33 & 1/3 Under 45

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, bandcamp, or most places you stream music for music, upcoming releases, and shows. Hoo boy, here we are. The day after Trump left the White House. What a disaster this whole thing was. The work continues, clearly, but Jesus Christ, dudes, thank god that's over. To celebrate/close this door, I've made a farewell playlist of 33 songs from the Trump campaign/presidency that mean a lot to me as we move on from this disaster. I really like how it came out and I hope you do, too! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7GiRo4g1raF5LODonvWZhc?si=3M5DojapTbW_0ECISU5Ih Anyway, I'm wrapping up the show. As I've talked about in the past, the show was primarily a way for me to express a lot of the stress and anxieties I was having under 45 and it really helped me so much and I'm immensely grateful for everyone who came along with me. I had the idea for the column after my wedding, where our ceremony was pretty much the first episode of the show. Instead of readings from religious texts, we pulled lyrics from songs that meant the most to us and interwove them through stories of what made us fall in love. That day also re-opened my love of performance and was the first step for me getting back into writing and playing out again for the first time in a few years. One of the main reasons I want to wrap up the show is that now that Premium Heart is writing our follow up to "Kosciuszko," I want to really be able to focus on writing music and lyrics again and I've felt like a lot of the things I want to say were easier to write here instead of there and I don't want to split my writing anymore. So make sure you stay in touch through Premium Heart or my twitter or whatever! And just like... be cool and nice all the time. Eternally grateful, Ryan Lynch

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, bandcamp, or most places you stream music for music, upcoming releases, and shows. We've already made two batches of donations! Snares' funds are going to back Democrats taking the Senate back and the album is going to the ACLU! I'm prepping all the pre-orders any day now, so if you want some extra notes or fun stuff, pre-order it right now at: https://premiumheart.bandcamp.com/album/kosciuszko And watch the Snares music video we made: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55T6tS22_54

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, bandcamp, or most places you stream music for music, upcoming releases, and shows. Get stoked for all the huge Premium Heart stuff coming out over the next few weeks!

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, bandcamp, or most places you stream music for music, upcoming releases, and shows. This column was written on August 14th, 2020. I woke up this morning, I could barely breathe Just an empty impression in the bed where you used to be I want a kiss from your lips, I want an eye for an eye I woke up this morning to an empty sky "Regular bad." That's how I've been answering the question "How's everything going?" Let's be real, no matter how lucky I've been, it's not a fun time to exist right now. In the past, if you gave an answer like that, you'd get a follow up or a check-in from whoever you were talking to, but now you only get that if you say you're doing great. I can't shake that. That the norm is to be miserable and it's weird if you're having a good time. I can't stop thinking about how normal that feels for so many of us, especially millennials. We've really never gotten a goddamn break, have we? I search for you on the other side, where the river runs clean and wide Up to my heart, the waters rise Up to my heart, the waters rise I sink 'neath the water cool and clear. Drifting down, I disappear I see you on the other side I search for the peace in your eyes But they're empty as paradise They're as empty as paradise I'm really at the end of my patience with the whole narrative about millennials being coddled and entitled. That we refuse to grow up and are in a perpetual state of adolescence. Sure, a lot of us wallow in nostalgia and are obsessed with the good old days. Remember Magic School Bus? That was my favorite show! I remember watching it after school when I was 8, and for the first time, realizing all the things that I never imagined could happen in a school! It was right after my 3rd grade teacher sat us down and told us what had happened in Columbine. What an eye-opening time to be a kid! When I was 10, the World Trade Center fell and we watched thousands die on television. By the time I was 13, we were in two wars and the National Defense Authorization Act and the Patriot Act were codified, promising we would never have peace and we would never have privacy. By the time I graduated high school, the economy had the worst crash in 70 years. I got my driver's license two days before Hurricane Sandy shut down my island for weeks. And I'm about to turn 30 while over a thousand people die every day from a global pandemic the rest of the world has gotten under control and the economy is in the worst crash in 80 years. So fuck off that we've never been challenged. Fuck off that we don't know what it's like to sacrifice. The only trophies we've been given are inherited tragedies and pain. Fuck off if you think this generation is too soft. Instead of turning into bitter reminders of what we've lost, we're the first generation in decades trying to turn it into empathy. We want to abolish student loan debt, even though we've paid most of it off already. We want universal health care even though we're young and doing fine. I just can't tolerate this bullshit anymore. Look around at the world we've inherited and if this is what we're entitled to, I just hope there's a good return policy. I've been listening to a whole lot of his modern catalog, and few stand out as well as 2002's, The Rising, which was written in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. And the thing that keeps me coming back is the unbelievable sense of empathy I get from this record. While the majority of older white guys were calling for mass bombings and xenophobic genocide of the middle east, Bruce was doing what he always does, blending optimism and love with his genuine care for the people in his country, especially the ones most marginalized. From "World's Apart," a song he collaborates on with Asif Ali Khan, a Pakistani singer, and his qawwali group. Where the distant oceans sing, and rise to the plains In this dry and troubled country, your beauty remains Down from the mountain roads, where the highway rolls to dark 'Neath Allah's blessed rain, we remain worlds apart Sometimes the truth just ain't enough, or it's too much in times like this Let's throw the truth away, we'll find it in this kiss In your skin upon my skin, in the beating of our hearts May the living let us in, before the dead tear us apart A lot of the songs in this album deal with a pretty explicit reaction to the attacks, but so many of them feel like they can be applied to any of the horrific times we've had in the last 25 years. "We're America, we can get through this! We're strong, we're tough, nothing can stop us!" has become this mantra that doesn't mean anything to me anymore. We never get a fucking break from "persevering" anymore. I'm just so tired. Tired of being informed with today's atrocities. Tired of how little half of this country seems to realize, no matter how obvious it is. I'm tired of once in a lifetime events happening every three years. I'm tired of mass graves, whether it be from an attack, a hurricane, a virus, or whatever's coming next. I'm just so tired. But we don't give up, do we? If we did, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be out in the streets fighting against a plague to try to ensure some sense of justice in this injust world. Our elders have failed us. Refused to take any action on *motions to literally anything.* We look to each other for strength, because looking to the past, the systems that gave the people now in power support have been gutted and stripped beyond recognition. Yeah, we're soft. But I'd rather be soft than cruel. No contest. We keep seeing our friends and family die and instead of support, we're met with scorn, so yeah, we're gonna disregard the politeness on our way to overthrow the status quo that killed them. The sky was falling and streaked with blood I heard you calling me, then you disappeared into dust Up the stairs, into the fire Up the stairs, into the fire I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher Somewhere up the stairs, into the fire May your strength give us strength May your faith give us faith May your hope give us hope May your love give us love Regular bad. That's the normal for us. Bad. Some days, I can barely keep it together and it's only getting worse. I can't tell you how many times I've heard an exasperated sigh followed by "Something's gotta fucking give, man." And this isn't new for us. We've been living with this feeling our entire lives. But we deal with it. And we don't let it make us calloused or bigoted. We internalize the pain and use it to build empathy for people who have it worse than us. This cruel, terrible world took my childhood, but I won't let it take my future and I won't let it take my soul. Not without a fight.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, instagram, spotify, bandcamp, or most places you stream music for music, upcoming releases, and shows. This column was written on July 14th, 2020. Learn to leap, leap from ledges high and wild Learn to speak, speak with wisdom like a child Directly to the heart Crown yourself the king of clowns or stand way back apart But never give your love, my friend Unto a foolish heart We've been staying home for over a hundred days. How about that? And guess what? Everything's still terrible! But hopefully, everyone's developed some habits that help keep them going. For me, I've been playing a lot of Breath Of The Wild, the Zelda game, and really just losing myself in a lot of different music. For the first couple months of quarantine, I spent a lot of time with the Grateful Dead. I've been a Deadhead for years and spent much of my adolescence with them, both as a fan and as part of the extended Dead crew family. They've always been a safe place for me to just sink into and turn off all the bad in the world, and hoo boy, did I need it more than ever this time around. I dove deep into every nook and cranny of their catalog this time, from the nasty, explosive psychadelica of '68 through the jazzy, exploratory 70s, but ended up landing time and time again in the Spring '90 tour. I've always gravitated towards this era of the band, with no small part of the credit going to their keyboardist from 1979-1990, Brent Mydland. Often with lyricist John Perry Barlow, Brent added a level of deep pathos and personal songwriting that's a real high point for me in the Dead's massive catalog. From an unreleased demo from Built To Last: When the police come, you better let 'em in, Gentleman, start your enginesDon't forget to tell 'em what a sport I've been, Gentleman, start your enginesI got a head full of vintage TNT, They're gonna blow me up 'stead of burying meIf you don't like trouble, better leave me beGentleman, start your enginesLike the Devil's Mustangs, I've been riding hell for leatherPut away angry, angry in the darkLet me tell you, honey,There's some mighty stormy weatherRolling 'round the caverns of my heart As an aside, because the Dead's pretty much exclusively a live band, I'm using the last studio Dead album released in 1989, Built To Last, as an outline. All of the songs here are from the Spring '90 tour, but are still tracks from that album. The Brent-era is often maligned by Deadheads. He was the new guy, coming off of one of the most celebrated eras of live music for the band and a lot of the studio material suffered from cheesy production and overly catchy songs. It was the 80s, after all. But for me, by the Spring of 1990, I think the band was the best they ever were and this tour was really something special. I love their whole career, but this is the top of the top for me. And Brent was, for the first time, really elevated within the band. He writes and sings four of the nine songs on Built To Last and his songs started popping up more and more throughout the set. And with that, you can feel the pain and heart in every single one of his songs that helped make this tour the best of the best. And helped make me feel a little less isolated in this dark, terrible time. Well, there ain't nobody safer than someone who doesn't care And it isn't even lonely, when no one's ever there I had a lot of dreams once, but some of them came true The honey's sometimes bitter when fortune falls on you And you know I've been a soldier in the armies of the night And I'll find a fatal error in what's otherwise alright Something shines around you and it seems to my delight To give you just a little sweetness... Just a little light I have always heard that virtue oughta be its own reward, But it never comes so easy when you're living by the sword It's even harder to be heartless when you look at me that way You're as mighty as the flower that will grow the stones away Even though I've been a stranger, full of irony and spite Holding little but contempt for all things beautiful and bright, Something shines around you and it seems to my delight To give me just a little sweetness... Just a little light A lot Brent's (And Barlow's) songs are pretty introspective and self-loathing, but Built To Last also features one of my favorite political Dead songs, "We Can Run." The Dead were very rarely political after the 60s, as Jerry Garcia was pretty adamantly against working with a system he found repulsive, but by the late 80s, Brent and Bob Weir (again, both with Barlow), penned a few more explicit stances, which sadly, don't feel all that dated. I'm dumping my trash in your backyard Makin' certain you don't notice really isn't so hard You're so busy with your guns and all of your excuses to use them Well it's oil for the rich and babies for the poor They got everyone believin' that more is more If a reckoning comes, maybe we'll know what to do then We can run, but we can't hide from it Of all possible worlds, we only got one, we gotta ride on it Whatever we've done, We'll never get far from what we leave behind Baby, we can run, run, run, but we can't hide Oh no, we can't hide All these possibilities seem to leave no choice I heard the tongues of billions speak with just one voice Saying "Just leave all the rest to me. I need it worse than you, you see." And then I heard... The sound of one child crying. The album's not all Brent, obviously. Jerry and Bobby still have some great songs on it that really resonated with me this time around, too. As much as I felt like the whole world was falling apart and there was no hope for any of us, Jerry (and his lyricist, Robert Hunter) explain that the only things that are Built To Last are the things that are built to try. If we give up, we're definitely fucked. If we try, at least we have a shot, albeit a long one. When I was really at my lowest, this tour helped me get lost in a better time. Like the wide open spaces of Breath Of The Wild, having a Dead show to close my eyes and go to helped ground me. The songs from Built To Last don't ignore the anxieties raging inside us all, but they embrace them and turn them into something beautiful. Tragically, this was the last full scale tour before Brent died in July that year, a heartbreaking reminder that when the show's over, and it always ends eventually, you still have to learn to better yourself and the world we all share. But until that last song ends, you can close your eyes and let the music take you home.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. This column was written on June 14th, 2020. Johnson portrayed Freedom - it rang just as loud as the bell proclaiming him Champion. All forms of expression, whether artistic or not, are statements of values from the creator and are inherently political. If you can't accept that and wish people didn't have to be so political in their art, go fuck, and I can't stress this enough, yourself. In 1970, just about a year after Miles Davis recorded his groundbreaking jazz fusion album, In A Silent Way, he recorded the soundtrack to an upcoming documentary on the boxing champion, Jack Johnson. Johnson was one of the first black boxers who was "allowed" to box a white man and become the world heavyweight boxing champion, owned and operated several desegregated nightclubs in the 1910s, and was arrested, charged, and sentenced by an all-white jury for violating the Mann Act because of his relationships with white women before the Act was even passed. In years, we're about as removed from this record as Miles was from most of the events that made Jack Johnson a household name. But just like I feel that this album is as relevant today as ever, Miles felt a deep connection to Jack's story. Not only as a trailblazer for Black Americans, shattering boundaries that White America fought (and still fights) so hard to uphold, but also as a victim of the system. In 1959, after releasing the masterpiece Kind Of Blue, Miles was beaten and arrested by the NYPD for not "moving on" from the steps of the club he was playing an Armed Forces Day benefit at (the Birdland, one of the most important Jazz clubs in Manhattan) after walking a white woman to her cab. Despite pointing out that he was on the marquee and had every right to be there, (“I don’t care where you work, I said move on! If you don’t move on I’m going to arrest you.” said the cop) Miles was beaten bloody and dragged off. From his autobiography: For everyone that says it's only about class and that if we pursue economic justice, racial justice will follow suit, you're still as wrong as people who said that to Miles in 1959 were. As wrong as the people that said that to Jack Johnson in 1912 were. It doesn't matter if you're rich, a racist system is still going to abuse you if you're not white. And then make you the villain for being angry. You're the real racist for fighting against the system. From Davis' liner notes for the record: Now I don't know a whole lot about Jack Johnson and I've never seen the movie. But I can still really feel what Miles is trying to convey in his soundtrack. The first side, "Right Off" starts with a very rock and blues feeling electric guitar, drums and bass, that immediately invoke the presence that a man like Jack Johnson, a man like Miles Davis, always invokes when they walk into a room. He lets John McLaughlin's guitar, Michael Henderson's bass, and Billy Cobham's drums tell the story for a few minutes, alternating between big fills and mellow lows until Miles comes in at about the 2 and a half minute mark. And he makes it clear that he's the star here. His trumpet fills the space and reminds everyone that people like him are the reason we have jazz. The reason we have the blues. The reason we have rock n roll. Together, they build the song up to something truly magical. Until about 10 and half minutes in, everything drops out but Miles' muted trumpet. Just long enough to remind you that hidden behind every jam that takes music to this kind of level, there's a deep, solitary pain behind it. As much as Miles Davis was the coolest band leader who ever lived, he was still just a man. A man mistreated by the society that he made so much richer and better, just by expressing himself. But then it gets big again, and the party starts right up. For a few minutes at least. Until we get a similar bridge, this time with Steve Grossman's sax and the bass, alone, but together. And this time, when everyone comes back in, Herbie Hancock adds his organ and it's bigger and fuller than ever, together. Miles always strikes a perfect balance between the highs and lows. The highs of his persona, the lows of how he was treated. The highs of his talent, the lows of everyone else's appreciation. He saw a lot of kinship in Jack Johnson and fought against a lot of the same hateful bigotry. From his liner notes: "Right Off" continues along the same kind of groove for a while, then about 18 and a half minutes in, until it completely changes into a heavy funk riff no one can see coming. This evolves into a groove that beautifully carries the energy of the song to it's natural conclusion. Jack and Miles both knew that they could never become predictable or take it safe, otherwise the bigotry steeped in our culture would attack them at any opportunity they allowed. It didn't matter that Jack was the champion of the world. Or that Miles was... well... Miles Davis. They couldn't just be the best at one thing, they had to be the best at everything. As soon as Jack won the "fight of the century" and proved that white supremacy was a fallacy, Congress has to step in and outlaw fight films. The state stepped in to damage control the reputation of the white man. People couldn't see that they could fight back; can't let anyone get any ideas. Again, from the liner notes. The second half of the record, "Yesternow" is a slower growth and more driving song. A bass melody carries the first half of it while the rest of the band peppers in phrases on top. For about twelve minutes, the band build upon this very minimalist idea until abruptly, everything stops and samples from In A Silent Way come in and remind you of the larger narrative that Davis is in the middle of. He's still building jazz fusion, a brand new genre, just like Jack Johnson was building a new world for black athletes. But as soon as you start to fall into those comfortable, familiar habits, a new bass melody comes in. Harder, with more punch than before. The structure may seem the same on paper, but the comfortable familiarity is gone as the song jumps to a completely new place. Always keeping the audience on their toes, Davis reminds us how relentless his fight is and how he can't let up for a second, otherwise they'll just knock him out in the next round. The funk fades out and we're left with a haunting trumpet melody, heightening the dissonance instead of comfortably resolving the album, and, as is becoming more and more clear every day, society follows suit. And as the final hints of melody fade out, we hear the only spoken words on the album, from the movie:

This column was written on May 30th, 2020. When I joined Premium Heart, I hadn’t written a song in a really long time. It had been quite a few years since I really took a lyrical queue in my head and pushed a whole song through it. But while we were writing and demoing the record, I felt like the themes that were already there, most of which were written by Nick, were so clear and inspiring that I knew I had something to say, and few of my contributions ended up meaning as much to me as what I wrote for The Credit Reel.  At its face, the song is about climate change. But that was only the lens through which I tried to express a larger feeling that I’ve been having for years now. Moreso than just the fear of a world burned up and barren, this song’s about the overlying existential dread a lot of us have been feeling since Trump came down that escalator, announced his candidacy, and declared Mexicans were rapists and criminals. It’s about the uncertainty I’ve been feeling; just when are we going to bottom out and things are gonna stop getting… worse? And clearly, we’ve still found new lows to fall to. Luckily, Nick was there to write some of the more optimistic parts, about being in this hellhole together, but also keeping it on my level by adding some really scary biblical stuff. Part of a complete breakfast and all that. I used to consider myself an optimist. That people would rally together and do the right thing when it really mattered. Clearly that was an idealism born of privilege and a naive view of just how broken our system and culture is. America’s power structure and "majorities" have done such a wonderful job at showing us just how little they care about anyone but themselves. “Yeah, that’s rough, but not for me and mine.” Education, health care, human rights, a cleaner and safer environment, diversity, and the list goes on, have all become part of a “liberal agenda” and have become polarizing to the point that in our system of electoral delegates, they don’t even warrant a vote in the Senate. We’ve been protesting that Black Lives Matter for almost 7 years, and Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Philando Castile, Laquan McDonald, Jamar Clark, Tamir Rice, Alton Sterling, Stephon Clark, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Amaud Arbery, and so many others are dead. And for what progress? Colin Kaepernick took a knee and was lambasted by the majority for it. What progress has this, primarily peaceful protest movement made in almost a decade? How long are people expected to just deal with a broken system when it not only doesn’t improve, but worsens? It doesn’t matter how much you point out the hypocrisy or try to make an example of someone clearly guilty of not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. Just last month, the sergeant from the Parkland shooting, who waited outside while children were murdered had been fired, sure, but the police department waited two days longer than the mandatory maximum waiting period for repercussions provided by their contract, so he’s back on the job. What a coincidence that that happened to line up so well for him, who’s now been reinstated! With similar contracts around the country, even when “bad apples” are made examples of, the repercussions are rarely permanent, even more rarely causing any systemic reform, and only serve to further rot the corrupt system we have. It isn’t until protests garner national attention does anything happen, and even then, it’s often marred by specific protections that prevent justice from being served. I know this isn't a new problem. I know that so many people deal with this every single day, in ways that are much deeper than I’ll ever experience. But this time feels even worse. Maybe it’s just the pandemic getting to me. Maybe it’s that we’re approaching the 4th anniversary of Trump’s god-forsaken escalator stunt. I don’t know. But the juxtaposition of three major events has really broken the final shreds of whatever optimism I had left.  First was the Breonna Taylor murder in Louisville, Kentucky after police kicked in the door to an apartment that the suspect they’d been looking for, who was already in custody, had never lived in just because she knew him two years prior. One of the officers was already in the middle of an ongoing lawsuit regarding abuse of power. She was shot eight times. Then was the one-two of the Michigan reopen protests and the Minnesota protests. Seeing armed people, some carrying confederate flags (in Michigan?) and swastikas, storm a capital building, guns drawn, and scream in the face of police was really terrifying. But no tear gas, no dispersing of the crowd, nothing. “Very fine people” says the president, echoing the statement he made about the Nazi rally in Charlottesville that killed Heather Heyer.  Then in Minnesota, after the horrifying murder of George Floyd by a police officer who kept his knee on George’s throat for 9 minutes over a suspected counterfeit $20 bill... not quite the same reaction. Timelines are always hard to track from the outside in instances like this, but from what I can see, most of the severe escalation we’ve seen has been after tear gas was used to disperse crowds on the second night of protests. “THUGS,” says Trump, while repeating the catchphrase of Walter Headley, a segregationist police chief who tried to put down the civil rights movement, and later said by George Wallace, a segregationist presidential candidate of 1968. Side note: I’m not going to weigh in on the role of outside agitators and white supremacist infiltrators, as that evidence is not clear right now while the Governor investigates. I don’t want to blindly adopt a lot of rhetoric that gets tossed around about the role of protests and violence in times of severe injustice. I just can’t stomach seeing all of the exact same people who ripped apart Colin Kaepernick (who, by the way, is paying legal fees for protesters) and other types of peaceful protesters once again screaming that these people, who are so sick and tired of all of these injustices, should be more like those people, who just a few years ago were, to paraphrase the president, “sons of bitches who shouldn’t be in this country.” After almost a decade of these organized, focused protests at these injustices, it’s so clear that there’s nothing that people fed up with injustice are allowed to do except lay down and die at the hands of a system that keeps the majority of the country comfortable and safe.  Unless it’s about a pandemic and stay-at-home orders or asking people to wear a mask. Then it’s fascism? I don’t know, these fucking people don’t believe in anything except their entitlement to comfort. It’s a waste of time to argue or even think about their arguments. They’re nothing but selfish assholes and they’ll never be anything but. Anyway, having said all that, I think it’s important to stay empathetic and compassionate to the actual victims of our system. I have no patience left for the perpetrators and supporters of injustice and the class hierarchy we have in America, but that doesn’t mean we can’t care deeply for the people who keep getting shoved under the knees and boots of the oppressors. We need to support them at every step of this. That’s why we’re releasing our first single, The Credit Reel, on Bandcamp, for pay-whatever-you-want and all of the money we get will be split between Black Table Arts* and the Louisville Community Bail Fund. As we saw, live on CNN, the Minnesota police are just indiscriminately arresting innocent people. And in Louisville, they're shooting them with pepper balls or rubber bullets and not all of the people there are lucky enough to be reporters, live on TV, so they’re still sitting in cells they don’t belong in, victims of a de-funded and abandoned support system that prioritizes harsh punishment over ground-up community building. A system that silences the voices of those most affected. I’m including the song here, but please, I implore you to give what you can to help the people who need it the most right now. The Boston Tea Party was a riot, the suffragettes rioted, Stonewall was a riot. Apparently, it’s the only way to ever get anything done. A plethora of angels, no more snowmen left Too old to wish for much, but summer break would never end Cake’s run out of candles, be careful what you’re hoping for Second coming’s much more often now Seeing shadows never more Let’s run out the clock together Paper says wait till tomorrow Credits atrophy and die The whole world burns just like a dumpster Yeah, that’s rough but not for me and mine Class is cancelled due to apathy Armed and tragic and willfully blind Hope is a barren harlot Why don’t we run out the clock together? Let’s run out the clock together Light from the snow reflects through our window On we, for whom it’s reserved The blackness, the darkness forever Empty and without form Let’s run out the clock together *Note: We originally planned on giving to the Minneapolis Freedom Fund and then Reclaim The Block, but they both had enough to donations and requested that we donate to these organizations instead: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yLWGTQIe3967hdc9RSxBq5s6KKZHe-3_mWp5oemd7OA/preview?fbclid=IwAR3OQPOxFMC4yWlCtaC-muXB-DDa0iX_b7eDNYCYJ2qu1nwrFVUn3XEPPmw&pru=AAABcpAzWQ4*ThWEBw83-3Mo3ZoSfinHYw

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on January 15th, 2020 and can be found below. Read all the pamphlets and watch the tapes. You turn 25 and now you’re all out of escapes. Hey, the rock writer told me to tell you: “though you’re great and you’re brave You still lack that which makes you a star.” Read all the pamphlets and watch the tapes I can’t stop thinking about creative growth and how much it ties in to our intellectual curiosity. As I get older, I’m more and more disheartened to see people just… stop learning things. Obviously, you can read a whole slew of political commentary into that concept; people refusing to grow past the status quo they’re most comfortable with or learn to accept people that previously made them feel “weird” about how different their lives and experiences are. But we’re in the Trump era and Biden’s the national frontrunner in the Democratic primary, so there’s a billion think-pieces on that. So let’s talk about music. Let’s talk about punk music. Since I started listening to music, I’ve listened to punk. Pop-punk, ’77, and some early hardcore are my specialties. But around the end of high school, I started to kind of fall out of thecontemporary punk scene. At least in the scene I was in, heavier punk and metal merged a little too much for my tastes and got too… macho, the same thing that turns me off from a lot of 80s hardcore. Pop punk got too overproduced and started to drift away from the “my friends in their garage writing songs about girls” sound that I fell in love with of the late 90s/early 00s. So I fell out of it and started listening to a lot more indie and alternative. But recently, I’ve started to fall pretty hard into post-punk. I’m new to it, so forgive me if I’m wrong about any of the details, but it seems like post-punk (and no-wave) seem to embody the DIY, relatable punk ethos, but without the cliché, trappings, and narrow genre focus of punk. I’ve been all about bands like Siouxsie And The Banshees, Sonic Youth, and Joy Division for the last few weeks after my guitarist gave me a path to delve in to. And man, it rules. It’s got that “garage band with friends” sense of freedom, but with a much bolder and unexpected musical direction. It really opened my eyes up to the idea that I don’t have to “leave behind punk” when I get bored of it, but I can just make different punk music. The punk ethos isn’t just about fast and loud guitars, but it’s just that, an ethos. The punks grew up and I had missed the whole thing for decades. This is the exact kind of music I want, no, need to be playing right now. Being an artist in 2020 has to be about inclusivity instead of gatekeeping. It’s all about making art for the right reasons, your reasons, not about following the structures set by the generations before us. Punk was punk because nobody had done it before, not because somebody did the exact same thing 40 years ago. And that brings me to LCD Soundsystem and their second album, Sound Of Silver. LCD Soundsystem had been recommended to me a few times over the years, but I never really gave them a shot until this week. The aforementioned guitarist showed me a few songs and I wasn’t really wowed at first. But then I listened to this record and I was immediately won over. It really captured the exact feelings I’ve been having about making music today. So many songwriters just try to capture the sound they listen to instead of trying to do something new, something risky. I try to approach any creative project by first answering the question, what can I offer that no one else can? If this was just a straight album review, there are a million people way better than I am at talking about or analyzing music, so I try to focus on my reaction to music instead. Why would I want to make music that just sounds like a watered down version of someone I loved? Someone who I loved because of how groundbreaking and new their sound was when it came out? We have all unique voices, experiences, lives, why waste them? If you aren’t familiar with LCD, they’re a bit hard to describe. They’re… dance-punk, I guess? A lot of the instrumentation is electronic and synth-driven, but James Murphy clearly comes from the New York punk scene. It sounds like a fun dance album, but lyrically, a whole lot of the record, probably because it is, seems like a punk record of the Bloomberg-era (Your mild billionaire mayor’s now convinced he’s a king). I’ve never heard a band that sounds like LCD Soundsystem. And that’s the point. It sounds strange at first, but doesn’t everything that leaves a mark? Everyone should have something to say no matter how hard to describe their voice is. If they think they don’t have anything important to say, maybe they should start to really think about why they feel like their voice doesn’t matter and who made them feel that way. New York, I Love You, But you’re bringing me down. Like a death of the heart. Jesus, where do I start? But you’re still the one pool. Where I’d happily drown And oh... Take me off your mailing list. For kids who think it still exists Yes, for those who think it still exists Maybe I’m wrong and maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m wrong and maybe you’re right. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m wrong and just maybe you’re right And oh.. Maybe mother told you true and there’ll always be somebody there for you And you’ll never be alone But maybe she’s wrong and maybe I’m right and just maybe she’s wrong Maybe she’s wrong and maybe I’m right and if so, is there? I’ve written a lot about legacy and nostalgia in these columns, too, and I’m not disregarding those! There’s nothing wrong with showing your influences or writing a throwback. But we should always strive to keep our art honest and personal. You can write about and with nostalgia and still have something new to say. Keeping your influences clear as a bibliography to fully understand the artistic curiosity that led you to create this piece in the first place is great! But there’s a big difference between continuing the collective narrative of our society’s artistic story and just being derivative. We should always remember where we came from, but never at the expense of where we need to go, no matter how untraveled that path forward seems.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on December 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Workin’ in the fields til’ you get your back burned Workin’ ‘neath the wheel, til’ you get your facts learned Baby, I got my facts, learned real good right now Poor man want to be rich, Rich man want to be king And a king ain’t satisfied til’ he rules everything Lately, I’ve found a lot of new appreciation for late 90s/early 2000s political critiques. Too often, and I’m guiltier of this than most, we become enamored by deconstructions of post-9/11 American domestic life and foreign policy and forget that there was plenty of division, strife, and protest in our “contemporary” society before the Bush Doctrine ramped it all up to 11. 9/11 was such a glaring and brutal bullet point on the American timeline that it’s easy to forget that a lot of the issues we still argue about were actually worth arguing about before we were shocked into the “modern American” mindset. A few of the things I’ve been thinking of are: Christopher Priest’s fantastic 1998-2003 run on Black Panther, which serves as a stark critique of Clinton-era foreign policy. A realization that the Star Wars prequels are secretly good and have a lot of very prescient things to say about America’s soon to start wars in the middle east. And Bruce Springsteen’s late-90s output, specifically the live record documenting the final leg of his 1999 reunion tour with the East Street Band, Live In New York City. When I started this column, I did a lot of soul searching on if I should include albums that weren’t just standard studio albums. Compilations don’t quite capture the moment in time and emotional thru-line that I try to focus on. Live albums have a similar problem, in that a set list might be pulling from songs that aren’t relevant to now or songs that are still popular and people want to hear. But in a live setting, older songs can be re-framed, in a new narrative, and given a new context to help us appreciate what they were trying to say all along. Bruce is someone who I’ve never really listened to and I think it’s a great disservice to what he stands for that I took so long to really listen to his lyrics and realize what he was trying to say. I always knew he was a “blue collar” songwriter but I somehow missed just how much he spoke about so many of the economic issues we constantly talk about in modern political discourse. From the Monongahela valley to the Mesabi iron range To the coal mines of Appalachia, the story’s always the same Seven hundred tons of metal a day, now sir you tell me the world’s changed Once I made you rich enough, rich enough to forget my name I mean come on, this is basically the script to an ad about the divide in the Democratic Party about trade deals in the Trump era. But with a bit more… realism and bite. When I die I don’t want no part of heaven, I would not do heaven’s work well I pray the devil comes and takes me, to stand in the fiery furnaces of hell And that kind of aggressive populism, raging against the rich who look down on all of us is present throughout the entire show. Even when they’re dressed up in folksy Americana. But that’s not why I’m writing about this specific record. I was originally going to write about Born In The U.S.A. Born down in a dead man’s town The first kick I took was when I hit the ground You end up like a dog that’s been beat too much Till you spend half your life just covering up Born In The U.S.A. was the first Springsteen album I really loved. I put it off because I absolutely can’t stand that every nationalistic xenophobe since Reagan has played it at rallies. But then when I really listened to it, I realized the obvious. That it’s not some beautiful anthem on American exceptionalism Got in a little hometown jam So they put a rifle in my hand Sent me off to a foreign land To go and kill the yellow man It’s a harsh critique of our imperialism at the expense of not only the people we go over to kill, but at the young men and women who are forced to enforce America’s will abroad only to be shunned by the people who sent them over there in the first place. The pro-war hawks are almost always slashing funding, limiting health care, and destroying the VA so they can hold it up as an example of how “government doesn’t work.” Come back home to the refinery Hiring man says “Son if it was up to me” Went down to see my V.A. man He said “Son, don’t you understand” I had a brother at Khe Sanh fighting off the Viet Cong They’re still there, he’s all gone The version of “Born In The U.S.A.” we hear here is a somber one, stripped down to a 12-string acoustic guitar, reflecting the severity of the issue we were about to ramp up to 11. Just two years later, we started sending troops to fight the two longest wars in American history, with an economic recession just behind the corner, waiting for the lucky ones to come home to. The hypocrisy of those in power really brought me to what may be the most powerful song for this whole show, the only song that was new for this tour. In the weeks leading up to this run at Madison Square Garden, Bruce and the E Street Band debuted a new song, “American Skin” in Atlanta and the lyrics leaked online. This song was in response to the Amadou Diallo shooting in the Bronx earlier that year. Springsteen had written political songs throughout his career, clearly, but this one sparked a bit more outrage, especially from the NYPD. 41 shots, and we’ll take that ride Across this bloody river to the other side 41 shots, they cut through the night You’re kneeling over his body in the vestibule Praying for his life I spend a lot of time thinking about protest and the most effective way to do it. I struggle with it a lot, especially since my life is pretty privileged and most of the things I’ve protested haven’t directly affected me. I constantly hear criticism from the right about how you’re supposed to protest. Our country was founded on protest, but so many people who support the status quo keep themselves distanced enough so they don’t have to confront that they would clearly be loyalists to the British during the American Revolution. Protesting is great and American, but you shouldn’t destroy property. The Boston Tea Party. They wouldn’t have gotten killed if they just listened to the police. The Boston Massacre began as the follow up to a British customs officer when he shot and killed an 11 year old boy during a patriot protest. A week and a half later, a protest turned violent when a British officer stabbed a protester with his bayonet. The rest is history. 41 shots, Lena gets her son ready for school She says, “On these streets, Charles. You’ve got to understand the rules If an officer stops you, promise me you’ll always be polite And that you’ll never ever run away Promise Mama, you’ll keep your hands in sight” My point is not to weigh in on specific cases of brutality or not, as I haven’t done the due diligence to discuss this case at length. My point is that if people have and they’re pissed off about it, that’s ok. I’ve seen so many people go so far out of their way to make sure they have no acceptable way to voice that disbelief. Street protests just get in the way of people trying to go to work. Public displays are inappropriate, and god forbid anyone kneels during the anthem. (As an aside, the Department of Defense spent millions of taxpayers dollars making the NFL more “patriotic” and players didn’t stand on the field for the national anthem until 2009). Celebrities are supposed to stay in their lane and entertain us, mindlessly, with no regard for or mention of their personal beliefs. One of the greats, Bruce Springsteen, has a huge reunion tour and comes out with a statement that he thinks is important. And he gets called a “floating fag” by the police and told to go back to singing “American flag songs and all that stuff.” If artists can’t protest through their art, how the fuck are people supposed to protest? If someone with a platform as large as Springsteen is called a dirtbag and told to shut the fuck up, how are regular folk supposed to stand up to an unjust system? That’s the trick, they aren’t. They’re supposed to just sit there and hope that the status quo deigns the downtrodden worthy to receive a blessing from above. If only everyone could be so lucky.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on November 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Should we talk about the weather? (Hi, hi, hi) Should we talk about the government? (Hi, hi, hi, hi) Currently, I’m in the final stages of a new music project that I’m so excited to release and it’s a great new direction for my writing. I’ve dabbled in political songwriting in the past, but I usually fell short and started feeling that when you make a political message the main focus, the song too often becomes more about sending the intended message over writing a great song. Sacrificing catchiness for importance. Placing relevancy over memorability. But this time, helped by the fact that someone else is writing most of the music, we’ve really crafted a record that I think is about some really important things, but never at the expense of making a great record that people will (hopefully!) want to listen to. And nobody balanced those two things half as well as R.E.M. did, especially on their 1988 album, Green. Sometimes I feel like I can’t even sing (Say, say, the light) I’m very scared for this world, I’m very scared for me (Say, say, the light) Eviscerate your memory, here’s a scene You’re in the back seat laying down (Say, say, the light) The windows wrap around to the sound of the travel and the engine Green was released on November 7th, 1988, the day before the 1988 American Presidential election. R.E.M. was very outspoken at the time against then-candidate George H. W. Bush and supported the Democrat, Michael Dukakis. Using their first major label release to raise their platform, it was clear that this album was going to be even more political than they’d been in the past. Green is an interesting album in R.E.M.’s catalog. They’d been primarily playing in minor keys with more traditional instrumentation, but with Green they somehow managed to be more mainstream, while also becoming more experimental. Their songwriting became more major key and accessible, but their instrumentation was becoming much more diverse. This album features a lot of mandolin and pedal steel guitar, played by Peter Buck, and it layers the record in an eerie, but deeply, beautiful way. The higher string instruments interweave perfectly under Michael Stipe’s voice, which was reaching new highs with each new album, of which Green is no exception. This is my world and I am the World Leader Pretend This is my life and this is my time I have been given the freedom to do as I see fit It’s high time I raised the walls that I’ve constructed It’s amazing what devices you can sympathize (Empathize) This is my mistake, let me make it good I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down You fill in the mortar, you fill in the harmony You fill in the mortar, I raised the wall And I’m the only one, I will be the one to knock it down Just about every single song on Green deals with some sort of bigger picture. They all certainly resonate with me, but the diversity in the messages, alongside the diversity in the musical directions the album pushes into, help make Green a truly iconic album. I never really hear anyone talk about R.E.M.’s influence on music and pop culture, but they’re a real benchmark of the transition from the punk-focused Reagan-era of political music, back into a more mainstream level of politics in popular music. The most famous song on the record, “Orange Crush” doesn’t shy away from the explicitly political message at the heart of Green. Everybody knows “Orange Crush,” but I don’t know how many casual listeners realize what it’s about. It’s not soda, that’s for sure. Right underneath the endlessly catchy hooks is a story about Vietnam, specifically the chemical weapon, Agent Orange. High on the roof Thin the blood Another one came on the waves tonight Coming in, you’re home “We would circle and we’d circle and we’d circle To stop and consider and centered on the pavement Stacked up all the trucks jacked up and our wheels In slush and orange crush in pocket and all This here county, hell, any county, it’s just like heaven here And I was remembering and I was just in a different county and all Then this whirlybird that I headed for I had my goggles pulled off; I knew it all, I knew every back road and every truck stop” (Follow me, don’t follow me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (Collar me, don’t collar me) I’ve got my spine, I’ve got my orange crush (We are agents of the free) I’ve had my fun and now it’s time To serve your conscience overseas (Over me, not over me) Coming in fast, over me This record really captures the dichotomy that I struggle with every time I put my creative voice into a project. I always want to be fun, optimistic, and inspiring, but I, more often than not, end up just wanting to unload all my anger and angst. I just want to shake people and yell at them to give a shit about whatever issues are really stuck in my brain at the time. To just berate them with rhetoric until they finally feel what I feel. But too often, it just comes off callous and angry. Maybe it’s better to give a more empathetic message, giving the audience the opportunity and the agency to come to some insightful conclusions on their own. And if you can put it all in a super catchy single, that definitely won’t hurt. You catch more flies with honey and all that. More than anything else, R.E.M. is pure honesty. Green was the very first album I listened to when I got my own car and I’ll never forget the rush of hearing the album blaring (through a Discman, powered by two piggybacked AC adapters and a cassette converter) as I slammed the clutch, shifted into third, and merged onto the expressway for the first time. It was a relatively new album for me at the time, but I just couldn’t bring myself to listen to anything else. It was such a perfect blend of angst and optimism. Relevance and memorability. Catchiness and importance. It so perfectly encapsulates my constant struggle between trying to bring everyone up and to make sure everyone knows how important it is to get up and stand for something. The world makes me want to scream every single day. But those screams are not uniform. Screams of joy, screams of pain, screams of love, screams of hate. And that’s ok.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on October 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Do you hear me out there? I can hear you. I got you, I can hear you alright. This is so strange, I want to wish for something new. This is the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. Who do we think we are? It's always been really hard for me to feel like I truly belong. I always get close, but I always feel like I'm just outside the core people who deserve their place in the inner circle. Lately, I've really been trying to take that big jump into the deep end and stop feeling like an awkward observer but own my role as a central figure in my own passions. And one of the things that really helped me re-focus my efforts is one of my favorite albums from the mid 2000s, Angels And Airwaves' 2006 debut, We Don't Need To Whisper. Leave your pain on the bedroom floor again, bring a smile to survive And do you think that you have that in you? If you're here and you're all alone tonight, then I'll give you a free ride. Take a chance 'cause I know you want to. blink-182 was the first band I ever really loved. The first CD I ever bought, the reason I bought a bass, the first songs I ever taught myself, the reason I started my first band. There are plenty of pictures, videos, and recordings of me at 14 playing blink songs with my friends. Plenty of people fell in love with blink in the 90s and 00s, so this isn't all that rare of a sentiment. But even among blink fans, there's a lot of camps you can fall into. Those who consider them a punk band, those who call them pop, and the in-betweens. Scott or Travis? Is the Skiba stuff really blink? +44 or Angels? It goes on and on. But none are more pressing than the debate I hear more than any other. Mark or Tom? For those who don't know, Mark Hoppus is the bass player and one of the singers, and Tom Delonge is the guitarist and other singer. Tom's the one with the voice. Where are you and I'm so sorry and all that. I will always love them both, but despite citing Mark as the reason I play bass (and for what it's worth, I do crib a lot of his fifth-based melodies and chord structures), I've pretty much always been firmly in camp Tom... and boy, oh boy, have I gotten a lot of shit for it. How much that contributed to my feelings that I was always just a little bit of an outsider, I don't know, but it certainly didn't help. In 2005, when blink broke up, everyone blamed Tom. And then when Angels And Airwaves debuted, it was pretty divisive. It sounds nothing like blink, even with Tom's voice fronting the record. It's got these long, atmosphere-building songs, U2-inspired guitar sounds, lofty lyrics on war and grandiose takes on love. Tom took a whole lot of chances when he reinvented himself this way, and not everyone liked it. But man, I ate that shit up. At 15, We Don't Need To Whisper was a permanent fixture in my stereo and quite a few of the songs made it into my band's setlist. That June, I saw them with Taking Back Sunday and hearing Tom play the verses of "Down" by himself was the first time I ever cried at a concert. It was truly a defining moment for my teenage years. But even then, I still had this... tinge of outsider. After the Angels set, people in our section, as well as the whole coliseum, stormed the floor to hop the wall and get on the floor. And I couldn't. I just kept thinking, "wow, those people are so cool, I could never do anything like that. Those are real punks. If I did that, they would just think I'm some poser." And this was a pretty common feeling for me, and to be honest, still is. Fast forward a little over a decade and I'm married to a girl who was also at that show and actually did jump over that guardrail! And she even had the same poster in her bedroom that I did, a very dramatic Angels poster from the liner notes of Whisper. But my struggles with this kind of thing needed more than just the coolest girl I ever met to tell me I wasn't a loser (though that helped). Recently, I've had a lot of small moments really stand out as validating that the less uniformly popular things I liked and chances I took were the right ones. When a lot of my friends were full on mocking Tom's new "super-serious" band, I was hyping up the record and burning copies for everyone. Just last month, an old friend I haven't spoken to in years reached out, thanking me for all the music I gave him after school and how much that shaped who he became. What I thought was just me doubling down because I'm defensive about Tom Delonge ended up meaning a lot to both of us. We even saw Angels together on their second tour in 2008! As a defensive aside, Tom still gets a whole lot of flack for his weird alien stuff, but hey, he actually got the government to admit some weird Navy stuff was a UFO, so jokes on all of you. He was right and I was right to believe in him. The ash set in then blew away. It's getting lost into the sea. I grew so close to all the thoughts I had to leave forever I left the chill and voice of screams and kids and ran for shelter. You know, I won't say sorry. You know, I won't say sorry. The pain has a bad reaction, a blend of fear and passion. You know what it's like to believe? It makes me wanna scream. But even more than that, I've had a lot of my creative outlets feel a lot more real than they used to. I recently re-started an old collaborative relationship with one of my most beloved artistic partners. And even though our new material is very different than what we used to make, that familiarity has put our old work on my mind again. I used to feel like my ideas weren't good enough to mention or push and that I was always part of some B-tier. But this time, I've really made an effort to express myself more openly and honestly and I'd like to think the work is better for it. And right at the same time, I have had several people come up to me lately and tell me how important our old work was for them and it shaped the types of songwriters and musicians they've become; adding how excited they are to hear what we do next. Something I never once expected and still don't quite know how to internalize. I should have turned back, I should have known better Than to walk away defeated I'll say it tonight, I'll say it forever And this time I really swear I mean it I think I like today, I think it's good It's something I can't get my head around. When Angels And Airwaves released their first record, We Don't Need To Whisper, no one knew what to expect and the hype was all over the place. Tom Delonge took a huge chance with it and I think it paid off. Angels showed he was much more capable and talented than anyone ever gave him credit for. I think there's a lot we can take from that. As long as you're willing to take that jump and do what you think is important to express yourself, who gives a shit if no one thinks you belong there? Fuck 'em. Take the chance. Who knows? Maybe you'll meet some aliens. And maybe in the future, your work will have meant a lot more to people than you ever realized, even if the only person that feels that way is you. And as long as you think you belong there, you do.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on September 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Content Warning: this column deals with trauma, September 11th, 2001, and similar topics. All the heavy stuff is prologue to the column, so feel free to skip to the actual album review, starting with the fourth paragraph. God is on top of it all That's all We are we are we are What's the difference between a timeless legacy and a dated representation of the times? How do we decide what's worth focusing on when we look back? It sure seems like a random and arbitrarily decided distinction. Sure, some are clearer than others. It's easy to give credit for era-defining albums or days that live in infamy. Less noteworthy things, like one-hit wonders, are usually revisited as a nostalgia trip, not because they're still relevant, whatever that means. Relevancy is such a nebulous concept and one that varies so much from person to person. Because of that, this column is going to be a little more divided than usual, focusing first on what's on my mind leading up to putting this month's album on repeat before diving into the album itself. Just a few days ago, we passed the 18th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York City. I'm not going to get into my personal connections and memories with the event here, as I think they're much too complicated to have as a backdrop to a music column. But this year felt... different for me than it usually does. Yeah, every year I see a lot of "Never Forget" posts alongside edgy jokes belittling it, the usual internet discourse ranging from deeply personal to the shallowest callousness and every level of no/half/full-hearted messaging in between. I was surprised, though, to see a lot of people talking about how it's been so long, why do we still make such a big deal out of it, that it's no longer relevant enough to justify all this attention. And this year, I saw an elevated level of animosity, which is, frankly, what I've come to expect in 2019. Some using it as an example of true American sacrifice, the day we were shown just how at risk the life we had taken for granted was. Others using it as the starting point of the modern American imperial era kicked into effect by the Authorization For Use Of Military Force Against Terrorists bill and the Bush Doctrine. Projecting it as the event that jingoists and fascists use to justify their politics. And while I don't disagree with any of that, per se, I think there's something deeply personal missing from that dichotomy, a focus on what parts of the event are still relevant and necessary to include in our thoughts on that horrible day. I'm sure it's because I'm a New Yorker, but I don't think enough people give space for the trauma that it caused in so many of us. Yes, it is more important than ever to discuss the politics of the weeks, months, and years after that, especially now that people born after that day are now old enough to go fight in the wars that spun out of it. I was extremely lucky not to lose anyone that day, but knew plenty of people that did. When we look at such a catastrophic event as that day, we too often forget that the people affected are still affected and walk around with that weight every single day. First responders dealing with the mental (and physical) damage from being a part of it. People who were harassed, abused, and worse just because they looked like the people who did this. Children who were forced to confront so many things about the world, prematurely, that Tuesday morning. So many people lost something that day, and even though it's been 18 years, not everyone's found it yet. We all need to remember the real people that these macroscopic events touch, the micro reasons why 18 years isn't nearly enough for these events to no longer be considered... relevant. So what does that have to do with David Bowie? Aside from him playing "Heroes" and Simon & Garfunkel's "America" at the Concert For New York benefit, not much on it's face, actually. I was stuck thinking about the kinds of legacies that are left behind and how much weight we should give facets of more complex legacies. Whenever I'm stuck in a loop in my own head, thinking about some complicated or challenging feelings, there's almost always a Bowie record that helps me focus. I think it's because he reinvented himself so many times. Bowie is always relevant because he was always relevant. In the late 80s and early 90s, he was in a critical slump and a lot of people counted him out after he was unable to match his success of his early and mid 80s albums. But with 1993's Black Tie, White Noise, he reintroduced himself and kickstarted one of my favorite eras of his career, his electronic house/industrial phase. Fresh off of his tenure in the band Tin Machine and beginning a marriage, this album serves as not only a revamp of what a David Bowie record sounded like, but a goodbye to the Bowie everyone already knew. From "You've Been Around:" The album has way more than just the lyrics to show the bridge between Bowie's past and future. He considered it a blend of 60s pop melodies with 90s house music. Bowie brought back Nile Rodgers, his producer from Let's Dance a decade prior, but made a conscious effort to distance himself from that sound. Bowie picks a few covers to include on this album, too, and those choices are very telling. He covers Morrisey's 1992 track "You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side," which itself was heavily influenced by Bowie's glam rock era, not least of all because it featured Mick Ronson, Bowie's guitarist from 1970 to 1973, most famously on Ziggy Stardust. Bowie covers the contemporary song inspired by his classic style, once again merging the past and the present. There's a very 1993 version of Cream's 1966 single "I Feel Free," featuring Mick himself. This was their first collaboration in 20 years, but tragically, Ronson passed away from cancer only 24 days after the album's release. The inevitability of moving forward is clear on the record, no matter how familiar it may seem on paper. From "Miracle Goodnight:" Bowie, more so than any artist I listen to, always managed to stay relevant while staying familiar. He always sounded like Bowie, even when what that means is so hard to describe. His catalog serves as a long narrative, with twists, turns, and losses that I find really inspiring. Every few months I do a full listen of his discography, chronologically, and I have different takeaways every time. Sometimes I love the Berlin era most of all, sometimes his early work, this time his 90s stuff. It always helps me to get clarity on complex issues I have, knowing that it's possible to consider the multitudes and learn more as you revisit the complexities. You don't have to completely understand every phase and growth right away, whether it be from an artist's work or your own traumas. Someone like Bowie, someone beautifully expressive and honest, helps to shed light on my darkest thoughts and keep me company in my loneliest memories. It's hard for me to imagine a time when people thought Bowie's career was over. But like all timeless art, his time came again, and he was able to reinvent himself and cement his legacy as someone with countless aspects. As we look back through the art we love, the people we idolize, and the events that shaped us, it's important to try to look at them with the nuance they deserve. It's always more complicated than it seems on the surface and bullet points rarely capture the whole picture.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on August 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Just a content note, I’ll be talking about genocide, fascism, and political generalizations based on demographic trends, so you don’t have to yell at me if you’re “one of the good ones.” Mother, did it need to be so high? I spend a lot of time doing deep dives on music and I try to break open as much of what the songwriters are trying to say as I can, whether it be about themselves or the world around them. But it’s becoming more and more obvious that a lot of people don’t do that, even when they’ve been listening to these songs for decades and especially when they’re really popular. The more these songs are played out and diluted, the less real meaning they seem to have, like an album everyone seems to know, Pink Floyd's 1979 album, The Wall. I’ve been thinking about this in the context of older generations lately, after starting to really delve into the solo career of Roger Waters, the bass player and main songwriter for Pink Floyd, primarily Is This The Life We Really Want?, his newest record. I was searching through some reviews for it and came across this one: If you know anything about Roger Waters, you already know more than “Steve S,” but if you don’t, he’s pretty consistently written political lyrics. Even before the Pink Floyd album I picked for this month’s column, you can clearly see his politics shine through in most of his post-Dark Side Of The Moon work, both solo and with Floyd. Here’s “Sheep” from their 1977 record, Animals. What do you get for pretending the danger’s not real Meek and obedient, you follow the leader down well-trodden corridors Into the valley of steel What a surprise, a look of terminal shock in your eyes Now things are really what they seem No, this is no bad dream The entire album is politically driven, from attacking capitalism, media censorship and “traditional values,” to blindly obeying a leader until you realize how far you’ve fallen. The issue we’re seeing today, though, is that so many people, especially when they’re privileged enough to be less affected by day-to-day policy fights, don’t realize they’ve fallen from their ideals at all. They think they’re on the right side of history, but if you were to supplant their opinions now relative to the oppressive power structures back just a few decades, they would almost certainly be the people calling Martin Luther King Jr. a dangerous radical and contributing to the almost two thirds disapproval rating that he had in 1966. They’d much rather just “keep politics out of it” and “talk about something else” instead of standing up for what’s right. King talked extensively about the dangers of these (white) moderates who sit on the sidelines in his “Letter From A Birmingham Jail.” First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride towards freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.  Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. I’m bewildered by the present-day rejection of societal optimism and justice from the generations that viewed their elders as the evil traditionalists standing in the way of integration, civil rights, ending the imperialism of the cold war, alongside so many societal ills that have by no means disappeared. The hippies of the late 60s and the punks of the late 70s grew up and stopped caring about making the world a better place, choosing instead to stay complacent in favor of the status quo that now benefited them. Instead of internalizing the messages of their heroes and inspirations, they became the villains of their favorite stories. They act like children who don’t know better, whether it be by naïveté or ignorance, but refuse to honestly engage with the things that inspired them when they were young, learning all the wrong lessons, just like the generations they fought against. It’s a rock opera, and like most narrative albums, the plot’s a bit murky, so I’m not going to get into the inspirations on which characters are based on what or the deep cuts behind it. But the main bullet points of the plot are: A young boy’s father dies in a war. Daddy’s flown across the ocean, leaving just a memory A snapshot in the family album, Daddy what else did you leave for me? Daddy, what’d you leave behind for me? All in all, it was just a brick in the wall The boy is left with his overprotective mother, who pushes him to isolate himself from the world around him.  Hush now baby, don’t you cry Mama’s gonna make all of your nightmares come true Mama’s gonna put all of her fears into you Mama’s gonna keep you right here, under her wing She won’t let you fly, but she might let you sing Mama will keep baby, cozy and warm Ooh babe, Of course mama’s help build the wall His school teachers’ harassments and cruelties add to his anxiety; they, too, are stuck in cycles of abuse When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers Who would hurt the children anyway they could By pouring their derision upon anything we did And exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kid But in the town it was well known, when they got home at night Their fat and psychopathic wives would thrash them within inches of their lives As he grows older, after a back and forth of infidelities, a divorce pushes him even further into emotional isolation.  Day after day, love turns grey like the skin of a dying man Night after night, we pretend it’s alright But I have grown older, and you have grown colder  And nothing is very much fun anymore Despite that, he becomes a rock star, has to medicate to even function through his anxieties, and imagines a world where he’s a fascist leader, who scapegoats minorities with extermination.  Realizing the monster that lurks inside him, he puts himself on trial within his own psyche and confronts the characters that pushed him to build up his walls. Good morning, worm, your honor, the crown will plainly show The prisoner who now stands before you was caught red handed Showing feelings, showing feelings of an almost human nature But in the end he is “sentenced” to let himself feel real emotions again, and tears down his defenses, exposing his vulnerabilities to the cruel world around him, while the album hints at the cycle starting all over again when it ends with a loop that connects it to the opening track. Since my friend, you have revealed your deepest fear I sentence you to be exposed before your peers Tear down the wall! The politics of the album aren’t explicitly clear until the latter half, but Waters is saying a lot throughout. Our protagonist, Pink, is constantly blaming everyone around him for his flaws. His father, his mother, his teacher, his wife, eventually blaming anyone “impure.” But throughout all of his projection, empty sadness, and blind rage, he only finds actual growth and solace when he does some, albeit dramatic, self-reflection. He puts himself on trial, not because he’s forced to, but because it’s the only way he can exorcise his demons. It’s not anyone’s fault but his. Sure, he had external struggles, but at the end of the day, he was just an asshole who was turning his daddy issues, mommy issues, issues with women, etc, but most of all his fears into a force to hurt people. Honest self reflection and confronting the internalized trauma, usually ingrained from childhood, are the only real ways we can grow and develop into the people we thought we’d grow into when we were kids. The people that always look for blame around them, especially when directing it at the most vulnerable, instead of the systems that enable the real villains, should remember what it was like to be that scared kid watching the world change around them, whether it was in the 50s and 60s, or just yesterday. To imagine how the people that inspired them would look down at them now, with disgust, as they’ve gone from the victim of the trauma to the perpetrator. Maybe as an absent father, or an overprotective mother, or a cruel teacher, or maybe simply as a person who’s adding just another brick to the wall. But it’s a much better story if we tear down the walls in the end instead of building even taller ones for tomorrow’s children to have to smash through.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on July 16th, 2019 and can be found below. This album was selected by Will. Spirit of my silence, I can hear you. But I’m afraid to be near you. And I don’t know where to begin And I don’t know where to begin Folk music can be a real bummer. Indie folk? Forget about it. Sufjan Stevens? Well, I might as well grab some ice cream because I’ve been listening to his 2015 album, Carrie & Lowell, and it’s a doozy. I’ve only heard Sufjan’s earlier indie-folk stylings in passing, and years ago at that, so I had no idea what to expect when this album was picked for my first requested record. I’d heard he got really experimental with electronica music? Well, definitely not here because this is a real mellow acoustic album and, even with that, it has a lot of weight to it. I should have known better, to see what I could see. My black shroud, holding down my feelings A pillar for my enemies I should have wrote a letter, and grieve what I happen to grieve My black shroud, I never trust my feelings I waited for the remedy When I was three, maybe four, she left us at the video store Be my rest, be my fantasy The album deals with some more complex looks at death than I was prepared for. Sufjan’s mother had just passed away and this record deals a lot with the difficulties he’s feeling, as she was not exactly the most… present kind of parent. But still, when someone’s gone, it has a sense of finality, regardless of whether we’re able to make our peace with them before they go.  When I was three, and free to explore I saw her face on the back of the door Be my vest, be my fantasy I should have known better, nothing can be changed The past is still the past, the bridge to nowhere I should’ve wrote a letter, explaining what I feel, that empty feeling This album really made me think about my relationships with people and what it would be like if the current status quo was permanently set as the finale. The album is full of the kinds of solemn regrets that accompany them, but that in and of itself is not all that rare in folk music. The tone is really what sets Carrie & Lowell apart. Sufjan has this atmospheric and airy quality that draws you in and just kinda floats around your head for a while. Even when I wasn’t initially picking up the themes, the intent was clear. I generally gravitate towards much more full and upbeat folk, like The Decemberists, but I still found myself getting lost in the world he was painting, even when the song itself was deeply somber. For my prayer has always been love, what did I do to deserve this? With blood on my sleeve, Delilah, avenge my grief How? God of Elijah As fire to the sun, tell me what I have done. How? Heart of a dragon? One of the things that really stood out to me on this record was how specifically anecdotal Sufjan’s lyrics could be. A lot of folk comes across as “everyman” stories and universal truths, but here, Sufjan doesn’t steer away from specific locales and stories that help build his story as more personal, less universal and help build an irresistible ethos around his narrative. Emerald Park, wonders never cease The man who taught me to swim, he couldn’t quite say my first name Like a father, he led community water on my head And he called me “Subaru,” and now I want to be near you Since I was old enough to speak, I’ve said it with alarm Some part of me was lost in your sleeve where you hid your cigarettes No, I’ll never forget. I just want to be near you. Carrie & Lowell isn’t my usual style and I found myself drawn in a lot more to the lyrics than the more stripped down and slower musical stylings of the record. But sitting with them as I wrote really helped me internalize just how personal and poetic a lot of these songs are. After the first few listens, I didn’t expect to be so moved by the honesty that Sufjan shows about his relationship with not only his mother, but his stepfather who remains a very positive and important part of Sufjan’s life. The difficulties he went through, grieving someone who was not there for him, while still being supported by someone who’s life his mother chose to be a more active part of make Carrie & Lowell an album as complex as it is beautiful and one that’s definitely worth following along with as you get lost in the music. So can we be friends sweetly, before the mystery ends? I love you more than the world can contain in its lonely and ramshackle head There’s only a shadow of me; in a manner of speaking I’m dead I’m holding my breath, my tongue on your chest, what can be said of the heart? If history speaks, the kiss on my cheek, where there remains but a mark Beloved my John, so I’ll carry on, counting my cards down to one And when I am dead, come visit my bed, my fossil is bright in the sun So can we contend peacefully before my history ends? Jesus, I need you, be near, come shield me from fossils that fall on my head There’s only a shadow of me; in a manner of speaking, I’m dead

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on April 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Love say "Take my hand, it'll be alright. C'mon, save your soul tonight." I had a really hard time picking what album to cover this month and kept putting it off. But then I fell down an unexpected rabbit hole and ended up deep in early 90s Prince, which is a pretty great place to find yourself. It all started because our stupid president released his first campaign ad for 2020 and used some music from his favorite (probably) Christoper Nolan movie, Batman: The Dark Knight Rises and had it almost immediately taken down by Warner Bros. for unauthorized use. He has a long history of using music for campaign things without permission, but that's neither here nor there. So I ended up dipping back into the only Batman soundtrack that actually matters, Prince's soundtrack for Batman (1989), and decided to just continue on through from there. Since I last wrote about Prince, I've gone through his entire catalog, and can sincerely say there's not a single album with his name (or symbol) on it that I don't love. But a run of albums that really stand out to me are the early-mid 90s, specifically 1991's Diamonds And Pearls. It kicks off with this huge vocal-driven gospel track, "Thunder," that immediately lets you know that you're in Prince's church now. Even though this record isn't one of his universally beloved or top 5 albums, it's a really fascinating era for Prince. It's his first with a full band lineup since The Revolution disbanded five years earlier. This time, The New Power Generation brings a real 90s party vibe with them. Every song on the record shines with the quirky production, hip hop beats, and rap verses that immediately take you back to the early 90s. And the album itself perfectly captures that tone. Diamonds And Pearls is a whole lot of fun, but hidden under the party are some deeper undertones. Even with that, though, the vast majority of the album is just about sex and dancing. And there's a whole lot of real 90s slang. You know I eat that kinda thing up. Who couldn't love deep metaphors like "Mack Daddy In The House" and "clocking a freak in the low pro?" Plus, the cover (up top) has one of those sick holograms! But even moreso than the new music styles Prince was embracing, this era is interesting because Prince was kicking his feud with his label, Warner Bros, into high gear to get out of his contract. (For more on that: I highly recommend his 1996 triple album Emancipation, his first release after he finally succeeded.) This album explicitly lays out the struggle Prince is having after the dopey dance track, "Jughead," in a perfect example of the dichotomy of this record. "What you need is a manager" "For what? Money minders are like parasites. They pose as wheelers and dealers for your rights. And most companies say that you need em! Not me! But I've kicked back, observed, and watched 'em bleed 'em. Artists young and old. Where'd this unwritten law come from anyway? That years after the contract, you should still be getting paid? Boy, I go broke and hit the skids before I take care of a rich sucker's kids. Hell, A contract ain't got no pension plan. Years after this, my kids are still gonna make the grand." Moments like this really stuck out to me when I realized I only initially grabbed Diamonds And Pearls because of some jackass trying to steal someone else's music to fearmonger in a propaganda video. There's a lot more here than just catchy songs like the title track, "Diamonds and Pearls," or singles like "Cream," and "Gett Off." It's more than Prince fully embracing the 90s sound. It really is a time capsule for 1991, both for Prince and for the world around him. Immediately after "Jughead," comes "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," which seems like a sexy 90s slow jam, until... Hey now, maybe we can find a good reason to send a child off to war. So what if we're controllin' all the oil, is it worth the child dying for? If long life is what we all live for, then long life will come to pass. Anything is better than the picture of a child, in a cloud of gas. And you think you got it bad. It got me thinking about the context of the world in 1991.  This album came out in between what I would consider the two defining moments of George H. W. Bush's presidency. The first Iraq war had been over for just over 7 months and that imagery was obviously still very present in the public's eye. And just over the horizon, about a year later, the first President Bush was about to pardon most of the people involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, to finalize the cover up of one of the biggest presidential scandals in American history. And who was the Attorney General who pushed this gross misstep of justice? William Barr, of course! The man who wrote the "synopsis" of the Mueller report. So maybe this fun trip to the early 90s was a bit less of an escape than I thought it would be. Nostalgia can be a great tool to dip into and get away from it all for a bit, but I've been trying to remember that a lot of the bad parts about the times I fondly look back on are still here and have only gotten worse. But like everything, it's more important than ever to contextualize the whole picture. We still found reasons to dance and fall in love in the 90s and we sure as hell will now, too. Don't let the bastards get you down.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on March 15th, 2019 and can be found below. I'm not anything at all I've been leaning into some major escapism this month. Sometimes we all just need a break, you know? Mostly this means I'm reading a lot of sci-fi novels, but I almost always keep music on while I read, to really tune out the distractions and get lost in a world that's got a better sense of morality than the one currently on the other side of my headphones. This time, it's been a lot of St. Vincent, the musical identity of Annie Clark. St. Vincent's an artist I've only very recently gotten into, specifically with her 2017 record, Masseduction, after I was given it for a network Secret Santa from Falling In Love Montage's Helen. After going backwards through her whole catalog, Masseduction is still my favorite, but recently I've been gravitating towards her debut, 2007's Marry Me. It doesn't have the bombastic and explosive melodies of her latter work, or the complexity of some of her collaborations, like Love This Giant (with David Byrne) does, but Marry Me has really resonated with me beyond an album hiding in the background of my solitary reading sessions. Now, I don't mean the album is best listened to passively, as it's very strong on it's own and certainly deserves your full attention. What I mean is that, unlike the rest of Annie's catalog, Marry Me has a simplicity to the structure of the record that lets you forget just how brilliant it is. The album has a lot of themes of the naive idealism of love from someone new to it, something I'm always a big sucker for. The overwhelming feelings you're controlled by. The agency you give up to the other person, as you lie awake wishing more than anything that they feel the same way. Thinking, no, knowing, that this is the most important thing in the world, until you come up for air and realize it... wasn't. Until it is again. But you, you're a rock with a heart like a socket I can plug into at will And will you guess, when I come around next, I hope your open sign is blinking still So marry me, John, I'll be so good to you You won't realize I'm gone, you won't realize I'm gone As for me, I would have to agree, I'm as fickle as a paper doll being kicked by the wind When I touch down again, I'll be in someone else's arms Oh, John, C'mon But albums about young love are not exactly the hardest thing to find. This album stands out above and beyond for a few reasons. Most importantly, the melodies and instrumentation are very good. It's the kind of album where I struggle to pick what should've been the single.  There's a lot of really great production, a lot in really unexpected places. There are 17 different musicians present on the record and it shows. Lots of strings, brass, and more help to layer the album, but the real shining star is Annie's voice. I really love her guitar playing, too, but her voice ranges from choir backups (alongside the additional singers present) to some raw and straight-from-the-heart solo vocals over a simple piano. The record jumps from full string arrangements to the barest melody and back again without ever feeling jarring or out of place. The highs and lows of love are clear, not only in the lyrics, but in every aspect of the record. Her voice, alongside her writing, is so versatile that listening to her debut, you can clearly see why her records went on to be so unique. The dichotomy is here, bouncing between the simplest and most complex aspects of young love, embracing the overwhelming beauty of it all without ever ignoring the darker sides of it. It's these deeper and darker sections, like in "Paris Is Burning" or "The Apocalypse Song" that forced my ears to perk up and focus more on the music, even if it meant reading the same page over and over again. St. Vincent lures you in with simple melodies and catchy hooks, but her lyrics and delivery keep you coming back when the record's over. Her other albums, specifically Actor, St. Vincent, and Masseduction, stood out as great records immediately, but Marry Me is more subtle and has been exactly what I've been looking for this month. The slow burn kind of record that you find yourself starting over more often than you realize, even if it's just on in the background... at first. But it won't be for long.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on February 20th, 2019 and can be found below. New York, release me from my strata I'm back and so is Say Anything. This time, it's all about 2019's Oliver Appropriate, the final record in the era of Say Anything's catalog kicked off by ...Is A Real Boy. I really could write a whole column on every one of their records, but for now, I'll be fast forwarding to Oliver, which serves as a spiritual sequel to the themes I talked about last time. Just a quick content warning up at the top, this album deals with a lot of sex, sexual identity discussion, and violence against partners. Quick recap: ...Is A Real Boy was all about that entitled and obnoxious mentality that almost always accompanies a suburban punk dude, explored through singer and songwriter Max Bemis' first person narration. Rage at everyone who won't give you exactly what you want. Screaming over everyone else because you don't think anyone's listening. Stroking your ego just to cover up how little you actually like yourself. Lashing out. Constantly. Really all the time. At everybody. Like this guy: Definitely not me. I don't know why that's there. Weird. Oliver skips ahead 15 years later to see what that teenage jackass is up to now. It's a thematic record, so I really recommend listening to it as a whole, even if the plot isn't the clearest narrative on the first listen. The story opens with the titular Oliver, narrated by Max, an older version of our Boy protagonist. His band's broken up, which he assumes is a devastating loss to the public, and he's living his life through an alcohol and pill induced haze. He's conformed to the standard hetero liberal "ally" lifestyle, despite holding deep resentments for everyone around him. They fade into the liberal bourgeoisie, Their hatred now inflamed to stoke your daughter's screams And ramble about Trump over Stellas And headline Coachella He takes that resentment as some sign of his superiority. He's miserable because he's better than everyone and always has been. He only pretends to be one of them to fill some hole in his self worth. His flaws are what define him, but no one's allowed to see them; Oliver himself barely acknowledges them. And everything they told me was wrong is still in my heart to turn me on My ego is built on all my pain. I'm your migraine. Deep down his struggle with his sexual identity gets covered up in a way that may seem familiar to a lot of people who came of age in the "newly woke" era. Oliver "pretends" to be queer as a joke to hide his insecurities. He kisses men as a goof to show off how "comfortable" he is with his heterosexuality, but never pursues these relationships past the mockery phase. He's satirically macho to the point that he falls into the same tropes that outward misogynists do. And that struggle with his identity manifests itself, not only in his sexual identity, but in a deep hatred of women, no matter what he pretends to feel. I somehow became a feminist, when ten years ago I was feeding drinks  To women I'd laugh at when they'd think amongst my friends It's such a lie After we really get to know Oliver, his whole world changes. His facade slips and he actually lets himself go home with a guy, maybe as a joke, maybe not, but he crosses a line he never did before and starts to really fall for someone after the high of getting his band back together lets him actually show some honesty, played by the drummer and co-writer of the record, Karl Keuhn. One night with me is bringing back the memories of that old room where you started fucking the fear Two broad shoulders and two hands as big as mine, I bet you think, I bet you know the end is near And maybe it is. 'Cause people like your father don't take it lightly when we kiss So now you either follow, let go, or bury below But you can't escape the sinking feelings you don't outgrow And Oliver finds himself... himself for the first time. This guy has let him be Oliver. And then... it's over. This character defining moment to Oliver was just some night. He's in love with someone else and Oliver was just some fling. We've all had these moments that keep us up at night for years, people you can't get out of your head. And those people probably don't even know we exist. We end up defining ourselves by something that the person responsible thinks of as negligible, if they think of it at all. But most of us eventually accept and get over it, but how does someone as self absorbed as Oliver take no for an answer? Well, we've all met these kind of guys and they usually... don't. So Oliver goes to his apartment and... Never earned the key so I'm knocking and now you're home My liver tells me so, it demands moonshine to blind the truth That I was fine before you made me know myself, I wish I could go back What does he got that I don't?  All I know, you'll never love me And Oliver murders him, ties them together, and drowns himself in the East River alongside him. If you should die in your own form, I'll reinforce that (I'll convince you) I'll slit your throat and leave you gaping, oh, the hardest part of being alone I'll leave you torn, I'll leave you waiting, oh, the hardest part of being alone You break our beating hearts wide open You're the hardest part of being alone You break our bleeding hearts wide open You're the hardest part of being alone Being alone, Being alone, Is that enough? It's a pretty hard turn in the plot, but it's what makes the whole album work so well. If you're going to take a cautionary tale of entitled ego and advance it 15 years to now, to the Trump era, to the incel era, you have to follow through with it. We're in an era where horrible men are being empowered to treat everyone as less deserving. An era where we continue to give the worst of us the loudest voices and the most power, normalizing and amplifying their bigotry and violence. All because they can't take no for an answer. They can't even imagine a world where people exist outside of what they can do for them. It makes me sick and I don't know what to do about it. I'm as powerless as our character in ...Is A Real Boy was and I want to lash out and scream at everyone. But isn't that the problem? Isn't that why we're in this mess to begin with, and if so, why was I so surprised when it happened? It's because I'm privileged. Absolutely, I am. When Trump won, I couldn't believe it. But then I heard plenty of people saying "Of course he won, this is the America we've always known. You didn't notice?" Of course Kavanaugh was confirmed. Of course this is the world we live in. Because men don't learn the right lessons from anything. A cautionary tale becomes an empowering icon. I wish I could go back to that angst-ridden, entitled, suburban asshole and slap the stupid smirk off his face and tell him to get better faster. Never let yourself be satisfied or complacent. Nobody owes you anything. Yeah, life sucks sometimes, but acting like this hurts people. People like Oliver kill people every day and the majority of us don't say a goddamn word about it. We deem it inappropriate to even discuss it in an uncivilized way. So maybe a lot of us could benefit from taking a look back at who we used to be and really think "am I that much better now? Am I good enough yet?" I bet a lot of us won't find a good enough answer. So come up with a better one. So go ask your Chomsky What these systems produce The cracks in commandments That we can slip through

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on February 10th, 2019 and can be found below. And the record begins with a song of rebellion Here we go. I've been putting off writing this one for a while. I'm going to try to keep the gushing to a minimum here, but Say Anything's ...Is A Real Boy has been called my favorite record more often than not over the last 6 or so years. I could go on about how "Alive With The Glory Of Love" is a perfect song, or how one of the best songs to cover with my high school band was "The Futile," with it's intro of SHIT, NOTHING MAKES SENSE. Or even how neither my wife nor I hesitated to say "I Want To Know Your Plans" had to be the first dance at our wedding. So instead of just talking about how flawless it is, I'd rather talk about why I've been listening to it a lot lately. I don't plan on getting into the songs that mean the most to me, but what the record is trying to say as a whole. As an aside, you gotta admit it doesn't get more precious than this, captured by Flying Machine Network host, Elle Riccardi. So if this record is such an important part of my narrative, why am I writing about it now? This month, I'll be doing a two part column about Say Anything's first major release, the aforementioned ...Is A Real Boy, and their most recent and allegedly final record, Oliver Appropriate. I'll save most of the Oliver talk for next time, but the premise is that it's a concept album that extrapolates the character set up in ...Is A Real Boy and follows up on where that character would be 15 years on. So let's take a look at that guy's beginnings. The general idea behind the record is that our narrator, an angst-ridden, entitled, suburban asshole has been cursed that everything he feels and thinks just pours out of his mouth in a dramatic, musical way. Definitely not how I see myself in any way, I swear. But this character isn't supposed to be our hero. I've been thinking a lot about the problematic lead style of storytelling and what it lets us explore. I'm a big fan of following the, I don't want to say villains, but the characters we aren't supposed to agree with, to help illustrate the flaws we all have. Seinfeld, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and Rick & Morty are prime examples of cautionary tales of letting your pettiness and ego get in the way of being a real human being. We also have characters like Han Solo, who we see develop from problematic asshole to hero in their own right. That growth is what makes them fan favorites. But I've also been thinking a whole lot about the role that these characters play when the wrong lessons are learned by the audience. Rick & Morty's fanbase is one of the most toxic places around and they worship at the feet of a character that's supposed to be the villain of the series; taking his narcissism as an ideal to strive for instead of seeing the damage he brings to the rest of the cast. People look up to Joker and Harley Quinn, a couple that was literally created to bring domestic abuse and mental illness to the forefront of the already traumatic and messy world of Batman. But does that mean we should abandon work with problematic characters, regardless of authorial intent? Personally, I think it's more important than ever to showcase the problems these characters work through and help show their motivations and the impact they have. Fiction is a safer place to explore the problems of society, than let people just like our characters exact more harm on the people around them and get surprised by the fallout. But by bringing voice to problematic views that people define themselves by, are you doing more harm than good? As Vonnegut said, "We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be," after all. So how does that relate to ...Is A Real Boy? Max Bemis, the writer behind Say Anything's catalog, has openly spoken about how often the themes of ...Is A Real Boy were misinterpreted. Our character was never supposed to be Max, but the manifestation of what drives an angst-ridden, entitled, suburban asshole who can't control his own impulses. Full disclosure, I completely missed this in high school and couldn't stand his vocal delivery and writing style until years later when it finally clicked. I thought it was celebrating his ego and lust for sex and acceptance (mostly the former), but it wasn't. It was projecting what this guy, who was a hell of a lot more like high school Ryan than I'd like to admit, wanted more than anything in the world, but it wasn't supposed to make you feel good and empowered. Revisiting it years later, it made a hell of a lot more sense why his style was so... sarcastic. When I read Catcher In The Rye in middle school, it was on the recommendation of my 8th grade English teacher, two years before we read it as an assignment. She pulled me aside after class and said "You really should read this now. If you wait to read it with a class, you'll hate it." I don't know what she saw in me at 13, but she was right. When I first read it, I was in disbelief at how much of myself I found in Holden Caulfield. I read it over and over again, every winter for the next several years and my feelings towards the book changed significantly every time I finished it. My senior year of high school, I realized, yeah, I was Holden and Holden really sucks. I was also convinced that the whole book serves as a farewell message to his therapist before an inevitable suicide. And, being an angst-ridden, entitled, suburban asshole struggling with my own depression, I knew, deep down, that if I didn't make a significant change to my cynical, spiteful, implicitly misogynistic self, I would end up there, too. I hated everyone around me and what did I have to show for it? A lot of hate. And nothing else. So I worked on it, went to college, and reinvented myself as a romantic optimist. Desperately trying to escape Holden Caulfield. I still adore Catcher, don't get me wrong, but much like ...Is A Real Boy where I once took it literally, I finally realized that it's supposed to make me uncomfortable. It's supposed to challenge me to rise above this character. In "Every Man Has A Molly," we have a break up song with more vitriol than you can believe. It's about how his emotional honesty has pushed his girlfriend away and now he'll never "have rough sex with Molly Connelly again." Max has openly spoken about how he was a virgin till college and how there never was a real Molly. But in this character's mind, there should have been one. In "Admit It," a diatribe against the exclusive nature of liberal hipster culture, we see that same rage directed at "the same superiority complex shared by the high school jocks who made your life a living hell. And made you a slave to the competitive, capitalist dogma you spend every moment of your waking life bitching about." It's pretentious, it's pissed off, it's what I felt like as a teenager. All I wanted to do was scream at everyone I thought I was better than, which, of course, was everyone. But luckily, I used characters like this to address and start the process of exorcising the parts of myself that I see in these characters. So what happens when the audience learns the wrong lessons from a cautionary tale? What does Holden Caulfield look like 15 years later? What kind of person grows out of someone like this if they never learn how to be better? I'll be back later this month to talk about the sequel, 2019's Oliver Appropriate.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook, twitter, or instagram for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on January 15th, 2019 and can be found below. Shhh. Peaceful. Silent. Happy new year, everybody! It's January, and while I'm generally not one to make resolutions, there is still something about changing out my calendar that gets me thinking about where I should go next. 2018 was a big year for me and I feel like I've grown a lot. But that always pushes me to think "Ok, so I did all that, now what?" And I found myself gravitating towards music that asks the same questions. There's something about Miles Davis. Every single time I hear his trumpet come in over any of his incredible rhythm sections, I can't help but think "why the hell don't I listen to more Miles Davis?" But for Davis' In A Silent Way, it doesn't even take that long. It takes this record 7 seconds to kick in and it does not let up until it's over. It opens with Joe Zawinul's low organ hum until Tony Williams' hi-hats, John McLaughlin's guitar, Dave Holland's bass, and Chick Corea's and Herbie Hancock's electric pianos kick in and just like that jazz fusion was brought in to the limelight, all in 7 seconds. Rounding out the band is Wayne Shorter's beautiful soprano saxophone. And then, there's Miles. His trumpet is unparalleled here. Sure, most people prefer his deeper exploration into the murky waters between rock and jazz in the following year's Bitches' Brew, but for me, In A Silent Way is where it's at. By the late 60s, Miles Davis was already an incredible musician and a huge force in the jazz world. In 1968 he had just gotten married to Betty Mabry, who introduced him to a whole lot of funk, soul, and rock throughout the New York scene, and as I talked about in my previous few columns on Prince and Bowie, newlyweds discovering music together is something I can really get into right now. But even though they were divorced the following year, her impact on his music was hardly a temporary thing. With 1969's In A Silent Way, Davis had fully integrated the guitars, electric pianos, and organs of rock music into his jazz ensemble. There had been a handful of artists pioneering this mix of jazz and rock (eventually called fusion), but few had the jazz world's respect that Davis had. As he continued to explore with dissonant and challenging mixes of genres throughout the 70s, he became so controversial and reviled in the jazz world, he went in to retirement for a bit, but very little of that strife is heard here. The record is two acts, one on each side. Side A is an 18 minute suite of "Shhh" and "Peaceful." As I said up top, this piece is one of my favorites. The bass, drums, and pianos hold a perfect rhythm while the leads go explore. Davis lets the guitars and keys explore for about two minutes before he comes in. This is the kind of improvisational jam you would later hear on albums like The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers or The Grateful Dead's Europe '72 tour, but here, it's more... adventurous. Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking those fantastic records. But when rock bands jam, you feel the music building heavier and heavier and the focus is often on the dynamics, to give the musicians and the audience the release of an explosive crescendo. The exploratory jams are some of my favorite things in rock, for sure, but it's a different vibe. You can feel the band's energy as they push the jam bigger and bigger. But on this record, Davis grows the music sideways instead of up. The bass and drums never get more intense, they just evolve. The keyboards never start hammering away, they only add different kinds of texture. Just about all of my improv experience is through rock, so when I really listen to an improvisational piece like this, I'm always amazed at where the musicians choose not to go. When they choose to just stop and let someone else completely take over. Davis spends a lot of the song in the background while the guitars and keyboards complement each others. Every time the song builds up to just when I'm really feeling it, the band stops. Waits a second. And comes back in, just like before. With that organ hum, then hi-hats and bass. But this time, it's somehow even better. I love a lot of Davis' earlier work, but In A Silent Way is truly a whole other animal. Side B is another suite, this time the Zawinul-penned titular track, sandwiching the Davis number "It's About That Time." "In A Silent Way" is a beautiful, soft ballad between guitar and keyboard that lets every note ring and flow just long enough to make me nostalgic for a time I don't quite remember. But when Davis' trumpet comes in with an overlaid melody, be still my beating heart, I feel like I'm falling in love for the first time again. But after a few minutes, the underlying harmonies start to get just a little darker and the melody starts to get a little more dissonant and just when I start to feel it, it ends and the funk-infused "It's About That Time" kicks in. This one doesn't have the same driving rhythms that "Shhh" and "Peaceful" had and it takes its time on the main themes longer than Side A, but the melody in the organ is just as strong, if not stronger. This is where Shorter's sax really shines, too. The entire midsection of this piece is playing off a simple, but perfect melody that I never want to end, but of course, like all things on this record, it suddenly stops just when it really starts to hit its stride, going right back into the reflective and tranquil beauty of "In A Silent Way," but this time closing out the record with a flawless reprise. Miles Davis was never satisfied doing the same old thing over and over again. He could've easily kept cranking out albums derivative of some of his earlier masterpieces like A Kind Of Blue or Sketches Of Spain. But he didn't. He pushed fusion into the mainstream, often up against the derision of both critics and audiences, and brought jazz into the world of so many new listeners. His entire "electric period" is brilliant, but my favorite is the one that really started it all. Yes, he hinted at a few of the things to come on the record or two before it, but In A Silent Way stands out as his testament to always push forward. Building from where he was, but never afraid to show just how far he was willing to go. Heading in to 2019, I think that's as inspiring a message as I'm gonna find, and I hope for just a fraction of the creative bravery found on this record.

You can find episodes on frondsradio.com and be sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you have any suggestions or thoughts, my twitter handle is @stoopkidliveson and I’d love to hear from you. You can find Ryan’s band, Premium Heart, on facebook or twitter for upcoming releases and shows. The original column was published on December 29th, 2018 and can be found below. In the event that this fantastic voyage Should turn to erosion  and we never get old Remember it's true, dignity is valuable But our lives are valuable too Here we go! We're at the end of Bowie's Berlin trilogy. We started with Low, continued with "Heroes," and now we're finishing up with Lodger. I'll be back to monthly after this, so I'm excited to see where I end up in January. Full disclosure, right up front. I don't have nearly as much of an attachment to Lodger as I do Low and "Heroes." Don't get me wrong, it's a good album. For sure. It just doesn't have as grandiose of a thesis as the last two. It kind of wanders and is a bit all over the place. But that's why it works for me. When you're going through a transitional period, you can't always end up in a clear, concise, and obvious place of growth. You usually just end up "here." And you usually can't tell where here is until you're already... somewhere else. But it's important to remember how you got "here." Even when that trip was a rough one, it's still, as Bowie calls it, a "Fantastic Voyage." But any sudden movement I've got to write it down They wipe out an entire race and I've got to write it down But I'm still getting educated but I've got to write it down And it won't be forgotten 'Cause I'll never say anything nice again, how can I? We're learning to live with somebody's depression And I don't want to live with somebody's depression We'll get by, I suppose There's a lot of interesting directions Bowie and Eno choose to take on their final (for now) collaboration. Songs like "African Night Flight" and "Yassassin" pick up where the final song on "Heroes," "The Secret Life Of Arabia" left off, with Bowie and Eno experimenting with world music. These serve as the most diverse songs on the record, which doesn't feature any of the ambitious atmospheric instrumental pieces the last two albums featured. I don't have a whole lot to say about them, but these serve to define the eclectic and meandering style of the record. Coupled with the German influenced "Red Sails," this record really feels like Bowie wandering around the world trying to find the next musical outlet to call "here." In case the diverse styles aren't enough to convince us of this, here's Bowie on "Move On." Sometimes I feel the need to move on So I pack a bag and move on Well I might take a train or sail at dawn Might take a girl when I move on Somewhere, someone's calling me And when the chips are down I stumble like a blind man Can't forget you The second side of the album is more focused and thematically driven. After establishing that Bowie can do whatever he wants on Side A, Side B is all about expectations and what those restrictions can do to people. Now that Bowie has broken out of the standards he's set on his own records, it's time to explore just what that kind of pressure can do when you *can't* break free of it, in four different acts. First, in "Look Back In Anger," we see the set up. No matter where the pressure is coming from, we can so often only get mad and just wait for it to reach a tipping point. Then "Boys Keep Swinging." What about privilege? Can these societal pressures benefit some of us? Is it fair? What's the downside to that? Heaven loves ya, The clouds part for ya, Nothing stands in your way When you're a boy Clothes always fit ya, Life is a pop of the cherry When you're a boy Uncage the colors, Unfurl the flag, Luck just kissed you hello When you're a boy Learn to drive and everything, You'll get your share When you're a boy Well, the downside is for the people that tell those boys no. Nothing's ever their fault, everyone else is just getting in their way. When someone is expected to be handed everything, over and over again, how does that person confront people that say no? Usually pretty poorly, as he lays out in "Repetition." He'll get home around seven 'Cause the chevy's real old And he could have had a cadillac If the school had taught him right And he could have married Anne with the blue silk blouse And the food is on the table But the food is cold (Don't hit her) "Can't you even cook? What's the good of me working when you can't damn cook?" Well Johnny is a man And he's bigger than her I guess the bruises won't show  If she wears long sleeves But the space in her eyes shows through And he could have married Anne with the blue silk blouse Shows through And finally, he concludes the album, and this theme with "Red Money." Oh, can you feel it in the way That a man is not a man? Can you see it in the sky That the landscape is too high? Like a nervous disease And it's been there all along It will tumble from the sky It's been there all along Project cancelled Tumbling central Red money Can you hear it fall Can you hear it well Can you hear it at all   Lodger is a complicated album. Sure, it's use of world music, and hooks helped influence so many musicians for decades to come, but at the time it was met with a pretty middle of the road response. But I think that's fitting. After the masterpieces of Low and "Heroes," expectations couldn't be higher for a listener going in to Lodger. And what do you find? Wandering through different styles, grasping to see what works or what resonates with an artist in limbo. I've heard it described as a thesis-less album, but what if that's the point? Aren't we all unfocused, thesis-less people until we move on and someone decides what our "defining" thesis was? Sometimes we get the honor of deciding, but more often than not, it's just the imprint that we left on someone else that actually matters. We're all just different stages of put together as we fall sloppily through someone else's idea of a narrative. If Lodger is about anything, it's about the struggle of finding the balance of who you are, how society helped create that person, and how hard it is to overcome those expectations. There's no clear answer, within the record or within ourselves, but at least the record ends with a hopeful: