Yup, I still obsess about music.

So, every year I latch on to like, 5 to 10 albums and listen to them all the time. And luckily, I get to see almost all those bands this year. And I thought I'd enlighten the whole lot of you, and it won't even be that long of a post.

Surfer Blood - Astro Coast (http://www.insound.com/Surfer_Blood_Astro_Coast_LP/productmain/p/INS68489/)

So good! The show is $12 and is coming up in October. And I got this album at Amoeba Music in San Francisco during Record Store Day, and it's on white vinyl. It's a pretty young band, really fun to listen to and all that. They've clearly taken the whole gamut of influences from the indie rock pantheon, but they still sound like their own. They were my soundtrack for late nights in the industrial design workshop during winter semester. '

Review:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5135/surferblood-astrocoast-2010

New Pornographers - Together

http://www.insound.com/The_New_Pornographers_Together_LP/productmain/p/INS72970/

I'm listening to this right now. I saw the NPs at Twilight two and a half weeks ago, and it was easily the best show of the series thus far, at least in my opinion. I love Mass Romantic and Twin Cinema, but I think this is more listenable. And underrated. Its strongest tracks don't match the best of Mass Romantic (Letters from an Occupant) or Twin Cinema (Bleeding Heart Show, Stacked Crooked), but its strength is that it is very strong all the way through. And the Dan Bejar tracks rock. He was the best at the concert! I highly recommend. I can't put this one down. And no, they aren't pornographic. It's just a dumb name. Like Spoon. What kind of name is Spoon (and that was a freaking great concert, holy cow)?

Concert review:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/feature/5552/concert-newpornographers-2010

Album review:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5388/newpornographers-together-2010

The National - High Violet

http://www.insound.com/The_National_High_Violet_2xLP/productmain/p/INS73407/

I have the album with me in my office. Gorgeous! Purple LPs, beautiful print and layout. I love the way it looks, and it's my favorite National album thus far. Which is saying something, because I loved Alligator and Boxer quite a bit. But man, this album has some seriously sky-high moments, especially England and Conversation 16. My brother got me hooked on this when I went to visit him (and Thom Yorke, of course) in California. We listened to two songs on repeat on the drive up to San Francisco, and that got me hooked. Super good.

Album review:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5416/national-highviolet-2010

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma

http://www.insound.com/Flying_Lotus_Cosmogramma_LP/productmain/p/INS73788/

So good! Oh my gosh. I usually end up listening to this at least twice in a row every time I hear it. I mean, I think the packaging for Los Angeles is a little prettier, but whatever, this album is so amazing. FlyLo has such an ear. I saw him open for Thom Yorke in April, and it was so sweet. I even have the man's autograph, which I cherish. Flying Lotus is the future. You can hear the J Dilla influence, and I love love love this album. I don't really know how to describe it. I'm not much of a writer. But it is super good.

Album review:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5414/flyinglotus-cosmogramma-2010

Menomena - Mines

http://www.insound.com/Menomena_Mines_2xLP/productmain/p/INS77490/

Oh my gosh this is good. I downloaded it because I heard it was pretty solid, and they're coming in October. I was in for a crazy delicious treat. The lyrics are so deep and relatable, and it is great. In the couple of weeks I've had this album I've probably listened to it 10 or 12 times, and now I'm getting Friend and Foe (2007) to get ready for the concert I will definitely be attending. I'll buy the album at the show and get them to sign it, I think. Super good.

Album review:

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/5540/menomena-mines-2010

So, I'd say these are my top 5 of the year thus far, but I can't narrow it down to a particular order. I don't listen to every new album, and I'm just starting on Arcade Fire's Suburbs. But these albums are worth the time. I've listened to every one at least 10 times, and some 20 or more, which I don't do unless it's a sweet album. Screw anything Pitchfork says, they didn't BNM Menomena or New Pornographers, but I doubt you'll find albums as fun to listen to anywhere else. Screw you, Vampire Weekend, Neon Indian, Girls, et cetera. I'm sure people love that music. But this is better! Promise! And the only band I won't be seeing out of these this year is The National. I think my older brother has seen them 2 or 3 times. The blessings of living in Bay Area.

Buy these albums! See these bands! If you like that kind of music, at least. AND SONIC YOUTH IS COMING!!!

The art of theft

The title's a word joke. But not a very good one.

So the other day I was thinking a bunch about illegal downloading of music, concerts and actual, physical pieces of art. And how to correlate the theft of those things.

Well, we all know paintings are super valuable, as there is only one original. But I think music and the visual art world have some similarities.

First, recorded music: I think there are ways of experiencing music that are quite different. I'm talking about the full album, at a good bit rate, or even on CD/vinyl. I buy most of my music because I like the packaging for the vinyl, like for The National's High Violet. It's gorgeous. I'm willing to drop $20 for that, because it looks nice and sounds warm. So that's the most obvious: the purchased, recorded music. But the bands makes almost nothing off of that. That's not really what I'm getting into today. Still, I love having physical copies. iTunes, emusic, amazon and others all fall into this category. It's the high quality, real recording, and you're getting what the band, mixer, producer and engineer have decided is the best representation of these songs. But it's just a reproduction, all the same, of the real thing, and it doesn't stand up to having the band actually play it for you. But we wouldn't steal this, would we?

Another experience most of us have had is going to a concert. This is entirely different. There are lots of variables, but my rating of concerts is another discussion. Assuming it's a mellow crowd, you're not sick and the sound quality is good and not too loud, a well-performed concert is many, many times more enjoyable than a recording at home. I've seen bands as big and accomplished as Radiohead and bands as small as Sybris blow me away. But imagine the collective cost for once concert, assuming it's a moderate club (500 to 1000 people) at $20 a ticket. That's 10 to 20 thousand dollars. Pretty steep price, right? It's a shared experience, which often makes it even better. I think it's funny that people will steal music left and right from the internet, but will gladly pay sixty bones to go see Lady Gaga. That's interesting and also kind of crazy, I think, and not just because I'd never pay to see Lady Gaga. But anyway: a live concert is seeing performers/artists you love, playing songs you adore and with a full, raw, room-enveloping sound. I love concerts.

I think the third major way is a download from the internet, especially if it's just a few songs from an album. I don't believe in having anything on my iPod that has just a few songs from an album, except for a couple very rare exceptions. But I've been through tons of iPods that have just a few songs from albums, even great albums. And usually these folks compress their songs down to 64 kbps or at most, 128 kbps. That, in my not-so-humble opinion, is not experiencing all recorded music has to offer. It's like a photocopy of a painting. It's a cheaper experience, and it's just kind of hanging around in the background, not offering as much. And these people usually have 3 or 4 times as much music as I have, with hundreds of artists and thousands of albums, and haven't listened to 80% of it.

Hope that all made sense. Here's how I think it translates to art:

So, like a decent quality recording, we have a print. Could be a painting, a pressing, graphic art, a photograph, whatever. We pay the cost (it's pricier to print/reproduce these much of the time, so naturally many are pricier than $20) to have it hanging on the walls of our homes, and most wouldn't dream of stealing these from anywhere, just like we'd never steal a CD or an LP from a record store.

An actual painting costs much, much more. Which is fair. Just like a band is pulling in 10 to 20 thousand dollars for one concert in a smaller venue, an artist will sell a unique piece to an individual or a gallery or whatever for a pretty hefty sum. But, like a concert, you can see much more detail, much more of the work that went into it. And it's still a shared experience, especially in a gallery. But who would ever steal this? Pretty much nobody we know is an art thief, but that's the only kind of thief that's cool, in my opinion. Not that theft is cool. But if someone handed me a business card that said "Art Thief," I'd want to hang around this person because he probably has awesome stories. Moving on.

Then there's the crappy stuff you can yank from the internet. I work as a graphic designer, so most of the time I'm using photographs strangers have taken and generously given to the internet. We have our background images on our desktops, some picture we thought was cool and printed out, whatever. Even paying $2.50 for the 5" by 7" of some painting falls into this category, I think. But most have no qualms about using some piece of original artwork this way. I sometimes have cover art of albums I love as desktop backgrounds. It's totally okay in our heads, and we don't give a thought to paying for a download of some piece of art we like. I don't think such a service even exists.

This isn't about what's okay to steal and what's not. And I've left some stuff out, I know. A lot of people download high quality music from torrent websites, but the people that really care about the bit rate of their mp3s are usually pretty into having a respectable music collection. I would know (I usually "borrow" an album for a bit until I decide to buy it, most recently Menomena and J Dilla).

What I do find interesting is how analogous music and art are, as far as what we're willing to pay for and what we think is okay to snake from the internet, as well as how we experience them. I would never hide a CD under my shirt and walk out of a store, and I'd never steal a print from wherever such things are sold. I snuck into a concert once because it was sold out, but I made up for it to some degree by buying t-shirts and drinks from the venue. Sorry, concert venue. I won't do it again, I was 17 and foolish. But in the other 40 or so concerts I've attended, I've contributed to the total price of the performance along with everybody else. And most people don't sneak into concerts. They accept the price, pay it, despite the ridiculous service charges, and have a lovely time.

Yet, we find it completely okay to just take stuff off the internet. Well, most folks my age do, and all the way up to 5 to 10 years older than me. I don't see that as a bad thing. I think an artist would say, cool, more people are seeing what I've made, and even though it's not at a good quality, it's nice to get seen by a lot of people. And music is the same way, I think. I would rarely buy albums or go to concerts if I hadn't listened to the album at least a few times beforehand. There are some rare exceptions, but the albums have to be very, very highly rated. I did it more in high school, when I would quest through used CD bins. I've been hosed with that before, though. But the bands should be glad. Because once I'm in their camp, I want people to come to concerts with me, to buy the album, whatever. Their name is much more widespread

I have to stop myself from going further down the whole illegal downloading thing. But I do think it's curious how the visual art world and the music world relate, even though they are very different in other ways. So, with this fairly new medium, the internet, we've democratically decided what is worth paying for, and what isn't. I think that's pretty much what it comes down to. We have essentially formed a rugged "pay what you want" system for music, and put a value on the experience. One person will pay $10 to $20 for a physical copy or a legal download; a group of people will pay thousands to share the experience of live music, and individuals will take cheap, sometimes mangled copies of albums. I don't really think it's a bad system. I'm sure the record companies think it sucks, but I don't want to hand out $10 to find out that Vampire Weekend isn't my cup of tea.

Also: there are a ton of concerts coming up this fall. Start buying tickets. Sonic Youth, Jonsi, Surfer Blood, Phoenix, Menomena, Pavement (well, it's in Colorado, but I'm going), Sufjan Stevens, and more. I get tired of empty venues in Utah. I once saw the Walkmen back in '06, and they played a blisteringly good show to a very poorly-attended venue. So go support the bands you love, whose music you may or may not have paid for in the past.

Inception - Carpe Diem

So, I've now seen Inception twice. The first time I saw it, I knew I hadn't seen it enough times to give it a fair review, but I was really impressed by a lot of things. But after seeing it a second time, I can see why it's so universally beloved: the movie is amazing. And I need to see it a couple more times (not in theatres, I'm not made of cash) to get more of it.

Spoilers are probably ahead, so, deal with that as you will, brave reader.

I watch movies that are highly regarded/recommended, and about 5 to 6 out of 10 movies I see are movies I want to see again at some point. And I like different kinds of movies - character dramas, a good suspense thriller, movies with really clever writing/dialogue, dry humor, a solid action flick, and I'm a sucker for most superhero movies. And I had no idea what to expect with Inception. And I don't like hype, so I tried to ignore what people were specifically saying about this movie, other than that it was awesome. And Inception was not what I expected from Christopher Nolan, filmmaker extraordinaire.

The Dark Knight is intense, and for me, exhausting. And it is really good. But it's a difficult film to sit through because the stress on all characters is continually being ratcheted up. At the end, we see Batman drive off into the unknown, promising that he will be whatever Gotham needs him to be. And that's some real character catharsis, and I can get behind that. Inception does not have that.

Inception has characters, but I don't think they're the main focus. And the purity of the motives of each character - all gray areas. Young Fischer is neither good nor bad, same with Seito, Cobb, Arthur, Eames, Ariadne, et cetera. They have their motivations and plans, but I think Nolan wants us to be Cobb. And I think at the end, Cobb ends up in reality. So that's why I think the movie is as good as it is, and I'll get into that. But I think the interpretation is open, a theme I find similar to Life of Pi, a book I adore.

As I watched the movie the second time, I kept trying to piece together more plot details and figure out what was real and what wasn't. Well, I didn't get much further, so I abandoned that because I already made my decision the first time - the totem will fall right after the screen goes black, and Cobb is in reality. Done. Instead I focused on the levels of metaphor sunken into the film. I love when Cobb is talking to Ariadne inside Cobb's dream, when he's on the beach and his wife is playing with their kids on the sand. And I wish I could quote what they were saying, but I remember thinking this: we come to the movies to dream out a part of our lives that can never be, a part that we imagine and have thrills in, just like Cobb has his dreams of his wife. And I know that one of Inception's themes is how a movie is a shared dream for the audience.

This moment was pretty affecting for me. I love leaving movies feeling energized and superhuman - when I was a kid and watched Star Wars, I felt like I could throw stuff around with my hands and wield a lightsaber, and I was pretty sure I was invincible for at least a few minutes. I guess I'm still a kid, because for a few moments I've been Jason Bourne, or Danny Ocean, or the Fantastic Mr. Fox himself, at least in my mind. And I think I see what Nolan was pointing out - we leave the movies seeing a bigger dream, one we wish we were in sometimes (not that I want to be a heist criminal, a suit-wearing fox or a special agent turned fugitive), at least in some aspects. I want to be as clever, as agile, as keen, and sometimes I leave a movie feeling like my own version of the characters.

That was one highlight in the film. But that's probably not quite halfway through, and the next 90 or so minutes are so tense, so packed with action and stress. I was glad I knew what would happen the second time around, because the first time I was literally on the edge of my seat in a packed theatre hoping it would all work out somehow.

One of my major gripes the first time through Inception was the lack of catharsis. Cobb said that Fischer needed it so that the idea could be planted, and I thought it terribly ironic that Nolan stole our collective cathartic experience - we don't feel very relieved when Cobb is finally back with his kids. But I watched Cobb more closely the second time. And this is where it became key for me to feel that the movie ends in reality - Cobb lets go of his wife. He decides to give up his guilt and strife and move on. He has to confront his shadow of a spouse twice, finally reaching Seito and bringing them back up the levels into reality on the plane. So it wasn't really about Cobb reaching his kids, or Nolan would have emphasized that.

The irony shifted a lot for me when I (think I) realized what Nolan was saying. We can't keep living in our dream world, our lack of reality and float out there. And so it wasn't about catharsis within a particular character like it was with the Dark Knight. Nolan doesn't want us to feel great emotion for Cobb, I don't think. He was planting an idea into us, that we need to seize the day and get after it. And the way I say it is rather trite, but I'm not a writer. I'm not anything specific at this point anyway. But when Fischer Sr. tells Fischer Jr. that he's disappointed that his son would try to be like his father, I think that was Nolan telling us to quit trying to live in a dream world and to make the most of reality. And I found that ironic because earlier in the movie, I was on board with that love for the movies, and how we feel afterward. I felt like Nolan turned that thought around, directing us toward our own lives, futures, passions and responsibilities.

I doubt I could explain this like it played out in my mind during the last 30 minutes of the movie and as I was leaving the theatre. I want to grab a notebook and pen and dissect this until I can really nail down my thoughts. But until it's out on DVD, that's not much of an option because it's dark at the cinema, you know?

So anyway, I think the movie is masterful. Nolan and his crew are the inceptioneers (not a word, I know), and we are Fischer, in a sense. But we are also Cobb. Nolan is planting an idea in us, and he's trying to get it several layers deep and make it our own. A simple idea, like the one planted in Fischer Jr., but one we want to make a reality, so that we can change who we are. And the movie is rich on so many layers and is so well thought out that it will take repeat viewings to get it all. That's something I love. Usually I'm kinda peeved if a movie is overly complex and confusing (I'm looking at you, Quantum of Solace), but not this time. Like a good Radiohead album, there is a bunch to unearth. Oh, and the acting is good, the movie is beautiful, the special effects are lovely, the music is terrific and adds greatly to the mood, blah blah blah. Of course it is. Look at the cast, look who made the film, look who scored it. Not the point. This movie is great.

Inception, to me, is about an idea, and I love any movie that can plant a powerful idea in me, one that makes me want to change and grow. I love that in books as well, but I think it's more rare in movies. I feel like Inception was for more than entertainment, it was for some serious inspiration. So this movie is at least a 95/100 for me at this point. Go see it if you can handle some stress and tension.