Two-Headed Boy: Tunes From Transit Vol. I

From my house to The Clothing Store, it’s about a twenty-five minute drive — a mundane commute on a road I’ve driven my entire life.

On clear days, I see Chicago’s skyline, a gleaming taunt from the skyscrapers to remind me that I’m stuck toiling in a suburban mall. The streets are lined with strip malls, hosting just about any chain you can think of: Panda Express, Verizon, Domino’s Pizza, and McDonald’s — on every corner.  I even drive by a Babies R’ Us, for goodness sakes.

My trip isn’t all bad thanks to my IPod, which I play through my minivan’s tape adapter. People lament about the death of the album, noting how the IPod and other mp3 players have created a “channel-surfing” effect — we don’t have the attention span to listen to an album in its entirety anymore.

At times I think this is true, as all the great songs stored in my IPod make me hyperactive in wanting to hear something else. 22 Two’s by Jay-Z can lead to Two States by Pavement, and then State Trooper by Springsteen, and then Getchoo by Weezer and so on….

The cure to album-abuse can be solved by a drive-time commute. I’m not the best driver in the world, but my car isn’t helping much either. The ol’ ’94 Nissan Quest handles about as well as a skateboard with babies for wheels.  I can’t afford to get into an accident while driving through thick traffic, trying to find a song.

I hear see the paramedics now, examining the wreckage and finding the IPod.

“Poor guy,” they’ll say. “All he wanted to do was listen to Jizz in my Pants.”

That’s why my drive is perfect for putting on an album and listening to it all the way through. Thus begins Two-Headed Boy’s Album-of-the-Month Club. February!

TITUS ANDRONICUS – THE MONITOR

It’s been a year since my band first opened for Titus Andronicus at a venue in the wonderful Midwestern college town where I went to school. The dudes from Glen Rock, NJ needed a place to stay after the show so my roommates/bandmates happily obliged. Two things struck me from the evening.

1.)   TA brings home the bacon live. (I’ve always liked the term “bring home the bacon” because I like bacon and I like clichés.) They are a stellar live band.

2.)   TA is a hungry band. Effort-wise and literally. When I boarded their van to navigate them to our house after the show, their always-engaging/always-bearded singer/guitarist Patrick Stickles was going to town on a bag of Kraft Jet-Puffed brand marshmallows.  It was like manna. As a marshmallow and rock and/or roll enthusiast, I excitedly thought to myself, “This is what life on tour must be like!”

The Titus guys couldn’t be nicer, leaving the next morning to drive to a show in Indiana, gracious for our hospitality. Marshmallows and tunes in consideration, I purchased their first release, 2008’s The Airing of Grievances and was captivated. It’s the sound of The Boss teabagging Win Butler, sprawling punk jams that could fill arenas if they weren’t gleefully self-sabotaged in a swirl of drones and shoe-gaze aesthetics.

Naturally, my friends and I have been eagerly awaiting their follow-up, The Monitor, to the point where once it got leaked we jumped on it. Officially, it surfaces March 9^th.

First off, it’s good. The first day I got it, I snuck back to my car on my break from The Clothing Store to re-and-re-listen to the song Theme from Cheers. Second, it’s epic. Epic is a nice way of saying long. Not considering the short, searing paranoia-blues of the live staple Titus Andronicus Forever and its saxophone-saturated bookend …And Ever, the remaining eight songs average out at around seven minutes long, concluding with The Battle of Hampton Roads, which clocks in at 14:02.

It’s almost like Titus don’t want the songs to be over, scared of what’ll happen if they put down their dukes. I was thinking of other instances of weaving together long, aspiring punk with winding, huge guitar work and thought of Marquee Moon by Television. Not so much musically, but similar in terms of such building, marathon song craft. Definitely not thematically, as The Monitor’s lyrical content references such subjects as Jefferson Davis, The Dark Knight and Keystone Light. Tom Verlaine was never up on that Civil War shit…or maybe I’m not listening close enough.

The interesting part of Titus is their constant line-up fluctuation. Members come and go from tour to tour. We got to play with them again in September, and I personally thought they were hurt by the absence of a real cool Americana-lookin’ fellow named Ian, previously their rhythm guitarist.

The show must go on, and the songs remain the same, so needless to say, I’m very excited to hang/see them when they play a free show at Reckless Records in Chicago in March in support of The Monitor.

That is if The Clothing Store bites on my “family event” excuse for taking the day off. I told them I was going to “the theater” — I mean, I’m seeing Titus Andronicus.

by Two-Headed Boy