RE: The National's "Terrible Love" and Foals's "Spanish Sahara"/Megan's Triumphant Return

OH MY GOD I’M ALIVE

So, AWP kicked my ass. I got back and had to catch up/thesisize my thesis, read at a So to Speak event, and then leave again for a wedding in New Jersey. I left my new copy of Sandra Doller’s Chora on the Vamoose bus. So, expect to wait a little longer before I review it.

Dear Corey,

I am sorry for neglecting you/your blog posts. But I have returned. Forgive me. And rejoice—your faithful readers all wrote to their senators and now Conan O’Brien has been granted a late night show on TBS. Wait, TBS? I thought they only aired teen-themed movie marathons. Do they have time for Conan between Clueless, Can’t Hardly Wait, 10 Things I Hate About You, and She’s All That?

So, music? Music.

A) I love Jimmy Fallon & want to write sexy poems about him.

B) The National album High Violet comes out on May 11th, which is my mom’s birthday! Hi Mom! Just misses mother’s day, though, on May 9th, for all of you hoping to buy this album for your indie-moms.

C) I have to agree with Corey about the mounting tension of this song—so slow, so suspenseful, so inevitable, so satisfying. I’m seduced by the song by the time the guitar sound picks up around 1:50; from there on out it’s that thick, heady, lost in steady, building head-banging feeling. The indie jumping up and down dance ensues.

D) Now, I hate to correct Corey, and chances are that he has better sources than I do, but I searched the lyrics and found, “It’s a terrible love / and I’m walking with spiders / it’s quiet company / it’s quiet company.” This feels tragic yet comforting to me.

E) They gave an AWESOME performance. I like to see me some rock stars up on stage—I’d love to view them in concert.

Hey, guess what? The National is playing AT The National in Richmond on Thursday, April 22 . . . AND there are still tickets available.

Foals? Foals.

A) I usually HATE when websites make sound at me. It is jarring, unexpected, intrusive, unbearable. But sometimes I make exceptions. The flash images/music on the Foals webpage is not designed to brainwash you. It is pleasing. It doesn’t make me lunge toward my laptop going “ahh!” and fumbling to make it stop. What a crazy design ploy for the internet.

B) Doing my blog research (thanks, Wikipedia), I learned that Jack Bevan and Yannis Philippakis were once in a band called The Edmund Fitzgerald, classified as “math rock.” THERE IS SUCH A THING AS MATH ROCK? Sounds like a cool term/metaphor to me. So, continuing my research, it seems to me that Foals are kind of math-rock-lite, and that math-rock predecessors include some artists I actually know about—Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd. I would like everyone in the world to have more ELP in their life. So, not knowing earlier music from the Foals, but having done my research, it DOES seem like this smooth, somber sound is a departure from their roots. Yes, Corey? But I sense electronic play and the “the lunatic is on the grass” eeriness.

C) The video is crisp and beautiful. The bright, stark imagery reminds me of Insomnia (the 1997 Norwegian version by Erik Skjoldbjærg), and the slow close ups remind me a little of these beautiful video portraits by Ryan Poe (Hi old Fredericksburg friends!):

Video Portraits from Timothy Ryan Poe on Vimeo.

I leave you with your daily dose of ELP.

Love,

Megan