Best Album of the Year: The Gaslight Anthem - The '59 Sound

This is the start of the end of year selections for best of whatever comes into my head. I’ve decided to start out with music because I doubt that I will come across an album which came out in 2008 that’s going to change my opinion. Also, I’m not fully prepared to pick a film as I still need to see a few to really feel comfortable about picking a best of (plus it’s going to be a top five or ten or something and I’m pretty sure there are at least two, possibly three, out there that will crack whatever number I decide to stick with). We also have TV shows (I’m going to do a “worst of” there too. I know, fun, right?) and Comics that will be included in this little series. Both of those are going to require me to look back at multiple chapters of either medium to refresh my memory about which I actually felt the strongest about. So, yeah, on with the best album of 2008 (this really isn’t even my opinion, it’s just a fact more or less).

Normally I won’t talk about music. This is for a number of different reasons, the main reason being that it’s an overly personal thing for me all things consider and it’s rare that I agree with anyone on music in broad sense. When you get right down to it, I just don’t have a shared experience with very many people when it comes to music. Another reason, and this has more to do with why I won’t talk about music much on this soapbox, is that I rarely come across an album that I feel strongly about that came out within months (or even a year) of when I’m listening to it (of course, this means, I’ll probably talk about music more than anything, so I reserve the right to talk out of both sides of my mouth). That’s a pretty important part considering that my favorite albums of mine are ones that I experienced while the band was still very relevant, or at the very least the album was still considered recent. There are a number of bands that I love like Hüsker Dü, Nation of Ulysses, or the Clash, but there’s always a disconnect with them because I’m unearthing of them and that I was getting the full experience (ignoring the fact that I wasn’t fully aware of music in same capacity when most of them existed). So I feel a little odd expressing a like for an album or a band when I wasn’t around for the initial wave.

That’s not the case here. About a year or two ago I came across a band hailing from New Jersey called the Gaslight Anthem. They were a punk band with a slight roots rock influence (essentially a band with heavy leanings toward the Clash but grew up idolizing Bruce Springsteen). Their first album came out in 2007 to a fair amount of critical acclaim. It was faintly derivative but was good enough in its own right due to creativeness of it all and the structure (which was vaguely reminiscent of Alkaline Trio’s Goddamnit). At the of the day it was a very good album that didn’t necessarily break new ground but kind of brought back a feeling in music (especially the indie crowd) that hadn’t been mined in a long time.

That changed in August of this year with the release of the ’59 Sound. The album felt like a breath of fresh air. They went from a punk band that was playing up an equal influence of the Clash and Bruce Springsteen to a punk band that was channeling the feeling of late 50s, early 60s rock and roll. They went from a band that wore their influences on their sleeve and let it define their sound to a band that used their sound to inform people of their influences while creating something new. Their sound started to make this turn when they released a four song E.P., Senor and the Queen. I doubt there’s ever been a more perfect bridge between two albums as that E.P.

What makes this album especially great though? For one the songs feel like they could exist at any point from 1959 until now. There’s a feel of calm on this album that I haven’t heard from a band before (although it’s something I’ve kind of wished for in an album for awhile) but there’s also a sense of hectic energy that for all intents and purposes makes one want to dance. It seems like these attributes contradict each other or at the very least would make the album an uneven affair but that’s never the case (obviously). The reason for this is primarily because they’re trying to make a straight forward Rock ‘N’ Roll album and not just one that’s filtered through a certain genre of Rock music. This really is an album that harkens back to the early days of Rock ‘N’ Roll, which is what Punk Rock was doing back in the late 70s. Although instead of focusing on the manic energy and the inherent simplicity of that era like the Ramones, Sex Pistols, the Clash, and countless others did, the Gaslight Anthem focuses more on thematic ventures and the musicianship that the early days of the Rock ‘N’ Roll built on.

The band focuses more on hanging out and longing for loves and days past than anything else, trying to create a sense of melancholy and fun all at the same time. Remembering the days that now appear to be the best days of your life but at the time caused you the most possible heartache. Every single song in the twelve song set reflects this sort of feeling, all while playing that sound that feels like you should’ve heard it before but you can’t quite place where.

And that’s overall effect of the ’59 Sound. It feels like an album that should’ve been made a hundred times over already because evokes so many feelings that everyone shares. But using that to their advantage to create something new while making it feel like something old, brings the listener closer to the record and it causes you to remember the good times that have long since past.

Here are their first two videos from the '59 Sound to give a better a feel for their sound. The first video is the titular track and the second is the third track on the album "Old White Lincoln."

Milk/Doubt

Oscar season as begun in full (meaning now is when the serious Oscar contenders are to be released). Both of these films are probably going to be brought up once or twice in the conversation for best picture as well as a number of other awards. While neither will likely win the award for best picture they definitely deserve to be in the conversation.

Milk is a story about Harvey Milk who was the first openly gay man elected to public office in California (possibly in the country but I’m not entirely sure though). The film follows his life from day prior to his 40th Birthday to him and his significant other moving to the Castro Distract, to his election on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, to his last day in office. As clichéd as it sounds, Harvey Milk’s story is definitely a story of triumph and tragedy. He went from being a virtual nobody in New York to being one of the most visible people in the Gay Rights movement living in San Francisco. I found out that recently that it took years to get this film off the ground but it seems especially poignant now with Gay Rights being pushed to the forefront recently.

The strength of the film relies mainly in it performances as the story being told is a moderately straight forward one, which biopics tend to be more often than not, unless it happens to be about Bob Dylan. This is far from a bad thing because it leaves the narrative clear for the actors to shine and for their emotion to drive the film. Sean Penn in particular does an outstanding job as the titular character. His turn as Harvey Milk is so strong that it’s hard to imagine another actor portraying Milk (Penn having similar features to Milk certainly does help as well). For better or worse Penn is the focal point of the film and while that detracts from the film slightly at time, but he’s captivating enough that it doesn’t really matter. In other words, I think he’s the clear shoe in at this point for Best Actor.

Now, because the film focuses so entirely on Harvey Milk, he’s the only character that we’re allowed access to and it detracts from a few of the other principle characters. Although this works fine for a character like Cleve Jones, who wears his emotions on his sleeve but also is very much in line with Milk from his second appearance on (Emile Hirsch is excellent none the less), it leaves Scott Smith, Dan White, and Jack Lira searching for direction. With Scott and Jack, this is relatively minor because you’re still privy to their thoughts because their around Harvey a lot. There are times though when their actions seem under developed, specifically when they both exit Harvey’s life. The character it really ends up hurting is Dan White. His actions at the end of the film, while not necessarily confusing (and if you’re aware of Harvey Milk’s life, then you know exactly what happens) but it does leave you scratching your head a little bit because it feels like he took everything about five steps too far. Part of the problem is that you’re not aware of Dan’s life until he crossed paths with Harvey, so you’re never quite sure what driving Dan and why he’s so frustrated with Harvey’s rise to power (the explanation that’s offered in the film by Harvey and his compatriots is very much a low point in the film and rather insulting to boot).

Those flaws are ultimately minor in grand scheme of the film though. What this film set out to do was to examine the life of Harvey Milk. It succeeds mightily and translates what exactly made Harvey Milk so fascinating and unique during his life.

While Milk was very much a character study, Doubt is nothing but character. Doubt deals with the convictions one holds when faced with overwhelming evidence that the opposite may in fact be true. The film is about a battle of principles between Father Flynn, the head of the St. Nicholas Church and Sister Aloysius, the nun who runs the school that works in conjunction with the Church. Their battle specifically centers on the accusations made against Father Flynn that he may have taken advantage of one of the students of the school, accusations that Sister Aloysius whole heartedly believes and caught in the middle of it all is the young nun, Sister James.

There really isn’t much to comment on as far as the story, it’s fairly straight forward. Father Flynn is accused and Sister Aloysius attempts to prove that wrong doing has taken place. Both of them use their respective forums to convince the other and the audience of either Father Flynn’s innocence or his guilt. There are some great bits between both Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Father Flynn) and Meryl Streep (Sister Aloysius) where they both launch convincing arguments and it’s to the credit of the film that the actual wrong doing is left in total doubt.

Through all of this you get a clear sense of each of these characters, even though there are only a few. Sister Aloysius is certainly from a different age. She cares about the students but not so much in who they are but that she wants them to be contributing members of society when they leave her watchful eye. On the other hand there’s Father Flynn. He cares just as much for the children of the school, but it’s on a much more personal level. This is why it’s easy to believe his wrong doing depending on how easily you accept the preconceived notions of priests. You will have an opinion of his innocence or guilt when the hammer’s dropped early in the film.

Of course the emotional core of the film is Amy Adam’s Sister James. Hoffman and Streep turn in their usual great performances but the real standout in the film is Amy Adams (which at this point really shouldn’t come as a surprise really). While superficially the movie revolves around the accusations against Father Flynn, underneath the film is about the soul of Sister James. At the start of the film she’s a young nun who is as idealistic as they come. Slowly, as the film wears on, she is torn between that idealism and hard reality that is impressed upon her by Sister Aloysius. And it really becomes a question whether she is going to turn into a clone of Sister Aloysius or if she’s going to remain true to herself but not a naïve deer in headlights that will believe the goodness in everyone. Her story arc is about whether she can find a peaceful middle ground between the two concepts.

Ultimately what this film lacks in content, it more than makes up for in subtle character development, which is thanks to what is a great cast. So while you may wish there was more story the fill, you will more than likely be to fixated on the twists the characters take to really notice.

Phonogram: The Singles Club #1

Sometimes a girl's just gotta a dance.

I’m going to assume that if anyone reads this they are unfamiliar with the comic Phonogram. To sum it up in the most basic way, it takes the cliché “music is magic” and makes it literal. In the world of Phonogram, people literally use music to create magic. It’s a little difficult to explain outside of that because most the magic used isn’t necessarily overt, more like how magic was portrayed before special effects budgets skyrocketed. That means there were mainly subtle changes to reality where no one was sure that person supposedly using magic did anything, but something had definitely changed. That’s really not the point of Phonogram though. Phonogram’s point is mainly to express an open love of pop music (mainly British) by their creators. It doesn’t matter if you know the bands while reading this to enjoy it or get the story but it helps, although the creators go to extensive length to help the reader out that regard, which will be touched on later (as it is one of the more charming characteristics of the book).

Anyway, this is the second series in the Phonogram cannon. The first series was about phonomancer (a mage using music as their magical medium) David Kohl finding out what happened to one of the Goddesses (or maybe an extension, I need to go back and read the series) and also rediscover his musical roots (basically the source of his power). This is the first issue of the second series. Now I know I said that I wasn’t going to review (discuss, talk about, whatever) single issues of comics because the single issue have sort of been losing its way in the comic world, but this is a special case. Kieron Gillen and to a lesser extent Jamie McKelvie (the writer and artist for the series respectively) talked about the importance of using single issues kind of like pop singles in music. Each issue tells its own story but when it’s all written each issue will form an overarching narrative. Adding to that is each single issue includes two back up stories that make up six pages which won’t be collected in the “Singles Club” trade. This makes each issue its own little beast and ripe for consumption. Granted the idea of singles (in music anyway) is much more of a British Ideal (or at least I don’t see it being that important to audiophiles in the States) it works wonderfully here.

The overarching story for this series revolves one night at a club on the eve of Christmas Eve. The club everyone is going to has one rule for the night, the only songs being played are songs sung by girls (also there’s no magic being used but obviously that’s not going to be recognized that well). Each issue will focus on a different character but all take place at the same club on the same night. This story in particular focuses on Penny B, a phonomancer who expresses herself through dance. Her whole intention of going to the club (aside from it just being fun in general) is because this cute boy is making his presence felt for the first time since his most recent break up. Through the course of the night she tries to get the DJ (Seth Bingo, a character who will have his own issue later on) to play the Pipettes song, “Pull Shapes” by coercing him through magic. This royally pisses him off and places a fairly simple curse (I think) on her, which leads to her be turned into a social pariah pretty damn quickly. After some sulking, she shows her potential power and dances her way through her problems and expels the curse. Also showing up for the night’s events are David Kohl and Emily Aster, two main characters from the first series.

It doesn’t seem like a lot of story but there’s a good bit there. It’s more of a character study of Penny B. If you’ve ever seen a girl at a club who is just dancing her heart out and in the process is absolutely intoxicating and mesmerizing to watch dance, that’s Penny B. She ultimately just loves to dance and from the looks of it when she is dancing, she’s impossible to stop. Gillen also drop a number of little tidbits all over the place for music fans to find. There’s also an economy of character development here. At first glance it doesn’t seem like there’s much to these characters but with only a few scenes, you’re easily aware of the characters outside of Penny B. Laura, Penny’s best friend, comes off as a sarcastic wit that is common among the teenage crowd who is basically informed by her musical knowledge (this is readily apparent but once you realize all the references she’s making, it becomes clear). Then there’s Marc, Penny’s supposed crush. He appears in exactly six panels in the comic, but the things you know about are enhanced. He broke up with his girlfriend and he is visibly sober throughout the entire comic to the point where you’re wondering why Penny is even bothering with him (Penny being one of near constant enthusiasm). Finally there’s Seth Bingo and Silent Girl, the DJs, who are complete jackasses (well, Seth is, Silent Girl is basically his accomplice). All three of these characters factor into later issues and their stories are set up perfectly here.

This also touches on the main selling point of this comic, at least to me, Jamie McKelvie’s art. As much as I like and appreciate Kieron Gillen’s writing, I adore McKelvie’s art. To a point it’s a fairly simple art style but to borrow a term I used for Gillen’s writing, there’s economy to it. There are very few lines used in his style but not a single one is wasted and despite this, it still manages to be more detailed than one would thing. Adding to the simplicity is the grid lay out of the issue, which just enhances McKelvie’s storytelling ability. If Gillen never wrote a word, it would be easy to follow this story. McKelvie is reason alone to buy this comic.

The last unique thing about this comic is the glossary and bonus pages of the comic (B-Sides if you will). In the first series, each issue ended with an extended glossary and essays written by Gillen to explain a lot of the throwaway references in the issue. Those are back, although not in as much force as the previous series. This is a handy little feature as it enhances what each of the characters mentions if you’re unfamiliar with a lot of the bands and genres they’re referring to (it’s especially important to really understand Laura’s character at her core) and is worth reading if you enjoy the comic. Also the two back up strips are nice little backups, one introducing a character and the other building a previously introduced character (Seth Bingo).

When it gets right down to it, I can’t recommend this comic enough, even if pop music is so much your thing.

This is where it begins?

This first post basically a primer on what I plan to do with this blog (or a manifesto if I was really part of the go-getter crowd, but that word seems a little too strong for what I want to do). Until I figure out a more streamlined overarching topic the blog will mainly be about whatever I feel like at the moment that isn’t strictly personal (because honestly who wants to read about that?). The main topics will mainly focus on basketball, movies, and comics, branching off into occasionally books (when I actually finish reading one), TV (mainly on Tuesdays when I want to bitch about how horrible Heroes is and on Fridays when I want to gush about the Office and 30 Rock), Music (either looking back or when I actually listen to a relevant album) and various other aspects of pop culture that I come across on a daily basis. I imagine this is all going to be pretty boring for most people.

What I plan to cover with basketball is pretty simple, everything. Basketball interests me more than any other sport and has for quite some time, so here’s where I’ll be putting more effort into that interest. Here I’ll be covering everything from the NBA to NCAA to European basketball (of course this might just be complaining about the Ricky Rubio hype machine or how much I love Petteri Koponen). Every week I’ll probably post the week in basketball (or just the NBA, I don’t know), which will just account for the what’s happened in the past week because basketball is hard enough to comment on a daily basis and all you eventually do is making a bunch of knee jerk reactions. I’ll probably throw in some commentaries on teams and players when it seems relevant. Just so everyone knows that happens to read this, I am a diehard Wizards fan (one of the few that actually exist) but I will not be talking about them for two reasons: one, they depress me to no end right now and two, they really that relevant at the moment and probably won’t be until the race for Blake Griffin begins (being the most likely number 1 overall pick in the draft). So that’s basketball, and in all honesty, this will probably turn into a basketball blog, although I hope not.

The next major topic is movies. I see a lot of movies and often times can’t find anyone to have an open dialogue with along the terms that I want to talk about. This could be because I spent a good four or five years of school discussing movies, so for awhile there was a good number of people to do this with, or it could be that I have a hard time just enjoying movies. Either way, I’ll be talking about movies in some sort of depth. There will be reviews of recent movies, reviews of old movies that I happen to come across (whether I’ve seen them before or not), and I’ll also be commenting on trailers because I fine those almost as interesting as the actual movie. I will not however talk about movie news in general, unless it’s a passing remark about an actor or actress being in a movie that I’m looking forward to. It ultimately becomes celebrity gossip and I can’t stand that at all or ridiculous squabbles with studio heads that I just don’t care about. This will primarily be about a finished product of some fashion because all I really care about is what’s on the screen and can’t work up the proper amount of excitement about anything that goes on outside of it (unless it ruins a film that I think could’ve been relatively special).

The last major topic that I’m going to focus on is comics. This is probably going to be a little dull at first because I don’t really know anyone who reads them (who will primarily be my audience) except for one guy and he took an axe to them in his budget. Despite this, I will talk about comics both as an art form and as a form of entertainment (yes, there is a difference). I won’t be talking about single issues as much as I’ll be talking about collected editions. The main reason for this is that I like to talk about full stories rather than just installments. It would be like discussing the first quarter of a television show, there’s just not enough there to talk about (it didn’t used to be like that though). Oddly enough though the first comic I plan on talking about will be a single issue (the new Phonogram series) but that I will be discussed in detail when I actually get around to it. Anyway I hope that people will pick a comic or two, but I doubt that will happen.

So, in the end this is what I hope to accomplish, that people will find all of these things interesting. Of course that’s assuming anyone will read this, which I admit is a fairly lofty goal. I hope that the people reading this, enjoy it and that a few them think I’m looking at things a little differently (again, a loft goal). So here it is, The Culture Niche (I’m kind of regretting the title now), I hope you’re at the very least entertained.