The Albums That Matter: Almost Killed Me

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts.

Almost Killed Me

The Hold Steady

2004

When thinking on how to write about the great debut album from the Hold Steady, I kept coming back to what I wrote a couple weeks ago about Titus Andronicus' debut album, about how good of a job the band did creating this opening statement. The Hold Steady completes the same feat here. Almost Killed Me is not the Hold Steady at their finest (too high a bar to clear), but right from the beginning, Craig Finn let's you know what this band is going to be all about.

And in many ways, that statement is the opposite of Titus'. Whereas that band is nihilism in party form, this band is just straight party. The Hold Steady preaches togetherness in a way that teenagers can instantly relate to. The band defines this feeling as a "unified scene." It's the perfect way to describe that feeling you get when you and countless strangers bond over something so beautiful as music.

I'm not saying that the album is all sunshine and hand-holding. There's a lot of dirt and grime in the stories Finn weaves in his lyrics. The characters remain the same; we have junkie Holly, Charlemagne the pimp, a white supremacist gang called the Cityscape Skins. There's danger around the corner in the Hold Steady's MN towns. I'm not saying that Almost Killed Me glorifies crime, I'm saying that there was an excitement when you were younger, when nights had endless possibilities, great parties and also parties that almost kill you. The Hold Steady is able to tap into those feelings, and presents them all with classic rock panache.

Come for the storytelling. Stay for the bar band singalongs. That's the Hold Steady's m.o. They are one of my favorite bands of all time, maybe even my favorite, full stop. Almost Killed Me is a great place to start if you're trying to dig into this band. Consider it the prologue to the Great American Indie Rock Novel.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Barfruit Blues"

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Stray Observations

• The Hold Steady have a fucking wiki all to themselves because of the consistency of the characters and all the overlapping stories in their songs. Certain lyrics on one album turn into songs on other albums. Events are elaborated albums later. It's pretty cool if you're into that kind of shit.
• There are endless nicknames given to characters, and other characters constantly get compared to certain celebrities, on this album, to the point where it kind of becomes a running joke. "People call me 'Circuit City,' / because I'm so well-connected." And: "I've been trying to get people to call me 'Sunny D' / Cause I got the good stuff the kids go for." It's all terrible, it's all funny.
• FRONT COVER: Looks like a bunch of photos of the band members, possibly on tour, with black bars over their eyes to signify anonymity. A lot of the photos look like the people in them are having a good time, and the fact that the eyes are blocked out seem to say: This could be anyone. THIS COULD BE YOU.
• This isn't the worst Hold Steady Album, because Heaven Is Whenever exists (though that album, too, is criminally underrated). It's tough being a really good album in a discography full of really great albums.

Next Time: AM by Arctic Monkeys

The Albums That Matter: Alligator

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE. 

Alligator

The National

2005

Alligator is my go-to example of this phenomenon: Sometimes your favorite album from a particular band is different from the absolute best album from that band. In this particular case, when it comes to the National, Alligator is, probably without question, the National's best album. Boxer is my favorite. This, obviously, is no fault of Alligator's. Sometimes you listen to an album at a particular time in your life, an important time, and it just sticks. Boxer was the soundtrack to my formative freshman year of college. Alligator soundtracked a winter break when I sat in my underwear and binge-watched Lost. Boxer means the world to me. Alligator is just a great album. But it's such a great album that it's honestly hurting me to listen to it right now. That's not an exaggeration. I'm listening to straight-up TRUTHS coming out of Matt Berninger's mouth right now. Here's something about the National that I'm realizing now, as I listen to Alligator, a secret, subconscious reason that I've loved this band for so long: I think that the National are the musical personification of the introvertedness that I try to outrun. I try to be the Hold Steady, but really I'm the National. I used to call myself "the life of the party," but that was probably all a ruse, an act. Really, I'm the guy trying to "gracefully disappear in a room" (per "Secret Meeting"). For years, really close to a decade, up until this very moment, I saw the song "All the Wine" as an anthem: Here I am, intoxicated, and I fucking own the world. But... but I'm realizing now that that's not the point. The point should be clear that this guy, the protagonist, he of the "wingspan unbelievable," he's just... full of shit. "All the Wine" isn't supposed to be an anthem. It's a caricature. And I can't believe it took me this long to figure out. I think it maybe has to do with the turbulent self-reflective alcohol bullshit I've been going through in the past six months. Alligator is a drinking album. It's not a keg-party album, it's a drink-whisky-in-the-dark album. When you have a great night and you're on your way home, don't put on Alligator. When you had an absolutely shitty night and you need to wallow in that shit and oh also you are drunk and that isn't helping, well, then that's when you put on Alligator. Can you find solace in Alligator? Perhaps. The album almost ends after a pessimistic climax with "Abel," with its constant refrain: "My mind's not right, my mind's not right." But that's just a feint. That wasn't the actual climax. We slip into "The Geese of Beverly Road," where we contemplate on whether there might be a brighter tomorrow. By the time we transition to "City Middle," we're drunk again, possibly worse, and the wife is driving your drunk ass around and you're acting like a fucking asshole. Who can't relate to THAT? And finally, we get to "Mr. November," ostensibly written about John Kerry, co-opted by Barack Obama, and probable proof, if you need it, that the National are at least partly a political band. Politics aside (always politics aside when we are drunk), "Mr. November" is the sound of a person coming apart. It doesn't make you think; it's a song about not knowing WHAT to think. For someone who doesn't believe in fate, he sure does seem confident in a lot of things. That's what happens when you're drunk as shit. You feel like you know everything and nothing simultaneously. Okay, there's a lot to chew on when it comes to Alligator. I'll give you another example: Why is it called "Alligator"? Perhaps because alligators seem like they have such tough skin, but really they are extremely sensitive? Is this a metaphor for how the National was feeling while writing this album? Sensitive but trying to put up a front? I could keep going. This paragraph could go for miles. But no matter how good this album is, how close to perfect it is, honestly, no matter, it still isn't my favorite the National album. It's a high bar to clear though, to tell you the truth.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "All the Wine"

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Stray Observations

• Didn't want to get too much into the other side of the general point here, i.e. I didn't want to talk about Boxer too much. We'll get there in the blink of an eye.
• And yeah, I'm a little tipsy writing this. Nowhere NEAR as drunk as I was writing about All Killer No Filler. Just, like, 8 oz. of liquor over a ten-hour-period type of tipsy. (In this state of mind, the "one big paragraph" format just felt right.) As I rode the bus home tonight, I did not feel any of the grandiose feelings from "All the Wine," I assure you.
• Though I did mention it briefly, I didn't dig into it that much, since I already did for After the Goldrush, but I really did listen to this album like at least 20 times during my Lost binge back in '08. "Daughters of the Soho Riots" sounds like free form poetry set to music, but for some reason I always think of John Locke when I hear it. Just a weird fucking associative thing when it comes to music, even in the mundane.
• I saw somewhere online the other day, someone alleging that lead singer Matt Berninger and his wife Carin Besser are the John and Yoko of indie rock. I guess I could choose to elaborate here but the allegation seems so stupid that it's not even worth it.
• FRONT COVER: A fuzzy photograph of (I think?) Berninger under a chandelier. The word "Alligator" is written in alligator colors and scaly alligator font. I feel bad that the last twelve albums or so don't have deeper meanings to their covers as far as I can tell. I could stretch and maybe guess that the fact that Berninger seems to be fading away is a metaphor for how he/we feel/s when sad and drunk? Hmm?
• I'm kind of bummed that I talked myself out of loving "All the Wine" in this blog post. It's still a phenomenal song, regardless of its deeper, darker layers.

NEXT TIME: Almost Killed Me by the Hold Steady

The Albums That Matter: All Yours

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

All Yours

Widowspeak

2015

I think it's fascinating when I do these entries for an album and a band that I literally know nothing about. I can't remember how All Yours ended up on my iPod; it was probably some random Stereogum suggestion. I don't really listen to it that often, and it clearly didn't make much of an impact on me in 2015.

But here, I get to really dig into it, and try to discover it all means, and also if it's any good. The answer to the last question is, yes, it's pretty good! It's pleasant and laid back. According to interviews with the band that I read from 2015, most of this album was recorded in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. It's not as sparse as, like, For Emma, Forever Ago, but you can definitely tell it was made in isolation.

Maybe it's lead singer Molly Hamilton's voice. It has that echo-y, dreamy quality to it that goes really well with the chill music the band is lazily rocking out with. Because I'm terrible at the "who does this sound like" game, I'm having trouble with who Hamilton sounds EXACTLY like, it's on the tip of my tongue. For now, let's say it's kind of like Feist on the slower BSS songs, or maybe, like, Katie Crutchfield underwater, or probably like whoever the singer in Stars is.

And the music, some of it anyway, legit sounds like some folky Brian Jonestown Massacre. The album rarely kicks up the tempo, it's just content to relax and hang around for a bit. I want to say it has country tones as well, but I think the twinkly guitar parts just kind of sound like, again, something that was created in nature.

I mean, the album was produced by a member of Woods, and the drummer and bassist from Woods helped them record. Clearly, they were going for a certain type of sound here. They succeeded.

Listening to All Yours, and thinking about Widowspeak made me... I dunno, sad, I think? Like, this is a perfectly good album, from what seems like a perfectly good band. They've been going about making music together at a steady clip since the turn of the decade. And yet, they're still slaving away. I doubt even two of my friends have even heard of them (what up Nate, thanks for reading).

I feel bad in the same way I feel bad for people that own stores and I walk in and see the store empty. Like we went to this store in Gettysburg a few weeks ago and just to kill time went into this store that was selling all kinds of candles and crystals and essential oils and homemade soap, all that shit. Definitely nothing I would ever buy in a million years, but we were the only people in there, and I wanted the owner behind the desk to feel wanted, you know? I even thought about buying a bar of soap, just to give her some business. I want her to achieve her dreams of owning a successful specialty junk shop.

Same as I want bands like Widowspeak to be successful. I want them to have more than 6K Instagram followers. I want them to play Union Transfer instead of Boot and Saddle. I want them to have lots of fans. I might even buy a bar of soap from their merch table.

Sorry, that was a weird tangent. Um. Good album.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Narrows"

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Stray Observations

• I sincerely did not do a good job conveying what exactly this sounds like. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking bad at that (he says, album 30 out of 1200).
• This is the third LP out of four for Widowspeak. I can't say that I like this one enough to explore them any further, but I definitely applaud anyone that does. It's decent!
• FRONT COVER: A head of hair, which I suppose is connected to the band name, also hair-related. In fact, here is an article about Widowspeak's favorite hair.
• As I finish up writing this and proofreading, I'm listening to Screaming Females' newest, All at Once, which I'm suddenly realizing, may be the first album I've added to my iPod that I've already passed in the alphabetizing order of this project. What to do? I guess I'll catch up with it eventually? Maybe when I get to the end I'll go back and fill in the blanks? Maybe I'll go back soon, like when I get past L or M or something? We'll see.

NEXT TIME: Alligator by the National

The Albums That Matter: All of Something

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

All of Something

Remember Sports

2015

The first time I heard about Sports, it was right after they had broken up. Not really sure the full details, but it seems like the five members just wanted different things in life, and were moving away.

And while the album as a whole is ostensibly about some kind of breakup, I like to think that it's actually bigger than that, and that All of Something is really about struggling with the idea of moving apart, of ending one thing and starting another, not just romantically.

"I'm running out of time with you," vocalist Carmen Perry sings in "Getting On in Spite of You." It seems like in every song, our protagonist is at the precipice of some kind of ending. It's a universal feeling of, not dread, but maybe anxiety, that, wow, this experience is coming to a close soon.

To me, I always think this album would have been perfect for me in 2011, because I felt those feelings most strongly at the end of my college years. That feelings of... well what the FUCK am I going to do now?! Of course, this album came out in 2015, so it caught me when I had already mostly figured out what the FUCK I was doing. But that window in the past is strong here, and I'm always thankful for younger bands that are able to convey those feelings across the years.

Musically, there's a lot to return to, listen after listen. The band described themselves as "pop punk," and though they were weary of that description in fear of being pigeonholed, they aren't far off. Nothing overstays its welcome; ten songs, all perfect and fun little guitar-led ditties of adolescence.

If All of Something is that feeling of not knowing what to do when you become an adult, then maybe the solution for the band itself was to just move to Philadelphia and keep the band going. I’m cool with that.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Saturday"

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Stray Observations

• Yes, that means that Sports didn't actually break up. They just thought they were going to. But they didn't. Three of the members moved to Philly, and changed their name to Remember Sports (not sure if that's any less ungoogle-able, but so be it). And they have a new album coming out in a few months! I'm really excited. I don't listen to singles in advanced, generally, but they dropped one yesterday, and everyone seems to be enjoying it. Fucking pumped!
• Here's a question: If a band changes their name, do all their previous albums become works of the artist under their new name? Was All of Something made by Sports or Remember Sports? Was "We R Who We R" written by Ke$ha or Kesha?!? Okay, I'll stop. I usually go by the same rules that I would if someone came out as transgendered, the pronouns are retroactive. So are band names. All of Something, by Remember Sports.
• This is probably in the top ten albums of the past five years just in terms of pure listens. It's one of my go-to "what should we listen to next?" albums.
• FRONT COVER: I have no fucking clue who the guy on the cover is. As I previously stated, it's fucking impossible to google about this band. I'm 99% sure it's not a band member. I'm gonna guess it's some inside joke, like this guy someone goofy who they went to school with and have a laugh about sometimes.
• Oh, and hey, I should emphasize how cool it is that Remember Sports is now based out of Philly. I'm gonna try to remember what the band members look like and look for them at... Johnny Brenda's? That's probably where bands would hang out, right? Or maybe, like, the Saint? 

NEXT TIME: All Yours by Widowspeak

The Albums That Matter: All Killer No Filler

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief DRUNKEN >!>!>! thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

All Killer No Filler

Sum 41

2001

Oh lordy. First of all, this is the first of these entries I'm writing intoxicated (again, I write 'em in advanced, I'm not drunk on a Tuesday morning, c'mon). But second of all this is a good one to write about intoxicated. This is probably the BEST album to write about intoxicated. Look at the album cover, all those faces mutated, not quite themselves. To me, this is an album that's begging to be evaluated under the influence.

Look, I'm drunk, so I might get a little too giddy about this. Take it with a grain of salt. But I will make this claim now, while I'm still conscious: All Killer No Filler is probably in my personal Top 25 All Time. I don't know if this is because it was ingrained into my skull at an early enough age or what. There was that article in the New York Times about how you are susceptible to music at a certain age in your life. Sum 41 is legitimately the only band in the fucking universe that can claim that they are this band for me under these particular circumstances (I dunno, unless you harbor some secret suspicion that I also still, under cover of darkness, still obsess over the Banjo Kazooie soundtrack, which, please, I assure you, I do not).

I'm just drunkenly riffing right now, along to listening to this FUCKING GREAT ALBUM. Oh my god I can't even believe how great this album is. I'm listening to "Rhythms" currently. Pop punk at its finest. Jesus Christ!!!!!!

Hey, how's this for a fact. I think. All Killer No Filler is most assuredly the first album that I've covered on The Albums That Matter that is a platinum-selling record. YES! In 2001, more than a million people bought this fucking record. I was one of them! Fuck, I am so sincerely glad. I love this album with a thousand high school hearts.

Okay now I'm listening to "In Too Deep" which was almost assuredly a #1 hit on the charts or close to it. Or, like, at the very least a big enough hit that the alternative kids were jamming to it. There's nothing complicated about this. It's one guitar power chord over and over. And yet, here we are, a song so goddamn enjoyable I want to cry. This is so dumb. I'm so in love with this shit.

I feel like I know nothing about Sum 41. I own this album and this Sum 41 album alone, so this is my one and only shot at writing about this band. Usually I look up some interviews or some shit with the band, prior to writing and listening, but I'm currently intoxicated, so I'm just typing whatever comes to my mind/fingers, and also listening and jamming out to this album the same as I have for the past DECADE PLUS (seriously, now I'm listening to "Summer," which, man, talk about the all-time great songs with the word "summer" in it, this shit is at the top of a playlist somewhere).

Oh my god. I'm currently reading their wiki page (while "Handle This" plays, jesus CHRIST this song is a monster), and I don't know how to react to this. The first thing that jumps out at me is that THIS BAND IS STILL GOING. In my mind, they released a perfect fucking album in 2001 and then called it quits. No, their most recent album was released in 2016. Lordy. I will never listen to that. I don't want to ruin what I have already.

The second thing that jumps out at me from their wiki is that the band "performs more than 300 times each year." Oh lordy. I have to investigate. Let's see... Oh gosh. Yes, Sum 41 is coming to a Philadelphia near you sometime soon. May 14th at the Electric Factory. Will I be attending this show? NO, for three reasons. 1) It's being billed as a Fifteenth Anniversary Show for their second album, Does This Look Infected?, which I've never listened to but I'm gonna go ahead and assume that it fucking PALES in comparison to All Killer No Filler, 2) I will more than likely have a two-week old newborn in my possession at that point and there's no way I would want to under any circumstance try to ditch that little human being to see motherfucking Sum 41, 3) the band website does not mention All Killer No Filler etc. etc. etc. etc.

Okay, so I'm listening to "Heart Attack," and, like, obviously a lot of the hooks on these songs are used multiple times. "Heart Attack"'s pre-chorus sounds EXACTLY like the chorus of "Motivation." But fuck it. It's not stealing if you're stealing from yourself.

Alright, okay, let's try to wrap this up. Here's my closing statement about Sum 41's All Killer No Filler: maybe I was mistaken when I made some big fucking statement about how I like "music for music's sake." I can't possibly state that here. Sum 41 is important to me because of context alone. Don't get me wrong, the music itself is fucking GREAT and I will fucking DIE on the hill claiming that. But this album was one of the first albums I ever owned, and I spun that shit like crazy, at a time that predates most of my musical tastes. All Killer No Filler was loved before fucking Sgt. Pepper's was, to me. It will ALWAYS hold a special place in my heart. FUCK the haters. Ahhhh sorry I'm a little drunk alright goodnight all, see ya next time.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "In Too Deep"

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NEXT TIME: All of Something by SPORTS

The Albums That Matter: All Hail West Texas

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

All Hail West Texas

The Mountain Goats

2002

All Hail West Texas is the first album that I've written about for this project that I did not change my opinion of one fucking iota after a deep and close listen. With every other album I've listened to and written briefly about, I was able to discover new joys, and a deeper understanding of what the album is trying to accomplish. Not so here. I'm not saying that this is a bad album, not by any means. It's just that I've already gotten everything I ever will get out of this album, and any further "deep" listens are going to be like squeezing water out of stone. There's just not much there.

The hundreds of thousands of Mountain Goat diehards who are reading this right now are slack-jawed in horror, aghast that THIS is the album that I decide to take a stand on, finally. Their beloved All Hail West Texas?! A lo-fi wet dream of an album that speaks so dearly to those who've never set foot on the dusty trails of Texas itself?

Be honest with yourselves, you guys. There really isn't that much here. There are exactly three sounds on the whole album: wobbly strokes of a guitar, Darnielle's admittedly lovable nasally voice, and the slow churn of a shitty defunct recording device. I can't be the first person to have an issue with the Panasonic RX-FT500, can I? I get the folky appeal of it, the fact that Darnielle just played a fucking guitar into the microphone of a boombox and spun gold, but does anyone else prefer their music without some grinding tape loop in the background? No? Just me?

And the album just goes on a little too long, I'd argue, without really adding much toward the end that wasn't already said in the first half. It doesn't help that the two best songs are also the first two songs, and down's the only way to go from there. "The Best Ever Death Metal Band in Denton" gets its due these days as a classic (see this cover, e.g.), but can we get a shout out to "Fall of the Star High School Running Back"? Talk about the perfect short story in two verses. The rest of the album just doesn't really keep that interesting shit coming. These two songs are delightful in their specificity; the other dozen are too vague to get excited about.

I dunno. Maybe I'm overplaying my tepid feelings about All Hail West Texas because I'm subconsciously weary of trying to write about an album that John Darnielle himself has already written about so ably on several occasions. That would be a valid accusation.

But I'll argue that my tepid feelings themselves are also valid. By minute seven, I fucking love this album, but then by like minute forty, I'm bored to tears.

Meh. Decent album.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Color in Your Cheeks"

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Stray Observations

• Another theory could be that I came in at the wrong time in exploring the Mountain Goats. Get Lonely had already helped me through a breakup, and The Sunset Tree had already gripped me tight, and so anything is gonna pale in comparison to those two greats. And pale AHWT did.
• "There are exactly three sounds on the whole album..." Well, okay, technically five, since we add a drum machine and Fisher Price keyboard exclusively to "Blues in Dallas," by far the worst song on the album, a song so laughably bad I feel like I'm listening to a fucking Homestar Runner skit every time I hear it.
• I purposefully didn't read this article from AVClub about the album before writing this. I'm going to read it right after I'm finished here. I have to assume that it makes the case that All Hail is a classic, and does so with much more grace and aplomb than I ever could.
• FRONT COVER: White cover, pale yellow title, and the somewhat of a subtitle: "Fourteen songs about seven people, two houses, a motorcycle, and a locked treatment facility for adolescent boys." The houses ("Color in Your Cheeks" and "Fault Lines"), motorcycle ("Jenny"), and treatment facility (implied in "The Best Ever...") are all accounted for. But who are the seven people? Do some of the songs feature the same characters? Do we get to see a glimpse of the former high school football star's future without it ever being made explicit? To me, the subtitle is merely there to show that Darnielle is a really, really good writer, and he was just flexing his literary muscles by writing an intriguing phrase on the cover.
• (Like, it's not even worth trying to get into, who the seven people are. Example: this really bad take.)
• I linked to it in the blog post proper, but here it is again, All Hail West Texas annotated. I followed along here instead of Genius.com for this album. Some really interesting tidbits! I sincerely enjoyed reading Darnielle's take on the album, especially about how he wrote the lyrics to the songs in the margins of orientation material for a new job he had. I find it absolutely fascinating that such a now-semi-high-profile artist could've had a civilian job during his time writing an album. I'm as intrigued as I am about, like, when baseball all-stars had winter jobs in the off-season at meat-packing factories and shit like that.

NEXT TIME: All Killer No Filler by Sum 41

Shelter from the Storm

From 2005-2008, I frequently wrote public diary entries on Xanga, and it was bad. I still have a copy of it. Some of it is so emo that it hurts. But I'll let you be the judge of that, because here is exactly one sentence from every xanga entry I ever wrote, presented without context.

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3/19/05 "But the phoenix has risen from the ashes..."

3/22/05 "School was complete and utter shit, although by saying 'school,' 'shit' is inevitable."

3/24/05 "I feel Mr. Bush is being extremely hypocritical: 'Every life is sacred,' well, except for those 100,000 Iraqis, but who's counting?"

3/25/05 "Parents don't trust kids anymore, well not me anyway."

3/26/05 "I'm not gonna stop hanging out with you just because you drink, just don't expect me to drink with you."

3/27/05 "Usually I hate that southern twang crap, but the Band just presents it in such a wonderful way."

3/29/05 "All questions will be answered completely and truthfully, you have my word."

3/30/05 "Hahaha, pulled it off baby... it was an awesome night."

4/1/05 "Are you now, or have you ever been, a blueberry muffin?"

4/2/05 "And sorry to everyone on AIM."

4/5/05 "We got off school on Friday for his funeral, thank you Lord."

4/8/05 "Let's all cross our fingers and hope that our plans Saturday night go according to plan, lest you may just be reading about it in Rockledge's newspaper."

4/8/05 (later) "And Cory was just lying on the floor, eating cheese puffs and talking to himself, so I went home."

4/10/05 "Joe Green wasn't with us, but we got a message from Christian, saying that him and Joe had weapons, guns and the like, and were gonna kill some kid who was chasing after them, something like that... it was not cool."

4/12/05 "Ponder for a moment all those books that were cut out of the final version of the Bible."

4/14/05 "I fucking owned all my tests this week, including Spanish, Pre-Calc, and two Frankenstein tests, for which I didn't even read the book but still aced."

4/16/05 "Then, get this, some kid calls my cell when I'm in the car with my dad, he said his name was 'Skunk,' and at first I thought it was a wrong number, but then he says, 'I'm calling regarding your friend Joe Green... tell him I'm gonna kick his motherfucking ass...' so I hung up."

4/18/05 "So me and my pops went to Baltimore yesterday, and the first thing he says to me when we get in the car: 'Are you doing crack cocaine?'"

4/20/05 "Some kids celebrated this holiday in probably the dumbest way possible by smoking a joint outside of school, and well, they got suspended."

4/23/05 "'I can punch you through a window right now.'"

4/26/05 "The catch: he was playing guitar at a little thing called 'JesusFest.'"

4/30/05 "I turn on the light to my bedroom, and find urine all over my Bio textbook and folder."

5/1/05 "And if you know Andrew, you could have probably guessed that he agreed; we get off the monorail, and he wears a hat full of chocolate smoothie."

5/3/05 "I keep forgetting to tell you guys, but it seems that a topic at a previous Home and School meeting at Presentation B.V.M. was none other than... my xanga."

5/5/05 "There wasn't a big hoopla or anything, but they are having a baby so I guess they thought that they had to get married sooner than later."

5/7/05 "I couldn't give less of a shit if you can play a fucking flam-tappa-diddlediddle-rammaflam, if you can't keep a simple beat then you suck as a drummer."

5/8/05 "All milfs are welcome to stop by my house for a special Mother's Day gift if they want to."

5/10/05 "I suppose there have been a few good things happening, but not much."

5/12/05 "I'm in the bathroom, and I hear these two drunk doofuses in the stalls, and one of the guys chuckles and says, 'duuuuuuude, I just dropped the camera in the toilet!'"

5/14/05 "And I know what song I'm gonna sing for my audition too, just picked it today—'Golden Ticket' from Willy Wonka."

5/15/05 "Okay, so I was dumb enough to miss the train."

5/16/05 "I sit in the back of the room, I do nothing, I sleep, I make fun of myself and the people around me, I laugh constantly, and yet, somehow, still pass the class."

5/17/05 "It is my true belief that this famous poem by Robert Frost is about drugs..."

5/21/05 "After dinner, Sliv and Kev came over, and we officially christened our new band, 'Schmooze,' so you guys can check us out at myspace.com/schmooze.

5/21/05 (later) "Or maybe, maybe it's the fact that I do care, but I try to cover it up with a big ol' phony smile, a weak attempt at a laugh, and a pinch of self-humiliation."

5/22/05 "This year, it was just a drag and a burden."

5/24/05 "The Conspiracy at the Vatican and Its Impact on the Modern World"

5/25/05 "I'm not joking and I'm not being sarcastic."

5/27/05 "I think I'm becoming depressed."

5/29/05 "I wish I could say the same about last night, but I really don't consider cleaning bird shit off of my pool deck the greatest night ever."

5/31/05 "So, we are going to hold this massive concert in our bassist Kev's grandmom's backyard."

6/3/05 "Here's to summer!"

6/4/05 "IF I SENT YOU A LINK ON AIM, I APOLOGIZE."

6/6/05 "I figure regardless of how many times I'm the only percussionist at concert band practice, regardless of how many football games I attend just to play the goddamn cowbell, regardless of how many lessons I go to, or how many times I play the fucking crash cymbals for hours on end for a graduation that means nothing to me, I'll still only be a pathetic sixth period drummer to him."

6/11/05 "I'm at the library right now, so I don't feel like giving a huge update."

6/12/05 "Marie, you are an amazing girl, I'm so glad I met you, and I hope our relationship works out (I'm positive it will)."

6/15/05 "I also have four parties in the next ten days, I fucking love summer."

6/18/05 "I chugged seven full cups of 'fruit punch,' so I'm not really sure exactly what happened the entire night, but I do remember getting mad at people for pushing me around and laughing at me while I was under the influence, which is completely unfair to me."

6/19/05 "These are the most disgusting picture on the internet today, in my opinion... DO NOT CLICK if you are squeamish in any way."

6/22/05 "If you could do anything right now what would it be: Go buy a bunch of pudding."

6/25/05 "Hey, any party with a firepit is a good party."

6/29/05 "Are the puppets on Sesame Street considered Muppets?"

6/30/05 "I BETTER GET A COMMENT FROM EVERYONE!"

7/5/05 "The party will be like John Lennon would have liked it to be—peaceful, very relaxed, chilled, and NON-stressful."

7/9/05 "When I first arrived, there was a bunch of kids there, more than I had originally expected, as it turns out, they had assumed there would be alcohol there, which wasn't the case."

7/10/05 "Ever since I read that book, I've been thinking like my life is a movie, I'm just watching it."

7/11/05 "Oh yeah, and we put the fire out... without water."

7/15/05 "Hanging out with her is like hanging out with Buddha, only more fun and less religious."

7/23/05 "I can't say that anyone shed any blood this week, but we are all family now."

7/26/05 "YOU WILL NOT BE ADMITTED IF YOU ARE NOT WEARING A TOGA, AND I MEAN IT."

7/30/05 "So me and Harry are walking on the tracks, and we hear some lady yell, 'where's the party, boys?' but in all honesty, we were just taking a shortcut to Cindy's house, and I turned around to explain that, when I saw the police badge in her hand."

8/5/05 "Kids, don't forget to apply sunscreen to your upper thighs!"

8/13/05 "Tuesday, we wake up for the water park, but it was raining, so I slept for a few more hours, and then Harry hooked up with some random chick."

8/17/05 "CHEERS TO THE END OF SUMMER!!!"

8/18/05 "First of all, I'm positive that you would know if you had a piece of someone else's soul embedded in your forehead."

8/22/05 "My calendar is suddenly empty for tomorrow night, so if you're doing anything fun and exciting, give me a call... but remember, I'm taking antibiotics."

8/24/05 "I think there's something that should be set out in the open: Marie and I broke up."

8/27/05 "Drinking, or refusing to drink, means nothing to me."

8/28/05 "I love you, Burholme, I love you."

8/29/05 "What do you look for in a relationship?:: A girl that thinks that when I do something crazy and fun, that she'll join in with me as opposed to calling me immature."

9/3/05 "Oh yeah, forgot to mention that I am grounded, for two weeks."

9/4/05 "C'mon, God, put me in a coma!"

9/6/05 "My parents never told me that there was no Santa Claus, the lie was just kind of unraveled over time."

9/6/05 (later) "So many other things happened this summer, I could not possibly fit it all here."

9/11/05 "I ordered some obscure CDs from Amazon, I'm hoping they get here soon."

9/15/05 "I don't like any of my classes."

9/16/05 "In retribution, I got two lungs full of silly string gas, and immediately puked all over the lawn."

9/18/05 "I think this could possibly be the worst time in my life to contract mono."

9/23/05 "At least it's noncontagious."

9/26/05 "And the damn pirate wouldn't let me have any rum!"

10/3/05 "I'm thinking we should all 'play some scrabble,' as the kids are saying these days.

10/7/05 "Hey, I was in the stall the other day at La Salle, and the writing on the wall said 'Freshman Fuck Day—October 13th,' does anyone have any clue what this means?

10/12/05 "At least something good has happened this week so far: Elizabeth asked me to the Little Flower formal, and I'm really excited about that."

10/16/05 "P.S. I'm gonna be on fucking MTV!"

10/18/05 "Yeah, you know the show: a rich girl whines and complains, has a big party, and everyone exclaims, 'This is going to make her so popular!'"

10/23/05 "Then, all of a sudden, they decide to randomly beat the shit out of some kid, just for fun."

10/25/05 "Wow... I'm such a loser."

10/27/05 "I'm pretty sure a three-year-old could do my job."

10/29/05 "Cheers to everyone I saw tonight, in no particular order: Harry, Mary, Kyle, his friends, Keelan, Maryrose, Elizabeth, Cathleen, Andrew FUCKING Rigney!, that kid Ed, LA FEVER, other kid, Chris Clark, Kyle Callaghan, Sliv, Kev, Alexis, Brianna, Ciara, Michelle, Amanda, the clerk from Wawa, that dude in the ghost outfit, the cop who chased me, Andy, Tina, everyone at Lafayette, including Michael Myers, the entire LF soccer team, Chris Cheesesteak, my sister Jenn, her two friends, my parents, firepit, that old guy in Wawa with the stringy hair, the guy who was weird, the guy in the baby costume, the girls who were going to the costume party, the British Lady, the lady that wanted a half cup of Lentil soup, the woman at Hunan Wok's who I saw in the reflection of the door, and last but not least, the man on the moon!"

11/1/05 "And we frolicked in the graveyard."

11/3/05 "Saturday: Go to SCHMOOZE'S FIRST GIG."

11/6/05 "Psss... I'm having another birthday party this year... probably December 9th... and I expect everyone to be there..."

11/7/05 "If anyone wants to chill at Burholme tonight, they are more than welcome."

11/17/05 "Okay, so I came up with a list of 110 people who I want to be at my party."

11/22/05 "An old lady farted in my face on Saturday."

12/3/05 "Okay, so my parents only expect like 30 people at my party, which makes me kind of worried, because if my estimates are correct, over 100 people will be showing up."

12/6/05 "So fuck you Action News, fuck you AccuWeather, fuck you Mother nature, I hate you all."

12/8/05 "The cops will definitely make an appearance, so seriously, don't be an idiot."

12/11/05 "Okay, it really wasn't necessary for people to leave empty beer cans all over my yard."

12/18/05 "Therefore, I am going to try to inject some Christmas into my life, and throw the First Annual Buy-a-Tree-and-Carry-It-to-Burholme-and-Decorate-It-and-Drink-Eggnog Party."

12/23/05 "Except that Presentation was sold out of trees, so we just went into the woods for the hell of it."

12/28/05 "Shit, I always have fun at dances."

12/30/05 "I learned through this experience that this xanga is public, and everyone can read it, so I shouldn’t write everything I want to write, because it’ll eventually screw me over in the end."

1/8/06 "Let's just say that, because of a failed attempt at an apology, I got depressed as hell and tried to jump out of a moving vehicle."

1/12/06 "Fitzy got kicked out of school, finally, after all the killing threats and bomb threats and fighting with lab managers; this time, he knocked Mr. Clemente, a handicapped teacher, off his mobile scooter."

1/15/06 "I wish girls didn't have to let you know that they liked you."

1/22/06 "It was great because 1) so many random ass people showed up that I haven’t seen in a while, 2) the amount of people made for a huge rush of energy on stage, 3) a harmonica solo, 4) mosh pits, 5) getting lost going to the after party, 6) finding the after-party and playing scrabble."

1/27/06 "Just swell."

1/30/06 "Copy other people’s work on any non-graded assignment you can, even if you have to steal vocabulary books out of people’s backpacks."

2/5/06 "Give me a comment and I'll give you a dollar."

2/11/06 "Fuck yeah, Burholme make their first demo, to be on sale soon!"

2/12/06 "There is a God."

2/13/06 "Another day wasted."

2/14/06 "Yes, you are fucking single for Valentine's Day, but we all are!!"

2/15/06 "Do I have any true friends?"

2/20/06 "It ain't gonna be pretty, folks."

2/26/06 "BUY A BURHOLME DEMO, SUPPORT OUR BAND!!"

3/2/06 "P.S. You are a douchebag."

3/6/06 "My stomach shut up when I thought about the fucking blast we had roaming the streets of Cheltenham at three o’clock in the morning."

3/11/06 "Rita's is open."

3/15/06 "You won’t regret it (and even if it isn’t that good, at least you’ll get to see me drunk in a clown wig)."

3/23/06 "I asked Mr. Russell to go to prom with me."

3/26/06 "I’ve come to question lately why anyone would want to be my friend, seeing as I treat them like shit."

3/28/06 "I know everyone and still manage to have no friends."

4/3/06 "Doesn’t seem that bad as I type it out, but you gotta admit that’s a lot of shit to worry about."

4/4/06 "'I don’t see what the problem is here, Joe, you are always falling asleep, you rarely participate.'"

4/9/06 "I’ve been realizing lately that I don’t like to sleep."

4/11/06 "A few people laughed, more people gave strange looks, but mostly people just yelled 'fag!' at me."

4/12/06 "Today I put on a Jason mask and delivered a pizza to Mr. Young during his eighth period class through the window."

4/19/06 "I cleaned my room and found $105.77."

4/23/06 "Whoever lied to us and said there was a Quiznos on Verree Road must die."

5/3/06 "I say 'Andrew Pierce is locked in a trunk! and he can’t breathe!'"

5/8/06 "Jim White unbuttoned his top button!"

5/12/06 "Honestly, 'Shout!' is the greatest song of all time."

5/14/06 "And now it’s 9:02 PM, and I’m about to start a five-page research paper."

5/17/06 "Guys aren't allowed inside the Mount anymore, so she literally chases me and Matt Stone out of the parking lot and down the street."

5/21/06 "I was camping on the beach in Wildwood and met... hot girl scouts?!"

5/26/06 "What happened this year was that I found my niche in the La Salle social scene, and I think the thing that made this year so great was doing Godspell."

5/29/06 "Then we prank called everyone we knew, walked to Wawa at 1 AM, and hit on fourteen-year-old girls."

5/31/06 "It just doesn't make sense."

6/4/06 "I'm grounded for a while."

6/5/06 "Perhaps he should've written, 'Joe was a jackass most of the third and fourth quarters.'"

6/10/06 "I pity all those guys that think anorexia is going to solve their weight problems, they don't know what they are getting into."

6/13/06 "You’d think that I would care enough to stop doing certain things, selfish things that come at the expense of friends and family, but I still continue to fuck up."

6/14/06 "Father Harrison will be there, so make sure you don't show up too drunk (I'm kidding of course, if you show up drunk you will receive a STERN WARNING!)!"

6/18/06 "But I fixed some broken friendships, formed new ones, strengthened old ones, and reaffirmed my faith that maybe I am cared about in this world."

6/22/06 "'Joe, it is so good to see you with clothes on this time.' —his grandmother"

6/24/06 "I’m not gonna lie, xanga is getting pretty fucking old."

6/29/06 "What was the last lie you said?: That I was going to Cindy's house tonight, but I was actually going to Mary's, and even though we weren't doing anything illegal at all there, my parents will always remember what happened that one time at Mary's."

7/2/06 "I miss his fuzzy steel-wool-hair head."

7/6/06 "Goddamn, I love summer."

7/8/06 "Then we went to the playground and tipped over a port-a-potty."

7/10/06 "When does human life begin?"

7/13/06 "Who else can claim they chilled on the train tracks at 3 AM last night?"

7/18/06 "'The pools were appealing to the eye but……there was no parental supervision of the kids running around they were in every pool on the ship and just to let you all know i do have children 4 girls in age from 6 to 12 so that being said I do love kids but……the ship’s staff said nothing of the cannonballs, splashin, running around, and the teenagers that were roughhousing around every pool.'"

7/21/06 "This is the first time I’ll be outside of the U.S., and what better way to do it then with a boat-load of horny girls?!"

7/30/06 "Everything people said about it was true: Wild teenagers DID run around the decks at 4 AM (I can still picture the looks of horror from the senior citizens as I and 20 other teens ran screaming across the deck, jumping into a hot tub built for eight and somehow fitting everyone in)."

8/7/06 "Whenever I’m around, I just get this feeling that people are thinking, like, 'Who invited this jerk?'"

8/9/06 "I most certainly enjoy jamming with my band (first time we’ve practice in like five weeks), going to the movies (to see the new Will Ferrell movie, which was basically one big commercial for Applebee’s and Wonder Bread) after work (where a mass plastic fork fight ended in an old lady finding a piece of fork in her jello), and playing frisbee in the park with Pierce, Katie Corr, and JIM WHITE (who was looking sexy as usual)."

8/14/06 "To top it all off, I got a phone call from a drunk older kid threatening to beat me up—over SIX DOLLARS."

8/21/06 "Can ANY relationship last?"

8/22/06 "FUCK, my senior year is now rendered meaningless."

8/25/06 "Well I'm glad that worked out okay."

8/26/06 "Tonight was one of the craziest nights of my life."

8/30/06 "Standing on the fire pit, surveying my kingdom of Burholme from atop"

9/2/06 "Standing in the rain playing the cowbell for a winning football team, drinking a 'Best Chest' and jamming with the band, hanging at Wawa with some old grade school buddies, wrestling girls in basements... I could go on and on."

9/5/06 "I have a schoolbag that, for once, isn’t filled with cans of beer."

9/6/06 "Walking into the library yelling 'Keg at Evan Raisner’s!' probably left a bad impression."

9/10/06 "And what scares me the most is this—if I can’t deal with senior year, how the fuck am I going to deal with the rest of my life?"

9/17/06 "irishboss30: i woke up this morning and there was all this dirt in my bed, and a few leaves, no lie, so i quickly got a shower and took the sheets off my bed."

9/19/06 "I threw a banana against the wall as hard as I could, and it exploded, and it was at that moment that I knew this autumn was going to be hell."

9/29/06 "I smoked a cigarette naked on the dock of the lake, and I saw so many penises and balls and asses that I thought I was going to vomit."

10/1/06 "I regret having my dad pick me up the morning after Halloween because I'm puking with a hangover, and on the ride home I yell at him because 'just because I'm sick doesn’t mean I drank!'"

10/4/06 "I am, after all, a cowbell player, and I play this revered instrument proudly."

10/9/06 "Oh, and my Mom drunk-dialed me at 1:30 AM"

10/10/06 "And then I wrote how, instead of dealing with all this shit, I’d rather run away and live with the bums in Burholme park."

10/26/06 "I didn't wear shoes in school today, and no one noticed or cared."

11/5/06 "I’m drunk, you're drunk, what the hell is the point of making out?!?!"

11/12/06 "I need everyone that reads this to write a note or letter to my parents, requesting that I be allowed to have a party."

11/21/06 "I'm not allowed to have a party."

12/11/06 "I’ve been kind of slacking on updating xanga."

12/18/06 "An excerpt from the rap I wrote for Dr. Ryan’s English class, based on the prologue of the Canterbury Tales:"

1/1/07 "And of course, in late December, I got arrested, but you already know the story."

2/14/07 "I pinched myself to see if it was real this time."

2/21/07 "Mr. Norman has a fetish for bald women."

3/1/07 "It seems that I’ll be heading to La Salle University in the fall."

4/16/07 "I caused someone to stop believing in God."

6/1/07 "One final beer was left, we placed it firmly on the firepit, unopened, because perhaps some mixed-up teen will come down to the 'pit and find that beer, and look around, and say, 'hey, this isn’t such a bad place to hang out.'"

6/8/07 "As a waiter, I have to serve on these old folks hand and foot, only to be bitched at because the soup isn’t hot enough and the coffee is decaf not regular."

6/19/07 "And for the first time in about 24 hours, I smiled."

7/7/07 "Back to the Future got me thinking about decisions I’ve made in the past, and how they’ve affected my present, mainly because of a drunk dial I got from some chick I used to like."

7/10/07 "I know that my future could easily be as memorable as my past, but I can’t help but worry sometimes that the best years of my life are already almost past."

7/18/07 "As we approach July 21st, I can’t help but feel a mixture of emotions—excited, nervous, anxious, elated, depressed, it’s all there... yes, I'm talking about the final Harry Potter novel, The Deathly Hallows."

7/20/07 "But if you’re talking about a real kiss, a real fucking kiss that makes your head spin and your knees ache and the proverbially fireworks explode on the insides of your eye sockets, then, well, I'm just not sure I’ve ever had one, at least not in recent memory."

7/29/07 "Each and every time I throw up while drinking, I had previously eaten some kind of sandwich with onions in it."

8/5/07 "Due to an unlucky series of events, we were unable to buy kegs from Oxford because a fake ID mysteriously vanished, even though THE SAME LADY WAS WORKING YESTERDAY AS THE DAY BEFORE, WHEN SHE SAW US USE THE ID."

8/14/07 "Let’s start off by saying that through the nine days or so my family was gone, my guests and I finished off, by my final count, 832 beers (that’s eighteen cases of Lionshead, six cases of Natty Light, two cases of Keystone Light, a case of Beast, and a half keg of Miller Lite)."

8/18/07 "Thank you, fans, for supporting us through the years; thanks too for dancing your hearts out last night and getting into every song."

8/22/07 "A subtle lesson I learned this summer is the definition of friendship."

8/23/07 "But a wise philosopher once said that only in the absence of a friend do you really come to appreciate him."

9/2/07 "It feels weird being back home."

9/10/07 "Like, I’m trying to punch a hole in the bathroom door by this point, challenging people to fight me because 'my dad bought this keg.'"

9/16/07 "While my peers trekked to the various frats to fill their dirty cups from dirty kegs in dirty basements with dirty douchebags breathing down their necks, I walked with Chrissy to get some ice cream."

9/21/07 "Sure enough, a puddle of urine lay at the foot of my bed."

9/28/07 "This past summer, all I saw on La Salle University’s facebook group was “I WANNA GET SO TRASHED!!” which I guess is alright if you are into that—I personally think that’s a bit overkill—but nevertheless one cannot deny that drinking is a top priority for a lot of kids."

10/20/07 "Goddamn, I’ve been in the mood for Checkers for so long now."

10/21/07 "I spent our subway token money on pizza, and I legitimately do not remember how we got on the subway, I kind of just came out of my blackout and we were on it."

10/23/07 "I woke up with two things this morning: a girlfriend and a hangover."

10/28/07 "I woke up this morning in women's clothing, having pissed my pants."

11/2/07 "And then I had another urination incident in my room."

11/12/07 "Now I’ll come back from La Salle and I’ll say what I’ve been up to, and people will laugh, but it won’t be the same."

11/21/07 "Have you ever been in a situation that you can never be happy unless you upset someone else, and since they will be unhappy from your actions, you will, in turn, become unhappy, thus it’s impossible to ever be happy, because whatever you do you’re going to upset someone?"

12/12/07 "As it turns out, La Salle was the PERFECT school for me."

12/16/07 "The fucking neighbors called the police."

12/20/07 "Fuck, I don’t see myself doing a goddamn thing after college."

1/1/08 "The passage of time makes me bitter, because the times I am having in the present are so goddamn great, and I’m scared that I’ll suddenly be unhappy one day, and I’ll never be able to go back to the past and be happy like I know I am now and have been the past twelve months."

1/14/08 "Maybe I’ll feel better once Thursday night comes, and I’m back out on the town, with my beer and my bros, maybe."

1/21/08 "I repeat, do what will make you happy, and if the people that love you truly love you, they will be happy as well."

1/23/08 "I can't handle shots."

2/3/08 "Albert Camus said, so I’m told, that humans are so noble in nature because of their willingness to prevail."

2/18/08 "He said 'every Thursday I feel like the king of the world, and every Sunday night I want to commit suicide.'"

2/25/08 "The question, I suppose, that Keats raises is the following: What is better, the longing for love, or the finding love and have it rot away?"

2/29/08 "Note to self: assume that everyone that shouldn’t be reading your xanga is reading your xanga."

3/2/08 "Driving down an empty road on a warm summer night, windows down, drumming on the steering wheel, yelling at the top of my lungs, hot damn!"

3/10/08 "Because I’m drinking and playing beer pong tomorrow afternoon!"

3/14/08 "I sit in this chair, and I smile, and I am content."

3/25/08 "To do what is right is making me fucking sad and lonely."

3/31/08 "Honestly, the college lifestyle is grinding me down—I’m always tired, always under pressure to get something done, to go somewhere, and I’m almost always drunk every night."

4/14/08 "Jesus Christ, I can't deal with this."

4/24/08 "When I used the phrase 'bust a load' she assumed I meant 'to shit a huge poop.'"

5/19/08 "The dude in the car proceeds to then chase us, in his car, ACROSS THE SIDEWALK."

5/24/08 "I apologize for being a drunken load."

6/17/08 "Feel free to come visit us over at our new blog, Puke on Your Birthday."

The Albums That Matter: All Are Saved

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

All Are Saved

Fred Thomas

2015

"And I see myself there completely lightweight wasted on like a single drink / In 2003 in Baltimore / Smashing my first flip-phone on some piss-soaked alley floor corridor."

The details aren't exactly the same, but I had a violent flashback the first time I heard this lyric on "Every Song Sung to a Dog," back to the Fall of 2008, when I smashed my flip phone while drunk over some stupid ex-girlfriend shit.

Fred Thomas hits that button a bunch more times on this album (like ruining a wedding on "Expo '87," and living in a shit college house in "Unfading Flowers," and so on), and each time, I kept wondering just how similar my and Thomas' teenage experiences were.

All Are Saved is one of those albums that speaks to very specific incidents that you strangely feel like you relate to. And so, those experiences of fuck-uppery and loneliness start to feel more universal than you originally thought, and that maybe, maybe things weren't so bad back then. You are not a unique snowflake, etc.

Based on the music alone, Fred Thomas is clearly running a one-man operation here. This is bedroom rock at its finest. But there's nothing lackadaisical about any of. Thomas spits every lyric like it's the last one he's going to sing. Sometimes he fits a lot of lyrics into very tight spaces, and it comes with such a sense of urgency that it just really fucking works. Usually I'm a music-first guy, but the lyrics on All Are Saved, well, save it.

Because of those lyrics, I found myself sitting at my work desk, choking up, hearing Fred Thomas contemplate whether it would be fair to his dead dog to trade places with him, because sometimes it feels like decades of malaise and confusion might be worse than a dozen years of simple canine joy.

Good album.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Cops Don't Care, Pt. II"

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Stray Observations

• One publication claimed that this was Fred Thomas' eighth solo album. Another publication indicated it was his debut solo album. I can't really find anything about Fred Thomas prior to 2015, so I'm going to assume that there may be earlier solo albums out there, but they were not widely released.
• I'm struggling to think of any other songs about dogs dying, or like any tributes to lost pets in general. I'll think of one. Looks like Okkervil River has one, but I'm not familiar with it.
• FRONT COVER: A few knickknacks laid on pillows, including a flowerpot, and possibly a hairpiece? Or maybe a large feather? This seems like the type of thing where Fred Thomas was just like, "Yo, this looks cool for the cover," and it wasn't supposed to mean much more than that.
• I referenced above that I was currently sitting at my work desk, and yet this is being published over the weekend. You must have figured out by this point that I write these things in advance, right?

NEXT TIME: All Hail West Texas by the Mountain Goats (I'm not doing EPs, sorry All Delighted People!)

The Albums That Matter: All American Made

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

All American Made

Margo Price

2017

I'm interested in country music the same way I'm interested in, say, the Marvel movies. Like, it interests me as an outsider to know what's going on in the scene, and read about it. But just like I'm not going to sit down and actually watch a lame ass Marvel movie, I also don't really need to listen to, like, fucking Chris Stapleton or do any type of deep dive into country music.

Here's what I'm coming to realize about country music. Country music has always been about the struggles of the working class. Always. Whether you're a poor farmer or a poor factory worker, country music was written for you. But then, here in the 21st Century, the poor working-class people have been fucking duped by Conservative media into believing outlandish things, and more crucially, into believing things that are against their own interests. And so you find (from what I've read, anyway) a country scene that is torn apart, because how do you write country songs about the struggling common folk when those same common folk are blaming their struggles on, e.g., black people and Muslims? When your fanbase is clearly delusional, can you still write empathetically?

That's why I thought it was important for me, as a typically non-country music listener, to check out the album All American Made, which I had been clued in on by music publications as being an atypically "liberal" country album. It's not that I want to stay in my own liberal political bubble. It's that, while I haven’t always been appreciative of the genre from a musical standpoint, I certainly appreciate any music that has something substantial to say.

Price herself speaks on the subject in an interview. I mean, how can you not wanna listen and hear what she has to say in her music after hearing her talk about it?

"There are websites that are [calling the pay gap between women and men] 'fake news, fake news' or whatever. It's crazy. Obama [introduced the Equal Pay Act] and that was one of the first things that Trump [halted] and said, 'No, we don’t need to do that. We're not going to do that.' It's so frustrating. If I think about it for too long, it makes my blood boil.

People want country musicians to be outlaws, but really, there are so many of the traditionalists out there, even in the mainstream, that aren't going to talk about these things. Because it scares them and they're afraid they're going to lose fans. I don't care. What's more outlaw than speaking your mind? I don't know why when you're talking about music business it's [okay to] shove a finger to them, but it's [another] thing to be like fuck the man, too. It's always been corrupt."

That's not to say that the whole album is some exercise in covert liberalism in the conservative country world. There are still a lot of tunes about drinking booze and about shitty boyfriends and all the touchstones of typical country music. And I never really had a problem with any of that in the first place. It's just, I want some self-awareness with my music is all. Like, should we really be singing about how sexy your tractor is when the middle class is being systematically erased?!

Look, I know, I spent another fucking blog post talking in generalities and not digging into the songs. I'm sorry, but sometimes I just really don't know enough about a particular genre to be analyzing individual tunes. Sometimes, you have an album like All American Made, albums with totally good songs, but the reason they are IMPORTANT is totally separate from how good the songs are. All American Made is an important gateway into the world of country for me, a bleeding-heart liberal who grew up rolling my eyes whenever I heard country music.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Wild Women"

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Stray Observations

• If I could speak about the songs a bit, I guess it might as well be down here in the Stray Observations. Boy howdy, that fucking Willie Nelson duet is atrocious, isn't it?
• Lots to like though, as far as songs go. "A Little Pain" is a great example of a wonderful song that really doesn't have anything to do with politics.
• And look, I realize that the narrative I present above, about a backwards conservative world of ignorance and dogwhistles, I realize that I am part of the problem. Clearly not everyone who listens to country music is like that, or else I don't think Margo Price would be moving much merchandise.
• FRONT COVER: We see the American heartland, complete with cows and cattle, and in the foreground, a woman, presumably Price, slowly disappearing. I don't think I need to explain the symbolism here.
• To all those whom I just TRIGGERED... thanks for reading!

NEXT TIME: All Are Saved by Fred Thomas

WHAT THE FUCK IS PUKE ON YOUR BIRTHDAY NOWADAYS

Alright, look, so eventually, there's gonna be more "music" posts than not, here on Puke on Your Birthday. I'm kind of disappointed that there's going to be a day, a few years in the future, during which there's gonna be 1100 posts about some fucking albums, and all the hard work we put into the "Neighborhood: Tales" side of the equation are gonna pale in comparison.

I'm sorry. I'm writing toward my bliss. Maybe sometime between now and Z by My Morning Jacket, some added writers and contributors will even the scales. I dunno. I have no fucking clue. Like I said: following that bliss. This blog has failed in the past because I've placed restrictions on myself: "I need to post every day," "I need to post as often as possible," "these posts need to be relevant to the hypothetical reader," etc. etc.

Fuck that shit. I'm just gonna type when I listen to an album or I otherwise feel motivated to type some words.

Otherwise...

See y'all tomorrow.

The Albums That Matter: Algiers

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

Algiers

Algiers

2015

Algiers tried to tell us in 2015, and we didn't listen. They tried to make their case, that we are asleep at the switch, that the television is distracting us from what's really going, that our apathy would lead to destruction, but we didn't listen. And now we have trump, who has opened the country up for the (figurative(?)) raping and pillaging of the country by the elite.

Algiers even packaged it their message in a unique musical experience. Seriously, there's nothing else like Algiers that I listen to. Not even close. I've seen it described as "dystopian soul" and "post-punk gospel doom," and while all accurate, to me, it legitimately sounds like a haunted house. There are creepy low-note synths and scratchy techno noises through. Some songs feature chains clinking around (possibly Marley's, a warning against capitalism). Other songs feature literal screaming in the background, like someone is being murdered. (I think Algiers would maybe agree—someone is being murdered, alright.)

I'm not going to say that Algiers is one of my favorite bands on a musical level, but I will say there's a decent amount to love here. See my issues with any type of post-punk HERE. That being said, sometimes this feels like another beast, separate from post-punk, despite the similarities on the surface. For one, lead singer Franklin James Fisher's vocal range is nuts; you can tell there's plenty of passion in what he's screaming about. For two, and this is in no way minimalism, but each instrument is used only when necessary, and it works wonders. You gotta dig hard to find the guitar part sometimes, for instance, but when it comes in heavy during "Old Girl," it hits like a ton of bricks.

Describing Algiers as "woke" would be doing them a disservice. I read a few interviews with the band in preparation to my listening, and I felt like I was in a political philosophy class. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. My point is that, this whole political activism thing that the band has going on, it's emphatically NOT a front, or a way to sell records or whatever. Algiers sincerely believes that society is doomed, and they are using their art to inject into the conversation.

Westerners are accused of "look[ing] the other way" in "Remains," and we hear about our "love of soma" (the drug that keeps society passive and peaceful in Brave New World) in "Blood." In "But She Was Not Flying," we get image after image of all the ways the rich are denigrating the poor, and getting away with it.

I think trump woke a lot of us up when he came to power. The wool over the eyes was lifted, so to speak, regarding how the system is designed to fuck those who are without money or power. Algiers offers no solutions, and neither can I. But I think it's rare to hear an album this relevant to our current national horrorshow.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Irony. Utility. Pretext."

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Stray Observations

• Algiers, of course, have released an album during the trump era, but we'll get to that much, much later, since it's called The Underside of Power.
• I got a little excited because I was reading the lyrics while listening to "In Parallax" and I thought Algiers had somehow predicted trump: "The sixth seal was broken / The sixth vial and then the trump / He said 'All you do is follow me / And I'll give you what you want' / But they've been taken." But after some cursory googling, it looks like that line is supposed to be "trumpet" not "trump," and it's quoting the Book of Revelations. That makes more sense. I'm just stupid (and Genius is fallible) I guess.
• Definitely read the whole interview I mentioned above, it's worth it. This one too. I don't think I've ever seen a band talk as intelligently.
• FRONT COVER: Dudes, I have no fucking clue. My best guess is that it's the shadow of something on the other side of a window, and I guess whatever the figure toward the top is supposed to be devil-like, with horn shapes and whatnot? And of course, the band's name in bold capital letters, bright red, which recalls their first single, "Blood." I could not find anything online about the artwork. I've failed you yet again, dear reader.
• I also did not really dive into the meaning behind the band/album name. Most directly, they named the band after the Algerian War, which was an important piece of the anti-imperialism movement of the mid-20th Century. The wiki page was just too long for me to read right now, which is why I didn't expound on it above. I'm a lazy fucking millennial, I know!

NEXT TIME: All American Made by Margo Price

The Albums That Matter: Aldhils Aboretum

Joe runs through every album on his iPod, mostly in alphabetical order, and offers some brief thoughts. Check out previous columns HERE.

Aldhils Arboretum

Of Montreal

2002

Aldhils Arboretum is Of Montreal's fifth out of thirteen (very soon fourteen) albums. Kevin Barnes' project is so far removed from where it began at this point that listening to an album like Aldhils Arboretum is like looking at pictures you're tagged in on Facebook from high school. That's what I looked like?!

Of Montreal has always been extremely hit or miss for me. I'm sure I'll expound on it at least once at some point in the next thirteen album write-ups. Honestly, it was one of those things where I had three of their albums, and I liked them so much that I went and downloaded the other nine, and it was just disappointment after disappointment.

Aldhils Arboretum is definitely a disappointment, there's no doubt about it. But today was honestly the first time I've listened to the thing in a couple years, and I was surprised about how much more I liked it than I remembered. Still not great. But very listenable!

On this album, Barnes continually strikes me as someone who can write a really good short story, but also someone who has not quite mastered how to write a successful hook as well. Seriously, listening to some of these songs makes me feel like someone is singing The New Yorker to me.

Take, like, "The Blank Husband Epidemic." I really like this story about a guy that ultimately choose infidelity over suicide. It's bleak and a little funny around the edges. But musically, there's really nothing here. Absolutely nothing that grabs you, nothing that you find yourself humming along to later in the day.

I'm trying to articulate a very specific problem, bear with me: Barnes does this thing over and over on the album. It's like, sometimes he's trying to fit in more lyrics than can fit on a line, but there isn't enough music to match up with the lyrics, so the music sounds like a broken record in the background. It happens on "We Are Destroying the Song," on "Question for Emily Foreman," etc. It doesn't ruin the album, it's just a minor annoyance.

And of course, there is always an exception, and here, "Jennifer Louise" is the song. It's pretty much perfect. It gets everything right that Of Montreal typically gets wrong. It's clear and concise, the hook is right out front, it doesn't fuck around. If the band was to release a Greatest Hits album, this is the only song from Aldhils Arboretum that would come close to making the cut.

I feel like this is a forgotten album in Of Montreal's discography. It doesn't really fit in during any of their "periods." It's not a twee rock opera. It's not lo-fi. The titles of the songs are short and filled with common words. It's not from the demented mind of a crossing-dressing alter ego. Compared to the rest of Of Montreal's albums, this one is tame as fuck. And yeah, a little forgettable.

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If this album sounds interesting, try this song: "Old People in the Cemetery"

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Stray Observations

• Okay, so after listening to this album and writing this up, I'm actually excited to get into the rest of Of Montreal's LPs for this project. Some of their albums I consider straight up terrible, but if Aldhils can go from "not that good" to "pretty good" in my mind, then maybe I can actually find things I like about, say, The Bedside Drama.
• Man, this really IS a forgettable album though, isn't it? I went through five or six pages of google searches and didn't really find anything pertinent to this album, the context behind it, or anything. I guess because 2002 was prior to the online music journalism boom, but the album is too insignificant to merit any nostalgic pieces?
• Stereogum, of course, included the album when they ranked Of Montreal Worst to Best. #10 out of twelve ain't bad I guess.
• FRONT COVER: Two figures spooning, one all white, and one multicolored. Kevin Barnes' brother David Barnes is the band's official art director, and has drawn most of the record covers as far as I can tell. Per his wiki: "The covers typically have unique color schemes and illustrations achieved through a combination of thick watercolors, markers, and ink." Aldhil's cover seems way more sparse than some of the other wacko shit he comes up with in a few years.
• I see the band's name stylized a lot as "of Montreal" but I refuse to do that shit. The O is going to be capitalized here and in all future mentions of Of Montreal.

NEXT TIME: Algiers by Algiers