands That Came Back to Life," one of the more epic, driving songs on Random Spirit Lover. It is not quite as good a song, but it is still probably the third best song on the album.

"Kissing the Beehive" is not as awful a song as it has been called. When Krug enters in the second verse, almost interrupting Boeckner, it is awesome. And also the way he pronounces "Jonathan" is awesome. It is an epic, prog-like, somewhat dirge-y closing track that is like ten or eleven minutes long or something.

I still don't know what any of this album is really about because of the lyrical ambiguity. In summation, here is my ranking of Krug/Boeckner albums from top to bottom:

1) Random Spirit Lover
2) Apologies to the Queen Mary
3) Shut Up I am Dreaming
4) At Mount Zoomer
5) Beast Moans
6) Plague Park

Unemployment

May 2, 2008 was my mother's birthday and my final day at Jefferies & Co. I called her to wish her a happy one, and my co-workers held a potluck lunch for me as a send-off. The circumstances that led up to this event all seemed the logical, reasonable sort. I was being paid $13/hour to do rather menial work. I wanted something more significant. My boss and I agreed it was in both of our best interests if I sought work elsewhere. Let me make one thing clear: I would have worked at Jefferies & Co. on a permanent basis if they had been able to hire me. Unfortunately, they prefer to manage their payroll through temporary staffing agencies, which actually makes them pay twice as much for my time, but which may give them some sort of tax-break, or may be an indication of their corporate climate (I only saw four or five co-workers leave/be fired in the six months I was there--but accounts payable can be dull if you do not have interesting people to talk to). While it was dull, I enjoyed the company of my co-workers, and my life seemed to be going in some direction, even if it was as small as writing poems and songs in my little orange journal during my cigarette breaks, I felt like I was living a life not wholly unhappy.

I stopped sharing a two-bedroom apartment at the end of April and moved into my own place in Silverlake. This was also a decision of the logical, reasonable sort. I wanted to live on my own. I wanted to be able to play music at a volume appropriate for singing along. I wanted to get all my books and my stereo and my LCD TV and get my own place with digital cable and get all the channels and get an XBOX 360 for HD capabilities and I wanted to live where it was slightly cheaper, in Hollywood. So I found an apartment that was the same rent as my share--$750--of course this is before they raised it to $795 a month, and before my extra $150-200/month in cell phone, cable, electric, and gas bills. I figured, it was okay, I could still make ends meet with those numbers. I would be living in Silverlake! Where Morrissey lives! Maybe I could meet him and befriend him and write his authorized biography! Or maybe I could be a bohemian poet, reading prose works at one of the cafes along Sunset Blvd, collecting $10 from a tip jar every night and building connections to get my work published. Or I could work Downtown, or in Hollywood, or even in the Valley, in Pasadena or Glendale--even Burbank is not such an unreasonable commute. Sure, I wasn't two miles from the beach anymore (my bi-weekly runs to Venice Beach were no longer possible) but I was a lot closer to Hollywood, and the industry I moved here to try to gain a foothold in.

Now, one tip for anyone considering moving to L.A. If you are concerned about finding work here (and you should be)--it is probably the best option to live on the west-side. Now, the west-side is expensive--Westwood, Santa Monica, Venice Beach--none are cheap. Palms/Culver City is the best bet for cheap, convenient, safe housing. Now, living in Silverlake, I find many, many jobs are located on the west-side, and not so many downtown. Century City is perhaps the most popular employment center in Los Angeles. Any of the areas between Westwood and Santa Monica are also popular for employers. There are practically no businesses in Silverlake beyond boutiques and restaurants. Hollywood does offer employer locations, but they tend to veer closer to Beverly Hills, which is about midway from where I live to Santa Monica. Santa Monica is like twenty miles from where I live, just so you know. 20 miles is a really hard commute to do in L.A. Most of the time I don't apply to jobs in Santa Monica. Most of the time, I am spending my time with staffing agencies again. They at least offer me some sort of hope. They are someone to talk to. They do not ignore the resumes you send them. Or rather, they do ignore, but once they know you, they will at least make you feel better about yourself by talking to you and giving you realistic impressions of who will hire you.

I've applied to be practically everything here--a legal assistant (on a phone interview last night that was so exciting and nerveracking and ultimately disappointing and bittersweet), a music sales representative (for a company that is basically a glorified myspace for "industry attention"), an accounting clerk and administrative assistant at God-knows how many places, generally only interviewing at staffing agencies for those roles, a traffic data collector (on an hour long interview last Friday that I thought went really well...), an assistant to a talent agent (on a very short interview this Monday that I thought went really well--but the guy said he was meeting "a million" people that day)--which was only going to pay $500 a week--sadly a wage I may have to deal with in other industries as well, an SAT English teacher in Arcadia, CA, another 20-mile commute, but one that would pay $15/hour and would have been good for getting me back into English, but I wasn't experienced enough, an administrative ("sales," but not so much) assistant for Biolock, a company introducing key-free, fingerprint-technology security, where the French lady who would be my boss wondered whether or not I would really like doing it for $13/hour. I wish I had tried to speak French with her, but I am afraid of looking like a fool who can't keep up his end of the conversation.

This post is to demonstrate the nature of despair in times of unemployment. And also, to give others an idea of the specific experience I have had over the last two months. Warning to all college graduates: a B.A. in liberal arts is not necessarily going to make you that much more qualified than an applicant with a HS Diploma, because they generally have four more years of experience on their resume. It's a trade off, and I wish I hadn't studied "Writing and Politics" at NYU because I don't think anybody respects the fact that I designed my own curriculum--they'd rather believe it is a BS major (no pun intended). So I sent out my revised rationale for my colloquium as an attachment to that Legal Assistant position and that was enough for that man to call and say he was impressed with my writing skills.

Nice, but there are no literature-based businesses that pay you to interpret old texts. There is only new, present-day text that must be analyzed. And it is not very difficult to analyze business copy. The aims of business are far more ordinary than the aims of literature. It is easy to predict a successful model for business, but few people realize how difficult it is to find a successful model for a novel. Yes, I would copy the structure of This Side of Paradise or Buddenbrooks (my current reading), but that would be a cop-out. One has to understand how Fitzgerald and Mann came to cultivate their own prose habits, and one must behave appropriately to complete the task. That is, writing every day. Other writers will often sneer at amateurs, asking, "Do you write every day?" in order to classify their seriousness. Yes, writing every day is pretty much a necessity, but unfortunately, it's very hard to make yourself do that when you're working 40 hours a week or more. When you are unemployed, it is much easier to write every day, but it also comes with the guilt and fear that you are not (nor will be) a useful presence in anyone else's business model.

The state of the artist in 2008 is quite frustrating. It appears that music, (punk rock, more specifically) is the only medium which continues to profess the same values, though that may be because money is never really the primary aim--it is building an audience. Film may have always been an "insiders" medium, but it appears now that the studios are interested in more and more copycat projects guaranteed to make profits rather than weird, experimental art films. In order to be taken seriously by literary agents, I have to be published in a prestigious journal. In order to be published in a prestigous journal, I have to pass a screening process that is probably as intense as admission into any MFA program. It would be prudent for me to work on an economical short story in the 3,000-4,000 word range, but I am too anxious to finish my second novel. And I am too anxious to find a job.

It appears that connections are the greatest asset any single person can have when entering any job market. As much as I used to scoff at the idea of networking (and while most networking events find me networking with people just as, or more desperate than myself) having as many friends as you can is usually the most intelligent path towards success in business. That, and completing a major with real business applicability, but that's something I wouldn't know about.

Where I Live

A few weeks ago I walked outside and saw this sign on my street corner. Apparently someone is looking out for me after all. Except they have the arrow pointing in the wrong direction...

Fiery Furnaces, 5/30/08, Spaceland, Los Angeles, CA

Well, I've finally gotten around to posting pictures on my blog, after almost three years of missed opportunities. There could have been so many better concert photos from the past if livejournal had allowed me to post pictures, but now, those are all too far in the past to make any fuss about. Also, none of these photos are particularly worth making a fuss about.

This is the second time I saw Fiery Furnaces in L.A., and the fourth time I saw them period (the first being an opening gig for the Shins at the NYU Mystery concert in 09/04, the second being "rock band" version at Metro in Chicago sometime in 2006 or 2007--I honestly can't remember--and the third being the "normal" version at Troubadour in 10/07). In their "rock band" version they were at their peak--though many found this set up disorienting. Bitter Tea was not as strong a record as Blueberry Boat and to have the Friedberger siblings rip through old nine-minute-sagas in updated two or three minute formats was more of a gamble than most bands nowadays are willing to take. Also, Jason Loewenstein played bass for them at both the show at Metro and the show at Troubadour. However, while this was a standard quality Fiery Furnaces show, it was not the best I had ever seen them, but it was probably better than the show at Troubadour. The only difference being it was the first time I saw Eleanor Friedberger play guitar. She played for about half the songs and she was a very able frontwoman. They opened up their set with the 1-2-3 punch of "Duplexes of the Dead"/"Automatic Husband"/"Ex-Guru," showcasing the strongest movement off of last year's Widow City.

Apparently there is a new Fiery Furnaces album coming out soon, but there is also a contest up on their website to name what I believe is the album after that. There were like fifteen possible album titles you could choose from, and with that came the style of record it was supposed to be. I thought it was the coolest thing a band had done for their fans--to ask them how they want their next record to sound--though it might mean they are out of ideas. I voted for the "Archer Ave" album, which was supposed to be a Chicago Fall album, meaning an album about Chicago, but also like a Fall record, in particular wanting to use a two-drummer set-up as in the Fall's early 1980's lineup. Just the fact that this was an option shows how much better the Fiery Furnaces are than all other bands. Most bands don't know the Fall, but they are willing to make an album sound like the Fall--and Eleanor singing like MES would probably be one of the greatest (and most hilarious) things ever heard.

I even got pictures of the opening bands. The first one was passable, and I forgot who I compared them to to my friend. They were slightly boring but they made their set breezy.

The second opening band was one of the weirdest formats I've ever seen, with a girl who sounded a bit like Karen O drumming on the front of the stage and singing. It was like she was chained behind the drums. It was not as breezy a set as the first one.

Picture Legend

Top: Eleanor playing guitar

Middle: Weird 2nd opening band with drumming frontwoman
Last: Eleanor singing