counting down Cold Roses

A mere 3 DAYS stand between the point in time in which we currently exist, and the point in time in which Ryan Adams' Cold Roses is released to the general public.

To mark the ocasion, here is a special version of Anybody Want To Take Me Home, a song which appears on Ryan Adams' two most recent releases: Rock 'N' Roll and Love is Hell. The Rock 'N' Roll version has an extended outro, while the Love is Hell version has an extended outro. This version has both. I guess that just makes it extended. I think that's a good thing:

Ryan Adams - Anybody Want To Take Me Home (Completely Extended Edition) [YouSendIt link]

Also, here is a Cold Roses album stream that is a little better, care of Scenestars. (Quality is better, and you don't have to click on individual songs to listen.)

counting down Cold Roses

In honor of there being only 4 DAYS until the release of the latest from Ryan Adams, Cold Roses...



The album can now be streamed, in its entirety, at ryan-adams.com. Go give it a listen.

This sucks a little wind out of my hype machine, but blows said wind right back into the ears of the music anticipating public. Cold Roses is the music floating along on this wind, and I'd have to say it kind of feels like spring.

I haven't listened to much of it yet, but feel free to post your thoughts in lieu of my own.

counting down Cold Roses

In honor of the release - in 5 DAYS - of Cold Roses, here is a special edition of Ryan Adams & C.S. Lewis:

"I ain't afraid of hurt / I've had so much it feels just like normal to me now"
-Ryan Adams, Now That You're Gone

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
-C.S. Lewis

counting down Cold Roses

The newest release from Ryan Adams, Cold Roses, comes out in 6 DAYS (t-minus):



Consider this countdown week on the Westification, with hype and things to read and things to listen to, to get you ready for Cold Roses. (Or to make you hate me and my Ryan Adams loving ways, forever cementing a rift in our friendship, actual or potential.)

Today, Amazon.com's About the Artist feature, which I'm almost certain was written by Ryan Adams himself:

Ryan Adams has played in some bands and has made some new albums. He enjoys writing lots of music, and from time to time takes it to the jam. He is currently focused on doing things quietly, without much fuss, in his professional life. He hopes for a calm, cool, meaningful ride in his thirties. Ryan loves his dog and his guitar. He digs comics, coffee and cigs. His favorite foods are, whatever the soup of the day is (as long as it’s maybe like a vegetable soup, or some sort of clam chowder), and ham and cheese sandwiches. When he falls asleep next to his dog, he thinks to himself that heaven is probably holding hands with your gal by a beautiful lake and laying in the grass with your dog; dreaming of the sky, clouds and the smell of grass and rain.

Ryan likes to think about the solar system, the dynamics of rotation, its effects on binary star systems and if it has linear or emotional effects. He likes to read Ram Dass and loves Ram Dass' voice. He was very moved by Journey of Awakening. Most of the time Ryan isn’t thinking at all about music, or the ramifications of playing music, or what that means to others. Instead, he thinks about little things like "I wonder if she would like this?" or "Maybe this is tacky, not that tacky is bad, but it just might not go with her other stuff" or "Why did I used to like the Twilight Zone so much? It gives me tremors. I mean, almost panic attacks. Why can’t they just write an episode where everything works out? Where its all okay and people can just sort of be here for a second, breathe and feel some sort of relationship to themselves." You know, normal stuff.

For the most part, Ryan Adams hopes that he can just play some songs and whatever. If that’s not okay with someone, that’s totally fine, He won’t come into their homes and like, jam on top of their TV sets, or in their face wearing nothing but a cowboy belt with gun holsters and women’s underwear while screaming "Listen to me...look, look what I did… LISTEN TO ME OR PERISH!!!" Then, turn into a gigantic metallic spider and wrap whoever up in electric coils and devour them, only after injecting them with poisons so their insides go to mush.

Well, he’s totally not into that at all, and really sort of keeps mostly to himself these days. He knows that everybody thinks that he is some kind of lunatic, and maybe that’s so, but as long as it’s not in someone else’s yard, and yeah that happens to everybody once or twice, but really.

Ryan likes Dokken a lot, unapologetically, not that anyone would have to apologize for that. He is currently looking for the deeper meaning in things, trying to belong to the light and not give into meaningless ego drivel. He really hopes for the best.

The Cardinals are his new band. Cold Roses is his new jam. Laters.

Wilco, TX

I had the chance to see Wilco play in Houston on Saturday night. It was grand.



The setlist (in case you want to make your very own Wilco, TX playlist):

At Least That's What You Said
Muzzle Of Bees
I Am Trying To Break Your Heart
Handshake Drugs
Hummingbird
A Shot In The Arm
Jesus, Etc.
Kamera
War on War
Via Chicago
I'm Always In Love
Theologians
I'm The Man Who Loves You
Poor Places
Reservations
Spiders (Kidsmoke)

Encore #1:
Candy Floss
The Late Greats
Kingpin
I'm A Wheel

Encore #2:
Misunderstood
Passenger Side
California Stars

A good mix of new and old: 8 songs from A Ghost is Born, 7 from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, 4 from Summer Teeth, 2 from Being There, 1 each from A.M. and Mermaid Avenue. That seemed about right.

Here's a snippet of Poor Places that someone taped at the show (right-click, save as). I'll post more if I can track more down.

Jeff Tweedy was a bit testy at times, which he blamed on having just quit smoking. This led him to saying amusing things between songs without affecting the music (which was really, really good). At one point the pro music downloading Tweedy commented, "I think we're going to start releasing our music only on vinyl. How about that? (cheers.) And maybe LaserDisc too. Do you guys have those? (more cheers.) What if we just released our stuff as sheet music? You guys wouldn't copy it would you?"

If only I could read sheet music...

[Picture courtesy of houstonmusicreview.com]

Golly Sandra

I wish I would have taken this.

Whiskeytown, revived.

Whiskeytown is back, kind of. The band that helped launch Ryan Adams solo career (as in when they broke up, he set out on his own) put out some great albums in their own right. Pneumonia is a must own. If you own more the 10 albums and do not own Pneumonia, I cast a look of disrespect in your general direction.



Regardless of your Whiskeytown fan status, you should check out the song The Battle by Caitlin Cary, the former violinist/background vocalist of Whiskeytown. It features Ryan Adams, and so is vintage Whiskeytown at its finest. You can buy it on iTunes. It only costs 99 cents, which is essentially free (if you round down).

Best line: You mine for silver / I pan for gold. For eight words, that sure says a lot.

Alex Dupree played a house show at Will's tonight. It was amazing. I wish I could post some of his music, but I can't, on account of my inability to find any. The show might very well become the stuff of legend. I would have loved the music without the words, I would have loved the words without the music; combined I just sat there dreading the end. The banjo and mandolin didn't hurt either. I'll let you all know the next time he has a show (house or otherwise).

Anyone that went care to write any legend-esque tales about the night?

child's play

Find and list all of the differences you find between these two photos:





(that's an Antoni Gaudi creation, in case you were wondering)

all things new

My good friend and compatriot Doug Brown has thrown his proverbial hat into the proverbial ring known as the blogosphere (a term, which by the way, I'm quickly learning to hate).

Anyway his blog is/promises to be great times, so you should check it out here.

If nothing else maybe this picture of cake, and any loosely resulting association with Doug Brown or his blog will entice you:

from midland, with love.

I'm in Midland for a few days, learning to be more socratic. Ah the joys and the constant thinking-induced-headaches of being a college ministry intern.



If you haven't been on the Musings site lately, you need to head on over. Honesty is all the buzz, even brutal in nature.

Read (here and here). Reflect. Comment.

waxing poetic

Yeats... not just for lovers...

"Never shall a young man,
Thrown into despair
By those great honey-coloured
Ramparts at your ear,
Love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."

"But I can get a hair-dye
And set such colour there,
Brown, or black, or carrot,
That young men in despair
May love me for myself alone
And not my yellow hair."

"I heard an old religious man
But yesternight declare
That he had found a text to prove
That only God, my dear,
Could love you for yourself alone
And not your yellow hair."

-W.B. Yeats, For Anne Gregory

literally thousands of words!

Having followed the prescribed advice of a certain Chris Seaberg, I've found myself more than fascinated with what happens when you type random words into the search query box at images.google.com (Moderate SafeSearch on):

tiger:

(sixth result)

sharpie:

(third result)

oklahoma:

(11th result)

case in point:

(first result)

halelujah:

(third result)

Did you mean hallelujah:

(11th result)

Point. Set. Match.

Can't we all just get along? Agree to disagree?

Personally, I hate the term "agree to disagree." You either agree or you disagree. There's no need to agree to disagree, people just say that b/c they feel uncomfortable with lingering discord. I think you can still be friends with someone and not agree with them on everything... especially if the point of contention is sports, which by their nature involve disagreement.

Tracy originally claimed a victory, and now is claiming a truce in our most recent point/counterpoint. Truth be told, while the blog comment voting is a veritable dead heat, I conducted a straw poll which has me winning this little discussion. (Trina sees both sides; Katie, Colin, Felicia vote in my favor.)

Straw polls aren't necessarily official, so I'll hold off declaring victory. Tracy's initial point and subsequent thoughts, however, have me wondering if she's really a sports fan or if she just enjoys spending summer days out in the warm sunlight watching guys in cute outfits run around. Tracy, you can choose to not care about how any team besides the Astros are doing, but the Astros' success is only relative to how everyone else in their division is doing.

I suppose that the disagreement continues, even though I'm officially done discussing it. I'm okay with that.

ryan adams & c.s. lewis

"My life's gotten simple since / But it fluctuates so much / Happy and sad and back again / I'm not crying out to much."
-Ryan Adams, Dear Chicago


"Perfect love, we know, casteth out fear. But so do several other things - ignorance, alcohol, passion, presumption, and stupidity. It is very desirable that we should all advance to that perfection of love in which we shall fear no longer; but it is very undesirable, until we have reached that stage, that we should allow any inferior agent to cast out fear."
-C.S. Lewis, The World's Last Night

Point/Counterpoint

In this edition of Point/Counterpoint, Tracy and I discuss whether I was a jerk or just being a good sports fan:

Spring is in the air. By spring I primarily mean pollen, as evidenced by all the sneezing. And while your nose may be stuffed up, hopefully your sense of hearing has survived. If you listen closely you'll hear the reassuring chords of an organ, someone pestering you to buy peanuts, and the crack of a bat on a ball. That's right baseball season is upon us; either that or you're just hearing things.



My perennial favorites, a certain Cardinals of St. Louis began the journey towards October tonight in Houston against a group of men who have coined themselves the Astros. Now, I'm pretty sure that the term Astro is closely associated with the term Astronaut, as though this Houston franchise is wanting people to know that it will soar to great heights and journey to undiscovered lands of baseball greatness. Thing is, the Astros have hardly gotten off the ground over the course of their storied history. In fact, up until last year these "Astros" hadn't won a single playoff series.

The Astros, with the help of some hired guns, found their way to the NLCS last fall, and found themselves staring a certain group of redbirds in the face. In what was great, thrilling baseball, the Cardinals knocked off the Astros, needing all 7 games (and some extra innings here and there) to claim victory.

At points in the series it looked as though the Cards had secured victory, only to have the Astros strike back. Other times, the Astros looked like they were unbeatable (a certain Roger Clemens on the mound comes to mind), only to have the Cardinals come through against all odds. Baseball is often an emotional roller coaster; filled with ups, downs, and quiet lulls that almost make you feel at ease right up until the bottom drops out from under you as you hold on for dear life.

Baseball, like all (real) sports, involves competition. Rivalries, sometimes heated, are a natural result of wanting to succeed. Of wanting to be the best. Some say that it's not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. This could not be further from the truth. It's definitely whether you win or lose. I guarantee you the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were not sitting at home this winter thinking, "well we may have come in last, but at least we went about it right."

As a person, I care about other people. I try to consider others interests as I consider my own, and even try to value others as more important than myself. I'm not always successful at this, but you can be assured that when I do things that are at the expense of others that I feel sorrow and remorse.

This is because life is not ultimately a competition. Sports, on the other hand, are. In light of this, I find that being a good fan requires both loving your team and hating your team's opponents. It's not that you have to hate these opponents as individuals, it's just that you have to want nothing more than for them to lose - every single time they play your team.

It's okay for your opponent's fans to feel the same way about your team, in fact it's to be expected.

It was with a 7-3 Cards victory in hand and this in mind that I phoned Tracy earlier this evening, leaving her this message:

"Hey Tracy. Man, I hope that tonight isn't...well actually I hope that tonight is a sign of things to come, in that the Cardinals beat the Astros pretty solidly. I'm sure you feel the opposite because you never want to start things off with a loss, Tracy. I guess you need to get stuff together. I hope that the Astros can beat some of the other teams in the division, except the Cardinals, and maybe make something of themselves. Ok, bye!"

One loyal fan to another. Me basking in victory, Tracy loathing in defeat. You could look at this phone call as mean spirited or jerk-like, or you can see it as it is: me supporting my team while supplying Tracy just a bit more hatred for the Cardinals, and as a result actually causing her to be a better fan.

Tracy may think that I'm being a jerk now, but I think she'll come to appreciate the stoking of the competitive fire as the season progresses. It's a long season- 161 games- and as Tracy finds herself in July with her team seemingly out of the hunt, I think she'll remember back to this fateful conversation and cheer the Astros on with a renewed vigor. I do it for the love of the game really. What about that makes me a jerk?

[Read Tracy's take here, and comment your vote. Is Brett a jerk, or just being a good fan?]

roses are cold, violets are not

Ryan Adams has a new album coming out on May 5 called Cold Roses (with his new band, the Cardinals, making my love of the Cardinals two-fold).



Here are some MP3's off of Cold Roses for you to right-click save as, ranked in order of my like of them:

Let it Ride [YouSendIt link]
Magnolia Mountain [care of scenestars]
Cold Roses [care of scenestars]

They are ripped off of his website and not of the highest quality, so it's not as much like stealing. Links will only work for 10 days, so get them now-ish.

Karen O-Yeah (Yeah Yeahs)

I can't get this song out of my head.

You might recognize it as the soundtrack for a commercial advertising this:



World's first intelligent shoe? If good taste in music is a sign of intelligence, then I get behind that statement. Also, if having this song in your head is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Link courtesy of ProductShopNYC]

would you rather...

A selection of the implausible (but nevertheless important) scenarios discussed on my flight from Seattle to Austin with Will and Loretta:

On a flight, would you rather have a guy that you don't know fall asleep on your shoulder for an unspecified length of time -OR- have the person next to you spill their complimentary soft drink, coffee, or juice all over you?

Would you rather write a critically acclaimed movie -OR- a blockbuster hit movie? (Would you rather be responsible for The Royal Tenenbaums or for You've Got Mail?)

Would you rather always smell bad to other people -OR- have every other person smell bad to you?

Would you rather be permanently stuck at a third-grade reading level -OR- be unable to read anything silently?

It's amazing what the answers to these (and other) questions reveal about a person. Which makes me wonder... what are your answers? Comment away and ask clarifying questions if necessary.

[My answer key: asleep on the shoulder, responsible for the critically acclaimed, have other people smell bad, read everything aloud]

[I was in Seattle checking out Mars Hill Graduate School.]

Cup of Joe Peet's/Zoka

The world of Peet's has disappeared from The Westification for a few weeks. This makes me sad. I guess it's kind of like when you get a new car. It smells new, it looks new, you show it off to all of your friends, you stay awake at night worrying that birds will poop on it. After a few weeks or months, though, "your new car" just becomes "your car." A part of your life, that you really only comment on in the event that something goes wrong with it. These comments primarily involve curses.



All that to say that Peet's, as much as I love it (which is many muches), is effectively a part of my life now. I know the people there, I know all the best parking spots in the vicinity, I help with the sayings they put on the chalkboard (I cast the deciding vote for "Peet's, Love, and Rock'n'Roll" over "Teas, Love, and Rock'n'Roll"). If I ever lost Peet's, I would probably curse and maybe even cry, but much like an old friend Peet's tends to be appreciated in a quiet sort of way. I spend time, I partake, but mostly without comment.

I have a fear that my Peet's related silence is damaging the brand in some way. Kind of like silence that is a bit deafening. Good news. This week saw some good Peet's experiences, and I hear you saying "Do tell." I shall.

A really great author/guy named Don Miller was at the University this week speaking on a variety of topics. One night my friend Seth, and his band The Sad Accordions, played some music before Don spoke.

I hadn't seen Seth in a long while, and it turns out that Seth had never heard of Peet's Coffee. After convincing myself that we could still be friends, I made a quick run to rectify the situation. I came back with two medium cups of French Roast. [" Our darkest roast. An intense, ebony coffee with pronounced smoky overtones."] Over these two modest cups, we caught back up on life, love, and good music we were listening to. (Or if you will, Peet's Love and Rock'n'Roll.)

Seth kept making weird faces while partaking of his brew, and this hurt me a little inside. It turns out that when Seth claimed he liked coffee that he actually meant to say, "I like milk and sugar with a pinch of coffee." He recognized the quality of the mostly black Peet's though, remarking that this was a good experience for him, and that it would probably put hair on his chest. I commented that, since he already had a hairy chest, it would probably knock the hair off his chest.

These are the things that quality friendships are made of.

Later in the week, as I was waiting for Don to speak with cup of Peet's in hand, I noticed that my friend Drew did not have any Peet's in his hand. We went to rectify the situation (I'm all about rectifying things), and in my love I brought a few other lacking people along (Jessica, Sarah, Tina, Sarah).

While I was there, I had some orders phoned in: 1. A small, decaf, white mocha. 2. A small coffee with a shot of vanilla and whipped cream on the top. I suddenly found myself with a dilemma: I wanted to help my friends out, but in ordering such things I risked shattering all of the black coffee drinking credibility that I'd built up in the previous weeks and months.

That's when Jessica came to the rescue. She volunteered to help me order. She took responsibility for the small, decaf, white mocha; while I took responsibility for the small coffee with a shot of vanilla... and then audibled to her for the with whipped cream addition. Crisis averted. In addition to the help, I found out Jessica drinks her Peet's coffee black.

These are the things that turn new acquaintances into good friends.

Currently, I find myself in Seattle, at this place called Zoka... which this Seattleite, Tim, claims is the best coffee in the world. And while I love Zoka, I could never be in love with Zoka. My reminiscing I think reveals where my true heart lies.