Liner Notes (February 15th, 2019)

Valentines Day

This week sure went by fast.

In this week’s roundup I talk about launching our new Giphy feature and what’s next on my forum to-do list, give some thoughts that have been swirling around in my head about the entire Ryan Adams situation, and then go through quite a bit new music. I tackle how surprised I was by the new Set It Off album, and offer brief thoughts on new records from Betty Who, One Ok Rock, Tyler Hilton, Stand Atlantic, Millencolin, SWMRS, and more. Then I go through my usual weekly media diet (basically two documentaries I loved this week), share ten songs I loved this week, and share my sadness at a brewery I love closing down. The supporter Q&A post can be found here.

Five Things

  • We launched our Most Anticipated of 2019 feature this week. If you haven’t checked it out yet, please do. Everyone worked hard on the blurbs, and there’s so much great music coming out this year it’s almost overwhelming.
  • I am not usually a sticker guy, but the iPad Smart Keyboard Folio is super bland and I needed something to spice it up. These superhero stickers on Amazon did the trick. They’re like $7 and you get 100 of them. I’ll have to figure out some places to put the other ones, but I like how this keyboard case looks now. Chorus sticker on one side (the side that would be “up” when on a desk), and then a bunch of my favorite heroes on the other.
  • You know what? Every time I see Alt Press write something about As I Lay Dying and some “controversy” or “response to the controversy” I feel this tinge of rage go down my spine. It’s so blatantly not about informing anyone about anything worthwhile; it’s pure clickbait in the grossest way. There’s no good reason to keep posting about that band or the dude that tried to murder his ex-wife. There is no requirement to cover any of this, let alone as often as they do. There’s zero reasons to give this guy back a platform, and it pisses me off.
  • The Ryan Adams news this week was extremely upsetting to read. I’ve never been as big a fan as others and got into him way later, but I did consider myself a fan. I had heard some of the rumblings about what happened with Mandy Moore, and I had seen how often he was a massive dick online, and I knew Phoebe Bridgers’s “Motion Sickness” was about him, but seeing it all laid out and how often he’d used his position to harm multiple women’s careers actively was just … very difficult to read. One thing I am thankful for in these discussions is finally bringing to light what various forms of abusive behavior can look like. This was something I didn’t know when I was younger because I never saw it being talked about. I knew about physical abuse, but the emotional side of it wasn’t a part of my education. And it should have been. I was in emotionally abusive relationships, on both sides, and I wish I had the tools to see that, and better deal with it, that years of therapy, way too late, gave me. My wish is that this reckoning helps us teach our kids better. That we don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past. Too many voices have been silenced. At this point, I have to try and think about it in terms of what to do now, how to improve, how to educate, and how to make things better … because thinking about anything else just makes me so mad.
  • This week I launched the new Giphy search feature in the forums. It seems to be a hit. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, and I’m delighted with how it turned out. Simplifying one of the most common things people do in the forums always feels like a win. It was funny to see how many people had no idea it launched. I post all the updates in that “Website Update Thread,” but I guess a lot fewer people follow it than I thought. It was a big enough feature that I sent out a notification about it as well, that seemed to work. Next up on my to-do list is re-tackling all of the media embeds on the website. Things like Twitter embeds, Instagram embeds, and stuff like that. Right now, they work, but they can be pretty flaky and mess up. They also don’t look great while they’re loading, can cause some weird page jumping/scrolling issues, and the way they’re implemented isn’t great behind the scenes. So, I want to clean those up, make them look and work a whole lot better, and speed up the mechanisms behind the scenes. I’ve got a good start on how I want them to look, but getting that last part of how they work has been frustrating this week. Right when I thought I had it yesterday, I noticed that after about 15 seconds of being on a page, the tweets above would start loading before they should and push me down the page. I wanted to throw things at my computer.

In Case You Missed It

Music Thoughts

  • I wrote Set It Off, off, after hearing “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” on Duality and thinking, “yeah I don’t need any of that.” I found the song somewhat gross, and nothing else on that album grabbed me. I don’t remember if I gave their next album, Upside Down, a listen or not, but this week, for some reason, I decided to put on their new album Midnight to see what they’d become. I must say: I like it. It’s a very well constructed, well pieced together, pop-rock album. Vocals are great. Lyrics are much better. Melodies and choruses are top notch. The album’s too long and could have been trimmed down, but it came, by far, my most played album of the last week. I’ve had songs like “Lonely Dance” and “Different Songs” and “No Disrespect” stuck in my head almost constantly. I went back to their previous albums to see if I liked them any better now, and Upside Down sounds like a band that wants a hit like Fall Out Boy’s “Centuries.” It’s pretty good. Duality still isn’t for me. The lyrical content and songwriting aren’t quite there. It’s funny how sometimes, out of nowhere, a band that’s been around for a while will surprise you. Well done Set it Off, Midnight is a great listen, and I’m glad I didn’t ignore it.
  • I’m a big fan of this new Betty Who album on first listen. It’s exactly what I wanted from her and I think she knocked it out of the park. I am going to be playing this all summer and am already looking forward to another spin.
  • I am not sure what made me want to find and listen to that The Madden Brothers’ album this week, but I got it in my head that maybe I would like it more than I did when it came out. So, after hunting it down, I gave it another listen. I was wrong. I still don’t like it. I wondered if I would come around on it after enjoying the last two Good Charlotte albums. Nope.
  • The two new songs from Wet are good. The last album didn’t quite do it for me the same way as their debut, but I’m still really optimistic about this group’s career.
  • I find this new Tourist album very interesting. A lot is going on. I’m thinking a late night headphone listen to this one is in order, and this feels very much like I could add it into my “need to focus/code/work” group of albums.
  • The new Millencolin album is a great Millencolin album. I was only so-so on their last, and I haven’t listened to these guys as much as I did in my youth, but this is good, and I’m going to find some time to keep it in my rotation for a while. I can’t tell you how many times I air guitared to “Penguins & Polar Bears” alone in my bedroom.
  • SWMRS feels like a band I need to be in a specific mood to listen to. I got the advance a while back, and it wasn’t grabbing me. I think it’s going to be a summer album when I’m looking for that specific sound. It’s not bad, at all, it’s just not what I’m looking for at the moment.
  • I gave the Avril Lavigne album a listen and just wanted to listen to Betty Who again. I’ll try again later.
  • I checked out the latest Stand Atlantic album for the first time this week. Some good stuff in there, some catchy choruses, but it didn’t stand out to me in a way that made me feel like I needed to listen to it again.
  • Wicca Phase Springs is on my list to check out once I’m done with this write-up.
  • Thanks to Craig Manning’s recommendation I enjoyed the new Tyler Hilton album this week. I haven’t followed his career in like ten years, and I can’t even find his older albums on Apple Music, but this new one is very much in that alt-country vibe I enjoy. It’s maybe a little too long, but there’s a lot to like here.
  • Not sure how I came across Sergey Khachatryan on YouTube one night, I think Hannah and I were looking for a specific performance of some song, but damn can this dude play the violin. I’ve been listening to a bunch of his renditions of famous pieces all week. His Bach and Brahms are annoyingly good. Listening to him got Hannah and I talking about one difference in the kind of music she plays, and the kinda music I write about/listen to most of the time. I play a lot in the subjective. I say Marianas Trench is better than Emarosa at his sound. And, I can make a case for it or an argument and try and back it up. But, at the end of the day, it’s still just an opinion. But then if we listen to something like Sergey Khachatryan he’s just so very clearly better than … uh … most everyone. And there’s still some subjectivity that can be talked about in the margins, but there would be no lengthy forum debate about him versus Lindsay Stirling or even other contemporary violinists, it’s just not close. Discussions like this always fascinate me.
  • This is another pitch to get everyone reading this to check out Copeland. The new album is out now, and I think it’s one of those rare “special” albums that I really do recommend almost everyone listen to at least once. I’ll be on the next episode of the Stereo Confidential podcast talking in more depth about it.
  • The new One Ok Rock album is a lot poppier than I was expecting. There’s some good stuff here, and my first listen was way more positive than I was expecting.

Entertainment Thoughts

  • Freaks and Geeks: The Documentary: If you like this show, I think this is a must watch documentary. If you haven’t seen the show, I think it’s a must watch show, and then you should watch this documentary. I loved this. Now, Freaks and Geeks is up there in my list of all time favorite shows, but this documentary does such a great job of explaining why it worked as well as it did. It was a joy to watch and brought me so many different emotions.
  • High Flying Bird: This is the kind of movie that felt made for me to enjoy. Director, writer, subject matter … all right in my wheelhouse. And I liked it. It’s the perfect length, has a good message, and Soderbergh is basically just showing off now. (In my head cannon this is what happens to one of the main characters in the last season of American Vandal.)
  • Free Solo: This movie is palm sweat in cinematic form. Holy. Fuck. It’s terrific and I can’t even imagine doing something this insane. My brain has a “risk assessment” switch that would never turn off. I’ve done some rock climbing in the past and it never really took. I have a lot of friends that love it though. (What a surprising thing to say about Portland.) But the amount of strength, flexibility, and focus to accomplish something like this is … beyond me. My biggest fear is that at some point, it’ll catch up with him though. I dread getting the push notification that he didn’t make it on some future climb. Age and luck run out at some point. Incredible movie.
  • We’re up to episode 13 on season six of Below Deck. And this is becoming one of my favorite seasons yet. Anytime two people get booted from the ship you know you’re in for some good drama.
  • I’m still slowly working through Star Trek: Discovery, I’ve made it to episode 12. I still really enjoy it, but it’s hard to find a lot of time by myself to carve out an hour to watch it.
  • The most entertaining thing I watched all week was probably Duke’s insane 23-point comeback against Louisville on the road. I had just about given up on the game and turned it off when the rally started. I’ve never gone from mopey to elated quite so fast. Sports.

Random and Personal Stuff

  • One of our favorite breweries in Portland is closing next month. It’s a place that I’ve been going to for over a decade, and we have a whole lot of memories at. We decided to go there for dinner for Valentine’s Day, and it was packed. I guess a lot of people had the same idea as us. We got to witness one father/son fight next to us that included the son screaming at his dad, “YOU JUST DON’T GET ME,” and the dad taking his phone away. So that was fun. I sure don’t miss being a kid. Valentine’s Day itself was a lot of fun though. Hannah got me The Night Game on vinyl, a Miles Morales FUNKO, and some fun t-shirts (including an awesome Star Trek one). I got her a pair of rose gold Nike Flyknit shoes she had been eyeing, but I knew she wouldn’t buy for herself. Fun evening and I’m ready for the weekend.

Ten Songs

Here are ten songs that I listened to and loved this week. Some may be new, some may be old, but they all found their way into my life during the past seven days.

  1. Set It Off – No Disrespect
  2. Tyler Hilton – City on Fire
  3. Betty Who – Marry Me
  4. Alexisonfire – Familiar Drugs
  5. Millencolin – Yanny & Laurel
  6. Wet – Old Bone
  7. One Ok Rock – Stand Out Fit In
  8. SWMRS – Trashbag Baby
  9. Tourist – Love Theme
  10. Sergey Khachatryan – Partita No. 1 in B Minor (Bach)

The playlists are also available on Spotify and Apple Music.

I hope everyone had a great week. Thank you, as always, for supporting this website.

Previous editions of this roundup can be found here.