sift through the static, for a simpler sound.

Around November of 2003, the new york times wrote a playlist article about musicians who were carrying on the tradition of Elliott Smith after his death. The article introduced me to kevin devine and his second LP Make the Clocks Move. I forget what the article said but I distinctly remember the image of the album cover, a messy drawing of a sad-sack red head who looked like he paid a friend to draw all of his shortcomings for him. In other words he wasn't winning no beauty contests or fending off movie starlets with a pointy stick.

Anyway, I got the album later that year and it was one of those musical awakening moments. I liken it to when my friend tim wendell played the pearl jam song rearview mirror for me back in second grade and all of a sudden my musical tastes were born. Obviously these moments never register like that when they actually happen, but thanks to the rose colored tint of nostalgia, they all look that way now. Regardless, make the clocks move was one of those albums that opens a new musical door for you. You feel like you've found your own personal soundtrack. The past couple of years has yielded a lot of those for me, for example Electro Shock Blues by eels, Our Endless Numbered Days by Iron and Wine, The Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place by Explosions in the Sky, 1972 by Josh Rouse, In A Safe Place by the Album Leaf, and just to make sure I keep talking about it in this blog Blinking Lights and Other Revelations by eels. I'm sure there are countless others but not too many so as to make the whole thing meaningless because it happens every couple of Tuesdays.

The point of all this is I've become an adamant follower of Kevin Devine, he is the equivalent of Conor to Nate. But that doesn't mean I'm about to say anything as stupid as Devine is the new dylan. I just mean in the sense that I feel he speaks for me but more than that he speaks for all the things that for one reason or another I am unable to articulate. He's like the Cameron Crowe of songwriting, his lyrics are so normal and everyday yet distinctly and brutally honest, insights that whiz by in your mind on a car ride home that you can't remember for one reason or another until you hear it in a song lyric. It's all the stuff I wish I could say or write but wind up slaving over and eventually crossing out because it's just not good enough. Mr. Devine does it without breaking a sweat (or if he does sweat, at least it yields results). So in short, I dig his music.

I read today on his website that he just signed to a major label, Capitol Records to be exact. Now I'm not very hip to the major label scene musically speaking, I just don't know enough about how the business works other than shit sells. And it seems to me that this should be a cause for panic, another one bites the dust kind of thing. After reading his post (you can too at www.kevindevine.net under the news section) however, I see that he is totally aware of the direction his new life may take. He's not naive enough to think he will completely change the way music is made with his indie mindset and attitude. He's not completely giving up either, he understands the drawbacks to this decision but he also understands the rewards. A lot of great bands are on major labels (Coldplay and Radiohead for example are Devine's newfound labelmates) and as long as he continues to progress as an artist in a way that is natural and organic, than more power to him. He deserves more fans and he deserves to have his album showcased in stores or at least the little white card divider that lets you know they at one point carried his music. So I say congratulations, it's a hell of a toboggon ride. And I can't wait to see where he goes next.

The bricks get laid,
and they get torn up,
and laid again,
but the bricks always get torn up again.
Your friends won't wait,
so don't believe that shit,
when they say they'll wait.
Trust me; your friends will not wait for you.
Then, you'll be stoned in some park,
just nodding your head and pinching your arms,
when a girl walks along.
She's humming your song,
with your t-shirt on.
That's when you're done.

There's a cotton crush
down in the southern states.
But back up here, man, we've got
so much thread and space
to waste, waste, waste.
There's a microphone
picking every word up
and it shuts itself off
when it's sure that's its heard enough.
The quiet can scrape
all the calm from your bones,
but maybe it should.
Maybe we need to be hollowed
to get up and grow,
and stop fucking around;
to kick off our braces and start straightening out.
Let's sift through the static
to find a simpler sound
than the shit that's clouding our heads now.