All Things Bob

My centralized web presence is now at http://bobbland.wordpress.com.

So, What Happened?

Way back when I originally started the very first incarnation of this Hip Displeasure blog, it was on Blogger and I was the only contributor.  Though fun for a while, it eventually became too difficult to maintain alone, so I closed up shop for what ended up being right around a year.

I started to miss doing it, so I thought by bringing several other contributors on board, we’d have plenty of creative fuel to keep Hip Displeasure up and running for years to come.  Well, it went great gangbusters at first, with all sorts of great content — including the one-of-a-kind “BlooGAR Show” podcast — but just as had been the case with the original version of the blog, good old Hip-D again petered out.

There’s still a trickle of contributions coming in these days; mostly 7″ reviews by Mark H. and YouTube links posted by Elvis Fu.  But, for the most part, it’s as if the site no longer has any sort of detectable pulse.  That leaves me wondering how best to handle what’s become of Hip-D.  Should I just shut ‘er down?  Or should I just leave it as is and hope someday a flourish of new content miraculously starts flooding in again?

For now, I think I’ll choose the latter course of action, which true to form, really isn’t any action at all.  But if you’re reading this and would like to come to our rescue as a new, hungry contributor, drop me a line or simply post a comment here to that effect.  It’ll be interesting to see if anyone is willing to dump a bucket of water on this beached whale…

Reviving Interests

I’m not burnt out on music, sometimes I just don’t have the energy to even be a “fan”. So it’s always exciting when I’m reminded how nifty the listening experience can be. Generally, it takes another person to revive this in me. Most recently there have been two; my boyfriend and a “music geek” friend I rarely see.

It’s easy to forget how important music is in my life in my geographical location. Small town, few musically inclined friends, no immediate venues, et cetera et cetera… I was slowly morphing into some sort of musically monotonous robot. I went to shows. I even thought I enjoyed them, but nothing stuck. I bought CDs, but rarely listened to them all the way through. It became more about padding my “collection” numbers than anything else. I surely would have been a fantastic MMR, but, really, I want more out of this life. I want to live, dammit!

My humble matchbox twenty fangirl beginnings would come back to me in sad waves. ‘I will never feel that excitment again’ I thought, and in many ways that is true. So much energy was expended on the following of a band, in many ways I will never be at that point again.

My 2006 purchases far exceeded any year prior, but I can honestly say I didn’t listen to 80% of those purchases all the way through. 2006 was a hard year for me personally and most of the time I just didn’t feel like listening to music. My ever-growing list was more shopping therapy than music therapy.

Then, slowly but surely, my personal issues began to subside and I met my boyfriend and was in more consistent communication with my “music geek” friend. And suddenly, music was exciting again. Even though my boyfriend and I are on different paths, I wanted to share my music with him. I burned CD upon CD in effort to find our most musical common ground. I had someone to go to shows with and I became more open with different genres, because I really wanted to seek out new bands that would be more up his alley. Even when he didn’t take to much of what I was sharing with him, just having someone new and difficult to please was a challenge I was more than up for.

I got to visit my “music geek” friend and we stayed up until 2.30 in the morning drinking and listening to music. We dug through his CD bins and he gave me several, informing me he was going digital and was going to sell them anyway. I, only recently, got my first Bowie because of this. I had forgotten how easily entertained I was before that night. We talked about shows we were planning to see and when I mentioned a friend wanted to see Wilco with me later this Spring he said “she can’t appreciate Wilco like I can”, this statement isn’t actually true, but I loved being in the presence of someone with that attitude.

So, as it happens, my interest in music was awoken at a time when I can buy the least amount ever, but maybe it’s better that way. And, oh, have you heard Elvis Perkins yet? He may be my “standard”, but man was I still wowed when I saw him for the second time last month (!!).

FT » Memoir » A Lummox Looks at 40

Here I sit on the final weekend of my thirties, reflecting on my life and pondering the rather jarring possibility that the road ahead just might be a good bit shorter than what’s in my rearview mirror. This is the first birthday I’ve ever dreaded, after spending 364 days each year anxiously awaiting the previous 39. It’s pretty heavy stuff for a pretty heavy guy.

When my father turned 40, I was halfway through high school. And when my mother turned 40, I was already halfway through college. So shouldn’t the fact that my oldest child just started the fifth grade help reassure me that maybe 40 isn’t as old as I thought it was after all? Plus, both my folks smoked like chimneys and drank like fishes, whereas I do neither (outside of the occasional beer).

Even so, despite my seeming lack of vice, I can’t help but fixate on the fact that my father died at 59 and wonder how genetically predisposed I might be for a similarly premature rendezvous with The Reaper. Death doesn’t scare me, but “ceasing to be” sends chills down my spine. I mean, how will the world get along without me? And if it can, why was I even here in the first place?

Everybody wants to make their mark, but so far the only real lasting impression I’ve made has been on an endless series of irreparably collapsed couch cushions. We all struggle to find our true purpose in life, and it disturbs me that I’m about to embark on my fifth decade without having the slightest clue of what mine is supposed to be.

It doesn’t necessarily have to be noble. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to find a cure for cancer or solve the world hunger problem. In fact, I’m a pretty significant contributor to the latter. So, what IS my reason for being here? I’d certainly be willing to settle for something less Nobel-worthy. There’s got to be some sort of useful application of my sedentary ways. Come to think of it, the upcoming start of football season just might be my time to shine.

Instead of rooting for season-ending injuries to the likes of Jeremy Shockey, Clinton Portis and Donovan McNabb, perhaps I should lead by example and redirect those negative energies toward more positive support of my beloved Dallas Cowboys. Sure, peace in the Middle East would be great, but first let’s try starting with the NFC East. Think globally, act locally.

Besides, everyone knows the Raiders are the real Al-Qaeda of the NFL. The only difference is that unlike Al Davis, Osama actually knows how to find guys who can inflict damage on the opponent with bombs.

OK, so I may not have figured out my true purpose in life, but at least I figured out a way to end this column. And that’s enough to lift the cloud hanging over my impending 40^th birthday…at least for now.

Darrin Frew » Tribute » Tom Weir: One Final Hike

I have never been a fan of the indie popsters Aberfeldy but they did record a song called ‘Tom Weir’ and this gives me the tenuous link I require to post something about as far removed from pop culture as you can possible get.

The subject of Aberfeldys song, the one and only Tom Weir, was a great personal inspiration to myself and it was with great sadness that I read of his death last week, aged 91.

Tom was born into one of the poorest areas of Glasgow in 1914. To escape his rather grim surroundings he would get the bus out of the city and climb the Campsie Fells, a rugged spine of high cliffed hills that hem the city of Glasgow in from the North. It was here that he fell in love with the country side, changing his own life and in due course, the lives of many others.

After serving in the Second World War as an artillery officer in the battle for Italy, he became a full time outdoorsman and was one of the first men to explore the mountains of Nepal. He also explored other remote and mountainous areas including the Atlas range in North African and the mountains of Greenland and Iran but his great love was always the highlands of his home country.

He spent most of his life thereafter promoting and protecting the wild places of Scotland long before the term ‘environmentalist’ had even been coined. In particular his television programme ‘Weir’s Way’, broadcast in the 70’s and 80’s, almost single-handedly inspired two generations of climbers, walkers, rural historians and environmentalists.

Tom, who was still climbing mountains well into his eighties, didn’t believe in heaven and it’s perhaps just as well for if anyone belonged wholly to the Scottish soil it was him.

Unending thanks Tom.

Tom Weir 1914 – 2006.

Loog » Memoir » “How The Hell…” Chapter 1

“How the Hell Did I End Up Passed Out in Ken Stabler’s Motel Room?!?”
Chapter 1 – Band of Horses Outgallop MMJ

Much of my day to day is spent navigating the highways and biways of the Great State of Alabama, or as I have dubbed it “The Tree Tunnel.” So much time, in fact, is spent between Mobile and Montgomery on I-65, that I know every exit (my favorite is 107, which reads Grace and GARland, which I feel may be my spiritual home) and can even tell you where I am based on smell (Lowndes County has the waft of paper mills, somewhere around Evergreen you get the funk of what I can only guess is Alabama’s biggest landfil)

So, from slow and sweet Josh Rouse tunes in the morning to the loosy-goosey, early morning stoned pimp vibe of The Deadstring Brothers, to the Bass of 6, head knockin shit of the King of The South, much of my taste in music is shaped by what is good for listening on the road.

I will be dedicating my next few posts to Road Staples and songs you gotta have for driving in the country with the windows down and the speakers cranked (with a heavy assist from such Obnerd staples as Yail “Consistently the Funniest Dude I Know” Bloor and Billy “Uncle Monger” Radlciffe.

This week I had the distinct pleasure of discovering The Band of Horses, and in particular the song “The Funeral.” Derris put this on after a long day of boating and drinking at last weekend’s Fourth of July No Pants Clambake, after he told me “Dude, playing The Rolling Stones 1976 World Tour Rehearsal Tapes is punishable by DEATH in this state.”

BoH are often compared to, or slandered as, cheap-jack My Morning Jacket imitators, and I have been the subject of much derision of late from such people as Hip D’s feared, iron-fisted ruler/Lummox in Chief Sir Bob Bland, for saying that “The Funeral my be better than any song MMJ has ever written.” And, with the exception of “Mahgeeta” or “Off the Record,” this week’s back-to-back-to-back listenings bears this fact out. (As an aside I once spent the entire 3 hour drive from The Doktor’s house in Philly all the way back to Washington, DC listening to R.E.M.’s “It’s the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine)” so it is really nothing for me to listen to a song three, or even five, times in a row.)

So, though it is moody and has that echo-y, recorded in a barn sound, and many of the songs are slow burns as opposed to balls out rockers, BoH is definitely road worn and weary, but worth the time.