Welcome to the 105th edition of Content Nausea. You can read No. 104 right here. Please let me know what you think. Thank you for being here. Here is the welcome blog.
Another new month in a new year, another attempt to get back to consistent posting (hi, Jack).
Some content I listened to this week
At some point in 2010, I bought or downloaded something by Las Robertas off of Bandcamp, so whenever the band releases another song or album, I get an email about it. Usually, I just delete the email, sometimes without even opening it. But I woke up at 4 a.m. Friday, and after laying in bed until 5, I got up and got on the computer. What else are you going to do? I had an email from Bandcamp about a new Las Robertas album, Love is the Answer. No time like the present? On first listen, it’s a pleasant lesson. It might be the first 2023 release I’ve earnestly listened to this year. The band’s growth from the ramshackle Cry Out Loud is clear with the sort of Vivian Girls-esque lo-fi sound blossoming into fully formed soundscapes. I remember listening to “In Between Buses” on the eighth floor of Cumberland Hall in 2010. We’ve come a long way.
The new Wednesday album is going to be a heater. MJ Lenderman was my gateway to the band last year, and the early singles hint at a great trajectory from the past few albums.
When I was in college, someone I followed had “Bad Scene, Everyone’s Fault” as the name of their Tumblr and I always thought it was really good, even though I didn’t know until a couple years ago that it was a Jawbreaker reference. I went back down the Jawbreaker rabbit hole while I was reading Sellout by Dan Ozzi, and it was a reminder that the song is just as good as the turn of phrase.
Feel like Enumclaw has some buzz behind it and I’m not sure if I quite ‘get’ it, but this Tanukichan song is good. The vocals play off each other really nicely. Sundays by Tanukichan is such a pleasant listen, s/o to Sofia for having it on a playlist/Spotify for giving it to us on our blend.
I never finished the monthly playlists last year (whoops), and I don’t have the energy to put this one into any sort of order. The Dignan Porch song is also great.
Some content I read this week
I finished two books last month: the aforementioned Sellout and Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor. Different books featuring great writing. Reading Sellout was like when I read Andy Greenwald’s Nothing Feels Good three years ago in that it gave me a window into music that I wasn’t “there” for and some of the inner workings behind it. Both books also reinforced the fact that I really like Jimmy Eat World. Wish I could have told myself that in 2011 when I interviewed Rick Burch for a story in The Diamondback that I can’t find any traces of (except this from a Wordpress where I tried to archive everything I was writing).
The Pocket queue is unwieldy right now.
I remember the brief time in college I tried to get into Television — I’m not going to scroll back in my Instagram feed to where I posted a photo in 2012 of the copy of Marquee Moon that was in the studio at WMUC — but other than that the listening was scattered. I’ve been listening to Marquee Moon a bunch since Tom Verlaine’s passing earlier this week. It’s a record that is everything everyone says it is. Patti Smith’s tribute in The New Yorker was emotional, and I enjoyed David Roth’s writing in Defector:
When I was younger, I thought I recognized the feeling of going out in the city in those songs, the sense of testing my new agency in an uncertain space; other people have made a similar observation. Now that I am older I think I was just feeling the deeper movement of the songs—their passages out into something unknown, and then back, and then out again—and trying, as anyone might, to see if there was something in that beauty that might have anything to do with me.
S/o to Danny for retweeting this Colin McGowan story from Real GM that I definitely wouldn’t have come across otherwise:
These are the low-bore joys of the regular season, absorbing with rapt or intermittent attention the exploits of a genius in third gear. It's Milwaukee in January; it's cold and dark by five. It's a New Orleans squad that's down three starters, counting on Naji Marshall to carry the load. You forget these moments almost as soon as they pass, which is not the same thing as not being present for them. I can't remember most good meals I've had or good jokes I've heard. I do think about dumb things I said two weeks or half a decade ago, but that's my problem. If a life were composed solely of what you can remember, entire years of experience would be meaningless. In the face of that terrifying prospect, perhaps you learn to assign discrete events their proper value. Somewhere in the past, for a while, you were happy. You were watching Giannis tear through the Pelicans. It was, in its languidness, a handsome expression of his prime.
Dan Ozzi on “when music sounded like shit.” The old Kevin Devine band he links to in there is really good.
Enjoyed this Stephen Powers email on South Street.
Fun feature on new Phillies shortstop Trea Turner through the lens of his time as a college star at N.C. State. I’m going to try hard to not constantly talk about how I covered Maryland-N.C. State games that he played in in 2012 and 2014 and he was arguably the best player on the field each time.
Luke O’Neil reworked one of my favorite pieces on throwing your life away.
Max Read on Matt Yglesias and “the secret of blogging” (ty for sharing, Caroline).
Kalyn Kahler on how the Eagles made the quarterback sneak so effective in The Athletic.
There’s lots of other Eagles things in here from earlier in the playoffs that I won’t share.
Some other content I saw or thought about this week
Shout out to Frass Green for a very final show in D.C. last weekend.
January was kind of a blur in a bad way, but everyone knows that February is when the New Year really begins.
I watched Groundhog Day (1993) on Thursday. It seemed appropriate. Good film. I only live 90 minutes away from Punxsutawney now… maybe next year?
Flying Has Become Hell for Passengers with Wheelchairs:
Thank you for reading the 105th edition of Content Nausea. It will get better. Thank you, and see you soon.
Tell her I'm still alive
Tell her I'm still in love
Tell her to come pick me up
Tell her I'm downtown
In the darkness on the edge of Gastown
Darkness on the edge of Gastown
—D.G.