In Which We Listen To Jason Schwartzman's Mind

The iTunes Playlist: Jason Schwartzman

Ever since he told Rosemary Cross "My top schools where I want to apply to are Oxford and the Sorbonne. My safety's Harvard" Jason Schwartzman has immersed himself deeply into the hearts of all knowing people. Unfortunately Wes and Owen couldn't write all his dialogue; he couldn't stay skinny, ambitious Max Fischer forever. He had to grow up and co-op Seth Rogen's ass. Here now his mixtape on iTunes:

"Nothing Stays the Same" - Elastica (mp3)

I loved the first Elastica album. I saw them play in 1994 and I was so into it. I loved her haircut. Then I waited...and waited...and waited for the second record. I loved it when it finally arrived. This song always sounds good to me. I never get sick of it.

"All In Your Head" - Rooney (mp3)

This is my brother's band. But, even if I weren't his family I would still love this song and it would still be on my list. It makes me want to roll my windows down and sing. So proud of my brother.

"The Goldenheart Mountaintop Queen Directory" - Guided By Voices

I remember when I first heard this song. I sat down in front of my stereo system for hours and hours. Though the song is short, I feel like it goes so many places. By the end I am exhausted and want to hear it again. Robert Pollard's voice is so intimate and I love the way it sounds. Long live TDK tapes! Lyric I love: '...and we passed through a hallway of shatterproof glass.'

"Indian Summer" - Beat Happening

I love this kind of constant drumming. This song makes me miss the old days for some reason.

"All We Are" - Fischerspooner

I love the drumbeat on this song. Man-played but strong and subtle. I like the 'tiss tiss' hi-hat work. This song sounds good in headphones.

"America's Boy" - Broadcast (mp3)

I have been told, it was made mostly in a bedroom, intimately. That makes me instantly interested. I will always gravitate towards a home demo or outtake. I like things in progress.

"Gideon's Bible" - John Cale (mp3)

I love all the John Cale records. I like how the verses of this song are chock full of strange guitar slides and odd rhythms. And I love how after a long verse it builds to straight ahead simple chorus. 'The force of China felt.'

"Lady Rachael" - Kevin Ayers & the Wizards of Twiddly

'Now she's safe from the darkness, she's safe from its clutch.' I love his vocal on this song. I have another version of the song that's 45 seconds longer, but I figured let's keep it short and sweet. Good recorder work, too.

"That Summer Feeling" - Jonathan Richman

I wish that this song was even longer.

"The Right Equipment" - The Movies

The Movies are one of my favorite Los Angeles bands. Others include Anavan and 400 Blows. The Movies just write great songs. And when all is said and done, I personally love a strong melody. And these songs have great melodies.

"Living Without You" - Harry Nilsson (mp3)

This song is from Nilsson sings Newman. I love the idea of an artist doing an entire covers record of a contemporary. This song is so beautiful. As I mentioned before, I love anything home spun or personal feeling. Nilsson somehow manages to sound smooth and technically perfect AND human and intimate.

"So Begins Our Alabee" - Of Montreal (mp3)

Alls I knows is...when I'm down and out this song lifts me outta da dumps. 'You're my only softness it's true.' I am sorry. I would have killed to have written that chorus!

"Elijah's Church" - Steve Earle (mp3)

This version comes from the soundtrack to Heartworn Highways. I love that movie. Might be one of my favorite documentaries. This song is so sad but what I love about this particular version of it, is how everyone at the kitchen table is singing along, not always the right words, and hollering, and playing anything they want on the guitar. This might be the best jam I can think of.

"You Only Live Once (live)" - The Strokes (mp3)

If I had to explain this one it could take hours. It destroys me.

"Baby Bitch" - Ween (mp3)

I love Ween. I love the sense of freedom they seem to have when creating music. They do what they want, or at least make it look that way. 'baby baby baby bitch for words, I'm at a loss' My sentiments exactly.

"Whole Wide World" - Wreckless Eric (mp3)

I just love Wreckless Eric. I love the way he sings. I love this song. So catchy. So heartfelt.

"You Could Not Decide" - French Kicks

Just listen to the kick drum and get your face melted.

"Tired of Sex" - Weezer

I remember when this record first came out. It crushed me. I went bowling with some friends when this record first came out, and one of these guys had heard the record, and they described to me how it opened with this "DING DING DING DING" I envisioned it and envisioned it for weeks. And then when I heard it, it blew my mind. The dings were way better than I could have imagined. And when Rivers screams 'OOOOOHHHHH.' It fucks me up.

"Long Distance Call" - Phoenix (mp3)

Phoenix has always been an inspiration for me. They always seem to make their records lovingly and with care. Each sound is perfect. Each kick drum. Snare. Vocal. Guitar. It takes time to make things this wonderful.

"I Don't Believe In The Sun" - The Magnetic Fields (mp3)

The perfect song.

"Flourescent Adodolescent" - The Artic Monkeys (mp3)

I love this song so much. I think Alex Turner is super talented.

"Let 'Em In" - Wings (mp3)

I love the chords. I love the drumming. So pretty.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Closing Theme)" - Jack Nitzsche

This entire record is one of the most beautiful things I know.

"Beechwood Park" - The Zombies (mp3)

Colin Blunstone is so amazing.

"The Man With Two Brains" - The Rentals (mp3)

Being a Weezer fan the second The Blue Album came out, anything Weezer was sacred. So when I heard that Matt Shapr, the then bassist in Weezer, had a side band called the Rentals, I hunted for it. I loved the first record when it came. Alex, the singer from Phantom Planet, and I went out to (the now gone) L.A. music store Black Market Music and tested out every Moog in the house. We were 14. And probably annoyed the owners very much. This song comes from the second Rentals album and I love how sexy it is. Yeah. It's true.

You can find Ellen Page's iTunes playlist here and Wes Anderson's here.

In Which We Think Green Day's Dookie Is Something It Wasn't

Thirteen Was A Very Bad Year

by LAUREN BANS

Oh man, do you remember the pre-Napster-nabbing days of youth, when buying music was still an active verb that entailed getting your family to drive you 15 minutes to the Sam Goody? I would say halcyon days of youth, but who am I kidding? The financial constraints of your bimonthly babysitting income necessitated that Dad accompany you inside the store, wearing his Trust Me...I'm a [Real Estate] Lawyer t-shirt and joking with the teenage cashier, "Do you listen to this crap too?" This was only the humiliating foreplay to family dinner at the Ground Round where parents shoved kids up to the age of 13 onto a giant scale in the restaurant lobby — reminiscent of that terror-inspiring clock in Safety Last — for the “Penny Per Pound” Sunday special.

I mean, THIRTEEN! Is there anything more inhumane to do to a thirteen year old? Okay, hmmm, after quick consideration, let me specify: to a thirteen year old overfed upper middle class suburban American? Do you perhaps know what this felt like? It was 1994, I was 12, and I remember praying "Lord let me cost less than $1.45" and then emotionally scarfing down a grilled cheese. This is what I endured just to get my hands on a copy of Dookie. Thanks Dad, for buying me that.

Of course, I totally deserved Dookie. I never gave my parents anything to object to. I was a "big boned," paler-than-a-feta-crumble 7th grader who had nothing to do but finish all my homework on time and get a super duper headstart on my SAT prep. I spent most nights on my daybed head-banging along to middling mid-90s mall punk like Rancid and The Offspring, albums about the drugs and sex I wouldn’t actually experience for, like, ten years, save for some senior year dry humping.

Also, there was this boy! I had a crush on him. Once he told me that he was excited for high school because killing frogs would finally be sanctioned, at least in biology, a reveal that struck terror into my heart, but maybe also pubescent arousal. He had Dookie, and so I wanted it, nay, needed it like I wanted, nay, needed him to love me even as his little man hands were tearing apart a frog carcass. Because: teens, suffering, fantasy, oh, you know, if you've watched any My So-Called Life.

And God, Dookie was good. I don’t think I understood a large portion of it at first. In fact, I remember being very confused at the pronoun usage in "Basketcase": I went to a whore/he said my life’s a bore/ so quit my whining cuz it’s bringing her down.

Like did Billy Joe see a male whore? If so, WHO is this woman he’s bringing down? Is this or is this not a PSAT prep riddle like he: gay appropriation by eye-linered Cali darlings as Britney-Madonna lip on lip: performative heterolesbianism? I still do not know! But I could headbang on my daybed to the music and, more importantly, relate to the larger sense of insanity, the anthemic angst, permeating the entire album—"giving myself the creeps", for example, was a strong and present phenomenon for an overweight 12 year teacher's pet pursuing a frog murderer as a romantic interest. Because: love, suffering, murder, oh, you know, if you’ve watched any Dexter.

Incidentally, there was one thing I never got straight about Dookie. Somewhere along the line I came under the impression that Dookie was a totally cool code word for "joint." I listened to the CD with this in mind (that is, until I injured my neck head-banging right before my Bat Mitzvah and my parents replaced all my alt-punk with Indigo Girls). And I somehow missed the clear signifier of the monkey throwing "dookie" on the album cover. In college I said things such as, "Pass the dookie." "Anyone got a dookie?" and "DOOKIE!"

Sure, not often, because I'm not a total fucking retard, but, um, WHERE WERE MY FRIENDS? Why did no one correct me? I have lived 15 long years thinking Dookie to be something it is not, something known to the rest of the world as a DOOBIE, only discovering yesterday, by virtue of a conversation about Green Day, what Dookie really means. That's crazy, right? I mean, yes, when you think about the fact that 20 years from now Heidi will probably be on a Cougar reality show, and that sexting is the new terrorism, or even that Bush was re-elected, it's not that crazy. But in my very small, self-centered world, which for the past 6 hours has been a quarantined mattress in front of a near-godlike A/C window unit, it seems like downright insanity. I mean, fuck, I think it's time I leave my house now.

Lauren Bans is the senior contributor to This Recording. She tumbls here.

"Pulling Teeth" - Green Day (mp3)

"Having A Blast" - Green Day (mp3)

"When I Come Around" - Green Day (mp3)

In Which We Relive The Little Moments of True Blood

Golden Showers

by ALEX CARNEVALE

The most charismatic man on television has come to Bon Temps, and Alan Ball's seminal series about how much people loathe themselves, True Blood. His name is Hoyt Fortenberry, and he's a grown ass man. When times are troubled and you need a friend, Hoyt is perfectly willing to console you. If, for example, your hymen reconstitutes itself every time it's broken, Hoyt is totally cool with that. He will just shoot you one of these cold looks:

Hoyt lives in the now, he breathes for the moment. Fuck you, Mom! Fuck you, World! Fuck you, Bill Compton! Wait, Hoyt did not mean that last part about his girlfriend's maker. He's unlikely to feel the full wrath of Bill's dreadful Southern accent because, well, Bill's now a whipped piece of cornbread who can't even murder a Soldier of the Sun.

I had an English teacher who would circle "whipped" every time I used it in a paper. She told me that I knew it was sexist. I told her that the fact that I was the only kid in the class who was aware of that gave me the license. God I hated eighth grade.

Hoyt is the only real thing you can focus on when the neverending barrage of Anna Paquin's left breast is repeatedly thrust into your living room. In light of Sookie's real-life relationship with her vampire paramour, this week's dream sex sequence must have been especially painful for Stephen Moyer. I can only hope CourtTV goes 24/7 on their divorce, assuming CourtTV still exists.

Moments of action are the best drama, and True Blood is about to abandon cheesy, Hotel New Hampshire-esque brother-sister bonding for a couple of weeks that is full of them. Sookie and Bill have done Dallas, and now they're headed home to Bon Temps to wreak their vengeance on the world.

However, things are not well with Adam and Eve. Can you really be satisfying a woman if she's having an eight-minute long dream sequence about another man while in bed with you? Also, if a vamp can get power over a person just through a few drops of blood, that probably explains Kevin Federline completely.

In other news, the show's writers finally gave Lafayette something to do, although it really didn't make sense that he would ally himself with Tara's mother of all people. Given the choice between some medea who just fed me a tasty heart and my alcoholic mamma, I'm pretty sure where I'm going.

Of course, sense-making has never been Alan Ball's forte, as the physics-defying shapeshifting of Sam Merlotte proves. How exactly can you strap someone down to the stocks if they can defy the laws of conservation of matter and turn into an insect? Someone should tell them that when Gregor Samsa made his move, he didn't suddenly become a centimeter tall.

My sympathies lie elsewhere. I really feel Godric's pain though, it must be really annoying to be an immortal. If vampires really did exist, people would be jumping out of their seats to live forever, wouldn't they? I mean, it's pretty much the central focus of Mark Cuban's life; that is, if he isn't already immortal and just waiting to release this info during the Mavs first championship celebration in 2116.

To be able to choose your own death is the power of the gods, and that's really Michelle Forbes' job. We can only pray they kill her off in the season finale or I will have to singlehandedly finance a Kalifornia sequel. Get Jason Stackhouse to cut her up with a chainsaw at some point in these next three episodes, please. With that said, I have nothing but respect for her nutritious preparation of the human heart.

In the season's conclusive episodes, the vampires will get back to their murdering ways and Sookie will continue to find a way to work her Gran into every episode. I wish it were easier to write Anna Paquin off this show - if only Godric had casually tossed her off the roof of the hotel before he teleported into a bubble nude and saved John Connor.

Alex Carnevale is the editor of This Recording. He tumbls here.

"Garbage Day" — Brendan Benson (mp3)

"Don't Wanna Talk" — Brendan Benson (mp3)

"Posied and Ready" — Brendan Benson (mp3)