Band of Horses Sophomore LP Slated to Kick Ass

After releasing their gently enrapturing breakout full length, Everything All the Time, just last year, Seattle indie rock outfit Band of Horses is already hitting the road (cue coconut sound effects) after recently finishing up a new LP down in South Carolina. If their sold out performance at DC's 9:30 club was any indicator, this forthcoming record, Cease to Begin, seems to be a win or at least a place. Damn, 2007 has been a good year in music.

The three or four new songs played on Tuesday showed a use of the layered guitar-driven arrangements for which the Band is known but also demonstrated a new approach to those arrangements, one that emphasizes the group's pop inclinations in the best way possible. Rather than becoming derivative or pandering, as second efforts all to often do, Cease's jams are more easy to listen to/pop thanks to more robust, even more confident compositions which build on the ideas from the Everything LP. Ben Bridwell's unmistakable crooning seems even more effective in these songs as his vulnerability becomes contrasted by more powerful grooves and choral hooks. Some fans may miss the quiet simplicity through intricacy formula used throughout their debut but, in my opinion, new tracks like "No One's Gonna Love You" and "Islands on the Coast" let the Horses stretch their legs and show how strong their message and music can really be. And the formula is still there, just integrated and multiplied and such. Any popiness that comes as a result seems incidental (although it most likely is not) and the songs retain their intelligence and earnestness.

At the same time, it may be difficult to judge the new LP from their live act which brought their single "Funeral" out from its dusty sad-pop cabinet where Everything lovingly placed it and onto a power-pop chopping block to be slashed up in a very concert-friendly way. With three guitars at work, songs both new and old felt more full of sound but never washed out or just noisy. They even closed with a seamless Otis Redding cover driving home the cool melancholy that permeates the Band's tone. Although I don't expect to see this promising band in stadiums any time soon, they certainly rocked harder than their recordings might have suggested. I can only hope this aggressive yet ever-pleasant sound has made its way to their second production and if it has, I think we can all look forward to an impressive fall album. Look for it early October.

High Society DC: A Night With a Fake ID

After a few days of solo 'success' with my ID at various happy hours near my job, which consisted mostly of hearing one depressing Barry Breadwinner life story after another, Friday arrived and it seemed like the right time to get out there with my contemporaries. In the summer, every Friday in DC comes with a free jazz show at the sculpture garden near Capital Hill, where a thousand or so yuppies gather to erase their memories of the week with sangria and chardonnay. I hadn't checked it out yet during my time in DC so The old, Middle Eastern liquor clerk grinned as he looked at my ID but gave it back and asked if I got carded a lot. Because I look young. "Yeah, I'm used to it." I left with a few tall-boys and a half liter of Jack and skated down past the White House to commiserate with my fellow American worker.

Sitting under a tree on my skateboard amongst the plaid blankets and my khaki brethren, reading my book in the thick sunset and letting that wonderful first buzz of the weekend wash over me, I must have looked like a loser in need of some company because the group sitting in front of me gave me the old come 'ere little fella' and welcomed me to their crew. Abbey, a chirpy Italian mid-20s paralegal, didn't spare any time to ask all about me and by the end of my Jack and their spritzers I had a few new friends. Although they blended in well with their picnic baskets and business casual uniforms, they were a pretty cool group of people who actually thought they didn't mix well with the stiff jazz show attendees and were causing a scene (see apologetic drunk). They believed this so much in fact that they thought it wise to bail out to a bar where Abbey worked in Adams Morgan, the clubbing district. I'd never ventured to Adams Morgan as it is notorious for intense ID enforcement but Abbey assured me if I knew her, I wouldn't have a problem.

So my friend Melissa and I, who had met up with us by that point, emerged from the garden, where the jazz had seemed more like an afterthought, and set out for the mecca of DC nightlife. As we walked up 18th St. into the heart of AM, that familiar grip of uncertainty took hold of me, my ID feeling more like a ski mask and crobar in my back pocket. Abbey was already inside so we were on our own. After passing endless clubs overflowing with greased-up 30somethings, when we arrived at our stop, Peyote, I was relieved to see a small underground entrance, no line and a bouncer who looked like he'd been hired for the night. I might has well have shown him my library card. He barely caught the open bottle of wine leaning out of Melissa's purse (which he saved for us). While I never would've tried to go there without a decent fake in the first place, it was somewhat frustrating to know that I could've spent a few of those lonely July nights at a karaoke dive bar in the most central part of AM without a problem.

The scene inside was awesome, a karaoke camaraderie I hadn't even seen during my glory days as a karaoke roadie. Singing a song to a crowded bar can make the foxiest of women attainable and the most haggard of men rock stars. It's a disturbing and beautiful phenomenon that was in full effect this night as the crowd, from high school hipsters to balding business men, gave their choral renditions of everything from George Michael to Sublime. Abbey hooked some free drinks and when we were over karaoke we explored the two other bars up the stairwell from Peyote where we subsequently got our dance on. It was dank.

When it seemed time to leave the bar the alcohol punched a little hole in my memory and dropped me skating to a park for blunts with my new ghetto fabulous comrade, Ebrahim Mila Ali Brown. He talked about (and skillfully acted out) his frustration with segregation in DC and the fact that there's no right way to approach a girl anymore without doing something wrong. We happened to run into some old friends from his neighborhood... the girls ranted about characters from Laguna Beach with Melissa while the guys burned and pissed on Ebrahim's red neck scarf for being red, which Ebrahim seemed to graciously understand: "If you have a thing for burning that particular color, man, shit, by all means." Finding ourselves hungry after a lengthy flat ground skate we walked back down to Jumbo Slice. You'd think people working at a pizza place would at least know the English word for 'cheese' but it took about fifteen minutes to get the three orders in front of me. I managed to get some reluctant service when a fight broke out and I was able to corner a 'cashier' before he could join everyone else in the street. Although the night ended with the worst (and largest) slice of pizza I've ever been offered, Adams Morgan delivered and I guess I have my shitty ID (and Abbey) to thank.

Unless you want to spend your night not dancing with girls or convincing a Retardlican that the crux of your argument is not that Halliburton is run by Satan and Saddam/at a Georgetown party, Adams Morgan seems to be a good option. Damn, even jazz on the mall's a good thing to do in DC. But if you want to get domed and skate with a guy like Ebrahim (you do), DC is definitely not the best place to do it.

Skarsgard or Sarsgaard

OR

Does anyone else confuse these people?

Peter Sarsgaard is the young(ish) supporting actor in Garden State, Jarhead, Kinsey and Boys Don't Cry. Stellan Skarsgard (his name has some weird Swedish shit over the second "a" in Skarsgard) is the fifty-something foreign guy in Good Will Hunting, Pirates, Amistad, and Deep Blue Sea. Pretty much the only thing they share is a mild similarity between their last names. But one of the ga(a)rdses stands far apart from the other. Here lies the definitive difference:

The fucking ultimate coolness that radiates from Peter Sarsgaard.

While both men are fantastic actors with numerous award nominations and wins (seen here and here) such as Skarsgard's Teen Choice award nomination for Exorcist: The Beginning and Saarsgard's win of a Chlotrudis award for Kinsey (hey, dude, I thought it was an STD too), why is it that I find myself being pulled inexorably toward Peter?

Is it Sarsgaard's good looks? is my latent gayness emerging in the form of a savage man-crush for Zack Braff's co-star? is it that I live vicariously through Sarsgaard because he happens to be boning down with ultra cool indie-actress Maggie Gyllenhaal? In the end I think it must be all of these things and more.

The fact is that Sarsgaard's ability to slide so effortlessly into my heart has less to do with movies he is in and more to do with what he does in those movies. Although I think his films are generally pretty good (yes, even Garden State), It may be that I prefer Skarsgard's films: the Pirates movies are great, Amistad is fantastic, and Good Will Hunting is one of my all-time favorites.

Yet, Sarsgaard is just so believable and (how do I put this?) slimy yet likable. Peter Sarsgaard may well be the slimiest most likable person I have ever seen on screen. It isn't that he plays gross people (although he sometimes does), but that every line he delivers is so full of a gross desperation yet earnest goodness. How can you dislike the stoner-loser, yet ultimately loyal best friend he plays in Garden State? Or even the volatile bi-sexual grad student in Kinsey. Fuck, man, I even like Jarhead a little bit because he was in it.

Anyway, the point is, when you have to choose between Skarsgard and Sarsgaard (which will ultimately be, like, never) try and be careful. Sarsgaard may creep into your body and grab onto your balls like just like he has done to me.

ps

in case you haven't seen it rent Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhall. it has nothing to do with Sarsgaard except that you get to see what he gets to go home to every night. lucky bastard.

this post is for, you, chris