Indie Cred

I feel as though I've lost a lot of my connections with the music world. I still look to find a new and interesting band once in a while but not nearly as often as I used to. Looking over pitchforks top albums of 2009 I feel disconnected from a world I used to be heavily involved in. I don't know when it was that I lost all my indie cred but suddenly it's long gone.

Speaking of old indie cred lets talk about LCD Soundsystem, in particular "Losing My Edge." In this song our singer tells the story of suddenly everyone around him is a music expert. The internet is to blame for this sudden rise in knowledge and becoming a critic has never been easier. Every kid in a basement with dialup knows about Animal Collective and Dan Deacon.

Lady Gaga made pitchfork's top 100 songs list with "Paparazzi." Maybe I'm not really that disconnected.

Football

So the last game for Michigan's class of 2010 has passed. Another year and another loss to the Buckeyes. I'm lucky in the respect that I've got another year to watch Michigan football from the stands. Of course how lucky that is all depends on how good the season turns out to be. We've had two heart wrenching years here as wolverines. 2008 was the worst season the team the team the team has ever seen and 2009 didn't look much better when you looked at the conference record.

But the thing is all would be forgiven if we could just beat the buckeyes. My friends who graduate this year for sure will never know what it's like to attend Big Blue after a buckeye beatdown. I only have one year left myself. Year after year I've been built up and let down. This is the last time I can truly say "there's always next year."

I may not be the biggest football fan but I am a loyal one and I've got a good feeling about next season.

Soda and Cereal

There's something unsettling about having a bowl of cereal and washing it down with a pop. If you do it in the morning it's like why are you having pop for breakfast. If you have any other time then why are having cereal at that time of day? They don't go together, but sometimes that's all you got.

I always thought "Soda and Cereal" would be a good song title. It's easy to write love songs because they're potent. I thought a song called Soda and Cereal would be good for a song about life gone slightly askew. So I got a title and an idea. That's probably enough to go on.

The darkness

I love rediscovering bands. If you have a large enough library of music perhaps you've experienced this. Recently I remembered that I really like the darkness. This band represents what modern rock should be instead of that hinder bullshit. seriously lets talk about hinder for a second. Even nickleback is tolerable at times (admit it, when you sang along to "how you remind me" you weren't being ironic) but hinder, three days grace and other similar bands have no redeemable qualities. The Darkness does everything a rock band should and remains original and fresh somehow throughout it. This alone blows my mind.
Rock is a dead genre, it's been done and has no new life. So how does "permission to land" fulfill our perceived definition of rock and still manage to remain fresh. The singing helps, the use of falsetto pushes rock to a level we haven't seem before. But rock has always been cocky and on top of the world. When we hear a song like "friday night", we see a rock that lives on the other side. This is a rock band that didn't fight the system, but lived within it. It plays the game, joins the clubs, and earns the grades. The rebellion of rock here doesn't buck the system by living outside it. Instead, it tries to be within the system and live a happy life.

Love

Love is quite the feeling. It's pretty much indescribable. When you're in love you know it and there's no doubt. Love doesn't require a perfect match, not in the slightest. It strikes at odd moments. I love my girlfriend, my heart goes crazy for her. Our differences don't matter, I don't care. I just want her.

I'm in love

Sunday

Sunday is the worst day of the week. The work that was meant to be done all weekend has finally caught up and there you are spending a day at your computer. Sunday is so bad it can even taint Saturday. I can't count how many times i didn't want to go to sleep on Saturday so I wouldn't have to wake up on Sunday. Today is one of those days. It's Monday, but U of M students have Monday and Tuesday off this week, making Tuesday the representative of the Sunday atmosphere. Friday is the only real freedom available. So make sure you live on your Fridays.

School

University is exhausting. So much time is spent working and it wears on you. I'm ready for it to be over. My college career has been for the most part enjoyable but I'm ready to move on.... but I have at least 1.5 more years to go. Wow

"I love college" -Asher Roth

Why?

Why? is a question and a band. Today I saw the band down at the blind pig, which by the way I am convinced is the best venue in the business. A great show as I would have imagined, their music lends itself well to live shows. I was a little bit disappointed they didn't play the excellent "Fatalist Palmistry." They did, however, play the excellent "The Hollows." This is a song that builds the whole way up to a overwhelming climax. I was somewhat disappointed they didn't oversell the chorus at the show. It seemed like a great time to get the whole crowd banging their head but they opted to make the instrumentation a little lighter than I wanted right when I wanted to get really into it. But then he hit that climax and belted out how he wasn't going to mess with any gypsies and the crowd loved it.

Song Writing

Song writing is tough. So many things have been done before that it's hard to write something and not think immediately "Oh this is already a Beatles/Rolling Stones/Cat Stevens/etc. song." Sometimes I feel I may never write anything that could be completely original chords wise. There's only so many patterns that sound good and I feel lucky when I find one that works for me. But it kills to realize it may only sound right because you've heard it before. They say hit songs are the ones that sound like everything else you've already heard, they're more accessible that way.

I wrote some decent lyrics today but I won't post them right now. Blogs with lyrics bother me, even if they're my own. The problem writing lyrics still liking them the next day. Sometimes I'll write something and like it but then the next day I'll realize it's bad and delete the whole thing. I only get to do so much song writing, So I want the ones that get to the recording stage to be perfect. Even if it takes me months to finish them.

Who says serious songs can't be fun?

XTC's English Settlement is one of those albums where every song could be a hit. "Runaways", "Senses Working Overtime", "Ball and Chain", "No Thugs in Our House". All could be someones favorite song of all time. But one that stands out for me as an embodiment of the band is "Melt the Guns." It's got a beat, it's got a tune and it's got everything you need to make an upbeat tempo. But after you finish dancing to it in your room and sit down to listen to the lyrics you hear it's subtle-but-not-so-subtle message. It's right in the title: "melt the guns." What I love about it most of all is how it's not political, it's a call to the people. XTC calls you out ("Hey you! Yes you in paticular!") to stop glorifying warfare and violence.
What a song

Let's love life

You know, loving life is difficult sometimes. But nothing is better in this world. This is all we got. So let's live to the fullest and never regret a moment. Sometimes I want more but i just gotta remember to love what I have. Let's live full, and love together.

And so we go

Life is getter harder. Humans are insecure beings, no exceptions. As we become more intimately involved with life, the more insecure we become. This is a constant battle in our jobs, schoolwork and especially our relationships. And our insecurities cause us to make mistakes. Gruesome mistakes, mistakes that can be regretted for lifetimes. Life is getting harder. At 21 we've reached adulthood before we're ready.

We can revel in our regrets, but there's really no time for that. College is ending and real life is here. It's time to begin again as confident young adults. It's time to live without doubt.

And never underestimate love

The Start of a Thing

I figured I'd give blogging a try. My last foray into the field left me with a sense that I really don't have much to say. However, i was about 15 at the time and only needed an excuse to read the Xanga entries of whoever I was crushing on at the time. Perhaps as a newly christened 21 year old, who's getting dangerously close to adult-hood, I'll have more to say.

So that brings us to content. I imagine the people who want to read of my day to day business are few and far between so I'll and stick to what I know. I expect blogs about music, computer science, romance, and the little things of the world. Maybe if I feel selfish I'll talk about Magic: the Gathering too.

In case you're wondering, the name of the blog came from a song called "Stay Young" by my favorite band as a 12 year old: Oasis. In these times of maturity (How many of my friends are engaged now?!) I like to remember that, for at least a little longer, we're still young and invincible.