Goin' Dark...

...I'm losing the thread a little bit, so I'm going dark for a month to recharge my creative batteries a bit. Happy 4th of July, everyone and I'll see you August 3rd!

Albums2010 #19: Aha Shake Heartbreak

This album made me believe in rock n'roll again. It was in a basement at a party in Mankato, where everyone was having one of those fantastic nights involving booze, good conversations and off-color stories and our host (whose exploits at the University of Iowa, if true, must have been a helluva lot of fun to watch/deal with) was all about the Kings of Leon. I had never heard the band, but after that night, both the Missus and I were in full agreement: we had to buy an album. So we purchased Aha Shake Heartbreak and eventually gave it to my Mom for some reason- probably her birthday.

But where can you start with the Kings of Leon? First of all: ignore 'Sex On Fire.' I know that's been all over the radio to the point of annoyance, but the true genius of Kings of Leon lies in their earlier albums. That's not to say they've lost their edge, in any respect- but their sound is currently in a state of evolution and it's become more polished and to a certain degree more commercialized in their later albums especially. Their first two albums, however, are complete gems- and Aha Shake Heartbreak is the second of those. There's a hard edge and raw driving power to this album that gets softened in their newer albums. Not in a bad way, but let's just say that the rough edges get worked off the band in their latter albums, while in their early albums the sharpness is their in all its glory.

Although I'm somewhat wary of people who attached the label 'modern classic' to everything that moves, in the case of 'Aha Shake Heartbreak' I'm going to have to make an exception. After the sour apathy of grunge and the camp excess of hair metal in the 80s and although it's sort of a semi-cousin of the indy rock revival which finally (thankfully) started knocking off bubblegum pop in the late 90s and early 00s, the Kings of Leon make a straight up rock n'roll album and it's beautiful. From the opening track, the listener is grabbed by the scruff of the neck and taken on a ride full of raw and raucous guitars, percussion and mumbly lyrics.

My favorite tracks off this album: the opener, 'Slow Night, So Long', 'Taper Jean Girl', and 'Pistol of Fire.' The latter track just kicks ass, with snarling guitars carrying the song through to its completion. Other than that, what more can you say about this band? If you've never bothered to listen to them before, do so and you'll be hooked. They, plain and simple, and with no apologies, kick ass. And if this album represents the band's ascent to new levels of greatness, I can't wait to see what they're like at the peak of their powers.

Overall: You'll believe in rock n'roll again- and both band and album just kick ass. What more do you need to know?

Bookshot #5: India, A History

How do you boil down thousands of years of civilization, empires, kingdoms and conquests too numerous to mention here into one book? I haven't the faintest idea how he manages to pull it off, but in India, A History John Keay does exactly that- and more to the point, does it extremely well.

This book represents the best one volume answer to everything you ever wanted to know about India but were afraid to ask. Starting with the earliest civilizations (the Harrapans of the Indus Valley) and wending and winding its way through to the present day, Keay takes the reader by the hand and does his best not to put you into a coma, though he doesn't necessarily succeed at that for the entire book. So yeah, as a history book, this wasn't bad. I've read, seen and heard about plenty worse- dry, dusty and academic to the point of putting the reader into catatonia, but this, thankfully isn't one of those books. Keay is sufficiently engaged and enthusiastic about his subject matter that his enthusiasm is translated to the reader and you actually want to get to more juicy bits when you're stuck between empires.

I guess the obvious question to ask when reading volumes of history is a simple one: did you learn anything? Happily, I can report that with this volume, I learned- a lot. There's a lot more to India than Bollywood movies, curry and catching 'Gandhi' on AMC's Oscar month- much, much more and Keay's real strength lies not in illuminating or saying new things about the Mughal Period or the British Conquest, but filling in the wide gaps of well, my general knowledge about what came before. Empires like the Mauryans, the Cholas (who spread into the SE Asia) and the Guptas with their gold- or even more recent Empires like Vijayanagar in the South were all completely unknown to me, so I learned more than I could possibly want to know- all in one volume.

If Keay does have a fault, well, it's that this book is 500 pages long. Comprehensive, yes, but difficult to read all at once- in fact, I can say that about the next three books I've been reading (including this one)- which is why it's taken me so long to read them. I just couldn't concentrate on this book for an extended period of time and read it all at once- I'd just slip into a coma if I tried. But, slowly but surely- with the right amount of breaks in between, you can get through this book, be entertained, be informed and learn a heckuva lot.

Another fault for Keay: the closer it gets to the present, the less detail Keay offers. To be totally fair, he is trying his best to put the entire history of India into one volume- not an easy feat, so you're probably going to lose something along the way, but the fight for independence and certainly the disaster of Partition and the ramifications of that throughout the past century weren't given the analysis they truly deserve- especially given the magnitude of the disaster of Partition, it's hard to think of another disaster, man-made or otherwise that has impacted the sub-continent so much, even after thousands of years of civilization and history.

Overall: Believe it or not, Keay manages to credibly achieve the near impossible and put the history of this magnificent country into a single volume. If you need to learn about India, rest assured that Keay provides a remarkably clear-eyed view (as free as you can be of Western, colonialist or culturalist biases) of the incredible complexity and succession of kingdoms, empires and civilization that have risen and fallen throughout the history of India and the rest of South Asia.

New Spiderman

...is Andrew Garfield. Don't worry if you've never heard of him, neither have I. What do people make of this?

Not A Good Month For England

Not that a British Man was actually going to win the Wimbledon Final, but Andy Murray was threatening to be the first Brit in the final since 1938, until he ran into Rafael Nadal. Killing the hopes of a nation once more... (though I've noticed the psychology of England fans tends to resemble that of Vikings and/or Cubs fans. They want to believe, but they're usually resigned to the inevitable.)

Well, there's always this.

Flood Worries...

...persist. The Des Moines River has crested, but levee concerns remain- and they're keeping a close eye on the Iowa River out at the Coralville Reservoir.

Nike Curse

So, with Brazil's stunning exit from the World Cup this morning, (I fell asleep, dammit!) I gotta ask: why wear Nike? It doesn't seem to help any- I mean, all the Nike commercials have featured people like Wayne Rooney (gone home with England) and the Robinho (gone home with Brazil.) So you have to wonder: is Nike cursed?

Pianos Downtown

Well, ok.

Again: I'm ok with this, but we need greater economic vitality in downtown Iowa City. People bitch about the bars, but the fact of the matter is that the gentrification of downtown Iowa City over the course of the past fifteen years has essentially priced diversity out of the downtown market. We have become a collection of high-class boutiques, specialty stores, bars and restaurants that seems to produce limited economic success at best, for no other reason that people have no reason to go downtown anymore. When I was growing up, there were local businesses (like Great Midwestern) mixed with actual retail and the high end stuff. The opening of the Coral Ridge Mall changed that and instead of trying to encourage diversity downtown, the City Council seemed to have been willing to watch as high-end developers gentrified the place- to the point where the only businesses that can succeed downtown are ones that can bring in the cash- namely bars.

The other end of this is an obvious one: what are students to do? There's no movie theaters downtown anymore- no practical alternatives (i.e. something awesome like paintball or a roller disco)- the Planet X debacle of the early 00s showed just how much the University talks about alcohol-free alternatives and how little they actually do about it. To be fair: putting the bowling alley back in the basement of the IMU was probably the smartest thing the University has done in awhile. But if they're serious about providing alternatives, they need to provide some good, well-thought out ones. Committees to rally for 21-only aren't enough. Action is needed.

We need more economic diversity downtown and some real, creative alternatives. In other words: pianos and platitudes may be nice, but they're small potatoes.

GOP Chairman Against War In Afghanistan

Say what? Apparently true, in an incredibly incoherent sort of way. No word on what the rest of the Republican Party thinks, but one of these days, Michael Steele is going to open his mouth and the rest of the Republicans are going to give him the heave-ho. Probably sooner rather than later...

Albums2010 #18: The Layla Sessions

Forbidden love has never sounded so damn good! It's hard to know how I felt about Eric Clapton before really sitting down and listening to his one album with his (one of many) bands, Derek and the Dominos. Growing up, Clapton was the master of soft-rock radio. Acoustic, naff songs like 'Wonderful Tonight', 'Layla', and 'My Father's Eyes' seemed to make him out to be some old dude that liked to sing sappy songs and strum his guitar, like Jack Johnson, but without the Hawaiian thing and wrinkled and British instead.

If you need convincing of Clapton's godlike powers of guitar playing, then listen to this album! There's a lot of emotion boiling behind the surface of this album: for one, at the time, Clapton had a serious thing for George Harrison's wife, which actually inspired the song 'Layla' (the original version, not the naff acoustic one- and the original one, even with the weird ass piano coda that makes it like seven minutes long is one of the greatest rock songs of all time.) That aside, Jimi Hendrix died while Clapton was making this album (friend, professional guitar rival) which makes the version of 'Little Wing' on the album seem especially poignant. And Duane Allman (yes, of the Allman Brothers Band who contributed to the album) was killed the year after its release in a motorcycle crash. Throw on top of all these the fact that the album turned out to have weak sales and was a critical flop (somehow, insanely so!) Then it's not hard to see that Clapton and Company weren't in the best place when they recorded this album.

Though what it is about adversity and general shitty-ness that brings out creative genius in people is a discussion we should sit down and have and some point. Anyway, this album is sheer genius. It's a mix of blues standards ('Nobody Loves You When You're Down And Out', 'Key To The Highway') and original songs ('Anyday', 'Layla', 'Bell Bottom Blues' and the rest of the album...) that turns into an incredible piece of music and an artistic achievement that has to be hard to match and is probably one of Clapton's best.

But anyway, let's get back to the heart of this album: 'Layla.' Inspired by George Harrison's then wife Pattie Boyd, the original version contains an intensity and passion that's truly amazing. Listening to Clapton, you can tell that he really, really loves her and hurts bad for his unrequited love. Throw in 'Bell Bottom Blues' and you gotta feel for the guy- he really is hurting bad in the heart department. (Oh and the album cover art? One of the best ever. Looking at it now, I sorta wish I had a print of it. Really nice art.)

Overall: To me, this makes up for the naff soft rock Clapton I grew up with. He's a Guitar Badass and this album proved it to me. His guitar work is incredible- like Santana at his best, the guitar is almost another musician in the band, almost vocalizing with its complexity. Slowhand lives up to the billing and this is Clapton at the peak of his powers. A must listen for everyone!