Animal 
Collective 
recently 
played their 2004 album Sung 
Tongs in full for Pitchfork’s 21st 
birthday. As I watched a bootleg 
of the performance, I found myself 
falling back in time, a slave to the 
wanderings of my mind and its 
melancholic musings.
“Sweet summer night, and I’m 
stripped to my sheets / Forehead is 
leaking, my AC squeaks / A voice 
from the clock says ‘You’re not 
gonna get tired’ / My bed is a pool 
and the walls are on fire”
I’m barely conscious, drifting 
in and out of sleep in the back of 
my family’s 2001 Honda Odyssey. 
We’re driving down to South 
Carolina for spring break, and the 
van’s air conditioning is shot. Ten 
more hours until we reach Folly 
Beach — population 2,600 — the 
quiet, seaside tourist destination 
my parents have selected for the 
final vacation before my high 
school graduation. Later this week, 
Sufjan Stevens will release Carrie 
and Lowell, and I will become 
obsessed. As listening for the 
ride down, though, I’ve asked my 
girlfriend what albums I should 
download. She recommends five or 
six, but the only one I remember is 
Animal Collective’s Merriweather 
Post Pavilion (2009).
One listen through and I 
was confused. After a few more 
admittedly 
drowsy 
attempts, 
I still couldn’t understand the 
appeal. The songs took too long to 
get anywhere. They were boring 
and had an oddly dark quality; 
Sometimes I still describe Animal 
Collective’s music as sounding 
evil. Nonetheless, I felt like I had 
to choose at least one song to say 
that I really liked. I settled on 
“Guys Eyes,” a tune with plenty 
of pleasant layers and harmonies 
that could only be inspired by the 
Beach Boys. Just under a year ago, I 
actually looked up the lyrics to the 
song, leaving me without a doubt 
that it is purely and proudly a song 
about masturbation. “So I used my 
mind / And I used my hand / It was 
what I want to do,” Noah Lennox 

(aka Panda Bear) slyly croons, 
allowing the more naïve listener 
plausible deniability. 
“I really want to show my girl 
that I want her / If I could purge all 
the urges that I have and keep them 
for you / I really want to show my 
girl that I need her / I keep it locked 
right now”
Around the same time, senior 
year of high school, I started 
reading Pitchfork. I didn’t know all 
that much about music — not that 
one has to or even should in order 
to enjoy it — and my favorite artists 
were Rise Against, Avicii and The 
Head and the Heart. I had joined 
Spotify late in 2012, the beginning 
of my sophomore year of high 
school, and revisiting my earliest 
playlists now is funny, if not 
wince-inducing. One in particular, 
entitled 
“nighttime,” 
bounces 
between Red Hot Chili Peppers, 
Iron & Wine, Ellie Goulding, City 
and Colour, OneRepublic and 
Neutral Milk Hotel, among various 
others. It’s a mix that I’m not sure I 
could stomach today, but one with 
songs that still hold a special place 
in my heart.
I hate to say that Pitchfork was 
the sole resource used in my quest 
to discover my taste — aimless 
listening on Pandora can only 
take you so far — for two reasons. 
First, there’s something inherently 
dangerous about idolizing one 
publication’s 
preferences 
over 
another’s 
— 
something 
I’ve 
been guilty of on more than one 
occasion. At the end of the day, an 
album review is only one writer’s 
opinion. Second, Pitchfork really 
wasn’t my only resource. Right 
around the same time I immersed 
myself in the publication, I realized 
that many of my friends were also 
beginning to discover how much 
music was really out there. We 
began to have conversations about 
Kendrick Lamar, Passion Pit, 
MGMT, Bon Iver … the list goes on.
“If I don’t think you know just 
what you’re doing / You pretend to 
know exactly all the things you keep 
on moving”
Our listening didn’t go very 
deep, and there’s no way we really 
knew what we were talking about 
— I’m pretty sure I still generally 

don’t — but we were learning about 
music and about ourselves. The 
way that we listened changed, as 
did what listening meant. We were 
no longer beholden to our parents’ 
tastes. Instead, the music that we 
liked, or chose to like, became a sort 
of identifier. It was a way to align 
ourselves with certain beliefs, a 
particular aesthetic, people we 
thought were cool. Discovering a 
new artist felt personal and unique 
and good. Looking back, my first 
real romantic relationship (with 
the 
aforementioned 
girlfriend) 
was initially based almost entirely 
on music recommendations we’d 
send back and forth and the 
conversations that would come 
from them. She adored punk folk-
rockers AJJ, and I showed her San 
Fermin, with their soaring brass 
melodies and oh so crisp vocals.
It sounds silly, almost fake, 
like I’m putting music on too 
tall a pedestal, but my earliest 
understandings of the world truly 
beyond my hometown of East 
Grand Rapids came from music. 
AJJ’s “American Tune” (“So if I 
see a penny on the ground / I leave 
it alone or fucking flip it / I’m a 
straight white male in America / 
I’ve got all the luck I need”) was 
my introduction to the concept 
of privilege. Perfume Genius, 
Blood Orange and Owen Pallett 
illustrated what it means to be 
gay in America while Kendrick 
and Vince Staples detailed their 
struggles as Black men, both 
realities that I still learn about 
every day. At the same time, Pedro 
The Lion’s discography led me to 
questions about my faith and about 
who and what people actually are.
“People / Always got to wash 
them at their ends.
 
 ***
Fast forward to just under 
a year after Folly Beach. I’m 
walking between Mason Hall and 
the UMMA, Animal Collective’s 
Strawberry Jam playing through 
my headphones. It’s the beginning 
of a new semester — winter of my 
freshman year at U of M.
“What’s pain? What’s sadness 
anyway? It’s not crying like a child 
/ What’s graying? What’s aging 
anyway? It’s not growing in the 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Monday, January 22, 2018 — 5A

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ACROSS
1 Cried on cue, say
6 Nimble-fingered
10 Auntie on
Broadway
14 Africa’s Sierra __
15 Butterlike topping
16 Beatnik’s
“Understood”
17 *Grocery store
19 Join the chorus
20 Like the chains in
a chain necklace
21 Camp beds
22 Swear (to)
25 Pair in a dinghy
27 Employee’s
reward
28 *Vessel for a
cheesy dip
33 Cone-dropping
trees
34 Recycling
receptacle
35 Maps within maps
36 Therapists’ org.
37 *Ballroom dance
that’s also a
phonetic
alphabet “F”
39 Shatner’s
“__War”
40 Cash in, as
coupons
42 “I __ only kidding”
43 Shoulder muscle,
for short
44 *All-terrain high
shoe
46 Sandburg and
Sagan
47 Highest in quality
48 Gives a thumbs-
up
49 Wrinkle-removing
injection
52 Acquires, as
debts
55 State firmly
56 Stream crossing
for pedestrians ...
and what is
literally provided
by the interior
letters in the
answers to
starred clues
60 Filet mignon
order
61 World power
initials until 1991
62 How contracts
are signed
63 Iditarod vehicle
64 Fishing rod
partner
65 Occur as a result

DOWN
1 1980s TV ET
2 Corporate VIP
3 Also
4 Tiresomely long
5 Downfall
6 Nerdy sort
7 Sommer of
cinema
8 Get nourishment
from
9 Trike rider
10 Applies
incorrectly
11 Score after deuce
12 Ermine cousin
13 They’re often
scrambled
18 Tiny farm
denizen
21 Main impact
22 Repetitive
barking
23 Taiwan’s capital
24 Rabble-rousing
outburst
26 “Hasta la vista”
28 Predicament
29 Quarterback’s
“Snap the ball at
the second ‘hut’”
30 Fizzles (out)
31 Verdi opera with
Desdemona
32 “You should be
ashamed!”

34 Lays an egg on
stage
37 UPS alternative
38 Word before or
after pack
41 Nudged sharply
43 Best Western
competitor
45 Lazy
46 Underwood who
performs the
“Sunday Night
Football” opening

48 Classroom 
stand-in
49 Happy hour
places
50 Mirror shape
51 Ran like mad
53 Smoke detector?
54 PC corner key
56 Calico coat
57 Put down
58 Oxlike antelope
59 Barely manage,
with “out”

By Gail Grabowski and Bruce Venzke

©2018 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
01/22/18

01/22/18

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Monday, January 22, 2018

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

A proper home: on Animal Collective and finding mine

SEAN LANG
Daily Arts Writer

wild”
I am scared.
The day I come back from 
holiday 
break, 
I 
hallucinate 
my friends’ voices outside my 
dorm room, thinking they had 
followed me back from home. 
Maybe they’re going to surprise 
me. Their breaks are all almost a 
week longer than mine, so it’s not 
unfathomable. After more than a 
minute of wondering whether that 
really was Casey, Tristen, Elliot 
and Corey whom I hear outside, 
I get up from my bed and check 
the hallway. No one. The idea was 
ridiculous anyway. I check again, 
just to be sure.
“And an obsession with the past 
is like a dead fly / And just a few 
things are related to the ‘old times’ / 
Though we did believe in magic and 
we did die”
No, they haven’t planned a 
surprise visit. It really was too 
much to ask, but for some reason 
I’m still sad they aren’t there. I’ve 
just endured a full semester of 
friendlessness, save for my RA, 
and I can’t help but remember the 
faces of high school acquaintances 
when I told them the best friend I 
had made was someone whose job 
it was to make me feel welcome. 
The two weeks at home for holiday 
break were paradise, one that I 
loathed to relinquish. “Maybe I 
don’t belong here,” I think. “Maybe 
I should just go home.” Though a 
bit dramatic, the sentiment was 
real, especially when I was in the 
thick of it.
“Our homes are all white / And 
we go dancing on a lake / And 
sleds will carry us tonight / And 
snowflakes will blow us on our way”
One of my friends whom I had 
hoped would visit (and actually 
has many times since) had long 
insisted that I listen to Animal 
Collective, and something about 
my loneliness prompted me to 
take his recommendation more 
seriously. January of freshman 
year, 
I 
began 
listening 
to 
Strawberry Jam. The evil, dark 
quality of the band’s work that had 
previously repulsed me was now 
alluring. Within hours I found 
myself 
completely 
enamored, 
practically seduced (for lack of a 

better word). Where Merriweather 
is lush, rolling, spacious, perfect 
for spring break, Strawberry Jam is 
harsh and less melodically direct. 
Opener “Peacebone” begins with 
chaotic noise and contains some 
of Dave Portner’s (aka Avey Tare) 
best screaming.
After a couple of weeks, I 
decided that the album was 
perfect, and one cut resonated 
especially well. “I only want the 
time / to do one thing that I like … / 
take a walk out in the light drizzle / 
at the end of the day / when there’s 
no one watching,” Lennox sings 
on “Chores.” After this forceful 
chorus, he fades into a soft, 
wordless duet with Lennox. At the 
time, walking was my number-one 
hobby, and something that I did 
for probably an hour or two every 
night.
“Do you want to stroll down the 
financial street? / Our clothes might 
get soaked but the buildings sleep 
/ And there’s no one pushing for a 
place / As we end up at an easy pace”
If I couldn’t figure out how 
to make friends, I could at least 
take pride in my knowledge of 
the streets of Ann Arbor, of the 
storefronts and shortcuts, what I 
thought were the best kept secrets 
of the miserable college town — 
I’m not sure I can justify calling 
it a city — where I found myself 
ensnared. I didn’t have anyone to 
walk with, but as soon as I found 
someone, oh! the places we would 
go.
It’s cliché, but the music 
pulled me through that time. I 
invested myself in this band and 
felt rewarded. I dug deeper, into 
Feels, into Spirit They’ve Gone, 
Spirit They’ve Vanished and into 
Campfire Songs. The music was 
weird and unlike any other I had 
ever heard. The further back I 
listened, the weirder it got and the 
more my fascination grew. Sounds 
I had never heard before opened 
up my mind to possibilities for 
creation, the likes of which I had 
never imagined. A song can be 
anything. It can carry a narrative, 
it can make no sense at all to 
anyone other than the writer, it 
doesn’t need to serve any purpose 
and it certainly isn’t even remotely 
beholden to the stifling laws of 
reality.
“Feeling envy for the kid who’ll 
dance despite anything / I walk out 
in the flowers and feel better / If I 
could just leave my body for the 
night”
The group’s founding members, 
Portner and Lennox, released 
their first collaborative effort, 
Spirit They’ve Gone, Spirit They’ve 
Vanished, in 2000 when they 
were just 21 and 22, respectively. 
The album is noisy, psychedelic 
and 
long-winded. 
Its 
hyper, 
unpredictable quality makes it a 
challenging listen, and if you don’t 
believe me, I invite you to listen 
to “Untitled.” See how long you 
last. While Spirit They’ve Gone is 
aggressive and difficult to parse, 
something about it feels attainable. 
The 
narrative 
structures 
(or 
sometimes complete lack thereof) 
are nuanced but not clearly 
defined, and the instrumentation 
is 
sparse: 
synthesizer, 
piano, 
Lennox’s lifelike percussion and 
the occasional acoustic guitar. 
This album was recorded largely 
in Portner’s parents’ home, and it’s 
not difficult to tell.
Portner and Lennox used the 
tools they had at hand in the limited 
space that was available to them 
to create something completely 
original. Though the album is 
rough around the edges, especially 
before 
it 
was 
professionally 
remastered, they pioneered a new 
sound. They aren’t snobbish about 
their music, and they certainly 
don’t put an excessive quantity of 
effort into maintaining a heavily 
curated image. They proved to me 
that I could make something. I just 
needed to start.
“I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll, someday, 
someday… / Someday, someday, 
someday, 
someday… 
/Someday, 
someday, someday, someday…”
What was even more exciting 
was the way that these two 
20-somethings 
were 
expressly 
against tradition, or at least against 
a blind acceptance of the path in 
front of them. Before the release 
of Sung Tongs in 2004, all but one 
of the now four band members 
decided to drop out of school in 
order to focus on music. A pretty 
hardy move, and Portner has 
recalled during interviews how he 
spent no insignificant amount of 
time collecting on unemployment, 
in and out of his parents’ house 

without a reliable income.
“You don’t have to go to college”
I don’t believe that I will ever 
make anything as good as what 
Animal Collective has created, 
and dropping out of school to 
pursue music is the last thing I 
would consider. I have, however, 
since that fateful winter semester, 
redoubled my efforts into learning 
guitar. I try to write melodies 
whenever I can and pen down 
lyrics in my spare time, all of 
them bad. Nevertheless, I feel 
encouraged to continue whenever 
I listen, and not just in the realm of 
creating music itself.
When I first delved into Animal 
Collective’s prolific discography 
— Winter 2016 — it was with the 
knowledge that they would be 
releasing a new album, Painting 
With, in mid-February. Having 
been frustrated with the way 
I carried myself first semester, 
actively 
listening 
to 
Animal 
Collective was just one of many 
decisions I made leading into the 
new year. I was fed up with the 
sheer amount of time I’d wasted 
on Netflix, done with spending 
my 
Friday 
nights 
watching 
whatever was on Comedy Central. 
Something, I decided, needed to 
change.
“We can get him started, yeah / 
Bad mind, let me put on good habits 
/ Been working to put on good 
habits / Sometimes I can’t find my 
good habits”
I 
began 
taking 
chances, 
reaching out to people I’d met 
briefly first semester and finding 
opportunities around campus. I 
remember being elated when I 
found someone who would go to 
the San Fermin show with me that 
January — someone I still regard 
today as one of my closest friends. 
I joined a few organizations, 
including The Daily, and though 
I was disappointed by the culture 
of organizations in general — so 
many students were just looking 
for résumé padding — I met 
beautiful, wonderful, optimistic 
and creative people.
My application to the Arts 
section of The Daily contained 
a review of Animal Collective’s 
Painting With. The trajectory that 
began with Merriweather in 2015 
and continued through Strawberry 
Jam and the rest through 2016 
finally found me among a group of 
people who had as much a desire 
to interact with the arts as I had. 
They can be pretentious (as can 
I), and I don’t always agree with 
them, but they’ve collectively 
provided me with a space where I 
can be creative, self-reflective and, 
above all, self-indulgent.
“Now I think it’s alright to feel 
inhuman / Now I think that’s a riot 
/ Now I think it’s alright we’ll sing 
together / Now I think that’s a riot”
It’s difficult for me to credit 
Animal Collective for my eventual 
adjustment to life at college, but 
the fact that my immersion in 
their music coincided with an 
exponential increase in my social 
confidence 
and 
understanding 
of myself as someone with a real 
personality, emotions, influence 
and responsibility is something I 
can neither shake nor deny. What 
is certain to me is that I would 
not be who I am today had I never 
listened to them. The degree to 
which I would be different is up for 
debate, and not something I want 
to explore on paper — on screen? 
— but still an interesting idea to 
entertain.
“Am I really all the things that are 
outside of me? / Would I complete 
myself without the things I like 
around?”
The details of this story, if one 
could call it that, are personal, but 
the context surrounding those 
details is hopefully somewhat 
universal. I’d like to think that most 
university students experience a 
time of extended loneliness, or at 
least a transient sense of not fitting 
in. Maybe my story will encourage 
those who, upon reading, find 
themselves 
in 
that 
position. 
Maybe a reader or two will be 
intrigued by my obsession with 
Animal Collective and give them 
a listen. And maybe, just maybe, 
those readers will find in Animal 
Collective what I’ve found, or will 
identify with my love for Animal 
Collective through whatever band 
or artist has narrated the recent 
years of their own lives. Whatever 
the case may be, dear reader, I 
hope you’ve found something 
human here.
“Oh there will be time to fish fry, 
for letters by, yours truly / Yours 
truly”

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

