Eight years ago today.

I’m sure anyone who has lost a parent (or heaven forbid, a child) can understand that when this happens it becomes a line of demarcation: your life before and your life after. It doesn’t mean nothing is ever the same or that you never get past it (everything is the same and you get past it except for the fact that nothing is ever the same and you never get past it. You don’t want to).

One year ago today this is what I had to say, and I’m not sure I can (or need to) improve upon this sentiment:

Blogs are, or can be, like diaries.

Except that diaries, by nature, are private. Which begs the question: do people who blog censor or soften the observations, complaints or critiques that in other times would exist inside a document designed to remain unread by others? (Or more to the point, should they?) To be certain, only a few years ago, thoughts like the ones I’m about to express would have been safely ensconced inside a journal, not read by anyone else, even including myself (I don’t often return to old journals, hopefully because I’m too busy living in the here and now). And for whatever it’s worth, I am humble enough to know that small numbers of people visit this blog, and I have enough sense (or self-respect) to instinctively acknowledge that nobody is well served by overly earnest airing of personal trivia.

Put another way, I don’t begrudge anyone else documenting every last detail of their existences (no matter how mundane or mawkish); I simply remain uninterested in reading about it. In that regard, blogs are self-regulating: if you don’t write things that others will find interesting, you won’t have an audience. And who cares anyway? In that regard, blogs are like diaries: people post on them because they want to, or need to, and the concept of friends or strangers reading their innermost thoughts won’t necessarily hamper their willingness to compose. Still, only the sensation-seekers looking for notoriety (usually the already famous, and even those folks have a shelf-life of about six months) go out of their way to wax solipsistic in a public forum.

When it comes to the death of my mother, I of course have meditated on the loss privately and publically, and anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) understands that her life and death are an unequivocal component of my ongoing existence. Nothing remarkable about that, really: it is what it is. I am not alone; in fact, one need not suffer the untimely death of a parent to understand that their presence is inextricable from one’s own. That said, it’s not because my feelings or experiences are unique, but because they are the opposite that I have little compunction sharing some thoughts on this plaintive anniversary. Indeed, for me these occasions are much more a celebration of her life (and her unambiguously positive influence in my life) than any sort of disconsolate meditation on death. It is what it is.

As I have mentioned in other pieces (most recently on my birthday), one of my earliest and most positive memories of art and discovery is associated with my mother: listening to Nutcracker Suite and drawing pictures. I still listen, as anyone who knows me knows, and I still draw pictures, only I use words (and, whenever possible, my mouth –as anyone who knows me knows).

I’ve long maintained that while I don’t begrudge anyone their pleasure in augmenting their musical experience with altered substances, I am happy to take it straight, no chaser. When I listen to music it does everything I suppose it is designed to do: it soothes me, inspires me, consoles me and makes me genuinely grateful to be alive. To be among the same species that was capable of creating this magic. To be transported to other times and places while being wholly present in the here-and-now (what a miracle that is when you think about it; something drugs cannot do half as reliably, or inexpensively…or legally). I don’t turn to music when I need it most, because I always need it. But certainly there are some songs I need at certain times more than others. There are, fortunately, too many to list or share, but there will be many more anniversaries of this day to remember, and I’ll look forward to sharing more at the appropriate occasions. For today, here are some songs that always help.

Chopin, “Waltz, Op. 64, No. 2″ (performed by Artur Rubinstein):

Grant Green, “Exodus”:

Bob Marley, “No Woman, No Cry”:

Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt and Sonny Rollins, “Sunny Side of the Street” (with epic, miraculous vocals by Diz):

Jeff Buckley, “Dream Brother”:

Led Zeppelin, “In The Light”:

Neil Young, “Motion Pictures”:

Living Colour, “This Is The Life”:

Sonny Sharrock, “Who Does She Hope To Be?”:

Jethro Tull: “Reasons For Waiting”:

Happy birthday,  mama.

Stevie Wonder, “You are the Sunshine of my Life”:

John Coltrane, “Naima”:

Booker Little, “Strength and Sanity”:

Janis Ian, “Tea and Sympathy”:

Abdullah Ibrahim, “Water from an Ancient Well”:

Bob Marley, “Bad Card”:

Living Colour, “Solace of You”:

Morcheeba, “Fear and Love”:

Junior Murvin, “Closer Together”:

Van Morrison, “Into The Mystic”:

I.

Listen:

When some of your best friends are people who exist elsewhere—characters in books you’ve read, musicians you’ll never meet, people from the past who died decades (even centuries) before you were born, or people you knew intimately who are no longer around—it might be time to ask some complicated questions.

Who are you?

That is, or should be, the first question, as well as the last question, and it should be asked as often as possible along the way.

You see, all men are islands. After all, no one else is inside you when you’re born, no one is going with you when you die, and between those first and last breaths, the decisions, actions and accountability are your own. All, all yours.

So: you find friends, you seek solace in yourself, you learn to discern redemption through the aimless affairs that comprise the push and pull of everyone’s existence. You realize, in short, that you are going through it alone, so you should never go through it alone.

Thoreau was quite correct about quiet desperation and the long shadow it can cast over us all, but you don’t want to run off to your own unseen island. For one thing, there are no islands anymore, except the ones you pay admission to enter; plus, it’s already been done; and above all, when Thoreau got lonely or hungry he walked home and had his mother cook dinner for him, a fact he forgot to mention in his quite convincing case for individuality. Besides, everyone is already on his or her own island. You can’t run away, and the farther you run, the closer you get to yourself. And you’re all you’ve got.

If you are fortunate enough to figure this out early on, you find friends: the ones who exist in your everyday world, and the ones who have been there all along, the ones you can always turn to, wherever or whoever you happen to be.

II.

I have visions.

As far back as I can remember anything, I remember it being there—and I’m not just talking about run of the mill malarkey like guessing who was on the phone before I answered it, or what the next song on the radio would be before it was played (although these were both common recurrences throughout the mini-visions of my formative years)—I’ve been aware of things that most, if not all, other people I know have no access to: visions.

A vision:

I was certain that I had been destined to die on my eighteenth birthday.

I was not clear on how it was going to go down, but it was definitely to be marked by dramatic and tragic overtones—it would be, in short, supremely adolescent. Not slow death by disease, or some unfortunate ailment of the elderly, but more of a movie star blaze of glory, think James Dean or Jimi Hendrix. I could see them all: friends, family, choice classmates—the ones who gathered around my locker now gathered around my casket—sobbing, singing, eulogizing. I saw it. The vision intensified when I discovered that my eighteenth birthday happened to fall on Senior Prom. At first the made-for-TV melodrama was daunting, a tad over-the-top; but then the vision accrued acumen and I got a handle on the situation: what a brilliant way to go! Either I’ll have just experienced my first—and last—blissful sexual encounter (speaking of visions), or I’ll shuttle off into the post-pubescent afterworld pristine, an unsoiled altar boy.

I have visions. I do not claim that they are always accurate.

After prom (where I failed not only to die but to murder my virginity) I awoke the next morning, more than a little astonished to have survived. Having applied to the appropriate universities, I glided through the formality of standardized tests, still not unconvinced that I would be going anywhere. I exercised less caution than the average teenage idiot, reckoning that my visions obliged me to abet—or at least tempt—fate a little bit, just on principle. Alive on arrival, I found myself at college, where I subsequently saw some things that gave my visions a run for their money. I made it through matriculation and then, the unreal world awaited.

Still alive, I had little choice but to keep on living.

III.

Listen:

To win? To lose?

What for, if the world will forget us anyway?

I didn’t write that. A poet wrote that. I’m no poet. Poets are always looking for things, like heroes. Who wants to be a hero these days? Who can afford it? The world could be—and might very well already be—full of folks who will ring changes and do their part to shake up the constricting and crazed institutions that keep us chained, bound and complacent.  There are lots of these people, I’m sure: tons and tons of them.  But the thing is, most of us are too busy trying to live.  It’s enough to just survive without seeking to pursue such lofty, such poetic propositions.

This is the new poetry: the more things stay the same, the more they change. Here is our art: haikus of horror in the cities, sonnets of sin and corruption, limericks of deregulation, free verse free trade, rhymed lines of laissez-faire, and the emboldened ghost writer, Death, forever at work on our collective life stories.

These days we look for poetry in all the wrong places. Some of us even believe we are gazing more deeply into the murky waters of existence when all we are actually seeing is our own reflections.

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you?

What he said.

IV.

These dreams are trying to tell me something:

I find myself back in high school. Often. At night.

The bell rings, students scurry, locker combinations are unscrambled. Except mine.

What is my fucking locker combination?

All around me doors are opening and then slamming shut, my buddies all about business, pictures of pin-ups inside their lockers replaced by pictures of their kids, my homeroom buddy with the beer gut easily fitting his briefcase into the small space, and here I am, imploding in this typical teenage crisis, attempting to be cool while the anxiety escalates on the inside: high school redux.

I’m going to be late for class—again!

And then, this: Shit! This is the math class I haven’t been to in two months (who could blame me, what with a full time job during school hours—a fact conveniently ignored in the insanity of this ceaseless scenario), more than two months, an eternity in dream years, and I’m not even sure what room it’s in. So here I am, unable to open my locker, again, realizing I’m late for the class I have already failed.

These dreams are trying to tell me something, I know. I’m just not sure what it is.

V.

License registration, no I ain’t got none,
But I got a clear conscience ‘bout the things that I done…

When you find yourself singing Bruce Springsteen lyrics in New Jersey to a state trooper in the hopes of avoiding a ticket, you might as well close your eyes, see what happens:
Maybe you could talk to the cop and explain that it was not disrespect for the rules of the road, but love of—and getting lost in—art that caused you to forget. To forget where you were and who you were, only to find yourself in the unfamiliar role of fugitive.
And maybe he would understand.
Maybe he would engage you in a discussion about music, and how it helps us, how it is always there, and occasionally compels us to do things we would not otherwise do.
And maybe, after everything was said and done, you would stop, and ask him if he was real, if this could ever actually happen.
And maybe he would wink familiarly, as if to say: This is America, ain’t it? Anything is possible.
And maybe you would believe him, even as you heard his footsteps fading away.
And by the time you opened your eyes, maybe you were still rolling down the road, the only reality being the speed and the sky, and the siren song of metal and machinery.

A vision:

Finally, his car needed fuel, he needed fuel; so he had no choice but to stop at the godforsaken rest area. Everyone, it seemed, had stopped at the same rest area: equal parts public toilet, food court and concessions stand. It was at once appalling and extraordinary; it was, in short, America.

Who were they, the people all around him? They were everyone: departing or arriving, leaving for vacation, returning to work, delighted, delirious, above all, anonymous. In New Jersey, or in any small town, or everywhere in America, there are people who find themselves lost; the people with nowhere left to go. A cliché? Sure. But clichés are made, not born. Reality, of course, is a cliché, and we have discovered that clichés—even as they are the enemy of art and authenticity—can be our friends. And so: going to church makes us sense spirituality, so we go; playing carols at Christmas facilitates a feeling of festivity, so we play; falling in love makes us feel loved, so we fall. We need all the help we can find, so we find friends and never look back.
He looked back; he looked around and in front of him, seeing the stereotypes: the ones in his mind that everything but experience had created. Or was the Cliché unfurling itself, the one that perpetuates from a particular place: experience, repetition, pattern, tradition? He saw them, he saw how he wanted to see them, he saw how they saw him, he saw how they saw him seeing them, and so on.
And who was he?
What was he all about? What had he done? Where had he been? Where was he going? Who did he think he was? Everyman? No man? Or worse: the type of person who actually asks questions like this.
Walking away, stomach full and mind clear, he saw her. He could not help noticing the forsaken sister walking in circles, seeking a corner of the room that wasn’t there. How old was she? Eighteen? Eighty? Somewhere right in between? Satisfied with a meek drink in the water fountain, she was the type of person who unthinkingly drank from public water fountains. Does anyone drink from public water fountains anymore? Do they still exist? Does anyone even notice them?
It was hard not to notice her, impossible not to notice that pain.
Pain: Dostoyevsky, disconcerted as he was with crime and punishment, saw all the suffering of the world in a prostitute’s eyes, and sobbed when he witnessed a peasant, hard-pressed with impotent anger, beating his horse to death. He opened his eyes and half expected to see this woman whipping herself while Nietzsche—knowing full well that God was dead— held his head and wept. Who was she, and what was she doing here?
A hooker, a homeless person? A mother, a case of mistaken identity? A human symbol of hope, or Hope herself—a deity deferred, paying the price for us all, all of us sinners and those sins we can scarcely describe.
She’s just like me, a voice inside attempted to say, a voice he very well may have listened to—a voice he had come dangerously close to growing into, under the shadow of the ivory tower—had he opted to make certain decisions along the way.
He walked over, ready to help: offer money, lend a hand, do whatever needed to be done, even and especially the things he had neither the ways nor means to make happen. He walked over and smiled, and she spoke, making him an offer he had no choice but to refuse.
It was enough to make one wonder if (and even wish that) the stories in the bible, and those fairy tales and myths men have made all have a foundation in fact. That the slow, ceaseless suffering some of us occasionally see is in accordance with a plan, a motion picture we have no part in producing. That it was not even personal, all this erstwhile, enigmatic madness, it was strictly business. It was enough to cause the hardest of humans to hope for a beneficent Big Guy (or Lady, but it is asking too much for God to have the decency to be a woman) upstairs, shuffling that proverbial deck. Or cutting and pasting the appropriate pieces of the puzzle, always keeping a wise eye on the endearing idiots underneath, and generally doing and saying the things that the creator of an entire universe says and does.
But how the hell are we supposed to have hope when Hope herself had been reduced to this, turning tricks at a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike?

VI.

When the train left the station, it had two lights on behind,

Well, the blue light was my baby and the red light was my mind.

I didn’t say that.

A vision. Actually, a fantasy: Every so often I can’t help hoping that there will be a knock on my door and when I open it, who is there but my sexy soul mate, a beautiful woman who heard the blues music every time she walked by, and wondered if, according to her own fantasy, a sensitive, erudite dude had been right there all along, waiting for her, waiting for happily ever after. And after a while, she could no longer ignore the siren song escaping through the small space under the door and came knocking.

Of course, this illusion presupposes three things, in descending order of unlikelihood: one, that there are such things as soul mates; two, that my soul mate happens to live in my building; and three, that anyone actually listens to—much less enjoys—blues music.

All my love’s in vain.

What he said.

VII.

He waits.

He looks out the window and he waits.

He does not look at the magazine, the one on top of the others that littered the table, the one last picked up by the last person who had sat in this room.

He stands, not wanting to sit, not wanting to look down at the magazine. He looks down at the magazine, which stares up at him, defiant, disinterested, doing all that was asked of it. The magazine did not ask to be brought into this room, it did not ask to be read or ignored, to be picked up and put down, to be digested and then discarded.

He stands, knowing that if he thinks about the magazine he wishes he were not looking at, the magazine he will not read, he will not think of the things he does not want to think about.

He does not walk into the corridor to look into the room that the woman is not in.

He waits.

He understands—anyone who has been where he is understands—that you must prepare yourself to wait a long time. So you prepare, and you wait. And then, it is even longer than that, longer than you remember. Much longer. He remembers: standing, then sitting in this room, almost the exact same spot, twice already (third time is the charm, he does not say) and still cannot help being surprised at how long he has had to wait.

He waits.

No one talks to him (they know who he is and why he is here), and no one knows the story he could tell (it is the same story everyone who has stood where he is standing would tell).

He stands silently, shifting and sorting his awareness that eventually they will bring her to the room. When they bring her to the room he will see her. He will see her seeing him, then see her seeing him see her. And then she will ask him and he will have to tell her. He will try not to tell her and she will look at him and remind him that he has to tell her.

He waits.

He wishes that they would hurry up (hurry up and get it over with, he does not say) and then he hopes that they will never come so he can stand, peacefully paralyzed in this forever moment.

Eventually, he looks at the table, and the magazine that waits for him to pick it up. He does not pick it up.

He sits down and does not think about the nothingness that surrounds him, the nothingness around him and the gnawing nothingness inside him. He does not notice the plants or the paintings or the cheerfully colored curtain that does not cover the light outside. He does not allow himself to contemplate the sterile silence screaming all around him, the vacant spaces, and the odd energies of dying life. Most of all, he does not think about it: how impossibly clean people in impossibly white clothes speaking impossible to understand languages using impossibly powerful tools and technology anesthetize everything but still cannot keep it out. They are only human and they cannot disguise it, it happens no matter what they do to prevent it or ignore it.

He finds himself staring, again, at the magazine, the magazine that he had picked up without realizing it. He does not open the magazine he under no normal circumstances would have even the slightest inclination to read. He does not open it and therefore does not, among other things, learn about which foods would improve his sex drive and help him sleep more soundly, he does not find out ways to make his partner reach new levels of ecstasy every time, he does not peruse his horoscope to see what the future has in store for him, he does not discover the secret to losing ten pounds in only three days, and he does not skim the interview that explains how the fragile millionaire singer lost the chance of making millions more dollars after having a nervous breakdown while filming a commercial for a soft drink she would not otherwise endorse.

He waits.

He does not pass the time planning opportunities that could create happiness. He does not deceive himself (this time) about the possibility of forgetting the present by focusing on the past. He does not dwell on the types of things they would enjoy doing again, the things they enjoyed, once, which they never found the time or forgot to do. Again. He does not think about the ways in which you discover that the things you loved, then, become the things that bring about inexplicable sorrow: the movies, the music, the meals, the books, the board games, the photo albums, the family.

And so: he does not allow himself to think about her as she is now or how she was then. Or how he is now or how he was then. How he will be.

He looks down at the magazine, again, and picks it up, again.

He understands that the second he opens the magazine they will arrive, wheeling her down the hall like the enigmatic magicians they were trained to be. If he opens the magazine, the magic act, performed (again) before an awkward audience, will begin. So he waits.

He stands up and looks out the window, at the horizon, beginning to disappear in heavy air beneath the tops of the trees. He looks down, far below, where miniature people inside miniature cars sit in miniature rows, stoically and slowly moving forward in the directions of their miniature houses and the miniature respites that may or may not await them. The sky continues to sag, ensnaring the world in its silent sentinel. The people, and then the cars, and then the earth all slip away, leaving only lights that sigh in their electrical language. He looks down at the waning waves of lights, and these lights do not look like a thousand sets of eyes, they do not make the darkness more discernible, they do not appear as poetry. They are exactly what they are: they are progress, they are pain, they are power. They are the cold crucible of machines that control the lives of the men who made them.

He does not let himself think about these things. He has too many other things not to think about.

He does not turn around.

He will hear them, eventually, when they come.

Eventually they will come, and he will hear them, and then he will turn around.

Then, he would…

He looks down; again, at the magazine he will not read. He knows, again, that if he picks up the magazine they will come.

He sits silently and stares at the magazine. He stands and looks out the window. He does not turn around.

He waits.

VIII.

I still have hangovers, thank God.

Everyone who has known an alcoholic knows that as soon as you stop feeling the pain, it’s because you are no longer feeling the pain; you are no longer feeling much of anything.

So, I welcome the horrors of the digital cock crowing in my ear at an uncalled for hour, am grateful for the flaming phlegm in my throat, the snakes chasing their tails through my sinuses, the smoke stuck behind my eyelids, the shards of glass in my gut, and the special ring of hell circling my head. Because if it weren’t for those handful of my least favorite things, I’d know I had some serious problems.

All of us can think of a friend whose father (or mother for that matter), we came to understand, was in an entirely different league when it came to the science of cirrhosis. The man who falls asleep fully clothed with a snifter balanced over his balls, then up and out the door before sunrise—like the rest of the inverted vampires who do their dirty work during the day in three piece suits. Maybe it was a martini at lunch, or several cigarettes an hour to take the edge of. Whatever it was, whatever it took, they always made it out, and they always came back, for the family and to the refrigerator, filled with the best friends anyone can afford.

Our friends’ fathers came of age in the bad old days that fight it out, for posterity, in the pages of books, uneasy memories and the wishful thinking of TV reruns: the ‘50’s. These are men who have never opened a bottle of wine and have no use for imported beer, men who actually have rye in their liquor cabinets—who still have liquor cabinets for that matter. These are men who were raised by men that never considered church or sick-days optional, and the only thing they disliked more than strangers was their neighbors. Men who didn’t believe in diseases and didn’t drink to escape so much as to remind themselves exactly what they never had a chance to become. Theirs was an alcoholism that did not involve happy hours and karaoke contests; theirs was a sit down with the radio and a whiskey sour, a refill with dinner and one before, during and after the ballgame. Or maybe they’d mow the lawn to liven things up, tinker under the hood of a car that had decades to go before it could become a classic. Or perhaps friends would come over to play cards. Sometimes a second bottle would get broken out. This was a slow burn of similar nights: stiff upper lips, the sun setting on boys playing baseball, mothers sitting on the couch watching TVs families did not yet own, of forced smiles battling bottled tears in the bottom of a coffee mug, of amphetamines and affairs, overhead fans and undernourished kids, of evening papers and a creeping conviction that there is no God, of poets unable to make art out of the mess they’d made of their lives.

It was a hard time where people did not live happily ever after, if they ever lived at all. It was a time, in other words, not unlike our own.

IX.

(And so, (you think), a life is not unlike a novel: too often they are eager to please, predictable, safe. You think: And so, you should feel obliged to occasionally ask yourself complicated questions. Such as: What are you doing to keep things interesting? What can you do to generate momentum, keep the narrative flowing?

Memories refract reality, where we see what we’ve done, or what we wished we’d done, or what we might have done, what we should not have done, what someone else may or may not have done, and what we may or may not have done if we were someone else. Kind of like a movie, a work in progress, a motion picture in your mind.)

Fade in:

Eventually, the patio is filled with people. Not customers, necessarily, but the cast of characters who congregated at this sad café, all the people who had put in time making the place everything it was. One by one, they stroll in and sit down.

The ceaseless discussion of suffering continued in the other corner, where Nietzsche attempted to speak calmly to the ever-irascible Dostoyevsky. You’d very much like to join them, but you have work to do.

After a while, you finally approach the one table you did not know, the two people who had been waiting patiently all along.

It was a mother and her son, and it was difficult to determine if he was a young boy, or an older boy trapped in a child’s body. He could have been eight, or eighteen, maybe older, probably younger—it was impossible to tell. He smiles, not needing to say a thing as the setting sun shines off the silver spokes of his wheelchair. He sits still, body inert but head moving: he looks up, down, sideways—everywhere; it seems, but straight ahead. His head was the stimulus and response, a crucible of his contained, constricted energies.

You think about his life.

Time: the time required to do everything, any one thing, every act obliging some manner of assistance. Time: double, triple, quintuple the time. It defied comprehension when considered on simple terms.

You think about your life.

And you know what you are supposed to do, so you think good thoughts, purposefully positive thoughts. You understand yourself well enough to perceive that you should intentionally avoid the possibility, the probability of letting your thoughts go where they likely wanted to go. Where they would go, if you let them. You know if you continue to watch the little boy, you are going to contemplate all the injustice and suffering his condition entailed. Nevermind the fact that the boy appeared content, possibly even happy, and very likely unaware that he was disabled, or in any way different from all the other people in the world.

You look at the mother and think about her life. You understand, as you watch her place the straw from her son’s drink into his mouth, that it was she who bore the burden. The burden of responsibility, of memory, the affliction of knowledge. You can only imagine her anger, the fear and frustration she felt.

And yet. You are unable to detect any evidence of those feelings on her face, and nowhere in her actions, which were an instruction of patience and grace. Mostly, it was her smile. A constant, unquestionable smile; the type of smile that is perfected through practice. The sort of practice that is neither forced nor fake: it was the smile of perseverance and peace—hers was the face of faith. And you have seen this face before. You recognize it: you had seen it at a sordid rest-stop on the outskirts of the Jersey Turnpike, you had seen it lying in a hospital bed, dying as a new decade began, you saw it every day in your dreams, you see it right now, smiling defiantly in spite of everything it had seen.

You see the smile and wipe tears from your own eyes, because you understand—you finally grasp—that it was love, and it was miraculous. It was love, real human love. The type of love that involves effort and embraces life, real life: ugly, inequitable, often unaccountable. The type of love that redeems instead of retreating, the kind of love that is faith, portrayed in a mother’s face.

It was a smile. A smile. No one could afford to smile anymore. And yet, somewhere, some people still smile. Love and soul, of course. That’s all it ever takes. A smile capable of restoring your faith.

Fade out…

X.

A vision:

Later, he stood alone by the lake, thinking about all he had seen, about what had happened, and what was going to happen.

He thought about his life.

Silently he stood, the same child who had stepped in the shadows of the once towering buildings—before the city’s haze obscured the sky—and looked up at the stars, scattered like bread crumbs in the dark air, wondering if they really led to a kingdom beyond the clouds.

As always, he thought about his family, his friends, the heroes who had created the art that made life more worth living, the places and feelings that comprised all the pain and profundity of existence, all the questions that belonged without answers: all of this was inside him. So as long as he lived, and made himself remember, they never ceased to be.

I Talk With The Spirits.

He heard voices (Spirits? His mother? Himself?), once again reminding him that too much unpaid labor helped bring him to where he was—the sweat of history and the backs strong enough to endure pains he could not comprehend—and that all he was able to achieve helped make amends for the names and faces he never saw. It is their voices—each immigrant who helped build this country with their bare hands, who erected buildings they never set foot in, all the dispossessed souls that worked and died and never learned to write—it was those voices that clamored for utterance, waking him in the middle of the night; it was their cries that fueled his disdain; their screams that insisted on his solidarity, providing purpose to his restless, otherwise aimless indignation. These were the voices he had always heard, the voices he had been afraid to fully understand. Now, he knew he should be afraid if he didn’t hear them. He had looked for peace but was beginning to understand—and appreciate—that his peace was having a purpose, because there was too much work to be accomplished. There could be no silence, never in this lifetime. Silence is death, and defeat. Those voices spoke to him, and through him, and told him he was not alone. He would never be alone.

He looked out on the water, at his face, which reflected up amongst the buildings and air, looking down and seeing the world in itself. Then the mirror imploded as he walked forward, leaving his shirt and shoes on shore. He strode into the dark, warm water, making his way toward the middle of the lake and diving deep, not stopping until his hands touched the bottom, gripping the cold marrow of murky mud.

Moments later he emerged, sucking in the air as though he had never tasted life before, as though he was breathing for the first time.

Mad genius? Compulsive artiste? Fragile chanteuse? Misunderstood icon? All of the above? More? Whatever it is (and it could be none of this), there is no getting around the fact that Fiona Apple is a major talent. There is also no getting around the fact that the circumstances surrounding the conception, execution and (eventual) release of this, her third album, are the stuff of pop (and Internet) legend. Soap opera succinctly: word got out that Apple had recorded several tracks for her long-awaited next album. Then: was she unsatisfied with the results? Was the record label? Was she having a breakdown? Would we ever hear the album?

Between Apple’s admitted perfectionism, the understood (and expected) intransigence from the label, and the bizarre online campaign to “Free Fiona” organized by her more ardent fans, it’s a tall order to make sense of who did what when to whom. Who cares? The result is an album that could be called (tongue very much in cheek) epic and extraordinary.

But it gets better. The first version (the one ostensibly rejected by Epic), which was leaked to the Internets, then widely disemminated (and still pretty easy to track down) is, in this writer’s opinion, far superior to the quite satisfying officially released version. There is a rawness, immediacy and unaffected sincerity that confirms what a remarkable talent Apple is, (and, if the conspiracy story is true, what myopic, destructive imbeciles the people who usually call the shots are).

Finally, and most importantly, if you figured all that mid-decade hype regarding this album was a publicity stunt or not worth the bother, don’t make the mistake of overlooking this one. And if you are already on board but have not heard the “alternate” versions, here is a taste of what you’ve been missing: Any Other Questions?

19. Flaming Lips, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Prog rock lives! Concept album! About robots! The kind of album you get a contact buzz just looking at.

But as anyone who has followed The Flaming Lips knows, this is not superficial feel-good music to pass the bong around to (although I’m sure a few hundred thousand people have happily done so, with no complaints about the background music). Indeed, the “robot” songs comprise less than half the album, and some of those same recreational smokers might point out that the robots are highly metaphorical, and not about some dystopian future. Dude.

So, yeah, The Flaming Lips are out there, but they are out there in the best way. Arguably they are out there the only way they can be, because they could not be any other way. And any band, at any time, who can cultivate their own unique style that you can recognize with a single note is worthy of the highest praise. Most folks would agree that The Soft Bulletin (’99) is their masterpiece, and one of the significant works of that decade. But if nothing else, Yoshimi created a new crop of fans who could discover what they may have missed, and get on board for the next few albums (all of which have been wonderful in their own way).

This music is ostensibly breezy, and it has a deceptively ebullient air. The lyrics are quite sombre, dealing with death and the struggle to live. One way to look at this is that by dealing so forthrightly and unabashedly with serious issues, The Flaming Lips are able to deliver their findings with optimism and goodwill. Like Pink Floyd, the band they are often compared to, one need not be drunk or high, happy or sad to find much to love and enjoy on this brave and fantastic recording.

18. Tool, Lateralus (2001)

It is always cause for serious celebration when a band can be uncompromising to the point of near abrasiveness and still pull an audience along, simply because their music is too brilliant to ignore. I don’t think Tool is deliberately abrasive (in fact, I don’t find anything abrasive about their music at all, but I can appreciate how some folks may feel that way), and I don’t think they out to make impenetrable work. Sometimes a work (whether it’s an album or a novel or a movie) requires some effort on the part of the audience, and the more work you are willing to do, the richer the reward. Suffice it to say, Lateralus is the type of art you need to experience, and find out, in your own way, what (if anything) it has to offer you.

Put another way, Lateralus is a pretty dark, challenging work, and anyone with a functioning set of ears can confirm that there is some serious artistry on display. This is one of those albums that grabs you on first listen, but you’re not sure what is grabbing you, or what is being grabbed. Is it your heart? Your head? Your gut? All? Over time, it’s a little bit of everything, because this is art that makes you think and feel. It’s head-banging music for people who spend as much time in the library as the mosh pit (Check that, does anyone hang out in mosh pits, or libraries, anymore?). Anytime you’re ready to do some emotional and mental lifting, Lateralus will meet you more than halfway.

17. The Black Keys, Rubber Factory (2004)

The Black Keys have been productive (practically an album per year since their debut in 2002) and they have improved with each album. Even though their M.O. is as stripped down as possible (guitar/drums), and their music is grounded in a blues-rock hybrid that strives for authenticity and feeling (no overdubs, live-in-the-basement-studio recording, vintage equipment, etc.), they’ve shown an admirable range and willingness to expand on and enrich their sound. This is all on near-perfect display on Rubber Factory which, in my humble opinion, might actually be more highly regarded (now, later) if they had fizzled out after this release. But the fact that they have been so reliable and consistent has made it difficult to isolate individual albums. It also doesn’t hurt that each of their albums, starting with Thickfreakness, could –and should– be assessed as masterful.

I’ve had more than a little to say about Dan Auerbach these past couple of years and I’m still far from finished. But on Rubber Factory he somehow manages to sound, on some of the songs (like the opener “When The Lights Go Out” and “The Desperate Man) like a much older man who has seen long years and hard times. It’s not affected or sonic slumming: this is a natural gift and Auerbach has an almost indescribably expressive voice. Then there is his guitar playing. Then there is his songwriting. The guy is an absolute original, and nowhere is this more evident (if slightly ironic) than in his choice of songs to cover: on Rubber Factory he does a more than credible cover of The Kinks’ “Act Nice And Gentle” and then somehow pulls off  a (scorching) cover of Captain Beefheart’s “Grown So Ugly”. Folks, you can’t fake this. But of course the shining moments are the Auerbach tunes, which sound utterly unlike anything anyone else on the scene is doing (or is capable of doing): case in point, “All Hands Against His Own”. Arguably, the album’s masterstroke is the plaintive, powerful “The Lengths”.

Back in late 2004 there was at least one person who could not help wondering if The Black Keys, based on their first three albums alone, was laying the groundwork to become the best and most important band of the decade. Five years and a few albums later, the verdict is in and it’s not even close: The Black Keys owned this decade.

16. Living Colour, The Chair In The Doorway (2009)

The rumors of Living Colour’s demise have been greatly exaggerated.

While 2003’s Collideoscope was a welcome if uneven release, The Chair in the Doorway represents more than a return to form. Something about contemporary cataclysms seem to serve as a call to action for this band: Collideoscope was very much a post-9/11 statement, and many of the songs on The Chair in the Doorway sound like a wrathful response to last year’s Wall Street fiasco.

For an album that resonates with testimonies of lessons learned (“That’s What You Taught Me”) and self-explanatory smackdowns (“DecaDance”, “Hard Times”, “Out of My Mind”), there is a typical—and expected—air of adventure and variety throughout. Highlights include the fresh but filthy blues romp “Bless Those”, the almost slo-mo funk freak-out “Method”, and the final track “Not Tomorrow”, which, improbably, manages to sound urgent and subdued, like time’s really up (and is on the very short list for stunning vocal performance of the decade, any decade). The shining light burns brightest on the album’s succinct statement of purpose, “The Chair”. It’s all over in two minutes and change, but it stays with you: the muted and compressed guitar intro recalls “Information Overload” (from Time’s Up), while the uneasy vibe recalls the nervous malaise of Stain. The final result, quite simply, is a composition that only Living Colour could create, circa 2009. There is so much going on here, so many sounds cresting toward a disorienting momentum, it feels like being pulled out to sea in a current of quicksand.

It is right, then, to celebrate the return of a beloved band. It is also appropriate to acknowledge that, five albums in, Living Colour has solidified their standing as one of the most consistent, original and important bands America has produced. There’s little left to say: kick the chair out of the doorway and get this essential album into your life, immediately.

15. Portishead, Third (2008)

If I were to pick the 10 best albums of the ’90s, there is a very good chance that both Portishead albums (Dummy from 1994 and Portishead from 1997) would be in the list. Indeed, Dummy is, for my money, the best album of the decade and one of the seminal albums of the modern era: it not only utterly defined an entire genre (trip-hop), it truly transcended it. In other words, it recalled some of the best singer-songwriter tropes of the golden era (like Dusty Springfield on a bad acid trip, singing along to some of the best Italian b-movie pyschedelic soundtracks) and anticipated much of what was to come (found sampling and clever insertion of obscure jazz and pop bits). It was also incredibly, eerily out of time, transmitted from outer space but connected deeply to the darker aspects of our collective inner space. It is stark, immediate and arresting, yet also remote, cool and forbidding. It was, and remains, quite unlike anything anyone else has ever come close to producing. And some people even danced to it.

I remember thinking, with genuine resignation in ’97 after their second album, there is no way they can possibly follow this up. Sadly, I was correct. For a variety of reasons, Portishead dropped off the face of the planet. A year turned into half a decade, then more…and it became less a question of inspiration or intimidation, and more a matter of whether or not any of their hearts were still in it.

Nobody, not even I, could imagine how remarkable their eventual return would be (quick: how many bands can you think of that took 11 years between their second and third albums?), and their interminable hiatus made it that much sweeter. Portishead was too smart to retread the old formula, no matter how original and arresting it was. Indeed, they refused to retrace their steps on the second album, going from the judicious use of the perfect sample to simply creating their own samples (yes, they conceived the perfect sound or snippet, recorded it, then inserted it into the song, doing the unthinkable by combining DIY and cut and paste).

Third is, from the first second, quite obviously a Portishead album. But it is, against all probability, even darker and more urgent than their first two. The first album was a deep blue (almost purple) and the second a heavy gray; Third is just out-and-out black. And not the black of violence, incoherence or apathy; rather, it’s pulsating with feeling and a seemingly unquenchable anxiety. It is a naked nerve of an album, an album that sounds nervous without making the listener (necessarily) feel nervous. That, when you think about it, is a remarkable accomplishment. We still have the surreal soundtrack vibe, along with the raw and ragged vocals, but undercut with a confident, purposeful groove. That Portishead was able to tap into the considerably nuanced sound and feeling they invented/perfected while doubling down to produce an album that somehow reinvents (and re-perfects) that sound, is worthy of major kudos. Fortunately, their audience was waiting for them, and the critics recognized a masterpiece when they heard it. At this point, one should only hope Portishead might somehow do it again, but they’ve already given us so much it’s all bonus material from now on.

14. P.J. Harvey, Stories From The City, Stories From The Sea (2000)

Everyone seemed to agree that P.J. Harvey would never be able to duplicate what she achieved on Rid of Me and To Bring You My Love. Who could? Artists who go that far, that indelibly, so early in their career are either compelled to imitate (invariably with little success) that lightning caught in a bottle, or else they are too overwhelmed and flame out. It’s a rock cliche and it has ensnared way too many musicians. Fortunately, there are the ones who are either sufficiently adjusted, confident or restless to live in the past or become paralyzed by the future. P.J. Harvey kicked off the decade with an album that sounded unlike anything she had done, and it was a refreshing, vigorous change of pace. Appropriately, her time in NYC inspired some of the material and it bristles with the frenzied energy of the Big Apple.

It’s difficult to imagine a more appropriate call to arms (literally) to kick off Y2K than “Big Exit”, where Harvey declares “But I want a pistol in my hand/I want to go to a different land”, and my God does she sound almost unbearably sexy as she sings it. In fact, Harvey is in full vixen mode throughout these proceedings, and I’m pretty certain one need not be a smitten boy to fall under her spell. Check out the video for “Good Fortune”: Good Lord! (When she swings her purse at the 1.24 mark? I would jump out in front of one of those buses, and in that moment I’m reasonably certain I could walk through any of them.) She is the complete package, my friends. And it demonstrates something many folks never thought they’d see: P.J. Harvey sounding happy. Not to worry, that giddiness does not infuse all the songs, but it is pervasive throughout, in very satisfactory fashion.

Of course, there are the more sombre and reflective numbers, like “The Whores Hustle and The Hustlers Whore” (a kind of pre-epitaph for the decade) and the magnificent duet with Thom Yorke, “This Mess We’re In”. Then there are the straightahead white knuckle workouts like “Kamikaze” and “This Is Love”. In the end it all adds up to an a P.J. Harvey album that is unlike anything she has done before or since, and in many ways an album that stands above her own work and everyone else’s.

P.J. Harvy is a goddess, and that’s all there is to it.

13. Little Axe, Hard Grind (2002)

Of the albums I would most urgently recommend from this list, Hard Grind is near the top, in part because I suspect so few people have heard of Little Axe (guitarist Skip McDonald) or would ever be inclined to pick up one of his albums. And I could talk about his pedigree as a “musician’s musician”, or how his playing has been associated with some of the more significant (if unheralded) moments in 20th Century music: Sugarhill Records (for whom he was in the house band, playing on Grandmaster Flash’s epochal “The Message“), On-U Sound, the band Tackhead. In other words, the underground where so many of the strange and interesting things occur.

Bottom line: history and import aside, I’d encourage anyone to pick up Hard Grind simply because it is a significant, satisfying album. It is like a novel in many regards: a surface-level experience is enjoyable, but repeated exposure affords a more depthful (and soulful) understanding of what the artist is after. It accrues value and import with time. As anyone knows, these types of artifacts come along seldom enough that they should be celebrated.

A few years ago, when reviewing the reissue of African Head Charge’s seminal Off The Beaten Track (1986), I attempted to put some perspective on the whole “found-sound sampling” phenomenon:

Today, for instance, it’s not only unsurprising, but inevitable to hear pop-culture samplings and multimedia sound bites spliced into songs. The apotheosis of this formula—at least in commercial terms—was Moby’s fin de siecle mega-smash Play. Before that, a host of deconstructionist whiz kids, led by DJ Spooky and DJ Shadow (and myriad well-intentioned acolytes with varying degrees of skill and diminishing returns), succeeded in making cerebral, hip-shaking electronic music. But in the halcyon days, the world in world music was created by real instruments in real time, and any honest producer would acknowledge that virtually all roads lead directly back to Lee “Scratch” Perry.

Put another way, folks hearing Hard Grind might understandably say, “Hey, Moby already did this!” Check yourself before you wreck yourself: Little Axe did it first, and much more convincingly on The Wolf That House Built (1995!!). Not to hate on old blues songs sampled over electronica dance beats but…Moby is old blues songs sampled over electronica dance beats. Hey, it worked for a lot of people (and full disclosure, I never did hate the playa, or Play for that matter). The point is, as is so often the case, genre-smashing innovation that may not be ready for mainstream appeal often breaks through, years later, in remunerative fashion. That’s the way it works in all art forms. What is unfortunate is that unenlightened critics (and fans) credit the bandwagon jumpers with the advancements. So it goes, as Mr. Vonnegut lamented half a century ago.

Anyway, give this one a shot: it might just free your mind (and your ass can follow). And that in turn might turn you on to African Head Charge, Adrian Sherwood and On-U Sound, for starters. And you’ll just have to take my word for it, these are all very good things.

*It kind of kills me that the only video I could find on YouTube from this album is the (excellent) “Down in the Valley”, not because this isn’t an adequate representation of what Hard Grind sounds like (indeed, it’s one of the more accessible tunes), but because I would love to introduce anyone to “Blues Story II”, “Seek The Truth” or especially “Run Here Boy”–the latter one of the songs that truly rocked my world (in multiple senses of the expression) this past decade. The only silver lining is that perhaps this review will inspire some people to take a chance and learn more about blues, rock, dirty authenticity and, inexorably, themselves, by making Hard Grind a part of their lives.

12. Sufjan Stevens, Illinoise (2005)

Huh? That was the first response many people (like yours truly) had when the word began spreading that Illinoise, Sufjan Stevens’ second “state” album (following his first, the excellent Michigan, an appropriate homage to his home state) was part of ongoing mission to dedicate an individual album to each of the fifty states. The audacity! The chutzpah! The…genius! However this was meant to turn out, you had to tip your hat to the young man for staking his claim and shooting for the stars.

Five years and no proper follow-ups, the already unlikely proposition that he could pull it off seems even less feasible, but frankly, if the project ends with only two states covered, he did them proud. Illinoise has to be considered, hands down, the most ambitious album of the decade. Whether or not this album will age well only time can determine, but more than a handful of folks declared this one an instant classic. It is, to be certain, a classic of sorts. And whether or not it’s an actual masterpiece is entirely irrelevant (the type of thing only the most pointy-headed of critics and the types of dorks who make lists of the decade’s best albums concern themselves with); what is important is that Stevens set the bar ludicrously, almost impossibly, high and pulled it off. He manages to work almost every bit of relevant history alongside the most trivial minutiae, all in the service of songs that could be sung around a campfire.

To be certain, the choral, cascading song structures are deceptively buoyant; the strings and Stevens’ own voice are so gentle and pleasant it’s unnerving to consider some of the source material. For instance, one of the album’s signal achievements, an examination of serial killer John Wayne Gacy, Jr. It sounds like an obscure (but plaintive) Simon and Garfunkel cover, until you catch the lyrics and realize Stevens is entering some dark and dangerous territory. That this softspoken (and obviously sensitive) singer/songwriter –who looks and sounds like a choir boy– acquits himself taking on tough topics, and putting a mini-encyclopedia of state history into a toe-tapping song cycle, is humbling. It’s also a considerable victory for truly independent and visionary songwriting; a welcome reminder that a gentle but honest voice occasionally carries above the noise of the machine.

11. The Breeders, Mountain Battles (2008)

If Kim Deal was a dude she’d be considered one of the baddest MFers on the planet. She might actually get the props for being one of the better songwriters of her generation, and credited for some of the advancements she made for progressive rock. In other words, she’d be Frank Black. Just kidding, sort of. Bottom line: Deal has done enough with The Breeders to be able to say she has been an integral part of two of the best bands of the last 20-odd years. And, in the final analysis, she’ll just have to settle for being known as Kim Deal, the most under-rated, but beloved musicians on the scene.

Let me not mince words: this is very close to being a masterpiece and I can’t recommend it more enthusiastically.

Did you sleep on Mountain Battles? A lot of people did. And what’s crazy is that it is a totally accessible, user-friendly (yet utterly uncompromised) and enervating experience. I was lucky enough to see them play this excellent material live and the concert was (I want to choose my word carefully but there is no other option here) a revelation. There was an overflow of joy, purpose and love on that stage. Love of the material, love of playing it, love of the audience, love of self. It was a triumphant occasion. Yet very few people seemed to be have been swept off their feet (perhaps they were too busy gazing at the soles), if they even bothered to pick up (or, um, download) this bad boy.

Twin sister Kelley belts out a gorgeous (tongue only slightly in cheek) tune, in Spanish, while Kim counters with “German Studies”, sung in German (!) Novelty aside, there are straightahead scorchers like “Bang On” and “Walk It Off”. And not to worry, there are several songs (indescribably cool, indescribable period) that only The Breeders could make, like “Spark”, “Overglazed” and especially “Night of Joy”. But the crowning achievement on this set is the spectacular “We’re Gonna Rise” (see below): this is what it’s all about, a song that manages to capture everything that is so special about Deal, and her band.

People will always (understandably) point to The Pixies, but anyone who remembers 1989 understands that the monkey who ended up in heaven is listening to The Breeders.

Shameless? Obviously.

A ludicrous, cowardly ass clown? Clearly.

A bullying blowhard? Yup.

A self-aggrandizing huckster who sells snake piss to imbelices and laughs all the way to his drug dealer? You know this.

Are we really surprised by his latest lowering of the bar?

I’m certainly not.

(Which isn’t to say I almost caught myself shaking my head, not quite in disbelief but in a kind of awed amusement: there he goes again. Seriously, when you not only live in the slimy detritus of talk-radio sewage, but make a (very remunerative) living doing so, there is literally no bottom, nowhere further to sink. Indeed, the gig almost necessitates a blind, ceaseless strain to burrow further and deeper, getting to darker places. In other words, Rush’s latest outrage is merely another day at the office.)

For centuries, Punch and Judy shows were all the rage (literally). Our appetite for self-destruction is neither new nor novel; we’ve been perfecting ways to taste the pain for as long as we’ve been upright (and before that we swung from trees throwing shit at each other; before that we crawled in the primordial ooze and threw up on one another). The closest thing we have to these spectacles today is Reality TV and Talk Radio. While some humiliation, desperation and a whole lot of narcissism makes the Reality TV carousel go round, there is an element of selfishness that cuts the inexorable humiliation. In other words, it’s an equal opportunity farce: it’s like gambling or playing the lottery, chances are decent you’ll gain nothing, and the rules could not be clearer. Talk radio, on the other hand (as has been discussed and documented many million times by critics more astute –and interested– than myself) is predicated upon an uneven playing field. The prophets of fury and despair (like so many religious hucksters) offer the illusion of solidarity to their disenfranchised followers. By preying upon their real (or affected) sense of dispossession, these self-declared saviors offer solace by validating the ignorance, prejudices and pains of their flock.

We see it with Limbaugh, we see it with Glenn Beck and we’ll see plenty more of it from Sarah Palin now that she has fulfilled her destiny by getting a platform on Fox News — the purest source of propaganda money can buy.

So what?

Should we protest (and play right into his hands) Limbaugh? Of course not, that will only empower him and augment the sanctimony of his shtick. It’s not often you can call someone a vampire and a whore at the same time, but more than anyone in modern times, Limbaugh is the worst possible combination of everything we despise in humanity. And here is the thing, unlike virtually all the other vermin who fatten their wallets by fomenting unrighteous indignation, there is not a single redeeming value in anything this clownish swine says or does. Nada.

But this was all abundantly obvious almost two full decades ago.

If you want to get fired up, if you really want to feel frightened, consider the fact that Rush’s ratings will skyrocket after today’s shitstorm. Think about that. And be truly mortified for where we are, as Americans. What is most repugnant, when you stop and contemplate it, is that there would be even a single person who might hear Limbaugh’s calculated and cynical hogwash and agree. Or, worse, feel inspired by the way their chosen one brings the hate. The plain, putrid reality is that there are hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, who do. And will.

Just like there are tons of people who will walk over rusty glass for Sarah Palin. If Limbaugh or Palin were offering these people (the bigots, the uneducated, the willfully ignorant, the impotent imbeciles, as well as the doctors, lawyers, teachers and parents) anything –money, peace, progress, hope– it would just be politics as usual. Or as they used to say, That’s Entertainment.

But the fact of the matter is, nothing is being offered. And the worst part of the whole deal is that the most (superficially) faithful and dedicated believers are being sold a bill of goods that is straight-up nihilism. While Fox News gets their Fascist on, and Rush gorges his fat ass on profitable cynicism, these has-beens and never-will-be’s find the voice that never answers them in church, or at the office, or in their cars, or in the bedroom or –worst of all– in their own dark and empty heads when the lights go out.

It is, and always has been, a game. Let’s stop laughing at it (or ignoring it) and start hating it back. 

Let’s do this.

1o. Mastodon: Crack The Skye

Some men let their freak flags fly. Some men get tatted up and sport full arm sleeves. Other men get tattoos on their fucking foreheads. You only do shit like that if you are in this for the duration, which means that half-stepping is simply not an option. Either that or you’ve done a lot of drugs. Looking at the cats in this band, you know it is all of the above. And then you listen to them. These guys somehow balance a full-on testosterone assault with brilliant writing and playing (and singing, as most of the members share the vocals at times), and deliver a product that is both thoughtful and bruising. Like many bands that eventually become excellent, Mastodon has spent some time working on their sound and style and 2009 is the mainstream coming-out party. It’s been fantastic to see these guys on several best-of lists this year. Unlike too many of their compatriots, they actually deserve it.

9. Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions: Through The Devil Softly

To quote myself from a few months back: I’d love to take credit for prompting the return of Hope Sandoval after an eight year absence — a circumstance I lamented earlier this year. Little did heartsick homeboys like me know she was already wrapping up work on her second album, the recently-released (and highly recommended) Through The Devil Softly. She is touring now, so catch her if you can. I was delighted to discover that she was appearing in D.C. at the historic 6th and I Synagogue: I finally had the opportunity to see Hope Sandoval sing (!) in an intimate venue (!!) performing new music (!!!). She did not disappoint. And, as has been well documented over the years, her shyness is not an act. Or, it’s a very successful act: the only words she uttered for the entirety of her performance were “Thank you” once the concert ended. No encore, no fanfare, no problem. We weren’t there to hear her speak; we were there to hear her sing. And just see her, in person. And, for the record, she is as beautiful as ever. So…this album would get sentimental points toward Top 10 inclusion just by virtue of being made, but as it turns out, it’s a pretty fantastic record. So there.

8. James Blackshaw: The Glass Bead Game

It is lamentable (if typical) that a young musician this good is still flying under the radar. With the release of The Glass Bead Game, it seems somewhat safer to predict that more people will begin to hear what they’ve been missing. Blackshaw is making music that is necessarily “out of time” (unless solo acoustic workouts suddenly become all the rage) but the upside here –and it’s crucial to stress that this is quite clearly not a commercially-driven calculation– is that this type of music is intrinsically timeless, in its way. Blackshaw’s compositions certainly articulate a contemporary vision, but (like John Fahey, with whom his work inevitably draws favorable comparison) one imagines something deeper and more distant; not the past per se but the way we think when we are prompted to think about the past.

Although he is quite capable, when playing solo, of arresting and beautiful work, his recent inclusion of other instruments (on this effort the violin and cello accompaniment is augmented by Blackshaw’s own, not unimpressive, piano playing) is a shrewd move: the sound is, obviously, bigger, but it’s also deeper and reaches closer to the clear profundity his earlier work attained in more stark (but never austere) terms. While his initial releases (again, inexorably) drew comparisons to everyone from the aforementioned John Fahey to Robbie Basho and Leo Kottke, Blackshaw has already developed a discernible style and he brings a rustic, British sensibility to his compositions. This guy should be around for a very long time.

7. Sunn O))): Monoliths & Dimensions

Scary. Serious. Sludge. Sadistic. Slow. Silly. Sonic boom. Soul. Sick. Sunn O))).

6. Grizzly Bear: Veckatimest

There’s not much I can say here that several dozen critics won’t be saying (albeit more breathlessly and unanimously) in the days ahead. The bottom line is –and there is no getting around it– this is one of the best albums of the year, and these young men are almost offensively talented. You don’t just write songs like this and sing like that. Unless…you write songs like this and sing like that. There are more than a handful of flavors-of-the-year topping all the cool lists this year that everyone knows will be stale next year and forgotten the year after. This one, it seems quite easy to predict, will be around for the long haul, for all the right reasons.

5. Neko Case: Middle Cyclone

There was no way she could top Fox Confessor Brings The Flood and no one was asking her to. I wasn’t anyway. She is getting to Ella Fitzgerald territory (to invoke the cliche that I believe was first used in Ella’s honor: she could sing names out of the phonebook with a broken jaw and it would still sound sweeter than anyone else), and there is little she can do at this point to disappoint. Long may she sound her siren song(s). I remain smitten and unashamed to celebrate it.

4. Vieux Farka Touré: Fondo

About half-way through the year I wrote about Fondo, Vieux Farka Touré’s follow-up to his remarkable self-titled debut. Half a year later, it has not lost even a little of its luster; indeed, it has accrued additional value, and this is one to cherish –now and for the future. Here is a quick summation of what I said in June:

Word to the wise: get on board the Vieux Farka Touré bandwagon now. Not so you can be hip or prepared to drop his name at a cocktail party (for one thing, no one would listen to this music at a cocktail party, and more importantly, who goes to cocktail parties?) or for any reason that would behoove Starbucks to put this disc in their stores. No, the best reason to acquaint yourself with Vieux Farka Touré is because he is a surpassingly brilliant young musician who, if we are fortunate, has a long and productive career ahead of him. Nobody seems to agree on what “world music” actually means, which is probably not such a bad thing. It might suffice to suggest that “world music” is the sort made outside the States, likely sung in a different language and unlikely to yield traditional hit singles. In other words, music that involves actual instruments played with some degree of proficiency by sentient beings. Anyone with a moderately open mind might find Fondo, the followup to Touré’s eponymous (and astounding) debut, a very welcome antidote for the myriad of overproduced and underwhelming product being pumped out for mass consumption.

3. Living Colour: The Chair In The Doorway

I’m going to take the liberty of quoting my recent PopMatters review, because I can (and should):

The rumors of Living Colour’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. They are back, but perhaps more to the point, they were never really gone. The good news is that The Chair in the Doorway is exquisite enough to make casual fans lament the ostensibly lost time. Something about contemporary cataclysms seem to serve as a call to action for this band: Collideoscope (2003) was very much a post-9/11 statement, and many of the songs on The Chair in the Doorway sound like a wrathful response to last year’s Wall Street fiasco. It is immediately apparent (and reinforced after subsequent listens) that the band put considerable thought into this album. Everything from the order of the songs to the production sounds like the result of a shared vision and a near-perfect plan. The finished product is fresh and clean, but retains an abrasiveness that gives it a most welcome edge. As ever, Living Colour’s cauldron bubbles over with rock, soul, hip-hop, metal, blues and their own idiosyncratic expression, a heart full of soul. It is right, then, to celebrate the return of a beloved band. It is also appropriate to acknowledge that, five albums in, Living Colour has solidified their standing as one of the most consistent, original and important bands America has produced. There’s little left to say: kick the chair out of the doorway and get this essential album into your life, immediately.

2. Dan Auerbach: Keep It Hid

2009 had barely begun when I signed up to review this release, and expectations were, shall we say, somewhat stratospheric, considering that the album Dan dropped (along with the tag-team partner in his “day job” as The Black Keys), Attack & Release, was arguably the best of 2008. This was followed by a top-notch DVD documenting the subsequent A&R tour (which killed). So when word spread that the indefatigable Auerbach had already recorded a solo album, well, it was difficult to expect too much. Incredibly, it turns out that Keep It Hid was pretty close to an out-and-out masterpiece. Go figure. Here is what I had to say about the matter about ten months ago. If you’re not trying to read the whole rapturous review, here are some highlights:

What’s the story behind all this superhuman productivity? Auerbach has stated that, quite simply, he never stops working. Equal parts driven and inspired, it made all the sense in the world for him to build his own studio. Akron Analog, named after his hometown and preferred method of recording, is where he began assembling the rough cuts, mostly written during recent tours, into the songs that came together as Keep It Hid. This is not a retreat from the sonic explorations Auerbach undertook on Attack and Release, it is an expansion of them. The songs stretch out with that familiar multi-tracked guitar base, augmented throughout with the often subtle employment of organ, banjo and bass. This work unquestionably signals a step forward in Auerbach’s rapidly evolving style. Auerbach never seems to be straining himself or merely appropriating other, signature sounds just for the sake of doing so. The music he has so obviously, and voraciously, absorbed makes him who he is, pure and simple. In sum, Dan Auerbach was responsible for helping make one of the better albums of 2008, and Keep It Hid is already a contender in 2009. Should we go ahead and call him the current King of the Hill? Based on all available evidence, he’s that guy, and the competition for his crown is not particularly close at this time.

Anyone in need of further convincing needs to check out the album (or check their head) and is definitely advised to peruse this revealing interview wherein Auerbach talks about his process, his influences and his ambitions.

1. Rashanim: The Gathering

Picking a jazz album for best of the year might seem like a stretch. Picking a jazz album that few people have heard of may seem pretentious bordering on recalcitrant. Except for one thing: Rashanim’s The Gathering remains the most convincing and exceptional album I’ve heard—in any genre—all year long. And to be perfectly frank, it’s not even really that close: this is not only the best album of 2009, it is without a doubt (at least in my mind) going to rank as one of the great albums of the decade, and for the ages. So, to paraphrase Don Vincenzo Coccotti (Christopher Walken) in True Romance before he whacks Dennis Hopper: “Hopefully that will clear up the how-full-of-shit-am-I question you’ve been asking yourself.”

I wrote at length about the band, and their latest release, back in August and even then I had a fairly solid idea that this one would be at or near the top of my list once the dust settled. The title of the post (and featured blog for PopMatters) was Rashanim: Healing Music For Unrighteous Times. That seemed accurate, then, and it seems even more appropriate, now.

So…who are Rashanim? They are a jazz trio operating out of New York City who record for John Zorn’s label Tzadik and are categorized in its “Radical Jewish Culture” series. (Being neither Jewish nor radical, I still find this concept rather rad, and to be certain, some of the very best music in the world is being created on Zorn’s middle-finger-to-the-industry label.) So…what does Rashanim sound like? The music is impossible to isolate or explain simply, in part because it incorporates so many disparate influences, using them all as a point of departure. Rashanim invokes other places and times yet remain very rooted in a modern sensibility. Klezmer? Ancient Jewish music? Jam-band? Surf guitar? All of the above: it’s definitely jazz and it is certainly imbued with a distinctively Jewish sensibility. Above all, it rocks. Like Zorn’s Masada albums, many of the songs have biblical or Hebrew titles (sometimes both), and for the most devout or scholarly (particularly the scholarly devout) these songs may accrue added levels of significance; but like much of Zorn’s catalog, the individual tunes can–and should–be appreciated simply for their superior craftsmanship and the almost inexpressible joy they provide. Like Zorn, and like many of the best composers, the melodies are effusive: instantly identifiable after only a few listens yet strikingly distinctive. This music challenges but rewards abundantly.

Let’s cut to the chase: call me Santa Claus and consider this recommendation the best holiday gift I could give you.

The rumors of Living Colour’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. They are back, but perhaps more to the point, they were never really gone. The Chair in the Doorway, their fifth official album in 21 years, should not lead anyone to conclude that this band is rock music’s Rip Van Winkle. None of them have been sleeping: they seem to disappear for extended siestas, only to return enervated and voracious. Of course, as more committed fans are well aware, these interminable hiatuses (this release represents only the second album of original material since 1993’s Stain) are a mixed blessing. If the guys had gotten their acts together, so to speak, would we have been treated to more classic efforts in this past decade or so? Certainly. But then, would we have gotten the bounty of solo projects—all interesting, some essential—that the individual musicians have dropped? Probably not. On balance, the collected works represent the best of both worlds.

The good news is that The Chair in the Doorway is exquisite enough to make casual fans lament the ostensibly lost time. Those fans are encouraged to make an effort getting acquainted with the considerable blessings contained in works like Trippy Notes for Bass (Doug Wimbish), Native Lands (Will Calhoun), Hymns (Corey Glover), and the gamut of Vernon Reid releases (especially Mistaken Identity and Other True Self).

While 2003’s Collideoscope was a welcome if uneven release (“Song Without Sin”, “A ? of When” and “Operation: Mind Control” are excellent additions to the Living Colour canon; the unfortunate cover of AC/DC’s “Back in Black” not so much), The Chair in the Doorway represents more than a return to form. Something about contemporary cataclysms seem to serve as a call to action for this band: Collideoscope was very much a post-9/11 statement, and many of the songs on The Chair in the Doorway sound like a wrathful response to last year’s Wall Street fiasco.

To assert that the band has still got it going on is a given (check out this album), and to confirm that they remain one of the more powerful live acts on the planet is simple (catch them in concert). The arithmetic is actually rather straightforward: take three ridiculously accomplished and ambitious musicians, add one of the most expressive and naturally gifted singers of his generation, and genius follows like a happy shadow. Put another way, it would require serious effort for Living Colour to underwhelm, they are that good.

As if to squash any potential misgivings (are these cats too old? can these guys still rock?), the band comes out blazing on “Burned Bridges”: after a slow-boiling techno-esque introduction, the song explodes. Calhoun and Wimbish lock into a boot-stomping groove, and Glover sings with a healthy chip on his shoulder, snarls echoing into the soaring chorus. Like any effective album opener, this one sets a tone, and that tone is menacing but ultimately cathartic.

And then there is Vernon Reid. At this point, every note he plays adds to a body of work that justifies his name being mentioned in any discussion of all-time great axemen. Reid was already a man amongst boys when Living Colour broke through in the late ‘80s, and he has never stopped absorbing and innovating, crafting a technique that is virtually all-encompassing. For anyone who might assume that wisdom and experience have mellowed him out, have no fear: Vernon still shreds like a cheese grater. Practically every second of every song bears Reid’s imprint: ear-popping virtuosity (the solos are short, sharp shocks of grin-inducing bliss) and layer upon layer of nuanced, ceaselessly articulate cries and whispers. Reid has always employed a more-is-more M.O., in part because his guitar is such an obvious extension of his ever busy brain, yet he can say more in a few perfectly chiseled seconds than most players can manage in an entire tune. Those moments unfold in a continuous stream over the course of these 11 songs.

It is immediately apparent (and reinforced after subsequent listens) that the band put considerable thought into this album. Everything from the order of the songs to the production sounds like the result of a shared vision and a near-perfect plan. A few words about the production: having heard much of this material live a couple of weeks before receiving the disc, it seems apparent that the band sought to harness their ferocious sound without taming it. The songs were scorching in person, and while the sparks certainly fly throughout the recorded versions, there is a certain feeling unifying the proceedings. The finished product is fresh and clean, but retains an abrasiveness that gives it a most welcome edge. As ever, Living Colour’s cauldron bubbles over with rock, soul, hip-hop, metal, blues and their own idiosyncratic expression, a heart full of soul.

For an album that resonates with testimonies of lessons learned (“That’s What You Taught Me”) and self-explanatory smackdowns (“DecaDance”, “Hard Times”, “Out of My Mind”), there is a typical—and expected—air of adventure and variety throughout. Highlights include the fresh but filthy blues romp “Bless Those”, the almost slo-mo funk freak-out “Method” (one of Glover’s finest moments), and the final track “Not Tomorrow”, which, improbably, manages to sound urgent and subdued, like time’s really up. The shining light burns brightest on the album’s succinct statement of purpose, “The Chair”. It’s all over in two minutes and change, but it stays with you: the muted and compressed guitar intro recalls “Information Overload” (from Time’s Up), while the uneasy vibe recalls the nervous malaise of Stain. The final result, quite simply, is a composition that only Living Colour could create, circa 2009. There is so much going on here, so many sounds cresting toward a disorienting momentum, it feels like being pulled out to sea in a current of quicksand.

It is right, then, to celebrate the return of a beloved band. It is also appropriate to acknowledge that, five albums in, Living Colour has solidified their standing as one of the most consistent, original and important bands America has produced. There’s little left to say: kick the chair out of the doorway and get this essential album into your life, immediately.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/112875-living-colour-the-chair-in-the-doorway/

Beethoven, Symphony No. 3, 1st Movement

Grant Green, “Exodus”

Rahsaan Roland Kirk, “Balm in Gilead”

John Coltrane, “Psalm”

Philip Glass, “String Quartet No. 5”

Jimi Hendrix, “Beginnings”

Bob Marley, “Revolution”

Bad Brains, “Leaving Babylon”

Living Colour, “Wall”

Antibalas, “NESTA (Never Ever Submit To Authority)”

Today is Information Overload Awareness Day

Information Overload Awareness Day (www.informationoverloadday.com) is a new workplace observance to be held on Aug. 12 that calls attention to the problem of information overload and how it impacts both individuals and organizations. The cost of the half-day online inaugural event is $50; attendees who promise not to multitask (i.e., instant message, email, or text) during the event will receive a 50% discount.  The problem that costs the U.S. economy $900 billion per year in lower productivity and throttled innovation, according to research from Basex (www.basex.com). (For more information, see story here.)

Two things:

One, who knew there was actually a day dedicated to information overload? Particularly when, these days, every day is information overload. I actually contemplated this concept in some detail a few months ago (a post well worth revisiting if for no other reason than to enjoy the Kids in the Hall skit).

Two, when I hear the words “information overload” I invariably think of the song by the great Living Colour: Vernon Reid, one of the overlooked guitar gods of the last 20 years, absolutely shreds on this song.