Pull It Off- Hot Chip

Hi. It's Friday. That means I am tired but driven by the excitement that I get to piddle about all day tomorrow. This energizes me, keeps me up at least past 10pm. I drive a lot, living in southern Caleeforniy-yah and braving the 405 twice a day I get a lot of personal time with NPR, with my perpetuating, at times, disturbing thoughts, and in today's case, my iPod. I write my own songs and play guitar so I wonder a lot what this means. Not in the sense so much of why I play and sing but more in the trivial pondering of what and how this might become something meaningful to someone else. This is the trouble with modern technology/communication. There is this hyper-awareness of the self, that isn't really the self, it is the self's imagined perception of the self, through someone else's eyes. I always try to figure out what I mean in the world by envisioning me through the eyes of another. I have this conversation with my friend Jen a lot. I know she gets it. It's really disturbing because the insane and ironic part of this is that although I pretend to know how others see me, it is still my brain just creating ideas and holograms. I will NEVER know how I look to you or anyone, ever. But for some reason this idea, that some one else's perception is more validating than my simply just being, has a strong hold on me. Maybe it's the movies that has done this to me. You aren't much unless someone is watching you, lusting after you, jealous of your pretty hair or your turtleneck. What the FACK does this have to do with Hot Chip- well I'll tell you. On my 405 schleppage at 5:37AM yesterday I got the feeling that Alexis Taylor doesn't spend so much time questioning what he means to other people, or whether or not his music is "pulling it off". I get the vibe that many of my favorite musicians just do what they do, and they keep on doing it, because they love it. They don't listen to those fuckers who told them they need to sing louder, their guitar skills were sub par or their sound wouldn't ever go viral. I admire this and those who are what they are and rock out accordingly. Please, to all of me beloved friends and musicians, artists or people wo play with instruments: don't alter what arises from your being for anyone. We need you the way you are. The world is drying out, give us something real.
Alexis sounds like a girl, but it's perfect. Hot Chip is important to me.
Hot Chip - Wrestlers MP3

Get Me In the Gut: M83

This song get's me in the gut... like when you stick your finger in your belly button and wiggle it around. There is something sad, despondent yet hopeful about it. It reminds me of losing your virginity sophomore year summer, catapulting your sense of self from a serene childlike awe into the wet of real life adulthood. It's so unpleasant but still you want more. Maybe that yearning is just the hope that next time it will be different, that this can't be what everyone is talking about. Is it too late to go back?
This feeling is a deep one because it is all too familiar. The hope that there is something greater out there for us, something lasting, the highest of highs, in another's kiss, a new tee shirt or a song. And everytime I go running to one or the other, eyes shut and hands groping, the only thing left in it's once bright place, is me.
Here is Midnight City - M83