Saturday, February 23, 2008

I got stuck in an empty well & all I have to show for it is this stupid list

Help! I was chasing a magical pixie through the fields (trying to collect her precious pixie-dust) & she tricked me with a hallucinatory mirage of sorts, causing me to tumble down into this dank, empty well. What's that? You think I'm mad? You won't help me? Curses! Well, could you at least lower down an old-school ghetto-blaster & my 5 favorite cassette tapes? Oh, thank you kind sir. To assist you, I created a brief list of my choices in reverse chronological order according to their recording date:

At Dawn, My Morning Jacket (2001): The natural reverb of this cavernous well will compliment Jim James' reverb-soaked vocals quite nicely. Additionally, the cricket chripping between "Hopefully" & "Bermuda Highway" will add a natural ambiance to my lonely well-dwelling existence. Furthermore, "Lowdown" offers a certain allegorical angle to this whole well scenario.

Kid A, Radiohead (2000): Someone told me these guys were supposed to be good or something. They seem rather British to me, but I really enjoy the wicked beats on "Idioteque," as well as all the electronic noise scattered about the album. & it has a song called "Treefingers," just like that damn pixie who lured me down here.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel (1998): There is much in the way of magic on this cassette tape: the King of Carrot Flowers, Anna's ghost, a two-headed boy, comet flames, the inside's of a stranger's stomach, a pulley & weight driven radio, & a synthetic flying machine. Plus, the songs contain lots & lots of curious instrumentation. Its kind of like the music you'd make in bottom of a well, if you knew how to make music in the bottom of a well.

I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
, Yo La Tengo (1997): Ira Kaplan's off-key guitar solos during "Sugarcube" & "Deeper into Movies" are reason enough to be on this list; but songs like "Return to Hot Chicken," "Damage," & "Autumn Sweater" are swell tunes to listen to when trying to relax in the otherwise traumatic situation of being stuck in a well. & since it's too cramped to dance down here, I can still bob my head to "Stockholm Syndrome."

Bitches Brew, Miles Davis (1970): Once Miles Davis stopped trying to be a traditional jazz musician & started to get weird, he became pretty, pretty, pretty cool. There are plenty of Miles cassettes I could have chosen, but since BB is a double-tape collection, I figured I'd get twice the music for the price of one. Additionally, its a fantastic fusion of rock & jazz that will really make a well-victim like myself ask: "What the hell am I doing down here? & how can I get out?"

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