Person of the Year - Pete Holmes

Originally posted as part of Alex "Cultural Icon" Spencer's ongoing end of the year round-up, this has become an annual tradition between mine and his blog/tumblr/whatever. I highly, HIGHLY recommend going and reading his film, music, game and comics analysis - he's one of the best critical voices I've had the honour to meet and his look back at 2012's music has already pointed me towards several bands I should have been listening to.
 
Once again, my choice for Person of the Year revolves around someone from the world of comedy, but as this year’s choice would say, comedy is a ministry, and it can have a tremendous impact on how we view the world. 

  Pete Holmes is an American stand-up comedian, and a very funny one at that. His album, Impregnated with Wonder, is filled with brilliant observations and manages to combine a whimsical sense of fun with real human honesty. He’s appeared on various talk shows and Comedy Central specials, and this year recorded some pilot episodes of a talk show that would follow Conan O’Brien’s show on TBS (this hasn’t aired yet, and is still waiting for confirmation over whether it’s been picked up, but is still an impressive achievement) but the real reason he’s my Person of the Year is for his podcast on the Nerdist network, You Made It Weird.

“I’m thinking about getting off of Facebook and Twitter, all of that, and just signing up for a service that every 30 minutes texts me the phrase ‘You’re Not Alone’.”

   You Made It Weird started out with a very loose interview format that revolved around “weird things” Holmes knew about the guests, who tended to be other comedians from the LA comedy scene, but evolved very quickly into a more wide ranging discussion that tended to focus on three areas: comedy, sex and God. The guests interviewed Holmes as much as he interviewed them and his honesty about various aspects of his life, from his youth as an evangelical Christian to his experiments with becoming a “fuck person”, via his divorce from his wife, is both rare and infectious.

  We live in an age when everything we do is shared on the Internet, which creates an odd mix of openness and image management in most people. Holmes bypasses this by moving beyond the 140-character limit and getting into deeper conversations that last long enough to find recurring themes and patterns in people’s lives (the average episode length is about 90 minutes and longer episodes get up to 2 and a half hours). He is remarkably unguarded in how he presents his thoughts, and this in turn encourages his guests to be the same.

“This is a weird little part of your life, isn’t it? Feels like we’re snowed in together. There’s only one bathroom and there’s so many of us! ‘What do we do? Put on a show! Beats getting to know each other, right?’ It sure does.” 

  Holmes’ approach to religion and spirituality follows the same approach as his discussions of his personal life – honest and infinitely curious. His guests span from the strongly atheist to the deeply spiritual (his talk with Duncan Trussell gets into some truly esoteric areas) and Holmes himself claims that he can believe everything from a godless universe to one where every action has meaning and purpose. There’s a very open-minded, non-judgemental approach to talking about faith, and a profound acceptance that not really knowing the truth is inevitable, but thinking about these ideas is important.

 
  The ultimate strength of You Made It Weird, and by extension Holmes’ comedy, is that you are listening to someone smart who has accepted that he doesn’t have all the answers about faith, relationships and life explore these issues with equally smart people, all of whom happen to be hilarious. I listen to a great number of podcasts at work and You Made It Weird is the one that gets me the most funny looks for suddenly bursting into giggles. The weightiest subjects are always going to be the most fertile ground for comedy, and Holmes isn’t afraid to dig into the most profound questions there are. He has a child-like glee and enthusiasm for the strangeness that reveals itself when people start opening up about what really drives them and what’s important to them, and it results in some achingly funny but deeply thoughtful conversations.

Play To Z: Mono Beatles to Odd Blood

It's been another long gap, but hey, there was Christmas and all kinds of shenanigans in that time, so what do you want from me?

  I'm aiming to get some standard "end of year" posts done over this weekend, including my "Person of the Year", which will pop up first on Alex Spencer's blog as part of his own, far superior annual review.

Random Observations

  I've mentioned this before, but it is a sign of The Beatles' enduring appeal that Iistened to 60 of their tracks in a row at the start of this batch of albums, and never once thought "this is nice and everything, but I'm getting bored of The Beatles". I can't think of many other musical acts that could match that level of innovation and variety.

  The first 68 seconds of Rafael Casal's "Bay Area Slang Top 100" is pretty much perfect, which makes it all the sadder when the rest of it quickly loses hold of the beat and descends into clumsiness.

  I hadn't really listened to Rilo Kiley before about 18 months ago, but "Portions for Foxes" has rapidly become one of my favourite songs of all time. Witty, sexy, incisive and beautifully constructed, it's a true marvel.

  Speaking of perfect songs, the Motown 50 collection contains some of the best songwriting and vocal performances of the 20th century, but let's single "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" out for special attention. There's that opening build-up, like a transition from another song, telling you to stop and pay attention to what's happening without announcing itself too boastfully. There's that first vocal harmony, like the song is opening up it's arms to greet you. Then it stands back and lets Diana Ross' angelic, irresistible voice talk for a while, easing you in even further. The structure isn't shackled to verse-chorus-verse; it builds and fades, relying on harmonies and Ross' charisma as a performer, and the iconic chorus doesn't appear until the last quarter of the song, when it hits like an atom bomb going off. Simply masterful.

  This set of albums included My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which I've started to write about several times, but it feels a little bit to big for my brain. It's a work of tremendous ambition that actually lives up to the promise, and cements Kanye West as one of the primary musical talents of today. It goes without saying that he has an uncontrollable ego, but the album addresses that, along with various other personal issues, with an honesty and forthrightness that's admirable. I could probably fill the rest of this post talking about it, but people a lot wiser than I have already pulled it apart with considerable critical gusto, so I'll spare you.

  I got officially diagnosed with depression in May 2011, but it's been haunting me for a lot longer. At the time, I was attempting to complete a post-graduate degree in Early Years Childcare, a pretty high-stakes, high pressure environment that, a few months into, I started worrying I didn't actually want to do. What I initially thought was laziness or lack of motivation grew into something heavy and crippling that left me in bed for days on end, paralysed by both the fear of failure and anxiety at my own lack of action. Eventually, I sought help, left the course, and thanks to medication and therapy, I'm a hell of a lot healthier than I was. Part of what inspired me to seek action was a line on Patton Oswalt's My Weakness Is Strong album, where he describes his depression making him "watch The Princess Bride eleven times in a row". I'd always associated depression with sadness, but at the time I wasn't feeling sad - I was feeling nothing in particular. Even the thought of failing my course wasn't stirring me into action, it was just making me worry. Realising that this absence of emotion was as bad, if not worse, than true despair finally made me do something about it. I actually e-mailed Patton to thank him for his part in turning my life around before things got too bad, and he graciously replied, wishing me well. What a swell guy.

  On a lighter note, do you know how hard it is to listen to "Never Forget" by Take That without a) singing along and b) doing the hands in the air bit in the chorus? Stupid office job stifling my groove...

  I like the Futureheads - in my opinion they were the best of the bands to come out of the post-Franz Ferdinand guitar pop explosion of 2004/5 (see Kaiser Chiefs, Hard-Fi, Maximo Park, Editors), but every time I've been to see them I've ended up having a miserable night. The first time, they were supporting the Zutons and afterwards I ended up at a party where I knew one other person who was nowhere to be seen, and people were launching fireworks out of the arseholes. The second time, off the album News And Tributes, I got semi-mugged by a crackhead and his 9 year old son on the way home (he punched me in the face, but I didn't give him any money). I'm not going to risk a third gig.

Rediscovered Gem

"SWATE" by HEEMS

Play To Z: Lost In Space to The Moldy Peaches

Some Observations

Listening through Love & Happiness, the Al Green best of compilation, you realise how many fantastic songs the man has given the world, but I don't think anything will ever compare with "Let's Stay Together", which manages to stand head and shoulders above an impressive discography.

I'm still waiting for the Justice League film/TV show I have in my head to be made, which features Florence and the Machine's "Kiss With A Fist" sound-tracking Batman and Wonder Woman having a sparring session that turns into a make-out session. Warner Bros, I'm here when you need me.

Because I have no money but a plentiful supply of blank CDs and cardboard, I'm making mix CDs for my two nephews and niece this Christmas. My niece's is a ladies-only mix, ranging from Nina Simone and Taylor Swift to The Breeders and X-Ray Spex. One artist I couldn't fit on there was Kate Nash, but after re-listening to Made Of Bricks, I'm hoping my niece catches the music bug enough to come to me for more recommendations, because this will be high on my list.

An Internal Dialogue
Tim: Eugh, why do you still have The Magic Numbers album, self? It's by-the-numbers folk pop. Walking down this road will only lead you to Mumford & Sons.
Tim: But listen to the vocal harmonies! They're so pretty!
Tim: I don't know how I put up with you.
Tim: *too busy dancing to respond*

I'm very lucky to have wonderful friends who occasionally send me mixes of their own. One I listened to recently was from university friend Tom (who's been mentioned on here before) called Make Sure You Know What An Off-Colour Sea Lion Looks Like (named for a Blue Jam sketch that was included on there), which is a wonderful selection of tunes from artists like Stars, The Hold Steady, Beirut and The National. It also included on of the oddest songs I own, "The Centaur" by Buck 65. It's well worth a listen.

Sitting at my desk at work and listening to Passion Pit's Manners without jumping up and starting a one-person dance party was extremely hard.

One off my all time ultimate party tunes will always be "Sweet Home Country Grammar", a mash-up of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and Nelly's "Country Grammar" by DJ Mei-Lwun. It hits the perfect balance of laid-back summer cool and hyped-up party starter.

Ssshhhh...apart from "My Girls", I don't actually like Merriweather Post Pavilion that much. Don't tell any of the cool kids, or they'll kick me out of their club.

Midnite Vultures wasn't the most well-received of Beck's albums, with a lot of people dismissing it as a featherweight homage to Prince shot through with Beck's typical genre-fusing madcappery. What people failed to appreciate how goddamn fun it was; a bizarro electric cyclone ripping through a sci-fi orgy. It's a masterpiece of both lyrical gymnastics and musical artistry.

Getting Lost In Space

I wrote last time about my period of finding wonderful new artists through rather circuitous routes, and Aimee Mann was no different. Two of her songs were featured on an episode of Buffy The Vampire Slayer (in fact she performed live at The Bronze and mentions that she "hates playing vampire towns") and at around the same time, I saw Magnolia for the first time, my introduction to the work of Paul Thomas Anderson and one of my favourite films. Mann worked extensively with Anderson on the film's soundtrack and the centrepiece of the film's second act sees the cast breaking the fourth wall to perform a version of Mann's "Wise Up".

After this one-two punch of an introduction, I couldn't help but check out one of her albums, and Lost In Space was where I started. It's a hell of an album, a set of perfectly constructed songs written with a novelist's eye for detail, and built around a series of simple but effective melodies that carry the emotional weight of the songs. Mann's voice is wry and intelligent, and can run the gamut from heartbroken to hopeful.

My favourite of Mann's albums, however, is The Forgotten Arm, which I was going to write about at the time I listened to it on this run (a couple of months back, I reckon) but wasn't able to, so we'll talk about it here. The Forgotten Arm is every bit as brilliant as Lost In Space, with the added layer of a story that runs through the album, telling the tale of two star-crossed lovers dealing with addiction and heartbreak.

Mann isn't well known either side of the pond beyond the Magnolia soundtrack, which was over ten years ago now. She's well-connected with the LA comedy scene and has been putting out albums regularly (including a Christmas record of both original songs and classics that's festive without getting treacly) but deserves a much wider audience. I suggest checking out her song "Little Bombs" here - it's one of my favourites and a great introduction to her work.

Rediscovered Gem

"Soul Of A Man" by Beck

Play To Z: Where Does It All Come From?

We're halfway through my music collection now (baring any sudden donations or downloading sprees) and as I was writing up my last few entries I began thinking about a very fundamental question - where did my music taste come from?

I didn't grow up in a musical house. Neither of my parents care much about music; I think between them they own perhaps 40 albums, and rarely listen to any of them, and as far as radio goes, the dial moves between Radio 4 and Radio Norfolk with little deviation. Back in her youth, my mum saw bands like The Rolling Stones and Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich live but never spoke a great deal about them, and my dad grew up in a pre-pop music era.

My sister did listen to music, but she was (and remains) seven years older than me, and we've always had very different taste in pretty much everything. My memories of her musical taste in my formative years go East 17 -> Guns 'n' Roses -> Anything the Ministry of Sound recommended. None of them exactly exploded my young mind with the possibilities of music.

One of the biggest impacts on my young brain was the radio. I remember getting a clock radio when I was about 8 and tuning it in for the first time, looking for the first station that played anything "modern". I ended up on Broadland 102.4, our local commercial radio station (who knows how life would have been if I'd turned the dial the other way and ended up on Radio 1) and stuck with them for several years. They played a pretty standard mix of chart pop and 80s/early 90s hits, and laid the foundations for me coming back to pop music several years later after some misguided teenage rockism.

My love of music only really took off in sixth form (that's 16-18 for non-Brits). Before that, I'd listened to what friends said was good or mainstream rock without really ever giving it any thought, or feeling inspired by it (this was the age of nu-metal, so there wasn't exactly anything inspiring out there).

Once I'd escaped my old high school and some not-exactly-healthy friendships, I started exploring music a little. I went through a phase of buying albums by artists I didn't know on the strength of one song. I watched High Fidelity and Grosse Point Blank, both of which informed my taste a lot. I started going to gigs, mainly thanks to friends who knew more than me, and discovered the joys of live music.

Still, my taste has ended up very different to a lot of my friends, even though I take their recommendations to heart. Some of my favourite bands and artists were discovered in most unusual ways. I found Broken Social Scene based on a webcartoonist's recommendation; Beck came from watching the Futurama episode he was in; Death Cab For Cutie was due to, I think, hearing their name mentioned in The OC. It's not exactly the opening scene to Almost Famous.

I can only say that my taste in music matches my taste in most other things: I like emotional honesty that doesn't stray too far into melodrama or naked exhibitionism. I like intelligent writing that thinks about themes and patterns. I like people who don't take themselves too seriously. And I think you can make something exciting, accessible and popular without sacrificing any of those things.

And I'll never stop looking for new things to love.

Play To Z: Kitsuné Maison Compilation 9 to Lost Horizons

There was gonna be an essay-style portion to this post, but it got too long so I've separated it out. Enjoy some other good stuff though!

Some Observations

The Klaxon's cover of "No Diggity" isn't as good as the original (what is?) but damn if they don't give it their best show and come up with a new spin on it.

Portico Quartet's album Knee Deep In The North Sea is one of the more left-field records that I own (contemporary jazz, anyone?) and is a helpful reminded that although you might not think it, cello, clarinet and kettle drums go together surprisingly well.

Holy Fuck are a good band, but their live show is something else. Live electronica can too often be a guy pressing buttons and trying to make a show out of it, but watching these guys play instruments as they pull magnetic tape through machinery was brillo pads.

Ladyhawke's eponymous first album is one of those records that I always forget I really enjoy. Part of it is the slightly disposable nature of the electro-pop she makes (please note, I do not use "disposable" as a bad term - it's just some things are made to make you dance, not think about) and part of it is that there's no strong themes or emotions that come through in her songs, at least not enough to hang them onto my own experiences. Still, there's some great danceable songs in there.

One of my favourite things about Kanye West is that when he learned some of the facts behind the conflict diamond trade, he re-recorded "Diamonds From Sierra Leone" with an aim towards raising awareness about the issue, but he still included the original version, which features a typically materialistic approach towards diamonds, because hey, it's a damn good song.

Lazerproof is an album of La Roux remixes by Major Lazer, and is far better than anything by La Roux or Major Lazer by themselves.

"The Staunton Lick" remains one of my favourite songs, indelibly linked to both the end of Spaced and the end of my time in America (I played it as I left our house, and by extension San Francisco, for the final time in a deliberate homage to Spaced) and one of those songs that instantly makes me calm, happy and tranquil. It's like aural Prozac.

Hey, "Gimme Shelter" is a pretty good song, isn't it?

It's a perfect coincidence of the alphabet that puts "Hawaiian Roller Coaster Ride" from the Lilo & Stitch soundtrack right next to "Circle of Life" from The Lion King. That's a one-two punch of happy-making energisers right there.

I've already trumpeted Solange's "Losing You" around the Internet as a borderline perfect pop song, and I'm not sure there's much more I can say about it (beyond GO LISTEN TO IT) but I have just noticed that what initially appears to be solid yellow artwork for the single in fact hides yellow-on-yellow writing that you can only see from certain angles. I approve of such creative trickiness.

Rediscovered Gem

"Saints" by The Breeders

Play To Z: The Hazards of Love to Kings & Queens

Holy crap, it's been a while. I'm gonna stick with just observations on this one, because there's a lot of ground to make up. However, I'll aim to A) be more regular and B) do an actual "topic" post ASAP, 'cos there's stuff I wanna write about

Some Observations

Listening to "I L U" by School of Seven Bells has a weird gut punch effect on me. It's not a song I associate with a particular moment, or that I came across at an especially difficult moment in my life, but as soon as I hear that first ethereal note, I get this weird romantic stomach ache. It's like a mainline to heartbreak.

"Intergalactic" by the Beastie Boys was perhaps the third single I bought (on cassette, natch) and is one of the foundations of my musical taste. I listened to a few Beasties albums in this selection, and every one was tinged with a little sadness at Adam Yauch's passing. I think he may be the first "celebrity" death to have had a real emotional impact on me, and I can only point to the long shadow the Beastie Boys cast over my life as the reason for this.

Remember before Mark Ronson put horns on everything?* Remember when he made dancefloor fillers like "Ooh Wee" with Ghostface Killah, Nate Dogg, Trife and Saigon? Sigh

"Higher and Higher" by Jackie Wilson will forever be the song that animates the Statue of Liberty in Ghostbusters 2, which I must have seen at least 4 times before I got around to seeing the first Ghostbusters. I know most people look down on the sequel, and perhaps it's just nostalgia talking, but I honestly rate them equally.

I've never been a huge of The Killers, but if you don't sing along to "Mr Brightside", you're made of stone. There should be more songs about jealousy. It's an underrated emotion.

I'm pretty sure The Weeknd has brought out his full album now, but I'm not sure anything will compare to the dark icy majesty of House of Balloons. Such a perfectly formed EP; at once a mission statement, a portrait, a confession and a memoir.

David Bowie's description of Bob Dylan's voice as "sand and glue" on Hunky Dory is basically spot on.

If you're a drummer in need of inspiration, go listen to Those Dancing Days' self titled song (helpfully linked right here) and go slack-jawed in awe at Cissi Efraimsson's astonishing skills.

People with far greater skill and knowledge have written at length about why In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel is so very good. I'm not sure I'm even capable of articulating this album's brilliance. Jeff Mangum's dream-like lyrics touch on family, faith, death, destiny and the weight of history, articulating meaning through a swirl of imagery and the tremulous power of his voice, so heavy with emotion. It's one of the outstanding achievements in pop music in the last 20 years.

I think I've shared this story before, but it's worth repeating. When I was in Sixth Form (I'm not sure if I was 17 or 18 when this happened) I worked at a newsagents in Norwich's train station. I basically ran the shop with another similarly-aged boy or girl on weekend afternoons. To get home in the evenings, I would walk up Prince of Wales Road, a dirty street that hosts numerous low rent night clubs and takeaways, essentially the hub of Norwich's nightlife if your aim is to get slaughtered and swap infections. One night, late in the winter, I was walking up this filthy road that to me represented a side of youth culture I felt I would never understand, let alone want to mix with. Usually quiet on a Sunday, it was especially dead today. It was cold, and it was snowing, and In Time, REM's greatest hits, was playing on my Discman. As I approached the top of Prince of Wales (the street slopes uphill towards Norwich Castle, where my bus stop awaited), "Nightswimming" came on, and something changed in me. It's a simple constructed song, but one with a lot of power. Something made me turn back, and look down this street that I so associated with drunken idiots and the trudge to a job I hated. The snow had transformed it, made it clean and new and beautiful. I felt something electric pass through me and stood frozen in that moment, confronted with this striking metamorphosis as Michael Stipe sang softly of still lakes and stolen moments. In that eternal second, I knew how magical music was.

Hey, I'd forgotten that the first four tracks on It's Not Me, It's You by Lily Allen are basically perfect. Come back and make another album, Lily. Music is weaker without you.

I think "The Prowl" by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys would be a pretty sexy song anyway, but I came across it because of this (sort of NSFW), so that's pretty much cemented it as boneriffic.

*I realise he's put out another album that's less horn-filled and so this jokes a little old, but the point remains

Rediscovered Gem

"She's A Rejector" by Of Montreal

The Broken City: Political Realities

In my last post about my role-playing game, The Broken City, I talked a lot about the in-game mechanics for determining character and background, and how these two basic choices (Path and Order) have a big impact on the player characters. I also made a brief mention of the fact that I altered the background slightly for my game, and here I'll explore what I changed, and how it affects the game world.

  I talked a lot about Paths and Orders in my last post, but there's one further category the players and other characters get sorted into in the game - their cabal. If your Path is roughly analogous to something like your race or your star-sign, and your Order is where you work or study, your Cabal is your group of friends. Your players can easily belong to different Paths and Orders in a Mage game (in fact, it's encouraged) but having them in different Cabals is a whole other matter - it essentially means your player's characters don't like to hang out with each other. No-one cares if Thor is a Norse god while Iron Man uses technology, or Willow studies at university while Giles works at the magic shop, as long as they still hang out and kick ass.

  In most Mage games, the superhero comparison is fairly apt when describing the relationships between different Cabals (the one made up by your players, and the others you create to fill up the world). The Avengers and the X-Men and the Fantastic Four might get into conflict occasionally, or have different agendas, but they're mostly content to take care of their own business and leave each other alone. However, my initial conception of the game, and in fact the thing that first made me want to run it, was a very different world.

  When I was thinking about the game in the early stages of planning, and describing it to potential players, my pitch was "Harry Potter meets Game of Thrones meets Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere", and the final, unspoken part of that equation was "...meets The Warriors". I wanted the cabals that the players encountered to be at minimum rivals, or at worst bitter enemies.

  Cabals are usually kept in line by the "Consilium" - a sort of ruling council of mages made up of representatives from all the cabals in the area, but for the purposes of my game, I decided that the Consilium had fallen apart due to rivalries, grudges and infighting, so London was sort of a magical Wild West, with very few people there enforcing the laws, and groups of mages fighting over territory and magical resources.

  This obviously immediately ups the stakes considerably for the players - instead of being welcomed into a stable environment where most people are trust-worthy and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, they're instead dropped into a world where everyone is out for themselves and there is little safe ground to go to.

  Because the Orders are made up of the local mages, this also affects them - it's hard to keep an organisation running when the members all want to fight each other. This meant I shrank the Orders down to a few core members each who gave up their cabal affiliation, making the Orders less about large training facilities and more about one-on-one mentorship and developing a few key characters for each one.

  My players haven't encountered the cabals much yet - I introduced a sort of grace period when they couldn't be approached by other cabals to give the players a chance to get used to being mages and develop relationships with each other and the orders. However, that will soon end, and it will be interesting to see how they cope with suddenly being plunged into what is a very political aspect of the game, dealing with alliances, deals and betrayal. I'm hoping they're up for the challenge, and find the whole thing fun, because it's a large part of what makes up this particular world, and how this game functions.

  In my next post, I'll provide some more details about the world I've created, and the characters who populate it...