It was great to be home, but doing a 70 hour roundtrip journey across a gazillion time zones in 9 days is not recommended.  Turns out I’m not Superman…   I think I also figured out what hell is going to be like.  Here it is: In hell you will be in economy class on a full Boeing 747, flying around the world for all eternity.  Or worse — just stuck on the tarmack, the captain coming on every 10 minutes to say that you’re “almost ready for take-off.”

But enough about that.  The month has been one of the more exhausting in recent memory, but as I mentioned in my last post — this is the story Jess and I are writing for our lives right now, and we need to embrace it wholeheartedly.  Sometimes you get thrown a fast ball though, a plot twist gets inserted into your story without your knowledge, and it ends of bothering you much more than it should.  For me, this unnecessary fast ball is John Mayer’s new album, Battle Studies.

Let me step back and explain a few things before I get into my rant…  John Mayer’s first album, Room for Squares, came out a few months before Jess and I met.  Jess introduced me to it while we were living in Australia, and it became a soundtrack for the first (rocky) few months of our relationship.  It was a time punctuated with remarkable ups and downs, and no matter what the emotion, Room for Squares was there with a song to sum up the playful (“I play a quick game of chess with the salt and pepper shaker“), melancholy (“Would you love me when I’m not myself“), nostalgic (“You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes, it brought me back to life”), and alive with promise (“Leave the great indoors…”) time that was the beginning of our relationship.

Heavier Things came out while Jess and I were in a solid relationship, but during a time that I was living in South Africa and she was back in America.  A happy, sad time, once again summed up perfectly by the seriousness and, well, heaviness of Heavier Things.  From the first lyrics (“I worry, I weigh three times my body“), to the endless possibilities (“I’m bigger than my body gives me credit for“) to the eerie similarities with our own situation (“And airports // See it all the time // Where someone’s last goodbye // Blends in with someone’s sigh // Cause someone’s coming home“).

And then, after we got married and settled into the US, came Continuum, an album that will forever be in my top 10.  It brought with it a maturity and a happiness, even in the sad songs, that once again fit our lives perfectly (“Gravity, stay the hell away from me…“).

So I became quite attached to this music, thinking that we will carry it with us as we go through our story, a perfect soundtrack.  And then, this week, I finally got a chance to listen to the new album, Battle Studies.  And forgive me for making this all about me, but it feels like a personal betrayal.  There are 3 songs that I like a lot (Heartbreak Warfare, Assassin, and Edge of Desire), but the rest of the songs feel incomplete and uninspired.  The lyrics are strange and immature (“Who says I can’t get stoned,” and “Maybe this mattress will turn on its axis and find me on yours”).  The music feels listless and lazy,with none of the searching all his other albums had.  Many of the guitar sounds have been used before.  And, come on now, a duet with Taylor Swift?  Seriously?

Ok, I’m overreacting, and John Mayer will survive the disappointment of one fan, seeing that the album is now the No. 1 album in the US.  But for me, it once again underlined the importance of music, and how musicians have the ability to embed themselves deep into our lives, even though we stay far away from them (I stopped following John Mayer on Twitter long ago, preferring to know him through his music rather than his 140-character thoughts).  And when an album doesn’t meet your expectations, it does feel like a personal betrayal.  They carry great responsibility with their talent.

I will always have Continuum, and maybe John Mayer will come back with a great album next time (because, like I said, it’s about me, right?!).  But for now, I’m gonna go ahead and feel betrayed by this new album.  And fine, Heartbreak Warfare is a great song…

When it comes to jazz music, it doesn’t get much better than Miles Davis’s “Kind of Blue” album.  It is almost cliche to talk about it as the “quintessential jazz album,” but it really is.  For some reason I’ve been holding out on getting the 200g vinyl re-issue of this amazing album, but this weekend I went ahead and bought it.  Partly because of its greatness, and partly because I needed to introduce my 2-week old baby girl to jazz music, and I couldn’t think of a better album to do that with.  And it sounds absolutely brilliant.  Magical.

What makes this album so remarkable is how loose yet completely structured it sounds.  Consider this from Bill Evans’s liner notes:

Miles conceived these settings only hours before the recording dates and arrived with sketches which indicated to the group what was to be played. Therefore, you will hear something close to pure spontaneity in these performances. The group had never played these pieces prior to the recordings and I think without exception the first complete performance of each was a “take.”

Despite the fact that almost the entire album is improvised, you get a sense of community when you listen to it.  Here you have brilliant musicians, completely in tune with each other, loving what they do, and playing with a precision that leaves you speechless.

It reminds me of something Donald Miller wrote in one of my favorite books, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality.  In the introduction, he explains his initial feelings about jazz music, and how his mind was changed:

I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But I was outside the Baghdad Theatre one night when I saw a man playing the saxophone. I stood there for fifteen minutes and he never opened his eyes. After that I liked jazz music. Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. It is as if they are showing you the way.

And that is the magic of this album.  You feel like you are there, watching these musicians loving what they do, and doing it so well.

One of the great things about these older records is the artwork, as well as the liner notes.  The liner notes are usually written in grandiose language, soaring rhetoric that aims to sweep you away along with the music.  And Bill Evans’s liner notes on “Kind of Blue” is no exception.  There is one part in particular that caught my attention:

Group improvisation is a further challenge. Aside from the weighty technical problem of collective coherent thinking, there is the very human, even social need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result. This most difficult problem, I think, is beautifully met and solved on this recording.

And this is where I finally get to the point in this rather drawn-out post.  The need for sympathy from all members to bend for the common result.  Maybe that is the biggest lesson we can learn from jazz music.  That no man is an island.  That we are in this together.  That sometimes, we all need to bend a little bit for the common result.  And when that happens, the result can be nothing short of miraculous.  The next time I am tempted to get frustrated because I am unable to stop my baby girl from crying, I need to remember that it’s not about me.  And that if I bend a little from my selfish ways, the common result will be that my daughter will feel loved.  And there is probably no better outcome than that.

And just so you know I wasn’t kidding about introducing my daughter to jazz music, here is proof:

Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a huge John Mayer fan (and those of you who don’t know me can tell from the title of this blog – yes, now is a good time to go search for “John Mayer Great Indoors” in iTunes).   In addition to owning all the CDs and going to his live concerts every time he’s in the area, I also follow his blog closely.  And as a Twitter user I was delighted to see that he also joined Twitter recently, so I followed him immediately.

Well, about a week ago, John Mayer posted this picture on Twitter, with the title Moving in, breaking out the vinyl:

For some reason, I couldn’t stop staring at this picture.  Music is an enormous part of my life, but I’ve never really been into vinyl.  This image — and the promise of the history and joy in this decades-old music — for some reason lit a fire under me to explore vinyl.

Well, as I started reading up about turntables and records online, I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn.  I also immediately understood that if there’s one thing all audiophiles agree on, it’s that nothing sounds better than a good record.  The sound ranges and emotions in analog recordings are simply superior to any digital recording.  (Well, there are exceptions of course.  I’m sure a Britney Spears record sounds just as bad as a Britney Spears CD.  As someone recently told me in a record shop — you can’t polish a turd…).

Anyway, far from being an expert, I set out this weekend to go buy my first record, Try! by the John Mayer Trio.  This just seemed appropriate seeing as I owe my new-found hobby to John Mayer, and I was pretty sure that blues lends itself pretty well to vinyl recordings.  But I didn’t have a turntable yet.  So I asked at the front desk of the music store (Rasputin, for those who live in the Bay Area) if anyone knew where I could buy a turntable.  They sent me to the Analog Room.  A mythical place they’ve never been in — in fact, they’ve gone looking for it but couldn’t find it.  But they assured me that it existed.  So off I went, in search of this mysterious place…

When I walked into the Analog Room it was like stepping into another time and dimension.  It’s a few rooms in a house, filled with record players, LPs, and 3 middle-aged guys arguing constantly about equipment, sounds, and of course, their favorite records.  I spent my morning there, listening first to my new John Mayer Trio record (“John Mayer is a lot of things, but well recorded isn’t one of them,” was their verdict), and then to the entire Folk Singer album by Muddy Waters.  From the first notes of that record I was hooked.  I suddenly had a huge smile on my face, and my new friend Brian pointed at me and said, “That’s why vinyl is better than CD.”  And I got it.  This was the real deal.

I now own a Rega P1 record player and 3 vinyl records: John Mayer Trio (even though the recording is apparently not that good), Folk Singer by Muddy Waters (of course I had to get that), and Axis: Bold as Love by the Jimi Hendrix Experience (the record in the top left corner of the photo above — wow, what a recording).  The sounds of vinyl are opening up new doors to experiencing music for me.  It’s like discovering a secret garden in your backyard.  I’ve only scratched the surface, and I know so little about this world, but I can’t wait to get more.  If you have recommendations for essential albums to own on vinyl, please let me know.

So anyway, that’s why I use Twitter.  Because every person in the world is interesting at least some of the time.  And if you just listen at the right time at what they have to say, your life will be so much richer.

But let’s not talk about that, let’s focus on happier days – well, as happy as emo can get – their 2 brilliant albums Emotion Is Dead and Love.  Below are a couple of songs off the Love album that really showcase their talent – overly emotional, like emo should be, but with enough melody and musicianship to be taken seriously.  Make sure you listen all the way through Everything, it gets huge at the end.

Into the Dark by The Juliana Theory:

Everything by The Juliana Theory:

You should really add these albums to your collection.  It’s great for having a good emotional freak-out session without the added guilt of having to listen to Josh Groban while you’re there.  Oh, and no need to listen to anything they did after the Love album.  Trust me.

He also writes about Frank Sinatra, who I must confess is not my particular brand of vodka.  But I do recognize his talent and respect his immense influence on music over the years.  And it’s hard to disagree with Bono as he points out the almost eery relevance of a 1963 recording of My Way:

There’s a voice on the speakers that wakes everyone out of the moment: it’s Frank Sinatra singing “My Way.” His ode to defiance is four decades old this year and everyone sings along for a lifetime of reasons. I am struck by the one quality his voice lacks: Sentimentality.

Is this knotted fist of a voice a clue to the next year? In the midst of uncertainty in your business life, your love life, your life life, why is Sinatra’s voice such a foghorn — such confidence in nervous times allowing you romance but knocking your rose-tinted glasses off your nose, if you get too carried away.

A call to believability.

A voice that says, “Don’t lie to me now.”

That says, “Baby, if there’s someone else, tell me now.”

Fabulous, not fabulist. Honesty to hang your hat on.

As the year rolls over, the emotion in the room tussles between hope and fear, expectation and trepidation. Wherever you end up, his voice takes you by the hand.

I’ve sensed for some time now what I think is probably a slow end to post-modern thinking.  A rejection of relativism, and a renewed sense of longing for truth and authenticity in our lives.  I agree with Bono here – this is is probably what 2009 will bring us.

Bono continues to discuss a relatively obscure recording of One for My Baby (and One More for the Road), off the 1993 Duets album, and what happens when a voice allows itself to be brutally honest:

If you want to hear the least sentimental voice in the history of pop music finally crack, though — shhhh — find the version of Frank’s ode to insomnia, “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road),” hidden on “Duets.” Listen through to the end and you will hear the great man break as he truly sobs on the line, “It’s a long, long, long road.” I kid you not.

Like Bob Dylan’s, Nina Simone’s, Pavarotti’s, Sinatra’s voice is improved by age, by years spent fermenting in cracked and whiskeyed oak barrels. As a communicator, hitting the notes is only part of the story, of course.

It was difficult to find this version of the song, but I finally tracked it down – you can listen to it below.  And even though I’m still pretty certain that it’s not the type of music I like to listen to, the emotion is amazing and real and touching.  Follow Bono’s advice and listen all the way to the end…

One for My Baby (and One More for the Road) by Frank Sinatra:

1. They’re Australian, and let’s face it, Australia hasn’t given us anything since Kylie Minogue (thanks for nothing, by the way) and Midnight Oil (YES! “Beds are burning” is the best song of the 80s!!).
2. They broke up a few years ago.

But their legacy and cult following are still very much alive.  It’s hard to find winners in the genre of simple guitar-driven rock.  Daughtry and Nickleback have certainly tried, but they too often just end up sounding generic and boring.  Motor Ace is different.  Their music hits you in the face with unapologetic power chords, smart lyrics, and just enough experimentation to keep you guessing and keep the albums playing on repeat.

Below I’ve provided samples of 2 of the songs from their album Five Star Laundry.  If you like it, I encourage you to buy both albums (you’ll have to buy the actual CDs – crazy, I know! – because this isn’t available on iTunes or Amazon MP3).  Five Star Laundry (Buy from Amazon) is the raw debut with songs that border on being careless, but that’s what makes it fun.  The follow-up album Shoot This (Buy from Amazon) is much more refined (and some would say less real and too radio-friendly).  Enjoy!

Freefall by Motor Ace:

Criminal Past by Motor Ace:

Click the album cover to buy from Amazon:

But isn’t that what most good art is about?  Isn’t it supposed to exaggerate our emotions artificially to help us recognize them more easily the next time we just walk down the street?  I believe so.  So I say to Coldplay: please continue to play with my emotions.  I accept it willingly.

As an example, check out this live version of Fix You:

[YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKrceZxL8r8]

Vacations are sacred, magical times when you are young. For me they came in two varieties. Summer vacations were comforting and consistent: two weeks in the same beach town, year after year, meant for sun, ocean, and the endless highs and lows that come with growing up in the carefree summer bubble of South African beaches (highest high: taking and surviving the most dangerous of waves; lowest low: well, failed romances, of course).

But winter vacations were something completely different. Where summer vacations were all about resting in the known with the same beach community year after year, winter vacations were about long road trips exploring the unknown, endless hours on the road, together as a family, no outsiders allowed. Where summer vacations were for being as useless as possible, winter vacations were for adventure and growing our increasingly inquisitive minds. And what I remember most about winter vacations is how they always got started: very very VERY early.

My Dad was all about hitting the road at 5am. Just on the first day of vacation, mind you – the rest of the time we didn’t have quite such a strict schedule. He would say it’s about being practical – getting out of the city before traffic picks up, or making sure we hit a certain town before sundown. But I think it was about more than that. I think he liked being on the open road with his family sleeping in the car, the excitement and endless possibility of driving in a new direction under the cover of darkness. Always an explorer at heart, it is one of the strongest senses I inherited from him, and a tie between us that remains unspoken but fully understood. I now think about the many times I had left home – not necessarily in physical darkness, but always with an uncertainty that felt pretty dark to me – and I know that as much as he would have wanted me to stay in town, he understood what I had to do. He understands.

So, at 5am we would all complain and pretend to be upset as we got up and had breakfast, we’d throw our things in my dad’s ancient light-green Mercedes – more of a boat than a car, but an extremely comfortable boat to sleep in – and be on our way. Lying in the back seat of that old car in the pre-dawn hours, pretending to sleep but too excited to do so, is one of my fondest memories. I would imagine where we would be by the time the sun came up. Of course I’d studied the map extensively in the weeks before we left, so I knew exactly where we were going. But what would it look like? Where would we sleep tonight? It might be those moments that transformed me into a serial traveler, always looking for the next place to explore. And the image I have of those times is still as fresh as if it happened yesterday: the roof of the Mercedes was lined with a synthetic that had tiny holes in them, very close together, and if you stared at it just right, it would turn into a 3D image that seemed to come out of the roof, close enough to touch, like tiny stars. The road and the car were quiet. But my mind was racing. And as fast as my mind was going, I’m pretty sure my Dad was thinking only one thing behind the wheel: this is what I live for.

Of course, it wasn’t all fun and games. My brother is 9 years older than I am, and if you spend that much time on the road, the fights are going to be plentiful and not so far between. I can’t remember much about those fights, but I do remember what was usually the only thing that could break them up – music. But that wasn’t easy either. Music is serious business in my family. And on long road trips, we broke into 2 clearly defined factions. My parents preferred talk radio or classical music. My brother and I preferred something a little more youthful (for the time): Neil Diamond, Chris de Burgh, Cat Stevens. Sometimes my parents won, and sometimes my brother and I won. But then there was the one band we could all agree to listen to. ABBA. Civilized enough to suit my parents, enough drums and fake electric guitar to suit my brother and I. Oh, ABBA. We would listen to those tapes until they were worn completely through. We would sing along and forget about all our disagreements – in fact, I would venture to say that ABBA became the defining music of our family vacations.

I’m sure you know where I’m going with this. Watching Mamma Mia! is not about the movie at all. It is about a childhood’s worth of memories flooding over me all at once like water through a burst dam, and the emotion that comes with it. We all have these memories, and they’re triggered by different things – the smell of freshly-cut grass, hearing a jingle from an old TV commercial, a song that played at your high school graduation. You know how it feels.

And it reminds me again of how closely connected we are through our memories, how that which is most personal is most universal, how our humanity and our joy is tied up in the way we were and how that shapes the way we are and can be. And since this is Christmas time and my family is an ocean away, it reminds me of bonds that cannot be broken, bonds strengthened by time together and not broken by time apart. Of traditions we pass on to the new families we create out of nothing, and the bonds that exist not just among us but also with generations past.

And most of all, it reminds me that life is good because of the people we love. So during this time of family and being together, give a little extra love, and maybe start a tradition. Because who knows, generations from now your great-grandson might hear an “old” song from 2008 and be struck silent by a flood of memory you helped create. And so we live on through the people we love.

Oh, and that’s why I love ABBA.