Staff Pix 10/3: Home

From our staff to you, we hope you’re having a grand ol’ semester…

“I Went To The Store One Day” – Father John Misty

It’s not hard to find love in the Canyon. At least for Josh Tillman. It’s the same temperature all year ‘round, but during fire season, our pretentious, selfish, but somehow loveable residents are a little more cautious chucking their cigarettes out of their car windows. When I was 10 years old, I ran into Josh Tillman (Father John Misty), next to the Mulholland Tennis Club. He looked like he was starving, wearing a dri-fit shirt and short shorts, long greasy hair and unshaven. I paid him no mind. My buddies and I used to climb up to the giant radio tower directly parallel to “The Club”, which towered over Los Angeles. We could see deep into the valley to the purple mountains and to the grey haze that wafted over downtown and the water tower on the hill. Canyon-dwellers often converge at the Canyon Country Store, a family-owned sandwich-making, coffee-selling, 70s love affair. You’ll see some freaks there from time to time. This store is where Josh met his wife Emma, and thus was born “I Love You, Honeybear”, A seminal singer-songwriter, folk album of the 2010’s which has a deep love and passion for the city of LA written all over it. It wasn’t until later in my life that I discovered Father John Misty’s incredible music and potent lyricism. I think back to the time where my friends and I looked over LA from that abandoned radio tower next to The Club, it was a dystopian, almost blade-runner-esque view that gave me perspective. That everyone else’s life was as nuanced as mine. And that through all those everlasting roads that stretched through the landscape, the tiny, bright, dancing lights of the city, and the rolling green and yellow hills, there was some middle-aged hipster making some really cool stuff in one of those thousands of houses. Love penetrates the Canyon, it’s been that way since the 60s. — Wyatt Sardy

Cat Power – “Metal Heart”

How can a song this haphazardly strung together elicit such an overwhelming amount of feeling? So goes through my mind that question nearly every time I listen to “Metal Heart,” perhaps the greatest song ever penned by sadgirl-slowcore powerhouse Chan Marshall aka Cat Power. The wist she conjures here is really unmatched, probably in part because it’s a song that sounds like it’s nearly falling apart at the seams, even as it’s being recorded. Every player sounds like they’re working out their part in real time, Marshall’s lyrics – “Be true ‘cause they’ll lock you up in a sad, sad zoo” – are spontaneous, esoteric, admirably pure-of-heart; even the song’s climax, where Marshall finally lets loose the song’s title in an empathetic “Metal heart, you’re not hiding,” seems to stumble midway, the rhythm section and guitar unable to agree on where to start and stop. But when I tell you that this song has the power to take me back to almost any point in my life in the last three-odd years, I mean it with my whole (metallic) heart. Biking down an empty street in the spring night, coming back late from a part-time restaurant job; driving up the road through the mountains, towards who knows where; looking out over the city from a hillside, seeing a thousand-hundred little lights sputter outwards and onwards endlessly into the blackness of the mountainside. “Metal Heart” has an unexplainable mystical quality to it that has allowed it (and the whole of Moon Pix) to be everpresent in nearly every part of my life since I first discovered the song all those years ago, and I have a hard time denying that it brings me more solace than most music I’ve heard. Warm, soulful, tender, like the smell of rain on a Saturday morning, or a good soup. — Lucca Swain

“Heart Of The Country” by Paul McCartney

I have a hard time with the word “home” because I’ve never lived in one place for very long until recently–Tennessee and I don’t get along very well, but that’s where I’ve spent the last nine years. My time there is spent mostly idle, driving down long stretches of roads that loop back into each other and going to Walmart when there’s nothing else to do. In the summer, the humidity makes my house on a hill feel walled off from everything else. My parents and I will walk along the outskirts of the woods surrounding the house to pass the time while my dog tries to catch the deer that share the space with us. Besides my mom and dad, Paul McCartney has been a companion of mine for as long as I can remember, and this most recent summer was no different. “Heart Of The Country” was my playground on which I turned a very dull summer into something a little more cheerful. Maybe Paul was picturing a more English countryside vibe instead of sad, rural Eastern Tennessee, but even so, this song now carries the weight of my ninth summer in the country. — Ana Achata

“Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

Chocolate candy, pumpkin pie, barefoot on a summer night, pay phone calls… “Home” perfectly captures the sense of comfort that’s rare to find with another person but is absolutely worth every pitfall when you do. Every element of this song—from the opening whistling to the hopeful trumpets to the gleeful backing vocals—works together to create a song of pure love that’s captivated me since I first discovered the song in middle school. Jade and Alexander, the two main vocalists in “Home,” shine as a couple and their love for each other seeps through the recording; you can practically hear their smiles. I find this song utterly beautiful in its radiance of pure love—the kind where home isn’t a place but a person: “Home is wherever I’m with you.” — Heather Thorn

“Gravity Rides Everything” by Modest Mouse

For almost my whole life I’ve dedicated myself to rejecting where I’m from. Washington was always too rainy, too grey, too much like… me. In the past few years, though, something clicked inside of me. Maybe it’s the distance, maybe the newfound lack of scenery, but mostly it was the realization that there is truly no place in this world like the Pacific Northwest. No where elicits so many “oohs” and “ahs” from a typical drive home. When I think of “home” I think of my childhood, of summers spent making forts in the woods and splashing around in the rivers, I think of “Gravity Rides Everything” by Modest Mouse. I remember the first time I heard it as an eleven year old . I was skating around my culdesac, attempting and failing ollies and successfully scraping up every surface of my body. Echoing from my dad’s sun-bleached boombox informally reserved for summer weekends, the dreamy intro melody made its way into my heart and never left. It was one of the first songs with lyrics that struck me. I was always mumbling “gotta see, gotta know right now/ what’s that riding on your everything/ it isn’t anything at all.” It made me begin to appreciate my surroundings in the cheesiest way possible. I felt seen and from then on I made an effort to immerse myself in every band from my area (especially Modest Mouse). Something about it stuck with me and now every summer sounds like that first one when I had first discovered the beauty of home. — Sophie Parrish

“A Certain Romance” by Arctic Monkeys

They might have lost their cool factor following the death of 2010s Tumblr, but Arctic Monkeys’ first album will always hold a special place in the hearts of dirtbag British teenagers past and present, myself included. Closing out the album, A Certain Romance feels like a reluctant love letter to the immortal hallmarks of British youth culture: pool cues, beer cans, classic Reeboks, loveless teenage relationships. Alex Turner’s declaration that “there’s only music so that there’s new ringtones” feels like the textbook nihilism of a seventeen year old boy, and yet everyone sings along when it plays on the shitty speakers of your local pub. The nostalgia of A Certain Romance isn’t rose-tinted and sickly-sweet; it’s grimy and pessimistic, yet honest and heartfelt. The song’s cast of characters feel intimately familiar to all of my hometown friends, somehow making us miss the fist fights and messy breakups and bad fashion sense of home. But maybe it’s just nostalgia making me feel like home is a time, not just a place. — Mimi Newman

“Nuclear Peace” by Contention & Domain

When I think of home, I think of the American Legion Post 92 in Hollywood, Florida. The building itself is nothing more than the local branch of a veteran’s organization, but the veterans themselves were kind enough to let the South Florida hardcore music scene turn their empty bingo hall into an impromptu concert venue every weekend. A quick glance around would reveal the property still covered in murals of bald eagles and American flags. My friends and I spent so many late nights there listening to the bands play and moshing with our community, so when it came time to pick a song that reminded me of home, I wanted to choose one from my local hardcore scene. Contention and Domain are two bands that I saw perform at the American Legion many times, so a collaboration between both of them felt like the obvious choice. “Nuclear Peace” is a song that I was lucky enough to hear played live by both bands at the first ever hardcore show that I attended. When I listen to it, I feel as though I’m back in that crowded bingo hall for the first time. –Emeline Chopin

 “Satellites” by Ravyn Lenae

It happens that for me going home always involves biking one way or another—even in the dead of winter. Perhaps it’s the fact that I didn’t get my driver’s license until last summer, or because the CTA adds another 20 minutes minimum to any commute, or maybe because I love how flat and wide the streets of Chicago are. Regardless of how piercing the midwest-winter wind feels against my face, how near in color my fingers are to frostbite, the bikelane is my home. I fondly remember one warm ride I enjoyed with my friends, and fellow bums, Salem and Alice. We spedrun the length of the 606 and stopped at the circular observatory at the end to watch the sunset. On our way from Bucktown to Logan Square, we passed Chi Arts, where Ravyn Lenae went to high school. She had just released Hypnos and Salem played Satellites on her speaker while we raced. Lenae’s buoyant vocals rise like the atmosphere, then fall like shooting stars. The song came from and continues to christen Chicago, each time I come home and hop on my trusty steed. — Christian Jones

“What Happens to People?” by Deerhunter

A pure emotional journey. After falling in love with their addictive rock songs shrouded in atmosphere on their first six albums, Deerhunter’s Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? took me by surprise for how much it dialed back the noise for a more subdued, lo-fi psychedelic pop sound. “What Happens to People?” was instantly the standout track for me, very quickly becoming a favorite of mine from Deerhunter and currently being one of my favorite songs of all time. The track opens strikingly, throwing you right into the opening verse with hard-hitting, rapid drumming and somber piano; a highly energetic yet emotionally affecting opening that gives the listener no choice but to be completely immersed. Bradford Cox’s aching vocals lamenting “What happens to people?” over and over, accompanied by the affecting instrumentation, brings to the forefront the existential core of the song. In each chorus, Cox brings life to this sense of existentialism through a series of surreal images – “I can’t remember your face / It’s lost to me,” “Old lady, let me into your rotting house,” “The wounds remain / Unpaved.” It allows for this song to be read into on instinctive emotional levels as well as an in-depth artistic level. That being said, the bridge is the true centerpiece of the song; an instrumental acoustic guitar break that forces you to reflect on the preceding melancholy lyrics while the warm guitar melody tugs on your heartstrings. The bridge is what makes this song more than just appealing, moody indie pop, giving the song a fully-realized structure that intends to emotionally impact the listener from various musical angles. “What Happens to People” is my go-to winter hibernation jam, a sublime piece of indie pop unlike anything I’ve heard before. With its melancholy piano, warm guitar and airy atmosphere, “What Happens to People” is the perfect song to turn on as the leaves turn brown and the weather gets cold. — Diego Gonzalez