The Wire: 'The Fall' (closing theme)

"Read between the lines"

- tagline for Season 5

Don't worry, no spoilers. I've only just seen the first two episodes, anyway. Listen to the track at the end of the post...

Hoover's been on my mind a bit lately, and it occurred to me that I left the band out of the previous post justifying The Wire's inclusion on this blog. Naturally, there's no direct or actual link (that I know of, anyway) but bear with me while I draw the connection. Starting with the image above, which is the long-running clip from The Wire's title sequence of police lights flashing in trickles of blood, with the colours changed to make it look somewhat reminiscent of the cover for Hoover's Lurid Traversal of Route 7.

To my mind, The Wire is the televisual equivalent of the dark, stupendous quality we have come to associate with the Hoover works. The Wire, too, has cult appeal which - however - has escaped the genre (crime) and achieved major media establishment acclaim. Neither of which, perhaps, has made it any more attractive to the average person, but at least it's getting recognition - and not only recognition, but interrogation - albeit of the critically positive kind.

It's probably grandiose to compare the Guardian, the Irish Times, Slate's belated love-fest over the final series of the TV show to my own scratchings on the topic of Hoover-related bands, but what the hell, I'll do it anyway. Over on Zen and the Art of Face Punching, I received a very nice compliment from another reader in the comments on the various attempts at description, eulogy and analysis that have made up the last 10 posts in that series. In jest I replied that I'd love to do a whole thesis on Hoover, from the perspective of post-hardcore as a movement in post-modern, post-materialist society (history and political science being my 'field' of study, so to speak). Nonsense, of course, but it ties in with the deep sense of meaning and art which I get from Hoover et al, and, The Wire.

At the end of every episode of The Wire, the screen goes black - it always feels far too soon - and the closing theme comes on. It's entitled 'The Fall' - post-lapsarian to our post-hardcore - and was composed by Blake Leyh, the show's music supervisor. Elsewhere, The Wire is packed full of interesting music, as befits its status as the most complex and realist show on television. There's the changing version's of Tom Wait's 'Way Down In The Hole', as mentioned before, that open the show; in cars and in houses, there is presumably carefully chosen music that reflects the characters - soul, r'n'b, hip-hop, country. It even works its way into the dialogue and action: like in the previous season, where assassins Chris and Snoop identify New York competitors in the drug dealing business by testing them on their knowledge of Baltimore club music; or where Bunny Colvin takes the corner kids out for a meal and has the Ella Fitzgerald in his car switched off in favour of rap music. Of course, that's just two examples.

But when it comes to making an artistic statement, it's that tune in the 'cold closing' of the show, in those half-unexpected moments of silence and emptiness, which hits the hardest. Nothing, and then the faint rattle of percussion, gradually growing louder and then joined, softly, with strings which are simultaneously stirring and mournful. It's flexible, rhythmic, and above all a little dubby: it always reminds me a little of 'Electrolux' or 'Regulator Watts', though of course to listen to those songs straight away destroys the illusion. In actual fact, in terms of space and cymbal-tapping awesomeness, it's quite like 'Cuts Like Drugs'. And the real, jazzy, soul- but also angst-filled version wouldn't be too out of place on Movin' Out by the Boom - a connection I made previously with 'Way Down In The Hole', which is however the stronger, brasher track of the episode opener/closer pair - while 'The Fall' is more meditative, slithering, ominous and thus, a little bit more Hoover-like:

Abilene - Two Guns, Twin Arrows

Abilene's second album, Two Guns, Twin Arrows, is a post-hardcore record of many facets and signifances. In the canon of post-Hoover records, Two Guns is one of the most recent and also, overall, one of the very best. The very best, perhaps, after Radio Flyer (in my opinion) and depending how the mood takes you, Abilene's first album, or Until The Eagle Grins. It's also broadly speaking the first return, or anything approaching, to Hoover's Lurid Traversal of Route 7 - a point the fakejazz review below hints at strongly. Two Guns, Twin Arrows of course brings back together on record the two most prominent and artistically incendiary members of Hoover, Alex Dunham (Radio Flyer, Regulator Watts, Abilene) and Frederick Erskine (Crownhate Ruin, June of '44, HIM) on guitar/vocals and trumpet, respectively.

Beyond that, Two Guns, Twin Arrows is a reshaping of the sound of the self-titled Abilene album: the latter undoubtedly critically undervalued, six songs of slow-burning, tension-breaking minimalism; giving way to a longer set of bombastic, yet immensely subtle and sinuously winding combinations of trumpeting jazz and guitar-based post-hardcore (post-rock, even). My allegiance switches between both: the midsection of 'October' and 'Blackleg' from Abilene affects me almost like the greatest intensities of Slint's Spiderland; while the opening pair of Two Guns, Twin Arrows, 'Twisting the Trinity' and 'Blanc Fixe' sends my mind to opposite but similar excesses of post-rock wonder - perhaps what a third Slint album may have sounded like, though only with the addition of a virtuoso trumpeter and fellow member of a decade-old emo hardcore legend.

Two Guns, Twin Arrows is to the Hoover family tree a culmination and a rebirth, a reshaping of tense, rhythmic post-hardcore into a new movement of fire, jazz, distortion and feedback. Even without the hyperbole, this is a great and largely brilliant record; a little challenging to some, or perhaps all of us, but doubly rewarding in the end.

Below is a selecton of reviews and information about the album, while I pick up the discussion of the tracks again at the end: [or skip to the important news]

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[3/5 stars]

"Starting off with vocals that reach back to guitarist Alex Dunham's previous band Hoover, as well as original hardcore like Black Flag, Abilene embarks on a strange, jagged trip of an album that recasts shifting jazz as post-hardcore. What makes this record click where their debut fell short is the inclusion of June of 44's Fred Erskine on trumpet. On tracks like "Twisting the Trinity." Erskine tugs the song in the direction of free jazz -- Dunham, Scott Adamson, and William Ackerman first resist, but then the tune collapses into a fluid jazz sway. On "Blanc Fixe," Erskine assaults with his trumpet, calling in a smooth but piercing punk/jazz. "Fellini" sounds the most like Hoover, with Dunham shouting over spiraling riffs. It's hardly ambient, but you get the sense that is the direction Abilene is heading -- one of broad experimentalism with traditional instrumentation."

Charles Spano, All Music Guide

Abilene - Two Guns, Twin Arrows (54 40 or Fight)

[9/12]

"We're reaching the tenth anniversary of a very important record... one where there probably won't be a special deluxe re-release... one that probably won't even get that much attention. Hoover's full length album, The Lurid Traversal of Route 7, came out on Dischord Records in August 1993.

The newer millennium finds Alex Dunham of Hoover leading the Chicago band Abilene. Abilene's self-titled album came out on Slowdime label a couple years back and was recorded only a few months after the band formed. As a result, the release was a bit uneven: a few songs were poweful rockers, delivered with an "in your face" vocal style, but the other songs were moody, half-done instrumentals. Abilene's new full length, Two Guns, Twin Arrows, finds the band tighter and more cohesive. And it also reunites Dunham with his old Hoover pal Fred Erskine.

While The Lurid Traversal of Route 7 won't get a two-cd reissue and get re-reviewed and re-appreciated, there's something better you can do to relive those long past glories. You can buy this goddam Abilene CD. On the bad side, time hasn't changed the Hoover boys very much. On the good side, time hasn't changed the Hoover boys very much. These are the same sounds which would later help define the "Louisville/Chicago sound" (odd given Hoover is from DC). The same dark, searing, powerful guitar sound. The same complex rhythms and liquid guitar and bass playing. The same depth-increasing use of space.

Erskine joins Abilene not to play bass but instead solely as a trumpet player. However, his trumpet playing is not merely a decoration; it is now an integral part of Abilene's sound. Some songs the trumpet carries the melody for extended portions, like in the album opening punch-in-the-face of "Twisting the Trinity." Some songs the trumpet is wrapped around Dunham's guitar, like in the scorching finale to "Blanc Fixe." Other times, it is warbling and humming, adding even more color or tension to an already dense composition.

While one could say that the addition of the trumpet lessens the impact of Dunham's vocals, that is more than made up for with the added density to the songs and the overall greater complexity and tightness to the arrangements. Dunham blasts into songs like "Fellini," screaming his lungs out. Earlier, that would be the most dominant sound in the song. However, now the guitar is even stronger and louder, the drums pound harder, and the trumpet injects a little humility, its softness evening out Dunham's pain and strain. With their second album, Abilene's songs now seem fully realized and fully balanced.

Perhaps I was mistaken when I called Bellini's Snowing Sun the last great 90s Touch and Go album. Abilene isn't that successful, but it's expertly crafted, dark and colorful. With artists like Abilene (who have now added Doug McCombs... imagine) and labels like 54'40" or Fight, perhaps the 90s Chicago sound will never leave us."

fakejazz.com, february 2003: jim steed.

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"Abilene calls into question the darker elements encountered in life, coupled with a positive aspect; consequently, both facets bind the music to a place centered on intensity and comfort. Abilene is essentially about ambient soundscapes." -Scott Holman, Copper Press (CP6).

"Formed in 1998, and originally consisting of Alex Dunham on guitar and
vocals, Scott Adamson behind drums, and bassist Craig Ackerman, Abilene recorded and released a six-song slow-burner on the now-defunct Slowdime label. Before writing and recording Two Guns, Twin Arrows, Fred Erskine (June of '44, Hoover) joined to play trumpet, and the band evolved musically into something more dense, equally brooding, yet still ambient and subtle in nature.

Abilene's members have a prestigious musical past which has included such bands as June of '44, Hoover, Lustre King, Chisel.Drill.Hammer, Just a Fire, Radio Flyer and Regulator Watts.

Scott Adamson - Drums

Alex Dunham - Guitar, voice

Fred Erskine - Trumpet

Craig Ackerman - Bass

RIYL: Hoover, The Sorts, Fugazi, Lungfish, Johnboy, 90 Day Men, and Karate"

Abilene bio on 54'40" or Fight

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"Abilene’s second full-length, and first with Fred Erskine, is the album for which some critics pined when reviewing its much more mellow, spacious debut. “Three great songs, three OK ones,” they lamented, much to our surprise (we had it as five to one in Abilene’s favor). However, with Two Guns, Twin Arrows, Abilene has upped the ante, and slowly, one-by-one, laid eight aces across the table, all while maintaining a grim poker face.

Alex Dunham’s bristling yet atmospheric guitar playing and the subdued, complementary trumpeting of Erskine crest atop deep grooves as bassist Craig Ackerman and drummer Scott Adamson mine soul, dub and jazz for their subtle, fluid rhythms. At times, the players layout behind Erskine as he glides into passages informed by Freddie Hubbard and Don Cherry before the band shifts into states of transfixing tension-and-release. At others, Abilene is more insistent than ever, coursing manically through odd-time signatures beneath acrid lead guitar and shifting rhythmic tenacity. Still, at its core, it’s engaging ambient music for those who like it played with standard instrumentation. And no one does that like Abilene."

"Chicago based Abilene offer a brooding, dark and well-constructed album incorporating the expected instruments alongside a more unexpected trumpet advantage. This brass incorporation lands the band somewhere in the realm of post-hardcore meets jazz whereas songs deftly mix a seemingly quiet impromptu with more determined musical aggression in “Blanc Fix” and “Twisting the Trinity.” Creative, dark, tense and well balanced from the late Hoover bandmates Alex Dunham Fred Erskine. Bravo. - Wonka Vision

Two Guns, Twin Arrows reviews on 54'40" or Fight

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Two Guns and Twin Arrows are (two separate) places in the state of Arizona along the famous Route 66; Twin Arrows marks the intersection between Route 66 and the supplanting I-40. They are pretty bleak rest stops now, as the photographs (from studio-chimera.com and blogs.trucktrend.com) testify.

And of course Abilene is itself, among other things, the name of a city in Texas.

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[The news: here (in the comments) and also here, that Hoover are actually playing a show in London on August 27 (with Bluetip), and also in Spain at the St. Feliu festival. Mega awesomeness.]

I

Opener ‘Twisting The Trinity’ serves as a clear introduction to the revised, new Abilene sound: cacophonous opening guitar continues for a few bars, then trumpet, vocals, and finally the rhythm section comes in; all layered, spacious as on Abilene but instantly noisier. Then it goes quiet again, though Erskine returns with relatively gentle phrases on the trumpet, introducing a recognizably jazzy sound to the album. The second track, ‘Blanc Fixe’, steps this element of the music up; at first, winding, soaring phrases with a strangely Eastern feel; before Dunham kicks back in with vocals, again heavier than before on the previous album, but with a similar underlying kind of feel. ‘Blanc Fixe’ soars back into the sort of agonizing cacophony - and believe me when I say I mean that in the best possible way - that establishes itself at the heart of this album. On the Hoover Mixtape I wrote of 'Twisting The Trinity' - though this in fact applies better to 'Blanc Fixe' - "The winding, slightly exotic or Oriental melodies of Erskine's trumpet meld with the surprisingly heavy guitars to produce a viscerally powerful and energetic sound."

‘Fitch’ returns more prominently to the guitar, heavily accented on the downstroke, underlaid with subtle trumpeting while lyrically the song shouts "Fitch!", with both guitar and voice. Here, the trumpet is colour in the background, in the empty space between action and over the soft rhythm. As the song rises and falls, the trumpet for the most part acts as counterpoint to the guitar. ‘Ghost Writer’, the fourth track, is an extremely quiet song, like those on the first album, but with added For Carnation-like flourishes - both in the texture of the guitars and in the ambient noise.

II

'Fellini' opens up the album again into a loud, aggressive sound. It's a good song to illustrate why Two Guns, Twin Arrows might be a better album than Abilene, like Hoover but also not like Hoover in the strength and reach of its dynamics: playing descending trumpet and ascending guitar off against each other, and vice versa. The songs swells and levels out, finally in a swirling, perfectly balanced blend of jazz and post-hardcore.

'Apache Country' begins in similar, but far quieter, fashion; rolling drums, soft vocals, an alternately clarion and smokey trumpet segue into For Carnation-like post-rock spaciousness. Post-rock not in the grandiose sense, but in the incredibly tense, finely textured style exhibited amongst other settings on the aforementioned group's self-titled album. 'Phase Four' almost extends the comparison, branching out into simultaneously ambient and intrusive electronics - all very Hoover-ish, though seemingly out of place on this album - with what can only be described as gnarled but impassioned vocals.

The final song, 'Solidarity' is I'm told is a reaction to September 11th and its consequences - Two Guns, Twin Arrows was released in 2002. The lyrics don't begin for a minute or two, after a winding trumpet section; but as they do, they unfold in unison between Dunham and Erskine, over a relatively simple, rhythmic guitar riff before the song soars back into instrumental candour - candour in expression, carefully judged and balance, though not without weight and feeling. In fact, it sounds quite different from the Hoover of just under ten years previous, slightly more calming than cathartic. 'Solidarity' is, when considered carefully, a rather moving and quite concise - at just over four minutes - conclusion to the album and, stylistically, a return to the opening sounds of 'Twisting the Trinity' and 'Blanc Fixe'.

"a black light has fallen fate outlined this morning inside we saw the bleeding with faith, outside we cried a black light has fallen retell the morning resell the time your faith's outside divisions been drawn and made justice with flags a-wavin', a stop-gap never seen patriot start selling a hollow unity"

'Solidarity'

Abilene - Two Guns, Twin Arrows (via kissmysoundsystem)

54 50 or Fight! online store

Amazon.com

eMusic

Hard Working / Bloggers

The annual new Irish alternative/indie music showcase, line-up announced today.

From Unarocks:

202's / 79Cortinaz / A Lazarus Soul / The Aftermath / Alphamono / The Ambience Affair / Angel Pier / Armoured Bear / Mark Austin / Autamata / Bats / The Beat Poets / Bravado / The Brothers Movement / The Cades / Carly Sings / Nick Carswell & The Elective Orchestra / Caruso / Chequerboard / Cian / Class Of 1984 / Ollie Cole / Crayonsmith / Cutaways / The Dagger Lees / Deaf Animal Orchestra / Distractors / Dolbro Dan / Dublin Duck Dispensary / Exit: Pursued By A Bear / Fiach / Fighting With Wire / Valerie Francis / Fred / Gorbachov / Grand Pocket Orchestra / Groom / Halves / Headgear / Heartbreak Cartel / The Holy Roman Army / Hooray for Humans / The Hot Sprockets / Hybrasil / Kill Krinkle Club / The Kinetiks / The Last Tycoons / Le Galaxie / Lines Drawing Circles / Little Xs For Eyes / Mackerel The Cat / Tom McShane / Fiona Melady / The Minutes / Walter Mitty & The Realists / More Tiny Giants / My Brother Woody / Nakatomi Plaza / New Amusement / Noise Control / Not Men But Giants / One Day International / The Followers of Otis / Panama Kings / The Parks / Pilotlight / Pocket Promise / The Rags / The Revellions / Robotnik / John Shelly and the Creatures / Sickboy / Sideproject / So Cow / Sounds of System Breakdown / Sparks Fly / The Spook of The Thirteenth Lock / Super Extra Bonus Party / Supermodel Twins / Sweet Jane / Tidal District / Tiger Empire / David Turpin / The Vinny Club / Vodkopter / Youre Only Massive

I've never been before, for the most part because I listened to very little Irish indie music even just a year ago, but assuming I do go, these artists I'll be trying to catch: A Lazarus Soul (because there's plenty to build on the last time I saw them), Bats ('cos I need to seem them for a fourth time), Chequerboard, Crayonsmith, Fighting With Wire (as much from what I've heard of their music as for the fact that the bassist was wearing a Future of the Left t-shirt in a video I saw of them), Fred, Grand Pocket Orchestra (seen them once before, supporting Fight Like Apes the first time I saw them - while Those Geese Were Stupified reckons they're up to supplant the newly slickened headliners), Halves, Hooray for Humans (hopefully this time with a drummer), So Cow and The Vinny Club. Amongst others. And of course, the point of the festival is to discover new acts as well.

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On a slightly different note, some new like-minded hardcore/alternative-type blogs which have been added to my blogroll recently:

failing the rorschach test is a cretinous curmudgeon from Canada with a liking for Bats and their Cruel Sea Scientist EP. Only a handful of posts so far, but they're detailed and well-written and as well as posting Mission of Burma, Streetlight Manifesto and Pg.99, there is also the excellent Please Inform The Captain This Is A Hijack - Defeat Or Humiliate The United States Of America.

One of Mike Kirsch's numerous bands, it takes the sampling approach of the preceding project Bread And Circuits and amplifies it. Bread And Circuits used Fela Kuti, while Defeat Or Humiliate... samples Stokely Carmichael - amongst others - and separates the album into brief hardcore tracks and ambient spoken word/instrumental samples. Anyway, follow the link to read about it more and download it.

Computers That Breathe is a blog of a guy called Brooklyn Bill, which has also only been around for about a month and has about a dozen posts up. Mostly 80s-90s post-hardcore and alternative rock with Unwound, Shudder To Think, Chavez and a bizarro-universe version of Husker Du called Moving Targets which is actually really good. Or as he says,

"Listen, I'm not trying to ruffle any feathers or piss on anyone's gods but in my humble opinion MOVING TARGETS' RECORDS BURNING IN WATER AND BRAVE NOISE ARE AS GOOD AS HUSKER DU'S ZEN ARCADE AND NEW DAY RISING. There. I'm glad I got that off my chest because its been eating a hole in my stomach for 18 years".

The Art Beats the Thing Itself is not really a music blog (it's an art blog, pretty much - but hey, I've got one of those myself too) but the guy who runs it, Zack Thrower, is in a band. And not just any band, but a quite awesome hardcore/screamo band of the original late 90s/mid-00s style we all know and love - their myspace cites Shotmaker, Spirit of Versailles, Frail and Kaospilot amongst others under 'sounds like'. Anyway, they're called Nationale, they're from Georgia in the US, and they have a four-song CD demo quite excellently packaged available via their Myspace. Check it out, and the blog which follows the production of their flyers and demo artowork.

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And finally, to return a little way to the beginning of the post, The Indie Hour has been on blogroll for a while but with the last mixtape on this blog a reminder is probably in order. The Indie Hour blog is run by Aoife MC who also presents the show of the same name on 103.2 Dublin City FM every Thursday 9-10pm (I'm listening to it right now, which is kinda weird). Bats, Terrordactyl, Adebisi Shank from that mix have all been featured on the show - the second two artists coincidentally starting off tonight's show - as well as bands I've written about myself like Fight Like Apes, Hooray for Humans and Halves (I'm about to write about them, anyway). Each show usually features an interview with and live performances from an artist - tonight is Heathers, who have just returned from their US summer tour. And the best part is that the shows are available to download as a mp3/podcast after they've been broadcast.

Fugazi - Margin Walker EP

Fugazi's second release, first released as Dischord 35 and then as the latter half of the 13 Songs album along with their first EP, 7 Songs (posted here). I'm almost exclusively a fan of Fugazi's earlier works (Steady Diet of Nothing and before) and as often is with such predilections, the very first record is the one which retains the most immediacy. That said, Margin Walker is clearly an artistic step above 7 Songs, a further progression in the early Fugazi sound. The FLEX discography sums it up as "Similar to the first 12", but noisier and less catchy. Also great, but harder to get into."

Likewise, Allmusic state "The equally excellent follow-up to the Fugazi EP was initially released in 1989 on vinyl, and was paired with its predecessor on CD shortly after its release during the same year. Dischord continued to keep the vinyl in print on its own, even retaining the rather gross headshot of Ian MacKaye on the cover."

"The problem with this kind of "transcendence" is that's hard to isolate and explain. ... If I fumble for a way to explain why Fugazi's "Margin Walker" is so exciting, it's just too easy to latch on to phrases like "I'm going to set myself on fire," and break them down for their shock and metaphorical values.

Would I still get a charge out of "Margin Walker" if Guy Picciotto and Ian MacKaye were singing about the deliciousness of Coca-Cola? Hard to say. ... Certainly there's enough spark in the music itself that the lyrics' stammering expression of painful, possibly all-consuming, possibly criminal desire may not be necessary. But just like the right title on an abstract painting can give a museumgoer something to focus on, so the right lyrics can seem to give a transcendent song a direct purpose. It completes the fantasy: I'm not just all-worked-up, I'm all-worked-up because there's something I want, and I might be willing to hurt people to get it.

Ultimately though, even offering a detailed explanation for why "Margin Walker" gets my blood pumping won't persuade anyone who doesn't hear it the same way. If my favorite comedy doesn't make you laugh, there's no way you're going to think it's a good comedy. If The Arcade Fire's The Neon Bible doesn't make you feel panicked and fragile and a little bit angry, you're not going to buy my arguments for why it's a great album..."

Noel Murray, Popless Week 15: Taking You Higher

The title track of Margin Walker opens, attention-grabbingly, with a combination of shuddering, plunging guitar and an insistent rhythm. Lyrically, it's enveloped in the psychology and metaphysics of most Fugazi songs - "Untraceable, untranslatable, I can't explain all I ever wanted to do/Trajectory passing right through me threads my needle sends it right to you" - spat out in Guy Piccioto's furious delivery. 'And The Same' continues on with an even heavier, but calmly circular rhythm fighting with swinging guitar chords and Ian MacKaye's yearning, reaching vocals.

As it dissolves, pendulum-like, into "Action. Reaction. Action. Reaction" the next song begins, initially, in a more conventional punk style. But 'Burning Too' shifts quickly into almost heavy dub/reggae-like rhythm, lyrics half-spoken, and interspersed with increasingly frantic shouts. Here, Piccioto and MacKaye sing together, trading lines between their distinct but complementary styles, before joining in the final, visceral exhortation of 'Right here. Right now. Do it. Now. Do it'.

The second side starts with 'Provisional', a slower, more spacious Fugazi song - 'lulled to sleep under clear expansive skies' - but unwinding and winding itself into the listener, worming its speech into the ear - 'hoping every slip's not a slide'. It's a duality of tension, shaped from contrasting parts and hung together in every moment on the beat of a drum or the sweep of a guitar. 'Lockdown' is more frantic hardcore, but deconstructed and reformed into knife-cuts of post-punk noise, again over Guy's furious vocals.

From this, 'Promises' is the peak, the closure of the 13 Songs Fugazi sound; and presumably, the onward link to the style of the full-length Repeater. Part post-hardcore soundscape, part meditation, and a larger part quiet-loud dynamics. Epic and complex, it intertwines slow picking, louder crescendoes, spoken-word, and sidestepping, shifting rhythms; leading finally to the explosive fury and slowly unravelled energy of 'Promises. Words.'

Fugazi - Margin Walker (tracks from the 13 Songs CD)

Buy Margin Walker from Dischord (12", cassette or digital)

eMusic - 13 Songs

The Wire: Season 5 - tonight!

"Omar Little is the gay stick-up man who robs drug dealers for a living on The Wire..." (The Guardian Guide, July 19-25)

Monday 28th July, TG4 10.30 p.m.

It's finally here on terrestrial TV, the fifth and final series of the superb US crime drama. TG4 is the Irish language national broadcast channel, who showed the previous four series at various times in the graveyard schedule. There's nothing Irish about the Wire (except for Aiden Gillen - Carcetti - and a few other things to be mentioned below) and it's not subtitled into Irish (though that might help... sometimes). In fact, TG4 do a good line in quality US television - Cold Case, Without A Trace, a weekly Western, and a while ago now, the equally cult (and fantastic) show Carnivale.

Obviously this season of The Wire has been on HBO already in the States, and it started in the UK on cable channel FX last week, hence the Guardian TV guide. So I've had to wait a little while, which meant I wasn't able to follow the coverage in the AV Club or elsewhere. Not to fear, because the Irish Times music writer and Phantom FM DJ, Jim Carroll, is devoting a thread on his blog every week to The Wire. Best part is the Tyler Durden-esque rules he's laying down:

"The first rule of On The Record on The Wire? "Casual viewers? Fuck the casual viewers".

The second rule of On The Record on The Wire? If you’re not a fan, don’t read it.

The third rule of On The Record on The Wire? Sheeeeeee-it, you have to ask? Clay Davis for Taoiseach, of course."

So I'll be following that, as well as the AV Club TV Club, the excellent, literate Wire blog Heaven and Here, and josephlovesit on Geek Down. The Wire is nothing short of the cultural apotheosis of modern television.

But other than its incipient awesomeness, what reasons do I have for mentioning The Wire on this particular music blog?

1. Tom Waits, 'Way Down In The Hole'. This is the theme for The Wire, performed by different artists every season (including Waits himself on the second season). It's covered by Steve Earle for this season.

2. Baltimore, MD. Whence not only The Wire comes, but also (it's a big city, obviously) a wide variety of alternative music including Dan Deacon's Wham City collective, Matmos and, of course, the superb post-hardcore group Lungfish. Not just Lungfish but the various associated bands such as Asa Osborne and Daniel Higgs's Pupils, Nathan Bell's Human Bell, and the punk preincarnation of Lungfish, Reptile House.

3. Baltimore, Co. Cork. Yeah, the original Baltimore is a small town in west County Cork, on the south coast of Ireland. It's pronounced slightly differently - 'Bal-timore' rather than 'Ball-timore', and I don't think anyone's ever called it 'B-more'. I can't find anything about crime statistics, but it was sacked by Algerian pirates in 1631.

4. Did I mention it's awesome?