YOU GET ME CLOSER TO GOD

Picking a favorite is hard for me. I don't have a favorite movie, I don't have a favorite restaurant, and I don't have a favorite song. Maybe that says more about me than I want it to, but it's true. I don't want to be pigeonholed into something forever.

This is where you tell me that favorites can change, but come on. If it changes, was it ever really your favorite? That's way too heavy of a concept for a god damn blog that I post on twice a year, so let's just move on.

I do have a favorite band. That one is easy—even though it's a choice that only became clear over the past few years. It's Nine Inch Nails, and it's not particularly close.

I always *liked* them (as you can see here, here, here and various other posts), but I never fully appreciated the scope of the music that Trent Reznor and co. had been making. Hesitation Marks was what got me to start paying attention again, then they released three EP's over the course of about 16 months between December 2016 and early 2018, which got me even more invested. I went back and listened to the soundtrack work that Reznor—and now the only other full time member of Nine Inch Nails—Atticus Ross did on THE SOCIAL NETWORK and GONE GIRL and was all the way in. I saw them live twice last year (both times in Las Vegas) and was more impressed with them each time.

After I got home from the show last December, I sat down and made a playlist of my favorite (there's that word again) Nine Inch Nails songs. I throw it on while I'm working quite a bit, and it's probably my favorite thing to write to. That probably says a lot about how I work. Anyway.

CARELESS WITH A DELICATE MAN

It's sort of insane to me how many people think that Fiona Apple hasn't done anything other than the "Criminal" music video (which is still incredible). That song came out in 1996, and it's still just as good today as it was 23 years ago.

But also? Fiona Apple is just really, really talented.

None of her other stuff has been as massively well received as "Criminal" (which was actually the third single off her first album), but she's been making great songs ever since. She's eccentric, massively private, and doesn't  really seem to care that she's as famous as she is.

"Criminal" was such a commercial success, that everyone who heard that song first, just assumed that all of her stuff sounded like that. Then when they heard the weird Jon Brion orchestral arrangements behind her whispery vocals on her follow-up album When the Pawn..., they mostly checked out. Extraordinary Machine wasn't any more accessible, and the masses just kind of forgot about her.

Apple doesn't tour regularly, she doesn't perform very often, and she's mostly out of the spotlight. Every once in a while she pops up with something, but mostly she just keeps to herself. She has no social media of her own, and the only one she even acknowledges is a Tumblr site called Fiona Apple Rocks. While she doesn't use it herself, she regularly emails the person behind the site with pictures, and notes to post. She may be the last person regularly using Tumblr in 2019, which is a feat in and of itself.

A lot of her stuff can seem depressing, but there are even more songs that are bright and fun. This playlist is a mix of both, probably leaning more towards the latter. If you have a favorite that I left out, leave a comment (does anyone still leave blog comments?), so I can give it a closer listen.

THEY DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE I LOVE YOU

I was late getting into Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

The whole New York rock revival started right as I was getting into hardcore, and anything that wasn't on Trustkill, Ferret, Equal Vision, or HydraHead wasn't worth my time. I wanted breakdowns and screaming, not grimy garage rock played by a bunch of art school kids.

I paid almost no attention to Fever to Tell, but I knew about it. I had MTV at that point, but it was mostly to watch VIVA LA BAM, PUNK'D, and THE REAL WORLD (I still remember things about Tonya from the Chicago season, and Trishelle from Las Vegas). The videos for "Maps" and "Y Control" were on a lot, but just didn't do anything for me. When Show Your Bones came out a few years later, I started to come around. All the girls I knew worshipped Karen O, and listened to them all the time. Every time I went into visit one of them at work—whether it was at a coffee shop, second hand clothing store, or salon—the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing. I still didn't own any of their albums, but I knew their songs, and started to appreciate what they were doing. When they played at the outdoor spring festival (whatever it was called) at the University of Utah in April of 2006, I started regretting never seeing them in a smaller venue. Their performance was awesome, and I could only imagine how fun they would be in a small club like DV8.

It's Blitz! came out in 2009 (it's the only album of theirs that I ever bought), and Karen O did the soundtrack to WHERE THE WILS THINGS ARE (a movie that I loved but will never watch again so as to keep it that way) for Spike Jonze that same year, and I was fully on board. A few years later, she teamed up with Nine Inch Nails to do "The Immigrant Song" and I thought my heart was going to explode. I finally embraced what everyone else saw in 2003.

The few years after that were a weird time for music. CD's were dying, streaming was just getting started, digital downloads with vinyl represses were the main selling point, and download blogs powered by MediaFire was mostly where everyone stole music from (half my hard drive is filled with pirated music from download blogs that I didn't actually want, but wanted to have). I lost track of a lot of bands during that time, and I mostly forgot about Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Then, last winter, Karen O teamed up with Danger Mouse for Lux Prima, which is a fine record, but it just made me want to listen to "Maps" and "Cheated Hearts" again. To make it easy on all of us, I made a playlist for them and the rest of my favorites ("Gold Lion" still annoys me, so it's not there). It's a good way to spend an hour.

I still don't care about most grimy garage rock played by art school kids, but I'd much rather listen to that than breakdowns and screaming.

THE ANGST IS REAL

Does everyone go through phases of what they watch? I do, but I also make a real effort to switch things up as I go along. Everyone binge watches things now, we just don't talk about it because we're all terrified that someone else is ahead of us and could potentially spoil it for us.

The trick to that is to lay low for a few weeks (which isn't hard for me, because I'm home a lot), watch every single episode of something, then casually bring it up in conversation to see if anyone else is caught up, and wants to talk about it (me with BROOKLYN 99). Other times, we find a show that's so dumb, but so entertaining that we almost don't dare admit that we spent so many hours with it (also me, with BANSHEE and BELOW DECK).

When I binge TV shows, I have to switch it up between seasons. I like to think about what I just watched, what it means, and where things might go. To do that, I need something totally different. In between each season of BROOKLYN 99, I watched all the JASON BOURNE movies. During SUPERSTORE, I got really into stand-up comedy again, and finally got around to watching all three John Mulaney specials that are on Netflix. A little while after, while those jokes were still fresh in my head, I came across a Twitter thread called "Pop Punk Bands of the 2000's as John Mulaney Quotes."

It was a very niche thing, and right up my alley. I laughed at it for days. The girl who started it kept adding to it, and other people kept replying with their own suggestions. Some of the choices were spot on (Fall Out Boy still makes me laugh), and some of the replies just made me roll my eyes (get out of here with your Black Veil Brides and 21 Pilots bullshit—those bands aren't pop punk), which sums up Twitter pretty accurately.

But it made me think a lot about the bands included, some of whom I still listen to, and some that never appealed to me even back then. So I took cues from that thread and built a playlist. The first half of it is songs and bands that I actually like, and then it kind of drops off from there. Taking Back Sunday, Sum 41, Good Charlotte, and Panic! At the Disco all deserve to be on this playlist, but if I'm being honest, I'll skip those songs every time. Paramore was a band that I never got into, but they've been getting stuck in my head a lot lately, and this video has a lot to do with it. And I couldn't even bring myself to add Yellowcard or All Time Low. I tried, but it just wasn't happening.

Did I leave out anything that should be on here?

REMEMBER ME?

Hi. Do you even remember me? You might not. That's okay. It's been a while.

It's me—Trevor Hale. I'm the guy that runs this blog. Or ran this blog. Or rambled in mildly coherent sentences into the vast nothingness that is the Internet.

It's one of those things. That's not important now. What is important is that I'm back—for a minute at least. There's a whole other post that could be written about how "lifestyle" and "fashion" blogs kind of ruined my desire to write anything, but more than that, I just haven't felt like writing in a while.

That last line is the most depressing part for me. Sure, there were people that checked this site regularly, there were others that stumbled across it, and there were even more that had no idea it even existed. I never felt like I was doing anything worth sharing and I hadn't been that plugged in to the side of the Internet that used to make this site fun. There was nothing for me to tell you about, and even less for you to hear from me.

Maybe that will change. I don't know. We'll see.

What I do know is that Craft Lake City was this past weekend and that's the real reason I'm posting. Before you get too excited, I'll admit that I didn't make anything new this year. I still had a bunch of HP Tank Tops, Long Live Sloan t-shirts, and copies of Tulip, but I didn't have the time to put my energy into a new project this summer.

But I did find some time to throw together a couple of smaller things.

Hilarious jokes and personal stamp of approval

I made some mixtapes. Actual mixtapes. I bought blank cassettes, sat in front of a stereo, and curated two 90-minute playlists that maybe 8 people will enjoy—really staying true to the spirit of everything else that I do.

The first mix is called Alternative Nation. It's basically the same as the playlist I wrote about in The Secret History of Trevor Hale, with a few minor changes. The theme of that tape was to showcase all the songs that I would have recorded off the radio when I was in junior high/early high school around 1995. There are a few key omissions there, because 15-year-old me would have most definitely had Blues Traveler and Hootie & The Blowfish on there, but 34-year-old me is trying to stay cool and keep a little street cred. My only huge regret here is that I forgot to include Alice In Chains in favor of a few much less important bands. That's the thing about a cassette tape though—once you're out of space, you're out of space.

The second tape is Teenage Wasteland, and it's a collection of all the punk songs I got into a little bit later. I ran into the same problem here, too. I have several bands twice (like Millencolin!) a Dwarves song and Wizo, but completely forgot NOFX. It's been eating at me for days.

I made 5 copies of each tape, wrote out the tracklist on the insert and wrapped them in an appropriate cover. I didn't let anyone see what was on the tape before they bought it, and I think that made it more fun. I only sold a couple of each of them, because no one actually owns a cassette player anymore.

But I worked hard on these tapes and a few people mentioned that I should make them into Spotify playlists, so I did just that. I've embedded them below, or you can follow them on there if you want to.

That's really about it. Maybe I'll be back sooner than later with more stuff, but no promises. If you miss me, I'm all over the rest of the Internet, with a really boring username (that stays true and strengthens my personal brand, though) . Come find me, say hi, favorite some stuff, like some things, send me cool DM's, do what you want. It's the Internet. There aren't any rules, so act out.

Until next time...

Twitter - @trevorhale
Instagram - @trevorhale
Facebook
LinkedIn - Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. (I actually do have one, but it's for professional shorties only).

Teenage Wasteland


Alternative Nation

WRITING LIKE A MIXTAPE

Remember when I started making all kinds of noise about doing more with this site? Me too.

See, that was when I was living the high life of being unemployed, going to the gym, watching DEADWOOD and FRIENDS all day, all while planning how to become Internet-famous.

Then I remembered that I had bills to pay, so I had to get a job. So I did.

Now I work for a company called Local Results. I'm doing SEO copywriting at the moment, trying to make websites for karate dojo's, taxi services and construction companies in the deep south sound more interesting.

During my downtime, they've had me write a few blog posts for them, too. I wrote this one about the best April Fool's Day jokes that I found on the Internet (no really, that's what I did one day), and then since that one was so awesome they had me write another one.

This one is a contest. There's three of us on the content team, and they decided that we'd all write a blog post and after a month, whoever wrote the post with the most unique page views will win.

So I wrote this post about how creating a website/blog is a little bit like making a mixtape. And we all know how much I love mixtapes, right?

Here's a link to the post. You should read it and share it with your friends and co-workers. I'm pretty sure this is a little bit of a test to see how far each of our personal reach is, and I kind of really want to win.

So help me out. Go read this piece for me.

Your Website As Your Personal Mixtape