Indieball Post: Islands

Islands, headed by former Unicorns front man Nick Thorburn, is the refreshing burst of lo-fi indie-pop that I’ve been waiting for. Formed after The Unicorns disbanded in 2006, Islands clears up any bad air left in the indie favorite’s wake. Their first album, Return to The Sea (partially recorded in a former member’s bedroom), made it clear to fans that Islands wouldn’t disappoint. These six guys from Canada bring a fresh and addicting album to the indie music scene with their most recent release, Arm’s Way.
With more upbeat rhythms and catchy electronic riffs than the breezy sound of Return to the Sea, Arm’s Way is loaded with dance-inducing tracks suitable for any party or sunny day. My personal favorite, “Creeper”, is the gem of the album. Laced with electronic melodies, a steady toe tapping pace, and the distinct vocals of Thorburn (once known on stage as Nick Diamond), listeners are sure to be out of their seats…or at least dancing in them. Title track, “The Arm” is equally as upbeat but more complex with exciting bursts of strings, clean piano keys, and lyrics that prove worthy of quoting.
I sure hope Nick Diamond was right when he sang “Islands are forever.”

Check out and rate my islands post here :

Jealous of Nothing

I don’t know if I should wake him up or not. The bum just looks so peaceful and still in his most inconvenient home. Well, inconvenient for me at least. I stare at the bum’s make-shift home; a ratty, piss-stained mattress, a new-looking dark green Rubbermade utility bin spilling with god knows what, and a cheap metal picture frame with clouded glass. I teeter on the metal staircase leading up to the train platform, the heels of my work boots dipping slowly as I take more of the homeless man’s homeless mans haven in. The more I think about it, the less temporary it all seems. The way the shitty mattress fits perfectly into the corner of the landing, how the busting container serves as a nightstand for the lone mystery photograph, it all just seems to fit.
I look at the man, then look at my watch. It’s four am. I hear the first train of the day approaching in the distant ambience of the sleeping city. I have to work at a new site today and I should probably be at the equipment warehouse already, but having no car means using clockwork transportation that just so happens to start when my shift does. I look down at the man, still as silence, on the corner of the mattress closest to me. He’s bundled in winter clothes, or probably all the clothes he owns, even though it’s barely September. There is no expression on his face which makes me think he’s nowhere near uncomfortable or stuffy with heat. He’s so unmoving and content, experiencing the kind of stillness I haven’t experienced in years, if ever. I’m jealous of this bum.
The headlights of the train catch my sleepy focus. Oh shit, my train. I take a step up and extend my leg, holding onto the steel handrail for support, and bounce the edge of the mattress closest to the bum.
“Hey. Man wake up.” I say in a way that I knew wouldn’t wake him. It’s like pinching a baby after it had finally fallen asleep; I feel guilty. Hoping the rumble of the coming train would wake him, I waited on the step I’d been perched on for the past ten minutes until I felt something stir behind me. It was the working men and women starting their day as I was starting mine. I usually don’t see them considering I take the earliest possible train. They begin to head up the stairs, tired eyes blank and ears occupied by the music coming from expensive looking players and phones. As I’m unnoticeably pushed to the side of the staircase I watch these mindless robots of people crush and dirty the bum’s home. His home.
I sigh, turn around and very slowly begin my walk home. I can’t deal with this shit today.

Our Generation's Gypsy

We had minutes. Minutes to grab anything Sara and I could get our dirty silent hands on. Mark stood watch at the heavy oak doors of the church, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette and tapping his foot nervously. Sara and I were almost done blowing out and snatching the white prayer candles. My hands were burning from hot wax and incased by the dried paraffin from the first few candles I didn’t give time to dry. I still had room in my sack; not a good thing in Mark’s opinion. I walked down the center aisle of the church, scavenging for something we’d be able to pawn, sell or use.
“Ha, oh shit look at this!” Sara was standing in the first row of pews, looking down at something that put a grin and wide-eyed look on her dirt-smeared face. I approached her with an extended index finger to my lips, reminding her that we weren’t supposed to be there. Then I saw what she was looking at.
“Holy shit.” I heard slip out of my mouth in a breathy exhale, realizing it was kind of funny to be saying such a thing in a house of worship. On the edge of the pew’s bench was the basket of offerings that must have been left there from today’s service. It was filled with one, five, ten, and twenty dollar bills. No, not full; it was over flowing. I looked at the basket of money and forgot that we were on the clock. This run just got a whole lot more exciting…and illegal. Sara and I looked at each other for a moment, grins spreading across our faces as we realized what we were about to do.
The wax on my fingers made it easier to grab the bills. My knapsack, lacking an inch of room, was full of money, candles, roseries, Bibles and a single song book. No one really buys the song books at our little merchandise marts we set up when we move around, but the Bibles, rosaries and glass-held relic candles get sold relatively quickly; especially in Mexican neighborhoods. I gently swung my pack across my back, making sure I didn’t break the glass, and grabbed the strap securely with my other hand.
“Let’s get out of here. Churches freak me out.” Having run out of room in her over-sized purse, Sara was now stuffing money into the pockets of her tattered jacket, her face still plastered with that greedy smile. She stuffed the last handful of bills down the front of her shirt and into her bra.
“We should take the basket too. Do you have any room?” Sara looked at my backpack, put the basket on the floor, and slid it under the bench with her foot. “Alright let’s go,” Sarah slung her purse over her shoulder as we started walking towards the back of the church where Mark was standing guard.
We were halfway down the center aisle when Mark let out an “SHHH.” The frantic sound reverberated through the aisles of the cavernous church and up through the dark wood of the ceiling to the point of the steeple. Sara and I froze and looked at him. Only is arm was sticking into the church through a crack, palm stretched wide in a “STOP in the name of love” way, while the rest of his body was hidden by the big oak doors; our only way out. Sara and I looked at each other frantically then a motion from the door caught our eye. The stop sign had turned into a fast up-and-down waving motion. Mark’s arm then slid through the door quickly and the heavy oak door was closed.
Sara and I froze as the echo from the abandoning door close made its way down the aisle. As the sound reached where we were standing we split, almost as if on cue, turning to opposite sides of the church and launched ourselves into a row of pews. My elbows and forearms pulled me under a bench and into the protection of invisibility. I quickly maneuvered to face the aisle to see if Sara had landed safely. She was propped up on her elbows and studying her floor-burnt palms with an exaggerated frown. She looked to her left and let out a peep of joy that made me flinch. She extended her left arm towards the row in front of her, her right elbow still propped on the waxy wood floor. She slid a black retractable umbrella out from under the bench in front of her and, with a look of satisfaction, unzipped her bulging bag. Flinching again at the sound I looked around me. There was dirt left behind from parishioner’s Sunday shoes, left behind by those who just paid us their week’s tithing; we are their poor and their hungry, we’re just speeding up the transaction. I mused at the thought of the three us in line at a food pantry pleading for another can of beans or begging for pity from some self-righteous suburbanite. I smiled at the thought of us ever falling to some pathetic poor house then a clinking noise snapped me out of my head.
Sara was trying the shove the umbrella into her purse that obviously had no room for it, causing the glass from the candles to clink and the rosaries to shake against them like maracas. I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth to get her attention. She froze and looked up at me. With a murderous look I mouthed the words “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.” Exaggerating each word to make sure she knows who she’s dealing with. Honestly sometimes I don’t know why Mark keeps her around; the girl is just bafflingly stupid sometimes. Sara looked at me like a dog that’s just been scolded then wiggles as she stuffed the decent sized umbrella down the front of her jeans. I roll my eyes and strain my eyes to look down the aisle. It didn’t look like anyone was coming and I hadn’t heard anything except the noises from Sara’s stupidity. Just to be sure I gave myself a couple more minutes of dead silence, straightened my hat, and slowly pushed myself out from under the pew’s wooden bench.

Fear the Unreal

As I sit in the waiting room of my headshrinker’s office I question, as I have every week, why I still need to be seeing this guy. I’ve been talking to, or enduring rather, Dr. Mills for over a year now and quite frankly, I feel I have nothing else to say. I’ve come to terms with my flaws as a human being. I’ve accepted my fears and phobias and have been taking the necessary action to make these fears bearable on the day to day. I’ve accepted that I’m an anti-social person, that I have some agoraphobic tendencies that keep me from participating in the world outside the walls of my apartment. I do not go outside after dark because I simply choose not to. I’ve accepted that vampires will not feed on or attack me if I take the necessary safety precautions.
I’m confident that I will not get attacked by a vampire. Look at the turtle neck I’m wearing for instance. Besides the obvious covering of a vital artery, the neck of it has been dotted with holy water, like everything else I own has been and will be for the rest of my life. This is assuming, obviously, I will not get bitten or turned into a vampire before my time on this planet is through. These preemptive measures are time-consuming though, especially now that it is winter. The amount of sunlight in a day is steadily decreasing, which is making me a bit anxious I suppose. My apartment is filled with mock sunlamps and UV light bulbs so, like always, being in my apartment isn’t the problem. I’m finding it hard to complete everything I need to do outside my apartment before night fall. Maybe I’ll talk to Mills about that this week; how to get outside tasks completed without risking attack. I always have had problems with time management.
Then again, Mills doesn’t really like talking about anything other than the vampires. Whenever I mention them, or don’t mention them for a certain amount of time, he stops me mid-sentence and says the exact same thing every week.
“Now Claire, tell me more about these…vampires,” he’ll say with his plump sausage fingers interlaced around his corduroy-clad knee cap. His eyebrow will be raised in that speculative psychiatrist look, but it won’t be present in his pseudo-comforting tone. Jesus Christ I’m so sick of having the same conversation with this man. For over a year he’s asked me to tell him more about the vampires and I always reply the same way. I’ll tell him there’s nothing more to talk about when it comes to those life-ruining blood suckers. That I’ve done everything I can to avoid being attacked by them. That I would really like to talk about something else for a change; a girl has other things to worry about for fuck’s sake. Then he’ll ask, without fail, how I know vampires exist. This always makes me laugh. For being a psychologist, the man sure is ignorant.
“Open your eyes Dr. Mills,” I’ll say in a borderline insulting tone. “Read a newspaper or a book or something. Vampires are everywhere! Think about how many people you seem to only see at night. Think about all of the unsolved murders and disappearances this world has seen since the dawn of time! These people are killed by vampires. Or they’re turned into one of them which is why people sometimes just disappear. Duh.”
I’ll go off on a tangent like that for a while until I finally lose momentum and just sit frustrated and out of breath on the squeaky leather sofa in the stuffy little room. It’s always quite dark in the wine colored room which used to make me nervous, but now that I’m always prepared for and expecting attack, it doesn’t bother me much. What does bother me is the fact that I’m paying this asshole to waste my time on something I don’t care to talk about. I like to think I’m a fairly level-headed person. If you ask me, Dr. Mills is the one who’s a danger to himself or others, or whatever the phrase was they used to admit me to the hospital last year. I think Dr. Mills is the one who needs to see a therapist. He’s the one who thinks vampires don’t exist. He’s the one telling me not to do these “unnecessary” things I do to keep myself safe every day. It’s like he wants me to get hurt. If you ask me, he’s the crazy one… right?

Peer Psychedelics

Kate Young stood in front of the full length mirror in her barren bedroom. Her reflection shows a bird-like girl with pin straight blond hair that hit the tops of her collarbones which peeked out of a plain red sweater. Her legs, too skinny in her opinion, were clad in a pair of flared jeans she had to beg her mother to buy. With her head cocked to the side, blue eyes focused on blue eyes, she picked apart the girl standing in the mirror critically. Her too-flat chest rose and fell deeply in a sigh of dissatisfaction before peeling the red sweater off and tossing it aside with the other tops strewn around the beige carpet of her new room.
Having moved the previous week from her birthplace of Salt Lake City, Utah, California seemed like a new planet. Kate’s father was given a promotion and relocated to a place where palm trees and flashy cars replaced suburban mini-vans and fenced in backyards. High school girls and boys were suddenly these glamorous and beautiful creatures that never wore the same thing twice and drove around in their own shiny cars during lunch periods. Beverly Hills was like one big red carpet that the young people of Kate’s high school strolled along confidently, leaving perfume of superiority in the air as they passed.
Kate sighed again and closed her eyes, desperately hoping the girl in the mirror would disappear when she opened them. It seemed like, no matter what clothes she put on, every item of clothes she owned was too plain, too baggy and too boring. Her parents’ overly conservative stance on what was appropriate dress for a teenage girl in 1968 left Kate in straight leg khakis, button down cardigans and plain pastel T-shirts from Niemen Marcus. Besides her new bell-bottoms, Kate never had a say in the clothes she wore to school and church; the only two places she went in Salt Lake City besides a weekly dance class and the occasional church sponsored outing to a movie or mini-golf course. The girls at her new school wore tight fitting tops in bright patterns with designer jeans and knee-high boots. Their faces were made up like Twiggy’s with white eye shadow and fake lashes. Kate wasn’t even allowed to wear makeup, let alone show cleavage or pierce her ears. She wasn’t so self-conscious back in Utah. All of her friends looked like her and their parents looked like them; the Mormon Church prizes clean faces and conservative attire.
Kate opened her eyes reluctantly and dragged herself to the pair of cardboard packing boxes that still housed her wardrobe from her old house. Her mother had been on her back all week to finish unpacking but Kate was too preoccupied with this strange new environment she had been placed in. A girl named Erin in Kate’s calculus class had been friendly enough extend an invitation to eat lunch with her and her friends on the first day of school. The group of five or six girls, all equally beautiful, spent lunch periods gossiping and smoking cigarettes while barely nibbling on their food. Kate was silent for the most part, trying to take in the coolness the girls effortlessly exuded. On Friday, when she dropped her off at her house in her forest green Austin Healy, Erin invited Kate to a party she was throwing at her house that weekend. Tonight was the night Kate would attend her first real party....

JUMP



Dear Katherine,
I’m writing to tell you, and only you, what amazingly different and curious my new home in California is. First of all, everyone and everything here seems so glamorous. Even the youngest girls in my high school look like they could be in Vogue. They wear white eye shadow and fake lashes with bright pink blush on their cheekbones. We didn’t even wear makeup back in Utah. Remember when we were younger and we played with your mother’s bright red lipstick? We used it until there was hardly any left and we were covered with kiss marks. Then your mother walked in with her whole bible study group! She was so furious with us that she said we were sinful little girls. I was so terrified that she was going to tell my mother. Things are just so different now.
I went to my first party ever last night. I don’t even know how to explain the events of the evening. I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.
My new friend Erin invited me to a party she was throwing at her house. She told me her parents were out of town which confused me because I didn’t think their presence would be a problem; I was wrong. I wore a black tank top that I had from the dance recital we were in last year tucked into a new pair of bell-bottom jeans with my white patent leather belt around my waist. I put on a sweater before I left because I knew my mother wouldn’t let me leave the house with my arms so bare; I wish she could see the other girls at school! I walked to Erin’s house an hour before the party started. When I got there, she insisted that she put make up on me. Can you believe I’ve never worn anything more than powder until last night? Erin dusted sparkly peach blush under my cheek bones because she said it makes a face look “more defined,” whatever that means. She put dark brown shadow on my eyelids and painted a black line on the rim of each. Then she parted my hair to the side and teased it a little.
When she was finished I finally looked in the mirror and was surprised at my reflection. For once I almost looked like I fit in with the other girls at my school. I felt so good about myself that I even agreed to wear a pair of Erin’s cork wedge sandals. They were the same white color as my belt and made my legs look nice and long. Erin kept saying things like “You look so good, all the boys will be drooling.” I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want her to know that I wasn’t allowed to date boys. Katherine I was so scared to admit that I hadn’t even kissed a boy, let alone know how to flirt with one.
Erin put on a record as we waited for the guests to arrive. She went to the kitchen after a couple more girls showed up with grocery sacks and came back with two red plastic cups. She handed one to me and winked. I looked in the cup full of brown fizzy liquid and tried not to look confused. I asked her what was in the drink and she told me not to worry about it. Oh Katherine, I knew there was alcohol in it but I convinced myself that since I wasn’t told, it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t until the first group of boys showed up that I even started to feel different. I got flushed in the face and really jolly when a tall blond boy named Steven nodded my way and winked at me. I got this tingling feeling through my lower body that I had never felt before. I wanted to be touched and kissed by somebody. I wanted to be embarrassed by my sinful thoughts but I couldn’t bring myself to stop; I really liked it.
After an hour or so of socializing Erin called everyone into the living room. I had just finished my second drink and was feeling especially social. I plopped down onto the shag rug in the living room and kicked off my heels; something in the drink made walking in them difficult and uncomfortable. Erin was standing in front of the fireplace with a small plastic bag of candy clutched in one hand. I remember noticing her nails were the same color orange as her tight fitting pencil skirt. She just looked so groovy. She unfurled the bag in her hand with one flicking motion and the guests at the party started hooting and clapping a little bit. I was confused because Erin hadn’t said anything and I had no idea why a bag filled with Necco Wafers was so exciting.
“Now we’re going to need a few baby sitters to stay behind on the trip,” Erin said through a wide grin, “any takers?” She looked around the room until a couple hands reluctantly rose in the air. She gave a piece of candy to the remaining people, ending with me. Erin tucked a wafer into my hand and winked again. “Are you ready to free your mind?” The warmth from the drinks was showing in my blushing face as I closed my hand around the candy. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with it at first, but then I looked around at the other kids popping the wafers in their mouths excitedly. I opened my hand to look at the green circular candy in my palm. There was a small dark dot in the middle of the circle, like someone had already licked it. I looked around the room once more and without really thinking twice I placed the wafer on my tongue. I’ve always hated the taste of them but I didn’t want the other kids to know I wasn’t experienced with what I was about to experience.
Katherine, I cannot even begin to describe the next several hours. I remember feeling a strange disconnection from the earth as the connection with the people and objects in the room grew incredibly strong. I wanted to touch, taste, see, hear and be everything and everyone. I saw waves of colors that I didn’t even know existed which I tried to name but couldn’t form a sensible word. I held hands with the boy named Steven while sitting on the same shag rug I sat on when I first ate the candy. How amazing it felt to run my hands through it! Steven’s eyes were locked on mine and he called me beautiful. I don’t know what to think or feel about what happened next but I’m going to tell you because you are my most trusted friend. After running our hands along eachothers palms and arms for what felt like days, Steven moved his hands up to my face. He tucked one side of my hair behind my ear which made me giggle because it tickled my face, then he leaned in slowly, and kissed me. The tingling feeling I told you about earlier warmed my entire body and I wanted nothing more than to kiss him forever. Oh Katherine, what a sin! Me, plain Mormon Kate, kissing a boy I’ve only just met after drinking and eating this extraordinary candy. It was like I couldn’t stop myself from doing anything! My body was free to do whatever it wanted without rhyme or reason. How liberating it was!
After the feeling dulled and the colors faded, I could actually think clearly enough to ask Erin what had happened. She laughed at me giddily and told me there was LSD on each piece of candy. She said that I had just gone on my first psychedelic trip. I was so surprised and confused that I ran to the bathroom and began to cry. All the makeup Erin had put on me earlier that night was running down my face as I prayed to God to forgive me for being such a horrible servant. The horrible thing is though, Katherine, I really enjoyed it. I think I want to do it again.
Please keep my secret Katherine. I’m just in need of an old friend and some comprehensible advice. I have no Mormon friends at school and no one seems to understand what I’m going through.

Missing you,
Kate Young