Disaesthetic

Music Wire #11

I think I finally figured out what “Music Wire” is supposed to be. 3 years ago I tried writing this eleventh edition but it’ll live in my drafts until the server dies. Never could figure out what this series was supposed to be. I took these things so seriously like anyone would ever actually read this garbáge. I cared too much, and 6 years later I don’t at all.

This series will just be a few hundred words about new LPs I’ve acquired, concerts, news, and current listenings. Nothing specific or planned with each new entry. Just been feeling the need to do this, typing, whatever that means in 2025, or this mortal coil.

3 years ago Brutus crafted their best record (so far) and personally one of the best in 2022. A strong year in its own right, Unison Life stood out by refining their style from 2019’s Nest which I found during COVID. While raw and less cohesive from track to track Nest still presented the band’s unique structure. Female lead vocals who also played drums, take some old plays out of the Deftones gameplan, sprinkle some blackgaze with the vocalist’s big voice.

On Unison Life however these elements are pieced together smoothly, intentionally, and delve deeper into the shoegaze subgenre’s bag of tricks. More dreamy little coloring and soundscapes. If Deafheaven pushed “blackgaze” forward into popular consciousness, then Brutus is pushing what I call desertgaze. What is that exactly? Imagine a recording studio in the Coachella valley, say Joshua Tree, and Deafheaven, Deftones, and Kyuss are all hanging out sharing ideas, gear, and peyote. This album scratches those grains of sand.

Oddly I haven’t played that album in at least a year. Still held up. I’ll have to account for why it took so long to revisit these songs. Checking in on the band they recently finished a tour with no new shows on their schedule. Hopefully they’re head to a recording studio to track their next project. I’m sure looking out for it.

Yet another record I hadn’t popped on for years, at least 2 if not 3. Snagged one of only 2000 copies during the height of COVID in August of 2020. Played that record over and over again. Listening back to Comadre’s self-titled, and only studio album, reminded me a lot of Touché Amoré’s Stage Four and Lament. Kind of impressive considering those albums came years after Comadre disbanding. Screamo in the present general reminds me of this record. Their loud and chaotic energy definitely comes from Rites of Spring, but with better guitar playing and brighter guitar tone.

Surprise suprise, Comadre guitarist Jack Shirley has spent the last 15 years producing records which have push many subgenres forward. Sunbather by Deafheaven. Sway by Whirr. Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired by Joyce Manor. Post- by Jeff Rosenstock. Many of Jack’s records I own and adore, particularly Sway and Deafheaven’s first demo and Roads to Judah. We will in the age of paying attention to producers and showrunners. Jack is someone I check in to see what he’s working on. Check out Suburban Electric by Telethon mixed and mastered by Jack this year.

A few months back at Doc’s Records I came across Big Country’s sophomore album Steeltown in the new arrival bin of used records. Never heard this one but I love their debut album The Crossing which I found thanks to those VH1 nostalgia programs back in the 2000s. Generally presented as a forgettable 80’s one hit wonder with “In a Big Country” but certainly not to the celtic folk. My good friend Jake gave me The Crossing on vinyl one summer when we were helping clean out his garage. Jake had a bunch of solid records in storage, but The Crossing was by far the best of the bunch he gave me.

While their debut has some general themes and disputably celtic in style Steeltown focuses on the plight of Scottish workers experiencing industrial decline and moving into manufacturing cities to put food on the table. I read several accounts the album failed, relatively, in the US due to it’s unrelatable themes. Can’t say I’m surprised the American public in 1984 was woefully unaware Ronald Reagan was fucking them out of a better future. Ask all the farmers who weren’t bailed out after voting for Reagan to help them out after the US government put them in arrears.

Over 40 years later Steeltown surpasses The Crossing musically and thematically. Having not listened to their entire discography I can’t state fully informed opinion; however, consensus says it’s their best work. Lead vocalist and guitarist Stuart Adamson took his song writing and guitar playing up levels. Really underrated player I never hear mentioned like due to his early death. Adamson killed himself in December of 2001. The man battled alcoholism and clearly had personal demons. Thankfully the Scotts haven’t forgotten him or the band.

Steeltown captured the decline of the middle class, specifically in Scotland, at the same time Bruce Springsteen spoke to it here in America. I’m not sure how this material couldn’t be more relatable in 1984. It’s fucking relatable now! Few prospects to obtain a better life economically. I haven’t even scratched its other themes of anti-war, domestic violence, national and personal frustrations with society. One of the best random finds in a while for yours truly. This is way I always search through new arrivals, new or used.

Photo by Eva Vlonk

Write It When I’m Here

My wife took a ski lift up the rocky mountains for a girls trip this weekend, leaving me alone with a certifiable kitten, a needy pup, and two apathetic cats. I find being alone more difficult now before I met my wife. Sure, I longed for companionship, but when one has prepared for eternal solitude (never sniffing marriage/partnership/companionship) well… You learn how to pass the time rather than skydiving off a bridge. You read Jonathan Franzen’s How to Be Alone at the park with a six pack. You take long walks across neighborhoods and listen to long-form podcasts. You write pointless blogs like this one.

The days, weeks, months, and years since December 19th 2019 have been the best years of my life, and while I hoped for a life like this I honestly did not believe it would happen for me. Having spent years thinking I would end up alone, and preparing as such, I should have the tools to lean back on during brief periods of isolation (one would think). I look around the house like Vincent Vega in the morning wondering “what now?”

Maybe it’s boredom, a state I abhor, and my wife seems immune from. I wouldn’t say I’m bored often but seems to find me… frequently. I get too caught up in questions of purpose and what external and internal voices call for me to do with my day. What are my reasons for doing things? I think I should workout but I don’t fucking feel like it, nor desire to. Full disclosure, I detest “working out” and physical activity in general. I do enjoy long walks, alone, with my headphones in. Summers in Texas however might cremate me without an urn.

So how do I pass the time when my wife departs for brief periods of time? I scroll through the half dozen streaming services I have looking for anything I might take a chance on trying. Weird how the ubiquity of entertainment makes it less desirable to be entertained. The 90’s and 2000’s were better days when we had a mono-culture and simply less of everything, scarcity.

Well, why don’t you do [FILL IN THE BLANK] and [FILL IN ANOTHER BLANK], or [YET ANOTHER THING YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO]. Why? Cuz fuck it, that’s why? I don’t wanna do any of things. But I don’t know what I want to do. I know I want to be with my wife. Or my friends who I all live in California.

Why don’t you make new friends? Cuz I don’t wanna. I like my friends. Also asking other strange men to get up to speed on your weird as quirks sounds scary and an unreasonable expectation. What you realize, in loneliness, your only friend is yourself. The only thing I can find to pass the time are my own crazed thoughts, thinking about things only I seem to care about. Even if I had my own friends here, they would not give two shits about why Gerald Ford was and continues to be a damn important American. Only in my own mind can I deeply consider the former president’s and discuss his vitality to today’s politics.

Yes, the man was as square as they come. A classic republican through and through. I am and remain a registered Democrat, despite the party being a complete embarrassment, weak, and completely in the wilderness politically and in the minds of most Americans. I vividly recall my position on the future of politics on November 7th 2016, the day before the election. Donald Trump was going to lose to Hillary Clinton badly. We had just had 8 years of Obama where had inherited a almost fully collapsed economy in 2008 and by 2016 had turned the whole country around in a positive direction. The Republicans appeared as rutterless as the 2025 Democrats. Republicans were supposed to be in the wilderness for the next decade.

But as we all know, that’s not what happened. The Trump years have taught us Americans don’t require civility nor chivalry in their public officials. Americas prefer strong and wrong over woke and anti-common sense most of the time. I feel comfortable saying this as liberal-registered-democrat living Texas, Americans don’t care about wisdom anymore. Both parties, both ideologies, don’t care about foresight. Neither party, neither ideology, wishes to find compromise in writing the laws of the land, forget about fucking unity. Forget about public service and doing the people’s work.

We miss Gerald Ford. We need voices like his. Gerald Ford was very obviously who he was. There were no secrets about who the man was. He was a Republican, and I am not. 10 years ago I thought the man a joke-pie wrapped in the squarest of boxes, but today, in the context of two separate Donald Trump presidencies, this country desperately needs a healer, someone honest and willing to take responsibility, but most importantly an individual who sees public service as a divine duty. Gerald Ford worked for his fellow Americans and was damn proud to serve.

Write It When I’m Gone dives deep into the life and mind of Gerald Ford and his thoughts about Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, the Bushes, the Clintons, Dick Cheney, and Congress. In his private conversations Ford reveals how deeply troubled he was with loss of civility beginning with Newt Gingrich in the House. In regard to Reagan, Ford told author Thomas DeFrank “he was not what I would call a technically competent president” and criticized Ronny’s lack of knowledge of the budget and foreign policy. This scrutiny came not from just Ford’s opinion but from other foreign leaders who shared their concerns about Reagan’s lack of detailed information and generally his detached and disengaged style of government. Ford called balls and strikes about ole Reagan, and everyone else.

While thinking highly of Bill Clinton, Ford honed in on Clinton’s weakness in foreign policy and “skirt at any of the social occasions.” Clinton’s failures to quickly intervene in the Yugoslavian Civil War, particularly in Bosnia, stood out to Ford. The consequences and legacy of the wars remain present in my mind. I have met many of those displaced from that war throughout my life, both in Denmark and in the United States. Clinton missed an opportunity to help quell tensions but also help move the region out of its soviet and communist past into a new future. I’m no expert on this matter but looking at the conflicts created by Putin’s Russia today perhaps if the United States had better intervened in the earlier their influence may have better shaped the region.

Now, back to the “skirt” and Clinton’s dogging. “I’m convinced that Clinton has a sexual addiction. He needs to get help – for his sake.” Not a statement I would expect a former president to ever state for the record, dead or alive. While Ford detested Clinton’s personal behavior, he abhorred the fact Bill would not admit he had lied and perjured himself. This was a deep dishonor and an erosion of the office which serves the public. Clinton personally asked Ford for help after his impeachedment. Just like his decision to pardon Nixon, Ford correctly requested Clinton admit his lie and admit perjury. True to his self-serving self Clinton replied “I won’t do that, I can’t do that.”

It’s quite easy to argue Ford lost to Carter simply due to the fact he pardoned Nixon. Now, I understand Americans being upset at the time with the decision. I was upset with Biden at his own hypocrisy pardoning the middling idiot Anthony Fauci and seemingly the entire Biden clan. However, if Nixon had been allowed to go on as a citizen without a pardon we now know Leon Jaworski, special prosecutor of the Watergate scandal, would have investigated Nixon, indicate, tried him, and ultimately convicted Nixon to jail. Years and years would have been spent on the new trial of Richard Nixon. Both Ford and the country would have been mostly focused on this issue while the country was suffering economically and the C0ld War still marched on. Ford rightfully pardoned Nixon not because he was friend, colleague, and fellow republican, but so that the country could move on, heal, and he could do the work of his fellow Americans.

This lesson and the many lessons from Ford ought to teach us how to move forward as a country and look back at our recent past mistakes. Do I personally like Trump? No. I have never nor would I ever vote for him. But putting him through multiple persecutions was a mistake. Not understanding the state of the country in 2015 through today is a failure of the media, journalists, historians, Democrats, and for most of all myself. I failed to see and feel current wave of the country. Looking back on history and living in Texas has helped me really understand the pulse of this country. Write It When I’m Gone though really took my understanding to a new level.

5 Overs for 2025

Pacers finished the Knicks Saturday night to make only their second NBA Finals appearance in their existence. My dad called the Pacers winning by 20 points, spread was Pacers -4. Siakam winning Eastern Conference Finals MVP and the team advancing to the Finals had some incredible futures.

It’s been a great story, but the ride ends in Oklahoma City with a gentleman’s sweep. The end can’t come fast enough either. I’m ready for football. I’m not sure how many more podcasts I can stand without listening to Cousin Sal or Shea in Irving lament the Cowboys. Or Bill Simmons exclaiming the Saints are the new 99 Rams.

SGA, Haliburton, or Giannis trade destinations aren’t doing it for me. Neither’s another Pablo Torre “investigation” into Bill Belichick where Pablo denies his interest in their age difference while spiraling into the same depravity as Belichick. No more farewell pods or Youtube homages for Inside The NBA. It’ll be back on ESPN (unless they fuck it up). I just can’t do more of these…

Ok well maybe more pods about Zion’s rape and abuse allegations. The man’s a victim of hubris, pussy, and Popeyes. A combination I can almost understand. I too get high and mighty about my cats and fried chicken.

No! I’m ready for football! And I’m ready to be wrong and hurt again!!! Let’s do some fucking futures baby. I’ve got two teams who’ve been good to me, two new teams I’m falling in like with, and one team that keeps shoving a freshly sharpened Ticonderoga up my ass each year. And yet… I CAN’T QUIT YOU!!!

Los Angeles Rams, Over 9.5 Wins
Rams have been 10-7 two years in a row and this improving roaster gave the eventual Super Bowl champion Eagles all the could handle in the divisional round. The year before the Rams almost beat a red hot Lions squad. Rams get the AFC South this season which is at least three easy wins (Colts, Titans, Jags). I like the Rams to win at least 10 games and make another run all the way to lose in the NFC Championship, which you can get on Draft Kings at +850. Love that value. You can get over 9.5 at around -150.

Carolina Panthers, Over 6.5 Wins
After their week 11 bye the Panthers started showing signs geniune development. Carolina gave the Eagles and Chiefs a hell of a fight, took their rival Buccaneers to OT, and eliminated the Falcons from the playoffs. They finished 5-12, but Bryce Young showed the team and every Ringer employee he was no bust. The draft proved the team has invested its future into Bryce. Outside of their division, the schedule isn’t rosey. Drawing the AFC East won’t be easy with the exception of the Dolphins. Even the Jets with seemingly legitimate head coaching will be a long day. But they do get the Jaguars in the opener. 7 wins for a team that covered 5 of 7 game spreads against several playoff teams after the bye piques my interest.

I’m Vita Vea’s replacement (in two years)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Over 9.5 Wins
I admit, the Bucs are a weird fucking team. They were 4-6 going into their bye week and had lost 4 games in a row. Maybe they spent their bye on Isla de Muerta to pick up cursed gold cuz those guys went 6-1, if not for the Cowboys, the rest of the way. They lost to an incredible Commanders team in close fashion who went on to the NFC title game. The prior year also had a 4 game losing streak which was matched by a 4 game winning streak and a hard fought division round loss against the Lions.

The Bucs snagged WR Emeka Egbuka in the draft for the future with veterans Mike Evans and Chris Goodwin nearing the ends of their careers. CBs Benjamin Morris and Jacob Pariah fill needs in an always injured secondary force to call upon the practice squad. Oh! And they signed 6′ 6″ 464 LB undrafted free agent defensive tackle Desmond Watson, the heaviest player in NFL history, destined to replace Vita Vea.

Head Coach Todd Bowles told ESPN’s Jenna Laine “to judge him right now is very early, and we didn’t get him for the tush push — we got him because we really thought he could play.” Bowles continued “right now, we just have to see how long he can stay on the field, andnput him on a program where we think he can make some progress.” Watson still needs to make the roster but he’s slimmed down 27 LBs while in rookie mini-camp. I’m clearly way too invested in his success.

This team has veterans under contract, except Evans who is entering his final year, and bunch of young new players. 10-7 again in a division they’ve won two years straight makes a lot of sense. They’re by far the most stable franchise in the division too. Where things might go off the rails for this team though will be weeks 16 and 18 when the Bucs play their rival Panthers twice in three weeks. Those games will likely decide who wins the NFC South. Until I see someone consistently beat them for the division I’ll stick with the Bucs.

Houston Texans, Over 9.5 Wins
The CJ Stroud and DeMeco Ryans Texans regime finished it’s first two years losing in the divisional round to the well established Ravens and Super Bowl champion Chiefs… But apparently they’ll have to prove themselves to Mt. Carmel High School coach Diante Lee.

Anyways… I’m feeling pretty good about my Texans PROVING themselves to ole Diante, a man with more football credibility than anyone I’ve ever known, after going 10-7 (and hitting the over) two seasons in a row. Just to appetize even more, you can get the over at +100. They’ll taste the AFC Championship this year (+950). Two years of close losses in the Divisional they’re ready for the next logical progression. They’ve continued to draft well adding WRs Jaylen Higgins and Jaylin Noel, and resigning key contributors to the team.

The strength of schedule for the Texans is middling amongst most evaluators, although I see this schedule in the top third of difficulty. The NFC West is a clunky division with the Rams looking to make another run, an aging but retooling 49ers, and two pretty beatable teams in Seattle and Arizona. Not fun to have to play the Bucs out of conference, Ravens, and everyone in the AFC West, my pick for toughest division. Still, 10 wins getting to play the Colts, Titans, and Jags is likely 5 to 6 wins right there. They should at least split the NFC West. Maybe even split the AFC West. 10 wins should be easy money at +100 with a PROVEN track record.

Jim Harbaugh: “I’m just here so I won’t get fined.”

Las Vegas Raiders, Over 6.5 Wins
Maybe this will be the year I won’t thrust another pencil up my anus after another lost Raider season. No, this year does indeed feel different. The hiring of GM John Spytek and Head Coach Pete Carroll states an organizational goal of regaining credibility and respect in this league. New minority owner and Mark Davis whisperer Tom Brady provides stability at the top this team lost after Al Davis just simply got too old. Gruden had the team moving in the right direction before Daniel Snyder allegedly leaked his emails to the New York Times.

Since their Super Bowl loss to the Buccaneer the Raiders have only had two seasons of note. Both of which ended with Derek Carr breaking his fibula and Derek Carr mismanaging the end of game clock versus Cincinnati. I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks, if Carr just manages the clock correctly Raiders win that game. Cincy went on to lose in the Super Bowl.

This new administration completely fabrises the stench of Antonio Pierce, Josh McDaniels, Carr, and Gru who returned to the FFCA feeling nicey! Spytek spent his first draft truly building a team from both need and value. Admittedly I didn’t love the Jeanty pick at first; however, you combine him with the best quarterback they’ve had since MVP Rich Gannon, incredible skill players lead by Brock Bowers, and an improving line with LT Kolton Miller and C Jackson Powers-Johnson there’s enough talent (finally) to be a serious threat on offense every Sunday.

Funny how Geno Smith hasn’t even taken an in game snap and I’ve already anointed him the best Raiders QB since Gannon. That should tell all you non-Raider and Saint fans what it’s like living in QB mediocrity-hell.

Raiders added WR Jack Bech from TCU in the second round who will immediately contribute as a rookie both inside and out. By seasons end he’ll be the number 2 receiver. The Raiders used their high end picks to accumulate more picks which they used to bluster both sides of the line and the receiver room.

Regaining credibility is the prime objective this season. Raiders shouldn’t be favored in most games but I’m calling a split in the AFC West with all their rivals in the back half of the season (hopefully fucking over the Chiefs in the regular season finale). We also get the Bears, Titans, Browns, Giants, Jags, and Cowboys at home. For some reason we’ve been a thorn in Dallas’s side over the past few years.

There’s a clear road to 7 wins for this squad looking to gain back the honor to which their used to mean something in this league. There’s gonna be an upset win against a playoff team I can’t predict. Mostly, I just don’t want my hemorrhoids popped by lead point again.

Win Total Data: Vegas Insider