Retro-Blog: 2012, about the band Point Line Plane

 [What follows is the text of a review I wrote, in a rather self-aggrandizing way, about the first, and eponymous, album by the band Point Line Plane, which still resides at amazon.com under a listing for used copies through third-party sellers. Since this is subject to disappearance at any moment, I hope to give it some further virtual persistence here, however longer "here" may exist.]

5.0 out of 5 stars Love's Labors Lost
Reviewed in the United States on May 9, 2012

This self-titled album by Point Line Plane is screamo synthpunk with blistering drums, and one of the more intense and unique phenomenon of the very brief but surprisingly authentic old-school punk revival that flared up in Portland OR, peaking around 2000-ish. Point Line Plane put on shows that felt genuinely dangerous, like anything could happen, and often did. This album, with instruments tracked live in a cavernous ancient ballroom, and studio vocals subjected to all manner of distorted re-amplification, faithfully conveys the manic energy of the live shows, while also providing creative ways to do violence to the sound which would not have been possible on stage. The songwriting channels teenage rage and terror from a dystopian science-fiction future that arrived while we weren't looking, with a little timeless metaphysical torment added for good measure. Much of it can be physically uncomfortable listening for some people, but that is very much the point.

Since I had been too much of a prog geek to "get" punk when it happened the first time around, it was a real pleasure to experience the real thing later in life. For the young and confused, the first time around for real punk was the late 1970's, in case you are suffering under the misconception that bands like Green Day and Blink 182 were authentic punk bands. They aren't even bands now so much as brands.

Contrary to the description, Howard Gillam doesn't play on this CD, as at the time of recording he was in another duo, the Momeraths, with Joshua Blanchard. This was also a time when droves of duos roamed the dark and smoky dives of Portland, and this is a duo release with Josh Blanchard and Nathan Carson. I should know; I co-produced it with the band and Merlin Carson. Both Carson brothers were previously in the genre-defying Bishop of Battle. Later, the two duos converged into a trio, keeping the Point Line Plane name, for their second and final full-length release, Smoke Signals. All three members have been involved in an array of musical projects since, perhaps most significantly Nathan's return to the Doom Metal band Witch Mountain.

Recording and mixing this was tons of fun because we were experimenting and creating a sound, instead of trying to re-create some preconceived notion of how it should sound. We allowed ourselves to surprise ourselves. Other tracks from these sessions were released on a split EP with The Planet The, which, sadly, you are very unlikely to find. I would love to see a re-release of this album, with the EP tracks included as a bonus. But this review is entitled Love's Labors Lost for a reason: this CD can be had right now for a penny, with shipping rounding it up to under five dollars. The studio which produced this is as obscure and defunct as this album, and this band.

I strongly recommend that you make the tiny investment of time and spare virtual change to buy this CD. I promise it will make the most extreme music you own now sound like gentle lullabies for baby.

Title Pending

Arriving at the keyboard late in a string of internal associations can be awkward and, to the reader at least, confusing.  This is only made worse when the author is coming down (up?) from being overly drunk on home-made absinthe.

Age has both stolen from me, and gifted to me, freedom from passion.

For the romantic mind, passion is the source of all that is most precious.  The rational mind counters with the popular phrase "crimes of passion".  Personal experience reminds me that passion is the source of my strongest among weakening memories, some of them precious, many of them, at best, embarrassing.

For nearly a full year, my passion for music has been given a new life by one band, named "boygenius", and the prior solo and collaborative works of each primary member, Julien Baker, Pheobe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus.   Although I do not presume to know the full back story of each member of this trio, or to what degree their songwriting is autobiographical or fictional storytelling, their songs have a ring of personal truth that touches me more than anything has in several decades.

My history with music had thus far been almost completely male and presumably heterosexual, particularly given my proclivities towards "Progressive Rock".  Really, only Kate Bush had thus far broken that ceiling.  Then last year, at age 60, I saw and heard boygenius play "Not Strong Enough" on the Jimmy Kimmel Live show, and was instantly moved and enthralled by a band of queer girls.  Although I don't feel physically or mentally strong enough to withstand the experience of in-person live shows, I have listened to or watched little else in the way of music for an entire year, which went by very quickly.

I am not sure what else to say about, or what I have learned from, this. This post will probably remain an unpublished draft until I can find a way to craft it into a better... something.  The band itself, after winning some Grammys, has announced an indefinite hiatus, which I do not begrudge them.  They have been working very hard non-stop for a full year at least, and I could not ask for more except a concert film, which may yet come about since at least their Forest Lawn concert seemed to have been professionally recorded in both audio and video in full.  A professionally recorded single of the "boyfriend song" would be nice, too.

Perhaps the best statement of a lesson from this experience was spoken in the previous century by a minor human character in "The Muppets Take Manhattan", which was "peoples is peoples". (Yes, I am aware that the phrasing, characterization and delivery of that line was racially/culturally problematic, but the core truth of it, especially in context, is stronger than the superficial aspects of the delivery.)   

The Rewards of Being My Friend

[Editorial Note: A friend read my previous blog entry and wrote me an email to express their concern and well wishes.  The apology for the slow reply refers also to previous unanswered emails. As I express below, I felt my reply was better suited to this blog, and a bit too much.... I guess a bit too much "me" for a polite response to a friend. Nonetheless I sent it, and now, with minor edits, I post it.  Never fear, nothing private about my friend is disclosed.  I am far too self-obsessed for that. Another note, which I consider important, will be appended below.]

Sorry for the slow reply.  I wasn't expecting to be able to touch-type today, but I had a last-minute reprieve from my hand specialist.  It seems that they ran out of whatever chemical agent they use to dissolve cysts on tendons.

My blog post was mostly regarding my frustration with going through a cardiac stress/echo procedure, which I can describe if you want or you can just look it up if you are curious, getting the initial notes and some of the raw data from the technicians, but getting no overview/summary or other communication from the cardiologist.  I've learned a little about this stuff through experience and googling, but I still don't feel qualified to correctly understand what I have received so far.  The word "abnormal" certainly shows up a lot in the notes.  I suppose if there was anything wrong requiring timely action or instruction from the cardiologist I would have received it... is what I would say if I were an optimist.

I like to think of myself as more of a realist than a pessimist, but I would be the last to know.

For a person with an anxiety disorder, I certainly have found it easier, as I get older, to take an "it is what it is" attitude towards potential worries of uncertain magnitude.   That may be a gift from my treatment-resistant depression.  More likely it is just that I have a different kind of anxiety.  I'm less afraid of the big things I can't control, like death, civil war, and the looming end of constitutional democracy, than I am of many little things most people enjoy, like being around other people, being seen, being present.

I just spent fifteen minutes staring at this screen while my mind plunged down multiple spiraling rabbit-holes of global and personal doom, fighting back the urge to pointlessly word vomit about them.  I don't need the internet or social media; I can doom-scroll my own psyche.  My only island of peace is in reminding myself that I am stupid and probably wrong about most things.

This isn't going well.  A friend should not subject a friend to such unfiltered psychic waste; that's what the "Psychic Toilet" is for. I should use it more often and see if it leaves me more personable. The word "personable" suddenly strikes me as more profound than the dictionary definition of, essentially, "pleasant".  Able to be a person, to be seen as, to see oneself as, a person.  Some of this may end up in my blog after all. 

Perhaps it would have been better to have had the procedure on my hand, just to slow down this typing.

I sincerely hope you are doing well, and am sorry as usual that I can't seem to talk about anything but myself.

 [Cynicism is so pervasive in everything I write, it is difficult for me to say anything positive without it appearing to be sarcasm.  I swear what I say next is not.  I am more grateful than I know how to express that there are a few people who I can call "friend".  The very idea of it is a source of constant surprise to me, or at least when I take the time to contemplate it.  There are a very few people from my distant past who, by the simple accumulation of shared experience at that time, I will always consider to be my friends, even if we have not communicated in years, even decades in some cases.  To dare to call anyone I have met since, say, 1996, a friend, in most cases I have literally asked explicit permission to use that word, to know that there is a mutual agreement and trust that the word is appropriate.  This is how poorly I understand what friendship is, and how bad I am at being meaningfully present in the lives of others as a friend.  For the most part, I am the lucky recipient of the good graces of very patient and kind friends.  If I lived under a definition of friendship that required frequent and mutual maintenance, I would have no friends at all.  I am again so very grateful for those who knowingly let me use that word without contract.]

Done

Not suicidal, just done.  Done with tests with results I cannot understand and which are not explained. Done with worrying about when and how I will die. Done with trying to estimate my worth, past, present or future.  I'll keep taking medications as prescribed, showing up to appointments as scheduled, but I will no longer complain of symptoms or concerns that might lead to more tests.  I am sick of tests and none of them will change anything.  I'm too old for a lifestyle change, and I don't want to fight the reaper with Big Pharma or Big Medicine any more than I already am.  I am so tired. I am so stupid.  I am so tired of being stupid.  I wanted so bad to be smart that I convinced myself that I was, but I'm not that young any more.

[Editorial Update: Stupidity proven by the fact that, despite compulsively re-reading my own blog entries, it took me at least three or four reads to notice I had used "told" where "old" was intended.]