Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011 - Lizzy Goodman (2017)

Meet Me in the Bathroom is an oral history of the NYC rock scene in the early 2000's.  It is about the Strokes, Interpol, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and DFA Records/The Rapture/LCD Soundsystem.  To a lesser extent, it is about the White Stripes, Kings of Leon, TV on the Radio, Vampire Weekend, Fischerspooner, Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, Ryan Adams, the National, Conor Oberst, the Vines and the Moldy Peaches.  And there are even more incidental references to other bands of the era.  It starts off with Jonathan Fire*Eater, as a precursor to the Strokes.  I had never heard of them before and I thought the Walkmen (which 1/2 of the band eventually became) were a bigger deal.

Jonathan Fire*Eater is positioned in the kind of Velvet Underground role in Please Kill Me, the first band to get mentioned out of the gate, the primary influence from which the scene sprouts.  Everybody that listened to the Velvet Underground started their own band.  Admittedly, it is a tall task to match up to VU, but JF*E do not directly influence the sound of many of the bands that are later written about, in quite the same way.  Regardless, it is an interesting way to the start the book, because it is really more about the scene in the late 1990's.  It goes right into the Strokes from there and never lets go.  This is really the Strokes book, at least in terms of myth-making and cementing their status as icons.

I am really conflicted about this but I cannot quite put it on the Best Books list.  It is really, really good, but it would basically equate it to Please Kill Me and Lexicon Devil.  And obviously, Please Kill Me is a classic, and Lexicon Devil was just a blistering experience for me.  This book was extremely entertaining though and I loved it.  I was sad when it was over, and that to me is one of the signs of a great book.  Whatever, I change my mind.  It belongs on the list with that qualification.

It is perhaps worth noting that I went to NYU in 2001 and so was the target at which so much of the buzz of these bands was aimed.  My friend Danielle burnt me a copy of Is This It.  Interpol was a band of NYU graduates (Paul Banks met Daniel Kessler at NYU in Paris, where I would be 4-5 years later).  Also in Paris, I went to see the Rapture at some festival type thing at a club in the Bois de Bologne.  We would sometimes go out dancing at Favela Chic and I remember my friend Tommy talking about them.  One night the DJ played "House of Jealous Lovers" and he was like, that's them!  It was pretty awesome, so we went to the show, and afterwards we saw the band and walked up to them with our third friend, Sarah.  We were like, "We're from New York too!"  And they were like, "Um, cool."  They weren't very interested in talking to us, so I always had kind of a weird feeling about them after, but I still got Echoes.

A fair number of the bands featured in here played $5 NYU shows, and I went to almost all of them.  I also miraculously got a press pass to the CMJ Music Marathon in the Fall of 2002, and saw many there as well.  I was there as the scene shifted from Manhattan to Brooklyn.  I read Our Band Could Be Your Life and gave it to my friends.  I  recruited about twenty of them to join a potential band, with which we had two very tentative practices.  I took guitar lessons and wanted to learn the drums.  Finally I convinced my friends to let me manage their band, and got them their first gig.  Even though I had no musical talent and could not (and still cannot) play any instruments, I wanted to be around people that did, and I wanted to get involved any way I could.  My point is, it wasn't just the Strokes, but the whole scene, that made people want to start their own bands.  That kind of situation lends itself well to an oral history.

The atmosphere of New York circa 9/11 also influenced us all.  One of the things about this book that elevates it into Best Books territory is chapter 30.  I would say that it is the finest piece of writing I have read, to date, on the subject of 9/11.  Nothing else had ever so perfectly encapsulated my experience:

Andrew VanWyngarden [MGMT]: "I was a week into my freshman year at college and that's such an impressionable stage.  I was a virgin and I was meeting all these new people and was just bright eyed and wow.  Then September 11 came and I got so deeply freaked out, paranoid, and just knocked off of my foundation of what reality was that it just totally fucked me up." (203)

There are also a ton of journalists that supply the oral history.  The book is dedicated to Marc Spitz, a voluble presence, who recently passed away.  Marc Maron is also a contributor and I have been listening to the WTF podcast a lot recently.  One of them was with Ryan Adams and my friend actually asked me to go to a Ryan Adams concert in Milwaukee right around when he dissed the Strokes on Twitter.  So this is really still topical.  Apparently Marc Maron is also putting out a book in October that follows a similar format to this, so I'll probably check that out.  Perhaps he was influenced by his experience participating in this, and realized that it is a pretty interesting way to construct a book.

David Cross also hangs out with the Strokes and there are a couple embarrassing stories that I won't recite here.  But the stuff about Ryan Adams is too funny to pass up:

Ryan Adams: "One night I was hanging with the Strokes guys and Ryan[Gentles].  We were really stoned because we were basically always smoking pot.  It was very late.  Fab would always play me a song that he had written, some beautiful romantic song.  So one night, jokingly, I'm also certain Fabby said, 'Dude, what if John Mayer was playing that guitar right now?'  And I said, 'I can make that happen.'  And they all said, 'You're full of shit.'  I said, 'Give me three fucking beers'--because there were only so many beers left at that late hour--'and I'll make it happen.  I'm a goddamn genie in a bottle.'  And we died laughing.  Now, I lived down the block from John Mayer and he'd been talking to me about his new song for a while.  So I texted him, because he was always up late back then.  I said, 'Come to this apartment.  Bring an acoustic guitar.  I really want to hear your new song.'  I didn't tell them that I'd done it.  So everyone is sitting there and I was like, 'Let's all take bong hits.'  I really wanted it to get crazy.  We smoked some bong hits; I probably did some blow.  I started to drink my three beers.  The doorbell buzzer rings and I open the door and John Mayer walks in with his fucking acoustic guitar and they were all slack jawed.  John sat down and played the fucking acoustic guitar--three or four songs that probably have gone on to be huge--while those guys just sat there staring at me like ,'Oh my god, you're a witch.'  The next day John was like, 'Hey man, next time maybe less cigarette smoke?  That really hurt my throat.'  That apartment was like an airport smoking lounge." (379)

In short, I could understand why Ryan Adams might not like the way he comes off in this story, but I finished the book more interested in him.  He's basically one of the greatest characters in the story.  He comes up in his own way, as he arguably peaked in his popularity with the video for "New York, New York," which was released at almost the exact same time as Is This It, basically on 9/11, or maybe a week or two later.  But he mostly comes up as a friend to, and a potential "bad influence" on, the Strokes.  Most others are candid about their drug use, and also use the excuse that 9/11 bestowed upon the city a kind of desperate party-because-we're-going-to-die atmosphere.  One reads a book like Meet Me in the Bathroom because it has the kind of gossip that you don't usually read about except in really unguarded stories in Spin or Rolling Stone or on Pitchfork.  It is also good for correcting inaccuracies that are awkward to kind of mention out of the blue, but fit perfectly with the subject matter.  One of the most striking is about the LCD Soundsystem song "Someone Great."  Now, many people really love this song, and I think most consider it the second best song off Sound of Silver after "All My Friends."  It also supplies a sizable piece of "45:33" (which I actually bought).  Everybody says that this song is about mourning a lost lover.  But I found the truth even more touching:

Tyler Brodie: "Do you know about the therapist?  I never met him, I don't even know his name, but I do know LCD's "Someone Great" was later written about him."

Tim Goldsworthy: "That's not about a love affair.  That was written the day that James's therapist died." (265)

James Murphy apparently did therapy three times a week.  The book also touches on "Beat Connection," which gave me occasion to play it just now, and I have to say it is a really great song.  I think Murphy sounds more like Mark E. Smith on it than on "Losing My Edge," though he is more on rant mode in that song.

The book is just filled with interesting stories and I think it would appeal to a general audience even if the reader doesn't know very much about the bands themselves.  There are also little tidbits about the realities of life as a musician that is yet to "make it" that are particularly amusing.  Take, for example, this nugget of truth that I appreciated as the purveyor of MEP:

Chris Taylor: "When I first moved to Brooklyn, Chris Bear, who plays drums in our band, moved into the same loft as me; we built it together.  We were in this band, and at that age when you really have the energy and ambition to do all of this.  There's just things that you don't care about that allow you to be free and experimental and take big risks and live in a dirty place and you don't give a shit.  Rent was really cheap, $600 a month.  Chris and I were vegetarians because it was cheaper--we cooked rice and beans so many nights.  We priced it out.  We knew the cost of the beans and the cost of the rice and we bought the onions and we're like, 'Okay, cool, this whole food element of life is under five bucks.'  We can buy a Yuengling, which was like a dollar fifty, which was definitely a choice beer at that time, and that was enough.  You find a cheap bike, so you don't even have to take the subway.  That and some money for weed, that was your budget.  That was all you needed."

Dave Sitek: "It was so cheap that you could afford to take risks and fail.  If you failed at what you were doing it didn't matter because you were in Williamsburg.  If you failed in Manhattan, it was different."

Eleanor Friedberger: I rode my bike everywhere.  I got all of these amazing jobs that were so easy and stupid.  I would work these office jobs, then go out every night, and I could afford to pay my rent" (310-311)

Speaking of Eleanor Friedberger, she really only has one revealing story, which involves the period when she was dating Alex Kapranos of Franz Ferdinand.  I don't know if there will be a "deluxe edition" of Meet Me in the Bathroom that comes out in 20 years (the way Please Kill Me was later supplemented), but I would read it if there were chapters on the Fiery Furnaces, and other bands like Liars and !!!.  That is one of the primary criticisms I have of the book.  It could have been even bigger and better.  Actually there is a brief mention of the Fiery Furnaces record deal.  And this classic bomb she casually drops:

Eleanor Friedberger: "It only seemed weird that bands like the Strokes and Interpol were around at the same time as us when they started doing so well and I thought they were so bad.  I just didn't give a shit about that stuff." (315)

Oh snap, Eleanor lays it down!  Of course no one is obligated to like everything, but she is pretty much the only one in the book that says she didn't like those bands.  It would be nice if Julian Casablancas tweeted, "Sad @eleanorfriedberger, I love your music :(," and if she replied, "Okay I guess Room on Fire is pretty okay :)."  But I doubt that will happen. 

Vampire Weekend signals the beginning of the end of the book.  There is a special place in my heart for them, as the subject of one of the earliest posts on Flying Houses.  I think that review is a little bit harsh, and I partially disavow it.  And actually I think they have gotten better with each album and believe that they delivered on their early promise.  Nevertheless, I am not the only one who cannot resist poking fun:

Laura Young: "I was there [at the Strokes' Madison Square Garden show in 2011].  I had seats but I traded with somebody so I could be in the pit.  I thought, 'I know I'm a little bit too old for this but I'm going anyway.'  I remember seeing these kids that were fifteen years old.  I was either talking to them or overhearing them and they were saying, 'This is the first time I'm seeing the Strokes.  I listened to them all through elementary school and middle school.'  It was so cool to see them there and so excited.  I don't know, maybe somewhere, somehow, years from now Vampire Weekend will do some kind of reunion show, but I can't imagine young kids being there saying, 'I love Vampire Weekend so much.  I'm so excited about them.  I've been listening to them since elementary school.'  And if they are, they should be punched in the face." (589-590)

The story of their band is one of the most boring in the book, primarily because they all seem to have their lives together.  The reason why I think I hated them so much before is because everything just seemed sort of effortless and easy for them.  I doubt that was true, and the story of how Ezra Koenig lived with Dave Longstreth of the Dirty Projectors and all these other people in this quasi-bohemian house-studio is pretty interesting.

I haven't really talked about Interpol and they are a major part of the book as well.  Paul Banks is quite entertaining in almost everything he says.  Even though he sounds like he's really serious and kind of weird from his lyrics and singing, he is extremely self-effacing and claims to have no talent.

Paul Banks: "...'Like now to college kids, we're old people?!  How the fuck did that happen?'  I don't feel like I look that different but apparently I'm an old guy now.  You know, I'm the guy trying to pick up eighteen-year-olds.  'Hey, kids, want some reefer?'  Just kidding." (575)

The gaping hole in this book is Carlos D.  He is often talked about--many myths are made about him--so his absence as a contributor feels all the more striking.  He maintains an air of mystery.

In almost every other dimension, however, Meet Me in the Bathroom feels very complete and authoritative.  On third thought I don't think I'm going to add it to the Best Books list--but it was definitely the best book I read in the past year.  I'm not sure I'll read it again, but I think everyone should at least read it once.

My Bloody Valentine - m b v

Everyone wrote reviews of this album over the last two weeks (it is two weeks old tonight) and I still have not purchased it.  It costs $16.  I have been listening to it on streaming players.  As such I do not have it with me anywhere outside, in my iPod, playing on my headphones; I can only listen in my apartment, and with the AUX cable connecting my laptop to my stereo.  Listening to this album from tinny laptop speakers would be sacrilege.  When I have the discretionary income, I'll get it for the headphones.  

There was a 22 year wait for this album.  I joked on facebook two weeks ago that a betting pool should open up on whether m b v would really be released that evening or not.  I forgot about it and then listened to the first half of the album the next day and went to a Super Bowl party.  I watched Beyonce perform her halftime show and I asked my friend hosting if he liked My Bloody Valentine (I know he likes much newer indie rock, but he is not generally known for liking all of the Our Band Could be Your Life bands, except for Sonic Youth perhaps, which is certainly in the direction of My Bloody Valentine...).  He did not know about m b v, nor was he interested in how it might sound.

Oeuvre rule: I love My Bloody Valentine.  See Concert Review  (which still has one of the best pictures of a band I have ever taken, I think, because it looks like the cover of Loveless) and 50th Post Milestone in Anticipation of Concert.  I have heard almost all of their music.

And this is one of the many things that sets MBV apart from other bands: you start with Loveless, you don't get it necessarily, but it's good--then you move onto Isn't Anything and reflect that it may be even better than Loveless, but don't exactly make this generally known because it might cause other people to think you don't "get" Loveless--you hear all of the old stuff (maybe not the stuff from Geek! or This is Your Bloody Valentine--getting into that 1985 stuff separates the hardcore fans from the obsessive fans)--and you are content to listen to Loveless or choice tracks from other releases from now until the end of time, and you expect Kevin Shields to keep teasing everyone that he is going to put out another MBV album soon and take everything he says with a grain of salt.

Until two weeks ago.

The closest analogue to this situation is the excitement that surrounded the release of Chinese Democracy.  That album took 15 years to release.

This album took 22 years to release.

This album is much better than Chinese Democracy.

We don't know exactly what Axel Rose and Kevin Shields were up to during that period, but we know some details.  Shields worked with J. Mascis (he played guitar as a member of "the Fog" on a few songs during the time that Dinosaur Jr.--a band highly responsible for the development of the MBV sound--was broken up).  Shields worked with Primal Scream, apparently (I haven't listened to them enough to offer an opinion on it).  And then there was Lost in Translation.

I saw Lost in Translation in December of 2003--but before I came back to the States for that, I heard the song "City Girl" in Paris.  Another classmate and friend of mine recognized the extraordinary character of that song and he downloaded and we listened to it over and over and talked about how great it was and we wondered why something that seemed so effortless wasn't matched by anyone currently working.

A lot has changed since 2003.  Dinosaur Jr. is back together (and have been very prolific and successful).  Chinese Democracy was released.  iPods and iTunes became de rigeur, and Compact Discs flirt with obsolescence.  The Nirvana legend continues to generate income for Courtney Love.  The Rolling Stones put out a new album.  Weezer all but lost their former greatness.  The White Stripes and the Strokes "saved" rock and roll; The Arcade Fire brought "majestic rock" to the masses and won Grammy Awards.  The Yeah Yeah Yeahs became respected elder statesmen(persons?).  R&B and Hip Hop came back in a bigger way than the "Outkast album" from that year could ever anticipate.  Elliott Smith committed suicide (around the same time as "City Girl").  Lollapalooza and other music festivals (i.e Pitchfork) became cash cows.

People would shell out hundreds of dollars for festivals, now.  Coachella could offer Morrissey $45 million (and purely vegan food vendors) to reunite the Smiths on their stage, and he would reject them, and he now flirts with retirement.  David Bowie went away and is about to come back.  Michael Jackson was about to come back, and he died in the process.  Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore broke up, and Sonic Youth's 32 year legacy remains a question mark.  And then My Bloody Valentine came back in 2007.  And then Pavement played reunion shows.

Rewind back to October of 2000, my senior year in high school, and my [ex-]friend Jon giving me Loveless, telling me not to listen to so much Smashing Pumpkins because Billy Corgan was really just ripping off this album.  Listen to Jon speak at length about Siamese Dream--"it is exactly the same guitar sound!"  Listen to all of the other bands Jon endorses--Minor Threat, Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, Slint, the Velvet Underground, Cap'n Jazz--go to college, find other people that like the same bands and become obsessed along with them.

And then go to see My Bloody Valentine play alone because you don't have any friends in the city you're in--or at least any friends that want to shell out $50.

And then have m b v come out when you are in the waning days of your 20's.

Every review of m b v must have this personal element.  To talk about the album itself seems like an afterthought.  The first track sounds kind of boring.  The second track reminds the listener that they are listening to MBV and that it is about to get awesome.  The third track, "Who Sees You," is probably my favorite song on the album.  It stands along with the best songs they have ever done.  I personally find "Is This and Yes" to be one of the weakest songs on the album.  "New You" and "In Another Way" blend into each other for me.  One of them is super awesome and the other one is only really awesome.  "Nothing Is" is often compared to "You Made Me Realise" and indeed is the most fun song to turn up really loud on the stereo and play guitar to, while "Wonder 2" is often considered a standout track, though I am usually worrying about what album to put on next by that point (or getting ready to go to bed).

You won't be reading this far unless you are already an MBV fanatic.  You won't care about this album unless you are, and you probably won't be converted to MBV with the release of this album.  That is one of the things about this band.  It's unlikely they will play the Super Bowl next year.  They're not a band for the masses, but they are one of the most popular "underground" bands in history.

With m b v their legend is complete.  Nothing more need be said at this time.

 

BELT - Disquietude

Before I officially begin this review, I would like to take a moment to note the difficulty inherent in critiquing a work of art that a friend has submitted to me for consideration.  I have only previously done this once, in January 2010, here http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2010/01/justyn-with-y-swansong.html.  This album received a positive review in spite of the fact that I generally do not like to listen to "folk" music.  The genre of that album was arguably "folk +" but I found it interesting, and I enjoyed the production: being recorded in a natural setting, the mostly quiet acoustic strumming gave the album a warm feel.

Now I move onto BELT.  BELT is the band of a friend of a friend--or I might say is the band of a friend.  I went to the singer's birthday party at his house.  That was fun.  However I do not think we would hang out but for my friend that invited me to that party.  Ironically, however, this singer was also part of another band previously referenced on Flying Houses here http://flyinghouses.blogspot.com/2010/07/wolf-parade-expo-86.html.  That band was Mercury Landing.  Wolf Parade has nothing to do with Mercury Landing but the song "Yulia" seemed to be related to that band for reasons (another side project of that band?) that I cannot recall.

Mercury Landing was a "funk" band.  Much like "folk," I do not care much for "funk."  However, I would go to shows (when convenient) in order to show my support and also because other friend's bands would generally be on the bill as well.

Thus when I first put BELT onto my iPod and played it, I was expecting "funk" but got something else entirely, which is very hard to pin down.

Some notes from BELT's press materials may illustrate this: they have been an "underground" band in Brooklyn for 10 years.  This might give rise to the presumption that they play music like, oh, say, the Dirty Projectors, TV on the Radio, Liars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Black Dice, !!!, Fiery Furnaces, LCD Soundsystem, and Oneida--either all mish-mashed together into one sound, or like one band specifically.

However, they sound like neither.  Associating themselves with Brooklyn is therefore misleading, but one cannot say that just because one happens to be a musician that lives in a city heavily associated with a particular "scene" that has a particular "sound"  (but also, to be sure, is quite populous) one has to sound like one's peers (or heroes, as the case may be for "amateurs").  It is not fair to say to someone, "you should move to Omaha because you sound like you belong on Saddle Creek."

BELT doesn't sound like they belong on Saddle Creek, but it does inch more closely to their sound.  Perhaps this is all beating around the bush and I should just get to the point--is the album worth hearing?

I do have to say that it makes me more comfortable, as a critic, to be able to pin down a band's sound.  But the short answer is yes (if you like the bands I will be comparing them to shortly).

Unfortunately when I try to pin BELT down, the comparisons I draw will probably prove distasteful to everyone.  There is one comparison I can make with which few would complain: Wavves.  BELT sounds like Wavves to the extent that weed is amongst the primary lyrical subject matter.  This is no more apparent than on "Priorities" (the second track) and "Maria Juana" (the third), and particularly the latter, which is arguably the most professional sounding song on the album - though also the most juvenile.  Some bands (apart from Wavves) have built entire careers around writing songs about weed (the Grateful Dead and their progeny and Phish come to mind).  However I do not think it is easy to make a really great album with this template.  BELT does not attempt to do that, but at times flirts with the idea.

It is impossible to avoid mentioning the comparisons which will draw complaints, and it is easiest, unfortunately, to focus on the singer's voice to pin them down: Barenaked Ladies and Blues Traveler.

Now, it is important to put this in context.  Few Generation Y'ers will find much to like about these two bands.  They were popular when we were young.  I distinctly remember "One Week" being popular on MTV (before reality shows became de rigeur) and thinking it was a quirky, fun, creative song at first but made me want to puke by about the fifth time I heard it on the radio.  The video added more to the song I guess, though the song itself did demonstrate lyrical skill and melodic savvy.

Blues Traveler is harder for me to remember.  I remember John Popper being fat, and apparently he is no longer fat (according to my older brother, who met him a few years ago), and I am sorry to say this but I think his band is only going to be popular if he gets fat again.

Now.  My two oldest siblings are Generation X'ers (presently 42 and 39) and both liked Blues Traveler and Barenaked Ladies--and the latter way before anyone else did.  This may be going far afield but my point is that Generation X can appreciate those bands, but Generation Y generally has a negative attitude towards them, from what I can tell.

So if I say BELT sounds like those bands it's going to piss everyone off, and they'll say, we don't sound like that, and if I say, "they're a band whose time has already passed," it's going to sound like they've missed their opportunity to explode.  But it's the opposite.  If there is anytime they are primed to explode it is now.

BELT will play on Friday, October 19th, at 9 PM at Wicked Willy's as part of the CMJ Music Marathon.

Let me take a little tangent and say that I used to manage a band and I know what it is like to "produce" an "amateur" album.  I "managed" two records, or 8 songs between two bands.  Two EPs, or "demos" or whatever you want to call them.  The first one cost a few hundred bucks and seemed like it had a professional sound, recorded at a studio on North 8th St. in Williamsburg.  The second was recorded for free at NYU music studios by a friend who later joined the band after I left NYC and could not continue on as manager.  The second arguably sounds better than the first.

The point is this: sometimes when you try to sound "professional" you end up sounding more amateur than if you actually recorded it in an amateur fashion (see also, Wavves).

Disquietude was released on April 22, 2011 and is almost 18 months old. It was apparently recorded during a turbulent time and some of the songs on the album are actually a bit dark. One imagines that their sound has changed, particularly since, in the press materials, they state that their new album (which is untitled as of yet so far as I can tell) is "grittier."  Disquietude is considered to have a "pristine" sound.  Now, my stereo speakers have deteriorated quite a bit, but when I played my bands (Plastic Faces and Phosphates) through my iPod on them, or BELT through my iPod on them, both sounded extremely distorted.  This may be because the albums--all 3--are recorded loudly.  The volume is just high on the album automatically (unlike, say, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless, which is considered one of the loudest records of all time, but which is actually recorded very quietly--you really need to turn the volume up to hear it).

Getting to play a CMJ Showcase is a big deal, and I hope that BELT finds a bigger audience through it.

The album goes through many different emotions, but what remains most memorable about the band is their sense of humor.  However there is also a sense of sarcasm and darkness and pessimism about it.  It's a disquieting effect (!) and leads me to the conclusion that BELT is a "singles band" and not an "album band."  Some of the songs on the album are clearly more "worked-over" than others, and it can show.

Also, this may be a technical problem, but the song "God on the Couch" is silent, at least from the zip file I downloaded.  I do not think this is intentional.  But if it is I fail to see the point other than to make an "actual" secret song--which the last track clearly sounds like.

The last track is the best track on the album.  The ending of the first track on the album is one of its best moments, but it is a pretty standard "noise jam breakdown."  I do like the song "Are You Gonna Be OK" when it gets to the heavy part.  And I do find the lyrics across the entire album generally interesting.

The last track is three minutes long and extremely strange.  It is almost what the "Brooklyn sound" might be for this band.  It is just weird noise and feedback.  However I found it more interesting than anything else on the album because it comes out of left field: you are not expecting BELT to have an experimental side.

In conclusion, I come to no conclusion regarding BELT.  I cannot say that I will play Disquietude every single day for the next two or three weeks (as I did with, oh, Centipede Hz. (Brooklyn again!) or This is Happening) but I would be interested in seeing them live.  They would seem to be a fun live band, and though many may find the comparisons I've made to be odious ones, those bands also built their reputation on being "fun live bands."  Sometimes it takes a while to put out the album (or the single) that catapults them into stardom.  For BELT it has been 10 years.  But as far as I know, the gestation period for a band like them to hit it big is very close to 10 years (see also, The Hold Steady).

There.  You have a comparison that most people won't complain about.  Terrence B. sounds nothing like Craig Finn, and their subject matter is only arguably related, but they are both Brooklyn bands that unabashedly do not sound like Brooklyn bands.  It took a while for Craig Finn to get known, but once he did he ran with it, and while I personally may feel that The Hold Steady has declined since the departure of Franz Nicolay, they are still a band that I will pay attention to and try to see live--if they're not charging too much.

It's entirely possible that BELT's forthcoming album will be their Almost Killed Me and their album after that will be their Separation Sunday and come summer of 2014 they will be asked to play the Pitchfork Festival.  Entirely possible.

But the music industry, like most industries, is a cold one.  It is a long and harrowing climb to the top, and few can make it.  I wouldn't exactly put my money on BELT to playing Pitchfork in a couple years, but while it would certainly surprise me, it would not shock me.  They have the skill; it is only a matter of execution now.

My Top 10 of 2009

I am not a great listmaker because my consumption of music or books or films is limited by my budget, and spare time, since no one has felt the need to contact me and ask that I become a member of their press team. Oh, I would love to go to SXSW, Coachella, Pitchfork, advance screenings, advance galley copies, et. al on any company's dime, but we find ourselves in an incredibly fucked up situation, and only Tao Lin and the system of public libraries is willing to support me in my pursuit of critical professionalism.

If I had to name the best books of 2009, I would be hard-pressed, but I would put Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned on that list.

For movies, I would include Inglorious Basterds and Up, but I haven't seen anything else that approaches greatness. I suppose The Hurt Locker, the last movie reviewed on this blog and also the only advance screening I attended, deserves an honorable mention.

But music, I had bought more than ten albums this year, I think, and so here are my top 10:

#10: Atlas Sound - Logos
I do not think this was as good as Let the Blind Lead Those Who Can See but Cannot Feel but there were at least three amazing songs--"An Orchid," "Walkabout," and "Quick Canal"--and that's good enough for me. And it's not like "Attic Lights" or the title track or "Washington School" are weak either. Overall, further proof that Bradford Cox is the most consistently great musical artist of the late aughts.

#9: Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange EP
There were only five songs, but three of them--the title track, "Disappearing Ink," and "Circulation"--okay I don't want to repeat the previous entry. I put this above Atlas Sound because I prefer Deerhunter--they are louder, and they are tighter.

#8: Superchunk - Leaves in the Gutter EP
Criminally overlooked, as often happens to Superchunk. Though there are only five songs, and one of them is an acoustic version of another, further proof that Mac McCaughan is the most consistently great musical artist of the 1990's, and the aughts...that is, if you like their sound, which okay, not everyone wants energetic alternative pop-punk all the time, but I do. "Misfits & Mistakes" is as good as any other Superchunk song over the last twenty years. And this EP is so much better than Here's to Shutting Up that I had to include it. I really hope they do a full-length in 2010, and a proper full-scale tour. I like Portastatic, but it's not quite the same.

#7: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - S/T
I really don't think this is all that great, but it delivers on the hype, I think (in a way that the xx does not, for me). "Young Adult Friction" is a cool song. There are a few other good tracks, and a couple that are a bit annoying. But the sound is pure MBV, and while K. Shields & Co. may continue to dangle the promise of a new record--"it's a poor substitute at best," but it's good enough for now.

#6: Sonic Youth - The Eternal
Every year that Sonic Youth puts out a new album I will always put it in the top 10. And I do not think I am being unfair. This is one of their most fucked up records in recent years. It's so weird, and funny, and heavy, and accessible. Better than Rather Ripped, better than Sonic Nurse--on the basis of the first two tracks alone. Not that the rest of the album is any less inspiring.

#5: Jemina Pearl - Break it Up
Truthfully, this belongs closer to #10, as it wore me down after a couple weeks, but for those couple of weeks, it was the only thing I listened to. An incredibly consistent album--and probably better than the Be Your Own Pet swan song Get Awkward. The second half of this album is amazing. The first half is not too bad either. I would list all the great songs but it would be pointless because I would just list every song on the album, except for maybe two or three that grate on me a bit. Jemina can be a little annoying at times, but that is also what makes her great.

#4: Morrissey - Years of Refusal/Wavves - S/T (tie)
Two albums I bought on the same day back a long time ago at the beginning of 2009. The Morrissey was more immediately satisfying, but I rank it alongside Wavves because Wavves has the potential to be pretty awesome down the line. Morrissey turned 50 this year and continues to satisfy me by not backing down from his position that it is okay to be miserable and alone and sing songs about how horrible a serious adult existence can be--a true original, and one of the very few who has not lost the power he once wielded, some twenty-seven years on. Wavves turned 23 this year and satisfied me by singing songs about smoking pot and feeling bored and various fun things to do in California--like, I wish I had this album on a boombox, could go to a beach in SoCal, could light up a J, and then go for a swim, while getting a good tan. It may be fantasy, but Wavves proves that the dream of turning from nobody into the next big thing is still possible, and having much publicized festival meltdowns tends to help this cause.

#3: Girls - Album
Probably just on the basis of "Lust for Life," "Big Bad Mean Motherfucker," and "Morning Light." Those three songs are so awesome. I just think Girls are the most interesting new band to make their debut in 2009. The fact that they seem really messed up emotionally, but are also strangely wholesome, and sincere, is a combination that worked out very well for them on this album.

#2: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
Now we get to the heavy hitters. Initially, I didn't see what was so great about this album. I loved "Zero," but I was like, "Why is the rest of this so somber? Why will you not kick the shit out of everyone, Karen O? This will not be fun to see live! Who cares?!" As time passed, and more listens gradually occurred, I realized this album is a masterpiece. Think "Maps" over and over, in various permutations.

#1: Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Once again, when I rated Sound of Silver the #1 album of 2007, I sided with the bandwagon jumpers, and now here, I will do the same with AC. I've been listening to them since Feels, and didn't really see what was so great about them. Strawberry Jam has proven to be an album that has really grown on me. But this album, which is now over a year old, is their first undisputed masterpiece. I never understood the appeal of AC until I gave this album a chance. This led me to recently purchase the Fall Be Kind EP, which does have one song that approaches the heights this album reaches, but overall, almost nothing can top this album. Okay so a couple places said Kid A was the album of the decade (after OK Computer was the album of the previous decade, or else Nevermind or Loveless)--and don't get me wrong, I love Radiohead as much as the next guy, but this album is so good it should have been hailed as the album of the decade. Kid A may have been gloomy, and portentous of things to come in American and global society (9/11, Bush, Iraq, Economic Hell)--but on the other end of the spectrum we have an album about leaving one's body for a night, forgetting everything awful about life and society at large, and just finding a little space where happiness can exist, if only for forty or forty-five minutes. Plus I didn't like Kid A as much as everyone else. So, all hail Animal Collective as the next Radiohead, even though it seems doubtful they will ever reach that degree of commercial popularity.