New Year's

This will be me for New Year's this year.


















At least, that's how I hope I'll look, as opposed to a giant tumbling snowball with skis and poles poking out in all directions. Cathy and I are headed to Driggs, ID, way over just this side of the Grand Tetons, to spend a long New Year's weekend. Grand Targhee resort is just a few miles from where we'll be staying, so we plan to spend at least one day there. The above pic was taken there yesterday.

Both of us are pretty inexperienced skiers. Cathy's been doing it for some years, though never more than once or twice a year--not quite enough to get really good. I just learned how to ski last February, and have only been out twice this year, once up at Bogus, and once at Brundage. Both times felt great; both made me feel like I was learning and doing better than the time before. And while these trips were both in decent snow, I'm really looking forward to great snow.

So, we'll be out of town and largely out of touch until next Tuesday. Hope y'all have a happy new year's, and a great 2006.

Taking Time

I'll be honest: It's all to easy to rush and cut corners when putting together a show for Radio Boise. I'm busy, it's late, it runs tomorrow, I'm tired, blah blah. I've done it--though I know those of you who have listened to Range Life will find that shocking. I'm very sorry. I'll try my best to do better.

And, for that last part at least, I mean it. I put time into these shows. I read about music a lot, I search out new music, I log hours and hours both mobile and stationary listening to new music, and I love it all. Nowadays, I especially love the process of assembling a version of Range Life, the show. I love firing up the iBook and the Creatures and setting out in my office/bike shop for hours on end, listening to track after track and assembling playlists and listening to them and changing them and trying to create a good flow, with good transitions, with a healthy balance of new stuff and old stuff and brand new stuff and not so old stuff and whatever else grabs my attention.

So, why would I cut corners? Why would I spend less time on it than I could or should? Because I'm stupid, that's why. And so are you. We all are. We lose sight all too easily not only of the big things that give life meaning, but the little things that give each moment of life purpose and contain the potential to turn into big things or to alter or affect big things. We avoid things that make us happy for things that don't. I'm no hedonist, but I do think this happens far too often. And when you can make a small change that you're damned sure will affect big change, you do it. Or you should.

I'll be spending more time on this. It'll be better. And by this I mean both the radio show and this blog. If this is starting to sound like your run of the mill resolution, so close to New Year's as we are and all, I suppose maybe it is. I didn't set out to do it, but I think it's a natural thing to put things in order at this point of the year, to think of what was and what could have been, and to take the next step and start planning for the next year. This is just one way I'll make it better.

On Thursday, we're heading for Targhee. Friends of ours have a family cabin that we've been granted permission to use, and we're spending New Year's there. Not sure who-all yet, but it's coming soon. We're very excited. It's nice to be excited about New Year's. Staying at the cabin, taking the dogs for romps in the snow, skiing Grand Targhee, celebrating New Year's with a mess of other friends who will be out there, all of it. Can't wait. I've never skied powder before. This seems like the perfect time and place.

Top 10 of 2005

Since everyone else on the planet is doing it, why not me? In the time-honored tradition of end-of-year wrapups, here it is, my very own Top Ten Albums of 2005.

I preface this list by saying that, for me, this year has been remarkable for the depth of new music. So many great records have come out, so many exciting new bands have popped up, that it was extremely difficult to choose just ten. (So, of course, there will be a long also-ran list here.)

Perhaps this has been simply an effect of my re-awakening.

As I've written about here before, the first part of this year saw me wake up and walk out of my deep, dark, musical hole. I was and am still amazed at what I've found. I was so totally engaged in music for so long, so focused on finding it and writing about it and thinking about it and acquiring it and sharing it, that when I got married and left Austin, I just stopped paying attention. It was nice for a while. And during that time I sort of forgot what it was like to care so much about it.

Now I remember. And what a fantastic year it's been.

So, without further ado, here they are.

CHess' Top Ten Albums of 2005

1. Broken Social Scene ~ s/t
2. WHY? ~ Elephant Eyelash
3. Four Tet ~ Happiness
4. Clap Your Hands Say Yeah ~ s/t
5. 13 & God ~ s/t
6. Wolf Parade ~ Apologies to the Queen Mary
7. Animal Collective ~ Feels
8. The National ~ Alligator
9. The Decemberists ~ Picaresque
10. Brazilian Girls ~ s/t

Honorable mentions in no particular order which, in a lesser year, would have made this list easily: Okkervil River (Black Sheep Boy), The Books (Lost and Safe), Stephen Malkmus (Face the Truth), Spoon (Gimme Fiction), Art Brut (Bang Bang Rock and Roll), Wilderness (s/t), Sleater Kinney (The Woods), Boards of Canada (The Campfire Headphase), Bloc Party (Silent Alarm), Franz Ferdinand (You Could Have It So Much Better), New Pornographers (Twin Cinema), Beck (Guero), MIA (Arular), Caribou (Milk of Human Kindness), Iron and Wine & Calexico (He Lays in Reins), Death Cab for Cutie (Plans), American Analog Set (Set Free), LCD Soundsystem (s/t), Jeff Parker (Relatives)

So, there you have it. I'd love to see your lists, to hear criticism, or to share music with any of y'all who are interested.

WHY?

WHY?

Elephant Eyelash

(Anticon Records)

OK, so I've been sitting with this one for a while, soaking it up, marinating in it, and while I'm not so sure that it's "the Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain of our modern indie times" (Filter Mini, 10/05), it's a pretty damn good slab of music. Labels are lazy, but this band just invites you to try. Folk-rap? Avant-hop? Indie artrock hip-hop experimental freak folk... all of it comes into play during a listen to this record from front to back.

Yoni Wolf, who was Why? as a solo project for a few years and now heads up WHY? as a band, comes up with verse after verse of totally accessible everyman-as-freak lyrics, rolling them out in a near-deadpan singspeak that, after the necessary acclimatization, is just really cool. It's like my internal dork has found voice and form at long last.

The sound of light rain and burning leaves is the same... I'm fucking cold like a DQ blizzard, you act like a slut but you're really a freezer... Inhaling crushed bones through a dried up white out pen and writing the backwards racer in hot June rain in a matching blue and gold plastic bag poncho raincoat... In London where the sirens yelp like a helpless dog with his paw stepped on...

He goes from smart and sharp rap lyrics to weirdo free-association all a microsecond behind the beat, shifting the layers off time just a bit, making the music more dense and busy and turning the beat into a jarring shuffle that's tough to nail but wonderful to listen to.

The appeal of this record is, so far, for me, tough to put into words. If you don't think this is your kind of thing, just listen. Suspend judgement for the first few trips through, then listen to it again.

Chris Loves Macha: Macha Knows Chris Not

Alright, so I'm a little slow on this one, but in all honesty I didn't know this band was still making music.

Back in the day, when Macha and Bedhead sort of teamed up for the little indie lovefest Macha Loved Bedhead: Bedhead Loved Macha, I thought for sure that this would end up being my next favorite band. They brought the chill, but they threw down some cool crazy drums and Asiany percussion, putting a crashy ambient vibe onto the narcotic haze of Bedhead's style. F'ing brilliant.

Then they went away. Or at least that's the way it seemed.

And now (or, more accurately, last year) they're back with Forget Tomorrow, a gorgeous record full of exactly the stuff that made me love them: at turns ambient and lush, at others raw and spare, at all times totally unique and affecting. They have a gift for melodies that don't smack of melody--of tunes that are both immediately catchy and yet subversive enough to not fully reveal themselves until you've spent some time with them.

Thanks to Harlan for laying this on me. I heart Macha.

Freaky Friday

Hot times in Les Big Bois. Tonight, the queens of the country dirge, Freakwater, hit the Neurolux for some much needed good, dark, country music. This is good. Nothing can better reawaken a passion for a certain type or genre of music than catching a great show. It's been a while since I've felt like I give a rat's ass about country or country-related music, possibly a backlash to my ODing on it in Austin as well as a normal response to the lack of good music of this type up here in Whitaho. It'll be good to want to seek it out again.

Then again, I've seen Freakwater play a couple times, and although I love their records, and I wouldn't say either of the shows was 'bad,' I would say they did not blow me away. For whatever reason, I came away both times thinking that I expected it to be better. But, I go tonight with a clear head (well...) and an open mind (ahem), and in not expecting the world, I may come away with a renewed love for this music. At the very least, I'll get to hear the gorgeously rusty pipes of Catherine Irwin and the beautifully clear and high crooning of Janet Bean. (And I'll get to stare at the lovely Ms. Bean for at least an hour or so, which ain't so bad on its own.)

But anyway.

Their new album, Thinking of You (listen here), was made with the help of the fine fellows of Califone, and I'm anxious to hear how they'll pull that off live.