swords

Yesterday I was at Ozone records purchasing the latest Arcade Fire CD as a gift for Jennifer (she is turning 25 this Tuesday). At the counter there was a 2 disc compilation of local artists entitled ?PDX Pop Now!?. Since it had been quite some time since I last purchased a CD for myself (at least 5 days) I decided to splurge and buy it.

On my late night (8:45pm) drive to Petco to pick up mice for Jake I put disc 2 into my player and started flipping through the songs. Track 10 caught my attention as it sounded like a mix between Quasi, Death Cab, Helio Sequence and King Black Acid except completely different than all of them.
Artist: Swords
Title: Immigracion

The song is absolutely perfect. It begins with the elongated sounds of a slowly played violin or possibly cello. The drummer introduces the vocalist by softly tapping the cymbal into a soft crescendo. The male vocalist is reminiscent of Death Cab or Elliot Smith, melodic and definitely emo. The drums continue in the background with a very basic beat essentially just keeping time while a guitar slowly fades in. All the instruments are simply providing background noise for the vocalist for the first two minutes of the song.

Even though the song had not gained any complexity in the first two minutes I found myself tapping along with the beat and following each of the highs and the lows of the song. Two minutes into the song the band brings the song together. After a short crescendo the violin stretches out a single note while all the other instruments fade out and a very simple chord progression is plucked out and strummed on an electric guitar. Once the guitar fades the violin is left stretching out a single note and a few seconds later the guitar fades back already in progress of a big crescendo and the singer brings the song back to life with the single phrase:

?I can?t get to you and I?m terrified?

The bass and the drums jump in between ?terr? and ?ified? and bring the song to its climax. The drummer shows off his talent and reminds me of the drummers from the Helio Sequence and King Black Acid. He had the awesome ability to utilize the crash symbals and the snare to whip the song into a furry while keeping it incredibly tight.

At this point I was beating my steering wheel along with the music. My left hand was tapping the bottom of the steering wheel with every snare hit and my right hand was literally pounding the top of the steering wheel with every major cymbal crash. My head was flailing around all around as I mouthed every 5th or 6th word. Those were the only ones I could catch and even then I was still saying ?watermelon? or some other nonsensical word that made?my mouth appear to be?making the proper motions. The song was amazing and I was really into the song.

And then with no one else in the car, windows rolled up and cruising down the street at 45mph I yelled:

?FUCK!!!!?

I yelled it out at the top of my lungs and then pounded my steering wheel again. I repeated this about 2 times yelling and pounding my steering forgetting about the song but just yelling. The song didn?t make me angry, if anything the song would be a great depression song but I suddenly got incredibly pissed off and I just wanted to pound on something. Luckily for me I had a circle of steel right in front just itching for abuse.?

?Why did I yell? There had been nothing in my head, I was not fuming about anything nor did I just come from a fresh fight with anyone. 1 second before I screamed out I realized that type of drumming crescendo displayed in this sword?s song was the exact type that Chris would employ when he and I would play together. This, of course, made me think of picking up my guitar driving up to Shelton and jamming with Chris again.?

Oh wait?.

That?s right now I remember.?

There are people in this world that believe that they need our equipment more than we need it. Yes why would Chris need or want a drum set that he has had since he was a child and that he has spent thousands of dollars on. Of course he doesn't need nor want it so why not steal it from him. Oh and while they were stealing Chris? drum set they asked themselves why would anyone need/want a nice PA system or a Marshall Half Stack. Who need?s that stuff?

Yes Chris? drum set, Tom?s Marshall Half stack and my entire PA system. Gone. No more.

I have known this for over a week now and since I have grown very accustomed to having stuff stolen from me it had not bothered me until that second. I am, however, more upset that Chris? set was stolen because we can jam without a PA we can not jam without a drum set.??

Small Town Portland tie in:

While writing this entry I did a quick google search on the ?Swords? and found out that the Swords is really ?The Swords Project?. My quick tie to the Swords Project is that Brandee (Tina?s best friend) dated the drummer for the Swords Project for quite sometime. Before I heard this song I never liked his band but this song is very good and ironically it is the drumming that made me like the song. He is a very good drummer.