My Favorite Albums of 2010 (with bonus material)

So, I recently moved to a new town and I'm trying out the whole no TV or internet thing for a little while (a stupid, almost mindless decision)... I'm finishing off this entry from the public library in Cottonwood, Arizona. What is it about free wi-fi that drags the most bat-shit crazy people out of the woodwork? The guy three seats down keeps laughing out loud, talking to himself, and belching (loudly). I really need to get internet at my new place. Anywhoozle, the following are some of my favorite albums from last year:

10. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Arcade Fire have been on the receiving end of some major figurative dick-sucking from the music critics this year, but let's keep it real here: this album is no Funeral. While it may not be fair to constantly compare bands to their past efforts, it's the best way I know to hold the artist accountable over the years -- and it just seems like Arcade Fire are capable of so much more. On its own merits The Suburbs is a solid album (even if songs like "Rococo" and "Month of May" repetitively drill their namesakes into your head at annoying-as-fuck rates). I'm not sure I get or appreciate the album's concept of being about suburban life in the 80's... as someone who grew up in suburban America during the same time frame, why would I? But to me the story of the album is Regine rocking the shit out of the album's most captivating track "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)." Maybe Win should step aside more often.

9. Bonobo - Black Sands

I went through this downtempo/instrumental phase around the middle of the year, mostly due in part to the uber-talented DJ/musician/producer Simon Green (aka Bonobo). First of all, his entire discography is pretty mind-blowing if you're into this kind of stuff (older tracks "Terrapin" and "Turtle" are personal favs), but his album Black Sands was another solid recording in 2010. I think I was first introduced to this album by my boss just before harvest this year on our cellar crew's trip up to the Wine Loft in Flagstaff. My exact reaction was "I'm not really the kind of person that does mind-expanding drugs, but this album makes me want do some... in a good way." Singer Andreya Triana is featured on three of the album's better tracks (her own 2010 release Lost Where I Belong is great too). Check out "Eyesdown" and "Stay the Same" for awesomeness.

8. Horse Feathers - Thistled Spring

Beard-folk to the max. Listening to any of Horse Feathers' three exquisite albums, I always imagine myself tucked away in some snow-covered cabin in the woods, smoke billowing from its chimney. Or maybe I'm driving across rolling green hills in the middle of nowhere and dark, moody clouds are rolling in. Thistled Spring's descriptive lyrics are replete with images and vignettes from the Pacific Northwest which do nothing to discourage my daydreaming. Portland's Justin Ringle has crafted some truly beautiful songs on this one. "Starving Robins," "Belly of June," and "The Drought" are especially worth checking out.

7. Junip - Fields

For whatever odd reason, this one kind of flew under the radar this year. Jose Gonzalez is already immensely popular in the indie-folk world, but Junip, billed as some kind of Swedish super-group (even though I'm clueless as to who his other bandmates actually are) doesn't seem to get as much love. In a world where even the "double rainbow" guy has his own Wikipedia page, Fields, released back in September, is missing its respective Wiki page to this day. But I digress... this is one of those cohesive albums where just about every song is good in its own way. "Don't Let It Pass" could be soundtrack material, and the first three tracks are great, but it's a toss-up between "Rope & Summit" and "Sweet & Bitter" for best song in my opinion. If you like Gonzalez, it's pretty much a must get.

6. Damien Jurado - Saint Bartlett

Folk album of the year in my opinion. Damien Jurado's been around a long time (this is his ninth album), but this is the first one I've ever owned. I'm thoroughly impressed by how versatile a singer-songwriter he is... sounding at once reminiscent of Neil Young on "Wallingford" and passing for Justin Vernon/Bon Iver on "The Falling Snow"... then there's the first single "Arkansas" which could have played in some roadside diner decades ago. Saint Bartlett is plain good from beginning to end. 

5. Foals - Total Life Forever

You might be hard-pressed to find a band quicker to mature than Oxford, England's Foals. In a total departure from the dance-punk/math-rock beats that put them on the map in 2008 with Antidotes, Total Life Forever leans more on funk to produce one of the more surprising albums of 2010. Opener "Blue Blood" was the #2 most-played song in my iTunes this year... while "Spanish Sahara" (song of the year in my opinion) was #4. I'm almost tempted to say these guys are without peers right now -- no one else is making music quite like this.

4. Menomena - Mines

This band rules. Its members switch instruments regularly and compose their songs on a computer program one of the guys personally invented. All three of them even take turns singing. And just for good measure, they add a little saxophone in a few of their songs (and I would even argue this signature feature should be included more often). Then they went ahead and released a badass music video for the song "Dirty Cartoons." "Five Little Rooms" is the standout track... and yes, it makes glorious use of those saxophones.

3. Sleigh Bells - Treats

People might be shocked to find out I love Sleigh Bells. Truthfully they don't sound like anything else I'm into, but then again how many duos are comprised of an ex-heavy metal  guitarist and a grade school teacher? That's just an awesome story if you ask me. Easily my favorite 2010 debut, Treats is an album that's meant to be listened to with the volume cranked up. "Riot Rhythm" was my #1 most-played song in iTunes for the year (and if you've even turned on a television sometime in the last 6 months you've probably heard it on a Cadillac commercial somewhere). I suppose the best way to describe them is to say that they might sound like M.I.A. if she went out and got some electric guitars. And for such an aggressive album it's no wonder the guitar sounds like a machine gun on the opener "Tell 'Em" and then like the sound of a falling cartoon bomb on the closer "Treats." "Infinity Guitars" was the first song that got me into these guys, but there's so much more to like here. Definitely looking forward to more from Sleigh Bells.

2. The National - High Violet

I've been following The National since I first heard them at one of the music listening stations at the Hoodlum's music store in the lower level of ASU's Memorial Union. Alligator (2005) and Boxer (2007) are two personal favorite albums that I still find myself listening to, but it wasn't until High Violet that The National had put together an album from beginning to end that was so solid. It's a cohesive and approachable set of songs -- upon first listen it was almost as if I'd been listening to grade-A songs like "Sorrow" and "Anyone's Ghost" for a long time. I can see where some might think this less-rocking National album might be too slow or dark or stuck in one gear, but this stuff is right up my alley.  

1. Beach House - Teen Dream

When it really came down to it... and I started thinking about albums that had lasting appeal -- that I'll keep coming back to over the years -- I'd have to say Beach House's Teen Dream is the winner. French-born Victoria Legrand has got some pipes (and maybe the best name ever for a lead singer)! To me, this girl holds her own with some of classic rock's female stars... some would say Stevie Nicks, I say she's way more reminiscent of Grace Slick. I definitely don't pretend to understand or appreciate all the glossy/dreamy/reverb-laden music with half-remembered/nostalgic lyrics that websites give all this high praise to... but I really got into this album (though not truly reverb-laden, but now I'm splitting hairs). People much more talented than I at writing about music have already said wonderful things about Teen Dream. I guess what I really like about the albums is that it challenges what I "like" about music -- the whole dreamy sound, even some tunes that sound like they could have come from the 80's (a terrible decade for a lot of things, but especially music). The tribal drumbeat on "Norway" is hard not to like and every time Legrand sings, "I'll take care of you... if you want me to" over and over on the album-closer "Take Care" I think I start to develop a little crush. It's just funny... in a music world dominated by Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" (and her amazing cleavage), here I am getting sentimental about Beach House's Teen Dream and Victoria Legrand.

Katy Perry's still really fucking hot though. 

 

Thanks for playing (2010 honorable mention):

• The Black Keys - Brothers
• Deerhunter - Halcyon Digest
• Frightened Rabbit - The Winter of Mixed Drinks
• Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
• Vampire Weekend - Contra
• Wolf Parade - Expo '86

Best Non-2010 Discovery: The Antlers - Hospice (2009)

Most Ridiculously Over-the-Top Music Video: Grinderman - "Heathen Child"

Most Adorable Harp-Playing Pixie: Joanna Newsom

Most Unlikely Breakthrough Artist: South Africa's Die Antwoord (yes, they're for real)

Weirdest Live Show I've Ever Seen - Sufjan Stevens at Mesa Arts Center in October

Pleasant Surprise By A Live Performance: DM Stith, opening for Sufjan
Greatest 11-Minute Ode to Charles Darwin: The Knife - "Colouring of Pigeons"

Full Circle

Last Tuesday was like a tightly-written TV episode (think early Scrubs). It was a symbolic day... a day to reflect on where I had come from and where I was headed. It was the day of my one-year anniversary at Arizona Stronghold and to add weight to the situation, it was also a personally significant day since we were putting the finishing touches on bottling the first red wines I was able to work on from beginning to end. Most importantly it was the day I realized making wine was like making a baby.

The wine industry is unlike most other work in that we more or less operate in one year vacuums. Harvest in the northern hemisphere begins roughly in August, lasts till November when the seasonal help goes home, then there's mostly barrel work for 9 months, some blending, then bottling, and then the new harvest comes the following August and you do it all over again. Until this past year I was mostly just harvest help for a few months before jumping ship to the next place (Oregon to New Zealand to Arizona, for those of you keeping score), which sometimes means that I don't even get to taste the finished product! Some particularly badass vintages are held over for an extra year in-barrel to age before they are realeased to the public. This means I haven't been able to try wines from my first harvest in Oregon in 2008 because they don't even get released until this fall. It's a bit of a mindfuck... since the work I did in Oregon, I've done a harvest in New Zealand, toured that country, moved from Portland to Sedona, worked another harvest plus 9 months, had time to write this blog, all while the wine I initally helped make in Oregon won't even come out for another month or two!

As I mentioned last Tuesday was the end of my first full year at a single winery... and the experience of seeing things go from grape clusters to finished, bottled wines was special. I'm not going to lie, I was silently emotional... I'm not sure if the tears were from realizing this situation, or because I had lost all control of my body after 5 days of physically demanding and equally mind-numbing 12-hour bottling sessions. I think I'll blame the latter. I may have also peed myself, but that's neither here nor there. In all seriousness, I was proud -- not about the crying and the peeing myself -- but proud of all the hard work I had put in... and in knowing that I had my hand in helping produce some pretty kickass AZ wines (and hopefully the first 90-point rated "Arizona" wine ever made). Not that I can even pretend to imagine what it's like to have a child, but after preparing and caring for the wines every day for a year, the whole laboring on the bottling line part is like giving birth to a baby. A baby that I helped make with a small group of other people (told you the wine industry was unlike most other industries). And now that baby is going to be released to the rest of the world... and all of you, too, will be able to taste my baby (which I encourage).

My one-year was also a day to think back on my career in wine and where it might be taking me. I do currently love my job at Stronghold (we're making babies!), but I'm having a difficult time reconciling the sub-par social life in Sedona. It's been a year and I really haven't made any friends outside of work. There is also like zero booty to be gotten there... and mostly just gross white trash booty in Cottonwood and Camp Verde. I'm going to re-evaluate the situation at the end of this year, but I feel myself being called back to Oregon -- even San Luis Obispo/Paso Robles area would be an interesting California challenge. It'd be tough to give up a rare full-time position in an industry I love, but if I'm not living a balanced life then I think I'm at least forced to consider the possibility of living somewhere else.

On the other hand, as much symbolism as August 3rd represented for me... the reward of a year's worth of work, questions about the future, and the reminder of just how alone I am in this tourist-ridden city... there was some silver lining the next day. That day one of our bottling helpers was a cute girl with dark hair and blue eyes (sexy!). And in a few short minutes I discovered she knew about the small town where I lived in New Zealand (exclamation point!). I think I had a little "bottling crush" on her and though I'm not sure I'll ever see her again, it was nice even for just an afternoon to feel something for a change.

P.S. -- my parents occasionally contact a psychic (yes, psychic... I know) and she says I'm supposed to meet someone very soon and have a baby in one year -- and I don't think she means the wine kind. I'm not so thrilled about the real baby part, but I believe that would be what they call coming full circle.

My 20 Favorite Albums of the New Millenium

20. Pinback - Summer in Abaddon (2004)
 
Excuse the analogy, but Pinback is like an upper-tier middle reliever in baseball: under the radar to most fans and deserving of a lot more respect. I can't believe people aren't more familiar with this band. It is, after all, some pretty accessible indie rock -- even if the lyrics are nothing to write home about. I just love their sound. Summer in Abaddon reminds me of my junior year at ASU, walking/riding my bike to class through that sketchy neighborhood to the east of campus. Maybe the sexiness of the slinky guitars, the awesome drums, and the slightly jazzy piano helped to ease my mind. If these songs were a person, they'd be a sexy, sexy person. And I would sleep with that person. To wrap this thing up, this album is like a middle reliever that I want to have sex with. That's... what... I... think I'm trying to say here (we're off to an amazing start). Also check out their previous album Blue Screen Life for other sweet songs like "Offline PK", "Concrete Seconds" (sooo reminds me of waiting for public transport in Portland), and perhaps their best songwriting effort, "Penelope."

Favorite Lyric:
Uh oh, I could strangle you all
Uh oh, did I say that out loud?
     -- "This Little Red Book"


Top Three Tracks:
Non Photo-Blue
Syracuse
3x0


19. The Decemberists - Picaresque (2005)

Is it cliche that during the month of December I listened to a shitload of The Decemberists? You want songwriting... these guys are a bottomless pit of amazingly interesting tales. You want a song about a young Spanish princess's coronation ("The Infanta")? Check. A 9-minute tale of revenge achieved in the belly of a whale ("The Mariner's Revenge Song")? Check. A whimsical anecdote about blowing the big game ("The Sporting Life")? Check. A Cold War-infused love affair ("The Bagman's Gambit")? Quadruple check. These guys are ridiculous, and so is their subject matter on this, my favorite of their albums. Lame personal anecdote: at work at the winery I change the lyrics to the song "Eli, the Barrow Boy" to "Brandon, the Barrel Boy." An equally chilling substitution.

Favorite Lyric:
The entirety of "The Mariner's Revenge Song." Or...


Meet me on my vast veranda
My sweet untouched Miranda
     -- "We Both Go Down Together"


... what other band would be crazy enough to even attempt a rhyme with the word "veranda"?! Fucking rules.


Top Three Tracks:
The Mariner's Revenge Song
We Both Go Down Together
The Sporting Life


 18. matt pond PA - Emblems (2004)

Yeah, that's right... "matt pond"... no caps. Like a 21st Century e.e. cummings, if you will. Only with like 100% less sonnets. Ah, progress. Can you imagine a world today filled with sonnets? I sure don't want to, so let's talk about matt pond PA instead. This band is 1) the shit and 2) too prolific for its own good. I mean, everyone can only take the guy-wants-girl, girl-denies-guy schtick so many times. In 11 years, these guys have put out 7 full-length albums (with another one coming next year) and 12 shorter EP's. Basically, every six months something is coming from Mr. Pond and that's not always great news (2007's Last Light sucked). And as a long-time fan I have to wonder: are they just phoning it in at this point? And how come he never seems to get the girl? Is he some closet asshole behind the nice-guy act or something? But I digress. Emblems is matt pond PA at their best and most accessible -- a great intro to the band... as are 2002's The Green Fury and 2005's Several Arrows Later (my first mppa album). I guess a few years back their cover of "Champagne Supernova" made it on to a little TV show called The O.C., which to my knowledge made not one e.e. cummings reference (not that I ever watched that shite). Suck on that, cummings! (That's what he said?)

Favorite Lyric:
Look out
There is danger even in the simple word hello
Hiding in the reeds
You would not believe where darkness goes
     -- "Closest (Look Out)"

Top Three Tracks:
Closest (Look Out)
The Butcher
Grave's Disease


 17. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes (2008)
 
Holy hell, was 2008 a great year for indie rock debuts or what? Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, and Fleet Foxes? Unbelievable. This record is one of my all-time favorites and, in the context of this list, is only this low because most of the other albums have had an extra 7-8 years to work their way into my heart. Fleet Foxes draw from all realms of folk -- hints of Neil Young without the feeling that you're being sung to by white trash, notes of Appalachian folk with less twang and less suck -- and their harmonizing might be some of the best since the Beach Boys. They're doing it from one of the least folky places in the country too -- metropolitan Seattle. "White Winter Hymnal" might be my favorite song in the history of mankind. Honestly, chill-inducing. This debut will forever remind me of my first wine harvest and the hour-long commute through the farms of rural Oregon. There's truly not a bad track on the album, even if "Oliver James" can get to be a bit grating. After this album and the Sun Giant EP (which features the awesome song "Mykonos"), I can't wait to see what else these guys can put out.

Favorite Lyric:
I was following the pack
All swallowed in their coats
With scarves of red tied 'round their throats
To keep their little heads
From fallin' in the snow
And I turned 'round and there you go
And, Michael, you would fall
And turn the white snow red as strawberries
In the summertime...
     -- "White Winter Hymnal"

Top Three Tracks:
White Winter Hymnal
Sun It Rises
Blue Ridge Mountains


 16. Frightened Rabbit - Midnight Organ Fight (2008)

Speaking of bands that deserve some serious respect, Scotland's Frightened Rabbit fucking rock. And it's appropriate that I use the word "fucking" because that's what a lot of this album is about. Not that Midnight Organ Fight (innuendo, or am I just a perv?) is obscene, it's just so post-awful-breakup and real life that you can't help but love it. Grant Hutchison's thundering drums and his brother, singer Scott Hutchison's undeniably Scottish brogue, make this album -- and it's just the right amount of brogue if you ask me. Snow Patrol (though technically Northern Irish)? Not enough brogue. Twilight Sad? Way too much brogue. Frightened Rabbit? The Goldilocks of brogue. Awesome songs and witty vocals abound on this album, notably on the first track, the anthemic "Modern Leper." The album is ostensibly about Hutchison coping following a breakup, and on "Backwards Walk" when he confessedly repeats, "You're the shit and I'm knee deep in it" you can't help but want to give the poor bastard a hug. A great album (well worth the $9.99 on iTunes and a literal steal on Pirate Bay) and a pleasant musical discovery in 2008 to say the least.

Favorite Lyric:
Jesus... is just a Spanish boy's name.
How come one man got so much fame?
     -- opening lines from "Head Rolls Off"

Top Three Songs:
Head Rolls Off
The Modern Leper
Fast Blood


15. Pedro the Lion - Control (2002)

I miss Pedro the Lion. I mean, I get it... singer and Pedro mastermind David Bazan has moved on to a few solo projects (Headphones) and has recently released an album under his own name... but I still miss the magic that was Pedro the Lion. There's just something incredibly captivating about someone at odds with their faith. Mainly I'm just interested to see if Bazan will turn out to be a heathen like me, but regardless this whole tortured soul business can make for some good listening indeed. On Control however, Bazan -- sometimes labelled a "Christian" indie artist -- laments American vanity and the domestication of married life. It can come off as a bit more polished than some of his earlier work like 1998's It's Hard to Find a Friend, which features the superb indie-pop that is "Big Trucks." Still, Control is a great example of Bazan at his most contemplative... even if it's more regarding his country than his faith or religion.

Favorite Lyric:

The ultraviolet rays are washing over all the boys and girls
As their moms lay tanning by the pool
Oh, look, their dad's arriving home
All the children hug his neck
Unaware of their inheritance
     -- "Indian Summer"

Top Three Tracks:
Indian Summer
Priests And Paramedics
Rehearsal


14. Bloc Party - Silent Alarm (2005)

Just to give a point of reference here, it was 2005 when Bloc Party's debut Silent Alarm was released. Freshman and sophomore years of college had passed and believe me I was perfectly content to let the past keep the New Found Glory, Early November, and Taking Back Sunday songs that I had so previously loved (why, god, why?). I had just gotten into some bands like the previously mentioned matt pond PA and Pedro the Lion, as well as others like The Appleseed Cast, American Football, Owen. And who could forget Garden State introducing most of the world to The Shins just the year before in 2004? And you take a look at those names and it's no secret that by and large they produce slower, introspective tunes. Then these Londoners dropped a massive bomb on my musical world. From the moment I first saw the music video for the first single "Banquet" I knew I had to get this CD. Then like a week later I heard this amazing song on a Target commercial of all things (I know, right?) and it turned out to be another fantastical (yes, fantastical) Bloc Party song called "Always New Depths" (which is unfortunately not on Silent Alarm). So I bought the album (probably at Target, that ad must have fucking worked!) and I thought to myself... what are these tasty licks? What rhythm! What joyous angular guitars! Crazy drumming! And what's this... I want to dance? I never dance, but it made me fucking want to! And that's saying one hell of a lot. Thank you Bloc Party for irreversibly altering my musical tastes (even if it's still hard as hell to actually get me to dance).


Favorite Lyric:


It's so cold 
in this house!
     -- "Like Eating Glass"

Top Three Tracks:
This Modern Love
Little Thoughts
So Here We Are


13. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend (2008)

I didn't like Vampire Weekend from the start. Vaguely reggae-infused, yuppie, east coast, Ivy league, indie rock that was highly regarded well before their first album dropped... I hated the whole idea. I'm not quite sure when the switch in my brain turned, but when I first arrived in Portland, this album was basically all I listened to when I walked around the neighborhood in Northwest PDX. All of the sudden I loved it all. The yuppie-ness... who in the world sings about kefir (cultured goat milk)? I was able to find kefir at the Trader Joe's around the corner from my place and I love it, by the way -- thanks, Vampire Weekend! Now I don't get a reggae vibe at all -- it just sounds like a new age Africanized-version of The Police, which is cool with me. I still occasionally pick up kefir at the New Frontiers Market here in Sedona, and I still listen to Vampire Weekend and it makes me think of those days of walking around NW Portland.

Favorite Lyric:

Walcott, fuck the women from Wellfleet
Fuck the bears out in Provincetown
Heed my words and take flight
     -- "Walcott"


Top Three Tracks:
Walcott
Oxford Comma
Mansard Roof


12. Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago (2008)


What can I possibly say about Bon Iver that hasn't been said already? There's the legendary status of this album being basically recorded by singer Justin Vernon, alone in the Wisconsin woods. It was easily my favorite album last year. "Skinny Love" was probably tied or a close second to Fleet Foxes "White Winter Hymnal" for my favorite song of the year. In just one year I've literally listened to For Emma, Forever Ago to death on two CD's (and recently had my original gladly stolen by a coworker), I have it on iTunes on two different computers, and now I own it on vinyl. As a matter of fact, it's my favorite album released in the last five years. It's a haunting record, ideal for winter-time listening and it's another one that will forever remind me of driving up Germantown Road northwest of Portland on my way out to my first wine harvest. When I saw them perform in September this year (third row!), it was one of those rare moments that you build up in your head that can't possibly live up to expectation, but then it actually does. I actually drove to Mesa for just a couple of hours in the middle of a wine harvest (70+ hour work weeks) just for the chance to see these guys. And if you want to get really sentimental: my obsession has extended to the point that when I wear flannel, Blake says I look like Justin Vernon with my beard. Yikes, I swear it must be subconscious. I can't issue enough superlatives about this album. And nothing I could write would ever convey the true beauty of this debut album. If you haven't heard the whole album, I have two questions for you: 1. What rock have you been living under? And 2. What in the hell are you waiting for already? This one's an instant classic.



Favorite Lyric:

And I told you to be patient
And I told you to be fine
And I told you to be balanced
And I told you to be kind
And in the morning I'll be with you
But it will be a different kind
And I'll be holding all the tickets
And you'll be owning all the fines
     -- "Skinny Love" 

Top Three Tracks:
Skinny Love
For Emma
Flume


11. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head (2002)




Back before Coldplay ruled the world, they were just the next little 4-piece from some island off of mainland Europe. Back then in 2002, Chris Martin had yet to marry Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay as a band had yet to try their hand at selling out, copying U2, and/or generally sucking. Not to say that they were little-known by the time A Rush of Blood to the Head came out, but they were still the little band that could -- on their own, at that. I still remember the first time I heard "In My Place"... in a Roman hotel room with my family. At that time I was already in love with Coldplay from their first album Parachutes, but I'd have to wait for this new album to arrive back home in the US. And what a second album it was. A Rush of Blood to the Head was a tremendous success both commercially and in my own mind. The pinnacle: "Clocks" won record of the year at the Grammy's. The little band that could had hit the big time (in retrospect, perhaps for the worse). All told, AROBTTH is a great album by any means -- littered not with "could be" singles, but bona fide ones that have been lauded the world over. Following this album, it's basically taken the band 6 years to put out a decent album (Viva la Vida) and even that one was just that: decent. From a band that's gone from amazing (Parachutes), to exceptional (A Rush of Blood to the Head)... to bad (X&Y) to just decent? I'm glad to see they might be back on the right track, but will I really care the next time Chris Martin muses falsetto about his amazing life, married to a beautiful American actress? How many of us can really relate...?

So this was more of a diatribe on Coldplay, but Rush of Blood is still pretty good :)

Favorite Lyric:

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
I'm going back to the start 
     -- "The Scientist"

Top Three Tracks:
The Scientist
Warning Sign
Green Eyes


10. The Shins - Oh, Inverted World (2001)


Far and away the coolest thing to ever originate from New Mexico -- not that that's saying a whole lot. I really wish I could claim that I knew about The Shins before Garden State, but I didn't. And that's ok, becuase I will literally do anything Natalie Portman says... so when she told the world that "this song will change your life," I knew I couldn't doubt her (look at that face... could she lie?). "New Slang" and "Caring Is Creepy" are modern classics. "One By One All Day," "The Celibate Life," "Girl on the Wing" and "Girl Inform Me" are sunny, retro-influenced indie pop at its finest. And this album is The Shins at their best. For the first-time listener, it must be hard to believe this came out in 2001. These guys seem like they're from another time.

Favorite Lyric:

I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am I too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well. 
     -- "New Slang"

Top Three Tracks:
New Slang
Caring Is Creepy
Girl Inform Me


9. Wolf Parade - Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005)




Don't look now Seattle, but Montreal has been putting out some of the best music over the last decade. And I would say from the past decade, Montreal's Wolf Parade have without a doubt put out the best pure rock album. If I were giving these albums a rating out of 10, Apologies to the Queen Mary might score in the top 3 -- there are just too many other "favorite" albums that I get nostalgic about and that stand in the way of ranking it any higher in this list. There's not a single bad track on here -- one of the rare albums where I never have to skip a song. Strangely this album reminds me of San Diego... on one memorable trip there I drove Nick, Phil, and Blake around town and to the beach and I basically played this CD non-stop.Not exactly a beach CD though... what with the singing about ghosts and zombies and all. Plus, how many bands can sing about a zombie invasion ("It's A Curse") and not make it sound downright awful? Au contraire, it makes for one of the best songs on the album. Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner must be two of the best frontmen in all of indie rock... and they're in the same band. Did your mind just explode? Well, my pants did. Check out their respective side projects Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs for more musical awesomeness.

Favorite Lyric:

I said nobody knows you
And nobody gives a damn either way
About your blood, your bones
Your voice, and your ghost
Because nobody knows you
And nobody gives a damn either way
     -- "I'll Believe In Anything"

Top Three Tracks:
Shine A Light
I'll Believe in Anything
This Heart's On Fire


8. Iron & Wine - Our Endless Numbered Days (2004)


Now we get to the really nostalgic stuff! Iron & Wine is another one of those bands I just didn't get off on the right foot with. Really it was their cover of "Such Great Heights" which appeared on the aforementioned Garden State Soundtrack in lieu of the original beloved Postal Service version. I hated it. Man, was it sloooow? And this fucking guy was whispering... into what sounded like some kind of a tin can with a recording device on it? Then I discovered this was called "lo-fi" and eventually ended up buying a couple of Mr. Sam Beam's records. I don't really know that I ever fell in love with Our Endless Numbered Days until I was relocating to Portland in mid-2008. One morning I woke up in my San Luis Obispo hotel and headed up the coast to Morro Bay -- and just outside SLO there are tons of these rolling hills and really beautiful vineyards. There was something about the natural beauty, the finger-plucked guitar, and Beam's hushed voice that was just perfect. I think about that moment a lot... even considering a potential move to SLO within the next two years. It's a little funny to mention nostalgia alongside an album that I've only been listening to for such a short while, but Our Endless Numbered Days has such a natural and intimate sound that it feels like I've had it lying around forever. Definitely my favorite folk album.



Favorite Lyric:

Love is a dress that you made 
Long to hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I'll love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair?
     -- "Love and Some Verses"

Top Three Tracks:
Love and Some Verses
Naked As We Came
Sodom, South Georgia


7. Death Cab for Cutie - The Photo Album (2001)



The possibility exists that next decade I'll look back and shun Death Cab the way I currently shun the music I listened to in high school. The boyish voice of Ben Gibbard, the emotive lyrics, the appearance on the new Twilight Soundtrack (and the assumed increased swooning of teenage girls). All the signs are there for a good shunning, but I doubt it. Death Cab will forever hold a special place in my heart. Why? For starters I don't think I listened to any other band more in college... nay, possibly my life. Maybe it's because they're just so damn easy to relate to. Who hasn't lived through a regretful breakup ("We Laugh Indoors")? Who hasn't been confronted with having to take in your ex's new life ("Why You'd Want To Live Here")? Maybe it's because there's just a bunch of plain catchy songs on here. Revisit "Blacking Out The Friction" and just try not to tap your foot on the ground (note: foot-tapping not advisable in a D.C.-area men's restroom).

Favorite Lyric:

I don't mind the weather
I've got scarves and caps and sweaters
I've got long johns under slacks for blustery days
I think that it's brainless 
To assume that making changes 
To your window's view
Will give a new perspective
     -- "Blacking Out the Friction"

Top Three Tracks:
Blacking Out the Friction
Why You'd Want To Live Here
A Movie Script Ending


6. Owen - Owen (2001)


Owen (Mike Kinsella) is one of my all-time personal favorites and another artist that I wish more people knew about and appreciated. Just so that I could have someone to talk with about how incredible this music really is. An album that has such a calming effect that I used to put on before bed-time back in sophomore and junior years of college. Truthfully this album as well as American Football's self-titled 1999 release (another Kinsella-voiced band) helped get me through a pretty tough stretch in college. It was the semester I was scheduled to take the LSAT... my then-girlfriend and I broke up... then the apartment I shared with Michael was involved in a fire that put two students in the hospital... the building was condemned and we had to move back in with our families. I was scheduled to take the LSAT two weeks later, but instead put it on hold indefinitely (and still haven't taken it to this day). I was too stressed to take a life-determining test in that kind of a mental state. At that time, I just needed someone to let me feel sorry for myself or at least something to relate to. I remember studying my ass off in the stacks at Hayden Library for hours listening to this album. And then magically at the end of that semester I posted my highest ever GPA! Since then I've been a fan of Owen and all things Mike Kinsella. His next two albums, No Good For No One Now and I Do Perceive, are a little more upbeat and are both standouts in their own right.

Favorite Lyric:
I've a picture of you:
A Parisian street
Early morning
Late spring
And I know what you were thinking
You were taking a break from life
You were traveling light
(A pair of walking shoes

and a sweater)
You were where you were when
You pictured where you'd be:
Anywhere but home


Top Three Tracks:
Places To Go
Most Days and
Most Nights


5. Modest Mouse - The Moon and Antarctica (2000)




Musical genius! Backwards drums?! WTF? Are we still on planet Earth? If you're listening to The Moon & Antarctica by Modest Mouse then just barely, my friend. Song titles like "3rd Planet", "Gravity Rides Everything", "Dark Center of the Universe" and "The Stars Are Projectors" do nothing to discourage classifying this album as other-worldly. It's just as well, really... musical talent, lyrical wisdom, general badassery... there aren't many people on Earth that could touch Modest Mouse and lead singer Isaac Brock in any of these categories. I fucking love these guys. And I get so blindsided that I can't conjure up any words less generic than "amazing", "brilliant", or "awesome" to better describe this album. Although in my case at least, it literally does inspire awe. And that's a rarity :)

Favorite Lyric:
These walls are paper thin
And everyone hears every little sound
Everyone's a voyeur as

They're watching me watch them watch me right now
     -- "Paper Thin Walls"



Top Three Tracks:
3rd Planet
Paper Thin Walls
Gravity Rides Everything


4. The Postal Service - Give Up (2003)


It's almost 2010 and by now everyone and their grandma has heard at least one Postal Service song (assuming your grandma owns a television set). It's true, I'm thinking mostly of those UPS commercials that utilize "Such Great Heights" in the background. You know, the ones that after years still seem to come on every other commercial break with the smug asshole and the dry-erase board? Ah, you know it. Wait, why are The Postal Service and UPS joining forces? Aren't they like, rivals or some shit? So you'd think. Turns out Mr. Zooey Deschanel in Washington and some techno dude (Jimmy Tamborello from Dntel) on the east coast got together and decided it would be a great idea to mail each other demos across the country as a way of developing a joint album. And they probably went "We'll call ourselves The Postal Service! GET IT?!" And they laughed and laughed and slapped their knees all the way to those UPS commercials! That's what they did. And then you know what those selfish pricks did after that? They quit making music together. And now we're left with some awful knock-off band called Owl City. Fuck you, Owl City. Fuck you straight to hell. (Seriously have you heard that shit? It's the definition of awful.)

Favorite Lyric:

You seem so out of context
In this gaudy apartment complex
A stranger with your door key
Explaining that I'm just visiting
And I am finally seeing
Why I was the one worth leaving
     -- "The District Sleeps Alone Tonight"

Top Three Tracks:
Sleeping In
The District Sleeps Alone Tonight
We Will Become Silhouettes


3. Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism (2003)


Mr. Zooey Deschanel strikes again! What a lucky bastard Ben Gibbard is. I don't really fancy myself the jealous type, but I've literally never been more jealous of anyone for any single thing than him and the fact that he gets to be married to her -- and that whole super-succesful musician thing. On the flip side, way to lock it up, buddy. Things weren't always so rosy for the Death Cab frontman though. For example the album's title track (all 8 minutes of it) epically details a failing long-distance relationship. For me, this album is just a great case of being a new release that, at that time, ended up as the perfect soundtrack to my life (way too many "distance" relationships for any normal college student, in retrospect). I still vividly remember sitting in my freshman-year dorm watching the music videos for "The New Year" and "Sound of Settling" on MTVu! Man, whatever happened to music videos? Well, "Title and Registration" is a pretty great one as far as indie rock music videos go. One of my longtime favorite bands and arguably their best album.

Favorite Lyric:

And when I see you
I really see you upside down
But my brain knows better
It picks you up and turns you around
Turns you around
     -- "A Lack of Color"

Top Three Tracks:
Title and Registration
The New Year
A Lack of Color


2. Coldplay - Parachutes (2000)


I'm not gonna lie, at first it feels a little weird putting a world-success like Coldplay on a list replete with indie acts, but back at the beginning of the decade even Coldplay were relative unknowns stateside. I can recall seeing the music video for "Yellow" for the first time super late at night on one of the music channels. I can remember putting it on my Christmas list that year. And I can remember being thrilled to see Parachutes under the wrapping when I opened that present on Christmas morning. Getting a new album seems much less of an "occassion" these days, doesn't it? I can vaguely remember Parachutes being one of the first CD's on rotation in my car when I first got my Civic. Things were so much easier then. And that's why I like this album -- a reminder of an easier time. But it's funny what time will do: sometimes when I go back and listen to Parachutes I find the singles "Yellow" and "Spies" borderline annoying (probably because we've heard them a million times now) and take much greater pleasure in songs like "Sparks", "Shiver" and the lesser-touted "We Never Change." In some ways I guess you could say that for me the album is comparable to a fine wine, evolving over the years yet still standing the test of time. Parachutes is Coldplay at their absolute best; pre-headlines, pre-U2-sounding-guitar comparisons, and pre-weight-of-the-world expectations. That's how I like to think of the band anyway.


Favorite Lyric:

So, I wanna live in a wooden house
Where making more friends would be easy
I wanna live where the sun comes out
     -- "We Never Change"

Top Three Tracks:
Shiver
Don't Panic
Sparks


1. Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)


It's hard to come up with a review that would be halfway decent enough to do justice to the greatness that is Arcade Fire's Funeral... and I'm still not certain that's something I can accomplish. Funeral is an album that is nothing if not epic. Add on to that the band's dramatic flair and I could see where some people might think this album is a little over the top. In my humble opinion, Arcade Fire's songwriting formula (notably the song-ending, goosebump-inducing crescendo into awesomeness) is what make them a hit. There's also a bit of a story behind this, their debut album. Mainly that it was recorded shortly after the deaths of three of the band's family members... so you can well imagine that Funeral is a bit of an emotional album. 

There's truly not a bad track on the album. If Fleet Foxes' "White Winter Hymnal" isn't my favorite song in the world, then it has to be Funeral's opening track, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)." At this point I'm fairly certain the album's second song is about Chris "Alex" McCandless from Into the Wild -- a theory that does nothing to assuage my love of the band or this album. Overall there were, technically speaking, three other singles released from Funeral (Neighborhood #3, Wake Up, and Rebellion), but if you were to ask me I wouldn't be surprised if all 10 were to receive commercial success. Just for good measure Arcade Fire switch it up near the end of the album when lead singer Win Butler's wife and fellow band member, Régine Chassagne, sings on both "Haiti" and the album's closer "In the Backseat." Oh, and she's not too shabby either.

It's an album about things universally human; whether it be growing up, getting older, or dealing with loss. And while funerals can be particularly sad affairs, there's something uplifting about this one.




Favorite Lyric:

With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
With my lightning bolts a-glowin'
I can see where I am going
You better look out below!
     -- "Wake Up"

Top Three Tracks:
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Wake Up
Neighborhood #2 (Laika)

Wolf Among Wolves

Three weeks ago I wrote one monster of a blog detailing the adventures of the past 16 months of my life. It was conveniently broken down by the major events (a month-long solo road trip up the Pacific Coast Highway, my life after moving to Portland, working the New Zealand wine harvest, and returning to Arizona) and contained enough "unbearably light" life experiences to make even Milan Kundera proud. But when I went back and read what I had saved, it didn't seem to do justice to those experiences (which, without wanting to sound like a grade-A cock, might only be fully captured by something akin to a short novel). Hoping to avoid alienating any potential readers with 5 pages of my first post in months, I have retracted that entry and written this (arguably) shorter one in its place.

Just between you and me, I'm not that much different these days anyway. I'm a little bit skinnier (over 30 pounds, actually). A little bit hairier in the face region. The music I listen to is increasingly of the folk variety. I find myself being drawn to dress in flannel (?) more and more. But personality-wise, I'm still sarcastic as fuck. My worldview is still that my glass is half full. I'm still the same old Brandon.

I have, however, had a few interesting life experiences... being that I have done my damnedest to eschew the typical post-grad (office job, marriage, baby, house) lifestyle. I really did get in my car and drive up the Pacific Coast for a month -- a journey inspired by (but hardly resembling the spartan nature of) a certain infamous book. I yearned to create a life from nothing, a blank slate, so I moved to a place where I didn't know a soul (sound like another book?). I pursued not jobs that were simply related to my degree, but ones that were dreams of sorts. And I got my dream job -- working my first wine harvest at Elk Cove in tiny Gaston, Oregon. There I worked with the soon-to-be chief winemaker at Mud House in Marlborough, New Zealand and was fortunate enough to be able to eke out a job offer to work their harvest earlier this year. In New Zealand I guess you could say I got a little homesick (for the US, and especially Arizona) and I stumbled across this random winery that was hiring harvest help in Northern Arizona, sent my resume, and got that job. I guess you could say that a lot of this past year or so hasn't been so much about personal discovery (although in many ways it has), but more about really achieving my dreams. And to that I owe a ton to everyone who has ever ushered words of encouragement and to, more specifically (and more electronically!), The Last Lecture. Sitting here today I can check off: an epic road trip, moving to Portland, working in the wine industry, and living abroad. Not too shabby for 16 months.

"AND NOW?!" you ask crazily and perhaps over-enthusiastically. I'm living in beautiful Sedona, commuting to work at Arizona Stronghold Vineyards just outside Camp Verde. I was recently asked to stay on full-time after harvest, and I'm thrilled to say that I have my first year-round winery gig as a Cellar Hand/Production Assistant. For someone that's never really known what they've wanted to do for a living, there's a tremendous weight off my shoulders realizing that I've found what I want to do for the rest of my life. And to be able to do it so close to friends and family is quite an opportunity -- I mean, American wine is so often associated with California, Washington or Oregon, but even I was surprised we had Arizona wine. Life in the Verde Valley is certainly interesting to say the least. The good thing is that Sedona is stunning... like more so than anything I saw in New Zealand. Here's a picture of just my backyard:

The other plusses are that I've got a great living situation, I'm loving my job (still shake my head every morning when I remind myself that I'm getting paid to learn how to make wine), and that I must be living near one of Sedona's good "vortexes" (or, vortices, which I dorkily remind everyone) because I don't think I can remember a time when I was this, well, content.

The downside is that there seem to be no good-looking girls my age (or anyone my age, period) in Sedona... this is becoming painfully obvious. On the upside there aren't many guys either, so when I do find a cute girl they won't have much room to improve upon. Ha! That's always a good reason to date someone. Also, Sedona's aversion to chain retailers means that anytime I want/need to buy something other than groceries I have to make a trek to Cottonwood (30 minutes), Flagstaff (45 minutes), or even Phoenix (2 hours)... yet I refuse to take a single step inside Wal-Mart even if it is on my way home from work. Thirdly, it's really easy to fall into a Verde Valley bubble and forget about the rest of the world (or strangely not hear about the sweatlodge deaths outside town until it makes it to national TV). But overall I'm in a good place (sweatlodge-free... that's what I always say) and I can come down to the Phoenix area on the weekends whenever I like.

And that's all I've got for this entry. I'm sure a bunch of the Portland and New Zealand stories will come up in future blogs, or say if you and I have one of those old-fashioned face-to-face conversations... how 'bout that? Oh, here's one before I go: I never realized that I love foreign girls until I went to New Zealand. Not so much the Kiwis themselves, but I think in retrospect I had a little crush on just about every non-American girl I worked with or met over there. Maybe it's the accents, maybe it's the charmingly broken English. I just love them. And before I settle completely down, I will definitely do a wine harvest in France.
 


Loudon Wainwright III - Swimming Song

The Last of the Interns

So I am deeming this the worst-run blog in the history of blogdom. It's not entirely my fault, however, seeing as how my power cord malfunctioned two weeks into my trip to New Zealand, leaving me with no way to charge my computer. Then, a couple weeks ago my wireless internet adapter quit working, so I've had little other choice than to squeeze in 15 whole free minutes at the local library (which is frequently packed and closes 45 minutes after I get home from work) or to try to plug into the internet at my new house via hard-line connection (which is in the homeowner's bedroom). My other choice is to go to the lone internet cafe in town, which is inexplicably owned by -- and filled to the brim with -- Brazilians. But seeing as how I just spent $320 NZD on a hospital visit (turned out to be a 4mm kidney stone), I'd rather access the internet for free and save some money in the hope that maybe... just maybe... I might be able to see a little bit of this country when I'm done.

Things have been going relatively well here, aside from the kidney stone (which has been every bit as painful as advertised). I am now the last remaining foreign cellar hand at the winery since Tom Jones took off on Saturday for a stint in Australia before returning home to England. Last weekend was a three-day weekend courtesy of the Queen's Birthday (God save the Queen!), so Tom and I headed out in his campervan and stayed the night at a campground at Nelson Lakes. Following a 90-minute trek, some pasta, and two bottles of NZ wine, we slept in the van during what must have been one of the coldest nights of our lives (heard it was -7 Celsius). The next day we headed to Abel Tasman National Park and vowed to stay in a backpackers. Abel Tasman was pretty awesome... it was far more tropical than I expected and I was often thought I was in Hawaii instead of New Zealand. We hopped on a fairly cheap water taxi in the morning that dropped us off at Anchorage Bay before 10AM. It was perfect weather for a hike, but since it's winter here we had the trail mostly to ourselves except for the occasional group of people and some loud California girls (effin' Yanks).

I'm in a new house now, which I really like. It's just me, the lady that owns the house, Mary, and a guy named Dave who works at another winery called Cloudy Bay... oh, and Boss, a 7-year old Jack Russell! Mary's a British transplant who's been in New Zealand for 14 years... and she has a pretty spectacular BBC-tinged DVD collection. British humor... ahem, humour... is a little different, but The Fast Show is definitely worthy of a Netflix rental or two. Dave's pretty cool too... my first weekend here we did some wine tasting together at St. Clair, La Strada, and Highfield Estates. Last weekend we made a trip over to White's Bay and Monkey Bay to take in the scenery (since there truly isn't much to do in Blenheim).

Blenheim isn't actually so bad... and I think I kind of like living in a small town. At least for just a little while :). For example, I think the last 5 times in a row that I've gone walking around town on my own I've randomly run into someone on the streets that I know. It's certainly been a little sad here post-harvest, and I'm definitely missing my Euros... and even the Americans. Fancy that! But it's been nice to get a little perspective on what it's like around here the rest of the year. Man, is it fucking cold here though. It's about 2 degrees Celsius now (just above freezing) and no one has central heating in the entire country, apparently. Why would they though? It's not like people catch a cold and die... oh, they do? Is that why the World Health Organization just came out and said 50% of NZ homes don't meet modern heating standards? It's 2009... W... T... F?

Then I spent yesterday in a blast-from-the-past hospital that was built in the early 1960's... and I'd say not much renovating has gone on since then. I went to work and about two hours in, I was doubled over in pain near the tank I was racking. It felt like someone was stabbing me in the lower-left side of my back with a knife while I was simultaneously being kicked in the groin. The pain was so excruciating that I threw up twice before seeing a doctor... Doctor Chad from Las Cruces, New Mexico (not even I can make this stuff up). A CT-scan, an x-ray, an IV-drip and one urine test later... and they told me I had a 4mm kidney stone that I would hopefully pass without much pain. I thought older people got kidney stones, so when I went home and wanted to fall asleep at 8PM I felt especially old.

Today I took the day to recover and to think about what I want to do with myself when I get back to the US. I'm still leaning very much towards an Arizona return by the end of July, but I would also like to do another harvest that's a little closer to home. It might be a little late for some of the Napa wineries, but I've found a winery in Northern Arizona between Prescott and Sedona that's hiring workers for the upcoming vintage in August. That would be amazing, and I could even come down to the Valley on my days off... or hit on the townies along Whiskey Row. But I think Napa would be a lot of fun too, and I will definitely be sending my resume to a few wineries and hopefully exhausting some of my contacts as well.

But for now I must be going. I've got to get those resumes out... and Mary's having a small dinner party tonight which I promised join. Hopefully I'll get a few more of these blogs out before I begin my brief travels in 3 weeks. Hope everyone is safe and sound (and kidney stone free!).

P.S. -- The Wellington International Ukulele Orchestra must be checked out. Their cover of the Kings of Leon's "The Bucket" makes me love life. Oh, and one of the ukulele players is Bret McKenzie from Flight of the Conchords!

A New Journey Begins

So I've been fairly awful at updating this blog. To my credit I did work 87.5 hours in one week last pay period... and this past week we've had a few people leaving Mud House to either head home or continue their travels around the globe. Also, this past weekend has provided the night crew and the day crew with their first chance to hang out with each other since the beginning of harvest, so needless to say I thought it might be better to spend some time with them than stick my nose in my laptop with the little free time I've had.

Currently I'm at the Hotel So lobby in Christchurch using one of their four lovely Mac computers -- and I think I'm making the switch to a Mac the next time I have to buy a computer, but that's beside the point. I'm back in Christchurch because my plane was supposed to head back to the States at 4:30 this afternoon... and the reason I'm not on the plane is because I'm staying to work at the winery until the end of June. Long story short, I'm staying here in Christchurch because Christina and I had already made reservations at the hotel and even though I already told our winemaking team I'd stay through the end of June, I couldn't pass up a chance to get the hell out of Blenheim for a couple of days.

The timing is actually perfect for a couple of days off. Hell, anytime you have two days off in a whole month and you're working 12-hour days every day, ANYTIME is a good time for a day off. This past Saturday we had our end-of-harvest party, sponsored and paid for by Mud House, which ended up being a chartered bus pub crawl beginning in Havelock and ending back in Blenheim. We knew we were heading out early in the morning with Erik, his girlfriend Heather, and Kate, so Christina and I came back home and crashed after our dinner at Renaissance somewhere around 10:30PM (FYI: Kiwi beer is not great... save for Renaissance in Blenheim and Dux de Lux in Christchurch, which actually have a little flavor). The next morning the five of us woke up, said a few somewhat tearful goodbyes (mostly the Italian girls, which was incredibly cute) and got into Erik's little 4-door rental and took the seemingly endless drive into Christchurch.

Today we got up and headed to the Canterbury Museum, had some lunch, and then went to Dux de Lux for a pint of their ginger beer before Christina took the shuttle to the airport at 1:30. I've got to admit I was a little sad as I sat alone there in Cathedral Square, watching her shuttle leave as she begins her trek back home. And even though there was about a week there in the peak of harvest where I thought we were going to kill each other, I'll be a little empty in New Zealand without her. But the other truth is that I think the both of us have been entirely too dependent on the other -- I think, except for one week in December, we've seen each other almost every day over the last 5 months -- and that it will be a very different, if not curiously welcomed, stay in New Zealand on my own.

Tomorrow I wake up at the Hotel So, have approximately 30 minutes to eat my "brekky" and check out before I board my early morning bus back to Blenheim. I should arrive around mid-day before I begin my first shift on the "afternoon" crew which runs from 3:00PM-11:30PM. It sounds like a long day, but after working 12-hour days I know it will be a piece of cake. It will be fun to see how the new crews pan out... there's been this semi-friendly rivalry between day crew and night crew and now the "AM Jaguars" and "Nite Wolves" are mixing for a week or so before more people take off from Mud House.

It will be awfully sad watching everyone leave... I think only 3 or 4 of us from Mud House are staying into June. Although we do share a large facility with Jackson Estates and South Pacific Cellars, and a few sexy South African girls from SPC are staying fairly late as well -- which does me absolutely no good because my brain stops working whenever they are around and I can't muster the brainpower to talk to them. I did manage to tell them at a wine tasting we hosted for them at our house that I wanted to go to South Africa next year for the harvest and (mostly) the 2010 World Cup and they agreed I should come, so maybe I can find a way to make that happen. But for now it seems like small numbers of people will drop from our crew each week, until we're down to a handful of cellar hands and a normal schedule (Monday-Friday, 8:00-4:30!).

So my flight back to the U.S. is on July 14th, which gives me roughly two weeks of travel time to see more of New Zealand and/or somewhere in the Pacific like Fiji or the cheaper Cook Islands. Apparently Air New Zealand offers a free one-week layover in the Cook Islands if you are flying to the U.S. and just the other day they had flights to Fiji for like $110 USD! But I'm thinking of taking a cheap flight up to Auckland and renting a camper van to sleep out of for a couple of weeks while touring the North Island and the west coast of the South Island before I have to be back in Christchurch for the 3rd time this trip. It's finally starting to snow on the mountains and some of the sights we witnessed on our drive yesterday honestly made our jaws drop. The main reason I'm staying the next two months is because it would be a damn shame if I came all the way to New Zealand, worked my ass off, and didn't bother to actually see New Zealand aside from 2 days in Christchurch and one day in Nelson. When else in my life am I going to be able to take advantage of an opportunity like this? Well, except for maybe South Africa next year :)

But for now I think I'm going to head upstairs and catch some Harry Potter or There Will Be Blood on TV and decide what to do with the rest of my night -- which will realistically be a cheap dinner, possibly "MacDo" (which is French for McDonald's), Burger King, or a kebab! Don't give me a hard time about the fast food, I think I have a tapeworm so technically I could be eating for two here. It has to be a tapeworm, because I can't explain how my "trash compactor" eating habits have magically turned into noticeable weight loss. Anywho, the trash compactor is requesting more food so I must be going.


Other random facts/thoughts I have neglected to mention thus far:

-Mud House also makes wines for Astrolabe and Jules Taylor, which are two independent contract labels that do not have their own crush facilities. Astrolabe is apparently one of New Zealand's higher-reviewed labels. Who knew? Apparently a lot of "wineries" aren't really wineries but simply contract business at a large crush facility. As such, the romantic stories about how the winery came into existence on the back of the bottle are, as Kiwis say, simply "rubbish."

-Dog Point was the coolest place we tasted at in all of our Marlborough tastings. We called ahead and they gave our whole morning crew and a guy from SPC a private tour of their facility, including the vineyard on top of a ridge that has 360-degree views of the surrounding area. Also, their "crew" is made up of 4 disgruntled 50-somethings that got tired of large corporate winery work and decided to open their own winery. They make wine at their own pace and they listen to Jimmi Hendrix... definitely a different experience than most of the other New Zealand wineries we toured and... ahem... worked at.

- I got a haircut at a place in Blenheim and it made me look like a Spanish soccer player. Long enough on top to do a faux-hawk, but disgustingly long in the back that it started to look a little mullett-y. Christina trimmed the back for me and now according to Heath I "look like a million bucks." I miss the long hair poking out of my beanie, but it's garnered positive reviews so far.

- I am wanting to learn a new language and I'm starting to think French would come in handy.

- Really jealous I'm missing the NHL playoffs right now -- Caps and Penguins?!?!?! I'm sick of hearing about the goddamn All Blacks and I'd kill to see something other than rugby or cricket on TV.

That is all...

Still Alive

Hi everyone! We've been incredibly busy with harvest... I can only remember one day off in the last three weeks. And every single one of those work days has been at least 12 hours long. Really the only thing of note is that last night we decided to go to the local pub, Paddy Barry's, for some Blenheim nightlife.

I wish I had the mental clarity to write a full-fledged entry right now, but it's already 10PM here and we have to be up again at 6AM. There's no sign of another day off in the next week or so, but our last day of work is going to be May 1st, which is also the day of the end-of-harvest party. After that we have about a week before our flight home to the states, so a trip to Abel Tasman and/or Wellington might be in the works.

Since the last post:

- One of the guys on night crew had his wrist broken by the machine I operate. His jumpsuit got caught on this rolling bar and wound his clothes up until it snapped his wrist. It's easy to forget all the things that can maim or kill you at a winery.
- Had a day off, but it was Easter so everything was closed in town except for McDonald's and the pet store.
- Called home via payphone and got to talk to mom and dad for about 10 whole minutes! I intend to call again, but I can only use the phone two times a day... once in the morning at 6AM New Zealand time, the other at 8:30 at night when I get home (1:30 AM Arizona time). Hang in there, we'll talk soon.
- The owner of the house we are all staying at recently brought in 3 kittens that his mother-in-law found. They are so freaking cute!
- Worked 87.5 hours this past WEEK... already this harvest I've managed to save enough money to pay off my airline tickets and maybe do a small bit of travelling around the country before I go home.

That's about it, folks. Plan on taking my camera to the winery tomorrow, so hopefully I'll maybe... maybe... maybe... upload some pictures sometime before I come home.

Goodnight!

So... tired.

So we just finished our 9th straight day of 12+hour work (84 hour work week!) and I am absolutely exhausted. Right now I have about 2 hours of free time each day -- and about 30 minutes of that goes towards drinking a celebratory beer after work with the crew. The RDV's are kicking my ass... yes, there are two of them. The big one takes 10-15 bags to "cake up" (each bag ways 55 pounds) and the little one, about 7 -- each bag has to be lifted over my head and into the mixing tubs, so my back is incredibly sore. And all that's not even counting the hoses filled with juice that I have to lug around all over the winery. We're all getting a little tired and sleep-deprived, but the long days seem to be getting easier -- and I feel like I'm getting in shape from all the hard work. So A+, right?

Personally I'm getting a little homesick. And not for Portland. I miss my friends and family... and I'm frequently daydreaming of going home to Arizona once I return to the U.S. I'm really liking not having to live out some terrible desk job and I'd like to give brewing beer a try... I wonder if Four Peaks would take someone with a couple wine harvests under their belt? Even Prescott Brewing Company would be fun for a while. I'd also like to do some electrical work with my dad, and I could at least pick up an extra skill during the tough economic times.

Anywho... we have to wake up in about 6.5 hours for another day of work so I think I'll crash for now. Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive and well. And that I still plan on calling home once I get a day off to buy some secret calling card one of the French guys told me about... I just don't know yet whether we'll get a day off in the next two weeks.

Goodnight!

And I'm Back!

The power cord for my laptop arrived today! It's nice to have full access to the outside world once again. I swear New Zealand is stuck in a time warp -- our local radio station plays all the "modern" hits like The Offspring, Eagle Eye Cherry, Nickelback, AC/DC, and tons and tons of U2 (every three songs, by my count). TV is even delayed by about a month... the "all new" episode of Lost was on last night, but it was the same episode I watched the week before I left the States.

Harvest is in relatively full swing and we've officially begun working 12-hour shifts at the winery. I am on the day shift (7AM-7:30PM) with Christina (US-Oregon), Heath (US-California), Erik (US-California), Jen (US-California), Lucien (France), Adeline (France), Paolo (Italy), Milly (UK), and Hiro (New Zealand via Japan). The other half of the cellar hands have been split off into the night crew. We only see them for about 30 minutes a day when each crew changes out at the winery... which makes it really awkward considering we all live in the same house together.

Christina and I had the day off on Monday and we decided to rent a car and drive to Nelson. Driving was an event in itself since they drive on the left side of the road in NZ... and since virtually all cars here are manual transmission (something I am clearly not familiar with) Christina agreed to take the wheel. After 90 minutes of idyllic New Zealand scenery (I think they really DO have more sheep than people here) and Christina's deft driving skills (that's right, "idyllic" and "deft" just happened in the same sentence) we arrived safe and sound in Nelson. More than anything it was just nice to get away from Blenheim... Nelson's still a small town, but it has vastly superior shopping, women, restaurants, and aesthetics in general. I was also fairly stunned to see several high-end apartments and condos going up along the beaches... while construction has pretty much stalled in the US, things appear to be quite on the up in tiny Nelson. My camera battery unfortunately died on the trip there, so I don't have much to document it, but next to our bicycle wine tasting adventures the trip to Nelson has been one of the New Zealand highlights so far.

At the winery things are pretty slow for harvest. I can't tell if it's because I'm used to a smaller winery and a smaller crew, where the same number of tasks are divided among fewer workers -- and thus each worker has a larger workload -- or because things are actually really slow and we have a dozen people to do all the work there is. Or maybe it's door #3... that I actually learned a lot at Elk Cove and I'm just taking everything in stride now. I'll go ahead and say it's a combination of all three... but that doesn't change the fact that we've had it relatively easy thus far.

Each person's work seems to be more specialized than what most of us are used to. Some only work the press lines all day... receiving the fruit from gigantic trucks, pressing it in the presses, pumping it from the juice trays into the tanks, and repeating. Some of us spend our whole days cleaning dirty tanks. Since Christina and I have worked with Nadine before, she has been kind enough to have Christina working closely with the lab in the mornings -- since she is considering Fermentation Science for graduate school -- and has entrusted me with the responsibility/neverending frustration that is the RDV. RDV stands for Rotating Drum Vacuum and it more or less takes the shittiest parts of the juice that we store in our tanks -- this brown, murky, mud-like substance we call the "lees" -- and through what I like to think is witch-craft, filters it in to crystal clear juice that we can turn into wine. Basically it's a shitload of work for not a lot of wine, but it's something akin to wine alchemy so I like to think it's slightly awesome even though it's a tremendous pain in the ass.

Other than that, it's not terribly different than making wine in Oregon or California or anywhere else in the world. We still work long hours and go home wet and stinky... some more than others (with a finger pointed straight at myself). And we have maybe two hours to eat dinner and go to sleep when we get home, or else we don't get anywhere near the recommended 8 hours of nightly sleep. Unless you're like me and you stay up till midnight typing blog entries.

So without further adieu I will crash for the night, since I have to be up at 6AM. Thanks for reading and keep the comments coming!

Much Love,

Brandon

Quick Update

My laptop's power cable is irreparably damaged and I'm on the last 14% of my battery, so this will have to be a quick entry. We're having a blast in New Zealand so far... even if harvest has gotten off to a slow start. The warm weather means that the grapes are staying on the vines, which in turn means that we have no fruit to press, which means that we only worked about 3 days this week :(

Fortunately we've had plenty of time to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, rent bikes in Blenheim and take them on a wine tour in Renwick, and even partake in a welcome-to-harvest BBQ at the intern house where we got to try rabbit, vennison, and goat. I still can't believe I ate rabbit.

Anywho, the computer's about to die so it might be a few days before I blog again. Hopefully we'll be busy with harvest at that point anyway.

Cheers,
Brandon

Greetings from New Zealand

Greetings from sunny Blenheim, New Zealand! I have just finished my first day working on the 2009 harvest for Mud House Wines and let me just say... what a difference from most of the Oregon wineries. Mud House is absolutely huge and some of the tanks are epically and almost inconceivably large. Just for sheer comparison, Elk Cove (the winery where I worked the 2008 harvest) processed a total of 660 tons of grapes this past year with 5 full-time harvest interns. Mud House is anticipating over 7000 tons this vintage alone, employing a whopping 18 interns. It's going to be a lot of work over the next two months, but luckily we have a lot of help on hand.

Making our task even more daunting, Christina and I just arrived in Blenheim at about 7:30 last night. Our journey began with a 20-hour flight from Portland to Christchurch (via San Francisco and Auckland). Christchurch is deservingly known as the most English of all New Zealand cities, so it comes as no surprise that while we were having a pint at a bar called His Lordship's Tavern a drunken Brit came up to us at a table, drunkenly expounded his love for Christina, and then proceeded to ever-so-awkwardly grab me by the head and kiss me on the ear. Ah, the most English of all New Zealand cities, indeed. We woke up early the next day and went to the beautiful (and free!) botanical gardens before taking a 5 and a half hour, supposedly air-conditioned bus ride to our final destination of Blenheim.

Our first day was truly more of an orientation/meet-and-greet sort of deal, but just the same we'll call it "work". With 18 of us interns, it was a job just remembering everyone's name. By my count we have 6 Americans, 5 Frenchies, 4 Italians, 1 German, 1 Chilean, and 1 Japanese-New Zealander. It's a pretty diverse crew and all but 2 of us have at least one harvest under our belt. The vast majority of us are living in the intern house about 15 minutes away from the winery. So far I'm in a room with three other guys: Tom from Brighton, England who is here on his first harvest, Gerard, who unbeknownst to Christina and I worked at Patton Valley Vineyards (literally 5 minutes away from us at Elk Cove in Oregon) and apparently took the same flight as us from San Francisco to Christchurch, and Heath, who escaped Dallas for the greener pastures of Napa over the last couple of years. It's exciting here at the house, but Christina and I might have the opportunity to stay with one of the winery's viticulturalists for free. We'll see...

In the mean time we are expecting a pretty slow start to the harvest because it's still super warm and sunny, which the vines are loving. So it looks like we'll be getting this Wednesday and Thursday -- and most likely this weekend -- entirely off. But hang in there with me, harvest will undoubtedly heat up over the next two months and I'll continue to post updates throughout my time here in New Zealand.

P.S. - I'll upload some pictures shortly!