SOUNDTRACK: METRIC-“Gold Guns Girls” (2009).
I mentioned to Sarah that WRFF plays this song all the time and that I really liked it but I had no idea what the band or even the song title was because they never say it. And, I couldn’t really figure out any of the words (I’m usually working with loud tools) to investigate online.
Well, we were in the car the other day and, of course, they played it again. Happily, the Prius has a “message” button on the radio that tells you the names of the band and the song title (if the radio station provides it). Huzzah, here’s the song (hilariously, they played it on the way home from our Halloween party too, proving my point that they really over-play this song). But I still think its great.
I’ve been interested in Metric for a while (there are members of Broken Social Scene in the band) but for some reason I never listened to them.
This track opens with a fast guitar riff which is undercut by this cool bass riff. Over the top staccato vocals (that come in unexpectedly) and a nice harmony type vocal (like later period Lush) make this opening really captivating.
The repeated chorus “Is it ever gonna be enough” (with I think whispered “enough”s in the background) remind me so much of the mid 90s alt rock that I love so much. I have no idea if the rest of the disc is like this, but I have finally bitten the bullet and decided to order the whole thing. I hope I’m not disappointed.
[READ: 2005 & October 25, 2010] “Bird-Dogging the Bush Vote”
A while ago I read a whole bunch of pieces by Wells Tower. I intended to read all of the pieces I could find by him and I discovered he had written a few pieces for Harper’s as well as the articles for Outside. I’m fairly certain I read this story back in 2005 when it came out, as it sounds kind of familiar, but maybe I, like Tower himself, was too bummed with the results to actually read about it in detail.
In this piece, Tower decides to go “undercover” and volunteers at some Bush/Cheney offices in Florida (a pivotal state that year and one in which malfeasance was predicted on a large scale). Tower is unabashed about his distaste for Bush (to us, not to the Floridians). He admits that he did feel a bit of hope in the President right after the events of September 11, 2001, but by September 12, he was already disgusted with him again.
And so he spends a few weeks in Florida actually asking people to vote for Bush in hopes of finding something out of the ordinary. Which, aside from some real mean spiritedness (which I’m sure was the same in the Kerry camp), there was nothing scandalous to report. Although I will say that the example he gives (telling a Democrat that voting was on the day after the actual election, which I’d seen in a number of other places too, really pisses me off despite its fairly innocuousness and no doubt ineffectiveness–as a librarian I hate telling lies to people).
Although he doesn’t uncover anything terrible, the story doesn’t come up short because he reveals many interesting characters. There are the intense young volunteers at the first place he works at (Winter Park, which is full of perky collegiate folks) and then the sad, older folks at the second place (Apopka).
Some of the portrayals are mean-spirited, but they are no less mean-spirited than the people themselves, who believe that Kerry is just evil. The amount of vitriol in the camp is shocking, although, having lived through the Obama election, I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising.
As the piece draws to an end Tower admits the thing that has made me feel uneasy all along. He is actually supporting the enemy for this investigation. And he worries that Bush will win Florida by the exact number of people he convinced to vote that way. Fortunately for his conscious (but unfortunately for every other part of him, and for the country as well) we know that was not the case.
This was a really enjoyable (although uncomfortable) piece. Tower is personally invested in the story and it makes for great reporting. Welcome back to my list of readings, Wells.
Leave a comment