Like a lot of folks, I’m an avid listener of music. A few years back, my then-co-worker, still friend Chris and I had a conversation that more-or-less started with The Byrds (a band sadly overlooked by a great deal of my generation, most likely due to the historically great but tremendously overplayed “Turn, Turn, Turn! [To Everything There Is A Season]“) and ended-up touching on several other bands and genres, as it so often does. We were both immense fans of the quintessential San Diego instrumental band Tristeza, especially “Dream Signals In Full Circles,” “Spine and Sensory,” etc., which inextricably came up in conversation via the keywords “psychedelic” and “melodic.” Chris then said, “What about Languis?”

I’d never heard them in any of their various line-ups and sonic configurations, so my first introduction to the “Other Desert Cities” EP was completely blind. First listen, I was hooked — it was like the psychedelic tambourine jangle of The Byrds mixed with the shoegaze sound I’m so often drawn to. For an EP, it’s a truncated but complete idea — it starts strong and meanders through a beautiful wash of dense pop melodies, leaving you simultaneously satiated and yearning. Personal highlights include “I Forgot, I Forgot” and “City of Lights.” Highly recommended. Beautiful psychedelic, melodic music.

Languis “Other Desert Cities” EP on iTunes
Languis “Times Are Changing” Video on YouTube

It’s been a long time coming — but after a great deal of deliberation and several hours-long, intensely-focused Google Image Search sessions, I’m pleased to announce that mountain goats are my new favorite animal.

[Note: I have positively no idea what my previous favorite animal was.]

Break out the Louis Roederer Cristal Brut, pop the cork, and slowly pour it into the long flowing coat of Jasper, the Official Mountain Goat of blog.josephx.com, where all August is “Epic Mountain Goat Image Month.”

I’ve always held the belief that if you want to say something loud and/or proud, you start with a symbol representing the ideal you’re hoping to convey a steadfast regard for. Next, you stretch that symbol disproportionately. “Wider the better,” I always say.

I decided to go against my Mantra of Yore and say “Fuck it, make an inaugural post.” After all, it seems like the proper thing to do, especially since this blog is the figurative Winchester Mansion — stairways leading this way, doors in the ceiling, ghosts on the lawn. The design is a derivative, the concept of a blog isn’t original in the least, and a disclaimer [as a statement of intent] declaring such at least makes me more comfortable telling you, the reader, that you should expect nothing more than the pedestrian and trite.

That said, a list of resources that made this horseshit possible: 

• WordPress
• The Journalist Template (modified, naturally)
• Eric Martin’s Blog on “Conditional Navigational Links” (don’t ask me why it’s not built into WordPress)
• Lightbox 2 Plugin
• CSSEdit (one of the greatest applications ever made, ever)
• The gorgeous PF Synch Pro Black by Parachute (for the header logo)

And of course coffee, music, blahblahblah. In the throes of sheer blogging ecstasy (imagine a soft-focus image of Fabio humping a silk sheet-wrapped keyboard), it should also be stated I was able to login and post words/photos/etc. using the new WordPress for iPhone app, which is no short of genius (and an excellent enabler of obsessive-compulsive disorder, if that’s your scene).

Okay. Cue fireworks, etc. See you around.