Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

krisis

Krisis has been creating Crushing Krisis since 2000, writing songs since 1996, and reading comics since 1991. He is a Customer Success and Digital Brand Strategy executive, serial organizer, parent, and feminist, among other things. Based in Philly through 2017, he now resides in Wellington, NZ.

#MusicMonday: “Try To Sleep” – Low

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I hear newly released music via a four-point scale of acquisition.

1. Appointment. I know I love an artist. I know their LP is coming out. I pre-order it.

2. Recognition. I’m aware of an artist, who I might even like, or I hear a song on the radio that I enjoy. I see their name on a release schedule or in a review. I pick up their newest stuff.

3. Guided. A trusted source or a plurality of untrusted sources recommend an artist or album. Alternately, I hear the song enough times to be interested (which, given my lack of radio-listening or television watching, is pretty rare).

4. Acquisition. I am looking for new music in bulk to hear/review and pick an LP based on non-arbitrary factors like reviews by people I trust, how good the third song is, and how cool the LP cover looks.

Low is an example of a band who has moved up the strata year by year. They are presently somewhere around 1.5 on the scale.

It started with Low’s album The Great Destroyer. I had vaguely heard of the band, but though they were shoegaze or slowcore or something else that bores me to tears, so had avoided them until that point (i.e., they failed the #3 test). However, The Great Destroyer had a fantastic name and album cover (#4 sometimes saves me from snobbery in #3),  so I picked it up and wound up loving it. It was a little slow and gazey, but it also featured distinct counter-melodies and witty lyrics.

Fast forward five years, a period in which I picked up no further Low releases. Midway through 2011 I saw Low’s name on the LP C’mon and picked it up purely out of curiosity. Would it sound like Destroyer, or was that merely a catchy outlier?

“Try To Sleep” is the first track and lead single from that album, and without a doubt one of my ten favorites songs of 2011.

I forget what I was doing when I first heard this song, but I remember making a mad dash for my iPod to see who was singing it so I could rate it five stars. I was surprised that it was Low – while it’s only a minor modification on their typical sparseness, it’s also incredibly pretty. [Read more…] about #MusicMonday: “Try To Sleep” – Low

all the blue jeans you ever wanted

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Do you know how many pairs of jeans you own?

About 80% of my total collection of jeans, blue or otherwise.

This is a decidedly first world sort of question to even need to ask. Personally, I would love to have some sort of smart phone app to track and rate my jeans, because I have completely lost the plot when it comes to knowing how many I have or which ones make my ass look just right for bass playing.

I remember my first pair of jeans – in fact, I still have them and wear them as cutoffs. They were UnionBay jeans, and I bought them in eighth grade.

I am not telling you that to make you feel fat, although that is frequently the reason I still wear that pair of jeans.

My point is that nice jeans – attractive, durable jeans – are not cheap. For much of my life, acquiring a new pair was a momentous occasion. In college I owned a finite number of them. Four, typically – two identical newer pairs that were more for dressing up, and two older pairs for bumming around.

Now there is the distinct chance that I may come home with four pairs of jeans from a single, manic shopping excursion.

This morning as I worked to stow an overflowing basket of laundry I tried to explain my jeans-shelving methodology to E, but it is the sort of process that warrants a flow chart for proper understanding and I did not have a PC with PowerPoint or Visio handy. My jeans are no longer a strictly finite affair. I have about as many jeans as a Gap display shelf with a svelte mannequin standing in front of it. I need a set of those clear sticky tags to label one pant leg of each with the relevant size and style information.

I am not telling you this to make you feel inadequate about your own personal jeans collection. No. My seemingly infinite jeans are an allegory for my 2011.

2011 was awesome. I loved it. It featured so much stuff that I barely remember it all. Stuff to do. Stuff to buy. Stuff to remember. Stuff to play music on or through. Lots of stuff.

Honestly, it was a bit overstimulating. Now that I have my own house to house my seemingly-infinite jeans, approaching-infinite music collection, my actually-as-infinite-as-possible X-Men comic books, and many other precious things I love to acquire, the mere act of directing my attention at a single group of them can sideline me not just for hours, but for days – and that doesn’t take into account the possibly-actually-infinite other things I could be doing with my life, like writing songs or spending time with friends I love.

That observation doesn’t equate to a neat resolution for 2012. Do I want less stuff? No. I love my stuff. Do I want to be less stimulated? Good god, who would ever aspire to that? I am incredibly proud of my overstuffed, overstimulated 2011. I played a show every month. I paid off a student loan. I got promoted. It was awesome.

I suppose with a new year stretched out invitingly before me I simply want to offer both myself and you, my dear reader, the simple moral of my 2011 fairytale – that getting everything you ever wanted or needed just means you’ll want something new afterwards.

Don’t make your whole life about wanting.

Do. Create. Give. Love.

Live.

And, if your ass looks great in the pair of jeans you wear while living, more power to you.