October 1st, 2002.
Tuesday
People always talk about the magic of portable music, and how it's basically your own portable soundtrack to your life. Walks on sunny days or rainy nights or subway rides have been made into grandiose events simply by having music along. My personal highlights include a drunk subway ride while listening to Built to Spill's song "Untrustable, Pt. 2." Normally, I wait until I'm outside before putting on my music. Yesterday, I just put the old headphones in at my desk, then went to the bathroom. There, I was immediately reminded of why I usually wait. The chord to my headphones is quite long, and it's always a struggle to avoid peeing on the headphone chord, or getting them wet in the sink, or spitting on them. What also occurred to me was that nobody every really includes urinating in those "soundtrack" type moments when you're walking around listening to music. No movie ever begins the dramatic song while the character is standing in front of a urinal or sitting on the can. And since that's where we draw our references from, there was a complete lack of mental imagery to draw on and hearing the music instead of the pee hitting the urinal was a fairly unique experience. It was one of the the more rock and roll urinations I've had. At least while sober. The song was Sleater-Kinney's "Oh," by the way. Of all the possible music video scenarios for this song, I doubt a man standing at a urinal would ever be considered.I've been imaging this music video- Closeup of the urinal, pee, and headphone chord. Pee and headphone chord both sway back and forth, getting closer with each oscillation. Then farther apart. The tension build throughout the song. Well, at least part of it. I can't imagine someone peeing for 3 and a half minutes. I haven't thought the whole thing out yet. This is just one part.
On a related note, I'm really enjoying the new Sleater-Kinney album, "One Beat." But there's always something sort of off-putting about having a title track. I think it's a wasted opportunity of a good turn of phrase or bad pun to name the album after one of the songs. Though I'd prefer that over a titular line somewhere in one of the songs. Doesn't happen here, and the title track is probably my favorite one thus far. Anyway, when I heard most of these songs live over the summer, I was a bit underwhelmed. I'm not all that familiar with their back catalog of songs, but nothing really stuck out as much as some of the previous songs. I'd say that still holds. Though there are no bad songs, and I do like the album on the whole.
I've also loved what I've heard of the new Beck album, particularly the song "Lost Cause." I really hated almost everything I heard off of Midnight Vultures, and really like what I heard from Mutations. This album is much more in the Mutations vein. I like a lot of Beck, but haven't bought any of his stuff since Mellow Gold.
And lately I've been listening to a lot of Ryan Adam's "Heartbreaker." I'd always been told it was much much better than "Gold," which I kind of liked. And, indeed, it is much, much better. And now I can see why everyone was so disappointed with Gold.
Since living on my own, I've been listening to a lot more music, mostly while doing the dishes. This has been mostly a good thing.
Lastly- apparently there was a free White Stripes concert in Union Square today. And me without my napalm.
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