Saturday Night (Non-Bay-City-Roller-Related)

I have this habit of making plans for the night, starting to get ready and getting distracted by... writing this blog. I'm not one of those girls who takes great amounts of time or care in "getting ready;" (I never get it when I see girls post entire photo albums of themselves on Facebook "getting ready" with their roommates...and then like four pictures from the party) "getting ready" for me is having a beer and listening to music while I make myself somewhat more presentable. So tonight, as an homage to last night (you don't even want to know), I threw on a Phish album: the highly-psychedelic hippie classic "A Picture of Nectar."
I didn't make it halfway through "Llama" before I got distracted by my laptop, coming dangerously close to answering that little "What's on your mind?" box on Facebook with, "sometimes rocking out at home alone to Phish sounds more fun than going out." I literally typed that the box before I realized how sad that sounded, and brought that confession to a place where I know I can say stuff like that. And, here we are.
So, for a long time, I didn't like Phish. I remember throwing the word "hate" around about Phish from time to time. I used to think that they were a less-exciting reincarnation of the Dead-- I now feel like if I go to hell for anything I say about music (and I might) it will probably be that. Luckily, I got past that, and with an open heart and mind I accepted Phish in all their crunchy magnificence.
Please don't make my mistake: the Phish mistake. I know that there are a lot of hippie jokes and negative hippie stereotypes that start and end with Phish. But you can't always just like what's cool to your crew. Lesson one.
Lesson two: get "A Picture of Nectar." This album is exactly what any album should be, and what not a lot of albums are: a complete journey through the artist's/ artists' state of mind. Phish's ungodly musicianship allows them to weave that sought-after sound of every instrument as its own instrument, and not just part of a sound, acting autonomously and at the same time as part of the machine. This is what makes jam bands click, and Phish emulate it with an almost unnatural perfection.
So, you could say this record is like Jam 101. If you are one of the people-- as I was-- who don't like jam because they don't get it, and if you're even a little bit curious about it (you must figure there's got to be something to it; if you need proof, look at the army of Gen X hippies they singlehandedly created) but you don't know where to start: go for the archetypal jam album: "A Picture of Nectar." Just go for it. It's like a prerequisite course (and finals will be at a festie somewhere) in jam. This album has all the smooth jazz, quirky bluegrass, and tantric hippie freefalls that make the genre what it is: a hypnotizing, transformative and nearly metaphysical music experience. 50 million potheads can't be wrong...

Phish, I saulte you.

And now... time to go out. (Ah, damn! "Mango Song" just came on! Maybe later.)
-thejunkie

I'm back!

Forgive me Father, for I have slacked.
It has been 17 days since my last blog post.

Henceforth is dedicated to a boy by whom I am reluctantly inspired. (Rest assured, he knows who he is.)

Shakira- "She Wolf"

Bet you didn't see this coming.
I can already hear your collective yawps of "a Shakira album? Really?!" Calm yo'selves, 'cause this album is 40 glorious minutes of Wyclef-rendered, Latin-accented, ass-shaking madness. When Shakira made her US debut in the early 2000s-- at the height of the top-40 "Latin Explosion" (you might remember J. Ho, Enrique Iglesias... Marc Anthony... was there anyone else?)-- she seemed less like an "artist" and more like a peroxided Columbian skank whose gyration-inducing beats were little more than a halfassed coverup for awkwardly-translated lyrics. However, "Laundry Service," (buttressed by its colossal single, "Whenever, Wherever;" ten points for you if it's out of your head yet) in spite of itself, was a halfway decent album, save for aforementioned McSingle and the godawful Jewel-soundalike "Underneath Your Clothes." And after a second US-released album that didn't generate much attention (except for the also-godawful "Hips Don't Lie"), she's back-- more experimental than ever and just as provocative.
"Experimental" is a word that is used to describe pop artists seldom if ever... OK, probably never. At least never correctly. But her sporadic octave-jumping, literal howling on the title track, international flavor (most delicious on the Bollywoodish "Why Wait"), a flight-attendant monologue on "Mon Amour," and nearly-poetic lyrics throughout make for pop music that is refreshingly complex, inspiringly weird and even mildly cerebral, while still doing its primary job: getting those asses shakin', for real yo.
Song Pick: "Spy." A weirdly instrumental-sounding vocal hook and a good dose of Wyclef Jean? Sign me up. "Columbian with the swagger?/ Yes I am!" Say no more.