Is he still trying to make an album named after every state? I haven't heard much of his stuff, but what I have heard seems a little too sensitive and fragile.

It's amazing how much homosexuality can be packed into a single post.

I'm also a sucker for all things Illinois.

Ya know, I don't know. I thought I read once that that was a joke, but I'll be honest, I pretty much have only heard this album. A student ripped me a CD way back when, and I used to play it in class, and then one day I was just like, "I really like this." Anyway, I had to mail something to Highland, Illinois, yesterday, and so this album was on my mind because the first song on the album mentions Highland (and its UFO sighting).

I vaguely remember trying to listen to his next album but not getting very far.

I'm also a sucker for all things Illinois. I think the only truly country album I ever paid for was Brett Eldredge's Illinois. I realize that I'm the last person in the state with state pride, but I'm ok with that.

Is he still trying to make an album named after every state? I haven't heard much of his stuff, but what I have heard seems a little too sensitive and fragile.

I've got a few of his albums and it is good stuff but admittedly you need to be in the right mood and frame of mind for it. He put out a pretty somber album called Carrie & Lowell about his broken family but it really was therapeutic for me to listen to when my brother got sick and passed. Had a lot of windshield time driving out to NC and also driving to and from the hospital everyday.

Lou Reed's Magic and Loss has always filled that somber reflect on death niche for me.

For me, it is Zevon's last CD he wrote and recorded while dying.

why don't you like Tortoise ?

This may sound dumb after I just told you an instrumental made me cry, but I'm generally not big on instrumentals with some obvious exceptions like Kind of Blue.

Tortoise has never made me feel anything other than, "Oh, there's a bunch of guys who are really good at playing their instruments." Sort of the same way I feel about Joe Satriani.

lot to unpack here. One, you don't like jazz other than Kind Of Blue apparently.

but a piece of MUSIC can't move you unless there is singing ?

I bought Slint's Spiderland when it first came out, probably because of Albini's review in Melody Maker. I tried listening to it, tried to give it a chance, but I could not get into it. I kind of just wrote it off as being "not my thing" and tossed it into a box where it sat for 30 years.

Over that 30 years the record became legendary and influenced many bands, most of whom I hate. Hello, Tortoise. But after reading about the 30th anniversary remaster and reissue I gave the album one more chance. I was at a much different place in my life than I was in 1991 and I understood the record in a way I hadn't back then. The emotion is just intense especially on "Washer" and "Good Morning, Captain."

I read the band members discussing the recording of the album, particularly Brian McMahan's vocal on "Good Morning, Captain" and his subsequent emotional breakdown and hospitalization. In the context of McMahan's strained relationship with his family at the time of the recording, the allegory of the shipwrecked captain is poignant to the point of being overwhelming.

In the last verse of the song McMahan seems to drop all the pretense of allegory and speak directly to his parents and his brother. "I miss you. I MISS YOU!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqEpjc ... ZA&index=7

That's notable in that Neil Young does the same thing in the final verse of "Cortez the Killer", a song that Slint famously covered and which lays out a template for the entire Spiderland album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQlTesaKJr4

Anyway, rediscovering that record led me to seek out some of the stuff that was influenced by it. As I said above, I hate most of it and the very idea of "post rock." But I did find this track. I wouldn't even call it a song. I guess a "piece of music" is how I would describe it. I don't think I've cried more than five times since I was ten years old but as I listened to this I was overcome by emotion to the point that I started weeping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvo9t2qznw

As I said above, I hate most of it and the very idea of "post rock." But I did find this track. I wouldn't even call it a song. I guess a "piece of music" is how I would describe it. I don't think I've cried more than five times since I was ten years old but as I listened to this I was overcome by emotion to the point that I started weeping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvo9t2qznw

It's amazing how much homosexuality can be packed into a single post.

I bought Slint's Spiderland when it first came out, probably because of Albini's review in Melody Maker. I tried listening to it, tried to give it a chance, but I could not get into it. I kind of just wrote it off as being "not my thing" and tossed it into a box where it sat for 30 years.

Over that 30 years the record became legendary and influenced many bands, most of whom I hate. Hello, Tortoise. But after reading about the 30th anniversary remaster and reissue I gave the album one more chance. [bI was at a much different place in my life][/b] than I was in 1991 and I understood the record in a way I hadn't back then. The emotion is just intense especially on "Washer" and "Good Morning, Captain."

I read the band members discussing the recording of the album, particularly Brian McMahan's vocal on "Good Morning, Captain" and his subsequent emotional breakdown and hospitalization. In the context of McMahan's strained relationship with his family at the time of the recording, the allegory of the shipwrecked captain is poignant to the point of being overwhelming.

In the last verse of the song McMahan seems to drop all the pretense of allegory and speak directly to his parents and his brother. "I miss you. I MISS YOU!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuqEpjc ... ZA&index=7

That's notable in that Neil Young does the same thing in the final verse of "Cortez the Killer", a song that Slint famously covered and which lays out a template for the entire Spiderland album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQlTesaKJr4

Anyway, rediscovering that record led me to seek out some of the stuff that was influenced by it. As I said above, I hate most of it and the very idea of "post rock." But I did find this track. I wouldn't even call it a song. I guess a "piece of music" is how I would describe it. I don't think I've cried more than five times since I was ten years old but as I listened to this I was overcome by emotion to the point that I started weeping:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Shvo9t2qznw

And because of that you can't tell me that Chicago's "Feeling Stronger Every Day" playing at a party in '73, when I got me up the shirt of a Junior High Classmate isn't a classic well then you are simply wrong

i first heard of slint back in high school when my friend etched their name into his desk in biology class. i was like, "what's that?" and he said it was a band. the first thing i bought was the 2-song EP with the dead guy picture on the cover. then i got "tweez" and then "spiderland". the CDs always said "this was meant to be listened to on vinyl". i didn't have a record player nor could i ever find vinyl records (until i went to sub pop years later when i visited my sister in seattle).

i still haven't heard them as they were meant to be heard but i think i always liked "tweez" better than "spiderland". no idea why.