__2004-02-09 @ 12:56 a.m._______
15. Smashing Pumpkins- Gish
The only band to have a repeat on the top 25, I discovered Gish shortly after SD and in some ways, this album is the best of the Smashing Pumpkins. On a Friday night, my freshmen year of college, early September 1996, I tripped on 2 hits of acid and listened to Gish on repeat for four hours straight. I didn’t really know anyone in Iowa City just yet and Tim (my roommate at the time) went home for the weekend, so I had the dorm room to myself. I was homesick and just confused as all hell. So what better thing to do than just get fucked up on LSD and dwell on the fact that this was the least comfortable I had ever been in my whole life in my own skin. I remember thinking that the drugs would help me diffuse the brilliance inside of the record and allow an easier, less disrupted flow of that brilliance straight into my brain. Thus, allowing me to further enhance my songwriting and guitar playing. It sounds ridiculous now, but it made all kinds of sense at the time of course. I think anyone who knew me that year could tell you that I was not really in it to win it. I was a pretty good at being space cadet. Thank god Tim was my roommate because I learned every song on this album on electric guitar and he got the short end of it. That year we worked up some hellified versions of “Siva,” “I am One,” and “Rhinoceros.” I had this horrendous Billy Corgan impersonation going on and would just belt it out proud as can be. Luckily, I had some serious Smashing Pumpkins fans on my floor and had access to some of the most obscure bootlegs. So after assessing the songs that were written for Gish (B-sides, other outtakes, ect.), I made a new and improved version of the album which included the song “Blue,” and another song from PI and replaced “Window Paine.” Yeah, I had my mind in the right place my first year in college.
16. Led Zeppelin- Houses of the Holy
Jimmy Page is my favorite classic rock guitar player. He lays it all out on this album, and for how much his playing was influenced by blues (which was so hip in late 1960s/early 1970s), he shines the brightest here on the less bluesy numbers. I had my only blacklight poster of Houses of the Holy hanging in my room freshmen and sophomore year. I guess beyond taking up more space talking about how much this record kicks ass and how much it means to me, I will say that of all the classic rock I have ever owned, this album probably got the most play. It was the most universally accepted album for hippies, punks, frat fucks/sorority witches, indie-geeks, and select parents. Unfortunately, as great as this LZ album is (and I do think it ranks number one or two), it has the worst song in their whole catalog, “D'Yer Mak'er.” WTF, I can’t stand reggae and Zep doing it doesn’t make it any better. But hey, I’ll excuse the most talented band in all of rock n roll history for one song.
17. Grateful Dead- Reckoning/Dead Set
I know this is two albums, but they came from the same tour and came out together. This and next album mark the height of my jam band interest. Fittingly, both are live albums. I still stand by the fact that the Grateful Dead were one of America’s best bands ever. They were completely original and mark a huge change in the American musical landscape. To be completely honest, my interest in this band (and Phish for that matter) is founded in my amazement of musical improvisation. The Grateful Dead were the first rock n roll band to remove musical structure and try to “make it up as they went along.” In the end, it wasn’t the improvisation that hooked me at the time (although that was originally), it was the songs themselves. Jerry Garcia, at his worst, sounded like a drugged up worthless piece of shit noodling away endlessly (and there is a ton of it on tape out there). On these records, you can hear an endearing, soulful Garcia, backed by a focused GD. And when you’re a hippie-loving, jam band friendly college kid like I was, you tend to fall pretty hard for the one that started it all. Ask anyone who likes this kind of music, the Grateful Dead are hard not to like in this genre. Side note- these albums would not be the hippie-jig jamming type of records…more like the “sit around, get really stoned, and relax” type of jam band albums.
18. Phish- A Live One
In my opinion, Phish took what the Grateful Dead did, and went a modernizing step further. They probably improvised (on a whole) more often, they would get extremely dissonant and goofy much more often, and played with a bit more fire. I will admit it, I was a Phish head for about two and a half years and a list like this wouldn’t be accurate without making note of it. This album marks the beginning of that obsession. I think the reason I was so unbelievably in awe of this band was their raw music talent. They were masterful at playing the instruments and could really morph in and out of styles with ease. That said, let me make it very clear that I think Phish (for the most part) can’t write songs for shit. They can jam all night and day (literally, I saw them do it once), but they just don’t have it in them to write any quality songs with any consistency. But at this point in my life, that really wasn’t what I was going for. I bought into the songwriting because I was blinded by their musicianship. Removed, I can now see the error in my ways. So many of the songs on this record are now considered to be classic Phish songs, and there are a couple of greats here. “Slave to the Traffic Light,” and “Stash,” are remarkable compositions and have standout instrumental interplay in each of the songs’ respective improvisational sections. Let’s just say that I heard three of the other songs as background music on the weather channel. Yeah, that’s not good. Can you say new age jazz?
19. Radiohead- OK Computer
I loved The Bends when I first heard it in high school and have loved Radiohead ever since. However, nothing could prepare me for this. Deep (and I mean DEEP) into my hippie-jam-band stage, I had kind of forgotten about Radiohead. Then, I was moving into my apartment sophomore year in 1997, and my roommates Matt and Adam left a copy of Ok Computer on the coffee table with a note that basically said “Hey, we’re at the Radiohead concert in Minneapolis, be back tomorrow- check out the new CD, it’s really fucking good.” And of course, I wanted to think it wasn’t THAT great, since they had hyped it in phone conversations and here on this note. On the first listen, I thought it was pretty damn good but not nearly as good as “The Bends” (remember, Hippie-phase). What ensued that year in our apartment was basically a big ole’ listening party for Ok Computer. I especially remember it being April 1998, and Matt and I were still spending 2 or 3 nights a week with a full album nightcap. I still can’t get over how much ahead of its time it is. But I’ll save the “Ok Computer is the greatest album of the 1990s for reasons a, b, and c,” for another time. The thing about this record is that I’ve spent countless times riding in a car late at night singing along, rediscovering it (Tim and I staying awake on the drive through the Rocky Mountains at night with the album on repeat until we made it through to Denver- remember how the album ended right as we made it through the mountains at sunrise? Wow, what an experience- thanks to the “The Tourist”), Sitting in my room unable to concentrate on anything but Johnny Greenwood’s effects on “Exit Music,” and countless hours driving myself nuts trying to write anything that will ever be as good as “Airbag.” Adam and Matt, do you remember when I first said that I didn’t think “Airbag,” was that great of a song and that it should have never been the album opener? I don’t think I’ve ever been more wrong about anything in my entire life.
20. Yo La Tengo- I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
The time is late 1997, again DEEP into my stupid hippie-jam-band-lovin’ phase. Adam is currently an employee of BJ’s music store in downtown Iowa City and gets the tip on all of the great bands coming in town. He has a couple of free tickets to see this band called “Yo La Tengo,” and wants me to come to the show at half price. I do want to go out on this particular night, but not quite sure if I want to go and see some band I’ve never hear of and besides, they’re playing Gabes so the chances of them being anything remotely like a jam band is extremely slim. Adam assures me that the show will be great and plus, he’s now up’ed the stakes here by offering a free ticket instead of half off. I listen to about half of their latest record, ICHTHBAO, and it sounds ok (the mellow songs sounded pretty cool and they had kind of a 60s pop influence to them that I liked). So off to the show we go. They had just started as we were walking up the stairs, with “We’re An American Band.” I’m floored. They are loud as fuck and are completely catering to my 60s psych-pop likings. About halfway through the show, I turn to Adam and yell into his ear “These guys are a psychedelic rock band! It’s so fucking authentic!” Most of the songs they play are from the new album and I go home that night with the most surprising show I had ever attended under my belt. The purchase of the album comes shortly afterwards.
The time is early 1999, starting to exit the Jam band stage and I am thoroughly enthralled by Yo La Tengo. My girlfriend is Anne, another fan of ICHTHBAO, just recently converted. Every night we go to sleep together and listen to the album. She always falls asleep to “Damage,” or “Shadows,” and I always fall asleep to “Green Arrow,” or “Center of Gravity.” We talk about how great of an album it is together in front of all of our friends and then smile at each other and laugh at our cheesiness, our achingly obvious love of the times we spend together with the album. We go out one night in late April 1999, and get really drunk and I tell her that I would rather go home and listen to ICHTHBAO than be out at the bar. I realize that I might be in love with the feeling of being in love with her and the album than her. I never tell her that. Three and a half months later, she breaks up with me. I can’t listen to the album without getting depressed and upset for two and a half years.
The time is spring 2003, Jam bands are long gone and I have a personal history with Yo La Tengo’s music that seems much longer than it actually is. Jill and I go to sleep one night listening to ICHTHBAO for the first time, by her choice. I’m happy to put it on, however, I wonder if I’ll be able to get any sleep until the whole album is done. Five months later, we go to bed listening to the album again and it feels wonderful. I get the feeling that this body of music is an old friend of mine, in and of itself. I get the feeling that “damn, this is a fucking great album.”
21. Bob Dylan- Desire
In many ways, I had a really bad year in 2000. I dropped a class I was flunking that set me back a whole year from graduation, I was just a wreck from a complete fallout with my ex-girlfriend, I wrecked my car, got 3 speeding tickets (which suspended my license for 3 months), started seeing friends leave school and move away, and for the most part, became a sorry drunk. My roommate at the time was Nick C. from Ottawa and he was really into Bob Dylan, he said he was “a guy who he could always relate to,” (which was a very typical Nick statement). Nick and I would stay up regularly until five, six, seven in the morning drinking, talking about absolutely nothing, and listen to Bob Dylan’s Desire at least three or four times. I don’t know why it ends up being this album of all of the great Dylan albums. I just latched on to songs like “Joey,” “Hurricane,” “Mozambique,” and “Romance in Durango,” because it felt hopeless and uplifting. Bob was particularly passionate on Desire, and I guess I just appreciated that considering the record came out in 1976. At that time, it was pretty hip for country/rock albums to have a party or drugged up atmosphere.
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