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A Duressed Top 10 List
22 Jun 2007, 1:31

Because Ezekiel's drunk and insistent and because I finished the project I needed to today (more on that tomorrow), here is my list.

Weezer—Pinkerton. Before their first (Blue) album, I listened to The Cranberries. Actually, I still listen to the Cranberries and still like them a lot, I'd listen to The Cranberries before I listen to nearly anything not on this list or in my spindles or something recommended by a trusted friend or something on the radio if and only if what happens to be on the radio has a peculiar kind of hook or charm or nostalgic value greater than their "Zombie" or Limp Bizkit's Three Dolla Bill Y'all. But after Pinkerton, I quit listening to the blue album. Actually, after Pinkerton I quit listening to Weezer (not true). It's their best and there's not a song on this album I don't know every word to (also not true). When Elisabeth and I drove to her grandparents' house outside of St Louis, we sang Pinkerton out loud together. All of it. The correct pronunciation of Rivers' last name still eludes me.

Neutral Milk Hotel—In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. On the mention of Elisabeth, I have to credit her with introducing me to this album. She sent it to me my sophomore year of college (she's always been hipper to coolness than I have). At the time I was strictly into electronic music. I actually mocked a guy who was later to become a fraternity brother who was later to be the impetus for my leaving/being kicked out of the fraternity because he couldn't perceive the difference between drum 'n bass and goa trance. On that same trip mentioned above, Elisabeth confessed that she considered those my "dark years". Anyway, I didn't make it through the second song on the first listen.


(poor quality—find the track somewhere else and love it)

But Elisabeth played it for me again somewhere between St Louis and Oklahoma and I loved it so much we listened to it twice. We loved it two times madly.

On the mention of madness: Aphex Twin—Drukqs.

I was listening to Drukqs when I totaled my car, not quite halfway to Las Vegas in early middle March last year. If they haven't dismantled, crushed or cremated it, if it's still in the car cemetery up there in the mountains, disc 2 could still be in the slot.

More madness: Miles Davis—Bitches Brew. This was introduced to me somewhere back there in my dark years. I was intrigued by the story that they holed up in the studio for a three-day heroin shoot-out and this was the result. The closest I've ever come are the all-night whiskey bonanzas that resulted in Always Dashing, pt.4, and the 3rd part of Init. After both, I posted the pieces unedited and went (a couple hours earlier than habit) into work.

Less mad, no less bad: John Coltrane—Dear Old Stockholm. On a trip to Dallas, Paul gave me 10 GBs of mp3s. This morsel was among all the bullshit. So was Bolt Thrower. So was Cannibal Corpse. This one, though, I kept. Some day I'll go to Stockholm. Never again will I listen to Bolt Thrower.

Sneaker Pimps—Becoming X. One night in our freshman or sophomore year of high school Paul and I ate about a dozen caffeine pills. We ran around his neighborhood kicking things and pissing on things and actually snuck into somebody's garage and closed it. And then we returned to his house and collapsed in his room, nauseous, dizzy, deranged and immature. We listened to this album about a dozen times consecutively.

DJ Krush—Kakusei. I listened to this album about a dozen times consecutively whilst driving the family van alone around a campground in South Dakota. It was an impulse purchase—I wanted Milight, but this was the only album by him they had. And I felt cool.

But not as cool as an ex-girlfriend and I felt at a Bright Eyes show (I'm serious). He was on the road promoting Lifted. We drove to Dallas for the weekend to watch him play. And I guess we were so obviously in love that the guy who was playing whatever instrument is played while sitting down by sliding a glass tube on a finger over its strings was staring at us. For a long time. I smiled. He nodded. And for their last song, he leaned over to Mr Oberst—quite drunk, had been drinking since the beginning of the show when he played backup for M Ward, drank two bottles of red red wine during his own set—and made a suggestion. Mr Oberst nodded or whatever and to conclude their set they played a very sentimental song about love.

We were also at a Kid Koala show in Austin when he performed this:


(Drunk Trumpet)

He hasn't released a thing I haven't enjoyed. And I love his web site. But he's Canadian. That bothers certain idiotic people.

Rachel's—Music for Egon Schiele. I minored in Art History. Believe it. My final art class was titled "Vienna, Prague, Moscow: 1900". To round off a three-week survey of each city's visual and architectural art we spent a day listening to its music. We spent a week on Egon Schiele and then someone brought this disc into class on Prague's Music Friday. We didn't listen to it. The professor barely mentioned it. But Something compelled me to look into it. And I did. And I was changed.

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