Music: Modern Vampires of the City

Modern Vampires of the City by Vampire Weekend

A few days ago I was afforded the chance to listen to this album in its entirety. Having anticipated it ever since the days post-Contra, I knew I was potentially risking letdown from the (largely unfair) expectations that had been built in my mind. From the singles that had been released over the course of this album's creation I grew more and more excited as the songs gave so much promise. Despite my best efforts I was already judging this album before I listened to it.

Being a self-admitted Vampire Weekend fan I took a few moments to consider whether I would be in my right mind to judiciously comment on Modern Vampires of the City. Fans often have a way of excusing faults or embracing the body of an artist's work that critics might otherwise unilaterally pan. Make no mistake though, this is the life of a fan and I believe it is not only important but necessary for music as a whole. All this being said, I was indeed caught off-guard by what Vampire Weekend did with their latest effort. In a surprisingly twist, they made a critic out of someone who has confessed in the past that they could do no wrong.

They created an album that caused reflection on why I enjoyed their music so much in the first place.

MVotC is by far their most sonically varied, furthest reaching, and thematically consistent music to date. From the opening lines of the album, Ezra sings of abandon within a larger world that seems to care not for the thoughts of the lonely persona he lyrically paints against a soft melodic background. "Unbelievers" further expands upon the notions contained within the album by establishing a thesis of a strangely interesting subject for the band: God. Religion at the very least, perhaps metaphorically standing in for a more over-arching topic takes center place on MVotC. The track sings of dying a sinner for the lack of a belief system, curiously wondering if there's room for people like that in the world while also questioning whether or not there is any agency in this disposition. Does this person have a choice, or is he/she damned to a unearned fate they cannot control? Perhaps most notable is how Vampire Weekend composes these songs under the guise of pop music and catchy instrumentation that make for foot-tapping tunes blinding the (very heavy) lyrical weight if one does not pay attention.

"Diane Young,"was one of the double A-side singles released in mid-March alongside "Step" and seems to be another hint at the wit of the album which masks the content with another upbeat melody. Perhaps it is a stretch to think but for argument's sake let us assume that Diane Young refers not to a woman, but a wordplay that might also be read as: Dying Young. The premise built from the onset of the album seems to be playing towards living a more or less bohemian or rebellious lifestyle questioning the outcomes associated with not falling in line. In this case "dying young" would be one of the potential threats to an existence that chooses to live without a higher power guiding it.

"Everlasting Arms" seems to be reconciling with this problem seeking advice on how to potentially be saved. In a further development however, the speaker fully acknowledges the semi-paradoxical difficulties associated with buying into a proposition that he does not fully align with. A key line asks again whether or not it is possible to be subservient to a system that cannot be easily understood. The troubles of this "main character" -if there can be said to be one- continue to deepen as we ourselves move deeper into the album. As a side note, this song seems to be the most familiar sounding to VW's back catalog, and also interesting the one that most resembles something would have come off Paul Simon's Graceland.

 As the albums moves through "Worship You" and especially, "Ya Hey" the central figure to this tale appears to have fully abandoned the possibility of being a true believer. The lyrics challenge the concept of accepting God when the world around this narrator (again by his/her choice or not) seems to be actively rejecting the idea as well, making it near impossible to do anything but that. Further in the song, a reference to The Rolling Stones' "19th Nervous Breakdown is given likely as evidence towards the exasperating sacrifice one is required to make in order to believe. Ultimately it is rejected. The title of "Ya Hey" itself might be another disguised word play aligning with the ideas of the album as a whole. Appearing in the lyrics, distorted, Ya Hey sounds close "Yaweh," which would be the Hebrew word for God, or The Lord.

The second to last track is perhaps the only one that seems to match tonally to the lyrics. "Hudson" veers far from the released singles diving into far moodier and dark territory than the band ever has before. Through such stark lyrics as:

The time has come
The clock is such a drag
All you who change your stripes
Can wrap me in the flag

 It could be inferred at this point within the album that the speaker accepts that he/she will never be able to change how they think and therefore how they live. By accepting this, their life has become a ticking time bomb to a fate that may or may not actually befall them. The character in this tale will notably leave this world having tried to see the other side of things and despite being unable to, will ultimately be proud of having reached a decision upon independently considering the potentially grim outcome and staying honest to what they believe is the truth.


Almost as though the album were an incredibly formal and academic way of defending a "punk" attitude.

Of course the album works sans all of that, and I highly recommend it for reasons beyond what can be discerned through its lyrics. If you're looking for music with a little something extra, this album might be just the one for you. Vampire Weekend have impressed me once again and I will continue to relentlessly hype myself in preparation for their continued output though all the years I've left.


-J

Record Store Day 2013

In the spectrum of annual events that bring joy once a full earthly revolution this past Saturday stands amongst the heaviest of hitters for this writer. Record Store Day falls on the third Saturday of April since it first launched in 2008. Organized by a relatively small group of people, RSD was conceived around the idea of supporting independent record store owners whose business is conducted within a brick and mortar store with at least 50% of the retail pertaining to music, they must also NOT be a publicly traded company. All of which is to say, this event is meant for the music lovers and the remaining stores that still believe in the tradition of experiencing music on a personal level. Of course, there's money to be made out of it.

But what is Record Store Day really? Well in short, record labels from big and small make limited edition runs of albums, singles, EPs, etc, and ship them out to the indie stores who request things they'd like from their distributors. Not every store gets everything. Some stores will get many things, some will get only a select few items. And when I say limited editions, I'm not talk about 20,000 worldwide or even 10,000. Most of the pressings are around 5000 and fewer. One of the records I was most excited to pick up was Orange Juice's debut LP, "You Can't Hide Your Love Forever," which first came out in 1982, but hasn't seen a vinyl pressing since. There were 750 of those distributed across all the indie record stores in America.
 
This 6th year had an impressive list of releases, although I think I was personally more excited about last year's list overall. Still, apart from the Orange Juice album, I managed to pick up some very cool things including:

-Dazed and Confused Soundtrack (first time on vinyl and one of my favorites movies of all time)

-Distinctive Rhythm Instrumentals by The Dave Brubeck Trio

-Cal Tjader Trio by The Cal Tjader Trio

-Entertainment single by Phoenix (the B side has the same song but sung in Korean!)

-Tomorrow Is Alright by Sonny & The Sunsets

-Fear Of My Identity single by Best Coast . . . and lots more

Speaking of Best Coast, oftentimes there will be in-store performances to help celebrate the day, and at one of the record stores I frequent, Best Coast stopped by to do a small set for the fans who bought their latest single.

More pictures later when I organize everything, but in the meantime here's a video I shot with some highlights of the performance:

(Youtube's shaky cam fix ruined the titles in the opening seconds, I'm trying to undo it now)


-J
 

Retrospective Post: Miyama (Revisited)

So in early November we had arranged to go with Mitsuko's landlord to his house in Hiroshima. Truth be told the arrangements were made long before then. Ever since he met the two of us, he had wanted to make said plans. Things came up here and there, and eventually everything lined up just right. We had our bags packed, and he stopped by early one weekend morning to pick us up.

Hiroshima is about a 3 hour car ride from Kofu, and tried though we did, there was only so much conversation we could come up with before silence dominated the trip. The view changed only in the last 40 minutes or so, when more city life appeared. Perhaps they did exist outside the boundaries of the highways that we drove on, but this was all we could see for most of the ride.

I must say that I admired how Japan's highways were accompanied by the EXACT same looking rest stops no matter what highway you were on or what prefecture you were in. There's kind of a nice uniformity and comfort about it. When I take a few seconds to think about that sentiment, it sounds as though it would be incredibly dull. Perhaps it reinforced a kind of orderly nature that Japan seems keen on.

After a while we made it into Hiroshima Prefecture, and we came to a lookout point (Hatsukaichi-shi, it could have been) where I snapped a pretty cool panoramic photo:

A nice overview of Hiroshima

After this we rode further up and had a nice dinner at Adachi-san's house. His wife made a great meal, and was worried that we wouldn't be able to eat Japanese food. We assured her that it wasn't a problem. Bad move. She then walked into the kitchen and cooked up even more food! She's such a sweet lady, but I felt bad for making her cook more. We rested soon after dinner, Miyajima was the next day.

The Miyajima Ferry

I was excited as ever to be going back to Miyajima. I went in 2007 and it was one of the best memories I had from all of Japan.

They really are friendly

Most of the ferry ride was filmed so I'll have to put that stuff up on youtube later, maybe one nice big video that puts everything I recorded together for this trip. After landing, a wave of memories went rushing to my head. I could have closed my eyes and led everyone around; it was that clear in my head still. I even pointed out the bench where 5 years earlier a deer had eaten a map from my bag - the very same one I had slung over my shoulder that day.

The world famous torii gate for Itsukushima Shrine

Exploring the island was much more enjoyable this time around, because I was not concerned with getting back to Fukuoka later on that day (That's far by the way). Our landlord's house was very close, and we had all day to explore various areas of interest, Miyajima being the principle one for that day.

There's no doubt it's a very touristy area, so that must be taken into consideration before going. I think November is about the perfect time to go exploring Japan, and amount of people there seems to agree with that notion. It's not too hold or too cold, very even tempered weather. There seemed to be as many Japanese people as well as foreigners (from all places) walking the island. The notable, Itsukushima Shrine, had an unavoidable line, but it moved at a swift pace. I hadn't actually gone through the shrine the first time I came. I wish I could have stopped and took my time to admire all the little details (and take a bunch of pictures, I will admit) but there seemed to be a natural flow of the crowd that was.. dictated, somehow... pushing us along. Regardless there was still much to enjoy, and it only served to fan the flames of my love for the island. I still haven't explored it all.

PICTURE DUMP!

Just in time

This was a pretty popular spot to take pictures to get an excellent shot in front of the torii

This was a stage for plays and various performances once upon a time ago

A neat picture towards the end of the "tour" that wrapped around the shrine

We continued our walk around the various shops and even had our caricatures drawn on a paddle-shaped plank of wood. The man who drew us was an old friend of Adachi-san. I don't have a picture of it -it's currently hanging on a wall in Japan- but I will ask for it. He drew my eyes very sparkly, more sparkly than Mitsuko's. Heh, still got it.

Also in Hiroshima are a very famous type of hand-made makeup brushes that people come from all over to buy. They're known as Kumano brushes, and are apparently quite wonderful to use if you are one who is inclined to apply makeup. Not being the kind of boy who does, I could only appreciate them for their hand-made qualities. For those of you who don't speak Japanese (myself included [rimshot]) 'kuma/くま' means bear, and the particle 'no/の' can be used to attribute ownership or an associative property between two nouns. So when I heard 'kumano' brushes. I thought, kuma-NO-brushes. Which, sounds like bear brushes rather than simply a name. So I spent a a good chunk of time thinking that somewhere, in a clandestine locale, women hunted bears for the fine makeup brushes they could make from their fur. This was sadly shattered by Adachi-san's wife who explained it to me.   

There they are

Among the many other things we saw were an amazing pagoda that was built entirely via pin and dowel. Absolutely no screws or nails.

It almost looks like a theme park from this angle

At the request of a dear friend, there will now be a photo that I'm actually in:

That deer never stopped staring at me so I figured he was the picture taking breed

This has been a photo of me. I will now return to the regularly scheduled blogging.

I don't have too many photos that I'm in, so they'll be a rare treat for better or worse. I usually don't like having my picture taken, honestly. But that's another story, another blog, another day!

Miyajima is very famous for the manjuu that they make, and we definitely stopped by one of the MANY places that make them. When you walk down any given street where there are shops, every other one will have boxes stacked multiple feet high, all stocked with delicious manjuu.

You can also watch them be made box by box

They're shaped like maple leaves!

While we were eating and taking a break, I noticed there was a small Japanese garden behind a locked sliding glass door. Of the many interesting and beautiful adornments were several bonsai trees. Bonsai being a hobby of mine, I could not resist taking a picture of the stunningly manicured pine tree that rested just beyond my reach.

A wonderful pine bonsai

Later on that day I also tried Oysters for the first time. They were grilled so I was worried too much about trying them, not that I'm ever hesitant to try new foods. It's one of the best things about being somewhere else, I've found. 

Fry my little oysters, fry

On the half shell

I really loved those oysters, Mitsuko was a little bit on the fence about it, and quickly passed hers to me after taking a bite. I put it in my mouth and ate it before anyone noticed, but I wish I would've taken my time. I'll be back for those, no doubt.

But as you can see from the long shadows in the picture above, it was getting a bit later on in the day. We still had more to do so we shoved off the island and pressed on. I'll keep this post to just Miyajima things, but the day definitely wasn't over. I mentioned earlier to Adachi-san that I wanted to try Okonomiyaki, and that's precisely where we went to have an afternoon meal.

-J

Songs I Listened To While I Wrote This:

"Lightworks" by Atlas Sound
"Troublemaker" by Beach House
"The Only Place" by Best Coast
"Linda Linda" by The Blue Hearts
"Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes I Do" by Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band
"Where I'm Going" by Cut Copy
"Satellites" by Ancients
"All I Want" by LCD Soundsystem

Short listed

There will be a post later on about going to Hiroshima and Miyajima (for the second time) but it's probably the right time to mention that I've officially been short listed by the JET program for this year.

Their terminology sometimes is a bit confusing, but basically that's the one you want to hear. Short listed is as good as "accepted". I've jumped through the all hoops, passed through all the screening and it looks like I'll officially be going to Japan as an ALT.

It's definitely a welcome feeling, especially after not even receiving an interview the first year I applied.

As much as I'd like to be boisterous and shout out the windows to those who might not care at all, I am reminded of the feeling that grew inside of me upon learning I was granted an interview slot about two months ago. I made a note of it in my journal and I'd like to share it here:

I'm definitely excited and happy, there's no doubt about that. I just think there's an element of humility that goes hand in hand with our successes as well as failures. That being said, I shall remember to always work hard regardless of which comes.

-J

Retrospective Post: The Day I Came Back

So, before I go on about other things I thought I'd mention something that happened on literally the first day I came back.

I was sitting around at the table, still being slightly estranged by the fact that I was not in Japan anymore. My brother's friend came over and they felt like getting some lunch. I came along, and we decided that we'd get some Mexican food from a place called Alazane's. They've got amazing shrimp burritos there. Well, along the way we came across a truck that had, dangling off the hitch, a pair of truck nuts.

If you're not familiar with them, a quick google search will suffice, however I imagine you can figure out what they are.

In that moment I felt as though I were truly back. I had a vision of us sitting in Doc Brown's time machine, flying back in from 2015 to good ol' 1985.

In fact it would've gone a little something like this:

I apologize for the crappy photoshop job in advance

Yeah, that's pretty much exactly how it went.


In my head at least.


-J

Retrospective Post: The Day They Cut My Cord

I promised I would be back with more postings, and this will be the first of them to get it all started. It's a pretty harmless one, so it should be a nice and easy way to get back into the habit of writing things here again.

Shortly after this we went to Korea, and that took a while to write down in its entirety via my journal, so I'll have to condense those thoughts before I put it up here. I will though, it was a pretty interesting experience.

So, this is from November 1st:

I heard someone call out from the genkan, and it was a voice I hadn't heard before. I got up to check (I believe I was writing in the journal that moment) and it turned out to be a man in a blue jumped with a white hard hat on. He asked if it was okay for him to talk to me about a certain thing going on in the area, and I had no reason to say no. He then proceeded to empty an entire speech on my way about how they were cutting the defunct cables running from my house (all houses in the area for that matter) and simply wanted to let me know what they were doing and why. I replied to half of what he was saying, while nodding to the half I did not get.

This is the problem with learning a new language, all it takes is a new situation for you to feel like you're not that good at it. But the "what to do when the electric company shows up and wants to remove old cable attached to the side of your house" lessons just don't come up in a formal setting.

Anyway, I walked across the street and talked to my neighbor Jiro-san about it, who explained it in a way that made more sense to me. I got up and took some pictures while they worked away on it. I love the way they do things like this in Japan. There's really not much traffic at all running through here, but they still coned it off, put up a sandwich board sign, and had a man to direct people should they arrive and need to know what was going on.

Enjoy!

There's the sandwich board! I wasn't lying.

Why do their cones look like toys?

Later on that day I cooked some small fish in the fish broiler that we have in our stove. No actual oven, so there's a real limit on the kinds of things that you can cook. Well, just the things that require an oven really. But still!

A little too long but it was my first time using a broiler!

 Anyway, that's the short one for now. Stay tuned for more.

-J

A New Look

It's been a while.

I was supposed to start putting up some of the things that happened while I was in Japan for all that time. I haven't forgotten! I've just been a bit occupied with other stuff lately, but I'm hoping to start posting retro-posts. As a kind of deposit on that promise I've already made a new banner for the blog.

Look at that!

Now why would I just go and abandon this place if I went ahead and made that?

Older posts coming soon. Fear not.

-J