Matt Gardner
Vancouver, BC / I make flat things
As an art, music demands so little of us humans. It lacks the totalitarian domination of thought that film creates, or the smug, smokey ambiguity of painting. It’s got no form (and with digital technology, no physical metaphor) but attaches itself to everything. And we consume it incessantly, as an auditory experience enhancer, or mood changer, or boredom alleviator, or emotional argument. It wakes us up, puts us to sleep, It’s in our cars, our elevators, all the stores, it drifts around. It pervades our lives to the point that we are unwilling to pay for it, lump it in with the other rights of a post-industrial citizen, like running water and Starbucks. But nobody owns it completely, either legally or artistically.
Arcade Fire / Neon Bible
It took forever to light the driftwood, and I was afraid it wasn’t going to take, but somebody ran back up to the beach house and came stumbling back with a squeeze bottle of lighter fluid. The wind hissed in low over the Atlantic, forcing the flames back into a little core in the center of the pit. It whimpered and rolled like a caged cat, licking out tiny red tongues. Nobody had any wine.
Okkervil River / The Stage Names
Ian pushed out of the bar and i weaved after him, slugging down the last bitter swallows of some undrinkable microbrew. I was too drunk to ogle the hipster chicks or deriding their rail thin boyfriends on the way out. We walked down the center of the street, portly and careless. We stopped at some over-designed automat and poured in quarters for a pressed roll of carbs and cheese. The place stank of grease and I had to step outside to suck cool air in over my burned tongue. My calves ached all the way back to brooklyn.
Modest Mouse / We Were dead before the Ship Even Sank
Everyone’s head was bobbing like an old time cartoon, jittery with timing that was meant for older, slower technology. Everyone was swelling and shrinking with sound, undulating like video of shrimp legs. I was the only one looking around, watching the crowed, they were all standing nose over shoulder, shrink-wrapped jell-o waves of anticipation. You were there, breathing everyone else’s air, swimming in their sweat. Stupid with beer and whiskey, I doubted you’d ever get out.
Andrew Bird / Armchair Apocrypha
Thank you! Thank you! Oh shit! It’s amazing and thank you. But could you be less cute? She won’t stop talking about it.
Menomena / Friend and Foe
Ok, answer this email and punch the widget. Wait, punch the widget first and get this all on the clock. Check for spelling, you know you can’t spell, now send it — did you punch the widget? Two more and you can play a move in scrabble, one move. Two more and and put the last one on his account, we can bill him for the research on donation systems, maybe fifteen minutes, tops, find some options, stress Paypal. Punch the widget? did you double check that first email? You have to code today – fuck. CSS – not too bad. Make the custom bullets really quick – steal the old code from Sure Shot, Punch the Widget? Goddamn padding. Done? that took too long – take off like ten minutes for all the time you wasted clicking around the site. We have to move her onto a CMS. Did you check it off? Stop the widget. Fuck Fuck Fuck Try for a quick favicon. Ok - thirty minutes. did you punch the widget?
Bishop Allen / The Broken String
When I was seventeen I hit a dog with my parents car. I was cruising back from Justin’s, buzzed on caffeine at 3 am. I was way back in the seat, sliding the wheel with an open palm. I never saw it, just a thump under my back tire, and some rattling under the seats. First I thought I’d hit a stone, I mean the first thing that popped into my head was like, this picture of a huge rock from yosemite, with big round corners and two different shades of marbling. I thought I’d hit something solid. I drove on a couple seconds, but the car was running fine. I pulled over and hopped out to check the underside, not really understanding, thinking it was some branch, maybe. I left the lights on and the engine running. I think I left the door open.
I looked around the back bumper but couldn’t see anything, crouching down on my knee in the gravel, the car looked fine. The road behind me was clear, couldn’t see a branch. My breath was all cloudy and i was sort of enjoying it, playing at dealing solidly with a crisis, even though the car was okay. I walked back a few yards and saw the body, or I guess, it was a carcass. Anyway, I knew what it was right away. It was dark, but it didn’t look like there was much blood. I was aware of that second; that i would remember it. I imagined myself in a few years, thinking back to this moment, recalling simply because I was thinking myself forward. I walked back to car and drove home, sitting upright and using both hands. I hosed down the back tires and bumper in the driveway.
The next time I drove that way the dog was gone.
Spoon / Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
It was like hitting a steak. I mean, It’s dumb to compare flesh to flesh, but it felt the same. His skin was cold from being outside, and flushed red. I think i caught him on the bottom of the cheek and some on the neck, he moved at the last second. He stumbled over that stupid pile of shoes and half fell into the corner. I watched him for a second, then looked over at her, feeling the total blankness on her face. I turned and walked out, closing the door slowing and waiting for the click of the latch. My stomach hurt, but everything was slow and I was leaving the country.
Sunset Rubdown / Random Spirit Lover
“Look, do you know how much power is lost from telephone lines? Or leaking out of generators? Yeah, just a fraction, a tiny percent, like, point oh, oh, oh two something. But we don’t need much, and it’s leaking everywhere! And they put in theses things called boosters all over the old copper lines, marvelously inefficient! And the waste that your car makes — all the heat the engine puts out, it all floats away. It’s all over the city, everywhere. Plus sound itself — all the boom-boxes and horns and shouting — just vibrations! I call it an Ambient Energy Engine, it sucks up all that juice, everything available for two hundred and thirty feet. The glider frame is ultra-light, styrofoam mostly, and hollow, you lay in the middle, and steer like a motorcycle, lean onto the wing you want, this is the helmet. Its only got a max altitude of about seventy-five feet, but you can go a solid ninety miles per hour, totally quiet too! Yeah, I mean, if you can get the energy, like rush hour in New York, you could bomb down Broadway in like, ten minutes, no congestion at the third floor! Just whipping over traffic lights. You’re propelled by all the bullshit wasteful engineering below you. But that’s the thing, the AEE only works if it gets enough juice, no battery, the weight you know, you couldn’t fly over a desert — a single power line is not enough.”
“And I can’t sell them — it’s dangerous! Plus the thing runs off everything else — what happens when they catch on and nobody is driving or making noise, wasting power? Everybody just falls out of the air, trying to steal from each other. It’s a disaster.”
Tender Forever / Wider
The mantis was bright in her gold hair, it’s emerald eyes followed my every movement. It’s tiny, trembling claw reach toward me as I reached out, and coiled up when I dropped my hand. All of it’s limbs doubled over in twig-thin folds. The microscopic flagella on it’s forelegs stood out like iridescent jewels. It was the opposite of me in every way.
Rickie Lee Jones / The Sermon On Exposition Boulevard
It was all crumbly and flakes when I took it off the shelf. The spine was broken and the cover has come off. The gold letters chipped off under my fingers. I try not to touch it now, I could put it in a plastic bag or something, but I guess I’m content to just let it die.