Today I've been listening to the Winter Sounds, a band from the Athens of Georgia (a city that is helpfully named Athens). They're indie rock with the usual post-punk references, but they're more virtuosic than normal for a pop band, leading some to refer to their music as a sort of prog-rock. It's enjoyable in the same way as late Sunny Day Real Estate, but with actual harmonies and vocals that stick to a more indie-radio-friendly register. At times it can be so progressive that it can sound a little like Christmas music ("Gone to Save Mankind") and at other times its robotic precision reminds me a little of Iron Maiden ("A Call to Arms"). The Winter Sounds have a particular fondness for incredibly-short guitar licks repeated metronomically, a technique for which I am a sucker. My favorite of their songs is "Windy City Nights," which has the following YouTube video:
(I didn't used to be able embed the music I was writing about directly into my entries. YouTube has done much to liberalize the effect of copyright in this country. Thanks, Google, for largely continuing to not be evil.)
This evening I spent several hours out in the garage (current temperature: 42 degrees Fahrenheit) redoing the wiring for the 240 volt outlet. This outlet had been subsumed by a shelf and I'd designed it for an unusual plug, so all of that had to change. As I worked I was helpless to stop the Winter Sounds playlist as it advanced through the songs I'd yet to deem worthy. In so doing I found much to like, particularly "Static in the Whole."
The directions didn't mention that I had to screw in a special hollow-cored copper fitting to ensure that the wire being fed through my welding gun would have a good connection to the electricity. So I wondered why the damn thing wasn't working when I finally fired it up. Eventually I figured out what the problem was and then, for a half second, confirmed that the thing worked. It created such an obscenely bright yellow flash and such a cloudburst of sparks that I realized that, at least until I know what I'm doing, I should do my welding out in the driveway, far from anything with any proclivity to burst into flames. Another thing: there's a big difference between the goggles one uses for oxy-fuel welding and the kind used for arc welding. The kind used for arc welding is probably five times darker, and I'd been using the wimpier kind during my half-second test. Luckily, along with the welding kit Gretchen also got me an appropriate helmet. I've already written "I am your father, Luke" in white paint across the blank section of the helmet where one would expect to find a mouth capable of saying such things between mechanical breaths.
