When Tomorrow Becomes Today

Tacks the Boy Disaster “Forget-Me-Not” – Going on the records that I’ve been getting lately, it seems like there are a hell of a lot of indie rock dudes singing in what strikes me as a very Elephant Six sort of style. I’m just getting loads of records that sound like Of Montreal and Olivia Tremor Control outtakes. This guy from Tacks is most certainly doing that thing with his voice – it’s crisp and clean and pretty on harmonies, but also a bit pinched and nasal, like someone doing a “nerd voice.” The sudden ubiquity of this vocal style is a bit odd but it really suits this particular song, with its pleasant rainy-day piano and drum groove and vaguely old-timey melody. As the song moves along, it seems to rush forward in time, suddenly vanishing into the future as it comes to an abrupt, back-masked ending. (Click here for Tacks the Boy Disaster’s MySpace page.)

Pearl Jam “Lukin / Not For You –> Modern Girl / Grievance” (Live @ Curitiba, Brazil 11/30/2005) – For no particular reason other than that I had just listened to some of the songs from their new album, I revisited Pearl Jam’s Vitalogy on the train ride home on Wednesday. The record still sounds pretty great, and I maintain that it’s their best record by a considerable margin. I haven’t paid much attention to Eddie Vedder’s lyrics since I was sixteen, but in listening to the words now, I’ve noticed that the themes of Vitalogy are pretty much the same as the expected tropes of a rap record. I don’t mean to be glib, but the album finds Vedder concerned with repeatedly asserting his authenticity, raging against haters and fake friends, mourning the loss of deceased comrades, pondering his own mortality, and generally feeling paranoid and persecuted. He indulges in weird skits, chastises biters on “Corduroy,” and includes a sentimental song about his mother’s hard luck life. If only he had written one boasting about his vocal and/or sexual prowess! (Actually, no, I could really do without songs about Eddie Vedder having sex.) (Though maybe that’s what’s going on at the end of “Jeremy”?)

“Not For You” remains as a personal favorite, and features a line that is probably the best advice that I ever got from a song as a teenager: “If you hate something, don’t you do it too.” After all this time, that lyric still sticks with me, as if I’d written it on a post-it note tacked up to a wall in my mind. (Click here to buy it from Pearl Jam.)