How To Self-Destruct

How To Self-Destruct

1. Patton Oswald -Married & Single

2. Morningwood - New York Girls

3. Aimee Mann - Borrowing Time

4. You Say Party! We Say Die! - The Gap (Between The Rich and The Poor)

5. Uncle Tupelo - I Got Drunk

6. Spain - Her Used-To Been

7. Son, Ambulance - Paper Snowflakes

8. Saves The Day - Because You Are No Other

9. Robert Pollard - The Killers

10. Reggie & The Full Effect - G

11. Paramore - Whoa

12. Nine Inch Nails - 1,000,000

13. Girl Talk - No Pause

14. The New Amsterdams - Hover Near Fame

15. The Fratellis - My Friend John

16. The Faint - The Geeks Were Right

17. The Eels - Lone Wolf

18. Big Wreck - Inhale

19. 16 Volt - Everyday Everything

20. Warren Zevon - Play It All Night Long

21. The Vandals - How They Getcha

22. Story Of The Year - Take Me Back

23. Boris - Rattlesnake

24. Nick Lowe - Shake That Rat

25. Sonic Youth - Plastic Sun

26. PJ Harvey - Silence

27. Dispatch - Gasoline Dreams (live version)

Get IT Here!

That's a lotta tracks!

OK, a brief joke and we're off -

Morningwood, despite their bonerific name, are a dreamy boy-girl rock combo and make some wild, trashy tunes. Their self-titled album is jammed with tracks like "New York Girls" and many many more.

I saw Ms. Aimee Mann on the now-questionable "Henry Rollins Show" doing a live version of songs from the Magnolia soundtrack (where I had first heard of her solo work) and it made me think, "Does she have a new album out?" The answer is yes. It's called @#%&*! Smilers. And "Borrowing Time" is from that very same album. As usual, it's chillingly great songwriting and briskly appropriate pop arrangements.

The sharp, bouncing electro-punk grooves of blog-ready bands can get a little wearying, but sometimes you hear one that gets it just right. You Say Party! We Say Die! is one of those bands that understands the conflicting desire to dance your ass off and to have a message. "The Gap (Between The Rich And The Poor)" comes from their debut Hit The Floor!

People around here usually lament the passing of Uncle Tupelo. And rightfully so, since they essentially created alt-country out of punk rock and country/western. This track, "I Got Drunk" comes from a recently released anthology 89/93

If you ever want to kill yourself, Spain is the music to do it to. I'm not being hyperbolic either. Put on a copy of The Blue Moods of Spain and start writing your note. "Her Used-To Been" is a slow, morphine-drip of a song with heart-stabbing lyrics and a glacier's pace.

With a reverb-drenched piano and a solid beat and some weird-out guitars, Son, Ambulance can be described as Creepy-Meets-Indie. I'd say that goes for their album Key and the song "Paper Snowflakes", too.

I've been a Saves The Day fan since their second album, Through Being Cool, basically described my life back in 1999. It goes without saying, then, that as they've evolved as artists, so has my fandom. Under The Boards, their latest, is a mix of matured pop-punk and balls-to-the-wall stompers like "Because You Are No Other."

Guided by Voices was some of the more prolific and bizarre indie rock in existence. Everyone owes something to them, from Ryan Adams to any of the latest blog bands. Robert Pollard continues to plug away at his post-GBV career, releasing 2+ albums each year and he has over 1000 songs registered to copyright giants BMI. "The Killers" comes from last year's Standard Gargoyle Decisions.

The guy behind the keyboards in The Get Up Kids set off in 2000 to write a goofy side-project, calling it Reggie & The Full Effect. There's been bizarre off-again-on-again tours, rumours and outright lies about keeping up the Reggie band. Whatever the case, Last Stop : Crappy Town, is a rather literal journey through the painful process of getting into rehab -- inosmuch that the track titles are the stops on the train leading to the rehab center.

Some call Paramore punk-lite or some variation of the phrase, trying to diminish the talents of the band as a whole and simultaneously trying to pidgeonhole Hayley Williams as "just a girl" who obviously can't really make good music. Despite all that, their album All We Know Is Falling is straight-up genius. "Woah" is a prototypical example of this.

What else can you say about industrial trail-blazer Trent Reznor and his nom-de-rock Nine Inch Nails? Little, aside to say that The Slip, the latest album, is a return to form and is well worth the money, if you choose to purchase it. You don't have to, I'm just saying, it might be worth it.

Pennsyllvania native Gregg Gillis is the master of mashing and mixing. Under the name Girl Talk, he released his album Feed The Animals on the NIN/Radiohead tip - pay for it if you can, if not, cool. Songs like "No Pause" jam dozens of samples into a pop-culture stew, mixing Missy Elliot and 80s synth poppers Nu Shooz, and many many more. Someone actually dissected the song for samples here. Dizzying.

When The Get Up Kids break up for a while, James (in Reggie) is rawking hardcore, while Matt (in New Amsterdams) is singing heart-breakers like "Hover Near Fame." The second full-band New Amsterdams album Worse For The Wear brings home that feeling with brutal lyrics and expert songwriting.

My friend Amy is usually going on and on about me being "Mr. Music", but for once, she scooped me. She handed me a copy of the first Fratellis album and I was blown away. Pub-ready rock tunes with a skilled writer at the helm and a handful of delicious hooks mark their style on their second album Here We Stand, exemplified by "My Friend John".

People are big on dissing a band when they change something. I for one am all about artists evolving and stretching and growing. It's important to me that bands like The Faint release albums like Fasciinatiion, because it shows they're breaking out of their established patterns and trying something new. Not everyone will like it, but sometimes, you'll find out "The Geeks Were Right."

The Eels seem to spend every waking moment working on ways to get their songs stuck in my head. Aside from the Beck-alike vocals, Mr. E does it again on the album Shootenany! which features "Lone Wolf" (and another favorite "Restraining Order Blues")

Old obsessions tend to grow with time. In the 90s, Big Wreck's "That Song" was a perennial favorite, because it crystalized exactly what it was like to be in love with music, which was something I was just coming into. Years later, with the help of some friends, I found their second album, The Pleasure And The Greed, which has lots of great songs like "Inhale."

I don't even know where my love for industrial music started, but few bands do it right these days. So I listen to my old 16 Volt albums and wait. If you dig old Ministry, pick up Supercool Nothing, which contains "Everyday Everything."

My new obsession lately has been Mr. Bad Example himself, Warren Zevon. A classic album from his prolific musical career, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School, contains this gem "Play It All Night Long" wherein Warren relishes in trashing Lynyrd Skynyrd and the hicks who love them. That's not to say I don't like a little LS now and then, but he does have a point.

Two things that will never change about punk - Bad Religion will always put out hearty polemics and The Vandals will always be goofy punks with a kindergarten sense of humor. "How They Getcha'" is from their latest album, Hollywood Potato Chip, which is, according to Wikipedia , the term for "dried semen on a casting couch."

People in St. Louis are weird about bands who come from St. Louis and get a taste of fame. Suddenly, they're "not as good" and they've "sold out" and all that nonsense. Formerly Big Blue Monkey, Story Of The Year still make the same music that caught my ear on their debut EP. "Take Me Back" is from the second record they put out, aside from the live album, entitled In The Wake of Determination.

Japan has a serious noise addiction. Considering some of the best noise-rock bands are Japanese in origin, you can make the assumption that being near so many earthquakes permanently affects your need for grinding guitars and thundering bass. Boris is here to satisfy those urges.
"Rattlesnake" is the Boris template writ large - larger than life riffs and mondo distortion - and so is the rest of the album Heavy Rocks.

Two instrumental tracks in a row, can you handle that? The second is this outtake from the Nick Lowe album Jesus of Cool, recently re-issued with almost double the length. This surf-rockin' take on American pop from the 50s and 60s is swerving with its fat bass line and chunky guitars. Why he called it "Shake That Rat", I'll never know.

Another thematic two-fer on this mix, it's Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey. Why those two? The connection is mostly that they're indie artists from the 90s, who still put out albums and who originally drew me in with noisy guitars, but then mellowed out in the ensuing years. Sonic Youth drops "Plastic Sun" from Murray Street, which sticks to the noise formula, while PJ Harvey strips down to piano and atmospherics on "Silence" from White Chalk.

You see? I don't just throw things together and see what sticks! I work on this. I think about it all the time.

Anyway, the last track is another one of those "my friend told me about the band and I didn't like them at first, but now I kinda do" bands. It's Dispatch, with a live version of "Gasoline Dreams" that was from the DVD/CD combo pack of Patchwork.