Tiger Jacket – Wasting Away
There are all kinds of classes you can take and manuals that you can buy which are supposed to teach you how to become a great writer. Some of them are good. Many of them include ideas that make sense and which surely will improve, at the very least, your punctuation.
But most of the great writers have one chilling advice to give to those who’d like to have their lives. Most of them tell anyone who really wants to write, to be honest about themselves. For most people, that’s the equivalent of someone advising you to jump out of a plane mid-flight. It’s terrifying.
Most people chicken out. A few go through with it and, inevitably, are left bruised and broken by the process. But if they manage to survive this excruciating form of public flagelation, the prize is theirs to keep. The songwriter behind Tiger Jacket really writes. It’s not just writing meant to dazzle or intended to make you feel bad for him. It’s pop songwriting that touches real pain and holds it for the world to see.
“Wasting Away” is one of the great downer songs. It’s a tune about drifting, about forgetting whatever journey you were once on. But it’s also an indie-folk song that contains great, simple observations and hope. Tiger Jacket might just as well be playing Holden Caulfield, and at the end of the day, the songwriter makes the world sound just as crummy and beautiful as one can stand.
Dog Army – Mr. Other Meets Another
Rockstars ain’t doing too well. To some, this is a surprise. The occupation had won “Most Enviable Job” back in the 1970s. Kids were quitting schools to pursue it. Music stores would offer scholarships to anyone who could prove that they could play a guitar solo while polishing a bottle of Jack. And everyone wanted to soak up a bit of the magic that rockstars with a proven track record possessed.
But the rockstars were always populists. And the people who they so desperately want to please will eventually hang up from a lamppost, anyone who dares to insult their intelligence for too long. It’s only the ones who never tried to do the fans any favours, who never stuck around for photos and autographs and who’d shoot you if you got on their lawn that had a future. Go figure!
Dog Army may well have a future. “Mr. Other Meets Another” is poetic indie-rock made by someone who loves nobody in this world except maybe for Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen. “Mr. Other Meets Another” is a late-night campfire recital to which nobody is invited. Try to keep so many people out, and you’re bound to fight them coming in. Dog Army has a future in spite of its leaders’ misanthropic nature.
