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I'm writing this entry from the road. My friend Cliff and I are driving cross-country from Austin to San Francisco. Two Catahoula Leopard Dog puppies, Honest John and Huey from Catahoula Rescue, are joining us for the first leg of our trip. Once we reach Phoenix, AZ, we'll deliver them to their new adoptive families.
Road trips are the true test of an album's durability. Just about every song sounds good if you hear it when you're falling in love or car-camping for a weekend with your best friends, but some songs can sound a bit flat at 1:00 a.m. when you're slogging through the endless nothing that is Texas between Austin and the New Mexico state line.
Here's my report thus far. I brought along some of my old favorites, some new stuff, and my friend's iPod stuffed with albums I've been meaning to listen to for years.
Unwound's last album, Leaves Turn Inside You, withstood three or four plays in the badlands. Unwound is one of those horribly underappreciated bands that lots of people have heard about, but never explore. What a shame. Unwound was an amazing live band that put out several of the best albums of the '90s. Leaves Turn Inside You is a departure from their louder, earlier work, but I love this album for the same reason I love almost everything they've put out: Vern Rumsey (bass) and Sarah Clark (drums) are the greatest punk-rock rhythm section ever.
We're listening, incongruously, to Orange Juice now as we cruise past the Saguaro cacti and Joshua trees. Orange Juice was a huge influence on the Smiths, and I like them a bit better, if only because they don't remind me of being a painfully shy teenager with braces and a bi-level haircut (it was cool in 1986, I swear). Imagine what the Smiths would sound like if Morrissey saw some action on a regular basis and Johnny Marr wasn't as arpeggio-mad, and you'll begin to understand the appeal. I have three hopes for the immediate future: I hope I get to see some tumbleweeds, I hope we stop to pee again soon, and I hope that Cliff doesn't mind if we listen to The Glasgow School twice in a row. I'm in that sort of mood.
We brought a few new albums with us. I'm enjoying Irving a lot. Clever lyrics, nice fun indie pop, yay. Also thoroughly enjoyed The National.
I cherry-picked just one or two songs from a few artists, preferring small doses of lots of different sounds. I poked through Gogol Bordello, Of Montreal, Andrew Bird, Turbonegro and, of all things, Kate Bush. We listened to both the original version of “Wuthering Heights" that she recorded at age 17, and the one she recorded when she was much older and more seasoned. We agreed that the rough version was much better. Over dinner, I launched into a long tirade about the difference between technically proficient and good. As though to illustrate my point, the restaurant sound system started playing Rush. It made me wish that I had packed a few songs from the Shaggs as a palate cleanser.
It's a long way to San Diego, so we'll have time to work our way through a few Super Furry Animals records, including Mwng, the only all-Welsh language album I can think of. And I grabbed a bunch of Lucksmiths songs, assuming we can drink enough coffee to stay awake through all of them. Their sweet, gentle Australian pop will help us endure any Southern California traffic jams.
My only regret is not bringing Neil Young's Harvest Moon. It doesn't sound like a road trip without it.
By the way, next time you take a road trip you can earn some good karma points the same way we did: Call your favorite dog breed rescue group, tell them where you're starting out and where you're traveling to, and ask them if they have any homeless dogs who need to hitch a ride. Animal rescuers rely on an all-volunteer network of drivers to move dogs from animal shelters into new homes. The extra space in your van can save lives.
Posted October 2006
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