Alien Bob Dole and Bill Clinton don't know what it means to spinane towards freedom.

We’ve all been busy of late, I’m sure, and that means a lack of posts.  These day are the college student’s most difficult: the final days of fall term.  Especially in colder climates, the challenges are numerous.  Living is hard when the temperature makes only brief spikes above the freezing point, and the labors of work become all the more laborious.  It’s a good thing I’m not a college student, and I’ve spent the past week or so in much warmer, slightly more sunny California, doing nothing but enjoying life.

Now that I’m back in the northeast though, and there’s nothing like the cold and my high school home make me think of the past.  Like the album “Arches and Aisles” by (the) Spinanes.  I found it one day when I was in my local library, not having ever looked around in their CD collection before.  Organization was an afterthought to their configuration of albums, so naturally, I proceeded to judge the albums not by the artist, but by the album art–hues of green and vague designs of flowers.  I guess I was in that kind of mood that day.  That’s how I started my relationship with “Arches and Aisles,” and it’s one of the (increasingly few) lasting relationships I have from high school.

If it weren’t for the sound of the album, though, I probably wouldn’t be talking about it now.  The opening track, “Kid in Candy,” is a pretty catchy number with pretty tricked out percussion for the mid to late nineties.  The lead singer, Rebecca Gates, fits the kinda breezy-voiced female vocalist that I took to those days, and I continue to find myself drawn to.  Her voice seems to have a smooth reverb attached to it, but it’s probably the way her voice naturally sounds (which could be disconcerting when talking to her in person).  The instrumentals are sparse in mid-nineties tradition, but the instruments seem well thought, and are carefully placed to create maximum effect.  Overall, there’s a good amount of cool that comes from the album.

It does have a few duds in the middle of the album, and it does lose a considerable amount of energy towards the end.  But the song, “Heisman Stance” is a good song, and it’s the high point of the album in a fairly unique way.  It’s a song that eternally questions, and strips down the instrumentals to a series of calls and responses.  Really, it embodies all the concepts presented in the previous songs in the most essential way possible.  It doesn’t mean that it’s a song that I’d listen to again and again, as it’s slow and seems to resist the hookiness present in the early part of the album, but I definitely appreciate it.

Put all together, it’s an album that sounds like it knows what it wants to be, even in it’s seemingly indecisive pop/anti-pop attitudes.  It just seems like everything is there as it should be, whether bouncy or melancholy, hooky or meandering.  There will be moments like now in the future–the times when I am slightly uncomfortably cold, yearning for even a college final to grab onto, and I know I’ll search for this album and listen to it.  Overall, it’s not something that I’d consider musically great; it’s just too inconsistent.  I think ultimately, though, the greatness, and the reason why I come back to this album so frequently has nothing to do with music or consistency.  It has to do with attitude, and “Arches and Aisles,” though eternally cool, has it in abundance.

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Kid in Candy – Spinanes (YSI)

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Greetings from the Sugar Lick  - Spinanes (YSI)

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Love, The Lazee – Spinanes (YSI)

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Heisman Stance – Spinanes (YSI)

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Yeah, I thought of this, too. But not this.

For the past few months, I’ve approached few things with such a singular purpose as the cause I am about to present.  I bring it to you perhaps for this reason: though I’ve put so much effort into it, I’ve come up empty, and I’ve reached the end of the road as far as my options.

Some months ago, I was at a friend’s house watching TV.  It was a commercial break and I very rarely expect good things from commercial breaks.  I glanced down to my laptop, deciding to try to publish another one of my hastily-written and published pieces for The Animal Show, when I hear music.  Sweet cello sounds, undoubtedly copped from a Yo-Yo Ma recording of Bach’s Cello Suites (and indeed, upon looking it up, it seems to be from Yo-Yo Ma’s interpretation) came drifting from still-yelping television.  Both my friend and I look up to find none other than Hugh Laurie in his Emmy-nominated role as Dr. Gregory House.  He’s on the phone, delivering lines of snarky wittitude.  This much I expected, and there was something soothing about hearing sarcasm over Bach.  But after the line, the music stops–then suddenly, it turns into many cellos, many instruments, transforming the piece into something you’d have tea over to something you’d play as you siege Helm’s Deep.  In slow motion.  Epic.  See for yourself below.

I’ve probably overrated the piece, but it’s what obsession is wont to do.  It’s this piece that I’ve been trying to locate for the better part of three months since seeing that House preview.  I can’t find it, and judging by the fact that comments on that YouTube clip dried up about a month ago, I don’t think anyone else can either.  Anyone out there wanna help a brotha out?

In the mean time, I’m left with the plain old Bach Cello Suites.  Which is, by the way, not a bad thing at all.

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Bach: Cello Suite #1 In G Major, BWV 1007 – 1. Prelude – Pierre Fournier (YSI)

And music to take over Poland (or Helm’s Deep) to:

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Wagner: Ride of the Valkyries – Leonard Bernstein (YSI)

And music to encourage peace and prosperity in your new world:

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Dvorak: Symphony #9 In E Minor, Op. 95, B 178, “From The New World” – 2. Largo – Rafael Kubelik: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (YSI)

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This kid knows what it's like to "Ride Wit Me"

You guys, I never forgot about Nelly. Whenever I turn up a radiator, I hum “Hot In Hurr” to myself very very quietly. And then sometimes when I’m eating Cocoa Puffs, I try to figure out what the hell he was saying in “Country Grammar.” Or, really, what the hell “Country Grammar” is. I mean, my grasp of all things country is radically different from a Lunatic like Nelly. But we’re both heartland America folk, simpler, gentler people who love to talk about street cleaners. And Nelly is responsible for making me the street-smart socially-conscious man of the world I am today. Let’s go down down my memory lane in a Range Rover:

Once, on the way to someone’s birthday party in 6th grade (where, if memory serves, a hammock with 6 people in it fell on my leg and landed me in the ER), I stopped with a friend and his mom at the coolest record store around, Barnes & Noble, so that he could by a birthday present for our hostess. He really wanted to get her Country Grammar, but his mom insisted on making sure there weren’t too many bad words in it first. She scanned the CD in one of those sample-play stations (remember those? I memorized the words to the Hives’ “Hate to Say I Told You So” on one of those things. Good times.), and then recited each swear word as she heard it, for our edification: “Hot shit…hot shit…drug references…” Needless to say, we were both “hot shit” from there on out, even if he did have to end up getting a lame-ass gift card as her birthday present.

BUT HERE’S THE PART THAT’S ABOUT MUSIC AGAIN: like fine wine or the barbecue chicken pizza in my fridge, Nelly just continues to improve with age. “Country Grammar” and “Ride Wit Me” are truer and more beautiful as time goes on. There is no doubt in my mind that our generation will be remembered for the timeless melodies of these songs. That, and “Ignition (Remix).” So listen, remember, rhapsodize:

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Country Grammar – Nelly (YSI)

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Ride Wit Me – Nelly (YSI)

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1. OMG NEW SUFJAN, GUYS!
2. You guys, summer 2010 is going to be all of the best times of our young lives.
3. You guys, I think R. Kelly likes sex.