Spring becomes Summer

(This form, rythym, style and all copped from one of my new favorite songs: The Trapeze Swinger)

Please remember me, leisurely
While you’re pacing in the kitchen
And light, window-paned, falls ‘cross your face
With the warmth of Mexico.
A trip two other lives took in love
Now seems faraway fiction.
In life, senses fail, love is bare
And all memory is stealthy.

Please remember me, as you sleep
In a land not seen in daylight.
My face, young again, as we met,
A swirl of colors never painted.
And as you walk, across the falls,
The clouds start raining blood like roses
You dropped in fear, feather-light
And tears washed my gifts away.

And please remember me, at nineteen,
Surprised at your affection –
A new friend, hesitant,
My dreams all wrapped around you
And despite freckled cheeks and nervous eyes,
I pretended I was cool.
We danced on your bed, in monsoon rain
And in the back of your old house.

Please remember me, across the street
Washing dishes in the café,
Your hair spiked and bleached, you call to me
“Baby let’s take off today…”
Your tanktop tan, and mischief eyes,
You were an artist with my time,
But, at summer’s end, your back to me
With downcast eyes on your doorstep.

So please, remember me, through whiskey –
Fleeting wisdom your new power
And your eyes, in soft light
Neon iris reflection.
The candle in your hand, a cigarette –
A burst of immortality.
But nothing’s free, not whiskey
Not your mind to forget me.

Please remember me, before you leave –
I was once your promised future
But now, my time has shrunk,
Like dried flowers on your dresser.
And when we meet again, a shoulder shrug,
Our eyes blind to recognize
The rebel youth, impatient truth
Devouring all we ever wanted.

And I’ll remember you, as I please,
Casting off all the danger
Of growing close, like as one –
Airport hugs lift off the ground.
So, when we talk, long-distance calls
All the strength I have is for you
Just as if our time had never stopped
And the spring’s becoming summer.

Masked and Anonymous

Etc.
So, the Wildcats are teetering – at best. But the Suns are riding the NBA’s best winning streak and spring training is in full swing, so maybe it all evens out in my sports world.
Backup tournament favorites: UAB, because they have a guy named Squeaky Johnson; Gonzaga, for the NCAA’s Bravest Moustache; NAU (hopefully), for the pot-smokin’ brethren on the mountain; and SIU, for Spills’ one-time residence and the ridiculous notion of a small-town Midwestern school with an Egyptian dog for a mascot.
Actual tournament prediction: Connecticut, I ‘spose, because from what I’ve seen they really can suffocate teams. Just so long as it ain’t those pricks from Duke…
My days of giving Barry Bonds the benefit of the doubt are officially over. I never really cared – my thoughts on steroids in baseball are complex and I’ve always considered Bonds primarily a fierce competitor, which he is.
As a sport, baseball has gone through so many evolutions that to set steroid use apart completely from everything else that has gone before it just misses the point. I don’t support steroids in any way, but I think their impact on the game is overstated. Until the 1980s, baseball players never even thought about lifting weights or training year round. And you better believe pitchers are every bit in the mix as much as the hitters. Steroids are another evolution in the game – though perhaps the most unfortunate one. I don’t think any records should be abandoned outright, just understood within the proper context.
My solution on steroids and performance-enhancing drugs and all the like is to institute one single standard. Ban everything, starting with the Olympic committee and running on down to every professional league in the world, and college athletics. Everyone should ban the same stuff, test the same way and to the greatest degree possible penalize athletes the same way for violations.
But to throw away all that’s been done in baseball’s “steroid era” seems to be extreme. It’s not a good thing and it must be corrected, but objectively it’s one of the evolutions of the game, just as variations in mound heights, segregated teams, relief pitching, athletic conditioning, expansion, night games and domes.

This crazy guy in Mesa frat-guy’d a sheep. And got caught red... handed.

So, during my mostly upheld, personally imposed ban on political writing in the last 16 months, our criminal president and his trigger-happy first mate sure have slid downhill, haven’t they? (Just thought I’d point that one out – and say how enjoyable some commentary on scandals 1 through whatever might have been. But I’m good like that, yo.)

Anybody heard any good records lately?

Live music season is slowly but surely returning here to the desert. My note page of dates and bands is mostly full and looking really incredible.

I’ve turned back to Masked and Anonymous a couple times lately, trying to burrow myself deeper into what even I will acknowledge is at first glance an absolutely nonsensical, really quite awful movie. But that’s certainly not the end of it. I keep finding pockets of brilliance in the allegory and the commentary. Basically, as I’ve told the Minions, it’s a feature length music video (with dialogue, a rough plot and at times allegorically heavy-handed characters) to a Dylan song that hasn’t been written yet. That doesn’t quite make sense, and neither does the movie, but to simply dismiss it as nonsense or a vanity project risks throwing away an awful lot of intriguing notions.

February

February is a rainbow; February is midnight. It’s a month both rare and strange – beautiful in the right light, at the right moment. February might be a treat, or you might never see it before it’s gone.
February is still, an after-the-storm still, more wrapped up in hesitancy than expectation. February is tentative and a bit lost, just behind the curve, waiting for cohesion to step in and order things.
February is quiet, shying away from the blustery antics of January’s new year. February is an arrival of a different sort, the underlying reality on the other side of the coin. February bids goodbye to football and keeps checking his watch for baseball.
February is content with 28 days. It’s more efficient, quicker, taking a no-nonsense approach to the calendar.
February asks little and is well suited to give little in return. February’s treats are irregular – a wildflower bloom one year but not the next, feet of snow or days of sunshine, the occasional late Christmas gift will trickle in.
The advertisements will tell you February is a month devoted to love, but it’s far more devoted to expression. February is imposed tradition, a manufactured series of holidays and observances, from Valentine’s to the Super Bowl.
February can be drab, dry and dreary. It’s the universal movie setting for the doldrums. But that’s just the spin – February is also true and honest, curt and direct at times, but unfailingly accurate.
You’ll learn more in February than any of its 11 brothers and sisters. February is an introverted bookworm who’ll grow up to be a Trivial Pursuit master. February is a time to improvise and expand, it’s a trial run for yourself.

Pine tree glory

Pine tree glory
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

Two years...

Two years and a few days ago, a bright new face in blogging burst on the scene.
Even from his first tentative posts, it was evident that Catfish Vegas was a singular talent, ready to turn the blogging world on its ear.
Vegas' strengths were in his voracious posting, usually several a day, and his keen eye for new details in the latest political scandals of our land, or the latest in cinema and popular music.
Vegas' popularity grew and grew, with thousands of new readers pouring in day by day like pilgrims to soak up his poetic wisdom.
It's safe to say the world would be a frightfully different place without the measured wit and soothing observations Vegas brings to his blog.
If he accomplishes little else over the course of his long life, Catfish Vegas will be remembered as an American hero for even his first two years on the blog. Vegas has profound insights and a deep connection to the shared human experience. His words ring out as if from mountaintops, and soothe as if from the very springs that have eternally kept man alive.
Check out a review of his first year.
For the sake of his millions of fans, here's a prayer for Vegas to continue his amazing blog, less we all suffer as life dims. Rejoice in the Vegas!

Catfish at the record shop

I started blogging just 'cause I wanted my own place to write about the top albums of the year. Go check out 2003 and 2004. And without futher ado, Catfish Vegas Presents... the 20 best albums of 2005:

1. Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy / Black Sheep Boy Appendix.
2. Calexico and Iron & Wine – In the Reins
3. New Pornographers – Twin Cinema
4. Crooked Fingers – Dignity and Shame
5. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois
6. White Stripes – Get Behind Me Satan
7. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
8. Bruce Springsteen – Devils and Dust
9. Bright Eyes – I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
10. Mike Doughty – Haughty Melodic
11. Wolf Parade – Apologies to the Queen Mary
12. Rogue Wave – Descended Like Vultures
13. Broken Social Scene – Broken Social Scene
14. Death Cab for Cutie – Plans
15. Decemberists – Picaresque
16. Beck – Guero
17. My Morning Jacket – Z
And a live album, a collection of outtakes and demos and a reissue:
18. Wilco - Kicking Television
19. Bob Dylan - No Direction Home
20. Bruce Springsteen - Born to Run 30th Anniversary

As usual, I ought to mention that I'm neither filthy rich nor an actual music critic with access to free records. So I miss some stuff. Here's a list of 'honorable mentions,' albums I really feel I ought to catch up to, and ones that based on what else I've read could very well be among the top: Sleater-Kinney - The Woods; Andrew Bird - The Mysterious Production of Eggs; Son Volt - Okemah and the Melody of Riot; Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree

Thanks for visiting and have a kick-ass 2006! - Catfish

Catfish on 2005

I decided I'd take 2005 a little bit further and start 2006 today. Never mind the New Year's Celebration, I just didn't want to go through the whole internal reflective stuff whiles out of town.

On the personal/friends front, it was an entirely absurd year. People lost their minds, their homes, their jobs, their pancreases... Good, bad or otherwise, the word of the year was FLUX.
People found and lost love and just simply moved, moved, moved and moved.

I kicked into a few new gears, switched from working nights to days, joined the world of the Property Owners, saw about as much damn live music as I possibly could, wrote weird cryptic things about months, hit the road a hell of a lot, spun myself in circles on a few issues and generally absorbed an awful lot of FLUX. It's out there; it'll catch you.

The world was in many ways a terrible, terrible place in 2005. We found out our president is a criminal, and an unrepentant one at that. Our societies racial divide was shown so clearly in the mishandled response to an actual whole (black) city being destroyed. The War of Stupidity chugs along. The dominant party of Congress is collecting scandals faster than I can count. What a political mess.

The entertainment world was dominated by batshit crazy, talentless people: Tom Cruise, Paris Hilton, Trump... Most movies sucked, record sales tanked (not for lack of good music, but for major labels being blind to what's great out there).

Anyway, thanks for sticking around. Music deserves its own post, but here's Catfish Vegas' rundown of some of his favorite shite from 2005.

Cinema:
1. Sin City
2. History of Violence
3. The Aristocrats
4. Crash
5. King Kong
6. Batman Begins
7. Land of the Dead
8. Forty-Year-Old Virgin
9. A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
10. Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith

(And that's all I even saw, so no complaining.)

Television - I usually try to stay away, but here's a thin list:
1. Arrested Development - quite simply the funniest show ever.
2. Grey's Anatomy - Tremendous cast lifts hospital drams from cliche land.
3. My Name is Earl - Jason Lee plays the funniest sit-com character around.
4. The Office - Strange and snappy humor borrowed from the British.
5. Craig Ferguson - Now the funniest man on late night television.

Stay tuned...

December

December is the star at the top of the Christmas tree of the whole damn year, the ham at the fulcrum of the Feast of 12 Months, the beautiful wrapping and gorgeous bow on the biggest present in sight, the long and low belch as a gluttonous day fades into an afternoon nap.

When it comes down to it, December really is the Godfather, the patriarch who’s earned all of the feasts and grandchildren's smiles out there. December will eat until he’s full.

On one side of December is a warm nest, comfortable like your youngest days, fitting just right. On the other is a steep cliff, a dizzying drop-off into the uncertain but deadly ether.

December is a vice, 31 turns that’ll squeeze your mind out your ears.

December overflowed a long time ago, and you’re left slurping at the edge of the mug, trying to catch more of the steaming tea. Scald your tongue or scald you toes; that’s how it goes.

December’s a mug of hot chocolate – sweet but fattening, a treat that’ll cost you, rich but deadly.

They put December at the end of the year because nobody could take another month.

December brings the house down, smashing guitars and hurling drumsticks at the crowd. Not another note out of this year’s band.

December’s motto: Saddle up and get spit out. He’s better than you.

December’s like Manhattan stretching across all of West Texas. Jesus F’ing Cristo…

December is when you realize you’re not young anymore, when the excitement of innocence seems quaint rather than urgent. If only December would pull the wool over your eyes like it used to.

I went home, saw 1,000 people per hour, celebrated quickly and left even quicker. December is a hit-and-fade attack, everybody’s last damn chance to do something before the year rolls over zeroes again.

But in the end December is merciful, an opponent who knocked you down on the way to glorious victory, but before settling into the post-game celebration and interviews, walks back and gives you a hand up. “Don’t worry about it, chief,” December says. “January’s coming soon and you can take it easy.” Then he winks and trots off.

The Bottle and the Mountain

The Bottle and the Mountain
Originally uploaded by lionelfrailey.

November

November’s usually undercover – incognito. You turn you head quickly as it walks by, never quite sure if you really saw it.

November’s half October, half December – only its own month because the other two would be far too long otherwise.

November’s a stage hand, a background assistant. It helps fall make sense, never wanting much recognition though. November prefers anonymity.

November likes the work, likes the preparation, likes it when things go right and nobody pays attention why. I woke up every day in November, never thinking it was November, always with my mind on something else.

November starts when Halloween ends, and ends with the fading memories of Thanksgiving. It’s bookended by the strangest holidays we have – one celebrating misdirection and disguise and the other embracing a gluttony so remarkable it leaves a week’s worth of leftovers.

I love November – it’s a timeout if you really want to take it. Deep breaths for free.

November tries to squirm a bit, though, sneaking into both fall and winter, both Christmas and Halloween, both warm family embraces and solitary exhales, steam-breath dancing from the lips. Who’s to blame November, the middle child, from proclaiming that it’s both young and old? Who’s to blame when November wants just a bit of it all?

I left town for a bit in November, damn near everybody does. November facilitates gatherings, a perpetual host, making bold introductions across broad groups of friends and families. Many a November gathering is likely to never be repeated.

November’s a little slow, by design. It’s protective, nurturing. November ain’t trying to leave anyone behind. Patience all around, November urges, and we’ll all have a piece of pie, all get a good time in at some point, all have time to make sense of the fall before the winter hits.

Kelvin-Helmholtz Records

Look out, it’s here. The only record company I know of named after an obscure atmospheric phenomenon has dropped its first release, a 16-song compilation appropriately named “Prescott Made Me Do It.”

And I suppose it did – Prescott that is, making them record, making them create, making them take a dreamer’s idea and give it life.

This Kelvin-Helmholtz is a family affair, helmed by my bro, Stu Leblanc, and his cohorts, Colton and Andrew. They pulled it off, and pulled it off in style, with a nine-hour, 13-band show, all in a sleepy little hick town.

I know that hick town all too well, and I know that for some damn reason many of its young inhabitants are forced into creativity, forced to make do somehow, forced to turn weird and vibrant in the face of boredom and oppression.

Stu and Colton have long talked about starting their own record label, and here it is. One compilation, however, is but a first step. Promising, though, are at least two of the bands on the compilation, in fact the two bands who will form the cornerstone of the label’s stable. Keep your ears open and one day you’ll hear Blankets and the Swim.

Those two were for me the highlight of the show and the album, by far. Much of the rest tilts too hardcore or screamy for my tastes. My own friends who contributed made probably the weirdest music on the set, which is to be expected coming from them.

As far as the label goes, I’ll likely have at least some peripheral role as it develops, with Stu one of the leaders and half of the Swim soon to be moving into my pad here in Tucson. Maybe I’ll pick up the guitar more then.

There’s a lot of damn music in the world, a hell of a lot of it amazing and a hell of a lot of it terrible. A great portion I’ll never hear. But why not make more of it? So here’s to Kelvin-Helmholtz Records, and to a long life of great music.

Anchors

New Pornographers – Sing Me Spanish Techno
Okkervil River – Black
Crooked Fingers – Call to Love
Luna – Speedbumps
Neko Case – If You Knew
Alejandro Escovedo – Crooked Frame
Dead Hot Workshop – Burger Christ
Al Perry – Little Bird
Townies – Fantasy Jones
Calexico & Iron and Wine – History of Lovers
Mike Doughty – Unsingable Name
White Stripes – Take, Take, Take
Ozlo – Windows Down
William Shatner – Common People
Neutral Milk Hotel – In the Aeroplane over the Sea
Sundays – Here’s Where the Story Ends
Lucinda Williams – Greenville
Tom Waits – Heart of Saturday Night
Bob Dylan – When the Ship Comes In
Woody Guthrie – I Ain’t Got No Home

Bye Bye Restraint

This post is about politics. It’s about lying, murderous sons of bitches and blinding stupidity. It’s about anger, a full pot of anger that can’t hold another drop and keeps boiling over. It’s about corruption deep enough to embarrass even the arch enemies of the power mongers. It’s about right and wrong and how deeply they’ve been obscured through a campaign of lies. It’s about unnecessarily dead soldiers by the hundreds. It’s about wanting a fucking change so bad a pacifist unknowingly clenches his fists.

George W. Bush has led this country into a crusade the last thousand years should have ensured wasn’t possible. He’s subjugated every single notion of American democracy for a holy war. He’s raided the treasury as if he were a king. His arrogant and unrealistic worldview has reinstituted sadness and hatred as American ways of life.

Dick Cheney is so slimy it’s hard to believe there’s a human heart beating inside. His sneer is only fitting as a symbol of Evil. His lies are among the biggest and the boldest of all time. Dick Cheney’s existence alone is enough to disprove God – or to prove the Almighty has lost big time.

The Republican Congress is a crack whore that repeatedly drops its baby right on its head. “There’s cock to suck,” it tells the whining, malnourished brat at suppertime. “Fend for yourself. I didn’t want you.” Congress’ management of the country has done nothing but create losses for the least deserving. And the rich get richer, the corporations get tax breaks, policy breaks and pretty much the run of the place.

And this goddamn war… Mr. Bush, here’s the truth, since you’re so disinclined to tell it:

We torture. That’s right, America is a goddamned torture machine. And we don’t care. You’re brown. We’re ordained by God as rightful owners of your oil. And we like it. The “loose cannon” soldier is perhaps the ugliest myth of this whole damn Iraq conflict. Torture climbs the chain of command like a limber monkey up a tree.

We have no business in Iraq in the first place. You lied. The justifications that won you congressional approval to use the threat of force were horseshit. There’s not even a debate on that topic, except for what you keep insisting. This new war against critics is surely to backfire, unfortunately it will almost certainly be far too late.

Your closest advisors conspired to illegal uncover a CIA agent, just to attack her husband, who had the audacity to be factually correct, on the opposite side of your assertions.

This war is lost already. This war could never be won because it never had an objective. Iraq will never be a democracy because there’s no historic basis to even make it a singular nation. Removing Saddam Hussein from power accomplished nothing more than paving the way for his successor, who in all likelihood will be equally awful.

This war has killed American interests worldwide and is accomplishing little else than to enflame tensions throughout the Middle East, making the U.S. look like the bad guy to any number of disillusioned teens who are just waiting for a target for their anger.

So, Mr. Bush, why do you keep lying to your country? Do you think that little of us? Are we even worth the truth? Can I please have a tax break? I promise I’ll pray to your unnecessarily vengeful, racist God. I’ll shut up. I’ll look the other way. I’ll hate, as much as you do, every piece of shit liberal who has the fucking gall to step in front of your imperial march, or challenge your monarchical birthright to “lead” this country (to ruin).

This post is about politics; it’s about being fed up. It’s about the inefficacy of turning your head because it seems “easier.” It’s about boiling over every once in a while. It’s about fuming and churning inside because the crooks and the warmongers have lied their way into control again. It’s about trying not to lose all hope for the future. It’s also about the easy way out, about writing instead of marching, about engaging in a liberal roundtable rather than getting in anybody’s face. It’s about fear and hesitancy, the unfortunate trademarks of the comfortable.

Appendix: Necessary

Okkervil River’s Black Sheep Boy is the first record I’ve ever heard that was followed by its own appendix.

The cynic’s first thought might be that appendix is a cutesy clever title for a follow-up EP, but I swear it’s the absolute best description of the record.

Black Sheep Boy is a stunning record, full of harsh imagery and chaotic, crashing sounds that all fit together to create the feeling of a lost outsider, hurt and strange and longing for solid ground. It’s like the swirling TV static dizziness of a head rush, but with emotions and more dimensions than you know what to do with. The songs build together, each taking little detours into its own little world of abandonment and the identity-questioning of a born outsider.

And the appendix takes a few more detours, from the “you never earned your soul” chorus of “No Key, No Plan” to the familiar refrain and melody of “Black Sheep Boy #4.”

Will Sheff has written one of the most intricately meditative records in all of rock, spinning the notion of the black sheep over and over and over and over, digging songs out of every crack he can find. There’s hopelessness, anger, abandonment, listfullness, optimism, confusion, paranoia, love and hate and it’s all just stacked together and molded just right, more of a long windows-down drive than a roller coaster ride. Running through it all is a sense of solitude, for good and bad, out of choice and out of necessity. Sheff has bred his black sheep into dozens of different varieties, each its own creature, few even sharing in resemblance anything but that black sheep DNA.

At two recent live shows, I saw the band – Will especially – perform with more confidence and assuredness than ever before. They’re in command, from the softest chord strumming to the wildest drum pounding. It’s a performance, but it’s unstaged. No two set lists are the same. No patter is pre-written. It’s just a band whose members appear to feel most comfortable and alive when they’re playing music for people. And those are the best.

The Tucson show was just the second back in the states, after two days off following a 22-show, 22-day Europe tour. The band was wiped, Will’s voice in sharp decline, and it was the first show back for keyboardist Jonathan Meiburg. Will busted strings and damn near killed his voice, but it all seemed to enrich the performance. Okkervil River isn’t the fucking Sound of Music. It’s chaotic tumbling music, full of unbridled energy and fueled by some of the strangest, most poetic lyrics ever screamed out at the top of the lungs. The crowd wouldn’t let them end, with a forceful contingent to my right lobbying heavily for Kansas City, one of the screamiest songs in the catalog. And Will complied. I snagged a set list after the show: it wasn’t even on their list, but they brought the house down.

I later learned the next day’s show in San Diego was cancelled so Will could visit a doctor, who diagnosed him with strep throat and told him not to talk for a week. Will said the tour must go on, and it did, with steroids for his throat and plenty of tea.

I caught up with them in San Francisco a few days later for a show that couldn’t have been more different except for its quality. There must’ve been only two or three songs that were the same in both sets. It was remarkably high energy, and in talking with band members afterwards they only looked rejuvenated, thrilled to have just finished having that much damn fun.

Some long overdue music writing

The Calexico and Iron and Wine collaboration In the Reins is a near perfect marriage, rich intricate music, subtle lyrics and all sorts of harmonies across the board.

Think of it as a grapefruit-cactus record, players from the sunny, bright lands of spring training finally getting together.

I’m an Iron and Wine novice, but close to a Calexico expert, so what I hear most is Calexico breathing a new life into Sam Beam’s tunes, taking the skeletal chord arrangements and melodies and dressing it all up. No other band could back Beam like this, melting themselves nearly away to fit perfectly with the front man. It’s a Calexico record like you can tell Richard Buckner’s Devotion + Doubt or Neko Case’s Blacklisted is.

Calexico’s “Southwestern” sound is played up too much in national articles or record reviews. They’re almost written off as a novelty in that respect and while in some senses the label is accurate, it misses what the band does best: embrace versatility. The horns and mariachi are just a small part of the band, which keeps drifting further from the hyphenised descriptions they’ve been given before, and even from the “desert noir” tag. Calexico has grown from a Giant Sand side project, through all the easy descriptions, to emerge as one of the most talented, unique bands around today, indie or not.

Perhaps the most apt comparison now for Calexico would be to the Band. They’re a group of incredibly talented musicians, feeding off older sounds and spinning and weaving it all together into an unmistakably singular sound. They can back anyone, with incredible skill and selflessness. Of course, Calexico is a much looser arrangement than the Band, and nearly entirely lacking the crazy personalities, but musically they’re cousins beyond a doubt.

Joey Burns holds court, a versatile guitarist and the band’s essential visionary. John Convertino is the most distinctive drummer I’ve ever heard. He gives the snare a “pop” that nobody else can come up with. And the rest of the players fill it all in perfectly.

“He Lays in the Reins” is a perfect opener, perhaps the most “Calexico” of the seven-song EP. It has the same kick and urgency of “Alone Again Or” from Convict Pool and “Sunken Waltz” from Feast of Wire. And then Salvador Duran breaks in, the first signal that the album is full of surprises, things that at first glance might seem out of place, but in the end give the album its texture, its uniqueness.

“Prison on Route 41” is a straight-forward folk stomp, mid-tempo. The narrator has let his family more or less rot in prison for the sake of a woman. It’s a sad tale, rendered with banjo and harmonica, with the strongest country undercurrent of the record.

“A History of Lovers” is harmony like they used to do it, peppy, bright and given great bounce by head-nodding horns. The darkness of the lyrics juxtaposed only lend the song a more interesting aura. Beam’s writing is near it’s strongest here, taking a love-triangle story song nearly into Dylan territory.

The blues-boogie of “Red Dust” was the toughest act to settle into on the album, seemingly out of place, a dusty Southern track that might fill the “rowdy” slot on a Lucinda Williams record. But it sinks in. The sound is the furthest from either band, yet more evidence of the enriching nature of the entire project.

“Sixteen, Maybe Less” returns to more of an Iron and Wine style tune, lyrics turning heartbreaking, far more whispered than sung.

“Burn that Broken Bed” is where the trumpets rule. Muted and haunting, I’m never quite certain when they’re going to come in or fade out. It’s that uncertainty, that suspense, that really drives the song. Again, it’s a touch that only Calexico could add.

“Dead Man’s Will” closes the album and just may be the strongest track. The poignant, simple lyrics are haunting. It’s timeless and heartfelt, something Woody Guthrie could’ve written. And the high praise is warranted. It’s the most stripped song, but again it’s so much more than simply Beam’s fingerpicked guitar that defines his other records.

Time runs as a theme through the album, with Beam musing on losses and regrets, with soft, slow tunes and minor keys rounding it out. But the difference from his Iron and Wine records is the fullness of the sound. Quiet doesn’t mean sparse, or singular, as anyone who’s spent any time sitting in a lawn chair in the sunshine in the middle of a forest can tell you. It’s that quiet that opens the ears up to all the different little sounds, and lets each one reach its full potential, making the whole mix better.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the record probably wouldn’t have been anywhere near as strong if it wasn’t recorded in Tucson. It has that mystery in sound that so many of this town’s records have. There’s always an instrument in the mix that you wouldn’t expect, always a turn seemingly out of character for the performers.

When the bands got together in concert, it was a nearly five-hour event, a full set from each, then a set together, with the EP played in its entirety, plus a few covers including: “All Tomorrow’s Parties” and “Wild Horses.” At one point I think there were 12 people on stage. Incredible.

I’d like to see another collaboration, but not for a while. Let each band grow and evolve and change and then get back together. I could guarantee the sound wouldn’t be anywhere near the same. And that’s the strength of all the players.

In the Reins ranks among the best albums of the year, and is probably in a class by its own as far as indie collaborations go.

Another Stab at the Rolling Stone Contest

The one that hit my mailbox yesterday has Bono gracing (defacing?) the cover. Who is going to be on the next one?

Place your bets in comments and the winner can assert dominance over the mere mortals.

San Francisco highlights:

Go karting

Fish, fish ‘n’ chips, clam chowder, Thai, Indian, burgers, burritos, bangers, pizza and on and on

Spending $130 at Amoeba records

Watching hippies twirl

Aerobe in the park

VFW ale

Freaktown and Scotter

Okkervil River at the Café du Nord

Halloween combo of a keg and a zombie nurse

Robert Anthony Peters on stage

Talking football with cabbies

Mild synchronicity

The Zeitgeist

Laughter

Yo!

SAN FRANCISCO-

That dog'll hunt!

October

October is what we’ve been waiting for. It’s the turning point between summer’s furnace heat and winter’s crackling fireplace.
October can’t decide what kind of pie it wants, but it doesn’t matter because they’re all delicious.
October has a beauty so complex even 11 different shades of brown delight the eyes. It’s a waltz, bright and full. October has some of the best ground of the year.
October is a small town kid off to the city for college on a full-ride scholarship.
October’s probably going to grow up to be president one day.
October is the all-American kid, broad-shouldered and sandy-haired, with a soft grin and bright eyes. October is a young Robert Redford.
October tastes great – spicy sausage and creamy caramels. October is a month of pretend and redemption. October is everyone’s favorite uncle. It’s psychedelic and wholesome.
October is playoffs and kickoffs. October’s middle name is Classic.
October can see no wrong in you. “Have a hug,” October says, “I’m a month-long festival.” You grew up with October, and it’s good to see him doing so well, healthy and happy, with a gorgeous wife and a beautiful young daughter.
October starts getting mystical, but knows how to laugh at itself.
October just had its first grandkid and is as happy as a little Buddha statue.
It’s October, and I’m going to the mountain, then to the city by the bay. October’s the trifecta – a perfect month for a friend’s birthday.
October reserved its place long in advance, claimed the mild days so nobody else would get in the way. October is probably the world’s most shared secret.

Bookends

Two incredible indie acts, two album of the year candidates, two personal favorites, two tremendous nights of music. And in between, a working “vacation” in Flagstaff. NTB, NTB.

When a five-day span includes Mike Doughty, the New Pornographers and an escape from the desert to the Northlands, it’s hard to formulate much of an argument. Flagstaff is beautiful, Doughty has a new band and is making some of the best music he ever has, and the New Pornographers are fun incarnate.

Doughty has assembled an upright bassist, a drummer who can handle the funk and even leans a bit hip-hop and a funky keyboard dude. This isn’t the subtle “small rock” of the last tour that brought him through Tucson, this is a crack group that actually starts to resemble a stripped-down, restrained Soul Coughing. Doughty’s music is all the better for it. He doesn’t need to toe the line on his old band, but his guitar style and vocal rhythms fit right into a loose funky band.

He stuck mainly to Haughty Melodic tunes, which was fine by me. He dipped a couple of times into Rockity Roll and Skittish tunes and played just two Soul Coughing ones – True Dreams and St. Louise, both personal favorites.

Not only was Soul Coughing one of my first concerts, it was probably the first new, hip, underground band I ever got into. The neo beat funky jazz or whatever they could be called really hit home when I was 15 and the sound has never left my soul since. Sure, I was big into Dylan and Springsteen and embraced both folk and punk, but Soul Coughing was pretty much the first band that I could listen to with knowledge that it made me intrinsically cooler than most people.

And from that first show in 1996 I haven’t turned away. Doughty’s solo re-emergence assured that. And two live shows the last two years have cemented my fandom.

Doughty is a tricky artist, and a tricky performer. Even with the band, I’m tempted to think of his solo stuff as mostly the folk-derived songs of Skittish. But he’s far beyond that and even though there’s a similar sound, solo he’s far divergent from Soul Coughing. Anyway, a hell of a Tuesday night.

Wednesday night was the drive to Flagstaff – my most profound home away from home. Flagstaff is a treat, a recharge and as prophetic as a nice high. Previously unknown nuggets of the self emerge, for some reason, in the mountain air. New ideas spring from my mind when I’m in tune with Flagstaff. I want to live there, someday, to see whether an extended exposure will enhance the magic or simply render it mundane.

The friends are few there now, but hospitable and warm. I’ll go again soon, and pay better attention next time to the whisperings and the frequencies of the place and the land.

As if to prove that diversity can have a decidedly ugly side, I left Flagstaff Friday for Phoenix. Arizona has a good deal of this planet’s most beautiful places, and one of Earth’s cruelest jokes, an ugly hole devoid of redemption unless you are one of the soul-less who thinks they find it at a car dealership or mega strip mall. Phoenix shouldn’t be necessary, but it is. Republicans have to live somewhere.

The rural reservation farmlands of Coolidge and the high deserts from Florence to Oracle guided me home, a re-energized thinker of fresh thoughts on a pilgrimage back to where he started.

And with hardly enough time to fire up a load of laundry I had to jet, destination Downtown and indie rock heaven. I stopped by Congress for a patio beer and alt-weekly reading before heading over to the Vaudeville-era Rialto, host to perhaps as many of my happiest moments as any other building on Earth. It’s the perfect “small” theater for “big” bands. Live music in Tucson is a unique thing for national acts. Sure the city doesn’t get the biggest acts, but for the most part Tucson fans can see touring bands in the smallest venues they’ll play, likely paying less than any other fans anywhere.

In my mind, the New Pornographers are honorary locals, thanks to Neko Case. This was the second time I’ve seen them at the Rialto and it was top-to-bottom great, a fast and intense show designed to get you moving. I’m no NewPorno expert, but I was glad to hear my two favorite pre-Twin Cinema songs: “Gradual Descent into Alcoholism” and “All for Spinning You Around,” if that’s what they’re named. Highlights from the new album included “Jackie Dressed in Cobras,” “Use it” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno,” but every song was captivating.

If only every week could bookend Flagstaff with two great shows… I’d quickly fall into a pit of exhaustion, but man, I’d be enjoying it.