Panda Bear: 100 Good Things in 2007

Panda Bear, whose Person Pitch album was voted third in our Top 50 Albums of 2007 chart, gives his verdict of the year just gone
PANDA BEAR 10 GOOD THINGS IN 2007
Bleza
In March my friends Nelson and Pedro set up a show for me in Lisbon
at an old African music disco called Bleza. The people who ran the
club were very nice and seemed pleased at the end of the night and
that always makes me feel good about how things went. Also some
people came from far away (Latvia, I think) to see the show and
brought me flowers bunched with leaves and carrots. I wound up
giving the carrots and leaves to a man who worked at the place and
he was saying he was going to make them in a soup the next day and
I figured that was a much better use for them than if I had taken
them home.
Pantha du Prince \ This Bliss
While we were mixing the album I got really into these jams.
Sometimes when I was listening I would feel things very strongly
and I liked that about the music. We met Hendrik (Pantha du Prince)
when we played in Paris and he was awesome. A little later on in
the night I accidentally spilled most of a small glass of water on
his girlfriend and felt really stupid about that but I don’t think
it did any harm in the end. Even later Bresson, Dave and I DJed at
another club and Hendrik fell a little bit on a low seated broken
stool but he was all right.
Practice week
In May Animal Collective ollective toured for three weeks or so
around the US to a bunch of cities that we hadn’t been to before
mostly because they weren’t on the easiest (and quickest) route
around the country. Because we had just finished the album and
because we had spent the last two or so years playing the
strawberry jams we wanted to get about a set's worth of new songs
together for the tour. Even though it was a lot to do in a little
time we still had fun doing it (got goofy often) and it came
together pretty easy and surely.
John Maus \ don't know the title yet
John had sent the songs for his new album a while before but it
took a bit before I heard them. We were on tour (there was a lot of
it) in France and were out driving in the rain near a coast and it
was in the morning time. Whenever I hear these songs I feel some of
that I think and I like it. There is a lot of attention in the
songs and they feel soaked and I’m into that for sure. I like the
details, like the way the bass bounces with the delayed floor tom
sound on one song and the way the synth sounds pulse with the drums
on the last part of another and there are intense energies all
over. I don’t think this album is out just yet but I’m pretty sure
I’ve listened to these songs more than any others this year I
should say.
Tour soldiering
We had some tough times on tour this year and some bad things
happened but I’m pretty sure that’s par for the course for any
touring band so I don’t mean to complain at all. We played more
times this year than any other too so we should have expected to
hit some roughness. But I feel good about how we dealt with the
problems and how we didn’t let them mess us up too bad or get us
down too much. We gave a very bad performance one night and I think
I felt lamer that night than any other this year and all I wanted
to do was to try and play all right the next night. And the next
night was all right and the shows on the tour after that were all
right too and I’m happy that we just kept going and kept doing our
best. I suppose this is where the skateboarding analogy (down
below) holds up for me. Also, there were some intense sick times on
tour. Brad and I both got it bad in Europe the first time but we
kept going and got better. I don’t think I aced every one of those
performances (I'd have to stop and gag every other song or so) but
I did my best and I’m happy with that. Then more recently Dave got
really ill and held on for as long as he could but it became very
clear one night that he couldn’t make it happen. We were already at
the club and Brian and I figured we could play something and we
could play some sort of show so we did. I feel good about how we
tried to make the best out of any situation this past year as far
as the touring goes and I wont feel bad about the decisions we
made. I’d like to have that attitude always with just about
everything.
Enjoi video
I really like to skateboard even though I’m no good at it and I
really like to watch skateboard videos. Lots of times on aeroplanes
or in airports I'll watch them or in the van or whenever just to
calm down. Something about the motion and the fluidness of it calms
me and makes me feel good. When they’re really good it seems like
magic and it's like watching something that’s impossible and
watching those impossible moves over and over again is very
satisfying for me. I like to see sometimes what it took to get to
the finished performance like all the falls and things like that.
It's often pretty brutal but I think it's the really going for it
and going for it in your own way with your own style that I find so
attractive. The going for it and the trying to make impossible
magic is what I'd like to be aiming for with music always even
though that sounds out there. I’ve been thinking about a lot of
similarities between professional skateboarders and professional
musicians lately so perhaps this is all just on my mind. But the
Enjoi bag of suck video is the one I watched more than any other
this year and It's the one I'd return to the most for sure. I like
every part of it but for different reasons I would say and some of
the parts I didn’t like at first but now they’re my favourite and
that’s always a good sign I'd say.
Burial - Untrue
I really liked the first album and this one is more of the same but
prettier and with more voices. I think of ghosts when I hear the
music and I like that sensation. I really like how he (or she I
suppose I really don’t know) does things with the voices and how
they’re twisted around and high and then low. Also I’m really into
how metallic all the sounds are and how sharp things are and I like
how deep it is and how dreamy. I like the simplicity of the words
and the small repeated phrases all the time. I feel like this sort
of thing is right up my way on many levels if you know what I mean
so this is kind of a no brainer if you’ve known me for a bit. Lots
of people I’ve talked to who are into all the dubstep music don’t
really like this at all and say it’s not dubstep and that’s ok. I
suppose I don’t really care what it is I just like it a lot.
Black Dice \ Kokomo song and video
Black Dice are one of my favourite bands for sure and I’ve known
them for a while. They took Animal Collective on our first tour and
I feel like I learned so much just by watching how they did things
and how they treated their situations. I saw this video on the
internet while we were away and was so psyched and got really
pumped to hear the album although I haven’t just yet. It's kind of
a sensory overload but all the images and the way they’re put
together are so pleasing that it feels really good to see it.
There’s some funny parts in there and I always like that kind of
thing so long as its not overblown or over the top if you know what
I mean.
Skateboarding in Lisbon
My friend Randy (a Baltimore expat in Lisbon as well) and I went to
two parks around Lisbon during the summer. He’s very rarely around
town and I haven’t been around much this year either so we had to
get it when we could. We went to this one up in a wooded park
called Montsanto with his bro from Germany. They’re both much
better skaters than I am and so were all the kids that were at the
park. I was probably older than any of the kids by at least a good
8 years or so. I tried to drop in on a pretty tender slope right
when we got there and panicked when my wheels caught in some cut up
wood. I put my hand down to break my fall and skinned it all up but
I kept it near my body the rest of the time in shame so no one
would see the blood. I’m hard pressed to say whether I felt lamer
this day or the night of the really bad show (up above) but I had a
really good time rolling around and jumping off a foot high box for
most of the day anyways. I’d say its good to get slapped in the
face every so often and its good to get hit hard. I ate more than a
few slices of humble pie this year but I imagine anyone could say
that.
Hanging out with my family
I was away so much that it made the times at home with my family
more intensely sweet. I’m at home now and if I’m not playing music
or at the computer doing more business or organisational kinds of
things then I’m most definitely doing family things. That’s a lot
of the time I should say. I like the routines with the kid for sure
and mentally it's like washing dishes all day and I like that and I
don’t mean it in a bad way at all. There’s no room for my mind to
meander towards useless thoughts if you know what I mean. Being
with my family - especially this year because the family times were
contrasted so heavily and so abruptly with the touring and away
times - fully tunes my mind to what matters and what doesn’t matter
to me.
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