It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.<\/p>\n
In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.<\/i><\/p>\n
Big Weather<\/a><\/i> is 1, 2, 3<\/a>‘s second record, and it is a double album. While listening to it, I decided the following: 1) If the name of your band is the same as the act of counting in, every song faces the challenge of being “4” – the, or at least a, point of ignition and 2) With Big Weather<\/i>, 1, 2, 3 have more than met that challenge.<\/p>\n The name of the record reflects the place where it was made: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which I can tell you from experience surely does experience some big weather. But geography aside, it’s well named: it’s a big record, ambitious and diverse and compelling. It contains multitudes: several different flavors of pop and punk; the occasional burst of classic rock, country blues and jammy noodling; even some spoken word interludes, one of which (In the House of the Locust<\/i>) was so unsettling I could only listen to it one time. <\/p>\n Example #1: Leave Me in the Sky With A Lawnchair<\/i>, which is a punk-rock whirl through the feeling of just wanting to float away:
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