On The Road Mix (Part 3)

The final section of my three part travel album. Hope you enjoyed it.:

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

13. Blue Orchid by The White Stripes, on the album Get Behind Me Satan. Great single by the Stripes - I absolutely adore Jack White and I'm sure I still have a big ol' poster of him and Meg rolled up somewhere. I even went to a concert promoting this album up in Portland one time. That's a big deal for someone that rarely spends money on shows. Fortunately my folks had season tickets so Cass and I could go. I really love his brand of raw and open sound, I thought his music documentary It Might Get Loud was brilliant. I still haven't picked up his newer stuff post-White Stripes, and I really ought to.

14. Way Out by Yeah Yeah Yeahs, on the Show Your Bones album. Another band I picked up during my sophomore year. A nice little girl band, they do a great job of mixing up Seattle riot grrl attitude with more of a Southern sound. They're easy pleasers, and I thought they'd be a good outro for my brief intrusion of showy rock. I really ought to check out what they've been up to since.

15. Shotglass by Caitlin and the Shotglasses, on their self-titled album. Another local band. I've known Caitlin and most of the band for quite a while. They basically were a group of some of the funnest townie music kids that weren't getting their rocks off just playing in pep band. Cue a burning-brightly band that put out a bunch of shows and one album just before they all went their separate ways. Caitlin and Justin have bounced around a lot, but they're back in Corvallis now and heading a pretty successful punk band called The Angries. Amusingly, I didn't notice that this track (one of their best in my opinion) also contained more than a minute of silence and a secret track. Whoops. Definitely creates a different mood there at the end of the mix. And I like it. I guess it was meant to be.

16. Homelands by Brad and Ethan on their Live Recordings, Etc., album. This song is a real winner with anyone who grew up here in the Northwest. But I'm a fan of a number of their singles including In the Mountains and Seraphim (both on the album). Another local band, though I really only knew these guys by reputation. They were a couple years ahead of me in school, but they also were big regulars over at the Beanery back when I was pounding coffee with the best of them. Amusingly, while their music is very chill my most prominent memory of them was riding a couple of hijacked shopping baskets tied to a bike down Second Street at night.

17. Barton Hollow by The Civil Wars on their self-titled album. A real newcomer to my collection compared to these local bands that I've had for years. Barton Hollow is probably my favorite single from this band, the group is generally more easy-going folk than hard-strumming country. Annabritt introduced this band to me after falling in love with it herself, and she can now do a bang-up cover of it with her friend Catherine Wright to do the harmonizing. Reminds me a bit of a Steve Earle that found a girlfriend instead of heroin.

18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing by The Decemberists on their continuous album The Hazards of Love. Called a rock opera by Pitchfork and other critics, you can imagine some mix of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a Shakespeare comedy farce playing out behind the mics. However, since the whole thing is connected it makes it rather difficult to pull out a single track. I leaned toward one of my more favorite and unitary ones, The Rake's Song, but people sometimes get a bit weirded out by its baby-killing lyrics (hey, you can't have a tragic narrator without a tragedy) so I figured I'd pick out something that didn't need as much context. However, while this track does a good job of showcasing the vocals and the band, I think that the transitions are too hard and make for a difficult concluding track. I think perhaps I should have picked something else or added additional music. I had room for another 15-20 minutes of music, but not enough time to pick something suitable.

Here are the links to the first and second parts of this mix.

On The Road Mix (Part 2)

The second of my three part travel album:

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Annotations:

7. The King of Carrot Flowers Pt. One, by Neutral Milk Hotel on the album In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. Quite a pleasant little band, their music is really best experienced over the breadth of their album. They're great for lazy weekends and singing along to in the Sun. They're probably the only band that manages to have the lyric "I love you Jesus Christ" be catchy instead of preachy. So there's something. Also, I associate this band with the Redwall books (the ones about the Martin the Warrior mouse and all of the funny hare commandos) because I was re-reading a bunch of those books when I discovered this band. Funny how that works.

8. Dashboard by Modest Mouse on the album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank. Marking a change in the album toward more energetic music. If Dispatch carried me through freshman year of college, then Modest Mouse carried me through most of high school. Great band. It was a bit difficult picking out just one song to represent them entirely. Black Cadillacs on the album Good News For People Who Love Bad News was my first great love with that band. There were several others, but in the end I decided to pick out something more recent for you to listen to.

9. The Great Escape by We Are Scientists on their album With Love and Squalor. Picking it up with a nice little guitar and stick-symbol opener, We Are Scientists are a fun little band that I picked up during a misguided attempt to find more punk. I'm thinking some time junior year in college - so about 2007. Sadly, the guy I got the music from was more a fan of Emo. Fortunately, they were one of the points of agreement. Still not really punk, but they've got some great guitar and a fun attitude.

10. Fireworks by yOya, on their album Nothing to Die. The first of three local bands on this mix, the two singers were actually buddies of mine from CHS and my children's choir. They were both in my vocal section for years, so I got to know them quite well. They now live in Los Angeles and are putting out their unique blend of folk-electronica.They seem to be doing pretty well with it - they do tours up and down the West Coast regularly. Fun band.

11. California Sun by the Ramones, on their Leave Home album. Never mind the bollocks! It's the Ramones. Well actually that should be the Sex Pistols, but I was having a tricky time putting punk music onto an album that also had Johnny Cash. The Clash would perhaps have been a safer bet in retrospect, but whatever. The Ramones are totally awesome punk, a band that came into the scene early enough to still be more rock than "pump it up to 11" noise. Not that I have anything against that kind of punk - there's another fun local punk band, Rock N Roll Hearts, that I rather wanted to put on - but I eventually decided they were too "Sex, Drugs and Rock n'Roll" for this mix. Maybe the next one?

12. Power of Moonlite by Tiger Army on their album II:Power of Moonlite. Tiger Army was one of several bands that I picked up my sophomore year while living in the Jasper house. A big bach house with lots of girls and homebrewed alcohol (occasionally awful) seemed well-suited with noisy and poppy rock. Similar bands were the brightly electronic Death From Above and LCD Soundsystem - and lots of lots of Irish punk. Fun times

See part one here and part three here.

On The Road Mix (Part 1)

After yet another long hiatus, I thought that I'd make another post on my poor old blog. A little while ago I put together an annotated travel mix for my friend Kindra, and I've been meaning to repost it online when I got the chance. It ended up being one-part discography and one-part audio biography. Since my focus was on representing the music that I've listened to most in life, it's more or less the standard fare. Still, check out the first of three parts here and let me know what you think! (I'll put up the next part tomorrow):

Track listing:

1. Wild Night, Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey
2. Flathead, The Fratellis - Costello Music
3. General, Dispatch - Bang Bang
4. Folsom Prison Blues, Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
5. Gallows Pole, Led Zeppelin - III
6. Graceland, Paul Simon - Graceland
7. The King of Carrot Flowers pt. One, Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea
8. Dashboard, Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
9. The Great Escape, We Are Scientists - With Love and Squalor
10. Fireworks, yOya - Nothing to Die
11. California Sun, Ramones - Leave Home
12. Power of Moonlite, Tiger Army - II:Power of Moonlite
13. Blue Orchid, The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
14. Way Out, Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Show Your Bones
15. Shotglass, Caitlin and the Shotglasses - Caitlin and the Shotglasses
16. Homelands, Brad and Ethan - Live Recordings, Etc.
17. Barton Hollow, The Civil Wars - Barton Hollow
18. The Queen's Rebuke / The Crossing, The Decemberists - The Hazards of Love

Annotations:

1. Wild Night by Van Morrison on the album Tupelo Honey. I've actually never been huge into Morrison, and I can't really remember when I downloaded this album. Probably when I picked up a bunch of Jimi Hendrix and similar classic rock; it just seemed the thing to do. This single is fantastic, but I think some of the other songs on the album lack the happy energy of Wild Night.

2. Flathead by The Fratellis on the album Costello Music. The Fratellis are such a happy little Ska band. They're great at having a driving sound that is still quite classy. I picked them up from a photographer friend of mine, Leah, down in Eugene. Nowadays she's living in Prague! Can you imagine that? She and I would just hang out at her house swapping photo books and record albums, chatting about one thing or another. Cool chick. And at one point she dumped a bunch of awesome music onto my laptop. Hurrah!

3. General by Dispatch on the album Bang Bang. Dispatch was one of those bands that carried me through my freshman year of college. My roommate Ryan was huge into them, and it didn't take me long to start to obsess as well. General was one of those songs that hits all the sweet spots for me; it's a story song (based on the Civil War!) that has some great lyrics and some stirring melodies. It's a favorite with everyone who's heard the band, I think. I almost got a chance to go see the band live once, but it never panned out. Too bad!

4. Folsom Prison Blues by Johnny Cash on the At Folsom Prison album. The Man in Black! Cash was so great. His life story is quite interesting, and I think that they did a decent job of retelling it in Walk the Line. I've been listening to him for years. He has another couple of songs that I like a bunch too: The Legend of John (later in the album) and The Man Who Couldn't Cry on the American Recordings album. Great stuff. But Folsom Prison is the most iconic, and this song is the best at showing it off. Cash played at many prisons during his life, but it was this one in Folsom, California that really kick-started his career onto the national stage. Good thing too.

5. Gallows Pole by Led Zeppelin on the III album. Zeppelin! Continuing the prisoner motif of Prison Blues, Gallows Pole is one of my favorite Zeppelin songs. It follows a pretty classic three-part story format, which I love, but it's Jimmy Page's fantastic voice coupled with the twanging guitar that really propels this song into greatness for me. There used to be a great Zeppelin cover band here in Corvallis called Stairway Denied, and they had some of the best covers I've ever heard. The lead singer absolutely nailed Page's vocals, and also had good looks and the long rocker hair. They've since broken up, but I'll bump into him here in town and have to resist gushing over a Corvallis celeb.

6. Graceland by Paul Simon, on the Graceland album. Though I do like Simon and Garfunkel, the sheer amount of overplaying of them by my friend Arielle caused me to cast out for this album. I played it a bit, never really latching on, and then one day I came home from an epic backpacking trip into Eastern Oregon and turned this on and everything clicked. Instant travel song favorite. The rest of the album is fine, but it is really this single that I am most enamored with. Hopefully some day I won't feel as burnt out on The Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel. :p

See part two here and part three here.

It's Good to Travel

Alright, so picking up from my previous time travel post, I'm hypothesizing traveling to Europe circa 1500. I already talked about arriving in Europe and traveling to Florence, Italy, in 1500. It probably won't make much sense without the lead up, so I suggest looking at part one. I pick up in late 1504 ...

I travel to Rome with Michaelangelo, and secure the patronage of Pope Julius II to create a second academy. Doing so would further tie Florence to the Vatican, and gain favor with the Pope. After his successful campaign in 1506, Julius has a good relationship with France and Germany, and he then creates the Swiss Guard.

I would attempt to demonstrate the success of the Florence militia in order to be involved in the training of the Guard. I would promote the role of Florence in the creation of an independent Italy as a nation state. This line of thinking would mirror that of Pope Julius.

Through the improved relationship between the Pope, Florence and the Academy cadre, it would be possible to conciliate between the Medici family and Florence, preventing the wars that would weaken Italy and doom both the Republic of Florence and the Pope's intentions. Support of the Medici, a potent noble merchant family with a history of patronage for the arts, philosophy and medicine, would solidify Florence as a mercantile city state within an emerging Italy.

Thus forward, my aim would be to obtain a place in the Florence Great Council alongside the Medici faction, and consolidate the economic and military might of the city. In 1509, Pisa will attack the city, but the improved militia will prove its might by soundly trouncing Pisa, which should be followed with expansion into Venice alongside the League.

In 1513, Pope Julius will catch fever. However, medical aid will improve his chances of survival. Doing so will allow him to transfer leadership of the Holy League to his successor, Pope Leo X, a leader of the Medici family who will be sympathetic to the cause of a loyal Florence in the face of Martin Luther. Religious discourse and political pragmatism may convince Pope Leo X and his successor to adopt some of Luther's accepted liberalization, in order to prevent the schism.

By 1520, Italy has been relatively stable and profitable for 15 years. France, Germany and the Vatican have decent relations, and are no longer capable of dealing with Italy city by city. Now secure under the authority of a liberated Rome and the military industrial power of an expanded Florence, Italy can take advantage of the renaissance academies that have been set up throughout the country (in Pisa, Venice, Rome, Florence, etc.) Science, health and education flourish throughout the newly founded nation, spread through the merchant trading ships throughout Europe and as far as Asia. The burgeoning middle-class fuels an economic boom, and induces slow political democratization. The support of the Medici, and nobles as a whole, will be maintained by showing them how to maintain their position through mercantilism, and eventually capitalism.

Barring an unlikely joint attack by Germany and France, Italy is ready to begin an industrial revolution 300 years ahead of schedule. A major war (effectively a smaller Great War) should start within 20 years, but it is unlikely that other nations will be able to comprehend the strategy behind the new technologies, and their attacks will fail.

Basic knowledge of the rifled flintlock musket, the bayonet and trench warfare would revolutionize the military, bringing it to late 1800 technology. Even the minie ball (a pointed bullet that expands to fit the barrel groves), which marked the huge casualties of the American Civil War, is a relatively simple advancement if one understands the basic principles of a rifle.

Indeed, I encourage the belief that these advancements have nothing to do with my specific knowledge, but rather the collective knowledge that any modern educated person holds. Most people know that bullets shouldn't rattle around in the barrel, even if they don't realize how to utilize soft lead to do it. The same could be said of the basic industrial line, if not manufacturing design.

Comparatively, the enemy would be using cavalry, pikemen, archers/crossbows, and a smattering of matchlock arquebuses and cannon artillery. The protection of the trenches would prevent the discipline problems that plagued early gun battles, improving the firing rate and demoralizing the enemy.

Once supplemented with rifled artillery, the Italian army could expand at will. So long as Italy does not over-extend itself, it should be able to weather the war on a defensive front, and then exploit the Americas to begin the last great expansion.

I should be able to live until about 1555, when I will be 77. Depending on the success of the war, I should be able to live out my days as Governor of an Italian-speaking American colony with circa 1900 technology.

Waking Up in the Past

Last night I got really involved in a thread on Something Awful that was exploring the idea of traveling back to the 1500s. I've always been fascinated by time travel, and I've avidly read and listened to anything about it that I could get my hands on.

In the thread, I wrote about two things: what I would do if I used that time machine, and an exploration of time travel itself.

Since I had an awesome time writing about it, I'll post a series of excerpts from my writing:

Assuming that I found myself in the middle of Europe on Jan. 1 1500, I would make my way to the new Republic of Florence, Italy, and ingratiate myself with Leonardo da Vinci, who will have just returned to the city. My extensive knowledge of science and engineering will make this a relatively simple procedure, though it will take time to transform my French into complex Italian.

Over the next year I will work with him to increase our fortunes, and to gain the trust of him and his contemporaries. Using philosophies refined in future centuries, I will mend fences between him and his rival, Michaelangelo, (they mainly disagreed over the relationship between man and nature), to create the core cadre of a group of young Florentine artists, scientists, philosophers and engineers. This united group will be effectively charged with fleshing out and legitimizing the concepts that I already possess, and translating them into contemporary forms. A small general academy will be formed around the cadre, funded by my own medicine-based income, as well as Michaelangelo's substantial stipend as he begins work on the David statue.

By establishing this group as the premier scientific and academic center of Italy, I will attract the attention of diplomat Niccolo Machiavelli, who has now been appointed Second Chancellor by the Florentine Great Council. As the first political scientist, he will be fascinated by my understanding of politics. With the inclusion of political power in the cadre, I will be able to promote Florence's Republican ideals, and use Michaelangelo to deter the others from siding with Cesare Borgia, preventing da Vinci from leaving Florence in 1502.

At Borgia rampages through Italy, he is now bereft of his chief military architect, da Vinci, which means his sieges will stagnate. Florentine admirers such as Machiavelli will turn away from him, and focus their attentions on Florence and Borgia's rival in Rome, Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.

Machiavelli begins training the Florence militia in 1503, now supplemented by my modern military infantry movement training, da Vinci's improved military engineering, and a united Florence. At this point I would likely be inducted into the Florence government as Machiavelli's aide-de-camp. Apart from the extensive political benefits this would bring (Machiavelli traveled throughout Italy as chief diplomat), it would also give the Academy a direct line to the government, as the first academy graduates would be entering the officer corps as citizen-soldiers. As officers, they will interact with the merchants who are beginning to come into their own, and will begin to legitimate the middle-class.

In late 1503, as the Italian wars now grind on, Cardinal Giuliano will be crowned as Pope Julius II. His reign will be marked by an aggressive foreign policy, ambitious building projects, and patronage for the arts. Florence will now be in a much stronger position, with a highly trained military, a burgeoning merchant middle-class, and solid political ties with the Vatican.

Michaelangelo completes David in 1504, which will attract the attention of all Italy to Florence. Now unified with Michaelangelo, da Vinci and Botticelli will lead the effort to build a monument around David rather than moving it. The small Republic of Florence will use it as a sign that it has come into its own (David and Goliath myth). Michaelangelo is summoned to Rome to begin work on the tomb of Pope Julius II, and da Vinci and I will now accompany him - leaving Florence in the hands of Machiavelli and the Academy.

So that's the first five years. Come back later for the second part.