“But don’t forget the songs that made you cry
and the songs that saved your life;
Yes, you’re older now, and you’re a clever swine
but they were the only ones who ever stood by you”

Each year I look forward to my trip back to my hometown for a number of reasons. Obviously, I love reconnecting with my family and hanging out with old friends, as well as that nice little respite from the madcat bustling of Buenos Aires… but also, I love that oddly intoxicating feeling of walking around old haunts and reminiscing. It’s a sensation that blends familiarity with total foreignness, that always leaves me feeling like I’ve been racking my brain, trying to conjure up details from some half-remembered movie I watched a decade ago.

Songs help me remember. As an angsty teenager living in a city that never quite felt like my home, I’d usually find comfort in my old trusty discman and my stack of CDs. Couple that with my teenage propensity to develop massive crushes on the girls I was friendly with at school, and what you get is a whole lot of emo. And just the other day as I was walking past the streets where as a young man I discovered the wonderfully destructive effects of alcohol as an uninhibiter, where I embarrassed myself with drunken sincerity blasts that would be contritely taken back in the morning, and peeking into the room in which I’d lock myself with nothing but my music to accompany me, I came to the sudden realization that I used to be a fucking wuss.

Even though these songs occupy a place in my heart and iTunes library, they don’t quite resonate the way they used to while I was scribbling attempts at poetry in my chemistry notebooks. To be young is to be sad, and these maudlin laments lost some of their powers after I grew out of teenage histrionics (but wait, have I?), melodramatic thumbsucking took a back seat to actually living life (but wait, has it?) and sex became a regular thing that I could get with minimal effort (but wait, did it?). Still, they help me remember, and remember I do.

Weezer- “El Scorcho”

Before Weezer morphed into the most confounding and out-of-touch-but-are-they-really act this side of post-reunion Smashing Pumpkins, they made a gloriously strange album called “Pinkerton”, containing songs exploring the topics of unrequited love, crippling insecurity and Asian schoolgirl fetish. It was a brilliant record, building on the promise of their self-titled debut and showcasing the sound of a band playing around with their own compositional limits; much like what you hear when you listen to Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee”, it’s a sound that, while tentative, is really exciting and fresh. This particular track is a rousing, fist-pumping and brilliantly off-kilter pop song that is also the musical equivalent to a schoolyard note reading “DO U LIKE ME? YES/NO”. I know the lyrics very well.

The Buzzcocks- “Why Can’t I Touch It?”

Perhaps the more obvious choice would’ve been the incredibly catchy and melodically genius “Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t've)”, but this song always shook me to the core. Perhaps it’s because the stopstutter rhythm and sugary-sweet melody goes especially well with lyrics that are really about frustration and despondency. That horrible feeling of knowing exactly how things should be, but being completely powerless, under the crushing weight of your own self-doubt, to make it happen. Thus, “it” remains a pipe dream, the unobtainable, only because of a paralyzing fear of rejection. I am also pretty sure this song is about getting laid.

Frank Sinatra- “This Love of Mine”

This really is the ultimate torch song. The closer for “In The Wee Small Hours”, Frank Sinatra’s dimly-lit smokey-ballad concept record masterpiece, this is a glorious love song that manages to be morose as well as quixotically stouthearted. I discovered “In The Wee Small Hours” through my grandfather’s Sinatra fanaticism, and this was always one of my favorite songs– the melody is gorgeous, the arrangement dreamy. I’ve gone through several spurts of listening to this obsessively since I found it. One time in high school, a girl I was hopelessly crushing on asked me to make her a mix-CD of “upbeat rock songs”. I stacked it full of punk, indie rock and some ska, then left this song in as the closing track. I was trying to send a message. All she wanted to talk about was how much she liked the Save Ferris track preceding it.

Archers of Loaf- “Web in Front”

I first heard this song in the Mallrats soundtrack, of all places. I really don’t think there’s anything that captures the very essence of teen angst through the prism of unrequited love better than the lines “and there’s a chance that things will get weird, yeah that’s a possibility… though I didn’t do anything, I didn’t do anything” sung against power chords and reverb-laden guitar arpeggios. It really is a little nugget of pop-rock genius– even to this day, I can’t listen to the song just once.

Elliott Smith- “Alameda”

It starts with 15 year old Jorge Farah, angry at a world who just doesn’t understand him and a girl who is too goddamn dense to realize that he is the one, staying home on Friday night instead of going out and actively pursuing her. He’ll talk himself into believing it’s everybody else that’s the problem, not him. He’ll scoff at the notion that there’s any sort of responsibility on his end to actually take control of the direction things are going, and he’ll insist that if she’s just too stupid to realize what is so obvious to everyone else, she doesn’t even deserve to have him around in any capacity, platonic or otherwise. He’ll build himself up as a misunderstood loner who is so far past the carefree banality that come with adolescence… and then he’ll find this song, with its bitter and unrelentingly truthful chorus, and his little world is completely shattered by it.

The Smiths- “I Don’t Owe You Anything”

Of course, you can’t have a list of this kind without including at least one song from The Smiths– and there are so many songs to choose from. “I Know It’s Over”, “Last Night I Dreamt that Somebody Loved Me”, “There is a Light That Never Goes Out”, all these songs served as beacons of self-pity to this despondent teenager. But “I Don’t Owe You Anything” is a special kind of woeful– a melodically understated song that sounds more resigned than over-the-top histrionic. ”Did I really walk all this way just to hear you say ‘oh, I don’t want to go out tonight’?”

It’s fun to sit here and think about all these songs and judge my teenage self for being such a whiny goddamn loser. But, social and outgoing as I’ve grown, that is still me, buried beneath layers of gregariousness. There is no cutoff line between the person I was back then and the person I am now. There’s no definite moment of transformation. There’s no point from which I’m standing away. It all adds up. It’s all exponential. Every single experience from when I was fifteen and sixteen is still with me. Every moment of regret, every sudden feeling of inadequacy. And it’s like a chasm, or a well that can be tapped into, with the right combination of places, faces and music. There’s an unlimited potential for heartbreak and deception in that backwater reservoir inside all of us. In the angles and the sideways glances, in the little corners we know better than to peek into.

Well, some of us, anyway.

Dear Daniel,

I’m sorry. I’ve been neglecting you. I’ve been taking your music for granted. I’ve been a bad fan. I’ve forgotten. And because of my capricious and haphazard listening habits, this has happened and will happen time and time again. I’ll be idly hooked up to my iPod on shuffle when it’ll shift from some John Coltrane live performance, all majestic pomp and pout, to one of your fragile, beautiful and desolate songs. And I’ll be knocked over backwards, guaranteed, every single time. And I’ll be crushed. And I’ll angrily ask myself “why am I not listening to the songs of this mad genius every single day?”. And I will have no answer.

The fact of the matter is that there’s nothing out there that affects me in the same way as your songs do. There are many musicians who get to me on a number of different levels, but none elicit the kind of visceral reaction your music does. And there are musical approximations, sure– your songs run the gamut from psychedelic rock to Tin Pan Alley influenced numbers, through hushed folk ballads and experimental outbursts of abstraction. But even at your most polished, that voice will always demolish me. Quivery and childlike and heartbreaking and honest.

And yes, you were (are) unwell, in some ways, but more importantly, you were (are) in love. Doesn’t it sometimes feel like the same thing? To take solace in the mere thought of another, from a distance. How many songs did you write about her? When did you first realize she would never return the affections you poured her way? Did this make you angry and fuel your creativity? And at what cost? An entire life of pining for this woman after not seeing her for years, a statue that you created in your mind to kiss? And the crushing blow from learning she had married someone else. Did this seal your fate? Or did it not even matter anymore? Was your love for her yours, regardless of what she may say or do?
The world was not ready for your songs. It still isn’t, and who knows if it ever will be. They’re too pure, too unpolished, too unabashed. When your body joins you where your spirit has gone, how will you be remembered– as a legend or as an asterisk? As an artist or a novelty? As a musician or documentary subject? When clips of your songs are played on the radio during stories announcing your passing, how many listeners will lift their eyebrows in bemusement? Some of us, we understand. We listen to your recordings and your tentative strumming and the uncertainty of your voice and the simple and true words in your songs and we’ll see it– we’ll see what Cobain saw in you, what Elliott Smith saw in you.

They’re gone. And even though your body is still here, your spirit is gone as well. There’s a reason why you introduce yourself as “the ghost of Daniel Johnston”. We took you for granted, and you deserved so much better.

Something I’ve found myself drawn to lately is the phenomenon of jazz musicians making records in a country/western template. It’s strange, but it started while ago when I saw the Charlie Haden movie “Rambling Boy” at the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival.

The movie talked about Charlie’s past as a sideman, bandleader and composer in the jazz avant garde, particularly his work with the dissonant craziness of Ornette Coleman. Charlie actually came from a rural upbringing and used to perform old folk and country songs with his family. In 2009 him and his family invited some famous friends over and recorded a beautiful collection of country and bluegrass songs, with the breezy feel of an afternoon BBQ. The result is a genuinely thrilling listen.

Something I’ve heard a lot is that jazz is a type of music that’s more about intellect than it is about heart. This general misconception I’m assuming stems from the perceived academic and cerebral nature of a lot of instrumental jazz. Such lazy and superficial assessment completely ignores the fact that the word “jazz” itself covers an incredibly wide array of styles. In fact, as a “genre” it’s probably the widest-covering catch-all term there is– if Diana Krall and Naked City are both considered “jazz”, that says a lot about the supposed boundaries of the term. And while a lot of it is overindulgent and somewhat “unemotional”, it all stems from an emotional place, and I think when a jazz musician brings their dexterity and thorough knowledge of musical theory to a genre as explicitly emotional as old-time country, what you get is a deeply affecting bunch of songs.

Bill Frisell’s “Nashville” falls into this category also. Bill Frisell has been perhaps my favorite jazz guitarist for a long time because his accompaniment is extremely creative and expressive; his melodies are unpredictable and off-the-wall. You never know just where he’s gonna go. And when he applies his level of sophistication to a basic country/western music template and instrumentation, the result is a greatly rewarding piece of music.

Harmonic inventiveness, gorgeous playing, beautiful melodies over very simple chord changes and that instrumentation– the mandolins, the fiddles, the dobros, the double bass, the banjos. And listening to it on a good pair of headphones is just… tasty. Yes. Tasty is the word. That’s not creepy at all.

Because, as it turns out, being pale and drawn isn’t really that fun all of the time. Because the summer is more than uncomfortable sweating on strangers in the subway. Because sitting outside with friends and an icy cold beer actually feels really fucking good. Because music is a language wider than I sometimes remember; where there’s space for more than just blotchy winter synth lines and hushed, echoey vocals. Because girls in short skirts are fun to look at. That’s all it comes down to, really.

The Smiths- “Ask”

Because few things in music say joyful summery pop glimmer like Johnny Marr’s guitar arpeggios over Morrissey’s maudlin crooning. And about Morrissey: as much of an angsty shoegazer (as in, somebody who stares down at their own shoes, not Loveless-shoegaze– man, I should include a song from Loveless here) as he’s purported to be, and as drab and joyless as the streets of Manchester would appear from his lyrics, this song is pure jangly summer bliss, and its very premise– “ask me, I won’t say no, how could I?”– is a resounding “YES” in the sun’s general direction.

Life Without Buildings- “Let’s Get Out”

Because this is playful, bubbly post-punk with the most deliciously off-center Mike Millsy bass line this side of “Radio Free Europe” and Sue Thompkins’s shouted vocals. This song is an instant mood changer for me, and one that I’ve been giddily addicted to since I picked up this band’s first and only LP “Any Other City”. It’s really a shame they broke up after only one album; for as much as they rely on formula, their music really is a treat; snappy and infectious enough to pry me out of the recliner and out into the streets.

Bombshell Rocks- “180 Down”

Because ever since I picked up the Punk O Rama 5 compilation at the tender age of 13, I’ve been convinced this is one of the best punk songs ever written; it’s energetic, joyful, melodic and anthemic (seriously, how huge is that chorus?) while feeling simultaneously tight and aggressive and like it’s at the verge of coming apart at the seams. It’s a victorious and stouthearted rallying cry, and I have absolutely no idea what it’s about. Seriously, though… that chorus. Wow.

Dave Hillyard & the Rocksteady Seven- “Playtime”

Because I spit on the alarmingly pervasive notion that the saxophone is an “inferior” instrument. This wonderfully off kilter live performance of a tasty summer jam is electrifying in the same measure that it is mournful. Dave Hillyard settles into a groove and flow that plays to all the instrument’s strengths, with a sense of melody that oozes in and out of jazzy. This is the title track to one of the best albums to light a spliff to. And that’s what summer’s all about.

The Undertones- “Teenage Kicks”

Because this is 50s summer-night teenage rock and roll reimagined in the age of the power chord, with lyrics as simple as “I wanna hold her, wanna hold her tight” somehow feeling incredibly sincere.  That guitar sound and that chorus are absolutely irresistible, as are the syncopated handclaps punctuating the instrumental breaks.

Dum Dum Girls- “Jail La La”

Because reverb is the musical equivalent to solar glare. This angular, ridiculously catchy indie rock is made by hot chicks in high heels and short skirts, their style is all perfumed neon summer nights. Their deadpan delivery betrays a genuine youthful energy evident in the chorus and pre-chorus, which burst with all the exuberance of early-80s New Wave. And also, the second verse to this song is made up entirely of “la la la la la”s.  I mean, if that’s not summer in song, then what is?

The Temptations- “The Way You Do The Things You Do”

Because Motown got it right. It’s really amazing how one record label was able to cull together so many incredible performers and songwriters, paying so close attention to detail. This song is a carefully assembled breezy summer afternoon, with its stopstutter drumming and shimmery acoustic guitar, discretely panned to the right and left, leaving the vocal melodies up front and center. It’s all sugarshot , rhythmic, incredibly catchy and soulful and, haters be damned, features a saxophone solo. A really fucking great saxophone solo, too.

These songs are fucking amazing and make strutting down the otherwise offensively bright and sunny streets a complete pleasure. As much as I love to bitch about the weather, I sometimes find myself nodding in agreement with Pete Townsend’s words in the chorus to “Blue, Red & Grey”– I love every minute of the day. (and, uh, consequently, all the weather fluctuations that come with it. Also I really should’ve included something from Loveless here. Damn.)

Living in the southern hemisphere means the advent of December doesn’t signal chilly winter evenings but icky, oppressive heat. And so while my friends up north are whining in their Facebook statuses about how cold it is, how many inches of snow they have and how much they wish it were the summer, I’m sweating like a pervert in the other side of the world, hating myself and everything around me.

I really don’t get along well with the Buenos Aires summer at all. I hate it. It’s hot, humid and gross. I’ll avoid it at all costs. And to combat it, here’s a few tracks that are part of my anti-summer playlist, designed to keep me cool, air-conditioned and depressed.

Lali Puna- “Faking the Books”

Synthy, sterile, clinical and so very Deutsch. Lali Puna’s album “Faking the Books”, with its hospital vesper beats and backtracked vocal lines, speaks of the quiet despair and almost overwhelming ennui of every day life; a sort of paean to the cyclically mediocre nature of our ever-recycled, monotonous, drab and excruciatingly nonsensical existence. Happy summer, everybody!

The Cure- “Plainsong”

The Cure’s 1989 opus “Disintegration” starts with a few seconds of mysterious windchimes, when all of a sudden a dreamy, hazy, snowy landscape reveals itself in front of us, with the iciest of synth lines, six-string bass, drums crashing like glaciers colliding in the arctic. Robert Smith’s echoey,  hushed voice sings about it being “so cold, it’s like the cold if you were dead”, and how “sometimes you make me feel like I’m living at the edge of the world”. If there was ever a love song that managed to make frostbite and the apocalypse sound romantic, of course it’d be Robert Smith who wrote it.

This Will Destroy You- “Happiness: We’re All In It Together”

Eight and a half minutes of glorious winter soundscape, punctuated by delay-laden arpeggios and a seismic sense of musical drama; this song builds, shakes and releases with all the pathos of a three-act screenplay, one that feels more like it was written somewhere in the arctic circle rather than Austin, Texas.

Zola Jesus- “Run Me Out”

This is the exact opposite of a jangly summer song. Blotchy, heavy chunks of synthesizer melody reminiscent of the bleakest songs in The Cure’s “Pornography” (seriously; compare), helpless lyrics about the apocalypse, pungent imagery of darkness and desolation. Zola Jesus is a talented young artist with a bright future ahead of her if she can figure out how to widen the emotional range in her music a bit. She has three full albums and three EPs and as thrilling as her work is, it’s bound to get old fast if she doesn’t manage to bust out her own version of “Japanese Whispers”. A full listen to her album “Stridulum II” will leave you curled up in fetal position next to your speakers. Maybe even speaking in tongues.

Damien Rice & Lisa Hannigan- “Cold Water”

Yes, I am giving equal billing to Lisa Hannigan here because honestly fuck you Damien. This absolutely stunning track from Damien’s debut album “O” shows a lot of promise that would ultimately go unfulfilled; as the years went on and Damien’s career continued, he settled into a cozy, MOR-with-an-edge(kinda) musical rut. This track, though, is lovely, quiet, desolate and sad in all the right ways; coupled with the right drink, it can leave you shuddering for days.

The versatility of Tom Waits’s voice is one of his most overlooked strengths. You hear a lot of (misguided) Louis Armstrong and (perhaps more accurate) Cookie Monster comparisons, but it’s less often you hear anything about what a majestically malleable, chameleonic and shapeshifting instrument it is. Within the span of “Alice” alone, Waits goes from mad carnival barker to soulful jazz crooner to demented leader of a mutated gang of sewer-people.

That range is clearly showcased in the two tracks that have been released from his upcoming ANTI album, “Bad As Me”– the eponymous first single is a theatrical freak-jam of epic proportions, equal parts “Hang On St. Christopher” and “Goin’ Out West”, with a genuinely badass Waits once again channeling Captain Beefheart as he screams, wheezes and growls through a thoroughly thrilling number.

“Back in the Crowd”, however, is a gentler beast; a lovely country song that wouldn’t feel out of place in Willy Deville’s catalogue, with beautifully understated backing by the genius of Marc Ribot and David Hidalgo from Los Lobos. A tender ballad and an elegiac barcarole, I’ve listened to “Back in the Crowd” on repeat around 15 times now, and can honestly say I’m looking forward to this album more than anything else this year.

Listen to Tom Waits’s gorgeous “Back in the Crowd” below.

About a week ago, I made a purchase that will probably change the way I listen to and understand music for the rest of my life: a pair of Sennheiser HD 598 audiophile headphones.

Apprehension. Mistrust. I've been burned before, you see. By other headphones.

“Audiophile headphones”. It sounds a little precious but it’s on the box. Now, I’m not an audiophile– at least not in the strict, soundwave-analyzing, compulsive-top-end-gear-purchasing meaning of the word. I’ve always found comfort in sounds, and find the sound of music through a decent pair of headphones enrapturing. I can’t tell the difference between a 320kbps mp3 and a lossless FLAC file, but I know richness and detail when I hear it.

The search for a good pair of headphones has long been a cause of frustration in my life. Living in Buenos Aires makes it especially difficult, since technology is ridiculously expensive and ordering online is a hassle. I’ve long been bound to the shackles of decent-but-not-good Panasonic HDs and good-but-not-spectacular Sony cans. Only recently, thanks to the combined efforts of my friends Alexandria (who purchased the item online) and Rease (who happened to be in the States and coming back to Buenos Aires) was I able to obtain the first truly high-end pair of headphones I’ve ever owned: the Sennheiser HD 598s.

Truly, you can't possibly understand the expression "sick-ass jam" until you've heard Nels Cline through these babies.

I can’t imagine I’ll ever go back to anything less than this. Holy shitballs. Listening to music is a completely new experience with these things; a thrilling process of re-discovery. I find myself listening back to old favorites and picking out subtle nuances that had flown by unnoticed the first five hundred times I had listened to that song. Small touches in arrangements, little cymbal flourishes, the sound of sliding up and down a fretboard, the sound of the room. It’s like I had been listening to these songs through a plastic container my entire life.

This discovery has also completely heightened my enjoyment of several albums that I already knew and loved, by virtue of how fucking awesome they now sound. Here’s a list of five albums I have been listening to obsessively in the last five days, delighting at the sheer deliciousness of the sound.

Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog- “Party Intellectuals”

The thrashiest, noodliest, most unabashedly rocking album in the diverse career of avant garde jazz guitarist Marc Ribot, “Party Intellectuals” is an off-the-wall hard rock/jazz fusion smattering of frenzied glory. The fuzzy sound of Ribot wailing like a demented Sonny Sharrock over blasting rock and roll beats is a truly inspiring listen; that is, “inspiring” until you realize you couldn’t ever possibly play like this, and you look down at your own hand on the fretboard in disgust.

Tom Waits- “Blood Money”

One of two Tom Waits albums released in 2002, the other being the feverish nightmare of obsession that is “Alice” (an album I wrote about a while ago). “Blood Money” is a wonderfully off-kilter album of huffing, puffing, steam-powered junkyard orchestra clangings and sweet, tender lullabies seemingly pulled right out of the 1930s. It is also a reminder of everything that makes Tom Waits great. The guy has always been a wiz in the studio, with an incredible ear for microphone placement and production, capturing a crisp, clear performance from his band of very talented musicians as they weave these deranged, barren song landscapes.

Micachu & The Shapes- “Jewellery”

Texture is the word. Micachu creates an album of pop songs by patchwork, that bubble, sizzle, scribble and scratch their way out of the confines of pop music and become mini-standards, authoring their own genre. An intriguing and difficult listen at first, “Jewellery” is sonic bubblegum that’s wildly entertaining and profoundly interesting to listen to; a true challenge to the claim that “avant garde” is a synonym for “boring”.

Pearl Jam- “No Code”

The album that redefined Pearl Jam; the transition from fist-pumping, flannel-clad, ultra-earnest mega rock stars to a more modest, understated and self-consciously quirky garage rock band also happens to be one of the warmest-sounding records I’ve ever heard.  The idiosyncratic polyrhythms of Jack Irons lead the band through a series of songs that challenge everything you thought PJ was about. ”No Code” is the sound of the biggest band in the world rediscovering itself, and by virtue of the production, you feel like you’re in the room with them, scratching your head and wondering “is this actually Pearl Jam?” (a question that was probably on their own minds, as well).

Charlie Haden & Pat Metheny- “Beyond the Missouri Sky”

The care and dedication put into this amazing album by the two performers– two of the most important names in modern jazz– really shines through when listening through good headphones. The austere production on this odd little piece of work is also warm, vibrant and deep; Pat Metheny’s guitar arpeggios ring out beautifully over the rich, fluid rumble of Charlie Haden’s contrabass. A gorgeous album and great late-night listen. Just the thought of listening to these songs with my old shitty headphones again makes me depressed.

A song like sleepy pillow-talk. An elegant and intensely strange performance of a wistful little love song. Dani Umpi & Adrian Soiza perform “Como Eu Quero” live at No Avestruz last week.

Like most people who were ever blown away by a life-changing piece of music, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard my first Ramones song.

I was 12 years old. Having grown up listening mostly to the Great American Songbook and classical music, this new and exciting discovery of punk rock was absolutely blowing my mind. At the tender age of 12, my knowledge was limited. My favorite bands were Green Day and The Offspring– “Dookie” and “Smash” contained all the fist-pumping punk anthems of (pre)teen alienation with just the right amount of angst and silliness that I needed. And through those bands, I found The Ramones.

The first Ramones song I ever heard was The Offspring’s cover of “I Wanna Be Sedated”. They recorded it for a movie soundtrack– Idle Hands, this relentlessly kitschy late-nineties teen horror comedy starring a pre-Dark Angel Jessica Alba. I remember listening to that song and thinking, “this sounds too bouncy to be The Offspring. This sounds like a Green Day song” and pausing the credit sequence at the end to find out who had written the track. “Originally performed by The Ramones”. Now that I think of it, it’s oddly appropriate that my first taste of the Ramones came at the same time as my first glimpse at the woman who would serve as masturbatory fodder throughout a big chunk of my teens.

Speaking of balls, shortly after my 12th birthday I noticed an unnatural swelling of my ballsack. It had been bothering me for a few days but I ignored it, mostly thinking it had to do with how I was wearing my underwear. One day after hanging out with a few friends from the neighborhood I came back home and realized my balls were enormous and red and extremely painful. My mom took me to the doctor who quickly told me that I had an extra-testicular cyst in my scrotum. Exra-testicular meant the cyst wasn’t actually in my balls, thank God. While this was a huge relief, the fact that they were going to have to cut me open to remove the benign tissue was a shock to me, and I cried for hours that night– looking down at my nether region and weeping like a bitch at the thought of the butchering I was sure to suffer through.

The next morning I was sent in for surgery. It was smooth sailing, for the most part– I had some sort of allergic reaction to the anesthetics and had complications related to facial swelling and fever dreams. It was one long, nightmarish hell of a night. I survived.

The next few days were horrible. I couldn’t move, obviously, since my ballsack was still healing. The pain was the worst I’d ever felt, and the nights were spent crying in pain as I watched my Dragon Ball Z tapes over and over again. Of course, my dad helped me out in every single way he could, trying to keep me happy by getting me ice cream (because I’d watched enough sitcoms to know that ice cream is what you get after operations– nevermind the fact that my tonsils were still intact) and other goodies. One of those goodies was the Ramones album Adios Amigos.

I listened to that album on repeat for days. It was like a 35-minute rockn’roll history lesson. All my Offspring and Green Day albums were immediately rendered obsolete with the first few ripping chords blaring through my headphones like the screaming, bloody birth of rockn’roll. They were fun, they were aggressive, they were passionate and they were soulful. This wasn’t “When I Come Around”. This wasn’t “Pretty Fly For a White Guy”. This was no MTV boyband with guitars. None of my friends knew them. This was a whole other thing. This was my band. And they were my closest friends all through high school, along with other luminaries like Fat Mike, Elvis Costello, Robert Smith and Tom Waits.

Interestingly enough, the first Tom Waits song I ever heard was in that Ramones album– track 1, “I Don’t Want to Grow Up”. Of course, the punked-up Ramones version was a far cry from what I would be getting into a few years later when I found another one of my all-time favorite artists, but I just find it poetic somehow. Offspring-> The Ramones-> Tom Waits.

I remember what I did the night Joey Ramone died. I cried in my bed, feeling like a complete asshole for it. I read articles about him online. I scribbled his lyrics in my journal. I learned how to play “Cretin Hop” on the guitar. And I remember what I did the night Dee Dee died. I had just come home from a weekend trip to Cartagena with my family. I decided that night that I was never going to do heroin, and listened to “Poison Heart” on repeat for hours. When Johnny died, I played along with “Loco Live” and sat outside my record store alone at night, and then I came home and I blogged about it. My friends were dying. One by one.

To this day I credit the Ramones for saving me from the person I could’ve become back in high school; for opening my eyes and showing me some fantastic songs that have stuck with me through the years. For being the gateway into a world of ridiculous music, of a joyful defiance, of crushing humanity. For giving me the confidence to even consider that music was something that I could participate in as more than just a spectator.

Gabba gabba hey, brothers.

Anybody who knows me even a little bit knows that Elvis Costello is my favorite musician. Like, all-time favorite. His music is the soundtrack to my life, which you’d think would make for a dire and gloomy existence, but I’m a generally happy person. I just really really love his music.

And being such a big Elvis Costello fan, I am mostly bothered by the fact that nobody around me seems to like him. I’ll meet a few casual fans who know “Alison” or “Pump it Up”, but it’s very rare that I ever meet anyone with the same ridiculous degree of fandom. And, living in Argentina where he’s mostly known for his contribution to the “Notting Hill” soundtrack (a song whose title will NOT be uttered here), it annoys the crap out of me that nobody really knows what he sounds like.

So I’ve put together a bit of a starter kit. This is a 19-song “mixtape” (with 3 bonus tracks) that I feel is fairly representative of his body of work;  one of the richest and most eclectic catalogs by any musician ever. Anybody interested in downloading these songs (in lossy mp3 format) can do so by clicking here.  If you’re not familiar with this man and his amazing work, or if you only know him as that awkward geek from the “Pump it Up” video, or if you LIKE GOOD MUSIC, please do yourself a favor and download this compilation. You’re bound to find something you love.

Without further ado, I give to you… “Little Triggers: A Beginner’s Guide to Elvis Costello”.

1- “New Lace Sleeves” from 1981′s “Trust”. This wonderful little song has that stuttering drum line by the awesome Pete Thomas and sharp, biting lyrics about the disappointing realization that your achievements in life add up to nothing but disgruntled pillow talk.

Key lyrics: “The salty lips of the socialite sisters with their / continental fingers that / have never seen working blisters / I know they’ve got their problems / I wish I was one of them”.

2- “Stella Hurt” from 2008′s “Momofuku”. The guitar line, nothing less than vicious, casts a less-than-sympathetic light on the story of the thirties swing and blues singer Teddy Grace’s fall from grace (no pun intended. You know, ’cause “Grace” is her last name). Cacophonous jam at the end that sort of just… stops.

Key lyrics: “Then she saw those soldier boys throw their bonnets in the air / Self-made men would pledge their fortunes / and dream of her, and dream of her”.

3- “All the Rage” from 1994′s “Brutal Youth”. This is an album that’s filled with awesome pop gems, and this song is no exception. The “cheerful”-sounding melody does a good job of masking the fact that this is a bitter, hateful breakup song if there ever was one.

Key lyrics: “Alone with your tweezers and your handkerchief / You murder time and truth, love, laughter and belief / So don’t try to touch my heart, it’s darker than you think / And don’t try to read my mind because it’s full of disappearing ink”

4- “Shoes Without Heels”, outtake from 1986′s “King of America”. One of the things I like the most about EC is how his (very vast) catalog is littered with hidden treasures. This is one of them. This beautiful little country/folk ballad about the complicated relationships between women and their johns (sort of? Think of The Police’s “Roxanne”, except for the sucking) was written and recorded for the King of America album, and then relegated to B-side status. That such a beautiful song could be so effortlessly written and essentially kept in a drawer for years is a testament to the extremely prolific type of songwriter EC is.

Key lyrics: “Well, I thought that I was bigger than this town / I thought I’d stand the pace and go the distance / But she picked me and she used me up and then she put me down / And now I’m driven ’til I’m crying or I’m dreaming ’till I drown”

5- “God’s Comic” from 1989′s “Spike”. A portrait of a drunken comical priest shivering in fear at the prospect of meeting his maker in the afterlife. Great little details courtesy of T. Bone Burnett’s production– the xylophone arrangement is awesome, as is the hilariously paranoid-sounding harmonizing in the chorus.

Key lyrics: “He said, before it had really begun / I prefer the one about my son / I’ve been wading through all this unbelievable junk and / wondering if I should have given the world to the monkeys”

6- “No Action”, from 1978′s “This Year’s Model”. The term “punk rock” was applied to Elvis a lot in the early days, even though his music bore very little resemblance to punk bands of the time. If there is ONE album that sort of approximates the “punk” sound, it’s This Year’s Model. This song, the opening track, encapsulates the neurotic, jealous, borderline-mysoginystic tone of that album. Short, snappy, “punky”. Once again I have to comment on Pete Thomas’ drumming. Just spectacular.

Key lyrics: “And I think about the way things used to be / Knowing you’re with him is driving me crazy / Sometimes I phone you when I know you’re not lonely / But I always disconnect it in time”.

7- “Episode of Blonde”, from 2002′s “When I Was Cruel”. This is one of two great EC albums marred by production issues. WIWC contains some of Elvis’ most clever, dexterious songwriting, but the sound is so unbelievably compressed and unnatural it’s literally painful to listen to, so this version of the standout track is a live rendition. A kind of deranged mambo-samba-rock and roll with borderline surreal lyrics that’s, at heart, about the one subject Elvis likes writing the most about: girls.

Key lyrics: “I tried to keep a straight face but you know it never pays / He would stare into those eyes and then vacation in her gaze/ She was a cute little ruin that he pulled out of the rubble / Now they’re both living in a soft soap bubble”.

8- “All This Useless Beauty”, from 1996′s “All This Useless Beauty”. This is probably one of the most divisive records in EC’s career, partly because it was the first record after he got back together with his rock band (The Attractions), yet instead of full-on RAWKIN’ it was filled with mopey ballads. However, those mopey ballads turned out to be some of the prettiest, most melodic and understated songs he’s ever written, and the title track, a song about a woman out of love trapped in an unfulfilling relationship, is a prime example of that. As an aside, I always felt this is the Elvis Costello song most likely to be sung by a Disney character. I mean that as a good thing.

Key lyrics: “She won’t practice the looks from the great tragic books / that were later disgraced to fail celluloid / It won’t even make sense, but you can bet if she / isn’t a sweetheart, a plaything, a pet / The film turns her into an unveiled threat”.

9- “Bedlam”, from 2004′s “The Delivery Man”. This blues-rock number is driven by Pete Thomas’ propulsive drumming and Davey Faragher’s off-center bass line. This is the song Eddie Vedder wishes he could write. A ridiculously clever analogy between modern-day immigration struggles and the story of Mary and Joseph roaming Bethlehem looking for a place to stay (get it? “Bethlehem”… “Bedlam”… heheh). The genius of Steve Nieve and his crazy theremin make this song ten times as demented.

Key lyrics: “I’ve got this phosphorecent portrait of gentle Jesus meek and mild / I’ve got this harlot that I’m stuck with carrying another man’s child / The solitary star anouncing vacancy burned out as we arrived / They’d throw us back across the border if they knew that we’ve survived”.

10- “I’ll Wear it Proudly” from 1986′s “King of America”. I went through a period where I convinced myself this was the most beautiful song ever written. I’m not completely over that period yet. This simple, heartfelt, INTIMATE (yes, that is the word) folky ballad contains some of Elvis’ loveliest lyrics. It really is a love song at heart, a rare occurence in a career full of cruel words about ex girlfriends. The moment you realize you’ve found -the one- who puts the spark back into your excruciatingly dull life, you won’t stop singing the chorus to this song.

Key lyrics: “Well I finally found someone to turn me upside down / And nail my feet up where my head should be / If they had a King of Fools, then I could wear that crown / And you can all die laughing because I’ll wear it proudly”.

11- “No Dancing” from 1977′s “My Aim is True”. I love the songs in EC’s first album. I really do. I think they’re extremely clever slices of pop rock. The one big problem? The band. See, this record was made before Elvis had put The Attractions together, and the band that backed him during the recording was a country-rock outfit called Clover. The story goes that Clover would then go on to become Huey Lewis and The News. Yeah, interesting bit of trivia there. But they make these songs sound like cheap Byrds knockoffs. It wouldn’t feel right making an Elvis Costello mixtape without including at least one song from this album, though, and I feel this is the one track that actually benefits from the Wings treatment. This angsty song of jealousy and female oppression (that is oppression by females, not of females) is a great little 2-and-a-half-minute pop song that only augmented (get it?) the Buddy Holly comparisons his bespectacled, scrawny appearance generated.

Key lyrics: “He’s getting down on his knees / He finds that the girl is not so easy to please / After all these nights with just a paper strip tease / She’s caught him like some disease”.

12- “My All Time Doll” from 2009′s “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane”. Elvis is one of the most prolific songwriters well over 30 years into their career and has pretty much been releasing a record a year for a while now. To keep it interesting, these records deviate into different genres and styles– last year’s album was a country/bluegrass experiment. This is one of my favorite songs from that record, a dark, brooding song of jealousy and obsession– as you can see, not exactly uncommon theme in the work of Costello. The instrumentation in this song– the double bass, the mandolin, the fiddle, the accordian– is awesome. Plain awesome. Listen to it and you’ll see country/bluegrass songs don’t have to be about dead dogs and trucks.

Key lyrics: “Every time I rant and rail, every time I try and fail / Every time I could and wouldn’t say that’s the end of it / When I stand and turn to leave you cool my brow and tug my sleeve / You’re my all-time doll”.

13- “Next Time Round” from 1986′s “Blood & Chocolate”. So 86 was a pretty big year for our boy, having released thegentle folk masterpiece that was King of America. But he wasn’t done there. Nope, before the year was over he summoned The Attractions and banged out this beautifully abrasive, punchy post-punk record of angry songs only a thirty-something divorcee could write. Reportedly Thom Yorke’s favorite Elvis album, “Blood and Chocolate” yielded some awesome tracks, and this– the closing song– is one of my favorites.

Key lyrics: “There’s a secondhand emotion on a battered 45 / My tears were never enough to keep that girl alive / Now she seems contrived, will she make the change / the next time ’round?”

14- “Spooky Girlfriend” from 2002′s “When I Was Cruel”. This is another one of those WIWC songs damaged by the terribly compressed production, so I’ve included a live version. This song is as sexy as you could possibly imagine a song by a bespectacled middle-aged English geek could be. I always thought Timbaland should’ve produced this one. It’s probably too clever, though.

Key lyrics: “I want to paint you with glitter and with dirt / Picture you with innocence and hurt / The shutter closes, exposes the shot / She says ‘are you looking up my skirt?’ / When you say ‘no’, she says ‘why not?’”

15- “Wave a White Flag”, from what’s commonly referred to as the “Honky Tonk Demos”, solo demo tapes recorded sometime around 1975, a couple of years before his first album. This is the oldest song in this compilation and it’s also the simplest. This snarky little ditty about s&m is equal parts Randy Newman and Hoagie Carmichael. Only a few of the tunes in this demo tape ended up in his first album, some dramatically rewritten.

Key lyrics: “Beat me in the kitchen and I’ll beat you in the hall / There’s nothing I like better than a free-for-all / To take your pretty neck and see which way it bends / But when it is all over we will still be friends”

16- “Man Out of Time”, from 1982′s “Imperial Bedroom”. This is my favorite Elvis Costello tune, and thus, probably my favorite song of all time. The reasons for this have more to do with personal sob stories than I care to get into right now, but everything about this song is wonderful. It’s just a big, joyous burst of ingenious pop songwriting.

Key lyrics: “Love is always scarpering or cowering or fawning / You drink yourself insensitive and hate yourself in the morning”

17- “High Fidelity”, from 1980′s “Get Happy”. Arguably the last of the “classic” EC period, this album ditched the punky edge and New Wave arrangements of albums past in favor of a Stax/Motown-influenced sound, resulting in some great songs with the best basslines Bruce Thomas ever produced. This bitter song of anger jealousy is one that, I feel, most benefits from the jumpy arrangement, and results in an accusative, spiteful and unbelievably catchy tune.

Key lyrics: “There’s nothing that he can do for you / To shut me away as you walk through / Lovers laughing in their amateur hour”

18- “Still” from 2003′s “North”. A beautifully slow, delicate, contemplative album about losing then finding love, “Still” is a pretty divisive album in EC’s discography– some fans find it deliberately impenetrable and horribly self-indulgent, while others think it’s among his best work. I am of the latter inclination. I find this album works best when listened in its entirety and original track listing, as with Frank Sinatra’s “In the Wee Small Hours”, it is a mood piece, an emotional journey, from lonely and desolate to unabashedly blissful.

Key lyrics: “You were made of every love and each regret / up until the day we met”

19- “A Voice in the Dark” from 2010′s “National Ransom”. Yes, 2010. Last year, Elvis Costello along with T. Bone Burnett and an ensemble cast of musicians incorporating members of The Imposters and The Sugarcanes (as well as others like Levon Helm and Marc Ribot) put together one of the most exciting, rollicking and (why not) essential album of his career. This album was playful and fun, sad and wistful, angry and accusatory. The performances are a complete delight to listen to, the lyrics steeped in wordplay and historical references (without sounding like a Decemberists album). This song, the album closer, is a bit of bouncy fun with a wonderful melody and stopstutter rhythm. The album was fiercely promoted in radio shows and television performances… and it didn’t sell. EC now says this may be the last proper studio album he’s putting out. And though that’s sad if true, it’s also pretty befitting to end such a wonderful career on such a high artistic note.

Key lyrics: “Kings reign beneath umbrellas / Hide pennies down in cellars / And money pours down and yet / Not everyone gets soaking wet”

BONUS TRACKS (if you can call them that)

20- “Lipstick Vogue” live from “Hollywood High” (1979)
21- “Couldn’t Call it Unexpected no.4″ from “Mighty Like a Rose” (1991)
22- “Deportee” (demo) from the “King of America” sessions (1985)

Download here.

Envelopes. Paper clips. Photocopies and stamps. Tiny scraps of paper with hastily-scrawled numbers on them. Waiting on an uncomfortable chair in a large white room for what seems like at least an hour but then looking at the watch and oh man it’s only been about 10 minutes. That joyful moment when it’s your turn to actually talk to someone… who then inevitably gives you a stamp and redirects you to another similarly large white room. For more waiting.

If you’re living in a foreign country for an extended period of time (like I am) you’re probably going to have to do your share of tedious, bureaucratic office-hopping–a dehumanizing ordeal where you go from branch to branch, authority to authority, department to department gathering paperwork like some sort of sick, demented scavenger hunt. And for all the astoundingly petty displays of beadledom, for all the money spent or time wasted, the one thing that really drives me mad is the interminable waiting. Waiting to get a document signed, waiting to get my name called by some office clerk, waiting to see my number on that big digital scoreboard from hell.

I recently had to go through the horrible ordeal of getting my Argentinean residency renewed, which altogether took about three whole days of my life. It would’ve been excruciatingly tedious if I hadn’t had my trusty little iPod with me. These are 5 albums that were with me when I needed them, keeping me focused, encouraged and… well, sane.

Crooked Fingers- “Red Devil Dawn”

Eric Bachmann’s crowning achievement. Now, I love Archers of Loaf as much as anybody– you can’t beat Icky Mettle for that energetic, pseudo-angsty, just-indie-enough 90s mall-rock sound (granted calling them “mall-rock” might be a tad unfair but I will always associate them with the Mallrats soundtrack, so take it up with Pavlov), but Crooked Fingers– and, specifically, their third album– has just the right combination of hook-laden pop choruses, folksy instrumentation and lyrics just oblique enough to sound brainy, not pretentious. This is a perfect early-morning album, and most of my horrible paperwork had to be done very early in the morning.

Bomb the Music Industry!- “Adults!!!: Smart!!! Shithammered!!! And Excited by Nothing!!!!!!!”

A seven (well, six and a half, really) song blast of snarky, self-aware and self-deprecating ska/punk (without sounding like any of the shitty ska/punk bands you know), this sprightly and thoroughly entertaining piece of work is, at just over 21 minutes, short enough to be digested in its entirety while waiting for a turn. It’s also a great album to get your fighting spirits up, which you probably need if the turn you’re waiting for is to beg and grovel for permission to stay in the country for a little while longer. Not that I’d ever do that. I’m a valuable and respectable contributor to Argentine society. Why would I have to justify myself? Get out of here with your silly accusations and your judging eyes.

Shugo Tokumaru- “Exit”

A brilliant companion to the sound of two dozen computer keyboards tapping away in the background, and that strong coffee smell that somehow permeates every corner of the Immigrations office in Buenos Aires– this album is an absolutely beautiful piece of art. Every song a 50-track marvel of tiny, subtly melodic and deliciously rhythmic touches. This album is wistful, uplifting and bizarre all at once, and helped me through the most intimidating of my paperwork dalliances– obtaining my criminal background check. Oyy.

Bill Frisell- “History, Mystery”

Bill Frisell is one of the last living jazz guitar geniuses, and this sprawling double album of silent-film weirdness is an exciting, invigorating piece of work. It really is remarkable that he’s still producing music as vital and exciting nearly 40 years into a career that has led him through paths as wild as John Zorn’s Naked City and as subdued as his Nashville album. An incredible player with an exceptional songwriting gift and a beautiful ear for orchestrated melody, this particular album finds him rediscovering his classic chamber-jazz sound and doing something new and inspiring in every track. The fact that it’s so long also ensures you’ll be able to take your headphones off at any time, talk to the office jockey for as long as it takes, then go back to listening to some absolutely beautiful music without ever hitting pause. He’s still there, waiting. Like a lover. Wait… what?

The Weakerthans- “Reconstruction Site”

John K Samson is probably indie rock’s best lyricist. I know it, he knows it… everybody knows it. But more than his lyrics, what makes this album such a great companion to bureaucratic paperwork is the beautiful melodies in these songs, their Epitaph debut and third album overall. A collection of uplifting, slide-guitar lullabies and rockers, The Weakerthans find the humanity in the stale and insipid,in the small corners and office appliances, in a letter of resignation of a cat to its owner. This is a fantastic record, one that’s been with me for many years and one that’s incredibly comforting. And yeah, okay, it also contains lyrics like “pulled along in the tender grip of watches and ellipses/ small request: can we please turn around?”. Well… can we?

Since the advent of the singer-songwriter era, there’s been a pervasive notion in pop music that songwriting should be personally revelatory and confessional; that it should be an exercise in soul-baring intimacy and earnestness. After sometime in the early seventies, a pop song was no longer merely a pop song, but a scrambled enigma to decode and find details of the songwriter’s life. Gone were the days of Cole Porter writing wide-reaching “Night and Day”s or Jerome Kern composing something as universally appealing as “They Didn’t Believe Me”; now, thanks in large part to seminal records like John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band and Joni Mitchell’s Blue, the measure of authenticity was the constrainedly autobiographical.

And just as many other musical tropes established in the early 70s, this concept has largely stayed with us. Music somehow feels contrived and hokey if it is perceived to lack this intimately confessional nature, or it’s seen as nothing more than a farcical distraction, devoid of any real emotional poignancy; like a regular bar band covering all your favorite singalongs with sterile accuracy. It is rare to see a performance of other people’s songs, delivered with all the histrionics and gusto of a bawdy lounge performer, that still carries a great deal of emotional weight.

Meet Uruguayan musician/performer/author, Dani Umpi.

Dani Umpi has been a sort of cult showbiz personality this side of the continent for many years now– having published several novels (which have inspired film adaptations) and as an electro-pop musician putting on pretty over-the-top shows, gathering fans and accolades in the process. This is the side of his career that interests me the least: the songs are a little too synthetic for my tastes, the shows are a little too big (they will often culminate with dozens of people dancing on stage to the loud sound of synthesized beats and sugary keyboards). At last Friday’s show in No Avestruz (this cool little art bar in Palermo with awesome ambiance and shitty drinks), however, there was none of that: all we had on stage was one guitar and a couple of microphones.

Dani’s collaboration with fellow Uruguayan guitarist Adrian Soiza is known as Dramatica. The duo perform an eclectic array of covers– from Ace of Base to bossa nova classics to Argentinean punk rock– in sparse guitar-and-vocal arrangements, often times radically changing the songs to fit the format. The tone is set as soon as they take their places on the stage: Dani– wearing a tattered dress, sporting a long black wig and tall black heels probably too big for his feet– is all outrageousness and exuberance, inhabiting the songs like a master thespian, prancing unabashedly around the small stage. Adrian, by his side, in a suit and tie, short curly hair and sneakers, complements Dani’s stage presence with a calm and collected cool. The shtick is in place and executed perfectly, but what absolutely astounding here is the actual performance.

Dani and Adrian’s nearly two-hour set was an emotional rollercoaster– skirting the line between flamboyant outrageousness and heartbreaking beauty. Dani’s animated, nasal and sometimes-not-quite-on-key vocals bring an intense fragility to the songs, which are in turn held together by Adrian’s playfully masterful guitar playing– a rich and melodic fingerpicking style that’s equal parts bossa nova and punk rock, making tasteful use of the effect pedals to give sonic brushstrokes to the bare-bones arrangements. The interactions between these two enormously talented performers, their banter, the interplay between Adrian’s stopstutter guitar and Dani’s glottal stomp had the crowd delighted cheering and in great spirits throughout the entirety of the show.

And as the show reached its end, after its third enthusiastic encore performance (a wonderfully heartbreaking rendition of Argentinean punk-pop band El Otro Yo’s “No Me Importa Morir”), I couldn’t help think how silly and overrated the concept of “honesty” is in music– how putting on somebody else’s skin– or in this case, a wig and high heels– can bring out beauty and meaning in a song. Like Pollini playing Chopin, it’s all about how you make it your own, and the Dramatica duo certainly did that. During the quieter numbers, the entire theater would be in absolute silence as Dani’s plaintive vocals and Adrian’s elegant playing brought these songs– largely throwaway cover material– to emotional peaks just as powerful and satisfying as any other dimestore Eddie Vedder with a guitar singing about his pain possibly could.

You know, I didn’t really pay attention to LCD Soundsystem prior to “This is Happening”. I mean, I guess I was vaguely aware of them– I distinctly remember seeing the video for “Daft Punk is Playing at My House” on MTV about a hundred years ago (cue “remember when they played music on MTV?” joke) and thinking they sounded like a slightly irritating, completely ordinary dance-rock band. Years went by and every once in a while I’d see their name on some music blog extolling the virtues of “Sounds of Silver” or their energetic live performances. I didn’t really care either way.

It took me a little while to really catch on. When “This is Happening” came out and everybody was raving about it, saying it was the best record of the year, declaring it a forward-thinking piece of art, I was still disinterested. For some reason, I just had no desire to pick up the album and listen to it. It happens to me with a bunch of new artists lately– you have no idea how long it took me to listen to Janelle Monae, for instance, and when I finally did it was an epiphany and a half. In the case of “This is Happening”, all it took was a very good friend linking me to a Youtube video featuring “Dance Yrself Clean”. I was hooked.

The album itself is brilliant. A rhythmic, upbeat, danceable tour-de-force that’s pumped me up on my way to work more than once. A joyous, humorous, melodic journey that’s equal parts New Order and Fischerspooner that somehow also manages to be emotional and compelling. It ended up near the top of my own personal Best-of-2010 list. The record was so great, so addicting, it made me want to turn around and ask my peers “WHY DIDN’T ANYBODY TELL ME ABOUT THIS EARLIER?!”. Before realizing that, in fact, they had. I just wasn’t listening.

When I saw them live in a mid-sized but completely sold-out venue in Palermo, it’s safe to say they defied any expectations I had. I didn’t know how their music would translate to a live setting or how the mostly jaded Argentine scenester crowd would react to their music. What I got was about two hours of what felt very much like a punk rock band playing– in the intensity of the sound, the conviction in which the band soldiered through all the songs, the reaction of the rowdy crowd. Everything added up to one of the most visceral, intense shows I’ve ever been to. I came in a fan of “This is Happening”, I left a total LCD Soundsystem convert.

I was pretty up close to the stage during the first– oh, two minutes of the show, after which I was forced to make my way to the back by my need to protect my camera from the pushing and shoving of the insane crowd. After I finally made it to a point where I was comfortable enough to hold a camera in my hands and still get a good view of the band (which, let’s face it, is never really a problem for a guy of my height), I was faced with another problem: a strange girl vigorously grinding her butt against my crotch.

Seriously. This girl was aggressively pressing her rear against my crotch area, for the duration of three or four songs, making me feel… well, conflicted.

Now, listen, I’m a straight guy. I love women and I love the act of sex. However, I also consider myself a deeply respectful and, y’know, why not, chivalrous guy. When I so much as brush up against a woman’s privates in a crowded Subway train, my immediate gut reaction is to apologize vehemently– maybe to a fault. Fact of the matter is, I hate feeling like I’m taking advantage of a woman, however accidental it may be. But was this butt-grinding accidental?

Here’s the evidence: There was ample dancing room in front of her. In my awkward attempts to move away from her contorting behind, I could see she had a good three feet of empty space in front of her. She was obviously aware that she was pressing up against someone. And let me tell you, as a virile 23 year old,  after three our four songs of some girl (who, from what I can tell is pretty attractive) pressing her butt against your privates, there’s… you know, a certain physiological reaction. A stiffness, if you will. And there’s absolutely no way she’s not noticing it, it’s RIGHT THERE.

I should just… what, enjoy the ride? Maybe this is her simultaneously-direct-and-not-at-all-direct way of telling me she’s interested. But wait, she hasn’t even gotten a good look at me. OH SHIT, MAYBE SHE THINKS I’M SOMEONE ELSE?! There’s a guy right next to her, probably her boyfriend, maybe she’s so far gone she thinks he’s the one behind her and not me?! Holy shit and what’s gonna happen when she realizes her mistake? Is he gonna try to kick my ass? Could I take this guy? I could probably take this guy. But do I want to get in a fight? I have my camera with me and I haven’t slept in 24 hours. Is this happening? Am I gonna get in a fight with some jackass ‘cuz his girlfriend’s too high to discern who’s crotch she’s using as a scratching pole in a concert? What if she freaks out and start screaming?! What if everybody around turns around and thinks I’m a crowd rapist?! WHAT IF THE BAND STOPS PLAYING AND SINGLES ME OUT AND GOES INTO AN IMPROVISED JAM ABOUT ME BEING A CROWD RA–

and then, thankfully, some drunken bozo pushes his way from behind me, through the crowd, effectively pushing this girl away from me. And a wave of relief comes washing over me. I’m free.

… And then I get a little sad.