I'm finding it hard to have nothing to say.
Digital Ash In a Digital Urn (2005)
2005 was a big year for Bright Eyes. Conor had recently moved to New York and was working on two simultaneous albums. One album produced this song, a percussive exploration of all of life and all of time. Quite a heady topic for an indie (pop?) song, but one that makes for a jaunty sing-song when you feel the need.
Notable lyric: Singing “I told you son, / The day will come, / You would die, you die, you die, you die…”
From Oh Holy Fools (2001)
This song comes from a split EP with the band Son, Ambulance. Unfortunately, I don’t own this album. I say “unfortunately” because it has some of my favorite Bright Eyes tracks on it, especially this one. With a tangible ache, lyrics hinting at suicide attempts and life reconstructions, this song takes you to a dark brink, walks you back, and gives you a hug.
Notable lyric: So I’d like to make some changes / Before you arrive / So when your new eyes meet mine / They won’t see no lies / Just love.
From Letting Off The Happiness (1998)
An early experiment with synthesizers, this song stands out on this sophomore effort by Conor. It shows that he certainly had learned a lot of lessons from the previous album. However, that doesn’t mean he gave up any of his old style. This has just as much of the scrape-sound as his acoustic endeavors.
Notable lyric: and there is nothing more i want / than just one night / that’s free of doubt and sadness
From Fevers and Mirrors (2000)
It’s hard to believe that someone who spends so much time being raw and harsh can write something so beautiful. This song is an unexpected sunrise vista. The story told in the lyrics is supported (and complemented) by a wonderful arrangement of the cornucopia of instruments which has become the style of Bright Eyes.
Notable lyric: but now I’m confused / is this death really you?
From Every Day and Every Night EP (1999)
This song has some vivid imagery. It’s a love song that spends most of the time wallowing in anger and depression. The narrator constantly reiterates his hatred of lovers, that class of people ignorant to the cold emptiness of the real world, remarking that lovers should be drowned and burned. Then, in the last verse, he suddenly changes course, ending the song in remarkable optimism.
Notable lyric: I believe that lovers should be draped in flowers / And laid entwined together on a bed of clovers / Left there to sleep / Left there to dream of their happiness
From Cassadaga (2007)
Notable lyric: Well, I went back to my rented Cadillac and company jet / Like a newly orphaned refugee, retracing my steps / All the way to Cassadaga to commune with the dead / They said, “You’d better look alive”
A Collection of Songs Written and Recorded 1995-1997 (1997)
In 1995, I was 12 years old. Conor Oberst, lead singer and mastermind behind Bright Eyes, was three years older. And, yet, he was writing songs like this one. This song, from the first Bright Eyes album, is tortured and raw. In typical Conor fashion, his voice is a stratchy record. Yet, he never screams for no reason; there is always melody, harmony, or message in his voice.
Stand out lyric: Fill the bathtub with ice and hope this fever will break / Like a heart / Easily
From Lifted Or the Story Is In the Soil, Keep Your Ear to The Ground (2002)
From the first three words, repeated thrice, you have little idea of what this song has in mind for you. It waltzes around you, like a sad, forgotten photograph. It makes me feel a little bit like that last shot in The Shining, when we find Jack Torrence frozen forever in the time period that he has always been from, caretaker forevermore.
I love the strings in this, and the 3/4 time signature.
Notable lyric: We used to think that sound was something pure…
Or, How I paid my mother back for her jibe about pictures of chairs not being post-worthy.
Some would say that I’m lucky. There are scores, I’m sure, of people who feel that friendships forged with their parents lack a certain ubiquitous quality. Enter the Internet. I am lucky enough to have parents who use the Internet semi-frequently. So very lucky. My mother has a website. And, recently, she lampooned a great majority of the MilesRausch.com bloggers in her latest post. The post, which you can read for yourself, chastised us for being weak bloggers.
Apparently, when my mother gets passionate about a subject, she forgets to quit hitting punctuation marks. She would remark that this is “the Irish in her”, but I don’t think William Butler Yeats ever ended a poem with “????????”. Also, her title should have had a “?” in it, but I won’t nit-pick.
To show my mother that I don’t take posting lightly, I’m going to post every day for 25 days. That’s right. I’m going to post 25 Days of Bright Eyes. On October 25th Jeff and I are going to a Bright Eyes concert in Sioux Falls, and, since I don’t much attend concerts, I’ve decided to celebrate this event by highlighting some of my favorite Bright Eyes songs.
Enjoy.
I’ve been patient, but enough is enough. For instance, two years is enough. More than that is more than enough. I realize, some of these bands may have broken up, gone seperate ways, or what not, but I still feel cheated. I’m holding on to the hope that they’ll release a full length within six months. (I apologize if most of this stuff is inaccurate. My research is spotty this late at night.)
Desaparecidos: Read Music Speak Spanish (2002)
Bright Eyes‘ Conor Oberst fronted this side project. It was a heavier, louder alternative to Bright Eyes with a cynical, almost bitter, tone to the lyrics. Topics of industrialization, profiteering, identity loss, and more, seemed aimed like arrows at the middle class of Omaha. That being said, i don’t live in Omaha, so I liked it. Having been a side project means that this “new” album will probably never come to alight, unfortunately for me.
The Postal Service: Give Up (2003)
This was also a side project. However, this side project featured Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie (see below). Despite being four years old, music from this album continually gets licensed for commercials all over the place. In particular, the track Such Great Heights has taken on a life of its own, being covered time and again by other artists. I’m hoping The Postal Service can release at least one more album in my lifetime.
The Faint: Wet From Birth (2004)
The Faint isn’t a band I get super-excited about. I do like their music, though. As a sound, they fall into an unusual place, combining “harder” rock with electronica, in a sort of 80s synth revival plus indie music orchestration from Hell. It’s hard to explain, but I’d like more, please.
Mason Blake: Where I Belong (2004)
Mason Blake used to live around Madison. I got to see him perform a number of times live, some times of which I was in the single digits of audience members. He’s since moved to California (presumably) to persue a music career. I’ve heard a new album is coming soon, but it’s yet to materialize.
MC Chris: Eating’s Not Cheating (2004)
MC Chris is a rapper. Not only that, but he has a high-pitched voice. You know him better (if you know him at all) as MC PeePants from the [adult swim] show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. When he’s not doing character voices, however, he’s putting down geeky rhymes. Who doesn’t love a rapper that has a song called Fett’s Vette?
Radiohead: Com Lag (EP) (2004)
Radiohead is in the studio. They are making music. They are taking their time. I want a new album now. Being subscribed to an official band’s blog is a bit like smashing your fingers with a hammer on purpose. Sure, you got something accomplished, but it hurt a lot. I get to read straight from the minds of the musicians themselves, but it only makes me want their album to come out sooner. Without the blog, I probably wouldn’t even think about it.
Death Cab for Cutie: Plans (2005)
Death Cab really took out all the stops for this last album. Plans really took on an epic scale as songwriters and musicians go. One of the songs, I Will Follow You Into The Dark, has kinda become our song (Holli and I). I’ve read that they are heading into the studio, and let’s hope they get something cooked and shipped rather soon.
Kunek: The Flight of the Flynns (2005)
Kunek is a small-time band. They’re indie, and they’re bringing about quite a following, thanks entirely to the internet. They’re last album was cold and startling, like a sudden winter’s breath. I lived in this music for a while when I first heard the tracks on Garageband.com, which inspire me to buy the album. I’m very interested to see in what direction they take their next album, assuming they make a second.
OK Go made a lot of waves with this album. Their songs are catchy, poppy, and their music videos are quirky, fascinating and choreographed. These are the guys who did the long dance to A Million Ways and then followed it up with the treadmill dance in Here It Goes Again. They have fully embraced the “new” medium of internet distribution. Not so much in distributing their album, per se, but in distributing themselves. YouTube is a haven for any OK Go fan as the band posts videos semi-regularly. However, I think we have all the mileage we can get out of this album. Next please!
The Secret Handshake: This Is Bigger Than You And I (EP) (2005)
I know for a fact that The Secret Handshake has been working on an album because he sent me a link to some demo tracks. There was an EP released last year, but I want full lengths, so he makes the list. This is another band that is indie but up-and-coming. Thanks to his unique sound and his full embrace of the MySpace culture, The Secret Handshake has been making a name for itself, touring and selling records and t-shirts, for a while now. You can preorder the new album now, and I can’t wait.
Sigur Ros brought me back into their fold with that album. I had, at first, loved the () album, but then I found it hard to go back to. Takk welcomed me in. It was like all the best parts of () and Agaetis Byrjun with a helping dash of fantastic arrangements. I know that they’re releasing a DVD and double CD set in November, but I don’t have it yet, so they need to get on the ball.
Sufjan Stevens: Sufjan Stevens presents: Come on, Feel the Illinoise (2005)
I was cautious of Sufjan Stevens when I first heard of him. Pitchfork Media was waving his banner tall and proud, and I didn’t know what the deal was, but everyone was talking about him like he was the Indie Music Savior. So I resisted jumping on that bandwagon. I resisted until a couple months ago. And, boy, was I wrong. Sufjan is, above all things, subtle with his music. He favors simple arrangements with delicious melodies, and his vocals are quiet and thoughtful. In particular, I like his lyrics. He, apparently, has a Christmas album out from 2006, but I’m not calling that a full release. At least, not until I go out and buy it.
Wolf Parade: Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)
I need a new Wolf Parade album. I’ve been satisfied by the Handsome Furs and Sunset Rubdown, but neither of those bands are Wolf Parade (they are, in fact, “spin-offs”). And I so fell in love with that album. I remember my brother, Bryce, asking me what new music he should listen to, and I said “Wolf Parade”, and I was ignored. But I was right. I even went so far as to shoot a music video for this album, a rare occassion. The album has carried me through, but how much longer it will last, I do not know. Come to my rescue, Wolf Parade.
First off, I didn’t hate Philly. I think there was some confusion, which is understandable given the content of the post, but I really did have a great time and would love to go back (assuming that Bryce and Lindsey still live there, otherwise it wouldn’t be nearly as fun). Also, I’d love to pretend I was doing a parody of Holli’s Marshall experience, but I’m not that clever.
Second off, I just got back from Princeton. No, I’m not enrolling. I was there for work. It was a sort of panic-inducing experience, as most work trips are, and I won’t say much about it here, just to say that I think we left the client satisfied. Also, I didn’t take many pictures so as to appear somewhat professional. Check out Panicking in Princeton photoset.
Third off, Nate Hoffman, who played “Narcs” in the Season One finale of Newsbleep, is debuting his movie, “Douglas”, at the Science Center at DSU at 8:00pm on August 25th (Saturday). To add to that, the “Grief” trailer for Newsbleep is going to preceed the airing. So, if you can, you should make the trip for that.
Fourth off, a playwriting project I was involved with became the Project of the Week for the Celtx website, and so I got a USB drive, t-shirt, and stickers with Celtx on them.
Fifth off, congrats to Molly and Brenna for running well. Holli said you both did well.
Last (but not least) off, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LINDSEY!!
The Darjeeling Limited. Excited? I am indeed. Very much so.
Two things that everyone should try once. And, yes, I know I flipped them from the title. Why do you think I did that, smarty pants?
Happy Birthday, Grandma Miles!
Script Frenzy! You remember my latest attempt at NaNoWriMo? Well, now I’m even less into Script Frenzy. If you want, this is the project I’m working on: http://pc.celtx.com/project/u7O7lM5FF03m. If I ever get around to actually writing something, maybe I’ll put more about it up here.
Last weekend I went to Okoboji to visit Holli and to hang with some of her camp friends. I took these pictures, here. We watched Arrested Development. We played a game called Mafia, where Holli was killed one night. My catch phrase for the rest of that game was this post’s title.
Also, we ate at The Wharf The Wharf The Wharf The Wharf The (ask Holli about the name) and Luke was telling a story, which began with, “Ok. The earth is round.” I quickly responded with “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute. You just blew my mind.” A phrase which I have found success with in other venues.
During the week, Holly and Bob came over. We discussed the filming of their wedding a bit. We were even able to get into the church to look around. Then we came back, had some ice cream, and played Burnout Revenge. We played the game where you have to cause a certain monetary amount of damage by crashing your car. We played one level where there is a large donut on a diner. It was a nightmare. We spent nearly forty minutes on it before all three of us had caused the necessary amount of damage.
The summer is boring. Now that I have all this time to write, I’m in the doldrums. The problem is that I usually can’t go to bed unless I feel I’ve earned it. Of course, just working in the office all day doesn’t count. I have to do something worthwhile in my off time. So, if I just come home, surf the ‘net, and watch TV, then I can’t sleep. I have to watch TV or read until late to qualify for rest, and then I’m tired.
How is everyone else’s summer going so far?