A Decision.

So. Here's a decision I've made: Henceforth, this Blogling will be comprised of its standard verbose rambles, interpolated with more immediate, "Here's This Cool Thing"-type smatter-entries.

Recently, I've been frustrated with my ever-increasing inability to finish one of the 7 posts I've collected, half-written (& already perilously lengthy) in the Drafts section. Moreover, I've been almost exactly repeating the phenomenon I mocked of my wee LiveJournaling self: I'll sit around & think, "Damn, I have to think of something to write about, so I can post this song at the end!"

This exact feeling is why, I think, many of my contemporaries have chosen Tumblr: it's specifically, aesthetically designed with the expectation that you will let your various videos & pictures simply tumble, free-form, without necessitating commentary. Still, it's nice to have a place to ramble—& that is sort of the point of this outlet anyhow, to keep me writing—so those 7 half-posts will surely make it to light in due course. But, in the interest of staying vital, I predict that there will also be a fair few non sequitur blips.

With that in mind: here are four songs. (Consider it retroactive quota-filling.) Apparently, my taste these days is half live late-19s altrock, half upstart LA rap EPs. Who knew?


Add It Up (Live, 1983)—The Violent Femmes.
Quite simply, one of the greatest rock songs of all time. Wild & impatient, like the best of things.



Buena (Live, 1993)—Morphine.
"I started with one string, so... Progress."

(Apparently, when I was younger, I choreographed a dance to this song—something involving jumps in a very distinct pattern—which I would perform, with grave intensity, every time it played. It still sounds smoothed over sometimes—round bass lines blurred, like nostalgia.)


Luper—Earl Sweatshirt.

This is one of those songs that draws you in immediately, like undertow—that you love, instantly, then more & more—until, without warning, it gets really & suddenly objectionable. If there's one thing that I want to strangle about modern rap music, it's the canonizing & normalizing of really heinous violence-against-women imagery—because, really now. Just stop it. Still, the first 1:45 of this song are so deeply likable, so damn skillfully put together—&, before it gets murderous, it's tongue-twisting, bittersweet, lovelorn. (One might even argue that the violent end serves some artful purpose—but still, I protest, don't.)

Oh, right, also: this kid is 16. Six-teen. !!!


Today's Headphone Fodder:

Yonkers—Tyler, the Creator.

Tyler is part of the same group as Earl—Odd Future, or OFWGKTA—& this is the preview single for their newest release, Goblin. It's also one of the best music videos I've seen in quite a while. Really, artfully disturbing, all the more so for its simplicity; palpable nerves when he can't catch up to his own lyrics. Predesigned chaos with a heart-squeezing backbeat. Yes, please.