Shorthand for Nothing

Hello! It is time for another edition of Rob Mason Tells You What To Listen To! In this edition we will explore The Long Winters’ discography. They are making a new album so now is the time to catch up on all their stuff and pretend you know all about the Seattle music scene!

The Long Winters are pretty appropriately named. There are songs about the first sign of winter and songs about waiting all winter and songs about springtime. It always feels like there is a long winter involved, is what I’m saying. Fronted by endearingly crazed mountain man John Roderick, the lyrics are frequently clever, often whimsical, and always pretty. There are five tracks to be downloaded and loved right here.

The Worst You Can Do Is Harm
Their first album is called The Worst You Can Do Is Harm. If you click the clicky you will see it is described it as being “full of ghosts and shipwrecked relationships.” It is an album about being well-meaning, about having a place to call home, about running away, and about making mistakes. It is not very optimistic: it’s a record full of disasters, and sometimes you can’t pick up the pieces.

There are some gems on this album. I really enjoy “Carparts,” “Unsalted Butter,” and “Scent of Lime”–the last of which features some beautiful harmony vocals from Sean Nelson. There is not a track I don’t enjoy, though the opener, “Give Me A Moment,” can drag some. Yet this is probably the weakest Long Winters album. It feels uncertain. There is a definite sound but it’s not quite sure where it’s going. It’s like the first few weeks of winter, when it’s warm one day and snowing the next and you’re just not sure what to make of it.

I remember reading an interview with John Roderick (I do not remember where, but it was really good) about the meaning of the title. It’s kind of an answer to the question “Well, what’s the worst that could happen?”–the worst that could happen is you could seriously ruin something forever. The title appears in the song “Scent of Lime:” “The worst you can do is harm / Waiting for the other shoe to fall / And shouting from your car at an empty road.”

There’s lots of little moments like that on the album, but mostly it’s rough. It’s worth having, but check out the others first, unless you really like listening in chronological order. This is definitely a debut album.

When I Pretend To Fall
When I Pretend To Fall is definitely the most upbeat of the three albums, and undeniably fun. This is an album which has at its emotional core the idea of spring coming at the end of a long winter, and an album which has probably the best description of anything that I have read, anywhere. No, seriously:

This is our new record. It’s made of downtown right as the sun comes out after it’s been raining and a little bit of three a.m. city bus in from the airport. There are several big fights between people who love each other that end with both people breaking into song and someone in a tee-shirt with rolled-up sleeves playing a sax solo. Also, there are friends coming to the rescue and there are other friends who don’t want to be rescued and there are a few friends that do want to be rescued but don’t want to have to ask.

I can’t do better than that.

The heart of this album is “Cinnamon,” which is a really beautiful and happy song. It’s just so hopeful, and it is made all the more poignant by being followed by “Bride and Bridle,” a song that is about how sometimes time isn’t long enough to put the past behind you. And then later on there’s “It’ll Be A Breeze” which is about absence. Then there’s an important moment in the song “Stupid,” where the title is sung: “She laughs when I pretend to fall.” It’s about doing stupid things for love, but in a hopeful way, which certainly captures the soul of this album pretty nicely.

It closes on a slightly darker note with “Nora,” which tells a story of different expectations coming into conflict. It’s a perfect note for closing the album, to make it all seem a little uneasy in retrospect, the way a conclusion ought to do.

This album is really good. If you like your music upbeat and irrepressibly cheerful without being credulous, this is a perfect album. If you like albums that feel like seeing green grass finally growing through the snow, you should probably order it as soon as possible.

Putting the Days to Bed
Putting the Days to Bed is the newest album and it is also the sleepiest. Appropriately so! This is an album which is about trying to come to terms with regret. Some things weren’t meant to last; some things were meant to last but don’t; some things weren’t meant to last no matter how much you think they were. It’s not entirely depressing but it is certainly resigned, but wistful. Perhaps nostalgic is the best word.

So to keep with this wintry theme, this is an album that takes place in the dead of winter–as the song “Fire Island, AK” says, “the ice has come”–and you know it’s going to be months before spring. This doesn’t mean you can’t warm yourself by the fire and think of the happier times or wish really hard for warmer times and poetic autumns. There are two songs I consider the emotional core of this album: “Hindsight,” which is a song about the end of something beautiful, and “Ultimatum,” which is a song about wishing that it didn’t have to end this way and doing what you have to do. And it closes on a strong note with “Seven,” which seems to accept the departure, though not without a strong sense of regret.

The title is a line from “Hindsight:” “Did you say what you wanted said / Or are you just putting the days to bed?” and captures the feel of the album nicely: it is an album about leaving things unsaid, about just putting it all behind you without getting the chance to actually do anything about it. (Of course, since when does saying everything you wanted to say actually make anything better?)

This is my personal favorite album, because nostalgia and regret are emotions I find particularly powerful, but it is a quiet album with a lot of acoustic guitar, perfect for putting the days to bed, and for those nights when you wish things had ended differently. Or if you just want to listen to an album with the line “If you’re my anchor, then I’m throwing you over the side.” It has that line in it. But you probably shouldn’t expect something upbeat.

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New feature! I am going to tell you what you should listen to. I’ve had people ask me where they should start listening to some bands, so I thought it might be helpful to write up a little guide with that in mind. Everything that I listen to is excellent, of course, but it can be difficult to choose an in, as it were. Today we will look at The Decemberists‘ catalog. (Click the clicky for their Myspace page, with some tracks, to listen to.) (more…)

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I have been in Seattle since Tuesday. I came to watch the final shows of Harvey Danger, the band which has long been, without a doubt or question (unlike so many other things), my favorite. Both shows were excellent, and more than excellent, in a way that words can only express inadequately. Or my words, anyway. This is usually something I never do: express freely, truly, and without reservation that something is good, really, legitimately good. I am doing it now. It alone is more than worth the flight, the time, even the frustration and the fears.

I don’t have the time now to explain how much Harvey Danger has meant to me over the years. I know I tried once before, when the band announced the breakup. It was inadequate then and it would be now. Anyway, where would I begin? No, there are things which are better left underground.

The shows had many moments both happy and sad, funny and emotional. They lasted forever, or might as well have, until at the end there was nothing but that sense that it was really complete, it was really over, that there was nothing more that could or should be added. At the final show especially, there was that sense of finality.

There’s a lot I want to say: how glad I was that Evan Sult was there, and perhaps more specifically that Sleepy Kitty was opening; how fun it was to see him and John Roderick and Evan Mosher and other guests on stage, especially towards the end; how perfect the final song was, and indeed the final part of the set. I can’t say it right, so perhaps it’s best to leave it unsaid, at least mostly.

I was fortunate indeed to live so close to such a remarkable band for so long. Some of my best memories are of Harvey Danger shows, or of acquiring Harvey Danger albums. This truly is the end of an era, and the timing is appropriate: days before I move to college for real this time, in a city which is still new to me. Even now I find myself looking for symbols and meanings to hold on to.

To the band, I have little left to say except thank you. You will be dearly missed, and you can add me to the list of strangers who have been touched by your music. I hope you had as much fun with it as I did, but at any rate let me express honestly and without reservations that you have been nothing short of wonderful and I wish you all the very best.

And one final thought: there was nothing quite so appropriate as finally hearing Sean sing the word “love” in The Same As Being In Love. That made me smile. There was nothing left incomplete.

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So, maybe I mentioned that maybe I was going to this Harvey Danger concert tonight?

Yeah, I did. It was rather excellent. I am mostly writing this to remember some things, but hey, have fun: the opening bands were the Organ Beats and Magic Magic. Which I will eventually go check out later? Then Harvey Danger played a two hour setlist, featuring a new song and a bunch of other stuff, and then I walked home from Allston, and it was fucking exhausting, and that’s exactly the way a concert should be. I couldn’t ask for more.

There will be Seattle later this month, and it will be good, but tonight would be enough. Rest assured, the band is not going out without a bang, and that, sir, is good.

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