Walking Through the Ruinsof this Crazy Town — OpticDistraction Photoblog

Walking Through the Ruins
of this Crazy Town

Tully Rohrer

December 4^th, 2006

This week I plan to post a series of black and white landscape shots from around my house here in Telluride. This is the first of the series, and features an ancient abandoned railroad trestle near Trout Lake. There are miles of cross-country skiing trails around here, and the views are outstanding, as you can see.

#14 on the Favorites of the Year Countdown:
In 2005 I stumbled on a little EP called Enemies by a band called Headlights. Somewhat in the vein of The Postal Service, songwriters Tristan Wright and Erin Fein had crafted a four-song demo that was nearly flawless in its application of electronics to indie pop gems. Of course, after about two months of constant listening, I knew the secret couldn’t last too long and, sure enough, Grey’s Anatomy featured the song “Everybody Need’s A Fence to Lean On” towards the end of the second season. I waited not-so-patiently for Headlights‘ LP to be released, and 2006 gave us Kill Them With Kindness. The album as a whole is far from perfect, but contained therein are many of my favorite songs of the year. Owl Eyes is the 6th track, and is representative of Erin Fein’s beautiful voice, arresting melodies, and modern semi-electronic production. That said, they use a real human drummer, which I find refreshing compared to the blips and pops of The Postal Service and their many tagalongs. Headlights manages to create a sound unique enough that The Postal Service “tagalong” label doesn’t really hold up - this band manages to take a common genre, reinvent it, and create perfect indie pop songs in the process. Even if they do give songs to Grey’s Anatomy…

Favorites of 2006:
#16: Islands - Rough Gem
#15: The Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3
#14: Headlights - Owl Eyes