ANDERS SAYS: "Hey, pretty great!"

In school, I had this teacher, Thorpe Feidt (incredible name), who was adamant about students leaving their music devices at home when coming to the studio to work. He was this wild-eyed, capricious bastard who was, by no means, taciturn; and he was convinced that the constant stream of digital music being plugged into your ears was harmful for the artistic process. It was heinous! He was genius in his own way, but I hated being forced from listening to music while working.

I love painting, but I love painting and listening to music more. Most of the opinions that I form for new music come about in such a way that involves multiple listens to the same album while slapping color around for a few hours. As such, I love the idea of this club. LOVE. IT.

As for the album, my input is this: it's fun! I can't say that I fell in love with it, but it's a fun listen. It's an awesome dip into the 90s - not to mention, it's a band that I had no previous knowledge for or experience with. Fun!

For the first listen, I was in a drunken, charcoal, drawing frenzy. I was hooked to my laptop with a pair of obnoxiously large headphones, getting tangled in the wires and drawing a few nondescript portraits messily. I was having a blast, and my initial impression was that the album had some pleasantly surprising lifts away from the typical sounds inherent to 90s alt. My enjoyment of music, in general, being nothing but cursory, I'll spare you any specifics. Nonetheless, I found it engaging and listened to it a couple of times all the way through before falling asleep like a dog in my bed.

I picked the album up again a few days later, while doing some menial comp stuff in photoshop - an experience, I should say, that - while not entirely unlike the fun of painting - left something to be desired. I became bored with the first half of the album, but found it interesting again after that, restoring my initial opinion of the whole thing being fun.

The final listen was spent walking around the oceanside park down a few blocks from my apartment. I was able to pretty much zone out and let the music come, unadulterated by outside distractions. By the time I was done with it, my official opinion had formed that it was fun, but nothing I would explicitly go out of my way to listen to for any specific reason.

That's one of the leaves from my new plant, by the way. I still need to think of a name, but I'm thinking of going with "Frank". That's neither here nor there, though...

Failure - Fantastic Planet

Okay, this one here's my first pick. Straight outta '96, this is Failure's third album (and last release as an active band). Failure was never really famous in their heyday; they released two albums before Fantastic Planet (including one with Steve Albini) but neither yielded a charting single (the band's first was this album's "Stuck On You," which peaked at 23 on Billboard's Modern Rock charts).

But I think this album's extra cool for a few reasons. The space rock-y guitars hint at bassist Greg Edwards' future in Autolux, and Troy van Leeuwen, who joined the band for this recording, went on to play in A Perfect Circle (who covered this album's "The Nurse Who Loved Me"). It's like a time capsule that traveled on a space ship into the future and then crashed back to earth for you to enjoy. Frontman Ken Andrews did some other stuff too, but it all sucks. Sucks! Unlike this album. Listen away!

one day more

As of this time tomorrow night, the first session of the untitled album club will have begun. Thanks to everyone that's responded! It looks like there's going to be a lot of activity, so let's have some fun with this.

For now, I opened the commenting up to everyone. I'll moderate the comments posted to make sure that things don't get too obscene or irrelevant, but those without Blogger accounts should now be able to contribute.

Sadie, tomorrow, will kick off the club with the first album selection. From that point, you will have until next Wednesday, November 18 to listen to the album and get a real feel for it as a distinct musical work. The time period is still tentative; we can adjust the listening period to match our activity and needs. There will also be a list of who's going to be making upcoming selections. The comments and reactions to the music should be as loose or as serious as you want it to be - there will be no judging of others here! If you love it, say so, and tell us why. If you hate it, we want to know that too! As long as it somehow relates to the music at hand, it's on-topic.

Here we go.

we're growing

So interest has been very warm and it seems like we can get this up and running this week. I picked a two week listening period in the interest of time, but if this thing gets going we can certainly shorten it to one week. It's also totally okay to want to join but not really be held to any posting requirements; this isn't meant to be work, after all. If all you want to do is participate by listening and reading the other posts, that's fine too. The only thing you'd have to do is pick an album when it's your turn.

When the club's member base starts to take shape I'll post a list of randomly chosen names that represents who chooses the next album. That list will be updated with people's choices and will act as a quick reference as to who's chosen what and the progression of the club.

Sadie - you're going to be first. So get ready. To rock.

what's in a name

So people don't seem to like the name - they think it sounds like Michael Jackson. Ha! I was thinking more along the lines of Peter Pan, but point taken.

For now it'll just be the "untitled album club" until I can think of a suitable alternative. Any suggestions?

and it begins

I have this idea.

It's called the Neverland Untitled Album Club. It started with me thinking about joining a book club to do more free reading, but since I like music more than books, this idea just developed organically from that. "Neverland" because shit like this makes me think I'm a little kid with no real responsibility. I like "Untitled Album Club" more...but we'll see. Here's the idea:

Every two weeks, we switch off choosing one full music album for the rest of the group to listen to. Everyone must (try to) listen to the album three full times from start to finish. The first two times can be during other things or activites: watching a World Series game, doing laundry, painting, whatever. However, the third listen must be alone, doing nothing else. If you have specific comments that you'd like to write down during the first two listens, go right ahead, but the idea would be to really try and comment about the album's progression the third and final time. These entries or comments could be about the nature of how the music sounds to you, what you like or don't like, how you feel about the experience, or what it makes you think of. Everything is fair game, as long as it somehow relates back to the music listening experience itself.

The music that you pick is up to you - it could be the most familiar thing in the world or the most obscure. It just has to move you, in some way. That's the only requirement.

If you'd like to be involved, let me know. I'll make everyone interested an admin and then make this blog private.

I know that you probably have a lot to do and might not be able to participate every time, and that's fine. But think about how often you think about discovering new music and how great you feel when you first realize this new and different band you've just been introduced to is really good. Even with everything available to me at anytime, I still often struggle with this. And I'm always looking for the next band to adore. So, who wants in?