My friend Matthew Caws went about his music career completely backward.
His band, Nada Surf, had an MTV hit very early in their career, "Popular," and were then dropped (let go, get it?) by the major label that signed them and proceeded to make the best album of their careers on an indie label, without pressure or deadline.
As he told me once: "It's as if we got to start over again, a new band."
Matthew was living a musical life; working in a Brooklyn record store called Earwax, going to shows, writing music. In a way, "Let Go" is a record that asks "what if you had a second chance to do it all over again, the way YOU wanted to do it all along?" And then diving from head to toe into that opportunity.
I've had "Let Go" kicking around in one format or another for more than twenty years and always find something new to love about it; isn't that the very definition of "Favoritte album?"
"Blizzard of '77:" A mellow little piece of recoverred (drug) memory with a decidedly Elliott Smith vibe to it. Produced by then-Death Cab for Cutie member Chris Walla for $100, which the band paid to him in $1 and $5 bills from their merch sales at shows.
"Treading Water:" Linked here, the sound of what adulting in Manhattan looked like then (and still does). "Always rushing, always late."
"Neither Heaven Nor Space:" just high. "And if you sit long enough, you can hear ghost trains/As if the city speed is just in our brains/And coke's as close as we get to sugar cane."
"Blonde on Blonde:" Living that below-14th Street life, soundtracked by Dylan.
"Paper Boats:" a floaty, dreamy ode to depression. "Been thinking and drinking, all over the town/Must be gearing up for some kind of meltdown."
Years later, Matthew and I met up while they were recording their album "Lucky" at a live-in studio in Seattle called Robert Lang (it's the same place where Dave Grohl recorded the first Foo Fighters album). He had just discovered he was a dad and was in the middle of a custody fight over the child -- the mother hadn't told him it was his, there were lots of complications -- and we were comparing notes on fatherhood and just generally in the same headspace about having plenty of problems but being fortunate to have them. He's one of my favorite humans and "Let Go" is his masterpiece.
Oct 2, 2024
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This band means so much to me. Evan Weiss is somehow always genuine but never precious, always smart but never pretentious. I have come back to his catalogue so much over the last decade plus. I remember staring into space on the second story balcony of my first apartment listening to Standards. My now 11 yo was 2 and asleep in the other room. I was a newish dad which isn't really important to loving into it over it but at that time I daydreamed a lot and this band makes me feel like I am going to learn from every mistake. So drink responsibly.
Dec 30, 2024
craaaaaazy question to ask me specifically because now I will never shut the fuck up
I first came into contact with this album in 2022 or 2023 because its final and titular track was featured in the end credits of an episode of Girls. It immediately became one of my all-time favorites. Both gut-wrenching and hopeful, the song's narrator reminisces on a previous emotionally dark time for them, a time when they were grieving and trying to hold onto things they couldn't keep (underweight, in the street, hot with grief). The hope in this song, which takes the breath out of my lungs, lies in both the crucial past tense of these feelings and in the final lines, 'get well soon, get well soon / I was once just like you.' This has become a sort of mantra for me. Tucek takes something you would see on a kitschy greeting card and turns it into a plea for recovery.
Unfortunately, it took me months to sit down and actually listen to the full album in late winter 2024. It happened very much by accident. I was itching to hear something new and thought, well, at some point I should check out the rest of this artist's work, considering this is one of my top 5 favorite songs of all time. I never expected it to be such a work. I figured someone else would've sang its praises by now if it was going to change my life (which is why I adore this ask, because I think we all have an album like this, or at least we all should). The albums contains stories of grief, regret, dissatisfaction, bad fathers, and ultimately Moving On with a capital M. The track order is perfection. My other favorite song from this album is The Fireman. Somehow it is able to invoke in me feelings I've never experienced as someone whose father was not an absent asshole. The Doctor is a beautiful song about wanting to surgically excise the negative aspects of us that we get from our parents. Things Left Behind is great for thinking about death. Wooden has a perfect guitar solo.
This album is unique, fleshed-out metaphors with mostly a handful of acoustic instruments and an excellent voice. I would change nothing about it. I plan on tattooing the cover on my body because I want it to be a permanent part of my skin.
I might have to write more on this. Transcendent album. if you like Weyes Blood, Angel Olson, Aimee Mann, you will enjoy this. If grief is as constant to you as breathing you will enjoy this. If you're mad at your dad you will enjoy this.
Get well soon (and I mean it)! xoxo
Oct 22, 2024
all praise goes to In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, but Neutral Milk Hotel’s debut is maybe better. It sounds similar, but more abrasive and varied— reminding me at points of Tall Dwarfs, Avey Tare, LVL UP, and Silver Apples.
“Song Against Sex”, “Gardenhead/Leave Me Alone”, “Naomi”, “Where You’ll Find Me Now” are maybe my favorites.
Makes me feel nostalgic for something I can’t remember, like looking at a stranger’s sun bleached film through a zoetrope.
Dec 11, 2024
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Hey tyler hopefully this doesn’t violate some PI.FYI golden rule
But after nearly two years of writing, editing and arguing, my book about the EP is coming out in May and can be preordered here:
https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/
The book is about the origins, history and cultural impact of the EP since these little objects first started coming out in the 50s.
Over 50 of my music biz friends then helped me shape the list and review the top 200 ever released, according to us (ha).
For those of you who are into this kind of geekery/snobbery, I can’t wait to hear what you think. A labor of love, as all books are! ❤️
Mar 27, 2024
“Songs Of a Lost World” coming to a goth listening station near you Nov 1 🖤
The fr FW Me Friday the 13th the world was looking for
Sep 14, 2024
I will fail to explain just how much this band meant to me in the 90s.
So I will borrow from AV Club who did a fine job of distilling it:
“Unwound is the best band of the ’90s. Not just because of how prolific, consistent, and uncompromising it was, but because of how perfectly Unwound nested in a unique space between some of the most vital forms of music that decade: punk, post-rock, indie rock, post-hardcore, slow-core, and experimental noise. That jumble of subgenres doesn’t say much; in fact, it falls far short of what Unwound truly synthesized and stood for. Unwound stood for Unwound. But in a decade where most bands were either stridently earnest or stridently ironic, Unwound wasn’t stridently anything. It was only itself. In one sense Unwound was the quietest band of the ’90s, skulking around like a nerdy terror cell. In another sense it was the loudest, sculpting raw noise into contorted visions of inner turmoil and frustration.”
R.I.P. Vern Rumsey.
This is their finest song, from their finest album.
I really can’t say enough about the sheer bloody minded genius of this group. 🖤
Mar 23, 2024