Sweaty pilgrims and other uncomfortable truths

What did nearly 28,000 runners have in common as they gathered along an East Sacramento street early on Thanksgiving morning? A sadistic idea of a good timebolstered by the karmic bonus of helping out the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services.

The 19th annual Run to Feed the Hungrytook form as a sprawling, giggling mob of eager, bleary-eyed joggers prepared to display their physical prowess for the KCRA helicopters circling above. And while some may balk at the notion that 9 a.m. is early or chide that 5 kilometers is not that far, it was an epic scene to behold, and, for nonrunners who rarely rise before noon (and I speak mainly for myself here), a physical challenge paramount to any we had ever faced before 10 a.m. on a Thanksgiving Thursday.

What they don’t tell you about a 5k race with 28,000 participants is that it takes a little while to get going. It’s the Los Angeles rush hour of joggers. The pace is halting or nonexistent for the first several hundred meters before the crowd begins to spread apart, the walkers falling back after their initial spirited burst and the high-schooltrack stars pulling forward with pure, aerobic concentration. By the end of kilometer one, an elaborate ballet of running, dodging and ducking ensues, the participants motivated by a combined excitement of finishing first and the very real fear of being trampled by others. Grown men cut through yards in the Fabulous 40s neighborhood, leaping over hedges and carefully manicured lawns, as children look around wild-eyed for a safe place to bend down and tie their shoe.

Certain runners dressed up for the event, which is difficult when it comes to such a conceptual holiday. You don’t necessarily decorate for Thanksgiving, just as you don’t dress up in commemoration of it. Regardless, runners in headdresses and moccasins pushed full-bore ahead followed closely by a group of solemn, sweaty pilgrims. It was a scene that reminded the contemplative jogger of the distasteful historical atrocities associated with the holiday in question. Uncomfortable truths we choose to forget in lieu of pie and family and the dull throbbing behind your left knee after only a few kilometers.

Turning onto the final straightaway, the amateur jogger’s true colors emerged. There were side cramps, expressions of concern and a palpable shared sense of desperation. The finish-line banner glimmered in the morning sun like a white flag of athletic surrender, a promise of immediate respite lingering just there in the middle distance. I pushed myself to finish strong, my feet pounding the pavement across the finish line as I raised my fists to the sky in triumph and immediately wanted to puke. I did not puke. Instead, I was a champion, one of 28,000 other individuals who woke up early to prove themselves to the world as capable and strong and worthy of all the glories that come with completing an optional 5k or 10k race before 10 a.m. on an American holiday morning otherwise known for gluttony and repose. And, of course, it was for a good cause.

*As appeared in the Sacramento News & Review on 11-29-12

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle through the eggnog, cookies, toddies, and turkeys; a pre-New-Year’s resolution.

How can this be possible? With a seasonal diet that consists primarily of heavy cream and candy canes, the holidays come and go leaving little more than discarded gift wrap, fond memories, and a lingering 15 pounds of “Christmas trimmings” at our waistline that we resolve to loose sometime after New Years. Not anymore! This year, I have resolved (in advance) to end the cycle of indulgence-abuse! My health is my priority all year long, so why not through the holidays? Is it possible? Absolutely, and here’s the plan…

Thanksgiving is upon us! Buttered crescent rolls, piles of potatoes, extra helpings of pie. It’s a day where cooking and eating is our sole intent, so why not take the opportunity to feed ourselves, friends and family something we feel good about? Growing up in a vegetarian household, our family dinners certainly departed from more typical Thanksgiving dishes but were no stranger to heaving helpings of heavy cream, starches, and butter. These days our Thanksgiving is still meat-free, but this year I’m taking an even more radical approach to the menu- raw foods.

Raw chopped cranberries with orange zest and honey, raw corn and vegetable meddely “stuffing,” and a sprouted quinoa portabella pilaf are all in store for the big indulgence. To heat things up we’ll also bake a lentil loaf topped off with a raw chili sauce of sun dried tomatoes, medjool dates, jalapenos, and garlic. Delicious!

While these dishes have yet to establish themselves at our table as a new tradition, one event does seem to be taking hold in cities across America, a Thanksgiving morning run. This year my partner and I decided to share our modest wealth and celebrate our health with the Sacramento Run To Feed The Hungry. Your $35 registration fee goes towards all the wonderful programs put on by the Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services used by so many now and all year long. The 5k race should be challenging enough for us amateur joggers, but extra motivated early birds can line up at 8:30am for the 10k the same morning. And if one run isn’t enough? The Run Turkey Run races in Carmichael from Nov 23-25 offer three days to burn away the calories with races of your choice: 5K, 10K, half-marathon, or full marathon.

Thanksgiving of course is only the beginning of the cookie and candy onslaught, and to imagine full-refrain all month long is not only unrealistic, but setting ourselves up for disappointment. Of course we will drink eggnog. Yes I would love a piece of hot pecan pie. The key to survival is strong-willed moderation and maintaining a regular schedule of healthy activity. For me, getting out of the house every day for a run, ride, or yoga, is not only mentally stabilizing amid all the Christmas chaos, but makes the post-holiday transition to business-as-usual a breeze.

This year, let’s allow ourselves an early gift we won’t regret- a sound mind and sound body. Salud!

Hail Satan!

Front Porch Festival in Livermore, Calif.? I’d never heard of it either, but $20 got you in the gate this past Saturday for the seven-band afternoon at Wente Vineyards where middle aged locals flocked to $5 wine frappes, $10 bottles, and a few hours of Americana easy-listening. A grip of festival-hopping, woven sunhat, crocheted bra top young adults had also bussed in for the only two readily identifiable bands on the bill, The Dodos and The Mountain Goats.

I took to the concession stand for a couple of pinot grigio slushies and a hand-full of mozzarella sticks, the less sophisticated festival take on the popular wine and cheese pairing. With the sun and the booze and the band on stage performing only just well enough to ignore, I curled up on the ground blanket we’d brought and easily fell asleep. When I awoke The Dodos had come and gone and John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats was preparing to close out the night. We navigated the short lawn strewn with folding chairs and portable picnic tables where sun-burned winos had been camped out all afternoon. As we took our attentive places at the foot of the stage we realized our bodies as a human barrier of fandom between the casual observers behind and the artist up in front, who had emerged to a din of persistent applause.

Standing alone on the small stage, Darnielle was not so much playing a show as leading a conversation with everyone attendant, which occasionally reminded him of a song. Listening to his quick acoustic strums and crisply annunciated lyrics became an engrossing exploration of dark and often poignant human emotions as he lead the audience continually deeper into his narrative. The crowd stood attentively as he variously recounted in song the mournful drive through a forsaken desert, watching a woman give birth in a San Bernadino hotel room, careening down highways young and angry late at night, harvesting organs in a secret colony on the moon… Between songs there was an entire cohesive dialog where he responded to almost every comment and question shouted out. The crowd would give him advice on what to play next and at times when he forgot the verses to what he was singing and politely addressed the audience for help, someone would just as politely feed him the line and the show went on.

At the end of the night when the plug had been pulled and curfew hung heavy but an encore was still in order, everyone sat with their legs crossed on the grass as John hopped down and walked around, giving high fives, mussing up hair, and holding a fallen water bottle in place of a microphone as everyone belted out the ever-therapeutic lyrics of the song that ends every Mountain Goats show, “I am drowning/ There is no sign of land/ You are coming down with me/ Hand in unlovable hand!”

Turning to make our way back through the lawn maze, it’s discovered that everyone who was not standing at the front had long since gone. The trashcans had been emptied and the lawn picked up, the concession stands packed away and the lights turned off. A handful of winery employees stood in the walkway, gesturing towards the front gate and emptied parking lot beyond towards which we descend, like nothing ever happened.

Booze-Sopped City

Midtown Cocktail Week has featured a weeklong bender of lectures and libations since 2008; this year it took on the theme “A Spirited Debate” in honor of the 2012 elections. As in past years, Midtown Business Association, organizing MCW alongside local bar keeps and restauranteurs, coordinated the event to include one class each day for the public and industry professionals to learn more about particular spirits or try their hand at mixing some favorite recipes, but it’s the nightly events hosted by Midtown watering holes that make Cocktail Week what it is. Eight days, eight parties, eight opportunities to learn something, try something, and immediately forget everything you learned.

The Red Rabbit Kitchen & Bar’s Genever Convention on Monday night taught me a few things I still manage to recall: 1. Genever is not gin, and 2. it doesn’t taste anything like it, and 3. if you lean down to sip from a shot of genever that’s sitting on the bar—no hands allowed—and chase it with bit of lager, you’ve done a kopstoot, Dutch for “headbutt,” and it’s totally acceptable behavior. The tradition hails from the Netherlands, where genever shots are poured from a bottle straight from the freezer into similarly frosted glasses, too cold to hold for the first few sips. Red Rabbit’s shot glasses were less than finger-numbing, but you should never pass up an opportunity to drink hands-free.

Sacramento has been a booze-sopped city since its inception, and Prohibition did little to stymie the flow, as the Grange Restaurant & Bar’s Friday night Repeal Prohibition Party aimed to remind besotted guests.

Instituted in 1919, Prohibition outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol, though drinking itself was never made illegal. As a consequence, saloons turned down the lights and ditched beer and wine in favor of hooch and bathtub gin, which were more easily made and transported in secret. To cover up the rough, unpalatable taste of these liquors, sodas and fruit juices were added, and thus the great American cocktail age commenced. Of course, if one still longed for the good old days, he or she could also apply for a readily available medicinal alcohol permit for prescription-strength whiskeyto cure their any ail, a concept that seems oddly familiar in California today.

Meanwhile, back at the modern-day Grange, jazz mingled with the clinking of glasses and busy conversations punctuated by high-pitched laughter. American flags draped from the rafters as burlesque Sizzling Sirens dancers snaked through the crowd and flaunted onstage. By 9 p.m., the line was out the door, and the team of bartenders struggled to meet demands for the night’s signature drinks such as the Jitterbug, a pink and lemon sweet cocktail, and the Bank Roll, a rye whiskey concoction topped off uniquely with tobacco bitters.

In the end, Cocktail Week reminds us that any swiller worth her salt must persevere to be a practiced hand. Let us not abstain for 51 weeks a year, but remember that there’s cocktail hour for a reason, and that these fine establishments serving top-notch beverages operate year-round. That’s something we all can drink to.

*A version of this article ran in the August 30th 2012 issue of SN&R and can be viewed here.

Swarm and Destroy

Andrew Taggart of the Landsquids Sacramento Moped Army chapter sits smoking a cigarette with a tall can of PBR, warding off the early heat of a July morning. He wears a homemade shirt that reads “Bi-curious juggalo looking for same,” and is surrounded by his sleeping bag, coolers, and camping gear in preparation for the three-day Moped Army West Coast Chapter Bi-Annual Cali Rally which begins now.

Founded in 1997 in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the Moped Army organization now consists of over 22 gangs nationwide all united by their semi-ironic devotion to 50cc or less. The bi-annual Cali Rally is one of many events that occur year round across the states but is mostly intended as a regional meet up for west coast riders, drawing members from LA’s Latebirds, SF’s Creatures of The Loin, Sacramento’s Landsquids, Reno’s Los Dorados, Portland’s Puddle Cutters, and Seattle’s Mosquito Fleet. All told there are 90 registered attendees at this year’s campout, but past rallies sponsored by caffeinated alcoholic beverages such as Four Loco have had attendance skyrocket closer to 200.

This year the Cali Rally is being held at the Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Plant Recreational Area in the middle of scorching hot nowhere 40 miles SE of Sacramento. Shut down in 1989 by a public referendum the plant has been mostly dismantled but the two massive concrete cooling towers are a permanent part of the local landscape which is otherwise made up of golden, bone dry hills or vineyards sopped in nauseating chemical fertilizers.

When I finally park my car alongside the chaos of campsite number one the party has been in full swing for close to a day already.  The exhaustion of dozens of hung-over drunks is palpable and things have clearly devolved into the antics of the hot and bored. No one has seen Taggart in hours, but I am directed towards the beer and encouraged to hit the pool. The beer supply consists of 100 24 packs of Strangford Lough Brewing Co.’s Legbiter Ale which rumor has it had to be offloaded by a forklift. The cases have been lined up like a Berlin wall along the shaded picnic table and ends in a stack of 40 or so cases arranged into the shape of a throne where a guy sits grinning, with a beer, and also a sombrero.

I take a seat under a shade structure where one of two kiddie pools sits mostly full of lukewarm murky water and clumps of uprooted grass. Two guys from the Reno moped chapter Los Dorados sit in boxer briefs and aviator glasses, half submerged in the muck smoking cigarettes and ashing over the side into the marshy lawn. A guy with a sheriff’s badge attendant with the San Francisco Creatures of The Loin antagonizes the mixture, tossing in pieces of celery and empty beer bottles and soggy cigarette butts yelling “For the soup!” Finally the pool is too gross for even the severely inebriated and is drained, cleaned, refilled, and inhabited by a slightly less drunk group bearing sombreros and pool noodles.

Taggart emerges form his second mid day sobriety nap and joins me with a beer near the shaded ale throne.  As the Landsquid catches me up on the events of the previous day someone announces a ride and the sober members scatter. For a moment there is an adorable cacophony of little put puts, high squeals, and blurby blurb motor noises, but when the cloud of dust settles there is still a lone rider frustratingly poking at his bike. The break down is so large a part of moped culture that one tends to do as much maintenance as riding, and a large part of the Moped Army web forum, the hub for most member activity, is devoted to technical questions and tutorials.

After founding the Landsquids in 2006 with a group of friends, Taggart says that membership rises and falls with the years as riders retire or move away. And while the squids still meet up every Friday, they rarely get together for actual rides.  “We’re real domestic,” he says. “Usually we get together and cook,” as he gestures towards the Landquids’ treasurer, Steve Pappas, who stands slicing and dicing and tending to a 40 pound pig on a spit which has been roasting between hot coals and the searing sun for hours. Pappas is largely respected as the expert barbecue cook amongst the group. A few years back his house was featured on an episode of Kitchen Crashers garnering some major upgrades including a primo patio with a large grill that can be pulled out and wheeled around. Taggart and other Landsquids can be seen on the episode painting and hanging drywall and every time his mother sees the rerun on TV she calls him up and tells him they’re real celebrities.

Sitting across the lawn is the Landsquids’ rival gang, The Lost Boys, not an official Moped Army chapter but pretty much a staple at any regional rally. “We used to pretend we had a rival gang called the Poopheads that we would post things about on the Moped Army forum,” Taggart says “but then these guys showed up last year and said ‘We’re The Lost Boys and we’re your rival gang.’” The rivals sit in the corner of the campsite wearing cowboy hats and muscle tees under a superiorly professional banner proclaiming their gang name in foot high letters. In the end though there’s no real rivalry to be had. The Lost Boys ride mopeds, the Landsquids like to cook, but it’s the Landsquids who have the security as the only sanctioned Moped Army gang in town. For now.  While many unaffiliated groups have no interest in becoming “official” those who do face stiff requirements.  Every September Moped Army members sit down and review applications for new branch hopefuls, their acceptance determined by age and membership size of current group, the organization’s future plans, history of socialization and contribution to the moped community, and relationships with other existing Moped Army branches. In the end, only about 1 of every 7 branches pledging becomes sanctioned.

As evening approaches, groups of riders lounge in the warm sand of the beach at the Rancho Seco Lagoon to watch the sun set between the distant cooling towers, the dark mass of their concavity set against the wash of a neon central valley sunset. As night becomes total, the red blinking aviation lights are reflected off the silver rippled water and people begin to probe each other for pills or pot or whatever it is everybody else brought along for the night when beer is no longer enough. As bartering begins, a young guy called Ace wades chest deep into the lagoon while swathed in a thrift store prom gown and declares that today is his Quinceañera – a celebration of his latent womanhood. “This is when things get crazy,” an SF rider says, looking out at the be-gowned young man struggling in the water.

A group of Landsquids sit clumped together at the fireside, whispering and snickering over a hatching plan. Somebody says “This is gonna be great, they’ve been planning it all day,” as a guy eats the last pickle from a bottle and pours a few shots of vodka into the leftover vinegar. He reaches down to the ground and picks up a florescent glow stick to use as a drink stir and calls for everybody’s attention. They hail a big guy called Boz Swaggs to come over, announcing that this here is his initiation into the Landsquids, an honor that comes only after a dedicated six months of group participation under the watchful guidance of a gang sponsor, and then a 90% vote of confidence by the entire crew which he has received. Now Swaggs has passed all the tests but one: drinking the magic pickle potion.

Everyone is cheering and without hesitation Swaggs takes the jar and swigs it down in one gulp and everyone cheers again. “That’s it?” a guy says. “They’ve been talking about it all day, I can’t believe that was it.”

Want to know more about Moped Army? Grab a bike and log in to mopedarmy.com

*Originally published here via Sacramento Press on July 31st, 2012.

Drake’s Club Is Not Paradise.

Despite what I consider my cultural education, I feel like a complete outcast walking into the UC Davis Pavilion for Drake’s Club Paradise tour. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so estranged among my peer group. The crowd is all designer ball caps and fake nails, and they all seem to be drunk on either caffeinated-alcoholic beverages or pure enthusiasm for mediocre hip hop.

The opening group A$AP Rocky despite receiving so much positive press in the blogosphere makes me want a refund, ASAP. I can hear nothing, but feel everything. The bass seems to be shaking the fillings right out of my teeth and completely drowns out any tonal noises that might make up the rest of the songs being performed. I feel shellshocked.  I focus my thousand-yard stare in the direction of the stage but cannot get a hold of what is happening there. As the bass careens through my body, the small figures gesturing with microphones from the stage seem to be in another world.

The ushers continually request me and a hundred other roamers to find a seat. I move through each section noncommittally faced by 8,000 ticket holders guarding themselves with the expression so familiar to childhood school buses. “This seat’s taken.”

Armed with what I hope looks like casual ignorance, I worm my way into the handicapped section in the front of the balcony. Here, they are not dancing, but rather bobbing their head from the comfort of their wheelchairs or staring glumly up from their crutches at the swaying crowd pressed against the front of the stage. I am viewed suspiciously, but never asked to leave.

Though more akin to a Milli Vanilli performance, Drake’s set is hailed with unabated enthusiasm by thousands of smartphone wielding fans. There are musicians on the stage but they don’t seem to be touching their instruments, and recorded vocals take the lead on every song while the Drake of flesh and blood before us offers a layer of shout outs, hype, and occasionally the lyrics to the song playing on with or without him. As the last moments of the set wind down I give myself away by jumping up and sprinting for the exit in an effort to beat the crowd.

The parking garage adjacent the pavilion is like a tailgate party after the show. Traffic immediately becomes a gridlocked standstill for nearly an hour lending those show-goers hesitant to call it night one last chance to make merry. Music thumps from every stereo, girls abandoning their high-heels sit barefoot on the hoods of cars, and bootleg shirt vendors approach passengers’ windows with their last-chance wears.

Though the evening’s performances were far from worth the ticket price, the environment added something I was happy to come away with. Sitting at the wheel of my busted ass civic, my feeling of alienation among strangers turns to wonder as I observe the ongoing antics of a community brought together by the one bonding experience to rule them all: jumping my car’s dead battery.

*a version similar to this ran in the SN&R’s blog Sound Advice section on March 12th, 2012.

State of My Wardrobe Address

What was once a collection of items I truly enjoyed wearing now appears to be a bunch of unsightly second-hand rags that have taken up conference in my dresser. I’m hoping that it’s my perception that’s changed and that I didn’t actually always look like a wild, Hospice dumpster-diving fool, as my reflection now shows me to plainly be. I am wondering where all of my friends have been and why they did not tell me I had really fallen off the wagon. Probably they were too busy pointing and laughing at me to say anything.

I have a lot of sunglasses, none of which I really like. There is a pair of shiny blue aviators that I’m partial to but the lenses are too dark and scratched to be practical, turning me into a sort of spastically blind Stevey Wonder when I don them and thereby neatly negating any amount of cool I hoped to gain by wearing them at all.

My poor attitude towards my wardrobe leads to me wear black leggings and a grey sweatshirt a lot, making me feel like a mom running errands before school gets out and soccer practice begins. To counteract this I lean heavily on an expensive black leather jacket I recently purchased, which shifts me to the opposite side of the fashion spectrum closer to “old man on the prowl.” When I am wearing this jacket older men often nod and smile knowingly as they pass.

Often for the sake of expediating my departure from the house I will not even look in the mirror knowing it will only discourage me, which is how I ended up at the gym yesterday wearing a pair of wetsuit pants with my underwear so badly bunched up I appeared to be romping around in a full diaper. Realizing this early on and even then much too late, I had to rely heavily on denial to get through the rest of my routine, imaginging that the many men and women continually pointing and guffawing in my direction were actually just impressed by my strength and good form and all agreed that I was a pretty good lookin babe.

I have recently been thinking about throwing away absolutely everything in my closet and starting from scratch, but im pretty sure I’ll just end up replacing it all with the same old crap in a slightly different shade of black. I have also been trying to realistically imagine myself in anything but jeans and tank tops, but cant. Dresses make me feel like a silly, dolled up housewife, ditto for skirts. There are always jumpsuits, but I have entirely abused these practical one-pieces over the last year and I know it. So I’m left with jeans and t-shirts. Which I’m already wearing.

Are bathrobes in? Maybe I can just swaddle myself in one of those and call it a terrycloth gown.

Gentrification of a Genre

When a Billboard Magazine writer first penned “Rhythm and Blues” in 1949 as a less contentious term for what the publication formerly charted as “race music,” the genre was understood to describe “a vigorous new sound that combined elements from gospel, swing and blues” and within a decade grew to represent the Motown sound of the 1960s. Fifty years later Rhythm and Blues is still understood to describe music pulling from these roots as championed by artists such as R. Kelly and Whitney Houston, but is also subject to much abuse when contentiously applied to any singing, black artist.

Intended as a label for a new wave of hipster friendly rhythm and blues, the clever penning of 2011’s “PBR&B” had many listeners charging critics with labeling pop artists as R&B based primarily on race rather than musical influences. And while genres can and do evolve, the R&B argument of what the genre is and who is and is not making it, is often fraught with prejudiced categorization with any cooing white artists being labeled “blue-eyed soul” and a black artist making that same music as R&B.

Anyone who listened to James Blake’s full length LP this past year would classify its breakbeat heavy sound primarily as dubstep, but several tracks that would normally qualify as R&B are not. In it’s own review, Pitchfork indicated that Blake’s music pulled heavily on “the sound of a Southern black gospel choir” topped with a  “white-boy coo.” Likewise, several of this year’s top albums by artist such as Frank Ocean and The Weeknd were labeled as R&B (targeted as the PBR&B variety) despite having more in common with top charting pop and hip hop artists than anything based in gospel or blues.

In a well articulated article by AWL, Jozen Cummings charges that the classification of an artist based on what we see rather than what we hear regardless of their musical classification is a form of musical segregation which is not only lazy and myopic, but is patently offensive to both artists who are truly making R&B and those who are not. “R&B as a genre has evolved over the years, no question, but the artists we associate with R&B evolved as well, sometimes moving beyond the genre with which they were first associated.” Cummings says.

So what is this new guard of artists such as Drake, The Weeknd, and Frank Ocean if not R&B? Sitting down to listen one can recognize a common thread of louche and emotionally vulnerable subject matter, a quality which began to dominate listeners’ attention with Drake’s Thank Me Later which debuted in 2010. Drake continued in this vein with 2011’s So Far Gone, a wide open, smooth talking 80 minute journey awash with both the braggadocio that hip hop has come to be known for while simultaneously laying open the fragility of that very posing like glass castles waiting to tumble amongst the maelstrom of fame.

Whether or not these artists are expanding the definition of R&B or have left that realm to explore the delicate boundary of a new era of pop and hip hop is yet to be satisfactorily addressed elsewhere in the blogosphere, but perhaps it is easier to let the music simply speak for itself.

For a fuller discussion on this subject I have to recommend both the SOTC blog post which seemed to kick off the argument, and its most thorough response from AWL.

*Feature image pulled from robin-waters.com

Tom Waits ain’t as Bad As Me

My listening party is not quite as it was depicted in the promo-video for Bad As Me, but it is not entirely dissimilar. In Tom Waits’ version, there is a stack of old stereos piled up behind a desk with a tuner, a glass of water, and a ringing telephone.  At my desk there is only a computer and a cup of coffee, the telephone in the corner more of a notion than necessity. From the east-facing window looking out over the Long Island Sound, the hot orange glow of sunrise streams in, illuminating the cold, bare walls. Beyond the office lay the vast concrete and steel expanse of a nuclear power plant, where hardened old men drag themselves along echoing corridors, burdened by the weight of respirators, protective clothing, and canvas bags of freshly oiled tools.

I believe Waits would appreciate this scene. Over the course of nearly 40 years and 17 studio releases, the troubadour of doom has crafted an intricate saga acted out by tired working stiffs, old drunks, and drunk loves- all in the image of himself. With a little variation, the essence of the music stays the same. It is a salty, dimly lighted romance. It is barroom piano heartbreak; the solitude of loneliness; the joy of open roads; half-remembered images of roses, whiskey, foreign ports, and depression era snapshots. In the end it is a celebration of life’s vicissitudes, where pain and sorrow must face the miracle that we are still alive at all.

The first release of new material since Real Gone in 2004, Bad As Me has come treading in to meet a party of many high expectations. Will it be a new era of material departing from his well-worn themes? Will it surpass the success of Real Gone? Will it give me what I want? Does he still have “it”? Speaking of these suppositions in a New York Times interview Waits says, “It always seems to be like bakery goods or fish. People want to know if it’s fresh.”

Like many of his past releases, Bad As Me includes contributions by a number of notable musicians. Keith Richards, Les Claypool, Flea, and as usual Marc Ribot, a longtime collaborator lesser known as the front-man of Los Cubans Postizos (The Prosthetic Cubans), which is the most excellent band name ever. The previously mentioned piece in the Times notes that the musicians were brought in individually to record rather than all at once, and that Waits would prompt them with different motivations saying “ ‘I want you to play like you’re 7 years old at a recital. I want you to play like your mom’s in the room. I want you to play like you’re miles from home, and your legs are dangling from a boxcar. Or play like your hair’s on fire. Play like you have no pants on.’ ”

Eight songs into the album, the title track and sole single “Bad As Me” is the first glimpse of the glitter and doom that fans have come to expect. Highlighted by Ribot’s Cuban inspired riffs, it is a high-energy confession of complicity, reveling in its own immodesty. “You’re the letter from Jesus on the bathroom wall/you’re mother superior in only a bra/ you’re the same kind of bad as me.” As Waits cuts between the limits of his range with high wailing verses and deep rumbling moans he admits, “No good you say? Well that’s good enough for me.”

“Kiss Me” is the ballad highlight, a lounge number with the perfect balance of nostalgic imagery and emotional tension that keeps the listener cloudy headed and coy to the very end. It’s easy to imagine Waits leaning comfortably against a piano with as much magnetism as Ella Fitzgerald or Billie Holiday as he slowly drawls “I want to believe our love’s a mystery/ I want to believe our love’s a sin/ I want you to kiss me like a stranger once again.”

“Hell Broke Luce” is the album’s heavy hitter, the title pulled from a knife-point inscription on a cell wall in Alcatraz with all the aggression to match its origin. With the gruff stomp and hand clap percussion reminiscent from Real Gone, the pace is relentlessly driving as the tale of a drug-addled veteran unravels, punctuated at its height by machine gunfire and the chilling military refrain of “Left! Right! Left!”

The album’s closing track “New Years Eve” is a moment of waking relief after troubled dreams.  While it may feel like an abrupt change from the penultimate “Hell Broke Luce,” one need only see it as an emotional continuation from the opposite perspective, the story of a tired man looking after worn and tired friends. Backed by warbling guitars and Parisian accordion, the lyrics paint a half-spoken montage of fleeting joy and subtle sorrow as the chorus lapses into refrains of “Auld Lang Syne.” With the imagery of 4 AM fireworks, diamond stars, sobering black coffee, and the wail of police sirens, it is a beautiful reminiscence of a finally silent night, calmly resigned and emotionally loaded, a beautiful conclusion to a brief and somber narrative.

While not as chockfull of gruff heavy hitters or swooning ballads as previous efforts, Bad As Me does stand out as a concisely edited album of quick poetic couplets, blues and Latin informed riffs, and even a few subdued, sneak attack tracks that seem forgettable at first but grow on you over time. Who knows if it will stand out as a favorite in the end?  Perhaps it already is. We may just need some time until we know it ourselves.

If you haven’t seen the Tom Waits Private Listening Party, view it here and now:

*feature image from Static

Sonic Youth, Sonic Death

This is some Sonic Bullshit. In what might be the worst news ever, Matador records released a press announcement stating that Thurston Moore and Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth are separating after 27 years of marriage and 30 years as band mates, which just goes to show once and for all that there is no such thing as love.

Not only were Moore and Gordon the ultimate, the final word, in the absolute coolness of rock n roll and love and possibility in one magical ball of creative energy and originality without succumbing to all that terribly responsible dull stuff that “growing up” and “getting married” usually signifies, but now the band, THE BAND, is hanging in limbo. Will they or won’t they keep on? For now, the press release states that they will continue with their planned South America dates through November, and after that…  ¿Quién sabe?

Rob Sheffield put it beautifully a couple of days ago via Rolling Stone:

For all but a tiny minority of Sonic Youth fans, part of loving them is vicariously over-identifying with the Kim-and-Thurston bond, as these two psychic hearts explored screaming fields of sonic love.

No love, no youth, no psychic hearts. If it seems selfish to be taking the news so personally then I’m guilty. I have taken the music very personally, I have grown with it, grieved with it, and now it is the cause of my grief. Where’s my Ecstatic Peace shirt? I’m going into mourning.

While you’re here, check out the video for “Bull in the Heather” featuring Kathleen Hanna bouncing around and irritating everyone while Thurston leads a white pony around the lawn. This is the first Sonic Youth song I ever heard and still remains my favorite today nine years later:

 

One more to seal the deal. This one has a multi-jump, post-makeout stage dive scene which is not to be missed:

*Feature image by Anders Jensen, licensed under Wikimedia Commons