Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Monday, March 31

Brian Vander Ark is playing on campus tonight. i have a ticket. i don't know if i'm going to be able to go because of some school commitments i have...which kills me, absolutely kills me. hopefully i'll be out soon enough to go see him, because his solo stuff is really good--and i've never seen him play solo before. this is my favourite solo song of his, "I Didn't Want To Be A Bother." i love songs that are bitingly sarcastic toward people who try to shove their religion on others, and this is a great song in that tradition.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Sunday, March 30

missed yesterday...so you get two today. i'm overworked and stressing out, so i've got two songs about that.

"Work Song" by Caroline's Spine: [excuse the weird anime sounds at the beginning. it's the only complete recording of the song on youtube...so if you stick it out through the first five seconds, the song will start.]



"Take This Job and Shove It", as covered by the Dead Kennedys:

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Friday, March 28

"Cat Me If You Can" by Agile Like This is weird. if you like lolcats, you'll love it, because it's basically a lolcat set to music. if you don't like lolcats, you probably won't like this song much.

laughing at cute cats during weird things has helped keep me from going crazy on many occasions. as such, this song holds a special place in my heart.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Thursday, March 27

Inept's old music, circa 2002-2005, is amazing. i've seen them more times than i've seen any other band--sixteen times, at all kinds of small to medium venues around chicago. this is one of my favourite Inept songs, "Beyond The Tears."

i'm looking forward to seeing them again when i live back in town. i can't say i'm a fan of their more recent songs, but i'd love to see if they play anything from their first three EPs anymore.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Wednesday, March 26

i tried, i really tried, to get away from the whiny stuff. but, it's not that kind of week.

"Face Down" by Red Jumpsuit Apparatus has a driving beat to it, but the lyrics are sad. it's about a friend who is really, really pissed off at someone who is treating his friend badly in a relationship. it's so weird that such an upbeat song has lyrics that are such a downer...but i like that juxtaposition.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Tuesday, March 25

no more emo today, i promise.

instead, i bring you nerdity, in the form of "Mandelbrot Set" by Jonathan Coulton. it's a catchy little ditty about the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot, and his famous set:



for one thing, you'll never forget the formula for the Mandelbrot Set again, thanks to the chorus of this song. i don't know about you, but having that piece of knowledge indelibly marked in my brain makes me feel a little smarter, and helps me sleep a little better at night.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Monday, March 24

during my senior year of high school, i listened to "Loser" by Three Doors Down every morning when i was getting ready for the day. it's a perfect encapsulation of how i felt about life that year...high school was a vast, friendless wasteland, and everyone was watching, holding the rope while i took the fall. i hadn't realised yet that college would be the closest thing to a magic panacea that i'd ever had. i hadn't realised yet that i'd eventually have a fulfilling social life. this song conveyed hopelessness, and every morning i luxuriated in it, knowing that at least Three Doors Down knew where i was coming from, even if no one else did.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Sunday, March 23

i'm on vacation, so my computer access has been a bit spotty. so, i missed yesterday...and you get two songs today! lucky you! well, lucky you if you feel like slitting your wrists. i'm in a Really Whiny Emo mood right now, so you're all going to be subjected to two of the whiniest, angstiest songs i know.

"You're So Last Summer" by Taking Back Sunday: featuring the most overblown teenage-emo lyric i've ever heard: "you could slit my throat/and with my one last gasping breath/i'd apologize for bleeding on your shirt." i hate myself for liking this song, but there you go.



"Red is the New Black" by Funeral for a Friend: this is yet another song i discovered on my friend wazee. this has another really, really depressing lyric that i love: "there isn't anything wrong with giving up/and for what it's worth/i still hate you." this song is nothing but blunt about being really frustrated with someone else. he yells, he whines, he's mad, and it's a great song.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Friday, March 21

Ditchwater was awesome. i saw them around Chicago all the time back in 2003, 2004...around the days of their most excellent Sees Me Through EP. "It's Over" has always been one of my favourite songs of theirs. excuse the video editing that is cheesy at best and dizzying at worst...there's a reason why Ditchwater is a band and not a video production conglomerate. but, the song is a good, straightforward rocker.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Thursday, March 20

i heard "Deeper" by Keith Varon for the first time yesterday, as the outro song on episode 10 of the sadly-now-defunct Bucket podcast. i love his voice. this song is definitely along the vein of sappy, acoustic, senstive-guy music...something i generally can't stand. but, his voice is like a big hug, and i can't help but melt right into it.



[forgive the mediocre sound quality. you can stream a better version of the song here, on the podsafe music network.]

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Wednesday, March 19

i love Emmet Swimming. they're a nineties alt-rock band out of the Washington, DC area, and it always confused me that they never made it bigger than they did. their album Big Night Without You was one of my favourites in high school, and i still listen to it frequently ten years hence. "Fist Like A Glove" by Emmet Swimming is one of my favourite tracks on the album. it's a gorgeous song...although really sad; the lyrics are a thoughtful treatment of domestic violence. that's something Emmet Swimming is really good at, taking modern issues and turning them into heart-wrenching musical pictures.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Tuesday, March 18

it's guilty pleasure time! i can't really explain why i like "Youth of the Nation" by P.O.D. so much...but i do. it's catchy. that's about all it has to redeem such a trite little piece of late-nineties nostalgia, but sometimes catchy is enough.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Sunday, March 16

"A Gentleman Caller" by Cursive is whiny, screamy, and sloppy. it's music for a specific mood...a very frustrated mood. although, unlike most music that evokes such a specific mood to me, i'm almost always glad to listen to this song--even when i'm not frustrated or angry with anyone or anything.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Saturday, March 15

"Life is Beautiful" by Vega 4 is far mellower than most of what i like to listen to, but for some reason this song grabbed me. they played it all the time back in 2004, 2005 on radio wazee, that wonderful radio station i keep mentioning because it has exposed me to so many great bands and great songs. this song is spacious...atmospheric...and sweet without being sappy.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Friday, March 14

"In The Dark" by Tiësto is absolutely adorable. my friend and i would blast this song all the time when we were driving around last semester. it's like a horror movie love song...the lyrics are really sweet, and the music is kind of dark.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Thursday, March 13

"Guestbook" by Ratbag Hero is a good little metasong. Ratbag Hero was a fantastic, silly Chicago punk band who sang a lot about beer drinking, partying, and girls. this song is about someone posting in their internet guestbook telling them that they can't write another love song, or another song about beer. of course, actually following such advice would be bad, because that's really all Ratbag Hero wrote about...so they wrote a song about how confused they were that those two topics were verboten. it's clever, it's hilarious, and it's Ratbag Hero.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Wednesday, March 12

"Thousand Mile Wish" by Finger Eleven is the mellow song of theirs that i wish got famous. everyone knows "One Thing", although i'm not crazy about that song. still, sometimes they do mellow really, really well...and this song is gorgeous.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Tuesday, March 11

i love "Letter From An Occupant" by The New Pornographers. Neko Case's voice sounds really cool in the song, and it reminds me of late-night drunken walks home from Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap, back in college. good times...this song always makes me feel like my days are far more carefree than they actually are.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Monday, March 10

have you ever listened to a recording of someone causing mischief with a pay phone and thought to yourself, "this is great, but i really wish i could dance to it?" wonder that no more. today's song, "Payphone Under a Streetlamp" by DJ Boo, is exactly that, awesomely danceable pay phone mischief.

i know it may sound weird to most of you, and nerdy to all of you, but that's why the song is so much fun.

Quite Suppressed Yet Quite Revealing: Sunday, March 9

someone decided to make a really, really funny video of "Birdman Kicked My Ass" by Wesley Willis. a dude dressed up in a half-assed bird costume and everything. it's fantastic.