I’ve done college radio for a long time now, starting September 2002 on WMBR and moving to KZSU shortly afterwards. But it’s coming to an end. Tomorrow (Tuesday June 23) will be my final show (for the foreseeable future at least). If you’d like, you may listen online or on 90.1FM in the Bay Area from 3-6pm PST.
This one’s quite overdue at this point. My apologies.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->library->import playlist and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2009may in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes.
Adrian’s May 2009 mixtape (mediafire link)
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
The playlist:
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2009april in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes.
Adrian’s April 2009 mixtape (mediafire link)
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
The playlist:
I uploaded my mixtape to an archive folder and included all of 28ish mixtapes over the last 2.5 years. Email me if you want access and I’ll send the location and password.
I forgot a couple music related things.
My music blog recently hit two milestones: two year anniversary (some of my favorite posts and comments; remember when it all started?) and 1000th post (10 desert island albums x 100 desert island songs).
Two Sheds @ Beauty Bar
A few weeks ago I went to SxSW and saw 46 bands and 23 shows in 4 days. I recaped it at my music blog but I got a number of questions about what the highlights were, so here’s some of that.
Top five shows:
Band that most changed my opinion about them: Mumford & Sons (I went from being blah to liking them)
Local band that I liked most: Two Sheds
Any questions?
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2009feb in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes. It’s got all sorts of stuff: lots of folky stuff and intricate droney pop.
Adrian’s March 2009 mixtape (mediafire)
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
The playlist:
I just realized I never posted this over here.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2009feb in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes. It’s got all sorts of stuff: lots of folky stuff and post rock/ ambient.
Adrian’s February 2009 mixtape (rapidshare link [1])[2]
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
The playlist:
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
[2] Also, I realize Rapidshare is sort of a pain. I’m trying to find other options. I’m open to other suggestions.
A few days ago some DJs at my radio station ran a fake NCAA Magic the Gathering tournament broadcast. It was pretty hilarious and nerdy.
Here’s a snippet.
KZSU - NCAA Magic the Gathering Tournament (mp3)
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This guy does it every year: he rates and reviews–in exactly 6 words–all the mp3s bands post as part of SxSW. It was 1302 mp3s this year. It’s pretty fun to read through and all the mp3s are free to download.
NY Times reports that world music is expanding and using technology to spread itself. Amadou & Miriam, the band that they focus on, is pretty good.
This guy was on Jimmy Fallon last night. I went to high school with him, I think, but I knew his sister better–though, let’s be honest, she didn’t hang out with me.
I just remembered a funny story about him that a friend of mine told me. It’s a little bawdy–watch out. Andy Rock was his name. Funny funny guy. I wonder what he’s up to. Anyway. He was on the lacrosse team with Anthony. Around his 18th birthday, he got a tattoo of a sun on his right arm. He showed it to Anthony. Anthony said, “That’s a temporary tattoo! I’ll [vernacular for perform fellatio on you] if that’s real.” It was real. After practice Rock, as we called him, saw Anthony driving by and yelled out, “When are you going to give me that blow job?” Then he saw Anthony’s sister in the car…and her shocked look.
I’ve been interesting in traditional folk songs for a number of years now. I took a class on Anglo-American ballads in 2002 and I had some interest before then. Here are three I’m going to learn:
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I’m really bad at learning lyrics, so that’ll take some work.
These are still supposed to be monthly. I guess I can’t always get my stuff together.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008dec-2009jan playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes. It’s got all sorts of stuff: indie pop/ folk/ rock, soul and some African songs.
Adrian’s December 2008-January 2009 mixtape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
The playlist:
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
Some people took sausage and wrapped it in bacon and slathered it in bbq sauce. Does anyone really need to ask why this has gotten some attention?
I found this article about transitioning White House style interesting.
It has fun quotes, like:
In the West Wing, Mr. Obama is a bit of a wanderer. When Mr. Bush wanted to see a member of his staff, the aide was summoned to the Oval Office. But Mr. Obama tends to roam the halls; one day last week, he turned up in the office of his press secretary, Robert Gibbs, who was in the unfortunate position of having his feet up on the desk when the boss walked in.
I’m once again heading to SxSW, which happens in a month and change. The preliminary list of bands is dizzying. I’m looking forward to it, though.
It’s Motown’s 50th anniversary this month. Popmatters put together a good list of their 25 top singles. It includes a streaming music player. On my other blog, I put together my favorite Motown songs from 1959, their first year.
I did my first long bike ride in a while yesterday and certainly my first new route in a long time. It mostly hugged the water around the bay and coast of San Francisco. It was based on the SF Chronicle’s “Outer Limits” ride. It ended up being about 27 miles.
It was a gorgeous day yesterday. Warm, but not hot, clear, even out by Ocean Beach, and there were some gorgeous views throughout. I also went through a number of parts of San Francisco that I’ve never seen before: the Presidio, Seacliff, Land’s End, Lake Merced and parts of the Marina.
I also missed some turns, went the wrong way and blew a tire (while riding without a spare for the first time I can remember) and so I almost got stuck out on the Great Highway (among all those ghosts). It’ll be better next time.
I posted my best of 2008 list yesterday over at the music blog. Executive summary:
More description and mp3s over at the music blog.
I’ve also posted my best concerts of 2008.
My Blackdrop Portraits series has reached 22 photos of musicians. Here’s one of Justin Ringle of Horse Feathers
Justin of Horse Feathers by Adrian Bischoff
My monthly mixtapes were not quite monthly there. However I did want to get this up so you could put it on your ipod for your Thanksgiving travels if you wanted.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008oct-nov playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the playlist (below) or the liner notes. It’s pretty folksy but with some soul and things thrown in.
Adrian’s October November 2008 mixtape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
The playlist:
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
Monday night I tried my hand at Sacred Harp singing. There are local groups that sing and I went to the one that meets weekly in Berkeley. I’ve written about Sacred Harp before here and more extensively over at the music blog.
They meet and sing in a small chapel in a theoligical seminary just north of the UC campus. Pews are moved around to make a square with a couple rows per side: basses are across from trebles, altos are across from tenors. Some started–the first person to lead got up in the center of the square and called out a number–28, I think it was. We all turned our books, the Sacred Harp, 9th Edition to that page. The leader–in this case, but sometimes it was another singer–sang the starting notes. We sang through the song once on “so la fa mi” then through with the words and then the cycle repeated. We repeated this process until the evening was up–perhaps 40 times in total.
I was a bit nervous about giving this a try. I haven’t sung from music in a number of years and even then it was quite briefly, with a lot of voices to hide behind and with a lot of rehearsals. It turned out to be fine, of course. I still can’t sight sing, but I could follow the strong singers in my section just fine. By the end I had even picked up the names of the shape notes. As it turns out, these help a lot–going from “fa” to “fa”, for instance is always either a fifth or an octave.
When it came my time to lead, I said I’d pick one–one of my favorites, “Sherburne”–but didn’t want to lead it. I got cajoled into leading that song with someone else.
Anyway, at this group at least, people sang. And loud. And without any pretensions or adornment in their voices. It was a lot of fun. Just letting your voice go and singing out. I was a bit hoarse the next day.
Alabama Sacred Harp Convention - Sherburne (mp3)
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Yup, a little late on this one, as if that’s unusual!
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008august playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
Go ahead and check out the liner notes. This one has a bunch of folksy stuff, some soul and some slowcore, the new and the classic, like Johnny Flynn, Andrew Bird, Lykke Li, Unwed Sailor and Early Day Miners.
Adrian’s August 2008 mixtape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
This one’s on time! Holy crap! Unprecedented!
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008july playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one’s sort of all over the show, but I feel like it’s a good one. It’s got some oldies and soul and old indie favorites and stuff I just found out about.
Adrian’s July 2008 mixtape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
At some point someone told me that it was endearing that I never posted my mixtapes in the month they’re named after. I’m not sure I buy that…Anyway, enjoy.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008june playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one is pretty soft and acousticy (Damien Jurado, Neil Halstead) but there are some nice soul (Sam Cooke, Al Green) and rock tunes (Centro-matic) in there too. Like many of the mixtapes it’s a mix between local, regional, national and international bands.
Adrian’s June 2008 mixtape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
Only marginally late with this one.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008may playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one was pretty easy to put together–just sort of made sense. There’s a number of soul tracks I’ve been enjoying by people like Sam Cooke and Charles Wright & the Watts 103rd St. Band. There’s also a handful of indie tunes from old favorites (Low, Mogwai), newish favorites (Fanfarlo, the Morning Benders) and a few that are pretty new to me (Lykke Li). Enjoy!
Adrian’s May 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) wait till the counter gets to zero 4) enter the letters in their graphic into the box 5) click “download”
Apparently, my mixtapes come out every month. This is what I’m told, at least. Oops. I’m finding it hard to get these together in a month.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008march-april playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one was a long one in coming. I’ve listened to it a lot of times and I like it. There’s a mix of local (the Dodos, the Botticellis, Speakers), national (Deer Tick, Unwed Sailor) and international (Adem, the Rational Academy) bands.
Adrian’s March-April 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
1. Coronado, a beach near the Hotel Del. Mid-afternoon. Walking across that area of sand that’s firm because water has run over it recently and dipping my fingers into the chilly Pacific and pondering aloud if the military planes roaring overhead on their way to the base were Harriers. I don’t think they are.
2. A bar in South Park. Night time. Between local bands giving it their all on a small stage in the dark club and packed in among the local young hipster population, discussing merits of a variety of many recent bands on the scene with a new friend.
3. Balboa Park, near the Moreton Bay Fig. Late afternoon. Lying on my back on the slightly damp grass, staring up at the deeply saturated sky, talking about finances and how it’s strange to be an adult with an old friend.
Here’s my show today if you want to listen.
My radio show has now been scheduled for Tuesdays 3-5pm PST, that’s 6-8pm Eastern.
You can listen at 90.1FM or online.
Also of note: those streams have been updated so that you should be able to listen from behind firewalls and the such. Try them again if you haven’t in a while.
I just got back from “South by” as some (silly) people call it.
I saw around 38 bands in 5 days. It was pretty crazy. Some amazing stuff (like J Tillman (listen in, Tarky!), Two Sheds, and Fanfarlo) and some not so great stuff, but overall I was pretty thrilled with the stuff I saw.
But it got me thinking about music. I mean, even moreso than normal. After all, I had five days to basically only think about music. Here are some thoughts:
I’m in Austin for SxSW. You can follow along at my other blog or my other blog’s corresponding twitter feed.
David Bazan recommended some nachos to me tonight. This is the sort of life I lead.
This is the February 2008 mixtape. It’s even almost on time!
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to File->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2008february playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one is really making me smile. I’m pretty happy with it. Great local stuff by bands like Two Sheds, Geographer and the Ian Fays plus some new and old stuff by (inter)national bands like Chris Walla, Basia Bulat, Pedro the Lion and Cat Power.
Adrian’s February 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
This is the January 2008 mixtape; yup, it’s late. I took a bit of a break–there was no December 2007 one, the first one I missed since I started these in July 2006. I’m going to try to get back on track for this one.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007Jan playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I’m liking this one. A wide range of new stuff, some oldies and some old favorites.
Adrian’s January 2008 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
I thought I’d continue this reviewing everything while I still think it’s fun.
I like trying new candies and compact discs.
Hershey’s Kisses New York Cheesecake Flavored Creme Wrapped in Extra Creamy Milk Chocolate Wow. This is strange. Not great. Very sweet. Not enough of either flavor, really. It just ends up tasting really sweet and rather tasteless otherwise.
Snickers Dark Pretty good. Not as silky smooth as the milk chocolate version, but tastes good and has a sort of sweetness/ bite contrast to it.
Iron & Wine’s the Shepherd’s Dog Not good. Not even a shadow of his best work on Creek Drank the Cradle and Our Endless Numbered Days. Get Fionn Regan or any number of other artists instead.
Rivers Cuomo Alone I could hardly make it through this disc of demos from 1992-1997 (I think that’s the dates). Just buy the Blue Album or Pinkerton again…
I’ll be on the radio at KZSU on Tuesday mornings 6-9am (Pacific), doing my show “I Once was Canadian”, starting tomorrow.
You can listen at 90.1FM or online.
Number of days: 112
Number of days or parts thereof spent traveling: 47 (3 to/ from, 7 intra-Taiwan (3 Kaohsiung, 2 Taroko, 2 Kinmen), 37 intra-Asia (7 Indonesia, 5 Thailand; 15 Hong Kong, Macau, China; 10 Japan)
Number of countries visited (since moving): 6 (Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, China, Japan, U.S.) + 2 special administrative regions with separate border controls (Hong Kong, Macau)
Number of countries visited (year to date): 8 (above + South Africa, Swaziland) + 2 S.A.R.s
Number of flights (since moving): 14 (SFO-> TPE-> CKG-> DPS-> CKG-> TPE-> BKK-> TPE-> HKG-> TPE-> NRT-> TPE, TSA-> KNH-> TSA, TPE-> SFO)
Number of flights (2007): 31 (SFO-> CVG-> IAD-> JNB, DUR-> CPT-> JNB-> JFK, BOS-> JFK-> SFO-> BOS-> DFW-> SFO-> HNL-> LIH-> HNL-> SFO + above + SFO-> CLT-> DCA)
Miles flown (since moving): 27,406 miles (44,106 km)
Miles flown (2007): 63,569 miles (102,304 km)
Number of high speed train journeys: 4 (Taipei->Kaohsiung->Taipei, Tokyo->Kyoto->Tokyo)
Number of train journeys: 6 (above + Taipei->Hualien->Taipei)
Approximate number of km ridden on scooters: 225
Best hotel (overall): Kamandalu Resort, Ubud, Bali. A connection to the cousin of the owner opened the door for staying in this swanky place. Gorgeous surroundings and really nice rooms. Private verandas looking over rice paddies. The service was also excellent. We went out riding bikes around the rice paddies one day and came back sweating. Pretty soon after we entered the lobby we had cool moist towels to wipe our faces with. Perhaps the only nicer place I’ve stayed is the ridiculous Schlosshotel Veir Jahrezeiten (Four Seasons Palace Hotel) in Berlin. (They had a Ferrari convention while we were there and it didn’t seem out of place.)
Best hotel (value): Hirano Guesthouse, Kyoto. 3500 yen a night in Kyoto is very cheap and besides a nice place to stay, the owner was very friendly, helpful and accommodating, making us tea when we came home for a break in the afternoons. She also made us breakfast every morning, let us use her bicycles and computer/ internet. Oh and there was a candy bowl and after we ate an unreasonable amount of it, she didn’t complain, she just refilled it.
Number of American chain stores patronized (not counting convenience stores, exact): 3 (2 Subways-Taipei, 1 Denny’s-Kyoto)
Number of American chain stores patronized (counting convenience stores[1], approximate): 22.2 (the above + Circle K’s in Taiwan, Bali, Thailand, ampm’s in Japan, plus 0.2 for a Mister Donut in Japan[2])
Oddest food obsession: Harbo’s Happy Cola gummy candies
Most common food eaten: rice (~ >1.5 servings a day)
Most common food product eaten: Kinder Chocolate (~ 0.6 a day)
Most “exotic” foods eaten: crickets, silk worms, frog
Number of Dr. Peppers consumed: 2 (one in Japan, one in Thailand)
Foods most missed: good bread, good cheese, Dr. Pepper, good beef, shelled shrimp, deboned fish.
Number of Hello Kitty products seen: in the thousands
Number of Hello Kitty products purchased: 1 (alarm clock, convenience store, Japan)
America: so quiet, so dark, so many English speakers, so many whites/ latinos/as, blacks. big supermarkets. low population density.
Least useful piece of clothing: dress shirt (the greenish one, never worn, given away at the end)
Most useful piece of clothing: shoes (the brown Adidas, nearly daily)
Most useful piece of clothing out of its original purpose (and new use): board shorts-style swimsuit (exercise shorts)
Piece of clothing I most immediately realized I’d forgotten: navy blue cotton boxers (that I use as warm weather pajama bottoms)
Number of books read: 5.75 (2nd 0.5 of Slow Man by Coeztee, Love is a Mixtape by Sheffield, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation by Chang, Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs by Klosterman, Born on a Blue Day By Tammet, You Don’t Love Me Yet by Lethem, first 0.25 of About a Boy by Hornsby)
Number of concerts attended: 3 (Emily the Band @ Underworld, Apples in Stereo @ the Wall, Sugar Plum Ferry @ the Wall)
Number of CDs purchased: 19 (5 in Hong Kong (Monitor), 5 @ WWR (1st trip), 5 @ WWR (2nd trip), 2 @ IMPO, 1 @ FINAC, 1 @ Roses(?))
Number of pieces of mail received: 6 (3 packages of promo CD(s); 1 each from Ian, Lauren, Gumbeaux)
[1] This is tricky because things are confusing. 7-11 is Japanese for instance.
[2] Mr. Donut is an American brand but the Asian stores are run by Duskin Co out of Japan under a licensing agreement.
This is the November 2007 mixtape. Yup, it’s December. I’m a bit late with it.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007oct playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. It’s a pretty good ones. Some indie pop, some acoustic stuff, some post rock, some glitchy stuff. I’ve been listening to a lot of these songs a lot.
Adrian’s November 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
I learned on Friday about the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival. Pretty much immediately after I found that some of the movies I most wanted to see (”Darjeeling Limited”, I’m Not There, Persepolis) were either sold out or at times that I couldn’t go to. Doh!
Another one that I was psyched to see (Ki-Duk Kim made the amazing “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring”) is only showing in Korean with Chinese subtitles.
However! Not all is lost. I did go to see Steve Buscemi’s Interview last night and I bought a ticket for the Sigur Ros movie. I’m still undecided about whether to see This is England or not.
I wasn’t actually expecting a ton from Interview, as it seemed like a pretentious indie two-person character piece, but it turned out to be alright. It was pretty engaging and well-written and the ending wasn’t quite what I expected.
I also found out that Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead is showing in at least one regular theater here (not as part of the film festival, that is) so maybe I’ll go see that in the next few weeks.
dear or, the whale t shirt,
sorry I dribbled cola on you. I am sometimes careless at ensuring all the soda goes into my mouth; this was one instance like that. I also hate to inform you of the following: you’re going to stay besmirched like that for a while. I just did laundry last night so the next cycle is probably 10, 14 days off. I’d love to wash just you, but you know how these things are: all the others would claim I’m playing favorites.
I’d like to thank you for being comfortable despite all of this.
thanks,
adrian
I will talk about things that are Japan-related and things that are not Japan related. I had dreams of more well organized posts with photos and everything, but I’ll post now with possibly expanding on some of these topics later.
My ear is feeling (ie hearing) a bit better. I’ve started listening to ear buds again in limited (very quiet) contexts. First song back: “King of Pain”.
The rest of the Japan trip was pretty good.
I mean, it was great. It’s a crazy place. One coworker said something like it’s a very odd combination of a repressed/ conservative culture and a wild/ unashamed culture. Very strange.
Some of the stranger places included the hot bath that had a mildly electrified pool, the sushi place that required you to eat at least 7 dishes (of 2 pieces a piece) of mostly sushimi in less than 20 minutes, the Diago-ji temple that had a painting that I thought was a garden; either that, or it had a garden that was completely unreal in how beautiful and archetypal it was. They were also chanting in the part of the temple that’s at the top of the hill when we got there and I could hear it from maybe half a mile off. A strange beacon.
I’m not missing Thanksgiving. I mean, I’m not attending Thanksgiving and thus am missing it but Thanksgiving is such a non-event here that the only time I even think about it is when I talk to people in America. Also, I knew from May that I wouldn’t be doing Thanksgiving this year. I love Thanksgiving, but I’m prepared.
(Did you miss the Moon Festival this year? I didn’t; I participated.)
On the other hand, the prevalence of Christmas decorations, music and colder weather in Japan made it feel like mid-December, much close to when I would be leaving for the U.S. That caused many more pangs of homesickness.
During bouts of longing for America, it seems that any culture representing that will do, possibly with even the less sophisticated being better. No, I’m not talking about fast food; I’m talking about movies. Last night, I watched Must Love Dogs without shame; tonight may be 40 Days and 40 Nights. In Germany, I remember watching (possibly multiple) Freddie Prinze Jr movies. It’s crap.
I finished Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: a Story of the Hip Hop Generation last week. I’m not sure, but I think it’s racist. The book draws some distinction in various situations between pro-black and anti-white, but I think this book was possibly anti-white. For instance, the nomenclature was: Black, Latino, Asian, Korean (etc etc) and white.
Now I’m on to Chuck Klosterman’s Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, which is a book of Klosterman’s ridiculous pronouncements about culture, on everything from internet pornography to NBA basketball to Billy Joel. It’s entertaining, but I think I prefer his travel narrative, Killing Yourself to Live.
Sufjan’s having a contest in which you can win rights to one if his songs if you write the best original christmas song (which he then gets the rights to). I am thinking of something along the lines of a response song to a classic 1963 Christmas song. We’ll see if I can churn something out–I need to figure out how to do the instrumentation on this–maybe FruityLoops or something. My guitar through a built-in mic isn’t going to cut it.
The Steelers loss today was almost funny. It’s almost expected, the way the Steelers manage to botch the “easy” games. None of their three losses is even marginally excusable and if some columnist says otherwise, question his ability to analyze their games. On the other hand, they’ve been great in pretty much the rest of their games.
There is a baby crying down the hall. I hope this doesn’t continue. I don’t like crying babies.
On strange candies and confectionaries. Good: the two different Chocolate Pocky’s and Men’s Pocky, those weird mushroom-shaped chocolates that are sort of like Pocky, some Mentos (Fuji Apple, particularly and the Berry Blast and Sour mixes), mint Kit Kats, all Kinder chocolates. Interesting, but not great: Green Tea Meltykiss, those white + green tea chocolates, that incompressible Mentos that might have been cherry and also the strawberry and green apple ones, the mini-hamburger chocolates. Bad: apple Kit Kats.
A couple weeks ago I went swimming. The next day my left ear felt a bit weird and my hearing felt muffled. I thought there was some water still in it. After a few days it still felt weird so I had assumed it had developed into a minor ear infection, “swimmer’s ear”.
After two weeks, I decided I should have it checked out. I’m going to be place next week where it’ll be even harder to go to a doctor, so with the help of some coworkers I went to a doctor this evening and he checked me out.
There’s no water, ear wax or ear infection in there. The doctor things it’s noise trauma. Basically (hopefully) short term partial hearing loss. (Ironically, I’d light-heartedly talked about thinking I was going deaf in my left ear because my ear buds were breaking about 3 weeks ago.) His instructions: no ear buds/ headphones and try to limit limit noise for a few days.
The short term is unpleasant: no ear buds at work (at night I can play music softly on speakers that I have) means no music and I don’t like being without music. It makes me antsy. I’m going to be on planes and trains for most of Friday, alone and that would be a particularly nice time to listen to some tunes. More than it being nice, at times I almost find it necessary. After a bad or long day, after a frustrating decision, when I need to drown out this foreign world or mitigate loneliness, music is often my first resort. It may not be the best thing to turn to but it’s certainly better than turning to the bottle. This is a bit distressing.
The longer term, the prospects, the possibilities, at least, are traumatizing. That there’s even a possibility of longer term hearing loss is scary. Music is a big part of my life and between being a college radio DJ and having a music blog it’s more like a vocation. That that might be endangered or altered permanently is not a prospect I look forward to.
Just to note, I’ve always been very careful about the volume of my music on earphones and other people who try my headphones often think I listen to music too softly. I wear ear plugs at concerts, even advocating them publicly. If there’s one probable culprit here it’s listening to music on the bus and/ or while walking along streets here. Both are quite noisy and can encourage a louder-than-healthy volume on ear buds.
I’m trying to transcribe an interview and I can’t get this right. Maybe someone can help: I’m looking for a car make or model that sounds like prevos, prevost, prebos, frebos or something like that. It’s most likely fast and expensive and probably glamorous. It would fit into this sentence:
You want to be in a Prebos* driving 150 miles per hour while people are shooting heroin.
I don’t think it’s “Enzo”–that’s too far from what it sounds like on the recording, though it does fit the description. Prevost make car carriers but not cars, from what I can tell. Anyone?
update: mp3. Listen for yourselves.
double update: from the source: Prevost, as in a motorcoach or band tour bus. I was wrong in thinking it was a fast car–just a fast tour bus I guess!
You’re probably confused. I just posted another mixtape. Originally, the September mixtape was going to be delayed and the I was going to go right to October, skipping the Sept mix entirely. Well, when I was putting together October, I had too much music, by about a factor of 2, so the September mix was back on the table, albeit ridiculously delayed.
This is the October (October.2) 2007 mixtape. It’s more toward the acoustic side of things. For the straight up indie pop, make sure you get the September mixtape.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007oct playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I am really surprised sometimes that there is so much good music out there. It’s a mix of local and national, old favorites (Damien Jurado, Mark Eitzel) and new finds (N.Lannon, Seabear).
Adrian’s October (October.2) 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)
As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
This movie look great[1].
Here’s the soundtrack listing. Lots of Kimya Dawson and also Sonic Youth, Cat Power, and Belle & Sebastian as well as the old favorites Buddy Holly and Velvet Underground.
The song at the end of the trailer, if you were wondering, is All the Young Dudes by Mott the Hoople. Classic!
You can also check out four more clips from the movie.
[1] Hopefully it won’t be a Garden State-like great trailer, great trailer, okay movie situation.
You’re probably confused. This isn’t September. Originally, the September mixtape was going to be delayed and the I was going to go right to October, skipping the Sept mix entirely. Well, when I was putting together October, I had too much music, by about a factor of 2 [1], so the September mix was back on the table, albeit ridiculously delayed.
The October (October.2) 2007 mixtape will be posted probably Wednesday, so start listening to this one already! This one is more toward indie pop and October is more towards the acoustic.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007sept playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. I am really surprised sometimes that there is so much good music out there. Great tracks from old favs Jose Gonzalez and Jens Lekman, new tracks from relative unknowns and up-and-comers like Caves, the Cave Singers and Octopus Project.
Adrian’s September (October.1) 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1])
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)
As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] My online mixtapes are always between 60-76 minutes long so they can be burnt onto a single mix CD if you choose.
[2] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
I slept late, later than I’ve slept in months probably. I was quite proud of myself.
Breakfast was cereal with “drinking yogurt”. That stuff is weird. I like cereal with milk or with yogurt. This was…okay..
Blue skies came out, albeit, not Palo Alto style–there were still a few clouds.
I left to seek out a few things I’d only read out online: taipei’s indie record stores and a store selling traditional chinese instruments.
(I’m abandoning capitalization except for I, because I am important. Okay, maybe I’ll still capitalize some.)
IMPO records is a small place on the 8th floor in the Ximen district. You couldn’t find this place unless you knew exactly where to look. Between that and their 2-6pm hours (closed Wednesdays and Sundays) and their out-of-the-way location, I’m not sure how they make money. They don’t have the newest stuff either and their prices are closer to the import prices in America for the most part, with a few deals. I liked the store and the owner, though. I got the Morr Music Japan Tour 2005 EP and an album by the Lodger out of the UK. We’ll see how they are.
I then went in search of a Chinese musical instrument store. The people on forumosa mentioned 3 locations that happen to be in a three block radius around the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial.. None turned out to be right. Literally right after I gave up on finding it, I found one at 9-2 Xinyi Rd., 1F, across from the CKS Memorial. I immediately saw the erhus and asked, in Chinese, how much they were. The proprietor proceed to presumably explain, in Chinese, how they were priced different based on material and quality of material. My blank stares led him to explain this in English. What I was more interested in were the double reed suonas, which I asked about. They had one and while it wasn’t expensive, it wasn’t cheap enough for me to buy it on the spot. Those things are possibly louder and shriller than their double reed cousins from Scotland. I want one.
I was walking back to the MRT and heard some sounds from Renai Rd. I went over there to discover a parade of sorts. I should note that this parade was going through the ZhongShen round-about, a very big intersection, but they hadn’t closed it to traffic. The parade would proceed whenever they had the green light and then stop when they had the red.
Anyway, this wasn’t any traditional parade or anything, more like a multicultural parade. Everyone had handmade costumes, everything from kids on stilts to storm troopers and jedis to flowers or angels to an African drummer and dancer (she was really good) to people simply walking with their flag and face paint of their country of nationality. It was very odd.
Looking down Renai Rd, lined in palm trees, I could see the blue sky and Taipei 101, which, I’ve mentioned, is not only the current tallest building, but a very attractive design, and all these weirdly costumed individuals.
Life is very weird. It makes me happy.
I continued on. White Wabbit Records was my next stop. It’s primarily a record label, but they also have a record store with records from other indie labels. As soon as I got there I knew I was somewhere I wanted to be. They had a indie good selection even by American standards, which compared to everything else I’d seen in my travels was an amazing selection. There were two taiwanese hipsters girls working behind the country. (I may have a crush on one or both now). Most of their prices were decent. They also exclusively license some foreign releases from other labels/ directly from the artists. Things like Giardini di Miro, Mum, Mice Parade and Explosions in the Sky are now produced for WWR in Taiwan. On these discs and on records by bands singed to WWR, their prices were great–a little under $12 new. They even had signed records from Saxon Shore and American Analog Set on the wall. I’m definitely going back there.
While I was there I was able to buy a ticket for the Apples in stereo, who inexplicably are playing in Taipei a week from Monday at the Wall (in the same building as WWR). Should be good. I saw the Apples for the first time over 7 years ago, as a freshman in college, and who I haven’t seen in probably five years.
It is/ was World Toy Camera Day, so while I was out and about, I shot a roll of Velvia 100 with my Lomo Fisheye camera, which, while it isn’t traditionally a toy camera (it’s not a holga or diana, basically), it’s not much above that. I think I got some decent shots. I miss shooting with film. I think I’m going to start carrying my N70/ 20mm f2.8 / Tri-x 400 around instead of my D80 sometimes.
I wasn’t able to get the mixtape done before I went traveling and now I don’t have the tools (e.g. my laptop) to get it done. Unless I figure out some technological work-around I may be severely delayed or I may have to simply skip the September 2007 mixtape.
Last week I got to see the Legong of Mahabrata @ the Ubud Palace, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia. The group performing was Sekaa Gong Jaya Swara Ubud. It was balinese dance accompanied by gamelan. Gamelan is an Indonesian (Balinese and Javanese) music with tuned percussion instruments, instruments like (but not exactly) xylophones (metallophones), tuned gongs, cymbals, barrel drums (kendhang). Sometimes, like in the gamelan I saw, they also have fipple flutes and a two-stringed spike fiddle called a rebab. (It should be noted: gamelan is a set of instruments, not the players/ history. The Berlin Philharmonic is the people, not the particular instruments they play.)
The venue, the Ubud Palace, is a courtyard of a 16th century palace. Not to be flippant, but it’s sort of like making the Great American Music Hall a lot more historic and even more beautiful.
The group came in, some dancers and the gamelan players shaking these tuned bamboo rattles called anklung in addition to the barrel drums mentioned above. The players went to their seats and there was a pause before the music began.
Gamelan itself means hammer. That’s because most of the main instruments are struck with hammers of various sorts. The music often starts fairly simple and slow. One line on the metallophones and one on the cradled gongs. More lines come in. People with hammers are hitting the instruments with one hand and selectively damping them with the other. All this while amazing and tremendously precise dance was going on in in the middle of the U made by the instruments.
I was completely enthralled from beginning to end. I have to say, I’ve been to some great shows this year, some that I might even call “better” but quite possibly none that kept my attention as singularly as this one.
Gamelan “Gender” Wayang - Krepetan (mp3)
(I searched for a while I’m really not sure where you can get this CD other than in Bali. Amazon has other Balinese gamelan CDs, though.)
Gamelan Gong Kebjar - Hudjan mas (mp3) (buy)
My other music experience while on Bali was marching ensembles in a Balinese death parade and ceremony (amazing for many reasons, but I’ll just stick to the one here.)
They played similar instruments to the gamelan: tuned gongs, hanging gones, cymbals and barrel drums, but they also used whistles and their voices, even breaking into the ketjak rhythm for a moment. Here I was able to get right up up next to them and be almost surrounded by the sound. The tuned gongs were doing a slower rhythm while the cymbals were being hit together at a very fast pace, only to suddenly stop and all by thrust into the air. It was great.
It’s a bit late, but here’s the August mixtape. My excuses include moving to a new continent. Also, I did offer up a short mix earlier.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007august playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock and some oldies, including a lot of new finds (of new and old bands), CDs I’ve had forever and new purchases. Bands include Oh No! Oh My!, Bottom of the Hudson, Ted Leo, and Superchunk.
Adrian’s August 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link [1] with zip file, alternate link)
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it.)
As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
[1] If you’re having trouble with the rapidshare link, here’s what you do, step-by-step. 1) Click on the link. 2) scroll down and click “FREE” 3) chose a mirror (or you can leave it) 4) input the number/ letters they show in the graphic into the box 5) click on “download via…”
Barely barely into August, here’s July’s mixtape.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes (pdf)
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007july playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock and some oldies, including a lot of new finds (of new and old bands), CDs I’ve had forever and new purchases. Bands include Or, the Whale, Bishop Allen, John Vanderslice, Dr. Dog, Carissa’s Wierd and more.
Adrian’s July 2007 mix tape (rapidshare link with zip file)
(I’m trying this because hosting the zip was a significant bandwidth drain. Let me know your thoughts on it. I switched from zupload to rapidshare because of reader feedback from last month.)
As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
I did a radio show for the first time in three weeks last night.
I played it pretty loose and I was pretty happy with the results. I’ve found a lot of great music in the last few weeks and I got to share that.
Now for the musak:
Here’s my playlist from this week.
here’s the mp3 of the show which you can download and listen to if you wish (mp3).
Local folksy band Beatbeat Whisper appeared on the show and play a live set.
Old Joy (wikipedia, trailer) is a minimalist story of two old friends who go camping for a weekend.
Kurt (Oldham’s character) is a free-floating and free-thinking friend who comes back into town and calls up Mark (Daniel London’s character) asking if he wants to check out some hot springs in the woods outside of town. Mark “asks” his pregnant wife(?)/ girlfriend (?) if he can go and then sets off. Kurt is that unreliable asshole friend that you have, the one that you love but you don’t count on for anything. Kurt gets them lost on the way to hot springs and delays the whole plan.
Friends change; that’s what this movie’s about. Mark is on the verge of fatherhood while Kurt has gone, it seems, from one hot spring and wild forest adventure to another. At the same time, it sort of shows you why those friends are still important even if the two don’t have that much in common.
Yo La Tengo’s soundtrack is great and works really well in the film. I must say, though, it didn’t quite floor me like their soundtrack to Junebug.
[1] “subtle” in critic-speak means the same thing as boring, but in a positive sense.
I was listening again to NPR’s story about Brinkley, AR and the Ivory Billed Woodpecker (and the associated “Lord God Bird” song by Sufjan, I’ve posted about it before) tonight. It got me thinking (and I’ve thought before…
The SF Peninsula isn’t changing. I mean, it is, but it isn’t really. What am I doing here? There are places like Brinkley, serious small town America, that are changing irreparably and getting closer to extinction. Maybe I should plan a week next year (or in the fall) to drive around small town America, staying in small inn’s and talking to locals. Hopefully even catching some local music. It wouldn’t be exciting or crazy like vising NYC is, but it’d be pretty cool. It’s not like I Cache River National Wildlife Refuge and the Big Woods has been called America’s Amazon.
I’m serious about this. Let me know (here or offline) if you’re interested.
Last night I saw Jonathan Richman perform live accompaniment to the 1921 Swedish silent movie Phantom Carriage at the Castro Theatre.
I haven’t been to the Castro Theatre in a couple years and as I went in and saw the beautiful molding and ornamentation in the theater, I remembered how amazing that place is. There was an interesting mix of people milling around and finding their seats: Jonathan Richman fans, silent movie aficionados, indie movie people, etc.
If you’ve never seen a silent film with live musical accompaniment, I’d recommend it. It’s usually a pretty good experience. The semi-improvisational nature of the music adds a lot of excitement to the movie.
The movie itself is pretty complex for the time. The plot’s based around a Swedish folktale. The idea goes that the last to die in a year that has bad things has to spend the rest of the year being Death’s carriage driver. It employed a few techniques that I was surprised were employed then, including non-linear story telling and some fairly good special effects techniques for the ghosts.
On now onto the music. I’d seen Jonathan Richman before. He’s really quirky live and has a lot of charisma and stage presence, so I was really curious how it’d end up when these things were taken away. The set up was Jonathan on (nylon string) guitar and pump organ. Other players were two hand bell players, a trumpet/ baritone player, a bass clarinet/ saxophone/ flute player, a violinist and a cellist. I thought their accompaniment was really good and all the players were very talented. It worked really well with the movie. The main characters had motifs and there were parts were these two motifs were almost colliding when two characters were talking or arguing. A daring move was during certain particularly intense moments in the movie there they left it completely silent; I think it paid off.
Update: I’ve noticed the bad justification to the text next to the photos. I have tried to fix it, but it’s stubborn. Sorry!
Here’s the playlist of tonight’s show. I am a bit sick and loopy, but I think the music, at least, didn’t suffer.
There’s just so much good music out there right now. I’ve been picking about 1.5 hours too much music for my show pretty regularly.
I got multiple calls asking about the One AM Radio track, “Lest We Forget”. It’s a good track. (And it’s streamable at his myspace.)
I forgot to post my playlist from this week’s show.
Also, here’s the mp3
I Once was Canadian (KZSU) - 4-18-07 (mp3)
I really liked the last set: Andrew Bird->Sigur Ros->Adem.
Here’s my latest mixtape. It’s a tad bit late, as usual. I hope you enjoy it. I like these songs a lot!
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list (the txt file). you should now have the 2007april playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. This one includes a lot of great indie pop/ rock plus one soul number. There are great local bands like the Finches, the Dodos (what’s with SF bird bands?), and Beatbeat Whisper. I also have national acts like Andrew Bird (ah! more birds!) and Ted Leo. There are a few interesting quirky songs in there too.
Adrian’s April 2007 mix tape (zip file, right click and ’save as…’)
As always this’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week), so grab it now.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
I went to bed last night. I always fall asleep to music. I wanted to fall asleep to Beatbeat Whisper’s song “Play Me a Time” (a lullaby, so very appropriate), but I also wanted to hear their “Old River” (3:55) and “The Cowboy’s Lament” (3:02). If felt like a century trying to stay awake for that 6 minutes and 57 seconds before “Play Me a Time” was to come on. In the end I didn’t make it. I think I got into the middle “Cowboy’s Lament” before falling asleep.
I’ve always been able to fall asleep easily. If I have my head on the pillow for more than seven minutes before falling asleep, it’s a truly extraordinary night. The only times I can’t/ couldn’t fall asleep easily, at least usually, was the night before my first final and when riddled with jetlag.
My radio show will be at the same time this quarter: Wednesdays 10p-midnight (PST (or PDT?)).
Meanwhile, if you want to read me ranting about music in a different forum, you can check out my music blog.
Update: Here’s this week’s playlist
And here’s the NEWSPECIALFUN:
Last night’s playlist is there.
The mp3-rip (NEWSPECIALFUN) had problems and got split up into a bunch of small pieces.
I Once was Canadian - 4-4-07 (mp3, first hour)
I once was Canadian - 4-4-07 (mp3, last hour and change).
To some people, “Pittsburgh sound” might conjure up Don Caballero and other math rock groups. Other might think of Girl Talk. Now people might think of Wiz Khalifa. He’s a young Pittsburgh MC (a senior at Allderdice, in fact) with a song out by that name.
Rolling Stone has a write-up about him. Ed Masley at the Post Gazette talks much more about Pittsburgh.
I like the video because it shows a number of familiar sites. As for the music, it’s competent and listenable, but not great. I’ll give it time.
You can find out/ hear more at his his myspace page.
I scanned and uploaded a bunch of black and white photos to my picasa thing.
Galleries include Pittsburgh over Christmas, my first try at fisheye, the Oakland A’s last game of their sweep of the Twins in the playoffs, Jose Gonzalez @ Stanford, and John Vanderslice @ Stanford.
I’ve been doing this in stealth for a couple days, but I feel like it’s time to announce my other blog. It’s a music blog.
I’ve felt for a while that I was writing too little about music for this to be a music blog and too much about music for this to be a personal blog. In one case, outside readers see too much personal ranting and in the other, friends get alienated by the constant music talk , so I’ve split it off.
I’ll still be blogging here. I won’t be posting here about music, unless it’s related directly to me, like music I write/ record, radio playlists or if it’s a mixtape. I’ll be co-posting the last two of those.
I feel a bit weird about it—I’m always written this for myself and maybe a couple friends, but writing about any specific x is an admission that someone wants to read that. Now I have a whole blog where I pretend that people want to read my writing about music.
I had a 3 hour slot–from 6-9pm tonight. Playlist.
The streamripper had to reconnect so it split the mp3 into two parts for this week’s NEWSPECIALFUN:
I once was Canadian, KZSU - 3/28/07 [1/2] mp3
I once was Canadian, KZSU - 3/28/07 [2/2] mp3
For the record, it appears it split it right in the middle of Spanish Harlem.
My radio show will be on early tomorrow and next Wednesday, from 6-9pm Pacific (a reasonable hour for you east coasters!) on KZSU. You can even Listen online.
I might have a special guest tomorrow, Adem, a great indie folk artist out of England. It’s still a bit up in the air so check back here frequently for updates.
Last night I saw Elvis Perkins (in Dearland) at the Cafe du Nord. I got there a little bit before he went on when they were finishing setting up and sound-checking their mics. I was a bit surprised because they had large diaphragm condensers for his vocals, the harmonium and as an overhead for the drums (?!).
When Elvis and co. came out, they pretty quickly launched into “While You Were Sleeping” which was fine with me, as it’s my favorite track off of his album Ash Wednesday. The band consisted of Elvis on guitar and vocals, a guy that switched between guitar, harmonium and trombone; an upright/ electric bassist and a drummer/ percussionist. Everyone sang back up vocals. “Ash Wednesday” followed soon afterwards. His sound from the get-go was really good. His voice was clear and the mix was nice.
His set quickly veered away from album songs. “Weeping Pilgrim” was a great song. I think it’s a traditional song. It was rollicking and fun. On a few songs including that one, the drummer got out from behind the set and played a marching bass drum with a mallet on one side and a set of jingles (like on a tambourine, but in a line) on the other.
All in all, the show was a lot of fun and the band and sound were good. I’d definitely recommend it if you like Ash Wednesday or if you’re on the fence about Elvis Perkins.
Perkins did do a couple things that could be taken as arrogant or endearing, depending on how you look at it. The one that I’m mostly thinking of was before the last song he said “Well, the last song before we go backstage and you clap for a while and we come back out.” and then later while people were clapping he stuck out his head out of the dressing room and said “louder!” It was a little much
more photos after the jump
A pretty good evening last night.
First Uncle Frank’s BBQ in Mountain View w/ andyl and liz. This place is awesome. You walk through to the back of Francesca’s bar to get there and it’s the sort of place where there are paper towel holders at the tables. They don’t mess around. Ridiculous brisket, good links and ribs, good corn bread. I couldn’t get to the sides (baked beans and greens) due to stomach capacity issues. Hilarious waitress.
Second, my friends the Light Footwork played at Make Out Room. They have cheap beers. When’s the last time you got two pints (Anchor Steam and PBR) for $6? (Answer only if you live in an overpriced city.) The Light Footwork put on a fun show, as always. I also ran into KZSU alum Nick Mirov again. We chatted about SXSW and various bands.
Really, I can’t complain. Good times.
I did my radio show last night (with some help). Here’s the playlist and the NEWSPECIALFUN:
I Once was Canadian - KZSU 3/21/07 (mp3)
Also, I never posted my playlist/ mp3 from last show. Part of it was there were some problems with the mp3. It was half Irish music (for St. Paddy’s Day) and the rest indie. Anyway, if you’re interested:
playlist
NEWSPECIALFUN
I once was Irish - KZSU 3/15/07 (mp3)
The mp3 has two bad edits where it was split up before and one part where there was a chunk of maybe 10 minutes missing (just showed up blank in the recording) so I just cut out all that dead space.
Here it is, a little late as always… (I should just say that I’ll post it on the 21st of every month instead of mid-month…maybe I’d be on time more often).
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file—I think the m3u file might actually be right this time)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2007march playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here (first time as a google doc). This one includes a strange variety of music. I have a few indie pop/ rock songs (Benoit Pioulard, The One AM Radio, etc.), a couple field recordings of prison work songs and then a few South African songs, given that I spent much of February there.
Adrian’s March 2007 mix tape [zip file]
This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
I’m a little backlogged as far as the concert review posts go, but here’s one I definitely wanted to mention.
[As a side note, does anyone but myself like these concert reviews?]
On Friday I saw Hrishi Hirway and the One AM radio at Fort Oregon in Berkeley. I’ve mentioned the One AM Radio before in this post about his kickball music video (which I still love) and this concert recap of his last Fort Oregon show.
Gumbeaux and I got to the Fort around 10pm. It’s just a house in Berkeley with occasional shows in the basement. As a venue it’s pretty odd–you’re standing under ducts or next to a furnace quite often. The opening band was the Golden Birds. It was quite a turnout for them and I think they have a following around here. The basement was pretty full. They were good indie pop but the sound seemed a little bit like a band playing in someone’s basement.
The One AM Radio’s sound combines the electronic elements with intimate vocals and colorful arrangements. Their live set up this time through was Hrishi on guitar, vocals and laptop operating; a tenor saxophonist, a tenor/ alto saxophonist and an upright bass player. The only things that were amplified were the vocals, guitar and laptop.
The One AM Radio started out with the Greatest of Ease (mp3). A really nice version of “Drowsy Haze” with the audience singing backups followed [1]. After a few songs from the new album (including In the Time we’ve Got (mp3)) he asked if there were any requests and after hearing a few, he played Flicker (mp3). He then played my favorite new song (”Echoing Airports”) and favorite old song (”All I Can Recall is the Haunting”) in a row.
His last show I was pretty tired and wasn’t all that into it. This one was completely different. I enjoyed it a lot. The mix was great (despite the fact that the mix was being done by the guitarist/ vocalist/ laptopist and the rest weren’t being amplified); Hrishi’s voice was great; the song selection and the songs were great.
[1] I have mentioned it before but I’ll mention it again: I like when bands ask the audience to sing along. I like it a lot.
First: Winner of the Noise Pop one day music video contest, the Blammos “Girl of My Dreams” video. The guy walks around the Mission and sings a love song to strangers.
Second: (for the jdawg, a pinball wizard) a Pepsi commercial with San Francisco as a giant pinball machine.
(both via sfist)
Last week, I saw Mr. Ted Leo a couple of times, first as part of Noise Pop and then as part Stanford Concert Network’s campus concerts.
I came to the first concert with a familiarity with Hearts of Oak and Shake the Sheets. I like those albums, but didn’t play them too often.
I got there on Friday just before the Georgie James set. They were competant musicians, but it was sort of take it or leave it in the end… I might post separately about some thoughts it got going in my head, but I don’t want to connect them directly with this band, because the thoughts aren’t.
After the usualy pre-headliner shuffle and push toward the stage, Ted Leo came up to much applause and excitement. Immediately he started rocking out with high energy. After a handful of songs, I started thinking “oh, he’s just playing the hits. what’s he going to do when those run out?” After a few more songs I realized he wasn’t just playing hits; his catalogue is just really good.
He bantered well between songs, answering people yelling out from the audience and whatnot.
Ted Leo live is like the best things from punk, indie rock, and folk. Punk: high energy and a DIY melody. Indie: great melodies and chord progressions. Folk: interesting and multi-layered lyrics.
Ted really goes all out with the whole show. I’m surprised he can put so much into his vocals and not completely destroy his voice. His falsetto is pretty amazing, too.
He played a handful of new songs, including a really great one called “Lost Brigade” with a really nice repeated line “Every little baby has its own song” (which doesn’t sound great when I write it, but you can check out a live version of the song here). They also did a live covers of Chumbawumba’s “Rappaport’s Testament: I Never Gave Up” and the old Irish tune “Dirty Old Town.”
I went in not knowing what to expect and in the end, I was pretty much floored by his performance.
Sunday’s concert (which the Stanford Daily covered) had different openers: Stanford bands. They weren’t really good at all, though the last, the Bee’s Knees were an interesting combination of 50’s throwback and modern pop.
It was in an odd venue, Kresge Auditorium. Immovable seats close to the stage made for awkward standing during the show. The crowd was not your standard indie rock crowd. Far more—what do you call them?—frat boys in attendence.
But for Ted’s part it was a fairly similar performance in that he brought his A game once again. There was a fairly similar set list, but he was still great. One amusing anectdote from the evening was when Ted started saying that their set was originally going to be longer but … (then he sort of trailed off, I think he was going to say that his voice was starting to go or that he wasn’t feeling well). Someone from the crowd then shouted “Fuck you!” to a completely stunned Leo and crowd. He then just said something like “Okay. I guess we’ll keep going” and then they rattled off another half dozen songs.
Overall, two really enjoyable shows.
Recommendation: go see Ted Leo when he comes to your town. He’s touring the US starting at the end of March. Check to see when he’s in your town and buy tickets.
Overheard at last night’s Mountain Goats show at the Bottom of the Hill.
Peter Hughes: You know, we’ve been playing at the Bottom of the Hill for so long that I remember a show where my now ex-wife’s best friend was buying us shots of liquor.
fan, from the back: yeah, it was Old Grand Dad
Peter: yeah, it was.
and later in the show
fan, diferent from the first: T SHIRT SONG!
John Darnielle: There is no such song!
fan: T SHIRT SONG!
JD: It was an improvisation and therefore not a real song!
I subbed for someone tonight on the radio. I did an hour and change of old-time music.
newspecialfun (mp3)
Grab the latest mixtape now. I’m moving it into a password protected folder a day from now.
So my ridiculous pursuit of the moment is my concert list
It’s meant to be a list of every concert I’ve ever been to. It’ll never be complete, but I’m trying. I have a lot of concerts on there already and then I have a lot of concerts that I don’t remember/ can’t find the dates of.
Fionn Regan topped my list of best albums of ‘06 and for the first time (I believe) he’s touring America.
Well, actually he’s just playing four dates. But if you’re in Austin (or will be for SXSW) or NYC, you really shoud go:
15 Mar Stubbs Austin SXSW
16 Mar BD Rileys, 204 East 6th St Austin SXSW
17 May Mojo BBQ (1-4pm) Austin SXSW
20 Mar Mercury Lounge (7.30pm) New York w/ Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
So buy tickets already!
From the same people that brought you that spectacular bouncy-balls-in-San-Francisco Bravia ad (which, incidentally, first alerted me to the amazing Jose Gonzalez) comes another amazing commercial. It’s basically a building demolition/ fireworks display, except done with paint.
The commercial is pretty great by itself, but go ahead and watch the making of as well. The actually did all of that (as they actually dropped a quarter of a million bouncy balls down the hills and streets of San Francisco). There’s something really cool about doing something that would be a little cheesy with computer graphics instead with real materials, people and dollars (or pounds, as the case may be). The Brits seem to have the corner on that market, starting with that ridiculous Honda ad a few years back.
Last minute^H^H^H^H^H^Hfew hours, I’ll be filling in for a sick DJ tonight from 6-9pm PST on the KZSU. Listen in!
Give it a listen—it’ll actually start at a reasonable time for you east coasters. Also, I won’t be on tomorrow in my normal slot because of the aforementioned Sebadoh concert.
[Update:] playlist
I meant to post this the one day I was back between South Africa and Mexico, February 14, but I got held up. I had a brilliant theme, given that it was St. Valentine’s Day: Love Songs: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Well, it almost worked out but I feel like it won’t have the same relavence or weight posting it today. Oh well.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file—I think the m3u file might actually be right this time)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2007feb playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. There are a bunch of great songs on here, from 60s girl groups, to Pedro the Lion (he sure is good at the Bad and the Ugly), to Jose Gonzalez. I also took this one apt opportunity to throw in a couple ‘emo’ songs.
Adrian’s February 2007 mix tape [zip file]
This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
Anyway, I hope you like this one even if it’s a bit past its due. I have a bunch of great songs in my mind for the next one, so hopefully I can get back on track for that one.
I haven’t been to a rock show in a while and all of a sudden, it seems like I’ll be going to quite a few, with Noise Pop this week, a couple of Stanford Concert Network shows and some random bands coming through (some of which I’m considering/ am seeing multiple times). Here’s what it looks like:
There are also Badly Drawn Boy w/ Adem, Elvis Perkins, Adem (headlining) and other bands at the end of March. Goodness, life’s so hard.
I saw a review of I Belong to this Band: 85 Years of Sacred Harp Recordings in the latest Rolling Stone (which I apparently have a subscription to, maybe because I’m a world famous radio DJ.) I tried to find Rolling Stone’s review online, but I did find one in Stylus.
From that CD, I found a documentary about Sacred Harp, Awake My Soul. Did anyone see this? Apparently it aired on PBS recently. The trailer actually give a decent, quick introduction to Sacred Harp singing.
For a taste of it, listen to my favorite song in this style (from the Alan Lomax-recorded Southern Journey, V. 9: Harp of a Thousand Strings - All Day Singing From the Sacred Harp by the Alabama Sacred Harp Singers):
Alabama Sacred Harp Sings - Sherburne (mp3)
Sacred Harp (wikipedia!) is a form of shape note singing, which was developed as a form of notating music such that four shapes on either a line or a space indicate the eight notes of the scale. Sacred Harp was a hymn book written using shape notes in 1850s. It’s been sung in pretty much the same way since that time, largely in the American South. See also: how Sacred Harp is sung.
Usually there is a different conductor for each song. The singers run through the melody once on solfege before running through the song once. They then move right on to the next conductor and the next song. There’s no practicing or rehearsing songs.
My favorite idiosyncrasy the style are that the singers just sing. There are no pretenses of being polished.
In much the same way that it’s been sung for the last 150-odd years, it’s still sung today, in fact, I could (and am considering) sing in a group in Palo Alto though, I have to admit I’m not very good at site singing.
Last night I saw Ralph Stanley at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley. Laurie Lewis opened. Tickets were due to my wicked smarts and quickness with the internet in responding to a flavorpill quiz.
Laurie Lewis (and Tom Rossum and the Right Hand Band) was up first. She’s a local bluegrass fiddler and singer. Her band’s set was good and her band’s tight. It went by pretty quick.
Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys came up next. Right at the beginning of the set, Laurie came back on and made a big deal because it was the eve of Ralph’s 80th Birthday. They had a cake and a proclamation from Berkeley’s mayor.
Once the festivities ended, the set started in earnest. Ralph introduced the members one by one (including Ralph Stanley II and Nathan Stanley, the grandson) and they did a short number featuring that member. They then did a few full band numbers, Ralph did ‘O Death’ solo and a capella, and then went back around featuring each member that had a solo CD out (which was most everyone). From there it was a couple more full band numbers before the set ended. Ralph didn’t do all that much in the set aside from singing on the full band numbers and playing clawhammer banjo for one song. It seemed a bit obvious to me that this was, at this point, a franchise. They were selling the Stanley name and artistic vision more than his actual musicianship. It sort of reminded me when I saw the Count Basie Orchestra 15 years after Count’s death.
All of that said, his band was tight. When you’re Ralph Stanley, you can get some good pickers for your band, certainly. Going into the show I was actually a bit afraid that the show would drag on a bit, but, even though the set was well over an hour, it didn’t bore or drag on. For Ralph’s performances himself, he certainly can still sing and play a mean clawhammer banjo. I enjoyed the night.
(more photos after the break)
(more…)
Daytrotter has some mp3s of a recent in-studio by Elvis Perkins. They’re four songs, all originally on Ash Wednesday. The voice recording is a bit boomy but they’re otherwise good.
I haven’t talked about music much lately. I’m about to unleash a slew, so steady yourselves.
NPR has Arcade Fire’s performace from last Saturday at Judson Memorial Church in NYC both streaming and download. The first few minutes are a bit rough fidelity-wise because the band starts the show in the audience for the first song.
Also heresay has mp3’s from the Friday Judson show, all split up nicely.
Ipod Breathalyzer with FM Transmitter
Better or worse than that ipod dock/ toilet paper dispenser?
Apparently the O.C. is over. I’m not sad. I hadn’t ever followed it or really cared about it other than for the music. Articles have been written on the effect the O.C. had on music buying habits related to small time bands. I’d heard so-and-so was going to be on the show here and there, but today I read down down the list of songs (or this one if you’d prefer) on the show and it’s really an amazing list in a way. I mean there are some really pretty small time bands in there, and many bands (and even songs) that I’ve put on my online mixtapes. The shear volume of music is quite amazing. There are 12 songs in some of these episodes.
Anyway, the other conclusion that I have from this is that it might be very very expensive to put out the DVDs of this show. It sort of depends. In the past a different license was needed to get the music for the broadcast as opposed to the DVD, but now, as far as I know, the contract usually covers both.
Now it seems quite common for indie bands to be well-represented in TV shows and, for that, I thank you, the O.C. For that and for the excuse to call my town, the MP.
I’m back on the radio.
and the NEWSPECIALFUN
I Once was Canadian - 2-21-07 (mp3)
(yes, I’m clever: the first song on Ash Wednesday was Ash Wednesday)
Somehow I missed this: Pitchfork publishes a weekly list of bands and artists on TV that week.
For example, this week’s:
Monday, January 22:
ABC: “Jimmy Kimmel Live”: Nas (rerun)
CBS: “Late Show With David Letterman”: Nellie McKay with the Brooklyn Philharmonic
CBS: “Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson”: Lady Sovereign (rerun)Tuesday, January 23:
CBS: “Late Show With David Letterman”: the Shins [1]
NBC: “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”: Cheap Trick (rerun)Thursday, January 25:
CBS: “Late Show With David Letterman”: Gwen Stefani (rerun)
NBC: “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”: New York Dolls (rerun)Friday, January 26:
NBC: “Last Call With Carson Daly”: Young Jeezy (rerun)
Saturday, January 27:
NBC: “Saturday Night Live”: Ludacris (rerun)
Monday, January 29:
MTV2: “Subterranean”: the Shins
Now you can totally be up on that stuff. Set your Tivos!
[Update:] [1] Did anyone else catch this? Did you see Gibbard playing with them? That man’s everywhere!
Grab the January mix tape while you can; I’ll be moving it to a password protected folder tomorrow (or Wednesday).
Here’s the playlist for tonight’s show.
NEWSPECIALFUN:
I Once was Canadian 1 -18-07 (mp3)
I am genius at coming up with band names. I don’t usually tell people because I may some day need 1,027 band names for my various bands, but tonight I’m feeling generous.
You want to know it?
Alright, here it is: Frick! Paper Cut!
No, no need to thank me.
I’m almost hitting mid-month on this one. It’s a bit hard to believe that this is the seventh online mixtape already. I hope you’re enjoying them. In a way, they’re a lot of work, but a lot of it (finding the music, making the playlist) has become part of my routine.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2007january playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. It’s mostly smaller indie bands this month, with a couple bigger names thrown in and one Motown song.
Adrian’s January 2007 mix tape [zip file]
This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
I like all the mixtapes I make. I like the songs on this one.
February’s mix tape (to be released valentines day-ish) is going to be mostly love songs of various sorts. Let me know if you have any suggestions.
[Update:] I once again messed up the m3u file. Jesse fixed it (m3u file).
There are a few links I’ve been meaning to put up. Things I find interesting but I don’t want to add to the sidebar on the right.
Random links:
[This was going to be one post with the above part 1 and below part 3, but it was too much, so I split them up]
There was recently the kottke best links of 2006. Here are some of my favorites from that list (including some I’ve seen/ linked to before):
Idea #1:
What if the Internet Turned into a Were-Wolf
There were a number of the links on that kottke best links of 2006 list that I had already seen, but I’d enjoyed.
I didn’t talk much tonight on my show because I’m tired and lethargic. Here’s the playlist.
Also, I once have the NEWSPECIALFUN, in mp3 form (for a limited amount of time):
I Once was Canadian - 01/10/07 (mp3)
People listen to the Beatles, maybe the Beach Boys, but not a lot else from the first half of the 60s and certainly not (usually) from decades earlier.
There are reasons to dig further back. Most of this is from emails to some KZSU list over the past few days.
50’s: the start (for all intents and purposes) of Rock N Roll, Motown, Phil Spector, R&B coming out of gospel as a twinkle
in Sam Cooke’s voice, folk as a traditionalist revival (and the release of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music), folk as a mainstream genre, cool jazz, hard bop, classic country, one of the only reasonable periods of musical theater, etc.
30’s and 40’s: perhaps one of the two most important collection of traditional folk music from the American South, the Lomax field recordings. the turning period of jazz from a dance genre to essentially an art music genre, the signature American sound in classical music and theater (in the Copland and Gershwin sense).
(As with all broad sweeping statements, these can be argued with, but they’re generally accurate)
For my upcoming South Africa trip:
Just because:
[another update:] I also bought a few tickets to this year’s Noise Pop:
KZSU’s 60 hour 60th Anniversary Marathon starts tomorrow at noon PST and runs through Saturday night at midnight PST. It’s even doubly famous (and a small blurb here. You can listen online.
There’s an hour for each year from 1947 to 2006. I’ll be DJing 1963 and 1964 which will run from 4-6am PST (7-9am EST!) on Friday morning. I’m really about all the music that is from those years that I’m going to play. Tune in.
There will also be 25 or so alumni DJs that will be coming back on the air for the first time, in some cases, in 58 years. Some of them went on to professional careers in radio and media.
My New Year’s Eve activities included seeing Pan’s Labyrinth and later the Light Footwork at the Hotel Utah.
I was intrigued by Pan’s Labyrinth because it had one of the highest ratings I’d seen for a movie on metacritic. It also has a pretty interesting description in some of the reviews: it’s a fantasy movie and a war movie and a love story and… It seems like there’d be a lot going on but while you’re watching it, it doesn’t. It’s a fairy tale of sorts, but it’s possibly the most gruesome fairy tale you’ll see this year.
Post-Spanish civil war, mid-World War II, Ofelia and her very pregnant mother travel to the mountains of Spain to join the new husband/ step-father. He is a captain whose mission is to eliminate the remaining resistance in the area. We quickly learn that he’s not a nice guy. Ofelia is fascinated with fairy tales. During her first night at the mill, a fairy comes and leads her to a labyrinth on the premises. A faun explains to her that she is the long lost daughter of the underground king and that to return to her throne she must complete three tasks before the full moon (in a few days).
The rest of the movie is her trying to complete these tasks, the struggle of the resistance, a love story between one of the resistors and one of the people working under the captain, the struggle between her and the captain, etc.
I still don’t know quite what to make of it. It’s still swimming around in my head. It’s a light fairy tail and, yet, it’s heavy and affecting.
Later in the evening, Gumbeaux and I went over to the Hotel Utah. I’ve known the guys from the Light Footwork for a while and recently heard them live for the first time. They were playing their first gig “out”. The Hotel Utah is small venue which has apparently been around forever.
They put on a fun set full of their signature indie pop songs. Lots of energy. The one area I think they could work on is the banter. (Without some talented DJ leading the banter, it fell a little flat.) Gums and I weren’t in the mood for more, so we left after the Light Footwork.
Happy New Year’s.
I don’t know if you’re like me. Maybe you went out and had a blast…NYE (as they call it in the business) is particularly geared, it seems, towards large parties. I’m not a huge fan of huge parties so that’s one reason I have a feeling of dread as NYE approaches.
The other thing about New Year’s is that pesky reminder that time is passing. I’d like to say it hasn’t always been this way, but I think that’d it’d be a lie; I’ve always been too ambitious, had too many goals, to enjoy the fact that time is passing and that I have less time to accomplish them. (Birthdays also remind one of time passing, but somehow I mostly avoid that same dread with my birthdays and instead I meet them largely with joy.)
Another thought: Weezer’s Weezer (the first one) is a dang good album throughout.
I had to wait till after Christmas to post this (it was present-related), but the Phil Sector Back to Mono 4 CD box set is only $16.99 at amazon, brand new.
I have it (and paid a lot more it than that, used) and it’s fantastic. 3 great CDs with songs like “Be My Baby”, “He’s a Rebel”, “Da Doo Ron Ron”, “Then He Kissed Me”, “Spanish Harlem” and “Unchained Melody.” The fourth CD is the Spector Christmas CD, which is enjoyable during that season.
In any case, this is a great price for a great and worthwhile box set.
Today when I was sorting through my desk drawers, I found this receipt from Beluga Records:
[they said to save the receipt and I did]
Colin had told me that this band, the Coctails, had musical saw because he knew I was interested in it, so I decided to order The Coctails’ Peel. I’d also heard him talking about bands like Superchunk and Sebadoh, many of whom appeared on the Lounge Ax Relocation and Defense Fund CD.
I ordered those CDs and I believe they were my first indie rock CDs. I possibly bought Sebadoh’s Free Weed before that, but I’m not completely sure. July 1997 would place me at the end of my sophomore year of high school, about to enter my junior year.
Andy said that yesterday: “I had embarrassing teen years.” He was going through some boxes of stuff that his parents wanted to get rid of to make space. I laughed at him. I’m not embarrassed by my teen years, I thought. I did alright with them.
Here’s one gem Andy found yesterday:
[yeah, I should crop this and make it a smaller file.]
It’s the original lyric sheet to the Where’s Luke theme song. This was when we were preparing for the coffee house that they hosted at Westminster Presbyterian. I think we might have just been asking Colin if he’d be our drummer.
Tonight I went through my drawers in my desk tonight. I was laughing again, this time at myself. Despite myself I did have an embarrassing adolescence. I found all sorts of ridiculous things that I saved. The pot of gold at the end of the embarrassment rainbow was the half-drawer full of love notes, poems and drawings from a high school girlfriend. I was smiling so much at the ridicilousness of it that I almost cried.
Indie rock (in the broadest of senses) lives and dies on credibility, so much so that ‘indie cred’ is a common phrase. Sure image helps and gimmicks help and music/ songwriting ability may also help, but cred is important. I won’t go as far as saying that cred is king, but it’s certainly important.
And yet, indie rockers often take on genres they are not intimately familiar with. That is, they lack imediate credibility. Beirut takes on Balkan brass music. Iron & Wine take on southern folk.
Even when indie rockers are not taking on other genres, they are often tackling music that isn’t familiar to the listener. Sufjan’s epic folk, Joanna Newsome’s weird harp screeching, Andrew Bird’s experimental, looped violin pop and Neutral Milk Hotel’s emotive fuzz pop are all examples.
What do these people have in common? Unique voices. And they don’t lack credibility.
The unique voices lead to the listener to view these artists with more authenticity than otherwise. If they not going to sing normal then they must mean it.
I’m not sure this is a conscious thought on the artists part, but it’s more likely some bred by the culture.
calm down and don’t strangle people this instant.
yeah, I’m stuck in O’Hare.
a corrollary to this is, I believe, a new phrase I’m coining: comfort music which, like comfort food, may not be great in and of itself and probably isn’t good for you, but helps on those tough days.
I was delayed there a bit, but here’s the December mix tape. Hopefully there’s enough time for you to download it and get it on to your favorite digital audio player for your holiday travels. Play it while sitting around the Christmas tree with your family.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2006december playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. It’s a mix of normal indie fare along with indie and oldies/ Motown Christmas songs.
Adrian’s December 2006 mix tape [zip file]
This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
Enjoy and have a happy Christmas or other winter solstice-timed religious, ethnic or other holiday.
This sketch, from last year, is meant to be funny, and it is, but it’s also a good song.
Hypothesis: everyone has a bit of a soft spot for the music that (s)he liked in high school.
Discuss.
I did my top dozen albums of 2006 show last night. My picks and start-with-these tracks:
A little bit about each album after the jump.
Just a reminder that the Light Footwork will be playing live on KZSU tonight at 9pm PST. It’s the first live gig of this blog-acclaimed band. You can listen at 90.1FM or online.
Update: If you missed it, check this out (and the playlist). It starts a couple minutes in.
I’m working on my top albums of 2006 list. I’ll have my list posted probably Thursday because I need to have it done Wednesday for my “Top Albums/ Releases of 2006″ special on my radio show. In the meantime, though, here is a list of some good albums from 2006. Have I missed any? What are your favorites?
In no particular order:
Thoughts?
[Also, I've been rediculous this year in CD purchasing. The only albums among that list that I don't personally own: Fionn Regan, ms john soda, Danielson, V/A Big Mack, Built to Spill, Belle and Sebastian, Centro-Matic. I've heard all of those extensively, though.]
[this is possibly the first of a series of 'vinyl gems', songs that are weird or wonderful and can only be found on vinyl records]
This is a total gem that the station’s music library. It’s from the b-side of “All the Umbrellas in London”, one of the best Magnetic Fields songs out there.
This song is just crazy and weird.
I’ll give on one reason to take a listen to this and it’s the only reason you’re going to need: the chorus is “We are the rats in the garbage of the Western world…so let’s dance!“.
Magnetic Fields - Rats in the Garbage of the Western World (mp3)
I’ve owned the first three and tried the last two at work the other day for a couple hours each. These are all pretty pricey.
Overall, I’d say the HD600s are the best sounding, but the DT990s are my favorite everday headphone for comfort and listenability.
A couple weeks ago, I finished Body Piercing Saved My Life by Andrew Beaujon (named after the “clever” shirt.) (Amazon, , one review, two mp3-blog like posts by the author about Christian music)
It’s a look at Christian Rock, capital C, capital R, by an outsider. Beaujon is a writer for Spin so he comes from the mainstream rock criticism side of things. I’ve never been really involved in the scene he talks about although I stood at the edge of it a couple years, so I’m a bit of an outsider to it as well. (Which reminds me of a post about an article of the same topic and perspective…)
He spends chapters looking at aspects and events in the Christian music world. He looks at particular bands and people as well as other cultural forces like Mars Hill Church and Tooth and Nail Records. There are various people that come off earnestly and then there are some more slimey people. I’d heard some negative things about T&N (that they don’t give their bands a fair shake) and they were sort of confirmed in this book.
Perhaps my favorite section is the chapter about David Bazan (at the time of the interviews, still in Pedro the Lion). Where a lot of interviewees seem to sidestep questions that might result in controversial answers, Bazan seems to take any and all questions head on without flinching. Sufjan denied the interview request, apparently, so there’s only a brief section on him, which was a bit disappointing.
Overall, it’s an interesting, informative and well-written book about a large cultural phenomenon (Christian records easily outsell jazz records currently). I’d recommend it if you are curious about the scene or genre.
I’ve since moved on to the Dave Eggers editted The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2004.
Here’s my radio show’s playlist.
Also, I got it started late and my show went on late as well (Wednesday Night Live ran late) so it’s a bit short this week, but I have the, as I’m calling it, NEWSPECIALFUN:
That Beirut show that I went to has has popped up at the Internet Archive.
It’s a really good show, even in repeat. There’s a woman screaming like an idiot next to the guy recording it for the first song and a bit of the next couple, but once you get past that, it’s a worthwhile listen. It’s available in a number of formats, too (mp3, ogg, FLAC). And it’s free.
I’m getting ready to leave the Phoenix airport and, appropriately, I’m listening to “Goodbye Sky Harbor“.
I did a bunch of fun stuff, today, some of which I may write about later, but, for now, it’s all about Paul’s Compact Discs in Bloomfield. Dave and I made the trek over to Bloomfield after a Primanti’s sandwhich this afternoon.
It’s a smallish record store, not giant by any means, but also not shoebox and very navigable. The way it’s laid out and the way things are organized made it easy to look through things. They had a good selection among indie music, including the classic stuff (they had 3 of the 4 Seam albums in stock). They also have a good vinyl (7″ and LPs) selection. Their used CD selection is small and flat-priced (all $8) so that’s not the greatest. The people behind seemed knowledgable (one geeky clerk informed me of a Girl Talk show tonight after I bought the album).
I’d say it’s perhaps on par with Aquarius or slightly lower on my list for small record stores, but that’s saying a lot: Aquarius is pretty amazing and I like Paul’s a lot too.
I got:
I was familiar with the Ida and the Sigur Ros sounds good from first listen. I had heard little snippets of the Girl Talk and had read the rave reviews and I figured I should buy it in Pittsburgh if I was going to buy it, given that he’s a Pittsburgh local. I listened to it in the car a few times while driving around today and, I must say, I’m impressed. He takes tiny samples of pop songs, often dozens for each song of his and mashes them together (quite different from a “mash up” in most ways) to make another song. The samples he mixes and the smothness with which he does it, for the most part, are pretty amazing. It’s good music and it’s fun to try to pick out the samples he’s using. Today I definitely heard, among others, Neutral Milk Hotel, the Pixies, Verve (itself a sample), Kanye West, Gwen Stefani, and Elton John. No one’s sacred.
I also found out today that Unwed Sailor has cancelled their tour, including tomorrow night’s stop at the Brillobox, so that’s sad. I was looking forward to that. If I’d know that it was cancelled (I just found out), I would probably have made more of an effort to catch Girl Talk tonight at Belvedere’s. Oh well.
I was delayed there a bit, but here’s the November mix tape. Hopefully there’s enough time for you to download it and get it on to your favorite digital audio player for your Thanksgiving travels.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2006sept playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. It starts out with a chunk of great, not super common oldies stuff and then goes into the indie rock. Bishop Allen, Polyphonic Spree, Mogwai and Phil Spector are all represented.
Adrian’s November 2006 mix tape [zip file] (moved to password protected folder)
This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
Just about every time I have an out-of-town guest, I propose going to Amoeba. They half-heartedly agree. I buy seven or eight CDs and they buy one or three.
Yesterday, I went with Liz. According to plan, she got three CDs and I got seven:
There are a couple entertaining videos that I found or ran across in the recent times:
Aries Spears impressions while freestyling. This is a guy doing impressions of LL Cool J, Snoop Dog, DMX and Jay Z while freestyling. It’s pretty dang impressive, though I’m not familiar with DMX at all and only somewhat familiar with the other three. I’m still very impressed. (A couple things of note: a) that’s Live 105, in SF and that’s the same studio where I did the college dj of the week thing and 2) it appears Woody, one of the hosts, is a Steelers fan as he’s sporting a hat and a Willy Parker jersey). (via stereogum)
Peyton Manning Mastercard Priceless Ad. I can see how you might not like Peyton Manning, but man, I love this commercial which started running last year. They have a second, similar one this season but it’s not as good. I laugh every time I see this one.
[Update:] Oh man, I found another Peyton priceless commercial and it’s hilarious too. Also, there’s a blooper commercial from the first Peyton video and the making of (including the actual commercial at the end) a third in the series.
I saw and ad for a touring production of this the other day. Why? Why must ‘broadway’ (or the west end or theatre or whatever you want to call this in general) ruin everything. Check out the ‘video clips’ (sorry no direct link—stupid Flash) on that site if you have any doubt if it’ll be horrible.
Two questions:
[1] Even ‘good’ productions currently on Broadway (e.g. Spamalot, the Producers) are not original.
[2] I will maintain that this is the best musical every made and the movie version is a great movie. What other Broadway musical can hold its own, musically, with the best ‘classical’ works of the twentieth century (especially if you limit it to American classical works)?.
My radio show, I Once was Canadian will be on in its old time slot this week: Thursday 6-9am PST, due to a visitor.
So, all you east coast people can listen live. I’ll be tired and it’ll be early, so you can listen to my deep, groggy just-woken-up voice on the radio. Tune in!
Do you guys still read this thing?
Everyone:
do I write too much about music? have I alienated you with my incessant talk about music?
do you have favorite types of posts on the old ab.com?
I am here to egotistically proclaim my greatness, but if I can do that while also providing something interesting to read, maybe I can tweak the formula.
I went to see Bishop Allen (their myspace page) on Thursday at the Bar of Contemporary Art. They were the second of three on the bill, the headliners being the Starlight Mints.
If you don’t know Bishop Allen, check out some of their mp3s on their webpage or listen to the ones I’m going to hand pick for you:
Bishop Allen - Same Fire [from June] (mp3)
Bishop Allen - Flight 180 [from April] (mp3)
Bishop Allen - Things are What you Make of Them [from Charm School](mp3)
They’ve announced (and so far followed through with, though sometimes a bit delayed) a plan to release an EP for every month until they release their next EP. I can’t imagine doing this, especially for months when they’re touring. I may or may not have bought all the months EPs they had for sale at the show (January-August). I’ll possibly post a review of all of them later.
Bishop Allen went on after a somewhat clever but ultimately unexciting opener. The stage at BoCA is basically tiny, so the drums were off to one side, instead of the usual behind-the-leadman and the bass player and guitarist were behind the drums. Sort of an odd set up. I feel like I’m fairly unfamiliar with Bishop Allen—I’ve only listen to Charm School a few times and then the mp3s that they’ve offered up for the month EPs, but somehow I went through the set knowing most of the songs they played (maybe all but two). That’s always kind of nice, knowing the songs a band is playing.
They played well. Particularly I liked the versions of “Busted Heart”, “Same Fire”, “Flight 180″ they did. It was a fun and energy-filled set.
After Bishop Allen, the bar cleared out before Starlight Mint came up and continued clearing out throughout their set to the point where about forty people were left. The sound for the first part of their set was really badl; well the vocals were too low for the whole set but sound at the beginning was particularly muddy. They did a number of halloweeny or horror movie sounding songs at the beginning and that, combined with the muddy sound, put me off for most of their set. I must say I liked the last few songs they did.
I’m pretty excited to say that super-local (Redwood City) blog favorite the Light Footwork will be performing live on KZSU’s Wednesday Night Live, its live local band show, on Wednesday December 13 at 9pm (PST). I’m going to be hosting the program. Let me know if you have any burning questions for the band; I can ask them between song.
If you don’t know the Light Footwork yet, check out some mp3s. (Or check out any of the aforelinked blogs.)
Also, Jay (of tLF) and I hit up the Bishop Allen show at BoCA in SF last night. Good show. I’ll write more about it later. Something I was pretty amused by: someone took one of those ‘Visitor’ stickers and filled out the rest ‘to the hipster indie world (please by nice)’.
Once again, tune in to KZSU (90.1FM or online) on December 13, 2006 at 9pm (PST) to hear the Light Footwork. (I’ll see what I can do about putting an mp3 up of the show after the date, but no guarantees.)
Here’s my playlist for tonight’s show.
Also! my NEWSPECIALFUN seems to be working so I have a recording of the show:
I Once Was Canadian - November 8, 2006
Grab it now! It’ll be gone in a couple weeks.
Just two. I had a short ska phase around the end of psychedelic classic rock and before I really got into indie rock. It’s tied in my mind to Boy Scouts and a few kinds who I talked about these albums with or listened to them with.
I should listen to them again and see what I think now.
Members of the Columbus Blue Jackets (NHL) are recording a Christmas album.
The article’s interesting, but the best quotes are from the studio owner/ engineer:
In the engineer’s booth, as the players took a break and wiped their brows, DiCenzo commented: “I am shocked. It was not terrible.”
and then later:
“But all of them did way better than I expected. When the key would change, most of the time most of them hit it. I really thought I’d be hitting the Excedrin pretty hard by now”
(via largehearted boy)
I went to ten [1] (rediculous!) concerts in October, so I was pretty busy there. There were a couple I wanted to write about but didn’t and now they seem a bit irrelevant. Well, I’m going to write what I wanted to say about them, in brief, now:
[1] for real:
Friday Night Lights just had Beulah (”Score from Augusta” I think) as background music. That’s pretty obscure.
(And they used Explosions in the Sky later as well.)
This morning I received an email from the nice people at insound letting me know I could pre-order the Mark Kozelek Live double CD Little Drummer Boy Live. A Mark Kozelek live CD? wow! I thought it’d be a Christmas live album. It’s not (but White Christmas Live follows the same fake-Christmas-album-that-only-has-one-Christmas-song-on-
it-and-that’s-the-title-of-the-album model).
From their email:
Just in time for the holidays, Caldo Verde Records will release a limited edition (10,000 North America), 20-song, live compilation from Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon songwriter Mark Kozelek
I would like to point out that, though 10,000 is technically “limited” in that there is a limit, it’s hardly limited in any real sense. A live double CD for a semi-obscure indie artist? I’m guessing it’ll sell right around 10,000 at most anyway. Indie kids love buying “limited” quantity records&mash;usually out of 500 or 1000— so it’s probably just playing off of that.
It comes out November 28 and it’s $15.99 for a double CD set and insound’s offering 10% off (your whole order!) with a coupon code, which I can tell you if you contact me privately. Mark, if you haven’t seen him live, actually does pretty different versions of stuff live than on the album. I’ll probably buy it because Mark Kozelek can do almost nothing wrong.
My radio show’s playlist for this week. Captain Dee co-hosted this special ‘folk’ show.
Also it appears the cron job or as I call it “SUPERMAGICSPECIALFUN” worked and recorded my show automagically:
I Once Was Canadian November 1, 2006 (mp3)
My show starts maybe 30 seconds in.
The mp3 will be up for about two weeks so grab it now while you still can!
On Friday, Laura and I went over to see David Bazan (ex-Pedro the Lion, Headphones) at the Swedish American Hall. It was an odd billing. I had never seen DB play anything but a headlining (or co-headlining) slot and here he was opening for someone I’d never heard of Kristin Hersch (of Throwing Muses, apparently). It was also an early show (doors at 7:30pm–DB was on by 8:30ish) which led to an odd mix of older people and even some infant kids.
We got there as the first opener was in her last couple songs. She was good enough but, honestly, I didn’t pay much attention. Tip to artists, by the way: say your name or band name fairly often, and at least once at the end of your set. I don’t know the opener’s name.
David came up next. It was immediately obvious that this was going to be the most laid-back show of his that I’d seen yet: he was sitting down and playing a nylon-string guitar. (Later I also learned that he was sober, apparently a new thing for solo shows.)
I can’t remember the exact order of songs he did but he definitely did a nice mix of old (Ptl) and new songs (DB) and even one Headphones (H) song, in no particular order: “Transcontinental”(PtL), “Hot Shit” (H), “Fewer Broken Pieces”(DB) (on which he tacked on parts of a new song that he was working on), “Cold Beer and Cigarettes”(DB), “the Longer I Lay Here” (PtL), “Priests and Paramedics”(Ptl), “The Poison”(DB/ PtL), “Of Up and Coming Monarchs”(PtL), “Bands with Managers”(PtL), and “Bad Things to Good People”(PtL) (which I hadn’t listened to for quite a while but had been actually listening to earlier in the same day—good song!). I’m sure he did half-a-handful of other songs, but I can’t remember them all.
He played well and sang well—it’s sort of snuck by me that he actually has a great falsetto. I missed that some how, or at least I’d never noted it before.
It was obvious that crowd was not all DB or Pedro fanatics as some of his ‘quirkier’ lyrics ellicited giggles from the audience.
He also did his usual question-and-answer session during songs. These are always fun. One of the kids (~5 years old) asked him why he said “smokes a lot” during one of his songs (I think). DB sort of winced like he does and then awkwardly tried to explain that he said that because he doesn’t have a very good vocabulary and instead uses hyperbole to try to say what he means. He also said he uses explitives in his songs for the same reason and basically apologized to the father for swearing around this kid. (A few minutes later he launched into “Hot Shit” of course…) The same kid also asked him if he was married and that got DB into a story about how the minister that married him left the church because he tried to go on a date with the secretary and the minister’s wife didn’t like that, “but that’s another story…”
The one question I asked was whether he regrets releasing any of his songs; if you’ve listened through his catalog, this question may occur to you as well as it sort of “switches gears”, one could say. His response was “the Promise”, the last song off of It’s Hard to Find a Friend. His reasoning was mostly that he likes the somber mood that he created with the three songs before that (”The Bells” to “Secret of the Easy Yoke” (still one of my PtL favorites) to “The Well”) and then it jumps into this “pop jingle” as he calls it. He we was too scared to end on a somber note then. He also doesn’t particuarly like “the Promise.”
After the show, it was still early so Laura and I headed over to Sparky’s for a milkshake and a slice of delicious pumpkin pie. I think I am currently suffering from a heart attack due to consuming these foods, but, dang, it was worth it. The milkshake was possibly one of the best I’ve ever had: a perfectly blended vanilla ice cream with a dollop of peanut butter shake.
After the break, check out more photos and my list of David Bazan/ Pedro/ Headphones shows.
(more…)
You have one more day to grab the Online Mixtape, Vol 4 (October) before I wisk it off to a sooper sekret location to never be seen by the public again despite any public relations campaigns you start or slanderous accusations you make.
I had a dream last night where something had happened where I’d been signed or discovered or been given a good review online or something and suddenly I was going to play a show as a headliner. I was trying to get enough material together. I was going to play some originals on wurly and guitar. I was going to play some old songs (Greetings from Johannesburg? Where’s Luke??) and some new stuff. I wasn’t very good at the songs and playing wurly and guitar (in the dream, of course not in real life) so I needed to practice. The night of the show came and the openers went and were good and I was thinking I shouldn’t be the headliner of the show. Then it was my turn to play and I realized that I really hadn’t practiced much and I was totally unprepared.
I don’t remember my dreams much.
I did my radio show tonight. Playlist.
And!!! the SPECIALNEWFUN: I recorded it and thanks very much to mim who’ll be hosting the mp3s.
I Once Was Canadian October 25, 2006 (mp3)
The recording starts a bit into the show this week (and might, actually, cut off a little bit before the end–ack!). I am trying to get it to automagically record it, but there was a hiccup this week. I’ll try again next week!
Here’s a clip of the Times are a Changin cast performing “Like a Rolling Stone” (the greatest song of all time) on the View.
I couldn’t make it all the way through. Can you?
Ouch. Ouch!
It takes talent to produce something that horrible.
(via stereogum)
Last Friday I managed my third (I believe) ever two show night [1] [2]: with Damien Jurado w/ Rosie Thomas followed by Beirut.
The night started with meeting Dave and Dasha outside the Swedish American Hall at about 8:15. We got inside and Rosie Thomas was on, having already started her set. Rosie is really funny in a goofy way. She has this tiny voice but has a huge voice, easily filing the hall when she wanted to. Her set was good: her music’s a bit on the sappy side, but it’s still nice. Her between set banter was very funny; I’m not entirely surprised she’s also sometimes a stand-up comic (as “Sheila”). Apparently she’s friends with Sufjan, which makes me happy.
[full write up and pics continue after the break]
(more…)
Yeah, I’m running a little late on these. Oh well. Here’s October’s mixtape.
You can download the zip file with the following:
1. mp3s of the songs
2. liner notes
3. playlist files (iTunes txt file and an m3u file)
(for the iTunes file, simply import all the songs to your library and then go to file->import and then select the song list. you should now have the 2006sept playlist in your iTunes with all the songs in the correct order).
If you want to read the liner notes before downloading the whole thing, they’re here. There are some old favorites here, some new discoveries and some new songs from old favorites. Pinback, Beulah, Damien Jurado and local indie pop stars the Light Footwork all make appearances.
Adrian’s October 2006 Mixtape [zip file]
This’ll be up for a limited time (~1 week) before being moved to a password protected folder.
If you like the artists or songs, I suggest supporting them by buying their music, going to a show, buying merchandise from them or at least telling other people about them.
I’m all musicy lately, but here are three more things of interest:
Pitchfork went at music bloggers this morning:
Zing!
I have no love for the Cold War Kids, but, man, that’s so petty and childish. It doesn’t even mention what kind of music it is, let alone if it’s good or not!
In the comments of my Rogue Wave benefit post, Mie from Our Lady of the Highway (who I saw open for Zach Rogue’s solo gig over the summer.) She sent me links to a few songs which I listened to.
OLofH is sort of hard to pinpoint as to what they sound like. They sort of stradle a lot of sounds: indie rock, alt country, dareIsayemo, folk, classic rock. “I get the sense” is a cool song with some Built to Spill-ish stylings. It’s a single off of their latest album and sounds sort of singley (that’s not always bad).
Our Lady of the Highway - I Get the Sense (mp3)
“Brown Dress” is folkie sort of song with a dark, distorted side. Man, I’m horrible with these descriptions.
Our Lady of the Highway - Brown Dress (mp3)
How local are they? They’re based in SF, I believe, but it appears Mie works around the corner at Stanford.
I’m still catching up from my crazy week last week.
On Thursday, I hung out with the nicest man in indie rock, John Vanderslice for a few hours and saw him play a solo gig at the 750 Pub at Stanford.
A couple weeks ago I talked to JV after the Rogue Wave show and since he played on my show we’ve had some rapport. I mentioned that it was cool that he was playing at Stanford and he asked if I wanted to hang out before the show. Well, yes!
I showed up at the 750 around 5:30. It’s kind of weird describing hanging out with someone, so maybe I’ll just skip most of that part. I met Chris, the guy from Pattern is Movement who was also on the bill, as well and he was pretty cool. JV is still just about the nicest person I’ve met.
A bunch of cool people showed up at the show, including KZSU DJs galore: Matt, Kirstle, Eel, and Megan, who helped organize it. Jay and much of his band, the Light Footwork also showed up and we got to hang out a bit again. I also met a few new cool people at the show.
First up on the bill was Pony Pants. They were sort of math-rocky with some classic rock influences and drum machine drums (played off an ipod) with female vocals. They were entertaining. The lead guitarist pulled out all the stops, playing being his head, standing on his amp and up in the face of an audience member.
Next up was JV. He was playing solo, acoustic. The room actually (somewhat surprisingly) got pretty packed. At some point during the show he said that earlier he was walking around Stanford with his “friend Adrian” and I felt pretty cool. He played a handful of new songs and a bunch of old ones. He got us all clapping along for a great version of “Pale Horse.” He is apparently doing a 7″ and wrote the B-side two weeks ago and recorded it the same morning as the show. He was saying that he’s never written a b-side before and he kept worrying that it was too good or that he was spending too much time on it. He played it and it was good.
Pattern is Movement was last; I missed most of their set chatting outside with JV.
All in all a great evening. Fun chatting with JV and a great set.
Starting last Friday, totally crazy 8 days:
Tonight I saw Sufjan Stevens in Berkeley at the Zellerbach Auditorium. He had a full choir (the Pacific Mozart Ensemble) along with a string octet, a brass trio and a backing band.
Holy crap. That was really good. Amazing, really.
I actually wrote down the setlist this time:
The concert was so theatrical and, to use an entirely over-used word, epic. All the songs were added to in weight, joy or emotion by the massive number of musicians on the stage. There was certainly some surprise in the number of songs that ended in a cacophonous ‘freak-out.’ Notably, freak out at the end of “Predatory Wasp,” a particularly subdued song for much of it’s length, was a parculiar juxtaposition.
I’d also recommend being a nut and being online when the tickets go on sale for future concerts at the Zellerbach. I was in the third row in the wings (tiers) that come down and touch the stage and the vantage point was excellent.
One last note: the show was so good that even the usher, would was advanced in her years, gave the band a standing ovation at the end of the show.
[1] Acknowledging that it wouldn’t be a popular sentiment in this area before he said it, he dedicated this to the Detroit Tigers.
[2] He inserted the lyrics “Tigers Stadium” “‘84″ into that repeated section with the various locations in the middle.
[3] This was so incredibly gorgeous. My eyes literally welled up during this song.
[4] 100 inflatable Santas were throw off the balcony during this song. I did not get one.
[5] Funky. Move your booty.
[6] New song about the dark eyed junco. It’s pretty great. You heard it here first: my prediction is that Sufjan’s next album will be about birds. (Think about it: Majesty Snowbird and Great God Bird? Not a coincidence.)
[7] similar to [4], lots of inflatable supermen were thrown off the balcony during this song. I did not get one.
