hansentheband

[hansentheband]

Stay Empathetic, My Friends.

I am writing this to tell you that latent prejudice is a load of shit.

I know that every now and then I will meet somebody new and they will think…..”does that guy have it all together up there??” which is a natural reaction to have towards a person wearing hearing aids, especially somebody of my age. I have a grandmother who has recently needed to get a pair herself. Some deaf people sound funny when and if  they ever talk because they were born deaf and don’t know the difference between Fran Drescher’s laugh and Stevie Wonder’s singing voice. I wasn’t born deaf, which is actually a big deal for psychological development.

I am fortunate enough to live in a day of technology where somebody like me gets to lead a mostly normal life. If I were born even 15 years earlier than I was, my life would be drastically different.

But, being nearly deaf at a young age certainly did have its effects on me. I didn’t talk until I was a year old, which isn’t normal. So everybody in my family burnt way too many calories on jumping to conclusions with me, “the boy’s retarded” “he’s showing mild forms of autism”. Like, this shit put a huge divide between my parents but my mother finally figured out that I just needed hearing aids and all of the sudden, my apparently borderline autistic behavior as a child made sense. And it all went away.

Apparently after my first appointment with my audiologist (he’s basically a hearing aid dealer for elderly people, I’m by far his youngest customer) my mom and I walked outside and I heard birds chirping for the first time in my life and asked her what the fuck I listening to and she, of course, cried and criiiiiiieeed. There are definitely some things that I deal with that I know somebody without any disabilities never will.

When I was a kid, I had to take special hearing tests on a periodic basis. I’d get randomly called to the office during class and all of the kids would go “oooooooooooo Caleb’s in trouble!” You remember those, right? Put those earphones on that clamped to your ears so hard you could feel your heartbeat in the cartilage tissue of your ears. They beep those different tones into your head and you have to raise your hand when you hear the sound. Having chronic tinnitus on top of severe hearing loss in my head added insult to injury when I had to take those tests. My ears would be ringing like yours do after a loud concert for a while, because that’s what tinnitus is, and then I had to isolate the induced test ring from the constant ringing I hear inside my head and it was impossible at certain times.

When I meet new people today, I’ve totally noticed wandering eyeballs. You aren’t inconspicuous. I worked in food service for a year where I had to take orders from customers and make their fucking ridiculous burritos and cater to every dumb-fuck request. I’d catch a customer looking at my ears, and trust me, I could tell you weren’t looking at my eyes. This developed an intense hatred for mumblers who get agitated when I have to ask them “WHAT” everytime they say something pertaining to their order and they just get to blame it on my hearing in their own warped conscience.  

I’ve met people who have had the nerve to say “you need to turn those things up”. I really have. And it’s frustrating because, in that scenario, there’s nothing I can do to mend that person’s general impression of people with disabilities because they’re already so far down this blissful spiral of ignorance. The stereotypical impression has already been plastered into the infrastructure of their thought. Like, they have NO idea what it’s like to not be able to hear somebody talking right in front of them when your hearing aids aren’t in. Lip reading will only carry you so far. Cause vacuuming all the sudden turns into a heated affair and punches are thrown.

Anywho, meeting new people from different backgrounds is always interesting. I’ve learned how different types of people handle seeing something they don’t see everyday, that being a young man with their grandparent’s hearing aids in his ears. My personal favorite is “y'all get muzzle blasted?”

Time for a little rural/outdoor culture 101 here guys, apparently guns are loud. SO loud that they cause deafness in hunters if exposed to their loud noises long enough. But, it gets better, apparently some of our outdoorsmen friends don’t have the common decency to refrain from shooting that fuckin buck in their scopes while their buddies are within 3 feet of their barrels. So, the gun is fired, and now your buddy Earl “Big Rack” Carter can no longer hear out his left ear. So, theres that.

But meeting different people has taught me that everybody is actually different about how they go about asking you personal questions about yourself. With some people, it’s the first fucking thing out of their mouths. Children are also frequently guilty of this, because they actually don’t know any better (all adults should, but actually don’t sometimes), so I always just mouth words to them and they get confused and then I actually say “Without them, that’s what you would sound like, I need them to hear noises and your voice”.

But some people actually never get past that phase of inquisition and I’m forced to tell them that not everybody is exactly like them and their friends and some of us have problems that have been handed to us, regardless of choice. So, this somewhat repetitive process has trained me to just be pretty open about myself…..hence the grotesque nature of my persona sometimes. You wanna talk about porn preferences with somebody, I’M YOUR GUY. We all have fucked up stuff about ourselves that we don’t necessarily want everybody finding out about us, that’s just simple nature. But pedophiles get to hide the fact that their pedophiles when you first meet them. When a person first meets their eventual abusive spouse, they don’t know it yet.

Not in my case. It’s normal and fashionable for people to wear glasses. I don’t get that luxury. Hearing aids aren’t “cool” while you’re growing up, and probably never will be because not enough kids are like me to popularize the disability of hearing loss (which I am very thankful for) Which is something I’ve come to terms with. So, if you’re curious about it, please...ask me! Do so respectfully, and you’ll learn something new about people. I promise.

But I’ve definitely met people who either are respectful about inquiring about my condition or just already know what they are because of their grandparents or whatever. But it always is funny whenever I happen to mention anything remotely close to hearing levels. Like, I’ll say “Man, that guy wasn’t very confident with his speech” and the person I’m with will be like “What makes you say that?” I’ll say, “They weren’t talking very loud” and of course their response will be “So, what’s that like?” and while kinda playing dumb but also not really playing dumb “I’ll say, what’s what like?” and they say “your condition” and then I spend the next half hour explaining why I hate watching James Bond movies without closed captioning. True story.

I had a great mother who knew I actually wasn’t autistic but just needed microphones in my ears. She made it her life quest to figure out what was wrong with me and realized that I couldn’t hear around when I was one year old. So I seemed retarded/autistic for a while, but turns out I actually wasn’t once I got into the swing of things.

But some people with hearing aids actually don’t know how to talk in a way that people would consider “normal”, just like how people who like Duck Dynasty are necessarily in the KKK, you just don’t know until you get to know em’. So ditch the prejudice with people until you get to know them. That old dude with a cape on who likes to hangout near the playground during recess might just think it’s halloween all year because he’s delusional and wandering soul OR he’s actually out to get your kid. BUT, you just don’t know em until you actually get to know them. Don’t let prejudice get the best of you.  

A man of Sikh faith might board your plane. For those of you that don't know what I just said, the Sikh faith is the theology that requires its members to wear turbans on their heads everywhere they go. So don’t be an idiot about it. He’s not there to bomb your plane. He’s there to speak Arabic with his buddies and make fun of your waistline. He’s just like you and needs to get the fuck outta Des Moines or whatever.

You just don’t know. So before you tweet something blissfully ignorant and hateful, check your privilege, and ponder what empathy might feel like if we all stopped wrapping the world around our own lives and looked up to realize we’re all the same race here.

Human.

[hansentheband]

Took dad's advice and finally got a job.

[hansentheband]

All My Friends | Untrained Reflective Thoughts

I usually write a typically self-absorbed ‘year in review’ article during the holiday season when I’m laying around doing nothing on my parent’s couch and watching The Price Is Right during the holiday break. But, the times have changed. I no longer have college to go back to. No more books to study for a grade, no more mid-sems to stress out about, no more trivial friendships to keep up for college’s sake. No more. Everything is new right now. My dad preaches financial security to me while my inner-most desires preach pursuing more unstable career paths. I’m at the most crucial point in my young, 23 year old, life. I feel old as shit, but I also need to realize that I’m still only half as old as my wonderful parents. The entire world is still mine for the taking, but it will only be that way for so long. The amount of choice that a new graduate has is truly staggering. The one thing that does manage to remain consistent throughout this entire chaotic process is the people I continually attempt to impress, and those people are all my friends.

I try to put every part of my being on the table when it comes to conversation with my friends, and I hope that anybody else reading this does the same. Because the only way I ever feel a wholesome happiness to myself is when I’m in the best company and I feel like I can talk about literally anything. Just ask some of my closest friends, I’m a fucking vulgar dude, but I like to think that they love and accept me for that. And that’s what I always try to bring to the table, hilarious honesty. I want to be the guy in your life who will talk about literally anything with you. If you are on your period, talk to me. If you are frustrated about not having been laid in a long time, talk to me. If you are in love for the first time, I definitely want you to talk to me. I want as much of the human experience as possible, and the only way I’ll get that is through all my friends.

  I do understand that I’ve seen some of them for the last time ever already, and we just don’t know it yet. As abysmal as that sentence feels, it’s also sonically awe inspiring. The way I get to spend time with all of them is changing. Everybody is getting busier with their increasingly complicated lives as our souls take their own individual plight. Meeting up for a drink or two at the bar for a couple of hours has replaced running around all night on nostalgia-soaked summer nights. But you move on, because you have to. Faces will fade while others emerge and this pattern continues to repeat itself. You keep meeting new people who ultimately fit the same archetypes that those you used to know better once filled. In this crazed haze of a life, I’ve realized that all of this truly is random.

  The randomness of life compounds on itself the older you get. As time progresses, the entropy of your surroundings increase. So you need to adapt to survive. Adapting to ever extenuating circumstances of your environment around you. The circumstances of friendship have changed. Everybody I love is spread out now, both spiritually and geographically. And to re-capture those adolescent vibes that used to resonate with our souls on those nostalgic summer nights is what spending time together in the future will be all about. That’s what hanging out with a bunch of old friends at the bar last was all about.   

  While I’d be all ears if my future self were to show up and be like, “YOU GOTTA GO BACK TO 1985, MARTY” I’d also look him in the eye and try to gauge if he’s happy with who he is or not. Then ask him why he made the choices he did. For financial security? For love? For a bountiful career? Did you genuinely enjoy the last 10 years of your life?   

  Life isn’t about getting to the top, it’s the travelling to the top that really matters, which everybody should know if they read enough shitty motivation posters in middle school. I’ve read so many advice memoirs from people 10 years older than me and all the anecdotes they have to offer almost seem prescribed to them. But they’re right. It’s about smoking cigars in the grocery store parking lot with old friends to celebrate graduation and maintaining that same spiritual bond with them as you progress through life, no matter how your paths differentiate. It’s about remaining true to yourself in your quest. Compromise only when you have to. Don’t sacrifice love for your career. Don’t make the mistakes that those men in those death bed memoirs that we’ve all read about did.

  So, how will you face the music in 30 years when the dreams of yesteryear come crawling back up your spine? Hopefully I’ll be able to peer into the past with a minimal amount of contempt towards the choices I’ve made. But hindsight here is obviously impossible. Don’t beat yourself up over mistakes, because they’re unavoidable. I’m going to do my best to follow my instincts and figure everything out as I go and hope it all makes sense when I see my life flash before my eyes.

  Question authority.

  Follow your own compass.

  Hail Satan.

  I know this entry was messy, but purists be damned, I’m just writing from the heart here.

[hansentheband]

Halftime --> 2014

It's been a great year in independent music thus far (as is the case with any calendar year). There has been several big releases from big time names that haven't quite lived up to expectations and there are, of course, some pleasant surprises from smaller names, both new and old. Some early favorites of 2014 are as follows:

1. Swans | To Be Kind | Young God & Mute Records

This Michael Gira recorded and produced record is the sophomore effort of what has been a vividly successful comeback for the longtime experimental rock band, Swans. With Gira at the helm of this group with his wickedly powerful vocals, Swans have been on an absolute tear with their visceral sounds. "Gradual" is definitely a strong suit of this music. A better part of the tracks on the record are over ten minutes long and won't achieve the climax of the sound until at least halfway into the song. A slow burn is the best burn, though, and the songs ultimately deliver once the entire sonic spectrum is realized on any given track on this two hour-long record. If you are new to Swans and want to give this record a try, I recommend you start off by listening to Oxygen. This song has some of the most recognizable traditional aspects of what a "post-rock" band "should" sound like. The rest is seldom explored territory yet Swans still manage to be wildly effective on the hairs on the back of your neck. These guys are a real treat if you want something different and immensely intense. My essential tracks: Bring The Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture & She Loves Us.

2. Cloud Nothings | Here And Nowhere Else | Carpark Records

This is Cloud Nothings' third and best recorded album. Dylan Baldi writes with full disclosure about how he is feeling and he isn't feeling good. These psychologically laden lyrics with the band's break-neck tempos provide for a thrilling half-hour of "traditional" guitar-rock music. Every year folks try to say that guitars are dead and musicians like Baldi and Zachary Cole (DIIV) prove this notion wrong every time. Jayson Gerycz is the new resident drummer for Cloud Nothings and his incessant pounding is exactly what Baldi needed to develop his sound from his largely successful record, Attack On Memory, in 2012. Psychic Trauma is the finest example of Jayson's contributions. The song starts out with a pleasant/relaxed tempo and about a third into the song he hooks in the drum beat and pulls a 180 on the rhythm & tempo and the song then begins a climb in entropy until it blows open at the conclusion. My essential tracks: No Thoughts & Psychic Trauma

3. St. Vincent | St. Vincent | Loma Vista/Republic Records

Albert Einstein is on a musical tear. Rather to say, Annie Clark has realized her full potential as a musician for the next 2 minutes until she comes up with something new. Annie, otherwise known as St. Vincent, is a musician who has accomplished a certain status as an artist where she can operate within a musical niche that is completely her own and continues to develop her sound with the help of a diverse array of musical experiences like touring with the legendary David Byrne (Talking Heads) for their 2012 collaborative effort Love This Giant. She internalized some of the key rhythmic aspects of the sound from that album and applied it to this immediate follow up of a record, which is most immediately recognizable from the album's biggest hit, Digital Witness. Annie wasted no time in getting new music out and nobody is sorry for it. If you need a female figure to crush on, look no further while listening to Annie's self-titled latest work. She's a total heartthrob. My essential tracks: Huey Newton, Psychopath, & Rattlesnake.

4. Ought | More Than Any Other Day | Constellation Records 

Ought is packed with nervous energy. This conglomeration of musicians from Montreal was founded in 2012. Among a student-led protest, Ought came together at McGill University in 2012 during the “Printemps Erable” while the Quebec government was attempting to increase student tuition fees by 75%. While Ought doesn't have any songs about political protest a la Neighborhood #3 on the legendary record, Funeral, by Arcade Fire (which had it's 10 year anniversary this year, by the way), they still write music with the same manic energy on this record that brought them together two years ago. Tim Beeler, the lead singer channels the same panic-y punch in his vocals as legend David Byrne while the band's timbre resembles that of prominent punk like Fugazi. The droning coda of "Habit" where Beeler and co. jam up to halting stop and Beeler repeats the lyric, "I feel a habit forming" this lyric combined with the rest of the song is Ought's message to the listener that an intrinsic drive to live the life that you need to live is stronger than any drug. Ought is a hot new group. Name drop em' to impress your friends. My essential tracks: Pleasant Heart & Habit.

5. Parquet Courts | Sunbathing Animal | Mom & Pop Records

Parquet Courts is the upstart NYC-based band lead by Andrew Savage. What people like annoyingly dub as "weird punk-rock" is actually a conglomerated melting pot of many NYC greats all melted into one. The first single off of the record Sunbathing Animal is a cranked up version of Velvet Underground's All Tomorrow's Parties in terms of overall aesthetic. The bizarre guitar interludes between Savage's narrative of a house cat trapped inside it's owner's house weave you through some of the most under-explored styles of vocal narrative in a truly "experimental" brand of alternative music. Parquet Courts have proven that they know how to rock with blistering tracks like Master of My Craft, Borrowed Time & Stoned & Starving. Sunbathing Animal doesn't necessarily abandon that initial hard-driving style from their debut record Light Up Gold but these tempos pop up in more disciplined paces in songs like Black & White & Ducking & Dodging. Light Up Gold was an extremely fun record that displayed to particular direction in terms of the albums energy, but Sunbathing Animal is a great follow-up sophomore effort and a must listen for any guitar-rock music fan. My essential tracks: Instant Disassembly, Black & White & Bodies Made Of.

[hansentheband]

C u in 40 days at P4K, Deafheaven. If their Governor's Ball set was any indicator, this set will rattle my bones.

[hansentheband]

4/16/14 KURE AMES ALTERNATIVE PLAYLIST

JUST ANOTHER WEDNESDAY IN THE STUDIO:

Infestissumam | Ghost B.C. | Infestissumam

Per Adspera Ad Liberi | Ghost B.C. | Infestissumam

A Little God In My Hands | Swans | A Little God In My Hands Single

No Thoughts | Cloud Nothings | Here And Nowhere Else

Brother | Mac DeMarco | Salad Days

Prince Johnny | St. Vincent | St. Vincent

Repeat Pleasure | How To Dress Well | Repeat Pleasure Single

Sunbather | Deafheaven | Sunbather

Just Exist | Touche Amore | Is Survived By

Fragile | God Is An Astronaut | All Is Violent, All Is Bright

All Is Violent, All Is Bright | God Is An Astronaut | All Is Violent, All Is Bright

Intro (It's Album Time) | Todd Serje | It's Album Time

Leisure Suit Preben | Todd Serje | It's Album Time

[hansentheband]

88.5 KURE Post-VEISHEA Playlist 4/9/14

In wake of VEISHEA 2014, I put together a playlist that attempted to illustrate the depravity of Tuesday's riots: 1. Plague | Crystal Castles | II 2. Hate Everyone | Say Anything | Say Anything 3. Wasted | Metz | Metz 4. From The Ritz To The Rubble | Arctic Monkeys | Whatever People Say What I Am, That's What I'm Not 5. The Streets Will Never Look The Same | Chromatics | Kill For Love 6. I Guess I Should Go To Sleep | Jack White | Blunderbuss 7. Drunk Kids | Tallhart | Bloodlines EP White Winter Hymnal | Fleet Foxes | Fleet Foxes 8. Pink Rabbits | The National | Trouble Will Find Me 9. Here Comes The Night Time II | Arcade Fire | Reflektor 10. Drunk Girls | LCD Soundsystem | This Is Happening

[hansentheband]

3/5/14 88.5 KURE AMES ALTERNATIVE PLAYLIST

TODAY WAS EXXTRA SULTRY.

Empty Room | Arcade Fire | The Suburbs

The River | Chromatics | Kill For Love

Green Gloves | The National | Boxer

Crime | Real Estate | Atlas

Crown Of Love | Arcade Fire | Funeral

I Wanna Be Yours | Arctic Monkeys | AM

In The Midnight Hour | Wilson Pickett | The Essential Pickett

Regret | St. Vincent | St. Vincent 

Business Time | Flight Of The Conchords | Flight Of The Conchords

Tough Luck | Eagulls | Eagulls

Turn The Season | Fucked Up | David Comes To Life

My Body Is A Cage | Arcade Fire | Neon Bible

[hansentheband]

2/26/14 TURNTHATDOWN On 88.5 KURE Playlist

Druun | Diiv | Oshin

Coffee & Whiskey | Mumford's | Eyes

We Used To Wait | Arcade Fire | The Suburbs

Huey Newton | St. Vincent | St. Vincent

Paper Trails | Darkside | Psychic

Brainfreeze | Fuck Buttons | Slow Focus

Petrograde | Sevendeaths | Concrete Misery

Psychic Trauma | Cloud Nothings | Psychic Trauma Single

Don't Let It Go | Beck | Morning Phase

Porno | Arcade Fire | Reflektor

[hansentheband]

2/12/14 88.5 KURE PLAYLIST

We were all ova the place yestadayy

A Little Death | Fucked Up | David Comes To Life

Enter The Foetus/ Oh The Joy | Brody Dalle | Enter The Foetus Single

Spectrelight | Mastodon | The Hunter

Defenestration Song | Have A Nice Life | The Unnatural World

Pursuit | Gesaffelstein | Pursuit Single

The Crystal Cat | Dan Deacon | Spiderman Of The Rings

Viol | Gesaffelstein | Viol Single

Ride By Fire | The Wheelers | The Wheelers

How Long Have You Known? | DIIV | Oshin

Mallrats (La La La) | The Orwells | Remember When

Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) | Arcade Fire | Funeral

The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret | Queens Of The Stone Age | Rated R

[hansentheband]

Addicted to this track.

[hansentheband]

2/5/14 88.5 KURE AMES ALTERNATIVE PLAYLIST

Secular Haze (Live) | Ghost | If You Have EP

Avatar | Swans | The Seer

All Night Graves | Sevendeaths | Concrete' Misery

The Pecan Tree | Deafheaven | Sunbather

I'm Not A Part Of Me | Cloud Nothings | I'm Not A Part Of Me Single

Fall Back | Factory Floor | Factory Floor

Remurdered | Mogwai | Rave Tapes

[hansentheband]

1/29/14 88.5 KURE AMES ALTERNATIVE PLAYLIST

All Tomorrow's Parties | The Velvet Underground & Nico | The Velvet Underground & Nico

Good Golly, Miss Molly | Little Richard | The Essential Little Richard

High Hopes | Bruce Springsteen | High Hopes

I Only Said | My Bloody Valentine | Loveless

True Trans Soul Rebel | Against Me! | Transgender Dysphoria Blues

Tough Luck | Eagulls | Eagulls EP

After The Disco | Broken Bells | After The Disco Single

Digital Witness | St. Vincent | St. Vincent

Blue Moon | Beck | Blue Moon Single

Bound | PELVIS | PELVIS Demo

Coriscana Lemonade | White Denim | Coriscana Lemonade

Stay Up Late | Jeff The Brotherhood | We Are The Champions

[hansentheband]

1/22/14 88.5 KURE AMES ALTERNATIVE PLAYLIST

TURN THAT DOWN 1/22/14:

It's Real | Real Estate | Days

Lunacy | Swans | The Seer

Sweet Jane | The Velvet Underground | Loaded

Shelter Song | Temples | Sun Structures

Haiti | Arcade Fire | Funeral

Rebellion (Lies) | Arcade Fire | Funeral

All My Friends | LCD Soundsystem | All My Friends

Their Helicopter's Sing | Godspeed You! Black Emperor | 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!

She Was The One That Got Away | Gloom Balloon | Gloom Balloon EP

Exit Music (For A Film) | Radiohead | OK Computer

[hansentheband]

*Le sigh

People here (@ Iowa State...and other places, too, I imagine) like to throw the label "hipster" around like it's some fucking taboo phrase that's still okay to say. I'm gonna start referring to it as "the h-word" and only actual "hipsters" will be able to say it...That's how it works with the "N-word" Mirong? 

*Kid has a passion/obsession with music & the music industry & starts a blog to enhance his experience with his passion*

"Oh, you have have a music blog now? Can you sayyyyy "hipster"?"~folks talking about him

You watch sportscenter EVERY FUCKING DAY FOR 5 HOURS.

How is that any different than me reading music blogs in my free time for 5 hours?

I'm out. Time to go consider asking a girl out but ultimately get cold feet.

[hansentheband]

1/15/14 KURE 88.5 Ames Alternative Playlist

MIXTA OF OLD & NEW (IS 2013 CONSIDERED "OLD"?)

Gonna Make My Own Money | Deap Vally | Sistronix

Obstacle 1 | Interpol | Turn On The Bright Lights

Stereo | Pavement | Brighten The Corners

Border Line | King Krule | 6 Feet Beneath The Moon

Only Tomorrow | My Bloody Valentine | MBV

Red Eyes | The War On Drugs | Lost In The Dream

Somewhere Between Here & Nowhere | The Black Hollies | Somewhere Between Here & Nowhere Single

Start A War | The National | Boxer

Stoned & Starving | Parquet Courts | Light Up Gold

Birth In Reverse | St. Vincent | St. Vincent

Dream House | Deafheaven | Sunbather

Irresistible | Deafheaven | Sunbather

[hansentheband]

2014 is here. It’s time to arbitrarily stop listening to a record that came out 3 months ago & start rummaging through soundcloud to “try to find the next big thing in 2014”...blah, blah, blah. Funniest part of this musical conundrum is, you won’t have to look hard to find one of the young year’s best singles in Birth In Reverse by Annie Clark. You might recognize her stage name as St. Vincent. She was on tour for the better part of 2012 & 2013 with American music legend, David Byrne, promoting their joint effort of Love This Giant, which came out in 2012...ages ago...right?

Annie Clark is a musical workhorse, to put it simply. She ended her 18 month-long 2012/13 tour with Mr. Byrne & didn’t even take two whole days to dive right back into the musical process all over again. She started writing her self-titled record, St. Vincent, which will grace record store shelves on February 24th.

Having seen her live, there is large discrepancy that exists between her studio work & her ever developing live performance energy. While she has gone on the record to say that the songs from her 2011 work, Strange Mercy, definitely captured their own individual spirits & literally, came to life. There’s just something about seeing her ace the guitar solo from Surgeon & her impeccable ability to sing the beautiful vocal progression on the chorus of Cruel while playing a complicated guitar accompaniment underneath it all. Okay, time to cut all of the exposition schtick and fangirling.

Birth In Reverse intentionally takes about six seconds to get going, the gear teeth latch into place on the word “day” & the beat takes off into a pushing bass drum-led groove with Annie playing a bluesy sounding minor chord progression riff behind some risque lyrics to make you do a double take. “Oh what an ordinary day, take out the garbage, masturbate.” Sounds like a perfect spring afternoon to me. This had better be the opening track to the record. The uplift & reverb echo in her voice on the word “before” at the end of the second verse sets you up perfectly for the tipsy dancing-friendly chorus.

The contrast between the choppy guitar chords in the line “Like a birth..” & the warbling bass underneath “What I saw..” sets up a call & response type of instrumental jam which is infectiously catchy despite Annie’s direct lyrical gash on American politics. The lyric’s motive, initially, through the chorus is somewhat ambiguous, is she talking about an affair? Accidentally seeing her neighbor masturbate through his window while walking down the street? Then the chorus ends with “In America” & it becomes more evident that she’s bashing America’s recent public policies & their invasive security tactics that it’s practicing it’s citizens.

Her apparent irritation is ingeniously cloaked by satire. The satirical pitch completely blossoms in her self-contradiction with the line, “Cause what I’m swearing, I never sworn before” comes at the end of the last verse before a final dose of the hooky chorus. Take another listen-through & the first verse then completely takes on a new meaning. This isn’t Annie fappin’ it away on a lazy Saturday afternoon. It’s the complacency of American culture that’s slaying the dragon (sorry for the imagery...not really). “The dogs will bark, so let them bark”. Characters like Edward Snowden could be considered some of the dogs, people who are actually trying to do something about all of the government’s fabrication. But a better part of the general public still doesn’t seem to care that all of their emails are potentially being read by government employees at this very instant.

Anywho, don’t let my dumb-ass political slant on this wonderful song ruin Annie’s work for you. I love this song. It’s too much fun. 9.5/10. Jump on the St. Vincent bandwagon with me, I’m already all here. 2014 will be fun. Thanks for reading!

Much love,

Caleb