In Praise of Titus Andronicus

I’ve lis­tened to this about 1,000 times. Don’t know if it’s the go-for-the-throat vocals, the clever Spring­steen ref, or the Dinosaur Jr. gui­tars, but I’ve been com­plete­ly cap­ti­vat­ed by a band I wrote off after their debut. ‘The Mon­i­tor’ blows away any­thing I remem­ber from ‘The Air­ing of Griev­ances,’ which isn’t say­ing much, since I remem­ber about zero from the lat­ter. I may need to revis­it that one.

For­give me for being turned off by a lack­lus­ter per­for­mance at John­ny Bren­da’s once. There was a stretch where every hyped indie act I saw proved dis­ap­point­ing on any lev­el. Pret­ty sure they opened for the Ponys. I’m still recov­er­ing from that experience.

Suf­fice it to say that I have a very sen­si­tive BS detec­tor when it comes to bands that fall into that cat­e­go­ry of new truth in indie rock, but Titus Andron­i­cus have defied all expec­ta­tions. Sol­id. I mean, who even releas­es a sopho­more album any­one pays atten­tion to any­more? Con­grats, dudes.

A Word on Music Discovery

I don’t know how many YEARS it took me to final­ly real­ize Ein­sturzende Neubaut­en were cool, but it took an awful­ly long time. And they were favor­ably com­pared to bands I liked all the while. So while it’s cheap­er to down­load some­thing today, it does­n’t mean peo­ple will instan­ta­neous­ly hit that tip­ping point, even if it’s free. Isn’t that the per­il of the long tail in a nutshell?

Do you remem­ber star­ing at the stack of CDs you found at the used record store, try­ing to fig­ure out what you were buy­ing and what you’d leave behind? Man, my stom­ach still turns just think­ing about it.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s that time of year, peo­ple! Troegs Mad Elf has arrived!

Pret­ty sure win­ter sea­son­als are my favorite, but there’s a spe­cial place in my heart for Christ­mas brews. Goes back to my time in Den­mark, where jule­bryg is a spe­cial event each year. They’re real­ly some­thing to look for­ward to.

This year I’m going the extra mile and I’m buy­ing a two cas­es: one for drink­ing now and I’ll cel­lar the sec­ond for next year. Still have a bunch in my base­ment from last year, too. Can’t wait to sam­ple those babies!