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.

May 16, 2002 by krisis

I need to share this before my head explodes from the irony.

So, i’m in the record room, shelving records. It’s a big room, and i’m alone, so i have the new Sheryl Crow record blasting from the inventory computer. In walks one of my supervisory co-workers, who says hi and takes off his jacket. He fiddles with various records and gadgets for a minute, and then turns to me and proclaims, “I’m sorry, i have to turn this shit off before i go insane.”

I wasn’t particularly offended, as i know that my predilection for female singer-songwriters isn’t shared by all of my associates. However, this particular person is a big fan of “house” music, which can at times consist of a couple of thin vocals strung over repetitive dance beats for minutes on end. Good-naturedly i joked back that i, at least, enjoyed music with choruses and verses. He somewhat snidely replied that he enjoyed verses very much, but not performed by “whiny bitches who don’t have any soul.”

He ejected my cd and dropped a record onto the turntable. There were no sounds on it produced by acoustic or strung instruments, and the singer sounded as though she had been randomly selected from a pool of gospel choir drop outs. In other words, there wasn’t any soul – or, at least none outside of the canned and anonymous vocal.

I smirked; I’m sure Sheryl’s feelings weren’t hurt too badly.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85093338/

May 15, 2002 by krisis

I’ve been very good this year about buying new records – for the most part, i haven’t. Sure, there was a purchase or two a few months ago, but when my music allowance for the first four months of a year is under $100 you know i’m acting with some amount of restraint. Part of what kept my wallet firmly in my pocket is the knowledge that the past two weeks would see the release of over a dozen records that i was definitely eying up for purchase, and on Monday i picked up a few between AKA and South Street. Here are first impressions, in ascending order of quality:

Weezer – Maladroit sounds as though it has years of sonic maturity on last years’ disc even though some of its songs were written before the album went gold. This can safely be traced to Weezer self-producing the disc, which seems to be magic for them (they produced Pinkerton as well). However, the lyrics of these thirteen songs are so sparse and inspecific that their sum total of nearly thirty four minutes could easily be condensed down to a five track EP that would feel weightier than this ultimately empty effort.

Wilco – Yankee Foxtrot Hotel is the first record i’ve seen hailed as a second Kid A, only this time acoustic and homey instead of electric and expansive. The album has a high catchy-to-crappy contrast, sometime within the same song, but it’s ultimately too dense to tell much from casual listening.

Lauryn Hill – Unplugged 2.0 is an odd record, a double disc of Lauryn alone onstage with just a classical guitar talking as much as she is singing. While the set as a whole is overwhelmingly long and repetitive, songs taken in doses of twos and threes will entirely bowl you over; in case you had wondered, Hill is one of the most talented folk singer-songwriters of our generation.

Sheryl Crow – C’mon C’mon has been reviewed as everything from weary to worldy, and the record is definitely a little of both. Crow’s solo lyrics sometimes leave something to be desired, but the arrangements on this record are some of her finest (especial with co-writer Jeff Trott). The few weak spots are entirely forgivable in the face of classic rock gems such as the title track and opener “Steve McQueen.”

Sarah Shannon was definitely an enigma to me at this time yesterday, but now she very well might have made my favourite album of the year. The self-titled release from the former Velocity Girl member sounds like PJ Harvey fronting an amalgam of half of a big band and an early Sheryl Crow touring crew. The album’s tracking is impeccable, subtly changing from jazzy songs to more rocking fare, and by the time it’s over you just know you want to hear it again.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85090492/

May 10, 2002 by krisis

Ambient room noise is just the computers hissing at us with quiet piano from my headphones down the line. We are clackers, typing, sleepy, sniffling, dutifully moving from one record to the next. It’s hard to care about anything that’s in front of you at a quarter to three on Friday, even harder when you’re busy caring about anything else. There is only one voice inside here (tangled in the ivory piano threads), though in the hallway the construction crew are chatterattertattering about vans and pounds and heavy things.

I seem to have lost my voice – not in the traditional sense. I can speak. However, i cannot seem to sing. Every time i move past my safest three notes tucked into the lower middle of the treble staff it’s as if my throat is collapsing upon itself so as to resist anything that could be construed as a beautiful noise coming out. I am shackled to my tinny falsetto… sounds like all of our bad dance classics records singing out from the tiny headphones connected to their turntables, but i could only wish for that tactile needle-noise in the back of my throat. Instead i get a dull and angry throb that i have learned to almost taste.

The quiet piano has given way entirely to a wondering vocal: love you, love you not? I was up and out at eight in the morning today, and my eyes shot the world through a different speed of film than i’m used to. How can they let in so much light?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85078123/

May 8, 2002 by krisis

Sometimes it seems as though everyone i know reads Henry’s Diary on a semi-regular basis, and today Aim beat me to the punch and had to break the news to me. Far be it from me to insert myself into other people’s personal lives that i know nothing about via the internet, but i would trade in a whole heap of my personal good karma if it could help the situation between Mike & Tracey. I was just a little younger than Henry when my parents separated, and my only memory of my father living with me is him standing on our steps screaming something. I think it might have been the day he left. I’ve already made my feelings pretty clear on how amazing i think Mike is for creating the Diary, and i just don’t want to believe that the idyllic little Californian world i had conjured in my head for Henry is now going to be irrevocably changed with only a website to act in the place of memories that will slowly trickle away from Henry as the years go on.

Right. So much for not inserting myself.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85071720/

May 8, 2002 by krisis

The other night i inadvertently left Instant Messenger on while i slept, and i woke up in the morning to a blinking window from Ernie asking me if i really wanted to be part of the Peanut Gallery for BlindDateBlog.

Ernie’s webgames have come to feel like some sort of Fraternity to me, with each game representing a new pledge class, and i feel like we should all come back and serve to usher in our new brothers and sisters. Of course, i already did that once last summer. I told Ern that i was actually still interested, but the results of my getting involved could be mixed. On one hand i’d be serving alongside Choire, & Min Jung (among others). On the other, i’ve barely been able to tell anyone apart in my repeated attempts to peruse the game so far. PuppetMaster took up a lot of the slack time i had last year, but right now i don’t really have that, so i have no idea what the result will be.

Still, how can i resist being official colorful commentary on a game that will end up in two total strangers going on a first date chaperoned by Ernie. I mean, how can i?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/05/85071719/