Getting to Know the Correspondents

Meet the Correspondents: Mitch Miggenburg, Charleston SC
AKA: Mount Pleasant

I was sent a number of questions by Sunsets, but I am picking and choosing the ones I like best.

1. What was the first cd/cassette you remember buying?
* I owned more rap cassettes than any white boy in the suberbs should. All accounted for in old shoe boxes. These included, but are definitely not limited to,
Run DMC, Digital Underground, Too Short (all of em'), Spice 1 (all of em'), NWA, Eazy E, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube (all of em'), Bone Thugs-in-Harmony, Ant Banks, and Domino. And, don't be mistaken, I was listening to these through 1994 when I finally got a CD Player. Sure, I was behind as far as technology goes, but I distinctly remember going to the mall to purchase the Notorious B.I.G "Ready to Die" in late '94 as my first compact disc. And really, I couldn't have been happier with my first cd purchase.


2. Name an album, book, or movie that you feel you can judge a person with based on whether they like it or not.
I have always said, "If you don't like The Sunset Tree by the Mountain Goats, then I don't like you." Drastic? sure. But I can safely say, if you don't like this album, I'm guessing you and I won't see eye-to-eye on anything that really matters. So there.


3. What is the best live show(s) you have ever seen?
To Many to list probably, but here goes...in descending order from really-liked(#10) to borderline-couldn't-believe-I-was-there (#1). Dates are approximations:
#10. Josh Joplin - Eddie's Attic, Atlanta GA 2003
#9. The Strokes - The Plex, Charleston, SC 2007
#8. The Thermals - The Pour House, Charleston SC 2009
#7. Kings of Leon - The Music Farm, Charleston SC 2007
#6. Son Volt - The Music Farm, Charleston, SC 2006
#5. Band of Horses - Redux Theatre, Charleston SC 2005
(Tie) BOH - Village Tavern, Mt. Pleasant SC 2007
#4. Conor Oberst - The Plex, Charleston SC 2008
#3. Band of Horses - The Music Farm, Charleston 2009
#2. The Mountain Goats - The Redux Theatre, Charleston, SC 2005
#1. Pearl Jam - Deer Creek, Indianapolis IN 2003 (unreal)

4. What posters did you have on your wall growing up?
In addition to almost every Sports Illustrated cover from '90-'94 (and I even added the Tyson Rape Conviction issue for laughs....awkward now that I look back on it) I had the following:
**Andre Dawson - The Hawk (so cool, him standing outside Wrigley with a bat on his shoulder and a hawk perched on the bat)
**"Chicago Times" - Chicago's 3 premiere athletes...Dawson, Jordan, and Walter Peyton in tuxes. just badass.
**Eddie Vedder - Vs. (life-size) Actually, maybe a little bigger than life-size since ed is about 4'11"
**Chuck Person - The RifleMan. I sooo wish I still had this poster.
**and the BigHead Pennants (so popular in the nineties) of Dawson, Jordan, Bird, and Reggie Miller) for good measure


5. Who was your favorite 80s basketball player? See above....The Rifleman kids! Not afraid to pull the trigger from anywhere. OK, I lied. Bird. But Chuck Person was damn close!!

6. Best Hamburger? Poes Tavern on Sullivan's Island, SC. Bout 4 miles from my house and the best Jalapeno Jack liquid cheese sauce you've ever had.

7. Can I get you something to drink?
Depending on the mood. Cheap red wine, expensive hoppy beer, or just Maker's and Diet please, hold the fruit!

Getting To Know Our Correspondents

Hops McAlarney
Aside from being a singer and harmonica player for The Extreme Chocolate Milk, Hops will be rating beers for The Sun Sets On Indiana. He is, after all, an expert.

1. What posters did you have in your bedroom growing up?
All of the Wheaties-issued Michael Jordan posters, a life-size Michael Jordan poster that we cut in the corner to go around an electrical outlet, a Mars Blackmon "Gotta Be the Shoes" poster, and a "Wizard" Ozzie Smith poster where he's in mid back-flip.

2. Who would you like to play you in a movie?
I would like Chase Utley to try his hand at acting.

3. Hello sir, what can I get you to drink?
Could I have a tall Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale? Or maybe a New Belgium Mighty Arrow in a frosty mug? I think that as I delve deeper into a world of trying different beers, I generally like pale ales and IPA's the best. But I've met few beers that I didn't like. And Bud Light when I'm going for quantity over quality. Don't get me wrong, I love Bud Light.

4. What restaurant has the best burger you have ever eaten?
This is a tough question, but I'm going to say McGuire's Irish Pub in Destin, Florida. I can't remember what I had but remember the experience. I think this place has more burgers on the menu than any restaurant in world and something like $500,000 hanging on the wall and ceiling. Every customer signs a $1 and tacks it to the wall before they leave. Best local burger I can remember eating would be from my neighborhood joint growing up, Breakaway Cafe, on Natural Bridge Rd in Normandy, MO. They also had the best 7-layer Mexican dip as an appetizer. If the question had been, "What restaraunt has the best chicken wings and provided the setting for the best overall restaurant experience of your life?", I would've said Philthy Phils in St. Petersburg, FL.

5. You pick 5 friends to play a 20 minute half against the UConn womens basketball team. How much money do you put down that you will win?
I will bet my life that we will win and here's why: when a female dunks in a basketball game, it automatically becomes a Sportscenter Top 10 play. I rest my case.

College Life Once Again (A weekend with Henry and my record player) By Greg Brinkmeyer

Woke up Saturday morning in a bit of a haze. Tried to piece together the evening before as I stood in a pair of shorts and a jacket while watching my girlfriend’s dog peruse the lawn adjacent to my apartment building. He did his business and we headed back in for another hour of sleep. Awoke for the second time feeling no better than before and glanced around the apartment. Nothing was broken and nothing was out of place. I spent the evening before watching the Haiti telethon and Conan’s last show. In the process, I drank several beers and my third bottle of red wine this week. The life of a college student once again.

Today was to be different. Yes, I would be drinking but I had a few details to take care of beforehand. I went to the store, did some homework, and attended to the dog. My main focus of the day was to listen to records. My turntable was gathering dust and seemed to be silently crying out to be used. At 2 pm, I dropped the needle on Son Volt’s “Straightaways”. The music provided the inspiration to finish my work and filled me with a sense of happiness. I later followed up with Bob Dylan, Band of Horses, Tom Waits, and The Boss, all on vinyl. “Darkness on the Edge of Town” is pure genius and Springsteen’s hidden gem.

The beers began to flow a couple of hours later. Henry (the dog) and I settled in for the evening and I somehow finished several beers within a five hour period. I left to purchase more. After returning, I once again took pleasure in the sweet sounds of Bob Dylan on vinyl with “Highway 61 Revisited”. “Queen Jane Approximately” is remarkable, in my opinion. Sonic Youth’s “Murray Street” followed.

At thirty-two years of age, the return to college has been a difficult but rewarding experience. I know that what I am doing is worthwhile and I will be walking away with a master’s degree. But, I spend a lot of time alone and constantly think about my friends and family across the Midwest. I miss them tremendously and they are often on my mind. But, I know we will be hanging out soon and it will be as if nothing has changed. And that’s the way I want it to stay.

Within these two nights of a drunken stupor, I have come to two conclusions that will forever be etched in to my brain. One, if you can find the small, simple treasures in life that make you happy, enjoy them without limits. For me, it’s going to school, having a cold beer, remembering the great times with my loved ones, and listening to good music. Two, Bruce Springsteen is the coolest sumbitch in the history of man. And that’s a fact.

Larry Legend

For the last couple of years I have started to enjoy the NBA again. Friday nights watching the 7pm and 930pm games on ESPN is something that I look forward to. I picked up Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball earlier this month and this has only enhanced my appreciation for the league. This book is a 600+ page storybook of the entire history of the NBA. Unbelievable and entertaining and I can't stop reading it. I forgot how much I love Larry Bird and Celtics/Lakers playoff epics and Isaiah Thomas, Dominque Wilkens, Celtics/Rockets fistfights. Here is Larry Bird's 60 point game against the Hawks. I put it on here for a couple reasons. One, you don't see anyone shoot like Larry anymore, even if it looks like Atlanta is playing All Star Weekend defense after a night of drinking Jim Beam from the bottle. He glides in like a 40 year old at the Y and hits everything in sight. The second, and maybe the greatest thing I have ever seen from an opposing crowd and opposing teams bench; at around the 4:15 mark in the video you see Hawk bench players getting excited, nudging each other, slapping five. At the 5:10 mark you see an all out Def Comedy Jam, high five slapping, knee raising show of fandom, better than you would see from the Celtics bench. The Hawk players are loving it. I wonder if Fratello could even discipline these guys...I think I saw him throw a fist pump as Larry approached 54 points. If you have 7 minutes today check out the highlights. If you are in a rush, fast forward to around the 5 minute mark. Funny, awesome, amazing shit. I am glad I got to grow up in Indiana shooting free throws until dinner time, with only the thought of becoming Larry Bird as my greatest motivator.

Monsters of Folk-At The Bottom Of Everything

While waiting for Law and Order SVU I decided to make time disappear by sifting through youtube. Here was my favorite video of the evening. Enjoy it and thanks for joining us at The New Sun Sets On Indiana.

The Mountain Goats--Romans 10.9

Pitchforktv is showing three Mountain Goats videos that they taped at Cemetary Gates. Here is one of them. Pretty great stuff if you ask me.

My Favorite Album of the Decade is...Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground

‘Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground’ Bright Eyes (on vinyl)

reviewed by Chris Connors

“Seems like it, right?...don’t you think?” The album begins with friends’ casual banter, their movements unsophisticated, as though the person recording has assured them all “No no the red light means off,” sounds discordant like kids kicking thru piles of raked leaves, everyone piling into a car on a Saturday night, disagreeing over directions, unsure of the best way to get there, wherever there is—a show, a friend’s show, a party, small gathering. No music legible yet, just this rustling, like Conor Oberst, the band’s lead singer, scaling the folds from behind the stage, feeling out the ruffles of the curtain in desperate but still shy search for the opening, the part in the folds into the light, to at length grip his vocal chords onto the cold windpipe and urge, “The future’s far too big to look at, kid, your eyes won’t open wide enough…and you’re constantly surrounded by the swirling stream of what is and what was.” The rattle in the singer’s voice begins weakly, or maybe he’s not yet aware, like a snake that doesn’t know he has a rattle…but as he continues on he notices the rattling from behind him shakes everytime he does something, in this case says something…and it’s in sync…paired up…it belongs to him. And as listeners we get to gravely experience the very moment, the change, the shifting of power, where the rattle no longer implies fear, or fright, no longer means a quiver, a tremble, a tremor, but at the moment “I mean it’s cool if you keep quiet but…I LIKE SING-IN’!” the rattle slaps up in the air, and the snake has realized he has been given something that will announce a dangerous and intriguing presence.
The singer has taken his place on stage, the light is dim, terra cotta, fuzzy, crackling, the audience quiet, immobilized. Lie still, listen and balance your body along the cave and hunt down the originator of the echo. What this album means to me I have to let run and run…
lying down in the dirt, at times solemnly lying, at times thankfully, happy solely in a daydream, like a kid…make an angel in the snow, lie there long enough kid you can’t move your back it’s so cold, but you can’t feel it so…the snow turns to frozen mud, then marl and wet clay, soft mud to dirt, with time, the seasons, whether your ready or want to turn back, your series of emotions that couldn’t be anybody else’s but your own, legs and arms wriggling about as you shift positions when this one gets old and begins to hurt—your fresh new that-and-there position, pole position. One in particular being flat on your back, nearly or perfectly centered enough, eyes on the cloud faces where no one else could identify the resemblances—what you believed at a young age was your middle-age, your mid-life crises, in the middle of the album poses those questions, “Is it true what I heard about the Son of God?…did He die for us? did He die at all?…and if I dried His feet with my dirty hair would He make me clean again?” Find out for yourself, kid.
Each song before this, each song after—a shift of your body, swing of your mood, tip of the tongue back of the teeth you hear everything. By the beginning of the last song you are saying aloud, “Here I go,” and knuckles into the ground push yourself up. The culmination is your standing up, having refused the grass that nature was bound to let grow over you like nothing happened, like you were never there to begin with. You stand up and jump and jump and further flatten out that mound of dirt and look down to discover it’s been a grave all along, but you’re ALIVE, you got thru it kid, with friends and family and on your own, and that’s your dead-you in the ground, out of sight and: all those thoughts that were your own it helped to know were somebody else’s (the true test of any Poet worth a damn) have seeped deep into the soil. You are pleased with this old you though, having known and been him, but now it’s time to go, to keep moving kid, find another patch of land or cloth to lie down on and shift positions in. A different grave to make you realize what it’s like to stand up, to on occasion glance back while still moving on to something else that will suit you for the time being.
This album means that to me, knowing you can always go back to that little burial site we got out of ontop, that didn’t suck your body thru with all your thoughts and flashcard-burned-in-memories you believed no one else could possibly carry. It’s okay to go back to that place and not feel anything close to shame but know deep down in your heart you were great then, like you are great now but in a much different, hopefully better way. Slap every rattle up in the air and unabashedly shift to a scream “Well, we all fit into your slogan on that fast food marquee…red blooded white skinned oh and the blues…OH AND THE BLUES I GOT THE BLUES THAT’S ME! THAT’S ME!!!.” and hope that is enough (But let’s not shit ourselves).