I was living in Boston (Somerville, actually, near Davis Square) when 9/11 happened. I had been there for one week at that point, having just moved there to start my Master’s program at Emerson College. Classes started on Monday, September 10, 2001. On the morning of September 11, there were no classes. There were no trains. There was no traffic.

There was television. There were phone calls. There was the fear of the inevitable.

After several hours I made my way out of the apartment I shared with two other roommates. I needed space from us and the upstairs neighbors huddled around the TV, waiting to breathe, wondering if Boston was next. We were, like everyone else, terrified, and I couldn’t look anymore.

Emerson re-opened the next day. Moving to Boston was culture shock enough that I didn’t walk into class that morning with the “everything is different now” attitude that most people seemed to possess. My world was already different now; this was something else. This was surreal. This was make-believe.

We didn’t talk about literature in my first class that morning; instead, I’m sure we discussed what every other class discussed.

In the days that followed, even the New York Times was flooded with what I can only call “bad poetry” in response to the attacks. As someone pursuing my MFA in creative writing, I was obviously interested in the literary and artistic aftermath of 9/11. And, frankly, it was awful. It was sentimental and sappy. It was filled with a sense of immediacy in an attempt to capture the visceral response of what had happened as opposed to incorporating any real perspective. It needed to breathe, so to speak. It wasn’t poetry so much as an emotional diatribe. I disliked it so much that I swore I’d never write any sort of 9/11 poem.

And then, in 2011, 10 years after the attacks, I changed my mind.

Hang in there, Boston.

The Towers, In Boston

We sit motionless, slack-jawed, scattered
about the living room, glued
to the reverberating hum
of the television screen as we watch
the Towers burn. Nobody moves.
Nobody can move. We watch
people emerge from the tidal wave
of smoke – some swallowed up
completely, some just beyond its grasp.
They run like Hollywood cutouts
from the Blob, from a swarm of ants,
from birds. We watch them run.
We watch their faces painted grey
in rubble and ash scream out loud
for no one, for anyone. We watch them
stumble and trample the bodies
of others. We watch some of them
stand still. We watch some of them
twisting in mid-air, appendages
circling wildly as though exercising
their amped musculature
on machines that don’t exist.
We watch this dying for hours.
We watch this dying for days
until we finally dare to move,
step outside the miasma
of our own gasps and fling ourselves
into the streets of downtown Boston,
tip-toeing through the Commons,
tilting our heads slowly forward
as we spy down Boylston,
down Newbury and Beacon,
moving like this amidst the church bells
until finally we are looking up
at the blue sky empty of everything
but birds beating their black wings
against it – looking at Hancock Place,
at the Federal Reserve Bank Building,
at Prudential Tower, and asking, When?

BD

With the exception of Chicago and Boston, I’ve hated every place I’ve ever lived while actually living in that place. I say with the exception of Chicago because, even then, I loved it, and even now it remains my favorite US city. In the case of Boston, I never felt comfortable there, and today I still feel zero sense of longing for that town. (My apologies, Bostonians, but I find it to be an awful, stick-up-its-ass, racist, impossible-to-find-your-way-around kind of city.) In the case of the rest of the cities I’ve called home — Santa Fe, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and, of course, Harrisburg, PA — there is a certain nostalgia that pretties them up for me, despite my never loving any of them when I lived inside their respective dorms, apartments, and houses.

Philadelphia was just “Filthydelphia,” a place that reeked of piss and was littered with trashy streets and even trashier people. Pittsburgh was cold and unwelcoming. It was grey and confusing. It was in a cloud of anesthesia not provided by the old steel mills. Harrisburg? Please. It’s where I came from. It was equal parts suburban bullshit and inner-city crime haven. In fact (and this still may be the case), it had more crime per capita than Philadelphia! It was uncultured and tiny and dull. The people had no stories. There was no sense of adventure — of where people had been, or even where they wanted to go. It was a weigh station for mediocrity.

And then, finally, there was Santa Fe. I moved there at 21, poised to finish my degree in creative writing at the now defunct College of Santa Fe. It was 1996, and at that point “going west” was everything to me. The idea of leaving Harrisburg and its cold winters and shitty bars and shittier people and shittiest culture behind for the warmth and comfort of New Mexico was something preposterous, yet happening. I made that happen. I completed all the paperwork. I applied. I was accepted. And without ever having visited or even been to the state of New Mexico, and without knowing a single person there, I went. I didn’t so much leave Harrisburg as I left a trail of fire and skid marks in my wake. I couldn’t wait to begin the life that I knew I’d always wanted. I couldn’t wait to be “home.”

Pfft. Home. Not even. Aside from meeting a guy that very first day in Santa Fe who, even now, 17 years later, I consider my honorary younger brother, it was a bust. Not the faculty, mind you. Hell, I’ve written glowingly and spoken lovingly of the wonderful poet Greg Glazner, whose work still moves me now. No, not that. It was just — well — Santa Fe that failed me. I just never fit there, or it never fit me. As a college student with little money, I couldn’t find my way among the visiting celebrities and artists who adorned the Plaza, nor among the working class New Mexicans who, frankly, seemed undeniably lazy and careless. Yes, I had friends and peers who I absolutely loved, but the town itself wasn’t what I thought it would be. Not at all. It was like something out of a movie — like some kind of island with a bubble surrounding it from the outside world. It was quirky, yes, but that somehow managed to make it unreal and, therefore, phony. It just wasn’t me. And after two years in Santa Fe, I was, once again, gone.

But that’s the thing with nostalgia. It creeps up on you when you least expect it and goddamn if it isn’t powerful. Just ask Don Draper. For me it was about six months ago, as I was re-reading Greg’s book From the Iron Chair. I’d not read it for some time, yet immediately there I was, back in Santa Fe, among the arroyos and the lightning storms and the mountains and the black night skies littered with stars wildly bright. And just then I realized, god, how much I’ve missed it. I realized, too, that 21-year-old me wasn’t ready for Santa Fe. That is, 21-year-old me couldn’t appreciate it properly, and was instead just another nomad wandering the American west. It’s good, then, that we grow older, because it allows us to see things not as they were, but as we were. You don’t need to go west to find that kind of space; you simply need to stand still.

Remembering Santa Fe

I re-read my professor’s book
lifted from the bookstore
my first semester in Santa Fe –
when I tucked it deep inside
my waistband and bolted
for the exit – and only now
do I discover what beauties
I didn’t even know I loved,
tracing my finger over the raised
bump of every letter as though
a palimpsest, as though
tracing a street map
of Santa Fe itself.

I am in
the Plaza now. I am on
St. Michael’s Boulevard,
on Canyon Road,
on Cerillos.

I am wandering
the Agua Fria schoolyard,
stilled by the arms of tall grass
that envelop me before driving
the hot miles out of town
to Albuquerque on I-25,
past mountains, past
Indian casinos that pop up
sparingly in the redbrown
glaze of desert.

I am walking
within the walls of the arroyos
sick for water, filled
with the promise of death
for whatever Loon
or Ring-necked Pheasant
may have thought to sidle up
and stick its long beak
into the chipped rock-face
teeming with dust.

I breathe
in deep the Piñon and listen
as bats chirp invisibly
through the towerless backdrop, wings
slicing through the void
of New Mexican sky,
waiting at any moment
for me to stop reading
and give back to the world
what I called my own, but wasn’t.

BD

If 2011 was the year of female vocalists and fuzzed-out power pop, 2012 was the year of Garage Pop. (Is that even a thing? Who knows.) The point is that there was a massive (and welcome) influx of raw, indie, power pop bands in 2012 who absolutely destroyed my iPod. In fact, in putting these mixes together, I was stunned by the fact that there’s a steady stream of tracks on Gas that could very well have been recorded by the same band. Now, I realize some might argue that similarities of this sort are a bad thing, in that there’s a lack of originality to distinguish one band from the next. But like I always say when it comes to music, good is good. All I care about is the bottom line. I have no problem with a band being derivative provided said band does its thing well. And in the case of 2012, plenty of bands did it well, so much so that I was able to craft a top 20 albums of the year (of sorts).

In addition to the Garage Pop and, once again, strong female vocalists who seemed to rule the 2012 landscape, I’d be remiss if I failed to point out the unbelievably prolific nature of one of my all-time favorite bands, Guided By Voices, who dropped three — three! — new records on our collective asses in 2012. The albums — Let’s Go Eat the Factory, Class Clown Spots a UFO, and The Bears For Lunch (released in that order) — seemed to blend together at times, but I found that somehow comforting. Featuring GBV’s “classic” line-up, all three records managed to capture their early Matador sound so often recognized on, say, Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. By no means am I saying these new contributions are akin to those classics; rather, there’s a sensibility in these new releases that’s akin to those early releases that put GBV on the indie map. Do I have a favorite among the 2012 triumvirate  Of course. Do I like all three records? Damn straight.

So, without further adieu, here’s a look back at the music that meant something to me in 2012…

The Album Cover of the Year:

Sleigh Bells – Reign of Terror

The Best Vocal Moments/Lyrics of the Year:

Swearin’ – “1” (At the 0:21 mark of the opening track of their self-titled album, I knew Swearin’ had me. There’s 20 seconds of spastic fade in before 23-year-old Allison Crutchfield unleashes the record’s initial lyrics, “Blood on the road / I’m asleep in the back seat.” You can check this track out below.)

Daughn Gibson – “The Day You Were Born” (At 1:27 in, Daughn Gibson sings in his weird, truck driver, country-tinged voice, “Anger, I’ll tear you asunder.” That line stuck with me all year. Both witty and amazing.)

The Song I Heard Once and New Immediately It Would Be On My Year-End List:

The Men – “Open Your Heart” (heard below)

The Most Overrated Record of the Year Based On the Critics’ Picks:

Cat Power – Sun

The Four Best Videos of the Year:

Chairlift – “Met Before“
El-P – “The Full Retard“
Explosions in the Sky – “Postcard From 1952” (Note: the song is from 2011; the video is from 2012)
Aimee Mann – “Labrador“

The Top Ten Honorable Mentions of 2012 (in Alphabetical Order):

Angel Olsen – Half Way Home
Dusted – Total Dust
Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Allelujah! Don’t Bend! Ascend!
Guided By Voices – The Bears for Lunch
Guided By Vices – Let’s Go Eat the Factory
Hospitality – Hospitality
Howler – America Give Up
Japandroids – Celebration Rock
La Sera – Sees the Light
Spiritualized – Sweet Heart Sweet Light

The Top Ten Records of 2012:

10. AU – Both Lights

9. PAWS – Cokefloat!

8. Guided By Voices – Class Clown Spots a UFO

7. Dan Deacon – America

6. Wintersleep – Hello Hum

5. Islands – A Sleep & A Forgetting

4. Cloud Nothings – Attack on Memory

3. The Men – Open Your Heart

2. Royal Headache – Royal Headache

1. Swearin’ – Swearin’

Was the self-titled record by Swearin’ really the best record of 2012? I don’t know. I don’t care, really. All I know is that no other album made me prick up my ears more quickly. Upon my initial listen, I was hooked. The Brooklyn/Philly band had me and never let go. There’s something so completely Doug Martsch-esque of Kyle Gilbride’s vocals, as the record reeks of equal parts Built to Spill and Superchunk. I can’t recommend it enough.

As always, I made two CDs worth of music this year, which meant omitting a lot of deserving candidates. As I do every year, I began putting 2012 music aside in January of 2012. I have no idea how many albums I listened to this year, but I sifted through nearly 7 hours of “Best of” contenders before narrowing it down to the 46/47 finalists on Gas and Brake. Now, why do I write “46/47″? Simple: I cheated. That is, I combined two songs into one for one of the tracks on Gas, because I simply couldn’t conceive of one being there without the other. As far as I’m concerned, “1″ and “Here to Hear” by Swearin’ combine to form one fluid track. To omit either one felt like cutting the song in half, and I simply refused to do that.

As for the tracks below, I linked to both the album versions of the songs and some live/alternate versions of the songs that actually appears on the mix, either because I couldn’t find the studio version or simply really enjoyed the live performance. This, as you’ll see, is the case for songs like Dan Deacon’s “USA: I. Is a Monster,” in which I included a gripping live performance of the track. Additionally, I should point out that the link to Dan Deacon’s “USA: III. Rail” on Brake links to the entire USA suite, which makes up the second half of his album. While I only included “Rail” on the mix, I thought it would be nice to link to the entire four-part suite so you can listen to it in its entirety. Again, I apologies to all of those great, great songs I had to omit for the sake of space. It’s a cruel world we live in. Where are those 150-minute blank CDs already?!

With that, I give you the 46/47 songs that comprise my 2012 mixes…

Gas front cover.

Gas interior artwork.

Brake front cover.

Brake interior artwork.

Gas (The Best “Fast” Tracks of 2012):

1. AU – “Epic” (Both Lights)
2. King Tuff – “Anthem” (King Tuff)
3. The Men – “Open Your Heart” (Open Your Heart)
4. Mind Spiders – “You Are Dead” (Meltdown)
5. Howler – “This One’s Different” (America Give Up)
6. Japandroids – “Younger Us” (Celebration Rock)
7. Swearin’ – “1” / “Here to Hear” (Swearin’)
8. Royal Headache – “Never Again” (Royal Headache)
9. PAWS – “Bloodline” (Cokefloat!)
10. Titus Andronicus – “Ecce Homo” (Local Business)
11. Cloud Nothings – “Stay Useless” (Attack On Memory)
12. Eternal Summers – “Wonder” (Correct Behavior)
13. The Babies – “Moonlight Mile” (Our House on the Hill)
14. La Sera – “Please Be My Third Eye” (Sees the Light)
15. Hospitality – “Friends of Friends” (Hospitality)
16. The Spinto Band – “Keep Them Alive” (Shy Pursuit)
17. Fang Island – “Asunder” (Major)
18. Whirr – “Home Is Where My Head Is” (Pipe Dreams)
19. Islands – “Never Go Solo” (A Sleep & A Forgetting)
20. Guided By Voices – “Class Clown Spots a UFO” (Class Clown Spots a UFO)
21. The Mountain Goats – “Cry for Judas” (Transcendental Youth)
22. Wintersleep – “In Came the Flood” (Hello Hum)
23. Sleigh Bells – “Born to Lose” (Reign of Terror)
24. Dan Deacon – “USA: I. Is a Monster” (America)

Brake (The Best “Slow” Tracks of 2012):

1. The Men – “Country Song” (Open Your Heart)
2. Daughn Gibson – “Dandelions” (All Hell)
3. Dusted – “Dusted” (Total Dust)
4. The Avett Brothers – “Live and Die” (The Carpenter)
5. Damien Jurado – “So On, Nevada” (Maraqopa)
6. Angel Olsen – “The Waiting” (Half Way Home)
7. The Spinto Band – “Cookie Falls” (Shy Pursuit)
8. La Sera – “I Can’t Keep You In My Mind” (Sees the Light)
9. The Babies – “Mess Me Around” (Our House on the Hill)
10. Swearin’ – “Kenosha” (Swearin’)
11. Royal Headache – “Honey Joy” (Royal Headache)
12. PAWS – “Sore Tummy” (Cokefloat!)
13. Times New Viking – “Middle Class Drags” (Over & Over EP)
14. The Mountain Goats – “Amy aka Spent Gladiator 1” (Transcendental Youth)
15. Divine Fits – “Shivers” (A Thing Called Divine Fits) (NOTE: Here’s the original version of “Shivers” by Boys Next Door.)
16. Wintersleep – “Rapture” (Hello Hum)
17. Guided By Voices – “Waving at Airplanes” (The Bears For Lunch)
18. Islands – “This Is Not a Song” (A Sleep & A Forgetting)
19. AU – “Get Alive” (Both Lights)
20. Heartless Bastards – “Marathon” (Arrow)
21. Screaming Females – “It’s Nice” (Ugly)
22. Dan Deacon – “USA: III. Rail” (America)

Well, folks, that’ll do it for 2012. A shit-ton of work, as always, went into this year’s edition. Now, then, I encourage – nay, demand – you to do four things:

1. In the comments section, let me know your picks for the best songs, records, and anything else music of 2012. What did I miss? What do you violently disagree with? What are you wholeheartedly in agreement with?
2. Should you choose to (or if you have already) put together a Best of 2012 disc of your own, by all means send me a copy of the disc, or at the very least a track listing. I’ll do my best to post them on my blog.
3. If you’re feeling nostalgic, go back and check out my Best of… mixes from 2011, 2010, 2009, etc.
4. You’ve got Twitter, Facebook, and a thousand other social media outlets at your disposal. Share this with the world, even if you only have two Twitter followers (and one of them is me).

Until the Best of 2013, have at it, you vultures!

BD

After last year’s gangbusters mix, Fruitcake & Dreidels, the lady and I decided that we must — must — follow up that masterpiece with yet another collection of holiday-themed weirdness. We were inspired by none other than the great John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, who sadly failed to make the mix despite this banner effort.

So, without further adieu, break out those menorahs and mistletoe!

This Shitsmas front cover.

This Shitsmas inside cover.

This Shitsmas:

1. Twisted Sister – “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas“
2. The Ramones – “Merry Christmas (I Don’t Wanna Fight Tonight)“
3. Herzog – “Fuck This Year“
4. Pete and the Pirates – “Winter 1“
5. Guided By Voices – “God Loves Us“
6. Apples In Stereo – “Winter Must Be Cold“
7. Superchunk – “Winter Games“
8. Weezer – “Holiday“
9. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – “Annunciation Day / Born On Christmas Day”
10. Fear – “Fuck Christmas“
11. Whatever Brains – “Holiday Weekend“
12. Archers of Loaf – “Assassination On X-Mas Eve“
13. My Morning Jacket – “X-Mas Curtain“
14. The Pretenders – “2000 Miles“
15. Islands – “Cold Again”
16. Sufjan Stevens – “X-Mas Spirit Catcher“
17. Prince – “Another Lonely Christmas“
18. Chains of Love – “Strange Grey Days“
19. Elvis Presley – “Santa Claus Is Back In Town“
20. El Vez – “Feliz Navi-Nada“
21. The Rural Alberta Advantage – “Coldest Days“
22. The Avett Brothers – “The Once and Future Carpenter“
23. Pixies – “Winterlong“
24. Mogwai – “Hound of Winter“
25. Sufjan Stevens – “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear“

Well, there you have it: 2012′s audio Advent calendar. Hope this inspires you not to blow your head off this holiday season.

That’ll do it for this year’s mountain of wreaths, trees and yule. Until next time, have at it, you vultures!

BD

Turkey Day

It’s Thanksgiving, you assholes, not “Turkey Day”! What about those families who don’t serve Turkey on Thanksgiving?! (Granted, that’s nothing short of an attack, but you get my point.) The Indians at Plymouth Rock died for this shit. Quit fucking around, America!

Well, that’ll do it for the (long awaited) letter “T.” So, until “U” rises from the ashes like the proverbial Phoenix, have at it, you vultures!

BD